A blog, or notes, not sure. I talk about real life stuff here.
Friday, August 20th, 2026 20:20 - I've been on a real Bowling for Soup kick recently. Last night, I saw them live in Central Park at the SummerStage Festival and they were awesome. I recently listened through their newest album Pop Drunk Snot Bread from 2022 and there's so many bangers on it. The track "Alexa Bliss" has been a recent favorite of mine, and I went on a short YouTube dive of her recent WWE highlights. Their newest live album called A Hangover You Definitely Deserve from their 2025 tour is also a great listen. And it's super long. The summer's coming to a close, at least in terms of summer-related activities. Seeing friends, beach days, stuff like that. The weather, however, doesn't seem to be going anywhere. It's going to be another year where it's too hot outside until like November. Work is also starting back up. As for this website, you probably know by now that there's always some part of it under construction. This time it's the Photo Gallery. I think I have a good layout in place and now it's just a matter of filling it up with pictures. So keep an eye on that. Also, check out my music website (tostrmusic.com) for original material. It may be in demo format, but having songs in a playable stage is huge for me. Oh yeah there was also apparently a TORNADO on LI today?? I didn't believe it at first but it really happened. It was pouring all afternoon over here but we didn't get anything destructive. Hopefully everyone's okay.
Monday, July 13th, 2026 16:45 - Last night, I watched the first two episodes of the new anime adaptation of Chainsmoker Cat. I was instantly hooked from the trailer, and it's...well it's something. The animation and voice acting is great, and the humor is just wonderfully disgusting, and it succeeds in making smoking look like the most unappetizing activity ever. Not that I really needed any more reasons why it's a bad idea, but I love this show nonetheless.
Sunday, July 12th, 2026 23:16 - Today was the last day of Pokémon GO Fest 2026. I haven't been playing much this past week, but for the last day I decided to go all-out. The local park was absolutely mobbed with people looking down at their phones. You could tell right away what everyone was here to do. I did a ton of raids and walked away with a few shinies and bunch of Mewtwo. I play Go pretty infrequently, but I love big events like this with tons of people. It reminded me of the summer of 2016 when the game came out and news stories covered these massive Pokémon GO mobs for the first time. If there was any doubt that this game was dead, I think today proved otherwise. In other news, I got a handful of new games. I got Okami on Wii, a sealed copy of Gogo's Crazy Bones on DS, and some PS2 games. I got Family Feud, Fighter Maker 2, and my personal favorite game out of the whole bunch...BMX XXX. I've never heard of this...thing...but I was delighted to find that it was pretty much exactly what I thought it was. A mature-rated BMX game that just by looking at the pictures on the back of the case you could tell controlled horribly. I haven't had the chance to play it yet as my summer is pretty action-packed right now, but I can't wait.
Saturday, July 4th, 2026 21:54 - Happy 4th of July! It's America's 250th or Semiquincentennial. These past few days have been pretty busy in the best way possible. I'll hopefully have more to share in the coming weeks but for now, today was really fun. The weather has been brutal over here, it was hovering around 100 degrees all day today and tonight it's looking like pretty serious storms. We had a party at my aunt's house and heard fireworks start to go off around the time we were heading out. The drive home was pretty wild, the sky was constantly being lit up with fireworks and flashes from the impending storm. Tomorrow's another big day, so I'll call it here. On a slightly off-topic note, music is definitley coming soon at least in demo format. I'm still learning a lot about the recording process, but I have a few songs written and hearing them with all the instruments together sounds really cool.
Friday, June 19th, 2026 17:38 - This has felt like the longest June ever. Which isn't really a bad thing, I'll take it over the winter and snow, but it's just been long. I'm looking forward to this summer as usual and I'm trying to update this website with new content when I can. Oh, and fixing the already existing pages that haven't been touched in a while. This summer's gonna rock, keep an eye on the Music Corner! I have a hard time giving this place direction. It's a mix of everything, but that's tough when you just want to say what it is. "Personal website" seems to fit the bill right now, and maybe that's good enough. What am I gonna do with the "Videos" section? Your guess is as good as mine.
Wednesday, June 10th, 2026 20:41 - Something big is coming for blink-182's Take Off Your Pants and Jacket's 25th anniversary on Friday. They've been posting teasers on Instagram, a billboard was spotted, the band's MySpace page was updated?! Check it out if you can, it's something special. I cannot wait for Friday. I have the red "Take Off" CD which has Time To Break Up on it and it's awesome. I hope they do a reissue CD that has all the bonus tracks on it. And...I don't wanna jinx it, but...TOYPAJ tour?? Maybe?? Oh my God if that happens I will go feral. I don't care if I'm in the nosebleeds, I would love to hear Online Songs and Everytime I Look For You live. I know they played the former on their Missionary Impossible tour, but I couldn't make the trip out to their upstate New York dates.
