random thoughts

Victory from Defeat?

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Yesterday I played Imperator: Rome and Conquest of Elysium 5. Some interesting things happened, and in lieu of writing pages upon pages about both games, I’m going to try to write a summary here. We’ll see how that goes.

In Imperator: Rome you can control a kingdom, tribe, empire, or city-state in northern Africa, Europe, or Asia in the classical era, starting in 304 BC. Rather than get involved in the squabbling of the Diadochi over the empire conquered by Alexander the Great, or playing as Rome, Carthage, or any other major historical power, I decided to try playing as a minor tribe in northern Britain. To make a long story short, it didn’t go well. I tried attacking a tribe in northern Ireland, their allies joined the war, and while I was at war with them a neighboring tribe on my southern border declared war on me. I made the mistake of sending my mercenaries to assault the tribe’s capital fortress, rather than merely continuing the siege, so I lost too many men to maintain the siege. As a result I had to deal with the game telling me that there were 54 left in the garrison out of the original 500 and I had something like 1800 mercenaries left, but apparently you have to have 2000 men to besiege a fortress. Back in my own territory, my warriors were defeated by the enemy because they outnumbered me, and so I lost both wars and most of my lands. I haven’t decided yet whether I want to continue that game in spite of the additional challenge or simply start a new one. Regardless, I’m pleasantly surprised that Imperator: Rome, a game originally released in 2019, runs without too much trouble on my computer that has like 1 GB of graphics memory and, as far as I can remember, hasn’t had any major changes in several years.

In Conquest of Elysium 5, the goal is to conquer a fantasy world playing as various “classes”, most of which probably would be familiar to any fan of fantasy fiction. A few of these include the Senator (Roman-themed), the Illusionist, the Kobold King, the Druid, the High Priestess (which I’ve won the game as) and the Necromancer. In this particular game I was playing as a Voice of El, a leading servant of the god El. My original starting leader was killed in a battle, and as a result for several in-game years I feel like I’ve mostly been on the run- after losing my starting leader, I had sent my commanders to explore, and as a result converted several settlements to the worship of El and made various gains and losses, but after two of the four computer players were defeated the competition came down to me and the computer-controlled Necromancer player, who not only had large armies of undead but also had very powerful undead creatures, and groups of these powerful undead, taking my cities and otherwise bothering me. I had worried at one point that I had basically lost the game, but after opening at least one more seal, and probably taking other actions to get more powerful heavenly aid, I started getting more heavenly servants. Even if I don’t directly control the angelic hosts, the fact that they’re roaming around and taking cities for me is immensely helpful. As a result, it’s now almost 16 years into the game and I’ve overtaken the necromancer as having the most powerful army. I still haven’t found his starting fortress, and I don’t know where the necromancer went (my current theory is that he’s traveled to Hades or some other plane), but I seem to be on the path to victory and it’s currently a matter of either taking all of his citadels, so he can’t recruit any more units, or destroying all of his commanders in order to secure victory.

I was thinking at one point that it seems like I could take something away from these experiences, though the most succinct way I can think of is something like “when in doubt, keep running and pray for help.” That doesn’t seem like the best advice (for example, how is that going to help with my social life or lack of a girlfriend?), but asymmetric warfare certainly has its advantages even if the “meek” can’t literally call upon heavenly hosts to help them destroy their enemies.

A Star Wars game idea

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Recently I’ve been working different shifts at work- rather than working in the middle part of the day, like I usually do, and working in the late morning, afternoon, and evening, I’ve had to make donuts, which involves getting to work at 3 a.m. and going to bed accordingly. Thankfully it’s not a long commute, at least, but it’s been rough having to go to bed (or, more accurately, collapsing from exhaustion) in time so I can get up after 2 and be at work at 3. There have been at least a couple days lately where I was late, so that threw things off.

But none of that, of course, is germane to the topic of this post: A game idea!

I’ve been playing Star Wars: Empire at War again lately, which is a real-time strategy game that came out in 2006 where you can control either the Galactic Empire or the Rebel Alliance. The Empire, of course, relies on industrial might and numerical superiority, while the Rebellion has to rely instead on quality over quantity and highly motivated freedom fighters.

