The only last day of July 2024 I’ll get

General

Content warning: philosophical thoughts about the end of life

It is the last day in July as I write this. The sun is sinking in the sky, and it looks like there’s some color to the sunset; the tree tops I can see from my office window are the bright green of summer but tinged with orange. If I were more concerned with beauty and aesthetics I’d get up, go outside, and watch the sunset. Who knows when the next one will be? We are never promised more than this moment, no matter how much we wish for more tomorrows. This could be the final moment, the last sunset, the final day.

Intellectually I understand that. Though like many people, most people I think, I have to redirect my attention to the idea that my end will happen, ain’t no two ways about it. My brain doesn’t like to think about it; it requires effort to bring it to mind. I have to push the idea into frame. OK, sorry, I know these metaphors are all over the place; this is a first draft. I would shape these metaphors and images better if I allowed myself a second draft.

Funny how I tried to write about being in the moment and facing death and somehow, my brain slid the idea of second chances into the conversation. Hey, my mind says to me, as if it were a separate person, what about trying again? Taking a mulligan, starting over? Re-writing what was already written, polishing it, making it shine. Cutting out the boring bits, adding new exciting bits. Tightening up the flow of ideas. Making the whole into a cohesive story. Beginning, middle, end, amen.

I would say to my mind, ain’t no such thing as second chances when it comes to life. I get this moment, and this next one, and the next one, until I get no more moments at all. I can’t go back and do one over again. I can worry about past moments, and future moments, but all the worry in the world won’t change what happened and won’t make something new happen. Once we’ve acted, the results stand; and only actions can change the outcome of the arrow of time.

So this is the first 31st of July in 2024 that I’ve ever had, and it will be the last one. There are only possible, potential future 31sts of July from here on out. Where will I be, assuming I make it to those future 31sts of July? Will I be the same person? Will the world be much the same, just one year farther along? Or will it all change? I don’t know, and if someone else tells you that they know, reader, they are lying to you.

What do I want future Brian to know about this particular day? Future Brian, today was a good day at work. My coworkers are kind and thoughtful; Andy, knowing I would have to work through my lunch, offered me a granola bar from his stash so I would have a snack to tide me over. Hunter typed a message to me in Teams so sarcastic it made me laugh out loud. Jim gave me praise for how I handle tough calls at work in front of everyone else.

My dad offered me ice cream tonight; he stopped at the Dairy Queen on his walk back from the bar.

Tracy, ever present, kept me company by text, as always. A comforting electronic presence.

My friend Christi needed help, and I could help her, so of course I did. I know that if the situation were reversed, she would help me, no questions asked.

And the sunset was pretty, even the small part of it I could see.

I finished my ice cream (Cherry Bordeaux), I finished this post, and I know that I did my best today.

Medical imagination

fear

My shoulder hurts. I don’t remember any specific injury, it just started hurting yesterday and it’s still sore today. I can’t raise my arm above my head. I can move it OK forward and back, it’s lifting it that is restricted. If I were a baseball pitcher or another kind of athlete, it would probably be called a rotator cuff injury. I am not a pitcher or other kind of athlete so it’s just a consequence of being old, I guess.

I have a bit of a leaning towards being overly sensitive to pain or discomfort in my body, and in the past, my thoughts when I was hurting or ill would fall swiftly down the slope of bad expectations, usually landing in the general area of a cancer diagnosis, self-imposed. Or whatever the worst possible outcome for that kind of pain would be.

For instance, pain in and around my stomach could be stomach cancer or appendicitis. If it’s late at night and I’m all alone, usually appendicitis, because there would be no one around to take me to the emergency room if my appendix burst, so clearly the worst case scenario would be me, dying, alone, unnoticed, in great pain for my final moments.

The cancer self-diagnosis is worst when I have no insurance, no job or am underemployed, but honestly, in America, even people with great health insurance and good jobs can face medical bankruptcy. America’s single innovation in the world of healthcare is the ability to drain money from people in order to stay alive. Go, USA. No, seriously, go.

