Apology Video

 

What was it? What was Alex going to say? What did he say, and then backed away from?

This was posted on my "Filler Episodes" post, which seemed from the idea of filler episodes from Alex's own "Filler Episodes" post. 

Looking back, Alex's post was all about how he didn't want his life to be full of filler episodes and how he wanted zero filler episodes in his life. My post was about how our lives are filled with filler episodes and how we need to embrace it. In other words, looking back, my post kind of seemed like an attack on his ideas.

I want to be clear: I loved Alex's idea. I wrote my post not to tear him or his ideas down, or to bash them, or to say "well, those ideas stink. My view is better." Because I don't want to tear his ideas down, I don't want to bash him, and his ideas are awesome. But maybe he perceived my post like that, and write a comment along the lines of "Andrew, what the heck? Why are you attacking my very passionate blog post? How could you tell me to 'get over it' if my days weren't productive? Not cool dude."

So I want to apologize if that's how my post came across.

I think both of our ideas co-exist. Alex was talking mainly about progression, and how he didn't want a single day of his life to be spent idle and having life pass him by. The entire idea of his post, I feel, could be summated in: Keep progressing, every day. Which I agree with. The gospel says we need to continually progress, and if we're not, we're actually regressing. So Alex was on point. My post was saying that we need to live our lives today, or else we'll find our yesterdays empty. Which is also what Alex say saying: if you don't work at living your lives today, you'll find your yesterdays empty, nothing more than filler episodes on what should have been a chance for you to grow.

TL;DR: I'm afraid that I offended by brother by one of my blog posts when it wasn't the intention and we actually have the same idea on the topic and I wanted to apologize.

Or maybe I'm looking WAY too deep into this.

Filler Episodes

"Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans." --Alan Saunders

I love the movie from Disney/Pixar Soul, because it talks about life, and the purpose of life, and how beautiful just living is. One quote from it comes after Joe has finally achieved his dream of playing in the jazz quartet, but doesn't really feel any different. It's a story about two fish:

I heard this story about a fish. He swims up to an older fish and says, “I’m trying to find this thing they call ‘the ocean.'” “The ocean?" the older fish says. “That’s what you’re in right now.” "This?” says the young fish. “This is water. What I want is the ocean!”

The meaning behind it is that sometimes we are so busy searching for meaning or purpose in our lives that we fail to recognize that it is literally right in front of us. 

Another quote, from Alan Watts, which summarized is that life is not a journey. We are not here just for the destination. Life is a dance. Does a dance have a purpose, an end goal? It is meant to be enjoyed in the present.

When are we going to choose to be happy? After the next thing? After I get a job, then I'll be happy. Or, after I get married, or, after I get a promotion. The problem is you keep moving the goal posts, so by definition you will never reach it. Choose to be happy NOW. Choose to live your life NOW.

There are no filler episodes. Or every episode is a filler episode. Because every moment of life is just as precious as another moment. If you're only focused on the weekend, you'll miss most of life. If you only focused on the non-filler episodes, you'll miss most of life.

Because life IS the filler episodes.

Meta Rock-Paper-Scissors

So Henry came up with new words to say when playing Rock-Paper-Scissors. One of them is "Eee." Eee beats everything (except Ree). "Un" beats "Ree." So, as you can tell, why on earth would anyone say "rock"? If I say rock, then you could just say Eee and beat me. If I say Paper you can say Eee and beat me. If I say Scissors you could say Eee and beat me. So really I would have to say Eee. But if I have to do that, then you would say Ree. So I would have to say Un. But Eee beats Un.

So, as you can tell, these simple rules changes takes Rock-Paper-Scissors to the next level (albeit in reality it's still an A beats B beats C beats A scenario).

You can also say "Galaxy," which beats everything except Eee. You can also say "Nothing," which beats everything except Eee. If both of you say "Nothing," it's not a tie, you both get a point.

So with two other things that beat everything except Eee, the odds have shifted a little. Now you want to say Eee more often. Which means you want to say Ree more often. Which means you want to say Un more often. But if you say Ree or Un more often, then the other person can just say Galaxy or Nothing to beat you. "Nothing" beats "Galaxy."

Henry made up this version in 2nd grade during dismissal.

Design Notes on my Greek God Game

 I will put these note pages up with no context, except for the fact that these are for this game.

Little vacation to L.A.

A month or so ago I got Heather a ticket to see a concert in Las Angeles, California. It was the TwoSet Violin Worlds Tour. TwoSet is a fun music (violinist) YouTube channel that Heather watches. 

The show was October 3rd, a Tuesday. It also happened to fall within my October break, which went from September 25 to October 6. So we made plans to go.

We packed on Monday. On Tuesday we drove to L.A. There are a lot of homeless people in L.A. apparently. That night Heather went to the show and the three kids and I hung out in the car and McDonalds. That night we stayed in a hotel.

On Wednesday we woke up, ate, and then went to the beach. On Wednesday night we left California and drove straight home so that the kids could go to school on Thursday. Which is what they did.

Below are some pictures.

