I got my very first podium finish last night in iRacing and I did it on stream! I have to share the VOD here. Tycho was even in the chat cheering me on. 

Social Distancing continues in today's strip.

Main cast in Final Fantasy VII Remake has mad polys; seems like it would make them easy to spot in a lineup but it doesn't seem to go that way. Then again, we need to consider the idea that these soldiers know perfectly well that they're looking at dangerous terrorists, it's just that they don't want to get chopped to pieces in three seconds. Because the tutorial is just you sharpening your sword on these goofs over and over, and they provide as much resistance to the blade as a room-temperature Camembert.

I’ve been investing my quarantine time in a couple of new hobbies. Not being able to leave the house makes sinking into a new obsession a real treat! I’ve already talked a bit about sim racing here on the site and my fascination with it has only increased. This is a good sign (or a bad one I guess) that this racing hobby will stick around. I’ve settled into two games that I’m investing my time in. The first is Assetto Corsa Competizione and the second is iRacing. I like ACC for its career mode, special events and incredible car physics. It’s also a beautiful game with a slick UI and a progress tracker that I find helpful in improving. I don’t play multiplayer events in ACC but that’s not because they are not available. I just have not dipped my toe in yet. I play iRacing for multiplayer driving and I love it. They have an incredible selection of official races and practices happening every day like clockwork. The cars feel great and the visuals are solid but that's not the focus here. This is a sim first and that means using a web browser to find races. It all works well enough but there is no question they need to get their beta UI up to speed. 

I haven't purchased Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and I'm not certain I will - I didn't really like the combat in the demo, though Gabriel has suggested there is a mode that might be more to my liking. Obviously it's some landmark shit or whatever but I'm happy to merely observe this spectacle. Really, if you think about it, that's where spectacles excel.

I always warn them! I said as much in the last post - we are dangerous creatures that must be contained within unbroken mystic sigils. And here is the proof!

It's a very good time to have a new obsession. Well, let me rephrase that: it's a very good time to have a new obsession that it's even possible to enjoy. Optimally one you can embroider and revisit completely alone, in the night.

I have to be very curious about something to try and harangue somebody for a code, because it doesn't feel good. Plus, people know they shouldn't give me codes, and that's sort of how it should be all the time. I should be slightly ashamed that I'm asking, and if they think they might send me a code, their pointer should hover with trepidation over the "send" button, their mind clouded with unlikely death scenarios, like in Final Destination.

There's a lot of physicality being ported to these digimal realms lately, something you know if you have to find some new way to work or if you have mewling, molting larvae at home trying to figure out what school means when you have six teachers, no firm guidance, a lot of buzzwords, and school is functionally illegal. Spoiler: it fucking sucks.

We actually had to take a break from Tiger King, for the same reason we had to take a break from fuckin' Love is Blind - the emotional payload of these programs is too fucking high.

I think there might be something to Doom Eternal's Battlemode; I'd like to spend more time finding that out. It's got deathmatch dynamics, pace, and terror, but with weird asymmetries that it seems like wouldn't even work on paper but actually feel kinda right. The ideas are much bigger than some Ritually Appended PvP (details to follow) exercise.  Somebody loved this and it's easy to tell.

I understand the idea of a Midlife Crisis as it is usually imagined, but "an emotional crisis of identity and self-confidence" is what my identity itself is based on. My inner life is a video feed of a video feed of a video feed of a mind fracture extending forward, perpetually devoured and devouring. I am a matryoshka of self-hate. Is that… is that not life?

I genuinely don't know if Animal Crossing could have arrived at a better time. I do have other games, I guess. I'm just about done with Doom Eternal, which I think is about two hours too long. Definitely like it, will purchase the DLC, ready to try the multiplayer, but we've reached the game's humblebrag phase now and it's interminable. I just want to pick up the tab and go home. I bought The Division 2: Warlords of New York before East because I love that game but I haven't been in the mood to play a game about humanity descending into urban fiefdoms as the result of a pandemic. Right? That doesn't sound like a recreational activity at the mo.

I'm up against it now, at the very end of the new Doom, which as things come to a close almost has a kind of bullying energy. Maybe these demons had a chance or whatever before I was carrying an arsenal with me everywhere, now I'm on some Destiny-tier immortal Guardian nonsense and the choice matrix for hell monsters is fucking stark. There are only two choices. And both involve me taking some part of them and putting it inside some other part of them, killing them instantly.

I watched Ford vs. Ferrari on the flight to PAX East and now I have this in my home office. 

Of course, today this powerful technology isn't required - that's why we put the strip out early. Now, you can just play it. But anyone born today won't know what we went through, the strange tunnels of force we traveled. The creatures we saw there and the oaths we were made to swear.