Gamers Rising
We can replace billboards with people who wear graphic tees, if we fill them with enough helium
Lights. Camera. Duckstack!
Here’s a brand new immersive reading experience for you: You are juggling knives on a balcony in the desert, and every so often a duckstack gets launched into the air in the distance, skeet shooting style. You throw a knife, which tears into the duckstack, bringing it to the ground, where your pet (animal of your choice) retrieves it, bringing it back to you, its master, for you to read and enjoy, satisfied in the thrill of the hunt.
If you miss, the knife flies all the way around the world and hits you in the back of the head and you die. So you gotta be good
There is a person with a very attractive voice whispering in your ears as you throw, explaining the physics involved in each knife’s trajectory. You can tune this person out with headphones, as is standard rental gear for knife ranges such as this, but, you have to wonder if their explanations are actually helping you, improving your aim on a subconscious and reflexive level, even though you are illiterate in math and can barely understand them other than that the physics involved is complicated. The situation is absolutely glittering with prospects, as you casually hurl a knife over your shoulder, acing the shot and bringing another duckstack down.
A serf brings you a platter with ice lemonade and a fortune cookie on it. You sip the lemonade while fielding a call from your agent, who informs you that you have broken yet another world record, just like the last 43 duckstacks you single handedly brought down, and your contract is being renewed for another two dollars. “Of course,” you comment, taking off your sunglasses with a flair and handing them to the servant. You swipe up the fortune cookie, ripping a chunk out of it with your teeth in one smooth motion, and extract the slip of paper from within. Does it contain caution? Glory? Psychosis? It reads: “Welcome, to The Duckstack.”
HISTORY
A deluge of history never before seen in the history of the duckstack, a veritable Noachic flood of history, in my house, making the carpet soggy
the house flooded a couple more times, no biggie
I wired up a new light in the kitchen ceiling but the problem is I forgot to install a light switch so there’s no way to turn it off except to not pay the power bill for months until they turn our power off, so my plan is to schedule that nightly1
The Littlest one has inherited the Little One’s birthpower of materializing markers, except for him its crayons, to feed to the neighbor’s dog who we are puppy-sitting. This is encouraging, because the Littlest One clearly loves the taste of crayons, so this shows he is developing a strong golden rule compass at an early age.
One cool thing I have found is that you can just put babies in boxes and forget about them2
Here are some things the Little One said this week, in between drowning from this new antiviral medicine the doctor wants us giving him:
“I’m closing my feet! That funny. You're supposed to clap with your hands!”
Mama commented “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck” and he got all excited and said “A fire truck?”
I opened the door to leave the bathroom and my kid was there with a bucket and he said “Trick or Treat!”
(driving) “STOOPPP. YOU CAN GO NOW, BUT BE CAREFUL, BECAUSE THERE’S STOP SIGNS AROUND”
THE DEATH OF ARCADE
DECAY
REPLAY
America used to have a feature called an “Arcade”, which was basically a video game store except instead of buying games you played them, and also the games were 8 feet tall. These arcades used to be everywhere: standalone stores, theatre add-ons, banks, malls, anywhere people might be waiting and wanting to play games, while also having access to coins. There were amazing, incredible games, and bright lights, and bright sounds, and if you haven’t read the rinkworks documentary about pinball, do so now. Arcades are still here today, but they are infected by the same disease that has encompassed all of America and turned all cars into sedans. If you go to a modern arcade, you won’t find any classics, and you’ll be lucky if you can find a driving game with a seat and steering wheel. They’re all gone.
What replaced them, is grabber games, cheap gambling games, and vague reflex light timing wheels played not for glory but “tickets” which if you play for enough hours you can exchange for a tootsie roll. There is no fun in this, you drop a coin in and hope for tickets, you slap a button and hope you timed it well enough to “earn” a bonus ticket, and through it all you feel lifeless, because you can sense in the back of your mind that games were supposed to be fun, once. In fact, and this may be alien to many of the rising generation, the games at arcades were so fun that people would pay for a chance to play them. The games were played for their own sake. But the game loop of the arcade has been gamified- like mobile games, the point is to grind for a reward. And this very strict formula has turned arcades into ghost towns. These neo arcades, gutted and limping along, only find customers in those who really had no choice in being there in the first place, and this is tragic. I weep for our arcades. Won’t somebody think of the arcades? This is why libertarianism is wrong: The sins of the generation poison the cultural commons, making things worse, for everybody.
Duckstack Cooking
Yet another episode of the HIT CLASSIC Duckstack Cooking show!
Today we will be making Three Ingredient Cookies3. You’ve got the simplest cookies ever, right? One egg, one peanut butter, and one sugar. And just like regular no bake cookies, it comes out as a lump of mostly edible sugar, sure. But what happens when we don't follow the recipe at all? Instead of an egg, I will be using this rock. (Clunk clunk)
Now I know your reservations, and your concerns are valid. A rock certainly is a little tougher to crack than an egg (clack clack), so to get it started I will use this comically large hammer, which should work well enough for cracking both the rock and cleaving the counter underneath it clean in half. (crash) There! Chewy! Now, set the rock and counter aside, we will return to it later. Because we also need a substitute for the peanut butter, since we don’t have any on hand. Ask yourself, what goes well with rocks? That’s right, tar.
If we back this cement mixer through the studio, it has been keeping the tar hot, so that we’ll be able to drizzle it right over the rocks and the counter. The brick of the studio wall is extra spice, it shouldn’t throw off our recipe at all. Since there’s no flour or salt or baking soda in this recipe, the proportions on this don’t need to be as strict as regular baking. For those following along at home, you’ve probably finished with bringing your cement mixer in and pouring the tar over the mixture, so lets proceed to step three, which is finding a substitute for sugar.
This is where things get a little freaky: I would actually advise not substituting the sugar. You see, the rock and the tar will have a hearty, earthy taste, but there is also a hint of bitter the tar brings to the table, to say nothing for what your counter might have been made of. You will need the sugar to keep the cookies nice and sweet. Remember, you’re making a treat, not dinner! So measure out exactly one cup of sugar and level it off, and pour it thinly over the batter. Great! Now set the whole platter in your oven and cook it at 375° for 20-30 minutes. Be sure to let it cool before digging in4, because this stuff is HOT! (crunch crunch) Enjoy!
Fire In The Kitchen
I gotta get that jacket
Manafest is a punkrock band I discovered while serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they stood out because they’ve got a very “legitimate” rock sound, in the style of P.O.D., Saliva, or Linkin park, except they are explicitly “Christian rock”, which is kind of neat, because most “Christian” music is flashlight music, with no vision, talent, or sincerity. Enjoy:
That, or just unscrew the wire nut until the circuits disconnect whenever I’m done with the thing
Because they will entertain themselves for hours, when The Little One was The Littlest One I would give him objects all the time
Official patented name
with your shovel