Games night last Sunday

Last Sunday I went to a friend's house and we played games. The friend was someone I met at the MericopaCon I already blogged about. I had exchanged numbers with a few people, and then David reached out to me and invited me over.

There were eight of us and the first game we played was all together; we played Captain Sonar. My team did not win, unfortunately, which puts my win rate at Captain Sonar 2-1. 

We then broke off and played two different games, each four players. While four played Viticulture Tuscany, I played, for the first time ever, Terraforming Mars. Because I own and have played the card game version, I was familiar with a lot of it. I didn't do too bad, although I didn't win.

That game finished up before Tuscany, so we played a quick game of Xactika. I won that one.

Then we ate dinner. All during the day there were snacks out. It's unfortunately the only picture I got of that night.

The snacks.

After dinner we played an eight player game of Sushi Go Party, in which I came in dead last.

Then it was late so a person went home. But the host, David, wanted to play Expeditions with someone, and I really wanted to play, so me and another guy there joined David. He taught us and we played for about an hour and a half but then the other guy had to go so we tallied up the scores. The other guy and I had 27, but David had 28, so he won. It was really fun though and I look forward to playing it again. 

So that was my games night last Sunday.

Kickstarter facts I did not know

Hello. I am writing a blog post. Tomorrow I do not have work. I do not know what to write about. Well, I have lots of stuff I could write about, but I am tired. So let's just talk about some Kickstarter facts I learned last weekend.

Potions of Azerland has now hit over $43,000 on Kickstarter. When I was at the games convention last weekend I got to hear Gray and Tyler talk about it. Here's some facts: The artist they chose, Andrew, also illustrated the games Everdell and Tapestry, and thus was very expensive. But some people are going to back the Kickstarter solely because of the art and for no other reason. Also, the video you see at the very top of the Kickstarter, it cost about $50. . . . per second. And that video's about 126 seconds long. Gray and Tyler said that to break even with the project they'd need about $100,000. So why didn't they put that as they funding goal; why did they put $24,800? According to them, it was because of the algorithm. Games that are funded really quickly then look better, get out and is seen by more people, and are more likely to be successful. So those are some things I learned. They must have done a LOT of research into this. Heck, they got Andrew Bosley to illustrate, so they're pretty dang dedicated to see this succeed. 

Why do I create games? I've done it for decades now, and have never gotten any money from it. There are tons of projects I've started but never finished. I know why I do it. It isn't for the money (there isn't that much money anyway).

I do it because I love it. I do it because it brings me joy. And yes, I would love it if one of my games was published one day, and that still is the goal and the dream, but even if that never happens I'll still have fun on the journey. 

Games Convention: My gaming weekend

On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, there was a three-day long gaming convention entitled MaricopaCon. It was the tenth one, so it was called MericopaCon X. I bought myself a badge and then it was game time. Although gaming started Friday at noon, I didn't go until I was off of work at 4. Then it went until midnight. On Saturday it started at 9 am, but I didn't get there until a little before noon, and then it went to midnight. Sunday it went from 9 am but I went to church instead and then went at about 1 and played two games and then went to my parent in laws' for dinner at 5.

Okay, you didn't care about any of that. You want to know about the GAMES that I played.

Potions of Azerland. Really fun. Never heard of it? That's because it was designed by a guy in Mesa and is launching on Kickstarter on Tuesday. By the end of the weekend I had played three entire games. And I . . . lost all of them. Anyway, the designer's name is Gray and I got his number.

Played a game of Texas hold 'em Zombies, where zombies attack you between each poker round. I, uh, was the first one out of this game. I guess I'm not very good at poker. Or fighting off zombies.

Captain Sonar. Played two games. In the first one I was the captain shouting out orders, and in the second one I was the person trying to figure out where the submarine was. My team won both of them.

Wingspan. Notice in the picture the cool 3D printed food tokens (I cached six rats on one of my birds). Also instead of cubes as your action tokens there were 3D printed birdhouses. There was also a bunch of expansion cards (the guy who owns it has all the expansions). We played a 7-player game, which you may think took a super long time, but the 7-player rules are that two players are taking their turn simultaneously, across from each other. So the time between your turns was actually not that bad. I came in second place, barely.

I played a three-player game of Ahau: Rulers of Yucatan. I taught the rules. I also came in dead last.

With the same two other people I played Ahau with, we all played Chief Judge of Zarahemla. Because the rules are very similar to Concordia, and because they have both played Concordia, it was an easy teach. I did not win this game.

Decrypto. It's like Codenames, only during the course of the game every player gets to be the clue giver, not just one. Not only that, but your team, each round, has a chance to guess your opponents' clues, so that every round you have to be careful to be clear enough so your teammates get it, but vague enough so that your opponents don't. I lost the game I played of this.

Camel Up. You guys know Camel Up. Played a seven-player game. I lost. But I was the first one to correctly guess which camel would come in first place for the entire race.

