The Recluse Report - March 2025 Part 2

3 April, 2025. 1,352 words.

So not only was I late getting this post finished, I also forgot to hit the button to publish the changes up to the site until a day later. Professionalism!

Spring is definitely here now. I don’t have seasonal allergies but it’s impossible not to have sniffles and sneezes outside when there’s a snowstorm of pollen that coats the car in a new layer of yellow dust every day.

Yes, I know I’ve forgotten to publish my microblog archives. If it’s any consolation, I’ve also forgotten to post any microblog stuff.

Gaming

So I was bitten by the Monster Hunter World bug and have been working through that game. It started as an alternate to play on the PC while resting my thumb from Monster Hunter Wilds on the PS5, but I abandoned Wilds to continue with World.

This is the third time that I’ve tried to play World. The first time I had no idea what was going on and didn’t even know how to progress in the game. The second time I had a better idea how to play but didn’t find it all that interesting. This time, everything seemed to click.

At least until I got through all the Low Rank stuff and then High Rank started out repeating the same monsters except they’re more tedious.

The main thing I’ve learned is that there’s a numerical defense threshold that is required for every new monster, otherwise you’re just going to get randomly killed again and again. So after every monster you have to stop and farm equipment upgrades before you can move on, which is not a game loop that I particularly like. Ideally, one should be able to get from the beginning to the end of every game with zero farming or grinding.

I also played some Kingdom Come Deliverance II. It’s a very relaxing game, in that the vast majority of the gameplay is walking through the woods listening to nature. Unfortunately, it has the exact same problems as the first game, so at the end of the relaxing gameplay you can expect to get killed in two seconds because you get jumped by some bandits on the road who have vastly superior armor, weapons, and numbers, and then you have to replay the last 30 minutes of walking through the woods because of the punitive saving mechanics. I said it about the first game and it’s exactly the same in the second game: The good parts are really good, the bad parts are truly awful.

Not video game related, but D&D’s official virtual tabletop offering Sigil completely melted down recently. Turns out ignoring the basic needs of tabletop roleplaying isn’t a great idea. Welcome back Roll20 as the industry leader I guess. (FoundryVTT is my personal favorite, but it’s pretty niche.)

Media Consumption

I fell off my podcast schedule so I’ve missed all my standard podcasts for a while.

Severance season 2 completed.
Wheel of Time season 3 in progress.

I watch a lot of Smosh Games and Smosh Pit videos now. Don’t judge me. They’re funny.

Whoa, Netflix is actually relevant now and then:

Day Job

Another engineer left the team. That’s three pretty talented senior engineers departing since December. The positions are only getting backfilled by hires in India. Just a fun aspect of the global economy. It’s still quite a logistical challenge to work on a team that spans 13 hours of time zones. Every morning I sign in to Slack, there are some eight hours of questions and problems waiting to hit me all at once. It reminds me of my government days when I was the last engineer left standing on a slowly disintigrating team, which is something I never wanted to repeat.

Home Life

Door Dash Is Cool

Hey, have you heard of this thing called Door Dash? Says me, a minimum of five years after everyone else learned to depend on it daily. I used it for the very first time recently. Restaurant food just appeared at my door. What a concept! I made this discovery on one of those weekends where I was out of food and it was time for the weekly grocery shopping trip, but I didn’t feel like going out. (I never feel like going out on a weekend–“going out” is a work activity, and it feels like it should only be done during the work week.)

Unfortunately there aren’t a huge number of food options near my house. The vast majority of it is fast food-type stuff, but there’s a decent Mexican place nearby. I’m not sure what the mileage threshold is for a reasonable door dash request, but it seems like going out past five miles or so would be pretty rude and impractical.

Return of the Dead Car battery

I thought I’d put my car battery problems behind me when I installed a new battery earlier in the month–a battery way larger than I needed, incidentally, so I’d never have trouble starting this thing again even in the dead of winter.

Then, on the way home from the grocery store Sunday morning, the battery indicator came on again. I’d done a terrible job of screwing down the battery terminals because I didn’t have a metric socket set when I replaced the battery, so I thought the terminals had shaken loose. I’d since purchased a new socket set, so I double-checked the terminals and made sure they’re attached well. The car wouldn’t start, as if the battery was dead again, two weeks after I bought it. I used my iClever battery jump-starter, and while the engine ran, the battery light came on again, and eventually the engine stalled out.

ChatGPT deep research confirmed what I already suspected: Something’s probably wrong with the alternator, which is the thing in a car that charges the battery while the car’s running. Quite likely my car’s been running entirely off the new battery for the last few weeks. My problem now is how to get my car to the dealer to perform repairs. I can change a tire or a battery but an alternator? Maybe, but I’d rather not find out.

These sorts of transportation issues are thorny problems when you live alone out in the exurbs with no family or friends nearby. I imagine I’ll have to get the car towed to the dealer (some 9 miles away) and then take an Uber out there to pick it up.

But first, I’m going to try a smart battery charger to recharge the new battery enough to drive it 9 miles safely. So far, it has completely revived the dead battery enough to run the car again, but I haven’t tried driving anywhere yet.

Why Am I Coughing So Much Lately?

Just wondering. It’s not COVID. It’s not a cold or flu. It’s not seasonal allergies. But there’s a nearly constant tickle in my throat now that causes me to cough pretty much every time I use my vocal cords or eat or wake up. I think (hope) it’s acid reflux related, but I need to find an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor if I can ever figure out how the American healthcare system works.

World Context

Holy cow, it’s really hard to respect the Trump administration as evil fascist dictators when they do stuff like this on a daily basis. This cabinet is dumber with technology than a bunch of boomers, conducting government national security business like it’s a Facebook thread. Arguably this administration is more dangerous than fascists because of their incompetent bumbling with literally everything they touch. I humbly propose a new slogan for opposition party campaigns: “Better woke than a joke.”
There was a devastating earthquake in Myanmar/Burma. (The name depends on your flavor of performative politics and how strongly you feel about the military coup in 2021. Ironically, it’s Republicans, the party of overturning unfavorable election results, laws, and norms, who still hold a grudge about that coup.)
Ongoing Trainwrecks of the Year: America (since 1/2025), Sudanese Civil War (since 4/2023), War in Ukraine (since 2/2022).
Celebrity Deaths: Val Kilmer (actor).

Bye!