America’s leadership in the realm of charging money from people desperate to live has surely increased my self-inflicted hypochondria. If I knew that I could get medicine when I am ill without cost, surely I would just take care of physical ailments as soon as they occured. But I have to calculate how many hundreds and thousands of dollars my being sick might cost, with the compounding cost of being unable to work for any length of time, which is a double-whammy, since many Americans work in order to have the option to pay for the option of medical care.

Housing is also medical care, though a more subtle one, impacting mental as well as physical health. We work to afford that, too. We have little choice.

But this arm thing? Even my creative mind is unable to spin it into a symptom of cancer. I say unable but it just takes more effort, and with my current state of being, I’m reasonably happy with my life and work. I’m not able or willing to devote my mental energy to that level of imagination. Not these days. I’m relatively happy.

No, this shoulder pain is most likely a repetitive strain injury, carpal tunnel syndrome, something like that. Something chronic, incurable, and caused directly by my bad choices. That’s the ticket, if I want to let my negative inner voice win this round (I don’t but I must acknowledge it.)

My arm still hurts, though, and that’s annoying. I’ve been taking ibuprofren for it. I need something stronger, though. Maybe some Tiger Balm or ice- or heat-packs? It’s distracting. Ouch.

So much to learn

Tech

Had a good weekend, got a lot done. But didn’t get everything done. Such is the way of things that need to be done, I suppose.

Of the things that did get done, I got my new Brother laser printer set up and working. As I said, and as Nilay Patel from The Verge said, I just want it to work and I don’t want to think about it. I had to do a little bit of thinking about it, because Windows wanted it to be a USB printer but I wanted it to be a WiFi printer, so we had a fight about it and I won. I like winning!

I bought an Intel NUC that I plan on using to make a reverse proxy for my home network. Got it at Free Geek, which had a pop-up shop set up in their parking lot, which was awesome. I’ve missed their storefront, which closed when the pandemic hit. The sales person said this was their first weekend trying this, and it seemed popular, so they’ll probably keep doing it. Yay! I got this NUC for twenty bucks. It didn’t come with a power brick, so I got one off Amazon for another thirty bucks. Still an awesome deal.

One thing I did not do was trying some 3D printing. Did I mention my co-worker lent me his printer? I got the 3D printer in place. I chatted about 3D printing with my friends. I harassed my friends for notes on how to do a 3D print and did get those notes. Did not read those notes, though, because I’m intimidated by this whole process. The way my brain works, I prefer to know what every step of a process is before I ever start doing it. It makes doing new things difficult unless someone has laid out a step-by-step that satisfies my neurodivergent brain.

My friends gave me a list of supplies I should have before I start, including 90% alcohol, Simple Green, lots of gloves to prevent contamination from the resin, lunch trays and silcone mats for the prints because they need to dry and cure. Y’know, basic stuff. I should also probably have a respirator and eye protection, y’know, just in case. Got all that ordered from Amazon and it showed up today. In theory, I am ready to start printing.

Oh, wait, I’m missing one more thing! I don’t have any files to print. I don’t know why 3D printer files are called STL files; I haven’t googled it. Wait, here, I’ll google it. “STL is a file format native to the stereolithography CAD software created by 3D Systems. STL is also known as Standard Tessellation Language.” That’s from Abbreviations dot com. I have a few minis I designed in HeroForge; I can start there. I bought the STL files for my sorcerer elf and my human bladelock, but apparently they take “processing” and were not available immediately for download. I’m waiting for that.

I downloaded the slicer program, which is what they call the program people use to 3D print. It’s all ready to go…

It’s already after 8 PM, though, and a print takes several hours, so I’ll wait and start it tomorrow after work. There still seems like so much to learn first. How does one slice, for example? I don’t know and don’t have the executive function points right now to learn. Tune in tomorrow-ish.

A Change Would Do You Good

DnD, fiction

Since I mentioned Azak and Tuud, my beloved kobold NPCs, in yesterday’s post, here’s a little short story I wrote about them. It was meant to provide my players some context after the fact. I love these two so much. Hope you enjoy them, too.

