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| This is
where I talk/complain about stuff: A few more YouTube videos from
this past year that are also quite good: EmpLemon is probably one of the bigger YouTubers from before who I neglected to really mention in the previous year, but that shouldn't discount the quality of the videos he makes, initially starting out as a guy who made a bunch of fairly well-made YouTube Poops, before then using the editing skills he acquired over time to create a whole bunch of different informative, expansive and simultaneously funny video essays concerning a wide breadth of topics, with two major videos from the past year standing out particularly well in terms of quality. Whilst it was difficult to decide which one was the best choice, his video on the recent fourth instalment in The Matrix Trilogy was one that I personally found a bit more enjoyable. Nowadays, it's practically an ice-cold take to say that Hollywood is relying way too much on reboots and sequels of popular franchises, creating subpar products under the expectation that fans would either line-up to see them anyway, or at the very least offer free publicity by complaining about them online. The film The Matrix Resurrections is no exception to this all too common rule, often being criticised for failing to build off of the films that came before, as well as holding a shaky and on-the-nose storyline. However, Emp posits in this video that such flaws in the storytelling are very much by design, explaining how series director Lana Wachowski decided to use the opportunity to work on the film as a means of mocking Hollywood's over-reliance on nostalgia whilst reflecting how Warner Bros. effectively forced Lana's hand, as they would've made the film with or without the Wachowskis' help anyway, comparing the film to Tom Green's critically-panned masterpiece "Freddy Got Fingered", about a guy wasting studio money because he was contractually obliged to make a film, just like what happened to Green in real life. This all culminates in Emp delivering a line that sounds ridiculous out of context but fits into the narrative perfectly, stating that The Matrix Revolutions "wasn't just a sequel to The Matrix. It was a sequel to Freddy Got Fingered". If all this is true, then this, combined with the film bombing at the box office, making it unlikely that Warner Bros. would touch the franchise for a long time, offers a strange success story that shows passionate directors in Hollywood fending off their IPs from being zombified by the money machine. By also including an engaging build-up showing The Matrix's cultural context, its links to the more pessimistic society we have today and Emp's past experiences of feeling betrayed by a poorly-handled franchise, all the while making use of some interesting live-action footage to give off a more cinematic feel at points, then you've got yourself a really entertaining video exploring an alternative look at what was intially seen as another low-quality nostalgia-bait sequel. An honourable mention for Emp's video lineup this year can also be given to "Pandora's Box", comprehensively exploring how many of humanity's various discoveries, inventions and past understandings of nature have inadvertently resulted in widespread effects on the environment around us, and how our many attempts at playing God have ultimately backfired greatly, ranging from our introduction of invasive species or the eradication of perceived predators to deal with petty agricultural problems, to the health effects of widespread mercury, lead and asbestos use in centuries past, to the incalculable strength of nuclear weaponry and poorly-handled uranium, all the way up to the widespread presence of microplastics in all walks of life after decades of unknowingly irresponsible use. These various different aspects of human experimentation flow really well into one-another, and question the idea if we really are better off by being able to harness these dangerous materials. "Doomed To Be Replaced: Is AI Art Theft?" by Solar SandsIt's quickly becoming apparent that one of these potentially harmful products of experimentation can come in the form of the boom in artificial intelligence. Whilst so far, there's little to say that this new technology can cause direct physical harm on humans, similarly to what Emp discussed in his Pandora's Box and Matrix videos, AI will likely become another step in slimming down the human workforce by replacing these skilled labourers with inhumanly-smarter computers and machines. One of the most controversial steps in this rapid advancement in technology can be seen in the rapid expansion of AI generated artwork, with its same-y and visually unappealing styles being regurgitated across various sections of the internet, including places like ArtStation and DeviantArt, which had previously aimed to champion human expression. When you combine its omnipresence with the several ethical quandaries surrounding its use of billions of potentially copyrighted images, allowing it to accurately replicate the artistic styles of individual creators, naturally this has all resulted in a lot of anger emerging in the artist community. In this sense, Solar Sands attempts to view this subject in from a more rational and balanced perspective, as whilst he acknowledges that the ability for these programmes to use countless amounts of art to generate derivative works of other people is morally wrong, that art websites shouldn't present AI art in the same sections as human art, due to them being fundamentally different forms of content, and the fact that there is a lot of uncertainty over the invention of the technology in the first place, akin to dropping the first atomic bomb or opening Pandora's Box, he also aims to present the process of creating AI art in the most accurate way possible, dispelling false claims over how it operates and understanding the rationale behind many of the technology's developers. These evidently aren't just limited to purely profit-based motives, but rather more abstract concepts surrounding the creation of a hyper-equal utopia, which can make attempts at reducing its presence more difficult to achieve. Due to the rapid advancement of this technology, Solar Sands elected to expand on this discussion further with the creation of two additional parts presenting various other aspects of the AI art debate, and the development process. The second part was released around six months later, essentially focusing of course on the advancement of the technology, to the point where it can produce well-constructed and even emotionally effective images, as well as full videos (though the emotional effectiveness doesn't really apply to that yet). Additionally, there's also some focus on the more practical uses of it as well as the ways that artists can adapt to the technology, as it becomes more and more clear that it's here to stay, unlike other perceived fads such as NFTs, due to how streamlined it is compared to the traditional way of making art. Solar Sands would even go as far as to suggest that so long as all ethical issues are ironed out regarding copyright, and the importance of maintaining the property rights of artists, then he sees practically no issues with the technology. At the same time, he mentions how important it is to remind those who feel strongly about the technology to express their concerns in more productive ways, rather than wasting their energy on viciously attacking anyone using the AI image generators, including those clearly baiting these people into eliciting such a response. These are all important things to consider as AI-generated artwork becomes more and more present in mainstream society (I even saw a poster for an event at my local university featuring a DJ-ing hedgehog not too long ago). So at this stage, we can either try to make people aware of the issues that could potentially arise with AI technology, and therefore allow for concrete constructive change, or we can continue to incessantly scream at random people on the internet, and risk forgetting the more important factors that could jeopardise a whole line of work. "Why Young Men Aren't Growing Up" by Gerbert JohnsonThough artificial intelligence may be potentially damaging occupations and decreasing opportunities for vast swathes of people, it's merely one of the many issues that are faced by our society, including those who are just on the cusp of adulthood. One of the most effective means of presenting such issues would be through a video by Gerbert Johnson, a young man who at the time of this video's creation had just turned 20, but due to problems surrounding his circumstances, still feels as if he is 16 years-old, which of course does lead to a humorous development of a narrative/framing device where he's running away from the law after using that as an excuse for a crime. A bit crude, but the subsequent scene of him climbing trees, like he used to as a kid, offers an interesting springboard into the idea that many young people now face a feeling of arrested development, that ever since the Covid lockdowns happened, time feels like it has rapidly increased in pace and it's difficult to keep up, how the omnipresence of technology, particularly social media, has resulted in a lost feeling of community spirit, and the growth of an infinite array of distractions that leave people too comfortable to leave fantasy and their comfort zone behind. Combine this with the fact that the only remaining means of coming across people in the real world, through university or work, involves either swamping yourself in debt under the promise of a better life, or feeling alienated in an environment where everyone is older than you, and it's no surprise why many young people, young men in particular, feel more disillusioned by society. These are all issues that I feel especially strongly about, as I feel myself to be among the many young people affected by them. At the risk of sounding emo or self-pitying, it terrifies me how quickly this year has come and gone, that I'm already going to have another birthday within the next couple weeks, whilst searching for work and holding a backlog of different projects behind me leaves the feeling of a life that's currently somewhat directionless, and I fear that many of the more vulnerable people around me will be dead before I can make something out of myself, before I can have a stable career doing something I like, before I can find someone, buy a house (fat chance of that regardless, but that's a different story), settle down, get married, have kids and live comfortably for another fifty years or so. It's a really worrying thing, and these thoughts are likely plaguing the minds of many other people like me. But, at the same time, this year felt slightly longer than before, as like what Gerbert talks about in this video, time does slow down at least for a bit, as I immerse myself in new experiences. I've come to meet new friends at uni, and I've had the privilege of visiting other events and places that I've never experienced before (as you can partly see in horrific detail in the post below), and I feel like I'm starting to really feel like an adult by doing just small things like going to a cinema with friends rather than family for the first time. Whilst I will say that the Covid lockdowns and their consequences have been a disaster for the mental health of people everywhere, both young and old, and many attempts to open back up have been difficult, especially for someone of my mental faculties, slowly but surely, you'll learn to leave your comfort zone, and one day find completeness in a society that feels cold and uninviting. Of course, whenever discussing things like men's mental health, and suggesting that society just isn't built for young people, especially men, to flourish anymore, then you will see many people speaking out about this, like Gerbert, having unflattering buzzwords like "incel" thrown at them by terminally-online vitriol machines. Such people would often dismiss such feelings regarding men's mental health as either being 'their own fault' or just a consequence of living in a society that's 'built for them', something that's also touched on in a similar video by Shoe0nHead that's also worth mentioning, which discusses how important it is to actually listen to how the ways they are treated, particularly how many wants and needs many men hold, or the ways they want to express themselves, are brushed off as mere symptoms of "toxic masculinity". Through ignoring these problems, it opens up the opportunity for people like Andrew Tate, or any politically extreme ideologue, to take advantage of this ignorance, as mainstream society fails to present a more mediated solution to these problems, leaving them to only get worse the longer they're ignored. "GUILLOTINE Part 4: Society is Collapsing" by Rusty CageThis video is quite similar to the one mentioned previously, as well as EmpLemon's "Pandora's Box" video, though this one in particular explores a wider and more current breadth of issues in a far more cinematic and somewhat angrier way compared to before. The video features Rusty Cage, better known for his work with both Mumkey Jones and EmpLemon, as well as his iconic songs, "Knife Game Song" and of course "White Girls Fuck Dogs", discussing the various problems facing society from more of a fringe-level outlook. These include issues such as the possible health effects of what could be our modern lead or asbestos: Fluoride, discussing concerning findings in peer-reviewed studies, as well as the corrupt means of implementing it in America's water systems during the 40s and 50s. Attention is also brought towards the omnipresence of microplastics and "forever chemicals" in the water we drink, the food we eat and the air we breathe, killing us slowly whilst we remain oblivious to such issues. The video also discusses the corruption and moral bankruptcy plaguing major international corporations and powerful governments, ranging from Nestle treating even the most basic human necessities like water as mere commodities, to the vast number of atrocities committed against vulnerable people by some of the most powerful individuals in the world, including the several unnamed visitors of Epstein's island, who will continue to remain unnamed and continue to go unpunished unless people continue to push for this information to go public. This is all underlined by how the stranglehold these authority figures have on the popular media results in many people refusing to discuss such potential problems, lest they be labelled "conspiracy theorists" and get ostracised from their social groups, leading us to begrudgingly accept the way things are until the system inevitably fails to keep things together. This is all told through footage of Rusty constructing a historically-revolutionary symbol in the form of a guillotine, and then using both a watermelon and a realistic dummy to test its effectiveness. Plans to construct such a device had been planned in the previous sections of what in actuality is a multi-part series, though the merits of this video in particular allow it to stand out on its own. Rusty shows off a wide range of emotions and tones in the video's creation, starting out by doing an uncanny Mr. Beast impersonation, before transitioning into a long monologue explaining the construction process, and the reason behind this "lemonade stand"'s creation, with the emotional strength of the delivery making the monologue feel at times indistinguishable from slam poetry. I think around ten minutes in is when it especially builds up, discussing how ubiquitous the unsavoury forces in this world are and how they keep us in check, all while the music crescendos into a powerful explosion of sound reflecting the power of the words Rusty offers us. When combined with the interesting use of editing and visual effects that complement the events taking place on screen perfectly, you have an extremely strong video that gets you riled up, and motivates you to overthrow your nearest government (in Minecraft), especially since the implications of the lemonade stand aren't really that vague. As a result, this really well-made video appears to have been overlooked by the algorithm for the most part, even if the series is still ongoing, so if you're in a particularly rebellious or disillusioned mood, then be sure to check out Rusty's content by subscribing, so you can remain up to date on all the happenings around his work. "The Internet's Favorite T*rrorist" by WendigoonBut at the same time, maybe it's worth choosing a more mellowed-out approach to the state of things in the world today. The prior two videos, or perhaps all the videos previously mentioned, show signs of a world where things don't really feel right, where opportunities are drying up, people feel left behind and the rapid advancement of technology leaves many people feeling suffocated. As mentioned previously with the emergence of Andrew Tate during the crisis of men's mental health, some people are finding inspiration, even at the very least in jest, through generally unsavoury people. This can range from more harmless ideations towards fictional antiheroes and villains such as Walter White and the famed American Psycho, Patrick Bateman, to actual current or historic politically-extreme or even terroristic figures, most notably including Ted Kaczynski, better known as The Unabomber, whose beliefs surrounding the Industrial Revolution and its consequences appear highly resonant in today's climate, especially in the weeks and months following his death, with a small group rather concerningly feeling that should've gone further with his activities before he was ultimately caught. In light of this strange cult following surrounding such an enigmatic figure, YouTube's continuously-rising star, Wendigoon, has created a massive video aiming to comprehensively explore the life of The Unabomber, ultimately aiming to demystify the man, and deconstruct the myth built up around him. This video, one of the largest single-part videos to be created by Wendigoon, tells the tale of Ted, starting from his early life and apparent precociousness, to a less-sensationalistic exploration of his experience of MK-ULTRA and how it contributed to his disdain towards society, the life he lived alone in the woods, the crimes he would commit, how he would get caught, and finally a broad examination of his both-famous and infamous manifesto, "Industrial Society and its Future". Though it may not be as cinematic as my previous choice of Wendigoon video, "The Haunting Mystery of the Brown Mountain Lights", there are still some visual aids that add to the quality of the video, including the clever ironic decision to have the reading of Ted's manifesto take place on a green-screen which uses footage of an assortment of nature scenes, as opposed to actually being outside for the recording; actual outside filming wouldn't come until later, at which point he reflects on The Unabomber's life and offers his thoughts on the man behind the myth. The story is broken up on occasion by Wendigoon's trademark use of deadpan humour, as well as his interesting choices of costumes reflecting Ted's iconic police sketch from before he was caught, but the overall video reminds us not to get too engrossed in the fantasy of the man who took the lives of several unrelated people, whose "crimes" ranged from either running computer stores, flying in planes, or even just going to college. This effectively results in Wendigoon concluding that Ted was hardly interested in enacting retribution on humanity for harming nature at all, and simply just hated other people and went on to express that hatred in the most extreme way possible, after years of having it grow and fester, leaving us not with a valiant, though somewhat unhinged freedom fighter, but rather just a sad strange little man who took out his anger on random people. Such a narrative is what continues to make many of Wendigoon's videos incredibly entertaining to both watch, and also listen to whilst doing other things, and I'm still looking forward to whatever else he'll have in store come the next year. "My Favorite YouTuber Is a Murderer" by Spaceman ScottWhilst there are a few people that many look up to, when it's clear from the outset that a better role model may be needed in their lives, what happens when the inverse takes place: When you take an interest in someone and are greatly inspired by the work they do, only to find out later down the line that they were a horrific human being all along? That question would be answered through this video describing the situation surrounding Stephen McCullagh, also known by his online username of VoteSaxon07. Many YouTubers, especially nowadays, are often found to be responsible for committing a wide range of faults and crimes, with these ranging from as little as presenting incorrect information or plagiarising other people's work, all the way over to the other end, where they end up being exposed for grooming minors or engaging in other sex weirdo behaviour, which judging by how frequently such accusations are posited in this day and age, must be a popular pastime for any particularly big YouTuber at this point. But regardless, very few of them can be confirmed to have committed a crime as heinous as taking another person's life, especially not the life of someone you're supposed to care deeply for and protect, as was apparently the case of McCullagh, who in a horrifically-calculated fashion, murdered his girlfriend and their unborn child, not too long before the Christmas of 2022. Such a story, combined with the dark irony of him running something as innocent as a toy review channel, as well as the fact he faked a livestream to cover his involvement in the murder, made the whole event a strangely captivating tale around the internet once the news came out, but most of these were generally from creators with little to no prior interest in his work. This video however, is a major change from that, as it's told from the perspective of someone who grew up watching McCullagh's simple toy reviews and DIY videos, and grew inspired to create his own modified toys based on the work offered on the VoteSaxon07 channel. Spaceman Scott also explores the general history of his online career, how he rose to success to the point of even appearing on mainstream TV for the revival of Robot Wars, before detailing the night of his grilfriend's murder, and the strange hints at both his secret unhinged behaviour, and his involvement in the murder, in the pre-recorded "livestream" he set up as an alibi. Scott explores how this event has been especially hard for him, seeing how such a horrific crime could be committed by such an inspiration, who he previously thought he knew so much about, especially since more intimate parts of McCullagh's personal life were shared through his channel, with his for instance touching on the deaths of his parents. Scott reminds us that, in an age of parasocial relationships almost emerging as a replacement for real-world friendships, it's important to understand that the facade a lot of creators put up for themselves through their content, is nonetheless still a facade, and people need to remember that those they look up towards may not be as saintly as their pedestals would suggest. At the same time, even if such acts are revealled to have been committed by someone you look up to, that shouldn't take away from the times their content has genuinely helped you in the past, either in a practical sense, or just by making you laugh for a bit. As someone who may sometimes quote videos by disgraced YouTubers such as Tobuscus and Trudermark every one in a while, it serves as a decent reminder that whilst it can be difficult to separate the art from the artist, there are still those better sides to their content that can serve as a form of inspiration in the future. "Who Firebombed Friendlyjordies?" by FriendlyjordiesIdeas of a corrupt nation-state that suppresses its critics through the use of organised criminal syndicates seems like the kind of thing that couldn't possibly happen in a high-income country like Australia. But, considering what provocative local YouTuber Friendlyjordies has been through recently, it seems possible that this was the case, as in November of 2022, his house was the target of a firebomb by an unknown culprit, but considering the enemies he's made through his content, it seems likely that whoever did it may have been a member of the elite of New South Wales. Friendlyjordies summarises the list of people his off-the-wall and hardcore journalism has targeted in the past, with particular focus on former NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro, who initiated a lengthy defamation trial because he was called a "Koala killer" and "A greasy little scrotum" by the YouTuber, the latter of which doesn't really sound like a particularly impactful accusation, but whatever it was, it would ultimately be enough for him to resign from the deputy premiership because he was being bullied, something that was especially ironic considering Barilaro is also the kind of politician to scoff at notions like political correctness as a part of his campaigns. Friendlyjordies offers plenty of insight, not only into the people that Barilaro himself had interacted with, such as a counter-terrorism police force to monitor his 'bully''s house, and an organised crime ring that ran a property developer he briefly worked for after his stint as Deputy Premier, but also other members of the Australian political establishment and mainstream media that want to see him taken down, including New South Wales' gambling lobby, who also threatened to sue him for exposing cases of money laundering. These different segments of the video not only tell the tale of Friendlyjordies' campaign against the Super Barilaro Bruz in a way that's both hilarious and feels incredibly animated, but also helps to expose the different ways corruption continues to linger in a nation historically built by convicts, in turn showing that things have hardly changed for the country. Despite being intimidated by the firebombing featured in the video, Friendlyjordies continues to post videos regarding scandals and dumb happenings in the Australian political system, spreading awareness regarding the ways corruption can take hold in what appears to be a well-organised nation-state, and in turn could suggest that such conspiracies and cover-ups could very easily happen here. "The Linguistics Iceberg Explained" by Duncan ClarkeThis next choice may be a bit different compared to the previous video discussing the state of corruption in Australian politics, but I feel it's nevertheless worth talking about because of how it's able to make something as niche and advanced as the study of language as accessible as it is through this video, using the versatile iceberg format (which even I had a crack at not too long ago) to describe the various oddities of language and human communication. Such a topic is delivered through a strong amount of wit, humour and quirks to its presentation style, for example using an animated cut-out of Noam Chomsky, complete with a deep-faked voice, to introduce each of the segments. These segments include information