Fixing a Hot, Noisy Graphics Card

 

Last April when I built a new PC, I chose an MSI 5700xt Evoke OC as my graphics card. I usually don't keep up with PC tech until I need to build a new computer, and so I went with Rock Paper Shotgun's best graphics card for 1440p recommendation. I purchased the cheapest 5700 xt I could find on Newegg, and at 400 bucks, the Evoke wasn't exactly cheap. Unfortunately, I had no idea how loud my card was--at 100 percent rpm, the fans sound like an aircraft taking off. Lowering the fan curve through AMD's Radeon software resulted in a card that frequently reached over 90 degrees Celsius while gaming. 5700 xts run hot, but that's way too hot, and every once in a while, usually after gaming over an hour, my computer would suddenly shut down, which was probably the 5700 xt shutting itself off before it cooked. Right now there's a global shortage of graphics cards due to high demand and economic complications from Covid, so upgrading isn't an option, unless I want to drive thirty miles and camp out in front of Best Buy every morning. The Evoke actually is a fine card performance wise--it hits over 60 frames per second at 1440p at high quality in every game I play--so if I could just figure out how to cool it without the fans making my ear drums bleed, there's no reason to switch it out. Here's what I did.

First, I upgraded my case fans. My Fractal Design Meshify C came with two excellent 120 mm fans which I used for front intake, but the screw holes for 120 mm fans aren't set low enough to allow airflow under my graphics card, so I purchased two 140 mm Cooler Master silent fans. One of these fit perfectly at the bottom front of the case and helped quite a bit. I have them on a smart curve that's pretty aggressive, and at their max rpm of 1000 they aren't noisy, as advertised.

Secondly, I underclocked and undervolted my card. This is very easy to do in the Radeon software. My card's default clock is 2150 Mhz, and its default voltage is 1200 mV. I found that reducing the core clock to 1900 Mhz and the voltage to 1000 mV was stable and significantly impacted temperature. I went from 89 degrees C in Amid Evil to the high 60s and low 70s. Performance wise, I didn't seem to lose more than a frame or two per second in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Red Dead Redemption 2. I think most of us would sacrifice a couple frames for a fifteen degree reduction in graphics card temperatures. I want this baby to last! Who knows when we'll be able to buy a decent GPU for less than a Playstation 5? 5700 xts are going for nearly 1000 bucks on Amazon! That's fucking crazy, considering I bought mine for only 400 dollars nearly a year ago.

Lastly, I adjusted the fan curve. This is also easily done in the Radeon Software. I went 30 percent at 30 degrees, 45 at 50, 55 at 70, 60 at 80, and 70 at 85. The fan is bearable at 60 percent; at 80, you can bear it with headphones. This is just a loud card, but since tempertures stay lower with my underclock, my fans usually don't go over 55 percent now.

So now my GPU doesn't drive me crazy. The lesson here is to read the reviews before you purchase, and to also scour the internet when you have a hardware problem, because there's usually a fix out there.

Writer's Block: Winter Trees

 

The winds hits

On the hill

Slipping my feet

Cutting my face

In my hands

Saw and shears

It is time

For more trimming.

 

Cankers, rots

Branches broken

By fecund spurs

A tumor

A spot for feeding

It all

Has to go.

 

What do I think

While my shoulders ache?

I think about people

Politics

Ancient video games

My wife

My last days

In the sun.

 

Every season

Is a circle

Some hate this

And spend their lives

Running out of the loop.

I've been in a circle

For a while.

It grows larger

Every year.

How I feel about it

Changes

From season to season.

 

We are in the dying times

But we'll soon be elsewhere.

There's nothing left to say

There is plenty left to do.

 

New Video: Factory Work

A piece of music intended to evoke the mindless grind of an Amazon warehouse. I did it years ago for a grand total of two weeks. If I'd kept at it, I'd have no soul. My sympathies go out to anyone who has to work a job like that. Human beings weren't made to toil like robots.

Amid Evil Review

 

This game's aesthetic is ridiculously appealing to the fantasy nerd in me.

