Goals

What if someday I made a cool indie game, that would be amazing! What if then I finished it and released it, and then I had a game out in the world? What if I did it again and I had multiple games finished and for sale? What if I somehow had a big enough place to store and organize the stock of all my games? What if I had enough local shows to need banners and tablecloths and business cards? And what if I had enough mail orders to need packing and mailing supplies? And what if I got enough sales on Amazon to need special Bezos barcode stickers?

What if I spent my whole freaking day organizing boxes of game stuff and putting things them in other boxes…

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Contain Multitudes, Y’all

It’s a typical day at school, where I’m observing a junior teacher and helping her with her ESL lesson plans. I’m giving her some suggestions, some conversation prompts, some easily-modified printables for activities, and other general resources that I happened to have in my GDrive.

“Your activities are so interactive!” she said, “They’re like games for English!”

“That’s probably because I design card games when I’m not teaching.”

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Boring and Stupid

When we bought a fixer-upper,  we knew it would require work, and so it was kind of funny when one day in the fall, the closet collapsed and all my clothes fell down. I  packed up everything that I wasn’t actively wearing. Just for a few weeks, you know, until we put up new shelves. But see, the closet looked like a wreck after the shelf was pulled out of the wall, so I took down all the weird bits of shelf, spackled over the holes and repainted the closet. It was boring and stupid.

Then I measured the closet and worked out what size closet bar would fit in a weird trapezoidal closet. I thought my husband would be able to do it, I kind of thought this was a gender-linked ability. When every other guy I know was taught how to use studfinders (step one, point it at yourself and say “got one!” step two, laugh hysterically, step three, hang up shelves), my husband must have cut class that day. So we tried to hire someone and there was another delay and another delay and this whole thing is getting too stupid and boring.

On the subject of boring and stupid, the windows are scheduled for repair too, but for additional boring reasons, that’s delayed too! So if I don’t want to freeze like a Dickensian orphan this winter, I needed to do something about the icy cold drafts. So we bought some kind of plastic that you stick over the windows to seal them. You stick it on and then tape it and then seal it with heat from a hairdryer.

So, ok, I do OWN a hairdryer, but remember how everything that’s non-essential is in an unlabeled, temporary box since I don’t have a closet now? And I CAN blow dry my hair, but I also can sleep 20 more minutes, so right into the unlabeled nonessential boxes it went. In my defense, when I shoved it in a box somewhere, I didn’t know that one could fix windows with a hairdryer.

Anyway, this is all so boring and stupid, but I sealed up the windows really well. It’s perfectly sealed, no leaks or drafts at all. I did a second layer, too, just to be absolutely sure, and I’m so proud of myself.

I enjoyed being warm for a good 48 hours before our dishwasher started smoking, with a terrible smell of burned plastic, and all my windows are perfectly sealed shut.

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LFL Finds

Found this in the Little Free Library by the beach near us.

Harold: That’s perfect for you!

Me: Yeah! Wait… how do you know that? Do you know this Roman mystery series*? Do you know what a Vestal is?

Harold: I mean, I know what ancient columns look like.

*I’m a dedicated SPQR and Marcus Corvinus fan, but have only read a couple Gordianus books.

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Lies & Weddings ARC

Lies and Weddings, by Kevin Kwan, contains the same kind of frothy lifestyle fun as the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. Basically everyone in this novel is constantly wearing something beautiful and constantly eating something delicious. There’s social climbing, secret relationships, deep love, manipulation, huge financial secrets, and inner discoveries, with nods to classic British novels. It’s a manners novel, and a comedy, and an inheritance drama, all at once.

The three adult Gresham siblings are fabulously wealthy and privileged children of an English earl and a Hong Kong fashionista.  Augusta, Rufus and Beatrice have had everything, but now their mother’s constant out-of-control spending on her designer projects and their father’s secret borrowing might be bringing that to an end. So, they’ve got the title and the estate (mostly) and the famous names and connections, but the actual cash is gone. Well, I mean, they still have way more money than you or I do, of course. Rich People Problems, you know.

