Okay, so “coracle” is the word Jim has been using for his small boat, which I didn’t think was worth mentioning but I forgot it was in a chapter title. I guess it’s an actual type of water craft, but if you do an image search you’ll see pictures of boats that are way better-constructed than whatever Jim is in.

Anyway, when he wakes up the next morning, he finds he hasn’t capsized and drowned, which is always a positive. He also instinctively knows he’s on the southwest side of the island; I guess maybe you could reason this based on the position of the sun and the tallest mountain, so I’ll let it slide.

He considers making for land, but the portion of island nearest to him contains sharp rocks against a cliff face, upon which sit “huge slimy monsters—soft snails, as it were, of incredible bigness”. Which he tells he learned later were, uh, actually sea lions; and like, I get not knowing what a sea lion is in that day and age, but really… giant snails??? A giant slug I could understand. Did we just not have a word for “slug” at this time, and we called them “soft snails” instead? Does England have snails but not slugs? I dunno man, I can’t explain this shit.

Jim figures he’ll continue north towards a more advantageous landing spot, even though attempting to maneuver the “coracle” is still risky as all hell. Skipping ahead a page or two of furtive paddling, he eventually rounds an outcropping to see the Hispaniola dead ahead of him, turning this way and that, angling itself dead to the wind on multiple occasions. He reckons nobody is steering the thing, and wonders if the pirates abandoned ship. Either that, or they could be passed out drunk below deck; regardless, he starts to get the notion that maybe he might take over the ship…

I’m cutting out a lot of “Jim does some paddling” bits because that’s really most of the chapter. I actually respect how Stevenson manages to keep this part half-interesting despite how little action is happening. Anyway, Jim closes in on the ship, and then… well, I’m pretty sure what happens is the coracle crests a wave at the same time the Hispaniola does, so he’s as high as he can possibly be while the bow of the ship is pointed downward as it descends. It’s really the only conceivable way to explain how he jumps out of his boat to grab hold of the bowsprit—that pointy bit that sticks out the front of the ship. So now he’s officially on the Hispaniola; which is just as well, because the coracle is smashed to bits against the ship’s hull.

Upon nightfall, Jim sets forth on his mission, only to find that his bucket-boat is damn near impossible to paddle, and most of its motion involves spinning around in circles. Fortunately for him, the tide is able to do most of the work by carrying him out to the Hispaniola; although this is something he might have considered the implications of before continuing onward. I’ll give you a couple paragraphs to see if you can figure out what the problem is.

Before long, he’s brought practically right to the ship’s anchor line, which he grabs onto and prepares to cut… at which point his near-fatal case of stupidity lets up just long enough for him to think, oh, severing this thick-ass rope that’s straining against the weight of the ship might be hazardous to my health. He holds off for a few minutes, but he catches a lucky break again as the breeze blows the ship enough to slacken the line, and he begins to slice.

The rope is made of several strands, and he doesn’t get them all his first go. As he waits for his next opportunity, he takes a moment to pay attention to his surroundings for the first time. In the ship’s cabin, he hears two voices drunk and arguing, which he recognizes as belonging to the cannon gunner and a red-hatted pirate who survived that morning’s assault. He also hears the tune of a somber pirate shanty coming from the shore—as far as we can the tell, the first lamentation of the losses they suffered that morning.

When he gets his next chance, Jim makes his final cuts and frees the ship, sending it spinning in the current. His own boat is pressed against the hull as it turns, and unable to push himself free, he maneuvers himself toward the stern. He writes that he’s able to clear the ship, and as he does a loose rope happens into his hands; acting purely on impulse, he decides to climb. He ascends high enough to just peek into the cabin window, and finds that the reason the pirates haven’t reacted to the ship floating free yet is because the gunner and the red-cap are entangled in a grapple, trying to kill one another. Though interesting, it doesn’t really tells us anything; and Jim descends back down into his boat, which is somehow in the same place in the water despite him specifying earlier that he’d gotten free of the hull. This is all very silly, but I guess we had to pad out the chapter because “Jim cuts the rope” wasn’t long enough.

All right, so did you identify the issue that I mentioned in the first paragraph? Here’s the answer: Jim’s plan was to cut the ship loose and let it drift to shore; but the tide carried him from the shore out to the ship. The Hispaniola was never likely to actually make landfall; and, indeed, the current kicks in and starts pulling both craft out to sea. The dramatic change in course is enough to alert the pirates, who stop fighting—I told you this bit was pointless—to try and regain control. Meanwhile Jim, helpless to fight the current and at the mercy of the waves, decides to do the only sensible thing he can do: fall asleep.

