Op-Ed

Chaos and Entropy – Weekly Gaming Discussion for 5/10/29

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is a Splendid Example of Fast Travel

Sometimes Sh#t Just Needs to Be Blown Up

This Week’s (Mostly) Gaming Thoughts

This last week had a particular gut punch that I’d like to share with y’all, before tying it back into gaming (trust me, I will). A week or so ago, I applied for this remote SEO Audit Specialist job. It was the PERFECT role for me. Remote, part-time, doing the part of SEO I love the most (finding problems and coming up with fixes). This is the primary thing I DO for my consulting business. I have sixteen years of experience doing this VERY THING I therefore thought I had a pretty good shot.

On Tuesday afternoon, they emailed me and said they’d moved on with someone else. I was gutted.

I posted about it on my personal Facebook, and then took a very, very long walk (over six miles). I needed time to think and process what happened. After talking to friends and my wife and thinking a lot on it, I came to an amazingly freeing revelation.

My rejection might have had nothing at all to do with me.

This was after some friends told me about not only their own hiring experiences, but friends who’d been passed over for the same position again and again due to something as arbitrary as the flip of a god damned coin.

In this moment, I reached some clarity. I could do everything right, and yet chaos and entropy still exist. I could be the perfect candidate for the perfect position and yet something completely random and out of my control means it goes to someone else.

Coming back to gaming, this got me thinking about my own pursuits with streaming and content creation. I’d been wanting to make some changes to my schedule and some other things, but was honestly too terrified of rocking the boat because I’m honestly seeing some decent growth.

Now? Fuck that.

This week I’m gonna try streaming even earlier, like 6 AM. Why? Because if it works, it’ll be cooler that part of the day (we have no AC) and if I wanna go longer, that’ll give me more flexibility to do so without disturbing our afternoon streams or spending time with my wife in the events, as is our custom.

I’m also gonna mix up the schedule a bit more. I notice a lot of big streamers play one type of game, or one game. I can’t do this, as I thrive on variety. BUT. I’m gonna find a way to fit maybe another space game into the mix on a regular basis. I might try weekly rounds of Freespace 2 mods for a start. I’m gonna see how the 6 AM thing goes first.

So yeah, I got knocked down pretty hard this past week, but fuck, I feel like I got back up even ready to take on more. You guys are the engine that keeps pushing me forward, and I wanna thank you for that.

What I’ve Been Playing This Past Week Couple of Weeks

Cloudpunk – I’m taking my time with this one, jumping in and enjoying the story and the amazing world that the developers have built.
Bloody Rally Show – Still visiting this one every so often, though I do feel a tiny bit of burnout coming on, so I’m playing in smaller doses, something this game excels at.
Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor – Martyr – After taking some time off for burnout on this one, I’ve done a few missions here and there as part of the larger Planetary Reclamation event.
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw – After Tuesday, I needed to play something that made me feel like a badass. What better game than this one?
Titanfall 2 – There’s been a lot of chatter about this one on one of my usual forums, so I loaded it back up and dove back into the campaign from the beginning. SO GOOD.
Homefront: The Revolution – After playing Black Masses the other day, it put the urge to play this game back in my brain. While it excels at nothing except maybe its story, it does enough right to make it a fun diversion.