Outlook uncertain, try again later…?

by dawn Comment Closed
I don’t usually post about current events outside the sphere of pop culture, but in this case the events are broad enough they’re intruding on it. The week before last Dawn and I were at WonderCon and also hearing from friends at another show out of state and the word just kept spreading of a marked slowdown in people buying; like 50% down or worse from last year, even for people who usually do really well. General consensus? People holding on to their wallets amid the uncertainty of the news, regardless of politics, since even the word from the currently in-charge Right was that there would be pain and sacrifice on the road to greatness. And that was before April 2nd when the big board of tariffs came out. For better or worse, a lot of small-time and independent creatives have been getting their goods from China in the past decades, and that’s about to end hard. As I write this, the...
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Playing cowpokes and aliens…

Playing cowpokes and aliens…

by dawn Comment Closed
The Eaton Fire was a very near miss on our place and it was good to take a break while we dealt with insurance, cleanup, etc. It could have been a lot worse for us but being on the frontlines of a natural disaster is a heck of a thing for the nerves. I walk outside and the neighborhood still smells like smoke. I look down the street and I see the flame-gutted skeleton of a less lucky neighbor’s once cozy home. I’d show pictures but… I kind of don’t want to. Let’s talk about something more pleasant. Because that’s what you’ve got to do at these times, is eke out enjoyment where you can. In my case that meant once I got the computers back out of my car and hooked up, I had some escapism lined up in the form of video games from the Steam Winter Sale or before. I actually got a few finished, some of which like...
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Host of cowpokes past…

Host of cowpokes past…

by dawn Comment Closed
Hot take nearly half-a-decade past its prime: Red Dead Redemption 2 is turning out to be quite the good video game. I didn’t buy it on its release in 2019 and continued not to buy it all through COVID. Maybe after The Witcher I just wasn’t down with another epic storyline starring a non-customizable character, despite the Wild West setting. I’d played  the original Red Dead Redemption and of course its DLC pack Undead Nightmare (y’know, the one with the zombies) and had a lot of fun but was I ready for more of that? Seemed that I wasn’t, even after I picked RDR2 up on sale over a year ago. So many games, so few finished. I remember as a kid visiting my aunt’s house and seeing games on her shelf still in their shrink-wrap packaging and finding it absolutely mind-boggling that someone would buy a video game and not immediately be playing the hell out of it. Now I...
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