TOP・UPDATES・FOUR PILLARS・CINEMA/TV・GAMES・MANGA/ANIME・MUSIC・WRITINGS・FAQ・LINKS
TOP・UPDATES・FOUR PILLARS・CINEMA/TV・GAMES・MANGA/ANIME・MUSIC・WRITINGS・FAQ・LINKS
Hi there! August was busy as hell, mostly because I started a new full-time job a few weeks ago. I really miss having more free time at the end of the day... so many days I just lay in bed at the end if I have the energy to do anything. But at the very least I usually watch an episode or two of an anime every day. That's the least I can do, because it doesn't take much effort to just sit in bed and watch.
This won't be a long update because August was generally not that interesting. I only finished one book, which was called The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life, and Achieve Real Happiness by Kishimi Ichirou and Koga Fumitake. A lot of people like to act like they're too good to read self-help books but I never understood it. A lot of us recognize the importance and help of going to a therapist and talking about how to sort through and have a healthier relation towards our thoughts, feelings, etc. So why not get that from a book, which is way cheaper and easier to do? This book is by two Japanese authors but really it's about the thought of Alfred Adler. I was kind of skeptical at first but I found it to be a helpful read by the end. I think a lot of the points in it I had grasped on my own over the last few years, but I recommend it for people who are struggling with issues of self-confidence and social phobia. Right now I am reading Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle and finding it very engaging.
I finished watching the Sekirei series with Sekirei: Pure Engagement. I found it INCREDIBLY fun and ero and would recommend it to anyone interested in this kind of stuff. Basically it's like Pokemon with cute girls instead... what could go wrong?!?! I also found a ridiculous and insane work called Dengeki Oshioki Musume: Gautaman, which is made up of two individuals OVAs. It tells the story of a school of devout religious leaders of all traditions. But the devout Christian soon is converted to Buddhism when the Buddha answers her prayers and learns to fight against a cult devoted to crushing religious freedom by fighting with her butt hanging out and doing eroi punishment moves! It was one of the more ridiculous things I'd seen in a while. And it has a great message... Then yesterday I snuck one more in by watching a silly little OVA called Ruin Explorers Fam & Ihrie with my friends. It was alright; sometimes quite fun and silly and it has great animation, but a bit messy and unfocused. Watching mid-90s random OVAs is always fun no matter what though.
In addition to those, I watched the first season of a show called Divergence Eve which I had wanted to watch for years. It was one of the last remaining ones from a site detailing big boob shows from back in the day that I had always wanted to seek out. It was pretty great, but interesting in style: it's pretty much just a dark, serious sci-fi story, one of those many shows that you can tell wanted to make a less complex and philosophical version of Evangelion (but still cool to a good degree). BUT, this show has that but makes every girl have a ridiculously huge rack for no reason at all! GENIUS!!! I wish more shows had balls like this: just put fan service and sexy girls into your show no matter WHAT it's like, because it never hurts. Looking forward to the follow-up Divergence Eve: Misaki Chronicles.
I'm almost done with a 120-star playthrough of Super Mario 64. I guess I could have just cleared at 70, but what can I say? I felt like I could handle all 120 and I'm up to 112 now so I think I can. Fucking Rainbow Ride though...
I didn't listen to as many new albums as I would have wanted this month, but it was enough to make a decent top 10:
1. Kult Ofenzivy - Radikální ateismus - Tvůrcům Nadčlověka (2009)
2. Mercy - Witchburner (1985)
3. Soft Ballet - Earth Born (1989)
4. Microwave Prince - A Captive in the Land of the Iron Bubbles (1995)
5. 12 Moons - Solid State (2004)
6. Formula 3 - Sognando e risognando (1972)
7. Taburiente - Ach Guañac (1978)
8. Maeror Tri - Emotional Engramm (1997)
9. Manuel Göttsching - E2-E4 (1984)
10. Tone Set - Calibrate (1983)
Fuck me, I've been so busy every day... I started a new full-time job a week or two ago after largely being a NEET/freeter over the summer. I really miss having the free time to dedicate to this site. Every day this week I've been so exhausted after work that at best I have the energy to play some vidya and watch a few episodes of an anime. I'll talk a bit more about those in a monthly summary which is coming up in a few days. But I felt like giving a quick update because I've felt bad for neglecting this site. I'm sure I'll eventually get used to the rhythm of this job and have more energy later in the day before long.
Well, I have a couple things in the works. For one thing, I recently re-downloaded Macromedia Flash and have been going wild making the same kind of stupid old animations I used to make back when I was in middle school in like 2006... I can't help it; it's what I have the instincts for! Having a tablet to work with also makes Flash more fun to use, although I'm mostly making stupid animutation-style garbage. I do hope to upload the .swf I'm working on to this site when I finish it, and I'm making remarkably fast progress. It's kinda crazy how it seems like I've gotten better at Flash despite not using it for years and years just by thinking about how to use it over the years... despite not touching the program, I've had its mechanics in the back of my head ever since middle school and I think about them a shitload when listening to any music it seems, whether I want to or not. I don't want to stop my drawing habit with this tablet, but I will probably have to put that on hold until this flash is done.
So many hobbies and projects when my free time is getting eaten away at... On top of it all, I'm starting to get the urge to work on a new huge philosophy lecture for YouTube or whatever non-gay alternative site there is. So many people have requested Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein and it does feel a little uneven since I have one up for Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus but not that one. But I just don't know the Investigations as well. The couple lectures I have are based on a maddening amount of research and familiarity that took place over years. That said, I do have one more philosopher and work up my sleeve that I have a somewhat comparable level of familiarity with and affection for, and I think it's finally time to give him his due... hint: not a European. So that's what's in the works.
I've had a kind of writer's block when it comes to smaller essays these days. I started working on an essay about "good" versus "harmful" ideas of individuality and identity, but it ends up getting more and more complex. I feel like it's very hard to convey what I want to with this essay without some background in Martin Heidegger and in Buddhist thought. I also want to pick up an essay I was working on about globalism and nationalism and why I think both are gay and cringe, which might be easier to write. But I feel like I keep returning to the identity stuff when I try to do it, so that has to be completed first I suppose.
I miss writing stuff with real depth on this site, and this post was mostly empty. But it will have to do for now. August summary in a few days, friends!
Hi there. I haven't updated the site for a week or so because I've had some SRS BUSINESS to attend to IRL. I do promise I'll come back here and add more interesting things to this site though. I have a few ideas for new essays to write but a lot of the time these essays start forming of their own accord when I'm off doing something unrelated like shopping or cooking or driving or whatever else. But the basic point is that I'm still here and this site is still a top priority for me.
I've been thinking a bit about what it means to really be "individualistic" and sometimes wonder if it's more of a curse than a blessing. In the USA, where I grew up, we are generally taught that we are most truly ourselves when we become an individual and that a good society is one that recognizes and promotes individuality. This is probably true to some degree in most western countries, even if it is much more extreme in the US.
I've spent a lot of time in Japan and I've thought a lot about the value of individualism versus conformity. "Conformity" has a negative connotation, but I think there's a lot of comfort in just being part of a crowd and not being forced to be some special person. There's something calming and motivating about being one part of something larger rather than having to be the star of the show at all times. But I have done a lot of soul-searching and think that I have a very individualistic affect that is probably hard to ever get rid of. I do at the end of the day prefer a society with an excess of individuality to one with an excess of conformity.
But I think that really being a truly unique "individual" is often a curse, because it often comes from the result of something unusual and makes you unable to understand or find meaning in normal society. I don't think it's the most natural way to be. Humans are social creatures and are meant to exist in groups and in cultures. I have often wondered to what degree something going "wrong" is the catalyst for people like me (and you, most likely, if you are reading this) to become unusually interested in out-there music and films, anime/manga, or whatever else.
In my case, I often wonder how much more "normal" I would have become if I wasn't homeschooled throughout elementary and middle school. I hear a lot of similar stories. Maybe you were autistic, maybe you were excessively bullied, maybe you lived in a very small town with nothing to do but browse the internet and read books, maybe you were sickly and had to spend a lot of time in your room, maybe your family was distant or abusive, and so on... I do wonder how much this influences people to start to drift away from "typical" social interests and find meaning in odd things instead. Also I should note that this has nothing to do with intelligence. I wouldn't call everyone who draws MS Paint Sonic the Hedgehog vore inflation porn on DeviantArt a genius, after all.
Anyway, I like individuals and outcasts and weirdos and probably always will. And part of that is an interest in people who are truly individualistic. It's something I've always been a bit embarrassed by because it might be a more "typically" American way to see the world. But I feel like these days it's the direction the whole world is moving towards. The most we can do is learn how to be individualistic without being rude or self-centered. There's a line in the manga Oyasumi Punpun, which is one of my absolute favorites and is about a guy who never quite gets the opportunity to become a normal human: "Punpun didn't see why everyone couldn't get along, even if we were all aliens from different planets" (paraphrased!). I think about that a lot.
I plan to revisit some of these themes in an essay I eventually want to write about how "nationalism" is cringe and how national borders don't mean much in today's interconnected world, but how as humans we still must find ourselves embedded in CULTURES (not nations), and how cultures can remain autonomous and distant from others even when they become decentralized via technology. I have to think a lot more about how to structure it. In any case, thank you for reading and I will try to update this site at least once a week even as I'm more busy these days!
I found this collection of questions on my friend and inspiration Cidoku's website. This is the original. I found it kind of fun to fill out in an "emo girl on Livejournal" way, so why not share it?
1) Time and date you started this?
2024/08/01 17:09
2) ASL?
30, Male, USA
3) Opinions on musicals?
I've never seen a stage musical. As for films that are musicals, it's like any other genre: I like some a lot, others not so much. My favorite is the rather unconventional musical The Wayward Cloud by Cai Ming-liang.
4) Favorite snack?
I try to not "snack" in general and only stick to larger meals. It's better for your health. But I suppose my favorite is the kind of dried squid you get at a Japanese konbini with Kewpie mayonnaise and maybe a bit of soy sauce.
5) Have you ever been in love?
I'm not sure, really. I think you need to be in a romantic relationship for quite some time to truly be in love, and I probably haven't been in a relationship long enough for that to develop. And it's important not to spend my life haunted by girls from the past...
6) Favorite Pokémon?
I don't know or care much about Pokémon these days. When I was a kid I remember liking Gloom aka Kusaihana most along with its other evolutions.
7) Mario Kart main?
Don't really have a main. I just played whoever.
8) TF2 main?
Never played TF2.
9) Do you laugh at YouTube Poops?
Hell yes. The best of them are still some of the funniest shit I've ever seen.
10) Are you listening to music right now?
No. The last music I was listening to was a collection of Misfits singles. Classic stuff!
11) Favorite shape?
Triangles, because they remind me of OMANKO.
12) Do you believe in astrology?
Cidoku said it best I think. Astrology is a diverse field and I don't know much about its more ancient, classical forms. Whether I believe in it or not, I find it fascinating and rich as a source of spiritual inspiration. "Modern" astrology of the newspaper variety is largely worthless and narcissistic. I will say that I find some of the supposed traits of my star sign (Cancer) to be accurate, whether or not that means much. Mostly, being a big homebody with a strong "nesting" instinct who wants to find, create, and spend time in a perfect home. But I feel like I haven't been able to find the place I most want to take root yet...
