LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 6 No. 2
Nick’s LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 6 No. 2
Time to load up this newsletter and hit play
THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION
Hello again everyone. It’s been a few weeks. Weeks where I actually created a LinkedIn profile and pretended to give a shit about work. It is hard. Weeks with dinner and games with friends and finding love (with a board game). Weeks of recognizing that I am surrounded by amazing, talented people that are willing to help me.
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IMPORTANT DATE UPDATE: Synchronize your calendars for the evening of 10 June for an IN-PERSON GATHERING. I promise it will be tolerable. More details next issue.
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IMPORTANT DATE UPDATE 2: I will be on my usual beach in Ocho Rios, Jamaica at Couples Tower Isle from 20-27 March 2024 if any readers happen to show up, we could have more IN-PERSON GATHERINGS. I promise those will be fun.
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HARD WORKING REPUBLICANS making…ninja stars legal…? Yep.
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Shopify sent a program through their calendaring software to delete any re-occuring meetings with over 3 people. WHAT A UTOPIAN DREAM.
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As I type this during SNOWMAGEDDON, I’m drawn to this story about the future of home heating while trying to suppress my urges to be angry that it is not burning more fossil fuels.
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I know we have some AWARD WINNING MYSTERY WRITERS and NON-AWARD WINNING MYSTERY READERS on this list. I need help finding the lost weekend of 11 Feb. I bought Vampire Survivors and started my first run. Next thing I knew it was 8 hours later. WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT TIME?
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Consider this a TEASE for our 2023 group project, announcing in the next issue.
ITEM THE FIRST:
THE AMAZING THINGS OF 2022 (2022 EDITION):
2022 was another amazing year. The first year kinda post-COVID. Kinda. The year normalcy returned. Here are some of my favorite things I experienced over the last year. What rocked your 2022?
BEST LOCAL TIKTOK/YOUTUBE SHORT/VIDEO SERIES SHOT THE WRONG WAY: FRIEND OF THE LIFESTYLE SEPPY has this amazing series: Board Game Design Tip of the Day. Every day I get to see and hear Seppy give me a tip on doing something I will never do. They are short, engaging and a daily delight. I know he has got some TikTok thing going, but that URL is blocked at my house, so here is a link to his YouTube shorts.
BOARD GAME OF THE YEAR: I played 325 games last year (yep, COVID was done and my regular schedule was back)! My favorite game published last year is Tiletum, but I didn’t play it until Jan 5, so I can’t count it. SPOILER ALERT - It is probably my game of 2023.
I really, really wanted to love Lacrimosa, the board game about Mozart’s widow trying to finish the Requiem (K.626 for all you classical or music catalog nerds). It is great, but not perfect. Unlike the Requiem itself.
Other honorable mentions: Mille Fiori, Free Ride, Old London Bridge.
Ultimately, I had to go with Catherine: The Cities of the Tsarina
Look at this boring, dumb cover
Everything about this game is boring. Boring cover, boring art, boring pieces, boring board, no theme at all. The publisher got very unlucky publishing a game about an expansive time in Russian history right as current Russia was invading the Ukraine. HOWEVER, mechanically this is a perfect game. Basically you build 2 rows of cards in front of you during the game. The top row provides you actions you do and by placing cards on the bottom row you activate the card above it and get the actions. Simple, easy to teach, simultaneous turns make this an elegant design. Check it out, just ignore the theme.
VIDEO GAME OF THE YEAR (played, not released): Returnal. Watching some of the reviews make this seem like an impossibly hard game. It is difficult, in the same way last year’s Metroid Dread was, but not insurmountable. I don’t think I’ve ever been so surprised by a game. It presents as a third-person rouge-lite bullet hell shooter with some time-loop mystery. What I did not expect SPOILER ALERT because I know some readers are playing this right now is a deep rumination on family relationships and dealing with grief. I won’t go into more, but holy shit. The story on this stupid shooty game blew my mind and really helped me process my own grief in a different way.
Other amazing things:
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BEST PUPPET SHOW ATTENDED: That Golden Girls Show! A Puppet Parody.
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BEST CONCERT BEING 20 YEARS OLDER THAN MOST PEOPLE THERE: Claud at the Fine Line, Feb 2022.
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BEST VACATION: Jamaica (see above for 2024 dates!)
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BEST MEAL: Mandarin Kitchen Dim Sum service with FRIENDS OF THE LIFESTYLE
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BEST MOVIE: Top Gun: Maverick, obviously
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BEST MOVIE I CRIED LIKE A BABY AFTER BECAUSE I WAS EXPERIENCING THE LOSS OF MY BELOVED CATS ALL OVER AGAIN: Hachikō Monogatari
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BEST USE OF VOICE SYNTHESIS TO READ A NIXON SPEECH: “In Event of Moon Disaster” - What the notoriously chilling speech about Apollo 11 mission failure might have sounded like, if read by President Nixon. Recreated with voice synthesis.
