#low income $quad

[ithisatanytime]

(Low Income $quad)

[why485]

2024 Games of the Year

It's the time of the year where people make lists about the games of the year! I haven't done of these in a while, but this year I feel strongly enough about enough games that I really want to do one. As is always the case, I only go by games I played this year. Doesn't really matter to me when they were released. Honestly, release date means even less today than it used to because of Early Access, continued support, live service, etc. Anyway, onto the picks!

Game of the Year: Derail Valley

This one caught me completely by surprise. In every meaning of the word, this is the VTOL VR of train sims. An accessible, but still kinda simmy, approach to train simulators that is deeply interactive by virtue of being designed as a VR game first. It has an addictive game loop, and learning the ins and outs of every locomotive, and the various routes, is deeply satisfying.

There is a physicality to every action in this game that is just wonderful. You don't just press a UI element to couple two trains together. You get out of cabin, walk over to the coupler, connect the anchor points, connect the brake hose lines, open the brake valves, and then undo the handbrake on the car. It sounds mundane, but 80 hours later and it still hasn't gotten old.

This game has been out for a while in Early Access. I'd heard about it occasionally, but the B99 trailer was what really convinced me that I had to give this game a shot. I'm glad I'm playing this now, because with the current feature set it feels like the best time ever to get on board.

Best Flight Sim: Nuclear Option

Tiny Combat but good, this game, being made by an incredibly talented, small, and competent team, is incredible. It's a sim-lite in the same vein as the Novalogic sims or the Jane's Fighters games. It's set in the near future with made up planes with crazy detailed damage models, and with a love for very, very big explosions.

What's most impressive to me about Nuclear Option is the breadth of features. You have low intensity conflict trainer props and jets, a quad rotor V-22 Osprey-like tiltrotor that can also double as an AC-130 style gunship, and a VTOL electronic warfare/AWACS plane with laser turret in the nose that can shoot down incoming missiles.

This game is still in early access, but progress has been steady, and with a bright future ahead of it.

Best Graphics: Thunder Helix

Like Nuclear Option, I've been following this game since almost its inception. Thunder Helix is a modern take on the arcade helicopter sim, somewhere between Desert Strike and Gunship 2000. It's very fun, and easy to play in short bursts.

What's so exceptional about this game though is its aesthetic. It is a gorgeous representation of what you remember these games looking like, authentically recreated to a meticulous degree. This is a game that uses color palettes, dithering, and doesn't even have a depth buffer. The game opens with a fake DOS prompt! The only real departure, and a welcome one at that, is that the game runs at a buttery smooth modern framerate.

Most Rent Free: Metal Gear Solid (1 and 2)

Following the graduation of my kamioshi, I decided I would finally play Metal Gear Solid. This is a series that needs no introduction, but I thought I should at least play the first game, if nothing else because of its historical significance. In the end, I played MGS1, MG1 VR Missions, and MGS2.

These games blew me away. They are so good. Kind of. There's a lot of qualifiers actually. They simultaneously have aged super well, but also are pretty rough in some areas. However the most lasting element from these games, is that they turned everything into a Metal Gear reference. Due to just how much dialog there is in these games, along with its kitchen sink approach to writing, you can relate almost anything to Metal Gear.

For about 6 solid (METAL GEAR REFERENCE?) months, I was thinking about Metal Gear constantly. It really sticks with you, for a lot of reasons, not all of them good. There's just so much to talk about with these games but I guess this it for now!

[capybara]

[perestroika-hilton]

I think this how all club music should sound

[writer59january13]

Inspection will NOT take place January 21st, 2025...

but much to my relief, said mandatory inquisition (rather inspection) will take place sixty nine days later (due the math and inform me of any error if applicable), which date will be March 28, 2025.

My entire body electric went into system of the down mode after mistakenly presuming that the triumvirate would loudly rap on our apartment door (B44 in case ye happen to inquisitive). As a result yours truly and the missus knuckled and buckled down into high gear furiously scrambling to complete some grunt work, and tossing out recyclables willy nilly plus bagged tempe intended for a future meal of mine.

At 0700 hours (indicated courtesy notification slipped under door less than twenty four hours) hence foretold ill fate by property (crooks and quade) management the head honcho zaftig, kathleen bergen - no nickname for her yet (who replaced wanker), and Rich (text depeche mode) the snitch at highland manor apartments re: looming eviction implication cuz yours truly and the missus out of compliance namely unkempt living space

within the walls of apartment b44

after residing within said low income facility going on eight years July first two thousand and twenty five, we experienced ongoing contention here, which palpable tension crackles, pops, and snaps across the webbed wide world. Courtesy social media platforms in tandem with reputable poetry websites allows, enables and provides analogous soapbox to vent after above identified triumvirate done scrutinizing, interrogating, castigating... Me and the missus immediately sprung into action rather each of our separate nervous systems underwent uncontrollable bouts of expansion and contraction, (where we both made a beeline for the bathroom) analogous to severe toothache necessitating oral surgeon extraction. Three days later - January 21st, 2025 signals the visitation of inquisition (cue ominous music) obscure artificial illumination looming dark shadows presaging worse fate than death rivaling close encounters of the third kind outer limits of the twilight zone monstrous sinister forbidding shapes blotting sunlight plunging highland manor apartment in total darkness. Hence aforementioned feeble SOS cuz our rented one bedroom unit b44 not in ship shape, thus me and the wife not happy campers