13) Do you believe in the occult?
I lean towards yes. "Occult" simply refers to that which is beyond the physical and apparent and only has a negative air because of Christian intolerance. Whether I "believe" in it or not, I need some source of spirituality in my life and the "occult" traditions like Hermeticism, Theosophy, Pythagoreanism, Gnosticism, and Vajrayana have a strong wealth of them.
14) Opinions on Vocaloid?
I like a lot of what I've heard! Though I'm not a big expert who knows a ton about the different Vocaloids and their most popular tracks.
15) Would you ever want to be a rockstar?
No, being famous seems awful.
16) Do you easily get stressed?
Not as easily as in the past, but yes I still do.
17) What was your favorite class in high school?
English.
18) What Pokémon type would you be?
Fuck it, I found an online personality quiz to tell me. Psychic.
19) Rei or Asuka?
Never had a huge crush on any of the girls in Neon Genesis Evangelion despite it being one of my favorite anime, but I always leaned more towards Rei.
20) Favorite HTML tag?
I don't know, I just do what I can with it and don't need many bells and whistles.
21) Are you religious?
I suppose I would use the expression "spiritual" rather than religious, but it seems like a lot of people who say that are "spiritual" in a self-centered way where they just pick and fashion everything that they like for themselves in a haphazard manner. Of course all real spirituality has to be somewhat syncretic in today's globalized world, but I like following some kind of tradition rather than being a leader in it. I would say that the tradition that is most meaningful to me is Japanese Shintou, and I still say prayers to the objects I have from my local shrine from when I lived in Japan, but it is hard to fully practice Shintou outside of the country of Japan. While away from Japan, I follow Zen Buddhist practices more actively, although that's mostly just meditating right now.
22) Opinions on nightcore?
I love a lot of it! Including some songs I normally don't like whatsoever when they're nightcore'd. Some versions are also so good that I can't go back to the originals, like "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!" by Vengaboys.
23) Did you go through any major phase? (emo, goth, weeaboo, etc.)
In my late elementary and early middle school years I went through a kind of weeaboo/goth/chuuni phase (this all overlapped). Well, I guess I never really outgrew my weeaboo phase, but I would like to say that it's more nuanced today.
24) Are you good at drawing?
I don't think so, but I like doing it and I feel the duty to do it in order to express love to 2-D girls and opprobrium to censors.
25) Do you crack your joints?
Only fingers.
26) Do you read visual novels?
Everyday! All things considered, it's probably my favorite medium even over manga and anime when at its best.
27) Can you sew?
Nope. I would like to learn though. It is useful to be able to repair torn clothes yourself.
28) Can you cook?
Only very basic things.
29) Most expensive thing you've bought?
Some pieces of furniture probably. My parents helped pitch in for my car. As for fun things, some really nice anime figures.
30) Opinions on cosplay?
I don't like cosplayers who don't know or care anything about the character they dress as and just do it as a form of modeling, essentially... especially if that bleeds over into being an Instagram/Twitter narcissist. But I love it as a form of fun and expression for girls who legitimately love the source material. Of course it's even better if they look hot, but I'd take an average-looking girl who is really passionate about the source to a 10/10 who just saw some pictures on Twitter any day. As for doing it myself, I've never had the experience but would like to someday. Though I doubt it would ever be a major hobby for me.
31) What’s your most hated band/musician?
I don't know. There are groups who aren't my thing but I can't think of much which really rises to the level of "hate." I guess on a personal level I really dislike the "blackgaze" trend because one of my favorite kinds of music is somber, repetitive, Burzum-esque black metal and this style just completely ceded itself over to "blackgaze" in the early 2010s. That said, I actually don't mind the two big breakout artists Alcest or Amesoeurs as much, just the million other bands that copied them. I always thought Deafheaven sucked though.
32) Are you a dramatic person?
Probably more than I’d like to admit. I hope to funnel it into positive expressions though.
33) What emoticon do you use most?
:DD, xD, or ;_; probably
34) Can a miracle certainly occur?
Doesn't it definitionally make it not a miracle if its chance of occurrence is certain? Is that the point of this question and I'm just autistic? Probably.
35) Would you let a vampire suck your blood?
I would inherit the Mark of Cain for Remilia's love.
36) Do you have a celebrity crush?
No, "celebrities" are usually terrible people. I guess the closest thing would be some seiyuu that I really like, like Asakawa Yuu. But I know nothing about her outside of her roles... which is as it should be.
37) Do you like snow?
Yes!!! I am trying to move somewhere that actually has it, which is certainly not where I live right now.
38) Were you really into Greek mythology as a kid?
I love mythology from all around the world. I did as a child as well, but as a young child I was a bigger fan of reading about "real" things like animals and biology than mythology. Now, it's very much the other way around.
39) What are some things you could competently deliver a speech on?
Anything in my FOUR PILLARS and most things in my ESSAYS probably, with enough practice.
40) Are you good at spelling?
I think so. I always think the word "embarrassed" looks misspelled for some reason.
41) Which Touhou wud u fuk?
All of them. My top 10 favorites:
1. Kochiya Sanae
2. Hakurei Reimu
3. Houraisan Kaguya
4. Patchouli Knowledge
5. Saigyouji Yuyuko
6. Moriya Suwako
7. Remilia Scarlet
8. Kawashiro Nitori
9. Hong Meiling
10. Yagokoro Eirin
42) Do you think there's going to be a robot takeover?
It's more or less already happened. Most people live their lives according to computer algorithms. However, there are still ways to escape.
43) HAS SCIENCE GONE TOO FAR??!?!??!?!
The Question Concerning Technology (Martin Heidegger, 1949)
44) Would you be an angel or devil?
Stupid Abrahamic ideas. But the evil characters are usually hotter, so I will be TEH SATAN.
45) Sine, cosine, or tangent?
I was never good at math.
46) Do you like licorice?
No. But I've only tried trashy American licorice. I've heard there's gourmet, savory licorice which is more popular in western Europe (esp. Netherlands and Belgium) and is very different. I'd like to try it sometime.
47) What's one thing you can't stand that everyone else loves?
Lots of things. The first one that comes to mind is YouTube Video Essays. You know the ones: "THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF [GAME]," "[GAME] WAS DARKER THAN YOU REMEMBER!," "THE SUBVERSIVE GENIUS OF [GAME]," "THE [GAME SERIES] [GAME] YOU MISSED OUT ON," etc... I swear zoomers watch more essays about games and movies than they actually play games and watch movies.
48) What books did you like as a kid?
Lots. Mostly I read comic strips and my favorites were Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side. As I got a little older, I liked A Series of Unfortunate Events and eventually the works of Edward Gorey. Some of the first "serious" books I read were George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 and they both made a big impression on me.
49) Can you play any instruments?
No. I'd like to obtain a jew's harp though. I love the way they sound and they seem pretty simple to learn, like a harmonica.
50) What song would you want to play at your wedding?
I don't know. I like the idea of a traditionalist wedding in a Shintou or other nativistic religious mode, and I don't imagine any music for that other than some traditional folk music... I'm not fundamentally opposed to the idea, but I don't really have much "romantic" music that I'm very connected to.
51) Do you believe in reincarnation?
I'm not sure. The idea seems appealing at first, but samsara is ultimately a snare that keeps us in cycles of suffering. I would prefer to achieve some sort of oneness with the universe, ascend to a higher, non-material state, or just extinguish ourselves in a blissful kind of nirvana.
52) Finish the sentence: I'm just a guy who ______
LOVES OPPAI
53) Have you been to another continent?
I'm from North America and have been to Asia and Europe. I would like to visit some places in South America, Africa, and Oceania someday, although I think travelling and tourism are overrated and that the correlation they have with knowledge about the rest of the world is imaginary.
54) What's your worst habit?
Procrastinating certain grooming habits, like letting my hair or fingernails grow too long. Nothing that is to the level of unhygienic though!
55) Favorite vegetable?
I'm not picky. I like most of them fine but don't have strong feelings about one over the others. I suppose my favorite is broccoli.
56) What's something stupid that scared the shit outta you as a kid?
Scream masks.
57) What's one of your guilty pleasures?
I don't have guilt over most of my pleasures and certainly not over any movie, anime, game, etc. But I guess I have something of one for doing things like personality quizzes and astrology-type stuff. I feel really silly and narcissistic whenever I do them but somehow find it rewarding, although I never take it too seriously. I think they're popular mostly because as a society we don't have enough other ways of talking about the things that you get from astrology, MBTI, Enneagram, and so on (our personality habits, our ways of thinking, what makes us most happy, etc.) in conversation, but we all desire to analyze ourselves a bit because it's therapeutic and helps us be more self-aware. I wish we would cut to the chase and just talk about these more.
58) Would you rather be a ghost or a vampire?
Vampire. I couldn't touch and hug beautiful girls if I was a ghost! And I prefer the night to the day anyway.
59) What do you fear most?
Selfishness.
60) Do you sleep with any plushies?
I sleep with a dakimakura with my beloved on it. 10/10 would recommend <3
61) What hobby do you just not understand?
Being a "foodie."
62) Do you like the taste of alcohol?
Not really. I like some beers a decent amount, but that's about it. I rarely drink them in any case because I don't enjoy the sensation of being drunk.
63) Are you a hopeless romantic?
I don't see myself that way, but every relationship I've been in has failed due to me being much less "pragmatic" and much more "amorous" about love than my partner, so I probably am to some degree.
64) Which deadly sin best fits you?
Probably envy. I try to work on it.
65) Which of your physical features do you like the most?
I don't really have an attachment to one over the others, but I suppose my eyes have been complimented most.
65) Which of your physical features do you like the most?
I don't really have an attachment to one over the others, but I suppose my eyes have been complimented most.
66) Are your ears pierced?
No and they never will be. I dislike piercings.
67) Have you ever been in a physical fight?
No. Even when I was a kid I don't think I've ever been in one.
68) Where do you buy your clothes?
Thrift stores, if I can help it.
69) Where would you live if you could live anywhere?
Somewhere very cold and remote in the Arctic circle like Svalbard, Nunavut, the Alaska North Slope, the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, etc.
70) Do you believe in magic? Or is it all a trick?
I imagine there are still unexplained phenomena in this world, and that's all magic really is.
71) Have you read Umineko? You should!
NO U. I'm reading Higurashi no Naku Koro ni right now.
72) What is the worst chore to do?
Cooking. Much worse than any cleaning, IMO. Not that I LOVE scrubbing my bathtub or anything...
73) What did your parents almost name you?
"Wolfgang." Yes, really. I'm glad they pussied out.
74) What would you want your name to be if you were not your current gender?
There are several girl names I like. If I was Japanese, I would have liked the name Yayoi a lot. As far as Anglosphere names go, I like Julia, Sylvia, Jade, and Camilla. If I ever have a daughter, these are all potential choices.
75) What were your first words?
My first word was "light" according to my parents.