I guess I should take back how glib I was at the end of the last chapter about the losses sustained by our protagonists, though I still maintain the book was needlessly vague on details. Trelawney’s other retainer, who we were told was hit by a rifle stock, eventually dies from his wounds. As we hadn’t been informed of its nature, I had wrongly assumed that he’d been struck in the head, given that he was knocked unconscious. Thinking about it again, I freely admit that this could have been a killing blow. However, we now learn that he’d actually been hit in the chest, then fell over and fractured his skull. I would have just gone with the simpler, more plausible explanation for the death of this largely-insignificant character, but what do I know about writing.

We also learn the extent of Smollett’s injuries. The captain was shot twice, once in the upper chest near the shoulder and once in the leg. Not severe enough to be life-threatening—because goodness knows we can’t lose any of our important characters—but bad enough that he’s likely to be out of action for the rest of the book.

Once the wounded are tended to as best as able, Doctor Livesey departs the cabin alone to go meet with Ben Gunn as Jim had promised. However, the day grows hot, and Jim soon begins to resent Livesey for going out into the cool shade of the trees while he’s stuck in this baking cabin that’s still full of dead bodies that nobody seems to be doing anything with. Remember too that Livesey has essentially left this boy here in the care of a dandy and a sailor who was, until recently, contemplating piracy. I sure hope Livesey never becomes a father.

Jim purloins some biscuits and pistols and sneaks out while the others aren’t looking. He’s not wandering the island aimlessly; his plan is to head to the southeast corner by the bay and see if he can find Ben Gunn’s boat. Did Ben say he had a boat? Hell if I know, I can only ever understand maybe a third of what that guy is saying.

After giving us some more detailed imagery of the island and its surroundings that is difficult to summarize, he eventually does find the boat. It’s… well, it’s basically little more than a large bucket, homemade of wood scraps and goatskins, probably not even large enough to accomodate a full-grown man. Practically a deathtrap, really.

So of course Jim gets the idea to take it out on the water. Because he’s come up with a new plan.

He believes that, following the pirates’ heavy losses during the battle this morning, they’re probably demoralized enough to raise the Hispaniola’s anchor and get the hell off of this island. I will point out that he does reach this conclusion this after watching most of the pirates take a rowboat from the ship back to shore, laughing merrily as they go; so how he manages to interpret this as “they’re going to flee”, I have no goddamn idea. I’m beginning to think Jim isn’t all that bright.

But he has it in his head that they’re going to take the ship and bugger off. And since the ship is undermanned at the moment, he thinks it would be a terribly clever idea if he waited until nightfall, then rowed out into the bay and cut the Hispaniola from its anchor, thus letting the ship drift ashore.

I have to be honest: I’m not seeing how this would be helpful to anybody. I suppose preventing the pirates from leaving, somehow incapacitating them all, and then unbeaching the grounded ship with a total of four able-bodied men and a teenager—assuming no more casualties, anyway—is a marginally better plan then letting the pirates take the ship and stranding you on the island, but I wouldn’t exactly consider this a “calculated risk”. But this is what we’re doing now, so, all right, whatever, let’s just see how the next chapter goes.

I don’t talk about movies very often. Film is a medium I have largely abandoned in my adulthood, mostly because it has never catered to me. The late ’00s really leaned heavily into a gritty aesthetic I did not handle well, featuring violence so visceral, gory, and random that these scenes still float into my mind and make me ill, long after the rest of the movie has been forgotten. Following that, it’s basically been nothing but superhero franchises and biopics for the last fifteen years, neither of which I can scrounge up any sort of interest for whatsoever. For reference, the last movie I saw in theaters was Everything Everywhere All At Once in 2022; and I’m pretty sure the most recently-released movie I’d seen was 2023’s Barbie.

(So long as we’re not counting Hallmark-style Christmas movies, anyway, which I do tend to enjoy—partly because it’s fun to point out all the flaws and poor writing and partly because I don’t have to worry about watching somebody’s brains get splattered all over the wall)

But last night, we rented Project Hail Mary since we’d both heard it was supposed to be good. At a runtime of 2 hours and 36 minutes, another reason why I don’t go to the movie theater very often occurred to me: after you factor in 30 minutes of trailers at the beginning, we have to be able to commit at least three hours to being at the theater. That’s not “pop out for something to do” time, that’s “commit half the day to this activity” time.

