Words On Wednesday

I've been going through manager training at work and for our next training session, we were asked to read 1 book from a list of options prepare three takeaways. I ended up reading "The First 90 Days," and it seemed like the best way to really internalize the content would be to write a book report about it. The list was standard fare management topics from well-known authors. Any one would have been adequate, and I could probably even have suggested " The Five Dysfunctions of a Team " or " Extreme Ownership " if I didn't want to read a new book, but I figured it would be more true to the spirit of the assignment to read something unfamiliar to me and try to gain new skills and understanding. From Bud to Boss: Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership – Kevin Eikenberry The First Time Manager – Jim McCormick Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don’t – L. David Marquet Primed to Perform: How to Buil...

“ Axiom Verge ” is a Metroidvania released on the most platforms in 2015. Frequently listed on the best Metroidvania games ever, and especially lists of those released this century, it certainly has a following among indie fans and more mainstream gamers alike. I love a good Metroidvania and I was looking for something short to play after finishing Oblivion Remastered and Wind Waker HD . The last Metroidvania I played was Astalon: Tears of the Earth , and I really enjoyed it. Maybe it was worth checking out a few more of these indie favorites on Steam. Axiom Verge was on sale for $3.99 at 80% off. I figured at such a low price for such a well-received game, it was worth a shot. It's very clear from the beginning that Axiom Verge is a love letter to the original Metroid and other games of the era. Even beyond retro graphics and gameplay loop, there are references that most people would only get if they physically played a Metroid cartridge on original hardware. In particular, the ...

I'm not big on tequila, but I do like to have some on hand for the occasional margarita or for my cousin who would never be caught dead without a bottle. Hence, cheap tequila from Costco is obviously the perfect solution. Name: Tequila Blanco Source: Kirkland Signature Style: Tequila ABV: 40% Price: $25.99 Volume: 1.75 Price per oz: $0.44 I've tried to do a better job about keeping a wide variety of distilled spirits on hand recently. I'd personally be set with just bourbon and spiced rum the vast majority of the time, but obviously not everyone likes those specific styles. Add a little tequila, some vodka, and a few other styles, and I have a pretty decently stocked bar that could appeal to most guests. The mango tequila was good, but it isn't exactly made for mixing. Unless you're making a mango margarita, it's a very particular flavor profile that isn't going to go with everything. Plus, it was a good enough spirit to stand up on its own. Most of the bot...

I'm a HUGE fan of trophies and achievements in video games and RetroAchievements has made it where I can get that same experience with games that were made well before achievements became commonplace in the industry. Don't ask my why I like achievements and trophies so much. I genuinely don't know, I just get a little dopamine hit every time I see one pop up. And I realize that a lot of people don't really like achievements, some even go so far as to hate them, so systems that allow you to turn them on or off really are the best of both worlds.  Furthermore, I do want to explicitly say that these games were not incomplete or inferior WITHOUT achievements. I'm not going to tell you that Super Mario World became a better game with achievements. It's just a neat thing for me to be able to see individual accomplishments listed together in a single place across all my games on that platform. So what IS RetroAchievements? It's a site that tracks tasks for older...

I recently discovered a project that allows Nintendo 64 games to be recompiled and personally got The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask running on my Steam Deck natively. It is absolutely insane, and I think it could breathe new life into playing N64 games on modern hardware. Back in May, I came across a reddit post in the r/SteamDeck subreddit about Majora's Mask Recomp. The post mentioned mod support (for an N64 game???), so I was both puzzled and intrigued. I decided to do a little research. It turns out, there has been a project running over the past year or so that allows  the user to "recompile N64 binaries into C code that can be compiled for any platform." To flex the Computer Science degree a bit here, a binary (file) is a program that has been converted into the necessary 0s and 1s to run on a particular computer architecture. Computer architectures vary wildly between different processors and platforms, so a binary for one chipset is unlikely or even impossi...

I tend to avoid trending books and BookTok recommendations, but I was drawn to "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher out of a contrarian mood. I read an article that South Carolina recently became the state with the greatest number of banned books. Always one to oppose the banning of books and support the reading of banned books, I decided to look up some of the most banned books in the United States. The full list is included at the end for posterity. If you're looking for something to read, it's a good place to start. The first on the list, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," seemed like a decent place to start but my local library didn't have it in circulation as an audio book. The second book (or rather, series) was "Captain Underpants." I'm not opposed to reading books intended for children , but I wasn't committing to an entire series, and the fact that "Captain Underpants" even made this list is frankly as...

“ Half-Life ” is a first-person shooter released on PC in 1998. Both Half-Life and its sequel Half-Life 2 have long been considered legendary shooters and established PC superiority in the shooter genre long before consoles even had a chance. Over a quarter of a century later, does Half-Life still hold up as a decent game, or is it a relic of its generation? After I found out that my old Surface Pro 7 could emulate some PS2 games and I started leaning into Steam a little more, I started looking through Steam games that I already owned but never experienced. In particular, I bought a whole bundle of Valve games (I think it was The Orange Box ) including $115 worth of games for $5.19 back in March 2023. Man, I love Steam sales. Although Half-Life 2 is probably the game that I hear discussed more, I figured it made more sense to start with the first game in the series. Plus, with a game that came out in 1998, I figured my laptop should have no issue running it. Like... at all. Fortunate...

I'm not a huge fan of most beer, but Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy is one I'll make an exception for more often than not, especially during a hot southern summer day when the beer is ice cold. Name: Summer Shandy Source: Leinenkugel's Style: Weiss (Wheat) beer ABV: 4.2% IBU: 11 Price: $27.99 per 24 pack Volume: 12 oz Price per can: $1.166 The story behind the summer ale/shandy as a style is that an influx of cyclists through Germany influenced some bar owners to cut their standard wheat beer with lemonade. Whether this was to stretch the beer further or appeal to the tastes of the bikers seems to be up for interpretation, but the style was apparently a hit. It has since become a summer phenomenon worldwide. I couldn't tell you when I first tried specifically Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy. I've enjoyed lemon-infused wheat beers for a while. Samuel Adams has a Summer Ale, a "crisp wheat ale with citrus," which I had at least as far back as 2018. And as ...

“ The Legend of Zelda - The Wind Waker HD ”  is 2013 Wii U remaster of a 2002 GameCube game. It cleaned up the visuals, introduced a few quality of life changes, and tweaked the game to make use of the console's two screen system. In 2025, it might be a struggle to decide which version to play, or whether to play a 20+ year old game at all, but I can tell you that Wind Waker HD is still a fantastic game and a great representation of the Zelda series as a whole. Wind Waker is tough to analyze from the perspective of someone who didn't live through it. It came out in North America in 2003, at which point I already had a GameCube (I'm pretty sure). I played through once, started a second play through, and put it down for a good 15+ years. On that first run, Wind Waker was... fine. The visuals were bright and cheery, a stark contrast from Ocarina of Time and Majora's mask before, as well as Twilight Princess after. Plus, the cel shaded graphics were just strange to me. Not ...