76) What do you want your last words to be?
"I'm sure glad that there are still cold, snowy places on this planet."
77) When did you first regularly start going online?
Probably around 10 or so. Too young. But I'm thankful for my parents' lack of oversight. I got to experience the best of the internet.
78) What year do you miss the most?
None. There are past eras I have nostalgia for (including some that I hadn't even been born in!), but I wouldn't have been the same person and wouldn't have been able to enjoy them like I could now. No use lamenting over this stuff.
79) Are you psychic?
No, but I tried really hard to nurture psychic/telekinetic powers in my younger chuuni years. It didn't work...
80) Would you fuck a clone of yourself? You're not allowed to kill yourself.
What does the second part of this question mean? Do I have to fuck it or else? In that case I would grit and bare it because I'm not ghey...
81) What do you use to listen to music?
PC + speakers/headphones or my smartphone with earbuds. I still miss my old classic iPod. The only piece of Apple technology I ever liked.
82) What's the biggest city you've been to?
Toukyou.
83) Favorite animal?
I like just about all animals. Except for pit bulls.
84) What web browser do you use?
Firefox. I like the cool kids' alternative versions like Pale Moon, GNU IceCat, and LibreWolf but you can pretty much get 90% of their advantages in Firefox with a bit of tweaking, so it wasn't worth making the jump for me.
85) Are you allergic to kitty cats?
Nope, which is good because I like them (even though I'd never want to own one personally).
86) Do you like energy drinks?
Generally not. Red Bull is the only one that I kind of like the taste of, but it's bad for you so I don't drink it anymore.
87) Would ever spend money on TF2 unusuals, csgo skins, gacha pulls, etc?
LMAO, IMAGINE SPENDING MONEY ON A GACHA GAME AND IMAGINE THAT IT'S NOT EVEN FOR CUTE GIRLS.
88) When do you usually go to bed?
Midnight at the latest.
89) How often do you wash your hair?
Everyday.
90) Would you download a car?
The automobile industry is composed of environmental war criminals and all cars should be destroyed.
91) What was your favorite show as a kid?
I liked lots of cartoons. Courage the Cowardly Dog is probably the one that made the most impression on me.
92) What's the silliest hat you own?
I don't own many hats and the ones that I do own are rather straightforward.
93) What album or song do you listen to when you're feeling angsty?
Most of my favorite music, lmao. Nothing heals the pain like music. As for ones that are particularly angsty, Godflesh is a good band to wallow in misanthropy to. However, usually what feels best is something a bit more straightforward and stereotypically angsty, like Strapping Young Lad, Rammstein, Nine Inch Nails, Linkin Park, etc.
94) Do you make OCs?
So far, just this site's mascot, Ikeda Megumi! I hope to draw her more soon and maybe add some other cuties.
95) What's the goofiest thing you do when completely alone?
I say the dumbest, most insanely stupid monologues you would ever believe. Like the stuff in my PROPHECIES but MUCH more retarded.
96) Do you like fireworks?
They can be pretty. But they cause air pollution. I would easily give up ever seeing fireforks again for the benefits it would have to air quality.
97) Favorite painter?
Too many to count. Bada Shanren is one of the first that comes to mind.
98) Favorite numbers?
Not autistic enough to have any, surprisingly. I guess I often am attracted to 199 and 200 because my birthday is the 199th and 200th day of the year on normal years and leap years, respectively. Outside of numerological reasons like this I can't understand being interested in a number "just because." Then again I was never good at math.
99) What genre of vidya gaems are you really good at? (FPS, fightan, danmaku, racing, whatever)
Not really any. I'm above average at danmaku and shooting games in general I suppose, since I have some tricky 1ccs (Armed Police Batrider Advanced course and Touhou Chireiden 〜 Subterranean Animism Lunatic are some of the ones I'm most proud of). But most people in those communities are still better than me.
100) Time and date you finished this?
2024/08/02, 22:45
Hello! July was a busy month. A lot of it had to do with IRL entanglements that I prefer not to talk about online, but will certainly make this upcoming month busy as well. Therefore, I might be a bit less attentive to the site over the next few weeks, but I will certainly return as soon as I can, so please be patient!
I already addressed this in an update on the day itself, but July 18th is my birthday and I had a momentous one this year: I turned 30 years old. Of course, my life didn't miraculously change. But I do think that over the past year or so I've grown a lot and come to achieve a level of peace, stability, and purpose in my life that I didn't really have until now. I can only hope that my 30s will be marked by the same kind of clearheadedness. Having this site and getting my thoughts out has helped a lot and I am very thankful for anyone and everyone who is reading this and has been keeping up with me.
One project which I felt was very momentous that I made this month is something I've shilled plenty on other parts of the site: a video about my Top 100 Favorite Films. It was my first time making a video like that, and there are some things I'm not totally pleased with about it. For one thing, I feel like my descriptions were often a bit bland. I wanted to keep them short and not get very in-depth about each film, but in a way that often meant I didn't get to share much about them that was too interesting. But hopefully people still can enjoy it. I also plan to eventually try to upload it to some other sites like BitChute, cut up into multiple parts if need be, because I've had some reports that Rumble doesn't always play nice with everyone's country or web browser.
As far as gaming goes, I have to admit that I've been slacking on my Ketsui process a bit and want to take it more seriously this upcoming month. But I mostly did that in order to clear out a few other games so I could streamline my gaming habits. I normally have one game which requires a 1cc or other kind of "one go" clear that I focus on most pointedly, and then multiple which I can save at any point on (plus one visual novel that I'm reading). But I wanted to tighten this schedule up so I'm only playing one "clear" game and one "save" game at once (plus a visual novel). Doing this will allow me to make better progress and ultimately get to play more games, I think. Not that I play games merely to mark names off a list, but there are just so many!
With that in mind, I finished two of the three major "save" games I was playing: Dungeon Keeper 2 and Quake. Dungeon Keeper 2 was a lot of fun. Personally it felt a bit easier than the first one, but also felt like the difficulty was more fun and interesting whereas the first game often relied on very strange gimmicks and odd tricks to make levels difficult. Not that these games are that difficult in the first place. I really had a great time with it. I also finished Quake (on Normal, plz no bulli!! at least I never save-scummed). It's hard to say whether I prefer the Doom games to it, as they are very different. Quake is a lot more empty and atmospheric (looking at higher difficulty levels this still seems true even if there are more enemies), but somehow still as exciting and difficult. I like the way each world slowly seems to morph from a straightforward sci-fi world with gunmen and metallic bases into Lovecraftian monstrosities. Also thank god for noclip because I would have been glitched out of the final boss without it... Dunno what classic FPS I'll go for next, but I like playing these and feel like I should while my reflexes are still relatively intact.
I watched some good OVAs. One of my best IRL friends and a big fighting game fan watched the Vampire Hunter OVA by Madhouse together (that's Darkstalkers for English speakers). One huge downside: NO LILITH!!! WTF!!! But once you get over that, it's about everything you could want from a fighting game OVA. Amazing animations, cool fighting scenes, etc. Morrigan, Felicia, and Lei-Lei are all as hot as can be. I never understood why they changed Lei-Lei's name in English. Hsien-ko is much harder to read for burgers than Lei-Lei so it couldn't have been for that reason, right? Well, she was always my favorite. I watched A Kite, Kite Liberator, and Mezzo Forte on a Heyuri stream and they were pretty well-made, somewhat artsy hentai, with some good goofiness. Not really that hot, to be honest, but fun enough as anime. Lastly, I watched a completely insane OVA based on a Nagai Gou manga called Black Lion. It's set during the Sengoku Period but with a mechanical, Terminator-style warrior with anachronistic machinery. It was complete nonsense, but the gore was kewl and you have to love OVAs from this era where Japan could afford to throw money at any ridiculous idea for an animation...
I made some similar changes to my reading habits and managed to get back into reading as a hobby in a way I haven't been for a few months. A lot of this was inspired by talking to a new friend I've made who reached out to talk to me as a reader. It's wonderful when you meet people in this way, which is why I definitely encourage everyone to follow his example if you wish! Anyway, I finished three books, all pretty short.
Ecofascism: Lessons From the German Experience by Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier. This is a sub-100 page little thing which was a historical study about the role of ecology and nature conservation in the Nazi and neo-Nazi movements in Germany. In short, it was a very real part of their ideology and not just something that people use as a propaganda talking point. So I suppose the moral we should take is that reverence of nature can be abused for the sake of evil, like many other natural human inclinations. It was interestingly argued, but came across kind of like a college thesis more than a completely mature work.
Buddhism: Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen. I've taken college classes about Buddhism, so you might ask why I need to read these "introductory" texts. The answer is that I think they are very helpful. We get a very distorted view of a spiritual tradition when we only read abstruse, theoretical works about its history and metaphysics and not these works actually written about the fundamentals of LIVING the faith. This was a very pleasant, easy reminder of the most important things to remember about the Buddha's teachings. I'm not sure I could call myself a full "Buddhist," but I continue to hold these as very important.
Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky and Arkady Strugatsky. Yes, the book that Tarkovsky's Stalker as well as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl were inspired by. I in part wanted to read this because someday I would like to play that game, which I still have not. The book is very interesting and I recommend fans of Tarkovsky's film or the game to read it. It is, however, very different from the film. It focuses a lot more on the politics and underworld black market of being a stalker outside of the "Zone" proper. There's some interesting lore about it, which is cool to find out all the details of. However, I think Tarkovksy's film actually improves on it by removing a lot of these things and making the Zone more mysterious and open-ended. In the book it is explicitly the result of an extraterrestial encounter, whereas in the film it is left ambiguous, which I like more. That said, this is still a classic piece of philosophical, poignant, cynical science fiction. It kind of got me on a sci-fi kick and I might try to read something by Philip K. Dick soon.
In the upcoming month, though I will be busy, I'd like to go back to writing miniature essays and other creative pieces of writing on this site. People seem to like it, and I find it very therapeutic as well. For a preview, the essay I most want to work on now is going to be called "BE YOURSELF: HAVE NO IDENTITY." The name says it all: it will be about how "identities" are often a trap or a snare and that we should learn to be ourselves by relinquishing identities, not by forming them and becoming attached to them. I think it is an extremely important lesson that I've had to learn and I think it's something I can give advice for well. However, it's a pretty deep concept and I need to really think about how to structure this piece of writing. Well, I'll keep trying!
Anyway, thank you for reading this and I will do my best to be around and continue working on this blog even with some IRL duties coming up soon.
