𝖆𝖇𝖔𝖚𝖙
2024.11.27 ⛅
This is likely my last blog of the month, so enjoy your turkey, pigs! 🐷
I've been in a better mood lately. Might have something to do with going to the gym for five days straight. I switched to bodyweight and dumbbell exercises yesterday, and I'm shockingly not severely injured from it. I even convinced my wife to join me. If we're living in darkness for the next three months, might as well make some gains.
I took a last-minute appointment for the doctor to evaluate my back. Their consensus is that my issues are muscular; way too tight in the back and hamstrings. She showed me some stretches, and I'm optimistic for recovery.
Work threw their yearly Thanksgiving lunch for the staff. Everyone got their own box of BBQ ribs, shredded pork, cornbread and coleslaw. Plus two trays of bread pudding and brownies. I already ate lunch, so I took my box home to split with the wife.
After dinner, I made an ill-timed supply run to the liquor and grocery stores. It got hairy towards the end, but I luckily avoided beefing with high-strung Thanksgiving shoppers. There was a sketchy dude asking people for money in the parking lot, so I gave him the firm "I ain't got time to bleed" headnod when it was my turn to be accosted. Sorry, bro.
Supply run success! I took a shot of Bird Dog, scarfed down bread pudding with vanilla bean ice cream, and squeezed in some Far Cry 5 before bed.
Shows are looking grim tonight, moreso since we were supposed to see 44.caliberloveletter but they had to cancel after being denied entry into the country by customs ;_;
Anyways, looking forward to sleeping ninety hours this weekend. And if you're spending time with family, be grateful. Have fun finding out who your racist grandpa voted for. Take a smelly "walk" with your cousin. Find out your sister is gay. Hear your dad scream at the TV when his football team loses, and then your mom screams at him for screaming. See your uncle blackout from drinking Bird Dog (I'm your uncle).
But most importantly, stick your finger in the roast turkey's butthole and announce it to everyone halfway through dinner.
2024.11.25 ☁
I just found out Chris-chan was released from jail for noping his mom, and now lives in Finland with their pregnant girlfriend.
Happy holidays, everyone!
Shows were a bust this weekend, so we went out for Mexican food. I ate chicken taquitos, and my wife drank a margarita bigger than her head.
Then we watched Observe And Report, a lesser known mall comedy from the director of Superbad.
This is one of my comfort films, although the slut-shaming and questionable consent jokes did not age well since 2009. One thing is for sure: Ana Faris is the queen of going full retard.
Saturday we got massaged by Koreans who folded our bodies like pretzels. 🥨
We ate bundt cakes and tried watching Mysterious Skin, but quickly pivoted to the less creepy yet equally gay Drive-Away Dolls, a somewhat humorous lesbian road trip crime comedy by Ethan Coen.
It's worth some chuckles, but the film is mostly flat. Probably because I was still traumatized from the first act of Mysterious Skin.
I exercised twice this weekend, which is better than last. Then I downed an entire bottle of yogurt-flavored soju. Two steps forward, one step back. And my spine is still clicking after I cancelled the doctor's appointment. (Whoops)
Funny I mention Mysterious Skin and Ana Faris, as she has a connection to director Gregg Araki for his movie Smiley Face, which happens to be my favorite stoner comedy of the year.
2024.11.22 ⛅
Slamming Bavarian death metal band Defeated Sanity just dropped their latest album, Chronicles of Lunacy. I'm gonna stop linking band IGs since the sentiment around here is to reject big social. Even Spotify is villified for having a monopoly on bands, but as a failed musician who regularly got paid in beer tickets, my empathy for the "struggling artist" is virtually zero. Get a job, stupid.
I botched my DOA.TV launch yesterday, only realizing after my friend pointed out that the video player had shrunken to the size of his foreskin. I panic-coded trying to fix it, only to break the mobile player in the process. So if you're trying to view it on your phone, get fucked I guess?
I don't want my blog to devolve into a curmudgeony vent-fest, but this is the only place where I can unload and therapy sucks ass. I could get on pills, but knowing me, I would just eat them all. I prefer to take mushrooms and talk to aliens. 🍄
My folks sent me an obscene amount of breadfruit chips. ❤️ I'm super grateful of their generosity, a quality I try to pass forward to people near me. That gets tricky, however, when people fail to reciprocate. Emotional overinvestment can lead to resentment, burnout, and loss of faith.
This isn't entirely related, but a once-close friend of 20 years and I don't speak no more. This is more an issue of his degraded outlook on life becoming so unbearably bitter that it took a legitimate toll on my mental health. "Cut toxic people out of your life", is much harder when you have a long shared history with someone. Once I realized how bad things were getting, I set boundaries, took more time for myself, and our conversations fizzled out. Despite all the anger and resentment I accumulated during that time, I still wish him the best.
