Pot-purry

A bit more of a scrambled post today, but hey, sometimes that's how it do be.

I spent a few hours on Sunday night painting a garden gnome sculpture that Tai gave me for Christmas. It had been broken during its delivery, so I had to glue it up a few weeks ago, and this weekend was my time to shine and get some colour on it. 

I think he's pretty cute. I'm going to make a little mushroom to add to his grass stand, too. 

Ahsoka seems to have hurt her paw on Friday during our walk. I'm not entirely sure what she did to hurt it, maybe just a twist of an ankle or something. Or maybe she stepped on something, it's recently snowed - again- so there could have been something hidden. We didn't find anything in her paw, so that's good. And she seems to be recovering nicely. 

I spent some time last night with her enormous rope, just playing some light tug and walking her back and forth in the kitchen. No limps, thank goodness. I'll try her on the normal walk tonight. 

I'm headed into the studio this weekend! It's the first time in about 15 years that I've been in a music studio. Obviously, spent a lot of time in a radio studio from 2015-2020 and was back in one in January when I did a promo for my show. 

It's also the first time going into the studio solo, first time as a lead vocalist, first time as a guitarist and maybe the first time in the whole province with a kazoo. I think the engineer is kinda nervous about that last part! 

I said from the start of Jeremy and his Kazoo that the project would be live performance first and that I'd look at recording once the demand started to appear. Well, it's appeared. I've had lots of asks for Trevor's Tincture and Beef Dylan in particular. I'm going to throw American Kazoo on the pile and go in to record three songs. I actually probably have the budget to do 5 songs, but I think I'm gonna stop at 3, make a plan to get those out, get some buzz and possibly money flowing from those and then do some more recording another time. I don't need to act like it's 1995 and there's a specific path I need to take as a musician. I just need some recordings that I can send people to if they like what I'm doing. 

So yeah - that's what's up in Pilot's World these days. Been playing every open mic I can find to try and sharpen my performance up more, practice up some of the new songs I wrote in February. Hoping that the weather gets better soon, but not betting on it. 

Journal-tism

One of the early motivators in doing Pilot's World was to have a journal of my life to share. Not just with people today, but also for my kids and other descendants. I think many generations will enjoy reading this blog and wondering just what was wrong with me.

But as my job coach pointed out a few months ago, people can have many different journals that do different things. So there's this blog that's a public journal, I have my work journals, and I have a private journal that's more for my mental and physical health. 

My work journals are one of my more successful journaling endeavours outside of Pilot's World. I've been keeping a daily to-do/notes journal at work since about 2015, with the journals you see above going back to December of 2016. There was another book before the #1 book you see there, but it was on an old cheap notepad and was frankly more of a scratch pad than it was a journal. 

I started this set of journals after taking one of those productivity seminars they have you do occasionally at corporate jobs. I think it might have been 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. But maybe it wasn't. All I remember is the suggestion that you take the last 10-15 minutes of every day and lay out the next day for yourself in a journal.  

And boy, have I done that. For 10 years now, I've done that. I've also taken endless notes in endless meetings, drawn little sketches and kept every apple, orange or fruit sticker from every snack I've brought to work in that time. 

There are some pivotal moments in these journals, too, like the day we got sent home from The Pandemic. Interestingly, that page was written the same day as the one post I did on Pilot's World between 2012 and 2024. 

Or even some history that wasn't put down with a pen. Like this journal that was chewed up by a baby Ahsoka. 

I'm nearly at the end of book 14, and I've really only got 5 or 6 more blank books before I run out. Dollarama stopped stocking this kind of notebook, so sometime in the next 3-5 years, I need to find another job or completely pivot on what kind of notebook I use for this! 

Which brings me to my personal journal and the conflict I'm feeling right now. It started up about a year ago in response to a couple of things. First, Rhonda suggested I start keeping track of some of my health stuff, like when my gout starts to act up or if I'm having issues with my eyes. Likewise, my counsellors have suggested doing the same for my mental health, so I combined them into a single Google Docs document. 

For a while there, I was doing a post every morning, just sat down with my voice-to-text and blurted it all out. But as you can see in the screenshot above, this particular journal has started to lose its charm for me. I dunno. I don't necessarily feel the need to sit down and complain about life for 10 minutes every morning. And I don't go back much. It's just not fulfilling.

So I'm torn. I do like doing some journaling every day, but I'd like it to be more creative. More drawings, lyrics, ideas. Sure, I'll still have some griping or recording my glaucoma pressures. But it should be more. 

And while I appreciate the speed and versatility of doing this digitally, I dunno. Maybe I need to move my personal blog back onto notebooks. It's not as accessible to me, and it's MUCH slower. But having a decade of notebooks with such a variety of materials is pretty cool to have, too. And to look back on.  

So, what's the endgame of this whole journaling-related dump? Well, it's time for a change, this much I know. And I'm in a good position, both in my experience and in my desire, to make something cool. I might look into some kind of journaling service or try to make better use of the tools I have. Blogger clearly shows me that I can combine text, photos, drawings, video and more, which is very useful. I could build a private blog. Or I could just suck it up and start journaling in my old document again. 

I think there might be some use in trying to do it at a different time of day, too. Maybe I'm just too crabby to be doing it first thing in the morning. 

So yeah - a journal entry on journaling. Been trying to work through this lately and rediscover a passion for this personal journal because I think there can be some use for it. I do so much writing, creating and scratching. I need to make it something I enjoy every day. Do you journal? What's your favourite way to go about it? 

Is it actually working? (and is it that bad?)

 Like so many people in history, I struggle to process progress. On one hand, it's inevitable and probably makes life better for people. On the other hand, many new technologies and systems are implemented without thinking through the long-term effects. Cars have been great, but they've brought a lot of pollution. Social media made it easier to stay in contact, but the way it was executed has turned the users into zombie content machines. 

