[Hi gang! I don’t wanna run a whole friggin’ website anymore, all I ever wanted was to make with the fake lies, yelling, and jokes that aren’t worth the legwork for the people, to be a simple blogger. To that end, you can now find me over at [The Naming Way courtesy of the truly excellent Pika, alongside such Dudes of Quality as Brenden! It’s The Bageler will stay up until my subscription runs out next year and I’ll continue to cross-post until then; thank you all for reading, and I hope to see you over at my new pad!]
I’ve been putting some work into my archives, going through and fixing all the transcription errors from when Barry, my ETERNAL DOGG, managed to port all of my posts over from my old site¹, and by coincidence the bits I’m going through now are from last year’s Blaugust. One of the things about blogging events like these is that it is hard to write every day (that is, in fact, what they hope to alleviate with their prompts and community suggestions and similar), and I’m not above stealing from my past-self², so I’m doing a BLAUGUST GREATEST HIT:
- When you can feel a New Interest setting its hook in your brain, extending its tendrils and making a place for itself inside you. This could be anything, but I specifically mean it in a like, personal-growth context, because for me it’s a growing taste for nonfiction literature that I’m learning so. much. from, such as Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men,Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, This Is Chance! The Great Alaska Earthquake, Genie Chance, and the Shattered City She Held Together, and Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language. They’re pretty slow going—for example Invisible Women, which I’m currently on, is very interesting but also not a lot of fun exactly, and is full numbers that are hard to effectively grapple with on an individual scale—but there’s no going back, for my thinker hungers.
- Getting a new notebook—in this specific instance the Stalogy B6–and thinking “Oh shit, This Is It, I’ve found My Notebook”; that may or may not be true yet—I still have to finish the Jumping Fox A5 I’ve been using and recommend unresesrvedly—but suffice it to say A New Contender has taken The Stage.
- THE HUMBLE ARNOLD PALMER, a delicious beverage made of iced tea and lemonade. I quit Diet Coke for the millionth time a couple of weeks ago and, knock the wood, it seems to actually be taking this time. I’m still so thirsty that my parents had me checked for diabetes in my youth though, so in addition to my usual fuckton of water I’m down to two canned APs and maybe a Dr. Pepper a day; I like the bottled Good Doctors so I can just have a couple of sips with whatever I’m eating, it’s very rare that I’ll be just guzzling that much sugar on its own, makes me feel logy.
- Introducing my grandboys to the vocabulary-altering joy of Homestar Runner, and having him do commentary on the movies they’re watching³. Other things I’ve taught them to say include ‘Yes chef!’ (mostly to get them to just get them to cooperate with Mrs. Columbo), ‘So Say We All’ to bind a promise or act as a secular Amen after expressing our gratitude for food and each other before eating, and ‘Be Seeing You’ as a goodbye-ritual, complete with hand-gesture⁴.
- These little hamwiches that Mrs. Columbo sometimes makes me for my weekday-lunches with havarti on Hawai’ian sweet-rolls, they’re amazing, and oh man you peel the top bun off and slide a couple Ruffles into one of those bad bois? Welcome to Crünchtowne, Population: You.
- We watched Kung Fu Panda last night for the first time in a few years and absolutely everything about it is still incredible, it’s not just a top-tier animated picture but a genuine triumph among Movies. That said, whenever I watch it I am simply blown away by Ian McShane’s performance as Tai Lung, it gets me every time:
- The energizing effect of simply rearranging a space! For example, my job finally just actually hired me when my temp-contract was up, and without even telling me they sent me a GORGEOUS MONSTER of a monitor to go with my company laptop which, combined with the two external monitors I already had, required a complete rearrangement of my entire desk-setup and now it feels like a whole new place! There will be pics, and a Three Amigos! wallpaper-triptych, when time permits. But it’s an elemental, primal feeling that goes back to rearranging your space as a child: hell yeah, new room, new me.
- This will sound a little hypocritical coming from a famous stay-up-too-later like myself, but going to bed early; I can’t force myself to do it often, but as many times as I’ve regretted reading or playing FFXIV until 11:30 on a worknight, I’ve never regretted just calling it an early one and snorting some of the Sandman’s dust. Part of this, of course, is simple Bedtime Revenge Procrastination, and my hope is that when the rest of the United States does its ridiculous pretend “Oh the time is changing! The time is different somehow now!” bullshit and I get out of work more than two hours before we need to start heading in for the night.
- That thing you can do with some cats where you get their attention, then duck behind a doorjamb or under a counter or whatever for a second, then you slowly move back into sight and they’re A.) Closer than they were before, and B.) In full Big-Eyes Action-Crouch, and you do it two or three more times and when they reach you, you scrumble them up but good. Cats are PRETTY GOOD, gang.
