Derik Badman's Journal

The holiday season is here, and I'm already into my second of five days off. Gatherings of various sorts are of course on the schedule.

I guess I've been changing my mind a bit about Xmas as a secular holiday. For me, it was always wrapped up in my feelings about religion, well Christianity in particular (naturally), but it is good to have a reason to just get together with the families. Lianne likes the lights (we have wreaths up on the windows) and she loves buying presents for people and wrapping them. I enjoy neither (and am bad at both), and also get uncomfortable receiving presents. Thankfully most everyone who will give me something has figured out to give me edibles/drinkables, as I am not a fan of stuff (except books and no one really ever tries to buy me books). Though last year Ian gave all of us in the D&D group ceramics he made, and I've used that mug regularly all year.

Anyway... just started and finishing reading Kenji Tsuruta's Emanon vol.3 that showed up last night. I'm going to be writing about it and two other manga I just got for a Comics Journal article, so I guess I won't say much now. I started taking notes as I read (finding the voice-to-text good for that), which I am trying to be better at.

I'm also about halfway through a reread of Madame Bovary, I don't remember now what triggered that. I think I was getting burned out on all the sci-fi/fantasy I've been reading, and decided I wanted to reread some classic novels. It's not my favorite Flaubert (that's Bouvard and Pecuchet) but I am enjoying it. Weirdly, I keep thinking I'll get sick of it, but then I get caught up in it again and pages have flown by. I spent so much time looking into new books to read, but I really should (and I always say this and don't follow through much) reread more. I have lots of books on the shelf I've keep around because I tell myself I want to reread them, but how many have I actually? Yet, I rarely do reread something off the shelves and regret it.

Spent too much time yesterday (don't I always say that), playing Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, a port of an old pre-Dragon Age Bioware game (from 2006) to PS4. The graphics are blocky and the UI is clunky, yet I find myself engaged by it. The gameplay is very faithful to D&D 3rd edition rules, which can be a bit cumbersome for a video game. I can see in a lot of it where Bioware changed and improved from it to Dragon Age: Origins, simplifying a lot of the rule and character cruft and adding to the NPCs and party member interactions.