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09/12/24 - I've been reading a lot more recently. I've been trying to substitute my phone for my kindle, which I guess is replacing one screen for another, but at least I'm doing something worthwhile on my kindle. I've been reading Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel. There's also a film adaptation which is shit, and not even worth reviewing. The book is really good though, very interesting. It's about her life up to when she finished the book, and her experiences with depression throughout her life. It's in the same vein as Girl, Interrupted (Which I've also read), but much more personal and longer. You can finish Girl Interrupted in an afternoon, you need at least a couple days to get through Prozac Nation. If you ever want to know the details of someone's exact thoughts, emotions and life events, read this book! I see myself in it a bit, which probably indicates a few things about me. It's also interesting in showing how mental illness is looked at in the US. I don't know if it has changed much since the 90s, but to me it just seems like in America they just drug you up with everything. Doctors don't really do that here, they don't want to be too drug-happy. I've tried to get medications before, but they don't even like giving out sleeping pills for insomniacs. It's not like mental health care is amazing here, they just don't like to drug you as much as the Americans.

In other news, I'm going back home this week for Christmas break. Back to work as well. How can I be expected to like my job when I'm paid minimum wage to serve geriatrics linguine? I would say "At least it's money", but it's hardly that much. Also no-one ever tips! I saw something the other day where someone said that if a tip was added to their bill they would say "I'm sorry, but I oppose your introduction of American tipping culture, can you please remove this?". If someone said that to me I would think they were an absoloute prick. It's worse enough having people say no, I don't need your morals to come into whether you pay an extra fiver.

In other other news, I did the universal uni student experience of having to go to A&E, which was very boring. I spent four hours there then had a blood test taken and after another week of various appointments and blood tests, I got told I'm severely anaemic. Telling an English ginger he's anaemic is like telling the sky that it's blue, it wasn't much of a surprise. One of my housemates asked me "How are you still alive??" when I told her, which made me feel like I got diagnosed with a really cool and mysterious illness rather than plain old anaemia. Ah well, I guess that means by Nosferatu costume for next years Halloween is sadly not happening, what a shame.


20/11/24 - I'm not sure if I've mentioned this here before, but I hate AI with a burning passion. Earlier today I saw something from one of my lecturers that in my next lecture, we have to come up with three words for a game concept. We can either think of them ourselves, or use ChatGPT to come up with them. I try not to be mean, but how idiotic must someone be to not be able to come up with three words to describe something without having AI do it for them. That's beyond laziness to me. I saw someone in my coding module use AI for pretty much the whole thing. At that point what are you learning? Also with the amount of money we pay to be at uni, doing it all with ChatGPT is like burning a million quid. Using ChatGPT for coding works, but it's not good at it. I asked it to do something once, as a test, and it ignored sections of my prompt and did it in a working, but inefficient way. Because the code usually works, people think it's fine, but it's not!
Maybe I'm wrong and AI will eventually become standard use in all aspects of working life. It's definitely that way in universities. I've known someone who wrote an essay introduction using Snapchat AI....I'll just leave that one there. I don't have a superiority complex either; I'm not sure if this makes me a hypocrite but I have used AI before (just to make FIFA career mode storylines, nothing important) and it does make things easier to do. Just because I hate something doesn't mean that everyone else is stupid for using it. My only exception to that is using it to make AI art that you then sell, anyone who does that is a talentless, stupid, wanker.

On a less AI-y note, I've been doing quite well. I have a deadline coming up, but I've done all the work for that so I can just submit it when I need to. I've also joined the debating society. In school I knew one guy who was in the debate club and he had the biggest ego I have ever seen someone have. The worst thing was he was extremely smart and knew it, and also did all the stuff to get into Cambridge (he didn't get in, serves him right for his ego). He was also an extreme communist, not sure if he still is now. Anyway, one of my friends is in it, and I thought it would be fun enough to try it out. I'm also going to the pub twice this week, which I'm looking forward to. The most annoying thing in my life right now is probably having to wake up early to take some medication, which probably shows how good my life actually is if that's my only problem. It's nothing serious at all, so the three people who read this can rest easy knowing I'm not dying.


30/10/24 - It's almost Halloween. I've already done my Halloween things though, I went to a party with my housemates dressed as Ash from Evil Dead and that was my Halloween outing for the year. I cut out a little chainsaw out of a cardboard box though, which I was very proud of. Even did the spikes on it. Apart from that life has been pretty normal: I've been going to lectures, doing uni work, watching films. Nothing of too much note. I'm going home this week though which is pretty nice. I get to chill before coming back to my uni routine. My eyes are closing as I'm writing this, so I'll try and keep it brief.

