Esoteric Rollercoaster

Everything in this month’s update is pretty obscure, esoteric and old. We’ll get things rolling with a book suggestion in the form of Tim Lapetino’s Art of Atari. If you’re a 20 something year old visitor and have no clue what “an Atari” is, don’t worry about it! Artbooks are cool regardless, and a good conversation starter for guests. It also gives you hipster credit with the increasingly “retro” crowd nowadays. Hats off to R T Ralph for the content. By the way, if the above book has you intrigued you can purchase hot sauce bottles with some of the art here as well.

I think the Atari stuff might be a bit too old for even my audience, so what about something a bit newer? Windows 98? Maybe? In any case, there is game based on all the iconography (whew!) of older Windows operating systems. It’s called Desktop Survivors 98 and is based on the popular Vampire Survivors genre nowadays. It’s a good fusing of old and new concepts, and quite frankly just a charming “all ages” game. Thanks to Gohjoe for the video!

I’m a fan of iceberg compilations, but I didn’t expect to come across one that was vastly different than most of the ones I’ve seen already. AmusingLuis puts together a vast array of discontinued brand food that I both clearly remember hearing about or actually eating / drinking myself. A nostalgia trip for me for sure, but I’m hoping someone does a compilation of popular (but discontinued) brand foods from around the world. Would definitely be an interesting history lesson.

About a year ago I did recommend a video from Jason Graves visiting a bunch of Goodwill stores here in the US. Apparently he has a new video with more stores, this time however they’re all different. It’s a cozy watch if you’re just interested in a nerdy travel vlog, but a sad one as well if you’re a retro games collector. The glory days of the 2005 ~ 2015 bargains are long gone here in the US as well as Japan.

My wife and I chose not to have children, but that doesn’t mean a vast majority of you visiting don’t have some of your own (or plan to). Theme parks are nerdy adjacent, and act as good bridges between age groups when the lingo can get tough between the generations. Have you seen the Gen Z lingo video yet? In any case, ReviewTyme (thanks guys!) has the most digestible review list of Disney theme parks without the obvious taint of corporate marketing teams or hometown bias. I feel the butthurt in the comments makes me like it even more!

This is kind of a leftover from the virtual travel update a few months ago. Harmen Hoek is arguably one of my favorite hiking content creators of all time. A year ago (and now recently above) he reedited some of his work into long form videos that contain only ambient audio from his journeys. If you need motivation to go outdoors for real or virtually, it’s hard to beat these videos. Please do me and Harmen a favor and watch these with the best earphones or earbuds you can while you’re relaxing. The enjoyment of them will increase tenfold.

Artist is Klopsiak

Artist is Klopsiak

Artist of the month is Klopsiak, someone I came across in an ironic fashion. There aren’t a lot of folks who draw obscure waifus, let alone very well. But I immediately thought the above pictures were AI generated at first due to their detail at first glance. After a while and a little bit of digging, I came to the conclusion it’s all above board (at least I think it is) and that Klopsiak not only is very talented, he also likes one of my favorite characters from One Piece Carrot. For that alone, he gets the artist of the month recommendation. Please visit his linktr.ee for socials, and send him a nice word!

Even More Internet Of Things

No specific theme this month, so we’re going to do what we did in June and take a look at a bunch of random things on the internet. As always with my monthly content, it’s mostly focusing on long form content. If you’ve been visiting for a while now, a lot of faces should be familiar to you. Starting off with Napoleon Blownapart and his most recent documentary on the MMA lineal title. If you’ve never watched any of his content before, I highly recommend you watch his martial arts frauds video first.

I remember only finding “strange and spooky” stuff on the internet 15 years ago during Halloween. Now that stuff has become increasingly mainstream, and it appears every day of the week you can find stories and tales of the weird side of the web. I’m not complaining, just observing the trend. Long time recommendation Sakura Stardust has a recent video diving into more creepy stuff from Japan. Weeaboos rejoice!

I’m not going to lie, this particular topic may seem like Boomer copium at its finest. I would imagine anyone under the age of 30 would have no idea what it’s even talking about. But for those dusty ass folks out there (like me), this video may be right up your alley. Thanks to Poseidon Entertainment for putting in the research and legwork. It’s a very long video by the way, so heads up.

It’s been a long time since Vsauce uploaded a video, so you know it’s probably going to be of substance. Sometimes we need to take a step back from the moment and look at the bigger philosophical picture of our existence. I recommend playing the video a few times to grasp the message, so that you can then proceed to the questions you’ll probably ask yourself. If this is all too deep for you at the moment, come back to it later.

Artist is Machulanko

I was doing my best to find a picture of Seiko Ayase to reflect the age of my audience. Luckily artist of the month has a very clean, classic, and elegant style that matches what I was looking for. That artist is Machulanko, and you can visit all of their social links by clicking on the image above. Don’t forget as always to send them a nice comment if you appreciate them.

