Koshka's Kingdom Updates Archive
Welcome to the obligatory archive of this website's past updates, in case anyone is bored enough to actually care about this website's journey. If you simply want to see how much Koshka's Kingdom has come from its early days, feel free to look and laugh at the
various old versions available on the
Internet Archive.
Table of Contents
Spring 2024
Winter 2024
Summer 2023
Spring 2023
Winter 2023
Autumn 2022
Summer 2022
Spring 2022
Winter 2022
Autumn 2021
Summer 2021
Spring 2021
Winter 2021
Autumn 2020
Summer 2020
Spring 2024
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.
Winter 2024
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:
Summer 2023
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.
Spring 2023
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.
Winter 2023
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!
Autumn 2022
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:
Summer 2022
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.
Spring 2022
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).
Winter 2022
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. ):
25 December 2021
Merry Christmas! After a month of constant work, my Christmassy psychedelic ZZT game,
Santa's Advocate, is finally available for download from the
Town of ZZT. HIGHLY recommended if you have any interest in DOS games, psychedelic humour, or just comical Christmas fun in general. Many thanks to Jvlfools,
lolwut, and Surlent for beta testing the game and providing invaluable feedback towards improving it!
In decidedly less Christmassy news, I also added a nightmare I had last night to
the Somnium.
23 December 2021
Happy Winter!! (: I fixed the broken link to my ZZT game
Santa's Lil' Helper on the
Town of ZZT after
lolwut helpfully pointed out that it wasn't working, and added a new dream to
the Somnium.
Santa's Advocate is now set to be released one day late, on Christmas Day, 25 December. I'll probably get it done today, but I don't want to rush the people who volunteered to beta-test it, especially considering how hectic many people's schedules are around this time of year. That and, as always, I would rather finish my work late than finish it on time and have it not be as good as it could've been.
Autumn 2021
19 December 2021
At the risk of being the bearer of bad news: I just wanted to say that I am not dead yet! I have two important announcements to make regarding upcoming projects that some people may have some interest in.
Firstly, my promised forthcoming Christmas ZZT game,
Santa's Advocate (detailed description available in the linked page), has turned into something far more ambitious than I had planned it on being when I first started working on it. I still have faith in my ability to release it on Christmas Eve (24 December), but it has utterly monopolised my free time and prevented me from getting any work done on any other creative project, hence the complete lack of updates. This will likely be my final ZZT game, and the gem of my (admittedly mostly mediocre) 18 year ZZT "career", and I would like to humbly request a few people to beta-test it before release.
The plan is currently to put together a beta version by the end of the day on 22 December, leaving a day both for anyone interested to beta-test and for me to make some rounds through the game and make last minute changes. All you need to play this is the freeware game
ZZT and a DOS emulator such as
DOSBox or DOS-compatible operating system such as Windows 98, in order to run ZZT. If you have any interest in DOS games, and/or psychedelic comedy, this may just be your cup of peyote tea. Please
contact me if you are interested!
Here is a screenshot of the title screen, and
here is a screenshot of a random board.
The second announcement is in regard to the upcoming Jazz Jackrabbit 2
Fan-Shrine: Burrowsville. Unfortunately, due to how much of my time the aforementioned ZZT game is taking up, and due to the fact that I still have little ideas for this project and have only created a simple basis for it so far, I will most likely be forced to push this back to either New Years, or as far back as Old (Russian) Christmas, on 7th January. I apologise to anyone who was looking forward to that. I'll see if I can get it done on time after Santa's Advocate is wrapped up, but I have little faith in my ability to do that.
Regarding my
other previously promised projects such as
Macula's Maze, the autism articles, the Dragon Ball Super fanfictions, the Quarry, and so forth, most of them are in progress in some forth or another, and I am still hopeful to get those out eventually. Koshka's Kingdom has not been abandoned, just plunged into a period of stasis due to my current priorities.
07 December 2021
Updated the
Haunted House with a link/review of the exquisite 5 star creepypasta
No One Escapes the Mathman by
HoleinMyHeart.
Well worth a read, or two.
In other news, while I haven't been updating much lately, I wanted to announce another forthcoming project of mine that perhaps a few people may have some interest in. I have revived
my ZZT "career" to release one final ZZT game: a
Viovisian psychedelic adventure where you aid Santa Claus in his (exceedingly nonsensical) battle against the Krampus, who is attempting to usurp him. If you're a fan of DOS games, and/or psychedelic/trippy humour, this should be your cup of peyote tea.
Here's a screenshot of one of the boards that I've finished up so far.
The current plan is for this (still unnamed) ZZT game to come out on Christmas Eve (USA time) and for the Jazz Jackrabbit 2: Christmas Chronicles
fan-shrine (Burrowsville) to come out on Christmas Day.
30 November 2021 (Late Evening)
In celebration of the Christmas holiday season, I have unveiled a completely new, festive design for the
front page, including a number of graphics that I created just for the occasion. Most importantly, at the suggestion of my ever-brilliant friend
ShadowM00n, Macula (seen on the bottom of the page) now has a holiday monocle and top hat! The finished product is a bit lacking because I am too drunk and tired to wrestle with .GIF colour limitations any longer, but the concept is undeniably brilliant.
28 November 2021
After a fun weekend of Web 1.0 Archaeology, I added 29 excellent new links to
the Dock, which now sports a whopping 233 total links! I also added two new categories - Comedy & Oddities, and Web Forums, to organise things a bit better. The new links added are as follows:
Internet Pioneers and Computer Hope in the
Other Computer Resources category, MadTom's Pick in the
ZZT category, Doom WAD station and Classic DOOM in the
Doom category, Phil's Wacky Wheels Site, S&F Prod, and the Apogee FAQ in the
General Retro Games category, The Shadowlands and Everything You Need to Know About Vampires in the
Mysticism and Supernatural category, Boards.ie and B3TA in the
Web Forums category, Neil's Pennsylvania Home Page and Horace 'Kicker' Vallas in the
Comedy & Oddities category, Kat's Corner, Erowid, Totse, Dissolved Girl (rest in peace), Contemplations From the Marianas Trench, Send Coffee, Obsolete Computer Museum, Encyclopaedia Metallum, The Meditative Cat, The Cephalopod Page, RussianSpaceWeb, Moose Creek Nike Site, and Almighty Guru in the
Miscellaneous category, and LittleSis in the
Politics category.
Descriptions are included with the links, as always. Happy exploring!! (:
26 November 2021
I updated the
Helpful Accommodations for Autistic People page with some additional thoughts on noise-cancelling headphones, after having purchased two separate pairs of them and used them extensively, along with a few other assorted updates and corrections.
20 November 2021
After spending some time replaying some of my favourite ZZT games, I became inspired and decided to create a new sub-section for the
Town of ZZT, dedicated to reviewing ZZT games and preserving the rich gaming history found in them. The new
ZZT Game Reviews currently hosts reviews and screenshots of two classic releases from the year 1999 - Edible Vomit and PPDV - and I will be adding more as time goes on!
14 November 2021
After studying the front pages of dozens of Web 1.0 websites that I like and noting what they did well, I decided to do another partial revamp of
my own front page. Most importantly, I added a topbar with icons linking to the most popular and important sections of the website for the benefit of new visitors, along with a search bar to search the website via
DuckDuckGo. I also condensed and updated the opening text, brought the Wildcat Den mailbox over to advertise the guestbook. The topbar is an experiment that I may wind up adding to every page of the Kingdom, or get rid of altogether.
I was also informed that apparently there are issues with lag when scrolling on the scrollable elements on Chromium and its forks (Chrome, Edge, etc). I'll try to find a way to fix this issue later, but for now anyone using one of these browsers is probably better off browsing the website with
Pale Moon, or getting news updates from
the Scratching Post. I apologise for the inconvenience.
07 November 2021
Added a goofy dream I had last night to
the Somnium, and also finally gave the page a brand new, unique design. I had been meaning to do the latter for months now but only suddenly had a perfect vision of what it should look like while mowing the lawn earlier today. I also finally added Macula to the page. Apparently I only came up with
his origin story as an entity born in the extradimensional dream world of Aberra after I put up the Somnium, and never thought to give him a cameo afterward.
Finally, I have added three new Affiliates:
Soukds,
Actually Autistic Blogs List, and
antikrist.
31 October 2021
Halloween night is upon us, and I have arrived just in the nick of time with a spooky new fan-shrine for the classic DOS computer game
Monster Bash:
the Haunted Manor. Please be warned that the page largely does not work in Internet Explorer due to that browser being too incompetent to handle CSS animations, of which the page contains many. You will also need JavaScript enabled for the interactivity to work.
In other creepy news, I have fixed the broken links to the legendary creepypastas Infected Town and The Patient That Nearly Drove Me Out of Medicine over on the
Haunted House section and added one new Affiliate,
Arez.
