30 November 2024
I have released a new ZZT game,
Iguanamus, an experimental three-games-in-one sort of deal that attempts to take the storied Viovisian genre in new directions. It starts off as a generic psychedelic game before you hit a fork that takes you to the three games. You can
read a more detailed description and see some screenshots here or
download the game directly from here.
05 June 2024
It took far longer than it should have, but I finally got around to adding a brand new section to the Kingdom -
the
Kinoteatr (Russian for movie theatre) - dedicated to reviews (and hopefully, eventually more things) for episodes of various 90s television shows I have started watching! As
of this writing,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the only one, largely because I insist on making a unique design from scratch for each page of the section.
I tried to make the new section as authentically 90s as possible and took pains to use only fonts from back then or earlier if at all possible, stuck to pure HTML 4 (minus the background MIDI on the Buffy page) with no CSS, and of course sprinkled a generous amount of 90s clipart all over the place. The plan right now is for
Tales From the Crypt to have a comically old school page owing to the age of the show, and
Charmed and
Sabrina the Teenage Witch to have more 2000s-styled designs, but we'll see how that goes.
17 March 2024
It's been almost 3 years since the last update to the page, and since there's hardly any shortage of stupid, vexing, or simply odd-sounding popular words and phrases going around these days, I made yet another update to the
Words/Phrases I Hate article. I had a long-standing habit of writing those sorts of articles while getting drunk, an activity I have since quit indulging in. Hopefully, however, it still came out at least somewhat entertaining regardless.
I also finally added a few new subsections (complete with snazzy signs) to
the Dock to break things up a bit:
Build Engine Games/Resources for sites related to any of the Build engine games (
Duke Nukem 3D,
Ion Fury,
Blood, etc) or the engine itself,
Jedi Knight/Dark Forces for sites related to the
Star Wars Jedi Knight/Dark Forces franchise, and
Modern Games, for anything related primarily to games from ~1996 to the current year. If the cutoff for that last category seems unorthodox, rest assured I plan to write an article explaining my rationale behind that in detail one of these days.
06 March 2024
Wow, time sure flies. I knew it had been a while since I had updated the website but it didn't quite hit me just how long it had been until I went to update the Scratching Post and had to stop and figure out if I lost some update verbiages along the way somehow. o_O
I don't know if it's
autistic inertia or something else, but I have a tendency to have all of my metaphorical bits flipped one way, and any so-called flip is both extremely challenging to pull off and may as well be permanent. So in this context, it means I'm either regularly working on my website and can't see myself doing things any other way, or not working on it at all and completely unable to get myself to do anything even despite having plenty of ideas screaming to come out. My sincere apologies to everyone who has been waiting for an update all this time.
Today, I have added 27 new links to
the Dock, as detailed in the table below. I can confidently say that there is something for everyone with an interest in 90s first-person shooters, retro computing,
The Terminator, and/or pizza here. As usual, all newly added links are at the top of their subsections and feature animated "New!" images next to them. I also updated the links to Morena.rest, Doom2.net (the darn http/non-SSL version has been broken for a while now), and Virtualave's Bast Page, and updated the verbiage for Mountain King Studios. In far less interesting news, I also added a goofy dream I had recently to
the Somnium and did some updates to the
Wildcat Den page.
| Affiliates |
Hugo Landau |
| Other Computer Resources |
MANMRK, x86 ASM Tutorial |
| Retro Games General |
BME/ILMHB's Bloody Place, Dark Forces Mods and Maps, Duke Nukem Forever Museum, Duke Nukem Repository, ETTiNGRiNDER's Fortress, JKDF2.NET, Ken Silverman's Official Home Page, Monkee's Image World, Old-Games.com, Rednukem, Quake3World, R.T.C.M., Shadow Warrior Central, Standing Stones, The Duke Nukem Forever List, The Hunt: Rise of the Triad, The Massassi Temple, The Wolfenstein 3D Dome, Totally Redneck, Wolfenstein 3D Vault |
| Miscellaneous |
Hope Of The Future, PizzaMaking.com, My 90's TV!, The Other Pages |
I am well-aware that the Retro Games General subsection of the Links page is the latest one to have become grossly overgrown (and inaccurate, now that I am listing links to pages for not-so-retro games such as
Quake III and
Dark Forces II for lack of a better place to put them). Breaking it up is one of my top short-term priorities along with finally completing the long-delayed ZZT Tutorial and finishing an article I've been writing regarding my thoughts on the current state of gaming and my decision to leave Steam. I want to say "coming soon", but I hate myself for the false promises I've already made and don't want to risk digging that pit any deeper...
ZZTcast is still very much in development, and I do not want to propose a new release date until I have completed the tutorial and consulted anyone still interested in participating. If you have any interest in participating, please feel free to
contact me!
And since I haven't said it here for nearly a full year, and it's never
not worth saying,
GET ON IRC (irc.koshka.love, #)! Ɑ:
17 July 2023
Added a grand total of 21 new links to
the Dock, as outlined below. There should hopefully be a little something for everyone. The Miscellaneous subsection has gotten ludicrously overgrown once again, and I plan to add a number of additional subsections, alphabetise all of the links, and see if there's any other things I can do to make it easier to navigate. For now, all of the newly added links are at the top of their subsections and have an animated "New!" gif to the side of them to make them easier to locate.
I finally also added
a new page for the upcoming ZZTV revival project (now officially named ZZTcast after a vote was held on the name). Please let me know via either
E-mail or
IRC (irc.koshka.love, #zzt) if you are interested in creating a channel for ZZTcast! As mentioned on the page, I should have a tutorial page up for anyone who is interested but unfamiliar with ZZT, in around a week.