on strange multi-lingual tongue-twisters, the universality of particular phrases in certain contexts (with "Kiki" and "Bouba" being assigned to a sharp and bubbly shape respectively in several experiments, and the words "mama" and "papa" both having similar-sounding substitutes in several international languages), as well as even strange facts about cultures and historical events to explain certain phenomena. For example, it turns out that there's a tribe in the Amazon known as the Piraha, who don't have words for numbers outside of vague quantities such as "some", "a few" or "a lot", showing that their culture has no need for such precise quantities. I also found out that there's even a special pidgin of the Basque language that emerged from fishermen working in Iceland, and that because of a bad event involving some shipwrecked Basque people, until 2015 it was written in Icelandic law that locals were legally allowed to kill Basque people on-sight. I might have spoiled some of the best parts already, so I'll save the rest for you to check out yourself. While you're there, you could also go ahead and check out some of the other videos created by Duncan Clarke, exploring a series of other subjects, including a couple other iceberg charts, such as one on different psychological experiments, and even a video deconstructing the format itself, as well as a series of other more generalised topics such as the flaws of MBTI personality indicators (sometimes known as astrology for men), colour psychology, among several other videos that make these complex philosophical ideas more accessible to non-geniuses like myself! "The Lost Art of Cable Television" by NationSquidThis one may not focus as much on a particularly philosophical concept like with Duncan Clarke's work, though it does offer a strong and thought-provoking look into the rise of cable television, particularly in the US, its ubiquity in popular culture, and ultimately its decline through the rise of technologies such as the internet and video streaming. NationSquid delves into the various different positives that made cable great upon its inception, such as its ability to bypass the tight restrictions of broadcast television, and the diverse range of programmes aimed towards various different groups of people available on hundreds of channels for a fairly low price. This is then followed by the gradual growth of flaws within the medium, such as the service providers growing too comfortable and charging far higher prices for what would eventually become a bunch of safe same-y programming, as well as its general inability to adapt to the arrival of Netflix and other services, with media giants shutting down all attempts to help the medium transition into the online age. However, he also touches on the potential of the format and its benefits compared to the now-universal subscription-based streaming formula, such as its ability to bring people of different groups together at the same time, and how it can allow them to bond over shows that they would have never been interested in if they were just another option on a list of thousands of different shows on Netflix. Plus, seeing how there are so many streaming services these days, all hosting their own exclusive content, especially in America, it ultimately leaves the format feeling like a lonelier version of cable, which to some extent can also apply to the idea of our society growing more and more distant as people such as Gerbert Johnson have mentioned above. NationSquid's words ultimately leave me wondering for what could have been, where such an idea of sitting down at a certain time and sharing the same viewing experience as others around the world, through the magic of the live premiere, was still a common and celebrated moment in the online age. Hell, the idea of watching the same thing at the same time seems like an even better idea in an age where people can live-blog big events on places like Twitter. If the costs could somehow come down, maybe by doing a switchover to less-dedicated online infrastructure, regulating the prices a bit stronger, and loosening restrictions, like having the ability to say "fuck" on TV without it being censored, then cable could be a strong rival to the currently-popular alternative. Though to be fair, much of these ideas are likely built off of nostalgia for days gone by, and it's something that's strongly invoked through NationSquid's video, mentioning powerful anecdotes around watching shows together with his late-father, employing imagery such as really well-paced montages of the exciting programmes presented on TV during the 80s and 90s, and building the overall discussion around the framing device of the closure of Cartoon Network Studios' building in Burbank, a landmark in the cable television world. These combined writing and editing choices all make for what's at times an informative, funny and even emotional look into the rise and fall of this media titan. "A Misguided Guide To Finishing Your Gaming Backlog" by Darryl Talks GamesThis next video is kinda cheating, seeing how it was made late in the previous year, but I feel it's an especially interesting video that helps you lay out something that appears as minor as a video game backlog, but can also apply to the idea of solving more broader things, like general procrastination. Of course, the main focus of the video is on completing a gaming backlog and sorting through the many different games that you've come across over time, something that I can certainly say is a relatable conundrum, seeing how I've got a whole bunch of different games on my Switch or my PC that I've bought a long while back, but still have yet to finish because I just never find the time to do it, or I instead just spend all my time playing through Demon Turf for the hundredth time. This is probably a much bigger deal now that I'm older, as I'm now the one in charge of buying my games, so I do need to at least consider taking time out of my day or week or month or whatever point in time, to get my money's worth, though this doesn't even touch all the other games I've got on emulators and similar things like that. Thinking about all these different things is likely to result in a lot of stress, and Darryl talks about this a lot in the video through the idea of the "Zeigernik Effect", where one remembers more about an assigned task if they're only halfway through it than if they've completed it, though he also mentions one effective way of doing it is by compiling a list, as even the process of planning to do something can help one to feel more complete, even if the task itself is not. Such an idea is likely to translate rather well when viewing other things through such a layout, which Darryl even brings up in the video, applying such a concept to major life goals (like a more detailed bucket list), and how the whole idea of the list could reflect the idea of humans wanting to look back on a complete and fulfilling life, which he also rather emotionally applies to the end of Etika's Xenoblade Chronicles 2 livestream, especially considering what we know of his emotions now. This all goes to show that the idea of laying things out in a simple and understandable fashion, searching for the most fulfilling tasks and prioritising them to overcome the strength of choice paralysis, and executing them for that feeling of completeness, is a rather effective way of looking at some of the more Herculean tasks you could assign for yourself. Such a method is one I can personally attest to the validity of, being able to get much more things sorted if I just write them down first (I should probably that more often, come to think of it). This journey has been expanded upon with a sequel video, released this past November, which offers a more updated look into the idea of completing everything in a year, after actually attempting it, ultimately reminding both Darryl and the viewer that an important thing about making such a list is to be realistic in your goals (something I should've considered when writing this post, since it's now a bit after New Year's). Perhaps you shouldn't finish an entire backlog over the course of just a year, but should instead just remember to complete them at a time that fits your schedule, and allows you to engross yourself in the experience of playing a game, rather than just speeding through it to get to the next one. When you combine these with some excellent editing choices, and plenty of heavy-hitting as well as lighter moments throughout, then you have yourself a fine duology of videos exploring one of those things you have hovering on your mind. "Six-Pack" by ShameBringing a bit of order to your life by scheduling it more clearly can be one of the many ideas for a New Year's Resolution, those things we promise to do but never really follow through on about a week or so after the year began. But if you tried to stick with any of them, then working out more often in general may be one of the most advisable, and one of those things that motivated me to go through some intense exercise myself was this song by the up and coming rock band Shame, complete with an off-the-wall music video that reminded me to never underestimate the kind of content you'll find on YouTube's ads. However, on closer inspection, the song also explores the downsides of gym culture, which clearly went over my head, offering a really intense and exciting wave of adrenaline every time you listen to it, whilst the band shout about the perceived benefits many would feel when dedicating their time to working out, and how to many they may end up seeming like a cope to outside life events, which does offer an interesting look into the idea of just constantly hitting the gym, whilst placing little time into tackling other issues that may be holding you back. Though this may offer a strange dissonance of themes offered by the rhythm and the lyrics (of course, do try to exercise, but also remember to be mindful in other avenues if that's something you also need to work on), the main way this video stood out to me was its rather unique blend of PS1-styled graphics with historical figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte, and their attempts at getting swole in order to get to the point of achieving the physical and mental strength needed to conquer nations, influence populations and achieve immortality. Through this, the video makes use of several off-the-wall visual gags, such as Napoleon's competition against his at-the-time political enemies, scenes of his horseback cavalry running on treadmills, as well as a few interesting "in-game" stats given to both him and other historical and current figures, such as Margaret Thatcher, Richard Branson, and the telekinetic overlord Jeff Bezos, who all vie for their place in the history books. All the scenes within this animation, created by user Dragline Pictures, bounce off of the chaos of the music perfectly, and show a lot of promise to the band, with their showing at this year's Glastonbury offering signs that their excitingly aggressive post-punk sound, will gain a much-deserved greater stake in the public eye in the years to come. "Planet of the Bass (feat. DJ Crazy Times & Ms. Biljana Electronica)" by Kyle GordonKeeping in the spirit of quirky music videos, this other similarly light-hearted video reflects the much more humorous tune offered by its source material. This song by comparison is more of a fun lampoon on Europop songs of the late-90s and early-2000s (a genre I'm especially fond of), starring the hype-master DJ Crazy Times, and the exquisitely-voiced singer Ms. Bilijana Electronica, as together they sing a catchy tune complete with heaps of broken English, including several unusual appeals to world peace, awkward discussions of sex, and the need to bring dance to all the different parts of Earth: The Planet of the Bass. All this is complimented with an interesting and out-there (dare I say other-worldly?) plotline following a group of aliens discovering the alluring tunes of the people down below, using their AI technology to experience the wonders of its sick beats, complete with cheesy alien costumes and several nods towards the fashion of the time. The video itself was created by comedy singer Kyle Gordon (the man behind DJ Crazy Times in the video), who's created a whole bunch of other videos intended to lampoon various different musical genres, playing many unique characters to reflect the songs he performs. None of these songs ever really feel cheap or under-developed; they just know what they are and take their stereotypical motifs to the craziest places imaginable. In fact, it almost feels like the kinds of song parodies that used to be done on the old days of YouTube, like those by now CCP-owned TikTok star Bart Baker, complete with a hint of immaturity and a home-grown feel to their practical effects and costume design. It just goes to show that even these fun little video genres can see a lot of life in them on modern YouTube, despite all the ways the algorithm has changed in favour of other more mainstream examples of video content. Suppose once you leave the main page, you'll come to find that the site's culture has hardly changed at all! "Steamed Hams but it was banned in the USSR" by Tyrone DeiseSteamed Hams is the meme that just refuses to die, because no matter how long the joke runs, someone will always turn around and try something different with it, with Tyrone Deise's surreal animation re-contextualising the original sketch into a cut-out animated Soviet-era short film titled "Steamlyannaya Hamonika", created as a commentary on the isolation and alienation of Capitalist society, though with a secret additional meaning aiming to criticise the bureaucracy of the Communist Party, as seen through this animation's depiction of Superintendent Chalmers, an emotionless man who hardly speaks throughout the film. Then again, much of Skinner's dialogue isn't really that easy to interpret, being a series of strange sound effects which contribute to the uneasy feeling one gains through the viewing experience. Such a sense of unease can also be felt through the strangely-proportioned and animated models used for the two main characters, likely taking inspiration from several other films of the time such as Captain Vrungel (that's the only one I can think of off the top of my head, 'cause I'm kinda uncultured when it comes to Soviet cinema). When you combine this with the other strange arts-y flairs that the film offers, such as a heavily-detailed sequence of a doorbell being activated, as well as a beastly chaotically-designed fire engine at the very end, you've got a video that's able to successfully reinvent the tried and true formula of Skinner and Chalmers' unforgettable luncheon. Coming across this particular animation during my trip to former-East Berlin may have also helped it stand out to me! However, this isn't the only thing on Deise's channel that truly shines, as in addition to his various other inventive interpretations of Steamed Hams, such as one remaking it as a Weimar-era German Expressionist film, complete with a full live-action performance, and another turning it into an Ottoman Empire-styled puppet show, there are also plenty of other strange videos to sink your teeth into, like one featuring a road-raging alcoholic father getting a wall-of-text t-shirt for his lovely daughter, and a really well-executed short film offering an interesting take on Pac-Man. All these different videos show a lot of promise to Deise's work, and I can't wait to see whatever else he has in store in the future. "The Analog Horror of Annoying Orange" by CyzstixThe analog horror genre is another mainstay in YouTube's ecosystem, and though there are quite a lot of examples that do some pretty interesting things with the format, such as the seminal Local 58, the expansive Monument Mythos, and the existentially-horrifying Mandela Catalog, the saturation of the genre has led to a few non-starters and a series of overplayed tropes associated with them developing. So now it feels refreshing to see someone similarly lampoon the genre by taking a childhood character (not too dissimilarly to a stereotypical creepypasta), and placing them in the analog horror format. While the video may feature the use of a casual narrator, unlike most analog horror projects which mainly benefit from silence and unnerving uses of text and other forms of audio, this video is still able to paint a surreal and darkly humorous picture of an unusual community with an irrational hatred for the Annoying Orange, to the point of creating several videos in which either living or inanimate oranges are brutally tortured by them, because that orange was just so goddamn annoying. Despite how strange the whole concept felt, as well as how light-hearted the video itself was, I could definitely see something like this community propping up in real life, especially since hatedoms full of young and edgy kids like the ones for Barney and whatever else were in full force at the time, and you could even see this intense anger in the real world, through things like that disturbing monkey hate rabbit hole you might've heard of on YouTube. Regardless, the most effective way the video feels strangely realistic is in its use of a fully-fledged website to showcase the community's efforts, realistic reconstructions of the iOS UI from the time period when the Annoying Orange was big, and a series of grainy videos of tortured oranges, which both give off a strange mixture of chills and hilarity in their execution. It also helps that these videos were created using real VHS technology, as opposed to filters and the like, with an interview video by fellow-Zoomer Raymundo2112 briefly touching on the process of getting the video to its genuine-looking appearance. Cyztix has also created a series of other satirical jabs at the analog horror genre, including one based around a lost website for iCarly, and another unravelling the mystery of the nigh-seen (and also fake) Simpsons character, Graggle Simpson (or Weird Matt, as some have called him). With a small but impressive set of videos under his belt, it's interesting to see what the future could hold for Cyztix's content. "What's Wrong With Your Head?" by VLIFThis video similarly makes use of a retro visual style, including the use of a VHS/film filter to create something that more directly attempts to create a strange but charming video reminiscent of late-70s/early-80s experimental CGI, or perhaps one of those more artsy segments they used to have on Sesame Street around that time, though later on that might end up sounding like a rather unfitting comparison. The video explores different people and how their weirdly-shaped heads make them both unique and unusual to those around them. It's very interpretive in terms of what it's meant to represent, but personally I feel it aims to explore the idea that one should take pride in their uniqueness and celebrate the differences of others, but if you think too much about how others see you, then this pride could either turn towards vitriol against one's peers, like the ugly-headed cylindrical man who gets his kicks from eating the fish who mock him, or extreme vanity, as shown by a rather on-the-nose scene of a woman with spherical breasts and a large head, getting showered with compliments by a cone-shaped rat/sperm creature to the point where she explodes as the being slithers between her legs. I've also heard from a commenter that it could reflect several aspects of immaturity (pre-judgement, uncontrolled anger and immaturity around sex). Either way, it does show how open the video's messaging is. Whilst in some cases, the film filter can be a bit overbearing at points, the overall animation design feels very authentic and quirky, reflective of much of the other work made by its creator, VLIF. They're essentially a jack of all trades, being experienced in formats such as music, graphic design and animation, something that's primarily presented through their personal Neocities website, which displays their primary interest in early CGI based around the Y2K aesthetic of the 90s and early-2000s, with the use of design quirks such as basic shapes and thick outlines further reflecting the trends of those eras. In addition to this, there are also several other retro-styled videos also on their YouTube account that offer numerous surreal worlds to explore and experience, with some of my personal favourites including "Miramaru's Indictment Disk", which makes use of a wide breadth of formats to tell its strange story, and the music video/promo video "What Happened To Free The Love?", which whilst probably requiring a seizure warning, uses a cacophony of colours and visuals, complimented by some very authentic-sounding drum and bass music. Speaking of music, they've also created quite a few albums and songs worth checking out, including the album "Jupitaboo!", and the song "I Have No Voice Actor And I Must Scream", which uses several strange motifs, even though it was just meant to be included as a background element for a video used to announce the iconic ENA's new voice actors. It just goes to show how much dedication can be seen in even the more minor works by people like VLIF. "See It. Say It. Sorted." by LurdleThis next choice also makes an interesting mixture of CGI and 2D animation, though it's a lot more clear-cut in terms of what exactly is happening on-screen. "See it, say it, sorted" is one of those iconic PSA slogans used regularly on public transport in Britain in our uncertain age, which basically tells you to report whenever anyone acts shifty or suspicious on a train, a bus or at a station, in case they're a terrorist or just generally up to no good. This video takes a more humorous spin on that concept, creating a strong feeling of anxiety as a drunk man appears to be intruding on a woman's personal space by asking a few strange questions, before seemingly lunging towards another woman before we learn he's instead trying to help her off the train. Everything seems fine with the man before we discover the real reason he was helping her. It all plays on your expectations to great comedic effect, and goes in a million different directions throughout, with one commenter describing the video as going "from bad, to wholesome, to a literal nightmare". When you combine this with its interesting blend of 2D characters in a semi-realistic 3D setting, you end up getting a video that offers a brief but entertaining and well-designed sketch. The sketch's creator, Lurdle, has also done a bunch of other videos that similarly focus on relatable humour and some Smiling Friends-esque surrealism, and though they may be limited in number due to all the different moving parts involved in them, they all offer several different interesting scenarios, with "The Corner Stone" showing the plight of dealing with a cast of over-bearing customers during a restaurant's late-night dinner rush, whilst a more recent video "A Full Head of Hair", involves the interaction between a self-centred customer and a bald hairdresser tired of his shit. So whilst Lurdle's library is currently a bit small, his algorithm-defying method of quality over quantity ensures that whatever comes next is bound to be worth a watch. "The 4chan Inspired Anime | Peepochan" by Otaku-Vs4chan is a name that doesn't really have the best reputation behind it on the internet, though in spite of its controversy, it all started out as a dumb little messageboard inspired by anime, manga and general Japanese online and offline culture, so it would make sense for someone to have a go at creating the inverse, making an Azumaga Daioh or Nichijou-esque sketch comedy series based around greentexts from the old basket-weaving forum. Starring a young woman with colours reflecting the appearance of Pepe the Frog, each sketch begins with the classic ">Be me" setup before delving into a bunch of off-the-wall topics, ranging from the more mundane, like attempting to impress a woman at the gym, to the far more out-there examples, such as being forced to complete a Saw trap by correctly placing a carrot on a snowman (whilst trying to fight back how funny the incorrect choice would be). All of these make use of highly-detailed 2000s-styled animation by a whole team of animators, as well as a Japanese voice cast to really give off the feeling of an anime that came out around the time of the site's golden age. This is one of the many examples of TV-quality animation available on the Otaku-Vs channel. Originally starting out making a few short but insightful video essays around anime and manga, they've since decided to branch out towards making a series of fun short episodes primarily starring the quirky and inept Otachan, as she goes through various misadventures whilst working to become a big-name YouTuber. She's even started appearing in a serialised anime on the channel fairly recently, and whilst its risque humour may be something better suited to more seasoned weebs than a casual western viewer, it still definitely has its charm and is worth a watch if you're interested in the idea of an independently-made anime, with all the unconventional and edgy humour associated with the online otaku community. "Punch Punch Forever!" by SpeedoruOriginally starting out under the name of "Speedo Sausage" and uploading a series of short shitpost-y animations such as "Hey Homah" and "To Goof a Predator", Speedoru as he's now known, has recently been hard at work creating what can best be described as "the highest quality shitpost in history", creating a lampoon on various tropes in anime as well as the fandom and culture associated with it around the 90s/2000s, all while making use of both heavily varied animation with a small dosage of "stylistic suck". This gives it the feeling of a video typical of Speedoru's prior work, complete with western cartoon and golden-age Flash animation-styled humour, whilst at the same time being more expansive and engaging than anything that came before. The animation tells the tale of the young Gogo Matsumoto, who ventures to be the first human fighter to overcome the wrath of the demons who have held a tight grip on humanity for 200 years, by beating them in the Infinite Tournament, and though such a setting may be typical of the average shonen anime, this doesn't stop the series from offering a colourful and varied cast of characters who offer their own personality and brand of humour to the show, including Gogo's caring Mama, her hot-headed half-demon sister Nono, the tryhard ruler of the demons, Emperor Koro, and the completely live-action Emperor of Japan, whose stellar performance when congratulating Gogo is bound to be one for the ages. The incredibly impressive animation was largely completed by one guy, Speedoru, which ultimately makes it all the more impressive, though the video overall is held up by a really dedicated team of voice actors, editors, background artists and composers to make the finished product as intriguing, impressive and, dare I say, soulful as it ultimately is. The video's description carries a lot of deep lore over the discovery of the tape the anime was featured on, with this format being built on further by including brief snippets of old commercials, and even an amatuer-ish fansub that a lot of