Square-Enix Sells some IP

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I guess we’re simply in that age where there’s little ground in the middle for game development. Either you’re indie or you’re AAA. Reports of Square Enix of selling a rather large IP portfolio are going around, including Tomb Raider, Deux Ex, Hitman, and Thief. Embracer bought this package, for a relatively low price of $300m… low when you recall they bought Gearbox (Borderlands) for $1b.

What doesn’t appear included are the Marvel licensed games, either Guardians of the Galaxy (which was well reviewed and sold decently, but “missed targets”) or Marvel Avengers (which was neither well received nor sold well). That honestly makes sense, as there’s no way Disney (which certainly puts the Kingdom Hearts cross-over under new light) was going to give any sort of control to SE to decide where that went. Perhaps this is similar to Telltale Games and their over-paying for IP vs. the projected returns.

Of note, Tomb Raider and Deus Ex also didn’t hit sales targets. Tomb Raider has sold nearly 20m copies… so maybe I’m just bad at math that this isn’t good?

All of these seems to be couched in SE wanting to invest in: blockchain, AI, and cloud. I’ll break these into smaller pieces.

  • Cloud. I gravitate towards Stadia in terms of cloud-streaming games. This is the logical end point of gaming, but we are still a good 10 years away and limited by the speed of light. It would make no sense for SE to invest in a cloud distribution model… that is entirely saturated by Steam and EGS.
  • AI. This does have appeal in terms of enemy AI, or in procedurally generated content as a response to player actions. There are many patents in the works for this, though I would expect EA to take lead here. (There’s a foreboding aspect of training AI in combat simulators, no?)
  • Blockchain, which in this case is almost exclusively in the leverage of NFTs. See, the concept of NFT is that you can prove ownership of a unique item, but the reality is that it’s a massive scam with dozens of examples that point towards a modern ponzi scheme.

This isn’t a SE obituary, more like a divestment of western games from their repertoire. All we’re going to see now are the RPG franchises we’ve seen so far… Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Star Ocean, Kingdom Hearts. Or perhaps, they are going to change their accounting team math, so that investments and projected returns are closer to reality.

Odd way to start the week.

Lego Star Wars

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2005. That’s when the first one came out and pretty much blew my mind as to how Lego may actually be cool again. It it the right blend of action, humor and nostalgia… and the timing was right before Episode 3 was released to cinemas. It effectively created an entire genre, which is astounding when you stop to think about it.

Over the years I’ve picked up various iterations of these Lego games. Batman, Marvel, Harry Potter, LotR among them. I completed each one’s main story without fault, and spent some minor amount of time collecting the extra bricks along the way. Yet, the only one that ever hit 100% was the Original Trilogy version. There’s a rather laser focus in that series, where nearly all the levels are linear, and the options while wide, are still limited. Unlocking more red bricks to add larger stud multipliers still feels like a gold rush. Just had the right amount of dopamine hits. Games since then have opted to go wider, notably the Harry Potter and Marvel games. It just feels like a never ending amount of content, and frankly gimmicky efforts to get any extra collectables. Tedious.

The Skywalker Saga has been out a few weeks now. I picked it up and have played some with the kids, some alone. It’s hard to explain how much I have the original trilogy’s layout tattooed in my memory. I could probably play it blindfolded. This version is the same story, but told in an entirely different method, with voice acting throughout (no more gibberish!).

Most notably, the camera is no longer fixed, so you’re in a fully 3D world now.. It sounds relatively minor, but it really changes the approach to level design. Plus the improved graphics make the gameplay the same quality as the cutscenes… it’s quite impressive. The older versions had a diorama-type layout, with relatively linear and contained environments. This isn’t open world in the typical sense, but much more fluid. As a result of this, there are many fewer vehicle-based quests as they were meant to give the semblance of “bigger” – I am rather happy with this change.

