It was the Blurst of Times

There's something that someone said that I've been thinking about a lot lately - that being, negative people in your life will at best be dead weight and at worst drag you down with them. I've been told that I am a very negative person, but with what's been going on in modern history lately it feels really hard not to be.

With all the news coming out about Epstein, the Diddy's sentence (or lack thereof), The Franklin Conspiracy, The Finders and John Wayne Gacey's connections I'm starting to believe the satanic panic may have had some merit to it.

It feels almost as though I've been dropped off after the end of a piece of fiction in which the bad guys won.

Gamer (Derogatory)

I've been getting back into playing MTG Commander lately while I've had time off work and need my tattoos to heal (can't gym). It's been a few months since I played, but I used to go like once a week. I don't know if I've just had bad luck the last 2 times I've gone, but good lord am I sick of babysitting other grown men. I feel like the 3 main groups of people that play are t-girls in their late teens to early 20's, regular ass 30-something year old guys with functioning adult lives, and then just weird dudes. Weird fucking dudes who get upset and cry and cheat and are just really unpleasant to be around. I played last week with a pretty knowledgeable guy who was admittedly super chill to begin with. Seemed like a normal ass dude, well-groomed, gold chain very friendly and helping me along and then we got to the second game and he just gave up halfway through with no explanation. He got like pretty bummed out that we discussed he may be a threat and shut down a little bit and then just scooped (lol???). The next and last game we played someone on the table played Hullbreaker Horror (picture below)
to which he complained nonstop saying it was miserable and ruined the game and kept complaining, got up, left, bought some cards, came back and sighed and huffed and carried on. This guy had like... MANY decks and had evidently spent thousands of dollars on MTG commander and decided to just sit out and whinge instead of playing the game??? like what lol ok

I went and played last night too. For the record, I feel like maybe I don't fit in with most of the players - not to toot my own horn but I'm covered in somewhat intimidating tattoos, keep wardrobe of clothes that are in style (and imo very fucking sick. I get compliments all the time from other guys I don't want to hear it lol) and am conventionally pretty handsome. I've had instances where I've gone to game stores, waiting for 30min, had people shoot me sheepish looks and sit somewhere else (to be fair I was dressed pretty adlay so maybe that's on me). Anywayyyy I was sitting by myself at a table patiently waiting for anyone to join. A really nervous looking guy was pacing up and down the store, then stopped at my table and asked if he could join, I said sure, whatever. Tried to make conversation and he was really awkward and wasn't really having it - uncomfortable but whatever idc. The guy reached into his backpack and pulled out a big ass sandwich bag with loose cards in it and I immediately knew who we were dealing with. Took maybe like 10min to find another 2 players and he spent the whole time just shuffling his deck and re-shuffling, drawing 7 cards being like "whoops I guess I'm bad at shuffling - nothing again I'll try again" (obviously cheating and doing unlimited mulligans but I honestly don't care and don't want to deal with it). Anyway we ended up playing like 3 games and he spent all 3 being just really fucking annoying. Trying to cheat constantly, lying about his cards, just being really loud, complaining when anything happened to his board and complaining he didn't get to play. We had a few conversations over the course of the games and this chode

a) built his deck without knowing how to play or build a commander deck - "oh i just put anything in there to get to 100 cards idk"

b) was cheating trying to make up for it and getting mad at us it didn't work - "like no shit it doesn't work you moron"

This really sweet guy on the table tried to help him with his deck and give advice on how to fix it i.e - he was playing dragons (asshole move) so GO AND BUY SOME FUCKING 50c COMMON DRAGONS. And he just got really shitty and snide with everyone and shut them down for trying to help.

Just blegh. I guess I should be thankful I'm one of the functioning adults in this hobby but it really makes me not want to play sometimes. I also don't know how I'm going to spin it to my future GF/Wife that I play MTG when I'm meeting new people to date... And how to bring up that some cards I really want/need for my Endless Punishment deck are like $100

Big Gamer Moment

Omg for the third time this year I have been so so sick. I had atypical pnumonia which my DR said is the one that "the young people get" that made me feel better about it. Anyway, I coughed up blood and got really anxious and panicked and went and saw the doctor a bunch. My stomach is stil pretty upset about it all but I'm going back to the gym again and lifting which ia like A++ for my mental health.

