Fall in Oregon
I'm getting ready to go back to school in a few weeks. I would say I'm looking forward to it. It's impossible to say what the right decision is in these situations, but at least I'm working towards something. All I can hope is that computer science will have some value in the game development world.
Last night I finished my 100% playthrough of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. It's called "Battle" because you're battling the bullshit camera the whole time.
It's a phenomenal game, and learning to work around the jankiness is part of the fun of it. The levels invite you to discover the fine details by giving you a reason to find the optimal route through 5 different versions of each stage, and push you to not only thoroughly learn each gimmick but also each of the 6 characters. I like these types of games because they make you appreciate all the work that went into them.
Next on my desk is a metal slinky, given as part of a stocking stuffer gift from my sister last Christmas. It's a really clever product. There's something about the simple whimsy of it while also being clearly a designed product. It's just fun to look at going down stairs. That's all it's meant to be, and that's fine.
Posted 9/5/2026, 9:13am
This is really hard
Apparently I'm trying to do a really complicated thing, and AI helpers are insufferably bad at explaining it. So I will have to work it out myself, understand each component and how they interact, and do it right.
First step: markdown (.md) files! These are files with simple formatting that I can make posts with. I am told they can be dynamically added to a web page with javascript, so I will go that route.
The next thing on my desk is my phone, on a little charging stand. The cursed machine. The product our society has collectively gathered around as its savior. I have changed the OS, deleted almost all apps, and stripped it of most of its power. Yet, it holds a command over my soul like few forces in this life. It's only flaw is that it's flawless; can you imagine living your life without it?
Posted 9/1/2026, 1:43pm
The work continues
I am exploring using a D1 database hosted through Cloudflare. Yikes, this is complicated, but I will persevere!
Starting from the left, on my desk is rhino-shaped flower pot filled with pens and pencils. The flower pot came with a succulent that a former coworker gave me as a gift. They turned out to be a terrible person. The succulent died but I liked the shape of the pot so it is living on holding my small collection of Pilot precise pens in pink, purple, and blue, and some drawing pencils of weights not useful to me (all the good ones are in my drawing bag).
I am off to my knitting group, and then to work a catering. Cheers!
Posted 8/29/2026, 9:31am
On a roll!
It's the morning and I'm on a roll! I have a few specific features I'd like to implement here that I was thinking about overnight and started working on this morning.
My goal now is to be able to post directly through the web interface (greetings from the dull void of VSCode!) and have a few different elements I can play around with. I'm thinking: title, text, author, timestamp, maybe show the generated color code, for fun?
Things I will need:
- Prompt button;
- Login/credential checker;
- Database for posts;
- JS to format post for DB;
- JS to list posts;
- add'l CSS for post layout.
I'm feeling good. I have a thing to work on that's enjoyable and gives me practice at a skill. I'm highly aware of the fact that blogs are no longer popular for online writing, that many platforms exist to do this much more quickly, and that social media has all but replaced them.
I just want to make something. I want to start from base elements, tinker and play, and see what happens. If my goal was to build a highly specific product, AI could do that for me. Show me an AI that acts on whimsy. Flawed, irrational whimsy.
I'm at a coffee shop, so I can't keep my promise about describing an item on my desk. What I'm currently looking at is a rack of consigned clothes repaired by the owner of the store, mostly flannels and collared shirts, embroidered with the store's logo. Pretty cool.
Posted 8/28/2026, 10:01am
Title goes here - Hello internet!
This is a blog post!
I was reading about Craig Newmark, creator of craigslist and overall cool guy, who had a personal blog back when that was how you made yourself heard on the internet. I don't think being heard is my goal otherwise I'd use social media, but I do like to write, and I like to code, so this will be where I do it. Like an internet diary.
I'll start this one with the state of things. I'm a 35-year-old male, living in Oregon, single with a roommate, going back to school for a computer science degree.
That's probably enough for now. Next time I will start to list out objects on my desk and where they came from. Cheers!
(I will have to create some kind of timestamp script. Until then:)
Posted 8/27/2026, 7:17pm