YouTube 'Shuffleall' playlist, a history of my musical tastes 2006-2015

I'm not much of a historian but I do like two types of history: macro-history, the really big stuff and the story of me... fine I'll type it... me-story. The Me-Story of Eoghan Fallon, I'll write that after the Zodiac Trilogy and the Necut Chronicles. Maybe after I write a thesis on Babylonian bureaucracy or Neo-Heartland Theory and drown in all the political science.

Anyway, YouTube. And years. Time? 2015 is a good number. 2014 is OK, 2013 not so much. 2012 had a nice symmetry to it while 2011 was an unexpected delight. 2010 was pretty damn good all the way through and 2009 was definitely the start of something. My college years and now encapsulated in rambling text about a few numbers.

YouTube! I've been on it since 2006. I watched a few things before they were famous. Little Kuriboh, I followed his stuff up until the Noah arc. He quoted one of my comments in one of his extra videos - simpler times! I used YouTube to listen to music. I remember listening to Fire by Arthur Brown over and over again in 2007. I was entranced by the Ultimate Showdown (of Ultimate Destiny) in 2006. Using Google Videos (heh) and YouTube I managed to catch up on Red vs. Blue from 2008. Zero Punctuation - I hated it at first but then I grew to like the man behind the videos. YouTube!

It's interesting to look at my shuffle playlist and get a sense of time passing. It seems to start before 2009 with a host of wrestling theme songs, probably added for nostalgia's sake. That's certainly why I listen to them now, seeing as I only properly watched wrestling from 2002 to 2004. I was 10 when I started and 12 when it went off Sky on Saturdays!

Obligatory Linkin Park 'In the End' and Lady Gaga 'Paparazzi' aside further down we get into 2009 hits that I probably heard while out in 2010, like Florence + the Machine Lungs stuff and classic sexy stuff like 'Strutter' by Kiss. 'You've Got The Love', 'Howl' and 'Hurricane Drunk' are all there from Florence. I really liked the GTA San Andreas soundtrack so a lot of the K Rose and K DST stuff is there. Plenty of stuff from the heady 2010-2011 days before I left for Finland.

Not much was added in Finland 2011-2012 but some Irish nostalgia crap starts to come in like B*witched creeps in along with a ton of girl (-bands), prominently Girls Aloud (my Scottish room mates influence) and the rise of Katy Perry. I first watched The Wire in the snow of February-March in 2012 in Finland so all the seasons themes are present. Strong sprinklings of Kylie Minogue (all manifestations) are throughout the list, though more appear around this time.

Really new stuff that I might have seen in adverts and such start to appear, certainly Adele with Skyfall and Lykke Li in the camera ads bring along 2013. Carlae Rae Jepsen rubs shoulders with the likes of Bowie and ELO. Nicki Minaj and that catchy Radioactive song. 2013 was kind of steamy in a different way so Florence + The Machine appears again as we were back in the clubs and bars for a time.

Bond themes and nostalgia seem to pick up again in 2014 given the decline in my mood and supposed fortunes.A few Romanian classics and current stuff were picked up from my trip there in the summer - Delia A lu' Mamaia was playing EVERYWHERE in June 2014 in Romania, from the Carpathians to the Black Sea Coast. A big pile of oldies and Fleetwood Mac appear toward the last quarter of the playlist, probably just to include them in the shuffle. Woo! I was also writing my thesis/finishing the MA/not enjoying summer much/dying inside at this time, so probably good to cling to what's good.

Lorde and Taylor Swift seem to mark the post-thesis era, the long unemployment time. I was an Extra in Game of Thrones around here, so more Paul Simon and wrestling stuff appear for my Belfast trips. The winter of 2014 and early 2015 are when I watched and re-watched Reeling in the Years so a big pile of music from 1970's (John Denver) 1980's (Phil Collins) through to 1995 (Republica, though I first binged on them when I was leaving Finland in 2012) and so much 2000's junk appears. Coldplay good, others so-so and guilty pleasures like Avril Lavigne and t.A.T.u..Definitely a more upbeat collection as I sought to rebuild myself by travelling through time with music until I reached the present - then I stopped listening because oh gods current stuff.

We're doing better, getting better! I know how it feels to be in opposition in a parliament, almost 5 years on the sidelines, definitely making an effort to get back in control of my life recently (April onward).

The Enemy Within

I've had a bit of wine in the last hour or two so pardon this post.

Game went really well, Cathy and Royce were superb despite all the constraints like time and energy.

I would like to run this game for newbies in future, perhaps in the near future at Kelly's or FanSci.

The Galway Vindicator

This was the name of a newspaper in Galway that had a limited run around the early 1900's, it was a liberal nationalist paper. In my microfilm readings I never looked at it because it didn't stretch as far as my research (1918-1919) so I just noted how many reels NUIG had.

