NoJoMo Catch- and Wrap-Up in NoJoMo 2023
- Nov. 29, 2023, 4:09 p.m.
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- Public
Let’s talk about sports? Do you play any? What’s your favorite sport to play? To watch?
I am not super into sports, except hockey, figure skating, horse racing (particularly the American Triple Crown: Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes; and yes, I was watching when American Pharoah and Justify won their Triple Crowns), and baseball, pretty much in that order.
Howeva, when I was in Indianapolis this past week, I ended up watching the Browns-Broncos game at my brother’s house (he is a massive Browns fan), and man. I don’t know much about football, admittedly, but the refs were coddling the Broncos like they were the preschool children of the ultra-wealthy. I think I saw them make exactly one good call against Cleveland, for a false start in the third quarter. Not to mention how shocked I was when they actually called against Denver for unnecessary roughness (I think that player should have been benched, honestly; he hit the quarterback so high and so hard, I thought he’d broken his collarbone). And I’m not even defending Cleveland, here; they did not bring their A-game, but neither did Denver. Denver won mostly because of biased refereeing.
Anyway. For sports I play/played, I used to run, until my knees and general fear for my safety as a very small, very feminine woman made me stop. I took horseback riding lessons, including beginning show and hunter jumping, off and on throughout my twenties, but I had to stop because of finances and, right now, being too heavy to ride without hurting the horse. I mean, maybe not, but I also don’t have a rider’s build: In addition to being short, I have short legs that don’t reach far enough below the saddle for me to effectively communicate through squeezing the horse’s barrel with my calves, so I have to use my hands on the reins, which is hard on their mouths. And that’s all with an English saddle; I can’t even think about riding in a Western saddle because of my build, which is a shame, because I’ve always wanted to try barrel racing. So now, I play my Just Dance on Nintendo Switch and occasionally swing a kettlebell. I’m not bad at the game, either, but I’ll talk a bit more about that next question.
(Submitted by Bendy) What is your favorite video game?
For the ones probably considered more “real” video games: Super Mario World and Mortal Kombat 3 on Super Nintendo, Goldeneye 007 and Paper Mario on N64, Super Mario Galaxy on Wii (I’m a Nintendo girl, can you tell?), and…
Well, less “real” games now, but the Just Dance series. That one, I really wish I’d known in 2020, is best played on an Xbox One or 360 with a Kinect, instead of on a Switch with the Joy-Cons, because the Joy-Cons both suck at tracking movements and are so delicate, I’m afraid to do floor moves with them. Which wouldn’t bother me, except that if you’re playing on a Switch, you can only score with your right hand (then why have floor moves in the first place, Ubisoft?! Especially this gold move in “Without Me”?) and, because Microsoft hasn’t supported the Kinect since 2017, the Series S and X aren’t backwards-compatible with it, so your only option for playing on the Xbox is with the app on your phone. Which… No. No, Ubisoft, I will not play a rhythm game that requires intensive movement, where I’m sweating and my hands are also sweaty, with my $1200 smart phone! Dos iz mshuge! (Though I’ve heard that Ubisoft will modify the app so that some songs can be played with the same body-tracking tech the Kinect used, so we’ll see. I haven’t bought JD24 yet; if the body-tracking app thing happens, I might.)
Bee tee dubs. I am sick of hearing that Just Dance is a “baby” game or a game for kids. Let me show you some of my favorite maps, and you tell me if you’d want kids doing some of these moves, if they could.
Okay, so that leg move during the bridge? With the arm circling backward? That is way harder than it looks. I’ve been trying to get the timing right on it for two years, and I still think I look like an idiot when I do it.
This is the official choreography that Lady Gaga did at that year’s VMAs. This game is literally asking its players to keep up with a professional dancer. “Just Dance is a game for babies!” STFU, no it’s not. I’ve heard of Broadway dancers using this game using this game to stay in shape. Also, this one is hard -at least for me- less because of the complexity and more because there are periods of essentially just standing still immediately followed by frenetic activity. If you’re a professional dancer, this is probably not super-difficult, but if you’re like me and only had, like, three weeks of ballet lessons in kindergarten and then only learned to dance from a video game 25 years later? Yeah. Hard.
The Night Swan. //swoons// Step on my throat, Mother.
(This one is the redheaded stepchild of JD23, but you know what, I love it. It’s so friggin’ cute, and I just love the idea of the pictogram being the coach. Plus, it’s a nice challenge; Just Dancers rely on the pictograms on the bottom of the screen to tell us which moves are next, so without them, you really have to pay attention to what the coach is doing.)