The changes in canon and new material since 2006 aside (thinking here particularly of Andor, Rogue One, and Saw Gerrera and his Partisans), recently I’ve thought it would be interesting to have a game where you could play as either the Empire or the Rebels, and whatever side you picked would affect the playstyle. Of course, I guess to some degree this is true anyway in Empire at War (if you pick the Empire, in space you get powerful warships that carry their own fighter and bomber craft, versus playing as the Rebels whose hyperdrive-equipped starfighters make them capable of independent action and hit-and-run attacks), but it’d be interesting if the gameplay was more different.

I suppose what I have in mind is more like an RPG or small-unit tactics game, like XCOM (which I’ve never played). For example, if you’re in charge of a small Imperial unit, you might know the characters only or mainly by their individual designation, while the Rebel equivalent might allow you to know characters by a callsign or name, rather than whatever the Rebel equivalent to a “serial number” is. Of course, another glaring difference is that the Empire is human supremacist, and with few exceptions all or most of your Imperial troopers (or pilots or crew or whatever) would be humans, while the Rebellion is more diverse and you might have just about any conceivable species in a Rebel unit, whether they’re Mon Calamari, Twilek, Wookiee, Rodian, Bothan, or of course human.

A main problem with this idea would probably be the scope- if you’re the commander of a fighter squadron, that’s going to be a bit different than if you’re an infantry squad, the bridge crew of a light cruiser, or the crew of a vehicle. Something like this seems like it might work best as a special forces-type unit or a fighter squadron, though I welcome anyone who wants to try making a game about the rare Rebel armored brigade, haha.

Maybe it’s the contrarian or the masochist in me, or just enjoying counterfactuals, but I’ve long thought it would be interesting to have a tabletop role-playing game character who’s part of a Rebel starship crew or vehicle unit, when neither of those are among the Alliance’s strengths as a insurgency against the established galactic government. Sure, some Rebel armored units and capital ships existed (if nothing else, there’s the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi), but the Rebel Alliance didn’t have the industrial capacity, logistics, or personnel, mostly, to engage in conventional symmetric vehicle or space warfare. Any significant concentration of Rebel armor, if it wasn’t degraded by Imperial attacks on its supply chains and logistics, could probably expect to be greeted by Imperial air and armor superiority (TIE bombers, AT-ATs, heavy artillery, and turbolasers against whatever passes for Rebel heavy armor) even if your garden-variety Imperial stormtrooper or Army trooper doesn’t have much anti-vehicle capability. Realistically, there probably are heavy crew-served anti-vehicle weapons available somewhere within the Imperial military, whether it’s part of the Army or the Stormtrooper Corps.

Anyway, I think a game set during the Galactic Civil War (or really, just about any war, not just in Star Wars) based on these differences could be interesting. “You’re playing a commander with these traits, so your units have these reactions, and these messy interpersonal dramas are playing out, oh and then this happens” seems fun, but I do enjoy Rimworld, Crusader Kings, and similar games with RPG elements, so adding that into a Star Wars game seems fun. I don’t know how you’d do that for something like the Clone Wars, considering the Clone Wars featured the Republic’s Grand Army of clone troopers and Jedi versus the CIS’s Droid Army (and some organic auxiliaries), but you could also probably come up with a story where you get the choice on the Republic side of either a Jedi and clones or a Republic-aligned local defense force and the CIS option could be either the main Droid army (though with less interactions between droids) or a unit of Separatist-aligned organic soldiers (though they would probably all be from the same world, or at least the same species).

The Mystery Upstairs

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It seems I haven’t written anything here since the end of September 2022, which was about four months ago. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since until recently I don’t remember the last time I had thought about writing anything here, but for the most part my life has remained the same. I did get together with friends last weekend (after requesting a couple days off work), so it worked out for me to bring pizza to my current tabletop campaign group’s gaming night, which was something like the first time we’d got together in two months.

In other news, I was sick a few months ago (sore throat, possibly feverish, I think it was early November), which might have been COVID based on some of my coworkers being sick around the same time, but on the other hand I also never took a Covid test, and after a few days I got better, so I don’t know if it was actually COVID or something with similar symptoms. More recently, this week (since Monday, I think) I’ve had some respiratory symptoms in the shape of my nose running and some congestion, so I don’t know if it’s a sinus infection or a cold, or potentially something more ‘serious’. In any event, other than my nose running a little (and it hasn’t really done that for a couple days) I don’t think I’ve been very sick, so I’ve been trying to drink lots of fluids and get plenty of sleep.

