Well, I got a bit closer this time. I unpacked all the seder gear that had been sitting in my closet since last year (and before that had been sitting there since 2003). I actually set up the seder table (which was my gaming table, of course): I won't go into the details as I did last…
Every once in a while, I wonder if I'm overreacting to the whole "potential for long COVID" thing by continuing my strong isolation. My primary-care physician definitely thinks I am. Then I see this: I watched Physics Girl on YouTube. Even though I'm a physicist, Dianna Cowern often asked questions that challenged me. I usually learned something…
This is a description of a game topper from GameToppersLLC. It's not meant as a review per se, but a tale of my experience. TL;DR: The Watson Game Topper is a great product, but I wish I'd spent more time thinking about its physical properties: size, weight, etc. Tables and toppers I'll start by stating the obvious:…
I'm clearing out a closet. It was filled with all sorts of old camping gear. The most recent is about ten years old. I have some distant dream of attending Free Spirit Gathering again. But it's been years, I don't know how long it will be before pandemic safety issues don't dominate my lifestyle, and I need…
I dreamed about the NY Ren Faire again last night. To be sure, this wasn't the first time. I've dreamt about Faire periodically in the years since I left it. What's interesting to me is that my "mental map" of the Ren Faire in my dreams has slowly changed over the years. The layout changes: a new…
As a celebration of my streak of 800 days of learning Klingon, I've updated an earlier post I wrote on my two-year anniversary of daily Klingon lessons. The update includes a nice video about the language. I've also corrected a few errors. It may be the sort of thing that no one will notice, but knowing that…
Awhile back I wrote a review of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. I liked the game, though I felt it had its flaws. Since that review, I've played other games, at least one of which (Ghost of Tsushima) was better than AC:V. Yet, in the long run, it was Assassin's Creed: Valhalla to which I kept returning. Part of…
About two years ago I wrote a series of posts on why I didn't want to upgrade the operating system on my 27-inch iMac. You've guessed it: I had to upgrade last October. That 2013 iMac was showing increasing problems, and there were software incompatibility issues that become too much to overlook. In this post, I'll review…
This is a review of Return to Monkey Island from someone who never played the original games in the Monkey Island series. The TL;DR version: My apologies to the Monkey Island fans out there, but I don't understand what the fuss is about. While I enjoy the occasional hunt-n-click game, such as the various Telltale games, I'm…
As many of my friends know, my mother passed away about two weeks ago. My father passed away just a little over a year earlier. My brother pointed out to me several ironies in connection with their deaths: Both of them had lived in homes they were comfortable in, but were forced to move to assisted living…