April Update: As Good As It Gets (Patreon)

Hey team. Hope you're holding up ok.

Tortoises Telling Me To Catch Up

Pandemic life is hard.

The month is just about over and... there isn't a video yet. Progress is getting made on the regular - I have a script that's coming together, and I've been editing the Abed video - but it's not moving very quickly or efficiently. My live-in partner is a therapist and is working from home now, so I need to leave the room while they Skype with clients. This means there are long stretches of the day where I don't have access to my desktop. I can write in the living room during these times, but writing in a common area is proving difficult. The script was abut 3/4 done when I figured out why it wasn't working, and it's a lot better now but it meant functionally starting over. Editing the Abed video is going better - for the first time in my career, editing is easier than writing - but it's still slow.

Even when I have plenty of time to work, it's just difficult right now. My work flow is weird and different, there's this huge, stressful situation going on, I have no idea when things are ending, and I'm simultaneously starved for human interaction and would sever a limb in exchange for some actual privacy.

None of this is offered up as excuses: there's a pandemic, everyone is struggling, I don't think I need to apologize for inefficiency. More just letting people know what's happening.

My hope was to get the Abed video done before the end of the month. Looking like "early May" is the new target. We'll see how we manage.

Quarantine Change-Up Possibilities

I'm feeling like I've tweaked my work habits as much as I can within the current system and there's not a lot more to try. Which means: either we just accept things going slowly for a while, or we make something else. I've been pondering doing something easier to make. Since editing is easier right now than writing, I was thinking of making shorter, less structured videos, like Quarantine Diaries or something, where I talk in a loosely-structured, digressive way about a topic of interest for 10ish minutes, edit it simply, and put it online with as quick a turnaround as I can manage. These would not be essays in any traditional sense, but they'd be a repository of thoughts and arguments that haven't found a home in traditional essays. Could be anything from expanding further on the ethics of lesser-evil voting to celebrities I have no choice but to stan.

The goal would be stuff I can turn around quickly, would be at least somewhat interesting, and would, I dunno, help us keep each other company.

The real question would be whether this goes on the main channel or if it's finally time to throw something on the secondary channel. Maybe when I've made one you can tell me what you think.

No guarantee this will work any better than traditional videos. But it would at least be less total work hours, so, even if slow, stuff would come out faster. Probably not worth it to pause Alt-Right Playbook for vloggier stuff that only comes out marginally faster, but... yeah, we'll just have to see. This is an adventure!

Priority right now is getting the Abed video up. But then... we'll try some stuff.

Bits & Bobs

There's not a lot doing right now, but I finally wrote up my thoughts on Heaven's Vault, Later Alligator, and Life is Strange 2. And, after playing juvenalia like Serious Sam, Painkiller, and Project Warlock, I am finally, finally, playing Outer Wilds. Which is incredible. All the stuff you've heard the evangelists saying about it is true: this is already one of the best games I think I've ever played.

Feels like I haven't seen many good movies this month, but maybe that's just me losing time. Suture and Disappearance at Clifton Hill were at least interesting. Took everyone's advice and watched Mindhunter, which was good.

I'm finally reading Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning, though, like all my attempts to read, it's fitful. But the book is excellent, and has already informed the script I'm pecking away at.

I think that's all I've got. Hope you're all doing okay! Hopefully we'll talk soon.

-I