Thing I Love #1: Driving in the snow. The darker and blizzard-er it is, the better. Especially when you're the only one out on the road, creeping along and easing in/out of every stop sign and turn. Hearing that crunch of snow below the tires. Giving it just the tiniest amount of beans to break traction and reel it in without fuss nor muss. It gives you a good feeling for car dynamics. But even more, it's just nice to be out in the world when everyone else is hunkered down.
Hell, I'll take it one step further: I love snow. I'm not big on skiing or hiking or whatever it is people do for winter sports. But I love the clean sheet of paper laid over a suddenly silent world. I love how bright it during the day when it reflects the sun and how bright it is during the night when it reflects the streetlamps.
Around these parts it's an unpopular opinion. Seems that snow is the go-to gripe of choice for most people where I live. Hell, I don't even mind shoveling the stuff. I'd take that over mowing the lawn any day.
Thing I Love #2: Kitty cuddles. I got this old fart of a pet, and he's a cat of the lap variety. He'll sit in front of the couch expectantly when I get home. I sit down, he jumps up, he lays down. Sometimes he he just sits there for pets, sometimes he goes to sleep. Stupid fuzzball.
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You know what I miss? The sheer monotony. You remember: you're young and waiting for church to end, and then you wait for your parents to stop socializing so you can go, then you wait to finish the van ride home with whatever stiff CBC radio program plays every Sunday afternoon. Don't you remember being BORED OUT OF YOUR SKULL so much that it hurt? So much that the agony exerted itself like an oppressive force so strong it could've been considered one of Newton's Laws of Motion?
I remember that same force appearing on the day before my birthday. Christmas Eve. Waiting for my sister to finish chatting on the computer so I could get back into Counter Strike. Walking across the big ass school field on a warm day, the last hurdle between curriculum and sweet, sweet contentment.
Of course, there was the flip side too. The overwhelming joy of tearing into presents on Christmas Day. Grinding away afternoon after afternoon on de_dust2, because no other map quite scratches that itch the same way. Getting so far into whatever book on the walk home that you smack your head on the side mirror of a parked truck. Practically overdosing on the melody, bridge, chorus, and all other anatomical delights of a good song. I swear to you, that there were moments when I felt positively inebriated on listening to the same track ad naseum. Sorry Elders of the Church, but that might be as close as I've ever been to a spiritual experience.
Sometimes I browse the internet with bleary, glazed over eyes solely as a guise to stay up late listening music. Put it in my veins. But it isn't quite the same.
I don't know if those mental extremes of youth are still accessible to me. Man, I long for the day where I could get sucked into a game again. And I'm slowly coming to appreciate the beauty in having nothing to do for a time. Boredom isn't as boring as it used to be, somehow. I'm getting old. And I miss feeling like I could just vibrate clean out of my own skin in anticipation.
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No Nothin' November: I need to stop playing video games. I've lost the joy and excitement, and it's more of a grind. So for the month I'm not going to play anything. Except for my Friday night F1 Grand Prixes with my buddy. That's kinda the highlight of my week. And I'll also keep playing Rocksmith, because that gives me a sense of progression beyond the screen.
Hopefully that'll get me all refreshed for the Steam sales at the end of the year.
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We used to have this nice house plant. Every once in a while it would bloom and we'd go, "Oh, that's kinda nice." Eventually it died for whatever reason. We said, "That's too bad, it was a nice plant."
Can someone please explain to me why people are so upset about the Queen dying? She's the only reigning monarch I've known all my life and I feel no attachment to her whatsoever. Has she even done anything noteworthy once you take away everything that came with her genetics?
As far as I can tell, she was just a nice commonwealth succulent in a teacup.
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I had a summer job once at a small golf course/amusement park. I vacuumed the greens, drove a small train, ran the till, and cleaned out the bathrooms. It was an education in the service industry.
Early on in my time there, the manager, Merv, passed around this little novel between each member of the staff. It was a trite motivational book about the wonderful attitude at the Seattle Fish Market, and how the workers there chipper and excited and made a great atmosphere out of something mundane and decidedly unsexy. There was a shitty romance angle to it, if I remember correctly. I'm not going to dignify that book or the intent with which I was given it to read by trying to figure out what the title or who the author was.
The thing was, the manager would leave each day after lunch and return shitfaced in the evening to close out the day's shift. Except he wasn't a happy drunk. Woe to the poor soul who was designated to stay behind and cash out the till; at best he'd chew you out for not counting fast enough or the style of your handwriting. And if the till didn't balance, then you'd get it. Yelling and throwing and breaking things. For a 17 year old, it was a bit much. And then rest of the time when he wasn't drunk, he'd rant and rave about the "fucking idiot" of an owner.
I don't remember what made me think of that book this week. It was such a hilariously half-assed way for a manger to dictate company spirit without actually doing anything meaningful. Kinda stands out as one of those examples of morale with a capital M and maybe a TM or Copyright after it or something.
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Goddamn it, Valve. It had been so long since Half Life Episode 2, that I wasn't in a rush to play Alyx. Then I did, and it was freaking fantastic, and made me remember what I loved about the series. Great writing and use of technology (limitations notwithstanding) to make a really engrossing experience. They really are a master of the mature sci-fi genre. It makes you just a bit uncomfortable the whole way through (VR headset aside, of course). And then they get to the end of the story and drop a bombshell that makes you NEED a follow up.
But this is Valve, we're talking about. I'll see you in another fifteen years.
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Racing games are dumb. Every single Need for Speed and Forza and Whatever Vroom Vroom Else I played growing up had a binary gameplay loop: Start a race in (or near) last place then finish in first to win. If you finish in not first, you lose.
As I've been getting more into F1 over the last year, it stands out how some mid-field teams will go absolutely bonkers for getting a fourth place finish. Even more than Mercedez or Red Bull or whoever came in first. That, to me, is part of the magic of the sport: technically a team consistently finishing in 2nd or 3rd can still win the season. And even for other teams, it's just a matter of clawing your way up the standings to finish one or two places over last year. Winning is a spectrum, rather than the center position on the podium.
So I'm learning to race and not develop the Menu > Restart > Confirm muscle memory that seems part and parcel with meaningful progression in most titles. It goes to show just how shallow most of them are. Nothing gets under your skin as laying down a blistering qualifying lap, and then biffing it in the race. And as hard as it is to watch yourself come in a shade of last, it gives you something to aim for the next time around. You have the pace, but not the consistency. THAT is where the challenge lies, not in restarting a race until you get it right. It's kind of maddening and freeing.
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This Is Us wrapped up about six months ago, and we just got around to binging the last season. Damn, it was emotionally exhausting. The writers deserve commendations for their quality of their work, but once all those loose threads have to come together to wrap up the series, you're left with a nice shirt that has one arm 2" shorter than the other. The dialogue started to get a bit too philosophical, everything was wrapped up a bit too nicely, and some of the beats were forced. For a show of its scope it was understandable, and they deserve props for doing as well as they did, I guess. It was what it had to be. The bright point, though, was undoubtedly how Rebecca passed over the threshold. There was some real artistry on how that was handled. It was creative and beautiful.
