garllickbread

I finished playing Grime recently, and really enjoyed it. Grime's "catch" is that you are a being with a sort of black hole for a head, and your parry mechanic can sometimes become "absorb." That is, you siphon health away from enemies to yourself, and can heal while destroying them. I thought the game was beautifully designed, though the controls felt a little clunky and slow. But I have that gripe every time something isn't as snappy as Hollow Knight, and coming off playing Silksong, where Hornet's movement is extremely fast and responsive, Grime felt like it dragged horribly. I got used to it, however, and once I got the timing of the parry and absorb down, things improved significantly.

Grime has some intense platforming. Most of the really difficult stuff is optional - that is, you can complete the story and the game without certain bosses or platforming segments, but if you do, the game rewards your efforts with good upgrades and expanded abilities. One of the best weapons for a strength focused build is at the end of it's very own Path of Pain, whose pain is only relieved by the fact that there are several respawn points within the area, and dying doesn't knock you all the way back to the beginning.

My main complaint is that some abilities seem inconsistent. Sometimes I had a double air dash, sometimes I didn't. Double jump doesn't work *after* an air dash, but you can break it up into jump-dash-jump. Sometimes double jump seemed to work after pulling yourself towards an object, but at others it didn't. This may all be on me, rather than an actual game issue, but I have never claimed to be an elite gamer. I'm just very persistent.

There is a NG+ that I'm not exploring right now, but may in the future. I wanted to play Hades 2 and found that some of the controls are inverted between the two games, so I'd best play just one or the other. Grime's dash ability is on the same button as Hades' "cast," for example. I played a few hours of Hades last night and finally started remapping my brain to the new controls. Hades 2 is a delight if you liked the first game - I loved it. I finally got to the point of "okay, one more run before I shut down and go to bed," and of course I had my best run yet, clearing the first world and getting about halfway into the second one. It also has another pettable dog, as well as a frog you can talk to. The frog doesn't say anything back except "ribbit," but he's a cute little guy. Maybe he's a toad, I don't know. I like toads, too.

Hades 2 won a Steam award for "best on Steam Deck," so I'll probably load it onto mine. Grime ran decently on the Deck, but it really taxed the battery and got the unit hot. I found it was best to play while the Deck was plugged in if I didn't want to absolutely exhaust my battery.

Oh yeah, and Melinoe addresses the voiceover guy, calling him "Homer," so now we know.

I just realized I'm using an incorrect ingredient in my bagels. Diastatic malt powder is changing the rise. Yes, the malt flavor is nice, but it's making the texture gummy and the dough hard to work with. Sub dark brown sugar or non-diastatic powder.

Short version - diastatic has active enzymes, non doesn't have them. The enzymes are interacting with the yeast in a way that would be great for pretzels or something, but not what's wanted for a bagel.

I need to learn how Obsidian works. And since it isn't full-featured on Chrome, I need to get it onto my Windows computer and learn it there. I may wish to rearrange my desk some so that typing is easier, making two workstations out of one computer - the writing side and the drawing side.

I finished up a rough draft of "Oracle," and now I need to get it typed up so I can start editing. I typically like to write longhand and just ... write stuff. I'll make notes or digress, and that's all stuff I can fold in when I'm editing. Some of my rough drafts can be pretty disjointed.

But first, a short run. Just to the stop sign and back. I'm enjoying running again, not really going out with any agenda, just running. Today I may run some speed intervals once I'm at the top end of Villa Nueva where the surface is firm. I want to get a solid base built up by March where a ten-mile long run is normal, and from there I can build up miles to get to my goal of fifty. RunDisney is opening Wine & Dine signups early - February 10 for the great unwashed. Fox's foot and leg have improved so much that he's now going out regularly for walks and starting to build his cardio and endurance back up. That's the power of seeing a doctor who fucking listens to you. So he feels much more confident about signing up for Wine & Dine himself.

We shut a Dove in the garage, and I found it yesterday. It was exhausted, but happily not dead. It was trying to get out the back window, so I opened the main door, but it was determined that the window was the way out. It was also tired enough that I was able to grab it and carry it outside. When I got to the driveway and opened my hands it did that thing where it just sat staring at me for a moment before flying off, as if it was thinking, "So are you going to eat me? Wait ... you're not?" We're usually good about checking for birds when we've had the door open for a long time, but sometimes they hide.

Having a good writing day so far. I'm almost done with the rough draft of "The Oracle of Orange Peel Road," aka "The Watcher." I hate trying to come up with titles. I may also whip up a couple of illustrations for this one. But it's getting late in the day and I have stuff I need to do. Fox is outside washing Baby Truck while Big Truck is in the shop (rear oil seal requiring dropping the transmission) and he's using the pressure washer. So half of what he's doing is actually truck washing, and half of it is having to tinker with the power washer's engine.

I need to go get my lifting workout done. I'm almost through my requirements for Pathfinder, and should be completely wrapped by next week. I will probably not be signing up for the next class, because I'll be shifting to running more often and building up miles for my fifty. But I am still going to set aside one or two days a week to ruck, as I think it will be helpful for this distance. Basically a full fastpacking kit should weigh about twelve to fifteen pounds, and I routinely ruck with twenty. If I choose to purchase a few things like a light tent and ultralight food stove, I'll be entirely self-supporting and can split my effort into a two or three day adventure.

I'm still debating whether I want to plan a trip that takes me to, for example, the St Johns County public pier, or if I want Fox to drive me down to a trailhead in Ocala and boot me out of the truck so that I make my own way home. Also the urban versus rural options - highly supported but tons of people or no support and no people and possibly bears.

I should go lift. The sooner I finish, the sooner I can shower and then go flop on the couch and read.

I also wonder if Fox would object to me stringing some purple, green, and yellow lights around the front porch because it's almost time.

Y'all want to see me do somethin' stupid? Of course you do.

I've been toying with the idea of a fifty mile run/walk thing - fifty miles under my own power - in my fiftieth year of life. Today Fox and I really started talking about the logistics of such a thing. I am somewhat inclined to do it as a trail run, even possibly hitting the Florida Trail near here and splitting things into a two or three day event, which carrying my own supplies, basically fastpacking. Fox likes the idea of an urban run, where food and water are abundant. Doing all fifty miles at one go obviously has its appeal as well.

Trails might be a little easier on the body than pavement, but there's something to be said for being able to refuel at Wawa.

I've got plenty of time to hash out the details while I train my way up to being able to handle the miles, though.