To anyone who may be wishing some of the existing game shrines at the
Mystery Mansion had more meat to them, I
am considering going back and expanding some of them eventually. To be quite frank, every single one of these shrines has been a spur-of-the-moment experiment that I made up as I went along. I never have any clue what I'm going for before I start chipping away at one of them, and I am steadily learning some useful CSS/JavaScript tricks as I work through these, some of which I really wish I had known about when working on prior shrines.
17 October 2021
I wrote up a very drawn-out
analysis of the many intersections between autism and personality disorders, on
the UFO section. It turned out to be the longest thing I have put up here so far, but the subject really did turn out to be a rabbit hole that warranted all of that. Be sure to check out the
Red Forest section that I put up yesterday if you have any interest in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or simply enjoy reading about goofy/obscure computer game glitches!
Once again, I have no immediate promises right now beyond the Monster Bash fan-shrine for the
Mystery Mansion on Halloween. I am hoping to have the Quarry section finally up soon-ish. Macula's Maze will take a while yet as I will need to learn how to create text adventures in Inform and make sure I can get that set up via JavaScript on Neocities. Time/energy permitting, those two "missing teeth" on the sidebar will finally be filled in within the next few months.
16 October 2021
I mentioned during my last update that I was working on eight different pages at the same time, so it is no surprise that my next completed project would in fact be a
ninth page that I randomly started working on yesterday. Truly, I am the Pharaoh of starting projects, and the Jester (?) of actually completing them. Nonetheless, the long-promised
Red Forest section, dedicated to the legendary computer game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, is finally up!
If you've played the game and found some of the useless collectibles, such as the guitar and the hand_radio, and wondered if there were any others, this is a comprehensive guide to every single one of these oddities that exists in the entire game, including some whose existence is not documented anywhere else.
Additionally, at the suggestion of my friend
Quillax, I have added a link to the Commander Keen website
Benvolio's Workbench to the Dock. It is an ancient Web 1.0 site that hosts a number of interesting looking fan games, including a Halloween-themed one if you're looking for something seasonal.
I have been working on a veritable whale of an article (almost 8,000 words as of this writing) regarding the intersections between autism and personality disorders, a fascinating rabbit hole that went vastly deeper than I presumed it would when I started doing research on the subject, and am hoping to be done that some time tomorrow. No other short-term promises right now aside from the Monster Bash fan-shrine on Halloween, and possibly the Quarry finally getting a proper, finished design along with some actual content.
05 October 2021
I updated the
Autism Myths page with a tidbit debunking the usefulness of high/low functioning labels for autistic people, and added two new Affiliates to the
Portal and
the Dock -
Svetlana Studios and
Turtle Witch.
I have started work on a riveting (in my opinion at least!) new page for
the Autism section and am hoping to have that done some time this week. The enduring radio silence has been partly due to lack of mental energy and partly because I keep starting new pages and then developing writer's block. As of right now, I have no less than eight new pages that are in some degree of development but that I am struggling to finish. It's already October so
the previously promised Monster Bash fan-shrine for the Mystery Mansion will need to mosey over to that dysfunctional production line soon. My sincere apologies to anyone who may be checking back waiting for an update. ):
26 September 2021
I added some custom sidebar buttons to
Koshka's Kitchen and replaced the regular sidebar button for the
Autism section with a customised one to draw more attention to that section. Also added a new Affiliate to the
Portal and
the Dock: the masterfully designed website
Spirit Cellar here on Neocities.
It would be really nice if Neocities provided information on traffic to specific pages so that I could at least have a basic idea of what pages/sections are popular and which ones aren't. Going to assume they just don't have the resources to track and store all of that information, as I am surely far from the first person to want this feature.
I wish I had something more substantial to offer, but sadly I've been severely lacking in mental energy and time lately, to the point where I've barely even been checking my Neocities feed and have become atrocious at responding to anyone. Sadly, that stuff takes spoons that I currently don't have enough of. I have about half a dozen new pages that I've either started working on but struggling to get anywhere with or that are in my head and waiting to come out so hopefully I'll manage to end this rut soon.
Summer 2021
18 September 2021
Added a new article to the
Library of Babel detailing the largely-forgotten history of ALL CAPS, the man who came up with it, and the timeless importance and value it carries in text-based communication.
16 September 2021
Added two new humourous observations to the
Library of Babel's
Observations page. That is all.
12 September 2021
I did a long-overdue update to
the Dock, adding links (and descriptions) to
Mypal,
K-Meleon,
KernelEx,
Ungoogled Chromium,
Windows 95 Tips,
Windows 93,
RinkWorks,
wttr.in,
Bad Designs,
Urban Adventure in Rotterdam,
Wired Sage's Learnings,
Gods and Pharaohs,
Emo,
Jerry Lehr,
Chronicles, and
Vomitboyz. I also added a new category,
Mysticism and Supernatural, to try to remedy the Miscellaneous category becoming utterly overgrown once again, and replaced the link to Cyber-Witch's tragically deleted website with
a link to the Archive.org backup of it.
07 September 2021
In response to a few complaints I had received about the
Autism section's design being difficult to read for people with sensory-processing issues, I decided to add a handy Theme Selector to the left-hand corner of the page to allow people to change the colour scheme. Currently, there is a red and black Light it Up Red theme inspired by the
anti-Autism Speaks slogan bearing the same name, as well as two plain accessibility themes, a light one and a dark one. The JavaScript code that I used for the Theme Selector was created by Christopher Heng and can be found on
his wonderful website Site Wizard.
In other news, don't forget to check out the very important
Why We Need Autism Acceptance and Pride article from Sunday if you have not yet done so!
05 September 2021
I finally finished what is quite possibly the most important thing I will ever write on here:
a detailed write-up on why the causes of autism acceptance and autistic pride are so desperately needed in the world. This was a very difficult article to write due to the heaviness of the subject matter, but it all desperately needed to be said. I gently beseech everyone to read this, even if you don't care much about the subject of autism, as this is something that needs far more awareness than it currently has.
I admit that this article was very long, but that is because there really was that much that had to be covered. I did my best to "kick myself under the table" whenever possible for brevity, but it still came out to be the longest thing I have ever put up on here.
29 August 2021
And now for something completely different! I decided to finally sit down and put together an idea that has been floating around in the back of my skull, on-and-off, since the early days of this website. There is now a swanky new page over on the
Library of Babel section, entitled
Koshka's Kitchen, where I will be putting up various cooking and baking recipes that I have put together over the years. I decided to give it a nice funky 1950s diner aesthetic, just because I was in the mood for creating something like that.
I also wanted to formally express my gratitude to everyone who helped make possible the 100,000 viewer milestone that the Kingdom finally achieved this morning. I admit that in the early days of this place, I couldn't have cared less if anyone ever visited it or not, but the more gracious feedback I received from people who I have managed to inform or inspire in regard to the
various important causes that I trumpet on here, the stronger I began to regard the importance of making this place as popular as I could. A massive thank you to every single person who reads this website! I genuinely appreciate it!
❤
28 August 2021
With Koshka's Kingdom being on the cusp of hitting 100,000 viewers, I thought I would put together a quick update to celebrate the milestone. I drunkenly (to stay true to the original!) wrote (and then soberly edited for grammatical errors, of which there were a great many) a second update to my
Words/Phrases That I Hate article. Not one of my favourites because the first entry was a complete unapologetic drunken shitpost, but a lot of people apparently loved it so I figured it was worthy of getting yet more additions.
I must admit that I am genuinely honoured and jubilated that my humble online treehouse has managed to draw in so many people in a little over a year, even if not all of them were unique viewers. If I have managed to enlighten even a fraction of those people on
any of my dear causes, then I am a happy, happy cat. I would have liked to have had something more substantial up to commemorate this day, but alas, I have been quite busy with other pursuits and too drained by ongoing mental issues to do much of anything productive in my spare time. In the end, I would rather be late but put out something of high quality, than be on time but deliver some utter rubbish.
22 August 2021
Obligatory "yes, I'm still alive" update.
In the midst of slowly working on a new autism-related article and the first chapter of my upcoming Dragon Ball Super fanfiction, I decided to finally create some unique sidebar buttons for
Per-Bast, replacing the default ones that clashed horribly with the section's colour scheme. I also decided to add an "Autism Acceptance NOW!" button around the website, inspired by those
"Netscape NOW!" buttons of decades past. This will probably be the very last site-wide button I will be putting up, unless I finally get my act together and learn to automate things, as making changes to all 60+ pages of the website has become quite a vexing burden.
Finally, I added a fun dream I had last night to
the Somnium. Not the most creative or inspiring one, but it was the most fun one I've had in a long time so I'm putting it there. My little online treehouse, my rules!
15 August 2021
I completely remade the design of
Mount Paozu (the Dragon Ball section), giving it a fresh and cool-looking early 2000s-esque design. I was never happy with the original design, which was a rush job I waywardly slapped together after becoming fed up with the page having no design of its own. I had to replace the sidebar with a "top bar" to give more space to the main section, but I love how it turned out ultimately. I've been working obsessively on this for the past 2 days to cope with some issues I've been having and outdid myself a bit. I even made a custom mouse cursor for this page; try hovering over a link with it!
