Intent and Joy (Talk I Gave Last Sunday)

        Here's the base of my talk I gave last week in church. My typical process is writing it all out (which is pretty much what you have below), but then practice it a couple times out-loud to myself so I can 1. make sure the time is good and 2. get it all in my head. 

        With it in my head, I can use what I have written more as bullet points rather than reading exactly what I have. This helps me flow more naturally, look at people while I'm talking, and be better prepared to follow the Spirit to make adjustments/say specific things/reword things etc. So what's written below is definitely not exactly what I said during my talk last week. I added a couple sections using asterisks where that especially took place, but obviously minor adjustments were all over the place since I barely read directly off what I had written down.

Anyway, here's my talk I've titled Intent and Joy:

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        Hello Brothers and Sisters! My name is Alex Perazzo. I’m home for the semester from BYU Idaho, just got back last Saturday. 

*Expanded on my life: Major, minor, graduation in a year etc.* 

        My topic at hand today is Honoring and Keeping Covenants. I kind of go back and forth on if I actually like introducing my topic first thing. On one hand, I don't want to have anything get in the way of having people hear what they need to hear -- I want you to be able to distill and learn what you need to learn, and I feel a given topic might make people feel like they can only learn about that one thing, which isn't true. On the other had, (which is why I chose it in this case), it can give a nice structure and context for various parts of the talk. 

        Anyway, I hope my seemingly random stories and such take more shape and provide more understanding because you understand the overall topic is Honoring and Keeping Covenants. I pray that the Spirit will aid me in this as well and that the Spirit may help you take away something that will help you look at life more brightly and become a better, more confident person.

         As I’ve been contemplating and writing what I want to speak today, I’ve notice two general subsections that I want to focus on in regards to this topic. #1 How to best Honor and Keep our Covenants through Our Intent being in the right place, and #2 Joy in our Covenants.

Subsection 1: Intent

        Intent is an incredibly important part in keeping our covenants. In following the commandments. In everything we do.

        Moroni in Moroni chapter 7 quotes his father, Mormon, who spoke about the importance of having real intent. As a side note before I read those verses, the chapters in the Book of Moroni are so powerful to me. In Moroni 1 Moroni says, “I write a few more things, contrary to that which I had supposed. I had supposed not to have written more, but I have not as yet perished;” Moroni thought he was done, that he would have died by now. But since he hadn’t, he wrote some of the most precious chapters the Book of Mormon contains. Imagining the Book of Mormon without the Book of Moroni, without Moroni's promise, as Moroni thought it was going to be, is just a wild thought. The Book of Moroni is wonderful.

        Anyway, that aside, back to Mormon talking about real intent. He says in verses 6-8 of chapter 7, 

6 For behold, God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing.

7 For behold, it is not counted unto him for righteousness.

8 For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God.

        I feel like I learned that principle many many semester ago when a female friend of mine asked me to give her a priesthood blessing. At the time, I kind of liked her, so my inner desire was to give a great blessing and she would be impressed with my spirituality or something or the other and like me more, if that makes sense. 

        I think it was the first blessing of comfort I’ve given where I did not have the spirit strongly with me after the blessing. I’m sure the blessing was helpful nonetheless, God isn’t going to not bless his daughter because I had the wrong intent in my heart – she told me a few times after that various parts of the blessing helped her, but to me something was off. I thought and prayed a lot about it, and I realized that my intent was off. That I was focusing on the wrong things. That when I’m exercising the Priesthood, when I’m serving, it needs to be for them.

        Likewise, we need to strive to keep our covenants not for the recognition from others or for any other selfish reason. We best honor our covenants when we keep our covenants because we love God.

        I want to make sure to focus on the other side of this principle. Right now I feel like I’m focusing on the side that may give the impression that we’re all doing worse than we think we are with the idea that “if you think you’re doing good, you might not be if that good is not with the right intent”. I feel what I’ve talked about could be discouraging if we view it from that light. 

        Of course I want what I say to push us all to be better, and part of that is recognizing where we’re going wrong, but obviously discouragement is not going to help us do that. So now I want to focus more on the other side so I hopefully hit the proper balance between not too much on one side lest discouragement happens but not too much on the other side lest complacency happens. 

        We are all doing much better than I think we think. And I think this principle of making sure our intent is in the right place is actually a big reason why that is. I feel there are many times and situations throughout life where we feel we may come up short. We get busy and we drop the ball on a commitment. We have such a long day that we’re short-fused with a loved one. We fail on keeping our goals yet again. Over and over again we may feel like we’re falling short. 

