2024-04-17
On Monday I woke up feeling unwell so I stayed from home work to rest
and recover. I took two naps and drank a lot of ginger tea. During
one of my naps, I noticed a large insect flying around in the
bedroom before closing my eyes, and decided to do nothing about it,
hoping it would just leave me alone. Well, it did not leave me alone.
I was awakened by a tickling sensation that turned out to be a large
wasp crawling around on my face. I panicked and swatted at it,
knocking it behind me and rolling away from it, but not before it
stung me lightly right below my right shoulder blade. It felt like a
pinch, but wasn’t all too painful. It must have not gotten the
stinger in all the way or something. I turned and saw it crawling on
my pillow: a large yellowjacket. I reached over to my nightstand and
grabbed a tiny candle holder and placed it down on top of it,
trapping it on the pillow.
I texted my partner and asked them to come help. They came and took
the pillow into the closet where there is a juliette balcony to put
it out the door. They lifted the candle holder and shook the pillow
outside the door. But then noticed that the wasp had clung to the
pillow, so they dropped it and ran away and shut the closet door.
They stuffed a towel under the door so it couldn’t get back into the
bedroom. So I guess the wasp lives there now and owns all our
clothes.
That night, we went out and bought an electric bike from somebody we
found on facebook marketplace. They were an older woman whose late
husband had owned the bike. He died recently, and she was trying to
get rid of some of his stuff. I don’t think she necessarily had an
emotional attachment to (getting rid of) the bike or anything, but
she was definitely trying to move it fast. We would have paid twice
what we ended up paying for it.
The next day, we rode down to the grocery store. The nicer one that
is slightly further away than the closest one that isn’t as nice. Me
on my pedal powered bike, and partner on their new electric bike. We
got a bunch of fresh fruit, a few vegetables, and some ice cream
sandwiches.
On the way back home, we passed a couple on their bicycles. A man and
a woman. The man was yelling about somebody having cut them off and
then cursed at them, so he was going to go back and “punch them in
the face to teach them a lesson.” The woman seemed to not like this
idea and kept calling the man’s name to try to call him back and
deter him. We just pedaled away from them. But in the distance behind
us, we heard the man catch up to his enemy and yell at him.
When we got home we put the groceries away and ate ice cream, and I
completed a crossword puzzle. My back still itches where I got stung,
and there is a small hard knot under the skin. We went to bed and
partner bravely got the pillow out of the closet. The wasp was
nowhere to be seen but I know it’s probably still in there lurking,
waiting.
2024-01-27
There was a used book sale today at the neighborhood branch of the
local public library, so I walked over there and rummaged through the
boxes. I found a book about Elanor and Hick. And also a book about
mysteries and hijinks somebody has while working as a scientist in a
lab. It is by a local author and is based on her real life
experiences with mysteries and hijinks working as a scientist in a
lab.
I slid over to look at the cookbooks, and there was an
older gentleman there who had a small stack of books on the table
next to him. He apologized for being in the way. He tells me
unnecessarily that he was looking at cookbooks. “I’m a
really good cook!” he says. “I teach classes.”
“Wow, really?” I ask. “Like at the
library?”
“No, at my house.”
“Oh.”
And then he gets really serious and
says really quietly, “I’ve never told anybody this before
but…”
And he looks at me with such intensity
that I think he was about to confess that he once killed a child in
the 60s. But instead he says, “..but, I’m
Irish.”
