I’ve spent the last 768 miles over the last 40 hours inside of a 2019 Jeep Wrangler Sahara. It’s one of the most interesting things I’ve ever driven. I’m going to write a review of the car on our video game website, Fanbyte.com

Please don’t tell Danielle or John but I’m gonna try to see if we can review a press car from like, Ford or Toyota on our video game site. It’s a goal of mine to figure out how to get a PR person from a car manufacturer to give us a car for a week so I can do some wordsmithing and connect the car to video games. If you know anyone who does media relations for an auto manufacturer please email me.

This week’s edition of main/menu comes to you from Monument Valley, Utah. The photo above is what I’m looking at as I write this newsletter.

It’s completely fucked. It is unreal. I cannot believe that this is so close (relatively, I guess) from where I live. It is like looking at Mars out there. The ground is red, all of the rocks are red, the plants are weird. I love it so much.

On Monday, my partner Kati came to me and was like “Alright, hey, let’s go on that road trip you’ve been wanting to go on.” I’d spent the last few weeks (months) bitching and moaning about how sad I was and being like “hey let’s go on a trip or something via car we can rent a fun car and go to Hoh Rainforest or something.” We have a National Parks Pass, which lets you get into any National Park for a year (it’s $80, which pays for itself if you go to two parks. It’s a stupid good deal. The National Parks Service is the only good federal agency.

Anyway, Kati kept saying “No.” And then I reminded her that we had a super long weekend (thanks Fanbyte), and she said yes. Over the course of the next 18 hours, we planned a trip to the Hoh Rainforest. We then realized it was going to be freezing and raining the whole time we were there, so we pivoted to a journey Eastward.

We didn’t end up going to Four Corners because it would’ve been closed by the time we got there because we spent so long looking at the Grand Canyon.

Have y’all seen this thing? The Grand Canyon? This thing is fucking wild. It’s an incredible hole. Just a big hole. And the hole has a river in it, and you can see the water moving in the river at the bottom of the big hole. Look at this. It is unreal. I lost my mind. I’d never been here before but the majesty of it is breathtaking. It goes on and on and on and on. It’s unfathomably large.

There is something to me about the scale of the Grand Canyon that makes it feel bigger than the ocean. You know how if you’re at the beach you can obviously see the ocean and the width/length of the beach? And if you look at the water, you can see the water go over the horizon and you know that the ocean (any of them) are really fucking big. You literally can’t see both sides of the Pacific Ocean unless you’re in space. It is huge.

But that vastness somehow makes it hard to conceive. The Grand Canyon, though? I can see the other end, and it’s so fucking far away. It is so deep. It is so big and so wide and so deep that there is a raging river at the bottom of it.

It is beautiful.

We got a brand new (old) Mario game today! I am excited to play Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury when I get back to LA. I have the game downloaded on my Switch but my screen is flickering and it’s tough to look at. I have to get that fixed.

Anyway, Channel F this week was a banger. We talked about Cyber Shadow, Fortnite, 51 Clubhouse Games, and Final Fantasy 14. You can listen to it below.

Also, idk if you saw but Spawn on Me with Kahlief Adams’ Kahlief Adams had his face on a damned billboard in Times Square. It is so cool, I’m so proud of him. You can check that out on Twitter, and listen to the most recent episode of SoM below, too.

Tomorrow’s Friends Reunion is incredible and John talks about some questionable presidential relations. Make sure you’re subscribed.

We’ll probably do a 4 person stream of Mario this week, so make sure you’re subscribed to twitch.tv/fanbyte so you can catch that live.

We’ve been posting all of our streams on our YouTube channel, so you can catch up on Merritt Souls and anything else we do over at YouTube.com/fanbyte.

I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of reconnecting with loved ones over the last few weeks. (Hello Courtney!) The good stuff in the good stuff zone is actually a call to action, fucking got you lmao

Anyway, email me (by replying to this email!) and tell me what your proudest accomplishment over the last month was! It can be anything: relationship related, work related, whatever. I want to know! Let’s share the Good Stuff in the GSZ.

Tomorrow Kati and I are off to Zion National Park but not after a little tour of and off roading here in Monument Valley. I’ll post a bunch of choice photos next week.

Stay safe, folks. Have a good weekend.