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Contact me - marensdasein@gmail.com
Been a bit hasn't it. haven't posted in over 2 months which is embarrassing to be honest. I'll admit I let the convenience of microblogging on Bluesky get to me. It's easy to see the more positive and welcoming community there as healthier than other platforms. It is in some ways. Obviously, mental health IS health and constantly consuming negativity isn't mentally healthy. Here's the thing though: Social media isn't bad just because it engenders negativity. Humans are a social species. It's well studied and documented that no matter how introverted you are you cannot survive without social contact of some kind. There are also multiple kinds of social needs and they range from the physical to the emotional and intellectual. I strongly suspect that EVERYONE needs All of them to some extent. Social media cannot fulfill all of them, and over reliance on social media can atrophy or prevent development of social skills necessary to fulfill the social needs social media can't. I worry about this in myself. I've always been quite shy around people I don't know, which is a problem because I have social needs left unfilled. So naturally, as it's more conveniant than developing confidence, I get drawn to social media. Thats not healthy. That's eating at McDonald's for every meal. Sure it'll get you through the day if you have no other option, but sooner or later, you should probably learn to cook. How is blogging on here better? Well its less convenient for a start, and it has non-social skill utility. It stretches not only my technical but visual design, and writing skills. It also feels less social so it doesn't feel like its fulfilling my social needs when it's not. So that's kinda where I'm at there. It really doesn't help that 3rd places are disappearing at an alarming rate as people increasingly use the internet as their primary 3rd place. That's a whole other can of worms though.
Ok, so now that that incredibly important seriously no sarcasm tangent is out of the way, how have I been doing? Naturally, I'm fully settled into my new place. My bedroom decked out with a CRT tv, old movie posters, a neon fox, and a lava lamp is giving a pleasently retro early 00s vibe, and we worked out the TV projecter situation in the common area so that both it and the TV can be used simultaniously. Not much in my life has really changed other than that. Started month 5 of HRT. Lot of changes, some you might even notice if I'm wearing a tight enough top.
My podcast project is on an unplanned hiatus, but what we hav released is alright. Armchair Cinema, a movie review/discussion podcast with an old college friend of mine Jason (here, have a link). Be warned: it's not great. It's unpolished, lacks structure, and I think we're still trying to figure out exactly what it is. However, there are a lot of good discussions in there. There have been some technical issues with editing so we're quite a few episodes behind but we ARE still working on them
Also been having more time to engage with my hobbies. After getting it on sale I've been playing the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1. I've been a huge fan of MGS for over a decade but I've hesitated buying the master collection until recently due to its reputation. Fans have lambasted this release for… well that's the rub. I’m not entirely sure what it's done to earn such ire. The Master Collection was pitched and advertised as rereleases of all the Metal Gear games up to and including Metal Gear Solid 3 with some bonus content including regional variations of each game, scripts for each game, and documents containing lore and trivia about the series for each game. That's what it is. Each game plays just as good as they did upon release (better in the cases of MGS 2&3) right out of the box on modern hardware. Yet, people complain that MGS1 is limited to the original resolution and 4x3 aspect ratio, that MGS 2&3 don't run at 4k, you can't remap controller inputs, and… that's it? Look, to me this sounds like going out and buying a Blu ray of Wizard of Oz and then complaining that you can see the film grain and the painted backdrops look fake. Like sure, film grain and flat painted backdrops were limitations of films made in 1939 and today we could replace the backdrops with CGI and smooth out the grain and the movie look like 1000% more realistic, but then that's not the same movie. These games, like all pieces of art were made with the limitations of the materials available to the artists of the time, and to obscure that with modern enhancements fundamentally alters the piece of art. These are and were marketed as re-releases not remasters. Perhaps the confusion is with the term “Master Collection”. Well “Master Collection” means just as much as Borderlands’s “Handsome Collection” or Portal’s “Companion Collection”. There's nothing actually handsome about Borderlands's collection or especially companionable about Portal’s collection. It's a largely meaningless name to draw attention and probably refers primarily to this collection’s completeness as it collects all regional variants and relevantly different ports (such as MGS Integral, the NES port of MG1, and Snake's Revenge). At the end of the day this is about presenting the Metal Gear games in such a way that they are accessible to modern gamers, and this collection does that perfectly. In fact my only real gripe is that they used the HD collection ports of MGS 2&3 which are very slightly different from the original PS2 releases. I would have appreciated emulated PS2 versions in addition to the HD collection ports. So basically I want even less modern versions of these games made available.
The closest thing I've heard as a legitimate complaint is the price. That people expect enhanced versions of these games for the $60 the collection retailed for. But like WHY!? Look, this collection has 7 count ‘em seven complete games:
That comes out to about $8.60 a game. Even if you bundle the pre-“solid” games into two separate groups (so the 2 msx games and the 2 nes games as the collection does) you're still left with $12 a game. Seems like a good price to me, and that's not even accounting for the bonus content. There's the digital soundtrack, the MGS 1&2 motion comics, the scripts, and lore books.
On a personal note I can't help but see the critical Metal Gear fan as grossly entitled. I'm a big Silent Hill fan and if Metal Gear fans only knew what the average Silent Hill fan would do to get a similar “Master Collection” for the Silent Hill franchise… Those games are devilishly hard to get ahold of in a state one tenth as good as the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection. Silent Hill one is still basically only available on the PS1 and on PS3 via the PlayStation store, and Silent Hill 2&3? Well you better buy yourself a PS2 and spend about $300 on a used copy cause that HD collection that came out for PS3 and 360 makes the “Master Collection” look as polished and modern as a Nightdive enhanced edition. And the mid 2000s PC ports of 2&3? Hope you got a spare grand laying around cause thats how much both are going to cost you. At least you can get a good copy of 4 on PC from GOG that works without effort.
Oop, that was quite a tangent guess this is what happens when you put off writing a blog post for a few months. Anyway, I also got into Gunpla. For those who have a life outside of dorky nerd media, Gunpla is a specific line of plastic model kits of the giant robots in the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam. They're a lot of fun and very beginner friendly. The parts come on injection molded runners, you clip them off, snap them together, maybe apply a sticker, and, without even any paint, at the end of a few hours you have a little posable robot man to display. They're quite addicting; like plastic crack. I bought my first two weeks ago and could only hold out for like 2 days before ordering another one. It's just so easy and meditative.
OH and my 31st birthday happened over the blog hiatus. Do I feel old yet? Well, now that the aches and pains from lifting heavy stuff and moving are gone thankfully no. To be honest I kinda feel like I'm still in my twenties. Not that I'm complaining. Hopefully, I'll maintain my youthful energy and idealism well into my old age. Anyway, I expect I'll be more motivated for more regular blog posts (with no schedule tbh I've never been good with those); the writing itch is getting to me