Shine on, harvest moon.

 I decided to take a little nap after my evening constitutional, around 6 p.m. or so. Unfortunately, I woke up about 20 minutes ago and it's fifteen after eleven. So this will, naturally, be a little rushed and jumbled and might not make it in before midnight, Country Standard Time. Especially since I have some cake to eat.

 It was a pretty decent week for the news. Mainly focusing on the passing of Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief package, that was the story that dominated the news. People really don't grasp the implications of this, one of the biggest for-the-people pieces of legislation passed since LBJ's Great Society, one that enjoyed over 70% popularity yet not one single, solitary Congressional Republican voted for it. A number of them are trying to take credit for it already, naturally, while the rest are gearing up to use it as a point of attack in the 2022 mid-terms. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

 I really don't know what else I can put here. I stayed up most of last night playing yet another game of XCOM 2 so I spent most of the day sleeping it off. I have about three or four games going, both with the DLCs and without, and with various mods installed. This one, however, is straight vanilla. I'd say I was between a quarter and halfway through the main story. I haven't taken down any of the Chosen but I'm well on my way.

 I finished the second volume of those "Sherlock Holmes meets occult detectives" short story collections, and this one wasn't as enjoyable. Maybe it's a case of too much at once, but I really don't think it works as well overall. For one, Holmes was too constantly a faux skeptic and not willing to open his mind when the evidence proved no other option. There was also an appearance of Auguste Dupin, the hero of Edgar Allen Poe's detective stories, which were the first example of what we know as detective stories.

 Anyhow, it cast them as buddies when the original stories had Holmes dismiss Dupin as a joke. This one has them dogging on Poe and that's a sore point for me. I'm a fan and how his literary executor trashed his reputation for a century. It's an interesting story and worth looking into. Somehow, a guy named Rufus Griswold wound up being responsible for Poe's work and legacy after the latter's death. He loathed Poe and went out of his way to trash the author. He's the reason we all thought for so long that Poe died drunk in the gutter.

 One of the places I want to visit is Baltimore solely because of its connection to Poe. The Ravens are my backup football team after the Saints because they're named after one of Poe's creations. After Mark Twain, he was probably the first author I was obsessed with as a kid and one of the few I'm still sort of fascinated by. His work more than anything else influenced the kind of horror I like and is probably why I find splatter media so dull.

 Anyhow. Enough of that, I guess. Today's my brother's 44th birthday and that means next month I'll be turning 46. I talked to him on the phone today for a while and he seems happy and content with his life, and I'm glad. Most of my closest are doing well and have found what seems to be their bliss. I wish I could figure out mine beyond "being allowed to nap as much as I want."

 Okay, then. I got to word count with 10 minutes to spare, so I guess I'll post this. As usual, if something comes to me I'll come back to it. And, as usual, I doubt anything will.