Lunar Obverse - Page 4 of 276 - The bright side of a Moon

This post isn’t about that

General

I am very sleepy tonight. Not sure why I’m so tired today except of course for the disordered sleeping from the past couple of nights. I go to bed early, wake up in the middle of the night, can’t get right back to sleep, and by the time I do there’s only a few hours left until the alarm goes off. A couple of nights of that would be enough to tire out anyone, I think.

Still need to write something, so I’m relying on habit, as is my usual tactic. It’s warm in this room even though the weather has cooled a bit. The room is warm because this is where my computer sits, and my computer, being a gaming PC, produces a lot of excess heat. I am not using the extra graphics capability right now. Right now I’m typing out green words on a black background, my writing style of choice. This green-on-black reminds me of terminals, and command lines, and old old writing programs. I don’t stop to examine why I like it, I just do.

Spent most of the day wishing I could be thinking and writing D&D stuff but instead, I had to do work stuff. Boring, stressful, work stuff. Not going to talk about that now, though. I’d rather not think about it. There must be something else for me to write about?

Would it be D&D? I have to set up a WordPress site for Biscuit Con at some point. That’s D&D related. I have some really fun ideas for the next few sessions of my campaign. I can’t really post about them here because my players might see it, but let me just say that this next phase of the campaign is set in and around a druid grove. I think my players think of the druids as bad guys. I’m not going to say one way or the other. They, like all my other factions, have their goals, and what they would do to achieve those goals, and not everyone in the faction agrees on either of those points 100%. This should be a nice break, though, from fighting undead and kobolds for them. I get to use other enemies. Fun stuff.

XOXO is coming. My first volunteer shift is this coming Thursday after work. I can’t remember what I’m doing but it’ll be good to be among the techno-artists again. I have severe imposter syndrome for my own sake but I really like the hopeful, progressive, creative, and techno-focused vibe from the founders, staff, volunteers, guests, and attendees for this conference. I wrote about what it is a few days ago; go check out that post.

If you’re reading this and you’re an XOXO-ian, say hi! I think somehow I got a burst of traffic from there. This isn’t an XOXO focused post, though. I’m just fumbling my way to 500 words so I can go rest. I’m pretty close now, so perhaps you’ll forgive me if I don’t try to find a nice “button” ending. But thanks for reading. I love you all.

Duty vs. Caring

General

Had a check-in with my team lead today. They like to have one-on-one talks every couple of weeks. They ask how I’m feeling, what, if anything, I need, figure out plans for the future. We almost never focus on specific tickets or clients; our talks are more about how I feel overall about the job, about life, about goals and stuff.

It’s great. Have I said how much I really like this job? I can’t stop the anxiety brain; that anxiety is baked in after all these years, it’s not going away. I will always have that insinuating voice in the back of my head, the one that tells me I’m no good, that I’m messing up, that no one likes me. But on good days, I can tell that voice to shut the fuck up. And I am pleased to report I have been having more and more good days lately.

Despite what I said, today my team lead (let’s call them T.) started out talking about a specific call, mostly because we had just finished dealing with it. The client was upset because they thought we had been ignoring their issue today, and that their issue had been caused by a network outage that they also thought we had ignored. It was sort of a mess, and I was on the front lines, since I was the one who had to communicate with the client.

To be clear, the network outage was not something we could control, and we did, in fact, notify the client over the weekend when we got notified about the outage. The client ignored those notifications. And the other issue was… how can I talk about this without giving away company secrets? The other issue was unrelated to the network outage, as near as we can tell, was entirely the domain of a third-party service provider, and was the result of a settings change that the third-party told us was a) impossible to make and b) undocumented – there was no log or ticket for the settings change.

Someone is lying and I am reasonably sure it isn’t us. Either the client made the change, or the third-party service provider did. We will not be able to tell, but it got fixed and that’s as far as me and the company I work for should care about.