I was the Galway Walker for 6 years until I realised I don't walk nearly as much as I did when I was 16. I switched to being the Galway Gamer until I remembered that I certainly am not the definitive one, being a self-hating Irishman with no money and lots of responsibility. So now I am named after a long dead newspaper, but I like it for now!

Game Genres I like and some thoughts on modern video games

I owned an original Game Boy in the 1990's, the old block used to belong to my older siblings. I played Mario and Wario on it. I got a Nintendo 64, my first console, for Christmas one year with Goldeneye 64. Mario Kart 64, Ocarina of Time and Lylat Wars would all follow. I never owned Mario 64 though I played it quite extensively on two friends' consoles. I played Age of Empires 1 and later 2 as well as Sims on PC around the same time. Pokemon came out the year I got a Game Boy Color for Christmas so all was all. One day my Dad walked in with a SNES he got at work and an assortment of games.

I have played a lot of games. I have also owned a lot of different platforms and still have all of them. My foundations may be in Nintendo but after 2006-7 I never forgave them and switched to my Xbox and later the 360 came out and made it all the sweeter. I loved the N64 and the GameCube but having been spoiled by them I couldn't face the Wii and its focus on kiddy and casual games. Around this time I also started playing the PS2 extensively and had played the PS1 on and off for a few years prior and my favourites were Final Fantasy, Silent Hill and all the wacky Japanese titles that came on the market for that platform. I wanted to keep growing up with my consoles and the gimmicky motion controls and appeal to family and newcomers coming from the Wii served to alienate me anyway.

So genres; first person and third person shooters are fine by me; I'm not a huge fan of 3D platformers but I love 2D ones; I love real time and turn based strategies, particularly 4X games; I dislike browser games, probably because one sucked away months my life on two different occasions; I don't really like mobile games or tablet games in general, I have no interest in them; my last handheld was a Game Boy Advance and the last game I bought for it was Pokémon Sapphire - if I really want to play these I'll get an emulator; racing games are OK; I'm not a big fan of fighting games though I have a soft spot for Tekken, Mortal Kombat and Soul Calibur; I love RPGs of all kinds, especially those open world ones currently on the market like Fallout and Elder Scrolls.

I never really got the console wars, they never got to me either - Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all the same. They have their ups and their downs; the Wii U seems to be undergoing a Renaissance of sorts while the other two seem to have hit a ceiling of frames per seconds. They look amazing, but I'm not ready to switch from the 360 to the Xbone just yet, seeing as they are still making games for the former. I was slightly intrigued by the PS4 exclusives but never having played MGS properly I don't really care, while all my old franchises seem to be just releasing more and more of the same: Halo, Gears and Assassins Creed are either finished in my mind or stuck in a rut.

The PC has long been a staple for me. I'm no elitist, all I played on them for over a decade was Age of Empires 1,2,3 and Age of Wonders, an old TBS favourite of mine. I played all the original Sims and its expansions as well as the Sims 2; once you play the latter its very hard to go back to #1. It's only in recent years (2009 onward) that I've owned the entire Fallout series, Borderlands 1, Dragon Age Origins and a number of other titles. In very recent history I've sold my soul and bank card to Steam and have bought a dozen titles. I have friends IRL on Steam who have over a hundred games but I'm not sure how many of them bar one of two have actually played all of them. I really like the idea of buying a desktop in another year or two and basing myself entirely off that, even if its only to play 15 year old turn based strategies in glorious HD.

I'm not sure what I think about the current YouTube Let's Plays and 'personalities' among other things; I like some LPs on games that catch my eye and I want to see them played but I would rarely or never watch one about a game I own unless there was some sort of hook to it or something amusing happened at some point in the video. I am not that surprised that there are people on the internet playing games for other people to watch and they make their living this was, especially if it's Twitch TV and people will throw money at you.

Ramble over, will post again.

Necut as a wiki entry - copied from the wikia

The fourth planet of the Plerojam System in the Galactic South-West. It is a terrestrial planet but it surrounded by a dense magical cloud which gives it a brown-hue. It is slightly larger than Earth and part of the 'genetic code' of the planet is thought to be inspired by Earth as well.

Etymology

Composition and structure

Orbit and rotation

Habitability

Cultural and historical viewpoint

Chronology

Moons, Asteroids and artificial satellites

Etymology

Necut was the name of the planet according to the original inhabitants and their rulers, a race of demigod-avians. Upon the arrival of the Six Gods they destroyed the original world and remade it to their liking, utilising various scripts including Earth's to create their ideal base. Sealed in by the Allies, they re-iterated the name of the planet to their followers and what remained of the original inhabitants.

When the Elven Expeditionary Force set out for the planet-field they dubbed it Yondera II, with Yondera being used for millenia afterward.

Composition and structure

Owing to the presence of the mana field, Necut is a perfect spheroid, not suffering from the effects of gravitational pull naturally yet the planet itself obeys the laws of gravity by the Gods' and the Allies' intervention. This was done to aid intervention should the mana field fall and the Six Gods attempt to rule the galaxy once again.

