November Hodgepodge or… Cornucopia?
It feels like a lot’s gone on since I last wrote something here but it also feels like nothing’s happened. I think that’s just the post-effects of the pandemic. Every day is just the next day, and while there might be highs and lows, for the most part things just… are.
Regardless, I did want to catch up a bit, so this may be a series of disjointed thoughts and musings, let’s go!
General Post-Election Feelings
So… that happened. Again. You want to say it’s unbelievable, but the day to day reality shows that it very much isn’t or wasn’t. At some point you have to accept that this is what’s what, and then plan to confront it. The stats are the stats. And it’s exhausting living your life feeling like you need to always watch your back.
But as I was telling a friend, when people want to use The X-Men and mutants as an allegory for marginalized groups… it would be a lot easier to deal with “a world that hates and fears us” if we had superpowers.
Brunch
This one sort of relates to the last one because it’s just sort of lost its magic for me. Brunch was always a bit of a treat to myself. Being able to carve out a little bit of time on a Saturday or Sunday, read a book, have a nice meal and get nicely buzzed on bottomless cocktails.
Not only are the vibes just off, but since the pandemic, the prices are up and service has gotten weird. I won’t say worse, because that’s not it. But it feels like less places are engaging in what used to be the spirit of DC Brunch. Bottomless service still exists, but it’s usually time-locked to 90-120 minutes. Prices have definitely risen, additional service charges have appeared, and y’know, maybe it’s just me that’s changed the most. In that I’ve reached my limits on what’s acceptable and fun for me vs. feeling like a costly trip instead of a nice treat.
Dragon Age
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is now out and the cool thing is that I was on the playtesting community council for the game. Not that we had a huge impact on programming, narrative direction, or anything, but our feedback was valued, and we got hands-on time with the game as it continued development through to launch.
My tongue-in-cheek comment about it is, “Anything you like, I had something to do with. Anything you don’t like… that was someone else.”
And one of the coolest things about it: I have a video game credit! I’m also streaming the game on the weekends, though at roughly 60-70 hours to get through the story, it may be a while until I’m done.
PAX Unplugged
I’ll be at PAX Unplugged 2024 in just a few weeks, and this year is my lightest in a few years. I’ve got just the one panel going on, and not that many meetings or appointments scheduled, so it’s going to be a lot of catching up with friends and enjoying a weekend visit in Philadelphia.
I’ve had some thoughts about this year being a lighter load than usual, and how I feel a little like my “time in the TTRPG spotlight” has sort of passed because the show that I was on wrapped our series finale. And it feels like the way to stay in viewers’ minds is to never stop making your show. Unfortunately, ours was no longer backed by a sponsor, we used crowdfunding to complete the series and now that it’s done… it’s done.
Maybe down the road we can plan for a Rivals of Waterdeep Reunion (or Retrospective), but that’s for a future day.
Social Media
I’m once again having to migrate and learn a new social media website. This time it’s not so bad because Bluesky is already so similar to X-formerly-known-as-Twitter.
But like many things, just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it isn’t also exhausting. I was able to use Sky Follower Bridge to track down and sync accounts (for better or worse), so I’m doing my best to make the transition seamless.
It just doesn’t address the issues of “starting over” in a new place. One that doesn’t have an algorithm to suppress posts, yay! But also one that doesn’t have an algorithm to boost posts, either, boo!
However, it’s still better than being on X. I probably won’t delete my account or my tweets–even though I know they’ll probably be used for gen-AI scraping. But frankly, I’ve had a public website for decades. I’m pretty sure there’s already a “write me a post in the style of this urbanbohemian blog that nobody reads” GPT out there somewhere.
But I will be posting a lot less over there and I think John Paul Brammer sums it up really well for most of us in his recent ¡Hola Papi! post.
“…the truth is that, small and petty as it sounds, I’m leaving X because Elon Musk is an annoying dweeb, and I simply find X too tacky to continue with.”
I’m still posting my daily walk videos on the short video sites. I recently hit 1,000 TikTok followers which I’m told is a good thing. All I noticed so far is that I can put my URL on my profile page. Yay.
And if you’re here, you’ll already know that the best way to figure out what my handle is on most of the sites is to hit up my contact page.
In Conclusion…
That’s it, really. I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving and the feel of winter settling over DC as we head towards the new year. I’m trying hard not to think about what January will bring, but that’s 2-months-from-now’s problem. Making it through, one day at a time, is the perpetual plan, and that’s all I got. 💖
