Placerville, aka Hangtown, aka Dry Diggings, was one of many gold rush boomtowns like Mormon Island, Fiddletown, Bedbug, and You Bet, named by the miners. Once the respectable types like shopkeepers and farm families with children moved in, most of these towns changed their names.

The town itself is not called Hangtown—it’s Placerville. “Hangtown” was the nickname. And while I’m glad that they’ve changed the sign, this is a town that was originally a mining camp. There were also towns like Mosquito Gulch, Chinese Camp, Mormon Island, and my personal favorite, Bedbug, so named because the local…

This is awesome!

Without spoilers, the Coerthas arc in ARR is going to be very relevant down the road. The bad news is that the 40-50 slog was, IMO, worse than the post-50 patches. The good news is that the changes to the ARR quests should make it go much faster. Tempting though it may be, I encourage you not to skip the story.…

Since I’m over 50, fat, and diabetic, there was never any question about whether I was going to get vaccinated. I got the appointment for my first shot as soon as Kaiser made them available for educators; even though I won’t be working on campus until fall quarter, I figured I qualified. I had my second Moderna shot a…

Honest Game Trailers had the best description of FFXV ever:

I was deeply sad about Gideon Emery no longer voicing Urianger--I still stan Fenris!--but Timothy Watson is very good.

I started dipping my toe into Extreme trials, then Savage raiding. What I’ve found is that while watching videos helps, especially as a tank, I learn mechanics by dying to them over and over and over and over again. Eventually I see the patterns, and then it becomes muscle memory.

I think the reason they switched was because they got tired of the LA-based cast of mostly Americans trying to do British accents and not always doing it well. Gideon Emery and Jean Gilpin were exceptions, but some of the others—Minfilia in particular—were downright bad. It’s lead to them actually using regional…

I highly recommend it. There’s some amazing voice work from the leads in ShB. Also, while I’ve never played in any audio other than English, I’m going to give a shoutout to Aymeric’s English voice actor. Blake Ritson is a nice smooth cup of cinnamon tea.

Merlwyb ain’t shit because when it was time to fight, she ran.

Alphinaud’s arc is one of the best parts of the game IMO. We see him go from an obnoxious, smug little shit convinced that he’s the smartest guy in the room, to realizing that his attitude got people killed, to picking up the pieces and really examining himself and where he went wrong and changing his behavior and…

Binding Coil is why Alisaie is my favorite twin.

Dark Knight is some of the best content in the game. Natsuko Ishikawa was the lead writer on that; she’s also responsible for the best parts of Stormblood, which got her promoted to lead for Shadowbringers. I’m so happy she’s lead writer on Endwalker.

Yeah, I was planning to work on learning AST so I’d have another healer, but I still haven’t wrapped my head around the 5.x changes, so I think I’m just going to wait and learn Sage.

I really feel like Minfilia got screwed by the writers who never really knew what to do with her. She got shoved into her role without much preparation and has spent five years trying to pick up the pieces after Louisoix’s death, transitioning two organizations meant to protect Eorzea from the Calamity and the Empire…

President Joe Biden is old.

As a Black baseball fan, I’m glad that Betts is speaking out—even if as a Giants fan, I wish the Red Sox hadn’t traded him. I do wish he hadn’t said baseball is “boring and it’s not as fun as other sports,” because then the immediate question is, “Well why the hell are you playing if you don’t actually like the game?”…

This seems like the definition of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I’ve been feeling not great the past couple of days. That trailer made me happy.