#oneaday Day 167: What happened to plain ol' fantasy?

This is a discussion I've had a few times on Discord of late, but I don't think I've mentioned it here. So, being in need of something to write for today, I thought I'd ponder it here.

I grew up being rather fond of fantasy — you know, swords, magic, elves, goblins, that sort of thing. I attribute this primarily to my brother's girlfriend of his teenage years introducing me to HeroQuest and the Elric of Melnibone role-playing game; I never played the latter but I did play a fair few sessions of the former, and even managed to convince my parents to get me Advanced Heroquest by Games Workshop for one birthday, which I think has successfully hit the table maybe two or three times in my entire life. (Lucky it has solid solo rules!)

Similarly, one (well, two, technically, I guess) of my favourite book series growing up was David Eddings' Belgariad/Malloreon cycle, which chronicles the rise of young farm boy Garion into a god-slaying hero and powerful sorcerer. Also of note was Douglas Hill's Blade of the Poisoner and its sequel Master of Fiends, both of which were really for kids, but which I enjoyed and re-read numerous times in my youth.

What do all the above have in common? They're all simple, straightforward, old-fashioned fantasy. I add those qualifiers because I feel we don't get a lot of simple, straightforward, old-fashioned fantasy any more. We get a shitload of "dark fantasy", sure, and we also get a lot of "ironic parody fantasy". But just straightforward, simple fantasy? That feels like a dying breed.

To clarify what I mean by these terms: by "dark fantasy" I mean a world where everyone is either miserable or fucking (often simultaneously), the streets are made of mud and the dwarves say "fuck" a lot. By "ironic parody fantasy" I mean "teeheehee, the heroes of this fantasy world know what a 'level' is and talk like they're in a Marvel movie!".

Both of these have their appeal — they must do, otherwise there wouldn't be so fucking many of both of them — but I feel we've reached a point where "subverting the expectations of the fantasy genre" is now more of a cliché than… the fantasy genre itself. I hunger for a good old-fashioned tale of swords and sorcery where no-one says "well, that happened" or "fuck", and which culminates in the plucky young hero, who came from humble beginnings, punching out some sort of god-like entity.

It doesn't even feel like we get this in video games much any more. Final Fantasy has very much gone down the "dark fantasy" route in more recent installments and I think that has been a positive move for the series — Final Fantasy XVI and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin are particular highlights from recent memory — and a lot of anime-style RPGs play up the comedic angle somewhat. There's nothing wrong with either of these things — I enjoy both when I'm in the mood for them — but sometimes you just want something a bit more… straightforward, I guess?

I'm intrigued to try out Metaphor: ReFantazio at some indefinite point in the future, though I suspect that veers towards "dark fantasy", and I have several dungeon crawlers waiting in the wings that might fit the bill.

I'm not mad about this or anything — trends and tastes change, after all — but I just think it might be nice if we could see a bit more in the way of old-school barbarians-in-loincloths-and-wizards-with-beards fantasy. It was a defining influence on me growing up, and it would be nice to revisit that.

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.

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#oneaday Day 165: A first look at Ludwig

Like many of us, I have become increasingly disillusioned with the role of police in today's society. I'm not an "ACAB" (look it up… actually, don't) type, but there have been too many instances in my personal experience of a clear crime being reported to the cops and them basically going ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ before spectacularly failing to do anything whatsoever. Despite this, I love a good detective drama, police procedural, anything like that. And so it was with some curiosity that I decided to start watching Ludwig from the BBC, a David Mitchell-fronted detective drama with a bit of a twist.

In Ludwig, Mitchell's character John Taylor is a renowned puzzle author who goes by the name "Ludwig", a nom de plume he adopted when first developing puzzles as a child while listening to Beethoven symphonies on vinyl records.

As the series opens, he is contacted by his identical twin brother's wife Lucy, who has booked a taxi for him to take the 150-mile drive to come and see her, but refuses to tell him anything. John, we quickly learn, is not a sociable type, and dislikes leaving the house at the best of times; Lucy, having known him (and his brother) since childhood, knows very well that presenting him with incomplete information will drive him nuts enough to actually leave his house and discover what mystery awaits his solution.

