Skip navigation

Category Archives: ponderings

Mr. Arachnid is really Wilson!

I’ve recently been playing a new game. I do not really have time to be playing a new game. But I have been playing this new game, nevertheless. I blame Super Secret Robot Agent Sheri, Wrist Brace Girl–Adventuress Extraordinaire.

Anyway, this new game is Don’t Starve. Um…is it in the style books to italicize game titles? I’m going to pretend game titles are like book titles and I’m going to italicize it. SO ANYWAY…

I’ve been playing this new game, Don’t Starve. It’s this adventure-y, wilderness-y, survival-y game in which the main character is an intrepid gentleman scientist named Wilson. He’s been trapped by a demon and transported to some mysterious world and now you have to help him survive.

As with any other time I start playing a game, I start seeing similarities and parallels in my normal, everyday, mundane life. This time…it’s with the main character. You see…I’m convinced that my coworker, Mr. Arachnid, is really Wilson.  Here, let me show you:

Links to source

Links to source.

Do you not see?!  It’s Mr. Arachnid wielding an axe!  Because he is being chased by spiders!  Just like in real life!

Ok, so Mr. Arachnid does not normally come into work with an axe.  I don’t think Clib security would like that.  At all.  I think they would take great umbrage to that.  But Mr. Arachnid does get chased by spiders.  Or, at least spiders and other arachnids seem to like him a lot.  There was a reprieve due to our apple deadfall (more on that another time), but we were forced to take that down and I’ve since caught/killed several spiders.  Mr. Arachnid is on high alert.

Other similarities between Mr. Arachnid and Wilson are their abilities to grow magnificent beards.  Wilson is the only character in the game that is capable of growing a beard.

Links to source.

There’s another character whom I really like that has a truly magnificent mustache, but he is unable to grow a beard.  Alas.

The thing with beards though, is that it decreases sanity.  I asked Mr. Arachnid about this and he says that I might be onto something.  I told him that shaving off the beard increases sanity by 10.  He said he’d consider it.  I think he really should consider faster and harder because I noticed the other day that he was holding his head in his hands and shaking his head.  JUST LIKE WILSON DOES WHEN HIS SANITY LEVEL STARTS TO GET LOW.  Mr. Arachnid’s beard is also becoming quite long.  It’s definitely decreasing his sanity.

I did also tell him that wearing fancy headgear would increase his sanity.  It might help make up for the beard that he’s growing.  At first, I told him that he could wear a garland made from 12 flowers, but he didn’t much like that idea.  I can’t imagine why.  But after I told him it was just fancy headgear in general that increases sanity, he thought maybe he could wear his motorcycle helmet.  Not only would that increase his sanity (his helmet is fancy because it has a small rocket depicted on it) but that it would make him much safer.

I remain convinced that Mr. Arachnid is actually Wilson, intrepid gentleman scientist.  Um, I guess that means I must live in this weird, wilderness-y world.  Maybe I’m an NPC.

Commuter dogs

The topic of commuting has been on my mind recently.  Probably because I have to do it all the time.  I average probably 15 hours on the road during the work week.  I currently drive and there’s no one to carpool with, so it’s a good chunk of my time taken away from doing other things that need doing.  You really can’t multitask when driving a car.  Well, you can, but it isn’t safe and you shouldn’t do it.  So don’t.  Especially if I have to share the road with you.

ANYWAY.  I’ve looked at taking public transportation so that I could get wrestle some time back from commuting.  It turns out, it wouldn’t work well for me at all.  I’d probably spend twice as much time traveling.  Sugh.  Such is the life in Southern California with our pitiful public transportation system (more on that another time).  But did you know in cities where there is a good mass transit system, the masses might involve more than just humans?  Did you know that they might involve dogs?

In Moscow, the stray dogs commute from the suburbs to the city center and back, as if they were commuting to and from work.  Well, they kind of are.  They live in the suburbs because after the collapse of the USSR, the industrial complexes where the stray dogs lived were moved to the suburbs.  So, the dogs also had to move to the suburbs.  But the food was still in the city center.  So they had to learn how to take the subway to and from the city.  They go to work during the day to get food and then they go back to the suburbs for the night.  This is just…so amusing to me.

There are scientists who study the dogs and say that the dogs will help each other get off at the right stop by judging the amount of time they’ve been on the train.  But sometimes they’ll fall asleep and get off at the wrong stop.  The dogs have also learned how to use traffic lights to cross streets and they have tactics to get food when they’re in the city.  I particularly like the tactic where they sneak up behind someone who is eating and then bark loudly causing the person to start and drop some food.  THIS IS JUST SO AMUSING.

Unfortunately, the only information I have on this is the article I linked to.  The article doesn’t list any sources.  I would really like to read more about these dogs that commute to and from work.  Looks like I’m going to have to do some rooting around to see if I can find some more info on this.

I also wonder if Yaris would be willing to commute like that to and from work.  Of course, she has her driver’s license so she just might opt to drive instead.