And so I continue to debate my feelings on AI. Yes, it's going to make many mundane jobs easier, and it's being pushed so hard and so quickly that its inevitability seems certain. But I really don't think they've looked at the long-term effects on people, the environment and our society. As a writer, the promise of generative AI is pretty strong, and that leaves me in a position where I don't know if there will be a job for me in 10 years. 

But there is one positive side to all of this technology that I think might illuminate a long-term benefit for all of us, and that's accessibility. When used in the right way, all of this technology can be very inclusive and democratizing. 

When used the right way.

Case in point is Minecraft YouTuber, GoodTimesWithScar or just Scar for short. Scar is a YouTube gamer I've followed for nearly a decade during my own Minecraft journey, and he's an incredibly talented and creative builder in the game. But, most importantly for this conversation, he's also a disabled person. From what he's told his viewers, he suffers from a severe autoimmune disease that's left him in a wheelchair, dependent on oxygen and a flurry of other medical interventions. He's absent for long spells at a time as he battles with his health issues and the usual rigamarole of life.

But here's where we see the positives of technology. Obviously, on the surface, we have medical technology not only keeping him alive but helping him to maintain some mobility and capability. But we also have social media, low-cost video production technology and the internet, giving him a job and a community. I can't say exactly what he makes, but he seems to make enough to help support his life a bit, and he brings inspiration and entertainment to thousands, possibly millions of people. In the 1990s, he probably would have just been kept alive, and before that, I'm not sure we'd have the wonder of Scar to enjoy. 

Sure, all he's doing is playing a game, but it's entertaining and giving him a role in society. So, what does this mean for the rest of us? 

My hope is that as technology takes the terrible jobs, the rest of us get to explore our creative and expressive sides more. Honestly, I want people like Scar to get first dibs. I think that's the first step of the transition and one that we're already in. And don't get me wrong, there are myriads of fully capable people, both physically and mentally, doing the same job as Scar. So they're ahead of the curve a bit. 

But don't think that's the end game being planned by the Illuminati - I'm sure they're happy to just inhale all of the money and wealth and leave the rest of us picking through trash piles for new styles and inventions. Hence, my assertion at the top that these technologies aren't being thought through long-term. 

Who's to say? Lots of the oracles and pundits are predicting big societal change over the next decade or two, and I think we're well overdue. So maybe, just maybe, my music career becomes the norm and not just some weird guy trying to convince you that kazoo is cool. 

The Lie - Winner Winner (chicken dinner)

Every couple of weeks or so, my family will cook up a whole chicken for Sunday supper. I know, it reeks of trad-wife traditionalism, but it's less about tradition and more about trying to do some cooking that will help the rest of the week go smoother. 

When I get a chicken, I want to be able to gorge myself on Sunday night, but also have something for my sandwich on Monday and my fried rice on Wednesday. And most importantly, I need to boil up all of the otherwise unused bits of the carcass into chicken broth I can freeze and use for soup and sauces over the next few weeks. 

But there is a problem. Over the last few years, it's been nearly impossible to buy a full-sized - or at least reasonably sized - full chicken at the grocery store. They're all small "fryer" sized, which means I barely get the full supper meal in, and the small amount of broth it makes is almost a waste of my time. This past weekend, I actually went to the trouble of buying a 2-pack of these chickens just so that I ended up with the leftovers that I wanted and needed. And that worked for sure. We ended up with a full Sunday supper, 6 litres of chicken broth and enough leftover chicken for chicken pitas at supper last night and some chicken for lunchtime sandwiches this week. Anything leftover by Wednesday will become a highly desirable treat for the dogs. 

I think this pivot to only small fryer chickens is an intentional act by the grocers. Smaller chickens are cheaper to produce, you can fit more chickens in the same area and turn through more product by harvesting them small. And at best, you get a couple of meals out of one for a small family. If they made them larger, they'd need to spend more on feed, space and transportation for only marginally more income. I can imagine they get less profitable as they grow larger. 

Not to mention, if a single chicken can meat (get it?) the protein needs of a family for most of a week, then you aren't buying deli meat, boxed broth or another package of chicken to feed everyone. 

Of course, living in Saskatchewan, the Hutterites are always an option, and I take advantage of their chickens whenever I can. Not only are they larger, but they also taste so much better. It's like garden tomato versus grocery tomato. There really isn't a comparison; it's so good. But I'm not in a position where I can just call up a Hutterite. Not to mention, they're usually selling like a dozen at a time, and I'm not exactly swimming in extra cash at all times. 

I guess that's just living in late-stage capitalism for you. 

I will say this. If the apocalypse we've all been praying for since Y2K finally comes around, getting my hands on some good chickens will be an early priority for me. Goats are probably a good option too, but I think I know enough about chickens to muddle my way through and have a reasonable source of food moving forward. Plus, they're manageable by 1 or 2 people. I don't think I could handle a whole cow by myself.  

And you can bet that I'll be growing those chickens nice, big and fat. 

Communication Breakdown

I recently took out a membership with a federal political party. For the sake of this conversation, the specific party isn't important. My thought was that with all of the wild stuff happening in the United States right now, being actively involved in democracy is pretty important, right now and having a party membership would be a good start to getting into the process. 

A coworker with whom I talk politics had invited me to join, so there was a person-to-person, grassroots element to it. It felt like a good first step.

But it went immediately south. Because within 20 minutes of sending in my membership form, the emails started - and they haven't stopped. I receive something like 5-10 emails per day from the party and related members. It's so much. I am not reading any of it because there's no filter. And it's occurred to me that this may be exactly why I haven't been involved in politics/democracy directly. There's just too much noise. 

