Videogame diary and links for September 16, 2024
Five nights ago before bed, I played Alien for Atari Lynx, a 10-year-old homebrew port of the 1984 computer game. It got me thinking about Aliens Roguelike; I’d really like to play it again! But I couldn’t get the Mac version started on my MacBook, or the Linux versions started on my Steam Deck. Not even the Windows version would launch in Proton or Wine! God (or Weyland-Yutani) doesn’t want me to play it, I guess, but if you have a Windows machine sitting near you, it is a pretty freaky game.
Speaking of pretty freaky, Frontiers of the Mind (Windows only, for now) launched up just fine on my Steam Deck. I’m super into multimedia/Macromedia slideshow edutainment from the 1990s, so this presentation style was right up my alley. I toyed with the cursed software for a long time before looking up the British TV show “Knightmare” (video link), and how can this even be real. I left the show playing on my iPad Thursday and, as I was typing this sentence, I glanced up to see a child standing inside an animated undulating meat room (s1e4). Anyway, there’s some secret Easter Egg material in the game; Ted found the first two, while I have found nothing.
Over the weekend I played Darklands until I hit a weird copy-protection snag, and then I moved on to Dark Heart of Uukrul. Both RPGs had the exact vibes I was looking for at that moment—you know, just, like, more mysterious fantastical things to click on.
I got Ted a lavender Game Boy Micro, which is beautiful and lustrous, and we set up the Everdrive Mini together. It’s a great lil flash cart. I used to use an EZ Flash cartridge with my Micro, but it drained the battery worryingly fast, so I cannot recommend. I really love my own Micro; I've been lugging mine around (off and on) in the same Pelican case since 2005. And I am back to carrying it around again since, for the past six months, I’ve been trying to not even look at my iPhone.
more snaps here
On Friday the 13th K and I visited the Velaslavasay Panorama, which was an absolute inspiration and also seemed very haunted to me, and then we went to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which felt like neither of those things. (I could write miles on what I disliked about it; the movie shares Betelgeuse’s seeming obsession with who plans to get married to whom, like a whacked-out Jane Austen novel.) Later, N, K, and I watched I Saw the TV Glow, which was haunting and inspirational and I want to rewatch it again (and again—I should have bought it but, instead, made the mistake of renting).
On Saturday I watched Halloween (2018) for the first time. It’s good! Did you know Danny McBride co-wrote this? You can tell on lines like “You don’t have to cry about it!” No, the teen actor doesn’t actually sound like Kenny Powers when he says this, but Kenny Powers for sure haunts this hardworking sequel.
On Sunday J took me to Smorgasburg. I was glad I’ve already tried Chimmelier; if I hadn’t, it would’ve been all I ate on Sunday. So I stayed away from Chimmelier, and we had the best nachos of our lives from Cena Vegan. I gushed “it looks like a nacho banana split!” when I saw the nacho boat. Later I still could not shut up about the nachos, which I thought were luxe. “Three perfect scoops of guacamole on top! Really? For little ol’ me? Guacamole is expensive! A fresh, ripe avocado? They usually have to travel...” This made my friend laugh, and they explained that I’d stumbled into matching the cadence and intonation of Jessica Wild’s viral moment (video link). I now feel very emotionally connected to a beloved star.
I’ve been writing the quick descriptions for Ted’s Tarot deck, and one card that brought me to a screeching halt early on was The Hierophant. I once attended an entire daylong workshop for this one card. For now I’ve written that the card “represents the traditions or conventions in which you were immersed as a youngster, back when conformity was necessary for your survival. This card invites you to honor the parts that were useful and to leave the rest behind.” I put this short description into “placeholder text.” But then I thought I actually liked it, so I moved it into “final version.” But then I was less certain, so I moved it back into drafts/placeholders.
I am really at odds with this card. How much do I want to hype up conformism? Someone-I-know constantly forms their own communities, and then self-isolates or moves on because they still haven’t found their perfect-fit family, and I am trying to think of what the Hierophant should say to that person. “The Hierophant makes figuring out who you are very confusing down the road”??
Something I keep thinking about is how frequently people have tried to recreate the vibe of the titular Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon series of books. I think the Legend game probably gets the environment right—it’s supposed to be an Irish-American pub, right?—but it’s been rebuilt over and over: as an old-school Second Life community, as a telnet channel…. People really congregate over the concept of “place” and “community,” even (or especially) online. I’m terrified of groups of people, but I do like being slumped near them. I’m still working out what “community” means for me, why I’m so scared of being in them, and how I can contribute to them without… contributing to them. Hmm, I’ll bring this up with my therapist.
Here are some other things:
Too many loners, not enough joiners ⋆ Oh.
Quantifying the Debate ⋆ The “They.”
‘Right to Repair for Your Body’: The Rise of DIY, Pirated Medicine ⋆ Contemporary witches.
Lenox’s Iconic Spice Village Is Back—At Its Original 1989 Prices ⋆ Capitalizing on the zillennial enthusiasm for affordable domestic whimsy and cottagecore, dishware manufacturer Lenox has notably brought back its ceramic “spice village.”
Voidblazers ⋆ Nick here says that the Playdate shmup was “worth the wait,” and I’m gaga for Galaga/Galaxian/Gun-Nac/Tyrian, so this will probably be the next game I check out.
“It’s a Cult, and Walt’s the Messiah”: Meet the Couple Who Sued Disney Over Secretive Club 33 ⋆ You don’t have to feel bad for the Disney superfans who got unceremoniously expelled from Club 33; we can all be thankful, though, that they’re talking about it! (Tom Hanks did not respond to a request for comment.)