We have 8 degree Celsius (no clue about Fahrenheit). We have crocus, snowdrop, and daffodill blossoming at the same time which I and my father have never seen before! We have weeks with lots of nearly daily rain now.
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Back in the city safe and sound. There was a car accident on the road when we drove in. Thankfully no one seemed to be too injured, the man was in his car texting someone, as a ring of about ten firefighters crossed their arms over their chest and stood around in a circle to chat.
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I literally fell asleep with the laptop on my chest last night while chatting away to Jinx about our characters. Very pleased I had managed to say goodnight to her before I crashed. Woke up with my laptop on my chest, still open- neck at a weird angle, cat ear headphones smushed firmly in place, and flopsy beneath the covers. Also nice that I didn’t send any devices flying, since the pillows and blankets smushed me pretty firmly into place.
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I found this and I wish I could go soooo bad.
The last time I visited Death Valley, it was 126°F (52.222°C) and so dry that a piece of soft and supple pre-sliced sandwich bread pulled from the sealed bag and set aside in the shade, became hard and dry enough to break into croutons by hand in less than two minutes (98 seconds on average if you’re curious, because, yes, we did do multiple timed trials because we’re nerds.). The air just seeks to suck you dry like sweaty soccer kid with a nearly empty capri-sun.
With that said, I am honestly deeply envious of people near enough to visit the ephemeral “Lake Manly” (My uncharitable head canon is it’s secretly a Parks Service injoke among female park rangers; it’s big and majestic and impressive until things get hot and difficult and then it vanishes, never to be seen again.) that has simply appeared like a jewel glittering in the middle of the desert.
The crazy thing is the wildflower season for Death Valley runs late February to mid April, and it should be an absolutely spectacular standout year, what with the valley receiving so much more rain (5x more than normal) in the last 6 months. (I’m curious with the salt flats how much of a brine lake Manly is right now and how that will change as it quickly evaporates.)
On top of that the snow caps will persist into March, so there are once-in-a-lifetime sights to behold. The right photographer could get a shot like the one above, with the mountains and snowcaps reflected into the water, but with the shores and hills erupted into an insane riot of color from the wildflowers, and the front of the literal freaking kayak they’re in poking into the foreground to hammer home they’re boating in Death Valley. Absolutely bonkers image.
If I could walk and was independently wealthy, I’d be on a plane and camping out there for the next few weeks. But I can’t and I am definitely not, lol. So I share this as a way to celebrate how rare this is together and hopefully someone who lives close enough to take advantage reads this and does. If they go quickly enough, they should be able to kayak in the lake as it’ll be deep enough for a few more weeks. It’s not even hot right now, it’s downright pleasant at the moment. The ten day forecast shows daytime highs between 67-74°F (19.444-23.333°C).
In the nearly two hundred years that the Valley has official recordings, it has only flooded twice. Once, in 2004, and that evaporated in a couple of weeks, and the second time, ever, was since August of 2023, from which the lake has persisted and has been recharged by the recent atmospheric river that hit California. The billions and billions of gallons of water should persist into April, perhaps even early May, before returning to the air. So, that means, that as far as we can tell, a lake materialized for 9-10 months after effectively going extinct tens of thousands of years ago.
I wish I could see it for myself, but I’m also psyched it’s a thing and I’ll get to see some sick pictures over the next few weeks, so those two have to at least wash to a neutral, if not a slight positive because I get to share it with all of you.
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It’s been some time, but does anyone want to see my design documents (Warning: it’s more of a strategy guide feelie at this point, so there are lots of spoilers) for Welcome to Hellwaters? (It’s for IFComp '24, by the way).
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These past few days have been rather fallow on the writing front, even with the partially done strategy guide, so…
Had a spoonful of my mother’s baked apple crumble.
Went to the supermarket today- unlike my old place, it’s considerably smaller but somewhat more convenient.
Guess what? Vanilla ice cream was on the shopping list. To go with that apple pie.
Which reminds me of that one story called You are a Chef! where you go round gathering weird ingredients to cook, well something, and its sequel, which takes place on the IFMUD, called Are You a Chef?
In the latter, numerous people on the mud got turned into vegetables. Another spoiler alert: in Welcome to Hellwaters, IF authors get kidnapped and… well, you’ll see.
Digging through these stuff again- I think the late 2000s were the ‘dark era’ of IF, but are we stepping into another ‘golden era’?
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Apple crumble and vanilla ice cream! Yum! With hot chocolate! Even more yum!
A selection of top games from the dark era on IFDB:
2007:
2008
2009
- The King of Shreds and Patches - Details (ifdb.org)
- The Shadow in the Cathedral - Details (ifdb.org)
Lots of light in those “dark ages”…
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Nothing better than apple pie / cobbler / crumble with vanilla ice cream. !!!
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It’s been years since I had apple crumble. But it is the best , I can remember that in full detail. Somehow, with my skewered memory.
We now have a deal with teachers that we can stay, unsupervised, from 3 till 5 in the school studio, to record. We’re just adding the finishing touches, as well as vocals. Which is me singing. Which is hard, since I’ll say “that’s a good track” and come back the next day and SHOUT in horror when i listen back on, immediately my finger spamming “delete”. 