My team lead, T., however, started my one-on-one by talking about how it irked that the client was upset with us when we did all we could to fix their issue. And T. could not stop thinking about it. I absolutely saw T’s point of view. Here’s what I offered them:

I also feel a responsibility, a duty, to do my best. If I don’t feel that, for whatever reason, then I do not do things. I let things slide or ignore them. I push when I have that sense of duty.

But my sense of duty is based in rules. It’s got an algorithm. Duty means I have a process, or I can create one. Caring, on the other hand, is emotional. It’s about empathy, it’s about a connection to the issue or the people involved. Maybe we need to separate the rational duty from the emotional care. Save the emotional care for better things.

T. appreciated that, and having talked it out, we were able to move on to other, better topics. It was a good meeting.

Power Gaming Thoughts

DnD

Bear with me. This post might only be of interest to folks who are familiar with D&D Fifth Edition. If that’s you, read on. If not, tune in next time, or feel free to browse the archives for something else to read tonight. Thanks.

There are a couple of players in my D&D game who like to find loopholes in the rules. Cool, or clever, interactions where a buff from one spell can cause extra damage with another spell. If you’re not familiar with table-top role playing games (TTRPGs) that style of play is considered power gaming. You may also be familiar with the term min-maxing, which is similar but not exactly the same thing; min-maxing is building an extremely focused character, one who is exceptional at one specific thing, and minimizing any negative aspects. Both of those, however, have a bad reputation.

I have mixed feelings but I generally land on the side of, if someone enjoys that, and they’re in my game, I’m probably going to allow it, as long as it doesn’t tread on the fun of everyone else at the table.

Recently one of my players asked me, privately, about a one-sentence description of an ability they were considering for their next level up. The ability was the warlock invocation Eyes of the Runekeeper, which states that “You can read all writing.” The player, Zach, wanted to know how I would interpret that.

My honest first reaction was “ugh.” I didn’t like just the idea that I would have to consider all possible ramifications of the warlock being able to read anything written. My mind recoiled, imagining all the weird side cases and plot-destroying ways such an ability could be used. This gut reaction was unfair to the player, and honestly against my own normal feelings about play.

As we talked it out, I realized that I didn’t really care. I am not the sort to depend a plot on such a specific thing as a piece of writing being unreadable or not. I’m really not. If Zach wants his character to be able to do that, then me trying to prevent that happening is me being a killjoy. I told him if he wanted to do that, then it would turn out to be useful, because that’s what I want to do. I want my players to have cool moments like that.

Similarly the other power gamer player, Adam, approached me about the idea of rest-casting, which is using a spell to give a buff right before getting all your spell slots back after a long rest. It’s a power gamer move for sure. At first glance, though, by a strict interpretation of the rules, it’s not allowed if you read the rules as saying spellcasting breaks a long rest. When it came up, we found that rule, and it put it to bed.

5E’s rules are written in natual language and there is room for interpretation. I went looking for any official updates on that idea, and found even more vagueness. But, again, I’m inclined to allow it.

My one point of concern is that it’s hard enough to get players to use up their resources without wanting to long rest at the drop of a hat, which in turn, makes it harder to create challenging encounters for them. 5E is designed around the idea of a 5-8 encounter “adventuring day” and that’s bananas to most DMs I know.

My counter for that tendency for players to always want to be at full resources (hit points, spell slots, etc.) is to lean into story stakes and character beats. I pull away from the mechanical side of combat… but I also am a bit of a power gamer, and I like making builds and finding cool power combos in the rules. I have mixed feelings.

I told Adam I’d allow rest-casting, but I also laid out my concerns about the adventuring day and long rests. I hope I’m being fair and fun. That’s my ultimate goal.

Biscuit Con 2024 Closing Thoughts

DnD

My current D&D game started two years ago. We had our Session 0 on 18 August 2022. I had notes for a small city, some NPCs, and vague ideas of three different plots the players could involve themselves in: joining up with an army preparing for war, finding out why river pirates had turned to kidnapping, and chasing down some cultists looking for a ceremonial sword.

That first session was spent on the players choosing among several characters they had made, then a simple scenario of busting out of a brig on a pirate ship and figuring out what to do next. They decided to lay low, ran into a bear being harassed by ravens over the dead body of an elven woman, and the campaign was off to a rousing start.

