UPDATES

Here is my running log of media I've engaged with this month, be it manga/anime, games, books, films, etc. ([R] indicates a re-watch, re-listen, etc.):

APRIL 2026

2026/04/01: Ты и я [You and Me] (1971) Лариса Шепитько [Larisa Shepitko] - 4/5 [R]
2026/04/07: High School (1968) Frederick Wiseman - 4/5 [R]

UPDATES

If I have something to say about what's going on in my life or with the site, this is where I dump off-the-cuff updates. Some of them are more serious than others.

2026/04/08: WEBSITE AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENTS

Hello! I've been experimenting with a few things to make this site kewl and also make it somewhat more of a "community" to the degree that I can. I think the more and more I can move my internet activity and interaction with other onto private, federated platforms (like personal websites and chat protocols like XMPP), the better. And there are a lot of things I never would have considered possible to learn how to implement for myself that I'm genuinely interested in now. It's wonderful to keep learning more and more about computers and networks. Though it always feels like we learn these things too late. It would have been much more magical to learn this in the early 2000s. But isn't that always the way it is?

One thing I am working on at the moment is creating a CyTube for the site where I will hope to host movie nights, anime watch parties, maybe even use it as a space to organize gaming events. Even though I'm a big supporter of everyone making their own website and the glorious individualism that this entails, the net is really at its best when it is social and communal. And so I would like to make a space here with organized events. That bit of "inconvenience" of everyone coming together at the same time is what the internet needs more of, in my opinion! I'm also looking into making an XMPP multi-user chat for this site as a social space (it's kind of like IRC), but it's not an easy thing to do. I want to eventually open this up to people from my YouTube channel who become members. I figure it might be a good way to gatekeep and create a community with some level of serious engagement. Of course, I would invite many special people for free!

I might even want to look into what it takes to make something like an old-fashioned forum and host it on this site. I think we've lost a lot of the special forms of communication that internet fora provided when everything shifted to real-time communication over stuff like Discord (really with Skype before that). Of course, real-time communication has existed on the internet since the beginning. But there's something about forum posts which is more like writing a letter to each other. It's a more thoughtful, reflective kind of communication style and I appreciate it a lot. Anyway, no promises, but I've considered it! For now, I'm trying to wrap my head around setting up an XMPP server with Prosody or ejabberd. Not sure whether to use PostgresQL like all the tutorials show or MySQL which comes integrated with my domain registrar.

I've considered making a section of my site with a brief tutorial about all the stuff I do that others might be curious to try: making a personal site, writing HTML, using GNU/Linux, using Vim, and so on. But I am very much a beginner myself. Sometimes I feel like a little kid talking about "adult stuff" with adults when I talk about this stuff. But I think the greatest tragedy is how many people refuse to take any action out of a constant desire to wait until they achieve a more perfect level of knowledge. So if a tutorial can inspire others to make a site, no matter how basic and simple, it would be more than justified.

In other news, I saw this interesting passage in a self-help book by David Brooks the other day:

We children of the Enlightenment live in a culture that separates reason from emotion. Knowing, for us, is an intellectual exercise. When we want to "know" about something, we study it, we collect data about it, we dissect it.
But many cultures and traditions never fell for this nonsense about the separation between reason and emotion, and so they never conceived of knowing as a brain-only, disembodied activity. In the biblical world, for example, "knowing" is also a whole-body experience. In the Bible, "knowing" can involve studying, having sex with, showing concern for, entering into a covenant with, being familiar with, understanding the reputation of. God is described as the perfect knower, the seer of all things, the one who sees not only with the objective eye of a scientist but with the grace-filled eye of perfect love.
David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, Chapter 3: "Illumination," p. 32-33

It reminded me a bit of Heidegger. It seems as though this kind of embodied "knowing" is very ancient indeed. We often attribute certain "western" ideas (like a division between reason and emotion) to sources where they aren't really present. Heidegger went out of his way to show that this did not exist in Ancient Greece. Brooks here shows that it did not in the Bible either. I am reminded of an interesting passage from John Milton's On Christian Doctrine where he explicitly denies that the idea of a Cartesian dualism between body and soul has any Biblical justification. He in fact goes out of his way to show how the concepts of body and soul are consistently treated as one in the Bible. A surprising claim, but he has the scriptural citations to prove it. Our conception of heaven as an airy land of spirits seems more inspired by Plato than anything in the Old or New Testaments. (Though of course there are contradictions here, like with everything in the Bible.)

