My thoughts about this despised big box chain revolves around two stories.
Two decades ago, I read an article describing the demise of the pickle giant Vlasic as Walmart’s relentless supply chain squeezed them into bankruptcy.
The second was an anecdote by a friend whose sibling works for the company. Walmart employees are not allowed to accept gifts. The rule is so strict that they pay for bottled water when visiting a vendor’s office.
Aside from the power of stories to stick in one’s memory (branding!), they highlight an interesting dichotomy I’ve seen in government.
Bureaucracy has a logic all its own. The system will demand individual uprightness while being corporately cruel. As the Owner, the trick is to find that balance. We must uphold strict standards, but we also need to execute with wisdom and judgement.
It is easier to be a coldly bureaucratic operator, but the process is so much richer when practiced with warmth.
~
Some Links
For about six months, I dived into jazz. I don’t consider myself particularly knowledgeable about this obtuse genre, but here are a few standouts from those explorations, primarily courtesy of library app Hoopla.
After trying out a few of Keith Jarrett’s solo albums, I’ve settled on the Paris Concert. Like the rest of the world, I adore the Koln Concert but I prefer how the Paris Concert starts with a baroque phrase before transitioning into jazz.
Coltrane is still the truth. For the season, you can’t go wrong with My Favorite Things, and Giant Steps is every bit as giant its title.
Less famous known is Bobby Timmons. I first found him due to his excellent Holiday Soul Christmas album, but I’ve also very much enjoyed his albums Chun King and Chicken and Dumplin’s.
I walked a renovation with my Architect and the Using Agency.
It was strange to traipse through the building. Construction had started a couple of months prior, but it all felt theoretical.
As an Owner, my job is to manage budget and schedule. I’m here to make the process move smoothly; it’s all so abstract, not solving the problems in the field.
Yes, it’s less stressful than the technical day to day grind in private practice.
But we don’t get to enjoy the scenery either.
~
Some Links
I’ve always been fond of for folk music, and YouTube is a treasure trove of artists.
I found Daoiri Farrell from an impromptu flight delay session, and the Creggan White Hare has been on regular repeat ever since.
Nicolas Campin anchors a haunting Mazurka, but if you’d rather have your players separated, here is a captivating Scottish à Cheillé on dining tables.
A captivating pairing of 十面埋伏 with A Change Is Gonna Come by Charles Yang. His soulful singing is a pleasant shock after playing the high pitched pipa tune on the violin.
Before wandering into the world of pop up cards, here are five last 5WP’s…until we get back into poetry again!
,
3/24 Inktober 52 (2024), week 13
battling samurai with a spork
I tried a few lineweights with this Spork. The simple clean version one felt most spork-y.
,
3/28 Inktober 52 (2024), week 11
japanese racoons shapeshift with nuts
A reference to the brilliant Studio Ghibli movie Pom Poko, a fun commentary on fighting our inevitable exploitation of nature. An early scene showing the development of the rural land around Tokyo is one of the sharpest satires I’ve seen on film.
I can’t remember for sure, but with the spacing so perfect, I suspect it was tweaked in the box. Nothing crazy, just a nudge here or there.
,
4/3 Inktober 52 (2024), week 8
astronaut riding a space donkey
An early experiment with inverting the background and playing with colors (using the Hue-Saturation filter). One day I should start experimenting in IRL with gauche on colored paper.
,
4/4 Inktober 52 (2024), week 9
always add a red balloon
The version on blank sheets was fine, but ruled binder paper felt like a relevant background for something that references a red-balloon (and as always a little extra noise can make a huge difference).
This was a reference to the architectural rendering trope adding a child with a red balloon. It gives a pop of color in the sky and a sense of playfulness to an otherwise staid image.
,
3/29 Inktober 52 (2025), week 13
a flock of folded rams
With this I detoured heavily into the world of pop-up cards. We bought Paul Jackson’sCut and Fold Techniques for Pop-Up Designs for the boy’s birthday, but I stole it as soon as I saw it. There would be a few more 5WP’s, but dealing with the third dimension and the constraints of the paper sucked all my creative energy for a while.
After summer, I returned to flat paper with the ruling pen but focused on a single word at a time. I’d like to return to poetry and pop-ups (and maybe both at the same time!), but struggling with a word itself is challenge enough for now.
,
As we head into this season of year end summaries, it’s interesting to think that this post covers the first half of 2025 with my “standard” 5WP format, practicing with a brushpen on ruled binder paper, and folded pop-up cards.
The second half of the year (assuming no surprises after I draft this in late October) was dominated by the ruling pen, a month off due to illness, embracing a focus on just one word at a time, and finally pushing out some old blog drafts.
I wonder what the new year will bring? All I know is that I don’t.
It’s gentle, but dang if your arms don’t get tired! And it’s easy to crank it up if you’re feeling it.
For me, it is cultural tourism, exer-dancing with a group from the exotic orient. I guess it’s not totally foreign since I’m of Chinese descent. The music is familiar, even though I don’t understand the words to the songs. While the megalopolis Asian urban setting is strange, the faces are not.
I would prefer to hang out at the local Kung Fu gym for my exercise. But that time that has passed. I don’t have time to slip out to practice with kids who are a just a few years older than my children.
Unfortunately, Tai Chi by myself gets old after a while, but partaking in the kitschy music and oddly familiar foreign group movement with the family is a nice change of pace for a day’s exercise.
—May 2021
,
PPS—Rubber Balloons
My daughter wanted helium balloons for her birthday, but we ordered a bag of regular balloons from Target.
