What keeps you up at night?
The fear of failure? The fear of success? Bills to pay? That one exotic engram you can never seem to find?
It’s a weird question to ask so early on a Saturday Morning, I know. I began this introduction the night before. I thought it would be easy to talk about myself, but it turns out the things that should come most naturally often don’t.
What’s keeping my cat up at night? It’s nearly two in the morning and she’s still itching to play. I have an old shoelace she likes to play with, so every once in awhile, to stop her from climbing on the back of my chair or stomping along the keyboard, I dangle it in front of her. I try not to let her catch it too soon, or too late, but at just the right moment to keep her excited; to try and convince her that there’s something more to the game, something more than just a puppet master pulling strings.
Her name is Daria, by the way, and right now she’s climbed inside my desk. The one I’m typing this introduction on. It’s from IKEA, out of production, with an open cubby slot in the middle instead of a drawer, from within which she’s currently staring at me, having pawed whatever notebooks were crammed in there onto the floor. She’s tired of me ignoring her and wants to play. Long weeks for me are long weeks for her, too.
Which brings us to the weekend, something Wikipedia describes as that complementary part of the week devoted to rest.
Rest—what a quaint idea. Even for those of us not working on the weekend, there can be something urgent, something pressing in the way it lazily unfolds. Work hard and play hard, after all. The weekend is time to ourselves: a piece of the weekly grind left to us to fiddle away however we please.
I can remember waking up early on weekends as a kid, pouring oversized bowls of cereal that sagged under the weight of too much milk, ready to make the most of whatever time I had. Usually that meant playing video games. Sometimes it meant watching cartoons. On occasion it meant running outside into our small yard and losing my Lego in the dirt poorly constructed starships flew past ancient temples.
In other words “carpe diem,” but for the weekend.
No matter how many nights of staying up, the weekend comes along and something in my bones shoves me out of bed and pushes me toward the things I love most: video games, cartoons, books.
To rephrase the earlier question, then, what wakes you up on the weekend? An Overwatch tournament? Your favorite new game? The ridiculous but beautiful thrill of a Burger King toy turned Game Boy Color?
Whatever it is, I want to make sure the weekends here at Kotaku have it. These aren’t easy shoes to fill, of course. Weekends at the site have a long and storied past. One that includes not only regulars but a number of illustrious guests.
As a dear friend of mine once said, “Okay, well, sometimes science is more art than science, Morty. A lot of people don’t get that.” If all goes according to plan, these weekends together will be a mix of both; a collaboration of sorts.
So yea, my name’s Ethan and I’m your new Weekend Editor.
Good morning!