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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #22

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

AGDQ 2022

https://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick

            Perhaps you’ve experienced this before: you hear about something again, maybe you’ve forgotten about it for a long time, but the moment you hear of it there’s this immediate elation, that feeling that so much good can come because of it?

            (I can hear some of yours answers: kids after picking them up from daycare, Thai food, reruns of the hit show The Big Bang Theory). 

            What’s that thing for me?

            It’s a marathon charity event called Awesome Games Done Quick. 

            For those of you that don’t know, Awesome Games Done Quick is a week-long charity event featuring some of the best speedrunners from around the world (people who play video games in the quickest manner possible depending on the category—think: beating Super Mario Bros. 3 in under 2 minutes!). It’s a 24/7 online event streamed over 7 days over at Twitch.tv showcasing some of the best runs of video games, all the while raising money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Historically, the event has raised an average of 2 million dollars per event, all of which goes to charity and a good cause.

            What makes Awesome Games Done Quick such a wholesome spectacle is it’s commitment to two great mediums: a showcase of some of the most talented people in the world demonstrating their craft, and also that of a group of people coming together to do some good in the world. And after the beginning of the New Year, when signs of abandoned resolutions and the bitter uptick in wintry weather begins, there’s no better place to look for goodness than those institutions that come around to remind us of joy and community working towards something greater.

            Unfortunately, the event will be remote this year again due to the newest resurgence of Covid-19, but none of that detracts from the mission of putting on a good show. AGDQ is truly unique in that people from every walk of life tune in, either to bask in the once-upon-a-time glory of nostalgia, or to support a favorite streamer or game being featured. Tens of thousands watch at any given moment during the 7-day marathon, taking the time to donate and connect through an event that blasts through bandwidth every January.

            Here is a sampling of noteworthy runs I’m looking forward to this week:

            AGDQ 2022 airs January 9-15. Below is a link to the Twitch.tv stream. You can check out the schedule of games being played here.

***

DATES & DETAILS #1

            [This is the beginning of a new segment called Dates & Details where I give short anecdotes of things I’ve experienced while online dating over the past few months. These aren’t exactly stories, more like small happenings that I’ve found peculiar and worth writing about. I’ll post about these experiences from time to time when they arise, starting with this first segment below about matching up with others…]

Refuted Match

            I’ve seen this a few times where someone attempts to match with me through a comment that disputes something I had put on my dating profile. The most recent example was someone who responded with “It takes more than 2 days to travel across the country by train.”

            So, in hopes of helping anyone else who has the idea of refuting a dating profile prompt, here’s my advice: don’t do it. 

            If you’re curious, this woman’s comment was attached to this prompt: Two Truths and a Lie. My answer to this prompt was: 

“1.) Once took a two-day train ride across the country…in coach, 2.) Hockey player, 3.) Discovered Uranium.” 

            Not a bad prompt answer, but not the greatest. However, quality is mostly beside the point. Other than following the rule: “don’t be boring, be specific,” the point of a prompt is act as an ice-breaker, something that gets the conversation started. Answers are not facts, nor are they intended to be. I’m not writing my Wikipedia page on a dating profile, I’m just trying to catch your eye about something. Likewise, if someone has photos of themselves skydiving, it doesn’t mean they are avid skydivers or know the mechanics of jumping out of small aircraft like an expert…it’s just something they did once and thought interesting to share. Photos of adventure seekers are saying, “I like adventures and want someone who also enjoys this sort of thing, are you someone like me?”

            That’s because prompts are really segues into the bigger discussion of, “Do we have chemistry or not?” Which, in my own personal experience, is only discovered once out on an actual date.

            So, what was this person doing by refuting my prompt? What was the play?

            I think someone who needs to refute the “accuracy” of something said on a dating profile isn’t trying to connect with someone at all; they are being confrontational for their own sake. It’s an insecurity, which is often why people attack one another. I’m guessing this person has had little luck with getting responses and is going on the attack because nothing else is working. It could be bitterness, it could be a lot of things, but when there’s a lack of curiosity when reaching out to someone new, there’s also a lack of confidence, and it says much more about you (the attacker) than it does me (the dating prospect).