Second, the character differences are dramatically shrunk here. Force users, mechs, bounty hunters, stormtroopers, and scavengers are the only types now. Flyers, double jumpers and other niche skills are no longer present. Well, that’s not entirely true… as there’s now dialogue/quest options that require characters of a given faction to trigger. The net result is that there are simply more viable characters to play with, and once you complete the main game, pretty much 100% of the rest of the game is open to explore. – This is a big QoL change as it removes a lot of tedium.

The world itself no longer has a single central hub, and instead covers 24 planets related to the 9 episodes. Each planet has its own hub and space sector, which lead into the various story arcs. The hubs themselves are full of things to collect – bricks, characters, ships. Either you get it outright, or need to complete a small quest. Space is also pretty neat, you can eventually fight/capture capital ships in neat small activity. – This feels like bloat, in the same vein as Ubisoft add map icons to fill time. It’s a good hour+ per hub.

Which brings me to the last change, which is the introductions of quests. They could be very small things, like ride a Gonk 10 feet to a platform. There are medium ones that are on the same planet, or in the adjoining space. Then there are the long ones, which require visiting multiple planets, or going through a few space battles to the next bit. – I generally dislike this change as a completionist. It’s just not possible to 100% any specific zone until you pretty much hit 50% on every other one… this likely won’t bother most people.

In the end, I still think that the Original Trilogy version is the best of the bunch, primarily because of the very focused design. The Skywalker Saga fits just under that, primarily for the QoL changes brought about, but suffers from the sprawl … which is sort of understandable when you’re covering 9 movies. In that context, it’s a generational leap for the platform, and a good foundation for anything else that comes in the future. Very impressive.

Supply Management Systems

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Supply chains are notoriously complex, but fundamentally a simple thing. People make things, people buy those those things. The people orchestrating the sale want to find a price that meets their operational costs, and people buying things want to find value. Both need information in order to make those decisions. It’s why there are grocery flyers right? Find the best deal on canned soup and whatnot.

In the larger sense, most large scale retailers dominate the sales market and can both set and negotiate better supply prices. COSTCO and WalMart operate with this model… they will just buy all your stock but pay you half price for it.

Supply Management Systems start at the bottom of the pole, with a laser focus on raw goods. They have a few purposes:

  • protect the market from wild price fluctuations
  • give the producers some semblance of guaranteed income and an effective quality floor
  • give buyers an effective “floor” for the lowest price and assurance on quality
  • proposes protections to the national market from external “flooding”, typically through an import tax
  • supports the internal development of new products

Canada has supply management on major agricultural goods – grain, eggs, milk. This means that all large size eggs are bought from suppliers at the same price. There’s been a bun fight for quite a few years about the dairy market, as it hasn’t been as flexible as it could have been. There are specific types of cheeses that simply are not made in Canada and the import fees make it so that we likely never will see them from other countries.

If you’re a consumer, this can be seen as a bad thing as there’s less variety and you are “technically” paying more for the product as no one can undercut. The problem here is that of personal bias. You getting the cheapest possible eggs means that it’s a race to the bottom for the farmers to cut every corner possible to beat the next guy, or just close up shop. You may win, but the farmers lose and eventually there just aren’t remotely enough farmers left.

Second, is the protections it provides to a national economy. Dairy is a great example. Wisconsin, a single state in the US, produces 50% more dairy than all of Canada combined. Wisconsin doesn’t have supply management, and the farmers there are over-producing dairy, to the point of dumping stock. (They are subsidized, so it actually costs less to pump and dump the milk than to produce less milk.) Without a supply management system in Canada, they would flood the entire market are put most of our farmers out of a job… or force the government to subsidize equally.

Subsidization is an interesting topic in itself. The US subsidizes nearly everything because it’s functionally easier to control at a global scale as compared to import taxes, and can be done at the state level.

The best global example is crude oil, which is traded globally. In the US and Canada, we are both nearly self-sufficient in production, marginally in refinement. The lack of a supply management board (and the extreme power of OPEC) means that it makes no sense to sell locally when you can sell internationally at 4x the rate. If you’re wondering why the war in Ukraine impacts your gas prices, it’s because oil prices are “managed” internationally instead of nationally. Capitalism dictates that companies maximize profits over all else…they could sell it locally but that would be a significant loss if they instead sold it on the global market.

