LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 6 No. 7
Nick’s LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 6 No. 7
THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION
Hello again everyone. It's been a few weeks. Weeks where I had to drive a Chevy Trax (just don't, it's a real piece of shit). Weeks of reading while enjoying the ending of summer. Weeks of getting those last few bike rides in. Weeks of watching grief. Weeks of disappointing new music. A day of plotting the big 2024 LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER PROJECT. STOP. BULLET TIME.
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Cat science is obviously the BEST SCIENCE - We now know how cats purr—why they purr is still up for debate
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Irony died in the early 2010's... Republican candidate for Missouri governor vows to burn books after viral flamethrower video
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As alluded to in the intro, my prized wind powered super car, THE SHOCKMASTER, received a completely new battery. I was starting the car outside of Tower on a Monday and got an error message about the battery, it reduced the drive power, disabled HVAC and wouldn't charge. I plugged in my OBD plug, got the code, searched for it and read about the impending death. Dealing with Chevy is not fun, but everything about the car is and once it got to the right person, it was a good experience. I'm back baby, and with a brand new battery!
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Plowed through LIFESTYLE'S TOP 5 NEWSLETTER WRITER Heather Cox Richardson's book, Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. It was a very quick but important read about the history of race and politics in America. Give a good history lesson on how Trump was not a surprise, but the outcome of years of grooming and reaction to history. Nothing too in-depth, but points you to the resources if you want to dig deeper. Overall, I'm sad.
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It will be a TOUGH AWARDS SEASON as two of my favorite authors released books this year, but FRIEND OF THE LIFESTYLE Chuck Tingle's new book, Bury Your Gays, is up for preorder. After Camp Damascus, I could not hit the order button fast enough.
ITEM THE FIRST:
MY SUPER POWER STILL FAILS US.
In an exchange of playing solo games with buds, my Co-President Eli, offered up a game that I could be his Co-Endurer. As we all know ENDURANCE IS MY SUPER POWER. I'd rather be able to fly, but those were the cards I was dealt.
Endurance is a game based on Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition in Antartica. What a journey. The game doesn't really have a win or loss condition. Everyone will likely die but maybe some people will be rescued. Much like Mr. President (see Vol. 6 No. 5), this is less a game than an experience, but for simplicity I will refer to it as a game.
It is a game where you are under constant assault from the elements, starvation and survival. The way it abstracts these concepts is interesting and combines several board game mechanisms like dice allocation and event cards. At every card draw you are generally deciding what (or who) you will sacrifice. It cleverly breaks the game into 5 chronological sections, from the sinking of the Endurance to the rescue. You will likely make it through the first few sections, but the difficulty ramps up significantly the further you get. It is rare to feel the tension and sense of sacrifice in a game, much less every turn like you do here.
Playing it as a Co-Endurer was the best. Not only did it simulate some of the discussion they likely had, but it helped break up some of the emotional impact of sending people, dogs or cats to their death. We sacrificed a lot for Mrs. Chippy, the cat.
One thing I really enjoyed is that all the pictures on the cards are all from Frank Hurley, who was the official photographer on the voyage. It is amazing that they survived. Not sure how an iPhone would hold up in a similar environment...
I'm not sure if I would play it again, but very happy that I got to experience it.
ITEM THE SECOND:
SHARE LIKE YOU'RE ON NAPSTER/LIMEWIRE/HOTLINE/BITTORRENT
As I've done a few times in life now, I'm listening to all of my music chronologically. (Partially because of the great iTunes/Apple Music debacle of 2021 (as documented in Vol. 4 No. 4)). It's taken me over 2 years to get up to the 2000's. I have more than 30k tracks and a lot of 70's & 80's Japanese music, so it took awhile.
Anyways, one of my favorite on the go playlists is my Top 100 songs of the 2010's that I created in May of 2020 and is SCIENTIFICALLY THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BEST SONGS OF 2010-2019 (see Vol. 3 No 4). I put it on shuffle a lot of times I just need a solid 7 hours of music. As I'm currently going through the 2000's, I'm going to make another one for that decade. I'll be pouring over Pitchfork, NME, Billboard, Mojo and other publications over the next year as I work through the 2000's to see if I'm missing anything from my collection.
Here is where I would love some feedback from my super smart readers...What are your favorite songs released between 2000-2009? Send over your suggestions and I'll add them into the giant queue if I don't have them already. AND YES, I FINALLY LIKE RADIOHEAD SO THEY WILL MAKE AN APPEARANCE.
