Just a quick update. I'm currently working on a splash page for the site. You can see a sample above. It should be up by the weekend.
I'm pretty happy with how its turning out :)
I recently started 10mg of Lexapro to assist with teaching-induced depression/anxiety. It's helping, but the dreams have been wild, especially since I rarely dream.
I just woke up from one where I was outside my house. I think I went to get the mail. For some reason I was on the ground and couldn't get up. I had no strength in my legs. All around me were the bodies of dead chickens--my neighbor keeps free-roam birds.
I've had a few experiences on psychedelics that reminded me of how helpless we are as individuals and how important it is to have humility and accept help from others. I'm glad to be aware of human fragility--my grandfather wasn't and it resulted in his death--but damn, I don't need such frequent reminders. I never have fun dreams, just mundane ones or frightening reminders of my mortality.
I'm currently working on a page where I wanted to use a fire effect. I don't like to use other peoples' graphics on my website, or I would just grab one of the many that already exist online. What I typically do to make my images, animations included, is find some existing image or clip, cut it out using the path tool in GIMP, and edit it from there. I especially like to use images from films or old objects. I feel it adds something--a bit of je ne sais quoi.
Fire is a bit harder to do this with given its highly variable shape and edges. Nonetheless, there is a method to remove backgrounds in GIMP using a layer mask that I rarely use. I'm happy to say that it worked very well.
I ended up skipping through the 1956 Rodan movie and found a couple scenes with buildings on fire. From there I took a screen recording of those scenes, converted them to GIFs, and imported them into GIMP. Afterwards, I chose 4 frames from two different scenes, removed their backgrounds, and combined them. I then recolored them with a gradient map and ran the frames through Dithermark before finally importing them back into and animating them in GIMP.
I wouldn't normally post about a single graphic like this, but I wasn't sure how it would turn out, and I'm unreasonably happy with the result. You can see a sample above.
I added some images to flesh out the home page's center column a bit. Considering all the work I've put into the rest of the site, having it mostly just be text made it feel a bit unfinished. Hopefully that's no longer the case.
I included a “to do list” with a Goku gif I made from the Dragon Ball episode, “The Turtle Hermit Way,” moved my anime & manga 88x31 buttons to a textbox on the right of the column, fleshed out my “short history of my time online” with some old pictures I pulled from my adolescent Photobucket account--including a scrolling collection of old forum signatures I made in GIMP--and added a little Denisovan (species of extinct hominin) gif I made at the bottom.
Just posted my results to the 8values political quiz. It's a good quiz, much better than the Political Compass. If you like these sort of things, I recommend giving it a go.
Oh, and I'll likely forgo individual commenatry for the next few quizzes. It takes so long, and at this this point, I'll just end up repeating myself.
Admin just barged into my locked classroom--knocking appears to be a foreign concept to her--while I was on break to ask me how I was feeling after being out on Monday only to immediately condescend to me after I asked her a question about benefits enrollment, hitting me with questions about why I didn't see this email or that poster.
I'm now in a bad mood when I wasn't at all previously. Literally, WTF.
R.I.P. Tatsuya Nakadai.
I'm nursing a serious case of the Sunday scaries. I've been burnt out before, though not usually this early in the school year. Student apathy and irritability are really getting to me. I'm going to take tomorrow off and see if I can get some work done around the house that I've otherwise been too exhausted to do. Hopefully that'll make surviving until fall break a little easier.
I should add that I feel a bit better lately. Two incidents on the 30th--kids joking about having a gun in their backpack and another cursing me out for calmly asking them to sit down and stop bothering other students--led to me making it very clear to admin that this will be my last year. That is, only after admin tried to blame me for the behaviors. Since then, they've laid off the micromanaging that was driving me nuts. I don't think they want to risk me breaking my contract and leaving the class without a warm body.
Oh, and quick update on my media log. It's "done." I may add a few things here and there, but I'm happy with how it's turned out. My next project is going to be my first shrine, a page dedicated to protest music--think Pete and Peggy Seeger, Tom Paxton, Woodie Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Leon Rosselson, and more. I can't think of a better page for time like this.
