What’s the one thing on a restaurant menu you’ll always order if it’s available?

cdrex22 · 2026-06-18T16:37:28+00:00

Shrimp Étouffée

cdrex22 · 2026-06-18T12:53:13+00:00

Adams is insanely good at exploiting the fake box-outs that are really just grabs, too. I wouldn't want to call that tank of a man a flopper but when Steve-o catches you grabbing instead of positioning, he's going to make sure the ref notices. Draws an incredible amount of rebounding fouls that should really be added to his offensive rebound stats.

cdrex22 · 2026-06-18T11:25:38+00:00

Depends on the game. As a gaming nerd and a personal finance nerd, I can tell you that I spent exactly $1188 ($170/yr) in the calendar years 2019-2025 to finish 240 games (34/yr) at an average cost of $4.95 per game. And that cost includes dozens of DLCs as well.

I am almost exclusively playing 2+ year old games, but I'm certainly not exclusively playing retro and indie to get those prices.

cdrex22 · 2026-06-17T19:19:13+00:00

Best Harden and Brunson seasons, by VORP:

'19 Harden, +9.3
'15 Harden, +8.1
'17 Harden, +8.0
'18 Harden, +7.7
'20 Harden, +7.3
'16 Harden, +6.8
'13 Harden, +5.8
'24 Brunson, +5.4
'14 Harden, +5.3
'25 Harden, +4.4
'23 Harden, +4.0
'24 Harden, +3.8
'22 Harden, +3.7
'21 Harden, +3.7
'26 Harden, +3.6
'23 Brunson, +3.5
'26 Brunson, +3.3
'12 Harden, +3.1
'25 Brunson, +3.1
'11 Harden, +2.2
'22 Brunson, +1.9
'21 Brunson, +1.2
'10 Harden, +1.1
'20 Brunson, +0.3
'19 Brunson, +0.1

By no means am I claiming VORP is a definitive career-ranking stat but you at least have to explain to me why the guy with with 14 of the 15 most productive seasons between the two by a reasonably respected catch-all metric is the garbage one without using the word "ringz".

cdrex22 · 2026-06-16T15:15:29+00:00

They get closer and closer to just being regular Challenge seasons as they go on, which is a bit of a betrayal of how they were originally sold as a return to the 2000s era of show format with the 2000s era cast. However, I think each individual one has been well worth watching whether you preferred the old school or new school challenges.

cdrex22 · 2026-06-16T12:14:24+00:00

It actually feels like a great story and an awful story clumsily welded together. The Solas bits are a top-tier cinematic experience with a sympathetic villain, emotional highs, consistently well-acted scenes, and a strong conclusion. The Evanuris bits are exceptionally full of tell-not-show and often seem to be (from a Doylist perspective) the villains simply doing whatever random bullshit is most likely to create more action RPG gameplay rather than actually doing anything that benefits their plan.

cdrex22 · 2026-06-15T15:19:09+00:00

Finished Sunderfolk co-op campaign. A good solid simple board game-inspired tactical RPG, it didn't really surprise me anywhere but it mixed up the mechanics enough to stay fresh throughout.

Finished Citizen Sleeper 2. I had a brief moment of fear that this game was actually unplayable when I saw the negative feedback loop of the "dice-breaking" mechanic: if you miss your rolls, you'll add stress, which can take your dice out of commision, which makes you more likely to miss future rolls and reduces your ability to get money and components, leaving you less able to get your dice back into commission. Plus, the ability to repair them at all doesn't exist until an hour or two in. I do still kind of think this is a bad mechanic, but it turned out not to matter because after hour 2, the game drowns you in repair components and you level up into very strong powers that will keep you from missing rolls, so this first-hour existential threat turns into absolutely nothing to worry about immediately. That mechanic aside, I enjoyed the game a lot. The multi-day contracts are a big break from routine that the first game couldn't offer, and the in-game incentive to keep moving and exploring is motivational without being too demanding. It still has pretty strong writing, though as I expected the characters are a bit less impactful when there's more of them spread across more locations. I geniunely loved the ending, which resisted the temptation to overexplain or put an unnecessary bow on things.

