4/12/21: Peeps & Jedi
TLDR
PSA: Peeps!
Update: Election work and job interview
E/C/B: Pasta with cashew sauce
Listening: Yes Indie'd Pod
Playing: Time & Tempus
Reading: Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule
Watching: Falcon and the Winter Soldier
End Notes: You can contact me at jadettman@gmail.com
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Long time reader and local Peeps advocate, Rachel, has written in to chastise me that I have completely failed to remind my readers that it Peeps season. That's in case you completely missed the Easter candy isle of your local grocery or big box store. In response, I want to remind everyone that the perfect Peeps experience is created by opening the package and letting them sit uneaten for seven to ten days to allow them to get nice and chewy. But don't leave them for too long! After approximately fourteen days they will soften again (I did the experiment years ago). Second best Peep experience is to toast them like any other marshmallow. My mouth just started watering.
THE UPDATE
I worked the election last Tuesday and, wow, was it slow. My first election as a poll worker was last year's presidential so I was not prepared for just how low turnout for an off year election was going to be. Luckily, I was warned and brought a couple books. I was able to read 157 pages in my down time (it's a small book and it's formatted as a dialogue).
Not much going on otherwise. I've got a job interview with the city coming up this week. I'll let you know how that goes in the next one.
EATING / COOKING / BAKING
Britt made pasta with cashew sauce last week. I was initially skeptical (not an unusual situation with me and new things) but it was quite delicious. It was smooth like peanut sauce and spicy. I've been informed by reliable sources that it contained red-pepper flakes and other spices. The peas we had with it were good too.
LISTENING Yes Indie'd Pod is a interview podcast. I don't recall who recommended it but I'm always on the lookout for new games related podcasts. On Yes Indie'd Pod, the host interviews various indie roleplaying game designers. They talk about their own games but also just games in general. Most of the folks interviewed seem like a younger cohort than I am, so it's interesting to hear different perspectives on games and design.
https://www.yesindiedpod.com
PLAYING
On Saturday, I played in a playtest game of David M-K's Time and Tempus. It's a hack of For the Queen, which is a game I haven't played before. The format of the game is as multiple decks of cards and, unlike many rpgs, there isn't a gamemaster running the game. Instead, on a player's turn, they turn over a card which has a question on it and the player either answers the question or passes it to the next player (a player can also decide to discard it and draw a new card if they don't want the question answered). None of the players start with a character, per se, but as we went along each of us definitely developed a distinct character. I ended up being a twin looking for (possible) revenge against The Captain for the death of my sister and someone who made a deal with one of the Captain's mortal enemies. It was definitely a fun experience and I look forward to trying other games like it.
I'm going to throw a link for For the Queen in here, since T&T is still in playtest.
For the Queen - Evil Hat Productions
The land you live in has been at war for as long as any of you have been alive.The queen is under attack. Will you defend her?
READING
Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule is the first novel set in Disney's new High Republic line. It's been a while since I've read a Star Wars novel. I think the last one was, maybe, in high school (middle school?). It was good!
I liked that this is set during a time of the Galactic Republic in which there are many Jedi. You get several different Jedi perspectives about the Order but also about the Force. As presented, each Jedi experiences the Force in different ways. One hears the Force as a song, one feels it as a deep ocean, another like a growing thing. It's makes sense but wasn't something I'd thought about before.
The main throughline of the book is a disaster in hyperspace that spills out and threatens several worlds of the Republic. You get to see the Jedi as people dedicated to preserving life and working hard to avert terrible consequences. They aren't just fighting folks with laser swords. I mean, there is that too. It would be Star Wars without lightsaber fights but it's not the main thing.
I think I'm going to check out the next book in the series to see where it's going.
Star Wars: Light of the Jedi (The High Republic) by Charles Soule: 9780593157732 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Long before the First Order, before the Empire, before even The Phantom Menace . . . Jedi lit the way for the galaxy in The High Republic It is a golden age. Intrepid...
WATCHING
I'm a little hesitant to write about Falcon and the Winter Soldier before it's over. We just watched the fourth episode on Friday which means we're past the halfway point. So far, it feels like a solid extension of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the logical extension of the kind of the geopolitics that the MCU liked to play with in the Captain America movies. There are several things I like about Falcon and the Winter Soldier but, like I said, I kind of want to wait to see how things land in the finale.
While I'm enjoying the series so far, it feels like a return to the MCU as usual but, at the same time, a bit of a letdown after WandaVision. Originally, F&tWS was supposed to air first but, because of the pandemic, WandaVision finished shooting and post-production first. I think that it would have been better for F&tWS if it had gone first because WandaVision really raised the bar and F&tWS, while good, really just doesn't feel as shiny and new.
I'm sure I'll talk about this more in two weeks once the series has ended.
END NOTES
If you'd like to send me some feedback or discuss one of the topics I've talked about here (or even a different topic), email me at jadettman@gmail.com
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