Well of course I’m going to wait until I can watch it at home then, because I can pause the movie when I need to use the bathroom, and I can refill my drink while I’m at it, too. Y’all made movies too long to make going out to see them convenient, and now you’re trying to pull me back into the theater by asking me to buy a limited edition popcorn bucket tie-in, a product that is so useless and wasteful that I’m legitimately more mad about its continued existence than I am about having to look up parental guides on IMDB despite not being a parent. It feels like literally everything about the film industry is designed to be anti-Skep.

Anyway Project Hail Mary was pretty mid.

I’ve been sitting on this one for a little bit now, but I’m finally ready to plug Subvert. If you’re the kind of person who thinks “wouldn’t it be nice if it was Bandcamp Friday every day?” then this might be for you.

The idea is that Subvert is an artist-owned co-op where 100% of sales goes to the musicians and labels. The platform itself survives on listener tips and optional membership fees. It’s something of an experiment, but the intentions seem good and I think it’s worth supporting something like this. Its biggest challenge at the moment is just visibility; it can’t work if people don’t find it and use it.

For me, though, this is the kick in the pants I need to stop relying on streaming services all the time. Next step: mp3 player like the old days. Discovery is a bit limited, so if you need a place to start, my profile has some of the albums I’ve featured on the home page recently.

This is probably only because the chorus for both songs follow a similar format and cadence, but I personally like to think that Dasha’s Austin and Train’s 50 Ways to Say Goodbye are two very different reactions to the same wild misunderstanding.

Just a quick shout-out today, I wanted to highlight Cult Classifications on YouTube, a channel that plays and discusses video games of past eras that weren’t exactly what you’d call “smash hits”. These are games that might be easy to make fun of, but the creator takes an open-minded approach and actually praises the ideas that work… or at least those that may have worked under better circumstances. It’s good, honest, long-form gaming content if you’re into that sort of thing, and the channel itself is astonishingly small—just shy of 10k subscribers at the moment. The latest video about Dark Void is as good a place to start as any.

Man, this was a weird couple of months.

Taria & Como

I finished this, and overall, I liked it! That said, I got a lot of my compliments out in last quarter’s report, so it’s time to talk about a flaw I noticed on multiple occasions: the game likes to set up ideas that it doesn’t actually use.

For example, there is a character who tells Taria that his wheelchair was taken from him. Although he asks her not to risk doing so, Taria says she will retrieve it. Later, you find the wheelchair, but you can’t do anything with it. I think the implication is that you’ll come back and pick it up later (which is odd in and of itself); but the next time you talk to this character, Taria tells him she found it and she’ll go get it this time, only for him to again urge her not to, because the main story is off in a different direction now.

This kind of thing actually impacts gameplay, too; Taria has a prosthetic leg, and a lot of emphasis is placed on the fact that the one she prefers gets replaced with an inferior model early in the story. For the first half of the game, she can jump, but at such a low height that it’s entirely useless in 100% of situations. So when she is later reunited with her good prosthetic and thus regains the ability to jump, this should feel empowering. Except it doesn’t, because this isn’t an action platformer where jumping is an essential tool in your kit; it’s a puzzle platformer where the movement is centered on grappling and planning your swings. This “upgrade” doesn’t actually amount to any significant gameplay changes; an occasional convenience to shave a few seconds off of traversal time, but nothing more. Which then makes me ask: why are we dedicating the B button to jumping then, which does so little, and making our most important action button the Up direction on the D-Pad? I think this is what made the controls feel so clunky, and playing actually would have felt smoother if they’d just dropped the ability to jump entirely.

Still, these are nitpicks. This was overall a good game for the Playdate and I wouldn’t say no to a series.

UNBEATABLE

Not even four months into the year this won the recipient of my 2026 “Biggest Disappointment” award. Except to call this game disappointing is underselling it.

Okay. I hate ragging on passion projects from small studios. Usually I don’t have to, because often it’s more that the end result isn’t to my taste, or the recipe just didn’t turn out. But like… this game seems intentionally antagonistic at times, or completely tone-deaf at others (sorry for the pun) (I didn’t actually specify, but this is a rhythm game, that’s why “tone-deaf” is a pun).

Before the game starts, it takes some time to ask for your input on your familiarity with rhythm games and how you like to play them. I don’t know if this actually has any effect, but it gives the impression that the game wants you to have a comfortable experience. “We’re just here to have a good time,” it implies.

