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omegaplus · 4 months

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# FINAL POST.

Ask me if there was one moment in my life that changed everything for the better. I’ll tell you: it was discovering both Cold Cave’s “Confetti” and Prurient’s Cocaine Death. It’s the Summer of ‘11 when the worst decision of my life was still being played out. I was suffering in a place I never imagined I would be; the product of the late Oughts’ economic crash when I went broke and bounced from job to job. I had no choice but to wave the white flag and take the first thing offered to me. I lost everything a few years prior that made me: a radio show, music shopping, graphics design, writing, and more. When I heard the opening notes to “Confetti”, I felt magic. It gave me a vibe and showed me a beauty I was going to look for in the years to come. Cocaine Death was created by Brooklyn noise artist Dominick Fernow who had a vision and aesthetic that intrigued me so much that I was curious to see what other things surrounded his origins. He was the reason why I discovered Cold Cave. Months passed and despite living through a personal hell at work, “Confetti” and Cocaine Death signified a new beginning for me. I got back into the habit of burning music, resumed Photoshop, and started writing again. I had enough momentum that I decided the time was right to get back into radio. I had a show during my stay at Stony Brook University, which ended when my tenure did. I had just enough music to give it another shot. Finds from Geneva Jacuzzi, Washed Out, Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Glass Candy and Italians Do It Better made me feel something. I got in touch with the current general manager and on December 12, 2012 (12/12/12) Omega WUSB was born.

Around that time, I made friends with some of the other co-workers who were more on my side and knew a thing or two about respect, privacy, and personal space. I helped my ex- moved into a new residence, I caught up with co-workers from previous jobs who gave birth to their first-borns with their deadbeat dads nowhere in sight, and re-united with old classmates from the Brentwood era whom I haven’t seen since. If that wasn’t enough, an all-too-special interest during the Stony Brook era decided to reach out to me - by total surprise - wanting to pick up where we left off. I was finally back into it. The following Summer, that potential and I were getting closer, and I finally got myself a second job to leave the consequences of the first. It’s not even halfway into my first year back that I was going crazy with Omega WUSB, and I was already enjoying it; being back in my element of playing music over the airwaves from a tattered control room with broken antiquated equipment which none have been replaced since the late Sixties. It felt great to be back. For the next ten years, Omega WUSB took me places, taught me things about myself I never knew, and showed me what it took to keep ongoing projects running. Since I’d be constantly finding music to keep my show fresh, why not start a blog and tell my listeners how enthusiastic I was about it? On December 2013, I started Ω+. What really made Ω+? It was a literal reflection of myself; a personal music diary of radio shows I played, releases in my library, purchases, mixtapes, live experiences, random things I listened to, listening habits and more. This was the place where I had no shame telling everyone what I was into, and I did it to prove a point. I aimed to make this blog stand out over everything else here. To do that, I posted about every genre I got my ears on because I truly enjoyed everything I listened to. It’s why you saw everything from indie, hip-hop / rap, post-punk, d.i.y, noise, industrial, shoegaze, d-beat, reggae, jazz / fusion, jungle, and much more to list.

There were also other ideas I had that no other music blog had: numbered posts, seasonal mixtapes, extensive year-end lists and best-of posts, personal insights, and tons of candor - much more to my benefit. Our favorite months were our ‘second issue series’ and ‘clearance sales’ where we posted heavily about alternate covers, colored vinyl and cassettes and other rarities which drew our largest amounts of followers. Plus, plenty of receipts of years past and many from two ‘record store victory tours’ (‘18 and ‘22) covered here. Wanted to know what was on a mix cassette or CD-r my friends gave me, or what played off of my iPhone or iPod during a train ride or walk through Central Park? The song that played on the overhead as a potential, and I sat over ice cream? What I listened to during a specific point in time, or what band tees people wore at a certain show I attended? It was all here. It got off to an inconsistent start (one which I’ll never get over when you see the archives), but eventually it got rolling when I made it a point to post consistently and have a presence because that’s how you got likes and followers. And Christ did I hammer at it. But without Omega WUSB, Ω+ wouldn’t have existed, and you wouldn’t be reading this now. For 10 years it gave you something not many or no other music blog gave you. Now, after lots of consideration, I’m making the decision to finally end Ω+ once and for all. This is our final post. ********************** It started during the pandemic summer when someone I met here left a poisonous impression on me. My anxiety and depression came back and totally threw me off. I couldn’t think straight as I was too busy figuring out the hurt and pain she just created for me. I wasn’t focused and wasn’t posting as much in as I used to. The pushback was enough that I started feeling different about lots of things and seriously wondered what I was still doing here. That was when Ω+ started to suffer.