        But if you are actively trying to become better, that is what matters most. 

        We see this in the newest version of the temple recommend questions, which frequently uses the word “strive”. “Do you strive for moral cleanliness in your thoughts and behavior?” “Do you strive to keep the Sabbath day holy?” “Do you strive to be honest in all that you do?”

        Even if we feel we may come up short, if we truly strive to become like Christ, He will work in our lives and everything is going to be much better than you can imagine.

        President Nelson said, “The Lord loves effort, and effort brings rewards. We keep practicing. We are always progressing as long as we are striving to follow the Lord. He doesn’t expect perfection today. As in times past, our journey does indeed take effort, hard work, and study, but our commitment to progress brings eternal rewards.”

Subsection 2: Joy

        Thinking about joy, I wanted to share a story from school this past semester. I hope someone else can find this seemingly insignificant moment as insightful as I have. Even though it’s just a funny passing moment, I’ve reflected on it several times the past, so I wanted to share it.

        A little bit of background first: My roommates got me into Trading Card Games this past semester. You might recognize Pokemon or Magic: The Gathering, which are more common place trading card games, but Lorcana, the Disney Trading Card Game, is the one I’ve played the most of. 

        I actually definitely don’t recommend getting into trading card games as they are definitely a money hole. I spent way more money on cardboard than I care to admit in the past few months. But a really neat thing about trading cards is they have inherent value – you can sell them online to people. When you open up a Legendary Ursula card, you can list it online and someone will actually buy it from you for $30. 

        After opening up 50+, 75+ packs (much more in my roommates's case), we have gotten extremely desensitized. We open a pack and if it doesn’t contain a 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 dollar card, then the pack is trash and we set it aside barely looking at its contents. Next pack: Trash again. Next pack: Trash again. 

        At one of these tournaments, I got to watch this lady, we’ll call her Selina because that’s her name, open up a pack, and it was just a heartwarming joyous sight. Every card in that pack is a treasure and an excitement. Every pack, no matter how good or bad money wise, she loved and had so much fun opening up. 

        One pack in particular I remember: My roommates and I saw her open up a (at the time) $45 Robin Hood card. We’re popping off for her. But to her, it’s just another card. “Ooo, I like Robin Hood, neat!”

        The next card: a 75-cent foil Dalmatian Puppy. She gets so excited. Talking about how she’s been looking for more Dalmatian Puppy cards and how the foil looks so good.

        And I just feel like there’s a really good lesson in there. It’s important we try to find joy in the little things. I think it’s important we try to find joy throughout our lives. Keeping covenants, keeping commandments may seem to get routine at times. But finding joy in the little things is important.

*Expanded more on that topic of finding joy. I also expanded a lot into how I know life is hard that life hasn't been easy for me recently. But how I know that we were sent to earth to experience things and how they'll be consecrated for our gain. How I know that everything is going to be great:)*

        I want to end by sharing a quote from Elder Eyring back in October of 2019. It comes from his talk Holiness and the Plan of Happiness where he talks about how increased holiness and purity leads to increased happiness.

        He said, “[Alma] taught his son that increasing in holiness was the only path to happiness. He made it plain that greater holiness is made possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ cleansing and perfecting us. Only by faith in Jesus Christ, continuing repentance, and keeping covenants are we able to claim the lasting happiness we all yearn to experience and retain.”

*Bore my testimony on various things including stuff revolved around the ideas I have below*

        For me, at least, I know I feel more peace and joy when I know my will aligns with a being who truly knows what is best for me, who knows what will make me most happy now and in the eternities. I trust him to know what is best for me, so I can feel peace when I’m doing what he would have me do.

        I bare witness of these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Win-cons in Board Games

So I've run into this weird thing recently. I've played several games of both Ark Nova and Terraforming Mars this past week, which are games that are often compared to one another. I love both, and I can comfortably say both are in my top 10 favorite board games of all time. Yes, I need to get around to updating my list, but that is a constant need. (Most recent publicized version can be found here)

An interesting difference between the two is their win conditions. Ark Nova's end triggers once one player's score gets high enough (slightly simplified, but that's the base idea). Terraforming Mars end triggers once all the global parameters are complete. 

