new year – News on Shuffle

2022: The Year That Wasn’t

Hi fam! You may have noticed I dropped off the face of the internet this year. I did a big New Years post and then poof nothing till May. I remember that being a very good month. I wrote regularly, streamed every time I planned to, and generally felt like things were getting back on track. But then I got sick and never came back. Part of it was burnout. Being in pain every other day (on average) takes its toll. My focus became using my time not spent at work to relax, catch up on tv, and wait until I got better. If I knew that would mean taking the rest of the year off, I truly don’t know what I would have done. But you can’t change the past, so there’s no point in dwelling on it.

I started this by writing a script for a YouTube video, but, real talk, I don’t think I can talk about this year without being on the verge of tears. This year took a lot out of me. I’m trying to focus on the good, but I had so many plans for this year and did none of them. For one, this will be the first year I don’t meet my reading challenge since I started doing them. I didn’t even come close. I also started my favorite game on stream but I’m still in Act 1 and have no idea when I’m going back to it. According to my twitch recap, I streamed a total of 8 times for the entire year. I knew it wouldn’t be great, but that was worse than any of my expectations.

So what about next year? Honestly, I can’t worry about that now. I’m currently living one day at a time. I’m making plans for 2024 because I honestly don’t know what next year holds, but I feel fairly confident that I will have either fixed my problems or found coping mechanisms for them by then. I hope to take a second crack at that reading challenge and get back to sharing my joy with you on Twitch. I hope to finally put together some long held plans for the YouTube channel. But now, in this moment, I can’t even begin to think about that.

I’m sorry this entry was kind of a downer. I knew I didn’t have a lot of good to recap, but I didn’t want to not acknowledge where I’ve been either. Consider this my “I’m still alive” post.

That’s all for now. Don’t forget to hydrate, take your meds, enjoy some yummy foods, and take care of yourself. I appreciate everyone who has given me the patience and support I needed while I deal with everything. Here’s to 2023 going a little easier on us.

New Year, New Chaos!

Happy new year, everyone!

It’s that time where we set goals for ourselves that we may or may not reach. This year I have a few new things I’m excited about here at Camp Chaos. The biggest thing is my reading challenge. Every year I slowly have increased my reading goals, and I’m finally making an attempt at 100 books in a year. I plan on documenting this on the YouTubes, although I may also share some notes here on the blog.

“What counts as a ‘book’?” you might ask.

For the purposes of this, I am counting pretty much anything I can mark on Goodreads. That means books, graphic novels, and single issue comics are all fair game. In the past I did not count single issues, but I’m realizing how many hours I collectively spend reading them, and it’s keeping me from reading more long form content. First up has been Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin, a book that has been sitting on my shelf since I ordered it when it first came out. I’m about 60% of the way done with it as of the time I’m recording this. It’s been a good read but dense at times, so I have been going at a slower pace than I originally anticipated. I’ll catch back up on my goal the first day I sit for an hour or two catching up on comics, though.

In addition to my reading challenge, I also have some new and exciting things coming to the Twitch channel. The first thing is the introduction of Storyteller Saturday, which will be premiering this Saturday at 2pm ET. I have a bunch of visual novels and other story heavy games I’d like to share with you over the course of the year. First up is First Bite, a very thirsty game revolving around three vampires whose lair we discover. (I say that, but there are routes you can take that are not overtly sexual, which I like to see more games giving that as an option.)

The other big goal I have this year is I want to collaborate with more of my twitch friends. This will include discussion type streams where we talk about some of our favorite topics, as well as some multiplayer shenanigans. First of these streams will be later in the month, when I dive into some Dragon Age Inquisition multiplayer with a group of friends I will announce at a later date.

I’m trying a lot of new things this year that I’m rally excited about. Some of them might not last the whole year, others might. You never know what you’re capable of until you try though, right?

What are some of your goals for the new year? Have any collaborative streams you’d like to see? Visual novels you’d like me to tackle? Let me know in the comments.

Goodbye 2020

(cw: topics include unemployment and COVID; there’s a positive message at the end though, if you can stick it out)

Well, we’ve finally come to the end of the year that didn’t exist. It would be easy to say it was awful and we’re glad it’s over, but 2020 was a life changer for me.

In March of this year we hit Depression level unemployment rates as the country shutdown to try to keep COVID rates down. I, being in the entertainment industry, was one of those people (and probably won’t go back to work until spring or summer of this year after the vaccine is more wildly distributed). With an unknown amount of free time ahead of me, I did what I always do…. found a new project to keep myself occupied.

It started by resurrecting my YouTube channel. It had previously been a place to showcase live music videos, but had been collecting dust for 5 years. I figured I would find things to talk about amongst my many hobbies. Eventually I settled on doing recaps of the d&d games my boyfriend would run for myself and some friends via Facebook Messenger. Over time it would also include react videos to certain moments on Critical Role and shouting about Dragon Age.

