Of Malaise and Mayonnaise

31 Aug 2025

August wasn’t nearly as productive of a month as I would have liked it to have been, but at least this time I have an excuse.

I caught a cold!

It comes and goes in waves, doesn’t it? By the time I was going through the worst of it, it seemed like a good bunch of friends from coast to coast were dealing with their own bouts of congestion. In some strange way, I missed the sensation of being bedridden and relegated to ice cream and jello! Minty soft-serve just feels that much more special when you’re bundled up under a bunch of blankets for nearly a full 24 hours. As I’m writing this, I’m reminded that my local store doesn’t carry the Ben & Jerries thick mint fudge-topped variety anymore; I’d be more mad about the change in specials, but the vermonster sundae they swapped in makes up for the change just enough.

Anyway, September is kicking off in a short twelve hours, and I’m celebrating the coming heat wave with a ham tomato and mayo sandwich. Where oh where did last month go?

First and foremost, art stuff!

Last month I said I wanted to get the art section on this site set up, though until more recently I haven’t had a specific motivator to do so. That has sort of changed, as I put in more practice and shared the material I’ve been drafting up. With the compliments I’ve been getting on the pieces I’ve put up, I’ve started to wonder if I should start formally uploading them here. It would be a better way of tracking what I’ve been drawing in my day to day, beyond throwing them into a folder that I hardly ever look at. I’m not particularly proud of what I’ve been drawing, it is just aimless practice after all - And not having a goal has allowed me to be lax in my practice, and I’ve definitely been slacking too much for my own good.

Maybe what I need is a theme to follow? Cult of the Lamb is getting an update soon, maybe I should draw some lambs and cultists and see where that takes me. Could be fun! Alternatively, I could keep drawing cute pinkettes and smug deer, start putting some art behind any of the worldbuilding projects I’ve abandoned. Or maybe I’ll draw some characters from my tabletop games? Decisions, decisions. Whatever happens, I hope it doesn’t cause me to overcommit to making a fancy gallery browser. Fussing over tagging systems and file management paradigms is not how I want to spend these next few weeks - Though I’ll admit it would make the site pretty spiffy in the end! Better to start small.

Peak Gayming!

You’ve probably heard of it by now, but there’s a great social game on Steam that came out recently. You could say the gameplay is pretty peak. Mostly because it’s called PEAK. But also beecause it’s just that good. ~~please don’t kill me for making that pun, I’m trying my best.~~

It’s a game by Landfall, the same people who made Clustertruck and Content Warning, who’ve collaborated with Aggro Crab, who were behind Another Crab’s Treasure. Getting to climb a mountain with a plane full of friends (thanks to mods letting me host big lobbies) turned out to be way more fun than I initially gave the idea credit for, and the passion the dev team are showing through their first update says great things about the game’s future. No spoilers here, go for a climb yourself if you’re curious! I’m greatly looking forward to whatever comes next for the game.

Space Ninjas and Space Pirates!

I’ve been back on the Warframe bandwagon for a solid few months or so by now. If it weren’t for my friend group also getting into it, I probably wouldn’t have stuck to it as long as I have. I’ve easily clocked another 200 hours since I last checked on my numbers a month back, something I’m not particularly proud of in hindsight. Is it still worth playing? I guess it is. I still enjoy the gameplay. The grind is more mundane now that I’m in the end game, where the only things that matter are farming plat for fashion and staying on top of the latest primes and prime resurgences. Lacking a larger goal, I’ve decided to break from the clan I was in when I first returned, in favor of running a new clan. One that I can shape myself and build in without asking permission from random strangers I’ve never talked to before. Introversion wins again! Maybe now I’ll have a reason to spend all the plat I’ll be trading into my hands over the coming weeks.

Warframe aside, there is another space game that has caught my eye. One that shows a lot of potential, but one that’s unfortunately on shaky ground: Wildgate. Sea of Thieves in space. It has fantastic ship combat, comfy PvE objectives, and hectic PvP encounters. If it had a larger playerbase, I think it would be a much better experience - But the low and quickly dwindling playerbase has created a large skill gap between groups of coordinated sweat-lords and casual randoms. So if you’re going to go in, at least plan on bringing a friend along so you have someone you can communicate with and trust at your back. Coordination is crucial, and can be very rewarding.

What’s next?

I want to break free of this cycle of try, try again that I’ve been floundering in for the longest time. I want to actually get somewhere. To be consistent, and be a better me than yesterday. It feels difficult sometimes, as I lose a ton of energy to binging youtube or grinding games or just doing nothing. The energy to do the things I want to do just isn’t there sometimes, and it sucks.

One of those things is making resin-cast dice from silicon molds. Very specific and totally random, right? But the end result of these crafts is really pretty, and apparently it can be halfway decent as a business. I used to be passionate about the idea of getting into it, but those ideas were shot down when my current homeowner said no to having resin in the house. Apprently in smells bad, and he has a sensitive nose. Cry some more, I say. I’ll just do it in the back yard! And if not there, then somewhere else, I dunno. I’m just tired of wheel-spinning, and resin casting seems like a fun way to do something. So fingers crossed I can make some headway there.

Until then, my pursuits in digital drawing continue, an idle labor through emotional molasses. But hey! The dancing deer in the home page’s sidebar came out nice. That’s something to be happy about.~