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.”

As a comedy fan, one thing I’ve always noticed is how many comedians get less wacky and more philosophical over time. From George Carlin’s stand-up to Woody Allen’s movies*, you can chart an arc of their career and see how wonderfully silly the early stuff was, and how that slowly morphed into a layer of comedy wrapped around something they wanted to say.

Perhaps it’s because I was born old, but I feel like I’m already there. Sure, I’ll write the occasional humor column that’s pure silliness, like my latest on Cool Tips to Beat the Heat, but more often than not these days I’m writing with something to say. I don’t want to classify this as a personal failing, nor as a good thing; I’m simply noticing that same shift I once lamented in other creators of humor, I’m now noticing in myself, and perhaps at a younger age.

In an effort to keep myself young**, I am still playing video games. Most recently God Eater 3 with a few friends, which is a more casual Monster Hunter that suits me well. I’ve also been playing Sushi Eater every Wednesday when our local sushi joint has 30% off their nigiri menu, which does very little for my fading youth, but is tasty. Oh well, no use carping*** about it.

* not that you should watch any of Woody Allen’s movies, or at least not in a way that benefits him

** in lieu of exercise

*** although I can make puns on any topic, the one topic where I always hesitate is fish, because I always feel like a pale imitation of Kip Addotta’s masterwork Wet Dream.

Sometimes people can be right without being helpful.

When I was younger, people told me that I should appreciate what I have and be more positive, and I’d probably be happier. Well, decades on, an older me very much appreciates what I have and is generally positive, and indeed I am much happier. But it didn’t help when people told me that because a) my childhood was not nearly as pleasant as my life now, and b) gratitude isn’t something you can bully people into.

You can force kids to say thank you, but that’s not gratitude. That’s ritual. Truly appreciating what you have has to come from within, and the more you try to push people into it, the less they are likely to appreciate it. Someone having a tough time does not want to hear “you should appreciate what you have!”. Even if it’s true, saying it is most likely to raise their hackles, when what we all want is lowered hackles*. There are some realizations or mindsets you just have to come to yourself. When everyone told me how to feel, all I felt was annoyed at them and resolved not to do what they want. But eventually life came around, I got older and wiser, and in my own time, began to very much appreciate my life.

So even though I could offer good advice and tell you that appreciation extends to individual relationships, and that appreciating your relationships for what they are rather than being mad at what they’re not will make you a happier and better person**, you have to decide for yourself to appreciate things. Admittedly I have the advantage of not working full-time, and a personal philosophy that combines existentialism with epicureanism. But as the pandemic has served as a mass memento mori, I think it’s a fine time for people to re-evaluate how happy they are with their lives, and if you’re very unhappy, something should change. Maybe it’s your circumstances, maybe it’s you!

I realize this post is light on jokes, so click the linked columns for some funny.

*I’m imagining protest signs reading “Lower Hackles Now!”

**Whereas the inverse oft leads to complaints about friend-zoning and can make you a huffier and bitter person.

I realize in spite of talking about how my blog is for me and not to promote writer me, my last two posts have both been career-based. Well, sometimes that’s what’s on my mind. Also, the fact is that over the course of this pandemic, I’ve been gaming much less than usual. Obviously stopped attending game nights elsewhere, but also found that the pandemic sapped the desire to play complex boardgames for me and my partner at home, so for the past year it’s been the occasional card-based game like Innovation or Shards of Infinity, but rarely anything heavier.

Well, this month I got my second vaccine dose, and that along with the end of a big freelance contract and the end of the cold winter meant that my brain was finally up to complex boardgames again. So I ended up grabbing a game that had been on my wishlist for a while: Blackout: Hong Kong. I had high hopes for the game, since the designer Alexander Pfister had designed some other games I love — Mombasa and Great Western Trail — and at this point has joined the elite pantheon of designers whose track record for me is so good that I’m always interested in anything they’ve made. I think the best other examples to spring to mind are Carl Chudyk and Vlaada Chvatil*.

Anyway, so far we’ve played two games of Blackout: Hong Kong, and our scores in the second game nearly doubled our scores in the first game, which suggests that we are making rapid progress in learning how the game works, even if I very much do not understand what a good strategy is yet. But I do understand that I like the game and its crunchy interlocking mechanisms, and that’s the important thing.

On the video game front I have finally started Witcher 3, which I prepared for over the course of the past 3 years by reading all 8 of the novels, most of the graphic novels, watching the Netflix show, and playing the first two games. It is, as promised, pretty good. Also currently on Steam sale until mid-next week, for anyone who wants to see what all the fuss is about.