We're Kind Of Going Outside

It’s summer in the northern hemisphere, and I’m taking you all along with me to the outdoors. Well… kind of the outdoors. Actually we’re not really going outdoors, but we’re going to do our best to bring you to places you haven’t gone yet, may never go to, or just aren’t able to visit. The “theme” if you will is going to be on virtual travel. That’s why there’s a fancy video above talking about the latest Quest 3S virtual headset. I’m not asking you to go buy one. I’m just suggesting it in case you never put the two concepts together. The finer details as always in the audio blog.

Before we set out on the real journey, last recommendation for you old school folks is to look into upgrading your audio equipment. We live in very competitive times now for price to performance ratio on quality headphones. If you like watching stuff traditionally using a huge tv and some “cans” on your head, then it’s a good time to be alive. DHRME is an excellent source for audio reviews from a more down to earth perspective, and I can personally vouch for them as trustworthy. Reasons being I have bought a few of their recommendations and have agreed with their conclusions. I also by the way and rocking the headphones they talk about in the video above. $62 bucks to my door here in the US, and worth every penny for what they do.

Ok let’s finally get down to business. You ready for a 9+ hour cinematic travel experience in a remote area of Japan? I know you are, because I just linked it above for you to enjoy. Anna Film Productions takes us all along with her on the Shikoku Pilgrimage, something I didn’t even know existed up until about a month ago. It’s a very real thing and you can do it yourself if you ever feel inclined. There’s even an APP to help you along your journey.

We travel to icy depths of the Chenzhou mountains in China next. This is where those upgraded headphones you bought really come into play now, as the soundstage of the actual environment will push the capabilities of it. Walk East is the YouTube channel with long form ambient walking tours of China in particular if you’re interested.

Let’s be real here. If you could afford to stay at the Cheval Blanc on St Barth, you probably wouldn’t be visiting this dumpster fire of a website right now. There’s also a good chance you can never afford it (nor could I) in a lifetime. Let us then together see how the 0.1% of the world lives. No obnoxious “vlog” style video or commentary by the way, just ambient videography of the experience from beginning to end. Luxury Travel Expert has a ton of other videos of places you’ll never visit by the way, in case you want to feel even poorer than you are now.

We’re going to end the virtual tour with something a bit more affordable and probably the only place you might be able to visit. It’s the newly opened theme park in Florida called Epic Universe. The YouTube channel Attractions 360 has been a long time recommendation on The List of my site for being a rather straight forward POV content creator of various theme parks around the world. Theme parks may have their fair share of issues, but they are good tourist destinations for those who have social anxiety and afraid of cultural faux pas.

Artist is かふん

Artist of the month かふん is a real treat to the eyes with their bold, colorful “graffiti” art style. Any one of their hundreds of designs could be printed on a t-shirt, hoodie or other merchandise. They are also openly prolific of their work and you can view their vast library for “free” on Pixiv. Absolutely one of the best of the year and may take the title if no one else dethrones them by December. Please show your love to かふん if you can on any of their socials.

The Internet Of Things

It goes without saying that the internet is a weird place. But it can also be entertaining while (mostly) harmless depending on the subject material. This month I’ll be taking you in no specific direction with any particular theme or topic. Just a bunch of stuff I find interesting and hope you all do as well. Always keep in mind I’ll giving you the “tourist” level of exposure with any of these subjects. A deeper dive and rabbit hole awaits you should you decide to pursue them. I’ll do my best to add color commentary in the audio blog so things aren’t so cut and dry as they appear. Historidame brings us the appetizer with dangerous theme parks of the olden days.

There is no direct agreed source where “Weaboo” came from. But it’s fun to see the various permutations of it around the internet over the years. Whang! brings us some myth busting in regards to one particular Weaboo made famous back in the early 2000’s named Ken-Sama. And it goes exactly how you think it probably does.

To the handful of younger visitors to my site, let it be known that I have memories of cassette tapes, but they are not good ones. To all my international visitors, a lesson in English vocabulary is in order. The word I’m about to teach all of you is called nostophobia. It is literally the antithesis of nostalgia, something you’re all probably more familiar with. On one hand, it’s nice to be able to physically own your music and not just a license to it digitally. On the other hand, there’s way better mediums to do that. I leave the choice up to you, but Cheapaudioman does a good job bringing everyone up to speed on the subject.

Iceberg videos are a guilty comfort of mine, as they are (mostly) a concise way to digest a lot of information on various obscure topics. Conor’s Curiosities has come a long way when I started to watch him back in Part 1 of the series, and I think he’s only going to get even better over time. If you like the above video, there’s an entire series he’s done for you to marathon.

This maybe me projecting my personal interests, but there seems to be a very small steady rise in popularity with “outdoors” streaming. With the recent news of one of the biggest YouTube channels The Outdoor Boys retiring, there’s also going to be an influx of younger content creators trying to fill the void. Harmen Hoek is one of those up and coming creators, and he deserves anything good coming his way.

Artist of the month is the extremely talented ももやまかねちち. Absolutely drop dead gorgeous work, especially with a more modern look. Please show a lot of love to them over on their socials and send them an encouraging word. If you have the money, they also are currently accepting commissions.