And then it spends upwards of an hour not being a rhythm game. You start off playing a band member, running around backstage, talking to people, getting a sense for your character. You finally take the stage, ready for some sick-ass rhythm-based gameplay to perform for the cheering crowd… except the game instead flashes forward, and you do more walking around and talking for a while. The voice acting is really good, but conversations are handled poorly. The introduction teaches you that you can interact with a character multiple times to get new dialogue until the game doesn’t let you interact anymore; but later on when you’ve come to expect this behavior, the game instead repeats the same line over and over. Or there’s times where one character interrupts another, but the character who was originally talking still keeps performing their whole line, so both lines overlap and you can’t understand either of them? Recording the entire voice line means this was an intentional decision! Not one person thought this was a bad idea???

When you do hit the first rhythm setpiece, it’s, uh. It’s very good. I mean it, it’s a heck of a lot of fun; you’re fighting shit and swatting bullets away during a high-speed chase and it’s great.

Then it’s over, and it’s back to running around, talking, story stuff. This should be fine! It should be very hard to make me not care about the story stuff, that’s what I live for! But the problem is those big, fun action setpieces are exceptions to the standard gameplay. The standard gameplay involves lengthy fight sequences which barely feel like rhythm gameplay because the music for these encounters is just so lacking. There’s no punch! The beat of the music should emphasize the hits I dish out, but it’s so flat! Meanwhile, the on-screen indicators are poorly designed; your notes can come oppositely from the top and the bottom of the screen at the same time, making it’s difficult to intuit the timing. Sometimes the noteboard jumps from one side of the screen to the other, too; there were multiple occasions where I missed a string of notes just because I was so focused on one area of the screen that I didn’t notice they were now coming from somewhere else.

There was one of these fights I wasn’t mentally prepared for—I think I’d just started the game up for the night—and I failed it. Instead of letting me try again, the encounter just ended. My companions told me “well, you suck” (not a joke), and the story carried on. I’m sorry, you’re just going to rip me out of the game so you can insult me for being a little sloppy? Fuck off.

Agents of Groove

Holy shit, I swear to god I can actually play rhythm games. I used to play Guitar Hero on expert; I loved Hi-Fi Rush. But I couldn’t even clear the goddamn tutorial of this game. No wonder I got so thrown off this quarter.

Wanderstop

I remember Wanderstop being billed as a sort of “cozy game that’s a commentary on cozy games, by the guy who made The Stanley Parable”. I’m not sure where I got this impression, but I don’t think that’s ultimately what it was (I mean, it was directed by the guy who did The Stanley Parable, that’s not the part I’m taking issue with).

For one, I’m having trouble calling this a “cozy game”. It definitely is—it’s calm and slow-paced and full of whimsical vibes and everything—but it almost feels like there’s not enough to do? For a game whose entire messsage is “Hey, maybe it’s okay to take a break and do something relaxing once in a while”, it seems really eager to push you through the story. Like, yeah, I guess I could fill up all these empty plant pots around the house, but the NPCs are going to hover around me until I talk to them, and then when I do their thing the game is going to transition and wipe my plant-potting progress anyway. So, I dunno what to think.

I still really liked it though! As promised, it was a nice way to unwind, and I found it quite fun to role-play the protagonist as somebody who was very reluctant to do so. As expected given the game’s creator, the humor is excellent; there’s even a series of in-game short stories that are basically “Krunch MacKenzie meets Die Hard”, so of course I ate that up. And your companion Boro is just, he’s absolutely the best, I love him, we should all aim to be the Boro in someone else’s life, the world would be a better place.

Mixtape

Holy shit, this might be one of my favorite games of all time. I remember thinking I might make an “urgent report” post, which I’ve never done before, to laud this game for how great it is. And then… I didn’t actually finish it.

I, uh, kinda started playing Civilization VII, thinking I’d play them both at the same time. And then I didn’t. And then I wanted to go back to Mixtape, except now I’ve built it up in my head as this transcendent masterpiece that I can only play under “perfect” conditions, whatever the hell that means. So now I’m still not playing and finishing this game that I have, to this point, absolutely cherished. There might actually be something seriously wrong with me, folks.

Civilization VII

I guess I spoiled this in the previous section, but I played Civ VII. This is notable because, until now, my entire experience with the Civilization series was Civilization Revolution on the Xbox 360, and half a game of Civ V. I’m not exactly sure why I chose to pick it up now; I was aware this entry wasn’t particularly well-received on launch, due in large part to the new mechanic where civilizations are locked to certain ages, so you’re forced to switch during age transitions. However, the developer had just released the “Test of Time” update which allowed a civilization to persist across ages again, and reviewers were starting to say the game was kind of good now, and I guess I thought it would scratch an itch or something, I don’t know, I said the past few months were weird.

