Day: January 8, 2025

I don’t want to post just one idea today, which naturally leads me to…

Some Thoughts:

1. It is possible that Japan has the coolest art installations I’ve ever seen. Team Lab in particular goes hard and does it in so many ways. Their medium is light and they do an amazing job of putting on displays that will make you feel transported into another reality. I only went to one installation and there are several throughout the city of Tokyo and even more across the country.
2. Convenience Culture in Japan is very much like my corner bodega growing up. You get everything you need in one small spot. It is the first thing I thought of when I saw my first Walmart all those years ago. I said out loud: Giant Bodega! Being here reminds me that the Convenience Culture still exists for one and two that American ideas are not very American at all.
3. Also, 7-11 still exists and makes a killing here as one of the top 5 convenience chains.
4. Tokyo makes a big point of creating green spaces. They have to. This sprawl is like nothing I’ve ever seen in the world. It is so massive and so dense. Obviously people can point to Pakistan and India in terms of population density (yes, those are countries but I have yet to study specific cities therein) but the vertical nature of Tokyo boggles the mind.
5. I intend to write the next blog on a plane or perhaps waiting for one. We have a ton of travel today, which includes a stop over in HI for my second journey to that part of the world. Hawaii is a strange and wonderful place. It also points to how far the American Empire stretches, which makes Trump’s impassioned attempt to grow the country to include the Panama Canal and Greenland feel less insane, though it is entirely insane. Even more so when you throw in “the state of Canada”
6. If I can get back to writing faster I would like to return to the idea of one minute per thought. I like the ten thoughts in ten minutes approach.

I lost another fantasy season. I won one, which left me at two losses and a win. The losses were both practically last place jobs powered by 8 game loosing streaks. I don’t know what happened there in the middle of the season. It was partially injury driven, but mostly felt liek me not being good at picking up the waivers. I was extremely slow to process who was going to ‘pop’ and that cost me big in two of the leagues. The third, formed out of a random practice draft, only had a handful of people actively participating it seemed. I won that fairly easily, defeating everyone who decided to put in the work. I only stayed in that one because I was under the impression that it would take me into the Yahoo league of champions. It appears that it did not. So, that was a loss of sorts or at least an empty win.

I see FF as a form of gambling, and if you don’t have he opportunity to win anything or at least lose something (as I privately fund the family league so never actually have a chance to win money) then it isn’t the same. The point is the stakes. What is at stake and are those stakes worth working for? This year the answer was a resounding no. It points to a larger decline in my life with all forms of gaming. I don’t play many video games anymore, and it is certainly a drag on my joy factor.