Sorry I haven't been posting much for the last few days — it's been a tiring few weeks and a few "non-essential" things have just sort of fallen by the wayside in the meantime! The weekend as a whole appeared to be one of them — I've no idea where it went. With luck, things should be settling down a bit now, as a couple of big jobs are finally over and done with.

I've been happy to rediscover reading amid all this. Enjoying some reading has been a great way to escape from absolutely everything — including computer screens. For those who've not used a Kindle before, their screen is this lovely "e-ink" thing that looks impressively like printed words on paper. There's no lighting (not on my model, anyway) so no distracting glow, no notifications, no Internet (aside from downloading and syncing books) and, to be honest, that's absolute bliss.

As I noted the other day, I've been particularly enjoying Howard Scott Warshaw's memoirs "One Upon Atari", in which, among other things, he recounts the story of the creation of his notorious E.T. game for the Atari 2600, and goes off on an impressive number of tangents along the way. He tells stories in an incredibly vivid way, however; throughout everything I've read, I've been able to picture the situation in my mind and be right there alongside him during these fascinating, curious years.

Warshaw's writing is particularly interesting because in the intervening years between him working at Atari and now, he's qualified as a psychotherapist, and as such he has a whole other level of insight to bring on all manner of subjects — be it the bizarre behaviour of Tod Frye, the conflicts between Marketing and Engineering at Atari at the time, or simply his own mental state during the stressful five-week dev cycle that E.T. was lumbered with.

That by no means makes his writing dry and boring, mind; quite the contrary. Warshaw is what one would politely describe as "a character", and I suspect listening to him tell these stories in person would be an absolute hoot. Regardless, his work is making for great bedtime and toilet reading; I'm about three quarters of the way through now and looking forward to his insights on the "great crash", which is, presumably, the climax of the book.

Anyway. Strong recommend if you haven't read it already — particularly if you already have an interest in classic Atari.

After mulling all that over in the previous post, I just thought "fuck it" and downloaded a couple of books to my Kindle, which has been sitting in a bedside drawer in complete disuse for the last six years. Specifically, I downloaded the second volume of My Friend's Little Sister Has It In For Me! and Once Upon Atari, Howard Scott Warshaw's memoirs of his years at Atari.

I promptly read half of My Friend's Little Sister Has It In For Me! in a single sitting, and have been working my way through Once Upon Atari every time I need a poo. So I guess I don't really have a problem with reading on the Kindle. I do still like owning physical books and having them on my shelf though, so as inefficient as it might be, what I may end up doing is buying digital books to read immediately then adding the ones I particularly enjoy to my physical collection.

Anyway, while My Friend's Little Sister Has It In For Me! will doubtless only appeal to a subset of you reading this, I do want to give a specific recommendation for Once Upon Atari, because so far it's been an absolutely wonderful read. Howard Scott Warshaw is, it turns out, an incredible storyteller with a delightful sense of humour, and it's fascinating to read all his first-hand accounts of his time at Atari.

For me, it's a highly enjoyable opportunity to hear a bit more about some of the names that came up while I was researching Atari A to Z Flashback. Because while some things made their way into commonly recognised history — Yars' Revenge's graphical effects being made from raw computer code, for example — there are some absolutely wonderful other stories that, I guess, haven't been chronicled before for one reason or another.

My favourite parts so far are the stories about Tod Frye. Previously, I knew absolutely nothing about Tod Frye, other than the fact he made some of the absolute worst video games for the Atari 2600 (Pac-Man and SwordQuest: FireWorld) as well as some actually good ones, like Asteroids. After reading just some of Warshaw's book, I now know that Tod Frye was absolutely bonkers — with probably the best story being the one about how he discovered he could not only leap into the air and support himself with one foot on each wall in Atari's corridors, he eventually figured out how it was possible to actually run along the walls while suspended five feet off the ground with nothing more than the power of his own legs.

This continued until he bashed his head rather violently on a fire sprinkler while attempting to avoid an opening doorway, and naturally the hospital staff were hesitant to believe the story they were told.

Anyway, that's just one of many wonderful stories Warshaw has to tell in his book, so if you're at all interested in the history of the video game medium, I highly recommend giving it a look. I've certainly been loving it.

Here's a pointless thing I am presently agonising over more than a reasonable person probably would.

I own a Kindle. It's an old Kindle, but it still works, and I haven't used it nearly enough since my wife was kind enough to buy it for me probably half a decade ago. It provides a pleasant enough reading experience, and I actually suspect I'd prefer the page-turning buttons it has over the touchscreens of more recent models. I've also tried it under the amber light I mentioned the other evening, and it is indeed perfectly readable.

