The letter “L” – I’m going to wander though this one.

I slept in a bit this morning stayed up late last night playing a video games on the PC with some friends and eldest. In between matches I tried to think of a topic for today’s A to Z Challenge. I didn’t get very far with it since we were all talking through Discord while she was Streaming the games for others to watch. All video games need a bit of trash talking after all.

Guess I will go with lackadaisical. Took this from Vocabulary.com A person with a lackadaisical attitude shows no enthusiasm and puts forth a half-hearted effort. But it’s more of a dreamy, laid back approach rather than sheer laziness. I choose that definition rather than Webster’s because it was kinder to me and my state of mind. Laid back and dreamy that’s me today.

I’m not feeling lazy about writing today just a bit relaxed and willing to let whatever types itself out stay. This is usually a good day to just write and see what happens. Usually what happens though is I wander all over the map. I will try not to do that.

We played a few games last night the first was Super Animal Royale. I will let you watch the video for the game below. I will tell you it is free to play, silly and does take your mind off things. My enjoying it has nothing to do with the fact that I can beat people with a marshmallow on a stick to win. The basics though, you alone or with up to three other friends try to be the last animals standing out of 64 players.

My Daughter was streaming this through Twitch for a few hours . If you don’t know Twitch is a platform that allows you to broadcast your content to the world anyone can watch. I have seen people teach arts and crafts, play Tabletop games, Teach, Hula Hoop or just sit and chat for hours. Twitch is also free if anyone is interested. Just type in the search for things you are interested in, then either sit and watch or join in the chat. I think my favorite lately is one of you can stream a movie through it while literally hundreds of people can sit and watch with you.

Oh since we are talking about ways to interact I know people are using Zoom and several other platforms for them to keep in touch with friends and family. A nice free one we use is called Discord. There are thousands of groups all with their own set of interests. Its free to use and you can set up your own self contained chat and text rooms. I use it mostly for friends we play games with there are currently 353 people on ours and a list of 30 game channels people can enter to talk during games, plus text channels for sharing pictures and things. It’s also set up to post messages from the game developers channels we play and Twitter as well. For a new person, it’s simply a great way to keep in touch. For Bloggers… well it could be another tool in your Branding box if you wanted since you can integrate it with Twitter and other social media platforms. Wouldn’t be a great thing for me since my writing outside of this blog is freelance, not author related and a great deal more on point unlike this. I don’t want clients to see this place (laugh). This is where I just type and do a quick check then send it out into the world, like a catharsis. I think for an author though, the ability to chat with and interact more directly with fans could be of great use.

Wow, Lackadaisical has taken me, in unexpected directions. I think they are good ones though. Maybe some of you want to play games with a group be it table top games (Using Discord to coordinate) Oh Table Top Games!!! Yes! using that and discord… any game with friends. Everyone logs into the game and you all connect on Discord to play. D&D, Risk, hundreds from the game developers and hundreds more you can add in from people who make their own for it. Ya know I think I just wrote myself into several other letters to be expanded on. (looking things over, this is way to long already, someone needs to wrap this up).

A to Z letter L, Lackadaisical mission complete… Long, rambling perhaps, informational I hope. Time for me to look at the next 50 or so blogs on the master list, go through my reader que for the day and decide on tomorrows letter “M”. Or maybe… grab my marshmallow stick and go forth to do battle.