the new gravis laptop post reminded me about those old school music visualizers like what winamp had, and that had me wondering if there's any modern music/mp3 player software that has a solid visualization plugin or if winamp is still the top dog here for people who wanna have something to look at while high and listening to their favorite, not-streamed music

google has been kind of unhelpful and giving me recommendations for video editors, which is not quite what i'm looking for and i figure there's gotta be enough pothead computer enjoyers out there that someone must have made a more modern music visualizer player or something by now

First zine event of the year! A newer, up and coming one called Garden Gnome Zine fair out of Lynchburg Virginia. It was a two hour drive for me, but a pleasant one and I had a friend attend with me so it was a great time for chats.

This is all stuff I either traded for or purchased! credits are:

Bat Shirt and Squirrel Observer zine: Sammy Newman/Otterlogic

Rats! and Feels zines: Lee Stawberry/commandurr14

XFRS one page game and I <3 my Skeletal Minion sticker: Jamie Douglas

Abortion Rights For all Forever sticker: Ash/altargokart

I hope for good things for this event. It's still very new (this was the second show) but the folks running it are really dedicated and organized as hell. I met and connected with a lot of great artists and zine collectives from my state and I'm excited to keep touch with them!

So, I picked up a new speedrun recently! The game is the 2011 indie roguelike Dungeons of Dredmor, a game I found back in the day in one of the first ever Humble Indie Bundles.

I haven't streamed it yet -- I plan to give that a try soon! -- but I've been recording some offline runs, and yesterday got a sub-30-minute PB in any%! Of course, the world record is under 15, but this is still a run I'm quite happy with this early on.

Anyway, Dungeons of Dredmor is a traditional roguelike, but much easier to pick up & play than other games I've played in the genre. It has three difficulty levels, permadeath is optional. It is a game with lots of humor, most of which has aged well (there are a few jokes & pop culture references that could have been left behind in 2011, but not too many). Coming back to it, I've found it to be a bit of a gaming comfort food I can always count on to distract me for an hour or several, but it also offers challenging, varied gameplay if I'm up for that. If any of that sounds fun, it's on Steam for $5!

And if you'd like to check out videos of my speedruns of the game, they're all neatly organized into this YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdEJnoZ67UCkfOCF3hxxTQg

Most of the videos are without commentary so far, but that's something I'll be working on going forward, as I'm getting more and more comfortable with the game and starting to stream it soon.

An update to this: I did stream the game a few times this week, and I've started submitting the run to some charity marathons, so I'll be sure to announce if it gets into anything. You can find the highlights on my Twitch page.

Additionally, I was appointed the moderator of the SRC page today, so I was able to verify my runs and can officially announce that I have the world record in the Going Rogue difficulty with a 1h21m! The record was basically free, as nobody had made a serious attempt at the category, but I did lower my own record this week so it's not completely unoptimized. Still, it was far from a perfect run, and it's definitely beatable, so anyone who wants to take a shot at the record is highly encouraged! There is an older guide from Spleen on the SRC page, but I'd be happy to answer any questions for anyone who is interested in picking up the run. Again, the game is just $5 on Steam if you're interested in giving it a try.