I'm Getting Too Old

This month is all the stuff that reminds me that I’m old, cause I find it interesting. I’ll try my best to make it relatable to all of you without going off the rails too much, and hopefully you find some usefulness out of it. We’ll start off with some weird tech that I thought was 100% a scam product category. So apparently in recent years, personal “air conditioner” devices are a thing. I thought they were those cheap neck fans that have been around forever. But apparently, they actually have Peltier technology in them and cool your neck and face. Additionally in Japan, there has been innovations in developing a lot of personal cooler devices (and even clothing!) to help beat the day-to-day heat. I’m actually curious how these products actually work out and have plans to look into the Reon Pocket if it ever goes on sale over here in the states (I need an easy return policy if I don’t like). If any of you have personal experience with these particular units, please let me know in the comments.

Consumer product testing channel Project Farm recently did a fun little video looking at YouTuber merch (shirts) to see which ones held up and which ones didn’t. If you wish to skip the intro and head straight into the testing portion, it starts at 5:13 in the video. Considering these shirts on average cost $30 to $50 shipped, you would expect a lot of them to be pretty durable and last a while. Surprisingly the results are all over the place, and you can watch the video for the finer details.

There use to be a saying on the internet that states, “Just Google it”. Well that saying doesn’t really have any weight anymore in 2024. Google as a search engine is absolute garbage in the modern era, and I highly recommend you look up an alternative if you actually want to find anything useful nowadays. My personal choice is DuckDuckGo or Brave Search - but whatever other option you like - stick with it and encourage others to make the switch. I would also switch browsers away from Chrome, if possible unless you want your ad blockers to slowly one by one be banned.

I’m a huge fan of silent (or minimal talking) travel vlogs around the world. They allow you to experience a place you’ve never been before with as much immersion as humanly possible. There’s a time and place for narration and a host for sure, but excessive commentary on top of grating music can ruin any first impression of a place quite quickly. So, I was delighted to stumble across this video of an atmospheric tour of Minatur Wunderland in Germany with no music or host talking. It combines two minor hobbies of mine into one - silent travel vlogs and miniatures / models. It’s a bit on the lo-fi side of life, and I hope you find it equally enjoyable when you need to unwind a bit.

Artist is Gil Elvgren

Artist of the month is the late Gil Elvgren who passed in 1980. Since this update was really Gen-X boomer focused, I might as well link my very first pin-up poster I had in college at the age of 18! Although not the exact same image I had back in the day, I still remember the on-campus store owner who sold me the poster and the funny conversation we had because of it. You can click on the picture for a link to Nylon.Net who has an entire archive of Gil Elvgren’s works!

The Great Urban Outdoors

In an incredible age where literally anything can be sent to your doorstep, the urge for younger folks to go outside and do something is becoming rarer by the day. When I talk about the outdoors by the way, it doesn’t have to be mother nature in its purest form. Simply exploring your town, city or county can be enriching as well as nerdy as you want it to be. Instead of the usual trappings of overpriced Instagram food and fly by night shopping centers, you can try to make a pilgrimage to some businesses fighting the good fight in keeping weird things alive. I would start with arcades, “barcades”, and niche stores as your starting points and expand out from there.

For everyone who enjoyed last month’s Jenny Nicholson recommendation, I would like to say that not all themed attractions out there are complete rip offs. If you are lucky enough to live within driving distance of a theme park, may I kindly suggest you give it a shot if you haven’t? There’s always going to be a tradeoff of what you can reasonably budget against what you want to do. Believe me when I say that I’m a “once a year” type of person when it comes to these things, but that one or two days I get to go at it - it’s a damn good time. Some places even have “vip” experiences you can look into it, which will dramatically allow you to enjoy your day. Either way, see what’s around you and plan a trip.