Monday, April 20th, 2026 21:21 - Green Day launched their new exclusive channel on SiriusXM called Idiot Nation today on this very appropriate 4/20. It seems to be very similar to what Metallica launched back in August. I hope we get to hear some B-sides and live tracks and stuff like that. Work is wearing me out, but today was a good day.
Friday, April 10th, 2026 00:31 - So remember I sort-of reviewed the new Format and Goldfinger albums? Well, they've both definitley grown on me over these past months. The Format's Boycott Heaven rocks, I love that album now. I added "No You Don't" to my favorite songs off the album. I've definitely given Goldfinger's NINE LIVES more attention and I like it a lot more now. The two singles are probably still my personal favorites, but I like "LAST ONE STANDING" and "JOHN LENNON." Also, Social Distortion finally announced a new album and I cannot WAIT! It's called "Born to Kill" and the title track released as a single. It sounds awesome! I liked hearing them play the new songs when I saw them live in 2024, and I'm already looking to buy tickets to see them again this year. OH! On the topic of new albums coming out, the Strokes are releasing a new album called "Reality Awaits" this summer! The first new song off it is called "Going Shopping" and it came out on Tuesday.
Thursday, March 19th, 2026 20:26 - I beat Lance. First attempt of the night, I went in and cleared the Elite Four and then onto the Dragon dude himself. Has anyone else beat the Elite Four and Champion with a Miltank and Dunsparce on their team? Cuz I did. I've seriously formed a bond with these guys. Lance was tough, his Dragonites are pretty serious. Red Man (Shiny Gyarados) and Luigi (Lugia) took care of them. I really wasn't setting myself up super well for the fight. Both of those guys are weak against Electric-type moves, so Dragonite's Thunder became my "please-stop-using-that" move. That's my team's biggest problem right now, Electric-types are our weakness. Red Man's Ice Fang was the move that pulled us through eventually. The ability to freeze your opponent really works wonders, especially when it's super effective. But it went well overall. Some revives took place, lot of Moomoo Milk was drank, and I feel pretty swell right about now. I picked up the S.S. Ticket so I guess I'm off to Kanto soon, but I'll probably work on filling up the Pokédex before I sail over. At least as much as I can in Johto. Also, I told myself I'd allow Mystery Gift Pokémon on my team after I beat the game, but honestly? Like I was saying before, I really love the bond I have with my squad now. I realize I'm probably thinking too much about it, but there's just something really fun about playing through a Pokémon game like this again. Anyway, I'm gonna go to work tomorrow in a GOOD mood. Probably should have done laundry today...
Saturday, March 7th, 2026 04:26 - This post contains a long rambly rant about Pokémon SoulSilver. Sorry. I BEAT CLAIRE! FINALLY! Oh my Gosh I've been stuck on her Gym battle all week. I finally got most of my team into the mid-40s in levels with Red Man (Shiny Gyarados) hitting level 50. I decided to fly right back over to Blackthorn City and beat her on my first try of the day. I mainly used Red Man with some supports from Bessie (Miltank) and Metalhead (Skarmory). Red Man knocked out her two Dragonairs with ease with Ice Fang. I managed to take our her Gyarados with mine even though I foolishly got rid of Dragon Rage. She also knocked out Bessie. :( Then her Kingdra oh GOD her Kingdra. Again, no idea how I did this back in the day. Her Kingdra knocked out Red Man, so Metalhead flew in and did some damage with Fly. But behind the scenes, I used my secret weapon, a Max Revive on Red Man. I threw him back in and he DID IT. We won with a combination of Ice and Water attacks. It was slow but we managed and it feels pretty GREAT right now. Also, shoutout to Bessie for coming through with a Blizzard that 1-hit KO'd two Dratinis at once in the Dragon's Den! Now to GET THAT LUGIA. Update: I caught Lugia who I then named Luigi. I've been playing SoulSilver for the past four-ish hours, and I have to be up for the day in two hours.
