It’s been a while since I posted my last set of game reviews. Over the fall and winter, I played mostly PC games and a single PlayStation 5 title. Planet of Lana was a fun side scrolling puzzler. Doki Doki Literature Club is a cult classic visual novel and psychological horror game. A friend gave me a free key to Strikey Sisters, a fun and short Brickles clone with fantasy elements. Finally, on the PS5, I spent more time playing Persona 5 Royal than all the other games combined.

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Years ago, I was in a vehicle headed to a state park in Kentucky to go camping with a group of friends. As I looked around from my seat, I asked, “Wait, do we all know each other from Reddit?” A friend replied, “Yes, you’re going camping in the woods with random people you met off the Internet. You know, that thing your mother told you not to do.”

Whenever I moved to new cities, Reddit meetups were one of the many ways I’d meet new people. Reddit was once an amazing microcosm of vastly different viewpoints spanning tens of thousands of communities. In the past several years, it has abandoned its original vision, driving out verboten viewpoints in the name of safety and social justice. It’s embrace of censorship has converted the platform from a hivemind into an echo chamber. Once a small backwater site like 4chan, Reddit has grown to embrace big tech censorship, and has morphed itself into a website with a very narrow acceptable range of views. It has become an extremist forum, just as terrible as the platforms that were created by its dissidents.

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I first heard about Christian deconstruction from an episode of The Babylon Bee podcast. The guest they interviewed, Alisa Childers, spoke on the importance of people understanding the reasons for their core beliefs, but was critical of the deconstruction movement for tearing apart beliefs without rebuilding their foundation. My own examination of Christian deconstruction found that it is essentially an apostate movement; a justification for discarding one’s faith in Christianity. While I have no issue with people examining, testing and discerning what is and isn’t true, many of the videos I’ve seen are people justifying migrating from their deeply held beliefs. Their revelations aren’t new or uniquely insightful. What I have noticed is that Christian deconstructionists are critical of their faith, while not being critical of the moral structures and belief systems they want to replace that faith with. They are often critical of the religion of their forbearers, without realizing the system they wish to replace it with, is also its own unexamined ideology.

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While browsing through Craigslist, I came across a listing for picnic tables. The post was for reasonably priced, custom built sets. A full 8 foot table with four benches was $600 unfinished. Although I’ve painted my fair share of walls and furniture, both indoors and out, I’ve never stained anything before. The craftsman who built the set gave me some suggestions. Armed with techniques from several random tutorials, blog posts and videos, I made my way to the hardware store to get started on my first staining project.

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Over the weekend Hamas forces attacked Israel. Initial reports indicated Palestinian forces entered via land and power gliders. There is evidence they are directly attacking civilians, although a considerable amount of information is clouded in the fog of war. Immediately, most conservative analysts and commentators defended Israel and condemned Palestinian forces as terrorists. The resulting media fury has sharply divided people on all sides of the political compass. Some people fully support Israel without question, some fully back the Palestinians, and others condemn both sides of the conflict. Few people are asking the real questions beyond the media smoke screen. The conflict is a major distraction from a failing US president, the unending conflict in Ukraine and the dual border crises in the European Union and the United States.

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Final Fantasy XVI is, for now, an exclusive release for the Sony Playstation 5. I usually stick to console exclusives for the PlayStation, and I was looking forward to this one as it’s the first Final Fantasy game I’ve played since the FF7 Remake. While waiting on FF16’s release, I played Terra Nil, a fun but short independent terraforming game. These are two very different games, on different platforms, for different audiences, which will hopefully make this a fun review.

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I deleted my Facebook and Twitter over a year ago. Even when I had accounts on those websites, I fought hard to ignore their notification systems. Even as my unread notices grew to over 80, I avoided the dopamine hit from clearing that little red number inscribed in a circle. Training ones brain to ignore notifications is the first step at fighting back against the growing war for your time and attention.

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Three years ago, I made a list of every mechanical keyboard I’ve ever owned. I thought I had settled into the keyboards I would use for the foreseeable future. A year ago, a friend of mine gave me a modern Model M keyboard as a housewarming gift. I also started looking into split ergonomic keyboards, and built a Slice MK from a kit. Being my first ortholinear keyboard, I wasn’t prepared for needing to relearn how to type. Eventually I went back to a staggered layout for my personal workstation while continuing to use the Slice MK for work. Below is an update to my previous post, with comments and criticisms of keyboards I’ve used over the past three years.

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In my last post, I discussed archiving the collection of Louder with Crowder Mug Club episodes after he switched networks. During the past year, Steven Crowder has faced many controversies, both with his show and his personal life. His conflict with The Daily Wire, the leaked videos of an argument with his wife, the departure of Dave Landau, and his move from BlazeTV to Rumble, have all led to reactions and speculation.

I currently still watch and support Louder with Crowder with a subscription to Mug Club. Over the past few years, I have found the show both entertaining and an excellent lens for information in an increasingly politically divisive media hellscape. We are living in a culture that seeks to erase anyone who doesn’t spout the ideology of progressivism. It’s a culture that will not supply grace and forgiveness to those who admit they are imperfect, but will justify insane beliefs of those from the progressive clan. Do Crowder’s antics and actions impede on his integrity? If so, what light should that cast (if any) on the work and dedication of the dozens of people that have made Louder with Crowder into one of the largest conservative morning shows currently on the Internet?

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Recently, the show Louder with Crowder moved from BlazeTV to Rumble/Locals. Their previous library of episodes does not appeared to have moved with them, preserved only on BlazeTV’s website in an archive section. People like to believe things put on the Internet stick around forever. If you were on-line during the early years, you’ve probably realized how much of the old Internet has disappeared. I never asked for a BlazeTV membership when I joined Mug Club, so I figured this would be a good time to archive the show. Using a little bit of web development knowledge and Python, I created a snapshot of a show that changed the landscape of conservative political satire and comedy in the late 2010s.

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