Author: Taylor Burian

Gamer, writer, occasional streamer

Passions

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What are you passionate about?

If there is absolutely one thing I am passionate about, it’s gaming.

Not just one category of gaming either. I love video games, card games, tabletop games, all of them.

I know at least a couple people who don’t see the value or appeal in gaming, so I’m sure there are millions more out there. That just means they aren’t wired for that kind of entertainment, and I don’t let what they say deter me.

Gaming has evolved so much since the inception of the first dice and card games. There are even studies about the benefits of gaming!

Intricate story telling and artistic expression. Mechanics to challenge the mind and keep it sharp. Hand eye coordination. Group/team/social dynamics and strategy. There are many layers and facets to gaming that most people don’t see either because they just stick to one game or they never bothered to look.

Now, granted, the majority of games are on screens (just like social media) so nowadays it can greatly disrupt development of children’s mental and social skills if that’s how they spend all their time, but that is more a parenting issue than anything. Don’t let them have games or social media, or heavily restrict their exposure and interaction. Simple as that.

That being said, if you’re a parent who doesn’t mind your children playing games and you DO monitor and restrict their access, good on you! Depending on your values and priorities, you could let them play games that help them develop their math and reading comprehension. (Trust me, they’re out there. I grew up playing games like Math Blaster.)

Gaming can be amazing, and there’s usually something for everyone.

Favorite season

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What is your favorite season of year? Why?

Each season offers something unique to like. Weather, temperature, animals and bugs, events, holidays, and more.

If I had to settle on one to be my favorite it would be Summer. Particularly around July.

Summer offers the most daylight hours and the best temperatures to be outdoors. (Depending on where you live, of course.) I love being able to stay outside clear until 11:00PM and still see the last vestiges of the setting sun. The evening and overnight temperatures make it comfortable to stay up even later, which is a double-edged sword because then there is less time until sunrise and sleeping in means missing that (unless you never went to bed.)

There are so many holidays, events, cookouts and parties to fill in all those daylight hours. I don’t drink alcohol much anymore (if at all) but I have plenty of fond memories sitting outside with friends drinking beer around the bonfire in the evening hours, too. Summer just has so much you can do!

A luxury I can’t live without

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What’s the one luxury you can’t live without?

Everyone will have different standards of what counts as a luxury item, especially if they live in different parts of the world where certain things aren’t available or are harder to come by than in others.

Personally, I would consider a smartphone to be a luxury item, and the one that I can’t live without anymore because of how much of a crutch it has become in my life. Among so many features, it helps me keep connected with friends and family, research current events, plan out my days/weeks/months, and navigate the world around me. I don’t need to remember phone numbers because it handles that for me, which can be a good and bad thing. It can also, as a recent occurrence has reminded me, be used to remind me of friends birthdays.

I’m sure if push came to shove I could figure out how to live without a smartphone again, but it would not be a pleasant transition. Although, the world would probably seem quieter when I stop getting bombarded with notifications.

A Personal Tagline

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Daily writing prompt
If humans had taglines, what would yours be?
View all responses

I’ll admit, I had to look up the difference between slogans and taglines. I wanted to be sure I had the right understanding of what was being asked in the prompt.

Sadly, as much as I understand the differences, I don’t have a good answer! Taglines are weird. From what I could read in 20 seconds of googling, taglines are like a weird middle ground between slogans and catchphrases, but lean more towards the latter? I don’t know, maybe I misunderstood.

If I had to have a tagline, and it was my choice of what it said, it would probably be something like “Always Moving Forward”. I’ll just leave it at that.

Recipe for a good life?

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What are the most important things needed to live a good life?

I feel like this prompt can lead to very subjective answers from people, and yet I’m sure there have been attempts at objective studies to determine something more accurate.

I’m on the subjective side of this, so maybe take what I say with a grain of salt.

To live a good life means being happy, healthy, safe, never needing anything we can’t have, and never having to go through significant or insurmountable hardship to get what we want.

Sounds rather like a Utopia.

Unfortunately, we can’t have all of that and will have to settle for just a few things.

