Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks! On April 13th of 2014, we recorded the very first episode of AggroChat so last night the stars aligned just perfectly for us to be recording on our ten-year anniversary. We start the show by discussing a few different AFK games, namely Gnorp Apologue and AFK Journey. From there Bel talks a bit about the new Fallout TV Series and how it nails the setting and tone of the game. Kodra and Thalen talk a bit about the latest Bluey episode Ghostbasket. Kodra and Tam discuss their experiences playing together in Helldivers 2 and then Kodra and Bel talk some more about the Path of Exile Necropolis League.
Good Morning Folks! Today is the very first day of Blaugust 2023. I had some concerns going into this year, to be honest, because so much of this event spread through the use of Twitter as a platform. This year represents the first Blaugust when I am actively avoiding that platform, so I was a bit concerned if things would coalesce in the same manner as they have in past years. That said I was also excited to see what a Mastodon/Fediverse Blaugust would end up looking like. I know when I stopped syndicating to Twitter, I didn’t really see much drop in readership and in fact, I saw way more engagement from the Fediverse community as a whole. Just to add more things into the mix, this is the tenth year of Blaugust so I wanted this year to feel vibrant and alive.
At the time of writing this post, we have over eighty participant blogs. Knowing that there will be folks that sign up during the process, I think this year might be our most active yet. What has been super interesting is how many of the usual suspects have returned, while also the Fediverse has served as a hotbed for drawing new folks into the fold. I have been so proud of how this event has spread into new corners of the internet. It doesn’t necessarily shock me, because while I am following a bunch of folks that I knew on Twitter as they have moved to the Fediverse, I have also branched out and met a ton of awesome people that for some reason our paths never really crossed before now. So I think the thing I am most proud of is how many first-time Blaugustans we have:
At the time of writing this post, we have THIRTY-FIVE folks who have never participated with their blog in a Blaugust event before. That feels massive. I am legitimately uncertain if we have ever had that many first-timers before apart from of course the very first year. Many of these folks are not necessarily first-time bloggers mind you, but again for whatever reason our paths never crossed before the break up of Twitter. I thought decoupling ourselves from Twitter might have harmed the event, but everyone spreading out to different platforms of choice… seems to have actually spread the concept considerably.
The last decade of Blaugust has been littered with many “why didn’t I do that sooner” moments. This year’s version of this is the fact that never in the past have I ever created a dedicated account for Blaugust. The timing is purely selfish because I am now helping to Admin Gamepad.club, it was very easy for me to just set up an account there. The theory being I could use it to boost all of the posts that use the hashtag, and then keep my own account as something a bit less spammy. I should have done this years ago on Twitter because it is really nice to have a single account that is focused on the event rather than having things get lost in the mix of my random posts. While not everyone uses Mastodon or the Fediverse in general, it does give me a relatively nice way to keep an easily consumable thread that is entirely focused on Blaugust content.
It has had the unintended consequence of prompting a number of folks to either set up brand new accounts on Gamepad or migrate there. Which admittedly is cool and only serves to make our local feed a bit richer, but is more a side benefit rather than the goal. For the folks that call BlueSky their home, I have also created a Blaugust Posts feed that is published through Skyfeed and should allow you to keep tabs on any posts that are made over there. Since accounts are at a premium on that network, I figured it was probably a bit wasteful to set up what is effectively a Blaugust bot over there. The folks who are still syndicating to Twitter can always be found at the #Blaugust2023 hashtag as well. Threads is unfortunately a bit wonky and does not appear to have functional hashtags so I have no clue how any of the stuff on that platform functions, though I am sure folks will be syndicating there as well.
The Blaugust Discord has also seen a flurry of activity as new folks sign up and join in the conversation. This was still one of the best decisions made in the past, to branch out and start a Discord to support the event. What it has done more than anything is kept the spirit of the event alive all year round. While I often struggle to keep up with Discord, I view it as an invaluable part of this process because it allows for some side discussions to take place that maybe don’t quite elevate to the level of actually writing a proper blog post. It also serves as a platform to ask questions and address concerns. Legitimately when I started this madness a decade ago, I never thought it would turn into this thriving community. I want to thank everyone who has ever participated in this event in the past because you have become part of this great tapestry.
