Monthly Update: October, 2025

 

Jesus H. Bloody 'ell Christ'onna sticky bicycle!  RJK Jr/Trump need to learn the difference between correlation and causation; otherwise, someone's going to need to look into UAPs out in the Rhode Island wilderness and why Democrats aren't doing anything about it!

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr legitimately believes that he has the authority to silence critics, or in this case, a comedian, on behalf of the US President, because they're critical of how people have reacted to an assassination.  And that the Trump administration can sue a news outlet, in this case, the New York Times, for $15,000,000,000.00 because their reporting of him was unfavorable and didn't highlight his accomplishments enough, which is similar, but this time with a price tag.  If you can't see that as distinctly authoritarian, then you should rethink some of your other life choices.

I can say that I think Donald Trump is an idiot, and that's my opinion, and that's protected speech under the 1st Amendment of the Constitution.  I can say that Donald Trump is a sexual abuser because he was found guilty in the court of law of having committed sexual abuse against E. Jean Carol.  And no, presidential immunity does not apply here, you dolt, because you weren't the President in 1995/96 and you weren't President when you were convicted in 2023.  And just because Trump is the President now in 2025 doesn't mean that, because 77,302,580 people knowingly voted for a known sexual abuser, it doesn't mean that he's excused from having to pay his court-ordered $88,300,000 fine.

This is so last week and is already dated, but I'm going to leave it here for posterity's sake.

But in other news, I'm apparently living in a war-ravaged city that's just been constantly on fire for the last couple of years.  And let me just catastrophize with you for a moment with a bullet point list while I have you here:

• 07/01/2024: The Supreme Court rules that the President cannot be prosecuted for actions they commit that are deemed to be part of their Presidential duty.
• 06/09/2025: The President deploys National Guard troops and US Marines to Los Angeles, CA, in response to protests against ICE raids and deportations.
• 08/05/2025: BigBalls is carjacked in Washington, D.C.
• 08/13/2025: The President orders National Guard troops to be deployed in Washington, D.C.
• 09/02/2025: Trump announces that the day before, on September 1st, they blew up a boat carrying 11 drug smugglers from Venezuela in the southern Caribbean Sea.
• No evidence is provided to prove that the boat was smuggling drugs.
• 09/15/2025: Trump announces that another boat carrying three drug smugglers has been blown up.
• 09/16/2025: Trump announces that a third boat carrying drug smugglers has been blown up.
• 09/17/2025: Trump announces that a fourth boat carrying three drug smugglers was blown up, and 2,200 lbs of cocaine were recovered by the Dominican Navy.
• 09/21/2025: Following the assassination of right-wing Christian Nationalist Charlie Kirk, the President says, "I hate my opponent, and I don't want the best for them" at a funeral rally for the late Kirk.
• 09/28/2025: The President orders National Guard troops to be deployed in Portland, OR, in response to protests against ICE raids and deportations.
• Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield sues the Trump administration over deploying troops
• 09/28/2025: US Attorney General Pam Bondi orders National Guard troops to Memphis, TN, because of increased crime rates.
• 09/29/2025: The Governor of Illinois said that National Guard troops would be deployed in Illinois.
• 09/30/2025: President Trump & Pete Hegseth hold a meeting of US Military leaders, declaring that the US Military should be more lethal and should be trained as such in US cities. 
• During his speech, Hegseth says that if anything he's saying is giving the military leaders pause, and likely any enlisted soldiers as well, they should honorably resign.

You see where all of this is going, right?  There's so much more that I've left out from additional lawsuits against companies that he felt wronged him, deportations of both foreigners and American citizens, and the construction of deportation camps. Fucking hell.

 

Let's move on abruptly because I can't easily transition away from this.  Again.

We've got a month full of games I got from Keymailer, which all came in rather quickly.  I've noticed that I seem to go through stretches where I'll submit requests for 10-15 games a month and hear nothing, but then all of a sudden I'll get a handful of granted requests and a couple of offers, all within a week or two.  Or in the case of Cursed Dungeon Raider, I've had it for nearly a year, and it just so happens that the deadline fell in line with the other games I'll be writing about.  But we had our first adult-rated (but not actually ESRB-rated) game that went up last Friday, along with accompanying playthrough videos.  There was nothing scandalous in the visuals, and there wasn't any language stronger than a standard R-rated movie.  There are some bonus puzzles in Only Cards you can solve, but only the last two have any bit of nudity, and I didn't include either of those on the YouTube playthrough for obvious reasons.  So nearly every Friday, we'll be featuring a game I played via Keymailer, and most of them are seasonally appropriate.