Up until this point I’ve been falling behind and that’s not good. Once you fall behind on a music blog like this, it’s almost impossible and time-consuming to come back. And to come back, you have to short-change yourself. Cheat, cut corners, and be inconsistent with what’s being posted. After posting at least (on average) 38+ times a month, coming up with new ways of saying the same things over and over and over and over and over again, and writing in a way that keeps readers attention, then after all is said and done, what was I / Ω+ getting back in return? It used to get 250 followers a year, and I had to pull teeth in order to get them. When you put in so much work to show your followers how awesome and crazy an album or single is, only to get an average of 10 likes on each post (barring some of Omega WUSB’s playlists), and see others post the same exact thing for ten times the amount, it does get rather discouraging. I always felt, with millions of readers on here and with music being a universal thing, how and why was it so hard to get more out of what I do?

Some say you don’t do it for the numbers, you do it for personal satisfaction. Getting that personal satisfaction was never an issue by simply running this page because I always loved staying in touch and finding things in common with my followers. Only then I wanted all the numbers coming to me. Not getting that consistency that I wanted, even after 10 years of Ω+, feels like a letdown. I was hoping to have exactly 22 entries per month this year. Then, this happens: instead of privately posting entries on the spot before the month was over, I ended up queuing them at the last minute and miscalculated. Only 11 entries for August were posted, with the others after the fact in September, so there’s zero chance of getting the others back. I fucked up. The final straw was when I have seen my perfect format slightly altered as the header images now became smaller and wasn’t fitting the text column width entirely. It’s bad enough having to spend hours trying to find a working theme, only to see it messed around with no rhyme or reason. I reached a point to where I felt I was throwing my time away for less-than-desired gain, and what was once one of my favorite things to do became tiring and heavy-headed. In short: I’m massively overwhelmed with no end in sight. I’m too exhausted and don’t have it in me anymore in this capacity to keep this going. ********************** I’m in a much better place than I was ten years ago, financially and ambitiously. I still have everything I took back and more. I still have the radio show, and still do graphic design, sound editing, and photography. But there are still things left on the backburner. I haven’t written or created anything in months but want to again. There’s a backlog of music I’ve yet to listen to from last year’s massive island- and city-wide record-store shopping spree that left me 560+ vinyl records, tapes, and CDs richer and $3,000 poorer - and also from another shopping spree on top of that.

There are plenty of books I bought that I need to read up on, and tons of cassettes and VHS tapes I need to digitally transfer. I just started learning Italian thanks to one of the best people ever. I purchased a coding book six months ago that I’ve yet to even open. I’m still recovering from the retail-hell climate that took a daily toll on my mental and emotional health so heavy that it was depleting me. Now, I work at home and managed to stay with the company; essentially keeping my 401K, medical, and my time-off. Total game-changer. Since my dad left, I’ve been practicing self-care in ways I wasn’t allowed to. I took the time to step back, re-assess myself, and be the person I always wanted to be, with no constant surveillance of people keeping tabs on me. I’ve enjoyed many moments - arcades, travels to New York City, holidays with my family, live industrial-music shows in New York City, and meeting specific people - when I have them. My company has changed. Though I parted ways from some of the best co-workers I had, I also did the same from separating myself from the daily cast of the undesirable public.