The two kobolds crept through the cave, keeping low. They turned their eyes in all directions, spotting the burnt out torches stuck in the ground, the campfire with inedible burnt meat, and the passage down.

“What do you see, Tuud?” asked the pale white kobold.

Tuud pulled the bronze rimmed goggles over his eyes. His red-scaled face scanned the cave. “Eh. Same thing I see with my regular eyes, Azak. Are you sure this is where we have to go?”

“Dorgach ordered me here. This is where our clanmembers went with the big lizardfolk.”

Tuud shook his head. “The demon. Don’t say its name.” Tuud shivered. “Saw the bodies of our clansfolk outside. Slaughtered.” 

Azak waved Tuud to come along, walking toward the side passage nearly covered with vines and roots. “Foot prints, boot prints specifically. Big people came this way.” Azak stopped, grabbing their midsection, their muzzle wrinkled with a grimace of sudden pain.

“How are you doing?” Tuud was immediately by his friend’s side, an arm around their shoulders.

Azak leaned into the hug, then shrugged it off. “I will be OK. The change will be over before we know it.”

“Change comes on dragon’s wings,” Tuud intoned. “Must be difficult. Many males have been lost–“

“Killed. Murdered.” Azak corrected him. The cave floor under their feet gave way to a black and white ceramic tile floor.

“As you say. So before the clan can grow, we need more males.” Tuud tapped his temple. “I know this, but you’re my first friend I’ve known who actually had to change, female to male.” He rested his hand on a black stone archway carved with bird shapes.

Azak scowled. “Does it make a difference?”

“No. You’re my friend.” Tuud shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. Makes no difference to the clan. Just don’t like to see you hurt.”

They had advanced down the hallway, and down some stairs, to a room with a wide stone pool in the center, filled with oddly clean and clear water. Four bronze, or maybe gold, statues of humans in feather-like armor were in each corner. A passageway led onward on the other side of the pool. 

Tuud made toward the pool to look inside; he saw some vials of bright green resting in the bottom, along with a scattering of coins. He shot a glance at his friend. Azak shook their head, though, and began searching the far doorway for signs of a trap. They poked at a slack tripwire, pointed out a scythe blade that hung, having been sprung before they’d arrived. 

“Further. It’s safe. Let’s go.”

They scampered down another set of stairs and around a corner. They entered a larger room, lined with old and broken pillars to the left and right. At the far end, a black statue, at least three kobolds tall, of a grim looking Human in feathered armor. In front of the statue was a crude platform, a slab of stone on top of piles of other stones, with several burnt-out torches around it. A pile of bodily remains were piled on top, dried blood staining the slab and foundations.

Tuud did not like the look of any of this and hesitated at the entrance. He noted more foot prints, scuffed, on the tile floor that indicated a fight. “Or a dance,” Tuud said, laughing.

Azak made a beeline toward a pile of burnt and blackened rubble against the left hand wall. They began poking around and found another body. A lizardfolk, dressed in silvered robes, had been stabbed many times, the torso almost obliterated. “What monster did this?” Azak hissed. Azak kept digging through the rubble, turning the body over. “It has to be here, it has to be! Help me!”

Tuud came over, helping to shift the debris around. “What are we looking for?”

“The staff! The staff! That is what Dorgach sent us to find.” Azak sat down, defeated, their head in their hands. “It’s not here.”

“Then we must make a new one.” A raspy voice intoned from the shadows. Tuud startled and spotted a thin humanoid shape with creepy proportions barely visible in the far corner, near where an empty cage sat.

Azak stood up and defiantly shouted. “Not from Tuud!”

Tuud startled again. “What?”

The humanoid shape sighed, then laughed. “Fine. Fine. Your friend can keep his skull. If not a fresh one, then we will need several.” A long midnight-blue arm extended from the shadow, and a long finger extended from the hand. “Start with the previous shaman’s skull, then collect the ones of your other clansfolk, and all of their arm and leg bones.”

Tuud waited but his friend pulled out a dagger and began cutting away at the lizardfolk’s robes. Tuud sighed and unsheathed his own knife.