Orléans. This is my copy. I brought it to play, and I had several people tell me as I walked past them, "Orléans? That's a great game!" I got it for Christmas forever ago (along with Concordia) but Friday was the first time I ever played it. It was really fun. But, as you can probably guess, I lost.

So, in the end, I brought three games (Chief Judge of Zarahemla, Orléans, and Ahau), and ended up playing all three of them at least once. I played 12 games total, of 9 different games (one I played twice and one I played 3 times). And in the end I only won two of them. But who cares? I had a blast! It was so much fun, and I got the phone numbers of people there and hopefully we'll be able to meet up and play games some time during the week. 

Talk I gave today in church as the closing speaker

In the Old Testament, around 867 BC, the prophet Elijah fled into the wilderness. We often don’t discuss this part of the book of First Kings, although we all know and love the story right before it and the story right after it. Just before is the amazing story of Elijah facing off against the false prophets of Baal, challenging them to a contest. And while the prophets of Baal screamed and shouted all day and could not get their idol’s altar to alight, with one prayer the altar of the God of Abraham burst into flames, even though it had just been doused in water three times. When Elijah had the wicked false prophets put to death, the evil Jezebel sought revenge, and swore in her wrath that Elijah would die. Thus we get Elijah fleeing into the desert at the beginning of 1 Kings chapter 19. What exactly Elijah was feeling in these moments I don’t know, but we do know that the scriptural record reads that Elijah “came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die.” In fact, he even, in earnest prayer, petitions the Lord, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life.” We must remember at this time that Elijah was terribly discouraged. He had remained faithful in proclaiming God’s message, yet the only result, as far as he could see, was a threat on his life. Not only that, but he believed that he was the only faithful person left. These things took a tremendous mental strain on him. And he wasn’t the first. In Numbers 11 we read that Moses too felt like his burden was too heavy to bear, and prayed to the Lord that the Lord would kill him. In today’s dispensation, other great leaders have also had these dark thoughts when things seemed too hard to bear, including President George Albert Smith and Elder Jeffery R. Holland. Of this, Elder Holland explains: “At one point in our married life when financial fears collided with staggering fatigue, I took a psychic blow that was as unanticipated as it was real. With the grace of God and the love of my family, I kept functioning and kept working, but even after all these years I continue to feel a deep sympathy for others more chronically or more deeply afflicted with such gloom than I was.” “Let me . . . concentrate on MDD—“major depressive disorder”—or, more commonly, “depression.” When I speak of this, I am not speaking of bad hair days, tax deadlines, or other discouraging moments we all have. Everyone is going to be anxious or downhearted on occasion. The Book of Mormon says Ammon and his brethren were depressed at a very difficult time, and so can the rest of us be. But today I am speaking of something more serious, of an affliction so severe that it significantly restricts a person’s ability to function fully, a crater in the mind so deep that no one can responsibly suggest it would surely go away if those victims would just square their shoulders and think more positively.” While not a great church leader, I too have had depression. Have it currently, still. (Talk about my depression.)

But the topic of my talk today is not to dwell on mental illness, it is to talk on mental health and new beginnings. And in order to be well, we must admit that there is something wrong, and reach out for help. Sister JANE CLAYSON JOHNSON did years of research on depression in members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and one thing she learned from her hundreds of interviews is that in the church we sometimes have a stigma surrounding mental health. She says in her BYU-Pathway Worldwide Devotional, “I know many people who feel a sense of embarrassment and shame attached not only to a mental health diagnosis but also to the medication prescribed and the therapy required for treatment. This stigma must be stopped!

Depression is not the result of some sort of personal inadequacy. It is not a black mark on your character. If you broke your arm or found out you had kidney disease, you wouldn’t feel embarrassed to talk about it. You’d do all you could to try to heal. If you got a diagnosis of cancer or heart disease, you wouldn’t worry about being judged or ostracized. You’d likely receive an outpouring of love and support. A mental health diagnosis should be no different.”

If you were to break a bone in one of your limbs, would you try to hide it to avoid being ‘judged”? No, you would seek help, especially from a professional. Mental illness and depression should not be a taboo subject in the church. We need to create an environment where someone, if they are struggling with depression or anxiety, can feel comfortable in reaching out. And we should reach out. Mental health does not come from simply thinking positively or choosing to be happy, any more than a sprained ankle can heal by simply continuing to walk on it and ignoring it. It takes both prayers AND outside help. Elder Holland counsels, “Seek the counsel of those who hold keys for your spiritual well-being. Ask for and cherish priesthood blessings. Take the sacrament every week, and hold fast to the perfecting promises of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Believe in miracles. I have seen so many of them come when every other indication would say that hope was lost. Hope is never lost. . . . If things continue to be debilitating, seek the advice of reputable people with certified training, professional skills, and good values. Be honest with them about your history and your struggles. Prayerfully and responsibly consider the counsel they give and the solutions they prescribe. If you had appendicitis, God would expect you to seek a priesthood blessing and get the best medical care available. So too with emotional disorders. Our Father in Heaven expects us to use all of the marvelous gifts He has provided in this glorious dispensation.” I went to counseling and am now taking depression medication. There should be no shame in going to get help. 

