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, the Same Great Taste as the thing you used to like, you have probably encountered a form of this.
But there is another issue which I'm not sure is quite the same thing. It's definitely related, but I'm not sure it's exactly the same thing. It doesn't really matter. Anyway, what I'm talking about is the fact that Digestive biscuits that are more elaborate than "chocolate" are smaller than standard plain and chocolate Digestives.
I spotted this a while back with the caramel ones, which are very nice. I'm pretty certain they used to be the same size as a regular Digestive, but now their diameter is noticeably and significantly smaller.
Why is this? I suspect the answer is simple: to make the thing with the more elaborate recipe have the same number of calories as the old thing. Indeed, this is the case with both the caramel and the new "Jaffa Cake" Digestives (very disappointing, by the way — they might as well have just called these "Chocolate Orange" flavour, but then gullible idiots like me would probably be less likely to pick them up and go "ooh, Jaffa Cake Digestives, those sound nice" and buy them) and, looking on the McVities website, it is also true for the new "Seriously Chocolatey" variety, which is basically a chocolate digestive with a chocolate chip, cocoa-y biscuit instead of a regular Digestive. All of these varieties, along with the common-or-garden chocolate Digestive, have approximately 80 calories per biscuit.
If we look at the calories per 100g, the picture should become clearer. Regular-ass chocolate Digestives are 496 calories per 100g, caramel ones are… hang on a minute, 479? And the Jaffa Cake ones are 478?
This leads me to the conclusion that, presumably, the extra bit of filling in caramel and Jaffa Cake digestives makes them weigh a little more than a regular Digestive, hence their size has been reduced to compensate, and that, in turn, makes them the same number of calories per biscuit as a regular chocolate Digestive. Does that work? My maths isn't functional enough this evening to calculate if that makes sense.
But anyway! It's not the point! When I have a Digestive, I want it to be a honking great biscuit that is eminently suitable for dunking in a cup of hot liquid! Regular Digestives are just the right size for your average mug in that you can dunk them without there being a lot of clearance around the outside, making it less likely that you will accidentally drop the whole thing. The smaller ones are far too small for this purpose.
If the answer to this is some misguided attempt to make all Digestives equal in terms of calories and thus make people assume they are equally "healthy" — to that I say they are biscuits! Anyone eating a biscuit is not concerned with being healthy at that exact moment in time! Consequently, I also suggest that it is okay for a more elaborate biscuit to weigh a little more and have more calories than its more common counterpart! If you really want to have a biscuit and kid yourself that you're "being healthy", the Rich Teas — and, if you really hate yourself, Snack-a-Jacks — are right over there!
In a funny way, this reminds me of the time back when the iPad first launched, when "HD" versions of apps would cost £5 more because they had more pixels in them, despite being functionally (and often aesthetically) identical. It's all part of the tapestry of dark patterns that Capitalism™ uses to squeeze money out of us. And I should probably feel bad that it works on me.
Still, caramel Digestives are nice, even if the Jaffa Cake ones are a bit disappointing. Biscuits!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.
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 brief (about 15 minute) workout using them to do a few different things, including some curls, goblet squats, lunges, twists and shoulder presses, and dear Lord am I feeling the regret today. I think I might have overdone it a bit, given that both my arms and legs have been feeling a bit wobbly today and my left buttock is experiencing a sensation I can only describe as "repeated twinges" — and I was exhausted when I woke up this morning.
I don't think it's a bad idea to do some mild weight training at home, though, so I've ordered myself a set of wuss-ass pastel-coloured dumbbells for girls in an attempt to shame myself into being capable of doing something more manly. Or, more accurately — because I hope I have made abundantly clear on numerous occasions, I have absolutely zero desire to appear particularly "manly" — I have purchased myself some relatively low-impact exercise equipment which is probably what my body, in its current state, needs to get kickstarted into activity again. Big metal dumbbells can come later. Much later.
The walks around the Common are good, and I think they are having an effect. On past occasions when I have done exercise, though, I've found that complementing the cardio with some solid weight training of some description (usually on Machines if I've been a gym member at the time) tends to have an actually quite noticeable effect, particularly on my arms, and I think it's probably time to start incorporating that side of things again if I actually want to take this seriously.
And I kind of do! I mean, I know I want (and need) to lose weight, but for some reason I'm feeling oddly… enthused about the prospect of Getting Some Fitness Done at the moment. The last time I felt like this I was watching How Heavy Are The Dumbbells You Lift?, which was a work of anime genius that I should probably watch again, or at least read the manga, which was also excellent.