As with most things today, complex systems are reduced to soundbites. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the topic, and there are certainly multiple improvements that could be applied to the systems. Fun times.

The Netflix Dilemma

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In some news circles, it came to note that Netflix lost subscribers for the first time in 10 years, and that their stock value dropped ~20%. In addition, they are looking at cracking down on password sharing (making the plans “household” rather than “family”) and examining a pricing tier supported by ads. These are interesting business aspects of a company that feels obligated to their shareholders to maximize growth and profits.

Streaming has existed since the days of Napster. People wanted content on demand and without commercials. Pirating was simply a necessary hassle to get there. Steam figured this out a long while ago. Netflix read those tea leaves quite well and offered a price-attractive option…

I’m old enough to recall, and have used, Netflix’s mail order system. I was there at the dawn of streaming. The pickings were slim at best, with maybe 4-5 things you’d actually heard of available. Time went on and Netflix dominated the scene with some rather impressive network routing choices to make sure the streaming experience was positive. The catalogue expanded to have more options of both familiar TV favorites and a decent selection of major films. Then they opted to develop their own series (Orange is the New Black), or pick up some stragglers that had niche appeal (Black Mirror). While binge watching was possible before with a DVD set, you could really binge an entire series with a couple clicks.

And then some interesting bits started happening. Series that garnered larger appeal were cancelled within a week of launch, effectively making a season a pilot episode (quick, name me 3 series cancelled on any other streaming service). The user interface simplified the voting process to thumbs up only (a precursor to YouTube’s removal of the downvote I suppose). The prior historical selection was picked up by other streamers – the loss of Friends was very noticeable. New offerings were thinning out, or perhaps becoming more global in appeal. Other streaming services came about and offered objectively great content. Heck, Disney+ was driven almost entirely on the Mandalorian, and The Boys drove a ton of folks to Amazon. The ground shifted subtly over time. Netflix no longer was the only fish in the sea, and the idea of simply gobbling up all the possible content wasn’t really much of a viable strategy.

These changes cost money, and if you’re not able to get more people into the system, then you need to charge existing people more. The average annual price increase has been 5%, over 10 years. It’s still less than $20 a month, which is a fraction of the cost of cable. Yet, it’s also competing for eyeballs and pocket change from a half dozen other streaming services. Which brings us back full circle to the cable days of paying out the nose for the odd chance something good is on.

Netflix is at an interesting crossroad. They are still the pack leader, at least in the global sense. If they veer one way, it gives an easy out for other streamers to follow. Losing subscribers means losing a fair chunk of revenue, let alone shareholder ire. Choices are present to either stem the losses, or find a way to reverse course. Yet Netflix is not operating in the same space they were 10 years ago, or even 5. Netflix doesn’t have a flagship product (Stanger Things may cause a bump, then a drop)… and folks know that they can easily cancel and return if something does show up. They had managed to build a brand loyalty, where consumers had a hope that something new was coming around the corner, or that a series would continue in a little bit if they just stuck around. Years of that was investment has been lost, and I can’t think of any example where that was successfully recovered.

The choice appears to be how best to survive, and nearly all of the options are going to sting.

Return to Dyson Sphere Program

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Steam has me clocked at a few hundred hours on this game, across multiple playthroughs. Probably the game with the most time outside of an MMO. I took a break after that, given that it was (and still is) in Early Access. There is a veritable sea of garbage games in Early Access… Dyson Sphere Program is an absolute gem.

Since the last time I played the game has added:

  • Improved blueprints (my last playthrough had blueprints, but they were still quite wonky)
  • Way more variety in terms of planets / systems.
  • Ability to customize the mecha (Syp could probably spend days in this thing)
  • Pilers to stack items on belts
  • Improved belt controls and warning systems when things stop working (supply chains that are 9 steps long are insanely complex to troubleshoot)
  • Proliferators, which allow for a boost to productivity for a material/energy cost
  • A rather astounding amount of bug fixes/optimization so that your CPU doesn’t melt.
  • A new Dyson Sphere construction interface
  • Achievements / milestone structure. Some of the achievements can be considered “hard mode”, which require a gas giant with fire/ice in the local system to beat the clock.

