Author: Everett Guerny

My greatest fear

Hi, clean guy here. My greatest fear is that when I visit the bathroom for the sole purpose of washing my hands—like if I’m about to eat or something—that someone may think that the short amount of time I spent in the bathroom means that I didn’t wash my hands.

I know—who cares what people think? And I would usually agree. But not on this. This is important.

I’ve tried wiping my hands on my shirt as I leave the bathroom, pantomiming a sort of oh man, my hands are just still so wet because I just washed them! act. But then I worry that people may think that I think that wiping my hands on my shirt is an acceptable substitute for actual washing. Not cool.

I know—who cares what people think? And I would usually agree. But not on this. This is important.

So what do I do? Always walk out still holding a paper towel? Leave the bathroom loudly going “oh man, my hands are just still so wet because I just washed them!” Should I always comment on what luxurious hand soap they’ve got in this McDonald’s bathroom? “You’ve really gotta try that stuff… I mean, obviously I did.”

I know—who cares what people think? And I would usually agree. But not on this. This is important.

Or just wash my hands in slow-motion? I… I think I could do that.

Icky Thump

I once told this girl in a bar that I was saving the White Stripes’ final album, 2007’s Icky Thump, to listen to at some point in the future just so I could have the pleasure of listening to a new White Stripes album when there were no new ones. This was a bunch of years ago, it was true, and she said she was impressed with my self-control.

Late last year I found myself in the driver’s seat in Texas late at night with a long way to go. By then I had bought the album and kept a copy stored up in the cloud, always available but never played and just kind of hanging out. I had avoided even merely reading reviews for almost a decade, but these unfamiliar roads kinda seemed like the right time, and this night the right place to pull Icky Thump down from the sky and out through the rental car speakers.

You know, I’ve got this playlist for songs that are not necessarily great, but when I first heard them made me go “whoa—what world did this thing come from?” (The playlist is actually, literally, titled “What world…?”) Rammstein, Gorillaz, Eminem, Black Flag, Mindless Self Indulgence, and a few others, have a track apiece on the playlist. None of the songs have that effect on me anymore, but every track was once mind-melting stuff.

Would adding an entire album be violating the spirit of the playlist?

Can’t take much more of this

I was in the backseat of a car maybe a month ago when the new X-Files (2016) came up. None of us had heard whether the series was coming back for a permanent run or what. Someone looked it up on their phone and found it would only be six episodes.

“Oh, thank goodness,” I sighed.

My response baffled the front-seat occupants, one of whom asked what I had against the The X-Files. I explained badly, as I often do on the spot, how age has shown me that more isn’t always better, and my already loaded media diet means I just don’t have time or energy for that much new stuff.1 Fewer episodes equals better.

A lot of times I’d rather appealing stuff just not exist than have to exert the willpower needed to not to care about it. Everett today is thankful Seinfeld quit early. Everett today was pissed when 99% Invisible went weekly. Everett sighed and stared out the window at the news of Blade Runner 2. Everett is way too good at finding stuff he cares about, and really bad at ignoring stuff that sounds like it might be cool.

Tom Chandler has this problem with podcasts. I, um, also have this problem with podcasts.

(P.S. If you’re David Lynch, make all the new Twin Peaks you want. I’ll accommodate.)

  1. I wanted to add, but didn’t, that I always thought Milennium was better than The X-Files, because that would just confuse them and might make them think I really did secretly hate The X-Files but wouldn’t own up to it. I’m getting better about staying focused while talking, keeping the extraneous details I’m just dying to share to myself.[↩]

Is this going to be forever?

Let’s talk about me.

Super Smash Bros. Melee wasn’t released at a very good time for me. I was in college, away from home and most of my gaming friends. Also, it was released for the Nintendo GameCube, which history has shown us wasn’t a terribly successful console. In fact, I don’t think any of my closest friends back then owned a GameCube.

But because I know people who know people, there was a handful of opportunities to play Melee over the next few years.

I’d be at people’s houses and find mostly-young, mostly-male groups gathered around the TV trading smash attacks between signature Nintendo characters in the most wonderfully whimsical cartoon fighting game imaginable. Mortal Kombat this is not. Up to four players at a time would spend a few minutes at a time battling Links, Marios, Kirbys, Pikachus1 (and many others) in levels pulled from familiar Nintendo games. They’d be talking trash and throwing flowers and bombs and baseball bats at each other… much as my closest friends and I had spent literally hundreds of hours doing a few years earlier in the Nintendo 64 Super Smash Bros., the original game in the series.

smash-bros-melee2001’s Melee, however, was a very different beast from ‘64,’ and is still held in high regard by many, and still a tournament-favorite—despite new installments of the series being released in 2008 and 2014.

