not a sim

in

Among the many things I appreciate about GHOSTS OF TSUSHIMA is that, while it's a spectacularly-rendered open world that thrusts you into a pulp history version of the 1274 Mongol invasion of Tsushima, it's not a spectacularly-rendered open world that thrusts you into a RED DEAD 2 pulp history version (much as I adore RDR2) of the 1274 Mongol invasion of Tsushima that forces you to eat the right amount of carbs and protein and what have you or wear the right outfit in the right weather conditions or feed your horse the right amount of apples and oats to live to slay another Mongol hoard. Nice just to ride with the wind from stand-off to stand-off to heartbreak to heartbreak accompanied by Nobu’s clop-clops and Ilan Eshkeri and Shigeru Umebayashi’s incredible score.

vacay like a lawyer

in

Insofar as it’s been evinced by the lawyers I've worked with over the last two years, one of the primary reasons to become a lawyer is to take vacations.

Evidence: the week my mother died, her lawyer was on vacation; the week my grandfather died, his was on vacation; this week, I emailed same for an update on estate / probate, and guess what? Again on vacation (as was the person handling the probate part of it). Clearly I went into the wrong field as I haven't taken a vacation in 20 years and wouldn't have the slightest clue of how to do so.

Must be a law school class?

focus

in

Figured out a likely root cause of my focus problem post-run the last week or so: while listening to the audiobook will be financially beneficial (Graham's THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR – I sort of get this stuff now; and hey, if Warren Buffett considers it the best book on investing, who am I to argue), it was not creatively so: the morning run is my walking (running) meditation and, for better or for worse, I need that time to be alone with my brain, my breath, and the sounds of the AC. Filling my brain with the words and notions of others, no matter how beneficial (and surprisingly refreshing, in its way) is not at all worth the frazzled, unfocused husk that returns. Duly noted.

garden

in

In my more morose moments, I wonder why I bother posting here - or, hell, even why I continue to write; in my more lucid ones, I can tell you that, having given up the ambition of ever having a "writing career" and leaving behind the attendant trappings that either bored me or drove me insane (read: the performative cesspit of social media), I feel more free than ever to follow and process my interests and curiosities wherever they may lead and share the results of that processing - or, sometimes, the process of that processing, weeds and all - in this, my tiny little patch of internet garden. This is my home.