Words On Wednesday

Seven months after the announcement of the new Steam hardware and barely still within the "early 2026" estimate, the Steam Machine has officially released and I got my hands on a Steam Controller. This was originally going to be a review of the Steam Controller as well, but I decided it would be better saved for a later post. I didn't want to rush through a review with a week or less using the controller, and there was enough content already before I even started on the controller itself. That's something you can look forward to later. When Valve announced the controller, I was excited about it. When they revealed the price, I had my concerns. The most expensive controller I've ever had (not counting absurdly overpriced Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Cons) was the WaveBird Wireless GCN controller at $80. Paying $99 for a single PC controller felt particularly steep when I only paid $50 for the excellent 8Bitdo Ultimate Bluetooth controller. Plus, I could use it for both ...

It's been a minute since I bought a bottle of gin, but when I saw that Costco carried a new Kirkland Signature branded gin, I had to try it. Name: London Dry Gin Source: Kirkland Signature Style: Gin ABV: 44% Price: $17.99 Volume: 1.75L Price per oz: $0.30 In the early days after I could legally buy alcohol, I bought a lot of things that were new to me. I was raised in a teetotaling household, so I didn't get to try a lot of alcohol through my youth. Some things stuck, but others (like Southern Comfort ) were quickly abandoned. When I discovered that I liked Long Island Iced Tea, I decided to pick up the constituent ingredients (including gin) and make one at home. It would be cheaper per drink than buying them at a bar. I figured out the hard way that Long Islands are pretty tough to make well, so I bounced off that idea after the first one. I bought that bottle of Beefeater on May 24, 2014. That one handle of gin stuck with me for several years. By November 2016, it a...

I love a strategy guide and the recent release of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen on Nintendo Switch made me break out an old one for maximum nostalgia. When Nintendo released Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen officially on 27 February 2026 for Nintendo Switch, I certainly wasn't going to buy them again, but I didn't want to miss out on the zeitgeist of a new(ish) release. I bought the original cartridges back in the day, and GBA games are extremely easy to emulate, so I had no moral scruples in emulating those titles to play alongside the people who did choose to buy the port. Fortunately, a 2026 re-release of a 2004 remake of a 1996 game means we had two decades of guides, content, and forum posts about the games still relevant for the latest port. It was trivially easy to look up nearly anything about FireRed and LeafGreen and get an immediate and in-depth answer. Although that is beneficial in a sense, it's also fundamentally different from the way those of us old enough t...

“Golden Sun” and it's sequel "Golden Sun: The Lost Age" are a pair of JRPGs released on Nintendo Game Boy Advance in 2001 and 2002 respectively. Frequently featured in lists of the best RPGs and JRPGs of all time, clearly they're good games, but what makes them so special? Also, why would I cover BOTH in the same post? I'm putting these two games together because they're almost more like two halves of the same game. Not quite like Pokémon where it's the SAME story with slight variations between versions. Golden sun is effectively the part 1 to The Lost Age's part 2. Playing JUST Golden Sun would leave you with an incomplete story. I don't want to suggest that this reflects poorly on either game. On the contrary, I think it was kinda nice to be able to sink about 25 hours into the first game, then take a break before continuing on to the second game. A sort of built-in intermission, if you will. I often burn myself out if I bum rush through a singl...

After discovering that Costco's Tequila Reposado was almost identical in price per volume to their Tequila Blanco , I had to compare the two. Name: Tequila Reposado Source: Kirkland Signature Style: Tequila ABV: 40% Price: $14.49 Volume: 1L Price per oz: $0.43 I uncorked the new bottle and poured a shot of each side by side. Fortunately, I had a single shot left from the Blanco for the comparison. This would equip me with the information to decide if I would buy another bottle of Blanco or just start keeping Reposado on hand. Most obviously, the color of the Reposado was pretty visibly darker. Not quite bourbon or black rum dark, but something like a watered down cola. The Blanco is indistinguishable from water at a glance. Although I am frequently advised against it, I always have to smell a new alcohol before I drink it. The Reposado didn't really have much of a smell. I'm not sure if it's because of less volatile esters or if something about the process remov...

I lead software engineering teams with a philosophy built on trust, autonomy, and intentional structure. My core belief is that talented people do their best work when they are equipped, empowered, and protected from unnecessary friction — not monitored, micromanaged, or buried in low-value urgencies. I keep teams small by design, act as a buffer between developers and business stakeholders, and treat blocker removal as my highest-priority function. I hire deliberately and collaboratively, prioritizing cultural fit and intellectual curiosity over narrow technical experience, because adaptable people outperform specialists over the long run. I create space for my team to take risks and occasionally fail, calibrating conditions so that failure is recoverable and instructive rather than catastrophic. Knowledge sharing and documentation are non-negotiable expectations — not nice-to-haves — because a team where information lives in one person's head is a fragile one. I communicate openl...