- Speaking of cats, our goodest oinge boi Cooper—y’know, this guy:
As you can see he’s pretty squinty there and his eyes are more than a little encrustulated; we thought he just had allergies and there probably wasn’t a lot to be done about it, but a recent unrelated vet visit revealed that he actually has a skin condition around his poor peepers, and after some simple drops he has the BIGGEST HEADLIGHTS YOU’VE EVER SEEN, to the point where we’ve started calling him Brighteyes. He is SO happy, and we feel pretty bad that we didn’t realize there even was a solution, let alone such an easy one, but beating ourselves up over things that are over is watering a dead plant, so we’re just being happy for him, the adorable goon - When you unexpectedly and apropos of nothing encounter the answer to a question you’ve had for a long time. The most recent and hilarious example of this for me was listening to an episode of Knowledge Fightwhere the boys methodically disassembled Alex Jones’ assertion that hospitals were counting gunshot and car crash victims who tested Covid-positive in their autopsies as Covid deaths; I sat bolt upright in my work-palanquin and yelled “HOLY SHIT, THAT’S WHERE THAT CAME FROM, SHE GOT IT FROM INFOWARS, MY MOTHER IS AN INFO-WARRIOR” down to a confused Mrs. Columbo.
- The extent to which the Harris/Walz campaign seems to have energized a terrifyingly lethargic voting public; for my part I’m still cautiously optimistic and certainly not counting any chickens yet, but I haven’t seen young people and women and folks of color and LGBT+ people and the essentially-compassionate masses and pretty much everyone except hateful, paranoid, white gun-weirdos this hype to vote since 2008, following another run of mediocre white men, and that fact gives me a lot of very fragile and trepidatious hope. A large part of that is due to Americans (including myself) feasting on the basic decency and humanity present in VP pick Tim “Who The Hell Is” Walz; he’s not even doing anything remarkable, he’s just a dude who belligerently loves his family and community and has feelings, and we are absolutely starving for leadership that displays anything like regular human love and emotion. That hunger, of course, is in and of itself a symptom of how badly we’ve been spiritually and emotionally abused by the people in power for pretty much ever, but especially the past decade or so; my hope isn’t that our cup will overflow like the vino de Vici in spring anytime soon, but if we can just get a server who actually brings us refills occasionally I’ll be more than satisfied.
- My Red Mage water-bottle sticker:
FFXIV has I think something like two dozen playable classes that fall roughly into the DPS (‘Damage Per Second’, fighters basically), Tank (defenders, basically), and Healers (blue Australian dogs) triad, and maybe another dozen Crafter/Gatherer classes, but Red Mage is the first one that really clicked with me and, like almost all classes, only gets more fun and satisfying as I level it up. Doesn’t hurt that the fit is UNTOUCHABLE:
And LET US NOT NEGLECT the bitchin’ rapier and focus-crystal combo that is the class’s signature weapon!
Red Mage just rules and I never thought I’d be this kind of person, having a main in an MMORPG and getting merch of it; of course, I also never thought I’d give up Diet Coke or exercise regularly, but the twilight of Young Man status is a funny old thing, and strange times make for strange allies. I’ve also got a set of jobstone phone-wallpapers that I switch out depending on what I’m playing at the moment, but I’m sure you can imagine which one gets the most screentime. - Tangentially related to the above, at some point something clicked in my head and flossing stopped being a whole hassle and is now just a part of my nightly routine; it probably has something to do with the fact that a few years ago I started taking a book with me to brush my teeth and similar, but also I want to be able to honestly say that I floss every night when my new health insurance allows me to see a dentist for the first time since the Obama Administration⁵.