For the last month, I've been slowly putting together a media-log to keep track of movies, series, video games, and books that I finish, as well as well as keep a log of what I'm consuming at any given time (I start a lot that never gets finished).
The media-log has been avaible on Neocities for awhile now, but it wasn't linked on the homepage. That changes today. It's still not finished, but it's mostly functional. I'm still thinking of what to do with the media count to the left of the page. I also plan to add some more tchotchkes for personality. Like with my Quiz Results page, most of the objects you see were taken from photographs I took of my upstairs office. The only execption being the television and letter board, which I created from images pulled from the web.
Oh, and you'll likely notice that there is no obvious link back to the main page. I'll let you in on a secret, if you see my gray and white cat, Orson, on a page, clicking him will most likely take you back to my home page. I know that's not exactly accessible design, but hey, it's design :-)
I finally beat King's Field IV :-)
Unbeknownst to me at the time, I played my first FromSoftware game, Eternal Ring on the PS2, over two decades ago. It was a moment in my life where I rarely finished games, but I didn't care. I was learning how to play, building my gaming literacy. I eventually picked up Armored Core Formula Front: Extreme Battle on the PSP, and later Demon Souls on PS3. Shortly thereafter, FromSoftware became a name I followed. I played every Darks Souls release, Bloodborne, and Sekiro. Still, I never managed to complete them. I would inevitably hit a wall that halted my progression, and the continuous carousel of releases meant I was always itching to play the next game.
Like a lot of people, it wasn't until Elden Ring that their formula fully clicked. I devoured that game, putting over 300 hours into one playthrough (I almost never replay without at least a few years separating playthroughs, so no NG+). After finishing Elden Ring, I revisited Sekiro and Bloodborne, finishing both. I've yet to go back to Demon Souls (made it to Allant during my initial playthrough) or the Dark Souls trilogy; though, I did play a sizable chunk of Bluepoint's PS5 remake of the former.
Instead, I've been itching to try the grandaddy of them all, King's Field. I decided to go with IV, known as King's Field: Ancient City in the West, as my first title since its story is disconnected from the PS1 titles and it seemed to be the most accessible (I'll revisit the others later). I won't say too much in this post, but boy oh boy, am I glad to have played it.
I played through the whole game without a guide, glued to my Steam Deck, entirely focused on its world, lore, and music. I even read a PDF copy of the manual before starting. It's an experience that I don't think the Souls games fully replicate. While I enjoy the punishing combat of those games, I really play them to explore their interconnected worlds. King's Field IV is a masterclass at this. By the end of the game, I had an entire mental map of the game's layout. It's an exceptionally rewarding experience.
If you've been thinking about trying King's Field, do it. It's not nearly as archaic or clunky as you may think. I played through the entire game with the original controls, using the triggers to look up and down. It took maybe 10 minutes to get used to.
This is in relation to my last post. I hate to dwell on the negative; however, I want this website to be a record of my existence, both the good and the bad. We are socialized to repress and ignore uncomfortable truths. Much like the taboo against discussing politics, this is to our detriment. If progress is to be made, we must grapple with all that is uncomfortable. Ignoring reality only serves the people and structures that benefit from our disunity and our misery.
Fact is, teachers are burning out. I'm not the only one in my building looking to leave, nor is my school alone in eliciting such misery in us hapless public servants. The social contract is dying. In many parts of our country, it is dead.
I've long since ceased to be a teacher. I am a performer to an audience of none.
Someone has a severe case of the doldrums :-)
Ignored and verbally abused by children, micromanaged to the point of bullying by admin, I cannot overstate how miserable a job teaching has become for me. Couple this with the state of the world, both political and ecological, and I'm as down as I've ever been.
Depression and I are old friends. Nevertheless, I've largely avoided antidepressants out of a stubborn refusal to use chemicals to change how I respond to this hell that humanity has warped the Earth into. My depression comes not from my mind but is a predictable and inevitable reaction to excruciating external stimuli. Unfortunately, I don't think I can avoid antidepressants any longer.