There’s a weird proven psychological benefit to rearranging a space or working on a project. It gives a sense of completion when done, a meaningful practical purpose to work toward, and importantly the reward is often directly involving yourself. That’s why I encourage anyone who hasn’t done a minor renovation to their living space (or at least their bedroom) in quite some time to think about starting one. Although not the most scientific source to cite, you can read a lengthy article on the perceived benefits of remodeling from Veranda. In a nutshell, make your living area that you dwell in the most more comfortable and relatable to your current circumstances. It can help improve mood and connection to your space and even where you’re at in life. It’s also why a lot of folks choose to move to another city (or even country) after a while, since they feel they need to break apart the monotony that has taken ahold of their life.

Everyone needs a crazy smart old man to teach them stuff they didn’t ask about, and HOBOTECH is a great resource if you’re looking into reliable reviews of these fancy power banks all the kids are using nowadays. Actually, I’m linking you HOBOTECH since he’s a great resource if you’re looking into making your own small solar setup for your house or personal use. I’m not here to dive into any of the nasty politics of green energy, rather I’m just a nerd trying to save you money if you make some proper choices. For example, where I live in California, we have the highest cost of electricity in the entire country! So, it makes sense to get energy from the sun where I can shave off the monthly bill. More details in the audio blog, but basically look into small scale panels and batteries to start off before jumping into the larger things.

Artist is Urushihara Satoshi

Artist of the month has been mentioned on my site before a very long time ago, but of course with the newer format he deserves the recognition he deserves. Therefore Urushihara Satoshi, also known as the “Master of breasts” is as old school as you can get in the industry. You’ll probably recognize some of his work and very unique style if you’ve been around for a while watching anime or reading manga. A good candidate for artist GOAT due to his sheer influence on the industry and still to this day rather unique design. That’s it for the monthly update, go on and get out there!

Even More Cleaning Up

I’m going to continue clearing out the backlog this month of interesting “out of the way” content. One of the things over the years I have talked about on my site is the niche of theme parks being inside the pop culture lexicon. As much as we are all “nerds” to some level and degree, theme parks are kind of a cross between what normal every day folks enjoy, and straight up fanatics / weirdos. I’m not saying any of this in a disparaging way either, since a lot of people all over the world have their own crazy stories about their own local parks, and those who go to them religiously. In North America, it’s easy to see the “plight” of theme parks to be regarded as rich people problems. But it wasn’t always that way, and it’s increasingly become more bizarre as time goes on. In any case, Jenny Nicholson is one of my favorite human beings on the planet for being as quirky (yet extremely detailed) as she is for the content that she makes on themed attractions. If you want to see what crazy rich Americans have done to IPs like Star Wars, please watch the video in its entirety. You’ll get to see how the “1%” live, and how insane (yet fascinating) it all is. It’s a beefy video too, so be warned.

Continuing my tradition of showcasing stuff obviously I should have saved for spooky October things, this is a YouTube channel in Japanese that deals with paranormal stuff. I consider it “junk-food” content that is good enough to watch and be interested in as long as you’re not overly serious about the material. Paranormal stuff outside of North America is more refreshing to watch from someone who grew up in the western world, since a lot of the scary stuff we see can become formulaic over time. In other words, we get our fair share of Victorian ghosts, civil war spirits, sasquatch sightings, and ufos. It’s nice to see unexplained stuff be unrecognizable, in an unfamiliar language with no historical familiar context. It adds to the spookiness of it all and allows us to be curious again of what is out there we don’t know about.

Another “spooky thing in July” thing I wanted to share is basically a YouTube channel dealing with SCP foundation entries and reading them in a narrative way. The channel is called The Exploring Series, and is fantastic for those into story telling; especially when pulling a lot of elements from SCP archives. I have stated many times in previous updates that I tend to enjoy non-fiction stories in my day-to-day interests, but I do appreciate finely crafted fictious storytelling as a form of art from time to time. It helps me develop as a speaker and reminds me to interject emotion and emphasis whenever possible.