Tuesday, February 17th, 2026 01:23 - I've been playing through Pokémon SoulSilver recently, and tonight was a pretty big night. I beat Whitney and her big strong tough Miltank. I traded a Drowzee for a Machop in the Goldenrod Department Store and then spent a while training her up and teaching her lots of Fighting moves. Battling the Trainers before Whitney were no problem, but oh my GOSH this is a hard gym. Her Clefairy is no problem, but her MILTANK. Fortunatley, my Sparceduns (Dunsparce) and Muscle (Machop) are both female, so that fixed the "Attract" problem. But I struggled a lot with her Stomp attack. There's a good chance you'll flinch after you get hit with that and it REALLY sucks. I have no idea how I beat her back in the day, but it took me a handful of tries until I got it right. For the final battle, I didn't even end up using Muscle at all! Sparceduns took out Clefairy pretty easily, and I used Rollout to finish her off. Somehow, the subsequent Rollout attacks were enough to take out the Miltank. I have no idea how. Sparceduns got knocked down to 5 HP and managed to squeak out one last Rollout and finish off Miltank. I still love Miltank though. Sorry for rambling on about Pokémon stuff, I've been on a kick recently. I don't have too much of an interest in the newer games, but maybe one of these days I'll give the new Switch 2 a try. As for now, I'm trying to level up my team with my Pokéwalker and seeing what I can catch on these long walks. I never had a Pokéwalker back when I first played SoulSilver and it's been fun trying it out for the first time. Still waiting for the weather to warm up so it's actually pleasant to be outdoors.
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026 18:08 - SO! Having waited almost a week and a half to sit down and listen to the new Format and Goldfinger CDs, I finally have. And I have some things to say. First off, both these albums I think need time to grow on me. That sounds harsh right out of the gates, but stick with me here. I liked Boycott Heaven. As I'm sure I've mentioned on here before, "Holy Roller" is a banger and definitely my favorite off the album. At least right now. I liked the opener "No Gold At The Top" and how it kinda reminded me of Vampire Weekend's "Ice Cream Piano" with the way it opens slow and melodic before absolutely hammering in towards the end. My other standout tracks go to "Forever" and "Human Nature". Hearing those live would be schweet. It's also just so cool to hear Nate Ruess making music again. I love his singing, especially on "Human Nature". Now...Goldfinger...what is this... I really, really wanted to love NINE LIVES. This album has its highs, but it also has tracks like "UNTOUCHABLE" which is a very fitting name. Hearing trap beats on a Goldfinger record is a tough sell for me. The singles were pretty good, they sounded like Goldfinger. But the opener "CHASING AMY" just didn't hit with the same impact as "Infinite" did on Never Look Back. In fairness, that album set the bar really high for what was to follow it. The lyrics on this album are fine...even if they sound kinda cliché at times. The production is probably one of the weakest points. The autotune is just too much. The features also aren't that much of a highlight, even the Zac Carper feature on "LOSER" was just okay. All that aside, I did enjoy the track "KILLSWITCH" which was catchy and fun, and the aforementioned singles. I think this album has some good standout tracks on it, but it's not hitting the same as Never Look Back did. Again, it probably just needs some time to grow on me. As for now, I have some time off work so I'm going to enjoy that and maybe give this website some attention. Okay..."Forever" is really awesome...
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 10:21 - It has come to my attention TODAY that Goldfinger is releasing a new album that's coming out the same day as the Format's new album. I am going to lose it on January 23rd. It looks like 2023 - 2026 is shaping up to be one of the best time periods for my kinda music (that I remember), edging out 2011 - 2014! I'm going to make a quick list of some awesome albums that have come out in the last few years. 1. Metallica - 72 Seasons (2023) 2. The Frights - Gallows Humor (2023) 3. blink-182 - ONE MORE TIME… (2023) 4. Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us (2024) 5. FIDLAR - SURVIVING THE DREAM (2024) 6. The Offspring - SUPERCHARGED (2024) 7. Pixies - The Night the Zombies Came (2024) 8. Sister Hazel - Sand, Sea & Crash Debris (2024) 9. Green Day - Saviors (édition de luxe) (2025) 10. The Frights - Ready When You Are (2025) And there's gonna be more I'm sure of it. I listened to the singles off the new Goldfinger album and I can't wait two more weeks. One interesting thing I noticed is that the album seems to be following this trend of capitalizing everything from the album's title to all the song titles. blink-182 did it, then FIDLAR, now Goldfinger...not hating, just wondering. Anyway I hope Goldfinger comes up to NY sometime soon because I really wanna see them live pleeeaase.
