Thursday, March 24, 2016

On raiding.

(I know this isn't as serious as it could be right now but I need to ease back into blogging somehow.)



I got into a discussion with one of my friends lately concerning the game Destiny. Mainly about why he did not enjoy raiding in that game. I said that in my opinion, there are a few things about Destiny as a game, in its current setup, that would prevent raiding from being enjoyable. My friend responded that this was his first real experience with raiding and wanted to know why I said that. So I thought about it. What makes a good raid?

      I was going to go into great detail about fun raid encounters, the design and what made them interesting....and I will. First, however, I decided to ask people who might know a little better than I. I've played FFXI (a little), World of Warcraft (a LOT) and seen a smattering of other games' raids. But WoW is my specialty, and I stopped playing that. So I decided to ask the best tank and two of the best healers I knew the same question. What makes a raid good to you?
One said getting to kill stuff and get good loot that makes you want to keep doing it to get it all. This is definitely a factor. Another's first response was "teamwork." This is a big deal for me, but I still didn't really have a way to simplify the concept in a way that a non MMO player would get. And then the tank left me a voicemail that was perfect.
"Raiding is like (American) football," the voice said. "You have your big strong guys, your fast guys, your WR's your linemen. Then you have to figure out a smart team composition, and then tailor it to fit what your opposition is going to throw at you. If they have fast guys and your guys are slow, you have to figure out your positioning so that speed isn't a factor, and so on."
This is where Destiny cannot hang.

Destiny's 3 classes are not indistinguishable. The warlock is clearly your glass cannon, the hunter is your dedicated solo damage class, The titan is SUPPOSED to be the tank. Now, compare it to the classic rpg trinity. Tank-deal low damage, usually melee, highly armored, able to sustain (and in fact invites) damage from multiple targets. Healer- lightly armored, heals from range, sustains either one target or many in a given area. One or two survival tools but generally fragile and in need of protection. Damage aka DPS- can be melee or ranged, a variety of armor but generally more hardy than the healer. Focused around doing the group damage. The mechanics solve themselves. The tank attracts all the ire of the enemies so they dont hit dps/healer, the healer keeps him/dps alive, the dps kill everything before the tank/healer get overwhelmed.
But everyone in Destiny is dps. With the exception of the Titan's bubble ( an attempt at something resembling a tank ability) and the warlock self revival, everything is damage oriented. Golden Gun. Bladedancer. Hammer of Sol. Storm Strike. Stormtrance, shadowshot....where is the healing? Why is the titan's armor no more or less effective than the cloth wearing Warlock?

To bounce back to the football analogy, imagine a team consisting ONLY of Wide Receivers. Sure, you can throw the ball for a touchdown at any given moment, but who is blocking? Who is creating a running lane? Who is drawing the defense away from your routes? Would play action have any purpose at all? A team of linemen has the same kind of issue. Diversity is vital, for both sides, and it goes into the gameplan. What if the enemy team has a super fast receiver? How do you deal with that? If their offensive line is such that blitzing is pointless, how do you plan your defense?

It is catering for these diverse approaches that makes for the most interesting raids. Having many different people with their own special talents coming together and finding solutions based on their abilities. Destiny (all wide receivers) can only plan for something involving "do a lot of damage to x while in this safe zone." Alternatively, "kill all these things." I am aware that it is a bit disingenuous and reductive to just say " kill em all" like that doesn't happen in other games, but come on. Look at the variations stated even in the approved strategy for this old WoW raid.
The concept of "kiting" or having certain enemies follow one player so the rest of the raid can either ignore them or kill them while they're focused, never comes up in Destiny. They shoot for the moon with a portal concept, wherein half the raid goes into a portal to...shoot things...while the rest of the raid stays outside and.....shoots things.
Compare this again to the strategies involved here.
If all a wide receiver can do is run streaks, your offensive gameplan can't be much of anything but that.

As a consequence, finishing a Destiny raid takes very little time. Again, in comparison to WoW:
"There are fifteen boss encounters in Naxxramas. First full Naxx clear was done by the Horde guild Nihilum on Magtheridon (EU) on September 7, 2006 (two and one-half months after Naxx came out on June 20th 2006).""

vs

Crota was defeated by 7 players in 6 hours. We've reached out to @InvigorateINV for comments. Stand by....



I have also been asked the question "does raiding need to be so complicated?" The answer for this really is "the level of acceptable complexity should be in balance with how many tools you have to solve it." If you can feign death, disappear, stun enemies with holy light, strengthen your teammates so they bounce back all melee damage, heal them instantly, coat yourself in stone, have a pet demon/tiger as a distraction.....then the fun will come in deciding how to deal with the situation. If you can..shoot...well.




