Winter-ruption

Some people have the habit of immersing themselves into their Sunday morning with their coffee, and leisurely reading the weekend paper. I’m noticing that since the year began that I seem to be immersing myself into my Sunday morning with my coffee in hand, and pretending as if I were writing for a newspaper.

There were unwelcome strange things going on throughout the week since last entry, mostly confined to my personal life for me to deal with beginning the moments I came home after work on more than one occasion, but thankfully these tricky things didn’t mushroom into anything more wild or intensely serious. They included: my building almost catching on fire, another threat of infestation, and my poor little pooch getting injured. Of all those, my dog’s health was/is my greatest concern. She is healing: slower than I want, of course, but at least she’s not deteriorating for the worse. I’m happy that the week ended better with new interesting experiences, and overall soothing transitions. It has been a good weekend to shake off some of the mid-winter blues, which included crawling out of my hermit hovel for a change, and being a little more social. I got myself a ticket for sporting event, which I deemed to be a kosher purchase despite some new project ambitions, which I’ll cover more about sometime in my next entry.

I checked out my first lacrosse game on Friday evening. The Sasktel Centre arena was packed. The Saskatchewan Rush played the Buffalo Bandits. Unfortunately, the Bandits earned their team name too well, first stealing away what was an initially impressive and massive lead by the Rush, coming hard and overtaking them to come to a tie, and then stealing the game away in overtime, 16-15. An epic comeback for them (uncelebrated here, of course), and an embarrassing downturn for us. It was only the Rush’s first loss of the season though - small potatoes. It was still worth the effort to go, and I’d check out at least one more game for the season. Again, I write this next part for the benefit of my non-Canadian audience. The game originated in this nation (actually long before we became a nation) centuries ago by the Iroquois tribal first nations out east. Anthropologically speaking, it was evidence that the development of such a game was an indication of less reliance on nomadic hunting and gathering, and the preference to adopt permanent settlement and the deployment of agriculture. Leisure time appears more with the fixation of working around seasons in one place, and acting out non-lethal ways to practice martial tactics through team sports also evolves*. However, despite it being our official national sport, it fell into obscurity in our cultural scene for a long while. It lost out somehow to hockey and to curling, in terms of popularity as a spectator team sport in these modern times, or at least there has never been a Lacrosse Night in Canada televised on CBC during our nation's formative sports media years. The more novel and esoteric team sport of broomball** (another rink sport invented here, because we have way too much fucking winter to deal with) even became a more popular community sport around here during my early years than Canada’s official national sport, lacrosse. Lacrosse still has been around, but it just hasn’t really been popular as a big-time league field sport until it had been recently re-hyped somehow, and has been making a grand resurgence, thankfully avoiding a sort of extinction from our identity.

I don’t know, or couldn’t guess, as to how or why lacrosse became so diminished in popularity, and a lesser meme of the field/arena/rink team sports played in this nation to begin with. Perhaps it lacked the display of brute strength of football, or the more extreme speed and sometimes pugilistic action that ice hockey has, or perhaps it wasn’t as cerebral, or loaded with enough focused and refined, single-pointed calculated target finesse that curling has in satisfying the other end of the spectrum of stimulation through spectatorship. Sadly, I believe that it wasn’t more strongly popularized throughout our history really because white guys originally from Britain or France didn’t come up with the idea first. It looks like something that Dr. Seuss may have invented. It sometimes gets tricky to follow the plays, as the ball isn’t out as much in the open as a hockey puck is, hidden in racket netting as players are trying to deek each other out, so it can be definitely harder to track. Maybe that's why it got harder to promote and sell through radio and then television, when these media forms were in their infancy: the technical issue of reporting and recording where this elusive ball was throughout a game. The extra dimensional axis along the field of play makes it as interesting, if not more so, than ice hockey. More hand-eye coordination is involved with it perhaps than hockey in that respect. Even if I were younger, I know that I’d have a real challenge playing it. I wish success not only for our team, but also to the league as a whole.

Another newly hyped outdoor game/sport for this winter-ruption season in the city that I’m checking out this weekend is Crokicurl. You can’t get much more Canadian in a game than this: taking a table game that originated in this country, something I’ve played a few times in some dingy, up-in-the-sticks barrooms (Crokinole); a game, as with darts, where one’s prowess is tested and tempered by making it even more challenging yet for one’s fine motor skills with heavy alcohol consumption, and then making an augmented version of it to play on a post-studded ice surface using curling stones for counters. What a concept! No doubt, some form of inebriation or intoxication had to be in progress as the heads came together to create this fusion of these two games. It’s so simple, and perfect! I also can’t really believe that we’ve been so stupid as to not come up with this idea a lot sooner for around these parts. Oh well, better late than never for this heroic flash of innovation. Sponsorship for this bar game come outdoor spectacle, especially from the local brewers and distilleries, i.e., those who could have some sway in allowing drinking in public, could really help it to take off in popularity during this most wretched of the yearly seasons. Hey, and why not just loosen up a bit more about drinking outside in public in the middle of bloody winter as well for special events like this? Especially considering that things are getting lax enough around here where weed is going to become legal by next summer. Hell, I bet the newly forming cannabis corporations here may also want a piece of this sponsorship action. It might be even more entertaining watching these “athletes” trying to play this while they are completely high***. It could potentially be the new stoner outdoor winter sport (not unlike snowboarding, which already holds such a distinction), that can get more involvement and appeal from the lesser-than athletic types. It will be interesting to see how this thing evolves as another one of our national wintertime leisure activities.

It's all hype folks: a sport doesn't become a sport nowadays without it. Pulling a new one out of obscurity and making it fly off the ground with popularity seems now to be impossible to do without commercial sponsorship. 

*- Non-lethal is not always the case. The Aztecs had fully adopted agriculture and civilization too, and consequently developed their own basketball-like team sport called ullamaliztli, a game that died out right along with them. Maybe it’s popularity didn’t take off so well because the losers of the game were offered as human sacrifices to their pantheon of gods. Hard to the develop teams if they are constantly being physically eliminated by getting their hearts torn out. Let's just say that their PR folks kind of didn't give this a serious think through for promotional purposes.

**- Broomball: an ice rink sport believed to have been invented right here in Saskatchewan (first official recording of it being played is in the community of Perdue). Played sort of like hockey, except with using an implement resembling a broom to whack a ball around (hence the name, like, duh!). Comparing it to hockey is like comparing (American/Canadian) football to rugby. There’s no special padding like hockey, and specially soled shoes are worn instead of skates. You need some sure footing as you run along the ice, but you may get the advantage of some added extra traction by occasionally trotting over someone's missing teeth. It can be even more pugilistic than hockey, as I’ve seen in some goonfest matches of it in the past. Maybe it's because there’s less a lot padding to punch around, and there is a decided advantage in being able to base and balance a striking posture more easily to scrap, drift, and coldcock a guy on ice while wearing shoes rather than skates. It's what makes one who is being a broomball goon even distinctively more of a lowdown dirty psycho bastard than as such in hockey in comparison. It would be great, if not miraculous, if this actually got recognized as a sport fit for the Winter Olympics, other than seen as the lowbrow hybrid spawn of hockey/rugby that it could be. 

