It's the weekend, and a lazy, relaxing sort of day, so it's time to get out some Gold Peak sweet tea, settle in at my desk dimly but warmly lit by a pudgy little lamp, and relax by writing another gemlog post on my Raspberry Pi and typewriter style mechanical keyboard with wood paneling and round keys. Days like this make me thankful for my peaceful and comfortable life, and remind me to enjoy it while it lasts.
Per my last post, I did some work trying to make my R-Knight solo play game more interesting. I simplified some aspects of the game mechanics that added a lot of bookkeeping and tried to make the combat mechanics more interesting by turning it into a simple card game (with a Python script to automate the deck handling). The problem is, although it's mechanically sound and succeeds in making battles somewhat more dynamic, it's still fairly dull and I find myself getting bored during playtesting. Not exactly signs of a successful game.
So even after iterating on it a bit, I still haven't managed to make R-Knight work as a fun (non-computerized) solo play game. At this point I think I might give up on R-Knight as currently constituted and move on. But I'm still enamored of the idea of something creative I could post to my capsule on a regular basis (monthly, or possibly biweekly or even weekly depending on its nature), as something more interesting than just random gemlog entries.
That's partly why I haven't worked on VVO in a couple weeks, because a project like that just has so much up-front work before you can share anything. You've got to do tons and tons of programming before you reach even the bare minimum level of functionality to be sharable. Given my time limitations, I'd really like to forge a project where I can put out good-quality, sharable content on a relatively frequent basis without the huge up-front workload.
(Which, as I've articulated a couple times, doesn't mean I'm never getting back to VVO, but I think I might need a lengthy span where I can focus most of my attention on it -- i.e., a long vacation -- to make real progress.)
My next idea along these lines is a very simplified version of my VanVan tabletop RPG system adapted for solo play, that I could make solo mini-adventures for. Perhaps I'll spend part of today seeing if I can adapt the mechanics for this kind of use case.
Not something I've ever discussed on my gemlog before, but I do track financial markets pretty closely. I put a substantial portion of my income into investments because I really hope to retire early someday, while I still have enough healthy years left to really enjoy it. I hate politics, which are gross and depressing and drive people of all political stripes to stupidity and insanity, but I've turned into enough of a boring adult that following markets is rather interesting to me.
And boy did markets get slapped around this week. It appears to have been at least partially in response to markets and mainstream news outlets waking up to the reality of recessionary indicators that have long been bubbling just beneath the surface of (adjusted and goal-seeked) official numbers and all-time-high indices, such as a bad jobs print and the recession-indicating "Sahm rule" having been triggered.
Of course, markets aren't rational, and they're also highly distorted by all kinds of factors, so trying to predict what will happen is a fool's errand. A big rally next week wouldn't shock me. Neither would a sharp correction that keeps dragging prices lower. A big correction certainly NEEDS to happen -- equity overvaluations have reached truly insane levels. But just because it needs to happen doesn't mean it will.
Thankfully, I'm quite defensively positioned, so my portfolio pretty much broke even while the market indices were substantially down on the week. Since interest rates are currently such that I can earn a risk-free 5% just keeping my cash parked with my broker, that's what most of my money is doing: just sitting there collecting interest. It's true that since the GFC, the "buy and hold the index and don't worry about it" strategy has generated enormous returns, but I'm nervous about economic conditions (and geopolitical risks), so my psychology is such that I'd rather collect a safe 5% than roll the dice and take the chance that my portfolio could go up 20% or drop by 20%. The carnage of 2022 and the havoc it wreaked on the classic 60/40 portfolio wasn't that long ago. People sure have short memories.
Of course, the Fed has signaled it wants to start cutting interest rates, and deteriorating employment figures will give them the cover to start doing so in the near future. So I'm not sure how long that safe 5% strategy will be available. But a couple of 25bps cuts wouldn't be that impactful -- 4.5% is still good enough. If the APY dropped below 4%, then I'd have to start looking into alternatives for other safe places to park my money. And of course, if markets actually do drop hard and show signs of bottoming out, then I could consider starting to dollar-cost-average back into some index funds. But at current valuations, they're just too rich for my blood.
What would *really* provide fuel for my investment efforts, of course, would be a nice income boost, which I've been making some efforts towards, but that has yet to pan out. If we are indeed now entering (or already in) a recession as more and more metrics are starting to suggest, then I'll probably just count myself lucky to keep the job I have for a while.
I don't really listen to music in the sense most people mean when they ask if you listen to music. I do listen to music, but no traditional bands or "artists", and candidly I don't get anything out of the kinds of music most people listen to. But what I listen to is basically ambient background music -- predominantly instrumental soundtracks from video games, films, and the like -- the kind of thing you can put on and either daydream to it while you think of stories, or have it playing in the background while you work on writing, programming, or whatever.
I just gave that little preamble as explanation for my fun thing to share: I've found that the Dragon's Crown soundtrack makes for superb high-quality ambient fantasy music for D&D or anything D&D-adjacent, and I'll definitely be adding it to my playlist rotation for "creativity music." If, like me, you get enjoyment out of this kind of music, try giving it a listen:
That's all for now.