Monday, January 5th, 2026 18:59 - Four years! We've made it four whole years on the World W i d e Web and it feels pretty nice. After taking some time recently to stomp around Tri-County to the sound of BeForU's first album, I've decided to come out of rhythm game retirement a little. Truth is, I've missed playing games the way I used to. I booted up StepMania and got all my songs back and playing through them again was definitely an experience. I have some practicing to do for sure, but it was nice. I also gave FlashFlashRevoltion another go. One of these days I'll drag my softpad downstairs to play DDR but until then, StepMania will suffice. A new page has been created over in Cool Stuff called the "Rhythm Game Bodega" which will be the new home for all things rhythm gaming. Tri-County information, high scores, setup pictures...it'll all go there. As for real-life stuff, it's going.
Wednesday, December 31st, 2025 01:04 - And another year comes to a close. Outside of a major design overhaul, things have been pretty quiet around here. Like most creative endeavors in my life, this website has taken a backseat. I was supposed to release my EP by 2026, yeah that's not gonna happen. Alright, let's get back on track. It's the end of this year! And what a year it's been. I'm sitting here writing this wishing it was still late-August where snow was non-existent and it still felt pleasant to be outside. I haven't been on a walk in a long time because I hate this weather. This summer was tons of fun and I'm hoping next year is gonna be just as awesome. I have plenty of great ol' reliable summer albums I blast in the car. In early August, Metallica launched their own station on SiriusXM called Maximum Metallica, and it was free for everyone for a limited time which I definitely took advantage of. It was so cool hearing deep cuts on the radio as well as full live performances. I wish I could've seen them on this M72 World Tour (that at the time of writing this is still ongoing!) but the ticket prices are just too expensive. 72 Seasons is a great album and I bought it release day. That being said, I'm not sure I would chalk it up to being a "summer" album. Recently, I've been on this serious kick of listening to blink-182's The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show. It's such a great live album. The speed, the stage banter, the joke songs, it's all awesome. It's to the point where I've started to memorize the stage banter bits in between songs. Definitely a summer album. Also, the album Costello Music by the Fratellis has also caught my ear this year as well. I only kinda knew them from their song Chelsea Dagger but this album is great! So many fun high-energy songs that I still can't keep up with trying to sing along. I haven't been doing a whole lot of gaming or anything this year, work just seriously wears me out. This holiday break I'm on has been really nice, and I've tried to play through Star Fox Assault on the GameCube. I love the inclusion of both third-person shooting and flying sections. And the music is great. I want to try to complete the story mode at least before work starts back up. Maybe I'll make it out to Tri-County one of these days. It's been a minute. Overall, it's been a fun year. We'll see what 2026 will bring to this website and life in general. I have a good feeling about it.
Sunday, November 2nd, 2025 00:39 - Whelp. Here we are. Version 4.0. Optimized for mobile with a new coat of paint. Pages are still being transfered over. Oh boy. I worry I'm sounding like a broken record at this point, but a lot has happened recently. 2025 has been a pretty wild year all things considered. I would love to share everything here, but I think it's best to keep things short on a page like this. As for now, the website is back up and running. I wish I could say it won't ever go down or get overhauled again, or even shut down completely, but I can't. I'm sorry.
Monday, January 13th, 2025 18:04 - I've started my new job which is going well so far! Outside of that, I'm always trying to get my musical ideas down or work on this website.
Wednesday, January 1st, 2025 18:57 - 2024 comes to a close. I had a pretty good New Year's Day hiking in Bethpage State Park and walking the boardwalk at Long Beach. My blink-182 cake.
Saturday, December 28th, 2024 11:53 - Two notes in one day? It doesn't really feel like it. Anyway, it's late, so that means it's prime time to play Mega Man 9 and 10 on the Wii. I've never really been huge into the series, but tonight I feel like giving them a try. I have a few games saved on my Wii SD card. There were so many gems on WiiWare back in the day, never to be rereleased again. UPDATE: So I am not good at Mega Man. Like...really not good. Instead, I played Silk 2 on NES, also know as GEORGE BUSH THE GAME!
Saturday, December 28th, 2024 00:53 - Here we are again. I'm sitting at my folding table desk in my room, typing away at this post on my Windows XP Machine when I should be in my bed. I have to get up early tomorrow and if I miss my appointment I am going to be in trouble. I'm not really sure what the point of tonight's post is but I've been thinking a lot about 2025 recently. I always get nervous before the new year. I do apologize for starting all my sentences with "I" and talking about myself all the time. It's a bad habit. My "Cracks in Reality" section has a bunch of new pages which you should check out. My next big project I want to work on is my "Videos" page. I want to come up with a system of posting videos and also having a comments section. I'm not sure how popular they would be, but just an opportunity to share some of my work with the world. I've also got music stuff to do...oh boy I need help.