Anyway, all this is a long-winded way of saying that I'm having a night off doing anything useful and/or productive this evening, and I shall feel no guilt about that whatsoever! I'm not even going to write about Terranigma, even though I finished it last night. I will save that for tomorrow or the weekend — at least partly because my work announced our two Big Projects for the year today — the Banjo-Kazooie Double Pack which had already been revealed, and The DOOM Collection, which everyone kind of already knew about. But still. Not that I'm suggesting my online ramblings will take away from professional marketing, but I kind of just want to let that be out there tonight — and, indeed, to have a nice relaxing night off for myself.
Now the question is: what to spend that night off doing? Do I go play some more Visco arcade games? Do I play some Forza Motorsport? Do I start something completely new? Deciding that is going to occupy the next half an hour or so, I suspect, so let's leave that there. Also I need a wee.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.
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 wonderful about the relative freedom that cycling provides, assuming there aren't any Big Hills on your path. And these days, you can counteract Big Hills with an electric bike — or just do it the old fashioned way by getting off and pushing. (I've never been able to Stand Up on the Pedals, before you say anything.)
I say I don't feel able to cycle, but I don't know that. I feel like I am probably too heavy for your average bike, though, and I don't really want to put myself in a situation where I'm putting that to the test, because of the potential embarrassment. As such, "being able to cycle again" is one of many things that are filed away under "things to do if you are ever able to successfully shift all this weight ever again". A box that has been frustratingly out of reach for quite a few years at this point.
Thing is, I know I can shift weight, because I did it once before. Unfortunately, the method I used last time around — following the Slimming World programme — hasn't really worked for me on subsequent attempts for various reasons, and I also found that I've never had quite as strong a connection with any Slimming World consultants since the chap mentioned in that linked post. Paul Glass was someone truly special, and it was a sad day when he had to leave us. (He's not dead, to my knowledge, he just chose to finish being a consultant for his own reasons.)
And it's frustrating, because I remember how great it felt to be if not "slim", then certainly more "normal-sized", according to my own self-perception. I remember leaning back in the car and smiling at the fact I could see my whole body rather than just my belly. I could cross my legs. I wasn't repulsed by my own reflection. I could buy clothes from regular shops. I wouldn't hesitate at the prospect of reuniting with old friends based on the shame I feel over my current appearance. And, yes, I could ride a bike without worrying about it.
I want those great feelings back again! And it's not as if I'm not trying to get back there — even having some mild success through counting calories and getting a bit of tentative exercise with my walks in the park — but it's a long road ahead of me, and I'm also conscious of the fact that at the end of that road, if I ever get there, I have to face a lifelong fear and get surgery to sort out this hernia that I've been dealing with for probably getting on for a decade at this point. And that fucking hernia is one of the biggest things holding me back right now; it's that which I'm most self-conscious about in terms of my appearance, it's that which makes a lot of things a lot more difficult to do than they perhaps could be, and it's that which, at times, still causes me pain that I can't really do a whole lot about until I've made it through this whole process.
The end result of all this effort will be worth it. I have to keep telling myself that, and reminding myself strongly about it when I feel like just giving up on the whole thing and just trying to live with the size and shape I am right now.
But I'm not at all happy with that. I would go so far as to say that my feelings towards my own appearance and general physical state are the absolute worst things in my life right now. You might not understand quite how all-encompassing those feelings can be if you've not been in this state before — and believe me, I strongly discourage you from doing so if at all possible — but I really do feel like if I can fix this, it will make my life immeasurably better in almost every possible way.
That goal really does seem so far away, though. Some days it's hard to keep going, but I guess it's one of those things you just have to take a step at a time, and eventually you will get there, so long as you don't take any particularly stupid detours along the way.
I am mildly prone to stupid detours, is the trouble. But let's just see where I end up as time goes on. Maybe one day I'll get back on a bike.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.
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 "half a tube". No it fucking isn't. Who the fuck eats half a tube of Fruit Pastilles?
I know why this is the case, of course. It's a misguided (and probably legally enforced) attempt to get us all to practice better portion control and, collectively, to Be Less Fat. However, we all know what actually happens: people look at that "portion" advice, then just double it (or, in some cases, multiply it by four or more) in order to calculate what they are actually eating. And I just feel like food companies could probably save everyone a lot of time and effort if they just put what the calorie value for the whole thing was.
Like, take a pizza. Buy a frozen pizza and the calorie information will probably be for half of it. Buy a takeaway pizza and the calorie information will be "per slice". Motherfucker, if I am buying a pizza of any description I am eating that whole thing, so just tell me what the damage is so I don't have to get the bloody calculator out. I will accept full responsibility for my actions. Just tell me.