Finally, I decided to clean up the
main ZZT section, which was becoming an increasingly messy dump that I just haphazardly dumped new information on top of. Exciting times, these are.
| Affiliates |
Blauheim's Realm |
| Web 1.0 General |
Marginalia Search |
| Retro Windows |
Windows Update Restored |
| Doom |
Doom Humor, DoomGate.de, Lee Killough's Website, Soulsphere.org |
| Retro Games General |
Blake Stone Maps, Dman's Game Programming Domain, Maze War Retrospective at Digibarn Computer Museum, The Spriters Resource |
| Comedy & Oddities |
At Home with English - Oblivion NPCs, Malbolge, MY SUMMER CAR Official Site |
| Miscellaneous |
Badmovies.org, The Cutting Room Floor, DragonBear, First Versions, icefairy.org, Omniglot, The Visual Novels Database, |
08 July 2023
Well
that was a long hiatus. It seems like it is taking me longer and longer to get anything done website-wise. But I did finally break the cycle of staring an article, hitting writer's block, and refusing to move on to anything else for months by writing
a new reminiscence article on the revolutionary but now largely forgotten 1997 FPS game Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. This is a game I had played for a while as a child but largely forgot about until I was lucky enough to run into it again during my first-person shooter genre history research, and is one that is more than worth it to go back to even after all these years.
I did not realise until a friend helpfully pointed it out to me, but my previous update contained a broken link. The issue stemmed from the link
to the Words/Phrases I Hate article. Apparently I fixed the capitalisation in the actual filename a while ago and forgot about it, then typed the link out the old way, and did not notice because I only tested the link out while it was on my computer instead of the server, the latter of which handles links in a case-sensitive fashion. I am sorry for anyone who tried to access the link through the incorrect URL. ;A;
In no less important news, I also added a new Affiliate link to the website of my friend Corvid:
Corvid's Pages, and updated the link to the website of my friend Anthony2:
Emerald Coast, which is now hosted on this server!
Expect a new ZZT update very soon, and... we'll see what inspiration strikes for after that. I am still working on doing research for a future new section dedicated to the history of the FPS genre, but am not yet even close to the point where I am confident enough to start posting content on it. At some point, I am hopeful to have a detailed enough mental map of the topology of the genre's evolution that I can determine how exactly I want to organise that section, after which I can start populating it with content.
15 May 2023
I finally got around to adding a link to the illustrious imageboard
Heyuri to
the Links page. Also finally got around to doing a minor update to the classic
Words/Phrases I Hate article (I can't believe it's been nearly 2 years...). ALSO added a relatively amusing new dream to
the Somnium, and did a few minor updates to the
Wildcat Den page. That is all.
27 April 2023
Has it actually been this long since the last update? The ever-accelerating pace of time is frightening. It's a good thing immortality isn't actually possible. If this is how fast time moves at my age, I shudder to imagine what it would feel like at a thousand or million years of age.
Anyway, I added yet another
Halloween page to the
Haunted House:
a retelling of the abysmal Halloween Ends movie, based largely on my speculation on what would happen based on the previous movies in the franchise, but also incorporating a rebooted Corey Cunningham, as well as a (very) rebooted Cult of Thorn and Man in Black from the retconned Cult of Thorn timeline, in the interests of bringing closure to as many plot points as possible. I want to say this is the final
Halloween-related page I will be adding, but that would be what I thought the last three times, so...
In more interesting news, I finally added links to the personal websites of my good friends
Morena (Morena's Space) and
Reptid (Lunatic Phantasy), both of which are more than worth checking out. I also updated the button for
lolwut's website.
As always, my apologies to anyone waiting all this time for an update. ;A; I swear I am still working on a variety of projects, but I do not want to put out any more deadlines that I may not be able to meet.
18 March 2023
I updated
the Markovka page on
the KoshkaIRC section to reflect the new "!quote search" command that I recently added, added a
small satirical Halloween-themed prayer to
the Haunted House, and added five more links to
the Dock ('Re-version Utility' under 'Retro Windows', 'eXoDOS' under 'Retro Games General', and 'Home page of Jarkko Oikarinen', 'SpaceHey', and 'FriendProject' under 'Miscellaneous').
In more important news, the 1 year anniversary of KoshkaIRC is coming up in a little over a week (the network came up on March 28 and was publicly announced on the 30th). As both of those dates fall on weekdays, Anthony2 and I have proposed some online festivities on the weekend after, notably a big Comic Chat Caturday event on Saturday, 01 April, and at least one KTV movie stream on Sunday (time to be determined). Other possible events (e.g., Doomsday) may also be held. If you are interested or want to propose anything, please get on IRC and speak up! (:
In website news, my release schedule unfortunately fell apart both due to being too busy, and also due to going down the deep rabbit hole of First Person Shooter gaming history in my free time, a subject that I do not feel has been adequately addressed anywhere online. I am slowly doing research in the hopes of writing an article chronicling this (at least from 1973 to ~2007), but this will likely be a long-term project given how my knowledge of FPS games from before 1991 and after maybe 1996 is currently shamefully lacking.
I am also working on a detailed tutorial on how to create worlds in ZZT, for people who are interested in participating in
the ZZTcast project but are not familiar with ZZT. Do feel free to yell at me about this if you are one such person.
26 February 2023
It has been far too long, but I finally updated
the UFO with another new article:
Symbols for Autism, which covers the various symbols that I have seen proposed for autism. I have at least four other autism articles that have been stuck in development hell for a long time that I hope to complete one of these days. In the shorter term, expect to see a few smaller Babel articles/updates as well as some new ZZT content.
22 February 2023
Well, so far the plan to stick to a schedule is working. I updated the
Creepypasta Reviews with reviews of six new tasty pastas: I Found a Letter From My Stalker (an absolute 5/5 in
the Feelspasta category), Big Green Tree (
5 stars), Pale Luna (
4 stars), and My Dead Girlfriend Keeps Messaging Me on Facebook, My Husband Insists on Keeping This One Painting of a Woman, and the The Haaf Netters (
all 3 stars). I also made a little creepy-ish "New" sign to help returning readers find newly-added additions more easily.
