Oliver Moss

* Sadly, I am not going to the Portland Mausoleum for more reshoots this memorial day weekend, because they have hard-pivoted to only a very few tours and you have to be on a tour. The tour takes people to less than 1/6th of the building.

On one hand, I got to go wander while it was still possible.

On the other hand, that suuuucks. I want to reshoot. There is more locally made art in there than in our art museum.

* For Blue Prince, I've switched to playing along with a Let's Play. I love the game, but it's too much of a time sink. It's not a work thing or a social thing for me, so I can't let it take up the time it needs for me to solo solve it. I am letting Cohh do all the repeat runs for info while I do other stuff, and solving along with the videos. I can also timeskip or watch on 2x for parts.

From chat comments, I am not the only one who made this pivot. I would love to really get lost in this game, but I just can't. I am very satisfied with what I did solve even before I switched to an LP. I solved a LOT. I have my own detailed theories about what the end game moves will be. But I can let someone else spend hours doing runs to do all the needed layouts.

* I just got caught up in my D&D homework and refreshed myself on how to multiclass with wizards. Both my characters are multi-classed, but one is way more complicated then the other. The irony is that at the end of the chapter Leyfarers is switching from the original 5th edition rules to the 2024 redo of fifth edition, so I am going to need to redo everything and relearn everything.

I am going to need to figure out soon if I am re-speccing either of them, because the rules changeover will be a one-time chance to change classes and other stuff. And right now I really don't know.

* I really need to do glamour shots of my dice and also stop buying dice.

Because the weather was going to be rough, I changed plans and decided to go up to Timberline Lodge on the middle day so I could be doing things, but be out of the weather. I had food on me, but as usual they were able to feed me.

Two things about Timberline Lodge - 1) It was used as the exterior hotel shots in The Shining, but the inside is completely unrelated. 2) It was a WPA project so it's a ski lodge, but also a National Historic Monument. There's a little ranger station on the bottom floor. People can spend time in the lobbies and exhibit areas as long as they don't bring in outside food or try to sleep.

Plan was to work a while in the lobby, have lunch and then do some photography. But, being at a high elevation just after I'd been sick for so long didn't mix well and I left early. So, I didn't really have time for pictures. That did leave me some time before dark to poke around in the woods some more.

Lower area with the ranger station:



Outside:



Main lobby:



Pic of one of the little nooks there:

* I am off to Welches tomorrow. It's not far, but if you try to day trip it from Portland without a car you'll be on the bus more than you'll be there. I've been wanting to get out and hike Wildwood again, so I'm staying for two nights. Actually, with how messy the logistics are, maybe I should have booked for longer?

I am not sure how much hiking I'll manage. Even though I've kicked whatever crud I had, my lungs were congested for a while and my digestive system is recovering slowly from the meds. So, I am still pretty easily fatigued. We'll see how it goes. I'd been trying to psych myself up for a day trip back out there for ages, but the bus logistics were just too much. So, I decided to take it a bit easier on myself and just grab a room in the area and break up the two 3-hour plus bus rides. Actually, the main problem is that the bus doesn't run late. If you day trip it, you've got a tight window to actually be there. Also, needing to connect between 3 separate transit systems is a bit spicy, but, WCGW?

* Still trying to figure out how to round out my Blue Prince experience. I am not going to solo 100% this game. For context here is a no-spoilers clip about where Cohhcarnage is in the game. He's about to spend 3-6 hours setting up a puzzle so he can try to solve it, he downloaded photoshop and learned how to use it on stream so he can use it to piece stuff together. Personally, I've been using Procreate on some puzzles. (Cohh is a major gaming streamer, not like a random gaming streamer. That PirateSoftware's team is currently trying to figure out if they've 100%'d it is... like... PirateSoftware wins code breaking competitions at Defcons. These names are BIG names)

It's a lot. Right now I am spinning my wheels. I don't know what to do except do more runs until something clicks or a notice a thing. And as someone who's done a lot of MMOs, I am very primed to grind. But, I don't want to do that. I don't want to stop here, but also can't let this become too much of a time sink.

Over at Worldcon Cassidy (WSFS DH), Nicholas Whyte (Hugo Administrator) and Esther MacCallum-Stewart (Deputy Hugo Administrator) all resigned yesterday. I didn't post about it, because today was the day that the 'full explanation' for their use of ChatGPT was supposed to be posted. We don't know for sure if the con's use of ChatGPT was the reason for them leaving, but it feels like it was and a lot of people jumped to that conclusion.

I'd given up on that statement happening today, but they did post. Yeah, that's not good. It makes me question a lot of what was in the original statement. And the division head didn't know that this is what their staff was doing? Was it all of them? I mean, whether it was all 30 or just some, I have a lot of questions about the hundreds of work hours claim.

