{"id":5475,"date":"2022-02-07T18:31:39","date_gmt":"2022-02-07T17:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5475"},"modified":"2022-02-07T18:31:41","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T17:31:41","slug":"7-telltale-signs-ive-been-watching-squid-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5475","title":{"rendered":"7 Telltale Signs I\u2019ve been Watching Squid Game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I am enormously susceptible to media. After watching The Walking Dead<\/em>, I judged everything in terms of zombie avoidance, zombie combat, and where to hang out if I become a zombie. Well, these days it\u2019s Squid Game. This was, it must be said, not my idea. If I were left to my own devices, I would watch comedies where the biggest threat is that Willy might not be free at the end (Thank God that worked out). Now it\u2019s Squid Game and, as always, each day brings a Squid Game-induced insight. Here are 7 telltale signs that I\u2019ve been watching Squid Game. (spoiler alert: While I have not seen all of Squid Game and I actively try to not give away too much, tread lightly if you haven\u2019t seen it. in the same vein, please be careful with comments\/feedback. I\u2019d like to be rightly horrified.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brushing up on kid\u2019s games<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the very disturbing aspects of Squid Game is that well-known, nostalgic childhood games and innocuous little competitions are turned into horrifying life or death blood fests. With that in mind, I have begun reviewing the rules and tactics of games from my own childhood. I have begun a personal rolodex of strategies and tactics that helped me win the games then. Well not me, but someone I was watching after being eliminated. So if anyone needs a powwow on the tactical dimensions of tag, I am your man. Please let me on your team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Picking my team<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was in line at the grocery store last week when I realized that at any minute a man in a red suit and with a circle on a black mask might force me at gunpoint to create a team. I then looked around in a panic to find my nine teammates. I located the room\u2019s psychopath (every room has one). I decided that while he was physically strong, he would stab me in the back with a broken Sprite bottle at first opportunity. I found a guy who had decided to open his beer before paying for it. A dick move? Yes. Disgusting? Yes. Inconsiderate? Yes. But I figured he was gutsy and, plus, if he was eliminated, I wouldn\u2019t be too upset about it. An old man in front of me had his groceries sorted within his box in a relatively brilliant manner. Eggs were stacked sideways, fruit was dangling from the sides, tied to the handles by knots, spreads were riding the cart in the same way. Deciding he was wise from a lifetime of struggle, I chose him for my team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying to find 7 other human adults to test out 001\u2019s tug-of-war strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The games are full of quick thinking strategies that save the day. Among these are (thus far) 456 and 212\u2019s separate strategies for cutting out their cookie shapes and 001\u2019s strategy for tug-of-war. I have not yet been faced with a challenge to cut an intricate shape out of a cookie with the head of a needle, so their strategies seemed interesting and clever and completely foreign to me. It\u2019s 001\u2019s tug-of-war strategy that keeps me up at night working out scenarios. I need at least 7 other adult human beings of various sizes and shapes to test out his strategy. It is the first thing I plan on doing after the pandemic. Over a pit of mud, not a 200 foot drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything is a Game \u2013 Everything!  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since watching Squid Game, it\u2019s been brought to my attention that I need to develop some skills. While some of these might be somehow explicable without Squid Game input \u2013 like the ability to stop on a dime or the ability to not get stabbed to death in a dormitory, others are less off the beaten track. Such as the ability to carve shapes out of dalgona (honeycomb toffee) cookies. With that in mind, everything has become a game with an imaginary timer. I fold laundry with a 5 minute deadline, I scanned groceries and fit them into a bag with a 6 minute timer. I have done likewise with beard trimming, eating dinner, and walking the dog with my breath held. If I fail, of course, the penalty is elimination. And who\u2019s going to get my eyes?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who are the \u25a0 <\/a>\u0394 <\/a><\/a>\u25cb?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u25a0 are the bosses. The \u0394 are the middle management and the \u25cb are the grunt workers. And if I am going to survive this thing, I\u2019ve got to know who\u2019s who. At the grocery store, I think I have the \u25cb figured out. They are the ones pushing around heavy things and getting in the shoppers\u2019 way. Since there is nobody below a \u25cb and applying the transmutable laws of shitting rolling downhill, then the only people below them are us, the shoppers. I try to stay on these guys\u2019 good side, because they can be bought. The \u0394 I quickly peg as the mid-tier henchmen, because they are the ones leaning against things like coolers and the \u25cb guys. They are middle managers and I ignore them. Why? Because as we all know, middle managers are as impotent as a republican senator. All the work happens on the bottom and the top. The \u0394 are just doing their best to hide the fact that they are as useless as, well, a republican senator. Identifying the \u0394 \u25a0 \u25cb isn\u2019t hard, but figuring out who\u2019s going to harvest my organs is tougher. Because the rules are, no talking.   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am enormously susceptible to media. After watching The Walking Dead, I judged everything in terms of zombie avoidance, zombie combat, and where to hang out if I become a zombie. Well, these days it\u2019s Squid Game. This was, it must be said, not my idea. If I were left to my own devices, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Squid_Game_dalgona_cookies_Santiago_de_Compostela_Spain_Triplecana_2021-10-21.jpg?fit=1481%2C1481&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1qj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5477,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5475\/revisions\/5477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}