Tag: computer games

Twosda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

We’re a nation of games. How many of us play a computer game or two each day? I am guilty. The NY Times offers me Connections, Wordle, and Spelling Bee. I play them to keep my mind sharp *ahem*. I also play Sudoku at the Seattle Times, again to exercise my brain.

Online gaming is big business. People buy special chairs, headsets, computers and support systems to play hours online. Playing games on phones are an effective way to pass time while waiting for flights, buses, or meetings to begin.

Children begin playing games at a young age. Occupies their minds, helps their brains develop, and gives parents and caregivers a break. Games such as sports like football, basketball, and baseball are idolized as a way to gain fame and fortune. Television game shows offer you a chance for cash prices, as do lottery games. Besides a chance for people to add to their bank accounts, states use lotteries to raise money for education and projects. Indian casinos have increased in numbers, bringing money in for cash-starved tribes, and tax revenues and employment for communities.

The biggest games center in Washington, DC. Trump and the GOTP, along with complicit media, love playing games with The People. For instance, the cost of eggs.

Trump lies and claims that egg prices have dropped over ninety percent. In one speech, he claimed they’d declined over 98%! Ludicrous. Meanwhile, the Dollar Store has raised its prices to $1.25 and plan to raise them more. That comes and goes under the radar as Trump games people into looking elsewhere.

If you’re a coffee drinker, you know that coffee prices have increased. Initially, it’s not Trump’s fault. Weather affected coffee crops in important coffee growing places. This is just like the egg situation; it wasn’t President Biden’s fault that egg prices increased. Bird flu was causing it. Yet, we don’t hear nearly the screams about coffee inflation that we heard about eggflation. Because Trump and his campaign hammered eggflation. The game participants called the mass media picked up the ball and ran with it, trying to score points. But now, thanks to the Trump tariffs, coffee prices are percolating higher and higher. Little is heard, though. Trump has moved their attention to another game.

Meanwhile, funny enough, check out the egg prices on eggprices.org. Their chart shows egg prices have dropped.

But check below on the same page, at the highest price per dozen in the nation, and the lowest price per dozen in the U.S.:

Isn’t that odd? Virginia is cited as having the lowest price of eggs per dozen: $7.39. Yet the chart by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the average price of eggs per dozen is $3.43 a dozen.

Sure seems odd. Almost like someone is gaming the BLS chart.

Trump and Walmart are probably going to game us over prices. Walmart said they’ll increase prices to cope with the tariffs. Trump warned them, you’d better not, you’d better eat them. Walmart said, okay, will do, chief. What they’ll probably do at Walmart is subtly raise prices on specific sets of items and blame other factors. Trump will let them get away with it because they’re not blaming his tariffs. But customers will be paying more; inflation will increase.

In other gaming news, we have President Biden’s prostate cancer. Of course Trump and his surrogates, such as his son and the DOJ, jumped all over it with stories of coverups. They’re gaming the nation by feeding the media distractions, moving our attention away from Supreme Court rulings, Trump failures, and Trump scandals.

Among the failures are Trump’s pretended success with a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire. Check out multiple news sources on this continuing situation.

Trump Says Russia, Ukraine Will Start Ceasefire Talks

Trump says Russia, Ukraine peace talks to begin ‘immediately’ after Putin chat

Trump Backs Off His Demand That Russia Declare a Cease-Fire in Ukraine

What superb gamemanship! Trump is playing everybody…in the United States.

Likewise, with Trump’s potential scandal involving the Qatari jet offer, suddenly claims emerge that the Biden administration initiated that process. Ignoring all previous history on the subject, the press dutifully pivots toward that, bringing the Biden administration back into play.

The latest word game Trump is playing is his “Big Beautiful Bill” in Congress. This thing is loaded with strategically placed bombs to undermine the nation. It focuses on making the wealthy wealthier and sinking the poor deeper into poverty. As it’s based on Project 2025 and Heritage Foundation thinking and guidance, you know that this is about easing the burden on the wealthiest, thus encouraging them to create more business for the nation. These are the same people who offshored and contracted out manufacturing jobs. These are people who hoard wealth while others starve, beg, and are rendered homeless.

This is, of course, trickle-down economics. The theory has been disproven but the wealthy and conservatives love it. So we will not hear anyone calling it that this year. But that’s what Trump is leading the GOTP to do in his “Big Beautiful Bill”.