DSP is a graphical spreadsheet designed for solo play. That may not sound interesting, but if you like solving number and logistical issues, holy cow. Factorio is the gold standard in this field, but now in 3D and a much larger toybox to play in.

When I last posted about the game, I mentioned that there was a lack of clear content for the end game, as well as a significant “stall” period just prior. I would say that those issues are partially resolved, and it’s primarily related to the concept of scale.

Imagine you’re running a small bakery. It’s complicated enough, managing the ingredients coming in, the production of the goods, the building/lease, employees, and financial portions. Small business owners have it hard, because they usually need to manage it all themselves. That step to franchise or company, where you expand to more locations is where things turn sideways. You simply don’t have the time to manage the details, so you delegate and set out rules. Shortages at one store may impact the other, and so on.

DSP has this similar issue. Your starter planet has everything but Titanium, an absolutely essential component to enter the mid-game. It’s not a choice, you need to leave the planet to find it, then transport it. Technically, you could manually mine and transport, but the scale needed means you need to automate – or build another mini-bakery. You need the mining tools, smelters, power, and a transport hub.

Once that part is sorted out, you live in the mid-game, where it’s about scaling up your production lines to build more. A batch of solar sails takes 25 elements, that need to be harvested and refined a half dozen times by tools that require those same elements to construct, transport of material, and power. And you need well over 10,000 sails to “complete” the game.

The game does a great job to get you to the mid-point, then the scaling/optimization challenge really comes into focus. Finding material and the mechanisms to transport is one challenge (the materials to build a hub are not cheap), but the real kicker is powering the whole thing. Power, at scale, is dramatically improved from prior versions, yet still a massive hurdle. Prior, you were putting in piecemeal progress, adding production and then power, and then production. There are now more and better balanced options for power, and the odds of a cascade power failure are dramatically reduced.

Scaling + the QoL changes to production allow for a relatively quick view into production chain issues. If you’re not producing sails, you should be able to quickly point to where that is breaking down (like circuit boards). This smooths out the transition from mid-game to late-game and reduces the need to simply wait it out.

Late-game… this portion is not fully improved yet (well, the sphere design interface is a lot better), though there are more options with stacking and proliferating to improve the logistical capacity. You do more with less space, which is a good thing, though the power / moving stuff around issues increase exponentially. Where you’d love it to be viable for say a production planet, the reality is that it’s just not doable until you have more power than you need with a complete Dyson Sphere. Focusing on boosting research is really the only change I see right now, which is certainly of benefit, but really quite hard to fully manage.

The good thing about DSP is that it encourages experimentation, especially with the advent of blueprints and QoL design tools. It is very hard to paint yourself into a corner… you could certainly slow down progress, but to cancel it outright… I don’t quite get.

If I had recommendations it would be to reduce the cost of Energy Exchangers so that they are more accessible in the mid-game. That single change would improve the ability to move energy sources between planets at some level of scale, which is the primary cause of frustration for expansion. The time between having a working starter planet and then a minor form of production elsewhere is still too long. I’d also recommend that Planetary Logistic Stations have 6 slots of material instead of 3. In their current form, they serve zero purpose as their upgraded form (Interplanetary) has 5 slots and the ability to leave the planet, and the cost upgrades are negligible.

Without question the game is better now than it was nearly a year ago. The next big update will be a combat function, which I understand to be the last significant item before full launch. Combat will be entirely optional, so in that context, the game is about as “feature complete” as you can think if you want to avoid that piece altogether.

Chrono Cross on Switch – Quick Thoughts

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Long story short, I played a crap ton of Chrono Cross when it came out. Like 100% playthroughs multiple times type of time. The only other RPG that fits into this category is Final Fantasy 10. I take no issue with stating that I tried emulation, but the main point of issue was the video resolution issues between the gameplay and the menu… for some reason it resized and played havoc with my displays. When I learned it was coming to the Switch (other platforms too, but honestly, this is best suited to mobile space), I picked it up on launch.