She quickly got over her disappointment after my wife inflated a couple of them. Human air doesn’t float, but gravity makes for play. They spent a couple of hours batting them around the house. Up and down the stairs, over the dividing walls, in the bedrooms.
I hadn’t heard the boy laugh like this in a while. All over fifty cents of rubber.
It pained me to think of all the kids who can’t afford such a fleeting luxury. And I was reminded of a fellow father riding in the Vegas heat with a foil balloon for each of his kids.
—October 2021, soon after, they discovered the manual mattress pump. We had hours of fun inflating the balloons and letting them fly through the house.
.
PPPS—Pac-Man
Our daughter is growing up fast. She was reading a book with snippets from American History and asked about “Pac-Man”.
We watched YouTube videos and played Scratch versions of this classic. I also explained the concept of “arcades” where people had to pay coins to play computer games, and how the value of a quarter has been debased over forty years.
This weekend I pulled out a “Pac-Man Connect and Play” that plugs into the TV. Even though they didn’t enjoy Pac-Man, the boy loved a driving game where you left oil spills to spin out the pursuer. She preferred a flying game shooting coins out of the air.
After TV time was up, we played Pac-Man in person, using deflated balloons for the smaller buttons and inflated balloons for the ones that made Pac-Man eat the ghosts.
Then we took another YouTube break for the The Go! Team’s Ms. Pac-Man music video. That led to watching more music videos, TV advertising, and discussed how TV used to be appointment viewing.
Basically, we covered the last half century of American culture in a weekend through a yellow lens.
Long ago, boardgaming was my primary form of entertainment.
I would read rules while riding the bus into downtown Houston for my corporate gig. I was trying to internalize the rules and visualize the game experience. Of course, great games stand out because they create complex dynamics that can’t be visualized in a steel tube crawling through city traffic. But what’s the alternative? Buy a game without thought?
Beyond the acquisition decision, this turned out to be was a powerful mental exercise. I was focusing on a complicated text in a variable environment, applying words to a future self. In mentally playing a game, I sat in each opponents’ chair, visualizing their competing interests—different goals leads to different actions, creating that elusive the gameplay dynamic.
Years later, I’m doing the same thing as with contracts tackling difficult situations. The stakes are a bit higher, but that’s all. People generally act according to the set up. So I try to empathize with their pressures to understand their motivations. How can I navigate this mix to discover an optimal outcome?
There might have been less frivolous ways to spend the commute, but reading boardgame rules turned out to be a solid choice.
~
Some Links
Our son prefers cooperative games, and Matt Leacock is the giant who designed Pandemic that popularized this genre. In simplifying his classic for a wider audience, he designed Forbidden Island with a board made out of tiles. This twist created a game where the board would disappear over time.
He developed the idea further with Forbidden Desert, where the tiles would shift and and move. I haven’t tried Forbidden Sky, but we just purchased Forbidden Jungle. Here, the players are required to shift the board around—while managing a bunch of grouchy aliens.
This series is a fun case study of a designer developing a simple game mechanic (tiled boards in a cooperative setting) over several iterations. All three are highly recommended.
Oh, I don’t want to watch Pokemon. Cleaning up takes energy and I only have 1 energy left.
8/28/2023
,
3/11 Inktober 52 (2024), week 17
history comes in funny caps
That’s a funny looking cap.
,
3/13 Inktober 52 (2024), week 16
red ball chasing this parabola
I pulled the background way down for the final composition. Just enough for some visual interest, but not enough to compete with the 5WP.
,
3/14 Inktober 52 (2024), week 15
reading by clear river light
I studied abroad in Paris in the Spring of 2007. It was a glorious semester. I traveled a little, had a nice project, and spent a lot of time in the city of lights. One of my favorite moments was reading Raymond Chandler along the banks of the Siene on a glorious Sunday afternoon.
,
3/15 Inktober 52 (2024), week 14
Steve Jobs is my sidekick
It’s crazy how addicted we are to these rectangles in our pockets.
Growing up in the 80’s, it’s crazy to think the guy behind the Apple IIe’s would take over the world with pocket computers, with unimaginable power and connectivity.
,
3/23 Inktober 52 (2024), week 10
this moment frozen in flight
Once I have a good rhythm going, it’s really hard to go off script. So that last “t” was surprisingly hard, even though I had the cursive down pat.
,
I’m writing this a bit in advance, but I’ll have basically run through my second Inktober.
I’m sharing my pieces on Substack Notes and on Bluesky, but I won’t be using Instagram, where the whole exercise sprouted. I despise Zuck’s algorithms, so I’m not giving him any more “content”, especially since all I get in return are a few hearts on IG and no comments of substance.
There are very few clean transactions in this world—one day I’ll have to reconsider my usage of Substack and Bluesky, but I’ll enjoy the party for now.
Cya next time!
,
PS—Pokémon TV
It’s a kids show, boring for adults.
I was just old enough to miss the phenomena when it first hit America, but after winning a Pikachu stuffy at the claw in the Primm Outlet Mall, the kids wanted to see what the fuss was about.
Good lord, Nintendo created one heck of a merchandizing machine.
Gotta catch them all!
Toys, collectable card games, video games, books, plenty of gear, and endless TV shows!
A brilliant case study for late stage capitalism via a little yellow electric squirrel!
Pika pika!
—September 2023
,
PPS-Pokémon Go
A slight nudge to walk more Kilometers (to hatch eggs)
Kids love collecting! I had to set a screen time password on this game.
Eventually stopped using it, I don’t need more nudges to use a phone.
