nostalgia

June 15, 2020 memory · 6 years later

Ascendance of a Bookworm, a slower isekai I was lukewarm on

A book-loving woman is reborn into a world that barely has any books, so she sets out to make her own. A neat premise. I watched both seasons but never fully fell for it.

May 15, 2020 memory · 6 years later

Laid-Back Camp, the most relaxing show I've ever watched

A comfort anime about a few girls camping in the Japanese countryside. I watched it during the early pandemic while learning Japanese, and it made me want to go camp out there myself someday.

#anime #nostalgia #japan

April 15, 2019 memory · 7 years later

The Promised Neverland, the show that almost lost me in two episodes

An anime I nearly quit over the violence, then couldn't stop watching. A little girl named Conny, a mother who isn't what she seems, and a theme song that haunts the whole thing.

March 15, 2019 memory · 7 years later

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, a fun one

A regular guy gets stabbed, wakes up as a slime in a fantasy world, and slowly builds a whole monster nation. Easygoing isekai comfort food. I enjoyed it.

February 15, 2019 memory · 7 years later

The Rising of the Shield Hero, and Raphtalia's arc

A guy summoned into a game-like world as the useless Shield Hero, the companion whose growth is the real story, and an old-school leveling grind I loved. I just ran out of time before the later seasons.

April 15, 2018 memory · 8 years later

ReLIFE, a second shot at high school done right

A 27-year-old takes a pill that makes him look like a teenager again and relives a year of high school. Not quite time travel, but close enough for me, and the ending sticks the landing.

April 15, 2017 memory · 9 years later

Anohana, the one that makes everyone cry

A group of childhood friends who drifted apart get pulled back together by the ghost of the girl they lost. I liked it a lot. It earns its reputation as a good cry.

September 15, 2016 memory · 10 years later

Orange, a letter from your future self

A high schooler gets a letter from her twenty-six-year-old self asking her to save a classmate. Quietly devastating, and very much in the same emotional lane as Erased.

June 15, 2016 memory · 10 years later

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the one with the world building

I caught up on Brotherhood years after it finished airing, another show I found on my own. The world building and Edward's arc are the best parts. The middle gets darker than I'd like.

March 25, 2016 memory · 10 years later

Erased, probably my favorite anime of all time

A man with an involuntary power that drags him back in time gets sent eighteen years into his own childhood to stop a series of murders. Time travel done right, a killer I genuinely didn't see coming, and one trope I wish it hadn't leaned on.

December 15, 2015 memory · 11 years later

Steins;Gate, the time travel show everyone's right about

A mad-scientist sci-fi about a hacked microwave that texts the past, an old IBM clone, and one guy trying to save his friend across timelines. It earns its spot on everyone's top 10.

September 2, 2014 memory · 12 years later

The Sims 4, and why I always come back

I skipped The Sims 3 entirely, and then The Sims 4 hooked me all over again in 2014: a new engine, color customization, the build-and-budget loop I never get tired of, and a running grudge about the basements they took away.

September 15, 2012 memory · 14 years later

Sword Art Online, the best first season that then ruins itself

A show about people trapped inside an MMO, where dying in the game means dying for real. The opening arc hooked me like an old WoW raid. Then it swapped the whole world out for fairies.

May 23, 2010 memory · 16 years later

LOST, and never being able to catch up

The island, the numbers, the hatch, and a six-season mystery I started watching live and then had to chase for years, finishing the whole thing only after it had already ended. The characters I loved, the one I couldn't stand, and why the not-knowing was the whole point.

#tv #nostalgia

November 15, 2009 memory · 17 years later

Death Note, a chess match with a god complex

My second anime, again on Craig's recommendation. A brilliant cat-and-mouse first half, a second half that basically restarts the whole premise, and a main character who thinks he's the smartest man alive while being one of the dumbest.

October 15, 2009 memory · 17 years later

Spirited Away, the one a friend talked me into

A girl wanders into a spirit world, her parents get turned into pigs, and she has to work in a bathhouse to win them back. The Miyazaki film I keep coming back to, plus the two others I've actually liked.

September 1, 2009 memory · 17 years later

Cowboy Bebop, the first anime I ever finished

I was never an anime person until a friend from World of Warcraft talked me into one, and the first I watched start to finish was Cowboy Bebop. The best music in the medium, a redheaded hacker kid I loved, and a dish of bell peppers and beef with no beef.

