Dubious Quality

Communication

I'm up every morning at 6:45. Working by 7:15.

At this later stage of my life, I've become a morning person.

C is up by 5:30 almost every day. By the time I go upstairs, she's been up for over an hour.

I'm a morning person. C is an ultra max + morning person. She comes in hot, as they say.

She said she needed a reminder that the minute she sees me is not an ideal time to start a serious discussion, so I made a sign.

I wore it this morning. It was well-received.

Vampire Crawlers

When Vampire Survivors came out I played it endlessly, like many of us did.

I thought it was brilliant, but I also thought it was somewhat of a happy accident. A one-hit wonder that would set up developer Luca Galante (poncle) for life, but never be repeated. Harper Lee, if you will.

Dear Luca: I apologize.

The just-released demo for Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard From Vampire Survivors is deliriously good. Ridiculously, unbelievably good.

Like VS, it's wacky, and the atmosphere both calls back to Vampire Survivors feel and speed, yet also feels unique in its own right.

Sound effects are reused. Lots of code is reused. And yet it feels entirely fresh.

Spectacular.

Luca, I sincerely apologize once more. It wasn't an accident. You are, in fact, a genius.

If I Admit That Alexander Hamilton Was Not Chinese, Will You Be Quiet For the Rest of the Movie?

I have nothing to add.

An Official Title Change

That's the circulation pattern from the storm that dumped 22" of snow on Queens over the last two days. The screenshot was taken yesterday about 3 p.m. Winds in some places were a steady 60-70 MPH. Basically a hurricane without the warm water.

If you go to Earth it shows you all kinds of info and animates it in real-time.

Normal snowfall for the city at this point in winter is 19". I move here and it's 44".

I'm no longer The Master of Time. My new title is The Bringer of Snow.

Of Note

You may have heard we got a little snow:

This is not really the kind of thing that happens in NYC very often, but it's happened twice in the last five weeks now. I think we're around 18" (the first several inches didn't stick) now and will probably hit 20" because it's still supposed to snow for another 5 hours or so.

I can't help shovel this time, either, which is stressing me out. Technically, our upstairs neighbors are supposed to handle it, but this is an awful lot of snow. With my back right now, though, it's a suicide mission, so I talked to them and apologized.

I've ascended to cleaning house again, even though my back is sore today from doing it. That's as far up the exertion ladder as I can go right now.

Friday Links!

Fascinating: Don’t Close Your Teeth: Cynthia Zarin traces the rise of fascism through the diary entries of Virginia Woolf.

A terrific read: Orcas and ourselves: Sea pandas or sadistic killers? These enigmatic creatures invite contradictory labels that say far more about us than them.

This is long and beautifully written: My Mother’s Body.

Amazing: Rare gifted word-learner dogs like to share their toys.

An excellent read: The End of Mail in Denmark.

Hopefully the bronze was a dog treat: Very good dog finishes third in Olympic cross country skiing.

Fabulous: Watch Puerto Rican Sign Language interpreter Celimar Rivera Cosme absolutely crush it at the Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show.

A fantastic article: His Art Was Real. His Native American Heritage Wasn’t.

From D.G.F, and it's alarming: Authoritarianism from Below.

From Wally, and it's sci-fi recommendations from 2025: Favorites from 2025.

A New Demo Worth Your Time

I played the demo for Titanium Court and it's terrific.

It's also wacky (and funny), so even better. You're dropped into the game and it's a bit of an Alice in Wonderland vibe (not exactly, but it's hard to find an analogue).

There are multiple mechanics, but here's a basic summary. The core of the gameplay is match-3, where you match tiles to gather corresponding resources. You can also match enemies to remove them from the play field. At the end of the matching period, you use the resources to purchase units. These units will then go attack any remaining enemy units (which are trying to destroy your castle, also situated on the play field).

That description just scratches the surface of what appears to be a complex gameplay system. It's incredibly engaging, and I played through the entire demo without a break (it took between one and two hours).

Like I said, it's tremendously creative, both in gameplay and presentation, and I highly recommend taking it for a spin.

A Learning Experience

Through this unfortunate back episode I've learned a few things which might be helpful to you if you're in a similar situation one day.

Houdini used to put his foot in ice water for long periods of time to sensitize it when he was exposing mediums. His foot became so sensitive that he could feel the slightest movement, which gave him a huge advantage in detecting a medium's tomfoolery. Similarly, my back had so much inflammation and pain that it helped me understand which movements stress it more than others.