2023-10-20
CONSIDER ITCH.IO AS A REPLACEMENT FOR BANDCAMP
okay i guess i’m putting this here because this is apparently the
closest thing i have to a public facing personal blog these days.
this post is nominally about bandcamp.
bandcamp.com is one of the greatest sites on the internet right now
for music discovery. and maybe for artists? i don’t know that much about
that part because i am merely a consumer. but for listening and
discovery, it’s better than spotify, soundcloud, and youtube all put
together.
that said, bandcamp was recently sold to songtradr who immediately
laid off 50% of bandcamp including most of the bandcamp union leaders +
members. which is probably legally pretty questionable. i’m curious to
see what happens because of that.
anyway, my personal opinion is that bandcamp will probably now start
to stagnate, if not to actually roll back features and support. which is
to say, i think this is the beginning of the end for bandcamp.
and so! here’s what i think listeners and supporters need to do now
sooner than later.
go purchase the music you currently enjoy on bandcamp and
download it.
install yt-dlp and start archiving stuff currently
on bandcamp. (note: i haven’t actually tried doing this with
yt-dlp. i’ve just read in a couple of different threads
that say this is possible.)
now, what’s next.
well in the long term, i’m looking forward to watching the progress
DJ Sundog and ajroach42 will make on Aural Isle, which will be an open
source, community driven alternative to bandcamp created as part of the
Mountain Town Technology project.
in the short term, i recommend itch.io
now i know what you’re saying. but dozens! you say. itch is for
publishing video games!
yes, yes it is. but it is also a platform for publishing and
distributing books (e.g. Books and Bone, which i own. (links below)),
zines, comics, software and applications (aseprite and the tiled map
editor, for example, are sold in itch), and albums and soundtracks.
now, i just learned about blamscamp by blackle, which is a free
bundler for uploading music and presenting it in a beautiful
bandcamp-like webplayer. the github page provides a written guide, a
video guide on youtube, a link to a collection of albums on itch using
blamscamp, and a link to the online tool. i tried it out myself by bundling up
season one of my tilde podcast and i found the whole process
ridiculously easy. (caveat: i have uploaded a bunch of projects to itch
before, so i have the advantage of familiarity with the platform.) i
wasn’t able to actually upload it though because the file was too
big.
but anyway. that’s what i think we should be doing now. at the very
least, start uploading your projects to bandcamp AND to itch.
i have found the itch community extremely creative and supportive and
welcoming, which is another reason i think you should consider using the
platform for music. two adorable projects that i know of—bitsy and
decker—use itch forums as their official community platform.
references and links:
2023-10-07
Stuff happened this week:
2023-09-30
Stuff I managed to get done this week / recently
Release a new game about vampires and baseball (and only learned
about that scene from Twilight after I published it) which has
more downloads and sales than I anticipated for such a weird meme of a
game. https://dozens.itch.io/vumpire
Publish two new “blogs” that I’ve been noodling in locally for a
while but haven’t shared anywhere. List Blog is a blog that is just a
bunch of lists, and Pi Blog is just an HTML Log of me messing around
with my raspberry pi homeserver. Both have rss of course. http://tilde.town/~dozens/listblog/ http://tilde.town/~dozens/piblog/ My build process is a
frankenstein’s monster of pandoc, ed(1), m4, recfmt, and sed.
Update my opml and metafeed to include the above blogs. http://tilde.town/~dozens/feeds/
Write and send out an issue of dozens diatribe, the town
newsletter. First one since January 1. Definitely on top of things /
Wrote it in groff because I’m into groff lately.
Copy almost all of the recurring events from my google calendar
into a remind(1) file. I’ve known about remind for a long time and have
always wanted to try it out. Recently got inspried by “How I use
remind(1)” from Tim’s Blog: https://blog.thechases.com/posts/remind/
Volunteered to edit the town zine this year. Kind of worried I
bit off more than I can chew with that one. Guess we’ll find out! https://tilde.town/~zine/
2022-11-03
Do you know what a riddle is?
The word is believed to come from the Proto-Indo-European (“PIE”, yum! 😋) word “re”, meaning “to reason”. Releated to the PIE word “ar”, meaning “to fit together.”
https://www.etymonline.com/word/riddle
https://www.etymonline.com/word/*ar-
Thing is, that PIE word—“ar”—is also the root of our modern words arms, armory, and army.
Do you know what a riddle is?
It’s one of two possible ways to make sense of the world.
To fit together an understanding takes reason or weapons.
2022-11-02
I moved the old white armchair out of my office and moved the old green armchair in. And I can not believe how much happier I am.