But their mother has a solution — the three children children can marry money. Her oldest, Augie, is already marrying a European title, with the social and financial benefits on their way to her, and her other two children can get moving on seducing some cash. It’s a classic plot, with Lady Gresham as a wealthier and much more stylish Mrs. Bennet. Rufus, the middle child and only son is in love with the girl next door, in a romance with serious Doctor Thorn vibes. But Lady Gresham is determined that only an insanely wealthy heiress will do for her perfect (newly cash-strapped) son, and sets her plans in motion. Of course, I loved all the matchmaking machinations and all the hyperwealthy characters, but personally, I absoluting loved meeting Martha Dung, a venture-capital genius and an amazing addition to the British inheritance drama.

The girl next door, Eden Tong, is a doctor and daughter of a doctor. The Greshams are, naturally, so wildly rich that a mere doctor isn’t on their level. She’s basically the daughter of the servants. Eden has — of course — a  perfect heart of gold, working as a busy NHS doctor, with concerns for the working classes.  (Yes, it’s a bit much but that’s kind of the book’s vibe.) Eden was perfect and pretty and understanding through the whole book. I simultaneously understood completely why Rufus loved her, and I didn’t understand why she wanted to be friends with Augie and Bea at all.

In all the frothy lifestyle fun and tea-spilling drama of Lies and Weddings, though, there’s a thoughtful element, too. A few times, Eden is mistaken for the maid or for an assistant, and although no one specifically says they assumed she was staff because she’s Chinese, it’s still there. There are sharp observations about class and expectations throughout the novel.

Lies and Weddings is such a fun read, with page-turning pacing. First, there’s an ultrarich, ultra-dramatic teaser scene, but the novel basically opens with a glamorous wedding, where the Greshams’ oldest daughter is marrying a title and the wealth behind it. The book also closes with a glamorous wedding, and without spoilers, there’s a nice symmetry between the two weddings, the two brides, two grooms, the money,  the expectations, etc. In between, the whole novel skims between gossipy intrigue and a British inheritance drama, straight out of reading list of classic British manners novels that Corinna Ko-Tung recommends to social-climbing Kitty Pong.  Huge wealth, huge losses, secret paternity, and a mysterious pregnancy test are all key to the plot, with plenty of time for beautiful settings, tempting food and high fashion, in that fantastic Kevin Kwan way.

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What You Are Looking for is in the Library

What You Are Looking for is in the Library, by Michiko Aoyama, and translated by Alison Watts, is a book of sweet and gentle interlocking short stories around a library where the reading recommendations are always just what each reader needed to find. This book has the overall vibe of the gentle healing of Before The Coffee Gets Cold, but with a magical realism hint, instead of full-on time-travel fiction. It has all the quiet warmth and gentle realizations of a good Maeve Binchy novel, too.

The basic Hatori Community House offers everyday resources like computer classes and meeting rooms for locals. The librarian, Sayuri Komachi, gives personal reading recommendations and a charming felted bonus gift to patrons. These readers might think they’re just looking for a regular how-to book about playing Go or building a website, but these special recommended books have a little bit extra, opening new perspectives for the readers.

Each story is about a person feeling disappointed in their life. We first meet a twentysomething retail worker, who’s proud of making it to a job “in fashion” in the big city, but also wonders if the repetitive, lonely work is all there is for her. When she visits the library to learn more about computers and maybe improve her career prospects, she also checks out an old favorite children’s book, which starts to unlocks new ideas, new perspectives, and new habits for her. It’s a charming and gentle transformation, without any insta-makeover or too-easy conclusions.

So I read What You Are Looking for is in the Library at exactly the right time for me (but honestly, aren’t we always learning to better cope with setbacks?) and as I was reading, I could sort of feel that this book is about to be big. It’s very easy to read, with a warm, gentle atmosphere in each short story. The stories have positive resolutions, but not overwhelmingly so, so there’s a wonderfully relatable feeling, as if the same kind of hopeful, warm perspective is just a book away for all of us.