I'm kind of sickly diligent about unsubscribing to emails I don't want. Everything you buy online is followed by a daily "buy more" email, and it's easy for me to turn that off. But in this case, if I turn off those emails, then they just have my $25, and I'm not further along the path.  

I've mentioned before how Hank Green compares our new discovery of social media to the upheaval that happened after the launch of the printing press. I think this is a symptom of the same problem. We've all been given this infinite broadcast capacity, but we've never yet figured out how to make it palatable, or even manageable for a consumer who is not infinite. 

I think it's part of why I've focused so hard on the live part of my music lately. At least there I'm talking and dealing with people in person. I'm resistant to starting a mailing list or even recording an album because I feel like it's destined to just be dumped into the noise. At a venue, I have your attention. 

This is a real and new problem we could be applying AI to. Rather than training it to do the jobs that people do well, maybe it could do this job that people can't do. Sort through all of this communication and give me the parts that are important. Deliver me the bad news at the right time. Delete 4 out of 5 emails that come in from that place where I bought new shoes. 

And here I am with a blog, just adding more noise to the ocean. Oh well. At least it's just one person who's being overwhelmed. 

Introducing 55 Cancri

 I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to adopt a star. Have my own favourite ball of burning gas out there in the cosmos. 

I spent a few hours that day looking at some stars that best fit the requirements I outlined in that article. I was surprised to learn how many really common stars have exoplanets. Like there are planets EVERYWHERE. They're not rare.

The best tool I found was a website called The Planet Project. It's a comfortingly retro internet website with yellow and cyan text linked to pages with bright blue backgrounds. Just like momma used to make. 

I sorted through the stars listed there, excluding the ones from the southern hemisphere and the ones that are maybe a bit more common. 

I ended up landing on 55 Cancri, a star in the constellation Cancer. Since my start sign is Cancer, it felt fitting. Plus, it was one of two or three in the list that had full planetary systems, not just a single big Jupiter that is basically a throw-off from when the star was made. 55 Cancri has 5 planets known to date AND is part of a double star system with a red dwarf they've cheekily named 55 Cancri B. 

Now, there is a lot already known about 55 Cancri, or as I'll be calling it, Fiddy-fi Can. It's got a pretty robust Wikipedia page, and there are quite a few interesting things about it already. For example, a radio signal was sent to the start system in 2003. But that means I can throw a party in 2044 when the signal gets there - just to observe the day our signal arrives. 

There have been lots of different kinds of observations so far, and it's a pretty bright star, so assembling information should be a fun challenge. I have not yet had the opportunity to go look for the star, so here is my initial artist rendition:

So what next? Well, I want to read more about it, get my head around it all. Gotta memorize the names of the planets, of course. I'm on the back stretch of my February Album Writing month challenge, and there have been a few people writing songs about planets and things. I'm gonna show them all by writing a song for 55 Cancri -and it's little family of planets, and its partner nearby. 

I'm also excited to have something to focus on at the Saskatchewan Star Party this summer. Maybe get some good photos. Use Dad's telescope to see 55 Cancri B. 

And I suppose I should make a sub-blog or something to collect all the stuff I find about the star together. 

Should be fun. Please welcome my new favourite star, 55 Cancri! 

Root Beer and the monoculture

 It's no secret to anyone who reads this blog that I'm a big fan of root beer. I even held a strange root beer contest on here over 20 years ago when I found a can of Hires root beer in the store. 

As I mentioned in that particular post, if we go back even further to about 30 years ago, one of the first websites I ever built was a Barq's fan page on Geocities. I'd give almost anything to see that old website again. 

When Kayah turned one, we even themed her birthday party as a root beer party. I bought as many kinds of root beer as I could find! 

I think my love of root beer started with my dad brewing it in beer bottles when we were kids. I don't know that I'll ever recapture how good that root beer tasted. Like a junkie, I spend my life chasing that high from boutique candy store to boutique candy store, trying to find a root beer that can fill that hole. 

Fast forward to this weekend, and the lovely Rhonda got me a four-pack of Intergalactic Root Beer. Or maybe more accurately, Captain Electro's Intergalactic Root Beer. I dunno. It has a rocket on it, it has a robot on it. It's perfect. 

And it was delicious. The wintergreen and pepper flavours are particularly nice. 

And it makes me grateful that society has begun to shake off the allure of the monoculture. That desire that we should all watch the same thing, eat the same things or live the same way. Coke and Pepsi are certainly guilty of this; for a time, you drank what they put on the shelf. 

Thankfully, sometime around that reintroduction of Hires that I talked about in 2005, the world started to diversify again. Now it's easy for me to grab a Jones Soda, Boylan's or even the local Paperback Beverage Co. root beers and enjoy something other than the behemoth that is A&W. 

The biggest issue now is that I need to plan a trip to London Drugs. I need more of that sweet, sweet elixir.  

What's your favourite root beer? 

Contemplating Change

 The reader of this blog is likely to be weary of my repeated assertions that I need to find another job, something not at SGI. Well, cycles do cycle, and I'm in another "I gotta get another job" cycle. 

As I sat down with that thought again last night, I had the more important question of, "Why, if I always want to leave, am I just head-rushing towards my 19th year here?" Why can't I make that change? 

I think a lot of it is the routine, the security, and pay that's enough to keep me here, but not make me happy. I was thinking as I came up the elevator to my office this morning about all of the people who have promoted past me. 

I think the problem is one of motivation. 

I do apply for jobs, but I struggle to make a habit or a routine of it. I just toss a resume here and there whenever something attractive pops up. But I don't stop once a week and look at what is out there. 

