The Little Room

Somehow I’m writing another one of these on a Monday afternoon, post-massage. My masseuse is always booked well in advance, but I saw one pop up today and booked it even though I just had a massage two weeks ago. I also have the afternoon off. I started taking off from work on days I have massages or other health related appointments as a little extra stress-free time.

This week I spent a lot of my free time catching up on my comics backlog. I’m all caught up on Doctor Strange and Black Cat, and I’ve started chipping away at nearly two years of Green Lantern. I removed the Doctor Strange comic from my pull list, mostly because the art wasn’t working for me. Sometimes a good story can get me art I don’t like (and vice-versa) but in this case neither were really working for me.

I’m also still working my way through “The Lord of the Rings” and have started reading “The Two Towers”. I’m reading along with the Shelved by Genre podcast, and they post an episode every two weeks. I’ve got a system where I do the LOTR reading in the days leading up to the new episode and read other things during the off weeks. It’s working so far.

I’ve been playing two different fighting games, one old, one brand new: “Guilty Gear: Strive” (GGST) and “Invincible VS”. I actually managed to rank up in GGST for the first time ever. It was just a promotion from the lowest tier to the next, but still. I can tell I’m learning and improving. Now when I lose I generally know why. My next steps are to add some more moves to the minimal combos I’ve been doing to up my damage output.

I had a moment while playing “Strive” last week where something finally clicked last week, and that’s one of my favorite things in video games, especially competitive games like fighters or shooters. What I realized is that fighting games are a lot like football: if you want to pass sometimes you have to run. Meaning you have to keep your opponent guessing else you become predictable. In a fighting game that’s known as a “mix-up”. It means starting your attack string similarly each time, but ending it differently. That way you keep your opponent guessing.

I’ve kept up my Peloton streak for another week. I managed three rides and mixed in some meditation and stretching like usual. I did get a notice that my average power has fallen by 10% over the last 14 days. That means I haven’t been doing as many “tougher” workouts as I’d like. I’ve been doing low intensity rides and endurance rides. This week I’ll get back in to full Power Zone rides or some HIIT rides instead. I’d also like to work in at least one body weight strength class.

Things I enjoyed this week

• We celebrated Sadie’s birthday by visiting Marc Heu Pâtisserie Paris. We had a carrot-cake croissant donut which was absolutely scrummy!
• An old friend came to town and we took her to dinner at Chimbarazo, an Ecuadorian restuarant. The food and company were great. I definitely want to go back and try the llapingachos.
• I’m cheating a bit with this one since I meant to share it last week and forgot, but Austin Walker, one of my favorite voices in gaming, joined one of my other favorite voices in gaming, Jeff Gerstmann, on Jeff’s podcast. They talked about Bungie’s Marathon, and Austin’s new TTRPG “Realis” which fully funded on Kickstarter a few days ago.

It’s a dreary Sunday evening. It’s been a dreary weekend. Here in Minneapolis it hardly ever rains though. We get the gray skies and drizzle, but not real rain. Not the gully-washers I crave. The world is turning green again. The buds are coming in on our Magnolia tree, and our Pigsqueak is blooming—though the rabbits ate most of their flowers. My allergies are also in full swing.

We saw Maria Bamford last night, who I believe is one of our greatest comics. It’s hard to explain why I believe that, but it’s something to do with her combination of raw honesty and absolute silliness. It’s dark humor, which is my favorite kind, but it’s also just zany. Her special “The Special Special Special!, which she filmed in her own living room with an audience consisting entirely of her parents remains one of my all time favorites.

I did manage to get a board game to the table this week. Okay it was this morning, but that counts. I’ve begun to wonder if I actually like some of things I claim to like—board games being one of them. I read about them, I buy them, I sleeve the cards and organize their components, but I don’t end up playing them all that often. I’ve even gravitated towards solo games to remove the friction of having to find someone to play with, and even still, my default things to do with any free time are reading a book or playing a video game.

As another example, I collect comics. Well, I don’t know about collect, but I buy them, read them, bag and board them and put them in a fancy wooden box I bought for that purpose. I got back in to buying physical comics about two years ago when I was regularly visiting a gaming store that also sells comics. I collected them when I was in high school, but stopped reading comics entirely for something like 20 years, and when I started again it was mostly digital and the occasional trade.

Anyway, I now subscribe to a few monthly issues that show up in the mail and now I’ve accumulated quite the stack of unread comics. Like, I have at least a year and half of one series sitting in a pile unread, and a bunch of issues of three or four other series in that same pile. (This is a common theme for me: I have issues of the New York Review of Books sitting on my coffee table from 2024. I’ll read them eventually!) I’m in between books right now, so this weekend I’ve been chipping away at my comics backlog.

All that to say, I’ve really been questioning if I actually like all of these things or am I putting on all these nerd trappings for some other reason? If I enjoyed them I’d make time for them right? Or is it a friction problem? Is it an ADHD problem? More to come on this I guess. I don’t have an answer.

I got in my three rides this week. I did a Power Zone ride for the first time in awhile and it really got my heart going. I’m going to need to do a few of those next week. I also tried a new-to-me type of class called sprint interval training where the goal is high speed (high cadence, high resistance) for short bursts. It’s a variation of HIIT I suppose. The rest of the days were a combination of stretches and meditation as usual.

The sun is setting and slipping below the clouds now. We’ll get a few hours of sun as the day winds down.

Things I enjoyed this week

• I finished the first book of “The Lord Of the Rings” and re-watched the first movie for the first time since seeing it in the theaters during its original run. I enjoyed it back then, and I enjoyed it the second time, even with the book fresh in my mind.
• I made this red lentil and sweet potato curry this week which was delicious. I made it slightly too spicy because I used a brand of curry paste I hadn’t used before, but it still turned out great. It’s too spicy for my wife to eat, so I’ll be having the leftovers for lunch, and I froze some for later.

