Wide As A Puddle, Deep As An Ocean

Audio Blog

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Audio Blog 〰️

The end of the year means I’m going to be working on the 2023 retrospective soon. This month’s update will have fewer topics, but each one will be extremely lengthy and detailed. As always, feel free to listen to the audio blog for more details, commentary and nuance for each topic. Also, if you’re a refugee from my YouTube channel, don’t forget to check out my mini-news section for updates. I am toying with the idea of completely posting ONLY to the mini-news section instead of the YouTube community section anymore; but we’ll see.

One of my smaller regrets of 2023 was the lack of updates and content for my “normie” visitors. I know a lot of folks who visit the site have little interest in gaming (especially gacha games) and really come for all the weird stuff I happen to find on the internet. I’ll try my best to course correct at the end of the year with some pretty interesting stuff and will do better next year to be mindful of my diverse audience. So, what better way to dive into the deep end of strange stuff than 10 hours of unsolved mysteries from all aspects of the known world in a single iceberg video format? Hope you enjoy the watch as much as I did and pat yourself on the back if you did the entire thing in one sitting. You should get a life achievement for it!

If unsolved mysteries (which may contain paranormal entries) may slightly put you off, then how about hardcore strange history instead? I think a lot of people forget that weird occurrences aren’t unique to modern times, and that the past actually holds a lot of head turning stuff. Some of the great movies and stories you may have watched or heard recently are probably based off these events to boot. If you think 10 hours in one sitting is too much, maybe this bite sized 1 hour video will suffice.

A final love letter this month to my normies, I will be adding another YouTube channel recommendation to The List. The channel is named after its director Harmen Hoek and is an absolutely artful collection of serene hiking videos out in the wild. I want to stress that Harmen is an artist and videographer, and his videos show this very succinctly. Even more masterfully done, Harmen does not narrate his work at all. He just lets the video do all the work and the music to carry the atmosphere. Excellent material if you need to focus, meditate or fall asleep to (in a good way). Make absolutely sure to check out his other videos and his Patreon to support him; he truly deserves it.

FlipWitch is a game recommendation I was thinking of making back in October and November but didn’t get around to. The primary reason was the entire Unity debacle that put all games made on the platform in a strange form of limbo. Thankfully it resolved itself in a positive way, and FlipWitch’s future thus became secure and released. Without spoilers of any kind, I will say that this game (on the surface) may seem like a spicier lewd game to the newcomers to the genre. But in reality, it’s far from, being one of the tamer games I’ve recommended this year and is a good starting point for those who want to ease into this type of stuff.

Monster, furry, alien, robot, and weird waifus? Did someone finally take pity on me and make something I possibly will really enjoy? The verdict is still out unfortunately since this is technically a preview of a game coming out in the future called Freaked Fleapit; a lewder spiritual successor to Crypt of the Necrodancer. It looks amazing, right up my alley, and apparently strikes that beautiful chord of being a fun game mechanically first with lewd fanservice a close second. Games I have been championing on my site since its inception.

Artist is Kakuteki11029

Artists of the month is DISH & Kakuteki. These artists have been featured before on my site, but due to them being removed from my YouTube community section in a recent wave of post bans and violation; I decided to repost them since they deserve the recognition. They are unarguably, heads and shoulders talented artists, and I hope you agree with their work! Make sure to support them using the links above.

Be Thankful For Alternatives

Audio Blog

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Audio Blog 〰️

November is going to be a technical month, because the world has decided to force the issue. For my audience (you), I’ll be sharing some helpful YouTube alternatives that should give you 90% of the same experience with 100% less annoyance. YouTube have decided to annoy everyone once more by making it harder to block ads, so I’ll be here to guide you through how to fight back. Keep in mind I’ll be suggesting the easiest way to do this, but there are always other ways to accomplish the same goal. My recommendations are open-source software, so be assured they’re safe to use and free. Just make sure you always download them from official repositories (sites).

First on the list is a desktop alternative in the form of FreeTube. This program completely bypasses the web-based player that YouTube videos are dependent on via your browser. It requires minimal setup and you can technically use it “right out of the box”, but make sure to head over to the settings page to fine tune the parameters if you’re a little bit tech savvy to customize your experience. You can export and import your subscriptions to FreeTube, and the process is explained here.

The second one on the list is for the mobile folks. NewPipe is the “phone” alternative to YouTube and functions pretty much the same as well with a little bit of initial setup. Generally speaking, it’s a lot harder to block ads traditionally on mobile due to the fact that most users always default to the built-in YouTube app. NewPipe completely bypasses the typical restrictions watching YouTube on mobile and should give you a clean ad-free experience that’s also a lot faster.

