There's just so, so much wrong with the world today. On the global scale, of course there's Russia's invasion of Ukraine (fuck off, Russia), and the whole Israel-Hamas thing (a pox on both your houses), which has, naturally, evolved into Israel fucking with humanitarian aid to Gaza to the extent of kids dying from malnutrition. Nothing new from Iran, India, or Pakistan lately, but Thailand and Cambodia are looking to step up to the plate. Meanwhile, Trump is back to his tariff-bullying ways, and, whichever help us, some countries are falling in line, signing trade deals in exchange for reduced pain.
That brings us to the national issues, things like "Alligator Auschwitz" for the concentration of illegal immigrants rounded up by ICE's masked miscreants, and new executive orders looking to target the homeless, among other governmental endeavors. Now they're working their way down to mass media, between pulling funding from public broadcasting (because they don't like what they're saying) and forcing CBS to accept a political officer (sorry, "ombudsman") to approve a merger between Paramount and Skydance (to ensure they like what CBS is saying). There, I'm kind of sorry that all I can do is remove my local CBS channel from my TV's channel lineup - I don't have any goods or services that are part of the larger picture, and I refuse to consume media from any outlet with a political officer involved.
It's not all bad, though... Trump and company have been fighting hard to get the whole "Epstein Files" issue out of the headlines, but they're finding that's not easy when they brought on a large part of their base with promises to release everything related to that pre-election. Funny thing, people viscerally care about pedophiles running about free, especially when it's arguably/demonstrably the rich and powerful that are tied into the whole mess. Will any of this bear fruit? Tune in next month!
Well, enough of the shit state of the world, how about a game recommendation instead? Monster Sanctuary is best described as a pixel-art Metroidvania Pokemon game. You collect a team of monsters that levels up with you as you go along, each with their own skill tree. You use those monsters in various kinds of fights with other monsters, as well as using their powers while traversing the game world to let you find treasures and traverse areas that would otherwise be impassable. I picked it up for $5 in the last Steam sale, and, somewhere around halfway through, I'd say it's worth full price, if a game like this appeals to you at all. My Steam Deck gaming routine now is to get an in-game day of Book of Hours played, then spend the rest of the night playing Monster Sanctuary.
Meanwhile, my XBox Series X is mainly my Crunchyroll streaming box at the moment, with the odd bit of Balatro or Spelunky thrown in for flavor. Civ VII, well, I finished a playthrough, and started another one, but, well, for all its differences, it's still Civ at its base... I'll still plink about with it on occasion, but, right now, I'd be hard-pressed to say I'd jump back into it whole-heartedly once I've dealt with Monster Hunter and Book of Hours. I'm thinking it's more likely I'll give Baldur's Gate 3 another go, when that time comes, assuming some other new shiny hasn't come along to demand my attention.