The white chair was awkward and uncomfortable. The green chair is cozy and awesome. I can sit in it without my butt or my back hurting. I wish I had just gotten rid of the stupid white chair ages ago. I was afraid the green chair wouldn’t fit, or wouldn’t go. But I was wrong. It does fit and it does go.
Listen to me, child.
If you have a chair that you don’t like, that hurts to sit in. And if you have another chair that is awesome. Then don’t wait. Get rid of the bad chair. Move the good chair in.
It is left up to the reader to discern whether this is a metaphor.
2022-11-01
Okay here’s the idea: you put out your bowl of halloween candy for the trick-or-treaters. Standard fun-size candy fare. All the normal stuff. The trick is that on top of the candy, you put a single potato.
My hypothesis was that kids will value the entirety of a novel, rare thing (potato) over merely one (or even two or three) of a common, expected thing (candy). Candy will have its value degraded over a night of trick-or-treating. They will have a literal bagful of it. What they won’t have is a strange and alluring Halloween Potato.
In practice, here’s how it went. The majority of kids did not acknowledge the potato at all. They just took a candy, said thank you, and left. A small number of kids questioned the presence of the potato—“What’s that??”—and then took a candy and left. And a very special few saw the potato and instantly chose potato over candy, and were delighted with their choice.
A couple of highlights:
In our very first group of trick-or-treaters, a young ghostbuster grabbed the potato and theatrically, quickly shoved it into his bucket as though he were hiding a treasure from his friends. He stepped away into the lawn, held it up in the air, and bellowed to his parents, “I got a potato!” He ran down to join them and yelled back to the house, “Thank you for the halloween potato!”
Two young witches. The first swatted at the potato in disgust, “What is that thing?” Then, in an impressively swift and complete reversal, snatched it away and asked for another. Then the second witch decided she liked the idea too, so she also got two potatoes. Then later they came back again and each asked for a third potato. For that is the most proper, witchiest number of halloween potatoes to have.
A small child too young to speak or understand what was happening. All she knew was that she wanted that potato. With slow, careful deliberation, she picked it up, regarded it briefly, and finally put it gently in the bag her parent was holding open.
A child proudly showing their dad their potato. Dad was super supportive, saying that when they get home they’ll put it in the air fryer so they can have it with their candy.
A group of older teenagers. Most were befuddled by the potato, but one of them was delighted and didn’t want his friends to miss out on the experience and asked with childlike enthusiasm, “Yo dude you want a potato???”
At the end of the night, we had given out all but 10 - 12 pieces of candy. And we had given out all of the potatoes.
Here are things I don’t get to know that I am curious about:
What do the kids do with the potato when they get home? Do they eat it? Keep it in their room as a halloween souvenir? Do they bury it in the backyard to grow a spooky potato plant? Do they carve it and place it out with their pumpkin, a smaller more rare variety of jack-o-lantern?
What becomes of the potato kids? Relative to the potato deniers/refusers, I wonder about their creativity and happiness. I want to believe that they enjoy life possibly more than others.
2022-09-29
visited my parents last week, which is always kind of motivating. but not in the way you may think. i feel like they’re kind of prematurely old for their age. and that they have been this way for quite a while now. i’ve never really seen either of them exercise or work out or take care of their bodies. they have better eating habits now, but only because their health requires it at this point. they know better. i know this because they have praised the healthy habits of all their children. but for some reason they have decided that these choices aren’t for them, or maybe that they are not available to them for some reason.
they also have weird hangups and are irrationally disdainful about random things like food trucks and ride sharing. people should ride in their own cars! and not cook in them!
the thing is, at this point in our lives, i’m much closer in age to them than not. we’re quasi-peers, hovering around the younger and the older ends of middle age.
i feel like we’re on different paths, health-wise. mentally and physically. but that i easily could be them.
so every time i come home from visiting them, i double down on my exercise routine and my healthy eating habits, and try to experience and enjoy new things.
i wish they were better role models instead of anti role-models. for their sakes. but i guess selfishly i’m thankful for the backwards inspiration.
