uploaded: 3/29/2026
When Febuary rolled around I didn't think I had enough to warrent one of these posts. Decided to just combine it with March and it worked out.
These past few months were rather unproductive for reading. Starting and marking out time is the main issue. While I can read a lot when I’m in the action (typically with my unemployment schedule I can get through a moderately sized fiction book in like 2-3 days) there’s this haze in my head that makes starting a great effort. I’m hoping over time I can make it better, or now that I’ll have a job I’ll be compelled to be on schedule. It didn’t help that until halfway through March I could not get my library card to work at all. Most of what I wanted to read needed to be requested from other libraries so I was just kinda fucked.
The book that got me back to it was the Great Gatsby. I read someone talk about it on a server I’m in with effusive praise and thought to myself why not reread it. I’ve read it like 3 times now, the other times being in Freshman and Junior year of high school. I’ve long held the belief that most of the time when you consume art as a kid or teen you probably didn’t pick up on most of it. Rereading was a really stark reminder of that. Just a lot of stuff I missed. While it was a casual read, not doing too much thinking it was hard not to notice the prose, commentary and symbolism. Some of that I got from my younger years along with the school discussions, but now it was very clear. You don’t need to hear it from me, but it’s a classic for a reason! Keep thinking about that careless people quote.
One of the things I can rely on when I’m at my parents and bored out of my mind is some random book to read. Last month my hand reached for Post Office by Charles Bukowski. Tedious slog. I can see some of the value even if his vulgarity is too over the top for my tastes. There’s some funny lines and this way of angrily describing bureaucracy and manual/service labor I’m sure is resonant, especially at the time. Over a whole book though? It fucking blows. Every page just drags on and the prose is diluted down into a dull drone as it goes on. Him being mostly known as a poet makes more sense. This style probably fits short form work way better since variation and content don’t need to be as important than a novel.
The Collector is a strange one. While I believe it’s considered a classic, it has a peculiar reputation. Multiple serial killers have been inspired directly by the book, going so far as to replicate its events or even directly reference it in their manifestos or materials. As you might be able to guess, it’s a book about a man kidnapping a woman and keeping her in a basement. I don’t really care for mystery/crime books like this so why’d I read it? It’s cause of a friend of a friend who’s a big fan of this book. I think that person is pretty neat even if I don’t talk to them, so I figured why not. Again, not a fan. I get what it’s going for but I think it’s pretty lame and I also don’t have a good enough grasp of English class politics/dynamics in the 60s to get anything out of that aspect of the book. The characters are meant to stand in for modernism and the reactions to it, but they feel like total caricatures and are impossible to take seriously. Miranda, the kidnapped art girl feels like a strawman at times, and her observations about Federick having Jewish features are really funny. I didn’t care much for the prose or character narration, though I honestly related to Miranda a decent bit. I too have been stuck in conversations with people like Federick, and under much more boring circumstances.
I’ve started a couple other books, mostly non-fiction theory stuff. Freud has been on the block for a while due to wanting to get a better grasp on him. I’ve seen so many back and forths on whether he was good or not and I want to actually have a real opinion. Within like 3 pages I had to take a break cause he is just so much. In a good way, such an extreme amount of reflexivity and detail. At the very least it’ll be fun to read. I borrowed a copy of Mood Machine, a book I’ve been wanting to read for a bit. I’ve been a fan of the author’s work since high school. Her work on streaming was very informative to me, and is far better than basically anyone talking about streaming so it’s great to see her publish a full book on it. I also grabbed Jonathan Crary’s Techniques of the Observer. He was recommended to me by a professor friend of mine, mainly for his most recent work. I’m pretty sure I’ve read him in some art history class long ago. It’ll be nice to read since I’m going to start working on my thesis again, now that I’m hired.
Start of February my hands were feeling pretty rough. I decided to take a break from action games and focus on games that primarily used mouse control or a small amount of inputs. Unsurprisingly that meant more picross but I wanted something a bit more active. It was kind of a pain trying to find mouse only games that fit the mood I was in. I’d ask people and I’d just get like the same 4x games recced and I’ve never super cared for those. I ended up settling on an old favorite of mine, Into The Breach. Back in sophomore year of college, I got really into the game again (first playing it back in high school) and got every achievement (something I rarely ever do!). Since then, the game got an advanced edition update that I sampled but didn’t commit to. This time I really dug into the new squads and reaffirmed that this is an all timer for me. I love turn based tactics games like this and Into the Breach removes all of the fluff typically in those games. I really appreciate the new squads, they’re pretty distinct from the original set. They often focus on much more difficult and complicated game plans, using some mechanics and dynamics that don’t really show up in the original game. Some of them are way more suited to blocking Vek spawns for example, in a way you couldn’t really do with any of the base game squads. I ended up playing another like 20+ hours of it, and I haven’t even turned on the uh advanced mode content yet! At some point I’ll do an even deeper dive on the game, toggling the advanced mode additions but also trying to clear hard mode with every squad and game length. By then I’ll probably have enough to write some concrete and hopefully valuable thoughts on the game but who knows when that’ll be.
