Blogs I Follow:

2024/04/13

we know it all too well

2024/04/11

some guy in your creative writing class you took 13 years ago will be all like: oh, [band name]? i have a complicated history with [band name].

and then after five minutes of pulling info out of him it just turns out he likes some of their albums and dislikes some of their other albums.

2024/04/02

lots of little updates over the past few weeks, most unseen but something that's visible:

comment system has been changed from Disqus (which shows ads apparently, yuck) to the archaic method of "send an email to this address to comment."

i shamelessly stole this comment approach from LOWTECHMAGAZINE which is a great site and you should read that site instead of this site.

that's all for now.

2024/03/29

if you're wearing a cowboy hat, are you obligated to wear cowboy boots as well? and vice versa? or can they be worn independently?

asking for a friend, whom does not exist.

2024/03/27

oh look, we now have little buttons (not 88's) of other blogs. neat.

2024/03/23

had a germ of an idea, didn't write it down, lost it.

2024/03/21

me, on feb 29th: hey hey not to toot my own horn or anything but i'm gonna be updating like crazy, get ready for an avalanche of content

me, since feb 29th:

2024/03/14

2024/03/13

hello.

do you feel a complete lack of community in your life?

are you apathetic, stupid, ugly, and generally uncool?

do you have dreams where you are running through a meadow at full sprint at twilight, fireflies getting sucked into your open mouth as you gasp for breath?

me too.

2024/03/07

i tried out mastodon again for a few weeks. social media to me feels so performative and hollow. i'm sure lots of folks genuinely do make connections and stuff with other people, but my first thought about anything is never "go to [SOCIAL MEDIA] with it." nor do i see a feed of hundreds/thousands of random thoughts mixed in with retweets of other people's thoughts or whatever as something to connect with.

something about the whole thing just doesn't resonate with me.

also, to be honest, the few posts i did make, i genuinely thought "i could just be putting this on writtte."

so, here we are.

2024/03/06

watching bootleg 2.5 hour youtube videos of King of the Hill and being like "hey ya the internet is good" even though it's literally just stolen shit i've been watching for 20+ years

2024/02/29

After a few months of downtime, the site is back and better(?) than ever. New index page, new categories pages, new about page, new fonts, new background color and reading pane view thing. All kinds of new stuff. We have comments now, too. Go ahead, comment something. Complain about inflation, or politics, or our inevitable doom. Who cares, I'm pumped. I could run through a brick wall and then come back and make hundreds of tiny updates across all my webpages after realizing I incorrectly changed some small thing no one else will notice or care about.

Did I only mention the new stuff? We have old stuff now too! The No Happy Nonsense Podcast has come back from the dead and is ready to eat your brains. Originally created in late 2019/early 2020, this was the best thing I ever created according to some Scottish person on the internet. The entire thing is now completely hosted by me + this site, instead of whatever podcast hosting platform I originally used. It's available on Apple Podcasts and maybe other podcast sites whenever they crawl the RSS feed. Some people even say that the podcast may return, but they are fools. Hopeful, hopeful fools.

From an ideological perspective, I'm going to try to post more frequently with a greater variety of things on here. More quick posts of one or two cool things or even some short bloggy posts like this to keep folks in the loop of whatever's happening around the nhn village as of late. These are famous last words around Neocities of course, so I'm crossing my fingers behind my back as I say this and hope that whatever god will dictate the success of my own creative ouput has a sense of humor about this kind of thing.

And finally something that I just find personally funny; I have had a great two months of running so far and as of last Saturday I hit 389 miles for the year. I remember thinking "man, not only will I hit 400 miles easily, I can probably get to 450 miles by the end of February this year."

And then I got sick on Sunday and have been sick all week and haven't run a mile, and I'm ending the month stuck on that 389 number. Gotta laugh cuz I have an ugly crying face.