In other other news, the title of this post refers to my new neighbor. The previous tenant of the apartment above me didn’t seem to spend much time here, and while I had seen or heard him around a few times in the last year or so, I had heard indirectly that he may have been mainly living with a girlfriend and renting the apartment as a place to stay when the weather was bad or other occasions so he wouldn’t have to drive an hour (or whatever his normal commute would have been). He did get married this past fall, and from what I’d heard it was possible that he might keep the apartment through the winter. Since moving to the second floor last summer, I hadn’t really noticed any changes- I’d heard him come in a few times, but then he usually left after a few minutes and I don’t think he ever spent the night.

I was surprised, then, when I got a text from one of my landlords in early January of this year that someone was going to be moving into the upstairs apartment. I was further confused when there were no signs of activity on that front for a couple days, until I heard activity in the hallway outside my apartment and upstairs a couple days later, and then a few days later over the weekend I heard activity that actually sounded like maybe someone was moving in and had some help, but I never met anyone or actually saw anyone moving in. Eventually, I’ve noticed a purple Honda that I’ve decided must be the car that the new upstairs neighbor drives.

This week, I’ve thought it slightly funny that there’s now been at least twice that I’ve almost met my new neighbor. A couple days ago, this past Tuesday, I was scheduled to work at 12:15 PM, and since it’s only a drive of a few blocks I usually don’t leave until about 5 minutes until I’m supposed to be at work. About noon I heard movement and decided it sounded like the neighbor had come in, and when I stepped out into the hallway to leave for work I noticed the door to the upstairs apartment was open and it sounded like someone was in the laundry room. As I walked by I glanced in and saw a pink coat, but I didn’t notice anything else, so I don’t know if she saw my face or not.

The next day, I had Wednesday off work and had planned to go to the grocery store for vinegar and a few other things. About 2:30 PM, I was backing up and getting ready to pull into the alley to get to the street and take my usual route to the grocery store (and work and almost anywhere else) when I saw the neighbor’s purple Honda pulling in to the alley, so with some quick thinking I backed up and turned around to go the other direction out the other end of the alley. After about 20 minutes at the grocery store, I returned and noticed the neighbor was gone.

Since there’s a fire alarm that’s been beeping for over a month, and based on what I’ve noticed about them not being here as often as I am, the last few days I’ve begun to wonder if this new neighbor is a similar situation where they’re renting the apartment as a place to stay on nights they have to work late, or something like that. There’s been a few times recently where I’m sitting in my apartment and I hear them go to the upstairs apartment at like 11:30 PM or around midnight, but it’s never happened on the recent nights I have been closing at work (which have lately been Sundays and a couple Tuesdays), or else we might be meeting outside by our cars or something, and to the admittedly limited degree that I pay attention, it seems like they only spend maybe one or two nights a week here, if that.

I, by contrast, do almost nothing other than work or sit in my apartment, so usually I’m spending more like 7 nights a week in my apartment. I’m not sure what the exact average is lately, since I haven’t been to my parents’ for a few weeks, but spending the night at a friends’ last weekend sort of brings down my average of spending 7 nights a week here (compared to my neighbor’s 1 night a week or whatever it’s been).

I didn’t almost run into them today (I was scheduled to also have today off work, but I agreed to work for a couple hours and then it turned out I wasn’t needed after all), but the way our near-meetings have gone the last couple days I feel like it’s an inevitability that our paths will cross sooner than later and, much like the older couple that moved in downstairs last fall, maybe I’ll have a chance to meet them and introduce myself properly (rather than these weird near misses).

Scattershot thoughts

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The Disney movie Hocus Pocus 2 came out today, which I haven’t yet seen. Aside from one of my coworkers who apparently likes the first movie and plans I’d heard about for her to host a Hocus Pocus party today, I’m mainly reminded of how my ex liked Hocus Pocus, and in the fall of 2017 when we were dating, we went to a video rental store several times and rented different movies before we finally found Hocus Pocus and watched it. The aforementioned party, if I remember correctly, was also going to include my store manager, but since she got sick earlier this week presumably she’s not attending.

