final fantasy

REBIRTH

At midnight tonight, one of the greatest games of all time will release on PS5, FINAL FANTASY VII: REBIRTH. I’ve had this date circled on my calendar for an entire year, which is amazing because I do not use calendars—I bought one just to circle this specific date. In fact, I’ve marked many calendars of unsuspecting college students on campus, which would have been great insider marketing for SQUARE ENIX, the game’s developer, if only I had been more specific.

“It’s almost here!”

“Rebirth!”

“You’re not doing anything else today!”

In hindsight, I could have been more specific. It looks like I was either advertising the apocalypse or an upcoming baby shower. Specificity, it turns out, is important.

In celebration of FINAL FANTASY VII: REBIRTH launching tonight, the website has been designed with the updated meteor logo to celebrate. In the background of each webpage, you’ll find the Lifestream glowing luminescent green, a tribute to the planet’s life blood. I’ll include the full images below to view in all their glory.

There has seldom been a time when I’ve known exactly what the routine of each day will consist of. The next three weeks run like this: Watch the next segment of FFVII: REBIRTH and other stuff. I’m not even sure what would pry me away from devouring this game, so feel free to leave a comment about what has been happening in the world should it be so important—Like discovering aliens have casually lived on the dark side of the moon all along but have just run out of light bulbs.

If I catch wind of anything, I’ll have my suspicions of who was behind it all anyway—and it will be sung in chorus glory:

“Sephiroth!”

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TIM FERRISS AND DATING

The video above is of Tim Ferriss. The premise, if you haven’t watched his YouTube channel before, is to embark on a task and figure out the most optimal means of achieving it. Whether its mastering job interview skills, perfecting a golf swing quickly, or starting a small business, Tim’s videos demonstrate that perseverance and creativity are the difference in achieving any task even in the face of inevitable rejection.

Including dating, apparently.

In the video above, Tim does something fascinating: He employs three experts to help in the major markets for dating. I’ll keep this summary brief. His experiments included optimizing online dating profiles with the help of a computer programmer to gather statistics for the most swipeable profile. Next, he hired the coaching of famous New York Times dating expert and journalist Neill Strauss to learn how to cold approach women in public. Finally, he hired a matchmaker with an extensive client list in order to be matched from an extensive personality survey.

In short, these are the three main methods of attracting dates.

With each method, Tim stumbles his way into procuring three dates that are all to meet at a cocktail party at a swanky San Francisco bar, along with a plethora of friends and cameras roaming around.

What was most useful about watching Tim was observing the nature of dating apps and cold approaching women in public. Tim learned much about algorithms with online dating: What yields the greatest results in terms of demographics, what keywords are the most condusive for matches, and what photos are most effective (Hint for men: shirtless and with a pet seem to do the trick). Ultimately, he concludes that online dating can be finicky even with these metrics and suggests the nature of it is High volume, low Results.

In my dating life, this has proven true as well.

Next came cold approaching. His undercover coach, Neil Strauss, is famous for his book on dating gamesmanship called The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, but his small hints about intentionality and confidence when approaching women were strikingly simple and effective: Don’t linger, hesitating borders on creepy, just approach, and start with something conceptual and light to get the conversation started:

“Should I buy a small or a medium if I don’t know my sister-in-law’s shirt size?”

It’s a foot in the door and, as Tim asserts, more informative than an online dating service since meeting IRL offers a glimpse into personality: chemistry, smell, sound of voice, signs of kindness, creativity, charm, etc.

The matchmaker system proved to be the most sterile of the three approaches, essentially giving 100% control to someone’s reputation. However, matchmakers have a lucrative business for a reason and the service tends to work out (otherwise why would this person be in business?).

With three dates in tow, Tim invited them all to a special cocktail party.

This is where the video trailed into odd territory: All three dates were invited to the same party and invariably met one another.

Has this ever happened on a date of yours?

Of course not; no one dates by volume in one go. A few years ago, I had a joint job interview with two other candidates. We all felt the same as the dates in Tim’s video: We knew there must be other dates, but we really didn’t need to meet them in person.

To Tim’s credit, it was a packed cocktail party where other dates were “available”, but how strange to be invited on a date and offered a crowd of alternative mates in case the two of you don’t hit it off.

Insensitive isn’t quite the word for the ending of the video. Unrealistic, maybe. Dating, from my experience, is much more intentional. While it is easy to drown in the gratification of numbers of matches and discussions that lead nowhere on dating apps, once a date is planned, there’s a shift in atmosphere—there’s an honest attempt to feel each other out.

In all, I learned much from the section on cold approaching. I like that it acts as a sampler date. Plus, it’s become more of social stigma to approach someone and open up to discussion, which isn’t so much a symptom online dating taking over, but of isolation that generally keeps human beings from connecting with strangers today.

As far as dating goes, Tim concludes rightly that it is worth utilizing whatever resources are available to try for dates. There are pros and cons to each platform, of course. My view with dating is to simply be intentional. Know what you want, value yourself and your standards, and be genuinely interested in learning about other people. What’s hotter than a genuine listener?