I watched this film earlier called Last Days. It's by Gus Van Sant, and it's about Kurt Cobain. Well, he says it isn't but it pretty much is. Nirvana are my favourite band pretty much, I have a poster of them hanging above my bed, and I've been reading a lot more about them recently. Me and Kurt share a lot of similarities so it's also cool reading all the books about him, at least not the ones that are too conspiratorial about him and Courtney. I hate that stuff, all the conspiracies. Sure, Courtney Love isn't the best person in the world, but that doesn't mean she killed anyone! I also once did a presentation on him for school and the first thing I ever learnt on my electric guitar was the solo from "Smells like Teen Spirit", then the riff of "Come As You Are". I also saved a few of my dads old 'Q' magazines that had Nirvana interviews, which is also pretty cool. I'm definitely not the biggest Nirvana fan ever, but I'm a big enough one that they're my favourite band. Overall, reading about them has been very interesting, and has made my guitar playing way more fun as well. I learnt a Nick Drake song called "Parasite" last week which was a pain in the arse and gave my fingers blisters. What's that thing again about suffering for art? If I can play Nick Drake then I can play more Nirvana songs that I don't know yet. Anyway, I am absoloutely exhausted from my busy day of nothing, so I'm going to bed now, and will likely update whenever I feel like it.


13/10/24 - A month has passed...things have changed. I went on holiday in early September which was nice, got to chill a bit before going back to uni. Speaking of uni, I'm there at the moment. It has been going fine, I've got a group project which is a little annoying but not insufferable. I guess updates will become less frequent as I'm busier, but updates here are hardly that frequent anyway. Also I'm not even that busy! I've been playing my guitar more, been going back to the cinema. I saw The Outrun earlier this week at the cinema, that was good. The only thing at the cinema now is the shitty Joker film and Terrifier 3. I don't like the Terrifier series much, it's gore for the sake of gore. I saw someone saying that Art the Clown is the new Freddy Kreuger, really? I mean, I have only seen the first half hour of the first Terrifier film, but Art just seems a bit pathetic. Maybe I should give Terrifier 2 a shot, but if it's anything like the first one I'm out after 10 minutes. Thing is, I love the Saw films, but at least they tried to have a plot. Terrifer just seems like a shitty exploitation film brought to the masses. If I do end up watching Terrifier 2 I'll put a review up, but otherwise it'll be whatever I watch next.


03/09/24 - I got back from work a couple of hours ago. It wasn't bad, customers weren't bad, my manager wasn't bad and the usual dishwasher wasn't working which was nice. The guy is fine, he does his work, but the amount of alcohol he drinks per shift (I'd say maybe 4 pints on average?) makes him a bit difficult to deal with. Still, it's probably my last shift until Christmas, so I'll see how things have changed then.

I'm going back to uni in a couple of weeks. I'm excited about it, seeing all my friends, getting back into things. I'm looking forward to going out finally, I haven't been on a night out in forever. It's weird thinking back to this time last year and seeing how everything has changed. Looking back at old diary entries and how I was worrying about finding friends. Weirdly, I never worried about getting along with my flatmates, which was fine because we're all so close now. Anyway, I'm going to go to bed, I'll update properly when I'm less tired.


22/08/24 - I forgot about this site because I've been busy. I've had work and have been getting back into hobbies, like drumming, reading and drawing. I've also been playing a game called House Flipper 2. It reminds me of those home design apps I used to play with and also making houses in The Sims. I've been reading this book as well about internet/mobile phone addiction. It's really interesting, I'm not really that attached to my phone (I only use it for music and messaging) but it's interesting to see how technology and apps are designed to make people addicted to them. I also read a book by Lou Sullivan, who was a really cool guy if you have no idea who he is. I read these books on my Kindle by the way, I can't really read physical books because the words and lines move about and I lose my place and reread parts and it's just a bit of a mess. So I read on my kindle in a big specific font. Also you have to buy physical books, and I don't want to do that. I don't have much to talk about, not anything of much importance anyway, so I'm going to go back to House Flipper 2 now.


04/08/24 - I have nothing to write, but want to update this anyway. I went out with my friends today, I went out with them earlier this week as well. I'm turning into a true social butterfly, what can I say? I saw some family, saw some friends, all pretty normal. It feels good having a social life, way better than sitting at home all day. I also might be going to see Twisters which I'm very excited about. I watched two films tonight as well, but I'll save those for my reviews page, which I'll update tomorrow. I'm debating whether to put the Stacey Dooley documentary I watched last night on there, but I probably won't. It was a good documentary though. I also rewatched Clerks, but I don't need to talk about it in a review. Like my reviews are anything special, I'm a guy writing shitty film reviews, that's been done a thousand times over. Anyway, I'll put another review up tommorrow.


01/08/24 - I got back from a shift at work a couple of hours ago. I ended up working later because shit happens. We had a coach party come in, and that usually means you have to repeat "Anyone having the quiche?" about 5 times while 15 people blankly stare at you. I guess it's not so bad, I only had one person shout at me. Work just makes me tired really. I spend hours serving people, then clear up, then go home. It's kind of like Clerks, but in a restaurant and not a shop. There's a quote from Clerks that actually fits pretty well here - "This job would be great if it wasn't for the customers" - Except in this case, the customers pay my wages! Fucking love Clerks, man.