The biggest thing I learned is that when leaning over is a no-go, going down on one knee is significantly easier. The injury is too the right side of my back, so I go down on my left knee, retrieve whatever I dropped, and push up with the left leg. It causes minimal pain, when leaning over would lock me up completely. I'm going to keep doing this because it seems like it will put much less stress on my back in a long-term sense.

The second thing I learned is that mattresses genuinely make a huge difference. Our mattress, I've learned, is somewhat soft, and the difference in that and the ultra-firm couch (when pulled down into a bed) is enormous in terms of how stiff I am when I wake up.

The third thing is a Shakti mat. This is the contemporary equivalent of a bed of nails, only the nails are plastic and don't penetrate the skin. I've written about this before, but the first 2-3 minutes of lying on it cause significant pain and discomfort, and then your body relaxes and goes into a deep flow state for the rest of the time. After I'm on this for 20 minutes, I get up and have almost no pain at all for about a half hour.

My theory is the pain coming from so many individual points on your back/butt shuts down whatever primary pain you're otherwise feeling (in this case, my back). When you're in so much pain for most of the day, having even a little relief makes a huge difference.

Prehistoric Paydays

Every once in a while you can get a big box of PayDay candy bars from Amazon on the cheap. This is great for me because I don't eat chocolate candy anymore (high saturated fat), and this is a way I can get a bit of sweet tooth satisfaction.

Wikipedia says the PayDay was invented in 1932 and marketed as a meal replacement during the Depression because it was dense with peanuts and only cost 5 cents.

Well, that took a dark turn, didn't it?

The thing is, though, I'm sure that Wikipedia article is inaccurate, because the last box of PayDays I received came from the pre-Civil War era. Or the Precambrian era.

I'll usually microwave a PayDay (candy master's trick) for 8 seconds. It melts the caramel just enough to taste even better. Significant upgrade.

When I pulled a bar out of the box and unwrapped it, it was stiff as a board. The stiffest kind of board, like Patagonian rosewood.

It took a few bars, but I've now arrived at the suitable amount of time microwave bars from this box: 19 seconds. That's a whole lotta microwave for something the size of a candy bar.

Maybe this box of Paydays dates from the Roman Empire era. It was unearthed a few months ago from an emperor's tomb and finally made its way into the distribution network.

It's mine now.

Look Who Can Walk

Being unable to take care of yourself is humbling.

C put my socks and shoes on for three days last week because I couldn't. She did everything involving the house and cooking because it was all I could do to get from one room to the other. My back was so locked up I could barely breathe. Basic movements became complex calculations.

I have more empathy now for people who are in so much pain they quit trying. It's very difficult to feel like the tiny incremental improvements from day to day are worth the effort to produce them. The pain makes you dread moving, too. My back muscles were going into spasm about a dozen times a day. The rest of the time, they were on a hair trigger.

I'm better now. Still far from normal, but better. I walked over three miles yesterday (which was more difficult than normally walking ten), and now that I can walk again, I should be able to make more steady progress.

Still, though. Damn.

Friday Links!

An incredibly tough week that I wouldn't have gotten through without Cs help. Sorry for the shorter number of links than usual, but I'm playing with pain and am regrettably not as tough as Jessie Diggins.

Leading off this week, an absolutely fascinating read: Apocalypse no: how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong.

An incredible story: Rio’s bloodiest day: the untold story of Brazil’s most deadly police raid.

This is incredible and bizarre: Paradise Lost: The Story of a Group of Europeans who Tried to Find Utopia on a Remote Galápagos Island in the 1930s.

What a bizarre tale: Ted Serios and the Mystery of Thoughtography.

The competence continues: hEl Paso airport closed after military used new anti-drone laser to zap party balloon.

From Wally, and it's not my genre, generally: 10 Action Thriller Shows That Blow Any Movie Out of the Water. This is always interesting: Shelfies #74: Paul McAuley. Oh, I'd like to see this: Atlanta’s Unique Hearse Bookstore, The Grim Reader, Is Opening A Brick-And-Mortar Book Store On Friday The 13th Of March — A Moody Third Space For ATL’s Weirdest (& Best) Readers. This is very true: Writing Doesn't Always Look the Way You Think.