A Few Good Things - Vol. 21
Trail Out Update
A couple of years ago, I wrote about Trail Out, a spiritual successor to Flatout. The game was definitely a lower-budget release, but the gameplay was a lot of fun. I didn't mind the game being so unpolished, but I did grow frustrated as I tried to complete the story mode but fell short due to a lack of races and the expectation of perfection in every race. So, eventually I gave up on it.
Well, Trail Out was recently released on PS5 and I guess they made some updates. The game has been cleaned up quite a bit, it looks better and the glitches are gone. It feels more like a proper release and they even added new events to make completion easier. I've put fourteen hours into this game, so I obviously like it, and I'm excited to finish it up.
Second Oldest Footage from an NFL Game Recently Discovered
This is a pretty cool story. A guy found a mislabeled newsreel in the UCLA Television and Film Archive that ended up being from an NFL game in 1925 between the Chicago Bears and a Washington All-Stars team. The full story can be read here, and the video is a fun little glimpse at what once was. I'd recommend turning the display speed down to .8 which makes the footage run in real time.
MUSH Overnight Oats
I have a weird relationship with oatmeal. I like oatmeal cookies, but I hate regular oatmeal. A few years ago, I gave overnight oats a try and they just weren't for me until I tried MUSH's Dark Chocolate overnight oats. It was delicious and easy to replicate at home, so for about a year I ate these almost daily.
This past weekend, I was at Publix and saw MUSH was on sale and figured I should grab some. I picked up one container of the Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein version, and I wasn't expecting much. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of chocolate and peanut butter ice cream, but at least it's something different from my morning Clif Bar.
When I pulled the wrapper back, I noticed it was much thicker than their regular overnight oats. I was skeptical until that first spoonful hit my mouth, and then I was a fan. It's delicious. I mean, it was so good, I went back to Publix after work and bought six more. Now, I just need to find a copycat recipe because MUSH is not super cheap.
Superfeet Green
I have flat, wide feet and I spent most of my twenties standing on concrete floors in cheap shoes. Thankfully, I haven't had too many issues with my feet until last year when a vicious case of plantar fasciitis took me down. I spent hundreds of dollars, did all sorts of exercises, and it took forever to heal. Even now, I still use a foot massager several times a week, and the moment I feel anything in my foot, I take special care to rest it.
I tried a variety of different insoles to varying degrees of success last year. My mom suggested Superfeet, an insole I had worn once before, but I was skeptical about it actually helping. Anyone with flat feet knows the last thing you want to do is have an insole with a high arch. It can really hurt. But at this point, I was desperate... I mean, what was another $60 after I'd already spent several hundred?
I obviously can't credit the Superfeet with fixing my plantar fasciitis, but it definitely helped. I bought a second pair and put them in my work shoes, and I've been doing so much better. Recently, I saw a pair of insoles that were highly reviewed on Slickdeals for cheap. So, I decided to try them out. I wore them to work one day and within a couple of hours I was ready to take them out. In fact, I regretted not bringing my Superfeet with me that day. So the moment I got home, I swapped them back out and threw the other insoles away.
Needless to say, I'm a fan and I'll be sticking with these because I'm really good with never experiencing plantar fasciitis ever again.
Sisyphus
I have an office at work that has needed some decorating. I have a lot of walk-in traffic in my office, so I need to keep it fun, yet personal. So far, I've added a picture of my wife and my cats, and a Spider-Man figure. This week, I went a more serious route with a statue of Sisyphus pushing the boulder up a hill. So far, no one knows what I'm talking about, and the one person I tried to explain it to, his eyes glazed over and he immediately changed the subject. Ha! There's no appreciation for Greek mythology or philosophy here.
Stuart Saves the Universe
My wife loves The Big Bang Theory. She's seen it dozens of times and can just keep watching it over and over. I watched it with her once we got together, and while it has its moments, it's definitely not even in my top twenty-five favorite sitcoms. But I'm thankful for the impact it had on pop-culture because for us old nerds, it was very obvious that once The Big Bang Theory gained traction, being and nerd or a geek became huge. I went from attending a comic book convention in an abandoned outlet mall to a massive convention center within a couple of years, and Big Bang deserves credit for normalizing and introducing so many people to comics, video games, fantasy, and sci-fi.
These days, I've seen pretty much all of the episodes (at least in bits and pieces) so many times that I know them, and I'm really sick of them. I don't tell my wife that, but sheesh, I just can't rewatch stuff over and over like her. But I will say, I am excited about this new spin-off that comes from the world of Big Bang but goes in a crazy direction. It takes lesser characters and put them center stage in a universe hopping story that looks like a lot of fun.