I'm not even sure which one it's said to be exactly, I would have to ask in more detail and my eldest definitely did not want to discuss it at length. They were clearly in pain; it was that admixture of shame and indignation that arises from reckonings of this kind, the call to action set against someone your psychological reward structure tells you is an ally. They've… lost a friend, essentially, in a way that feels absolutely real. I grew up with online services, even before the Internet; the c64 service Quantum Link, progenitor of AOL, was something like access to the astral plane. My mother had to contend with the twin scourges of Rap and Heavy Metal, but the parenting environment I've inherited is one where amiable phantoms waft in and out of your children's lives and occasionally they are revealed to be rapists.

Michael Keaton returning to the role of Batman after passing through a metaphorical looking glass in Birdman is almost too much. Like so, so much now, the arc feels written. There's an unsettling level of symmetry I would say generally but specifically here. I don't know how many times art has to imitate life has to imitate art before we understand that these things are just synonymous. If you ever wonder why people want desperately to control art, it's because consciously or unconsciously this is a recognized phenomenon.

We are playing Godfall again, I think maybe it's just us. I don't know why. I have theories.

After a couple weeks off, Gabir Motors is returning this week. It’s true that 2020 was a rough year but getting into sim racing and the creation of the Penny Arcade iRacing league was pretty awesome. We’ve got more than 200 drivers in the league now and my son Gabe has been working on making the Gabir Motors website he built a resource for the league. Obviously I drive for the world's premiere pretend motorsports company Gabir Motors but other teams have sprung up inside the league as well. If you’d like to join us you’ll need to pick up iRacing but then just look for Penny Arcade in the league directory and send us a request. We’ve got drivers of all skill levels and scheduled events every week. I personally make sure to hit the Thursday night race every week but there are events all during the week. It’s a great group and it’s managed by some real iRacing pros not me. 

We make comics about resolutions but I don't know that I've ever actually made one for real. Every time I've made an effort to change it was because I was obviously fucking up and I couldn't keep fucking up in that particular way and retain dignity. I would describe these events as "frequent' but they rarely occur at the beginning or end of the year.

The school district has granted us access to a nightmare warren of a website, topped by a ring of teetering plinths which gesture at a God that died a thousand years ago. It works differently on every device you use to view it, and has a fey sorcerer's mercurial air. One thing I was able to extract is that the only people making their kids do any of this shit were like… us, and one other person.

I have a lot of thoughts about how Media currently functions; I just deleted most of them. My doom, as always, is to understand at some level that everyone is doing the best they can in their local circumstances while also being conscious of the fact that the lattice that's been constructed around us essentially pulps and juices creators and audiences alike. This arrangement does serve somebody, but you and I have never met this person. It's arguable at some level that they can't be met: We've fashioned a kind of Omnissiah with these algorithms that drive and reward engagement, and we're determined to worship it even if it results in the self-replicating shit blizzard we currently "enjoy."

The Razor Crest is a really cool set, with many creature comforts, but if you didn't decide that you wanted it a while ago you are now subject to the same Chaos Winds that have made 2080's cost the same as a 3080 and a 3080 cost Fuck You.

I bought Caves of Qud in 2017, installed it, and then recoiled as though from as asp. An asp with chlamydia.

So, now that Cyberpunk 2077 has reached its nadir - with everyone offering refunds, getting delisted from the Playstation store, CD Projekt's stock price in the shitter, and investors considering a class action lawsuit - it seems like a good time to talk about the things I liked about the game. Purely just as a chance of pace.

Gabriel saw Tenet, or TENET, or whichever one is the correct one, but it sorta seems like it was the same as not seeing it...? Maybe it was like seeing it in reverse, or "unseeing" it. Powerful, if true.  Its director is angry that there is a pandemic and it changed some of the business assumptions that were thought of as material truths. I understand how it must feel. But I also think this shift has been en route for some time, and this is just us seeing those forces at work, as though visible through a faultline.

Thursday night is race night and the Penny Arcade iRacing league will be hitting the oval this evening. I did the practice race last night and had a pretty rough go of it. These cars are tuned super loose and it's very easy to lose it on the turns. By the end of the practice race I felt a little more comfortable behind the wheel but I'm super nervous about tonight. These oval races tend to be action packed. I'll be opening up the Pit Crew at 7:30PT to start with some more practice before the race actually starts. See you tonight!

Chris Pine might be "attached," I assume by a length of chain or rope, to the Dungeons & Dragons film. As for the strip, obviously no. But! If you've ever seen him with his hairs mowed real close to the ground he's basically there. A movie that is essentially a fantasy heist film, like the sort of shit we get up to at the table anyway, maps the concepts we like onto a structure that's perceptible by humans broadly. That's the sort of thing you could actually get made, it seems like. Also: read The Black Company. Consider this my annual request.

I don't remember the last time a developer came out publicly and offered refunds for a game at this level of expectation - one that hadn't been out for a week. I don't know if that's because it's exceedingly rare or if it's because it's never happened before.

Monster Train shares a lot of dynamics with Slay The Spire, a game I think it's fair to say will go down in, you know, the… game scrolls or whatever as a pinnacle achievement. God only knows how many hours have been eaten by this game? Before Coronaworld, Ryan and I would played STS (as it is known by rough and worldly youths) in beta and release for over a year and never got tired of it. And that was before I started spelunking its Steam Workshop, a septic fuckhouse where every twisted mechanical fantasy was made flesh.

I have coming up on fifty hours of Minion Masters, which may not seem like much - as I understand it, there are much larger numbers - but when you take into account the fact that a round of the game takes a few minutes at most, it's an incredible amount of play density. It's a deckbuilding strategy game similar to Clash Royale, except where Clash Royale maintains the MOBA concept of Towers, you're essentially going face with every unit you send over - hindered only by the units you've placed in their way. I'm back now after a long hiatus, and I expected to get fucking trashed, but (at least here in the genteel Platinum rank) it's still possible to play your way out of serious jams.