2024.11.19 🧊
First hail of the season hit while driving yesterday. The leaves are rapidly falling. The sun sets at 4:30. Winter is coming.
Not much going on. I finally exercised, which helped me sleep. Took the last shot of Bird Dog and cooked chicken adobo. Keeping whiskey in the freezer is dangerous. Holidays are a heavy drinking season for Americans. The effects of alcohol are having noticible effects on my body, particularly my face.
Couldn't get Cold War to work with my buddy. I suspect Activision is using their servers to optimize Black Ops 6. We might pivot to World War Z since I've got a hankering for horde shooters, plus it's crossplay. The devs are still pushing updates too, which is nice. ✨
Got more photos from the Mormon Mincers show. None of the bands replied to my DMs. They must think I'm a creep, bot, or both.
Today's song is by Zulu, an all black hardcore powerviolence band from LA.
Here's the music video:
I've been feeling alienated from the scene lately.
Been to dozens of shows, but haven't bonded with nobody.
Perhaps it's my age, or general distrust in people.
I sure hope skeletons don't start blowing each other.
2024.11.18 ☁️
Chucked my JUUL into the trash. Goodbye poison lungs. ☠️
Went to the Dungeon on Friday. The bathrooms were prohibited to non-bands, which created a 360-degree sea of emo penises in the backyard all urinating violently amongst the shadowy weeds. And when we detoured to the Holy Ghost to use a real restroom (and drink a red Irish beer), we came back to the house disappointed that we had missed the one band we actually came to see.
It wasn't all for naught. The opener played depressive ambient synth wave in between sassy (bitchy) banter with the audience. Combined with the Christmas-lit basement and a TV/VCR that played The Spy Who Shagged Me, it felt like I was watching the Pink Opaque. I think it was Land Park.
We ended the night by eating spicy chicken bulgogi with nori rice balls. We reminisced about all the late night asian food & drink joints that are sprinkled around Honolulu.
Spent Saturday getting my back snapped in half by the chiropractor and throwing sound files into the blog. Ate Vietnamese chicken summer rolls and re-re-watched Fire Walk With Me. I got fried and passed out early.
Sunday, I managed scripts for my test site, followed by a daylong search for fireplace supplies (the wood store was closed). We scarfed down a tray of falafel salad and bought a stick from Home Depot. After some trial-and-error, I built a fire big enough to roast s'mores and drink gingerbread Bird Dog-spiked eggnog while listening to Nintendo holiday music. ❄️
2024.11.15 ⛅
A friend pissed me off. I called him out, but it still hurt. I've been angry all week, so it's partially bad timing, but man choose your words better. Social implications can be damaging and people are intuitive to notice them. Can't tell you how many times someone has bailed on me for someone "better". That shit makes people withdraw from society. It's the hedgehog's dilemma.
It felt good to show my teeth. I channeled my rage in a way that feels validating. I'm regaining my confidence and I've been firing on all cylinders. More focused, more disciplined, more locked in. Good timing too because work is a shitshow today. 🦷
My wife's tattoo appointment got postponed, so we ended up at a nice Italian restaurant. She got the clam pasta and I ate the pork ravioli special. The sauce was so good we ordered bread to soak it up (the bread was also great). It came with olive oil so flavorful we could taste the olives, unlike the cheap crap we get from the stores. Quadruple virgin olive oil. 🍝
I've been tweaking the living shit out of my CSS all week. Now, my site is in a state that I'm satisfied with. Might throw in a few sound files this weekend. Personal accomplishments feel good. I was losing sleep from coding, but I can finally focus on blogging and loading digital goodies into my vault.
It's been a long week. I fought hard for my sanity. Looking forward to tonight's show, chiropractor tomorrow, working out, sleeping, lamping hard and playing games. Happy Friday! 💖
The roads were thick with fog this morning.
~
I love when Oregon becomes Silent Hill.
2024.11.12 ☁️
My boss who is Chinese Michael Scott left this signed truck model poster out on the breakroom table for everyone to see, might be the most boomer thing he's done all year:
He also handed out these nice cutting kits to everyone in the office, for seemingly no reason:
The Michael Scott analogy is no joke. Their charisma and political offhandedness are comparable. I respect his business savvy and tenacity, and he seems to care about his employees. I just wish he'd stop bringing donuts to work.
Speaking of Akira, I learned the significance of the red pill on Kaneda's jacket during my conversations with ChatGPT (click image to expand):
How relevant for a nearly 35-year-old anime, as such the case for many 80s dystopian scifi work. I'm already reliant on AI for a number of reasons, making it as significant a tool as the smartphone. But remember, it's a tool, not a solution. I catch ChatGPT making mistakes, usually due to false interpretations of my requests or lack of data.
Failed to workout yesterday. Got distracted by coding. Even started a second site for script testing purposes. Annoyed that Earth's day cycles are only 24 hours. I'm setting a new goal for 100 minutes of meditation and 100 minutes of exercise per week.