Gosh, I’ve always hated Melee.

Even today it’s still the fastest-paced and most brutal game of the series—the speed each game runs at is a design decision made by the developers—but Melee felt especially amped-up coming from the downright glacially-paced 64, even today still the slowest-paced game in the series. That alone made it tough to get into Melee—imagine picking up the controller and being mercilessly pounded by up to three other players (who probably play this all damn day), while you struggle to figure out how to not accidentally fall off the edge of the level.

“Seriously you guys, when you’re ready to play a real game, I’ll kick your ass with Link in 64!” is a thing I probably said every time I played Melee.

Speed was one problem for me in Melee, but my other one was the GameCube controller. Yeah, I know: the design is still held up as one of the best controllers ever, believed by many to represent Nintendo at their peak, right before their Wii-era folly of appealing to the dreaded “casual” market with the waggle-motion-centric Wiimote. The classic GameCube controller is still supported in newer Smash titles, and is still the choice among the hardcore Smash crowd… despite the half-dozen other controller options that are also supported at this point. How could I possibly not see what an amazing gift Nintendo had bestowed upon us with the GameCube controller?

gamecube-controller-smash-brosYeah, so I never really “got” the GameCube controller. I never learned how to effectively use the soft analog ‘shoulder’ buttons, never became comfy with the layout of the right-side ‘fire’ buttons (X, Y, A, B)—the real meat of any controller. Coming from 64, I knew what the C-stick was for, but it just wasn’t the same as the four yellow buttons of old. And I’m sorry, but the Z button is just wrong—it goes on the bottom, you jerks.

With a decade-plus of hindsight, it’s clear now that my problems with Super Smash Bros. Melee, and with the GameCube controller in general, were mostly due to a lack of familiarity. I didn’t have the chance to spend time alone learning Melee at my own pace… or barring that, having hours upon hours to spend competing with close friends to sharpen my skills, like I did in high school. And I’ve always felt a little handicapped when it comes to picking up steam at new games that favor players with, you know, reflexes. I didn’t really grow up with games at home when I was young—I definitely missed a lot of the formative stuff that other 1980s babies grew up on.

Anyway, although I essentially sat out the entire GameCube era, busy with college and other life stuff, my interest in gaming was reinvigorated with the release of the Nintendo DS and later the Wii. (Yes seriously, the Wii.2) When the Wii-era Smash game, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, came out a couple of years later, there was no stopping me from picking it up.

I enjoyed Brawl and played a lot of it. Having my own copy at home put me in a good position to get fairly good at it. It was very different from 64—way more characters and way more everything—and as a lot of the hardcore complain, way, way different than Melee. “It’s so slow!” “It’s for noobs!” Whatever; the slower pace and the not-GameCube controls are probably what I liked most about Brawl. Thank goodness they corrected their Melee misstep, I thought.

My newfound enthusiasm for console gaming died down a few years later. I haven’t really been keeping up with the new Nintendo Wii U or 3DS stuff at all. But my original Wii remains below the TV, and I turn it on every couple of months, usually to play an old-timey 8- or 16-bit classic.3

Something happened last week. An Ars Technica article about competitive Smash, and the enduring tournament legacy of Melee, showed up in my RSS. Before I had even finished the article, I’d already been to Amazon and ‘Prime’d myself a GameCube controller and memory card… and an overpriced used copy of Super Smash Bros. Melee.

My girlfriend was going to be out of town for the rest of the week. The time was right to dive in headfirst.

What happened to me?

Look, I developed this attitude as I grew closer to 30 a few years back. It goes a little like this:

So… is that it? Is this really how it’s gonna be for the rest of your life?

As I read the Ars article through these attitude-tinted lenses, I decided that my hating Melee was based on shaky reasoning at best. The way I felt about it after my few tries may have been a genuine and reasonable reaction to getting pummeled while flailing uselessly with this weird-ass controller, but let’s be honest: I never gave the game a fair shot.

That, paired with the fact that Melee‘s still so widely held in such high regard almost 14 years later—it’s definitely not just mindless fanboys trumpeting the new hot thing—made me think hey-why-not? I essentially have a GameCube just sitting there—it’s actually built into the hardware of the original Wii.

A couple of days later, my little care package from the past arrived. Predictably, I still fucking suck.

But I think it’s going to be fun this time.

  1. By the way—just sayin’—f Pikachu.[↩]
  2. The console was cheap enough, the motion controls seemed interesting enough, and the potential for amazing first-party Nintendo games (Mario, Zelda, etc.) made me take the plunge. I camped out on release night in 2006. Also, I had a job, some money, etc. And despite the tons of shovelware, there were more than enough good Wii games.[↩]
  3. There’s a good chance it’s Dusty Diamond’s All-Star Softball. Gotta stay sharp.[↩]

Compromise and Nexus 5: a review

I know a thing or two about compromise—I bought a Nexus 5 a few months ago. It’s not the phone I want, but it’ll do. For now.