I've done a bit of work through my job coach on how to pursue some of this, and I've done some of that work. But I also feel limited. I suppose that's the struggle of wanting to pursue creativity for a career in a place like Regina, SK, where people are all about business suits and hockey. 

My morning reading today talked about not making decisions or change based on anger. I understand the advice for sure, but anger is a motivator. The argument is making decisions or changing based on anger leads to blind decisions or unsatisfying results. But at the same time, watching what's happening in the states is infuriating and change needs to happen. If we wait to get past our anger, we aren't going to make changes.

And I think that's why I get in these cycles. I try to affect the change when I'm angry and frustrated at work, then something gets better and I forget. 

I think the solution is that I really need to identify and over-arching goal and start pursuing that. And in some respects, I'm trying to do that with my music. But I'm realist enough to see that it's unlikely to be something that could support me. And if it does, it's going to take many many years. Many years of cycling over and over. 

I think I need a secondary goal to look at as well. 

Maybe I should get into guitar repair. 

I want to adopt a star

I've had this idea for a few years that I would like to adopt a star.  This will be my "favourite star," and I will keep maybe a journal, a blog or something. Some kind of collection of all the information and facts about this particular star. 

But there are a few elements of it that I haven't been able to settle on just yet. So I haven't picked a favourite. I think the initial instinct is to go with maybe one of the more well-known stars, like Betelgeuse or Polaris. Maybe you'd go down the popularity/luminosity list to a Pollux, Deneb or Omicron Persei. 

But I feel there are already large collections about stars like that. There are whole YouTube videos on them. I need to go a bit smaller. The kind that doesn't have a proper name yet. Named something like NCCD22234_a*.

That's not to say I want a star that's invisible to me. It doesn't need to be the third star from the left of the Andromeda galaxy, and I'll never get a good look at it in my lifetime. Something that I can still see with my naked eye, but really, maybe only when I'm out in a really dark area. I have terrible eyesight, so it needs to be visible and easy to locate. Binoculars are a consideration. 

I would go back to one of those more common stars I wrote about earlier. Use it as an anchor star to find my favourite. Something that I can see year-round is best, but I'd be ok with just in the summer. February stars need not apply. 

I think a star system would be cool to follow because there are actual changes visible. Double (or more) interacting stars would actually be cool. I think it increases the chance you get to see something happening. Exoplanets are a plus, habitable ones are better. 

Appearance in fiction would also be a bonus if that's possible. I've eyeballed Deneb for appearing in Star Trek and Omicron Persei because of Futurama. Maybe there's some start that appears in a weird space opera rag. Or maybe Navigator just starts writing a fiction around it for me. 

I know that data folks could just slam all of these links and criteria into a number machine and it would spit out an answer - or a list of answers. But I suppose I hope to find it a bit more organically. But in preparing this blog post, I think I've come much closer to an answer. 

The family has been ordered out to the star party this summer, so I've set myself a deadline to have the star picked by then. Or at least a Top 5 or 10, or whatever, and use the time there to lock it in. Toss any suggestions you have into the comments. Especially around fiction or an exoplanet story.

Tinted Nostalgia

I've been thinking a lot over the past couple of days about nostalgia and how it can tend to morph and become a falsehood. 

It all started when I saw a reel yesterday of someone with an old Sony Walkman. The same kind I had as a kid, as a matter of fact, the big yellow sports one. I started in the mode of, "Oh, I should get one of those, that would be nice to consume music like that again." 

But then I gave my head a shake.

The fact is, I never liked tapes, even in their heyday. I hated fast-forwarding, flipping tapes and untangling them when they inevitably unspooled. I was SO EXCITED when CDs hit the market because you could skip to songs, fast-forward in a moment, and the sound was so much better. Static isn't warmth, it's bad sound.

Cassettes do have a couple of strengths. You could leave a tape on the floor of your car for weeks and still be able to play them ok. CDs didn't have that durability. But in our modern age of streaming - and even MP3 players before that - both don't hold any durability or portability points. 

I often have to remind myself of these rose coloured glasses when I watch people working with vintage computers on YouTube. As much as I'd like to go buy an old Tandy 1000 on eBay to play all my favourite vintage games, I need to remind myself how slow and low-powered my old Tandy was. How I wanted nothing more than a computer that could show more than 16 colours or play something nicer than 8-bit sound. Not to mention, a PC that is 35+ years old is not going to just plug in and play. At least not consistently. 

I have access to DOSBox and the Internet; I don't need a 286. 

I suppose in times like these, when everything seems complex, expensive and dangerous, nostalgia gives us a break. But as was mentioned in a discussion at a party this weekend, times weren't better. We were just sheltered or forgot the bad parts. 

And don't even get me started on the three shelves of vinyl records I have collecting dust in my living room. 

Maybe it's best to just focus on the now, what we have and what we can make of it. It's certainly more affordable than paying $1000 for a dusty memory that never works. 

Unapologetically late

Well, following an intensely stressful week and the release of that stress on Friday, I got sick. Down in bed sick. So I missed Tuesday. And I missed yesterday. Today is good, right? 

Maybe the delay is a good one because it gives me a chance to comment on something that happened on Tuesday that I feel might pan out to be a pivotal historical moment. 

The last year (and in some ways, the last decade) has been defined by the incessant blumbering of the big orange man from down south, Donald Trump. He's graduated from harmful blowhard to existential crisis. At this particular moment in the shit storm, ol' Donny is trying to get his hands on Greenland, wants Canada and is ready to take on anyone but his fellow autocrats to get all the power he could ever want. 

A couple of months ago, the subject of our current Prime Minister, Mark Carney, came up in the family group chat. I said it on a whim that he's our generation's Winston Churchill. Maybe not the most popular guy, but absolutely the one person we need to lead our country through this moment. He's a man of deep knowledge, strategic thought and incomparable economic experience. 

