I just had a heck of a play session this morning—the kind where you keep dying over and over and over. So much so that the Cosmic Spirit showed up to taunt me. So much that my dear sweet Lubba said, "Hey man, maybe take a break cause you sucked at that last level."

Okay, maybe that's not exactly what they said and did, but it felt like it.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is unabashedly a true 3D-ification of 2D Mario. I am loving it. Nearly 90 Stars in, so Splatoon 3 is on the horizon. I am ready for squid kids and bloopy gloopy techno music. It's been a great Nintendo gaming splurge here at the end of the year and I am savoring it.

Yesterday, I finished a YouTube Short essay. I'm not sure when it will go live because despite announcing that YT Shorts could be 3-minutes long starting October 15, YouTube doesn't recognize them until after a long period of mysterious processing. I don't understand why I can't just flag it as a Short myself.

The essay is about how The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, in a way, led to Outer Wilds. The idea hit my while playing Galaxy a few weeks ago. It was a quick little thought; a tangential connection made when my subconscious remembered one sentence in the Noclip documentary about Outer Wilds. It was the kind of idea that I would have just tweeted out into the ether a few years ago.

It felt good to get this tiny video out of my system; to flex those creative muscles while I wade in the research and play phase of this galaxy-sized project. I'll write up some behind-the-scenes, per usual, while the process is fresh, but I guess they won't see the public light of day until YouTube gets its backend together. If you want to check the video out now though, use this unlisted link. Hope you enjoy!

The end is in sight for Galaxy 2. YouTube is recommending me all sorts of retrospectives and essays. Some Splatoon stuff is entering the feed and I have to avert my eyes. I want to make my own opinions first, before absorbing those of others. Maybe that's the journalistic critic in me. Splatoon single player is basically all new to me (I dabbled in Splatoon 2). I'm chomping at the bit. Let's do this.

Until next time...