#oneaday Day 866: In the palm of your hand
I've had my Analogue Pocket a couple of days now, and I really like it. So what is the game I have played the most on it so far? It is, and this is genuinely not a joke, Solitaire FunPak by Beam Software for original black-and-white Game Boy. (Apparently a Game Gear version also exists,...
#oneaday Day 865: Earnestness is neither cringe nor cheesy
I've run into a few creative works recently that were evidently put together with a great deal of earnestness, genuine thought and emotion. And people like them! But, more often than not, not without including some sort of "disclaimer". Said disclaimer is usually some form of admission that "I know this is cheesy, but..." or...
#oneaday Day 864: Grab bag
It has been a fairly boring day, so I will attempt to make it more interesting by talking about several things. Look at me go! First up, my Analogue Pocket arrived today. Did I need another retro gaming handheld, particularly one that is quite pricy (and extremely pricy when you add the extortionate shipping and...
#oneaday Day 863: Where to even begin
One of the things that I've wanted to do for many years is get to grips with really being able to program the Atari 8-bit. This will be a completely useless and unmarketable skill for me to learn, but with the Atari 8-bit in particular having always been so important to me, it feels like...
#oneaday Day 862: Scherzo
Musical comedy is a thing that is very difficult to get right. But when someone does get it right, it can be incredibly amusing. I thought today I might share a variety of examples of musical comedy that I've always enjoyed, presented with the caveat that, as usual, these may not be on YouTube any...
#oneaday Day 861: Round. One! FILM!
I went to see the Street Fighter movie today. I enjoyed it a lot! In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I legitimately find it quite baffling that some people have been seemingly quite angry about not liking it. I was watching Giant Bomb's Bomb-A-Thon livestream for part of last night, and one guy...
#oneaday Day 857: Just normal men
A few weeks back I was introduced to a Bluesky account that apparently made the jump over from Twitter after being widely beloved back there in the pre-Nazi bar days: "We're just normal men". The sole reason for this account's existence is so that it can, once a week on Monday, repost a clip from...
#oneaday Day 856: Flurry of activity
As so often happens after I have a day of feeling a bit maudlin, today I had a day where I got a lot done. Six videos, to be exact, including both Atari 8-bit and Atari ST videos. It's good to be getting back into the rhythm of these, and I really enjoyed the games...
#oneaday Day 855: On my own
I'm alone in the house right now (apart from the cats), as Andie is away looking after her mother, who has just been in hospital. Nothing to worry about or anything, but she needs looking after for a few days, so I am holding the fort back home while she does that. I tend to...
#oneaday Day 854: Resident. EEEVIL. FILM!
Today on my holidays, I rode the bus and I went to the cinema and I saw Resident Evil. It was nice and it was fun. I enjoyed the popcorn and the weird drink I had never heard of but which was quite nice. Switching off the "seven year old writing about their holidays" mode,...
#oneaday Day 853: Hey I'm grump
I have been grumpy for the past couple of days, as you have probably noticed. In my defence, 1) I think I am perfectly justified in the things I have been grumpy about, and 2) I have not been feeling well. I have had just that general feeling of "the ick" since I woke up...
#oneaday Day 852: Rotting retro
You know, I have historically thought that out of all the subcommunities of computer and tech enthusiasts, the one which would have more respect for doing things "the hard way" than anyone else would be the retro fans. These are people who, in many cases, grew up seeing genius programmers making limited hardware do things...
#oneaday Day 851: Abandon ship?
Earlier today, the thoroughly lovely Quest 64 Official account on Bluesky (actually, in their own words, an account that has "spent nearly a decade attempting to rehab the way people view Quest 64/games in general", which is a sentiment I am 100% on board with) expressed frustration over a YouTube video they had seen cross...
#oneaday Day 850: Fuck the Oliver Twins
I don't say this lightly, as I am that rare breed who legitimately, genuinely enjoyed the Dizzy games and believe a lot of their other prior output is excellent -- particularly Firehawk on NES, which is an excellent tactical helicopter shoot 'em up that actually predates Desert Strike! But after seeing their recent output, and...
#oneaday Day 849: Do people really not finish games?
I've seen it often suggested that "no-one finishes games" these days. Is that really true? I don't know. I am certainly not a representative example here, because I tend to only start games that I know I am going to finish for the most part. It might take quite a while to finish some of...
#oneaday Day 848: Initial impressions from St. Amelia
I've been playing Silent Hill Townfall! It is good. I think I am enjoying it more than Silent Hill f, but I do intend to go back and give that another go (and a shot at one or more of the other endings) for the sake of fairness, comparison and suchlike. Silent Hill Townfall is...
#oneaday Day 847: Skeletons
I've been following this Jacob Geller business with mild interest. I have no particular "horse in the race", as it were, as I don't really know who he is, haven't watched any of his videos and don't own his book(s), but it's clear that his work meant a lot to people and thus, the recent...
