For you, I’ll make an exception.

Just in case anybody didn’t read the article and doesn’t already know: Wild animals infected with rabies aren’t just the stereotypical raging aggressive terror beasts you see in the media, they can also be super friendly and usually docile.

Obviously the best advice is just to leave wild animals alone and keep your distance. However, if you see a feral or wild animal behaving in an uncharacteristic way, added caution is needed. This includes things like seeing traditionally nocturnal animals like skunks and raccoons out and about during the daytime or having them be unusually friendly / fearless / docile to the point where they don’t retreat and may even come up to investigate you. It doesn’t mean that they are infected with rabies, but that’s definitely a potential symptom of rabies (but can also be a sign of other infectious diseases that should activate your spidey senses).

You are not a Disney princess and Cinderella Snow White is not a realistic presentation of how healthy wild animals act.

Anybody playing Doom: Dark Ages and if so, what are your impressions? It is/was on sale and I just saw that it’s Steam Deck verified.

Mostly I’ve gotten back into Vampire Survivors. In a prior recent sale, all the DLC was in a relatively cheap bundle, so I went for it. I also gave in on “my principles” and started consulting online sources to figure out the hows and wheres for a number of the unlocks that eluded me in the past. I really dislike having to do this, but there’s just not enough info / guidance in-game and I got tired of aimlessly hoping to stumble upon things.

I’m hoping I can find the motivation to play some other titles in my backlog, but as of yet, nothing has stuck.

I like Linux, use(d) various flavors of it, and have had experience with / exposure to it for over 20 years. But no, I’ve never had a remotely flawless experience with it on a desktop or laptop environment. Wish I could offer more help or encouragement, but figured I’d at least chime in with some emotional support by affirming that you are not alone in that experience.

I would recommend Linux to technologically adept people (ex: tech professionals, computer science students) and only indirectly to less technically proficient people in the form of suggesting something like a Steam Deck for portable PC gaming to someone who might be interested.

But for an aging parent or my best friend’s kids? No. Sometimes I already feel like I’m a free on-call 24/7 IT support tech for friends and family, and that’s with mostly Windows and Android devices that pretty much just work the way folks expect (even if that way is broken/crumby/irritating/etc).