We got the advent calendar. Very good. Maybe I'll review each day's chocolate?

• 1 cup all-purpose flour (120g)
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal (129g)
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar (134g)
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 1/2 tsp baking powder (or just a big tbsp)
• 1/3 cup neutral oil or melted butter 76g butter, melt in microwve
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup milk (unswt almond milk)

---

• mix dry stuff, mix wet stuff in
• preheat to 400
• put in pan (9" round)
• bake 20-25 min

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source (warning! annoying videos and ads within)

There are many lines in Slay the Princess that I find remarkably beautiful, in particular ones spoken in the... I don't know what to call it... by the shifting mound beyond the mirror before it becomes itself.

This is a game that belongs to the question-asking genre that's been on my mind lately, the genre of allowing the player to ask questions, but more importantly the genre of asking the player questions, asking them to judge. That's all this game is: the player is asked to pass judgement.

However, compared to Slay the Princess, I found my 'asking' and 'choosing' abilities to be much less satisfying:

My choices were not my choices, but floodgates. I did not have a mouth... In StP, there was no character who spoke for me after I made my choices. I am comfortable being interpreted or misinterpreted by characters who are not me, but in the case of The Trials of Goodbye, my choices were being interpreted by my avatar and I did not feel as though I could ask the questions I wanted to ask, or give the answers I wanted to give.

It's been a whiiile since I've kept up with Eggplant! I'm listening to this episode specifically. I love Eggplant! But I'm going to be my usual ornery self regarding this episode because it's very important for me to slice and stab at things to figure out how I feel about them.

Regarding Christopher Alexander's
"The Nature of Order"
(Book 4, The Luminous Ground)

you woke up today in an unfamiliar body, in an unfamiliar mind, as someone else. not yourself. you climbed out of the stranger's bed and explored the objects in the room as you explored your new memories: a window that once had a bird's nest in it, the painted walls that had once been white, your guitar.

there are no papers here. you wanted to take a note, but the dream left you.

yesterday you had wanted something very badly. you had wanted to remain yourself, or to become yourself, or to know what becoming yourself might mean. not this, you think now. becoming yourself could not have meant becoming this person. your fingers and only your fingers are calloused.

you play a song.

strumming a familiar chord and sitting in a familiar position, you remembered nobody lives here with you. or, your body remembered nobody lives here with it. you, a stranger to yourself, have lived here alone for as long as you can remember.

you, the real you, wanted something yesterday, but you, the false you, wants very much to play this song. you sing a little. it makes you uncomfortable. you decide that you must have left your body somewhere in the city. you put down the guitar.

gently.

-

you are not in the city. just outside the window with the bird's nest in it are suburbs, suburbs, suburbs. quiet, wide streets without enough trees or buildings. a plain. where is the mountain? you stand in the driveway and watch the passing train. it is coming from nowhere and going to nowhere else, but you watch it anyway. it disappears from view.

"Are you okay?" asks your neighbour.

"Have you ever wondered where the train goes?" you ask. "When it goes far enough away..." you continue, then you smile. "I'm fine. Just thinking."

"Okay," says your neighbour, smiling or not smiling back.

-

who was that? a name in the back of your mind. tall buildings and a high concrete expressway among them. tall buildings and a glass home raised above. tall buildings and a way of reaching out.

we all have many names. some made of digits, some made of letters, some made of sounds. you have never forgotten the names you made for yourself. but you're not sure -- were you named the same things yesterday? you think that you remember two sets of names. you find a quiet place to call your past self on your cellphone. your false physical self's phone, in its pocket.

"Are you okay?" asks the stranger whose names you know.

-

the subway moves the world around you while you sit still, rattling up and down maybe, now and then, thrown forward and back and left and right maybe.

but mostly it is like sitting.

-

sitting across from you at the diner, thin, glasses, distressed brown hair, layers for winter, a notebook, a black notebook. you have questions but you don't ask most of them. there are three of you, you think. there is you, then there is this yesterday-you, then there is the body in which you reside now. or there are two of you, and you aren't sure which you is you.

there are men and women in the diner and none of them are as silent as you two are together.

the you from yesterday takes your hand in hers. "You..." she breaks the silence, speaking slowly, struggling to get the words out past her lips, or to get them to her lips from her brain. it's painful to watch.

"You don't... leave that body," she says, finally, staring at you, staring into your eyes. "Only the memories. The brilliance."

"I need to see your notes," you say, and you gesture for the notebook in her hand, the one she's been distracting herself with, the one you want, the one you think will tell you what it is you wanted, yesterday, what you thought you knew. "I can't explain it, but--"

"You... were born... today. You will... live... until you die."

-

you are running away from the diner with yourself in it. the cars are faster than you, so you try to keep up with them. you don't know how fast to run away from something like this and you don't want to think about it anyway so you try to outrun the cars.

the cars are faster than you.

-

you are always being born.

your notes from yesterday, the notes from the you you were yesterday, tell you this: you are always being born.

-

you sit in the easy familiar place where the sun hits your fingers and you play a chord, and another. your voice is unfamiliar but familiar. you sing, softly at first, and then, remembering that you are alone with yourself, louder. louder and louder. the soft chord is repeated and you sing over it. you strum the guitar more loudly so that you can hear it over your voice. you sing ever louder. you are screaming. the guitar is screaming. tears run down your cheeks. you haven't felt this way in years. no, you've never felt this way. this isn't your body. you don't deserve these tears. you are overwhelmed by somebody else's transcendental emotion. the you you are today cries and plays and howls.