Moving onto the gaming news stuff, there’s a bit this month albeit it being stuff I have talked already about in the past. Star Ocean The Second Story R is a remake of a popular JRPG of yesterday. It’s a pretty cozy experience and folks familiar with the franchise as a whole consider this one of the better games in the entire series due to its cast and story. Unlike recent trends in JRPGS, you should actually be able to relate and like most of the crew instead of being annoyed by them.

As a gigantic Yakuza / Like a Dragon Fanboy that I am, of course I’m going to remind everyone that The Man Who Erased His Name is going to be out for the 2nd week of November. Long time fans will probably see this game as one of the more important ones in regard to story as it is a direct sequel to Yakuza 6. For newcomers to the series, it’s looking to be a pretty good beat-em-up and you might want to try it out if you have nothing going on game-wise at the moment. Since it’s available on so many different platforms, there’s sure to be some sort of discount or deal you can get for it. I’ll be happily paying full price day 1 for it of course, cause launch sales help developer metrics (and buzz) a ton. Food for thought the next time you see a game from a developer you really like.

What better way to put all those new fancy YouTube alternatives by checking a new channel recommendation? Qxir is a somewhat lighthearted channel that deals with awkward and disastrous events in history. Some of the videos are informative while others are more humorous.

Artist is K Cross

I rarely ever talk about Vtubers, cause I’m a middle aged Coomer stuck updating a website no one visits playing games about waifus. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it when worlds collide and I happen to notice it. Kenkou Cross is the author of the Monster Girl Encyclopedia and worked on the design for Matara Kan. I appreciate the fact she’s a monster girl and a MILF. Maybe there’s hope for this generation after all (then again maybe not).

Artist is Bokuno

Summer officially has come to a close and the fall season is now in full swing. Doesn’t hurt to get one more chance at some swimwear, with artist of the month Bokuno showing us how its done. Don’t forget to check out their Pixiv Fanbox page if you really want to support them! Don’t forget to check out the Mini News page from time to time for random little updates.

Nothing Scarier Than Greed

Audio Blog

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Audio Blog 〰️

October is traditionally the spooky month, and this particular blog update will be addressing the scariest thing of them all, corporate greed. But no worries, as I have other interesting stuff to share of course! Lots of gaming news this month thanks to my fantastic YouTube community members. Also the traditional real spooky stuff and lewd spooky stuff because that’s what is expected in October right?

Let me begin this section of the blog with a very specific disclaimer. I am going to be talking about the Unity situation that unfolded in September. I am not however going to be recapping the entire history of what happened and why or how it’s going to affect developers and games past or present. It is better that you get the thoughts of actual game developers on the topic and thus I linked the videos above that do that. So please watch it if you want a summary of the incident as well as a good perspective from a credible source. If you watched both videos in full, you would then have a pretty complete picture of what went on during the initial phases of the Unity debacle leading into where we are today a few weeks later.

This is the one paragraph that brought me into the entire Unity situation, and I’ve screenshotted that from a Bloomberg article linked above written by Jason Schreier. In my own experience dealing with countless faceless corporations in my lifetime, the most egregious of them always used statistics to justify their reasoning or position. I’m talking about the massive ones including ISPs, Energy, Telecom, etc. Every single time a blanket statistic is used to chiefly reason why a decision is both made “logical” and “rational”. I can’t tell you how many times this particular set of data is always obfuscated, misinterpreted, and just plain shady to reach such a claim.

For example, most Telecom companies (the folks who run your cell phone service) might institute data caps on what you can use a month before throttling down bandwidth. The reasoning behind this move is always similar to “90% of the userbase won’t be affected by this change” when we (consumers) have absolutely no idea where that statistic is coming from on the basis of what data. I can tell you from experience digging into such research that a lot of claims such as this are horrendously misleading on what counts as a “user” or “current user”. In other words, that 90% statistic could have been derived from accounts no longer active in the last 2 years, accounts that were on a trial basis, accounts that are tied to commercial enterprises, and accounts globally in many developing infrastructure deficient countries. If you took all of these accounts out of the original hypothetical equation, you’ll more realistically come up with a 30% impact rate on current users than 10%; which is A LOT more people than projected. If you really want a lot more details on this issue, feel free to listen to the audio blog as I have a lot more to say on it. But at the end of the day, I never trust anyone who hides behind statistics for their chief reasoning for doing something.

