February 6, 2022

LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 5 No. 2

Nick’s LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 5 No. 2

My moment of the year in pro wrestling, the big reveal that Stay Puft was in-fact HANGMAN ADAM PAGE.

THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION

Hello again everyone. It's been a few weeks. Not as many as between the last newsletters. Now I only need to hold on for another 38 days to make it to Jamaica. Got an email that our flight was re-scheduled for 1 day later. I said NO WAY BUDDY and booked a new flight on Delta. Sun Country is the worst company I have dealt with in a long time and unfortunately I have $1500 in flight credit with them. 🤮 Also, I recognize what a not problem that is in the order of life.

• We have a new LIFESTYLE reader. Hello, mostly anonymous person! Some of you may know them. Some do not. WHAT A MYSTERY!

• I learned a lot from this Twitter thread about Roman sex coins. 1) I love how we are guessing what they were used for and it is mostly reverse case building based on a lot of assumptions. I would love to travel 2000 years from now and see what they think of some of our random shit. 2) Every generation thinks they invented something about sex. THEY DIDN'T.

• Latest in my 135-part series about things that make me feel old: Why Are Some Zoomers So Wistful For the '80s?.

• Melonie is powering through Ace Attorney and OBJECTING TO EVERYTHING, while I am on my 20th consecutive escape from the Underworld in Hades. The best game ever that is not Breath of the Wild.

• If you are a fan of improve comedy (like the actual funny improve, not the other kind, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN), check out Murderville on Netflix.

THIS IS THE END OF THE INTRODUCTION.

2 THINGS THIS WEEK.

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ITEM THE FIRST:

2022 YEARLY ESTIMATED UPKEEP: Our 2021 community project is going longer than I planned (see LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 4 No. 3). I will own that and will express an appropriate amount of emotion FOR NOT MEETING MY DELIVERABLES. I have not abandoned it, so people that have participated, your work was not for waste. I'll still be reaching out to some subscribers and working on it and something to share and celebrate all the contributions in the next year.

HOWEVER, if there is one thing I know about my community of readers (outside of your names) is that you LOVE A PROJECT. While reflecting on my personal objectives and a conversation I had with a reader I had an idea for a project:

NAME YOUR FEAR.

2021 was the year of "FUCK YEAH or naw" and 2022 is my year of CONQUERING MY FEARS. Ever since THE TERRIBLE THING I have not been myself in some ways. I lack confidence in decisions and myself. It manifests itself in me carrying around a lot of fear. This is something I did not experience before Dec 2018. It's three years since then and I really need to move forward. I'm not sure if I can, but I feel like progress is possible now in a way I did not last year.

So, in order to combine my love of public shame and accountabilibuddies, I figured we could all hold hands and jump into this pool together and hold ourselves accountable for conquering a fear this year. YOUR HOMEWORK: send one thing you fear that you want to conquer this year. I will know who wrote what, but no one else will unless you share it offline. If we all share something scary, I think we will see that we are all going through some of the same shit and maybe, just maybe, that will be reassuring and we can get through this together. I know this shit can be scary, BUT WE ARE HERE FOR YOU EVEN IF WE DON'T KNOW YOUR NAME.

Because this is my newsletter and you are all amazing people, I will share mine and put my name to it.

My fear I will work on conquering in 2022: I am scared to be happy. I was so happy and carefree before THE TERRIBLE THING. I felt like life was going great and things that were causing me stress were getting better then it all come tumbling down. For two solid years after it, I associated happiness with that downfall and didn't want any part of it. There were super fun and happy moments from pre-terrible that I could not look at without seeing them through the lens of terrible. That sucks. I don't want to be that person any more. AND I WON'T BE.

Keep me accountable LIFESTYLE friends.

I look forward to reprinting your anonymous fears in an upcoming issue.

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ITEM THE SECOND:

THIS IS MY JAM (2021 edition): Thinking back on 2021, I felt pretty meh. There were a few musicians, movies, games, etc. that were good, but then when I had to actually look back, HOLY CRAP 2021 WAS AMAZING (minus some of the inter/intra personal things mentioned above).

