A lustre of midday.
Somewhere along the line my family got into the habit of a New Year’s Day wander.
Generally we’d set off along the coast, which is only a short walk away in itself.
We wouldn’t head far, and there’d be no objective in mind.
This year, we awoke to a storm: rain falling, fences buckling.
A wander was out of the question.
But then faced with the prospect of a grey day indoors, my wife fired upGTA Online.
Los Santos was covered in snow.
Ultimately, this was as good as a wander.
And eventually we scored a moped and settled into delivering pizzas.
In Los Santos, delivering pizzas involves some serious bank.
But that thought: what a weird game this has become.
We head in for the same reason I sometimes wander into the garden.
Just to hover in a middle-aged way and look around.
You don’t get much more January 1st than that.
Or at least, they don’t have to be that different.
But there’s something more.
Something about the way that games have changed as they’ve moved online.
I remember years back my friend got an Xbox 360 before Christmas, the year it came out.
I felt that same shiver of newness when we loaded up GTA Online and found snow everywhere.
Here was a place, but a place moving through time in its own way.
I’ve known LA all my life, but I’ve never seen it in the snow.
What an odd privilege.
Happy new year, all.