I will say that my job isn't the worst one I've had. It's pretty average honestly. I hate the customers, I hate my manager, I like the people I work with - it's pretty simple. The customers are the worst part though, some of them really piss me off. I had a woman today order a hot chocolate. Fine, I make it for her, put it on the counter and she's gone. I say to the bar "Anyone ordered a hot chocolate?" nothing. Ok, fine, I'll just leave it on the counter. 5 minutes later this woman, who was sitting on a table in front of the counter the whole time comes up and asks for it. Did she think I was going to bring it to her? No! I make the drinks, you take the drinks. How hard is that?

Another customer story - The vast majority of people that come in are older rich people. Not rich rich, but tory voter rich. The entitlement that these people have towards other people is mad. Especially people they think as "lower" e.g. wait staff! I'd say the worst people for this are old men with their long-suffering wives. These guys shout at you, complain and say mildly inappropriate jokes to the waitresses. I had this type of guy shout at me because I asked him if he was having two wine glasses and not "FOUR!" as he kindly shouted at me. I think it's just that these guys had everything handed to them and so they think that they can do whatever. They also all have that thing of "the youth are lazy" while sitting at a restaurant and screaming at the "youth" working there. I'm just glad I've got a day off tomorrow.


26/07/24 - I've been listening to so much music you wouldn't believe. I've also been reading, which I barely ever do (I can read, my eyes and brain are just supremely fucked). I bought this book Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad (Trying to spell this guys name reminded me of this pet peeve I have with video essays where they go "oh I probably butchered the pronounciation of that", just learn how to say the word/name!) and it's such a cool book. It's about all the pre-Nirvana alternative bands like Husker Du, The Minutemen, The Mats and my favourite, the Butthole Surfers. Reading their section made me laugh just about them deciding to stalk REM and "the shit lady". It's a really cool book especially as it's all about my favourite bands! I actually bought it, which means something. If I can put my hard-earned money towards this book, so can you!

I watched Mic The Snare's Deep Discog Dive on Green Day the other day, and it got me back listening to Dookie. I fell asleep to that album every night for a solid 6/7 months back when I was 12. It was that and American Idiot for maybe a year. I don't really like Basket Case though, but I think that's just because it's been overplayed to death. I really want to get back into Nirvana though. I'm a pretty big Nirvana fan, I have a couple of posters, two t-shirts, two cds and did a school project on Kurt Cobain one time. The first solo I ever learnt on an electric guitar was Smells Like Teen Spirit as well. Nirvana and Kate Bush, I want to start listening to them more. And The Jam. This performance of theirs is cool as shit. How come all the punk bands in the 70s/80s all had lead singers that looked like shit? And I'm not counting the Sex Pistols in that because I don't like them. If you get played on Radio 2 afternoons during the fucking jubilee, you're hardly that good. There are a lot of bands/artists I want to listen to. I'm not a weird music guy though, I hate all music reviewers other than Todd In The Shadows and Mic The Snare, mainly because they're funny and don't just rely on reviews to get by. I've done a decent amount of music production, but if the music sounds good to me, I don't really care!


18/07/24 - I saw two things today that interested me. One was this thing of someone saying they wanted to be a teenager in 2014-17, which made me feel absoloutely ancient. The worst bit was they put all the emo shit I was into back then, so it really felt directed to me. I was only 12 in 2017, but all of what they described was what I did during that time, so I still felt so old. I also saw this thing on this Pavement music video of someone saying that they were born in the right generation because they get to experience everything from previous generations anytime they want. I've always been confused by that thing of being "born in the wrong generation". I think it's stupid. I'll say it like this: I like a lot of media from the 90s. Music, films, tv shows, whatever. That doesn't mean I think I should have lived it. Things weren't even that good back then, people just say they were because they were young. Also, I swear it's only Americans that romanticise the 90s, I've never heard anyone here do it. That might just be because where I live is stuck in the 90s, as are most places in the UK not in the cities. Soon enough people will be romanticising 2024 and all the great cultural events, like....I don't know, Taylor Swift? The Euros? The election? Kids born in 2023 will be wanting to have lived at the time of COVID, and be really sad they were never put under lockdown. And I'll only be nostalgic because all I did then was play GTA all the time.


16/07/24 - I went out for a very nice walk today. There isn't much to do back home except go for walks, since I live in the middle of nowhere. The weather has been shit though, so I haven't really left the house that much. I should be meeting up with someone tomorrow, which is nice. I've also been continuing to watch Friends because it's fun. Some people think it's bland and unfunny, but it's easy watching, and I like it for that. I've also started reading more, which is actually really good. I'm dyslexic, so I can't read physical books and have a kindle instead. Even then, I get distracted and lose my place with the kindle, especially when I read fiction. I only read non-fiction and autobiographies, because they're pretty easy to follow. The only fiction I read are Stephen King books and books that got turned into films I've seen. I read Prozac Nation a while ago, which was good enough. The film was shit though, you can hardly make a good film out of an autobiography. The only problem with reading autobiographies is sometimes you feel you know too much about the person. I can't watch anything with Fern Brady in it now, because I know too much about her from reading her autobiography.