In 9 Years of Shadows, I've hit a bit of a wall.  Or at least I had until Tuesday night, when I realized that a method of fast travel in the game had actually unlocked a new area, but because I don't like to use fast travel, I didn't know that the central shaft elevator now had a new accessible area.  Additionally, the in-game mechanics of the elevator had previously been established as only being accessible after you come across another elevator access point on the map, as opposed to accessing a new area by way of the elevator.  I'm really just blaming a major update to the game that happened back in April, which makes a lot of the late-game maps and walkthroughs null because new areas were added, and some of the mechanics were fine-tuned.  Basically, anything posted prior to the April 21st update is now essentially useless, but I may have just found a solution, but I'll need to test it out first (if I could get the Switch 2 back from The Squire due to the whole game card sharing system that I've already talked about).

I've picked up Triangle Strategy again.  I know I'm close to finishing it because in an exploration scene, I didn't find a particular item, and then, following an immediate cutscene, all my characters were wiped off the map, and I was given an epilogue stating that history eventually forgot about the existence of House Wolffort.  I've also come to a realization with Fire Emblem: Awakening that one of the reasons why I haven't been able to stick with that game is that the identity of the "Prince" (not the actual Prince-prince in the game, but an inside joke of sorts between Conklederp and Beardsnbourbon that I've picked up using as well) was revealed in the mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes a few years back and I haven't been able to forget it.

On the Steam Deck, I'm again nearly done with Resident Evil 6.  I'll probably have a slough of articles for that game, each one focusing on one of the campaigns, followed by a final thoughts-type article, similar to what I did for Resident Evil: Revelations 2 back in 2019.  And I think I brought it up a month or so ago, but I'm also playing through the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters on the Steam Deck as a wind-down at night.  I already went through the first Final Fantasy, and I'm about 17 hours into Final Fantasy II; we just destroyed the Dreadnaught.

And who knew that the Steam Autumn Sale was happening?  I sure didn't until I got an email telling me that Dead Space and 53 games on my wishlist were currently discounted.  So, in direct response to EA Games being bought by a mix of Saudi investment firms and Jared Kushner's investment firm, I bought both Dead Space (the 2023 remake) and Dead Space 3 so that I would never have to use EA's Origin client again and so that I wouldn't have to give either PIF or Affinity Partners any of my money after the sale is closed in Q1 FY2027.

Let's end it there since this isn't supposed to be an up-to-date news column, and it's making writing these articles even a week ahead of time feel a lot less relevant than they were 90 minutes ago.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
So Raise a Glass, Raise Your Voices

P.S.  RIP Jane Goodall.

Monthly Update: March, 2025

 

And somehow, we're already in March.  Or just 17% of the way through the year, or if we really want to get snarky, only 4.4% of the way until our current scenario either is upgraded to the non-shitty version, or we sink deeper into this experiment in white christian nationalism and fascist oligarchy we currently call the United States; I don't expect you to watch all 65 minutes right now, but I highly recommend it if you havne't already watched it.  And major kudos to Volodomyr Zelinsky for rebuking Russian State Media talking points that came out of the mouths of Trump and Vance.

And then there's the bullshit in the SAVE Act reintroduced as a proposed bill by Chip Joy which would bar people from voting and registering to vote if the name on their birth certificate differs from that of their "legal name" (e.g. the name on their driver's license, hunting licenses, passport, school ID, etc).  And while the wording in the current "wording" of the SAVE act allows people that this would affect to "provide additional documentation," there was no specific definition as to what that documentation would be.  This means if this travesty passes, it could be left up to the states/counties, which means a return to Jim Crow-era voting laws all over again.  One state/county could require that a woman who changed her name after getting married to only supply her current government-issued ID and a copy of her marriage certificate, while another state/county could require the following:

• Copy of Government Issued ID:
• Only passports, state driver's licenses, and hunting permits accepted.
• College IDs, High School IDs, not accepted.
• Copy of long-form birth certificate.
• Copy of marriage certificate.
• Signed affidavit from an official notary that all of the documents are legal and present at the time of signing.
• All of the above are required every time a ballot is requested.
• Likely forbidden from using mail in, or absentee ballots.

