monthly recap (june 2024)
turns out i'm simultaneously too busy and don't do enough to justify writing weekly recaps so here's a monthly log instead. lately all my free time's being eaten up by 3D modelling and catching up on work.
bearblog
i've moved from dreamwidth to bearblog now, mostly just for SEO purposes. it's not that i want people to find my blog exactly, but i want to acknowledge the feelings of others, i guess. that is to say that i very often get into tangents of research and spend hours going down rabbit holes into niche topics only to find that no one's mentioned them on the internet in english. or if they have, it's on a site with shitty search like twitter or embedded in a youtube video or tiktok that isn't easily accessible to search engines.
it feels kinda lonely. like WTF you mean no one else gives a shit about the one week in 2010 when jay-jay feeney was #2 on the new zealand radio charts with a horny christmas charity single except for me. i'll bite the bullet and expose my blog to google's crawlers so that if anyone else cares about that niche topic, they'll know they aren't the only one who thinks it's totally crazy.
IPW: ultimate glory
attended impact pro wrestling's ultimate glory event at the start of the month! it was so good. i took a lot of notes to write a full play-by-play report but TBH in the end it really is just guys beating each other up back and forth over made up championship titles. let's have fun!
fanart of horus, undisputed star of the show. i already thought the part where he tossed james shaw into the crowd of onlooking wrestlers was too cool, but then he followed it up with the out-of-the-ring table setup and table slam, and then crawled out behind the audience, climbed on top of the venue's inaccessible entrance landing, and jumped down to keep fighting the other guys. audience participation element aside, i think it's such a strong benefit of having a small venue that you can do stuff like this. this is a hall that's mainly used for stuff like book fairs and toy collector shows so seeing its very architecture be transformed into part of a pro wrestling match was insane.
i was really excited to see liger! i've seen him at other IPW events previously but after finding out who he was i assumed he lived in america for some reason. this time he wore a whole palestine flag-themed fit, looked super dope. benny keen also wore a watermelon-patterned shirt. speaking of him, i love sleazy characters and while IPW is full of those for heels, it's pretty fun to get a sleazy character who's on the good guy's side as well.
the only characters that i felt came off a bit weak (outside of the dudes who just had no gimmick) were probably the alphas of auckland. i don't think it's their fault— they played the shitty privileged scumbag character role really well— but IPW already has the young nats and james shaw who fill the same niche and focus more precisely on tropes that aucklanders would recognize in real life. i don't think varsity culture is very common here, so maybe private school uniform (like king's college) would do better. though those are like, literal children so maybe not.
fanzine shit
i completed the four page comic i was drawing for fangs (miguel zine) at last! i also drew some promotional artwork for a new lead (TGAAI zine). there's another comic i need to sit my ass down and finish drawing for.
thrift style bundle
i tried ordering one of those thrift style bundles on a whim. the cost was $50 NZD (including shipping, which is essentially $10-$15, so the price of the service and clothes themselves were lower). it's worth the cost already, but you'd benefit from it more if you had an interesting sense of style.
shirt and jacket are both from hallensteins, the basic menswear store all guys buy stuff from to begin with (it's usually 100% cotton so the quality is still really nice for a cheap brand). pants are unmarked. i'm impressed the seller managed to find clothes that fit me decently while matching the style i listed.
but style bundles are really an instance where i'm like if anyone here employed bare minimum SEO you'd get more sales! i heard about it on youtube shorts, so i searched all over google and etsy for "style bundles in new zealand" and such, but it turned out you had to brave tiktok to find people promoting them at all. and they'd say in the bio, message me on instagram if you want to get a bundle! but no instagram would be listed so you'd just search them up hoping their username was the same. what's the point? do links not exist on tiktok? i only remembered depop existed afterwards so i just used that instead. makes me feel like an old man!
risoprint pcards
got some now pcards risoprinted for 9th. there's two per A4 sheet (rest of the page is used for other A6 prints), so i made different variations. i love how cute it looks!
media log
- the try guys - the try guys try color guard: real good and classic TTG video, exposed me to a part of american culture i've never known much about before. it's interesting how there's always local people who'll care about niche things like these.
- sabrina carpenter - please please please: i really like sabrina's new song and i thought the MV was so terribly adorable until i found out barry keoghan is a deadbeat dad! there goes my one cute celebrity couple. it's crackup though since the whole song is about sabrina wanting barry to not embarrass her. i'm really happy that PPP charted #1 on billboard.
- F.D signifier - the WWE's complex "black" history: fascinating video with a great narrative! outside of the insightful commentary on race, F.D also brought up how 'the possibility of the bad guys winning' was a big appeal of pro wrestling, which i didn't realize before but is totally true!
- IPW: nightmare before christmas: IPW uploaded heaps of their past shows so had to watch the one inexplicably styled after three cheers for sweet revenge. non-fighting highlights were matty short trying to get liger to fight with him and james shaw inducting joseph kinkade into the hall of fame.
- charli xcx - brat: i listened to it again... and again... i'm so bratpilled now. i still don't think it's anything groundbreaking compared to her previous work, but what it is is so listenable even to people who aren't in the hyperpop scene (because it isn't exactly hyperpop at all). i keep going back to apple, so i, talk talk... the whole album is just really good. and the girl, so confusing version with lorde is insane.
- normani - dopamine: normani's debut solo album is finally out! i thought it was pretty good, much more RnB than expected however. favorite is probably candy paint. very very sexy stuff!
- invincible S1: i kinda spoiled myself on the plot twist beforehand but it was still crazy LOL. the ending of S1 was awesome though, so looking forward to the rest!
- fredrik knudsen - EVE online | down the rabbit hole: it's blurring all together to me at the end but great video. TBH i wish neopets would let players fuck around with the economy more like in EVE. don't want outright scammers but just bringing back the old system of store buyouts affecting stock prices in some way could be fun.
- sophie - oil of every pearl's un-insides: sophie was a genius. i still like faceshopping a lot.
- neopets - the void within: majorly excited that neopets is getting a new plot again. it's kinda wild that the altador plot still feels like one of the newer plots to me (even though it was before i started playing), and that some of those characters are finally getting a continuation of their story after what, 18 years? i'm so hyped...