Sometimes it will be hard, especially, as Sister Jane Clayson Johnson points out, that “depression can have a very real impact on the ability to feel the Spirit.” She goes on to say, “For me, depression blocked all feelings, including feelings of the Spirit. So even though I was praying and reading my scriptures and going to church and attending the temple, I couldn’t feel God’s love like I had before the depression hit. I heard this over and over from the people I interviewed. Many told me that the spiritual symptoms of depression are the most distressing part of the illness.” How do we combat a disease that takes away our ability to feel the Spirit? Like mentioned earlier, we get help. If you do not have depression and anxiety, and can feel the Spirit working in your life still, then pay attention to promptings that lead you to helping another person who may not be able to. If someone comes to you and explains their troubles, please don’t just brush it off and tell them that if they’d only pray more or read their scriptures more or think more positively then things will get better. You would never say that to someone with a broken finger or stage three cancer, so don’t say it for this very real and very genuine illness. I know what it feels like. I’ve been there, in the darkest pits of despair. I know first hand what it’s like. 

Elijah was a great prophet, but even he had moments of depression. The Lord knows that we are mortal and He understands our mortal nature. God takes our human nature, with its problems, into account when considering our requests. Like with Elijah’s prayer to die, God often refuses to give us what we ask for. He knew that Elijah’s request was motivated by his physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. So God did not answer Elijah’s prayer, instead, He gave the prophet what he really needed. The Lord sent an angel to minister to his physical needs, providing food and water. Then God directed Elijah to Mount Horeb, where He reminded the prophet of His great power. For it is after this story that we get another one of our most known and loved scriptures, the one where Elijah is hiding in a mountain and experiences a great wind, an earthquake, and a fire, but the Lord was not in any of those. Because afterwards came a still, small, voice. I testify that Christ lives. (bear testimony)

I haven't posted in a while.

Mainly because I'm so tired all the time with the newborn baby. And now work has started up. 

It's funny, you can spend your time doing three different things:

(1) Nothing. You can just sit there and do nothing. Men have a "nothing box" and that's his favorite place to go.

(2) Producing. Making stuff. Working on a book, or a video game, or a YouTube video, or a blog post. Making notes to help you with those things. 

(3) Receiving. Watching YouTube videos. Mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or any other website. Now, there's nothing wrong with this area. Reading a book falls under this. Doing research for producing something falls under this category. 

Sometimes I think that unless I'm constantly in Produce mode I'm not being productive. I don't know, to me being in Produce mode is the most difficult. Like, it's so much easier to just sit down and waste a half hour on random YouTube videos than to spend a half hour trying to create something or make something.

But I don't think that that's a fair dynamic. You can be productive even if you aren't in the Produce mode. You can be in the Receiving mode and still are being productive, as long as the stuff you're receiving increases your knowledge. 

And maybe this dichotomy isn't real at all. For example, where does sleeping fit under? Where does playing a game fit under? No idea. Speaking of playing games, there's a big game playing convention at the end of this month that I'm going to go to.

How to play Ahau: Rulers of Yucatán

 

Made this video to teach my family (and others) how to play the game I just got.

Kickstarters Came

A long, long, time ago, before the pandemic, in March of 2019 to be exact, Cyan (the studio creators behind Myst and Riven) put up a Kickstarter for a new video game, called Firmament. I backed it to get a copy. At first it didn't look like it was going to fund, but then it was fully funded one of the last days of the campaign.

The projected delivery time was in a about a year. Then the pandemic hit. Fast forward 4 years, and it finally came out! I received a code to redeem my game on Steam in May.

So, that's the first Kickstarter I backed that came this week.

One of the puzzles in Firmament involving rotating connecting platforms.

But you might notice in the title of my post the word Kickstarter is plural. As in, more than one came this week.

The second Kickstarter I backed was a board game. I backed it in February of 2022 on the first day (to get the free expansion) and the game was fully funded the first day. It is called Ahau: Rulers of Yucatán. The blurb is that it's a Euro-style strategy game with dual-engine-building and worker placement elements.

Today after church I opened my front door to see a package laying on our doorstep. Low and behold, it's the game!

So I had a good time punching out tiles and putting on little stickers onto tiny disks. When my family comes up for Henry's baptism, we should play it.

Kyrie (rhymes with Cheery) is Born! and other Stuff.

On me and my wife's 10th wedding anniversary, our little daughter decided to be born. April 25. The perfect date.

And then things got super busy, so I wasn't able to really post anything about it. And then my mom beat me to the punch. So go check out her blog!

If you don't know what an autogram is, it is a sentence that describes itself. It's also known as a 'self-enumerating' or 'self-documenting' sentence. So, for example, 

"This sentence employs two a's, two c's, two d's, twenty-eight e's, five f's, three g's, eight h's, eleven i's, three l's, two m's, thirteen n's, nine o's, two p's, five r's, twenty-five s's, twenty-three t's, six v's, ten w's, two x's, five y's, and one z."