PPPS-Pokémon Sleep
I never tried a sleep tracker before. Interesting to see how badly I slumber.
The kids spent too much time playing with the game parts.
I stopped using it. It’s weird to have a phone on the bed next listening to me all night.
PPPPS-Pokémon Smile
Great timer for brushing teeth. Works for 44-year-olds too.
The kids spent a bunch of time with stickers until Mama put her foot down.
I brush my teeth in horse stance so my head is low enough for the iPad camera. 2-for-1 exercise!
—January 2024
,
PPPPPS—Pokémon Zeddemore (v0.1)
Years ago, I came across a single-deck format for Magic the Gathering by Seth Brown and Tom (no last name given).
After a fellow architect gave me a pile of Pokémon commons for my kids, I dusted off the ruleset to make a game out of these cards (since the little ones aren’t ready to construct their own decks).
We played it a couple of times this weekend and this format translates well to Pokémon.
Plagiarism alert: everything below is a copy of Tom’s original tumblr post with only minor revisions to adapt it to Pokémon—why rewrite rules that already work?
Winston is a draft format designed for two players by Richard Garfield. Here’s how it works:
A big shuffled deck of cards is put, face-down, in the center of the table. The top three cards are placed in a line next to the deck. I will refer to these cards as ‘piles’, because that’s what they may soon become.
The first player to draft looks at the first pile (currently just a single card) and decides whether or not they want to add it to their pool. Let’s say they don’t. They add a new card from the big deck to that pile and move on to the second pile, where they repeat this process. Let’s say they want this card. They take it and replace the now empty pile with a new card from the deck.
The second player looks at the first pile (which now contains two cards). If he wants them, he takes the entire pile – in this case, two cards. He replaces the empty pile with a new card.
If a player passes on all three piles, they take a random card off the top of the deck.
Continue until all cards are taken.
And that’s it. Simple.
What Zeddemore does is take the already fun Winston Draft, and spreads it throughout the game. You draft as you play. Your initial draws at the start of each turn become drafts.
Hopefully that gives you a sense for how Zeddemore plays, so let’s talk about how it works.
The Opening Hands
The original MtG Zeddemore starts with three rounds of drafting to construct your opening hand, which makes sense for sophisticated players. On the other hand, I’m just playing with my kids.
So I just deal seven to the hand (and six as prize cards).
And then start the first draft as the first draw phase of the game.
Changes to Pokémon
Before we start playing, I borrowed up two key rule changes dug up from the internet.
Any Pokémon can evolve into any other Pokémon of the same type, as long as the stage matches. Hoppip—Gloom—Venusaur, but not Hoppip—Vileplume—Venusaur.
You can use any Pokémon as an energy (turn it upside down to attach). The energy type is determined by the Pokémon type.
The Turns
Aside from the draw being replaced by a draft, turns work as they usually would. Drafting does, however, have one important rule. Only your first draw during your turn is replaced by a draft. Any other card drawing is handled in the usual fashion – straight off the top of the deck. You may only draft during your turn, and only once per turn.
The Deck
Much like with Cube, a bunch of cards will be needed. A great deal of creativity is possible in the construction of a Zeddemore Deck. Generally though, it follows these guidelines.
Energy – Since I use Pokémon cards as energy, there is no need for energy cards. However, this rule change came about because I wasn’t gifted energy cards. Maybe this will change at some point. (The original MtG Zeddemore recommends 25 to 30% of the cards in a Zeddemore deck should be lands, a bit less than normal, but they also start with a couple lands in their hand).
Milling – Cards that put cards from the top of a player’s deck into their graveyard are generally avoided. Players can’t lose by decking, so most of these cards simply don’t do much.
Singleton – Generally, Zeddemore decks are singleton, although this is by no means a requirement (I don’t have enough cards to go singleton, but it is a goal if I buy a bulk pack of a thousand).
Card Quality – One aspect of Zeddemore that Seth and I both hold dear to our hearts is the inclusion of both good and bad cards. I will explain the thought behind this in depth in the future, but suffice it to say that it serves an important mechanical need in Zeddemore, and an experiential one. If you have any cards that would cause you to recoil in horror if they should somehow appear in your opening hand, you should probably include them in your Zeddemore deck. Worry not – strong cards are welcome too. An equal number of good, okay, and bad works well.
Recovery – (I have no idea what is good or bad in Pokémon, but I’m keeping this here for future reference), Zeddemore has an aspect to it that can allow a player who’s ahead on the board to easily build upon their advantage, leaving their opponent in a situation that rapidly falls out of their control. For this reason, I like to include some cards that are not at their best in the hands of a player that’s winning. There shouldn’t be too many of the good ones, of course. Occasionally, players do have to lose.
Deck Search – For reasons I will explain below, cards that let you search your library, while allowed, should be approached with caution. (Unfortunately I don’t think this is suggestion avoidable in Pokémon).
Deck Size – The bigger the better. How small can a deck be? Well, you don’t want to run out of cards (though it’s not a big deal to just shuffle the discard pile and keep playing).
Random – Some of these guidelines can be ignored if players are willing to utilize the deck construction technique that is most in the spirit of Zeddemore – completely random. With this approach, not even the deck’s builder may look at the cards until the drafting begins.
Sundry – There is all sorts of other bits of advice and rules, often relating to specific mechanics, that I will share in the future.
The Graveyard
Traditionally, there is a shared graveyard in Zeddemore. This is not a requirement. If the builder of the Zeddemore deck feels that their deck would work best with individual graveyards, then that is their prerogative. Playing with a shared graveyard can make some cards better. Generally, this is fine. Zeddemore likes strong cards.