At a really quick level, the game sports updated visuals that work most of the time. There’s clearly a fair chunk of AI scaling applied, which does mean some blur shows up often enough, and makes the character sprites “pop” more than I recall. You also get access to the fast forward option that only NG+ gave prior, which has a very marginal amount of use. Auto-battle is there too, but it’s not a whole lot of use because you can generally avoid fights you don’t want to pick.

At it’s core, the rest of the game is mostly untouched. The same characters, skills, balance, abilities and so on are present. This is a visual remaster, not a remake in any sense. Which brings me to a very interesting part of my experience.

It would appear that the original engine is still the foundation for the game, including visual rendering. The has an effect that there are framerate issues, if not outright stalling of the game. This typically only happens as the world transitions from map to battle, but it also happens when certain spell effects occur in battle. The net effect is that the game performs worse than the original, and absolutely worse than any emulated version I have played. It’s more than playable, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also extremely jarring.

Square-Enix has a horrendous track record when it comes to milking older games. It’s a strange path, where they are premium priced and generally perform worse than emulated versions (not to mention the recently released pixel versions CUT content previously released). Say what you will about Skyrim being on every device made, but the game works.

I’m sure there will be optimization along the path here, but this also gives a tremendous argument against Nintendo’s model for monetizing nostalgia (including their subscription service). The modding community is delivering some crazy quality and ease of use options… and if the Steam Deck or similar products can reach more of the market, that will eat into this world very quickly.

This nit picking aside, the game is still as good, and as confusing, as it was when it launched in 1999. It won’t go on sale for the Switch, nothing ever does, so maybe wait a bit until they patch in performance issues.

Guardians of Justice (2022)

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So this popped up on my Netflix feed the other day. It gave a lot of Kung Fury vibes, with a surreal take on the 80s. GoJ is that, but quite a bit more. It tries to answer the question, “what if Superman was depressed?” Or perhaps, what if superhero flaws were human?

Adi Shankar is a very particular individual. He takes mainstream ideas, and then strains them through all the tropes he can muster, turning the subject inside out.

Guardians of Justice is such an endeavour. The plot itself is a unhealthy take on the superhero genre, with an in-your-face approach to get the message across. Alan Moore runs on multiple complex levels, but the goal is deconstruction (and The Watchmen technically only has 1 superhero, everyone else is human with a fetish). There’s no subtlety here, and the mix of genres (live action, anime, CGI) help to keep it interesting. There’s something to be said about a boss battle being more like a video game than just a mush of blurry CGI.

As much as I enjoyed the 80s comic book and (heavy) social filter, the more enjoyable part was how every character has some rather massive flaws that are not plot bound but based on the character. It makes for a dark take on the “good vs bad” of the MCU, and honestly highlights the rather major flaws in that recipe. There are no giant plotholes here, no hand waving, no McGuffin to chase.

I can’t say the series is for everyone, it is not at all a pick-me-up type of story. It starts off on an incredibly dark take and just dives deeper as the story goes on. Heck, by the end you’ll wonder if there ever was a “good guy” in the entire story. Still, I’m glad that the series came out. It takes some interesting risks, and for the most part, they pay off. Well worth a binge.

Lost Ark – Part 2

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I’m far enough (?) now to have unlocked most systems, and have a few more thoughts on the game. By now I have:

  • Stronghold
  • Ship
  • Level 50
  • Item Level 460

The game has multiple phases to it. The period from start until you unlock the ship, it’s borderline Diablo. You have a ton of action skills, combat is explosive, the bosses are engaging, and there’s tons of voice acted content. A few systems are explained up til this point, but it primarily focuses on harvesting and stronghold upgrades. The stronghold is a time-gated construction bit, and still seems to serve no real purpose. Maybe for battle potions later.