The ten best albums I listened to for the first time in July:
1. Ensemble des instruments traditionnels du Japon - Japon éternel (1974)
2. Jääportit - Kauan koskematon (1999)
3. Various Artists - Mental Burst (1999)
4. Planxty - Planxty (1973)
5. Jungstötter - One Star (2023)
6. Heccra - The Devil-Faces of My Old Friends, Beneath Me (2015)
7. Ildjarn-Nidhogg - Ildjarn-Nidhogg (2003)
8. Hanzel und Gretyl - Über Alles (2003)
9. Katalepsy / Fleshrot / Blunt Force Trauma - Triumph of Evilution (2008)
10. Prophecy of the Hated - Prophecy of the Hated (1993)
Making that huge video about my top 100 favorite films (link in the cinema/tv section if somehow you didn't see me shill it the last two times) has made me nostalgic about some of the old movie forums I used to lurk and post on. The biggest one was called YMDb (Your Movie Database) which later splintered off into a smaller forum called The Life Cinematic. One of the coolest things about it was that each poster with enough privileges got their own miniature section of the forum where they could create whatever threads they wanted. Usually these would be a film journal, a list of their favorite films (as the opening post that others could reply to), maybe one of their favorite directors (same as above). But really you could do anything you wanted to with it. There were some really cool people on that forum. And there were some huge fags and fun/childish internet drama, as you can expect with any forum.
I tried to give some shoutouts to certain figures in that forum at the end of my video. If the forum were still around today, that video would be made fun of as being such an obvious copycat of certain figures there, lol. In fact, I explicitly tried to use images from the movies that I had seen in screencaps they had on their lists in order to share with others the screencaps that first enticed me. I have a lot of this knowledge in my head that I feel like I'll forget if I never do anything with it.
Anyway, these were some of those figures who I feel like giving a shoutout or two, since I'm not in contact with most of them since I left all my major social media:
＊ouatitw aka Carmelo: Legendary fan of experimental/avant-garde cinema and Euro sleaze. We're friends on Goodreads, so I still see him from time to time and he reached out a while back with a compliment about some of my movie lists. It meant a ton to me, since he was my role model and idol for so long. Nowadays he's a dad and seems to devote a lot of his reading to being a well-informed voter, which I can respect. He also had a short film on his favorites list called Blue Movie (1969) by Marc Adrian that I've never been able to find anywhere. PLEASE LET ME WATCH THIS SHORT!!!
＊Baron Blood: I met this guy and his girlfriend in New York City during an Argento retrospective at the Anthology Film Archives and I was really thankful that I got that opportunity. Baron Blood was always a kind of provocative guy who was a bit acerbic and caustic. I've always been strangely drawn to people like this online, despite being the opposite: a generally accommodating person averse to argument and conflict. He had amazing taste in films and seemed especially drawn to films that were somehow revolutionary or anti-authority. He loved Godard especially and seemed to delight in films that gave the middle finger to capitalist consumerist society. Politically, I believe he was a politically incorrect leftist, which I appreciated a lot (he was American but his family were from Cuba if I remember correctly... I guess he never fell fully in line). His taste was similar to Carmelo's, but a little more oriented around typical "arthouse" fair that was generally narratively-based rather than experimental. He also loved Euro horror and sleaze, though. Also, his taste in music turned me onto all the classics of black metal and death metal like Bathory, Darkthrone, Enslaved, Dismember, Entombed, Morbid Angel, etc., so I have to thank him for that forever. I lost touch with him when I stopped using Facebook and needed a political detox online.
＊James: One of the central pillars of The Life Cinematic in its last days. Amazingly funny, warm-hearted, passionate individual who you couldn't help but love. He had a very active, huge film journal and was an incredible writer with a grasp of fluid, expressive language. He had a wide-ranging interest in cinema, in really all kinds. If there was one area of expertise for him, it would be classic Americana. He was famed as the "weird Americana guy" in how he would constantly find these strange, forgotten pieces of American independent, underground cinema from the 70s. He was Canadian by nationality, but might as well have had dual-citizenship for all his devotion to Americana! But he also had a deeply encyclopedic knowledge of classical Hollywood and was interested in just about anything and everything. Also one of the greatest hunters of beautiful, meticulously-chosen screenshots. I was friends with him on Goodreads, Facebook, and Criticker, but he seemed to have removed himself from all three... Last I heard he was trying to go into stand-up comedy, and he definitely had the chops for it. Half of the reason I wanted to make this post was to archive this review he wrote for The Wackness by Jonathan Levine which I still remember word-for-word:
Everyone involved in the production of this movie should get DA AIDS from a bearded hooker's crusty vag (except Olivia Thirlby who should only get DA AIDS from me).
＊kidsmoker: I didn't speak with kidsmoker directly ever I think. He wasn't as much of a regular poster at the time that I posted or even browsed, so I mostly knew him from archives. He was younger than Carmelo or Baron Blood, beginning to post probably when he was about 15, which is also how old I was when I started browsing. He was a good example of how you could be a young person on this site and not be made fun of as long as you took things seriously and were a thoughtful poster. kidsmoker loved a lot of crazy, out-there Japanese music like Haino Keiji, which influenced me a lot. His taste in movies seemed very much in the vein of Carmelo or Baron Blood and I often lumped the three together, especially due to their interest in Euro horror and sleaze. But he was just a very curious guy in general, constantly finding new and weird films. In fact, he seemed to post so little precisely because he was spending most of his time watching movies and just living life, which was impressive. I think he had a fairly active social life in high school with a girlfriend and a position on his school baseball team. I don't know how he balanced it all, other than clearly not sleeping enough. I think he might have gone into the military? If someone who can verify is reading this, please let me know if this is misinformation.
＊Sarajevo: Another figure who mostly posted before my time. I only exchanged posts with him directly once or twice. He had amazing taste in films about memory and history, especially as related to Russia, the country he was most interested from (even though he himself was from Quebec). He always had some of the most unique, interesting, poignant insights into the films he watched that still stick with me to this day. Last I heard he was becoming a chef at some high-end restaurant (the life of a film school graduate...).
＊Zachary Stacy: Amazingly rich knowledge of silent films. Unique taste which was both intellectual and playful. Did a ton for trying to breathe life into the site when it was at its least engaged by creating huge, invigorating projects like huge, collaborative favorite films and directors lists. I have no clue what he's doing now. I lost touch with him after I stopped using Facebook and he deleted his indepdenent blog.
＊Elephant_Gun: Outdid even Carmelo at times in his knowledge and experience about experimental film. I think he had some crazy connections that allowed him to see some stuff no one else could have (Stan Brakhage's The Arabic Numeral Series, most notably). He was very kind and encouraging to someone like me with a clear passion for the medium, although he definitely never "spoke down" to anyone and had high standards, which I appreciated. I have him as a friend on Goodreads but he doesn't use it anymore.
＊sidehacker: Very excellent writer and had a very particular interest in films with particular themes, usually about love and alienation. Adored old Japanese cinema like Ozu and Naruse more than anyone else on the site, which we felt a strong kinship about. Also was somewhat before my time, but occasionally gave me some encouraging, if serious, words, just like Elephant_Gun. He was a great bridge between the side of the site I was largely allied with and the cult of a colossal faggot named JakeAesthete who hated everything that didn't contain "emotional truth" (read: a very narrow range of accepted themes and expression, normally centered around effeminate shakycam movies about romance), though I must admit could be a very charming and funny guy. sidehacker had a better head on his shoulders I thought (which was funny because he was one of the other youngest posters, much younger than Jake). He still sporadically updates this blog, but he's a very different person now. I still am thankful for his writing and wish him the best.
＊luckytourist: I still check in with and talk to this guy on Goodreads sometimes. He gave me some big tips about Heidegger when I did my project on him, since he had also coincidentally did some deep diving into the man. He was similar to sidehacker and kidsmoker most in temrs of taste, I suppose. Also one of the younger members, and also had extraordinary taste in Japanese noise rock.
＊Lethal Mongoose: Only talked to this guy once on the forum, because he wasn't a massive poster outside of his film journal and list. But he had some very kind words about my list and I loved his as well. A fellow disciple of Carmelo. No clue what became of him, because he was always a kind of mysterious figure even at the best of times.
＊PimpPanda: Another young poster. Loved huge, large-scale films with lengthy runtimes like Tarr, Rivette, Angelopoulos, Jia, etc. I think we were similar in that sometimes we took ourselves a bit too seriously for our age. But he was a swell dude and I found a lot to connect with in him, even if I never talked to him very much. I have no clue where he is now.
＊roujin: I still am connected to this guy on RateYourMusic. Similar to James and Zachary Stacy in his love for classic Hollywood. Also got me back into otaku hobbies after being ashamed and hiding it for so long. For that, I have to give him a world of thanks in opening me up. Very funny guy.
Anyway, I miss that site a lot. It meant a lot to me growing up. But all things come to an end, and I don't think what that site was could ever be re-created now.
Today is my 30th birthday. Of course I didn't have any magical awakenings or sudden revelations just by virtue of reaching this "noteworthy" date. But I think it deserves a bit of navel-gazing.
It seems to have been providence that I finished a project yesterday on the last day of my 29th year, which was a video project about my 100 favorite films (watch it here btw). Doing this was a nice way to revisit a long history of my taste in art and values in general and to think about how they've changed over the years. I do feel a lot of peace with myself going into my 30s. I feel very happy with this list and how it reflects what I value and believe. While I think it's dangerous to turn the media you consume into the cornerstone of your identity and sense of self, I do have to admit that I can't help but seeing peoples' tastes in music, movies, games, or whatever else as a window into something about them that is hard to put into words. At least if they aren't a complete NPC.
I guess these are some things I've been thinking more and more that I feel like will continue to inspire my 30s and later life. Some of them I will eventually probably write full essays about, but here are some rough outlines:
I've spent so much of my life searching for a perfect culture, community, and environment to reflect my values. Over the past decade or so, I've considered Japan to be that place. But I've become less certain about the idea of living in Japan permanently. There are a number of elements of what can broadly be stated to be Japanese culture that I like and adore (sexual liberality, nature worship, freedom of expression, conservation of old ways of life, etc.). But I don't know if they are exclusive to Japan. I still think it might be the closest place for me culturally, but I do think it's bad to always wait to find a perfect "external" environment to live a good life in accordance with values that you believe in. Because even in the most perfect environment you are never "at home" until you decide to be for yourself. Perfect communities, cultures, and environments are created, not discovered. Whether or not I end up moving back to Japan, I think it's important to start creating the world I want to live in instead of just waiting around to find it.
A lot of this has coincided with having less of a desire to measure up to some "identity" based on others' bullshit standards. I grew up in the US and grew up with two parents who were basically hippies and encouraged the idea of being an individual and an outsider very strongly. I later encountered a lot of negative opinions from foreigners about Americans and their belief in "individualism." I think so many of them associate the idea of "individualism" with "selfishness" or "assertiveness." I don't see it this way. I don't know why so many people seem to think individualism means believing in an "every man for himself, I'll get whatever I can, and fuck everybody else" mentality. It was never like that for me. My parents didn't bring me up that way. Anyway, I think that I've internalized this false association of "individualism = assertiveness = being a selfish asshole." After a lot of soul-searching I've come to realize that, at the end of the day, I prefer a society with an excess of individuality to one with an excess of conformity, as much as I think some balance between them is necessary for anyone to lead a good life. I've always felt a desire to be individualistic and recognize the uniqueness of others that has been in conflict with a desire to not be selfish and cause others grief and distress. I hope I can learn to do this better. Part of this has been giving up any obsession with forming an "identity" for the sake of impressing others. In the past I've been obsessed with seeming worthy to make up for some default and fitting into some other society or culture. I'm done with that. None of it ever makes you whole as a person, and none of it is necessary to have friends and loved ones.