Amid Evil is a 2019 retro shooter released by New Blood Interactive (who also released Dusk). It's easily described as an updated Hexen; for those who never played that title (I'm one), it's basically a dark fantasy skin of Doom, although Amid Evil definitely adheres closer to the Quake archetype. Its pixelated graphics also bring to mind id's mismash of fantasy and sci-fi. However, Unreal is another title that comes to mind, with Amid Evil's copious colored lightning and its arsenal's secondary firing modes. Suffice it to say that Amid Evil is thematically a mix of 90's shooters, and if you've played any of the aforementioned titles, you won't be lost.

There are seven episodes, each consisting of four levels with the last level being a boss fight. Each episode is thematically distinct. My favorite was the Arcane Expanse, a trippy sequence of dark fantasy cathedrals often traversed through floating rivers of ether. My least favorite was the Sacred Path, a labyrinthine maze full of ugly elementals, stupid-looking plant monsters, and giant rock beasts. All the episodes are fairly solid, although Dusk definitely has Amid Evil beat in the level design department. The arsenal is the best part of the game, with your typical selection of firearms being replaced by magical swords and staffs. You start off with an ax, which isn't completely useless, and you soon find the Staff of the Azure Orb, which shoots tracking missiles. The Whisper's Edge is my favorite weapon. It's a sword that flings green energy that can hit multiple enemies, making it a good replacement for the shotgun, and its secondary power up mode reminds me of the razorjack from Unreal. The Celestial Orb is also awesome. It's basically Quake's rocket launcher, but instead of firing rockets, it shoots random planets pulled from other dimensions. Pretty metal, eh? Rounding out the selection of guns is a trident that is functionally identical to Quake's lightning gun, a mace that does serious damage, and a messy tangle of ribbons called the Aeturnum that fires a slow moving ball of energy that destroys everything in its path a la Doom's BFG. Every time you kill an enemy, you absorb its soul (a Dark Souls reference?), and when you hit one hundred, you have access to alternate firing modes for all of the weapons. These are ridiculously powerful and fun, but you'll often find yourself unsure when a situation calls for such carnage. The game pace is more similar to Quake than Doom, and you'll seldom find yourself overwhelmed by a horde of monsters. After playing Doom Eternal, Amid Evil is certainly the more laid back affair.

All things considered, I enjoyed hunting keys and slaughtering knights in Amid Evil's many gorgeous levels. It's about a ten hour experience, give or take, and if you're hunting for a good shooter with a dark fantasy vibe, you can't go wrong. Dusk is a stronger experience, but Amid Evil's a much prettier game with a better arsenal. Feast your eyes on the screenshots below.

Video Game Reviews

 

 Here's a shot from Amid Evil, because it is a video game.

Here is an ever-growing list of all of the video games I have reviewed for Pointless Venture. There are a few of the Esteemed Critic's reviews here, but I've taken him off of reviewing games, mostly because his insufferable attitude is better suited to cinema and the small-screen. The latest reviews are at the top. Pointless Venture's Best Games of the Year are at the very bottom. 2020, being the very special year that it was, does not have a Best Games list, but instead has a Best and Worst of the year.

Game Reviews 

Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty; Warhammer Boltgun; Helldivers 2

Star Wars: Dark Forces Remastered Impressions

The Value of Game Pass; Resident Evil 2 Remake; Vampire Survivors; Lies of P

Sunset Overdrive

Halo Infinite Season 5

Starfield Doesn't Make a Good First Impression

Balder's Gate 3, 25 Hours in

System Shock (2023)

Jedi Survivor

Atomic Heart

Prodeus

Hi-Fi Rush

Halo 3

Half-Life 

Deadspace (2023 Remake)

Shadow Warrior 3

I Finally Finished Elden Ring

Elden Ring: Thoughts after 97 Hours

Plague Tail: Requiem Screenshots 

Plague Tail: Requiem 

Warhammer:Darktide Impressions

Spider-man Remastered

Check out Ray-traced Quake

Quake 2 RTX

Elden Ring 

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 

Halo 5

Guardians of the Galaxy

Cyberpunk 2077 Review

God of War

Cyberpunk 2077 Impressions

Halo Infinite

Halo: CE verses Halo 4

Thoughts on Deathloop and the Halo Infinite Beta 

Hades Versus Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Resident Evil Village 

