We’re all riding shotgun with Entropy.

That’s the long of it, the short of it. Celebrated the Fourth of July twice this weekend. Once at a friend’s apartment, who I consider to be family. Once at my family’s house, who I consider to be friends.

Me, my friends, my family?

We’re all riding shotgun with entropy.

The Universe wasn’t paying much attention to our celebrations. Too busy housing Everything. Too busy searching for that sweet, sugary Heat Death at the end of it all. Expanding endlessly until it won’t.

Me, my friends, my family, the Universe?

We’re all riding shotgun with entropy.

The wife I married, the dog I love, the friends I cherish, the family I belong to, the Universe that carries me.

We’re all here until we’re not.

We’re all riding shotgun with entropy.

I don’t know what to make of this, other than to appreciate my wife, walk my dog, hang out with my friends, and stare lovingly at the stars when the nights permit. This isn’t profundity and it isn’t resignation.

It’s a shrug and a smile in the face of the Absurd. What else can I do?

We’re all riding shotgun with entropy.

This is Monday Morning Commute. The column where I slather onto this particular digi–space all the items, all the miscellany, all the bullshit that I’m interfacing with on a given week. You know, when I’m not staring into the raging chasm of Void and Stars, condemning the tragic mistake that is self-awareness, while simultaneously praising the Cosmic Joke for stumbling into giving us clowns self-awareness.

It is my optimistic encouragement that you’ll share what you’re up to this week in the comments section.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome, friends. To the Extended Weekend Open Bar! Carrying us through the Fourth of July. For those of you lucky enough to have a long weekend, salutations! For those of you unlucky enough to have to work either this Weekend, or the Fourth, salutations anyways! I imagine there’s going to be some seared-flesh breath being aspirated at the computer screens and black mirrors as you folks hopefully join the Bar. Contributing to the camaraderie on the Space-Ship omega whenever you take a break from doing your duty of celebrating God’s Finest Creation, America. By consuming animals, hops, and igniting conversations at cookouts and fire-based sky sparkles.

If you don’t know, the Weekend Open Bar is your virtual one-stop for shooting the shit during the weekend. As Head Czar of the Space-Ship, I encourage one and all to share what they’re up to. Share the animal-flesh you’re going to sear in supplication to George Washington. Share the movie you’re going to see, doing your American best to prop up our economy. Share what you’re reading at the beach. Whatever you’re doing, join in.

Read the rest of this entry »

Salutations, comrades. This is Monday Morning Commute by way of Tuesday Late Evening. Greetings, friends. I apologize for the tardiness, I’m just. I don’t know. Busy? Tired? Tired and Busy? Busy and Tired? Sure, sure. But if I’m being doubly honest, and let’s admit that I’ve written for nearly seven years an embarrassing amount of personal information, I’ve been a bit maudlin about OL.

Pillaging the archives makes me yearn for the days of commenters gone by, of days that were grad school, filled with too much caffeine, and a head full of ideas. I miss the folks who have drifted, I miss my own initiative.

What can you do?

Sally forth, I suppose. But it’s tinged with nostalgia when I know some of the old folk ain’t gonna comment.

What can you do?

Sally forth, I suppose. But it’s tinged with melancholy when I’m penning this shortly after grading papers for three hours, and shortly before I must slumber.

What can you do?

Sally forth, I suppose.

I’m still here, dammit.

Read the rest of this entry »

Western Civilization seems to be flinging itself to pieces in 2016, friends. But unfortunately, Professor Faber, we can’t stand back from the Centrifuge. We’re stuffed inside it, together. It’s hard to believe, maybe it really isn’t happening, who knows. I live a Privileged Life, stuffed in a suburb in a leafy part of the Empire. It’s easy to believe, maybe it really is happening, as I work with students whose tales make me blanch, make me grateful, make wish I could do more. I don’t know. I know few things and understand even less. What I do know, what I do believe in, are what Vonnegut urged us to create. You know, I believe him when he said that the “daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured“, and that is why Weekend Open Bar exists.

Across the two-dimensional plane of the three-dimensional Metaverse within one small speck of the omni-dimensional Universe, we can gather. Spend the Weekend together.

It’s small, and its minute, but it’s what we got. If we’re lucky.

A conjuring of a hopeful gathering sparred on by words and technologies and expressions.