- When my cat Paisley (or any cat really) does this:
And I get to go 🎶aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh🎵 , which I understand is an MS3TK bit that they bust out for open-mouthed skulls and such but I’ve never actually seen that to be true, so PERHAPS I AM SIMPLY HILARIOUS??? - I must RELUCTANTLY ADMIT that I am being forced to add the band Counting Crows to this list. I do so GRUDGINGLY and courtesy of The Bear, which features many good songs including several by that selfsame Bird-Numberin’ Band, and I’ve spent a VERY LONG TIME thinking I hated them⁶ for the following reasons:
1.) I hate a gerund-name, always have; if Leviathan Wakes, the first book in the swiftly-becoming-one-of-my-favorites Expanse series, had been called Leviathan Waking or Rising I wouldn’t have fucking read it, and
2.) In retrospect I think I was apportioning them an unfair measure of hatred that I mainly felt for a “””Christian Rock””” band called Casting Crowns that was popular among my Christian-middle-school compatriots, and even though I was not a fan of Counting Crows at the time, I have always been LESS a fan of one creative trying to get me to confuse them with a bigger name, especially in the Christian music scene which, ONE WOULD THINK, would be above such petty concerns. Anyway I’ve only heard a few songs yet, I’m not about to go all Depeche Mode on them, but so far I’m liking what I hear. - Similarly, I’ve been forced to start watching Star Trek: Enterprise, bastard four-season stepchild of the franchise, because my bois Ben and Adam over at The Greatest Generation have done the same after finishing TNG, DS9, and VOY. On paper, it crams a lot of things I hate into Trek: blatant appeal to middle-America cowboy-types (Captain Archer’s dad is doing a pretty unsubtle George H. W. Bush impression in the pilot), way more sexual fanservice than the franchise has traditionally included, and Count Bakula. (Jkjk, I just needed three things.) To my pleasant surprise however it’s pretty good so far; Dr. Phlox is already my favorite, although it’s a close race because it’s pre-universal-translator so they brought a linguist named Hoshi along and she—OKAY, WELP, ALRIGHT, WHO HAD THEIR MONEY ON SOMEBODY SMOOCHING AN ALIUM IN THE FIRST FIVE EPISODES, COME COLLECT YOUR WINNINGS, NO IT WAS NOT PORTHOS THE BEAGLE.
- Getting a couple of things done early in the day and then feeling super accomplished; I walked a mile on the treadmill while watching Enterprise, then changed the ceiling air-filters, which isn’t a ton of things but does make me feel like I’ve earned a nice breakfast-and-lounge in my last hour before work. Of course, we could talk about how fucked up it is that we think we need to earn relaxation, enjoyment, and food, but, vague gesture.
- Remembering you can make short entries on long lists!
- AS SHORT AS YOU WANT
- !
- When Celebrated Local Cat Tiramisu J. Cat decides I’m his special project for the day:
- When somebody shoots Finland and leaves him for dead:
- When you get a Like on your social of choice, and it’s from a friend who you know for a fact doesn’t know or care about the thing you were talking about, but just wants to support you and whatever you’re doing, those are the best
- My wife. Maybe it’s corny and makes me sound like an Internet Wife-Guy who will be charged with SEC violations in four years, but it’s just the truest thing I’ve ever said: in a world as filled with wonder and terror and joy and uncertainty as this one, my heart rejoices daily that such a thing as her exists, let alone exists and smooches me.
- Accepting your limits sometimes; for example, it’s the 26th and this is Blaugust Post #9, so I’m probably not gonna make the post-count this year! And that’s okay, this was supposed to be fun and energizing and celebratory of la vie blogographique, and it’s absolutely been all of those things without stressing myself out and turning something I love into a font of agita.
- OOH OOH when you find the exact gif you were looking for, shit that’s sweet, even when you have to download it like a fucking caveman or whatever
- Oh man eating an APPLE with a KNIFE like a DUDE OF WISDOM UPON A REGAL PORCH-STEP. Come a-gather, youngins, ask me your stumpers whilst I munch this Cosmic Crisp.
- Honestly come to that, apples in general, I have one every weekday and I’m always sad it’s gone afterward. W—could I have…two? Oh shit this Friday I’m gonna have two apples with lunch! THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT!
- As in last year’s post, my final item of happymaking is that this list is over. List long! But list good. And now, list over.
Oh thank Store-Brand God, I can stop fighting the jazz gummy now,
— C. W.
¹ Needless to say, this was due to technobamboozlement and no fault of Barry’s; he lifted the world for me and it’s not his fault that there were bugs and ooglybooglies Morris-dancing underneath it
² What’s that guy gonna do? He weighs one stone more than I do, has an undiagnosed heart condition, and takes ten minutes longer than me to do a mile on the treadmill; he can start some shit if he can catch me.
³ Yes, I figured out how to upload that to my own YouChewb specifically so I could embed it because Pika doesn’t support non-YT video embeds yet, that is my level of dedication to you people and making sure you know I’m hilarious.
⁴ A hand-gesture that, unfortunately, bears a distinct resemblance to a once-common hand-sign in the United States that white supremacist shitheads have coopted; my hope is that between the inclusion of the eye and the fact that it’s cute little boys and not sweaty racists doing it, most people won’t make an unfortunate, untrue connection. Also maybe I’m more keyed into stuff like that than the average person, so I might be worried about nothing, but I definitely don’t want their parents to get a confusing call about why they’re on a watchlist now
⁵ Admitting that feels really gross and bad and shameful, but I trust you folks to know what it’s like to be able to afford either asthma medicine or a dental copay; also I’ve always been a fastidious brusher, and I’m pretty sure all that Diet Coke probably sterilized my oral biome anyway.
⁶ Outside their appearance on the Shrek 2 soundtrack, which is a Perfect Record