2026-05-04 your kids will experience things you did not. like for example, lib came home with levi and said, omg, my key, i was trying to put it in the lock to unlock the door and it wouldn’t go in, i was like wtf why won’t my key go in — turns out there was so much cocaine residue on it it wouldn’t fit in the grooves of the lock. so yeah. that’s a place she’s been, a thing she’s experienced. 2026-05-06 ... if you ever wondered what it would be like to sit on the sidelines with the nonparticipants in gym but were afraid to try it ... or if you ever wondered what it would be like to participate in gym but were afraid to get up off the sidelines ... 2026-05-07 **cw connexion and csf** cw its like bogost as guest on intelligent machines #867 said, its a game, why do we do it, it doesnt matter but we still want to do it. part of what we enjoy about game/objects is that they are manipulable. "not necessary but we do it anyway" lol thats kind of everything rly games paradox: more interesting because more constricted; rules make you free 😳 does cw need more constraints? do i? compare this with Patel's "software brain": So what is software brain? The simplest definition I've come up with is that it's when you see the whole world as a series of databases that can be controlled with the structured language of software code. Like I said, this is a powerful way of seeing things. So much of our lives run through databases, and a bunch of important companies have been built around maintaining those databases and providing access to them. Zillow is a database of houses. Uber is a database of cars and riders. YouTube is a database of videos. *The Verge*'s website is a database of stories. You can go on and on and on. Once you start seeing the world as a bunch of databases, it's a small jump to feeling like you can control everything if you can just control the data. this also reminds me of the lehman bros play: one brain wants to experience denim, products, having the shopfront; one brain says "it doesnt matter what we sell, its just the selling that matters" is writing the sequence of characters or is it a whole bunch of games we voluntarily suspend our disbelief in order to have that human experience (speaking of [suspending disbelief](https://www.autodidacts.io/sneaking-up-on-your-goals/)) (and in a way [maybe even](https://www.dailycartoonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/sipress.webp)) 2026-05-08 you’re very charming for an old man she said and he understood not right away but later that visitations from the past are interlinked ah yes he allowed, although i suppose it would be best if we were to refrain — if only in another life we had been the same age — but i fear impropriety would be assumed were we to — she hastened to shut him up for where he was going with that was not at all what she had meant ah, the burning shame! ignominy! red hotness travelled up, assailed his nose and bedraggled cheeks! but he managed to control it, tamp it down as one would espresso or unrest if one were a barrista or a magistrate the result of all this effort showed as a slightly strained lopsided “Glrrrrn!” on his beatup face you’re so weird she said not only that but he realized also later — they were in fact the same age, or near enough. always had been but this odd visitation from the past that shouldn’t have affected him so much had planted the seeds of devastation in his memory. that night he would dream of three others, with mixed results guilt, sex, and love, all mixed with regret if it was true that he was charming for an old man, how perfectly splendid must his charm have been in youth — his train came, bedtime came, lurid dreams came, he came, morning came, the ghosts of the dead, the neglected, and the disaffected swirled off into corners of the house, down through heat vents or out through windows and what of the new day? what to purchase, what to pay, what game to play? each time he opened the curtains on the glare of the impending sun, each time his morning-tender feet found the familiar hardwood path downstairs to coffee, birdsong, apple blossoms and frustration; each time seemed like the possibility of a new beginning. his abbreviated breakfasts took on the tone of the blurb on the back of a paperback — intimating adventures, mystery, romance. Surprise! this was the cruelest satisfaction of all. are you married to forever? which forevers are you married to? fine, you forsook your human loves; will your betrothal be to apathy and stasis? or are you willing to go on a date with foolishness 2026-05-13 i think it’s important to keep this in mind: nothing ever “works.” sometimes certain things “are working for now.” and that’s ok.