Another visitor to the library has a private dream of opening an antique store, and being surrounded by beautiful treasures all day, but fears leaving his stable, unexciting job for a completely new venture. An unemployed and lonely young man faces the deeply relatable situation of being creative and skilled enough to get into art school, but not skilled enough to land the great jobs his classmates got after graduation.  New mother Natsumi has lost her career path and her free time when her daughter was born, and she tries to make sense of being the default parent for a thousand tiny concerns, and finding her once-meaningful work on the mommytrack. And after these stories of work and identity, a newly retired man wonders what his life and identity will be without his career at the center.

Without too much of a spoiler, I have to say that I loved one character’s path to a new career. In fiction, we often find a great new job opportunity, and the deadline to apply is almost here! Then the character takes the risks and goes for it and of course they get it, right? So I particularly liked that even with the magical realism of the library, our character didn’t automatically get the first job she applied to.

What You Are Looking for is in the Library is short and spare, with more implied than shown directly to readers. With these short, interconnected stories, the book introduces us to complicated and relatable characters, and shows them struggling to find contentment and fulfillment. There is also a theme of being kind to others, of being a good friend or a loving parent or child. This is a warm and encouraging book for any reader.

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In Motion

Part 1

A few weeks ago, I strained my back moving furniture, and man, if you ever want to set off a midlife crisis, hurt yourself doing something completely ordinary, so you have to spend the next couple days lying perfectly still on a heating pad and thinking about your own mortality.

I’m trying to exercise more to keep this from happening again, but you guys, there is so much garbage weight loss culture in all exercise/fitness activities. The exercise I want is “do this to stay mobile in 30-40 years” and “train over the winter for longer hikes next summer” and I simply DGAF about fitting into a different size or about my calories burned. I deeply resent that messages to look better and different appear everywhere. I don’t think this is encouraging — it makes me angry when my fitness apps or exercise videos try to encourage me by talking about weight and calories.

What I really want is a gamified fitness app, where I get points for logging in every day, or for doing a longer workout or a harder stretch, but the points are gems for cute game stuff.  It shouldn’t say calories anywhere. I think lots of people would want that app.

Also, I don’t want any of this fitspo encouragement to work harder or push myself. I want it to say good job after every thing, and include a “wtf, you are 40 and you’re gonna throw your back out again” popup when needed.

Part 2

I found this dance game app called Starri, it’s a rhythm game, a bit like Dance Dance Revolution, but without the dance pad. When you complete songs well, you slowly accumulate points and then you unlock new songs with your points. The app does estimate your calories burned, and there is a daily gem challenge to burn 10 calories dancing, but it doesn’t have any weightloss talk or diet encouragement, and I think 10 calories is pretty reasonable. The app is much more focused on getting a perfect score and unlocking new songs.

It’s really close to what I wanted, but doesn’t have a “wtf you are 40, mind your back” popup, and you’ll never guess happened next.

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The Impossible Fortress 

Jason Rekulak’s The Impossible Fortress is full of fun ’80s game-programming nostalgia, but that’s not the only reason to read it. This world of mix tapes and floppy disks definitely unlocks retro memories, but the overall story is fresh and original, with YA vibes.

In the late 1980s, teenage Billy and his two best friends, Alf and Clark, spend time at Billy’s while his mom is out working, the three friends rent movies to re-watch the sexy scenes and having meander debates about who would win in hypothetical fights. I felt like I definitely went to school with these guys.

In the 80s, in their working-class neighborhood, a computer is an extremely rare find, but Billy’s mom won one in a raffle so Billy has access to a Commodore 64. He starts making his own simple games, despite being a pretty mediocre student. When he has the interest, Billy has the brainpower, and the rest of the book is sort of a YA story about how he’s going to use his brains and what kind of person he’s going to become.