2023/12/22

tragic: spending your last $20+ on an album in 2004 and it just absolutely sucks.

magic: going back to the album 2 weeks later and somehow it's one of the greatest things you've ever heard and you will spend the next 20+ years of your life listening to it.

2023/11/16

trying out new post ideas/formats or whatever. not sure if i should send them out via the emailer i use or only update the rss feed.

in other news: misery

2023/11/10

something something get out and run something something

2023/11/07

(old thing i wrote in college that i just remembered)

college is about three things:

old laptops
grinding out c's
misery

2023/10/27

today!

2023/10/26

tomorrow!

2023/10/23

mike, please. please.

stop buying books, i mean what the fuck.

2023/10/19

to all my neocities friends: i started using a newsletter service for my posts so i can send it to folks who aren't in our little quiet web bubble here. if you want to subscribe, here's the sign up page.

nothing else changes; RSS feed still works and i'll post a little thing on the social wall feed thing when i put up new posts.

cool.

2023/10/10

it's pretty awesome how social media exists and ruins everything about our lives

2023/10/03

left knee running 15 miles: haha yes! this is awesome, wow it's great to be alive

left knee walking down 11 steps: oh my god why, why, why are you doing this to me

(this isn't even the bad knee)

2023/09/19

me in 2022: okay, no more buying books, i have 500 already

me in 2023: okay, how the fuck do i have 700 books now

2023/09/08

fun fact: your body has natural safeguards that prevent you from doing too much physical activity. for example, when you hit your weekly mileage threshold, your knee will simply dislocate and make a strange SNIKT¹ sound and then every step forward will be extremely painful. this is for your safety, to make sure you don't run any further.

thank you, knee. very cool.

_{¹ yes, this is the official sound effect caption for Wolverine's claws to pop outta his knuckles, but it has a more versatile use case than most people give it credit.}

2023/08/29

there's always tomorrow (for taco bell)

2023/08/21

several months ago the national parks service released a few free crochet patterns, including this one for a halibut.

at the time, my wife was looking for patterns of things to make, so i offered this one as something fun that we could mount to the wall or hang up floating somewhere.

she then found a sweater pattern she liked and promptly started making that, never to return to our friendly house halibut.

i've decided that i will create this fish, or a fish, and display it proudly in our home, fulfilling destiny and making dumb art in the process. two birds, one fish.

so let it stand, i will make a fish.

-posted via my smart phone, awkwardly.

2023/08/16

nothing pouring out.
the lid's off, jostled the tub,
but nothing spilled out.

2023/08/15

running time goes up,
website time goes down.

it's just basic economics

2023/08/08

books will be my undoing

2023/08/03

hear the garbage truck coming down the street
pull up the corner of the blinds, peak through
see the truck roll up to our house and stop
"come on, take it all. come on," i say to myself
watch the men grab the bags and assorted junk
hear the mechanical death trap activate and crunch garbage
"yes," i say to myself with a sigh of relief

2023/07/31

unordered
list

• fake
• unordered
• list

2023/07/27

• really good long read from erin kissane about twitter/mastadon/bluesky. a lot of the ease of use issues she points out with mastodon are things i experienced when i briefly had an account. she just released another thing about mastodon specifically that i haven't gotten to yet, but i'm sure it's equally insightful.

• was garden state a really bad movie, or a really good one, or was i 16 when it came out and it ultimately doesn't matter? i mean, "New Slang," right?

• is apple sauce and apple butter the same shit?

• futurama is the ever-recurring side character who keeps coming back despite literally being blown to bits on screen and i will gladly pay to watch it every single time it rises from the dead.

• old and gold

2023/07/24

[captions on "Alone"] Ryan has lost 47 pounds in 38 days. He has not eaten more than 500 calories in a single day. He is at serious risk of malnutrition.

[me on the couch, grabbing another pastry from the box] heh, that sucks

2023/07/20

• i've been visiting a family member in the hospital a lot recently and enjoyed the couch/bed/table/charging station thing the room has in it. i looked it up online (pg. 91) and it costs $10,000. i don't have anything else, just, what the fuck

• the women's world cup has begun; usa, usa, usa, etc.

• The word "shark" was used to describe shitty humans 300 years before it was used to describe the unkillable terrors of the ocean

• remembering 18 months ago when people would post their wordle emojis onto twitter and discord and talk about their "solve" like it was some massive display of wit + intelligence. haha fuck that.

• if you aren't following The Reading Project yet then what are you waiting for? the aussie dingo baby folks over there have ensnared local author Michael Duffy to contribute to their elaborate web of a site. Duffy in turn has interviewed bikerbuddy on his own site.

i've said it before and i'll say it again: you aren't a true neocitizen until you review something for the reading proj.

-posted via my smart phone, awkwardly.

2023/07/17

• decent thinky piecey thing about how AI is or is not outsourcing outsourcers. the comparative examples are the most interesting parts of the piece.

• petey continues to drop bangers, and i am here for it.

• i used it for two years and then got the fuck outta that shit because substack is basically a cesspool

• did you ever remember some obscure piece of media for like 20+ years, finally find it, and then realize it's not actually as good as you remember? my experience with The Ohio Years earlier today

• runaway is an absolute pop banger but the video is hilariously cringey. it's so fake and corporate, the Bose™ earbuds close-up shot within the first 5 seconds of the video is just *chef's kiss*

• i had a dream last night where an artist friend (who is not a person in real life, but we were friends in the dream) created a website called titsfree.com and the entire site was a series of flash pages where you put together ripped apart pizzeria menus.

i don't know what that means for me psychologically, but i'm heartbroken that the site doesn't exist as i dreamt it.

-posted via my smart phone, awkwardly.

2023/07/13

some back burner ideas that are going to stay burnt:

• after nearly two years from my pre-order, i finally got my playdate. had it about a week and a half. really diggin' it so far.

• it's crazy that a lady gaga song released in 2011 is now a hit and i hear it on the radio every ten fucking minutes until my ears fucking bleed I WONT CRY FOR YOU I WONT CRUCIFY THE THINGS YOU DO

• on july 1st, in fake-internet-solidarity with whomever, i stopped using reddit. this is a long time coming but finally went for it, deleted my 13 year account, yadda yadda. boring internet persona shit.

• i'm going to go a month where i only listen to johnny cash and enter my "man in black era" finally

• having spent probably thousands of dollars on their gear for years, all i can say now is: get fucked patagonia.

• Threads user count as of today: 109 million
Writtte user count as of today: .000001 million
(quality over quantity)
((but this isn't quality either))

night folks, see you in a few weeks.

2023/07/06

went for a six miler yesterday.

barely had the cardio for it,
sweated myself into a pile of dry soup organs,
cursed every uphill as i slowly waddled my way up.
knee doesn't feel bad today but it doesn't feel good.
will need to take off at least a day or two.

i love this shit.

2023/07/02

lots of projects in my brain goop.

stay perfect, stay in the goop.

2023/06/23

after 2 months of not a single run, both my knee and my courage bone felt good enough to go for an easy jaunt this past wednesday. the fact that it was the summer solstice also factored in heavily, but only because the pagan in me imagined chasing down a buffalo to ritually slaughter.

went on my normal route and was considering doing multiple laps at a park to get higher mileage, but after only 1.3 or so my knee started to get hints of feeling whacky so i cut it short and ran back home.

it felt good enough.

two days later and everything still seems fine. knock wood, throw salt over your shoulder, spit and curse, etc.

2023/06/14

where did all my carabiners go?

like, for real.

2023/06/05

scared of dying scared of my wife dying scared of my mother dying scared of my niece dying scared of having kids scared of not having kids scared of going for a run and my knee giving out scared of going for a run and i cant breathe scared of never running again scared of never reading all my books scared of never reading all the books scared of never writing anything worthwhile scared of never doing anything worthwhile scared of forgetting everyone ive ever known scared of it all ending in a void of nothingness.

2023/05/26

yellow cat

2023/05/21

the void answers back with a badly produced chapbook

2023/05/08

Listening to old DDR songs on Youtube really injects a straight hit of nostalgia from "better" times 20 years ago now. Also, oh fuck oh no time really is a slippery bastard.

Speaking of time,

took some off this past weekend. Was hoping for reinvigoration beholding the majesty of our world while sipping on coffee. Instead, got very drunk and felt uncomfortable most of the time.

We don't always get the experiences we want, but usually they're still what we need.

2023/05/01

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNINCykhR3I

2023/04/29

why write something when you can w r i t t t e something?

2023/04/26

i spent 10-12 hours over the past two days updating the formatting and styling of the site, and then basically learned that most of it was useless and/or horribly assembled.

that's the cost of being stupid *chefs kiss*

2023/04/25

I was walking down the street and I bumped my head on an awkwardly-angled street sign and after the initial shock and rush of pain I looked up to see what the heck the sign even said and to my complete surprise it said "We see you, Dave" and it started changing the letters around, morphing into new letters as if it were a fluid object, and after a few seconds the new words said "We are coming for you" and I sort of nervously looked around as if somehow, some unseen prankster had rigged up this elaborate joke on me and they were sitting at a bench with some sort of remote controller for the sign or something, but after my quick scan yielded no would-be joker, I looked back up at the sign and it was a static sign again, "1-Hour Parking Mon-Sat 9:00am-6:00pm" and I started looking around even more frantically now, hoping to find someone else who had seen the sign transform itself, but no one else existed in the world and I realized that I must be dreaming, this life, this world, the entirety of everything everyone has ever done, a simple hallucination in the mind of a still-blooming adolescent version of myself, in a different, better place.

2023/04/20

pro: insanely vivid dream of something you've always wanted.

con: you wake up

04/06/2023

in theory: wake up early, write for 30 minutes no matter what, then switch over to reading for at least an hour, do some body weight work outs, brew some coffee, get a quick hit of news via up first, and then get started on chores/errands.

in practice: sit on reddit for 3 hours

03/25/2023

average neocities site: Warning, you are about to enter the most dangerous, fucked up place on the internet. You should not hit enter, but if you do, I'm not responsible for scarring you for life.

[hit enter button]

average neocities site: about shrines blog links buttons

[blog]

average neocities site: 03-22-2023 - so today i forgot to bring in all of my homework because i didnt do any of it and then during lunch todd told me he liked christina and he is going to ask her out but christina is my future waifu and i got so mad but i said oh okay cool and when i got home i fell asleep for three hours and then ate mac n cheese.

03/23/2023

reading is a lot of fun, hot dang

03/14/2023

[coffee shop, 2005]

my friend: hey do you have any Frou Frou music on your iPod?

me: uh yeah, just one song though

my friend: yeah, everyone has that one

03/10/2023

oh, weirdy wordy, i just can't quit you.

02/23/2023

i think it's funny that youtube will be like "we really think you'll like this song" and you know in the background of it's algorithm-brain-thing it's all proud of itself for having this absolutely perfect recommendation for you and is so excited for you to listen to the song and then you click the video box link whatever it's just a fucking death cab song you've been listening to for the past 19 years and like, yeah, no shit i like this song, ya fucking idiot robot.

02/17/2023

Mentions/Quotes Ursula K. Le Guin:
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe ☑
Road to Nowhere ☑
Ways of Being ☑

02/09/2023

A friend of mine reads a ton of fantasy books. Me, not as much. But recently I polished off the first Earthsea book and we got to talking about it.

He said, "Earthsea was such a refreshing read...it's good to read something where the solution isn't just 'throw a fireball' and the hero wins. It felt like reading a pure fantasy book."