They are fascinating, and you should look at all the examples in the Wikipedia article. 

In other news, I don't have a Nintendo Switch, but if I did, I would be doing what my brother Alex is doing and binge-playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. As it is, I have watched some livestreams of others playing it.

My last day of school was this last Thursday. I have an 11-day summer vacation before my summer job starts up. Hopefully I'll be able to get some rest during that time.

Welp, I did it

Finally got moved! It took a lot of help, and a lot of time, but we got our stuff packed, our new lease signed, our stuff moved, our old house cleaned, and we've moved. We're also well under way to unpacking in our new place.

Not only that, but I also finished the computer game I was making for Ryan's birthday. Looking up information online, it said that the first game you make shouldn't be your dream project. So instead of jumping into the Book of Mormon video game, I decided to start small.

Please check out, download, and play my game from here: https://andrewgperazzo.itch.io/setunim-isle

Are plans actually coming together?

We have found a place to move to. It is the house of a person that was in our ward, but then moved out of the ward, and sent his landlord our contact info. Then we got in touch with the landlord and he agreed too rent it to us. The house is three houses down from us. We will (obviously) stay in the same ward. 

In other news, apparently my birthday is in one week from today. It seems like every passing year I think about my birthday less and less often. This year especially because of the fact that we're moving and having a baby all within a month of each other. If any of you are wondering what I want for my birthday, the answer is what all 33-year old men want: money to pay for bills and life and such.

Because I'm turning 33, when I hit four months from then I will be 33 and 1/3 old, which is one-third of 100. So if I live to be 100 years old, I will be hitting my thri-life crisis. (Like a mid-life crisis only for a third.)

The baby is due the 21. What if she was born on the 22? Then my birthday would be 2, Henry's would be 12, and baby's would be 22. What are we going to name the baby? Even if we knew we probably wouldn't say. The last two children we had we thought we had a name picked out... until they were born. Then we changed our minds and named them something else. So since Henry and Joy got their names after they were already a few days old, that might happen with this new human too.

Okay, so you know how last week I talked about making a video game and it would be hard to learn how to code? So I did some research on game-maker engines that would be easier for a beginner (like myself). Not only that, but the normally $80 engine was on sale on Steam, so I bought it at a discount. The legal contract with the engine is that you can make a game and then you can sell it and it's within your contract to do so, and can legally do that with no ties. Buying the game-making engine itself gives you the legal rights to do that. Oh, it's called RPG Maker MZ.

So maybe I'll actually be able to make that Book of Mormon video game like I wanted to.

Okay, so remember a while ago I said I supported a Book of Mormon based video game called Servant of Helaman? Looking back at the images and videos now (once again, I can't access the actual game itself) it looks like the creator totally used RPG Maker MV.

Unfortunately, because I can't access it, I'll never know how similar mine will be to it. You know, that is, if I ever make it. But we can always have faith that I will.

Book of Mormon projects

    "A few weeks ago," the larger one said, "A group of us went and took out Target number three." He nodded over to the skinner man on his left, who continued the train of thought. 

    "Unfortunately, there were more witnesses than we would have liked, and it was brought to the attention of the Chief Judge."

    Heoit sat up straiter in his stone seat. "Unacceptable!" he roared. "This jeopardizes all of our plans! How could you let this happen?"

    The large man looked Heoit straight in the eye while the skinny guy squirmed. "Well, sir, if only you had listened to me, then we would have gone with plan B, instead of trying to take him out in the market."

    Heoit glared at the man, but said nothing.

Okay, so the above is something I wrote up thinking about my Choose your Own Adventure: Book of Mormon book. The problem is, I can't really just sit down and write. Maybe it's this idea that what I write down has to be perfect the first time. And it's not; like, the above sample I'm like, okay, that's not too bad. Has a lot left to be desired. Of course, it was also me just writing off the cuff with no real plan, so that might have something to do with it.

I discussed this with my wife earlier, but I want to do so many things... too many things it seems like. A Book of Mormon book, a Book of Mormon Legacy game, a Book of Mormon video game. I've been looking into writing code and creating your own video game recently. But like, I don't know. Learning curve. Like, some things has a gentle learning curve where you ease yourself into it and others have a steep learning curve where it's a lot at first but once you get the hang of it you can do so much more.

Man, my Spring Break's over. It was all last week for both Henry and me. Which means I have to go back to school tomorrow. And I don't want to because I'm not good at classroom management. Maybe I'll use the break as a hard reset and just crack down the first day. At least that's my plan but let's see if I have the ability to do it. I need to have it if my work is going to be any good-I can't dread coming into work. I can't dread work, or else my entire life will be wasted. You're supposed to love your job or else your life will be miserable. 

We're getting closer to moving. There were two main trains of thought: moving after the birth or before the birth. We're thinking it may be easier to move before the birth. So that gives us... about 33 days?

A few words

 Henry is writing a book and he's on episode 3 and he just finished.MMMM...Do you like M&Ms?

This is Andrew. Henry wrote that first line for you guys because he wanted to write something in my blog post. He also wrote the title of this blog post.