Only two of those players, Vic and Shawn, stuck with the game the whole time; we’ve added three other players, Scott, Adam, and Zach; the current group has been stable for at least a year, I think. Through the entire run of the game, we have been playing online, through Discord, with the use of the Avrae bot and the help of D&D Beyond. Until now.

This Friday, we all met in person for the first time as a group. I’ve known two of my players in real life for a while; the others I have only known online. But a couple of months ago, Shawn, who lives in Arizona, mentioned he had to come to Portland for a work trip and we planned some in-person gaming.

Since Shawn, and Scott, both had to come to Portland from out of town, we decided to use one of their hotel rooms for the game. Since we had a weekend for gaming, both myself and the other DM, Vic, talked about running sessions for each of our games. We joked about sheduling, and somehow that gave it a feeling of a mini-convention, just for the six of us.

Someone said we should name it, the warlock’s imp familiar lent his name, and suddenly we had gone from arranging a game weekend to running and attending Biscuit Con 2024. We dreamt up logos with the help of AI, someone asked Google Gemini to design a badge. Biscuit, a little imp with the manic energy of a pyromaniac six year old, was an excellent mascot, along with actual biscuits (the English kind, not the American kind, because the AI did not understand we wanted fluffy dinner rolls and not hard cookies.)

The next step was putting up a domain. The site is empty, under construction, but the joke will keep going.

I have actual reservations about running an actual D&D oriented gaming convention; as an organizer I’d be managing things and not, y’know, playing D&D. But it is a fun idea to loop more people into a chaotic scheme, and if it meant I get to hang out with this loony group would be more than worth it.

Biscuit Con 2024 was a rousing success. Sorry you missed it. Stay tuned for registration information for next year. I proposed we have the goal of doubling attendance. I think we can do it.

Dragon Slayer

DnD

I hate to post something random but I’ve been playing D&D all day and did not take time out to write a post. As a way to keep my streak going, here’s a first-person account I wrote of Lord Emil Warjos describing, in ballad form, the slaying of the Scourge of the Sunset Coast, the ancient red dragon, Tountomos Perjorative, Matron of Ashes. Thanks for your patience and readership.

Eigntontrom tek’n

Dragon slayer

Bhlt qdnosh

Enchanter

Hrontomos os qdnosh

Chaos (random?) Magic

Eignontrom tek’n

Dragon slayer

Rhaad gnetos woik

Knowledge get world

ne’a Troudom woik

Order (world? land?)

Tountomos, old female red dragon. Born before the Old Empire.

First we had to get a scale and a claw and a tooth of the dragon from her lair. Many lizard folk and kobolds guarded the caverns in which she slept, and a band of cultists dogged our trail, harassing us and seeking to delay us, for what reason we knew not.

But eventually we made it past the early defenses (a pit of oil that the slightest spark or flame would set off into a raging conflagration) and obtained one each of scale, claw and tooth.

Then bargain with the elves to help them enchant a weapon to slay it. We had to do several small deeds to win the favor of the elves and their queen, since none of us were of elfin blood. But eventually we began the process of enchanting the weapon. The final stages had to be done on the grounds of the old elven fortress. We explored the ruins and found that there was, at one time, underground passages, but they had all been collapsed and impassable. When Anansegr the Elven wizardess began the final ritual, an army of undead skeletons and zombies appeared and attacked her; we fought them long enough to complete the ritual.

We ended up with a single arrow of slaying. We protected it from the kobolds and lizard folk in the dragon’s thrall and carried it past the dragons defenses once again

We ventured back into the mountains, ran afoul of the dwarves there, escaped, and crossed into the dragons domain. We were attacked again by the cultists, and captured one of their number, a woman. Ilbhaan questioned her, trying to find out what the cultists were up to. She struck me as insane, babbling on about how magic was going to doom us all, and how much better off we would be without it. Her words struck deep into Ilbhaan. He spent much time in conversation with her. Eventually, he convinced her to help us slay the dragon. She was eager for its demise, but wary of Ilbhaan’s magic.

