Stray Thoughts 1

I can't decide what to call my weekly posts anymore.

My popular last.fm scrobbles from the last week. From the top left: David Bowie - The Next Day, Turnstile - GLOW ON, Sleigh Bells - Texis, Angels & Airwaves - Lifeforms, Thrice - Horizons/East, Deafheaven - Infinite Granite, Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee, The Slang - Divide, Tyler, The Creator - IGOR
From last.fm

Been fiending Diablo 2: Resurrected since it came out. I’ve been playing the original on and off for years. It was the first game I can recall that I saved up my own money for. I went to the (now defunct) game store downtown and bought their copy in the display window outside. Before I knew it I made my Necromancer and slaying the demons of Hell! My Mom surely must’ve bought it for me since I wasn’t even close to 17 yet.

The game has relit the fire when it comes to gaming. Lately I purchase new games, play them for a day, then forget about them. This is the first game in recent memory I’ve played longer than that. I’m excited to keep going every day!

All that being said, I feel conflicted buying this game. On the one hand, Blizzard has been on a downward trend lately (to put it mildly), capping with a lawsuit over mistreatment and sexual harassment (“a culture of harassment”). Their response was tone deaf to say the least. The fallout has been staggering[1]. It does not feel good buying a game from a studio that treats their employees like this, and is seeking profit over compelling games. It should be no surprise that a company wants profit, but I feel like the “old Blizzard” at least tried to make incredible games while making money.

On the other hand Blizzard had little to do with D2R. They own the IP and oversaw development, but Vicarious Visions were the masterminds behind this remaster. They did a fantastic job. They did such a good job that Blizzard merged with them (in hindsight, probably wasn’t the best move). The artists, developers, everyone on the team crushed it. They deserve to be praised. I want Blizzard to know this is how you do a remaster, not that god awful mess that was Warcraft 3: Reforged. I’m opting to vote with my wallet as a way to say “more of this”.

I don’t support the way the company treats their employees. I think it’s possible to engage with problematic entertainment. I don’t think boycotting is the answer. I know I said as much a few posts ago, but I’m changing my mind. Boycotting is much more likely to tell the executives that they should continue to treat their employees poorly for poor sales or some other stupid reason. I’ve seen others try to offset the carbon footprint[2] when purchasing from Amazon, and I’m doing something similar by donating to causes that support the affected employees inside Blizzard. I’m raising awareness of the issues going on at the studio to everyone I know that engages with Blizzard games. All that being said, if you personally feel like boycotting Blizzard by-and-large, then go for it.

I recently started scrobbling again on Last.fm. There is a conspicuous omission of about 6 years where I stopped worrying about it. I wish I had opted to continue using the service. I like flipping through this data. What was I into on March 2012?

I’m reading Aubrey Gordon’s book What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat. It’s making me reevaluate my relationship with my weight. To be more specific, this book and the podcast Maintenance Phase are doing that.

I used to believe that losing weight was a willpower thing. That if I tried hard enough I could do it. At one point I did it — I got ridiculously thin using a severe caloric deficit diet. It worked but at what cost? My friends worried about me. But I was thin! Look at how easy it was! I maintained the weight and tweaked my plan for a few months. Then as all unsustainable diets go, I slowly dropped the plan and gained all the weight back (and then some). The diet in hindsight was not maintainable, even though I had managed to convince myself it was. It was horribly boring. I was hungry almost all the time.

This is all to say: maybe I don’t need to lose weight. Maybe I’m fine as I am? I can just be me. Get clothes that fit me properly. Make sure I eat balanced meals. My body could be predisposed to stay at this weight. I feel healthy (as one can be in the middle of a pandemic). My head is full of old, preconceived notions when it comes to fatness. I’m on a new journey to relearn and reevaluate my relationship with being fat. In my case fat is not an accurate descriptor — following the book I would be described as “small fat”, and I can fit into straight-sized clothing. What I am learning is that it’s not the death sentence that the 90s would tell us. There are people that are bigger. It can come from genetics, as much as my old self would disagree. To quote Maintenance Phase: “it’s a little more complicated!”


  1. Google “blizzard lawsuit” and you’ll see plenty of results of high-ranking staff leaving the company. ↩︎

  2. I recently learned that the term “carbon footprint” was coined by none other than BP, as in the big oil company. I lack a better term to describe what I’m trying to illustrate, so I’m going to use it here. To my chagrin. ↩︎