윤

One thing I look back at FFXI and can forgive the requisite time sink for was the joy relief when a placeholder would finally give way to the Notorious Monster (my best memories are camping them on the clock, even when the rare visitor to my cubicle would send my USB-adaptered PS2 controller fumbling; the worst, of course, dealing with in-game competition), and I think I relived some of the feeling with shiny hunting in Let’s Go, Eevee! Only though because they’d spawn on-screen and not the traditional reveal after the encounter, which come on, is a Japanese gameplay relic that resists obsolescence like fax machines and ちかん.

You can’t tell from the clip, but I had only a few more seconds until dawn when these night-time spawns would vanish, so saving sightings like this is a godsend. The open world mechanic does require more travel, and tasks to complete the ‘Dex (so much for PoGo transfers) for the charm is a daunting proposition for all but the most dedicated players; haven’t thon’d like this for a while, have I?

Damn Marxists on r/antiwork, bless their hearts, call for a boycott during McRib season? I suppose just the mention of it in this context has disqualified me from their ranks, fucking wannabe leftist that I am, knowing full well the plight of labor but availing myself of its fruits. It’s too bad, too, because I’ve recently gotten into the habit of walking or biking there with a smug sense of self-satisfaction that doing so somehow offsets their insalubrious menu; by not eating in I can do my part to stave off breakthrough infection and disparage the Lexus-driving Koreans who have moved back inside from their makeshift camps in the parking lot; and ogling the occasional black-clad employee who hands me extra BBQ sauce without the least concern for an adequate wage to be objectified by old pervs.

I’ve been hoping the writer of Signal and Kingdom would deliver again with 지리산, but the time traveling ghost story so far has neither the pace of a Netflix season nor sufficient serial killer count; then here comes fabulous fifty-year-old Lady Vengeance 이영애 (with ten years on Sassy Girl 전지현 herself) in a take on Killing Eve that’s at least a decade too early for it to please the shippers yet does a slick job aping its style, right down to the soundtrack, with only the usual anime/webtoon trappings of K-drama holding it back. 근데 왜 나 알은척 안 하니?

Update: That was two episodes in, I still haven’t seen a more stunning moment than that one at the end of them, and with only two to go, I’m handily convinced this is my favorite series of the year. Korean one, ever, for sure, the Oldboy joke and the Chun Doo-hwan certificate framed on the wall of the old-timer sealed it.

Redditor’s work is all the more remarkable because it was done from scratch and not with Mars money (as eye-opening and welcome as it was, on this anniversary of my last job change—what a segue to my upcoming meeting with a former employer, who’s threatening us with an opportunity to return to family office drama). And uncanny valley or no, I’ve always liked multi-angle portraits.

Netflix has certainly struck gold with their Korean co-productions lately, with Kingdom (what was that last outing but another Joker), Move to Heaven and now this Parasite-cum-live-action Fall Guys, which should one-up their investment in comparatively ludicrous Alice in Borderland.Weebs claim that the concept was lifted from 神さまの言うとお, but seeing Miike’s adaptation, I realized why I let 13 years pass. Seems boredom is always the given reason for the powers that be to cycle back Adams’s course of history, but maybe we’ve reached a point in our “civilization”, too, where instead of allowing teenage superheroes overcome all the challenges it’s become more entertaining to see the players suffer and beg them for their lives—at which Koreans excel.

Why aren’t you how I remember
Now my memory is wrecked
Just like that last December
When McRibs were made perfect

They don’t come with enough sauce
Which should put us ill at ease
Because if that’s where’s the loss
All you get are gray patties

Don’t make me buy McNuggets
Just for extra Barbecue
Packs are cold and she forgets
(Wow, that rhymes with Mountain Dew)

There should be some pickles, yup
But can’t find a single one
Once even lifted it up
And missing the bottom bun

Why aren’t you how I remember
Now my memory is wrecked
Just like that last December
When McRibs were made perfect

Don’t want no more gray patties
Don’t want no more gray patties

I remember seeing what was probably an early edition at Thayer Street Books, which looks long gone now, wondering if it’d help me with the mile run at school. Knowing that Fixx himself died on a run might have turned me off this lifetime path that still has me struggling with to beat my time from only a year ago, and risking another injury or worse over the single-file bridges and along the overflow creek where the homeless camp their bicycle chop shops at night.