Sounds Stuck in My Brain: April 28, 2024 Edition

Tumble in the Rough — Stone Temple Pilots

(YouTube)

Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop came into my life through one of those mail order companies back in the 90s. I’d started getting an allowance from my narcissistic father, probably as a means to make himself feel more in control after my mother decided to file for divorce—as well as make me love him… so he could be more in control. As much as I loathed my family and its dysfunctional nature, a sense of stability was still being eroded, and I needed outlets. Like any other depressed teenager, I took to lying prone on the bed, headphones covering my ears, letting my brain digest words and music to mold this aural puree into future daydreams or stories to serve as distractions in my classes.

I remember first listening to this at my mother’s apartment, on my CD Walkman. I loved that thing, even if it came with crappy foam headphones and eventually gave me tinnitus at age sixteen. While my brother and mother watched a movie in the living room, I lied on the mattress (on the floor, natch) and stared up at the popcorn ceiling. And thought. And clenched my jaw. And thought. My parents’ lives had erupted into some kind of controlled chaos which would end in their respective freedoms. My life stagnated, with everything feeling dead outward, but hurricanes of emotions inside my core. Horror at becoming a latchkey kid, misery over my family breaking apart, schadenfreude for my abusive father, mortification over having him buy personal products for my monthly deal, anger at my mother for not being able to support us kids as well as herself.

I didn’t care if the lyrics in these songs didn’t make sense. They gave me something to chew on. Blessed distractions. A beat that would resonate through my innards in some isometric temper tantrum that my doormat-infused nature could not express in the real world.

I’m looking for a new meditation
Still looking for a new way to fly
Don’t want any plastic validation
Not looking for a new way to die

It took me 25 years to realize it, but the first full song on this CD was my anthem for that awful year when my life was on a path to complete ruination and I swerved just in time to save it. But these days, when my life is finally on the upturn, it’s a fun song to sing at random times, confusing nearby people with the phrase “humble kidney pie” (so what?).

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Celebrity — Barenaked Ladies

(YouTube)

I’m one of those people that used to buy albums for the one or two songs I actually liked, because that was the only way to get music back before I was brave enough to consider using Napster. (Not that I ever did, because like a good law-abiding girl, I waited until the arrival of iTunes and other legal music downloading sites, I sure did.) Had I had the option when Everything to Everyone came out, I would have bought only “Another Postcard” and missed out on “Shopping” and “Second Best”, plus the acoustic versions of three songs.

Recently, I decided that one of my self-betterment habits would be to listen to albums all the way through at least once. I’m glad I did it with this one, because “Celebrity” is now one of my favorites.

This is one of those songs that immediately starts to paint a story in my head. With every listen, still images turn into an animatic, interspersed with the occasional full-color cels. It’s a precursor to a bigger story. And it’s gotten to the point where I’m actually considering making a sort of music video, albeit as a shoddy animatic.

But I would have to stop at a point because I wouldn’t know what to draw for this part:

I could disappear into the great unknown
And it would wear my face as if it were its own

These lyrics are going to haunt me until I can figure them out. Just as long as they’re not the first thing I hear upon waking up, I’m okay with them living in my brain folds for a while.

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Two on the Vine – Ep. 3: Evolve, New 3DS, Zelda (February 20, 2015)

(YouTube)

Boy, oh, boy, a third episode of Two on the Vine! Cherish these, for only twenty-four were ever produced, and if I’m correct, Vinny is unlikely to make another podcast of his own ever again. (And, yes, I know I can link to the episodes on Google Music. I don’t feel like breaking the pattern right now.)

I do realize that I’m writing with a combination of present, past, and future tense for these notes. Look, this isn’t an academic paper, it’s not a dissertation. This is a very informal jotting down of observations for a podcast that’s no longer in production. Relax.

But if occasional grammar slips pisses you off, I suggest you go off in a corner, read a grammar rules book, and consider the idea that nobody really enjoys your company, you miserable pedant. Crying into your book is optional.