#oneaday Day 846: Eye for an eye
We are brought up with, it's fair to say, somewhat conflicting messages on the subject of revenge. On the whole, we are mostly discouraged from it on the grounds that it doesn't necessarily solve anything, and any momentary high you might feel from delivering it will likely be short-lived. But we're also bombarded with popular...
#oneaday Day 845: It is late night
It is very late, because I thought I'd finish Nighthawks this evening. I successfully did so, then decided that I wanted to write about it while it was fresh in my head, so I did that also. Now it is 1.15am and I haven't written this, so here I am. I really should probably make...
#oneaday Day 844: Mechannative
These days, I feel like a lot of people determine that they're either into narrative-centric games or mechanics-centric games, and don't do much in the way of cross-pollination, even when the games themselves do so. I'm sure we all know at least one person who takes inexplicable pride in the fact that they skip all...
#oneaday Day 843: Exploring the mundane
One of my favourite things in video games is when a game takes a very small, pretty mundane environment and renders it in a ridiculous level of detail. I'm not generally a "graphics person", but if you give me a game in which I can poke around a tiny, convincingly rendered house in extreme levels...
#oneaday Day 842: Quick catch-up
I forgot to write something on here yesterday! In my defence, I wrote nearly 4,000 words on Ys VIII over on MoeGamer so I think you can probably cut me a bit of slack. I'm still going to take this post to "catch up" though. I really enjoyed Ys VIII overall. It still feels a...
#oneaday Day 841: The politics of farting
One of the most complex parts of human interactions that we all have to independently learn to navigate is the politics and etiquette of farting. We all do it -- yes, even you -- but everyone, eventually, comes to their own conclusions as to how, when and why they let the bum gas fly. I...
#oneaday Day 840: The deluge has started
The deluge of amazing games coming out in the latter half of this year has started. I've already noted that I've been playing the excellent Nighthawks from Wadjet Eye Games, and that is very much occupying my immediate attention, but also on my radar for the immediate-ish future are Silent Hill Townfall and Ace Combat...
#oneaday Day 839: Bad people get away with it
I think one of the most sobering parts of Becoming An Adult is coming to the unfortunate realisation that some people are just Bad People -- and that, more often than not, they will get away with being Bad People, through some combination of money, power, influence and/or privilege. I'm not speaking about anyone specific...
#oneaday Day 838: A shitty new trend
One of the most irritating new developments in the world of generative AI is the use of "agents" to spam you. This can take numerous forms; earlier today, Luke Plunkett of Aftermath shared an AI "pitch" he had received via email, Frank Cifaldi of the Video Game History Foundation shared something similar, and of late...
#oneaday Day 837: Nighthawks!
Yesterday's post was out of frustration, so it's only fair that I make today's post one of genuine enthusiasm. Today marks the release of Nighthawks, a new game from The Curiosity Engine and Wadjet Eye Games, and I think you should buy it because it is good. Positive enough for you? I should probably add...
#oneaday Day 836: Torrent of slop
It feels like pretty much every day for the last few months we've seen a story that claims some game or other has been translated for the first time ever, or ported to PC for the first time ever... and I feel like a good nine times out of every ten of these projects that...
#oneaday Day 835: All night long
Remember how yesterday I said a group of friends and I were going to play Big Walk "this afternoon"? Yeah, well, we started in the afternoon, my time... and concluded twelve fucking hours later. I have never, ever had a multiplayer session so long that the batteries in my headset went flat. Until now! (It's...
#oneaday Day 834: Gaming update
One of the things I was originally thinking about doing with MoeGamer was doing more regular "updates" on what I've been playing recently. I still haven't actually done that -- at least partly because I haven't determined a good way to do it; perhaps a weekly "What I've Been Playing" column? -- so for now,...
#oneaday Day 833: Things I miss
It is, I suspect, a natural part of growing older that you start to miss things that are no longer a regular part of your life. So I thought I might reflect on that a bit today. In what turned out to be rough chronological order: I miss my school days. While there are aspects...
#oneaday Day 832: Brain empty
I'm having one of those evenings where I don't really know what to write. So I tend to find in these situations the best thing to do is just open up an empty page and let the stream-of-consciousness flow. So that's exactly what I'm going to do. As a reminder that I am not getting...
#oneaday Day 831: Receiving the succ
Today I got sucked off. And by that I mean I had all the wax noisily hoovered out of my ears by a nice lady at Boots. I'd been dealing with a sporadic issue with my right ear for a while. It started during a holiday a few years back, where Andie and I spent...
#oneaday Day 830: Home at last
Well, as predicted that was a massive waste of time. Six hour round trip for a one-hour meeting that was of very little value whatsoever. Never mind, it's done with now, and I can start getting back to normality. After my mini PC unceremoniously died on me on the first day of our holiday, I...
#oneaday Day 828: Today is last full day
Dawn of the Final Day, 24 Hours Remain and all that. (Except it's less than 24 hours now by quite a bit, because I'm writing this at 11pm and we go home tomorrow.) This "re-holiday" has mostly been a success. It's a shame Andie had to be ill for a lot of it and thus...