2026/04/01: MARCH 2026 IN RETROSPECT

2026/03/03: Nostos - Il ritorno (1989) Franco Piavoli - 5/5 [R]
2026/03/10: My Darling Clementine (1946) John Ford - 4/5 [R]
2026/03/13: Lazybones (1925) Frank Borzage - 3/5 [R]
2026/03/28: Alien Beasts (1991) Carl J. Sukenick - 4/5
2026/03/31: White Hunter Black Heart (1990) Clint Eastwood - 3/5 [R]

2026/03/09: Storm (2004) Assemblage 23 - 4/5
2026/03/09: Angry Ai (2019) Kill Ebola - 5/5
2026/03/09: Infamous Tentacles Fisting (2008) Amputated Repugnance - 5/5
2026/03/09: Blood Libels (2006) Antaeus - 2/5
2026/03/09: Monstrous Eruption of Impetuous Preposterosity (2023) Crepitation - 4/5
2026/03/10: To Be Cruel (2023) Khanate - 4/5
2026/03/11: Verwüstung / Invoke the Dark Age (1994) Abigor - 3/5
2026/03/11: Orkblut - The Retaliation (1995) Abigor - 4/5
2026/03/11: Hollow Worlds (2013) Comaduster - 3/5
2026/03/12: Memory Echoes (2025) Comaduster - 4/5
2026/03/12: A Haunting Curse (2006) Goatwhore - 4/5 [R]
2026/03/12: Gore (2016) XavlegbmaofffassssitimiwoamndutroabcwapwaeiippohfffX - 4/5
2026/03/12: Those of the Unlight (1993) Marduk - 4/5
2026/03/16: Now and Forever (2012) Syndrome - 4/5
2026/03/16: Les meilleurs (2025) Von Bikräv & Sidisid - 3/5

2026/03/03: Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead (2008) C. Robert Mesle - 3/5
2026/03/05: Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights (1994) Nadine Strossen - 4/5
2026/03/23: 書經 [The Most Venerable Book (Shang Shu)] (c. 476-221 BC) - 3/5

2026/03/24: RIP TO ONE OF THE ABSOLUTE LEGENDS

Yorhel, the owner and operator of Visual Novel Database has died. I cannot think of someone who has done more for the non-Japanese otaku community. He has operated this site since 2007 and refused to ever change the layout (absolutely based). The amount of good service this website has done by providing us a place to index, reference, and log all of these obscure, strange, niche games is one of the most generous and gracious things I've ever seen. Right now the mods are trying to figure out a way forward for the site and hopefully it will stay up. The Database and Source Code are public. Please mods, we cannot lose this site!!! Even if it never updates again, the records it has are invaluable.

I don't know what else to say other than we need to live up to Yorhel's magnanimity, seriousness, and consistency in making this shitty, repressive, censorious world a better place.

You are gone too soon Yorhel. I rest well knowing you've been isekai'd to a harem full of sexy anime babes and are now getting good flags in peace forever more.

2026/03/15: ANIMALS IN SPRING

It feels like spring has arrived. The weather has been nice, if perhaps a little warmer than I would prefer (when is it ever not these days?). I'm hearing a lot of birds. Some days I wake up and hear the woodpeckers going crazy while I'm taking a shower, which is always a very unique sound. I don't hear them much here, but I always remember the frogs in Nagano Prefecture being very vocal in the early spring after awakening from hibernation. I was inspired to represent it in some way:

I've enjoyed using my tablet more in the past few days. I hope to keep this energy up and keep making little drawings like this, along with more stuff for the Maori Shrine. But I also like drawing this site's mascot character and would perhaps like to expand her universe with a few other characters. Maybe even one with tits that are less than the size of her head (GASP!).

2026/03/12: FUCK AGE VERIFICATION LAWS

UPDATE 2026/03/27: I am aware that Arch (well, really systemd) is appearing to cuck out at the moment and you might feel like this dates this picture. Not really. Replace the logo with Artix if you need, but I never made this as an Arch fanboy. I never made it to endorse any one OS. It's the principle and symbolism of it that matters. Always fork and mod everything and never get attached to any piece of software. Because every piece of software will go to shit if left alone. It's a law of the universe.

2026/03/01: FEBRUARY 2026 IN RETROSPECT

2026/02/03: Black Narcissus (1947) Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger - 4/5 [R]
2026/02/04: お早う [Good Morning] (1959) 小津安二郎 [Ozu Yasujirou] - 4/5 [R]
2026/02/12: 五郎八卦棍 [Eight Diagram Pole Fighter] (1984) 劉家良 [Lau Kar-leung] - 4/5 [R]
2026/02/20: China Girl (1987) Abel Ferrara 4/5 [R]
2026/02/21: Iced (1989) Jeff Kwitny 2/5
2026/02/24: Rear Window (1954) Alfred Hitchcock - 3/5