On an unrelated note, I have taken down my contact information and withdrawn from communicating with people indefinitely due to feeling the urgent need to take a mental health break from social interaction. I don't like airing dirty laundry, so I'll simply say that sometimes the thousands of chaotic faeries that apparently govern my brain go down a dark road and I am forced to either withdraw for days/weeks/months or start becoming increasingly toxic until I burn bridges with everyone I know. I've done quite enough of that already.
Perhaps I'll at least be able to use this period to get back into the swing of things and start writing more articles, although considering I have spent the past 3 days attempting to write a new autism article without so much as putting a single word to Notepad++, I am not terribly optimistic.
08 August 2021
Added creepypasta reviews to the
Haunted House for I Found a Dead Girl's Diary, The Game of Seven Doors, In the Assassin's Orphanage, Ted the Caver, John, Charles Bonnet Syndrome, and A Shattered Life, almost all of which are sublime tales well worth a read or two. I also want to leave a note here for one of my Affiliates, Cyber-Witch, who disappeared off of Neocities over a week ago. I despise the idea of publicly making statements to/about people in this manner but my investigations have not yielded any contact information so this is the best way I can think of.
Cyber-Witch, if you happen to read this, I very much hope that you are doing alright, and that you choose to return to Neocities one day. I can say without any bias whatsoever that you have created two of the greatest websites that I have ever had the privilege of visiting in nearly 25 years of Web surfing, and it was always a pleasure to read your articles and look at your various creative webpage designs. Please consider
staying in touch, and take care.
04 August 2021
It's officially been a year since I put Koshka's Kingdom up, so I guess an obligatory "this is where the Earth was in its orbit around the Sun" update is warranted. I was planning to write up a page on my workflow and how some of the stuff on this website came about, but I've had too little energy lately to get anything done. Even this update is technically a day late (the website's first revision was on 04 August but it was registered on 03 August).
I'm pretty proud of how this website has come out thus far. Even if it initially started out as largely nothing more than a
lazy, liquor-scented shitpost, I daresay that it has become an entertaining and informative source of information on many topics that are dear to my heart. Working on this website has been a thrilling passion that has gotten me through some dark times, given me a microphone for many things I had a great need to get off my chest, and given me the blessing of meeting a number of wonderful people.
A very genuine thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read anything on this website, and to everyone who has given their feedback. It warms my heart that I have been able to educate people on causes and topics important to me. In spite of the sordid current state of the Web, working on this website and exploring
other websites on Neocities, has led me to appreciate, more than ever,
the Web's unbridled potential as the most powerful communication method humankind has ever had.
Here's to another year of
spreading autism acceptance and understanding, preaching Bast worship, promoting the good old Web, making creative fanshrines to fiction I like, infodumping on topics that interest me, and
audaciously/comically shitposting! That's it for now. Koshka out.
❤
30 July 2021
Added one new Affiliate,
Omoulo. Also felt like ranting and getting some things off my chest that don't warrant writing a new page (at this time at least...)
I feel that I have been "regressing" (for lack of a better word) at
masking my natural autistic behaviours more and more over the past year or so. Being autistic, a lot of common things such as eye contact, loud noises, strong smells, etc were always painful to me, but, having escaped diagnosis as a child, I had been forced to learn to bottle these things up when around other people and consciously ignore my feelings, at least to the best of my ability. Learned behaviour that I am starting to realise is the basis for how
audaciously antisocial I have been at any point past my early childhood.
Learning that I am autistic years ago and that there is a valid reason for all of my feelings and behaviours has been incredibly liberating, to make an astounding understatement. It's as if I have spent decades walking around with extremely jagged rocks in my shoes and being brow-beaten into thinking that there was nothing there and that my "pain" is just me being difficult for no reason. Only to one day be told that the pain is valid, and that there are indeed painfully sharp objects stabbing my feet any time I step on the ground, and that there's nothing wrong with taking my shoes off in order to dispose of the offending objects.
The
Intense World theory's postulations on autism being characterised by information overloads due to a hyper-connected brain are absolutely in line with all of my personal observations that I have made after discovering the theory. I detest having to look at people's eyes or even their faces when speaking to them, because I notice so many things and involuntary start up so many thought processes analysing those things, that my brain essentially turns into that photograph of a schizophrenic with a giant, incomprehensible board full of random scribbled gibberish and pinned newspaper articles.
Avoiding looking at people when talking to them may seem odd or even, apparently, offensive to some people (at least those that don't know that I'm autistic), but it is so much easier for me to keep track of what my conversational partner is saying, modulate my tone of voice, not forget or bumble my own words, etc. It's akin to stripping the aforementioned metaphorical board of most of the superfluous nonsense and leaving just the few papers on it that are actually relevant to the situation.
Besides being a stressful personal struggle, I also loathe the concept of masking because it is not something that
all autistic people are capable of doing, or are capable of doing for prolonged periods of time. I have read many anecdotes of how painful masking can be for autistic people who are not as "high-functioning" as I am, and/or who are forced to work in fields like customer service or retail, where they have to spend the entire day interacting with neurotypical strangers, a hell that very often leads to bad cases of
autistic burnout. As such, I have been feeling a growing need to stretch people's Overton windows and normalise natural autistic behaviour.
...In retrospect, perhaps I should have just written up a new page on this.
25 July 2021
I added yet another new page to
the UFO:
Things Autistics Wish Neurotypicals Knew, a general list of sentiments that I wish neurotypicals knew for making interactions better for both autistic and neurotypical people.
23 July 2021
Added a ton of additional definitions to the
Autism-Related Terminology page on
the UFO, and fixed and updated some definitions that needed improvement. I hastily made the page 5 months ago when first putting up the UFO section, so there were a number of things that either needed to be written better or elaborated on, as well as many definitions that I forgot to add altogether. I also chose to add links to articles I wrote after the fact in a few places, to better clarify a few things.
22 July 2021
I put together a short, three page "demo" of what the upcoming
Macula's Maze section, for anyone curious to what it will be like, I have a lot of work to do in refining my writing skills and teaching myself JavaScript, so the finished project is still very far away, but I wanted to create a little teaser for now. The website will live on the alternate domain
https://macula.koshka.love, but I will post updates here once I add anything to the Maze. MAJOR thank yous to my friend
ShadowM00n for his invaluable help in proof-reading what's there so far!
On an unrelated note, please be sure to read my article on the
Intense World theory of autism if you have not had a chance to see it yet, and if you're a fan of
lolwut's website, you may like
loliwut, a parody I made of it based on a recent IRC meme.
18 July 2021
I sorted the pages on the
UFO/Autism section into groups to make it easier to find things, and put up an iframe on the
front page to spread awareness about a paedophile and terrorist who has been criminally harassing numerous people's websites, including a Neocities friend and multiple associates. Please be sure to check out my extremely important article on the
Intense World theory of autism from yesterday, if you have not yet read it!
17 July 2021
Put up what may very well be my magnum opus:
a lengthy diatribe on the Intense World theory of autism and its mindblowing revelations about the neurotype. While it is quite long, I humbly request that everyone reads it, as it is possibly the most logical and informative theory that has ever been put forth both for explaining autism and explaining why autism is a perfectly healthy and natural neurotype, and not some disorder to be cured.
10 July 2021
I suddenly remembered that I had somehow completely neglected to add a review/link to the classic feelspasta Love to the
Haunted House and set about promptly correcting the situation. I also added three new recent Affiliates to the
Portal and the
Dock. I've been slacking on writing lately due to depression and a resulting complete lack of energy or mtoivation, but I'm hoping to be back in the game soon.
I plan on doing some research on cooling weighted blankets because I sorely need a way to deal with my issues during these loathsome summer/spring months without my own body heat setting me aflame. I adore my current one but I am beginning to accept that for a person like me, it is only possible to survive under it for the entire night, when it is the dead of winter and the heating is completely switched off. I will update the
Autism Accommodations article with knowledge on this matter if my endeavour is successful.
04 July 2021
After spending all day working away at it, I have finally put up the long-awaited Commander Keen 4 fan-shrine,
The Shadowlands, over at the
Mystery Mansion. I focused a little too heavily on random CSS tricks to the detriment of actual content in the
Jazz Jackrabbit fan-shrine, so I wound up making this one as a sort-of in-between the style of that one and the
Doom fan-shrine.
I'll still be putting up new content for other sections as usual, but the Mystery Mansion probably won't be seeing another update until the Monster Bash fan-shrine (Haunted Manor) on Halloween of this year and the Jazz Jackrabbit 2: Christmas Chronicles fan-shrine (Burrowsville) this Christmas. That's all for now. Happy Independence Day to American visitors!
03 July 2021
I put up a new article over at
the UFO:
Helpful Accommodations for Autistic People, which takes a look at some accommodations that can help autistic people function better in life.
In other news, I would like to announce that Koshka's Kingdom has finally hit 50,000 total unique daily viewers and a grand total of over 272,000 total page hits! A grateful thank you to everyone who has made this milestone possible! I honestly would never have imagined when I first started out, that this website would come anywhere near this far, but it's been a treat the entire way being able to create fun and informative webpages and entertain and educate people from all over about
causes dear to my heart, and my
various autistic obsessions.
