Gilberticus

Ahh, thank you, Delta, I forgot the most important two words in that story: store-bought. That ravioli changed the way I think about store-bought ravioli, which is a big deal in my house. I have a picky five year old, as five year olds can be. The thing with mine is that he won't eat fast food, nor will he eat things that taste store-bought. That's slightly problematic at the moment, as I broke my leg badly. So, technically, I didn't pick the ravioli up, Jenn did; I saw it while she was Facetiming me from the grocery store. Anyway, Connor won't eat things that taste store-bought, which is kind of picky for someone whom I caught eating an eraser with his giant rabbit in my den a few months ago. Those rabbits are expensive, by the way. Last year, the Border Collie died while Connor was having a shunt revision, and he was more distraught than I thought he'd be ( I caught him peeing on the dog when he was two, which is bizarre since he's an animal lover like me). He wanted a bunny, which is fine, but he just had to have a Flemish giant rabbit. She's a big ole sweetheart, but....... dang. For that price, I could have got Connor a whole darn warren of Lionheads. But nope, he had to have the big, big bunny. And I'm a big ole softie. So, anyway, Giovanni Rana has changed the way I see store-bought ravioli.

I just had the absolute best ravioli! A package caught my eye in the fridge section; it was called Giovanni Rana. The package said something like "Italy's most loved", and I thought "well, crap, that's a pretty darn big claim, man!" All I can say is good heavens, this stuff makes every other ravioli I've ever had seem like Chef Boyardee. I needed that, because I was watching the most disappointing movie I've ever seen while eating it; Bill and Ted Face the Music. It's not even that Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves were bad; it's their daughters, man! They were one dimensional, over-the-top jokes. It would have actually been better if Alex and Keanu would have put on wigs and played their own daughters. I felt like..... I felt like when John Wick's puppy was slain in the first John Wick. All I could do when I saw the poor puppy was sputter "no!!!!", "why!?!", "that's.... how could they?!?" I don't get attached to movie characters, but the puppy, man! It's the first time I had a genuine tear in my eye from a movie in a long time. And that's how I felt when I saw Bill and Ted 3. Anyway, ravioli: Giovana Rana, pick some up, it just might totally change the way you see ravioli.

I've got something slightly comical. I was over at a friend's house, the news was on the tv. They censored out someone's last name, my friend's kid (maybe like 8 or 9) heard that, and said "whoa, Ryan, that girl's name is bad words!" I laughed and explained why the news does that some times. The boy said "oh.... I wish my name was bad words." I found that funny; what profanity does a child that age know? I made the mistake of asking what he'd like his name to be; he uttered a sequence of words, some of which I'm going to have to look up on urban dictionary since they're new to me. But I learned a lesson about asking a child about their vocabulary.

Last Man on Earth is a dumb comedy series with Will Forte, gogo. You haven't heard of it because it sucks. Good God, does it suck. A virus does kill off most of humanity, but there aren't cannibals, vampires, zombies, etc. Will Forte spends like five minutes in the first episode looking for people, then, because he's a selfish butt, starts enjoying being alone. He stumbles into Kristen Schaal's camp, and they slowly discover a small group of people. These people wander around, being goofballs. The show is wildly unrealistic and isn't even well-written. But I watch it because I like dumb comedies as background noise when I'm building in Rising World. I can't exactly watch things like the Hannibal series, as I miss too many details. Some times, I see a fun-looking home to build. I also like January Jones. I don't think it's anywhere besides Hulu. I think there's also a movie with the same name, shot in like the 60s or something, but I haven't seen it.

Currently, I'm just watching Last Man on Earth. But I am so beyond excited; the new Bill and Ted comes out August 28th.

Old School shooter; I don't have much experience with those. The only ones I played were before we had auto aim and target lock-on. GearStorm doesn't have those, either; which I love. Auto aim, too me, is so immersion-breaking, unless I was the only one who wasn't issued auto-aiming technology in the military But this is so much more than a shooter. This is an open world sci-fi base building adventure rpg. Discover new lands, build new bases, populate new colonies, build and customize vehicles; that type deal.