Also, like seriously, did all 30 staff have a specific workflow and their division head had no idea or was it just some and they were making it sound like it was everyone because... they just kinda pointed the finger at 30 specific staff. Like, whether it was all of some, this is not good.

Honestly, it sounds like they have no clue what the hell is going on at their own con, what their policies and work flows are, etc.

* I finished Lost Records: Bloom and Rage by watching an LP because my playthrough was bugged. I'd been massively looking forward to this because the early promo was amazing. But, having seen the whole thing and also looked up to see if there are alt endings, I cannot recc this game.

( Plot structure discussion, no specific spoilers )

* Blue Prince has been blowing up, but I still feel it's still just catching on. As a puzzle game it's... a lot. Think rogue-like Myst but with decades of game dev know how and advances in game mechanics, but also in a quiet empty house. I saw some stats about it setting records for puzzle games in terms of how many people are watching streams of it and also content creation.

I put notes about the game in my journal and have had to clip in ten more pages, here they are folded and layered to hide spoilers:



Basically, for people who like these sorts of games, good news. Also, there is a specific aspect of the game balance that I want to see some long form content about.

It was my last day in NYC and I wasn't sure if I wanted to go anything in particular or just wander. When I am in cities, I am mostly wandering and not doing museums and things like that. It felt weird to not be spending time just exploring. But, I decided to go because of William. William is a small turquoise blue hippo that's the Met's mascot. I had a kid's book of him and couldn't resist buying a small plush William in the gift shop of the Cloisters. To have him and never go? That would be odd.

My fit for a day at a museum in NYC:



The book I had as a kid that was my exposure to The Met and it's collections was called A Tale of Two Williams. It's about a kid who doesn't want to go to the museum, but his mom drags him there. He finds a sentient, talking creature chained to a wall and agrees to free it. In exchange William the Hippo shows William the Little Boy around the museum, except no on else is there and the pictures were clearly taken at night. So, it's a kid and this creature wandering around Egyptian tombs at night. I wasn't able to find many pictures of the book, but here are a few:





Which brings me to my question...


I spent a lot of time with that book as a kid, copying the hieroglyphics over and over, because I wanted to learn Egyptian. I was a kid, the internet didn't exist, that book is what I had, so I filled pages and pages.

It's weird that I'd never been to the Met. In school we never did field trips to the NYC museums, the schools assumed we'd all been and often. Instead we went to museums that were hours in the other direction, often small niche ones, or went to artist's studios. Honestly, pretty impressive on the part of my schools. But, when I'd say I'd never been people were confused by it. In middle school I wrote an assigned essay on why museums like the Met are propaganda trying to shape America's concept of itself. I'd read and written about it, teachers again assuming we'd all had the experiences of being there and they were helping us engage with it. In front of the museum is a new courtyard with fountains, gifts of David Koch and very controversial attempt to buy legacy. Reading about it doesn't capture the weight of it, both the massive open galleries and the tightly packed mezzanine levels. As with the Cloisters, I was less interesting in the art and more in it being there and how it was displayed.

A room that was scooped up to moved to America so Americans could look at it:


There are a number of displays at the Met that are rooms. Some are like 'we have a bunch of furniture and stuff from the era and here is how a room could have looked' and some of it is like 'we liked this bedroom/dining room so we took it to go'

Then there's this:





Then you head up into the crowded balcony and mezzanine areas and:



Also, I did a thing, or tried to do a thing: youtube short of a zoom out in the area Wish I could embed shorts like other youtube videos. Anyway, I loved spending time there and eating fruit cups on the balcony. I know I sound very critical of museums, and I am, but they are also amazing and I still enjoy them and get a lot out of them. The Met is just so massive and weighty.

( A few more pics )

My seat was alright:



And I was there 2 weeks before the NYC opening night? Because the opening night just happened. I was in some sort of pre thingie? IDK. I just grabbed a ticket? The show was good! I'll post more on that below a cut.

Due to rain, I took a car to the theater. The driver was deaf. The reason why this is relevant is, you know how modern cars sometimes have censors that ding if a car is too close to you, or you are too close to it? Imagine being in a car in NYC traffic with that sensor NOT disabled. The driver was fine. He drove exactly how I'd expect someone who drives in NYC for a living to drive. But, the whole ride was dingdingdingdididididididididding.... ding....

Then I couldn't find the theater because the way I needed to go was blocked by people who were in line for 'whatever my tour group booked'. Seriously, most people couldn't or wouldn't tell me what they were in line for, so I just had to start pushing through lines to get to an employee for help. The lines turned out to all be for Hamilton, the line for my show turned out to be inside.

( The show. No specific spoilers, just plot structure stuff )