My vision and state of mind have changed due to anti-depressants, focusing on some specific valuable people, and not having to think about the worst as much. Different things made by different people have happened. I’m welcoming and embracing the changes I’ve made for myself, and there’s plenty more I need to do. Right now, I’m still simplifying my life and focus on what I want to do from now until the day I cash it all in for good. ********************** What Ω+ leaves behind is ten years in the life and diary of one person’s lifetime listening habits and acquisitions of music. Decades of personal mixtapes, gifts from friends, giveaways, and the evolution of listening habits. Plenty of quarterly personal seasonal playlists, playlists of the day, and past WUSB shows when they happened. A roadmap of two record store victory tours, various receipts, and almost all live experiences ever attended. How about those ‘second issue’ series focusing on rare, out of print, and mispressed releases plus alternate covers, color vinyl and cassette editions? A multitude of year-end and even end-of-the-decade best-of lists. Documents of Omega WUSB’s anniversaries and all-out Summer broadcasting seasons. Locales, venues, and what t-shirt everyone was wearing. An enthusiasm of hip-hop’s golden age, post-punk / d.i.y., hardcore / metalcore, industrial, sampling culture, and vinyl treasures. Practically almost every genre, decade, and format Ω+ got it hands on.

Every song, album, purchase, listen, experience, interaction, broadcast, mixtape, playlist, purchase, and venture has all been documented here - and with all the utmost honestly and openness. All of that stops here. We (at Ω+) say this right now to save you the uncertainty: we’re not like those other blogs who abruptly stop posting without a heads-up and leave you hanging for months (or even years) waiting for another entry or at least announcing a hiatus, then decide to pop up once more and swear that things get rolling again. Guess what? You never heard from them again after that. What a surprise. Like unreliables, most promise but don’t deliver. Not us. When we say we’re done, we mean it. We’re done. We’re not posting again after this. There’s no coming back. No false hope or waiting for a day that will never come. (I’m sure you wouldn’t like being lied to or short-changed by anyone, either.) But, I’ll still be filling in the blanks from last year for completeness, as lives up to its name with this final post - in its current form. But, here’s a catch… There’s one follower of Ω+ who happens to be as obsessed and crazy about music as I am. Imagine that. She doesn’t have a dedicated music blog like this, but instead, has loads of Spotify playlists, plenty of audio and video posts all across many different accounts and social media. Between us, we’ve given each other CDs, records, and cassettes for holiday gifts and birthdays. We’ve traded MP3’s, and mailed out entire boxes of tapes from personal collections. We’ve been turned on to other’s recommendations. Our enthusiasm with finding and sharing music is unimaginable; perhaps more than what any normal human being is capable of. We have lots of artists, bands, genres, and even specifics in common that it was almost improbable to have found each other, but we did. She started following us not too long ago, so she’s going to be disappointed to learn that this music blog has come to a full stop. But, I’m not the one to disappoint. That is a total non-negotiable. So, I decided to re-invent it. Ω+ is now dead. Long live ΩRMX.

ΩRMX is a revision of the original with all the seasonal mixtapes, Omega WUSB playlists, personal posts, record-store receipts, live experiences, and other important stuff that made it. Instead of reviews, they’ll be replaced with now- or currently-listening. Tagging will be minimal and not specific, and some other details like numbered posts have been left behind. Everyone passing through will know what I’ve been listening to in real time. It’ll be simpler and faster for me to post without having to spend too much time and be constantly under the gun to do so. Problem solved. As much as I’d love to, I can’t continue with this specific music -blr with how it’s currently done. I really don’t want to completely give up on it altogether. I’ll be doing things a little differently. I’m still curious to see who’s paying attention to what I’m listening now or did XX years ago, or if anyone had experienced what I have. I’d also like to know if what I’m doing still separates myself from the others - if those types of -blrs still even exist. ********************** At this point, Ω+ stays here for posterity’s sake and becomes a curiosity for anyone who accidentally discovers it. I only hope future visitors get what I’ve done and how I’ve done it differently than the other music -blrs found here, or anywhere. To everyone who have followed us back, liked our entries, reblogged, supported, or even messaged us to see what happened to us, I appreciate it all. As we always say, we hope you took something with you.

Ω+: December 2013-December 2023.