Lastly… August 1st is a pretty special date for me independent of Blaugust. Twenty-Five years ago today I married my spouse, who has hosted her own version of Blaugust for many years in the Math Blogosphere. It floors me that we’ve been together Twenty-Seven years and married Twenty-Five of those. As a result of the anniversary, I may not be paying super attention to Blaugust happenings today, but thankfully I have built this machine that sort of runs itself. Huge thanks to all of the Mentors who have always been more than happy enough to step in when I am not paying attention. Thanks to everyone for keeping this event alive, and I wish you all a happy and productive Blaugust!
Good Morning Friends! This year I have been more than a little bit scatterbrained and unfocused. As a result, many things have slipped… not the least of which is realizing that it is apparently anniversary time. For whatever reason I tend to start a lot of things in April and both the anniversary of Tales of the Aggronaut (April 17th, 2009) and our AggroChat Podcast (April 13th, 2014) landed this month. Then there was April 26th of 2013 when I started what I called the “Grand Experiment” of forcing myself to blog every single day which lasted a little over three years before landing on something more manageable of “every weekday unless I really don’t feel like it”. You could say that this also ultimately led to the creation of Blaugust because I personally found a lot of success in forcing myself to blog damn the torpedos.
In the grand scheme of things the key to longevity for me, was to shift my focus of this blog as a vehicle for some specific planned idea… and instead just make it about whatever I happened to want to be talking about at the time. This is my blog… the Bel does dumb nonsense blog… and if you are along for the ride awesome. If this is not your jam, that is also awesome because I realize I am very much an acquired taste. I don’t have an overwhelming number of readers to be honest, but the ones I do have… end up being exceptionally loyal. Most of them are people that I legitimately consider friends… which is why in part the whole recent verbiage of “Good Morning Friends” is not inherently dishonest. I realize I am mostly talking to a circle of friends that occasionally has some rando stumble into that conversation. The thing is… those randos are also more than welcome to hang out and become friends too.
When I post on social media that I am not making a post for a given day… it isn’t out of some ego trip because I know the world continues to tick along just fine if I have not extruded words. I do it because in the past when I have skipped a day… I had a lot of folks checking in on me to make sure I am okay. I do it out of a sense of not wanting to make this community of friends that read my ramblings worry about me. Honestly, my favorite part about joining the Fediverse and leaving Twitter has been just how many new faces I have seen join the ranks of people who appear to be consuming my nonsense each day. I want you all to feel welcome, but also I am still mostly writing these posts like I am talking to myself so… sorry for not being more interesting.
So if you have been reading my blog for a bit, you will probably be familiar with Tripod… the admittedly horribly named three-legged feral calico cat that lives in our backyard. I’ve not talked about this situation lately because it honestly really depressed me. Roughly a month ago… two dogs got into our yard under the front fence and seemingly chased her off. We’ve been watching anxiously hoping for any signs of her, checking the video camera feeds multiple times per day hoping for a glimpse of her. We were starting to worry that something had happened to her. The next-door neighbor saw the dogs chasing her, but also that she got away from them and they did not follow. However, we’ve learned from experience in the past with other backyard ferals… that when they disappear they are often gone permanently.
However last night while my wife was sitting on the back patio reading, she showed back up. I went out and put some food out but she was too skittish to come over and eat. My hope is that once my wife went inside she fed, though I did not notice her on the camera. That said she is also pretty damned good at avoiding detection algorithms. This morning she was milling around the little house we have in the backyard for her, so my hope is she spent the night there. When I go out to feed in a few minutes I am hoping that she comes out and eats. I mean it isn’t like she is defenseless and I am certain that she is more than capable of catching a meal… but she also looks way thinner than when we last saw her. I cannot explain fully what a gift it is to see her again because we were overwhelmed with concern for the last several weeks. So much so that I just could not bring myself to write about it.
In other nighttime visitor news… we have a few adorable Raccoons and at least one very chubby Possum that come by. I really should start uploading to Catfriend Television again, my dumb YouTube channel that I started during the pandemic where I uploaded clips from our security cameras of cats and other visitors. There is one video clip that I have somewhere that shows two raccoons up on the porch, and another few waiting in the wings on the sidewalk. I feel like some people would have a drastically different reaction than I do… but so long as they are not causing a mess I am more than happy to have them visiting. When I was a Scout camp counselor, I remember some raccoons getting into my igloo cooler and stealing my dry Gatorade powder. Maybe I should put some out for them and see if this group likes that too. I know it was a raccoon because there were sticky red paw prints leading out of my tent.
