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Guilty Pleasures of Which I Should be Ashamed But Am Not

I have had fun reading a few LitrPG books a week (a fair percentage—maybe ~30%?—of the 10 or so books I read in a week are from this relatively new genre). The big appeal if getting inside thee heads of the writers, since almost all of them fall into a demographic that I have had little exposure to. *heh* Lil sidebar: this Olde Pharte surprised a fast food worker when I recognized his GamerSpeak™ and simply looked at him and said, “Gamer, eh?”

Oh, and filed under “Guilty Pleasures of Which I Should be Ashamed But Am Not,” I spend at least 25% of my time in the average LitRPG book marking it up with comments on errors. Almost universal crap editing of not-ready-for-publication writing. Yeh, yeh, I couldn’t write these things, but I can critique ’em. Shameful. . . that I’m not more ashamed of that than I am (which would be ANY shame at all. 😉 )

Well, it’s a hobby.

My fav of the LitRPG self-pubs are those from native Russian speakers/writers, even though the translations are sometimes a bit. . . rough. eh, maybe even a wee tad because the translations are sometimes a bit rough. English idioms and syntax are the most common problems. Still, even though the demographic the writer pool is drawn from may not be that of the average contemporary Russian people (well, not any more than US RPG gamers/writers are typical of the average American. . . though sometimes it seems they share a lot of common ground with typical 23-30-somethings. Sometimes), I still am able to get a feel for deep-seated psycho-sociological traits, and that is fascinating. What is even more fascinating, is that the attitudes of the Russian LitRPG writers, though less literate than 19th Century Russian authors (still more literate than most 21st Century American writers, IMO) are fairly consistent with earlier writers. Fascinating.

One thing that annoys me about roughly, well, almost all LitRPG writers is that they seem to have knowledge bases almost completely circumscribed by what they learned from gaming, thus, for but one recent example, a character “destroying” a bioweapons research center with a large ANFO bomb. No. In order to INCINERATE biological materials, and ANFO explosion must be VERY carefully designed and executed (and no, I will not discuss the construction and execution of such a thing. The NSA is listening, you know, and I do not want to be unjustly persecuted by the feds), and given the description in the book, the character had NO idea what he was doing even with a basic ANFO device. Ah, but maybe the writer feared his own government, so that might not be thee best example. ‘S’all right. There is a myriad of others. . . *heh*

(Then again, the writer/character uses a hydrogen bomb as having analogous destructive characteristics, so maybe allowing the writer an excuse isn’t warranted.)

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Young ‘n’ Feisty

while waiting in the checkout lane at my fav “Fell off the back of a truck” store the other day, I met a young Island Lady (well, my Wonder Woman’s age—that’s young enough) who shared with me the circumstances of her birth. Yeh, I know. Complete stranger. . . for all of five seconds. *heh* She just HAD to tell me she was “born in a canoe.”

You have NO idea the level of self-control I had to exercise to bite down on the old joke.

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Gig Line

Yeh, yeh, I check my gig line, but shirt garters? *blech* Nah, one line too far. You can just go ahead and call me a messy dresser. I also don’t roll my sleeves “properly,” so?

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Birthday Boy

So, my Wonder Woman gave Aussie Lap Puppy a birthday present she had bought him (a heavy duty nylon “bone” with a beef wrapper). He gently took it from her hand, then set it on the floor and laid down just “cuddling” it for a bit. THEN. . . bit. And chewed and chewed and chewed. . .

Happy puppy. (The part where he grabbed it between his paws and rolled over on his back to enjoy it from another angle? *smh* Nutso.) 12 months old today and undergoing another wee growth spurt? Yeh, that.

