OldDeadMan asks "What has changed about your weight-lifting routines now that you're forty?"
Dave: We feel like shit now when we wake up after lifting.
Arnold: When I lift I have to keep in mind the recovery cost now. Also, I feel I'm more vulnerable to injury. Going heavy on deadlifts after doing high rep squats cost me two weeks worth of rear hip pain.
Dave: Middle-age is a bitch.
Arnold: I'm holding on to the 45 to 65 definition. I got another five years! I've noticed a difference, though. I'm not the young buck I once was.
Dave: There's no reason to low-bar squat anymore unless you're competing. I don't do much overhead pressing anymore either. Best to save your hips and shoulders.
Arnold: Mid-position incline bench press is great for some shoulder action and it carries over to the flat bench press better than overhead pressing.
Dave: Also, form is everything. Hit those squats perfectly. No point in doing wobbly bench presses or bent-backed deadlifts.
Arnold: What's the point in doing anything, Dave?
Dave: You have to give yourself a reason to live, Arnold.
Arnold: Besides sexual propagation?
Dave: That might be your biological purpose, but you're a human being, and human beings need their own goals in order to obtain satisfaction in life.
Arnold: Cool.
...
BigBadVoodooDaddy asks "How's life under Trump treating ya?"
Dave: I have a deep-rooted pessimism that was instilled November 2nd, 2016, and it hasn't went away since.
Arnold: I have hope that we can continue as a country after Trump. He's old and will go to where the bad folks go when they die sooner rather than later. In the meantime, we have to participate in our democratic process and do what we can to make our communities better.
Dave: He's destroying the country, Arnold.
Arnold: I know, Dave. This is what the people voted for, though, isn't it? I'm pretty worried about the future of America independent from its degeneration into kleptocracy and fascism. Gen Z seems pretty fucking unhappy. They don't know how to talk to people because smartphones destroyed our social fabric; they're depressed because smartphones have destroyed our hope in the future; and they're unable to afford a house or get a job. Gen Alpha might be worse. These kids are being raised on Youtube and Fortnite.
Dave: Which is much worse than professional wrestling and teenage mutant turtles.
Arnold: I see your point, but television is nowhere near as addictive a technology as smartphones, social media, and pay-to-win video games. Your brain gets a dopamine surge not from actually consuming internet content, but from the anticipation right before you click on a video. This is the most insidious shit ever concocted, and people hand it off to their children without a second thought. We're raising an entire generation to be addicted to constant dopamine surges, and they're not learning how to be human beings. They're being taught how to be consumers.
Dave: Yeah, that sucks. I'm going to go throw my phone in a ditch somewhere.
Arnold: You should! We should all get rid of our phones as a society. There would be no President Trump without smartphones!
Dave: How so?
Arnold: Fox News doesn't even matter. Your average Trump supporter encounters MAGA influencers on Youtube or Tik-Tok. They buy into fascism through 45 second videos explaining how to trick women into sleeping with them or how to optimize their bodybuilding routine. This shit is addictive, as I've mentioned. Pretty soon they're buying into the latest conspiracy theory or whatever propaganda the MAGA trolls are feeding them, because they've never been taught how to think critically, and nobody watches legitimate news sources anymore, since that shit doesn't make money. The smartphone appeals to their emotions, negative emotions particularly, since human beings are wired to pay attention more to the bad than the good. This is how your uncle or teenage cousin became a QANON truther or a vaccine denier.
Dave: So life ain't great, huh?
Arnold: Life is fine! That's the irony of it. Trump is destroying the country, and we're doing okay personally. But a lot of people aren't.
Dave: Will the proletariat rise up and revolt?
Arnold: Don't use commie words, Dave. They might if the economy gets bad enough. Your normal Joe doesn't give a shit that the stock market is booming. If AI is as good as they say it will be (and I have my serious doubts), then nobody is going to have a job. A purposeless human being is a dangerous human being, Dave.
Dave: I don't want my investments to tank.
Arnold: No, but I think they will. Will it be the straw that breaks Trump's back? He's kept the richies happy so far. I don't know. Time will tell.
Dave: What an exciting time to be living through!
Arnold: Shut the fuck up, Dave.
...
GamerDad asks "What video games are you playing?"
Dave: South of Midnight was okay.
Arnold: Great presentation and graphics. Mediocre gameplay.
Dave: Every fight against the haints was the same.
Arnold: I did dig the story of a young African-American protagonist descending into a magical world constructed from various rural legends of the Old South. And the game really looks amazing. It's got a stop-motion effect to much of the animation. But as I kept playing, I kept thinking that every new power or gameplay element was derived from Jedi Survivor. "This power is like Force Push. This is like Dash. This is a grappling hook like every other third-person action game of the last several years."
Dave: It doesn't help that every chapter is constructed exactly the same.
Arnold: Hazel (your player character) has to discovered the source of trauma that spilling out into an area's environment and heal that trauma through battling haints and participating in some boss fight, then she has to run from a cloud in a platforming experiences that is also derivative of Jedi Survivor (wall running, dashing, etc...).
Dave: I feel like we're being too hard on the game. It was a fun time, and unique from a story/graphical perspective.
Arnold: You're probably right, but we played a lot of very good games this year. The criteria is increasing.
Dave: Still, check it out on Game Pass or for about twenty bucks or so.
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