Once again past the dragon’s defenses, deeper, until we found the sleeping chamber of Tountomos.

She was waiting for us. Somehow, she knew that we had her doom with them.

She whipped up sorcerous winds to deflect any arrow; we began a holding action to wait out the spell. We took blows that would slay a normal man dead, and kept fighting. Chaisa held strong in her faith and helped the group maintain, but it was taking too long. Finally, Diggy managed to steal a gem from her horde and began climbing out of the cavern, which was enough to enrage her and cause her to chase after him. In the tight tunnel, the winds were no longer a factor, and Warjos was able to take aim and fire.

I aimed true. The arrow struck.

Tountomos was slain.

But before the Wyrm died, she called out Ilbhaan’s name, and called him close. Wary of a trick, he protected himself with what few spells he had left, and walked over. She spoke to him in a corrupted dialect of Draconian and Old Imperial, whispered to him a prophecy, and foretold his doom.

He was ashen-faced and not from the exhaustion of battle. He was silent on the journey back, not even speaking to Mlanda, the cultist. As he used up his spells, he did not replenish them, until they were all gone.

We were rich beyond counting. Winter came, and we took our rest. Gorm, who had always felt a bit distant from Dwarven culture, settled in town, retired. Diggy went on a journey to the center of the Old Empire and back. I took up service with Baron Khelmos the Bold, and eventually became his heir when he passed away. Chaissa took over at the cathedral and, with the dwarves’ aid, expanded and completed its construction.

One last time, with feeling

General

My team lead called me today. He wanted to know if I’d be willing to take another tech’s on-call rotation next week, since they’d be on vacation.

“I would love to, and I’d be able to during the week, but that weekend I’m volunteering for a conference so I’d be really distracted.”

“Oh, that’s understandable,” he said. He’s very reasonable and very much about work-life balance, so I knew it wasn’t a big deal. “We’ll make it work somehow, no problem.” He paused. “On another note, though, what’s this convention about?”

“It’s called the XOXO Festival. It’s… kind of an indie-artist tech conference? There are multiple tracks for music, for games, and for videos and podcasts, and art of all kinds.”

I shared the website with him and he browsed it while I tried to shorthand a quick description.

XOXO is sort of hard to explain. It’s got a vibe unlike so many other conferences out there. It’s definitely not tech-bro territory, and it’s not wild and pagan like Burning Man, and it’s not techically nerdy like DefCon. Its attitude is sharing, curious, talented, and kind.

The festival takes the best parts of Portland, and none of the worst parts. XOXO is a product of the Portland I love, created by two friends, Andy B. and Andy M., who are perhaps the most curious, talented, and kind people I know. I’m happy to have been even a small part of XOXO, even though I have never felt my imposter syndrome as strongly as I have among the staff, volunteers, guests, and attendees at any of these festivals.

And I’m sad that it’s ending. Did I mention that? Andy and Andy have spent a lot of time and energy creating and curating this thing, and they want to put a bow on it, make one final statement, and move on to other projects. So 2024 is the last XOXO. I had to be there. I missed the last one, in 2019, because I was in a depressed headspace.

But I’ve stayed in the community — oh did I mention there’s a community? The XOXO spirit begat a private Slack that has been operating for as long as Slack has been a thing, I think? I’d have to go look. I’ve stayed in the community and it has been, for me, the Best Place on the Internet. I try to give back to the XOXO family as much as they’ve given me.

I’ve always been a volunteer, helping to staff and run the past events, and this year is no different. Tonight was the volunteer orientation and it was amazing to be in-person with people I’ve only mostly interacted with online for so long. Andy and Andy stood up in front of us, talked about the vibe, and reminded us all of what our expectations should be.

“But you know all this,” Andy M. said. “Everyone here has either worked, or attended, a past XOXO. We couldn’t do this without you.”

The feeling is reciprocated.

Good days, good posts

General

If I sit and wait for inspiration, chances are it is not going to show up. Inspiration is great but it is not reliable. Not for me, at least. I don’t have a muse. The gods did not gift me. I don’t even believe in gods and even if I did, it would be the height of ego to assume they would grant me anything.

