Microblog


Working on a couple new projects...

July 1 2025

Got a couple new projects I'm working on...

www.retrogamestorewarehouse.net

basement.connorthevgfan78.com

What could they be? You can hover over the links for hints. Check back in soon to find out more...

I went to Ohio (& Western PA)

June 21 2025

I survived my trip to Ohio, and omg a lot of stuff happened on that trip. I plan on making a longer blog post / travel log about everything that happened at a later date, but for now, here's a few highlights:

A mural on the side of a brick building, depicting various retro video game elements against a dark background. The mural features a red and white mushroom with black eyes, a bright blue arcade cabinet, an NES controller, an orange Pac-Man ghost, a scared, blue Pac-Man ghost, Pac-Man himself, a joystick, a pinball bumper, and a GAME OVER message. The words Past Times Pinball & Video Arcade are prominently displayed in a stylized, colorful font, surrounded by shapes and smaller icons like a pinball flipper and a pinball zooming past the logo. The building has light-colored brick on the left, and a paved area is visible in the bottom left corner. A grassy, unkempt area is in the foreground, and trees and a cloudy sky are in the background.

This arcade right here has everything. The collection was so huge, I was unable to play it all in one day. If you ever find yourself in or around Youngstown, I highly recommend you check out Past Times in Girard. This place has pretty much everything.

A large statue depicting a Big Mac burger in an inclosed indoor space. The space where the Big Mac statue resides is sectioned off with a fence. A sign on the fence reads Please Do Not Climb Over Fence. Yellow banners can be seen hanging from a black ceiling. A shopping center can be seen through the glass in the background, as well as a sign advertising the McDonalds Big Mac Museum.

Not in Ohio, but on my way to Ohio I managed to stop at the McDonald's Big Mac Museum in Irwin, PA. They had this huge Big Mac statue near the PlayPlace, and it was amazing to see everything the museum had to offer in person. And yes, I ate a Big Mac at the Big Mac museum.

A liminal space that is dark, but contains a staircase with a single light fixture illuminating a limited portion of the space. The floor is made of tile, and the ceiling appears to be made out of panels with dark borders. At the top of the stairs, there appears to be an area that's sectioned off with glass. At the bottom of the stairs, there appears to be a dark hallway leading somewhere. There's also a shallow, blue tub that appears to contain an unknown white object or assortment of objects. A fire extinguisher can be seen mounted to a wall, with a piece of wood and gold-foil ballon leaning up against it. To the left of the dark hallway, and to the left of a brick column, there's a door with a tiny bit of light appearing from underneath.

This is a photo of a liminal space I found while on my way back from Ohio. It's in a dead, indoor shopping mall in Western PA. I'll post more pictures in the Dead Malls section of my site, so be on the lookout for those.

And yeah, that's all the stuff I'm wanting to highlight for now. Like I said, I'll post a more in-depth thing sometime in the future.

I got a 2006 Mac Pro (but it doesn't work, yet...)

June 17 2025

Sunday, I was scrolling through Facebook Marketplace, when I spotted a non-functional 2006 Mac Pro for sale for $30. The seller said it wasn't able to turn on, and didn't know why. So me, needing another computer repair project to work on, decided to contact the seller and arrange a pick-up.

After a long 3 hour drive to go pick up the Mac Pro in Eastern PA, and what felt like an even longer 3 hour drive back home, I finally got this heavy piece of once-overpriced machinery and placed it right in the middle of my living room to take a photo of it.

A 2006 Silver Mac Pro computer on a wooden floor. On top of the Mac Pro, a power cable and sticky note are present. An armchair, some shelving, and a Wii Fit Balance Board can be seen in the background.

I then removed it from my living room and took it to my home office, where I have most of my old computer stuff stored. I haven't started work on it yet, plenty of research still needs to be done because I have no idea how to even open or remove parts from it yet. Overall, I'm very excited to see how this repair project will go.

Oops, There Goes my Sleep Schedule (again)

June 12 2025

For a while now, I've been trying to correct my sleep schedule and have myself wake up at a decent hour and sleep, at well, a decent hour.