Related to this piece of information, I have been very much enjoying Japanese light novels recently — specifically, the Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki series, and I've just started My Friend's Little Sister Has It In For Me!, too, which also seems to be a lot of fun.

Now, my quandary: since I've already started collecting light novels (I have all the volumes of Tomozaki that are currently available, and I'd like to get all of My Friend's Little Sister etc etc) should I continue with that and potentially end up overflowing with books — or should I do what is probably the sensible thing and read more on the Kindle? And as an extension to that question, should I stick with my existing Kindle, or pick up a newer, more up-to-date model with a better screen, more features and better suitability for reading more visual formats like manga?

This seems like it should be an easy answer, doesn't it? My main hesitation concerns the fact that I simply like having books around. I like the feel of a book in my hand, I like the way a nice collection looks on the shelf, and in the case of light novels I like the colour illustrations in the opening pages, the cover art and the nice "glossy" feel their covers tend to have. The Kindle is at least capable of displaying the black-and-white illustrations that crop up throughout your average light novel, so that's something.

On top of that, the Kindle's Library screen is boring as balls, consisting of nothing but a text listing of what you have on the device. Practical, yes. A fun showcase of the books you've been collecting, no.

I think my hesitation primarily stems from the fact I consider the act of collecting these books part of the whole enjoyment process. I like adding new volumes to the shelf, though I'm also conscious we don't have a ton of shelf space left in this house.

So I wonder. Should I start reading more light novels on the Kindle? They're generally cheaper, and in some cases they release earlier digitally — I believe all of My Friend's Little Sister etc etc is already available as ebooks, but the actual physical releases are staggered across the coming months up until September.

But… ooh. I like having a book in my hand. Maybe my optimal choice is to read a bunch on Kindle, then pick up physical copies of the ones I really enjoyed and actually want to collect. It means effectively buying them twice, but… oh, I don't know.

This is your brain on anxiety, depression and Asperger's, friends. What fun!

Here's an interesting exercise for you. Grab a piece of paper or open a blank text document, then imagine a ball. Then write down everything you can tell me about that ball.

If you can't do that, then you have a condition known as aphantasia — the inability to picture things in your mind. My wife has it, as does Arin Hanson from Game Grumps, and doubtless numerous others. And I find it kind of interesting.

You see, when someone tells me to "imagine a ball", my mind immediately goes into overdrive. The ball in question is red, round, textured with a sort of "spotty" surface but unpatterned, slightly smaller than a basketball, looks a bit like a medicine ball you'd get in a gym but is more the weight you'd expect a typical ball to be, is sitting on a grassy patch in a garden which may or may not be the garden I grew up in (in the form it was when I was a child, not the form it is in now, which is slightly different) and is enjoying dappled sunlight streaming through the trees from above on a pleasant spring afternoon. It's been warm and dry for quite some time, so being outside is pleasant and even desirable, and the garden is in a condition where it's actually rather nice to just go and sit on the grass. Remember that wigwam I had when I was a kid that we used to put one of the old sofa cushions in and I'd sit in there and read music theory books… okay, I'm getting off the point a bit, but you get what I mean.

When someone says "imagine [something simple and/or abstract]" I can generally extrapolate an entire scene and possibly even a story from that. When I'm reading a book, I can picture the things described in the book going on in front of me — perhaps not in the exact same way as the author, but definitely in a vivid way. Since delving into Japanese light novels recently, I've found these to be particularly vivid and potent fuel for the imagination, even though their descriptive language isn't typically anywhere near as detailed as in what one might regard as "literature".

With aphantasia, you supposedly have none of that. And I don't say "supposedly" in doubt that it happens — I'm sure it does. It's just interesting that of all the things I can imagine, what it must be like to not be able to imagine anything is something I absolutely, definitely cannot picture!

I cannot imagine what it must be like for someone to go "imagine a ball" and for you to be unable to do so because the person asking you to do so hasn't given enough information about the ball. It feels like it would be remarkably inconvenient — and I find it a bit sad, too. As much as there are many occasions when I don't like how my brain works — and my imagination can certainly play a part in those times, for sure — on the whole, I'm glad I have such a vivid and active imagination. I feel there are certain aspects of life that I can simply appreciate more as a result — and if nothing else, it certainly makes for some pleasingly weird dreams at times.

I wonder how well-known aphantasia is as a condition? For it to have a name, it must be reasonably recognisable and apparently it affects 1-3% of the population — though from a casual browse around the Internet it appears to be a field of mental health that hasn't been studied all that much. I guess it's quite hard to study the absence of something — though there are, of course, various ways that you could assess exactly how far a person with aphantasia is able to "imagine" or "remember" things.