I was talking to a new friend, and decided to dust off my 3DS to play SMT4 on her recommendation. I’ve always wanted to play it so I figured it was the perfect thing. While the 3DS can be kinda shit on my hands, an RPG seemed to be just what I needed for the moment. The only other SMT game I’ve played before was Nocturne, so I knew a little of what to expect for the game. I’ve played like 10 hours I think? Haven’t booted it up in a bit but it’s chill. Pretty fun time, SMT games have always been more up my alley than Pokémon to make a reductive comparison. I love the demon interactions, it’s such a nice bit of comedy and stakes. It also makes the random encounters and collection process more engaging. Obviously, the combat is good, due to it being at least somewhat hard. Finding out I could just keep a healer in the stock and basically have infinite healing for any given dungeon run did seem a bit much but getting one shot on later floors was a common enough occurrence that it can’t be too rough. The first real boss, the Minotaur was pretty fun. Kicked my ass the first few times but it wasn’t that rough. My favorite parts of these games so far is the way they portray modernity. I remember that, like, net surfer section of nocturne being really striking when I first got to it. Here I really love the gradual reveal of technology once you get past the Minotaur and then see the city after a few more floors. I’m not really paying attention to the story but it’s really fucking funny how the poor people are aligned with the devils and also Walter being the “evil route” and using fire powers. Like be serious guys. Hope I’ll actually have the motivation to finish it. I realized how useful portables are when you have actual dead time. I used to have to take my friend to classes and having this while I waited was such an improvement.
March is when I finally got back to some action games. I haven’t hit up any of the big ones yet, no TGM still but I’ve been opening MAME again which is always good. I’m so out of fucking practice on DOJ black label. To think I was mere runs away from clearing the game at some point. Guess that’s what happens when you stop playing a game every day. Still amazing though. I can probably grind and clear it within a week if I’m being honest. My practice habits are bad and my playstyle tends to be kind of wild, and despite that I still am definitely capable of clearing so if I put some actual focus and effort I think it’ll be game.
I ended up buying a couple games for the first time in a while. Largely it was action games with my hands being better. There were a couple games released in February that I couldn’t buy since I wouldn’t be able to play them. Brebeman is a really promising game from the couple of levels I played so far. I loved the developer’s previous game, Cubis so I’ve been eagerly awaiting this since I saw it announced last year. I wish to talk about it in more detail since beyond the gameplay it has ambitions of being a true “music” game, and I’d like to interrogate that. Under Defeat's Steam port was something I really wanted to get when it launched last year, but I never got around to it. It’s quite fun, but really damn hard. I think I’m too focused on killing everything (there’s a destruction bonus) or I haven’t found the right approach yet. Running Canned Nivoz is a really unique little third person shooter. I played the demo a year back and was very charmed. It feels like someone took the AC combat system (of the old games, haven’t touched 6 and don’t plan to) with the FCS and just made it even more about camera control as opposed to aiming. Looking forward to completing it.
Leap Year is the only one of these games I’ve finished. It’s a quite short and sweet puzzle platformer, so not surprising. I was really delighted my entire time playing. The spin on traditional platforming is pretty fun, both being mechanically interesting and visually funny. Real slapstick kind of game when you fuck up, lot of chuckles. I have to be vague since I don’t wanna spoil it but the way it builds on the concept is quite well executed. Every mechanical twist was well done and utilized adequately during the run time. The final one especially is what took this game from great to excellent for me. Totally makes you reconsider the entire map, and is also really fun to play. My only issue is the lack of tricky platforming. Initially I was bummed with the feeling I wouldn’t get a lot out of a replay. This really shouldn’t be an issue, because puzzle games are all about the novelty and shouldn’t be judged on replayability. Leap Year’s a platformer though, so I feel there was a real potential to engage that aspect further along with the excellent puzzle design. There’s a few rooms here and there, where the two fuse very well, but otherwise most of the difficulty rests on the puzzle aspects. Still, I had an absolutely incredible time, so glad I never looked up anything while stuck! The DLC is also apparently exactly what I want, more puzzles, platforming and way harder. I’ll probably grab it next month.
