It’s been a while since I had a really long stint of me-time. Back in the days - we’re talking 10-12 years ago - I could get home from work on a Friday evening and not leave the apartment or see other people again before returning to work on Monday morning. It’s a social situation many people would describe as plain sad. But I didn’t lack friends or struggle with social anxiety, I was just very comfortable in my own company. The time was usually spent deeply engaged in some computer game, a hardware project, movies, books, TV series, or whatever I was into at the time.

Now Anniken has granted me a 24 hour leave of absence from my usual duties as father and soon-to-be-husband. Putting it that way, I realize she sounds like a good, old slave driver, fortunately that’s not the case. Our family/work/personal time is perfectly balanced at the moment, but since one of us has to take care of the 2 year-old - she’s still struggling a bit with the micro wave, and has yet to master personal hygiene - it takes a bit of planning when one of her parents are away for a day.

Anyway.

Starting roughly 36 minutes ago, I’m free to do whatever the hell I want, and while most guys would probably use those 24 hours to go venture on an epic bender with their (single) friends, I’m locking myself in the basement with my aging computer and a diet that will consist mainly of junk food, whisky, and energy drinks.

I was planning to spend the time giving Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy game Heart of Iron IV a proper go, but in the end I decided against it because I suspect I’d only barely scratch the monster’s surface. So instead I opted for Dwarf Fortress with better graphics, also known as RimWorld. The time I’ve got on my hands probably isn’t enough to get the hang of RimWorld either, but I assume - risking making an ass of you and me - that the learning curve is much more gentle than with HoI IV.

And now I’m off, having wasted 28 minutes of my precious time writing this.