Gravitron Gardens

Rhonda sent me a text last week that is threatening to disrupt my entire life. Unroot my stability and change everything. 

Do I have $70,000? No.

Do I have a business plan? No.

Would owning a Gravitron pay my bills? No. 

But I want it. Not only do I want it. I want SEVERAL of them. 

Imagine if you will an entire fair but there's only one kind of ride. Gravitrons. We could theme them, one would be futuristic, another steampunk, a nature-themed one - even one with pole dancers for the grownups. 

I should say what a Gravitron is for the uninitiated. It's a reasonably common fair ride here in North America. In short, it's a large flying-saucer-shaped ride that spins at a pretty good RPM. Riders sit inside the ride lying against the slanted walls. The centrifugal force (centripetal? I can't keep it straight) pushes the rider against the wall so you feel gravity sideways. As the spinning ramps up, the gurney you lie against raises up on tracks so not only are you stuck to the wall, but you're also a foot or two off the ground. 

I spent a lot of time in Gravitrons between ages 11 and 16.

We could take it on the road! Have a Gravitron show up to your bachelor party or sweet 16.  Family reunion? You'll need a few of those for that. No festival is complete without being surrounded by a dozen Gravitrons. 

We could have some food booths around. What are some good spinning theme foods? Cotton candy is spun I suppose. I might even be open to the idea of a few games. But they'd need to be Gravitron-based.

I dunno. I've had that feeling lately that I'd like to drastically change my career. Sure Gravitron Carney isn't exactly what most people would expect, but it would be a spectacular change. Just wandering the continent making people puke. 

Making people puke. 

Ok, so there is one downside to this. 

I asked Copilot AI to make me an image of my Gravitron Gardens. It wasn't very successful. While it clearly knew that a Gravitron is a spinning ride and that it's flying saucer-shaped, it really struggled to unite the two. So I got back lots of images of parks with flying saucers, merry-go-rounds and Ferris wheels.  This was the best I could come up with. 

AI-Generated imagining of a Gravitron amusement park. 

At least the scale is right?

Would you come to my Gravitron amusement park? Would you hire us for your grandparent's 60 anniversary? What would be your one ride amusement park? 

Bala-trolling

 I've never identified as a "gamer". I absolutely play my share of video games but I don't have a desk chair that looks like it belongs in a Formula 1 car or a headset with a mic built in. I just play the same dozen games all the time. 

This is why it's worth noting that I bought a brand-new game this week. Not a sequel to something I've played since college like the new Civilization XXIICDDERP. Like a whole new IP, game style and everything. Maybe you've heard of it. 

I present to you Balatro! 

Balatro is described as a "poker-like, rogue-lite game." I think that describes it pretty well. Hey, I knew what those things meant! Maybe I am a gamer. Basically, you play poker hands and there are collectable bonus cards you can draw to increase your score, get more cash or make other fun plays. 

Beyond seeing it being played by several gamers on YouTube and learning it was the PC Gamer 2024 Game of the Year, I heard that the secretive maker, LocalThunk, is from right here in Saskatchewan. Heck for all I know it could be The Navigator. Probably not tho, he's really busy at work. 

A lot of the media focus on the game has been around the Jokers. There are something like 150 unique jokers you can obtain and collect to help boost your score or make play easier. They're at the core of the branding in the game and they really are the most charming part of it. The way that Jokers multiply your hand is reminiscent of cribbage and how you can count the same cards multiple times if you play them right. It's like they took crib, poker, collectable card games like Magic the Gathering and card collecting and jammed them all together. 

But for me, my favourite part is building out this insane card deck full of multipliers, bonuses and cheats. By the time you get to the end of a run, you have a card deck that is chaotic, powerful and maybe just a little bit gross. 

Getting new cards and bonuses is executed as opening a card pack like you would have with hockey cards (or Pokemon cards for those of us under 100 years old). This part is also a lot of fun and scratches a gambling itch without spending any money (beyond the $15 I spent buying the game).

