it’s rated 7.86/10 on the spooky scale (adjusted for inflation)

Oh Fuck He’s Back at It Again

Hi everyone. I received a nice text from my friend Aaron the other night, insisting that I continue the Belville Baguette. While it’s very difficult to determine a person’s state of mind through texts, I could tell he was anguished. Despairing. Practically beside himself with grief. No doubt he was checking his email night and day, waiting for that crumb of mediocrity known as my newsletter. Well Aaron, today’s your lucky day.

Is That A Skeleton in Your Pocket or Are You Just Horny?

It’s October. Spooky season. Ghosts are running around, without pants. Zombies are contractually obligated to do the Thriller dance. An old woman buying a broom at Walmart is accused of being a witch. As the temperatures begin to fall and the leaves begin to … fall [note: revise this before posting], one thing is on everyone’s mind: Tom Brady and Gisele are getting divorced, probably.

For those of you who don’t know, Tom Brady is an American football player who has won a lot of Super Bowls, likely because he deflated a bunch of footballs, giving him an advantage in throwing them1. Gisele Bundchen2 is a Brazilian supermodel who has won no Super Bowls, but has inflated many a man’s penis when they look at her. What I’m saying is that she’s attractive. Nobody knows why they are getting a divorce but I think this may be why:

As you can see, Tom Brady looks like he and Aaron Rodgers both did ayuhuasca, but Brady’s trip went way, way worse. His hair is parted down the middle — the middle! — he’s wearing a hoodie representing how he feels about his marriage, and, perhaps worst of all, he plays for the Buccaneers now. Seriously, the guy looks like he saw a ghost. He looks like he had dinner with Alex Jones and “learned a lot of interesting things.” He looks like if John Cena were imprisoned in a gulag for 40 years.

I’m all for this new era of women not taking their man’s shit anymore. Though I don’t think Tom cheated on Gisele or anything. This guy wouldn’t cheat on his unsalted chicken breast and carefully measured cup of blanched white rice, people. Tom Brady glances at a slice of cheesecake and calls his priest for confession. All Tom Brady knows is football. He is the MK Ultra of football. If you find him at a grocery store, just say “dishwasher thirteen double sweater yurt” and he will perfectly toss a ham into the open arms of the farthest employee.

Anyway, I wish them the best. And Gisele, if you’re reading this … hmu girl. Do you like country style buffets? Because we could totally split the check at Golden Corral. You ever feel like pouring nacho cheese on a slice of pizza? Me too.

Me, too.

I Have a Giant TV Now

Me want Big TV. Me get Best Buy credit card so me can buy Big TV3. Me buy Big TV. Big TV almost not fit in car! Is so big! Me and Best Buy employee laugh. Me drive home with Big TV. Haul Big TV up four flights of stairs — BY SELF. Big TV heavy! Rethink Big TV. Put Big TV up on coffee table so is not on ground. Turn on Big TV. Watch For All Mankind on Big TV. Watch Prehistoric Planet on Big TV. Watch movies on Big TV! Big TV in 4k, Big TV in HDR.

Me … like Big TV.

Crusader Kings III is My New Obsession

Have you ever wanted to play a game where you can marry your sister and it actually enhances your political standing? Then do I have the game for you!

Recently I decided to get Game Pass. For those of you who have lives, Game Pass is a Microsoft service where you pay $10/month and get to play some video games for free. The games rotate out; I don’t know which or when or how that works. I got Game Pass free for three months after buying components for my new PC, and it was cool to just be able to download stuff without considering price. I’ve been a Steam whore for well over a decade and have purchased enough video games to ensure that I will never truly find love, but recently Epic Games released their own game store and they give away some games for free every week (no strings attached) so I’ve been doing that, and it was only a matter of time before Microsoft got their grubby paws on me.

Crusader Kings III I’ve been wanting to play for some time. It is a game where you play a ruler of some plot of land in the medieval world and the goal is just to keep your dynasty from dying out. Along the way you can plan schemes against other rulers, marry to increase your alliances, and murder people who are getting in the way. It looks like this (minus the blow out because of my HDR monitor):

It fucking rules. The story of my dynasty’s fall and then rise to greatness for the past 300 years or so is epic. Early on I had a ruler, Frantisek, who just murdered the fuck out of everyone around him, because he only held one piece of tiny land and didn’t want anyone to take it from him, but was too weak to launch any wars. Later on I started grabbing bits of land before I was eventually able to retake my original duchy and then, on this very stream, take enough land to formally turn my duchies into a full blown kingdom. Amazing stuff.

I plan on streaming more of this game on Saturday afternoons or mornings or just at some point on Saturday, so if you’re interested in seeing how the KINGDOM OF VELETIA ends up, follow me on Twitch!

Take Your Vitamins

I had started a post here for my birthday where I talked about my general mental health at the time but I stopped because it was kind of depressing. I wasn’t depressed at the time of writing it, but I was like, “Eh, maybe this isn’t the right tone for ye olde newsletter.” So instead I’ll talk a bit about some positive stuff.

Taking Vitamins Made Me Feel Better

Yes that’s right. I think a lot of my brain fog and depressiveness during and before the pandemic were because I literally wasn’t getting enough nutrition in the food that I was eating. That’s on me, folks. I started taking Vitamin D and a multivitamin after an eye-opening moment at work: my boss took me and some others to Fogo de Chao for a coworker’s goodbye party and I ate a ton of meat on sticks there. When we left, I felt awesome. I felt better than I had felt in months, years even. I chalked it up to getting nutrients in meat that I hadn’t been getting otherwise; namely, B12 and iron. So I though, “What other vitamins am I missing out on?” Long story short, BAM, MULTIVITAMINS. Really did make me feel better. I also take fish oil and a fiber supplement for good poops. Am I better than you now? Yes, of course, please keep away from me.

