I’m in my late 20s and I got LASIK a couple of years ago. My doctor prepared me for steadily losing vision again when I hit my 40s or so (in a standard “getting older” way) and to be honest it’s still worth it to me. It’s very convenient and though the procedure wasn’t cheap I think I save money in the long run because my contacts and glasses weren’t cheap either. I recommend it.

Could’ve used Mushroom Intelligence Agency somewhere here as well

I didn’t play the demo but I assume it’s gameplay very early in the game. My review is that the game starts too slow which is probably what you experienced. Overall it might be worse than Pikmin 3 Deluxe but Pikmin 4 is still a quality game that gets better when you’re around the mid-way point. It’s surprisingly long too (going for all treasure, not speedrunning) and overall I think it’s worth the price.

Even though his years with Genesis were great, I’ve always preferred Gabriel’s solo work. Melt is my favorite album of his but I’d put his 2002 album Up right next to this one.

Also, there’s a great YouTube video by Trash Theory that came out recently on Gabriel and the years leading up to Games Without Frontiers as a single https://youtu.be/rNITD4QyS7c