The wishlist I probably shouldn't have made

I mentioned Discogs in the last issue. A whole marketplace out there for records and I hadn't touched it yet.

I found a record I wanted and placed an order, and the experience was genuinely easier than I expected. You find a seller, see their rating, the quality of their items for sale (mint, near mint, etc.) place an order, and a record shows up at your door. Mine arrived in about four days, packed well, no issues. I was prepared for it to be complicated or sketchy in some vague marketplace way, and it was neither. It was just a transaction between two people who care about records, which is probably why it works.

The record I ordered was Sugar and Joy by The Dead South. This requires some explanation, because The Dead South is not a band I would have predicted liking. Americana/bluegrass are not genres I grew up with or ever really sought out. But I heard a song, then another, and something about them just got into my head in a way I couldn't shake. The storytelling is part of it. The songs feel like they're about something, like they have characters and stakes. The rhythms are the other part. I find myself nodding before I've even registered I'm doing it. There's a wild west quality to the whole thing, a kind of looseness that pulls you along. It's not music I can explain why I like. I just do.

The physical record is a variant pressing, half white, half black. It looks exactly as cool as that sounds. I've listened to it all the way through several times now and it sounds fantastic. Vinyl does something to music like this. The warmth fits.

Here's where I have to be honest about the dangerous part… Discogs has a wishlist feature. I added a few records I've been eyeing, and now I get weekly alerts when inventory appears. So far I've done well. I've looked at the alerts and closed the tab. But I know myself, and I know this is temporary. The two I'm watching most closely are the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, it occasionally shows up at a reasonable price, and the Severance soundtrack. The Season 1 record is genuinely hard to find and expensive when it appears. The Season 2 record just came out and is very affordable, which feels like a trap being set for me at a time when I'm trying to be responsible with my record-buying addiction 😆. The wishlist is a slow drip. It's going to get me eventually.

Spinning: The Dead South — Sugar and Joy (Discogs order, multi-colored variant pressing, half white and half black). I've had this on repeat since it arrived, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Playing: We were hosting family and friends who were in town for my daughter's birthday this week, so the gaming setup has been largely untouched, and that's exactly as it should be. However, I was able to sneak in a game of Tecmo Bowl against my Dad. It's the first video game I remember ever playing with him, and he has been undefeated throughout my entire life. HOWEVER, I'm happy to announce that I finally beat my Dad in a game of Tecmo Bowl. FINALLY! 😆

My Mom came up for my daughter's birthday and brought her old record collection with her. I didn't even know she had records. When she mentioned it I immediately started building a picture in my head, classic rock, maybe some soul, something from the 70s that I know she would've liked.

It turned out to be mostly children's records. Peter and the Wolf. The Smurfs. Disney Christmas music. A few vinyl versions of kids' audiobooks I half-recognized. The slight deflation I felt lasted about thirty seconds, at which point I looked at my daughter and thought, she is going to love these. There's something genuinely sweet about the idea of her listening to the same records her grandmother bought in a different decade. The Smurfs might not be what I was hoping for, but the inheritance part is real.

The Sega Genesis my dad gave me is still sitting on the bench, untested. Family in town means that's where it's staying for now, but it's coming. I just need a clear afternoon and some patience.

In the meantime I've been thinking about what comes next after the Genesis. A few friends have suggested picking up a broken Commodore 64 to refurbish. I never had one growing up, so it would be entirely new territory for me, which is either a reason to do it or a reason to be cautious. But the aesthetic of the C64 is hard to argue with. That particular shade of beige, the chunky keyboard, the boot screen, etc. It has a specific personality that not a lot of hardware from that era managed to pull off. I'm considering it.

Additionally, I created a fun little experiment with AI shortly after writing the last letter. I built my own personalized video game recommendation engine. Basically I explained everything I can think of about games I like, why I like those games, and why I dislike a few games that come to mind. I shared all of that with an AI agent for it to understand, analyze, and investigate to try to build a model of what type of games I enjoy. Now I have it setup to look for new releases every week and if its a game that scores high enough on the model we created, it will recommend it to me. I'm hoping this will shorten the time to find games with a higher probability I will enjoy playing it. Nothing worse than dropping $$$ on a video game only to find out an hour in that this is absolutely not for you.

Every major streaming service, and exactly how much their prices have increased over time. Here are the receipts on everything I was talking about in the last video I published on YouTube.

Issue #002. More soon. — Matt