Welcome The Ides Of March

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What better way to celebrate my birthday month by brining you topics ranging from ocean + aviation disasters, miniature art projects and even more Japanese urbex? Sit down and grab a slice of cake, we have much to discuss.

Every year I get older, I try my best to remind everyone around me the great fortune we all have of being alive. These are not empty words since I’ve lost friends and family over the years due to natural and unnatural causes. I’m more contemplative now since my youth because I’ve been humbled by death around me and being near death myself a few times. These experiences you only get from father time adding another notch to your belt, as I remember being a young man in college feeling invincible with (almost) nothing being able to stand in my way. And as I’ve developed over time a fascination with accidents and tragedies related to aviation and maritime archaeology; I hope I can invite some of you to be interested in the topics as well.

It’s astounds me to this day the level of detail people put into dioramas. For those who are interested in classic movies up until the 90’s, you’ll know well for a fact that Hollywood put a lot of money into professional miniature model makers for shots. Outside of big budget box office films however, hobby people from around the globe honed their skills in the comfort of their own homes for entertainment. As time and technology progressed, the advent of laser etching printers (and now 3D printing) caused a resurgence of interest in this highly specialized hobby. If I ever find the time in the later years of my life to pursue a new hobby outside of video games, this is definitely on the top 3 list for sure.

This is a really rare (and beautifully done) video depicting the changes of time to a cityscape over 50 years. I 95% of the time feature urbex videos that depict ruin and decay, but this is one of the rare instances that it is not the case. There’s not really much to say about it since the content is purely visual in its story telling, so all I will add is that if any of you know of similar content for any other cities in the world; please let me know right away.

My recent adventures playing mobile games made me stop and pause for a moment in reflection on how much people spend in-game. I understand the nature of “fomo” and how it aggressively affects people glued to their phones in the modern era, but us old time nerds have a different version of it back in the day I was growing up. You see we had hobbies that involved model kits and action figures. Along the way, someone thought up the bright idea of modeling extremely awesome (and lewd) looking figures and sold them at quite the premium. Thankfully this hobby hasn’t changed, even if the prices have quadrupled when I was serious in it. Extremely limited space in my house ended my “career” in collecting them, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like window shopping from time to time. There’s a very useful site that details the entire process of starting this ambitious hobby. Feel free to give it a detailed read should you wish to part with your hard earned cash. Beats gambling on gacha any day in my opinion.

Artist is TailzKim

This month’s featured artist is TailzKim - a lover of all things plump and cute. As always feel free to click the image that leads to the artist’s portfolio or funding page to access their library of work. That wraps up March of this year! I’m off to take a jog to burn off that birthday cake.

New Year New Things

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Time to bring in the new year with a new post for 2023. I’m mixing things up again by changing the format of my audio and written blogs to be more concise; and throwing away the “introduction” I did back in 2022. I figure if you’re on my site you know why you’re here, so I’m going to acknowledge that and proceed likewise. Final reminder for my returning visitors that everything and anything I post on the blogs might have NSFW stuff in it mixed in.

Over the years I’ve poked fun at the generic and pedantic advice most motivational books can give you. But one person who has never given a shred of useless insight is David Goggins, a man I hold in high regard ever since I learned of him and his journey through life. Old timers may remember that a while back I suggested everyone check out his earlier book “Can’t Hurt Me”. Now that he has a new one out, it’s only natural I advise you all check it out as well. Please believe me when I say David’s stories and knowledge is a good blueprint into looking at the way you see your own way of doing things and making adjustments as needed. Perspective is something I have preached over the years constantly when folks tend to start feeling sorry for themselves, when in reality the ability to change their circumstances is quite within reach than they think it is.