Now for some personal highlights, some of which are out of context for extra fun:

• Both hosts are excited for PAX 2015.
  • Snow still covers Boston. KY can now see the top of his fence, which is about as tall as him. Since I don’t know his height, I’m assuming he’s probably five-foot-ten-ish to six-foot-even. For those using metric, that’s I-don’t-give-a-shit-crements.
  • *sigh* Fine, 1.778 to 1.829 meters. Now eat a bag of hell. Signed, my dyscalculia-riddled self.
  • Vinny makes tauntaun noises, and my anger melts away.
• KY enjoyed The Talos Principle and its “the surprisingly solid plot”, as well as Infiniminer, the precursor to Minecraft.
• Vinny has been playing Castle in the Darkness, Majora’s Mask 3D, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, the last of which has seen some improvements over the last installments.
  • “… and then you just have to keep collecting bones and, and fluid sacks, and monster… [Chuckles.] Monster testicles.”
  • There were talking cats, which makes me want to look up a playthrough.
• Greenlight Guess!
  • Newcomers may want to know what exactly Greenlight Guess is. “KY hates me. That’s Greenlight Guess.” “Or rather, listeners hate you.”
  • “‘Aimlessly explore procedurally generated island with 99 procedurally generated art galleries full of generated artwork and generated sound loop exhibits. Maybe we’ll find some meaning here. I don’t know.'”
    • KY slightly cheated as he got this game from itch.io, which will eventually become one of the go-tos for Vinny’s future streaming material.
  • “‘Megahive is a 2D sidescrolling horror strategy video game. Collect all 10 honeycombs. Watch out for the bees!'”
    • I’ll spoil it now: this one was fake, and judging by Vinny’s reaction to the bees bit, this was probably made specifically to irk him.
  • “‘… a hip-hop infused spaghetti western action platformer…'”
  • “But why do they keep in—why are they inexplicably catching fire, though?”
  • “‘For now, play in a window, because we could not figure out how to make a functional exit button. An update will be released as soon as possible.'”
    • Vinny thinks the $100 fee to get games on Greenlight is enough of a barrier to prevent the platform from being swamped by incompetent games. Oh, Vinny, your tiny sliver of hope is endearing and heartbreaking all at once.
  • “This is another one of those baffling, I can’t believe they spent $100 to get this on Greenlight Games, because it really does—you know what, I can’t even say that because I’ve seen stuff that looks like this and worse on the Xbox Live Indie Arcade, so, y’know…”
  • “‘Normally most side-scroll games are right-scroll. But in this game, the character can go both right and left sides. The character can go to the right side, but there is only snow, because we do not know what will happen in the future. Also, if you keep going right side, at some point the character will fall down, like there’s always end in our lives.'”
    • I never knew befuddlement had a sound, but Vinny was making it just then. In silence.
    • Both hosts briefly feel they don’t have the right to critique crappy games since they’ve made their own crappy RPG Maker games.
  • “‘In this vudeo game…'”
  • “‘Six Nights at Suzie’s, pimping strategy game.'”
  • “[Sounding mildly fatigued and defeated] Let me ask you something. […] How is ‘pizza’ spelled?”
  • “‘Your wife is dying and you have some personality issues.'”
  • “‘The game is about a bisexual foot bale that travels few times and barfs on people to death to save his home planet.'”
• “Pastability”, a famous Vinesauceism, makes an appearance.
  • KY does some pretty good Luigi impressions.
• Vinny got the new 3DS despite not needing a new one, so he’s selling one of his old ones.
  • He attempts an antebellum-type Southern accent. As a Southerner who hates stereotypical accents, this one meets my approval.
• “I need to ask, how does the nipple feel?”
• Games with auto brightness sound atrocious, and whoever thought of it needs to be reprimanded sharply and sent to bed without dessert.
• KY: “I do a little mental facepalm whenever I think of the name New 3DS. Like New Nintendo. Just stop with the new! Okay, we get it! The things you put out are new when you put them out. It’s not a… it’s not a time-safe… choice for naming anything, ’cause after a year, it’s not new anymore, goddammit.”
• Vinny mentions that he (and KY) buy their own games, and he puts “cold hard cash” into this hobby he loves a lot. Those words must have been magick, because years later, his inbox and P.O. box are inundated with suggestions, keys, and actual games, as fans want to put cold hard cash into his full-time job.
  • For those who keep wondering despite the fact I have the answer on the FAQ page: No, I won’t be suggesting games for him. Probably never. Time traveling to ancient Jerusalem and strolling straight into the Holy of Holies as a gentile woman would be an easier feat than having an email survive the floods that probably make up Vinny’s inbox these days.
  • Besides, my one suggestion is an RPG, and he doesn’t like to do very many of them.
• Is the Bombers’ Notebook on par with Fi from Skyward Sword?
  • KY loved the game but Fi grated on his nerves until they were raw, exposed nubs.
  • “Master, there’s a 27% chance that you’re, that you’re a nimrod.”
