Fiio might sound a bit better, but IMO not worth the price difference. I'd recommend Moondrop or CCA if you liked KZ. Moondrop Chu sound pretty neutral and blow anything at this price point out of the water basically, and CCA CA16 are warm with less clarity, but still nice sound overall.

Your post made me think about kind of a reverse experience. One of the first games that deeply engrossed me and resonated with me was Alan Wake. I played it in my teens on a big old CRT (I believe it was like 40 inches, but a 4:3 aspect). I literally couldn't stop, it was during summer holidays and I didn't even open the blinds to be more immersed in the darkness. I binged through the game in about a week straight. I still consider it one of my all-time favourite games. But recently I started the remaster and just couldn't get into it for some reason. Just didn't click.

I am still waiting eagerly for the second game, and definitely will try again to get into the remaster. Maybe the understanding that I can't recapture nostalgia will help me take it for what it is, not what I remember it being. Because I believe that even separate from that magical experience it's still a good game that I will probably dig.

Wet hot American summer have me both Superbad and Napoleon Dynamite vibes. It is likewise unexpectedly heartfelt, while being satirical about anything and everything.

I mainly use resolve on the personal rig (no way I'm paying Adobe subscription out of my own money), so for me it was a choice between it and speed editor. And while I still want the speed editor for a more fluid jog wheel, the granular control of Shuttle is so nice. And the ability to map it to any software is a huge boon. Won't get rid of it even after getting the speed editor.

Actually a headless mac mini is absolutely fine as a NAS. It really is better to use what you have, than get dedicated hardware IMO. At least for your own home server, which will probably not see usage any higher than being your personal cloud for direct file sharing or a media server.

My build is a Ryzen 5900x and RTX 4090, 64 gigs of ram, 6 TB of ssd storage (of which 1 is a system drive, 1 is for cache and the 4 Tb is a main project drive), and a 2 TB hard drive for general storage purposes. The GPU is overkill for editing I think, but ML is now somewhat integrated in some of my processes, and I learn 3D as a hobby with hopes to maybe become a CG generalist, so a beefy GPU doesn't hurt.

Then my old setup (R 1700X and RTX 2080) is acting like a home server. 18 Tb at the moment, though because I usually store projects for corporate clients for 1-2 years since they are done, and the server also acts as a home media server, the space is running out, so it's probably time to add some drives. The OS I use is Unraid, at this point it's too much of a hassle to setup everything again in order to migrate to TrueNAS, and I don't really use SSDs in my server, so the benefits of going TrueNAS are minimal.

My network is just 1 gigabit, because I mainly load current projects on pc, then transfer them for storage to NAS when finished and don't do much editing directly off of the NAS.

Monitors are consumer-grade LG panels with OK colours after calibration.

Speakers — JBL LSR305 mkII.

Headphones — Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro. But I've grown accustomed to use my Sennheiser Momentum 4 for doing work where I need sound only for general monitoring, not mixing. They are lighter and don't press on the head and ears as much, so more comfortable for long sessions (and I say that fully understanding that the 770 are probably more comfortable than 90% of headphones I tried).

Audient Evo 8 as an audio interface.

As for additional accessories — I've got a stream deck with some useful shortcuts and Contour Shuttle Xpress for timeline. Kensington expert trackball, because mice give me wrist pain during long editing sessions.

Also like to use iPad Pro M1 for clean feed output (rec709 mode is probably not ideal for grading, but it is probably the best display in my house, and I'm not a pro colourist) and putting up scripts or any additional info on the project. Also use Microsoft remote desktop on it to quickly do minor touch-ups from the couch. Works amazing for that.

I would suggest playing it for it's own sake, since I liked the game. Maybe try the demo, see if it hooks you. But don't feel obliged to play it just because you want to start the second game, you will not have a lesser experience.

I would also note that in general people tend to agree that the second game is an improvement in many ways over the first one, mechanically and in terms of storytelling. So maybe it is a safer bet to start with the second one if you are not sure, then you could always go back to the first one later if you become a fan.