Anyway, I’m having fun with it? It probably helps that I don’t have much history with this game, so I’m not comparing it to the other entries in the series like everyone else is. I agree with the general sentiment that the UI isn’t very good—in particular, there’s a lot that isn’t explained very well, or is just confusing—but I’m getting sucked into it regardless. My first attempt, I played as Confucius and started with the Han, which I kept for the entirety of the game; not because I was averse to switching civilizations, but because none of the options ever felt in line with the way I was playing (I saw the tutorial mention at one point that it’s rarely too late to switch your playstyle, but I dunno if I trust that advice). I was shooting for a science victory, but ended up winning a cultural victory by accident, possibly because I was just building wonders every chance I got so the AI couldn’t build them. I think this was how every game of Civilization Revolution went for me, too, come to think of it.

I took a few weeks off, but I just started another game with Amina as my leader; my initial civilization was the Aksumite, and I switched to the Songhai in the Exploration Age. This time, I’ve been focused on the economy and building trade routes, and MAN I am just raking in the gold. I’m tossing gold at all sorts of dumb shit just because I can. Why in the world did I ever think focusing science was a good idea? With enough money, you can BUY science. Hell, you can buy damn near everything. My GDP is twice what everyone else’s is. I might have to play as America after the next age transition, not necessarily because it’ll be a good fit mechanics-wise, but just because I feel so goddamn American right now.

Guild Wars 2

“Oh, dang, they put out a teaser trailer for Guild Wars 3. Maybe now’s the time I get off my ass and finally get caught up with Guild Wars 2.”

I signed in, bought all the expansions I didn’t already own, played a week, and then stopped, just like every other time I told myself I’d get caught up with Guild Wars 2 in the past seven years.

Final Fantasy

So if I had little experience with the Civilization series before jumping into Civ VII, I had even less experience with Final Fantasy. I got through maybe two-thirds of FFX back in the day, and gave up on FFVII Remake after maybe 3 hours, tops. I’ve been sort of interested in trying out other games in the series, but if you’d have asked me a month ago, I would have told you that I’d never in a million years play the first entry. My impression was that is was grindy and annoying and had next to no story, and I have a very low tolerance for turn-based RPGs as it is. How in the hell did I get here?

I blame Miela, who posted about the Pixel Remaster version about a month ago. I don’t recall what my thought process was after that; all I know is that I’m now inexplicably halfway through the first Final Fantasy. Anyway, it is annoying and has next to no story, but for some reason I actually don’t mind it. Maybe I’m just in the mood for something relatively mindless. So far it hasn’t even been all that grindy; the remaster edition has options to boost the amount of experience and/or gold you earn from battles to help avoid the grind, but I haven’t really had to do this at all, nor have I turned off random encounters for convenience aside from maybe once. It hasn’t been as punishing as I expected, either, which I certainly appreciate. Because I’m a madman, I bought the bundle that included the first six titles, as if I honestly think I’m going to go through them all someday. I know myself well enough to say this is a fool’s belief. But on the other hand… I am playing Final Fantasy I, so I guess anything can happen.

“Hey Skep, what about Expedition 33???” Well, I’ll have you know that I played it! For… three hours across two sessions about three weeks apart. Look forward to my review in the year 2107.

So, I’m finally doing this thing that’s going around. It’s a bunch of questions created by MOUSELING.net, designed to give you a glimpse at the inner workings of Skep’s Place. I promise you don’t actually want this, but what’s done is done.

1. Please introduce yourself.

I’m Brad Pitt, famous Hollywood actor. AKA Skep.

2. How long have you been making websites?

Technically, since circa 2002! It was a single .html file that wasn’t hosted online, didn’t use styling, and probably had a grand total of 15 words. I tried to get into Wordpress blogging around 2009, but never went far with it. I didn’t achieve international acclaim until I started Skep’s Place in 2023.

3. And what got you into the hobby?

I witnessed the money and power that blogging could bring and I decided I wanted a slice of the pie. Also, I guess two other things kind of happened in tandem: I stopped browsing Reddit after their API debacle and needed something new to do, and I wanted a place to host my Classic Lit work.

4. What kind of website are you most interested in?

I like websites that have something to say. I like them more when what they say is both long and entirely trivial.

