Scattershot

Come with me on a wander through some items related only by the virtue that they sprang from my head.

I awoke from a dream in which I was in a relationship with Claudia Black. Or maybe it was her character Vala Mal Doran. I don’t have a Claudia Black thing going on, but I had been watching the last season of Stargate SG-1 recently. It was one of those dreams with compressed time and a lot of ground was covered. In the end things didn’t work out and we were both unhappy. I woke up feeling genuinely down about the whole thing. I tried to find a message in it. Maybe she reminds me of someone.

I think I have too many apps on my iPad. Like over 150. I had this feeling the other day like I was at a bar staring down a trail of shot glasses that ended at my hand, like I might have a problem. If something I might like is 99 cents, I buy it without question, archiving it for later. With physical objects and media, I keep it spartan, but with the digital I am a pack rat. If there were a show called CyberHoarders, I would be on it. I have a little black box with a million worlds on it.

Since I don’t track the passage of time well, I have a suite of reminders on my phone and computer which tell me when to do things. Routines can be good right? But sometimes they seem like fences or mile markers. Hedges around my life or notches measuring the remainder of it.

Here is what I can’t forget to do:
1. Clean out the litter box (every 3 days)
2. Administer nasal sprays (twice a day, 1 dose followed by another 30 minutes later)
3. Clean out the Roomba (twice a week)
4. Take a 1 minute exercise break (every hour)
5. Go to Boards ‘n Brews (every Tuesday night)
6. Write a blog post (every Saturday)

I guess that isn’t too bad. I wish it also said 7. Make-out session (every…week?)

As I was doing some prep work for the components for the Dune game, I realized something that could be designed differently. The original game has a disc for each of the characters. Why a disc? So it can fit in the disc-shaped slot in the combat wheel. But why do it that way? Why not just put them on a card instead? You can put your card face down to keep it secret. And why do you even need this huge combat wheel? Why not a card-sized wheel like the life counters in Magic? So now you can just hold a hand of cards: your leader, your Treachery cards, and your combat wheel card. There is something neat about the discs and putting them in that slot, but when you take a step back it is really a bit convoluted and unnecessary.

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