First time reader and pretty new to Substack. This is great stuff. I appreciate the writing style and I love your article on MYFAROG. As a middle aged white man who grew up on D&D, those descriptions were more than cringeworthy. Crazy that anyone would still accept that kind of gossamer veiled racism. That said, your review had me laughing out loud. Looking forward to more.
Welcome! The MYFAROG recap was a lot of fun to do, glad that you enjoyed it. We probably got more out of that pile of ahistorical lunacy than anyone that tried to play it.
I sympathize with the previous Scott Adams fandom. Back in high school I had to do a project where I was required to contact a "real-world expert." My project was about comics and the only person I could think of who might actually respond was Scott Adams, so I emailed him. And he responded! He was courteous, responded promptly and answered my questions. So imagine my dismay years later.
He was already putting out his weird books talking about how you can achieve anything you visualize hard enough by writing your intentions down fifty times a day or something, which I actually tried because it wasn't the first woo woo I'd been presented in my youth (my mom still has her Edgar Cayce books and was a subscriber of Prevention magazine). And I seriously thought his Dilbert Principle and etc were more tongue-in-cheek that they ended up being. Oops.
Somehow, seeing every step of his spiral made it even stranger. You could track the logic of each step, like a good screenplay. But the snowball rolls downhill so quickly, all you can see is the white mass thundering ahead. Wild decade.
i'd vote for the advice column where you have an expert answer it, and then you give your answer, too, and they're wildly disparate, therein containing a humour quotient. it sounds familiar, i might have stolen this, but it's a good idea regardless.
Re: paid feature, I voted for Mock Advice Column because it has the potential to encompass the other two options. Meaning, you could prepare a Mock Ad as a response to a question, or you could Trojan Horse serious answers into your responses. I think it gives you the most option value, though all sound like good times.
Re: nuclear weapons, I think daily about how civilization could end any moment. It's insane. Here are two related links:
I've listened to this Hardcore History episode at least three times (it should also be available via your podcast app of choice):
Dan Carlin is a trip, and a brilliant one. I bought that archive access after hearing Ghosts of the Ostfront, which still has data carves into my brain. Ever give Revolutions a spin?
I can definitely relate to nuke anxiety fueled writing. Almost as importantly, I can relate to what a trip that Clone Wars show you framed it around was. Spikiest show in tv history. Hard to believe the same season had a Heart of Darkness remake and R2D2 toy commercial.
I listen to zero podcasts these days but used to be a HH fanatic. I've legit done the Kings of Kings (Persian empire) and Blueprint for Armageddon (WW1) series four times each.
Never tried Revolutions but did try The History of Rome way back when. Kind of a lame excuse, but Duncan's voice didn't grab me and I found myself tuning out too much.
I watched every season of Clone Wars with my kids during the pandemic years and generally loved it. Just a few days ago we watched the final four episodes of the series from 2020. The Maul vs. Tano battles are epic.
We also watched Rebels. I didn't like it as much, but it hit incredible high notes.
I'm convinced cicadas are extra-terrestrial. Have you ever witnessed one spawning from the ground? Then fusing to a tree and metaphorizing into something that looks like a lizard-fly hybrid? Holy shit! Needless to say, I'm not shocked to hear about their ass piss catapults. Makes total sense to me.
First time reader and pretty new to Substack. This is great stuff. I appreciate the writing style and I love your article on MYFAROG. As a middle aged white man who grew up on D&D, those descriptions were more than cringeworthy. Crazy that anyone would still accept that kind of gossamer veiled racism. That said, your review had me laughing out loud. Looking forward to more.
Welcome! The MYFAROG recap was a lot of fun to do, glad that you enjoyed it. We probably got more out of that pile of ahistorical lunacy than anyone that tried to play it.
I sympathize with the previous Scott Adams fandom. Back in high school I had to do a project where I was required to contact a "real-world expert." My project was about comics and the only person I could think of who might actually respond was Scott Adams, so I emailed him. And he responded! He was courteous, responded promptly and answered my questions. So imagine my dismay years later.
He was already putting out his weird books talking about how you can achieve anything you visualize hard enough by writing your intentions down fifty times a day or something, which I actually tried because it wasn't the first woo woo I'd been presented in my youth (my mom still has her Edgar Cayce books and was a subscriber of Prevention magazine). And I seriously thought his Dilbert Principle and etc were more tongue-in-cheek that they ended up being. Oops.
Somehow, seeing every step of his spiral made it even stranger. You could track the logic of each step, like a good screenplay. But the snowball rolls downhill so quickly, all you can see is the white mass thundering ahead. Wild decade.
i'd vote for the advice column where you have an expert answer it, and then you give your answer, too, and they're wildly disparate, therein containing a humour quotient. it sounds familiar, i might have stolen this, but it's a good idea regardless.
That’s a very interesting structure. Any idea where it might have been from?
yes! i realized later in the day that Today in Tabs runs a feature called Ask Polly, similar but not identical. sorry about that.
Re: paid feature, I voted for Mock Advice Column because it has the potential to encompass the other two options. Meaning, you could prepare a Mock Ad as a response to a question, or you could Trojan Horse serious answers into your responses. I think it gives you the most option value, though all sound like good times.
Re: nuclear weapons, I think daily about how civilization could end any moment. It's insane. Here are two related links:
I've listened to this Hardcore History episode at least three times (it should also be available via your podcast app of choice):
https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-59-the-destroyer-of-worlds/
I wrote this just over a year ago, which was the first ever in the talk with my kids series:
https://agowani.substack.com/p/my-daughter-and-i-had-the-talk-about-nuclear-weapons-e73ffa42f5e5
Dan Carlin is a trip, and a brilliant one. I bought that archive access after hearing Ghosts of the Ostfront, which still has data carves into my brain. Ever give Revolutions a spin?
I can definitely relate to nuke anxiety fueled writing. Almost as importantly, I can relate to what a trip that Clone Wars show you framed it around was. Spikiest show in tv history. Hard to believe the same season had a Heart of Darkness remake and R2D2 toy commercial.
I listen to zero podcasts these days but used to be a HH fanatic. I've legit done the Kings of Kings (Persian empire) and Blueprint for Armageddon (WW1) series four times each.
Never tried Revolutions but did try The History of Rome way back when. Kind of a lame excuse, but Duncan's voice didn't grab me and I found myself tuning out too much.
I watched every season of Clone Wars with my kids during the pandemic years and generally loved it. Just a few days ago we watched the final four episodes of the series from 2020. The Maul vs. Tano battles are epic.
We also watched Rebels. I didn't like it as much, but it hit incredible high notes.
This is an all-time great episode of television: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5340582/
I'm convinced cicadas are extra-terrestrial. Have you ever witnessed one spawning from the ground? Then fusing to a tree and metaphorizing into something that looks like a lizard-fly hybrid? Holy shit! Needless to say, I'm not shocked to hear about their ass piss catapults. Makes total sense to me.
Martians have the best pranks.
Remember: the way to a woman's heart is climate change.
I can’t wait to explain it at length.
Make sure to hire a singer to drive the point home!