#oneaday Day 827: Today is pancakes
Forgive the interruption in posting pattern yesterday, but I just had to have a little rant about the number of people using their phones in the pool. Stop it! Also, I will now stop talking about it, and talk about today, whose main attraction was our traditional visit to The Pancake House. The Pancake House...
#oneaday Day 826: No-one needs to take their phone into a swimming pool. No-one!
I remember a few years back, the very thought of taking a camera-equipped mobile phone into a swimming pool would have immediately -- and quite rightly -- branded you as some sort of perverted weirdo. And yet for the last few times Andie and I have been at Center Parcs, we have witnessed the eyeroll-inducing...
#oneaday Day 825: Today is quiet
It's been a quiet day today, as we intended. Andie has been feeling a bit under the weather, so she has been taking it easy (she is napping as I type this), but I decided I'd go out and have a swim by myself earlier. It was a good time; I continuously swam (very slowly...
#oneaday Day 824: Today is pool and drinks you can chew
Quiet day today, informed slightly by the fact that I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was going to be sick (I wasn't) and we then slept in until after 1pm. Whoops. Oh well. We are on holiday, and there was nothing we needed to get out of the door...
#oneaday Day 823: Today is spa
As has sort of become "tradition" over the course of our last few holidays at Center Parcs, today we had our day at the Aqua Sana spa. And, as always, it was a thoroughly pleasant experience. If you've never been to a spa for one reason or another, I highly encourage you to give it...
#oneaday Day 822: Today is holiday
We're here! Or there, depending on how you look at it. An uneventful drive down, aside from some traffic around Salisbury, and my mini PC refusing to boot up for some reason (that's going to be fun to diagnose, since it's also my work computer), and we're safely ensconced in our pleasant little forest lodge,...
#oneaday Day 821: Tomorrow is holiday
We're off on holiday tomorrow! It may seem extravagant to have two going-away holidays in the same year (to the exact same place, no less), but as I've mentioned previously, our prior attempt earlier in the year was spoiled somewhat by worrying over a certain idiotic orange cat who had decided to explore the Great...
#oneaday Day 820: We need the Adventure-obsessives back again
In the early days of home computer and video gaming, there was an enormous amount of excitement over what many publications referred to as capital-A Adventures. It wasn't uncommon to see computer mags in particular devote entire issues to Adventures, and a lot of them had a monthly column in which the writer (who often...
#oneaday Day 819: Comments sections are self-harm
"Don't read the comments. Never read the comments." It's one of the most enduring pieces of advice on the Internet, and it's always been sound advice. And I've always thought that to be a bit of a shame. Well, let me qualify that somewhat: you shouldn't read the comments on public-facing, commercial sites. If you...
#oneaday Day 818: Gaming is doing everything it can to drive its oldest fans away
I've been playing video games for as long as I can remember existing. I grew up playing games on the Atari 8-bit and ST home computers, and since then, I have followed along with the explosive growth and technological advancement of the medium every step of the way. And yet today, in 2026, I feel...
#oneaday Day 817: Pages from Ceefax
Okay. I mentioned it yesterday, so I may as well talk about it today, since apparently I'm on an "old TV" kick at the minute. Pages from Ceefax, right? It's something that I sometimes find hard to believe was actually broadcast on television, but the evidence is out there. For the unfamiliar, Ceefax is the...
#oneaday Day 816: Follows shortly
Living, as we do, in an age where the entirety of human knowledge and creativity -- and an increasing amount of machine-generated garbage -- is available at our fingertips, it can be easy to forget that in the past, certain portions of entertainment were a lot more linear. And that brought with it its own...
#oneaday Day 815: A second time around
I have four more days of work before we go on holiday for the second time this year. This may sound extravagant, but given that the first time around was during the period that Oliver went missing, I'm sure you won't judge us for wanting a "do-over". We had some money from anniversary gifts, so...
#oneaday Day 814: Death of a publication
I've finally finished my efforts to catalogue all the games-related articles (including roundups, re-reviews, type-in listings and issue disk bonuses) from Page 6/New Atari User. My data sheet has over 2,000 rows in it, though some of those are repeats. Even so, that's a lot of material to work with. As I found myself reviewing...
#oneaday Day 813: That sure was a big walk
We finished Big Walk this evening. It was excellent! I am going to share some spoilers after the image, so consider yourself warned. If you would like to read something not spoileriffic about Big Walk, may I direct you to the article I wrote about it here? Thank you. One of the things Big Walk...
#oneaday Day 812: Research update
My efforts to catalogue all the noteworthy mentions of Atari home computer games and software (including type-in listings) that I might, one day, want to make a video about are proceeding apace. I have finished reviewing issue 50 of Page 6/New Atari User, and my spreadsheet is up to 1,179 lines. This may have been...
#oneaday Day 811: Playing a game with no "point"
While out on a walk this evening, I was listening to the soundtrack of a game that I really love, played a lot some years ago... and haven't really touched since. That game is A Valley Without Wind. As my thoughts wandered during my little 2km circuit of the Common, I started to think about...