One of my vows for this year was to go back to my roots a bit and start talking about various topics without a theme between them. I was gun shy last year suggesting content that didn’t have a YouTube video associated with it; but I realized that hamstringed me a bit in terms of stuff I could talk about. So we’re treating things like it’s 2018 again and I’m giving you a website suggestion. Abandoned Kansai is a urbex blog focused on the uglier (yet still beautiful in ways) ruins of Japan. Florian (the host) travels to a lot of abandoned and destitute places; taking pictures and creating a story about the process along the way. What I like about his journeys is that he doesn’t filter out his words for a generic public, and says things how they are as how he feels them. This creates a genuine feeling of reading someone’s travel notes versus someone creating something for an audience. We’re along for the ride, not being given a ride if that makes sense. In any case there’s a lot to read and take in if you head on over there. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll love every moment of Japanese dystopia!

Just because I’m getting older doesn’t mean I don’t try and keep up with all the kids these days. Still living on the internet can have its perks and draw backs. And over the years I actually have the strange insight of living through the start of and conclusion of internet memes. Often times nowadays, we generally click on something funny or interesting and then think nothing of it once the punchline goes away (or its intended purpose is served). This “single use” joke mechanism is convenient for all of us to inject humor in our daily lives, but it actually comes at the expense of something or someone. To be clear I’m not going on some moral high ground tangent here, I’m simply just saying that everything has a start and finish to it. And instead of another boring documentary on World War II, how about we watch a documentary on old memes instead? I hope you enjoy.

Some gaming news to start off the year. By the time you read this blog, it will be (at least) the start of February. So coming out this month, Like a Dragon Ishin should be released and you can enjoy the goodness that is a total remake of an older spin off game in the (now popular) Yakuza series. I’m a total fanboy when it comes to anything Yakuza, and since there hasn’t been a new game released for quite a while (outside of Judgement which is really its own thing frankly), I’m pretty excited about the game. There’s not much to say other than I hope you have as much fun with it as I’m going to have, and if you become a fan of the series; there’s a lot waiting for you in the backlog.

Artist is Secretly Saucy

One of my ambitions if the KickStarter was successful last year was to create an entire featured artist category on my site. The section would have contained artists that I heave featured over the years and then I would continue to add more as time went on. My rules were that I would not have anymore than 1 featured image (out of respect to the artist) and I would always link to their funding pages (Like a Patreon, etc) if at all possible so that folks could support them for their work. Since this isn’t a possibility anymore (at least for now), I’m just going to add an artist I really like at the end of every blog post for the year moving forward. So this kicking off the inaugural post is Secretly Saucy - a furry artist who specializes in extra thicc but cuddly waifus.

2022 Retrospective

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It’s that time of the year again for some retrospective goodness. Unlike previous retrospectives where I blindfolded myself and threw darts at a board for ideas to talk about, 2022 is going to be more organized and the blueprint for all future ones. I’m going to divide the year into 4 quadrants, each one consisting of 3 months. I’m going to chronologically talk about the year and add commentary on topics I either forgot to mention during that time period or simply double down on subjects I deem still important at the end of the year. The audio blog will be split into 2 sections covering 2 quadrants each. So without further pomp and circumstance, let’s get the ball rolling and look back at all 2022 had to offer us. Also heads up that the retrospective is NSFW. In previous years I made a big deal about it warning visitors, this year I’m taking a more “you know why you’re here” approach and just letting things be as they are.

January - March

I mentioned at the end of my retrospective for 2021 that YouTube’s censorship had caught me in their crosshairs and that my channel would forever be stunted in growth and discovery due to a community strike. Nothing has changed for the entire year on this end. What I will say however is that external forces have pushed YouTube’s hand ever so slightly to ease up on these (frankly stupid) restrictions. For you see, 2022 was somewhat a year of “pendulum swinging”. I’m not going to get political on my site (nor will I ever), but you definitely can tell by the end of 2022 that certain dominant voices at the beginning of 2022 have been severely quieted by the end of it. Tech companies that fall under a certain “sphere of influence” also have shifted their policies a bit to adjust to the newer voices being in more control. But at the end of the day competition is in full swing, and YouTube faces a mountain of it. And I can say that we are all better for it, whatever you may think or feel at the end of the day. Especially people who create content.