Lastly, I recorded another one of my dumb videos yesterday. I have been running up an alt in Path of Exile and was amused at just how easily Toxic Rain Ballista/Caustic Arrow deletes mobs. I was talking to my friend Ace about it and decided to record a video showing it off. Granted this is just the campaign and I have no idea if this will continue into mapping… but I am probably going to do a follow-up video once I have verified that it still remains good. Like always I mostly record these for me, or for some other purpose than to ever get YouTube viewers. I enjoy making these short dumb videos, and just like with my blog… am perfectly fine if no one actually consumes them.
Anyways! I am officially in my fifteenth year with this blog and I just want to thank you all for following me on this journey. At this point, daily blogging is so ingrained in my person that I am pretty sure I will be doing this 25 years from now as well. The slow death of social media has only served to drive home just how important it is to me to have a place on the internet that I can call entirely my own.
Last night we got the folks together to record the fourth AggroChat game club show, this time devoted to Tamrielo’s pick. Shadowrun: Dragonfall is the second game in the Shadowrun: Returns series from the wildly successful kickstarter process. While the first game focused mostly on getting the engine correct, this game focuses more on weaving an interesting narrative in the Shadowrun setting. In tonights show we delve deep into the game and talk about the various choices we made while playing it. Please be warned this is a full spoiler show, and we will talk about some of the plot twists and the alternate choice paths that you can make in the game. I highly suggest that if you intend to play this game, that you revisit this show after doing so as not to spoil any of the content.
This title is auspicious for various reasons, primarily because it is the first title that everyone joining in the show either beat or came extremely close to beating it. Kodra and I started recording tonight and during the course of the show actually defeated it. Ash however is in the final stretch making him only about thirty minutes away. The other extremely unique thing about this game is it is quite literally the first game we have played that we all were able to give a big thumbs up to. Join us next month for Kodra’s title as well called There Came an Echo, which is a voice controlled real time strategy game… that is certain to lead to some strange conversations. Additionally if you played Shadowrun: Dragonfall along with us, please head over to AggroChat.com and drop the team a line with what you thought about the game.
Nineteen Years
It was roughly nineteen years ago yesterday that my wife and I first got together as a couple. In truth we use May 30th as a close approximation of our “dating anniversary” because honestly neither of us really know the EXACT date. For the most part we consider it to be the more important anniversary and try and at least acknowledge it every year. We are not big into gifts and never really have been. We tend to label things we were already going to get as “anniversary gifts” after the fact. Like apparently the wooden rocking chair I got my wife awhile back is her anniversary gift, and according to my wife my new SUV and the used iPad 2 I will be getting Monday is my gift. It seems like I made out like a bandit until you learn how we spent our anniversary.
Friday was the last day with kids for my wife and thus begins the yearly ritual of packing up her room. This year however it is a bit more stressful for her because she is having to entirely vacate her cubical. When they moved into the building they created this “collaboration room” for the teachers, and set it up in quite possibly the least collaborative method known to man… the office cube farm. This summer however it seems like they finally got the memo and are going to tear down the cube farm and replace it with a much more open shared workspace. That said she has to completely move out of both her own personal cube and another cube for a program she manages. So yesterday I spent my anniversary packing up these cubes in boxes and moving them as she worked on packing away stuff in her classroom. It is not the most glamorous anniversary in the world but it was me helping her be less stressed so I think in the grand scheme of things it was a win.
End of School Stress
There are times in life when I have to fight my nature. I tend to be fairly protective of my friends and family, and I especially feel protective of my wife. She is a strong badass of a woman, who does not need me to fight her battles for her… but there are occasions when that instinct still kicks in. Part of the reason she is so damned stressed right now revolves around an event that happened Friday night. She is a rockstar of a teacher, and I mean that in every sense of the word. She will fight for these kids and bend over backwards to try and make sure they are doing whatever they need to be doing. This week was one of those cases where she bent over backwards to try and make sure one of her students was doing what they needed to be doing. The problem being this isn’t always appreciated and sometimes misguided parents can add to her stress level.
It is extremely hard for me to see her in the frustrated state she was in Friday. Every fiber of my being wants to protect her from the people who were stressing her out. Thankfully school is over and due to the extremely supportive administration things will work themselves out. But for the time being she has been wrestling with whether she did the right thing, or enough to help her students. For this reason and many others I am happy to help her try and at least get one stress out of the way. I know I would not be half the teacher she is, because quite frankly if I had to deal with half of the things she suffers with a smile… I would have gone postal a long time ago. She however has a level of dedication that can only be admired and respected. So I spent our anniversary packing up boxes, moving file folders, and moving it around the building. It might not be a glamorous chain of events, but if it lightened her burden then I think it was a successful way to spend our day.