When you unlock the ship, the game opens like floodgates. The rather linear map turns into a real world that you actually need to navigate. The sailing mechanics are relatively simple, and ship upgrades are meaningless (and I think impossible) until a much later point. There’s just tons of content to be had here… it’s really quite astounding. The open world areas are thematic, and while some may seem repetitive, there are others that are really well done. It’s not terribly challenging, at least for anyone with ARPG experience, so it feels a bit like fast food. Then you hit the first real content gate.

Lost Ark has item levels for the gear. By the final quest you will have a set of ilvl 302 gear, which is more than ample for all the content you just did. To access the next bit, you need to get it to ilvl460. Now, the thing about this is that increasing your level only comes from honing, or rather using material to increase your current gear. Each piece needs to be upgraded 8 times. Getting that material comes from 2 main activities – island quests or chaos dungeons. It’ll take a day or two to get it all sorted out.

I disliked this part, tremendously. Mostly because it was so jarring. While you do get your ship a lot earlier, exploring any of the islands at that time feels very disconnected from the rest of the game. Chaos dungeons are OK I guess, just a set of waves of enemies you need to clear within a timeframe. You get extra rewards twice a day, which can accumulate over time. Plus, there’s an RNG mechanic when upgrading gear – it’s possible for it to fail, moreso the higher the ilvl. This would be the long tail of the game…which seems, from Steam at least, to be less than 2% of the playerbase.

I haven’t gotten into any of the other systems or currencies in the game yet. The card decks, engravings, and stones give some flexibility or min/maxing for combat – very obtuse RNG systems that are akin to legendary farming in Diablo. There appears to be something like 100 currencies in-game, most of which are island specific. This is closer to reputation farming from MMOs, but super confusing because you’ll see a vendor and have no idea how to get any of the currency. It in turn means that over 90% of the currency is meaningless. This isn’t a complaint as much as a statement… look at WoW… how much content prior to Shadowlands is even remotely relevant today? Seems a similar thing here.

I do have 1 particular peeve with this game, and it relates to the approach to instancing and death. When you die, you can either resurrect on the spot (a plume, which are super limited, or bought in the store) or revive in town. The latter is obviously preferred. The former is an interesting decision point depending on the instance you are in… if you die, you need to restart the entire instance. It’s not like 2 minutes to get back to a corpse either, odds are it’s a major boss fight after trekking the entire instance once again. It feels a bit like raiding in an MMO where the trash instantly respawns after a death. It’s an annoyance more than much else.

I’ve got more stuff to do here no doubt. Finishing this content will give me access to the final bit of Tier 1 dungeons to get to ilvl600. Getting to ilvl 802 apparently means using the auction house…odd that bit. ilvl 960 to get to the final bit of Tier 2. Tier 3 starts at ilvl1100 and currently ends just after ilvl 1415. the moment to moment gameplay is really quite amazing. Not so sure the west is actually in the mindset for the RNG grind required for tail end progress… certainly not when my game library is overflowing. I’ll have another post up in a month to see how this plays out.

Echo Chambers & Autocracy

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I’m on record a few times now stating that social media is like a cancer. It slowly spreads itself, and unless you’re checking in, it will take over your life.

I deleted Facebook a few years ago, when my youngest was born. I still recall the reason for it, one of my friends on there was posting multiple links a day about some racist conspiracy theory. His volume was filling my feed. I talked to him about it, he was absolutely convinced about the topic and was surrounded by the digital equivalent of walls of “news” articles on the topic. Even if he tried to get out, the algorithm was feeding him more garbage. I wanted none of it, and just deleted everything.

It’s not like things have gotten better. The proliferation of mobile apps made fast food junkies out of many of us. When’s the last time anyone actually read an article that was more than a paragraph? Hell, one that covered a few pages? The pandemic on top of it has made more people turn into hermits and reach out for any type of social link. And the “system” rewards people for taking advantage of this, either with an “influencer” tag, streaming donations, or political aspirations. The more rage-inducing content they can pump out, the more the algorithm feeds eyeballs and $$$.