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BEST LOCAL GAME STORE - Tower Games
- BEST LOCAL FILM FESTIVAL - YEOH! MTV Raps
Other random thing: Check out Netflix’s Stay on Board - The Leo Baker Story. An amazing story of a rad skater who risked a lot to be themselves. Leo’s been a rad skater for years and happy to see him get the recognition.
ITEM THE SECOND:
IT’S NICK TIME BABY. 2022 was the year to NAME YOUR FEAR, which I recapped last month (see Vol. 6 No. 1). I’m glad to hear from some of the readers on how you have named and/or conquered your fears. I’m literally so proud of all the people that shared publicly and privately with me. YOU DID AMAZING.
For 2023: IT’S NICK TIME. Ever since THE TERRIBLE THING 4 years ago, I have put myself lower in the priority chain of things. I made a conscious effort to do it because it is what I felt I needed to do to support the people I love. I knew that could not go on forever but I was hoping I could roll off the project at some point and get back to me. I never saw that opportunity, so I’ve unilaterally made the decision that IT’S NICK TIME. Thankfully, with reader help, I have finally started to pull myself out of the fucking funk of the last four years and experience joy and happiness and emit 5% less sad dad energy.
This really came to my attention when I was at a meal with a FRIEND OF THE LIFESTYLE and they mentioned another person in our lives had delayed taking care of themselves for the past few years and it hit them hard last year and instantly, I was like “yep, that’s me.”
So, what does that mean?
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I’ve decided to go to therapy. I’ve had a few sessions with a guy and it is going well. He is helping me with some of my communication issues and is giving me lots of homework. When asked what I wanted out of therapy I said “A rubric to judge humanity (myself included).” We are making progress. REMOVING THE STIGMA BY TALKING ABOUT IT HERE.
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A minimum of 1 weekend day to myself. It’s not that I don’t like you, I just need more time to myself.
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Wednesday is my night to watch wrestling and nothing will stop me. (except the occasional dinner with FRIENDS OF THE LIFESTYLE and mentors).
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I’m getting serious about finding a job. I’ve enlisted FRIEND OF THE LIFESTYLE SEPPY to help me polish my resume and I’m very proud of the work we’ve done. I have a LinkedIn page up now and god fuck do I hate that. Reminds me of Facebook, but with people I don’t really like. Anyways, if you know someone at a not terrible company looking for a quiet person to work on data modeling, product owner, data transformation or material master work, please let me know. I’m not desperate to leave TR, I want to find a good fit for my final 9.5 years of working.
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I’m taking better care of me. I’m trying to get back into better shape. Fuck it is harder as you get older. I got a Garmin Vivosmart to track me, but part of my aspie trot is my hatred of jewelry. ICK. I ended up returning it and the day I did felt like 1,000,000 lbs of weight was removed from me. 0 actual lbs, sadly.
I’ll probably come up with more as the year goes on. I hope I also get to spend more quality time with you all. So far, one of the best things I’m finding is how willing you all are to help me out. I appreciate that.
ITEM THE THIRD:
PROVING LOVE ON NON-ELON PLATFORMS. My friend and yours, Dr. Chuck Tingle, is on Tumblr and it is amazing. Fun fact for old nerds like me, you can turn any Tumblr into an RSS feed by adding /rss to the URL. OPEN DEMOCRATIZED STANDARDS FOR THE WIN.
As always, Chuck is amazing and handing out good advice, touching upon things in this very newsletter. A few things I would like to share:
In response to someone asking about how to be better at loving yourself, he writes:
sure bud. there is lots to say about self love.
i think buckaroos hear words of ‘love is real’ and ‘prove love’ and SOMETIMES they think chuck is saying ‘do anything for love always turn the other cheek always give your share away to others’ but that is not my trot at all. there are lots of folks with a large audience who do self help preaching this way and there is a time and a place for it, but it is also important to remember you can become TOXICALLY POSITIVE, where you are not really listening anymore you are just plugging ears and saying ‘sunshine days forever’
here is the truth. IT IS OKAY TO BE SAD. IT IS OKAY TO BE ANGRY. IT IS OKAY TO GET UPSET. all of these are part of trotting through this timeline and there is nothing wrong with you if you wake up one day and say ‘proving love is very difficult at the moment’. thats okay bud. IT IS OKAY TO STRUGGLE.
second thing is, as we trot through this timeline, loving as much as possible is important but also BOUNDARIES are important. some buds think proving love means saying yes to everything but often the best way to prove love is by putting your foot down and saying NO. if you have set a boundary about something, do not feel guilty for saying ‘this is my boundary and you have crossed it so no thanks’ because HERE IS THE TRUE WAY OF THE BUCKAROO…
SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO PROVE LOVE TO YOURSELF.
it is okay to say ‘this is my time and my space and i would like to prove love to you but ALSO i need to take care of my own trot, so that is my priority right now’.
so next to you feel like a bud is taking advantage look down at your LINE IN THE SAND and consider if it has been crossed. if it has, then you can proudly say ‘right now you need to step back bud because im proving love to MYSELF.’