I think during most of the pandemic my brain was just not in the right space to invest in an epic RPG, but I hope that as Spring progresses I can return to some of my favorite pastimes like complicated games and walking with friends. It’s been a long withered timespan; perhaps this spring can finally bring some renewal.

*Vlaada, a.k.a. “the John Turturro of boardgame design”

One of the downsides of the pandemic times, aside from all the sickness and death, is that it’s very easy to forget how to be a person. I was suffering this especially acutely last night, when in the throes of feeling run-down after my second vaccine shot, I may have exchanged a series of emails with a client culminating in him requesting an invoice for the work I’d just completed and me floundering around feeling embarrassed as I realized that we never actually set a price. Pandemic brain does not help.

This of course raises* the question, “Why on earth would someone trying to market themselves as a high-end professional freelance writer make a public post about forgetting to set a price in an email to a client?” Well, I really don’t mind revealing that I’m a big ol’ imperfect human. I figure as long as my writing is always on-point and on-time, people won’t mind if I’m a ridiculous person with various personal foibles.** Clients are, after all, hiring me for my writing, and not my ability to be suave at a cocktail party. At least, I sure hope so, for their sake***.

If the mantra of last century**** was “the personal is political”, then perhaps this century’s mantra is, “the personal is business”. Of course, it’s always been true that networking exists and people don’t just hire companies, they hire people. But now more than ever, the lines between personal and business have been blurred, smudged, and otherwise all but erased. Social media from people who run a business is always an advertisement, not a person. Lots of people’s business model is selling themselves and their personality, from Twitch streaming to OnlyFans. Today, I read an interesting article about how personal branding ruins people’s lives, and it has only strengthened my resolution to remain a person who happens to be good at writing professionally, rather than a professional writer who is always being a professional writer 24/7.

Coincidentally, I came across that article just days after my latest humor column delved into the importance and difficulty of making human connections, which has of course been especially difficult these past two years. I don’t have a conclusion, per se — another example of being a flawed human who just thinks about things and isn’t always artfully arranging things to neatly support a conclusion, because I’m not paying me enough to do that — but I think especially as the Internet means that we know more and more about people, it would be a terrible mistake to expect/require people to be professional automatons all the time. Being human isn’t a bad thing — even if our new robot overlords may say otherwise.
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* NOTE: It does not beg the question. Begging the question would be assuming the conclusion when arguing your premise. Please do not use “begs the question” when you mean “raises the question”. Yes, I’m pleading here. Don’t question the beg.

** Note here that foibles means, “often does silly things and is occasionally awkward in social situations, as detailed in his columns, poetry, and stand-up”, and not, “is rude to other people and denigrates them based on race/sex/etc.”, the latter of which is not a foible but a severe character defect which is a great reason not to hire someone.

*** Especially if it’s a cocktail party with Japanese rice wine.

**** I mean, it’s still exceedingly relevant here in 2021, as you might suspect from the earlier footnote. I’m just saying it was coined last century.

A phrase I often say after a string of non-successes, and pretty much how I’m feeling heading into 2021. It has certainly not been the best of years. Global pandemic health crisis, personal stomach health crisis, national political crisis… at least I’ve already taken care of my existential crisis long ago, and I won*.

I haven’t even been playing any boardgames of late to share here. I can share a couple recent columns about trying to find a job during the apocalypse, or how I spent 2020 Being a Homebody, but most of my writing these days is ghostwriting.

But in the spirit of the new year, I once again want to share my favorite New Year’s song from 11 years ago**, on which I have the final verse: Keep All Your Promises.

Bidding us all a better 2021 – stay healthy and try not to be a virus vector!

* Turns out the secret was just accepting existentialism as a positive instead of a negative, that if there’s no purpose to life I don’t owe the world achievement, only kindness. So, enjoy yourself, be kind. A reasonable bar for life, and not a bad resolution for 2021.

**By which I mean, my favorite new years song bar none, which also happens to be from 11 years ago. Although it is a fortiori*** my favorite song from 11 years ago that is a new years song.

***Definitely my favorite. Maybe even a fiftiori****

****I’m pretty sure that joke doesn’t work and is disappointing, but as my last joke of 2020, it seems appropriate. Maybe it’ll be funnier in hindsight. (insert your own last 2020 joke here.)

