first world problems – Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com

I think I’ve ordered an Xbox Series X, to be picked up Friday from my local Best Buy. I’m not sure I actually believe it, though; I’m fully expecting to get to Friday afternoon with no notification that my Xbox is ready to be picked up, and the craziest bit is that I still haven’t completely convinced myself that I want one. The thing is, the new consoles have all been insanely hard to find– I literally camped at my computer and hit Reload over and over on Walmart.com to get my PS5, and for this Xbox I think I just had some phenomenally lucky timing. Assuming, again, that it’s not a hoax.

And here’s the thing: I’m going to get a Series X eventually, because of Bethesda. Microsoft bought them, and word is they’ll be exclusive to the Series X for a while, and I want to play their games. And I’m sure there’s a ton of indie stuff out there that’s Xbox-only, because I keep hearing about how good Microsoft is for indie developers. But, like, right now? Hell if I know what my first game for this thing is going to be, and it’s entirely possible that I’m going to bring it home without any plans to buy any particular games for it. There was a reason I was able to skip the entire Xbox One generation: there was never a single game that made it feel worth it to try and buy the console. Which, given that my Xbox 360 and my OG Xbox were both beloved consoles, never really made any sense to me. But, like, everything I want to play right now is on PS5. I can play Halo Infinite, I suppose, but skipping every Halo game since Halo 3 didn’t bother me any, so I think I can probably do without this one?

(Don’t come at me about which console is “better.” The better console is the one that has games I want to play. I don’t even know what a teraflop is and I don’t care which console has more of them.)

I recognize that this is the most First World Problem ever– waah waah I have the opportunity to spend hundreds of dollars of discretionary income on an expensive electronic device and I don’t know if I wannnnnnaaaaaaaaaa!!!11!11!one!!!! but it’s, like, genuinely bugging me. Right now I’m leaning more toward cancelling the thing than picking it up, which will mean that I’m not spending a ton of money right now but will still ensure that I’m spending the money later, because again, I’m going to want one of these eventually, I just don’t necessarily want it now. Like, if I come home with an Xbox Series X on Friday it’s going to have dust on it by March, I think. But … like, okay? Is that really that big of a deal? I’m taking up some extra desktop space for something that’s going to future-proof me for a while. It’s not like I don’t have the money; if anything, I’m in a better financial place right now than I’ve ever been in my life, and that’s only going to improve over the next few months unless something catastrophic happens.

At which point if they’re still hard to find I can try and flip the damn thing on eBay for $1000 or some shit like that, I suppose.

Bah.

Pictured: my unread shelf. Not pictured: the three more books I just ordered.

Dear authors I like: please stop writing so many books. I do not have time for all of them, and my unread shelf, which is full of riches, is starting to frighten me. There are three different authors I have more than one book from on that shelf. I just ordered another Seanan McGuire book, meaning there are about to be three by her. Kameron Hurley has a book coming out next week. And there is a third book in that order, an order I just placed perhaps an hour ago, and I don’t remember what it was.

(Oh, right! G. Willow Wilson, an author I’ve come to associate mostly with comic books, just released her second novel. That was it.)

I am currently reading The Phoenix Empress, the sequel to The Tiger’s Daughter, a book I read in January and liked a hell of a lot. For some reason it has taken several days to read, which is not a reflection on its quality, just on my lack of time to read in the last couple of days. I am about 180 pages away from the end, and as soon as I finish this post I’m going to pick it up and I’m not putting it down again until I am done with it. Because look at my damn unread shelf. It’s out of control, and more books are coming. I can’t stop buying books, because I have a sickness, and I’m pretty sure I really can’t read any faster, so the only solution is that y’all are going to have to stop writing so many books. I know y’all depend on this for your livelihood, but I’m told that things like eliminating Starbucks can lead to financial success, so maybe that will work for you. Or perhaps find a way for me to not find out about your books– which might be difficult, because I’m following all of you on Twitter.

(The Phoenix Empress is probably not going to get a full review. I am enjoying it but it’s not quite as amazing as The Tiger’s Daughter was. That said, a large part of my love for Tiger’s Daughter is related to how amazingly well it stuck the ending, so we’ll see how the last couple hundred pages go tonight.)

And then I will pick one of those books from the pile before I go to bed, and I will hope to be halfway done with it before I sleep. Because, my God, I have to winnow that mess down somehow. Tell me what I’m reading next in comments. I want to read them all next, which I’m pretty sure isn’t possible.