            In my opinion, when you refute a part of someone’s dating profile, it also disqualifies you as a candidate for a date (which, get this, is the point of a dating app). You’re not going to change anyone’s mind about what they said in the prompt. Even if someone wrote, “I once traveled to the capital of Michigan, Detroit, and hated it,” by telling someone, “Uh, the capital of Michigan is actually Lansing,” is not going to change their answer. And really, as an experienced dating app user, you should have learned enough about this person based on the incorrect location of where he/she thinks the capital of Michigan is, so the answer is to move along to the next person anyway.

            Online dating isn’t about “being right”, it’s about finding someone compatible with you.

            If you want to be confrontational from the start, what does that say about the potential first date? Am I going to have to defend myself against a chronic fact-checker? Is this person like this always? Refutation is a bad first impression, simply put.

            In my own defense (since I’m willing to share my prompt with all of you), this person read the answer to my prompt incorrectly. She thought I meant, “It only takes two days on a train to travel across the country.” What I actually said was, “I spent two days on a train traveling across the country,” meaning, I spent two days OF TIME on a train traveling across the country. I didn’t mean that was the precise, physical distance a train travels to get to the other side of the country.

            Which, you know, says more about her than it does for me, obviously.

            Then again, I’m the fool writing about this on the internet, so who is really the smart one here?

            Either way, I’ll shrug at this just as I did when deleting her comment and move on my merry way.

***

THE SWITCH TO APPLE MUSIC

            This is likely to be one of the more controversial things I write about, but it must be said bluntly:

            I’ve made the switch from Spotify to Apple Music.

            *Cue the boos and cries of treason here.*

            I know, I know. Such news is scandalous and I’m sure there’s something to answer for…but I just don’t care. I’m not a devoted user of any platform so much as I see the current benefit of using it. I was an Android user for several years but have made the switch to Apple. And not for some fanboy-ism reason, but simply because the platform does what I need it to do right now—I like how everything is integrated between devices.

            So, what was wrong with Spotify? Nothing, it’s a great platform. Apple Music, in my experience, just sounds better on an Apple Device, and (whether this is imagined or not) that’s really the only reason for the switch. Spotify has a better interface, easier music liking features, better sharing capabilities, and the catered playlists are pretty damned good, too. 

            But I like the uptick in sound quality I have with Apple Music, so I’ll stay this route for a while longer.

            So, with that, I’ll shrug at all the ill will about which platform to support (supposing a thing should ever be important on this website—I don’t care either way). I like what I like, and that’s all there is to it.

            What matters, really, is finding new music, which continues below with some great new finds. Here’s the list this week and a new graphic to go with it:

  1. “Get Up” by Mother Mother
  2. “Lights & Music” by Cut Copy
  3. “Beautiful Life” by Michael Kiwanuka

***

Wishing everyone as well as they can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #21

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

MY PERSONAL RESOLUTION FOR THIS WEBSITE

            When I started this website, I wasn’t sure what it would end up becoming. A year into this endeavor and I’m still not sure, to be honest. I think this is a good sign—it means this website is something fluid and capable of evolving. That being said, I think this little corner of the internet could use some sprucing up.

            For this upcoming year, my personal resolution is simple: to be a published author. Technically, I’ve done that by publishing on this website, but I mean something more substantial: a physical, hardcopy of a book, something you can hold in your hands and say, “Hey, I have a book by that guy.”

            This was the goal for this past year, to publish the 11 or so short stories I wrote, and print them onto a small volume. What I did not anticipate was that my short stories are rather short in length, and so the compiled length of all the collected short stories was little more than 50 pages. Instead of a volume of short stories, it felt more a thick pamphlet, which, if I’m reading the look on your face correctly, is kind of a letdown.

            That’s why for this upcoming year I’m sticking to a strict publishing schedule on this website to better fill out a first collected volume of short stories. By the end of 2022, something meatier and meaningful will be printed off that’s worth holding onto. And if it means nothing more than a token of vanity, at least a hardcopy of a book appears to look like the real work of a serious writer.

            So, the schedule for this year will look like this:

– Starting January 16, a short story will be posted every 2 weeks. That makes for a total of 26 short stories throughout the year with the goal of compiling what I’ve written into a printed/eBook edition.

– Starting today, January 4 (or every Tuesday), there will be a Weekly Post-Ed each week for a total of 52 entries.

