Words On Wednesday

“Only the strong survive.” Or at least that’s what the bottle tells us. But personally, I’ve tried other spirits that required a substantially stronger stomach. The proof is a little high, but I wouldn’t really call 100 proof notably strong. I suppose it’s some vapid appeal to rugged masculinity, but hey, whatever your schtick is. As for the actual drinking of Yukon Jack Honey, it’s… fine. The initial experience is sweet. As that fades out, you get more sweet. It is an intense sweetness, for sure. The tail end is akin to a mediocre whiskey. It isn’t really good or bad, just whiskey. For the most direct comparison that anyone is likely to have reference for, imagine Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey but higher proof. I picked this up because it was on the discount shelf at the liquor store near work. The normal price there is $17.99, but the sale price was $12 for a fifth. At that price point, it’s cheap enough that the quality bar is set extremely low. It doesn’t really have to be great to...

Competitive Pokemon battling has been in video game news quite a bit lately for some disqualifications and I feel like the traditional Pokemon fan’s perspective has gone unrepresented thus far. To sum up the situation, a recent championship disqualified several players right before the tournament began for using Pokemon generated artificially with a hacking utility. This process is not new, and apparently many or most competitors use the tool to generate ideal Pokemon for their party. And before you automatically write it off as cheating and bad, “While some use it for nefarious means, it’s largely used to save time” (Middler, 2023). The argument is that it makes more sense for a competitive Pokemon player to spend more time planning and practicing, rather than building and training their team manually. Those opposed to the ban and in favor of allowing “generated” Pokemon suggest that it doesn’t make sense to require a competitor to build and train their entire team. Comparisons are ma...