Turns out that Lucy's husband, John's brother James, has gone missing. He left behind a curious note basically telling his family to flee as quickly as possible; Lucy, being a headstrong type, refuses to do this and instead recruits John to pose as James — they are identical twins, remember — in an attempt to discover the truth of what happened to him. The only slight snag in this? James was a detective working at the local constabulary, meaning John must sneak into an environment he has no professional knowledge of and attempt to find some information from under the noses of people that, presumably, James knows quite well.

Matters are further complicated where, upon John's arrival at the police station, he is almost immediately dragged off to go and look at a crime scene. Caught in a situation where he is simply not able to refuse his partner, he ends up attending the scene of a murder and is completely out of his depth. After briefly fleeing the scene on the pretence of "getting some air", he realises that the case is nothing but a logic puzzle; putting on his "puzzling" hat, he then proceeds to solve it in the same manner he would solve one of those old logic puzzles from the books with the guy in his pyjamas on the front.

His unorthodox methods net him a suspect and a confession, though his colleagues and superiors note that had the confession not been forthcoming, the complete lack of evidence would have made the case impossible to prosecute.

What then follows is John continuing to pose as his brother, working on several cases while attempting to ascertain the truth of what happened to his brother. It gradually becomes apparent that his brother left a trail of puzzle-like "breadcrumbs" to follow, leading John to believe that his disappearance was not accidental or circumstantial; it was planned out in advance. And cracking a cipher James left behind in his notebooks is going to be key to getting to the bottom of the case.

So far I've watched two episodes of the series with Andie and we've both enjoyed it a lot. Mitchell is, of course, playing a variation on the bumbling, socially awkward character he always plays, but it works well in the context. The positioning of an obviously autistic character in a professional role he is absolutely not comfortable with (or trained for) is, at times, borderline farcical, but suspension of disbelief allows you to simply enjoy the spectacle of what unfolds. They mysteries presented are intriguing and keep you guessing, and John's tendency to follow through on his "hunches" keeps things interesting and pacy.

The music throughout each episode is absolutely excellent, too; perhaps predictably for a show called Ludwig, it's all based on themes by Beethoven. Rather than just using the themes straight, however, they are all interesting rearrangements, with variations on Für Elise making up the majority of the soundtrack and the show's main theme.

Genre critics might argue that each individual episode maybe wraps itself up a little too neat and tidily to be truly plausible — in both the episodes so far, the case being solved was dependent on one of the suspects "cracking" under the pressure of John's logical deductions — but honestly? I don't care. For the most part, I don't engage with any form of fiction, regardless of medium, to ponder its realism; I engage with it to be entertained and to get to know interesting characters. And Ludwig certainly provides both in spades. It's good, old-fashioned, entertaining television that strikes an excellent balance between drama and moments of levity, as one has surely come to expect from anything with Mitchell involved at this point.

It's a short series — just six hour-long episodes — so I'm looking forward to seeing where things go. I'm definitely glad I started watching it, and if you enjoy a good mystery, I'd recommend you give it a look, too.

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#oneaday Day 164: Random access memories

It's peculiar exactly what memories your brain — or, well, more accurately, my brain — chooses to hold onto. One would think that your most "sticky" memories would be those that were defining influences on you; those which played a key role in shaping you into the person you are today. But I find that very difficult to believe when I contemplate some of my most vivid memories from years gone by.

For example, I vividly remember one lunchtime at primary school, my friend Matthew and I went to the rear of the school fields and did shoulderstands because we thought it would make us more likely to fart. I will freely admit that as a 43 year old man I still find farting far more amusing than I probably should, but I'm not sure that specific memory played a particularly developmental role in appreciating toilet humour. I haven't done a shoulderstand for probably more than 30 years and I doubt I could right now.

I have several other primary school memories, and unfortunately not all of them are particularly positive ones.

I remember playing one lunchtime with a girl I was friends with; we were doing some sort of "pretend play" involving swordfighting using sticks, and my mother happened to walk by the back of the field during lunchtime (it was a public right of way) and saw this play, misinterpreting it as me hitting the girl in question with a stick. I got in trouble for that, despite me knowing very well that I was perfectly innocent.