I'm kind of like freaking out a little bit that I'm going to be lonely forever and never find a wife now which is scary. It's really hard not to go to sleep and worry about it which isn't great. It's so hard to find a reason to go out and do stuff socially when I don't have many friends that are available to do that kind of stuff very often. I still need to buy a car to go out and do shit as well but I can't find a cool one that I actually like. I went with a friend like 2 weeks ago to check out this Impreza picture below. It was an hour drive away and when we were 10min away they sent me a message saying it had just been sold

As a recently single old man I have been doing a lot of gaming with my friends. I've been playing a lot of Fortnite 0 build (lol). I've actually gotten pretty decent at it and have been spending way more money on skins than I should be. Been playing tf out of Binding of Isaac: Rebirth multiplayer as well which is insanely fun with friends. Feels good to be actually good at a game for a change as well. I picked up this fucking wild RPGMaker game called Bad Bitch Blasters that I saw the dev of Ultra FIght Da Kyanta II playing. The dialogue is massively cringe, like so so bad. A special kind of bad that is just "teenager deperate for attention online so making sex jokes and obsessing over sex" which is unfortunate because the visual design, sound design and mechanics are like an 11/10. I loved it so much I decided to install RPG Maker MV and have like 5 days off in a row to work on my own (new) game that isn't wonder home. Yes I know I can program but i really cbf and just want something easy and fun I can plug art into and make a story. Very very keen for this!

Yes. We are cooked.

Insane. I can't believe it but my IG reels are being invaded with Sora 2 videos already. I scrolled for maybe 5min today and spotted at least 2 reels I recognised as being AI generated (and probably from Sora 2). From what I gathered from watching pokelawls vods, the timing of events always seems to be really sudden and fast with like consistent timing or something? It's hard to explain until you've seen a bunch of them. It's almost like keyframes or key events are compressed to move from point A > B etc in the video. Anyway, I looked at the comments and a few people picked the first video as being AI (I can't even remember what it was tbh. Thanks IG brainrot). The second, nobody seemed to realise it was AI. It was a 2 part video of an old man destroying registers in a shop and being arrested. Looked incredibly realistic bar the weird movement of the guy getting arrested and unusual choice of actions. I wouldn't have picked it if I didn't take a step back and be like "hold on what's actually going on here and why is this happening".

Anyway, I stopped playing SMT III nocturne. I really love the setting and art style and music but I have such a hard time staying interested in traditional JRPG's. I did manage to beat Matador at least and first try too which I am very proud of. I started playing Silent Hill f instead. NGL I kind of hated it for the first hour or two but now it's properly reeled me in. Annoyed at all of the jumpscares though.

I also spent like 5 hours or so in the city today by myself because all of my friends were busy or I'd recently spent way too much time with them. I wandered around for a bit and got lunch and sat in the park and did nothing for a few hours. Like properly nothing. No phone, no music just sat and laid in the grass. I can't remember when the last time I even did that was. I recently broke up with the woman I thought I was going to marry and have kids with though. I saw so many couples around my age or younger with their little kids running around and it was devastating. I feel a bit sick thinking about it now actually. I'm trying not to give into panic and despair over my future and wanting to start a family.

I keep telling myself, I shouldn't bother reflecting on the "what if"'s I've had in my life and should instead focus on the "what now"

Chat Are We Cooked?

Sora AI v2 dropped this week and it's almost indistinguishable from real TikToks/IG reels. I watched the streamer pokelawls react to his fans creations and it was legitimately insane. Funnily enough I opened IG while I was on the toilet and saw an AI researcher claiming that social media reels are about to be flooded with Sora content and the platforms are likely going to be consumed by it. Normally you can look at like faces, hands, teeth etc or the way people move in AI content and easily pick it, but that doesn't seem to be the case any longer.