Control; Crysis Remastered

Additional Thoughts on Red Dead Redemption 2 

Red Dead Redemption 2

Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part Two

Resident Evil 3 Remake 

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Amid Evil 

Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part One 

Doom Eternal

Doom Eternal First Impressions 

Black Mesa Review 

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Metro Exodus 

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus 

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order; The Outer Worlds 

Subnautica 

Edith Finch, Prey: Mooncrash, Turok 2 

Quake Champions 

The Esteemed Critic Reviews Dishonored 2 

The Esteemed Critic Reviews Doom (2016) 

Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast 

Witcher 3 First Impressions 

Fallout 4 First Impressions 

Turok (2008) 

The Esteemed Critic Reviews Civ 6, Shadow Warrior 2

Dusk Versus Turok

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Impressions 

Unreal Tournament Series Retrospective

Doom 3 Retrospective in List Format 

Thief 2 

Thief (2014)

 

Essays and Guides

Jedi Survivor Optimization Guide

An Essay on Why Broken PC Games Aren't New

 

Pointless Venture's Best Games of the Year

2023

2022

2021

Top Ten Games of the 2010's

2020 (Not Restricted to Gaming) 

2019 

2018 

2017 

2016 

2015

2014 

2013

How to Get Windows 10 to Run on a Thirteen Year-Old Computer

 

Yeah, it wasn't this old, but it's still an accomplishment, I guess.

In the process of cleaning out my house, I stumbled upon my thirteen year-old Athlon X2 6000+ based system and thought "hey, what if I put this upstairs to serve as a retro gaming/music producing machine?" I'd just cleaned up my third floor and moved all my guitars up there, and I had an old Samsung CRT monitor that I was interested in using, mostly because older games like Quake look better at lower resolutions (CRTs have no native resolution). All the old system needed was a hard drive, so I purchased a 1 terabyte hard disk and naively proceeded, after receiving said hard disk, to install Windows 10. I didn't realize that Windows 10 requires at least 2 gigs of ram; that was all my old system had, and it predictably ran like molasses, especially after installing the Good Old Games client and Google Drive Sync. After scouring the internet, I found several tips and tricks which helped me eventually get my X2 based PC usable, at least in till I receive the extra 2 gigs DDR2 800 I ordered. Here's what I found.

The most useful

Uninstalling memory-taxing startup apps: GOG Galaxy and Google Sync ate up too much memory, so I disabled them by typing "startup" in the Windows search bar. When I upgrade to 4 gigs of ram, we'll see if the old X2 can handle Google Drive at least.

Turning off X Box Game Bar: I also noticed an immediate improvement because I guess the game bar runs in the background. Type "Settings" in the search bar, go to gaming, and turn off the game bar in the menu that comes up.

Disabling Cortana: This is a little tricky. It involves editing the registry, which can fuck up your system if you do something wrong. However, that's not going to happen. Type "regedit" in the search bar. Navigate to the following directory: HKEY_Local_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoft Windows. Right click the windows directory, make a new key and name it "Windows Search". In the new folder, right click new > DWORD and name it "AllowCortana". Click on This File > Modify and set it to 0. These instructions were shamefully copied from the following source-https://thinkmobiles.com/blog/how-to-uninstall-cortana/

Turning off Graphical Settings: Go to Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced System Settings. Click on the Settings tab under Advanced. Then Click on Adjust for Best Performance, although I'd probably leave "Smooth Edges of Screen Fonts" on because otherwise text looks pretty bad.

The I'm No Sure It Did Anything Category

Adjusting Memory Page File: Under that Settings tab we accessed by following the steps describe in the previous entry, there's a column called "Advanced." Click on that, and you'll be able to modify the virtual memory. In theory, this should help a low-ram system because Windows can access the hard drive and use it as memory. Of course, it doesn't help much because your hard drive is way slower than your ram, but it doesn't hurt to increase your page file. You can set the minimum 1.5 times as much as the total memory in your system, which in my 2 gig system, would be 3000 megs. For the max, it's 4 times total ram, so 8000 megs.

Uninstalling all that useless shit that pops up when you click on the Start Menu. I'm talking about the News app, and the Windows Store, and whatever else shows up that you don't use. Just simply right click on the app, and click uninstall. Might net a modest boost to performance.

Stopping background Windows Updates: Go to Settings > Network and Internet > and click on "Change Connection Properties." You can turn on "Metered Connection" which should in theory keep apps from downloading updates in the background.

That's all I got, folks. I can't fathom a system older than my X2 based PC running Windows 10, so if I can get the old hunk of junk running it, you can surely do the same with a similar system.