Which brings me to a quick tangent - gambling and games. LocalThunk talks a bit on his socials about how Balatro has pulled an 18+ rating for depicting gambling in games. And I think he makes a very good point. The issue isn't so much that a game with poker at its core is rated so high but that EA sports games (and others) with microtransactions and pay-to-win loot boxes aren't. That's REAL gambling and it goes unchecked. I have not spent a dollar more than my initial spend on Balatro and I don't expect I'll be asked to. There are no microtransactions, no pay-to-win. It's just buy the game and play it. Refreshing.

I've gone out of my way to avoid "How to Play" or "You need to know this first" type stuff in playing the game, allowing myself to discover the intricacies of the game myself. I have gone and looked up explanations of some of the mechanics like Tags and Seals because I think I missed them when they were presented at the start. But otherwise, it's been discovery as much as it's been risk. I love finding my own strategies and combinations to try. And furious when I make a bad choice, or worse an error. 

Of course, as a rogue-like, if you fail to meet the blind, your game run ends immediately. No extra lives (unless you have that Joker "Mr. Bones" but it's expensive and rare), your deck is reset and all of your Jokers are destroyed. Back to zero. 

But at least you get to go back and do it all again! 

Not sure how long this game will hold my interest, but it's the fun I'm having right now. I had expected it to be a bit of a faster game - something on the scale of a poop break. But I've taken a whole evening to get through a run so it can be a medium-length play once you really dig in.

All of this goes to show how good a game can be when it's made by a gamer who understands games and just wants to deliver something fun and be part of the fun. The Balatro experience has been great, it actually reminds me of the early Minecraft days before Notch went mad and sold the thing to Microsoft. 

What's your favourite indie game? Why do I ask for suggestions then never go play the games myself? Will they ever release Kerbal Space 2? 

Not like us

I never got a tattoo.

I think my original hesitation of not wanting a permanent work of art on my ever-changing identity has been far overshadowed by my paralyzing fear of needles. 

Back when Truth and Reconciliation was hitting full swing I started to understand the darkness and negativity that were actually associated with being Canadian. It wasn't all maple syrup and apologies. Canadians have done brutal things to others in the name of the country. Which is why I've always been glad I never got the one tattoo I've ever considered - a maple leaf.  

But at the same time, I've turned my back on the positives of being Canadian. The fact that our parliamentary style of government and multi-party system has allowed us to avoid the political debacles we're watching unfold in the US. Our logical approach to freedom, wide open spaces and unique identity. 

With all the recent talk coming out of the US (and one orange man in particular) about annexing Canada or otherwise seeing us join the US has me contemplating where I want to sit with all of this. 

On one hand, I see nationalism as a tool to control people, just like religion. But sometimes we all need to gather together under a single banner and when you've got a pseudo-autocrat knocking at your south door, it's time to assemble under the flag. 

There's maybe a lot of us who would say "well, let's just join the US". It would certainly make travelling the continent easier, they're very similar culturally and maybe it would make things better. 

Then I remember how much I like free healthcare. I remember how I like walking in my terrifying neighbourhood without that much concern that everyone has a gun. I remember that while Canada has a dark history, so do most countries - the difference is we've decided to reckon with that past and move beyond it. That's something to be proud of and to rally behind. 

And then there's the anti-vax truckers. Remember them? That group of people who hijacked being Canadian to mean "be an asshole and do whatever you can to only think of yourself." I swore I was done with the maple leaf the moment I saw a jacked up diesel covered in WalMart flags. 

So what of it all? Why we blogging about it? 

I really don't know for sure. I know that being Canadian comes with some reckoning and maybe that's the rub. Things have been bad and bad things happened to get us where we are. But I also think that the time might come very soon where all of us - Indigenous people, anti-vax truckers and wishy washy lib-tards like me will need to come together to tell Mr. Trump and the US to leave us the heck alone. Because Drake may have lost the rap battle, but you don't want to mess with Canada. 

I'm a FAWMling (apparantly)

 After much anticipation, I've dived into my first February Album Writing Month challenge. FAWM is an annual challenge to write and demo an album worth of material (14 songs) in one month (28 days). It sounds like a daunting challenge but an achievable one too. 

