Bandcamp Friday and Birthday Stuff
A reminder that it's Bandcamp Friday! Which means if you buy music on Bandcamp today, 100% of the proceeds will go directly to the artists. You can check out my Bandcamp profile and take a look at my collection to see some of the music I'd recommend. I love everything I've bought there.
Today, I bought these three albums:
The Darkside Detective Soundtrack by Ben Prunty - One of my favorite composers did the soundtrack for one of my favorite adventure games! The Darkside Detective games are like a more hilarious and laid-back X-Files. Prunty lists his inspirations for this soundtrack as John Carpenter and other 80's films, Danny Elfman, William Orbit, Nine Inch Nails, funk music, and old video games.
Paradise Killer Soundtrack by Barry "Epoch" Topping - This is one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time, and I finally got around to purchasing it. It's very jazzy, summery, bright, and fun. Kind of a mixture of vaporwave, city pop, and acid jazz.
Neverealm by Valiant Sentinel - A power metal band featuring Frederik Ehmke of Blind Guardian on drums. Really fun, epic metal with folk elements. A lot of the songs were inspired by Elden Ring, which is one of my top five games, so I had to pick this album up based on that fact alone. My favorite song on it is "Elden Lord."
Check out Joel's post for more great recommendations!
March 4th was my birthday! Before I had my wrist surgery in October, my nurse asked for my birth date, and she pointed out that it sounds like "march forth," which I had gone nearly 38 years of my life without realizing.
It was a good one this year, spent in good company. On the night before my birthday, my family took me out to dinner to one of my favorite restaurants. I had a huge slice of creamy cheesecake (that I could not finish and had to take home) for dessert. My sister, brother-in-law, and cousin are not just family but also my best friends, so it's always fun getting together with them and chatting about games and other things.
I took the 4th itself off work. I wasn't initially going to, but Danny happened to have the day off, so I decided to run it by my boss. Her response was "of course" and to have a fantastic day.
Danny made the day perfect. We woke up around 10:00 AM and took Ranni to our favorite park, which has a huge open dog park for her to run around in off-leash. It was a beautiful day, just the right temperature with a lovely cool breeze.
After the park, we all headed over to my mother-in-law's house for lunch. Danny made plant-based chicken nuggets, sweet potato fries, and steamed broccoli. My mother-in-law had a cake and a gift card for me as well, which was lovely of her. While we hung out with her and Danny's sister, Ranni got to run around some more in the backyard with their dog.
We dropped Ranni off at home and headed to the mall, where we grabbed boba tea and I did some shopping courtesy of Danny as a birthday gift. I found a 30th anniversary edition DVD of My Neighbor Totoro for only $16. It came with a CD soundtrack and an essay/art book. And I scored Chvrches' Love Is Dead CD for only two bucks!
We ended the day with Korean and Japanese food at a new-ish restaurant we both wanted to try. I had the crispy tofu kimbap with a side of Japanese curry and rice. It was delicious, a great way to cap off a perfect day.
Content Warning: Things get a little dark here, discussing war and politics.
The fact that my country has started another pointless war in the Middle East, that war criminal Netanyahu has succeeded in getting fellow war criminal Trump to assist him in his desire to brutally control an entire region, has made any sort of self-indulgence feel wrong in a sense.
I did enjoy my birthday very much, but it's hard to have a nice day out and then come home to news of continuous bombing and innocents being killed in Iran. Of course, I know it's so much worse for the people who live there and are constantly having the west make decisions for them at the expense of their safety and basic human rights.
This is a good overview from Noema about how the US will most likely be mired in this war for a long time, wasting taxpayers' money while killing civilians and undermining Iranian autonomy.
And then today Trump is threatening Cuba yet again. This is a president who ran on a platform of peace. Looking at both the history of the US and the history of the current administration, is it any wonder that it turned out to be a platform of lies? We have the most morally bankrupt president in history and a Secretary of War who's a literal psychopath, and they're telling troops this is a holy war.
I don't really know how to end this. I'm sorry to get serious after what was meant to be a relatively light-hearted post, but it's hard not to think and talk about what's going on in the world. And I think I should be thinking and talking about it, although finding a balance between that and keeping from sinking too low into despair is important too. Community, being reminded that there is love in this world, cuddling with my dog. All of that helps.