The Annoying Rules
Zeddemore alters some basic things in the game, and as such, some annoying rules are required. (Some of these rules might not be applicable to Pokemon, but I’m hesitant to delete them until I feel more comfortable with the Pokemon TCG universe)
Searching the library – If a card tells you to search your library for a type of card, you may only look at the top eleven cards of library. When done, cards that weren’t taken are shuffled and placed at the bottom of the deck. The overall deck is not shuffled. Zeddemore decks are often very large, with the number of cards currently on the table possibly only representing a small portion of the deck’s total size. Allowing players to search even 50 cards, which they may not be all that familiar with, for the one card that would be optimal for them, is simply too slow. Searching 500 is a nightmare. It would also run headlong into one of Zeddemore’s greatest strengths – an exploration of the unknown. This rule makes many cards worse than they would otherwise be. Generally, this is fine. Zeddemore likes bad cards. However, cards that will often not do what they say they’ll do can piss off almost any player. Tread lightly.
Card drawing – As already explained, additional card drawing never gives you additional drafts.
Card ownership – A card’s owner is the player who most recently drafted the card. This rule can be especially important with shared graveyards.
Tucking – Cards that are put on the bottom of the library or are shuffled into the library, should be put on the true bottom of the library. As already stated, the portion of the deck currently on the table may not be the full deck. In my case, it never is. Most of the library sits in a box, waiting to replenish the cards on the table. Rather than turn the timing of this replenishment into something that can be ‘gamed’ (a short library might advantage one player), never consider a portion of the library to be the full library. Cards that are put on top of the library, or in the top portion of the library, work like normal.
Drafting – The game essentially pauses while a player is drafting. Abilities can not be used. Cards that continuously reveal the top card of the library don’t work until the drafting is finished.
More on drafting – A single draft counts as a card draw, even if that player drafted five cards.
The Play
(a benediction from Tom)
And now it’s time to play Zeddemore. Zeddemore is fun. Seth, myself, and the dozens of friends that have tried it can attest to that. Something else Seth and I can attest to, however, is that not every game is fun. Sometimes a player won’t get the lands they need. Sometimes a bomb can’t be answered. What Seth and I found, in our marathon sessions of Zeddemore, was that these games ended quickly. The great games, though, the ones with shifting board states, barely-answered bombs, and the skillful deployment of some truly sub-par cards, can last quite a long time, especially in our memory. I hope you have as much fun with Zeddemore as we do.
Revisions
If we play this game more (which hasn’t happened in the past eighteen months), I’ll make a freestanding posts with updated revisions. However, I suspect, this moment will be a relic of a moment, as I continue (unsuccessfully) my quest to be a boardgamer dad.
We were curious about the plants in grandma’s backyard—there’s an app for that. Take a photo, identify the plant! Easier than hitting the big red Staples button, and it’s almost always right.
Amazing, until I remember watching my landscape architecture friends slaving over flashcards preparing for tests. Now it’s a camera and an internet connection. Kind of scary!
Is the the future? The prophets of AI have been warning us that automation is now coming for us. (I wrote the first draft in 2020, before ChatGPT became famous!)
I suspect that my generation, those landscape students who are now a quarter century into their careers, will be spared the worst of it. Our kids won’t be so lucky.
How do I help them become useful producers in this brave new world?
The obvious answer is to minimize the menial work in my job. If it’s easy, someone will automate it. Focus my energies on the difficult, squishy parts of work. Like figuring out how to create deep relationships with my team, to dance through problems with firmness and grace.
Of course this is a bummer. Crushing a simple TTD list feels so good! But too gorge on fluff and some OPM-AI app will push me into an early pension.
~
Some Links
John Parshal gives an intriguing presentation on the different tank manufacturing systems between the Germans, Americans, and Soviets. (The full conference session about the Kursk is worth a watch.)
Dr. Robert Citino asks “Why Did the German Army Fight to the End?” The sobering answer is because they kept fighting. As much as we want to blame one man, everyone played their part in that machine.
On a completely different note, a surreal scene of a gunfight capped with a Nick Cage directing one of the gunmen to shoot a corpse, “his soul is still dancing”.
The gothicized italics was nice, but lacking. So added an extra layer.
,
10/26
INFERNO
As a longer word, I slammed it together, but it didn’t feel right.
So I went in the opposite direction with uncial, a wider script. Even though the aspect ratio makes the final one look small, it’s actually from a long 6×18 sheet.
,
10/27
puzzling
Another tricky word. I dropped the vowels (saving width on the page) and went with gothic, which emphasizes vertical strokes at the expense of legibility, hiding the missing letters.
,
10/28
Onion
I might have been able to get the top version to work with a compass and straightedge, but I wasn’t feeling the effort, even though camera is one of my favorite pieces from last year.
So back to ruling pen cursive! I have several versions of this that I’m all fond of. I picked this one because the nion felt very comfortable inside the O.
10/26/2024
,
10/29
SKELETAL
After a couple horizontal tries, I realized this word wants to go vertical. After inverting arctic and seeing how it could be pushed to make overlapping letters more legible, I realized that it was even more applicable here!
,
10/29
Lesson
I love the simple swooping capital cursive L.
It took a few tries to get right…turned out that I needed a guide line to keep esson lined up properly. I usually just wing it, but this was not one of those pieces.
2/5
,
10/30
VACANT
I’ve been wanting to work in versal and the V got me thinking of this script that draws out the letters. But Roman Capitals weren’t the right fit so I dove into my book on graffiti.