I’ve had yesterday and today off work, which has mainly been nice and relaxing. Yesterday I went to get my Covid bivalent booster shot and flu shot, which I turned into a grocery trip and bought, among other things, pumpkin ale, pumpkin pie cream liqueur, various snacks, kimchi, a gyro making kit, and the frozen pizza that I made for dinner yesterday. As far as what I’ve actually accomplished the last couple days, aside from watching YouTube and playing Rimworld I’ve also hand-washed some dishes. Suddenly it seems like I’ve done more than that, but I don’t remember if I actually put away the dishes that were in the dishwasher yesterday, or if that was perhaps the day before. Not that it matters- doing some dishes and getting groceries, which had been on my to-do list, is accomplishment enough. I can’t currently think of anything specific that I feel like I need to do before, say, going back to work tomorrow, but it’s not as if taking out the garbage or putting away laundry is truly that daunting.

Recently I seem to have once again exhausted the possibilities of Bumble and Tinder. I think I remember running into this problem before the pandemic, which I think may have led to my uninstalling those particular apps from my phone. Either way, I’ve never really used OKCupid, and I’ve long thought that’s a possibility (if only to serve as another venue to be frustrated in), but mostly I’m reluctant to try it. My current search criteria, if I remember correctly, are something like looking for women between the ages of 22 and 33 within 50 miles, and in this rural area, there don’t seem to be a lot of choices (particularly if you “left swipe” on all the choices).

This exhaustion of possibilities combined with my enjoying brief stargazing on the early morning of the 27th of this month, when I stepped outside about 12:51 AM and was able to see Jupiter, Mars, and the Pleiades (which I only knew due to the Stellarium and Sky Map apps on my phone). Since I enjoyed stargazing, it made me think, in the most self-deprecatory sense, “who needs a social life when you can stargaze?” The stars are easy to find if you look up, while people have things like “schedules” and “work” and “preferences” that tend to interfere with social lives and planning. Earlier this week I had messaged my current gaming group about having Thursday and Friday off this week, since it’s been nearly a month since our last meeting and I had thought people might be able to play on Friday night, but instead one person was leaving for a trip, so they were busy or had been busy, and someone else wasn’t able to meet on Thursdays, so that not working was a little disappointing.

I don’t really know what to do about feeling socially unfulfilled. The apps can only go so far (particularly if, you know, you actually express interest in people instead of denying everyone), and it would probably be even easier to meet people if I ever did anything other than work or hang out in my apartment or with family.

Rumination

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Rather than make one mega-post with several different trains of thought, I think I’ll make a couple and try to limit each post so each is at least vaguely related.

For example, rather than writing a post that mentions thinking about my ex and recent developments at work and ongoing frustration with dating apps and, upon further reflection, probably other things, I’ll make another post in a bit about the recent work developments and this can be the, uh, non-work post.

There isn’t much! Surprising, right? All I do is work and relax and work and relax and work and…

Let’s see… my grandparents are getting older, which is hardly surprising, and there’s not much I can say about that. They’re 93 and 92, and as the recent passing of Queen Elizabeth (and just about any old famous person) reminds me, one day they’ll be the ones mourned.

I’ve been playing Rimworld again, so that has been fun, but it’s also approaching the point where I’ve burned out on Rimworld and am due to switch to, I don’t know, Dominions 5 or something.

As far as the ongoing frustration with dating apps, I don’t know just how much I can write that wouldn’t just turn into pointless rambling (as cathartic as it may be for me). I’m convinced that my previous relationship (being introduced by a mutual friend when my now-ex and I were both in college in a city) is like the easy mode, if not “easiest” mode, for meeting people (and perhaps starting a relationship in general), compared to these days. I’m not in college any more, I work at a convenience store in a small town, and while I could be wrong, I’m convinced that most of the people my age or within the acceptable age range for a relationship are either already taken or may have other baggage. I don’t think this is a bad small town, but I don’t think there’s much of a nightlife (and I don’t get out much, so I’m hardly to be trusted as far as knowledge of the singles scene around here).

Read more: Rumination

I did think it was funny yesterday to remember that today was the anniversary of my ex and I starting our relationship, but considering it’s been 4.5 years since we broke up and over 2 years since I heard from her, I’m not sure what the traditional celebration is. A few weeks ago when I was thinking of the anniversary of our starting to date I started drafting a blog post with a playlist of songs that reminded me of her, though I didn’t feel like polishing that and posting it tonight. Maybe another day (or I guess I could always save it for another day, like the anniversary of our breaking up).

