We’ve doubled down on the ABC challenge. Last week we hit our 18th and 19th spots and we have reservations this week for the 20th. Holiday time off work is right around the corner too, it just might be possible.
This Egyptian restaurant in the fan had some great food that reminded me of the meals my Dad makes. The Tagine Beef with Potato that I had could have come right out of his kitchen. The cocktails from the bar were a little flat, but maybe get a beer or whine and enjoy your dish all the same.
BBQ in a tiny house turned restaurant feels like how BBQ should be served. We stopped in for lunch and had solid pulled pork and brisket. The sides (hush puppies and sweet potatoes) were good too. It was beyond cramped though, so maybe go on a nice day and sit outside at the picnic tables? Pop the hatch on an SUV and hang your legs out the trunk?
Best Games of the 2020’s is back with the eighth entry this year, and the only VR game that felt like a triple AAA game (that I’ve played) is off into the sunset.
Sequels can be weird. How much do you stray? How much do you remain the same? How do you meet and even exceed unknowable expectations? Hades 2 is a great game, but built firmly on the house Supergiant already lived in. That “house” is #4 on the Best of list.
Hades 2 quickly evokes everything I loved about the first game. Compelling and quick combat, paired with interesting characters and a story that make “one more run” incredibly addictive. The art was already amazing and it has been stepped up to another level. The surface world and the world below feel like you are getting twice the amount of game and variety for the price of one.
Killer stuff. So what gives, why the mid-table ranking? After over 35 hours played, I still haven’t finished it, and I’ve lost momentum to do so. The story is still strong, but the gameplay loop got tedious. A run to the final boss of the underworld is easy now, almost a 100% guaranteed win. The top side is the same through the first three zones, but the final zone is a big spike in difficulty.
A typical run takes 25-30 mins. For the underworld that is 25 non-challenging minutes to progress 3 minutes of story. For the surface that is 25 minutes of the same loop, to have my butt kicked when I arrive at progression. I’m guessing speed runners have solved this, but for my very average abilities it tipped into not having fun. And then into moving on to other games.
Half-Life: Alyx (2020) drops off the bottom of the list. What a cool execution of a new technology with so much promise. I never finished it though, because of the spins, sweats, and headaches. I don’t think VR is for me.
It is the middle of November and I did a bad job tracking for the October media log. And by “bad job” I mean I didn’t do it. So how about some recent recommendations instead?
Most know him from Weekend Update, but I’d seen a few of his specials before and really enjoyed his sketch show. We saw him live in Charlottesville last month and it was great. His opener, Paris Sashay was hilarious and Che crushed his set.
The rare “scary” movie that gets great critic reviews is my kind of scary movie. This move is wild, strange, and occasionally puts you on the edge of your seat. I’ve linked the trailer above, but I’d actually recommend not watching it. Go in cold, know nothing, and be rewarded with a thrill ride.
A sci-fi heist gone wrong from a local comic artist and writer, Jared Throne. A fun and quick read that primed the pump for starting a Scum & Villainy campaign with friends this month (more on this later).
We are off pace on the ABC challenge. Summer, travel, and returning to a Fall schedule got in the way. But there is nothing to do, but go to more great restaurants. Onward!
On the heels of a once in a lifetime anniversary trip to Spain we were excited to grab tapas in Richmond. Importante was not on par with some of the phenomenal places we went on our trip, but that was a very tall order. What it did deliver was good to great though. All the tapas staples E.g., patatas bravas, tortilla espanola, croquettes, and more.
Is it cheating to go to the sister restaurant of an already great pick in the game? No clue, but Uliveto might just be a nose ahead of Gersi, so who cares. We had a fantastic time on a brisk Saturday night in November at this Mediterranean and Italian fusion spot. We went for the full spread, cocktails, appetizers, entrees, coffee, and dessert. All of it was great and we were stuffed.
This game was touch and go. Not from on a “will it make the list” perspective, but from a “where on the list should it go?” Had I thrown my controller across the room and quit it in Act 1, we might be looking at a low-40’s entry.
Thankfully that was not the case. The learning curve Team Cherry built into this game, may be some combination of intentional design mixed with it’s origins as DLC for the original game in 2017. When the expectation of the player is: “Oh you’ve been baking for a year? Please make my wedding cake” there is room for error. My short time with Hollow Knight taught me to pop a can of biscuits and that’s about it.