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Just for Fun

One fun thing about so-called “instinctive shooting” (pointing/aiming a firearm as a simple extension of one’s hand, like pointing a finger) is practicing peripheral vision target acquisition. Oh, it’s not really a practical shooting, urm, practice, but it’s fun to acquire a target out of the corner of one’s eye, fire, and check one’s accuracy. Do note, however, that is is ESSENTIAL to determine in advance where EVERYTHING one does not want to harm is NOT accessible to one’s fire. ESSENTIAL. BEST to practice such fun stuff on a well-defined and well-regulated range, and ONLY acquire targets that are located in a safe direction as defined by the range master (if such exists).

Of course, I have only taken up “instinctive shooting” practice because of my ageing eyes—mine are uncooperative with the iron sights on handguns—making “IS” practice. . . practical. For me. Surprisingly (or perhaps not), as far as handgun practice goes, the techniques have actually seemed to markedly improve my accuracy for mid-to-short range handgun use.

Whatever. It’s fun for me. YMMV.

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“Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth”?

1 Corinthians 8-10 offers a pretty wide range of responses to “food sacrificed to idols.” Why am I thinking about this? Well, Amazon engages in a number of shady practices, but perhaps the most concerning is the way it bends the knee to Chicom interests and practices (all forms of idolatry, worshiping at the feet of Mao and his corrupt practices, as it were, corruption as evil as Mohammed’s own). For but one example, if one submits a review of a product that Chinese Communist interests object to, one can be assured of being banned from submitting any further reviews.

So, the 1 Corinthians linkage concerns? If buying from and using a product from a corrupted source offends (lead astray, cause to sin—including oneself *heh*) one who is weaker in the faith, then one should not buy/use such a product from that source. If buying an otherwise useful product from a corrupt source does NOT offend one who is weaker in the faith, then it’s OK.

So, I bought a new, compact Bible that will fit nicely in my ADC vest to sub in for the miniature New Testament I carry in my shirt pocket. . . from Amazon. ¯\_(?)_/¯ Beats driving 80 miles round trip to a bookstore in a dying mall to buy the same product.

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The Dark Ages

While I was quite aware of most of the drawbacks to eliminating our POTS line and relying only on cell phone service, most of the cons were actually moved to the already fairly full “pro” column when we decided to make the move. *heh* However. . . although service outages were still counted as possibilities in the “con” list, I did not rate that as very likely. Perhaps I should have. Cell outage simultaneously combined with dead Internet service: even less likely.

But here I am on a rainy morning with both, simultaneously. Naturally. Oh, well. It’s not as if I am without plenty of other things to occupy my time, eh? 😉

I’ll file this somewhere live when The Dark Ages end.

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*grumble-grumble-gripe-complain*

Been raining too much. (Yeh, flood warnings, but I don’t much care there. Can’t do anything about it, so. . .) EVERY time I have had a chance to mow (dried out enough). . . more rain. ended up with much of the lawn 10” high. Today? Brief window, giving Master Curmudgeon Emeritus, Bovine Scatology University, an opportunity to go off on mower ergonomics. Front yard: relatively small (~1/6 acre, IOW, pretty darned small), so gas push mower (because height is beyond what my very comfortable to use reel mower can manage). NATURALLY, the handle CANNOT be positioned at a comfortable level for use, so decades-long gripes from my back, knees (especially worst one), ankle and hip are all screaming at me to use a rider for such a small patch. Nope. Not with that hill on the north side, bubba. (Ways around the problem involve trespass. *heh*)

Oh, well. On break, now. I hope it doesn’t sttart raining before I get this wee patch finished.

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Founding Principles

Not of the United States. No, the founding principles of the Democratic Party: envy and greed, resulting in covetousness, resulting in the Democratic Party’s first “great work,” the Trail of Tears.

The current Dhimmi-craps have advanced, though. Now, in addition to envy and greed, they have embraced misery. The party creates misery and inflicts it on its constituency. . .with the aid of that constituency, knowing full well the tendency for misery to love company. . . and that the only thing misery loves more than company is creating more misery for others who are not yet among their miserable number.

Easy to rile people up when they are consumed with envy, greed, and misery of their own creation.