Likewise, take one of those massive bars of Dairy Milk. According to those, "1 portion" is "3 squares". No it fucking isn't. The only time people buy a massive bar of Dairy Milk is when they are depressed, and when that happens they are almost certainly going to eat the whole thing while crying in front of the TV. (Ask me how I know.) So just tell me how many thousand calories are in that whole bar of chocolate so I can come to terms with the consequences at a later time when I am feeling less emotionally fragile.
I feel calorie information on food packaging might actually have more impact if it was more honest like this! "If you eat this whole quiche, that's most of the daily calorie intake for an average human being!" Great! Now I know, and I will thus probably think a little bit harder about whether or not I actually really want to eat that whole quiche, or if I'm just doing so because I'm in the middle of a binge-eating spree that is almost certainly fuelled by some combination of depression, anxiety and/or autism.
And don't even get me started on foods that are clearly portioned out, but which will only ever give you calorie information "per 100 grams". That's the point where I really don't want to start doing maths. Don't make me do fucking percentages just to figure out how guilty I should be feeling for eating the thing. Just give me the calorie information for a realistic portion, and perhaps for the entire packet of the thing just in case it accidentally ends up all taking a trip down to see Mr Tums.
To put it another way, stop trying to shame me for eating more than I "should" and help me make an actually informed decision using helpful information! By the time I am able to successfully curtail my appetite, I don't mind dividing some of these things into halves or quarters or whatever, although one would hope once you have reached a good, "healthy" weight (which is its own discussion, I'm sure) you have less need to be exacting about counting calories. But during that period where accurate calorie information is actually helpful — i.e. when you're trying to lose weight — I think it would benefit everyone to be completely honest and lay out the cold, hard facts. I think it would genuinely be a lot more effective at helping to get people to reconsider before overeating!
And stop trying to kid yourself that anyone is eating half a tube of Fruit Pastilles!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.
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" instead of "you" — but as time has passed, and I have taken on numerous such attempts to varying degrees of success, I have come to realise that it is definitely true for me.
You see, in my case, comparing myself to others inevitably leads to feelings of inferiority and frustration when really there is no reason for me to be comparing myself to anyone other than… well, myself.
Take one thing I'm always very conscious of when I go out for a walk, as I did this evening: because of the size I am, and because of my general overall fitness level, I walk quite slowly, even when in my head I am thinking "I am walking quite briskly". I can be walking at an exertion level that makes me slightly out of breath, and people who are just out for a casual stroll will be overtaking me without any evident effort on my part. Were I to pay attention to this — like I have done in the past, which is why I can say all this at all — this would be frustrating! Why can't I walk as fast as a "normal" person? Am I annoying the "normal" people who walk much faster than I do? God, I'm such a waste of space and energy!
But no. The sensible part of my brain, which I am growing better at listening to, reminds me that I have absolutely no reason to be comparing my walking speed to that of anyone else, because I am not, in fact, getting in anyone's way. The Common is a big place, and its paths are more than wide enough for anyone who wants to go faster than me to just walk around me. And, moreover, I am not walking with any of those people, meaning that my overall speed is not causing anyone to have to wait around for me to catch up.
(This is, however, something I am conscious of any time I am out and about with friends or work colleagues, and we are all walking somewhere together. I simply cannot keep up with most of them under many circumstances. And that is frustrating, from a combination of people showing me an often unintentional lack of consideration, and my own annoyance at not being able to do things like a "normal" person.)
When I'm by myself, then, the only thing that really matters is me. The only thing I should be comparing myself to is myself, because it's quite nice to see gradual improvements in your own performance — and even with the fairly casual nature of my walking excursions over the course of the last couple of weeks, I have already seen a slight improvement in terms of the amount of time it takes me to cover the two kilometres of the route I habitually take.
But then there are times when you don't even need to know that. It's not a competition. It's not a race. There is no way you can speed up this whole process. It is something that happens gradually, through building good habits, and thus, when it comes down to it, the only really important thing is that I am just doing the thing at all. Have I successfully got out of the house into the fresh air and got some exercise? Yes? Then great. That's a success.
This is the thing. When attempting to improve yourself — particularly if you are neurodivergent — the temptation can be to give up when you can't immediately fix the problem you're trying to solve. But it doesn't work like that. Instead, you should allow yourself to celebrate those small victories, even if they are much smaller than victories you have had in the past.