I've been looking around a bit over the last few days to see if I've spoken about it on this blog or one of my social networks, but I've been aware of FAWM for a long time. Like, 15+ years. Plenty has been in the way, family, work and a lack of musical outlets were all excuses I've used. But I think the biggest barrier has been how limited my songwriting experience is. I often joke that I wrote every bridge on The Criminal Kid album "These Blue Skies are Faking Freedom." It's an exaggeration, but speaks to my songwriting history - often contributing, rarely leading. 

Of course, my adventures of the last year have given my songwriting muscle a lot of exercise this year and I rolled into February feeling trained up and strong. I figured I'd be able to hit the 14 songs, but maybe I'll need to take a few days off work to focus on songwriting. 

I don't feel like I need to take time off to write anymore.

I wrote SIX songs this weekend, plus one more on Friday night I'm not counting towards my total because it was still January. Just my warmup. At this pace, I'll be done by Valentine's. If not by next Sunday. 

That pace is staggering to me - and I'm the one doing it. On Saturday afternoon, shortly after finishing the writing on my second song, I took a bathroom break. As I stood there returning all of the water I'd drank that day, I remembered that the last time I wrote two songs in a day, a third one came to me almost without effort. That song has been one of my most popular so far, "Beef Dylan". AS I WAS THINKING THIS - my third song of the day just came to me, almost whole. I finished washing my hands and ran downstairs to get a scratch demo down. I finished that, went out to the kitchen to make supper and as I stood there listening to the "tik tok" of the timer on the air fryer, I wrote my fourth song of the day. I actually forced myself to figure it out on ukelele (an instrument I don't really play) just to slow my ass down a bit. 

It's a bit shocking. I even commented to Rhonda on Sunday night that I sort of regret not throwing myself into songwriting earlier. But almost in the same breath, I said, "but I didn't, and now I have and I'm enjoying it and celebrating it." Imagine my shock when I heard the eternally wise Katt Williams repeat almost the same assurance/advice to Theo Von on Theo's podcast "This Past Weekend". "You have to be in the position you are in now to make some of these things happen." I couldn't make this happen 10 years ago so I didn't. Today I can - and I am. It's a blessing - as Katt would say. 

And it's not just being too busy that slowed me down. It wasn't just being lazy. I had to get past some hurdles and misconceptions. Feelings that I couldn't do this, lack of belief in myself and even a lack of understanding of myself. I've long struggled to see the value in the things I produce. I was always second fiddle and it calcified into my brain that I'd always need someone else, someone more motivated and talented to help me make this thing happen. I've almost overcompensated at this point and I'm having trouble working with others and finding patience for them to work at their pace. 

And the quick pace isn't without help. Rhonda and the family have been very generous in giving me the space and time to work on this. I don't think I'm going to be allowed that in the long term, but I'll take it for now. 

The FAWM community is very helpful too. Two of the songs I wrote were part of "Skirmishes", a timed challenge where you're given a prompt and one hour to come up with a song. In fact, I'd say that my two favourites so far came out of skirmishes. A third was inspired by a song someone else wrote - she used handclaps as her percussion and was self-conscious about it. I felt inspired by them and immediately went to work to write a song featuring some hand claps. 

Another unexpected benefit of FAWM has been the feedback and insight into what I'm doing and how people perceive it. So many of my songs are weeks if not months old before I perform them live. I've drained what fun is in them out and even then I only get in front of an audience every couple of weeks. I'm learning a lot about what other musicians I sound like and write like. I'm learning that there are a lot of people who enjoy my humour too. It's uplifting. 

And I'm just enjoying seeing and hearing other people's work. It inspires me, it helps me see some things that I'm maybe missing or could try. It's just been a fantastic growth tool. I don't know where the remaining 24 days of this challenge will take me, but I know I'll grow through it and feel really strong in my voice and my image. 

If you'd like to hear the demos I've posted or want to follow along, head over to my FAWM profile. I finally figured out how to make it public. If you're a fellow FAWMer, follow along and I'll do so in turn. Really enjoying building a little bit of community in all of this.