tiny voices

Sound System - Albums I Listened to in 2025

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 22:02:41 GMT

i haven't forgotten about this little webbed site. there have been multiple times over these last few months where i thought about writing a post, but the ideas were never good enough or it just wasn't a priority. i've been through some heavy things this fall, and i may very well not ever post about that here. but anyway, i've also not forgotten about my weekly new album listen-through. i've kept up with the albums i've listened to for the first time in my little spreadsheet, and as of today i've reached the 52nd line. technically, i didn't listen to new music every week; sometimes i doubled up, and sometimes i missed a week. but the average is there! i actually fully kept up with a new years resolution. i might not have ever done that before.

just for the sake of seeing it, here's the full list of albums i hadn't listened to before that i listened to in the year 2025:

1. Muse - Absolution (2003)
2. The Garden - haha (2015
3. Finch - Say Hello to Sunshine (2005)
4. Witch - Witch (2006)
5. Less Than Jake - Hello Rockview (1998)
6. The Cure - Pornography (1982)
7. Linkin Park - From Zero (2024)
8. Jets to Brazil - Orange Rhyming Dictionary (1998)
9. Depeche Mode - Some Great Reward (1984)
10. Straight Line Stitch - To Be Godlike (2006)
11. Story of the Year - Page Avenue (2003)
12. The Clash - London Calling (1979)
13. AFI - Sing the Sorrow (2003)
14. Nirvana - Bleach (1989)
15. Origami Angel - Feeling Not Found (2024)
16. Joan Jett & Blackhearts - Bad Reputation (1981)
17. Fugazi - Red Medicine (1995)
18. Sponge - Rotting Pinata (1994)
19. Hum - You'd Prefer an Astronaut (1995)
20. Embrace - Embrace (1987)
21. Finch - Back to Oblivion (2014)
22. One Last Wish - 1986 (1999)
23. Senses Fail - Let It Enfold You (2004)
24. Slayer - Reign in Blood (1986)
25. Sisters of Mercy - Floodland (1987)
26. Failure - Fantastic Planet (1996)
27. Snoop Dogg - R&G: The Masterpiece (2004)
28. Crass - Penis Envy (1983)
29. Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out (1982)
30. Abandoned Pools - Somnambulist (2013)
31. American Football - American Football (1999)
32. Armor for Sleep - Dream to Make Believe (2003)
33. Voodoo Glow Skulls - The Band Geek Mafia (1998)
34. Jawbreaker - Dear You (1995)
35. Horror Vacui - In Darkness You Will Feel Alright (2012)
36. AFI - AFI (2004)
37. Death Cab for Cutie - We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes (2000)
38. Audio Karate - Space Camp (2002)
39. Cemetery - Collection (2014)
40. Hum - Downward is Heavenward (1998)
41. Senses Fail - Still Searching (2006)
42. Gwar - This Toilet Earth (1994)
43. Deftones - Around the Fur (1997)
44. Coal Chamber - Chamber Music (1999)
45. Strike Anywhere - Exit English (2003)
46. The Cars - Heartbeat City (1984)
47. Superheaven - Ours is Chrome (2015)
48. Local H - Pack Up the Cats (1998)
49. System of a Down - Steal This Album! (2002)
50. Underoath - They're Only Chasing Safety (2004)
51. Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary (1994)
52. Saves the Day - Can't Slow Down (1998)

i didn't branch out as much as i could've, but i dug deeper into my niches, which is its own boon. i'm like a specialized weapon when it comes to pop punk / emo jams. some of my faves, or in other words, the albums that i got good mileage out of, include Say Hello to Sunshine, You'd Prefer an Astronaut, Still Searching, and Let It Enfold You. i don't think i fully disliked any of the albums i listened to this year, and enjoyed at least one or two tracks from each of them. i kinda fell off with reading the lyrics along with the songs, depending on how invested i was in the music at that time. therefore, in some cases, i wasn't listening/engaging as deeply, but eh. i also just stopped even attempting to prepare to write up reviews for anything i listened to. this is partly because i prioritized my creative writing at some point.

for most of the year i was chronicling this music in my liked songs playlist on spotify, but then spotify started running ICE ads, so my roommate who was paying for the family plan cancelled that shit, and the house has cut ties with the service. i've gone back to pandora radio, with a fresh account. it's definitely nicer on desktop where my adblocker cleans up the experience, but even on the phone it's nice for when i don't want to queue up a playlist manually. my stations need some tweaking, mainly the goth station i made, because it's become about 75% depeche mode. and like, depeche mode is good, i enjoy the fruity beats, but they don't feel super goth to me, you know? i want more deathrock and shit anyway, so i may make a new station to differentiate.

here are the albums i made a note to listen to at some point, but never got around to:

- Rancid - ...and Out Come the Wolves (1995)
- Notorious BIG - ready to die (1994)
- Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland (1968)
- Bush - Sixteen Stone (1994)
- Pearl Jam - Ten (1991)
- Pierce the Veil - A Flair for the Dramatic (2007)

the most common reason i didn't get around to these was their runtime. a lot of weeks it'd be sunday night and i'd realized i hadn't listened to an album yet, and so i'd go for a shorter one rather than a longer one. i didn't always check the "to listen" list anyway because i was just following the vibe of that moment. i should try and branch out more later though.

so now the question is: am i going to do this again in 2026? i'm leaning toward no, while still making it a point to listen to new music every once in a while. i just don't wanna hold myself accountable to the routine, really. but something that i'd like to do more of is burning my own CDs. i did this with a few albums, to just have a physical copy and to add music to my phone that's independent of an internet connection. not to be all "go analogue maaaaan" but in the age of subscription services, ads everywhere, and the general malaise of late stage capitalism, there's something cool about the ritual and permanence of having your own physical media.

overall, i would recommend doing something like this. take 45 minutes or so each week to just listen to something you haven't heard before. expand your horizons. learn your faves even more deeply. some other third thing. music good.

comments

i think i'm coming unplugged, i just scratch and shrug

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 02:11:07 GMT

i'm tired but i feel like rapid fire rambling about life in general.

still listening to a new (to me) album every week. this week's was Dear You by Jawbreaker. last week's, The Band Geek Mafia by Voodoo Glow Skulls. kinda dropped off watching WWE every week because the ending to the last PLE was in bad taste. instead been going through L.A. by Night which i'm just a few episodes short of finishing. in line with that, i was gifted Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines for my birthday. oh yeah btw i turned 30 a week ago. yikes/yay. the day itself kinda sucked honestly. but i also was gifted the Locked Tomb books, which was a nice surprise. i've been playing a lot of Rareware games while i listen to other things. been going back to work, which has been fine. my roommate's car is fucked again, possibly permanently. waiting for more info on the uh, financial fall out she'll be stuck with there. fuck cars.

gradually making progress on a short story (it may be on the longer side for a short story). gradually cooking a vampire (the masquerade..?) OC just for shits and giggles. unsure how to feel about the upcoming animated homestuck series(???) but excited for the animated mighty nein series. somewhat interested in critical role campaign 4; likely won't watch it live or keep up with that well because i just have other things i'm into all the time. sometimes struggling to stay positive/optimistic considering the things that keep happening in the World. slowly downloading my favorite BikdipOnABus videos in case i lose (reasonable) access to youtube, and because i kinda wanted to anyway. toying with the idea of putting one of the playthroughs onto a DVD. i've moved a bunch of stuff from google docs to ellipsus because you never know what might happen. we keep hoping our neighbor's confederate flag gets taken away by storm winds. i bought a ghost-shaped water bottle today.

hanging in there.

comments

i turned on my ipod nano for the first time in 12 years

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 05:34:43 GMT

for years i've had this box of boxes with my old apple devices in it, most notably my first one, a blue ipod nano. after a quick jog over to apple's website i've determined it's a 5th generation nano. apparently these were the first ipods to have a camera and microphone; older ones could play videos, but not record them. i purchased my little blue rectangle with my own savings, and because i also kept the receipt, i know this purchase took place on august 18, 2010 at 7:25 PM (shortly after my 15th birthday). the price was $145, though i paid slightly less thanks to the target employee discount my dad had at the time. i'm getting a little wistful imagining paying relatively so little for an iphone nowadays.

anyway, back in 2012 and 2013 i dug out the nano to upload some videos sitting on it to youtube, only getting about a third of the way done before promptly dropping this project... until today. today wasn't significant, it's just when i finally got back around to it. i had been a little concerned the ipod wouldn't work anymore, having been unused for over a decade, but i plugged it in and it reacted immediately, turning on and charging like no time had passed at all. i let it charge while i did the dishes, then came back for further investigation.

i think it's a stylish little guy whose design holds up. the blue exterior looks nice especially with the sleek sheen on it (which was also new to the gen 5 nano). i dig the control scheme based around running your thumb along the circle of buttons to scroll and change the volume, though the buttons on mine seem a bit worn out and sometimes only work if i really press on them. the battery seemed worn out too, not holding charge for very long (i had to plug it in while browsing the music library and videos). the time and date were both incorrect, displaying that it was the morning of may 27, 2013... which is the same day i uploaded some of its videos to youtube. in all likelihood, that really was the last time i had touched this ipod. really made this feel like opening a time capsule i buried when i was 17 years old.

so, what's on this thing?

it's really just music and videos. to be precise: 439 songs, 30 videos... and 3 games, which i'm assuming are loaded on the nano by default. no pictures, no voice memos, no contacts.

the music is about what i expected. my music taste hasn't really changed since back then, or rather, it's expanded and developed, but i still like pretty much all the music i listened to as a teenager. there's multiple full albums from the beancore classics: green day, sum 41, blink 182, the blink-182 spin-offs, new found glory, mxpx. assorted albums and/or handfuls of tracks from the wonder years, linkin park, yellowcard, the story so far. nice batch of songs from the pillows (the FLCL soundtrack, basically). few bits and bobs, or in some cases a single bit or bob, from jimmy eat world, relient k, set your goals, all american rejects, emily's army, and the starting line. two songs i don't think i recognize now from rise against. to my surprise, no paramore at all. and even more surprising, homestuck-- two official tracks, and a handful of fansongs. i'm talking broadway karkat, fawn, and kylee henke. it's 2025 and i played 8lack Romance on my ipod nano. ridiculous. the original video of that song isn't even on youtube anymore, from what i can find.

i'm not certain when i would've stopped using this ipod, though my best guess would be at some point in 2013, around when i got my ipod touch. i really figured this nano would've predated my obsessive entry into homestuck, but that was at the beginning of 2013, so i guess there was probably some overlap there. i don't know exactly when i got the ipod touch because it never made it to the old devices hoard due to the screen being cracked and possibly risky to touch. (one night i rather carelessly tossed it across my room, aiming for my bed but missing by a few inches and face-planting the poor thing directly onto the hardwood floor.)

getting back on track, what about the videos? in short, it's a bunch of random shit from 2010 through 2012. but, random shit i'm very glad to have found again.

conveniently, all of the time and date information for these videos is intact. the earliest recordings are a set of three "point the ipod at a computer screen" videos that i've since archived properly-- these were taken from an old blogspot site about a grandmother that plays video games. then there's the video from september 11, 2010, taken up at The Lake. i'm really happy about this one because i had almost entirely forgotten about it, and it's a lot of my parents and i laughing at some goofy tangent my mom went on. plus, due to the date, there's footage of obama giving a speech with my mom's commentary running in the background (she loves obama; she refers to former president george w. bush as "skippy"). next up chronologically was a few videos i took of my uncle's wedding in october, which amazingly includes the officiator declaring the marriage official by the power vested in him by god and the justice league of america.

there are a couple videos from 2011 that are mostly irrelevant-- one i took of school of rock on tv while... somewhere. i'm not sure where. i'm pretty sure my cousin's also there watching the movie with me, but i don't recognize the room. the other is the entirety of the adventure time episode "What Was Missing," recorded by pointing my ipod at the tv. you know, the bubbline episode? yeah.

on april 17, 2011 i sat down and took 17 videos of... 17 videos. you see, back in the day, before youtube was the only video site that mattered, there was google video. and i found this guy that uploaded a bunch of videos of him and his friends playing super smash bros. melee and acting like the knucklehead teenagers they were. being a knucklehead teenager myself, i thought these videos were hilarious, and i watched them all the time, and so years down the line i wanted to have them available elsewhere. but i lacked the means and know-how to download them. these videos were originally recorded by pointing a camera at a tv screen (which means they all have a black bar repetitively scrolling down the screen the whole time)... so then my recordings were made by pointing a camera at a screen showing a camera pointing at a screen. and 17 might sound like a lot of videos but there were a lot more that i didn't ever record, and are likely lost to time now. RIP google video. (this was the set of videos i had in mind when starting this little project... it took me 13 years to upload 17 videos to youtube. fuck with me. but picking up where i left off was incredibly easy because i had left a list of these videos, numbered based on the file names, in the box i was storing the ipod in. the ones i had done already were checked off. i had expected this process to take a long time today but it really was just plug in and go, done in like 20 minutes.)

