Offseason Camblings, Part Fifth of Unknown: New Year, New Post, Same Old Me.

Ah, the day that should’ve been the STAT for us but isn’t because of the stupid “open sundays” decision that I’ve ranted enough about already. Were you expecting me to not post things due to being incredibly busy? What a foolish thing to think on a day where a lot of things are closed and we should be too. Here I sit, doing pretty much nothing but waiting for paint to dry (literally, though I’m not actively watching it do so, colour matches), not rushing anything because there is no need, everything’s “I’ll need this in like 3 days” so I’ve got time to let it dry naturally (which I prefer, less Alligatoring) which in turn gives me time to type things and ramblings.

 

Alright, “I’m bored” paragraph out of the way, onto the things. You know, the things, with the stuff. Me, rambling, etcetera, that sort of thing. Christmas came and went, enjoyable time spent with family, got lovely comforts, the highlights of which were all of them (Cozy Slippers, Viking Toque w/ attachable Beard, Big Ole Pillow), and they were all put to use nigh immediately. I’m currently wearing the Viking Toque sans Beard (I don’t wanna get paint in the beard, that’d be bad) and have been getting lots of compliments from the very few people who have been in to see it. Also as I got ill within a couple days of Christmas (the 28th, specifically, which was Cheesefest ’16 and I missed it, boo) I put the pillow through its paces by being bedridden for the entirety of a day. Slippers go on as soon as I get home and rarely come off. A bunch of practical, comfortable gifts that I enjoy quite thoroughly. Oh, and Grandma dun gud and gave us food. I love food. 

 

Speaking of food, my Dad’s got this whole “some people eat to live, others live to eat” thing he says rather frequently. I can see the sense in that, but I don’t think it’s quite that black and white. I love food. Experiencing new things, flavour explorations, finding and trying things I’ve never heard of, pushing my mouth to its flavourful limits. These things I love doing, it’s always fun even if I don’t like it in the end, it was worth it for the experience of learning that fact. Prime examples of that include my standing agreement with Dan that I will try any drink he wants me to, even though I will probably hate it and we both know this. The willingness to try is key. That being said, and reemphasizing the fact that I love doing that, I fully admit to being a very boring eater at home. Simplicity is key when it comes to feeding myself for daily nutrition. I regularly eat the same thing daily for a while before I start really craving something else and have to switch it up for the sake of mental wellbeing. I do still subscribe to a saying that I tweaked a while ago, “Variety is the spice of life, but consistency is the substance.” You can’t survive on spice alone, guys. A large chunk of this comes from the “I can’t be bothered to put in a lot of effort for myself” mindset I’ve got when it comes to cooking. I may have discussed this before, but I’m rather terrible at cooking for one. If I have someone to cook for it ends up much better/fancier that whatever I would’ve made myself. I’m just way better at doing things for people than I am for myself, not just with cooking. I need the external motivation/request, self-motivation and/or drive is something I lack quite noticeably and I have little to no idea how to fix that. I’ve heard in the past that I’m the type of person who just “needs someone to look after me,” but I think it’s rather the opposite, I need someone to look after. Then comes finding said person, which is a topic I’m about to avoid…. RIGHT NOW!

 

Like halfway through that paragraph I said something about “The willingness to try is key.” Let’s expand on this, starting with food but we’ll wander elsewhere. So there are people I know, quite a few of, and often younglings/children, who aren’t willing to try new foods. They’re positive they won’t like it, or think it’ll be yucky or they’ll find the texture weird, whatever. Basically what it comes down to is that they’re afraid it will be a bad experience. Sure, that’s understandable, trying something that you immediately hate is a pretty awful experience (looking at you, double salted Dutch Drops), and stays with you forever (staring you down, double salted Dutch Drops), and you will probably never try them again (glaring at you, double salted Dutch Drops). That being said, being too afraid to try anything will make you a very dull eater. Plain cheese pizza? May as well have just ordered cheesy bread. PB&J Sammich every day? To almost-quote Raymond Holt of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, “It contains nearly all the nutrients your body needs, its contents have a long shelf life and it’s so simple a child can make it.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I love me some cheesy bread and PB&J sammys, but there’s so much more to pizza and sandwiches than those two can offer. There are vast pizza and sandwich worlds out there with so many varieties and so much to offer, it would be such a huge shame if all you ever ate was the same cheese pizza and PB&J sammich day in and day out. Those are just examples, but I think it gets the point across. So basically, the willingness to try is a type of courage. You know you may hate it and you may be afraid that you will initially, but you’ll take the risk anyway because you never know until you try. 