Last week, I was making excellent progress. I was finally managing to go to sleep around 10pm and wake up around 5-6am. But then came this week.

This week, I've been falling asleep around 1-2am and waking up around 10-11am. IDK how I managed to fall back into staying up late, it just kinda happened.

For most other people, this may not seem like a big issue. Staying up late has its perks, plus some people just prefer to be awake at night. But for me, I would prefer to be awake during the day.

I remember writing on my old Wordpress blog, during the time I was big into Twitch streaming in the middle of night, that staying up late made me feel socially isolated, disconnected, and the only reason I did it was because an old job I had at the time required me to work about 11pm-4am nearly every weeknight.

I was making good progress on getting myself back into the daytime realm, yet here I am at...2:45am[!?!?] writing this post. Jeez.

I've told my mom about the whole thing, and she said to "not try and force myself to conform to a schedule my body doesn't want, and just let whatever happens happen." I'll try following that advice for the most part, but I am going to try and get myself back on track with a daytime schedule.

A Sweet Trip to the Library

June 5 2025

Earlier today, I went to the local library with my mom. The main goal for this trip (at least for my mom) was to try and find a selection of Stephen King novels. She didn't really tell me which novels or why she was looking for them, but I decided to tag along so I could maybe check out a random travel book or Manga, like I usually do.

Part way through our search in the library's Fiction section, a librarian came up to us asking if we needed help. We asked about the locations of a few Stephen King novels, found out those locations from the Librarian, and usually that would be the end of our interaction with the library staff in terms of seeking help looking for things.

However, the librarian then asked if we wanted a slice of cake. My mom and I, very confused at the question, looked at each other wondering if we heard the librarian correctly. We then asked, "cake, what for?"

The librarian explained that they had a Library Volunteer Appreciation Week event earlier in the day, and there was a lot of left-over cake slices that the volunteers couldn't finish. My mom and I agreed to each take a slice of cake, and we followed the librarian into the library's event hall. The event hall had several tables set up, and both me and my mom decided to sit down at one of them while the librarian went to get us each a slice of cake and a bottle of water.

The librarian sat down with us, and my mom ended up having a conversation with the librarian for what felt like a solid half-hour. The conversation was mainly about generic life stuff and my mom's work as an ELA teacher. I didn't really participate in the convo much, I was mostly just flipping through a travel guide about Ireland I was looking to check-out.

My mom and the librarian finished their conversation, we finished eating our slices of cake, and we all exited the library's event hall with my mom and I heading to the front desk to check out our books.

Overall, I'd say that this trip to the library was an interesting one. It's not every day that a librarian gets to offer their patrons slices of cake, so it was amazing to get to be one of the patrons who gladly accepted it, just for happening to visit on the right day.

Slice of cake icon

Thinking about travel...

June 1 2025

Recently, I’ve been thinking about traveling somewhere. Not somewhere too distant, just a day trip to somewhere maybe a 2-3 hour drive away from where I live.

This used to be something I did at least once a week during my time driving for Uber as a full-time job. At least once a week, I would get a ride request from a truck driver from a local trucking depot. The ride requests involved a different trucker every time, and they would either just need an hour-long ride to get to the Transportation Center in Harrisburg, or they would need to be driven directly to their destination.

Often, this would involve me going some very distant places. One week, I could be giving someone a two-hour ride to one of the suburbs surrounding DC. Another week, I could be driving four-hours straight to Southern New Jersey.

An Uber Driver app trip log, with the heading Trip Details at the top of the screen. Below the heading, a map is shown. The map appears to show a line being drawn from a green start point in Southern Pennsylvania to a red end point in Southern New Jersey. The trip log states that the duration of the trip was four hours twenty two minutes, and the distance of the trip was 196.86 miles. The bottom of the screen shows a heavily censored pick up and drop off address section, with the acronyms PA and NJ being the only details visible.

Imagine doing that drive for four hours with no stops. I think my favorite part about that ride was that I got to drive through Center City in Philadelphia.

