This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss turning our brains off with some gaming for the long weekend, dogs and fireworks, and the staying power of a meme.
EMANUEL: Full disclosure: I’m writing this BTB on Wednesday because we’re going to try to take some much needed time off this 4th of July weekend. A significant portion of that time will be spent mentally preparing, surviving, and then recovering from the fireworks with my extremely cowardly dog, but I also plan on at least one serious grill sesh and getting absolutely hammered on beer, which for me is one and a half IPAs.
I’m also planning on catching up with video games when I can. I hope to boot the Riven remake because it looks extremely chill, and an opportunity to fill a hole in my video game history education. I remember trying Myst and Riven as a kid, but they seemed soooo boring back then. I remember my uncle, who did not play video games and only had a Mac, loved Myst, which also helped me decide that they are lame. Now that I am old and washed they seem more my speed.
I am also fantasizing about getting back into the Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree but if I’m being real with myself that’s not going to happen. I was only half joking with some gaming goblin friends that the fact that From Software games, including Elden Ring, don’t let you pause, makes them pretty difficult to play when you have a baby. Pause is a pretty basic feature, which I’m not really advocating From add to its games because they way they are nominally online makes them very interesting, but it’s just a fact that they are logistically harder to play when you can’t pause the game to pee or, more to the point, clean up someone else’s pee.