This may sound like I dislike Destiny. I really don't I was the only one in my social circle playing it for months. But it isn't built for raiding, and the solutions they have come up with so far pale in comparison to the obvious better examples.














(Back to more serious topics next time. Maybe? )

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Victory (?)

It's been a while. The following is by no means the most significant thing in my life at the moment, but the one I feel has to be written down.

So, let's talk about Sterling. Donald Sterling, to be precise.

In the past week our media has been flooded by this guy's remarks, saying that he told a woman identified as his mistress that he did not want her to be seen with black people. He even went so far as to say that she could sleep with them, but not appear in public with them. This recording blew way the hell up. Everyone is pissed, players publicly protest, and NBA Commissioner Silver gets on the horn to announce that justice is here, and that they have banned Sterling from the NBA and are going to push for him to sell the team. Also they fined him ~$2M! Good job. We all did good. We can go home. America isn't racist! This was a victory for us all!
In the middle of the lovefest, I see a post by one of my favorite rappers, Killer Mike, on Twitter getting some heat. It said this (copying verbatim):
"If u think banning an 80 yr old man for life is in some way a WIN for black people, 1. don't speak on my behalf 2. kill ya self."
(Don't kill yourselves, guys.)
This got me thinking, something I am well versed in doing for unnecessary periods of time. I decided to REALLY go look at what had just happened. So I dug around for a while.
First off, as the old police tv shows would say, our Mr Sterling has a rap sheet as long as my arm. This is not the first time he has been a very public dick to people with more melanin than him. Hell, he's basically a slum lord, on record as driving out Latinos and basically anyone of colour from his buildings, well before he took over the team. The old Clippers GM sued him for racial discrimination. This is all since 09 I'm talking about.
Rather significant is this:
When N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern fined him $25 million, Sterling sued the league for $100 million. Stern cut the fine to $6 million, taking it out of Sterling’s cut from expansion fees.


"I have more money than you. I dare you to try me." This is his mentality. Speaking of money, let's talk about money. It seems bizarre to me that so many people were happy about this guy being fined 2.5 million dollars. What short memories we have. Way back when Jay Z got fined $50,000 for showing up in the locker room after that Nets game, he got fined $50,000. Jay Z promptly got on a track with Kanye and said this (I'm not going to censor it, btw)
"So I ball so hard muhfuckas wanna fine me
first niggas gotta find me
What’s 50 grand to a muhfucka like me
Can you please remind me?
Ball so hard, this shit crazy
Y’all don’t know that don’t shit phase me
The Nets could go 0-82 and I look at you like this shit gravy"

Everyone hooted and hollered. "Ooh, Jay ballin, that boy said 50 G's aint nothin!" "Sick bars, dog."
Jay Z's net worth is $520 million, according to Forbes. He can say that. $50k really means nothing at that level. Now, our Mr. Sterling. I'm not going to bore you with listings of his properties etc. Let's get to the point, I have food on the stove. This asshole is worth roughly Two Billion Dollars. 2 million dollars? What is that? Chris Rock on being rich vs being wealthy, once said, "Shaq is rich. The person that signs his checks? That guy is WEALTHY." There is a clear difference.
Also, it was mentioned that this guy is going to be banned for life from the NBA. Well, what is "for life"?
This guy is already 80 years old. The numbers show that he's already past his expiry date. It confuses me how some people argue that giving multiple life sentences to murderers etc is pointless but are on board with saying that banning this guy, NOW, after all these dozens of years enforcing his particular brand of hate in life and milking the NBA and the LA area in general for millions upon millions, is a reasonable punishment. I don't understand.
Also, this is not exactly a move that can only be construed as coming out of the goodness of Commissioner Silver's heart. The man just took over from Stern pretty recently. Fresh into the office, he gets handed a scandal on a silver (no pun intended) platter. The logical thing to do is the jail approach. Much as one is supposed to go into a jail and hit the biggest person to assert dominance, Silver hit Sterling as hard as he could to show he meant business. The NBA, now HIS NBA, was in the limelight. Sponsors were pulling out right and left. Nobody wants a bigot in public. That's not how racism works these days. So out he goes, everyone breathes easy, the money comes back in, and Silver looks the part of the golden boy. Tell yourself whatever you want, but don't tell me that this situation wasn't used for status gain by Silver.