#oneaday Day 810: Compiling information
It will probably not surprise you to hear that, as an autistic person, I quite like organising sets of information into a visually pleasing and/or easy-to-refer-to manner. To that end, ahead of my intention to reboot my Atari A to Z and Atari ST A to Z series, I have been doing something I have...
#oneaday Day 809: Dolly, Willy and... uh... silly?
There are a number of things I want to talk about today, and I was agonising over which one of them to talk about. But then I thought there is absolutely no reason I can't talk about all of them in one post, so that's exactly what I'm going to do. Hold on to your...
#oneaday Day 808: Terranigma is coming back!
Now, I don't want to say that I caused this by finally getting around to playing it recently (and writing about it... and making a video about it) but it certainly is a pleasant coincidence that not long after I finished doing all these things, Clear River Games confirmed that an official modern rerelease of...
#oneaday Day 807: Atarimania got a new look
After many years of rocking the same distinctive and still-functional look, Atarimania, the massive Atari software database, has finally updated its visual style. And from a brief glance over, it looks great! For the unfamiliar, Atarimania is a place where you can go to look up pretty much any piece of software that has ever...
#oneaday Day 806: Absolute Direction (5 points)
We had a second game of Big Walk today, and one thing I appear to have impressed on the rest of my group is that I have a very good sense of direction, even in a virtual space. This is not something I tend to brag about -- because why would you? -- but it...
#oneaday Day 805: Quarter-circle forward
I have long been intimidated by fighting games. I'm not sure exactly when this started, and there are still some fighting games I do enjoy -- most notably the Dead or Alive games, which I've always felt have been the closest I've come to genuinely "getting" one of these games. And I would love to...
#oneaday Day 804: More like Golden Shower
A new trailer for an upcoming animated series based on Sega's classic arcade game, Golden Axe, came out today. It is... not good. And I am not surprised. Disappointed, yes. But not surprised. For some reason, a lot of people making animated series seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking there is only...
#oneaday Day 803: Write about an obscure game
It is Michael "Virtual Moose" Klamerus' birthday today, and for their birthday they have set a blog challenge, because that is a thing you are allowed to do on your birthday. The challenge is simple: write a blog post about an obscure game. Challenge accepted! Being someone who is "into" classic home computers -- and...
#oneaday Day 802: However bad you think Twitter is now, it's worse
Earlier today, Aftermath posted a review of Half is More, a new manga that explores the life of mixed-race characters in Japan. It sounds like an interesting read, and I may well pick it up -- the last manga I read that was designed around the idea of sensitively exploring the life of someone who...
#oneaday Day 801: Eeeeeeees
After getting what I thought was "caught up" on the series a few years back (correction: a decade ago. Fucking hell), I am now very behind on Falcom's excellent Ys series. And, despite already having two "big games" on the go -- Suikoden and Yakuza 6 -- I am severely tempted to start correcting that....
#oneaday Day 799: The exhausting town square
Social media was often positioned to us as being like a "global town square", where people from all walks of life and backgrounds could come together and argue about who was the best girl in Evangelion. Over time, I think we can say that experiment... hasn't exactly worked quite as intended. I mean, sure. I...
#oneaday Day 798: Home is where the heart has been, part 2
Yesterday, I left off with a lovely flat my then-wife and I lived in in a fairly shitty area; a place which I nonetheless have mixed feelings about due to how it was where I was living when I suffered a nervous breakdown and left teaching as a career behind as a result. Today, we...
#oneaday Day 797: Home is where the heart has been, part 1
I have, over the years, lived in a number of different places. This is, I'm sure, true for quite a few people -- though there does come a point where you seemingly pick somewhere and just settle down. Our current place definitely falls into that category -- though neither of us have completely ruled out...
#oneaday Day 796: Midweek
It's the middle of the week, and I don't have a lot of specific things to talk about right now, so I will just waffle on about some bollocks and hope it fills my self-imposed "minimum" for each post I write here. Let's go! I am having an evening off from exercise. I bought some...
#oneaday Day 795: Titties - deal with them
There's been Discourse happening today! Specifically on that strange intersection between the "cosy" and "wholesome" spaces, and weird misogynistic, sexphobic, neo-Puritanical behaviour. Much has been written by people much smarter than me about how the "cosy" and "wholesome" spaces are actually not all that wholesome at all -- and in fact can harbour some of...
#oneaday Day 794: Motivational music
It will probably not surprise you to learn that I listen to a lot of video game music. Not only that, but I use video game music as an accompaniment to things that are not video games -- most notably, exercise. On my walks on the Common, I have been rediscovering some of the playlists...
#oneaday Day 793: The Web is so broken even offline copies of pages are fucked up
Hey! Did you know the Internet is so broken that even a locally saved copy of something can be unreadable without a bunch of annoying "tinkering"? 'Cause it fuckin' is. Prior to USgamer's closure in 2020, I backed up most of my articles that I could find and/or remember. I saved them as local copies...
