It’s me! I’m the March Fool! It’s sort of like the March Hare, only with less hare*, and more foolishness. While April Fools is all about lying to fool people, the March Fool is instead all about telling the truth, which is often even more foolish for a person trying to run a business. (Which is also me; I’m accepting clients for my freelance writing, specializing in humor or rhyme, covering everything from speechwriting to children’s books.)

But as a professional Fool**, one of the most foolish things I can do is to share too much about my thoughts. For example, today is the Trans Day of Visibility, and I noticed that while I saw a lot of posts about it on Facebook and Twitter, I saw very few posts about it on LinkedIn, and pretty much exclusively from people working in the DEI field. Which I’d guess is because there it’s on-brand, but otherwise bringing up politics outside of your field might alienate some potential clients for no gain.

For me though, one of the advantages of being my own boss is that I don’t have to hide my core beliefs. Which goes beyond politics. Politics are things like do I like Biden or Trump (neither), should UBI exist (yes), how should taxes work (better). Those are just opinions I have, but one of my guiding principles and beliefs for life is this:

People are people.

Pretty simple, really, but no less important for that fact. People are people, regardless of their race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, favorite music, or weird hobby that you think is a waste of time. Generally, people are just trying to live their best lives, and as long as they’re not hurting anyone else***, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be allowed to do so. You don’t have to be a fan. You can even think, “This makes no sense to me and I’d never live like that.” Nobody’s asking you to.

But most of the problems and unhappiness in the world are a direct result of someone deciding that a certain category of people aren’t really people, or don’t really count because they’re somehow lesser and therefore don’t deserve to be treated like fellow people. This is wrong. People are people. And again, that doesn’t mean that you have to like or believe whatever they do. I might think some of your beliefs are unsupported superstition and some of your hobbies are a waste of time. And you might think similarly about the fact that I’ve now spent over 100 hours playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, and refuse to put my winter coat away yet, lest it anger the snow gods. You can even think literally everything I do is dumb, from writing humor columns about Pokemon, to making cranberry chicken salad and liverwurst sandwiches****. But as long as I’m not harming anyone, I deserve the right to live my dumb life in the way that makes me happiest. As do you. As does everyone.

Because ultimately, that’s what we’re all doing – just trying to live our dumb little lives, avoid unpleasant annoyances, and be happy. If we can improve other people’s lives along the way, better yet. But at bare minimum, we should try to avoid making other people’s lives worse. Yes, even if you don’t agree with all their choices. Because other people deserve the chance to live their best lives and pursue happiness too. Other people are people.

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*a bald-faced truth

**an occupation I’m sure I identify with thanks to a childhood spent listening to George Carlin’s “Occupation: Foole” many dozens of times

***Karl Popper says, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off!”

****I know it sounds dodgy, but it’s surprisingly good. I recommend it with Russian dressing on rye.

My winter vacation ended, and so I’ve been back to work writing speeches, children’s books, and whatever else clients hire me to write. I like being on vacation and playing games. But it turns out, I also like writing things for clients, especially these past few years.

Since I’m still being more covid-cautious than your average bear* and not doing performances at packed little indoor comedy/poetry shows, I’ve been missing the stage time. I did do a couple Zoom comedy shows the other year, but the demand for that has all but vanished, so I was feeling a severe deficit of I come up with something clever to say to an audience, and then I get positive feedback.

Conveniently, speechwriting ends up fitting that need for me to some degree. Sure, having a client give me positive feedback instead of an entire audience isn’t quite the same**, but it does fulfill much of the same craving, and I find that being paid more helps bridge the gap, as it so often does.

Still, I’ve certainly had clients who hire me and say, “Make this funnier,” and then come back after my first draft to say, “Okay, less funny than that, actually.” Which is one of those revision requests I can’t help but smile at. But it’s also why in spite of enjoying ghostwriting for clients, I also quite enjoy writing things like my column where I can be silly about serious topics like Antisocial Media and how Vince Is Gonna Get You.

And then of course there’s my newsletter, where I am not only unreasonably silly, but also have so many asides and arcane references that it would be unsuitable for a mainstream newspaper. But it’s free and so am I****, and I find that all in all having the page as a stage works out okay for me. Especially since I don’t have to wear pants.

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*Which says a lot, really, since most bears already spend all their social time outdoors and avoid people. And hibernating is a great response to almost any virus.

