December 2025

Hello everyone! Welcome back! I hope you had a great thanksgiving and are doing well now that we’re here in the home stretch of 2025. I took the last ~10 days totally off of most obligations, so I mostly just have chit chat to share. So let’s chit chat!

Thanksgiving

First of all, Thanksgiving happened. Erika and I hosted Jason and Teresa, which has been the standard thanksgiving for a few years in a row now. Astute readers of the blog may remember that we initially had Lau on the guest-list as well, but they had to cancel due to work stuff.

Our food list was:

Green bean casserole - Teresa

Scalloped potatoes - Teresa

A whole chicken - Erika

Stuffing - Erika

Candied carrots - Erika

Cornbread - Erika

Onions and Mushrooms in gravy - Erika

Cheesecake - Jason

Pumpkin Pie - Me

Cranberry Sauce - A can opener

While I am responsible for the day in and day out dinners we regularly eat, Erika is the head chef of the household, and therefore handles special events. Thanksgiving is something she looks forward to, and she made the majority of the food again this year. Great job Erika! All others contributions were yummy too.

The End of the 300+ Day Sober Streak

I decided to end the very long sober streak I had going. For people not in the know, marijuana is the only drug that I do. I stopped drinking alcohol in 2014, and don’t do any other drugs.

But, I had been off of pot since January 2025. I wouldn’t call this a relapse; I made a conscious and deliberate decision to reacquaint myself with the drug. I have a medical card in Pennsylvania, so buying pot for the first time in such a long time involved scheduling an appointment with the pot doctor and getting a new patient ID card from the government.

Why? I am not sure exactly how to explain that, other than the time felt right. It was definitely in part inspired by being so thoroughly off of processed food. Not eating processed food is part of my lifestyle now. I am still very strict about it. I don’t eat ketchup. Maybe it’s because I live so close to the Heinz HQ, but not eating ketchup feels like a good representation of how seriously ‘no processed food’ is being interpreted right now.

What does not eating processed food have to do with smoking pot? Perhaps nothing. They felt related to me though. I am having a ‘from the Earth’ moment. There’s something about smoking pot and chopping up a bunch of vegetables and potatoes that seems correct to me.

Being back on pot has been really fun. It feels like an old friend back for the holidays. I was talking to my brother about deciding to end the sober streak, and he commented that he thought it was okay - I tried sobriety out, and it just didn’t stick. I have a bit of a different view of it. I still accomplished something by being sober for 300+ days. By the time I stopped smoking pot in January, hitting the bong was literally similar to drinking a cup of coffee to me. My use had maxed out, and stayed at the maximum for several years. Part of this return to pot is putting more effort into being moderate.

And yes, I am a seasoned addict. I know moderating something you’re addicted to is, in a way, impossible. I am mentally preparing myself for having to ‘quit’ again if my use gets back into the old 24/7 groove that I wasn’t even enjoying anymore earlier this year. I am okay with that. I am feeling it out. Wish me luck.

General Speedrunning Thoughts

The murmurs around Twitch have already started; the rumor is that mclepke is washed up as a speedrunner. Her best days are behind her. She hasn’t streamed since September 4th. It’s a wrap.

Is it true? Are mclepke’s best days really behind her?

I think my best days are still ahead of me, but I also think it might be time to tweak the speedrunning formula that has led me to this point. Today is actually the one year anniversary of me becoming a Twitch affiliate, so it does feel like a natural time to reflect back on the journey that has been Twitch.

When I look back, I think there are essentially three eras that have happened.

Era 1 - the No Reset Rotation. Long-forgotten at this point, the No Reset Rotation was a concept that prioritized going live, and having ‘fun’. Once a week I would speedrun every game that I knew how to speedrun, back to back to back. Resetting was not allowed - I started and finished all the runs in one take.

Era 2 - learning to love the hyperbaric chamber. After the No Reset Rotation era ran its course, my mindset shifted. I got more competitive. I completely de-prioritized going live with any regularity, and solely prioritized climbing the leaderboards of whatever game I was playing at the time. I didn’t go live often, but if I did go live, it was going to be me near the peak of my abilities. I set a few world records doing this, and compiled a number of other very impressive times.

Era 3 - trying to do what I did in Era 2, but with game development prioritized above speedrunning. At the start of 2025, I made an executive decision to prioritize making my own video game above speedrunning on Twitch. For the duration of Era 2, which mostly took place during 2024, I stepped away from game development in order to give this Twitch thing my full focus. The rule I keep today is simple: I must do two hours of game development before touching speedrunning in any given day. Predictably, this has made me much less effective at speedrunning.

Assessing the above, Era 1 and Era 2 are both extreme. Era 1 completely prioritizes going live on a set schedule, and ignored leaderboard climbing. Era 2 completely priortizes leaderboard climbing, and ignored going live on a recurring, regular schedule. I think for Era 3 to work, it needs to find a middle ground between these two poles.

Why? Because going live creates momentum. During Era 2, with my full focus on speedrunning, I could duck into the hyperbaric chamber and learn an entire run offline, because when given my full attention, I could learn a run fast enough to not actually be offline for too long. There weren’t three month stretches where I didn’t go live, like I am in right now, during Era 2.

Right now, I am using whatever energy I have after two hours of game dev and all the other daily responsibilities I have to try and learn a speedrun. I often max out at an hour. On a good day, I might push and get two hours in. Applying these limited hours to the methodology of Era 2, where I am pushing to learn the fastest possible strategies in all scenarios, has led to my wheels spinning.

So, what to do? I am not sure yet, but I will be thinking about it. Stay tuned.

I think that’s it for this week. It feels like I’m crawling back into action. Forward we go though. Have a great week everyone. I believe in you.

Wednesday Update

I did game development for the first time since taking all of this recent time off. I only did half an hour but it honestly still feels like a win given that I’ve put up nothing but 0’s for a while now. There’s snow on the ground and life feels like it’s dragging a little bit.

My mindset right now: take the half hour, but make sure to do at least a half hour again tomorrow. A half hour isn’t bad if it’s the beginning of a momentum-building streak. No speedrunning today. It feels like I need some baby steps to warm back up to all this work.

Have a great Wednesday everyone.