Anyway, I actually made a track which I have liked for three days in a row now, so we ARE NOT changing that. Time to do chorus. This is not gonna go well. It’s meant to be a bunch of people shouting over each other. But our mic is… interesting. So it sounds funny when shouting. We’ll see how it goes.
(Odd thing: the chorus has a reference to the Echo Room in Zork, when you type in GET BAR [which should be the obvious thing to do do ..]) 
Tomorrow I’m defrosting the chopped mango, and I’m making sorbet! That’s fun.
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Assuming things keep heading the way they have been, yeah, I would say we already are in one, a small one at least anyway. I’m excited for the actual blurring of communities and cross-pollination, as I think the ashes of Gamergate, and the official decision of this forum and other venues to be more open-minded in their definitions of IF, is long enough ago, and enough fence mending has been attempted since, that some peeps in various other communities are starting to get the message that this is an inclusive space welcome to diverse voices and is enthusiastically moderated to keep it that way. I’m excited for the future of not only this Forum, but IF altogether as I think there are some all new areas about to be breached for the first time.
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Regarding what you said:
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There was a point in time, some ten years ago, where the parser-based vs choice-based IF medium was a significant enough dispute that it threatened to tear the IF community apart, from what I know - there was an ‘IF is dead’ thread, and mathbrush used to mention this in his IFComp yearly reviews. Ironically, it led to the parser-based team fighting back, in more ways than one- there was a low-profile Parsercomp, and parser still is popular among the previous generation, and some of the later IFComp participants (Amanda, Manon) have broken or starting to break into the parser camp.
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As a result of the events mentioned in 1, the much yearned-for cross pollination happened, and the second half of the 2010s have seen another changing of the guard to one which is more accomodating, more diverse and more inclusive. Not just ‘what is IF?’. But also ‘who can write IF?’. And as a result, there have been more and more pieces of IF coming out every year, some by inexperienced novices. The mountain keeps on growing and growing to the point that I’m not hoping that one of us will be crushed underneath it.
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When I first joined the forum, I pretty much stayed quiet. There was an assumption that it could be a dangerous place. Then I decided to review the games for last year’s IFComp. Initially I wanted to stop after the choice-based ones, but then I tried a parser one (Assembly Simulator) and decided I’d keep going till I completed the entire circuit. The reviews pretty much changed my opinion of the forum- now I have a good rapport with some of its members.
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Regarding the future of IF, I’d probably carry on what Emily Short and Mathbrush have been doing: I would also like to ask what are the new frontiers that could be breached and explored for the very first time? Last year’s IFComp, particularly Veeder’s Little Match Girl and Puppet Head, proved that video game adaptations are indeed possible- in both choice and parser (parser is a little easier though). Welcome to Hellwaters could likely follow suit.
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Yeah, I largely agree with what you said, although I don’t know if I see it so much as the parser camp “fighting back” so much as simply finding their own footing in a new broader IF world. That’s probably just a matter of semantics though. I think parsers have their own special niche and will continue to experiment and evolve along with every other expressive medium.
I have some beans I could spill here, but they’re not mine to spill, so I’ll just drop a few areas we’ve either seen recent experimentation in or have had active speculative discussion in:
- audio based IF
- different types and styles of multiplayer IF, parser and choice based
- extending the idea of graphical parsers (think early Sierra) into the 3D realm
- experiments into non-fictional IF, or I suppose it’d be INF.
- some ginger feelers into both ARG territory as well as experimental feelies
- writing IF in software that isn’t considered an IF engine (Google Forms, Excel, WinZip and Notepad, etc)
- efforts to introduce different elements of mainstream visual gamedev into IF
- tying stand-alone IF games into existing static fiction, like, say a science fiction series
- and several private experiments different folks quietly have cooking that I don’t think I’m free to publicly comment on
Some of these have had earlier experimentation, some much earlier, but these and other potentially fertile grounds may yet bear fruit and others may stall out again. Yet to be seen.
I am glad you feel comfortable to take part now. I enjoy your posts and hope you’ll keep posting.
These are certainly calmer waters and I believe there has been a community effort and will, in addition to the moderation, to keep those waters calm. That is another factor that has me optimistic.
Regardless, I hope that some bits of that make your brain tingle with the possibilities, even if others make you shake your head ruefully.
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(Heyyyyy, it’s meeeeeeeee! 
)
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Started on something recently and I finally understand how people survive without caffeine now. Holy moly. It’s kind of bananas.
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There has now been another revolution of the earth around the sun since my birth.
yayayay!
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@EldritchHunter Happy birthday to you! 
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Making progress on my SeedComp entry. That’s a win in my book! Now I only need to learn to be less wordy and more succinct.
Me putting up a sign: “Fresh fish for sale here!”
Critic: I believe your message is too long. Clearly you sell your fish here, and not across the street.
Me adjusting the sign: “Fresh fish for sale!”
Critic: Better. But you sell your fish, right, or do you give them away free of charge?
Me further adjusting the sign: “Fresh fish!”
Critic: I still see room for improvement. Surely the fist you sell is fresh, isn’t it?
Me sighing and adjusting the sign: “Fish!”
Critic: Now that I think of it, the sign is unnecessary. We can smell your fish across the harbor!
Me: Rips out the sign and whacks the critic with it.
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[Ordralfabétix, the fishmonger from the Astérix comics, gets ready to whack you with a fish. “Qu’est qu tu dit là, mon poisson n’est pas frais?”]
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Thank you!
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