Hmm...440 hours on Steam...probably another 125 on the Switch...

I love this game. It's so cozy and comfortable. I found SDV after my divorce just when it had originally released and I was drawn into the cute world and how much character oozes from every corner. Every person you meet has something going on or you can just be a weird hermit building out your farm in peace. There's enough of a story to propel you forward but never overbearing and it gets out of the way when it's "done".

As time has gone on from my first playthrough, I'll typically dive back in when the itch strikes or a new content update comes along. The last few playthroughs I've done a lot to mod the game and introduce new things into the world to discover, some of which just feels indistinguishable from the official content and others that just help reduce barriers that I want to skip over (like fishing).

Stardew Valley is a game I will likely always go back to. I'm sure it will eventually eclipse my current most played game (Team Fortress 2 @ ~800 hours). I've tried other games like it and while they're fun, none seem to have the staying power that Stardew has over me. While I will absolutely check out his next game, I'm hoping Stardew Valley never really stops being updated over the years.

We're deep into second kiddo territory (6 weeks) and I think I'm just feeling a bit burned out. The jump from zero to one child is HUGE and there was a lot of mourning the loss of our freedom/life for both my wife and I. We're feeling the same dip now that we're back into dealing with a newborn ~2 years later and while not as severe, I can tell for myself it's there and bothering me. I've also been back to work the last three weeks so my schedule is basically go to work (from home) all day, take the baby most of the evening while we chase a 2 year old around, get the 2 year old to bed, then hand off the new kiddo around 8:30 - 9 so I can go to bed and I get them back somewhere around 10-11 depending on the last bottle for the rest of the night. Both kids have been good sleepers (thank god) but I'm still getting woken up somewhere around 3am for that middle of the night bottle.

No time for really much else. I know intuitively it will get better because I saw it happen before, it's just rough right now. No time for the mrs, hobbies, friends, etc...and I think we were figuring it out with number one really well. Just all hitting me the last few days.

Luckily both kids are freaking adorable and the older one is overflowing with personality as they're learning, saying, repeating more and more from daycare. It's been awesome to see them just explode in their development. I also understand now why some parents would have leashes for their toddlers.

I think original Sims made the biggest impact on me since I probably played that one the most. Our PC couldn't handle The Sims 2 when it came out, and I only tangentially tried 3 and 4. Mostly enough to build a cool house and spend a few days with the Sims I created. Sims 1 I probably poured a ton of hours into it.

One thing I did discover and never fully completed in the later games was trying to do some sort of haunted house family. As in, have someone move in and intentionally die in a way that created a new color of ghost. Get all of the different ghost colors in one house/lot then move a normal family in. I don't think it really mattered in any way, I just loved the idea of a regular family cohabitating with a rainbow of ghosts.

There's something both so unique and also so simple to the Sims that I'm surprised it's taken this long for folks to try and "go for it" the way Cities:Skylines went for Sim City. Like, you have to craft interesting stories within the game but you don't need to wholecloth invent a galactic empire/fantasy world/etc...you can broadly look at our world and copy/paste for inspiration. With Paralives and Life By You "coming soon" in some fashion, there's going to be some interesting competition here.

We just had our second kid so any games have to basically be on the phone right now. Luckily, someone mentioned Wildfrost in the same breath as Slay the Spire and it has been awesome to play while holding the little one.

It’s a card/deck builder rogue like, but you’re deploying units into one of two lanes and positioning them for maximum effect. Each unit counts down until it attacks, but you have a handful of cards to directly attack as well. You run until you fight the final boss, unlock more stuff along the way, etc…it’s been a blast. The art style is cute (how big can Yuki’s snowball get? Try and find out!) and I love the soundtrack.

On iOS at least, the game is free to download and try out before purchasing (think it was $7). If you like Slay the Spire and similar games, well worth looking into!

If you want to pay for audiobooks, Libro.FM is a DRM free alternative that allows you to easily download your books without any issues that Libation solves for. It also supports local bookstores in your community while not giving more to Amazon. Only a handful of books aren’t available on Libro but it’s been a seamless transition for us. It’s only going to be difficult if you’re one of those folks who returns/refunds audible credits regularly as it’s not easy to do with Libro.

I mean, words could be said about Kyrsten Sinema but I think this is far more appropriate of a summary of her time as a politician...