March 10, 2008 memory · 18 years later

Battlestar Galactica, and the algebra teacher who got me into it

How a strict, very pregnant college algebra teacher who would not stop talking about her favorite show turned me into a lifelong Battlestar Galactica nerd. The characters I loved, the twists that floored me, and the ending that still gets me.

#tv #school #nostalgia

September 14, 2004 memory · 22 years later

The Sims 2, and the family lines I tried to keep alive

The Sims came back in 2004 with a brand new engine, real aging, and genetics, and it caught me right in the middle of high school. Generations, basements, aliens, and aspirations I could never stop chasing.

June 29, 2003 memory · 23 years later

Extended Break

In 2003 I downloaded a free game called Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and fell in with a clan called Extended Break. I stayed for years, ended up a general, helped run the place, and captained the team while we climbed the ladder. Here is who we were.

#games #friends #web #nostalgia

December 17, 2002 memory · 24 years later

The Sims Online, and how I ended up helping rebuild it

My first real online world. Making pizzas by typing, locking skills at 20.99, a clothing store named after a restaurant I never ate at, and a strange full circle twenty years later when I got to write code for the open-source revival.

#games #friends #computers #nostalgia

June 1, 2002 memory · 24 years later

My last store-bought computer: the VPR Matrix 2020

Best Buy's house-brand Pentium 4 desktop was the second computer I ever bought, and the last pre-built one. After this, I built my own.

#computers #nostalgia

November 18, 2000 memory · 26 years later

Age of Empires II, and my first LAN party

Two computers, an ethernet hub, and my friend Mike. Long all-night campaigns, giant walled cities, and the first time I ever wired two machines together to play a game. It happened to be the best strategy game ever made.

August 23, 2000 memory · 26 years later

Survivor, my jam until work took my Thursday nights

Survivor was appointment television for me from the very first season in 2000. Sue's snakes-and-rats speech, Rupert's tie-dye, Johnny Fairplay's worst lie, and the bakery shifts that eventually pulled me away from it. Plus the season won by a kid from my own town.

#tv #nostalgia

February 4, 2000 memory · 26 years later

The Sims, and the little lives I kept building

I was a simulation kid before The Sims ever showed up, but the original in 2000 swallowed me whole. A pack-by-pack trip through the game that carried me from sixth grade into high school, and that I have never really put down since.

October 20, 1999 memory · 27 years later

MSN Gaming Zone, and how I became Trihedralguy

My first taste of playing games with strangers over the internet, back in the dial-up days. It is also where a random username generator handed me the name I would carry for years: Trihedralguy.

September 15, 1999 memory · 27 years later

The Game of Life, the free game from a cereal box

We did not have money for games, so a free one mattered. The Hasbro Game of Life came on a real CD inside a cereal box, I still have it, and I loved its art enough that I eventually took the whole thing apart to see how it worked.

August 15, 1999 memory · 27 years later

The first computer I bought with my own money

Our family had a Packard Bell, but the eMachines 333cs was the first computer that was truly mine, monitor and all.

#computers #nostalgia

May 15, 1997 memory · 29 years later

My year in the third grade

A fill-in-the-blank memory book I made at Marvin Elementary in 1997, my last year before we moved. Eight-year-old me had opinions.

#life #school #nostalgia

November 15, 1996 memory · 30 years later

The first time I saw the internet

A CRT glowing on a narrow cabinet at the end of my uncle's hallway, my dad watching, and the first dial-up screech I ever heard. Then the long dial-up childhood that followed: AOL to Prodigy to MSN, four messengers at once, and a local number out in Harvester.

#computers #nostalgia

October 1, 1995 memory · 31 years later

Todd's autobiography, second grade

An extremely short autobiography I wrote in second grade, complete with a self-grading sheet on which I gave myself rave reviews.

#life #school #nostalgia

May 31, 1995 memory · 31 years later

My first-grade portfolio, 1994 to 1995

The earliest school photos I have: a black panther, the first day in a yellow shirt, and a year of learning my ABCs. With a note from my mom at the end.

#life #school #nostalgia

December 1, 1992 memory · 34 years later

A paper silhouette, December 1992

The oldest thing I still have of my own: a preschool profile silhouette, made when I was four. Old boxes turn up the strangest little time capsules.

#life #nostalgia