#oneaday Day 859: Running on empty

My brain feels empty. I think it's at least partly having been on my own for a while, having been ill, having slept for 12 hours last night and just generally… I don't know, feeling a bit eh.

I'm keeping busy each day at work, to be sure, so it's not as if I have nothing to do — and I have some truly excellent games on the go right now, too, so it's not as if I have nothing to entertain me in the evening. But for the last few days in particular, I've just sort of reached the end of the working day, slumped onto the sofa and… eh.

Of course, being aware of this happening is always the first step in doing something about it, so I'm telling myself here and now that once I finish writing this post, I am going to fire up Ace Combat 8 and continue playing it, because I've been having a great time with that game and I am keen to continue doing so. I also think I might book myself a ticket to go see the Street Fighter movie on Friday after work. I enjoyed the experience of going to see the Resident Evil movie, even if the movie itself was just sort of "okay", and the Street Fighter trailer made the movie look like a lot of fun.

My only slight hesitation is that I'm not super-attached to the Street Fighter franchise. I mean, like most nerds of my age, I had a copy of Street Fighter II on SNES and played it to death back then, but since that time I've not really spent a ton of time keeping up with the franchise. I've dipped in and out here and there — notably with IV and 6 — but something in my brain always tells me that out of all the fighting game series out there, Street Fighter is, somehow, the most "boring" of them.

I know this is absolute nonsense, of course. Street Fighter is full of larger-than-life characters, including numerous utterly ridiculous examples. It has just as much sex appeal as something like The King of Fighters (which I've become thoroughly interested in since we've done all the NEOGEO cartridges for Evercade) and as bewilderingly large a cast at this point. Plus I think, despite everything, and despite how I haven't really kept up with the series actively, it still has one of the most iconic casts of any fighting game. And it looks very much like the movie focuses mostly on the core Street Fighter II cast, with the addition of a few favourites from subsequent entries, like Cammy from Super Street Fighter II and Dan from Street Fighter Alpha.

So yeah. I will correct my former statement: after I'm done here, I will first of all book a ticket to go see the Street Fighter movie on Friday evening, including the Nice Seats that were so pleasant last time, and then I will fire up Ace Combat 8 and continue playing it.

See? Sometimes all you need to do to get yourself out of a funk is to confront that funk and then throw a bunch of Shit You Actually Want To Do at it. So that's what I'm bloody well going to go and do right now.


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.

#oneaday Day 832: Brain empty

I'm having one of those evenings where I don't really know what to write. So I tend to find in these situations the best thing to do is just open up an empty page and let the stream-of-consciousness flow. So that's exactly what I'm going to do.

As a reminder that I am not getting any younger, I have been dealing with some nasty back and knee pain ever since we got back from Center Parcs; as of this evening, I think it is subsiding a little, thankfully, but it's been painful to just stand up for the last couple of days, which has not been at all fun, and which has contributed somewhat to my general grumpiness, along with various other factors.

Still, the weekend is nearly here, and I intend to enjoy it. As I have alluded to previously, I intend to get some recording done for the first time in a while, rebooting my Atari A to Z series and bringing my YouTube channel somewhat "back to basics". The Atari stuff is something I care deeply about, and much of my channel is built on it; it makes sense to return to focusing on it somewhat.

I've already lined up the first few games that I want to cover. All of these are, as it happens, games that I've been meaning to give some attention to for a while, but which I've never got around to for one reason or another. If you're curious, since we're starting from "A" again, the first few will be Astro Chase, Batty Builders and Clowns and Balloons, all of which are games I am very fond of and have good memories of from back in the day. I think they'll make good, fun videos.

I haven't looked at ST stuff yet, but I want to get back to that alongside the 8-bit stuff, as the ST also has a great library of thoroughly interesting games — and its longstanding rival, the Amiga, tends to get all the attention from most retro critics and commentators these days. Just like with the Atari 8-bit stuff, it provides an opportunity for me to do something distinctive with my channel — and something which, in the past, has specifically drawn people to my channel.

So I'm looking forward to that. I'm not sure exactly how much I'll get recorded and edited over the weekend, but certainly the 8-bit games listed above are all fairly straightforward, arcade-style affairs, so should be easy enough to make a video of a reasonable length about. It will be good to get back into a rhythm with these; I've been feeling a bit like I've been somewhat creatively "adrift" so far as YouTube is concerned for a while, so renewing my original focus will hopefully be a solid move — for me, at least, regardless of what my audience ends up thinking.

I have wasted a lot of this evening staring at this blog, though, so I'm going to go and play something fun before I go to bed, now. And would you look at that? I managed to get some words out of my head and onto the page. Amazing what your brain can do when you just wind it up and let it go, isn't 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.