I don’t get sick very often which is good, great even, but it does mean that when I do get sick I find it difficult to admit to myself and others for whatever reason and instead of just assigning myself to bed I find myself avoiding the awkward phone call into work and just going…and then I end up coming home anyway because when you’re sick you’re sick and everyone knows you’re sick and by god they don’t want to be sick too so they say get away, GET AWAY, in much nicer terms of course but still.
And so you end up on a Saturday night writing a blog for Sunday morning slightly delirious and hoping you feel better in the morning.
Anyway.
Here’s the stuff I’ve done this week.
Reading
…
It’s been a long work week, there was always going to be something that got gipped. I mean nothing by it Reading Gods, I’ll be sure to make a sacrifice in your honour to make up for my laziness.
Playing
I’ve been winding my way through more Hollow Knight, which is still wonderful, and I’ve also been playing a bunch of Mario Maker. Which is also fantastic. Creating levels, just for fun, is…well it is fun is what I’m saying. Like so many good games the creator aspect of Mario Maker is easy to get in to, but difficult to master – which is an apt description for playing Mario as well. Although it’s difficult to imagine how a Mario toolset might be inducive to actual storytelling the Course Maker allows for enough freedom to create mechanics and implement decision making moments into levels which you don’t usually see in real Mario. It’s been super entertaining to mess around with that freedom and basically make levels which you just wouldn’t see normally.
Would Nintendo make a level which makes you question the morality of Mario’s violent actions, offering up tempting violent solutions to platforming problems whilst obscuring passive pathways which can be found through observation and exploration?
No, and they probably shouldn’t, and frankly that is a far too pretentious way of saying I had a good time making a silly level where you don’t have to kill any enemies at all to reach your goal, but…you can if you like. And you do like, don’t you?
Listening to
Stranger Things has predictably kicked my back into a Synthwave phase, which happens a couple of times a year. Old favourites include Robert Parker, Tesla Boy, Anoraak, and Dana Jean Phoenix.
And with that, right on cue the fabulously named Tupperware Remix Party (TWRP) have dropped a new record right up my retro alley. Return to Whenever is a breezy, sunny ride, typified by Typhoon Turnpike, which is the soundtrack to the best Mario Kart level to have never been made.
Watching
I burned my way through the remainder of Stranger Things S3 and part of me feels like I can see the seams, that I can see the places where the writing and the pacing can be criticised and probably will, and should be criticised, but not by me.
Stranger Things is crushing streaming records, doing all the business one of the biggest TV shows in the world should be doing, and I’ve found myself watching promotional material for the show on YouTube. This amounts to the cast doing Wired Autocomplete and Hot Ones and all sorts of silly internet things to try and sell the show. Thing is I’ve already watched the show, and there’s been no need to sell it to me since S1. I just like watching that cast. Which is why I still loved S3, which is why S3 might be my favourite of the three seasons, although I could totally understand why someone might not get along with it quite so well. I could watch this cast do nearly anything and the new additions of Maya Hawke, Jake Busey, and Cary Elwes were particularly excellent.
Running
Still running every day, which in all fairness has included one day when I only ran one mile and did some stretches. I did follow that uno milo up with a 10 miler, which in turn was followed by a Parkrun at a decent clip Saturday morning. This was then followed by the crippling stomach issues which I eluded to at the start of this blog, and the details of which I will not divulge. Was it related to the running? Maybe, all I know is I need to take it nice and easy this week with some good consistent miles. If I feel good next weekend then I can turn the afterburners on, but right now I need to be focused on not burning out.
And that’s it. It’s a morning blog so I suppose it is a bit confusing for me to say that I’m off to bed, but this whole thing is a little off-kilter this week so who cares?
Night!
run into words 