Yes, I'm getting into nothing but speculation here. The only people that's not good for are the same ass-hats who want to try and enact these kinds of laws, decrying that it's all part of a nationwide mandate when Trump was elected by an overwhelming majority; Trump received 49.8% of the popular vote, which if we're going to be pedantic, is not the definition of "majority" in the context of the voting population of the United States. Still, yes, Trump won both the popular vote and the electoral vote, so I don't think I'm trying to engage in election denialsim.

And Musk is trash, too, while we're at it, mainly because he's a nazi sympathizer, but less damaging and still related to his character is his acquisition of attempted gaming cred.

Now that we've successfully transitioned to gaming culture, we can now continue with our regularly scheduled program.

Unintentionally, despite the last 8 months or so, there've been a lot of Game EXP articles from games I've received.  I had thought this well was drying up, but then there was an uptick on the YouTube side of things, and that just makes me look more attractive to indie publishers.  Maybe.  There'll likely be a continued slough of Game EXP articles for the next coming weeks, at least through the middle of March and then I'm going to let things slow down a bit so I can play more of the games that I've actually paid money for: Fallout 4, Triangle Strategy, The Elder Scrolls Online, Wolfenstein II: The New Collosus, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Dragon's Dogma, and that list of crowdfunded games I said I would get to back in my January 17th article.  And all of the games in my Ultimate Spreadsheet Database.

Movie-wise, nothing.  New TV show-wise, nothing.  I did start Hand of Fire, the final book in the Shandril's Saga trilogy by Ed Greenwood, which continues my chronological journey through the novels in the Forgotten Realms setting; which if you're just joining us, I began because the D&D module, Rime of the Frost Maiden said that it used several older D&D novels and source books as inspiration and reference materials for this and I hadn't read those yet, so now I'm in the middle of 1357DR, although several hard-to-find books happen earlier that I've yet to read.  And I'm still reading House of Leaves, and I couldn't tell you how many pages I've read in that book because of all of the jumping around in the text.

Lastly, all this week we'll be releasing a series of playthrough videos for an interesting visual novel and immersive typing sim, S4U: CityPunk 2011 and Love Punch, along with playlists for The Voidness, Goldenheart, Death Omen, and Ashen Arrows, so stay tuned for those as we progress/survive through this month of March.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Mistä voimme täällä elää?

 

Monthly Update: April 2022

 

It's April 1st, 2022.  

I have been admitted to the 42nd floor of life, or however you want to word that.

Putin's Russian forces are still pounding away at various parts (those parts being various combinations of military and a lot of civilian targets) of Ukraine displacing nearly 3,900,000 Ukranians from a country with a population of 41,167,336.

In the span of 10 seconds, Will Smith went from laughing at a potentially ill-conceived joke aimed at his wife Jada Pinkett Smith to walking up on stage and slapping Chris Rock who made the joke while he was hosting the Oscars at the time.  I guess I'm in the camp of Chris Rock probably should not have made the joke and Will Smith should not have assaulted him.  But what do I know?  I'm just sitting here typing out words from the comfort of my middle-middle income lifestyle.

Ron Non-Indoctrinated DeSantis has signed into law his "Don'T TeAcH KiDS AbOUt THe [redacted] bECAusE It'LL tuRn THem [redacted]."  Similarly, Ted Do-You-Know-Who-I-Am Cruz is so offended by the contents of a kid's book taken out of context (that we actually have and do read this book to Goblino) as well as being offended by the mere existence of people who are transgender, that he sees the need to complain about it during the confirmation hearing for Judge Gitanji Jackson.  What was supposed to be a standard hearing to find out if Judge Jackson were qualified to sit on the supreme court, turned into a bunch of Republicans grandstanding to their respective bases.