I'll give you an example. A good few years ago at this point (2011, to be exact, since I was blogging here at the time!), I successfully "ran" (and I use the term loosely) the Bupa 10K in London, along with some friends I have since, sadly, fallen out of touch with. (Miss you, Vee and Gracie!) This was, for me, an incredible achievement — and one that only came about because I had successfully followed the Couch to 5K and Bridge to 10K programmes over a long period.
I cannot run a 10K now. I cannot even contemplate walking 10 kilometres right now. I cannot even really contemplate walking five kilometres. And that's OK! 2011 was fifteen years ago. I wasn't in amazing shape then, but I was in considerably better shape than I am now, and I was also fifteen years younger. As such, it makes absolutely no sense to try and compare myself against that yardstick (or should that be 10K-stick?) because so much has changed in that intervening period. Yes, it would be nice to be able to get back into a state where I could contemplate surviving a journey of 10 kilometres on foot — be it by walking or jogging — but right now, it is an irrelevant target for me.
Right now, my target is just to get up of the sofa, get out into the fresh air and just do something, at least a few times per week. I have given myself the arbitrary goal of two kilometres because that just happens to be the exact distance of a "lap" that I do on the Common right now, and because that is something which, in my current state, feels attainable but still challenging — in other words, it's a level of effort that I feel is actually doing something.
I was tempted to write "even if that might not seem like very much to some of you" after that, but stopped myself. Because, as I say, what it seems like to anyone else doesn't matter. Everyone's circumstances are different. I'm sure I know plenty of people who can jog 5K, 10K, even more, without even thinking about it. And, right now, it achieves nothing for me to compare myself to them because they are simply operating in a completely different league. And that is, once again, fine.
So I will continue muddling along at my own pace. At some point, I will up the distance and/or time that I will be walking, but I don't feel ready for that just yet, so I'm not going to do that just yet. I will do it when the time is right, not when anyone else says that I "should" do it — but when I feel I want to do it.
And, with any luck, this will build itself over time into a healthy habit that will be of great benefit to me. That's all that really matters!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.
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 feeling of "ugh".
I'm not really sure why I slept so badly last night — conditions in the bedroom (ooer) weren't particularly different from any other given evening, as we had the air conditioning blasting, I had my blackout sleep mask on with some calming noises playing, but still I kept waking up, feeling uncomfortable and/or needing a piss. At 4am I got up and evacuated what must have been over a litre of piss from my body. That'll learn me for Hydrating.
I'm going to get an early night tonight, I think, so I am writing this post in good time to be able to do that, and I'm probably going to skip a walk around the Common this evening also. There are times when you have to listen to your body, and my body right now is telling me that it needs some decent rest. So that's the plan for later tonight, at least.
In the meantime, I have plenty I could be doing, but I think I'm probably going to play some more Terranigma this evening. I've been playing a lot of Splatoon Raiders — it's a great "lunchtime game" with how bite-sized each individual "raid" is — and I want to make some progress on Terranigma. Interestingly, my video on its immediate predecessor, Illusion of Time, overtook my video on Soul Blazer in a fraction of the time in terms of views. Neither have done amazingly in terms of total views, but as I always say: the views are not why I'm doing this. I do this because it's fun, and because it's nice to have a sort of record of the things you've experienced and your thoughts about them.
Same reason why MoeGamer exists, really. I have loved writing about the games I have enjoyed ever since I was a young child — I bet my parents still have the ring binder with all my dot-matrix printouts of "reviews" I wrote when I was a kid somewhere — and I don't see that changing any time soon. It's my way of just sort of "getting a bit more" out of an already rewarding and fulfilling hobby. The feeling of creating something, even if it's just some blurted-out thoughts representing your opinion about something, is always satisfying — and I can look back over both this site and MoeGamer and feel pride in what I've created to date, and excitement for what is still to come.
Also it gives me a sort of perverse pleasure that MoeGamer has now lasted considerably longer than the site I was laid off from when I made it in the first place. I guess passion will always trump commercial interests.
Anyway! That was a random string of consciousness, for which I make no apologies. I am off to have some dinner, play Terranigma and then at least attempt to be in a position conducive to getting some sleep before the clock strikes midnight.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.
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 lot of people to get their first taste of being published online; indeed, a number of people whose work I first saw on Bitmob have gone on to have successful careers elsewhere in the games industry — with notable examples including Mike Minotti and Jeff Grubb from Giant Bomb.
I was fortunate enough to have my work featured on the site on a few occasions, with my most popular piece by far being an adaptation of Bayonetta's opening scene as if graphics didn't exist and the entire thing unfolded as a text adventure. (Aside: attempting to track down an archive of this is how I learned that most of Bitmob's original site content is still online, but some "Software as a Service", probably AI-related company appears to be leeching off the site's SEO from back in the day.)