We live in an increasingly unpredictable, hostile, fragile world. There are a million things to worry about at every second. I have things that I think I can improve or at least teach others about and so speak out about on this site. But I do think that it's more important than ever to learn how to stop worrying and learn to live from the heart a bit more. This doesn't mean being ignorant of the way things are in the world, but it does mean directing your energies well. There's a quote I remember hearing from an interview with an old medicine man from the American southwest who said something like "your mind is like a toolbox; you use it when you need to, then when you're done you close it and live from the heart." I've been struck by that and think it's worth remembering for your daily life.
Lastly, I've begun to see more appeal in the idea of settling down, getting married, and having children. I don't know if I ever will, but I don't think I can entertain the idea of being an anti-natalist anymore. Anti-natalists argue that life is worse than not coming into being because in life you have pleasure and pain and that in not coming into being you have the absence of both. I think this is way of thinking is kind of distorted because it doesn't consider the happiness of anything outside of the individual. If the world will be entering its most dangerous period, we need young people raised with good values and teachings more than ever. If there aren't enough, a lot more pain will spread in the world. I think I have a duty to try to spread the most important values I've learned about to younger generations as well, and part of that may mean having a child eventually. Maybe it's just a kind of biological necessity that we begin to feel this desire and feeling most strongly around our late 20s and early 30s.
Thank you for reading this and for reading my website. I worry a lot about my future and yours, but I know that no matter what happens I will do my best to make this site an enjoyable place, because enjoying ourselves and creating pockets to safeguard culture and ways of thought, online and off, is important. I am grateful for the life I have and I hope to make the world a better place in whatever way I can.
When it comes to big projects, I have a general pattern of proceeding at a very slow, leisurely pace whenever I feel burts of inspiration, but then getting super motivated as soon as I pass the halfway mark. This happened with a video I decided to make and had been working on for the past few months: a countdown of my top 100 favorite films and a bit of talking about what each one means to me and why. After going insane at it for the past few days, I finally banged it out, which means I will be unlikely to make any video project like this for a while.
Unfortunately, YouTube's content ID system is a dystopian nightmare that you wouldn't believe, so I've uploaded it onto Rumble instead. I would also like to eventually turn this into an image/text project, as the web needs more text and less video in general. But I've loved films for so long and never got to experiment with clips and moving imagery of them in a project like this, so it was a fun exercise.
Back to the games, anime, and drawing now I hope!
I set up an XMPP account and downloaded Psi+ to use for instant messaging. I love the way it looks and feels. I never really used a ton of instant messengers back in the day so it gives me some nostalgia for something I never really experienced. Mostly I wanted to give it a shot because if anyone is going to break through the monopoly of Discord as an instant messaging platform, they need support from others to be using multiple options. I use Discord almost all the time I'm on the computer and don't see that changing soon, sadly, but I know that if I ever wanted to create a "community" for this site I'd want to do it on a non-Discord platform. I doubt it will materialize any time soon, but at the very least I can enjoy using it as a less glowy platform. It just feels kewl to use a program that no one else does, and especially one which is so lightweight and not full of BS. So go ahead and add me if you use XMPP: amlux@xmpp.earth. I'm still figuring it out myself.
Hi all! If you've been keeping up with my site, you can tell that I've really ramped up the activity. I published a lot of stuff. I find it really therapeutic and fun to make "mini-essays" or otherwise off-the-cuff blog entries here. And apparently people enjoy reading them too. What more can I ask for? At the same time, I feel like it's made the tone of the site a little too somber at times. Not that I'm interested in being insincere and artificial just to keep everyone feeling nice, but I feel like I have a lot to share which isn't just doom and gloom and melancholy. So I would like to add a few more entertaining things on the site too. I made a list of my 30 biggest anime crushes, and I'd like to do more stuff like that: reminiscing about old anime, movies, games, etc. and what they mean to me. In general, there are just a lot of things I'd like to eventually try on this site and it's nice to have the freedom to do so! Of course, the "philosophical" essays won't go anywhere either. I take myself way too seriously not to keep writing them, lol.
Game-wise, I'm still working on Ketsui, but to be honest I have been kind of slacking. I played a decent amount of Warcraft III just trying random races on Battle.net, and I'm glad to say that it seems like I'm developing some degree of proficiency with each race. Undead is probably the one I have the most trouble with. Orc is best after Night Elf for me. Human is kind of a toss-up... sometimes I do great, sometimes not so much. I've also returned to a bit of scoring experiments in the Touhou photo games for the first time in a while. I'd really like to get a higher score on 4-8 in Shoot the Bullet. Tewi is sweeter than a whole bag full of jellybeans! Lastly, I finished Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, but kind of wish I did it with a group of friends. These games are more fun when you have multiple heads working on them. That said, it was an extremely charming game. Lots more personality and sense of place than the first one, which already had a nice atmosphere.
The biggest thing that was keeping me from Ketsui is that I spent a lot of June finally, completely becoming a Linux user. I'm writing this from a partition of my SSD running Linux Mint and I adore it. Anything to avoid the bloat and spyware of Windows 11. I was so shocked that just about every game I care about works fine on Linux. I will keep the Windows parition for some professional stuff and just in case there are games I need to run, but for the most part I'm so happy to be freed of the Gates Golem. I made a post about it, so not much more to say. Only update is that I have a Mullvad VPN now, which works like a dream. Still want to experiment with setting up a server on HexChat or XMPP, but we'll see. I feel like it's the kind of thing I'd set up because it's cool but then would be forced to use Discord 90% of the time anyway, so who knows when or if it'll be worth it.
I watched two OVAs on Heyuri's public CyTube stream. One of them was called 801 T.T.S. Airbats and it was pretty sick! It's one of those shows made for military otaku who love cute girls, so it's just about cute girls flying planes and shit. I like these. It's a charming, beautifully-animated, occasionally decently eroi little OVA from the early 90s that anyone should enjoy. The light brown-skinned tsundere Mitaka was very cute and probably tastes like a chocolate cinnamon cake! Then we also watched The Rapeman... yes, THAT one with the BOOM SHOCKA LOCKA video back in the day. It was just as hilarious and absurd without a meme dub. I love ridiculous bullshit stories like this in anime that take themselves completely seriously.
I watched one new movie: Altered States by Ken Russell. It was the only other movie by him I'd seen besides The Devils and I liked it a decent amount. It's a movie that you can tell was made in 1980, at the end of the 70s when psychedelics and new age and everything was slowly going out of fashion. Before anything else, the film is noteworthy for its AMAZING hallucination sequences which are as extraordinary as anything I've seen. The "normal" story parts between them aren't as engaging, but it's a solid enough story to keep you strung along. I recommend it. I listened to a decent amount of music as well. I discovered a weird rap artist named Sellasouls who proves that zoomers, for as much shit as I give them, can make some amazing music. It honestly barely feels like "hip hop" as we know it anymore. It's just weird ghostly mutterings over a bunch of industrial haze. It's perfect! The other big discovery I had was Lords of Acid. They're an old Belgian techno/house group who made some amazingly horny music. I love old European dance music like this which is super obsessed with sex. I imagine a lot of Euros in particular have nostalgia for this music because it just takes them back to a time when everything was simpler and people actually had fun in clubs, but even though I'm not a Euro I love it just because it's so obsessed with sex and treats it as such an everyday, joyful, fun thing. Reminds me of a lot of Japanese anime and games... that's how it should be!
I turn 30 next month... Somehow I'm more accepting of it than I once was. Anyway, see you soon!
The ten best albums I listened to for the first time in June:
1. 東京楽所 / 多忠輝 - Gagaku and Beyond (2000)
2. Lords of Acid - Lust (1991)
3. Northlane - Obsidian (2022)
4. Super Freego - Pourquoi es-tu si méchant ? (1982)
5. Knocked Loose - Laugh Tracks (2016)
6. Sellasouls - XXINGLEXX 2K19.mp3 (2020)
7. Shugo Tokumaru - L.S.T. (2005)
8. Lull - They're Coming Out of the Walls (2003)
9. Brainticket - Zürich / Lausanne (2017)
10. Avenger - Prayers of Steel (1985)
Hello! I've been updating and engaging with the site a lot recently. I've taken to writing these little mini-essays in the Writings section whenver inspiration strikes, and I've received some positive feedback about them that I really do appreciate. However, I feel like the mood of the site has been a little dour as of late, as most of my updates of substance have been these essays brooding over the ills and follies of modern society. I think that kind of stuff is really important and it's a big help to me to get these kind of thoughts off my chest, so I definitely will continue doing them. However, I envision this site as ideally being a mostly fun/interesting place about my hobbies with a bit of a background of discussion of heavier and more serious topics like society, politics, environmentalism, etc., but it feels like recently it's been the other way around. So I'll continue putting out a few essays, but also endeavor to work on more writing about "fun" stuff. Of course, "fun" stuff can inform my writing about "serious" stuff and vice-versa, but I just feel like the site needs a bit of a break from the heaviness.
So what "fun" stuff is coming soon? I've been slowly adding to huge indexes that intend to log my consumption habits of things like games, anime, cinema, and music. I started with my GAME INDEX section by adding little "mini-review" for each entry, setting forth my thoughts on the game in question. Some of them I'd eventually like to talk more about on their own pages, and I'll link to them from there. I'd like to do something similar for indexes of anime, cinema, music, etc., but I've seen too many of those to give a little mini set of thoughts on each and every entry. So I plan to just keep adding to those lists and add a few minor thoughts on particularly important entries, and eventually probably some pages with reviews and more extended thoughts. Also, I will probably eventually divide the cinema/music tables by decade because they will become HUEG as I continue to add everything.
Another idea that I want to add to the site is a kind of "atlas" of my interests. I'm a big autist about maps and geography. I would like to make a big sort of atlas of parts of the world and notable people (for me) from particular parts of the world, perhaps in conjunction with some information about the area. So I'll probably start with Japan, make a little page about each prefecture, and chart what notable people came from what cities in those prefectures, etc. This will also be a huge project, but I dunno, I think it would be interesting at least! And it would hopefully be historically informative, since I will in part be using it to index figures I read about as I read big history books.
Anyway, have a look at the games section and expect more similar updates soon. And don't worry, I do have some mini-essays in the works as well, but I felt like the site needed a bit more positivity, y'know?
One great advantage of making a personal site like mine is that it tends to select better for the kinds of people you hear from. If they care enough to reach out to you directly, you usually can assume that they already have quite a bit of shared interest and worldview and so on, perhaps even more than just being someone you meet on a forum. What makes this difficult is that it takes a lot to motivate people to directly reach out if you use an email or something. It's much easier to be "social" over a program like Discord, because you can chat more freely in real time. You can "shoot the shit," so to speak. It makes sense why forums are dying in favor of Discord, as sad as it is to realize. Writing an email feels much more "serious."