I remember one P.E. lesson at primary school — very early, infants level, class 1 or 2 — where I really needed to go to the toilet, but I wasn't allowed, and I ended up pissing myself in the playground. Rather than being embarrassed, I found it oddly fascinating how the piss would actually come out through my shorts.

Another P.E. lesson from the same "infants" period, so year 1 or 2, I somehow managed to shit myself without realising it. I didn't notice until I got home and my mother asked why there was a brown stain on my arse. Genuinely not knowing that I'd actually shat myself, I suggested that I must have fallen in some mud at some point. The contents of my pants a little later revealed this to not be the case, though to my mother's eternal credit, she simply made a comment along the lines of "it must have been some very strong mud to go all the way through your pants". To this day, I genuinely don't know how I shat myself without realising it.

Another time at school, again in the infants period, I felt sick during storytime, and yakked all over the floor. Once again, I found myself oddly contemplative about the experience rather than particularly embarrassed.

None of these experiences are what I'd necessarily call "formative". I mean, yes, I have low self-esteem and I'm sure none of those particular events helped in the development of that particular personality trait, but I don't think any of them were the root cause of it. Why do I hold on to those memories? They're not particularly "precious" or anything, though at a pinch I might suggest that I hold onto them because recounting them as an adult is at least slightly amusing.

There are others from later years, too. I've recounted the tale of "not remembering how to make friends" on my first day at secondary school numerous times.

Then there was the time I overheard someone I thought was my friend taking the piss out of me while sitting behind me in the county concert band, and when I jokingly confronted them about it, not wanting to believe that they'd actually been being mean, and them not exactly denying it.

There was the one time I did step out of my comfort zone and introduced myself to someone at university.

The time I sat, all dressed up and ready to go out, brooding in the window of my hall of residence kitchen, hoping someone would find me and I could unleash the hormonal sadness I was feeling because the girl I liked had got with a guy from downstairs.

That one Halloween I felt an incredible sense of self-confidence and liberation after completely hiding my entire body and face. Another Halloween where I dressed up as a monk and ended up not being entirely sure if I'd scored with a girl or not, since she had taken me back to her house, let me in and given me her phone number, then just sort of vanished.

That one evening in grotty student nightclub Kaos where a random bloke asked me if I'd ever done ecstasy, then almost immediately afterwards I scored with a veritable Amazon of a woman (my friend Owen called her "Xena", but her actual name was Beki) and the same bloke shook me by the hand, giving me a knowing wink and a smile, saying "yeah, mate, you'd definitely enjoy ecstasy". (I've never done ecstasy.)

I could go on. There are myriad little snippets of my life that are lodged away in my long-term storage that I don't really know why. I feel like these are the things that will flash before my eyes before I die, and I doubt I'll be any clearer on the reason why they're there at that point, either. Hopefully I won't have to think about that for a while, yet.

I don't really have a conclusion to these musings. I just think it's interesting all the useless memories our brains seem to hold on to. If there is a reason for it, I don't know what it is. Perhaps all those memories did shape me in some way and helped turn me into the gibbering wreck of a human being I am today. In which case… aren't I better off forgetting all of them?

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#oneaday Day 160: The death of Twitter

It seems like Twitter's day in the sun is finally coming to an end. With the deadline looming for the site to start scraping everyone's posts to train its AI models, Elon being an absolute fucking maniac (not in a fun way) and Trump being in office, a lot of people — including some well-established figures and brands — have been jumping ship and turning to Bluesky. Hell, even the Clifton Suspension Bridge has decided to ditch Twitter. And no, I'm not making that up.

I haven't been following the progress of all the "Twitter alternatives" that sprang up a while back too closely, but it seems like a lot of people are favouring Bluesky, which I must confess is one that I've been on for a little while now. Threads sounds like an absolute dead end of a social network — tech commentator Ed Zitron describes it as "Twitter made of Instagram comments" — and the less said about shit like Gab, Truth Social and Parler (does that one even still exist?) the better.

I'm interested to see where things will go. The vibe on Bluesky right now is very positive; many folks quite rightly describe it as feeling like Twitter from 10+ years ago, and they're absolutely right in terms of atmosphere. The users have collectively decided to not allow it to fall into negativity and ragebait like Twitter has become in recent years, and there is a shared understanding that "block early and block often" is the best approach to anyone being a dickhead.