• PAX 2015: thoughts and hopes
  • Vinny is looking forward to seeing what Robot Loves Kitty is doing.
    • The duo is no longer making video games, but are still active online.
  • Both hosts are anticipating Behemoth’s “Game 4”, which would later be named Pit People.
    • The company will be having a breakfast at their booth. Since Vinny and KY like to sleep in, they’ll miss it.
  • Vinny once met Tom Fulp, the creator of Newgrounds who probably also bathes in the blood of virgin nerds and geeks to maintain his youthful looks, and tried to get free stuff from him.
  • The Screenwave booth (Vinny’s YouTube network) will be giving out buttons and kazoos, the latter of which used to be a Vinesauce staple. What happened to the kazoos?
• Listener mail.
  • Vinny does a “viewer mail” jingle, then quickly realizes his mistake.
  • KY wants to sneak in a picture of a cock one day.
    • Vinny has been sneaking in a picture of Captain Picard in his last three videos. For the overly ambitious who want to find those images, I’ll give you a tip to help you dig through the agonizingly large Vinesauce archive: the date of this podcast episode is February 20, 2015, and I suggest a buffer of seven days.
  • Horror games on Steam don’t really scare Vinny. Oh, and horror movies don’t scare him, either. It takes a lot to scare him. He’s a big, brave boy. Somebody should make a compilation of all the times Vinny was never scared during a game.
  • Play on consoles or PCs for the rest of your life? Both hosts would choose PCs, mostly for the variety of games, mods, and multiplayer choices.
  • The age-old questions of how long they’ve been streaming and how they got started.
    • I’ve heard the story enough times, but maybe you haven’t. The long and short of it is that Vinny had the idea to start streaming, and did just that. But it started out as a thought that morphed into a dream one night, so there’s kind of a mystical aspect to the origin of Vinesauce, if you want to look at it that way.
      • KY joined a month later. He was recruited by Jen, who was the first Vinesauce viewer and second streamer of the group. (She’s no longer active, and as far as I know, she doesn’t have an online presence.)
    • Now, the origin of the Vinesauce name isn’t as mystical, but we’ll one day cover that.
  • “Why are streams so late at night?”
    • Vinny likes streaming before bed, watch some TV, and then go to sleep. But this was back in his 20s, so his sleep hygiene was shit, like most twentysomethings’.
  • The most obscure game ever played?
    • Perhaps a better question these days would be, “What was the most basic bitch game you’ve ever played?”
    • KY played a demo of Return of the Obra Dinn.
      • This game went down in Vinesauce history for a completely different reason. RevScarecrow had been playing it when a stranger entered his home, bold as you please, and Rev chased them out with a knife. Being more concerned with protecting his home and little family, Rev left the mic on, and you can hear bits of distant conversation in the background. Just to make the whole thing more unnerving, the game is paused on a murder scene while ominous music plays on an endless loop.
        • You can watch the entire playthrough here. Listen for Rev cocking a gun before returning to gameplay.
        • The incident inspired the “Rev stabbed a guy” meme that continues to this day.
  • The Nintendo YouTube partnership deal. Vinny’s got strong opinions on this one.
    • “It’s a bunch of fuckin’ shite.”
    • Nintendo essentially owns the content and gives YouTubers crumbs for promoting their material. I’m curious to know how many starry eyed fanboys and fangirls signed up for this, thinking that they’d be working with their favorite company.
  • Any shitty mechanics the hosts would remove from games? KY would undo Fi.
  • Would Vinny do voice acting gigs?
    • As well as games, Vinny is also inundated with requests to do voices in video games, and he turns them down. A lot.
    • Ease your aching hearts, devs. With the power of AI—and several hours of tear-inducing, mouth-frothing manipulation and bullying of non-sentient technology—you can have your own bargain basement Vinny sound-alike.
  • What is the future of the Vinesauce community?
    • Vinny just wants to show cool games and keep streaming. Nearly ten years after this episode, he’s still doing just that.
  • Would the hosts make their own video games?
    • KY would make a Metroidvania game about a cute cat on a spaceship with horrific aliens. “The kitten, of course, is a stupid fucking cat.”
      • For some reason, the phrase “stupid fucking cat” feels like it’s trying to set off a switch in my brain. That switch must be stuck, because while I have an inkling to kill something, I just can’t be arsed to do it.
    • Vinny’s game would have to do with corruptions taking over a Zelda II-Castlevania-type world.
      • Somebody kind of beat him to it: Corrypt.
  • What are some strange experiences with teachers?
    • One of Vinny’s grade school teachers asked for a transfer because the whole class was composed of hellions.
    • KY had a passively racist teacher, which I think today would be called woke. (Send your politically charged emails to dontcareaboutyouropinions@shoveit.com.)