Darren

Being English, I’m stubbornly monolingual (aside from some leftover schoolboy French), so when I was invited to a Sikh wedding I was genuinely amazed by all the guests just flowing between English and Punjabi as if they were the same language.

I use Castopod for when I’ve uploaded my radio show. At the moment it’s hosted on my site that’s on Hetzner. It only costs me a tenner a month, so I’m wondering whether it’s worth trying to work out how to host it all locally so I can have far more storage and it not cost me anything.

My partner uses Mastodon, but not Lemmy.

As with so many things, the barrier to entry has been lowered so far that literally anyone can have a go. And that’s good. But it does mean that the vast, vast majority of art is now being experienced by an audience of maybe 20 people.

You can spend hours crafting a beautifully soundscaped podcast that truly gets to the heart of what you need to talk about. And ten people will listen to it.

But I suppose it was ever thus. Someone would spend a year painstakingly working on a painting, getting all the details just so. And then it would sit in their studio because they had nowhere to display it, or no one to buy it.

Speaking as someone who’s been into Nirvana and RatM since the early '90s, there’s more anger and protest in ‘We Live Here’ than in the entirety of Nirvana’s catalogue.

Bob Vylan - We Live Here

Sure, Nirvana were angry, but mostly in a depressed, teenage way, lashing out at an unfair world. They were angry on a personal level, mostly. Bob Vylan are angry on a social level, in the way RatM were. They’re demanding the world look at the inequality they see, rallying us to take it on board and do something about it.

If that isn’t protest, then I don’t know what it is you’re looking for.

Having just finished the first Death Stranding, I agree with you re: Kojima.

Don’t get me wrong, the game is great; I ended up enjoying the delivery aspect more and more as it went on. But man, the story is…tough. The broad strokes of it are interesting, but I feel like the inertia of it got lost in the attempt to make it a multiple-hour open world.

As a whole, the game is undeniably an incredible piece of work. While you’re immersed in it it’s wonderful. But when you stop to think about it for even a few seconds, it flakes away.

And, like I said, while you’re playing, you’re really into it, you get to the end game, you ‘defeat’ the final boss. Then there’s the best part of 90 minutes worth of exposition to explain the parts of the story that weren’t explained DURING THE STORY. Never before have I played a game that had to put so much effort into explaining itself.

But somehow it all works. The experience of playing it is excellent. Or maybe Kojima just has his own reality distortion field.

NMS came out on macOS around the same time I got my M2 Air. Being a huge 65daysofstatic fan, I played it for a bit when it first came out, but I didn’t have my own PC, so it was on my wife’s, meaning I couldn’t play that much.

Anyway, I was stoked to finally be able to play it on my own computer and put hours and hours into it. But the thing I could never really shake is just how lonely it feels. I get that that’s part of the point, but after a while it begins to feel really quite oppressive.

Having never owned an Xbox, I never really played any Halo besides when I had a go with my brothers. But I have to say, the co-op multiplayer on Halo 2 (I think it was) was incredible.

Going into a room, he’d go left, I’d go right, and together we’d clear it out before moving to the next. It was great.

Laura Shigihara - Everything’s Alright from To The Moon.

That game made me weep like a baby, so even now, some ten years after playing it for the first time, that song still stirs up those feelings.

And for much the same reason, Daniel Lanois - That’s The Way It Is from Red Dead 2.

If you’ve played it long enough to hear that song, you understand.

I saw that for the first time last year, and I can tell you that it’s bloody disturbing to a 44 year old too.

There’s (slightly) fewer cunts on here.

Thing with Vegemíté is that it’s like Marmite, but not fucking awful.

Vegemíté, as pronounced by Gloria in Modern Family.

Every time I open the cupboard that has a jar, it brings me joy.

I lay completely still. Properly, completely still. I focus all my energy on not moving a single muscle besides what I need to breathe.

Then, while doing that, I try to conjure up elaborate fantasy scenes in my mind.

9 times out of 10 I’m gone within five minutes.

First time I DJd, I cleared the floor because I really wanted to hear Angel on big, club speakers.

No ragerts.

65daysofstatic - Wild Light

But the FLAC version I have, obviously.

That album is a masterpiece, as far as I’m concerned. I will never tire of it, and it really gives my speakers a workout.

Of course!

Here’s last week’s.

I was studying for a radio production degree exactly at the point where radio station budgets were rapidly shrinking, while podcasting was growing. But obviously the degree course didn’t really have any podcasting in the syllabus because it was relatively new. Home streaming wasn’t really a thing at that point either, so we go no tuition on how to set up our own output.

Radio is massively different now than it was then. So yeah, I hear ya.

Radio production.

Got a degree, moved to London, applied for loads of jobs, and… nothing.

Trouble is, I needed to be paid, and at the entry level it’s all unpaid internships and volunteering at community stations. Unless you know someone who can get you through the door, of course.

Stuck with making a podcast in my spare time for a few years, but ultimately lost the spark.

These days I work in health and safety management and stream a radio show every Monday night that about 15 people tune into live, and 30-odd people listen to on Mixcloud. It makes me no money, but I enjoy it.

I assure you we’re open.