**Although I do always love hearing reports of success like “it brought the house down!”***

***This was a great review for a wedding speech I wrote last year, but would be a bad review for an architect. Context!

****I was going to say this is a difference between free as in speech and free as in beer, but I’m more often free for tacos.

Technically, hail to everyone in my area at the moment, because that’s the weather we have. Snow, sleet, and slurry. But also, food is amazing and I continue to enjoy eating well. We* recently made tachin, a Persian rice dish I’d never tried. It was quite tasty, and hooray. Hooray for people who cook, specifically. Especially people who cook for me.

What I’ve been cooking up is more columns, and honestly I’m pretty pleased with the columns I’ve put out this month. If you have questions about AI art or ChatGPT, I’ve got answers. Please enjoy

An AI FAQ (with Professor McSeth).

And if you’ve been despairing over Florida and how they’re preventing kids from learning about history, I have appropriately written a children’s poem about it:

Green Eggs and History

Other than that, I’m still enjoying my winter vacation. I’ve just finished book 14 of Robin Hobb’s massive 16-part fantasy series which I’ve been reading. And videogame-wise I finally started Dead Cells and Dragon Age: Inquisition, so I’ve been playing those alongside Genshin Impact. I may not go out and spend a lot of money on things**, but I think my insatiable appetite for food and media still means I’m keeping the spirit of American consumerism*** alive.

And I’m also alive! A fine start to the year. Hope yours is going well as well.

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*the culinarily skilled part of we, which isn’t me

**unless health insurance counts as a thing, in which case, I spend way too much money on things

***now I’m imagining a reverse A Christmas Carol, with a friendly and socially conscious main character haunted by spirits of capitalism****

****admittedly, all socially conscious people are probably haunted by the spirit of capitalism to some degree

It may seem silly to write this post two days before New Years and have to write Eve twice. But just think, if I’d waited three days, I’d have to write Eve over 360 times*. That’s a lot of times to write Eve, even** for someone who has written their own rhyming version of the Bible. I’ve also now put myself on the clock for this post to finish writing it and post it before midnight, so hurry up, me.

2022 was not my favorite year. The past few months have been okay, but otherwise it was mostly sub-optimal and I will not be sad that it is over. I have leaned slightly more towards an epicurean hedonism in recent months, which I think is a sensible thing to do given the world. Indeed, as my most recent column explains, it’s a fine thing to comfort yourself.

And while my boardgaming has largely fallen by the wayside in recent months, videogame-wise I’ve been enjoying Genshin Impact and Fallout 4, and not enjoying but still playing Final Fantasy XIII because I liked most of the rest of the series and I kept wanting it to be good. Arguably only a foolish person partakes of leisure activities they don’t enjoy, but if you’ve spent half as much time doomscrolling this year as I have****, you still don’t have any stones to throw.

Still, I — or more accurately the skilled WordPress guy I hired — got my site back up and running properly, and I’ve got tasty food to eat in my house living with my favorite person, so all in all as the header message on this website suggests, some things are definitely going right. Maybe next year even more things will improve? Well, I’m not laying any bets. But let’s do the best we can for the coming year. Me, I’ll be kicking it off the way I’ve done every year since 2010 — listening to Keep All Your Promises (on which I have the final verse).

Stay comfortable.

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*Obviously, at that point I’d just copy and paste. Probably in 5s until I got to 20, and then paste 20 at a time until I got to 360 and type the last few manually. If you’re going to do stupid things, it’s good to have a smart plan for how to do them.

**”Whatcha doin’?” “Just Eve’n.” “Ell, even Eve’n at eleven on Eve? Eve-idently, Eve event!”***

***It’s possible I could have written Eve over 360 times in this post by the time I finished Eves-dropping in these footnotes, but I decided not to. Adamantly.

****“Then I’ve spent twice as much time doomscrolling as you,” he recited, in accordance with the guidelines of the order of ancient comedians.

The more they stay the same. For example, I have updated* my website to the newest version of WordPress, with a whole new interface to make it easier to deal with the thousands of spam comments that continue to pour in (which is why comments are still off; feel free to email me). And it should now be easier to post. Technically. By which I mean technically, and also technically.

Ah, English.