“Azak, what is this for?” Tuud whispered to his friend “Why are we desecrating the shaman?”

“Because,” Azak said, tiredly. They wrapped scraps of the silver robes around their arms and torso. “I’m the new shaman. Lord Orcus demands it.”

In the shadows, Dorgach laughed, raucously, its deep voice booming through the fallen tomb.

My favorite monster

DnD

Do you play Dungeons & Dragons? I do. I may have mentioned it once or twice before. I’m in the process of getting ready to play D&D with my friends in person in three weeks or so and that’s why I found myself in Guardian Games today. In-person D&D requires physical props, minis, and dice. Don’t they? Sure they do.

They have a much more limited selection these days than I remember from the past. For one thing, they’ve removed the used modules and rulebooks. I was looking forward to going through the used bins. I was hoping to find some old copies of modules I could read, nostalgize (that’s a new word; I just made it up) and maybe incorporate into my campaign. Guess there’s still DM’s Guild for that.

They had a huge display case just for dice. I must admit I am a bit of a dice goblin. There were dice there that were amazing and I am not going to mention what made them amazing because I still might buy them just to show off to my other players.

And they had a decent selection of miniatures, including a line of mini monsters that were using the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons artwork. And, again, seeing them gave me a huge dose of nostalgium (it’s a word now; that’s how language works, deal with it). I love those old janky designs. The rubbery long-nosed trolls. The dog-faced kobolds before they became li’l dragonkin. The propeller-tailed rust monsters. The dookie-shaped ropers. Love, love, love.

Elsewhere in the store they had some modern, 5E designs for miniatures. I was looking for dragons. Several dragons are the big movers and shakers in my world, and I’d love to have them represented in my next session. I was particularly looking for a big angry black dragon. For some reason, I’ve always loved the design of the black dragon; they have those cool forward-pointing horns. In AD&D they were straight and pointy; modern designs have curved but still forward-pointing horns.

And that led me, nostalgalisticaly (it’s a word and the meaning is clear from the context, admit it; as long as you understand what I’m saying it’s a word) to thinking about monsters that I love, monsters I always include in my games for one reason or another but mostly because I just dig them. Black dragons; the very first dragon I ever used in a game was a black dragon, spitting acid, coming out of a swamp to attack the party.

Kobolds. I love the old school ones and the new school ones. If I need a mob that’s got low hit points but attacks in large groups, I don’t go goblin, I don’t go orc, I go kobold. I’ve pulled lore from all over the place for the canonical kobolds in my game.

One bit that came from earlier editions is that they will involuntarily switch gender in instances where their colony is threatened, in a similar way that some amphibians do in nature. I had an NPC kobold early on, Azak, who the players met in the middle of their change, so I tried to consistently refer to them with neutral pronouns. Not sure the players noticed but it was a touchstone for me. They weren’t trans in the way people are trans; they were literally undergoing an environmentally-forced gender change. I’m glad the players didn’t kill them and their friend Tuud. I’d love for them to make a return, if I can find the right story beat for them.

One other monster that I have fond memories of fighting is a troll. My first best AD&D character, “Griffon” Gondolin, elven thief (not Rogue, not back in those days) had a reputation for doing ridiculous damage when backstabbing, and the first time he killed a monster in one turn, it was a troll. The other party members rushed in to burn the pieces and prevent the troll from regenerating, but it was the twin blades of Griffon that took it down to -10 HP. Fun times.

The Zenith and The Nadir

DnD

I was going to cheat tonight and post something that I used ChatGPT to generate. But even if I clearly labeled it as AI generated, I could not use it to meet my 500 word goal post for the day. I have to write something out myself. Here I go.

The scenes I was going to post were fictional in-universe speeches, an outnumbered princep rallying their troops to make a final stand against a vast demonic army, the Battle of the Monontonos Plains.

I can picture the scene in my head; the Princep, a skinny and young person, pale, dressed in fancy but not very functional robes and armor, helm too big for their narrow head flopping down over their eyes as they raise their thin, reedy voice above the clamor of the thundering rainstorm that soaks them, and their soldiers.

