Emchap's Shit from the Internet 08/17/22 🍠
I’m in general not a big gamer—it’s a running joke among my friends that I refuse to play board games (a real social liability for someone working in tech!), and I haven’t owned my own console since I was a kid. But in the midst of a bout of Very Sadness recently, I decided to see if I could find a Switch used and use it to play Goose Game and maybe Animal Crossing or something. One of my coworkers was selling his, he shipped it my way, and I downloaded Goose Game (very fun, though I had played it before) and Animal Crossing.
I have, in the last 3 days, logged an absolutely obscene number of hours on Animal Crossing. I thought I’d like it, because everyone I know liked it, but I’m in the midst of some good-but-stressful Life Stuff right now and trying to quit Twitter, and oh boy does it scratch that dopamine itch. I’ve paid off my first mortgage with the proceeds of my thriving fishing and diving activities, and my dumb little house is legitimately cute, and I am doing my best to befriend the assorted sundry animals populating my fake little island. It’s great.
It is, of course, also painfully uncool at this point—I don’t know who’s still playing Animal Crossing at this point, and it 100% was at its cultural peak in 2020. (I spent that time instead really building out a deteriorating long distance pandemic relationship, which did at least prevent me from entering into a mortgage with a raccoon, but was probably not the healthiest choice in retrospect.)
Being uncool does have its perks, though. For any game mechanic I’m uncertain about (who the fuck the seagull is, how to move furniture around, whether there’s a difference between the auto-generated islands I fly to when I buy a plane ticket), there’s already a comprehensive Polygon article. It’s not like there’s really a win condition on what is basically fancy Sims, so looking things up doesn’t feel particularly like cheating.
So, that’s what I’m up to this week. There are worse ways to ride out a heatwave, I think.
Shit to read
Lost to me during the revelation of the fact that Amazon bought my doctor was the announcement that they bought the robot vacuums, too.
People who actively use LinkedIn for anything other than congratulating people when they get new jobs, updating their resume, and talking to sales prospects are truly unknowable to me. What are their brains like.
I enjoyed this Gawker piece about how the money is not in the right places.
Nancy is the best! Sluggo is lit!
I love when Defector does internet culture deep dives, and it’s why I subscribe to them despite not really caring about sports.
Shit to eat
Buy a giant sack of frozen shrimp. They are the key to hitting any sort of macro goals in the summer. They’re also good.
Caveat do not buy a giant sack of unpeeled, vein-in shrimp. They are the devil.
Take some of the shrimp and toss them in a bowl of cold water.
Turn on the broiler, grate some monterey jack, and scrounge up some black beans. Did you know you can cook dry beans in the rice cooker? You can!
Yes I know about the instapot, I just don’t want to buy one.
Once the shrimp are thawed (a few minutes), drain them, toss them with oil and whatever spice blend and salt that you want, and pop them in the broiler for 3 or 4 minutes.
While that’s going on, heat up a big pan to medium and add a little oil.
Toss in a big flour tortilla in the pan.
Take the shrimp out.
Layer cheese, shrimp, beans, more cheese. Fold over. Add other stuff if you want, who cares.
Once it’s cronchy, flip that ish.
Wait to cronch on the other side.
While that’s going on, take some greek yogurt or sour cream or whatever and stir it up with some lime juice and salt. Dipping sauce, blam.
Take the quesadilla out, chop it up, and enjoy a good-ass dinner.
Shit to listen to
This Behind the Bastards episode about the Roman Empire felt, uh, Resonant.
Shit to buy
Giant sack of shrimp, see above.