PSolTrix has rewired my head. I’m not sure I could explain properly, I think I’m too stupid for this. As per the Steam page cause I can’t find any way of rephrasing it, it’s “Tetris on a regular dodecahedron or icosahedron”. If you’ve ever seen the game Blockout, it’s like that but even harder and super trippy. Due to it not being a flat plane, there’s far more controls to navigate the blocks, rotations and you can even decouple the camera (for which I have not really found a use yet). I felt like a fucking insane person playing the dodecahedron mode (Dotris) for the first few hours. I still do actually, realizing I should play it like Tetris and leave one gap for a straight 4 piece was nuts to me. I’m beginning to understand the game more after 4 hours and now I don’t get concerned by the consequences of a given move. It’s really damn fun once it clicks a little. Moving is frantic and pretty smooth, very satisfying. I’ll record a good run at some point since there’s barely anything uploaded outside of in progress videos by the dev.
It’s been a while since I’ve played any shooter. A friend was telling me about CS2 but god I can’t play that game. It’s just so brutalized from GO, filled with matchmaking horseshit and overly forced rank systems. CSGO silver was such a great party game man, the fuck happened. I ended up just hopping back on CS:S and 1.6, cause you really can’t beat those games. Maybe the greatest multiplayer shooters ever made, personally DOD is the only thing that comes close (gotta put more time into like Q3 or UT first, Titanfall 2 also up there) but man, perfect video game. Something about having and AK and Deagle in hand and just locking the fuck in. It’s probably the most immersive game for me, just bombing down Dust 2 and ignoring the outside world entirely. Seriously I just get sucked in. There’s also like a whole other really good game there which is actual comp play. I’ve never gotten good enough for that, or have friends willing to do it but hopefully one day. I’ve mostly been playing on like, deathmatch or gungame server. Reason one is that I’m not very good, too used to CSGO and also the differences between 1.6 and CS:S (which is what I’ve spent more time on currently) are kinda fucked. I hopped on a d2 1.6 server and had the worst gunfight ever and DCd, I couldn’t handle it. It’s just also been a while since I’ve dealt with the panopticon of permadeath MP games. Being as shit as I am and most of these people being old school shit talkers, I think I need a minute before I can comfortably play. Or I can just get over it, either way.
The Dark Knight movies are really damn funny. I was watching the second and third one (friend I was watching with didn’t care to see Begins, and can’t blame her) over a couple weeks with friends. I was growing up around the time they came out and they were taken so seriously. Watching them back now I cannot believe that collective reputation. Extremely funny in every way. Everyone knows the Bane voice but the Bale Batman voice is stupid as fuck, Ledgers loud ass lip smacks, and the whole tone is just silly. It’s funny because I do think it’s at least somewhat aware of the ridiculousness of elevating dumb comic stuff, Nolan is still selective in what gets adapted. JGL’s character in rises is clearly supposed to be Robin but instead he’s just like a normal cop with ties to Batman in childhood. Nolan is just a massive blockhead, it’s amazing his films are even remotely compelling. Loved watching Harvey Dent, the coin flip to kill shit was hilarious.
I started Top Gun with a friend. We haven’t managed to finish it but we keep chipping through it whenever we hang out. Strange strange film to me. I’m shocked it was a hit. The whole premise feels like a Shonen manga/anime lmao. Like you did good so now you go to a school for the best and get even better? There’s like 50 series like this over in Japan. Not actually sure what came first since I have a limited knowledge of the history of shonen outside of like the big names. Anyways it feels like nothing really happens in the film. Moves slow, shot with this dreamlike quality a lot of the times. Very beautiful to look at. I guess watching planes in the theater was just sick as hell back then. These aren’t critiques if anything it’s a lot of what I enjoy in films, meandering pacing and plot. Just not the movie I expected to have those qualities.
Finally got around to Manhunter around late March. I’ve been meaning to make it my second Michael Mann film for a while now, since seeing Collateral in 2024 for a class. It’s beloved by a good amount of my internet friends which was the main reason I opted for it over like, Thief or Heat. I thought the first half was excellent, but the second half was interesting. I wouldn’t say it really lost me, but I think I need a rewatch and some time with it. Jarring is probably the best word to describe it, there’s a noticeable difference in tone despite the rising tension during that part. Still really cool, just gotta give it a second and have faith in the Mann. I definitely appreciate that it took a likely terrible fucking book and made it good. I read the summary of the book and saw a few clips of a different film adaptation. They were so bad, especially the film which was completely tasteless.