5. What's your workflow? Do you plan your websites out thoroughly or do you come up with the design as you go along?

Design and layout first, content second. The content is usually just words. You can add words at any time so long as you’ve made a nice place for them to go.

6. Please link to your biggest inspirations.

If there was a single, defining inspiration for this site, it would probably be The Sneeze, a blog that primarily existed in the mid-2000s and has occupied some part of my brain since. I would start with either Steve Don’t Eat It! or None Pizza with Left Beef.

7. What's your favourite part about making websites?

I get to do and write all sorts of dumb, goofy shit and nobody can stop me.

8. And the thing you struggle with the most?

If I don’t post new content every 27 minutes, I feel as though I am personally letting the world down.

9. Do you keep the same layout on all of your pages? Or do you use different ones?

Generally, my site pages are pretty consistent. The home page is where I like to go really wild.

10. How confident are you with CSS?

I like to think I’m getting pretty good at it, but then I have to use the position property and my wife comes home to find me curled up on the floor in distress.

11. Do you know how to correctly use <dl>?

Well enough that I’m not entirely sure it should be used to format these questions like this. At least not from a semantic standpoint. Gray zone at best.

12. What is your favourite HTML element?

HTML molybdenum. Ha ha, I actually don’t know. <hr /> maybe?

13. If you're making a new web page from scratch, what is the first thing you do?

Copy the code I wrote for something else so that I don’t have to make it from scratch.

14. Do you know JavaScript?

Just enough to be dangerous! I actually didn’t think I’d use it when I started out, but through bits and pieces here and there I’m starting to get somewhat comfortable with it.

15. How about PHP?

I could probably get around in the city well enough but I’ll definitely need to find someone who speaks English.

16. Does your website have a theme that you stick to?

Hubris?

17. Are you more focused on content or design?

The website exists to host content and little else, but I’ve put far too much time into creating and tweaking the design to say it’s not something I actively focus on.

18. Do you own a domain name? If not, would you ever want to?

You could say I own skep.place, but seeing as I pay for it yearly it feels more like I’m renting it than anything.

19. What do you think of nostalgia-focused or "retro" websites?

I gotta be honest, I can’t figure out why so many people want their website to look like Windows 98.

20. Is your HTML valid? Do you even check?

Urk. I, uh. I should probably do that.

21. What are your opinion on buttons and banners?

They can add personality to a page (and trying to capture that personality on such a small canvas size is a fun challenge), but they can also make the page look visually cluttered. For that reason, I don’t use banners at all; I don’t use buttons often, either, except on my RSS Site where they help break up the monotony of otherwise samey-looking list entries.

22. What do you think of button walls in particular?

A well-crafted button wall can be very satisfying to look at. I don’t click button walls though, and I don’t keep one myself, largely because I don’t need the anxiety of deciding who should be on it (and who shouldn’t).

23. If you started over again, would you make something similar or completely different?

I might go in a different direction with the style; I don’t have any alternate ideas in mind, but I doubt it would be too out-of-character. Content-wise I imagine it would be similar. Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve got going.

24. Are you envious of other people's websites?

Skep’s Place is the coolest site on the internet, I don’t know what there is to be envious about.

25. What text editor do you use?

I’d love to have a go-to text editor, but none of them ever swipe right on me :(

26. Why do you use that one?

Ugh, fine. I largely use Phoenix Code for my web content, although I mostly liked it for its live preview, which is irrelevant now that I’ve converted to Eleventy. Otherwise it’s got a few nice conveniences that almost make up for how often it manages to piss me off. I might look for alternatives. I sometimes use Notepad++, too, but I’ve never gelled with it and would not miss it.

27. Do you host your image files on your web server, or on another host?

I’d really love to avoid using an image hosting service ever again, if possible.

28. This might not be relevant to you, but what's your opinion on the Neocities vs. Nekoweb debate?

Nekoweb is… a thing that exists! I’m plenty happy with Neocities so I’ve never looked into what Nekoweb is like. I think “Nekoweb” is a worse name, so there’s that?

29. How much server space would you estimate your main website takes up?

Estimate? I mean, I could go look it up right now. It’d be easy. But, best guess, just a couple megabytes, and that’s only for the images I throw into posts from time to time. Most of the site is just text, so it’s pretty lightweight.

30. Do you keep local backups of your files?

I do everything locally and then upload the changes. Actually it’s backed up on cloud storage, too, but that’s mostly so that I can work on it across different devices.

31. Do you prefer simple or highly visual websites?

I lean toward simple, though I do like when a touch of personality has been applied. Make your site stand out from the others, even if it’s just a little bit!