#oneaday Day 792: A goal, complete
Well, I've done it. I've finally gone and played through all three of Quintet's "Heaven and Earth" games on Super NES: Soul Blazer, Illusion of Time and Terranigma. (I've also played through The Granstream Saga twice in my life, as well as Actraiser once, as both of those games can be argued to be tangentially...
#oneaday Day 791: The better thing shouldn't be smaller
Dear reader, I'm sure you're familiar by now with the concept of "shrinkflation": the idea that, as time goes on, things get progressively more expensive and, roughly proportionately, progressively worse quality at the same time. If you've ever eaten something that promised the "Same Great Taste" only to discover that it was not, in fact,...
#oneaday Day 790: Twinge
Last night, I thought, for a change, I would try using some kettlebells I bought ages ago to do some simple exercises. They are quite heavy kettlebells, because I originally bought them feeling like I should buy manly kettlebells, but have just never really got around to using them all that much. I did a...
#oneaday Day 789: Longing for the saddle
One of the things I miss feeling like I am able to do, being the size I am, is cycling. I've never been particularly good at cycling -- memories of coming off my bike and shearing all the skin off my arm as a child are still painfully fresh -- but there's something just altogether...
#oneaday Day 788: Visco does what Nintencon't... or something
As a pleasant perk of my job, I get copies of all the Evercade cartridges ahead of when they actually release. Consequently, I have been enjoying the two upcoming Visco Arcade collections for a little while now, and, shush, come over here where no-one will overhear -- I think they're my favourite carts this year....
#oneaday Day 787: Friendfreeslop
I read an interesting piece earlier on the phenomenon of "friendslop". This is a term I'm not overly fond of, but it serves a purpose as there appears to be a somewhat amorphous if commonly agreed sort-of definition. The piece explores how despite appearances, "friendslop" is something that continues to drive a bit of a...
#oneaday Day 786: Lunchtime games
I apparently completely forgot to write anything yesterday. To be fair, I was mildly hungover and thus didn't really want to do much other than play Terranigma, which I made some excellent progress on. I think I'm coming towards the end of that game, so I'll have more to write about it over on MoeGamer...
#oneaday Day 785: Portioning the blame
I had a roll of Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles yesterday. While looking up the nutritional information to add it to my calorie-tracking app -- I may have been having a little treat, but I was keeping within my daily calories -- I discovered that the tube felt the need to inform me that "1 portion" is...
#oneaday Day 784: Playing a dead game
People in Steam reviews like to declare a game "dead" when the author of said game hasn't updated it for more than about two weeks, but we all know that's just entitled little shits who don't understand that sometimes a creative work is actually finished. However, there absolutely are "dead" games out there, by varying...
#oneaday Day 783: Nothing compares 2U
When you are attempting to better yourself -- particularly if you know said process is going to be a long, drawn-out affair -- I have learned, over the years, that one of the worst things I can do is compare myself to others. This may not be universally true -- hence my use of "I"...
#oneaday Day 781: Broadcasting from Tiredsville
I am exceedingly tired. I slept like absolute garbage last night -- although I suspect literal garbage actually probably sleeps quite well -- and have been feeling the effects all day: a complete inability to focus, a total lack of desire to do anything apart from "just go back to bed", and just a general...
#oneaday Day 780: A Walk on the Common - The Text Adventure
Once upon a time, there was a website called Bitmob, whose users would get quite upset if you capitalised it "BitMob". On that site, the community could publish their own articles, and those which caught the attention of the site's staff would get featured on the front page. It was a great way for a...
#oneaday Day 779: Celebrating a small victory
One of the things I always try and remember is that, from a mental health perspective, it can be valuable to celebrate the small victories, however inconsequential you think they might seem to others, or however minor they might feel in comparison to some of the things they are dealing with. Successfully overcoming something is...
#oneaday Day 778: That feeling you should be doing something
I'm having one of those days where my brain feels restless, where it feels like I "should" be doing something, but as far as I am aware, I have no commitments this weekend whatsoever, so I should just be taking the time to relax, enjoy myself and mentally prepare for the week ahead. (There's nothing...
#oneaday Day 777: Newfound Resolve
After determining that the NVMe drive in my PC was kaputt, which is where the vast majority of the issues I've been having with this PC have stemmed from, I reluctantly reinstalled Windows... again. This is always a pain because it takes time to get the system back to how you liked it before --...
#oneaday Day 776: Splatting Salmonids
Splatoon Raiders arrived yesterday, a day earlier than I was expecting it, and I've been playing it. It's a good time! It's the latest in an increasingly long line of titles from Nintendo that feel like video games used to feel like. It's not trying to be a movie, it's not trying to be an...
#oneaday Day 775: Perambulation
I've been for a walk out on the Common for the last three evenings. Tonight, I gave myself permission to take the evening off, because three days in a row is solid going, there is no need to go every single night, whatever the "sergeant major" part of my brain might say, plus my feet...
#oneaday Day 774: Archiving past nonsense
Well, I went and did it. I set up a Bandcamp specifically for my old electronic music nonsense under the name "sonicfunkstars". When I feel like actually sitting down and using all those samples I spent several days copying over, I will be resurrecting the sonicfunkstars name for some new stuff -- but in the...
