Tag: reblog

TBT: The Joy of Coffee

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Blogger Esoterica over at Existential Ergonomics has once against inspiration for today’s post. She posed a fun question to readers in her post “Q&A: Are you a tea or a coffee person?“

It’s a smart title because it’s dripping (no pun intended) with engagement potential. Naturally, the comments section was poppin’—and yours portly was not shy about discussing coffee (and tea) with the other readers, especially after purchasing a new coffee grinder (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you):

That got me thinking about a post I wrote way back in 2021. I looked it up, and was shocked to find that I’d never featured it in a TBT. Well, it’s time to change that and look back at a post about my favorite breakfast beverage.

With that, here is 24 March 2021’s “The Joy of Coffee“:

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Lazy Sunday CCCXCI: Saxamophone!

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Yours portly has been noodlin’ on the old sax a good bit over the past couple of weeks, so for lack of a better topic—and, uh, to catch you up on my latest adventures in noodling!—here are some recent posts featuring a total of six saxy jams.

The title for today’s Lazy Sunday comes from this classic scene from The Simpsons, which I probably think about every time I pick up the saxophone:

Now—onto the list!

Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!

—TPP

Lazy Sunday CCCXC: Summer Reading Lists of Yesteryear

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Book titles in this post have an Amazon Affiliate link. I receive a portion of purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you. —TPP

It’s been one of those rare, near-perfect Sundays, the kind of Sunday that is so peaceful, it’s hard to believe it’s possible. I know that Sunday is the Lord’s Day, the Sabbath, a day of rest, but I don’t think it’s ever really been that way for me.

Growing up, Sunday was a marathon of excessive churching, in which a hot, sweaty nap would be squeezed between seemingly endless church services and band practices. I’m very thankful for that upbringing in many ways, but it always meant Sundays were an exhausting scramble, usually topped off with finishing math homework after we finally got home at 9:30 PM.

As an adult, Sundays have become a working day. After church, the day is spent prepping for the week, with lesson plans, scheduling music lessons, and the like. Sometimes that includes hammering out succulent blog posts for the week ahead.

Top that off with the “Sunday scaries”—that vague sense of dread and anxiety that settles in around 4 or 5 PM on a Sunday afternoon—and I’ve never much cared for the day, or thought of it as all that restful. Church is great (and you should go, just probably not for eight hours every Sunday), but by the time I’m home from it, the weekend is essentially over and work begins. It’s why I try to take Saturdays as my “Sabbath,” when I truly do try to rest and recuperate.

That said, today has been what I think Sundays are supposed to be. Dr. Wife and I had a quiet morning and headed to church, after which we had lunch and picked up groceries. We came back and knocked out some chores around the house and in the yard, and then took a glorious nap with the dogs, from which we both got up from a short while before I wrote this post. Minecraft Camp starts tomorrow and I have a few lessons to schedule, but I don’t feel rushed. Dr. Wife usually has to drive back on Sundays to North Carolina, but because of the nature of her new rotation (which starts tomorrow), she won’t have to leave until tomorrow morning, and she’ll leave when I head out for camp.

The net effect is that it’s been a glorious and restful Sunday. Even as we’ve gotten things done around the house, it’s been a day both to celebrate and worship the Lord with other believers and time for rest and reflection. There is a peace over the house that I’m almost hesitant to articulate, lest the momentary blessing be somehow broken.

Well, enough of that waxing poetic (and complaining about going to church, which is somewhat hypocritical of me). For today’s installment of Lazy Sunday, I thought I’d look back at various Summer Reading Lists of yesteryear:

So there you have it! A little late, but a Lazy Sunday bursting with summertime freshness.

Happy Reading—and Happy Sunday!

—TPP

TBT: Retro Games Website

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Before it became overrun with AI slop and bots, the Internet was the good kind of wild frontier, brimming with jokes and otherwise lost content. Well, the Internet is still that, there’s just a lot more trash to wade through to find the good stuff.

One website that provides “the good stuff” is RetroGames.cz, which makes possible the playing of some classic games via emulation in your browser. I spent a good chunk of time last year playing through the old Dragon Warrior game; eventually, I’ll get around to loading up my save state and finishing it. It’s the grindiest RPG I’ve ever played!