I've also managed to meet some truly wonderful people both here on Neocities and in the unofficial Neocities IRC channel (#Neocities on IRC.Rizon.net) and received some very heartwarming feedback from numerous people, all of which I greatly appreciate. All-in-all, this has been a very fulfilling adventure, and I look forward to seeing where it takes me next. (:
02 July 2021
I had a vision of a tree mailbox on the
Wildcat Den denoting the Contact Me portion of the page and decided to make it a reality. I have
several new pages marinating in my head that I hope to put up over the next month, one probably tomorrow.
In other news, after becoming amused by the concept of a glorified shitposting website, Facebook, having its own "Supreme Court" I decided to follow suit with some audacious and meaningless titles of my own.
Effective as of this declaration, I am the
Supreme Galactic Monarch of Koshka's Kingdom,
Macula is the
Royal Seer (these terrible eye-related puns will never end) and
Grand Vizier, and my dear friends
ShadowM00n and Tejr have the honourary ranks of
Elder Royal Counsellors for their invaluable advice which has helped shape this website. The Kingdom will now also claim jurisdiction over the entire Andromeda Galaxy in order to justify my ludicrous title. This will remain in effect until an intelligent species residing in said galaxy stakes a more convincing claim for this territory.
I also plan to establish an Ultimate Divine Cosmic Court in the Andromeda Galaxy to
levy petty punishments on people who offend me with loud noises and eye contact handle legal matters pertinent to Koshka's Kingdom in a noble, fair, and responsible fashion, just as soon as I can devise a lucid plan for how I will pay for the rather grandiose expenditure this harebrained plot shall incur. Any day now, surely!
The Court shall be staffed by Macula and any well-educated and reputable individuals that are willing to volunteer to live and practice law out of a foreign galaxy. I currently have six (6) openings for a total of seven (7) Ultimate Divine Cosmic Justices. I went with seven due to the number's divine associations, and because I fear being unable to remember nine different people's names. That is all for now.
28 June 2021
After a moderate amount of effort, I have finally finished making all 60+ pages of Koshka's Kingdom
m*bile-fr**ndly render well on smaller screens. The only exceptions are
KamiTube and
Diamondus (Jazz Jackrabbit shrine) because I decided making those two pages work well on any sized screen was more trouble than it'd be worth. I also added a new Affiliate (
Dannarchy) and added another Affiliate (
Ancient-Greek.net) to the front page after realising I had forgotten to do so because I apparently can no longer keep
anything straight.
IN MORE EXCITING NEWS, TODAY IS THE GLORIOUS HOLIDAY KNOWN AS "ALL CAPS DAY", SO BE SURE TO DROP BY THE IRC CHANNEL - #NEOCITIES ON IRC.RIZON.NET - TO CELEBRATE WITH THE REST OF US! Ɑ:
26 June 2021
I updated
The Conflagration (Jiren fan-shrine) with an analysis of what Jiren's wish in the Anime might be, and a selection of Anime and manga quotes from the all-powerful Grey. Elsewhere, I have done much work under-the-hood in making the website render better on smaller screens. Some pages still look like crap, but most of the website should load fairly well on any screen at this point.
Spring 2021
19 June 2021
A friend in the #Neocities IRC channel brought to my attention that my image maps weren't functioning in Chromium and its forks for some reason. I looked into the matter and found out that for some some mysterious reasons, the valid XHTML 1.1 Strict syntax for image maps was not supported in these browsers! Luckily, I was able to find a workaround that required changing the standards on the affected pages to XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
As of this writing, the World Map on the
Portal and
World Map pages, as well as the Explorer window on the
Mystery Mansion page should now be working fine in all modern(-ish) browsers. *Knocks on wood.* Since Chromium (lamentably) has over 60% of market share in the Web browser world, I felt this change was worthy of an official announcement.
In other news, I finally got my crap together and fixed the RSS feed to fully adhere to official standards, and added a verification button to the Portal to mark the occasion. Exciting news, I know.
18 June 2021
Happy Autistic Pride Day!! In honour of the holiday, I put up a
long and detailed look into many potentially mystifying behaviours that many of us autistic folks do, and the reasons for said behaviours, over at
the UFO, in order to hopefully foster more and understanding acceptance.
15 June 2021
Made changes to the
Per-Bast and
UFO sections to make them render much better on smaller screens. Been too busy dealing with a slew of other problems to do more, but I'm satisfied having the two most important sections on the website finally made accessible to everyone, more or less.
14 June 2021
In the interests of accommodating a friend who reads my site on their phone, I have altered my trajectory and embarked on a journey to... Bast forgive me for uttering these words... make this website more...
mobile-friendly. *Furiously spits on the ground in an attempt to alleviate the disgust of having those words sully my tongue.*
Ahem. I've done some research on the matter, and the way the mobile-friendlisation process works means that you fellow sublime PC users will
not notice
any difference on your end. The website will merely arrange itself differently when presented with a computer that has disabilities (in other words, has a screen that is 750 pixels in width or less). So far the Wildcat Den and Scratching Post are the only sections that have had these adjustments made, but every page will be m*bile-fr**ndly eventually. This, and a new autism-related page for June 18th (Autistic Pride Day) are my current website-related goals.
While it's still comically broken on mobile, I've also done some beautification on the
World Map after being inspired by the style of some of
Cyber-Witch's illustrious website designs. That's all for now. Koshka out.
❤❤❤
13 June 2021
I put up a detailed analysis of the Sisters of Mercy song "Under the Gun" to the
Reptile House, a song that was the favourite Sisters song of my deceased best friend Drac0, as well as one of the most interesting and complicated songs the Sisters have ever made. No immediate plans for what I'll be doing next or when I will be doing it, but since June 18th is
Autistic Pride Day, I will most certainly write up something new for
the UFO.
As always, be sure to drop by the Neocities IRC channel #Neocities on IRC.Rizon.net!
11 June 2021
I did some beautification over on the
Scratching Post. I made the text more readable by adding a semi-transparent background colour at
ShadowM00n's suggestion, and split the updates into seasons and created a pretty image for each season. It's an insipid throwaway page that's only there as an reference, but I desire for everything on this site to be gorgeous, so this was something that needed to be done.
10 June 2021
I am happy to announce that the entirety of Koshka's Kingdom (~61 pages as of this writing!) has been
validated to XHTML1.1 and CSS3 standards, aside from the
Jazz Jackrabbit shrine and the
Reptile House, both of which use html5 for background music, and the latter of which also uses Internet Explorer's <bgsound> tag to provide a background MIDI to the few who still use a browser capable of utilising the tag.
As some may know, I harbour a vendetta against html5 for (among other reasons) introducing a background music tag without any support for MIDIs, thereby spitting in the face of decades of Web heritage. Nonethless, those two issues aside, the entire website should finally be up to standards.
06 June 2021
Surprise!! I added a small little
fan-shrine to the one-and-only Ribrianne (Brianne de Chateau) from Dragon Ball Super to the Dragon Ball section. While she is not at all my favourite character, I have been very disheartened by the amount of vitriol that exists towards her, and wanting to create a little something on the other side of spectrum. In less interesting news, I also validated the goofy
Dragon Ball AF Super page to... HTML 3.2 standards.
05 June 2021
I added a new page to the UFO, detailing my personal thoughts on
the controversial autistic phenomenon known as autigender (not an actual gender.) I had been sitting on this article for the past two months, pondering whether to finish it, due to the controversy minefield of anything even remotely concerning gender or sexuality. However, this is a matter dear to my heart, and I might as well delete the Library of Babel if I am going to start avoiding controversy, so here it is.
Before I finish, don't forget to get on IRC at #Neocities on IRC.Rizon.net! I promise we don't bite. (:
01 June 2021
Updated
the Dock with links to
Inkscape,
the W3 Validator,
Little Web Hut,
DevGuru,
LÆMEUR's Home Page,
the official Doom FAQ,
GOTH ZONE here on Neocities,
Human Raccoon, and perhaps most impressively, a digital recreation of the fabled
Library of Babel! Also updated a couple of Affiliate links to be more up to date. You can find descriptions for the links over on the Dock itself. Happy surfing!
Finally, I added a new button to promote the unofficial Neocities IRC channel, #Neocities on IRC.Rizon.net. Be sure to drop by and say hi! I'll try to be around every day from at least 5:30 PM to 10:30 PM EST.
30 May 2021
I added a new comedy article to the
Library of Babel, entitled
Children Are Overrated, that attacks some popular child-related platitudes that I find irritating and disagreeable. I also added a new custom sidebar to the entire Library of Babel section, resembling a sideways bookshelf, to better fit the theme of that section. I also fixed all of the coding errors on the
Portal, the
World Map,
the Library of Babel, and
Geo City, putting them in compliance with XHTML standards.
