flesh, blood, turkey, & bluesky.

friday, november 29th, 2024.

It's the day after Thanksgiving, I've gotten a cold, and I'm hanging out at a hotel in Florida while my wife, kiddo, and father-in-law hang out so they don't catch it. We drove down here Wednesday— the traffic wasn't too bad, although we did hit an hour-long delay on I-75. Considering that it was the day before Thanksgiving, that's certainly not the worst trip we could've had!

A screenshot of my Bluesky profile.

Earlier this month, I caved and signed up for a Bluesky account. I used to have an account or two on Mastodon, but the servers I participated in were either "keep up with the artistic Joneses" or incredibly pessimistic with regards to politics and the state of the world. Which— I get, but wallowing in negativity isn't great for your mental health. I also wanted to exist outside the world of programming 6502 assembly and "making neat stuff" all the time.

I'm pleased as punch to say that Bluesky, in its current VC-funded state, is a breath of fresh air in that regard. It's okay to just exist there without always making stuff. You can also create and follow custom feeds so that you don't have to drink from the political firehose if that's not your bag. I'm personally enjoying the Flesh & Blood and retrogaming feeds quite a bit!

It's also really nice to have a bunch of folks I actually know on my follow list there! I've got a few friends I know from the local Flesh & Blood community plus some Internet friends from Discord. :)

thanksgiving visit.

I did get to spend some time with my wife and father-in-law yesterday before these cold symptoms set in! We brought some casseroles in a cooler and he cooked a turkey in the oven. It was a lovely time and my wife was certainly thankful that we were able to make it down to see him.

My wife and their dad pulling into the driveway on his motorcycle.

My father-in-law's roommate suggested that they ask him to take 'em for a spin around the neighborhood on his motorcycle. He had a big ol' grin on his face with the little one riding around. We got plenty of pictures— that's a memory we'll want to hold onto!

flesh & blood.

Playing my Nuu Blitz deck against my wife's Verdance.

We've played three games of Flesh & Blood thus far on our stay here in Florida. I've pushed and pulled my Blitz Nuu deck a little bit to give it a little more control of my opponent's banish zone and I'm happy to say that it's doing a little better these days. I won two of the three games we played! :^)

I wound up snagging a copy of Flick Knives for $15 before the prices jumped up due to the reveal of the heroes in the upcoming Hunted set in January. Quite a steal! I think they're going for $60-80 right now. I've also put in some copies of Gravekeeping and Intimate Inducement, the latter of which plays well with Nuu's ability for Stealth attacks to banish cards that defend against them. My deck is turning into a bit of a mill machine, sending all those cards to the banish zone!

Here's my current decklist for Nuu in Blitz format:

Arena cards

Deck cards

I'm expecting a copy of Mask of Recurring Nightmares in the mail, which'll really help me be a disruptive problem at our regular Blitz Armory events at my local shop.

otherwise.

Playing Dragon Quest V in the car.

Other than that, I've been playing a lot of Dragon Quest V on vacation. It's a very cozy little Super Nintendo RPG that didn't make it stateside until it was re-released on the Nintendo DS. Thank goodness for fan translations! It reminds me a lot of the earlier Dragon Warrior games on the NES— a little grindy with a simplistic story, but that formula is the video game equivalent of a comfort food. It's the perfect thing to play when you've come down with a cold in a hotel room!

I'm going to go microwave a bowl of curry chicken for lunch and get my R&R on. Happy Thanksgiving and be well, y'all! :)