About Me
“Everybody knows what's going on with the world – I don't even know what's going on in myself.”
-Johnson, Matt. The The. “Slow Emotion Replay.” Dusk. Sony, 1993.
Hello, my name is Forrest—yes, that's my real name, two R's and all. I was once described as “impressively antisocial” and “one of the many talented (and perhaps frustrated) writers out there who is also an alcoholic—or at risk of becoming one.” But most importantly, I'm the creator and admin of howdoyouspell.cool. And regardless of the series of events that led you here, I'm flattered that you were curious enough to click into this About Me page at all. The bad news is that there isn't much here; you won't learn the contents of my soul from an About Me page. It's simply not possible to condense anyone's essence into a couple of paragraphs in a blog post. I used to have a long, cleverly worded bio here, but now I just have this: If you really want to know the contents of my soul, read everything that I've written, but even then, it likely won't be enough to really know me, for how could you know me when I don't truly know myself?
My Other Stuff
1. on computer games
on computer games was a gaming blog where I published analyses, short stories, musings, and essays on the highly subjective experience of computer games; all presented in a style reminiscent of “creative writing” covering a range of topics such as philosophy, social issues, nostalgia, and tanuki lore.
I have since republished everything from on computer games to this site, so it now exists as an archive of my early gaming essays.
I also publish a free online magazine under the on computer games name, which you can find below.
OCGM#2 – Delving Digital Voids
2. Mastodon
Mastodon's federated, owned-by-the-people ethos fits well with my anti-corporate sentiment, and the lack of nefarious algorithms makes the platform easy to curate and, therefore, more pleasant than, say, Twitter, Bluesky, or Reddit. I've met some of the best online computer people through Mastodon, so if you're looking to talk music, games, and literature with some capital-C Cool people, consider the don. However, be warned that all social media, regardless of platform, devours a part of your quote-unquote soul on some level, it's unavoidable; the quick-hit-give-me-those-likes-and-please-follow-me-wait-who-just-unfollowed-me-and-why nature of social media is not something that evolutionary biology prepared us for.
3. Last.fm
I've had two Last.fm accounts throughout my years on this planet.
Account#1: v for violence
My first account. I started this one in 2007, when I was nearing the end of high school. According to this account, my top-10 favorite artists are:
- Felt
- The Pastels
- My Bloody Valentine
- Beck
- Prefab Sprout
- The Cure
- The Smiths
- XTC
- Pavement
- Sonic Youth
Account#2: buru5
My second and current account. This account was created 10 years later, in 2017, around the birth of my daughter. According to this account, my top-10 favorite artists are:
- Guided By Voices (by a longgggg shot)
- The Cribs
- Robert Pollard
- Lilys
- Steely Dan (lol)
- Arctic Monkeys
- Men I Trust
- Masashi Hamauzu (SaGa Frontier 2 OST on repeat, most likely)
- King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
- Cleaners from Venus
The first account was lost after I forgot the password and the email address. In hindsight, I'm glad I lost the first account: 1) the name is kinda embarrassing as I was edgier than most in high school and obsessed with V for Vendetta at the time, and 2) having an account lost to time means I have two snapshots in time captured in two separate data tables, which makes for interesting comparison, and I think that is Pretty Cool.
If you happened to read through all this – get yourself checked out, it could be contagious.