32. Do you stick to certain colours? Do you do that on purpose, or is it your subconscious?

Because I’ve worked a few sites now I’m going to say not really, but I do use that golden-yellow as sort of my personal motif. It’s my favorite—it’s bold and fun and goes with just about everything.

33. Have you ever thought about quitting? Why?

I’ve kind of thought about it in the long-term, in the sense that I’m not sure the kind of writing I do will be half as charming coming from an old geezer, so maybe I’ll have to pack it in someday. I’m going to keep going for now though.

34. Do you have many webmaster friends, or is it a solitary hobby?

I’ve made some friends doing this, but the actual topic of webmastery doesn’t tend to come up too often from my experience. So the hobby itself still feels pretty solo!

35. Do people in your real life know about your website?

My wife does, although she doesn’t read my site unless she’s invested in a particular post for some reason. Otherwise, I dunno, it feels weird to be like “I know I come across as mellow and thoughtful in person, but actually you should go to my website and read all of the dumb jokes I write”.

36. Do you update your website very often? How often is "very often"?

I probably average one update a week, falling just shy of the once-every-27-minutes standard I hold myself to.

37. And the overall design, do you change that much? Why or why not?

I just recently did my first design overhaul in three years. I’m more often making small tweaks that I expect most people not to notice.

38. Is your website more you-focused, hobby-focused, or outside world-focused?

Uhh… is there another category? I don’t know what you call this mess. I don’t tend to actually focus on myself that often, but on the other hand I would think my voice is half the appeal of reading any of this (assuming there is any appeal; jury’s still out on that).

39. Do you do web design professionally?

I don’t do web design specifically, but I have been able to transfer some of the skills I’ve picked up from this hobby to my job.

40. If not, would you like to? And if you're comfortable answering, what do you do for work?

I don’t think I’d want to do web design. I like having a bit of knowledge in my back pocket, but professional web development is a whole other beast that sounds absolutely miserable. I actually do work for a web-based software company, but I just write their help documentation. It’s a much cozier fit.

41. Do you communicate with people by email very much?

Not often, but occasionally! I do like emails though.

42. Some people reject social media and use websites as a replacement. Do you keep social media outside of your website?

I’ve pretty much dropped out. My mental health has improved dramatically.

43. How about instant messengers? Do you use a mainstream one like Discord or Telegram? Or something like Matrix? Do you avoid them?

I am on Discord, but barely. I have a single server for a couple online friends, and I think it works well for that purpose. Outside of that one example, I don’t actually enjoy using it all that much.

44. Do you listen to music while you work on websites? If so, what kinds of artists?

If you want to know what I listen to while I work on my site, you should probably check out my home page! Currently Listening has been a home page staple since launch. It’s kind of a hodgepodge of whatever random thing happened to strike me in that moment.

45. Do you keep everything you make on one website, or do you have more than one?

Most of my writing is on Skep’s Place, with the exception of one particular niche that I keep contained over at cross goss!.

46. On a similar note, do you keep to one topic on your site, or many?

*glances at sidebar* …There might be a few.

47. Do you present your real self, or at least try? Or do you construct a persona on purpose?

So this is an interesting question. What I write does honestly reflect my thoughts and experiences, and I don’t believe I misrepresent who I am (except at the beginning of this questionnaire, when I said I was Brad Pitt. This may surprise you, but I am in fact not actually Brad Pitt. It was nice to pretend for 40-some questions though). At the same time, I freely admit that I’ll exaggerate my tone for the sake of the bit. I tend to assume it’s fairly obvious when I’m doing this, and it’s really all part of the fun.

48. Have you ever made a good friend thanks to your website?

Emily now knows my street address but has not yet sought to blackmail me with this information, so that has to count for something. Sorbier keeps following me around despite being way too cool for me. I also might have either been good friends or bitter rivals with Hastiest Handiwork, it was hard to tell some days. Maybe he’ll come back and let me know sometime.

49. Are you happy with the way HTML and CSS currently work?

HTML I’m fine with. CSS, I swear there’s like a dozen things I want to do that should be easy but end up either being impossible without Javascript or only available in a testing state in a single browser. CSS seems to be perpetually five years or so behind where it should be.

50. What are practices that you think people should avoid?

I feel as though some sites have way too much going on visually to the point of being overwhelming, or sometimes intentionally make their content difficult to read. Freedom of expression is one of the best aspects of this hobby, but it can’t be at the expense of the reader—if you’re not willing to respect them, then why even bother?

