#as a caveat I don’t mean this story with any offense if you’re religious

[foldingfittedsheets]

One of my earlier jobs in life was at a little pizza place. I worked there when it was first starting up. It’s the only job I’ve ever been fired from and it was because a new manager came in and cleaned house. Because my state requires a reason to be fired he said I used too much pepperoni. So now on job applications I get to write that I was fired for “excessive use of pepperoni.” Never fails to get a laugh.

Anyway! For this story to make sense I’ve first got to set the stage. This pizza place started out as the Wild West of management but one of the original investors was super committed to work programs through the prison. We hired a ton of ex convicts and they were all, to a one, super hyped on Christianity. Like born again for the sole purpose of lauding Christ with their every breath.

I hadn’t been working there long but I’d definitely noticed the Jesus bug had gone around, and as I’ve never been religious at all I tried to steer clear of the topic for my own safety.

The day our story takes place, I was folding boxes. Anyone whose ever worked pizza can attest, there’s so much box folding. It’s something that happens at every lull, the pizza machine demands box folding on a grand and epic scale.

On my right folding his stack of boxes was a guy wider than he was tall, made of pure muscle, Corey. He was newer on staff, and due to a stutter he didn’t talk much. All I knew about him was that he got hired through the rehabilitation program and had done time.

On my left folding was a tall middle-aged woman who loved to yell at me, Cindy. She and I rubbed each other the wrong way and had nothing in common, leading to a tense working relationship.

We folded boxes in silence. This was really my best case scenario as a quiet Cindy was a Cindy not riding my ass, and Corey intimidated me.

But the weight of the silence grew too much for Cindy, who finally said, “I really want to go to bible school.”

I folded a box. I had less than no idea what bible school even was and I didn’t want to get sucked into a religious topic.

On my right Corey said, “W-why, Cindy?”

“Well, cause I believe what’s in the Bible, but I just don’t know it all.”

He nodded sagely to this.

Cindy continued, “And every time I sit down to read the Bible I get real sleepy. And I know it’s the devil.”

It’s so hard to convey her tone in written format. It was delivered with the emphasis and exasperation of an inevitable inconvenience. Like, I just know it’s the squirrels eating the bird seed.

I froze in place at this pronouncement. My only exposure to Lucifer was Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics and I was trying to mentally twist into a frame of mind where The Morningstar cared enough about this one middle aged lady expanding her knowledge of the Bible that he followed her around cursing her with sleepiness when she picked it up.

I think I expected Corey to say, “Well that’s silly,” or something to acknowledge what a bizarre thing Cindy had just said.

Instead he said, “Yeah!” In a tone of complete agreement.

I didn’t look up. I tried to keep my face neutral at this development.

But something must have shown. Corey said, “You don’t believe in God?”

I shrugged casually and said, “If I did I wouldn’t talk about it at work.”

“C-cause it’s t-true. If y-you t-ry to r-read the B-bible on unsanctif-fied gr-round the d-devil m-makes you s-sleepy!”

I made a noncommittal sound and fled into the back room.

Over the next week it drove me crazy though. The logic of it wouldn’t leave me alone so finally one day when it was just Corey and I in front, and the restaurant was empty, I said, “Hey man, I have a question.”

He shrugged and listened.

“I really don’t mean this with any disrespect, I just genuinely want to know about the logistics-“

“J-ust ask.”

“Okay, so if Cindy gets tired when she reads any book, is it only the devil making her tired when it’s the Bible?”

His face went purple with fury and he yelled, “F-fuck you!” at my retreating back as I fled once more into the back room.

It will forever remain a mystery.

#ramblies #story #funny #as a caveat I don’t mean this story with any offense if you’re religious #but I think to assume that you’re being targeted specifically by a cosmic entity who rivals god is an insane hubris #the idea of a devil is already wild cause like he punishes bad people in the mythos so it seems like he's committed to people #paying for bad behavior rather than trying to trick them into it? but everyone treats lucifer like a boogey man which is weird to me #ffs foibles

[kcrabb88]

Watching the latest YA book drama go on down on Twitter because it leaked into my book/writing corners too, has made me think a lot lately about how much we now define books and other media with such a negative slant, usually by saying “what HARM will this book create?” rather than looking more at the GOOD books that are out there, books with more diversity, as well as more diverse authors, and what the potential for those is. Plus it’s like, perfection is demanded rather than the messy process of progress, and that is REALLY hard to live up to for anyone? It feels hard to even discuss the pros and cons of things because people just start shouting and name-calling. 

I am trying to curate my Twitter feed better so I can use it without feeling anxious, and there are good people around, but I get Real Fear about what my own books might face if I get traction with them. Criticism is inevitable in the creative world, and I’m sure I’ve made mistakes! It’s probably inevitable that I have! But Twitter dragging goes Far Beyond That. I know that by the nature of the story I’m telling, I’ve written a lot of identities that are not my own because I wanted to explore and do right by the real history I was writing about and uncover this AMAZING period where these diverse groups of people were standing up to colonialism, and I really TRULY hope I have done justice by those. But it flummoxes me when people with good intentions who make an error are almost thrown into the same pit as people who write overtly racist/homophobic/sexist stuff. 

I see some people on Twitter make fun of Tumblr for being toxic and I’m like uh look in the mirror, friends. Also it’s WAY easier to curate my experience here than it is there, where you can see people’s likes, What Fresh Hell. 

