David's Boring Blog

 I have had my nose stuck in Reality+ virtual worlds and the problems of philosophy by David J. Chalmers for a few weeks now. I could defend this by saying that it is a thick book, but the (hehe) reality is that I have been struggling with some of the more deep arguments in the book. That and I tend to fall asleep when a book doesn't just grip me. I plowed through God Touched  by John Conroe in just about 3 days, or three bedtimes if you want to measure it accurately. Chalmers is an order of magnitude smarter than me. John Conroe probably is as well. I would like to think that I understood a great deal more of what I read from God Touched. I find myself thinking hard about various points of Reality+  trying to grasp the possibilities of the philosophy because I like the idea that we live inside a simulation. It jives heavily with an idea I had years ago when I was regularly attending a Christian church.  Back then I thought to myself," The Bible does a haphazard job of explain

 I am guilty of food selfies. I know they are a social media faux pas. I cannot bring myself to stop making them in much the same way that I am addicted to relentlessly testing the bounds of taco Tuesday which is when I post the majority of my food selfies. The sad truth is that I am really enjoying trying out new recipes and in lieu of being able to share the actual food with my friends I am vicariously sharing beautiful food photos. The shame is palpable.  My fixation on expanding my cooking prowess started secretly. I have always liked to cook. I have not always been good at it. Admitting that pains me a bit. Leaning into the fact that I am probably still not great at cooking is a big part of what has allowed me to improve my cooking. Reasonable humility keeps you eager to learn. That is counterintuitive to quite a bit of positive talk around having self confidence. I had the same realization about sketching and drawing last year. For quite a long time I refused to take any art clas

 Completely at odds with my desire to lead a neat and organized lifestyle is the collector in me. I go through phases of having great pride in having collected up all the pieces of something. These are frequently followed by phases of frustration with myself for having wasted hundreds or thousands of dollars on comics, games, game systems, books, or dice. It is not exactly a vicious cycle but close. I have a decent handle on it other than the occasional flare up of nostalgia.  This early Sunday morning I am missing owning the library of Super Nintendo games that I once had. Specifically I am wanting to play Paladin's Quest. The SNES was the golden age for JRPG games released in the U.S. Paladin's Quest was a quirky entry. It leaned slightly more into Sci Fi than Fantasy. It also had an interesting battle interface that merged ideas from Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy into an amalgam that was something else entirely.  Paladin's Quest  also boasts of a rather unique art styl

Over the past couple of years I was gradually losing something that I didn't realize I had in the first place. I have lost my casual comfort with being out and about in the world. This is an interesting development in a few ways. I didn't notice it until another day rolled around where work got me out of the house. To be clear, I am not talking about a full blown phobia. I have not gotten to the point that being out of the house induces panic. I love the people I work with. Being around them is extremely soothing and in a lot of ways when we get together to meet it is exciting and preferable to sitting at the house.  What I feel is more subtle. It is a slight distaste for doing other things when I am out. For example, I could use a hair cut. I had the time this afternoon to stop and have one. I lacked any desire to make the stop. The same thing was true of running by the bank. There is no urgent need to stop. I was out. I had a reason to run to the bank. I was aware of the erra

 I have lots of things I am passionate about. Since I have returned to practicing archery, I have gotten really interested in improving my range and accuracy. That lets me test my limits of what I can do with a light draw bow. I wouldn't have believed I was capable of putting arrows on target past thirty feet, but yesterday I was easily doubling that at a considerable damage to my grouping. That is how you build a skill though. You get on target and then you practice dialing that skill in until you are at the level of skill you want. Likewise I am passionate about podcasting, video games, writing, drawing, Magic the Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, cars, motorcycles, and a whole slew of other hobbies. One rather unusual thing that I get super excited about is gear. I warn you that I am using gear as a supreme catch-all term for a whole variety of different things. I divide my gear into two broad categories: every day carry and specialty gear.  As my labels indicate every day carr

 I have a whole series of complicated morning rituals. I have an order in which I start moving, eat, scan through "news" articles, play games of Magic the Gathering via Arena, take vitamins, shower, brush my teeth, turn on my work computer, and eventually put on some clothes. There is a high likelihood of getting a comic book read and having a few minutes to aimlessly scroll through social media.  This morning as I was waiting for the shower water to turn from freeze to our taps top end which I think of as tepid tea water I was mindlessly scrolled. I hate that I have that addiction, but what else do I do to distract from the chill as I am waiting? I stumbled across a meme that had several corporate headlines about record profits for big corporations over the last few years. The caption read," It's not inflation. It's corporate greed." I have issues with this that are semantic. The first is that a business is not a person and has no feelings. Just like a bott