The summer has started

[jRuutu 2,464]

 

 

 

 

Today we celebrate "May Day" in Finland. To celebrate a day off and the beautiful weather; the sun is shining and it is warm outside, I decided to buy a hotdog from the supermarket's "bakery section". Because I am not an animal, I wanted to eat the hotdog when I got home, so I could eat the hotdog like a gentleman - using a fork and a knife. As I was walking through the crowded city center, the refrain of the song "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton started to play in my head: pa pa pa pa making my way back home, hotdog in my pocket, pa pa pa pa pa. I was having a good time. 

 

I then started to think about VHL and the playoffs.  I noticed that walking home with a nice hotdog shares similarities with the VHL experience. When you walk home with the hotdog instead of eating the hotdog right away you don't get the instant satisfaction. In VHL you don't get to enjoy the fruits of your labor right away either, you need to be consistent and work hard before your player gets better. A person who eats a hotdog in a public setting is close to a user claiming welfare in VHL: they lack patience, they do not want to work hard, and they often lack the ability to plan ahead. If you are able to walk home with the hotdog, it shows you have patience and discipline, you are willing to work for it, and you have the ability to think ahead. In general, if I think about what the world would look like if all the people ate hotdogs out in public vs eating the hotdog at home later, I think the world would be a better place if people would walk home with the hotdog.

 

 

The playoffs and the championship are what you are playing for in VHL. Daily and weekly you work towards being the best possible player and in the end, you hope it will translate to championship glory. Sometimes you will get lucky and you land in a solid VHL team, so you might win the championship sooner than many other players, but generally speaking, you need to have patience and discipline. If you ask me, I think it is only a good thing that you need to "work for it" as hunger and hard work make the victory taste even more special. For that reason, hotdogs should be bought from a store located a fair distance from your home. The walk home will make the hotdog taste even better. When you must walk for some time you also have the time to think about eating the hotdog. 

 

After a while, simply making the playoffs is not as big of a deal as the championship is the only thing that truly matters. Similar to buying a hotdog. If you buy a hotdog every time you can, after a while the idea of a hotdog gets less exciting. You would have to get some special hotdog or maybe eat it in some special place, or after some special event to make the whole "getting a hotdog" as exciting as it once was when you rarely got one. Luckily in VHL, it is still quite difficult to win the championship. However, it is easy to buy a hotdog and build a solid player in VHL, I think that is not good. I think the price of hotdogs should be higher and building a solid player in VHL should be harder. That way the status of the hotdog would automatically reach new heights, same with building a player. Right now in VHL, you get to enjoy multiple strong seasons as a strong player before depreciation hits, you also start scoring at a  fair rate quite soon after entering VHL, but the journey is not as satisfying as it could be as the difference between hard work and showing up doesn't feel as strong as it should feel. If buying a hotdog would be a difficult thing to do people would proudly wait until home before eating the hotdog as they don't want to be too flashy and rub it in the faces of other people. Eating a hotdog would be a rare thing, shared only with friends and loved ones. If building a strong player was harder thing to do users in vHL would feel more proud about building a strong player.

 

 

 

 

 

The idea of playoffs still carries you through the weekly grind. The regular season is a long process, you have to do a lot of work to improve your player, especially after a certain point. The idea of competing and maybe ending the season in championship celebrations is what pushes you to earn as much TPE as you can. The walk home today was not as bad as it could be, the sun was shining and birds were singing, but I still had to walk a fair amount. The thought of the nice hotdog kept my feet light. When you walk home with a nice hotdog, you make sure you walk home as fast as possible, but you make sure you are not taking any dangerous shortcuts that could prevent you from getting to enjoy the hotdog. Similar to VHL, you don't necessarily have to produce top quality every single week and spend hours researching something, but you can't take shortcuts and let the AI do the work for you. 

 

As I have now eaten my hotdog, I feel sad. I came home and started to write a small piece of this article. Then I ate the hotdog. I discovered that the idea of eating the hotdog is more satisfying than actually eating the hotdog. I am currently playing in a team that made the playoffs, I did not get a huge rush when we secured the spot in the playoffs. But the idea of competing still felt good before we were anywhere near the playoffs. Now that I am in the playoffs and still competing, just like with the idea of eating the hotdog, the idea of competing is more enjoyable than actually competing. We as people have the ability to hype things up in our minds to levels that reality can not match. 

 

 

1030 words

29.4 - 5.5

6.5 - 12.5

 

Edited May 1 by jRuutu

[jRuutu 2,464]

6.5 - 12.5

[Spartan 4,402]

What do you put on your hot dog?

[Thunder 1,166]

Was the hot dog cold when you got home?  Didn’t you even take a bite on the way home?

[Alex 3,199]

1 hour ago, Spartan said:

What do you put on your hot dog?

Don’t ask @frescoelmo this question…

[jRuutu 2,464]

3 hours ago, Spartan said:

What do you put on your hot dog?

Shame and other spices, I didn't stop to look. The idea of eating a hotdog when I get home took over my body and soul, I was blinded by the hotdog.

 

3 hours ago, Thunder said:

Was the hot dog cold when you got home?  Didn’t you even take a bite on the way home?

I ate it cold, but it was in prime condition, because I can't come home with a half-eaten hotdog

[Thunder 1,166]

20 minutes ago, jRuutu said:

I ate it cold, but it was in prime condition, because I can't come home with a half-eaten hotdog

Cold but before it wrinkled, if it was still prime condition!!  I thought you got three?  I’d have eaten two on the road. Those damn pics make me hungry for dogs

[Gaikoku-hito 2,081]

And now I am hungry!! Thanks!! I guess I am going to eat ..... Hot Dogs!!