The Queue: jury duty

I have jury duty this week, so please think of me as you enjoy your life out in the world, as I sit on an uncomfortable chair in the most liminal space you can experience that still has people in it. I have a granola bar, and they provide coffee but it was too hot and I burned my entire esophagus. Here’s hoping my phone battery holds.

This is The Queue, our daily column where I hope you have a lot of Qs so I have something to do while I wait through the beigest of hells.

This is a tricky one, because it varies, and also because the music I like to hang out and listen to won’t usually be the most effective or evocative when I’m fighting a boss or triumphing in the end credits, or like, slogging through a desert area. Also, music soundtracks will frequently have That One Frickin Song which is phenomenal for various reasons, and the rest of the soundtrack is decent, but doesn’t quite rise to that exact height.

Looking through my actual playlists and history was a little surprising, because the one game soundtrack which was composed for the game itself which I’ve been listening to pretty regularly is the Sulfur soundtrack. It’s almost all lofi except the boss tracks, and almost all of those add an electric guitar and are slightly more intense, but they’re still in the same group, so to speak. All the tracks feature a beat/bass drop, so if you’re giving it a shot, give it til then. Pretty much everyone I’ve talked to has the same reaction: “this is okay, pretty average lofi, which I guess– ohhh, I get it now.”

The other soundtrack I’ve had on repeat is the Pacific Drive soundtrack. Other than the title screen track and a couple tracks around the garage, plus Ghost on the Road which was written by the company that did the foley sounds for the game, this soundtrack is made up of found and curated tracks from indie bands. They cut across a variety of pop music genres, but all intended to be in a soundspace that feels like it’s from the early 60s to the early 90s, and they all feel great to drive to. The most chaos happens during the calmest tracks. Given the themes of the game and the other uses of the radio, it’s possible that these songs are actually communications from either your car, or one of a number of other NPC-style characters trapped in the Zone with you trying to reach someone, anyone, and all the tracks truly lean into that. Puzzle Pieces is clearly the car talking to me. Yes, I should go faster Mel, thanks!

Honorable mention to the Fallouts, for the same reasons, but I tend to listen to those far less often.

They disappear after the event, so if there’s anything fiery you have your eye on, make sure you buy it now! And even if not, you’re going to want to spend them all down if you can.

It’s kinda funny, because as they add more stuff to Player Housing, it seems to me like they’re almost coming full circle to adding a baby dev kit. I could definitely see them somewhat unintentionally becoming Millennial Roblox, especially since the first set of people who got their hands on player housing already started with making obbys, just without checkpoint or endpoint trigger blocks. Even without that, Player Housing is basically Royale High already, but with better transmog you have to earn.

I’m mostly on the side of “nah.” I tend to prefer purpose-built hot swappable PCs in general, even for a media box while I’m hanging out on the couch. The only thing holding me back from a full no is the remote possibility they might add media streaming capabilities later. We’re on a long-term struggle quest, where we find a new streaming machine or box or USB thing, and then it gradually gets worse and/or bought out by a company which intends to make it worse and gradually more expensive.

If Steam said they’re going to have an upfront expensive but easy-to-use media box and they aren’t going to just harvest my data, I might be tempted to get it for my mom or in-laws, even if it is very very expensive.

This is gonna be a weird one, but I can’t buy almost any cereal. Yes, I eat it dry, and like popcorn. It makes for such an easy little snack that I blow through it incredibly fast without realizing it, even though I deliberately take out a portion in a bowl and eat that portion. I don’t have the same issue with pretzels or crackers, and I can control myself with chips. It’s just cereal. Sugary, plain, shapes, even flakes. My brain recognizes it as being a good healthy choice until it short circuits itself into eating like 3,000 calories of cereal at once. I can resist chips or cookies because they’re ‘bad’ but cereal is ‘good.’

I think a lot of people have things like that, where when they were young it was “healthy” or “cheap” or whatever, and now that their brains are set like the jello they are, and now it’s like, no, brain, that isn’t how that works! I frequently do the same with rice, because my brain sees it as cheap and easy and I can make it in relatively large volumes, but that’s not how your body sees it.

Lying in bed with a book in a dark(ish) room, with the window cracked open by about an inch so I get that slight breeze and rain smell and rain sound while I read.