The Geek's Meow

May those who love us, love us.  For those who do not love us, may God turn their hearts.  And if he will not turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles, so that we may know them by their limping.  Cheers!

It’s been credited as an Irish toast, and since that’s my ancestry I don’t feel any need to argue.

I am a fan of the drink, be they straight spirits or classic cocktails, even newfangled or flying by the seat of my pants concoctions.  I do admit to a wee bit of snobbery – I like my Scotch single malt and generally old enough to vote when that’s an option, I like my rum to not have The Captain on it (but the Kraken is a-okay since it’s good enough to drink alone, but I am not committing a crime when I mix it!), and I even judge your tonic slightly if it’s not at least Canada Dry.  Not that I won’t consume the more standard offerings, I’m just likely to gravitate to the ones I consider better.

I have seen drink lead to bad choices, I have seen it lead to great ones.  Sometimes it’s lovely to let loose that little bit of inhibition as you imbibe.  And it gives me a wonderful excuse at parties for the fact that I will never remember anyone’s name… but of course it was because I was drinking and not that I can’t remember a name to save my life!  Right.  I am a silly, flirty drunk, generally a happy drunk – although in part because I try not to drink much if I’m in unhappy circumstances, I like to drink for the “right” reasons.

A little over four years ago, when I was laid off and times were stressful, I made myself a promise.  I would not drink for that first week.  If I did, I would be drinking things away, not a good choice.  After the full week, I felt I could finally partake in a celebration of the closing of one chapter and the starting of another, a time to drink with friends, so we did go out and drink our way through Downtown Disney.  And it was DELIGHTFUL, the more so because I had been so careful and it was fun to not be that night.

Not to say I never drink when things are stressful, sometimes that shot just helps relax things that are wound too tight in my head.  I remember sometime during that period between companies when I was served a gin & gin (oops, instead of tonic more gin got added) and I didn’t notice at first.  In my defense, we were trying a new gin and I thought it was just REALLY strong.

My go-to cocktail when I’m out and about is the Tom Collins.  A gin based, mildly sweet drink, with a little fizz.  I’ve had bad ones, but over all as long as the gin is alright the drink can be drunk.  It used to be the Old Fashioned, but I have seen too many places destroy that one – it makes for a great litmus test of a good bartender. Ever since I saw a bartender not add the simple syrup but just pour the juice from maraschino cherries (the bright red near-plastic kind, not the quality luxardo ones) to ruin a perfectly good rye Old Fashioned I have gotten a little more careful with that order.  Tom Collins, and if the bartender asks if I want gin or vodka I raise an eyebrow, the only thing they should be asking is if I want to call my gin.  Vodka Collins is it’s own drink, as is a Pedro Collins (rum), a John Collins (bourbon), and so on.  So Tom Collins – generally safe in the hands of any semi-competent bartender, well known, classic.

I told you, I’m a drink snob.  I mean, I still drink my “Dark & Stormy” variant, that is Canada Dry ginger ale and Kraken rum – but I try to call it a Partly Cloudy.  A true Dark & Stormy has Gosling’s Black Seal rum and ginger beer, it is in fact trademarked by Gosling’s that way.  I’ll accept any dark rum, really, but if you are substituting the ginger beer, it’s not truly a Dark & Stormy and I will acknowledge that it’s still my home-drink of choice.  Generally easy to keep the supplies on hand (except when the rum is gone… why’s the rum gone?) and make another up, even if you’re three sheets to the wind.  Although the rum pours do get more generous as you drink more, I have discovered.

So to you, lovely readers, a toast! Sláinte!

(Okay, so I’m at work and had to toast you with my water bottle.  Which actually has water in it.  Not “Water of Life” water either.)

I post that we went on an Ivysaur hunt.

Then I don’t open the app since.  I’m pretty sure I’m done.  It may be a place I visit from time to time, but Pokemon Go just isn’t a destination I’m looking forward to being transported in to anymore.

Well, more time to worry about Black Desert Online!

(Except that it can’t run well on my work computer, so I only play it at home.)

It’s a gamer phrase, that according to Urban Dictionary means: “To gamble recklessly and aggressively after a bad or improbable beat or series of bad or improbable beats. Usually results in losing all of your money and then some. Good gamblers avoid this at all costs, even if it means going home earlier than expected.”

At work we use it to mean any kind of extreme reactionary attitude after some form of aggravation.

I think having a door alarm going off intermittently (and sometimes for excessive periods of time) all day at work has me on tilt.  I am ready to say “Fuck it all!” because my last nerve has been tap danced on since I got here at eight am.

I did get a respite, when I went to my orthodontist and got to pay excessively for parking just to be told that everything is okay and come back in a year.  Which is good, except for the parking bill.

