Chill out

There's a time and a place for everything, and everything does not fit in any time or place. I have a passion for discovery, instruction, building, and extending combos. Unfortunately for everyone else around me, epiphanies happen far too often for it to be fun or totally grounded. These tend to escape my head without any filter. To save those around me from the eternal pain of my overclocked dynamically adapting mind, I'm meditating again – and I've adopted a capybara as my new spirit animal. Something to chill out the two wolves.

Stars aligned and I could play some Third Strike with the local scene this weekend. We met up in the afternoon at a local community events venue. These events and places are the rituals and temples for sharing in fun, forging friendships or rivalries, and legendary folklore. The scene has a history, and a trajectory, and I love where it's going. The people grinding are still around, and there's many new faces, including an Oro player I met playing on Fightcade maybe six months ago, saw the low ping, and invited him to drive to Minneapolis. Turns out he shows up to the locals now more than I do! That's the sort of thing that blows my mind because the nudge was obvious at the time, but the impact months later feels bigger.

I brought my CPS3 supergun setup and hauled a 27" CRT because I care about the game and the people that play it. It feels great to play on arcade hardware. People ask questions about the supergun setup because it is arcane by comparison to an Xbox 360 – the guts are on the outside. There's several obvious parts to point at and ask "what's that part do," and the answer will be mundane to moderately interesting. Small talk, but not for long I've got a set to play.

The world's on fire and people are losing their marbles. I'm still learning to picture the capybara and not get too excited. It's hard to stay calm, so zoom out, chill out, and go to your local.