Oh, nostalgia, how I regret you sometimes.

Every so often I am reminded of something that I really enjoyed the first time around. Older video games (that some people now include in the “Retro” category) that when I first played them they were the hot new thing. The transition into 3D graphics, the animated cutscenes, incredible soundtracks. Some games just don’t stand up to the test of time, for one reason or another, and when I go back to play them again on a whim I sometimes end up disappointed. What was thrilling or exciting before just doesn’t have the same impact today. However, there are still some games that, despite the graphics of their generation, I still find enjoyable and it’s primarily because of the story or the particular mechanics that were used. One such game is Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem because you don’t see other games like it. The way the narrative plays out, the different times in history, all the exploration, puzzles, and magic that get used in conjunction with the sanity mechanics. The majority of the game is still relatively fun to play on those rare occasions that I need to scratch that nostalgic itch. Sometimes I enjoy finding someone on Twitch that is finally playing it for the first time just so I can see their reactions to certain things. There is at least one scare in the game that is outdated, but when I think about it I’m reminded of watching my older brother playing the game and panicking when it happened to him and we all started laughing at how pissed he got.

Onto a different subject for nostalgia, food! There is a little counter service only burrito place down the street from where I used to live in Colorado. My family loves that place, and whenever any of us go back we try to stop there. My sister and Dad recently went back for a visit and stopped by there on the way back. They picked up something like three dozen burritos, packed them in a big cooler, and drove them roughly 700 miles back to South Dakota just so the family could have some. Even reheated they still tasted the same from my childhood and I’m reminded of why I love those burritos. I miss those days of walking down the street to get a burrito for lunch over the summer, and bring them home to enjoy while playing video games. If only I could get my hands on the recipe.

These are just a couple of things that make me feel nostalgic, but they have some of the strongest memories I can recall, even after 20+ years. I’m sure I’ll still be thinking about these memories 20 years from now.

I’m not big into sports. Never really have been, but that’s not to say I don’t occasionally enjoy watching, it just doesn’t rank very high on the priority list for entertainment.

If I DID have a sports team, it might be a soccer team.

Obviously the mascot would have to be a dragon. Unfortunately, there are tons of teams across multiple sports (ranging from high school through professional leagues) that have a dragon as a mascot, and picking colors to differentiate would be tough. Currently, the University of Alabama at Birmingham has a dragon mascot (named Blaze) and their colors are Forest Green and Old Gold, which would be the closest to the choices I was looking at before researching the topic for today’s writing prompt. It also doesn’t help that I’m not practiced in color coordination, so picking colors was a challenge. I didn’t want both colors to be darker shades, or one super bright and vibrant, but I did come up with a couple possibilities.

• Parakeet (#03C04A) and Sage (#728C69)
• Parakeet (#03C04A) and Vintage Aqua (#6AB4C9)

Not sure how well these two combinations would work, but they seemed like good ones to me.

Short answer for this writing prompt. My “political” views have not changed much over time. That being said, I’m not going to use my blog (at this time) to share my political views or any sort of current event related political commentary. That’s not why I started the blog in the first place, and it’s not integral to the day-to-day content I want to put on here. If you are looking for politics you’ll have to go somewhere else.

Do you ever watch a movie or show and see those rooms in large houses that have an entire wall full of books on lovely mahogany (or similar) shelves? The kind of room where there is a desk placed to one side with its back facing a huge window? Those kinds of visuals always grab my attention, regardless of the room’s dimensions or layout.

Since the prompt also asks about space for reading, I can tell you right now that the above ideas are for writing and not reading. Reading spaces I like to daydream about are usually the kind where I can sit on a deep window sill on some pillows and use natural light to read. Sometimes the space is more like a comfy chaise lounge chair, or a full-size couch that I can stretch out on, that is placed near a large window.

Now how do I combine the two ideas? Well, I’ve seen those large two-level rooms that just have walkways along the walls, almost like a grand hall. I could have the upper area have space for that couch against the window for reading, and the lower area be for the desk. Plus I like sunset more than sunrise so I would want the whole room to be at an angle almost like a diamond. The large window would be in the southwest wall so I could get a great view of the sunset.

Well, that’s all one idea. I also like the vibe of having a second or third floor apartment type space that has windows overlooking a busy downtown street in a small city (no major metropolitan areas). Again, I could have space to sit in one window and people watch or read on rainy days, and another place for a desk. Then a loft area for sleeping, should the apartment space not have much in the way of separate rooms.

Those are the basics of my ideal reading/writing spaces. I’m sure if I took the time I could sketch it out and REALLY design it all. Maybe another day.

First off, who uses the word “automobile” anymore? Maybe that reaction is just because I’m from the States and other English speaking countries use it instead of just saying “car”.

Second, I’m going to point out something that I bet many people might overlook. Today’s prompt could be used as a form of “social engineering” if you have online accounts that use this same question as one of your Security Questions. So keep that in mind when you see prompts like this, because if you’re not careful the information will get scraped and possibly associated with information from data breaches.

Finally, I don’t have a favorite car because I’m not a big car guy. Don’t get me wrong, I do like cars and I have found some over the years that I’ve really liked and wished I could drive, but never a favorite.