19 February 2023
I went through my historical dream log from the late-90s to the mid-2010s and added that seemed interesting to
the Somnium with some editing done to improve the writing. Also added a new link, Parappa.Party, to
the Dock.
I also wound up going through the backlog of pages that I have either been working on or was thinking of creating and evaluated that and put together a release schedule that I will be trying to force myself to stick to. If all goes well, I am hoping to have a slew of interesting new updates done in the coming weeks/months, including to the
UFO,
Library of Babel,
Haunted House,
Town of ZZT,
Mount Paozu,
Per-Bast, and
Mystery Mansion sections, along with the creation of one or two new main sections.
In the meantime, don't forget to stop by
the IRC network for fun conversations, movie/anime streaming, and multiplayer
Doom games!
09 February 2023
Updated the KoshkaIRC section with two new pages:
a network/channel rules page, and
a mostly complete guide on getting started with and using IRC for people who are new to it. The MOTD
on the main page has also been streamlined and updated to reflect the creation of a new main channel specifically for KTV streaming. The update was actually done at the end of January but I did not have time to put this update up until now.
Also, since the big holidays are over and done with and Valentine's Day is around the corner, I finally reverted the main page to have the classic pink theme, my personal favourite of the current four existing ones. ^-^
I apologise once again for any returning visitors seeking more articles on subjects such as Autism, old DOS games, and other subjects I have previously covered with far more frequency. I actually have around a dozen articles and pages that I have started working on but haven't been able to finish. My time has been occupied more than it used to be both due to various real life duties as well as other projects such as KoshkaIRC and now ZZTcast (described in the previous update), but I do plan to finish all of those articles and write more in the future. The only question is when I will be able to do so.
06 February 2023
I am excited to formally announce a group project that my good friend Mr. Sillysticks (no personal website) has proposed and that I am helping him organise. A sort of resurrection of the classic ZZTV series of games for
the venerable ZZT game engine. The finalised name for the project is pending because I don't want to step on the toes of anyone who may have put together a new ZZTV after z2 stopped cataloguing releases, and am thinking of a brand new name. For now, it is to be called ZZTcast (pun on
Owncast) until I or someone else comes up with a better name. I am holding off on making a permanent page for the project until a name is finalised.
ZZTV is a
ZZT "magazine" that ran from 1998 to 2005, which consisted of a hub of "channels" created by various people with whatever content they wished to put out to the word. Rants/articles, stories, interviews, quotes, pixel artwork, mini-games, reviews of other ZZT games, and so on and so forth. Essentially a neat little time capsule and also an opportunity to create something cool in ZZT even if you don't have the time, energy, or motivation for a full-fledged game.
An obscure 1991 DOS game engine can seem like an odd medium to start a group project around in this day and age, but ZZT is a deceptively perfect choice for such an endeavour for a number of reasons that are not immediately clear.
The first thing that needs to be mentioned is that ZZT has an exquisitely tiny learning curve for what it allows to do. Its level editor and (bare bones) scripting language can be fully learned by anyone in no time at all, yet it has been used to create genuinely beautiful artwork, riveting RPG adventures, randomly generated dungeons, and so much more. In addition to its microscopic learning curve and powerful capabilities, every ZZT game is open source, so if you spot something incredible in a game that you have no idea how to replicate, you can simply open it up in the editor and see exactly how it works. Some ZZT games are "locked" but this is very trivial to break with
an unlocker program.
While the ZZT community has been moribund for quite a while, this is more of a reflection on the consequences of the unpleasant state of affairs in the community in the early 2000s than a reflection on the game, which had dozens of timeless games produced for it before all the strife sealed its fanbase's fate. While it's not much, ZZT does have
a following to this very day and is well deserving of a new renaissance.
Most importantly, of course, creating things in ZZT is just plain fun, which is the main reason I still make the occasional game using it in spite of everything. I also never really saw age as a reason to not use something. IRC is 35 years old and obscure compared to most of its competitors, yet is still the only chat standard that is worth using, after all.
On top of all of this it's also worth mentioning that ZZT is a DOS game, and thus will run perfectly on just about any system with an emulator such as DOSBox (or natively in old Windows).
If you are interested, you can visit
the #zzt IRC channel on
irc.koshka.love, or
E-mail me to sign-up. If you need
any help at all getting ZZT running or doing anything in ZZT, I would be delighted to assist via either IRC or E-mail also.
21 January 2023
新年好/Happy Chinese New Year's Eve!! I have created and put up a brand new Chinese New Year's theme for the front page. I wanted to get this up sooner, but unfortunately I have been quite limited on both time and energy lately. My sincere apologies. Luckily, this celebration lasts for 16 days, so it will at least be up for some time yet. Wishing a very happy Year of the Rabbit for everyone in China and everyone of Chinese descent around the world! (:
11 January 2023
I added a quite lengthy and amusingly candid
reminiscence of Doom, one of the two first games that I have ever played, and the tremendous impact it had on me as a child along with my evolving sentiments towards it over the decades, to the
Mystery Mansion's
Reminiscences page. One of my longer pages, but hopefully still entertaining!
30 December 2022
I am very excited to announce a grand Comic Chat event on this Caturday, 31 December 2022, to see off the old year and bring people together for some old-fashioned Comic Chat silliness and fun:
Comic Chat Countdown. This is an all day (come whenever works best for you, in other words!) New Year's event to accommodate many timezones and countries.
