The Ben Identity

Hello team! Sadly for all of you, today's newsletter is the last one of the year. It's ok if you need to cry, I can wait.

This whole month I have been eagerly waiting for people to ask about my "best of 2025" list. Since nobody did, I'm giving it to you all unsolicited and unedited. Get ready.

Best of 2025 (Objectively)

Best Game: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
I've mentioned this game before, but it's worth mentioning again. The music, the art, the story - all phenomenal.

Best Movie: Superman
This might be controversial to some, but Superman is absolutely the best movie I saw this year. I left the theater smiling more than I have after a movie in a long, long time. The movie was full of hope, it didn't take itself too seriously, and made me want to be a better person.

Best Book: Dungeon Crawler Carl (all 7)
Fair warning this series has a lot of language, but it's a riot all the way through.

Best Friend: Loralee
She's still my favorite person in the world after 8 years. Better luck to all the contestants next year.

Best Coworker: Listen, I know I said this was unedited but I do have some standards and I did have to edit out this part so nobody would be offended.

Best Holiday: TBD, Christmas hasn't happened yet and it's looking like a strong contender.

Best Food: Sea Bass Bites from Blue Fin NYC
This was a tiny amount of expensive food, but I still think about it.

Best “I’ll Just Do This Once” That Became a Routine: Rolling a D20 to see how your day is going to go
Technically this started last year but the fact that it continued throughout the entire year of 2025 is insane. This started as a bit and ended up being how we determined the order of our stand up meetings. Every. Single. Tuesday.

Best Question From a Child: "Dad, what does 'Oh my F###ing God' mean?"
Honorable Mention: Right before bed - "Dad, why do bears die?"

Best Hill I Died On: Fight Week
There were a lot of hills I died on this year, but the one week stretch where I basically crashed out on a bunch of other people's managers has, for me, merged into a single, horrible hill that I died on. Everything is fine now.

Best Accidental Tradition: Getting Rear Ended
I got rear ended twice this year. I don't know if that's enough to call it a tradition, but I was pretty annoyed.

Best Thing I Changed My Mind On: Frieren
Despite my suspicions about anime, I was finally worn down by Shaylee talking about how good Frieren was. She was right, I was very wrong. It was excellent.

Best Vibe: Winning $20 From Haylee
March madness bets almost never work out for me. That changed this year.

Best Joke That Turned Into Something Real(ish): This Newsletter
Honestly, this was an insane bit from the very beginning. but I love writing every week so thanks for letting me send these.

Thanks for tuning in, I genuinely appreciate all of you and all that you do to make Smarty such a great place to work!

Happy holidays and see you next year!

- Ben