Investing in that curve took patience, but Silksong ends up at a mighty #15 because that patience is ultimately rewarded. After 8-ish hours of being abused, wandering around in the woods, and fighting for every drop of progress. It all starts to click. Right around the midway point of Act 1. That could sound like Stockholm syndrome, but the art, world building, and crispy controls not only get you through that early stage, but really come into their own when you are out of it.
I rolled credits on the game, aka end of Act 2, after 33 hours. There is an even more challenging Act 3 that seems like a pain to even start. So I am done for now, but may return one day in the future.
Streets of Rage 4 (2020) gets round housed out of 50th place. It was a blast to play with my youngest and introduce him to an arcade genre I spent so many quarters on as a kid..
The algorithm doesn’t always get it right, but on YouTube it does more often than not for me. Odd Artworks is it’s latest success story. Daily dungeon and goblin drawings are on offer. Quick form, dice rolls for prompts, sketches, and inks. All with some light narration on the approach. The current series is a daily micro dungeon and a new themed goblin every day for October.
This one was a white whale. First on our list alphabetically of course, but also the only letter “A” restaurant we ever considered. We’d heard great recommendations and it is most folk’s guess when we tell them about the ABC challenge. Well it straight up delivered on the hype. Vibe, food, drink. Check, check, and check.
This is surprisingly one the only letter “T” restaurants with good reviews that we hadn’t been to in town. So off we went on a week night to this spot in the heart of the Fan. The food and drink were good, but nothing blew us away. The atmosphere was cold and minimal. Not a bad spot, but not one we’d pick again.
Building on thoughts about social media and modern internet interactions. I’ve been thinking lately about who leaves reviews. I’ll set aside the bot armies that might be thrusting a vacuum cleaner to the top of the Amazon algorithm. I’m talking about the people in your town that are leaving restaurant reviews. Who are these creatures and why do I put so much faith in them when picking out a new restaurant?
Our annual travel for work, fun, and soccer has picked up in the past few years. In that time we’ve arrived at a new rule of thumb when looking for good food. Restaurants 4.5 and above. That may seem like a high bar, but we are batting 1000 when we deploy it. We end up having great experiences and even better food in every city we go to. Here too, a lot of the ABC challenge is driven off of recommendations from friends, but also online reviews.
So that is how we are operating, but that has also lead us to leaving reviews. If we had a good time we’ll drop a 5 star via Google so others might take the wisdom of the crowd and have a good time too.
Mike recently shared a link to an update on developer LocalThunk’s blog and I went digging around the rest of his site. His development timeline from 2021 to 2024 for Balatro is great. A peak into his journey from hobbyist game developer to threading the many needles necessary to make a hit game. Grab a cup of coffee and go read it too, but here are few moments that stood out for me:
I have been making games for about 10 years now and I have been doing visual art projects for much longer, and a very important habit I have developed for creative hobby projects is to stop working on something when I no longer feel the drive. This is for 2 main reasons; first, it allows me to move on to the next idea without totally burning out on the last thing. Second, and more importantly in this case, it allows me to take time off guilt free and possibly come back to the project later on without wrapping it in negative emotions.
None of my hobby’s lead to a passion day job, but I’ve struggled with the self-imposed stress of not progressing projects or getting burnt out and hating them countless times.
My partner was learning to code in R at the time, and she asked me “How do you name your variables?” I went on some rant about casing, using descriptive words, underscores, etc. She waits until I am finished and says “I like to call mine thunk”. I thought that was just about the funniest thing I had ever heard.
The way variables are declared in Lua is (sometimes) with the local keyword, thus local thunk was born! I wouldn’t choose this name for quite a while yet but this is the moment I looked back on when I was finally ready to create a developer handle online.
That’s an excellent naming origin, considering “Samichez” is just me thinking that is a fun way to say and spell sandwiches.
More ratings pour in, and by the time the day is done we are sitting above 90 on both Metacritic and OpenCritic. I wasn’t even thinking that this was a possibility, but it sure did build a ton of hype for launch day. I don’t think I would have rated Balatro higher than an 8 and I made the damn thing.
Him giving one of the best game’s since 2020 an 8 is really telling about how close and self-critical we can get to our own work and comparison to what other humans are making.
I hated to see Son leave Spurs this summer, but it was time. He went out on the highest note, delivering the club it’s first big trophy in 34 years. But seeing him move to LAFC and find joy early warms my heart. He reunited with Lloris too, it’s a great story so far. How long can I hold off on getting a Son jersey? We shall see!
180 Lunches 