I've been doing quite a bit of GearStorm lately. https://store.steampowered.com/app/393800/GearStorm__Armored_Survival/

I'm not playing anything atm, but I found a Youtube video of the first game I ever played:

She's a Succubus, who's absolutely savage. Heads and body parts fly everywhere. The part that some don't like is if you die, you lose all your equipment that you entered the stage in. But there's an easy fix for that; learn the game. It takes a little bit to get used to, but it's very rewarding once you get used to the controls.

Just won a free key to She Will Punish them; I plan on trying that, at least til Cyberpunk 2077 comes out.

Sure did, saw them in Canton, Ohio. I'm not familiar with Glee, though, I'll have to do a search for that program.

Awesome! I think my favorite concert.... was Journey, because I think Journey my favorite "any mood" band. It's hard for me not to crack a smile when I hear some of their music This one got me through some of the rougher patches in my military career. But this song ain't how I'm feeling at the moment. There are so many people chirping such a variety of different things about our current situation; I think I feel..... pensive, contemplative. My music for that mood sounds more like:

Alright, I put three bands on there, and if I'm not mistaken, MTL is an abbreviation for Montreal. Also, if I'm not mistaken, all of these bands have played there. So, let's see if I can take an educated guess. I don't see you going to an Alice In Chains concert. I mean no offense at all, I just don't see you as an AIC fan. So, that whittles it down to Depeche Mode and The Cure. I could see you at a Cure concert, but my gut tells me you're talking about Depeche Mode. Correct?

I'm going a little stir crazy. Normally, by this time of the year, I have my son's rockhounding sector of the sand pit zone in the backyard nicely raked out. I don't need him to follow in my footsteps, but I want him to have the opportunities I had, so I'll hide minerals and arrow heads and stuff in the sandy area of my backyard. When I was my son's age, dad would plow a few acres for corn, and have me go out to look for worms to fish later that evening. I've never enjoyed fishing that much, but I found a few arrowheads and a small quartz, and that sparked off all types of things for me. It got me interested in geology, gemology, Ohio history, Native Americans, my own family tree ( because my family is part Sioux). So, I want my son to have the same opportunity to enjoy the sun and discovery and learning and stuff that I did. So, I walked outside today to contemplate how much longer we should practice isolation and all this lovely stuff, and I discovered that my neighbors on the northwest edge of my property were playing cornhole; like a dozen of them. I can't see my neighbors in the south, but you know how sound and scent travels through a valley; I smelled barbecue and heard Skynyrd, which means a few kegs are soon to arrive. Now, there are no reported cases of Corona in my county, but I didn't expect this . I expected people to slowly, cautiously emerge; like prairie dogs emerging after a predator attack. I think it's far too soon just to kick things back into full swing. That makes me feel a whole menagerie of things, but no emotion any stronger than any other, so I don't have an exact term for it. I have a few songs for when I'm in a mood like this; I can't say they compliment or are even because of my mood; it's just what I listen to.

As far as New World, it looks like a contender for the league's "next game"

Yup, two very different games. And yes, it's from 2014; the developer built every asset himself rather than flipping assets. Red's upgrading the engine to Unity as we speak.

With Google Earth VR, who would need video games...... hmm, personally, one; Rising World. With Google Earth VR, I can revisit my childhood home, but that's where it ends. With Rising World, I can recreate my childhood home, walk in it, walk to mom and dad's fridge, have a beef steak, go to my old room, sit in my old chair. My old room had things that Rising World doesn't currently have; lava lamps, a few guitars. However, I can build something that looks like a lava lamp or a guitar, I just can't actually turn it on or pick the guitar up. Or, I could find pictures of my old lava lamp and guitar and paste them in the game. Now, with Google Earth and Rising World, I don't see me playing anything until Cyberpunk 2077. And to be honest, the only reason why I'm getting that is because 1) We don't have scifi/cyberpunk types of buildings yet (though we do have neon lights) , 2) I'm a huge Keanu fan, and 3) I love dystopian Blade Runner types of cities. But games in general, I'm getting tired of. Witcher 3; I love it. I can recreate the cities in The Witcher, but the downside is we don't have magic, mini games like Gwent, and any npc I place will currently just walk around aimlessly like a sheep. And obviously, I don't have dialogue options. But the thing is, while I can help shape Geralt's story, it's still Geralt's story. With Rising World, it's my story. With an almost infinite landscape, I can have a million stories, a million buildings, a million lands. There's only two real areas where some people dislike. 1) If you build, let's say a watermelon farm, and place an npc in it, he won't actually farm or interact with your home. But this, to me, is part of the magic, because I can roleplay as him, as well as every other occupant of that house, as well as all homes. This is why Rising World takes a vivid imagination. And 2) An altered landscape will keep it's original temperature. So, if you take a snow biome and change it to a beach resort, you still need your cold weather gear when going outside. Anyway, this is how I'm spending some of my excess time; using Google Earth to revisit favorite places of my youth, then building them in Rising World and creating new adventures there.