Lastly, it's nice to see COVID-19 cases down an average of 11%, as well as a 42% drop in ICU beds filled and an over 35% drop in hospitalizations over the last two weeks.  Seeing fewer than 1,000 people dying every day is also a nice cherry on this cake of often preventable death.  It is a little disconcerting seeing some of those numbers start to creep up on the east coast with the rise of the BA.2 variant in European and Asian countries (currently it is accounting for 54.9% cases in the United States), but it is not often that in our lifetimes (as in the last 50 years) that we have seen a virus of this magnitude be reported on in nearly real time, seeing how it evolves and the public and political responses to that evolution.  This is exhausting and I know a lot of us are all exhausted in one form or another, there are no if and or buts about it; yes I am a parent.

Now on to non-parenting things like playing video games and board games.

Through the generosity of Dr. Potts, I decided to pick up the 12-year-old board game, Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game.  I will talk about it a bit in the actual article which I have planned for Monday, but if you know me and D&D, then you probably already know how much I love the Ravenloft campaign setting from 2nd Edition and kind of surprised myself in just now playing this game.  I think what ultimately put me over the edge was that I saw that the game could be played by a single person and anywhere between 30-60 minutes, depending on the adventure.  So I played the first adventure, which you can see pictures of over on our Instagram, or you can just wait until Monday to see how well trying to escape Strahd's crypt before he woke up worked out.

Speaking of Dungeons & Dragons, on the Switch I restarted with a new character in Neverwinter Nights after somewhat intentionally recreating my original Half-Elf Ranger from when I first played the game on PC 18 years ago.  I decided that since I usually tend to play someone who actively helps characters, I would play a Half-Elven Paladin and hopefully find a henchman who can pick locks and disarm traps.  Maybe cast a spell or two?  

I am slowly progressing in Skyward Sword, although Link ended up running into a pit all on his own while in Larayru Desert, which can mean only one thing.  That's right.  Another case of Joy-Con drift.  I have now calibrated the left Joy-Con twice now and while neither time was it horribly bad, it was noticeable, especially when pointing the joystick to the right and then having it 'snap' back.  I give it another week or two before I send it off to Nintendo for another round of free either repairs or replacement.  At least I have a back up pair of Joy-Cons while those are in the shop; hopefully it won't take as long or have the same issues that I had when I last sent them in back in 2020.

That being said, shortly after Link fell into a pit, I apparently thought it was a good time to give the final two bosses in Blasphemous a try, because who needs tight uncompromising controls in a 2D pixel-platformer Metroidvania meets Dark Souls set in an overly religious world inspired by the Spanish Inquisition?  I will hopefully have an article up either in a week from now or sometime later in April.  I think if I can separate my love of the setting with just talking about having fun with the game and not trying to analyze a very cryptic-lore heavy game, I could probably have the article ready in a week's time, otherwise, I might have it done by summer 2026.  I'm not really sure what smaller game I am going to play after Blasphemous, which turned into a 29-hour game, not including a NG+ run which apparently has a fair amount of more content than the main game.  While I am intrigued to see what else Cvstodia has to offer, looking back through some of the bosses and knowing that they become more difficult in NG+ gives me a bit of stress.  Plus I haven't finished all of the side quests that I had wanted to, so maybe I will finish those first?

On the 3DS/DS side of things, I am still playing through Dragon Quest IX: Sentinel of the Starry Skies, although not as quickly as I would like.  I think part of it is that I end up reading or planning/writing articles (like this) while on my breaks at work and I usually end up playing on the Switch while in bed.  But I do like that I do not feel lost, even when coming back after not having played for a week or two.

In the virtual realm, I am playing a combination of rhythm games (Beat Saber, Ragnarock) to supplement my Google Fit steps counter with all of the arm swinging that goes on in those games.  Yeah, I know it's kinda cheating, but it typically only ends up being a few thousand steps that I need to reach my 5,000/day goal.  My work-life is pretty sedentary after all.  But I've also been putting some time in The Climb 2, Rush, and Gadgeteer (which I have not yet talked about) when I need to wind down.

That is really it.  I decided to not join in on Fortnite this season (Chapter 3 Season 2) despite the fact that Rahul Khouli voiced one of the characters this season.  I just wasn't as inspired to join in this season (the last season I didn't play was way back in Chapter 1 Season 7).  Maybe in the following season?  Or maybe not at all?  We'll see.  I also have not picked back up God of War: Ghost of Sparta for some of the similar reasons above.

Let's just leave it at that for now.  There will likely be updates throughout the month.  Hopefully only good updates, because Eir knows we could all use those these days.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental