I Have to Work Late Because I Played Tales of Xillia 2 All Day …
I had so much work to do today, but I’m going to be up all night finishing it because I … uh … may have spent six or seven hours playing Tales of Xillia 2, which was released last week. When I woke up, I just didn’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything so I threw on comfortable clothes, grabbed a cup of coffee, made myself a plate of white cheddar, honey, and golden raisins on baguette slices, paired it with a big glass of milk, and went to the living room to lose myself in the world of Rieze Maxia and Elympios.
The sequel is a great follow-up to the original, which I used to talk about the power of the mere association mental model; how the brain can behave in irrational ways based one evolutionary quirks. I started playing last Wednesday and am already 40 or 50 hours into it, I think, but I’d need to check the save file to know with certainty. There have been some nights I’ve gone to bed at 4 a.m., forcing myself to finally put down the controller. I’m one of those do-every-side-quest-get-the-ultimate-weapons-for-everyone types (which should be evident by my Skyrim obsession a couple of years ago).
Toward the end of my session, it was getting late. Aaron had already put in a full day at work and wanted to know what we were doing for dinner. We decided to use whatever we had on hand at home and throw together something quickly. We ended up roasting a chicken French style and baking granny smith apples in a mixture of sugars and butter. It smelled wonderful as I attempted to fight off a terrorist attack aimed at ending the life of a high-ranking politician. Now, though, I’m paying the price. Time to start checking items off my agenda.
It’s still crazy to me how much more, and better, food you can get when you cook for yourself instead of eating at a fast food joint. You’d think the wonder would go away at some point but it hasn’t. Take the dessert. It seems excessive – all that butter and sugar – but it was only 270 calories per serving (we divided it into four ramekins) and still well within the daily sugar guidelines for a healthy person. Compare that with a pre-made dessert from a gas station and you’d be looking at several times those values. So much of it comes down to the preparation techniques. You can a tremendous amount of flavor in a slow roasted chicken, whereas if you wanted to make it quickly and have it taste good, you’d need to fry it.
The chicken had to sauteed on both sides to lock in the juices, the put over a bed of herbs and vegetables, placed in the oven, and slow roasted. Later, you strain the vegetables out of the juices, put the juices back on the stove and concentrate them down, making a natural au jus that gets spooned on top of the servings. It had a much more down-home flavor than Hazan’s fantastic lemon chicken and wasn’t nearly as intense as one of my personal favorites, the rosemary, garlic, and white wine chicken, but it’s definitely a great recipe. It filled the house with a fragrance that reminded me of visiting one of my grandmas on holidays when there was food in the oven.
The au jus was incredible.
We had some granny smith apples so we turned them into dessert …
We should have paired it with a bit of vanilla ice cream, which would have made it perfect, but it was delicious nonetheless. I think, maybe, during one of the upcoming dinners I’ll make individual pies like this. Cutting tiny lattice work might be a bit of a chore but I think I can do it.
I’m secretly hoping I get done early so I can go play more of the game. Or better yet, Aaron can start it while I work on the MacBook and watch him …
Oh, and favorite character? Hands down, Gaius / Erston. I’ve spent most of the game playing as him rather than Ludger. Muzét still freaks me out, though. Her mental instability of years past makes me scared to be around her. I know quite a few of you who read the blog are playing it. I love the battle system, especially the Kresnik powers.
Reader Comments (8)
Comments are presented chronologically, with replies indented beneath the comments to which they respond.
innerscorecard
August 28, 2014
You are insanely cruel. I am so jealous. I'll just see this as the "carrot" part of a carrot and stick approach to getting us readers to improve our lives. :p
Frederick
August 28, 2014
something like this?
InternetObsession
August 28, 2014
Hey Joshua,
Could you comment at all on the addictiveness of video games? I don't recall reading any mental models of yours that cover this topic. I'm the same way with various internet sites (news, reddit, blogs, wikipedia) where I can spend hours reading when I have other work to do. I can relate to the "forcing yourself to put down the controller" at 4am.
My question is, what causes this irrational behavior?
Rationally when you woke up you probably didn't plan to spend 7 hours playing this game (or in my case 7 hours browsing the internet).
The rational way to act would be to only play for a few hours perhaps after work and not to be thinking about playing while working.
