Time to Run

I've decided to exercise again. After last week's Volleyball Experience, I thought about my steady descent into sedentarism (just looked this up and it IS a word). At the end of last year, I pretty much just stopped exercising. Too sleepy for that, I decided. I'm too busy drinking large glasses of red wine with my family, or something. But no more.

This is what I'll look like, when I run.

I will be walking and sweating and breathing heavily. And I will grow more powerful and intense thanks to this. I think I'm gonna make it an unshakeable goal to walk for thirty minutes, on or off the mysterious device known as the treadmill.

Me on the beautiful treadmill.

I like treadmills as opposed to just walking outside, because I can really just sink further into my own mind. There are no surroundings to be aware of, no pesky roads to cross. And, blissfully, I can jump into the shower the second I'm done.

Me experiencing the extreme pleasure of the post-run shower.

I also love exercise bikes. They're just really cool machines. Much more accessible than most gym equipment. Although I would love to have a bicep curl machine in the house. That would be beautiful. 

3DS Photography

This is my new passion. Beautiful 3D photos, taken on powerful, unstoppable hardware: the 3DS.

In light of both the ballooning trend I've seen on my personal Instagram feed for 2000s and 2010s digital cameras and my own enduring obsession with the marvel that is the 3DS, I took it upon myself this week to take a longer jaunt through the delights of this precious device's camera. 

It can't be denied that this thing looks like ass. It was, as far as I can remember, not considered a remotely impressive camera at the time of the 3DS's release - it was more of a fun gimmick feature that could either be used to straightforwardly entertain a child, or as an interaction point for the small selection of games that used it, like Face Raiders.

Very fun.

But nevertheless, there is a carefree joy to be had in taking it mildly seriously as a camera. At this point, digicams have become flashpoint nostalgia objects, their disgusting grain and horrible bloom and low-focus nastiness now a site of intrigue and hazy memory. The 3DS itself occupies this position, and I see about as many "check out my 3DS in 2026" short videos as I do digital camera videos. The tech from fifteen years ago is looking bright and delicious. If you're creative, there's always the threat of getting a nice picture out of some shoddy equipment.

Now, of course, you can take normal, static pictures on the 3DS in much the same way that you would on any digital camera, but you can also take yummy 3D photos and convert them from the 3DS's MPO format to a satisfying wiggly gif, as I have done for the pictures you see here via 3dswigglegram.com. These sorts of images (I think we usually called them stereographs at the time) were all the rage on late 2000s, early 2010s Tumblr. I remember M.I.A. posting them. There is now a subreddit for these, but they receded into the quiet of the internet as gifs and 3D both lost their allure.

It kind of astonishes me how far gifs have fallen out of favour online. Now they're primarily associated with reacting on WhatsApp, etc, choosing from the often uninspiring pool of Tenor or Giphy database options, and they've come to be essentially the same as the Minions wine memes littering Facebook. Just not something I envisaged, but it's hard to overstate just how much the shift into slick and specific format micro social media apps as the prominent way to post changed our aesthetic choices and communication styles. Gifs used to be cool, now they're thoughtlessly discarded.

But not for me. I am always thinking about the humble gif. And for that matter, I am a great lover of the 3DS's much maligned 3D. It doesn't always look great, and it's often implemented in a way that does nothing to add to the experience of playing a game, but sometimes it's amazing. I love it in the 3D Zelda remakes, and it's phenomenal in Red Viper, the 3DS's incredible fanmade Virtual Boy emulator. And surely, it goes without saying, it's pretty satisfying to take 3D pictures.

I settled on black and white with slightly upped contrast for these pictures because the look goes some way towards mitigating the low-quality gunk of even the camera's best shots. Making them look much more stylised was my way of working with the limitation for a more considered look. But their charm is in their crappiness. They are not glistening, perfectly posed and composed shots, but little memories. 

In that vein, there is something really delightful about a 3DS wigglegram's suggestion of dimension. Here's a homemade gif, the perfect diaristic moving image. I don't know... I think I'll be making many more of these.

Blog Destruction

I realised a couple of days ago that a sizeable chunk of my old blog posts (from between 2012 and 2015, mostly) have missing images. This was a bit of a shock - as far as I can tell, it happened because I originally used a different Google account for this blog, so all of its uploaded images from this time period were stored there, and maybe that account wasn't accessed for long enough to be PURGED, because when I log into it now, there's no Blogger info attached to it at all.

