Lots of Monkeys

How much can you do on a phone, is a question I love trying to answer. Old me, pre web me is freaking out right now.

This is some serious cyber punk stuff here, on a device the size of an old Nestle Crunch bar, and I’m using it to post a picture of Trader Joe’s dried mango.

But these take me back to eighth grade and the first time I had candy from Mexico. I’m on the blacktop playground in my school uniform, trying to figure what this powder in these plastic bags everyone was downing. This how was introduced to Pico, and it’s spicier tio, Tico. From there I branched out and tried other candies.

Among those was the mango flavored lollipop covered in spice. My closest guess would be a vero elote mango chili pop. Could be that candymaker is no more, lost forever in a vague haze of childhood.

So these–these taste like that particular memory, if you’re into that.

Hey what’s up lots of monkeys fam, it’s ya boi FILEMON is back up to his bullshit—And that my friends, is where the joke ends.

Thank you.

In any case, here is a wonderful picture of me and my wife that I’m incredibly proud of.

Reese (Pink) and Cyrus (Blue) are characters from the video game series Animal Crossing. They are a husband and wife team that run the Re-Tail store in the town. They are never armed with pink and blue weapons in the game. This is my headcanon where they are in combat for a mysteriously vague ill explained reason, but that wasn’t important—the important part was getting to look like badasses.

This was a very fun shoot, but also a little challenging for me. I’m not accustomed to being the center of anything. In fact, for most of my life I’ve always tried to be as unassuming as possible but that’s another kind of blog post.

I’m typically the person behind the camera, not the person simultaneously trying to make sure my costume is set up properly, that yes, I’m angled into the lights, while simultaneously holding a crouched position on a not quite 100% stable rock, internally screaming OH MY GOD IS THAT MOSQUITO THE SIZE OF A HALF DOLLAR, while also having this argument with myself:

Me: “Is this my good side—Do I even have a good side?”

Also Me: “Whoa whoa, wait.”

Me: “What?”

Also Me: “Stop self deprecating and experience this moment. Learn from it later—but do your best right now.”

“Okay.”

There are other, more in character Animal Crossing pictures, but this one is my favorite because I imagine Reese and Cyrus as good partners who are there for each other, even in less than ideal situations. They trust each other, they have each other’s backs.

And they look good doing it.

Never thought I’d be doing this, but a little contact paper on this table has turned it from a horizontal surface for junk mail, back into a dining room table.

The application wasn’t too difficult and there were issues, but I’m at a place in my life where I realize that done is in many cases better than perfect.

I would have been mad or disappointed in myself with this application in the past because I believed everything had to be perfect.

Now I guess with wisdom and some self awareness, I’m finally able to forgive myself.

I think it looks great, can’t wait to get it applied on to the kitchen counters after our Doctor / R2 paint job.

In particular, the broad definition of Singularity where we as a society have progressed, technology wise, to a place where we were unable to even conceptualize what it would be like.

So I’m going to go back to 1997, I’m in a dorm lounge, and I’m playing the pinnacle of video games, GoldenEye on the N64, on a large projection TV, with four other friends, yelling, specifically not picking Odd Job, and thinking—

“It is never going to get any better than this.”

Twenty years later, I am at home, taking a lunch break. I turn on my console and invite one of those friends (one of the same ones I was playing GoldenEye with) to a party chat. The voice quality is very good, they sound like they are in the room. I’m playing on a flat screen LCD television, only 1080p, I’m thinking about upgrading to 4k maybe after our tax returns are processed. We’re playing Anthem, taking down scores of Dominion soldiers, and just chatting and catching up as we play video games.

In short, the every day experience of playing video games has changed past the point I could even conceive of in 1997, but I’m also playing video games with the same people I played with over 20 years ago, which is also amazing.

I don’t know how they’re going to change from this point on. We have VR, we have the infrastructure, but honestly if we (as human beings) can make it another 25 years I’m pretty certain that the video games that my nieces and nephews will be playing will be nearly indistinguishable from the games we’re playing now.

But I’ll hopefully be playing them with the same good people.

Right now I’m playing the video game Anthem, and watching my cat play with a newly rediscovered toy of his. 

I’m also blogging.  I’ve taken some time off from work and given myself a gift: Some time to myself. 

One of those things is writing again, a sort of jump start. Some of the product of that journaling and writing was the discovery of a project. I blogged semi regularly before, but never really had a strong focus for it.  Right now I’m still collecting thoughts on paper, and beginning to get my research accessible and all in one place.

It’s going to involve some pictures, some links on the internet, maybe some names will be changed, maybe not? If a person is named on the internet but is never tagged in social media, were they ever really named at all? It’ll be an exercise more than anything else. A direction, certainly, a destination? I can’t say.

I’ll try to make it sound like we haven’t talked in a while and I’m catching you up.

I’d like that.