- ‘Blizzard Botched Warcraft III Remake After Internal Fights, Pressure Over Costs’ by Jason Schreier for Bloomberg
- ‘What It Feels Like to Lose Your Favorite Season’ by Anne Helen Petersen
- ‘I just learned I only have months to live. This is what I want to say’ by Jack Thomas for The Boston Globe
- ‘Sun, Sand, and Spaghetti’ by Mike Diago for Eater
Jason Schreier writes about the extremely botched release of the Warcraft III Remake:
Blizzard Entertainment’s disastrous remake of the classic video game Warcraft III last year was the result of mismanagement and financial pressures, according to newly revealed documents and people with knowledge of the failed launch. The release also reflected Blizzard’s significant cultural changes in recent years, as corporate owner Activision Blizzard Inc. has pushed the developer to cut costs and prioritize its biggest titles.
Anne Helen Peterson writes about losing summer to smoke from wildfires:
Smoke is life-threatening to people with respiratory issues. For everyone else, it’s shitty in ways we don’t yet understanding. And then there are the secondary effects: it makes you cranky. It makes your hair greasy, your acne flare, and, by messing with your sinuses, it can make your teeth ache. It makes me feel alienated from my body. I’ve spent the last week bumping up against a general ennui and sadness, trying to name it, but its name is just fucking smoke. It’s devoured my summer and, in so doing, my sense of self. Who am I without the restoration of my favorite season? What is my axis, if not this time? How do I feel like myself when the windows are always closed, when the air inside feels tinny and canned, when all of this feels like our future?
Jack Thomas writes about learning he only has a few months left to live:
EDITING THE FINAL DETAILS of one’s life is like editing a story for the final time. It’s the last shot an editor has at making corrections, the last rewrite before the roll of the presses. It’s more painful than I anticipated to throw away files and paperwork that seemed critical to my survival just two weeks ago, and today, are all trash. Like the manual for the TV that broke down four years ago, and notebooks for stories that will never be written, and from former girlfriends, letters whose value will plummet the day I die. Filling wastebasket after wastebasket is a regrettable reminder that I have squandered much of my life on trivia.
Mike Diago writes about the Dominican tradition of eating spaghetti at the beach:
While the exact contents of each pot varied, most had a few things in common: The pasta itself was broken into small pieces and purposely cooked until soft, not al dente, and tossed in a tomato-based sauce made with garlic, onion, peppers, annatto (achiote), and butter. Some finished their sauce with a can of Carnation evaporated milk; others added a few extra ingredients like olives, smoked pork chops, or chicken. Pan sobao or pan de agua (soft, chewy loaves of bread, about the size of a hoagie roll) accompanied just about every pot, which most families made some attempt to keep warm (though lukewarm empaguetadas is not a deal breaker).
That’s all from me this week, see y’all next week!