Hello. Welcome. 

I’m Will Harrison. Nice to see you here. I’d say pull up a seat, but I don’t have any readily available. I mean, if you saw the lamps that are currently in my living room then you’d understand.

I digress. Or maybe I don’t. I’ve been thinking about the worn down pieces of furniture and whatnot that currently live in my apartment. A thirty year old couch, a TV stand that has now been with me almost a decade. A lamp from Rachel’s last college apartment that doesn’t feature fully functioning bulbs.

It is at this point that I realize I am on the receiving end of the furniture version of trickle-down economics. I’m not so sure its working. Thanks Obama.

I don’t want to think about the things that couch has seen. Instead, here are some things I thought about today.

• I wrote an email this morning to a French video game developer, requesting an interview. While writing, I found myself focusing more so than I usually do on wording and being polite because the last thing I wanted to do was that American thing where I just start rambling into elongated sentences full of totally wack slang and American vernacular, thus ruining the experience for myself as well as the person on the receiving end of my missive.

  As it turns out, that may have been the most articulate, well written piece of communication I’ve put together since elementary school.

• I am originally from Gallipolis, Ohio. To the outside observer, the seemingly natural way to pronounce the name of this town is “Gal-ah-poll-liss”, similar in nature to Indianapolis or Annapolis.

  Well, you’d be wrong. A majority of people from my hometown, which includes the local news outlets, pronounce it as “Gal-uh-police”, which sounds completely insane.

  Though, that isn’t nearly as bad as how national news services always end up pronouncing it: “Gall-ip-hollis”.

  Bonus insanity: My first two years of college, I went to Rio Grande University in Rio Grande, Ohio, a small village outside of Gallipolis. I’m going to give you, dear reader, a moment to collect your thoughts and form a guess as to how the locals say the name of said town and, subsequently, university.

  

  Have a guess? Well, was it “Rye-Oh” and “Grand (as in “She’s a grand ole flag”)?

  No? Well, then you failed. There’s a long, complicated story about why they say “rye-oh” instead of “ree-yo” like the rest of the civilized world.

  Here’s the gist: The town was supposed to be named Rio Grande as a commemoration to the Mexican-American War. However, upon submitting the town charter, it is said locally that the name was changed from its Spanish pronunciation so that, instead, it sounded like “Ohio” when said out loud.

  Appalachia is a weird place.

• Presented without comment, an experience I had as I walked into the newsroom this afternoon after lunch:

  

  Your eyes do not deceive you: I drew this myself.

For anyone that missed last week, here were the articles posted on Backlog Adventures:

• Rachel put together a piece on how missing an entire year of the “new hotness” has given her some perspective on her own pop culture habits.
• New contributor Jen. O put together a list of the most dangerous spoilers of 2015.
• Kyle’s IamINDIE featured his top independent music albums of the year.
• My annual Game of the Year feature, showcasing Life Is Strange. 

Coming soon: A new podcast series from Rachel and myself, appropriately titled “Backlog Adventures”.

Also this week: Expect another music “best of” list from new contributor Noah L. It is sure to be a good time.

Plus: More cats.

Have a great week.

Will Harrison is a video game critic for the Toledo Blade. He also probably has too much time to think. Get in touch with him via “this here danged Twitter Link.“