Wednesday, December 25th, 2024 11:36 - Another holiday season has passed. From this past Friday to now, it's been a lot of family, partying, singing, and driving. But it's all been great. I'm going to try to make it to Tri-County and my local Round1 for some rhythm game action before life starts back up again.
Monday, December 16th, 2024 20:50 - Today is Beethoven's birthday!
Sunday, December 15th, 2024 21:01 - More updates! I've added quite a few new pages to the website recently, as well as expanding the button library and sidebar widgets. Rhythm game merch has been uploaded. More cracks in reality have been unearthed. Right now, I'm working on the "Cool Stuff" page. A lot is under contruction, as usual.
Monday, December 2nd, 2024 22:37 - So what's been going on recently? Well, two big-ish things. Maybe. On top of finally securing some form of employment for 2025, I have completed a demo for my first song, "Sugar Suicide." I really, really want to release an EP in 2025. That's one of my main goals. I don't have the best track record with musical endeavors, but I'm really gonna try on this. I have this demo done, which sounds pretty rough, but it's an idea you know? Hopefully I can save up in January to purchase a new electric guitar. The other thing is video game news. Not as interesting. Anyway I've gone back to playing Pokémon White Version in my free time. Generation V BEST GEN. Right now, I'm still in Nimbasa City taking in all that Nimbasa City has to offer. My battle with Elesa took two tries. It was rough. I strongly dislike the move Volt Switch. Although it is nice she gives it to you after the battle. Also, the two tries it took me to beat her today felt like nothing compared to the fifteen or so tries it took me back in 2011. So that's what's going on with me. This website needs a lot of work...
Monday, November 25th, 2024 17:17 - Today is a sad day. Here is why: What's this?! Oh...
Thursday, September 5th, 2024 00:00 - I have returned back to this website. I've been adding onto it in pieces this year, but I still have a long way to go. There's a lot of new pages to add, pictures to take, and old things to update. But I should have it all done by the time 2025 rolls around at the latest. As far as things to write about right now, lot of concerts this summer. That's been fun. I have a new XP Machine that I plan to photograph and talk about on the "My Setup" page, so look out for that. I also bought an antenna and a digital converter box for my $10 Goodwill TV that's been working well. I've been watching a lot of Family Feud, Bar Rescue, and local news. I'm also trying to get an EP out the door by December 1st. Progress has been slow, but I'm not giving up. It's good to be back updating this website. I'll see you all in a few months when I remember to make another one of these posts.
Monday, January 29th, 2024 00:00 - Yesterday, I went to Goodwill with a few friends. I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, but I found some cool stuff. I bought a copy of the first Pokémon movie on VHS and a copy of Grand Theft Auto III where the disc was loose inside a Simple Plan album jewel case.
Monday, January 15th, 2024 00:00 - Today is the first day of my last semester of college, and it feels pretty surreal. I moved back to school this past weekend. I have off from classes today because it's MLK day. I'm pretty nervous for this semester. Not really about classes, but more so the fact that I'm about to graduate in a few months and I don't know what I'm going to do after that yet.
Sunday, December 24th, 2023 02:56 - I DID IT! FINALLY, after months of trial and error for something that's really not that complicated, I installed my games on my PlayStation 2's hard drive, and I can play them! This is a big deal. I have a super old PlayStation 2 from 2000, and it's running on its last legs. The disk laser is pretty damaged, and doesn't really read disks properly. I can't seem to get movies and CDs playable on it, which sucks, but I can finally play my games properly! I got back from a family Christmas party around midnight, and I picked up my Amazon package that contained the cable I needed to plug the hard drive into my laptop. After spending about an hour getting everything together, I was finally able to transfer my games to the PS2 and everything worked out. I'm so happy right now oh my God. I couldn't really test the sound because it's really early in the morning and my family is asleep, but I can't wait to try it out tomorrow. This has seriously been a Christmas miracle! I am so happy right now I can't wait to start playing through my library. I was even able to put all my beatmania IIDX games on the hard drive! Now I can really sit down and focus on getting gud at 7key. I'm going to listen to Pimped Out Getaway and then realize how bad I've let my sleep schedule become. But I don't care. Why? Because it's almost Christmas and I'm SUPER HAPPY.
