gamerdad This game spanned a pair of years. We paused mid way thru to ring in 2025.

Four of us sat down at an hour to midnight to puzzle through the jungle. Two of us had played before, but there were two newbies at the table so the set up and explaining took a little longer.

Not a bad way to start a new year, mind, especially since I played a great hand and handily won the round.

8r4d My normal Sunday #running adventures were precluded by everyone else’s absences, so instead I went off on a solo trek and did a little bit of trail in the #rivervalley and snow. I clocked out a six klick run with only about one of those klicks in the trails, but that single track was enough to get my heart racing and my winter vibes in check.

gamerdad As we dawdle into the final days of 2024 I have vowed as a kind of New Year’s resolution to read more books. That might not mean starting more books, mind, as much as finishing more books that I have already started. Either way, I started this one a couple weeks back and have been reading all about how a 1980s philosopher tries to explain modern computing architecture as he build up to what I presume is a thesis in the nature of the conscious mind and of by way how that relates to artificial intelligence and quantum mechanics.

Reading complex explanations of maths and algorithms and Turing Machines right before bed is a real challenge tho, I gotta say.

The nature of the conscious mind has been of particular interest to me because there is a narrative thread in my novel that ties directly back to this concept. In the story (spoiler alert) a forest is subject to alien mutation influences and begins to experience a kind of accelerated transmission of signals in its roots leading to a kind of primitive consciousness that communicates and interacts with the human characters. All that means is that I have been thinking a lot about what consciousness is, how to simplify it for a story, and what it says about the universe in which as i’m writing said story.

All of this is pretty heavy for bedtime.

pixelazy #winter night scenes of #shadow

8r4d Not quite a week but this 2000 piece #jigsaw is kicking our butts. We’ve got the easy parts done, at least…

8r4d The Kid and I made a trek up to #whyteavenue this afternoon because she had a #book itch that needed scratching and I was up for a walk.

The place was pretty quiet for the day after boxing day, and we didn’t spend very much money, terrible #shopping drones that were are, but it was a nice December day for some local colour.

8r4d #whyteavenue #art and #graffiti #walk

gamerdad We are mid-holidays as I write this and I have been trying to avoid spending the entire winter break sitting on the couch virtual farming.

That said, between the cold and my health I have logged enough hours in my faux farm to approach the loop of one full year in game. My BIL who also plays this silly game asked me about game bugs the other day, and specifically that he had heard that there was just so many damn bugs in this game. I had told him I’d encountered virtually none.

Oops. Rookie mistake.

Everyone knows that you don’t jinx yourself like that.

As it turns out the harvest season finally rolled around and everyone’s spinach crop was coming in, and a few contracts popped into my contract list. I can harvest spinach, I thought to myself.

I took one spinach contract, got it started, and then went back for a second.

The contracts were for two different fields, but oddly they both loaned me the exact same equipment setup and both had the exact same delivery location. Harvest spinach, load it in a truck, and drive it to location X.

The first contract was naturally the first to have a full load ready to go, so I filled my truck and merrily drove off to the mill.

I found the unload spot, hit the button to tip the truck, and away went the spinach from contract number one.

Contract number two is 23% delivered the message told me.

Um. Hold up.

That was spinach from contract number one.

I turned off the autosaves and tried ending the contract early to reset things, but that only resulted in a huge bill for all the spinach I apparently stole. So revert that.

Aaaaaand sleep on it… my next play session is going to be trying to see what happens when both crops are fully delivered, if either pay out, or if I’m going to be on the hook for a bunch of pilfered spinach.

I guess I have found a bug, after all. Jinx.

8r4d #christmas scenes

castironguy Well it looks like two days of effort paid off. The #sourdough for Christmas Eve dinner is ready… and it’s only 8am!

castironguy After an overnight proof the Christmas #sourdough is looking like she might be ready for the oven. I picked up this groovy loaf pan a couple weeks ago and so this year’s format is a sandwich-style, like it or not (but it all tastes great whatever shape!)

8r4d It’s never really #christmas until the #runcrew holiday lights #walk in Summerside

gamerdad With my changing free time, I reinstalled Death Stranding earlier this weekend (after offloading it about a year ago because of shifting interests in other games) with the intention of playing something besides a perpetual game of Farming Simulator.

Of course when you don’t play a game for a year and your last save point was mid-mission there is the problem of jumping back into things and hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

I survived.

But just barely.

Tho to be fair I’m still very early in the game and the difficulty is still pretty low as the narrative continues to just barely unravel.

I’m not a huge fan of the story. I mean in these wacky times, rah rah save america—as a Canadian—is like, um, ok. Sure, but jingo-bingo-bam. Who cares?!

The mechanics on the other hand are right up my alley, and the idea of building a persistent techno-ecosystem in the process of playing seems unique and curious enough to call me back to this back catalogue game. At least for a while…

castironguy Maybe you already knew this, but making #sourdough is a days-long process. The starter spent the morning warming up on the counter, and this afternoon it was ready to be incorporated into the flour mix. That needs a rest for about an hour (with a couple folding steps along the way) and then it will go into the fridge until tomorrow evening.

8r4d Ok, so admittedly we have a ways yet to go on this year’s 2000 piece #jigsaw puzzle.

8r4dsfeets fabulous footing on a festive five-ish kick #winter #running morning

8r4d #winter #running is adventurous sort of proposition between the trail conditions and your willpower

pixelazy scenes from a #winter #sunrise #running adventure

pixelazy a frosty #winter #downtown #yeg

castironguy Alright, starter, you’ve been training for this all year! You’re getting older and wiser and more cultured. This is it. Time to start the christmas dinner #sourdough

gamerdad In my little farming universe it is mid-April, and having survived my first winter by doing soil cultivation contracts, chopping down trees, and speeding up time to 5x in the settings, summer is approaching quickly and with it new cycle of harvesting.

I am sure there is some play logic about it, but I do find it a bit interesting now that I am about sixty five hours (yeah really) into this first save that the game plops you down near the end of the year and just as you get into a groove for that first month or two of in-game time, whamo, you are dawdling through winter looking for ways to make money. I mean, for my own part I have been playing the game in just 2x speed with months set to two days—call it my 2x2 settings—so one day in game can take literally six to eight hours of real time to play through. Others definitely speed this along.

But, I mean, it’s a simulator and sometimes I will just sit here playing wondering what the point of the game is. Like, am I aiming for better equipment so that I can earn money faster to buy better equipment until I own everything and everyone in this small town—or am I just chilling out on a small farm?

Part of me kinda thinks that it might the latter.

That said, real time and no rush and just building what I can as the cash flow allows seems like the whole point. And I’m kinda ok with that too.

8r4d #improv night two

8r4d #improv night one

squwetchy If this looks familiar it’s either because you live in Canada on this -18C day, or because it’s the same painting I thought I finished yesterday and posted on Instagram… but with some #snow added into the scene. #watercolour