#Blaugust2023

Adventures in Broken Air Conditioning (#Blaugust 2023 #21)

Posted by Gryph on August 21, 2023

Posted in: Life Stuff. Tagged: #Blaugust2023, ADHD, books, Good Omens, pet tax. 2 Comments

Gargoyle gecko perches on one of my thumbs. He is shades of brown with orange stripes. His eyes are a bright, light blue. His tail is curled around my thumb. — *Ember, my gargoyle gecko. This pic is from a year or so ago, and he’s bigger now.*

Yesterday, our air conditioning decided to stop working.

I live in South Carolina, and our temps have been hovering around 90F-100F for the last…I’m not sure how long, but too long for me. More important than my own comfort or lack thereof, is the safety and health of my smol pets.

Neither my gargoyle gecko nor my gerbils are supposed to be in extreme heat. Gerbils may originate in the desert, but in their natural habitat they burrow deep underground during the hottest parts of the day. And gargoyle geckos are one of the New Caledonian geckos which also are not built to withstand much heat. Both pets do best right around room temperature or a little higher – one reason I own them, since it makes their care a little easier. At least, when the air conditioning isn’t broken. Gargoyle geckos shouldn’t be in temps over about 82F and gerbils, 77F.

The house’s main thermostat was 85F when I got home from work yesterday. The thermometer I keep in my office was “only” at about 82F, but that’s still way too hot for the smols.

Gryph Streams To the Rescue! (#Blaugust 2023 #20)

Posted by Gryph on August 20, 2023

Posted in: Animal Games, Gryph Streams, PC Gaming. Tagged: #Blaugust2023, Animal Games, cozy games, Steam. Leave a comment

Music by Chillhop Music: https://chillhop.ffm.to/creatorcred

For today’s post, we have the gameplay I promised a few days ago when I covered To The Rescue! as a game I’m currently playing. Kind of coincidental since I finally started my longer series on what I do at work all day, but the timing just worked out like that.

I have some extra errands to run on my days off this week, but I’m hoping I can spend some time streaming back in Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town and hopefully at least one other game TBD. I’ve mostly been playing Lemon Cake during my workweek, but I’m not sure that’s one I really want to stream. It’s more a game I like doing while I’m watching or listening to something else than one that would be a lot of fun to watch me play.

Curious about #Blaugust2023? Visit the Blaugust 2023 is Coming page, where you can also join the Discord. Or check out #Blaugust2023 on social media.

Working At An Animal Shelter | Part Two (#Blaugust 2023 #19)

Posted by Gryph on August 19, 2023

Posted in: Animal Stories, Life Stuff. Tagged: #Blaugust2023, animal shelter, cats. Leave a comment

A small calico kitten in a kennel. She has very bright yellow eyes. — *Baby Lumi from before I adopted her!*

I unfortunately got up much earlier than I should have this morning, so I’m going to try getting this post together before I go to work, to post later. I know a lot of my fellow Blaugustians write in the mornings, but that’s never been something that works well for me, so we’ll see how this goes.

Blaugust is a time I try different things, so at least there’s that!

When I posted “Introduce Yourself: So, what do I do all day?,” I’d intended that post to be a little more “A Day in the Life.” Only, once I started explaining the basics, the word count got away from me. I want to come back to it, so I’m going to start doing that today.

Our days in the Animal Resource Center don’t really follow a set schedule since they rely so heavily on the needs of the public, but I’m going to try to do this post about our morning routine and lost and found pets. Then I’ll do another post about our other duties. Trying to put all of our duties into one post had me running super long again!

What Has It Got In Its Pocketses? (#Blaugust 2023 #18)

Posted by Gryph on August 18, 2023

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: #Blaugust2023. Leave a comment

Two different fidgets, a wireless earbuds case, and 4 pens of different types. One of the pens has a little kitty tail on it.

Well, I knew it would happen eventually. Today was one of those days I went into work about 7:30am and didn’t leave until after 7pm. My brain is too tired to edit the longer posts I have prepped, and the short post I was going to do today fell through.

(Ironically, I was going to post about a cat who has been at the shelter for a while and the weird headspace where you connect with a long timer but also never know when they might leave…I was going to get a pic of him today, but he’d already gone.)

I need to speed run my evening chores so I can get some sleep tonight. So, we have a post I was joking about last week.

Since we have a shared workspace in my department at the shelter, I can’t really do a “What do I have on my desk?” post. I mean, my coffee, my water bottle (I rotate between them and own too many) and usually a snack. But since I wear scrubs, I can do, “What do I always keep in my pockets?”

Still Waiting – Oldest Games On My Wishlist (#Blaugust 2023 #17)

Posted by Gryph on August 17, 2023

Posted in: PC Gaming. Tagged: #Blaugust2023, new games, old games, Steam. 1 Comment

My Steam wishlist sorted by date added. The newest ones are Strange Horticulture, Little Kitty Big City, and Botany Manor. — *These are the newest…what about the oldest?*

I’ve seen a few of these posts over in the Blaugustverse – the ones I’ve seen were from Nerd Girl Thoughts, Nerdy Bookahs, and Time To Loot though there might be more by the time I publish. We’re taking a look at the oldest additions to our Steam wishlists to see how we feel about them today.

The initial list I saw was specifically about unreleased games – how long do you wait before changing your mind or giving up? But since I haven’t pruned my list in ages, I thought I’d go for the actual oldest things on there and see what happened.

Now, I only have 44 total items on my wishlist, including one DLC. I used to keep track of my wishlist and regularly prune and sort it. I…clearly have not done that in a while, as you’ll see.