The meditation part is easy. Following the concept of monkey mind, I've been driving to work without music, forcing me to focus purely on the commute. The idea being that fixating on a single thing (e.g. breathing) is meditative, contradictory to the misconception that meditation = thinking of nothing, which is impossible.
The exercise part is trickier due to physical limitations and time constraints. There's also no sun and it rains every day. If I can hit the treadmill or play basketball four times a week, I should meet my goals. Please don't seize up on me, muscles.
Played guitar yesterday, which made my wife happy. I played her favorite song from an old band. Spent the morning nostalgia tripping to one of our live sets. Such a strange feeling.
Been meaning to post more video game content. I want to convert DOA6 clips into gifs. Got back into Black Ops Cold War with my friend. I'm running the PS4 off wi-fi so the connection is a nightmare. We spent the other night blasting bots in domination. I'd like to convert some of those killcams to gifs as well.
2024.11.11 🌧️
I have a substance abuse problem in the form of s'mores flavored Bird Dog and putting way too much fuckin' onions on last night's beef pasta. Made it out of the woods alive last week. It was spooky.
Still listening to Senza (because they rip). Accomplished very little this weekend. Worked on a medicaid application and slipped hard into bad habits. Ate vacuum sealed adobo chicken and a very spicy ramen.
Trying to stay positive, maybe detox this week. Gonna hit the treadmill tonight and hope for the best. Doctor's on Wednesday. Should get my phone data back that day too. Watched two movies: The Vourdalak (2024) and Lisa Frankenstein (2024).
The Vourdalak (2024) is a weirdo French period piece vampire folk horror. The protagonist is a true dandy boy, and he's getting lit up in the Letterboxd reviews. It's got bizarre puppetry, creepy imagery, and French dancing.
Lisa Frankenstein (2024) is an 80s throwback romantic comedy horror, with some musical scenes, but not overbearing like Joker 2 (from what I've heard). This was much funnier than I expected, only now realizing it was directed by Zelda Williams and written by Diablo Cody (Jennifer's Body, Juno). This movie already has a cult following, despite mixed reviews. The pushback is mostly from dorks and knobs. Everyone knows that (spoiler) chopping off a guy's dick and balls to replace your own is hilarious.
I also watched Trap (2024) last week. I didn't talk about it because it sucked.
2024.11.8 ⛅
It's Friday and I still have my teeth. The sun keeps bouncing in and out of existence, giving barely enough daylight to sink threes with a deflated basketball. I'll continue to make site edits blindly, and speedrun debugs after-the-fact.
I sparked a new group chat with da boiz last night. They seem stoked. We watched B fill drug prescriptions, I kept gassing J to get a ps4 to play COD, and E spent the last 20 minutes of the call looking for parking in Waikiki (he could not). Made me appreciate how tight my bonds are with the guys after all these years, even though we've gone separate ways.
My back keeps clicking like a motherfucker. I can feel my spine grinding against itself. No bueno. Going doctor's next week, gonna ask if they can shoot steroids into my back. Sometimes it cracks and the endorphins give me a mild high. Kind of feels like this:
While I listen to Bobby Lee spill lube and jizz all over his pants, my content addiction accelerates into a fever pitch. I'm struggling to compile a list of gifts for my homie's birthday, and I need to lookup shows for tonight.
Edit: There's no shows ;_;
Double edit: Just got the estimate for epidural spinal injection. A whopping $1,274, proving once again that I have the worst health insurance in this scam-friendly medical industry.
Triple edit: Decided to hike in the forest while the sun sets. Hope I don't die!
2024.11.7 ⛅
I swear to god I thought today was Tuesday, which means I totally browned out on election night, or what I like to call, "America's stupid people olympics".
My partially unintentional abstaining from mainstream social media due to anything Meta-related being blocked on the Wi-Fi, while also draining my phone's precious Boost Mobile databytes as a result of feverishly refreshing the index page every time I save an edit (it's called OCD), has thankfully spared me the parade of apocalyptic doomsdayer posts from my liberal friends, and the equally irritating MAGA-gooning stories from my conservative friends.
Meanwhile, I'm preoccupied with more important things, like creaming bots in Dead Or Alive 6, or ranking the Harry Potter movies from most Fall to least Fall ( Prisoner of Azkaban is most Fall 🍁).
I've got photos for ya'll. Mormon Mincers from the SF Bay Area. I shot them in the Snake Farm basement weeks ago. Two-piece mincecore no nonsense grind that tore me to shreds. The vocalist uses a distorted TED Talk mic that makes him sound like a demon, the drummer is ripping so hard his eyes roll back like a shark, and they're both wearing missionary fits with shiestys.
