I was recently in Calgary and know ppl that live there. I would like to stress it is absolutely a conservative town but it’s not without a large queer community and out and about queer folks having a good time.
The voting record is as Canada’s conservative heartland but it has long history of radically progressive and humanist ideas as a bulwark to the business and theologically motivated conservative base.
The food scene is really good too.
I don’t know much about Edmonton other than Calgarians think they’re better and there’s a mall in Edmonton.
But ya know, it’s a clown show like anywhere else. The provincial government is actively attacking queer awareness/visibility/speech with book banning measures that the Unionized librarians and plenty of other Albertans are fighting back against hard.
It’s still quite a small pair of prairie towns and are the biggest towns for a very long distance from anything as close to as big as them. As a result some fresh produce can be hard to find because there is not much grown locally.
Would be remiss to not mention nature. It’s got some of the biggest parks of any city I’ve ever been too and you can see those damn pretty mountains and go to them if you own/rent the basically required car.
TLDR
I kinda liked it 🤷
I purchased a new video game for the first time in a while. I got it from an (the only?) independent store in my area. It’s the NBA 2k game. I got it so I can socialize with friends around the country and so I can use it’s terrible “pay to not grind” mechanics to my advantage. I play it on the elliptical machine for like an hour or when I want to catch up to some podcasts (just have to turn the game volume all the way down).
I could stress over the fact that 2k and take 2 is awful. There’s a lot of gambling mechanics baked into the multiplayer. There’s also a casino/slots aesthetic that permeates the whole thing (this is ostensibly a game for kids). There’s been the union busting thing as well which is despicable. I try to remind myself that I’ve been avoiding contributing to the most profitable and cruel of the existing big gaming conglomerates for a good amount of time. It can be very discouraging what exists in the big budget pop gaming sphere. Ugh.
But there’s good things about it too. The gameplay, the physics, the AI and controls are probably some of the best I’ve experienced in terms of dynamic sports games. My only alternative experience has been the EA NHL games so it’s not that I’ve had the bar set very high. There is also a story mode with a story that is somewhat compelling! Not as good as NBA 2k16s Spike Lee story (yes that’s real), but still it offers some good narrative motivation, decent challenges, and new ways to control the game (NHL could never).
The socializing has been good too! I used to play the Call of Dutys with my friends but those were not sitting well with me and my friends and we haven’t gotten the latest ones. So I get to be back on an old habit of weekday evenings playing games with the homies!