Oh yes, almost forgot. So we have the "lifetime ban". The dreaded 2.5 million dollar fine. In addition, Silver is supposed to be encouraging everyone to help him force Sterling to sell the team.
So, uh, doesn't the owner usually sell things? For...a profit? That goes to the person selling?
Now, let's take a peek at the Clippers' net worth, as a property. Interesting....very interesting...... And we just fined this guy 2 million, right? Yeah.

So by now a lot of people are asking the question that I still am asking myself.
"Well, what more do you want?"
It's not a matter of what I want, but rather what I can get. If this is it, then there is a definite taste of dissatisfaction in the air. This is telling people that it's okay to be an asshole to other people because of the colour of their skin (btw, Sterling also had mistresses of latina origin before this...the old forbidden fruit angle) and only make it a big deal when it suits your opponents politically and when you are far too rich and old to care about any punishments that can be levied against you.
All day today I've been annoyed at myself because I felt like I have been approaching this all wrong mentally. If someone else can sway me from this line of thinking, please do so. I put a lot of work and sources in to tell you the same thing Mike did. Sorry to be a downer. And now, dinner.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Bonfire

Late night writing. Hope you enjoy.


The afternoon was hushed, overcast, yet taut with excitement, a struggling prisoner gagged by the events unfolding before it. This was the last afternoon of the summer, the last time Micah would be at this house. He had one thing he wanted to do before he left. He wanted a fire.
   He had seen them before in the canefields, the orange flames tearing a wanton path through the stalks that would blacken and topple, helpless in the heated grip of the oppressor. He had stood at the side of the road, the excited cries of the other children he had come with drifting over his consciousness like leaves on the surface of a pond he had sunk willingly into. He had stood there spellbound by the power that was harnessed every year in the harvest season, and today he wanted to use that power for himself.
   He went out to the backyard, errant chickens scattering before his footsteps as he went barefoot into the grass. At fourteen paces he stopped and examined his tools. Three bundled newspapers and a box of matches. It was no jug of kerosene but it would have to do. All the trash was piled high on the heap, almost above his head, and he shoved pieces of paper into the crevices until he had exhausted his kindling. Finally he sat on his haunches and opened the matchbox. He tried to mimic the way his grandfather did it, with the stick at an acute angle to the side of the box, and failed with the first attempt. The smell of sulphur was in his nose now, and he wrinkled it as he tried again. This time, the flame blossomed and held its shape, a burning teardrop, as he considered what was going to become of this one spot of heat. Then, suddenly impatient, he thrust his hand forward, holding it under the comics page, smiling with satisfaction when the corner of the page curled forward as it started burning.
   He heard a door swing on its hinges, and looked back to see the neighboring house's back door swing slowly open. Their housekeeper peeked out timidly. Everyone on that street thought that she was mentally handicapped, and no one ever thought to step outside the walls of their presumption and verify it. So there she was, cast aside and disregarded at every turn. Maybe that was the reason why she said nothing. Maybe that was the reason she didn't go back inside as she saw the fire, tiny as an idea, begin to feel itself. She stood on the steps, wordless, and watched with the boy.
   The flame came into existence and felt for what it could consume. The newspaper came first, and was set upon with the desperation of a starving animal. The nature of it was simple, burn to survive. Yet, as it felt the sticks and paper under it, supporting it, its nature changed. No longer were the orange licks born of desperation, but now greed began to surface. On it grew, past the jeans and shirts the boy had piled on. He had been a long time getting this all ready, many trips to the house as the day had been born, heralded by the rooster with the bent comb. The flame tasted the cotton and polyester fibers, took them into itself and reduced them to charred tatters. The boy looked on and thought of the times he had seen those clothes come into the house for the first time, expensive apologies for violent incidents that went back to the custody battle. He could feel the flame going over the Jordans and suede boots the same way he felt his emotions over the years. His disappointment when the terms of the custody were explained to him. His father's fits of rage, fueled by tequila and frustration with life that was mostly his own fault. The flame grew bold as it went over the crumpled bills that had been stashed in the mattress, and the notes all went up with a rustling sigh that was almost lost in the low roar that his project had become.
     Micah felt the flame blow against his face and realised that he was very close now to it, and he reluctantly straightened to his feet, stretching upward as far as he could go. He knew he had been here for a while, yet he had to see it through to the finish. The couch cushions, stained by alcohol and laziness, seemed almost eager to surrender to the rage of the flame now. It was full, strong, and determined, and the boy felt something as he looked at it tear through the bedsheets with greedy, almost lustful abandon. Pride? No. Not just that. That was too simple. He thought about it, and eventually decided that he could not pin it down. The word he wanted was cathartic, but he would not know about that word til much later in life, and he forever associated it with this moment in his life. He watched the monster he had created shrug its mane of black smoke and roar at the afternoon skies, and he saw all the rage he had kept inside for all these years given shimmering shape. His eyebrows were long gone, yet he did not flinch from the heat as the wooden chairs crackled and collapsed in a shower of sparks. Why the housekeeper had not told anyone what he was doing was beyond him, and he looked back to see her still there, her mouth pressed into a thin line, refusing to look away as he stared at her. She nodded her head gravely, slowly, then returned her gaze to the fire, as he eventually did himself.
   When it finally went down to the cinders he turned his back on the pile and met her gaze one final time. He shouldered the bag he had packed last night and set his eyes on the road. Halfway down the road he saw the  pickup truck coming down on the other side of the road. He made no attempt to hide, and was not relieved when he was passed with no signal of recognition. He had no particular destination in mind, and yet he was unafraid.
  He had the fire.

