I honestly don't know how Shadowrun escaped me all these years, but its combination of D&D, The Matrix, and Mission: Impossible is 100% my shit! Imagine: fantasy races, magic, cyberpunk, and elaborate heists sitting atop an intricately fleshed out near-future world that uses the Mayan Long Count calendar and corporate greed as its main pillars. It's as problematic, corny, and compelling as you'd think — and I'm totally digging it.
Category: Personal
Guy stuff.
Masto do, Masto don’t? YMMV.
The biggest challenge I've seen for a lot of people with Mastodon seems to be picking the right instance. It's something you don't usually have to think about when signing up for a social network, but picking the right instance is both incredibly important for optimizing your overall experience, and arguably a waste of time in the very beginning.
How Manga Took Over My Bookshelf — and the World!
Between research for Comics Plus (aka, the day job) and many hours of the wonderful Mangasplaining podcast, I've been able to zero in on stories that are most likely to be up my alley without putting too big a dent in my wallet. As a result, manga has become the majority of what I've read and enjoyed this year.
Twitter Detox
Of course, like quitting smoking or other addictions — and let's be honest, for some of us, Twitter had become an unhealthy addiction — it's left a gaping hole in my life. Over the years, Twitter had evolved into my main source of current events, engagement with topics of interest, and connections with people I've known for years but am unlikely to see in person any time soon. The spoke became a hub, something the marketer in me knew was very wrong.
Should I stay or should I go?
Twitter is an irreplaceable platform for me, and I recently learned I'm among its small minority of "heavy users" who drive the platform's revenue. I've invested 14+ years and more than 51,000 tweets in curating an optimal feed that keeps me informed, entertained, visible and connected to the topics I care about most, and more importantly, other people who share those interests. I'm not as active as I used to be, but I'm still way more active than the vast majority of users, even among those I follow.
Five Things: September 29, 2022
Five things for September 29, 2022. That's it! That's the excerpt.
Stroke Me, Stroke Me — Nine Months Later
tldr: I'm doing pretty good physically now, but the mental side effects of having an unexplained stroke in the middle of a pandemic really suck. Running helps. "Go with what is. Use what happens."
Refuting the Book of George
[This was originally published by About.com in its Poetry section, back in 1999, in response to the release of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. It was retrieved via the Wayback Machine as About.com no longer exists, and I'm republishing it here for my own archives, but also in an initial response to Boba Fett's return, about which I'm feeling a little ambivalent.]
Five Things: December 23, 2021
Five things for December 23, 2021. That's it! That's the excerpt.
That Time I Had a Literal Stroke
Turning off the faucet after brushing my teeth, I felt a tingling sensation in my right hand that quickly raced up my arm, which was quickly replaced by racing numbness. The first thing I thought of was that “narm” scene from Six Feet Under, a show I’ve never watched but had been memed into my consciousness years ago.