#omega #music #personal #the end #fin

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usermeggy · 3 years

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COUNTDOWN TO LUCIFER SEASON 5B | IMDB’s Top Rated Episodes #12 》4.03 O, Ye of Little Faith, Father

#we are officially halfway through the countdown!!#luciferedit #dctvedit #lucifer #lucifer5bcountdown #my photoshop crashed before I exported my gifs and I had to make this twice! 🙃#meggygifs

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infamouslydorky · 5 years

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Extra long Normal!medic comic. thank you for your patience:

support me on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/infamouslydorky

#ask the deerstalker medic #normal!medic #this was hell to make bc halfway through photoshop crashed and i had to redraw it plus i did most of the first half between stuff tbh #good news is i wrote the script down so it was more redraw than losing any story #literally had to puzzle piece this one by working on it 5 min here 10 there in my sketchbook to get it done by this monday. it was WILD dude #but I got there and I thank y'all for your support and patience with all of this. I'm just thankful above all else

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arc11aic · 5 years

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mark looks different here...

#markiplier #Darkiplier #my gif #mygif #my edit #myedit #this was fun to do #but photoshop crashed halfway through #and i had to make it under 50 layers but oh well #markiplieredit

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megabadbunny · 4 years

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kldsf;jkldfjklsdjkl;jklsdf;jklf;jlsfd;jklfd;jklsf;jklfdjfdjkl;fd

#i've been working on a rose x tentoo smutpic for days #DAYS #and photoshop just fucking #ate it????? ate the file???? or corrupted it???? or something?????????#i don't know #all i know is i was working on it and saving frequently #and all seemed to be going well #then my computer fucking crashed because i guess having the internet and photoshop open at the same time #was somehow Too Fucking Much for it #and now the file won't open because it's an 'invalid' format #despite the fact that its extension is .psd????????#no previous versions to be found--nowhere in temp or roaming #it's just fucking corrupted #fucking days' worth of work just fucking gone #i'm so upset #i can't even open it in acrobat or illustrator or fucking photo viewer #changing the extension doesn't make a difference except for exciting different error messages #what the fuck????? i have never ever had this happen before #i mean the crashing yeah but the corrupted file--never #the real kicker is i'd already gotten halfway through coloring #then realized ways i could improve #and i undid and redid both the coloring and the final outline #and i was really liking how it looked. it looked really good. sexy and sweet.#and now it's just gone. i just want to scream

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soyoudonthavetobebrave · 6 years

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#i love that he can just joke about this so casually #also my photoshop crashed like 5 times while making these and i gave up halfway through so they are pretty shit #but when are they not #dan liveshow #gifs #danielhowell #danisnotonfire #amazingphil #phil lester #dan and phil #phan #phandom #danandphilgames

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romanstheory · 2 years

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Simply Meant To Be Part Two

Characters : Roman Reigns, Nala (reader), Violet

Warnings : mentions of body parts, makeout, visuals

Word count : 1,047

Don't talk about my bad photoshop, I'm trying 😭

18 +

After our first night in the house together, I was feeling less awkward and uncomfortable. I always get up at 7am as apart of my morning routine. My alarm goes off, I get up and head to the shower. I don't hear a peep from Roman or Violet, so I try to stay as quiet as I can. I turn the water on, take off my pajamas and hop in the shower. After I'm done I realized I left my clothes in my room down the hall. I take a deep breath and prepare to run full speed to my room so that neither Roman or Violet would see me. I crack the door to see if the coast is clear, I make a run for it! As soon as I reach my door, I slip and crash into the doorframe. "Shit!" I say just above a whisper. Somehow I managed to not wake either of them up even after crashing into the doorframe like a cartoon character.

I get dressed, and head to the kitchen to start making the three of us breakfast. I'm halfway through when I hear little footsteps approaching. "Good morning dad's friend" Violet says rubbing her eyes. "You can call me Nala" I giggle "Would you like to help me cook food for us?" Violet nods as I pull up a stool for her to sit on while we cook. "I need you to mix the pancake batter, that the most important job. Think you can handle that?" I ask smiling at Violet. "Oh yes!" Violet says with confidence. We continue making breakfast, singing all of Violet's favorite songs. I happen to look over to see a messy haired Roman Reigns, leaned against the wall watching us with a smile.