Friday, May 3, 2013

From Yesterday to Tomorrow

I woke up on Tuesday with a feeling of dull pain. Nothing physical, mind you. And yet it was there. My friend messaged me before nine and I already knew she was feeling it too. We discussed it at length, and a few things about our conversation stood out. One was this quote: "I think I do this every year, just longer this year I suppose....cuz think about it, its been ten years. In that time we went to school, got jobs, found love, you got married, have a son. I'm engaged. And Kyle is like frozen in time."
   Of everything there, only one thing sat in my brain, candle burning away the darkness. Ten years. A long time by anyone's standards. At this point more than a third of my life. However, the phrase 'remember it llike it was yesterday' has never been more applicable.
   Kyle Caesar, or "Tweez" as we called him, was trying to make it back to class at school when his car malfunctioned and slid off the road. He made it to the hospital, but died on May 1. Looking into that coffin was the last time I have ever looked into a coffin, outside of my grandmother, and that took some doing. He had died in the car he had always wanted a scant three months after getting it, and it felt and feels very unfair. One of the more memorable moments was at his parents' house, when my friend Charles looked at me and said, "Why don't we go out and rob banks and beat people up and stuff?" When I asked why, he responded bitterly, "Because, nothing will ever happen to US...".  Yet, I feel that it would be a disservice to his legacy if all that I took from my time with him was how it ended. Today I choose to remember the things about him that made him so memorable all these years later.
   When I first went to secondary school as the poor kid from the small island and the people who would later become my best friends made fun of me, my skin was thin to nonexistent, and I was very upset. Kyle was the one who defused that situation and let me know that there was no need to overreact to good-natured ribbing. From then on, we were in classes together, Sea Scouts, swimming on Saturday. I remember him telling us about adjusting to having glasses, and how he took a shower with them on multiple times. The craving he had to drive that his father would later tell us was in his family. Going fast was in his blood, and his family raced quite often. I remember his father giving him a pickup truck to drive when he so badly wanted the Mazda RX-7. A normal kid craving racing cars would have blown up or sulked or reacted in some negative fashion. He drove it everywhere, making it do 180s on grass. I cannot think of a person quicker to laugh, and he rubbed off on everyone. When it was just us in school and I told him how I was stressing out about my SAT score, he cheerily told me about his lower one and laughed about it. He talked me through my stress, and by the end of that day I had adopted his views on it, and was much more casual.
   Ten years later, so many things have changed. I don't even live in Trinidad anymore. I have matured slightly. Memories don't change, though. I think the most significant thing I have done since then is learn not to dwell on the negatives. I can now use him as inspiration, use the fact that I still have a chance to go on for him as a motivator. I can smile because I know he would want us to, and so I will.






As I return to the heat and squalor of my room
I reflect once again that I am for once
Seriously, blissfully happy to be alive
My stomach hurts from playing with friends
The leather and cloth ball, once soft and friendly
Becomes a screaming meteor, shattering the world that is my ear
Pride surges like a tide, even as I stumble like a newly born bird
I shake off what I can and rejoin the battle
It seems that time stops for those brief moments
When the people I respect and look up to
Have their most cunning efforts thwarted by my actions
Even as I slide in the mud and taste the earth that supports me
Even as my muscles protest their unusual workload
I reflect in idle moments that many I love are under this earth
And would rend the dimensions asunder
To be able to feel a cramp, a bite, a cut
Would weep with happiness to have a scar to touch
So I accept the pain, my body and my place in the world:
A defender, sworn to carry on the hopes of my friends and teammates
As far as my body will let me, and then my soul must push forward...
Yes...today was a good day to be alive.
I wonder and wait for tomorrow....