the videos from 2012 were all taken during the summer. i have two videos of my high school's marching band performances at the state fair. the crowd is incredibly fucking loud in both of them. the last video, taken on my 17th birthday, is of my former best friend playing Slender on my computer while we say stupid shit to each other; this one i had posted to facebook long ago. but the big win of this set was from the last day of july where i do a sort of tour of my bedroom. with sum 41 blaring from my speakers i walk around and zoom in on the printer-paper posters on the walls, the disorganized contents of my bookshelf, and my bass guitar. there's a brief glimpse at 2012-era youtube and my internet explorer bookmark bar, which includes the neopets homepage and punk-o-matic 2. my very first cell phone, in all its red clam shell glory, makes an appearance. absolute time capsule of a video, god bless.

this little project has brought me more joy than i expected. i was really hyped that the ipod still works and that recovering some record of this era of my life was not only possible, but so easy. i love snapshots of times past and piecing together a little timeline from details like dates and times and my own recollections. i don't know why but i find it so fascinating to look at some event and think of what else was happening at that time, or just before or after it. i like to think of periods in my life based on what things i was really into at the time. plus it's nice to have an archive of otherwise unavailable videos; it's nice to have an external version of your memories, i guess.

maybe i'll do another room tour video. after all, in the future i'll probably end up looking back on now and think it's cool that i can see what things looked like back then.

comments

Sound System: Back to Oblivion by Finch

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 03:06:39 GMT

All the way back in January I reviewed Say Hello to Sunshine and because that album kicks ass, I decided I should definitely listen to Finch's third full album. And so, a week or so ago, I finally did just that. I've dragged my feet on actually writing up my thoughts on 2014's Back to Oblivion, and though this is mainly because I've not written any Sound System posts for months and struggled against a lack of momentum, it also speaks somewhat to my lesser reaction to the album itself. Lesser in comparison to Finch's other releases, I mean. While my main takeaway from this album was similar to my initial impression of Say Hello to Sunshine-- that being, "this warrants further listening"-- it didn't take over my brain like the band's 2005 release did. After that review, I listened to those songs many, many more times, mapping their wavelengths to the weird little folds of my brain and soon bemoaning its obscurity in the online emo/pop punk/whatever community. After listening to Back to Oblivion, I had (have) the intention of digging deeper into the songs, but just haven't gotten around to it until today, prompted by sitting down and starting this post. I just wasn't grabbed as tightly this time around.

Now, if you're like me and you actually care to take note of the details of an album like its release date, you might wonder what was going on with Finch here considering this record came out in 2014, and its predecessor was all the way back in 2005. To make a long story short, the band weren't really getting along well enough to put out music for long stretches of time, and perhaps, the generally tepid response to their sophomore album exacerbated this problem. This persisted after Back to Oblivion was released as well, and to this day Finch has not put out a full album since, though they have shared some demos and previously unreleased recordings. All this to say, one wonders how nine years between record releases affects a band's performance. I'd say this question is especially pertinent for Finch, a group which experimented with and diverted their sound and vibe even just between albums one and two, which were only two years apart. The video that prompted me to finally listen to album three suggested that Back to Oblivion was a return to the band's style on What It Is To Burn... but I don't think I agree with that. I can hear the thread woven through the 2005 record in this one, and the lyrical approach is definitely more like Sunshine, though not as ill, or apocalyptic, or fascinating. There are clear distinctions and maturation as well, so really, if you go into this one expecting early 2000s-style pop punk hooks and "Letters to You" part two, you're getting swerved.

[Click to read more]

Granted, my expectations for these songs were a step or two above the average level, so perhaps my feeling that this album just doesn't have as much capital-H Hype as the band's other work isn't truly accurate. That being said, what the album lacks in Hype, in hardcore, in energy, it makes up for in gentler, prettier musicality. There are moments and songs here that I would even describe as beautiful-- to name some tracks: "Murder Me," "Tarot", and the closer "New Wave." I think this softer exploration of their sound makes sense-- nine years had passed, all the guys in the band were older, and were less interested and/or less capable of going balls to the wall with fast tempos and blistering emotions. I can respect their choice to dial things back now and then because they can pull it off; it doesn't feel clumsy or inauthentic here. It might be unexpected, but it sounds like they know what they're doing. This depth, the range between heavy and soft helps make the album interesting and urges the listener to keep listening and get a better grasp on the songs.

Arguably, Back to Oblivion is a little lacking on hooks, or otherwise it could stand playing the hooks and cool riffs longer. I'd have appreciated a bit more indulgence in that area. I could see some people feeling the record is a bit all over the place, lacking cohesion. But I think it follows a certain flow from beginning to end: the title track starts out where one might expect, spends some time throwing around some hardcore energy, then gets a little more loose by mixing in the prettier stuff, and ultimately comes in for a soft landing. In that way the record is kind of a like a journey that ends in drifting off to sleep. I find it kind of sweet, actually. Finch isn't lighting the place on fire with this album, but you simply cannot hate it.

Some assorted notes and points of interest: Nate Barcalow is a great fucking singer. Listening to him is, once again, a joy. He still serves cunt now and then here. The album's bass tone is really nice and present, rather than a vague background element. There are several moments where the drums are front and center, essentially leading the mix, and this is only ever to the benefit of the songs and is not overused. There are not as many banger lyrics as in Say Hello to Sunshine but there are still a number of cool phrases and thinkers. "Play Dead" is a slowburn, wall of sound jam, and you should go listen to it. I get a kind of floating in space or staring and yearning at the stars vibe from the album in general, starting with the title track. The album's cover is really cool and would make a great poster. "Picasso Trigger" is a sick title; I don't know what "Inferium" means, or whether it refers to inferiority or inference. Even listening to the album only one complete time feels a little like getting a hug. Part of why I want to keep listening is to understand why that is.

Lyrics highlights for the word-lover in your life (AKA me):

Seven years of madness / four more for sting / separate the universe as I'm heading back to oblivion. - "Back to Oblivion"

This plague, a price upon my head / switch back, loosen up your thread / the underlining truth dissolving out of you. && Sterilize your view when you're further from the few. - "Further from the Few"

You murder me / so save heaven for what you really need. - "Murder Me"

As your colors reform / changing everything you know / stay your shape, move me / lines erase who we are. - "Picasso Trigger"

After the sun it's a love we have sold / time to transpose. && But at the core / I have become something greater than more. - "Play Dead"

A fragile hero makes a villain. - "Two Guns to the Temple"

Now you know the animal is inside us all / but you don't have to crawl. - "The Great Divide"

You say we're alien / it's cult emphatic / wrapped in static. - "Us Vs. Them"

You're sailing on / that's okay / I'll learn to swim someday. - "Tarot"

I could die tonight / so let's try tonight. - "New Wave"

R.I.P. Finch, you've made a home in the "obscure faves" part of my little black heart.

comments

june experiment

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 01:10:46 GMT

at the beginning of the month i decided to try out short form journaling each day, just for the hell of it. behold.

june 1st:
made curry over rice and vegetables (and spam) again rather successfully. took a walk; saw a sink next to the sidewalk. nice mild weather. wrote up an outline for a short story i've been working on. played starfox 64 and found it actually kind of challenging for the first time in a long time. listened to the One Last Wish album. happy pride.

june 2nd:
did some cleaning. wore a shirt i cut the sleeves off of (looks pretty good). sat in the sun for a few minutes like a lizard. watched btvs with my roommates. read a short story. started on the line art of my latest project. got some bad news (from the internet) and watched some wrestling.

june 3rd:
listened to Let It Enfold You (twice actually). started a new game file on Pokemon Sword on a whim. had a waffle house chicken sandwich. it was the first summer-hot day of june. i took it pretty easy.

june 4th:
had the house to myself in the morning. played more pokemon, struggling to name things and pick what i want on my team. made progress on Art Project and honed in more on an unrelated character design. revisited an old podcast. took a walk at night and revisited You're Gonna Miss It All which was a really nice combination.

june 5th:
finished a really good book of short stories (Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country). allowed time to get away from me. made pasta for dinner. watched btvs with The House, then watched wrestling with The Creature. took a late night shower.

june 6th:
started out the day kind of annoyed at ongoing House Issues. watched a video about a guy that used to be in a prison gang talking about his life. finalized(?) my team in pokemon sword. made a lot of progress on my art project; the next steps are figuring out a background and maybe doing shading. started reading a stupid fanfic on a whim; it sucks but i'm kind of inspired by it. still did not play dnd.

june 7th:
had a lot of time alone in the house. swept and mopped the (non-carpet) floors. read a bit in The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman. watched a lot of wrestling-- Worlds Collide and Money in the Bank.

june 8th:
the sparrows were dramatic today, and they emptied the feeder in like 24 hours. finished my art project and posted it, even. made curry again-- the korean bbq spam was a little too much for the dish, i think. my roommate gave me a key chain of a vintage spoon with a bird on it (the scarlet tanager). took a night walk.

june 9th:
did some writing after being blocked for a while. felt kinda shitty for like half the day. went down a rabbit hole of 2000s emo home videos on youtube. found a website that's kinda beancore (hairandflannel.com) in a search to understand the meaning of the term "butt rock." made a note to listen to a Pearl Jam record at some point.

june 10th:
still focused on writing; did a bit in the morning and some more at night. lamented that the new splatoon game is a switch 2 exclusive, then considered playing splat3 again because of the update. sunset walk. my (other) roommate gave me a little possum toy.

june 11th:
slightly weird roller coaster-ish emotions today. looked through the old gaming magazine i looked at all the time as a kid. messed around on gifcities.org. into A Fox in Space lately. wishing that lawn mowers were quieter.

june 12th:
happy birthday TOYPAJ. listened to that and a Slayer album, the latter with the onion. read more in the nineties book. drew/designed the antagonist of a short story i'm writing. walked late again; i like seeing tiny glimpses into peoples' houses through their windows, the little orange squares against the blue of the evening. another late night geocities deep dive and conversations about music.

june 13th:
played dnd again finally (mostly combat). it was rainy and really humid. mostly preoccupied with life stuff.

june 14th:
nearly at the end of the Sword playthrough. putting together a playlist of songs to show to the creature. discovered an ant colony literally outside the house. trying to fill up a page of the sketchbook, even if it's with garbage. no kings.

june 15th:
finished pokemon and started the post-game "story" but it's likely i won't go back to it and will instead play splatoon 3 to see what the update is about. got out my old ipod nano and copied the videos onto my computer; uploaded a bunch of them to youtube into a new playlist. wrote a post about this experience. great day.

june 16th:
roughly six hours of sleep (oops). played splatoon 3 for the first time in months, trying (with success, mostly) to actually quit playing when i get annoyed. wrote a couple songs intended to be songs by my emo band OCs. there were lots of fireflies outside tonight. made a very shitty 8 second long video.

june 17th:
technically "yesterday" i stayed up really late again, writing. watched Raw and wrote another song for the OCs. drew a little bit. having a good time, feeling a little crazy.

june 18th:
planned a new collaborative writing thing with my roommate. more emo OC song/poetry writing. was trying to practice one of the splatoon 3 ranked modes but got interrupted by a storm that was only really nasty for a few minutes. took a walk later in the night; some limbs down.

june 19th:
low energy kind of day. did some drawing and reading. listened to a lot of music with the onion, feeling better after that.

june 20th:
shopping day-- groceries seem to have taken most of my energy. listened/learned about lots of songs with heavy lyrical content and/or origins. went down a rabbit hole of morbid shit. watched Young Frankenstein after whining about movies for a while.

june 21st:
did the cleaning chores early in the day (still post-10 AM). went walking at the state park with my dad. 91 degrees at the hottest, but it was a good time. had arby's with my parents afterward. came home and watched my roommate play deltarune while i played melee.

june 22nd:
last few days have felt like a different "era" of the summer from the first couple weeks; unsure if that makes sense to anyone but myself. read a full chapter and a half in The Nineties (full chapter about the internet, very interesting). assisted with and enjoyed a meal made by roommate. melee kept freezing so i started playing pseudoregalia for the first time in almost a year.

june 23rd:
bad day.

june 24th:
still not great, but better i guess. playing a lot of pokemon puzzle league and watching spoony one's wrestling vlogs. made a nice dinner for myself.

june 25th:
had a Conversation, which went about well as i could've hoped. mild thunderstorm in the afternoon. stopping at the last stage of the puzzle league's hard mode, but after practicing in another mode i'm mildly improving. "we take those" kinda day.

june 26th:
have now cleared puzzle league's hard mode twice. for the second day in a row saw a black squirrel (i've taken to calling it "handsome critter") hanging out around the birdfeeder. watched lucha underground. went old school and made a CD of say hello to sunshine by downloading songs from youtube and burning them to a disc in itunes.

june 27th:
made another cd. played dnd. did minor research about being a (writing) editor. still watching a lot of spoony's wrestling videos-- ones i've not watched before because i mistakenly thought they wouldn't be interesting/funny. making a list of more music to download and amass.

june 28th:
chores early, then wwe event after. it was alright. roommate made sloppy joes and cinnamon rolls for us all. i got two games for $7 in the steam summer sale. crash bandicoot is both entertaining and the most bullshit thing i've ever played.

june 29th:
had the house to myself for a while. made some interesting spam sandwiches. played more crash bandicoot (still bs). managed to write 500 words in a short story. took a sunset walk.

june 30th:
tackled another Conversation, which was fine, actually. listened to fantastic planet by failure. trying to lay the groundwork for another scene in that story. burned a scary bitches CD. aside from some hitches, june was pretty good.

comments

Darling

Thu, 01 May 2025 16:27:11 GMT

The thing about it was, he and I could never agree on whether the weather was good or not. I love the heat, the sun, the sweat. Sure, it got uncomfortable sometimes, could even be dangerous, if you were caught out in the day too long with no shade and not enough water. That’s what happened to Aluminum Jim. He went sun crazy, came running back into town with wobbly eyes and peeling skin, talking nonsense. But to me, there’s just something careless and free about the heat.

