Periodically.org

I had put away game making for few months. Not on purpose, my IDE (code editor) was always ready to boot up, taunting me with its colour coded goodness, hilarious refactoring (refactoring is when you rewrite bits of your code to be easier to read, and simpler) bugs, and hipsterish colour themes.  But I would find any manner of excuses to not boot it up, rewatching all of Breaking Bad, because nothing gets one more chipper and motivated than the morale dissolution of a father as the rank and turgid hand of the amphetamine drug trade destroys him utterly; re-reading books I've read far too many times already; surfing the web on a dopamine treadmill of mild-amusement and semi-wonder. But the reasons for stopping for so long are multiple and kinda interesting, as are the reasons for starting up again. I go through ebbs and flows of creative flow, lately less rather than more. It's more often because the enemy of good is perfect, or fear of failure, or just because, well,...

Somewhere in the domestic male brain, crammed between 'How to Change the Oil in a '74 Chevy' and 'Best Southpaw Pitcher From Idaho' is 'Ability to Speak Coherently about Local Geography'. That entire part is missing from my brain. I'm not sure what replaces it. Maybe 'Consistently Typos Teh' or 'Uncontrollable Desire to Own A Laser Blaster'. This is the predominant preoccupation with me, and, I think, anyone of my age group, that we're not quite adult yet. I might be resolved to never be an adult. Not that this was ever a goal, more like an eventuality, like  calling kids "champ" or developing an unfeigned admiration of Patton. But on occasion I'd like to fake it. I divide the world  into Places I Drive To and THAR  BE DRAGONS. It doesn't help that my memory has never been that great. I've been known to forget my own birthday. Or forget the names of neighbours I've had for years. It's quite possible I...

My current hobby is making video games. Ugly horrible 2D abominations that look like really drunken Atari remakes in MS Paint, they play worse. But its fun making them. OK, mostly infuriating and frustrating and an elaborate experiment to make me feel stupider than usual, but when everything ends up working and you have something that you'd still be too embarrassed to show anyone while sober, there is a tremendous feeling of accomplishment, like baking a cake when all you've done before is make a rather tepid mug of Horlitz. It's also nice to be working on problems that are unlike the problems I deal with at work, which is roughly, getting information from point A to point B.Where A and B can be a user, another machine, some server run by some other company, etc, etc. It's not uninteresting, but I've beendoing it for... a very long time, and isn't as interesting as something you can, at the end of the day, load up and play . There's also lots of other...

"What could he have been doing?" I hear you asking. The unaccountably diverse group of likley email spammers , SEO handpuppets, and, perhaps, two or three friends who continue to forget to remove this blog from their RSS reader. What could I have been doing indeed! Work has been more worky as of late. The whole 'going to the gym 3 times a week' is still going, and takes a fair bit of time. Or as I call it, 'watching the rather distressingly budget straight to DVD knockoffs that are available on Netflix Instant while ellipticalling my life away'. I also started a different project, which I'm still on the fence about continuing. It was an homage, of sorts, to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows , called, imaginatively enough, Dictionary of Obscure Joys . Optimism is always harder to pull off than pessimism, maybe it has to do with the fact that that we, as a species, commiscerate over the horrible cards life has dealt us: the smart phone that doesn't...

"This flower smells so good, it smells like NAIL POLISH" "Oh yeah, I'm scared of sharks too. But the one I hate the most are lions, when they tap on your window." "I wouldn't want to live near a volcano, it's so hot, it can melt ice. Or your head. Or this HOUSE. Or those bananas." *seeing some guy in a gym pumping iron* "Wow, he's so strong, I bet you he can lift a SWORD!"

There have been little tidbits of life that hardly warrant an entire post, so I've jammed two of them together to make one relatively anemic one! Both Owlet and Owl Jr. have had pretty newish reactions to films in the past few months. From Owl Jr. it was honest surprise/anguish/fear, from watching (of all things) That Unintentionaly Horrifying Motion Capture Christmas Abomination known as 'The Polar Express'. There was a spider, or something. I wasn't really paying attention to the movie, I was off in the corner, reading my book, trying to avoid any and all small talk. But suddenly there comes a high pitched scream juust below the pitch of a smoke alarm. I run over, and there is Owl Jr. hands to the face, emitting a tone and sound I have never heard. I haven't heard it since, which is probably a good thing. I pick him up, and he calms down, but it was astonishing, to hear an brand new emotion from that little 2 year old. Actually, now that I think of it, it wa...

Owl Jr. is a thoughtful little three year old. The sort who will stare at his train or his Lightning McQueen while making engines sounds of questionable veracity. Or stand by the sink,pushing his Thomas Train through the slowly trickling water for what seems like hours. A rich inner life. He's also his own little boy. Pugnacity, iron will, steely determination are not whimsical descriptions when he has his mind set. "Owl Jr, finish your mac and cheese,and then you can have this caramel popcorn" "No." "Come on Owl Jr. All this popcorn, you know you like it." "I don't want it." "I'm going to eat it. It looks soo delicious" (this is a standard tactic at which Owlet would break Kenmore on day 366 of it's 1 year warranty) "Ok. Eat it." "Ok.. What?" "Eat it. Eat popcorn." I look with not a small amount of uncertainty at the pile of multi-coloured .. bits.. of.. what I'm assured u...