Remember back in April when I was all like “Holy crap people watched my YouTube garbage for eight whole hours last month!”? Yeah, Spooktober 2022 was good to me, and thanks mostly to that Pokémon video I posted last month, the momentum hasn’t dropped off quite yet.
My official stance is still that I don’t actually give a damn if anybody watched the videos that I post, but man… it feels kinda nice to see those numbers go up.
I went to the dentist yesterday, and for the first time in, I think, forever, the hygienist did not ask how often I floss. Instead, she just congratulated me on my greatly improved dental hygiene practices and thanked me for making her job easier. While I do brush my teeth every day, I have been terrible at flossing for my entire life. So it’s nice to know that I’m finally getting it right!
And this kind of comes as part of a huge flip of my lifestyle over the last few months. I’ve finally been making a consistent effort to take care of myself better lately. You know, like an adult should. I’ve been exercising just about every day, I’ve been eating better and less, I’ve gone back to completely cutting out sugary beverages (even diet soda), and I have a decent-looking beard now. I suppose that a renewed commitment to keeping my gums healthy goes hand-in-hand with all the other self-care practices I’ve been focused on lately.
Now I just need to start cleaning my home more than twice a year, and I might actually be able to pass as a respectable grown-up!
We’re only through four months at this point, but I’m ready to announce that 2022 has been pretty darn great to me so far. I could go on and list all the things that have put me into the happiest state of existence I’ve ever been in, but let’s just cut to what is currently The Big One:
A couple of weeks ago, I was asked by a team at work to provide an illustration of some description for our internal newsletter. This is… possibly the highest honour I’ve ever been granted. I’ve done commissions for people before, but this is… official. This is going to be published. And not self-published! Sure, there’s nothing in it for me but recognition and self-satisfaction, but those are two of my favourite things!
Of course, I proceeded to spend hours on a piece, only to decide that it sucks and throw it out two days before the submission was due. But hey! That’s the life of an artist!
I did turn out a pretty okay product in the end: a relatively lengthy (for me) comic strip about going back to work at the office. It’s not my best work, but I don’t think that I drew anything at all in 2021, so I’m shaking off the rust here. And also, like I said before, I only had two evenings to churn it out, so.
I’ll share it here eventually! But not today. Sorry!
Despite it not being my proudest work, being given this opportunity is definitely one of my proudest moments. I’m super happy right now! And it’s probably only like half because I’m up at 2:30 AM on a work night.
Last December, I ran a feature called the 24 Days of Desire. It was an Xmas countdown-style deal, each day highlighting a different thing that I wanted. In that feature, I noted that if I could have any one of those desires, it would be to go see BAND-MAID live.
GUESS WHAT!
I mean, yeah, now I have to plan a trip to New Jersey, but I’ve wanted to go there for a long time, anyway. And logistics be damned, I don’t care! I’M GOING TO SEE F’N BAND-MAID!
I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited before…
I entertain no delusions that people actually watch the content that I post to YouTube. It’s been entirely for my own amusement from the start, and I maintain that mentality to this very day. However!
Apparently, over the last month(ish), people have watched more than an entire work day of my “content”. That’s… something!
And, yeah, the views are “high”, but most of them are just robots who watch for three seconds or less. Or so I assume. They could very well be real people who watch for three seconds or less!
Anyway, I guess my point is: thank you, whoever is actually watching my videos. Seeing that watch time number go up makes me feel all the warm fuzzies. I can only hope that you don’t feel as if your time was wasted.
I also hope that for some reason you read my blog, so that you can appreciate my appreciation of you.
Last week, I wrote a couple of blog posts that were spurred on by the news that Nintendo will be closing up the 3DS eShop. What I hadn’t mentioned was that the Wii U’s eShop is closing as well. It’s… less of a big deal. I think that I bought every game I wanted on Wii U while it was still Nintendo’s active platform. It’s not like there were a whole lot of them.
What I’m getting to here, is that there was also a statistics thingy for Wii U games on Nintendo’s website. Look at mine!
Following yesterday’s remembrances of the Nintendo 3DS, I decided to open up the records app and take a good, long look at all of the games I played on the system throughout its lifetime. I definitely could transcribe the entire list of 254 games, but I settled on just listing any game or app that I used for over ten hours. That’s still 74 different pieces of software!
Continue reading Nintendo 3DS by the HoursFor each year that passes, I become more and baffled that this website still exists. Like, I have immense difficulty focusing on anything for more than about 10 minutes at a time, and a list of unfinished projects that could wrap around the Earth. How am I still doing this???
I don’t have an answer to that question. But Nintendo recently asked themselves a similar question, in relation to keeping the ol’ 3DS family of systems relevant. Their response was “We’re not.” and earlier this week, it was announced that the 3DS eShop will be shutting down in March of next year. To be more specific, you’ll no longer be able to make purchases at that point. Presumably, the shop will still exist so that people can still download all the games they’ve paid for. Presumably.
Continue reading Sunset of the Dual ScreenYou know what’s something that I would really like? The ability to sleep consistently.
My sleep is way all over the place. Sometimes it’s my fault for ignoring my phone when it tells me it’s bedtime. But most of the time it’s not my fault! Not in any obvious way, anyhow…
Continue reading 24 Days of Desire (20): SleepThis one’s quick and easy: I want an arcade.
Well, that is to say, a very specific arcade. An arcade that has the “holy trinity” of 90’s brawlers: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Captain America and the Avengers, and The Simpsons. Though honestly, I’d gladly accept even one of the three.
Growing up, our Chuck E Cheese restaurant had those three cabinets, all nicely aligned back-to-back-to-back, and they were where I spent the vast majority of my tokens. Those and Cruis’n USA, but I’m less nostalgic about that one. While we do have a few modern establishments that include arcade games as part of their schtick, none of them have any of the three I listed. It’s all skee-balls and coin pushers ’round these parts.
So that’s really it. My list of demands is short. Not cheap, mind you, but short. I feel like I’m putting out a reasonable ask, but I think the fact is that those arcade cabinets have left the city and are never coming back. I did see (and play!) TMNT once, but it was at a bar that has long since been replaced by a spa or something that I care equally little about.
