This is “Woof of the Week”, the newsletter about the smallest thing that made me say “Woof” the longest that week!
Welcome to Woof of the Week!
I went through three or four different iterations of this week’s topic before landing on the one you’ll read below!
It’s been fun reviving this newsletter - with this issue I’ll have published one month straight, which if you had told mer I would do around October last year I would’ve laughed so much. A few months ago I couldn’t quite fathom doing anything outside of my professional work, and now this is an outlet that feels more necessary than anything - both in terms of creative output and also self-processing as I try to ease up on some bad habits.
As always thanks for reading - also there’s a few pizza mentions towards the end here, and I recently had the WORST pizza I’ve ever eaten in Los Angeles (not any of the ones mentioned below) and if you ask me I will tell you where it is.
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Maximizing the Minutes of My Life
This week I finally started Pikmin 4 - the most recent installment in the real time strategy video game series. Published by Nintendo, each game requires you to command teams of the eponymous Pikmin to retrieve items, solve puzzles, and beat alien creatures. There’s LOTS to do and oh so little time as the game’s internal clock only allows you to explore the planet from sun up to sun down. Each game has various reasons why you should maximize your efficiency in a day - ranging from bonus points to actual character “death.” The latest game has even named this practice of “[organizing] tasks strategically and working effectively to execute plans” - Dandori.
After slogging through the tutorial, I could feel the Dandori habits that I had developed in the previous games resurfacing. I scattered squadrons of Pikmin across the map - building bridges while I killed enemies to sprout more Pikmin. Whole squad going up as one might say. But as the internal clock ticked down, I noticed another bridge I could’ve been building throughout the day. I paused the game, disappointed in myself for “wasting” time. And that’s when I saw the button that would take my Dandori to new heights:
REWIND TIME. I could practically hear Adam Driver shouting “Time STOP!” Instead of the “Restart Day” option from previous games, I could now go back in time in small increments. My mind started swirling with possibilities; after all, why not? Why shouldn’t I go back a few minutes?
With each successive in-game day I was even more hyper vigilant about the way I spent my time. Didn’t know I should’ve cleared the path for Pikmin transporting a heavy object? Rewind. Realizing I could’ve gotten to a side level quicker? Rewind.
ABD: Always, Be, Dandori-ing.
A mantra that I just created I realized I had been religiously following in my personal life since becoming an adult. Especially in a city as big as Los Angeles with traffic as bad as it is, if I have to leave my house, I always try to make the most out of any given trip. And while that may be an acceptable notion to many, I really try to push this to the extreme. For example, I often play tennis on weekends. Afterwards, sweaty and exhausted, I’ll often go grocery shopping. And if I’m feeling extra ambitious? I’ll play tennis, watch a movie IN THEATERS and THEN go grocery shopping. All I need is a place to wipe my face down, change, and apply generous amounts of deodorant.
(Is this TMI? Yes. Is it also true and a solid example of my IRL Dandori-ing? Also yes.)
But again, why not? It can be so hard to leave the house sometimes - so if I’m out, I’d love to stay out. Do all the chores, see all the people, and just be sure that every minute is a minute well spent.
Back to Pikmin, after hitting “Rewind Time” as I reached real world hour six of gaming, I realized that it was almost midnight. I paused and double checked my schedule for the following day - an especially packed and ambitious one:
Three movies in two different theaters, a networking event, and then an hour of prestige TV… EASY for me the DandoriYee.
Setting aside the fact that this might not be a reasonable amount of things for a normal person to do in one day, I started checking my math and Google Maps - all the runtimes seemed to work out, I may be late to a movie but I could always count on trailers and Nicole Kidman delay the start time right? I’d miss an hour and a half of the event, but I could stay till close and I could totally just watch TV right before going to sleep. I could feel the stress and anxiety building within me, but I put myself at ease - I had Dandori’d my day. All that was left was to execute it.
The next morning I drove up to the theater for an 11:15 AM screening of the Oscar nominated animated short films. During the shorts, I checked my watch incessantly - I knew that I had to be done NO LATER than 12:45PM if I wanted to make the next movie in time. As the last credits rolled, I pulled out my phone - 12:55 PM.
I quickly weighed the likelihood of getting to the next theater in time, and then decided to throw my plan out the window.
Because the thing that‘s great about Dandori is t he thing that makes it so hard. Yes, you can organize your schedule so that it’s minute perfect - but in the words of my friend Steve who is part of the Pikmin Speedrunning Community, a group who’s GOAL is to beat the game as fast as possible: “Dandori is a desire, not an obstacle of achievement.” As much as I want to live my life full of things, events, and spectacle - approaching it with Dandori is not necessary to achieve that. Just because I can watch three movies in one day in a theater doesn’t mean I should - or make what I’ve done any better than anyone else who has watched the same three movies across the span of a month, or even years. We’re all here for a short amount of time - and that doesn’t mean that that time has to be maximized so that you can “get” more of it. The end result is still the same - and you can live your life as busy or as relaxed as you want.
So what did I do after my meticulously planned day was thrown out the window?
Well:
1PM - 2PM: Debriefed about the animated shorts that my friends and I just watched. Slowly ate two BIG slices of pizza while people watching outside the theater. Said hi to a friend who was walking into a movie and we laughed at not being able to recognize each other (he had sunglasses, I had a new hat)
2:15PM - 3:45PM: Went to Barnes & Nobles with the intention of writing a completely different Woof of the Week and instead read two comic book collections: ULTIMATE X-MEN Vol. 1 and ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN Vol. 1 that latter of which I didn’t finish but was quite moved by the first issue of.
4PM - 4:15PM: Drank an overpriced but delicious Caramel Sea Salted Cappuccino at a new-ish coffee shop that I walk by all the time but had never stopped in. The cashier really liked my new hat so I tipped well.
4:25PM - 6:30PM: Watched and greatly enjoyed DOG MAN. The kids around us loved the movie too, it’s a hoot!
6:30PM - 8:00PM: Went back to Barnes & Nobles and watched a group of people do a very thorough but sad looking inventory of the store. Ate a salad at California Pizza Kitchen because I already ate pizza.
8:30PM - 1AM: Watched episode 2 of The White Lotus. Wrote the words you’re reading now.
And a pleasant Sunday was had by all :)
Quote of the Week
This week’s quote is from last year, spoken by a woman flying out of Newark airport:
There’s gotta be a better way.
Always a better way indeed… you just have to apply (or not apply) Dandori logic@
That’s all folks!
Thanks for reading this week’s edition of Woof of the Week! Leave a comment because I’d love to hear your thoughts! Some questions I have for you -
What’s the last movie you saw in a theater? (Looking at you non-LA readers!)
What’s your favorite thing to eat at California Pizza kitchen?
Will you be watching Dog Man?
See you on the next one!
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