The important difference between the two is it being an individual vs a group thing. Ark Nova ends once one person, completely separate from everyone else, does something (it's effectively a race). Terraforming Mars ends once we've all collectively finished terraforming Mars.

I've discovered that I'm not a fan of race win-cons.

I think the main reason that drives this is because it makes me feel bad for winning. I am prematurely cutting off other people's wonderful thing they have going on, and if I hadn't been there, they would still be having fun building up their stuff.

I've seen this happen several times in Viticulture as well. I play with a new player or something, and I win so quickly that they were just getting things up and running -- they were just about to see the fruits of this engine they've been building up and I cut them off, and I don't like how that makes me feel. It makes me feel that if I had not been playing, they would have had more fun.

Especially in a game like Ark Nova, which is so solitaire with little to no interaction, ending the game when other people are just seeing success is not a feels-good moment.

Perhaps in closer games, the race win-con is more fun than the normal "end-after-n-rounds" etc., but idk. When it's not close, it just feels bad. I don't want to feel bad for playing my best.

My Favorite Moment Playing Secret Hitler

Thomas brings this story up pretty consistently whenever we talk about Secret Hitler. It's pretty incredible and frankly hilarious, so even though it's kind of embarrassing, I feel like it needs to be immortalized in a journal of some form, hence the blog post.

Background on the game Secret Hitler (in case you know little to nothing about it (I'll keep it to only the barebones of what you need to understand the story)):

It's a social deduction game where a couple-few people are fascists and most of the people are liberal. Each round a president and chancellor get voted in. The president looks at 3 cards. Each card is either a fascist card or a liberal card. He gives 2 of the cards to the chancellor. The chancellor picks one of the two cards to enter play. The fascists' goal is to get fascist cards out in play and the liberals' goal is to get liberal cards in play.

The Story Part One:

One night between the months of January and April of 2022 we get together and play Secret Hitler with our FHE family. After some super fun games, Thomas (who was my room roommate at the time) and I are chatting about the various games and things. He brings up a potential strategy you could implement in Secret Hitler. 

The Theorized Strat:

You are fascist. You hand a liberal 2 fascist policies. After they put down a fascist, you claim you gave them a choice. Of course, you have your initial squabble of not trusting each other, but after a while you slowly start trusting them some. You say that you believe them and they most have simply accidentally not realized there was a choice. You gaslight them so hard that they too believe they actually had a choice and they just didn't realize it.

The Story Part Two:

The very next night we sit down to play Secret Hitler again with our FHE sisters. Thomas is fascist. I am liberal. He gives me two fascist policies. I put down a fascist. He claims I had a choice. You probably see where this story is going.

Thomas lies so well and gaslights me so hard that I eventually believe that he's liberal and that I must have just accidentally put down a fascist card. The fact that we had talked about the strategy the night before made it all the more believable that he wouldn't be doing it to me, and all the more sweet for Thomas as he deceives me like I've never been deceived before.

I am happy to say that the Liberals won that game regardless. But boy oh boy was it hilarious and embarrassing  as Thomas revealed that he fascist the whole time. Definitely my favorite Secret Hitler moment of all time even though I'm the one who got deceived -- winning even still does take away some of the sting for sure, though, haha.

Goal Report on the First Quarter of 2024

So I thought I would return and report on how all my goals and plans are going.

Goal 1: Reading

List of all the stuff I've read:

January:

Start Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

ReDawn by Brandon Sanderson

Evershore by Brandon Sanderson

        Start Defiant by Brandon Sanderson

February:

Finish Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

Continue Defiant by Brandon Sanderson

        Start Boundaries by Cloud & Townsend

March:

        Start Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

        Listen to Edgedancer by Brandon Sanderson

        Listen to Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

So I'm doing pretty well in this category. Got ahead in February as I was originally planning on just continuing Words of Radiance in February and then finishing it in March, but I ended up just finishing it all in February. I slowed down quite a bit in the middle of March, but the last week or so in March (spilling a little into April) I did some good catching up. We're looking good. Got a lot more reading/listening ahead of me, and I'm excited.

Goal 2: Basic Work-Out Routine

I have not been doing so well in this goal. There was a solid two weeks I think where I was consistently doing my few minutes of push-ups/sit-ups every day except Sunday, but then I forgot one day and quickly fell out of the habit.