"How long have you been watching us you creep" I say jokingly. "Long enough to know she loves you already" He smiles approaching us. "Well, breakfast is done my Tribal Chief" I say teasing Roman. He laughs and we all sit at the table to eat. "Breakfast is amazing" Roman says looking at me. "Thanks, I couldn't have done it without Princess Violet here" I say with a wink to Violet. Violet heads to sleep for her first nap, and Roman and I decide to take a dip in the pool. I put my swim suit on, and my long curly hair up into a messy bun. I meet Roman out at the pool. I would be lying if I said I wasn't immediately drawn to his beautiful body.

He was eye candy, that's for damn sure. "Are you checking me out?" Roman chuckles. "No... Um.... I-" I struggle "Nice.... swim trunks". "Thanks, they're good at covering the goods" Roman says through his laughs. Nobody has ever been able to catch me off guard that way. Normally I'm the one making people stutter and knees weak. I sit down next to Roman, the sun reflecting off of my brown skin like diamonds. "Why are you so hell bent on being alone" Roman asks looking at me. "You can't get hurt or let down if you're alone" I say looking at him directly in the eyes, those beautiful eyes. "I know that I can depend on me. Every relationship I've ever been in i've been let down, so why not protect myself".

"Maybe you continuously shutting people out isn't protecting you at all, maybe it's hurting you" Roman says, never breaking eye contact. I'm not sure what he was doing to me, but I have never felt this feeling before. "You're probably right. At this point I'm not even sure how to let my guard down" I say looking down, kicking my feet in the water. "You did it with Violet and you're doing it now with me. I think you do, you just choose not to" Roman says. He's right, it all just happened so naturally with the two of them. I can see Roman's eyes subtly looking at my body up and down, fixated mostly on my thick thighs.

Roman and I sit in silence for a little while, taking int the beauty around us. "You seem like you're a great dad" I say breaking the silence "The kind of dad I wish I grew up with". Roman takes a second "Thank you, I try my best but it's hard raising a little girl alone" He says. Roman gets up to make us some mixed drinks, and Iean back getting as much sun as I can on my honey skin. "Hey Nala could you get up I need to see something" Roman says with a grin, putting our drinks down on a table. "What?" I say concerned, standing up at the edge of the pool. Roman walks towards me, still grinning "SPEAR!" He yells as he playfully runs towards me, spearing me into the pool.

"You son of a bitch!" I yell laughing as I come up from under the water. I jump on him, attempting to take him under but my attempt failed miserably. Even in water he was an unmovable force. Something came over me, and I has no control over myself anymore. I pushed my lips onto his, and he wrapped his arms around me and my legs around him. It was like something out of a romance movie, I could feel sparks flying between us. Our lips connected and smacked together like they were always meant to be. I break our kiss "I am so sorry" I say leaning away from Roman's face. "Don't be, I liked it" He responds flashing his beautiful teeth.

I can feel his member raising under me, but I choose not to say anything to avoid making things awkward. Roman lets me go and we hang out at the pool for a while longer before heading in. "What if we go out and do something today?" Roman asks me as he dries his hair off. "Like?" I ask tossing my hair back up into a bun. "Let's go to the beach, I don't think there will be a lot of people there, and Violet would love that! Plus we should enjoy the weather before we have to go out and travel again" Roman says. "Beach it is" I say with a smile.make

#simply meant to be #roman reigns fic #wwe #wwe fic #the tribal chief #roman reigns

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straighttohellbuddy · 2 years

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bye when tommy fully leans into the bit but finds himself fully endeared when reader and corpse tell him how proud they are when he hits ten mil and he’s like “what the fuck you can’t make me feel like this when i haven’t even met you in person yet” bc he’s live and it’s content, but after he’s genuinely so giddy with excitement and awe bc this is grammy award winning y/n saying they’re proud of him and he’s just unable to really form how much that means to him coming from both reader and corpse. i love this story jesus christ.

also ohbmy god i’m also vibrating for this dreamnap/reader. this is gonna be so cool holy shit 😭-🐈‍⬛

I'm going to CRY !! but can you imagine when the reader finally does go over to England like halfway through 2021 (to visit friends and film their music video with Wilbur & Lovejoy) and the reader surprises him, as well as Tubbo and Ranboo by crashing whatever vlogging idea Tommy's had (im thinking the trampolining video, i just like that video a lot). reader walking in right as Tubbo does a cool flip and just shouting THAT'S MY FUCKIN' BOI! and all three of them pretty much tackle the reader in a hug the moment they realise what's going on.