It’s been years since I bought something that wasn’t the latest and greatest Nexus model, but this time I think it was the right call. Like other Android fans, I awaited the announcement of the Nexus 6 with every bit as much excitement as the entire world does when it’s new-iPhone-time. (Yes, this is a thing people actually do for Nexus devices.)

I found myself utterly underwhelmed by Nexus 6. Price, size, boring, etc. But I knew I needed a new phone, so I immediately ordered the fan-favorite Nexus 5.

It’s fast. My Galaxy Nexus—a phone from 2011—didn’t seem that slow, even towards the end, but I’m blown away at how fluidly this thing runs just about everything. (That’s probably the extra RAM talking.) Another RAM-based plus is that it’s awesome to switch between apps—and even browser tabs—without my seeing persistent background processes dying and restarting. I could have avoided this frustration by simply doing less with my device, but why would I?

Having 32 GB of storage shouldn’t be such a big deal in 2015, but after dealing with two phones that maxed out at 16-ridiculous-gigabytes, it feels amazing to not have to think about space, at least for now. Of course it’s still only 32 GB, so I’m not significantly changing the way I use the device to make use of the extra space.

Ick: I find it a little hard to believe that I own a phone with a not-user-swappable battery.1 After all, I thought that I object to these on principle. In the end, sigh, the Nexus pluses won out over the other devices I considered. But I feel as if the device comes with a built-in expiration date.

Speaking of power, I didn’t expect to pick up a wireless Qi charger for this phone, but I did. (Um, two, actually—cheap ones.) I love it. Wireless charging is not only the future of mobile devices, but for those on the Android side of the proverbial aisle, it’s the present.

Well, no shit there’s no physical keyboard. I immediately missed having one when I got my first candybar-style device in 2010. You’re getting on well with tapping, swiping, voice, autocorrect, whatever? That’s wonderful and I’m so happy for you. I miss having a real keyboard no less today than I did four years ago.

Months after its general availability, I’m still continuing to hold off on applying the Nexus 5 Lollipop upgrade. The same UI flash that got Apple-enamored design bloggers salivating actually saddens me. Exactly why is probably worth a dedicated post, but after months of using Lollipop on secondary devices, I still can’t see myself putting it on my primary phone (read: the only device that matters to me).

Nexus 5 feels like more of a stopgap than anything else… at least it was pretty inexpensive. It’s clear that the world isn’t turning back to the good stuff from the past (top want: badass Sidekick-style slider) but there is hope for the future — Nexus 5 just needs to last me until Project Ara is a thing I can actually use.

Someone will make an Ara keyboard module. I can feel it in my hands now.

  1. I know. There are disassembly guides that show you how to crack open the phone and replace the battery. But that is not the same as having a truly removable battery. For one thing, I can’t just casually carry a second battery to pop in for an instant top-up. And also, I imagine this complicating factor limits the market demand for replacement batteries, which I fear will limit the battery supply when, down the road, the day comes that I finally need a replacement. Sealed phones are a shitty, disrespectful design decision by which this dude cannot abide.[↩]

Slick, sleek & slimy

I have fond memories, though my cholesterol level does not, of eating at D’Best Sandwich Shop in Boca Raton. It’s been a few years, but as I  recently munched on a Miami Cuban-style cheesesteak1 my mind started wandering and I got to wondering if D’Best still existed. As I went looking for their website, I recalled a few of their regional twists on the cheesesteak, like the New York style, a New Jersey style… not to mention their incredible non-steak explosion of an entire Thanksgiving meal directly onto a bun (D’Pilgrim).

D’Best still exists, alright… but I was truly unprepared for what I found.

You see, back when I’d visit, D’Best-the-subshop was a place you’d leave coated with a thin layer of grill grease. Had to wait in line? You’re washing your hair tonight. The place was by no means messy, but it had a certain unfinished quality to it… definitely the kind of place where the food matters more than the branding. I’d describe it as feeling somehow honest… completely lacking in pretense. Kind of blue collar? Yeah, I guess.

You can probably tell why I was expecting the website to be endearingly terrible. I was ready for a little Comic Sans, an “under construction” GIF, and a scanned paper menu—as a multi-megabyte bitmap, of course. That would seem normal. Kind of quaint.

D’Best-the-website, however, looks very professional. It’s fast, designed to modern standards, has eye-pleasing amounts of whitespace—oh, for fuck’s sake, it’s responsive—and is even served over HTTPS. Oh, and did I mention that it’s completely lacking in character? It feels like it should belong to… I don’t know, L’Best Artisinal Panini Bistro.2

And it very well could.