Link because the embed didn't work

I don't know when I started saying "Pound it" when I would hold my hand out and ask for my dog's paw, but it's always fun and elicits a laugh from anyone who doesn't already know it.

I read this article earlier in the week about how Biden's policy on the Israel-Gaza war may hand the election to Trump, and the last sentence has really stuck with me.

The president’s aides have reportedly been “keeping him in a bubble” regarding voters’ unhappiness with his Israel-Gaza policy. If this Michigan result isn’t what bursts it, then they need to step in and do it themselves.

While phrased in the context of this specific policy, it's this political bubble in Washington DC that needs to pop. I'm astonished at how close this election is. We all know what Trump's about. We've seen this before. Joe Biden cannot seem to get out of the way by either stepping down or pretending to be the communist antifa leader the right will paint him as anyway to securing a victory for anyone NOT Trump. Instead he's content to let us slide into a second Trump Presidency.

I have believed since 2015/2016 that literally anyone else against Hillary or anyone else against Trump would have won in a landslide. No one really liked the candidates. Trump appealed to voters because he promised to go to Washington and stick a thumb in the eye of the establishment. It wasn't Russian interference. The populist message has always done so well regardless of political party because we all see how broken the system is and candidates like Obama, Sanders, and even Trump capitalize on that message to win hearts and minds. Whether or not they actually follow through is secondary (sadly). At this point no one buys that Joe Biden is a "man of the people" regardless of how many Amtrak trains he rides.

But then we're left with even comments here arguing "Trump would be worse" with the implication being "Biden is bad, Trump would be worse". And I get it. This well and truly sucks that it looks like we're going to have two of the oldest Presidential candidates fighting it out yet again from the major parties. I'm fortunate enough to live somewhere that won't ever go for Trump, so I can vote my conscience instead of having to pick the least bad option. Others can't make that call though.

All that to say it's all frankly exhausting and terrible. I think everyone has to decide for themselves how existential of a threat Trump is and vote accordingly. I'm open to the argument that Democrats at least have some amount of shame and can bow to pressure. The conflict in Israel-Gaza is going to be a real test of how they pivot and actually meet the voters where they are.

Seconding the Secretlab chair. For someone who works from home and would play PC games at the exact same desk when work ended, it made sense to invest in a chair beyond my $30 IKEA one and has held up pretty well over the last several years.

Shitty, because we're potty training.

Luckily the kiddo is doing better more than not, but we're having issues with daycare. They said they would "follow our lead" on what we're doing, how we want to approach this, etc...but the reality is not that. And I get it, they have 15 kids to manage and you can't have someone pooping their pants and not telling them about it, it's more just our own frustration that the teachers/admin said one thing and we're seeing another (and never sat down to map some of this out). A lot of our frustration would have been solved if they said how they do things and we could adjust to their style. This is really the first time we've been disappointed in our daycare, it's been fantastic otherwise ever since we started with them.

Plus the poor kid fell in the toilet at school last week because they were playing too much/not paying attention (not at all shocking to me TBH) and has been terrified of the school toilet ever since. The upside is at home over the last weekend, we're calling it one and a half accidents in 2 days, with several longer outings/trips in there.

In non-bathroom news, work slogs on, child #2 is shockingly imminent for us, and I'm mad at my wife for introducing me to The Traitors because I've had a blast watching it and I'm not usually a reality tv person.

The best part of it too was for Wi-Fi calling, if it was off, couldn't be turned on since it relied on AT&T's website/capabilities to approve and authenticate. That was at least my experience as well as my family's.

So if you hadn't already enabled it before the outage, you literally couldn't turn it on.

I thought this article from Vox did a good job laying out how it could fall in Trump's favor.

Taking Trump out of the equation for a moment, I do find resonance with the argument that a state shouldn't be able to disqualify someone from a national election and that a decision like that should sit at the federal level. I'll also echo circularfish in that I don't trust Republican states to fairly apply this standard. It seems like something Democrat-controlled states might do because they believe in rules/institutions so they'll only do it when pressured, if even then. Republican-controlled states will do to score points on Fox/OAN against anyone from Joe Manchin and leftwards on the political spectrum.

Enjoying it a lot, maybe ~12h in or so?

I put about 30h into Valheim and this feels like it will play out a similar way. I'll have a blast for a concentrated time, maybe play with a friend or two, then find something else. I thought the mishmash of realistic world and cute cartoony monsters would clash but it's working for me. Just starting to see the loop of automation and what to look for in a second base. It has a charming amount of jank attached to it.