A screenshot of dashcam footage of the Center City Expressway in Philadelphia. Several tall buildings can be seen in the background. A billboard to the right shows text on a white background, with the phrase Philly Baby written in large red print. There are two highway exit signs in the center of the screenshot. One sign is for East Interstate 676 US Route 30 East Central Philadelphia. The second exit sign is for the Ben Franklin Parkway and twenty third Street. Several cars are seen in front of the camera's view. The date marker January thirty first 2024 slash four fourty one fifty seven PM is shown in the bottom-left. A screenshot of dashcam footage of the Philadelphia skyline taken from the perspective of a car on a highway ramp. Several skyscrapers are shown prominently in the center and right of the photo. Several cars can also be seen on the highway. The date marker January thirty first 2024 slash four fourty one oh seven PM is shown in the bottom-left.

These are screenshots from dash cam footage I took during this trip. It was an interesting experience to get to drive through Center City during rush hour. Thankfully, my passenger gave me tips on how to navigate the traffic.

Memories of past trips aside, I’ve been thinking recently about traveling somewhere new and doing something new. I don’t drive for Uber full-time anymore, and it’s been a while since I’ve traveled somewhere for non-work related purposes.

I have a few ideas and a few plans actually set in place for places I could travel to this month. I’m planning on traveling to Eastern Ohio in mid-June, and staying there for a couple days to check out an arcade I found online and to meet up with an online friend that I’ve been talking with since late 2023. I’m really excited for that one.

Also, I’m thinking about maybe attending the TooManyGames convention in Eastern PA, though that will probably just be for one day, since the passes for that event cost way more than the previous conventions I’ve attended.

Finally, I want to do at least one thing this month that involves taking a train someplace. I’ve been watching too many videos from creators like Miles In Transit on YouTube recently, and I would like to ride a train to see what it’s actually like. Also, the fact that I used to drive truckers to an AmTrak station for a living has had me curious about the passenger rail experience for a while.

All of Scott Pilgrim? In Color? For HOW MUCH!?!?

May 22 2025

This morning while I was working on schoolwork, my mom called me into the living room because she saw something in the Ollie's Bargain Outlet eMail Sales Circular she thought I'd like and...

An advertisement from the Ollie's Bargain Outlet sales circular. It says Scott Pilgrim 7 Book Box Set, 20th Anniversary, Choose from Color or B and W editions. Their price $129.99, Our price $49.99. An image of an open box set of Scott Pilgrim books is shown to the left.

oh my god, and with that price!?!? I had to get it.

I've watched both the Scott Pilgrim movie and anime, but I've never really gotten around to reading the entire graphic novel series. I've checked out the first book from the public library before and thought it was good, but now was my chance to snag the whole freaking series at what I felt like was a more than reasonable price. So anyways, I decided to hop in the car, drive to my nearest Ollie's, and sure enough...

A Scott Pilgrim 20th Anniversary, Color Edition box set in a plastic bag on a car seat. The box set is secured to the seat using a seat belt.

they had it.

They were selling both the Black and White and Color versions of the 20th Anniversary set, and I ended up getting the Color version because I though it'd be the best value.

A Scott Pilgrim 20th Anniversary Color Edition box set. The box is red, wrapped in plastic shrink wrap, and has several characters pictured on the top of the box. The character Knives Chau is pictured on the bottom-right. On the top right of the box is an orange price tag. The tag has a QR code and says Ollies, Their Price: $249.99, Our Price: $49.99.

So yeah, I guess I'll take some time and read the entirety of Scott Pilgrim now. Thanks Ollie's Bargain Outlet, very cool.

BONUS PHOTO:

A life-sized bobble head statue of the Ollie's Bargain Outlet mascot.

A photo of Ollie Bargain Outlet himself. Well actually, it's a life-sized bobble head figurine of him. Snapped this photo on another trip I made to Ollie's, I love shopping here sometimes.

I guess we're doing microblogs now

May 17 2025

Decided to make a microblog page, for some unknown reason. This will mainly be a page where I post random thoughts and stuff. Hello to all who are visiting it!!

thus concludes, the microblog.