I've described the hedonic burnout that must naturally come from triggering the same psychological reward system over and over for the duration of my World of Warcraft career. And, no hate - if you rode that particular rollercoaster all the way up and all the way down, it was a singular era. I fucking lived there. There is a tower in the starting area outside of Stormwind where my character "lived" and I have a lot of incredibly serious backstory which occurred there. I would pass it, seventy levels later, and think of the hempen blanket and that humble straw which she could afford.

The new character - in Final Fantasy XIV? Catgirl. I'm going a different direction this time.

I just installed AFK Journey, and after I get done with this post and finish recording the podcast for the Clurb PA patrons I'm gonna jump in. I kept seeing it at PAX East - their booth stood sentinel in a central area between tabletop and digital, and so I was always passing it. It looks incredibly beautiful. Beautiful and dangerous!!!  Young Mork discussed it a bit, but it's hard not to feel that the art has been trapped somehow in this game.  I have friends who derive a lot of enjoyment from this genre, and clearly millions and people (and dollars) exist as my opposite here.  It's a mode of play I don't actively seek.  I get that it can fill in for more dedicated pursuits.  I understand that part.  It just sorta feels like a sandwich made from condiments.  You know?  I feel like there's something I'm not getting.

I tried “Playing” AFK Journey just because it’s so damn pretty. I don’t like games that have to walk you through their convoluted structure with big arrows. “Now go here to check your mail and accept the 200 free Shit crystals then go here and use them to upgrade your Fuck guy.” As soon as I am presented with these freemium systems my instinct is to run. It’s a bummer because the little bit of AFK Journey I saw was gorgeous. I just wish it was literally any other kind of game.

I really, really like The Three-Body Problem. I was on vacation with Ryan once, he was reading it, and I read a few pages and then - if memory serves - essentially held the book hostage until I completed it. I read very fast. But still! It was a criminal act. In my defense - and I'm not saying it is defensible - the book was very good. Imagine that you had been eating something delicious, and were excited to continue. And then I took the plate, unhinged my jaw, and slid the contents of the plate down into my gullet. Ryan remembers this theft, all of it, at 120 frames per second: each turn of the page nearly pornographic, an eternity of lust.

You might have read what we did, which is that Jeffrey Lin, of Fast And/Or Furious fame, is floating around as the director for the next Spider-Man movie. As one of the few manifestations of Marvel-type shit that actually still works - I have what I believe are an "earned" set of expectations for Deadpool & Wolverine - it's one of a very small number of movies that I would prioritize seeing in a theater. I don't know if that is still completely fucked up as an industry; the only movies I followed closely were movies in this particular genre, and they weren't performing for reasons that weren't entirely to do with the plague. I only know that my own behavior around it has changed, and it's entirely possible that Gabe isn't really going back at all. If there's something that makes us wanna, it's probably worth noting when it happens.

I know there’s lots of new games to play right now but for some reason none of them are especially calling to me. Instead I played NFS Unbound all weekend. I ended up building out my own class A car for the races yesterday and somehow stumbled onto a real monster. I honestly don’t know what I did but this Audi S5 Sportback was an absolute blast to drive and it destroyed my competition. Here’s a couple races I saved.

Now I'm on another plane, the 737 MAX, whose various debilitations and inopportune door-fallings-out resulted in the removal of Boeing's CEO just an hour or so ago. The only  reason he had this job in the first place is because of the 2019-2021 groundings launched his predecessor into space - a trip through the Wikipedia Page about the incident describes the shit this other asshole was exiled for, and it's utterly fucking nuts. It's hard to believe I'm just learning this details now, and the idea that it didn't result in an internal culture that would forestall their current troubles makes me think we need to bring back the fucking stocks.

I'm determined not to think very hard about these airplane parts! Mork was telling me that you can change a plane a little at a time, and if the change doesn't go beyond a certain percentage, you don't have to register it as a new plane. Like a Ship Of Theseus kinda thing. Are they making these changes in mid-air? Is that why twisted sheets of metal, hydraulic fluid, landing gear, and literal doors are being shed as the plane itself shrugs and groans?!? I'm writing this in the airport! Can't wait to board.

I'm at home this weekend playing games and making comics, but I hope everyone at PAX East has a great time at the show! If you are there, be sure and grab my Marvel Snap Captain America variant! It’s free and comes with a kick ass card back celebrating 20 years of PAX!

It seems like every day, a different part of an airplane - one I haven't really heard of before, a flange or manifold - shears off a plane and falls on cars in the parking lot. It's entirely possible that these aren't even especially important pieces! Friends, the "woggler" may not even be responsible for keeping the plane airborne. That said, purely as a rhetorical excursion, I would like it to remain firmly attached to the plane. Is that a reasonable request? Is there a place I can file that?

There are some great deals on Need for Speed games during the Steam Spring sale. They are all either 90% or 95% off! If you’re looking for some arcade racing action there are some great options here. I’ll share the ones I’ve been playing lately. 

I have a lot of The Crow trivia that is very powerful and must be deployed with all haste. Did you know that, for example, my wife Brenna was able to secure the Brandon Bruce Lee Scholarship at Whitman College? Huh? Didja? Now… did you know that The Crow: City Of Angels is the only movie I have ever walked out of? I was watching it with Mork. It was VERY BAD. I guess this is all technically Me trivia. But, as someone who was in my last year of High School when the first Crow came out - and thus almost cosmically situated to observe the phenomena - I don't have a problem with the new trailer.

Playing Sid Meier's Civilization on David Lishner's 386, I think I couldn't have imagined a couple things. One, that there would eventually be six of these motherfuckers. You don't really understand how time works when you are a larva, and what's more, it would be several additional years before I stopped believing in the rapture.

Playing games like Monopoly or in our case Civilization VI with your kids really gives you a fun glimpse into their personalities and can introduce great opportunities to teach some real life lessons. Monopoly can teach them about the realities of paying rent and managing your money while Civ can teach them how to dominate the world through brutal nuclear war. 

I saw this Business Insider article titled “The 8 people who made Dungeons & Dragons cool just launched their answer to the game. Hasbro and its game empire should be very, very nervous.” and then I remembered back in 2016 when Acquisitions Incorporated played D&D in the Benaroya Symphony Hall and it was a Fathom Event you could watch live in over 300 movie theaters across the country. That was pretty cool. 

-Gabe Out

This Dean Takahashi interview with Chris Cocks is a wild ride. The thing about Hasbro that is so confusing is that they're obviously doing what they're supposed to do according to the strange laws that exist at their scale. I don't mean to say that these laws comport with anything we would recognize aesthetically or ethically. I mean that we can see the springs and gears move and understand precisely why they're doing the things they are. Waist deep in muck, it can be hard to remember. But we aren't the audience for this article, and the clientele for kaiju-tier megafauna aren't "people" in the traditional sense, but capital markets.