Tommy and Tubbo being unashamedly true to their duo name and being clingy whenever they get to spend time with the reader, and wanting to show them all the sites. after a few outings with a few other youtubers as well, compilations of screenshots from vlogs emerge on twitter, and people point out that whenever there's a seating choice, Clingy Duo will more often than not be either side of the reader.

ranboo attempting to be a little more aloof and give the reader space but the reader developing the habit of calling him 'Our Beloved' in reference to the meme, (reader tweeting things like 'gonna be playing some CHOONS later with the funky music man tubbo and ranboo our beloved' and ranboo's genuinely like 'i get to hear y/n and tubbo make music im literally just happy to be here')

but also these silly teenage boys haven't actually properly listened to the reader's music apart from the popular hits, but also not realising some of the mid-2010s well known indie bops are the reader's songs i LOVE.

i need you to know about the image that popped in my head at work today; Bench Trio & reader taking a cheesy family photo and photoshopping Bingus in place of corpse.

but also because it's my fic i can do what i want, im rather endeared by the idea of wilbur having a (mostly) professional crush on the reader. the idea of him catching the reader humming one Lovejoy's songs (Taunt) and the reader admitting that they enjoy the song and that it kind of reminds them of the start of their relationship with corpse, and he goes from flustered and pleased that they like their music, to just kind of confused because How does Taunt remind them of them and corpse??? except no, the reader & corpse had probably the most public enemies to lovers relationship in recent memory so Taunt makes perfect sense.

READER. DOING. MUSIC. COVERS. AND. SONGS. WITH. FRIENDS. IN. ENGLAND

#ITS 3AM IM GOING TO BED BUT I THINK ABOUT THIS FIC AND WORLD ONCE A DAY I LOVE YOU #black cat anon #your local homosexual with no chill

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thatwasthenightthingschanged · 3 years

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TAYLOR SWIFT + my favorite songs on each album (music player mockup)

#tswiftedit #taylor swift #taylorswiftedit #tswiftgif #candy swift #dailytayloredits #edit #sarahsedits #tscreators #ciwyw2 #useramb #this looked better in my head ngl #also shoutout to photoshop because it crashed halfway through making this gifset #so then I had to remake half of the gifs on it 🙃#but yay i finally made a taylor edit again!#also yes 1989 is light blue you cannot change my mind (ok maybe also light purple)#tw flashing gif

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knb215arabellajkajewski-blog · 4 years

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Week 2: Planning

This week we focused on planning our scene for the 5 second character performance with two characters from the QUT short film Grandma’s House. The scene must be based around the supplied audio “Lucy, what are you doing?”. I broke down the Audio and planned what would happen for the main audio cues.

Thumbnails:

I did some rough thumbnails and a storyboard of the environment and the scenario surrounding Lucy opening presents before christmas with her Grandma catching her.

Reference Videos:

Once i had a rough idea of the planned scenario i filmed various video references of myself as the characters for reference in storyboarding and 3D animation.

Lucy -

vimeo

Grandma -

vimeo

Animatic:

I opened these videos in photoshop to create images sequences for rotroscoping to create a quick animatic in the program ‘Sketchbook’, allowing me to again a better understanding of facial expressions, movements, timing and camera angles throughout the animation before it is translated into a 3D environment.

Unfortunately halfway through making the animatic my digital pen broke so the remainder of the frames had to be drawn with my finger and are more gestural. the animatic contains 126 frames based on the audio of around 5.4 seconds at 24 seconds.

Blocking:

The 2020 version of Maya crashed everytime i made progress on the digital scene but downloading the 2019 version seemed to fix this issue. Unfortunately this meant i had no progress on blocking the scene in maya.

Addition Research on Short film:

A student involved in the animation of Grandma’s House:

http://www.ephirae.com/portfolio/gh-2020/

Some of the concept art (including assets/progress) and final posters for Grandma’s House:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/yb61Q5

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obscuniverse · 6 years

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Obscu comments: Ready Player One, Part 1.