Tangent for a bit here. The UK election a few years ago, there was a fair amount of online weight that Corbyn was going to win against Johnson. It didn’t matter than Johnson lied profusely, it only mattered that he had sound clips. Johson beat the tar out of him, to the incredulous voices of the interwebs. The echo chamber of the online communities could not bear to hear that any other option was present. Not much different than /thedonald, where if you didn’t tow the line, you were banned. This in effect builds multiple rabbit holes that go in completely divergent paths, and the folks within are either oblivious to the other, or are mortal enemies. It will, at some point, reach enough of a fever pitch that an individual with lesser capacity, will take it as incentive to do something horrible. And then nothing will change.

Autocracies (or dictatorships) are quite similar. They focus on inner circles of sycophants (yes-men) who are only as good as long as they tow the line and say what the “leader” wants to hear. Take a different path, and you’re out on your butt. In reflection, it’s pretty clear that Trump was/is surrounded by this model and the loss of the election turned into his typical – it’s someone else’s fault. Whether he actually believes this or not isn’t relevant, it’s the impacts of that message, and the refusal to accept that a different narrative is possible. It’s created its own echo chamber.

Russia is the more recent example of this, in that Putin’s military information clearly was not accurate. We are 1 month into the invasion of Ukraine and still Russia has not taken a major city. Russia the superpower, with UN veto power, the saber rattling country that has been a boogeyman for decades. He’s been cleaning house of his advisors ever since, which makes you wonder who in their right mind would want to step into those shoes. It bears pointing that even the West has been surprised at the results of this war. Not so much how effective Ukraine has been at resisting, but at how poorly organized Russia’s machine has been. The logistical errors alone are baffling.

I’d be lying if I thought there was an obvious solution out of this. There are historical reference points, but none that can account for the speed of social media and hunger for outlets of anger. I can only help those around me by talking to them, looking at multiple sources of information, and having actual discussions over a coffee/beer. I can supervise my kids consumption, and talk with them about the reality of the content (Mr Beast is neat and all, but I have a better chance of becoming Spider-Man). I didn’t think we’d end up here so fast. Wonder how long it will last.

Getting Away

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The family took a trip last week to the Dominican Republic. I’ve been a few times now, and the kids have travelled with us as well. It’s seemingly one of the prime destinations for our spot on the globe.

It was a slightly different trip, for a multitude of reasons. Obviously, being at the tail end (?) of a global pandemic has stretched my mental state to a frayed one. It’s one of those slow scrapes, where you don’t quite realize how far along you are until you are able to take a few steps back. I had been working pretty much non-stop for 2 years and there are limits to that. Hell, I had spent weeks working out of a garage while the rest of my family was out on the water… or sitting in a church parking lot to get a decent LTE signal. I took a few days prior to rest up and close out some needed bits, and that really helped be relaxed for the trip.

Second, the DR itself has had a rough time. It is primarily run through tourism, so they’ve had a hell of a time these past few years. The sense of normal, or at least the potential for tourism to return made for a very pleasant experience. The vibe was relaxing (at least in our end) where people were just happy to be out.

Third, the kids are old enough now to not worry about so much. We still spent our time with them, but they are old enough to order a drink or get some food on their own. And young enough to spend 6 hours a day in a pool or on a beach without complaining. Not having to babysit, but instead being able to share the experience with the kids is a world of difference.

Finally, the act of travel itself and vaccinations/masks is an interesting one. Everyday more restrictions are lifted, though you can see that people are still easing into that mindset. The resort staff all had masks, but it’s hard to wear one while in a pool. The plane and airport all had mandatory masks. We did a lot of prep work (paper copies and electronic) to be sure there would be no stress… and that worked out quite well.

When we left, I had just finished snowblowing a good foot+ of a snowstorm. When we got back, there was grass almost everywhere and much milder temperatures. Never quite sure what March will bring here, so it was a very welcome sight to see Spring inching its way towards us.

I do realize that travel is a luxury, and this post isn’t so much about the destination itself in as much as the fact that we got away and recharged our batteries. It’s been an incredibly shitty few years now (and for some it’s certainly worse now), so any ability to just stop and take a breath of normalcy was sorely needed. Hope others are able to do so as well.