As far as dating apps, I’ve never really used OKCupid much, but Tinder and Bumble continually frustrate me because people either write nothing in their profiles, don’t write much in their profiles, are unoriginal (e.g., “touch my butt and buy me tacos”, “I like beer and tacos”, “my dog needs a daddy”), or the pictures seem bad. Maybe I don’t have much room to talk, since I don’t claim to have great pictures on my online dating profiles, but some people don’t look attractive, I’m personally not interested in lots of body modification (piercings, tattoos, etc.), and the profiles where they don’t even use a picture of themselves seem less than helpful (as far as the whole superficial “judging on appearance rather than substance and then make a binary choice” goes). I have a theory that people who are more “open to experience” tend to be more present on online dating, since I’ve seen a lot of people with tattoos and piercings and I suspect people who aren’t “open to experience” probably just meet their husbands/boyfriends through their social networks.

The best recent thing I’ve seen on a dating profile was on Bumble, I think, earlier this week and it was a woman whose profile said something like “Men who are over 6′ who only go for girls under 5’7″- why do you want your kids to play JV?” I think her profile said she was 5’9″, but as someone who’s about 6′ tall I thought that was hilarious. Of course, I also just appreciate seeing something new instead of the same trite nonsense about “I’m terrible at writing bios” or “not looking for hookups” or whatever nonsense.

Resuming a train of thought from earlier, I suspect that trying to date amid a respiratory pandemic (and that’s not even bringing monkeypox into the equation) is probably a bit more challenging than dating pre-pandemic. Additionally, as previously mentioned regarding location, dating in a city of one hundred fifty thousand at least offers more choices in a smaller area than trying to date in a small town of around a thousand. Even leaving aside the local ramifications of gossip and social networks, based on what I’ve seen on dating apps, there’s a lot of people who are more than 20 miles away, which isn’t too far, but it does seem like it’d slightly limit scheduling (as opposed to someone who was actually in the same town, or at least within 10 or so miles). Additionally, as I’ve thought before, in contrast to my ex, who was a full-time student when we were dating that didn’t have many friends, I assume that any future women I date (assuming I ever do date anyone again, of course) will probably have a job and probably friends and some kind of social life.

Of course, in order to start talking to someone through these various apps, I’d probably have to start swiping right, wouldn’t I? Why would I want to do that?

No girlfriend, no games, no goals

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I came up with the title of this post while taking the dogs for a mid-day walk earlier this afternoon. While I don’t plan to make this a long post exhaustively breaking down the causes and effects, I do think this phrase succinctly describes my current situation (even if admitting this fact seems like telling on myself, or at least betraying that not all is well, in contrast to the usual depiction on social media).

As for no girlfriend, all I really have to say about that is that, in December, I’ll have been single for four years, and, of course, there’s still a pandemic raging. I haven’t dabbled much in online dating lately, but what little I have looked around (admittedly, mostly on Tinder and OkCupid) is disappointing because I want something more substantial than a blank bio and a picture, and because people are disappointing I suspect my list of desired qualities is probably rare in this area, to put it lightly. I also haven’t lost much sleep about this, because (much like pre-college) I figure I’ll meet someone eventually, so I don’t worry about it.

No games stems from noticing that, according to my Steam library earlier today, apparently it’s been 3 weeks since I played anything (ignoring the 2.7 hours I spent a couple weeks ago using a floorplan generator to map a dungeon for my current D&D-inspired story idea). It’s also been 2 years since I last played D&D with anyone, and much like my frustration over not having a girlfriend or, indeed, any romantic prospects that I’m aware of, I think there’s a similar problem of having to meet other people and “put myself out there”. Indeed, the ongoing pandemic complicates the prospect of meeting in person (as if my work schedule and location didn’t already pose enough obstacles), which leaves online gaming, and I’m not currently aware of anyone who might be interested in playing and has a similar schedule. I haven’t exactly asked my friends, but most of my friends who might be interested seem to have families and jobs and other commitments, and they might not be game to meet for an online game at, say, midnight. Of course, scheduling is always a problem, but it’d be nice if I could work less and play more. D&D character ideas seem rather useless without having a prospect of playing them, and I also haven’t done any looking for groups in this department either. I think websites exist where I could play by post or something, but that’s a further effort. Playing with friends was simpler when I lived with a Game Master, and the other half of our party lived in the next apartment building of the same complex.