Today has me extremely ready to go off on someone, I can feel it bubbling up, and my goal is just to keep it in check until I can leave the office and blow off steam.  Maybe I’ll load up Black Desert Online and take out Red Orcs until I’m calmer.

Perhaps I spoke too soon.

Yesterday afternoon the Pokemon Sightings chat channel lit up with an inquiry if anyone had found the Ivysaur that was showing up on our tracker.  Sure enough, a small Ivysaur expedition formed, and we went out into the cruel rays of the day-star, seeking a Pokemon.  But a cool rare one, right?

Pokemon Go is dead, long live Pokemon Go.

Pokemon fever hit my office hard.  No wonder, we work in the gaming industry, we are indeed gamers.  So when something big and new hits the scene, we all take part, at least a little.

I was in the casual players pool.  Sure, I joined some of the chat channels, I’d even call out if I saw something cool in my vicinity.  As an excuse to get away from my desk I’d sometimes walk to the other Pokestops on campus, and once I tracked a Vulpix over to the IT department.  But the only reason I had nearly enough pokeballs was the fact that I could hit a Pokestop from my desk.  Outside of the office I rarely even booted up the program.

On the other hand, I had coworkers who would take off en masse to reconquer the local gyms.  They were coordinated, team efforts were common, and if anything remotely rare showed up near the office there was often a flood of them racing for it.  So we had some dedicated players!  They’d arrange to go to the pier after work, or drive down close to my area (about 20 miles south of the office) to find nests that may or may not exist.  They kept the chat channels hopping.

And now… tumbleweeds. Sure, there were a few complaints about the changes (tracking, mainly).  There was a brief and passionate backlash about the changes to throwing pokeballs and the lack of communication at first.  But it burned hot, bright, and then out as fast as it started.  And I honestly think it’s because of the lack of displayed passion on the part of Niantic – gamers who care want to feel that same sense of return, even if there’s no action and just communication, from the creators.  When you feel like you’re screaming into the void, eventually you stop screaming and walk away.  You can’t keep up an argument very long if the other side takes their ball and goes home.

It feels like that’s what Niantic did.  They made changes, mistakes, decisions, etc – but never bothered to talk about them, address the concerns, or even fight back.  If they don’t care enough to talk to us, why do we care enough to give them feedback, or even keep playing?

The second law of thermodynamics states “The entropy of any isolated system always increases.”

I am a procrastinating planner.  I’ve left so many things to last minute that unless you have pre-scheduled time, I can’t really do things spontaneously.  This means if I do have you locked in as plans, they are Plans.  I actually need to get better at last minute, spontaneous stuff.

A friend called out last week for help moving stuff this weekend.  Since there were no Plans, I committed to it.  Then waited for details.

And waited.

And asked.

And waited.

No answer except a hurried “Things are up in the air,” yesterday mid-morning.  And then radio silence.

So when I woke up this morning to find the whole thing had been postponed at least one weekend (to a tentative date where other Plans exist) as of 11 pm last night, I no longer had Plans.  Because of the weirdness of my brainspace, this was not a good scenario.  You see, I can enjoy unplanned free form relax time, sure!  Who doesn’t!  I just need to Plan to have unplanned free form time.  That’s right, I have to Plan not to Plan.

This is no besmirch on the person who needs to move – I know uncertainty frustrates her just as much as it does me.  The issue is that I used to be SO flaky and free form, that only through Planning did I become a reliable adult.  Which has become a rigid adult.  In an increasingly enthropic world.

Is enthropic a real word?  The online dictionary says it is entropic.  So pretend I said that, instead.

Strangely, I’ve gotten better at work, usually, with this.  Oh, you need a 6 pm meeting tomorrow?  Well, that’s like notice, so I guess I’ll be there (or I’ll remote in).  Meeting canceled, hey, I get my hour and a half back!  I do try to keep firm boundries on some things – if I don’t get 24 hours notice and it takes me outside my usual work day I will probably offer to remote in or have decline the meeting.  That’s because my home meals are planned at the beginning of the week around my planned work schedule, so there’s only so much I can flex and still be respectful to my partner.

But personal time – less than a week’s notice feels alien and takes me pushing boundaries to be okay.  They are boundaries that need to be pushed, I need to find a middle ground, but I know that it feeds the brain weasels.  Too much brain weasel feeding, and I can lose the ability to do everyday things, so it’s a careful line to walk.

Someday I think I need to write about the brain weasels, as well as Radio F-U.  But that’s going to be a bit of a deep piece, so it’s going to take some time to get out.  I appreciate the patience!

So one of the strangest things about smartphones seems to be the unpredictability of their battery life.  Sometimes my phone, fully charged, will champion through the day no sweat.  Granted, these are usually Pokemon light days, but not always.  Others, total power melt down and squeaking about battery low by lunch.