***- I’m sure at this point of reading this composition of crazy ramblings, that some may think that I do marijuana myself. I honestly do not. My limited alcohol consumption (because of medical reasons) is enough of a vice as it is; I don’t need anything else beyond that. Personally, my life wouldn’t change when cannabis becomes legal here, except probably dealing with issues as a steward about the grey areas when it comes to interfering with work performance in others on the job. I would treat it as a medicine (one that I probably can’t take anyway due to contraindications with my other treatments), and nothing more than that. I am, however, pro-legalization; more so for the reasons that I believe a strengthened hemp-production economy and industry makes for an inroad toward more sustainable ways of environmental and ecological preservation, and will ultimately lead to less taxed and stressed healthcare, law-enforcement, and corrections systems.

Restless Browsing

This is not good. It's only 11 days into winter and I'm already climbing the walls. The good news is that I managed to cram and jam my skis in this new car despite it's smaller interior space. The bad news was that after doing that, and cruising to the ski trails, I found out that they were still lacking enough snow depth to be groomed properly. I went home disappointed, forcing myself to do responsible adult stuff when I returned there.

As much as I abhor giving patronage to any shop on Remembrance Day, I cracked - after being penned up inside, constraining myself to focusing on household tasks for the entire day, seeing that I couldn't go skiing. By the time evening came, I needed to flee from here.

The problem is that there's nowhere to really retreat to at night when lots of businesses and restaurants are closed, even when a statutory holiday falls on a Saturday. My appetite was sated and I was full and had no need to eat anywhere, but I found out that Indigo was open, and my restless mind was hungry; so I stepped into there. I just purged my place of a huge whack load of books, but I couldn't resist seeing what I would alternatively collect for my shelves. Touring the bookstores and libraries isn't just a quest for good material to read; it's an effort to discover the kind of book I'd like to write. This entry is a visual collection and reflection of what my literary tastes and other entertainment modality was shifting to as I browsed the store.

The book best suited for me

on this kind of evening.

A cookbook that I should be

learning from

The kind of cookbook I should

be writing - Sample 1

Another sample of the kind of 

cookbook I should be writing.
There is more profanity in this
one book than what I think I
used in my entire lifetime.
It gets the point across though.

Three books I'd want for a prolonged

trip to my desired European destinations.

The Joy of Less appeals to my philosophy of minimalism.

Another alternate form of porn
of stuff I'd lust for, besides for
whatever's in the Best Buy flyers.

The poetry I might be able

to appreciate.

A comical journaling

exercise book  in a format

that I wish I dreamt up of first.

The magazine I should be reading

A preformatted checklist that I

should have. However, the items on it

aren't 'weird' enough for my place.

There were also games I noticed that I'd be interested in collecting too . . . from old school to ancient school.

Ultimately though,  I ended up shaking off the urge to do any mindless consumption, realizing that what I probably most needed to do was retreat into re-reading and reviewing my own journal notes: ones loaded full of half-cocked plans, semi-mapped ideas, hair-brained schemes, and other lists that I wouldn't share here and the beginning of solutions to other challenges I may have ahead.

5Q5A: Small Online Indulgences

It’s a Friday evening. I’m expecting it to either rain or storm later. I've been put in a spot medically where I’m exercising caution and teetotaling tonight, so I’m trying to rediscover some simple long forgotten bliss of just sitting and snacking on tea and cookies in the refreshing open air. Hence, I’m not confined inside just passively watching TV just by simple spatial logistics. Reading here outside to combat boredom was a thought, but the subject material I borrowed from the library* was about global economics: a topic that, I confess, I'm woefully ignorant about in general. I'm trying to make myself take a more vested interest in it, but it still comes across to me like too much bullshit and gobble-de-gook, and I can't seem to trouble myself to do it tonight. I'd be better off reading the Big Blue Book of Fairy Tales and find something with more sense and logic in it. Another topic, for another time. The urge to do something more interactive (yet without the annoyance of other people) became stronger. I chose to write up a snapshot of what these activities look like on an evening such as this. More to clear and decompress my bothered mind than anything, and to be appreciative of these little things for what they are.

Q1. Latest New Wits-Tester?

A1. A video game downloaded from Steam, The Long Dark, by Hinterland Studios, supported by the Canada Media Fund – It’s rare that I ever get so captivated by a video game, but this one is special. Firstly, it is 100% Canadian in both production and (virtual) game environment, with the setting being somewhere in the boreal wilderness of Canada. The mission: to survive the elements alone after a plane crash. The conditions are post-apocalyptic, but there’s no terrorists or zombies to battle. Just you in the first person. No other humans around, just the elements of the cold of winter, the scarcity of food, the struggle to find shelter, and facing the prospects of starvation, hypothermia, succumbing to accidents, or being ravaged by carnivorous predators. Nothing more complicated than that, but so real-life in terms of the weighed consequences of the hazards in dealing with such an environment. I’m a fan of shows like Les Stroud’s Survivorman on OLN, so this game is particularly intriguing to me. You use whatever resources you can scavenge, salvage, and exploit from nature. The community online is graced by a smaller set of international players with same-such personalities akin to mine; of whom I never thought I’d ever find. It’s a very respectful group, and we can even interact with the developers for idea input and feedback. Really cool stuff, not only to be a player, but to be a voice in its future development. This is the game that puts my wits to the test and fascinates me because it is reflective of what I wrote sometime earlier of what I claimed I would do in the hypothetical scenario of spending a winter in cabin alone (Cabin Pleasures vs. Cabin Fever) and getting a prize for it. Games like this are the more comprehensible primers and interactive courses for economics: for making decisions about what to do with finite resources in an environment of scarcity with a finite amount of time before you could possibly meet up face to face with the Long Dark. Now, if I download another similar type game with zombies or bananas in it, it might make the material in the book I'm trying to focus on now a bit more understandable.

Q2. Online Window Shopping?

A2. Scouting and hunting through eBay and Amazon targeting for my vintage Russian Submariner Watch, an authentic (yet cheap) Moroccan Tagine cooking vessel, concert T-shirts from Rockabilia, and checking out cheap flight prices for a non-tropical** holiday perhaps for next year.

Q3. Music Streams?

