I took Friday off to celebrate the release of Baldur’s Gate 3 on PS5 and played extensively all weekend. Now it’s Monday and I’m sitting in the dark drinking my coffee and trying to ready my mind to go back to work and not play video games all day. While I like my job, I would like another weekend now please.

I wish I was better at conflict, especially with my partner. It gnaws at me constantly if unresolved, gives me horrible anxiety (I’m normally not an anxious person) to the point where I can’t eat or sleep. So, I tend to hold back from conflicts altogether. Not a useful solution. I wish I had better advice to offer but in place of that, please accept my commiseration. Hopefully some time to reflect and cool down will prove useful and perhaps your partner will have fresh ideas for resolution when you readdress it.

Looks absolutely delicious! Did you make the pappardelle? If not, what brand did you use?

My partner and I had fun playing Cat Quest 2 and Spiritfarer as coop games, in addition to It Takes Two which you mentioned. CQ2 is a cute action RPG and Spiritfarer is very chill, lots of sim/management tasks but with really beautiful characters, art, and story. Definitely very unlike Cuphead or Portal 2 but sometimes it’s nice to switch things up a bit.

Option A has a description but options B and C don’t for me.

Look like they might be common mergansers. Sweethearts!

One of my personal favorites. I love how it seems so abstract at first but then on closer examination, you can see the distinctive landscape elements. I find the colors so evocative. So different from his other works (that I’m familiar with, anyway).

Agreed. I bought Beyond Meat patties at Costco because mine was out of Impossible and I was sorely disappointed. Impossible or bust!

But much healthier for the cow, which I think is the reason a lot of folks are interested. Those eating plant-based for health alone are probably more likely to go for a lentil or black bean patty than Beyond/Impossible Meat.

Same! I have chronic neck pain that I’ve been working to address for about 3 years. We have a new mattress and I’ve been through probably 5 sets of pillows in that timeframe to get the perfect set that doesn’t leave me feeling shitty when I wake up. Nonetheless, I get about 6.5 hrs of sleep a night and wake naturally from that without feeling tired during the day. I slept for 8 hours last weekend and felt worse than I have in a long time - back, neck, and shoulder pain and felt more groggy and sluggish than I have in ages. I’m with you!

I’m looking forward to Season 2. Season 1 wasn’t the most incredible story I’ve ever seen, but I found it compelling, visually very appealing, and the story, performances and characters were strong enough that I’m excited to see how things play out. I’ve not read the books, though.

I think there’s so much mediocre TV out there, it often seems like fantasy/scifi is held to a weird standard where it has to be groundbreakingly innovative and earthshatteringly well-done to get people on board. I’d much rather watch the next season of Wheel of Time than NCIS: Duluth or whatever else is getting pumped out by the police procedural-industrial complex (and believe me, I watch plenty of schlock crime dramas too).

Exactly. I consider it basically payola these days. Every big-name review is gushing, falling over itself to expound on the innumerable virtues of every AAA release, and then once normal folks have played for a few weeks, the real story comes out. My partner played the demo and was shocked to be playing the same game as the one that was reviewed. Unless I’m so excited to play a game that I don’t care if it’s mediocre, I wait to buy until actual the real user reviews trickle out post-release.

I’m largely extrinsically motivated. I always have high hopes of 100%-ing games, but I find once all the quests are done, my enthusiasm for going out and wandering and finding the last things drops off precipitously. Even if I’m not following the storyline and have wandered off to explore, I still feel the need for some ultimate promise of more story to come.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as we anglophones say.

Funny because it’s really quite the opposite in most places. You’re legally required not to serve intoxicated patrons. If you overserve people and they go off and kill someone, you could be liable in my state. I think that’s pretty bullshit but it surprises me that folks would argue to the exact opposite. Of course, why should that surprise me?

Oh, The Detectorists has such a special place in my heart. Really a one-of-a-kind show. The comedy is so good and you just love everyone (except Simon & Garfunkel of course). The pacing and the reverence for wild spaces and quiet is so meaningful. I think the casting was impeccable. Now I want to go watch it again!