I watched a video on the damage done to the brain when relying on AI to explain or teach things to you. The researcher in it (who is also a teacher) claimed that it actively and severely makes you stupider lol. There is supposed to be some kind of tension almost when learning something - you know that feeling, where you take the information in but then internally need to contextualise it and compare it to other things you know. It's hard to explain properly but I'm sure you know the feeling. Anyway, apparently by relying asking AI the answers to things, or breaking down what you've learned if you find it too challenging to process, you're essentially damaging those connections in your brain that allow you to process the information. This essentially leads to your brain just not doing that any longer lol. I think that they're going to start pushing us to use AI at work which I'm not thrilled about because I need to preserve what little cognitive function I actually have!

That in conjunction with how damaging internet culture is, and the discovery in late July that disposable vapes are actually full of lead (one days worth of vape use is >= 20 packs of cigarettes in terms of lead content) I'm legit really worried for late gen Z and gen alpha. Some teenager came onto the trian today for like 1 stop which was all of 4 minutes and was glued to tiktok and vaping in the carriage the entire time. Or maybe I'm just old and too anxious and kids will be kids.

09/23/25 Always Run From Your Problems lol

I just can't focus on making my game at the moment. Casually going through the worst heartbreak of my life as a humble 30-something year old. I can't even keep a straight train of thought and just randomly nearly cry thoughout the day. There's so much shit I need to do and worry about like renewing my lease and trying to afford rent and bills on my own now. I need to buy a car, I need pretty urgent dental work and a blast-over some of my scratcher tattoos to look better for my new job (and myself I guess).

On the bright side, just a few months ago I could barely jog for a minute. Tonight I burst into the gym and casually hit 2.5 miles in 20min and walked out. Easy 250ish calories out the window.

I think I'm going to try and play SMTIII: Nocturne again to distract myself from being sad. I don't really game anymore but I'm going crazy sitting around thinking all day.

09/19/25 The Present is an Inescapable, All-Consuming Noise

I never would have thought that the technology in 2025 would devolve into tools tuned for the complete destruction of the mind and self. Everything now exists to absolutely fry your dopamine receptors. Torrents and torrents of completely interchangeable, soul-less slop by design. My friends that game don't even like the games they play any more, social media has become a platform for influences and corporations to sell you products mixed between seconds-long videos you somehow spend hours watching but cannot remember just seconds after watching. Youtube feels like the same inconsequential video(s) and topics regurgitated over and over or the reaction "content creators" digesting media for you and telling you what to think so you no longer need to do it yourself. We're at a point where reactions to reactions are being sort after and basically how did we get here. We DEFINITELY need more retrospectives to consume so we don't actually need to engage any original of the original products just to make more time to consume more Youtube videos.

When was the last time you sat willingly in complete silence? No music, no gaming, no videos, no online content. Next time you're on a train or some other form of large-scale public transport take a moment to survey how many people are on their phones or listening to music. It feels as though we're no longer able to sit in our own thoughts any longer. We must have something pumping into our dopamine receptors to distract us and it no longer matters what it is.

We're literally all individually living out the plot of Click but managing to skip the fun parts of life too :-(

Truly, we're on the precipise of being lulled into complete stupification with the advent and current capability of AI. I'm starting to see Youtube music compilations that are composed by AI and almost totally indistinguishable from real music. Search any phrase and filter by most recent and you'll uncover an insurmountable torrent of AI generated garbage uploaded every second. I feel like such a crazy person writing this, but given how well this content performs and the amount of people that don't care or just willfulling lap it up, I truly feel as though we're only a couple of years off of a majority of people being wired into consuming only AI content every day. Now that pandora's box has been opened, what is there to even do about it?

How wild that ridiculous 4chan dead internet theory from forever ago unfortunately became very real. Even worse that so many people are being sucked into it. It almost feels like the concepts of a cyberpunk dystopia are here, just without any of the cool stuff and literally everyone is a cyber junkie or w/e.