A3. Mostly in a retro/vintage Alternative and folk/nostalgia/shoegaze Indie mood tonight. Memories from my mid-20’s onward, to more modern stuff. My sample set of favourite songs played thus far, I list them as they come:

·         Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division

·         Make You Better – The Decemberists

·         I Wanna be Adored – The Stone Roses

·         Hot on the Heels of Love – Throbbing Gristle

·         You Trip Me Up – The Jesus and Mary Chain

·         Airscape – Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians

·         A Forest – The Cure

·         This Must Be the Place (Naïve Mix)- The Talking Heads

·         Girlfriend – Matthew Sweet

·         Backsliding – Radiohead

·         South Central Rain – R.E.M.

·         The Only One I Know – The Charlatans

·         Fake Empire – The National

·         Seether – Veruca Salt

·         Picture You – The Amazing

·         Shovels and Dirt – The Strumbellas

·         Skinny Love – Bon Iver

·         Love Is All – The Tallest Man on Earth

·         The Night We Met – Lord Huron

·         Time - Tom Waits

·         Red Hands – Walk Off the Earth

·         World Spins Madly On – The Weepies

·         Gigantic – The Pixies

·         Serpents (Basement Version) – Sharon Van Etten

·         Summertime – The Sundays

·         I Know It’s Over – The Smiths

·         Suedehead - Morrissey

Q4. Adult Stuff? (the responsible stuff; not pornography)

A4. Testing the waters again with FOREX trading, and more serious study into the technical analysis involved with trend watching for the rise and fall of currency pairs. It seems sensible to research, as nowadays, money itself has been making more money than labour or other resources has. Also, looking for online classes for SQL, advanced Excel script programming, and other database management courses. All stuff I started to study, but have long since forgotten.

Q5. Language Lessons?

A5. Je continue à apprendre plus de français avec Duolingo, mais j’ai sauté quelques leçons. Ma motivation devient faible maintenant.

*- The book is Zombies, Bananas and Why There Are No Economists in Heaven by Jessica Irvine. I thought with a delightfully oddball title like that, it might actually find some chords to strike within me that I could relate to, but I still see that it has its work cut out for itself. I will say that finding an economist with a sense of humour in itself is like finding a diamond.
**- My lungs still won’t let me breathe well in elevated heat and humidity, as proven throughout this past week. It’s been like breathing through a wet paper bag. So, why would I opt to go to some tropical place with that extra extreme, plus 60% less quality in medical service if I should ever succumb to it? It’s either Eastern Canada (in fall), or Northern Europe, that I have left as options.

Big Weird Numbers (from Small Things) That Amuse Me

One of my random new year resolutions I will disclose is that I'm trying to smarten up mathematically again, and to regain some comfort with doing hard core ciphers: learning and getting reacquainted with stuff like calculus, matrices, statistics, and the like; plus trying to find some practical use and application for such arithmetical methods in my own life. Right now though, it is all impractical, yet interesting and impressive (to me anyway). I thought about simple objects and puzzles around my home; they didn't involve high tech things either. I did some recreational computations (with the help of the Wolfram Alpha app) and found research results to get some of these wild figures . . .

1. 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 ( ≈ 6.67 x10²¹) : The number of possible valid complete solutions there are for a 9 x 9 Sudoku grid. That's about 16.67 billion times the highest estimate of the number
   of stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Some lucky bastard mathematician out there also got some grant money to prove that the absolute minimum number of clue digits needed to solve one is 17.
   
2. 20,822,964,865,671,167 ( ≈ 2.08 x 10¹⁶) : The total number of  all unique sets of counter bead position configurations on my 2 bead upper deck/5 bead lower deck/13 column standard Chinese suan pan (abacus). That's 18 possible bead configurations (a base of 18, represented from numbers 0 to 17) for each of the 13 columns, representing the exponential powers from 0  to 12. That then is {(17 x 18⁰) + (17 x 18¹) + (17 x 18²) . . .  + (17 x 18¹²)}, leading to a maximum total up to the aforementioned number in the heading converted to decimal/base 10 scientific notation form. Meaning, if I flicked a bead (or beads) at one interval per second to tally all possible counter bead configurations on this abacus, it would take approximately 660.7 million years to do it. It seems crazy on such a little frame with only a total of 91 counting beads, but that's the math talking. If the figure for the placements on an 81 spot Sudoku grid is as high as it is, why not this lesser figure for the 91 counter abacus? If I'm wrong about this calculation, I won't mind being corrected. It seems too strange and mind-blowing to be right.

   

   It reads 2017 in base 10. Happy New Year!

3.  43,252,003,274,489,856,000 ( ≈  4.33 x 10¹⁹): The number of possible of configurations a Rubik's Cube can have. Amazingly, it has been calculated (by supercomputers) that the cube can be solved, with the proper programmed algorithms, from any one of these configurations in 20 moves or less. The last time I tried, it took me about 32 minutes to solve it . . . most definitely not in the same league as a Cray supercomputer.
4. 1 in 6,227,020,800 (or 13!): the chance of taking a full suit of 13 playing cards, shuffling them, and then turning them over, one by one, and having them turn up in exact ranking order from ace to king (A,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,J,Q,K). In contrast, I learned that the chance of winning the jackpot for Lotto 6/49 is roughly 1 in 14 million, and 1 in 28.6 million for the Lotto Max*.
5. 6.53 x 10⁹⁰⁹⁰⁵²: The number of 9 word sentences (a fairly average length of sentence) that can be composed out of randomly selected words from the language with the largest vocabulary in the world: English. From the sentences, "A, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a." to "We will never run out of things to say!", to "Big Weird Numbers (from Small Things) that Amuse Me.", to written onomatopoeia to denote sleeping,  "Zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz"**. _, inclusive. There's nothing around materially or temporally as an example to bring that number into comparison for adequate comprehension for the mind, since there are only an estimated 1 x 10⁸⁰ atoms in the entire universe, and its age is only about 4.3 x 10³⁵ in attoseconds***(super small time increments) since the Big Bang. Sure, a grand majority of them would be nonsensical, like "Shiver melon herring quickly kind zipper handy aardvark nipple". Like the random shit in English scrawled on teenagers' T-shirts in the Harajuku fashion district in Tokyo. If a password of nine random words like that were used, I would think that the world would be long vanished into oblivion before it could be hacked. Thankfully, we have few rules of grammar, syntax, context, articles, pronouns, prepositions, verbal tenses and conjugations, gerunds, participles, etc., to set limits and boundaries to things that would statistically and numerically whittle down that figure a lot. Even so, what is left is still more than what would have been, or will be, ever said by humans, past, present, and presumably the future. There's still lots of nonsense that comes from it, but we manage pull a few out that are real gems, and not from the cold dry probabilities of it, but from what's in the spirit of us as human beings. This fact brings to light a quote from Einstein: "Imagination is more powerful than knowledge". He think he got it bang on right . . . and with only seven words too.