Tuesday, April 30, 2013

An-Tie-Matter



I hate ties.

    Socks absorb sweat and make a buffer between the shoe material and your (stinky) feet. Underpants protect your rear from rubbing on polyester all day. Cufflinks keep your sleeves together. Hats can protect from wind, dust, sun and rain. Shoes, gloves.....every part of my wardrobe is earning its keep in the workplace of my body. Then we have the guy just there for the ride. The shameless leech who refuses to put in work, hides when the boss is around and takes your food out of the fridge right before lunch. The necktie. 

    Deemed so important in years gone by that there are (albeit satirical) books published about the correct way to fasten them, men have always been judged as soon as they walk out the door wearing a shirt without a tie. I think we can agree that no man in the business world dares leave his bedroom without one of these strangulation facilitators hung around his neck. Even men in such position of power as director of the BBC can't escape judgment. I have done research over the years, and at no point have I found a reason for wearing a necktie outside of "fashion". 
   Well I like practicality, and as such have fought for years against having to wear those things. There are ways to look formal without wearing ties. Suits like these collect dust by the wayside, and I fail to see why.
"Well, Dominic," the GQ gentlemen sneer, "it just looks better. Clearly your fashion sense is nonexistent."
So why is a tie fashionable? Why have we come so far, from having women wearing corsets and metal banded skirts, men wearing white powdered wigs and starched collars so stiff they could kill, to our modern fashions, yet maintain that wrapping cloth around your neck is the only way to appear professional?
"Well, Dominic," the clerk at Men's Wearhouse says wearily, rolling his eyes at me for the fourth time, "it's a way for a man - OR woman - to express their individuality."
   I'm going to have to disagree. You can make that case for body art and piercings. Even barbed wire tattoos around the bicep say something about you. Sites like Suicide Girls celebrate body art, and I'm sure many piercing sites exist where you can go through and not see two people exactly the same. When I look at a picture like this:
I cannot help but see how.......similar all the guys look. I see an amorphous mass of dark hues and cloth around the neck. Is this what the adult world is? Looking alike? Conforming to have a shot at a job? Thankfully, not everyone thinks so. Instead of using Google to look for ties, I looked at what Google thinks of ties. Seems a divisive issue at best. In a letter to the Financial Times which you can't read unless you subscribe, which is why I can't link it here..........Google's privacy chief spoke out against ties. In the quotes I saw, he seemed to think the same ways I do, even saying that ties constrict the flow of blood to the brain.
   Obviously he's trying to be funny, but in the moments of seriousness you can see the points he raises for regular t shirts vs suit and tie in the corporate world. I'm with him.
   This final article discusses clip on ties. I have gone this route a few times. Skimming through the article I kept finding objectionable material. He mentions cops and security personnel wearing clip ons to avoid being strangled. Common sense over fashion, I nodded and continued. Then I got to THIS:
 Similarly, people in factory environments who wear ties are also advised to wear clip-ons – in the unfortunate event that the tie gets caught in a piece of machinery, it will simply clip off, rather than pulling its owner into the machine as well. (Then again, why people in factories would wear ties I have no idea.)

So what are you saying, sir or maam? People in factories don't have to wear ties because what....only professionals wear ties? So factory workers aren't? What, working in a factory takes you off the list of people who can "express themselves as individuals" in such a way? Get out of my internet browser with that.

I hate ties. If you made it to the end of this you no doubt get that. I do not ask that if you like ties you change your mind. I simply ask that you seriously ask yourself why you like them, and if it was ever your choice.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Vigilante Injustice

By now, the entire world has heard about the bombings in Boston. I'm not going to use the bombers' names because that kind of martyrdom via social media is not what this blog is about. Neither am I going to get into an in depth discussion of the people saying Syria, Israel etc have blasts every day. What I am going to talk about....is Batman. Stay with me.
   Everyone knows who Batman is, his tragic past and his shadowy brand of justice. Everyone loves the idea of this masked badass going out at night and wrecking evildoers. Everyone snickers when the Gotham police refer to him as a vigilante and outlaw, because hey, he's the hero! Laws don't apply to the good guy! They are for the other pitiable mortals out of the panel. So when Boston runners were caught in the blast and the FBI was hungry for clues and CNN was very clearly not a good source of accurate info , the Internet decided to turn to the one source of information it should have doubted immediately. It turned to itself. Thousands of people on social networking sites like Reddit and 4chan donned their alter egos of "justice" and started scanning photos of the race and monitoring police scanners (which, honestly, I'm kind of surprised is legal). What happened as a result? Sunil Tripathi.
 
