Me: why is the menu all Italian words? I thought it was Mediterranean. … i guess Italy is surrounded on all sides by the Mediterranean Sea… “I’m getting Mediterranean tonight, ordering some papa John’s.”

just popped into my head the time someone complained to me about their issues with PbtA games being that 2d6+stat makes the bell curve too hard to calculate. i'm trying to remember their argument, but they were annoyed that one of the jumps is like 22% difference, and then the next jump was like 15 or 17% or something. i asked if they didn't play pbta because of it and they were like "no, my group just figured out a better curve with d10s and house rule all pbta games to use it instead." i asked if they knew about the Spire and "sparked by resistence" games, and he was like "we're happy with pbta."

nerds are very silly what they get hung up on.

My wife, about a gross dude on tv: ew, no man, you’re 37, you’re old.
Me: you know, I’m about to turn 37.
Her: there are some thoughts and feelings related to age I need to reconsider

I’ve been watching This Is Us with my wife, we’re halfway through season 1, and it’s a fine, pleasant show. Lots of well done moments about family and parenthood and generational trauma.

However, they also have moments of these characters just cratering their lives instead of doing literally anything else, and it sucks all the fun out of the show. I finally had to leave the room when Kevin literally left his costar on stage opening night of their play, just ran out of the building. The music swelled, the moment was textured with him saying, “I’m thinking about what my dad would do”, showing how meaningful this is/supposed to be. But that shit ain’t cool! Embarrassing yourself is one thing. Humiliating your costar with no explanation is unconscionable.

Earlier in the episode, I had to leave the room cuz another moment was also rough and my wife said, “Can you not watch the show at a remove?” No, I cannot. All media I consume I consume fully. To hear a story is to embody the story in my head and in my heart. It’s nice when I’m crying to Joanna Newsom while washing dishes, but it’s annoying when i just want to enjoy some saccharine feel-good drama.

I know that such signals aren’t perfect, that bad people also get pride tattoos, that there’s no way to say “I’m safe” unless someone actually interacts with me and makes that value judgment themselves.

i wrote this post last week but i actually came up with the joke back in the fall. i've been mulling it over ever since, and i think i know why it resonates. this might take a moment to write out tho, so my apologies up front.

i will start at the end.

after much introspection, i am not trans. i feel great in my body, i like being seen as a man and by all accounts i experience gender euphoria, i like being "papa" to my kids "husband" to my wife and "son" to my parents, i like my birth name.

I’m at the final section of Guacamelee and this game is charming as hell. 2/2 from DrinkBox, tho Severed was significantly better.

I can’t wait to finish the main game and then 100% it. A perfect length for a game, imp.

Trans Jerry: I have a suspicion that she’s transitioned just for the jokes.

Father: And this offends you as a trans person.

Trans Jerry: No, it offends me as a comedian!

My wife May: You kids want yogurt and granola?
My 4 year old, yelling indignantly: I want a bowl of frozen corn!

fun fact: our first date, the day i proposed, and the day we got married fall on the same day, jan 11th, each a year apart. makes counting and planning really easy, i highly recommend it.

this photo is in the rhinegeist brewery stairwell where we had our first kiss and then a year later where we got married.

i spent multiple days thinking about a way to approach a technical problem, and decided that starting fresh was the right way to go. i gen'd a new project directory, opened the main file, and then sat and puzzled like the grinch for 3 hours until my puzzler was sore and it was time for bed with nearly nothing written.

maybe some of those thoughts will be helpful in the future, but dang it's annoying to make no visible progress.

1. Death Stranding
2. Neon White
3. Death’s Door
4. Knotwords
5. The Zachtronics Solitaire Collection
6. SNAKE FARM
7. Ghost of Tsushima
8. Cobalt Core
9. Card Shark

Everyone I know posted their Spotify Wrapped at the beginning of December. I went a different route and calculated my top 25 albums this year by time spent listening, multiplying scrobbled tracks by their length and grouping by album. (Full list below the fold)

My 2.11 year old opens the door to the bathroom while I’m in it, says: papa, whenever you’re done, wheneve-when you’re done with your penis or butt, when you’re done pooping or peeing, or pooping and peeing, papa when you’re done in the bathroom, can you go to the basement and get my baby yoda doll from out of the basement?

NoahTheDuke

reviewed Death Stranding: Director's Cut

★★★★★

★★★★★

Completed

on

PlayStation 5

The first real mission, you have to carry your deceased mother’s body to an incinerator for cremation. As you leave the compound, the camera pulls back as Low Roar’s Bones plays. Once it ends, you’re left with Sam’s labored breathing and footfalls as the only soundtrack. After delivering the body and lighting the flame, you encounter the otherworldly enemies, the BTs, for the first time in gameplay. The fetus in the glass womb at your chest sobs nonstop until you get away from them.

My second kid was born less than a week before I started playing, and my wife’s mom had died unexpectedly 6 months before. I found the entire mission so emotionally trying that I put the game down until the start of the next year.

Once I returned, I found a singular experience: meditative, taxing, scary, poignant. I drew a lot of comfort in the effort it took to travel between destinations, relaxing into the mild challenge and allowing my adhd-riddled mind to quiet. The story, on the other hand, repeatedly knocked me on my ass. I cried multiple times, found both pain and solace in the way it handled death and grief and loss. Each of the major characters brought a different aspect of the recovery and healing process to the forefront, and their respective performances were unmatched in games.

I take issue with the focus on gun-based violence in the game. It felt great to play, I won’t lie, but it was so discordant with the themes of pain and disconnection and reconnection that I found myself disappointed in its prominence. Especially at the end, with 4 violence-focused bosses in a row, it felt like two games fighting each other for primacy.

Accepting that, I think this is a nearly-perfect game, and have spent the rest of the year thinking, “this other game is good, but I should go back to Death Stranding and run some more missions for the preppers.”

Reviewed on Dec 25, 2023

Me: i wonder what its like to enjoy giving and receiving presents
My wife May: you’re an insane person

NoahTheDuke

reviewed Cobalt Core

★★★★★

★★★★★

Completed

on

Windows PC

I’ve beaten the boss twice and each time, I feel like a god.

The music is brilliant and the art is cute and the writing is really funny and the conceit feels right for the gameplay.

Reviewed on Dec 22, 2023

Perfectly captures the experience of the original Pokémon Red/Blue soundtracks. Catchy, fairly simple, sick solos, every track is memorable. 10/10

Game is good too, btw.

Every time I watch it (sit and view, or spy it while my kids watch it), I’m taken aback by Abuela’s callousness and cruelty and selfishness. In the opening, she’s tender and kind, and then the rest of the movie she’s heartless. And giving her a last minute redemption by way of her sob story (that we already knew! there’s no reveal! the movie opens with it!) washes away all of the pain and hurt she caused.

It’s a movie wearing the clothes of “healing generational trauma” that provides a convenient excuse for older generations. According to the movie, all they have to say is, “I was hurting too” and not only is your pain not allowed to exist anymore, but it’s on you to give them comfort and kindness. Alongside that, no one else is responsible for their culpability in allowing this to happen or for how poorly they treated you. (Seriously, fuck Mirabel’s parents. Spineless cowards.)

I don’t feel like writing the whole comparison, but Turning Red does a similar story better.