So, what have I been doing with this one? I've caught up with Project 2017 recordings: 5 6 and 7. I started the week with a manga swap, celebrated a relative's birthday with board games yesterday, and my dad's 74th this Tuesday - which just so happens to be Valentine's Day! A hearty occasion always, though not so much time for Valentine.

Otherwise it's been work and games, mostly. Do you want facts? How about music? Here's some other stuff posted on the blog, as well as a new batch of six overdue reviews. I've been doing some bidding and buying too - more GB/C/A games, though seems that phase is just about played out now.

Remember Glimmerati? The trailer was pretty cool. The game? Not so... judging by gameplay footage. I haven't tried it myself. Unlike buddy Bear I never owned an N-Gage, but I just found out it was actually developed by Bugbear, the same dudes behind such legendary car games as Flat Out, and always striving to take it further with their Next Car Game (up until recently it was actually titled Next Car Game).

Looking at Glimmerati game footage it's interesting how our perceptions of good change with time, though some games seem to last forever, like the original DOOM. I played out the Plutonia Experiment for maybe the first time ever without cheats this week... excluding a little idclipping when I lost my way. Decided to play it on Hurt Me Plenty in hopes I'd actually complete it, as previous attempts at trying it in Ultra Violence (as I easily play the originals) all failed.

These extra episodes really are gruelingly hard if you're not a seasoned vet - ready for all surprises they carry, and maybe they're a challenge even for those who are. It took plenty of trial and error to make it even with regular difficulty, and frequent use of GZDoom's highly appreciated autosave feature. But I did it!

I'm pondering repeating the challenge with TNT next, or maybe Thy Flesh Consumed, both of them episodes I'm not sure I've ever played through in their entirety. At least not without cheats.

Last week? Here. That's about it. Day's short. Night's nigh. Times fly. I took a nostalgic speedrun through the first episode of DOOM yesterday, and hope to get through the second episode right after I post this... with a little upgrade enabled. Ciao for now; see you soon!

CDB Updates:

• Fixed missing blog count on Stats page.
• Fixed the yearly episode count correction in the Anime sidebar.
• Updated poem selection on Poetry page, among other things.
• Minor blog edits; fixes.

These weeks are just going too fast! Too Fast And Furious 6, and I haven't posted a thing on the blog since last week - though I do have a few drafts in the pipeline. More like copper cable. More like broadband. Here's a link to last week anyway, in lack of others. I'll keep this post short cause nothing's really happened and I'm two days late.

Well, a few things: I sold those consoles I didn't get to sell last week, and bought some old stuff while I was at it. For anyone who has old games to spare (and lives in Sweden) I'd recommend Mediapalatset. It does pay more to sell directly to a buyer, but if you didn't buy the stuff at retail value anyway, just want to get it out the way - or both, this is a simple alternative. It's a small, family-owned shop that seem genuinely interested in their stuff, with fair prices and pristine product.

I was just planning to drop off the consoles and fetch an order when I went there, but ended up talking to the owner about old consoles for maybe an hour, learning how to change a GBC cartridge battery, and getting a tour of their business. I doubt they have time to spend that amount of time with every customer, but it left a great first impression. Will be happy to do business with them again... though I don't plan on selling anything more anytime soon. Well, there's always buying.

In other game-related happenings I played out the new DOOM this week... at least I think it was this week, and have started up my old nightly Advance Wars DS routine again - against my better judgment. I've also been bidding on some games for GB and GBA that I doubt I'll have time to play, but have yet to have. At least they don't take up that much space. There's just something about cartridges compared to the more spinnable mediums, and portable over stationary consoles - which is strange considering I really wouldn't use a laptop as long as I have a stationary computer nearby.

Speaking of computers: mine's running well this week, so hopefully those RAM issues were a temporary thing. Still haven't adjusted the RAM on my gaming rig though. It's running smoothly without.

I've also read out .Hack, kept going with Dragon Ball, finally finished Project 2016, and... not much notable else. Here's some more irrelevant loading time comparisons for my other site, here's some sound cloud SPAM, and why not a couple recent bugs I stumbled upon while I'm at it. I fixed the latter one btw, and actually didn't catch the screencap irony till I wrote this. It could've had its own post, that one. Leftover screencaps in lack of meaningful post content? Have at it!

I'll see yall next week... or sooner. Hopefully with a bit more to post.