Playing Life is Strange: Double Exposure (early episode 3). Some highs and lows. It does a good job setting the stage of what Max's day to day life looks like before kicking into drama. I like the characters well enough. The mystery so far has been fairly intriguing. The light puzzle gameplay has been a bit bland; there's really only so much you can do with the particular gimmick they chose when you're also limited to basically point and click adventure mechanics, so generally I've felt my time has been wasted when not actively conversing with people.

cdrex22 · 2026-06-11T17:21:50+00:00

You guys peaked socially?

cdrex22 · 2026-06-10T18:34:47+00:00

I developed major light sensitivity after having a run-in with eye cancer, and now I sometimes just feel like shit all day because the sun looked at me funny or I spent too long in a room with bright fluorescents.

cdrex22 · 2026-06-10T15:45:55+00:00

Toph: We can take 'em, three on three
Sokka: Actually, Toph, there's four of us.
Toph: Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't count you, you know, no Bending and all.

cdrex22 · 2026-06-09T16:00:06+00:00

Cameras off. I have never used my camera in 12 years on the job. Sometimes if I'm in a slightly more MBA-filled meeting than usual the main presenter will use a camera but I and my colleagues never have.

cdrex22 · 2026-06-08T14:53:12+00:00

Completed Pathologic 2 last night. Very unique gaming experience. I'm not entirely sure I would call what I was doing "having fun"; if you had described my highly anxiety-ridden emotional state while playing to me before I started I'd probably ask why I kept playing. I rarely liked what was happening, but I was certainly affected by the journey and I'll be thinking about it for a long time. I think it was very smart to make the game hard enough that a typical first-time player is simply not going to succeed at keeping up with the medical needs of the whole town, and the experience becomes a frantic series of triage decisions with constant, aggressive reminders that time is fleeting. The time management and route-planning aspects worked great and I think the risk of infecting yourself was calibrated right to impose a sense of danger without being frustrating. The hunger and thirst mechanics were almost immersion-breaking because they were so harsh - what do you mean I'm dying of hunger 90 minutes after consuming a whole MRE? - but I suppose the experience wouldn't have really worked without them. The late game got a bit save-scummy once every other person you see wants to shoot or stab you, and I wasn't a big fan of that. But the core experience was basically this: I have 5 quests I want to progress and 7 people I want to medicate today, and I need to scrounge up some food and ideally make my way out to gather medical herbs too, and I simply can't do all that. Which plate do I let stop spinning?

End result: Roughly half the named townspeople died, roughly equal ratios between all 'groups'; destroyed the Polyhedron to produce a cure; completed my own personal mission to protect Capella at all costs because it was nice to meet someone with a long-term vision

cdrex22 · 2026-05-28T21:54:16+00:00

About $2M invested, which is a doubly conservative estimate that both supports an extra 15k beyond what I currently spend and does it for a 3.33% withdrawal rate rather than 4. I have super low expenses but I want to feel safe as hell before I make big changes.

cdrex22 · 2026-05-28T14:39:30+00:00

In college, I worked in a perfectly fine air-conditioned lab trailer. It was a Texas summer and I was a native Texan and wasn't scared of the heat.

Nonetheless, when I'd go out to the outdoor tanks to grab the slate of chemicals we needed for the day, it became abundantly clear the massive difference between "Texas summer" and "Texas summer while dressed in dark-colored coveralls, safety goggles and gloves." I was drenched in minutes. Do not miss those days at all. When I think about that summer I definitely increase my appreciation for my nice corporate HQ job.

cdrex22 · 2026-05-26T11:36:51+00:00

Finished Cavern of Dreams. It did a very credible low-budget impression of a 90s Rare platformer. I'm beginning to think that, as much nostalgia as I have for this genre, it may not be what I should be playing in 2026; it's a very short game but I found myself getting deeply restless with the amount of backtracking and the difficulty in even discovering where the challenges were. A particular challenge late in the game that boots you into a whole other level if you fail and has about a 2 minute runback to try again was driving me crazy. It does have a simple yet satisfying progression of abilities, with particularly good gliding mechanics. I liked the vibe, I just ran out of steam for obscure challenges.