Been playing Brutal Doom on god mode with IDCLIP, a guilty pleasure on mine. I find flying through walls and gibbing demons oddly calming. Makes me wonder why cheat codes in games went away. If you know what R2 R2 L2 R2 ← ↓ → ↑ ← ↓ → ↑ does in Vice City, we can be friends.
Additional thoughts: I came across this Shintaro Kago piece and thought I'd share it, just cause. I initially intended my site to be music-focused, but I enjoy the scatter-brained nature of my content, and my total interests are much broader.
What I find most fun about site creation is its chaotic limitlessness. The perfect medium for thought puke and media vomit. The artistry on some of these sites are incredible.
Anyways, look at this gross drawing:
2024.11.6 ☁
So Trump won, which is either hilarious or horrifying, depending on your outlook. I spent election night crushing Lucky Buddhas and peeling rubber with my boy in Need For Speed Heat. Drifting for democracy, as they say.
I'm indifferent to the results- I can't say the same for the woman who got out of her car in front of me at the drive-thru ballot box who was having a panic attack because she couldn't find a pen to sign her voting envelope (I gave her a pen, don't worry). Whether this was before or after I drank five Chinese beers is none of your business.
End It is a hardcore punk band from Baltimore, Maryland. Another band shown to me during my last trip to Hawaii. If you know more music like this, please email me. Here's their music video for "New Wage Slavery":
2024.11.5 ☁️
Forgive me while I migrate my October page; many links will be broken. It's been a tough week and network restrictions plus a depleted data plan are making this site near impossible to test in real time.
Halloween was uneventful. Not a single treat-o'-treater in sight. Our apartment complex is not conducive for that sort of thing. There's actual houses nearby, so the kids probably went there.
We watched Bones And All (2022), a romance horror starring everyone's favorite twink:
Directed by Luca Guadagnino of Italy, who made my favorite horror remake of all time, Suspiria (2018). I've only seen these two films, but he has a distinct emotional and visual style that I'm fond of.
Bones And All is a string of hits with some bad misses. Guadagnino nails it when it comes to horror scenes. His depiction of (spoiler) cannibalism feels grounded and brutal. There's some excellent character casting, notably Mark Rylance as "Sully", a seemingly kind and lonely stranger with a terrifying dark side.
Where the movie loses me is in its romance scenes. The uniquely eerie and unnerving ambient soundtrack is undercut by the corniest Love Is Blind generic acoustic jerkoff tunes during moments of intimacy between Chalamet and Russell. These scenes scream YA novel and are a jarring contrast to the intial tone of the film.
Frustrating music and dialogue aside, Bones And All is a decent cannibal love story (find me one better). I haven't seen Guadagnino's weird tennis orgy movie (I prefer ping pong), but his films certainly have my attention.
Senza released their new EP, Celestial Body. I ran into their guitarist/vocalist on Friday, who played a post-Halloween cover show as Orchid. I loved it.
My photos from Mt. Hood came in, which I'm very pleased with, plus more show photos from Snake Farm (I'll save those for another post). We got a close look at Timberline Lodge, which served as the exterior for the Overlook Hotel in The Shining (1980).
My weekend mania (which included buying pillows and screaming at the floor) culminated in an impulsive attempt to build a riser for my tv stand, frenetically bombarding ChatGPT with questions about drill clutch settings and screw sizes. I became the lunatic upstairs neighbor building wood projects on the balcony while wearing a COVID mask.
I shifted the living room couches around in an attempt to "lamp out" with my newly elevated tv, only the move everything back the following day. Now this splintery plywood hastily screwed to four 4x4s serves as a makeshift stand/bench for my MG15, and I own a brand new Ryobi drill for seemingly no reason.
Despite my sunk costs, I at least feel a sense of accomplishment for building something with my hands. I forget who said it, but I heard working hard on things strengthens neural pathways, even if the process doesn't yield favorable results. I'm afraid it was Joe Rogan.
If you've been following me on neocities, you might have seen my manic.html page go up and down several times. I made it during a nervous meltdown that spiked at the tail-end of last week. I've had some time to calm down and reflect on this. I'm keeping the page down, as it's tough for me to look at what I wrote in the midst of a literal panic attack (the intention was to document what I was feeling while my brain chemicals were misfiring).
I've shown signs of emotional dysregulation since I were a kid. I was a military brat, and we moved around. I was also homeschooled for a long time, and was sometimes left alone while my parents worked. At one point, we lived on a horse ranch. There were no neighbor kids to play with, so the experience was isolating, in retrospect.
Eventually we moved into the suburbs, where I did make friends. While that was great, I started to lash out in my early teens, and I became too harsh for my mother, who convinced me to attend public school. Suffice to say, I had difficulities adjusting socially.
I'm getting into strange territory, so I'll stop here. Talking about this has been therapeutic, but I want to take things slow. Unpacking too much at one time will burn me out. Until next time.
NOVEMBER