2026/02/14: 江口寿史のNANTOKA NARUDESHO! [Eguchi Hisashi no NANTOKA NARUDESHO!] (1990) - 5/5

2026/02/12: Diskoteka (1995) Mikki - 4/5
2026/02/12: The Dead Shall Dead Remain (2000) Impaled - 1/5
2026/02/14: Erectortion-01 - キモチイイコト (2009) SHARPNEL.EXE - 4/5
2026/02/22: Something to Consume (2025) Die Spitz - 2/5
2026/02/22: Aeon (2003) Zyklon - 4/5
2026/02/23: Shadowboy (2013) Klangstabil - 4/5
2026/02/28: Die Berge (2024) Paysage d'Hiver - 4/5

2026/02/02: On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious (1990) Douglas E. Harding - 5/5
2026/02/09: Creating Future People: The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement (2020) Jonathan Anomaly - 3/5
2026/02/13: The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden (2021) Peter L. Bergen - 3/5
2026/02/22: The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time (2023) Yascha Mounk - 5/5

2026/02/16: DWMBLOCKS AND EMMET

It had been a long time, but I never actually set up anything on my top bar in dwm until now. Yes, I had been going without even being able to check the date and time at the top of my screen! This was inconvenient, but I kept putting it off. Well, now I finally set up dwmblocks. I hadn't done any "programming" (if copying some shit from Github and troubleshooting a few things counts as programming, which I don't think it does) in quite some time. It feels good to get back "under the hood" of my OS and personalize it just a little more:

I also set up for Neovim, which is a very neat little productivity booster for HTML writing. Mental Outlaw has a good video on it if you're interested in learning more. Much like Vim, it seems like a program which will pay off massively for a bit of effort in learning. I'm still figuring out more about it, but I can tell I'll enjoy using it in the future.

One of my dreams is to eventually have this dwmblocks section be really pimped out with cool stuff about moon cycles, weather, and eventually to have the whole computer basically look like a shrine, with a gohei cursor or something like that! Anyway, it's a long way off but I really don't think it's as impossible as I once assumed. I've been streaming and longing to do more drawing on my tablet when I finish Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, but it's important to develop my CS literacy as well.

2026/01/31: JANUARY 2026 IN RETROSPECT

2026/01/01: Bright Angel (1990) Michael Fields - 4/5 [R]
2026/01/07: The Night of the Hunter (1955) Charles Laughton - 5/5 [R]
2026/01/11: The Night of the Hunter (1955) Charles Laughton - 5/5 [R]
2026/01/19: White Hunter Black Heart (1990) Clint Eastwood - 3/5
2026/01/21: Lonesome (1928) Fejős Pál - 4/5 [R]
2026/01/22: 激突! 殺人拳 [The Street Fighter] (1974) 小沢茂弘 [Ozawa Shigehiro] - 4/5 [R]
2026/01/24: 提防小手 [Carry on Pickpocket] (1982) 洪金寶 [Sammo Hung Kam-bo] - 5/5 [R]
2026/01/27: Slavnosti sněženek [The Snowdrop Festival] (1983) Jiří Menzel - 4/5 [R]

2026/01/17: SPACE ADVENTURE コブラ [Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie] (1982) 出崎統 [Dezaki Osamu] - 2/5
2026/01/22: 舞-HiME [My-Hime] (2004-2005) - 3/5
2026/01/29: 帝都物語 [Doomed Megalopolis] (1991) - 3/5

2026/01/01: Xtermination (2014) Insecticide - 4/5
2026/01/01: Death Breathing (1998) DJ 6666 - 2/5
2026/01/01: To Embrace the Corpses Bleeding (2002) Judas Iscariot - 4/5
2026/01/02: Discography (2003) The Spirit of Versailles - 4/5 [R]
2026/01/17: Population II (1970) Randy Holden - 2/5
2026/01/17: Volume One (2017) I, Detest - 4/5
2026/01/17: Indifel Eternal (2005) Ssorc - 4/5
2026/01/18: One Morbid... A Poser Holocaust (2014) Medieval - 3/5
2026/01/24: Thunderdome XVII: Messenger of Death (1997) Various Artists - 3/5
2026/01/25: Raping the Ancient (2004) Bloodaxe - 5/5 [R]
2026/01/27: Sickened by Holy Host / The Grand Masters Session (2012) Profanatica - 4/5
2026/01/28: Building the Rebellion (2006) At No End - 4/5 [R]
2026/01/31: 運命への挑戦 [A Challenge to Fate] (1995) 灰野敬二 [Haino Keiji] - 4/5 [R]