No, I do what I do, which parenthetically, right now is writing, because I am stubborn as the mule-iest mule what ever did mule. I don’t give up. I might take breaks sometimes, but if I intend to do something I will always come back to it and I will always complete that task. To call me bull-headed is to say you might be surprised I don’t have long pointy horns. Oh maybe that metaphor got away from me.

No, I have a duty to show up, except that duty is for the silliest things, like having exactly the same breakfast for years in a row, or trying to reach 500 days survived on one save in The Long Dark. Or driving my car into the ground because it’s easier than shopping for a new one.

Or for writing at least 500 words a day and posting it on my blog, like I’m doing now.

Many times I don’t have an idea about what to write. I joke about it with Tracy. I’ll send her a message “I don’t know what to write about tonight” and then 20 minutes later I’ll send her a link to the post I wrote.

And it’s true that lately I have been going very meta, writing about how I don’t know what to write about, or musing about motivation vs. habit. I didn’t promise that every post would be award-winning. No, my promise is to just keep going, to get into the habit, so that if and when I am inspired by something, I can channel it and put that inspiration to words, hopefully capturing some of the essence of random ideas with good foundations.

Every author I’ve ever admired could be described as prolific, because they just don’t stop writing. I shouldn’t compare my output to their drafted and re-drafted, vetted, edited, and published works, though. I don’t get the privilege of seeing any of the earlier versions of those stories. So I won’t.

Me, I’m the obstinate fucker who puts it all out here for anyone to see, the good, the bad, and the boring. You can trace the tensions and joys of the past 4 months by my daily output. Sometimes I do have a good idea and the right frame of mind to share that idea in the best sentences I can muster. Those are the good days. Good ideas, good days. Bad ideas, still an okay day as long as I post something. No ideas, still have to write and post something. It’s all about the posting something.

Ain’t no destination. It’s entirely the journey, y’all.

Driving home from work

General

Hey dad, want me to pick anything up for you on the way home?

Yes a pack of cigs

Just one?

Yeah I've got to go to savmor for meds tomorrow and I'll stock up

KK
Can do

I pulled out onto NE Fremont to make my way home. I knew the route. I’ve driven it daily, Monday through Friday, for several months now. My tiny piece of shit Accord wasn’t tall enough to see over the SUVs parked on the side of the road so I tried my best to see through their greenhouses, and took my best guess at an opening. Fremont is narrow here, lined with bars, shops, and coffee shops, and pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks. It was a cool, cloudy, warm summer day, the kind native Portlanders think of as normal warm weather.

Not for us, blue skies and hot temperatures. And I mean that we don’t like those days. Too hot. It needs to be a bit cooler so we can be active. Portlanders, by and large, are active. We run, we bike, we walk, and the rule of thumb I’ve learned is to dress for about 20 degrees warmer than it is, if you’re going to be active. 70-ish degrees is good. 50-ish degrees is better.

My car’s air conditioning has been broken all summer so I rolled the two front windows down, and cracked the back two, to get some air flowing past me. My phone played podcasts for me as I zoned out and drove automagically. David Chen, Jessie Earl, and Kim Renfro were discussing the House of the Dragons show, largely positively.

My senses perked up at the possible smell of burning oil. I should check the oil level soon, top it up if I need to. I wondered if my car would pass the DEQ test this year; I’d never had trouble before but the car is getting older and slowly falling apart slightly faster.

The drive home was mindless. I don’t remember any details specific to the drive, just the random images from every time I’ve ever driven this route. There’s the bar that looks like a great place for happy hour; laughing people with beers sitting on picnic tables outside. There’s the cheap gas station that always seemed busy. I passed the old empty sheriff’s building, surrounded by temporary chain-link fencing as it has been for months. What do they plan to do with that place, I wondered?

