More distractions

Hey, it’s another aimless post. Maybe it’s just another update to pass another fucking month. Things
aren’t getting any better with my job, and every day at home feels like a funeral given events and our
personal connection to them. I used to think I’d never get so low that I couldn’t write a new post in
under a month, but I guess I was wrong.
So what better time to talk about some distractions from this horror? We’re standing two weeks away
from potential mass chaos in America, and even for those of you lucky enough not to live here, what
happens to the States affects the rest of the world. It’s unfortunate that our dumbass bullshit has that
effect, but then all the more reason for a distraction. Especially when the most you can possibly do is
vote if eligible unless you’re on Elon’s level of reality-destroying wealth, in which case you can try to
buy the election instead (and before you might say anything, of course he’s not the only one, just the
most visible and by far the most embarrassing example yet.)

Now that I got the doom out of my system somewhat at least, here’s my first entry, a YouTube channel
I found while going on an old space program video binge. I was obsessed with this space exploration
stuff as a kid like so many others, and I’d still like to see a launch someday in person (only reason I’d
ever go back to Florida.) So I was feeling nostalgic I guess, especially when I checked out this
documentary on Project Mercury, the first US manned space flight program that ran through the early
60s, starting the famous race with the Soviet Union that would end in 1969 with Apollo 11.
If you were fascinated by that mission, it’s worth checking out Homemade Documentaries for his
videos that cover most of the rest of the Space Race material. The name is unassuming, but this guy is
pretty damn good at making interesting videos if this one is any indication. Admittedly a lot easier to
appeal to me with a video about the space program, either American or Russian, but the narrator/maker
gives enough background to put everything into context.
If you give a shit about my opinion, I also recommend starting here in the beginning with Mercury and
through Gemini, even if the Apollo missions are the big ones — I find them all interesting because of
just how improvised everything had to be and how much the astronauts and crews both were putting on

the line to achieve greater heights, sadly up to and including their lives in the case of Apollo 1.

Or if you’re more into probes, check out his Voyager video. The unmanned missions may not have that
same level of human connection, but they were and still are massively important and have their own
kind of drama to them, and they continue to give us an enormous amount of info about the rest of the
Solar System. I got to watch the launch of the new probe to Europa just last week on stream — fuck
Elon, but SpaceX does good work at least.
Looking back again at this series of not just America’s but all humanity’s achievements in space is
pleasant for me, not just because I enjoy the subject matter but also to think about a time when the
future didn’t seem so dark. I’d also recommend the old 90s HBO series From the Earth to the Moon if
you’re interested in Apollo specifically and also want a more dramatized version of events. Also if you
want a a lot of interesting details that get glossed over in the most basic histories along with some of
that 90s American optimism towards the future that’s now just a memory. Oh well, not like the 90s was
that optimistic for most of the world, so maybe it’s not worth lamenting that loss. Just be sure not to dig
too much into the comments on some of these videos unless you want to read some shit-for-brains
screeds about how it’s all fake.

I’ve also been finding new music on YouTube, or new to me at least. I’m not that big on the rest of this
album (though a lot of it’s nice for sure) but this song is on my rotation now. If the theme here is
nostalgia for a more hopeful time, I guess city pop fits, even if I’m even less connected to the 80s in

Japan than I am to the 60s in America (the extent of the connection maybe being I played Yakuza 0.)
But then nostalgia in music is a funny thing. Maybe it’s just the impression I get from this kind of
music that I like — I don’t need any real memories to connect it with to get something out of that. I’m
not sure whether this idea makes sense, but it’s pretty clear now that people can have a weird kind of
nostalgia for times and places they’ve never lived, like how kids today seem to obsess over 80s
technology and dead malls to the extent that the only good horror I’ve seen on YouTube involves those
things heavily (and even most of the horror/liminal people over there fuck it up too by leaning on that
cheap old “ooo oh no there’s a scary face man on the screen now and it’s distorted” garbage, a/k/a the
thing that will get me to immediately stop watching your video.)
Here’s still another distraction: more anime. I’ve barely watched any in a few months, and there are a
couple of shows I’d actively like to finish some night I can’t sleep and have the excuse. But I did at
least manage to watch Girls und Panzer: der Film, the film followup to the TV anime. I enjoyed the
main series more than I thought I would, and the movie hasn’t changed my view of the series as a
whole at all. The idea of safe tank battles using blank shells that explode and fly within yards of Miho’s
skull as she commands her squadron is still idiotic to me, but I still don’t care because the characters
are entertaining and interesting and the series manages to pull off both comedy and drama without
getting too silly on the one side or too serious on the other.
It’s still a fucking shame that a lot of people wouldn’t give a series like Girls und Panzer a second look
based solely on its title and/or cover, because it’s not just some shove popcorn into your mouth
mindless junk — it has real emotional weight used far more effectively than plenty of lousy live-action
films manage. But what can you do about that? If nothing else, watching slice-of-life anime over the
last few years has convinced me that I should generally be more openminded in my taste, otherwise I
never would have found all this great new anime to binge on at 3 am. And I probably will write a full

review of der Film too at some point.

For the second-to-final distraction of the night: one of the history podcasting godfathers Mike Duncan
has returned to his Revolutions Podcast with a new series, this one detailing the events of the Martian
Revolution, a true turning point in the history of the Solar System. It’s something new, a kind of
historical science fiction, and while I could see some people being put out if they just want actual
history, I like this new direction a lot. Maybe the guy wants to be a science fiction writer now, and hey
so do I. If only it could pay like law practice does (and that’s assuming I’m not actually just shit at
science fiction writing like I suspect I am.)
And one more distraction for you, friends: I downloaded and played through several Next Fest demos,
and I’ll be writing about the ones I played that were interesting. Probably won’t be many of them, but it
will also be a holiday-themed post, extremely rare here on the site setting aside that SMT demon 12
days of Christmas I did years ago. Maybe I should bring that back with SMT V out and available to
everyone now?

Just for fun, one of them is Urban Myth Dissolution Center. A cool style like this always works to hook
me in as long as there’s substance too. Or it could just be a game where you drive around with your
pissed off new coworker and exchange dialogue for 20 hours. I feel like such a game would have some
fans these days, don’t you?
Yet another post wasted, or maybe it wasn’t. I don’t guess my whinging will be interesting to most
people, but you can gloss over it. Until next time, which will certainly be sooner than it was last time I
wrote that. Maybe I’ll have it out before the next HoloCure update — there’s something I guarantee I

will write about.