weebs had to rely on back in the 90s. Though I'm not too sure on what the future holds for these characters, I would be interested in the idea of expanding on this in the future, especially since there are a few not-so-subtle implications towards Mama and Koro's past relationship, and it's likely that this kind of series would go the route of Sr. Pelo's "Spooky Month", and how it managed to expand on a simple concept not too divergent from the creator's original writing style, before becoming something much more expansive, though still sticking to the simple humour that made the concept and its creator popular in the first place. "The Amazing Digital Circus: Pilot" by Glitch ProductionsThe Amazing Digital Circus by comparison is another product by those who made it big doing small things, before branching out into more ambitious forms of content. The concept itself was the brainchild of one Gooseworx, creator of such iconic videos as "Little Runmo" and the early darkly-comedic analog horror short "Blue_Channel: Thalasin", showcasing her unique character designs, well-flowing rubberhose animation and an interesting blend of comedy and horror that are all present in great numbers in her most recent project. Such a project was also created with the assistance of Glitch Productions, headed by the two brothers Kevin and Luke Lerdwichagul, who rose to fame through their iconic YouTube series SMG4, something which I'm not personally familiar with, though I guess it's probably more something that would've interested me if I saw it as a younger man. Regardless, since then, they've certainly matured and grew extremely ambitious with their work, making a series of top-tier CG animated shows, initially starring their earlier characters such as "Meta Runner" and "Sunset Paradise", before hitting out of the park with the simultaneously cute and gritty "Murder Drones". But this next project is one that's arguably become the most successful one from the team to date, with its pilot episode gaining a whopping 210 million views at the time of writing, with even some of the other more successful animation pilots such as Lackadaisy and Hazbin Hotel paling in comparison, to the point that even the content farm animators are now cashing in on its success, which may have resulted in it becoming a bit over-saturated in public discussion. But despite that, it's easy to see why so many people are talking about it. Exploring existentialism in a virtual world similarly to the likes of Little Runmo, The Amazing Digital Circus tells the tale of a jester woman only known as Pomni, as she gets trapped in a new reality, searching for an exit before ultimately succumbing to her circumstances. Such a story is told through an initial setup of a fun game of Gloink hunting by the unhinged ringleader Caine, during which we learn about the make-up of this world, and the consequences of attempting to find a way out of it, as seen through the disturbing glitched-out state of Kaufmo, whose fate is likely shared by many other characters we don't see, if the background details are anything to go by. Speaking of characters, each one of them carries their own unique personality and an appearance reflective of said-personality, whilst also holding a feeling of insanity bubbling underneath them, though keeping it together enough to avoid "abstraction", in spite of the futility of their situation. This futility is further expanded upon through the unease created by the environments and worlds explored throughout the episode, including the strangely laid-out circus itself, the realistic-looking endless office, which offered Pomni a sense of false hope for an exit, and the broad and featureless void, whose later appearance also offered a nice nod to the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey, to demonstrate how incomprehensible its overall scope is. Though besides that, the writing also doesn't try to take itself too seriously and balances itself out through the use of Gooseworx-ian dark humour, as well as incredibly bouncy and fluid animation created by a dedicated team headed by Kevin Temmer, a popular YouTube animator in his own right. The Amazing Digital Circus, alongside Punch Punch Forever, are among the many amazing examples of independent animation being showcased through places such as YouTube today, with them, alongside several other projects such as "Long Gone Gultch", "Helluva Boss" (despite its more contentious following) and "Big Top Burger", leading the way in what could be described as a Golden Age in online animation (or at least a renaissance if we count the early days of Flash animation), at a time when mainstream content, particularly from Hollywood circles, appears to be drying up in creativity. In that case, whilst it may be fun to point and laugh at big studios failing at making anything that can really interest the general public, and going into freefall as a result, I feel it would be a bit more constructive to also take time out and put a spotlight on various different alternative forms of media that are succeeding in independent spheres, something that I might try myself if I find something worth shouting about. That way, we can offer even more support to these small dedicated teams, vote with our wallets through donating and getting the merch, encourage bigger studios to listen to this hype and change course, and most importantly, remind others that they can work to create their own hit new IPs too. "Ralph Bakshi: Surviving In Tough Times" by Stephen WorthThis last choice is probably more of an honourable mention, as it didn't really come out in the past year, or the year before then, but rather fifteen whole years ago. So yeah; a bit late to the party, but what can you do? Still, that doesn't take from the value of the message offered by the video, which presents the wise words of legendary animator Ralph Bakshi, who five decades ago revolutionised the western animation industry and took it in a far more exciting and edgier direction, in spite of all the industry veterans and elitists telling him how he doesn't have the leadership, the manpower or the money that Disney has, and therefore could never stand out as a result. Nevertheless, he continued to work on his films with a small but dedicated team of animators, creating some of the most revolutionary works in animation whilst the mainstream industry faltered, the old veterans died off, and most other studios distanced themselves from the cinema in favour of cheaper and far less-stellar television animation. Such a situation in the industry could very much apply to when the video was recorded, and in many ways can also apply to how it is today, but the main difference that Bakshi highlights is that nowadays, there are far more resources readily available to the average animator compared to the days when everything was done by hand, and often required large teams to get decent results in a reasonable amount of time. Through his speech, it almost appears to frustrate him when he considers how very few animators have taken this opportunity to make something that competes with the bigwigs. It's pretty obvious that we have a lot of technology and computer programmes immediately available for us to achieve things far more quickly and easily, with Toon Boom, Adobe Animate and even free open-source options like Krita coming to mind for animation software, and this is in addition to art programmes like Autodesk Sketchbook, Clip Studio Paint and ProCreate, and game development software like Blender and Godot (we don't talk about Unity). The options are endless, and they're all available at a reasonable price (for the most part), so in that sense, there's really nothing stopping someone from getting their friends together, or for some guys online to create something they're passionate about, and then share their work with the world. Of course, it takes time and a lot of hard work, and like Bakshi says, such a lifestyle can lead you to "eat crap for a year" but after that, if your idea is interesting enough, and you make enough of a scene in the wide field of the online ecosystem, then you'll be able to get rich and make yourself a big name against the old guard. It may not be as polished as Disney or Warner Bros. or any of the other major labels, but neither was Bakshi's work, as he said himself; it was just different enough, it broke new ground, and now it's fondly remembered by film buffs and animation nerds even half a century later, with many of his productions serving as both a launchpad and a source of inspiration for those in the industry during both the famed Animation Renaissance, and the many years following it. In the comment section of the video, you'll notice people who are now major figures on YouTube such as RubberRoss and Harry Partridge voicing their support and inspiration from Bakshi's words, and by sharing it through this post, I hope a whole new generation can get inspired to create their own imaginative and innovative works, either on YouTube or anywhere else, and though it takes a lot of time, dedication and possibly a fair bit of assistance to get done, which runs largely counter to the algorithm's focus on getting a bunch of videos out as quickly as possible, in this case, I'll just say "screw the algorithm!". A lot of the people featured within this list don't upload particularly frequently, or at the very least have no set schedules, but that's largely because of how long it takes to make a video of their calibre, especially on your own or with a very small group. But once it's there, then they'll be at least one person out there who can tell their friends about your work, or you could shill it yourself if you feel it's worth it. If it works, then any accusations of you being cringe would pass by, and you may be the next big thing on YouTube. So go ahead, build on an idea your passionate about and share it with the rest of the world! Besides, what's the point of a place as open as the internet if only the Late Night Jimmy's get all the attention? Vacationing double
(triple?)-feature: Berlin, Germany
That wasn't to say things weren't completely smooth. Our flight out left the airport at around 7:50am, and since this airport was about an hour's drive away on the other side of London, that meant that we had to get up at around 4 in the morning (which is usually just two hours after I head to sleep), and the early start was definitely a shock to the senses. Still, with the help of a nice cup of Morning Joe from the airport's Burger King, one of the finest cafés our fair nation has to offer, and the excitement of fulfilling a three-year-in-the-making adventure keeping the spirits up, that super early morning became just a mild inconvenience compared to what I was getting into. Upon touching down at Berlin's new Brandenburg Airport (built right next to the one I arrived at last time I visited), my family collected our luggage, tried to adjust to Eastern Germany's strangely cold climate for early April, and hopped on to a train bound for Berlin Ostbahnhof, located not too far from our hotel. Normally my family held a preference for car rentals, and though this may be because of the spread-out holiday destinations we normally visit, we decided to stick to a relatively cheaper and hassle-free option by taking the train for much of our travels, especially since I was aware of the prowess the Germans had when it came to public transport. Though one quick oddity you'll notice whenever you visit a German train station is that, unlike most British, American, or even Japanese stations, there didn't appear to be any ticket barriers anywhere. There were of course ticket machines, where you stamped your paper passes to get places, but then again there wasn't really anything stopping you from just avoiding the machine all together, trying your luck with ticket inspector visits and freeloading your way around town. I guess it's just an expectation built into German culture to always use the ticket machines, like how jaywalking's a much bigger deal over there than in Britain. Regardless, you weren't risking much buying tickets anyway, as some passes got you out as far as the outskirts of Berlin, costing just €4 for about two hours of travel, or around €31 for a group of five to travel around town for 24 hours. By comparison, a day pass in London is probably around £15 per person, and there aren't any group discounts that I'm aware of. The service itself was also incredibly smooth, so me and my family definitely got some bang for our buck, and since there was only about a stop between the origin and destination, there was plenty of time to look outside and take in all the wondrous sights of Berlin's city life, from the sprawling allotments of the suburbs to the bustling tenements and businesses of the city centre. From there, we headed down to our hotel, about a 10 minute walk away, with me continuing to adjust to the climate in the process, before finally arriving at our abode for the next few nights: The Hampton Inn, located opposite the famed East Side Gallery, and at the edge of the newly-built commercial district surrounding the Mercedes Benz Arena. Before going on this journey, I was feeling kinda nostalgic and considered heading back to the hostel I had visited previously: The A&O Berlin Hauptbahnhof, which I distinctly remember for its bright blue-and-orange colour palette, giving off an old-style Berlin Wall-era vibe to the place. Since then though, I've checked it out on Google Maps, and it turns out the place has received this ugly "Millennial Gray" renovation that just makes all the images of it look cold and drab, so combined with the fact the rooms were kinda small anyway, that was gonna be a no-go. This place wasn't really that different from your average hotel in terms of design, but it was still nonetheless very comfortable, stocked with toiletries throughout, and had plenty of content available on TV, so as ma and pa were busy in their room getting everything ready, me and the bros were just chilling watching "Gefragt - Gejagt" (that's German for "The Chase" I think), and trying to somehow get the right answer despite it all being in a language we don't understand. I also could've sworn the chaser looked exactly like Sigmund Freud. Anyway, the benefit of getting up and flying down super-early was that it was only mid-afternoon by the time we got everything sorted, so we had time to make a quick trip to a place I had my eyes on since I first visited Berlin: The DDR Museum. Of course this wasn't a museum dedicated to the 1998 Konami arcade rhythm game alternatively known as "Dancing Stage" in Europe, for reasons apparently outside the connotations of the abbreviation. Rather it was a museum exploring life in what was officially known as the "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" (or simply "East Germany" to English-speaking folk). The museum was particularly interesting due to it holding a fairly satirical edge to its presentation style, regularly taking pot-shots at the Socialist regime, for example including a small display where a bunch of puppets representing the country's political parties would raise their hands based on the positions each party took in key historic votes (they all voted unanimously every time). The museum also came with a full-size replica of a typical East German flat, with memorabilia such as hygiene products, household appliances, comic books and even a TV that could play several clips of both East and West German television, all dotted around the scene. The whole experience actually ended up de-mystifying life behind the Iron Curtain, as my parents, both children of the 70s and 80s, noted that the activities on display were surprisingly similar to what they experienced as kids, with things like stamp collecting for free groceries, which was treated as this alien concept in the museum, being something they vividly remember their parents doing as part of their jobs. Plus, as someone who fell down the conspiracy rabbit hole recently, my Dad started noticing a few similarities between East Germany's government, and our government, especially when it came to the thing about how all the political parties voted the same way on important decisions. There was also mention of East Germany's concept of Western Imperialism, with my Dad scoffing at the sign which discussed how the country had this strange belief that western countries like the USA went to war all the time because that kept the corporations that profitted from it happy, which also illicited a sarcastic 'What? That's crazy!' from me. Politics aside, there was also this Trabant driving simulator that was kinda fun, though you're not given much time if you're trying to break out of the in-game neighborhood like I tried to, and they were selling this citrus-y cola drink in the gift shop known as "Vita Cola", which the East Germans had instead of Coke, so I decided to grab some on the way out for later. For our first big meal in Berlin, we walked down from the hotel to a restaurant named Pirates Berlin, a restaurant/nightclub with a vague Pirate-ish theme here and there (as the name would imply). The seating area was kinda dark and a bit cold (which probably had something to do with that damned weather), but the amount of food and drink options available was incredible, with me personally going for a pepperoni pizza served on a nice thin Neapolitan crust, though you could also check out other options, such as the "Fuckin Famous" (actual name) deep-dish pizza, with "ribs", jalapenos and parmesan cheese, as well as a few assorted non-pizza entrees. Still though, the pizza I got was huge; about 32cm (or a foot-long) in diameter is how they measured it, and the whole thing was really nice and moist throughout, with the pepperoni pieces being especially huge, often spanning over the eight slices I cut up. With this in mind, I tried to be conservative with my sides (sticking to zero-sugar Coke after one normal drink), as I was looking forward to getting some Vita Cola back at the hotel room. Problem was, our hotel wasn't really the kind to keep a mini-fridge in each room, so it wasn't really in the most ideal condition once I finally took my first sip, but it was pretty nice. Felt very natural and I guess rustic (?) with its flavouring. Couldn't afford to get too processed in a place like East Germany I suppose. So, as the night continued on, and I was probably awake for about 20 hours, me and the bros finished our day off with a few episodes of South Park (which we thankfully managed to get in English), before catching some Z's for a long and exciting day ahead. The next day started out pretty early on, as we took the train down a few stations to Hackescher Markt for a walking tour, similarly to one I took part in on my first trip to the city. Walking tours are probably the best way to experience Berlin, as they cover a fair amount of distance and cover several local landmarks, all while offering plenty of fascinating information about the environment, which can end up showing that even fairly mundane-looking places can have some history to them; after all, a walking tour was where I learned about the site of Hitler's Bunker, an unassuming unpaved car park that was deliberately meant to avoid any kind of attention so as to not inadvertently memorialise him. Throughout the 2-3 hour-long walk, several other major landmarks would be covered on this trip, such as the newly-reconstructed Palace of Berlin, which with the exception of a modern-styled rear to it, appears as if it had stood in the city for centuries, despite only opening in 2020, and even previously being the site of the Palast der Republik, the East German parliament building. Then there's also the wide and rugged street of Unter den Linden, lined with dozens of historical buildings throughout, the site of Checkpoint Charlie, complete with a reconstruction of its old 60s-era guard station, a small strip of the Berlin Wall, the Nazi-era Detlev-Rohwedder Building, which still retains its World War II-era bullet holes, as well as an East German propaganda poster, which as seen in the top-near-right image, is now contrasted with a large photograph portraying the harsh realities of life under the Communist government. Our tour concluded by visiting both the imposing and incredibly symbolic Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (though it was already starting to age, with some blocks appearing slanted, and a portion of the memorial under renovation), and finally the Brandenburg Gate, the most iconic of Berlin buildings, as well as its surrounding square, Parisier Platz, which features various differently-designed embassies, the hotel that Michael Jackson infamously dangled a baby from, and a whole group of protests taking place on the day we showed up, including one against the Chinese government, one demanding the release of Julian Assange, and of course, one protesting Russia's actions in Ukraine, just outside the country's Soviet-era embassy. After a quick refreshment break at the Coffee Lab in Kaiserhöfe (which does a mean vanilla latte!), we decided to head back to one of the places we visited on the tour. The walking tour was chosen as our first major outing as it also had the benefit of helping us choose where to go in the city, as we weren't so sure where to end up visiting, so after some brief decision-making, we settled on the Berlin Wall Museum next to Checkpoint Charlie, which interestingly enough, as you can tell by the far-right image, was right opposite a McDonald's, and was also next to a KFC, symbolising that indeed, the Capitalists won the Cold War. The museum (which of course was also one of the stops on my first trip) primarily discussed the stories of the Wall's construction, its impact on the city's community, and those who dared to cross the death strip for a better life. However, it also had a more generalised theme of being what I called a "protest museum" on my first visit, as it made reference to several big issues and movements that shaped German and world politics since the 1960s, such as Martin Luther King's civil rights campaign, the expansion of NATO following the Cold War, and of course, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, illustrated by the building's large Ukrainian flag with text basically telling Putin 'Hey! Just don't... OK?' (that was actually also there on the first time around, being up ever since the Invasion of Crimea in 2014). This could have had something to do with the museum apparently being in place since shortly after the wall itself was erected, showing its historic focus on striving towards freedom and peace, two things that contrasted against the imposition of the wall in the first place. After being shown the evils of authoritarianism and the Communist regime, I decided to get some flags from some past Communist regimes, sold at an outside market stall, which I had always wanted to get around to doing since the school trip. Managed to snag an East German flag and a Soviet one. I just think they look cool. Honest. For dinner, we headed down to a Bavarian-style restaurant named Maximilians. The whole place had a beautiful wood-panel appearance to it all, with a nice combination of classic and modern to its styling, as well as its own brewery, which probably would've been amazing if I drank alcohol. But besides their large selection of drinks, there were also plenty of traditional German foods to quench your appetite, with me personally deciding to go for a veal schnitzel with a portion of either fried potatoes or fries (not sure which, might've been both, since they were shared) on the side. I only really found out what a schnitzel was last year whilst I was in Turkey, and the best comparison I could make would be with those large breaded chicken fillets I used to have (and enjoy) when I was younger, but this meal of course far exceeded the kind of store-bought fillets I was used to, and was absolutely succulent and flavourful from beginning to end. Whilst it didn't really matter much to me since I thankfully wasn't the one paying, the price of the food was perfectly reasonable for an up-market restaurant, and that schnitzel was worth every penny anyhow, so I couldn't complain there! By the time we were done, it was already dark out and we decided to head home by taking a couple-line trip on the U-Bahn to the station on the other side of our hotel (as opposed to Ostbahnhof). However, I was being a bit too much of a tourist during the day, and my incessant picture-taking may have ended up catching the wrong kind of attention, with this guy coming up to me on the train as I was taking some pictures of the interior, who then tried to knock my phone down. I mean fair enough, I should've been more considerate of those around me, and I learned to be less intrusive with the pictures I took, but I mean that guy could've at least told me to stop first or something, rather than just shock me like that. Still, this one incident didn't do much to take away from the experience I had of a grand day out, and as me and my boys headed back to watch some more TV before the last big day, I was more at ease, and ready for another day of travels. The next day started off with a bit more of a sobering experience, with a visit to the Topography of Terror museum detailing the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. On my previous visit, I managed to visit the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Oranienburg, but since that was probably a bit far for us, and maybe a bit too depressing for a fun long weekend away, we decided to visit this more local installation instead. That isn't to diminish the quality or harrowing nature of the experience that was visiting the museum; its structure was actually rather unique through its combined use of a modern, blank and utilitarian building, so as to not take away from its message, and a long timeline documenting the party's rise to power, located outside, both next to the foundations of the Reich Security Main Office, and underneath the long strip of the Berlin Wall we visited earlier during the walking tour. There were several segments discussing the Party's structure, its treatment of people such as political opponents, Jews, Romani Travellers, gay and disabled people, and citizens of occupied states such as Poland, as well as the aftermath of its fall at the end of the war, including the fact that many former Nazi Party officials would go on to work for the American and West German governments during the early days of the Cold War. Though the most impactful part of this exhibition was how it plainly illustrated the gradual erosion of rights for Jewish people living within Germany, which reminds people to always look out for early signs of tyranny taking form, as like with the "Frog in Boiling Water" analogy (which isn't scientifically accurate, but it still counts here), most of the time it's difficult to tell you're in real danger until it's too late. Nevertheless, despite the harrowing nature of the visit, me and my family weren't looking to leave this city depressed, so we decided to hop on a train and head somewhere further out of the centre of town. A place that was of particular interest to my brothers: The Olympiastadion, which started out as an example of Fascist architecture intended to serve as a key