Pip: Variation Venus is the kind of site that asks what you’d do with unlimited money and then answers its own question with bills and a Steam Deck — which, honestly, is the most honest thing on the internet right now.
Mara: Tiff McLeod’s recent posts cover a lot of ground — financial daydreaming, a medieval musical comedy with a baffling price tag, and some genuinely quiet questions about meaning and how we keep going. Let’s start with the money.
What Would You Actually Do With Unlimited Cash
Pip: The prompt here is a classic: unlimited budget, twenty-four hours — what do you do? It’s the kind of question that’s supposed to reveal your grandest ambitions.
Mara: The post called “Pay my bills” answers it plainly: “I would pay all my bills. I would Buy a Steam Deck.”
Pip: That ordering matters. Bills first, Steam Deck second. There’s a whole worldview in that sequence — relief before pleasure, obligation before want.
Mara: It’s a short post, but the specificity is what makes it land. Not a vacation, not a house — a gaming handheld. The fantasy stays scaled to a real life.
A Medieval Musical and a $1,499 DVD Box Set
Pip: Sometimes a post starts as pop culture appreciation and becomes an economics puzzle. “This show called Galavant” does exactly that.
Mara: The show itself gets a real introduction: “Galavant (2015–2016) is a medieval musical-comedy series that often breaks the fourth wall,” with songs by Alan Menken, and a plot that systematically dismantles the hero’s journey — villains go soft, damsels turn ruthless, and everyone sings through it.
Pip: It sounds genuinely delightful, which makes the DVD pricing feel even more surreal.
Mara: The post flags that the box set is currently listed at $1,499 on Amazon — and pushes back directly: rare finds might climb to $600, but nothing this high. The confusion is the whole point of the post.
Pip: A show about absurdity, priced absurdly. The universe is doing a bit.
Mara: And the post just wants an explanation. So do we. From there, the questions get bigger.
What It Means to Keep Going
Mara: Two posts here sit with larger questions. “52” opens with the meaning of life and lands on 42 — twice, for emphasis.
Pip: “I think it’s 42. I’m really sure it’s 42.” The certainty is the joke, and also maybe not a joke.
Mara: Then “Drafting Progress #3” shifts the register entirely. It quotes a piece of text arranged as verse: “Design your learning so that it can live inside a real, imperfect, demanding life.”
Pip: That’s a different answer to the same question — not a number, but a practice. Keep it livable, keep it grounded.
Mara: The post also notes that earlier drafts in the series exist but are being kept private, which gives the whole thing a sense of ongoing, personal work rather than performance.
Pip: Meaning as something you draft, not something you find. That tracks.
Mara: Bills, a cult musical, and the meaning of life — the range is real, but the throughline is someone thinking honestly about what matters.
Pip: Next time, maybe the Steam Deck arrives. We’ll see.
This was generated via AI on WordPress as requested by Tiff. This section is the author’s commentary on what the AI pressented after summarizing all of the posts I wrote for the month of May.
Now, I never expected to have two voices comment and dig so deep into the 52 …its 42 post. I was just making a joke because I’m a fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But what I should have expected is that the supercomputer, which at this point would be considered the ultimate AI, gave that number as the answer to everything. It’s expected that WordPress’ AI would find a deeper meaning to it.
Oh and that Steam Deck is not happening…I’m poor.
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