Daniel on the other hand couldn’t stand to be in the sun for much longer than it took to smoke a cigarette. He’d complain about how irritated and damp he was, muttering about it damn near the whole time I’d take him on rides through the dunes. Not a big fan of horses, either. My girl Cinnamon would huff and trot all nice for him and she’d be lucky to get a polite pat on the snout for her trouble.

That was the other thing about Daniel— if he didn’t deem you worth it, or if you just didn’t match up with his rules, he would hardly give you the time of day. He had a face like a saint, the locks of a lamb, and eyes the color of sunset rocks up on Wise Man’s Point. And he spoke soft and clever, like there was a poetry book tucked into his chest pocket.

Copper Clark and Darling Daniel, well, we were a wonder.

It’s been a while now, but I can’t help but think about the day I learned what kind of man Daniel really was. Where he changed from the gossamer fabric vision I had of him into flesh and blood and venom. You see, out here in the sticks and tumbleweeds, you’ll meet some of the nicest people in the whole world. But in turn, you’ll also meet the nastiest rattlesnakes of your life. Sometimes these two kinds of people are one and the same.

I was at the shop, having a nice talk with Nickel-and-Dime Bertha and her wife Sherry, when the kids from Silver Shack crashed in, guns drawn. They called for my money, wrestling the ladies to the floor. I figured the boys were bluffing, and I managed to scare half of ‘em out the door with a quick shot of my own pistol. But then what happened was a regular shoot out, right there in my own shop, with my two shop hands coming in from the back to lend their metal.

Soon, the windows were all destroyed, patrons wreathed in shattered glass and empty shells. The leader of the Silver Shack group and his right hand called for a duel outside, all old fashioned. I agreed, shouting throughout town for Daniel. Finally I spotted him holed up behind Tyson’s place, looking all shifty eyed and shaken.

“You’re the best shot I got,” I told him. “We can take these boys out, you and me, I know we can.”

We had taken on rougher dances before. He and I had run Ol’ Sharptooth Shan out of town before, more than once. We had even fended off the blood wolves the previous fall. Daniel and I were that kinda pair. But he was as hard to convince as a vacuum salesman that day. I kissed him and his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. I figured it was jitters.

Silver Shack stood at one end of the alley, my boy and I at the other. Guns holstered. Brims tilted low. Aluminum Jim counted down, straight and steady despite his shakes.

But at the two count, Daniel pulled his pistol and put a bullet in my leg. I hit the dirt with a shout, expecting another shot to finish me off, but the remainder of the fire was aimed skyward, victorious. I wiped the sweat and dust from my eyes to see the Silver boys hopping onto their horses and riding like the wind. Daniel followed them a second later… up on Cinnamon’s back.

Our eyes met for but a moment, like a flash of lightning. I couldn’t read him, though the look he gave me I had seen him give to others many times before.

I guess my worth to him ran out that day. After all, silver pays more than copper.

***

(this was a bit of daily writing i did when given the prompt of "gay cowboys." it ended up being an exercise in voice, and a rather successful one, i'd say.)

comments

i don't sit idly by, i'm planning a big surprise, i'm gonna fight for what i wanna be

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 22:37:16 GMT

i think maybe the moments when it feels best to be a writer— or, i'd presume, an artist, or whatever sort of Creative one may be— are the quick, quiet ones, stolen almost, during a shift at work or some other time that isn't really yours, when you're writing or reading (or what have you) and realize that's what your life really is. the job is a necessity, but it's background noise. the people around you that don't get it— set dressing. they're involved in plays outside of your own. but you have this secret inner world, this secret land either of your own making or from a fellow artist's making, and even though it's fictional, it feels more real than the din and motion around you. soon, the shift will be over, the meeting will end, your obligation will be fulfilled, and then you can return to your actual life, what you actually care about.

not in a way that confuses reality with fiction; quite the opposite. the fiction, even in its flaws and drama and impossibilities, is safer and brighter than the worlds we're actually inhabiting. the world i made is, in some ways, a dollhouse, but i can share it with other like-minded weirdos and they can add their own dolls and dollhouses, and the possibilities there go on forever, and that connection is everything. isn't it? the job is bullshit. the obligations are bullshit. the people in power angry at everything they don't understand are bullshit. but our art? that's something we can focus on and thrive on and feel good about it. that's what life ought to be. these moments are like little glimpses into a better world.

(all this inspired by: sitting in a classroom at another person's desk, reading a friend's series of vignettes about his RPG character, and feeling a shimmer of something)

comments

puzzle games, fighting games, action, RPG, shoot 'em ups, beat 'em ups, virtual reality

Sun, 13 Apr 2025 15:45:54 GMT

okay so i haven't posted in forever but if i'm gonna post just once in this blue moon, it should be on 4/13, no?

i don't exactly recall why i stopped posting here, aside from the usual 'just didn't feel like it,' but i think it had something to do with my de-prioritizing my Sound System posts because i was more invested in my other avenues of writing, most of which were never destined to be shared here. i have still been listening to a new album every week though, and i started listing them all on a spreadsheet. here's all the new (to me) albums i have gone through since the year began that i haven't written up a review for:

Witch - Witch (2006)
The Cure - Pornography (1982)
Jets to Brazil - Orange Rhyming Dictionary (1998)
Depeche Mode - Some Great Reward (1984)
Straight Line Stitch - To Be Godlike (2006)
Story of the Year - Page Avenue (2003)
The Clash - London Calling (1979)
AFI - Sing the Sorrow (2003)
Nirvana - Bleach (1989)
Origami Angel - Feeling Not Found (2024)

i've generally enjoyed these albums and have been able to capital-L Like at least one or two tracks from each. i haven't really branched out that much from what i already listen to a lot, which i would still like to do as the year goes on.

as for life in general, it's happening in a pretty typical fashion. going to work, playing a Lot of PokeRogue, contending with the constant droning hum of the state of the world in the background. my roommates and i have been doing this thing where we share our creative endeavors every sunday to sort of foster motivation/encouragement to make cool things. i was actually drawing in my sketchbook a lot more than usual for a couple weeks there (spring break). that's kind of slowed down but this week at least i did a little writing and some designing of fakemon (fake pokemon) just for shits and giggles. but that's a fun process, developing my idea in multiple drafts until i end up with the final design i like the most. this is probably very standard in character design, but it's a little novel to me. it's also a little novel to me to be learning how to be cool with imperfection in my art. gotta turn off that evil perfectionist creature in my brain, or at least lower its volume.

oh, and there was the bigass tornado-producing storm we in the midwest experienced last week. the tornadoes were not actually produced here where i live, but the storm did knock out power for large chunks of the city for a day or so and school was cancelled for two days. it was scary, having all the lights go out and then the rain (and hail, apparently?) and the wind making the house make noises, constant lightning making the sky look like a foggy rave, and huddling with my roommates in the master bedroom closet. but we were not hurt and our house wasn't damaged either. the morning after i walked around the neighborhood and saw several houses with tree limbs or whole trees fallen on them, wrecking overhangs and porches, lines down, all that. wild shit. it's the sort of thing that makes you wanna not live in the tornado-est area of the States, but it's tough just moving somewhere else. like even just financially.

anywayyyyyyyy... wrestlemania's next weekend! i've been watching wrestling for a whole year now. still really fun. never would've expected to get as much juice and pulp out of such a ridiculous theatrical concept, but there's nothing exactly like it. sip sip. (terrible. i don't even like pulp. whatever, the metaphor stands.) i also finished my second complete watch of Daria. still fantastic. and i've (tentatively) suckered another person into also watching it. all part of my evil plan. i started re-watching critical role's campaign 2 because the Mighty Nein is king, but i really fell off with that one after 20 or so episodes. great actual play stuff but it's just... a lot of video. hundreds of hours. maybe i'll get back to it, maybe not.

i got another tattoo. just a little guy on my right hand. sketchy heart-shaped skull, from the comic Serenity Rose which everyone should read. that's another part of my evil plan. go read it now! anyway now i kinda want another hand tattoo, one to match it on my opposite hand. it never ends, i tell ya

there's also another notable life update, but i choose to keep my explanation of that very short and very vague: onions are good.

so yeah i dunno, i'm alright. this is a post. there will be more in the future, maybe soon, maybe later. hang in there, kids.

comments

Calling Collin

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 00:39:23 GMT

“Collin? Buddy, are you there? Man, I could really use your advice right now.”

Today was fucking awful, had been since the moment Doug woke up this morning, but he had been thrown one single, solitary bone in the form of his roommate being out. Doug could do and say whatever, unobserved.

“Collin?”

He was desperate, but not quite panicking. Desperation, tragically, made him feel more confident in this. This could take a little bit of a time; Collin was hard to get a hold of sometimes.

Minutes passed. Nothing. Doug’s hands shook as he wiped his sweaty palms onto the denim of his jeans. “Collin, please,” he tried again.

His roommate’s clock tick-tocked incessantly on his desk. Doug sat down and reached for the half-empty bottle of water on his own desk and took a pull to ease his drying throat. Halfway through this, Collin picked up. A healthy, startled mouthful of water erupted back out of Doug’s throat, and he spent a moment sputtering and coughing all of it into his lap.

“H-hey, man, fuck, you spooked me. You’re too good at that.” Doug paused to cough a bit more, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “Good to hear from you. It’s— I know it’s been a while, I’m sorry. It’s been a fucking rough couple weeks, you know that. Sorry.”

Collin went on, and Doug listened. With Collin on the line, he felt a little better. Emotionally. Physically he was still fucked, but that mattered less. “Yeah, I really appreciate it. Listen, listen, I need to know something. I’m hoping you can find out.” Doug cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. “Collin, um… is Yena cheating on me?”

The subsequent pause wasn’t long. It wasn’t even 30 tick-tocks on that damn clock. But all the same, Doug’s heart was racing. He clacked his teeth together, and he hated that he did that. Collin hadn’t liked it when he did it when they were kids, but he couldn’t help it right now. When Doug swallowed a swig of water it felt like dull needles in his throat, and his skin felt like it didn’t fit his body properly.

“...She is.”

Doug rose from his chair in increments. First his left foot pressing against the floor, then his right. He leaned forward and shifted his weight as though he were in a film that was missing every third frame. At least he didn’t puke this time.

“Yena’s cheating on me.” Only four words, but how expensive they were. “I knew it. That’s the sick thing about it, Collin. I knew something was wrong, and I think I knew what it was, but I just had to be sure. I just… needed to hear it from you. Gods.”

He ran a hand through his hair. It was greasy and made his palm tingle strangely, as though he had pinched his ulnar nerve.

“Fuck! Fuck, man. I can’t believe she’d— wait. No, stop— the rest of you, don’t, please—”

Doug grabbed at his head— more tingles— before covering his ears. This was fruitless, of course, but he hadn’t ever figured out how to fight the instinct in times like this. He regretted standing now but didn’t trust himself to move back down to the chair.

“There’s too many of you, it’s too loud. Please stop. Collin, can you— can you make them go away? It’s not personal, you guys, it’s not, but— so loud… Don’t say that. Shut up!”

Doug staggered to his bed, hurting his shins as he bumped them into the wooden frame and fell forward. He burned from the inside out. “I know I should’ve been better, but that doesn’t mean— I could have been, but she didn’t— No, I’m not trying to make excuses— listen to me, just bring Collin back, he’ll get it, he can explain—”

He whipped onto his back, catching rug burn on his arm for it, and stared unseeing at the underside of his roommate’s bed. “Shut up! This isn’t my fault, she’s the one that cheated! Please stop, please stop screaming.”

Tears trickled down Doug’s face. One track even made it to his ear. Doug wrapped his arms around his torso, feeling too tight in his bones and yet loose enough to make him worry he would detach from himself at any moment. That scared him more than anything. He knew where he would go if that happened.

“Okay, okay, maybe I was kind of pathetic,” he managed after writhing on the bed for a few minutes. The noise was incessant. “Yena— she deserves more than me. I get it, I know. I’m sorry. Collin, if you had been here, man, you would’ve known what to do. You were always better with girls than me.”