That observation of Mr. Carney was borne out on Tuesday when he delivered a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It's interesting watching this back today because the speaker introducing him describes his election as one of the most pivotal moments in Canadian history. I don't think he realized that the pivotal moment was coming in the next 30 minutes. 

Perhaps you've seen the speech, or you're eagerly waiting for the end of this blog to go watch an economist speak for 30 minutes. So I won't go into too much detail, but Carney compares the current economic and diplomatic world to the way people behaved under Communist rule. He goes on to describe how the "middle powers" need to pivot, how Canada has already begun that pivot and what it means for the future. 

It's a bold speech. But it's one I'm glad to hear coming from the leader of the country I live in. Ever since the start of the pandemic, the conversation has increasingly turned towards changing how we run the world, a restructuring of the old order and a need to change the status quo. And as a millennial who has seen my retirement savings kicked down over and over again because of the US economy, whose ability to earn has degraded constantly since I graduated from high school - I'm ready for that change. 

I can't even sit here and pretend like I totally understand the new approach. Nor am I in any way capable of predicting its success. But given the choice between the status quo, being steered by a man with dictatorial aspirations and a mind progressing towards dementia, and a leader who has run two world banks and has among the best economic awareness of any world leader in history - well, Mark is my man on this one. 

And the best part? It seems to have got under ol' Donny's skin. And that's something to celebrate. 

Finally a Zelda post

 I've wanted to do a post about The Legend of Zelda games since I restarted blogging a couple of years ago. I beat the Switch remake of Link's Awakening last night after getting it for Christmas, so I suppose now is as good a time as any. 

The Legend of Zelda games have been a favourite of mine since A Link to the Past in the early 90's. In fact, my contact with this game would be the first of several times where I coerced someone into lending me not only the game but the actual console so I could play through it. I suppose that's why I'm not letting myself get too mad that my daughter lent my copy of Breath of the Wild to a friend. This is how we fall in love with these games. 

I played Ocarina of Time on a roommate's N64, Windwaker on a GameCube I borrowed from my job at the Movie Factory. You get the idea. Actually, the first Zelda game I played was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. I rented it for a weekend, and it was the single hardest game I ever played. Never made it anywhere. 

And so that obsession has continued. I haven't played all of the mainline (or even all of the sideline games), far from it. But I do feel like I've played all the games that are at the core of the series. 

Playing Link's Awakening was a great reminder of what makes a Zelda game to me. Since it was designed by essentially the same people as Link to the Past in the same era, it captures many of those elements that are core to the game for me. Dungeons, hookshots, that thing you hit that turns orange or blue. 

Egg

In fact, I commented last night that despite the fact that the game doesn't have Zelda, Ganon, the Master Sword or the Triforce, it feels more like a Zelda game than the two Wild Era games, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Not that I'm throwing any shade at those games, they're amazing. But they kind of miss something in the puzzle/progression area. 

And then there's ocarinas. 

Obviously, Ocarina of Time is the most famous appearance of the instrument in the series, but Link's Awakening, Link to the Past, Majora's Mask and The Minish Cap also feature this instrument. The fam actually got me a Zelda brand ocarina for Xmas. Been trying to make some noise with it, but to be honest, I've been too busy playing Zelda to learn a new instrument lately. Maybe this summer, while I'm camping, I'll learn the Song of Time. Or Tingle's Tingler. 

No one seems to want to get me a Master Sword and Shield. Or a hookshot. 

So yeah. Another Zelda game crossed off the list. I need to go back and finish Skyward Sword. I have the Switch port, and I didn't really like the control scheme, so I gave up early on it. But I've got an exercise bike and a commitment to try and bike and play every night. So it's probably time to go back to that. Then I need to get on Echoes of Wisdom. Kayah brought it home last year, so I've played the first couple of dungeons but never wrapped the game. 

Then who knows from there? I've never played through the original game. The Oracle games look really fun, if very difficult. And of course, I'm always up to playing Link to the Past again, if only to show Kayah how good it is. Oh, and I've never played Majora's Mask, and that seems like a major oversight. 

What's your favourite Zelda game? Do you know what a Minish Cap is? 

Start with No

 One of the challenges of going through a self-improvement phase is sorting through all of the micro advice you get from everywhere. It gets easier as you go along, the more books you read or advice you follow, the more you see the patterns – the things that everyone recommends. Things like journalling, meditation, exercise and setting intention-type stuff. But there are those little “just remember this one little thing” that sometimes stick around.

The one that’s been sticking with me lately is “start with no.” That doesn’t mean say no to everything, but enter a negotiation with the mindset that you’re going to refuse the request, then go from there. Especially if it’s a request that’s not serving your goals or intentions.

It’s been an interesting experiment, to be sure. On one hand, it’s failed. When my family changed plans the week before Xmas, I tried to say no, I wouldn’t be there on Xmas Eve. But of course, The Navigator was only going to be there that night, so that no turned into a yes. But it came with the sacrifice of a different part of Christmas. No regrets, but there was give and take and a true negotiation.

I’ve had a few friends who have been very needy of my time lately, and I’ve had to make some “no” assertions to protect my time. My Telemiracle taping is less than 2 weeks awa,y and I’ve got my fundraiser at the end of the month to prepare for – I don’t have time for a lot of distractions this month.

Start with no has also been really good at work. When some coworkers try to steamroll my time or hog my attention when I have things to do, I start by saying, “No, not right now.” I’m sure they’re a bit disappointed, but at the end of the day, I’m here to get a job done. Not to sit around watching your cousin’s, mechanic’s, dad’s best friend from high school play a cut-rate version of Interstate Love Song.