Anyway, that's my thought for the day. Can you picture that ball?

Do you ever find yourself thinking, with no real evidence supporting it, that you don't really like something food-wise — and then find yourself surprised when you eat the thing in question and you actually don't hate it, even finding it moderately to extremely acceptable? I do, frequently.

I mean, yes, there are some foods that I absolutely definitely do despise — onions have always made me retch, for example, and now I'm 40 years old I think my parents have just about accepted that as something which isn't just me being a fussy child — but I have plenty of examples that fit into the category I describe above.

For me, the one that I always keep coming back to is sweet potatoes. I can't remember any time when I would have voluntarily chosen sweet potatoes over actual potatoes, and yet any time I end up with sweet potatoes for one reason or another, it tends to be a relatively pleasant surprise. Andie made home-made air fryer chips with sweet potatoes the other night, for example, and they were really nice — but I would never have said to her before dinner "no, actually, use the sweet potatoes instead of the regular ones".

I don't know what it is. It's some sort of weird mental block. To my recollection, I don't have any past trauma involving sweet potatoes — though if I do, I guess it's been repressed to such a degree that I'm incapable of thinking about it — and thus I have no real reason to feel like I don't really like sweet potatoes. And yet I still do feel that any time the opportunity to eat sweet potatoes comes up.

With one exception: last year, when Andie's friends came over for Thanksgiving and we had an American-style Thanksgiving feast. Then we had one of those absurdly sweet sweet potato, marshmallow and sugar monstrosities on the side of all the rest of our food. That was frickin' delicious. And you'd think that would have cured my mental block once and for all.

But nope. So if we're ever in a position where you're making me a meal and sweet potatoes are on the menu, please ignore any indifferent or unsure initial reaction I might make to the situation; I'll probably enjoy it.

My (re)discovery of manga and light novels encouraged me to set up my bedroom to be a little more conducive to reading comfortably. And, oddly enough, this was one of those moments where I'm reminded that, indeed, technology has progressed somewhat as the years have passed.

When I was a kid/teen, I had a great lamp on my bed. It would clip on to something, then it had a bendy but rigid gooseneck sort of arrangement that meant you could position it however you saw fit. It was, in short, an excellent reading light — but it was also an excellent reading light that I had approximately 30 years ago.

Regardless, I found myself on Amazon looking for something similar (I believe I searched for "bendy neck clip-on reading light") and was provided with a wealth of options. The basic concept was the same — clip on a thing, bend the neck to an appropriate angle — but the execution was quite different. Notably, most of them are USB powered now, and also the lights in them are not regular old lightbulbs, but LEDs instead.

Making a choice before I even allowed myself to become overwhelmed with the options, I now find myself the proud owner of a clip-on USB rechargeable amber LED reading light. And y'know what, I really like it. I went specifically for the amber light rather than a white or colour-selectable light because supposedly amber light is good to bathe in before bed, being the antithesis of blue light.

I was concerned that the effect would be akin to reading under one of those orange sodium street lights and I guess in some regards it it — but damn, if it isn't comfortable to read by. And it most definitely has an effect, too; stepping out of being bathed in nothing but amber light into something with more regular-style electric lighting is actually rather jarring. So I'm trying to make an effort to arrange things so that once I switch that light on and start reading, the next thing I will do is fall asleep.

I found the Amazon reviews for the light rather amusing. There were a lot of people complaining that the light is orange. I mean, what exactly did you think you were getting when you ordered an amber light? As amusingly Engrish as the packaging was, the actual product page on Amazon was pretty clear about what it offered, so I feel like turning it on and it being orange shouldn't have been a surprise if you were paying attention. But given that Amazon is a place where people will answer questions with "I don't know" and then wonder why they get downvoted by people looking for an actual answer… well, make your own mind up.

Anyway, upshot of all that is that I've been reading quite a bit before bed of late, and enjoying it. I devoured volume 6.5 of Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki in an evening and a half, and I'm working my way through volume 7 now. Unfortunately the next volume isn't out until the end of next month, but I'm sure I'll find a way to cope. I have, after all, been stocking up on a variety of interesting manga and light novels of late!

On that note, I'm feeling a bit zonked out, so I'm going to get an early night and read some more misadventures of fictional Japanese high-school students under OMG ORANGE light. Hope you're having a pleasant weekend!

I'm knackered. It's been a busy week! Had to go in to the actual day job office on Tuesday, which meant staying overnight in a hotel on Monday night and driving back home on Tuesday evening. In both directions, it was absolutely pouring with rain, dark and miserable, though mercifully not too heavy on the traffic. It has left me absolutely exhausted for the rest of the week, however!