2026/01/03: Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness (1990) William Styron - 4/5
2026/01/04: The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (2014) Pico Iyer - 2/5
2026/01/07: Transparent Things (1972) Vladimir Nabokov - 3/5
2026/01/13: Волшебник [The Enchanter] (1939) Vladimir Nabokov - 4/5
2026/01/14: Japaneseness: A Guide to Values and Virtues (2016) 山久瀬洋二 [Yamasuke Youji] - 3/5

2026/01/24: THE MISHAGUJI DESCENDED

I ordered a figure of Moriya Suwako last year around fall and she finally arrived... I can't tell you how happy I am. I was genuinely worried because of all the fuckery with tariffs making US trade less stable. But even the tariffs couldn't even stop her! She may have taken way longer than necessary, but now I finally have Suwako, Kanako, and Sanae all together. If there was one figure I know I would need to have a collection I could feel happy with, it was her. And I now feel like a piece of Nagano Prefecture is here in my bedroom with me and I'm overjoyed. Here she is in her place:

Also, I remember hearing somewhere that ZUN apparently said all 2hus canonically have frilly bloomers for underwear. But this figure would beg to differ! How do I know?

If this is a deviation from canon, in this rare case I welcome it!! (っ˘ཀ˘ｃ)

2026/01/21: PRAY FOR THE ARCTIC

I don't like to talk a lot about current events, just because it's very easy to spread misinformation and get people riled up for the wrong reasons. And that's basically the fundamental issue we have today across the board. But I want to say something about the current US president's strong-armed attempts to procure Greenland for the United States. I think it's a stupid move for a bunch of reasons and I don't support it at all. I wish there was some way to stop it myself, but I feel very helpless at this point. I voted for whoever will put an opposition to this in Congress if it gets decided there, but what more can I do?

I'm a supporter of Greenland's independence from both the United States and from Denmark. But Greenland is in the middle of two gigantic spheres of influence (US and EU). All I can hope is that Trump doesn't take the same line as Venezuela and resort to force. As someone who loves the Arctic and its peoples, I would LOVE to see the US and Greenland become closer and have friendly relations. But I do not want it to happen at the expense of the Greenlanders' wishes. I would not be surprised if the result is that Trump uses his bone-headed muscle-flexing to strong-arm concessions into more military bases or increased access to rare earth minerals in Greenland and claims that this was his goal all along as some kind of some 4-D chess bullshit. I would not take great pleasure in that, but if it will allow Greenlanders their own sovereignty without the start of a war, I will be relieved.

What I worry about more than anything else though is the portent this has to even more troublesome conflicts. The world is heating up and the Arctic will become increasingly contested real estate as it does, especially as the Arctic ocean opens up as an increasingly vital trade route. I love the natural beauty of the Arctic and would hate to see it become a battlefield and have all its ice stained in blood. I'm not overly optimistic about it, but my heart and support is with the Greenlanders and I wish them the best. I would love to see the US, Canada, and Greenland unite in their Inuit heritage and mutually prosper. It would be a dream of mine to move to Greenland in fact, but not as a colonizer. (Also, I hope the Greenlanders keep Denmark's lolicon laws, which are much more based than a lot of their other European neighbors.)

2026/01/01: 令和8年, YEAR OF THE HORSE

It's Reiwa Year 8, the year of the horse. I really don't know what to say about it other than that I will continue to live life the way I know best and hopefully help others along the way. I will be re-committing to my resolutions from last year of eating better (less at restaurants) and meditating daily. I also want to add in the resolution to read a chapter of manga at least once a week. Daily seems a bit much to commit to for me right now. But I never have the time to read manga among all my other interests and hobbies, and I end up regretting that. It's a good way to keep my Japanese fresh. I also added a "this month so far" ticker to the top of this section as you can probably see. I sort of miss doing monthly reviews and summaries and want a record of what I experienced during the month, but I don't want to force myself to do a writeup every time. So keeping a log here seems helpful. It will let others follow my progress, and then at the end of the month I'll archive it as a post. I used to do something like that on an old forum and it comes naturally to me!

THIS MONTH SO FAR

APRIL 2026

UPDATES

2026/04/08: WEBSITE AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENTS

2026/04/01: MARCH 2026 IN RETROSPECT

2026/03/24: RIP TO ONE OF THE ABSOLUTE LEGENDS

2026/03/15: ANIMALS IN SPRING

2026/03/12: FUCK AGE VERIFICATION LAWS

2026/03/01: FEBRUARY 2026 IN RETROSPECT

2026/02/16: DWMBLOCKS AND EMMET

2026/01/31: JANUARY 2026 IN RETROSPECT

2026/01/24: THE MISHAGUJI DESCENDED

2026/01/21: PRAY FOR THE ARCTIC

2026/01/01: 令和8年, YEAR OF THE HORSE