I have trouble finding any good online community to integrate to these days. In some ways, that's not the worst thing in the world. It forces me to be more social with the couple of close friends I have in real life, and the fact that I have those kinds of people is something I'm very thankful for. But I do miss being a part of things like forums and IRC chats. I have a number of favorite imageboards, but imageboards aren't exactly where you go to get to make closer friends and to know people on a more serious level. Nor should they be. It's not what they exist for. So I've wanted a way to allow readers to reach out and talk to me in a more relaxed and off-the-cuff manner.
Of course, for maximum accessibility, the easiest choice would be to create a Discord server for the site. But Discord is a terrible platform for many different reasons (and yes, I say that while using it everyday because that's how things are these days). It's very hard to get people to use anything but Discord because of the monopoly it holds over instant messaging these days, just as much as it is to get people to use a video sharing platform besides YouTube. But I do hope that people who are interested in personal sites like mine would be the kind of people who are interested in going out of their way to use less normie-fied platforms. So I've toyed around with the idea of creating something like an IRC server to just keep open as a way for people to freely reach out and have off-the-cuff discussions in a group chat.
However, I haven't found anything nearly on the level of Discord for the ability to stream and share screens to share gameplay, which is what I do in a lot of my free time and would love to share with others. Matrix seems like the most viable option to retain things like that, but it's just about as bloated as Discord to the point that it seems like a pointless shift. I want something much more lightweight and so have been looking into some alternatives like HexChat and various XMPP clients. I will probably at least be looking into HexChat to join a few IRCs from certain imageboards etc. that I like as an experiment.
So in the meantime, I guess that leaves me talking on a more free and casual basis to some close friends on Discord and over email and using imageboards as a way to engage with a broader community. And yet, maybe that's ultimately how things should be. It's pretty much what the internet was like in the 90s, right? Closer friends talking on a more in-depth basis and broader discussions happening on a more chaotic, anonymous basis on things like Usenet and early Japanese BBSes like 2chan and its contemporaries.
So that brings me to my current suggestion: please reach out to me via email in as casual and free a way as you want if you are like me and many others and sort of lost in a void of not really belonging to any communities on the net. Some people might associate emails with business and work and stuff and take it too seriously, but they shouldn't! Maybe someday I'll set up something like an IRC channel or XMPP server if Discord continues to get gayer and gayer (it will), but for now this is probably the best way to get used to socializing outside of monopolistic platforms, and I'm always happy to do that.
Of course, this is one reason why I need to get a much better email client. I hate all the bloat and feature creep of Thunderbird. I'm unfortunate enough to still be bound to gmail for professional purposes and it makes using actual good, lightweight clients like Claws and Sylpheed way more of a pain than it needs to be. I still can't get those to work, but haven't given up yet. Maybe my Proton email will play nicer. Please don't let that stop you from reaching out to me though! I'll need a lot of mails in my inbox to test if my accounts are properly connected to my client, so you'll only be helping. ^^
Well, I officially fell for the Linux meme and am now typing this from my install of Linux Mint. I have a partitioned drive and am dual-booting with Windows 10 right now and have set up pretty much all the important programs I want on it, including games. I love it. It runs super fast even compared to my pretty de-bloated Windows 10. Given all the insane bloat, ugly GUI, and insane spyware of Windows 11, I can't be any more relieved that I don't have to be enslaved to it. There are some things that I still need to do for Loonix, but they really are pretty minor:
＊Sign up for and install Mullvad for a VPN. I used a free VPN on Windows but Mullvad seems much better and actually pretty affordable.
＊Every Touhou game works for me except Touhou 9, Phantasmagoria of Flower View. It gives me some strange error message about the th09.cfg file, which I've never seen before. In any case, I don't play Touhou 9 very much and would only play it with others online probably. In the long run I definitely want to get it working on Linux, but switching to Windows for it is doable if not ideal in the meantime.
＊Get more into customization. The look and feel of Linux Mint is fine... it just werks and I switched to the Yaru icon theme, which is much more tolerable than the default Mint one. But I would ideally want something a bit more retro in look to customize and tweak.
As far as the last one goes, a window manager that I really love the look of is IceWM, which is kind of reminiscent of early Windows GUIs and is very lightweight and fast. I would want to tweak a lot about it (color scheme, having small icons in the taskbar instead of huge tabs, etc.), but I love it at first glance. I tried to install it via Synaptic and it ran into a bunch of problems in the terminal and borked the whole GUI. I was shit-scared at first but a hard reset of my PC saved me... Rookie mistakes. They happen and it's a nice learning experience to have them. Anyway, that should prove that I'm still by no means a l33t h4x0r (or "power user" as uncool people call it these days) yet. I'll have to learn a lot more before touching that shit again. But that's fine. It's nice to be humbled about how much you really know about computers. The most I did was change Firefox's icon back to the oldschool 2004 one. I despise these modern simplified corporate logos designed for smartphones. It feels so refreshing to see something with a bit of detail again.
If there's one Windows program I truly miss, it's foobar2000. Obviously, I could use it with Wine, but I'm using Quod Libet instead and honestly I don't need much more from an mp3 player. It'll probably suit all my needs, but I do need to get used to it a bit more. I haven't been able to scrobble anything to Last.fm even with foobar2000 for several months now and have pretty much abandoned my account on that site once more. It's too bad because I've always loved the idea of Last.fm but they just fucked that site to death and turned it into a trash heap. I really miss when it was more viable. But it's more trouble than it's worth to try to track my listening and everything with Openscrobbler and various plug-ins these days. But maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. Just listen freely!
A few problems with particular programs also keep me enslaved by the Gates Golem. More than any other, it's Discord. For some incredibly retarded reason, doesn't allow audio sharing in its streaming for Linux systems. Please let me know if there's any XMPP client which has something similar and I'll ditch Discord altogether, but I often stream movies and anime etc. with friends in a Discord server. So until I can find a good workaround (unlikely) or Discord decides to stop being horrible (even more unlikely), I guess I'll have to move over to my Windows partition for those group sessions. :/ Let me know if you have any workarounds. Of course, such might just be the state of things. There will probably be certain weird old games that I am unable to get running except on a Windows system. I guess more than anything I should view decentralizing my OS use as a good thing, even if Linux can only replace 95% of it. In all honesty though, I was able to transfer much more of my computer usage to Linux than I expected! And I think it's good practice to keep my work and other "non-fun" stuff on a separate partition. It helps me be more focused and disciplined when doing boring stuff on the computer.
Anyway, I don't like to be an evangelist. I have no particular fanboyish attachment to Linux. Linux can and will be raped and misused by corporate interests just like any other piece of technology, so don't view it as something sacrosanct. But above all I just need something that werks. And, comapred to Windows, Linux werks incredibly well. But if you hate how bloated and riddled with spyware modern Windows is, I do recommend trying to install Linux Mint on an old laptop or a partition of your hard drive. You won't be able to immediately switch over or you'll go insane, so use both at first to and see how you like it. Once you get into it, you'll probably be impressed by how fast and lightweight Linux is in comparison, and game support on Linux is pretty nuts these days. Especially if you don't play modern garbage with kernel-level anti-cheat and other such CCP-esque features. Will update further!
Greetings! May was a busy and quite fruitful month in a lot of ways. First and foremost, I decided to put a "last updates" ticker on the front page of my site. I plan to have the last five updates of the site indicated there, so that whenever people come to check back on the site, they know where to look to find whatever is new if they've already read everything. I think it's a good idea at least!
I've been involved in a small chan board called Heyuri more actively recently. It's really good if you're into oldschool, ancient imageboard culture in the style of the very early Japanese sites and like a place with a fairly laid-back atmosphere. "A retirement home for oldfags" is the motto I like the most. I encourage you to have a look because it's a really cool place and always needs more members. But remember to lurk moar first! This is not 4chan and posts with nu-4chan content like wojaks are promptly deleted.
One project I've been working on off and on is making a large-scale video about my top 100 favorite films. I hate "video essays" on YouTube, so I hope to make it more like little enticing trailers about each movie than some faggy "essay" that spoils the whole thing and ruins the experience by turning it into some sterile intellectual "discourse." Fuck I hate JewTube so much. Anyway, I'd like to introduce and talk a bit about all of my favorites without falling into that trap. But it's moving slowly. It's in countdown order and I've only gotten up to 83 or so. I also plan to make a text version for this site, because I wanted to make this video just because it's fun to assemble clips from movies, but the internet really should be a text-based medium. I have to do my best to at least encourage that. And hopefully I'll finally look into PeerTube as a place to dual-upload it.
Another thing I've just barely started is a re-writing of a lot of my Four Pillars in a different format. I don't really disagree with much about the Four Pillars. Maybe the third section on ethics could be a bit re-worked, if any. But the reason I'm writing it again is more to experiment with a different structure than to revise and change my actual message. I'd like to make it a bit more like a number of small sermons. It seems like this is the way most Native Americans present their "teachings" and I like it. I love what I can do with illustrations as a kind of html project, but I think it would be good to write it in a purely text format too. Not that I expect to get it published anywhere, but you never know. I just feel like repeating some of those teachings in a different structure, and one that I think might be easier to get into for normies. I don't know when it will be completed.
I got a new tablet for drawing and hopefully would like to start doing some more. I think it's best to just do some tiny sketches, mostly black and white, getting used to drawing cute girls. A friend suggested I try to do rough sketches of every girl in Arcana Heart and maybe some other series as practice, and I like the idea of that. I'm working on a quick oekaki for Heyuri right now and it's a fun exercise. As I practice my drawing more and more, the banners on my site look more and more amateurish to me, but I do think they have an important charm of their own. If I was going to revise one of them, it would probably be the homepage first. But I don't know when I will.
As for hobbies, I've been on kind of an oldschool PC RPG kick this whole year. I think it started when I played through Deus Ex last year. Something about these turn of the millennium PC games is really comfy and peaceful to me. Even if so many of these have no connection to Japan, it reminds me of being in middle school and watching flash cartoons and looking up screenshots of ecchi anime. I finished my first playthrough of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind at the beginning of the month, but really most of my playthrough of it was during April. In any case, it was a pretty awesome game. I'm always in kind of a tricky position with RPGs, because I tend to like the gameplay of western RPGs like this more, but I like the aesthetics of JRPGs more. I like tinkering with your character and really customizing and personalizing it, and being free to make a pretty personalized journey through the world. In JRPGs, you're railroaded down the plotline a lot more. Of course, perhaps limiting the player's ability to customize the character allows you to tell more complex and interesting stories. It's a balance. I like the variety and creativity of JRPG settings more though. A lot of western RPGs can all start to feel kind of the same. But! That's why Morrowind was so great. The lore and world of it is all really really weird and very distinct from the average dragons and knights and shit. It doesn't feel like some fantasy of medieval Europe for the thousandth time, but a real alien world of its own. So yeah, pretty awesome game overall. The combat and stuff isn't particularly deep or interesting, but that's not really why you play these kinds of games.
After Morrowind, I continued my RPG kick and enjoyed a trip back to being an edgy middle schooler in my chuuni phase and played Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. That game was also pretty sick. I played as a Tremere male and would like to try it again, maybe as a girl because this is one of those rare western games where the girls are actually hot... imagine that! Almost everyone else has sung its praises enough. All I can say is that it's really wonderfully written and has a really cool, unique idea for a setting and story. And funny! Very, very funny game. And Ming Xiao is hot enough to make a nigga fight to guarantee Taipei for the Kuei-Jin's Republic of China!