(still in shell shock after seeing the unexpected notice)

possibly forced to live in a tent among bunch of other homeless people along skidrow, thus fruitless effort to yield and appeal to top banana figuratively precariously perched on horns of dilemma spurred me to posit supposition, whereby sympathy for the devil witnesses greater likelihood versus wordsmith unsuccessfully, nevertheless creatively blindsiding anonymous readers spellbound to empty willy nilly bajillions of dollars from their pocketbooks and mail blank checks to yours truly before coming to their collective sense and sensibility bound with pride and prejudice.

[idklang]

OUT NOW on LOW INCOME $QUAD! https://lowincomesquad.bandcamp.com/album/li-039

[firstumcschenectady]

“Who We Are” based on Exodus 3:1-14a and Mark 9:30-35 (Homecoming Sunday)

I was once lucky enough to spend a term studying at Oxford, specifically at Magdalen College, where a portion of the campus was referred to as the “New Quad” and dated to about 1733. The day after I arrived back in the United States I heard on the radio about a “great historical find” of a 100 year old Buffalo Bill poster. I remember wondering what the people at Magdalen would call something so new as to be only 100 years old.

This congregation was founded in that same century as the new quad... although a little later. We were founded in 1789, and our current church building dates to almost a hundred years later, in 1872. We've now been in this building for 152 years, although like Americans, we don't refer to it as the new church anymore ;)

Our history books tell wonderful stories of the faithfulness of our fore-bearers in faith, and their commitment to God and each other. They also tell stories of change! This is the 3rd church building this community built - 4th location, and as it was being built the first worship space as over the fellowship hall in a space we mostly don't use anymore. The now Wesley Lounge was the original church office, and the education wing didn't come along until the 1950s. Bill Isles once said he'd been fighting leaks in the roof since then.

I'm often awed as I look at the long list of pastors who have served this church – found on the walls just before you enter the Narthex. It is also notable how many years of one-year service there was in those early days. Maybe the biggest change in the list of clergy is the relatively recent inclusion of women, staring 45 years ago with Rev. Eileen Demming.

I also think about the technological changes that have happened over the course of this church's history. When the church began the US Postal Service was brand new and Post Offices were just beginning to be build. This church saw the advent of the telegram, the radio, the telephone, electric lights, television, fax machines, the internet and email, cell phones and text messages, social media, and even Zoom. Thanks Thomas Edison and GE! These all impacted how life was lived, and thus how ministry played out. Honestly, 5 years ago we lacked live-streaming and Zoom meetings – can you even remember that??

This week we had a meeting to plan our fall retreat – and it was so interesting to hear the beloved traditions of the past meet the needs and values of the present day. I loved it because that's pretty must the gist of everything. In Christianity we talk about the “Living Tradition” where we honor and respect the past, and use its wisdom, while bringing it into the present day and leaving behind what no longer serves us while adding in what we now need. Everything in church is Living Tradition as I see it – from the church retreat to the worship liturgy, from coffee hour to the church library.

We have this constant awareness of and gratitude for the past, while also holding the present and the future together. Over the course of the past year we've made some plans for more change. While this building was bustling with ministry activities in the 1950s, it is now more building than we really need. The maintenance and upkeep of the building take a lot of energy and resources, we love it, but it drains us. This church has decided to go forward, looking at ways this building can be a resource for the community while also becoming a source of financial stability.

I've was awed and amazed to watch the Holy Spirit at work in this community as this way forward was discerned. The part I loved best was watching various groups of people gather together with fear and trepidation about the future, and then think about what it could mean if our building could be used fo provide low-income housing AND financial stability, and see each group get excited and hopeful.

It is a huge change, and it is going to take a lot of work, but the decision is one that was made with incredible faithfulness. And, it is a continuation of the history of change and the reality of the living tradition.

In Exodus this morning we heard the familiar story of Moses encountering the burning bush and hearing God's name. The New Interpreter's Bible emphasizes the verbs of God in this passage. God says, “I have seen... I have heard... I have known... I will send.... I am.” It may just be me, but I hear the living tradition right there! God is “The Great I Am”, or “I Am Who I Am” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be” but God is also impacted by what God sees and hears, and acts accordingly. God's nature is constant – loving mercy all the way through AND God is responsive to human needs and activities.

