I’ve been reading a lot of fans-translated Chinese webnovels recently.
Think “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” but in book form.
Some of the translation can be hit or miss, but the footnotes can be quite enlightening on ancient Chinese culture/customs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KPbJ0-DxTc

To lighten the mood…

I know this sounds weird after the previous post, but while some people (justifiably) need the severity of this situation drilled into their heads, others need to chill out and focus less on the bad shit in the world.
Because there’s a lot of that out there, and if you spend the whole day scouring the internet looking for posts to justify your, “The End is Nigh” rant, you’ll just make yourself, and everyone around you, miserable.

So have common sense and show general decency: stay at home (if you can), maintain physical distancing (you can still be social online), and have a (respectful) chuckle at all the memes.

Quoted COVID-19 Diary - Lily pads and exponential thinking by David Walsh (Owner of the Museum of Old and New Art - MONA) (blog.mona.net.au)
Here's a problem: a lily pad grows in an otherwise empty pond. The lily pad produces a new pad every day, the same size as the original. They both reproduce the next day, so that on the first day there is one lily pad; the second day, two; the third day, four; and so on. The pond is completely covered with lily pads by the thirtieth day. On what day did lily pads cover half the pond? If you don't immediately realise it was the twenty-ninth day, you are not equipped to deal with the exponential growth of COVID-19.

It’s not a long read, and it’s worth reading. The first few paragraphs might not interest many people – especially those outside of Australia, but 1/3 in is where the interesting things happen.

More photos from the same eSports bar

Of course they have streaming booths… 😓
Oh, and it wasn’t obvious in the prev post but they have booths in the tavern for you to play console games with friends.

New eSports bar, Fortress, opened in Melbourne last week.
They just opened last Friday and now they’ll be closed for the next month or so b/c of the Coronavirus. Let’s hope they don’t fold before they even had a chance to truly open.

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  • I’m very loosely playing with the idea of a Yearly Theme. I had some trouble coming up with a theme, but did feel a Year/Season of Less would be a good place to start – I have a tendency of taking on a lot more than is healthy and then get snappy at the people around me, so I thought being a bit more aware of what I’m taking on would be a good idea.
  • In line with the Year of Less, I had a talk with my podcasting co-host and we have put “Trigger Point”, our monthly podcast, on hold for three months as we revisit our priorities.
  • In addition to playing Pathfinder, I've now gotten into Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition. It's a completely different kind of game where “shit happens” doesn't necessary mean TPK, and it allows for players to be a little more creative. Is this a commentary on how to create a constructive workplace? I don't know.
  • I'm trying to get back into writing, but did not want to start a completely new project (see Year of Less, above), so I decided to combine it with my Vampire: The Masquerade game by novelising the game sessions as a character journal. This allows me to flex my writing muscles and explore the complexity of my character more deeply than 4-hour gaming sessions every fortnight would give me.
  • Was trying out the gym at work to try to slow down the rate my body is falling apart, but with the recent Coronavirus situation, the gym has been closed until further notice…
  • The company I work for hasn't made any announcements about when we'll be working from home yet, so for now it's all business as usual; driving into the office every day to crunch out Excel spreadsheets and Infopath forms.
  • Nearly forgot, I’m trying out contact juggling – anyone remember David Bowie in Labyrinth? (and yes, I know he wasn’t the person actually juggling those crystal balls)

This page is inspired by Derek Sivers.

Following on the heels of my previous post, I’ll also be joining this year’s Camp Nano.
With everyone staying at home for the next few weeks – and maybe longer – this may be a good time to get some writing done.