I spent the better part of the week since my last diary offline, or at least off of news, media, and community sites. I was too disheartened by the accusations of harassment and assault coming out every day, and by some of the defenses I saw of those accused. It's a painful time, especially for those of us with a history of harassment, assault, abuse, and/or rape in our pasts. It was heartening to come back and see the diary by Markos (even though some of the comments dampened my spirits again).
I filled my time with family on Thursday (Thanksgiving) and Friday - Thursday at my in-laws, Friday at my parents. The desserts I was baking on Wednesday came out tasty, if not quite as pretty as I was aiming for with the apple pie. Saturday and Sunday were days of rest (and laundry/housekeeping chores). I relaxed by doing some light reading and playing computer games. My latest obsessions are Skyrim SE and Plague Inc: Evolved.
Skyrim itself is not a new game, as it was first released in 2011, but last year Bethesda released Skyrim Special Edition, which updated the graphics and added some other tweaks. Skyrim is an RPG (Role Playing Game) where you can create a character and then go out into the game world and pretty much do as you please. There are quests, and a main plotline (which you can ignore if you desire), and a lot to explore. There's so much detail that I'm still discovering new things in this game world after almost 2000 hours spent playing it over the last 6 years.
Plague Inc: Evolved is a casual game, originally designed for tablets, but later ported to PC. You 'play' a disease (initially bacteria based, though other types such as virus unlock via gameplay) with the goal of infecting and ultimately killing all human life on the planet. You select abilities, like making your disease transmissible via animals, or more easily spreadable via air, etc. Symptoms of the disease will randomly mutate, or you can buy specific symptoms. You can make the disease resistant to antibiotics, or reshuffle its genetic code to try and set back research being done on the cure - once the disease is noticed, countries start researching how to cure it. And meanwhile, countries close down their borders to try & slow spread of the disease, or in some cases healthy countries will nuke infected ones. It's an addicting little game, and if you've had a lousy day it can be pretty cathartic to create a plague to wipe out humanity.
On a lighter note, I discovered a new (to me) twitter account last night, and I spent a good hour going through their timeline and laughing so hard that I had tears streaming from my eyes. A selection of some of my favorites:
If you’re having a bad day, a scroll through their timeline will help put a smile on your face (at least, if your sense of humor is anything like mine). So, how’s everyone doing this week?
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by and tell us about your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper. Newcomers may notice that many who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
As always, this is an open thread and nothing is off topic. What do you want to kibitz about tonight?