*- This is someone else's findings, not mine. Actually, for Lotto Max, the chance of winning on a single line of 7 numbers is roughly in the neighbourhood of 1 in 85.8 million, but you are given three lines, so divide those chances by 3, so 28.6 million. That's a little more optimistic!
**-An edit. Initially I thought that Zyzygy was the alphabetically last defined word that I could think of, but it was a misspelling of the word syzygy: an alignment of celestial bodies in a gravitational system.
***- 1x 10¹⁸ attoseconds = 1 second. Very few things or motions in the physical universe exist that can be timed within ten attoseconds, but who knows what will happen in the future as using measurements such as these become realities as advances in research and development of nanotechnology and quantum computing come about. 

The 12 Month Random Resolution Game

There has been a long lapse between entries, mostly because there has been so little that has been good or positive, or of any importance to comment on. Four months of this year that I wished to make better have been stolen from me, and I've simply been trying to make moves toward getting back to some sort of normalcy: if there ever was such a thing for me. People who know me know that I've just been trying to work and move towards a full recovery, which has been progressive, but going so slowly in my mind that it has been a real test of my patience. Physiotherapy can be refreshing and relieving on one day, and then torturous on another, as micro-traumas are being worked out of the joints and muscle tissues in my arm. There is some noticeable nerve damage, but thankfully it's only slight. Given what I had going on during the initial days after the accident, things could have easily turned into something much worse. On top of that, I've been depressed and disappointed about the elections down south, and the state of the media coverage used to be corruptive for such an affair already laden with controversy and conspiracy. It was a shameful display all around. The latter third of this year can be summarized in three words - it sucked balls. There's nothing at all about it that I really want to recollect or recount.

Year's End is just 20 days away, and I'm already making plans for trying to have a better go in 2017 even before I attempt any Christmas shopping. I invented a sort game for myself: something that has meaningful projects and acquisition targets set up for me to try and gain for each month of the coming new year. Perhaps it's a flaky idea: one that evolved out of the combined urges of defeating some boredom, wanting to play cards (but no company for it), to play with odds and sort gamble a bit (without staking any of my Christmas shopping funds), and inventing a game of chance where I'll somehow always win*. I found a way to deck my halls with a deck of cards. I am sharing it for those who are also wanting to use it to make a more hopeful and prosperous coming new year.

Materials:

• pen and paper (enough to create up to about 144 slips, plus to write a category list)
• scissors (for cutting such slips)
• 12 sealable envelopes
• a deck of cards, OR alternatively, if you aren't a card player . . .
• a pair of dice, or a 12 sided gaming die (if you are a Dungeons and Dragons geek)

Method:

1. Make a list of 12 categories of 12 things or deeds that you what to have or do during the new year. They can be of anything you want: charitable or selfish, serious intellectual pursuits or something fun and foolish, skill building or talent oriented, material possessions or intangibles, whatever, so long as each category involves things that genuinely go towards your sense of well-being, happiness and life satisfaction. Have them be all affordable within a month's budget, and overall achievable within a month's time, and such that they can be available to have or do at any time of the year. Here's about 12 things as examples that may or may not interest you. (Some of) these categories below aren't necessarily reflective of mine. It's deeply personal thing, so make up your own 12 categories of 12 things to list in each. Strive for 12 things to list in each category, but if you can't, you can repeat some items to make up twelve if practical, or stick to some number under twelve. Some examples here are: 
• 12 career skills you want to build on
• 12 tools/implements you want for your workshop/space
• 12 items you want as home decorum, or things you want to change in your home
• 12 thing-a-ma-bobs you want to collect
• 12 subjects you want to study intensively
• 12 people/places you want to visit
• 12 books you want to read/memorize 
• 12 songs you want to learn to play on your[whatever musical instrument you have]
• 12 charities you want to donate time/money to 
• 12 exotic ingredients you want to sample/experiment with
• 12 restaurants you've never eaten at yet, but wanted to try
• 12 novel liquor ingredients you want in your cocktail bar**
2. Take one category, and write each of the 12 items you listed from that category on a seperate slip of paper. You'll have 12 slips of paper if you've listed 12 items in the category. Put them face down on the table and mix them up.
3. Lay out all the 12 envelopes on a flat surface with the open side up.
4. If using playing cards, take a full red suit out of the deck to use, discarding the king. Shuffle the 12 red cards and place one card, face up, on each envelope. Then, take a full black suit out of the deck, discarding the king. Shuffle the black cards and put them face down on the table. Draw a card from the top of the black card stack. Take one of the face down slips of paper, not looking at it, and tuck it into the envelope with the red card with the matching face value as the black card (i.e., if you draw a black 3, put one slip of paper in the envelope with the red 3 on it.). Turn the red card over, or remove it to indicate that this envelope has been loaded. Repeat the same steps for each draw of the black cards in the rest of the stack. Once all the slips of the category have been put in each of their respective envelopes, re-shuffle each stack of the red cards and the black cards, shuffle and lay out the envelopes again, open , side up, and repeat for the 12 item slips of the next category. Repeat until all remaining category list slips are packed in the envelopes. Alternately, if you prefer handling dice . . .
5. If using a 12 sided die***, arrange the envelopes such that you can visually mark them as 1 to 12 (like the face of a clock, for example). Roll the die and place the slip into the corresponding envelope that matches the number on the die. Turn the envelope over once it gets its one slip. Remember, no peeking at the slips! Reroll the die if the number is repeated, and continue rolling, and filling the corresponding envelopes with their single slip of paper until the slips are gone. Shuffle and redistribute the envelopes again, turning the envelopes open-side up again, and repeat for the slips of the next 12 items in the next category. Repeat this process until all categories are done.
6. Once all the envelopes are filled, seal them and shuffle them. Select one and write "January" on it, select the next and write "February" on it, and so on until each envelope is labelled with one of the months of the year from, January to December****, inclusive.
7. Keep these envelopes in a safe and secure place. On the first day of each month, open the envelope labelled for that corresponding month. Set an alert on your smartphone calendar if you need to be reminded.
8. Start, do, or get the stuff listed on the 12 slips of paper that you find in there. You have the entire month to plan and/or try to commit to whatever is listed on those 12 slips of paper throughout it all when you start on day one, be it starting page one of that book, or collecting materials for a month long project. It would be a good idea to journal your progress, or monitor your interest while you do it. If you failing at it, or if your interest is waning, you get to ask yourself "Why?"