This is helped enormously by Bluesky's "nuclear block" function, which means that if someone quote-replies a post then blocks the person they quoted, the quote will appear as blocked for everyone. That helps prevent dogpiling and discourages people from going around looking for trouble. Couple this with the "detach quote" function, where if you do find yourself quote-replied and you're getting grief as a result, you can simply unclip your post from the quote and be left the fuck alone. Much better than Twitter's woefully ineffective mute and block functions — oh yeah, Twitter made block work so that anyone you blocked can still see your posts, which is… great.

At this point, anyone still on Twitter is in absolute denial. The place is infested with bots, scammers, right-wing fucknuts and Elon sycophants who want nothing more than just a crumb of billionaire dick to suck. And with the impending "AI" shit looming, I'm not surprised people have finally had enough. I'm certainly never going back, and I think my boss and I need to have a serious conversation about whether we start focusing our professional social media efforts on Bluesky instead of Twitter. There are a lot of cool retro game peeps over there, and I think Evercade would fit in well there.

Of course, there's always the thing to ponder: do people really want "brands" on a social media site? And I guess it depends what they're doing. If all they're doing is engagement bait crap, probably not. But this might be a fun opportunity to experiment with doing something a bit different, in a place with an altogether different vibe.

Something to consider next week, certainly — my boss is off this week, otherwise I'd have a chat with him about it tomorrow. In the meantime, Bluesky seems to be a pleasant enough place to hang out from a personal perspective, and a fair few people I know have showed up there. It's social media how it used to be before all those sites made us want to kill ourselves every day, and I'm sure that won't last forever. But while it does, we may as well enjoy it.

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#oneaday Day 159: To upgrade... or downgrade?

I'm due an upgrade on my phone, and for the first time I'm holding off because I'm not sure I want one. All the new phones are rammed with AI bullshit and I don't want to encourage that crap in any way whatsoever, so the prospect of getting one makes me a tad uneasy.

The other thing that is causing me to hold off is a growing desire to break my attachment to smartphones. I don't like being dependent on a smartphone. I don't like having that stupid black rectangle follow me everywhere I go. I don't like feeling like I compulsively "have" to fiddle with it if I don't have anything to say or anything to do.

There are a few things stopping me from immediately ditching my smartphone and "downgrading" to a modern feature phone. I thought I'd ponder each of them in turn. I probably won't come to a conclusion, but it might help me sort some things out in my mind. And maybe it'll be helpful for you, too, I don't know.

I don't use WhatsApp as much as a lot of people, but I do have a few ongoing chats that are my sole means of connection with friends I haven't seen for a while. On top of that, the people from my job use WhatsApp for communication outside of work — for example, when we're having a group social trip together.

Giving up WhatsApp would mean giving up a connection to people I don't want to "disconnect" from entirely, and would also make life inconvenient for my work colleagues. That last one I'm not super concerned about, but I do like my job and my colleagues, so I don't really want to be a pain.

Beyond those maybe two group chats (both of which have declined in activity anyway) and my work colleagues, I'm not super attached to WhatsApp. I could probably live without it.

The camera

Phone cameras these days are pretty excellent. I shoot anything that isn't direct capture from gaming hardware on my phone. Upgrading my phone would mean I can get an even better camera.

However, two things: 1) I can still use the camera on my existing phone even if it doesn't have a SIM card in it (I think, anyway). And 2) I could just, y'know, buy a nice camera.

So while it's certainly convenient to be able to snap photos and take video with a device that is with me anyway, it's probably not actually a dealbreaker in this situation.

Music and podcasts

I am, I'm afraid, "part of the problem" with music, though not out of any belief that streaming is "better" than having your own collection of tunes. It's just a lot more convenient to be able to stream music (I use YouTube Music, because I have YouTube Premium and might as well use the additional benefit) and podcasts from, again, a device I have with me anyway. Plus my phone's Bluetooth connects to my car stereo with no difficulty, making it easy to queue up entertainment for long journeys, such as my monthly drive to the office.