I didn't really touch on this in my review for the book but, yeah, basically every conflict in the story is solved by discussion, or self-sacrifice. Very little "let me cast my spell of chain-lightning."

As I was reading Paris Marx' 2022 Politics + Technology book Road to Nowhere the other night, Le Guin popped up, notably her talking about how fucking dumb it is that narrative fiction ends up coming down to physical conflict:

"...Le Guin criticized common narratives in history and storytelling that focus on the masculine hero with his 'sticks and spears and swords, the things to bash and poke and hit with, the long, hard things,' but ignore the essential feminine role of the carer or gatherer with her carrier bag that was essential to human evolution. She wrote that 'the reduction of narrative to conflict is asburd,' and explained that there is more than struggle and competition to the function of society and the improvement of the human condition."
- "Road to Nowhere" p. 206

I agree. We should be using our back packs more, and our great swords less. Also, autonomous cars are never happening, sorry techbros.

02/03/2023

Had an interview today for a job I don't want.

It went well, I hope they don't make an offer.

02/01/2023

January was a pretty good month:

• I ran 198 miles (if I realized this yesterday, I would've jogged out the extra two, but alas)

• I read 11 books:

8 Fiction
2 Non-Fiction
1 Graphic Novel

• I met up with my brother in law on three weekends, we went for easy runs through trails.

• I found a new big trail system somewhat nearby my house.

• I watched 12 NFL playoff games, and constantly wondered why I did.

Some habits that I still need to get off the ground:

Meditate Daily
Yoga/Bodyweight Workout 3 or 4 times per week
Write 30 min daily

Not a bad month, though. I haven't read this many books in a month since my college days. I have had more free time than usual admittedly, but most of my reading has been super early in the morning and then later on at night after dinner. Some of the books also really grabbed me so I decided to dedicate more of my free time to reading as I really enjoyed them.

Ideally my mileage would be closer to 250mi/month but Winter is always hard, so I'm happy with this total.

I'd like to start tracking obscure things about my life for these monthly summaries, that could be fun. I'll have to keep a log.

Onward, onward.

01/29/2023

Yesterday I surprised myself by putting up 14 miles during a run. I ran 5 miles out to a small park + trail system to meet my brother in law, then ran ~3 miles through the trails with him, then ran another 5 miles back home, taking a detour at the end to get the extra mile.

I've run longer distances before obviously, but I was feeling pretty worn down from this week and it felt good to push it. It's been 30's and 40's most days, so running has been relatively easy from a weather standpoint so far.

This Winter has been mild for the East Coast, a few days of snow and maybe a week/week and a half of temps 20° or lower. I wonder if this is part of the new normal now. If the cold snaps and months of snow on the ground will no longer be something I experience while living in my home state. It's great to not have to deal with ice and snow and slush and your breath in the air, but it also feels like a scary harbinger of worse things to come.

Apparently NJ is warming up faster than any other state in the US.

Fuck.

01/28/2023

"I support disruptive protests, but..."

01/27/2023

Does it seem like it's time for another massive site overhaul in here, or is it just me?

01/24/2023

I've been putting together lots of tiny, tiny little fixes/tweaks to the "other room" that we have, which I have somewhat taken over as my library/workshop. Too small to really document for the blog, but maybe I'll video them in a quick little thing and post it, or something.

01/19/2023

This text will be hidden if your browser supports it.

And I'm testing shit out.

01/13/2023

01/11/2023

if anyone else uses html comment box, did your comments all go away recently?

12/30/2022

being only motivated by deadlines, i will be spending most of tomorrow writing things that are far, far past due, and preparing my life for THE YEAR 2023, THE BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE (according to my new years resolutions that i've just jotted out)

i'd say i have big plans for this site but that'd mostly be me lying to you. so let's just say we'll meet each other at the diner after we graduate and see what happens.

Happy New Year errybody, keep on making weird shit.

12/27/2022

say it aint so, digital love

12/25/2022