Moving onto more pleasant topics, let’s discuss the wealth of games in this month’s update. Thanks to the contributions of my YouTube community members, a lot of great stuff was suggested for me to check out and for that I’m eternally grateful. There’s a mix of gacha (mobile) games as well as Steam games to look at, so I invite you to take a look at all of them if you have the time to do so. I won’t be making any serious commentary on any of them at the moment since by the time you read this, I will be more than likely trying them out or they aren’t fully released yet until the end of the month. Here are this month’s list of things to check out in no particular order. (I can’t directly link to some games due to Squarespace policy. Simply Google the game name or website associated with them to find out more information.)

I’m surprised it took this long for me both to discover MrBallen, but to also recommend him on my site. At first glance, it’s very easy to dismiss him as another tragedy click-bait tuber. But I can assure you that is far from the case, as he’s a fantastic story teller and a genuine nice guy. I do believe I have already suggested everyone check out his podcast in a previous update, but for some reason I never mentioned the (more famous) YouTube channel where you can find the vast majority of his content. Bonus points for MrBallen is that you can enjoy his content without even needing to watch his episodes (audio is good enough) but the visuals do add an extra layer of exposition. A fitting recommendation for October!

Artist for the month is 柾見ちえ (masamichie)! Probably one of the best interpretations of witch around, and I think you’ll agree! I hope you all enjoyed this month’s rather content rich update. It’s rare when things pick up like this, so enjoy the content while it lasts. Next month might be another slow one, or another jam packed one; only time will tell. Stay safe out there and I hope you all have a good (and safe) Halloween.

Strange Weather Stranger Month

Audio Blog

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Audio Blog 〰️

You ever have one of those months where every little thing seemed a bit off? That was pretty much the past month I experienced! The good news is that I’m alive and well and moving on. The bad news is because I was preoccupied with so much “odd” stuff, I didn’t have time to devote to finding anything new to talk about. In any case expect a lot of rehashed recommendations this month. I mean it’s not much different than my usual stuff admittingly, but it’s definitely more non-sequitur than I would like.

As someone who resides in California, I was a part of the great “hurriquake” that literally lasted one day. I’m not here to say that there wasn’t damage done and some folks seriously got impacted by the event… but I’m also saying this weather event was pretty overblown in the news the world over. Someone gave me a great metaphor for southern California in regard to rain, as it was kind of similar to a man who hadn’t taken a shower in a year and then did so. It’s certainly a notable event, but it’s also not really that groundbreaking in context to extreme weather in other parts of the world. Either way, I got quite a bit of rain in my area and some trees lost a third of their branches. But that’s it! Ironically enough, the week right after we got a heat wave that dried everything out. Such is life.

I’ve said this in the past, but WHANG is literally everything in a YouTube channel I always wanted to be if I had talent, success, drive and luck. I just wanted to re-recommend the content since it’s great to go down these strange internet rabbit holes that take life a little bit less serious. Given how strange things have been lately in my neck of the woods, it’s almost cathartic seeing my life largely still mundane and boring in comparison to the stories he talks about. If you’re expecting a lot of drama and memes from his videos; you’ll probably be disappointed. He actually approaches the strangeness in a levelheaded way. A good channel for “boomers” trying to keep their head above water culturally, I guess.

One of the biggest games to be released this year is Starfield and it really needs no introduction at all. I’m only bringing it up on my blog for metrics (every little bit helps) and also to remind common plebs out there (like myself) that the game will be available to play on September 6th 2023 globally. Every influencer under the sun and rich person will have access to the game starting September 1st; so be weary of spoilers and gameplay footage if you want the “naked” experience of going into the game blind. By the time you read this blog, official reviews should be plastered all over the internet.

I think I’m not alone to say that the recent inflated prices of absolutely everything as of late is quite concerning. My wife and I were going over our monthly expenses on what we were spending on, and we took a moment to humorously look back at what we used to spend on when we were younger. Of such things were anime figurines. That’s not to say that we don’t continue to spend on such things and hobbies, but we definitely don’t spend as much as we used to. What caught me off guard in doing some surface level research on recent figures is that their quality and price has gone up exponentially. I remember clearly buying figures “back in the day” for about $70 ~ $120 max. We’re talking shipped to my door prices too, not just sticker. So seeing inflation take its toll alongside the dramatic increase in workmanship in newer releases really makes me want to get back into the hobby one day… that is of course if I can get a winning lottery ticket. Just for those unaware, a regular “burger combo” here in California averages $10.

Artist is FiRez

This month’s artist of the month is FiRez. I made a blurb a few months ago about how AI art isn’t really “quite there” yet since it too heavily relies on human feedback rather than organic creativity. FiRez style is exactly what I enjoy in good o’l fashioned human talent. Please check out his Patreon and support him if you like his work; he also has a lot of public samples on his DeviantArt.