Also, separate thing, but I've been feeling really overwhelmed with just the amount of content online now. I go on youtube and see so much shit that it's so much less overwhelming to just flip between 4 shows on Netflix. And yeah, Netflix does have that problem, but if I get overwhelmed with that I can just go to my trusty box of DVD boxsets. Even having modern technology is a bit overwhelming, but since I use my phone maybe for an hour a day I don't really have that problem. I barely have social media, and the things I have I only use to message people. If I really wanted to, I could just go out with an iPod and be fine because all I use my phone for is music anyway. I think just the sheer amount of stuff that's available to us is too much. Humans weren't meant to be so connected with everything, at least I don't think so. I feel like that guy who decorated his house to live in the 1940s.


14/07/24 - I've been busy these last few days. Mainly with work. It hasn't been so bad, tips have been great! People are leaving £20 notes, so we all get about £2-3 a shift in cash, which is nice. It's not like in America where waitstaff are paid so shit that they have to live off tips, I do get paid a decent (but still shit) wage. I've started talking with the new dishwasher guy, we talk about football and he seems decent enough. Everyone else I work with is decent, apart from this one guy who's my friend's horrible ex. He's a piece of shit. None of the customers have been that arsy either, which is a feat. Usually I get a few complaints or general comments, but very few currently. I also got my hair cut a couple days ago. Imagine Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting and that's what my hair looks like. It doesn't get in my face anymore, which is cool. Before I had to slick it back whenever I worked because it was long and a pain.

Today I've spent most of my day switching between Friends and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. I haven't seen the latter before, but it's decent. Not as funny as Arrested Development though. I don't laugh out loud at things much on tv (The Aids musical in Team America and The Wurzels joke in Brian Pern are two examples that come to mind), but that show is funny as fuck. Friends is fine, it's easy. Maybe 8/9 years ago I watched it a lot but also don't have any memory of any episodes, so I'm just watching it again. I'm not mentioning the football. I got some ciders and drank them, then after the match got annoyed at the score and said I could beat up Lamine Yamal (Spain's 17-year-old wonderkid). I have since calmed down and sobered up, but stand by the fact he should be doing normal 17-year-old things, like going out drinking in a field. "Ooh I'm 17 playing in a Euros Final" wanker.

I had a really weird dream last night as well. It was about the zombie apocalypse, but there was a tornado before it. Basically, the zombie apocalypse part was me and a group of chefs/waitstaff in this open plan kitchen. I think there were customers there, but there were us, "normal" people, and the zombies. I had to get this revolver off this woman, but the revolver was tiny, like a little miniture model. It also took these circular pellets that looked like tiny magnets. I remember maybe fighting the zombies, but I think I woke up in the process of fighting them. That was only part 2 of the dream, but parts 1 and 3 are too weird.


10/07/24 - I'm writing another entry today because why not. My earphones got put through the washer but still work somehow. I've been on a real losing streak with earphones anyway, I might get myself a nice fancy pair just so I don't keep buying cheap ones. I'm not a big audio guy, I hate all that complicated shit, but having decent noise cancelling is nice, and the ones I have at the moment don't have that. Talking about music, I've been listening to some musical soundtracks. I like musicals, I've seen a few of them (on stage and screen) and was really into them around late 2018-mid 2019. I was friends with the annoying drama kids, so having to listen to Hamilton was part of the deal. Only some of those musicals are any good music-wise. I never fucked with Dear Evan Hansen though. The people that liked that were too fucking weird. The Heathers soundtrack though, I'll stand by that it's good. I haven't listened to it in at least 2 years but nostalgia is telling me it's good. I also saw The Book of Mormon earlier this year, which was very fun. I have also seen Hamilton, but couldn't be bothered to look further into it because I knew the type of insane those people were. By that I mean the fans, I already know the founding fathers were weird as fuck.

I'm stopping that tangent to go on another one. I keep getting music recommended to me that Spotify hasn't realised I don't like. Like Bo Burnham, I hate that guys music. "Ugh art is dead" fuck off. I remember when his film released in 2020, so boring and very "garsh, we really do be living in a society". They also keep recommending me Good Kid, even though they were my top listened artist for last year. I already like this band, go away! My Spotify Wrapped over the years is fucked though. I don't have my top artists from 2017/19, but 2020 was Eminem, 2021 was The Garden, 2022 was The Garden again, and 2023 was Good Kid. I'm pretty sure my 2018/19 ones were Waterparks though, I've been listening to them since 2017. Judge me all you want, they're good but their recent album was dogshit. Listen to Entertainment or Double Dare, those are good.


10/07/24 - I usually write these entries before I go to bed, but I'm writing this one at 2pm. I've managed to get my VCR properly working and connected to my screen, so I'm going to go out tomorrow and buy myself some more tapes. I've also redone the shelves in my room, so they actually look decent. I'm not going to put a photo of it here, but I will show an artists rendition, just because I really like how it looks.