Friday, December 22nd, 2023 01:35 - It's amazing how much I hate keyboards that don't light up. I get it, you should know where the keys are. They didn't put those little bumps on the "F" and "J" keys for nothing. But stll. It drives me crazy when I'm sending a late-night message to my friends, or working on this website, or doing anything that requires the keyboard, and I completely screw up whatever it is I'm trying to type. Like right now. I've messed up at least five times just on this post alone. And I'm not a terrible typer. I thank Mavis Beacon for giving me the ability to type as well as I do. Anyway, it's three days before Christmas and I'm pretty excited. Christmas is my favorite holiday, even if it's one of the busiest and most stressful times of the year. The last few weeks at school were pretty nightmarish, but just being home again has been amazing. Thursday night, my family and I went to the Old Bethpage Village Restoration for the candlelight evenings they do around Christmas. I look forward to it every year. They have bonfires going, people are walking around in their 18th century attire, and there's a brass band playing and caroling in the church. I tried to take some pictures and videos there, but it was pretty dark. I'm going to try to get some rest soon. I'm not really doing a whole lot over break, mostly just editing videos for school and practicing for my band's gigs next semester. Also my LAST semester of college. Seriously WHAT. How am I there already. In other news, I started working on my PlayStation 2 again. I've been trying to get a hard drive working on it since the summer, but I was unsuccesful. I kept running into issues and almost wiped my laptop's hard drive on accident trying to format the PlayStation 2 one. It was a whole mess. I've spent quite a bit on this stupid project, which I think is supposed to be pretty damn easy, I just mess up a lot. My console's disk laser is on its last legs, so I'm hoping this hard drive solution will be a good alternative. I have a cable I need to connect the new hard drive to my laptop coming tomorrow, so we'll see what happens. Until then, I'll work with the super long load times in San Andreas.
Saturday, November 25th, 2023 00:10 - We reached 1,000 views on my blog yay.
Thursday, September 21st, 2023 10:08 - New blink-182 music HYPE!
Wednesday, August 30th, 2023 11:22 - Last night, my roomates and I discovered a pool of water forming from the wall under my bed. We found that our shower backs up to the wall next to my bed, and there's a small gap there. So whenever someone takes a shower in that bathroom, water leaks under the wall and gets everywhere on my side of the room. We called a plumber and he came over today. I'm not going to be able to go home until late tonight, but it sounds like the problem has been resolved. This looks like a good sign of things to come.
Friday, August 25th, 2023 03:03 - I'm half awake typing this. I'm getting ready to leave in about four hours to drive back to school with my dad. It starts back up tomorrow, and it's my senior year. I can't believe it either. I'm living in an apartment off campus this year with a few of my friends, and it looks nice. Currently, my room is unusually empty with a few duffel bags lying around that I still need to bring downstairs. I already brought down my instruments, TV, and a big box of random stuff. We're planning to leave at around 07:00 which is going to be tons of fun. It's about a five hour drive from where we are if we leave early. Just another sleepless night packing my stuff up as I think about how I don't have many more of these left. Which actually freaks me out a little.
Sunday, August 20th, 2023 23:15 - I went to NYC today. It was one of my last trips to the city before school starts back up again. After walking part of The High Line, I went to (what was once) CBGBs. It's now a high-end clothing store. So pretty much the exact opposite of what it used to be. The inside was still cool. The stage was still there with instruments, and lots of posters on the walls. Vinyls were being sold near the enterance. On the way back, I went to Midtown Comics and got two volumes of Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out! Great NYC day.
Saturday, August 19th, 2023 22:24 - Today I went to my local Round1 with a few of my friends. Upgrade kits for DanceDanceRevolution A3 came out today, and I was interested to see what the situation was with R1's cabs. Turns out, both white cabs were down and there was a large crowd around the only gold cab running A3. I didn't get to play any DDR while I was there, but I did play quite a few rounds of DANCERUSH STARDOM. I'm starting to like that game a lot more. My favorite songs I played were Crazy Shuffle, Din Don Dan, and Midnight Amaretto. I also got in quite of few rounds of beatmania IIDX. There's two IIDX cabs there: One is a standard cab that's running CastHour, and the other one is a LIGHTNING MODEL cab running RESIDENT. I played on the LIGHTNING MODEL cab as I've never played on one before. I really like the touch screen panel. I'm not very good at IIDX and the highest difficulty I can clear is a 6. I played LOVE♥SHINE as well as a few 1st style songs. I also played Talk Dirty to Me on Guitar Hero Arcade. Overall, solid Round1 rhythm game experience.
