And Then, Nothing

 In late June, I made the obligatory geek blog post about a dearth of updates at a geek blog post, and expressed my hope of getting back on track with writing throughout the summer.

Only one post followed, detailing our long-overdue cable-cutting.

Why?

Primarily, the things I planned to write about fell to points of low interest, and time has been sparse.

We haven't played Animal Crossing: New Horizons in weeks, but joy for it waned as early as the June break to focus on my continuing education class. Though many friends played, and a couple new friends were even made through the game, my visits to their islands were few, and theirs to mine even fewer, usually to water flowers to theoretically help along our breeding and cloning efforts. When those became frustratingly slow-going, and fun daily routines became chores, the fact that our character was stuck on an island with mostly the same daily cast of characters became another layer of social distanced isolation.

I made the mistake of starting to work through my comics backlog with Marvel titles.

The first was the intentionally limited series, Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. Its flashbacks to untold stories from the happier times in the mythology reminded me of how ultimately disappointing the newest trilogy was, in the end. On the other hand, the tales set in the new Disney theme park didn't help the acute sadness that - given the state of COVID-19 now and our seeming collective unwillingness to take action to seriously mitigate its spread - an October 2021 trip to Disney World to enjoy Galaxy's Edge along with the 50th anniversary celebrations is a fading dream.

The second was Future Foundation. It was everything that I love(d) about some modern Marvel comics: diverse and youthful cast, callbacks to legacy characters and events balanced with references to recent continuity, energy and optimism. See also: Runaways, Champions, Unstoppable Wasp, Sam Wilson: Captain America, et al. It also was everything I despise about today's House of Ideas: inconsistent creative team (new artist after 3 of its 5issues...?) and a promising premise aborted by an abrupt cancellation. See also: every title above, except for the MIA Runaways, apparently returning in February.

Together, the experience of reading these 10 comics soured me on moving through the rest of the stack for several weeks. I've just started at them again. Die! Die! Die! continues to be outrageous but irresistible, and The Plot by Vault Comics might just be better than the similar Gideon Falls, an Eisner Awards darling that I also read and love. 

The only title that I have read day-of this past half-year has been Excellence. The fact that I was struck by how prescient it was when racial justice protests erupted in response to George Floyd's murder now, upon much more reflection, makes me realize how intentionally oblivious I was to that state of our nation. I'm working on it.

In addition to the aforementioned Learners Edge continuing education class, countless hours the past few months were spent puzzling out how to continue the project-based, collaboration-intensive IMAGE program I teach and coordinate. That intensified in August. We started classes this week, and I meet the first of two classes of new 3rd grade students in less than an hour after this writing. 

I've been busy. The things about which I write here were things I haven't done much lately. Friends and I are gearing up for the start of our Pathfinder 2nd Edition Extinction Curse campaign next weekend, and I have been playing and loving the Xbox One port of Pathfinder: Kingmaker. The Boys Season 2 is nuts. I'm excited to read some of the comics that now have several issues banked and ready to binge. 

Maybe I'll write more sooner rather than later.

"Mostly-weekly"

Haha! Maybe on average, given that I was posting daily for a good stretch in March, but it's now been almost three months since my last post.

There are several reasons for that.

One, I just couldn't keep pace with the MCU reflections and reviews when we were watching a film each day. That was especially true once we returned to "remote learning" following spring break.

It wasn't a break at all for me; I spent several hours each day of it prepping materials that were then shared through Google Classroom with my 9 classes of students once the break was done.

The weeks that followed that were full identifying the students who qualified to participate in the program for academically talented students that I coordinate and teach. A great deal of the data and processes usually used for that were unavailable, so considering alternatives, sharing and discussing those with our district leaders, and then communicating (and, when questioned, justifying) those to many teachers, principals, and parents were all huge untertakings.

Communicating with the parents and teachers of qualifying students took me all the way through early June.

Whew.

Also: there's Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It's been about a decade since I dove into an AC game. Our copy was shipped to us on March 25th, and it's been a comfortable and captivating second life since. I can't think of another game that's had a more tragically fortuitous release - an escapist game with intentional community components, arriving right at the time that gamers were given carte blanche to stay at home for days and weeks and months at a time. I sense the intensity with which many played it is waning - for us, too - but I still log at least a couple hours every day, sometimes much more than that if I am up early and Melanie is watching something at night in which I'm not interested.

Plans for Geek Fire Oil in these summer months:

1. I have notes on all the remaining MCU movies that we watched. I will compile those into posts at least once a week, in a looser format probably won't lend itself to as much structure or detail as those posts that came before. Our lives were ultra-structured in those weeks.

2. Comics are starting to release again. The 11th issue of my current favorite, Die, comes out today. I would like to get on a schedule where I respond to one individual comic or series every week, too.

3. Tech stuff. We are cutting the cable cord, and have started using alternatives already. I'll share what is and isn't working for us. There will probably also be posts about New Horizons since it's such a significant part of our recreation time right now.

4. I am playing in a Tales from the Loop online game with friends and also prepping work for a long, exciting, quirky Pathfinder 2nd Edition campaign (the Extinction Curse Adventure Path), so expect occasional posts about one or the other.

5. Noah and I have started collecting Marvel Legends again, so we'll share what's new with those - maybe some unboxing photos and videos that will be cross-posted to his YouTube.

6. Rasslin'. We watched Undertaker: The Last Ride on WWE Network and I have some thoughts on that, as well as the production of their shows through this pandemic/LEFTIST HOAX.

That should lead to at least a couple posts a week!

I'm also struggling to get started on the work of a distance learning Learners Edge course - much prefer in-person classes, but they are also significantly more costly, both from price and time perspectives - so there might be lapses in activity here when I am making headway on that work.

I hope these words find all who read them in good health and high spirits. Geek On.