component to the Nazis' propaganda machine, but has now morphed into a less controversial landmark of Berlin, playing host to major sporting events such as the 1974 and 2006 World Cups, several different concerts, and the home games of its local football team, Hertha BSC. This unfortunately meant that, since it was a match day, we weren't able to go in for a tour as they were preparing for the game later that evening. Still, we managed to take a walk around the place and explore the atmosphere of a more suburban part of what was now former-West Berlin. The environment itself was really well put-together, though there were a few cracks showing compared to the centre of the city, like a shopping trolley showing up just outside the stadium and some grime showing up here and there. My guess was that all the big property people moved out of West Berlin after the 80s to take advantage of the East's cheaper real estate or something. Once I decided we should travel further up the train line to Spandau, that's when the comparisons to the 80s became far more apparent, as noted by there still being a Woolworth's department store in the centre of town and a C&A nearby (though that's probably because our country specifically hasn't had them in a while). Of course, that doesn't take away from the soul the town was rocking, with it having not just a single street, but an entire old town district that was completely pedestrianised, really embodying that feel of classic German living. Of course, since the town didn't receive as much attention as the main city from tourists, with most Brits probably only knowing it as the first half of a band name, we ended up sticking out like a sore thumb in the local community. Still though, we were able to find a place to sit down and have a drink, as there was a football match on in one of the bars, even though my Mum found it kinda frustrating to communicate with the waitress who, understandably, didn't speak English as well as people in the city probably would. Nevertheless, I would recommend heading down to Spandau for at least a couple hours on a trip to Berlin, but it would probably work best if you spoke at least some amount of German. We were planning on getting some souvenirs whilst we were in Spandau, as I assumed it would've been more a tourist-y kind of place, but since we didn't really get around to that, we decided to head back to Berlin and get some trinkets there. On the way, we managed to get our hands on some Currywurst, a local delicacy. Originally, the name didn't sound particularly attractive to me, as I assumed it would've been a sausage in chip shop-style curry sauce, though it turns out it instead uses a mixture of ketchup and curry powder to create a nice and flavourful taste, whilst not having too intense a level of spice for my un-melanated taste buds! Soon though, after making it to a gift shop on Unter den Linden, most of my family wasn't sure on where to go next, probably deciding to make it back to the hotel before dinner. However, I elected to instead go on my own to a place I also gained a keen interest in: The Computerspielemuseum, which luckily enough wasn't too far away from our hotel. So, I decided to set off to Weberweise station, though the journey did feel a bit unnerving because since I couldn't to get a ticket due to only having cash on me, I could only freeload and hope there wasn't an inspector around. Still, I made it through with no problems and got myself into the museum. This place discussed the history of video gaming, partly in relation to German history (for example, an East German "Poly Play" machine was present in the back of the complex), but more or less exploring the medium's past in general, with this being achieved through its wide array of different displays, offering reconstructions of living rooms and bedrooms of the eras each console was from, as well as a couple nice reconstructions of small arcades, one of which you can see in the left image of the montage. Though beyond its discussion of the history of video games, it also exhibited a few interesting examples of unconventional gaming experiences, such as a copy of Burnout with an exercise bike as the controller, a game of The Legend of Zelda played on probably the world's largest NES controller, and the infamous "PainStation", a recreation of Pong which inflicts painful consequences on the game's losers, with one of your hands either getting hit by a zip-tie, a slight burn, or an electric shock. Naturally, I didn't think I was ready for that pain. There was so much to explore at the museum, but unfortunately I only really gave myself about an hour or two there before it closed at 8pm. Since I heard we planned to book a table for tonight's dinner at around 8:30, I knew I had to run back down as quickly as possible. So, with the power of Moby's "Go" blasting on my phone, I rushed down through the streets of former East Berlin, observing the tower blocks and wide roads as dusk fell on the city, and despite some confusion here and there whilst taking a few shortcuts, I managed to arrive back at the hotel in about 15 or 20 minutes, which was still enough time to have a quick shower as it turned out we weren't leaving at exactly half-8 anyway. Oh well; at least I got the exercise. The place we were eating was far closer to home; it was a Tony Roma's in the same complex as our hotel. Tony Roma's hasn't been in our country for a long time, but whenever we came across one on our vacationing, my Dad was always looking to visit one, as he claimed they had the best ribs known to man. Once I managed to get around to them, I can at least say they're definitely in the running for it! Whilst I'm more of a steak guy myself, I won't deny that the world-famous ribs offered there are certainly second-to-none, and whilst some dishes such as the Chicken Lollipops might not be as appetising, I surprisingly got a lot out of the restaurant's unique Onion Loaf, which I suppose is kinda the result if an onion ring and an onion bhaji had a baby and then fed it a load of steroids. It was real nice, but damn, no man was meant to eat so much onion! We ended our trip the next morning, on Easter Sunday, with a nice serving of self-made waffles from the hotel's breakfast bar, and though there were a couple issues in the mad dash back to the airport, which resulted in us failing to stamp our tickets as we didn't want to miss our train, which got further exacerbated by that elusive inspector finally showing up on a train, he understood the situation as just us being tourists, and let us go. Before leaving for Berlin, I was worried that I might end up being somewhat disappointed by the journey, as it wouldn't live up to the expectations my hyper-nostalgic brain built up for it. But no; Berlin's just as amazing and exciting as I remember it, and with a few rare exceptions here and there, I was having a whale of a time from beginning to end. The experience of taking in this city, its culture, its history, its nuances; it's why I love to travel anywhere outside of my dull and depressing neck of the woods. Normally, one international holiday is enough for my family's budget for the year, but this time, this would only be the first of three I ended up doing over the course of the year. Whilst for a while, it was still kinda up in the air as to whether or not we could make it into the US this year, by mid-May, it was official: America's last Covid restrictions were gone, just in time to make it to my cousin's wedding in late-August. Going back there was something I spent years waiting for, and now it was finally happening! Vancouver, BC, Canada
Each of us headed down to a different outlet offering the unique tastes of Canada, with me choosing "Japadog", a Japanese-style hot dog place that's apparently a pretty decently-sized chain of restaurants in the Vancover area; I gave it a go since when's the next time you're gonna have a Japanese-style hot dog? My choice was the Wagyu Terimayo, consisting of seaweed, fried onions, mayonnaise, teriyaki and of course a wagyu beef hot dog, a succulent delicacy that carried the flavour of the dog and was worth every penny. Uncertainty set in however, once we found out that my Mum and (younger) younger bro's flight had been delayed, so we ended up spending this delay buying time; my Dad and bro headed down to a sports bar next to the baggage claim, whilst I took a quick tour through the nearby 7-Eleven, coming up close and personal with the incredible size of the Super Big Gulp, reacting like an alien who had just crash-landed on Earth. Boredom however soon set in, as I grew tired of waiting for the flight, both figuratively and literally, as I had gotten up around 5am for the flight out from London, and it was about midnight in that part of the world by the time we were finally reunited as a family at the baggage claim. After a trip through Vancouver to our Airbnb location, as well as some late grocery shopping after we settled in, I had been up for about 24 hours and was getting extremely cranky by the time the grocery shop happened. But whenever travelling over the Atlantic, the day of the flight is always the worst because of how the daylight hours screw with your senses. But that was only the first day (or only really the first half-day); everything was gonna get far better from here on out. So, the full first day started out with a sudden bout of exercise, with my Dad recommending I run out with him down some of the neighbourhood streets, which turned out to be a bit more stressful than it sounds, mainly due to the fact that our spot in North Vancouver was rather hilly. Though we spent a lot of the time going downhill through Mahon Park, a very rural-looking and picturesque place for a city suburb, with declines so sharp that it was difficult to keep control of myself at points, the strange layout of the local area combined with the fact we hardly knew where we were going nevertheless made it a pretty tough job. Still, we made it back in one piece and decided to mark the start of our holiday in Vancouver by leaving Vancouver itself for the mountains up north. Despite it being incredibly close to where we were staying, we decided to skip out on Grouse Mountain in favour of something further out. We had initially considered setting off for Whistler before the holiday began, but concluded that it would probably be a bit too far for a day out, so we chose to head over to a midway point of sorts, the Sea to Sky Gondola at the Stawamus Chief Provincial Park. Really, all that needs to be said is just how jaw-droppingly beautiful the local landscape is. The wide-reaching sprawl of the coniferous trees, the incredible views from the mountains and the precarious sections of the trails keeping nothing between you and the risk of becoming one with nature; they all offer such a beautiful picture of the environment around you (even if that last point was maybe a bit morbid), and practically every picture you could take there would be worth hanging up on a wall. Once we embraced the heights of nature, we came back down to civilisation with a trip to the city of Squamish for a quick refreshment break at the local A&W (first time I had a proper drink of root beer was there; it was all right; tasted kinda like a Vanilla Coke), before making another quick stop to Alice Lake on the way back to Vancouver. Like the peaks of Stawamus Chief, the sights were stunning, and the lake was teeming with vacationing families taking advantage of the good weather, though we didn't get much time to hang out there before heading back to our Airbnb to relax and prepare for the evening. I took the opportunity to show off some of J.J. McCullough's Weird Canada Iceberg videos to the fam to expand their Canadian knowledge, but I guess they didn't really take much of an interest. For the evening, we headed out to The Shipyards, giving ourselves a brief glimpse into Vancouver's stunning modern developments, as well as the people that turn them into lived-in places. Women practiced yoga, whilst friends congregated (and probably blazed) in the parks, and there was tons of live music going on at the Shipbuilder's Square late into the night, allowing us to bask in the glory of the bright skyline of Vancouver proper, something that we would finally go down to explore after another well-needed night's rest. The next day started out with us heading into town for a bike tour around the city. It was probably a better option than a walking tour considering a lot of the stuff around the town was a bit more spread out than in Berlin, though despite the distance, it really wasn't any trouble at all (this is coming from a guy who does 20-mile bike rides though tbf). The roads were nice and flat, and the cycling infrastructure was absolutely top notch, with segregated and well-paved bike paths throughout. These took us through all the different aspects of Vancouver's cityscape, and I mean all of them. From the highs of the culture of Davie Street, the excitement of an anime convention at Canada Place, the spectacle of Robson Square, and of course the sprawling natural beauty of Stanley Park, all the way down to the lows of the crack smokers at Mole Hill. Still, there were far more highs than lows, and far higher highs at that. My personal favourite part of the journey would have to be travelling through Stanley Park. Stawamus Chief may appear more beautiful overall, but Stanley Park was definitely the most impressive. It seemed impossible to feel so far away from city life, whilst literally just being a mile or two away from it in reality. Stepping under the bridge leading into the park and through to the swamp featured on the top near-right image was like entering into another world, with not a speck of skyline in sight, nor the faintest sound of cars. It just goes to show how versatile a place like Vancouver is for filming, as each section of it can easily feel like another part of the world. Though weirdly enough, I actually don't really know that many things filmed in Vancouver (at least to my knowledge) besides the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies, so there weren't really that many places that immediately appeared recognisable to me. Don't get me wrong, they were real cool, but not really as recognisable as they would've been if I took a trip down New York or LA. Though there was one connection I had to Vancouver, but that'll be explored later. The rest of the day was pretty chill; we got ourselves some hot dogs and tater tots from a place called Felbo's Franks, which had a whole bunch of different sauces, toppings and drinks on the side, like root beer, cream soda, Vanilla Coke, and even Monster Energy drinks to go with your glizzy, though I just stuck with a Coke Zero as I was saving my sugar for later. Not much really happened after that. Just sitting around, watching some movies on Netflix, that sort of thing. The only time we went back outside was to get dinner at a place called Smoke & Bones BBQ, home of the Brisket BBQ Sammich, which came with a side of fries and coleslaw, which whilst delicious, was quite a mouthful, and I struggled to get through it by the time I made it to the coleslaw. Guess when it comes to massive calorie-coalescing portions of food, Americans and Canadians aren't so different after all! The next day felt rather apocalyptic. The news was going on about these wildfires taking place on the east side of BC and by this point the smoke had reached our turf. I was kinda bummed out since I wanted to go on a longer bike trip, but since intense exercise was out of the question when you're breathing in shit tons of burnt wood, I postponed it for another day. Instead, we went on another, this time self-guided and somewhat aimless tour around town, taking the SeaBus to the downtown, the train to Yaletown, and then walking over the main bridge to Granville Island, the number-1 recommended spot for Vancouver's tourists. As soon as we got there, it became immediately apparent as to why this was the case, with the whole place kinda feeling like Disneyland for hipsters, with several local trinkets as far as the eye can see, such as magic healing crystals, indigenous sculptures, or even just plush moose-es if you don't wanna go too far out of your comfort zone. There's also plenty of options for food, such as a place named Lee's Donuts, which of course does some real good glazed and gourmet-tier donuts, as well as several other places in the Public Market selling international food offerings, such as Thai, Japanese and (I think) Korean foodstuffs, as well as a spot seen in the bottom far-left pic that apparently also does Royal Scottish and Gay food. Wonder what that tastes like. The whole place had a very boardwalk-ish kind of feel to it, with broad pedestrian spots and even some buskers playing near the market. From here, we took this cute tiny ferry boat down to one of Vancouver's top sporting venues, BC Place, home of the Vancouver Whitecaps football (soccer) team, who just so happened to be playing later that evening against the San Jose Earthquakes, so with my brothers not wanting to pass up the opportunity to see a game of football (soccer), we quickly snagged ourselves some tickets. Though since the game wasn't gonna be for another few hours, we decided to head over to the tourist-y spot of Gastown for a drink and to also see another sports game on TV. While the journey to Gastown involved going via East Hastings Street (Vancouver's Skid Row), once we were there, you could definitely commend how well the local area captured the spirit of a quaint old town, and while we were a bit too far out to see the famous Gastown Steam Clock (which unfortunately isn't actually powered by steam), there was plenty of nice and colourful decor dotted around the place, like a really nice tree-styled set of street lights that you can see on the bottom near-left pic. The bar we hung out at, Smith's Irish Pub, also reflected that atmosphere super well and was a nice chill place to get yourself a Coke. Issues would arise though, once my Dad figured we should head down to the Chinatown for dinner, since Vancouver has such an expansive Chinese community that their Chinese food would probably be some of the best in the world (outside of China, of course). However, once we decided to walk down through that section of town, it didn't really feel as inviting as other areas in Vancouver, appearing unfortunately rather run-down, with some strange characters walking around here and there, and though it did have a few interesting landmarks, such as an authentic Chinese garden, and may have offered quite a few nice food offerings, the atmosphere made the area far less enticing for my parents. Instead, we played it safe by heading to a Boston Pizza joint (which ironically is actually a Canadian-only chain) next to BC Place, complete with a multiplex of different sports channels playing at once in typical American sports bar fashion. The food was real nice, but generally the kind of stuff you'd normally expect from a Pizza Hut, though they did also have these massive-ass chocolate cake slices that was absolutely teeming with flavour. The stadium itself was also a pretty nice place overall. Like a lot of modern North American stadia, especially in Northern North America, this one was completely indoors, and was at that ideal temperature for humans; not too hot or too cold, just the perfect setting for watching and especially playing sports. Unfortunately, the Whitecaps didn't really play too well this time; they didn't really feel that well co-ordinated, hitting the ball too far and not making it fast enough to pass it over. This ultimately resulted in them conceding a goal to San Jose, and scoring none themselves, despite the morale-boost of their constantly-singing troupe of supporters (who even came with their own conductor!). Whilst on the previous day I was introduced to Vancouver proper with a brief tour of some of the highlights, this day allowed me to truly immerse myself in the different aspects of life in the bustling city, and on the next day, the last full day out, I wanted to continue that by exploring its offerings even further afield. By next morning, the smog had cleared out and it was back to the beautiful sunshine we had at the start of the trip. Initially I planned on taking this day to go out and try some cycling by myself, but my Dad thought the idea was interesting so he suggested that he could come along as well, and soon enough the whole family decided to go on the ride together. Whilst I was planning on doing another long ride, I decided to adjust things by instead having the journey be a quick tour from the same bike hire place where the cycling tour started, to just over False Creek where we headed over to Kitsilano Beach. Whilst the area was interesting to my family, due to the beautiful high-income houses dotted around the coast, as well as the fact that the town apparently had a prominent Irish community, my interest in the area was related one of the few Vancouverite celebrities I knew: The infamous Game Dude, who filmed his video manifesto, as well as some music videos dedicated to the ex-girlfriend he went on to stalk, around the location seen on the bottom near-right image, before fleeing the country with practically no lead to suggest where he is now. If you wanna hear more about him, then check out this video here. Anyway, after finding the location, as well as a 10-cent coin in completely perfect condition just laying on the ground, we cycled on the side of False Creek for a while before we made it down to its inland edge at Science World, making a long and flat, but by now kinda tiring, journey back up to the bike hire shop, at one point coming across a sculpture depicting the iconic Inukshuk, seen on the far-right of the image collection. After the long bike ride, we decided to get ourselves some refreshments at a Tim Horton's, which we waited until now to actually visit during our time in Canada. We didn't manage to snag some Timbits sadly, but we did end up getting some fairly nice fried chicken wraps instead. So whilst we finally ticked one thing off the list, there was still another Game Dude-related location I had yet to visit, though it was a bit further out this time. Now that my family had kinda run out of ideas on where to go, they thought it would be an all right time if I wanted to split off, so I went ahead and got myself the bus up to the centre of the city, so I could take the SkyTrain over to Gamedeals in New Westminster. Whilst on the bus journey, I managed to find myself another coin just laying around: A loonie (a $1 coin for non-Canadians, 'cause it has a duck on the reverse side). I was starting to think it must've been my lucky day or something, though I was thinking a little differently once I went around Central Vancouver for a quick bathroom break. By the way, Do not use public bathrooms in Vancouver. Anyway, after that ordeal, I decided to hitch a ride on the SkyTrain down to New Westminster. There was also a comic shop I was interested in visiting just on the line down but turns out it was open on every day of the week except for this particular day (a Monday), so I had to end up skipping it. So once I got over to New Westminster, the main street immediately offered a much more quiet environment compared to the bustle of the downtown, with the Gamedeals store being tucked away in a nice little segment of the street. The connection this particular store had to the Game Dude was that this was apparently his local game store before he went AWOL, and they even invited him over to do an interview for the store's YouTube channel, though much of it just ended up taking the piss out of the guy. Immediately I could notice that the Super Mario Bros. mural from the background was still up, but from what I can tell, the store has seen a bit of a changing of the guard, and now the clerks have hardly even heard of the guy. Beyond that though, there was a huge collection of games around the place, both new and old, and even quite a few special editions of games from the Shantae series (of course minus the coveted Pirates' Curse), and even a toolbox-shaped special edition of the Scott Pilgrim video game. However this meant that a lot of these games were extremely expensive, a fair bit over the CA$100 mark, with some games going even higher, such as a boxed copy of the original Pokémon Yellow Edition that was being sold for $2000. Still though, the high price is really just a consequence of the game's super high demand, and there's a whole slew of different games available for a much lower price, and I was even told by a local of several other interesting stores around the area that I can visit if I ever come back, which I can say is very possible. Though in terms of the Switch offerings, which were kinda my only choice for a region-free console, there weren't a lot in my budget that sprang out to me, but then I noticed a copy of Game Maker Studio for the Switch and thought 'I've come this far. I might as well get something while I'm here', so I got the game, left the store feeling good, and made my way back to meet the family in Vancouver, who were chilling at another bar, checking out some sports whilst I was gone. We weren't done yet in Vancouver though, as we headed back in to get more adventurous with our choice for dinner, making up for the cancelled Chinese by getting some K-BBQ at a place called Dae Bok Bon Ga, which on the surface appeared quite pricy with their shared food offerings, but it turned out that what you were getting with that price was portions and portions of delicious marinated meats, a portion of Haemul Pajeon (seafood pancakes), Kimchi, and other assorted delicacies. It was a lot, certainly filling and satisfying from beginning to end, but thankfully I still had enough space to fit in a dessert option on the way back I always wanted to try: A cola Slurpee from 7-Eleven (though I of course just went up to halfway with the cup, and shared it with my bros, 'cause I'm health-conscious like that). Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of stuff there was to sink my teeth into during my visit to Vancouver, a place that may initially appear like a typical North American city, but in reality holds an identity more divergent from any other city on the continent. Vancouver's unique culture, incredible architecture, and its striking blend of exciting urban life with its gorgeous natural landscape, help it to stand out among much of the rest of the cities surrounding it (which can definitely explain why living there is apparently so prohibitively expensive). Whilst there were moments where I was taught the hard way that having a bunch of wackos walking around the big cities isn't exclusively a US thing in North America, it ultimately didn't detract from my overall experience of the wondrous city of Vancouver, and it's likely that it could appear on the "love" category on the map featured on my "about" page, especially if I ever come back after consuming a wider range of films and TV shows, so I'm more likely to appreciate the local land and occasionally recite the phrase "I know what that is!" around town. But that's only the first half of my trip across the pond; I've still got a whole week ahead to appreciate the wonders waiting for me at my home-from-home: Minneapolis! Minneapolis, MN, USA 
