Our son's counselor called up Brenna a couple days ago to ask how things were going here at home with school out. I think maybe it's supposed to be bad; certainly, we've made those jokes too. There's a lot of horseshit involved with their online platform, something we've been struggling with for years because there's no universal doctrine regarding its use internally. In truth, I have three different websites I have to log into in order to understand what's happening at school. And once I gain access to these haunted-ass Precursor Mausolea, I gotta teach a bunch of complicated shit I forgot twenty years ago. But: Brenna's response was, "Uh, I think this might actually be better for him."

I liked Control a lot - it's the last game before Doom Eternal that I just straight burrowed through essentially every moment I could spare. The only thing that fucked me up about it was that there's a very significant defensive ability that isn't required to complete the story, it looked sorta like a sidequest thing, and I found the whole thing so fascinating that I only stopped and did things like that later on (as sometimes happened) if I got too curious about them from a story perspective.

I only picked up this Sim Racing hobby back in March but I’ve already poured a lot of time and money into it. The last time I fell this hard for a new hobby, it was D&D and that was more than a decade ago. My enthusiasm also appears to be contagious because our racing streams are always packed. If you’ve been wondering what’s going on with all this sim racing and how to get involved, I’ve got you covered. 

Unfortunately, or… I mean, I guess we'll see how it turns out, Mike Krahulik was invited to an iRacing Pro Am event. You have to take that opportunity when it comes to you. That being said, it's in Rallycross, which we don't have supreme experience in, and it is on a track called Hell.

My racing obsession continues to intensify and it seems to be catching. Judging by my twitter feed and the folks I talk to during my streams, Motorsport madness has gripped a lot of you. In fact just last night we had our very first Penny Arcade league race in iRacing and it was an absolute blast! 

The enduring vigor of Minecraft - at once a game, a place, and platform - is something I primarily observe from afar. But I like it out here. I can look in at all the stuff, and I don't have to do anything. It's my favorite place to be. But younger people have notions about their parents' omnipotence, namely that it extends in some way through all fields of endeavor, and Minecraft is a good opportunity to show that your dad is is strong in some places and at some times and in other places is as crisp and fine as a butterfly wing.

Are you getting more emails from your family members about The Beast, and his Mark? Because I am.

I think it might be sort of hard to manufacture the kind of spectacle a console launch seeks to embody if everybody is recording themselves on their phones with their headphones on. I'm not saying it's impossible but I definitely think it is less possible than usual.

I had to tap into our Technomancer Mike Buland in order to understand some advanced Math concepts for my own son's homework, except eventually he had to pass it on to his wife Amy, who has the Math Degree. She… she did it for fun. I asked her about one of the problems on a page, and she did all of them for fun.

I had to tap into our Technomancer Mike Buland in order to understand some advanced Math concepts for my own son's homework, except eventually he had to pass it on to his wife Amy, who has the Math Degree. She… she did it for fun. I asked her about one of the problems on a page, and she did all of them for fun.

There are fully four versions of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and it's crucial to know that the Ultimate version isn't even the most complete one. It's the one right before the Collector's Edition, so, I mean, technically it's the Penultimate Edition but whatever.

Unless it's a literally intractable hardware problem, like a jabbering hub or some shit, I am secretly delighted by a computer problem. Now printers, printers I hate. But anything else, put me in coach.

Fortnite as the candy shell for marketing payloads isn't new. I mean… they weren't uncommon in Club Penguin, even. I'm not trying to say that Fortnite players are no better than the writhing arctic birds you'd scrape off the dance floor at a DJ Cadence show. I'm saying that if you have a place people come to that place is a marketable venue - whether it exists in the physical world or not.

I definitely like racing, though I prefer the more arcade excursions - as an index for your use, I consider Ridge Racer Type 4, Project Gotham Racing, and Rallisport Challenge sorta the high water marks for the kind of racing I like. You'll note these games are quite old. Imagine my torment.

All true! It's all true. But we should keep our wits about us: it's really just an upgrade from "lethargy" to "several seconds, each round, of conscious activity." Even under this dilapidated rubric, I think the delta would still surprise you.

Gabriel and I are both very lucky to have sons we sort of understand. It's possible to get into fights because you're too alike, I don't know if you've ever seen any movies about fathers and sons, but it comes up. In both our cases we had to learn to take the Real World in small doses, like Iocaine Powder, until we had developed enough immunity to live there safely.