p e r s o n a l |
C\shamrock{}VID-Jr.
(31 Jul 2022 at 23:12) |
Well, it looks like the last post was right when I had "recovered" from COVID the first time. I had tested negative several days in a row, but then started feeling bad again, and had a full rebound with strong positive tests and everything. The second time through was a lot worse than the first but after five more days I was at least testing negative again. Since then I'm mostly back to normal; a lingering cough (not surprising) and some bouts of lightheadedness. These had been keeping me from running (plus trying to take it easy) most of the month, but I have been picking it up a bit for the last week or two. It's pretty weird how my legs feel in shape but the rest of the body, not so much. Quite a contrast with two months ago when I nearly ran a PR marathon. Bleh!
Fortunately I am not experiencing "brain fog," at least no more than the usual 40s stuff. So I've been spending a lot of time on this silly programming project I mentioned in the previous post. For a while I had the feeling that I had invented a "programming contest" for myself and was in "the good part" of it (is it even possible?; breakthroughs while thinking about something else; optimizations reducing from "possible but silly" to "almost reasonable"; etc.). And maybe this is a good way to conceptualize future projects or project prompts. This one is still in the expansive phase but I have some "results" for sure now, and I think a story is starting to come together. Of course it remains confidential but how about this mysterious image?
![op4strobe](http://radar.spacebar.org/images/op4strobe.png) op4strobe
Amazingly this 80s "school portrait laser background" emerged from an ernest attempt to visualize something computational, not to create artwork.
I did finally finish Elden Ring. I certainly didn't 100% it but I visited all the places you can go and beat all the accessible dungeons and bosses and that stuff. It's definitely a good game that I recommend, although it did suffer from the same late-game absurdly-strong-character problem that most of these open-world games have. I truly had no idea what was happening in pretty much any of the cutscenes, which I think is a compliment. After that one I wanted something pretty different. I played through MO:Astray which was a decent but forgettable puzzle platformer (highlight here are some well-designed boss fights). I'm also about half-way (?) through Thimbleweed Park, which is a point-and-click adventure by the creator of Monkey Island (one of my all-time favorites). It's good in the same way those old LucasArts games were, and obviously targeted at people like me. I have only needed a few hints but I admit to such weakness after trying to apply every verb to every pair of inventory item and object in town, you know? | ![](/spacer.gif) |
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