After a period of rumination on the subject, I decided to delete my Gab account because I was sick and tired of dealing with ignorant clodhoppers spouting offensive and outlandish conspiracy theories about autism, and my presence on there was doing little to nothing to make this website more popular. It also made me realise how much I detest social media as a whole for being social junk food. Having one less place where I have to interact with people is nice too. I did meet a few intelligent and cool people on there, and I still stand by my recommendation of Gab as being the best social media website out there at the moment.
26 May 2021
I added a new page to the
Library of Babel, hosting
random humourous observations that do not merit their own article. There's only a few right now, but it'll be another one of those random pages that I add new content to once every now and then.
I also did a bunch of work to bring the site up to XHTML standards. As of now, the entire UFO section, along with Per-Bast, the Wildcat Den, the Scratching Post, and the main Library of Babel are entirely validated. If you're curious to track the progress, I am replacing the "Hard Hat Area" button at the bottom of each page with a click-able official XHTML 1.1 Validation button from the W3 Consortium once it is entirely up to standards. I really don't like that button anymore, and this is a good of a way as any to get rid of it.
I close this post out with a call to GET ON IRC (#Neocities on IRC.Rizon.net.) That is all.
24 May 2021
I added lazy filler pages for the forthcoming Red Forest/Macula's Maze/The Quarry sections, added a GET ON IRC blurb to the Portal, added a new Affiliate to the Portal and the Dock, and did some starter work on getting the website XHTML validated. XHTML validation buttons shall begin populating the website page by page as each page's errors are corrected.
Finally, I added a new "under construction" image to the Mount Paozu section, that I found about a decade ago while trawling an ancient website whose name escapes me. I have no idea who made it as I am no longer able to find any trace of it online, but I did not want it to be lost to the sands of time, so on that page it shall live. Truly tumultuous times around here.
21 May 2021
In the interests of creating a general place for Neocities folks to chat, away from the nightmarish
spyware plague known as discord, I have decided to set up an unofficial Neocities-centric IRC channel. If you're interested, head over to #Neocities on IRC.Rizon.net! You can hop on via your web browser by using the
Mibbit link, although I highly recommend using a client such as
Irssi or
HexChat for the optimal IRC experience.
In other news, I added a new link to
the Dock, to the excellent
Ancient-Greek.net, a genuine Web 1.0 style repository of information regarding Ancient Greece and, more specifically, the Ancient Greek language. I also updated the
Wildcat Den with the aforementioned IRC channel information, and added a goofy dream I had a few days ago to
the Somnium over at the
Library of Babel.
I was recently helpfully informed that the new scrolling sidebar has an issue where the bottom links are inaccessible to people with some smaller screen resolutions. I am still contemplating which solution to pursue for this, but for anyone else experiencing the issue, I apologise for the inconvenience. Please rely on the
World Map until I repair this (likely this weekend.)
17 May 2021
It occurred to me recently how much easier this website would be to navigate in some areas if the sidebar scrolled with the page. It now does just that. I was always averse to simply using frames for the sidebar because it would hinder each section feeling like its own separate world/experience, but this is a nice compromise between frames and my original way of handling the sidebar. I really should have done this to begin with.
I also added links to Fragment and Reflect, Geocities Gallery, Autism UK, and Porkbun over at
the Dock, and updated the descriptions for some of my Affiliates to better reflect the current state of their homesteads.
This update does not appear on my Neocities or RSS feeds because I don't like triggering the "cat signal" over relative "minutia".
16 May 2021
I added song analyses for "Flood II" and "Susanne" to the
Reptile House, and replaced the regular sidebar over at the
Town of ZZT with a funky custom one that better suits the page's design. A few other pages will probably eventually get their own custom sidebars because of how much the default one clashes with their designs, but no promises on when that will happen
15 May 2021
I decided to move Koshka's Kingdom to a custom domain name. From now on, you can get to this website by going to
https://koshka.love.
I have absolutely no plans to leave Neocities, so the old
https://koshka.neocities.org URL will also still continue to work.
12 May 2021
I updated
the Somnium and the
Words/Phrases That I Hate articles over at the
Library of Babel, and also renamed the General Griping subsection to "Comedy/General Griping" to better fit its contents.
02 May 2021
I added a new page to
the UFO,
Discovering My Autism as an Adult, describing my journey of self-discovery after learning that I was autistic.
01 May 2021
After spending far too much time listening to melancholic Sisters of Mercy songs, I had a vision of a more "subdued" yet still cute looking design for the Portal. I can't even keep track of how many times I've re-designed the front page, so no guarantees about how long this iteration will stick around.
I haven't been in a good enough state of mind to write much lately, but I'm hoping to have a new, much-belated page up on the UFO some time tomorrow. The last day of Autism Acceptance Month was yesterday, but better late than never!
27 April 2021
I return from my hiatus with a new article on the
UFO section -
The Operating System Metaphor. I also made a series of under-the-hood changes all around the website, and gave the
404 page a spiffier design. Macula deserved better than he had.
19 April 2021
Spurred on by the waning of Autism Acceptance Month, I decided to write up yet another new page for the UFO:
Debunking the "Autism Epidemic" Myth, which presents several compelling (in my opinion) reasons to believe that the so-called explosion in autism diagnoses over the past few decades is completely nonexistent.
18 April 2021
I added a number of new affiliates (followers) to the Portal and the Dock. That is all.
17 April 2021
I added another new page to the UFO about
the Double Empathy Problem, a fascinating theory about autistic and neurotypical interactions, and whether or not autistic differences can be considered deficiencies. Still slowly chipping away at the writer's block.
11 April 2021I added a new page to the UFO -
Life Through Autism-Tinted Glasses - detailing various everyday experiences and events and how they can feel to an autistic person.
10 April 2021
I replaced the buttons on the sidebar with ones that are hopefully easier to read. They look a bit off on a few sections, so I may later make custom buttons for a number of sections, similiar to what I did for the Mystery Mansion.
I haven't been updating much lately due to a perfect of storm of problems, starting with a foot injury that made it difficult to even sit for long and followed by a depressing rut that utterly sapped my mental energy and that I have not yet fully recovered from. I've been working on multiple new pages at once and constantly hitting a wall with each of them. Hopefully I will have something new up some time tomorrow or thereabouts.
04 April 2021
In celebration of Easter, I have put up
a Jazz Jackrabbit 1 shrine over on the
Mystery Mansion section. This is an interactible page that requires both JavaScript and a browser that allows auto-playing background music (so not Chromium or any of its derivatives) in order to get the full effect.
I know that at least one person is waiting for the Commander Keen 4 shrine (tentatively called The Shadowlands), and that will certainly be the next shrine I do, eventually.
02 April 2021
I added a new page to the UFO -
Autism Acceptance vs. Autism Awareness - detailing what autism acceptance entails, why I believe it to be a necessary cause, as well as why it's preferred by autistic people over the mainstream autism awareness.
01 April 2021
I was hoping to have the Autism Acceptance article up today, but lamentably that will have to wait until tomorrow. I have decided to change the UFO sidebar button to something a tad fancier for Autism Acceptance Month in order to draw more attention to it. Expect to see a lot of new content for that section over the course of the month. I also changed the Make the Web Great Again button to a typical one now that everyone has had time to see it, and added a note to the UFO section's main page. Dynamism!
29 March 2021
I finally got around to adding a custom RSS feed. If you would like to subscribe for updates, you can do so by clicking
here or by clicking on the RSS icon on the Portal.
28 March 2021I added a new article to the
Library of Babel that details my views on the presence of Kemetic (Ancient Egyptian) deities in the modern world:
Kemetic Deities in the Modern World, Part 1: Relations to Abrahamic Religions. There will be a second part eventually that will posit a completely different but no less intriguing theory about the roles and origins of Kemetic gods.
I also added Toppo and Dyspo buttons to the
Mount Paozu section to complement the Jiren button, added two new Affiliates to
the Dock, and updated the
World Map.
As some readers may know, March is almost over and as such, Autism
Awareness Acceptance month is almost upon us. I have a plethora of ideas for
the UFO so I'll probably dedicate a good amount of time over the next month to putting those together. I am also planning/hoping to have the Jazz Jackrabbit fan-shrine up on Easter Sunday (April 4).
27 March 2021
I updated the
Haunted House section with reviews to a number of sublime horror tales: Seventeen, Just Bought My Childhood House, Dad's Tapes, The Rodderson Experiments, The Lord of the Scarecrows, and Notes to the Girl Whose House I Live In.
25 March 2021
I am jubilated to announce that Koshka's Kingdom has officially reached 10,000 viewers! Beyond being a (relatively) impressive number, it means that I will henceforth show up in the search results when someone searches for one of the tags that my website has, which shall hopefully provide some much-needed further exposure.
The website has
come quite a long way since I first put it up in August 2020 and I'm both happy and grateful that it has gotten so much attention. It's been very fulfilling to have a space on the Web that I can completely customise to my heart's content (for better or for worse), and use as a space to educate other people on
subjects dear to my heart and hopefully amuse them in the process.