Starting from the oldest, we have:

Gryph is Playing To The Rescue (#Blaugust 2023 #16)

Posted by Gryph on August 16, 2023

Posted in: Animal Games, Gryph is Playing, PC Gaming. Tagged: #Blaugust2023, Animal Games, cozy games, simulator, Steam. 1 Comment

To The Rescue: A Dog Shelter Simulator. Image is a cartoon person with her arms gently around a large dog, petting him on the head. Other people play with dogs in the background.

After playing To The Rescue for quite a few hours on my rest day yesterday, I decided I am going to do a full post on it after all. I was on the fence because I did encounter some bugs, but in… *checks* Holy crow that was 10 hours! In 10 hours of on and off gameplay I only ran into one bug that actually required a restart and happened more than once. Still not ideal for a game that was released in November of 2021, but I’m very much enjoying the game as a whole!

To The Rescue is a cute little indie game I did not get in that Humble Bundle set. I’d been looking at it ever since I was doing my shelter fundraiser. I was trying to find themed animal games to play for the donation streams. I ended up going with Animal Shelter Simulator – a game I wound up loving, and should definitely post about – but I always meant to come back and check this one out as well.

Rest Day and State of the Blaugust (#Blaugust 2023 #15)

Posted by Gryph on August 15, 2023

Posted in: Blog News, Life Stuff, PC Gaming, Writing. Tagged: #Blaugust2023, cats, cozy games, food, pet tax, Steam, TNR, TVAR. 2 Comments

Charlie. Our black and white cat is curled up on the floor, fast asleep.

Today we’re going to do a quick Blaugust check in since we’re about halfway done, as well as some random life updates I haven’t put together into full blog posts yet. It’s also a grab bag because I’m still pretty exhausted – enough so that I canceled my stream for the night.

I am doing my best to have a rest day.

I’m hitting my goal of a full Blaugust this time, but I am starting to struggle with the time. Finding things to write about is no problem, but every brief post wants to be a normal post and every normal post wants to be an essay. Add in editing and finding pics, and the time does fly.

I know I said I was going to be less picky about my posts as an experiment, and I have been! But I legitimately enjoy editing, finding pics and screenshots, making the design of the page appealing, and writing the alt text. Skimping on any of those isn’t really giving myself a present, it’s blocking myself from part of the process I get joy from.

Gryph is Playing Lemon Cake (#Blaugust 2023 #14)

Posted by Gryph on August 14, 2023

Posted in: Gryph is Playing, PC Gaming. Tagged: #Blaugust2023, cozy games, Steam. Leave a comment

Lemon Cake title screen. Cartoon people scramble to deliver pastries while a cat snacks on a doughnut.

I had a few different posts in the works for today, but by the time I got home I just wasn’t feeling any of them. It was a busy week at work and I just wanted to play something cozy and then blog about something light.

So I dipped back into the Whimsy and Wonder: A Cozy Games Collection Humble Bundle to try out Lemon Cake. I love cooking and baking IRL (I usually prefer cooking since it’s less exact) and I usually enjoy ingame cooking as well. I’m also a sucker for any game that allows me to collect recipes. I’m still proud of myself for collecting every recipe in Super Paper Mario. 🙂

Gryph Streams Cat Cafe Manager (#Blaugust 2023 #13)

Posted by Gryph on August 13, 2023

Posted in: Animal Games, Blog News, Gryph Streams, PC Gaming. Tagged: #Blaugust2023, Animal Games, cats, cozy games, Steam. Leave a comment

Music by Chillhop Music: https://chillhop.ffm.to/creatorcred

I decided to play something new for this stream and try out one of the games from the Whimsy and Wonder: A Cozy Games Collection Humble Bundle. I already blogged about it here and here, but suffice to say I fell in love with this game and played for HOURS past the stream. 🙂

Coming up in my Blaugust schedule, I have a post mostly prepped that gets into more about what I really do in a day at work, but I think I might have to split it into two parts. I have a fun little post on five electronic devices I use daily, and I’m going to do another one on either the top five or top ten apps I use daily.

My TNR cat trap just came in today, so I’m tempted to get some pics of it and do a post about TNR, as well.

I’d like to dig into my Steam backlog a bit more, and I’ll definitely share any gems I come across. And I might have another Good Omens blog in me. (I mean, let’s be real, I probably have 50 in me, it’s just about how much I want to actually write about it.)

Curious about #Blaugust2023? Visit the Blaugust 2023 is Coming page, where you can also join the Discord. Or check out #Blaugust2023 on social media.

Trying to Explain a Hyperfixation – Or, “How Can You Be Watching Good Omens AGAIN?!” (#Blaugust 2023 #12)

Posted by Gryph on August 12, 2023

Posted in: ADHD, Life Stuff, TV. Tagged: #Blaugust2023, books, Good Omens, music. 1 Comment

Screenshot from my phone. There's three audio versions of Good Omens in the shot, at various degrees of completion.

I see a lot of debate online about what constitutes a hyperfixation, what the true definition is, and whether it’s proven to be linked to ADHD or not. I think these conversations are valid, and likely important – but for today I’m just using the term in the way it’s used in my circles. Being completely preoccupied with, distracted by, and feeling deeply about an idea, a subject, or an activity. Like, to the exclusion of everything else. Generally not strictly by choice, either.

This post is going to be about how I experience hyperfixations in my own life and headspace, not about universally defining them. If you experience them differently I’m not here to argue!

When I was younger, and before I was diagnosed, I knew sometimes I’d develop an interest that struck others as way out of proportion. Sometimes I thought I was weird. Sometimes I thought everyone else was weird for not seeing what I saw in the topic. Mostly I was hesitant to talk about my hyperfixations (I did not know that word then) because I realized I always came off as “too much,” when I did.