Goal 3: Bi-Weekly Reevaluations

I've been doing a good job of this in terms of figuring out where I am in my reading goal, but not so much in other goals. I also want this to be a time where I can set smaller term goals depending on the various things going on in my life at that time, which I've done a little, but not too much. So: Not awful, but definitely want to expand what I do during my reevaluations. 

Goal 4: Reaching Out to People

I've been doing quite alright on this one I would say, but it's been more naturally than purposefully. Which I guess is just simply a good thing? I feel like I've been doing a good job at staying connected with various people and such. I do want to send more texts to random people I haven't seen since High School and such, but overall I feel good about what I've done so far.

Goal 5: Weekly Blog Posts

Doing super good:)

Goal 6: 2024 Campaign Related Goals

No progress, although I have plans of when I'll make progress, though, which is an important step.

My Two Truths and a Lie

I've been cooking these up for a while and thought it would be fun to share. As I've thought about random things that I've done throughout my life, I realized some of them sound pretty wild; realized they would be perfect for the game 2 Truths and a Lie.

1. I once owned a pet goldfish that lived for over 8 years.

2. I've worn the same tie almost every Sunday for over 4 years.

3. At one point in my life, I lived in a hotel for over 4 months.

Note (and this is a note I would probably give when actually playing the game as well): I think half-truths/lies are silly/non-fun (ex. If #1 my pet goldfish only lived 7 years, not 8. Or for #3 it was actually a motel, not a hotel etc.), and thus I only do full truths, complete fabrications, or extreme exaggerations.

The Record

I did this in the past for a while and thought it was hilarious, and I've been wanting to do it again. Frankly, not sure why I ever stopped. Just had the idea to turn it into an ongoing/updating blog post.

This is "The Record". Any time I hear someone say, "For The Record...", I will do my best to make sure that it gets recorded in its proper place. Here. In The Record.

Note: The date shown is when I heard them request it being on the record, not when they originally asked for it to be on the record.

The Record

"For the record, I don't think I use the phrase, 'for the record' very often." ~Tyler B.

(Tyler right after learning about The Record) 

3/18/24

"For the record, I cannot consent to this." ~ Joseph G. 

(Joseph after Tyler requested that he constantly use the phrase "for the record" from now on)

3/18/24

"I pressed grab, let the record show." ~ Cory T.

(Cory after being grabbed by Chuck in Street Fighter 6)

3/30/24

"For the record, I think it's more fancy." ~ Me

(Me after my team made a guess on if a Yogurt Parfait is more or less fancy than what the other team said in a game of Wavelength)

4/7/24

"Just for the record, there is no mafia." ~ Drew Carey

(In Whose Line Is It Anyway. I was watching this.)

4/9/24

"Theo will be ripping those, let the record show." ~ Cory T.

(When commentating my SSBU set after I tried to do back throw into flair blitz as Charizard seen here. (Side note: The fact that I won that game is hilarious.))

4/21/24

"For the record, I don't think you should be doing that." ~ Beth P.

(Teasing me about this blog post -- can't tell if she's being serious regardless of the fact that she said she was teasing.)

4/21/24

Abstract Applications of Scriptures are ¿Interesting?

I think it's ¿interesting? (not quite sure the right word) when people use scriptures to almost justify their actions, but the two things aren't actually related and you could easily use other scriptures to justify the other course of action. 

I think the prime example I find is in course syllabuses. Pretty much direct quote I've seen a couple times: "Just like how we'll all be accountable for our own sins, you will be tested individually." I find this kind of silly, using the scriptures in a way to make it seem like your course is structured as God would structure it. Because you could easily pull out a different random thing from the scriptures to make your syllabus say the opposite. "Just like the Good Samaritan helped the man on the side of the road, we too must always help each other; therefore, tests will be in groups."

Just something I find interesting that I think it's probably wise to be careful of. Justifying our actions with scriptures in some abstract way that could easily be countered by the use of other scriptures used in some abstract way, if that makes sense.

Idk, obviously you want to apply principles from the scriptures to your life, and I'm not trying to say to not do that. I just think certain times people do it in not the best ways, I guess? Maybe part of it is when it affects people vs simply applying it to yourself? I'm not quite sure what exactly about it is okay/not okay. Regardless I hope what I'm trying to say is getting across.

Lorcana Tournaments

I've been playing a lot of Lorcana recently. Lorcana is the Disney Trading Card Game.

As I referenced at some point, I've been going to weekly Lorcana tournaments for the past few weeks now. I've been to 3 constructed deck tournaments and 1 draft.

