3 Things I like Right Now

Nothing fancy, just three things I like.

Conflict of Nations

It’s a game that’s a freemium sort of thing. You can play for free or pay to help yourself win. I play for free. It’s a strategy game that I’ve found helps my brain wake up when I feel like it’s slowing down. You can spend as much time or as little time playing as you want. Some game formats can take about 5min a day, and others would require more like 20min a day total.

Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God (Podcast)

I like to listen to this podcast on my commute on teaching days in Fort Worth. Justin Brierly has put together a very intriguing exploration of his “thesis” that the world is currently seeing a “surprising rebirth of belief in God”. He begins with the “new atheist” movement of the early 2000s and moves into present day discussions. The show is currently on a break for the end of season 1, so you could catch up on it before season 2 begins. I listen on Spotify, but I’m sure its available everywhere.

GroupMe App

This app has saved me some headaches. I hate being held hostage to group message notifications pinging my phone 15 times in a row. This app helps solve the problem. In my area, most kids sports teams use this app for communication and it’s great because I can set notification preferences for all sorts of things to make sure I’m not bothered unless I want to be. It also keeps my text message notifications from being overwhelmed by stuff that isn’t actually important.

On the other hand, you can set this up as a communication system for a small group or a discipleship group so that Android and iPhone users are on an equal playing field. I know Apple is releasing RCS support soon, so it remains to be seen how relevant this will be after iOS 18 drops.