Let’s pull ourselves out of the pit of universal horrors and back into the wholesome geek culture of reality. LGR has been a longtime YouTube recommendation on my site for quite some time, but I’m not sure many folks know about his alternate channel called LGR Blerbs. Ever the professional, he puts stuff on there he feels may be too niche on the main channel. I’ve always enjoyed his trip videos specifically, because he shows the nitty gritty of traveling somewhere without all the obnoxious editing or “influencer” style trip vlog. If you like this kind of video, I highly suggest you check out his backlog and recent Chicago trip.

Random synthwave song? You bet your ass I’m going to include one because why not? Especially since this is a cover song and typically already has something going on for it in terms of mass appeal. The modern remix by Scandroid breathes new life into a classic. Check out their other tracks if this one hit a chord with you.

Artist is KyuYong Eom

Artist of the month is KyuYong Eom, someone I previously featured on my site a long time ago but never got the “official” treatment they deserved. That’s because KyuYong’s art is extremely reminiscent of old school fantasy art of the 80’s and 90’s with a little touch of modernism, especially in the look of the character faces. If you look over their portfolio work, you’ll easily find your next D&D roleplaying avatar for sure because they’re that talented.

Spring Cleaning

This update is going to be a grab bag of content I’ve been sitting on for the last couple of months. Sometimes there are interesting things that don’t really fit any type of theme, but also kind of go overlooked when lacking a clear classification. Let’s treat all this good stuff then like a clearance bin at your favorite store. Not exactly what you’re looking for but maybe there are some good deals to be had.

There’s a famous quote from Jonathan Swift that “Everything old is new again”. Retro handheld gaming has become really popular as of late and is turning into a large market for nostalgic gamers as well as young technophiles. With the introduction of devices such as the Steam Deck putting the power of a PC into your hands, it makes sense that other handhelds start hitting the market as well. Personally, I will attest that what makes or breaks a handheld device is not necessarily its raw performance but rather its ergonomics. I’m not sure everyone would agree with me, but there’s so many options out there at the moment (and growing) that it doesn’t really matter. If you like what you see already, there’s even more stuff on the way.

Ken Harris has a very down to earth YouTube channel that primarily focuses on cybersecurity. He does do other content from time to time as well, and one of them is the above in regard to YouTube. I promise you it's not a drama, profanity laced rant as the norm with these types of videos. I just think it’s a really good perspective from someone who states the obvious that no one really talks about at all on the platform.

For every single weeb out there, I’m going to assume this is common knowledge. However, not everyone who is into Japanese pop culture or video games actually cares about the “real” day to day life of Japanese people. This often leads (unfortunately) to folks being out of touch with societal norms in another country. Why I bring this all up is because sometimes, you read some pretty aggravating tone-deaf articles out there about this or that in a video game or comic. Had those folks actually just took the time to just learn a bit about what they claim to enjoy, they would have realized it’s just a matter of perspective. In any case, I highly suggest you check out Japanology Plus for an extensive (I mean that) deep dive into all things Japanese.

Who am I fooling with the last paragraph? You younger folks out there can’t stand anything longer than 10 minutes according to psychological studies made by various Anthropology groups. So, I found the shortest video possible that explains a lot of fun nuisances in Japanese culture by Japanalysis. Now get off my lawn and have a nice day!

It’s been six months since the death of my Synthwave section on the website. From time to time, I want to share a few songs here and there I think have more mass appeal of the genre. The above song from All the Damn Vampires is such a track. Don’t forget to check out the talented vocalist YOTA as well, as a lot of her work is pretty damn good.

Artist is Bluethebone

This artist has been mentioned in the past on my site, but only in passing in my older scattered method. So now in the “proper” format, I award Bluethebone June 2024’s artist of month. They do their style in a retro VHS subtitled video format that is extremely unique. This is the human touch most AI algorithms can only dream of no matter how much money tech bros throw down the toilet to develop them. It’s fitting that the picture depicts something rather recent as well, namely Shadowheart and Karlach from Baldur’s Gate 3 in glorious VHS subtitled fashion. Hope you enjoy their other works, and a fair bit of warning their portfolio is extremely NSFW!