While the website already has a total of nearly 50 pages (counting the
404 page), I have oodles of additional plans for future content that will come to fruition sooner or later, so please keep checking back in the future. I appreciate every visit, every follower, as well as
everyone's feedback! Ɑ:
24 March 2021
I put up a comedic new article on the
Library of Babel:
Some Driver Behaviours I'm Sick of Encountering. If you liked the angry Babel rants from the early days of the website, this should be right up your alley especially! As of this writing, Koshka's Kingdom is less than 300 viewers short of the vaunted 10,000 mark, so the next update will probably/hopefully be the celebratory one.
22 March 2021
I made a few corrections and updates to the
Alternatives to Big Technology Platforms and Programs article and updated the World Map on the Portal and on
its own page.
Winter 2021
21 March 2021
The long-promised
Alternatives to Big Technology Platforms and Programs article is finally up at the
Library of Babel! The article was a little rushed because I've been in a bad place mentally lately, so please let me know if there's anything that you think I should add. I also added one more Affiliate to
the Portal and
The Dock.
20 March 2021
I made some much-needed updates to the
Haunted House - switching the rather odd tier system with a more understandable five star one, improving some of the writing, and adding some graphics of my own creation to decorate the review lists. The Haunted House, much like the older Babel rants, was a relic of this website's early days when I was just messing around with stuff while drunk and didn't think anyone would actually care to visit the website, and as such needed improvement. There's also a new review up for the tragic feelspasta My Student Submitted the Most Disturbing "Living History" Project I've Ever Seen.
The long-hyped Alternatives to Big Technology article will be up tomorrow. I actually wrote half of it already, but after being forced to attend an unexpected social event today, I am too drained, upset, and angry to work any further on it right now. Sorry. ):
18 March 2021
I added a few new Affiliates to
The Portal and
The Dock, and also added a button to the Portal for the Times Square
Neocities Neighbourhood that this website was recently added to. That is all. My free time has been occupied with Toppo's addition to Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 so I haven't gotten around to doing much else.
16 March 2021
The promised DOS/Windows 9x Game Shrines section (now called Mystery Mansion, after Windows 98 Plus!'s Mystery theme) finally has its own page and theme, instead of redirecting straight to the Castle of Doom. Currently, Doom is still the only game with a presence there, but I will eventually be adding shrines for Commander Keen and Jazz Jackrabbit at the very least.
...I haven't forgotten about the Alternatives to Big Technology article. I am continually delaying it because I'm worried I missed something vital. I wanted to put up an update to celebrate the site reaching a total of 7,777 viewers, and this is all I had time to put together. Apologies to anyone waiting for the aforementioned article.
UPDATE #2 (2031 EST): I just remembered that I haven't been keeping my Affiliates list on The Portal and The Dock up to date. Added my new followers to both. A cat's work is never done.
13 March 2021
I put up a brand new section -
Make the Web Great Again - a retrowave-themed outline of the principles and ways of the Web 1.0 era World Wide Web, as well as a call for returning to it and some ideas on how we can achieve this. As of now, there are no subsections (yet) but I have linked to a good number of Library of Babel rants on the subject. The promised Babel article about alternatives to big technology is my next priority and should be coming forthwith. But for now, enjoy the new section!
I will update the World Map to reflect the new section and the forthcoming new one of these days, hopefully soon.
12 March 2021
I added a new article to the Library of Babel -
Welcome to Neocities! Tips on Creating a Homestead. This has tips on the nuances of Neocities and on website design. It's intended primarily for new users but has tips that could be of benefit to people who have been around for a while as well. The next step is the promised Babel article about alternatives to big technology websites and platforms, followed by a new section that ties these and a few articles together...
09 March 2021
First of all, I want to announce that my dear long-time friend ShadowM00n has set up
a comfy little homestead here on Neocities. He's as much of a genuine old Web veteran as I am, knowledgeable in many things, and quite witty. His site already has two articles up as of this writing, so be sure to check it out. You can also find a link to his site on the Affiliates list on the Portal (for anyone wondering why I don't say "this page", I also put updates on
The Scratching Post for anyone who cannot stomach the pinkness of the front page).
Now, as alluded to on
my Neocities "social page", big things are afoot. As you may have noticed, the sidebar has finally received the large final update that I kept promising. There are five new sections coming eventually (the Castle of Doom is being demoted to a sub-section in a general DOS/Windows 9x fan-shrines section), one as soon as this week. There will be two critical Library of Babel rants that I will have to write as precursors to said section going up, so it'll depend on motivation. Stay tuned!!
07 March 2021
I did another major revamp to the Portal. This should be the last one for a while at least, as I can finally say that I am truly happy with how it looks. For anyone who liked the
World Map, you'll be happy to know that there's now a copy of it at the bottom of the Portal.
Beyond this, I also added reviews of two new excellent tales of woe to the
Haunted House section - Necrosleep and Meek. I also added a new link to an
excellent Commander Keen mod and fangame website to the Dock -
Quillax Ship. Enjoy!!
06 March 2021
Long time visitors may remember that I initially promised to create an Image Map for this website before abandoning it due to being bashful about my drawing abilities. Inspiration struck me yesterday however, and I finally went through with creating one! You can find it by clicking
here, or near the bottom of the Portal. Make sure you have JavaScript enabled or else it won't function!
I'm planning to make some large tweaks to the Portal one of these days, and perhaps the World Map will live on that page after all is said and done.
04 March 2021
Added a new page to the
Mount Paozu section:
Dragon Ball AF Super. A satirical page about Dragon Ball Super, in the vein of those ancient Dragon Ball AF sites from the 90s.
28 February 2021
I added a truly fascinating new page to the long-neglected
Observatory section -
The Time Machine. This is an equal parts pretty, informative, and terrifying look at how the universe is expected to evolve over the next trillions or trillions of trillions of years, based on current scientific knowledge. Highly recommended if you have any curiousity about astrophysics, astronomy, or cosmology.
25 February 2021
Here I am again, already. I put a new rant up at the
Library of Babel:
It's Past Time to Completely Boycott All Big Technology Companies. I'll probably follow up on that sooner or later with one detailing specific alternatives to all of said companies, but for now I had to get all this off of my chest.
21 February 2021
Made numerous changes spanning every single page on this site. For one, I rearranged the order of the websites in the sidebar. The already endangered old "Koshka's Kingdom" header has officially gone extinct. I finally created unique headers for the Observatory, Town of ZZT, and Haunted House in its place. I also updated the sidebar and buttons on every page that had old versions of them, cleaned up a bunch of under-the-hood CSS issues across the website, added links to my website to the various Mount Paozu subsections that previously lacked them, and modified a number of pages that didn't display properly at smaller resolutions.
The Library of Babel page now has a much better look to it as well. I sorted the rants into categories and made cute icons for each category, so now it's not just a lanky pile of links. Content-wise, I added some more entries to the
You Know You're Autistic If... page. Most of the changes in this update are things I kept promising to do once I decided what new sections I would be adding to the sidebar, but at this point I don't think that will happen in the near future. My main focus next is probably going to be in trying to get the website more exposure.
There is sufficient content, and cleaned up and consistent aesthetics on each page, but I am beginning to become quite disillusioned with how few hits the website still gets. Doesn't help that Neocities provides next to no information on site hits so I have no idea if the few visits the site does get are from spambots or people who visit one page and immediately leave. I've been trying to spread the word on
my Gab page, and I'll look into other avenues. Most certainly never going to touch mainstream social media with a ten foot pole. There are more dignified methods of selling my soul to the Devil.
20 February 2021
Still on the warpath. I added another new page to the
Mount Paozu section:
The Conflagration. A nice and torrid fan-shrine to Jiren the Grey from the Dragon Ball Super anime/manga. Enjoy!
19 February 2021
I'm on a rampage this week. I
finally created an actual design for the Mount Paozu section after getting fed up with seeing the bare bones page every time I made my rounds around the website to determine what ought to be done next. It's certainly not my best design but it's at least an improvement over the blank page full of construction gifs. The fact that its spot on the sidebar made it likely to be the first substantial section that new visitors would encounter wasn't doing much good for the site's reputation either. I plan to radically change up the utterly haphazard order of the websites on the sidebar whenever I finalise it anyhow.
I made a number of changes to the Dock as well: most notably, I created little "boardwalk advertisement" signs for all of the sub-sections and created a much fancier table of contents using them. I also moved the 'Koshka boat' to the bottom of the page and added a new standard-sized header image in its former place, and also repaired a few spots in the background image that weren't tiling properly. In spite of the name, I am trying to make the page feel like a boardwalk or a pier.
I'll likely get another Library of Babel rant out by the end of the weekend, and
maybe a new sub-section for Mount Paozu, before petering out again.
18 February 2021
I updated the
UFO section with a humourous new page that imagines how neurotypicals and their behaviours would perhaps be viewed in a world where autistics comprise the vast majority of the population:
Neurotypical Disorder.