Artist is すうりん

With the way I do things on my site, it inevitably means that the first update of the year technically always falls inline with the beginning of the new lunar year. So 2022 was the year of the Tiger and 2023 will be of the Rabbit. If you play any type of gacha game, Lunar new year is probably one of the most generous of the entire year due to cultural reasons. So it is worth noting that if you ever want to rekindle your love affair with a game you may have quit in the past or never thought about spending money on up until this point, Lunar new year is always the best time to do so outside of a game’s launch anniversary. Coincidentally, Lunar new year is probably one of the worst times to order anything directly from Asia as most working individuals will be on vacation for a minimum of 2 weeks. Use this knowledge for all future plans for the months of January to February!

I remember mentioning about how podcasts have now become the new normal when it comes to long form content. And it seems 2022 was the year a lot of exclusive podcasts started to rear their heads, choosing whatever platform offered the highest amount of perks for the creator. Typically I would scoff at such content as nothing more than a money grab by a desperate figure; but the reality is that some of the best content I have listened to all year has been exclusive stuff. One of my recent favorites is the Mr Ballen podcast which is only found on Amazon Music. Although he has a YouTube channel where you can see his abridged video stories ( a teaser for you above), his podcasts are definitely more intense and well written to tell a story in a relatively short amount of time. A lot of folks in 2022 are now making the permanent transition to working from home or finding jobs where there’s a high level of self autonomy (such as logistics & delivery). It’s these type of jobs that benefit the most from finding a podcast they might enjoy listening to to help whittle away the long work hours, and I sincerely hope by now yourself have found something to dig your teeth into.

Artist is MSG / MIST

Sometimes when we think so much about the future, we forget to take a moment to look at the past that got us to where we are today. Back in March I revisited a long time acquaintance in MIST who was still alive and kicking after all these years of radio silence in terms of game development. Not only did I discover he was still working, but he was actually a pretty good artist to boot, and now has plans on brining back one one of his oldest games for an update! I wish the best for the guy and hope his future projects become more successful; as I know the feeling all too well of trying to do right by your peers and being stuck in the mire of slow progress.

Some things are worth repeating until I’m dead. NFTs and Crypto are one of those things. I don’t care about what you do with your money. I don’t care what you do with other people’s money. What I do care is when people misrepresent something as something else. And if the entire freaking FTX debacle didn’t hammer down the entire world of “greedy assholes ripping off other greedy assholes” is crypto defined in general, I have no words to add. I mentioned back in March the quickest way to get on people’s bad side is to mess with their money. So I make a habit of not messing with people’s money. All I would like to say is that as a friendly reminder from one human to the next, try your best not let other folks mess with your money. This is coming from someone who ran an unsuccessful Kickstarter at the end of the year and received absolutely 0 cents or dollars from anyone involved when the project failed. Honest people will always give honest assurances that your money is safe while showing you where it is at the entire time in the pipeline. I can’t stress enough when someone says “trust me bro” that they’re about to take you for a ride, and the entire greed based world I try my best to avoid eats people up on an hourly basis. There’s NEVER a free lunch in life, everything comes from sweat, blood and tears. If not yours, someone else gave up those things to make something. Always remember this when dealing with crypto, for anyone who “wins” does so on the corpses of many (and I do mean many) loosers.

April - June

April was a pretty chill month on the site, insulated from the growing world events at the time that started to make headlines. I think people visiting my site for quite a while now may see me as some type of Japanophile (and I don’t blame them considering the links!). But what I do enjoy about certain cultures is the ability take time out of one’s day to chill. Or to seek chill. Or anything that encourages the pursuit of relaxing and helping others relax. Walking videos (particularly in Japan) has been a long running theme on my site for quite some time now; but did you also know I really enjoy traveling videos focused on trains? Better yet, there are even dedicated YouTube channels out there showcasing train travel all over the world like the one I linked you above. Bonus points for the fact that it isn’t located anywhere in Asia! Although rare for me to do this considering it’s a retrospective of 2022, I will be adding Simply Railway as a suggestion on The List since I’ve been binge watching it pretty much the entire month of December while I was pretty heavily sick. It goes along with the theme of taking the time to relax back in April, and it’s really never too late to do that.