 But there was still a bit left to go until then, so we made the most of our trip by engrossing ourselves in the local environment, starting out with a super early run in Chaska, going around its natural outskirts and back to where we started, a task that was far more difficult than it was in Vancouver, as it had already reached about 25°C by around 10am, and the course was through some improvised paths which ended with a creek crossing, which I didn't manage to pass unscathed. Since I was running pretty slowly (and actually taking a few frequent breaks, which, like, never happens normally), I was far behind my (younger) younger bro and my Dad, but about even with my (older) younger bro (let's call them "Yu-yun" and "Ol-yun" for simplicity's sake), and once we returned to our starting point, the car we took was nowhere to be found. I had no clue where it could have gone, and I felt like I entered the Twilight Zone or something. Though then, just before I was planning on walking back to the family house, Dad and Yu-yun arrived back with the car, and managed to get themselves some ice cold water while we were waiting, the one thing we desperately needed in the hot Midwestern summer. The rest of the day was a much chiller affair, taking a trip to the Mall of America, which is generally the big highlight of a visit to the Twin Cities. Whilst the cynic may call it a cathedral to Consumerism, to me, someone who prefers having fun, the place is often a high point in every visit to the local area, with tons of different shops, eateries and other attractions to pull you in. Unfortunately though, much of our time here was spent shoe shopping, but we did have a bit of time left over for a few rides down at Nickelodeon Universe, though the cost per ride was pretty high, and one of the big pulls, the zip wire across the park, was closed for the day. Still, we did get through quite a few thrills, my personal favourite of the ones I went on being the Pepsi Orange Streak, as I was never really too keen on intense coasters, and the ride managed to fill that safe fix, though if I come back later I might take a plunge (hint hint) for an even greater high (though we'll see if I actually do that). Oh, and I also managed to notice what I think was an anti-Scientology sticker on one of the park lamps (as you can see on the far-right pic), because what could be a better place to make your important political statement than a theme park for children? Anyway, sadly we didn't have much time left over to visit the other shops I had on my mind, like the mall's Barnes and Noble, a personal favourite spot in the complex, as we needed to head back before more family members came over to the house. Still, I was told that we could visit the mall or someplace like it soon, so I guess I had that to look forward to. And besides, there's more to Minnesota than massive malls and big box stores. That "more to Minnesota" was something I wished to explore the following day by going on a bike ride from Chaska all the way in to central Minneapolis, but that unfortunately had to be postponed since I couldn't find a nearby place that offered bike hire services, so instead we hung around back at the house for a little bit before Dad suggested we try and freshen up on our golf skills with some Topgolf. For those who haven't visited it, it's sort of like a golf driving range, but more of a Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Dream Event-kind of version of it, or maybe just mini golf but bigger, with the objective being to land your ball in certain targets, and there's a whole bunch of different themed versions of the game to check out, though just we stuck with the default. It could be frustrating at points, especially since I'm kinda rusty with golf and could rarely even hit the ball in a straight line, but once I got a technique down, I managed to do decently well. Not as well as my more golf-literate family members, but enough to feel confident in myself. It also had quite a few different clubs on hand for lefties like me, even though I guess like 9 out of 10 Americans are right-handed, so that definitely helped me feel more at ease, and there were also plenty of wide-ranging food and drink options available, with me choosing a hamburger (surprisingly it was probably the first proper one I had on this trip to North America) and a massive jug-worth of pink lemonade, which of course was really nice and sweet, but again it felt like a bit too much! Really though, the main attraction of this day would have to be the place we visited on the way back: Excelsior, which has definitely got to be (based on my limited knowledge of American towns) the best town in America. It's been a place I visited before on my prior two trips to Minnesota, and I can definitely say that it's been on the way up in recent years. Not only is it facing the expansive beauty of Lake Minnetonka, which made the town a popular tourist spot in the days of yore, but it also holds a characteristic small town feel that's only been built upon through a decade or so of regeneration. Whilst Excelsior holds the appearance of classic Americana, you might notice that a few of the buildings, such as the Municipal Library, feature fairly recent establishment years on their facades (the library for example was only built in 2014), and there have been many examples of new apartment complexes and refurbished townhouses popping up around the place, as developers and upper-middle-class people looking for that sought-after "walkable neighbourhood" flock to these former township titans, forming a new identity for these towns through the new businesses established to cater to this clientele. This can be seen by how it's practically impossible to visit an old town Main Street without coming across at least one new independent ice cream shop, for example. That's because Excelsior isn't alone in this small town regeneration, with nearby Victoria getting its own library around 2014, and Carver getting an old-style town hall in 2019. These redeveloping communities will be among the things I hoped to check out on that bike journey I planned to finally take the next day. On the previous day, I hit a road block in searching for a bike to hire for the long journey. However, later in the evening, I learned that the family friend we were with had a bike at her Airbnb just down in Carver that I could use. So, combined with a lock and helmet loaned by my bike-riding Uncle (I don't think I could've been trusted with his bike), I was finally able to start that bike ride I had prepared for months, which would turn out to be one of the longest (and definitely one of the toughest) I had ever completed. It started out from the centre of Carver, which was a bit further than I expected, as I thought my Dad would take the bike back to the house first. Still, Carver wasn't too far from Chaska anyway, and the road down there was an old rail trail that was nice, smooth and straight throughout the journey there. Chaska itself turned out to be a pretty nice city as well. Whilst there wasn't really that many people around, especially since they were doing up the main street at the time, it still held some really nice old town architecture, as well as some cute amenities like a town square park with a gazebo in the middle of it. However, whilst I was in the middle of taking pictures of the town and the surrounding area, I realised about 45 minutes had already gone before I reached my first stop: A quiet suburban neighbourhood that served as the inspiration for the version of James Halliday's residence I featured in that Ready Player One script I did (I just saw a house from there on Zillow one day whilst visualising the scene and I thought it looked neat; nothing creepy or anything, I swear!). From there, I cycled down a path leading to the main trail, spotted a deer running off halfway down, and took the long route all the way through to Eden Prairie. Whilst there were definitely a few interesting things I managed to spot on this long stretch of road, the journey was taking quite a long time, and I don't think I could've made the trip so far through these large and barren paths in the beating hot sun if I wasn't listening to some videos I had downloaded for the journey (I couldn't just listen to them online; data roaming costs too much). Nevertheless, I finally made it down to Eden Prairie around 2 hours into my journey, and decided to take a quick break by heading into the Eden Prairie Center mall for a little while. The mall was a bit quiet at the time, what with it being midday on a Friday and all, but I felt that kind of added to the atmosphere of the place, with the mall possessing a classic 90s-era design and colour scheme, with a calming mixture of greens, creams and browns, neat marble floors, and plenty of decorations, many of which hint at the area's local history. It feels a lot like how I imagine places like the Mall of America used to appear until more recent refurbishments came about, and though that could show that it's now been greatly overtaken by the MOA in terms of foot traffic, I still think that it has its own personal charm that makes it stand out. For example, one thing Eden Prairie has that the Mall of America doesn't is an independent video game store: High Score Video Games, who have just recently moved from the Shakopee Town Square Mall (a place I also mentioned in that Ready Player One thing), and are already making their mark in the centre. The store's neon-emblazoned interior and wide range of products, including games from all the way back to the Atari 2600, to the big sellers of today, alongside miscellaneous items such as strategy guides, old magazines and even a keyboard, all do their part in making the whole shop an absolutely enchanting place to visit. Unfortunately though, there weren't many games there that could actually be played on my consoles (y'know, with region locking and all), so I ended up leaving that place empty-handed. Though that wasn't the main reason I went on the journey. Rather, it was so that I could check out the construction work taking place on the way up to Minneapolis for the Southwest light rail line (because autism). It was interesting to see how different so much of the construction was by the time I showed up to see it. There were stations further towards Eden Prairie which were practically finished; the overhead cable pylons had been largely installed and even the signs were up on the station structures. If the entirety of the line was like that, then it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the line would've been ready this time next year. However, the further you went in, the more you realised 'Oh yeah. There's still a bit to go'. By the time you made it to Hopkins, there weren't any pylons put up yet and even some of the track hadn't been laid. Then once you made it to Minneapolis proper, where there's far more conflict over land use and more complex projects like a short tunnel being considered, much of the land appeared to have barely developed further than its dirt foundations, with even the station structures still resembling sculptures of steel beams. Though it was a really interesting experience seeing all the construction work thus far in the flesh, taking this route made it far more of a pain in the ass to get to my destination than it would have by just taking the trail all the way up to Minneapolis, with the Google Maps GPS feature quickly becoming my worst enemy once I started following the LRT route, as the location tracking wasn't accurate enough probably due to using a downloaded map. But, I mean, at the same time, it was also telling me to go places I knew I shouldn't be going down, but it still gave me shit for it and told me to turn back like, what's your deal?! Anyway, trying to follow the route I laid out was quickly becoming extremely frustrating, and I decided to just take whichever route was the fastest way back up to the trail in Hopkins. This was also where I was planning on getting lunch before making the final stretch towards Minneapolis, as I heard the old rail depot building had a small café sandwiches and stuff. However, to my shock and horror, it turned out that it was actually closed for good not too long ago, meaning I had to go even further in to get something substantial. But, like an angel descending from the heavens to help me in my time of great need, my Dad gave me a call saying he was at a British-themed sports bar with my brothers, and was all right with getting a burger and some fries for me once I made it there. So, with this palatable promise of protein and potatoes functioning as the light at the end of this tiresome tunnel, I rushed over as quickly as I could to Minneapolis, and though there were some bumps in the trail here and there due to the construction going on, I was able to quickly ride down and finally arrive at the Brit's Pub, there to be reunited with my family, carrying a sense of exhaustion but also triumph in finally completing such a Herculean task. The food I was given there helped to carry that triumphant feeling further, and the Coke that washed it down also allowed me to re-hydrate after having to drink water from an old and warm plastic bottle for much of the ride. In the end, factoring in all the breaks I took here and there, it took me about six hours to get from Carver to Minneapolis, a route a little over 31 miles in length. Whilst I may have taken routes that were around the same length or felt about as long, here I was far less familiar with the territory, and didn't have the luxury of hopping on public transport and making my way back home, being dependent on my Dad's ride as my only proper way back. I also didn't have as much time generally, as whilst I would normally go on long rides on days where I wasn't doing much, today I had to head home straight after food, unfortunately skipping a small tour of central Minneapolis, to get ready for a pre-wedding get-together at the house of the groom's parents; our in-laws-to-be. They helped us feel right at home through the amazing food and drink they gave to us, and they're definitely one of those families that embodied that quintessential "Minnesota Nice" attitude. I knew that, come the next day, my cousin would make the right decision to be with someone from that loving family. The wedding was, unsurprisingly, a very emotional experience throughout much of the day, especially since it was the first time someone of my generation in the family was getting married, and I hadn't been to one in about a decade by this point, so it all felt a bit new to me. The service was conducted at a small and nicely decorated church in Shakopee, complete with stained-glass windows that made the setting not too dissimilar to the kind of church you'd see in the old country. The music was of course there to offer that classic wedding feel, straight out of only the cheesiest of Hallmark movies, but I didn't care because that, combined with the atmosphere was just so beautiful! My Mum was also one of the speakers, and though she was a bit anxious before the event, everything went ahead smoothly. So, with the exchange of rings and acquisition of a new surname, my cousin and her now-husband were married, and that was when the real festivities began. The reception was held at The Wilds, one of the many extravagant golf clubs dotted around the Twin Cities area, complete with its own gated community, wide-reaching views from the club house that were perfect for photo-ops, and a nice selection of food items from the buffet once it was time for the big sit-down meal. The bridesmaids and groomsmen sat on the table reserved for the new Mr. and Mrs., and offered their heartfelt and hilarious speeches dedicated to the happy couple, many of whom had histories dating back to their childhoods. Finally, after the first dance, with the couple alone together dancing to what they'll go on to remember as their "wedding song" (as I started getting emotional again), the joy of the day was on full display, as several family members headed down to the floor and busted some moves, dancing to several catchy pop tunes from years gone-by. It was an absolute thrill at the start (which is weird 'cause I don't normally do loud parties), and I also managed to catch a bit of attention from some people who had heard through the grapevine that I cycled all the way to Minneapolis the previous day (I was still recovering a bit at this point). However, a couple hours in, I started to notice that my brothers were nowhere to be found, but it turns out they were hanging out with the groomsmen in another room, who were preparing for one of their bro-rituals that happen at every wedding they visited. Here, they made their way back over to the floor, clad in full skin-tight bodysuits (like Pink Guy but without holes for the face), emblazoned with the colours of the Union Flag (since my cousin was technically of "British descent"), as they handed out bead necklaces to the partygoers they ran into. Then, things got even crazier once the star of the show, the groom's Uncle, came out dressed as Elvis, complete with his own Union Flag cape. The chaos continued to unfold on the floor as the music played on, finally ending with a slow and celebratory group sing-along to Piano Man, before the DJ quickly came back for an encore, underlining his work for the evening with Mr. Brightside, at which point everyone still on the floor started moshing again, lifting the bride and groom up in excitement, like Jewish kids celebrating their Bar Mitzvahs, which helped to get all the remaining energy out of everyone. As the club cleared out, some were looking to stick around for a little while longer, with the bride and groom heading off to a nearby casino, whose lights were up in the night sky for much of the evening, like a UFO searching for one of the wildest parties in the universe. It made a bit of sense, as the groom had recently been on a bit of a lucky streak, having won $1000 on a slot machine during his bachelor party, and had also married my cousin! Me though, I was all partied out, ready to take a cab home and cool down from the mania of that night. The next day was much more chilled out. My parents were mainly just recovering from drinking the previous night, so we ended up not going too far for much of the day. I decided to try and go for a run, so I could sort of familiarise myself with the new neighbourhood, and it was certainly still rather new, with houses still going up throughout the circuit I chose for myself (we noticed that one particular house was going through like several different phases of construction in the week we were there, 'cause of how streamlined plywood house-building is in America). Of course, a lot of the houses looked kinda same-y, but that wasn't to say that there weren't any people already turning them into homes, with a couple driveways having the mascot for the local high school sports team spray-painted on. While the route did end in a brief trudge through an unfinished pathway, it was a far easier journey than it was during the run at the start of our visit, especially since there was a bit more cloud cover around this time. Since the main attraction had now come and gone, we decided to spend a bit more time with the family before they started heading back, going down to a small fancy restaurant known as Birch's on the Lake, where I had these pretty nice BBQ ribs, whilst going halves on some fries with Ol-yun, who got this massive piece of fried chicken. I swear, it was like a schnitzel with bones. The portion sizes were real filling, in proper American food-style, and combine this with the atmosphere of the restaurant and its location right next to a lake (hence the name), this ultimately resulted in the restaurant charging a pretty high price in the end. So high that for the 20-ish people sitting there, we ended up getting a bill over $1000 in price, though to be fair, I guess that just puts the cost at a little over $50 per person, so if you were looking to go on a hot date with your girl/boy during your vacation to scenic Minnesota, then you won't need to spend much to get a good night out with a scenic dining experience. With the massive entrees out of the way, we decided it would be best to avoid going for desserts at the restaurant, but there was still one place on my mind; a quaint little ice cream spot that to my British self was like this surreal dreamworld, that was constantly out of reach on my side of the Atlantic. Its name was Dairy Queen, and apparently there was a restaurant not too far away from Chaska that was open all the way up until 10, so my Dad dropped Mum back home to chat with my Aunt, and then took me and the bros over so we could get ourselves one of those super-thick Blizzards. Though that wasn't without a little bump in the road. By this point in time, I noticed that both America and Canada's roads and public spaces felt far less surveilled than the Orwellian hellscape that is the UK, with not so much as a speed camera in sight. Though it appeared the law can just up sometimes adopting a human face. Basically, we got held back for about 10 minutes because we, like, barely overran a stop sign through an un-lit street. I guess I was worrying a bit too much, since I wasn't sure what was gonna happen, though it seemed we were OK and the traffic warden let us go without any problems, though he did mention it was the first time he saw a British driver's license. Anyway, we managed to finally make landfall at Dairy Queen, and I decided to grab myself what I intended to be a small M&M's Blizzard, though my Dad insisted I might as well go with a medium whilst I was there. Turns out while the small is about the size of a British McFlurry tub, the medium was basically the size of a regular drinks cup, and whilst this did allow me to savour the moment of finally coming face to face with the rich creamy and chocolate-y goodness of my post-meal meal, I guess I'm kinda glad that this stuff is still a once-every-four-years kind of treat, 'cause even with all the exercise, I'd probably end up being at least a couple dozen pounds larger if I showed up more often. Still, I wasn't completely done with living the American way yet, as there was still one big thing my family had yet to do before heading back. The State Fair is one of the most significant events in the calendars of Minnesotans and even Americans around the country, so since we were visiting the state around the same time the fair was going on, and were also encouraged heavily to go by my cousin (she wanted to join us but had to go upstate for a nice honeymoon in Duluth), with one full day still ahead of us, we decided to check it out with my Aunt and Uncle, and see what the hype was about. It quickly became apparent that the fair was incredibly popular, so popular in fact that basically all of the parking spaces within the immediate vicinity of the showgrounds were full up, leaving us spending about 40 minutes stuck in traffic looking for a parking space. But just before we decided to give it up and try again on another trip (and somehow get up at an even earlier time for it), we came across a park and ride bus stop that was about a couple miles out, so we ended up settling for that. Beyond then though, there weren't any problems for us, and before we knew it, we were soon in the middle of one of the busiest places in America. I couldn't exactly tell how many were there on that particular day, but seeing how there was practically not a single piece of ground left untouched, it would be safe to assume that the attendee count was probably somewhere in the thousands. One big thing about the Minnesota State Fair is that it places a large focus on celebrating the state's heritage and farming industry, with large stables in place to house petting zoos exhibiting cows, pigs, sheep and horses both from around the state and across the US and Canada, as well as a horse show, judging the abilities of different horses and the quality of their appearance, and whilst it's probably not as exciting as a rodeo, it was still a nice novelty to see all these horses and carts being paraded around like they were a century ago. There were also a few displays presenting prize-winning pumpkins, chillies, cookies, cakes and All-American apple pies (none of them could be eaten sadly), a series of decorated flower exhibits, with one based around Shrek getting a bit of a chuckle out of me, an exhibit presenting Minnesotan wildlife using the most lifelike dead animals around (period), a fun little show involving lumberjacks competing to be the best at doing lumberjack stuff, and of course plenty of vendors selling their new equipment and gifts to anyone stopping by. So basically it's like Comic-Con but for farmers. The food was also a massive part of the fair-going experience, with practically any combination of food items being available, and probably also put on a stick, with some of the things we tried including deep-fried pickles, which weren't really my thing; just a weird contrast between the batter and the sour pickle, as well as the fair's own brisket burgers, which of course were super nice and crispy. I also got a quick bite of a corn dog which turned out to be a bit sweeter than I expected, and a whole cup's worth of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies that were just absolutely chef's-kiss! They're just so smooth and melt in your mouth so well! Still though, we decided to get ourselves a quick sit-down meal on the way back, heading over to a Chick-fil-A, a place that's both praised and maligned throughout the States, but to us was just a pretty nice meal to have. It wasn't the most divine thing to ever be put between two burger buns, but it definitely showed the kind of stuff we were missing back at home. We actually had a single location in the UK recently for about six months before they immediately shut it once its lease expired, though me and my family managed to get a meal there before it went. After our trip to this Chick-fil-A however, all the sugar from the past day was proving to be too much for one of my bros, so we had to rush back in order to get him somewhere more relaxing, at which point he practically fell fast asleep and got up the next day as if nothing happened, like the absolute champ he is! The rest of the evening for me though was pretty quiet. I was thinking about checking out that new Checkered Past block on Cartoon Network to see what that was about, but we got home a bit too late for that, so we just chilled watching some more South Park as we wound down, preparing for the long flight back the next day. But just because we were leaving on this day didn't mean we weren't gonna be doing anything interesting before we headed back, with even in a nice breakfast out being on the cards. This was at the Getaway Motor Café in Carver, which was a nicely decorated proper hipster-tier joint, with a wide variety of hot drinks to get that energy in. However, their choices for breakfast (and hot food in general) were still kinda limited, with only a couple of toasted sandwiches and some pastries on offer. So I just ended up having an iced cinnamon swirl with a vanilla latte on the side, which was kinda pushing my recommended daily sugar intake for just the first meal of the day, but I guess I was