#oneaday Day 773: Locked-in tastes
I'm increasingly convinced that there comes a point in your life where your tastes -- in every respect -- are just plain "locked", and it becomes very difficult to change them. This even extends to stepping out of your comfort zone when it comes to other works by people that you like. I am thinking...
#oneaday Day 772: The Lovely(-Sounding) Bones
I dread to think how much money I have spent on headphones over the years. I never buy particularly pricy ones -- I think the most expensive ones I've bought were some nice noise-cancelling Sony ones a while back, which I use when recording videos -- but I do get through 'em. I'm annoyed that...
#oneaday Day 771: Anachronistic wonderment
A trait I have somehow been able to hold onto over the years -- and which I have no intent of letting go of -- is the ability to be impressed by things which, today, are not actually "impressive" as such, but which would have been impressive back when they were current. To give just...
#oneaday Day 770: Motivation: the Sergeant-Major vs the kind voice
At therapy today, we were talking a bit about motivation, and how I feel like I've been struggling with it a bit of late -- particularly when it comes to things like diet and exercise. One conclusion that I think we came to was that I am much more likely to be motivated to do...
#oneaday Day 769: Sample CDs and sonicfunkstars
I finally got around to doing something I've been meaning to do for ages today: (re)install my myriad CDs of music samples so I can have a play around with something like ACID Music again. (I don't even know if the copy of ACID Music I own still works, but it's worth a go, surely.)...
#oneaday Day 768: Sketchin'
I've been meaning to get back to doing stupid little doodles on posts for ages, but have just never... well, to be honest, I just haven't really been bothered to. Best to be honest about these things, and it's been nice seeing the stock images that kind and talented people from around the world have...
#oneaday Day 767: Why I continue to write in an age of AI
I read a good piece earlier that got me thinking: why do I continue to tap out words here, day after day, in an age where those odious "Generate with AI" buttons are ubiquitous, whether you want them or not? (Even here in my own self-hosted version of WordPress, I cannot escape the "Improve with...
#oneaday Day 766: Verify your age
There's a meme going around on Bluesky today where you write "verify your age" and then post something in text or image form that you remember from Times Past™. In the absence of anything particularly interesting happening today, I thought I would do a bumper crop of these in one post. So prepare to verify...
#oneaday Day 764: Just games
There was yet another round of Tedious Discourse™ today over what the word "retro" really means, if anything, when it comes to video games. As always, there were lots of varying definitions, no agreement, and a bunch of people getting in a bit of a flap about it when their definitions of "retro" didn't line...
#oneaday Day 763: My brain has melted
It's been unbearably hot again today. The thing I hate the most about unbearably hot weather is how lethargic it makes you in both body and mind. It has cooled off a fair bit now the sun has gone down, but my brain is still in a semi-liquid state, meaning it is proving enormously difficult...
#oneaday Day 762: Some nice things
I started typing out a post about how shit everything was. I got to about 600 words, and I even found a really good stock image of some horseshit. Then I looked at what I had written and thought, "no, I should not give in to despair, even if it does seem like it has...
#oneaday Day 761: The depths of the id
I think one of the hardest things to watch during the latest of myriad sessions of layoffs over at XBOX, The Everything Console has been seeing id Software be gutted. Everyone has That One Company who always made stuff that they liked, which has been there since their childhood, and for me I think that...
#oneaday Day 760: My own feelings on old games
First up, here's a good piece that I read earlier today, and which my resharing a clip of on Bluesky did Numbers to such a degree that I had to mute the thread. I stand by my comment of "fucking preach" about it, however, particularly the paragraph about today's games having their roots in older...
#oneaday Day 759: Accidental multiplayer
Last night in Final Fantasy XI, I had an excellent experience that reminded me of one of the particularly fun things about games with persistent online worlds: the scope for accidental, unstructured yet nonetheless meaningful instances of playing with other people. I was working my way through the Grand Palace of Hu'Xzoi, one of the...
#oneaday Day 758: Hexagons and light
I'm definitely coming up on the end of the Chains of Promathia expansion for Final Fantasy XI. Know how I can tell? Because I'm into an area where everything is made out of hexagons and light, and the world doesn't quite behave as it "should". I'm not entirely sure why this became such a common...
#oneaday Day 757: Nothing works any more
One of the most common refrains of people who discuss the topic of enshittification is that so much stuff related to tech just flat-out doesn't work any more, and no-one seems in any great hurry to fix it -- particularly when all the actually knowledgeable engineers have been replaced with "vibe-coding" cunts. Photo by Beyzanur...
#oneaday Day 756: Video games like they used to be
Around the same time Sony is doing its best to completely murder the traditions and culture surrounding video games, and Xbox continues to implode, Nintendo has gone and put out multiple games that feel... almost out of their own time. And I mean that in a very complimentary way; both Star Fox (released on the...