I rationalize things with this betterment/resolution "game" this way. The road to hell is usually paved with good intentions. Resolutions are usually broken because people pile up all their ambitions at the start of the year, which only serves to overwhelm them. Some then drop them within 12 hours of New Year's Day. It's not a good way to practice kaizen - that is small and continuous progressive steps toward improvement. The lesson, if any, that I'm drawing from doing physiotherapy, is that small and continuous steps eventually build up to some more powerful things. Committing to major resolutions, more likely than not, involves throwing one's life out of balance which one is rarely prepared for. I've had enough of life out of balance happening since August - thank you very much; yet I still seek structured improvement for my welfare. The novelty and excitement withers away quickly too when things are over-planned, and there is no chance for surprise and spontaneity.  I hope this strategy is one way to improve upon that. Twelve things per month, be they leisurely or ambitious, amounts to about three things a week with which to reward or better oneself. That's as many times per week as I do PT, and I'm getting results for the better. That sounds enriching and progressive enough for me.

This is also a very deliberate way to exploit stuff that I already have, it's just the element of pacing and time that really is the thing that needs to be adjusted. For example, lots of people have books on their shelves that they haven't touched yet, so list them and use them. The same goes with other stuff that they may be hoarding. This then becomes a practical measure to prevent thoughtless and impulsive spending. I hope calling this a game will perchance draw some kind of fun into the whole process, despite the fact that it does involve some discipline. The cards/dice aspect of it brings in a bit of a mysterious element of divination of sorts. I just like the math and probability calculation of it. It is making a personal lottery where you can (choose to) win every time. All in all, after dealing with the spells of bad luck I've had, my true ambition is just to be somehow happier. We'll see by the end of next December.

Since I have nothing else to reflect on, or share for the rest of this year, I'll only bid everyone happy holidays. I hope that I'll have better things to share for 2017.

*- Because I was playing a video game, and became too frustrated at being stuck at one level with monster robots constantly blowing my head off. A not so productive way to use my recovery time.

**- Unless you are already in a 12 step program with AA, disregard this idea.

***- If using a pair of six sided dice, the last slip of paper left of the 12 in the category automatically goes into the envelope designated as #1.

****- If you would rather devote your time, money, and energy for preparing for Christmas (or other primary holiday month), just simply play this game with 11 envelopes, 132 paper slips, and pull out the red and black queens (if using cards), disqualify the 12 roll if using a die/dice. The parameters are thus adjustable.

Under-Stimulated/ The Art of Manliness/Emasculating Waffles

You would think that I would be grateful to have a Saturday off after working them for two weeks in a row, but for this evening I'm in a mood that is beyond depressed and bored. The past five days of dull gloomy grey skies and occasional rain/wet snow have dulled all the edge off any wits I had left in me. The only thing I could think of doing for "shaking it up a bit" was trudging out to get an actual shake (an exotically flavoured one) at Jerry's Food Emporium, and heading back home*. I'm so appalled, saddened, and somewhat disturbed at realizing and admitting that this was the only wild idea I could come up with. It was a double coconut gelato milkshake, and I would like to think that it would be a worthy rival of say the legendary, yet fictitious, five dollar shake at Jack Rabbit Slim's in Pulp Fiction. Maybe it was, but my spirits were too low to register it; I still returned back thinking that my time could have been used more wisely.

After I came home with my big cup full of drinkable instant heart attack, and gave some thought to going to the casino south of town for a thrill, and just about caved to the idea to hitting the Blackjack tables. First, I drilled and tested myself as a refresher with table strategy and card counting with a Blackjack app for almost an hour. I played 98% of my hands correctly with using orthodox basic play strategy (including for doubles, splits, and surrenders), but I only did an abysmal 47% with correct tracking and counting with the high-low system on a six deck shoe, only putting me at a 51.4% win ratio (pushes included) whilst sticking to minimum bets, and I wouldn't call it a lucrative trip there unless that figure could get above 60%**. I don't imagine I'll do any better with the extra noise and distractions over there. Even with boning up on things mnemonically, I figured the house would still have too much of a statistical advantage over me. I'm in too much of a funk to do anything that mentally intensive. Mathematical reasoning beat out my reckless impulsivity, and I instead opted for the safer way of doubling my money: folding it over once and then sticking it back into my pocket. I stayed home just watching comedies on Netflix. That didn't even do much to cheer me up.

As unmanly as I feel for being an adult spontaneously running out in the middle of the evening to get a PG-rated calorie bomb to slurp on, and shoving aside the thought of casino gaming; the one thing that would make me feel even more embarrassed to admit to doing as a man, if I actually wasted admission money to attend it, is going to the actual MAN SHOW 2014 that is happening this weekend at Prairieland. My commentary in my entry about MAN SHOW 2013 pretty much sums my attitude towards all that. It's one thing, as a guy, to just feel down, unimportant, rejected, and powerless at times, but it's a whole other realm of stupidity happening there when you are constantly doing too much going over the top to over-compensate for all that. The Man Show is there to exploit the real dummies for that. They just run short of trying to peddle pecker pills and codpieces to them there. It's that kind of testosterone-driven shit show stupidity that I just don't want to have any part of. I'll be better off with the milkshake, thank you. If I really am so depressed, this aorta-clogging concoction may at least kill me quickly.

It's not like I have to "go back into training" for knowing now to be an average guy, but I was curious to see what was out there on the net in this regard. I found the ART OF MANLINESS website, and started to peruse it. "How to Tie a Tie" . . . great to know, "10 Worst Products Invented for Men" . . . educational and hilarious. This site almost had my respect and almost sold me that this could do wonders for re-instilling my manliness . . . that is until I discovered the waffle recipe on one of the links.

WHAT!!!???

I don't care if they are the savory kind instead of sweet, I don't care if they are being served with some wild rabbit that you trapped and killed yourself with a snare line fashioned out of your own plucked and braided chest hair. In my mind, waffles ≠ manliness. This man site instantly turned into Chatelaine once I spotted that. I am a guy, and (unfortunately) I already know how to make goddamned waffles, thank you very much. I would count this as actually one of the more emasculating talents that I have. I don't ever make them for me, because really I hate the fuckin' things. They are made by a bulky space-consuming appliance for that singular specific use only, and it if doesn't work right, you feel doubly screwed. Finding that recipe there was also a funny juxtaposition to have as a "manly" food along with all the other manly food fare that you supposed to be able to kill, catch, and prepare with just a gun, fishhook, or a knife. Waffles do nothing for me except be preparation intensive (lots of prep time for very little), attention demanding and finicky to work with (like working around drama-queens), bland, and stupid dimply things that you can't spread stuff evenly onto. Eat some toast for Crissakes! The only time ever I make them is for someone else. The people (who by now know how much I hate making them) that I serve them to don't ever give me enough thanks or anything else in return for doing so*** , and thus it's a very unrewarding thing to do, so I feel exploited; and the one of the main rules of manliness, I'd presume, is to never let yourself become exploited. Therefore . . . waffles do nothing for my manliness!

I hope Sunday has a lot more coming to me for something for more engaging stimulation. However,I expect it will be windy and rain (again). Maybe I'll be a bit sharper mentally and actually try out the casino, or at the very least encounter something else crazy to attack and apply reason to.