still on holiday for now, so what's the big deal? Needless to say, I was full of energy for much of the rest of the day, which continued with another visit to the Eden Prairie Center with the family, who were travelling there to get a couple sports team souvenirs whilst there was still time left (though not without getting stopped by the police again and being let off with a warning; good thing we were leaving today at least). The place with all the sporting apparel was in this anchor store called Scheels, which for a simple department store has probably got to be one of the craziest places in the world of American retail, with tons of decorations and fixtures that made it all stand out, including a Ferris Wheel, a wide-spanning aquarium, an arcade, and even a bunch of statues of old US Presidents at the front of the store. Apparently this store is a very recent addition to the shopping centre, and I'm surprised that you could find something this absolutely soulful in present-day America. Guess stores really need to stand out in the age of the retail apocalypse after all. Anyway, this visit to the store gave me the opportunity to finally visit a Barnes and Noble, like what I had hoped to do at the Mall of America, mainly so I could check out the graphic novels and that sort of thing, but I also came across quite a few interesting other items during my visit. For example, within a large list of religious books, I managed to come across something as niche as a Torah printed in the ancient Hebrew script. I don't know if that many people speak the language these days, but I suppose it's nice to have if you're a Yahweh superfan. The store also included a large CD and DVD section at the back, though considering that the Streaming Wars are in full swing in the States, much of the shelves were practically empty, and there was even this old CRT display TV that I guess was used to show off new titles, but has since been left to collect dust (it still worked though! Tested it myself!). While I never really got around to buying anything (even if some of the items looked really interesting), simply the novelty of visiting this American retail staple was enough to leave me in a good mood. And on the drive home, it seemed that other parts of Eden Prairie were looking up, as whilst the construction site I visited a few days ago had hardly anyone in sight, it appeared that the Southwest LRT recently ended up having a cash injection and a few contracts finally sorted out, with people back on the track, installing the first overhead cables that linked the pylons together. It was anyone's guess as to when the rest of the line would get that treatment, but one thing at a time, I suppose. So, after a final bit of packing, we bid our Minnesotan brethren farewell, and drove off to the airport, taking in the buildings and structures around the city one last time, including an abandoned Toys R Us that's been sitting there unused for at least 8 years, based on my previous visits (I think I might've actually been there when I was 9, back when it was still open). With our truck dropped off, we got ready for the long flight ahead, getting ourselves a nice meal at Stone Arch, offering restaurant-quality food in the middle of a busy terminal. Fearing I was gonna have a heart attack the next time I ingested any more sugar or caffeine, I ended up settling for Diet Coke for the time being, though I forgot that while there's no sugar in the drink, it's still got around the same amount of caffeine, with the only real difference being that it just tastes like shit. But that didn't do much to put a damper on my mood. We collected some more last-minute souvenirs, boarded the plane, and since we managed to snag some extra-comfy seats in the front this time around, we enjoyed what was probably the best overnight flight I ever experienced (though to be fair that isn't really saying much). In the end, as we left Heathrow and got a fresh whiff of that cold London air, feeling that depression of living in this hellhole rush up through our bones in real time, I was at the very least thankful that we managed to make so many great memories with the time we had outside of the country. At least I could finally get some sleep after the flight; we didn't set out too late, and the journey was nice and comfy, but I still didn't manage to properly get some rest in the loud carriage of the aircraft. Overall, I'd say there's a lot of things to do out in Minnesota, so many in fact that I considered the idea of making a return trip sometime in the near future to do the things I never got around to trying out, like getting a nice meal and having a fun night out at Dave and Buster's or something. Ol-yun also had a few things he wanted to see but never got around to because of how tight we were for time, like visiting a Bass Pro Shops store for one of their trademark hats. But really though, whilst we can go on about all the different things you can see and do in the Twin Cities area, to me, I feel that family is an important part of what makes Minnesota so special to me. Without them, we wouldn't have had much of the motivation we needed to visit this wonderful place, and it would've just been another one of those typical American cities to us if it wasn't for the friendly hospitality, and the memories provided to us through the side of our family that made the decision to cross the Atlantic and discover the opportunities waiting for them. As for next year, well, we're not too sure on where to go yet. Dad's been threatening a three-week holiday to El Salvador, since it's now a crypto paradise or something like that, though we'll most likely end up at our usual turf in Spain (which is weird because it would be the first time we've made the visit in about five years). I actually wouldn't mind the idea of maybe trying the multi-city holiday thing we do in North American in Europe at some point, spending one week somewhere else on the continent, and then heading for a relaxing vacation in Spain to round it all off. And if that ever happens, then I'll probably end up writing a novella's worth of ramblings about that too! I swear, I wasn't expecting to write anywhere near as I much as I did here, basically writing more than all of my previous blogs posts combined, so if you managed to read this far without dying of boredom, then I would just like to say thank you, and I hope I can add a few more things to this site soon, after leaving this place a little too inactive for a little too long. Doing a retro thing with your web
browsing: But, if you're tired of these little things like me, then fret no more! Recently, I've been browsing a few places to see what they think about the new site design, and I noticed one of them linked to a browser extension, which changed the code to each article you load up so that it's shown as it would appear using the original "Vector Legacy" page layout that had been used before. I never really used browser extensions, since most of them only work on individual browsers and I didn't know those ones could be enabled on things like incognito mode or anything like that (turns out they can if you just tick a box in your browser settings). But, this extension was different, as it turned out that it could also work on an external programme (in this case my adblocker, Adguard), and can essentially be used all the time on any web browser. So, thanks to this, I immediately went on a treasure trove through the site it appeared on: GreasyFork.org (as well as a couple of other places), in search of a bunch of cosmetic changes you can make to a bunch of different websites. Here are three that I've taken the most interest in: Vector Layout for Wikipedia by Ata Sancaktar
Starting out this journey down the rabbit hole comes this browser extension that brings Wikipedia back to the way God intended. All the screen real estate is being used up and the sidebar's more lively again, so it definitely feels like there's a lot more going on than before. If you've used the website as of a month ago then you probably know what to expect. Just how things were before it got a bit more bland. Now a webpage with this extension doesn't actually take that much longer to load than a webpage usually would without it (or least it doesn't feel like that's happening because my computer's getting a bit old and loading's a bit longer all round), since there actually isn't any overly-detailed and complex HTML or CSS editing needed to replicate the past UI. Instead, the old interface is still stored on Wikimedia's database, and you can simply access it by typing "?useskin=vector" at the end of an article's URL. This extension basically just saves you the hassle and does that job for you. There's also another extension by the user "Anony Mouse" that does largely the same thing as the one above, except its much easier to change the type of page layout into any one from Wikimedia's database. So for example, if you change the constant in its code labelled "skinchoice = 'vector'" to "skinchoice = 'monobook'", then you can get the true 2005 Wikipedia browsing experience! However, its simplistic code ends up making it a bit problematic, as it always puts the text "?useskin=(x)" at the end of every URL, including addresses that direct towards sections of a particular article (e.g. It writes a URL like this: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Navigator#History_and_development?useskin=vector", instead of like this: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Navigator?useskin=vector#History_and_development"). This ends up making the website not recognise the skin change and ends up bringing it back to its boring modern self. I'm assuming you can change the code in the previous extension by replacing all the values with the word "vector" to "monobook" or something like that, but there's a lot more going on and I'm too lazy to change them all. I might give it a go later but I'm fine with the extension as it is for now. YouTube Redux by omniZero
This next one is a bit more established in the browser extension sphere, partly because it's a bit more easily accessible thanks to being featured in the Chrome Web Store, but also because there's a lot more going on with it. YouTube doesn't have a stored version of their older website that can be accessed by just adding in some code to a web address, so instead this extension has to do all the hard work needed to mimic the website as it looked around 2016, with all the site's features being re-arranged to reflect this style. While there are some parts that work better than others, it does its job really well for a tool that just changes a few lines of code here and there, and certainly achieves the goal of replicating the website as it was around the time Leafy was considered peak YouTube content. It's also pretty customisable too, with an easy to use drop-down menu allowing you to add or remove items as you please, or even change the favicon or what type of logo you would like to put in the top left-hand corner, with options stretching all the way back to the site's launch logo from 2005. While I actually don't really mind YouTube's current design (except for a few gripes here and there), since I prefer the larger video window compared to the smaller older look, if 2016 YouTube is peak soul to you, then be sure to give this one a try for a quick trip down memory lane. Deviantart V7 (pre eclipse) theme beta by Lego Savant
Finally, this extension here is something I've been waiting for for a long time! A solid attempt at replicating the DeviantArt experience before it grossly metamorphosed into Eclipse and drove away a large sum of their community. I've said my piece about DeviantArt's current look time and time again, so I'll instead take this time to gush over how far this extension goes in creating the DeviantArt experience circa 2013. Now admittedly, the comparison above doesn't really do the best job of showing off how much the extension changes the website up, as so far much of the changes to the homepage involve rearranging the favourites and comments to appear more like the old layout, and changing the icons to reflect how they looked in the "V7" interface, probably because the homepage of today is radically different compared to the homepage of yesterday. However, one part that's definitely seen improvement would be the deviation pages, which honestly look almost exactly like how they did in the before time, with much smaller text, tags that manage to replicate the old hashtag system from around the mid-2010s-onwards era, and even the old "Add to Favourites" and "Award Llama" buttons. Needless to say, it makes DeviantArt a much more engaging site to visit (to me at least), as there's so many things for my attention span-less brain to take in and admire. Of course, as the extension's name implies, the whole thing's still very early-days, and it is really clunky in a few places (something which can be noticed in the sample image), like how it's not really compatible with custom userpage backgrounds or the default black Eclipse theme as a whole, though that's to be expected when you're just starting out in making a project that aims to basically re-model an entire website to make it appear in a way it wasn't originally made to. Besides, it's still receiving regular updates (for example, it just got one since I last took those screenshots!) and plenty of feedback and constructive criticism by users. Plus, judging by its creator, Lego Savant's past portfolio, the project appears to be in pretty safe hands, with them previously making a whole bunch of other extensions which would fit nicely into this list, such as a couple of extensions which change Google's UI to how it appeared in either 2009 or 2014, some extensions that change YouTube's video player to how it appeared in 2009 (albeit only as a Discord embed) or 2010/11, one which revamps YouTube Redux (mentioned above) to be more accurate to YouTube's actual old appearance, another that returns Instagram to its skeuomorphic 2014 look, and even two that change the Roblox website's appearance back to how it looked in 2008 or 2012. Judging by all this past work, I'm excited to see how their work with this particular extension develops moving forward, and if you're as much of an anti-Eclipse fundamentalist as I am (and especially know more about CSS than I do), then be sure to check the extension out and show them your support, as well as some pointers going forward, to make it the best it can possibly be, until the only thing it can't bring back is the old DA community! So then, I hope you've enjoyed this little trip down this facet of the online landscape, and I hope these recommendations can bring a bit of soul back into your several hour-long procrastination sessions. If you're looking to get started then Greasy Fork recommends you use a User Script Manager like Tampermonkey, which is compatible with most major web browsers, to run most of these scripts yourself. If you're already using AdGuard then you can get these working right away with no extra software needed. Other than that, you just need to add these extensions to the USM and you're all set! Happy browsing! Oh, and I just want to give a quick thanks to everyone for getting me to 5000 pageviews! It's amazing to see that there's so many people who've taken an interest in my dumb little corner of the internet, and while things are still kinda busy for now before I can dedicate more work to my creative projects, I promise that there's far more to come of this place in the near future, and I hope to see you all there! YouTube videos from the past year
that I thought were pretty cool: Anyway,
recently I've checked out JacksFilms
and Dylan
the Night Owl's videos
on their personal favourite YouTube videos of the past 12 months (give
or take). Many of these videos definitely earned their spots on those
lists, and there were a few I hadn't heard of that would also pique my
interests (like the Steamed
Hams animation style video mentioned on
JacksFilms' list). This led me to considering my personal top picks for
videos of the year, especially since I've been listening to quite a lot
of them when drawing or exercising, so while much of my focus was
on the audio rather than the visual-side of things, there were still
quite a few videos I took time out to see which seemed worth
celebrating nonetheless. This list won't be in any particular order,
especially since it's kinda difficult for me to rank these things in
any particular list from least good to most good, but I'll try and
string them together in a way that sort of works, starting with the
some fairly obvious/popular choices for the best videos of the year: "That Zone
Between Area 50 and 52" by Internet Historian Internet
Historian is someone you must have heard of at least once. His
extravagant editing, writing and speaking style can make any subject an
absolute blast to listen to, whether it concerns internet culture (like
with his
classic RainFurrest video) or not (like with "Going
Camping at
the End of the World" and of course "The Cost
of Concordia"). This
video falls more so in the former category, discussing the story of the
"raid" on Area 51, and it's my personal favourite out of the two big
videos he's released this past year. Everything just comes super thick
and fast, and the editing throughout is absolutely slick and
high-octane (I mean, this is Internet Historian we're talking about
here), especially in the battle scene towards the end, which honestly
feels like a movie at certain points. The video is a spectacular
demonstration of IH's talent with editing, as he constructs a
full-blown epic through just moving a few pictures and video clips
around, which in turn is helped by the absolutely hilarious writing
which makes the story a thrill throughout. Now
personally, I consider this video to be my favourite out of IH's two
major videos, particularly since I was familiar with the classic tale
of
the Area 51 Raid that never was, and the video also offered a few
additional
threads to the story I wasn't aware of. But, I'd say the best video of
the two, in an "objective" sense would be his later release: Man in
Cave, concerning the tale of a man from 1920s Kentucky, who
gets
trapped while spelunking in a cave, and the national effort to get him
out. I'd consider this video to be the stronger of the two due to how
it stands out compared to many of IH's previous videos, particularly by
being a much more grounded experience, as while it does carry his
classic brand of humour here and there, it can also be quite moving at
times. The editing is also in full force here, with the video
essentially needing IH's trademark photo-puppetry all the way through,
considering that there isn't really much in the way of archival footage
from the
time. He also offered each major figure in this story their own guest
voice actor (including Wendigoon as the eponymous man in the cave), to
really tie into that feeling of watching a movie (or at least a
slightly more dramatic version of his fanfiction retellings). Internet
Historian's videos are absolutely incredible to sit down and watch, and
whilst they obviously take a lot of time to make, if they continue in
this direction in the future, then they'll certainly be worth the wait
every time! "The
Haunting Mystery of the Brown Mountain Lights" by Wendigoon At
the start of the decade, Wendigoon was but a small channel run by a guy
with about a few hundred subscribers to his name. But, as more and more
eyes came upon him through his gargantuan conspiracy
theory iceberg
series, as well as his iceberg videos on subjects such as cults,
disturbing
films and serial
killers, this newfound audience would stick
around through the engaging subjects he would go on to explore in
future videos, as
well as his signature deadpan delivery which made every video of his a
treat from start to finish, and it's no surprise that he managed to
gain such a widespread following in so little time. His
video on the Brown Mountain Lights phenomenon in the Appalachian
Mountains in many ways feels like a culmination of his growing
following, confidence and skill in making educational, informative and
entertaining content in these past 2-3 years. No-longer confined to the
safe environment of his bedroom corner, Wendigoon has now branched out
into chasing these legendary phenomena himself, discussing the history
of the lights, possible explanations behind their appearance, and
the legendary folk tales passed down by generations of locals,
all
while surrounded by the awesome grandeur of the mountains
themselves. This results in the video offering an almost cinematic (or
at the very least, TV-quality) experience which is complemented by the
oftentimes personal and touching statements offered by him, as he
discusses how legendary folk tales like those of the Brown Mountain
Lights have influenced him, and people like him, for many centuries. Whilst
paranormal phenomena and cryptozoology is definitely Wendigoon's forte,
his large catalogue of videos from the past year demonstrate his
expertise on several other subjects, with some of my other personal
favourites being his recounting of the Waco Siege,
which definitely
explains why many Americans are super-protective about guns, and his
summary of All
Quiet on the Western Front, and how it managed to
clearly portray the myth and futility of war. Wendigoon is one of the
shining stars of the new YouTube landscape, and as he's continued to
branch out with his work on a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fan film among several
other projects, I certainly can't wait to see what else he'll
explore in the coming year. "YMS: The
Lion King (Part 1)" by YourMovieSucksDOTorg Like
Internet Historian, Adum from YourMovieSucks' major videos take a long
time to come around, but when they do, they're definitely worth the
wait every time, thanks to their complex editing, hilarious and
insightful writing, and the incredibly detailed analysis filling the
entirety of each video's long runtime. His most recent video,
discussing the 2019 remake of the animated masterpiece The Lion King,
is arguably one of, if not the most ambitious of these videos yet,
clocking in at a little under two and a half hours in length,
describing in detail every fault present in just the first half (if
that) of one of Disney's many soulless, half-baked and expensive
remakes which have "graced" our cinema screens these past few years.
And whilst that opinion isn't really that much of a controversial
one in this day and age, Adum's taken a while to throw his hat
in the ring
because he spent almost three years working on this one video, even
going on a tangent by making a two hour-long video dissecting the
film's Kimba
the White Lion controversy two years ago. This
new video definitely shows the three years-worth of analysis that Adum
has compiled for the film, talking in-depth about how the 2019 remake
barely introduces anything new to justify a remake, and how the things
that do change completely miss the point as to why certain choices were
made in the original. The review also briefly discusses more general
issues, like how
traditional animation is generally overlooked in favour of a chase for
CGI and "realism" above everything else, as well as Disney's
half-hearted and two-faced attempts to appear socially conscious and
(for a lack of better words) "woke". I've personally never gotten
around to
seeing The Lion King myself, unfortunately, but Adum definitely makes
it clear as to why the original film was so important to him as a young
lad, and it made me realise that I've really got to check the film out
for myself before the next part of this mammoth of a review comes out
(probably in about a year or so). I've heard Adum came down with a few
health issues whilst making this review, and he's taken a bit of a
break until the start of next year to spend his time on other projects,
so while I'm not expecting a part 2 in the near future, I've still got
plenty of time to look over his huge back catalogue for now, as well as
an animation masterpiece to catch up on! So,
with those recommendations out of the way, let's get into some other,
perhaps lesser-known choices that I thought were pretty cool: "Fun Facts
About The US Presidents Educational Cartoon" by Huggbees Huggbees'
style of humour comes from the art of the bait-and-switch. One minute,
you think you're watching an informative video detailing
the history of
Dairy Queen, when suddenly a true/false quiz throws up the
phrase
"Dairy Queen's founder fucked a horse". This has been the basis of his
classic series, "Fully Unwrapped" and "How it's Actually Made", and the
charade managed to be kept up so well that even CNN
fell for the bit
one time. This more recent video, which masquerades as a fun
educational video for kids, goes a step further by throwing in some
original animation to complement the joke dialogue, and in that sense
it
enhances the humour of the whole thing, whilst also sometimes sticking
to the Huggbees rule of "two truths and a lie" (or at least "two lies
and a truth"), to keep up the illusion as much as possible. This
segment, like the previous entries, can also be a general
recommendation for the channel itself. Since his most viewed "How it's
Actually Made" videos have been seen millions of times, it's likely
you've seen one of his videos at some point, but he's also
done a few more casual and genuinely informative videos which also make
use of a similarly deadpan style of humour, like his "Waffle
House
Index" video on hurricane severity, or even just a video where he
roasts a bunch of state flags. Be sure to stick around for
his other stuff, if the humour
takes your fancy. "CNX
replaces Cartoon Network+1, 14/02/2022" by Cypher.Sonic While
I guess this can vaguely link into the whole "pretending to be
something else"-style of video Huggbees would normally make, regardless
this next pick might be a bit less conventional than the previous
choices, and whilst maybe it might not have a grand narrative or a
particularly ground-breaking message behind it, this is one of those
videos that fall in the category of "I just think they're neat". The
kind of video that activates those particular neurons in my 'tism
brain, and gets me thinking "Man, what if this was actually a thing?".
This was mainly thanks to the slick editing style and incredibly
ambitious length (a bit under an hour), going over what's supposed to
be seven hours-worth of content for this channel: A revival of Cartoon
Network's short-lived adult animation channel from the UK,
CNX. It's all visualised in the best way a one-person team can, and it
made me think that maybe this simple, albeit fairly effortful idea,
might have some potential to it in real life. Of
course, there's the whole idea going around that the chiefs over at
Warner Bros Discovery don't care about animation, and how they're never
gonna bring back shows like Infinity Train or whatever, but maybe
thanks to something like this,
the higher-ups won't need to worry about things like a "child entry
point", and can just focus on marketing stuff to people who are too old
for CN, but not really into the whole "what if cartoons but they say
fuck?" genre of adult animation which the industry is restricted to,
especially since the concept of "young adult animation" is starting to
be thrown around by producers.