The small squad, maybe a score of them, beaten, weary, armor dented from the running battle of their retreat, their weapons blunted against the defenses of their inhuman foes, faces caked with blood and mud, squinting up to the naive young royal who’s misfortune lead them here.

Above them, only black clouds and falling rain, split by constant sounds of cracking thunder and flashes of white-hot lightning. They stand on top of a rise that could barely qualify as a hill, a desperate palisade crafted of stunted saplings pointed outward at the base of the mound.

No other cover gives them a moment’s rest against the rain and the hail of bolts, arrows, and fire from the encircling armies. No supplies of food or medicine, no stocks of ammunition or tools to sharpen their meagre swords and spears and clubs.

And all around them, in every direction, countless horrors and demons and devils. Every enemy’s eyes shine blood-red, piercing the darkness. Every form a mockery of human shape. Every hand holds a massive weapon of war, every body clad in black iron plates the approximate thickness of a castle wall. Tiny and fast ferrocious needle-fanged swarms swirl around person-sized gangly armed swordsmen and archers. On giant booted feet ogres and giants loom above the hordes, grunting in mountainous hoots of flesh-hunger.

Enemies abound in every direction from the tiny Imperial squad. Yellow tear-filled eyes stare across a blasted barren plain of mud and grass to thousands of hungry hellish eyes.

How did it come to this, though? The speech that ChatGPT wrote for me is in the vein of inspiring but doomed speeches but surely this final stand does not bear scrutiny from a tactical standpoint. No general would allow themself and their crew to become so intensely in the worst position? Had they no fortress from which to fight? No reinforcement to shore up their defense? No higher ground from which to rain down destruction on those who would oppose them?

This is a legend, a tale told to scare leaders who would squander the loyalty given to them. Leaders should not rush to battle because lives are precious and should be spent only for righteous causes. Defense of the weak and oppressed. Attack against intolerance and ignorance and fear. Those are only the true fights, and in those battles every good general is overmatched, but can surely count victory in their grasp.

Surely, they can?

Literally babbling for 511 words

Daily Story Project

Do I have 500 words in me? Sure, why not? I want to keep this streak going. What am I going to talk about? Who knows, I’m just typing and showing up and seeing what falls out.

I’m super tired. It was a long day at work, though ultimately a successful one. How many words can I get out of complaining about not having enough words to write a post tonight? Y’all, I know this is a boring post to read but sometimes I don’t have a theme or story in mind. I just want to get this post done and on the interwebs so I can go to sleep.

Looking forward to the weekend but there is still some bullshit I have to get through before I get there. One more day of work. OK, work is mostly not bullshit but I have to admit there’s a little bit of bullshit in there. I like my job, I really do. I like the work, I like the people I work with, I am learning so much about computers and networking, and the boss is asking me to take on more projects and bigger-picture stuff, like doing quotes for services for our clients. That is something that I’ve wanted to do but my previous jobs were all about day-to-day tech support.

I can do day-to-day tech support in my sleep. I like being trusted to put my knowledge and experience into looking at the whole pie. Y’know? Pies are pretty fucking delicious. My favorite kind of pie is the same as my favorite kind of berry, and that’s marionberry. Second and third would be blackberry and raspberry. I guess strawberries are OK. Blueberries are my least favorite. What was I talking about? Oh, right, work. Except now it’s food.

Of vegetables, I like the fancier kinds of greens: your kales, your spinachs, your arugula. I love brocolli, and asperagus. There’s a specific kind of green bean that Asian restaurants use that is better than the soggy, limp green beans Americans eat out of cans; anyone know what those Asian green beans are? They’re great in stir fries with a nice spicy sauce and some beef or pork. I like carrots and tomatoes on salads and on sandwiches. Onions and garlic are great as aromatics. Is that the right word?

My family loves garlic on almost anything. My mom would tell my dad that he’d put garlic on strawberry ice cream, and he would retort “why would I ruin perfectly good garlic with ice cream?” which is the height of dad jokes. Seriously, though, garlic. You’d think my family was Southern European instead of Northern European.

