Author: Michael

Personal Podcast App Tug of War

I have been going through a tug of war trying to figure out which podcast app to use. One week, I’ll use Pocket Casts, the next week I’ll switch back to Apple Podcasts. Occasionally, I’ll look at Overcast and just wonder, “What the hell am I doing here? The web app is too basic and I have never liked how the mobile app works, this is a waste of time.” So I jump back and forth, have to mark lots of episodes as played across both apps, and live in a world of indecisiveness. I think, though, that I finally have everything straightened out and have actually settled on where I will be in the future.

Spoiler warning: I’m sticking with Pocket Casts.

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When All You See Are Gridded Maps, Everything Looks Like A Battle

I don’t remember where I read this exactly, but I know that, when it comes to playing tabletop RPGs, any time the battlemap comes out, it can only mean one thing. When playing around a table with a group, this isn’t necessarily such a big problem, since it makes it easier to role play, you can captivate your audience, capture their attention, and don’t need to worry about having something to throw in front of their faces to keep the players paying attention. However, playing using a virtual tabletop, especially when no one has a camera, it makes it a bit harder to do, so having visual props is helpful.

However, it isn’t always necessarily the best, depending on the prop.

There might be spoilers ahead for Lost Laboratory of Kwalish, so you have been warned.

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Adventures In Baking(sitting)

Poor wordplay based off of late 80s comedies aside, I decided to try my hand at baking cinnamon-sugar scones on Saturday morning. I am, by no means, a proficient baker. I have baked some banana bread (no nuts) in the past, which came out very good the first time and less than good the second time, which was when I tried to entirely replace sugar with Splenda™ (curse you diabetes), but lately I have been watching far too much Great British Bakeoff on Netflix, so it was bound to happen at some point that I would decide to try my hand at some simple baking.

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The Cryptozoology & Paranormal Museum of Littleton, NC

In case you didn’t know, today was Obscura Day. Honestly, I had never heard of it before, but David Plotz, who is one of the hosts of the Political Gabfest from Slate, is the CEO of the company and he talked about it quite often on the podcast, so I felt the need to participate by finding some event to go to. There were a few in DC, one in Staunton, VA, but they all cost money, and I wasn’t honestly very interested in them. Then I saw that there was a celebration for the new Bigfoot statue at the Cryptozoology and Paranormal Museum in Littleton, NC. Littleton, NC, is a small town in Halifax County with a population of about 670 people. I had to go.

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What’s In a Name?

Once upon a time, I hated to be called Michael. This wasn’t something born out of childhood and always being called Mike so just being used to it, there was way more to it than that, but I’ll explain why momentarily. Lately, though, I’m finding that I actually prefer to be called Michael, especially by the people I’ve been meeting lately in Richmond. It is honestly the work of one woman, which is funny, because it was the work of another woman who made me start to loathe my actual first name.

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iPhone Saga

Today, I had to replace my iPhone 5S for the second time. The first time, back in December, I completely blame Apple for, but this time around, I’m pretty sure it was my fault, although I did manage to still get it replaced for free.

Go me.

How, you may wonder? I’m glad you asked.

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