Plus, if the kids prefer anime or the more completely adult offerings,
like Rick and Morty, then they'll have that in droves. I
get that satellite TV is dying and the audience might be too niche, but
I guess if you wanna get younger people on board for linear TV (or at
least get the older people to stick around), then I guess you gotta
take a few risks and grab a couple new audiences. Anyway,
autistic rambling aside, Cypher.Sonic's other work, whilst maybe not as
insanely-detailed as this video, might still be worth checking out if
you're part of that simple niche of fake TV stuff. That isn't to say
they haven't done anything else particularly intriguing; for one thing, they
recently had this full pseudo-channel where they got together a bunch
of
shows they liked and even offered some continuity announcements in
between them. Of course, they've decided to pull the plug on the whole
thing, probably because of how convoluted it must've been, and while
the archived streams were up on their website not too long ago, they've
unfortunately since been taken down. But then again, they've made a
post on Twitter recently hinting at doing something with the idea again
soon, so we'll see what happens there. Cypher.Sonic might not have the
flashiest effects
or the most grandiose video concepts, but at the end of the day, they
don't need to. They offer a few simple videos to entertain a few
like-minded people, and make them go "Huh. Neat!", and at the end of
the day, wasn't that the spirit YouTube was built on? Update
(16/01/23): The site's back up and they've done two more streams on the
7th and 15th of January. Be
sure to go ahead and check out the stream archives if
this whole thing has caught your interest. "The
Timeline Where Sonic Succeeds" by JebTube Speaking
of "What if?" scenarios (and I guess you could link in the previous
person having "Sonic" in their name), this video by JebTube, a YouTuber
notable for his long-form video retrospectives on games such as those
from both the Ratchet and Clank series, and of course the Sonic series,
as well as
his video "Farewell,
Sonic... Forever?", where he airs his
grievances with the state of the franchise following the release of
Sonic Forces, such as its tonal problems, and the uninspiring direction
the gameplay has gone in. That was probably one of the first times I
heard someone really express their disinterest in the "Meta Era" of the
series, both in terms of games and the franchise's online presence, and
there were
quite a few other YouTubers who followed suit, such as L.S. Mark. Now
though, he's back for a two hour-long epic exploring an alternative
timeline where Sonic isn't just the joke of a franchise that it is now.
Most of the differences can simply boil down to having a few games
spend
more time in the oven, or have them passed over to other studios to
stop crunch time from getting people down at Sonic Team, but some of
the additional
suggestions, like adding a team-mixing feature as a 100% completion
prize for Sonic Heroes, or a few more RPGs and a much longer-running
Sonic Riders series because Sega's now more comfortable with taking
risks and spending more time perfecting their games, just make the
whole alternative timeline such an exciting idea, and really makes you
think about what could've been. Not to mention, there's also plenty of
insight into how Sonic Team may have rationalised the choices they made
in our timeline, and what could be done differently without sacrificing
revenue. With Sonic Frontiers being released at a later point
this past
year, it seems possible that the Sonic series may no-longer be afraid
to be itself nowadays, and while reactions to the game are rather
varied (from what I've played, I think it's an all right game that just
might need a couple patches to iron it out), it seems possible that
this game might start a new more confident era for the Sonic franchise,
though it's still nice to think about how some of Sega's past blunders
could've gone better. (Oh, and his
post-Sonic Frontiers video on the state of the fandom is also
worth a watch too!) "The
Strange Tale of Richard Kuta: A Sonic Filmmaker & Internet Fool
- IF EP2" by Dylan the Night Owl Dylan
the Night Owl is another YouTuber who's really starting to make his
mark on the online landscape. While not being as big a breakout success
as Wendigoon, his videos have also stood out in their own right,
whether it would be his six
hour-long YouTube iceberg series, or his 5
hour Angry Video Game Nerd retrospective. You'll quickly come
to find
that long-form videos (and I mean really
long-from videos) are Dylan's
strong point, and so they've been ideal for those especially long
20-mile bike rides or just those train journeys on days out, and one of
my most favourite videos from him during this year, would be his five
hour documentary on the legendary and infamous internet person: Richard
Kuta, as part of his "Internet Fables" series of videos. For
much of my earlier life, I just saw Richard (a.k.a. "A Knothole
Resident", "Sonmanic", "Isidetape", "Richmunk", or one of his other
1000 usernames) as that guy who got worked up over Sonic
having
green eyes in Sonic 4, as well as a weirdo who wore diapers. But ever
since I heard his personal story as a guest on Dillin Thomas' podcast
(before that guy fell off the face of the Earth), I've been captivated
by what he managed to achieve (or at least tried to achieve) with his
plans for a Sonic movie or a revival of the "SatAM" series, something
that especially resonated with me considering much of the content on my
DA account and website is about a fan series intended to be a series
revival. It's amazing to hear about the life of a guy that managed to
achieve something that most other Sonic fans (and even industry
professionals like Ken Penders) wished they could do, and although his
side of the story may not be completely accurate, and he's probably
burned a fair few bridges in the past, he's still someone I'm
fascinated by, and Dylan's in-depth exploration of Richard's life
certainly fuelled that fascination. A
couple other videos from Dylan that are also worth checking out would
probably be his
video on the Captain S webseries, which demonstrates
the creativity that many early YouTubers exuded at the time, as well as
his
incredible 17-hour Creepypasta iceberg series, imbued with
Dylan's
combined skills of sarcastic humour, and chilling narration
throughout. I know what I'm listening to on my next flight out to
America! "Everything
is Television" by SolarSands Dylan
the Night Owl's Richard Kuta video discussed the life of a man who many
could consider socially inept, and may have struggled to fit in with
other groups of people online. Conversely, this video recounts the
first-hand
experience of someone who has dealt with these social problems for much
of their life. SolarSands has greatly evolved from where he was
five/six years ago, going from someone who used to humorously critique
low-quality fan art on DeviantArt, to someone who has been consistently
making some of the most thought-provoking and meaningful videos on the
platform, with this one in particular concerning his experience with
loneliness and seclusion in much of his early life, something which he
mentions was worsened by the effects of the Covid pandemic, as that aim
to make new connections in college was trashed through the imposition
of lockdowns. This
video means so much to me personally because I, for the most part have
been in the same boat. Like how SolarSands explains, I've spent the
vast majority of my childhood doing my own thing, mainly because I
preferred my own company and liked doing things my way (which in
retrospect sounds like a very dictator-ish trait, but I digress). I
thought that university was around the time I should change that and
get to meet some new people, and do the things people did in Animal
House or whatever. However, while maybe I might be avoiding
responsibility for my shortcomings in this case, I feel the lockdowns
really screwed up those plans; whilst it stopped my Sixth-Form
experience before I got to experience a prom night, the continued
isolation made it extremely difficult to meet new people, not
helped by how, like SolarSands, I never managed to launch, especially
since many friend groups in university had already been established by
the time I did manage to join some societies after a while. SolarSands
explains what's fuelling the state of loneliness people like me appear
to be facing in the modern age; the rise of online anger and
partisanship, the growth of parasocial relationships between content
creators and fans, and the feeling that we know a lot about a person,
but
never manage to understand them. In the end, everything we see feels
like television, like we're just watching something that feels like an
intimate connection, but never feels concrete, paralleling well with
how it can even sometimes feel conversing with people in real life;
just listening, but rarely feeling like you've got anything to
contribute in any way. But the take-away message SolarSands offers in
this video, is that while things can often feel like they're just
different forms of television, there are sometimes moments where this
isn't the case, where you've finally broke through and made a
connection. Those moments are the things that are really worth
treasuring, and that's what you've got to look for in your quest for a
social circle. You can't solely rely on your parents or your family,
because
they're not gonna be around forever, if you're lucky enough for them to
not kick you out the house once you're at a certain age. Friends and
relationships are really
valuable things, and they're things you've got to search for, if you
want to break the cycle of loneliness. In SolarSands' words, "It's time
to turn off the TV". The "Ongezellig"
series by Studio Massa Sticking
with the topic of being a recluse, this series of videos is a more
light-hearted take on the subject. Whilst this may be kinda cheating,
since the series includes a lot of videos from before this year, it's
finally concluded a few months ago, and I think it's worth mentioning
due to how obscure it is in this part of the world. Ongezellig is an
animated webseries from The Netherlands, something it really makes
known through its nods to Dutch history, which is probably why it
became so popular among 4channers and soyjak enthusiasts. But anyway,
that isn't really the main focus of the series; rather, this series
concerns the daily life of Maya, an unsociable high schooler who
struggles to connect with those around her (hence the show's title),
including her adoptive sisters, the pure, naive and athletic
overachiever Coco, and the loud, chaotic and potentially jingoistic
Mymy. The
series makes a really nice use of surreal humour and buttery-smooth
animation, giving the show its own identity, whilst also taking time
out to explore
Maya's mental state, such as her occasional use of fantasies to imagine
a world where she has friends. The series concerns her and her sisters
making a history presentation after their individual projects go
horribly, giving us time to explore the characters' relationships with
one-another. Though these can get a bit rough sometimes, they
eventually pull through in the end. Still, at the end of the
last part, when Coco invites Maya to play a board game, she declines
the offer, returning to her reclusive life though still with a desire
to connect someday. This
ending shows us that the cracking of Maya's shell will have to be a
gradual process, which not only is a more accurate note to leave on,
but also hints at the series' status of being a pilot episode of sorts
before it gets shopped around to producers. Regardless, it seems
unlikely that
we'll see much else from the series in the near future, seeing how
Massa is looking to finally spend some time on other projects. But,
if you're not completely satisfied with just the series, then there's
also a few comics you can find on Massa's Petje.af (Dutch Patreon)
page, including at least one that's actually been translated into
English, so you don't need to painstakingly apply Google Translate or
get off your ass to learn a new language, if you want to get a kick out
of
the series' bonus content. Wish you the best, Massa! "Need for
Speed - A Brief History" by Noodle Since
we're now on to animation, I wanna give a quick mention to one that
really has no reason to be as good as it is. While Noodle originally
started out doing short-form animations, his transition into video
essays has seen
his craft grow exponentially, especially since he's got a whole team of
animators working on his content now. The retrospective on (the first
ten years of) the Need for Speed franchise, employs an incredible
amount of off-the-wall animated scenes in-between points discussing how
certain mechanics in the games (such as the "nitro/boost" feature which
the series popularised) made the games pop, and influenced games like
it in the future. The best example of this fantastic animation would be
the smooth combination of 2D and cel-shaded 3D animation for the car
that
Noodle's persona crashes into a house, perhaps the biggest upgrade from
his already-stellar animation work beforehand. The
writing is also top notch. The use of running gags, as well as slightly
deadpan and self-deprecating humour really add to the unique style of
the videos, which has only gotten better with his video
on the aspect
ratio, which like this video is even more interesting than it
sounds.
While it's a bit less high-octane (like with cars) compared to the Need
for Speed video, it's even more innovative through the use of
180-degree VR to fit in all the example ratios in a way that feels
effective, all while focusing entirely on 3D animation to fit with the
format (and also because I imagine it would be a real pain in the ass
to make all that animation in such a wide area). They're both
absolutely incredible videos, and I'm sure that his next big project, a
video discussing Halo, will probably be even more impressive,
especially since he's been talking about his plans for it for over a
year at this point! "Gex but
it's a 90s Saturday Morning Cartoon" by FlippinDingDong Yet
another animation, this one's a bit of a shorter affair compared to the
other two, but it remains equally as impressive. This video shows off a
hypothetical Saturday morning cartoon series based around the classic
pop culture-referencing 3D platformer protagonist, Gex the Gecko, using
just a few voice clips, a VHS filter, and some really sleek and
authentic-feeling animation, harkening back to those days when the kids
of the 90s woke up super-early to catch a glimpse of Batman or the
Animaniacs on that screen in the living-room corner, which makes sense
since that was also around the time the games in the Gex series were
coming
out. The
scenarios set up for this video really make the voice clips work in the
context of a quirky cartoon show (even if some of the jokes there might
not be what you would consider "child friendly"), and even though you
can't really work with a lot, since these are mostly self-contained
voice clips, the video makes it all work together by having each
segment feel like
a bunch of clips spliced together on a single VHS tape, with a couple
seconds of realistic idents featuring the gecko's name to really bring
home the feeling that this was a real show. FlippinDingDong has been
making quite a few other brilliant videos over the years, the most
famous of which including "Trailer
Annie", and "It's All
in the Name",
which demonstrate his prowess with various styles of the animation art
form, and I'm sure he's got plenty more to show of his skills in the
future, especially considering how much he's improved from his humble
beginnings. April Fool's
Day is probably my favourite holiday on the site, because of all the
ways users try unique things and get creative, with these
either being twists of their popular work or, for less-established
creators, these can involve creating a hoax for the ages, using their
overlooked creative skills. This particular video is a prime example of
the latter. While this video's even shorter than the previous entry, it
still manages to appear just as, if not more impressive with how
accurate it is to its source material. The video presents itself as a
leaked promo for a Chowder comeback-episode/series, in which Chowder
and Mung discover that a massive leek has fallen into the kitchen. The video
pulls off this illusion so well through its use of show-accurate
animation and dialogue, and most impressively, the use of dynamic AI
speech synthesising technology, which involves taking an input voice,
and placing it through a machine-learning programme, allowing for this
audio to be presented through a sort-of Chowder or Mung-styled "voice
font". If my explanation sounded a bit too all over the place, then this video
can explain how it's done here better than I can.
Anyway, while the output voice may sound compressed and at certain
points difficult to decipher, the video itself minimises these
imperfections by having the whole thing recorded on a camera to reflect
the illusion that this video is a covert leak, featuring an unlisted
video on Cartoon Network's channel, which is also revealed to just be
part of the animation as Chowder looms out beyond the frame of the
video to discover the video's upload date is April 1st.
AngeloJFurfaro's additional work and online presence demonstrate his
immense talent and career aspirations, with his most recent work, "Stosta
Celebrate", showcasing his expertise with 3D animation as
well. His newer videos don't get nearly as much views as they truly
deserve, so go over and check him out, especially since he's got some
more work coming down the pipeline. "Doctor
Who Series Three but it's Poorly Animated" by Kane Unable Now
for our penultimate video is something that might be considered a bit
more of an acquired taste. This video (and the series as a whole) might
be a bit more crass and hyperactive compared to much of the other
entries on this list, but like the CNX video, I just think it's really
neat, and pretty impressive to boot. A bunch of jokes passing through
you at 100 miles an hour, including plenty of nods to British Zoomer
culture, as you journey through a retelling of Series 3 of Doctor Who
(as well as the first episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, which was
completely improvised too). The whole thing just flows really well
throughout, and the amount of editing and picture-puppetry on display
throughout the video's 46-minute run time is absolutely top-notch,
enough to fill a Doctor Who episode you might say. The musical numbers
here and there are a pretty nice romp too. This
video series worked pretty well for me since I planned on watching
through the revived series at around the same pace as when these videos
got released, so the episodes are all pretty fresh in my mind once I
get around to seeing them here. Kane's recently done a stand-alone
video
for "Voyage
of the Damned", so I imagine he's looking to do something
for Series 4, where we might see Rose finally give the Doctor his 5
quid! Besides that, Kane's got a few other pretty nice videos which
make use of his skills in animation and music, like his "Interview
with
a Serial Killer" video, as well as a video
where he writes a song about
British nostalgia, among a bunch of other videos that have
been fairly
overlooked. Go check them out if his style of humour is more your
thing, or if you'd like to start the poorly animated Doctor Who series,
then you can check out Series
1's video right here. But,
since we've got one Kane mentioned on our list, let's pass over to
another; creator of one of, if not my favourite video series on the
platform from this year: The entire "Backrooms"
series by Kane Pixels Kane
Parsons/Kane Pixels' series combines the two biggest things in online
paranormal fiction right about now: The Backrooms, and analogue horror,
and the result is probably one of the most technologically and
narratively impressive marvels to ever grace the YouTube platform. The
video that started it all was posted around the start of
January, and
has since amassed over 40 million views at the time of writing, and
it's easy to see why. Not only does the video offer some of the most
realistic computer animation I've ever seen, with the VHS effect and
natural camera movements making it at many points practically
indistinguishable from reality, but it also offers the viewer a vivid
impression of how the Backrooms experience may be, with the landscapes
being fittingly surreal and dreamlike to match the style of the
"liminal space" which most images of the Backrooms derive from, and the
narrative managing to successfully convey a sense of paranoia, which
crescendos into the appearance of one the Backrooms' many hostile
creatures, known sometimes simply as "Bacteria", which inhumanly chases
the audience surrogate character to an uncertain demise. But
that was only the start. From here on out, the series begins to expand
and develop the story of the Backrooms in this universe, with the main
focus being on the Async Research Institute, who opened a portal to
this parallel world to solve problems such as overcrowding and
pollution. But as the series goes along, it's revealed that this
radical solution to a global problem has inadvertently resulted in
their home world falling out of balance, as thousands seem to go
missing as a result of accidentally "noclipping" out of reality.
Stories like this have been told before in a fairly similar manner in
the past; series like Local58, The Monument Mythos and The Mandela
Catalogue come to mind. But, while much of this information is
delivered through video cameras and the occasional presentation video,
the manner in which this narrative is conveyed is far more ambitious in
its execution, presenting first-hand the experiences of individuals
within the story itself, as opposed to faceless and silent video
presentations.
Now whilst this isn't meant to downplay the qualities of those
previously-mentioned series, this narrative decision makes the
Backrooms feel like a much more personal and human experience, even if
the
characters are really just CGI (most of the time at least), which in
turn ends up avoiding the common pitfall of Backrooms-related fan
works, in which the mystique and horror of the backrooms ends up being
diluted because the work isn't able to cultivate the right atmosphere. The
Backrooms, like all the other videos mentioned here, is a prime example
of the many ways creativity continues to take form on YouTube today. In
an age of algorithms and the need to produce safe content and follow
trends, there still remain examples where not only are creative
home-grown endeavours picked up by the algorithm (on occasion at
least), but also celebrated by a large sum of the viewing public. For a
lone 16/17 year-old to create an experimental and phenomenal short film
and get recognised by millions for their work, it's a truly inspiring
thing to see, and I'm sure that the amazing work by everyone mentioned
here will continue to inspire thousands of aspiring
creators, and encourage them to create thought-provoking, moving or
just
uniquely-entertaining content for years to come. Well,
that took much longer than I expected. If you've stuck around through
all this text then thanks for reading, and I hope you've found a couple
new videos that have taken your interest. Have a happy new year, and
always
remember to stay creative! Elizabeth II - She Was Britain: A day many
have long feared is now behind us: Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II,
died yesterday at the age of 96, after having served as the monarch of
Britain and the Commonwealth for seven decades, longer than any other
monarch in British history (maybe even world history if we don't count
the regency years of France's King Louis XIV). As such, the Queen's
reign has seen great leaps and bounds abroad and especially at home, as
it transitioned away from being a traditional nation which served as
the seat to a vast and ruthless empire, to a modern and vibrant country
still maintaining a strong, but less-confrontational role (for the most
part) on the world stage. When her reign began, only a select few had
access to a television in Britain, the nation was still recovering from
the Second World War (rationing was still performed for certain
foodstuffs), and much of its population was largely culturally and
ethnically homogenous. Today, almost all of the British public holds
immediate access to outside connections through the internet, our
country is one of the centres of the financial, political and cultural
world, and the UK has been celebrated for its diversity and
multiculturalism. Throughout all these changes, all these phases in the
creation of today's Britain, the Queen remained a constant throughout,
representing a new country, and a new and risky, yet exciting, world
throughout much of the 20th and early 21st Centuries. My family
first moved to Britain from Ireland during the first couple decades of
her reign, as did many other people from the former empire, something
which would continue throughout the remainder of her age as Queen. My
parents never knew another monarch, and my surviving grandmother was
still a child when the previous King, George VI, died in 1952. This can
reflect the memories of the majority of Britons, as well as those
around the world who also admired her leadership. After ruling the
country for so long, she effectively became synonymous with it. When
people think of the UK, many would quickly also think "That's the place
with the Queen, right?". That's why I chose the message "She Was
Britain" to go with this image, because she was effectively a part of
the country: The institutions bore her title of "Her Majesty", her name
was invoked in every international sporting event, and she remained as
the centrepiece in all drama and discussion surrounding Britain's first
family, in an increasingly tabloid-ised media-scape. Her loss
brings about the loss of one of the last remaining connections to a
simpler bygone era, and the beginning of the reign of her son, Charles
III, brings about large shockwaves and uncertainties for both British
society and the world stage. It's my belief that much of Britain has
supported the continued existence of the monarchy because of how
legendary of a figure the Queen was. But now that her son, who has long
been subject to controversy and has already received calls to give up
the throne in favour of his own, more popular son, has ascended to the
throne, it seems unlikely that the Royal Family can continue to ride on
the goodwill offered in the times of Elizabeth. The Queen herself had
already been challenged by harsh criticism and calls to abdicate during
certain points of her reign, most notably during the week following
Princess Diana's death, so it seems likely that these criticisms
towards what many regard as an archaic system will only continue,
during the reign of Diana's ex-husband. Only time will tell which
direction the country will go in now that its foundations have been
rocked to the core. Regardless
of the country's future and people's personal thoughts on the monarchy,
the moment it was announced that the Queen had departed at Balmoral was
a sombre moment for everyone around the country, and for some, like
myself, it may have also been a little shocking, both because of how
quickly it seemed to happen, but also because of how her mother and
husband were able to hold on for a little longer than she was able to.