This is @derinthemadscientist‘s fault. Chapter 0

“I was sitting in my hideout watching cartoons“ Okay you’re either a grizzled old veteran with an actual hideout who watches cartoons because they can, or an awkward child who calls their room a ‘hideout’.

“globally networked“ unlike all other MMOS, apparently.

“At first, I couldn’t understand why the media was making such a big deal of the billionaire’s death.“ Awkward child it is.

“so the unwashed masses“ Could you maybe try harder to sound aloof and superior? I’m just not getting your disdainful sneering coming through as clear as I’d like.

I’m all of three paragraphs in and here and I can feel the neckbeard.

“But that was the rub. James Halliday had no heirs.“ And if this was set in a feudal monarchy, that would be an issue.

You’re gonna make this an issue, aren’t you Ernest?

“He’d spent the last fifteen years of his life in self-imposed isolation, during which time—if the rumors were to be believed —he’d gone completely insane.“ So the board of directors voted to remove him as CEO of the company like 14 years ago, right? Because massive global corporate juggernauts that have somehow established a telecommunications monopoly are not run by one person pedalling a bike to power a single computer in their own locked room.

You do know that, right?

Right, Ernest?

That’s okay though, I mean Halliday is probably having fun willing away his personal fortune.

“had everyone from Toronto to Tokyo crapping in their cornflakes” is this entire book going to read like a forum post? It is, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Ernest?

“His video message was actually a meticulously constructed short film titled Anorak’s Invitation“ A quick google tells me that, aside from being a kind of jacket, ‘Anorak’ is British slang for a person with obsessive niche interests. The global billionaire’s Final Message is basically entitled ‘Letter from a huge fuckin weeb’.

Also, how else would it be constructed? What purpose does ‘meticulous’ serve here? Is that unusual for a global tech billionaire? Was it especially meticulous? What is this description contrasting with, Ernest? Your own writing?

I’m going to sail right past the part where he had global admin rights to what’s literally the internet despite being AWOL for 15 years and this didn’t concern anybody at all. Let’s just say he ‘built a backdoor’ into it that has somehow gone unnoticed for several decades in a system that would be continually maintained and updated by thousands of sysadmins. Okay, it’s fine, he’s the creator of the core system. I’ll suspend my disbelief that his personal backdoor didn’t end up in the bin every time they upgraded something in the core build. Maybe it did and he rebuilt it, stealthily, all over again. Fine, but I’ve got my eye on you, Ernest.

“surpassing even the Zapruder film“ Just call it the Kennedy Assassination tape so nobody has to google it, Ernest.

Ernest, buddy, why am I seeing an ast-- oh, it’s a footnote. You’ve written your prologue chapter with fucking footnotes. Could you not figure out how to write more words with the rest of the words, Ernest?

My. God. There are seven footnotes. Of them, six say some version of “this was photoshopped in from an 80′s movie to confirm that this was, in fact from the 80′s. Did I mention the 80′s?” and the seventh is “this is a photo of the Rich Man of the Internet from the 80′s”. I really feel like Ernest has set up a much more interesting story and then elected to ignore it in favour of writing the gamergate manifesto of a 16-year-old boy. There’s apparently a nuclear war going on in the background, and one nerd somehow became the God-King of the Internet despite the fact that literally any first-world government would immediately try to seize this kind of centralised infrastructure away from him. Does this mean governments are a thing of the past? Is this entire story taking place in some kind of children’s creche in the Shadowrun continuity? I have so many questions, and none of them are about this book.

So God-King Jimmy is a 40-something-old man dancing in a re-edited scene of an 80′s highschool movie dance. I don’t know why it takes six sentences to say this, except to say that he danced flawlessly, and also:

“But Halliday has no dance partner. He is, as the saying goes, dancing with himself.” Is he now, Ernest? Is he really? To be fair to Ernest, I also wrote like this. In highschool. While desperately trying to inflate an essay to reach the wordcount.