But what really raised an eyebrow was this line:

We have an unwavering commitment to flavor. Connect with us and let us know how we are doing.

And also, this one:

We never stop short of a culinary experience you’re sure to enjoy.

D’Best’s flavor may not waver, but you’d never hear that out of their mouths. Their sandwiches may be delicious, but a “culinary experience” they are not. This is a place where the meat gets grilled by guys in football jerseys, backwards baseball caps and maybe a tattoo or two.

Something was rotten in the state of Boca, so I plugged the above phrases into a search engine. And then I did one of these. It turns out there are at least 80,000 restaurants whose websites promise the same “unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to fla­vor,” and look more-or-less exactly the same as D’Best’s.

All of these, including D’Best and Hickory Hut St. Paul, say the’re “Powered by EatStreet,” a website-in-a-box service for restaurants. EatStreet seems to host these sites, and provides them with a generic design template as well. All of these different restaurants, from all over the country, basically end up with the exact same website, with the exact same messaging, except for a few small tweaks.

This feels a little slimy on the surface, but is there anything wrong with it? After all, restaurants’ websites are of truly hyperlocal interest. I mean, nobody in DeKalb, Illinois is looking for D’Best. They’re more interested in The Huddle American Food… which has the exact same website as D’Best. Sigh.

In the interest of being honest with myself, I tried to explore just which part of me was so offended by this. Was I offended as a food person? As a past D’Best devotee? Or as a copywriter who can’t help but see this as a business getting by without needing the services of myself or someone like me?

To reach the answer, I tried to put myself in the shoes of the owner of D’Best, and I realized that, you know, it must have been a whole lot nicer to run not just restaurants, but most kinds of local businesses before the Internet. Some person who really needs to be worrying about keeping rats out of the kitchen doesn’t want to think about about building and securing a website, plus dealing with all the Internet necessary-evils (Yelp, Google, Facebook, OpenTable, Square, Foursquare, etc.) that supposedly exist to bring them customers, but instead use their stature to intermediate the customer relationship, and extract a recurring fee for doing so for the rest of forever. (Actually, a few of those companies would love it if D’Best decided to give up on running a standalone website.)

If EatStreet can keep a simple site up and running smoothly, plus keep it more secure than the proverbial site-by-nephew, is that really such a bad thing? After all, a few decades in, the Internet is still not made for normal people; there’s just too much that can go wrong if one doesn’t have the specialized knowledge to do technical stuff properly. There’s definitely value in simplifying things for a normal person who just want to run their damn businesses. So even if EatStreet is yet another friendly intermediary, thanks to them one can order a D’Best Philly style online—consider my mind blown. Could that functionality exist without some centralized service keeping the Internet gears running smoothly in the background, handling the credit cards and taking a cut?

For all the upside they deliver in functionality and security, however, EatSreet sure has their tendrils into D’Best in an inadvisably-deep manner—a quick whois check shows that EatStreet actually owns D’Best’s domain name. Or should I say their new domain name. I found this other domain that still contains an older D’Best website. While this site is still slicker than it should be—remember, my cheesesteak place’s site should look a little like their paper menus, minus the grease stains—this site’s a lot closer to what I would expect. There are some typos. It’s got a page where you can meet the team. It has a freakin’ FAQ page where they tell you how to reheat a cheesesteak (which, by the way, they say you shouldn’t do).

This Internet archaeological find is a sign that someone once cared about and hand-crafted D’Best’s web presence… but at some point said “fuck it, this EatStreet thing doesn’t make me think.” Thanks to their scale, EatStreet can centralize best practices for all of their customers, but they can’t centralize the déclassé character, the local flavor, the unique greasy fingerprints that inevitably end up on the website when it’s made by the owner’s proverbial teenage nephew.3

While those at the helm of D’Best can do what they think works for them, it just sucks to see a place with so much flavor take the path lacking in taste. But they have cheesesteaks to make, and as long as people keep coming through the door to order these greasy wonders on bread, they don’t have anything to worry about.

Ultimately, I guess I’m just writing about myself and my preferences. While you couldn’t stop me from grabbing a cheesesteak if I happened to be in the neighborhood, from where I’m standing I can’t help but see big, lazy centralization as the sworn enemy of goodness. May I never get too big to have taste.

  1. For the curious: a single slab of steak topped with swiss cheese, mayo and potato sticks—a rather unhealthy twist on the ubiquitous pan con bistec, and also not a cheesesteak.[↩]
  2. A hypothetical restaurant I’d also totally eat at, by the way.[↩]
  3. Just kidding! Kids these days don’t actually know how to use computers. They’d just set up a Facebook page.[↩]