Aaron Blain

I nap at least three times per week because of my work schedule, in the afternoon when I get home. When you say "snooze", I thought you meant snooze buttons, which I feel very strongly are a scourge on humanity. If you have the option to sleep later, just set your alarm later. An additional 15-20 min of not-quite-sleep doesn't do me any good.

I finally bought Hellish Quart and I'm instantly obsessed with it.

Yeah I didn't mention the British because most of my favorite stuff is sketch comedy and we were talking standup, but I +1 everything mentioned. Jay London Chris Rock -- Bring the Pain

I've been an Eddie Izzard fan since the 90s. Classic Pryor, Murphy, Carlin and Chris Rock still totally slaps IMO. I've been debating forcing my wife to watch Dana Carvey's Critic's Choice so she'll understand my OJ references, but I'm not confident it will hold up. It's been quite a while since I've discovered anyone I enjoy on that level. I recently watched a special with Rhys Darby (Murray from Flight of the Conchords) and I really liked it.

I don't mind. I find it amusing that when I'm waiting for videos about [Ideology A] I get constantly assaulted with propaganda for [Ideology B]. That and snake oil targeting the elderly.

I used to be a more intense admirer of Quentin Tarantino and Terry Gilliam, but as I've aged there are only a couple of movies from each of them that have really stuck with me. As my political/historical outlook has changed over the past several years, I'm finding that scifi and fantasy novels give me less joy than they used to. Even with my favorites like Tolkien and Moorcock, I see through the writing to their motivations and it takes away a lot of the magic for me.

I stay more or less constantly plugged in to my sources on current events, but I frequently choose to give my brain a day or a half-day off. But I think the majority of what the web is used for is an attempt to compensate for the ways in which our society is making us emotionally unwell. Approval-seeking, attention-seeking, loneliness, alienation, etc. That's something I think tends to be a lot more harmful when it takes over our lives. I'm older, so I didn't experience teenage Instagram or TikTok or whatever it is they're using. It seems like it must make adolescence so much more difficult and painful than it already is.

Most restaurants and cafes I've been to, iced tea is brewed with water that is too hot and in such a way that it is extremely over-steeped. Depending on how badly it's made, it's quite often almost undrinkably bitter and tannic unless you're adding sugar to it. If anyone has a setup where they can brew it more carefully, it's so much better. I've had people from the southern USA tell me that it's customary for them to drink "sun tea", or something analogous to cold-brewed coffee, which is so much better than the stuff that is made using equipment designed for brewing coffee. When I'm making it for myself, I brew extra-strong tea in not-boiling water for around 3 to 4 minutes, then pour it directly over a big glass of ice. So much better. No comparison.

I recently set up OG Xbox emulation on my Steam Deck and have been playing a bit of CE. That's all I ever want. I'll probably play Halo 2 at some point, but they fully jumped the shark after that IMO. The first two games have distinct and interesting enemies with unique silhouettes a la Doom. Once it started becoming all about brutes with different weapon loadouts, and we lost our interesting worthy adversary after elites started becoming sympathetic, I had no further interest in the series.

Hoo boy do I have a lot I'd like to say in response to this, but I hope to see this quietly locked asap. DW is not the place for this.

I've been playing the Dreamcast version of Gunlord for a few weeks now and I fully assumed that it was 1. A Turrican sequel in all but name, perhaps for licensing reasons, and 2. Released in the late 90s. Turns out this is not the case at all. Great freakin game.

My biggest takeaway from Tarantino is Bobby Womack and The Delfonics, from Jackie Brown.

I always dread getting peer-pressured into playing some version of Mario Kart. I find it really boring. I won't diss Doom 2016 in detail, but I'll just say it lacks most of what I want from an FPS. I made it to the Hell episode but got bored and haven't come back to it. I am genuinely baffled by the popularity of Minecraft.

Finally getting into Saturn and Xbox emulation on my Steam Deck. I'm scouring game lists but I'm not seeing many good exclusives. Most Saturn stuff is better on the PSX or arcade, most Xbox stuff is better on PC. Panzer Dragoon and Nights are cool. I'm excited to finally try the sequel to Beyond Oasis. I'm hoping Xemu continues to develop because I really like some of the PC ports on Xbox, but most of the games I've tried so far don't work. It's cool to revisit Halo, though, and the Xbox port of Pirates! is by far my favorite incarnation of that series. Also been getting into NES romhacks. Metroid Rogue Dawn is one of the best things on the console now. Some of the hacks for Zelda and Castlevania also are looking really good from what I've played so far. I've been delving into the Sega Master System library but I'm barely finding anything worthwhile.