Month: May 2023

TBT^2: SimEarth

The Portly Politico4 Comments

The school year is grinding down at an agonizingly slow pace, which means my mind increasingly is turning away from serious matters and towards video games.

As a grown man with too many responsibilities and not enough time, I don’t indulge in video games much anymore.  I’ve always been more of a casual gamer in the sense that I play in short spurts for fun of it, not necessarily “beating” (finishing) a game, but enjoying playing with its mechanics or discovering some bit of its story.  I play games that would be considered “serious” among gamers, but I don’t do so with the intensity of those more committed gamers.

Increasingly, though, my gaming habits have turned towards more casual games—puzzle games and the like.  I don’t do a ton of gaming on my phone, but there are a few that I enjoy.

One of those is TerraGenesis, a game in which you take on the terraforming of a planet.  The game starts you with Mars, and by the time you read this post, I should have completed my first successful terraforming of the red planet.  The game draws heavily from the style of the board game Terraforming Mars, which is one of my favorites in the “make-this-planet-habitable-for-humans” genre.

Playing that got me thinking about the granddaddy of all terraforming games, SimEarth.  I wrote a loving tribute to this DOS classic a few years ago, and it seemed like a good time to give it another look.

With that, here is “TBT: SimEarth“:

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Myersvision: Consider if You Will…

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Audre Myers just can’t resist the alluring song of the Bigfoot, and keeps coming back to drink at the well of grainy video footage and armchair cryptozoological speculation.  As she quaffs away, we benefit from her insights in the form of thoughtful analyses of our big hairy friend.

What I still can’t get over is the lack of compelling, clear footage of Bigfoot.  There’s always some post hoc rationalization for why the video doesn’t work (one of the more infamous examples I recall is the gentleman who had a branch in front of his trail cam, and the labored explanation that the infrared light emitted from it washed out the image).  Some of these videos of alleged sightings are so blurry, it seems that the power of suggestion is at play more than clear examination.  We want to see a Bigfoot, so we see one.  Clever YouTubers will draw a conical outline around the fuzzy form and proclaim, “Ah ha!  See!  It must be Bigfoot because it has a head shaped like a cone!”  Maybe it’s just Dan Aykroyd reprising his role in Coneheads (1993).  Now you’ll start seeing him when you watch this blurry footage.

This video, however, seems different.  Whatever the creature is, it is massive.

I’ll let Audre explain it from here:

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Open Mic Adventures XXXI: “Carousel”

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Last week Ponty asked for more open mic material, thus proving the heavy burden of talent—the fans are never satisfied.  I’ll note that Ponty has a significant backlog of requests, all of which I’ll get around to approximately whenever I feel like it (or, more accurately, when I have time to learn the pieces—they’re quite challenging for a hedge-pianist like myself).  Perhaps I should ask him to favor us with some of his guitar repertoire.

I’ll certainly get back to the “true” open mic material soon.  Summer looms, and I’ll finally have the time and energy to get back out to open mic nights on a regular basis.  In the meantime, I’m continuing to experiment with short piano compositions, and wrote this little ditty, “Carousel,” between classes on 2 May 2023.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

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Friday night I went and saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) on a whim.  I hadn’t realized the flick was already out, as I’ve been knee-deep in end-of-the-school-year responsibilities.  After celebrating Cinco de Mayo with Thai food (the Thai place was a lot less crowded than the Mexican restaurants), my companion proposed we check out the latest Guardians flick, so on a whim we made it to a showing that had just started rolling the previews.

I’m a big fan of the first two films.  When I first saw the original Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) nine years ago (has it been that long?), I was hooked.  I compared it favorably to the Star Wars trilogy, and in the wake of the disastrous sequel trilogy in that franchise, the Guardians trilogy serves as an excellent alternative for Star Wars fans slavering for more intergalactic hijinks.