#oneaday Day 755: The lost art of going to buy a game
Yesterday, I talked generally about the impact PlayStation had on me and my friendship group thanks to stone-cold classics like Ridge Racer, Tekken and Final Fantasy VII. Today I want to talk about another aspect of that time which I have fond memories of -- but which hasn't been a thing for some years now,...
#oneaday Day 754: Late '90s promise
As I absorb the news that Sony is giving up on physical releases of games -- something I have had a good rant about at much more length over on MoeGamer, so please go read that -- I can't help but think back to the time PlayStation hit the scene, and the incredible amount of...
#oneaday Day 753: Finding the Fun Factor
As I often do on my regular trips in to the office (when I'm driving, anyway), I listened to a bunch of the Fun Factor podcast over the last couple of days. If you're unfamiliar, this is an excellent show hosted by sports writer Ty Schalter and video game critic Aidan Moher where the pair...
#oneaday Day 752: What do the police even do any more?
I am someone who grew up with what I would describe as a healthy sense of respect for the police. I have never run afoul of them -- the most "negative" encounter I have had with them was when I was about 18, driving my Mum's car around at about midnight, having been to visit...
#oneaday Day 751: Read/write access
There are a lot of things I don't like about myself, but one of the things that I have always been rather pleased with is my willingness to engage with the English language. A lot of this stems from being encouraged well at an early age, both by my parents and at school, but also...
#oneaday Day 750: Cooling and cat-proofing
The heat wave we've been suffering all week appears to have broken; outside is a relatively normal-feeling temperature right now, the humidity is down to levels where it's actually possible to breathe, and the sky has taken on a typically British summertime partially overcast look. It's really quite pleasant; if it could just stay like...
#oneaday Day 749: The lost decade
At therapy today, we got talking about how I think back extremely fondly on my time at sixth form -- to such a degree that I would brand that period of time as probably the happiest of my life -- and how I feel a curious... "closeness" to that time period, despite it being, at...
#oneaday Day 748: It's really fuckin' hot
Not to state the obvious (twice), but it's really fuckin' hot. Today it hasn't been quite as fuckin' hot as it was yesterday -- it was literally difficult to breathe in the outside air (or lack thereof) in the middle of the day yesterday -- but it's still not at all nice. Photo by Fabio...
#oneaday Day 747: Grand Theft Auto VI can eat my ass
To no-one's surprise, it has been revealed that Rockstar's upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI will be $80 on release for its regular version, and $100 for the "Ultimate" version, because of course there's an Ultimate version. Hilariously and/or tragically, the "Ultimate" version even goes so far as to lock you out of specific shops in...
#oneaday Day 746: Decompression
I know I said I'd write about something else on here, but after the late-night update on the situation, I feel inclined to bring this little saga to something of a "close" in a more conclusive manner. We are exhausted and emotional, but delighted beyond belief to have our precious Oliver back at home with...
#oneaday Day 745b: Oliver's return, the kindness of strangers, and the unkindness of the people you might need in a crisis
Hello. Second entry for today (although technically it's tomorrow now, as it's 1:21am as I type this) but this is big, important news: OLIVER HAS RETURNED! Oh my God. I am an emotional wreck, and so is Andie, but our brave little boy managed to survive for three weeks out in the wilds of Lordswood,...
#oneaday Day 745: Cost-effective gaming in 2026
Valve apparently announced the price of their long-awaited Steam Machines today and, unsurprisingly, given the general price of tech right now, they ain't cheap. They're "starting at £879" not cheap, and that only gets you 512GB of storage; they break the £1,000 mark if you want the 2TB model, though both are expandable with microSD...
#oneaday Day 744: Trying to maintain hope
I am trying so hard to hang onto hope that we will find Oliver, or that he will just wander back in one day as if nothing happened, but with him being gone for three weeks from today, it is getting tougher and tougher to maintain that hope -- and it's all the harder seeing...
#oneaday Day 743: Talk therapy
I've alluded to it a bit recently, but I thought I'd talk specifically about it today. For the last little while, I have been attending talk therapy. I have been meaning to do this for a long time, because there are lots of people I know and trust who have made use of it, but...
#oneaday Day 742: Crash and burn
There is increasing talk of the video games industry staring down an honest-to-goodness crash -- and this time around, unlike the notorious Great Global Video Game Crash of North America from 1983, it looks very much like it could be one that will happen across the world. All this said, I feel like, at this...
#oneaday Day 741: The bubble
The thing people who have been fortunate enough to have never been afflicted with debilitating depression don't always understand is that the whole experience is more than just being "a bit sad", and thus it's not something you can just "snap out of" or "cheer up" from. (To be clear, those scare quotes are purely...
#oneaday Day 740: Exhaustion
I am absolutely exhausted. We stayed up late last night to go on another night-time look for Oliver, and once again found absolutely no sign of him whatsoever. At this point I really am at a loss as to what I can possibly do. I bought bright head-mounted torches and an infra-red heat-sensing camera in...
