The past 3-4 months has been a crazy run for new music: Freddie, Tyler, Wet Leg, Turnstile, Clipse, Amine, Ovrkast, & Aesop Rock. The album release cup runneth over. I won’t say that JID’s latest book ends that, because honestly let’s keep it going. But if it did, what a high note to go out on. Like Freddie Gibbs, JID is just going to bring the bars every time. All you need is killer production to match him. A tall order, but God Does Like Ugly manages to pull it off.
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Bonus Eats: Secret Squares & Stock
The biggest threat to us finishing the ABC challenge is us discovering and wanting to try other new restaurants. That was the point of the whole thing, right? So not the worst problem to have.
The once pop-up only pizza offering is now a brick and mortar in Church Hill. You still have to pre-order 24 hours ahead to ensure you can get these Detroit style sourdough pies. It is worth the effort, to answer our crews collective question post meal. The crispy edges, fluffy bites, and combination of tasty toppings all add up to great pizza. If it was closer and easier to get, we might have problem at our house.
Technically we could have used TXTUR as our letter “T” but that would be probably be cheating, as that is name of the furniture store, not the restaurant. We went to shop for furniture and pair it with a cocktail, fell in love with “Kapsalon” (pictured above) and the whole thing turned into dinner. You can turn up to 20% of your meal total into a discount on furniture. So we have a new coffee table and chair now too.
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This Week in Videogames
Skill Up, creator of the fantastic YouTube series TWIV, recently launched a companion site with the same name. This Week in Videogames is a news and review site that is fully fan supported. That means no ads, no SEO headlines, and no AI slop masquerading as writing a human crafted. After almost a month I find myself heading there 1-2 times a week as a new habit.
My history with reading videogame writing and news starts way back with Nintendo Power. Many magazines in between, eventually websites, and the early days of videogame podcast later. That space has evolved, decayed, bloomed, and cycled over and over again. Finding good, entertaining, and informative voices feels harder than ever right now. Ad revenue as a vehicle for writing and other content had the bottom fully fall out. Good writers are losing their jobs and scrambling to figure out what comes next.
New sites like TWIV, smaller projects like Chris Plante’s newsletter, and of course The Besties give me some hope. It is just sadly harder and harder to find now.
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Alfredo 2 – Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist
I’ve never once come away from a Freddie Gibbs album wanting. He makes music that is in conversation with an era of 90’s/early 00’s rap that I came up in. Not weighed down by it, but building on it with his own creativity and vision. Alfredo 2 is his 10th project since 2013 and his 3rd with The Alchemist on production. Throw in features from JID and Larry and it crushes. Smooth bars stacked on smooth beats.
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Grounded 2 – Early Access
After a summer gaming lull, the kids and I were eagerly awaiting Grounded 2. I played the first one sometime between 2020 and 2022 when it went from early access to full release. I went in solo and it was fun, but that lacked the punch of a full co-op run.
A few weeks back the sequel dropped in early access and the three of us jumped in. The novelty of getting honey I shrunk the kids-ed is still incredibly strong. Things are early, but the map feels big and there is lots to do. Riding ants introduces a new level of mobility and makes some of the death runs from the punishing difficulty a little less painful.
The survival and tech tree loop are already there too. There will need to be balance changes and an evolution of the late game, but the foundation they’ve built is solid. There’s a long term roadmap too that is fun to day dream about “what if” and “when”.
Last thought and a warning combined. It is buggy and sometimes buggy as hell. It is the first few weeks of early access so that is to be expected. But we had a few crashes and even more things that just bugged out. From missions, to disappearing mounts, to straight up base functionality just stopping. All of it is worth trying though, especially if you already have Game Pass. Really excited to keep an eye on this as it progresses.
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Don’t Tap The Glass – Tyler, The Creator
I didn’t see a new Tyler album dropping less than a year after 2024’s excellent Chromakopia. Yet another curveball along his musical evolution. A dance music inspired rap record is right up my alley. See everything Amine has been doing since 2020. Lastly, the Clipse and Lebron in the same music video, while Tyler does his best Jamiroquai, is really playing to my old head tendencies.