I haven't looked at standalone MP3 (or equivalent) players for probably 20+ years at this point. I'm sure they exist. In fact, hold on.

It seems I can get a cheap Chinese shitbox for £20-£30, or I can spend three thousand pounds on a gold Sony thing (just £659.80 a month!) if I'm feeling particularly insane. What the actual fuck.

Uh… anyway. MP3 players do indeed still exist, and many of them have Bluetooth. Some of them even have WiFi, and some of them take the iPod touch approach where they're basically a phone without the "phone" bit. I will steer clear of those, at least, because that would just be replacing one problem with the same problem, but mildly less convenient.

So an MP3 player with a decent capacity is not expensive. That would require me to organise my MP3 library, though, which has been in a right state since Google Music (RIP) invited me to upload it all "to access anywhere", then promptly closed down and was replaced with the considerably inferior YouTube Music… and when I downloaded it all again the organisation was all fucked.

It wouldn't be the end of the world to have to do that, but I'd rather not have to. So I think we can consider the music player side of things covered.

Navigation

In-car navigation is easily solved: buy a satnav. But I also use Google Maps when I'm on foot to see what's nearby and figure out how to get to places. That is a problem that is a little trickier to solve. GPS devices for on-foot navigation certainly exist, but they're primarily geared towards hiking and cost more than I'd be willing to spend on something that I'd only use occasionally, particularly if I had already bought a satnav for the car.

I can't see an easy solution to this one. I believe some feature phones are able to access a Web-based form of Google Maps, but I don't know how useful or effective that is.

I mean, I guess I could kick it really old school and just buy an A to Z of wherever I happened to be going. I can't check what time Sainsbury's closes with one of those, though, unless they've considerably enhanced the level of detail they go into since I last used one.

Conclusion?

I could probably find solutions to all of the above problems, except WhatsApp. I believe there are some feature phones that are capable of using a text-only version of WhatsApp, but from a cursory glance around earlier today it seems a lot of them don't work in the UK for some reason.

I will continue to mull it over. The prospect of truly breaking free from the smartphone becomes increasingly appealing day by day… I'm just not quite sure I'm truly ready to pull the plug. My main concern is suddenly running into a use case that I haven't thought of while farting this blog post out of an evening, and then being kind of fucked when I'm stuck with a modern-day Nokia and no means of fulfilling the function I suddenly, urgently require.

But really, what might that even be? It can't be that important, or I would have thought of it by now, surely.

Anyway, I haven't reached a definitive conclusion. But I have definitely convinced myself that there are at least some of the features I use on my smartphone that I absolutely can live without. Is that enough, though?

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#oneaday Day 158: Obligations from 30+ years ago

I have a recurring dream. I am told it is quite a common one — or variations on it are, anyway — but I'm going to talk about it regardless, because I've been sitting staring at a blank page for half an hour and haven't been able to think of anything else to write today. So indulge me, if you will.

In my recurring dream, I am back at my secondary school. I am hanging out with my friends from that time, which is 30+ years ago. And I am not attending one of the music group rehearsals that I'm supposed to be participating in after school. I am, apparently, deliberately not attending it, and I am standing in a place with my friends that is within line of sight of the music block. My music teacher Mr. Murrall is standing outside the music block with his arms folded, just staring at me with a disapproving expression on his face. I feel bad. I feel guilty. And yet I do not — cannot — walk over there, apologise for whatever reason I have not showed up to rehearsals, and get back involved.

This dream is sometimes complemented or accompanied by a scenario in which I am preparing to go on stage, either to perform a piece of music or act, and I absolutely have not practiced the thing I am supposed to be performing. If I'm supposed to be acting, I don't even know my lines a little bit. If I'm supposed to be performing, I don't really know the piece of music and, usually, my instrument is not in any condition to be played. For some reason, the musical variation of this dream always involves the clarinet, which was always my "second instrument", and the problem is usually that the only reeds I have for it are in an absolutely awful state that would make playing near-impossible.