I’m writing this one on a sunny Monday evening. I’m post-massage and took a half day off work, using some of my sick and safety leave. I started getting semi-regular massages about a year ago. It’s an indulgence, but my mind and body really do appreciate them.

I finished “Sour Cherry” by Natalia Theodoridou last night. It was a re-telling or re-imagining of the Bluebeard fairy tale, which I had never heard of before looking it up after one of the blurbs in the front of the book mentioned it. I enjoyed it, though at times it felt like it was being weird for weirdness sake.

I’ve found myself gravitating towards horror lately. I read a lot of horror when I was younger—mostly King and Koontz, because that’s what my mom read. I’ve been reading sci-fi, fantasy, and whatever the term for non-genre stuff is these days (literary fiction?), but I picked up some Stephen Graham Jones awhile back and enjoyed it so now I keep my eyes and ears open for mentions of horror folks are enjoying. Funnily enough, the next book on the docket is a Stephen King book. I’m going to give “Revival” a shot.

Other than that, my exercise streak is still alive, even past the 100-day mark. I’ve noticed I have a little more reluctance to ride the bike on occasion, but I’m still managing three rides a week. It’s the sunnier days and warmer temps. I just want to be outside. Especially now, when they’re nestled randomly between spates of colder days. I did some squats last night while cooking dinner trying to build the muscles, stability and flexibility for a yogi-squat. I did maybe 20 squats total, but I can feel it today.

I spent some time this week researching and planning how to get my leverless fight pad working with my PlayStation. I think fighting games deserve to be on my TV and played from the couch, rather than on a monitor at my desk. I got the cables and the adapter I thought I needed, but in the end it was a bust. I did some more research and have another adapter on the way, so hopefully better news on that front soon.

Things I enjoyed this week

• Taskmaster is back! I love this show, and this season features Kumail Najiani who is a favorite.
• Re-watching “The Big Lebowski” and discovering that Aimee Mann played one of the nihilists.

It’s 80 degrees out today, so we’ve spent some time outside getting ready for spring. We pulled the patio furniture and charcoal grill out of storage. I scrubbed the grill and even picked up supplies for spring cleaning our windows. We also walked over to a little restaurant that sells soft serve where I treated myself to a vanilla strawberry twist.

Last night we saw Madison Cunningham on the last stop of her tour for her new album “Ace”. It was incredible. She took the stage with one other band member, Jesse Chandler, and blew our minds for about two hours. Cunningham sang, played piano, and guitar, while Chandler played multiple woodwinds, synthesizers and more. They used a combination of effect pedals and loops of their live playing to create a soundscape like nothing I’ve heard. She talks a little bit about the effect pedal set up in this episode of “The Pedal Show”

At dinner before the show I said to my wife that I was curious how Cunningham would perform the songs from “Ace” which are a real departure from her previously guitar driven work. I had no idea what we were in store for. They even performed some of her older songs in the “Ace” format and it all just worked.

I hit my 100-day streak of workouts in the Peloton app this week. Unfortunately I missed the challenge deadline by 1 day. I honestly wasn’t aware the challenge had a deadline. Oh well. I’m still proud of the accomplishment and the routine, and I’ll probably just keep the streak active as long as possible with the combination of bike rides, meditation, and stretching that got me this far.

Things I enjoyed this week

• This post from Anil Dash on how corporations are actually strategizing against their employees said a lot of what I’ve been feeling at work.
• This performance by Angine de Poitrine for KEXP showed up in my feeds, and I ignored for awhile at first. However once I caved and finally watched it, I’m now a huge fan. There’s something about microtonal music that really flips a switch in my brain. I’m a King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard fan, and their microtonal albums are some of my favorite music.
• The Artemis II crew returned this week, splashing down in the Pacific around 7PM Central time. I’ve enjoyed the entire mission. It’s been a bright light in a dark time.

I’m writing this one from an auto shop on a Wednesday. I sat down to do it Sunday and just couldn’t get into it. Then life happened and here we are.

On Sunday I watched the NCAA Women’s Basketball championship, rooting for UCLA, who ultimately won. One of my favorite sports parts of the year is over. I’ll start paying more attention to the LSU Tiger’s softball and baseball teams now, as well as keeping a side-glance on the MLB season.

My Peloton streak is alive and well, and I’m in the home stretch for getting the 100-day streak badge and completing that challenge. I had to really push myself to get all three rides in last week, but I did it.

My left knee is still bothering me. I think it’s nerve related so I’ve been doing some nerve flossing exercises when I remember to. I’m not sure if the pain is related to the more intense rides I’ve been doing, but just in case I chose less intense rides this week.

In other semi-medical news I went to my barber this week, and after getting my haircut I can say with absolute certainty that the keratosis on my temple is completely gone. Even my barber was shocked.

I’ve got some ideas for an AT Proto app I want to build. I’m thinking I can take the “things I enjoyed” parts of these posts and publish that to a little AT Proto powered microblog. I’m not 100% certain something like that is possible, but it at least gives me something to explore. Ideally I could tie these to my personal PDS and have them travel with me across the Atmosphere.

Things I enjoyed this week

• This in-studio performance from Castle Rat on KEXP blew me away. The sound, the costumes, the performance. All of it is 1000% my shit.
• I have been glued to coverage of NASA’s Artemis II mission. We watched the live-stream of the launch and I’ve had the stream on in the background all week while I work. It represents, to me, the best of humanity when so much happening these days represents the worst.