Tournament Structure:

They're hosted by our local gamestore. Entry is $10 and the prize support is 2 packs per player. Everybody gets a guaranteed 1 pack and then the rest of the packs are distributed amongst the top 3ish (depending on how many people show up). They are run using Swiss with 3 rounds.

Rundown of Each Tournament I've Been To:

Week 1:

First week we (my two roommates (Joe and Tyler) and I) all lost to Austin, who instantly became our rival. I don't remember exactly what happened outside of that, but I ended up taking 2nd winning 3 packs, I believe. I was piloting Tyler's discard deck (that link takes you to the decklist. In this case, it's not the exact deck I ran, but pretty close. The other decklist links are pretty spot on to what I ran, I'm pretty sure).

Week 2:

Second week we all brought different decks. I was piloting an Evasive Donald Duck Ruby/Steel deck. I ended up winning! Beating Austin in the process, which I was very happy about. I won 4 packs, I think.

Week 3 (Draft):

The 3rd week was a special event for the release of Set 3. We did a draft, and it was seriously such a freaking blast. Each person gets four packs. Open a pack, pick a card, pass the pack, pick a card etc. until that pack is gone. Open up another pack, so on and so forth. 

You get to keep all the cards you drafted. And then they did prize support on top of that, which was insanely awesome. 12 people showed up for the draft, which was so cool (attendance the other two weeks was 5 and 8). I won and I'm super happy about that! My roommate Joe got 2nd, which was awesome. Ended up winning 5 packs on top of the 4 that I drafted. (Entry fee was $25 for this event)

Week 4:

The 4th week was the first week of Set 3 constructed deck. I brought an alright Amber/Steel Bodyguard deck that I had been ironing out throughout the week. Ended up winning! Only 5 people were in attendance, which was sad; we were definitely hoping for more after all the new people came to the draft the week before. Won 4 packs.

Week 5:

2nd week of Set 3 constructed. Great turnout with 7. Had a lot of fun with this Emerald/Amethyst Tempo Deck. Won my first two rounds and my third round was against Tyler. Every game was super close. I barely won game one, 20 to 19 lore. Game 2 was close, but he won. Game 3 I had an awful start, but he made a couple critical misplays, which I was able to capitalize on just enough to win the tournament. I won 4 packs, one of them included a $37 card which was super hype.

Selling Cards:

I've also just started up this week selling cards on a TCGplayer account. I've spent a good chunk of money on Lorcana, and I'm hoping to make some of it back. I'll plan to eventually sell all my cards, but for now I'm just selling my most expensive ones. I've also been "hired" on by Joe to sell many of his most expensive cards ("hired": he gave me $10 worth of cards and I get to keep his profits from shipping (aka, like 20 cents every shipment)). 

It's been a lot of fun so far! We've sold to 15 different people already for a total of (after fees) $273. Definitely planning on keeping this little side hustle going on for a while.

The Kind Of Funny Tragicness of Shiny Hunting

So my roommate (Joe) has a Game Boy Advance and a copy of Pokemon LeafGreen. I'm not sure exactly what his end goal is, but he is hunting for shiny pokemon (I believe his brother who lives elsewhere is too, I think). I have been helping him on this quest. If I'm listening to a book or watching a show or something, you can often find me pressing the A button repeatedly hoping a blue Snorlax appears.

For this pokemon/situation, it's set up in such a way that you can just turn on the game and press A a bunch until a Snorlax appears. When you're never lucky and Snorlax is not blue, you press A+B+Start+Select at the same time and it resets the game; you proceed to press the A button a bunch of times, and so on and so forth.

Trouble is, of course, there's only a 1/8192 chance to encounter shiny. An abysmal .01221% chance.

Bigger trouble is, of course, how statistics works. We are just as close now to catching shiny blue Snorlax as we were when we started this endeavor. Even though we've pressed that A button for hours and hours and hours by now, it doesn't make any difference to our next boot up. And I think that's kind of tragic. But also kind of hilarious in its own way.

On January 23rd, I did have the pleasure of watching Joe encounter a shiny Gastly while Joe, Tyler, and I watched the last episode of one of the greatest animes of all time, Ping Pong The Animation. It was their first time watching it, my fourth, and catching a shiny was just a beautiful moment to add to a beautiful experience of watching that anime again with them.

Merry Christmas!