For anyone unfamiliar, Comic Chat is a very unique IRC client from Microsoft's golden age in the 90s, which transforms IRC channels into ongoing comic strips where participants choose an avatar, and everything they say is displayed comic dialogue from said character, punctuated with whichever emote the user chooses to utilise.
Comic Chat comes with some oddball preset avatars and backgrounds, although you can find vastly more on
Mermaid Elizabeth's website and
my friend Cidoku's Comic Chat page. Mermaid Elizabeth's site
also contains installation files for Comic Chat in 24 different languages. If you use Linux, you can still easily install Comic Chat using
my friend ShadowM00n's useful guide on installing Comic Chat in WINE. I also have
an entire page dedicated to this Comic Chat that contains a list of tricks/tips, as well as an assortment of humourous screenshots for anyone wondering what the appeal of this ancient client is.
28 December 2022
So to put a long story short, I had a major and unexpected crisis occur in my personal life and was unable to tend to the website or the KoshkaIRC network for approximately a month and a half. While I am still busy, I am trying to get back into the swing of things and hopefully put together some new updates (I certainly have plenty of ideas and motivation!) soon. I've added a number of new links to
the Dock, but first an important announcement regarding
KoshkaIRC.
My prolonged hiatus has brought to the surface the fact that KoshkaIRC cannot afford to have only one IRCOp on call. As such, I have appointed my close friend
Anthony2 to be an IRCOp. I have full faith in him as a person who fully upholds Old Internet values and who is a kind, friendly, and non-controversial figure, and I believe that this appointment will keep things running smoothly in case any such events occur in the future.
I sincerely apologise for, and take full responsibility for the flooding-related chaos in # and the resulting lack of activity that may have transpired during the past month. An important lesson has been learned about not keeping all of one's eggs in the same basket. My sincere thank-yous to Anthony2 for being willing to take on the responsibility.
Of course, as in the past (
as is stated in the network's MOTD), if you are unhappy with how the main channels of the network are run, you are free to start your own channel(s) and run them however you wish. IRCOps on KoshkaIRC do not interfere with private channels that they do not run unless in the case that one of the network's exceedingly few rules have been violated. You can also use the "/list" command while connected to the network to find any existing channels that have not been marked as private or secret (modes p and s, respectively).
If you have attempted to E-mail me or leave a Guestbook comment in the past 2 months, you will have likely only just now have gotten a response, which I apologise for as well. I was lagging on responding to anyone out of laziness before things went south, so the timing proved truly impeccable.
Although I do not have any new content to share, here's a list of excellent new links I added to the Dock, which should prove to be of interest and entertainment to someone! They are all marked with a "new" button, for now, to make finding them easier.
| Affiliates |
Ryo's Izakaya, Wire Head Online, Noneventive Feedback, WOS Home |
| Web Forums |
711chan |
| Miscellaneous |
Atomic Rockets, Internet Movie Firearms Database, James Cameron Online, Stalking Haruhi Suzumiya, Swedish Recipes |
I suppose that's it for now. Stay safe out there, happy New Years, and don't forget to
get on IRC!
05 November 2022
After another prolonged absence, I return bearing a variety of fun news. First and foremost, I have expanded the KoshkaIRC page into a full-fledged multi-page section (with more to come!), including
a full page dedicated to Microsoft Comic Chat and our weekly Comic Chat Caturday event. Don't miss the dozens of entertaining Comic Chat screenshots!
Additionally, I have added no less than 18 new riveting links to
the Dock, the basic summary of which can be read below. There is also a "NEW!" button now next to every recently added link to make them easier to find, and a brand new links category: Retro Windows. All of them are highly recommended. Additionally, I also added to quick new dreams to
the Somnium. Happy Comic Chat Caturday and don't forget to get on IRC!
| Web 1.0 General |
Old'aVista, The Old Net |
| Search Engines |
FrogFind!, TinEye |
| Other Computer Resources |
Phoenix, IRC Reviews IRC Client List |
| Retro Windows |
Retro Windows Wiki, skipster1337's site, The Eric Experiment, win31.de, Windows XP Guide |
| Doom |
Doomology, JEZ' Homepage |
| Retro Games General |
Puyo Puyo VS, Puyo Nexus |
| Garfield |
Garfield Postcards |
| Miscellaneous |
Everything Shii Knows, PesterChum |
Also, I am in fact aware that the Halloween theme is still up. I'm lazy so I think I'll just keep that up for a while longer until I switch it up for the Christmas theme.
16 October 2022
I wrote up
a lengthy review of the immensely disappointing film Halloween Ends, which came out a few days ago, for the
Haunted House section. As one would expect from a review of this length, there are numerous spoilers in there although, quite frankly, this is not a movie I would recommend anyone waste 2 hours of their life viewing. Nonetheless, it is the final installment of one of my life-long favourite franchises, and I felt it necessary to put my thoughts about it on paper, as it were.
08 October 2022
Since I already have a Christmas theme I made for the front page last year, I decided to go ahead and make a Halloween/Autumn theme this year, as a fun creative project and to give some solace to anyone who hates the default pink design.
The Michael Myers screenshot is from
Halloween Kills and is owned by Blumhouse Studios, the disembodied hand is from
Monster Bash and is owned by Frank Maddin/id Software, the Baron of Hell and Imp are owned by id Software, the Bilsy is from
Jazz Jackrabbit 2: Christmas Chronicles and is owned by Epic MegaGames. The rest, including Eldritch Garfield, was done by yours truly. ^-^
More to come very soon!! Happy Comic Chat Caturday and don't forget to
get on IRC!
27 September 2022
I added five very interesting new links to
the Dock (listed below), as well as a new Dock subsection for Garfield. I also updated some of the Affiliate link descriptions that were grotesquely out-of-date, replaced Mermeliz's button with a proper 88x31 button made by
Cidoku. Finally, I took a page out of Cidoku's book and added a blurb to most of the articles on the website linking to
the IRC network and
my Guestbook.
