dang. who would have thought!!

thank you @AliceMako for convincing me to put something up, and then front paging it.

i don't really have anything special to say. here's a celebratory crab rave, though:

WOW that funkin week 7 drop sure fucked newgrounds didn't it

I'm really bad at writing these posts, but I also have this weird, undying sense of urgency to make some kind of connection to the outside world. So here goes, and bear with me here, this could get ramble-y.

After waking up at 6 in the morning, nearing the end of my easter vacation, I decided to pass the early morning time by looking through old stuff. You know, old websites, blog posts, shitty, bizarre flash games that are embarrassing to the original creators by today's standards.

Just type something like "george bush" into the Newgrounds search bar under movies or games, and look at what comes up. What I'm interested in, more than anything, is the creator of this hypothetical old flash file from the early 2000's.

99% of the time, their profile is entirely abandoned. If you're lucky, you'll find a somewhat recent forum post, or a link to an old personal website, that still works in 2021, almost 20+ years later, for some odd reason. Other than that, for all you know, that person is just gone. They're either approaching 40 years of age and building a family/life of their own, or they're dead, and you can't really tell which case it is.

Something about these old flashes and personal websites is just so very endearing, and sacred to me. I can't really explain why. It's a lot like a nostalgic feeling, despite the fact that those people had probably already run their course online by the time I was born in 2002. It's strangely appealing to me, and I just can't exactly explain why.

Maybe it's the idea behind the whole "middle class" of the early internet that really speaks to me. Young people were putting a moderate amount of effort into putting something out there, even if it sucked or wasn't all that impressive, just to generate some noise and be heard, even if hardly anyone heard them. That's what makes uncovering something like an old angelfire or geocities page so precious: you're seeing something obscure, and raw, and authentic. This is what was going through this person's head at that particular time, nearly 20 years ago.

And come to think of it, if Newgrounds is still around in 2041, this news post will serve that same purpose. I will be 38 years old by then (and hopefully not dead). So there you have it, this is how I felt, aged 18, on April 6th, 2021, on a bored tuesday morning.

I thought I'd leave you with two things: one is a Tom Waits song about the passing of time, titled "Time", which is what the title of this post is referencing. I like to go back to it when I think about this kind of thing.

As for #2: I thought I'd show you the websites I went through today. They're what inspired me to write this post in the first place.

First, I looked through @Beetard 's personal angelfire website from ~2001. It's still online even after all these years (I guess he never stopped paying for the web hosting? Weird.) The grey and red font on the fully black background just screams early 2000's era edge, which I love. If the link doesn't work anymore, try putting it through the wayback machine.

Then, through Beetard's website, I found his friend Sarah's old boltpages website archived on the internet archive, dating back to May 9th 2001. I love what's going on here, but sadly the majority of the images don't load anymore. I would have loved to see her photography.

To Freddie and Sarah, wherever you may be.

oh, and note to self: look through more of these. It's actually pretty fun, like digital, online archaeology.

So I've tried to write about what I've experienced at school today for about a half hour straight now; and I just don't know how to put it into words in a wall of text. Let me give you the fast version instead:

I had to repeat a grade years ago. Today I realized that all my old friends from my old grade are graduating soon, and I probably won't see the vast majority of them anymore.

While I'm happy for them, I can't help but dread the lonesome drag that my 1 remaining year in high school is going to be. I've never been good at letting go of old friends, and this certainly isn't any easier. I've known some of those lads for 8, even 10+ years now, and it's looking like this whole collective chapter is coming to an end soon.

It makes me feel old;

and I know, there's plenty of old fucks in their 30's and 40's on this website that would probably roll their eyes at that remark, but this is huge to me.

That's all I can muster right now. be good, have a nice rest of your day, etc.

hi

have a song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRHWmuCAYkI

So as easter slowly approaches, and lockdown gets more and more strict every week, I'm gonna have a lot of free time on my hands soon. I thought I'd use it to expand my horizons, music wise and video game wise.

I've got the music side covered (thanks, youtube recommendations), but I'm pretty clueless on the video game front right now. So I thought the Newgrounds community could throw me a bone here.

Give me some suggestions on what I should play!

I'm pretty open to anything right now (besides JRPGs. unless it's a REALLY good one), so go ahead and give me whatever you got. I'll play anything, except for current and last gen PS/Xbox games, since I don't own those systems and I doubt I can emulate them. I do own a nintendo switch though.

So go ahead! Gimme some good vidya games

so im slowly starting to get the hang of how music is made (am using a trial copy of FL studio 12, the trial's already expired but everything still works. don't tell the coppers pls)

my brain is practically bursting with cool little melodies. my creative juices are so gosh darn fresh and juicy, you have no idea.

it's just extremely hard to translate the things that are playing in my head into a timeline on the program. the sound and tonality need to be perfect, the drums need to be absolutely fucking impeccable (if you know where i can find some good drum set VSTs, let me know), and i have to be able to listen to the tune a day after making it without hating it and deciding to start from scratch.

its starting to set in just how hard it is to have a decent tune stretch out into the 2-3 minute marks without ruining anything. hats off to whoever can manage that kind of thing on the regular, i suppose

my ultimate goal right now is to just have something, ANYTHING, that i deem good enough to upload to the audio portal some day. we'll see what happens.

I'm not much of an artist, but if I got anything I can post, I'll post it.

Been a newgrounds and flash animation fan since I was in diapers, just haven't decided to make an account until semi-recently.