The elements are there in both sets of films:  a group of immature misfits get tossed together into an ad hoc group of unlikely heroes, who, despite their shortcomings and inexperience, grow together to defeat a greater evil.  Along the way, they forge friendships together, and come to learn more about themselves and each other.

The original Star Wars trilogy pulls this off better than Guardians, especially in the wake of this third installment.  Just as Star Wars has its Return of the Jedi (1983)—a fun conclusion to the story, but not quite as weighty as its predecessors, Guardians has its Vol. 3, which is full of bizarre creatures, but is actually much heavier and darker in tone than its predecessors.

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Lazy Sunday CCI: Myersvision, Part III

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I decided to keep the good times rolling with posts from our senior correspondent, Audre Myers, who contributes her Myersvision pieces approximately every Wednesday.  This weekend’s selections are from that glorious Christmas season, which is reflected in the two films she reviewed:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Washington, D.C. Trip Part IV: Driving Miss Lindsey

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

After a beautiful, contemplative morning at Mount Vernon, we scurried onto the bus to head up to Capitol Hill.  We had a scheduled meeting with Congressman Russell Fry (the man who unseated Tom Rice in the 2022 election), but due to some parental meddling, we also had a meeting with Senator Lindsey Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina.  These meetings ended up being scheduled for the same time, so I found myself on the phone with Fry’s aid to sort out the particulars.

Our tour guide Denise was on edge because of the overlapping times, and was particularly concerned about us meeting with Fry on the steps on the House of Representatives side of the Capitol Building, then quickly relocating to the Senate steps.  The distance is probably two or three football lengths—not a very far walk at all.  Apparently, though, senators don’t like crossing over to the House side, because they’re somehow demigods.

Of course, she underestimated the kind of clout (and, likely, political donations) that our parents command, and pretty soon Miss Lindsey would be sashaying our way.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

May 2023 Bandcamp Friday

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Well, here we are again:  another Bandcamp Friday, which means I hope you will consider pitching in a few bucks to buy my music—or my second book!  It’s the last Bandcamp Friday until August, so if you want to support my work, today’s the best day to do so for awhile.

It’s also Teacher Appreciation Week.  What better way to show your appreciation than by buying my awesome merch?

The first Friday of a bunch of months in 2023—February, March, April, May, August, September, October, November, and December—will feature this pro-indie music observance, a day on which Bandcamp waives its usual 15% commission on sales.

In other words, when you buy my music, almost 100% of it goes to me, instead of almost 85%.

Currently, my entire discography of ten releases is $9.50, a savings of 45%, which is not bad for ten releases.  That’s $0.95 per release—not too shabby!  To purchase the full discography, click on any release, and you’ll see the option to purchase all of them.

I’m also selling all of my paintings for $10, with free shipping in the United States, regardless of how many you purchase.  They’re one of kind, so once a painting is purchased, it’s gone.

I’ve also joined Society6, a website that lets artists upload their designs, which can they be printed onto all manner of products (like this throw pillow, or this duvet cover).  Why not get a bookbag with a mouthy droid on it?

I only get 10% of the sales made there, but some of the stuff looks really good—I really want these notebooks with my “Desert View” painting on it (which again, is just $10 for the one-and-only original).  Some of them are straight-up goofy, like this church doodle I made celebrating the presidential pardon of Roger Stone (the description for the piece is “Anger your friends with this doodle commemorating the presidential pardon of America’s most dapper political operative“).

I have a few new paintings from my highly unsuccessful foray into selling at the Lamar Egg Scramble, and I have two new doodles for just $5 each:  Robo Talk 23 No. 1 and No. 2.  I’m also working on quite a few more doodles for Society6, which will also end up here.

My first book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot, is $10 in paperback, and just $5 on Kindle.

My second and newest book, Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams: And Other Adventures, is $20 in paperback and $10 on Kindle.

Thanks again for your support!

Happy Friday!