 Third year in a row of (kind of) celebrating Christmas on the 25th of February 🥳🥳🥳

I'm Competitive

I'm competitive, fun fact of the day.

So, as of not this past week but the week before, I'm attending 3 different tournaments a week. Which is kind of ludicrous. And kind of a lot.

3 different tournaments for 3 different games. Thursdays there are Lorcana tournaments, Fridays is Smash, and Saturdays is Street Fighter 6.

And it kind of amazes me how competitive I am. I don't get overly upset or angry when I lose, however, so I don't think I'm unhealthily competitive. But I just want to win. Start playing Street Fighter 6 with my roommates and lose. Immediately want to grind until I win. Learn there's tournaments for it every week? Immediately want to grind to win. Start playing Lorcana with my roommates and lose. Immediately want to start building decks, looking up videos, learning how to play better until I win.

Granted, I will say my competitive desire for Smash, although definitely re-amped compared to this post, is starting to rescind again. I feel a part of that is definitely these other competitive outlets that I have, but also other stuff, although I don't care to write more about that right now (partially because it wouldn't surprise me if a week from now I feel completely different).

Regardless of whether I stop going to Smash tournaments again or not, it's all been a lot of fun. Lorcana is great (note: I don't actually recommend getting into it, however. TCG's are a money-hole) and I'm excited to see what random decks people bring to the tournaments once Set 3 comes out.
Street Fighter 6 has had a wonderful effort-reward cycle and I feel like I can be very competitive with the best in our small scene (8ish people per tournament (side note: Lorcana has been slightly smaller than that thus far)); I'm not quite there yet, but I feel I can be soon, and it's exciting.

Those three things pretty much encapsulate what I've been spending my free time on recently. Also been getting some reading done. Behind on some books but ahead on Stormlight Archive. And I've also still been following the Warriors. They have been cooking and have won 8 of the last 10, and it's been really fun to watch.

Two Paragraphs of My Short Story, "Auzzy Quite Liked Her Name"

(Title is a work in progress, but I do quite like it, so we'll see if it sticks.)

Wrote this post entitled "I Really Want to Write a Story", which is about, uh, how I really want to write a story.

I actually wrote that blog post before Christmas 2023, and since then the seed of a story idea has grown. As part of a Christmas gift to Hannah, I had her name the main character of this story I was crafting.

 

She chose the name Auzzy (Ah-zshe).

It still has a long way to go; don't expect any form of a finished product any time soon. But I wanted to post what I currently have for the first two paragraphs here because I like them and I wanted to share them. I hope you like them too:)

Auzzy quite liked her name. It was given to her by Hannah, after all, whom she was quite fond of. How does she know Hannah? You see, Auzzy was special and she knew it – in fact, the fact that she knew she was special was what made her special in the first place. Auzzy knew she was in a story.

Auzzy was 10 years old, was a very sweet girl, had red hair, and tried not to think too much about how her free will worked. She knew she had choices, even if those choices were technically written out by someone else. It was complicated. It was weird. She knew it. Her author knew it. But they were both content to simply be part of this fourth-wall-breaking tale together without too much fuss about what the heck is going on.

Sweaters, Sweat Shirts, Jackets and Coat (Updated)

Jacket: an outer garment extending either to the waist or the hips, typically having sleeves and a fastening down the front.

Sweaters: a knitted garment typically with long sleeves, worn over the upper body.

Sweat Shirts: a loose, heavy shirt, typically made of cotton, worn when exercising or as leisurewear.

Coat: an outer garment worn outdoors, having sleeves and typically extending below the hips.

Now you know the definitions. So, now when our friend calls their jacket a sweater, you can feel smart and correct them. (Don't be a jerk about it though) Then if you come to an argument you can just come here. If they're still pretty sure that they are correct, you can go to google.com and show that these definitions are the same.

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This is an updated version of Sweaters, Sweat Shirts, Jackets and Coat that I wrote 11ish years ago. Story behind why this update exists can be found in my blog post The Hilarious Moment That Has Been Building for Over 11 Years.

I kept as much of the original post as possible (including the hilarious, "(Don't be a jerk about it though)" (although the 'it' was added because apparently I forgot it in the original, haha)). I just updated the definitions, the grammar, and the last sentence is phrased differently (but the rough same idea gets across). I decided to even keep the name in its same form even though there should be a comma after Jackets and Coat should be pluralized.