I just realized the relationship between graffiti and vacant lots. Maybe it was hiding in my subconscious, but at the time I just felt this script looked bubbly and I had run out of ideas.
For the second version, I borrowed the the girl’s Posca markers from last Christmas. I might buy another pack this year.
,
10/31
AWARd
I wrestled with this graph, until I switched to a lower case d.
It seemed fitting to close Inktober with another splatter, after a summer dominated by the ruling pen.
,
I always think that finishing a project will feel triumphant.
It never does. It’s always ends a whimper.
On to the next one.
Cya next time!
,
PS—Over the Moon, John Kahrs, Glen Keane, 2020
Good, mediocre, and bad.
The animation was nice, and it was great to see Asian faces. Unlike Mulan, the faces felt real and detailed. The family dinner scenes with the aunts and grandparents were as real as one could hope for in this idyllic country town. Yes, both moms were airbrushed, but the animators really put real soul into the ancillary characters.
Unfortunately, for all the good animation, the story was mediocre. This wasn’t a cheap knockoff, but it wasn’t a top-notch Disney imitation either. Classic Pixar would blatantly telegraph its game and still manage to tug your heart strings. Then again, Disney hasn’t been very good at imitating Disney for the past decade.
This movie has a similar structure to Coco, but it’s just clunky. They blatantly unalive Mom#1 in the first song. The songs and dance routines are inserted awkwardly. The other world seems gratuitously wacky. Along the way, they basically unalived suspension of disbelief.
Oh and, her dad did an awful job trying to blend the family. Dropping the news on the daughter right before a big family event. Geez.
—September 2021
,
PPS—The Painting, Jean-François Laguionie, 2011
This movie isn’t subtle as an allegory of God asleep at the wheel with the cold heartedness of mankind. But it’s still a good adventure, with love, exploration, justice, and ultimately freedom.
In spite of its straightforward messaging, it charms in a way that American animation fall flat. The early Pixar formula was great, but it’s predictable to the edge of dullness.
Even though this isn’t that avante garde, it’s fresh air in America. And the art is great with a bold painting style that contrasted against the CGI of the painter’s studio. Everything has been done, and this story’s tropes aren’t new. But the combination with the art direction make this a movie a fine 90 minutes.
—October 2021
,
PPPS—Tales of the Night, Michel Ocelot, 2011
This is a fun collection of short stories with the main characters in silhouette. In a world before Into the Spiderverse, anything that wasn’t the same 3D blob felt unique, and the flatness of the papercut characters made the backgrounds shine bright.
The movie raises the thorny question of cultural appropriation. I suspect it’s a hotter issue in American than France—referencing another culture might be more fraught in a pluralistic society. But over the past few years, I’ve decided that we should let storytellers set their stories in a diversity of fictions. They are taking a risk when they venture outside their known world, but that’s their problem. Why should I force them to stick to exactly what they’ve experienced?
And maybe the heightened sensitivity around cultural appropriation is a holdover from the mass-culture era. As media becomes diffuse and publication becomes democratized (even as the algorithms have become monopolized), it’s hard to feel strongly about any specific cultural product. If it fails, ignore it.
The culture is no longer mass. It’s a series of short stories connected only in our internal stage. Just like this movie.
The end of the second week and start of the third weeks the a doldrums of a month-long challenge. Engagement falls off as people slam into reality. That’s why I did it all in September.
,
blunder
I started by cribbing Arthur Baker’s brush script. I have a hard time with the verticals of his b (skinny at the bottom to wide on top) but that’s gonna take focused practice.
It will likely take a month of pure brushwork to drill into my hand and brain that the flat brush can make different shapes depending on how hard I press (unlike a steel nib).
Ultimately I decided to give it another go after getting a big fat hake brush (which also inspired my retake on “sting”). I’m a lot happier with this one than the original blunder.
10/17
,
10/18
Ornate
Three versions of Ornate, the top two different surfaces of the Handwritmic ruling pen, the last one the Dreaming Dogs Aldus ruling pen with a curved edge.
,
10/19
DEAL
One of the pieces that went from straight from brain to paper. It still took several tries to get good enough, and of course I still have my quibbles, but I got my fun out of this one.
,
10/20
ARCTIC
There are three types of color inversion in GIMP. This one was the “value invert” where colors keep their main characteristics. After that, I nudged the curves to highlight the overlaps to better define the letters.
,
10/21
rivals
I had a rough time with this one. Words are inherently cooperative things. The letters patiently stand in line, more or less in teh right order.
At first, I tried something competitive within the word that just didn’t work.So I settled on gothic, harkening to sports team logos. But that was boring.
A few days later, I thought of going upside down. The capital R is so distinctive that it still reads upside down, and the flourish on the l makes it read both ways. The upside v is forgiven cause it’s in the middle, plus it resonates in the graph as an apparent capital a.
So again, third time was the charm.
,
10/22
Blast
I clearly have a blast with ruling pen cursive. But this time, print letters felt right.
Then again, the as lives on the cusp of cursive. With calligraphy, I have finally started understanding the weird cursive conventions that was drilled in 2nd grade (such as the weird-s shape).
,
10/23
Button
More cursive, with a circle.
With any concept, there are still so many little choices in the execution. A medium-small buttOn felt right.
,
10/24
FIREfly
More cursive+block text. Even though I try to let each word speak on its own, the line of thought from piece to piece becomes obvious in retrospect.
,
In August, we visited Springs Preserves and my dad let the grandkids play with his SLR.
I then spent September celebrating an unplanned liver party at UMC.
