jmac

jmac, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago) to random

Couple of days ago I discovered, to my delight, that I could practice piano while watching entertaining but undemanding television. (In this case, "Silo" on Apple.)

I used to watch lots of TV while drawing, back when I drew a lot. But when I got more into programming, and then writing, I had to turn off the tube; incoming language interferes with my ability to focus on writing or coding.

I have really missed having a hobby that’s right-brain enough to pass the TV test!

jmac, 8 months ago to random

I hope to write in more detail about today's events soon enough, but for now, I wish to publicly express my gratitude for modern medicine and the civilization that makes it possible. I continue to state without flinching that I would rather be alive right now than at any time in the past.

Executive summary: I'm OK! A routine procedure last year led to a yearful of non-routine procedures, and they're all done now! Bonus: finally got my first tattoo, and it’s on the inside of my large intestine!

jmac, 4 months ago to scifi

Watched "2010" with friends on Friday night. A favorite that I saw a bunch of times as a kid—well before I saw "2001" for the first time, so I had nothing to get angry at.

Honestly, considered on its own merits, it's a solid #SciFi film of the era. I have really only a single problem with it, in that the "Oh no, the Cold War is spinning out of control” tension gets resolved through way too long of a leap. Alarming celestial event -> ??? -> World peace! It wanted a little more bridging. #Movies

jmac, 6 months ago to random

I’m back to really wanting proper quote-toots here

jmac, 4 months ago to Steamdeck

I like this @zarfeblong post, with an honest review of his #SteamDeck experience. https://blog.zarfhome.com/2024/01/the-spirit-of-new-devices

I love my Deck, and I wonder how much of that is because—unlike Zarf—I have never owned a gaming PC. So the Steam Deck fills that niche delightfully, with a size and shape that are much more attractive to me than a desk-squatting box.

I did buy a deck-dock for my home office, on the notion that I might like to use it with a full KVM set-up sometime. It works, but I never use it. No need!

jmac, 4 months ago to random

Amy just finished a sentence with “high school” while I was leaving the room and I whirled around and said “TV / VCR repair.” She stared at me blankly. “Bookkeeping!” I shouted.

Of course I was way off-base; “Computer programming” comes next, as the source materials tell us https://youtu.be/fBuV_7X8mI4?feature=shared

jmac, 5 months ago to Budapest

Toured the Zwack distillery in #Budapest, home of the punishingly “medicinal” Unicum. I had never heard of it before! Unicum can’t be sold in the U.S. because its Hungarian crafters refuse to divulge its ingredients, as a point of familial and national pride.

We tasted some. It is… startling. We bought two bottles.

A long hallways lined with large wooden barrels for aging liquor, receding into the shadowy distance.
An old print ad for Unicum, showing a man apparently adrift in the middle of the sea, his hair and beard sopping wet as if he’s just surfaced. He is looking at a bottle of Unicum floating by with an expression of absolute mania, grinning and wide-eyed.
A photo-booth photo showing jmac and Amy posing with the wild-eyed swimming man from the old print ad. He is wearing a party hat now, and the floating bottle says “Happy New Year!” The photo is captioned “Greetings from the House of Unicum!”

jmac, 5 months ago to random

I finally played Undertale (2015) during that vacation. It is, in fact, pretty great. I went in knowing nothing about it other than all the skeleton-guy and goat-lady fanart that was, for a while, unavoidable.

I have some quibbles with it, but did quite enjoy the lightweight narrative-puzzle combat, which existed in exactly the right amount over an eight-hour game. Laughed out loud a bunch of times.

Playing EarthBound and then Undertale for the first time in the same year was something else.

jmac, 4 months ago to random

Writing some #Perl for the first time in years.

This is where I am:

• Mojolicious, subroutine signatures, and “->@*" deferencing syntax: ✅

• Honey, no, it's “\n”, not “/n”: ❌

jmac, 9 months ago to random

Whoah, I've been a fan of @dasharez0ne for longer than I realized. Digging through my random-saved-images folder looking for something else, and was surprised to stumble across this one I grabbed in March 2018.

It must have been among the first of “Admin’s” oeuvre that I had ever encountered, and I downloaded it because it is amazing.

jmac, 5 months ago to VideoGames

Really enjoying Cobalt Core!

It’s 80% a Slay the Spire clone, with an adjustable difficulty that’s more my speed—"Normal" is fairly easy, and you heat it up from there.