I almost forgot but the Technics turntable listed on my audio equipment page was obtained [DT1.1]in February. As a result, most of this entry is just going to be dedicated to vinyl cause I have bought so much of it these past 2 months. Wasn’t even intentional really, just multiple things happening to coincide. It’s strange for me, I used to be opposed to buying vinyl when I was younger. I vastly preferred CDs and Cassettes, they had more music I cared about at a reasonable price. The thing that really shifted this opinion though was getting more into Dance music. Since then, I’ve figured out the kind of music that is worth getting on vinyl, even if they aren’t exclusive to the format (e.g. original mono pressings of 60s music given its affordable). The big thing though was getting access to a real turntable in 2023 thanks to my roommate lmao. Even if I had records I wanted to buy before then why would I have bothered?
The big thing was this record store liquidation sale I found on Facebook Marketplace. The guy ran an “Amazon” record store and had a whole storage unit full of records in a mill building. This place was in the basement, it was fucked up and dusty. Shelves and shelves of records and other random junk. Sorting through was kind of a pain, many of them were stacked horizontally. This would be fine, but so many of the spines were faded and damaged over time. The amazon bit made me think the selection was gonna be kinda shit, and I was sorta right. Lot of junk records, not surprising given how much was in there but the LPs were not super crazy. Regardless there were a couple cool ones, and with each record priced at 50 cents throwing in a couple wasn’t a bad call. The notable ones were a 3LP disco box set, Donna Summer’s Bad Girls, a Supremes double LP comp, War’s The World Is A Ghetto and Tim Buckley’s Star Sailor. I haven’t heard any of the named albums but I’ve been meaning to hear them for a while now. Star Sailor is an original pressing, pretty sick! It’s really scuffed but the Technics can handle it better than other turntables, and I don’t care that much. All that matters is that it isn’t unplayable on my speakers. That War record is the most fucked thing I own. Really scratched and the case is busted with gaps on each side. Someone really disrespected this poor thing. Shame cause it’s a great album, but for 50 cents do I care? Not really, happy to own it.
The real thing though was the 12”s. These are the main things I like to buy vinyl for anyways, and man it did not disappoint. A whole ass fucking row of em. Me and my roommate went 3 times. Unfortunately, the second day some fucking guy scooped up just a whole chunk of the fucking 12”s. There was still enough to dig through and find some cool shit but still fuck that guy. I don’t think he even like actually looked through he just fucking grabbed some section and dumped them in his box. I think by the end of the visits I had bought like 54-56 records. I’m still working through them but I’ve found some pretty amazing stuff, so did my friend. Most of these were disco or 70s-80s dance and pop music. Usually I’m aiming for electronic/rave, since I’m not that into pre-house/techno rave music yet. Doing this has been a great entry into that world though. One of the standout ones is from my friend, she picked up a copy of Got to be Real by Cheryl Lynn. Awesome tune, just hits you with a killer hook at the start and gets right into the groove. So jealous. The craziest thing I got so far is a copy of DJ SS’s classic tune, Black. Where I live there’s not really a great amount of electronic vinyl. Anything breaks especially is basically impossible to find, and I’ve been looking for a while. So, to find an absolute jungle classic was fucking insane, maybe the craziest find of my life so far. Is it pretty scuffed? Yes but hearing it on the wax? Unreal. Another highlight was Sweet Sensation’s Hooked on You. I’ve been meaning to get into Freestyle for a while now and this might be the initial hook. Such a sick and fun track, they really go ham with the synths and vocal sampling. There’s this hysterical yet awesome midi breakdown, and the percussion is just tight.
The other big thing about this liquidation sale, and what drew me in more than the record prices was the boxes of 45s. I’ve wanted to get more into 45s for a while, since I love buying indie 45s at some of the record stores I frequent. A lot of really interesting music is stuck on these little guys, and singles are just cool and important to understanding a lot of like pre 80s genres. Like once you’re past all the big soul artists, 45s are the place to go. So many amazing tracks that were only ever printed on these discs. This dude was selling boxes of like 100+ for 10 a pop. I ended up getting 3 for 25 in total (one of them was scuffed so I got it for half off. Make no mistake though, this is really just gambling. From what I perused of the boxes, it’s not really the goldmine I want. Rather it’s just a lot of pop and popular songs from 90s and before. Even if it happened to be all soul I’d still be running the slots. That’s the whole appeal for me though, I knew what I was getting into. I’m planning on writing a longer article about the matter, once I get through all of it. It’s gonna take quite a fucking while though.