Anyway, in the absence of anything else to write about (although right now I could write something about companies leeching off past sites' SEO… we'll save that for another day though, as this absolutely will not be the last time I come across this phenomenon, I'm sure) I thought I would do the same for my walk around the Common this evening. Are you ready? Let us begin.
You inexpertly guide your little car into the narrow parking space and realise that you have parked a little too close to the car next to you, so you reverse out and manoeuvre yourself into what you think is a slightly more advantageous position. When you attempt to open your car door, you realise that you have not, in fact, made things any better at all. Giving up before humiliating yourself further, you squeeze through the slightly too narrow gap between your car and its neighbour, and prepare to face the early evening.
A WALK ON THE COMMON Copyright (c) 2026 Petefocom, Inc. All rights reserved. A WALK ON THE COMMON is a registered trademark of Petefocom, Inc. Version 69 / Serial number 420069
Cemetery Road, Car Park You are in the car park of the common — actually just a narrow side street with some parking spaces demarcated down one side. The sun is low in the sky, such that it is difficult to look in a westerly direction, and the air is warm and a little humid.
The road (and car park) continues to the northwest. To the southeast, you can hear the rushing traffic of The Avenue.
Your car is here.
What would you like to do? > INVENTORY
You are carrying: Your keys Your wallet Your phone A pair of headphones (worn) Your watch (worn) Clothes (worn)
What next? > REMOVE CLOTHES
You feel that would probably be a bad idea while you're out in public. Also, in a park? Talk about clichéd. If you're going to streak, do it somewhere a bit more imaginative.
What next? > SE
You came all this way to have a walk in the park. No point turning back now. And anyway, if you want to go back that way, you're better off getting into your car.
What next? > EXAMINE WATCH
This is a fancy-pants fitness tracker thingy that your wife got you. She wasn't dropping a hint; you had indicated that you might be interested in using one in an attempt to actually get fit.
The watch's display is off.
[You won't see "What next?" any more.] > TURN ON WATCH
The watch's display lights up immediately. A picture of Patti, one of your cats, greets you, along with the time. It is 7.30pm.
> USE WATCH
Please be more specific about how you want to use the watch.
> TRACK FITNESS
I don't know how to "TRACK" something.
> START WATCH
You flick the screen over to the right, choose the "Walking" activity and wait for the countdown to begin.
Your watch begins tracking your steps.
> LOOK AT PHONE
Your phone has the album "Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath cued up and ready to go. The play button looks inviting.
> PRESS PLAY
Your phone starts blaring Black Sabbath at full volume. You quickly press the Pause button. Perhaps you should turn the headphones on first.
> TURN ON HEADPHONES
You turn on the headphones. They make a soft "beep" sound, then a second "beep" to indicate they have connected to your phone.
> PRESS PLAY
Black Sabbath begins to play inside your head, thanks to your cheap and cheerful bone-conducting headphones. Now you're really ready to get started.
> NW
Cemetery Road, Carriage Drive Entrance You've reached the end of the "car park" section of Cemetery Road. The road itself continues a short distance to the northwest, but becomes a dead end shortly thereafter. A path into the Common itself proceeds to the north. Painted white letters on the ground indicate that this particular pathway is known as "Carriage Drive South".
> N
You begin walking.
Carriage Drive South You've entered the Common proper. To the south is Cemetery Road and the car park. Either side of you are some pleasantly rustling trees. Carriage Drive continues in a northerly direction for a short distance.
> N
Carriage Drive Corner Carriage Drive makes a sharp turn here. Squinting against the low, early evening sun, you can just about see an small lake behind a fence in the distance to the west. One of several entrances to the Common lies to the south.
A man with no shirt on zooms past you. He is upsettingly toned and even more upsettingly sweaty. You cannot even begin to imagine what it would feel like to be able to move at that speed using nothing but your own legs.
There is a Really Good Dog here. And their owner too, I guess.
> LOOK AT MAN
He's long gone. You're not sure you want anything to do with him, anyway. Just being in his presence for less than a second made you feel inferior.
> LOOK AT DOG
Are all dogs good dogs? It doesn't matter, because this one is.
> W
Near Cemetery Lake Thus named because it's near the cemetery, not because they've buried people in it — not to your knowledge, anyway — Cemetery Lake is a filthy but nonetheless relatively picturesque pond that occupies a space to the north of the path you're currently on, behind a fence. A bunch of ducks are languidly paddling around on the grimy surface of the water, evidently looking for remnants of the last generous visitors. Carriage Drive proceeds to the east and west.