2022-09-11
The other night I was sitting down at the neighborhood pharmacy waiting for a thing, and people kept coming up to the counter for help, and I kept overhearing them give their address, and every time they did, I was like, I know that street! And it made me feel clever. But eventually, I realized that 99% of the people in your neighborhood pharmacy are going to end up living in your neighborhood, so of course you will recognize most of the addresses. That doesn’t make you clever.
But people love recognizing things. We are hardwired for pattern recognition. It’s the same reason people LOVE trying to guess what breed your dog is, even when it’s obviously a mutt with no discernible ancestry.
For a long time people would come up to me and say, OMG What kind of dog is that? And I would answer, A good one.
Nobody liked that. Nobody liked being denied the opportunity to exercise the pattern recognition part of their brain.
So I say something intended to be comical like, half husky / half chihuahua. And folks are always like, Yeeeeah, I see that.
You cannot fight the brain’s desire to spot patterns.
2022-08-19
Got back this week from a brief stay in Boston. Had never been before. There were some beautiful running trails by the river near where we were staying in Somerville. I think overall I better enjoyed where we were staying downtown though. The city was a dizzying combination of really old and really new, and I think they pulled it off. The public library was one of the most beautiful ones I’ve ever seen. We spent a lot of time in the common and in the public garden, and walking along the Rose Kennedy greenway. I’m a sucker for urban green spaces.
2022-07-18
got on the bikes and rolled around and went to a ton of open houses this weekend. it’s a fun thing to do because it’s free, you get to see houses that are all staged and done up, you get to explore your neighborhood a little bit. And you can do it even when it’s almost 100 degrees out (like it was this weekend) because you’re just hopping from air conditioning to air conditioning. one house in particular was a legit mansion. absolutely huge. i’d never buy such a thing. you couldn’t possibly keep it up yourself without like, a proper staff. amazing how some people live.
went to a new brunch place that i was excited to try. it was really rubbish, sadly. crowded, hot, loud, food wasn’t good, the mimosas were room temperature. just all around unimpressive to be honest. too bad!
there was a big brass band concert in the park. heard three different brass bands. i’ll tell ya. i’m a sucker for some horns.
2022-07-13
came home and watched the bats flying around in the backyard for a while. i always liked that we had them in the yard. i just didn’t know that they lived in my house. it’s probably the right thing to make them move out. they have diseases and poop a lot. i just hope they all find somewhere else nice to live.
went out to dinner and a show. had some tortas. they were alright. the show was one of my absolute favorite lecture series: there are two speakers who talk about unrelated topics, and then at the end, the audience tries to make connections between the two. the speakers are always really good, and it’s always fun trying to connect the two.
so i owe you five dollars. the pest control guy came today and poked around and decided that we don’t have squirrels, but rats and bats. big ones! and lots of them! 🐀🦇
some of my friends have been talking for a long time about starting a rpg game together, and yesterday we decided to just start a play-by-post since scheduling face time would be extra difficult because timezones, kids, etc. So I blasted a quick email to our mailing list to kick off BASEMENT QUEST. (our friend hole is called ‘the basement’.)
I was trying to come up with what kind of system i’d like to use to play, and i decided on roll for shoes because it’s dead easy and kind of silly, but I don’t want to do opposed rolls all the time because that would slow things down via email. so I mashed it up with blades in the dark’s rolls, and made a smol little game called Shoes in the Dark!
We haven’t really started playing yet. Certainly haven’t had to roll for anything. So we’ll have to wait and see how it goes.
2022-07-12
pretty solid day. job was mostly emotional labor. sometimes managing people is like playing therapist. worked out, strength training again. i’ll wait till i do it more than twice before saying i’m getting into it, but i am enjoying it. did a little writing. what can i say, it was a day.
oh, there are suddenly creepy scratchy skittering noises coming from inside the walls upstairs by the laundry room. bet you five dollars a squirrel got in there some how. i’m really curious about it because we have no attic or crawlspace for them to get in through, and also there are no tree branches that go above our roof. so i’m not sure how it would have gotten in there. a critter catcher is coming out this afternoon to check it out.
