Austin is currently under a water-boil advisory. Turns out getting a ton of rain isn't a good thing, and the amount of runoff it has generated to contaminate our water sources has left our treatment plant in a bit of a bind. At first the advisory was supposed to be for a day or two, and was then extended to two weeks, before being scaled back down to expecting it to be just one week.  Even having it for a week is not something I've ever seen before, but if you've never been under a water-boil warning before this might all mean nothing to you.

The short version: there's no guarantee the water that comes out of any tap is free of bacteria, so you have to boil your water before you use it to kill anything that could be there yourself. You can still shower and wash your clothes, and theoretically you can wash dishes still (though I personally feel ick doing that), but if the water is going to go in your mouth it's gotta be bottled or boiled and cooled. It's an inconvenience, but it's not the end of the world.

But then you realize the coffee machines at work have in-line water systems so you can't use those and there's no coffee. And the water coolers were disposed of a few months ago in favor of an in-line filtration system to save on plastic so now you can't use that. And restaurants can't possibly boil all their water before using it to cook or make drinks or even ice so then those are closed while they wait for the advisory to lift. And you have been diligent and boiled your water and used it for drinking and cooking but forget like an idiot to use it to brush your teeth like somebody you all know (*cough*me*cough*).

The number of times you just...use water without really thinking about it is staggering. It's easy to remember to use your boiled water for those conscious choices, but all the times you're just going to flip on the faucet real quick in passing to rinse your hand or wet your toothbrush or grab a few ice cubes for your drink? That's what gets you.

Have you ever had to follow a water-boil advisory before? How long did you have to do it?

Life has been busy for a long while, but now it's a different kind of busy. It's a steady stream of busy rather than bursts of super busy. I got good at handling bursts. Hit the ground hard, do the thing, take a breather, sprinkle in some outside tasks, repeat. On the one hand it made everything feel rushed, but on the other there were defined down periods for recovery, always another light at the end of the tunnel to reach.

I am super glad to have steady work again, but it is a huge upheaval in that system I had grown accustomed to and thrived in. It's been 2 months, and while I can acknowledge that expecting 2 months to undo 3+ years of routine is kind of silly, I still find myself not only struggling to make that change but struggling with the fact that I'm struggling. With daily life averaged out across the week that consistent beat of down periods has averaged out along with it, and I just cannot adjust to it. It feels like I'm overall more busy, and maybe I am, but figuring out how to continue to exist is feeling like some insurmountable obstacle.

I don't mean that in a suicidal way, not in the slightest. I realize rereading it that it can come across that way. I mean it in a "I am so overwhelmed with the idea of doing this, that, and the other thing within the amount of time allowed by the laws of physics and biology that I literally do not think this is possible" way. I've been trying desperately to tetris together things like my new work schedule, going to the gym, laundry, basic housekeeping, streaming, making stuff, spending time with friends, enjoying time with LoLink and all the pieces are just awkward enough that while it may be possible for them to all fit in the grid I have yet to come up with the solution. In the face of that, all I can do is start removing some pieces. Or at least making them smaller.

The easiest piece to cut down right now is streaming/videos, and frankly makes the most sense at the moment. I have reached a point where streaming is not as enjoyable as it once was, and has instead turned into a pretty hefty burden on my mental health. I was hoping that dropping ti back to 3 days a week was going to help, but it hasn't. After a lot of consideration and talking with a few trusted confidants, I'm mostly no longer going to stream on a schedule. Tiara Thursdays and Stardew Sundays (which were moving to every other week anyways) will still be planned for, but for the foreseeable future other streams will be done on an as-able-both-literally-and-mentally basis. I'm going to go back to streaming when I genuinely feel like streaming and want to spend time with friends in the chat.

I'm also going to work on getting YouTube up to date, and once I get it to where the archive on Twitch is current (or current enough) will be switching to not making any edits on streams and just straight uploading them from Twitch for the archive. Doing that will free up time to make actual videos when inspiration strikes, which I haven't done in ages partially out of guilt for all the other things I felt like I had to do.

Ultimately, I'm trying to go back to doing things I enjoyed as I enjoyed them rather than trying to force them into the self-imposed obligation they've become. I don't really have a plan for how long it'll be this way...as long as it takes, really. I may be able to get a better handle on the rest of life in a few weeks, it may not be until this production wraps, maybe I'll ultimately decide it'll be like this forever. If I had an answer I probably wouldn't be doing this in the first place.

You've all been wonderfully supportive both on and offline, and I cannot thank you enough for that. I'm looking forward to bringing some of the old energy and spark back into things by giving myself the mental freedom to exist without guilt. Eventually.

I still haven't done my laundry from PAX.

Last year Twitch expanded their partnership model to include a middle tier for those who had a strong presence but didn't meet the high thresholds for what they consider to be "partner" level numbers. While partners maintain access to a ton of features these new affiliates don't get, Twitch has slowly handed out some of them to us to get both us and our communities excited.

