180 Lunches

  • Timberborn

    I don’t think this game has any right to knock another off my 50 best of the 2020’s, but boy oh boy does it have it’s hooks in me. Its the rare city simulator that can evoke my teenage nostalgia for 1993’s Sim City 2000. Timberborn does so with a three pronged approach:

    • Liquid physics: This is the novel feature it brings to the genre. Water has volume and flow that can be mastered or failed to feed, power, and grow your town.
    • Beavers! The theme, design, and art just work for me. The tech designs made from natural materials is a rich palette to for the developers to play with.
    • Balance: The learning, progression, and difficulty curves are well refined. Most of the tech tree feels intuitive. Meaning I’m not watching YouTube videos every 5 mins to play it. It leads to a loop where I understand the problem or goal and have the tools I need to creatively solve them.

    That has all led to some late nights in front of my PC. Jumping from one challenge or ambition to another. All credit to the game that can see me crawling into bed at 1 am and working through how I will revamp my power infrastructure for the 30 mins that follow. The answer is diversification and batteries to weather worst case scenarios.

  • Game Changer s8

    I guess when I love a show, I’ll just keep reminding anyone that visits here every time a new season drops. Two episodes of season 8 are out, Dropout is the best use of your streaming dollars, and there are a whole gang of other shows worth watching there too:

  • Cry Baby – Vince Staples

    Vince Staples newest album is a departure from the past decade of music he has released. At least in it’s production and instrumentation. The lyrics and sprit of his style persist at the core, but this is a distinctly new sound and I dig it.

    I loathed the early 2000’s era of music. While Limp Bizkit was topping the charts, I retreated into a backpack rap cocoon. That is not damning of all rap production that strays into other genres, but it does create a high bar for me at least. There have been plenty of albums that easily clear it though, notably:

    Cry Baby fits nicely with these high jumpers and I find myself coming back to it over and over again.

  • 26 in 26: Beauvine & Smokestack

    New entries in the 26 restaurants in 2026 challenge this week.

    Beauvine Burger Concept

    “What’s do you want for dinner?” in our house is regularly met by our kids with burgers, pizza, or BBQ. Where we live pizza and BBQ have great options, but burgers are an under served category. Trekking into the city opens up more options and maybe Beauvine should be at the top of that heap now. Tucked into the Main St. + Fan strip of restaurants, they offer up the bare basics to the lesser traveled artisanal path. All of it was great and pairs well with the duck fat fries.

    Smokestack Pizza

    The order stand outs at Smokestack probably go location, activities, and then the food. Seated next to the canal walk, at the foot of downtown Richmond, and in view of some great murals is really hard to beat. We are a pickleball family, but appreciate and will likely go back to try out Padel. Finally the food and drink. It was just OK pizza and cold beers, nothing to write off, but not worthy of a return on that alone. That said if we go back to play, the pizza and beer will hit the spot.

  • Desus Pieces

    The wilderness post Desus & Mero has been long and dull. The my world needed their funny and quick takes on the week in news, sports, and general bullshit. Mero hit his stride with Victory Light, but the closer it got to long form talk radio the less potent it became. Desus just started up a new channel and it is a return to form. 20 minutes of Julia and staff tossing him absurd stories from the headlines and him reacting with cutting jokes. Worth a watch every week.

  • Twin Peaks – 36 Years Later

    I got a wild hair to watch the first season of Twin Peaks this Spring. I know it as cultural point of reference or as a heavy influence that has snowballed into countless shows, movies, and videogames. But I don’t actually know anything about the show. I was 9 when it originally aired.

    My short book report is that its a tough watch in 2026. But also I that couldn’t stop watching it. Visually it is a product of its time, but an interesting lens into televisions visual language in the late 80s. Fast paced editing for the shrinking attention span in the 2020’s has ruined my ability to watch some older shows. E.g., Why are we holding camera on that person’s shoe as they get out of a car for so freaking long.

    It takes large story and directorial swings between soap opera, creepy mystery, straight faced weird humor, or even just straight weirdness. I had to ask a few friends if all of that was intentional or just how it was. Basically are they in on it or am I just laughing at occasional bad acting or directing choices. The answer was both, but more that they are in on the joke with intention.

    What all of that does is showcase how many new things Twin Peaks was doing. Mashing up genres. Showing casing legit scary and strange stuff on network television. Inspiring a generation of writers and directors to take what it offered and spin it forward. One easy example is my now deeper appreciation for what Alan Wake 2 (Best of #33) was paying homage to three years ago.

  • Disney Research

    I don’t recall when I became aware of the Disney Research Hub channel, but it was certainly before everyone laughed for a day at Olaf on the Nvidia stage. Prior to that I’d already watched a far more technical video on him on their Hub.

    To what is actually on offer, it is an unassuming set of tech forward videos. Delivered with flat narration and focused on sharing what has been accomplished, but also how. Think short summary of a white paper as a video. There is a lot of focus on machine learning, robotics, and visual computing. All great and generally not over my head in a short format.

  • Best Games: Saros

    Best Games of the 2020’s is back after a bit of a gaming drought this year. While a good, but unfortunately flawed sequel leaves the list.

    Saros(2026) goes on at 41

    Every fourth game I play these days is a rogue like. What sets the good ones apart is a compelling game loop or a narrative doled out in small plates that leave you wanting more. If you are Hades you nail both and make one of the best games in the last 20 years. If you are Saros, you offer up novel combat and I skip your cut scenes.

    The addictive loop Saros offers is a bullet hell in 3D^. You are dodging, parrying, and blocking while a billion beams, orbs, and explosions come at you. All while throwing damage back out. When you full drift with Saros there isn’t a feeling like it. Its like Neo seeing the matrix. Until you block instead of parry the red orbs, break your combo, and mutter a little “dammit” into your living room.

    ^New to me, but not to those that played Returnal the last game from the same developer.

    Toss challenging boss fights into that mix and you get an interesting test to bookend every stage. Death has a low barrier and is a chance to progress your stats and abilities, before going back at it again.

    Finally the story. It is very hard sci-fi, plus time travel, plus psycho thriller. It is all a little too complicated and I didn’t with any of the character or their motivations. The main character wants to save a person he loves and needs to fight aliens to do it? Great, “X to skip” and put me in coach!

    God of War Ragnarök (2022) was a very good sequel, but the game it followed from 2018 was maybe a perfect modernization of the series. 4 years later it tried to eclipse the story and gameplay. It got close, but all it seemed to have in the bag was a lot of “more”, not enough “new”.

  • The Velveteers

    The easy path to discovering new music has become social media. Which sucks, for so many reasons. It is worth finding your own good sources, for many more reasons. But it’s hard to deny when a jam rolls across my algorithm.

    That was the case The Velveteers. A three member rock group from Colorado. A pro skater I follow liked a reel of the song above. I pulled the thread and ended listening to their 2025 album “A Million Knives” on repeat for the past few weeks.

  • North of the Border

    I’ve been in a diorama, mini, and painting rut in 2026. I have a mid-progress project just collecting dust on my hobby bench. Watching YouTube channels dedicated to the craft can often be the spark that breaks the cycle. Credit goes to North of the Border if it is the straw that breaks that camels back this weekend. I’ve been watching his channel on and off for a few years now. But this shark pirate caught me up with just how far along his skills have come.