I spent most of my time yesterday rebuilding my base after one of those grass elephants attacked us for no obvious reason, then a bunch of WAY higher level Relaxasaurus raided alongside the elephant and burned my base down.

It's also not necessarily easier, but more understandable, for roles such as HR, marketing, etc...yes, it's still someone's job but one company probably doesn't need two HR teams worth of people and cuts accordingly.

Message being that everyone should have their head on a swivel during a merger and that goes double for those jobs that provide day-to-day business support to keep things running.

100%. And going down that path you can start to enter into the whole "OK, so all companies are bad or do bad things, but I also need to be a functioning member of society."

I can hate what Shell/Marathon/BP are doing to the environment but I also need to make sure my car gets me to work. Google or Apple can enact terrible policies I disagree with but generally speaking I have to deal with them to have a cell phone. Easier when we're discussing a piece of artwork (not a core need in life) but it's where my comment about a system that incentivizes "bad people" really came from.

So I think my moral philosophy is actually closest to show The Good Place now that I see it written out!

First off, the kagi news is a bummer. I've really liked it and picked up a subscription mostly because of some buzz I saw around here, but seeing this news is a shame and setting up some red flags in my mind.

But to answer your question, I think I personally have a couple ways I approach this...

1. If the evidence someone is transphobic, racist, etc...is from a long time ago (eg someone is digging up ancient tweets to prove someone is some sort of "-ist" today), I tend to give them more grace because people should be allowed to change. I know I didn't have great views on some of this stuff when I was younger and it's easy to forget these celebrities/people in power are fallible human beings. I'll take their response to unearthing these views as a sign of whether or not they're worth supporting going forward. If they're regretful and seem like they're trying to do better, I'm good. The kagi creator seems to not pass this standard for me.

2. If it's something I want to use/consume and it could impact more than just the individual. JK Rowling is a good example of this. I'd struggle to want to buy any of her books again because I see a clearer line of sight from my purchase to her pocket. But something like Hogwarts Legacy, which I knew I would enjoy and my wife would love, and is made by many people with a passion for her world, I'm OK with it. The line to Rowling is a lot blurrier and impacts people who don't have a say in what project(s) they work on.

It's also easier to ignore or skip smaller scale things like an indie game from a deplorable developer vs. the next Marvel/HP/insert your beloved franchise game from someone equally deplorable. None of this is ever perfect and time and attention are finite resources for all of us. If Harry Potter is how you need to unwind because it's your favorite thing, more power to you. It's not my job nor anyone else's to police the things you like or make you feel bad for liking them.

We should all do our best to try and support good people in a system that incentivizes bad people and give ourselves some grace when we (seemingly inevitably these days) find out those people were actually scum.

Sexting only in that case!

It's a pretty apt word to describe a lot more than just technology/platforms right now unfortunately. It fits into too many things.

Also...

In a companion vote, sibling organization the American Name Society selected “Gaza” and “Barbie” as Names of the Year for 2023 in its 20th annual name-of-the-year contest.

WOW. That just feels...blech...

Upgrade by Blake Crouch put his work on my radar. The premise sounded intriguing and I couldn't put the book down. It led me to Dark Matter, Recursion, Pines, and Abandon, of which only Abandon I opted to quit reading. He went from essentially nobody to me to "Ooo, there's a new book coming out!" in the span of this year.

My other surprising hit was getting back into reading comic books and diving into Radiant Black and the associated Massive-Verse stories. It felt like a blend of superhero and Power Rangers style storytelling and parts of it felt very unique and interesting to me (how they handle the main character and where the power of Radiant Black is in the comics releasing now is really cool, trying to avoid spoilers!). It also comes across as a more realistic version of the stories that superhero/PR tell where there's social media and dialogue that comes across as real speech. I think of it akin to Star Trek vs. The Orville, both great but I see the path of how we get from here to the type of world The Orville embodies but the people on Star Trek don't feel exactly like real people by today's standard and it seems that much farther out.

Your comment about who typically likes and doesn't like this book is really interesting because I loved the book AND love playing games. I hadn't heard this criticism of the book before.

I think reading your comment in hindsight, yes that DOES strike me as off looking back on it now but I don't think it stuck out while reading to me outside of one Metal Gear Solid reference that made me quirk an eyebrow and knew it wasn't right.