I loved that our “We Cry Justice” reading reminded us that after Moses saw the burning bush, and went to do what God directed, and the people were freed, and they came out to the wilderness, they returned to the burning bush. And it is there, in the place they are told that God heard them, saw them, considered them, cared for them, and that God simply was, that they work together to figure out the future as God's beloveds.

In this story, the burning bush is sort of interesting in that it's only purpose was to get Moses's attention so that he'd listen to God. Also, there is an angel, but the angel does say or do anything, the angel's only purpose is to get Moses's attention so that he'll listen to God. The bush isn't the message. The angel isn't the message. God just wants Moses to pay attention.

I suspect that God puts burning bushes in front of us multiple times a day. Thich Naht Hahn taught that in the communities he founded every time a bell rang the community members were to take a moment to stop, listen, and pay attention to the wonder all around them. He said that it changed the way they answered the phone. I believe there may be fewer bells and notifications in monastic life than modern life, but perhaps that makes it far MORE important for us to try that exercise. Every time a bell rings, a phone vibrates, or an app gives us a notification we too could stop, listen for a moment, and be grateful for the wonder around us.

I don't know about you, but that's a lot of times a day for me. And that's just BELLS. It is also true that in every other human being we encounter a beloved of God, and they may each be a burning bush inviting us to attend to the wonder of each human.

Sometimes God calls us to sit still, and just be. Sometimes God calls us to move, and just be. (I think all of us are called to both at various times.)

I suspect we all could get better at listening to those calls. How do you get them? What is your burning bush? Could it be bells? Notifications? Other people? An internal sense of unease? Maybe just hungry - it may be that we want to think anew about the tradition of table grace, and face each time we nourish our bodies as the true and wonderful miracle it is, and take a moment to be grateful to God and all the people who make it possible for us to eat and drink each thing before us.

I wrote in the August newsletter about my hopes that we would take this election cycle and time of uncertainty as an invitation to deepen our spiritual practices so that we can respond out of being centered in God's grace. I intended to keep talking about it through August but... well, life went ahead and changed on me and here I am back in the pulpit as of today.

It is so easy to be pulled off kilter by the truly concerning realities around us.

I believe the question for us today, the question of who we are becoming, is how we can care as deeply as ever, while also being able to hold our center. Psalm 1 talks about the people who delight in God as being like trees planted by streams of water, “which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.” It is my conviction that God is a constant source of love, hope, peace, and joy. God is always with us, God is calling to us with our own burning bushes, God is accessible. We are able to connect to the source of love, hope, peace, and joy. We are able to be like trees planted by the streams – with deep roots in God's goodness. And when do so, we are able to be stronger in our compassion for others AND our centeredness that cannot be shaken.

Many of us are worried about what will happen. We are also, of course, worried about what is happening and what has happened. Things are not as they should be, and even the most optimistic outcomes aren't going to solve issues like hungry, homelessness, war, and violence. We are people of faith in the midst of a broken AND beautiful world.

The Bible is full of stories of being in a beautiful and broken world, and finding God in the midst of it. This is just how things go. We don't get to wait for things to be OK before we deepen our faith. Faith happens in the midst of reality.

In Mark, we hear the line, “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Jesus saw the hierarchies of his world, and he had no patience for them. He inverted everything he could, and led people to question the very idea that someone should be at the bottom (or top) of a hierarchy.

This is one of the core messages of our faith. This is part of who we are becoming as we connect more and more deeply with God. God's unconditional love for all people becomes the most important truth and everything else fades away. Along with changing how we see others, this also changes how we see ourselves and loosens the grip of the narrative that we are supposed to compete to be “good enough to be loved.” We are loved. That's the first thing we teach each other in faith. God loves us. All. That's where it all begins, and I think even where it all ends.

We have a long history of sharing God's love with each other and the world. And the changes that are coming are yet another expression of love. And, no matter what the world throws at us – let's deepen our roots into God's goodness so we are ready to respond with love and love alone. Amen

September 22, 2024

Rev. Sara E. Baron  First United Methodist Church of Schenectady  603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305  Pronouns: she/her/hers  http://fumcschenectady.org/  https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

[yugiohcard]

push day was intense 😳

[noisehellokitty]

compilations by low income $quad

[maabhagwatistatus]

boAt Airdopes Flex 454 ANC TWS in-Ear Earbuds with Smart Features, ANC, 60HRS Playback, Low Latency, Quad Mics, Multi Point Connectivity, ASAP Charge(Zinc White)

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[if-you-fan-a-fire]

Isabella, Post-Tonal Bouquet. low income $quad, 2019.