Happiness is subjective and can be dependent on the latter two things I mentioned before.

So, let’s settle for healthy and safe.

Healthy being appropriately well-fed, access to clean water, not undernourished or sick, and receiving sufficient medical care when needed.

Safe has multiple layers. One is that we live without fear of pain or persecution stemming from hatred, racism, and bigotry. No acts of violence perpetrated against each other. No severely risky jobs just to make ends meet. Industries not cutting corners to keep costs down and profits up at the expense and well-being of the workers. (This last one overlaps with the healthy category.)

Beyond that is the happiness aspect supported by fulfilled needs and wants. That’s where the “good life” is.

Time with people

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Who do you spend the most time with?

What counts as “spending time with someone” these days? Do we just have to be in the same room/close proximity and not speaking to each other? Does it count if I’m spending a large chunk of my day at work in a cubicle and there are people around me that I may not talk to at all?

If that last bit counts, it’s definitely people at work, much to my dismay. I spend more time with my family on the weekends than I typically do with my roommates throughout the entire week because after work I spend maybe anywhere from a couple minutes to half an hour with my roommates before I retreat to my room or my computer setup in the basement.

The only instances of significant time spent with one of the roommates is when we play Magic with our friends. Those nights can run from as early as 5:00PM til Midnight (usually shorter) and only happen once a week or less. These days usually less.

Now, to change things up, could you count time spent in Discord voice calls with online friends as “spending time together”? If so, that can be significant time after work and on the weekends. We play lots of games together, so it would make sense to count it.

No name change for me, please

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If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?

Names are such a funny thing. I don’t know that I could change my name. Unfortunately, that’s not the prompt!

If I absolutely HAD to change my name I would hope it’s because I woke up in a fantasy world (because I’m sucker for the Isekai trend of manga and anime for the last I don’t know how many years) and my name could be something with a special hidden meaning.

In all honesty, I can’t think of a name off the top of my head I would want to have.

Dreaming of chocolate

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Describe your dream chocolate bar.

Chocolate is a great flavor in different applications, like sauces or ganache, but I’m not a big fan of just a standard chocolate bar.

I really enjoy Bueno bars, but those aren’t strictly “chocolate bars” to me because of the crispy wafer things filled with cream.

Then there are those that are filled with nougats and caramels. Those aren’t strictly chocolate bars either, based on what I said above.

So, after establishing what I think doesn’t constitute a chocolate bar, I can say that for something to be a “chocolate bar” it needs to be made up of a large majority percentage of chocolate. Not just chocolate coated/covered.

My ideal dream chocolate bar would be an amalgamation of a Kit-Kat and a Bueno. Thin layers of crispy wafer with layers of hazelnut cream, all wrapped in chocolate.

For this to work and be accurately acceptable as a chocolate bar (by my personal standards mentioned above) it would have to have equal layers of chocolate for each of the wafer/cream combos.

Starting from the bottom: chocolate, wafer, cream, wafer, chocolate, wafer, cream, wafer, chocolate.

Given that this layout would retain that firm snap of chocolate, it might still be too much chocolate for it to be ideal for the texture I’m looking. So I’ll just stick to Bueno bars.

Childhood favorite book

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Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

In contrast to my struggle to answer yesterday’s writing prompt, today is much easier.

Although a few options come to mind, the one that stands out the strongest in my memory is Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Nothing particular that I remember about it, just that I remember the name and cover so clearly.

Three impactful books?

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List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

I don’t have a solid answer for this prompt. Mainly because I’m having one of those days where I can’t remember the names of books I’ve read, but also because I’m sure there are books I’ve forgotten that I read exactly one time (versus books I’ve read several times) that have had a great impact on me.

So, I’m just going to pick a few!

Ender’s Game is one because it helped form my love of sci-fi.

Any of the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett because they are each in their own ways inspirational when it comes to wit, wordplay, and portmanteaus.

And finally I’ll throw in the Wheel of Time novels for how they helped form my love of fantasy stories. I won’t settle on one, though, sorry if that goes against the prompt.

Maybe I’ll come up with more later and realize they were better choices and I can write an addendum post.