While I was slowly building my YouTube empire, I had also been watching a friend stream on Twitch. We’d talk about how I should stream too, and after a couple months I finally got myself a headset and had my first stream: playing Civ 5 for what I assume was one or two people. I never imagined it would become my whole life for the rest of the year.

I have now been streaming for 6 months, made affiliate after 3 months, and have more of a community than I ever imagined I would. I found some great streamers who helped me get where I am (and will list some of them at the end of this post so you can go check them out). Beyond that, I made lasting friendships with random people on the internet who, in some ways, I’m closer with than my IRL friends now. What was meant to be a way to fill time and maybe make a few dollars while out of work turned into an important part of my life that I plan on keeping even when things “go back to normal”. I even got to participate in Stream Around the World for Dragon Age Day this year, and became part of the DA streaming community. So, as much as I understand wishing this year never existed, I can’t help but be grateful that it did. I hope you can also find a little joy in this darkest of years, and that we all have a much better go of it in 2021.

There are too many great, supportive people I have met on this journey, but these folks helped me the most to make affiliate: wordfangirl (and the humans at Jabroni TV), Cafe 3G, SmexyBuu & the Gaming Fool crew; special shoutout to NerdiNik, who is one of the first DA streamers I ever followed and introduced me to a great community of humans.

The Blog Is Dead, Long Live The Blog

Last year was pretty dead for this blog (looking back my last post was in March, which is way too long to let something sit here and take up space, in my opinion). If anyone is still out there patiently waiting for new content here, I’m sorry to keep you waiting for so long. There were a lot of distractions to keep me occupied in my personal life. Two major factors were my move from Brooklyn to Long Island, and my only having the time to see the one band that has recently taken over a large part of my life. My writing wasn’t the only area that suffered because of it. I also majorly stopped with my photography pursuits. Fear not though, for my new year’s resolutions for 2014 are as follows:

1) Get this blog back on its feet and start posting content regularly again.
2) Dust off my camera and start taking pictures of anything and everything that crosses my path.

As I mentioned before, there was one band in particular that took over a large part of my life in the past year. That band is a LI ska band called “The Pandemics“. The guy I’ve been seeing for about a year and a half now is their bari sax player. This past year was very good to them, and they got a lot of great opportunities to play with some amazing acts. While I was pleased for them, their schedule combined with my work schedule left me with less ambition to run around taking pictures and writing about everything. I pretty much got in a routine of go to work, go home, occasionally see boyfriend’s band play. It was fine for a time, but it left me looking back on the year and wanting to push myself more in the future. I’m going to do my best to put myself out there and introduce you all to some great new things. Having said that, I’m also probably going to talk about The Pandemics a lot, simply because I have easy access to them and they are a large part of my life. Luckily for you, they’re not just some dumb band that I am close to. They actually are pretty good, and I think you will enjoy what I have to share with you. I promise to mix stuff up though and not just turn this into a lovefest for some guy and his stupid band.

Thank you for being patient with me as I work towards making this space more active again. I already have a couple of posts planned, first of which is going to be about the trip I took to Philly this past weekend. That should be out later this week, pending the status of the annoying plague-thing that has made residence in my chest. Until next time, happy new year and stay warm, kids!

Best of 2010

Instead of doing a list of my top albums for this year, I thought I would just mention some notable releases. I will say that my favorite album this year, without a doubt, was Jukebox the Ghost. April Smith and Kids of 88 probably come second and third respectively. (But then I look at Arcade Fire and feel like maybe they should be third instead). See, this is why I don’t do “top” lists. It gets tricky. As for the rest, I just really enjoyed them but couldn’t possibly rank them in any order. Josh Ritter was especially good for helping me get through quite a few papers and exams. A few I’ll admit I didn’t get a chance to hear in their entirety, but I heard enough to feel comfortable mentioning anyway.

Albums:
Jan 12 – Contra by Vampire Weekend
– Of the Blue Colour of the Sky – OK Go
Feb 23 – Songs for a Sinking Ship by April Smith and the Great Picture Show
March 2 – Smoke & Mirrors by Lifehouse
March 9 – The Monitor by Titus Andronicus
March 16 – Habits by Neon Trees
March 30 – Evelyn Evelyn by Evelyn Evelyn
April 13 – Congratulations by MGMT
Virtues by Amber Pacific
April 27 – Love It To Life by Jesse Malin
May 4 – So Runs the World Away by Josh Ritter
June 15 – American Slang by The Gaslight Anthem
June 29 – We’ve All Been There by Alex Band
Aug 2 – The Suburbs by Arcade Fire
Aug 3 – Hear Me Now by Secondhand Serenade
Aug 16 – Sugarpills by Kids of 88
Sept 4 – Everything Under the Sun by Jukebox the Ghost
Sept 14 – Hurley by Weezer
A Thousand Suns by Linkin Park
Sept 21 – Hands All Over by Maroon 5
Sept 28 – Lonely Avenue by Ben Folds & Nick Hornby
Oct 19 – Come Around Sundown by Kings of Leon
Words, Words, Words by Bo Burnham (comedian)
Nov 22 – Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys by My Chemical Romance
Dec 7 – Wonders of the Younger by Plain White T’s