These sorts of dreams are clearly anxiety-related. I suspect they may also stem from a sense of mild guilt that I don't do as much music in my free time as I used to — though I have been a bit better since we got the new piano, and my Mum has been kind enough to purchase me a frankly absurdly expensive new stool as an early Christmas present, so that will make me even more likely to make time to play. I haven't touched the clarinet or saxophone for years, however; since both are instruments best played in a group situation and I have no suitable group to be part of, I haven't used either of them for a long time.

Times and lives change, of course, but music has always been an important part of my life, even when it comes to my other interests. One of my favourite things about video games, for example, is listening to their music and coming to understand all manner of different styles — and, if I'm lucky, tracking down some piano arrangements to be able to pay homage to my favourite tracks in my own way.

Once that nice piano stool arrives (which may be as soon as tomorrow), I wonder if I will be free of those dreams? I doubt it, I suspect, as dreams are rarely so literal; I suspect these particular scenarios come from a more general sense of anxiety than something specific. But at least I can say to myself that I'm making an effort to make the time for something that has always been — and always will be — important to me.

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#oneaday Day 155: Four things you probably shouldn't put on a sandwich (but you actually should at least once)

The British tendency to make crap food is well-documented. But a lot of it comes from an honest place: the desire to eat something which is both delicious and absolutely terrible for you. Therefore, today I present you with an exclusive lineup of four sandwich recipes that you should probably try late at night without telling anyone, lest they think less of you for even contemplating trying one of these.

Me, meanwhile, my self-esteem can't really get much lower, so I don't mind admitting that I have tried and loved all of these at various points in time. So take it from me, an absolute complete and utter loser, that these are just the thing for when you fancy a cheeky supper but you 1) don't want to order from the kebab shop for the fifth time that week and 2) don't have very much in the cupboards.

The sauce sandwich

This tangy little number is just the thing for when you want a little bit of a kick — or a lot, if you elect to use some form of hot or chilli sauce. My personal preference is for HP sauce, as its somewhat "sweet and sour" nature complements the savoury nature of the buttered bread nicely, but you can use any condiment sauce you happen to have knocking around in your cupboard. I do not recommend attempting this with non-condiment sauces such as fish sauce.

Ingredients:
White bread (2 slices)
Butter or similar spread
Bottle of sauce

Method:
1. Arrange two slices of bread on a plate side by side.

2. Butter both slices of bread with the spread of your choice.

3. Apply a liberal helping of the sauce of your choice. The pattern in which you apply the sauce is up to you, but I personally favour a sort of spiral pattern.

4. (Optional) Spread the sauce across the bread with a knife for even coverage.

5. Close the sandwich and enjoy.

The crisp sandwich

This delightful recipe is all about texture and juxtaposition. The softness of the bread and the smoothness of the spread gives way to the jagged, brittle crisps contained within — and the same happens with the flavour. The simple, uncomplicated, savoury bread opens each bite, which then concludes with an explosion of taste from the crisps. For the best possible crisp sandwiches, use that kind of crisps that clearly has too much flavouring powder on them; the kind that makes your tongue numb. I recommend Seabrook's prawn cocktail flavour.

Ingredients:
White bread (2 slices)
Butter or similar spread
Bag of crisps

Method:
1. Arrange two slices of bread on a plate side by side.

2. Butter both slices of bread with the spread of your choice.

3. Empty the entire bag of crisps onto one of the slices of bread. Make sure you don't lose any.

4. Close the sandwich and apply pressure to crush the crisps slightly. Enjoy!

The pie sandwich

This truly indulgent feast is ideal for when you just can't get enough carbs. The exact nature of the pie isn't super-important, though something like a meat pie, Ginsters steak bake or something along those lines tends to work the best. The important thing is that you are damn well putting an entire pie in a sandwich, and you are going to love it.

Ingredients:
White bread (2 slices)
Butter or similar spread
A pie

Method:
1. Arrange two slices of bread on a plate side by side.

2. Butter both slices of bread with the spread of your choice.

3. (Optional) Warm the pie according to its instructions, ideally in the oven, but the microwave will suffice if you can't wait.

4. Lay the pie on one of the slices of bread.

5. Close the sandwich. If the pie is tall, apply pressure to flatten it down to better fit in the sandwich. A steak bake is already the ideal size and shape for a sandwich.

