Paulo Seabra

In episode [616] of The Sopranos, Tony describes his gambling vices in the following way – Well, you start chasin' it... And every time you get your hands around it, you fall further backwards... And at some point in my multiple viewings of that brilliant show, I happened to interiorize that description, that feeling, this idea that an addiction, almost more than the sensory pleasure itself, is actually all about the chase. In a way, it's not about what we gain from it, not really, it's about chasing that feeling. And in doing so, we realize the addiction becomes a reward in and of itself. Indeed, addictions seem to get us to a point where we don't particularly enjoy the coveted thing itself, we instead enjoy pretty much everything else about it, that is to say, the addiction isn't or isn't merely the object of our desire, the addiction becomes the whole ritual we built around that golden calf. I suppose the pleasure can be nice, but it's at times ironical...

All things considered, this might be my favorite game of all time. Collectively, I must have played it close to a billion hours or so. As a kid I had an older cousin loan me his Sapphire version, I played it just a tiny bit, and before I even got to Rustboro, I fell in love with the game. So I returned it to him and, since my birthday was coming up, I asked my parents for a Ruby version, which I got and played non-stop, always taking my sweet time to discover Hoenn. But then another cousin of mine got Emerald and, though I initially acted like it sucked, I was just jealous. When I realized my love for Ruby could easily be upgraded, I asked my grandma to buy me an Emerald copy, which I then played on and off until I had close to four hundred hours on it. And I played with two of my cousins all the time, building nice memories that I won't bore you with. And though my trajectory with this third generation of Pokémon games zigzagooned a bit there, it was with this one that it end...

I don't think I'd wanna live under the Legion, but then again, I don't think I'd wanna live in a nuclear wasteland to begin with. And therein lies the big question. We could go on and on about the barbarity of the Legion, and of course, almost every single action they perform will appear as, at the very least, offensive to our sensibilities, and at worst, as a complete nightmare. However, that is something essentially seen from our modern perspective, a time when, compared to the utter violence of the past, we have it pretty good. It's not perfect, no time in human history ever was or ever will be, but we can count our blessings in that we don't really have to worry about running into radscorpions or deathclaws whenever we go to the supermarket. So, in a nutshell, why do I consider the Legion to be the right choice? Because, as Caesar says, when the bombs fell, society's progress was effectively set back to zero, and as such we need to rebuild by going all t...

This is a game that I love but that I don't really love to play, if that makes any sense. Though a masterpiece of storytelling, it's sadly flawed, and even if most of those flaws have been more or less corrected and the overall game can be greatly improved with mods, it's still not really a game I particularly love playing these days. I dunno why but immersion and escapism are, ironically, escaping me, so I can't really lose myself in a game the same way I used to during some of the happier days of my ever-fleeting youth... But I digress. My point is that, though I don't really play this game anymore, I still think about it a whole lot, and that is because it is so expertly written that it's almost scary, and certainly enviable. So many aspects of this world are so deeply layered and rich with meaning that it's almost a crime that the creators didn't get enough time to complete their true vision. I'd go as far to say that they were set-up for failure...

It don't make much sense... Feelings of depression make us feel like we're totally and completely worthless, like nothing we do is ever right or ever matters, like drivers only stop when we cross the street because they don't wanna mess up their car with the weight of our guts. But feelings of social anxiety are almost the exact opposite of that, they make us feel as if we're at the very center of the universe, they make us feel like everyone everywhere is staring right at us, paying great attention to every single thing we do, perpetually hoping we mess up and make a fool of ourselves... So which one is it? Are we trash that nobody cares about or are we so important that people can't even look away? And if these two feelings are in such stark opposition to one another, why is it that they go together like peanut butter and jelly? Why is it that people who feel completely worthless and invisible also feel they are constantly being watched? I have no bleeding clue no...

I watch a ton of movies. Well, not so much lately, but there was a time, especially during my college days, when I'd watch movies all the time, averaging at maybe three a day for weeks on end, and at times even going for five. Thing is though, I never liked to leave movies unfinished, I guess it just isn't in me, so I'd often end up starting a horrible movie, I'd become dreadfully bored with it and I wouldn't pay any attention to it. But still, for whatever reason, I'd force myself to get to the end credits. It was painful and boring and stupid, until one day I thought – wait a minute, does VLC have a speed-up function? Lo and behold, it did... So from that day on, I began to watch movies sped up, at first just fifty percent speed, but then even a hundred. And to be honest, I thought that was the most genius move of all time, I thought it was one of those epiphanies I was too dumb to have figured out before, and everyone was already practicing it as a general ru...