Top Concerts:
Did a quick count and I have seen Jukebox the Ghost almost every month this year. That is really impressive (not only for me, but for them coming to NYC that often). Of course, being my favorite band, they are on my top concerts list, but I would hate to have to pick which time was the best (secret show at Pianos? cd release? opening for BNL?) so I’m just going to say for the bajillionth time that this band is AMAZING live and you should go check them out and experience their awesome for yourself.

Moving right along…

Other contenders this year include:
Alex Band Aug 6th @ Highline
Josh Ritter Aug 8th on Governor’s Island
Yula and the eXtended Family Sept 2nd @ Highline
Titus Andronicus & Free Energy Sept 25th @ Webster Hall
the first annual Tinderbox Festival Sept 26th @ Southpaw
The World/Inferno Friendship Society’s Hallowmas Oct 31st

That last one especially was a night to remember. The band went almost the entire year without playing, so it felt almost like a family reunion being there. The day was filled with great music, plus I met loads of new and awesome people that I still talk to thanks to the magic of the inter-webs. Also have to say CMJ this year was especially good. It was a crazy week that completely wore me out, but it was oh so very worth it. Also worth it was going to see Ben Folds Dec 14th at Beacon Theater despite just getting over being sick. He and Josh Groban rank in my list of people who are too talented for words. Speaking of which, I also saw Josh Groban do a short set at the Apple store in Soho. That should go on the list too. See, there were just way too many great shows to list them all. It’s just one of the many reasons I love New York so much.

Well, that about wraps up another year in music here. Did I skip over any of your favorite albums? See any shows that I was unable to attend? Feel free to add your 2 cents in the comments section below.

This year in music – 2009

There is no denying it, 2009 has been a great year for music. A semi-complete list can be found on WIkipedia (linked above; if you love them as much as I do then please donate to them today. Knowledge is priceless). Here is a sample of their list plus a few of my own additions from bands most people don’t know exist.

Green Day
AC/DC
Switchfoot
Sunset Rubdown
Bon Jovi
Dredg
The Killers
John Mayer
Alice in Chains
Phoenix
Snow Patrol – greatest hits
Dave Matthews
Pearl Jam
Reliant K
311
Fooling April
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Bell X1
The Fray
Muse
Pete Yorn
Franz Ferdinand
Bruce Springsteen
Lily Allen
Ben Folds
Thursday
U2
Handsome Furs
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Death Cab for Cutie
Manchester Orchestra
Depeche Mode
Taking Back Sunday
The Airborme Toxic Event
Black-Eyed Peas
Wilco
Nightmare of You
Modest Mouse
Third Eye Blind
Artic Monkeys
Smile Empty Soul
Paramore
Tegan & Sara

All had albums come out this year. Some I have heard and fallen in love with. Others are just artists I have liked in the past but unfortunately didn’t get a chance to listen to their complete new albums yet. The really noteworthy ones for me have been reviewed on this blog at one point or another (most likely close to when the album first came out, since these would be the ones I anticipated the most). I especially want to highlight Green Day, Muse, and Switchfoot, which have been the top three albums on my playlist for most of this year. Also a special shout out to that band you probably only heard about here: Fooling April. Since this is the obscure album on my list I will put special focus on it and the band now. This band has been slowly gaining popularity over in their home area (Philadelphia) for a few years now. Their new album “Three” was released over the summer and became part of my soundtrack during that time (right alongside Green Day’s “21st Century Breakdown”). They have been one of my favorite bands since I discovered their existence 2 years ago. Here is a small sample from their latest album plus an interview done before the album came out:

I highly recommend checking them out if you haven’t already. They definitely have potential to be something special.

In music news there were a few surprises this year too. We saw a reemergence of Blink 182 and No Doubt, both of which had huge tours over the summer. We also saw Nine Inch Nails, Fall Out Boy, and Foo Fighters go on hiatus. We saw Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga take hold of the year, and bid a sad farewell to the King of Pop: Michael Jackson. It certainly was an eventful year in the music world. Here are some video highlights to leave with:

January:
Franz Ferdinand – Can’t Stop Feeling (from Tonight:Franz Ferdinand)