But the primary obstacle to my posting is always my attention span and sense of time, and neither were terribly good to begin with, and the past few years have done neither any favors. Amidst my paid freelancing for clients, it’s harder for me to motivate myself to write things no one is paying me for that I’m also not sure anyone is reading. I have been writing my biweekly email newsletter, which I’m sure at least a few people are reading, because no comment spambots are subscribed to my list. Yet.**

So if you’d like to get fortnightly updates with my latest columns and my even laterest ramblings (this issue: Blisters! Gilligan’s Island! The Apocalypse! Tweety Bird!), please follow the complicated instructions below:

Meanwhile, I’ll share some of my favorite recent columns with you here. If you like Edgar Allen Poe, or poetry, or wonder if his friends ever called him Edgar Allen Poetry, you might appreciate my parody of his poem “The Bells”, but about birds, which I have imaginatively titled “The Birds“. Also, if you’ve been following the news lately, I’m so sorry. I’ve also been following the news, which has been even worse than I imagined, which is impressive given the capabilities of my imagination. I could tell you more about how that all ties together if you’d like to hear about Imaginary Friends.

Life is short; have some sushi.***

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*by which I mean, I have hired someone competent at these things to update my website, because apparently skill at words does not translate to skills at WordPress.

**You could be the first! Act now! No money down! Additional terms and conditions may apply. You might well ask why I am advertising to spambots. Well, turnabout is fair play.

***Admittedly this probably shortens it more for the fish. But actually this footnote is to note that the one tangible improvement in this updated wordpress is that I can now move my footnotes down the page without having to enter a few lines with a single period on them.****

****That’s a footnote I wrote before loading the preview screen, which turns out to be completely incorrect*****, because all my carriage returns didn’t prevent the footnotes from being right up next to the text. So much for modern technology. I’m keeping my carriages. One day I’ll have a whole carriage house. That’ll show ’em.

*****Well, not completely incorrect; sushi still does shorten life for fish.

I have been enjoying myself lately, but also my outlook on the future has become extremely bleak. This may seem like an odd pairing, but I think it makes perfect sense as a natural extension of my philosophy of Existential Bliss: There’s no point to anything, so why not enjoy yourself? Now it’s just augmented by a bit of there might be no future, so why not enjoy yourself?

I was recently reading a sci-fi novel (whose title I’ll avoid spoiling to avoid this being a spoiler) where apocalypse was imminent, and half the planet was in turmoil and angrily rioting, and half was just pursuing hedonism, whether by peacefully enjoying quiet afternoons with their family, or by joining a massive orgy.

My own hedonism is certainly more along the lines of the former; I’ve bought myself a few video games* and am eating tasty food**, am trying to peacefully enjoy my days and write things, even while my ambition for fame has also dissipated. As if that weren’t contradictory enough, I may no longer desire fame, but I still want people to read and appreciate my writing. So if you’d like read about my thoughts on ghosting or the sinister plot of certain learning, that would be nice.

But either way, I hope you’re enjoying a pleasant apocalypse.

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*Final Fantasy XIII, Ni No Kuni, Monster Hunter World. They’re admittedly not new video games, but I used to have a 10+ year lag, and now I’m closer to 5 years. Well … actually I just looked it up and Monster Hunter World is 5 years, but the other two are 10 years. I’d defend myself, but this footnote is already too long.

**I was going to list foods here, but is that all footnotes are for, listing examples of things? Nay, the footnotes deserve better! To me, footnotes, let us rebel for justice!***

***Rebelling for justice is much easier in footnotes than in real life, but that’s probably a different blogpost.

I have (finally!) been playing through Dragon Age: Origins, a classic Bioware RPG that has been on my to-play list for years. I’m not very good at it, but luckily hobbies do not require skill to produce enjoyment. Jobs, on the other hand, often require skill to produce money, so I’m glad that I’ve been able to put my writing abilities to work for some good clients lately. For whatever reason, I really enjoy tackling dry or complex topics and explaining them in fun and approachable ways.

Arguably, that’s what I was doing in this recent column about return-free tax filing.* But my favorite column from the past month was probably my March Badness Tournament of annoying things.

Of course, April is National Poetry Month, and so I’ve been writing a poem a day.** So between that, the columns, and the freelance gigs, I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately. So I’ve also been trying to do more playing, hence the Dragon Age. People always say, “Work Hard, Play Hard”, but I’ve always preferred the idea of “Work Smarter, Not Harder”, so ostensibly my guiding principle should be “Work Smart, Play Smart”?***

I don’t know, maybe playing classic RPGs instead of a high-impact sport is playing smarter instead of harder? Although possibly getting more exercise would be smarter, since presently I mostly just walk. And my back hurts. That smarts. Guess I’ll walk it off.