“A few lines of text appear briefly at the lower left-hand corner of the screen, listing the name of the band, the song’s title, the record label, and the year of release, as if this were an old music video airing on MTV: Oingo Boingo, “Dead Man’s Party,” MCA Records, 1985.” We know how music videos work, Ernest.

“He breaks the fourth wall, addressing the viewer, and begins to read“. Is that what he’s doing by addressing the viewer, Ernest? I’m so glad that you clarified that for me, Ernest, that when a character is breaking that fourth wall that they are explicitly breaking the fourth wall. What would we do without your propensity for re-describing your own descriptions, Ernest?

“I, James Donovan Halliday, being of sound mind and disposing memory, do hereby make, publish, and declare this instrument to be my last will and testament, hereby revoking any and all wills and codicils by me at any time heretofore made.…” *record scratch* I’m not sure this is legally binding. I mean you’ve gone through a truly painstaking amount of effort to describe how heavily-edited this video is. Maybe Emperor Jimmy is fraudulently edited in? Maybe that’s not a binding legal will? Maybe if he’s been a missing person for 15 years then he can’t be assumed to be of sound mind just because he suddenly shows up and says he is? Okay, maybe it’s just seemed like he’s been gone to the general public rather than the C-level of his company, who are somehow okay with the stock crash this is going to cause. “My entire estate, including a controlling share of stock in my company“ Hold up, buttercup. I have exhausted my supply of willing suspension of disbelief, Ernest.

There is just so much wrong with this entire premise. The awol hermit somehow retains control of The Internet. An entire corporate conglomerate and every country that may or may not exist is either okay with this or has no recourse to do anything about it somehow. Not a single one of the thousands of people who maintain the backend bothers to comb through the code to find where this ‘easter egg’ has been slipped in. You know about code, right Ernest? I mean I take it you’ve at least seen The Matrix, yeah? Remember how people sitting outside the matrix can scan through the code, even in that hellscape where they’re not even the ones that control it? Sure, OASIS probably isn’t open-source... but how many people do you think have actual backend access? Spoiler: It’s not “Just Emperor Jimmy”, Ernest. Nobody at that company needs to play through what I can only imagine is a painstakingly convoluted puzzle quest that you’re about to explain to me in several levels of unnecessary detail.

Look, this entire premise reminds me of Breaking Bad. Not any of the good bits, mind you but the bit where the entire plot could only take place in the USA because in the rest of the developed world Walter White just goes to a fucking doctor and gets treatment for his cancer because healthcare actually exists.

That’s what this is like. The number of arbitrarily nonsensical things that must be true for this premise to work is... Incredibly distracting. Nothing about this is a reasonable situation. Nothing that you’ve established about this world suggests that anything about this makes even a little bit of sense. Now I’m aware that ‘eccentric millionaire leaves money in some kind of convoluted contest’ is a trope and I remember some very silly 90′s movies based on this premise but come on Ernest. There’s a much more interesting novel hiding between the lines of the premise you’ve ham-fistedly implied just so you can list for me the brands of 1980′s televisions. Out of curiousity, I googled every person who wrote the advance praise comments inside the cover. I had a sneaking suspicion about the demographics of people who enjoy this book. Here’s a brief summary (since Ernest loves lists so much) 1. White American Male, Age 48

2. White American Male, Age 47

3. White American Male, Age 52

4. White American Male, Age 68

5. White American Male, Age 49

6. White American Male, Age 40

7. White American Male, Age 41

I then googled Ernest, an action I deeply regret. Demographically speaking, let’s have a look: White American Male, Age 46.

I’m detecting a pattern is what I’m saying here. I’m only halfway through the prologue, mind you, and perhaps this really picks up but I feel like I absolutely did not need to be told the brand of the television that Young God-Emperor Jimmy had his Atari 2600 into. Nor did I need to be told that his Atari 2600 was, indeed, an Atari 2600 about 10 words before God-Emperor Jimmy then actually says that it’s an Atari 2600. Maybe this book is for people who get a real kick out of seeing the words ‘Atari 2600′. People who are (and I’m just throwing wild, unsubstantiated theories out here) about 40+, white, male, and American?

I’m going to stop now because I’ve started writing my thesis just to procrastinate from having to read the second half of the prologue to this book.

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