The experience has helped me to start looking more at 60s pop (and music in general), which I’ve mostly overlooked. A big thing I realize now is that songwriters are very important and a useful way of finding new songs and giving myself structure when searching. It’s also made me adjust a longstanding belief. I’ve been militantly against soundtracks a couple years after really getting into music. It’s not that they’re bad, but in all cases I find that they are just significantly less interesting and good than basically any music made for its own sake. This is for obvious reasons to me at least, by nature they are auxiliary and there to assist a primary medium (film or video games for example). As a result, less work has to be done to convey anything since there is already a lot of framing being done. I don’t think I would be that militant if it weren’t for so many people online treating OSTs as some kind of godsent work when in my experience it’s extremely obvious when I’m listening to soundtracks.
This is a much more complicated conversation when taking it back to pre 70s*. Back then there was a much higher mutuality between music and soundtracks. A large chunk of standards are initially showtunes and so much published/famous music of the time are soundtracks. The standards are almost always better when performed for music’s sake though. The obvious example is My Favorite Things. The original song for The Sound of Music is nice but the countless Coltrane renditions are just infinitely better to me. Their having different goals is the point I’m trying to make here, there’s better music as a result of not being an accompaniment to a narrative or different medium. Kurt Weil’s Speak Low (lyrics by Ogden Nash) is another personal example for me. Performances of it in One Touch of Venus (what it was written for), is solid at capturing the emotion but feels overly forceful. Musical subtlety feels skimped on since there’s an accompanying musical the audience is watching live or in film form. 2 if. The demo recording by Weil is truly special, however. Delicate piano solo accompanied by his vulnerable vocals, that are enhanced by the poor recording quality. There’s also a jazz recording of it led by Sonny Hiett, with Coltrane on the sax. The way he rips that main melody on the sax is so lyrical and huge, hard for me to prefer the great Broadway recording when two titanic renditions exist. Even if the purely music renditions of the song are my preferred choice, I can’t ignore that relationship entirely. After all, these recordings wouldn’t exist without the initial showtunes/soundtracks.
The only other thing to note is now that Spring has rolled around I really feel a wave of Twee Pop hitting me like a truck. I think what did it was this one 45 I put on by happen stance, Searching for the Now 3. It’s a split between A Sunny Day in Glasgow and The Sunny Street. The Sunny Street’s B side, Pottery & Glass is a great little twee pop song. The exact kind of melancholy you associate with the genre, fantastic melody and pacing. I started listening to Glo-Worm again, and what a perfect band. The new live sessions added to last year’s rerelease of Glimmer are quite great. A nice little EP to cap off a perfect discography in my eyes. I’m not one to have my listening habits shift with the seasons, but I think the motions just happened to align lately. It hasn’t started yet but soon I hope.
Gas prices and the snow have kept me from going on bigger trips lately. There were a couple of nice new hiking locations I visited for the first time but the snow ended up cutting those trips in half. A lot of the trails were like covered in a rough mix of tough snow and ice that was difficult to read with what I was wearing. Usually, I love the snow but the way the season ended wasn’t particularly pleasant. I need to start walking again and begin jump roping so I can begin dancing. Here’s to the next few months having some better moments.
Could have done more work, but I’m happy with what I got up. The equipment/collection pages I’m very pleased with. I think they turned out nice and a nice addition. I’m remembering as I’m writing this that it’s pretty easy once I start writing. I think I just have to schedule it out now to force it to come out. I’ve started work on the first shrine. It’s for Rusted Moss, one of my favorite games. I’m going to see how much of it I can write without a replay, since it’s been a good while. I should probably finish the last content update, I didn’t end up getting through it. The imagemap feature is such a godsent. I thought I was going to have to do some hack bullshit with CSS or manually cut up the image into chunks, but that tag just works. I’ve got a decent amount lined up and planned now, just need to put it in. Maybe then I can try some visual changes? I’m not sure anymore, used to the plain look now.
*I’m being simplistic and inflammatory, there’s some notable stuff to talk about with film soundtracks post 70s and how it interacts with music more broadly/within the medium. Off the top of my head the Texas Chainsaw Massacre soundtrack was referred to as the "ground zero for noise music" by Aaron Dilloway. There’s other things to discuss, and I think I’d like to write a page about my anti-soundtrack stance. Game soundtracks are not in any consideration for the nuances of my position for the record. Completely irrelevant to any meaningful discussion.
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