Seems like there's nothing here... Turn back?
I've been starting a lot of new things recently. I suspect that what I'm feeling is pretty standard for most people entering adulthood, but I don't really find that comforting. A lot of responsibilites can hit you all at once, and even though you might not necessarily understand exactly what the expectations of you are, you still need to try your best to meet them because you don't really have any other option. I'm not 100% sure how to feel about it all, and its kind of whats on my mind. We push on though.
I mentioned books last week. At the moment I'm trying to find time to finish Agatha Christie's Murder at the Vicarage, and my hope is that in a week or so I'll be able to string together some of my thoughts on the book. I'm pretty sure I'm enjoying it but I haven't reached the point of even being able to make a guess at how it'll end. We'll see if it's any good.
- Josh
In my completely unprofessional opinion, a defining characteristic of many good stories is that they can be told backwards and still be compelling. Many tragedies, for example, are often largely predictable in what kind of end their heroes will meet. What compells many people who study them is the unraveling of the protagonist. The study of what trait - what fatal flaw - is ultimately responsible for their downfall.
The stories told on this website are and will inevitably be read backwards. The log of (at this point) almost 1000 edits made over the course of almost half a decade tells both a narrative of how it came to be how it is, and also reveals just how shockingly bad of a programmer I am. Syntax will be the death of me. Today I opened a fresh html and css document to show someone how the two languages are connected and interact, only to come to the horrorfying realisation that I hadn't programmed any CSS from complete scratch in over 3 years. It's hard to say if it would be more accurate to say that I forgot, or to say that I never really learnt as a result of frequently copying my own homework, so to speak. Staring at the fresh and untaintedd documents made me realise that, because I had the liberty of checking my own work against stuff I had previously done anytime I needed to do so much as input a bracket, I never bothered to retain the information. My Fatal Flaw!
I am absolutely being melodramatic for no reason. As they say; you're never to old to learn, and I am notably young.
The second story to be read backwards will be this very blog. I intend to make it as cumbersome as possible to reach older posts, especially as I continue to write more of them. Ideally, when someone finds this website in 200 years (etched in diamond in the sealed bunker under my house) they should, as a matter of convenience; read them from newest to oldest. The best bit - I myself don't yet know what could be gleaned from these first few posts with the benefit of hindsight. Maybe everything, probably nothing. Who knows?
I promise not all of these posts will have meta content about my thoughts on the blog. Hopefully within a couple of days the novelty will wear thin and I'll shift into a healthy pattern of reviewing books and talking about video games or something.
- Josh
and I wanted to write about it :)
Its one of those drinks that I legitimately believe can be for everyone. Anyone who says they don't like tea just hasn't found the one for them. Tea has existed for so long in so many different cultures that its transcended being merely a single beverage, and I have a place in my heart for all of them that I've tried. Everything from a cup of english breakfast, to an aged Pu-er or white tea, to a good masala chai or butter tea. BY JOVE! There's just so much tea... I feel like I should probably give some context. I got talking to someone I know about tea, and the reaction I got was something along the lines of "It's just slightly flavoured water," and believe me, I'm not gonna say thats necessarily incorrect. There is plenty of tea that is basically just flavoured water.
Here in Australia, one of the most well known tea brands is probably T2 Tea, and I'm not gonna say that its bad because I really like a lot of their stuff, but its kind of a normie brand. If someone knows that someone else likes tea and wants to get them a ๋࣭ ⭑★ fancy ☾˖｡ tea; they go to T2, because they have stores everywhere and it just has that kind of reputation. Its good to find other places to get it though. Its not that difficult to find other tea shops if you live near a city, and if you do it'll look like you tried harder. If you're in Melbourne; I can highly reccomend Lupicia Tea and McIvers Tea. Alternatively, if you're slightly further north, Tea Jac in Canberra, or Ms Cattea Tea Bar in Sydney are both worth checking out as well. These are all places that both usually have great tea in stock, and a great in store experience. I'm not sponsored, but I am a shill.
That's all I had today, Its what was on my mind and I want to try limit these posts to only be about one thing each. So in the interest of brevity, I'll save some other topics. I will however quickly add something to what I posted about yesterday. Another reason I don't really want this to be super visible is that I want the freedom to be uninteresting. As a result of nobody reading what I put here, I won't feel the need to filter myself as much for the purpose of entertainment. Anyhow, best wishes as always,
- Josh
I've tried to write blogs before. One time I even tried to do it on this very website, but as you may have figured out, that one doesn't exist anymore. I started it sometime last year almost exclusively as a space for me to explain to people I knew why I was deleting my instagram account. It was the only post I ever made, and it didn't take very long for me to decide that I absolutely hated what I had written. I kind of tried too hard. Not sure what it is that I tried too hard to do, but only a month or so after my initial draft, it no longer felt like my own words, and so I deleted the page. I'm hoping that I can make a commitment to keeping this one up regardless of how I feel about it in the future.
This time my motivation is a bit more typical of people my age with a website and too much free time; I just want to write SOMETHING.
I'm putting this on the sites 404 page because even though I feel the need to make this public, I can't really get past the urge to hide it away where people are less likely to find it. So if you're reading this, I imagine it's either because you found your way to this page accidentally and happened to scroll down, or because you took one look at my neocities activity log and noticed how frequently I was updating what would otherwise be a static page. It's partially because this is my favourite thing on here, both conceptually and technically. I had the idea for the animation almost immediately after I asked myself the question "what should I put on the 404 page?". Other ideas I considered for what to do on this page include having a simple puzzle that would require you to manually underflow a variable in the console to bypass a "Guardian" to navigate to a hidden page, or having a star slightly bigger than the rest that would display a super stretched out image of live action garfield (my friend came up with that one).
I'd still like to revisit the first idea in some capacity again. As it stands, I kind of want this place to have some more interesting stuff on it.
Anyway, thats all from me, hope you're having a great day.
- Josh