Okay, this one’s more of a guilty pleasure, but man, is it good for leg day. Also, apparently there’s a beta version that was supposed to be in the second game. I love these unreleased beta elements; there’s one for “All I Want for Christmas Is You” that is just cray-cray adorbs. As to why they go unreleased? Different reasons. Sometimes it’s a rights issue, where the artist gives permission for the song to be used, but the label disputes it; sometimes the map is redone or elements of it are changed, like the dancer’s wig and outfit; sometimes, no one except Ubisoft knows. In the first game, some songs were planned but, because Ubisoft only gave the developers pocket lint and change for a budget, never choreographed or filmed, so they appeared in later games, like “Soul Bossa Nova” and “Jungle Boogie,” which were in JD2 but planned for JD1, and “Land of 1000 Dances,” which was planned for JD1 and appeared in JD3; also, the JD1 version would have featured the Chris Kenner version of the song, where JD3’s is Wilson Pickett’s more well-known version. And some songs were planned, but dropped and haven’t appeared in any of the games or the beta files since, like Sam Cooke’s “Shake” or the Black-Eyed Peas “Let’s Get it Started”.
Also, allegedly, Ubisoft has been planning a “Poker Face” map for over a decade, but considering that one of the lines in the bridge is “Papa, fuck her face”, I don’t think “Poker Face” is ever going to be in the game.
It’s the November Food Holiday! What are some of your favorite foods to eat this time of year?
Turkey, definitely; also stuffing and cranberry sauce. Also, the Leftovers Sandwich: Turkey, stuffing, creamed onions, cranberry sauce, and mashed sweet potato on whole wheat. Or, back when my mother made croissants from scratch every November Food Holiday, on a leftover croissant.
Black Friday - what’s your thoughts about it?
Capitalism Run Amok.
To put a finer point on it: I worked at Target from late October to late December 2008, as an overnight stocker. At 10 pm on Black Friday, I clocked in, and the store was wrecked. And to be clear, that Wednesday, we’d overstocked the entire store in anticipation of Black Friday, and still, the place looked post-apocalyptic. We had something like three trucks that night, and the overnight team spent twelve hours restocking to pre-Black Friday levels. I mean, yeah, it was all overtime, but still.
Also, Black Friday is just not good anymore. The only real “deal” I knew of this year was Walmart selling a 48” Roku TV for $98, and the only reason I didn’t leap all over it is that I don’t currently have new TV money. Which is a shame, because I really need a new TV.
Small Business Saturday - share your favorite small businesses or promote your own!
Okay, so… I do understand the impetus behind supporting small business, and I agree with it. That said, I sometimes think the “shop small business always” crowd are a bit over-sentimental about it, and look at small businesses and their owners through rose-colored glasses. It’s like they think small business owners are pure, sinless, blameless creatures who can’t possibly do wrong or have wrong-headed ideas, just because they’re small business owners. (Also, hate to break it to you, bubbelehs, but small business owners are capitalists. There is no such thing as a small business owner who isn’t, in some small way, a capitalist. It’s like how J. Edgar Hoover tried to bust Frank Capra and James Stewart because he thought It’s a Wonderful Life was communist propaganda, when George Bailey, the hero of the movie, is fully a fucking banker. Yegads, people are insane, sometimes.)
For example, my local general store’s owners are, shall we say, not leftists. They’re not even liberals. Or neolibs, from what I can tell. I don’t know their exact politics, but from what I’ve seen, they lean at least conservative. They put a post on their Facebook page last year, which was a picture of Brittney Griner with the caption, “Man, I really miss fried chicken from [local general store].” Let me count the ways, shall I? Or should I just leave it at “holy 1920s racism, Batman!”? And instead of apologizing and deleting the post, the owner (who I know by name and I dragged him about it next time I saw him) literally said he supported the Russian government’s decision to keep holding her hostage, because there was “ample evidence” that she’d broken the law. (“Ample evidence from the Kremlin? [General store owner], have you ever heard of Article 58? Jokes are illegal in Mother Russia!” That’s how I dragged him.) To be fair, they haven’t posted anything like that on their page since, but still. That, my children, is called “showing not just your ass, but the entire thing, right down to the hairs around your asshole.”
But social media leftists are on the warpath against McDonald’s and Starbucks (among others) right now, not over things like their contributing to the obesity epidemic or union-busting and underpaying their employees, but over their CEOs supporting the Israeli government. And, like, I get it. I’m not buying Starbucks or McDonald’s again until they stop supporting the Israeli government, but at the same time, far, far less than 1% of Americans boycotting Starbucks isn’t going to hurt their bottom line. It won’t even really make a dent in it. Starbucks is a multi-billion dollar entity, just like McDonald’s, and they both have multiple investors with deeper pockets than are sane or reasonable. Now, if you still don’t want to use your money to support either place, I completely understand and I fully support you. But be realistic about the endgame, here: You’re lobbing balls of horse manure at silos full of nuclear warheads.
