I keep forgetting about the digital portion of The Olympics, but you can't really blame me - it's super, super weird. The Gran Turismo is the most elaborate and simmy of the bunch, which offers something like a competitive framework, but some of these are also, like, apps on your phone. Also, the site is inscribed with incredibly strange language. I don't think we're using cheugy anymore but it's pretty fuckin' cheug'd.

I don't use Twitter like Gorb or Brenna do. I follow 31 people, so scrolling to the top of The Entire Service for me is a very straightforward proposition. And when I'm using the app, I don't have any idea what's trending or what I should be mad at. Gorb and Brenna "play" Twitter like a videogame. They play block-a-mole. They report a motherfucker. They go to people's personal feeds and have their biases confirmed. And when they completely bore out a keyword, they go find another keyword. If Twitter had a foil lid, like a yogurt cup, they would lick the inside of it. My usage pattern having been thus established, and then compared, I have to wonder if I'm a "Twitter user" at all.

A couple years ago I realized that hearing a bird made me happy. That probably seems dumb, but my cognition doesn't work like it should and so it can take me a super long time to arrive at perfectly obvious conclusions. Just as an example: it took me about twenty five years to figure out somebody had clearly come to my house with romantic intentions. A couple weeks ago I was kinda like, "Oh. She probably wasn't super interested in the Amiga." But I was super interested in the Amiga. Too interested? It's hard to say. Given the alternative, it's worth considering.

On the flight to PAX East 2020 I watched the movie Ford vs. Ferrari and learned about the 24 hours of Le Mans. This started me on a path that resulted in years of sim racing. In the long run it proved to be a very expensive movie rental.

When you get these kinds of notices, about how your web no gonna worky, it reminds me of a couple specific things.

While digging through a closet I found an old Sony camcorder and a tape labeled “E3 2000”. It took some doing, but I managed to get the video onto my computer and now it’s on our YouTube for all to enjoy!

I used to play Minecraft Dungeons with my youngest daughter Ronia, who is known as "The Chu." If there were any questions about her parentage, her need to craft elaborate names for her favorite weapons probably would have cleared them up. The main thing it indicated to me was that - after Dungeons and arguably Minecraft: Story Mode - there's all kindsa headroom in Minecraft, and it doesn't have to feel mercenary.

Although my companion has the proven capacity to influence, because he essentially lives inside Gran Turismo 7 VR, I think the ergonomic aspects of the experience began to wear on his creaking skeleton - ravaged as it is by age. Maybe there simply wasn't time to grovel; it's also possible that his gaunt and ill-used frame can no longer assume the shameful positions commonly used in groveling and he resorted to the scoundrel's last redoubt - capitalism.

It's true enough that Grand Admiral Thrawn manifested in the cartoons, but the skip to live action - and eventually feature film - represents another vindication of the Expanded Universe. We made comic about it at the time, with a gentle and frankly honorable concession that not everything in the EU needed to be ascended into a new canon. But if you're familiar with the works, you're seeing the old stuff manifest ways that are just… worse. The main reason they haven't just utilized the profound resource they had in Mara Jade is because Filoni is too busy jacking off to his OCs.

Because I have the correct opinions and the right thoughts, I was under the impression that I needed to guard myself constantly against the scourge of nostalgia - the past as a drug, a place that never existed. Except I know perfectly well that it was better. I pay the health care bills for more than thirty people, and that hasn't gotten better.  I've taken a flight.  I used to be able get my children's medicine on time.  Who, precisely, does this abjuration of nostalgia serve? Well, it serves capital. It serves the forces stripmining our society. It's vitally important that we not remember. And so "good people" tell themselves holographically complex lies, because they're so good that being robbed joyfully is core to their identity.

I sorta thought the fight was going to be somewhere between PGA Tour 2K23 and EA's Incredibly Long Name Game, but it's not - it's between PGA Tour 2K21 and nothing. I literally returned 2K23. Golf is a very simple game, actually, so when it comes to making it "gamey" it's really just a matter of how you want to ruin it. PGA Tour 2K21 ruined it the least, and because it had an industry leading course creator and attracted community talent that rivals the included courses, you don't have to buy anything from either vendor ever again.

Shit, man. I thought I dodged a bullet here!

Watching the last couple days of this thing go bonkers has been an experience. I was already happy with it! I just wanted to make the show and pay everybody what they're worth, which we had dialed in. Certainly I hoped you would want to see this book. I think you would like it, if you did. But now I just feel tenderly about the whole thing and I need to lie down.

(CW)TB

I don't have a problem with Bo-Katan Kryze. She was a rad addition in Season 2 of the Mandalorian, and after a bumpy start in Season 3 I feel like she's earned a spot. But Disney has a very difficult time getting out of its way - this is just as true in their Marvel excursions as well. They understand at some level that the network effects of a shared universe can result in potent value - they manifested this with the MCU. It's reasonable that they would like to see this happen again, but when they don't let these things develop organically - when they crowd out shows that already have an established dynamic - it's not the same show anymore. In Biggie terms, they're determined to get high on their own supply - in flagrant abrogation of the fourth Crack Commandment.  It's mercenary shit, and nothing is served by it - not this show, not the shows to come, not the service, and not the brand.  This type of shit is precicely why intellectual property is supposed to have limitations on its ownership.  They're out of fucking gas.

West of Loathing is a great game, definitely one of my favorites. So when I learned of a sequel that dropped by complete surprise, I was intrigued to say the least. Upon playing through it, I discovered that it was every bit as good as West, and even better in some places! So let's get into that, shall we?

I have a set of stacking plastic drawers whose purpose is to hold the strange and forgotten Twilight Cables which bloomed for a time and were gone. I have never failed to find the cable I needed in there. There is also a Protoss Zealot in one of the drawers, it's been in this thing since ninety-eight or so, and every time I see it I get sad because I spelled Aiur wrong in a post once and person mailed me to say that I wasn't a real gamer and I should kill myself. That's just in case you were wondering what having a good memory is like. It sucks!

Monsieur Gribeaux has ever been a wanton creature when it comes to gadgets. For a warped and deviant manwhore like himself, your run-of-the-mill Best Buy is a fallen place - a kind of cyber-brothel. We sold a lot of shit to go to E3 in the year 2000, but I didn't have to sell as much because when you live with somebody who gets high on technology you save a lot of money on technology. He was going through one of these ancient cassettes - cassettes, people - and found novelties of various kinds. After seeing his boys take their first damn'd steps on this blasted orb of sin, he found the Elder Content, which was also of young men just slightly older than the other ones:

Check out that young ⁦@TychoBrahe⁩ in the Xbox booth! This tape is wild! pic.twitter.com/yn9sCJYMIx

— Gabe (@cwgabriel) March 31, 2023