31/October/2021

We've got two new General Writings at once! It's almost like I've been delirious with flu for the past month and been spending my time inappropriately! Enjoy my attempt at sussing out what Croc 2 tried to do and why its attempts fell short, and endure my overly wordy manic episode about why Kraid's neat and I like him.

Smaller updates include adding the last chapter of CoroCoro's Spyro manga to Scans & Bits, and a couple of translated interviews I had sitting around for the Bomberman shrine. Both sections have to-do lists that have grown to intimidating lengths, and whittling them down is still on the agenda... just whenever I feel up to it, y'know?

One of the frustrating things about doing stuff is... you're typically expected to do more stuff. I'll churn out an update so I don't have to think about that section for a while -- and instead it makes people think about it and expect more from it? That's not how it's meant to work! That's gotta be cheating somehow, right?!

So do forgive me if you really want to see the Metal Slug section get new content, or the myriad of Bomberman findings get documented, or even for Dinosaur Hunter Diaries to resume. I'm still keen on all those projects! But this past couple of years have been tough (never mind this past couple of months), and I am grabbing any bit of relief I can get. If said relief involves writing about fat dragons, or ignoring the site and all online responsibilities for months at a time, then I'll take it. Look after yourselves, everyone.

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I wrote nearly 13,000 words about Croc. I threatened to do it back in 2016, and because nobody stopped me, here we are now. Look, the internet needs its overwrought defence of Croc, and like heck it's gonna be a video essay. I wanna hear someone sell me on the merits of Ape Escape but without having to actually listen to them!

The summer heatwave totally drained me, which wasn't much fun because I like to do things during my waking hours besides sweating and vegetating. There's a lot of things I wanna be getting on with, it's unearthing myself from beneath my mountain of responsibilities and procrastination that's the tricky part. Thanks to folks writing in, apologies for not replying, all that good stuff.

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A phrase that's been on my mind this past year is "use your words". Whether it's interpersonal communication or trying to get a point across, it's a good mantra to remember. They might not be good words, but so long as there's an understanding and a back-and-forth to bang those words into shape, then we can learn more from them than just saying nothing at all.

It's on my mind a lot because so much of my website work lately is dry documentation: researching publication dates and stuff that's cool to know and hopefully helpful to others, but a bit of a bore to write. That (and other petty reasons) have been why the Bomberman and Metal Slug sites have been lying dormant -- there's plenty there I'm eager to do, but just documenting guff is deadly. I wanna talk long-form, go on bizarre tirades about nonsense, or whatever -- I wanna use my words!

My first step towards acting on that is fawning over Bowser's various 3D models, so maybe that wasn't a good idea. I'll let you be the judge.

It's months old by now, but I also finally cranked out all eighty-something-thousand words of thoughts about the media I absorbed last year. If ever there was a time to get needlessly verbose about Mario Party Advance, or try to understand the decisions behind the Mortal Kombat cartoon, it was last year, apparently. That sounded more pithy in my head.

Dinosaur Hunter Diaries has a little crappy hub page now, and I also updated old Kirby fangames post to include a couple of games that I was previously unaware had been archived -- and also the fact the site is now operational again, rendering the whole post a bit moot. Oh well!

So... because I'm using my words so much, let's file a status report.

My computer gave up the ghost back in March! Seemingly a corrupted boot sector, blaming the lack of NTOSKRNL when it gets stuck at startup. Dumbass me has three portable hard drives but used them exclusively for hoarding comics and anime rather than making backups of any sort. That was a dumb move!
I've thankfully been able to salvage my stuff, with only a few minor losses that the rescue software* couldn't grab. Still, bloody nuisance regardless, if just because I'm still coming to grips with my replacement machine and its quirks three months after the fact.

* In my boneheaded panic I threw $20 at the first solution that presented itself, which was EaseRE, on account of it astroturfing itself across all the search results. It claimed to be a one-stop solution to all boot errors... and was very much not, because it solved precisely zero boot errors.
What you're actually paying for is a bunch of UNIX(?) freeware in one easy-to-burn disc image, its operating system running entirely from the CD drive. The PCmanFX file explorer was essential to my salvage operation, even if it took forty hours to transfer.
EaseRE was handy if just for ease of use, able to quickly burn it and run without having to teach myself how to mount UNIX to disc under duress... buuuut it's not exactly the surefire solution it presents itself as. Which should've been obvious to anyone who didn't just fling money at the first possible solution, but I repeat myself.

Despite the harsh reminder to backup my stuff, it was a fun excuse to look through my files and see just how much junk I've got. Random Hoo Haas weighs in at a hefty few gigabytes, partly because of junk that's stuck in notes and research, though largely because of uncompressed reference images.
My scans took a hit, losing scattered files and folders, so resuming my progress on that front is going to be hard until I confirm whether or not those lost files are truly gone. I wanna do whatever it takes to not have to fully re-scan all those game magazines...!

But it was a reminder: I oughta do something with all this stuff! Seeing some of it again was inspiring, and while transferring them across I was quite jazzed to make a home for it all on the site, to finally just splurge on various scrappy research or reference pages -- nothing fancy, just whatever it takes to give these things a home.
Heck, there's notes and rough material for at least five potential shrine sections; it'd either just be me cataloguing rare merch that's otherwise only documented on ephemeral social media feeds, or finding thin pretences to gush about the things I like about them so much. Either way, it's content!
Of course, now that I've forgotten what it was, it's just as easy to let it sit and gather dust again. Whoopsy doopsy.

Dinosaur Hunter Diaries finished its first phase! I'm glad it's made a splash with some folks. The next phase will cover the video games and the various other Acclaim nuttery, which might draw more eyes towards it. Who knows! Doing things for views is not my thing, as might be evident by talking about Turok comics in the first place. I'm eager to dive into it again, but I'm also enjoying being a lazy bum, too.

On my YouTube channel I've recorded enough backlog that I'll be putting out a gameplay video every Friday until the end of the year, and maybe beyond, who knows. Mostly Mario fangames interspersed with indie stuff, from Klik 'n' Play to XBLIG, but if anyone's got a neat request, especially if there's no completed playthrough of it already, feel free to share. Making a hub for these on the site is still on the cards, hopefully with tips and tricks and other wordage to make it worth its while; I wish I could write commentary for every video, but there's only so much I can possibly say about 'em...!

As always, there's other doodads I'd like to do, or even just give the site another spring clean again. I keep forgetting what a frightful mess the General Writings page is. Why is it still using Times New Roman?! This is a no-serif zone.
But all I can do is what I can, and "what I can" is ignoring the site for months at at time, usually. You don't read Random Hoo Haas for a timely or coherent experience, so thanks for sticking with us.

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