Thursday, July 27th, 2023 02:00 - I went to the CD store again yesterday. When I was there last week I saw a few Green Day bootlegs that looked interesting, and today I got them. I found Radio Daze, a recording from the 1992 WFMU broadcast. Allies of the Idiot Nation, which is from MTV Supersonic in Milan, Italy in 2005. Lastly, Surprise Gig At CBGB Studio is from a surprise gig at CBGBs from 2001. I also got a copy of Dookie on CD. I also got the first season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on DVD. I watched that show a lot in high school and decided to add it to my collection. I also got a copy of Wedding Crashers on UMD Video. I've wanted to watch that and finding it for the PSP was cool.
Tuesday, July 18th, 2023 18:24 - Hi. I know it's been a real hot minute since I've worked on this website, so I decided to completely revamp it yet again last night. Welcome to Version 3.0. I think this is going to be the one to stay. Anyway, I worked on it some more today, and hopefully I will add all the pages that I've wanted to add in the near future. Summer's already almost over, and I go back to school the last week of August. This summer's been pretty fun. I worked during May and June and then went camping for two weeks. I've been playing a lot of music recently. I bought my first electric guitar a few weeks ago and I'm finally learning how to play. I've also been playing bass a lot to get ready for this next semester with my band. Also, I went to this CD store near my house today and picked up some stuff. I got the Ramones compilation Hey! Ho! Let's Go: The Anthology, the Family Guy: The Freakin' Sweet Collection and the first two seasons of Archer on DVD, Social Distortion's self-titled album, and Marky Ramone's autobiography Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life as a Ramone.
Wednesday, August 10th, 2022 22:51 - I went to a Jimmy Buffett concert at the Jones Beach Theater last night and it was so fun! He played a lot of songs off his Life on the Flip Side album from 2020. We had to park two fields over from the theater as the closest parking lots were full of RVs and tailgate parties, which were fun to navigate through. It was awesome and the weather was perfect!
Saturday, August 6th, 2022 17:38 - I bought a PlayStation 2 today. I went back to Tri-County to play some DDR and StepManiaX for one last round (and I actually got a new highscore on Sunshine on StepManiaX which made me really happy) and I just couldn't ignore the retro games store. So I went upstairs and bought a pretty heavily-used PS2. It reeks of age, but the thing still powers on AND reads discs. I think the laser is on its last legs though, so that's a sign for me to invest in a beefy hard drive and mod it so I can play backups. Also, one little cool detail I noticed is that my PS2 is a model SCPH-30001 which I believe is the first ever model sold in the US, making it 22 years old. So that's pretty cool. I tested it out tonight playing beatmania on my $10 Goodwill TV.
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2022 18:12 - So I was on Twitter this morning, and I saw that "IIDX" was trending. I click on the link, and it turns out the next beatmania IIDX game is on the way. I still feel like CastHour came out last month but here we are. The location tests are going to be at the SILK HAT Kawasaki DICE arcade from August 5th to 7th, 2022. Anyway it's called beatmania IIDX 30 RESIDENT and just by looking at the logo it appears to have some kind of dark, polygonal, futuristic artstyle and theme.
Sunday, July 31st, 2022 20:31 - I saw Joan Jett and the Blackhearts perform yesterday and it was awesome! I brought my camera and took a few pictures there. They were playing at this small venue in a park and I've never seen that place so packed before.
Thursday, July 21st, 2022 12:41 - So another package from Japan arrived today, and I got a lot of cool stuff in it. It was a bunch of BEMANI related things I found on Mercari and Yahoo! Auctions Japan. I got stuff like some beatmania IIDX and DDR books, a HEROIC VERSE poster, a Hello Kitty DDR pocket, and a DanceDanceRevolution...music box? I've never seen this thing before anywhere on the Internet. It's interesting because the box shows DDR X gameplay, but the music box plays one of three licensed songs from DanceDanceRevolution (2010) on the Wii. The songs include Hey, Soul Sister, Bad Romance, or "Celebration. I have no idea which song mine plays yet because I haven't unboxed it yet. I might make a video about it because I think I may be the first to document one of these on YouTube. I posted about it on ZIv to see if anyone can help me figure out what this thing's backstory is.
Saturday, June 25rd, 2022 23:58 - So I've been looking around online for a drum controller for Guitar Hero, Rock Band, drummania, or even Rock Revolution that was at a reasonable price. I talked a bit about this in my last note, but I'm going to explain more of the story here. Last week, I finally found a listing for a used Band Hero drum controller for the Wii. I won the auction and got the controller for a pretty good price. It arrived a few days ago and after putting it together I immediately tested it out on Guitar Hero 5 on my Wii. All the pads seemed to work fine, except for the red pad. It was registering a hit around 30% of the time, and that got really frustrating after a while. So today I opened the whole controller up to take a look inside and see wassup. I disconnected the wires for the red pad, cleaned off some of the excess glue holding them in place, and then reconnected them. I put the controller back together and to my surprise, it actually worked! The controller didn't come with a foot pedal though, so I've been playing with the Auto Kick cheat until I can find one on eBay that will work. I may be able to connect my drummania foot pedal to it somehow.