I also have my monitor on top of the shelf and that's connected to the VCR and DVD player as well.
I'm probably going to make these chicken wraps I saw on youtube tonight, so I'm probably going shopping later. My life is very mundane at the moment. I've been watching the news though, since there's fuck all else to do. There's a guy on the loose near London with a crossbow. It's sad really, he killed three people with a crossbow and turns out that those three people were someones wife and two kids, very sad. They should get Gazza down there to try and find him. Is Gazza even still alive? I don't like him that much but I wouldn't be surprised if his drinking has caught up with him.
I'm seeing Maxxxine tomorrow though, which is nice. I've been looking forward to that film for a while. People are saying it isn't as good as X or Pearl but those people probably only watched Pearl and don't like that Maxxxine is more of a horror film rather than a character study.


08/07/24 - Today I bought a VCR. This might sound uninteresting, and it probably is, but I got it for £10, which is a pretty good deal. There's this shop near me that sells anything - fridges, pictures of dogs, piles of rocks, anything. They also sell various electronics like DVD players, karaoke machines, remotes, controllers and occassionally a PS2. I went in there today with a friend and saw that they had a VCR in very good condition there. I asked the price and was told £15 but because there was no remote it would be £10. VCRs sell for £30-£50 on Ebay so I got a great deal. I also got two tapes for free (Twister and Darkman) which was quite nice. I opened up the VCR to check if it needed any cleaning and there wasn't a speck of dust on it at all. All I had to do was fix a small issue with the video head and it's pretty much good to go! I've got a SCART to HDMI cable arriving tomorrow to connect it to my TV, then it's all good.

I haven't worked on my game much today, as I've been busy with things, but I plan to work on it a bit tomorrow. Hopefully get the player animations complete and plan out what textures I need to draw. My plan for the game is an isometric horror game. I always hate when a game based on, or inspired by, a horror film turns out to be some multiplayer crap, so I'm making a singleplayer one. The story is (this is a very rough idea subject to change) that a guy goes to a cabin in a forest (or summer camp) where a massacre happened several years ago, looking for answers as to why the massacre happened or who did it. I'm not going to set myself too big of a target for the game, perhaps a small open world (similar to the levels in Postal 1) with several buildings/locations the player can interact with. Although I haven't played this game, I really like how the cutscenes are made in Faith: The Unholy Trinity, and so if I can I would like to make one or two cutscenes in the style of that. This is only a rough idea and shouldn't be taken as how the game exactly will be, but it's an outline for what I want it to be.


07/07/24 - I've been working on my game pretty much all day. I've managed to make a rotoscoped sprite walk left and right - it took me about 1.5 hours to rotoscope one sprite so getting two done was pretty good. If I'm completely honest I don't have much to talk about here. I had work yesterday, I'm seeing a friend tomorrow, it's all pretty mundane. I bought a couple of games in the Steam Sale and started on my game. I should make progress in my game pretty regularly, I mean today I've made some graphics, some animations and I've got a good handle on the engine to work it out pretty easily. Also, I'm using Godot because Unity is shit and Unreal can't really run on my computer. I've also used Godot before in projects, and it's so easy. I should post updates but again, I don't really want to. Logging every single minor development change seems pointless, especially as I'm just starting my project.


05/07/24 - Today was alright. I had 5 hours of sleep, since I stayed up until 3 watching the election. Didn't even get to see anyone big lose, like Liz Truss. I kept on switching between the BBC and Channel 4 coverage because Channel 4 had Anne Widdicome (an evil old hag who I'm surprised hasn't died from looking so withered) and Nadine Dorries (someone who is definitely trying to fuck Boris Johnson) and they were both shit. I think I fell asleep as soon as Nigel Farage got elected, which is pretty funny.

Enough about politics, I'm sick of it. I had work, which was fine. We're now all wearing these stupid red/white stripe aprons that make us look like the American flag, since our shirts are blue. My manager was arsy, but less arsy than he has been. If I talk back to him jokingly then he shuts up, because he's a midget (as tall as me) with a Napoleon complex. I also think that doing that one shift where I had to serve 70+ people on my own gained me some respect from him. Technically I'm also one of the "senior" people working there, which is weird. I also actually made some conversation with the people I was serving. They were decent, no-one was that arsy which was good. I've had someone tell me before that they can't eat 70% of the menu, honestly if you can't eat that many foods just stay at home. I've also had someone stare at me taking orders then talk to me about how my brain has more testosterone or whatever because of how I write. Fucking weirdos man.

In other news, I watched the whole of the first season of Brian Pern earlier today again. It's a mockumentary type thing about a fake UK musician. It has loads of comedians and some actual musicians (the drummer from Queen). Brian Pern is a play on Peter Gabriel, who was this weird prog rock musician until he stopped doing that and went solo. My dad loves him, but I've only listened to his greatest hits. It's a very good show, but only available on Amazon Prime and doesn't have a good rip on Stremio. I'm planning on getting the blu ray.


