The Original Sin of Mark Walter

Social Security is careening towards disaster. The expenditures on Social Security are outpacing the taxes paid in. That means that the difference is being made up by the Social Security trust fund, and the trust fund may be exhausted as soon as 2032.

Congress has had an opportunity to fix this, but has delayed. Why? Well, the Boomer generation started in about 1941. Basically, by the time that boomers start dying en masse, they won't have to deal with the problems with Social Security. Hey, when is that going to start happening in earnest? You guessed it, 2032.

In other words, boomers created a problem and have no desire to fix it, since they won't be here when shit REALLY hits the fan.

So, the Dodgers. If you've watched Pablo Torre's excellent new video on the Dodgers, it's obvious that the Dodgers are sprinting toward some kind of disaster. What kind exactly is hard to say. Will Walter lose his fortune? Will Magic Johnson end up in prison? Who knows?

However, the one big sin of Mark Walter is that he is doing exactly what boomers have a tendency of doing. He's 66, having been born toward the tail end of peak boomerdom. He's not going to be around forever. In just a few short years, the pile of signed contracts is going to collapse, including the albatross that is Shohei Ohtani's contract.

In case you've forgotten, Ohtani is getting paid two million per year through his contract. Hey, what year does that contract run out?

2033. After that, he's getting paid $68 MILLION per year. 

Mark Walter will be 74. Will he still be running the Dodgers? Considering that he turned around and sold his majority stake in the Lakers a year after acquiring it, there's a strong chance that he will not.

Mark Walter's sin is not tax fraud or insurance self-dealing or anything like that. Yeah, he probably did those things, but it all stemmed from the same sin from which all boomer sins come from: Fuck you, got mine.

Early Impressions of Hollywood Animal

I picked up Hollywood Animal, the new movie studio sim, just a few days ago. So far, I love it! Lots of fun! Downsides: No way to skip over the tutorial and the first intro movie is SO FUCKING SLOW. I want to restart but sitting through it is awful. That being said, I'm excited to see how this game progresses!

True Detective: Night County Is Bad and Eventually Everyone Will Agree With Me

It's finally time to get something off my chest. I did not care for True Detective: Night Country for some very simple reasons. Night Country was made by someone who doesn't understand True Detective, and it was made by dumb people.

I understand that Night Country wasn't originally a True Detective story and was retooled. I get that. However, it's in the name. It's right there. Since it is, it must be viewed with the same lens, and it comes up wanting. SPOILERS BELOW.


The Microsoft/Activision Merger Is A Terrible Idea. Here's Why.

A few weeks ago, I stopped into my local game store. The manager of the store, a very nice and knowledgeable guy named Drew, asked me this question: “What do you think about the Microsoft and Activision merger?”

To that point, I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to it. I have a reflexive, knee-jerk reaction to big corporate mergers about them being anticompetitive, but without giving a lot of thought, I mumbled out an answer and took my leave when the store got a little too crowded.

After some reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that not only is this merger a bad idea, it could be the single worst idea to hit gaming in a long time, almost on par with “let’s make a game based on ET.”

NES Replay: Metroid

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: August 1986

I hate the momiker "Metroidvania."

I mean no disrespect to latter-day Castlevania, but Metroid came out in 1986, Metroid 2 in 1991 and Super Metroid in 1994. The first Castlevania that a similar structure to the Metroid series came out in 1997. This isn't to say that the early Castlevania games were bad. Far from it! They're great! However, they are not "metroidvanias" and didn't join the same genre for 11 years.

But if you don't call the genre "metroidvania" what do you call it? "Action-Exploring?" Too wordy. "Metroids?" Nah, that's generic. I argue that the only reason that the name "metroidvania" has stuck is because it's catchy.

Metroid is much more notable for where it ended up than where it started. Super Metroid is undoubtedly one of the best games of all time. It has a tremendous sense of place, along with ominous music and some truly creepy bosses. When your sequel is one of the best games of all time, it's hard to go backwards. When you've seen Kraid expand from taking up one full screen to two full screens, then firing pieces of his body at you, it's hard to go back and fight a Kraid that's the same size as you, you know?

NES Replay: The Legend of Kage

Developer: Taito
Publisher: Taito
Released: August 1985

With a few notable exceptions, most early games had you locked in a pitched battle against the controls. Developers cared about stealing your quarters while providing the illusion of fun, and so their to-do list for most games was:

1)     Find a way to take money from players.
2)     Make a cute mascot or something.
(...)
99)    Make movement fun.

Enter The Legend of Kage (pronounced “kah-gay”). Our friends at Taito had once again cracked a code: people wanted to play games that felt fun to play. Imagine that! 

Released in 1985 for the arcade, The Legend of Kage had you playing a ninja named Kage who’s attempting to rescue a princess. The movement is so fluid that it's the closest thing to a kung-fu video game released to this point. Taito really wanted to make you feel like a ninja. The titular legendary character can leap the entire length of the screen, climb a temple just by jumping, and land on tree branches, all the while firing shurikens at the plentiful ninja who oppose his path. 

What the Minx is HBO Max Doing?

I really liked the show Minx.

Minx was set at a fictional male porn mag in '70s LA. It alternated between raunchy sex romp, let's-put-on-a-show enthusiasm, workplace comedy, and romance while being funny the whole time. It's the kind of show that could have run for seasons without outstaying it's welcome.

It ran on HBO Max. If you don’t know anything about HBO Max, you should know that it’s becoming a tire fire now that it's under the aegis of Warner Bros Discovery, a merger of equals between Warner Brothers and… well, Discovery. Yes, Discovery, the network full of reality TV shows somehow merited equal footing with Warner Brothers. Don’t ask me how.