Sigh. I just need another fifty words. Here I go typing those out. I’m so sorry for this post. I’m not even going to SEO this or tag it. It’s just a placeholder to keep my streak going. I do appreciate you reading this, however. Why are you reading this, though? It imparts no useful information.

Made it. Good night, dear reader. Tomorrow will be better.

Overdeveloped Danger Sense

General

The only thing keeping me awake right now is the need to keep my streak of posting at least 500 words every day to my blog. I’d have to check when this particular streak started but it’s been a couple of months, if I could hazard a guess. I’m not going to stop writing to go check, though, because the main thing right now is momentum. Just gotta keep going. I’ll insert a sentence as an update at the end when this run began, and won’t count it toward my 500 words for the post.1

The reason I’m so sleepy is, and head’s up this is about body functions, my stomach has been mad at me since about 3 AM this morning. I woke up with a pain in the right side of my abdomen which immediately made me think my appendix was about to burst because my mind, like many minds, drifts toward disaster. I come from a long line of creatures who were able to survive long enough to breed by avoiding death and serious injury. I am sadly going to be the last of that line, not because I don’t avoid death and serious injury, but because despite many opportunities, I have not bred. There will be no generation after me.

I have no comment on the rightness or wrongness of that. Just a fact. I’m just stating a fact.

Unfortunately that just leaves me with avoiding danger, which is then turned into seeing danger around me at all times, which leads to lots of “That’s dangerous and you’re gonna die!” false positives. Like immediately thinking that pain in the vague area of my right side is an inflamed, infected appendix that is going to burst and kill me before I can get myself to emergency care.

I got out of bed long enough to stumble into the bathroom, where I did what ever I could think of to clear the pain from my stomach. While also googling the symptoms of appendicitis. Quite the relief to find out that appendicitis pain is lower down, more near the top of the hip. Aha, it wasn’t a killer vestigial organ, it was just, wow, a really sharp pain that makes it hard to take a deep breath. What the Hell is going on down there?

I’ve had this pain before, and in the past, after ruling out the worst case scenario of appedicitis, made me think it was that condition where a pit in the intestine becomes infected and explodes and causes the person with the condition to die. Lots of ways to die. Or maybe that’s just what my ancestors are telling me.

I took some pain meds (ibuprofren) and drank some water and went back to bed. When I woke up it was morning and a half-hour until my alarm was supposed to go off. I got up, took my temperature (no fever), got a shower, made and drank some coffee, and decided to go to work anyway. I figured it was a stomach thing not something contagious.

Work was distracting enough that I hardly noticed the pain most of the day. I even felt productive. I was honest about the way I felt to my coworkers and they were OK with me being there. I ate a salad for lunch because by that time I had decided this was a thing I could fix with fiber.

The fiber worked. By quitting time, I was about 80% better. I treated myself to a raspberry shake from Burgerville (because solid food still didn’t sound like fun) when dad wanted me to bring him a burger and fries for dinner, and now I’m ready to go to bed.

  1. My Day One post that started my current streak was posted on 2 April 2024, 113 days ago. ↩︎

I hate printers… but

DnD

I hate printers. I really, really do. I have a stack of old tech that I need to take to FreeGeek to donate and get it out of my house, and the stack has been in the hallway at the top of the stairs for almost 6 months now. And until this weekend, two printers were in that stack. I’m adding my most recent printer, a gift from my friend Tracy that I just couldn’t get to work. I am immensely grateful for Tracy’s friendship and generosity but this printer is a malfunctioning piece of designed-by-committee-for-profit tech that is essentially a scam designed to sell ink cartridges.

I hate them. But I need a printer. What should I do? I decided I would follow Nilay Patel’s advice and just get whatever Brother printer was on sale. It’s shipping to me even as I type this. It was a bit more than I wanted to spend, but my last two printers were free; it likely all evens out over time. Brother printers apparently do not do that thing where they only accept official Brother cartridges and have hard-coded deadlines beyond which they will not print until you buy new cartridges (I’m lookin’ at you, HP) so that’s a relief.