Each day I feel more sluggish than the last. This is no way to live. Hopefully, good ole Lexapro can help me coast until summer when I can finally put an end to this chapter of my life.
Let them eat cake.
New domain is up. two-reeler.com is now the home of this little sector of the indie web.
If you're considering using your own domain, go for it. The cost through Namecheap is around $7 a year with the renewal being around $18 a year. I had some issues on Neocities's side with the SSL Certification, but an email to support cleared that up in a jiffy. Positive experience all around.
I hate to be negative, though if you read my writing, you'll find that I'm rarely anything but. If you have any teacher friends, especially in the US, be sure to pour one out for 'em.
Eight years into this profession, and I can honestly say, each year has been worse than the last. While I've gotten better at teaching and have amassed a collection of material to keep me from bringing work home, my students have gotten progressively more apathetic, helpless, and rude. While I understand that there are systemic reasons for their detachment, it doesn't make trying to teach them any less miserable. I am not the person for this job.
This year must be my last in this profession. I should have left last year. Education in the US is a sinking ship. It's time to get off. What to do next, I do not know.
I finally finished enough of the aforementioned project to publish it. It's a quiz results page primarily meant to house my results for political quizzes, think The Political Compass, 8values, Prism Political Quiz, etc, as well as related, radical musings. Feel free to check it out if that sounds interesting to you.
I've also prepared a blog post detailing the process of making the page. You can read it here.
I was a little late hearing the news regarding Charlie Kirk's demise. I've been hyperfixiating on the website--the page I mentioned below is coming soon, not at all on schedule. As for the death, here's my view:
When you're a popular and influential advocate for a party and administration that's ignoring the rule of law and using an army of masked officers to harass and kidnap marginalized people in cities ran by the opposition party, you should expect to become a target. Kirk deserves no sympathy. He advocated for fascism, and fascism plunges us all into hell.
My fear now is how the fascists will use his death, or really any of the future political killings, because there will be many more. Violence begets more violence. Kirk's isn't even a outlier. His killing is becoming part of a pattern, one that signals a very ill country.
Monday of this week, five days ago, I posted that I was working on a new page that took up nearly my whole Labor Day weekend, and I thought I'd have it finished and posted in a day or so. I'm terrible at estimating how long something will take. I'm still chugging along and hopefully will have it up tonight.
See the above image for yet another preview.
I'm sure I'm speaking to the choir, but why do touchscreen interfaces still suck in the year of their lord (not mine) 2025?
I recently got an iPad Mini to take advantage of Procreate, and while the program has a lot of promise, fiddling with the interface and gestures leaves a lot to be desired. And it's not just Procreate. Even something as simple as reorganizing my homescreen is so tedious and inconsistent, it's unbearable.
I've been working on a new page over the last couple of days. I won't say what it is just yet, but I'm starting to think that my ideas are becoming a little too ambitious. Not that I'm trying to make any value judgements regarding what I'm creating--temper any expectations--but what I thought would take a day tops has now grew to consume my entire Labor Day weekend. Future projects need to be simpler :/
Anyway, the image above is a preview of what's to come. It should be ready in a day or so.
Here you'll find my latest thoughts--usually ideas, ruminations, and rants that don't warrant full blog posts, but nonetheless, must escape the noggin.
Posts are listed in reverse chronological order, with the newest appearing first.
- [01 Dec. 2025]
- [26 Nov. 2025]
- [25 Nov. 2025]
- [20 Nov. 2025]
- [16 Nov. 2025]
- [12 Nov. 2025]
- [11 Nov. 2025]
- [09 Nov. 2025]
- [05 Nov. 2025]
- [29 Oct. 2025]
- [28 Oct. 2025] #2
- [28 Oct. 2025] #1
- [20 Oct. 2025]
- [19 Oct. 2025]
- [14 Oct. 2025]
- [30 Aug. 2025]