I just woke up from a nap. I do not normally take naps, but this morning we had people doing work on my roof at arse o’clock, and consequently I could count the hours of sleep I got on one hand without using all my fingers. Waking up from the nap did not change the world, but it did slightly renew me with energy to do the things I have to do today.

Today is also Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, making it a fine time for renewal. And also a fine time to buy my line-by-line rhyming version of the Torah, which makes a lovely gift or coffee table piece*. Like my nap, I don’t expect the new year to suddenly change the onslaught that has been 2020. But perhaps it can give people a little renewal to face the challenges ahead.

And the challenges of 2020 are many, even if I have tried to write about them in a funny way. Those with children rightfully wary of in-person classes may need to come up with their own homeschooling quizzes. All of us probably need help on how to talk to friends in 2020, because starting conversations the normal way is now terrible. And speaking of terrible, those minor issues pale in comparison to the steadily-creeping fascism of the current administration.

So please vote. Early in person or by mail. And I encourage and entreat you to ask yourself down the entire ballot, not just the presidential race, “Which of these candidates do I think will care about helping all of the people?”, and then vote for candidates who you personally deem more likely to do so. A simple rubric, but I figure if you read my blog, I trust your judgement.

*or small monitor stand, or you can kill a reasonably sized bug with it, or you can make a hat or a pterodactyl…

As mentioned last month, in spite of my many entertainment options, over the past few months I’ve been playing a lot of sudoku.* How addicted am I? I may have written a song about it. It’s a way to distract myself. I am pretty sure I’m not alone in alternating between trying to seek some escapism from our terrible world, and feeling like I need to say something or do something about our terrible world.

I realize that “Think globally, act locally” is more difficult when thinking even nationally is enough to send one into a depression spiral, but I don’t know, I didn’t expect** a deadly pandemic that America refused to fight, or proto-fascist paramilitary squads being sent to attack our own citizens. Yet here we are in 2020.

So take care of yourself. And take care of others, if you can.

*Also over the past few decades, I’ve been playing a lot of tsundoku.

**The fact that I can’t even find the joy to craft a Spanish Inquisition reference is probably a sign that 2020 is too depressing.

I have always had a love of portmeanteaux. Some might even call it an addiction.* I create new portmanteaux frequently, often to the chagrin of those around me. For nearly two decades now, I have been using “Probportunity”, which I would love to catch on in the common parlance. It has what are, to me, the two essential traits of a good portmanteau:

1) You know immediately upon reading or hearing it what two words it is combining, and why

2) The resultant portmanteau is useful in a situation which many people frequently encounter

Today I ended an email with the valediction “Thankspologies”, which I think is even more useful, because often I find myself in the situation of needing to express my appreciation for someone taking action that is only required due to an oversight I may have made. So feel free to start using that; I’d love for that one to catch on too.

Also, I should mention that last weekend I was awarded 2nd place Best Humor Columnist 2019 by the New England Newspaper and Press Association. A little over a decade ago, writing this same “The Pun Also Rises” column for a different newspaper, I also won 2nd place Best Humor Columnist from NENPA. So it’s possible I’ll have to accept that I’m just second-best.**

But that was last year. Maybe my latest column about romantic failure will be the best thing you read all day.

*I know, I should join a supportmanteau group.

**This may undercut my description of my writing as “second-to-none”. I wonder if potential freelance clients will be impressed if I say my writing is “third-to-none”?

…I should probably have updated sooner. I guess if there’s a year for hindsight, it’s 2020.

This has, obviously, been an exhausting year already. As others have pointed out, we’re now six months into January, between environmental disasters and political disasters and so forth. It’s a lot, and I encourage everyone to take care of themselves, because as we learn from the airlines, in case of low pressure, put your own mask on first*.

For me, that’s now being in two boardgaming groups, tonight just back from playing Concordia, which is still one of my favorite games I don’t own for the way it all meshes together. Reminds me a bit of Endeavor or AoE III in that regard, which are two games I quite like and do own. On the videogame front I’m still quite enjoying Slay the Spire, which recently added a new class.

For you, I recommend comedy. Naturally, I am biased towards my own stuff, so whether you want to keep hope alive in the new year, or just appreciate some terrible puns, I’ve got you covered. Also as mentioned in the latter column, I got to see the hilarious Maria Bamford perform the other week, and she was absolutely phenomenal. I believe the vast majority of her set is in her newest special “Weakness is the Brand“, so if she’s not touring near you, consider viewing that on the Internets at your earliest convenience for high-quality comedy.

* “You should probably put your mask on, but, y’know, no pressure…”