There’s other advice that people are very insistent that works that I just can’t seem to wrap my head around or make any use of. My job coach was really pushing one on me before the holiday. Basically, she was saying that when I reach a moment of indecision, confusion, or even just change, I should stop and think, “perhaps I can…”. I haven’t found a good context for this one, and I haven’t found a lot of use from it. I wrote it on a sticky note and put it up at my desk. I’ll keep pondering it. But it just doesn’t seem to connect with me.

Some days, it all just seems overwhelming. I’ve read about a dozen self-help books and watched as many impactful videos over the last year. I’ve been to counselling, coaching, and just done a ton of work. It’s hard to keep it all organized, to keep all the balls in the air while trying to work towards something real. But I suppose that’s where it becomes a bit of a “life’s work” project.

Something I've found to be really fun to help me with this is sending myself time-delayed emails. I got my first one on Jan 1, and it was pretty revealing. I noted what I was working on and asked myself pointed questions about my progress. While it wasn't perfect, in fact far from it, I could see that I had made some progress, and it reminded me of the bits that I hadn't completed. In fact, some of those were wrapped up very quickly on the weekend once I remembered I needed to do them! 

Do you have any intentions or goals for the year? Have you ever sent yourself an email or letter to read later? Start with NO!

Gratitude

Both my morning meditation and my page in the Daily Stoic tackled the subject of gratitude today, a subject that's pretty relevant immediately after Xmas and right before the coming of a new year. So let's talk about it! 

Feeling grateful is actually coming pretty easily to me this year. That's not to say I don't feel some of my usual urge to completely avoid the holiday season and the excess that comes with it. I don't think that point of view is going to change for me anytime soon. Somehow, we took a holiday ostensibly rooted in the birth of a deity and made it about consumerism and guilt. I don't want to observe it for religious reasons. I don't want to observe it for capitalist reasons. So why do I want to observe it at all? 

I am grateful for having a healthy family. A family that is caring, motivated, and creative. 

I am grateful that, coming to the end of 2025, not only did it not knock me down, but I really managed to build up this year. 

In a year where I lost not one, but two grandparents, I'm grateful that I got to see so much of my family this year. I even think I saw The Navigator more times this year than I have in any given year over the last 5. Some things you can't be grateful for. 

As frustrated as my job makes me, I'm grateful that it's showing me other paths and giving me the time and resources to chase other dreams. And that it's there and dependable when my health is low. 

I'm grateful that I have the space and the creativity to pursue my music again. And I'm grateful for all the new friends it's brought me this year. I think I enjoy the social aspect of playing again as much as I enjoy making music itself.

In a world that seems to be burning down around me, I'm grateful to start seeing society push back. And not just politically with protest. People are making the choice to put down their phones and go out more. I don't know if we're breaking free or just finding the balance, but even through the struggle that the next 5 years will bring, we're going to find some beautiful things, too. 

I'm grateful that I'm less worried about the mess my house is in this year.

I'm grateful that I have more ideas than time right now. 2026 will not be boring. 

And I'm grateful for me. That I can look at myself, see where I'm at, how I feel and what I need and that I have the capacity to make something of it. 

Today, I don't need to practice gratitude. Because today I'm all practiced up. I just AM grateful. 

What are you grateful for today? 

Admiration of the PS3

 The whole family was home on Saturday night. Rhonda and I sat down in front of the TV, and after about 5 minutes of picking through possibilities, it was clear we weren't going to find something to watch. Infinite choice is no choice at all. I even commented that there was a time when looking at what's on only required that you push "channel up" or "channel down" repeatedly until something you like happened. Now it's navigating 25 apps and entering 40 passwords. 

We live in the worst timeline.

During our journey through the options provided by this "smart TV" we discovered that there seemed to be a way to play GTAV through the TV. While we scratched our heads like the confused apes that we are, Kayah entered the room and reminded us that there was a PS3 upstairs, attached to someone's TV and completely unused. 

So within about 10 minutes, we had that old tank hooked up, and we had started crashing cars, shooting innocent people and looking up the nearest strip club. 

Before long, the whole family had gathered around as we took turns spreading mayhem around Los Santos. We stole tanks, we tried landing a jet in a military base, we went for a lap dance, and we tased a man to death. As parents, Rhonda and I are second to none. 

And we laughed. Like that good, deep, crying laugh you really can only find in a room with others doing ridiculous things. Plus, Jonas - or should I call him "Mister Maneuver" is just ridiculously funny. 

One of the things everyone was amazed by was that we had Netflix installed on the PS3. I reminded them that yes, and also YouTube and Blu-Ray DVDs on it. It was really an all-in home entertainment system. And despite some very old batteries in the controllers and a fan that sounds like it's clogged with syrup, the old girl still rocked. 

Also - GTA 6 When? 

Disco Napping

I think one of the reasons that the success rate in music goes down as people age is that after you turn 30 - no one wants to go out very late. 

I certainly run into this all the time with local open mics starting between 8 or 9 o'clock, ON A SCHOOL NIGHT. It's pretty damn hard to get out of the house after you've taken off your work shoes, doubly so this time of year when the air has been custom-built to freeze-dry your lungs. 

But I've come across a great life hack for this situation, the Disco Nap. Rhonda was the one who gave me the name of this practice. Something coming out of the rave/EDM culture. The idea is pretty simple: come home from work, eat your supper, do your evening things, then take 20 minutes aside and have a nap. Even shorter works, I've got by on 10-minute and 15-minute disco naps too. You wake up with just the right amount of oomph to get you out to that 8:00 boogie session, but didn't go down hard enough that you can't sleep until 4 am.

Last week I had a pretty intense disco nap.