It’s small, and its minute, but it’s what we got. If we’re lucky.

So join me, this Weekend, friends. Let’s shoot the shit about what we’re up to. The food we’re eating (so much goddamn pizza, so much goddamn ice cream), the games we’re playing (DOOM and The Last of Us), the books we’re reading (Nemesis Games). Anything and everything, really. Here aboard the Space-Ship Omega is an attempt at generating one of them communities. ‘Cause Space is cold, Life is Short, and it All seems to be better when spent with kind, like-minded individuals.

So join me this Weekend, friends.

Read the rest of this entry »

Quake is returning to us, soon. In what appears to be another quasi-MOBA done up in FPS style. But if that ain’t your speed, how about a fucking official new episode for Quake 1? Yeah, dude. Yeah.

Read the rest of this entry »

My wife tells me she ain’t waiting for me to eat the pizza. The pizza, it’s coming. This can only mean one thing: I must sprint as quickly as I can to open the Bar. The Weekend Open Bar. Turn on the halogen lights, kick the mechanized kegs of moon-juice to get them cranking. Dust the blood, tears, and forgotten ass-relics off of the chairs. And welcome you! Welcome you to the Weekend Open Bar!

The column at the (theoretical) end of the Work Week/Internet/Good Taste. Every week we gather, oh we gather! We share what we’re going to be eating (pizza!, and more!), what we’re going to be playing, what we’re going to be reading. Really, sharing anything. Half-baked thoughts about the End of the World, half-aroused thoughts about 1980’s babes (Kelly Lebrock from Weird Science haunts me), half-indecent proclamations about whatever sort of gastronomic problems that eighth burrito gave you.

Anything. Everything. So long as it follows the golden rule: thou shall not douche.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is Monday Morning Commute.

Went to a wedding tonight. That’s why I’m tardy. Went to a wedding tonight, witnessed matrimony and bullshit. Circumstance and overwrought sentiment. Reflected on the fact that my wife was a good call, the best call, definitely the right call to partner up with in this Life. ‘Til dirt, folks. ‘Til dirt. Probably going to ride this Space-Ship ’til dirt, too. I’ll hope you’ll board her with me. Hang out in the common hall. Sleep, and shit, and sing, and screw, and scream in your cabin. Pass time, pass gas, pass (favorable) judgment on one another.

This is Monday Morning Commute.

Join me, friends. In this metaphorical common hall, on the Internet, a metaphor, within our shared existed in the RealiVerse, also a metaphor. Join me, friends. Tell me what you’re looking forward to this week. Share what you’re going to be doing this week. Declare what your intentions are for the next five-day (four, really, after today) rock-rolling.

This is Monday Morning Commute.

Let’s hang out.

Read the rest of this entry »

Man, I don’t know what’s going on with my country. We’re spinning apart at both ends of the rigged political, we got heat waves, virii, droughts, colossal tornados. Both cheap metaphorical, and literal storms brewing. Man, I don’t know what’s going on with this planet. Same problems, larger scale, fewer solutions. Man, I don’t know what’s going on with this Universe. Fucking Fermi Paradox like “Hey”, fucking Entropy like “Stop Me, Bro!”

What do I know, though? It’s a long weekend. This is the Open Bar. And despite the being up to our knees in calamities on a cosmic, planetary, and national level, I’m still enjoying my life. What can you do, but dance as the Palaces burn (If you’re lucky enough)? What can you do, but share the weekend with your loved ones, friends, family, and hopefully me (If you’re lucky enough)?

Read the rest of this entry »

Nice goddamn night to write Monday Morning Commute. Windows open. Pleasant breeze. The gentle, but not intrusive hum of caffeine thumping down the vein-pipes. But, for a moment, I am content. How are you doing, friends? I hope you’re doing well. Well enough, at the least.

Read the rest of this entry »

In between playing Dark Souls 3 and waiting for Overwatch, Doom came up on steam. I hadn’t paid much attention because a) what 30 year old gamer doesn’t have a giant back log already and b) the last time I played Doom it was a slow wannabe survival horror game where using the flashlight made me want to uninstall the game.

The game comes with the tag “push forward combat” that caught my interest. After reading a bit more I bought it on a whim. After all, Bethesda already owns half my hard drive.

Read the rest of this entry »