I don’t even know what to say. The (finally/hopefully receding) coronavirus pandemic, Russia attacking Ukraine, the ever-widening political divide, I just ran out of crunchy peanut butter – everything seems like it’s on fire and all we can do is watch it burn.
You guys don’t need to hear my overly detailed opinion on these things. Why? Because it doesn’t matter. Every asshat feels the way they feel, and I’m just another asshat with their asshatty opinion. Instead I want to focus on things I can (sort of) control and talk about. However, I will say this regarding my opening statement:
- Get your goddamned coronavirus vaccines. “oH buT tHe RiSks aNd i HeaRd oN FaCeBoOk tHat mY coUsiN goT An iNflamed uRethra anD BilL GaEtz iS trYinG tO” SHUT UP. Grow up. Get your shots, coward. Any extremely unlikely side effects from this thing are mild in comparison to getting the full-fledged virus. You’ll be FINE. I’ve had all three shots and I still haven’t installed Windows 11. Suck it.
- Russia’s leadership is garbage. I’m fully convinced 99% of politicians and world leaders are some form of garbage. War over some resources and flexing is stupid.
- Yes, crunchy peanut butter is superior to that smooth shit. It has TEXTURE. Deal with it.
So Controversial!
Okay, with that out of the way, I want to touch briefly on some awesome stuff happening in my stupid little world!
“… and stuff” – a Psychostick B-Sides Album!
That’s RIGHT! After months of planning and deliberating, we’re finally putting this b-sides thing out! There’s eighty minutes of craziness on this thing.
Some personal accomplishments here is track 5, which is a Madonna medley. Yes, THAT Madonna. I’m sure you’re asking, “Why did Psychostick do this?” I recall the idea being tossed around like, I dunno, eight years ago or so. Then Josh mashed a Madonna-themed medley together, and after we performed it live during a tour, we decided to record it. We got everything but vocals… until now. Can’t wait for you to hear it.
Also, the very last track plays on the old joke from Sandwich: “We Ran Out of CD Space Again.” Because we did. This time I’m performing the instrumental part on piano, which was a huge accomplishment for me. As of right now, it’s technically the only song I know how to play from start to finish, which is fine (for now). Being able to sing and play it together was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn, but it was more than worth it. Can’t recommend learning the ol’ piano enough.
Plus, if you learn piano, you become a “Pianist,” which almost sound like, “penis,” and wieners are funny.
PluhQuest – WHEN?!
So with the Psychostick thing still eating up a large amount of energy, I haven’t been able to personally put in a ton of time with PluhQuest, BUT Josh (yes, The J) has been squeezing more efforts to get things in order. Most of the art assets are done (which has been the biggest bottleneck), and we had to ditch RPGMaker because that engine is GARBAGE for producing a real game.
RPGMaker CAN work, but you have to literally hack up the engine to do so. We switched over to GameMaker Studio, and things are lookin’ real good. Plus GameMaker Studio is compatible with PC, Mac, Linux, Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox, etc. RPGMaker is NOT.
How ’bout that, eh? Wouldn’t it be nice to play PluhQuest on a console? I’m going to answer for you: “Yes. Rawrb, you’re so wise. Here’s my bank account info. Just take it all.”
Aww, thanks.
As soon as I have more information to share, I will. Since we just wrapped up this b-sides thing with Psychostick, we’re gonna reassess things and see if we can share some screenshots and more info.
Thanks for your unwavering patience.
Web Development – The Never-Ending Educational Firehose of Brainfood
A couple years ago I joined Screenwave as a part-time web developer. The biggest reason I did this was to further my education and knowledge on webdev.
Here’s some fun stuff I’ve learned:
- Docker – Holy shit Docker. Don’t want to mess with resource-humping virtual machines? Not wanting to deal with buying hardware and setting up a dedicated server? Docker’s got you covered. Get IN there.
- Linux – Yeah, so… I did get a small Dell Optiplex and installed Ubuntu on there (deal with it, first bullet point). Without the GUI. Wanted to force myself to learn the command line. It works, by the way. I have a ton to learn still, but it’s amazing once you get the feel for it. (running Docker on Linux is also amazing, but you already knew that)
- JavaScript – Now I’ve always “known” JavaScript. By “known” I mean, “takes someone else’s code and hack it around until I get it to do what I want.” Now I can actually WRITE my own code and it’s not complete garbage*! Still a dumptruckload of things I need to learn, but man – night and frickin’ day.
- PHP – This was always my primary language, and I was always “okay” at it. Now, I’d grade my abilities as, “Quite competent; borderline advanced.” Oh yes, I even use Composer (cue snobby PHP veteran eyeroll). Tons to learn here still, but yes.
- WordPress – This was uh, something else. Learning how to write custom plugins, really proprietary ones too, was/is extremely challenging. Whoo!
- DevOps Overall – I mean, getting things up and running with some sort of thing to drive them is part of this process. Being a full-stack developer kind of includes decent devops knowledge.
- More – There’s so much more that I’m missing here, but I gotta move on.
Things I’m jumping into eventually:
- Web3 – I have a very mild understanding of what Web3 is, and I like the idea/philosophy of it, so I want to figure out how to make it work for my needs/etc.
- React/Vue – These JavaScript frameworks are all over the place, and even though React has that Facebook taint, it’s a widely used framework. Eventually I get to this.
- Non-relational Databases (DynamoDB, MongoDB) – Big data requires big solutions. This stuff will be needed if future visions are to come to fruition.
- Sharpening programming skills overall – Not just the web stuff, but GameMaker, C++, etc etc, all of which I’ve started on. Great stuff.
Zip-zop-zoopity-bop!
I should update this more than once a year, but I don’t think that’s super necessary as long as you fine folks get to experience the things that we are making, including the game, web stuff, and Psychostick. Right?
Right.
Thanks for readin’.
* subjective AF