Like other terrestrial planets Necut is divided into a crust, mantle and core. It is thought to have a unique if unremarkable composition, somewhere between how the planet formed naturally and after being destroyed and rebuilt.

The Earth God Mozeth took care to manufacture the internal processes of the planet properly and tectonic plates are utilised in his system. The greatest zone of separation is in the Emerald Ocean while the Teranese Ocean is extremely volcanic.

Necut is quite rich in water (65%), not quite so much as Earth (70%) and is certainly drier. The mana field created unstable weather formations at the highest altitudes resulting in Allied and later Six God manipulation, cutting short the Ice Ages.

Orbit and rotation

Rotation of Necut relative to the Plerojam Sun is thought to be roughly 18 to 24 hours.

It takes about 360 to 370 days for Necut to orbit the Sun.

Necut was more severely tilted axially prior to re-construction but the Six Gods returned it to a near-perfect axis, resulting in only one month of polar night/day being observed in the North and South Poles a year.

Habitability

Necut supported life without intervention, while a number of animal and plant species were lost forever in the process of reconstruction, yet more were lost attempting to adjust to the addition of the Six Gods' respective servant races.

While still one of only two sites in the system that can support life, it has diminished considerably in comparison to Zutrillia, so much so that only the Gods' intervention and Elven invasion restored some of the balance. The lasting legacy of the planet's mismanagement are the numerous semi-barren plains situated across the planet.

Necut is relatively stable in the Western Hemisphere, while the Eastern Hemisphere is affected largely by monsoon-style rains, hurricanes, tornadoes and volcanic eruptions. The Western Hemisphere landmasses tend to suffer a number of earthquakes in the interior where various plates meet.

In the modern era there are only a small number of states though hundreds existed in earlier periods. There are many nationalities but few states and fewer nation-states. Necut has never been ruled by one world government, though the Council of Necut was established after the Great Elven War to avoid forming one by bloodshed.

Cultural and historical viewpoint

While originally some millions of years old, Necut is now technically 6000 years old if dated from the Six Gods being imprisoned there. Only the last 2900 years are recorded in Myrnan history, with the previous 3000 years roughly recorded between the Six Elder Races (6000) and the Elves (4500 years).

Possession of the meta-knowledge of the planet's existence was deliberately kept from the Elder Races and the Myrnans, while the Elven Expedition lost much of its archives after a period of barbarism. Knowledge of the planes was slowly mapped out, with the biggest advances in the earliest period when the Gods were still active and competing with each other and after the rise of the mage-gene.

Chronology

The formation of Necut was not mapped by the Federation or the Empire, or any other power in the region. It is presumed to have followed a similar course to Earth though more research into the original Necut would be required to confirm this.

An Ice Age was brought on by extreme weather from the mana field, which resulted in Allied assistance being rendered. There have been no other incidents similar to that since. The Air Goddess Ailzor froze a large portion of the Eastern Hemisphere roughly 5500 years ago, causing huge disruption while bizarrely reviving some of the original avian inhabitants of the planet. It was ended soon after after the other Gods attacked.

Ailzor's defeat and the end of her Ice Age resulted in a general warming of the planet for the next 5000 years, with temperatures set to rise - this is not relative to the heat of Plerojam's sun, which is older than that of the Solar System and has risen hugely. It is believed the mana field protects Necut from the sun's rays, while Zutrillia and the Earth Federation must consider countering global warming and the Elven Empire endure cooling.

Moons asteroids and artificial satellites

Necut has one large moon and roughly three or four smaller moons. These smaller satellites are probably more accurately described as asteroids, though they do have a small influence in certain periods of the year.

Federation probes noted on the last visit that all was well but Elven probes between 4500 and 1500 noted the presence of an artificial satellite thought to have originated from the planet itself, which was a partial reason for their expedition.

Stopped Ogame... again

This game takes up way too much time that I don't have. I'm due to start my TEFL course online very soon and in addition to potty-training Theo this week I can't continue doing raids and supervising mining and such. I put my account on vacation mode, so that maybe in a few weeks I can go back and play again.

At night I play some games on Steam or if I'm at home for the weekend I'm almost finished LA Noire on the 360, fun interactive story game.

Internet History

2006 - joined YouTube, Bebo

2007 - joined Facebook, first blog (livejournal) played Xbox Live Gold

2008 - started Ogame; more Xbox Live; this blog was started!

2009 - got a laptop, suddenly fast internet

2010 - introduced to internet memes, Twitter,

2011 - Skype sessions from Finland to Ireland, reading Foreign Policy

2012 - read more Foreign Policy until it stopped being easy, downloading and streaming intensifies

2013 - extensive use for BA/MA research, instrumental music for study

2014 - MA research, videos for Theo, music and Steam

2015 - started Ogame again, 4chong/implyingvidya; Steam Lan and renewed Twitter