“Every location has its sweet spot.” ~ Sean Collins

I grew up a stone’s throw from the Florida Keys, which meant that it was not all that unusual for some random family member to convince the kinfolk to corral all the nieces and nephews, their bathing suits, a few beach towels, and other odds and ends into their cars and caravan the whole motley crew down to Key Largo or Islamorada for an extended weekend of “wear the brats out until they’re sunburned and exhausted so we can ditch them in the hotel rooms and go get rum runners.” (Remember, it was the 70s and adults were allowed to be adults, they didn’t have to pretend like their lives began and ended with entertaining children). It was less common for us to make it all the way down to Key West, but there were plenty of times I watched expectantly for Osprey nests on telephone poles and tried to see if I could hold my breath all the way across Seven Mile Bridge (my Uncle Mark came up with that game; the man was diabolical) in anticipation of being able to count toes on the cats outside Hemingway House.

In my memory I don’t recall ever once staying at a hotel that had a national chain attached to it, or eating at a restaurant that had an existing counterpart anywhere on the mainland. Mostly I remember renting brightly painted trailers with an outstanding view of the ocean, mom-and-pop diners with conch fritters to die for, and hippie pottery / craft / art shops in every little nook and crannie that wasn’t occupied by a bar. Over the course of my childhood I purchased more shell necklaces and flip flops from street vendors than seems humanly possible. I’m sure my memory is washed in that nostalgia-haze where everything just seems better, but the last time I went to they Keys I loathed it. It just wasn’t the same; the charm had been dispelled and everything was national chains, splashy graphics, and bloated tourists complaining about the heat. Burger King and Margaritaville had invaded and if there was a surviving old timer, it had been made over into some tarty version of itself (say it ain’t so, Sloppy Joe…).

My childhood experiences of the Keys came some thirty to forty years after the Hemingway days, so I could not be considered an early adopter. I’m not sure I’d have wanted to be, given what I know of the way things were then. I’m sure it was a magical and fascinating place in its own way, but if Hemingway felt at home, I certainly wouldn’t. Now, some thirty years or so after my childhood time spent there, I’m no longer in tune with the place. It has bumped into the mainstream and is chugging along like an overcrowded machine that promises unique experiences packaged nicely in the same ribbons and bows you can find everywhere else — don’t worry, you’ll not experience any disconnection from everything that you’ve been programmed to understand as pleasure.

Yes, that’s a wee bit on the cynical side, but so is Margaritaville.

My fond memories of the Florida Keys fall into what I think of as the “Sophomore Sweet Spot.” This is the phase after the early adopters have cast their spells to transform a unique bit of real estate (virtual or otherwise) into something captivating, but before the inevitable, capitalism-fueled lust of appealing to the mainstream has battered the soul out of it. I have spent my life chasing the Sophomore Sweet Spot and have decided it’s both the highest high and the most bitter pill.

The thing about serial intermediate generation adopters like myself is that we tend to be halfway between idealist and pragmatist; we’re more than the pedestrian user, but less often the obsessive genius type that can froth a project to boiling by sheer will. We appreciate everything the early adopters do and we often admire them, but we can’t help rolling our eyes at their reindeer games and hyperbolic methods of deciding who is more X or Y and crying about how every little change is a harbinger that the sky is falling. At the same time, we can identify when the tides are shifting toward that wrenching moment of invasion when every lovely, soft corner will soon be infected with neon light, and when the same old grind is meaninglessly repackaged to cover the fact that there’s no longer room to take a chance and present something creative because the bottom line no longer accommodates the risk associated with things like “challenging” or “daring” or “new.”

The Sophomore Sweet Spot is the place between excavation and obliteration, between the first date and the painful break-up over coffee. It’s the creamy center between the hard dry cookie crusts. It’s always worth the trouble, but it really sucks when it’s over. Watching something shine golden and then fade into joylessness is just plain depressing… as any Ponyboy could tell you.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a sort of Gamer-anhedonia and I’ve been waiting for the next hit of something, like an addict jonesing for a fix. WOW is done for me, I think; I’ve been bored in the format for a long time and I’ve looked at the changes coming to healing with Cataclysm and they inspire me to want to play about as much as a brick to the head. I have zero desire to dip back toward Eve or EQ2 or Warhammer or any of the once-trod territory of “been there, done that” land. I don’t enjoy consoles anymore because no matter how awesome the graphics or interesting the storylines, NPC-only formats just don’t feel like real gaming anymore. I’ve tried a few free MMOs and it’s all so meh, and traditional games like Settlers of Catan Online can be fun, but they’re just a sip of whiskey, distracting and pleasant but unable to fan the flames after the initial buzz burns off.

Don’t get me wrong; I have plenty to do. Between learning to code, building projects, writing, etc., the last thing I need is a new shiny funtoi to distract me from real work. But we all need down time and things to rejuv our gray matter and it’s a little frustrating to look around at all there is and realize so much of it is the same boring rehash of point-and-click kill or upgrade-and-wait crafting. I’ve never seen so much of nothing new before and I don’t see a Sophomore Sweet Spot anywhere on the horizon.

It’s all so stupid and contagious; where’s the entertainment?