02/07/24 - I've been watching a load of old comedy shows I used to watch as a kid. I managed to find Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV and a load of the old Young Ones episodes which is pretty cool. I also realised that, because I have ITVX, I also have Britbox which means I can watch basically every good comedy show known to man. Only Fools and Horses, The Good Life, Ab Fab, Alan Partridge, all of that. Also, most of those shows are from the 70s and 80s, which makes sense given that my childhood was basically watching all those shows. I've felt recently that my childhood wasn't that modern, in terms of pop culture. My parents raised me on 70s/80s TV shows and 70s/80s music so I really didn't care about watching/listening to anything different. That isn't to say I didn't, it wasn't like I only listened to Tangerine Dream or Bananarama or only watched The Good Life or Tales of the Unexpected. I wasn't completely cut off from any "recent" pop culture as a kid. I probably just know more cultural references from the 70s/80s than most people my age.

I also like watching those shows because I manage to find out the weirdest, obscure drama that happened 40/50 years ago between the people in those shows. My mum somehow knows everything about obscure 70s tv show drama, it's honestly a talent.

But back to those comedy shows, they're so good! As Seen on TV is honestly brilliant comedy. This is the sketch I really wanted to watch last night, and it's really good dark comedy. That whole show is brilliant. Also, if you haven't watched Brass Eye, do - It's a great parody of the news.


30/06/24 - One of my favourite things to do every month or so is stalk people I knows spotify accounts. This sounds like I'm a stalker, but looking at someone's spotify account really says a lot about them. For example, if someone looked at mine, they'd see that I have a slight obsession with the band XTC, like weird art rock (King Missile) and have a playlist that only has Hot Rats by Frank Zappa on it. At least my music taste is varied (at least that's what I tell myself). I bet someone I know has come across my spotify account. I've gone from emo to "indie" to industrial/whatever I want. Evolution, right?

Speaking of evolution, I really need to listen to more DEVO. So much of the music I already listen to was inspired by them, and I do listen to them a fair amount, but I haven't really got into them proper.

I also like watching those Amoeba "What's in My Bag" videos. I go through those regularly when I can't find any music to listen to, and I manage to find at least 5 albums to go through. I hate music reviewers though, I don't watch them. The only people I watch related to music are Todd in the Shadows and Mic The Snare. If anyone reading this knows who those guys are, well done! Any of those music reviewers I just think are tacky, and so many people have their music taste defined by them. "Oh he said an album was a 4? That album's shit then!" It's so stupid. Unless the album is unlistenable, it's probably not that bad. Then again, anything on the internet relating to music gets horrible and toxic after a while.


28/06/24 - I've had a pretty good few days. Went to a BBQ tomorrow with some friends, then went out today again. The only pain now is that I smell of a bonfire. I'm chilling over the weekend, been getting through Series 4 of The Boys and Series 2 of The Bear because I can't find a film I want to watch yet. I would review both shows, but I don't review TV shows because that's too much effort and that's what shitty youtube channels are for! Every time I watch an episode of something I get recommended an "Ending Explained + Breakdown" of whatever episode it was. Imagine being so braindead you need the ending of an episode you've just watched explained to you, or a breakdown of the episode you just watched! It's so dumb! I hate channels like that, just let people think about the episode for themselves! But look at me, getting pissy over shitty youtube channels.

That being said, both shows are really good. I watched Seasons 1-3 of The Boys just after Season 3 had come out in 2022. The Bear was the first thing I started watching when I got Stremio because fuck am I paying for another streaming service. It reminds me of Boiling Point but less bleak and relateable. If you've ever worked a service job, waiter, host, food runner, whatever, then Boiling Point does such a good job of showing that, especially the film, not the show. I don't really need to sing the praises of either show though, because most people have seen them or are watching them. They're good shows, what more can I say?


26/06/24 - Went out with a few friends today which was cool. I've had a bit of cabin fever these past few days, so actually getting out and seeing people was quite nice. I'm going out tomorrow for a barbecue because it is so hot here, got to about 30c at one point, at least felt like it. All those Americans saying "ooh why can't bridish people deal with the heat?" Because our houses are shit and our country is notorious for raining all the time!

I ended up watching the debate tonight between Starmer and Sunak. What spineless candidates we've got. Labour is practically the same as the tories at this point, with all their "protecting women's spaces" bullshit. Oh yeah, because that's what needs fixing in this country, not the NHS or housing prices or the economy, nope, women's fucking loos! I know they're just saying all that to get centre-right tories to vote for them, but still, aren't labour meant to be different than the tories? That's the whole point of a two-party system, for them to be different from one another! Also all that transgender shit just makes trans people less likely to vote for them, and vote for Count Binface or whoever. Also makes loads of people lose faith in them for not having a spine! Also I'm guessing I'll get a Reform UK pamphlet at some point in the next week although I'll rip it up same as I did with the tory one. Racist pricks, and that cunt Nigel Farage can fuck right off.

