ELSEWHERE

Steam Replay

I've been putting some thought toward getting some manner of person-powered-wheeled-transport and learning how to use it, for all of exercise, getting me out of the house a bit more regularly, making errands a bit easier, and learning a skill purposes. But I have not been able to decide between rollerblading* or skateboarding

(I honestly feel immature even considering these, especially skateboarding, but I am also trying to get over that sort of thing)

I had a lot of fun rollerblading as a child, and could never quite get the hang of skateboarding, but I also never had an opportunity to learn in any way but just kind of, getting on the board and trying not to fall off. Certainly I didn't have internet access to look up the how-tos. Rollerblades would be moderately cumbersome, but also easier for me to pick up again and probably more enjoyable for me personally. But skateboards are cheaper and more convenient (to stop skateboarding you just get off the skateboard, to stop rollerblading you have to remove them, put regular shoes on, store the rollerblades somehow,)

Skateboards are actually so inexpensive that I may just get both. I'm allowed to have more than one hobby

Heelys have also been on the table but I don't want to put myself in a position to want to use those as any more than a novelty, because I am definitely not wearing safety gear for them and I will definitely trip over a rock and break my head open.

I want to get up to the store and take a look at options -- I want to be able to hold whatever I'm getting and look it over, so don't want to buy it over the internet. I'll take public transit out there when the weather favours it, though I don't look forward to getting whatever I get back home.

Speaking of weather, this is our forecast:

Perfect time to think about taking up an outside hobby

*I have learned that "rollerblade" is a brand name for "inline skates", but I am always in favour of genericising trademarks and have been calling them rollerblades forever, so I'm going to keep doing that

I stayed up late again last night and consequently slept in a bit today. No particular reason, just didn't feel like going to bed and didn't see much of a reason to force myself to.

I finally got Heaven's Vault because it's on sale; having fun with it but glad I didn't pay full price. It's pretty janky, but it's so niche that I forgive it. The gameplay revolves around translating a dead language (a conlang made for the game) and doing archeology while also trying to solve a mystery.

I also finally listened to My Year in Mensa, which was much shorter than I thought it was. Enjoyable but kind of unsubstantial - journalist joined Mensa to write an article about the process, found herself almost immediately Mensa's Main Character, to use modern parlance. Resolution was more or less that she just stopped being in Mensa, though of course this summary does the story no justice. I also recently finished off Maintenance Phase (about dieting/wellness/etc and the real science behind all of it), and continued By the Bywater (that Tolkien podcast I talked about before)

And I finished outlining the teket creation myth, and have moved on to outlining some more early myths. Also putting more thought into the 'your teket girlfriend invites you to Kuris to meet her family, learn teket lau by being immersed in the language and culture' simulator

I should go to bed at a more reasonable hour tonight so I don't sleep through the whole weekend again -- Lee and I have plans! That are mostly taking christmas decorations down and hanging some pictures up, but these are plans nonetheless. We've also been continuing our Disco Elysium playthrough and have mostly remembered what we've done and what we're doing.

Going to pill the cat and get ready for bed, then sit here for a little bit before sleeping.

Seasonal reminder courtesy of the cat that you burn more calories when you're cold, so you need to eat more than you would during other times of the year

Today's spoons have been spent on:
Taking down and storing christmas decorations and tree
Physical therapy
Finally putting together the fancy cat rocket scratching post thing

No more things today

mek wrote: ↑Sat Dec 31, 2022 10:03 pm

Finally putting together the fancy cat rocket scratching post thing

Hell of a storm last night -- part of the county got 4.3" of rain and another part saw winds at 64 mph. We got closer to 2", but that's still a hell of a lot of rain. Flood warnings all over the place, alerts to stay home and seek shelter, power flickering, part of the fence got knocked over. It was wild.

I went to bed at around midnight, at which point there were actually fireworks going off somewhere despite the storm, which admittedly had died down some. And I'm awake at a decent hour! In a while I'm going to light rail to the store to look at skateboards, but before that I'm going to eat breakfast and watch youtube. It looks gorgeous outside.

The greatest internal conflict I go through on a semi-daily basis is deciding whether or not to share videos or pictures of cats doing cute things outdoors

Just got on a train that's been stopped for several minutes already, so who knows what's going on here. It's an adventure

Today's Adventure started when I went to move my transit card to the top of the stack in my wallet and discovered it was missing. At a guess, I missed it when a bunch of stuff fell out of my wallet at the store, in which case I suppose it's just gone. Unfortunately, that was the one that had money on it, so I had to get online real quick to add funds to my other card so I could use it today.

But then I was off to Walmart.

 
On the way, I enjoyed our neighbour's decorations, and these transit dogs.

At Walmart I scoured the sports and toys areas for skateboards (and/or rollerblades) and came up with nothing. They have bikes, scooters, wagons, and in a locked case they have hoverboards, a gun, and one (1) electric skateboard. Eventually I gave up, grabbed a helmet and a set of knee/elbow/wrist pads and headed out. I intended to also get socks and pringles* while I was there, but I decided that I would rather order the socks online for hopefully less than $4/pair, and I forgot about the pringles.

Fortunately there is a Big 5 down the street from the Walmart, so I walked up there and tried not to feel awkward about going in with sports products from a different store. The manager clearly had opinions about this and tracked me down in the back of the store to ask if I needed help, but was also clearly relieved when I said I was looking for skateboards (and so there with a purpose). She showed me to them, and told me that most of them were sold out (possibly also what happened to Walmart's skateboards though I also didn't see any empty shelves for them), then left me to pick one.

There were two designs I liked, one of which was cheaper and on sale, so I grabbed that and left. Mission success!

From there, home. At home, I discovered that the skateboard was packaged in such a way that you needed to take it apart to get the packaging off, which is. Baffling. But we do mostly have tools to enable me to do that, so I took the trucks and one of the wheels off, then put them back on, and also removed all the packaging from everything else. Then emptied the dishwasher, then ate something, then put all the pads and helmet on and went out back to learn how to skateboard.

I did not injure myself. I mostly didn't slip or trip of anything, even! But I did nearly fall at the half-hour mark and decided I was getting too tired to safely continue, and came back inside. I mostly practised getting used to being on it, balancing, a little bit of movement, so on. Hopefully it won't take me long to be able to skate on it.

Anyway, taking bets on how long until I properly fall off it.

Here is the thing. Just a very basic, beginner board.

*Honey mustard pringles are delicious and, unfortunately, only available at walmart. So it's a shame to have gone to the capitalist hellstore and not gotten any.