#I have not been dragged or anything but I have seen people get dragged #And it's just a lot #KCrabb rambles

[furynewsnetwork]

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By Paul Meekin

If you’re a nerd of a certain age, you’ve pirated a game. Be it using an SNES or Sega Genesis Emulator to play classics you couldn’t afford as a kid, downloading all of the Leisure Suit Larry Games to see some pixelated wabos, or, in my case, trying most everything you could get your grubby little hands on.

One of these games was “Tom Landry: Strategy Football.”

Released in 1993 for the PC – it was not what you’d think of a typical football game. You did not control the Quarterback. You did not hit a button to sling passes. Instead you were essentially Tom Landry. Calling plays, using a 4-3 Defense against a pro-set. Switching to the dime or the nickel based on a four-or-five wide receiver set, blitzing, dropping LBs into coverage, line shifts, and other football nerd stuff.

It was, in a word, intense. In another word, it was educational. This was a foundational game. Teaching the nuances of football in a way games like “Madden Football,” or even a standard ESPN broadcast, glaze over.

I’m unsure how successful the release was. Probably not very as it never got a sequel. It was not ‘accessible’. It was a Football Encyclopedia when most of the fans were hooked on phonics.

I downloaded it from the legendary Abandonware site Home Of The Underdogs, played it, loved it, and moved on.

Until a curious day, more than a decade later. Pro Strategy Football on the iOS app store caught my fancy. I downloaded it. It felt…dated and in a way, needlessly complicated – but I loved it. I loved it because it was the best football game on the platform, because it *was* a complicated football game on a platform synonymous with streamlining, and because it reminded me of Tom Landry Strategy Football.

Because I’m a nerd and think I know everything, I e-mailed feedback to the developer – what I loved, what the game could use, and how it reminded me of “Tom Landry: Football.” Turns out Pro Strategy Football was by the same guy. Mr. Batts.

What a small world. We hit it off and became Facebook friends, but it turned out he was possibly the worst thing imaginable to liberal ole me: a conservative.

A…religious conservative. Ick.

But in between religious posts, anti-Barack Obama memes, and Fox News stories – there was a human being. A man who took evening walks, a man obsessed (and I mean obsessed) with grilling.

A guy who made a game that supercharged my love of Football and made me ‘that’ guy who talked about the zen of a team and formations and who told my friends to watch the offensive line, not the quarterback, if you want to know how a given play is going to go.

Clearly this person couldn’t be all bad. As the 2016 election raged on, occasionally one of those evil Fox News stories would make a point. Occasionally something religious touched me in an soulful way.

Thanks in part to insane partisan politics, a raging ‘left’ and a raging ‘right’ I found myself desperate to understand as much as possible, and this dude’s Facebook wall was my cipher.

Of course he didn’t speak or all conservatives, but he was my barometer for what the ‘average’ well meaning conservative thought and believed and shared and cared about.

Mostly grilling… but also politics. A woman’s right to choose, and about his personal, negative, experience with healthcare premiums in the wake of Obamacare.

Then Donald Trump won. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton said reach across the aisle; try to understand ‘how this happened’. The left. My left. My side. My tolerant ideology ignored that advice wholesale. Instead they resorted to the same tactics and vitriol and anger they accused ‘the right’ of.

Now, all of a sudden, Mr. Batts wasn’t a ‘not that bad guy’. He was a good guy. A good guy who saw his world changing rapidly without particularly caring about him or his concerns because he was white and in Texas.

In fact, you could argue a lot of people on ‘the left’ would read “White Texan” and immediately assume enemy.

I’m glad I didn’t.

Games have an overwhelming ability to educate and entertain and connect us. Everyone plays games – it’s a community and niche unto itself. Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians, Women, Men, Transgendered people are all a part of it and care so passionately about it because Mainstream Media got it so wrong for so long and still does.

The Sports Gaming community is even more galvanized because *gaming* media routinely disregards the genre because they’re not ‘core’ titles.

But somehow, a silly little football game where you don’t even technically play football, put me on a path to a cultural enlightenment of sorts. The notion we’re all people and we’re all connected and if we let petty things like labels separate us or insulate us, we’re doomed.

I’m not religious, but Christ that’s a hell of a thing to be coincidence alone.

(Curious note: The first article I wrote for this website was about Abortion – an article the 34th most popular Libertarian website refused to run. It was the lefts and rights of the argument, the confusion and frustration regarding the laws surrounding it, and the nuclear radiation associated with anyone trying to make any sort of nuanced point on the subject.)

Of everyone to offer feedback, pro-lifer Mr. Batts said I made some very good points. Keep in mind the article advocated a pro-choice mentality.

Well shit. I might just move to Texas. It could possibly be the most tolerant place on earth.

EDITOR’s NOTE: The views expressed are those of the author, they are not representative of The Libertarian Republic or its sponsors.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t add a postscript here – Abandonware is important. Preserving old games and allowing folks, especially poor folks, the ability to play them – for free – is so foundational to kids curious about computing, engineering, electronic history, and fun – that I suggest everyone go play an old game immediately.

I am of the mind if we ever wanted to reform IP Patent Law, that there should be some sort of caveat for those who download and play old games for obsolete systems on their new hardware. Maybe give it a 13 year half-life, or something like that – Commercial rights remain with the developer, but a commons license exists after a certain number of years. Who knows.

In fact, Archive.Org is swimming in classics. Sega Genesis. Arcade. PC-DOS. Windows. You can play them all there, for free, in your web browser. It is a video-gaming museum – and publicly funded by people like you. No tax payers.

Additionally the most recent version of Pro Strategy Football is available now

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