A strong word of warning, the videos I linked above could be the most interesting thing I ever put on the website… or it could also be the most boring! That’s because back in May I did a whole bit on the importance of sleep and relaxation, and hinted at the idea of potentially using ASMR to train yourself to get some shut eye. I want to report that I’ve been following my own advice ever since then and have had some damn good results falling sleep to the sound of rain or running water within minutes. Sleep is one of those "life skills” people tend to ignore, taking it for granted and eschewing it altogether for activity. If a random person could go up to you and say “I have a suggestion for you that will make your life better in every way possible”, they would be implying to get some more deep sleep. It’s one of those painfully “obvious but not obvious” things people ignore like staying properly hydrated throughout the day. If there’s anything to take from my entire 2022 retrospective away, it seriously would be this bit of advice. Just try and sleep more, and do whatever it takes in your life to get some more.

June was one of my all time favorite blogs of 2022 because I started to let my philosophy freak flag fly. I covered a wide range of topics that had to deal with the human condition, and every single thing I recommended everyone to look at back then I still feel is completely worth checking out today if you haven’t done so already. One of the things I tried to lift the veil of mystery behind was the art of MMA and combat sports in general. How the stories of people involved are a lot more than the headlines and click bait articles seem to every imply. It’s also one of those unpopular realities of the world when we start to see our heroes (and thus ourselves) fade away from glory. If there’s anything I want you to take away from the cautionary tale I linked you above, it’s that compassion for human sacrifice is often times missing from many stories told over the years. As I alluded to in my talk about crypto and NFTs, all things come with a hidden price. All great successes come upon the back of blood, sweat and tears. And not everyone wins in the end, even if they “won” once in their life. I hope that point makes it through all the metaphor.

July - September

Artist is Kokonattsu

Artist is Michi

Summer of 2022 was the start of my “Don’t forget about old horny and go touch some grass” arc. It’s kind of funny how lewd things got this particular summer, but I think I was in one of those moods where I was REALLY getting freaking tired of people downplaying lewdness in general and that we as a society are “becoming better” moving away from it. I think it comes off pretty non-subtly that I was kind of low key angry and being a smart ass about it for the months of July and August - posting as much as I could get away with. I was also a bit dissatisfied with the lack of mainstream offerings dealing with monster girls, alien girls, furry girls and all markets “underserved”. But in-between the lines you can also kind of see that I was running low on ideas to talk about since during summer months, as most folks are happy and outdoors anyway. As a matter of fact, engagement on my website is the lowest in the peak summer months, so that’s why I have to make the extra effort to get eyes on anything I have to do or say. Well adjusted people go outside and make their own interesting stories to tell, so July to September typically is pretty slow period for me content wise. It also doesn’t help that it’s a dead time for gaming (no new releases typically) and dead there too.

If there’s something I wanted to emphasize a lot in 2022, it was to shake off the rust and go outside again. Just walk, move, do something that isn’t related to the internet. Just go and travel, somewhere… anywhere. There’s a limited window of time between when the world “goes back to busy” and where we are now. You can travel to a lot of places now without too much overcrowding, at a decent price, and enjoy yourself without feeling like a full blown tourist. And this window is shrinking day by day as people start to realize the world is worth seeing again, outside the confines of a chair, sofa or bed. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to relax and unwind. Especially if you’re on your feet all day long and being outside is “part of the job”. But there’s also a large portion of us that neglect travelling whatsoever. And that was the entire point I was really, truly trying my best to showcase back in September.