I finally took the photos off his camera, which reminded me to dig up my old camera.
While looking the Nikon D40, the boy asked “so you’re looking for a real camera, like without a phone?“
Cya next time!
,
PS—Magic: The Gathering Arena
Twenty-three years ago I joined my first poker night. It was also my last poker night. It was so fun that I quit on the spot.
Two decades later, I came across MTGA, getting all the gambling kicks without spending real money.
Like any online game, there are plenty of ways that Hasbro can steal your cash, but you don’t have to give it away.
Having been an adult through the rise of social media and freemium mobile game evolution, I see exactly what’s going on with multiple currencies, regular rewards, multimedia stimuli, and daily prompts. Like any sucker, I can see all the warning signs, but it’s so fun.
It teaches compassion towards the victims of con-men. Many of these marks must know they are onto some bad stuff, but do it anyways.
We’ll see if this kick holds up after a few months. It’s mega fun, but it’s not building towards anything bigger in life.
Is the time worth it? I know it’s not. Maybe it’s my subconscious rebelling against the pandemic.
—September 2021
,
PPS—Ominous Roost
I’ve been playing so much MTGA that I need to go cold turkey.
But first, I brewed my own deck—a case study of why the game is so alluring in an online environment.
In this game, I love having lots of creatures and things that make them for free. So this card is perfect, since it is all about creating free creatures.
At first, I started with what I had in my digital collection and added all the relevant cards.
After playing it a couple times, I realized the concept was workable so I used a couple precious “wildcard” tokens to buy a few extra copies. Then I pushed the deck wide, using a copy of all the cards with the special ability “Disturb” to explore how they interacted together.
Once I sensed how the individual pieces worked together, I culled the deck to the to the bare essence. In constructed Magic, there are many great cards, but only 60 slots. Once the goal of the deck is decided, it has to be refined.
This deck tried to build lots of flying creatures to kill the opponent before they killed me. The engine was a couple of card draw / discard spells that would simultaneously create more creatures and build up defenses. For interaction I had a couple surprises to mess with the creatures in play.
Thus arises the central paradox in deck building. One is limited in engine cards because the engine requires fuel. This deck relied heavily discarding “spirit” cards, but all my engine makers and surprise cards are not spirits.
This is where the online part of MTGA kicks in. It’s fascinating to slowly refine this deck. The entire library of Magic is at your fingertips so you can tinker endlessly and your opponents won’t get bored because it’s a new player each time.
With each test, the wicked question comes up. Did my most recent changes improve the deck or was it a lucky card draw?
I’m not sure. Let’s play again!
—October 2021, I quit MTGA a few weeks later. It was too obsessive! Four years later, I remember nothing from this deck except what’s written here.
,
PPPPS—Sid Meier’s Civilization, 1991
Every decade or so, I get sucked into this game for a couple nights of mindless clicking.
Of course I played quite a bit when it first came out. And then in Berkeley, Houston, and now Las Vegas.
This time on an online DOSbox emulator on the Internet Archive (a legit site, I’ve donated to them in the past). But I must be getting old—I got a bad headache and I’m still hungover the morning after.
Like much of my entertainment, I stick with what I know, so I’ve only played the original version. It’s just the right balance of challenging but actually pretty easy.
I always focus on a high infrastructure strategy, going heavy on research, connecting all my cities by (rail)roads. Once I have an edge, I defend with strong military unit and buy off cities with an army of Diplomats, strangling the other civilizations.
You’d think it gets boring, but a little randomness keeps it fun, just like Hollywood recycling the same formulas to entrance the world for a century.
Coda: I got sucked in for a second night. Fun enough, but not the best use of February 18-20, 2022. Now I need to avoid this program till 2032. Maybe I’ll finally try out Civ II (1996).
Another week. This one goes quickly, and suddenly you’re halfway through!
,
10/8
RECKLESS
It was obvious that this should be written on a background. I got plenty of sheets for that.I vaguely remember using my right hand to write this, to make it a little extra reckless.
,
10/9
heavy
The one on a background was just for practice, but I liked the touch of color. Plus “sunrise” felt like a nice contrast to “heavy”.
1/4
,
10/10
sweep
This was rough. I wasn’t happy with any of the early versions. But a week ago, I was reminded about the practice of taping two pencils together to test one’s lettering skills. I tried it with two flair pens, then three flair pens, then two brush pens, and which became four brush pens.
It still took a few tries to get it right. I started on the letter-sized sheets before going to the tabloids. It was sooooo fun to sweep big letters with a megaplex brush pen! But the smaller composition turned out more sweep-y on the screen.
Sometimes, more fun is not more correct.But always take that detour.
,
10/11
sting
Unlike other pieces, this one was straightforward. It always takes a few tries, but it’s nice to not be tortured for every single assignment. Though S’s are always torture.
That’s what I wrote when drafting this newsletter. But the morning of the assignment, I thought of a making something with a big sloppy brush.
It was meant to be rough and quick, but with a wide open Saturday I darn sure overcomplicated it. I suspect the best version is the second shot (single barb, green text on white background), but I played a lot in the computer, including learning how to better play with masks and even the difference between 8-bit and 16-bit encoding.
Last year, I started Inktober thinking I would single-shot a piece every morning. I did that for a couple of days before architecture-school training kicked in. I’m not competitive but a well crafted work is a sign of respect. So if I’m gonna do it, I have to chase a certain level of respectability!
,
10/12
SHRED
I tried a few variations on the stripes, but the most literal (figurative?) attempt was the only version that worked.