6. Enjoy. If you warmed the pie, be careful, as the filling will be hot!

The sugar sandwich

Time for dessert with this sweet treat! You don't have to wait until after your main meal to enjoy this one, as it makes an excellent snack at any time of day, particularly 1am, and especially after you've been drinking.

Ingredients:
White bread (2 slices)
Butter or similar spread
Sugar to taste (golden or brown sugar is best)

Method:
1. Arrange two slices of bread side by side on a plate.

2. Butter both slices of bread with the spread of your choice.

3. Apply sugar liberally across one of the slices. Then add a bit more just for good measure.

4. Close the sandwich and enjoy your sweet treat.

Disclaimer

If you die or suffer any sort of mishap as a result of consuming any one of these sandwiches, it absolutely wasn't my fault. I also take no responsibility for anyone judging you if they happen to walk in on you making or consuming one of these. If you have even contemplated making any of these, you already know what you're getting yourself into, so you can get yourself out of it, too.

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#oneaday Day 154: If you can't create without AI, you shouldn't be creating

YouTube recommended me a video earlier. I'm not going to share it because it's shit. But I will tell you about it. It was a video supposedly "reimagining" the video game series Streets of Rage as a "movie". If you've spent any time on social media in the last year or so, you already know what's coming: yes, it's entirely AI-generated drivel, and the complete content of the "movie" consists of nothing but people staring moodily at the camera while there's a slight pan around them, and people walking towards the camera in slow motion.

The video has a quarter of a million views, and a comments section full of people gushing effusive praise over the "creator". This is not the first video that this channel has put out like this; to date, over the last year they have spaffed out 215 videos that are all like this. And not only that, their About section on their channel is very transparently written by ChatGPT.

I hope you don't think it controversial of me to say that if you can't create without using AI, you shouldn't be creating at all. I will, under extreme duress, concede that there are certain uses of AI tools which might be useful as part of the creative process. AI music tools, for example, can be quite effective if you feed them some lyrics you've written yourself. (Getting AI to write lyrics results in extreme garbage.)

But if all you do is put shit into an AI video generator and then spaff it out on YouTube — and you can't even be arsed to write your own bio — you are not a creative person.

The standard argument that insufferable AI types like to trot out at this point is that generative AI "democratises" creativity by allowing anyone to "create". Except it doesn't, because the output is not your own work; you haven't created anything. The result is a pile of plagiarised crap that is immediately identifiable as the product of generative AI.

And anyway, creativity is already democratised. There is tons of free software out there that anyone can download and use, for computers, phones and tablets. YouTube is full of video tutorials on how to get started, improve your techniques and take on some advanced challenges. There are several decades' worth of text tutorials archived across various websites from over the years.

There is no excuse for taking the lazy option and just feeding a prompt into the lake-boiling plagiarism machine. If you want to be creative, be creative. But know that it takes work. And that work is worthwhile, because people will be able to tell when you have put that work in. Those who follow you will see your work improve, adapt and change over time. You'll find your own unique "voice". And there really is nothing quite like being able to express yourself in your own distinctive way; being able to sit back and look at something you made and think, with a slight smile on your lips, "I made that".

With generative AI, there is none of that. You get derivative, immediately identifiable slop that all looks the same and all contains the same basic errors. You never have the experience of refining and improving your own work, because you haven't done any work. You never find your own unique voice, because you are beholden to the algorithms and training data that the LLM you're using has stolen from all over the Internet. And you never, really, truly, express yourself.

In the meantime, until you come to the realisation that all you're doing is spaffing out hollow, soulless pieces of crap that look like creative works but are actually anything but, you are poisoning the entire Internet with your garbage… and, judging by the comments section on the video in question, poisoning the minds of people who aren't familiar with just how fucking easy it is to tell the magic art-stealing machine to steal some art to your specifications.

The planet is doomed. And no-one gives a shit. Sleep well!

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#oneaday Day 152: Two things

Two things.

1. America, you fucked it up. After I specifically told you not to.

2. I did the thing. I hope reading it brings you some distraction.

I'm not sure what else there is to say, really, aside from that I really feel for my poor pals in the States right now. Knowing that a vile shitstain of a human being is going to be sitting in the big chair for one of the most powerful nations on Earth doesn't feel good from here, let alone what it must feel like for actual residents of that country.