October - December

It was a dry year for paranormal stuff on the site. That’s because I’ve found increasingly more horrifying stories based on actual events than any created fiction. I think looking back at October’s blog post, I actually could marry the two subjects of strange things in the world alongside YouTube stuff. In October I mentioned that my severe lack of updates on the channel was tied to the platform going through a lot of internal strife (and linked other content creators addressing the issue). But it’s a little known fact that YouTube has always kind of been a last ditch effort for those seeking social validation or an outlet for personal stress. I think it’s important to realize that outside of the highly manufactured part of the platform, there are very real people with real lives doing their best to share what they can of their lives. And sometimes it’s really raw and not pretty.

Artist is Akusemama

November was my 2nd favorite update of the year due to the fact that it was absolutely loaded with gaming content. It was my lost love letter to gacha gamers out there since I had been quiet for so long throughout the year. I want to emphasize that a lot of the games that I looked at in November are probably still fresh and ongoing even if you’re reading this retrospective late in 2023; so give them all a shot if you haven’t done so already. That being said the elephant in the room is and was Nikke being launched in the same month. I have a lot to say about Nikke, but it’s really best emphasized in the audio portion of the retrospective. Let’s just say the game is both equally great and disappointing for various reasons. I have high hopes for the future of Nikke, but I think right now it’s quite the incomplete product. I’m also quite shocked at how “safe” the game’s art direction is considering it was suppose to be “the” lewd champion game of 2022. As a matter of fact, another game I talked about that very same month (Dungeon Squad) ending up being immensely more lewd that anything Nikke had in the tank! Just goes to show it isn’t the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog when it comes to putting out content that earns the title “fanservice”.

December is my all encompassing life blog retrospective for the year. 2022 was a pretty wild ride with extremely high highs and low lows with relation to my personal life and hobbies. As a happily married middle aged man, 2022 was fantastic on all fronts on the “normie” side. I finally paid off my mortgage, did a ton of work on my home, and did a lot of fun outdoor stuff with the wife I haven’t been able to do throughout 2020-2021. On the flip side however, 2022 was the worst year in terms of my hobbies being quite frankly the most boring and disappointing year to date since 2017 and the inception of this site. Ironically me and the misses contracted Omicron early in December and were sick like dogs for about 2 weeks. But we both got paid time off from work for it (thanks Californian government lol) and we got through the ordeal with a lot of humor and self reflection. Yet my humble Kickstarter for the website failed spectacularly of its goal (not even reaching half funding), adding onto the overall disappointment for my hobbies for the year. If 2022 was trying to get me to quit everything I’ve done in my time off for the last 5 years; it made one damn convincing argument for it. But I’m still alive and kicking after everything is said and done, and hoping that 2023 will rekindle the “interest” flame that has almost been put out. I thank all of you who have been loyal along the journey with me for the past couple of years. Let’s both look forward to a better 2023, and maybe snag a lucky rabbit’s foot in the process together!

Artist is Zeke / Zerolativity

Moving Forward

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We’re going to chill out a bit this month and focus on some life advice alongside the quirky stuff. As always the written portion of the blog is made with brevity in mind, so please listen to the audio above if you want the full details and nuance with this month’s update. If any links I provide to you do not work, I would consider getting any VPN local to your region and setting a server somewhere in the United States.

It’s pretty obvious by now that the Kickstarter project didn’t reach its goal and has failed. I want to say I’m extremely grateful for those who made the extra effort to try and make it a reality. Although things did not turn out the way we may have hoped, it does not mean we can not move forward from the experience. I’m going to assume by now you have watched the video I’ve linked above on the law of reversed effort. It will hopefully help you understand both my thought process on why I started the Kickstarter and what I expected from it. So here goes!