* - Woohoo, I know . . . so manly <sarcasm>, but it was a better option for me at the time than drinking alcohol, as I had no wish or mood to make my brain operate with anymore impairment than I think it already has.

**-  Nine possible hand playing strategy outcomes, in Blackjack game theory: 1. Hand played correctly/beat the dealer - orthodoxy pays off, 2. Hand played incorrectly/dealer still loses - you're just a lucky bastard, 3. Hand played correctly/dealer still wins - it sucks, but it happens, 4. Hand played incorrectly/dealer wins - you are just playing stupidly, 5. Correct play/tying (push)with the dealer - wasted time, 6. Incorrect play/push with dealer - you were stupid, but the fates have forgiven you, 7. Blackjack/ automatic win - most desirable, 8. Correct play/surrendering- Oops, too bad, 9. Incorrect play/surrendering - stop playing immediately when you turn into this kind of idiot. The real money is made with opportunities for doubling and splitting cards and knowing when to take them. I don't bother pissing around with the insurance bets, or else there would be eleven outcomes. The betting strategy with the card counts taken into consideration is too complicated for me to explain.

***- If you're a woman and really want me to be genuinely happy to make &#^%in'  waffles for you, you better be prepared to clear your calendar for a whole weekend of doing stuff with me that would make Caligula blush!

Blockages and Drainages, Logic and Leprechauns

I'm glad to say that the spring thaw has been coming aggressively throughout the past week here. It's still not quite warm enough to allow me to roost out on the deck to enjoy morning coffee/tea and my post-breakfast reading in the fresh air though. I'm hoping that will be possible within the next couple of weeks if the melting continues at this rate. I hope to be cycling then too as the streets get drier. For now, it still gets cold enough overnight to freeze things hard and thick enough to restrict all the run off from flowing away and draining properly. This part of the season seems to be a direct reflection of the way my own mind is working now*.
   
There has been a lapse between now and my last entry. It's because since I began la vie sans TV, I've been taking advantage of the extra silence and liberation from one less distraction, and I have been shifting my attention and focus to another writing project. I think the overall concepts of it are sound, but I'm still having problems with transposing the things from my notes, tables and spreadsheets into a workably progressive, and manageable flow of content. There doesn't seem to be enough time in the world to allow me to fix this stuff up right; especially not while working full-time hours, plus doing my unit chair position duties. The lightning bolts of originality and creativity just don't seem to be striking me as frequently anymore. The week off I had at the beginning of the month, although I welcomed it, didn't do as much to help me sort out things as I had hoped.

I took a break before I began this paragraph; a spell of creativity did manage to seize me. I directed it to fashioning something through writing that I enjoy doing: a logic problem. I do them once in a while. They are made for more esoteric and quirky personalities and are the less popular of the pen and paper puzzles, much less so than puzzles like Sudoku or crosswords, and sadly they seem to be a dying art form. They are to the puzzle magazine world like what polka is in the music world. I know the magazines dedicated to them are becoming harder to find. It's a shame too, because logical thinking is something that the world needs more of. I guess I like to retreat to them, and create them, because working with this kind of hard pure logic is compensation for feeling too often deprived of just being able to just verbally bash some common sense into some people I'm forced to interact with when I've exhausted all my tact and patience. Given that St. Patrick's Day is winding up quickly, I used an hour and a half of time to burn away some insomnia to compose this puzzle. The inspiration came to me from reading one of my cousin's posts on Facebook. I tested it, and the solution works. I'm still trying to figure out where to get these things published for a little extra cash. I risk showing everyone the weird way my mind works. I should have stashed it away in my portfolio of other such problems I made, but I thought I would share and sacrifice this one to the public, for anyone else who is up for the challenge. I crafted and pasted a logic grid for your convenience, to be found on the bottom of this entry. I'll post the solution in my next entry. St. Patrick's Day may have passed by the time you read this, but I hope you get a kick out of doing it anyway. All names used in this puzzle are completely fictitious.

The Leprechauns

The leprechauns of Ireland come out of seclusion once in a while to roam the land and collect treasure; and at the end of the day, the miserly little fellows make it a habit of returning to, and adding to, their hidden pots of hoarded gold; which in truth are found in far less enchanted places than at the ends of rainbows. If you’re lucky enough to find one and stealthily follow him, he may lead you to his preferred treasure hiding place. Leprechauns pretty much all look and dress alike; they usually can only be told apart from each other by whatever single prized possession they carry on their person. This ordinary looking possession they carry is actually their characteristic magical “lucky charm”. There are five such leprechauns in this problem, each one of them lives in a different Irish county. From the seven clues below, can you correctly sort out: the first and last name of each leprechaun, which county each one lives in (and keeps his treasure), which distinguishing lucky charm each one carries with himself (like a pocket watch that can detect where gold can be found), and which strange location each one stashes his pot o’ gold?

1. Smiley O’Riley has lovely lyrical ring to it; but this is not the full name of any of the leprechauns. In fact, none of the leprechauns’ proper first and last names rhyme together at all. However, the bearer of the magical tin whistle has either the first name Smiley, or the last name of O’Riley (who never goes near any peat bogs). When the tin whistle was played, it stunned the senses of whoever heard it, so that the leprechaun could have ample time to make a hasty escape from greedy people who found him or his gold. Greeny never possessed this enchanted object, neither did McNally (whose pot of gold isn’t in Meath county).
2. A pocket watch that magically signaled an alert to its keeper for the presence of gold was a mighty useful thing to have for indicating which unsuspecting strangers to pick-pocket. McSweeny, a very absent-minded leprechaun, also often used it to locate the right hollow tree when he lost his way in the thickly wooded forest (not in Kildare county) where he kept his hoarded stash. 
3. While walking home one evening, Mrs. O’Hara was scared half to death when she spotted an impish little figure crawling out from a derelict roadside well.  The locals never used it anymore because the water in it had long ago turned brackish and undrinkable, and some claimed that it was haunted by spirits. The clever little leprechaun she encountered took advantage of the well’s reputation and neglect, and had used his long stemmed clay pipe as a snorkel while he secretly dived in there to stash his gold coins in the submerged pot. This well wasn’t in either Meath or in county Kildare; nor did Tally or O’Riley use this place to hide their treasure.
4. It was near dusk when Mr. O’Toole, a farmer in Limerick, thought he heard a strange sound coming from the hayloft of his barn. When he went to inspect the place, he could have swore that he caught a glimpse of a shadow of an odd-looking little fellow, but he felt a bit dazed and thought it was just his weary eyes playing tricks on him. Neither Bleary nor O’Hearly was responsible for this commotion. Greeny didn’t do it either.
5. The constantly tipsy leprechaun with the pewter flask was also the one that always stank like the vile peat bog where he frequently visited to cache his gold. Very few curious people wanted to follow him. His first name wasn’t Whirly, his last name wasn’t McNally, and he never lived or roamed around Cork County. Whirly and McNally actually weren’t from that county either; one of these two did have a tin whistle, while the other one kept his gold in Galway County.
6. Four of the five leprechauns were: the one who drank from a pewter flask that turned bog water into whisky, Tally (who wasn’t in Limerick), the mischievous trickster from the county of Galway, and Smiley (who hid his gold in either a hollow tree or the brackish well).
7. A sneaky young vagrant, named Rowan McManus, secretly followed a tiny stranger who headed towards a great mound of rotting horse manure by a potato field. The little fellow poked his walking stick in the pile three times, and all of a sudden a pot of shimmering gold coins magically rose out of the dung heap. The leprechaun then tossed a few more coins into the pot, which then sank back into the compost pile and was once again concealed from view. The leprechaun suddenly caught sight of the astonished McManus, who witnessed it all while hiding behind a hedgerow. With an elfish grin and a wink, the leprechaun then said, “Well ya didn’t seriously think I was going to dig through all that mess, did ya?” Rowan left there and quickly returned after finding a shovel, and then he dug around and rummaged madly all day through that manure pile like the greedy fool he was, but he never did find any of the gold, and he never saw this rascally leprechaun (who wasn’t O’Riley) ever again. This incident never happened in the counties of Cork, Kildare or Galway.