 

Slight deviation: Courage versus Fearlessness versus Recklessness. I don’t know how much people think about the distinction between them, but it comes up enough in my head that I’ve got a solid personal differentiation, and it may be in a dictionary or something but I’m not gonna go looking right now. Ready, Go! One who is Reckless jumps into most situations headlong without considering the consequences of his actions, often to the detriment of others. One who is Fearless recognizes the dangers of a situation but jumps in with no regard to his wellbeing. One who is Courageous is being afraid of doing something but doing it anyway, normally for the sake of others. There is a fairly fine line between Reckless and Fearless, but they’re different enough that they deserve their own descriptions. So yeah, that’s how I define those in my head. Just figured I’d throw that out there for no particular reason.

 

Side note, My two favorite compliments I’ve ever recieved are as follows, in order of time received: “You are a gentleman and a scholar” and “You’re probably the best hire I’ve been a part of; you’re fearless [with respect to talking to people], you’re not afraid to ask questions and you have no ego.” Just thought I’d throw that out there.

 

Topic Change: Round 2 of “Past and Present Favorites, Why and How; A Discussion of Entertainment and Appeal”

 

Ready, go! On the docket today is one of the very few console games I had limited access to as a kid (we weren’t big into that sort of thing as a family, it was only brought out when we were really sick), Wonderboy in Monster Land for the Sega Master System. This game has stuck with me even to this day, probably largely in part to how limited our play time, but also it was one of those games that I strove to beat as a kid. It was long, there was a lot to it (comparatively) and it was hard to beat. Basic premise was such: You are Wonderboy, the land is being terrorized by a dragon, you need to go find and beat it. It’s one of the earlier action-platform/RPG combos that I played, requiring some potentially very precise jumping and striking, with a strong gear-progression side to it requiring exploration and finding hidden lots of things. There were 4 types of gear upgrades, each with a specific and sometimes necessary purpose; Sword for increasing damage done, Shield for blocking projectiles, Armor to lessen damage done, and boots to increase jumping/platforming ability. It was very much an arcade-style game, as most/all were back then, having a timer that counted down to death and limited lives and no type of save system in place (be it password or otherwise) and requiring a good deal of luck and even more “play repeatedly until you know everything” knowledge.

 

 …crap, I’m gonna have to finish this at home. I do want to talk more about Wonderboy in Monsterland, but I’ve gotta close shop soon.

 

 Alright, now home w/ food and lapdesk (I recently bought a lapdesk to enhance couch-typing), and ready to go. 

 

So yeah, Wonderboy in Monsterland. The trick to its longevity was the lack of information it gave you upfront. You had to play and experiment, looking for hidden shops or bags of gold that spawned out of thin air in order to make progress or enhance performance, and there was a LOT of stuff to find. Some of the stores/doors gave hints to items that’d boost your abilities but most of the time you had to figure it out yourself. Which I did. Eventually. The worst culprit of this was the final dungeon area, where, if you find the right hidden door, you’re given a choice between a bell and a ruby. The bell tells you which way to go (it’s actually one of those repeating maze places, so that’s very useful), and the ruby weakens the dragon on the initial hit, taking its life down by like half which is SUPER useful since he hits like a truck and is the hardest fight in the game by quite a bit. This game took a long time to learn everything and the order in which to do it all, but that was like 90% of the appeal. Figuring out how to get things, making sure you found all the secrets, it’s a game that took time and skill (both of memory and action-platforming), increasing your power and ability along the way to cope with the challenges the game throws at you, requiring crazy things like float shoes, beating secret bosses, finding hidden dungeons, all sorts of other things. It was a fun game, and I beat it all of once. Got to the last boss a few times, but learning the route to be able to do it required dumb luck or using the bell, the former being unreliable at best and the latter meaning you went into the last fight at a major disadvantage. That fight basically required you to have the best stuff in the game in order to survive it, which also took some learning and doing. I think I loved it for the challenge, I’m definitely a sucker for that, which will be delved into elsewhen. Also it was colourful with unique enemies and distinct visual upgrades for new gear, which always helps keep it interesting. 

 

  …I lost my train of thought, also have to go get groceries, I may continue this one later, there was a lot more to the game than I first figured I’d talk about, including things like bosses and how you had to make sure you jumped over the key to get all the money they dropped and how there were like 3 bosses that you could fight repeatedly for extra money and the whole jumping on clouds to find hidden stuff…actually that about covers it. I really liked that game, but I don’t think it’ll have aged well. I may try to play it again for kicks and giggles (aka: nostalgia) at some point though.

 

Alright, that’s it for me, have a good ’in folks.

 

Cheers, ~Cam