Today was Stake Conference, as was yesterday night. Yesternight? Is that a word? Well, my spell check isn't red underlining it, so it must be. Today and yesternight we had Stake Conference.

I have another week of school before Spring Break, which will be a week long, 13-17. I could work for Edible Arrangements that week, they'd probably let me, but right now my plan is to buy a whole bunch of boxes and pack up a whole bunch of stuff so that I'd feel more prepared for moving.

Baby girl is due end of April. We need to move out end of June, or earlier. 

Henry wants me talk to about his Pokémon cards. (His book he's writing, by the way, is about Pokémon.) Notice that I made the e in Pokémon an é because of that cool trick I learned a few posts ago. Henry says he is trying to collect all the Galar, Sinoh, and Kanto Pokémon cards.

Do you know what an awesome game is? Hollow Knight. Do you want to know what another awesome game is? Maybe Silksong, but I don't know if that will ever come out. Hahahahaha.

Heather played in Stake Conference today and it sounded so good. She also played yesternight and it also sounded so good.

Henry wants me to write that 8:30 is eight o'clock. Whatever that means. He is now just sitting by me giggling his little head off.

The Kickstarter I backed about a year ago should be delivering soon. I already mentioned it in a previous blog post. The latest update from the Kickstarter page says that the assembly process finished March 2nd. So I should be either getting the actual game or more news about it soon.

Henry and Joy love feeling little baby girl kick in mommy's tummy.

The Missing Piece

So our Landlords got back to us and we have to move out my June 30. So we have to look for a new place. We are thinking about renting, crashing the housing market so that houses are affordable, and then buying a house afterwards. (Okay, so maybe we won't be the ones crashing the market.)

Buying a house as opposed to renting one is, in my opinion, what would make me an actual adult, instead of just a grown kid pretending to adult. I have a wife and kids, a salary job, two working cars (now), insurance through work, and have to pay taxes and do bills every April. But I'm still missing that one piece. That one missing piece.

And on that note, I'm going to go to bed so that I can wake up, eat breakfast so that my physically body continues to function for a little bit longer, go to work so that I can prove to society that I'm worth getting the solution to rarity of the coincidence of wants, (i.e. money), drive home, clean the house for baby soon and moving soon, and do it all over again day after day after day while I seek joy and happiness. 

eeeeeee, or èéêëēėę?

The Super Bowl is today. But I'm not watching it. Because it's Sunday. Although I'm not really into sports, so it's easier for me. If I was really into sports, it might be more difficult. Today we're going over to my mother-in-law's for dinner. It starts at 4:00. The game starts at 4:30. Coincidence? I think not. We're bringing chips. 

Oh cool. I just help down the e key to type out eeeeeeeee but instead of doing that a little menu popped up above the e with different options: è, é, ê, ë, ē, ė, and ę.  I tried it with o and instead of getting ooooooo I got ô, ö, ò, ó, œ, ø, ō, and õ. I tried it with t and nothing popped up. Maybe t is a boring letter.

Henry and I played a couple of games go Isle of Skye this week. Oh, by the way, after my last blog post my mom got us Isle of Skye for Valentine's Day. Anyway, one of the games Joy also played and the other was just two-player. I let Henry win the first one so that he'd feel happy by "forgetting" to award myself some points. The second game I won.

Right now I'm watching season 3 of The Chosen. Have you watched The Chosen yet? If not, get on that. It's really good.

Valentine's Day is coming up. I know my wife got me some chocolates. I'm not going to say what I got her in case she reads this.

A long, long time ago (March of last year, 2022) I backed a Kickstarter game. It hasn't come yet, which is typically because it usually takes a year to do so. So why am I telling you? Because its estimated delivery date is February of this year. In other words, it should come some time this month. And this time I pledged for the whole game, not just the print-and-play. It's this game by the way.

Okay, I'm going to take a nap now. And I can, because our church got over two hours ago. I taught Elder's Quorum today. It went really well. I teach every second Sunday of the month. That's my calling.

The Five Games I Played the Other Week

Not yesterday, but the Saturday before that, there was a board game get together that I went to. Here is the list of the games that I played, in order of when I played them that night: Welcome to... the Moon (both sides), Stone Age, Isle of Skye, Khôra, and Taverns of Tiefenthal. 

Welcome to... the Moon is made by the same people that made the Welcome to... game, and has tons of similarities. Albeit I've never played the original, so this is the first one form them I've played. It's a flip and write, kind off like roll and write, but instead of rolling dice you flip over three stacks of cards to get three unique number and symbol combinations. You pick one of the three to write down on your board (using dry erase markers on an erasable sheet) to either launch your rocket on side a, or fly to the moon on side b. Although I guess there are even more cards with duel sides for even more variety. The cool thing about this game is that in theory you can play with as many players as you want, an even do it online via Skype, because it's all simultaneous.