Ok, I must have a truly disgusting palate, because I was legit excited for a poutine cake. I was looking at it, thinking "man, I hope that has like a raspberry/Italian sausage filling". Heaven help me.

I saw some blurb in a forum about Google Earth VR. I don't have VR, but I decided to check out Google Earth. I was skeptical about how detailed it was going to be, until I googled my own house. And then it dawned on my to Google my favorite stomping grounds in the U.S.; Oceanside CA. Good Lord, man, it was all right there; the walking trail we took from the base to the beach, my favorite bar, the parlor where I got my first tattoo, the Rotary Park steps Monington almost tripped down one day; all of it, just as I remembered. For a few minutes there, it was like 20 years were lifted off the ole odometer. So, if I can't go to Myrtle Beach this summer, at least I can look at it and daydream a little

Traffic hasn't changed much in my city, but that's because we never have traffic. As far as kapsalon, good lord, man, that sounds like it would sit on your gut like a brick.

I think everything's going to be ok, if we follow protocols, use common sense, and keep a level head. Yeah, these are freaky times, but when, in the last 40 years, haven't times been freaky somehow (being only 40, I can't speak from first-hand experience any further back than that)? Let's see, in the late 80s, Greg Louganis cracked his head on the diving board at the Olympics, and everyone freaked out about Aids, like it was a Hollywood monster, lurking in the shadows. Hell, it could even get you while you sat on the toilet! In the early 90s, there was that panic about the tainted cigarettes; the ones that were supposedly pink-tinged in the filters. And then, school made it sound like MDMA was going to kill my whole generation. After that, kids dressed in trench coats shot the hell out of their highschool. And then , there was the dreaded Y2K bug that was going to destroy all computers and send us back to the stone age. I was in the military when 9-11 happened, but I'm sure it was as scary for some of you as it was me. Bird flu, swine flu, Lyme from mosquitoes,flue period. Ya know, if I made this rhyme, I could do a "We didn't start the fire; part 2". I am making fun of nothing, nor am I making light of nothing. However, my friends, looking back at the history of crud, I have a strong feeling that we shall persevere. In regular, non-Covid news, I've had my first Miller High Life in.....dang, almost 20 years. I'm not saying I haven't drank since then, not just Miller High Life. In fact, it was right around this time, in 2002, when I had my last one. I remember being stationed at Camp Pendleton, sitting around a camp fire on the beach in Oceanside, CA, a local telling us that Layne Staley had just been found dead. I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer; my point is: isn't it funny how a song or a smell or a beverage you haven't had in forever can instantly reverse the clock, and you're flooded with memories hanging in the air so thick that you can almost cut them with a knife? In parent news, this one might get a smile out of you. I have a 4 year old son; Connor Jacob. He refers to himself as C.J, rather than Connor. So, I asked him if he'd like his name changed. "yeah". Alright; Cherry Jellybean? "No". Cold Jalapeno? "gross" Cereal Jeep? "No." Chalupa Jagermeister? "Awesome!!!" Lol, Chalupa Jagermeister is the name he wants......good lord, that is a true-blooded mini Gilberticus right there

Gotta love family vacation If you're going to the beach, don't forget to keep your eyes open. So many treasures lay right at peoples' feet, and they don't pay attention. This little beauty was laying right on the beach, and no one even gave it a second glance. I turned to some guy and said "you see that?", to which he replied "you don't have dog turds where you're from?" It's not a dog turd, it's an agatized Tampa Bay coral. Just right there on the beach, man!

Yeah, Wolcen is disgusting. I knew it wouldn't be exactly the same game as I bought, being that it switched companies, but I wasn't expecting this turd. I could even handle it, in it's fecal state, if it wouldn't also be so laden with bugs. They have had years to test this thing, man. Such a waste.

I certainly did, and I'm very happy that I could be a source of inspiration.