His throat clicked when he swallowed. He dared to reach up and press a finger to his pulse. It was a rabbit’s BPM. He almost laughed at it. They wanted what he had so badly. It was sad, really, since they had had it before. They ought to have known it was a little overrated. They ought to have known better, seeing him as he was now, and every other day of his fucking life.

Doug’s voice came in a hoarse whisper, “is she happier with him?”

The answer was immediate. It hit him like a sucker punch. Doug flinched into sitting upright, blood seeping from his nose. He coughed around it as he scrambled for the box of tissues on his desk. He sputtered and cried into a fist full of tissues for a while. The sole relief was that his head was quiet now; the voices had flowed into silence along with the blood.

Once he had steadied himself somewhat, Doug slinked off to the bathroom and washed his face. He watched the last traces of blood run down the drain before glancing up at the mirror. His own reflection was thoroughly regrettable, but Collin hovered just behind his shoulder. Concern sat heavy on his brow, which was shaded by the bill of his old baseball cap. He wordlessly, heavily, patted Doug’s shoulder. Doug recoiled from it, just slightly.

And to an empty and silent room, Doug murmured, “thanks, buddy.”

comments

Sound System: From Zero by Linkin Park

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 21:23:42 GMT

I have this tendency to sort of put off listening to bands' new releases, either intentionally avoiding them, or just not having enough interest in them to seek them out. I'm talking about bands that I've enjoyed and followed for a long time. And I'm not sure why I do that. In some cases I think it's because I don't hear super great things about the new songs, or I actually listen to the lead single and think "well, that's nothing special," and that kills my momentum for Consuming New Things. After all, it's easier to keep enjoying the old songs I've loved for years and not be disappointed by unimpressive new songs. Sometimes I'm happy with the new songs, such as with blink-182's One More Time..., and sometimes I'm generally underwhelmed, like with Sum 41's Heaven :x: Hell or Green Day's Saviors and Father of All Motherfuckers. (And honestly, the latter one there just kinda baffles me. What is up with that album?)

But I digress. My disinterest with new material from Linkin Park was a little different. For one thing, most of my affinity is stored in the band's first two albums (loooove those albums) and I haven't heard much of the more modern Linkin Park releases. And for another thing, well, one does tend to be skeptical about a band's new music after the passing of one of the most key members. I honestly figured there would never be new music produced by the band after what happened with Chester. I wouldn't have blamed them. But hey, they did it. And then outside interference made this situation a little weird.

The timeline is basically like this: Linkin Park released a new single with a new vocalist, Emily Armstrong, and also a new drummer, Colin Brittain, in September 2024; I heard questionable things about the new vocalist, which put me off; I saw something that might've debunked those questionable things, but by that point I wasn't very engaged with the whole deal so I said "meh" and didn't look any further into that or the new music; Linkin Park released a new album in November 2024 and I wasn't aware of it until early last week; I listened to the new album yesterday. I'm not going to say anything more on the topic of what may or may not be true about Emily Armstrong, because I don't care. I'm only here to talk about the music.

[Click to read the rest.]

So, the album is called From Zero, which is a bit of a double-meaning from what I can tell. The first being pretty obvious: having to start over from rock bottom in the wake of losing Chester. The second meaning is actually referenced in the intro track, though the sentence is cut off. The first incarnation of the band, the group formed by three of Linkin Park's original members, was called Xero. Cool.

Bit of a rare case, in my experience, where the first half of the album feels weaker than the second half. It seems rather common to front-load the album with the big singles, the hits, and the more filler-type of stuff in the back half. I don't much enjoy the term "filler" when it comes to music, but I do have to say that some of the tracks on From Zero just don't hit me. They're fine, there's no bad songs here, but I found myself saying things like "this song is okay but it's not blowing me away" when I was taking notes for this review. The first real track on the record and lead single, "The Emptiness Machine," is a good example. S'fine. Doesn't hit like a lead single to me though. I can't recall if I actually listened to it before yesterday. One of the other singles, "Heavy is the Crown," does feel more like it, however. I know I heard it before this full album playthrough, because I saw the League of Legends video made with it. "Heavy is the Crown" is a very Linkin Park song: a distillation of the very functional structure and vibes of Linkin Park's music as a whole, I would say. If you were to listen to this album in a vacuum, like if you didn't know it was Linkin Park before pressing play, you would probably be able to know what band it was once that song came on, even with the new vocalist. Electronic hook over big guitar chords, drums you can bob your head to, rapped lyrics in the verses, anthemic shouted choruses. It works. (Emily Armstrong has a really long scream here too, I wonder if it was unedited. Shades of "Given Up.")

Some of the best times I have listening to these songs are when Mike Shinoda is rapping. I don't always have a big response to Armstrong's vocals— they're not bad by any means, and the woman can both scream and navigate nice melodies, so the basics of the Linkin Park package are covered and covered well— but when Mike flows, I nod along. All my favorite tracks from the record have Mike rapping in them, and these include "Overflow," "Two Faced," and "Good Things Go." And maybe I'm just a heavy music gremlin, but I pretty much always prefer the versions of the album's choruses with drums and other instrumentation over the quieter, drop-out versions. Surprisingly, the fastest and most aggressive song here, "Casualty," doesn't hit for me as much as others. In fact, "Overflow" right after it is more slow and mellow and feels more effective as a whole. "Two Faced" is an instant bop-along-in-your-chair song. As I said in my notes: "classic LP shit in the bridge, Mr. Hahn even!"

I was expecting at least one song to be clearly about Chester, but I actually didn't get the sense that any of the songs are about him. I don't object to this; Mike Shinoda put out some of his own songs about that (see his Post Traumatic EP) and I can understand not wanting to have the band's new material linger there. I wouldn't really even call any of the tracks on From Zero a ballad or anything. Probably the most emotional track is the closer, "Good Things Go," which changes the angle the rest of the album takes from an overt swing at someone else to a look inward and recognizing darkness within. The bridge and final chorus resonate the most, so the album ends in a good place.

Basically, this album alternates between the highs of that classic LP shit forged anew that made me want to replay, and the lows of "this is fine" that made me want to just listen to Hybrid Theory and Meteora instead. Maybe this is one of those things that takes time, and it'll grow on me? We'll see. But at least there are a handful of tracks I can happily add to my rotation.

And now, the obligatory lyrics-I-liked-enough-to-make-note-of portion of the review!

Stuck on repetitions that are only hypothetical. & Grew up thinking trying meant you never really lose. - "Cut the Bridge"

Waving that sword when the pen won't miss / watch it all falling apart like this. - "Heavy is the Crown"

Your truth's not rigid, your rules aren't fair / the dark's too vivid, the light's not there / I start to give in, but I can't bear / to put it all behind, I run into it blind like—" -"Two Faced"

Trying so hard to be sympathetic / but I know where it's gonna go if I let it / and I let it. - "Stained"

Fuck all your empathy, I want your fury 'cause I will just / tell you I'm better then, better then / spit out my medicine, medicine." - "Good Things Go"

comments

Sound System: Hello Rockview by Less Than Jake

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 02:12:55 GMT

This was partly inspired by one of my friends' player character in my game, who is a bassist in a ska punk band. My friend provided me with a small playlist of songs as references for the sort of music the band plays (shout out to Pat, Pat's a real one for that) and one of the songs was "All My Best Friends Are Metalheads" by Less Than Jake. Coincidentally, I had heard that song many times in the past, and it was the first Less Than Jake song I ever heard. Then the other day I was like, I should just listen to that whole album. So I did!

Hello Rockview is... it's aight.

Apologies if that's anti-climactic, but that's a succinct way of describing my reaction to this one, on first listen. It's fine, not bad. Less Than Jake seems to trace that line between ska and pop punk, which is not a genre (or combination of genres) I'm all that familiar with, despite my many years as an pop punk deep diver. Nothing wrong with ska; it's just never grabbed me. My default association with ska/punk is Operation Ivy, and I really like that band's music, but there's not actually much brass or woodwind action in their music, so it's a little distinct from Less Than Jake in that way, at least. My point is, my feelings about Hello Rockview are fairly moderate and I can't be too surprised about it.

After I listened through all the songs I took a stroll through the album's page on Wikipedia, mainly because I wondered if it was described as a concept album there. It wasn't, but I think my interpretation is that it is. Nearly all of the 14 tracks revolve around the concept of staying in the same old town with the same old people, not going anywhere, giving up, and struggling to reconcile one's ideals with this stagnation. The album is so married to these things that the lyrics are actually a little repetitive, provided you're like me and pay close attention to the lyrics on each song. The vocabulary is pretty limited; not a lot of evocative metaphors or imagery here. Not that I was really expecting it here, but I found myself a bit underwhelmed. A jaunty, upbeat album like this would've done well with some good quips, you know? The vocals here are good, carrying some solid personality for the music, but I felt that they were mainly just a vehicle for the words, if that makes sense. And the words were mainly a vehicle for the album's concepts, and you could say that about anything with words because that's the function of words, but I just would've appreciated a bit more poetry.

The instrumentation of the album keeps things fun, and the intros are especially great. There were several tracks where I started doing a tiny jig in my chair along to the beginning instrumental. We're talking 90s cartoon opening theme caliber, here. The bass on this album is excellent-- lots of really fun lines and the tone of the bass is perfect. Perhaps the best intro on the album is on the opening track "Last One Out of Liberty City" which is just a great example of how to start an album right. This album is also a great example of the philosophy of singing a sad song in a major key: a good alternate title for the album would be Sunshiney Bummers.

Now, I know I spent a couple hundred words up there talking about how the lyrics on this record aren't great, but I will highlight a few, because I like words, and I like offering a few points even to things I don't like much.

From "Help Save the Youth of America from Exploding," which is a great title by the by: Right now the world just seems too big.

From "Five State Drive": When goin' up's like goin' on and never goin' back now / it's just like giving up, yeah / and when goin' off's like goin' on it feels like going nowhere fast.

From "Big Crash": They've always had big plans for you / just to walk you through and cloud your views.

From "Theme Song for H Street": Remember when they said, just how long can your ideals keep you warm? / and we just laughed the kind of nervous laugh / we just sang along to that song that's on the radio.

From "Al's War": He feels that the last few years were only a waste of time / it was always a compromise of what he always felt inside / his declaration under the orange street lights.

I will also shout out the last few lines in "Al's War" that switch from like giving up to I'm not giving up at the last moment. After all the (upbeat) bummers that make up this record, I think it was a really smart choice to change the sentiment right at the end. Just one little second of determination; one brief moment of ambition. Better late than never, as they say.

Overall Hello Rockview is a simple and fun ride talking about growing up and not leaving your shitty hometown. It's jaunty and fast, has a lot of "whoa" in it, and it's a decent way to spend about 38 minutes. For me, it's nothing more and nothing less than that.

comments

deck's stacked like the best of them

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 01:00:16 GMT

probably not going to do a Sound System review this week. just 'cause. i will still try to fit in a listen-through some album off my list here in the coming hours though. possibly this stoner metal band Witch that my roommate discovered by sifting through many, many records in a flea market last weekend.

it was a cool little shop-- somehow i hadn't realized a flea market was basically an antique shop? sorta? either that or i've been using the term "antique shop" incorrectly, but words are made up, so whatever. (i also kinda figured flea markets were like, open air, but we definitely wouldn't have been perusing one of those in this weather.) i walked out of there with a dark red Avon Cape Cod glass, labelled as a "ruby gothic mug," and it makes me feel a little like a vampire when i drink out of it. also had a very nice visit with the local witch store cats. one in particular was a perfect baby, very social, very friendly, greeting all who came in. i don't participate in any witchy things-- nothing wrong with them, but i'm afraid the ritual-ness of them would hit me in a bad spot mental illness-wise-- but it's kinda neat to sit back and observe my roommate's developing interest in them from a safe distance. and hey, i did get a surprise check from my insurance company during the month she did a cinnamon ritual, so maybe that stuff works sometimes. nothing wrong with a little whimsy.

i got to enjoy some shortened work days tuesday and wednesday, thanks to it being Really Fucking Cold. hurts to breathe levels of cold. i heard from a student that the teacher i subbed for apparently speaks fondly of me to her students, which is nice. i am not sure what she has to brag or otherwise muse about; i'm pretty sure i was only in her class for one semester, and more than 10 years ago to boot. sure, it was a creative writing class and i am a creative writer, and i majored in that same subject in college, but i wasn't like, a teacher's pet or anything. i think most of this teacher's experiences with me consist of me quietly doing my work in her class. maybe my writing assignments just left an impression on her? maybe she appreciated that i submitted a poem to the school's writing/art magazine? i don't know. sometimes it's hard to understand what other people see in us and like so much, but i'm grateful for it anyway. and she's a good teacher, a good person.