—TPP

TBT^2: Egged Off

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Longtime reader fridrix commented a couple of weeks ago that was “[l]oving how you nest these annual pieces like matryoshka dolls.🪆”  While casting about for a TBT post, I couldn’t resist more matryoshka-esque nesting, and eggs seem quite similar to the pear-shaped Russian dolls.  Surely we’ve all nested little plastic Easter eggs into bigger plastic Easter eggs, no?

This post was itself a throwback to a 30 April 2021 post about excessive officiousness in the enforcement of laws that, while they may serve a purpose, are typically of no great harm to anyone.  The original post dealt with two little girls who in Texas who had their roadside egg stand shut down due to lack of proper licensure and oversight from the local government and the State’s health department (if there is any government more odious than various departments of health—the dreaded SC DHEC here in South Carolina—I can’t think of it).

Since then, eggs are even more expensive, yet many municipalities—including my own—don’t allow the raising of chickens inside town limits.  I find this restriction extremely short-sighted and, well, stupid.  In broaching the subject (mildly) with my fellow councilmembers, I found some reserved support, but the one member who took the time to respond to me at length worried about—you guessed it—health concerns.

I’ve noticed something, and it’s not an original insight:  we’re not longer a society premised on “ask forgiveness, not permission.”  Everything is restricted now, and it’s always because of the worst-case scenario.  People are worried about chickens getting out due to irresponsible owners (never mind that stray cats will take care of any stray chickens quite quickly).  Why should we calibrate all of our policies to the lowest common denominator?

Sure, you’re going to have someone who will raise the chickens poorly, or not pen them properly, and it will create a nuisance.  But most people who will take the time to build or buy a coop, purchase hens, buy feed, and all the rest are not going to risk their flock with reckless abandon.  They’re going to take proactive steps to protect their investment.

The positive good of lots of cheap eggs—and the ability to distribute them liberally to neighbors—outweighs the possible risk of one or two bad eggs—pardon the expression—letting their Bantams roam the streets (if the stray cats don’t get them, the speeding motorists will—ah, the circle of life).

With that, here is 5 May 2022’s “TBT: Egged Off“:

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Dorothy Sayers and “The Lost Tools of Learning”

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“For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.” —Dorothy Sayers

What a powerful sentiment, because it is True! I recently had occasion to read Dorothy Sayers’s speech—later adapted into an essay—entitled “The Lost Tools of Learning“; it was akin to my first reading of Richard Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences: a lightning bolt of the True and the Good striking directly upon my mind.

In the speech, Sayers lays out the medieval method of learning, the Trivium, consisting of Grammar, Dialectic (or Logic), and Rhetoric, we she argues should be divided into age-appropriate stages (the “Poll-Parrot,” the “Pert,” and the “Poetic”).  Each stage corresponds with one aspect of the Trivium (the Poll-Parrot studies Grammar, the Pert studies Logic, and the Poetic studies Rhetoric), and while the ages aren’t precise, they basically include when children are knowledge sponges and can learn anything (the parrot, roughly elementary school and earlier); the stage when children start questioning everything and love trapping adults in logical contradictions (the pert, roughly middle school); and the age in which children are on the cusp of adulthood (around fourteen- or fifteen-years old).

This essay is an absolute must-read.  It is long, however, so I’m offering up some of my thoughts on the essay, which has already taken root in my soul, forcing me to re-examine and reconsider how I approach teaching.

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Open Mic Adventures XXX: “Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday”

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Yes, it’s Tuesday—the traditional day of the week for Open Mic Adventures.  No need to check your calendars—or to question my sanity.

I wrote this piece, “Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday,” last Wednesday, 26 April 2023, during one of my planning periods.  I thought it would make a fun sightreading exercise for my Middle School Music Ensemble, and we spent class that afternoon sightreading this piece and “Song of the Bigfoot.”

When I write chorales (as I’ll explain in the video), I tend to do it as a music theory exercise.  I used to write them with the idea of sustaining one or even two notes for as long as possible, and always keeping notes within stepwise motion of one another.  That stepwise motion is largely maintained, with a few exceptions, in the manuscript below.

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