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09/22/2024: Birthday Post 2: The Electric Boogaloo

(Warning: This blog mentions YouTube drama, current events, politics, Donald Trump, swearing and depression. Please take care before reading on.)

Today, another year came and went as I turn 29 years old. Anyone who has been reading my blogs in the past year, know I have been through many things. Both the good and the bad. But I know that at the end, I survived my 28th year on this planet, which gets hotter each year. If anyone wants a summary of what happened in the past year of my life, it’s that I suffered a few burnouts due to not having a job and that the world sucks thanks to some current events.

Such as early this year, where I suffer my first meltdown in months thanks to a scandal of a Let’s Player (who got me into video games), who was accused of sexual harassment and grooming (which both has been proven false). It was thanks to that, I had to take a break from watching Let’s Plays and streaming due to gaining trust issues from the event. Even now, I don’t think I’ll ever come back to watching Let’s Plays due to that and that I’m suffering from burnout from trying to catch up on the latest videos.

Around the same time the scandal took place, I nearly fell out of loving video games thanks to hearing too many horror stories from major gaming companies shutting gaming studios and layoff the people who made those games that we love. Then there’s Nintendo, who made some anti-costumer choices in the past few months, such as shutting down emulators and fan games, which makes me have second thoughts on supporting them. Especially right now as they’re planning to sue the creator of Palworld for “patent infringement”. Yeah right. You’re mad that Palworld is doing better than the latest Pokémon game that was released (half-baked) in late 2022!

Then there this year’s presidential election, which has some turns and twist that makes it look like a really bad movie that no one wanted to watch. Trump nearly got assassinated at his OWN political rally in July. Then again in September at his OWN GOLF COURSE! President Biden did so badly at the first presidential debate in June; he had to DROP OUT for the sake of our country! While it's nice that Vice President Harris is running in his place, I'm worried that we might have a repeat of the 2016 Election all over again! Especially when I keep reading that the pro-Palestinians, the Muslims and young people won’t vote for Harris because she's pro-Israel and that she rather give Israel weapons than demand cease-fire. I fear that this will give Trump his second term because of this terrible war (and that everything got expensive in the past few years thanks to inflation)!

In February, Tumblr made some questionable choices this year that caused me to temporary get off it for my mental health and I end up making a Cohost account as the result. While having Cohost is nice, but it’s small, has a very off-hand moderations and has financial problems to the point that many worried that it’s going to get shut down at the end of the year. Just a few days into writing this in early September, the founders of the site announced that they ARE going to shut down Cohost at the end of this year, thanks to the lack of money and having burnout! Like damn, I only have that account for 7 months and now it’s gone! At least I have Tumblr and Neocities to fallback when the worst happens. Despite the issues they had, I’m going to miss the small community that Cohost had…

Then there’s Reddit posting out more political stuff than usual, since its election year for us Americans, which means I have to be careful when trending. Because of that starting next month, I’m planning to cut back my time on Reddit (and some of my other social media accounts) due to fears of misinformation that might spread around and the heavy political discourse that’s going to happen right before Election Day.

Then I heard that they might start pay walling some of the subreddits in the future. So expect people to flee Reddit once more, just like they did last year when they stop supporting API!

For my hobbies in the other hand, the burnout (that I mention above) kept me from doing much this year. I only beat 8 games this year, compared to 15 games, same time last year. I cancelled my Nintendo Online subscription because I’m too broke to renew it and that I don’t play on the Switch that much anyways. Instead, I’ll stick to playing classic emulated games on my laptop and the games I have on my Steam.

Then in late August, I found out that one of the mobile games I have been playing since day 1, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, is shutting down in November, which annoys me. Yes, it’s a gacha game (gacha game bad), but it’s the only Animal Crossing game that I actually play on the daily basic!

I only watched 6 anime this year due to said burnout and that my Total Drama special interest came back, thanks to the new season finally airing in America. So now, I have to play catch up with some of the anime that I planned to watch this summer (My Hero Academia [Season 7], Demon Slayer: Hashira Training Arc, "Oshi no Ko" [Season 2]), which didn’t happen for some reason. Oops.

Then in late August, one of the anime pirating sites that I have been using since 2020; got DMCA'ed by our government! This means I have to find another place to watch my anime (that Netflix and Hulu doesn’t have since my mom pays for that). Jerks!

My webcomic, Everlasting is on infinite hiatus thanks to burnout, which sucks. Like I won’t abandon it, but still I don’t have the energy to continue it for some reason.

...

Okay, I know all what I said above, sounds like doom and gloom and such. I feel like it is, but that’s because I’m anxious as hell and don’t like it when I hear bad things. So despite all that, it wasn’t all that bad in my life.

My website is still going strong after a year. I thought I wouldn’t last due to having to learn how to code and all that. Thankfully I didn’t bail and instead kept on improving my skill. Sadly my burnout and my executive dysfunction won’t let me update all the time, which sucks. But sometimes, I think it’s better to update, one at a time than do it all at once.

Then in April, my family saw the Total Eclipse which was cool (even though it was too cloudy to show and that my mom and older sister got vertigo from the event)! Most of the vegetables in the greenhouse managed to survive the infamous Texas heatwave this summer, thanks to me watering them twice a day! Then there’s the fact it actually rained this summer too, compared to last year! It was also not as hot either this year either! Yeah, it was hot, but we didn’t have 100 days (in a ROW) of being over 100 degrees, compared to last year.

Then there’s my nephew, who started his last year in high school. I hope that he has enough credits to graduate next June! I know that once he graduate, that’s when my mom will start making plans to finally move out of Texas (which means no more 100 degree weather and conservative politics) in the next few years! While I did mention in last year’s birthday blog that we might move to Oregon, mom later said she has second thoughts on doing that as it’s not only expensive over there, but the rural areas have weird, gun owning, Trump supporters who want to succeed to Idaho. That second reason made mom scared for our safety, so instead she rather has move somewhere in Northeastern America.

I got another golden gym in Pokémon Go, which is nice since it’s near my house! I managed to play (and beat) one of the Hamtaro Game Boy Advance games that I never got as a kid thanks to emulation! I enjoyed the 1.6 update for Stardew Valley that came out in March (even though I only last 2 weeks before abandoning the game again) and made me like video games again.

Then there was my Total Drama special interest that came back this summer. This one kept me distracted from reading all the terrible things that are going on in the world. Like the new season of the show, was one of the better seasons I’ve seen in a long time. So much, I ranked it as my second favorite season (season 1 remains on the top) on my list! Now, time for me to wait for season 8 (or season 6b), as it won’t air on Cartoon Network until next year (even though I already saw 6b on a pirating site…)!

So yeah, my 28th year wasn’t that good. But at least it was better than my 27th year here, where not only I had to quit my toxic part time job, but also got scammed $2,000 out of getting a new job (which I’m too scared to tell my mom to this day…) AND suffered from a meltdown for getting rejected by Disability (or SSI) for even having a job! So I hope my 29th year on this planet would be better. But not when the election is less than 2 months away…

As for what’s going to happen today, it’s going to be low-key as always. Mom will basically give me either a gift card or some money for me to buy my presents for myself and I get to eat some cake. I might use the money to buy one new game for either the Switch or Steam and maybe some clothes for myself.

I hope there's no more bad news and historical events that will change our lives for the worst in the next 3 months. Maybe things will be okay at the end, Maybe not… Who knows!?!