– There are some other projects in the works, but those are all TBD at this time. More details when things are closer to being finalized.

            So, that’s it. This website is going to continue to grow and I’m curious to see where it goes. I started all of this to see if anything interesting might happen from posting short stories, and what I found over the past year is how much I enjoyed writing something and posting it online as a finished product. I’m determined to do even better this year and I hope you’ll continue to come back and see where all of this is heading!

***

NEW YEAR, NEW LOOK

            For the new year, I thought more thematically. Ever since the launch of the James Webb Telescope (a SUCCESSFUL launch, if you didn’t know), I’ve thought about space and of the vastness beyond the problems of home. That’s what I do when I feel the world encroaching in—I look up to the night sky and find constellations and I think about how many light years away those stars are—each one with its own solar system, array of planets and celestial bodies, and the problems outside my front door seem small in comparison.

            With the launch of the James Webb Telescope, we’re bound to see and discover things we never knew possible in the universe. It’s with that energy and inspiration that I thought of the Mario Galaxy series, games that embody the joy of the cosmos within the candy coating only a Nintendo Mario title can. The logo is inspired by Mario Galaxy 2, while the background images were inspired by the deluxe soundtrack that came with copies of the original Wii games launched back in 2007.

            It’s a time for discovery, don’t you think?

            You can check out the artwork created for the website below:

***

  1. “Panic Attack” by Mating Ritual
  2. “Young & Wild” by the Strumbellas
  3. “Stay (feat Your Smith)” by Flight Facilities

Hoping everyone is as well as they can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #20

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS THE JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE

            If there’s one gift that excites me most in my adult life (other than the latest VR headset, let’s be honest) it is the launch of the James Webb Telescope. Due to delays and unfit weather conditions, the launch date of the biggest telescope ever built has been pushed back to Christmas Eve. But with more inclement weather underway in French Guiana, it’s likely the launch will be pushed back another day, which would fall on Christmas Day.

            Can you imagine it? The greatest technological marvel of this decade is about to be put into service to survey the stars and other solar systems in detail unprecedented. The Hubble Telescope gave us incredible imagery of the cosmos, but under the James Webb Telescope, equipped with a lens 2.75 times larger than that of the Hubble, it’s unfathomable to think what discoveries await. I cannot wait to see the first primary photos taken for comparison to the Hubble. It’s going to be, quite literally, awesome.

            In this era of pandemic and seasonal pessimism, can anything act as a wayward Christmas star more so than a literal speck of light in the night sky, that of the James Webb telescope safely in orbit around the earth? Scientific marvels such as this (on the same playing field as widespread Covid vaccinations) give me hope for the future, one that gives us greater scope about our place in the universe.

            All I want for Christmas, naturally, is a successful launch.

***

O BATMAN OF BETHLEHAM

            In trying to construct a Christmas Message for this Weekly Post-Ed, I drew a blank. In a previous draft, I wrote an essay about what I thought of the previous year, but like so much else attached to my life at present, it was dripping with seasonal pessimism and I couldn’t stand behind posting something like that. So, without an idea, I thought back to previous Christmases, parsing through what made them special for me, and I kept circling back on one particular memory.

            When I was 7 or 8-years-old, I had it in my head that the best addition to the yearly Nativity play at my church was to include Batman as one of the Angels. Perhaps I was angry at the casting decision of the Director (Joseph always went to the eldest in the youth group, never to a pre-pubescent boy incapable of copulation, which was, like, totally unfair). I was grouped with two other girls cast as Angels. My costume was a white, a flittered garment tied together at the waist by a glittering cord of white. In my defense, a die-hard Batman fan costumed in a dress some months after donning the cape and cowl for Halloween would be rightly critical of this creative choice. Personally, I think Angels would dress less like Shepards, played by a trio of boys in similar garb, just slabbed in gray with woolen blankets draped over their shoulders.

            And after rehearsal the night before the Christmas Eve service, I draped my costume over a hanger in disgust. A new creative direction was needed for the show.

           I must have smuggled my Halloween costume under my baggy winter coat. While the Angels were busy pulling up white tights and (near) stainless robes with glitter tumbling off the dried gobs of glue along the shoulder pieces, I unfolded my Batman costume and was nearly dressed except for the fabric cowl and cape (Batman costumes have become increasingly movie-accurate over the years, to the chagrin of my 8-year-old self).