I also made some tweaks to the design of the UFO section as a whole, namely improving how it displays for people with smaller monitors than my own, and preventing the background from scrolling with the rest of the page in order to give the impression that the "content" section is an actual airborne UFO. A befitting update for the day of the
Mars Rover Landing, I daresay.
15 February 2021
Surprise!! I mentioned in yesterday's update that I was planning on creating a new front page, and wound up following through much quicker than intended. Do not fret if you for some reason miss The Scratching Post - this page exists mostly to give this website a prettier face in the Neocities directory. You can still get all of the latest (and oldest) updates from
the old Scratching Post page, which will continue to be accessible from the sidebar forever.
Unlike the Post, the old Koshka's Kingdom header will be going away. I slapped it together quickly and haphazardly when I first started putting this website together and never really liked it. As part of this update, I have also finally given The Scratching Post its own unique header. The old "Koshka's Kingdom" header still haunts a number of pages but will eventually disappear once I've created an individual header for every single section.
Beyond the zombie header, the other two big issues that I hope to remedy soon are how abysmal the website looks at smaller resolutions, and the rather sloppy and inconsistent way the CSS is written across pages. These are all issues that stemmed from me re-learning CSS while creating the website, and never thinking very far ahead.
Seeing as Neocities does not like when I upload a lot of HTML files, and the website is comprised of 34 different pages (!) as of this writing, I will likely wait until I have a concrete plan on how many additional sections I will be adding before unleashing the massive site-wide update needed to remedy the aforementioned problems. Lamentably, as a result of this, the sidebar will for now, only accurately reflect the Portal supplanting the Scratching Post as the front page on the main page of each section.
14 February 2021
Yet another big Sunday update. I've added an
Autistic Pride page to the
UFO section, which celebrates the many positive aspects of autism in an attempt to balance out much of the negative coverage that it has received. I also added the definition for masking to the
Autistic Terminology page and fixed a goofy typo on the UFO section's main page. Finally, I added an amusing Dragon Ball-related dream to
the Somnium and added a link to
YouTuube's page to
the Dock.
For anyone who cares, I have begun work on one new main section for this website, but it is not likely to be up any time soon. This is both due to the planned scale of the section and the fact that it will require JavaScript to be functional, and I am still in the beginning stages of learning it. I will also add a spiffy "portal" to serve as the front page for the website because I am not delighted with this page representing the entire site in the Neocities directory listing. There are a number of other new sections that I may or may not also choose to create. Much more to come either way!
I'll close this update off by just wishing everyone a
Happy Valentine's Day! ❤
10 February 2021
Surprise weekly update! The
Castle of Doom section is finally up and running, finally making the sidebar complete!! I... did not actually know what I wanted to put there, so I eventually decided to make it a proper goofy Doom-themed Geocities parody page.
The sidebar may finally be complete, but this website's construction is very far from over. As mentioned in the last update, I am considering adding at least two more main sections, and many of the existing sections - notably the Library of Babel - will continue to expand and expand.
I also updated the Wildcat Den to reflect the fact that
I am now on Gab after a friend that read my previous rant convinced me that the website was worth it. I detest social media so I'm unsure that will last long, but it's nice to be able to anonymously (and safe from censorship) vent minor thoughts that don't require a Babel rant or a website section to be dedicated to them. I also added a link to them to the Dock and put up a new Neocities button that I created. I had previously been borrowing
lolwut's button for that and I am trying to minimise using other people's graphics unless I cannot create anything that could work in its place on my own. Finally, I made a correction in the Windows 98 rant after being informed that WINE was not an emulator.
07 February 2021
I added a new rant to the
Library of Babel page, -
"I'm Going back to Windows 98" about my disillusionment with the evolution of the Windows operating system and two-pronged computer-related plans for the future. I also, finally, added a header image to the Library of Babel, as well as a little book icon to the main Babel page.
The header will make its way to all of the sub-pages once I am ready to put up the grand update that cleans up the various minor HTML/CSS issues on each page and updates the buttons bar and sidebar on each page one last time. I currently have plans for at least two more main sections (and of course, quite a number of sub-sections) but we'll see how that all goes. I do not enjoy planning too far ahead with creative projects so as to not confine my future self, so I won't make any specific promises so as to not disappoint anyone if I fail to follow through.
A number of existing sections are in dire need of additional content, and the Doom section is of course not even up yet, so I will most likely remedy these issues before adding any additional sections.
02 February 2021
Very minor update. I grew weary of two sections of this website having the exact same design, and decided to replace this page's background with a vaguely scratching post-esque one, while decorating the Wildcat Den some more to give it a National/State Park cave feel. I wanted to create a whole new design for this page but eventually gave up because it just wouldn't come out right. One of these days, perhaps. Either that or I'll make a brand new portal/front page to serve as the entrance to the website. For now, at least the basic task has been accomplished.
UPDATE #2: I made some tweaks to the Per-Bast page and added a shiny Ankh decoration.
31 January 2021
I guess these giant weekend updates are just going to be a regular thing now. I added an assortment of interesting new things, including (finally)
a button for my website. Currently you'll only see it on the pages that I updated this time around, but it will eventually make its way to every page. I also updated the Neocities and Autistic Pride buttons to look cooler. Feel free to use my button if you want to link to my site!
More interestingly, the
Reptile House section, dedicated to the Sisters of Mercy band, is finally up. I also added a new rant to the
Library of Babel after a month's hiatus of anything new over there. Finally, I added a special new section to the top of
the Dock that is dedicated to all of my affiliate websites (followers.) Be sure to pay them a visit!
One of these days, I am hoping to make some changes to the website as a whole to make it look better for people with smaller monitors. I myself am using a 1600 x 1200 resolution, and am starting to realise that the site might not look too good to people with resolutions significantly smaller than that. Right now I am trying to decide whether I plan to add any more sections to the site (very likely but no promises) and any more buttons, because the sidebar and buttons bar have to be updated on every single page and Neocities doesn't like it when I try to update a ton of HTML files at once so I try to do it very sporadically.
24 January 2021
Another busy weekend. I put up a semi-humourous new page at the
UFO section -
You Know You're Autistic If..., and added an important new entry that I felt needed clarification to the bottom of the
Common Autism Myths page.
Likely of more interest to most people, I also
finally finished the glorious
KamiTube page - an imagining of what the mythical deity-exclusive website from Dragon Ball Super might actually look like, based on YouTube's design from around 15 years ago. Enjoy!
18 January 2021
That was a day well spent. I finally put the very funky-looking UFO (autism) section up. Right now there's just a bunch of basic information but I'll probably expand it as time goes on with additional information, anecdotes, humourous content, etc. I don't really plan things in advance so I don't want to make promises.
I also added another new link to the Dock but you can safely assume that this applies to every update.
16 January 2021
And I return. Apologies to anyone who checks this site for updates. I was distracted by other things and had no motivation to attend to this site until I remembered the rant from my last update today and realised that it was a terrible update to immediately follow up on with a hiatus.
I added a new sub-section to the Library of Babel page - the Somnium, which is a place I'll be keeping noteworthy dreams I've had over the decades. I was hesitant to put that on here because of how narcissistic the whole concept is, but I daresay that there's a few good story ideas in all that. I also added five excellent links to the Dock, per tradition.
In light of some recent sordid
world events, I want to take a moment to restate my appreciation for Neocities and the haven of Internet freedom that it provides. The tyrannical abuses of power that the world has recently witnessed from technology oligarchs should make everyone both angry and afraid, regardless of one's political affiliation. The famous
"first they came" poem is as relevant as ever today.
For anyone looking to flee the big technology plantation in search of freer pastures, I can recommend the various guides at
Dig Deeper here on Neocities and this article on
The Gateway Pundit (just please ignore their awful recommendation to use the dreaded
Brave browser) as some resources for where to start.
Wiby and (of course)
Neocities are portals for countless creative and informative Web 1.0 sites, and there are still a plethora of small independent web forums and IRC channels that are free from the censorship and spying of billionaire transnational corporations.
In spite of how much it may seem like a cold, censored corporate stripmall, much of the web is still a vibrant, free, and fun frontier where anyone can theoretically carve out a space for themselves and their passions. Let's keep it that way.
31 December 2020
I meant to update on Christmas but lost track of time due to video games and other affairs, and just barely got it done before New Years Eve
was over came around in a different time zone. Oops. I added a rather dark rant about suicide and the mainstream treatment of the subject - a morbid thing that nonetheless I feel needs to be expressed somewhere. On a more pleasant note, there's also a bunch of new creepypasta reviews over at the Haunted House and some new links to wonderful websites.
I hope everyone reading this has a pleasant night and a wonderful 2021! I won't bother saying anything about drinking responsibly because being hungover is the perfect way to start off a new year -- if you start off at the bottom, you can't go anywhere but up.
22 December 2020
I put up another overly long-winded rant to the Library of Babel, this time about how irritatingly loud the modern world is - a subject that grinds my gears every time I am forced to go outside. I also did some more tweaking to the Dock's design. More to come, soon!