In a nutshell, I wanted to see where I was with my community and if I should take the content creator “relationship” to the next level. I have literally hundreds of hours of video and audio content waiting to be released, but I’ve decided to hold off on it because I wanted to know if the extra effort was going to be warranted. Using a relationship as an example, people develop intimacies and perspective at different rates. When one partner is ready to take things further, the other one (ideally) has to be on the same level to make the outcome positive and sustainable. Circling back to me as a content creator, once the proverbial “flood gates” have opened in terms of content; there would be no going back to the way things once were. I would have to dedicate myself to a strict schedule of uploading content. I would have to make sure it suits a quality standard befitting of those who helped support me and showed a genuine interest in what I’m doing. In other words, if I wanted to “get married and have kids”; then I want to make sure I become the best husband and father possible.

Carl Jung is a popular philosopher when it comes to self image. I wanted to see if I should act upon my potential against the reality of expectation. The Kickstarter was my way of gauging whether or not I should increase the intensity of what I’m already doing. It seems the answer is that I should not, and thus I have a much more nuanced perspective of where I’m at with things the way they are. Without belaboring the point, let’s just say success is always scarier than failure. There is a always a strange mix of disappointment and relief from failure. The important takeaway is that we all should be real with ourselves and actually take a honest look at where we stand with the world around us. It’s a strategic move, and a pragmatic one. And at the end of the day we can only benefit from this knowledge, even if it is against what we believed or hoped to be.

Artist is Vy AI

So the topic of AI assisted art is way overdo for me to comment on. I remember when the “news” hit back at the end of September, the art world was seemingly about to be in ruins. At least the twitter art world anyway. What folks were up in arms about was the idea that computers (or AI) could start making artwork independently of human input. Worse yet, the art generated by AI would be of superior technical quality. The thing about art however, is that it’s horribly subjective at a foundational level. Everyone responds to any particular work of art in a different way, usually with strong inherit bias. More to the point, AI generated art still needs a base to work off of, so the fears of it randomly creating art of its own accord was unfounded. But everyone seems to be missing the benefits of this technology. The point of AI was to not replace human beings, but to help them. It always has been. Although I won’t go down that rabbit hole, I will say that AI generated filters will greatly open up opportunities for many artist who potentially don’t have the best technical aptitude. Composition of work is just as important as technical skill, and often times or not you will see some artists struggle with this. Ever see someone draw a hundred portraits (which all look amazing) but never really do anything else? That’s a perfect example of great technical skill but limited compositional aptitude. If there’s any real silver lining to AI art, it’s that it helps open up opportunities for artists who may never had had previous exposure due to technical limitations. AI algorhithims do some pretty crazy things with unexpected results. And unexpected, unconventional results is what the art world thrives off of. It’s only a good thing; you’re just going to have to trust me on it.

As many gripes I have with YouTube censoring 50% of the stuff I post and killing it in the cradle, I want to remind folks that I’m a middle aged gentleman from an older world. In this older world, we had similar things that got in the way of expressing ourselves, and the reality of automated censorship has been a thing for quite some time now. Some folks even have the audacity to try and do it on purpose! So I thought it would be neat to take you back a few years and explore a device that pre-dated algorithms alongside safety and standards employees with a stick up their butt.

I have a lot of work ahead of me for the 2022 retrospective. The good news for all of you is that I end this month’s update with a cinematic movie free to watch on YouTube in the form of God Of War Ragnarök. Although I mentioned this phenomenon quite a while back, I understand there are new folks coming to the website on a daily basis. Some games out there can be considered works of cinematic art even if they don’t show up in movie theatres or streaming services. We live in a time now where games can take the narrative experience to a whole new level. Although it can be debated whether or not it takes away from the mechanical joy of playing them, we can all hopefully agree the quality of the presentation has set the bar to a higher standard. If you like what you see, I welcome you to look for any other immersive role playing game made in the past couple of years on YouTube. Just add “The movie” to the end of your game’s title and you’ll probably find it.

Artist is Cranihum

Happy holidays, merry Christmas, and hope you have a wonderful December month! I’ll see you all next year for the 2022 retrospective.