My creativity stems from experience, my experience comes from life, and I am naturally curious. If something catches my interest, I want to take it apart and learn about what makes it work. Obviously I can’t do that with living things, so that’s just more observational, but I still learn from them.

The longer I live, the more things I experience and people I meet all lend themselves to how I generate ideas. The ideas of other people, the books I read, inform me of what has already been done. Is it something that will make my life easier when I’m working on something or is it something I can improve upon? Everything adds up.

If I’m working on a project at work and I encounter a problem, I usually resort to searching online. The chances are usually very good that someone else has experienced the same thing and they received help with a solution. With those situations I try to learn why things work the way they do and how to work around them. Additionally, I learn how to better search for things which make my future problem solving go smoother (hopefully.)

When it comes to writing, whether it’s for D&D or just writing in general, I pull from all the things I’ve read or watched. Science fiction and fantasy? Plenty of information all across the Internet and in the books I read from such authors as Brandon Sanderson or John Scalzi (my two favorite authors of the last 20 years. If for some reason they stumble across this post, hi!) Trying to come up with magic systems or how to provide some measure of logic to space travel and aliens is easier when you can see the rules and structures, dissect them, and reconfigure to try something new.

Where things have differed a bit is playing Magic: The Gathering. My friends and I love the weeks leading up to the release of a new set because they do spoilers. During that time we look at the new cards and start crafting ideas for how to build around them with existing cards we might already have. This has taken years of practice in playing the game to beat into my head the mechanics and rules, but where I have only been playing for roughly 10 years, my roommate has been playing for the better part of 20 years. So I lean on his brain a fair amount but I also don’t look to make my decks hyper efficient or competitive, instead preferring to go for silly of janky combos that often surprise my friends.

So that’s how I’m creative. I take my experiences and ideas, dissect them and try to do new things with them, possibly in unexpected ways.

I’ve answered similar questions in the last few months, and in those answers I mentioned my Dad and two brothers. They have certainly had a strong impact, but they’re not the only people in my life.

By proximity and time, my manager has been one of the biggest influences, followed by my roommate. I know, odd to put them in that order when I’ve lived with my roommate longer than I’ve worked for my manager, but there is an explanation.

I see my roommate near daily, but I don’t talk to him as much. We have a group chat with some friends that we play Magic with, but that doesn’t always have conversations going because more often it is just memes and video clips being shared. By contrast, I see and talk to my manager every day of work. We have a standing daily team checkpoint call so that we can connect with the remote members of our team, and because I choose to be in the office everyday I get to drop by my managers office for fly-by conversations or updates. It’s thanks to this kind of convenience that I’ve learned much and become a better professional. For the record, it’s a small, close-knit team, and pre-pandemic we could turn to one another and have random 20-30 minute chats, but after the rest of the team opted to stay working from home I don’t see or talk to them as much anymore.

After those two, my Dad and brothers, other friends and family have some measure of influence in my life, but I don’t know that they would be to the same degree because they fall into the same realm of proximity and time as my coworkers.

I know basically nothing about the year I was born. Simple as that. I pulled it up on Wikipedia and found a bunch of world events and news, but nothing I actually knew prior. I didn’t even know it was a leap year, but I’m sure if I had done the math I could have figured it out.

The Wikipedia page for 1988 also had a list of famous people born that year. It’s always at least somewhat interesting to see who is the same age as yourself. Several names I recognized, mainly actors and musical artists. Sadly, nobody was listed as having the same birthday as me. Maybe if I bust my ass to get some novels published and make movie deals (like Veronica Roth, August 19th, who wrote the Divergent trilogy), it could be possible that I too could be listed there.

Such a lofty goal. I’ve really set my sights high to try and get myself onto Wikipedia. Ha! Well, it has come around as a great source of information, so maybe someday.

I feel that for someone to be introspective enough to decide whether or not they “are a good judge of character” they need to take a few things into consideration.

There are two perspectives in these kinds of interactions. Who is “the judge” and who is “the judged” in the situation? What kind of history do they have with each other directly? What about indirectly, such as word of mouth reputation? How perceptive are they to each other’s words and actions? Can they recall situations in their past where they encountered someone similar? Do they match up somehow to predetermine someone’s opinion BEFORE they get to know each other to any degree?

All that being said, if I were to apply those kinds of questions to myself, I would say I haven’t always been a great judge of character, but as I get older I improve upon that aspect of myself.

Looking at the questions above, if I picked out a couple in a specific order I could tell you that my ‘strategies’ have changed for interacting with people and making presumptions about their character. I used to be a lot more trusting. Now I’m more guarded and pay attention to body language and tone of voice. I try to evaluate their actions and see if they match up to what they’re saying or have said in the past. Do I REALLY need to share specifics with that person? Maybe I let my guard down and overshare a little bit, to see what they do with that information or how they act towards me later. Do they trust me enough to let their guard down a little in return?

If I summed everything up, I’d say I’m still not the best judge of character, but my skepticism makes me take my time and not “jump head first into the Kool-aid without knowing the flavor.”