Boomer Shooter is a Stupid Term and We Should Stop Using It

 

Amid Evil, more accurately categorized as a retro shooter.

Boomer Shooter is a term that's been floating around for a while, and while I'm not certain as to who is responsible for its coinage (I'm 100 percent certain that it's Generation Z), it seems to be getting traction as a genre descriptor for games such as Doom Eternal and Amid Evil, which take their gameplay cues from 90's classics like Doom and Quake. When I first came across it, I thought it made sense--those games are old, and everybody knows that the Boomers are old--but when I spent more than five seconds thinking about it, I realized that it's an inaccurate classification. The Baby Boomer Generation consists of people born between 1946 and 1964--folks who would've been between 48 and 30 in 1994, when Doom was released. John Carmack, the tech virtuoso responsible for the graphics engines powering Doom and Quake, was only 24 in 1994, making him a member of Gen X rather than the Baby Boomers. John Romero, credited as the main game designer for Doom, was a slightly older 27. Now there were Boomers on Id's team like Sandy Peterson (born 1955), but the two men chiefly responsible for the initial Boomer Shooter were members of Gen X. Both Doom and Quake were dark, moody, and irreverent (in Doom's case) games, sensibilities defined by the Grunge generation. Duke Nukem 3d, published by 3d Realms in 1996, also possessed Gen X's boundary-pushing humor (Duke can pay pixelated pool dancers for sex, and pig cops are a game monster. Hey, I didn't say it was great humor.). Hell, id even hired alt-rock hero Trent Reznor (born 1965) to compose the sound effects and music for Quake. What I'm getting at is that the first person shooter as defined by id software and its contemporaries is one of the lasting cultural legacies of Generation X, and had very little to do with the Baby Boomers. The kids that grew up playing Doom, Quake, and later classics like Half-Life and Unreal Tournament were mostly younger GenXers and Millennials such as myself. My first shooters were Wolfenstein, soon followed by Dark Forces and its sequel Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight. I remember installing Quake on my middle school computers so that my buddies and I could frag when nobody was paying attention. Christ, I know I'm ancient at thirty-five compared to a Zoomer, but not everything older than a year or two should be attributed to the Baby Boomers.

There. I've had my rant. I'll go back to doing Boomer shit, like destroying the economy and ignoring global warming.

Conan Brothers Q&A

 

PoliticalJunky asks "Are we ever going to come to terms with the fact that the Republican Party is basically a fascist organization now?"

Dave: Well that's a loaded question if I ever saw one.

Arnold: Technically I'd argue the Republican Party is authoritarian rather than fascist, but who gives a shit?

Dave: I do, Arnold. I give all the shits.

Arnold: I think conservative media has successfully brainwashed so many people that your average Republican is probably more fascist than he realizes. Trump has normalized so much. Would they have let Bush get away with using campaign funds to pay off a porn star? Maybe? I kind of doubt it.

Dave: But it was Antifa that stormed the Capital, Arnold.

Arnold: Nobody really believes that. You'll never meet a Trumper that argues in good faith. They want you to think that they believe Antifa tried to end democracy. It's 1984, bro. The Party says that 2+2=5, so you better tote the Party line.

Dave: Of all the goddamn people to start a cult around, Donald Trump? That's the motherfucker you're gonna die for?

Arnold: White supremacy is a hell of a drug.

Dave: Alright, fuck this shit. I'm tired of it.

Arnold: We all are, Dave. We all are.

...

GamerJunky asks "What are you all playing?"

Dave: Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight.

Arnold: Dave likes his old games. They fit like a warm glove.

Dave: Christ, keep it PG you pervert.

Arnold: I've been playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider, because who doesn't love playing as a colonialist sociopath with a rocking behind?

Dave: They scaled down those massive triangle tits. Oh Lara, what have they done to you?

Arnold: I've played all three of the reboot Tomb raider games, and Shadow is the best. It doesn't wrestle control away from you constantly like Tomb Raider (2013), and it lacks Rise of the Tomb Raider's ridiculous stigmata-possessing villain and icy setting (I hate ice levels). I mean, it's still goddamn ridiculous (Lara learns ancient languages by briefly glancing at ancient monuments; she real smart) but the relative sparsity of combat combined with the increase in puzzles and platforming makes Shadow feel like an old school Tomb Raider game. It's also a joy to look at, especially at 1440p on Ultra settings.