At the same time, Billy, Alf and Clark have come up with a scheme that will make them popular and earn them cash. They plan to steal and photocopy a Playboy, and sell copies to all the guys at school. All they need to do it get their hands on the first copy, but obviously there’s no online shopping (or there would be, ahem, other online activities and no need to steal the magazine) and the proprietor of the town’s newsstand is definitely not going to sell Playboy to kids. There’s a heist element in this novel that’s pretty far-fetched, but plays into the overall theme of how Billy’s going to use his brain.

I went into this one on a friend’s recommendation (Thanks, Jerry!) so I knew it was going to be a retro story with an interesting girl game programmer from the start. Even knowing that Mary wasn’t going to be a booth babe character or the token programming girl in a guy’s story, I still wasn’t prepared for Mary’s storyline.

I loved the YA elements, as Billy’s life changes from his usual hanging around with Alf and Clark, to programming with Mary after school. How his mom really believes Billy can do better in school, but in the anti-helicopter way of the 1980s, she’s at work most of the time and just sees his quarterly report cards. There’s a distinct young adult vibe, as Billy faces a major question of who he’s going to be, which mixes so well with the retro programming vibes.

Overall, The Impossible Fortress is a wonderful nostalgic look at early programming and early PC games of the1980s, but that’s not the whole reason to read it.  This is a coming-of-age adventure, with relatable, memorable teenagers and unexpected turns.

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Trolls Aren’t Like The Rest of Us / Ex-Twitter

Without even realizing it, many internet users mistakenly assume that cyberattackers follow conventional rules of behavior. People try to reason with trolls or appeal to their better nature. These responses are similar to how you might approach a friend who’s inadvertently insulted you, or a family member who disagrees with you about something important. But trolls are not like your loved ones, and research shows that these strategies are ineffective because they misapprehend a troll’s true motives, which are usually to attract attention, exercise control, and manipulate others.

Many people who engage in online harassment are not what most of us would consider to be well-adjusted. In 2019, scholars writing in the journal Personality and Individual Differences surveyed 26 studies of internet “trolling,” cyberbullying, and related antisocial online behaviors. They found significant associations with psychopathy, Machiavellianism, sadism, and narcissism, in that order. In other words, just as you would conclude that a stranger attacking you in person is badly damaged, you can conclude the same about a stranger attacking you on social media.

Source: How to Deal With Trolls by Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic

I usually enjoy Brooks’ column. Sure, there are some offnotes when it’s too clear that author’s job is to think about happiness, and he doesn’t quite realize how goofy his suggestions are for anyone in the working classes.  But usually, each article presents a way to think about what we choose in our lives, and often about the gap between what seems like happiness and what’s actual contentment.

This article, all about trolls and why there’s no way to resolve with bad-faith hostility, is a particularly good one. I’ve thought about it a lot of times since I first read it. As Twitter becomes a trash fire, with not just endless sockpuppet attacks but actual cash prizes for outrage engagement on the worst, most hostile takes possible, I’m thinking about it again.

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Imagine Sisyphus Happy

So I feel ridiculous complaining about this apartment in any way, because we’ve wanted to own something for ages, and it’s been a long, excessively stressful process to save, and then a long, excessively boring process to get a mortgage. The pedantic tedium of financial paperwork and approvals, interspersed with wild anxiety of accounting and justifying freelancing income.

But the thing is, if you get a pretty good deal on an apartment because it’s a fixer-upper, you then have to fix it up. No major or structural issues, just years of cheap repairs and decor. (The pedantic tedium and wild anxiety of inspections, too.)

We must imagine Sisyphus happy, in the repetitive absurdity of painting and repainting, in the constant discovery of something else that’s just a little bit broken, too. In choosing, repairing, and installing, with the associated decision paralysis. We must imagine Sisyphus happy, in the absurd and constant awareness that I’m not doing a great job at any of this, but it is happening.

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