"The marker is dead. Call 911."
The title of this entry is a quote from Janu, a student in my summer class, who uttered it under self-explanatory circumstances right after a lecture about times when it would not be appropriate to call 911. When students are comfortable enough with a concept to make jokes about it, I know that they've internalized it.
Yes, dear readers, I am still alive and (mostly) well despite an unprecedented four months of letting my blog collect dust and cobwebs. Since only two of my 107 friends on LiveJournal have posted anything in the last year and the site's terms of use have been significantly modified, I'm leaning more and more strongly toward abandoning the site and doing all of my blogging on Facebook, where I have a much larger pool of potential readers and don't have to worry about violating some obscure Russian communications law or being treated as a media outlet and banned from posting "extremist materials" if I have more than 3000 daily readers. Even if everyone on my friends list read my LJ every day, I doubt that I have the 2894 cyber-stalkers needed to push me into media outlet territory, but I'd rather try to reach the largest possible audience in the manner that's least likely to get me in legal trouble.
Plenty of changes more significant than a favored blogging outlet have been afoot in my life lately. In gaming news, I completed two playthroughs of Persona 5 a few weeks ago, assembling a massive portfolio of mythical monsters, demons, and deities and exclusively dating a different party member each playthrough as I changed the hearts of corrupt adults and eventually freed the world from an eternity of unwitting servitude to the God of Control. I focused on savoring the plot and maximizing my social stats during my first playthrough before playing for speed, efficiency, and the platinum trophy my second time around. I was pleased to see the return of enemy negotiations from the first two games and enjoyed some hilarious dialogue options and mind-bending revelations and plot twists (especially on the path to the true ending), as well as the gameplay incentives to max out as many Social Links as possible. The game will easily provide well over 100 hours of entertainment, and I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone who likes or has ever been curious about the Persona series.
After replacing my 6-year-old desktop computer with a newer, smaller, quieter, and more powerful one and winning a game of Civilization VI with all of the leaders that have been released to date, I decided to begin another mammoth gaming undertaking: Fallout 4, which had been sitting on my shelf collecting dust since Christmas 2015. I was a little dubious about it after reading some sharply critical reviews, but I remembered enjoying Fallout 3 in spite of the laptop I had in Korea barely being able to run it. I've clocked an almost embarrassing number of hours in the game in the last two weeks, playing through as a smooth-talking scientist/engineer who specializes in pistols and modifying any weapon or piece of armor on which he can get his nimble hands. Some of the mechanics have been simplified - radiation now reduces maximum HP instead of imposing stat penalties, and the percentage-based skill system has been replaced by a tiered system in which a character's stats and number of ranks in the relevant perks determine what he or she is capable of doing - but exploring the 23rd century United States in the aftermath of a nuclear war and surviving encounters with its hideously mutated inhabitants is always exciting, and I've quickly become enamored with the settlement-building aspect of the game. I recall the words of a Russian programmer who attributed the broad appeal of Tetris to the game's focus on creation rather than destruction, and in the case of Fallout 4 and many other games, that message resonates with me. There's something profoundly satisfying about being able to salvage damaged houses, broken furniture, fallen trees, and random junk for components, which can then be used to build structures and stores and plant crops that attract other aimless wanderers from the post-apocalyptic wasteland and provide them with ways to create a thriving, profitable community. Watching order emerge from chaos as my settlements grow and the settlers find their individual niches is one of the things I relish most in the game, though people who don't share my love of simulation might be perfectly content to ignore this particular aspect of gameplay (and little worse off for it). I also appreciate that practically every action one takes in the game awards experience points and most challenges can be resolved with little to no fighting, which enables players to build characters who can survive in the Wasteland without being built to deal and take as much damage as possible. I'm aiming not to break the record I set with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and finish my first playthrough of the game in less than three years.
For those who haven't heard the big employment-related news yet, I was officially hired by Houston Community College as a full-time permanent instructor in April, and have since been enjoying perks such as being a salaried employee and having both health insurance and a greater sense of "belonging" there. I'm still on the continuing education side rather than the credit side, so cynics could argue that I don't deserve to be called a professor...but I do teach adults, and I teach a subject that I both enjoy and can teach very well (if my evaluations and personal feedback from students are any indication). A good portion of my income goes into my TRS account, which I won't be able to touch until I either retire or am no longer able to teach in Texas, but between my current savings and a low-overhead lifestyle, I make enough to live quite comfortably. I'm still not sure if I'm going to settle down in Houston (or remain at HCC long-term if I do), but it's nice to have steady cash flow and full-time experience in higher education to add to my resume while I work on my novel and figure out what my next great adventure will be.
My younger brother, who I fully expected to be unsteadily employed and live with Mom all his life, is having a great adventure of his own. After being fired from five of his last six jobs and jumping through many flaming hoops to earn FAA clearance, he managed to land a software engineering job for a government contractor in Florida and moved down there in early June. He makes more money than I do despite not having a degree or a good track record with his former employers, which is more than a little dumbfounding. He's got a lot to prove to his new employers, his family, and especially himself, but if he plays his cards right and can conform to a high standard of professionalism, this could be a great opportunity for him to resuscitate his career and learn independent living skills while doing so.
Knowing that Jeff would be leaving and Kendall probably didn't have much longer to live made Mom feel lonely and want something else that was hairy and incapable of cleaning up after itself in her house, so she decided to get a kitten a few weeks ago. We originally named her "Mocha" after the cat I had in Korea, but we decided the name wasn't a very good fit for her and changed it to "Lucy" (which can easily be lengthened to "Lucifer") a few days later. She had some issues with mistaking beds and room corners for litter boxes shortly after we brought her home, but she soon learned that it's a bad idea to piss where the hands that feed her sleep. (Trust me, the mixed metaphor is appropriate here.) She has only one other dirty habit that we know of, but has had little trouble insinuating herself into the family and charming everyone she meets except Kendall, with whom she has a generally antagonistic relationship punctuated by an occasional peaceful (or boring) interlude. To be fair, I don't think many 100-year-old men would be chomping at the bit to play with a 10-year-old girl...
...no, I don't mean it that way, you sick bastard. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Socially, I've mostly been keeping to myself apart from the occasional evening spent dressing up and going out for dinner, drinks, and/or concerts with my coworker Matthew. We don't have a whole lot of interests in common, but he's a passionate and talented teacher with whom I can have some very interesting and inspiring conversations. I need to go to more of The Gauntlet's meetups so I can game with fellow geeks...especially now that I've found my dice.
Politically, I remain incredulous that anyone can support Trump in the midst of his constant lies, attempts to undermine our democracy and its institutions with his infantile behavior and formation of an election integrity commission created only to manufacture proof of his outrageous and unsubstantiated claim, and mounting evidence that he, his family, his cabinet members, and everyone involved with his presidential campaign are more invested in advancing Russia's interests than those of the United States. Any reputable business has to be run with transparency and accountability, and the same man who said the country should be run like a business seems to believe that nothing he or his family does should be subject to scrutiny. I support Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump's financial ties to Russia, and look forward to seeing how it plays out - tell me that his attitude toward Putin has nothing to do with money or his business, and I'll ask you how you've managed not to suffocate with your head up your ass for the last 40 years.
And with that, I'm off to do some creative writing. Stay vigilant, dear readers...democracy dies in darkness.