I've had enough with politics today, I'll talk about something lighter now. I'm going to see a couple films in the next couple weeks, Kinds of Kindness and Maxxxine. As much as I like horror films, I do also like weird films. I saw Poor Things at the cinema so I'm really excited for Kinds of Kindness, and it also has Hunter Schafer in it, which helps. Maxxxine I've been waiting for since before Pearl came out. I saw X and Pearl when they came out, and it'll be nice to finally see a film from that trilogy in the cinema!


22/06/24 - I found out today that a guy I went to school with has a letterboxd account. One of his favourite films is La Haine. Funny that my only memories of him back then are of him being a massive racist! Maybe La Haine radicalised him against that. I mean, if you're going to get radicalised by a film, it might as well be La Haine, at least that film is good. Watched it a couple years ago, I think that night I watched that and Billy Liar back-to-back. Two very different films.

There are so many films I watched 2/3 years ago I should probably rewatch. Dog Day Afternoon, Lost Highway, Suspiria, there are loads. I want to rewatch the Borat films, but I always watch them on one specific day. It's a weird tradition I have that on 29th September I watch a Borat film, since something horrible happened to me on that day a few years ago, and I watched Borat 2 to cheer myself up then. So, when I feel shit on that day, I watch Borat 1 or 2. I should really rewatch The Godfather as well, I didn't get it the first time I watched it and maybe I will a second time. Or it'll be like Casablanca where I don't get it and never will.


20/06/24 - So far summer is going pretty well. I'm sure I'll say that and then tomorrow something bad will happen which makes my life infinitely worse, the calm before the storm. Whenever I say "calm before the storm" I get reminded of that Fall Out Boy song. My 12-year-old emo phase really hits me sometimes huh. I'm pretty sure everyone had an emo phase, especially people who spend their time coding neocities websites (me!). I was never fully into it, as I was 12 and my only social media was pinterest. Not having a tumblr account did damage my chances of having a full blown emo phase, but it also helped my chances of becoming well-adjusted! (I do have a tumblr account now, so it didn't help much). I was into all the music though, as most 12-year-old emos are. My favourite band was My Chemical Romance, but I liked Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco as well. Sleeping With Sirens was pretty good too, and I remember liking a fair amount of All Time Low, but I mainly kept in line with the "main" bands. I still have an old My Chemical Romance tshirt that I bought off ebay, weirdly enough for a school event where I had to wear red, and that tshirt had a miniscule amount of red on it.

I was never one of those people who was arsy about the music I listened to, and thought I was better. I could hardly hate Taylor Swift when I'd been to one of her concerts two years before! I sometimes wish I went full blown and dyed my hair and all that, but I would have looked shit, and would have died looking back if I actually had done that. Also, I would have been bullied into oblivion because going to school in the UK is just like that.

Also, this is a complete tangent and I don't even know if anyone reads these, but I hope someone who follows this site knows what I'm on about when I talk about things from the UK. Although being from here isn't the thing I'm most proud of in life, it's weird being on an internet mostly populated by Americans/American culture. I really hate everything about American culture for one, everything about it seems plastic. There is that thing of "Oh well you watch American films/tv and listen to American music!". Yeah....but just America really isn't my thing. Basically, I hope there are some people from the UK that follow me, because well...


18/06/24 - My newest idea/grand plan is to start creating ambient music and putting it on bandcamp, just to see if someone would pay for it. I've done basic music production before, and know my way around instruments, so I doubt it would be too hard. I also made a track a month ago for a project for one of my modules, and putting a load of samples together isn't that hard either. This does seem like something Del Boy would come up with to get rich, but the difference is I could actually make music, and as far as I know Del Boy couldn't.

As far as the reasons for me possibly making music, it's 50/50 between money and actually making the music. And even then, for the money I'm more curious to see if anyone would buy it, rather than me actually needing the money.
Much like my ideas of writing a screenplay, making a game, and trying to learn the solo from Whiplash, this idea will likely get forgotten about and join the wasteland of my previous creative endeavours, but while I still remember it, I might as well give it a go.


15/06/24 - I need to get back into drumming. I look at how I played a year ago and hope to reach that level again. I was truly great at that point, doing my grade 8 drum exam. If I practice regularly for a couple of weeks I should. I remember when I was a kid just a couple years into playing Whiplash came out and I got compared to that, which is crazy considering how young I was. That was always the thing though, how young I was. I started playing drums when I was 7, and joined my first drum ensemble when I was 8 on the advice of my drum teacher. Most of the kids in it were 3/4+ years older than me, so I was always the one getting stuck playing the marimba or secondary percussion. After 2020 I quit doing concert bands and focused on my lessons. I also quit playing the guitar in 2021, which is probably something I'll regret in a few years, but I didn't practice much and wasn't really progressing.

Music has always just been a massive part of my life anyway, even without me playing instruments. I listen to music all the time, and listen to pretty much whatever music. Sure, I have my preferences (post punk, industrial, metal, punk), but I'll listen to anything. Except country or shitty folk, those are shit genres. Going to uni has introduced me to club music, which is alright. I'm not going to be a purist about music, because anyone who's pretentious about the music they listen to is fucking stupid, or in denial that they like shit like Espresso.