As for Tim’s dates, it’s hard to imagine there were any more dates scheduled after the cocktail party. I felt bad for his dates, which might be the wider/unintentional message of the video: Even with guys like Tim, dating sucks.

If there was a lesson to glean, it was this: If there’s a camera crew at the cocktail party of your date and they are filming all your exchanges, this likely isn’t the man for you.

Good luck Tim, on your next date.

***

A BIT OF A CONUNDRUM

It’s difficult to write when all that is going into a writer’s mind is one subject. Right now, I’m writing a 25-page thesis paper that has me reading peer reviewed sources from academic journals, books by academics, and a slew of interviews and other secondary sources for my final semester in college.

In short: I’ve been struggling to come up with things to write about since, honestly, I’ve been programming myself to think about one subject. And while I could write about the process of writing a thesis, putting it all together has proven difficult to get outdoors and experience anything worth writing about.

So, I’ll put it to you: Would any of you wish to read about my thesis and the process of getting it written?

I’ll leave it up to all of you. I’ll keep my findings light and breezy, but anticipate more of that material bleeds into Weekly Post-Eds.

At least for the next 2 months.

Let me know in the comments below. Otherwise, I’ll do my best to lift my gaze from the blaring computer monitor and see something else happening in the world that isn’t related to endless research and academic writing.

Even your comments would be a breath of fresh air at this point.

***

Along with FINAL FANTASY VII: REBIRTH, the music from its predecessor is some of the best video game music ever made. Click on the album art below and listen to some of the greatest orchestra music ever made.

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Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there. Happy FFVII: REBIRTH launch!

Penguins with Hand Grenades Out Now!

A silly little story about a colony of penguins used nefariously by a sinister USSR general. What could go wrong? (Well, besides everything).

Check it out!

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T-Rex Arm

I’m officially vaccinated from COVID-19. *Stadium cheers*

One of the perks of working in education is being considered a first responder. Some teachers received the Pfizer vaccine and had very little symptoms afterwards. I received the Moderna vaccine. My first dose left me with a bruised shoulder so severe and unmovable that I described it to family and friends as “T-Rex Arm”. I could only move my arm from the elbow, making every grasp and reach look like a T-Rex was trying to grab a cup of coffee, fit a claw through the sleeve of a hoodie, or reach for a package of cookies atop the refrigerator, all in great agony. T-Rex roars and snarls came in tow, which was less a symptom of the pain, but was just the preferred cry of bereavement on my part.

This second dose of Moderna didn’t leave my injected shoulder so bruised. Instead, my immune system kicked in (which is a sign the vaccine is being taken in by the body) and I felt full-on aches and chills. It lasted only a day, but it was a trial. No “T-Rex Arm” this time around, which is a shame; in the month that passed from my first dose of Moderna, I’ve perfected my T-Rex snarl and roar.

***

See You on the Other Side

A close friend of the family died this past week. I won’t say much else for privacy’s sake. However, the one detail of this person’s death (which came at the relatively young age of 62) that stuck out to me was that she was given three days to live. She had all her mental faculties and must have sensed a clock ticking down, which is a horrifying thought.

The closest I’ve come to experiencing anything like this was with a recent hernia surgery. After having an IV punctured into the top of my hand, I was wheeled down the sterile hallways of the surgery center to the operating room, which was cold and blasting country music from the tinny-sounding ceiling speakers. Before the nurse pumped anesthetic through my veins, I had a momentary panic, that grim understanding that should something go wrong, the dull, square-tiled ceiling of the O.R. was the last thing I was going to see.

I remember the blackness of injected sleep claw across my periphery. I didn’t try to fight it, just shifted my eyes back and forth to watch the oncoming darkness. Then, before it completely covered my vision, I was out. I woke up later as though nothing had happened, the surgery completed.

When I think of the sleep that befell this family friend, I only hope she awoke somewhere much the same, unaware of what took her there, but that she arrived on the other side of what was once considered her life.

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FFVII Remake Intergrade and More

What a big week for FFVII! The PS5 remaster is coming out soon, along with a new Yuffie expansion. A series of mobile games were announced, including the entire FFVII compendium of FFVII, Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, and Crisis Core. All games are remastered and to be released episodically on mobile.

I’m a big fan of Final Fantasy VII, as you can see from my previous website logo here:

Yeah, I’m extremely excited for all of it!

***

Road Trip for Takeout

I drive 45 minutes for takeout Chinese food. The restaurant isn’t noteworthy (which is literally titled: China Buffet) other than to say the food is the best around. It sounds counterproductive to drive so far for takeout and then to drive another 45 minutes home, but I don’t think that’s the point. The drive, the food, all of it is an escape.

This week, I was walking with a colleague of mine in the hallway and said, “I feel exhausted, like I can’t shake it. Do you feel that way, too? Or is it just me?”

She said, “Oh, sure. I think it’s the weather.”

I stared for a moment and said, “What about the pandemic we’re in?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Could be that, too.”

For this, and thousands of other anecdotes like it, driving 45 minutes for takeout that hits the spot is the escape all of us are looking for.

I sincerely hope you’ve found your escape as well.

Weekly Post-Ed #64