Stone Age is the obit one of these games that I've previously played. Although I've only played on Board Game Arena and not in person, so this is the first time I've played in person. It's a worker placement game, where most of the spots have you gather resources. For each maple you've placed on the spot you roll one die, and then divide the number you get by either 2, for the most common resource, up to 6, the rarest resource. Super simple to understand. You can also place workers to build buildings or get cards with those resources. And, like other games, you can get more workers, but each round you have to feed your workers or risk the consequences.

Okay, confession time. You ready to hear my confession? A long time ago my family asked me for recommendations on games to get for Christmas. One of the games proposed to me was this one, Isle of Skye. I persuaded them against it, because I said it was too much like Carcassone. I thought that at the time, but my confession is that I now regret that. If only I could go back and change my mind on what I said, because this game is great and I do recommend it. Too late now, I guess, but I just needed to get that off my chest. Anyway, in this game you are pricing tiles to sell, buying other players' tiles, making your own personal land, and has multiple different goals that get you points that change every game and throughout the game. Great fun.

Khôra was a really fun civilization building game. I only have two gripes. The first is that one of the action selection tiles that remains face up in front of you the entire game has the bust of a naked female chest on it. I had to use a tile to cover that up while I was playing. Anyway, the other one minor complaint is that it seems like in this game if you don't go for military you can't win. One of the things I love about 7 Wonders, and other civilization building games such as Tapestry, is that you can go any route and still have a shot at winning. In Khôra though, it seems like if you don't do military you cannot win, no matter how awesome you do in culture or economy or anything else. But besides those two minor gripes it really was a fun game that I had a great time with.

Taverns of Tiefenthal is made by the same person that made Quacks of Quedilisomething. I like Quacks much better. This one was fun, but after playing it I would never want to buy it. If someone brought it and asked me to play it I totally would though. There's this weird kind of deck-building element to it, and you can upgrade different parts of your tavern, and the two main currencies are beer and coins. Beer buys better customer cards, and coins buys better equipment cards. The only real player interaction was passing dice around at the beginning of the round, and that's really it. Unlike Quacks where you have your neighbor's exploding cauldrons, rat tails, and black moths. Anyway, everyone else loves this game much more than I do, so maybe I'm wrong, but that's where I stand.

Okay, so wrap up time. All five games were really fun. My least favorite is probably Taverns. My most favorite is probably Isle of Skye. Welcome to... the Moon and Khôra tie for second favorite, with Welcome to... the Moon being the lighter game and Khora being the heavier game. Then comes Stone Age, which after a few plays becomes repetitive. And there you have it.

Little vs Big Projects

Tonight our kids wanted to have a little picnic outside, so they grabbed some blankets and put them on our front porch and I made pancakes and we all sat out on our front sidewalk and ate pancakes. It was a fun little FHE (which we are having on Sundays instead of Mondays because our it's easier to do that day).

Yesterday my kissy wife Heather and I played Sagrada.

She won.

A level I made for a contest was played and here's the YouTube video of the guy playing it:

Now, I know what you're thinking (okay, I don't, but I know what my inner doubter is thinking, which may or may not be the same thing you're thinking): Andrew, why do you waste your time away on small little things of no importance, that will be swept away and forgotten in less than a year's time? Why not work on something longer lasting, more permanent, more important? Something bigger and better?

My answer to that is: I am. Or, I'm trying. Or, I want to and am occasionally working on it in my spare time. But some things that are smaller are easier to finish. 

I have a bunch of game ideas. These games are games that I consider "big" projects. Lots of pieces, a large board, rules that I need to figure out, and I need to playtest it (against myself most of the time because I have no Perazzo family near) to make it fun, and I need to pieces, and plus if I'm feeling really ambitious I might want to get files up on printplaygames.com and send it to a publisher. 

All that takes a long ling time and I only have the slightest chance of seeing any results. For instance, I don't think my awesome game We Three Kings has ever been played. Which you know, is fine a lot of the time because the joy comes in making it. But smaller projects? Like, I already have a level I made played by a YouTuber and now it's online and he enjoyed it and so did the viewers and the link is above.

My levelpack for Baba is You already has 9 downloads (admittedly, three of those are Ryan, so like, 7 downloads?) and so I feel like the "little" things I do have more possibility of making it out into the world. So that's why I do smaller things which my insecurities may say are "not important."

Other smaller things I've accomplished include writing the short story Synesthesia. I have also written some chapters of my longer books like Paths of Zarahemla and The Fallacy of Time, but finishing a short story is easier to do because it's, uh, shorter. Eric, meanwhile has already written his entire first book of his trilogy.

Anyway, so that's why I do little stuff even if it's not "as important" as the big stuff. To, you know, actually finish something instead of just having a bunch of half-done projects.

An early chapter from "The Fallacy of Time"

Okay, so Andemo is the name of the main character in The Temportation Trilogy. He grew up in Uganda, and is a member of the village where the Temportation Machine is temported in. (In my story, Uganda is a real place but obviously I'm making up events). Here Andemo explains temportation to Casey.