Thankfully, I'm ploughing through all the Stuff I Have To Do at a good rate and everything will be fine, but I am definitely looking forward to tomorrow evening, when I'll just be able to flop down, go "right, that's that for another week" and relax for a bit. I intend for Saturday to primarily be filled with Atelier Sophie 2 and moving as little as possible. I guess technically that still counts as "work" but I actually want to play Atelier Sophie 2 — it's real good — so I'm more than happy to spend my Saturday doing that!

I think my exhaustion in this case stems from the fact that it is, to say the least, a somewhat turbulent situation in the world right now. And it feels like we've been limping from one instance of "turbulence" to another over the past few years — and that's without even taking the entire COVID thing into account.

I'm sure if I looked back at recent history I'd probably find that human existence has just been one string of "turbulent times" after another, but that doesn't really make me feel any better. Something about the present conflict feels curiously more… ever-present and relevant than other things that have been going on. I think it's perhaps because unlike a lot of other instances like this around the world, people are actually taking action this time around.

I mean, whether or not you think, say, GOG.com not selling games to Russians any more is an effective response to a humanitarian crisis is a matter of opinion and debate, I'm sure, but it does feel like people are curiously "united" in condemning the situation in Ukraine. Oddly, though, that's one of the things that makes it feel all the more exhausting; all the more real, I guess.

I wonder if humanity will know proper peace at some point? It honestly feels like a far-off, fanciful dream these days, whatever sci-fi might have tried to tell us in the past.

Back at university, there was an individual on the periphery of our friendship group known as Andy L. I describe him thus because no-one really liked him all that much and he just seemed to sort of come as an "attachment" with some other friends — a particularly unkempt, greasy sort of "buy one, get one free" deal.

Supposedly one of our number particularly appreciated debating philosophy with him. They were fellow philosophy students, after all, with all the insufferability that comes with; the difference between them was that one was in the field because he enjoyed arguing, while Andy L was in it because he was one of those people for whom university represented some sort of great political awakening, and a philosophy degree appeared to be the best way for him to explore that.

Fair enough, on that note, and as someone who studied English and Music because he liked both of those things, I'm not really in a position to comment. Rather, Andy L was an unwelcome presence for me in particular because of a habit he had. And when I say "habit" I really mean it; it was non-stop, never-ending, constant. And to this day I find myself wondering how on Earth I managed to put up with it for so long without ever exploding in rage at him.

Andy's habit was quoting Blackadder. Now, that may not sound like a particularly serious habit, and indeed it isn't when compared with any number of other vices that some people get involved with during their university years. But I really mean what I said about it being non-stop; it never ended. For Andy, an adequate substitute for conversation was simply saying a line from Blackadder or, in the worst cases, making a noise that Stephen Fry's character made.

Both of these things are funny in context, but when you've heard them fifty times that week because someone keeps saying them out of said context at you, it grates after a while. It got so bad for me that, to this day, I absolutely cannot bring myself to watch any series of Blackadder ever again, even knowing that it is a classic of British comedy. Its memory is just so sullied with the incessant repetition of the same lines, over and over again in lieu of actual conversation. I'd genuinely rather have awkward silence.

These memories came back to me recently because it occurred to me that they relate to a big problem I have with how people communicate on the Internet these days. There's a lot in common with how Andy L behaved in our friendship group, and how people behave in YouTube comments, Twitch chat or on social media: people feel the urge to say something, but have nothing meaningful to actually add to the conversation, so they fall back on something they heard somewhere else before. Only the problem these days is that there's not just one Andy L suffering this problem, there's a whole army of the buggers.

All this ties in with meme culture, where a significant proportion of the Internet appears to believe that incessant repetition equals effortless humour. To be fair, this was an issue long before meme culture took hold — just look at "catchphrase comedy" and how poorly a lot of that has aged — but the real problem we have today is that the freedom of expression social media provides means that everyone thinks they're a comedian.

Energetic piece of music on YouTube? Someone's going to comment "me when I'm late for school" or something similar. The question "who is [x]?" is presented? Someone will respond with "everyone asks who is [x], but no-one stops to ask how is [x]?" Steamed Hams being held up as the pinnacle of humour. Spongebob "a few moments later" cutaways being constantly used in YouTube videos. You get the idea. I'm so tired.

Last I heard, Andy L had become some sort of fortune-telling hippy called Zelda. As for whether those fortune-telling sessions involve relentless quoting of Colonel Melchett, I couldn't say. But perhaps that's a more peaceful life than being online in 2022.