David's Boring Blog

 Disclaimer: This post is not intended as a full statement of fact or opinion. This is me exploring a thought and is in no way aimed at any person or experience. Don't come at me sideways over this, please.  *** Boredom is misery. I remember the day that I decided that I was never going to allow myself to be bored. This all goes back to me being a kid. Picture me as at about four and hungry for input. I liked to read. I loved cartoons. I was really starting to get into computers and video games. I was consuming content faster than I could lay my little hands on it.  The result was that I would often say to Mom in a whiny voice," Mom, I am bored." I actually meant," Please find me something to do because I have exhausted my ability to keep myself occupied," but I lacked the linguistic complexity to lay this out. Luckily, My Mom was a fantastic translator. At first, and by this I mean the first few years of me making this complaint, she redirected me. "Why do

 I have loved mythology since I was a kid. It is little surprise that book series like The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne or Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians hold my attention time after time reading through them. They take real world mythology and play with it in new and interesting ways. I have my Mom to thank for my love of mythology. She read me quite a few tales of Hercules as a young man and supplemented with quite a few other classical works. I was pretty well doomed to be a mythology nerd.  I will forever and always find the mythology of our world fascinating because of this. I spend ample time delving into fantastic mythologies through video games, books, and movies. I know far too much about fantasy gods, demons, witches, and wizards. Collecting this lore has been a lifelong passion.  I have to admit it makes writing fiction dangerous. The last thing I ever want to do is steal someone else's idea even without knowing that is what I am doing. It is

 I was napping when the buzzing of my Apple Watch shook me back into reality. Taila was calling to let me know that her car was broke down on the side of the interstate. This would never be welcome news. My not nearly long enough nap was weighing me down and I found myself less than thrilled. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t cussing or frustrated. I mostly just frowned while emptying my bladder.  My next move was to find out where Dad was. He had taken off to get something to eat. I got him on the phone and could tell that he was less than thrilled as well. He changed his plans and detoured to rescue the kids from the side of the interstate. I see far too many news stories about people being killed while working on the side of the road to be comfortable with them or their car sitting.  Part of me was really hopeful that Dad would work one of his minor mechanical miracles on their Nissan and they would find themselves back in business or at least able to drive the Rogue back to the house. F

 Teagan, with her usual stealth, found her way once again to YouTube on my Dad’s phone while they were hanging out. As a toddler we encouraged her to make use of educational apps and watch certain videos on a tablet to assist her in catching up on her delayed speech. It turned out to be an amazing tool and helped Teagan grow into the amazing little reading, writing, always-talking chatterbox that she is today. At my darkest, most forlorn moment of her speech development I turned to bargaining with God. I said,” Lord, if she begins talking I will never complain about how loud or often she talks.” To this day I have kept to that promise. My ears my actually get talked off, but you will never hear a word of complaint from me.  Her YouTube obsession on the other hand leaves room for improvement. Even as technically adept as I am , Teagan always finds a way to get to YouTube with any access to an internet connected device. I solved that on my side of the fence. No unsupervised devices means

I went through a phase between 2014 and 2018 where I went back and forth several times on leaving social media. I would, perhaps ironically, post about the idea on my social media. I was testing the concept. I turned off Facebook for a bit. I turned it back on. Then I struck on balance.  I have kept social media active. I have an Instagram and Facebook. I send things to Twitter, but spend zero time there. I finally listened to my daughter and started a TikTok account.  The funny thing that all of those accounts and this blog really have in common is that they are boring. I think I have carefully mastered the art of creating content without any real personal context. You can thumb through pictures of food I have made. You can see links to this blog. Occasionally I post a photo of myself though that is more and more rare.  This is all very intentional. I am not trying to cultivate any sort of image. I don't want to live my life online. I enjoy sharing superficial information. I have

Friendship has always been a sore subject for me. Don’t get that wrong. I have several friends. I enjoy those friendships. I don’t get as much time with anyone as I want to. The reason that friendships have been a sore subject is that I feel like there are so many people I was once close to that now I don’t speak to with any regularly. These are not people I have had some sort of fall out with or anything. These are just folks that I care for and lost contact with. From time to time I think about it and get a bit down.  I was pondering this one idle afternoon this week thinking about a few people when something hit me. I think it is likely that most friendships aren’t meant to last a lifetime. In fact, I think I have put far too much importance on the idea that I have failed in friendships. I have beat myself up too much about it. I mean really I have lamented those losses as much if not more than romantic relationship failures. I know better than to ruminate the past. Sometimes you sa

 I want to start this post by pointing out that the entire concept is a study in ridiculousness. There is no way to gatekeep any of the things that I am about to talk about. That is not the point of what I am writing here. Once upon a time, I dreamed parts of the world we live in now.  Let me cast the scene in terms of who I was at the time of this dream. I was sixteen years old. I was grown to my full height, but I had not grown into my shoulders yet. I wasn’t anywhere near rail thin. I had not started packing on fat or muscle in any serious way. My hair is still as thick today as it was then blessedly. I wore it shaggy, but it wasn’t in a cool and intentional way. I just always looked like I was a few weeks past due to get a haircut.  I had a cord necklace around my neck with a dolphin on it. Why a dolphin you might ask? No freaking clue. The dolphin bangle was a cheap pewter piece and eventually broke to be replaced by a small stack of “Viking” runes. On my left wrist I rocked a Cas

 I am going to rehash another thing that I have been writing about steadily: video games. I keep reading articles that trash Xbox and say that they have lost the console wars through a series of trash premium title launches. I am writing this to respectfully and firmly disagree.  Before I layout my perspective I want to acknowledge a bias in my perception. It feels as if Microsoft and I share a similar gaming value in the form of backward compatibility. I like playing titles from previous generations of systems without having to dust off old consoles. This bias means that I am not upset that Jedi Survivo r is glitchy, Redfall is underwhelming, or that the AAA blockbuster gaming line-up for Xbox’s 2023 release schedule only has Starfield as an exclusive.  Want to know what I have been playing on my Xbox Series X? Left 4 Dead has been amazing for split screen co-op. Sure, I have Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 in my Steam library. I own all the DLC (on both platforms thanks to Micros