CDB Updates:

• Minor blog edits; fixes.

I've been looking at different webhosts recently, and I found this one that seemed promising, but reading through their terms they only provide 'positive' hosting. No foul language. No obscene words. What? Fuck that.

I don't usually say so, but I'm excessively anti self-censorship. PIPA, SOPA, CETA, TTIP... nothing good comes from any agreements that tinker with your rights to freedom of speech and... well, freedom. Be it international trade agreements, copyright law, or a tick in a webhost ToS. If that's how it has to be, then it has to be like that. Total freedom of speech for the sake of it, even if I might never need that total freedom.

Why? Peace of mind? Futureproofing? I like to think I'm thinking of the world when I think of things like this, and what a crappy place it would be if we weren't able to make a stand, or speak our mind, or aggravate as to overcome our and everyone else's problems. Better obscenity than violence, right? Better vent than leave a dent, right? Better savor what's left, right? Move onward, when you're down. Fight.

I'm really starting to consider a new host though. Ever since a recent server 'upgrade' the site's been taking aggravatingly long to load... sometimes.

It's not balanced at all. Sometimes it's fine. Sometimes it's all but. Sometimes I wonder if my server's being DDoS'd - and my host is throttling traffic. Sometimes I wonder if they're throttling traffic anyway just to make me upgrade, since they have previously recommended Performance hosting rather than Shared.

But that was a long time ago. I took steps to decrease my resource usage back then, and since then acceptable usage has been rising at a speedier pace than my usage (or rather: people's usage of my site), so hopefully that's no longer a necessity. Honestly the traffic here has dwindled a lot since it's heyday, which was way back in... I-don't-even-remember-when. Back when I had time for this place. Back when it was under constant and ever-evolving development. Uncontrollable development, you could say.

The pace is slower but also refined now. I don't do things at whim and render earlier updates useless, old links unreachable, search results changed... I just leave already useless updates and unreachable links ditto because of a major lack of time when it comes to fixing things.

But the point is: resource usage shouldn't be the problem; my host shouldn't be giving me problem because of it. The site is just too slow. I suppose I should contact my support about this, though I fear they might either ask me to pay more - as per their potential shady resource-limiting tactics in favor of performance upgrades, or they won't know anything about it, at which point it'd be a misuse of time, and miscredit to my name. And worse: maybe my site really is hogging resources at certain times of day and needs to be throttled, resulting in all these issues. Since I started writing this everything's loading faster though. These loading time comparisons are no longer relevant. I guess I'll stick to my current host... for now, and see what happens.

This week though? It's been eventful. January passed in a flash though. I need to quit saying I hope and say I will catch up this month... and not this week, because I've barely accomplished a thing this week short of fueling old conversations and confiding in hobbies when time grew short. I had a boardgaming day with relatives this Saturday though, a lucrative shopping spree/day out today, and as for the rest of the week: I bought another bag of manga on Monday, and was supposed to sell a couple of consoles this Friday (and Wednesday, and Tuesday - it was a complicated process finding a time that matched), but the buyer never showed up! And shortly after couldn't be reached by either phone, or email, or via the sales site his offer was posted on. So I wonder what that was all about. Seems a bit suspect.

I have another buyer in line though, and if you're wondering why I'm selling stuff: it's because I keep buying stuff, and there just isn't enough space for all this stuff. Time to finally rinse out some things I don't need that might be worth a thing or two too, even if I should probably stop purchasing new stuff while I'm at it. It's not so easy to let go of either things or habits though. It's in both my genes and horoscope.

I haven't delved any more into DOOM, or Trackmania, or Bombshell this week - but I have read through 14 numbers of Bleach, 10 of Dragon Ball, and the little Death Note I had left before my books ran out. Hopefully the numbers I'm looking for aren't too far away.

In computer news my (main) computer started whining again one day. BIOS. I opened it up, picked out the RAM and put it back in aaand... it's working again. Wonder what that was all about.

Here's a few posts, last week, and good night! I didn't manage to record the track of the day before the house went dark and everyone else was asleep, but that should be up soon. Till later, enjoy; make the most of the remaining 38 minutes of this grand weekend! ;)

CDB Updates:

• Minor blog edits; fixes.