I sincerely apologize to anyone who may be checking for the continued lack of updates. It has been a very busy and rather stressful period for me, notably due to leaving my job of 7 years and starting a brand new one. Obviously, I am very inimical to change, so this was a decision that was both difficult and took some strong motivating factors in order to spur it into motion. I don't want to whine and moan about real life happenings here, so I'll just say that I am planning to update soon, and have a number of new page ideas in mind, including at least one brand new site section. Just waiting for the energy/motivation to return.
The new links are as follows:
10 August 2022
I updated
the Somnium with three goofy new dreams I had, including one that will make it into
Macula's Maze whenever I find time to properly learn
Inform and actually create that.
03 August 2022
It's been entirely too long since I updated the Dock with some more links, and after having come across a number of top-notch websites (and rediscovered some excellent ones that I neglected to previously add), I decided the time had come. The list of new links is as follows:
| Affiliates |
Milk of the Void, Svetlana Studios |
| Web 1.0 General |
Anilinks |
| Other Computer Resources |
Modern IRC Client Protocol, Netsplit.de, Web Design Group |
| Doom |
Classic Doom Versions, Ports, and Remakes |
| Retro Games General |
Catacomb Crypt, HURL, Sega Retro, Sonic Retro |
| Mysticism and Supernatural |
DagonBytes, The Global Consciousness Project |
| Comedy and Oddities |
Bash.org, Random Garfield Generator |
| Miscellaneous |
Icebike Home Page, Lasagna.cz, Petr Zika's Garfield Archive, Weather Spark |
Enjoy, and have fun out there!
02 August 2022
A discussion on
IRC inspired me to create
a new Dragon Ball page dedicated to preserving images and information about the infamous Dragon Ball AF phenomenon that pervaded the Dragon Ball community in the late 90s and early 2000s. Essentially a surprisingly resilient rumour of a brand new Dragon Ball series whose existence was supported by nothing but tacky Angelfire/Geocities/Tripod sites and silly fan art. The page is purposefully designed to look like a genuine 90s AF website, so don't go in expecting anything pretty. Just another dump of the sort of autistic infodumping that I am known for.
I'm still saving the last Dragon Ball on
the Mount Paozu page for a future fanfiction, so I had to awkwardly squeeze the AF page under the other (satirical) AF page as a corrupted Dragon Ball in the style of the ones from GT. If I decide to add yet more pages to that section in the future, perhaps I will come up with a better system.
And no, I have not forgotten about the article on masking autism, or the Doom reminiscence/shrine. Writer's block is still being an indomitable pain. ._.
26 July 2022
I added
a brand new section to the website dedicated to promoting my IRC network,
KoshkaIRC. This page contains a summary of network community events and services, as well as a KiwiIRC Web chat interface for anyone wishing to visit without installing an IRC client. I am rather proud of the design, as it is (embarrassingly) the first time I have ever constructed an entire page using almost nothing but tables. A mobile-friendly alternative page is an idea that a friend has proposed to me and that I may or may not do in the future, but I really wanted this to look like a genuine 2003 era website.
05 July 2022
I added two dreams to
the Somnium, and updated
Markovka's reference guide to reflect an additional function that I recently added, also adding a changelog to that page for future reference. I also added to new Affiliates to
the Portal and
the Dock -
nether and
Painless Destiny.
Additionally, fans of my joke "sister" site
loliwut? (a parody of
my friend lolwut?'s website) may be happy to know that I finally added some actual content to that site. Inspired by
Prints' Strawberry Facts page, I decided to create a lulzy
Pear Facts page that alternately pokes fun at lolwut and provides some tasty facts about the beloved pear.
Although she is already present as an Affiliate, I want to give a special shoutout to Human Raccoon for her
wonderful new Microsoft Comic Chat page, showing the absolute hilarious glory of the IRC client at its finest. I am
slowly in the process of working on a dedicated new section of this website to promote my growing IRC network (including the dedicated Microsoft Comic Chat channel #comicchat), which will contain a link to this page (among many other things!), but I wanted to spread the word about this sublime page as early as possible.
18 June 2022
Happy Autistic Pride Day!!! I sincerely apologise to anyone who has been waiting for an update. I do have an autism-related article that I am writing, but I predictably put off working on it until the last minute, and writer's block and real life problems then stepped in to ensure I wouldn't finish on time, or at least wouldn't do a good job if I did. I don't want to give out subpar advice, especially regarding autism, so I elected to give myself more time. I am hoping to have that article, a massive new Doom-related page I am also working on, or both done in the next week or thereabouts.
In the meantime, I did add a brand new Affiliate website,
Manjaruntu's Madhouse, by my friend and fellow Aspie and self-hosting Chad. It is pretty sparse at the moment, but he is planning to put some articles up on it, and I wanted to give him the exposure he deserves in advance.
31 May 2022
The Great Reorganisation of Koshka's Kingdom is finally complete. Every section that has or that I currently plan to have more than one page for (Autism, Library of Babel, Mount Paozu, Mystery Mansion, Town of ZZT, Astrophysics, and Haunted House) has been neatly segregated into its own directory, and every single link to these pages has been updated. A rather Herculean task seeing as I do not use templates and had to do it all by hand. Many page names have also been changed for better readability and SEO. I also set 403 redirects to guide anyone visiting any of the old links to the current location of each page.
Not wanting this update to just be me patting myself on the back, I also added a goofy dream that I had at the tail end of high school about an exceedingly nonsensical apocalypse scenario to
the Somnium. That is all.