The behavior seems to begin when your rational mind thinks "let's have a bit of a break/I don't feel like doing anything right now" to start the enjoyable activity. At that point if the activity is enjoyable and interactive enough then your conscious mind becomes fully engaged and in the zone so you don't realize how much time has passed. Eventually something external snaps you out of it.
I'm fascinated with this topic because with the growth of the internet and video games that are actually quite addictive coupled with the fact most knowledge workers use the computer to actually do work, this might hurt productivity long term if we give human nature free reign.
Jordi
August 28, 2014
Replying to InternetObsession
It's a fascinating topic indeed. If you find a good way to deal with the internet addiction let me know. I stopped playing video games a long time ago because once I started I could not stop. However, it's a lot harder to do that with the internet as I use is a lot for work and other things.
Joshua Kennon
August 31, 2014
Replying to Jordi
I think knowing yourself that well is a very wise and admirable thing. It takes a certain strength of character to recognize something you don't like about yourself and change it.
Joshua Kennon
August 31, 2014
Replying to InternetObsession
The interesting thing about video games is that, when they are well designed, they are almost like a drug for the brain. You have novelty, exploration, the illusion of progress (leveling up, collecting trophies, getting rich), emotional connections, and sometimes epic storylines that have far more power than even the best books since you are drawn in to an entirely immersive world that harnesses not only the written word, but ambient sound, music, and visuals as well.
That can sometimes lead to problems if you aren't able to manage yourself. Even though that can be a problem - there have been a few times in my life when I've let it interfere with my work - my whole philosophy saved me. I've arranged my life very specifically to give me maximum flexibility over my time. When I work, I try to create annuity streams so the money still comes in even if I'm not putting forth additional labor. That guiding principle gave me a certain peace of mind. Sure, I might spend a week not doing anything because I was playing Skyrim, but my past, good decisions are still paying dividends (literally). I still get checks direct deposited from all over the place from diversified sources. My body of work is doing the work for me.
Beyond that, I seem to have an internal regulatory mechanism that runs itself whenever I've let my work slip. I remember something I read as a small child, written by King Solomon thousands of years ago. It stuck with me even then and I've never forgotten it. "Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man."
If I find myself tempted, I simply put in place countermeasures. For example, if I were to check Reddit too often, I'd block it at the router level so anytime it was accessed from any device, it would either deny me or perhaps even reroute me to a page saying, "Go back to work, Joshua."
Another tool we use is software that monitors everything we do. Every word typed, every web page loaded, everything. It's all recorded and I can do a monthly analysis of how I spent my time. If I am not hitting my targets, I change my behavior.
Finally, I try to take advantage of something I call "concurrent benefits". Sometimes, you can generate substantial concurrent benefits even while doing something that isn't work. For example, during Tales of Xillia 2, I've been playing only while riding an exercise bike so I at least am getting a lot of physical activity. I've biked more than 330 miles at this point and, besides not being able to walk the first few days, hardly noticed because I'm so engrossed in the storyline. Thus, I'm not just playing the game, I'm improving my health with the game being a distraction.
But, yeah... I hear you. It's definitely a problem that the very device used for work is also a device of endless distraction. I know a lot of people have found success with the tomato timer, working in bursts of 15 minutes with no distraction, then giving themselves a 3-5 minute break. It seems to be the magic bullet for a certain type of mind. Personally, I opt for the "Getting Things Done" system, using Wunderlist software. I just try to check off as much as I can in a day and as long as I'm closer to my goals at sundown than I was at sunrise, I consider it a success.
That's just me. Others may have better thoughts on it. I'd be curious to hear what anyone else thought.
Steven
August 28, 2014
Checked out a review. Amazing how the characters look almost exactly like those I used to watch in Robotech Cartoons in the 1980s! I thought there would have been some visual evolution by now:)
Joshua Kennon
August 31, 2014
Replying to Steven
There has been (an evolution) but you need to look at video games vs. video games, not video games vs. animation. This (see attachment) is what video games looked like at the time so to get them to the quality of animation took tremendous advances in technological processing power given the voice acting, multi-branch decision trees, and 70+ hours of gameplay content. The quality gap between what was possible 30 years ago and what is possible now is astounding. Making a game that looked like Robotech couldn't happen in the 1980's. It was a technological impossibility.