(my poem for that magazine was very inspired by twenty one pilots, by the way. it was opposite to a piece of homestuck fanart. ah, 2013.)

these past few days i've played through Hypnospace Outlaw, just finished it last night. very good game! i had actually started it twice previously but got stuck and dropped it, unfortunately. it's a game you can really deep dive into, just looking around at things and getting an idea of the world the game exists in. or more accurately, discovering how every username and interaction online connects back to actual people with rich inner lives and complexities. plus it's set in the late 90s so that's up my alley from the jump. earlier today i also got Slayers X, which is a rather different beast in terms of gameplay (it's a DOOM shooter) but in-universe it's made by one of the users you encounter in Hypnospace Outlaw. i loved his edgy-ass page that autoplayed Linkin Park-esque jams. Seepage does in fact rock. anyway if you like old internet shit and puzzles, please play Hypnospace Outlaw it's really good

a while ago i took a shot at cooking a simple recipe i found online, to make dinner for myself and my roommates. it was a one skillet stuffed pepper kinda thing, and... it came out pretty good! could maybe use a little more flavor, and my roommates suggested adding some pasta and maybe some onions to it, but it was very edible. i made a food and it was good. go me! i should/will do that again sometime

this week i will be trying to get my shit together for another eXtraOrdinary session, which has been slow work so far, and just generally trying to take it easy beyond that. and then, finally, january will be the fuck over. hallelujah peanut butter.

comments

some guy in some band in some city

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 01:07:19 GMT

it's funny how i'm sitting here, just across the room from you, feeling like you're an ocean away from me. or more accurately, that i'm an ocean away from you. it's funny how it always comes down to me, or it seems to, at least. i think of the way promises sit on your lips, perched on your teeth. i think of the way your eyes only meet mine for fleeting moments. what do you see when you look at me? do you see the same promises, or are they already broken before they leave my throat? maybe it's more likely you see nothing. that wouldn't surprise me, that you look at me and think nothing in particular. a neutral entity. just some guy. some guy in some band in some city, who cares. that stings like a fucking wasp but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

sound check is still ringing in my ears. i'm nervous. that's not new, i'm used to getting nervous before each show, but somehow this one feels different. i guess it's because you're going to be in the crowd. i won't know what to do if i see you out there, under the darkness and the lights and the screaming and sweating, unaffected and not caring. you're good at that. too good at it. i have to let it push me forward, to make me scream harder (haha) or else i'll stumble and panic and disappoint everyone.

i was gonna write something about the double edged sword of being the center of attention but i'm gonna try to have some dignity. gods. get a grip.

niko keeps saying this weird thing about VHS tapes. jesse's pissed at him for it but he keeps laughing so he's not actually mad. liz said she's gonna stop smoking again. for reals this time. i hope she can. mat joked about slapping the cigs out of her hands but liz said he should and she wasn't joking. they keep trying to cheer me up and it works sometimes. between shows (and trashing truck stops, ha) we've been watching a lot of Cricket Cabin. funny, comforting in a quiet-evening-grandma's-blanket sort of way. "ah, woe is me, tortured artist, i'm always climbing myself into trees and tossin' rocks at myself. wait, that's good, i gotta write that one down. the fellas at the Ol' Saddle will love that one..."

anyway, if you're in Crowdshade tonight and you want to get sweaty, come see us. treehaus, 8 pm.

-dammmmm gus

[posted by dam_gus on Saturday, Hellex 26th, 1003 @ 4:34 PM]

comments

Sound System: Say Hello to Sunshine by Finch

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:56:51 GMT

Sometime around October of last year I finally listened to the entire album What It Is to Burn by Finch after really enjoying a couple of its tracks for a long time. I ended up playing that album a lot, really digging into it. So then I did a similar thing with their following album, Say Hello to Sunshine, released in 2005. I think I didn't jump right into this follow up until yesterday because the tracks I had enjoyed didn't hit quite the same as the previous album; they were a little different, a little farther from the usual vibe of things I listen to over and over. A bit of a departure, one might say. It's easier to listen to the thing you already love than try to get into the newer, slightly different thing that you might not like as much. Worst case scenario is that you're disappointed, let down.

But then, there's always the chance that the newer, slightly different thing is actually good: a new flavor of good, a new thing to chomp chomp on. Life is good sometimes, because this was the case with Say Hello to Sunshine.

[click to read the rest]

This was a fun new (to me) album week because I indulged in my emo bullshit. With the other albums I've reviewed here before, I haven't gone back and listened through them again aside from a couple of tracks, whereas with this one, I've already played through most of the songs multiple times and I fully expect to continue doing so. It's exciting to listen to an album and realize rather quickly that it's going to enter frequent rotation-- especially since I already really dug Finch's first album. It's a "holy shit, two cakes!" moment. Even when the songs didn't check the "banger" box on first impression, I could tell that they just needed time to cook. I would warm up to them, it would just take a few listens. I think that's kind of rare.

Throughout my initial listen, I was comparing and contrasting this album to the previous because I had been given the impression that it was a slight change in direction, or more accurately, a development of the band's sound that wasn't as popular. It can be tricky to tell if YouTube commenters' sentiment that this album should've been just as big or even bigger than its predecessor is a sign that it really is that good, or just that they're upset their obscure fave remained obscure. I don't have a comprehensive knowledge of Finch, unlike other bands; I only became aware of their existence within the last year, so I missed out on putting my obsessive teenage enthusiasm into them like I did for Green Day and blink-182 and the like. So, I didn't know if Finch were the kind of band to make two good albums in a row, or if they'd be the kind of band that makes one really good album and then the rest are kinda mid. The latter does happen sometimes. Anyway, my conclusion is that yes, this album is a different flavor, but it's still a good, hearty meal. I've been trying to avoid describing it as "less poppy" than What It Is to Burn, but maybe that's the term for it. It's heavier, for sure. That makes me cringe less to type, so let's go with that.

Perhaps the most clear step forward between albums is in the lyrics. The lyrics on this album go so hard, and I highlighted a lot of them on my first listen. Often they pertain to the body; lots of mention of flesh and blood and sickness, and talk of medicine and dying. There's also the occasional reference to God and the devil, so in combination, the album's lyrics give this creeping, unwell, almost apocalyptic feeling. Not so much in a "the whole world is ending" way, but a "my body is failing, I feel sick, and everything feels grim" way. At one point in my notes I coined the term "hypochondriangst," and at several points I described the lyrics as cunty. Maybe you, dear reader, think it's silly to describe a 2005 post-hardcore album as cunty, but trust me, it is. I know these things. I was forged in emo bullshit.

Not only are many of the lines dropped in this album cunty, so are the vocals. My man Nate Barcalow can fucking sing. And scream. I know virtually no vocal terminology or science, but he's clearly talented, and I don't normally note that when I listen to music. He has the range, and I don't mean the range of notes he can sing (although I don't not mean that either), but he does lots of little things to add a lot to the songs. He belts, he screams, he does these cunty little taper-offs, he does these creepy whispers, and sometimes he just really enunciates words in a way that scratches the brain. The verses on "Ink" are a good example of that. He gets a lot of bang for his buck on this album.

I've read that this album dabbles in some other genres besides emo/post-hardcore, namely math rock. Honestly, I don't really know what math rock is, but what I can say is that the funky time signatures and (comparably) less conventional melodies are what make this album not as easily consumed as the previous. Many of the tracks are not instantly sing-along-able, have slightly unusual rhythms, and even the single "Bitemarks and Bloodstains" doesn't feel as radio-ready as the previous album's singles (compare it to "Letters to You" and the difference is pretty clear). Beyond this factor, though, this album still has a lot of fun instrumental stuff happening it. There are some cool guitar riffs that make me wish they went on for longer. "Fireflies" has this bold bass sound in the intro that I wish were present in other songs as well. Occasionally there are additional little effects that add depth to the music, make it more cinematic, but it's never too far or over-dramatic for the genre(s) we're working with here. Just cool shit. You know? Sometimes the best way to describe something is just "cool."

I won't do a full track-by-track breakdown, but I will list some highlights for each one. I feel the songs deserve their own shout outs. (Shouts out?)

Insomniatic Meat: What a title; the lyrics remind me of nights of anxiety dreams and bad sleep; a HELL YEAH moment with "this is the worst thing you have ever done" lines at the end.

Revelation Song: Fun circular sort of riffing; the vocals creeping up into screams is my shit; breakdown!

Brother Bleed Brother: Love the vocals at the beginning; I'd describe the guitaring here as "dire;" bit of a riff that returns in a later track.

A Piece of Mind: "A pound of flesh or regret, tied to a marionette, loop around my neck." Yeah!; "Cold shades of sanity are bleeding over / I broke apart the disguise, the demons live in the eyes and underneath your breath / a softly spoken death." YEAH!; "This man is using his mind as a weapon / and woe betide the creature who steps into his garden / let's see if I can't get it on me / let's see if I can't him all over my hands." Cunty!!!

Ink: Was already familiar with this one, it's a jam with funky timing and lyrics, plus those creeping whisper-vocals; the lyrics in the second verse remind me of that scene in Bound where the mob guys are cutting that dude's fingers for information.

Fireflies: BASS INTRO; "They say silence is golden / loneliness never shined like this / diseased the leper sits / the leper is me;" cool harmonies in the bridge; cool drum fills between verse and chorus.

Hopeless Host: "Stomach won't digest demons / one wound for every reason why;" this song could also be called "Monster's Religion" which would fuck; slower quieter bridge going into a big and loud screaming ending.

Reduced to Teeth: The title!; cunty yet again; fun little harmonic guitar transition; the bridge emulating Humpty Dumpty of all things; screaming "murder" at the end.

A Man Alone: Tempo picks up before mellowing in the verses; "Cut off all loose ties and bleed for days / who could stand veins with friends like these?" GO OFF; nice long scream; perfect ending.

Miro: This one kinda suggests a cyclical theme, like the cycle of being sick, getting medicine and treatment, focusing back on emotional and social issues, getting sick again, so on; liminal space kinda jam.

Ravenous: LET'S GO; beancore jam that was my favorite basically immediately; perfect delivery to the verses; "Fire and brimstone / remove the back bone / say hello to sunshine / wake up, you're baptized;" screaming about man's greed; "Something to believe in is something to be."

Bitemarks and Bloodstains: Most immediately sing-along-able song on the album probably, with one of the best choruses; guitars working vibes; "Maladjusted, you must trust me, darling / subsequentially you see that you deserve more than me;" shout-along-able bridge.

The Casket of Roderic Usher: Speedy and lots of screaming; flesh and burial and contagious corpses; almost doesn't sound like the same band as the rest of the album.

Dreams of Psilocybin: Unsettling intro with reversed(?) choppy vocals; "Satire's no match for a matter of fact / that's blasphemy!" Muffled whispers about spooky shit; Satan and/or grim reaper vibes.

So yeah, really cool album. I look forward to listening to it too much for the next week or so. Makes me want to listen to the band's other album too. Long live emo bastards.

comments

Sound System: haha by The Garden (& some rambling)

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 00:42:28 GMT

If I'm gonna keep up with these weekly album listens, I'm gonna need to not do them at the last moment on Sundays. Not beating myself up about it, because it's a self-imposed thing and it doesn't matter (shout out to mental health), but I dunno, it's weird because Sunday is like... technically part of the next week, right? Calendar-wise, I mean. Even though that flat out contradicts with it being part of the weekend. Whatever. Maybe this week I'll find a time to sit through an album and generate more than a handful of words, which is all I managed with this one. This one being haha by The Garden.

Granted, the limited amount of time between when I started the album and when I would've responsibly gone to bed for work the next day was not the only reason I didn't crank out a bunch of Thoughts on these songs. The other reason is that I just don't have a lot to say about them. First of all, out of 17 tracks, only two of them are longer than three minutes (and even those are barely longer than that). Not unusual to me, short songs, but on top of the short length of the songs is the either strange, lacking context aspect of the lyrics, or the repetitive and not particularly deep depths of the lyrics. Also, much of the time, the instrumentals are sparing, limited usually to a simple beat, bass and/or guitar, and some keyboardy, techno-y decorations. These are not bad, but they're not broad landscapes, so to speak. That being said, the bass does stand out on the album and has a thrumming twangy tone to it that's nice to chomp on. Crunch crunch.

My song-by-song Notepad file ended up pretty sparse, so I'll just summarize my thoughts broadly rather than going through each track individually. (click to read)

haha is kinda like the soundtrack to a gang of evil jesters born no earlier than 1998 doing crimes, or at the very least prowling and talking about doing crimes, and then celebrating. There are occasional shades of corporate, white fence, capitalist zombie-esque lyrics, and then there's the songs about clubbing. And I'm pretty sure they're referring to drugs, at least a few times for sure. Two tracks refer to something called "VV" and the latter track says "Vada Vada." Don't know what that is and I'm choosing to let it remain a mystery (after all, I am not an evil jester. I'm just evil). Sometimes the music reminds me of Crash Bash, a party game set in the Crash Bandicoot series, and sometimes the music reminds me of The Outsiders, specifically the movie version with the twangy guitar soundtrack. Strange things happening in this album. Like, if you were to imagine surf rock mixing with drums and bass mixing with post punk... you might imagine something like this album. Or maybe your brain wouldn't know what to even create with that set of components. It's not bad, and the songs are short so it's not a hard thing to sit and listen through, but yeah.