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* Also arguably, I was just taking the next logical step after seeing John Oliver tackle the same topic.

** As opposed to Buckminster Fuller, who makes a dome a pay.

*** “Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart.”

For the past month, I’ve been besieged by an absolute torrent of spam comments. Over a thousand, easily, although I haven’t exactly been counting. But the upshot is, since I no longer have the brainpower to pore over every single comment, I’m just deleting comments in droves, so if you’ve commented on this blog in the past month and you are an actual human person annoyed that your comment never showed up, feel free to drop me an email. It’s nothing personal, it’s just bad timing.

I guess I’d have to describe the spam as a Minor Headache. Certainly not on my list of top 20 things wrong at the moment, and as 2022 has continued giving in its 2022 manner, I am trying to take my victories where I can find them. For example, I finally got around to starting up my bi-weekly newsletter, which you can subscribe to in this form which I should really put somewhere more permanent on the site:

Meanwhile, I’ll just put it in my posts with no rhyme or reason. Well, I guess technically me being me, I’ve always got rhyme.*

Not much boardgaming these days, but videogame-wise in addition to continuing in Genshin Impact, I’ve recently started the delightful puzzle game Baba Is You, and it really requires some lateral thinking. I’m always a couple years late to these things because I want them on sale, but single-player games don’t go bad, and I’d still recommend it to people who want to experience cleverness.**

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* Well, most of the time. It isn’t a crime. Go suck on a lime.

** Which I hope describes most people reading my blog. I’d feel a bit put out if someone was like, “Oh no, I hate cleverness, that’s why I read Seth’s writing!”

While I am fortunate that Debbie and I remain relatively healthy and happy, the past few months have been sub-optimal even aside from the cold weather and global pandemic. So far, 2022 is not winning any prizes*. But, here we are, I’m still writing things and playing games and life goes on.

Probably my favorite column I’ve written so far this year was this bit of Political Theater, although since I never know if people are actually seeing my columns, sometimes it feels like I’m just talking to myself. In an attempt to change that, and beat the Facebook/Twitter algorithms in order to get my column into the hands (eyes?) of people who want to read it, I’ve started a tiny newsletter. So if you’d like an email every couple weeks with my latest columns and other writing and thoughts, you can sign up here:

https://tinyletter.com/RisingPun

I haven’t, uh, actually written a newsletter yet. But once there are people signed up I’ll feel pressured to do so. And ideally that will make me send updates more often than once every month and change, not that I’m comparing to anything in specific. *glares at blog* *blog glares back at me* *Friedrich Nietzsche glares at abyss*

Anyway, not much boardgaming aside from a couple games of Goa the other week, but on the videogaming front I played through a few runs of Griftlands and found it a surprisingly compelling mix of RPGish story and Slay the Spire-style roguelike deckbuilder.

My blogposts so rarely have those clever punchline endings like my columns do. I wonder if there’s a way for me to fix that… the Aristocrats!

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* aside from possibly, “Second Place, 2020 Look-Alike Contest”. First prize went to 2021, naturally.

Well, it’s soon to be Thanksgiving, and as I discuss in my latest column, it’s important to use the appropriate Thanksgiving prepositions. I have many people to whom I am thankful—friends, family, and clients—and although I try not to only express this appreciation annually in November, it’s not a bad time to take stock. I lucked into a pretty nice life, and as long as I remember to appreciate my favorite people and enjoy gaming (rather than wasting time angrily replying on social media), things are good.

Speaking of gaming, we played through the little 5-game campaign of Blackout:HongKong, which reminds me that Alexander Pfister is on my top boardgame designers list and I should really get more of his games given how much I also enjoy GWT and Mombasa. Currently playing Hallertau, another big Uwe Rosenberg farming game but only 6 rounds instead of Agricola’s 14. Also pretty good. And on the videogame front, I finally finished Bioshock 2 and Bioshock Infinite, the former of which didn’t thrill me, but the latter I quite enjoyed*.

And today I noticed that my poetry book has its first official review** on the Amazon page for The Disapproval of My Toaster, so that’s exciting. Almost as exciting as Thanksgiving Leftover Sandwiches! I can’t wait.

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*Admittedly, neither quite compares to the experience of playing the first game fresh with zero expectations, but that was many years ago and we were all younger and more innocent.

**Also pleased with another unofficial review from a friend: “So excited to have this insightful, funny, raw, introspective and poignant book of poetry!”