About

kid pix portrait

“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.

Yo, 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” (note that I am teetotal as of June 2024, mostly just to spite the guy who said that). But most importantly, I'm an aspiring essayist and I'm the creator/admin of howdoyouspell.cool and I hate writing quaint little bios about myself and I keep a long list of all my favorite songs right here (in case you were wondering).

I have a strong interest in writing, philosophy, music, fiction, and certain video games; and when I write about these things, I try to mix them with my personal life and/or whatever ethical quandary I happen to be thinking about at the time, to varying degrees of success (usually none, zero success). Also, I hardly ever make qualitative judgments about the things I write about (i.e., reviews or “four out of five stars!” &c.), as I firmly believe that quality is immeasurable without a standard by which to measure it, and that everyone's standards are different.

If I had to describe my writing style, I would call it “brutal sincerity,” directed at both myself and the systems around me, to cut through the weeds, to reach the root of myself and all the crazy shit going on around me—which I suspect might be an impossible goal, but I will keep trying anyway. However, note that, while I am totally sincere at the time of writing a piece, my opinions do change quite often; so, what I'm trying to say is, I may not agree with myself from three months ago or even from a day ago. My personal worldview—while aiming to be consistent—is in a constant state of flux, as it turns out that consistency is a very complicated thing indeed and that opinions and values must occasionally be updated or reworked entirely when new evidence or arguments are presented that I cannot contend with using my current worldview. So, while my writing is sometimes very forward and matter-of-fact, this is often just how it comes out, and, in reality, I am often second-guessing and questioning myself. So, if you happen to reach out to me, disagreeing with something I've written, don't be surprised if I write back with something like, “you're right,” “I was wrong about that,” or “yeah, I'm an idiot,” or whatever. You may then ask, “If you're updating your values in real time, why would you not remove old writing or update it?” and that's because I see my writing as artwork of sorts, in that once I “put something out there,” that's it; that was me at a certain point in time, and whether I happen to agree or disagree with it in the present is irrelevant. So, while some of my older writing may be embarrassing, it is now part of my evolutionary history as a writer and will remain up with all of its quote-unquote flaws for posterity, if nothing else.

In short, I fight to stay awake—and then I wonder, what's the point? Yet still keep fighting.

Anyway.

Regardless of whatever series of events led you here, I'm flattered that you were curious enough to click into this About Me at all. The bad news, however, is that there's not 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. So, if you really want to know the contents of my soul, then you're going to have to read everything here—but it still won't be enough to truly know me, because how could you truly know me when I still haven't figured out myself?

yoshitaka amano self-portrait

My Labels

wannabe writer / failed pop star / open web advocate / tangent prone / non-human animal advocate / fediverse's #1 final fantasy fan / anti-materialist materialist / cognitively dissonant / frequent weaver who burns / critic of critics / admin of https://howdoyouspell.cool / tanuki disguised as human / “impressively antisocial” / deletes after 90 days / wears sunglasses inside / forward slash advocate / anti-realist realist / forever blowing bubbles / already dead yet somehow still kicking

RSS

Just in case you want to keep up with me on your RSS reader of choice.

Site feed: https://howdoyouspell.cool/forrest/feed/

on computer games

oncomputergamesimage

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.

Gaming Publications

I wrote, edited, designed, and published an online magazine under the on computer games moniker, both issues are free to download/print by following the links below.

OCGM#1 – Dragon Takes Flight

OCGM#2 – Delving Digital Voids

Last.fm / Libre.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:

  1. Felt
  2. The Pastels
  3. My Bloody Valentine
  4. Beck
  5. Prefab Sprout
  6. The Cure
  7. The Smiths
  8. XTC
  9. Pavement
  10. 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:

  1. Guided By Voices
  2. The Cribs
  3. Robert Pollard
  4. Lilys
  5. Steely Dan
  6. Arctic Monkeys
  7. Men I Trust
  8. Masashi Hamauzu
  9. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
  10. 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, as such, was obsessed with V for Vendetta, 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 indeed.

demon portait

If you happened to read through all this – get yourself checked out, it could be contagious.