            “Woah, what is this?” asked the Director passing by. “What do you have on?”

            I smirked—clearly, he was blown away by my creative decision to alter the character of “Angel #3” to something much more modern, hip, cool, badass. “I’m Batman,” I said, proudly.

            “Cool,” he said. “Take it off.”

            You could hear my heart break. “What? Why?”

            “Because Batman wasn’t present at the birth of Christ.”

            “So?” I countered, a pretty useful argument I had employed at the time. Insert enough ‘So’s?’ into conversation and most people get tired of hearing it and let you win. At least, it worked with my parents.

            “Robert, you’re an Angel. You’re going to dress like one. Does anyone want to help Robert get his costume on?”

            On cue, Joseph, the eldest in the youth group playing the lead role, and totally undeserving (I was already soured by the politics of the theater at a young age), stepped in and held out the white tights I was to wear with the Angel costume. I must have given in because I did dress as Angel #3 for the play, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. If I was to be an Angel, then I would only appear as one.

            I would not act as one.

            Fast-forward to the miracle of Christ’s birth during the performance and you would have seen an Angel that, for reasons unknown, held onto an invisible cape, pretending to flap it around as though I were the Dark Knight in the Michael Keaton Batman movie.

            “Why is Robert acting like Christ being crucified? Is that part of the show?” I heard an elderly man ask in the front row.

            “I think it’s supposed to mean something,” whispered his wife.

            The Director facepalmed when he heard this, unable to do a thing.

            It’s a shame I didn’t have any lines that year (coincidence? I think not). I would have gladly given my line unto the baby boy doll draped in rags in the manger, our Jesus:

            “I am vengeance, I am the night, I am Batman…of Bethlehem!”

***

A MERRY LITTLE HAWKEYE CHRISTMAS

            If you haven’t seen the new Hawkeye show on Disney+, please do! It was a festive and very Christmas take on a Marvel property. Sure, the Christmas element was crassly inserted (mostly in the form of Christmas songs accompanying all the skyline transition shots between changes in location), but the scenery of New York alight for the Christmas season eventually won me over. The show was fun and humorous in a way that was heartwarming for the holidays and I can’t say enough about checking it out.

            Plus, as a bonus for the end-credits, an entire Broadway musical production of “I Can Do This All Day” is filmed in its complete glory. 

            The show is sure to become a holiday favorite going forward.

***

A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE

            At 32, things are seemingly worse than ever before. Not only is there a global pandemic seemingly without end, a cultural depression has led to the exultation of the highly successful and a feeling of deepest failure should one’s life never realize what it means to be valued by the grading systems of online platforms. It’s an age of unbounded loneliness, a lack of connection, and a crisis in wondering about the purpose of life.

            On Christmas Eve, I often ask how a holiday glazed with the glitz and glamor of jingle bells and colored bulbs can possibly instill in us a feeling of home and warmth. The world seems, as it is, a place of disconnect and dissonance, a train passing by the station without intention of stopping. It sounds like good ol’ pessimism, but the older I get, the struggle to enjoy life is often beaten and battered by constantly being sold on the notion that I’m not enough (handsome, creative, productive, charming, witty, athletic). It becomes just as tiresome to fight as a constantly mutating virus.

So I ask: where is the joy in all of this?

            The only answer I have is to remember why Christmas is meaningful. To me, Christmas can be about most anything (as any seasonal Hallmark movie can attest): the power of friendship, of family, of finding true love, of being rewarded for doing good. But while we lavish the fictional world as a place where good and righteousness wins out over the forces that prevents our happiness, we seldom receive the same satisfying conclusion to our life stories. And as the holidays hit, we want retribution—that our struggles weren’t in vein, that the holiday season means something, and to be rewarded on schedule, as the script was written.

            Take it from me, I would love for life to unfold in this way, but it simply won’t for a majority of us. It’s been a long winter for the past few years even preceding the pandemic. Christmas time can be a very lonely, depressing holiday to those that have experienced loss and not found the means to fill the craters of their lives ever since. In my experience, you have two choices in the winter of our lives: to sink further into despair, or to choose (despite the pain) to seek joy despite it all.