It’s not a surprise that Trump’s approval ratings have improved in polls. Too many people are too easily taken in by the games, or they’re busy playing elsewhere.

Now, I’m off. There are six pangrams today. Let the games continue.

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A Flying Car Dream

To begin, I was a detective. Didn’t look much like RL me. Only commonalities were white and male. My dream detective had a florid face – pink as a carnation – on a square head with receding blonde hair. I seemed to be in my forties. Clean shaved, a nose bent by fights finished my facial ensemble.

I’d just solved a couple big cases. After receiving accolades, I headed to my flying car to go home. The flying car was a BMW and some sleek sedan or SUV variation – wasn’t given a good look at it. No need to because a flying car is normal and common, and this was my regular ride.

A few people needed a lift. I was heading generally their way so said I’d provide taxi service. They sat in the back. We headed out.

Even though it was a flying car, we followed surface roads and the same road rules now in effect. Traffic was end-of-workday heavy. Stopped at one traffic light leading to an Interstate maze, I was in the wrong lane. Knew I needed to get into the left-hand land for my destination. So I had to outrace the other three lanes of cars — which I did. But then, I found the car wasn’t following the road but drifting right. I took manual control of the car to combat it, then found it a greater problem than first thought. I announced to my passengers that I was having a little car trouble. I pushed buttons in, trying to make the car work right. The buttons were square and silver. They wouldn’t hold in as expected.

I talked to the car, telling it to fix itself. The problem was given a temporary solution after a few minutes (according to the car). That’d eaten into my time and mood, so I had a change of plans. I pulled over and got out. Taking a control, I told the car to take my companions to their destination, go get itself fixed, and then come back and pick me up. I then gently tossed the control into the air, and the car took off. I turned and began walking.

That segment ended. A young man, closely resembling my RL self, I was in an airport when I stopped to check email on my computer and play games to kill time. The computer didn’t work right. I sat down and took some of the computer apart. These were hollow brass cylinders, about one and a quarter inch in diameter and an inch tall, unlike anything I’d seen in a RL computer. They were threaded and reminded me of faucet components.

Putting the computer back together, I decided to leave them off, in case I needed to address the problem again, then packed up and headed for my flight. I went through turnstiles with others, then overheard a younger man talking about a computer game he’d enjoyed. I knew the game and asked him if he’d ever played another game.

I couldn’t recall the game’s name. It stumped me for a few. I remembered playing it when it was big in the late eighties to early nineties, and described it to him. Then the name came home: “Empire” by Interstellar.

The guy thanked me and went on. I found that my flight was delayed. I began wandering the airport. While doing that, I went back to where I’d fixed my computer. I discovered that I’d left the two brass pieces behind. Horrified at my oversight, I stuffed them into my bag, thankful that nobody had picked them up while wondering what others thought they were if they’d seen them.

The dream ended.

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A Keys Dream

Randy, a friend who died years ago, showed up in my dreams again last night. A few years older than me, Randy died of colon cancer before his sixtieth birthday, after a twenty-year military career.

In last night’s dream, Randy and I were playing ‘Empire’. Empire was a computer game I played in Germany in 1989-1990. Randy had never played it so I was teaching him as we played. But we were playing the computer game while we stood in warm, salty ocean water. And though it was a computer game, the screen was on large sheets of scrolling white paper. I’d taught Randy the basics of exploring, conquering a place, and setting up production. Now I was teaching him strategy.

Meanwhile, someone tossed someone else a set of keys. The second person missed the keys. The keys fell into the ocean. I knew exactly where the keys had landed on the ocean floor but didn’t go after it. People with boats were arriving. The boats were oddly shaped, as if constructed from large Legos but missing pieces. The trucks bringing them in were in different color schemes, like red and black, and green and black, almost like auto racing teams, with numbers on the trucks and boats. Eyeing those as they passed, I tried placing where and how I knew the trucks.

Randy then interrupted to announce he was building submarines. We had a side conversation about that, with him explaining that he liked submarines and he didn’t care about strategy. Boat people arrived but worried whether their boats would float, alternating between confidence that they would and anxiety they wouldn’t.

Someone then mentioned the missing keys. I announced that I knew where they were and could get them.

Dream end.

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