It's been a good week, though it passed fast, with a bit too much time spent on superfluous activities... like YouTube. I've played through DOOM too (the Hurt me Plenty campaign - Ultra Violence up next), tried some Trackmania Turbo and Bombshell , and have been reading through the Death Note manga by night, though I need to get my hands on the remaining half to finish it. Bought a batch of other second-hand manga yesterday and have started making my way through Bleach too, though I don't have the whole set of those either. Hope to acquire more soon. Though I've been an avid anime watcher for over a decade now, the world of manga is new and exciting ground. The only ones I've been familiar with up to this point have been One Piece and Dragon Ball.

It's interesting to see how the originals differ from the animated versions, and oftentimes it really is better, not just because of the detailed artistry (as was the case with One Piece and Death Note - I'm a bit disappointed with the detail in Bleach... so far), but because there's no filler. None. Zilch. Why the need to repeat that denominator three times in a row is beyond me like universal truth, but there you have it, like Travis O'Guins radio host interviewer keeps concluding.

But anyway: I'm delving more and more into the world of manga lately, and happy with what I've found so far. After Bleach and Death Note there'll probably be a bit of .hack and Dragon Ball (which I've previously only read the first few numbers of), and hopefully I'll be able to complement my collection before I run out, so I can keep reading those aforementioned two. The Bleach manga just recently ended, so if I can just get my hands on all these pockets it's possible to read through it in its entirety. Same with Naruto, though I'd better not rush with that one. Too many simultaneous reads. I'm not even done with Harry Potter yet, which I stalled with halfway through a couple of years back, due to lack of sequelling books... which the library could provide. Maybe it's time.

In computer news I got my 4x4GB DDR3 RAM (Corsair, CL8 1600Mhz VENGEANCE LP), and opened up my gaming computer to put them in, and though I haven't really noticed a performance boost with the extra 8GB, it's working fine this time. Only problem is they're recognized by the system as only 1333Mhz, and I'm not sure how to change this. There's supposedly a setting for it in the BIOS, but an automatic overclocking attempt didn't set them right, so I suppose I'll have to dig a bit further and see which settings I need to tweak. It wasn't as obvious as I thought it would be. There's a lot of settings in there. Time to dig.

I haven't watched that many movies lately, but there's six overdue reviews for you just posted, the blog recently passed six thousand six hundred sixty six posts, and here's last week. Also. And here's the latest recordings. That's it. Till next week I'll hopefully be catching up on all the things I'm still trying to catch up on, and have time for more polished and philosophical posts. Ciao for now.

CDB Updates:

• Minor blog edits; fixes.

Three musicalish posts, three techish posts, three quote rations, three overdue reviews, and I just ordered some DDR3 RAM to upgrade my gaming computer. Also here's three recent albums on YT (by people I follow).

It's starting to fall into place. I'm slowly settling in(to the New Year), and though I was also planning on posting three music reviews, three anime reviews, three game reviews and three other posts too before I posted this... I'm still pretty happy with the daily does. Not thinking, just doing - that's the secret. Getting up before lunch is another secret. And this post is just slightly delayed, right? Just a couple of days. Just one day and one morning. Just one day and barely a night of sleep. Just one of those three, btw - whichever you prefer. No need to add up the times. That's just how these things are phrased. I'm feeling positive today. And efficient. Abrupt-like. Short sentences. Period. I'm back on D-Vitamin supplements too. Maybe that's the third secret.

Week 3 has been a good week overall. I've bought two packs of 24 vanilla popsicles each at just one dollar a piece, on two occasions. Yes that is one dollar for each pack. Organic. Bourbon vanilla. Real cream. No glucose shit. Insane price for quality ice cream. Less than a dollar per liter. If it wasn't a train ride away (on the way from work), from home I'd probably have filled the freezer, and the ones I did buy are disappearing at an alarming rate at home. Too much ice cream. Overall way too much sweet stuff lately. I apparently gained 10 kg this Christmas. Which is too much. Not all at once, but it all amounts quicker than you might realize if you don't get in some serious exercise sessions amidst all that good food. Time to make it like a trend: a passing fat.

Speaking of food: the whole family got together for an after-work dinner at Sally & Systrar this Wednesday, when my brother was in Stockholm for the day. Great food. Great visit. Real lifter of spirits. I took a shopping tour the day after, and watched a movie with a buddy (Top Secret! I mean that's the name of the movie), and went shopping both days of the weekend too. Tis been a rush. I've also started playing games again, which I shouldn't because I really don't have the time, and started reading Death Note, which is better than expected. I expect I might plow through most of the remaining books this week.

