DAD: Do you think they'll play all Elite Eight NCAA basketball games in one day this weekend?

ME: No. They'll spread them over two days as usual.

DAD: I suppose they want us to be able to watch them all?

ME: Yes, but your viewing pleasure is a secondary concern. The NCAA is primarily interested in maximizing the broadcast window so that they can increase advertising revenue. Sports broadcasting decisions are all about the money.

DAD: You mean to tell me that if they broadcast a meteor falling to earth, the money caused that?

ME: No. That's totally different. No one is paying for meteor strikes.

DAD: So broadcasting decisions are not all about money.

ME (raising voice): No! I mean, meteors are not sports. Those are Two! Different! Subjects!

DAD: Now you're yelling. That's my fault. You don't take it well when I point out when you are wrong.

...

I don't wonder why some children abuse their parents; I wonder why more don't.

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I just spent the last three hours trying to play a video game called Disco Elysium. If you haven't done that, don't.

Mechanically, the game is part painfully dull point-and-click roleplaying game, part existentially crushing choose-your-own-adventure visual novel in which your character's health is measured by both physical and mental punishment absorbed. That description makes it sound more fun than it is. In my first attempted playthrough using the game's predefined "Thinker" archetype, my hungover protagonist, a depressed police detective, encountered the decaying corpse he'd been assigned to investigate and promptly quit the force. Game over.

In my second playthrough, I knew to avoid the body and instead questioned some witnesses. There was only one that can be interacted with: a stoned kid throwing rocks at the body. The brat belittled my detective skills, and I lost my will to participate in society. Game over. Gee, this is fun.

Deciding that the game had suckered me into playing a character with starting Morale that was too low ("Thinker" being the default option in the menu), I decided to start over with a customized character. Only, the user interface doesn't really hold your hand through this, and pressing the wrong button twice, I was suddenly starting the game again, going through the same startup dialog with the same shitty Morale as before. I have to give the game credit for making the menus as irritating as the in-game environment. That's commitment!

So I started a fourth time, this time successfully placing all of my available stat points into the two key survival attributes, Psyche and Physique. I also decided to chose only roleplaying dialog options that seemed to be delusionally optimistic. And it worked! When I got to the body, I successfully pushed through the first round of gag-reflex vomiting and was rewarded with a short quest to find some ammonia to mask the decay. But the stench was still overpowering, and I lost Morale. Calling into my precinct, I truthfully reported I was missing my badge, was ridiculed by my squad mates, and lost Morale. In between insults, I discovered I had also lost my gun and lost Morale. Pushing on with the case, I spoke to the person who reported finding the body, who was rude to me, and I committed suicide. Game over. Game deleted.

Seriously, what's the point of something like this? I only played the game because it was A) critically lauded and B) free. But I paid too much. While, yes, this game has a unique artistic vision, that's not enough to declare it a worthwhole (much less recommended) gaming experience. Who are these video game critics whose lives are so amazingly satisfying that they enjoy "playing" fatalistically depressing video games? Life is awful enough without this kind of masochistic shit in it.

Am I ranting because I'm angry? Damn right, I am. If nothing else, I should praise Disco Elysium for making my blood boil at the time I wasted on it, because that red-hot rage against the dying of the light is life-affirming in ways that Disco Elysium is very much not. It needs psychiatric help and deserves my pity, but narcissistic emotional terrorist that it is, it has gone out of its way to make me hate it. I hope it goes and fucks itself.

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19/2589. Vice Squad (1953)
Another day-in-the-life police procedural with hints of Dirty Harry. Edward G. Robinson plays a police captain willing to play a little dirty if it gets a cop killer off the streets. I liked it very much.

20/2590. The Enchanted Cottage (1945)
You know those movies where the girl who is supposed to be "ugly" just has a bad hair cut? Literally this. To be fair, it's supposed to be a fantasy for romantics, which I am not. But c'mon, try a little harder, Hollywood.

21/2591. Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (2023)
This does not get great critical reviews, and I get it. Plenty of people claim to love The Enchanted Cottage, and comedy is extra subjective. But this is funny. It's not after an Oscar. The silliness is the point. And I enjoyed it.

22/2592. The More the Merrier (1943)
I'm usually lukewarm on screwball comedies and romantic farces, and I'm especially tepid on Joel McCrea, but Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn are once again as delightful as they were in The Devil and Miss Jones. It's a winner.

23/2593. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023)
I repeat once again that I am a sucker for coming-of-age stories, especially ones that feel so relatable to my own era, when I read this book. I'd've liked it even without Rachel McAdams. (But I also did like Rachel McAdams.)

More to come.

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Seeing that this blog doubles as my personal diary, I feel I need to make note of the passing of Friend Michael, killed too young by cancer.

Rummaging around my archives for a pic of Mike to commemorate the sad occasion, I found this, taken (probably by James) in the parking lot of Medieval Times in Lawrenceville in June 2013.

Talking comic books and acting like big dorks. Yeah, I think pretty accurately encapsulates our three decade friendship.

Thanks for the good times, Mike.

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Today, while paying a visit to an ailing friend, I crossed paths with former bar trivia teammate Rachel, who I have known casually for many years, and Rachel said, "Whenever I see you, you don't look like you've aged. You look like you have been 35 for 15 years."

Which, I mean, she was lying. I'm bald. creaky, and look like an overfilled water balloon. Rachel was just saying something obsequiously flattering to fill the silence during an otherwise awkward social moment. Hollow and meaningless, it was manners as defense mechanism.

But now I'll take a bullet for that delightful woman.

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