I suppose the pressures of ruling a country and losing those close to
you may be a bit tougher on one's physical and mental wellbeing. But
just after the Queen's death was announced, there was this image on the
news footage, of Windsor Castle with a rainbow just behind it, an image
that felt remarkably poignant given the circumstances, so much so that
one of my brothers joked that it was almost like the British government
was in control of the weather, because it worked so well that you'd
rarely see something like it outside of North Korean propaganda. Given
how badly it was raining this evening, he might've been on to something. The
instantly iconic nature of the phenomenon made it work really well for
this image here. I knew I had to do something in celebration of Her
Majesty, so I've spent the best part of a day putting together this
picture. I was in the middle of some other projects, and it is a bit
rough around the edges (the shading and the Queen's eyes could've been
better I suppose), but I really like how I managed to compose
everything together in the way I wanted. A couple little details I felt
were worth bringing up would be the appearance of the Royal Standard
atop the castle, as opposed to the half-mast Union Flag in real life,
which I added to show that the Queen is still here with us, in terms of
our country's spirit, as well as the choice of colours for the text at
the top of the image, which were intended to reflect the colours for
the flags of England, Scotland and Wales, her home territories in the
three words (If you want, the red and white letters in "Britain" could
represent Northern Ireland too). Though of course, the impact of her
reign did not stop at Britain. Whilst it was her home first and
foremost, she is still a key part of political life and society in the
many realms of the Commonwealth, with each of its member states being
touched by her influence, as indeed were other nations outside of the
Commonwealth. Though officially she represented a declining number of
countries on the world stage as her long rule went by, she will still
be fondly remembered across the world for years, decades, and perhaps
even centuries to come. May she rest in peace. God save the
Queen. What I did on my summer holiday: So that's
the background out of the way,
now what about the city itself? Well, despite its influx of both
national and international tourists, Bodrum definitely feels very much
like a traditional Turkish/Mediterannean city, with everything all
crammed into one neat easily-walkable package; minerets dotted around
town reciting the five daily prayers, images of the country's treasured
founder, Kemal Ataturk, were emblazoned within businesses throughout
the
area, and much of the shops and restaurants have a very home-grown and
traditional feel to them (complete with intrusive merchants who greet
your British ass with a friendly 'Awroight mate!'). One of these local
restaurants that I'd really like to recommend is one that's a bit off
the
beaten path, and was one our family only heard about through another
recommendation by a fellow hotel guest: This would be the "Curly's
Demeter" bar and restaurant, mainly because of its atmosphere. The guy
running the place is a really outgoing dude, and the staff really feel
like they're part of a family (they even have a pet dog hanging
around!), with these guys really feeling like they want to be your
friends, helped especially by the attention many of the customers are
given since the business is also pretty quiet. For example, my brothers
were looking to watch an F1 race, so the boss switched the TV over for
us, and when we wanted to see the Gaelic Football final later on, not
only did he switch it over again, but he even had access to foreign
channels that were actually playing it too. In addition to the bar and
restaurant, the place also had its own pool, available for free to
anyone looking to hang around (though they aren't shy about offering
drinks while you're there). The pool's pretty vast and generally quiet
compared to what we had back at the hotel. Speaking of
which, the hotel we travelled to, Hotel Istankoy,
was definitely a pretty interesting place to stay around. The
experience was hit-or-miss, though there were definitely more hits than
misses, though one example of the latter would definitely be the
quality of the wi-fi, which isn't really the fastest thing in the
world, and while this isn't really unexpected or much of a problem
given the country's general online infrastructure, the main problem
lies in how inconsistent it is, occasionally failing, reconnecting and
then failing again when doing something as simple as loading a webpage.
The hotel is also a bit too dense, with much of the seats' placement
resulting in many cases where family mealtimes were within the "splash
zone" of a pool filled with rowdy kids (though to be fair, there's a
separate indoor restaurant area that my family seldom used outside of
breakfast, so maybe that problem's on us). But those obviously aren't
the only things worth talking about regarding the hotel. While the
wi-fi's not much to write home about, the quality of the rooms
themselves, as well as the room service, was top notch, perfectly
organising the beds and restocking all the toiletries me and my
brothers
needed on a daily basis (they were sometimes even pretty generous
with how much they gave us). There's also plenty of things
going
on around the hotel, which in addition to having the aforementioned
pool, also has quite a few events taking place at night, like a
performance by a street dance troupe on one night, as well as a skilled
juggler on another, and even a pretty intense bingo night too! The
hotel's also right slap-bang in the middle of Bodrum, so if the events
or the food don't take your fancy, then you're just a stone's-throw
away
from nearby amenities. Its central location also results in the hotel
offering living space to many stray cats in the area, who make good
company throughout your stay. Just try and stop them from entering your
room, 'cause if they get in then it can be tough to get them out
without getting scratched. So, what
about those things you can do in Bodrum? Well, one thing you can do is
indulge in local history by visiting the local castle, built over 500
years ago by the Knights of Saint John, back when they were primarily
located on the Greek island of Rhodes (which is also only a 2-hour boat
ride from Bodrum if you're interested), partially using remains from
the destroyed Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of
the Ancient World. There's also the ancient theatre, though I never
really got around to checking it out. If historical landmarks are a bit
slow for you, then there's also plenty of watersport activities to get
yourself involved in, like scuba diving for example, which I ended up
doing for the first time. It was bloody terrifying, and it felt really
weird trying to breathe whilst stopping myself from getting salt water
in my mouth, but at least it's something to tick off the bucket list!
There's also a few things to do on dry land if stuff like scuba diving
is a bit too intense. For example, there's this really nice waterpark,
Aquapark Bodrum, not too far from the centre of the city, and it's got
tons of exhilirating waterslides to experience. I might even put it
above the water park that I frequented in Spain, since there's a larger
choice of slides, far smaller queues because the place wasn't too busy,
and it was also far cheaper too. In fact, everything seems cheaper in
Bodrum compared to what I'm used to. Impressive steaks that usually
cost around £20 often go for around the equivalent of £12. There was
even this nice gaming cafe, named "Safe Zone", which offered hundreds of games at the cost of just
10 Lira per hour; that's about 50p for a whole hour! Meanwhile, many
British offerings cost around ten-times that amount. Though something
that might be a bit more costly, but still a fairly decent experience
would be that of a quadbiking trail a fair bit out of town. While it's
not as intense as a racetrack, and they seem to have a policy of "bring
your own bandanas" as they're not included in the price, it's still
worth experiencing the rocky terrain of the Turkish countryside, as you
get pummeled by large swarms of dust and fumes from your fellow riders,
even if it's not exactly a Sega Rally Championship. Overall, I had a pretty
pleasant
experience on my visit to the south coast of Anatolia. Whilst I guess
I'd prefer Spain because it's closer and I'm more familiar with it (and
also because it doesn't cost a small fortune to use your mobile data!),
I would definitely be up for a return to the old city in the future. If
I were to rank my experiences in Turkey based on the world map featured
on my "About" page, I might label it as "Like", though if go
again
and grow more accustomed to the environment, then it could very easily
be
ranked in the "Love" category. As for where I might travel in the
future, I'll hopefully be travelling to Berlin around Easter of next
year, after years of it being pushed back due to the thing that you've
probably heard of, and I might travel to my home-from-home of Minnesota
for a wedding next summer (CDC-willing). The world's re-opening slowly
but surely, and unless another pandemic is thrown at us, or martial law
is declared, or the world ends or whatever, then it will continue to do
so. And I can't bloody wait! Oh, and here's a couple decent
holiday pics I managed to take during my time away from this island: Being Irish: I
suppose another, more contentious reason would be that I may be more
similar to the majority of people in Britain, in terms of how I look,
and by extension I've been much less susceptible to prejudice and
discrimination to need my old culture and community as a group to find
solace in. This wasn't always the case, the phrase "No dogs, no blacks,
no Irish" comes to mind with my grandmother's generation, and my Dad,
growing up as an Irish-descended Catholic during The Troubles, would
occasionally be subjected to people harassing him and calling him a
"terrorist", which I suppose could reflect the discrimination felt
nowadays by
many Arab and South Asian individuals, particularly Muslims, in the age
of the so-called "War on Terror" (if we can even count this age as the
War on Terror, because much of its mention on the news has
long subsided). Since then though, this discrimination has
largely diminished, and the closest I've really felt to it came in the
form of
harmless jokes by juvenile classmates, and that was only really because
I made my heritage known to them. I could walk down the street and
there
would be very little chance of anyone coming up to me and calling me a
"mick", a "taig" or a "potato [gamer word]", which unfortunately can't
be said for other groups of people. I also feel grateful that, from
this age of discrimination, in three generations, my family went from
some rural Irish farmers who weren't used to having electricity in
their homes, to people who I'd say have firmly placed themselves in a
comfortable middle-class lifestyle, and I've certainly gotta thank my
grandparents and my parents for helping me get to where I am now. That
isn't to say I've completely given up on the old life my family left
behind. I would definitely like to visit the old country again at some
point, especially now that there's a golden opportunity since they've
got some really lax travel restrictions compared to other nearby
countries. But, I suppose the rest of my family would much rather
prefer that we go somewhere warm this summer, especially since we've
spent far more of our time in rainy England than we're used to, so
maybe not for now, but hopefully at some point soon. Suppose there's
also a bit of culture I can indulge in to reflect on my roots, like the
song "Thousands Are
Sailing", (or a fair few other songs) by The
Pogues. Now, I know that The Pogues aren't actually an Irish
band, just British people of Irish descent (if this is news to you then
don't worry; I was kinda shocked myself), but the composition of this
song in particular really reflects the journeys and experiences many
Irish people who made their lives in America, which I suppose can
mirror the experience
my grandparents felt of coming to the place many immigrants from the
Empire called the "Mother Country", even if it was a much later era
than what the song portrayed. I'd also really like to check out
"Wolfwalkers" someday, largely because I've heard pretty good things
about it through the grapevine, and I suppose I like to consider it, at
least fairly ironically, as like the Irish "Black Panther", with its
focus
on both Celtic mythology and the nation's history of repression under
people such as Cromwell. Still though, I guess it might be a while
before I decide to fork money over for a DVD, but I'll definitely be up
for it someday. So then, I hope you enjoy today, and I hope that one
day many of you out there will be able to celebrate your culture like I
do today: Not out of a need to find solace within an environment that
shuns you for your perceived differences, but rather as a fun thing to
look back on with fondness, in celebration of those who came before you. Twenty: So then, where do I see myself
by thirty? Ideally married, getting deeper into my career, living in my
own house, and maybe even having a kid. Is that all unrealistic? Yeah,
probably. And not just in a whole "not in this economy" kind of way,
but also because I've still got far to go until I can get there. I'm
still really co-dependent and can't seem to take responsibility over
much at all really, so expecting myself to clean my act up and become a
super-successful and dependable guy seems like quite a daunting task.
Yeah, it's ten years, and yeah, I'll have many more opportunities to
grow my career and relationships in that much time, but I suppose
developing those things is like a lifelong process. I've just got to
get involved at some point and not end up like Chris-Chan or someone
like him by expecting the world around me to bend to my will.
Personally, I don't mind not having a massive ring of connections since
I've always preferred my own company. Sure, I guess it's nice to be out
with the boys, but just one or two life partners (whether they be lads
or lasses) is all right. Honestly, I'm kinda rambling at this point,
laying out my thoughts as I go along, but the main thing I'm trying to
say is that I've gotta be a "good guy", I suppose. I've legally been an
adult for two years now, but now I've got to work on actually being
one. Going out there, seeing some stuff, making connections, finding
someone, settling down and being successful. It's been a little under
twenty years since I entered this world on that cold January
night, and judging by my relatives, I've got another 60 years ahead of
me, so I've definitely gotta realise my hopes and ambitions from now
on, and live the best life I can. (Now watch me go back to
sitting on my ass and browsing the internet for another week or so!) Have you heard of
thewoodcutter.com?: This "experience" (I guess you
can call it) takes place on
this island, and the main character appears to be this human/furry kind
of
creature with a log for one hand, and another hand that's most often on
fire.
You can douse this hand in a lake of piss, but then it catches fire
again once
it comes into contact with the sun. This guy also has a few different
forms,
some are more simplified and stylised, while one of them is basically
the
character's face super-imposed over a tracing of a human body. There's
also a
bunch of other creatures that you can find around you, including the
"Piss Poodle",
which pisses from its head when you pinch its tail, making the piss
lake I
mentioned before. There's also the "Meat Angel", who holds a bucket of
chicken
drumsticks, and hosts "The Wound", who lives in a wound in her ass, and
offers
advice on what to do. But much of that advice doesn't really seem that
helpful
in terms of progressing through the experience, since there's no real
beginning
or end and all the pages loop back around to one another. So like I
mentioned,
it's not really meant to function as a game, and is basically just
meant to be
a strange and unique art project, that was meant to be told through
what was
then a new method of communication. So, let's just try and go over what
this
could all mean. From what little I know about
this whole thing, I believe
that it has something to do with the idea of playing God, and
attempting to
accelerate the process of evolution. However, when attempting this,
there appear
to be situations where this rapid acceleration is prevented from taking
place.
This can be seen through the prior-mentioned multiple forms the main
character
takes, as well as his attempts at modifying his appearance, such as
dousing his
burning hand and chopping off the stump of his log arm, which are
ultimately
reversed either through later stages of the character's "evolution", or
through
outside events (e.g. The guy's hand catching fire again from the sun).
There's
also some imagery relating to Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal,
a
particularly topical topic for the time this thing was created, with a
picture
of her appearing in the Meat Angel's room, and what I assume is audio
from a
related news report playing after the guy chops his stump off. Maybe
this is
suggesting that potential future technologies relating to this
experiment, such
as human cloning, have shown little practical purpose outside of
spectacle
according to the artist, hence the whole "going round in circles
thing"? Or
maybe this theme is mostly related to the grotesque visuals, which
could
indicate how humans might potentially impact the world around them with
this
new-found scientific understanding? In all honesty, I don't really
know. I guess I'm kinda
grasping at certain points, and maybe this is all just meant to be a
weird
thing about nothing. Still, who knows? Maybe you could find something
more to
it than I could. If you want to look for it, though, you probably don't
have
many options as of now. The website appears to have gone down a little
after I
found it in 2019, and since Flash is no-longer supported, then you're
not gonna
be able to navigate it the way it was on the Internet Archive without
some kind
of Flash emulator browser extension like Ruffle. I figured I'd make the
process
easier for you though, which is why I
uploaded all the .swf files I could find
on the Wayback Machine to the Archive at the end of last year,
alongside an
honestly rather complicated guide on how which file relates to which.
This
might not be all there is to it, though, since these were only the
pages that
were archived, and there might have been a few links that I somehow
didn't
notice when navigating the site via the Wayback Machine. Maybe at some
point, I
(though probably someone else) might be able to contact Josh Kimberg
for a
better understanding of the site in the future, but for now, I suppose
this is
all we have to work off of around this old relic of internet past. Regarding Lowtax: Of course, I've come to learn
that he was no saint, and was in many ways a divisive figure both on
and off the internet. Whether it would be relatively menial issues such
as his general neglect of the site following its heyday in the 2000s
and requiring new users to pay a fee to register, to personal issues in
his private life, such as a long history of domestic disputes with his
many partners. These all made him the subject of ire in his later life,
and he gave up ownership of the site to an admin about a year ago.
Immediately prior to his death, he was settling a divorce with his
third wife, which ruled his past behaviour as abusive. Shortly after
the verdict, news broke of his suicide. He was 45, and left three
daughters behind. The life Lowtax lived was, like many public figures,
turbulent and controversial, and like many of those who lived this type
of life, he was gone far too soon. But, in times like this, the most
important things to consider here and now are both the privacy and
wellbeing of his family, as well as the legacy his online work left
behind. Whilst he may have not lived his best life, his work made many
friendships, saw people gain fame and fortune, and changed the
landscape of the internet forever. He wasn't a flawless man; nobody
could suggest that, but he's a man who, whether we'd like to admit it
or not, was key in creating the online landscape we know today. The Death of Chris-Chan: This whole event has been a lot
for me to take in personally. I first heard about Chris' escapades
around early-mid 2015, shortly after his first proper run-in with the
law following the whole GameStop incident. I'm well aware that this was
long after the "Golden Age of Chris-Chan" as you might say, had come to
an end, but I quickly grew fascinated in the history of this individual,
like many others have before me. Whilst I was well aware that Chris had
basically gone off the deep end with his more erratic behaviour, even
compared to his past behaviour, I looked at him with some degree of
sympathy, as I saw him as a sort of cautionary tale, partially because
of his status as the Elvis of "lolcows", for his early following in an
unfamiliar environment, but also because of his personal issues that
people like me could fall into if we're not careful enough. His
oftentimes ridiculous beliefs and creations also managed to capture my
imagination in their absurdity, as you may have noticed by my more
recent addition to this website's "Works" page, "Two Worlds Collide",
which was based directly on Chris' ramblings on the so-called
"Dimensional Merge". However, as you might expect, everything's
changed. You can't look at a man who committed sexual acts against his
own mother, who is far into her old age and could possibly even have
dementia or a similar illness that results in a lack of proper consent,
and still be sympathetic towards them. The best that can come of this
is if Chris is taken into psychiatric help, where he can finally make
steps towards bettering himself one way or the other, and at least
become a semi-functioning member of society, like how he seemed to be
shortly before the internet first found him. However, you can't do the
things Chris did, and expect everyone to welcome you with open arms,
and an event like this may spell the end of his documented online
presence, and perhaps even the beginning of the end for his own life,
at least as we know it. There were many things that you
could say got Chris to where he is today. Despite this event, one could
argue that Chris was the victim of a lot of things: Excessive parental
coddling, manipulation and verbal abuse from vast numbers of online
trolls, and especially his own continued naivety and inability to
change or gain motivation to do anything. But regardless, whatever
direction his life has gone in, it all seemed to culminate in this
event; something he can never take back, and something that the online
world could never possibly forgive or forget. I know this whole thing
has been a bit of a downer, and honestly I'm still trying to process
all of this myself, but I still feel like I've got to say something
about this event. At least we still have those shared experiences and
memories surrounding that strange man from Ruckersville fresh in our
minds, even if they've practiaclly soiled by what we found out in these
past few days. Update: It seems that Chris has now been escorted out of his hotel room and is now in police custody. It's anyone's guess as to where this may go next.
So I saw that new Adventure Time
special. It definitely gave
me a lot to think about. God did it give me a lot to think about. Together Again very much
entails finality; both of the
characters are dead forever (well, ignoring reincarnation of course),
so I
suppose it wouldn't make much sense to continue on with them in the
future when
there technically is no future for them, since their spirits have now
being
reincarnated, so I guess you can't really do anything with them until
the dust
settles in a long while, otherwise any continuation would feel like a
cheap
cash grab. Speaking of continuations, I suppose my personal ideas for a
second
series won't need to change much to fit into this new work, except for
one
major problem in the plot: Ghost Jake is one of the show's main
characters and
regularly interacts with Finn on his adventures. This goes completely
against
the main conflict of Together Again, where Finn is disappointed that
Jake never
communicated with him at any point following his death, despite that
being
possible for him to do. I could always work around this, but it may be
difficult to do. I could just say that it was all a dream that Finn had
to cope
with Jake's death, but saying anything's "just a dream" is basically
the cheapest of cop-outs you could possibly do. On the other hand, I
could
instead say that Finn and Jake would have to erase their post-death
memories of
each other following the events of the second series to allow Jake to
ascend
further towards reincarnation, like what happened to Donna in the
Series 4
finale of Doctor Who (spoilers btw), but I also don't want to throw out
Finn's
characterisation and character development in this series. Once again, the finality
of this special
wouldn't really allow for a proper continuation on the scale of the
main series
itself. I could maybe consider a comic series instead, like those
sequel comics
for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and have the timeline diverge after "Come
Along with Me", but I don't suppose I have the patience for writing and
drawing comics independently the same way I do for basic script
writing, but
maybe something more might come of it in the future if I go down that
route
(like an adaptation somewhere down the line). But I suppose those are all my
thoughts for now. Now, if
you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go off and stare out a window, listening to
Guts'
Theme from Berzerk, as I process what exactly I watched last night. |