28 May 2022
Happy Comic Chat Caturday! I updated the IRC/Contact me blurbs on
the front page and the
Wildcat Den, including adding a guide I wrote today to the available commands for my all-purpose IRC bot Markovka, which can be read
here, and
my pro-IRC article from a few days ago. I also reorganised my Affiliates alphabetically and sorted them into Friends and Affiliates categories, seeing as it was silly to put websites of my good friends into the same category as some random person who I have no affiliation with besides them having my button their site.
I am mostly done my grand project to re-organise the website by confining every single page of every multi-page section to its own directory (i.e.,
koshka.love/autism/,
koshka.love/babel/). Still some work to be done, but most of the website should be up to date by now. Once that is done, I will get to working on my next article, more than likely something autism-related as it has been lamentably long since that section received a proper update. In the meanwhile, don't forget to
GET ON IRC!
26 May 2022
I added
a lengthy yet important write-up on why I still use IRC and believe it to be the only chat protocol worth using to
the Library of Babel. I also touched on a number of important subjects such as the evils of Discord and the surprising advantages of Microsoft Comic Chat as a communication method for autistic people.
As formally announced in the article, I am also going to start holding a weekly all-day event known as Comic Chat Caturday every Saturday (or Sunday-ish for folks in Oceania) in #comicchat on my IRC server (irc.koshka.love) for fans of Microsoft Comic Chat. Time zones do not permit for the formation of an event any specific time, so be sure to drop by this Saturday whenever works for you if you are interested! If you want a custom avatar and/or background for use,
Mermaid Elizabeth's website, has something for just about everyone.
In no less exciting news, I added a new Affiliate, the burgeoning
Digital Hallucination! While admittedly sparse on content at the moment, I wanted to have the link up because I know the webmaster well enough to know that wonderful things shall come of his homestead.
08 May 2022
I did a minor update to the
Helpful Accommodations for Autistic People article, reflecting my experiences with a cooling weighted blanket that I purchased for research purposes, and a large desk fan, along with my current sleep regimen. The relevant new passages have been highlighted in red on all four themes to make them easier to find for anyone who has already read the original article. Hopefully, this will be of some use to someone.
Beyond this, I also added a new link to
the Dock, the illustrious
Mermaid Elizabeth's Microsoft Chat Resources Link Page, which is undeniably the most prolific and useful Microsoft Comic Chat resource of all time.
For anyone unfamiliar with Comic Chat, this wonderful program transforms IRC chatrooms into comic books where everyone can pick an avatar and emote as they please. It was created by Microsoft in the 90s and, although officially phased out in a few years in favour of MSN Messenger, it has enjoyed a strong cult following that persists to this day. Most recently, #comicchat was established on my IRC server (irc.koshka.love) by my friend
ShadowM00n as a Comic Chat-specific channel for people to play around in.
There is an entire vault full of custom avatars that you can download from the aforelinked Mermaid Elizabeth's website if you are interested in participating, although Comic Chat also comes with a number of zany default ones. KoshkaIRC has users from timezones all over the world, so feel free to drop by whenever, especially on the weekend! Lastly, for anyone who hasn't been on IRC and hasn't had the benefit of being linked to it yet, enjoy my informative hidden
GET ON IRC propaganda page. (:
01 May 2022
So I've been too busy (and lethargic due to stress) to complete any new articles lately. It didn't help that I also inexplicably contracted the flu a second time in a multi-week period, apparent proof that I spend all of my free time thirstily sucking on doorknobs like some sort of virus slut. I did add some new links, and have some IRC-related announcements to make. I moved
Majin Tween/Human Raccoon's glorious website up to the Affiliates section of
the Links page, and added the new website
Emerald Coast to the Affiliates and
Chocolate Doom to the Doom section.
Beyond this, two things have come up recently on IRC that I feel are worth making a formal announcement on. First, I am looking into upgrading my server infrastructure to handle the increasing number of things I am running, and am tentatively considering offering IRC bouncers to people once this is complete. Bouncers are basically always-on programs that remain connected to IRC perpetually and allow their owner to login from their own IRC client whenever, in order to chat and review any messages that were sent while they were disconnected. They're good for anyone who wants to be on IRC 24/7 but does not have a server of their own to allow them to do so.
E-mail me, let me know on IRC (irc.koshka.love, # and #speakez), or leave a comment in my
Guestbook if you are interested in this. No promises yet, but I want to know how many people are interested in this so that I know what kind of resources I would need to undertake this.
In other news, there was recently a nostalgia-fueled revival of the lulzy
Microsoft Comic Chat IRC client on KoshkaIRC. For anyone without the benefit of using it before, it essentially allows you to adopt an emotable cartoon character avatar for IRC, and transforms IRC conversations into
ALL CAPS-ridden comic book pages.
The infamous BoneQuest webcomic was generated almost entirely in this client. Please let me know if you are interested in this, and what time and day of the week works best for you. KoshkaIRC has people from many different timezones and it will be helpful to determine what time/day will work best for a recurring Comic Chat Night event.
21 April 2022
My sincerest apologies to everyone who has checking back for an update I finally managed to beat back my writer's block and successfully completed
a heartfelt reminiscence article on Raptor: Call of the Shadows, the classic DOS game that essentially served as my introduction to gaming (alongside Doom). Enjoy! I know I have been neglecting my Gab pretty bad lately, and I do plan to resurrect that soon. In the meantime, be sure to get on IRC!
16 April 2022
I added three utterly ludicrous childhood dreams of mine to
the Somnium, and did a wealth of necessary background work. The Kingdom should now load faster than ever before thanks to a tweak I did, and Macula's Maze's (grossly outdated) filler page is now on macula.koshka.love, free from
its former home at Neoc*ties.
Additionally, I am a good way towards my goal of confining every single section on the website that has multiple pages to its own directory. This will make the Kingdom more organised both for myself and for visitors, and will hopefully further improve SEO. I am setting up 301 redirects as I go, so don't worry if you have anything here bookmarked, as you will be painlessly redirected to the new link, if so.