13/06/24 - I hate bad Doom maps. I might just be sick of playing a lot of the crap that gets on idgames, but people that make bad maps really annoy me. If you're making your first map, please just watch some Doomkid or look on the forums for tips on how to make a good map! Loads of people make maps where door textures are used as walls, that's stupid. Or people put too many secrets in, or make clear ripoffs of other maps. I played this awful map where the guy had put a demon in an area outside the main map, so I had to noclip to that area to get 100%. He also put a cyberdemon in a 512x512 box room, which was as bad as you'd expect. There is a part of me that thinks I'm being too harsh, that I should be supportive of people that are just starting out. But, if you make shit and post it to Doomworld, then you deserve to have it be called shit if it is.


09/06/24 - I watched Lord of Chaos last night. It was decent enough, though it made everyone too likeable. Neither Varg or Euronymous were particularly great people, and it makes you sympathetic to both of them! That film made me think of a few years ago when I knew all these stupid edgelord types, the ones that went around saying how much they loved Burzum and cried when bestgore got shut down (watching gore for one is fucking weird, just watch movies like the rest of us). They still exist, especially on neocities. They're like Beavis and Butthead but dressed in all black. I have to cut them some slack though, I was like them once when I was 15 and did also have a moderately successful neocities site as well at that time (It had over 50,000 views when I deleted it). You have to grow out of that at some point though, it's not like being an edgy teenager can last you into adulthood. I will say, the benefits of being an edgy teenager for a year or so at least mean you get introduced to some good music and movies. The foundation of my film taste is based on the stupid edgy shit I watched when I was 15/16, same with my music taste.


05/05/24 - I've been getting really good at guitar hero recently. I downloaded Clone Hero a few months ago, when I managed to find a guitar hero set for £15 and bring it back to my flat, but I've only really been getting good now. I can play pretty much all the songs I download on hard, with over 90% accuracy. I can play one or two songs on expert and a couple more on over 100% speed. It's really fun seeing my progress in real time, and I'm beginning to chart some of my favourite songs. My favourite song to play is probably Hey Man Nice Shot or Beautiful Disaster, because they have these tapping sections that are really good to play.


23/04/24 - For the first time in over a year I've started thinking about making another Doom map. I used to make loads 2-3 years ago, but stopped around last year just because I couldn't come up with any good ideas for maps. I guess now that I'm doing games development quite a lot, it's pretty easy to come up with new ideas for maps. That being said I don't really understand a lot of people in my course. It's not that I don't like them, I just don't get them. Before coming to uni I was told that I'd find my friends in my course, because we'd all have a shared interest in games. But now that I'm at uni, I'm closer friends with my flatmates than with most people from my course. I'm too nerdy for "normal" people, and too "normal" for the guys in my course.
Making a doom map now would be really fun. Making all the ones I did a couple years ago was really fun, but quite tiring. I don't know why though, I basically did most of them when I stopped going to school for 6 months, so it was hardly like I had a lack of free time.


22/04/24 - I've ended up doing a lot of work today, I've now 90% finished one of my module assessments, which is pretty good. It's not due until June either. For some reason I have a very strange work ethic, when I start working on something I can't stop until I've finished it, or got it to a point I can stop for the day. This once led me to writing 23 pages of history revision in two days. I made a start on an essay for another one of my modules last Friday which was good. I've done the two shortest sections of it now, and I have a meeting tomorrow to go through it.
Talking about the work I'm doing isn't that interesting really. Although, it's probably the only topic I can talk about without getting too personal. I do have things going on in my life, don't get me wrong, it's just I don't really want to talk about them on the internet.


18/04/24 - I had a oddly productive day today. Went to my lecture, made some soup, went into town then bought some food. I ended up walking pretty much everywhere except into town, which was quite nice. It was a nice day anyway, and nice weather is a 1 in a million here. I probably should do some work tomorrow because even though all of my work isn't due until June, I'd like to get a start on it now. Eh, I have the weekend to do work. Might just do fuck all tomorrow. I tidied my room as well and did my laundry. It actually looks semi-decent now, not that it was a shit-tip before, it just wasn't the tidiest.


13/04/24 - Today is the last real day of my holiday, so I didn't really do much. I went into town to sell a few of my games, and got £10 for FIFA 13 PS2, Street Fighter IV, and a few other games I've never played. I spent £2 on Killzone 2 and Homefront, so I have £8 left to spend on games when I'm back at Uni. There are a few games in stock there that I can't get back here, so I'll probably spend the £8 on those games and a DVD or too. I don't want to get too much stuff now though since I'm moving out in 2-ish months.
What's strange now though is thinking back how my life was a year ago. I'm not even sure what I was doing a year ago today, probably revising for exams. Looking back exams weren't that hard, but I guess everyone says that after you've done them. At least I never have to do them again!
I guess I don't have that much to talk about. My life isn't very interesting really, it'll probably get more eventful once I'm back at uni.