Highlights are "Crystal Clear," "Vexation," "haha," and "This Could Build Us a Home." "Red Green Yellow" is creative in that it's a song from the perspective of a traffic light. The two longest tracks, "Egg" and "Devour," feel the most conventional, and I thought "Everything Has a Face" is rather underwhelming. "We Be Grindin'" sounds like a meme, and I'm still trying to imagine the scene where it would be playing and getting the crowd pumped. I'd say it's satire of "up in the club" types of songs, but I would not put my money on it. Shoplift to "I'll Stop by Tomorrow Night." The title track is kinda like the evil version of the Wii Shop Channel music.

Lyrics I noted for being fun, catchy, or interesting in a way that had I been a dog I would have tilted my head curiously at:

"Take your sunglasses off and put them back on again / I've created a force field and I hope no one breaks it."

"Hip swing, hip swing, means nothing if you don't have thighs." [...] "Hiiiii!"

"You can't wish away what happened / you can't do so wrong / and live, care, live free."

"Lies are made by stories which we think of when we sleep."

"I wonder what's behind that cloak / whatever, oh well, whatever, oh well."

"I live by my knife, I'm so petty / like a ghost with flip flops, I'm not heavy."

"Don't dwell on it, fucker / don't dwell on it, fish."

Weird album. Fun and eerie, but I feel like I'm missing something.

IN OTHER NEWS -

I've officially survived the transition of going back to work after a vacation. Work opportunities were a bit dry this time last year so I'm glad to go back, despite the fact that it's, you know, work. My job is not bad, dare I say. I got color added to my tattoo last week. The tattoo artists were playing Lord of the Rings on their TV; my roommate (my ride) asked if "that guy from Critical Role" was playing Elrond. I thought she meant Matt Mercer, but she meant Liam O'Brien. Neither of these people played Elrond. I was a brave boy and cleared snow from our decks and driveway last week. Monday Night Raw debuted on Netflix and Rhea Ripley, god bless her, is champion again.

Perhaps most exciting: the first ever session of my game (eXtraOrdinary, XO for short) is scheduled for this coming Saturday! My plans are basically ready! Characters have been made and roleplayed! where doing it man. where MAKING THIS HAPEN

comments

Sound System: Absolution by Muse

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 06:13:00 GMT

One day a few weeks ago I hit play on some album, probably Nevermind by Nirvana, and eventually laid down and allowed Spotify to keep playing whatever it thought I might like once the album was over. I ended up loafing for a good while and so, many different songs played, and two of them stood out to me enough that I added them to my Likes and replayed them many times over the next few days. Those songs were by the band Muse, both from the 2003 album Absolution. So, in conjunction with my new year's resolution to listen to a new album every week, I decided to start there. And why not try and review some of them too?

Might spend a few entries feeling around for the format I want to use for this sort of thing (also what I'm going to call them...). With this album I followed a track-by-track format that I used back in the day when a friend and I would exchange album reviews. This practice usually involved a lot of hollering about Cher, but more to the point I went through each song in album order, chronologically typing out my reactions to the songs as I listened. I did all my rambling (and some hollering) in a Notepad file, and here I'll be tuning up these notes (no pun intended) as I go, for a cleaner and more intellectual read-through. I chose not to give a score to any of these songs because, for one, I'm awfully wishy-washy about that sort of thing, and secondly, I don't think we'll be missing much in the absence of numbers.

I haven't listened to much Muse before today; the extent of my knowledge of the band was a song or two I'd heard were good from a friend, and that they had a song called "Stockholm Syndrome" which is also the name of a song by blink-182 (which I'm very familiar with. And hey, that song also came out in 2003!). Therefore I didn't have many expectations or preconceptions going into this album, but I figured I'd like it, judging from the two tracks I'd heard from it earlier.

Getting into the track-by-track... (click to read)

...excluding Intro, because there's really nothing to say about it.

Apocalypse Please: I wasn't super impressed by this opener, but it does a good job of setting the tone for the album: it's cinematic and feels grand, as though communicating something of import or musing (ha) on a momentous occasion. Movie soundtrack shit. The title is cool and the song reminded me of Queen, which I find hard to believe is a bad thing. The song is very piano-forward where I had figured there would be more guitar, and it seems to build to something but that something wasn't quite as big as I had hoped. But, not bad.

Time is Running Out: This song is more of a hit for me. It starts immediately with a bass groove that I imagine hits different pumping through loud car speakers. The first verse has a cool "walking in the rain" vibe (as in, if you were listening to it while walking in the rain, you would feel cool), which then ramps up in chunkiness and goodness in the post-chorus. At that point the sound of the snare drum really pops (good way to win me over: good sounding snare drums). The second verse is more of a slutty animatic kind of vibe (as in, if you had a character or pairing in mind while you were listening to it, the resulting animatic you would imagine would be slutty). The bridge features a neat little piano bit and the last couple of choruses have a nice drum groove, so the track is capped off pretty well. For my tastes this one could've also gone a little harder, but it's still pretty good.

Sing for Absolution: The song starts with a light intro that's backed up nicely with present drums. Generally this track is slow and dreamy, which encouraged my wind-up car brain to wander. Something about the nearly haunting quality communicates "vampires" to me. This lead to my idea that this album could follow some kind of storyline about a human/vampire pair exchanging these songs in the midst of the apocalypse or something in that vein. The guitar does some evil plotting in the bridge and carries on stylishly in the background of the final chorus. "Our wrongs remain unrectified / and our souls won't be exhumed." Vampires, see?

Stockholm Syndrome: This was one of the two songs from this album I heard ahead of the rest. It slaps. The intro is very replayable. It has this really cool blend of chunky, heavy instrumentation and airy vocals with this kind of delicate, angelic sort of atmosphere. It's a combination that never feels awkward or forced here; these guys nailed that. The bridge and outro of this song are badass. This is the kind of song your friend's wrestler OC hits the ring to. "And we'll love and we'll hate and we'll die / all to no avail."

Falling Away with You: Bit of a transition from the jams of the previous track into this one's sad sentimental instrumental opening: "I'll love whatever you'll become." Eventually the song wakes up a bit and says good morning to a capital B Bassline with some nice high notes. Lots of interesting bits of instrumentation, notably some "weird bass shit" as I called it on first listen, in the second verse. The choruses on this track sound strange and uplifting but the lyrics are sad; this is far from a novel concept but it's a unique sound happening here.

Interlude is really just an extended outro for the previous track. It's just under 40 seconds of cool full-bodied feedback sounds or something. That's it.

Hysteria: This was the other song I heard previously. Simply put: this song fucks. The bass riff is legendary, the build up in the intro is sick, the guitar riff is sexy and badass. It's just a jam and it made me want more jams from the album. Looking over the lyrics again, my vampire theory remains strong with this track. And bitch, the bridge. I listened to it three times. If you read this post and feel at all inclined to listen to anything from this album, listen to "Hysteria."

Blackout: We ain't beating the vampire allegations with this one. This is another slow and understated track, with long sections of strings and limited percussion. It gives the feeling of a dance song, like a "slow dance at a ball" situation. When the guitar (or feedback, or distortion, or whatever it is, the cool kinda fucked up sound) adds in to the melody, that's a nice moment. The first real snare hit of the song actually jump scared me. This is a song you go to for the starry, stately, maybe a little ghostly atmosphere.

Butterflies & Hurricanes: The stakes feel high, with the keys in the beginning of this song, and from those keys the instruments expand organically. There's a feeling of intrigue to this track, but then there's a cut, and then you find yourself in a boss fight in an RPG. I haven't played any of the Persona games, but I was reminded of them here. I noted at this point that the lyrics on this album hadn't stood out to me much, but rather that the instrumentation is more of the focus. The song seems to cook something after the second chorus, the piano seemed to be taking me somewhere, somewhere grand, perhaps. This is the kind of song that lends itself to an animated music video. It has a bit of an abrupt ending, but overall this track had me going "Wow. Huh."

The Small Print: The guitar riff to this one drew my attention from the start, and the drum sound was solid, so this one was trying to win me over, clearly. The band achieves some Big Sounds here, which is Good. The lyrics are also more my speed, ramping up the evil vibes: "I'm a priest God never paid." The vocalist goes for it here, which I appreciate. The hustle, you know. This is a song for when you're feeling like a bastard and you're reveling in it. Nice little rock pick-me-up in the midst of the slower ones.

Fury: This is apparently a bonus track. I'd describe the instrumentation on this song as sludgy, but without the grime, if that makes sense. It features the kind of bass that pleasantly rattles your whole chest with the right speakers, I can tell. The chorus is trippy and loooong in the vowels, and the bridge goes for a chunky groove. The last chorus has a nice new guitar part, and overall the song feels a little funky, little unusual. It maybe drags a little, but it's not bad. "Your self-loving soothes and softens the blows you've invented."

Endlessly: This song is cool and weird, carrying this thread of devotion with some underlying tension in it. "And I won't leave you falling / but the moment never comes." It opens with a new drum and keyboard sound, almost like a loading screen theme. There's some really neat stuttering keys here and there, and eventually there's the addition of some kind of reversed sound that, by the bridge, gives the song this feeling of falling upward. The track keeps adding things and building slowly and just kinda scratches the brain.

Thoughts of a Dying Atheist: My first thought on this one was that the title is cunty. This song picks up a bit, even if it's a bit straight forward in comparison to the other songs on the album. It carries a sense of movement while simultaneously feeling like staring at a wall, lost in thought. Good guitar solo also. "And the end is all I can see / and it scares the hell out of me." Yeah.

Ruled by Secrecy: I could smell another villain song right from the sinister beginning of this one. Some of the words early in the song are lost a little in the high tones and effects on the vocals. There's a feeling of climbing a large ornate staircase, the kind with velvet carpeting and carved hand rails. Eventually there is the drop, so to speak, one would expect in an album closer of this nature (or that I expected, at least). The aforementioned villain (perhaps a vampire?) is playing piano in the room at the top of that staircase. This track is almost creepy, creating a vibe that something is wrong but you can't pinpoint what it is. Truthfully, it didn't get to the level of big, loud, and evil as I had hoped for, but it certainly made me think. I'm still pondering over the significance of the title.

...Overall, Absolution by Muse is a good album. Lots of interesting instrumentation, some real jams, lots of cinematic feelings. It makes me want to use the word "tableau." Given that my first impressions were the two biggest Rock Jams on the album, I didn't get exactly what I wanted, but what I did get was still good. Not the most satisfying to my "go fast go loud" monkey brain, nor was it particularly interesting in the lyrics department, but it felt enriching to listen to. Like eating healthy food. I recommend.

In conclusion: this album is about vampires.

(no but really if you listen to this album or you're already familiar with it, please let me know if you see what I'm talking about, with the vampire storyline)

comments

and so i give (i'm still giving)

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 03:45:08 GMT

it's the end of the year, which feels like a good time to post here again. is that cliched? who cares

i've had this prevailing thought for a few weeks now, which is: i think i grew up this year. obviously you never stop growing and developing your humanity (unless you lack enough principles to become disgustingly wealthy, perhaps) but this year... i dunno. certain heavy things happened, a sort of looking mortality in the face for the first time really. in truth things really could have been worse, but i've felt like i haven't entirely been the same after this summer, compared to before. july-september was another notch in the "oh, my childhood is over now" thing that i think people go through in their own ways over the course of their lives.

on a more positive note, i also think i made some progress with... coexisting i guess? framing it like interpersonal relationships feels overwrought. i learned how to interface with my roommates and think about those interactions in healthier ways. i did not allow myself (read: i was encouraged not to by my friends) to mire in negative, self-loathing, not-actually-happening fighty thought processes and thus, became more of an adult about this whole sharing the earth with other humans thing.

i also developed, or am still developing, a more healthy relationship with The Internet, namely social media. it's a fucking pit, and i was raised in that pit. but i'm trying to take it less seriously and personally these days, and sometimes if i'm doing real good, i'm even online less than usual. the world has a lot of awful shit happening in it, and many people have many awful shit things to say about everything. disconnecting from that is good, actually. i know, this is the hottest most sizzling take ever put to a text box, but it's also one of those things you don't really grasp until you... actually grasp it. i dunno.

so all of this culminates in feeling (for sort of the first time in my life i've recognized it?) that i grew up this year. i don't feel like i'm a whole different bean now-- my brand is much too strong and stubborn for that-- but things just feel a little different. and that's okay. some of it is hard and scary. i'm really uncertain of things sometimes. but ehh. just another day on planet earth i guess

now that i've waxed introspective and serious, let's talk about fun things i did! the second homebrew dnd game my roommate ran ended this year. it was very good and a lot of fun. my character in that game is maybe my favorite character i've made. love that gay idiot. i also played like 30 sessions in the dnd game my cousin is running still-- lots of fun in that one with my gay idiot (dude version) too. i finally finished (the first draft of it, at least) my own PBtA game system!!!!! and lately i've been planning things for the first game of it to be run in the new year!!! so far the characters my friends have made for it are a hoot and everyone's bringing such fun creative energy to it, it's rad. i watched all of Buffy this year! i watched most of Daria this year (still re-watching it currently), what an amazing cartoon. i listened to like 1000+ hours of music this year! i started watching wrestling this spring and it's been surprisingly entertaining and enriching for me. i decorated the shit out of my bedroom and got my roommates gifts for birthdays and christmas this year. i re-read the locked tomb this year and got my roommate into the series too (progress there is slow, but it's going...). i had a nice semester of work this fall/winter and got two tattoos. i've somehow convinced my friends that i'm a cool person! waow!