            Remedies aren’t without side effects. The notion of choosing differently sounds unfair or unreasonable, likely both, and that’s because it is. And yet, this choice is all we have in times of darkness. It’s easy to lay down, to let the circumstances of a torrential world do its damage. That’s always an option, but what’s the value in that? There is meaning getting back up again, because in the struggle of our lives, this decision to get up despite the odds is all we have left.

            There is no paying audience cheering us on, or a narrator ready to set the story on its rightful course. There is only acting for our own story, to take truly be the protagonist we wish to be, despite how the story turns out.

            So, this holiday season, I hope you seek joy, even if unattainable. The pursuit of something more has always yielded the most meaning in spite of the result (this website included), and I’ve found that choosing to see the better pieces of our lives is as magical as the notion that a man in red will deliver presents to good little girls and boys. 

            From me, truly, I hope you remember there is always a choice, not in how something turns out, but in our intentions for how we will carry on. I like being the main character of my life, and if I have a say in what I’ll do next, I’ll write that, too.

            At least I get partial writing credit. I’ll gladly take it.

***

  1. “Split” by 88rising and NIKI
  2. “My Favourite Day” by Fickle Friends
  3. “Stay the Night” by Jukebox the Ghost

***

Wishing everyone a good holiday. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #16

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

PRIMED AND READY

           Some housecleaning items to start with: the website has undergone another visual overhaul, this time in the guise of the Metroid series. In anticipation of Metroid Dread launching October 8th on Nintendo Switch, I’m celebrating the series with a few new illustrations. The main logo is a homage to Metroid Prime, one of my favorite games from the Gamecube era. The background behind my picture is a flat-art interpretation of the key-art to Metroid Dread, featuring the E.M.M.I. robot ready to strike a badass-looking Samus Aran in the foreground. Lastly, the background is a criss-cross of Samus’s morph ball transformation from two games: the power suit variants from Metroid Prime (on the left) and Metroid: Samus Returns (on the right).

            The Metroid series was a big influence growing up and has entered back into my adult life in a big way: from watching speedrunners beat the game in record time during many GDQ finales, and the recent release of Metroid: Samus Returns and being a favorite in every Super Smash Bros. game since the beginning. With Metroid Dread on the horizon for Nintendo Switch, I’ll be looking forward to revisiting another world with Samus Aran in the coming weeks and await the slick gameplay that awaits.

            Get hype!

            The New Illustrations are posted a gallery below:

***

MEGAMAN’S BEST SYMPHONY

            I watch quite a few video game symphonies (soundtracks not withstanding—they are all beautiful), and the reason I do is because, like all live music, there’s an energy that goes along with being there, hearing the music in person. With medleys, there comes the added depth of juxtaposition. A symphony isn’t just a greatest hits compilation. Along with musical selection comes the power of narrative, to tell a story through a collection of pieces that makes something arguably more compelling than the source material it came from—all the while adding the allure of nostalgia to sell the script.

            There’s one symphony I’ve rewatched on repeat this past week and  it’s The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s rendition of the “Megaman Suite”. Not only does it include some of the series’ finest hits, but the tempo and flow of the medley is downright moving. It triumphantly begins with the introduction to Megaman 3, transitioning to the adventurous and frenzied tracks of “Flashman Stage” and “Topman Stage”, and turning dark and sinister with a duo of Wily Stage themes, all the while building towards a finale that speaks to the heroic robot at odds against a metal vision of the future.

            A symphony like this isn’t just a homage to video game music – which certainly catches the attention of orchestra conductors around the world – but exists because there is something in the story of the music that pulls us all in. Though this recording was done a few years ago, I only pine for the next big-time symphony to take a stab at some of video game’s greatest musical iterations—perhaps an homage to Donkey Kong Country is long overdue?

            You can find the video of the “Megaman Suite” below:

***

ABOUT THAT SUMMER PROJECT…

            Elephant in the room: all those weekly updates and essays that were promised are officially delayed (after being two months late already? Shocking news, I know). When it came to writing up the project, I realized that it was more extensive than I had previously planned. Essays and other pieces are well underway, but as of this writing, I’m not ready to announce a delivery date. Until then, plan on some unique pieces showing up every once in a while until the big reveal.

            It will be worthwhile; I promise you that.

            Stay tuned….

