Another win for #LANDBACK! The Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California acquired 10,274 acres of their ancestral homelands in California. The Tribe was forcibly removed from these lands during the state-funded “extermination” of California Natives in the 1850s.

Batou GhostInTheShell, my beloved.

Solid run this morning. 35:44 for a 3.79mi run with 197ft elevation gain. #optionalrunning

I just wanna say one thing: #optionallistening

After seeing it as a recommended org for donation in the most recent @stopaapihate.org newsletter, I kicked in for the AAPIP Twin Cities Rapid Response Fund:

We got a new piece up on Stop Caring. @coledone.com makes their debut appearance on the site with a personal essay on Planescape: Torment. Less straight-up videogame criticism, more narrative-focused, David reminisces about a man without a name and a woman draped in layers in longing.

Between this news and yesterday's news about the EPA I can say that the new episteme being imposed by MAGA/MAHA is going to kill a lot of people. www.unemployednegativity.com/2025/05/do-y...

also, if we know each other and you're interested in starting any kind of cooperative project -- i would be happy to talk and share knowledge from this work. our capacity grows when we work together.

This is what it is in LA. We still have between 1-2 dozen kidnapping attempts a day across the county, every single day. It's just a resonant low-din hum of cruelty. The content factory is gone but the underlying fear remains.

7 miles in an hour and eleven minutes at track night tonight. Not bad! #optionalrunning

The LAPD just want to shoot people.

It bears repeating that Tom Homan is a fucking psycho and Greg Bovino's exile means functionally nothing when it comes to what's happening on the ground in Minnesota.

@jesthehuman.itch.io's No ICE In Minnesota charity bundle has gone live with over 1300 games available priced at $10 min. All proceeds benefit the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. Jes also shared a few words with Exalclaw about the bundle and their goal for it: exalclaw.com/2026/02/09/w...

I did wind up with a serendipitous set of albums from 2024 in the last 24 hours, though. From the symphonic metal of Mitochondrion to the industrial noise and drone of The Body and into the more classic, Eno-style ambient sound of claire rousay’s The Bloody Lady. #optionallistening

Not a lot of sleep last night. Having a hard time releasing a constant, low boil of anger in the direction of the government.

Watched F1. What if Top Gun, but there’s no Goose, so nobody dies, and Maverick wins anyway. Ugh.

Stepped outside, some poetry Clouds are coming fast No shadows cast, no detail Flat light and still air

yes but that does not excuse their imperialism in kuwait, iraq, and afghanistan

Confirmed. Mitochondrion is based out of BC, but I’d be a liar if I said I got a word of this when I was listening this morning. It rips. So does loads of stuff in styles or languages that I don’t fully understand. #optionallistening

Set a new Mixolumia high score in endless mode for the first time in a real long time. #optionalplaying

Best run so far in the new neighborhood: 6.3mi, 637ft elevation gain, 1:13:03 moving time. Did one of the two highest hills in the vicinity and then added a few miles in distance on the other side. #optionalrunning

I also like Caroline's description of it as an "open world of text." While it's not a text game, considering the art, audio, interfaces, etc., it looks like it has a cool way of incorporating that approach.

That's right! And, thinking of the works that @aetataureate.bsky.social compares it to, I (Don) am going to take it as a personal recommendation to play this game.

I feel like Los Angeles is a place where people expect ICE to happen because the kidnappings have been happening to my home city for decades, so there’s less media attention to it now. and I want folks to see that in LA, Latine students are organizing major protests & the police are attacking them

Ran with the Eagle Rock Run Club for the first time tonight. Chill bunch.

The El Sereno night market hasn’t taken place for a few weeks because of the threat of goons kidnapping vendors, but it was on tonight. Beautiful.

"Track by track, the quartet on Little Big III shows range and its musicians show musical generosity to one another." This month's Music essay, by @optional.bsky.social, takes a look at Aaron Parks' recent jazz album.

I am mad at the ransacking of our epistemic anchor points and I am mad at the insistence that the writing equivalent of doing Uber Eats is the best way to replace those anchor points

Sign and share this call on CSU to cancel its multimillion dollar OpenAI contract. CSU is in a budget crisis, OpenAI wants to reduce us all into tools of AI, and our public money should be invested in humans! actionnetwork.org/petitions/ca...

Axis Bold as Love continues to be a rejuvenating, healing album.

I had a good time writing about listening to jazz (that’s me on Little Big III) thanks to @freshoelectro.bsky.social. Check it out!

Finished playing The Lake House yesterday. It’s great and, in terms of what it says about how people look at art and artists, probably the best Remedy have made their point. It’s also probably their best execution of a horror story. I might have more to say later, but for now: #optionalplaying

I had a good time writing about listening to jazz (that’s me on Little Big III) thanks to @freshoelectro.bsky.social. Check it out!

Nintendo is so goofy. They added a Grand Prix mode to Air Riders. It was announced in patch notes. You can’t play it through the same mode as other races, instead you have to set up an online room. But you can play against all CPU, like a single player race. It’s a fun way to play!

HAPPY BOSTON MOONINITE PANIC DAY TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE

Maybe the opposition aren’t as good as the ones Arsenal played last weekend, but the team definitely looks better today. I want more of that Odegaard - Jesus from just now all the time.

New Stop Caring article is live. @aglhrm.bsky.social returns to the site, blessing us with an essay on Dragon Quest VII, gnosticism, and the secularization of game mechanics. Really riveting read, was an absolute pleasure to read and edit.

I had stopped playing Fantasian after playing it for a few hours a year or so ago. Picked it back up after finishing FF1. I’m surprised that I’m finding more to like than I feel like I used to. Fought this thing today outside of a Toy Box and crushed it. #optionalplaying

"Cairn compellingly explores themes of personal limitation and transcendence through its challenging mechanics...by focusing on perhaps the most internal form of freedom—the liberation that comes from overcoming personal limitations." @mayorhere.bsky.social www.gamerswithglasses.com/impressions/...

So, obviously 2025 saw the release of so many incredible indie games that we'd never be able to keep track of them all...but we did keep track of a few! Here are some of our favorites from last year, hand-picked by @skycherry.bsky.social. www.gamerswithglasses.com/gwg-recommen...

Y’know, when I see people like Aronofsky or Schrader using or extolling genai, my first thought is, “huh, were you a hack all along, or does using this shit turn you into a hack?”

When people say shit like "ICE should be arrested" and "Why aren't the police doing anything??" This is why

I’ve played a bit of Big Hope so far (made it a ways into the desert town last night) and this is a cool read.

This tracks with LA. They make the spectacle, act like it's over when Bovino leaves and then continue the same level of crackdown without a spotlight after everyone gets used to it.

Can the Game Boy Camera be your game of the year? 2026 started about six months ago, but we're finally ready to look back on 2025 and ponder, starting with @aeneas-nin.bsky.social. www.gamerswithglasses.com/gwg-recommen...

LA SAYS FUCK ICE - billboard in Highland Park

If you happen to see a headline about Halloween that's still on our homepage right now just, you know, don't worry about it, it's probably fine

Because nobody makes money off this, we have a tendency to take the occasional unofficial hiatus - the motto at the top of our editorial workspace is "there's always no rush." But we're back at it again, and we have a bunch of great year-in-review stuff in the queue!