> N
You can't go in that direction. The fence is in the way.
> CLIMB FENCE
You don't think that would be a good idea. Not only are you not good at climbing things, you also have an excellent talent for hurting yourself quite badly when doing things you are not good at.
A child riding the tiniest bicycle you have ever seen wobbles past, followed a few seconds later by what looks like a long-suffering parent.
> W
Park's Edge Corner You sense you're quite close to the edge of the park, as you think you can hear traffic on the other side of the bushes. The path makes another sharp turn here, proceeding to the north, parallel to the edge of the park, or to the east, back towards Cemetery Lake.
You think you can smell weed.
> N
Park's Edge The pathway continues in a north-south direction. Trees flank the path on both sides, giving the area a pleasant "tunnel of green" look.
You can definitely smell weed.
> N
Suspicious Bushes The greenery thins out a little on one side to reveal a clearing with a bench, and some bushes behind it. The bushes look suspicious. You figure that if you were going to get up to no good, these would be some great bushes to do it in. The pathway continues in a north-south direction.
The smell of weed seems to be coming from the direction of the bushes.
> LOOK AT BUSHES
You figure they're probably having a nice time without you. Leave them be.
A woman wearing a pair of shorts that are so tight you think they might just be painted on jogs past.
> LOOK AT WOMAN
Before you are able to make a definitive determination of whether or not the shorts are real or just an illusion, she is long gone.
> N
Junction You've reached the point where several paths meet. To the west is one of the Common's numerous exits. The pathway continues to the north, southeast and south.
A child, in tears and holding a balloon, waddles along the path, closely followed by a mother who looks about ready to murder someone.
Through your headphones, Black Sabbath is interrupted by the robotic voice of your watch indicating that you have successfully completed a kilometre in 14 minutes and 59 seconds.
> POP BALLOON
As entertaining at that would be, you unfortunately don't have anything sharp on you.
The child and distraught mother pass by. The former's wails fade into the distance, and an almost tangible air of despair follows shortly afterwards.
> SE
The Flats This area of the Common is called The Flats, because it's really flat. It's also the widest open space on the whole Common, and the place where events tend to happen. Right now, in the heat of the summer, all the grass is dead, the whole place looks like a desert and nothing much is going on, other than a few kids having a half-hearted kickabout. So much for "public green spaces". The path continues to the southeast, and reaches a junction to the northwest.
The upsettingly toned man runs past again. You wish he would put a shirt on.
> SE
The Flats, Starting Lines This part of The Flats is evidently where they start races of various descriptions, because there are two starting lines: one red, one blue. Judging by other markings on the path of the same colour, the red route is about 2.5km in length, while the blue route is 3.5km. The pathway continues into a wooded area in the southeast, and back to the middle of The Flats to the northwest.
A woman jogs up the path in the opposite direction to you. The pockets on her shorts appear to be inside-out and are flapping up and down in a mildly distracting manner as she bobs along at her own pace.
> TALK TO WOMAN
Are you mad? Talking to a stranger? You are not only autistic, you are also British. Besides, she looks busy.
> NW
Not to artificially constrain your adventure, but for the purposes of this blog post's tortuously convoluted narrative I will remind you that this is the direction you just arrived from, and thus you probably want to go southeast.
> SE
Near The Hawthorns You're in a wooded area of the Common, close to a small building that proclaims itself the "Hawthorns Urban Wildlife Centre". The gate to the Centre is closed and locked. The pathway gradually bends around to the south, and proceeds in the other direction, towards the Flats, to the northwest.
> OPEN GATE
I mean, I did tell you it was locked, but you had to go and check for yourself, didn't you? The gate is locked. Now perhaps you might give your narrator a bit of respect.
> S
The Corner of the Common You've reached the corner of the Common. A gate kind-of sort-of blocks the path in such a way that vehicles wouldn't be able to drive in, but people can still get around. To the northwest is the Cemetery Road car park, and the pathway proceeds towards the Hawthorns Urban Wildlife Centre to the north.
The upsettingly toned man runs past again. You feel like he is accelerating. You begin to wonder if, were you to keep walking, he would eventually reach infinite velocity, then realise that this is probably a rather silly thing to wonder and go back to wishing he would put a shirt on his sweaty, rippling, muscly back.
> CURSE MAN
You mutter a curse under your breath. To your surprise, the man bursts into flames with a horrifying scream. A moment later, the screams have ceased, and there is nothing more than a pile of ash on the floor. That'll learn him.