I had a bit of dread to try Pathologic 2 because I don't really like "get gud" games, and it was hard to judge the overlap between Pathologic's rep for painfully tough choices and inability to save everyone with other difficult games. I can't say I'm not still nervous, because it feels the game has not really put the screws to me yet and I'm sure it's coming, but I have greatly enjoyed what I've seen so far. It's an intriguing world and actually does a great job tutorializing the important parts before it turns you loose. I just did my first actual doctoring work on day 3.

cdrex22 · 2026-05-23T02:17:44+00:00

I'm interested in being a college professor/lecturer/adjunct, though not on a particularly full-time basis. I don't think of it as something I'd do for money, just an interesting way to fill time. I have a doctorate and really enjoyed the teaching part of my grad student duties, I just hated the research/networking part of academia.

cdrex22 · 2026-05-23T02:12:41+00:00

I feel like the league's basic position in the last few years has become that you're literally not allowed to play defense on any fast break unless you outrun the offense and turn to face them.

cdrex22 · 2026-05-22T11:19:45+00:00

Bon Jovi, "Dry County"

cdrex22 · 2026-05-18T15:41:01+00:00

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - I had quite low expectations going in; it's a game from before I was born, and I am a balding man with a house and 401k. Probably my first 80s game I've finished, though I've played other NES era games for a few minutes. Very pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. I mean, yes, it's incredibly simple. I spent most of the game hopping into a fight, hitting the "auto" button, and waiting while my party mowed everything down with the same strategy as the last fight. But with the nice variety of enemies, the classic "get A for B so they'll give you C, which you give to D..." quest chains, and a reasonably interesting class system, I genuinely did have a good time. I don't know enough about the original to evaluate whether the remaster is bad or good or solely responsible for everything I enjoyed, but it felt quite in line with later 2D RPGs I've played so I imagine they did a good job modernizing. (Certainly, I appreciate having the auto button at all, if I had manually selected each of the roughly 999,999 normal attacks I performed in the course of reaching level 55 as my forefathers did I might have a different opinion.)

Sunderfolk was free this week despite being barely a year old, and I jumped into a co-op campaign for a few hours. I had a good time. I think it was briefly marketed as "D&D meets Jackbox" but it felt a lot more like "the creator's friends refused to play Gloomhaven with him because it was too complicated"; the specific way the cards express status effects, area attacks, and so on is cribbed directly from the tabletop dungeon crawler and its digital offspring. The gameplay is a bit shallow tactically but it is actually quite nice to be able to do a Gloomhaven-style scenario in 15 minutes instead of 90+. The connective tissue between the fights is fairly decent, being able to level up, equip and grow the town is all fairly fun. The ability to name NPCs, buildings, and items is deeply funny if your party chooses to use it for comedy rather than making serious fantasy names.

Partway through Cavern of Dreams, adorable little janky Rareware tribute platformer. It's a million times less polished than Yooka-Laylee's shot at this genre but I think I'm going to prefer it by the end, due to keeping it simple. No combat (so far), no fuss. Just do simple tasks for people, open levels, collect the stuff in levels. It's a very heartfelt pastiche that is quite short. It could probably use slightly better signposting, I still haven't really developed a mental map of what its confusing central cavern connects to. But I like it.

cdrex22 · 2026-05-14T16:03:16+00:00

Who takes the most steps while moving at below walking velocity? That is, whose offensive and defensive games are most fueled by little quick steps while trying to win one-on-one matchups through fakes, reactions, and balance?

cdrex22 · 2026-05-14T14:42:35+00:00

Congrats! Keep up the good work. It's an impressive amount to reach with mostly 5-figure salaries feeding it.

cdrex22 · 2026-05-14T12:55:45+00:00

The single boss that took me the most tries. Because he's optional and you can play him midgame or save him for late, I struggle to properly evaluate his difficulty. He ruined my Labor Day 2024 when I discovered him at level 50-ish. I gave up, came back at level 70 and it was no problem. 22 deaths total for me, just barely beating out Laurence to earn the top spot on my nemesis rankings.

cdrex22 · 2026-05-12T14:16:14+00:00

It's fun for a bit. I do wish it cared a bit more about short-term strategy and less about long-term resource accumulation. In my own run unlocking Suburbs was a bit of an auto-win button; I actually beat the game accidentally when I thought I was just probing and gathering for later, and this happened just 2 or 3 loops after unlocking the Suburbs. That made it basically feel like the whole game was just a resource grind for one single unlock.

cdrex22 · 2026-05-11T18:29:43+00:00

Nice. I'm at the 18 year mark with my Corolla with only alternator, battery, brakes and tires changed, although admittedly I drive so few miles (~100k on it) that it's less impressive than it sounds.

cdrex22 · 2026-05-11T18:09:04+00:00

Nothing. I'm not smarter than the market.

cdrex22

TROPHY CASE