My newest page requires a bit of an introduction. If you've seen my “Under Construction” or my “Not Found” page, you'll notice a similarity. I based my latest work, creatively named the “Randomizer™,” on them, reusing much of their code and graphics. It is what the title says, a randomizer. While the aforementioned pages included buttons linked to random webpages on my site (that's still here)--each refresh produces a new combination of elements, pulling from a selection of animations, backgrounds, cursors, effects, and leftist slogans I prepared for this purpose. Many of these elements can be found on a sister page I created alongside this one to offer them for community use, another page that shows how creative I am when coming up with titles, dubbed “Free Resources.”
However, that's not all there is. Wanting to add some utility, I added four other randomized elements in the corners: a random number generator, a six-sided die, a Magic 8-Ball, and a random kaiju, Ultraman, or robot sprite. Each refresh of the page returns all four elements, though not always in the same corner.
As I worked, I started to think of it as a virtual fidget of sorts, something I have a lot of experience with, as I am an incredibly fidgety person who nearly always has a fidget on hand, usually a knucklebone, spinner, slider, or some magnetic doohickey. Refreshing the page reminded me of my long dead habit of channel surfing, or maybe even doomscrolling—some mindless activity that allows my mind to wander and get lost chasing whatever thought piques my fancy. To better facilitate this, I added the ability to refresh the page through a press of the spacebar using JavaScript.
That worked so well, I tried other ways to implement the keyboard, coming up with the idea of adding some movement to the weeb sprite that populates a random corner after each refresh. This led me to add the ability to move it around, first by dragging it with the mouse, then with the use of the WASD keys. After making the character move, I decided to add a reason for the movement and came up with a simple game where you catch Zaku mobile suits as they burn up on atmospheric reentry, a game triggered by clicking the random number which doubles as a scorekeeper. I eventually added the ability to shoot various video game health items from the sprite using the arrow keys. It's a bit clunky, but it's a fun timewaster. I was even able to play it with a gamepad using JoyToKey for button mapping.
While I didn't start with this in mind, working on the page over the last couple of weeks has allowed me to contextualize it. I feel like I've made a distilled version of what the internet has become—a place to zone out and occupy one's hands while providing dopamatic (not a word, don't care 😙) hits through familiar, yet novel, stimuli. As I continue my voluntary exile from the worst of social media, I'm reminded of how little I've gained from the countless hours spent scrolling. Refreshing this page a thousand times provides a very similar service. At the very least, it's a good excuse for me to make animations, cursors, and other elements to show off my favorite anime, video games, and movies.
This is one of those pages that will never truly be "finished." I expect that I'll be adding new elements to the Randomizer and the Free Resource page periodically, so be sure to check back.