new year's resolutions are kind of a crapshoot, but i like the idea of having a little list of things you'd like to aim for at the start of things. so here's my half-baked resolutions for 2025:

- Run the first session of my game (eXtraOrdinary)
- Cook more / learn to cook more things
- Each week, listen to an album i haven't heard before (bonus: post my reviews of them to this very journal)
- Slow down a little

along with the usual "write and draw more" that i've been resolving to do for the past five or something years, of course. let's hope 2025 isn't too hard on me.

and you, reading this, i hope your 2025 isn't too hard on you either. good luck and godspeed for us both

comments

now i'm falling asleep just to hold your hands

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 20:32:12 GMT

you may be wondering, what's bean been up to lately?

well, no, you're probably not wondering that. but i'm nice so i'll answer the hypothetical anyway. you're welcome.

my roommates and i have been watching the new season of Arcane, week by week(ly arc). i think there are valid criticisms to be made about the substance of the show, but man it's a treat to look at. the style is fucking there. the colors and artstyle and subtleties, chomp chomp chomp i'm eating it. also spiraling emo piece of shit Vi is the best Vi and catered just for me. thank you Fortiche. but also it's nice to sit down and watch stuff with my roommates regularly like that-- because i'm weird and have the finicky brain of a cat it's sometimes a struggle to simply sit and exist around them in a normal fashion, but we're making it work. congrats to me for being a person with other persons. i've also gotten them started on Buffy but Arcane has detracted from that, alas

i somehow got back into Risk of Rain 2 in the past week or so, gunning for some achievements/unlockables. after much effort and many failed runs, i FINALLY cleared Monsoon with my girl the Artificer last night and got her special chrome outfit. i'm a gaymer now. running the game a lot is also a good way to catch up on long videos (read: critical role). we also convinced my fave skeleton Malus to play the game with us huehue

i got my second tattoo a couple weeks ago. it's a dirk knife framed by peach flowers. beyond just looking cool and sorta representing the concept of rage and love, it's also a piece for my parents. this couples well with the "you can't take loved away" quote on my other arm. yes i am sometimes a sentimental bitch. but the tattoo is awesome and basically healed now. only thing is, the colored ink (green, there's a little emerald in the pommel of the knife) just... didn't take on my skin. it all came off in the scab process. luckily the tattoo artist already offered to add color to the flowers as a free touch-up, so hopefully in a while i can get the color for real this time. i've also got some ideas for tattoo #3. you know before i got my first one i was like "nah, i'm not gonna be someone that immediately wants more ink." haha wrong

last week my roommates and i went to an "artisans and authors" fair at the public library and purchased some locally-made crafts. it was fun. i got some christmas gifts squared away early and got myself a little resin ghost keychain. i've been wearing it on a pants-chains i already had (fuck with me). i checked out a sci-fi novel by Becky Chambers called The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. so far it slaps. very good vibes and charming characters. i'm a little less than halfway through, so maybe this will change, but it seems almost more... conceptual than narrative-focused? there is an on-going narrative, events are taking place and there's an ultimate Thing the characters are working toward, but mostly there's not been like, an on-going conflict or issue they're contending with. conflict doesn't seem to be the focus of the book, it overall seems more concerned with worldbuilding and musing on its own concepts and characters, almost in a slice-of-life manner. i don't say this as a bad thing. really it's very interesting. but i'm a writer and i'm pawing at the Craft of it all as well as simply enjoying the words on the paper. books good. stories good.

this month i've been aiming for an average of 400 words written each day, which i've managed for the most part. this may coincide with Nanowrimo but i'm not aiming to do a whole novel, nor have i ever done that. but the act of writing regularly is good for me to do at least occasionally. the running theme is simply things that would take place in my RPG setting-- flesh it out, experiment with my characters, ride vibes, etc. i think it's been a good experiment. maybe i'll keep up with it a little even after the month is over. or i won't, that's okay too. i'm gonna be nice to myself about it, dammit

we got actual snow yesterday, and it actually stuck for a whole day. the family next door had a snowball fight. thanksgiving is next week (i might end up going to two different gatherings). we're hangin' in there, folks

comments

what's in your head?

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 01:06:47 GMT

i almost hate to say this, because we're at a point where things are either going to get worse or stay about as bad as they currently are, but i'm looking forward to when election season is over. we went and did early voting over the weekend (we were in line for about two hours, but hey, at least the family behind us was cool and we passed some time chatting with them) and i don't regret my vote but it's like... even the "good" choice still sucks? and i don't feel i have the tools or ability (or location lol) to really do anything more concrete, other than vague stuff i'm already doing like just... not being an asshole, i guess?

and no, this isn't me asking for advice or suggestions, rather i'm just using this place to express that my feelings are complicated and, overall, not great. it'd be bad enough if i didn't (willingly, for i am a fool) subject myself to the internet(TM) where a thousand other angry, shitty people's opinions are exposed to me. it's weird, i have a strong sense of self, but i feel like i'm also rather strongly swayed by the thoughts and feelings of other people. even if i solidly disagree with them. because... i mean, i don't know everything. hell, i know very little. how can i actually be sure that my opinions and principals are well-formed? sure, there's no one right way to be a person, but i'd prefer to be a good one. we live in a system where that's kind of hard to do, materially. i usually stay in my lane and don't make it a point to spread lots of negativity (even when i feel like shit) but how many people am i even reaching when i advocate for basic decency? am i advocating the right things, in the right way? does it actually make a difference? if i go through the trouble to take up new skills or just generally make changes to my lifestyle, will it actually be something that results in a net gain? is it worth it to try?

...the answer to the last question, at least, is probably yes. but idk man, sometimes i'm tired and have my hands full with the basics. am i a bad person because i doubt i'm even cut out to do anything that means anything?

in short, the internet(TM) has ways of making me feel like shit, like i should be guilty and doing more-- oh, but not that way, THIS way. if you do it that OTHER way, you're a piece of shit. it should not come as a surprise that this year i've really been noticing how unhealthy social media is. my (undiagnosed?) OCD has almost certainly been made worse because of it. and yet...

anyway. i work on halloween. i'll be dressed up as a well-adjusted adult.

comments

don't you wish the orange stayed forever?

Sun, 20 Oct 2024 17:35:09 GMT

finding myself wandering back down the rabbit hole that is the 2000s emo scene developing and crashing as my fall break winds down. finding inspiration and entertainment in pete wentz's old livejournal entries from 2005-2006. i have more band OCs floating around in my head (i'm even managing to draw a few of them, when i can get my focus in check). i don't exclusively make OCs that are in bands but it's fun to make them because then you have a whole band to build around them. you can make a playlist of what the band would sound like, branch off into other bands that influence them, develop their group dynamic, think of what their fans would think of them, even draft lyrics for what their songs are like. bands are just cool. they exist in little eras-- during this time period they had this album out and their hair looked like this and they dressed like that, etc etc. and many of my favorite bands/albums are from (surprise surprise) the 90s/00s which has gone on to become especially interesting to me because i was alive back then, but i wasn't really around for the "culture" of it.

i mean, i'm all about it now, but it's not really nostalgia, exactly, because i was, for example, 9 years old in 2004. sure, american idiot came out that year, but i wasn't screaming about green day because i was in 3rd grade and all i cared about was pokemon, neopets, and teen titans. i wasn't old enough to be obsessed with daria and buffy, i wasn't really even old enough to understand them with any depth. i didn't get a gamecube until i was like 12 years old and i wasn't reading shit like electronic gaming monthly or nintendo power, keeping up with new releases or griping about new trends in gaming. it's like there's this whole world of shit that's so beancore, but that i didn't get to explore because i was busy learning long division and trying to beat the champion fight in leafgreen. i wasn't on the pulse point of the internet; i was playing sutek's tomb and watching stupidass flash animations. but now, i can explore it, with hindsight and a perspective that allows me to appreciate the culture of that era. and make fun of it too, of course. those were post-9/11 years, after all.

i got caught up on critical role (again) after losing touch with it while i was watching buffy. i don't know why i tend to second guess staying up to date with the show, or put off watching new episodes-- they're long, sure, but i always end up really enjoying it. i'd also planned on watching the new season of legend of vox machina, but it's coming out piecemeal and i think it might be better to watch it once it's fully released. and really i'm just biding my time until the mighty nein show comes out.... mighty nein my beloved

my hair is freshly bleached, though some touch-ups are planned for later today to make it all more or less even. shout out to my roommate for doing that for me and putting up with me complaining about my ears itching from the bleach. i did two pieces of digital art during this break(!) and scribbled up a "zero draft" of something that i'll maybe post...? i dunno. i have vague ambitions (i'm not good at those) of making some sort of collection of short stories set in my rpg setting. some day i gotta sit down and Plan that. maybe while i'm at work-- that sounds silly, but you'd be surprised how effective it is to be at work but do something else besides your job.

oh also: i got another tattoo scheduled. november 6th. that's gonna be fuuuunnn

comments

sinking.

Sat, 12 Oct 2024 06:00:15 GMT

to the girl at Gloom last night that danced with me and pulled my hand under her skirt: you were lovelier than the lace you were wearing and your mouth was sweet and dark like an autumn evening, but i just couldn't give you what you wanted.

and that half moon smile that dripped with borrowed light did not reach your eyes. we were waning from the first moment. you walked off, silent under the din of the club, and i was adrift again. part of me wishes i could just not care, that i could throw the weight off my shoulders, that i could've found you again and been your paramour until night's end.

but i do care, i can't throw anything off, and i won't find you again.

now i lie here with the sun forcing its way through the drawn curtains and remember someone else. the most important someone else in the world. it feels inadequate to call her that, like calling a star a speck, or calling a home a house. i lie here longing for the shape of her. beautiful and unreal waiting outside classroom doors, under the willows, in her driveway.

i feel like i'm being crushed by my own mistakes. my past decisions are iron shackles locked around my ankles and every step without her is a miserable struggle. i was just so fucking scared. i still am. i fear the lack of safety and the lack of normality. but when have i ever cared about normal and safe? why does it feel like i gave up more than i can even comprehend? like i gave up the key to feeling safe and normal? i think i gave up the moon. without its tides my heart is a sinking stone in a deep ocean.

[posted by acrylic_cynic on Sunday, Zwolven 19th, 1004 @ 10:55 AM]

comments

LINOLEUM EXCLUSIVE: Interview with icebox: On Their Upcoming Album and Being Stone(d) Cold

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 04:58:29 GMT

LINOLEUM MAGAZINE PRESENTS:

Interview with icebox: on their upcoming album and being stone(d) cold

Interview and article by Nick McNally. Posted Ryfa 20, 1004.

CLICK HERE TO READ INTERVIEW

I met the four members of icebox the other day, behind the locally-famous club The Hideout. It was midday, springtime sun shining brightly, though we mostly lounged in the shade. The lawn chairs provided by the club's owner and the graffitied concrete set a gritty but casual tone for the interview and photo shoot. The band was passing around a joint, save for lead vocalist and occasional secondary guitarist Kova Iven, who didn't want to blur her focus even with several hours before the band would hit the stage that night. Drummer Aubrey Maplekey offered the joint to me, practicing proper stoner etiquette, though I also declined. She and guitarist Dev Dezaar remained composed but noticeably more loose-limbed and spacey as the joint burned on. Bassist Finn Apollor seemed to handle his hits the most smoothly, his already friendly and well-articulated demeanor remaining consistent throughout our time together.

I opened our conversation by telling the band we had been getting a lot of people writing in asking us to do a story on icebox. The group seemed mildly pleased to hear that, although Dev's reaction was tempered with a set of skeptically narrowed eyes.

NICK: So, real quick, can you catch us up on the band's history, for those who don't know?

DEV: Ah, big leagues now. Origin story, for all the new fans.

KOVA: We formed in 999, put out music in 1000, 1001, and 1003. We've had some great tours, a couple rough ones. New album... soon. And we're still on Scratched.

NICK: How did the band form?

DEV: Corporate espionage.

KOVA: No. [laughs] Me, her, and Aubrey met in high school. Aubrey knew Finn and invited him to try out.

AUBREY: 'Cause he's really good, man. He was in jazz band and played in these crazy prog rock bands and shit.

NICK: You played in prog rock bands before icebox? That's quite... the musical jump.

DEV: You can say a step down, it's okay.

FINN: [laughs] Yeah, before icebox I was kinda rotating through a few different prog bands. The last one was basically PHROG, if PHROG weren't actually very good. Not a cover band, but I think we really wanted to be PHROG. But we, uh... we weren't. And then I joined icebox.