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Videogame Wilderness: Summer 2025 edition
V Rising v1.1 was the last game to make the best 50 list back in May. Ever since I’ve been playing games, but nothing that sticks to the ribs.
I played a grand total of 2.5 hours of the first game before deciding it was not for me. So how did I get tricked into spending $70 on the sequel? I am over 30 hours played and I can’t quit it. I don’t know that it is good or that I’d recommend it, but it’s hooks are in me. There is something meditative about delivery missions and completing new roads. It’s combat is not great, but it’s story is bonkers, entertaining, and confusing. Highs and lows.
There is a steep bar for me with “clickers” and I’ve never played an auto battler before this. this little ear worm sneaked in via the Besties. I had a fun weekend playing it on the Steam Deck in a hotel room and never went back to it. You play mini games to get high scores, that make the automatic numbers go up, so you can upgrade your abilities in the mini games to get new high scores.
Rocket League, but players not cars. Yes, that is the reverse devolved pitch for Rocket League. This a soccer game by the Sifu development team. It shows in it’s art, fast pace, and hard to master controls. This could be a top 50 pick once it gets cross-play. They seem to be crushing it right now, so hopefully that community sticks around.
I have a teenager who loves a survival crafting game. I am always up for trying a new game with him, but he is the fuel in the engine. Terraria looks bad, and that is not a knock against pixel art, there are better looking pixel art games from the same era. It also has an overwhelming catalog of materials, and simplistic combat that is just wild clicking. Despite those shortcomings it’s progression loop is fun and made even better playing it with my kid.
Open world chill cycling and racing are right up my alley. The cell shaded graphics evoke good times with Jet Set Radio and Wind Waker. So why didn’t this make the cut? The difficultly feels out of tune. The first three hours offered little to no challenge, making the rewards of upgraded bike parts an empty loop. The performance got bad to unplayable as the number of buildings and objects on the screen increased. I run a 4080 and was getting big frame drops in a game that could have run on a Dreamcast in 2000.
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Moisturizer – Wet Leg
Wet Leg was a Mike pick on the podcast way back in 2021. It resonated with me and got caught in my ear for the rest of the year and beyond. Their sophomore album just dropped they’ve caught the same and some new lightning in the bottle all over again. As a bonus they showed up on Tiny Desk the and killed it.
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F1 Arcade Field Trip
Back on Father’s Day weekend I took my second trip up to the F1 Arcade in DC. I now have more solidified opinion on it. The short version is, it’s a good time, not a great time. And that it is a solid companion piece to a night of fun, not a main attraction. To that end:
Trip #1
I went up with two friends the month after it opened for a late night start into an overnight trip. We arrived just in time for our 8pm timeslot. Raced for an hour, at dinner, drank, raced again, drank, and walked back to rental at 1am. The whole evening was spent in the F1 Arcade and it started to wear thin.
Trip #2
The recent trip was two couples in DC for a weekend. We paired it with:
- Cocktails at Quill at the Jefferson
- Late afternoon arcade racing + apps + drinks
- Dinner at The Hamilton
- Tickets for Josh Johnson at the Warner Theatre
The F1 arcade shined as a spot of evening fun, but get your food and drink elsewhere. It is a fun time and worth a trip, but there are a few things that could make the racing part better too:
- A party of four can not race at the same time. You either share three sims or trade off two at a time, not ideal.
- Every race is a time boxed event. You fire off the start line and then whoever is in the highest position when the time runs out wins. A fixed 2-3 lap race would feel more competitive.
- Your group races against AI opponents and that feels like a missed opportunity. Every timeslot starts on time and ends on time. It is efficient and ensures they can keep on schedule. That being the case, you could coordinate it and get 20 people racing at the same time.
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NEVER ENOUGH – Turnstile
Early in 2024 I got the bug to return to the punk and hardcore genre’s of my youth. While on that journey I got recommendations from a like minded crowd that never left. Turnstile came from a soccer parent and shot to the top of my non-rap listening list. Then in June they dropped NEVER ENOUGH and in September I am seeing them live. Can’t wait!
180 Lunches 