Related: SO, YOU’VE DECIDED TO START LISTENING TO RADIOHEAD IN YOUR MID-THIRTIES
ITEM THE THIRD:
THE HORIZON OF HYRULE
You may have heard about a little game called The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom that came out in May. Much like the first one, it consumed our life. Melonie and I tag-team the game and spend a lot of our time playing it. Do we play it like normal people? NO. Because we DON'T FUCK AROUND with Zelda games. THE TALLY OF ACCOMPLISHMENT:
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Found all 900 Korok Seeds
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Found all 700 Named Locations
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Found all 194 Caves and (SPOILER)
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Completed all 152 Shrines
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Found all 120 (SPOILER)
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Explored all 58 Wells
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Found all 35 (SPOILER) Entrances
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Found all 35 Towns, Settlements, and Stables
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Found all 43 Specialty Shops
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Found all 30 Device Dispensers
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Found all 15 Skyview Towers
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Found all 14 Forge/Weapon Constructs and Refineries
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Found all 12 Tears of the Dragon
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Found all 12 Ancient Tablets
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Found 5 Great Fairy Fountains
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Helped build all 81 Addison Signs
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Completed all 139 Side Quests
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Completed all 60 Side Adventures
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Completed all 23 Main Quests
Needless to say, we got our $70 worth. I've been playing video games for 35 years now and I've never played anything close to how incredible this is. The second game I got for my NES on that fateful Christmas of 1987 was The Legend of Zelda. This game, like Breath of the Wild before it, is basically how Zelda looked in my mind when I was a kid. The amount of polish and creativity that went into Tears is incredible. Link is able to construct things from parts around the environment and you can basically solve most puzzles in infinite ways. Need to get to the top of a tower... Climb the tower? Build a fan powered plane to fly to the top? Stack 10 springs and boost up to the top? It is a "sandbox game" in the most true sense.
Zelda: TotK encompasses a genre of games called "open world games" where in theory you can do things at your own pace in the world. In practice, a lot of times these things are gated in ways. Maybe the item you need is surrounded by super hard enemies or the location is inaccessible for some reason, etc. Not here. There is a starting island, but once you are off that you can basically do whatever you want, including going straight to the end boss. The game is in the experience and the journey. We ran into so many people needing help. I don't want to spoil anything, but we did a lot of helping our friend Addison put up signs for his boss.
To contrast that, the other game both of us have been waiting for is the complete version of Horizon: Forbidden West. We've been waiting for 2 years for this to come out and hmmmm.
It is a similar open world game, but it has been ROUGH playing it after Zelda. The protagonist in Zelda is silent. Aloy, the main character in HFW, is constantly chattering about things and is basically a moody teenager living out "I don't need you, only I can do it by myself." That was her MO in the first game, but I would think she would have grown in the time since and saw the power of friendship as everyone helped her in the finale of the last game.
Whereas Zelda puzzles are so non-linear and have infinite solutions, the ones in HFW appear to, but are very much on rails. You need to find this specific point, or jump at this specific place, or kill a monster in a specific way. I've had several quests that I've needed to almost restart for the game to recognize I've completed it. I've fallen through the world, heard dialog repeated, sound loops that don't stop until saves, etc. It's been jarring to go from the bug-free polish of Zelda to HFW.
The combat is much more rewarding and complex and the story is filled with twists and turns. The cutscenes are cinematic quality and MY LAWD does it look beautiful. Compare the Zelda screenshot from above to this:
I'm still having fun helping people in the world (I just revitalized Las Vegas for a pack of entertainers!) but it's not Zelda fun. It's very prescriptive and scripted. They do their best to hide the rails, but if you look closely you see it. It's not that HFW is a bad game, far from it. It is typical of most big games today, it just illustrates how much above the mark Zelda and Nintendo hit.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark "ok to print"):
None. I miss your correspondence.
WEATHER CORNER: It's getting cold.
MANDATORY FUN BUCKS MANDATORY UPDATE:
October:
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Spent $20 on maintaining our FULL BAR STATUS for Halloween. Of 36 bars, we have 20 left. I need to give up on the kids of today.
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When trying to figure out how to spend money to enrich someone else, I decided I would look at Kickstarter and I found this tea farm in Japan! Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms: Community, Event, and Cafe Space. I put in $60 and maybe someday I'll get to visit it!
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I spent $15 on a new nose hair trimmer. NOT BECAUSE I NEEDED ONE. My old one uses batteries and is fine. This one has a lithium battery and goes at twice the speed! FEEL THE FEAR NOSE HAIRS.
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Melonie and I came up with a design aesthetic for the Kristin Trautman Music Conservatory/Phoenix Lounge. We decided to make it like a teenage bedroom. I still have some of my posters from my high school years and we bought some more ($50). Instead of strings of Christmas lights or black light bulbs, we have fancy LEDs. No bed for now, just a couch and a much bigger TV. All that is missing is that tension of trying to have sex as quiet as possible so your parents don't hear.
FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EYEHOLES THIS WEEK:
Finally watched the Barbie movie and I loved it. I'm shocked that Mattel approved it and they spent so much money on a movie about smashing the patriarchy. Between Moxie, Bottoms and Barbie, it's been a good few years for funny feminist movies, in contrast with real life which has been the polar opposite.
Of course, Internet Cat/Film Star OwlKitty got into Barbie as well...
THIS IS THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER
IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.
WHERE WE SPEND MORE TIME WE PEOPLE WE ENJOY AND LET EVERYONE KNOW THAT WE CARE.
BECAUSE THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE WE LOST THIS YEAR AND CAN'T SAY IT TO ANYMORE AND THAT SUCKS.
THAT IS ALL.