One of the reasons I want a printer now after having no working printer for a year is because I want to print maps and things for my upcoming in-person D&D game. Have I talked about that yet? Several folks in my group are coming in to town for a long weekend of nothing but games. Old men pretending we’re young once again. Playing all night like we did when we were teenagers. I am so very excited.

But also, I’m anxious. This weekend is going to be a big deal, or should I say, A Big Deal™. As the (one of the) Dungeon Masters it’s my reponsibility to present cool ideas and plots and characters. When we play online I only have to create digital maps and images, and there are enough tools out there that let someone who is more of an ideas guy create decent pictures. In-person means physical maps, actual minatures, physical props. I’ve got just over 3 weeks. What can I do in that time?

If I had a good printer I could print out some of the digital maps. Out comes the credit card, and by credit card I mean transfer from savings because I don’t have a lot of available credit. One problem, solved.

But miniatures? That requires purchasing them… or 3D printing them. Who do I know that has a 3D printer? Unfortunately, the first people I know with 3D printers are my players. They are all nerds like me. And they are all gainfully employed and have been for a while. I am certain they would be willing to print things for me; however, it would spoil the surprise.

Another option is buying one, but since I just bought a regular laser printer, I’m somewhat cash poor. Don’t have the cash flow for that.

Another option is using Multnomah County Library’s 3D printing service. However, printing an army of miniatures feels like abuse; it’s a free service after all. And some of the things I want to print might just possibly be copyrighted and trademarked material (no spoilers) so it’s likely they might deny my request.

I kept asking around, though, and I asked a coworker if they’d be willing to print some things for me. They’re counter-offer was to just loan me the printer! I about fell out of my chair. That’s incredibly generous. They said they rarely use it, and it would clear out some closet space. Looks like I’m going to be able to print whatever I want in the three weeks until the game.

Printers. I hate them. But they’re so very useful.

The light inside it dies but slowly

Tech

I’m going to be sad when my old-ass TV dies. An LG 52″ 720p Plasma. I am surprised by its longevity! It’s been a solid performer since the day I bought it which is a date I have long lost to memory. Wwas probably early January 2012 but that’s only my guess because that’s when I bought the Onkyo surround sound system that complemented the TV. Around there, at any rate.

I’ve never had a large space for my home theater so a 52″ screen is basically cinema-sized for the two living rooms I’ve had in the ho-ho-holy shit 12 years I’ve owned it. I bought it from the Video-Only store in Janzten Beach because they had a reputation for being honest and fair. What’s the opposite of predatory? Don’t believe me?

When I walked into the store, I had only a couple of must-haves: my primary purpose for this TV was to watch movies, not play games or watch sports. So I wanted excellent color, the deepest blacks I could get for my money, and a decently large screen. I assumed that all added up to a plasma screen. Because it was 2012, I was on the fence about resolution: 720p content was becoming available but 1080p was up-and-coming.

When I explained what I was looking for to the salesperson, they showed me a few examples and I liked some of them. When the topic of resoultion came up, they offered me a demo. They had two identical plasma TVs set up, playing a movie from the same source. One was a 720p TV and the other was 1080p. They told me, “put yourself at the normal distance you’d watch from home and tell me if you see a difference.”

Reader, I could not tell the difference. That meant I would be fine with the lower-cost 720p option.

I assumed that I would upgrade this TV in a few years, when higher-resolution content was more readily available.

Reader, I did not. Within a year of that purchase I was once again unemployed, and money did not flow like wine, and so I’ve lived with this one TV all that time. I am happy with my TV’s performance.

You might remember recent complaints about shows in the streaming age that are too dark to see. Directors, cinematographers, and editors choose dark scenes. In modern living rooms, on modern monitors, everything turns into one dark smear. I have never been affected by that, even with my old-ass screen, because plasma does such a good job with blacks. It’s not HDR by any means but it’s very forgiving of modern prestige television and movies.

The colors have faded over time, it’s true. I do have to adjust it as the light inside it dims, which is a feeling we all get as we age. I don’t mind. I love my screen. I will be sad when it dies. But whatever I get after this is going to be a huge upgrade.