A young Indian male, dark skinned, missing since March. One reddit user made the logic leap, and immediately the wolf pack started howling. His name was never said on the scanner, and I have looked for files of the scanner mp3 files which you can listen to for yourself. It's not there. Yet, one person said the name, and in the spirit of "social media is better than policework" this man's name was posted thousands of times in relation to this tragedy. Hours later, the true names would come out, but in the meantime, the torches were lit, and thousands looking for someone to blame had their target. He was slandered to no end, vengeance was sworn. Even after the fact, people refused to apologize. Pulled this from a reddit thread discussing the whole fiasco:

   Even here in this thread I have still seen people today claiming the missing guy is involved - and in one shocking instance, blamed for disappearing. Specifically - kposh said -
"no one owes anyone an apology to this kid he disappeared that makes him real suspicious looking"

So what is left? Where IS this man? No one knows. His family has to deal with his month long disappearance and the fact that he was the most wanted man in the country for a while because of incorrect data offered up by the Internet Justice League. In addition to this, there was a second name being floated around. Mike Mulugeta. How did our brave heroes come up with this name? On scanner at 2:14 AM an official said, "Last name Mulugeta, (spelled out), M as in Mike, Mulugeta." Clearly a small clarification in spelling is a name indication. No one knew what this name was in reference to....a suspect? A house owner in the neighborhood? Some guy with Red Sox tickets? If his name had started with D police might have been told to look for Dog Dulugeta. These are the jumps in logic made latenight online. 
   
With the situation now resolved, no one cares to look back on what the net did or didn't do to contribute to this case, but it showed a staggering lack of professionalism and proved a couple of things to me. One, the public is a bad place to source info from at night. Two, people don't care about who gets run over in the stampede to be right and get a pat on the head. Being first with information is seldom being right.

Meanwhile Sunil's family is still looking for him. Don't try to find him. Last time we didn't let the qualified people do their job, he was identified as a murderer. Just let him be.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

First Lap


Well, we made it.
   A year ago, I was sleeping on a hospital couch, wondering what life would have in store. My son had just been born, and after initial worries about low heart rate, they let him into the room with us. I worried extensively about his nose. He has what I suppose would be called a button nose, but days after birth, it was pressed into his face such that he was struggling to breathe every minute. I sat there in the early afternoon and watched his face, thinking that anything could happen at this point. He made it past that.
    When he refused to go to bed, and I realised as I sat on the couch at 4:45 am with him that I was living every cliche joke about parenthood that I had ever heard, I wondered how this was going to work. I am not super dependent on sleep, but I need at least four hours to soldier through the average day. So how was I going to manage this guy waking up every two hours? It took us a long time but we figured out that the secret was counter intuitive. The milk he screamed for after dark made him urinate, which filled his diaper and made him uncomfortable, which woke him up. So we weaned him off of that, and he started sleeping from 8 pm to 6 am. Another hurdle down.
    I realised that I had made it past some invisible hurdle every morning, as I looked down at him, he would look back at me and smile his toothless smile. Some cosmic karma accountant had checked my books over and decided that everything I had done in life qualified me for one more day with this guy. This little man who figured out how to take off his dirty diaper and threw it across the room, who scared the cats every time they came into the room, who still occasionally decides that sleep is for the weak and raises hell at 230 am. He is not easy to deal with sometimes, and I often remembered my old pledges to never have a son and have the karma of my younger self to deal with. Yet, he earns his place in my soul daily. His insistence on saying 'Da Da' even when asked to say mama is amusing and heartwarming. The moments when he would stop crying and start crying when I sang songs to him add up. I find myself constantly thinking of things I can teach him in the future, principles, games, sports, languages. Right now, he resembles a lot to me, but most of all, he is the embodiment of limitless potential, and I find it fascinating. Sure, he's barely twenty pounds and has a grand total of three teeth showing, but I'm looking down the road at the horizon.
   So, every day I think of what could have happened to him, and I count it as a victory. Obviously and hopefully we have a long way to go, and I plan to be running right next to him the entire way. Happy Birthday, Damian Matthew. Welcome to lap two.