Still in Arcadia - #1

Life Lately - Comin' in... cold?

Woo golly, I'm not sure if it's just me, but 2024 was a nightmare. Don't get me wrong I definitely had my fun. but overall the bad outweighed the good by a pretty big fucking margin. Either way, what's happened happened and we can't do much else other than keep on keepin' on. A new year, a new semester, a new outlook on things. Compared to the intense drama that plagued my life over the last third of 2024, I am so incredibly gracious that 2025 has thundered in on an incredibly lukewarm note, because quite frankly the kitchen was getting too hot to handle.

Don't Touch That Dial - Were they really the funniest home videos America had?

My memories of childhood dinners are forever engrained with the AFV's wonderfully ska theme song and Tom Bergeron's surprisingly charming face. I also have to add, was it just because I grew up in an Asian household, or did anybody else think that Tom Bergeron's name was really fucking weird as a kid? 

Anyways, over the last couple of weeks I've found myself spiraling into late 2000s/early 2010's nostalgia, and one of the first things that came to mind was America's Funniest Home Videos. Just like many other shows of the era, full episodes are slapped onto YouTube for all us plebeians to enjoy, and just like many other shows of the era, I was painfully weary of how their comedy has aged over the last decade or two. 

There are many a such case of films and movies where the punchlines are just women, homos, and black people be black, and a lot of the most nostalgic pieces of media are unfortunately riddled with it. However, I found that from beyond the rare cross dressing punchline, AFV managed to maintain the classic and timeless art of slapstick comedy. There's something magical about its pacing that works so well (or perhaps its because I'm just nostalgic) that I had a big stupid smile on my face for so much of the episode.

I really do think that America's Funniest Home Videos managed to keep up after all these years, and I'm pretty glad that it did. Of course I'm yet to dive head first into their episodes like I have with Kitchen Nightmares, so I'll let you know if it gets worse down the line. For the time being however, I am giving AFV a big thumbs up

In One Ear, Sometimes Both - Remind me never to get bit by an alligator.

I've been listening to DOECHII's Alligator Bites Never Heal on repeat over the last week and I'm fairly certain that many of you EgoBraniacs at home (or wherever you may be) have been listening too. I mean she won best rap album at the last Grammys and goddammit I'm not complaining.

Of course DENIAL IS A RIVER and NISSAN ALTIMA are absolutely bitchin' and I fully understand how they got so popular, but I find this undeniable charm in BOILED PEANUTS that I can't really explain. It's kinda weird but in a very good way and I unfortunately don't have a history in rap music at all so I couldn't even try to explain any of the nuance and subgenres that might be present in the song (or the entire album at that).  Being perfectly candid I believe my introduction into rap was the Hamilton soundtrack, assuming you don't count listening to ERB which is its entire other beast.

Putting my lack of rap knowledge aside, one thing I do know is that I will continue thumping Alligator Bites Never Heal until I find a new ear worm to take its place.

Pseudo-Intelliterate - Who put them on the tracks in the first place though?

Okay, so the way it works is that there's a trolley- or wait, was it a tram? They call it a trolley problem but who the hell doesn't call them a tram? Eh whatever it doesn't matter. Anyways. so now there's a guy on the track, but you can pull the lever and switch the track and the trolley runs over 5 people instead. Wait, shit, I fucked it up. There's 5 guys on the track and if you switch it then it runs over the one guy instead and- so yeah so what do you do?

I've noticed a rise online in ethical philosophy and I of course am a sheep that cannot help but follow the masses so I have no choice but to also begin my dive into the topic. I won't bore you with any complicated talk because quite frankly I have a very surface level knowledge on the topic, but what I will bore you with is how interesting people can make the classic trolley problem.

What once was such a simple thought experiment has now evolved into being able to challenge a whole menagerie of ethical philosophies and issues in an easily digestible way. If on one track there was the Mona Lisa and on the other a person, which one would you destroy? Most people would say to run over the painting, but what if it were two great pieces of classical art? What if it was a whole museum? Surely there's a point where the scale tips in the other direction.

Thought experiments are only so useful in day to day life and unless there's some guy tying people to train tracks like some sort of 1930s film, I wouldn't stress about finding an answer to these problems too much.

What's Cookin' Good Lookin'? - Six string's back in business!

The high school punk rock pipe dream is coming back in full swing, baby! I've been grinding away writing songs and I haven't been on a roll this good since I was 17. Of course writing is only part of it and for some reason my old recording setup just doesn't work anymore, but baby steps. Unlike back then though I've decided to ditch the band and go solo instead. I was already writing the entire songs anyways so it's not like my workload increased by much.

I don't have hopes of doing it for a living like my teen self did, but I'm pretty damn close to at least having my stuff put out online somewhere. Fingers crossed, EgoBraniacs, fingers crossed.

Wasting Time - The Apocalypse is as pretty as ever.

With the second season of the show in the works, I wanted to play through The Last of Us again, finally finish the second game, and then rewatch the first season of the show. Yes I have dedicated myself to playing two entire video games and rewatching a season of a show in less than a months time, and no I have 0 confidence that I am able to do it.

I played through TLoU for the first time when I was 11 or so on my PS3, I remember being terrified of the zombies but in that kind of terrified that makes you stand up in front of your TV and jump around a little in panic like an idiot. I even remember that I set my alarm sound as the clicker noises for some bizarre reason. In this current replay of one of my favourite games however, I've finally decided to take on the challenge of the grounded difficulty and I am having an absolute blast. It feels so much more satisfying whenever I manage to clear a level, and in a weird way it has me playing more aggressively than I normally do, I'm sure that such tactics are only temporary however and eventually I'll get my shit stomped, but of course all in due time.

Either way I'm very glad to be back in the beautiful eco-brutalist apocalypse of The Last of Us, and I'm excited to reexperience all that the games and show have to offer.

Call to Action - The only game I've ever tried to speed run.

Who doesn't ever wish they could live in a cyberpunk city filled with neon lights and cyborg limbs? And then you wake up from your daydream and realise that living in a cyberpunk world would actually suck but like in a cool way.

Katana Zero is a game that oozes with that cyberpunk style, neon pink and blue colours, classic pixel art, a katana, what else could you be asking for? The game is a side scrolling 2D hack and slash game where the main mechanic other than stabbing people is that you can slow down time to allow yourself to perform precise maneuvers or reflect bullets. Of course I disable such an ability in the menu because I am an expert god tier gamer and absolutely not because I just spam click mouse 1 until I eventually win.

I've never been one to speed run games because I quite frankly don't have the patience to do so, but this game is just so quick and punchy and more importantly FUN that I couldn't help but take advantage of the speed run mode built into the game.

Overall I recommend this game to anybody who doesn't mind dying a bunch of times before getting good.

Rating: Drugged out PTSD murder ninja/10

Et in arcadia ego, and remember, EgoBraniacs, as long as you're reading then you are too. This is E. Arcadia signing off.