My question is this: Why shouldn’t we boycott small businesses when their owners show their asses, the way we say we’re going to boycott large corporations? (With the knowledge that we never do boycott either type of business, because “tHeReS nO eThIcAl CoNsUmPtIoN uNdEr CaPiTaLiSm!!!”.) Because at least with the large corporations, you know that there are employees who don’t agree with, and actively oppose, the CEO’s politics. You can rest assured that there are people on the inside, trying to unionize employees and fighting for higher wages. Whereas a small, mom-and-pop business? When they show their ass like that, you can rest equally assured that they’re putting their profits where their beliefs are, and proportionally, more than the large corporations do.
Now, to be clear, I am not saying “Never support small business” and “Large corporations behaving unethically is Fine, Actually.” Absolutely not saying either thing. I’m saying that, if you see a business of any size behaving unethically, you should not support them. I don’t care if you’re the owner of my dream small business (a café and cookie bakery that sells artisanal blown-glass dildos), if you’re out there posting racist bullshit on Facebook and sexually assaulting women while calling trans people and drag queens predators, you do not get a pass just because you’re a small business owner. You should know and do better, and if you don’t, I will not treat you with kid gloves.
To make myself even clearer: I stopped supporting Lush Cosmetics last year, because I’m angry that they won’t pay their employees a livable wage while, at the same time, cinching what have to be massively profitable collaboration deals with Nintendo, Warner Bros., and Nickelodeon to promote the The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Barbie and Spongebob, respectively. And it hurts, because I do like Lush: I like their products, I like that they try to be as ethical as possible when sourcing their ingredients, and I like that they refuse to test on animals even when it loses them a lucrative market like China. Being a Lushie was part of my identity for over a decade. But they treat their employees so badly, and lie so blatantly about their bottom line, that I just can’t rationalize supporting them anymore. Lush has maintained, for years, that they lose money each quarter because of their charity work, but that’s clearly not true, and until they stop pretending to be a progressive employer, I will not put any more of my (extremely limited) disposable income into their pockets. I just won’t. e.l.f.’s products are just as good, also vegan and not tested on animals, and I haven’t heard anything horrendous from their employees, and they don’t charge $18 for a bar of soap.
All that said, at the end of the day, I do prefer supporting small businesses. I’m a member of the Middlebury Co-Op, and I shop at my local farmer’s market as often as my funds allow, because I think my money is better spent there and better kept within the community. Plus, there’s a woman in town who makes a vanilla bean rhubarb jelly that is incomparable. And probably my very favorite small business: Good Vibes All-Purpose Cleaner. My favorite scents, which aren’t sold out as of me posting the link: So Phresh, Ocean Views, Sagilmint, and Cranberry and Orange. (My favorite-favorite scent is Amber and Cedar, but it’s sold out. Here’s hoping they bring it back next year!)
It’s National Cake Day - share a recipe for your favorite cake.
Ehh… I don’t like cake enough to have a favorite recipe.
Cyber Monday - what is your favorite social media app, if you have one. If not - why not?
Well, to quote LordJunon: “Social media, the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” That said, I think Prosebox is my favorite social media app, distantly followed by Instagram and Reddit.
Pretend Santa is real - what would you ask him to bring you for Christmas?
A winning Powerball or MegaMillions ticket. Or some tax-free windfall, enough to pay off my car, student loans, and credit cards, with enough to put in my escrow and bring my mortgage back down to $900 a month (my lender screwed my escrow, so now I’m paying $994 a month to pay off their mistake).
Wild Wednesday - what’s the wildest thing you’ve done in your life?
I think “moving halfway across the country with only my car, my cat, some clothes, and a job lined up” more than qualifies. Although I seriously considered just slipping away from my study abroad group in Dublin and trying not to get deported in 2013.
What are your plans for December?
My mom is coming out to Vermont for a long weekend (the 7th through the 11th; I think she has “use it or lose it” vacation time), and if I have enough of my own vacation time left, I may go out to Indy again for Christmas. If I can afford the plane tickets and boarding Smudge, because I am not taking him on a plane again. (I’ll write about it more later, but while he was on his best behavior, he got horrendously sick on the plane. Poor kitty.)
Last updated November 30, 2023
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