As for no goals, this stems from a coworker recently asking “What have you been up to?” and my answer being, as usual, something like “Not much.” As far as I can think of, my coworkers range in age from 16 to their mid-60s, which is quite a range. While a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old might be worried about their homework or preparing for college or enduring senior year, and someone in their mid-60s might be worried about medical procedures or health issues or their family, I feel like right now I’m relatively fortunate in that I don’t have to worry about much, but also I’m not really doing anything other than work.

I get up, I go to work 5 days a week, I come home, rinse and repeat. Since I don’t have any friends that live close, I can’t exactly swing by to socialize, and as previously mentioned most of the friends that do come to mind are busy, so we might chat, but it’s been a while since I’ve been to anyone’s house for a social event (discounting, I guess, my grandparents’ being visited by relatives).

If I was currently in college, for example, I might be studying or have assignments or projects or be busy with that, or if I had a family I’d have to consider childcare and whatever the child/children was doing (whether daycare or school). However, I’m not currently taking any classes and I have no children, so that rules those out.

I have things I want to do, or would be nice to do, but I’m not very organized about coming up with a list of goals for my day off (for example), or for “this week”, or “by November”, or anything like that.

I suspect I might be happier if not all three of those admitted simplifications were true, but who knows. It could certainly be worse.

Summer: Vacation, etc.

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For some reason, this morning I woke up and decided I could write a post here, because I was vaguely aware it had been a while and I figured I could write about some recent happenings.

After coming to WordPress, apparently I haven’t written here since the end of February. Really?

I, uh, can’t think of much to report, or at least not enough to write a thousand or so words about the last (does math) five months, give or take a week. I mean, I probably could find the words to figure out how to write 200 words about March, April, May, June, and July, plus the first not-quite-week of August, but I’m not sure what I’d report about each month, particularly some of the earlier months. Therefore, I’ll stick to more recent events, like the past few weeks.

A couple weeks ago (July 21-24) I took my first vacation in a while to visit my sister, and it was nice to see her and get away from the daily grind. I hadn’t been to my former city of residence since I moved away about a year ago (July 29, 2020). We didn’t do much- I got my oil changed and a couple new tires (I had asked them to rotate my tires at Wal-Mart while I was getting my oil changed, and then they told me they couldn’t rotate the tires because they were worn down to the belt, and I had sort of forgot about getting new tires), we went for a couple walks, and we got carry-out for several meals. I enjoyed the pan of brownies she had made, and despite taking a couple Mom-made masks and being worried about the current state of the pandemic, I didn’t even wear the masks at all, so that seemed a bit pointless.

It seems weird to think about it being time to get ready for school, though of course it’s been over a year since I’ve taken any classes, and I don’t have any children, so I don’t exactly have to worry much about it (which I’m somewhat thankful for, in light of the current state of the ongoing pandemic). There are several people at work that are leaving, apparently, including the assistant manager and several of the night kitchen people, so that’s potentially a problem, but hopefully more people get hired and I don’t wind up having to work a bunch of overtime (or something).

Recently I’ve been toying with some Dungeons and Dragons/Pathfinder-inspired story ideas. Last fall, I think, I had an idea for a story that was inspired by reading about some of the class options in Pathfinder (specifically, the water elemental bloodline for sorcerers), and this spring (or maybe summer) I had another idea for another D&D-inspired idea, and most recently I’ve been inspired by a game I discovered while visiting my sister last month. The game is called Good Old Dungeon, and it’s a fairly simple dungeon crawl where you control a character and fight monsters and, of course, can use experience points, gold, and materials to advance your character. I created a wizard and thus decided I wanted to build a D&D wizard. I’ve been playing with some ideas recently for a D&D inspired story where this wizard is the main character, and of course building a D&D character has made me want to play D&D or a similar game, though I’m not currently aware of anyone that’s playing. As usual, scheduling is an issue- if I wanted to run a game, I could probably figure out how to find a group of people interested in playing, though the question as ever would be if they’re available or willing to play when I am- say, at 10 pm on Thursdays and Fridays, or after 9 pm most days of the week, or some other not-quite-conventional hour. What I always slightly disliked about playing with my former roommate and other friends several years ago was that we would get together to play on Sunday afternoons at noon. Since I usually worked at 4 PM on Sunday, losing my scarce time before work always slightly vexed me.

