It All Comes Back To Nine
Putting the chairs on the tables in 2020
Previously on Phil’s Newsletter: My Gramps passed away from COVID-19.
I’m going to start listing paid subscriber names at the top of the emails, here, as a little perk / thank you. Please let me know if you don’t want me to do that for your name! The plea for lucre has been moved to the bottom.
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Only two more Phil’s Newsletters before we gotta throw out all the 2020 calendars and burn ‘em. You’re all doing that right?
The end of the year always bums me out. I’ve never been a This Is Gonna Be My Year kind of person. I AM a deeply skeptical person, though, and that raised-eyebrowness ends with all of these rituals around the New Year being put on the pile of other stuff the society I live in seems to think is super important but that I just… don’t. The pile is getting pretty big. I just wanna make playgrounds.
2020 was probably my slowest work year since 2002. It has been a mixed blessing. I’m used to 60 hour weeks, but I had more downtime than ever, and it took some adjustment. I had a couple big projects pay off, which made paying the bills a lot easier, but I definitely need more client work going into 2021. If you wanna talk work, you can schedule a meeting with me on Calendly.
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It’s All In The Yips / Yips Don’t Lie
Somehow I can’t play video games anymore.
It’s not that I was ever particularly GOOD at competitive shooters or RTSes or whatnot, but I feel like I knew how to play them. The controls for each game made sense and I could play more and get better at them. At one time I played a pretty good pocket Medic or Engineer in TF2.
Right now, though, it feels like I’m working through a bad case of The Yips. The Yips is a hard to pin down condition, as much psychological as physical. Suddenly a veteran baseball pitcher can’t make the pickoff throw to first base, that’s The Yips. A pro golfer can’t sink a short put to save her life, that’s The Yips. I can’t hit a moving target in Red Dead Redemption 2 online or clear a level of Tropico 6 worth a damn, that’s the Yips.
If any of you folks want to help me work through this with some online gaming this week, hit me up on Steam or PS4.
You ever had the Yips? Tell me about it in the comments or with an email to mailbag@extrafuture.com and maybe I’ll publish it in the next newsletter.
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In baseball, The Yips are also known as Steve Blass disease. Speaking of baseball, spots are still available for the upcoming 1993 Divergent League Baseball season. Maybe you want to play? Learn more on the Divergent League website.
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Movie Night Festivus Marathon Review
We ran our first ever festivus marathon this week, showing The Doughnuts for 24 hours in a row. The stat line: 24h 13m duration, average of 2 viewers, 6 viewers max, 185 unique viewers, 9 unique chatters, 274 live views, +1 follows and +4 subscriptions. Overall our average viewers suffered due to the duration, but we had a surprisingly good turn out with lots of folks dropping in for a showing and dropping out.
It was a good time, some old pals dropped in to the Twitch chat to say hello, and a few popped into our Discord audio/video chat too. I know a few folks are still Discord-shy. If you need or want me to show you how to get into the Discord lemme know and I totally will.
The Doughnuts marathon is definitely going to be a yearly thing. Mark your calendars for December 23rd, 2021. But that’s not all we’ve got going on this week…
Movie Night #15: Mandatory Holiday Party + Health and Safety Marathon
This weekend is the The Final RetroStrange Movie Night of 2020, and depending on how recent legislation goes it might be the last of this style of Movie Night. We aren’t going anywhere, but we may have to change our content and format slightly due to the actions of living cancer cell Senator Thom Tillis.
This time we’re showing a marathon of weird industrial health and safety videos, usually featuring bizarre low-budget recreations of serious accidents and hosting the RetroStrange Holiday Party at the same time. Please come by the chat or Discord and say hello! It’s been an outlandishly shitty year and we love seeing our friends.
P.S. Senator Thom Tillis is a shill for Big Copyright and we need his ass out of politics forever.
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Did you know that Amazon owns Twitch? Because of their connection, if you have Amazon Prime you can give us free money and support Movie Night. Here’s how to use your free Prime subscription to subscribe to my channel. You’ll remove ads and get a shout out during our broadcasts, plus some other perks we have not announced yet.
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Last-Second Gift Ideas For The Weirdo In Your Life
I have some shirt designs available on Redbubble. Grab one and send your friend a pic of it.
My brother Chuck’s online/retail store has gift cards available in any amount. Buy one online and have a nice email sent to your giftee.
Cookie Update
Due to USPS being totally overloaded, I’ve decided to wait to send our cookies until after the 1st. Guess I’ll just have to eat the ones I already made… oh no. How terrible. That means if you want cookies you can still ask! To tide you over while you wait please enjoy the above photo of the cute little boxes I’ll be sending your treats in.
The Good Links
My good links will make your day better. Probably. Maybe.
The title of today’s newsletter is stolen from a Square One segment I saw 25+ years ago and still pops into my head sometimes
From the crowdfund mines: Blanc, A customizable HEPA-enabled full-face mask.
The latest tech worker perk? It ain’t a foosball table, it’s free weekly COVID-19 tests.
Reddit folks answered the question “What’s your childhood mystery that you finally solved years later?” and it’s a nice mix of hardcore family-shattering stuff and silly bullshit.
Never forget: In 2012 A Penguin bit Newt Gingrich
A professor is doing the important work of dismantling the ridiculous Billionaire Philosopher class. Sorry Elon, being rich doesn’t mean you’re terribly insightful.
Film researcher Lillian Michelson has donated the Michelson Cinema Research Library The Internet Archive.
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This newsletter is free but me, Phil, depends on the support of viewers like you. I’m a 100% independent creator without a day job in a really scary and uncertain time. If you like what I do or even just like me you can help by sharing this post on your social feeds, directly supporting me here on Substack and Patreon, or buying me a drink on Ko-Fi or PayPal. Every little bit helps.
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Whew. It’s been a long couple weeks. It’s been a long couple months. It’s been a long… time. Thank you for reading. Next week I’ll be doing some End Of Year Lists and probably linking to a ton of media. Been a little grim around here lately. Let’s get silly.
— Phil