> NW
Cemetery Road, Car Park
Your car is here.
Through your headphones, Black Sabbath is interrupted by the robotic voice of your watch indicating that you have successfully completed two kilometres in 29 minutes and 26 seconds.
Congratulations! You have completed A WALK ON THE COMMON. You probably shouldn't have murdered that man, but how were you to know that you were capable of inflicting truly horrific curses just with the power of your mind? No-one will ever believe it was you, anyway.
Probably.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.
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 always a thing worth patting yourself on the back for, and thus today I would like to do just that for myself.
I mentioned the other day that I had been going through the basics of DaVinci Resolve, largely out of necessity because my prior video editor of choice, Hitfilm Express, is no longer available — and, indeed, the company that made it no longer exists, it seems. I had been putting off learning DaVinci Resolve for the longest time because it's the sort of application that you open up and you can feel its UI laughing at you. "You'll never know what all these buttons are for," it says. "You may as well just close me right now and not even bother."
Well, today I decided that I was going to put my three chapters' worth of training to the test and edit myself a YouTube video. And, to my great pleasure, it was immediately just as straightforward as the last seven years I've spent using Hitfilm Express. Yes, there are a number of differences between the two applications — most notably that DaVinci Resolve is a considerably more complex, fully-featured program that can do other things besides editing video — but it seems that I have successfully ported over all the important knowledge from Hitfilm Express to DaVinci Resolve.
I haven't yet done everything in DaVinci Resolve that I used to do in Hitfilm Express — notably, I still need to learn how to do titles and keyframe-based animation and compositing — but taking on the relatively simple project that I did today has given me the confidence to explore the application further, either with or without the training manual by my side. After all, I learned Hitfilm without any real training material — most of the knowledge there I ported over from past experience with Final Cut Pro on Mac, which again, had its own way of doing certain things.
When tackling anything like this, it's taking that first step that is always the most difficult. In fact, I'd go so far as to say when doing pretty much anything, the first step is always the hardest — whether you're talking about working on an elaborate project, or simply motivating yourself to stand up and go and do something with your day.
I have proven myself victorious over several little things like that today — firstly, getting off the sofa and recording the voiceover for my video, then actually going through and editing the thing, and finally, troubleshooting a little issue I had with the export — and I am officially giving myself a pat on the back for my achievements. Now I can spend the remainder of the evening Doing Something Fun without any sort of guilt or feelings of obligation whatsoever.
Getting rid of those feelings of guilt and obligation completely are a whole other matter, of course, but one step at a time and all that. One step at a time.
Oh, and here's the vid, if you want to watch it:
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.
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 particularly special about the week ahead, either, just the weekend is generally a good time to mentally prepare yourself for actually having to do things for, like, your job and stuff.)
I'm unsure where this particular anxiety stems from, but it's not an altogether uncommon phenomenon. It seems it is most frequently associated with ADHD, which I have not been formally diagnosed with, but which from talking to people who do have it, I recognise a lot of the things they mention — much like I did with autism before I went and got myself diagnosed. I'm not in any great hurry to get myself diagnosed in that regard, though I suspect, as with the autism diagnosis, that having it confirmed (or otherwise) might help me to think about my own brain in a more helpful way.
But regardless! That doesn't fix the immediate issue, which is my brain is currently doing somersaults wondering what I should actually do today. And it's not as if I have a shortage of options. I could play some Final Fantasy XI, now I am into the Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion. I could play some Terranigma, which I started the other day and enjoyed a lot. I could play some Splatoon Raiders, which I am also having fun with. I could record a voiceover for my Illusion of Time video and then edit said video now that I have learned the basics of DaVinci Resolve. I could even record some voiceovers for some work videos and get those out of the way if I really wanted to.
Or I could do something completely different. I could actually leave the house for some reason, perhaps pay a visit to CEX in town and see if they have anything interesting. I could go for a walk on the common (although I feel like the exact time I'm typing this is probably not the best time to do that, given how hot and humid it appears to be outside, so I will probably save that for later). I could pull down a random game from the shelf and give that a go. I could do some creative writing. I could write about a game I've been playing recently. I could record some Let's Play-style videos (again, I think it might be a bit too hot to do that right now). I could learn what "colour grading" is. I could practice some Japanese.