My first few smartphones were not like this – I knew how much battery I had for the day and when I would need to charge it.  But the Galaxy S3 and now my Galaxy S5 (more so the S3 than the S5, admittedly) have been harder to judge.  Thankfully I have a trusty back up battery pack.  Not so coincidentally, it was with the rise of availability in extra battery charged cases or supplementary pocket sized battery packs that the phones felt less beholden to predictability, it seems to me.

Alright, so I’m paranoid.

But really… what if…

I realize so much of what I say these days, especially at work, is practically bordering on secret language.  Between terminology of my industry (sprint planning, JIRA board, etc) and jargon from gaming in general (How much DPS can you do in your favorite MMO, and what Champ do you want to play in that MOBA?) as well as internal terms and codes (project code names, tools we use, and so on) that when you add in regular slang or analogies (I’m totally in the weeds, but we’re in the trenches together on this one) that I’m not sure a conversation with me makes any sense at all except to a select set of people!

When I speak to people for whom English is not their first language, I become almost hypercritically aware of this, but usually only after a phrase has passed my lips (or fingertips in text) and is ready to cause confusion.  I’m instantly trying to simplify and translate… and am totally relieved when it’s not needed.

This doesn’t even take into account my tendency to quote movies, music, TV, and books without context or reference for anyone.  Sometimes “anyone” can include me, it’ll be a phrase I know is a quote, I just can’t place where it’s from.  It’s because my head is filled with random snags of pop culture… for example I can never think of how well things are going without hearing “Everything’s going so well!” from Moulin Rouge… and then I know that everything may melt down at any second!

Seriously, as funny as that is, it can seriously cause me to start looking over my shoulder for the other shoe to drop!

As someone who has tried to learn a little of a few languages (I can still order a bottle of water in Korean!) I know how hard this can make communication, but for some reason I can never cut back on it until it’s too late.

Oh man, now I really want to watch Moulin Rouge again!

So I’ve run into someone online that is not a Whovian, but is interested in the Doctor Who series.  I pointed out that the best ways to get started are either starting with the 2005 revival and start straight through, or better if you can get it to have an existing fan curate a selection of starter episodes.

In doing so, I realized I volunteered myself to curate.  I want the list to be short, so as not to intimidate.  I want it to have variety, I don’t know a lot about this person’s tastes.  Classic Who takes a little more effort to get into, because you’re dealing with the perspective of a different era in the filming, as well as being slightly harder to find, so I’m restricting myself to new Who as a starter.  I want at least 3 Doctors, to help highlight the personality differences that come with each regeneration.

So a brief intro, as well as my list with explanations why each was chosen.

Intro – Things you need to know:
The TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) is a space/time traveling ship (it’s bigger on the inside) that got stuck looking like a classic Police Phone Box, the Doctor can “die” and regenerate into a new body, with a somewhat different personality each time (played by a new actor each time), and the Doctor is notorious for picking up humans (usually humans) from Earth (usually from Earth) to act as Companions for his adventures through time and space.

6 intro episodes – some are 2 parters (not in any kind of chronological order, but then does that matter a lot when the show is about non-linear adventures in time and space?)
Blink: Hands down the best intro to Who episode in my opinion, also creepy as hell – Series 3, Episode 11
Rose: This was the first episode of the “new Who” era – it’s not an extraordinary episode but it is a good intro moment – Series 1, Episode 1
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: This is a two-parter that I think is fantastic, but creepy, but fantastic – Series 1, Episode 9 and 10
The Girl in the Fireplace: A stand-alone-ish episode that focuses on the Doctor – Series 2, Episode 5
Vincent and the Doctor: Emotional and touching, I know I’ve suggested a lot of creepy up to this point so this should be a good palate cleanser – Series 5 Episode 10
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead: Some of my favorite characters appear in this one Series 4, Episode 9 and 10
The Waters of Mars: One of the specials that goes a lot into how the Doctor thinks and feels, lots of good insight – Series 4, Speical Episode/Episode 17

It’s a little Tennant-heavy, and I avoid more recent episodes because I think they build a lot on these kinds of foundations (also, spoilers).

I wonder what Whovians think of this list.  Any glaring omissions?  Inclusions that are not a good choice?  Why?  Do I delve into my Doctor, Tom Baker, just for contrast? I wanted to include a lot more Donna Noble, my favorite companion, but because her story is such a long and winding one her episodes didn’t fit as well.

On the one hand, I know it’s not me.

Pixie-cat loves my brown fuzzy blanket, and now that it’s recently washed she loves it even more.  Heck, I love it when it’s super soft and fluffy like it is right now, and she associates it with mama-cat somehow, based on how she loves to cuddle it and knead it and when she was very young she would even suckle on it.

So it’s not me she’s cuddling and loving when I’m under that blanket.

On the other hand – I don’t care.  Kitty cuddles!  *squee*