KOVA: We didn't really have a bassist set in stone yet. We had a couple people in mind, but Finn just had better chops. Even without playing much fast music before.

NICK: Be honest, did the three of you ever doubt that he'd be a good fit, in terms of attitude?

DEV: I did. I thought he was a fuckin' nerd. But I got over it when I realized he helped us write better music.

AUBREY: I didn't really care 'cause he's been my buddy for a long time. I was like, ah, it'll be fiiine.

KOVA: Yeah, no, ultimately we were concerned with the music and the shows. You don't have to wear spikes and dye your hair green to be in a punk band. It's not a uniform.

It became clearer, the more time I spent around the band, that both Kova and Dev are quite self-aware individuals, though this trait manifests differently in either of them. Kova sees the world through clear eyes and reacts with optimism and gruff but charming earnestness. Dev on the other hand notices the world's sharp edges before they cut and treats them with cynicism, often ahead of schedule. Though Kova denied being the quote unquote leader of the band, she and Dev seemed to be at the wheel, while the rhythm section keeps the tires spinning. Kova writes the majority of the lyrics, with Dev penning a song or two now and then. (Those one or two are some of my personal favorites: big rec to "Need No One" and "SMS.") A key part of the band's song-writing process is to put on a movie, mute the volume, and riff over the silent scenes until something clicks.

DEV: Ew. I don't like to call it the song-writing process.

AUBREY: What would you call it then?

DEV: Hmm. Violence.

AUBREY: Okay, bro.

DEV: For real though! I'd call it violence. I'm ripping something out of me and turning it into a song.

AUBREY: And she says she hates emo kids.

DEV: I do! Don't call me emo.

All of them seem to share a certain sense of humor, making jabs at each other with practiced ease. Kova, the least involved in the trading of emo-related insults, appears unfazed by it, even happy to let it continue in the background of the interview.

NICK: Kova, you featured on a song by The Oils, on Gravel. You've done some touring with them; how has it been, working with them?

KOVA: I wouldn't even call it working. We don't really work with The Oils, we're friends.

DEV: Partners in crime.

KOVA: That too. We came up in the same scene, around the same time. I think of The Oils as kind of another side of the coin from us. They're more scratchy, more monochromatic, but never boring, and we're a bit more colorful. Sun, moon, that kind of thing.

DEV: Did she say "another side of the coin?" Girl, there's only two sides.

KOVA: I'm getting a contact high. Shut up.

FINN: Yeah, Darla's on one of our new songs too.

NICK: Guest vocals?

KOVA: That's right. It's called "Honey/Vinegar." It was originally an instrumental we would play at sound check and such that grew into something better. But it wasn't growing right at first.

AUBREY: We were hacking away at that thing for, like, months.

DEV: That's what she--

(Kova kicks her in the leg.)

AUBREY: It was originally two songs, right? And we tied 'em together. And we played it for Oils and Darla was like, add this and this to it. And we were like, dude, you should do that!

KOVA: We have a lot of fun with them. They're the real deal.

Icebox swept me up into a series of tangents and so, for a while, we discussed the group's hobbies and complaints. Outside of drumming, Aubrey skateboards (apparently she has more than once done tricks off the roof of The Hideout, and managed to stick the landing once or twice). Kova works at a grocery store that shall remain unnamed (it's a soul sucker though). Dev said "fuck work" at least twice and, unemployed, currently sleeps on Kova's couch. Finn is the only one enrolled in any sort of education, and is on track to graduate with a botany degree in the next few months.

NICK: I have to ask, is your choice of major related to a particular substance that's fueled much of our conversation today?

FINN: What? No.

Eventually we got back to discussing the band's upcoming album, titled Sunburst. It's their fourth overall release on independent label Scratched Records, and their second full-length album. All four bandmates perked up at the subject, seeming excited to talk about their latest collection of songs and soon-to-follow tour. Despite the group's careless, never too serious affect, the way they talk about their music betrays a real sense of personal investment.

NICK: What's been your approach to this new record?

KOVA: All the things we've done before-- or, most things-- but bigger and better.

DEV: We're all just better at our instruments now. I've learned so much shit about amps and heads and pedals. Not that I'm a big pedal guy, but I've experimented a little.

FINN: Dev's kind of become our tech nerd-- hey, in a good way. I think the new songs sound familiar but in a more evolved form.

DEV: We did some synth-keyboard shit on a couple songs. Started out as a joke but then we figured out how we can make it sound good.

KOVA: We try to get the crowd involved, in our shows. I mean, they mosh and dive and that's great, but with these new ones especially we want them to sing along and scream with us and have it mean something. It's still fun, it's still us, but... I don't know. My songs always came from a real place or real emotion I had, but I ended up finding things to say that felt a little more necessary. And we've been listening to a lot of Reckless Attack lately, so that's been a big inspiration too.

NICK: Is that your way of saying your lyrics are getting more political?

KOVA: Yes and no.

Here the vocalist pauses to think and Dev, breathing out smoke and sitting forward in her seat, picks up where she left off.

DEV: Our shit's always been political, just not in a vocab test, buzz words, straight up "fuck the government" way. Just like, ground-level stuff. Working sucks, money sucks, school doesn't teach you important shit, that kinda thing. And now, since we started a few years ago, everything is more... uptight. People are suspicious as fuck, you know?

KOVA: As in, they're paranoid of everything. "This means they're doing magic, that means they're doing drugs, if we let this happen we're all going to die..."

FINN: As they say, it's an anixety culture.

AUBREY: I think a lot of it is an outlet. People act crazy, we feel crazy, we play crazy.

KOVA: And I tie a lot of it back into community and, sometimes, the Champions. We have a song, "Holy Weapon," that's about how music and the scene can be a tool to bring people together and ignite them. That's how you start making things happen.

NICK: Are you doing this out of a sense of community, then? For the scene?

KOVA: I'd say so.

DEV: We make music for us. Don't know if you were going there, but we're not really thinking about going to a major or anything. We're good. If people like our songs, awesome, if they don't, I don't see it as a loss. I mean, the scene is usually pretty solid, but people can let you down...

KOVA: Without the scene I think we'd be a little adrift. I want the things I create to bring people together. Even if that's only the two people that work at the bar. Even if it's just venting about someone being an asshole at a house show. That's the feeling I bring to the music.

AUBREY: It makes us happy when you come to our shows and scream and run around in circles.

DEV: Yeah, we don't half-ass it, so you don't get to either.

FINN: Whole ass only, please.

Icebox originally formed for fun, but these four take their craft seriously. This may prove to be key, as many other bands of this time period don't last even the few years that icebox has managed. In the ratty world of punk rock-- perhaps especially in it-- passion is a band's lifeblood.

NICK: You all seem to have a fire in you when it comes to this band.

FINN: I disagree.

NICK: You do?

AUBREY: Yeah, we're icebox. No fire, just stone cold.

KOVA: More like stoned cold, huh?

DEV: Well, there's your fuckin' headline. There's your title. You're welcome.

icebox's new album, Sunburst, releases Tansa 5, 1004.

comments

aaaaaaaa (that's the sound of progress)

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 04:03:23 GMT

with september nearly over, i've been scrambling the past few days to get my game in a state that could be called "ready to play." that state isn't exactly defined, but i feel good about what i'm finalizing now, and refining can always happen later on. in fact, it most likely will, because i have never made a game before, and it will probably need tweaking. or at the very least i'll think of another 10 things i want to include in my rules and lore documents.

also, hey! my game has a name now! i call it "eXtraOrdinary." i've done a lot of pondering over the exact styling of it: could go for the more basic "Extraordinary" or the more over-the-top "[eXtra]Ordinary" or some other third thing, but i felt settling somewhere in the middle was good. it's (essentially) set in the early 2000s so i wanted something kinda in that vein. it can be abbreviated as XO which i think is cute and snappy. bonus points for being a fall out boy song also.

but hoo boy. feels like i've made so many names for things. languages, gods, champions, holidays... and my methods for coming up with names is that i don't really have a method. really it's more of a few different ways to fish for ideas. mess with translating words into other languages, pick a word related to the thing and make an anagram of it, mush good sounds together until they form a somewhat coherent word, add or subtract letters from a referenced character or term, etc. i think my creative process might just be a somewhat refined stabbing in the dark. guided primarily by vibes.

hopefully tomorrow (today, hi it's after midnight now) i can finish off my checklist and finally be able to call the game DONE. although again, it won't really be done. beyond basic testing and such, i definitely don't have time to create the additional art i had planned on making before this month is over. plus i don't have a design made for character sheets, though if all else fails i suppose i'll just fashion something out of a form-fillable PDF? i dunno.

(if anyone happens to read this that makes character sheets for RPGs, or knows someone who does, comment and let me know.)

unrelated but worth mentioning: cohost's final day is here. i've learned i'm not nearly as attached to cohost as many others, but it will be missed by me nonetheless. pour one out for ol' eggbug. long may they reign.

also unrelated and for no real reason: let's make a tiny playlist. i call it "creature." it's spooky season, after all.

1. vexation - the garden
2. your haunted head - concrete blonde
3. what d'you call it - ultra q
4. shattered glass- virgin in veil
5. everyday is halloween - the last days of jesus

okay love you bye

comments

it's 2 AM. that's the title. (also there's a playlist)

Sat, 21 Sep 2024 06:24:58 GMT

tonight i intended to ride a caffeine high and get some work done on some art for my RPG. what i did instead was play splatoon 3 for like four hours. i even set a couple of timers to signal when i should stop playing and switch gears, but i was flowing so i ignored them. inkbrush good. you'd think with my self-set goal of having my game ready to be played by the end of the month (which is approaching quickly, not a big fan of that) i'd be more focused but... eh. i worked most of this week and i wanted to indulge in the feel-good of the splat

there was a fight at the high school on thursday; this was funny because i was on my lunch/prep period (prep meaning the time of the school day where a teacher doesn't have any kids, so they can get preparations for class done), sitting back eating chips and listening to music when suddenly there was a whole lot of yelling in the hall. i go out and look over the railing down to the first floor and see a pile of girls being pulled apart by school cops and admin (one girl was being held to the ground) right outside the deans' office. the poor ISS sign was knocked down. naturally kids were running over trying to get a good view of the fight, people were hollering, there was chaos in the air. apparently some girl tossed her crutches into the mix in an attempt to help out her sister, but this had the opposite effect. a boy in the class afterward showed me one angle of the fight on his phone. fun times.

(don't tell anyone, but i'm not a very professional substitute teacher.)

tomorrow supposedly me and the roommates are going to drive to the "weed store." i don't plan on making any purchases but will be joining just for the adventure of it. i considered not joining, because i hardly ever get the house to myself, but it's probably better for me to be around people (read: kept engaged/distracted) lately.

i had a nice moment recently when i shared a short bit of writing i wrote a few years ago on a discord server-- someone was very complimentary about it, said they were encouraged by the fact that it was short and good, that it was good because it was short. i knew i liked the piece (and i knew it was at least good enough to partly inspire someone else's DND character) but it's nice to hear that another person liked what you made. and getting to talk about what you made-- good shit, would recommend.

just for fun i made a short playlist to tack onto the end of this journal. call it an EP, maybe. there is a theme to it, but i'm not going to explain it. interpret it as you like and tell me about it. or don't. i'm not a cop.

eighteen - joyce manor
for always - mxpx
a praise chorus - jimmy eat world
gotta let it go - joyce manor
J.A.R. - green day

comments

staaaay fresh

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 01:12:24 GMT

sitting here, letting all the splatoon idols perform their 'thanks for playing' songs over and over on my TV after the end of the Grand Festival. they're all really nice songs, but i think my favorite is Into the Light. gotta admit, that one has the most poignant story attached to it: it's 'thanks for playing,' but also, 'all these people are coming to the surface to see and feel sunlight for the first time. it's a whole new world.' (splatoon's story is kinda wild.)

i'm feeling sentimental-- granted, splatoon has made me really mad over the years, but it's also a lot of fun. and cool and weird! it's a series that's really about the vibes and i love that. and the devs put a ton of work into so many little details that make the series really something special, i think. i mean, the whole grand festival has been basically Burning Man, with three different stages all having performances going on, with like 10+ songs, including one that combines the motifs of three different idol groups (and still sounds coherent and great!), with choreography AND lights, fireworks, pyro, and other shimmery effects, huge crowds of little jellyfish with glow sticks that jump and sway to all the music, plus all these little stalls and vendors and side characters hanging around... all for a silly squid game. they didn't have to do all that, but they did, and i admire that.

i missed out on splatoon 2, but i did play the first game a lot: about 568 hours, actually. even more of splat3: i just checked and i've played it for 935 hours. that's a grand total of about 1500 hours of the silly squid game (jesus christ). so yeah, it's made a colorful little space in my life, i guess, since that first college summer in 2015.

i'm not really expecting a splatoon 4, but if it does happen, and i can get a hold of whatever comes after the Switch, eh, i'll probably get it. make it 2000 hours, maybe.

so long and thanks for all the fish, splatoon

-bean

comments