Seriously though, if you’re feeling crummy, it might literally be your diet. Your gastrointestinal health is very important. Take a vitamin or eat some green food!

Walk, Don’t Run (But Also Run [If That’s Something You Like to Do])

In lieu of having a gym membership, I started walking. Here’s another stupid fucking thing about bodies: exercise is good. It sucks! But it’s good. Pandemic Josh has been incredibly lethargic and sedentary, and honestly I think it was the aforementioned vitamins that tweaked my gut and brain health enough to compel me to get up and go for walks. Moving to a walkable part of Portland helped, too. Walking is so good for you, folks. Get up and go for a walk!

But I am also starting to run again. Just a lil bit. Starting Couch to 5k again, bought some good running shoes. Taking it slow so I don’t give it up, which can be a problem for me.

Exercise and diet folks. That’s all it is. You want it to be something more but it’s not. Exercise and diet.

Internal Family Systems

My therapist and I have been talking a lot about the different parts of our mind and how they can overrule other parts. It’s called Internal Family System. If you’ve ever heard of Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder), then Internal Family Systems will make some sense, thoush IFS is much, much more neurotypical. Everyone has different parts of their brain and sometimes certain parts come to your aid for whatever reason. Me, for example, I have a part of my brain that acts up whenever I feel particular modes of anxiety or stress. That part attempts to soothe me in a way that has worked in the past — eating junk food. This part takes control of me, bypassing my frontal lobe (or my rational brain) to make me do things like go to the corner store and buy junk food. It almost sounds like I’m making an excuse but it’s the opposite: I’m actually coming to terms with the part of me that makes bad decisions. “Bad” is relative here; to my Lizard Brain, junk food is the only choice that works. And that trigger may be something different for you — alcohol, gambling, being reclusive, etc — but changing my thinking about what is happening is incredibly helpful to changing the behavior itself. In other words, I’m not making “bad” decisions, I’m just making decisions that have helped me cope with negative stressors and anxiety. Comfort food makes me feel good, so I gravitate towards it. But exercise also makes me feel good! So it’s a matter of trying to rewire my brain so that I feel the reward in exercise as much, if not more, than I do in eating junk food.

It ends up really not being too difficult, because Rational Brain is aware of the after effects of binging junk food. Lizard Brain goes away when that happens. Like when you drink a lot and then swear off drinking the next morning due to the hangover. That’s your Rational Brain being rational and trying to protect you in the long term sense. Lizard Brain doesn’t care about long term, it only cares about lessening the stressor right now. Fight or Flight, so to speak. Rational Brain also knows that the immediacy of going for a run, for instance, is not great, but that the after effects are very good.

Junk food helped me out a lot when I was a kid, too, which makes it more difficult to renegotiate. This is primarily why DID exists, btw — incredibly traumatic stressors in some children cause their brain to “fracture” somewhat, creating specific personality types that appear depending on a variety of factors (mainly stress). These other personalities help the whole cope. Most people do this on a lesser scale, because we didn’t go through such stressful events and so the different parts of our brain merged in our development.

Anyway, it’s all fascinating stuff to me and really helps me gain a behavioral perspective on why I do the things that I do. Maybe it could help you too!

Suggestions

This is the part of the newsletter where I suggest things. This time it will be music because I’ve been listening to a lot of great music lately!

Annie – Dark Hearts

Annie is a Swedish indie pop artist who released an album in 2004 called Anniemal which I loved and played constantly. This newest album, released in 2020, slipped past my radar until recently, but it is also excellent. (Her 2009 album, Don’t Stop, is also very good.) Dark Hearts has a pseudo-80s vibe to it and just feels really cool to listen to.

The Beths – Expert in a Dying Field

The Beths are a New Zealand indie rock band and their latest album is so damn fun and good it’s just ridiculous. Their previous albums are also very good. I don’t have much more to say about it, they’re just a good band plus they’re from New Zealand so sometimes you hear Elizabeth’s accent come through in the songs and it’s very cute!

BLACKSTARKIDS – CYBERKISS*

BLACKSTARKIDS are an indie rap pop group, a welcome niche to be filled in. They rap about being depressed and stuff too, just really relatable. Their latest album is a “mixtape,” which means it’s free? I think? I don’t know how mixtapes work anymore. Anyway it’s fresh and fun to listen to. Highly recommended.

Self-Promotion

I don’t really have much to promote anymore. I am streaming again! But I already talked about that. I’m writing in my newsletter again! Oh, wait, that’s what this is …

You can find me on these social medias:

Twitter @joshbelville | Instagram @joshbelville | TikTok @jcbelville | Twitch @zornog

Because it’s October, on Twitch I’ll be streaming 7 Days to Die and Phasmophobia on the weekdays, and then Crusader Kings III on the weekend. Here’s my schedule:

Wednesdays – 6-9pm PST

Fridays – 6-9pm PST

Saturdays – Either 9-12pm or 1-3pm PST

Come hang out and join the Streaming Family™.

The End

Alright, that’s the end of this issue. I hope you enjoyed it. See you next time!