On the struggle between art and the terrible artists:
art is not static
big takeaway from ‘cant separate art from artist’ talk is that some buds have VERY hard time recognizing art is not static and its meaning changes over time. they sarcastically ask ‘so if you find out someone is bad their art somehow gets worse?’ UH YEAH BUD THAT IS EXACTLY IT
seen things like: ‘okay you listen to song and AT FIRST you love it then you learn its by charlie manson you cant just suddenly say now its bad’ as if this is gotcha moment. i assure you bud i absolutely CAN suddenly say its bad now thats literally how artistic experience works
BUD WITH EYEROLL: ‘so you are saying art changes based on what you know or dont know about who made it like some objective constantly evolving thing just because of how it makes you feel?’ CHUCK: ‘yes now you are just describing art now over and over again as if you are making a point’
and the follow up is just as good.
My new favorite tumblr!
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark “ok to print”):
I got one BIG TIME letter in response to our group work on fear:
Dear Lifestyle Newsletter,
When you originally asked us about our fears, I had hoped that during this follow up, I could report all the ways in which I kicked fear’s ass, and how I’ll never be afraid again! (For anyone who’s watched or read Locke and Key, the storyline for Kinsey and how she dealt with her fear really resonated with me. I had hoped I’d be either banishing my fear or kicking it’s ass and graciously allowing it to be in my life for things I should actually be afraid of, like killers or rabid animals or dolls.) Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I was raised by parents who live in fear, and it’s been something I learned at a young age and have carried with me throughout my life. Shedding all those years of training is proving to be very difficult. And while it makes sense that it would take awhile to unlearn, it’s also really frustrating.
There are moments when I am able to stand tall and push forward, even though everything inside me is shaking and my instinct tells me that it’s better to turn around and run away as fast as I can. But then there are moments where I am tired of fighting, and I just want to crawl back into bed and hide under the covers. I think this is going to be a slow progression for me, but I hope that my fear line is trending up. I want to say that it is, but I think it’s hard to see when you’re on the inside and dealing with it. And since I don’t document all of my fear wins and loses, I don’t have hard data to rely on. But I’m going to continue to keep up the fight, and I hope that some day I can say that fear is my bitch (but please keep that doll locked in the other room and out of my sight)!
Good call on the Locke and Key thing. I wish it was as easy as literally beating or removing terrible things from our head, I sure know I would like to forget a few things. However, the real victory is not that simple, we have to figure out how to live with these things as hard as it is. Fuck, it’s taken me 4 years just to get the will to fight, but I am. I see you. I see you and recognize how hard you are fighting. You can do it.
GRATITUDES:
About 12 years ago, the first year Melonie and I got into board gaming, we stopped at a few local stores. Tower Games was one of them. While it was not the worst place, it was not pleasant. It was dark, full of loud teenage boys, gross furniture and the staff basically ignored us and gave Melonie a look for violating the guys only code. We decided to not go back. Eventually, I fell into a group that met there, so I ended up going back. I went for them, not for the store. A few years ago, the owners sold the store to my friend Bob and FUCK DID HE TURN IT AROUND. They got a new location, upgraded the furniture (serious, they have a very nice game room), modernized the retail space, hired friendly and welcoming people and it is unrecognizable from the old Tower Games.
That is just one of the amazing parts of Bob.
I also play A LOT of games with Bob. He is #4 on my list of highest amount of games played with and will be #2 very soon. I don’t think I could do that with just anyone. I love our conversations and I think we are both playing games for fun and companionship, not to prove anything or participate in a 20 minute post game discussion about some stupid nuance or strategy. I love teaching Bob a new game, watching him fail the first few times and then watch his score rise as he puts it together and then crushes me. I’m still 0-2 in Amun-Re with him.
Bob is an inspiration to me as well. He was working a job that he lost his passion for and took a leap that turned out amazing. Something I would never do, as evidenced by the last 10 years of my life. He surrounds himself with great people and doesn’t believe in luck, because we both know it is dumb non-sense.
To the owner of 2 TIME AWARD WINNING GAME STORE Tower Games and soon to be #2 ranked player of games with me (by quantity), Bob, I salute you.
MANDATORY FUN BUCKS MANDATORY UPDATE:
January was a fun month.
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I bought a heated foot bath. Every Sunday, after I shower I grab my Kobo reader and have TOOTSIE TIME. I even bought some scented salts to go with it. I feel like a king after 15 mins in this thing.
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We refurbed our home gym. Moved some furniture around, got a new TV and made a bunch of QoL changes (remote lights, remote switch for fans, towel racks, flooring, etc.). This came from our work on Ramit’s money journal where we just pitched ideas and didn’t worry about the cost or ROI. We ended up spending about $350 (including TV) and it is a huge change and we doubled our usable space.
FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EYEHOLES THIS WEEK:
Part 325 of our on-going series about deep fakes is this amazing mix-up of Seinfeld and Pulp Fiction:
video, click to watch
THIS IS THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER
THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR THE LOVE AND SUPPORT.
THIS YEAR IS MINE, BUT I WILL SHARE IT WITH YOU.
TIME TO PROVE THAT SELF-LOVE.
THAT IS ALL.