Recently, reading about the history of the county where I work has led me to some old books that are available online and were published in the 1880s. Aside from reading about the early history of the county, and the strangeness of imagining the area in the 1840s when it was the unsettled frontier and people were worrying about Indian attacks, I have to admit being amused by some of the flowery writing- I doubt that a history published in 2021 would talk about how “savages” made no use of the country and how the area has some of the most fertile soil in the world (or at least the United States). It’s amusing to imagine such a history- aside from an additional 140 years to cover, unless it was written by a Republican or similar conservative, it’s easier to imagine a more “politically correct” (“woke”?) history that, for example, would not use the phrase “savage” unless it was a direct quote from a contemporary source, and only used if it had good reason. For that matter, I imagine such a history written now might include some native sources, or at least sources that weren’t solely from white men. Some history about slavery in this area might be interesting, for example, though as this was the northernmost outcropping of legal slavery, my understanding is that there wasn’t a lot of it (as opposed to, say, the lower South where cotton and other crops were the basis of the economy). I’ll admit I’m not well versed in antebellum history on this local level!

As a weird and tangentially related note on local history, Wednesday morning on my way to work my mom called and said the local museum was closing and she had been called by someone who was trying to return things to the families that had donated/loaned them. After work Wednesday, I met my mom there and we picked up several things that had belonged to my First World War veteran great-grandfather and had been donated by my grandparents, including his uniform, chest, mess kit and some other memorabilia that had been in the chest, a hay knife, a green bean snipper, an egg scale, a chicken feeder, a table, and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting. We also picked up an old washing machine that didn’t belong to my relatives, but I think belonged to one of our neighbors (or at least someone that was the ancestor of some of our neighbors).

Speaking of my grandparents, they celebrated their 70th anniversary August 1. I worked that day, but their children (my aunts and father) took them out to lunch and I stopped by Sunday morning before work to see them. My grandparents are certainly in good shape for being in their early 90s, and I’ve sort of already decided that I’ve probably lost my chance to match that particular milestone (unless I somehow meet and marry someone and we both live another 70 years, which may or may not happen depending on medical technology of the late 21st century).

Let’s see- local history, family, vacation, story ideas- I’m not sure what else to write about. Well, I can think of some funny work-related anecdotes, but this post seems like it’s long enough already, so I think I might put those in another post. I don’t know about writing here more regularly, but it also seems like that’s not the worst idea. Until next time.

US Election 2020

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We live in interesting times, don’t we?

On the one hand, with Election Day tomorrow, I’d like to read a bunch of articles about what might unfold, whatever the result.

On the other hand, I’ve also read enough to suspect that if Trump loses, or manages to cast enough doubt on the result of the election, there might be uncertainty and violence. I highly doubt that Trump will follow the precedent of peacefully conceding the election and working in good faith to transition to the Biden administration, because it seems much more likely that he’d do whatever he could to actively screw things up for the incoming Biden team, never mind the option of simply refusing to cede power. If there was some kind of corrupt bargain worked out where he wouldn’t be subject to criminal penalties and he was persuaded that ceding power would be in his best interests, he might go along with it, but losing or any kind of defeat seems antithetical to his character- this is, after all, the president that refused to advocate for wearing a mask until, what was it, two hundred thousand people died of COVID-19? Or was it merely 150,000? I don’t remember.

Biden is far from my favorite candidate, and I keep thinking it’s funny hearing Republican political ads trying to paint a Democratic candidate for US Senate from a neighboring state as “Too Liberal For [this state]”, like claiming that she’s in favor of open borders and defunding the police, and I wish she were that cool! More likely, I suspect, she’s probably within the Democratic mainstream (at least in the sense of “maybe not give big businesses as many tax cuts” and “let’s not set up concentration camps for immigrants and be nakedly xenophobic”). I haven’t paid much attention, since after all I’m not voting in that election, but I plan to vote tomorrow and I’ll have to refresh my memory of the candidates and whatever ballot propositions are being voted on. I know my state’s Senators are not up for election this round, but there is a US House race to vote in – do I vote for the Republican from my small hometown who’s been in Washington for 20 years, or do I vote for the latest Democratic challenger from the big city? What a decision! Haha.