Thursday, June 23rd, 2022 20:32 - I bought a Rock Band microphone for use on my PC today and it works fabtabulously. I also bought a Band Hero drum controller too. The cool thing is that the red pad doesn't really work so very good so now I'm going to have to look up how to fix that.
Monday, May 30th, 2022 20:39 - After 3.14 years of smashing arrows and 3 billion points overall, I finally achieved Veteran status on FlashFlashRevolution. I'm amazing, I know. No but seriously, that took FOREVER. I'm just glad it's done and I now I can focus on other aspects of my life outside of rhythm gaming, like going outside and touching grass. Also, I know I kinda fell off with updating this website. I've been pretty busy recently with work and school (and FFR).
Monday, April 25th, 2022 12:37 - My beatmania pocket 2 finally arrived today from Japan and I'm so excited to listen to its incredibly bit-crushed music. This thing is in beautiful condition and it came with its box which is really nice. It even has the instruction manual too. I plan on making a video about it along with my DanceDanceRevolution pocket as soon as finals are over with. Until then, My beatmania DaDaDa!! keyboard review video is coming out on the 30th which talks about another obscure BEMANI game.
Sunday, April 24th, 2022 14:46 - I got COVID yesterday yeeha. I feel just so great right now and what a surprise I get it right at the start of finals week like isn't that #epic?
Thursday, April 14th, 2022 18:54 - It's finally here!...after like two years. I bought this DJ Station Pro beatmania controller off Yahoo! Auctions Japan way back in 2020 and it finally arrived today. It's the best 5key beatmania controller a 5key beatmania player could ask for. Maybe. The turntable is great, much better than the UKOC in my opinion. There's these volume faders on the left side which really add to the "DJ" feel that this game's supposed to give off. The keys are a little stiff and I much perfer the UKOC's keys. Now, what totally makes up for that is the fact that the keys light up just like the arcade! There's a guy on YouTube who cleared SWEET BREEZE from ClubMIX with one of these things, so I'm sure it's just a matter of getting used to the keys. Also, the seller bundled in a copy of beatmania IIDX 3rd style for the PS2 which was super nice.
Saturday, April 9th, 2022 21:32 - I successfully connected my PlayStation 2 EyeToy to my Windows XP machine to use it as a webcam. It works about as well as it sounds. You can almost taste the pixels and the audio is very delayed. Finding working drivers for the EyeToy was just tons of fun. The only ones I could find only seemed to work on Windows 10, which obviously didn't work on XP. I eventually found this totally-not-a-virus "setup.exe" on download.com that did the trick.
Friday, March 26th, 2022 22:14 - So I went to the Tri-County Flea Market again to play some StepManiaX. I did pretty well, almost FC'd Sunshine on HARD towards the end. I'm going to make another video there sometime after school ends in late June. I want to do a "summer" themed setlist where I play the songs Bumble Bee, Sunshine, and Summer (Speedy Mix) together. Also, I wanted to share this picture I took of Tri-County's decaying IIDX cab. It has been broken for like a year.
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2022 21:06 - I was cleaning out my closet today and I found my old MacBook Air from 2015 buried under a pile of clothes. I dug it out and tried booting it up only to discover a broken Windows 10 BSOD. Long story short, I fixed the broken Windows Bootcamp partition, deleted it, and reinstalled a clean copy of OS X El Capitan. It seems to work pretty well after sitting in my closet for six years, but it has some screen problems and it's missing the "T" key for some reason. But it works and that's cool.
Thursday, March 17, 2022 21:36 - So guess what got released today? DanceDanceRevolution A3! It only released on gold cabs, but my local Round1 has a gold cab so I'll take it. Hopefully I can make it over there soon because I really want to play the new songs. They aren't any new licenses, but hopefully the KONAMI originals are good.
Monday, March 14, 2022 06:27 - So I guess I'm making this a blog thing now? I figured out how to make the navigation bar buttons light up when you hover over them with the mouse. Yippee. I'm staying up all night again revamping my homepage. Hopefully this will be closer to the final version. And hopefully I'll be able to wake up for my first class of the day in like four hours. EDIT: So THAT didn't happen lmao.