A lot of the time, I choose to play these games just by what games I was curious about as a kid but never got to play. The last one I finished this month was one I'd been curious about since my ancient animutation days: EarthBound (well, technically Mother 2 because you couldn't pay me to play that censored, localized trash that came to the US!). Another game which is not really complicated from a gameplay perspective, though that in a way was part of why it was so fun to play. It was fun to play when I needed something I didn't need to think too hard about and the grinding was generally still enjoyable because of the game's distinctive style. Tons of games have tried to imitate this one, but they just can't do it. They usually come across as annoying and overly "quirky" in a way that makes you want to shoot yourself (I'm looking at you, Undertale). But EarthBound never falls into that trap because its presentation is just so damn accomplished. The whole ending sequence is just masterful from start to finish... Since I played Mother and Mother 2, I guess it's obvious that I should finish the trilogy before long. But I have to be in the right mood.
That's about it I guess! I also finished the main campaign of Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia. Of course, that means that now the REAL challenge begins: the expansions. Heroes III never gets old. Ketsui is still raping me too btw... Luv it though! It might be even better than ESPGaluda and I can't believe I'm saying that!
As far as anime goes, I finished watching Sekirei, although I still need to watch the sequel Sekirei: Pure Engagement. It was full of delicious fanservice and I love the character designs. Harem supremacy!!!! I will add a few characters to the miko list before long. They aren't really mikos in any traditional way at all, but they have the sleeves (and are HAWT) so close enough! Oh, and me and my friends watched some completely goofy OVA called Mugen Shinshi Bouken: Katsugeki-hen. I barely know wtf I watched. We chose to watch it because of a YouTube clip of a sexy girl dancing in a kind of bellydancer outfit, and the girls did not disappoint, but most of it was some of the goofiest shit I've ever seen. I love the Chinese guys who basically are one step above a yellow face with slit eyes and buck teeth. I don't watch new movies that often but I watched a movie directed by and starring Clint Eastwood called Bronco Billy in May. It was kind of a mess, but a lovable one. It's a solid piece of weirdo Americana and is just one of those movies which is told with so much heart that you get over any of the weirdness of its story.
The ten best albums I listened to for the first time in April:
1. Abandon - In Reality We Suffer (2004)
2. Lord Spikeheart - The Adept (2024)
3. Eternal Darkness - Total Darkness (2006)
4. Noctis Invocat - Depressiva Vox Clamantis (1998)
5. DJ Гаврила - Free Party. Free People. Free Future. (1999)
6. アツオ - 作品集 (1997)
7. The Hated - What Was Behind (1986)
8. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures (1979)
9. Lynks - Abomination (2024)
10. Arckanum - Fran Marder (1995)
(Yes, believe it or not, I had never heard Unknown Pleasures in full until last month. Not sure why either since I always really liked Closer. Anyway, Joy Division isn't one of my top tier favorite bands, but I like them a fair amount indeed.)
Hi there everyone! April was actually a pretty eventful month for me in several ways. Probably the most substantial event was finishing the second and final part of my lecture series on Martin Heidegger, which I uploaded to YouTube. I'm no great fan of YouTube and do kind of wish I could use another site, but Heidegger is such an important figure that I feel like everyone needs to hear these messages. I might eventually try streaming on YouTube because it's not like Twitch is much better and I might have more fans and fellow-thinkers on it. But I do want to keep looking for a more small-scale, private, but active and friendly streaming community. I'll keep looking for that because once I do I would like to get back into playing vidya on streams, which I haven't done in a while.
In the meantime, I started working on a project which I think will be cool: a video about my top 100 favorite films of all time, where I talk a bit about what each one means to me. I would also like to make a text version of it with screencaps on this site when it's completed, because I really do dislike the way all internet communication is being pushed to take place via videos rather than text. It makes it so much more bloated, hard to archive, and wasteful. And yet, for films it is nice to make a video with clips of them and not just screencaps, because a lot of films don't lend themselves well to single-frame screencaps but need to be experienced at least a bit in motion. Also, for the Stan Brakhage films and a few others I will have to intercut silent clips of the films with black screens of me talking instead of narrating over the visuals, lol. Might seem like I'm overdoing it, but I take the blasphemy of adding sound to intentionally silent pieces very seriously. Anyway, I've only made 100-96 of the video so far, so it will take quite a bit of time, but I am excited by it. Not sure if ThemTube will copyright-rape me though, so maybe testing it out on a site like Bitchute first would be for the better?
Speaking of games, I got my 1-ALL in Hishouzame! I'm glad I did it. There's not much to say other than the game is a classic and I'm glad I put my time into it. It's a little too simplistic for me to return to time and time again, but there's something a bit relaxing and meditative about its simplicity at the same time. Every shmup fan should try a game like this once in a while to get out of the bullet cloud mindset, just for a bit. But now I'm going back into it, because the next 1-ALL I'm after is Ketsui! I've only played it a bit but it's fucking awesome, probably up there to be with once of the best Cave games I've played yet. But my progress on it has been slow for one particular reason: I finally bit the bullet and began playing through an old classic I never played and only have absorbed through cultural osmosis. That game is The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. It took me a bit to appreciate it in full, but now I think it's a pretty stellar world and has a lot of nice creativity. It's been engrossing and fun to play something so different from my normal habits. I dunno, something about these turn-of-the-millennium western computer RPG games makes me feel maxxx comfy. I'm almost certainly going to finish it before the end of this month (knock on wood in case Dagoth-Ur fucks me over), so I'll talk more about it soon.
I watched an OVA called Idol Defense Force Hummingbird which was pretty over the top and goofy, although nothing compares to the pure insanity of All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku from last month. Still, it was a pretty ridiculous story about the Japanese government signing over control of the air force to private companies (ZOMG le heckin capitalist dystopia) and an idol company decides to put a team of singing sisters in charge of the fighter planes. It was cute as heck and had gorgeous early-90s colors. Although the best name (Yayoi) went to the worst girl! Shame. In the opening episode she wears one of the stupidest outfits I've ever seen in an anime, which is saying a lot. The real highlight was when me and a friend watched Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, which was absolutely brilliant. One of the best OVAs or anime things I've seen in quite some time. It's a typically Japanese post-apocalyptic story, which is to say it has a great sense of peace and acceptance that masks hints of the horrifying. Everyone should watch it. I can't believe I never saw it until now since it's right up my alley.
After finishing all the Heidegger stuff, I was a bit burnt out on philosophy. I decided to return to reading the history of Japan in World War II that I was already reading, but I had to start it over. As much as I always try to read a few books at once, I can never do it! Even two is a stretch. But luckily I wasn't very far in it and have almost caught back up to where I was. I'm glad I went back because I forgot so much. Before that, however, I made a diversion and read Michel Houllebecq's debut novel Extension du domaine de la lutte (I refuse to call it by its stupid English name, "Whatever"). I absolutely loved his novel The Elementary Particles when I read it back in high school, but I'm sure I'd appreciate it even more now that I know more about the "adult world." This debut novel doesn't compare, but it has a pretty enjoyable sense of misanthropy and cynicism. Someone on Goodreads called it a book-length greentext post and it really does read like that. I love reading bleak and miserable literature in general because it's a good way to achieve catharsis, but a lot of the classic writers don't live in a globalized world with modern technology and thus can feel distant to some degree. Houellebecq was interesting to read for that reason. It seems very contemporary, which is not something I'm used to in what I consume. Mostly because most things that are contemporary are shit, but I suppose misanthropic cranky literature could be an exception, lol. I'm curious to read his novel Submission which was apparently pretty controversial because of its takes on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in France. I'll probably read it eventually.
The ten best albums I listened to for the first time in April:
1. Kobaryo - Super Key Generator (2023)
2. Istasha - Swallowing Centipedes (2023)
3. Vomit Remnants - Supreme Vehemence (2005)
4. Maggie Lindemann - HEADSPLIT (2024)
5. デスマーチ艦隊 - 夢で逢いましょう (1997)
6. 唯是震一 - The Japanese Koto (1955)
7. Urban Jungle - Anything (1995)
8. Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus (1971)
9. Condry Ziqubu - Gorilla Man (1990)
10. Touché Amoré - Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me (2011)
We are in a state of severe crisis when it comes to freedom of expression. In case you haven't heard, Visa and Mastercard have decided to cancel all services for most of the major Japanese adult entertainment websites, including dl-site, Pink Pineapple, and even Amazon.co.jp. This is an unmistakeable act of warfare against freedom of expression and is an completely unjustifiable from the perspective of either the Japanese or American constitutions. This has destroyed one of the only ways for foreigners to support and pay for visual novels, eromanga, and other such pieces of Japanese adult entertainment, and indeed a great amount of non-erotic works as well (dl-site has a ton of doujin games).
This is just one part of an enormous crackdown over freedom in the digital world. It should be no surprise that it comes on the coattails of a number of US states blocking access to porn websites without age-verification by ID. This is a hideous infringement on privacy and safety and does nothing to help "the children" or whoever else they are trotting out as the excuse to pass their sharia law. Very soon they will probably attempt to make all internet access dependent on ID verification. All I can say is that I will stand against them every step of the way.
When you couple this kind of corporate suppression with the flood of AI on every adult eromanga/anime website, the future for hentai as a field of creative expression looks very grim indeed. Before long, the only people who will create hentai will be a strange group of hobbyists as AI will completely replace any need for humans from a pure "market" perspective. I will of course be one of them and will want to partake in their works, if it is at all possible for me to do so. Perhaps that is not the worst thing in the world. At least it will drive it back into being a niche and thus far from prying eyes. But it cannot happen if every payment processor is ruled by puritanical wahhabists.
In the meantime, here are some things that you can do and that I will try to do:
＊Get a Discover card (they seem to be the last major Americunt credit card company that you
can use for Japanese porn, but they probably will eventually go under too).
＊Get a JCB card and/or try to find a Japanese medium to purchase things through [need to look
into how this works].
＊If all else fails, pirate it (it is more than morally justified when a company forces you into
its cock cage). I don't want the entire business of hentai to shift to shady Russian torrent sites,
but there has to be some way to keep things archived and circulating if we're going to be cut off
from them by credit card gestapos.
＊If you are one of these Japanese companies, make payment by cryptocurrencies an option. I
don't like crypto because it has quite a nasty environmental footprint, but you can't allow the cuck
states of the world to bully you forever. The most ideal solution would be for Japan to make its own
payment processor and start bullying these shit companies back, but I don't know exactly how that
would be implemented.
I suppose the only thing I have left to say is FUCK credit card companies, FUCK the sharia state of the USA, FUCK globalization, FUCK social media, FUCK ironic weeaboos, and FUCK lolis (literally).