It has an interesting take on Spire’s use of classes. There are still characters represented by unique decks, but you start each run with a “crew” of three characters, who shuffle their cards together. Artifacts often affect specific decks, leading to some surprising interactions.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2179850/Cobalt_Core/ #VideoGames #SteamDeck

jmac, 10 months ago to random

I just finished Daniel Stelzer's forum-based Let's Play of Jigsaw (1995). Ah, marvelous!

https://intfiction.org/t/lets-play-jigsaw/59520

I can't get over how jewel-rare it still feels: an adventure game with romance at its heart, but not a dating sim or something else so mechanical.

We are told, before the first move, that the protagonist is smitten at first sight of the antagonist. White has both subjective and objective reasons to pursue mischievous Black. That sounds so arbitrary, but it works so well! I love it.

jmac, 4 months ago to random

Best-case plain cheesecake and best-case vanilla ice cream should taste and feel very similar, yeah?

jmac, 6 months ago to books

Wrote a bit about Vajra Chandrasekera’s “The Saint of Bright Doors”, a new fantasy novel that I liked very much: https://fogknife.com/2023-12-02-i-read-the-saint-of-bright-doors.html #Books #Bookstodon #Fantasy

jmac, 9 months ago to StarTrek

Rolling my eyes at “Previously on #StarTrek Strange New Worlds: GORN GORN GORN. Haha, anyway let’s see what's happening on this idyllic planet with the captain’s gf on it.”

jmac, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to random

MS Word and Ms. Pac-Man:

jmac, 9 months ago to scifi

I am watching SCANNERS (1981) and the idea of a telepath being able to mind-read or mentally attack computers exactly the same as people is absolutely delightful, and makes no less realistic sense. #SciFi #Movies

jmac, 7 months ago to random

I don’t think I’ve had full internet-enabled WiFi on a flight in five or more years, actually. Whee! Hello from Flight Level 320, somewhere east of Knoxville.

jmac, 10 months ago to random

"The Model" is a middling member of the #Kraftwerk katalog. It also may be the only such song with a lyrical payload containing more than eight words, and so it's the one I'm unconsciously singing the most since last week's show, to my profound mortification.

Ein, zwei, drei, vier. BOWM-BOWM. Bowm bowm bowm bowm, bowm-bowm.

jmac, 7 months ago to NewOrleans

Leaving #NewOrleans this evening, after a full week disconnected from my day-job, and with no agenda other than slowly marinating in the cultural remoulade.

I love this city's attitude, its people, and its food. "I could live here”, I say to Amy, who rolls her eyes because I say that about almost* every city we've visited.

My last visit here was ten years ago. Lord willing I'll see it a third time. ⚜️

jmac, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to random

A prank that one kid plays on other kids by starting to slide down a tube-slide, then turning sideways and making a sort of cork with their body. Unwitting kids following them down collide inside the tube, and proceed to pile up within the suffocating plastic. See how many kids you can trap in the tube before it gives way, or a grown-up notices! #Poll

jmac, 7 months ago to random

A thing happened in this flight I don’t recall experiencing before, and have no explanation for:

A sound like a door slamming forcefully came from an uncertain direction, and then a puff of air flew down the passenger cabin. It ruffled my hair.

Eh?

(This was like ten minutes ago.)

jmac, 10 months ago to nyc

My first #NYC summer on Mastodon means I get to share this advice anew:

During hot days, when your subway pulls up and you have a couple of cars to choose from, always choose the more crowded car—especially if one of the cars seems suspiciously uncrowded.

It's unintuitive, so you'll forget this occasionally. You'll realize your mistake either on your first inhale, or as soon as you grip a metal pole.

jmac, 10 months ago to VideoGames

It's almost time for @dougo and I to play THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL, the first game in @rcveeder's THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL series of highly acclaimed text adventures. I don't know anything about them or what's going to happen! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxcIBsthPjQ #InteractiveFiction #VideoGames

jmac, 6 months ago to random

A videogame date got postponed, so I sunk an hour into migrating my Twitter follows into Bluesky; wheeled 77 accounts over, in total.

https://bsky.app/profile/jmacdotorg.bsky.social, but I don't plan on using it except as a thing to look at every now and again. I have to admit it's nice seeing certain voices again.

I can't blame anyone who just wants Twitter Again. Mastodon isn't that, can't be, and shouldn't be.