That's about it for now. I am having bad writer's block that is preventing me from finishing any of the articles
that I am currently working on, and am busy with a number of other affairs, so I can't really make any promises for when the next update will occur at this time. I'm still fairly active on IRC, however, so feel free to jump on and say hi! (:
10 April 2022
After going through the comfiest flu I've ever had (just a few days of taking more naps than Joe Biden), I have added
a detailed write-up on my reasons for leaving Neocities and migrating towards self-hosting to the
Library of Babel. The decision was very out-of-nowhere and I did not want to speak about it formally before I had a chance to gather my thoughts.
04 April 2022
Added a short new dream to
the Somnium. Also, I am
back on Gab due to the repeated urgings of a friend of mine. I will make an effort to mellow down on the drunken shitposting and stick to keeping people up to date on the Kingdom and such, this time around. Bast willing. I am in the process of moving the entire Mystery Mansion section into the koshka.love/dos/ directory to keep things clean, but since self-hosting allows me to actually set redirects, there is nothing to worry about, as the old links will automatically send you to the new ones if you visit them after the fact.
31 March 2022 (2030 EST)
"Early" April Fool's joke that I cobbled together at the last second. I put it up today to avoid friends over on the other side of the pond for whom it is already April Fools being completely left it up. The background and
incantation are from the extradimensional entity known as The Hiss, from the sublime computer game
Control. That is all. If you missed the last update, don't forget to join the KoshkaIRC network at irc.koshka.love, '#speakez' and '#'!
30 March 2022
I am proud to announce that after a few long evenings of learning and tinkering, I have set up my own IRC network! The server name is irc.koshka.love and the main channels are currently (the respectful discussion enforced) # and (the almost entirely unmoderated) #speakez . If you have any interest in chatting with folks into old Web/computing/gaming nostalgia, you are strongly encouraged to drop by! If you don't have an IRC client and don't want to get one (you really should!) there is a Webchat interface available
here. The current MOTD is available to read
here if you want to get an idea of the current vision.
It remains to be seen when the active times will be for this network, but for whatever it's worth, I will do my best to be around 1730-2230 EST on weekdays and most of the day on weekends. Stop by and say hi! We don't bite! (:
27 March 2022
After a long spell of not having the motivation, energy, or time to accomplish anything beyond shitposting on IRC, I am back with a brand new sub-section for the
Mystery Mansion dedicated to
lolwut-esque
written reminiscences of various DOS/Windows 9x games from my childhood. There is currently a lengthy write-up about
Wacky Wheels, and more will come later. You can visit the Reminiscences sub-section directly by clicking on "Mementos" in the Mystery Mansion Explorer window (the word "reminiscences" is too long and gets split in two lines in Explorer, which I did not like.)
Additionally, I have added an interesting new dream I had to
the Somnium.
For anyone wondering, I am very much aware of how increasingly labyrinthian this website is becoming, with more and more pages having designs that don't incorporate the sidebar and sections being unintuitively nestled inside other sections (the Library of Babel special). This is due to my consistent lack of forward planning coupled with the sheer size of the Kingdom (80+ pages as of this writing), but it is not something that I have any intention of "fixing". I enjoy the feeling of adventure that comes with how easy it is to get hopelessly lost in here (a friend affectionately compared it to the Oldest House in Control).
14 March 2022
I have continued my efforts to breathe some life into overly-neglected parts of the Kingdom by adding two new reviews to the
Town of ZZT's
ZZT Game Reviews page - the groundbreaking Frost 1 by Zenith Nadir, and the fantastic sequel to the already-reviewed PPDV game: PPDV2. Both are legendary games that are more than worth your time checking out if you have any interest in DOS gaming.
In less interesting news, I also finally made the effort to sort the pages in the UFO/Babel sections on the map on the front page and the World Map pages by categories to make it easier to find certain pages. In retrospect, I have nary a clue for why it took me so long to think of this, given what an overgrown and unsightly mess they were becoming.
13 March 2022
As promised, I have triumphantly briefly returned to the Kingdom's roots with a wholly irreverent and crude comedic
Library of Babel rant tackling
the subject of societal treatment of death. If you enjoyed my past comedic articles, such as the
I Hate Social Events one, you will be in for a treat. (:
I also added a brand new Affiliate, Pre-Dead, whose website happens to be referenced in my article as he has proposed a very interesting concept - that of using personal websites as a sort of way to preserve people's souls and memories - that has occurred to me as well. Check it out!
12 March 2022
Another quick "yard sale" update. I updated
the Halloween fan-shrine at the
Haunted House with an explanation of the Cult of Thorn, the Thorn curse, and Wynn's identity, which I had forgotten to include in the original write-up, as well as some new information that I learned about the plot of the never-released Halloween 7. All of the new paragraphs are temporarily coloured red to make them easier to find. I also added a tasty chicken recipe to the long-neglected
Koshka's Kitchen page at the
Library of Babel.
In other Babel news, I started working on a very irreverent comedic article today, which I am hoping to have done tomorrow. If you were a fan of the humourous Babel rants from the early days of this website, you will be in for a treat. (:
10 March 2022
I have added 13 excellent new links with descriptions to
the Dock. The list is as follows:
Additionally, in response to sordid current events, I am officially disavowing the once-respectable DuckDuckGo.
As explained by Dig Deeper, DuckDuckGo has been sketchy from the start and has had numerous issues for years, but
the recent partisan censorship of pro-Russian information is a red line that I cannot stomach, as I will abide neither censorship, nor slander against my people and homeland. As such, I have replaced the DDG search bar on the front page of my website with a superior custom Yandex search engine that will allow you to search the Kingdom without any risk of censorship. Enjoy the freedom! (:
04 March 2022
A growing array of reasons, none of which are particularly worth delving into, have spurred me to migrate Koshka's Kingdom away from Neocities and onto its own hosting.