*- I'm also pissed off about recently discovering that my dishwasher (something I deem as an essential time-saver) has also all of a sudden failed to drain properly. I stayed up until 2:00 AM last night trying to fix the damn thing to no avail. It represents yet another inconvenient blockage coming along my way, both reminding and frustrating me about how stuck I'm feeling about so many other things.

Sochi Games Winding Down/Rosling's Stats

Throughout the past week, I began some more intensive training with my running and skiing*, and I resumed walking to work, more to get my breathing and heart rate adjusted than anything else. Watching the Winter Olympics has been somewhat inspirational in making me continue with this stuff; it's also the only thing going on now that's making this bitter stretch of this wretched season tolerable. But now, I'm relegated to sit still and rest my back and bones from all the activity. I'm dividing my attention between the highlights at Sochi, and writing here. I'm being captivated in watching the finals** in both curling and hockey.

I'm happy to report that the final round in men's hockey for the gold medal will be between Canada and Sweden. It's unfortunate that we couldn't play the Russians for all the marbles in hockey for these Olympics, but this is the next best thing. If we are destined to win the gold medal . . . super. However, if we end up with silver, our loss would at least be to opponents from a nation of decent and honourable sportsmen, and there would be no shame in that. The upcoming game brings me to thinking about the work I've been following of another Swede, who is quickly becoming one of my favourite intellectual heroes. He is a statistician of all things. I'll get to talking about him in a minute.

On Monday of this week it was Family Day in this and other provinces. It's still a new enough holiday such that there really is no common socially established traditions for it yet. A holiday with the title of Family Day is just yet one more date for labeling, separating and isolating those who are alone without families, or with limited social networks; which follows close behind the other day of singles alienation called Valentine's Day, in the middle of the month where people are already at their wits end with dealing with winter here. With the subject of families in mind, and given that I'm in more of a global thinking state of mind as I watch the Olympics, I've been giving thought to the common factor of what all families globally are doing on this Earth: contributing to a human population growth in which this planet is becoming less and less capable of sustaining given the current rate and degree of our consumption and waste*** of energy, food, water, and the environmental destruction from it all. I could have found it easy to get even more depressed and pessimistic about the future when dwelling on all of this, but then I found out about the research of Professor Rosling.

I recently discovered Hans Rosling through the TED talks. He is a guy who has made statistics look like fun, if that's at all possible. He has also gives a bit of optimism in the presentations he makes in regards to what may come ahead as "peak child" as a result of improving global healthcare, and the ending of extreme poverty. The consequence of less poverty and more investment into health and education in developing countries is that we will be reaching a limit of where more humans are being put on this Earth.

What is even more impressive is his founding of the website Gapminder (www.gapminder.org)
and the interactivity of the informatics graphs that are there. The documentaries are interesting too. I could waste an entire week making cross-comparisons and correlations with these tools he provided. I think you'll like the TED video provided below. If this world had more teachers influencing governments like this magnificent Swedish professor I think the world would be a much better place.

*- I don`t think any of the classic cross-country skiers in Sochi have anything to worry about from me breaking any of their records
**- I just watched the Finns crush the Americans 5 to 0, playing for the bronze medal. For this round, I was cheering for Team Finland. Suomi! Suomi! Suomi! I'm doing so not so much to be spiteful to the USA, but more for the fact that I want to see something happen that will make some Finnish people actually get emotional and smile.
***- The exorbitant cost of 52 billion dollars used to create the lodgings, venues and to host these Winter Olympics triggered the thoughts of corrupt use of energy and resources, mismanaged funding, and wasteful inefficiency.

Second Lives: Part II

Continuing from last entry, Second Lives: Part I . . .

To say that humankind was destined to develop and incorporate virtual reality as part of our evolution is perhaps a very fair and sound argument. It could be said that it all began happening as early on when the first hominids began to develop and use language to the degree of sophistication where vocabulary, grammar, and syntax could be used to describe things outside of the present tense*. Think about how revolutionary of a leap that was during our course of evolution! It really put us apart from other animal species: to be able to share and communicate ideas about things that weren't actually happening or existing in the here and now**. It ultimately gave us the ability to better develop our memory, to learn and share knowledge from stories (and successes/failures), to speculate and plan on seeking resources and avoiding disasters, and to be creative. It was essentially the development of this "software" that allowed us to create ideas for an abstract "unreal" world which impacted motor behaviours and sensory experience in this one. Slapping that talent together with tool-making hands to make simulations and extensions of things essentially began and fueled our endeavors to create virtual realities. Then along came art and music, to give our senses a pleasant break from being constantly vigilant in a more hostile natural world. Those things were blended with dressing up in distinct costuming and decoration, using psychoactive botanicals, special rituals and ceremonies, and building special monuments, mostly for the purpose of trying to transcend into other places beyond this realm. Thus, the earliest vehicle thence used to search for these other "virtual realities" came when our early ancestors began formulating religion.

Taken in that context, there might be a valid reason to be suspicious of "virtual realities". Throughout thousands of years of inquisitions, witch trials, dogma and dictates of authoritative caste systems, and judgements from theocratic regimes, millions of people suffered when they were suspected of not playing along in the virtual reality of religion properly. They were either enslaved, ostracized, imprisoned, tortured, or executed as infidels, witches, blasphemers, and atheists; or else, for the sake of playing the game properly in some cultures, many were splayed out on some altar and offered as a blood sacrifice, given a bodily mutilation, or even obligated to commit ritual suicide*** to placate some mythological being or force of a "virtual reality". The virtual game of human development I play, Civilization V, is a hell of a lot tamer by comparison than real human development when religion becomes factored in.