Just before uploading this piece, I realized it would read better with a grey background. Last year, I framed each piece inside of a square format (like that “sunrise” piece from January), but my wife pointed out that it was claustrophobic. But once in a while, it’s the right move.
,
10/17
Drink
I changed this the morning of the upload. The first one was fine, but insufficient. For this second version, I started with some ornate flourishes that disappeared over 33 tries to get it right.
,
TRUNK
I tried to mimic a car trunk, but it didn’t work. Those initial attempts led me into Roman capitals.I tried overlapping letters to fit the page; they decided to combine instead.
,
ragged
Even with pieces with a crazy background, I always test the graph on a clean sheet. I like to make sure that I can do it straight.
,
I just (re)watched Ponyo with the kids. I’ve always remembered it as a bit slow, but maybe I’ve slowed down. It was an absolutely a visual treat. Definitely recommend!
Last week was Flushed Away, a movie by the Wallace and Gromit studio that was way better than I expected. It’s trapped in the early 2000’s animation style, but a fun story well told!
Cya next time!
,
PS—A Divination Journey
Art and Chance In college I played with chance operations in creating art. It never led to anything spectacular, but I loved the idea of delving into randomness to spur the next move.
Glass Bead Game The Herman Hesse novel. I read it. I remember nothing, except the cover the paperback I owned.
Tai Chi The Christian fundamentalists who are scared of yoga should worry about Tai Chi too. The grand ultimate fist is a practice that also leads to eastern philosophy. The body moves the mind.
Decktet A brilliant double suited deck by PD Magnus, whose book of games included a chapter on divination. Instead of contacting the occult, this philosopher deconstructs readings as randomness interacting with the subconscious.
Tarot Once demystified, a Tarot deck is just a 5-suited pack of playing cards, an obvious game development from the standard European 4-suited decks. Not spooky.
War For a while, I played War with my daughter using a cheap tarot deck. After repeated interactions, the deck became as mundane as that copy of Operation collecting dust in the closet.
Waite-Rider I got one. Not a fan. I prefer pip decks.
Daoism It’s the cool Chinese philosophy in this individualistic age.
Confucianism Yin needs its Yang. During the pandemic I finally read the Analects and realized that this old guy also spoke to my sense of societal order, likely due to my upbringing.
I Ching Wait, Confucius was into this book? I should look into it. No surprise that Daoists dig divination, but if Confucians are studying it too, then that’s an universal text.
Yarrow Stalks Divining with yarrow stalks is the best! The half hour it takes about to determine a reading becomes a meditation on the question, calming the mind before contemplating the answer. Any other practice feels like child’s play.
Too much Tarot In spite of memorizing the I Ching, I fell out of the practice. And then I went on a Tarot deck buying spree. It was bit of pandemic mania, but it’s nice to own these lovely art pieces.
Calligraphy Now that I have a productive hobby, I’ve lost interest in divination. Life is simple—work, play with the kids, and graph when I have time. Why delve into the subconscious? I enjoy enough randomness with each stroke of the brush.
But I do need to get back into Tai Chi. Then again, I don’t need cards or coins to know that.
—September 2025
,
PPS—More thoughts on divination
PD Magnus’s chapter on divination in his Decktet book pushed me past any residual Fundamentalist fear of this sort of “occult” activity. Divination is a randomly generated lens for focused self-reflection. And as an atheist now, what is there to fear?
I started with a crappy tarot deck at the bookstore which sat unused for a decade until I started playing War with my daughter (the fifth trump suit makes it much more fun than with a normal 4-suited deck). After the deck came into regular use as a game deck, I tried a few readings.
But the booklet that came with that deck was way too predictive. It’s one thing to say “love is in the air”—your brain can plumb a vague comment to find its own meaning. Totally different beast to predict “you will have problems with your lover”. Such definitive pronouncements will implant counter productive seeds. Who knows how that might manifest!
I also tried a couple readings with the Decktet. PD Magnus did a great job of using vague typologies for pronouncements, just like how I Ching also avoids the overly predictive problem (it can be a bit of a word salad at times).
I also tried a couple readings with the Decktet. PD Magnus did a great job of using vague typologies for pronouncements, just like how I Ching also avoids the overly specific (sometimes by being a world said). But I’m still wary that this is toying with fire. Not because of any supernatural stuff, but the potential for this practice to reinforce perverse subconscious feedback loops.
As such, I don’t practice readings while the kids are awake. I don’t hide the books or cards, but I don’t want them thinking that readings are to be trifled with. I doubt I would have properly handled the randomized subconscious before my 40’s.
But I also rue missing out on playing with I Ching chance operations in my undergrad art classes!
—August 2021
,
PPPS—The four arts
With my recent discovery of the joy of sketching, I realized that I am pursuing the Four Arts in a 21st century way.
Qin (琴)Music I need to get on a regular practice schedule but a ukulele and banjo both got strings and make noise. Occasionally I get the timing right and you might call it music.
Qi (棋) Go I got two bookcases of boardgames. A proper scholar would focus on one game, but I like variety.
Shu (書) Calligraphy Well, I’m not writing with a brush. But I am writing a lot, tapping into my poetic side. Plus, with thirty months of as a professional hand draftsman, I’ve got great handwriting when I want to show off.
(Update: two years later, calligraphy has completely taken over my world. I now understand why the ancients took calligraphy so seriously—it’s endless practice distilled into a moment. And the brush doesn’t lie.).
Hua (畫) Painting Again, no brush. And not silk. But my motley collection of fountain pens and notebooks seem close enough.