Hello. I hope you are all doing well. My March was mostly spent heavy dedicated to a project that I still have not completed but hopefully will this month or the next. It's a second part to a YouTube video I made about Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. This one will be focused on Heidegger's later work. But I think I might have to split it into two parts because it will be so long. I really want to get it finished so I can start working on other stuff because it's completely taking over my brain otherwise. That doesn't mean I'm not enjoying working on it, but it is hard work. Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) is certainly one of the most baffling and fascinating pieces of philosophy I've ever read though. It's hard to pick which parts to quote for it because it seems like every other page there's a strange passage that I really don't know what to make of and become fascinated by. Take this passage from III.83:
"Metaphysics believes that being lets itself be found in beings--and in such a way that
thinking goes beyond beings.
The more exclusively thinking turns to beings and seeks for itself a ground that exists
totally as a being (cf. Descartes and modernity), the more decisively philosophy
distances itself from the truth of beyng.
But how is the metaphysical renunciation of beings, i.e., renunciation of metaphysics,
possible without falling prey to the 'nothing'?
Da-sein is the grounding of the truth of beyng.
The less a being man is and the less he insists upon the being which he finds himself to be,
so much nearer does he come to being. (No Buddhism! The opposite.)"
This passage stuck out at me because it's the first time I've seen Heidegger directly reference eastern philosophy, which his thought is often compared to. But I really don't know what that "no Buddhism!" assertion is supposed to mean here. Perhaps he thinks that preceding sentence sounds like he's describing anattā or non-self and wants to make it clear that he means the opposite: becoming ourselves more fully through enowning (Ereignis)? That's what I take it as at least. Anyway, once the video comes out, hopefully what I say here will actually make sense, haha. This text actively seems to fight against any interpretation we use to restrain it. Which is what makes it so great.
I didn't do too much gaming-wise. I've been slacking on Hishouzame in the midst of the Heidegger research. But I've gotten to the last couple sections on a 1-ALL pace multiple times, so it's only a matter of time I suppose. Other than that I always seem to play the Warcraft III ladder whenever I don't know what else to play. I've been brave enough to play Random on the w3champions ladder now and it's been fun. I even won once as human! Incredible stuff for an omega-n00b like me. I also played through the old RPGMaker game Ib with an IRL friend. It was a nice little piece of atmosphere, though somewhat simple compared to the real RPGMaker masterpieces like Yume Nikki. With that said, I think it's more than worth a play from anyone who hasn't played it. I would especially recommend it to people who aren't very used to gaming since the puzzles and everything are pretty simple. Playing with a friend is fun because you can experience the spooks together and probably beat it in an evening when you have two heads to brainstorm. Maybe I'll play through to get the "true" end someday, but there's other stuff I'd rather do first.
I've been sort of isolated from social engagement online this year. Most of my social time has been with IRL friends, either face-to-face or over Discord. I still have a few close online friends who I speak to fairly regularly on Discord or wherever else, but I haven't been streaming anything on Twitch, which is where I would normally get most online social interaction. I have to be honest, in a way it just feels a little dirty to use a big corporate site like Twitch to make friends. I like small web so much that I just prefer to stream to a few friends. Maybe I'll make a private Discord server or something? But I already am in a few with most of my friends. Who knows...
I watched a handful of OVAs and ONAs in March:
Darkside Blues (1994): This is an old J.C.Staff movie which seems like it should be cool but was actually pretty boring. I watched it with friends and our interest wavered.
Battle Spirits: Ryuuko no Ken (1993): Aka Art of Fighting, based on the game. Man this was terrible. Some of the absolute worst animation I've seen from what was supposedly the golden age of great Japanese animation. Some of the background loops are Flintstones tier. But it was pretty hilarious in its badness as well.
The Humanoid: Ai no Wakusei Lezeria (1986): Weird sci-fi thing that doesn't really know what it wants to be. Entertaining enough for one watch. The main heroine is a robot who looks like the one from Metropolis but with a female face. But it was a waste because the other two female characters were waaaay cuter. FAIL!
Plastic Neesan (2011-2012): Extremely silly ONA that I watched on a stream on Heyuri with others in chat. That made it all the more entertaining. Pretty funny stuff. Lots of ecchi and yuri made it very yummy!
All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku (1992-1994): Also watched this on Heyuri stream. Amazing OVA that was made even more amazing with chat spam. The story for this one is kind of weird. It's a goofy, funny, pretty sexy show, but it has some weirdly serious plot points at times. One of the random side characters in an episode looked exactly like a Japanese AVGN, lmao. Definitely the best thing I watched this past month. Check it out if you haven't! I'll have to check out the second OVA and TV series that apparently followed it eventually.
Looks like this year is going to be another scorcher. In the next few years I'm going to do all I can to find a way to move into the Arctic circle. I need to for my sanity. I heard Svalbard is visa-free? As long as you can fend off a polar bear or two... Living there would probably be a ton of random international preppers, like one of those space OVAs about the intergalactic crew but before transitioning to life in space. ANY INUIT QTs READING THIS PLZ INQUIRE FOR A HUSBAND! I'M WILLING TO LEARN THE LANGUAGE!
The ten best albums I listened to for the first time in March:
1. Yellow Swans - Being There (2020)
2. Klaus Schulze - Deus Arrakis (2022)
3. 국립국악원 - Yŏmillak: The Selection of Korean Classical Music (2003)
4. Toroidh - Those Who Do Not Remember the Past Are Condemned to Repeat It (2001)
5. Various Artists - Eskimo Songs From Alaska (1966)
6. Jan Dukes de Grey - Mice and Rats in the Loft (1971)
7. Various Artists - Journey Into Paradise: The Larry Levan Story (2006)
8. Virgil Moorefield - The Temperature in Hell Is Over Three Thousand Degrees (1997)
9. Maeror Tri - Archaic States (1993)
10. In Gowan Ring - Abend the Knurled Stitch O'er the Glinting Spade (1999)
Hello everyone. I hope your February has been nice. I was busy with a lot of boring IRL shit, so there isn't too much to say about it. Video game-wise, I beat Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils and it was pretty awesome. But holy shit, the Steam version apparently removed the number of extra lives you get during the final boss on Chelsea's route to only 2 and I struggled like a motherfucker with that fight. But it made the clear all the sweeter. Pretty awesome game that I would recommend to anyone if they like goofy Japanese cutesy shit (if you don't you're gay of course). Otherwise I have been playing Hishouzame and it's proving to be more difficult than expected, but very fun and interesting because of how different it is from my danmaku fundamentals. I'm glad I'm going for a 1-ALL at least...
Computer-wise, I really really do not want to switch to Windows 11 next year when support for Windows 10 ends, so I went ahead and dual-booted my PC to install Linux Mint! I love the way it looks and feels, but I really have no idea what I'm doing yet. Even downloading and installing programs is very different. I probably would want to keep a Windows partition even if I totally make the switch just on the offchance that there are games that are incompatiable, but I thought it would be good to get used to GNU/Linux since sometime in the future I'd like to get away from Windows. But right now I just try to touch it a bit everyday to get familiar... it'll take some time. And for gaming obviously there's a lot of headaches.
As far as this site goes, I've been slacking on updates. I would like to write some more of my life story but had a new idea for an area called the "cold zone." I thought about making a whole wiki, but it would probably be well summed up in a number of small information pages. It would essentially be a celebration of all things cold: cold places, cold movies, cold music, etc. As the globe warms, I want us to remember what true freezing cold looks like and find information and works of art (music, movies, poetry, etc.) that capture it. Maybe it would have an area for user-submitted stories too. I certainly have a few. I think it would be a cool idea but I need to do some more research. Speaking of that, I set up a spreadsheet that updates a number of cities around the world with the amount of snow they receive and their average high temperatures... My plan is to use it as a reference in the next few years to find a place to move to that will still be cold and hopefully snowy for the next upcoming decades, at least compared to where I am right now. Lots more to do before I'm ready to make the move though.
I've also become more motivated to read and write about Martin Heidegger. I've started doing research and reading for a presentation on his later philosophy, which I think will be very informative. I just hope I can give to others what his work has given to me...
That's about it! I started watching Sekirei and the fanservice is wonderful. Exactly what anime should be like: everything in the service of horny teenagers. Hope to see you all soon. Remember to vote for green energy when you can this year.
The ten best albums I listened to for the first time in February:
1. Codex - Lidojums (1995)
2. Corrosive Vomit - Slam in da' Streets: Fight for Supremacy (2023)
3. Tani Senzan & Tanaka Yoko - Evening Snow (1988)
4. 沢井忠夫 - Koto Music: Tadao Sawai Plays Michio Miyagi (1997)
5. Various Artists - Hokkaido et le Japon inconnu (1973)
6. Maeror Tri - Ambiguitas (1995)
7. Gorepot - How Much Is a Gram Over There? (2022)
8. Krutch - Now the Tables Turn (1997)
9. Agnostic Front - Victim in Pain (1984)
10. JFA - Valley of the Yakes (1983)
Happy new year! This update is a few days late and I apologize for that. It's hard to know what to say about this new year. My two biggest resolutions are 1) to exercise regularly and lose some weight and 2) to cook more of my own food to eat healthier, more sustainably, and for less money. I've stuck to the former very well and am more or less attempting the latter. The way I am holding myself to it is this: on days I cook for myself, I can skip going to the gym, and on days I go to the gym, I can skip cooking for myself. So I've mostly been doing the latter instead of the former, but can only hope to eventually get to the point where I can do both most days of the week. But I wanted to start with something realistic to achieve.
January wasn't too interesting. I was very busy with real-life stuff. But on the very last day of January I finally got the 1cc I've been after for almost half a year: Touhou Chireiden ～ Subterranean Animism Lunatic with ReimuB! Subterranean Animism will probably always be my least favorite out of the classic 6-12 stretch of Touhou games, but as with my Normal clears, I gained a greater level of appreciation for it. If only half the shots weren't very unfun to use and if only the Satori fights were more interesting, it might be up there with all the others. Okuu is an extremely fun final boss in any case, despite the final spell giving me PTSD. I also finished the first clear of Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils and unlocked Chelsea... I guess now I have to clear it all 100% again. But at least she plays differently and very interestingly.
I also started adding my own Life Story to this site, and will hopefully continue this more and more. It is good practice to publish it as I go instead of just waiting for the whole thing to be completed, because I will never release it at that rate.
This is an election year and I have my misgivings and fears, but all I can do is try to educate people and vote. Remember to ask if your vote will exacerbate carbon emissions or not before anything else. All I can do is repeat it... Anyway, happy new year and I hope to add a lot more to this site soon!
The ten best albums I listened to for the first time in January:
1. Various Artists - Japanese Masterpieces for the Shakuhachi (1990)
2. Sheer Terror - Bulldog Edition (2000)
3. Various Artists - 中国古乐：原始狩猎图 (2003)
4. Atrax Morgue - New York Ripper (1994)
5. Timelash - Feral Lands & Forbidden Cities (2023)
6. Master Musicians of the Ikuta School - Japanese Koto Consort: Kotos, Jushichigen, Shamisen, Shakuhachi and Voice (1968)
7. VVV - Vaciador (2023)
8. War Plague - Ammunition (2009)
9. KANGA - You and I Will Never Die (2021)
10. Charles de Goal - Technicolor (1984)