I've been trying out the Calm app for a few weeks now. It's a meditation and mindfulness tool with a bunch of materials to help you find calm, sleep, etc. I had heard that SaskTel was giving away free 1-year subscriptions, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. This kind of stuff has been one of the self-care things I've been missing, so what's the risk, right? 

Normally, I just do the 10-minute morning meditation before going to work, but last Wednesday, I figured I could put it on as my timer and focus for my disco-nap ahead of going to Bushwakker for the folk night show a few of my friends were playing at. 

Looking through the 15-minute-long meditations, I found one on forgiveness. For some reason, last week I'd been thinking a lot about the role of forgiveness in the modern world. Do we need more forgiveness? Is misplaced forgiveness what's put us in some of the negative places we're in lately? What role should forgiveness play in my life? 

Normally, when I'm curious about something like this, I'd read an article or Wikipedia about it. But I thought this time, let's meditate on forgiveness. And holy man, did it take me places that night. 

I didn't go into that meditation thinking I needed forgiveness or needed to grant forgiveness. But that meditation took me down to some actually kind of dark places, then slowly worked me back up with some ways to bring forgiveness and happiness in. Totally unexpected but very, very welcome to be sure! 

I rose from the meditation a bit stunned and full of thought, not just about forgiveness but how powerfully that meditation had affected me. In the couple of weeks I've been doing the meditation regularly, I've noticed a few little things. Getting on the bus in the morning feels a bit more detached and centred in a healthy way. My thoughts seem to have less static or bad tuning. They seem smoother. But nothing quite so overt as this. 

It's taken me a long time to find something to fill this particular bucket in my life. As much as we all hear the term "self-care" and how important that is, it's not easy to find. Each of us has our own needs in that regard, and the whole world we live in is so toxic - it can be hard to find all the things one needs. I think one of the benefits of reading all the self-help books I have this year is that I've started to see the patterns and the repeating things that we all need. Spirituality and mindfulness are a big one, and if you're in pursuit of that, I'd suggest giving Calm a try. If Calm isn't in your budget, find some meditation videos on YouTube or grab a book from the library on it. Or just fold laundry in silence for a while. You might be surprised what you find. 

Kindness in 2025

 Last week, I found out that one of the security guards at my office had lost a very short battle with lung cancer. We'd known for the last couple of months that he was sick, and it seems he didn't suffer long. Yes, I've now reached that age where every third conversation or so will include me talking about someone dying. 

44

This particular gentleman sticks out to me because he was one of those overtly social people. He always said hello when you came in, knew my name long before I ever learned his and had the ability to hold you hostage for an extended time while he told you about his latest Eve Online campaign or about the go-kart he built. He was an interesting character, and his absence is definitely felt around the office. 

For those of us who worked at this office for around a decade, this one has hit particularly hard because we lost a similarly social and friendly security guard in 2017 - this history rhymes very, very well for us. 

Hearing this news has left me very pensive and introspective because, as much as I can remember and celebrate the kindness of these men today, I often just felt annoyed with them in the moment. And I'm not sure why I felt that way.

Part of it is just that the first hello is always the first thing in the morning, while I'm rolling in groggy and grumpy to work, just trying to get to my desk in time. Being held up to talk about the weather is an inconvenience. 

Another aspect is that the relationships started out weird. I think the security cards we use to swipe into the building probably show our names on a screen for the security people, so they always knew my name. But I was never introduced to them. So the relationship was unbalanced. Had they taken the time to say "Hello Jeremy, I'm ....." I might have felt a bit better about it. But it was always like "How do you know me?" 

Which is to say, I think sometimes that kindness needs to be handled with care these days. You'll often hear advice about treating others with kindness and having that returned. But I haven't always felt or experienced that. Some people really don't reciprocate, and if you bring kindness to the table too boldly, I think it turns people off. 

I have a co-worker who has a very old-school approach to being social and being kind - and it feels invasive sometimes. I'm just trying to drink my coffee; it's not your business when the last time I pooped was. I'm drinking my coffee- it will happen again soon. 

Plus, after 18 years in the corporate world, I've noticed an awful lot of assholes and idiots get promoted. Not that there aren't people who earned promotions or deserve it. But I also know a lot of friendly people who have been passed over in favour of the people you really wouldn't want to spend any significant time with on a desert island. 

So, all of that to say: in this festive season, maybe don't be kind to each other. Leave me a mean comment below! 

Tossin it out there

 I know I had some good ideas for blogs this past weekend, but instead of taking note of those good ideas, I allowed myself to forget. Now it's Tuesday, and I have no idea where I'm gonna go with this. 

So let's go free-form for a bit. 

I twisted my ankle really badly about a week and a half ago. In addition to the general pain and inconvenience being hobbled AGAIN is bringing, there was the embarrassment of doing it in front of my neighbour. Thankfully, he'd just recovered from one himself, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. 

But it does mean I've been stuck inside, grumpy and generally out of touch with the world. I did get a chance to head out to Indian Head and play an open mic this weekend. I drove out with a new music friend, Jason and had a fun chat with him on the road out there. He wants me to head out to the O'Hanlon's open mic tonight. I'm inclined to go, I do like this open mic, but I'm also tired and sore and kinda just wanna hang out at home. I've got a gig this coming weekend, and I could use the practice.  But I could also use the live practice. Dammit. 

I think I'm going to be happy by the end of December this year, and not for the reasons you might think. I've got a lot of gigs and practicing to do, but I also need to do some administrative stuff and get some projects wrapped and rolling on the music side. While 2025 has been a pretty great year for figuring out what I wanna do with myself, it's left me with a pretty big pile of things to do and it's hard to balance performing and doing the rest of it. I'd sure like to sit down and write some music again sometime! 