Thoughts on the 8 New Games I Played Over Christmas

So I got to play a lot of new games over Christmas time and it was fantastic and I wanted to give my some of my thoughts about them. I'll rank them at the end or something probably. I have a lot of games to go through so probably won't go suuuper in depth or anything.

1. Cat in the Box

Eric and Becky both got a copy of this. Absolutely stellar trick-taking game where you decide what color your cards are as you play them down. Definitely one of my favorite games I played over this Christmas and now definitely amongst my favorite trick-taking games ever.

Ben and I do question if it legitimately has legs or not. For now, it's still golden, though.

2. Scout

Joseph and I both got a copy of this. Another stellar trick-taking game; this time around you can't organize your hand. I think I prefer Cat in the Box, but they definitely feel different enough that you don't really need to compare them.

3. Dead Reckoning

Eric got this a while ago, but we played it for the first time this Christmas. Had tons of fun with this card-crafting, exploration, pirate game. There's still a lot to dig into here replayability-wise, and I'm excited to do so. I'm afraid of too much "take that" in games, but I think this hit the balance well.

4. Alice's Garden

Becky gave this to Aunt Kathy. This was a huge hit this Christmas, with Uncle Gary notably playing it a ton. He even, after a game of spades, whipped it out and taught Uncle Alan how to play. Kind of legendary.

It's a fun point-salad, tetris-like, drafting game. Definitely had fun with it and would play again. Mildly concerned about balancing, but it hasn't ruined the experience (yet). A fun game practically anyone could get into.

5. Trekking through History

Becky gave this to Uncle Gary. Solid set-collection, ¿time-management? game with a fun theme. You're hopping through time doing really cool things, but you only want to hop forward in time, so you're trying to pick up cards that make that happen.

6. Ark Nova

I convinced Mom to get this for Eric. Super popular game (currently #4 on bgg) for a reason. Love the theme. Had a lot of fun with this one and played it quite a bit. It is commonly compared to Terraforming Mars, which I think is fair. I will say I prefer Terraforming Mars thus far. I just feel cooler when I'm playing Terraforming Mars -- just having more raw fun, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Ark Nova is fantastic regardless and I will absolutely continue to play it and hopefully get my parents to buy the expansion for it.

7. Khora: Rise of an Empire

Becky gave this to Sarah. I have mixed feelings on this one. It felt snappy and nice, but almost too quick? I felt like I didn't really have time to do much, idk. And I have more than mild concerns about balancing in this game. It's got a really cool base with some neat mechanisms, but it just didn't land for me.

8. Survive!

Joseph got this (not sure from whomst). A riot of a game that you can't take too seriously. Had a lot of fun with this one. If you just ignore how luck-based it is and just have a good time with it, it can be a blast.

If I had to rank the games it would be something like this (tiers are ordered):

S: Ark Nova, Dead Reckoning, Cat in the Box, Scout

A: Survive!, Alice's Garden

B: Trekking through History

C: Khora: Rise of an Empire

Survive! and Alice's Garden is a toss up. Ordering #1-3 is also tough, but I feel good about where it stands.

The Hilarious Moment That Has Been Building for Over 11 Years

First Piece of Background:

I don't really own a good coat, so I wear, like, 6 layers every day to class to stay warm. This is not meant as a complaint of any form. I'm quite content with it.

Second Piece of Background:

There's this classic classic old blog post of mine posted on September 26, 2012 when I was a wee 11-year-old child. Sweaters, Sweat Shirts, Jackets and Coat is its title, and it talks about just that: Sweaters, Sweat Shirts, Jackets and Coats. Which brings up the question: Why didn't I put an 's' on 'Coat' in the title? Nobody knows.

In this blog post, I make an account of the different definitions of those words and make an hilarious statement, "Now you know the definitions. So, now when our friend calls there jacket a sweater you can feel smart and correct them. (Don't be a jerk about though) Then if you come to an argument you can just come here."

Welp, the moment came.

I was at school just the other day, and my friend (who has read parts of my blog) inquires of me, "Why do you wear so many layers? Why don't you just wear a coat?"

"I do wear a coat, I just happen to wear three of them."

"I would argue that those are jackets, not coats."

"I actually have a blog post about this."

"I was actually going to bring that up."

*Laughter here and throughout the rest of the conversation*

"You've read that blog post?? Are you going to send it to me?"

"Yeah, I was actually thinking of doing that."