This is the problem, y'see. The problem is not that I have nothing to do, it's that I have a lot of options for what I could do, and pretty much all of them would be enjoyable and/or fulfilling in some way. One might say that this means it doesn't really matter which one of them I pick, as I will be having an enjoyable and fulfilling experience regardless. But for some reason, when this sort of mental block strikes, it doesn't quite work like that; my brain starts to feel genuine anxiety over whether or not I am picking the "correct" or "best" option, whatever that means — and there really is no "correct" or "best" option here. There is nothing I have to do; there is nothing that will make my life significantly better or worse if I do or don't do it. So all I need to do is just… pick something.
My intent was to follow that paragraph with something along the lines of "So I'm off to go and… [x]". But as I went to type that, my brain started a tug-of-war process with itself, still worrying over whether or not I was making the right choice. So I'm going to set myself a firm but friendly ultimatum — without being aggressive or sergeant-majorish about it — and say that by the time I finish writing this paragraph, I will have made a decision of what to do for the immediate now, not necessarily the whole day, but for the period immediately following completing this paragraph. Whenever I finish this paragraph. I am absolutely, positively, definitely not stalling for time while I attempt to get my mind in order. Definitely not. Perish the thought! Who would do something like that, even? That's ridiculous. I can absolutely, definitely make a decision on what Nice Thing I would like to do today.
I'm going to go and play Terranigma for a bit. Then we'll see what happens from there.
There, see, that wasn't so hard, was it?
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.
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 — and, of course, there are times when software that you used to use just isn't available any more.
I knew that sooner or later I was going to have to confront the fact that Hitfilm Express, my video editor of choice for the last 7 years or so, no longer exists in any form, but I had been putting off learning the most commonly recommended replacement for free hobbyist video editing: DaVinci Resolve.
I've loaded up DaVinci Resolve before to have a look. I was immediately daunted by an incredibly complex-looking interface, closed it down and went back to Hitfilm Express. Now, however, I don't have that option, unless I want to spend time faffing around looking for a dodgy download of the old version of Hitfilm Express I was using, and spending even more time trying to track down my license key for it — a license key I can't just log in and retrieve, because although the software would still activate online with it last time I had to reinstall, the actual website for it is no longer in existence. Which is, y'know, nice.
Anyway, tonight I was at a bit of a loose end, so I decided I would bite the bullet, install DaVinci Resolve and start working through some initial tutorials. The people behind DaVinci Resolve are good enough to have a bunch of training materials on their website — including full written books (which you can either buy as a physical book or get a free PDF of) as well as the obligatory video tutorials. I work much better from a book than a video, so I am extremely grateful for them offering those free PDFs — though it's a little fiddly attempting to read it on the same screen I'm using DaVinci Resolve on, so I may try and upload it to my Kindle.
The Beginner's Guide to DaVinci Resolve that I've been following along today seems to be very good. It doesn't assume knowledge, but it also doesn't move at such a glacial pace that people like me, who have past experience with other video editing software, get bored and switch off. In a couple of hours this evening, I have probably built up enough basic knowledge of the software to be able to reasonably comfortably do most of the things I could confidently do in Hitfilm Express, with the exception of a few bits and bobs about keyframing, animations, titles and such.
I'm impressed with DaVinci Resolve thus far. Although its interface is maddeningly crammed — not at all uncommon in today's creative software, as anyone who has used a recent Adobe product will attest through gritted teeth — once you know what you're looking for, you can get things done very quickly in a variety of different ways: through menus, through drag-and-drop, and through keyboard shortcuts. I'm going to have to unlearn a few of the ways I did things in Hitfilm Express, to be sure, but since I was almost entirely self-taught on that software and doubtless only using a fraction of its capabilities, I don't think that's going to be too much of a problem.
I'm especially impressed by how easy it is to add things like transitions and basic motion graphics — it's so easy to do these things that it almost feels like cheating. It's also very flexible in how you can edit clips together — including replace, ripple, roll and slide edits — so I think it's going to be a lot of fun to get to grips with once I start using it for my own projects.
I'm going to keep working through the training material for the minute, though, as there are some things covered in there that I've never really learned — like colour grading, for example. I don't know how much detail a self-professed Beginner's Guide is going to go into in that regard — although there are further, more specialist books to work through after I've had my fill of this one — but it will be nice to have an understanding of something that, to date, has remained a bit of a mystery beyond "drag the sliders around a bit until you think it looks OK".
I have a few videos in the pipeline that I will need to edit soon — a bunch for work, and at least one personal project — so it will be interesting to put DaVinci Resolve to the full test by doing something other than a tutorial on it. But from my experiences thus far this evening, I think it's going to be less of an issue to make the switch to this program than I thought it was going to be — which is, frankly, a blessed relief.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.