Unfortunately, just like the last several presidential elections, I of course work tomorrow, so I won’t be able to keep up much with the results. I remember working in 2012 after voting and, as I left work, hearing on the radio in the car that Obama had won and Romney was conceding, and I think I remember hearing something similar in 2016 as I was leaving work that Trump had won and Clinton was conceding. This week, I imagine, might be a bit messier (and that’s being slightly optimistic and assuming there won’t be a mass shooting at a polling place or something stupid like that).

I’m not sure how to approach reading articles about the election. Of course, there’s also the approach of not reading articles about the election, and simply not paying attention until tomorrow or until results start coming up or until tomorrow night when I can catch up with the results and analysis.

The fact that this election is in any way close seems unfortunate, but I guess that’s what you get when one of the two dominant parties fully backs the incumbent candidate and the other party pushes forward a centrist, uninspiring, experienced candidate as the challenger instead of someone more interesting and unconventional who might have radical ideas like “reducing funding for the military-industrial complex” and “being less business-friendly”.

After-Action Report: Aurek-28

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Star Wars: Empire at War is a computer strategy game released in 2006 that allows players to play land or space battles as either the Galactic Empire or the Rebel Alliance in the Star Wars “Galaxy Far, Far, Away”. In terms of chronology, the original game (as opposed to its expansion pack) covers a short time before the destruction of the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin and could go as late as the Battle of Hoth, more or less, three standard years later.

Earlier this year, after not playing it for some time (probably a few years, minimum), I installed my copy on my Windows PC and rediscovered it.

After moving back in with my parents last month and getting my Windows PC set up again, I’ve been playing Empire at War again sporadically for the last, oh, couple of weeks or so.

After finishing the Imperial “Galactic Conquest” game I had started in May, I decided to try my hand playing as the Rebel Alliance. It has gone… poorly.

As of right now, I control only a few planets and have a meager credit income, while my AI-controlled Imperial opponent can bury me in Stormtroopers, AT-ATs, AT-AAs, Broadside cruisers, and Tartan patrol cruisers.

So, it’s pretty accurate to the “canon” Galactic Civil War!

I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated of late, and earlier I was thinking that, instead of continuing to play and getting increasingly mad, I could instead abandon that game and start a new one at a lower difficult level. Instead of “medium”, I could try “easy” and attempt to learn from my various mistakes. Originally, this blog post was going to be a pseudo-fan fiction ‘after-action report’ from the perspective of a Rebel officer discussing the failure of this particular simulation and lessons learned.

Among my mistakes, in hindsight, has been a failure to play in accordance with the differences between Imperial and Alliance doctrine and strategy. Continue reading →

Grief

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Once again, I’m going to try a slightly more focused entry. This morning I woke up listening to the news on NPR, and of course my state and the next closest state apparently saw new COVID-19 records (number of new cases and number of hospitalizations respectively, if I remember correctly), so my state’s Department of Education is apparently working on guidelines to allow schools to be open this fall. There was a plan mentioned for schools to have some students attend in the morning and some in the afternoon, which sounds logistically complicated and makes me glad I’m not currently in elementary or high school and don’t have any kids. After the local headlines, the national news started, and it was more of the same- the Trump administration wants schools to be open in the fall, but is not really doing anything about the ongoing pandemic (or if the federal government is responding, I think they could do and need to be doing more). This ongoing disaster (for lack of any better word) successfully made me angry for most of the rest of the afternoon before I went to work and got to briefly forget about the disasterous pandemic response by the richest nation in history and the most powerful nation on the planet.

Alright, deep breath. Brief digression aside, now for the real reason for this entry.

I had a friend from high school pass away this past weekend. She was a couple years younger than me, but we were in a lot of the same activities and we were close when I was in high school. I don’t remember the last time I talked to her or saw her. I think I saw on Snapchat that I had sent her something a couple months ago (though I don’t remember what), and I had sent her a funny screenshot of a tweet in a Facebook message back in late 2019, so clearly it had been a while. We exchanged birthday wishes earlier this year (her birthday was in February and mine is in April), but “happy birthday!” “thanks!” does not a substantial conversation make. I imagine the last time I saw her in person might have been a couple years ago, possibly at my sister’s high school graduation in 2018 (or my brother’s in 2014).

It’s probably futile, but I wish I had talked to her more recently. Continue reading →