***

A NEW SHORT STORY APPROACHES!

            It’s been nearly four months since I’ve posted a short story…*sigh*. I’ve been editing a few over the past couple months and one is nearly ready. I won’t say much about it other than the length being short and sweet. As a teaser, here’s the cover art below:

            The story will be posted sometime this week, so keep an eye out. 

***

***

Wishing everyone as well as they can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #15

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

A Summer Project

            I’ve scantly written for this website in some time and for good reason (so I’m claiming). I’ve been exploring the world of dating apps, going on dates, and attempting to understand this world of digital connection. I’ve been writing a series of essays on the topic and am figuring out how to stitch them together to present on this website.

            I should make it clear that my intentions for dating apps are honest. I’m not looking for hookups but for something real and substantial. Turns out, the journey to finding something real means delving into a world of false advertisement and curated profiles trying to hook a certain kind of fish (and it is a wide, wide sea out there). Along the way, I’ve found that dating apps mean different things to different people, and I’ve done my journalistic duty of figuring out what all that means.

            So, stay tuned! I’ll be posting a series of essays in the coming weeks of my experiences.

***

Mother’s Will

            My sister was in no mood for my nephew’s antics last night. My nephew is 1.5 years old (which is incalculable in months), bordering on the “terrible twos” that are sure to bring all kinds of twists to the plot. My nephew has a routine of being spoiled at this house (frankly) and goes about his life fearlessly expecting to be caught if he falls. His itinerary is up to his whim, and if he should want to play at the sink, the world will stop turning before he is ever told no. The amount of treats and candy he is able to con his grandparents out of is hilarious to watch. He knows where the stashes are, and so an impromptu trip upstairs and around the corner to grandma’s office means another roll of Smarties for the road. And once he emerges back downstairs to grin up at his mother, she exclaims, “No! He just had a spoonful of frosting and a cookie a little while ago. He doesn’t need anymore!”

            And my nephew smiles, the game won, because nobody is going to take the Smarties away.

            The little Smarty.

            Lo and behold last night when after dinner, the little tyker wants to play in the sink for the umpteenth time. It’s been a hot, sticky day and there’s a hot, sticky mother planted to her chair, pining for the day when she can go out to restaurant again for something called The Bowl, a half-liter Margarita glass full of juicy liquor complete with a salt rim. Little guy cries out, reaching up to the unreachable kitchen sink, “Awa! Awa!” and his mother has had enough. “No,” she says, as though talking belligerently to customer service somewhere, knowing she’s been swindled. “We’re going home. We’re done.”

            And the cries of inhumanity ensue.

            But Mommy hath forespoken and all the innocence, all the heartbroken tears, and all the King’s men can’t break the will of Mommy who will put her baby down for sleep again.

            I love my sister like this. There’s something intimate about someone breaking character, becoming irritably more like themselves that contrasts with who they’d like to be. I know my sister is a loving, a considerate person, but everyone has a limit. Past those limits, past the expansion of the universe, anything is possible. And for a boy that controls the cosmos with his limited vocabulary and newfound powers of playact-crying, he stands no chance with her behemoth personality.

            And I think that’s the hallmark of parenting (said the writer with no children), that there will be a time when Mommy says “No,” and even the great tides of the world will recede away.

            What I’ve learned from watching her is that, yes, even I have this power. There will come a time when it is called upon and it will strive forth. It will be tyrannical and wondrous and the earth will cease to quake if I so order.

            I think that’s what I love most about having had an older sister; I’ve learned so much by watching her.

            Just as my nephew will learn by watching her in his lifetime.

            And little guy is just scratching the surface of her potential.

            Keep scratching, little fella. Mommy is one of the good ones and fit for the task.

            No matter how many Smarties grandma sneaks your way.

***

***

Wishing everyone as well as they can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #13

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

The You-Niverse

            Somebody said to me this past week, “Are you upset or disappointed with me? I don’t want to make you feel that way.”

            The thing is, I hadn’t considered anything about this person in some time. In fact, until anything was mentioned, I was oblivious to there being a problem or conflict at all. Suddenly, I was thrust into an alternate reality where this person’s choices or lack thereof must be affecting me in some mysterious way.

           And I scrambled to figure out if this was true. “Have I been ignoring this person on purpose?” and “Why haven’t I thought of them lately?”