There is nothing to fear, as the Kingdom will continue to be accessible via the
https://koshka.love URL which it has been living at since May of last year. A great many thank yous to my friends jvlfools and ShadowM00n for their invaluable assistance with this endeavour, which involved a great amount of uncharted territory for me.
Although you will be unable view the up-to-date version of the RSS feed if your feed comes from the https://koshka.neocities.org/koshka.rss URL instead of the
https://koshka.love/koshka.rss one. If your feed lists the most recent update as being the "The Kingdom Has Migrated
(PLEASE SWITCH OVER TO THE UPDATED RSS FEED)" one from 04 March, it is out of date. Since a number of friends use the Neocities feed to keep up with websites they follow, including mine, I will also continue updating the Scratching Post page on Neocities when I update the website, to make it more convenient for everyone to keep up.
The majority of my reasons for the move stem from wanting more control over my website, as well as to have full control over the "koshka.love" domain name for whatever endeavours I may desire to use it for (such as my hostname on IRC servers). Neocities has certainly done a marvelous job at recreating the Web of old on its servers, and I have had the grand pleasure of meeting a number of very intelligent and creative friends and acquaintances through it. It is a terrific stepping stone for would-be webmasters/webmistresses, but I am now ready to brave some wilder jungles.
In unrelated yet exciting news, I have added another Affiliate website by a friend of mine - the budding yet already delightfully cute
Prints's Pink Palace - to
the Portal and
the Dock. Check it out!
26 February 2022
One of those "yard sale" updates. I created a brand new header for the
UFO section due to my growing dissatisfaction with the original one due to the infinity symbol not looking like a real rainbow (which I felt did not look good on the design). The new header is in my opinion far prettier and more stylish.
Additionally, I added to new dreams to
the Somnium (a new one and a childhood one), and added one new Neocities Affiliate,
Metaparadox, to
the Portal and
the Dock. That is all.
20 February 2022
I am interrupting this prolonged silence by putting up
a prolonged shameless infodump on the Halloween horror movie series. Everything you've ever wanted to know, didn't want to know, and didn't know that you wanted to know about Michael Myers. This will live on
the Haunted House section, which I have decided to branch out into being a "general horror fiction" section instead of limited to just creepypastas.
06 February 2022
I added
the follow-up article to the first Life Advice to Younger Autistics article to
the UFO, offering up some additional important advice, including some more personal things. Many apologies for the delay, as I had previously mentioned this would be up LAST weekend, but completely lost track of time.
26 January 2022
I added yet another new article to
the UFO -
Life Advice to Younger Autistics, Part 1, the first in a two part series of things that I wish someone had told me at a younger age. The second part will be done hopefully by the end of this weekend. I also added a new category in the Autism section as I have tentative plans to make more autism-related advice articles directed at various situations and groups in the future.
22 January 2022
The upcoming article that I was working on was getting a tad too long even by my standards, and I was worried about people avoiding it like the
Personality Disorders due to the sheer length. As such, I wound up cutting out the part about autistic inertia,
and turning that into its own article, which is now up on the
Autism section. I also added a new Affiliate,
Agora Road's Macintosh Cafe, to the
Portal/
Dock. Enjoy!
17 January 2022
Did a minor update to the
"Odd" Autistic Behaviours and Why We Do Them article, explaining why autistic people tend to inexplicably change the subject to ourselves during conversations so often. I am working on a
major autism-related article that I hope to be done with in the coming days, and it occurred to me that with all of the personal anecdotes littering it, I should make a note clarifying this tendency beforehand.
15 January 2022
With Russian Christmas and New Year's having come and gone, I suppose I have lost my final excuse for keeping the Christmas theme on the front page up. Oh well. I do still prefer the regular pink theme in spite of how much time I put into getting the Christmas theme "just right", but I worry a tad about how many pink-phobic visitors I am scaring off with it.
In other news, I have added a number of new links (and descriptions) to
the Dock - Cidoku.net to
the Affiliates category, DOOM Honorific Titles and Compet-N to
the Doom category, Lori Central, OpenJazz, and Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Warehouse to the brand new
Jazz Jackrabbit category and The Devil's Dictionary to the
Miscellaneous category. I also fixed a few broken links that had developed on various pages on
the UFO due to my recent re-organisation of it. That is all, for now...
09 January 2022
I wrote a follow-up article to my
original Intense World article, explaining how the theory's postulations explain the phenomenon of dyspraxia, and proposing a new model for the autism acceptance based on the theory. I had much of this in my head for months now but only just now was able to beat back the writer's block to actually put it to HTML. A sign of things to come, hopefully. I also decided to keep the Christmas theme (and Holiday Macula) up until after Russian New Year's (14th January), because I like them.
03 January 2022
In the interest of organising the website as it grows increasingly larger, and of making the website easier to crawl for search engines, I decided to move the entire autism section (UFO) into its own sub-directory and change the filenames of some of the pages to make them more intuitive. The old links should still work for quite a while; but they will simply redirect you to the updated link if you try to visit them. The new main page of the section can be found at
https://koshka.love/autism/. Truly, a day well spent.
I will probably eventually do the same to every section that has more than 1-3 pages (notably the Library of Babel, an arduous task that I am already dreading doing because I only know how to do these things manually), so be on the lookout for that, I suppose. That is all.
31 December 2021
Merry Christmas (again) and happy New Years! The Jazz Jackrabbit Christmas Episodes fan-shrine,
Burrowsville, is finally up and running over at the
Mystery Mansion! Enjoy! As usual, please enable JavaScript and do
not use Internet Explorer as it unfortunately does not properly support CSS animations. ):
Check out The Scratching Post for a complete archive of this website's updates!