2022-07-11
was really sore from working out the day before. i don’t usually do strength training. when it comes to physical activity, i basically only have 2 modes. cardio, or stretching/yoga. so yeah i wasn’t super used to that.
got emotionally unblocked and managed to get some work done on yule goat arson bingo. my goal is to have it finished and polished up in time to run a holiday game with it at the end of the year, and also to post it up on itch so that other people can play it too! and now i have a very rough but technically complete first draft that i could play test if i want to. i’ll probably throw it up on the blog sooner rather than later.
played some dnd. finished up early, which never happens. the players had just wrapped up a homebrew side quest, which i wrote about earlier and now we need to transition back into the main game. so it was a natural stopping point.
the faerie promises are already wreaking havoc on them. delvin cannot sleep “on the ground or under a roof”, and immediately almost just went to bed at Holiday House. the threat of being hauled off to “faerie court” looms over them.
2022-07-10
it was hot.
later, it clouded up and started to rain a little bit.
we went to the park to see the jazz concert. we could hear music far off when we stepped outside. at the house. turns out there was a huge arts festival happening in the park, and it was the Prince cover band we were hearing six blocks away. never heard such a thing. i guess there’s never been a stage set up there (since i’ve lived here) that pointed its towers of speakers directly into the neighborhood before.
could barely hear the jazz band. got to hear a lot of prince classics though.
the concert series is extremely liberal with what they call jazz any more. every summer it’s a very eclectic line up. this band was straight up doing led zepplin covers.
we hit the food truck row, got some burgers and fries, had a beer, and then went back home.
the park was full of cars for the arts festival. blocking traffic, behaving unpredictably. i want to be sympathetic to people with mobility needs, but i really wish they would close the park to cars.
2022-07-09
was excited to see my boy eli_oat on the kiosk yesterday! Welcome, eli!
yesterday was pretty cool. the biggest thing i did was get out a new episode of the tilde whirl podcast, which i’m really proud of because i had some kind of writer’s block (podcaster’s block?) and couldn’t work on it all last month, so it felt good to finish another episode.
also played a little bit of my solo rpg that i haven’t played in a few months. (and recorded a bit of it for said podcast.)
got a lot of dogs in the house right now. we’re dogsitting two in addition to our own two. one is a puppy and wakes us up early, and the other is high anxiety and keeps snapping at and terrorizing the other 3, which is not fun. one is a puppy like i said, and another is a senior citizen, so it all feels really unnecessary and like bullying. the bully is going home today though, so things should be more calm soon, relatively.
2022-07-08
Played some dope ass Dungeons & Dragons last night. Made my players cry, which marcus says means that I’m playing D&D right.
We had been building up to this encounter for quite a while. One of my player’s backstory is that his parents disappeared when he was little, and he finally tracked them down with the help of their patron Qaanaaq the fairy dragon and their guide Piabon the Prince of Flowers to Holiday House (where every day is an entire year and they celebrate all the holidays all day long), home of the Fae Lord Alberon. They had to adventure through the surreal upside-down White Forest to get there, but when they did get there, they got to learn the story of Delvin’s parents, one bit at a time, One Thousand And One Arabian Nights style. For each piece of the story, Alberon got to demand a “gift” of them or else bind them to some twisted fairy promise. In the end, they rescued the mom, and found out that Delvin’s little owl familiar this whole time has actually been what is left of his father’s spirit.
Turns out that Delvin’s father had been at Holiday House in the past learning fey magic from Alberon, which Alberon only agreed to teach him if he agreed to “the law of surprise,” if Alberon could have that which first greeted him when he got back home. Turns out that was baby Delvin, so his parents tried to hide him. Mama agreed to go in Delvin’s stead, which Alberon agreed to, but Papa had still broken the fairy promise by hiding the baby, so his life and soul were forfeit.
😭😭😭