Dave: Good thing you used your stimulus check to build a new computer.

Arnold: Our tax dollars at work.

...

LifterGrifter asks "Got a good overhead press program/workout?"

Dave: Boy does he ever.

Arnold: Do five sets of four reps with at least your ten rep max. You can do this workout pyramid style but don't increase the weight too much between sets. After your five sets, do three sets of three with at least your eight rep max. Then do two sets of two with your five rep max, and then finally perform another two sets of two with your three rep max. When I say a 10 rep max, what I really mean is a weight you can press for ten reps any day of the week, fatigued.

Dave: You mean a working max.

Arnold: Yep. Do this program once a week along with four additional pressing sessions. Mix up bench and push press if you don't want to strict press every day. Do whatever you feel like, but just push that first workout.

Dave: And watch out for the gainz faerie.

Arnold: He might bite you in the ass if you're lucky. 

Writer's Block: The Faithful

 

He we are, the restless

The doubting know-it-alls

The protectors of freedom

The purveyors of bullshit

The swallowers of lies.

We congregate,

We gather

We stoke the fires

Until they burn our very souls.

What I have in my heart is the very essence of hate

What I hold in my hands is the sword of blood

What I want is nothing less than for it to all burn down

In a blaze of flaming glory

You want ashes?

You can have them.

You want righteousness? 

I will give it to you with my fist.

What I want is your face beneath a boot

Forever trodden.

Did you think the American Dream extended to you?

What do you think the American Dream truly is?

The American Dream is an orange-skinned monster

With hair plastered to his head.

His fingers are pussy-grabbers,

His lips are two sausages forming an orfice

An asshole from which shit spews forth

Drowning half a nation in fecal matter

That flows into their ears and seeps into their brains.

Nothing you can say will make any sense to me

Because I can't hear you.

It is impossible to hear

With shit in your ears.

The Diary of Mitch R. Singer

 

On the step of the Capital Building, nestled amongst the rioters

Here we are, the faithful, clad in our blood-colored red, amassing before a symbol of democracy with righteous hate in our hearts. I have my gun and my zip-ties; I know what must be done to save the country from the Others, and a fervor has gripped my patriot heart and boiled my blood. They are all charlatans inside; they are elements of the machine, a machine which has ceased to perform its primary function. As the crowd ebbs and flows, my brains ceases to think. I am an instrument made by the Lord, and I was sent to do the Lord's work. Everything has flowed from the Internet, where I am privy to esoteric knowledge. A gallows has been erected in the back to hang the traitorous. A mob mentality is a blessing, not a curse. When the shit hits the fan, I shall disappear, and even I do not know what will become of me. All that will remain will be the sentiment, the mindless stain of evil. I am a prisoner as you are a prisoner; neither of us knows what we do.

 In a darkened room, sitting before a computer

Click, click, click go my fingers on the keyboard. The Truth shall have an outlet, no matter how they attempt to oppress it. The nonsense I send onto the internet is barely coherent and would only fool a complete idiot, but there many out there, more than I imagined. My motivation is the profit my web forum produces, that and a complete lack of morals. So what if they believe conspiracy theories? All I care about is the cash. Civic responsibility is a foreign concept, one that I have never contemplated. Someday my heart shall exploded, and I will leave this form for another, a fresher, more limber body. Until that day I will continue to type, and they shall continue to believe.

In a trailer, out in the woods

There is nothing but garbage in here, disgusting refuse and paperback tomes purchased from internet bookstores. A deer head lies in the corner, its eight point rack broken in several places. After a meal of canned meat and beans I sit in my chair and watch my men transform the two minute hate into an hour long program. There are all sorts of groups that I blame for my problems and my lack of social stature. I never blame myself or economic forces. There must be a scapegoat, a focal point, an effigy to burn. The gods demand a sacrifice, and we are not rational actors, we are emotional creatures enslaved to our passions. If it feels true, then I believe it. One of these days I feel as though I will be called upon to defend my irrational believes, and then I will finally get my ass up off the couch and do something big. I keep telling myself this; it is what keeps me going through all the canned meat and sour bed farts that compose my life. I am a patriot I tell myself. I am not a waste of human potential.   