[writer59january13]

Please come join me in spirit if not in body...

regarding my resumption of daily/mostly nightly constitutional

I accompany my dark shadow... (small number of hours before edge of night,

where twilight zone evokes night gallery - drawing celestial sphere closer to me from the outer limits),

and resumed walking a circuit

around perimeter of parking lot imbibing the scent of Mother Nature

beginning today after

a hiatus of countless years - aiming to foster stamina before returning to the contra dance - in Mount Airy after optomitrist Paul Halpern reconfigures pertinent characteristics post cataract surgery to fit appropriate spectacles) meanwhile yours truly (me) exercises his right to bare arms

air supply sustained

by breezy temperate

twenty seventh seal of Bergmanian September two thousand and twenty four, and perhaps if regularly habituate myself to said stroll physical endeavors may one day find me to cantor or trot and stop horsing around.

Yours truly realized modus operandi

to kombat (mortal) lethargy;

last year, he did stride rite around resident parking lot area (here at Highland Manor apartments)

then usually at approximately

19:00 hours each day

casually bumbling and ambling one lap after another

counting one hundred and one,

one hundred and two, one hundred and three...

coordinated with deep breathing

to distract self from repetitiveness.

Modicum of walking exercise benefits this sexagenarian

in tandem yours truly began

burning ghee (my slang for calories) while maintaining sitting position placing each foot in strap and pedalling lightweight machine

against adjusted tension.

Aside from strengthening leg muscles

choosing to while away time

by disciplining myself with former or latter,

both modes of physical fitness

also help keep anguish at bay (plus sublimating, and redirecting formerly tied in with hair compulsion)

mental duress triggered

courtesy of property management

constituting: Zoftig, the warden

and maintenance man, (a recent hire),

the first two whose invisible clutches

asphyxiate me and the missus hounding us to keep

one bedroom apartment in shipshape order and particularly and somewhat unpleasant to wipe away fruit fly feces (cuz exterminator informed us said itty bitty teeny weeny insect breeds within their

yellowish gummy waste matter)

prompting us to Google search senior low income apartment facilities, spurring spurious query wondering

whether any anonymous reader might be able, eager, ready and willing to hand over keys to main lodging

including carriage house, we would even settle for a dog house

or (in a manor of writing) Yukon

assign access rights to access an excellent outlook.

Sense and sensibility concerning

the emotional fallout

brought about by sedentariness

(essentially affecting me to feel glum, melancholy, and ruminative)

helped goad generic indigent solitary man (practically self quarantined

his whole mucked up adult life),

hence not inconvenienced

when coronavirus COVID-19

wrought havoc and mayhem.

Just on the cusp of experiencing joie de vivre,

the triumvirate of Crooks and Quade

figuratively swoop down

to announce re: inspection

of apartment unit B44

whenever they deem appropriate.

Thus series of unfortunate events

(linkedin with bull limey Lemony Snicket bro)

got sidelined nsync with

contracting a minor bout with deadly Amish Flu symptoms include feeling horse and a little buggy found garden variety reasonable rhymer

faux being bedridden (just pretending to get sympathy) once again feigning feeling a little horse and buggy (ha),

incapacitated to craft

original signature poetry writing, cuz for your edification most of these words written at least a couple years ago.

An honest to dog confession

regarding hiatus spewing forth vociferous versatile vocabulary

mine words - worth their weight in gold (told woofer I do not know), nevertheless

included perusing a gamut of reading material.

The passion to engross intellect

witnessed courtesy immersing

attention, concentration, excitation gratification, intoxication;

knowledge prized more precious

than fine spun gold.

Likewise crafting (albeit painstakingly)

elusive notions that flit to and fro hither and yon (analogous to ping pong ball)

within parameters of

microscopically crenellated

sixty plus shades of gray matter

also constitutes fervent interest.

[swankyangles]

e91 - Murmur Race

Gotta be my new favorite label... They got ALL the genres.

[cordycepsspore]

(low income $quad)

[aliveria]

after school clubs? babysitters? millions of toys? that person and i are clearly working with different demographics. :) that story is quite extreme (although i have worked with a really extreme case) and yes, not all children will be very badly affected, and most will catch up.

but it's not a 'panic.' it's a concern. and it's worth discussing that maybe we need a cultural shift where it becomes the custom for early years not to interact regularly with touch screens until the age of five. just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not happening. just because it's a small number of children, it doesn't mean they don't matter.

if we just take a step back and consider if we think it's normal for 2-3 year olds to be able to navigate youtube, but not able to manipulate every day objects, that might put it into perspective.

not to be like "millennials vs Gen z" ageism but I don't think it's possible for a human child to develop normally without having even played leaf stick and rocks? Never made a mud pie or carved sticks into walking staves? Never played with a June bug in a mystery stream all afternoon, or pulled out the hose to make the mud clay softer to build with?

Something has to be weird about the first generation of kids to have almost 100% tactile outdoors play replaced by almost exclusively 15 second meme videos. And that's not even to say anything about the total disappearance of the middle grade chapter book genre.