A few months into the program, they rolled out subscriptions to us. Instead of having to send people to different platforms if they wanted to support us, we joined partners in being able to have the coveted sub button right on our channels. For many, myself included, it was a bit of validation that we were doing something right. I was super excited when the button appeared on my page, and you guys came out hard making sure it got plenty of use. It was, and still is, incredible.

I got the email saying I could have subscribers on June 28, meaning this week is officially the one year point of the fully fledged Tiara Club. To celebrate an entire year of subs, I'm doing an all day stream on Saturday! Starting at 10am on June 30 I'll be streaming a couple of games until at least 10pm including Jackbox and Monster Prom (with friends!). It's my way of saying thank you for all of the support in getting here, and also a good excuse for us to all hang out and reminisce about the last year of shenanigans. I fully expect the !quote command is going to get a looooot of use!

Stop by, play some Jackbox with me, talk about your favorite stream moments, and tell me what you're looking forward to in the next year! I hope to see all your lovely faces in the chat <3

I turned 31 today. Yes I've been sitting on that prime joke for a solid year, and I'm frankly disappointed in myself for never thinking of it before.

Birthdays haven't been super exciting for a while, but last year with the big three-o I didn't really do anything out of sheer exhaustion from having literally just moved across the country and wrapping the production I was working on, so I wanted to do something just to acknowledge I've made it three decades in spite of myself. Myself and a birthday buddy did a joint celebration at a bar that's a favorite of his and did an open invite to some friends to join us. I expected we'd be there an hour and a half tops, but nearly five hours after getting there we realized it was waaaaay past our bedtimes and finally called it. It was nice to have a low key hangout like that, but there was an extra layer to it that I didn't expect.

It was nice to hang out with people who actually cared enough to put in the effort of coming out for something like that. Friendships get weird somewhere along the way in the journey into full adulthood, and I find that it's rare to just "hang out" anymore. There has to be some sort of purpose like games or movies, and even then it still has to be "easy". Place is more than 20 minutes away? Nah. Tired? Bail. Just don't like where it's at? Pass. In an age where everyone is busy constantly, deciding to carve out time for someone is a big deal. And I am suddenly very aware of that.

I'll be honest that I don't know where I'm going with this line of thought. Whether actively or passively, we all have an internal barometer for measuring our relationships with people, and that at certain points in our lives that recalibrates.  I think I'm at one of those recalibration points and what is important to me in my relationships with people is changing. Granted, how I measure myself is also changing, so which one is following which I can't tell you. What I can tell you is life is vastly different than it was a year ago, which was already massively different from the year before. I still don't know where I'm heading, but it seems my compass is finally resetting to catch up to whatever it is.

Here's to another trip around our burning ball of gas!

E3 is in full swing, and while most people I know were excited for the Xbox and Sony conferences, I waited with anticipation for the Nintendo Direct. I wouldn't call myself a die-hard Nintendo fan, but the types of games I tend to enjoy usually come from them or their consoles. With current rumors and recent teases, I was majorly looking forward to their E3 Direct and finding out just what great things may be coming to us soon. In the end, I was left let down. I joined the Constantly Calibrating crew to do live coverage of the event, which you can watch here if you are so inclined. More of a reader? I gotchu.

While every other major player (no pun intended, but also I'm not sorry) at E3 holds a live event filled with music performances, celebrity appearances, off-the-rails presenters, and in-person screaming fans, Nintendo takes a different approach. Since 2013 they have opted not to hold a live event and instead deliver a pre-recorded presentation that is focused and speaks directly to gamers more than appealing to shareholders. This approach removes a lot of the energy the other companies are able to capitalize on, it makes the news more accessible to those who cannot attend the event while also delivering it in a much more digestible way.

I love me some E3 conferences but holy hell you guys, I do not need to sit through 90 minutes plus of your presentation each. Nintendo's "here's 20 minutes of everything followed by 20 minutes dedicated to our big title of the year" format fits well with their marketing methodology and removes most of the fluff the rest of the conferences have in favor of just...showing you the games. The other conferences are built as much, if not more, for shareholders as they are gamers. The result is the flashy and filler-laden shows we've come to accept as normal that take 3 times as long to deliver the same amount (or less) of information.

Nintendo also has established a wonderful habit of not typically showing you games they can't deliver in the next year. There are exceptions of course, but the overwhelming majority of what they showcase at E3 (and really, any Nintendo Direct) are things that are coming in the next few months. Nothing shown at this Direct has a release date further away than 9 months. How many titles have we seen at other E3 conferences that are next year at best? How long have we been seeing teasers and trailers for other games that are finally upon us? I'm not going to pretend this phenomenon is limited just to games (hey movies, I'm looking at you), but just because it's normal doesn't mean it should be normalized. I will also not pretend that the frequency of Nintendo Directs doesn't have anything to do with it; it's a lot easier to generate hype for an upcoming title with a more timely release of information on it when you have a direct presentation to your audience multiple times a year.