Mirai from Beyond the Boundary. She's just like me. 

I'm in two minds about this, because it is sad to have all that stuff wiped, and I definitely would have just logged in to that account to prevent this if I'd known it was a risk. I did create a backup of the entire blog at one point (I have no idea if I still have this stored anywhere though), and I can definitely recover some of the images through the Wayback Machine, so that softens the blow somewhat, but in any case, there is almost a sense of fun about it to me. 

Around that time, I really enjoyed thinking of my drawings as super disposable. It was always just on to the next one, and I would sometimes fantasise about all my creative output being destroyed and only existing as a memory. There was a strange allure to it for me, and I had such an excitement for whatever was about to come next. I loved doing experimental little exercises - weird collages, or printing out photos and soaking them in water to damage and distort them before re-scanning them to post. I loved the idea of constantly desconstructing and reconstituting things.

There was, and is, something beautiful about that to me. Sometimes things become more special in their absence, or by an alteration that can never be reversed. A loss can imbue something with more meaning or sentimental value than it ever would have had otherwise. And so, in a weird way, it's all indestructable. If even destruction and removal can't ruin it, then nothing can.

Some info from my former Blogger profile.

So I think it's okay - but I'll be slowly replacing some of those images where I can. For any that can't be replaced: goodbye, and thanks for disappearing.

Last Week's Gaming: Pikmin & StreetPass

April is the month of the 3DS. Everyone knows this and it isn't something I just decided to claim for this post. April is the special 3DS month, and that's why I've started my own personal campaign to sit down and play that thing, blissfully and extensively.

I was really excited to collect this flip phone.

I will now report to you my gorgeous 3DS week. Let's check out the shocking stats. Firstly, here's an overview of the steps and game titles I've accumulated over the years:

That's right. A stunning two million steps. This is why I have worn out many shoes in my time. And 156 titles (although keep in mind, this includes stuff like the SETTINGS). But which game have I played most this week, I hear you desperately asking, and how much did I play it?

I have been delighting in, mostly, Hey! Pikmin. This thing has grown on me the more I've played it, and now that I've met flying Pikmin and discovered all many of sparkling trinkets, I have to say I really enjoy this game and its chill puzzles. I've collected about a third of the Sparklium I need to complete the game's major quest, and it feels good. I feel powerful, despite my tiny, ant-like size in the little landscapes of the Pikmin.

I'm excited to finish it and mark another beautiful game COMPLETED. Right now I'm around five hours in, and I feel confident and secure in my Pikmin-wrangling abilities. Who knows what can happen in the next hour of tantalising and scary Pikmin gameplay.

In other news, I received a lovely Kirby drawing in Nintendo Letterbox/Swapnote. A simple treasure. These letters are often cryptic and odd, or sometimes just a dull request to add the sender on Discord (a thing I will certainly not be doing), but my favourites are inevitably little fun drawings like this. I always wonder about the person on the other end of the Kirby. Big "hi" to you, Kirby sender.

I also delved back into StreetPass Mii Plaza and stunned myself by finally finishing StreetPass Slot Racer (which, I now learn, is called Slot Car Rivals outside of Europe - the localisation is dizzying). I am not the greatest in terms of reaction times, so this game was perhaps the most challenging of the bunch for me, but I did it. I beat that thing. And it feels amazing.

I also obtained the country of Croatia. Finally. There is much to celebrate.

My Volleyball Weekend

To prevent this from becoming a pure Java games blog, let me tell you about my Saturday. A beautiful, insane friend with a scream bubbling up inside her at all times works at a place where one can play volleyball. There is a bar there, which I don't totally understand, but a group of us went over there to yes, play volleyball and drink two yummy cocktails. I was ambivalent about the volleyball, but I did join in and cement my position as the worst player of the bunch. I was, for the most part, afraid of the ball.

I finally knew what it must feel like to be Hinata.

This is the first hurdle of any hard-balled game. Getting used to letting that thing hit your body. I didn't totally manage it by the time we were done, but I did inch closer and closer to being able to take the hit. For some reason, I let out an uncontrollable cartoon scream the first several times the ball and I made contact. But eventually, the ball could hit my forearm. What it couldn't do was make it over the net, but that's a step for another time.