Bonus—Divination Hard to be more Chinese than consulting the unknown with fifty sticks. But I’ll also happily check out the Tarot as well. Both have been great ways to delve into the subconscious.
And so here we are, what’s old is new again. In a new way.
This year, I focused on the words. My spring explorations of folded cards pulled me away from the 5 Word Poems and the summer detour into the ruling pen (which loves big) didn’t help with the resuscitating the 5WP format.
,
9/30
inkTober ’25
This was done with a dryish brush with old clumpy ink. It made for a great texture on the page, but left a few spot marks on the scanner cause I rushed to get them into the box.
I cheated slightly, pulling the “ink” to overlap the “Tober”. Even though I try to avoid over processing, I’m not above digital. These compilation posts are my confessional booth.
I’ve been playing a lot with Gothicized Italics, so it naturally became a big part of this year’s scripts. This was my last assigment for Inktober since it was more important to complete the daily pieces first.
Last year I tried to make each piece on the morning of the challenge. That’s hard! This year, I finished everything in September while convalescing from the that liver infection. So now I’m posting leisurely and enjoying what others are sharing.
So really, my true #inktober is copying flourishes from Arthur Baker’s sample books.
,
10/1
Mustache
This was made with a ruling pen, dipped in a grey wash of saved water after cleaning my tools.
I’m really happy with this piece, a strong start to the month. I wasn’t as happy with all thirty-one pieces, but that’s life.
,
10/2
weave
Confession: I digitally swapped the final period from bronze to blue.
This piece is a direct variant of my August experiments with overlapping Gothicized Italics in a notebook.
8/25
,
This crown was slighted tilted, but the crossed O felt like a gem.
10/3
This crown is well balanced and I prefer the curved n as a mirror to the C.
crOwn
The red and blue design was a second series after scanning in the initial set. Even so, I’m still not happy with the final piece—calligraphy is an ocean of practice poured into a single moment, that might not go your way. If this was my profession, I’d be obligated to hit perfection, but as a hobby, I can settle.
,
10/4
murky
This was made with a Dreaming Dogs Layla ruling pen, which has a slight curve. Videos show that you can make a very wide line, but since I was using the thin grey wash, this is about as wide as I can get.
I love split line effect when you go really fast with this pen.
,
10/5
deer
I had a brutal time with this one. I tried to capture the leap of the Deer using cursive, but was unhappy while scanning it. So I tried making a logo. Again unhappy. Finally found something by starting with a lowercase “d”.
Fortunately the paper is thick enough to reuse the back of the sheets. Even after failing both sides, they become the background for experiments before attempting finished pieces.
,
10/6
pierce
Unlike deer, I had a concept that executed beautifully. There were several pieces that were presentable, but this one stood out with the bleeding red.
Even then, I’m still a tad dissatisfied with the piece. The piercing action would have been more pronounced if I stopped it inside the opening of the “p”.
,
10/7
Starfish
One of my mantras is “when in doubt, add noise”. The ruling pen gave a little splatter, but it had more promise by using the back of a practice sheet. Right before posting this piece, I utilized a new mantra “try inverting”. I don’t love this digital crutch, but it works too often to ignore.
,
That first week in October just flew by. While I’m certain my body is still quietly recovering from my liver infection, the most noticeable thing is catching up at work. Being semi-chastened with that medical scare, I’m now much better at letting things slide into tomorrow.
There’s always more work.
Cya next time!
,
PS—Dominion
My daughter and I have been playing Dominion a lot.
Even at seven, she reads darn fast. Enough to play a game with lots of text.
My wife hates wordy card games, but the girl has a lot of fun because she enjoys buying stuff.
For a while we played without attack cards, but she’s warmed up to the inclusion of such cards when I promised I wouldn’t purchase those cards.
She also prohibits deck thinning cards. She senses the power of this strategy but has no interest in trashing old purchases.
The original 2008 base game is better for playing with a child than the revised version. The new deck manipulation cards are fine for lifestyle gamers, but sometimes simplicity is better.
Either way you can’t go wrong. Dominion is an amazing game. It’s too bad I didn’t realize it when I was gaming every Friday night.
Then again, it’s damn cool to explore it with my own kids. That’s a trade I’d gladly make, eight days a week.
—August 2021
,
PPS—Dominion Prosperity
Top tier awesomeness is hearing your daughter claim Dominion as her favorite game when introducing herself to the 2nd grade class.
Admittedly, we’re not playing competitively. She’ll take credit if she’s winning, but if she’s losing then we’re on a team while her stuffies take the fall.
But no matter, she enjoys playing.
The strategy is simple. Spend all game buying stuff that lets you buy more stuff. A nice intuitive mechanic—even the 3-year old has taken to directing us to “buy” this or that.
She still won’t let me play the attack cards, but I’m just happy to be able to watch them in action.
If you like money and buying stuff, Dominion Prosperity is a great addition to the base game. Based on this article by Donald X. Vaccarino, I suspect I’ll be buying Empires for Christmas.
Is there a better endorsement than continued patronage?
—September 2021
,
PPPS—Dominion Empires
Unlike his sister, the boy grew up with an older sibling who gives no quarter.
So unless it’s Snorta, he only plays cooperative games. As such, Dominion Empires has not gotten much play.
Two summers ago, I found a cooperative variant. He had fun a couple times as I basically played for both of us. Last week, we watched My Neighbors the Yamadas with subtitles so I realized that he can read at the level to play the game proficiently.
It worked OK, they enjoyed the time. But she still doesn’t fully enjoy the cooperative version and he still has no interest in playing Dominion competitively.