And it's for the second time. It wasn't a fluke accident, this has happened for a second time.

I think it's long past time that the supposedly "civilised" world admits that we have a problem. A big one.

We're regressing. You and I may not be, but collectively, as a society, we are regressing. After a lot of good work to improve tolerance and inclusion for those who aren't straight cis white men, it feels like in the last few years we've taken more steps backward than we have done forwards. And Trump's election to the White House would just seem to confirm that.

Because, like it or not, the fact he achieved this means that there is a significant portion of people who think that he "Has a Point" about at least some of the vile, odious rhetoric he has been spouting in the run-up to this election. It's almost certainly the same people who think that projects having women or people who aren't white in a leading role is a sign of "wokeness".

Those people, for whatever reason, are furious about the world. And they see intolerance, abusiveness and voting for someone as transparently awful as Trump as a means of assuaging that anger. They hope he deports "all the immigrants". They hope he takes rights away from people who have had to fight to be recognised. They hope he sends things spiralling backwards into attitudes even the mid-20th century would be ashamed to express.

And, honestly, sitting here observing from a distance, it's frightening. It's horrible to know we live in a world where such intolerance still exists; the appalling treatment of minority groups is supposed to be something we read about in history books, then think all smugly about how much better we are than "back then".

But we're not. We may not be putting black people on their own buses or denying women the vote, but the intolerance the supposedly "civilised" world is exhibiting right now — and the fact it goes unchallenged — is still painful to witness, and I'm not the one experiencing that intolerance first-hand. It's not enough to "be a good person", to "be the change you want to see in the world", because no-one gives a shit.

What is it that one can do, though? It's honestly hard to say at this point. But the world we live in today is a frightening one. And I'm afraid I have few words of comfort to share for those who are most likely to end up suffering because of all this.

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#oneaday Day 150: Don't fuck it up

Dear America,

We, the Rest of the World, are given to understand that you are holding an election for your next president tomorrow. To all of us, looking from the outside, the choice appears to be between a bright orange cunt who has done more than enough things to be locked up in prison for a very long time, and a likable woman who, along with her running mate, has not only done a surprising amount to reach out to "the young", typically some of the most apathetic when it comes to politics, but has also relentlessly — and completely correctly — highlighted her opponent's shortcomings.

This would, to us, appear to be an easy choice. We know that both candidates have things that you're not altogether happy about for one reason or another. We know that for certain groups of you living in the States, either choice is a difficult or uncomfortable one. But come on now. Seriously. If you vote for the orange cunt, you are an idiot. There is no other way to put it. You are a fucking idiot.

I'm not going to go off on one like some people do online and start talking about "Nazis" and "fascism", but the orange cunt is a cunt. The orange cunt is a criminal. The orange cunt has already proven that he makes a hash of things if given even the slightest hint of power, so how it even got to a situation where the choice is between the orange cunt and literally anyone else is completely beyond the ken of those of us observing from the outside. This race should not be happening. The orange cunt should not even be in consideration for the big chair in one of the most powerful nations on the planet.

And yet, somehow, he is. Which is what worries me. Because if the orange cunt can get into a position where he's an election away from sitting in that big chair — for the second time, let's not forget — it concerns me that he might actually win. And, besides that making your entire democratic process a laughingstock — not that ours is much better, mind — it looks like that is going to be outright dangerous for a lot of people.

Of course, it's entirely possible that the orange cunt losing will be dangerous, too. We've seen on multiple occasions that he doesn't take losing very well at all. We're just all consoling ourselves with the fact that if he does lose, there is hopefully enough out there now to lock him away where he can do no further harm. Although we very much doubt that this will actually happen. He's rich, you see, and rich people don't go to jail. "If the penalty for a crime is a fine, that law only exists for the lower classes," and all that.

So come on, America. There is very obviously only one sensible choice here, but we, collectively, don't quite have 100% faith that you'll make that sensible choice as a nation. You have voted the orange cunt into office once before, after all.

We'd very much like to be wrong. And so, in the words of Ru Paul: good luck, and don't fuck it up.

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