Autumn 2020
17 December 2020
I added some more decoration to the Dock page, as well as a bit more meaningless information to the Wildcat Den page. I think I'm finally happy with how the Dock looks so the only additional changes that will be forthcoming there will be the neverending trickle of new links to groovy sites. Not much of an update, but I'll hopefully have a lot more time/energy to work on this site after this week is over.
13 December 2020 (again)
Added 8
more links to the Dock. I had to head out the door and I was frantically trying to finish updating my website before I did so, only to realise after leaving that I had a second list of sites to add in another text file somewhere. SCANDALOUS! That's probably it for today.
UPDATE #3: I just realised that a few of the sites on the Dock have web buttons so I put those on the page just to be fancy. Even made two buttons for two sites that did not have one. I also created a ship wheel to decorate the page with. I am beginning to realise just how sorely lacking in images this site is. Definitely done for the day.
13 December 2020
I cleaned up the Dock by splitting up a few of the categories, which have become quite overgrown, and then promptly undid my efforts by adding ten new links. Happy exploring! (:
11 December 2020
After some unfortunate real life events forced me into radio silence, I am back with the longest Library of Babel rant yet: a sort of sequel to the Normiefication rant that details my personal beliefs on web design. I'll probably update again before the weekend is over, even if just to add a number of new links to the Dock.
29 November 2020
Added images to the sidebar in place of the text links that were there before. For the first time in months, every page on this website should finally have an up to date sidebar. I am tempted to add some more sections in the future, but I might be able to find excuses to squeeze them inside existing sections to avoid having to update every single page yet again.
Speaking of which - I took a page out of
lolwut's metaphorical book and added a Guestbook to the Library of Babel section utilising HTML Comment Box. I wanted one here since day one but did not know that there was such an elegant and simple way to get one. You can find it by visiting that section or by clicking
here. A bit of an odd place to put it, but it fits the naming scheme so whatever.
26 November 2020
After spending quite a few hours procrastinating on cooking Thanksgiving dinner by working on the website, I finally managed to finish some important work. The Per-Bast section, about the Kemetic Goddess Bast, is finally complete. Additionally, the Dock/Links page finally has a design. I kinda wish I had spent longer working on the latter but I was tired and it's still quite a few steps up from the borderline unreadable 10 second design that it had previously. I also added a new category to the Dock to help keep things better organised and added yet a few more links.
For anyone that may care, I just finally figured out how to access the RSS feed for this website. If you want to get a notification when I update (and you don't have a Neocities account,) you can subscribe to
this feed. That's it for now. Happy Thanksgiving!
24 November 2020
Added a new rant to the Library of Babel page about something that I have been meaning to speak up about for quite some time now - the superiourity of written/typed communication over verbal/in-person communication. There are also half a dozen new creepypasta reviews over at the Haunted House, and a few new links over at the Dock. Finally, I just learned that Neocities allows for 404 pages and as such have added a basic one. You can view it by clicking
here or by simply attempting to navigate to any nonexistent page or file here. It's not much but I have been searching for an excuse to use that cute/creepy little Evil Eye from Doom somewhere, and am pleased that it now has a whole page to call home.
One of these days I'm going to either finish making a real design for the Dock or just replace it with something bare bones because it annoys me every time I have to go over there. I'm probably going to add more categories too because I have clearly underestimated how large that page was going to grow when I first made it.
I might update again before that's over with, but if I don't, Happy Thanksgiving to any American/Brazilian people reading this!!
21 November 2020
I put up a new rant on the Library of Babel page, and added yet two more links to the Dock page. Happy reading and/or exploring! (:
15 November 2020
I wasn't planning on doing two updates this weekend, but I had a sudden fit of inspiration/boredom and wound up creating something nice for the Mount Paozu (Dragon Ball) page -- a representation of what the "Spacebook" referenced in Team Four Star's DBZ Abridged might look like if it existed in Dragon Ball Super. It doesn't quite resemble facebook but I am very rusty when it comes to CSS so whatever. I also made it purple both because I don't like the colour blue, and because I figure that if a multiversal social media thing existed in DBS, it may likely be owned by Freeza or Beerus. I also added a new link on the Dock, per tradition. Enjoy!
14 November 2020I re-arranged the site layout a touch -- there is now an obligatory "About Me" page called Wildcat Den. This page (the news/updates page) is now called the Scratching Post (har har) instead. I guess this page will need a new design eventually. There's also a few new creepypasta reviews up on the Haunted House page, and two new links on the Dock.
Neocities doesn't seem to like it when I try to upload too many .html files at once, so I think I'm going to wait until every single page is up before making sure that the sidebar is up to date on every single page. I'm sure there's a fancy modern solution that allows one to avoid updating it manually on each page, but I am too stubbornly old school to use it even if I knew what it was. For now, just go to the front page or the Dock if you need an up-to-date sidebar, as those two get updated every time I update anything on here.
While I'm ranting, I want to give a big thank you to our friends at
Wiby - the definitive Web 1.0 search engine - for adding this website to their index. If you haven't checked their search engine out already, you really should.
08 November 2020
I finally put up the Haunted House page. Too late for Halloween, but just in time for the horrifying possibility of the most incompetent and corrupt worms that have ever ran for president successfully cheating their way into ruling the free world. Let us all pray that Ma'at will prevail and this coup will be rightfully put down before it can succeed.
Anyway, I decided to settle for creepypasta reviews for the Haunted House page. Before I created this website, I had a dream about a cool looking Halloween-themed Web 1.0 website, so I wanted to have something like that on here. Only 17 reviews up so far, but I'm lazy and have too many other things to do. I'll keep updating it as time goes on.
02 November 2020
In an uncharacteristic display of not being a complete slacker, I have put up the Town of ZZT page, and also added over a dozen additional links to the Dock. There should be something for everybody over there by now, but if there isn't, feel free to send me any links that you think belong there.
01 November 2020
OK, so I was too lazy to get the Haunted House section up in time for Halloween. I apologize and present
this trailer for STALKER 2 as an offering, in the hopes that it may fulfill any spookiness needs that anyone may have.
I did add a new rant to the Library of Babel (and updated the disclaimer,) as well as a good number of new links to the Dock page. I'm slowly remembering good sites that I've seen in the past and forgotten about. With the indexes of most search engines being flooded with crappy web 2.0 garbage, we appear to be in a recurrence of the pre-Google/Altavista era where the best way to find quality websites is through Links pages on other websites, and as such I want to make that page as robust as possible. Feel free to contact me if you have any links that you think I should add. Web 1.0-style pages are preferred.
22 October 2020
Put another (largely political) rant up in the Library of Babel, and added two more links to the Dock/links page. I'm going to make an effort to write the next one while sober and keep it free of politics. There's a lot of interesting stuff that I want to talk about, but right now I'm just getting stuff off my chest and trying to remember how to write again, I guess.
19 October 2020
Added another rant to the Library of Babel page. Also added a much-needed disclaimer to said page. Yay?
13 October 2020
Well,
that certainly took a lot longer than I anticipated. I sincerely apologise in case anyone has actually been checking this page and waiting for an update.
There's a new section up now,
the Library of Babel, which will serve as a place to hold my many rants about a variety of topics. So far there's only one up, but there is a fancy custom background that took way too much of my time to put together. I also made a number of new buttons for the bottom of each page, added a nice "favicon" of a pink Ankh, and added a number of new links to the links (Dock) page. That's it for now, I think. I am hoping to have the Haunted House page up by Halloween.
Summer 2020
24 August 2020
Added the astrophysics section (Observatory) with a nice guide on some theoretical stars and stellar remnants. It has a cooler looking theme than the rest of the site, but I am still debating on whether I want to use something like it for the rest of the site or not as it is not very Geocities-esque. More fun stuff to come as soon as I am able to put it together!
14 August 2020
Added a Dragon Ball section (Mount Paozu
Hat Hut) with an (hopefully) entertaining page dedicated to everybody's favourite Kaioshin. Also added a fancy(-ish) header. This site is slowly starting to come together! Also, also made the background darker for better readability at the suggestion of a friend and scaled it up a bit to my personal preference. It's now kind of pixelated, but also looks more like rocks. (:
09 August 2020
So it wound up taking a lot longer than I had hoped, but I finally got some basic work done on this website. I renovated this page with some nice graphics, all of which were made by me aside from the little animated construction worker gif on the top right (which came from an "Under Construction" gif compendium from the original Geocities) and added a fairly robust Links page. Still not much to see here, but at least anybody who visits can at least be directed towards places with actual content. No solid plans on what comes next. I have a number of projects that I am either working on here and there or considering working on. Notably I have a few Dragon Ball fanfictions and other stuff planned out, and a pretty good ZZT game from years ago that I still haven't finished.
04 August 2020
Finally got around to putting something (however meager) together on here. Not much so far besides the barest backbone of a front page but it's a start. I made and put some buttons on the bottom of the page too. I want to eventually cut out the sidebar and replace it with a nice image map but I haven't done much pixel art in the past however many years so I don't feel confident trying to do that yet. Perhaps if I'm not too sleepy after work I'll at least decorate or flesh out this sad little page a bit.