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Project Cybersyn was a Chilean effort during Salvador Allende's presidency in the 1970s to build a system that could help manage the country's economy. It included an economic simulator, software to track how factories were doing, a futuristic operations room, and a network of telex machines all hooked up to a mainframe computer.

Read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn

I'm a terrible vocalist, but with nobody to take up vocal duties on my newest project, it's beginning to look like I'll have to do it myself. I hate the sound of my own voice. I wish I could find a vocalist who:

• is familiar with the genre (streetpunk/oi!)
• can write their own lyrics (that don't suck)
• can record themselves (mixing skills required)

Why is this so difficult to find?

Saturday Night's Main Event, an old WWF program from the 80s, is back and currently airing its second episode live on YouTube. Nostalgia is a powerful drug.

I made a new chess.com account. I've been playing a lot of chess. I'm not very good.

Google Earth is the only way I will ever get to see the world.

I have terrible luck. The Universe is conspiring against me, and I am losing.

I will never understand why so many online moderators are power-hungry assholes. It's like the only people who seek out positions of authority are assholes. If you want to be someone who controls who other people say, you're probably an asshole.

It's all the same, isn't it? The same hour, the same minute, the same goddamn second. I wake, just like yesterday, and the day before that. But today feels different. Not better. Not worse. Just... heavier. I thought it would stop. I thought the next day would be different. That I'd wake up and feel something— anything, really— but no. I sit up, like I'm programmed. I stare at my own face in the mirror, and I don't know who I am anymore. The reflection, it's... not me. It can't be. Just a fucking mask, a stranger. I don't even know how it got here. The same tired eyes, the same worn-out hands, the same routine. Everything is a ritual. A meaningless performance. I've set it all up, like a trap. But I didn't know I was the one getting caught. Get out of bed. Turn on the light. Look in the mirror. Put my shoes on. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And I'm stuck. Every day the same loop, same cycle. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Like I'm just filling time, killing time... until time kills me. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I thought I had control. I thought I had purpose. But this... this is just survival. A boring fucking survival. Get through the day, numb yourself, don't ask questions. But what happens when you start asking? What happens when the answers are... nothing? When all the things you've built, the things you've clung to, turn out to be lies, and you're just left standing in your own shadow, fading into nothing? I can feel it now. This... emptiness, gnawing at me from the inside out. A void. A black hole of... whatever I've become. It's like the world doesn't even notice. It doesn't care. I don't care. No one cares. And the worst part? I'm starting to like it. I'm starting to feel comfortable in the numbness, in the nothingness. But that's the thing, isn't it? We all pretend to know who we are. We all build these identities out of scraps, like we're worth something, like we have meaning. But in the end... it's all a lie. A story we tell ourselves so we don't have to face the truth. There's no one coming to save us. There's no grand purpose. Just this... just this. So, I keep going. I wake up. I sit up. I stare into that mirror, and I try to remember if I'm real, or just the ghost of someone I used to be. But it doesn't matter anymore. Because I know... I'm just another soul, lost in the repetition. And nothing will ever change.

The Buzzers, an Oi! band from Vancouver, have released a new single on bandcamp. It's great. Listen to Pick A Fight.

I've been reading X-Men: The Manga. It's a lot better than I expected. The artwork is a bit rough at times, but the story is a faithful adaptation of X-Men: The Animated Series. Beat for beat, note for note, this is retelling the story from TAS, and it is doing a stellar job of it.

I have been working on a new project these last few weeks, a new YouTube channel where I upload videos of the first minute of NES games. The channel is called Retro Wasteland. https://www.youtube.com/@RetroWasteland I wrote a script to automate the video capturing process. The script launches FCEUX (or any other emulator you want to use) and then uses ffmpeg to record the screen and audio. Once the desired amount of time has passed, in my case 60 seconds, the script closes the window and starts again. It's very basic, but it helped me achieve my goal and I now have thousands of videos to upload. I've also collected screenshots from the videos at various timestamps, since taking a screenshot at 30 seconds into the video isn't going to get the ideal screenshot. I ideally want a screenshot of the start screen and main game artwork, so I took screenshots at 50 seconds into the videos as well. I wonder if I should make a website to host all of this content. An archive of NES start screens would probably come in handy for someone, somewhere. YouTubers making retro game content would likely benefit.

Ari Shaffir's newest standup comedy special just dropped on Netflix, "America's Sweetheart". It was funnier than his previous special, "Jew", by a considerable margin - something Ari can be proud of. He's one of my favourite personalities in comedy. Sure, he may be a 50-year-old edgelord - which is kind of cringe when you analyze it - but he's funny and that's really all that matters from a standup comedian.

I have been watching a lot of movies lately. Campy horror flicks are my favourite. There was magic in the air in the 80s, or maybe that was cocaine, and we got a lot of great movies because of it. Blood, tits, and bad acting - the trinity of traits of a good horror film. Check out Cheerleader Camp from 1988. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjguFaueHOs

The WWE recently moved their flagship television show, Monday Night Raw, to the Netflix streaming service. Tonight, one of my favourite wrestlers of the last decade made his WWE debut. It is official - Pentagon Jr. just wrestled his first match in WWE. I first encountered his work in Lucha Underground, where he wrestled some of the most exciting matches I have ever witnessed. He deserves this opportunity.

I've created this new website on neocities.org, the modern throwback to the old Geocities service from back in the earlier days of the Internet. My interests include, but are not limited to: GNU/Linux and the free software movement, music, movies, comic books, manga/anime, video games, non-mainstream culture, politics, spirituality, and philosophy.