With the inimitable Tom in town, lately I’ve been going for more long walks to have interesting conversations*, and one conclusion I had come to recently is that most problems are caused by other people. I’d recommend avoiding people in order to reduce the number of unpleasant experiences you have, but it turns out many of life’s pleasant experiences also involve interaction with people, making the whole thing much more complicated.

One nice interaction with people I had recently was WordXWord, which was as always a delightful week of spoken word, even though I wasn’t competing this year. It was also nice to have a few people tell me that they read and enjoy my column, because I get very little feedback about it generally speaking.**  Specifically speaking of which, here’s my most recent column: Oh, The Humidity

While I haven’t yet played No Man’s Sky because I can’t really justify buying games on release, I have been dipping back into both Terraria and Starbound, which scratch the same sorts of itches, and which have the advantage of optional multiplayer. Even if multi-player Terraria oft ends up being other more-skilled VGG friends handing me their cast-off equipment, the bad jokes are what make it all worthwhile.

I’m hoping to write some slightly better jokes for this week’s Third Thursday Comedy Mic, which I should probably do instead of extending this blogpost. Oh, but first I’ll mention in case you missed it previously, last post links to my old house, now for sale at a very good price, please share the link with anyone you know who might be interested in buying it. My life would definitely be improved by a swift sale of that house. And I’ll fry you a burrito.

*One of my favored activities in general, although aside from Tom my list of regular coambulators had recently been reduced by one, which is inconvenient since it had already dwindled to one. But walking and talking is surprisingly engaging, for something that isn’t the Internet.

**Notwithstanding troll comments on the Berkshire Eagle site, because the commenters there are only slightly better than YouTube commenters. “All the rude invective, now with 50% less offensive language!”

As regular readers* of this blog know, a few months ago I moved. I still live in North Adams, but I am now further from town. My old house is much more conveniently located to town — just a few blocks from Main St., grocery store, bank, everything you could want. I lived there a dozen years with no car (although there is a garage – and a shed!). It’s a charming old Victorian house with a prime location, and I have put it on the market for less than it’s worth because I would really like to sell it soon. Perhaps you or someone you know might want an entire awesome house for $69k or so? Check out and/or share this listing:

Charming old Victorian house just blocks from town

That’s the most important news, because seriously, I really need to sell this thing ASAP. Turns out that new houses are expensive, and having two houses at once is way too expensive.

In other news, how is it already August? This year has really flown by, and I am not ready for anything. Among the things I am not ready for is WordXWord, happening next week. This year happened so fast that I didn’t even make it to any of the preliminary events this year, and so consequently I am not competing in the slams this time around. But I’ll still be reading some poetry in one or two of the auxiliary** events, and it’s an honor just to be nominatedparticipate.

Boardgaming continues apace, and I think my favorite new-to-me game this summer is Orleans, which isn’t terribly innovative, but is a lot of fun. Other new-to-me games include Oh My Goods (a very cheap smallbox game with some meat) and Costa Rica (the most vicious Push your Luck game I’ve played in a while.)

I realize by this point my post already has more links than a Jimmy Dean Sausage*** festival, but I still want to point to some recent columns, one about Harry Potter in the Berkshires (yes, that’s our Mt. Greylock the new school is at!), and one about Pokemarriage Go.

And that’s it for my July update! The August update should be up by September.

*I know I don’t have many regular readers, but sadly I don’t even seem to have a single regular updater. Uh, sorry about that, dear reader.

**”one or two, of the auxiliary” might refer to “can I remember how many l’s and r’s are in this word?”

***Sadly, this post not sponsored by Jimmy Dean Sausage. Or anyone else. Hey companies, send me free food and I’ll mention you. Hell, doesn’t have to be a company. Dear reader, bake me some cookies, I’ll mention you. I take the will write for food thing to a whole new level. Like, a lower one.