And then of course, I'm behind on Christmas gift-buying. I've gotten better the past few years at being on the ball for this stuff. But not 2025. I suppose some of that is being so busy. But also just haven't seen too much inspiration from the people I want to gift to in terms of what to get them. Maybe they all get toilet paper to celebrate 5 years since COVID. 

I dunno. Been thinking a lot about 2026 and the future lately. Sometimes it's hard to think of what to do next when you're worried the whole damn thing is going to collapse around you in the next few years. But at the same time - what better time to take a risk? If everyone is going to fail, might as well fail doing something I love and not talking corporate speak or having my soul drained at 7:30 am every day. 

Yeah - 'tis the season I guess. 

Let's have Moraff that

 Last Friday, The Navigator posted about a favourite piece of legacy software. It brought to mind the very old days of computers - pre Windows - and what that world looked like. 

It reminded me of an old game I played when I was younger, Moraff's World.

In the early 90s, my gaming PC was a Tandy 1000 TX, with a massive 640k of RAM and 16 blazing colours if you pushed it hard enough. Yeah, it was great in 1985, and I was still using it in 1996. 

In this pre-Internet age (or at least pre-Internet in everyone's home age), you had to go to a physical place called a "store" to buy video games. The games would be held on a physical object called a "floppy disk." In my hometown, there was a little shop that sold and fixed computers, software and general tech stuff. They had a little shelf full of blue discs where the owner would load the latest in Shareware games to be purchased for $5. I think that this is probably technically against the spirit of Shareware, but he had to do the work and pay for the disks, so... whatever, it gave me access to games I wouldn't otherwise have.

One of those disks I bought had the game we're featuring today on it, Moraff's World. I think it also had another Moraff game, Moraff Stones, on the same disc. Not quite a sequel, but set in the same universe as World. 

Moraff's World is a role-playing game with no real plot, and the only stated goal is to get stronger and more powerful. 

The player starts in a top-level town and needs to descend through progressively more challenging dungeon levels, encountering monsters to fight for experience and loot.  It's a lot of climbing up and down ladders and pushing "F" until you or the monster die. 

In addition to the ladders, occasionally you get caught in an invisible (and occasionally visible) chute that drags you down to ever deeper levels. It's like a high-stakes version of snakes and ladders. 

You start the game off by creating a character. I'm not a big D&D player, but I think that this plays out much like rolling your character for a campaign. You get to pick a race and a type that defines what kind of weapons, spells and actions you have access to. 

The top level town is free of monsters and has a number of shops you can enter, including the store, inn, temple and bank. These are each noted by a different colour square, and without a key of which is which, is super annoying. I'm sure in time I'd memorize them all or put a little note on my monitor. But for this short term play it was really frustrating. Additionally, when I was younger, I played on the 4-colour setting because my computer was such a beast, so telling the difference between shops was impossible. I wish there had been a letter or symbol representing each spot. 

On the subject of the graphics quality, an oft-repeated criticism of this game is the at best-childlike drawings of the monsters featured in the game. 

I never noticed this when I played as a kid, but as I say - I only had 4 colours to work with and everything looks bad when the graphics are this bad. 

Looking back on the game 20-30 years on, and I'm a bit mixed on how I feel about it. I was able to play long enough to recapture the depth of this game. Trying to figure out what spells to use when, building up my character and trying to get deeper and deeper in the dungeon. But playing it through an online DOSBox console is very unstable, and it would crash before I got too deep. 

On the other hand, the terrible graphics are all the more clear the better the graphics quality gets. Go figure. Plus, the game is agonizingly slow even on a modern computer, and it's not something I can see myself returning to in much depth. I certainly don't feel like pursuing finding the full version. 

This game could be fun with a reskin, some more efficient programming and some quality of life updates. I think the core game really could be something fun on a mobile.

I took a poke at the sequel, Moraff's World: Dungeons of the Unforgiven, but didn't give it much time. The graphics are slightly improved, but the control scheme is all different and pretty frustrating. 

All in all, Moraff's World is probably best kept in the past. It was a fun introduction to the RPG genre for me, but looking back on it now, there were definitely better games available at the time. I'm not saying I had access to them, I'm just saying better was out there.

And if I want to scratch the same kind of dungeon-crawling itch, I could pick up one of the early Diablo games and get a far better experience. Although that's an addiction I swore I'd never go back to. 

Done did a football

 While my love of Canadian football and, in particular, the Saskatchewan Roughriders is well documented in this blog, I haven't written about ball in any real depth here since restarting a couple of years ago. At least not Roughrider football. So it might come as a bit of a shock to the uninitiated that my beloved Riders brought home the Grey Cup for the first time in 13 years on Sunday. (Well, technically, they brought it home yesterday, but they WON the Cup on Sunday)

It was a very good season for the Green and White. With a teenage son who's obsessed with football in the house, getting out to games has been something we put some work into, and it was early in the season that we were discussing how good the team worked and how maybe-just maybe- this was the year. 

Well, we led the league in wins coming out of the regular season, and we got a chance not only to attend the West Final to see them beat BC, but the winning touchdown happened in the end zone right in front of us. 

And so we reached last night - and a 25-17 win against the Montreal Allouettes in Winnipeg. We walked down to the Green Mile (Albert St. and Victoria Ave in Regina, and Albert St north/south of there) to join the celebrations. We'd gone down in 2007 and 2013, so it felt like a "must do" this time as well. 

We got there relatively early in the night; there was a group enough to fill the intersection, but it hadn't filled the streets yet. But there were fireworks being fired off and plenty of folks celebrating the win. It was a bit wet and cold, but nothing like the deep snow from 2013 or the bitter cold the night we won in 2007. 

I said it on the walk home - I've become so conditioned to being disappointed by the Riders, it felt weird to be celebrating the win. And it's gonna feel good for a few weeks, love being in this city when we're champions.