"No! Both of us were nearly killed, a bunch of crazy terrorists just invaded my campus, and a bunch of stuff just appeared and disappeared for no reason! You are going to tell me what's going on, and you're going to tell me now!" Casey looked livid, her chest panting, hair disheveled, and eyes crazy.

Andemo looked at her for a few beats, then finally said, "Fine. Sit." He lifted his hand and a chair appeared out of nowhere, with a soft pop! of air rushing. He moved the chair behind Casey, who blinked a few times before poking and prodding the chair. Once she confirmed that it was, in fact, real, she settled down into it.

"Let's start with this," Casey mentioned to the chair she was on. "Where did this come from? How did you do that?"

Andemo sighed. "To understand that, you have to understand time. Now, for most people, time is constant. It's always moving forward at the same rate of one second per second. Everything that exists is in the time stream, and always has been, and always will be." Andemo made another chair appear out of nowhere and sat down on it. "This, however, is a fallacy."

Casey wasn't sure where this was all headed, but it was really nice that this guy was actually answering her questions. Finally she could get some answers.

Andemo gestured to the chairs. "Where do you think these came from? Or when?"

Casey pursed her lips. "Uh... the future, maybe?"

Andemo grinned at that. "No. Backwards time-travel isn't possible. Something about cause and effect. In the time stream, things can only move forward."

"But these chairs weren't here a moment ago."

"Ah," Andemo said, pointing at Casey. "Right you are. You see, the fallacy is that everything moves forward at the same speed, or rate, or whatever. But according to Epstein, this isn't always the case. Time is relatives."

Casey furrowed her brow. "You mean Einstein?"

"What?"

"Einstein. Albert Einstein. You said Epstein."

"Right, Einstein. Relatives of time and whatnot."

Casey could tell Andemo didn't fully understand what he was saying. Why not? You would think that if someone had this power that they would have spent their life studying it and becoming familiar with it. Unless...

Casey's thoughts were cut off by Andemo explaining further. "So some things can move slower in the time stream, and some faster. What would happen if an object moved faster than everything around it: not at the rate of a second per second, but the rate of a lot more or a lot less per second." He bent down and picked up a small rock off the ground. It was about the size of an apple.

Andemo held up the rock in his hand. "Right now, this rock is just in the time stream, existing. But what I can do is take it out of the time stream. What do you think that will look like?"

"It won't be there anymore," Casey said. "If it's not in the time stream, then it doesn't exist in time, so you couldn't do anything to it. You couldn't interact with it at all, because that would require it being in time."

Andemo nodded his approval. "Exactly. And that's what I can do. I can take objects out of the time stream." The rock disappeared with a poof of air. "That air poof, by the way, is the sound of the air around rushing in to fill the space that the rock had been taking up."

"Right," said Casey, "and that's why there's a rush of air when you bring it back into the time stream, because it's the air vacating the place where the object appears. But where is it? Right now, in time, where is the rock?"

"Right here," Andemo said, pointing to his empty palm. "But remember, in order for something to exist, it needs to be in all four dimensions at once, the one physical and three time."

"You mean three physical and one time."

"Yes. So unless things have all three, sorry, all four, then do they really exist? Like, if an object had height and length but no deepness, would you say that it existed? It would need at least a little bit of deepness for us to think of it as being there. So this rock is here, but I took away its time-ness. Although, I can bring it back into the time stream any time I want to." To demonstrate the rock appeared back in his palm. 

Casey nodded. "And what's this ability called? To be able to take things out of the time stream and then put them back in at will? You've called it something, yes?" She was beginning to out together some pieces, and it seemed to suggest that Andemo hadn't had this power his whole life. Or even a lot of it. If she were to guess, she would say that he'd only known about it for maybe a few weeks. This was her test. If he had a name for it, it meant that he had had enough time to figure out what to call it. If he didn't have a name for it, then it was confirm her suspicion that this power was relatively new.

Unfortunately for her theory, Andemo nodded. "It's called temportation. Temp-, and then -portation."

Casey nodded. "Temp- is the prefix for time, and -port is the suffix for carrying. Carrying something across time. Nice." As soon as she said it, she realized that she probably shouldn't have. She should have asked Andemo what it meant, to see if he even knew. Ah, well. Too late now.

Andemo continued, "When I take something out of the time stream, it's called temporting it out, and when I bring it back into the time stream, it's called temporting it in." He stood up. "These chairs? I temported them out about a week ago." He held his hand out his chair and with a whoosh of air it disappeared. 

"Now," he said, turning to Casey, "I've answered your most pressing mystery. May I suggest that for the moment we take this precious time to get out of here before those that are chasing us find us again?"

"You haven't answered all my questions," Casey retorted back.

"True, but I do hope that I've gained your trust enough to allow me to save your life for right now so that I can answer your other questions at a future date."

Casey stood up, and the chair disappeared behind her. She didn't trust this guy, but did she have a choice? He did seem honest with his answers about his abilities. 

Although he still is hiding something, she thought. He's had these abilities for a far less time than he wants to make it seem. But he was right in the fact that those men were still out there, near, still after them.

"Okay," Casey said at last. "Lead the way."