"You 100% should, that would honestly be a hilarious and a golden moment for me."

And they did.

And so, after 11 years, 3 months, and 14 days, I had somebody send me my own blog post and (without being a jerk about it) correct me on the definitions of coats/jackets.

Twist Ending though!

According to the definition of a coat on a blog, my so-called jackets could be considered coats! "Coat: an outer garment with sleeves, covering at least the upper part of the body: a new fur coat."

This definition is word for word what it still is today on dictionary.com, but I quite honestly prefer the definition that comes through a google search which reads, "an outer garment worn outdoors, having sleeves and typically extending below the hips." This definition leans toward the side of my jackets not being coats due to them not extending below the hips. 

Perhaps I'll have to create an updated version of my post to align with more accurate definitions. (I've actually already decided to do this because I think having a direct sequel to an 11-year-old blog post is fantastic.) I'll also have to expand there or in a separate post about how definitions generally aren't my favorite thing in the world.

I Really Want to Write a Story

I really want to write a story.

And I have this struggle because I'm afraid that other things I do get in the way of that desire which has been building in me. Because I just want to write a nice little fictional story. Don't know how long. Or almost quite literally anything else about it right now, haha. But I want to write it. And I want to share it.

On a side but definitely related note:

It's on my bucket list to publish a book someday. Or get something published in a book (ex. like a poem in a book of poems). Or something to that effect. Ever since putting that on my bucket list, I've always imagined publishing something fictional. I guess simply because that's what I want to do -- hence the whole, you know, bucket list idea. 

Although I recognize now that it may be more achievable/whatever to publish a non-fiction work about literally whatever. Maybe I'm off on that, but idk. And maybe I'll try to do that at some point; it does also excite me. But right now: Small little cute story excites me far more.

Explaining what I meant by "I'm afraid that other things I do get in the way of that desire":

1. I have the 2024 Campaign to construct. Its date grows ever nearer, which is exciting, but also daunting. I feel I have so so so much more to do for it. And part of what I have to do is story writing. But that's not the kind of story I want to write. 

2. Writing these posts. Writing these posts clearly takes time and the construction of thoughts etc. etc., just like writing a fictional story would.

Sometimes it feels like they use up my "allotted time of writing", if that makes sense. But I know fundamentally that's just not true. I can do both. 

It reminds me of the vague notion that some people feel like they can't find time to read fiction because they already read the scriptures (and/or other books written by modern-day prophets etc.) -- I don't know if anyone else has come across this, but I feel like I have. And it's just not true. You can just do both. Just because one activity involves reading doesn't mean that you can't simply have another activity that involves reading. And it's the same with writing.

Side note: I use the word 'just' a lot.

Regardless of all the various other thoughts, I do have a key takeaway I want to do:

If I feel I don't have time to or simply don't want to work on both a personal project and a blog post, I can write a blog post with some basic updates on how much progress I made on my personal project. I think it's a swell idea. I'll keep it in mind.

Potential Blogging New Years Resolution

I think it would be cool to post every week for an entire year. 52 posts in total. 

Granted, I've already had more than 52 posts in three separate years. Also, granted, Eric has already achieved well well over this feat as well: 8 out of the 12 years he's been posting on his blog have over 52 posts with 6/12 having around 300 posts or more and one year (2017) him even achieving the feat of 1 post per day for a total of 365 posts.

But there's something nice to just the flat number of 52. 48 is also a nice number since it's flat 4 per month, which is appealing to me. I also know I have a lot of things I want to write, and this is a good way of getting me to actually write them.

Couple problems with this idea:

1. Although I like the idea of consistency, I also enjoy the freedom I give myself. I write when I want to. I write when I feel it would be helpful in some way. If I don't think it would be, then why would I? I also want to be able to post on a random day if I want to. What if it's simply a special day of the year that doesn't land on a Sunday? Am I not allowed to post?

2. I, if I'm being honest, want my blog posts to be read (specifically by my family). And I'm afraid if I post that frequently many more will go unread.

So I don't know. What do I want to do?

I guess I'll figure it out as I go? I think I'll just start and if I want to switch it up, I'll do so. Not sure if that makes for a very good new years resolution, haha, but I think I'm just allowing myself the flexibility to recognize in the future if I actually think the new years resolution is improving me/my life at all or if it's not.

Regardless, I know I want to keep writing my thoughts and various other things and posting them here:) I hope you'll join me for them.