The Consummate Politician Refuses to Apologize

 

My fellow Americans, this is no time for violence. I know some of you are running wild outside my office in the Capital Building at this moment clad in your MAGA gear and armed to the teeth. My peers and I may even be somewhat to blame for the fomenting sea of misinformation circulating in the right wing cesspools of the internet. However, we take no responsibility for our actions, so everybody needs to settle down on both sides of the aisle. To the hillbilly horde: maybe sorta cut it out? I want you to vote for me, and you won't vote for me unless I suck Trump's micropenis while defecating on the American flag, but I never expected to suffer any consequences for my seditious acts. I certainly never thought I'd be huddling down in the secret tunnels that run underneath the Capital making friends with the mole people. I guess you can only pour so much gasoline on a fire before it explodes, but what do I know about science? Science is for Democrats and people who don't believe in White Jesus. To the rest of America: how about you cut it out with that traitor talk? Look, everybody in Washington is out for themselves. There ain't no Republican here that wouldn't eat a baby if doing so would secure him or her another term. Scruples are something communists believe in. Don't go try to hold us accountable because you know and I know that all that matters is rampant partisanship no matter the cost.

It seems like things are dying down upstairs. I hope nobody got hurt. If they did, it certainly wouldn't be my fault. Sure, just minutes ago I was trying to persuade my fellow Congressmen to throw out legitimate votes, but hey, I was just trying to buy myself some political capital. Four years from now, I want to be the one sitting in the White House. Instead of sucking micropenis, I'll be having my own micropenis sucked. That is, if I can somehow con 74 million Trumpers into voting for a Harvard educated lawyer. I can feign stupidity with the best of them. Unfortunately, I fear that they really want the real thing. Lemme tell you something, suckers: nobody is as stupid as Donald Trump.

Except maybe us, I guess.

We're the ones that built conservative talk radio. We're the ones that supported Fox News. We benefited from the nonsense of Breitbart. We made subtle overtures to white supremacists while denying that we knew what we were doing. We retweeted Pepe memes; we liked the Proud Boys. We did every goddamn anti-democratic trick in the book, from gerrymandering to voter purges to stacking the judiciary with Federalist-society partisans. We took a reasonably sane half of the American electorate and brainwashed them with conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory until their critical reasoning skills atrophied like a sac of castrated balls. When Trump threatened to burn it all down, we said: why not? He can't be serious, and there's no possible way it could backfire. Nobody fires up the base like Trump.

Four years from now, don't remember any of this, alright? Because no one has anything to apologize for.

I hope I make it out of this alive.

A Year of Weightlifting in Review: 2020

 

George Hackenschmidt, circa 1905. Guy was Brock Lesnar before Brock Lesnar.

2020 was a fairly successful year in my lifting hobby. I benched 315 lbs for the first time, a fifteen pound record, squatted 275 for thirteen reps, rack pulled 570 about two inches below the knees, and performed a quarter squat with 500 lbs, all while staying around 195 lbs in bodyweight. I had a bad pec tendon injury that kept me from benching since pressing 315, but in the meantime, I've focused on overhead pressing, without a whole lot to show for it. The press is a difficult beast; adding five pounds to a lift seems to take an eternity. Early in the year, I did the Juggernaut Method for a couple of cycles, while my bench pressing gains came from doing an Antony Ditillo program I dug up years ago. Recently, I've been pressing, pulling, and squatting three times a week, sticking to low reps. At thirty five years of age, I'm not an old man by any means, but I don't find the time to do the marathon training sessions of years past. Also, I find I need to pay attention to minor aches and pains or they develop rather quickly into chronic injuries, like my pec tendon problem. As far as the future is concerned, I'd love to do a strongman competition sometime this year if Covid ever goes away. I bought an atlas stone mold, and my recent focus on the overhead press is geared toward making me competitive in that area. Mostly though, I find myself just being content with being strong and capable as the years go by. Some of the goals of the past have been abandoned; I never really see myself doing a powerlifting meet, and I also don't want to gain much in the way of bodyweight at this point. The fact that I still find lifting weights interesting is enough. I also started experimenting with meditation, and I find that it conveys full body benefits by way of improved breathing and mental focus. So that's that. I'd like to strict press 225 lbs this years, as well as pull 600 lbs from the floor. If it happens, it happens. If not, well, I'll still be fitter and stronger than I ever thought I'd be.