           It took a moment to sober up and realize the obvious answer to these questions and hark them like comedian Lewis Black might: “Because this isn’t real, you idiot!”

            I wasn’t upset with this person, never was.

            So why was the argument presented at all?

            When somebody says a thing like, “Are you disappointed with me?” three things are happening:

  1. This person is likely in a lot of emotional pain.
  2. To account for this pain, he/she must conceive of all the areas in life in which their pain must be impacting others.
  3. By pinpointing all these areas, it affirms that, yes, they must be bad in some way, and so the cycle continues.

           It’s immensely attractive to pinpoint personal misery to mean X, Y, or Z must be happening. The problem is that none of it is real. Feelings are not facts as much as we’d like them to be. And because we feel deficient or ignored doesn’t mean that we really are. A far more likely explanation is that people are just busy living their own lives and hardly ever recognize the struggle of the person next to them.

      In psychology this is called the Spotlight Effect because, in our personal narratives, we think people pay much more attention to our lives than they really do.

      And so, I recognized that this person’s question had little to do with me and everything to do with them.

      Which raised this question for me: how egocentric is emotional pain, really?

      Seriously, the amount of gull it takes to believe that you – as an individual – account for the actions of others is a responsibility that borders on being funny.

      Is there a limit to how much our actions impact someone?

      Do you think there was a German housekeeper shortly after World War II that moped around her living room and said, “If only I hadn’t burnt tea for little Adolf, none of this would have happened.”

       Ridiculous? Absolutely.

      I knew a bus driver, once, that whenever a car nearly backed out of a driveway without looking would say, “If I wasn’t looking at that guy, he would have backed right into me.”

      Uh…what?

      Not true in the slightest, but he said this EVERY time as though the puppet strings of the universe hinged on this bus driver staring down a car in its driveway in order to stop it.

      I’m writing this as though I’m not guilty of the same behaviors, which isn’t true. I’m writing about this because I practiced this for YEARS.

Question: why am I not dating?

Emotional Answer: because there’s some mysterious deficiency about me that repels people away.

More Likely Answer: there was just a f*#%ing pandemic for the past 1.5 years, which might explain a lack of meeting people (cue Lewis Black: “You idiot!”).

           None of this is to say that emotional pain isn’t real; of course, it is. However, it is easy to become drunk with how real our ideas about the world seem to be. To sober up, to me, means to think less egocentric about our problems. No, we likely aren’t causing the heartache or demise of someone close to us.

           They live their own, separate lives.

            And are ruining them just fine without you.

***

Wishing everyone as well as they can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #11

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

That Guilty Look

             I’ve been a big supporter of Guilty Gear Strive since it was announced last year by Arc System Works. With the additions of Rollback Netcode, some killer graphics, and a fast-paced fight system,  I’ve dug the game so much that I decided to design my website around it.

             I should also point out that I’m not actively playing Guilty Gear Strive since the Betas have been exclusive to PS5 (the elusive console). When the game launches on PC, I’ll be right there to write up what this game really feels like. It’s a departure from Xrd, but man is this game pretty.

             Hope the gameplay holds up.

             Like this art I made for the website. Check it out below:

***

The Camel (Guilty Gear Strive Beta #2)

            I’ve watched a ton of the second Beta over the past weekend and have come away with mixed feelings. The first Beta was fast-paced with the cheap stuff kept in the game. Really, the only universal complaint (except for some characters’ limitations) was the God-awful online lobby system, something seemingly inspired by a Terrance and Phillip short from South Park. 

  • Guilty Gear Strive Lobby
  • Terrance and Phillip from South Park

            After the first Beta, the lobby system was terrible enough for Arc System Works to push back the release of the game until June from April, and most of us expected some major fixes. 

            TL;DR: nah, not really.

            The addition of pixelated fight cabinets in the lobby is a fun idea, but it doesn’t fix the functionality of the lobby system and menus. It is still too difficult to find matches, and if a player is clamoring to fight someone specifically in their lobby, the game tends to crash or cease matchmaking entirely. So, with lobbies still functioning at an abysmal level, what has ArcSys been working on the past month?