In computer news I've switched out my recently upgraded 5GB to 8GB (four identical 400MHz 2GB DDR2 - brand unremembered). I probably did something wrong during the upgrade, because right after the switch the computer wailed as soon as I turned it on. Panic. Calm. I took out the RAM and put it back in again, two at a time... and they all worked. No problems at all. Maybe one was loose. Maybe a cable was hanging over the mobo. I really don't know yo. I'm just happy it worked out.

Btw, ever considered following half an onion on Twitter? And if you're looking for last week's weekly post, here you go. That's all for now. I'm off to play some DOOM before a new day's nigh. Times fly.

CDB Updates:

• Minor blog edits; fixes.

So we're standing on the doorstep of a new era, once again!

The shift sure passed fast - as did the week before it. I don't have my old calender beside me to remind me of what I did each day, but after last Christmas weekend... not that much has happened. I've been sitting in. I've been out a bit. I had one day of work in the middle of the week, and then it was back home, and back to work on all I've been working with here. My site, mostly. Lost projects. Old projects. I've managed a bunch, and though my short-lived session of free days started with great stress rather than joy and celebration (it's Christmas goddammit), I calmed down the closer we were to the bridge, slowly accepting that there's just so much you can accomplish in a single year, and I feel I made the most of it. Or at least: much of it.

Looking back, I'm impressed at how well I ended last year here at the CDB blog. I wrote a good (more importantly on-time) final poem, posted an inspiring message from George Orwell, the one-hundredth edition of my semi-frequent Music Video Mashups, and both yearly recap and weekly post in one (a few days after deadline - but just in time for the New Year), all on that final day! I wish I could, but I just can't top that this year. I even had a free GOG give-away back then, at the very end of the post. Wonder who claimed that one.

Instead of doing things as impressive as the above yesterday, I wasted the few hours I had doing important things with the site. Upgrades - and such, but I have nothing to show for it, just a sense of accomplishment I'm trying to treasure as the New Year sets in. Some things to take off my todo list, at least.

On the other hand: though last year's pre-New Year accomplishments seem nice and dandy, I was barely active at all on the days leading up to the grand finale, as I have been now. Low on time, but catching up, as I still am. I posted a quick Happy 2017! yesterday, along with rushed accompanying artwork, but as for my resolutions... I think I'll re-use last year's bit of wisdom: Don't tell anyone about your goals until you achieve them!

My resolutions post from last year was meant to be private until a New Year was nigh, and checked back upon it to see how I'd done, but I feel like I didn't accomplish them enough, and revealing some of them now would spoil certain surprises... so I think I'll leave them hidden for this year as well. Guess the advice above didn't work so well after all, as in: getting me to do more than I'd do otherwise. :) But this year, maybe I'll pay more attention to those goals. They're still pretty relevant. It's like I just skipped a year. I know I did lots of things. Lots of good things, just not the things I planned on doing. Where did all that time go? I didn't initially post any resolutions in 2015 either, just a motivation. One goal, if you so will. A vision to live by: Stay strong! Let go! Get better! I better.

Maybe a line's enough for the even years, and renewed resolve a must for the odd ones?

On the blog I've just posted 6 reviews - my last routine batch of this particular weekly amount, and I'm posting this post in time this time, on the week it's due, too. Would've been dishonorable to start the New Year with less. :)

Btw, here's the first post I posted last year, similar to the 2017 tribute above..

I'm feeling pretty hopeful about the new dawn of days to come, no matter how apocalyptic predications I hear of this coming year. Not sure how I'll do with the Weekly posts this year - if I will, but you can be sure I'll keep on posting! I feel like spontaneous writing might be a better creative fuel. Maybe it's time to break that routine. Let go, right? Of that one, and many other old weights.

Here's last week. I guess this might be the last weekly post in a while. The last for last year, the first for this one; with a thirst and wish for a Happy 2017! Full of visions. May the bliss come: quick! Sun sit, sun. Set. I'm forever in your debt, rich one.

CDB Updates:

• Yearly backups, checks, upgrades, etc.
• Optimized and secured databases (a bit).
• PHP 5.4 -> 7 + tweaks. Old .htaccess/php.ini includes removed.
• Deprecated WP tags and old feed links/includes removed/replaced.
• Core Object Cache removed (hasn't worked since 2009).
• Minor blog edits; fixes.