It's ridiculous when I see the juxtaposition of those heavily immersed in religion and those over-enthralled with playing around in modern day virtual reality/gaming environments, and then see the sides actually actively arguing and clashing about who is more knowledgeable about reality, because one is no better grounded in actual reality than the other: they are both trying to find improvement by using escapist means to avoid the harsh, oppressive or "sinful" world they see today. It's a funny irony to see that many who are most reactionary and opposed to the development of game based virtual reality also make some claim to being religious. They believe in preaching to people to stop interacting with other in a false world of a game environment and use energy to gather together more often and talk to, and listen to stories related to the existence and will of a great big invisible man in the sky. At the same time, especially in the USA, those same people who associate themselves with a conservative right wing religious "moral majority" who want to further restrict or outright ban simulated game-based violence in MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games), most likely are the ones lobbying for the right to tote around real flippin' guns. Equally though, VR players who are spending most of their waking daily lives in front of a screen, are becoming more disengaged from actual real world interaction, are becoming increasing more socially maladroit nerds and thus have no ground to stand on for sanctimoniously judging others who are opting to bravely engage more with the real world. The VR people are likely to smugly brand the reality-based people as "Luddites", "low-techs", or with some other label that brand those apart from them as technically ignorant and primitive. This all just brings more chicken and egg questions to light that I have no time to explore and answer. All I know is that I don't want to side with, or get involved too deeply, with either camp.

The most deluded and pathetic of all people who are overly-engaged with their little realm of virtual reality don't even have to use computers, or a place of worship. They are the "super-fans" of sports. Jesus Christ, I hate these idiots! The ones who are constantly glued to the games and stats reports on the sports channel on TV, and would stay that way if they could, the one who makes paying for season tickets a priority over paying for food and shelter. I'm talking about the real intense ones. The assholes who are too much emotionally dependant on the success of whatever team they are following, like the entire world is dependant on it. If the team wins, they are on cloud nine, in a weirdly maniacal way; if their team loses, super-fan gives himself (and it's 99.9999% a guy thing) some special license to lash out and be dramatically and dangerously angry: to be a hooligan, to riot and loot, to drink himself stupid and to abuse others or beat his wife and kids****. It's a bloody insult to humanity to channel behaviour like this something that "comes out of passion". The negative outcome of a simple "virtual" game translates to real-life losses from their drastic and thoughtless violent and destructive behaviour in the real world. These are the guys who may jeer and laugh at the nerdy types who play role-playing board and computer games, but some of these same guys will turn around and drop everything at an instant to play fuckin' "fantasy football", or "fantasy draft picks": things which basically equate to being Dungeons and Dragons for dumb jocks. That's even going into whole new level of stupid when put into context of virtual worlds: a virtual reality based on a virtual reality*****.

I mentioned before in my last entry that the list of things in our lives not related to using virtual reality would be shorter than the ones that did. I challenged myself and made my list of things that I enjoy doing that I consider are completely apart from any virtual reality or media. Instead of escaping into the virtual worlds, I believe the brain needs to be pulled away from there and re-booted with good dose of reality. Basically, one has to think of things that don't involve computers, looking at screens or pictures, intoxication, listening to music/recordings, playing games, or creating abstract thoughts from reading, writing, doodling, and making calculations. It really is a short list. The items in it are:

• sleeping
• eating
• drinking various beverages
• cardio vascular exercise (without earphones, that gets me to an actual destination, no treadmills or stationary bikes)
• cooking
• talking face to face with friends and family (and the odd stranger . . . and believe me, I encounter a lot of "odd" strangers)
• scavenging and foraging (not shopping: using money is a grey area to classify, but let's say that for now that it's an abstraction: exchanging currency, or 0's and 1's through card transactions for goods actually counts as a form of virtual reality)
• sitting/meditating in a park, or by calm water
• cleaning and organizing my living space (this mood rarely strikes me, but it happens)
• fishing
• watching wildlife
• tending a garden space
• walking/petting/playing with my dog

I dwelled too much on this topic already. I fixated on in a little more because I just watched some snowflakes fall here in my real world outside, thus comes the season where I'll be tuning in more to the "virtual" realms. These places won't be found in Second Life, nor will they be found through perusing chapters of a holy book or scriptures; they certainly won't be toured through by loyally spectating the progress of any team. They will be toured through anything else that makes me wonder about the peculiarities of the human condition . . . perhaps for the sake of feeling some relief or amazement when I realize I've survived this long in the "reality game" amidst all the stupidity I sometimes witness by being immersed in it.

*- Communication in higher animals is pretty much restricted to stuff happening in the present tense. Signals and gestures from fish to mammals are limited to being prompted by what is happening in the immediate environment they are currently in.
**-[a bit of a digression] This is not just a thing we should just assume happens naturally and automatically in the basic development of any human language. There are some languages that don't have clear cut sets of grammar or syntax for expressing exact conditional or future tenses. Even English itself technically has no concise "future tense", in the sense that the verbs in a future tense don't neatly conjugate into a precise single word, as compared to some other languages. There's "I walked to the store yesterday." but there is no, "I [single word to describe a future action of "to walk"] to the store tomorrow". It has clumsily jumbled in modal auxillary verbs with the infinitives to talk about future things. The modal "will" itself derives from the verb "to want," or "to wish", and the modal "shall" strangely is derived from "to owe". Even as our vocabulary advanced through the ages, the concept of tense and time is abstract enough that we often are limited to describing the dimension with the some of the same adjectives we would use to describe physical space. Even some modern languages don't even have separate words to further differentiate the next day after the current day, and the general early time of day: like Spanish and German, both use same word to mean "tomorrow", and "morning".
***- Rituals like: the Aztecs cutting hearts out of people, circumcision (male and female), scarification in rites of passage in Africa; the suicidal ones like suttee in India, suppuku/hari kiri in Japan; more historically recent, the Jonestown, and Heaven's Gate Cult massacres.
****- When working at another past vocation, being contracted through the provincial Ministry of Justice, I encountered a domestic violence case where woman had most of half of her face beat in by her husband in the presence of their kids. His reported excuse as to why he did it was: "Oh, it's nothing. I just got a little mad because the Flames lost."
*****- All contact and field sports are simulated forms of battling and warfare, therefore an artificial world; if you aren't actually involved with actually playing it, and only spectating it, that only makes it a virtual reality to you, one in which your degree of interactivity is just limited to cheering, screaming and yelling at the field or screen like a moron.