            Seemingly, nerfs to characters. Again, I’m a hypocrite here because I haven’t played the Betas because of a lack of PS5, but universally it seems like some of the fun stuff from the previous Beta was siphoned out. To me, this is the flaw with player feedback.

            Relatedly, I was listening to Ricky Gervais on the Smartless podcast give this anecdote about test audience feedback. One note that was given after the initial test screenings of Rain Man was this, “I liked the movie, but I wish the little guy would have snapped out of it in the end.”

            This misunderstanding of the heart of the project is the problem when reviewing feedback. I don’t know to what extent Arc System Works makes gameplay changes based on feedback, but it seems the changes made in Beta #2 were made specifically from vocal complaints on social media.

            Ever hear the maxim: a camel is a just a horse built by committee?

            That seems to the case with the current state of Guilty Gear Strive; it is now a camel.

            I hope Arc System Works will hold onto their original ideas instead of trying to please character specialists or the most vocal on Twitter because the game, before, was originally frantic and fun to play.

            But perhaps this is just the way of developing a modern fighting game. Street Fighter V went through something similar. It needed a few years of struggle to figure out what it was, and then it could be brave and try new, exciting things.

            Maybe after a few seasons, GG Strive will be just as enticing.

            I just wish we could speed up the process and become braver sooner.

***

The Uselessness of Chair Reviews

Herman Miller Embody

            I bought a new desk chair over the weekend (the Herman Miller Embody). When I buy things, I research the hell out of them. Inevitably, this brings me down the rabbit hole of YouTube review videos. Find a thumbnail of the item of your choice, along with the derpy face of a content creator pasted beside it, and click on the inevitable video title “My Review”.

            What follows is an endless stream of nothing-much-said.

            Why?

            Because YouTube reviews are mostly useless.

            Aside from sponsored review videos (which are, really, paid advertising for the content creator and the product), the bulk of review videos are mostly descriptive, as was the case when researching the chair I bought. 

“This chair has a seat. As you can see here, with me sitting in it, it also has a back. And these things down here? These are levers and knobs that adjust the chair. Self-explanatory? Cool, because I didn’t point out the wheels yet.”

“This chair has WHEELS mother$#$%!”

            This will be 90% of your video.

            The last 10% is what you came for: the verdict. Usually, it goes something like this, “It’s a great chair, but it all depends on what you’re looking for.”

            If you find your eyes burning like hot coals, your fingers sprouting claws that stab into the keyboard, a tuft of gargoylish hair encroaching over the nape of your neck, with two pointy horns suddenly on either side of your skull, and the unholy, damning fires of hell consuming your laptop from rage…

             Don’t worry, this is normal.

            You’ve just felt the effects of having your time wasted.

            How is, “depends on what you’re looking for,” a useful verdict in a review video? 

             By nature, YouTube review videos are dependent upon if you, the viewer, think you are similar to the reviewer. Therefore, if they like the product, so will you. If a reviewer shrugs and says, “It all depends on what you want,” I’m just as indecisive. You’ve just told me to go to another review to make up my mind (which, on a conspiratorial level, might be the point—YouTube videos exists for views and clicks, not as guides to personal decisions).

            And that’s what I did: I watched review after review after review…None of them authoritative, none of them useful.

            Until I did the only review that counts when buying a chair: sitting down in the damn thing.

            That’s when I knew I wanted it. That’s when I understood the con of watching review videos.

            And I’m still reeling from my choice to watch so many of them; my YouTube home page is flooded with related/unrelated chair review videos, all thanks to a naïve assumption that they would be helpful.

            I didn’t even like the people making them. To me, a derpy face in a YouTube thumbnail implies a derpy personality. But I suppose content creators who make reviews are just practicing their true trade without calling it as such:

            The art of making silly faces.

            For that, to their credit, many of these content creators are well paid.

            But I love the chair. I’m glad I went with it. And that’s all I have to say, except for my official verdict:

            Go sit in one yourself, then you’ll know.

***

Also, there’s a pretty great piano version of “Pink Pony Club” that I’ll post below:

***

Dirty Dishes Out Now!

And here’s a new story after a long sabbatical. It’s the longest one I’ve posted on here, but I think it works well.

Disclaimer: there’s explicit language in this story.

Enjoy and I’d love to read your comments!

***

Hoping everyone is as well as they can be. You’re not alone out there,

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