Sitting down over the past month, I struggled HARD to cull my list for the Best songs of 2021. RULES HAD TO BE BROKEN. Some artists had more than 2 songs on the list. Some artists had back to back tracks. HOLY CRAP almost all of the list is female and non-binary people. After hours of listening and re-listening, I present my top 25(!) tracks of 2021:

1. Sunmi [선미] - You can't sit with us
2. AILEE [이예진] - Make up your mind
3. Claud - Soft Spot
4. Grae - Like You
5. Grae - Spinning
6. Sunmi [선미] - TAIL
7. Claud - In or In-Between
8. Lil Dicky - We Good [From the TV Show "DAVE"]
9. Halsey - Easier Than Lying
10. KEY (ft. Taeyeon) - Hate That...
11. Wiley - Move Goal Posts
12. Roosevelt - Lovers
13. Amber Liu - Bad Decisions
14. Claud - Tommy
15. Hyolyn [효린], Dasom [다솜] - Summer or Summer
16. TWICE [트와이스] - Perfect World
17. Adeline - Whisper My Name
18. CHUNG HA - Killing Me
19. Roosevelt - See You Again
20. L'Impératrice - Fou
21. Halsey - Girl Is a Gun
22. SHINee [샤이니] - Superstar
23. Nas - Wu for the Children
24. Koo Koo Kanga Roo - Backyard Swimsuit
25. Ladyhawke - Guilty Love

So, yeah. What a great year for music. I was very surprised with the amount of K-Pop that made the list. Several artists would have had even more tracks, but I TRY to limit everyone to two.

Claud's debut Super Monster is probably my album of the year. I AM SO EXCITED for that concert this month.

Roosevelt's new album, Polydans is banger after banger too.

Dinosaur Jr.'s Sweep It Into Space is just comfort food for my ears in their weirdo times.

Halsey's album If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power was something I never would have paid attention to, but seeing Trent Reznor was on production made me give it a try and HOLY SHIT, glad I did. This is the Nine Inch Nails album you never knew you wanted.

L’Impératrice Tako Tsubo was the album so nice, that I bought it twice. On accident.

Nas had two solid albums, King's Disease II, the sequel to last year's collab with Hit-Boy and the holiday surprise, Magic. Both super solid, but I might like Magic more.

Silk Sonic's An Evening with Silk Sonic was something I should have loved. On paper it checked all my boxes, but it was rather meh. Points for having Bootsy on it tho.

Weezer's Van Weezer is very interesting. I think I like it, but I need a few more listens. Nothing stands out as a single or top song, but the album as a whole is a great tribute to music that I enjoy and might be my favorite Weezer album, which isn't saying much...

Here is a YouTube playlist if you want to follow along, with the exception of the Koo Koo Kanga Roo song because you can't add children's content to a playlist for some reason. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoF7vaZ5mPCQ6SHQq1Ew6M30r7ZLELjJd

Just insert this video at position 24: Koo Koo Kanga roo - Backyard Swimsuit (ft. Sims)

Some other non-music amazing things: We played several campaign board games this year with various people and those are memories I will treasure. Won't list them all out, but Clank!: Legacy – Acquisitions Incorporated was the best legacy game I have played and probably a top-10 game regardless.

Our twice-annual Battlestar Galactica campaign was spiced up with our March game being SHORE LEAVE, so we all dressed in our casual "leaving the spaceship for a few days gear." Any excuse to wear linen is a win in my book.

We also played The Crew, which is one of the worst games I have ever played, but I understand this is a minority position. It is a quick trick-taking card game, so games last about 5-15 minutes, but when the campaign is done, I'll have played it probably 80 times. Why do I do this to myself?

Board/card game of the year - Scout! This is a trick-taking (technically, card shedding) game done right. Basically you deal out the whole deck of cards that have a number between 1-10 on them in top left. On the bottom right is a different number (ie. 2 & 5). You have to play cards that beat the highest hand on the table, so if a pair of 5's are on the table, you need to play a pair of 6's or a run of 3 cards. Sounds easy, right? These are the things that make it amazing:

1. You cannot rearrange the order of cards in your hand. They are stuck as they are dealt.
2. At the start of the game, you can flip your entire hand (using the bottom numbers instead)
3. If you cannot (or don't want to) beat the high hand, you can "Scout!" and take a card which then can be inserted in either direction anywhere in your hand, thus setting you up for better plays in the future.
4. When a hand is scouted, it also becomes lower in strength, so the next player has a easier ability to beat it.
5. Every time you scout, you give the player who has the high hand a point, so they are also being rewarded.

It is brilliant. If you are not a gamer, but play card games like Hearts, Bridge, Spades, etc., this is a great twist on it.

I also really enjoyed the new edition of Great Western Trail. This is a top 10 game for me. While I play a lot of games that I don't really enjoy, but I enjoy the people I play them with, GWT is my type of game.

Other amazing things this year:

• Game of the year (released) - Metroid Dread
• Game of the year (played) - Detroit: Become Human
• Game of the year (watching Melonie struggle, keep at it, learn, grow and eventually conquer) - Metroid Dread
• TV show watched with friends - Ted Lasso
• Local game store - Tower Games
• Local film festival - WOOOOOOFEST!

What things amazed you last year?

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark "ok to print"):

Two letters this month! YEAH!

Spider-Nick is Amazing. Glider flight sounds AWESOME.

I’m an emotional minimizer (actually according to an actual expert I had an in-person with once (who’s job it was to gimme something to think about (but I really don’t think about it much)).)