Occasionally, I find myself nostalgic for the rudimentary, homemade websites of the late 1990s and early 2000s, wherein website design philosophy consisted of cramming as many animated GIFs onto the homepage as possible, and everything was typed in Times New Roman font. The formality of the font contrasted with the frivolity of the overall design, to the effect that webpages in those days were akin to early digital folk art. The amateurism—which, it must be remembered, still required a good bit of working knowledge of HTML and JavaScript at the time—leant those websites a certain charm, even if that whimsical form came at the expense of function.

Well, enough of my waxing artistical. Go play some good games.

With that, here is 4 June 2025’s “Retro Games Website“:

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Lazy Sunday CCCLXXXIX: Memorial Day Posts

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It’s Memorial Day Weekend here in the States, which marks the beginning of summer (not astronomically, but culturally). It’s a time for grilling hot dogs and hamburgers and generally giving thanks for our liberties. I’m hoping Dr. Wife and I can go out to a State Park and try to catch some local minnows and tadpoles to add to our little koi pond.

In the meantime, here are all of my Memorial Day posts dating back to 2019:

Happy Sunday—and Memorial Day!

—TPP

TBT^16: Zelda Game & Watch

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Summertime is upon us, and yours portly is all but done with the academic year. That means it’s time for video games.

Civilization VII dropped its huge update, which brings some major changes to the game; I’m hoping to sink some hours into that again soon. I’m also hoping to get back into Old World, which devoured so much of my time back in April with its deep gameplay.

Of course, I still have my lovable Zelda Game & Watch by Nintendo (that link is an Amazon Affiliate link, which means I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you). I haven’t played it in awhile, but it still keeps time like a tiny Hyrulean champ.

With that, here is 22 May 2025’s “TBT^4: Zelda Game & Watch“:

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TBT^2: Mystery in the Blogosphere

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What happens when a blog dies, especially a long-established one? Further, what happens when the blog’s author also goes missing, leaving no digital footprint behind?

The latter question seems almost impossible in our hyperconnected world, but it’s the case with Trinidadian blogger Renard, the proprietor of the now-gone Renard’s World. Renard and his little avatar, which looked like a character from The Boondocks, was so ubiquitous, he seemed like the unofficial mascot of WordPress. Here was a writer who churned out quality content every day, and like “Tom” on MySpace, he seemed to follow and be followed by everyone on the platform.

Then he disappeared.

The mystery has, as I wrote last year, “endured.” In attempting recent searches for “Renard’s World,” the same speculative blog posts show up as did last year. I even hopped onto Substack to see if our boy had made an appearance on that platform, but no dice.

Could Renard be blogging under a completely different identity? Or did he hang up the work for good?

There are, of course, the darker speculations, that Renard met with some unfortunate fate beneath the Caribbean sun. But the coordinated shuttering of all of his social media and online presence seems like something difficult to do if you’re dead and your relatives are fumbling to get into your accounts.

I pray that Renard is okay. I didn’t know him that well, of course, but I wish no ill upon anyone.

That said, if any readers have any updates on Renard’s whereabouts, leave a comment or contact me. I’m intrigued to know, although I suspect none of us will know for sure on this side of Eternity.

With that, here is 15 May 2025’s “TBT: Mystery in the Blogosphere“:

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TBT^256: SimEarth

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Yesterday I wrote about how bogus Darwinian evolution is as a theory.  It’s one of those concepts that sounds both so radical and logical that it must be groundbreaking and true.

Then you start to examine it more closely and realize it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.  There’s an entire Facebook page that just shows weird animals with hyper-specific “adaptations” that are so outlandish, there’s no conceivable way they could have gradually “evolved” to that state.  Any median point in the process would have made the creature unfit for the conditions.  Sometimes, the animals have some odd characteristic that doesn’t even do anything in particular.

That said, the concept of evolution is fun in video games and science fiction.  Sure, maybe that’s just pro-Darwinist propaganda embedded into popular culture, but evolution works well in the context of a video game, where progression is encouraged through rewards.  I’ve always liked games with a grand scope that require incremental improvements over time.

Of course, even those games prove intelligence:  the development of a species, or a civilization, or someone’s neighborhood in The Sims, is itself a process of intentional, ordered choices.  Granted, players aren’t God, but they get to guide development over many turns or rounds or what not.

That’s all to say that I loved playing SimEarth back in the day.

With that, here is 8 May 2025’s “TBT^16: SimEarth“:

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Lazy Sunday CCCLXXXVI: Spring Concert 2026 Posts

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A quick Lazy Sunday today, dear readers, looking back at the recent Spring Concert.  I’m looking forward to (God Willing) a relatively normal week of work!

Rock on—and Happy Sunday!

—TPP