Volleyballs look just like this.

It isn't easy getting used to the physical reality of a sport like that. The confidence and force you need just does not come naturally. Nevertheless, it was fun. I was committed for the entire time, but a vodka cocktail does impact the experience.

It did make me think about the lack of exercise I've been getting lately. I stopped lifting weights at the end of last year because a repetitive strain injury made it really weird, and I've been too lazy to walk or run or cycle instead. But maybe I should make a committment to doing regular cardio again, because it feels nice to have improved stamina and breath control. It feels satisfying.

I've never been a big sports person, but looking back on my school experience of sport, there are things I remember really fondly. Like the football tournament I competed in at first school, the only inter-school sports thing I ever did. I was eight or so, and something about football at that age was natural and easy. I wasn't bad at it. But I never really played after that. Mixed games stopped making sense as we got older and the boys got more staunchly competitive. For a brief period, football was really fun, but then something about it felt too serious. It was, and is, after all, the primo avenue for English pride, a thing I found sort of ghoulish and repulsive as a kid, largely because I resented the expectation that I was supposed to support England and be really into England winning. I just didn't really get the attachment to a national team. I understand it more now, but I think it just came across as way too dead serious for me growing up.

Me kicking my football.

The other sport I have a passion for is badminton. The lightness of it all was magic to me. Suddenly I didn't need to be strong or tall or part of a team that didn't give me an opportunity to do anything. Suddenly I could be fast and little and smack a shuttlecock across the room with a beautiful swiftness. Balls might soar, but they don't dance. The shuttlecock is a little dancer. And I love her. Tennis is a wild hog by comparison.

I'm just like this guy from the badminton anime Love All Play.

But I'm not playing any sport right now, of course. I'm in bed, smiling at the thought, legs rigid, sleepy. Hell yes. 

Reviewing J2ME Games: 1916 Dogfight

This is the worst one. This is the worst J2ME game I have played thus far.

1916 Dogfight has a certain visual flair. The text is legible and golden and beautiful, and the 3D models of the planes you pilot look neat and considered to a pretty high calibre for this sort of game. The look suggests a high level of polish and competence.

When you start the first level, though, and begin manouvreing your plane, you quickly realise that this is filth. 

You're tasked with flying the plane through a series of hoops. A classic flying challenge. Only, the controls on this thing are utterly disgusting. The plane swerves wildly with the slightest touch, careening into the static, poorly-tiled picture of a cloud that represents the sky. Everything is too fast, and all attempts at correcting your course will massively overshoot the direction you're actually trying to go in. This is a nightmare.

I'm supposed to fly through all these rings.

Perhaps this is what pilots experienced in 1916. Perhaps it was just impossibly dizzying. I've never before gotten motion sickness from a phone game, so this is the accolade 1916 Dogfight can enjoy. It is genuinely nauseating. 

Reviewing J2ME Games: 1805 French Empire

Don't worry everyone, anime Napoleon is here. He is the first thing you see when you open up 1805 French Empire, a strategy game in which you command the sexy French army and their cute little horses against, you know, a palette-swapped army clad in red with their own cute little horses. Aww.

The boys, in the field.

The text pre-amble that comes before each level in this game is remarkably rudimentary. There is a lack of flair to this game. We are just here to straightforwardly direct our guys. There is some music, but it's that typical Java music that just plays in brief moments and has a very non-notable sort of melody. It reminds one of the arcade, in a way. Those simple interludes of sound that let you know that Pac-Man is alive and well. And boy, is he.

Cool.

I do really like the pixel art here. There's something just right about these little men and their little horses. It reminds me of the tin soldier display room at the Musée de l'Armée in Paris. 

The men, on display.

The levels themselves are satisfying. You blast some guys, and that's all you could really want. I really like the way some of the men and their horses appear in the black space outside the game, on occasion. They're hanging out. They become spectators in the void, waiting for their turn to get blasted.

It is, perhaps, a bit awkward to control an isometric strategy game with the on-screen numpad controls. My heart wants to tap the tile on my screen, but that's not how we play this. Something about this format in particular means that I keep forgetting. But that's why a real, committed gamer trains hard. To win the war.

Ultimately, this is a nice little game, and I am enamoured by the horses. The men will also often say, "oui, d'accord" when you give them a command, which is just nice to hear. Thanks boys.