Grief for me is the realization that something you care about has exited the scene, but your caring hasn’t. It’s a good thing. It shouldn’t be mistaken with hurt or resentment which can also be sourced from caring but are not good™.

OK to print you web-slinging lap blanket person.

Very well said and I agree wholeheartedly. Grief is a weird emotion that I was not prepared for.

From one of our non-local readers that I miss terribly:

I want to acknowledge first the fact that I love that you send this email out. It brings me great joy to see your name pop into my email inbox instead of endless flood of food, knitting, Macy's, eddie bauer, fucking political, and food and political spams combined that I get to clear out every day. Yours is the first (and lets be real, the only) email I will read from start to finish.

Second, (editor's note - REDACTED)

Third, I would like to share a magical recipe that I just concocted. Gorgonzola meatloaf.

Dun dun duuuuuuuuun!!!

• 2 lbs ground beef (or impossible burger or whatever), like 85% lean.
• 1 jumbo egg or 2 medium eggs
• About 1/2 cup of milk
• A medium size handful of dehydrated shallots (I use Penzey's Spices)
• About 1 TB Dehydrated minced onion (also penzey's)
• About 3/4 cup bread crumbs
• About 2 TB Worcestershire sauce
• Salt
• Pepper
• Good size chunk of fancy ass gorgonzola, go for the sweet and pungent ones
• 1 fresh garlic clove crushed through a garlic crusher smasher thing

First things first, turn your oven on to preheat to 350 °F/175 °C Okay, so what you gotta do is mix all that together, EXCEPT FOR THE GORGONZOLA. Don't mix that in.

Now take about 1/2 of the meat mixture and put it into a prepared (prepared means spray it with some oil spray or butter it with butter or whatever fat you want) bread loaf pan. Mush it down, yes I know it feels gross, just do it with a spatula if you gotta.

Then you layer on all the gorginzola that you cut into slices or crumbles, it doesn't matter. Just put allllllllllllllll that cheese on top of the meat in a solid layer. OKAY. THAT WAS A LOT OF CHEESE. BUT TRUST ME. So we take the other half of the meat stuff and press it on top of the cheese in an even layer.

Now stick that bad motherfucker in your preheated oven and wait an agonizing 35-50 minutes, or whenever it is bubbly and looks done and you can get the thermometer up to 165 °F/75 °C. Let it "rest" (can I just say that I love saying the phrase, "I have to let the meatloaf rest now."???) for about 5 minutes or however long you can manage to wait.

That is what I wanted to share with you this evening. You may publish this letter.

Well, I appreciate the compliments and glad that my awkward newsletter brings you some joy. I will never be able to repay you for all the kindness and joy you have brought into my life, so hopefully a lifetime of these dumb missives will make due.

However, I'm going to use more yuck emoji's for that recipe. 🤮🤮🤮. I'll let the readership take a stab at that because cheese is disgusting. Now, you make a durian meatless meatloaf and I'm there. Well, not there because you live far away.

Thanks everyone who sent in letter, they are in the top 25 things I enjoy about doing this newsletter.

GRATITUDES:

Just wrapped up season 3 of TALISMAN LEGACY. I have a complicated relationship with the board game Talisman. It is not great. Not good, really. It is mostly based on random die rolling and these broken rules that overlap and make a Venn diagram of NOT FOR ME.

However, my friend Zach, took this basic ass game and made it AMAZING by writing, designing and creating a legacy system for it where things unlock during the game. There is a narrative that crosses seasons and all sort of amazing things.

While I begrudgingly play this game, I end up having fun every time. This is because we all know it is not about the games, it is about the company you keep when you play them (or at least it is for me). We have an amazing group that goes through this journey that Zach creates for us year after year.

I am so awestruck by the energy, passion and creativity that Zach has for everything, not just this game, but life. It's a real help and inspiration for CONQUERING MY FEAR.

WEATHER CORNER:

It's been real cold. Should be getting warmer soon.

FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EYEHOLES THIS WEEK:

The TV show, Search Party, was a hell of a trip over five seasons. Each season basically does an amazing job of satirizing a different genre of TV with some hilarious and complex characters. The main character, Dory Sief, has one of the most interesting narrative arcs I have ever seen. I can't say much because I don't want to spoil it, but when you are done watching it text me and we can dish. We had to watch it over years, but you will not and you will not believe how it ends in comparison to where it starts. WHAT A RIDE.

video, click to watch

THIS IS THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER

SOMETIMES WE THINK WE ARE ALONE.

SCIENTIFICALLY THAT IS UNLIKELY SINCE THERE ARE BILLIONS OF US.

HOWEVER, SOMETIMES THAT PERSON GOING THROUGH THE SAME THING IS CLOSER THAN WE EVER REALIZED.

TIME TO PROVE LOVE.