The focus of this year's E3 Direct was the new Super Smash Bros., which was a slightly surprising move. We all knew a new SSB was on its way thanks to a Direct in March of this year, so we expected some news on it. Choosing that to be the focus game, however, was strange. Smash is a solid franchise, consistently played at slumber parties and tournaments alike with no signs of slowing down. It has a dedicated fanbase, and a new installment was greatly anticipated. It is, however, a technical and limited-interest game at its core. A new Smash is not likely to attract a new audience, simply excite an old one.

While billed as a new game, what we've seen would classify it as a remix at best. It is bringing back every character that has ever been in a SSB title, and likely most (if not all) of the previous stages. It was even said during the Direct that they hope we don't expect to see a lot of new characters because their goal was to bring back all the old ones. Sure, everything has a new layer of polish and it's not completely devoid of new faces (helloooooo Ridley), but for all it's prettier graphics and new match-ups it frankly isn't really a new game.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm glad there's another SSB title coming and I look forward to kicking serious butt in it, but for an event with as large of a presence as E3 choosing to spend the majority of your time talking about a title that caters to long-time fans without presenting anything new to draw in a new audience is an odd choice. That said...what else would they have shown us?

The first half of the Direct showed us a montage of a slew of games that are all coming to the Switch, which at first sounds great. Lots of new titles, all coming in the next few weeks/months, perfect! The Switch desperately needs to expand its catalog, so it's a shame that the majority of the titles it announced are just ports from other platforms (and even one from their own). The incredibly small number of new and first party titles is disappointing, and a bad omen for the future of the Switch. It is a great console, but over a year and two E3's later we should not still be hungry for titles (and even just news on coming titles).

It isn't surprising we didn't see any news on Metroid Prime 4. Disappointing, but not surprising. Simply seeing a title card last year did not instill any confidence there'd be more to show this year, but a girl can dream. This seems to be following the Breath of the Wild pattern, which would hopefully mean next year is a giant MP4 party. Also in the disappointing-but-not-surprising category? Pikmin 4 and a new Animal Crossing. The rumor mills have been hard at work on those two for a while (with Pikmin 4 initially being mentioned by Miyamoto way back in July 2015), but with no official word on them there was no real reason to think they'd suddenly drop those titles on us.

What was surprising was the lack of Yoshi. Last year we saw a solid chunk of gameplay for a new Yoshi title, and normal practice would say that amount of gameplay should have led to a showcasing this year with a release date of either 2018 or early 2019. Instead? Nothing. Nadda. Not even a whisper. A break from convention is worrisome for the status of that game, which is a shame because it looked heckin adorable.

It wasn't all old or bad news, though. In the "totally a surprise" corner we have Daemon X Machina, an anime-esque mech combat game full of explosions. Nothing beyond a 2019 release date and "things blow up" is known about this title for now, but at least it's something brand new. In "new but not out of the ordinary" news we have a new mainline Fire Emblem game coming, as well as a new Mario Party that gets rid of that dumb "everyone's in this together" car from the last one. Pokemon Let's Go Eevee/Pikachu were able to get a bit of love, along with DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and a fresh demo for Octopath Traveler. Overcooked 2 was announced for the first time here as well, though if it only releases on Switch I will eat my sock.

This E3 seems to drive home a point I have long tried to make about Nintendo. They still haven't learned the right lessons from their missteps in the Wii era, and they're still trying to figure out how to chase down and woo what is today's modern gamer while reattracting their old audience. The result is that we aren't seeing any real first party titles and aren't seeing good utilization of the functionality they built into the Switch. Being able to take old favorites on the go is not enough of a selling point to expand their market share.

Nintendo has recognized they have lost their edge and are trying to find it, and it's obvious they are looking to what has been successful for other game houses. That's why we're getting ports of already successful titles that would never have been found in the Nintendo library before and getting games that follow closely in the footsteps of other successes that go outside of their typical formats. My favorite example: Breath of the Wild, a game that is the result of Nintendo recognizing something as being popular and sacrificing their formula in favor of following that one. BotW was a good game, but it wasn't a good Zelda game, and I will fight that point to the death.

The unintentional upside to the Switch's still limited library is that it provides a fantastic opportunity for indie developers. A smaller catalog means more people who are casually browsing for new things to play are more likely to see your game than they will on other currently available platforms (especially Steam). I certainly hope this doesn't remain the case, for the sake of the system, but for now I am glad any indie's who are able to put the effort in to creating a Switch version of their game will get more visibility.

I am looking forward to the new Mario Party and to SSBU, but as a hold out who has yet to buy a Switch I am finding little motivation to go out and purchase one just yet.