The organic produce market advertised Oregon strawberries but not marionberries. Marionberrys are, to me, the royalty of berries. Dark, tart, sweet, all in equal measure. They were developed at University of Oregon, and named for Marion County, a rural place far from the big small town of Portland. When I try to type “marionberries” on my phone, the autocorrect tries to make it Marion Berry, the former mayor of Washington D.C. who was caught in an FBI sting, I think. I should look that up at some point. Hey, I’m rambling here, don’t take this for fact.

I’m reasonably sure about the marionberries, though. I’m, like, 83% sure.

I pull into the Plaid Pantry parking lot, and wander the convenient aisles. OK, I’ll get some chocolate. Dad likes chocolate with almonds so I get a giant bar so I can split it with him. I wonder what the cashier thinks of an old white guy buying a pack of Marlboro Gold 100s and a giant chocolate bar. He seems friendly enough, though.

It’s another few blocks up the avenue until I can turn onto my street, then turn again into the parking lot. I slow down and take the transition into the lot at an angle to avoid scraping the bottom of my car on the hump. I back into my parking spot as I always do, for no particular reason, collect my things (laptop bag, cigs, candy bar), apply the Club to the steering wheel, take the faceplate off my head unit, unplug my phone and pull it out of the holder, and heave myself out of the car. My short legs, heavy weight, and armload of stuff make it a chore.

Front screen door was locked. I’d locked it this morning. Had dad not left the apartment all day? He does go outside to smoke but normally on the back porch so he could chat with Glasses, my next door neighbor, if she’s out there.

Home again, home again. Higgedy jig.

Organic Search Traffic

The best sandwich I’ve had all week

reviews

Today I made a sandwich that had so many vegetables on it. It was an epic pastrami and pepper jack cheese sandwich on medium-toasted whole grain Franz bread. In addition to probably an inch thick pile of thick-sliced pastrami and a slab of that awesome deli pepper jack cheese, it had plenty of 50/50 mix salad greens (arugula and spinach leaves), slices of delicious Roma tomatoes, white onion, pickles, and pepperoncinis. Plus catsup, spicy broun mustard, salt and black pepper. It was so good.

I took my time making it, more time than it took to eat it; maybe 10 or 15 minutes from start to finish. I had to get out all the ingredients. I’m very methodical when I make a sandwich. I start with putting the bread in the toaster, and then start pulling the rest of the ingredients out of the fridge. Sliced a whole Roma tomato just to use two thick slices. The tomatoes I got from the store yesterday were very big examples of the type; I put the rest of the tomato in a container to use them for another sandwich in the future.

The white onion was already sliced and in a ziplock bag; I just cut off what I needed and put the rest in the bag. The pickles and pepperoncinis came in a jar. I store the cheese in a plastic bag. I buy the salad greens in a large-ish plastic tub. I like buying the greens that way because they keep for a while and I don’t have to worry about cutting them up.

The pastrami was in a brand-new package; when I cut it open I put the rest back in another ziplock bag for later. I make this sandwich a lot. Can you tell?

Eating it was a challenge; it was so tall that the top layers were sliding off. I had to carefully scoop up the sandwich halves (I cut it on the diagonal which is the best way for me to cut, and by best way I mean my preferred way to cut a sandwich, do what you want I’m not the boss of you) carefully, and hold the whole thing with both hands.

Biting in to this sandwich brought delightful sensations of texture, smell, and taste. The textures were the tough and rough texture of the toasted bread, the juicy flesh of the tomatoes, the crisp snap of the pickles and onion slices, the dense spinach leaves and the delicate arugula leaves, all before the soft cheese and feeling the fall-apart stack of pastrami beef. All coated liberally in the sauce of catsup and the seed-y mustard. Top to bottom, inside to outside, a crescendo of mouth feel.

The smells were a wonderful mix of the toasted bread, the fresh lettuce and tomato, the vinegar and salt of the pickles, and the hit of spice from the banana peppers and mustard, plus the sugary catsup, more salt from the beef, and the wine-like smell of the cheese, flecked with more bits of peppers.

And the tastes mirror the scent; spicy and fresh and vinegar and toasty grains and salty meat and tangy sauces. It was the best sandwich I’ve eaten all week.