-

when you are spent, you can feel another impulse that goes by the name of sleep. you resist. you run your wet fingers over the pages and pages of notes, looking for a way to become yourself again, to become yesterday, to become the you you were before yesterday, to become who you were when you started.

sleep makes its promises. it says that if you close your eyes you will become another you, that tomorrow will come and wash away today, wash away yesterday. it says that if you close your eyes for a moment it will leave you alone. it says that if you were only to blink it would leave you alone for a little while. you blink a few times. you blink a few more times, each blink growing longer than the last. you blink for the last time.

Who would do such a thing? The library's website... where I go to check my holds on books that I want to read... the library, a shining bastion of light...

:(

QuoteToronto Public Library Website Update
Friday, November 3, 5:00 pm: We are actively addressing a cyber security incident that came to our attention on Saturday, October 28.

As a result of the incident, the following services are unavailable: tpl.ca, "your account", tpl:map passes and digital collections. Public computers and printing services at our branches are also unavailable.

Branches are open as scheduled. Wifi is available in library branches, and branch telephone lines are working. Materials can be borrowed and returned in branches until further notice.

There continues to be no evidence at this time that the personal information of our staff or customers has been compromised.

TPL has proactively prepared for cybersecurity issues and promptly initiated measures to mitigate potential impacts. We have engaged with third-party cybersecurity experts and law enforcement to help us in resolving this situation.

Based on our progress to date, we anticipate that it will take a week or more before all systems are fully restored to normal operations. However, we expect that some services will be brought back online before then.

We will update this page as more information becomes known. We appreciate all the words of support that we've received, and thank you for your patience and understanding while we do everything we can to resolve this matter as quickly as possible.

I went on a cruise with my mom in late March 2023, and on this cruise they had a library -- I took out a couple books, and wrote my notes for them on these crappy little sheets of paper.

It is now time, at long last, to review my notes from the cruise. So I can throw them out and free up some space in my little cabinet of things to remember.

For 3 years I did droqen was here, and mailed it out to various people. It was a very satisfying and fulfilling project to me. However, there were some issues:

1. Not enough direct feedback about what people thought of it.

2. I don't like mass-producing physical artifacts. Even "mass"-producing ten copies feels like too many copies.

3. I like having them in my hands for a time but not being responsible for keeping them.

Therefore, what if I produce exactly one copy of a moon's zine, and sell it -- a one-time fee -- but ask kindly that when the recipient is done with it, when they don't need it anymore, that they make sure it comes back to me. --> If they give it to someone else, I would request that they bind that person to the same rule.

my experience with Pikmin (1) as a child was one of trepidation, fascination, resignation.

i was exposed to a breadth of emotion, both positive and negative: when my pikmin died, when i wasted time, i felt.

Lars Doucet's "Oil it or Spoil it" suggests that it is generally good to remove pain from our games:

Quoteadding "oil" is literally about smoothing off the sharp corners!

through a new lens, Question-Asking, i suppose that these sharp corners are good to experience exactly enough times to want them smoothed off.

through an old lens, Mirror of the Self, i suppose that this is because a game that contains a larger body of feeling is more alive.

pain is feeling.

I was tidying up my disorganized Documents folder and thought about where to put all these files, and it made me think I wished I had something like xkcd's refrigerator with timers for my files, for organizing my files. Maybe not something that would delete/destroy the files, but I'm imagining a file organization scheme which includes some kind of purpose-flagging and timestamp about the future; not just "When was this made?" but "Why am I keeping this?" "For what?" "For when?"

- I don't like it that much. 'Heavy' smell

people talk about strategic depth in games... you move through little local maxima. strategies for playing the game more productively in the language of the game
im interested in the idea of playing well... but designing for playing well... depth in playing well
playing the game more productively in the currency of the soul
i wonder if it's better to prevent someone from playing badly, or to let them play badly and then help them to dig themselves out
the latter feels like an experience with more strategic depth, which is often lauded when it exists in the realm of winning/losing. i haven't seen it much applied to the realm of living well

chants is what it is and there is another way to play it. but maybe most people who play chants will play it in a way which may be the worse way? as a designer or artist, is it your responsibility to predict or discover that ahead of time and decide what you want the experience to be? to 'fix' it? to fix it according to what principle?
as a player or a critic is it your responsibility to notice these statistical things, these patterns, and to... to draw attention to them... hmm not to fix it, but to bring an awareness of them? to whom? to anyone who will listen? to anyone who could use them? to future designers who might stumble upon that problem themselves? to illuminate the path better for future designers and artists
is this all 'good' stuff to do or is it just what naturally happens, what is inevitable
if this is technology (and i think it is) then is technological progress good? is it good because it is inevitable? is it inevitable because it is good?
is it always better to move forward faster than slower? is moving forward even good? or is it only inevitable? is it inevitable?

My first thought was tech companies X the lyrics, "I don't want to set the world on fire // I just want to set a fire in your heart."

I thought about what Chris said w/r/t Hayao Miyazaki's "longing, or desire." ... It's easy to miss, or forget, when working and thinking at an internet-enabled global scale, about this second kind of fire.

In the mall... wandering... In the mall without a destination, wandering. There's something about that. A readiness to cling on to whatever comes next. In want, being in want, of a destination. Lingering in that state, being ready, wanting, waiting. I think what's nice about that state is happening upon that chance thing. The readiness is nice but it is a prelude, a prerequisite, for what comes afterwards. The counterpart to being ready, wanting, waiting... is... being activated, receiving, stopping waiting. Ready but ready for what.