#oneaday Day 739: Occupying yourself while your life is on hold
If you're anything like me, when you encounter a period of great uncertainty or emotional turmoil in your life, it can feel like your brain has pressed a big old "pause" button, making it near-impossible to even contemplate going about your life as normal. Your job feels like the least important thing in the world,...
#oneaday Day 738: Spoiling Patti
Any time something bad happens involving a family member -- and cats are family members, I will brook absolutely no argument on this front -- it is easy to focus on that one member who is the focal point of whatever The Bad Thing is. In this case, the majority of our attention has, of...
#oneaday Day 737: Returning to reality
We go home tomorrow, which is going to be somewhat bittersweet, as I'm sure you can imagine. There has been absolutely no sign of Oliver over the course of the last week, no contact from anyone who has seen him, no sightings reported on social media and -- perhaps thankfully? -- no reports that he...
#oneaday Day 736: The sewage of social media
In the hunt for Oliver, I have been obliged to make use of two sites that I have, up until now, generally avoided using at all costs -- those being Facebook and Nextdoor. And my experiences attempting to make use of them now they might actually be useful have not done much to change my...
#oneaday Day 735: Many distractions
We have both been feeling pretty upset today -- like, breaking down in tears upset -- so, during moments of clarity, we attempted to get out a bit and actually do some things rather than spending the entire day miserable. We actually ended up having a rather busy day as a result. This began with...
#oneaday Day 734: Wildlife
One of the nicest things about Center Parcs is that there is an absolute ton of incredibly tame wildlife around the place. Just today, we have seen a wild cat, several deer, a variety of birds and a bunch of squirrels. I will, of course, grant you that the reason the wildlife is so very...
#oneaday Day 733: Distractions
Today we went to the swimming pool, the central attraction of most Center Parcs sites. We had a good time having a little swim in the nice warm outdoor "Sprudel pool" and sitting stewing in the outdoor jacuzzi for a bit. For the rest of the day, we've been trying to relax as best we...
#oneaday Day 732: Quiet contemplation is not always ideal
Today was our visit to the "Aqua Sana" spa here at Center Parcs, and before the events of last week happened, we were both greatly looking forward to having a day of relaxation and pampering. We did manage that for the most part, but we also found that when you get into a situation where...
#oneaday Day 731: Temporary escape
Well, we did what we said we were going to do: we got away from it all. Part of me still wants to be at home waiting with open arms for Oliver to return, but it's been a week. At this point I don't know if he's more or less likely to make it home...
#oneaday Day 730: Having to draw a line
I have posted more than 30 more flyers about Oliver today. Andie's mum went out calling for him last night. We have put out adverts on social media, informed the microchip company, informed our local vets, informed local cat charities. We have spent several nights staying up waiting, placing stinky pants, litter trays, favourite food...
#oneaday Day 729: The struggle for your emotions to be heard
One of the things I find difficult and, at times, frustrating to deal with, perhaps particularly as a person with an autistic spectrum condition, is properly conveying the emotions that I am feeling and the depth of those emotions. Our recent anguish over Oliver's disappearance is a prime example of this. I am feeling intense...
#oneaday Day 728: Giving yourself permission to smile
The thing about a grieving process -- whether it is a result of tangible loss or, as in our situation, simply not knowing what has happened -- is that it can very quickly and easily become all-consuming. It can take over your entire life; your entire mind; your entire heart; your entire soul. Photo by...
#oneaday Day 727: The longest days
In the grand scheme of things, it has only been a few days since Oliver went missing, but it feels like an absolute eternity. I am still refusing to give up on him -- in fact, after I type this, I'm going to go out for a bit again -- but it is getting very...
#oneaday Day 726: False hope
We have run into a ginger cat in the area where our caller yesterday reported seeing him (we think it was a "him" anyway) -- both at night and, just now, in the daytime, and unfortunately, it was not Oliver. This cat was a very good cat, and quite friendly -- though also a tad...
#oneaday Day 725: A spark of hope
Oliver still hasn't come back. We are, of course, still extremely worried and upset, and this is made all the more difficult by the fact that Patti has clearly realised something is wrong, too. She is very obviously looking around to try and find him, and earlier she let out an absolutely plaintive wail of...
#oneaday Day 724: Our cat is missing
Last night, one of the many "worst nightmare" situations a pet owner can encounter occurred: we realised that one of our beloved cats, the 3-year old ginger Oliver, was not anywhere to be seen. He often roams around the house a bit when it comes to our bedtime, so I wasn't initially concerned; I can...
#oneaday Day 723: The Atari 8-bit doesn't get its dues
Hello. I am Pete, and I love the Atari 8-bit range of computers. You probably knew that already, but I wanted to talk about it a bit today. By Evan-Amos - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18553927 I think I'm probably going to make a video along these lines sometime soon -- although my prior...
#oneaday Day 722: Entering the ATmosphere
I read yesterday that several blogging platforms are integrating the "AT protocol" or whatever it's called that powers services like Bluesky and the like, and one of those was WordPress. So today's post is primarily a big ol' test to see whether or not that functionality, implemented via the ATmosphere plugin, actually works, and whether...