51. What about under-utilised practices, or things you think people should do more?

MOBILE LAYOUTS. I’m an old man, I just want to sit on my couch with my wife in the evening after work and browse some websites on my phone and read what y’all are thinking. This is way harder than it should be, since the general mindset seems to be that web browsing on a mobile device is either somehow inferior (which is both incorrect and actively hostile) or something that people don’t do often enough to bother with (which is also incorrect but at least is an innocent mistake).

52. Do you use a lot of semantic HTML? Or are you guilty of generic structure?

I think I’m pretty good about this. I might need to stop making the site title an h1 though.

53. Do you consider different browsers?

Heh heh… no. Okay, in my defense, I don’t use a CSS feature unless MDN says it’s widely available across browsers. But I’m admittedly too lazy to cross-test in most circumstances, and I don’t support older browsers. I may look into this someday, because I have the utmost respect people who work to keep old, outdated tech alive rather than buying new, and I’d like to show that.

54. Speaking of, what's your preferred browser? Convince your readers why they should use it.

I use Firefox on the grounds that it is neither Chrome nor powered by it. Also the logo is cute.

55. And what OS are you on?

Windows 11.

56. Do you have a strong opinion on that, or do you just happen to use it?

I wouldn’t say it’s a strong opinion, but in general I actually like Windows 11. Granted, there are a number of settings you have to toggle to remove many of the annoying parts, which I agree does not do the OS any favors. But once that’s done, I have a difficult time trying to think of things to complain about. I guess that makes me a corporate shill.

57. Are your websites mobile-friendly?

Skep’s Place is tested mobile-friendly down to a display width of 175 pixels!

58. What are your thoughts on autoplay?

I would honestly be surprised if anybody offered a favorable opinion.

59. What are your thoughts on webrings? Are you in any?

I think I’ve gleaned enough from context clues to have a vague understanding of how webrings work. That sentence probably tells you everything you need to know.

60. Do you have any web shrines? What do you like to see in that sort of page?

I don’t look at shrines. I’m laughably out-of-touch when it comes to most aspects of pop culture, and I also have difficulty letting the media I consume and enjoy become an expression of myself (an aftereffect of the raging Pokémon Obsession Syndrome I suffered from when I was 10). Probably the closest thing I have to a shrine is Tiger Tracks.

61. Are your websites "cliche", in your opinion?

God, I hope not.

62. What is your ideal website? Are you striving for that, or for something else?

Skep’s Place is already the Platonic ideal of a website.

63. Are you an artist? Do you draw or design your own assets?

I am not an artist, though I can occasionally cobble together simple assets in Gimp or Inkscape.

64. What are your favourite resource sites?

Oh, gosh. What qualifies? I guess I use MDN and CSS-Tricks a lot. delphitools is another set of utilities I just started using. Hmm. And Merriam-Webster, I suppose?

65. Is there a habit you just can't get away from no matter how hard you try?

I have switched from habitually opening social media every five minutes to check for new content to habitually opening the Neocities feed every five minutes to check for new content. Usually, there isn’t any, so this is largely harmless.

66. What's your biggest advice for a new webmaster?

Uh, design your site for both desktop and mobile from the start so you don’t have to figure out how to adapt a desktop site to a mobile layout. But if that’s not really what you were looking for, then I would say this: figure out your site’s purpose early. This doesn’t need to be some grand production; the end goal might be “I want a place to collect a bunch of things I like” or “I want to write in bright, flashing colors” or something equally frivolous. Just having a purpose in mind will help provide you direction as you get started planning and designing.

67. Do you keep all your styling in CSS? Or do you hard-code some?

Good lord I think my CSS files are starting to multiply. I only do inline styling in very rare cases.

68. What do you think of frameset layouts?

Hmmwhat?

69. How about table-based layouts?

Oh, this one I know! I mean, I never did any, but I get how it works. Sounds barbaric.

70. Do you subscribe to the ideas of "one-column", "two-column" and "three-column" layouts? Do you use any of these?

I sort of experimented with this in v1 of my design, where pages could optionally have a larger “main” column for the post content with a slimmer “side” column for whatever else. I didn’t use it very often outside of the home page though, and even when I did there were times where I was compressing the width of the main content to fit a side column that was only present on the top 5% of the page. Good idea in theory, but I was happy to nix it.

71. Do you spend longer on the HTML or the CSS?

C’mon, HTML is easy. That’s just the structure. CSS is where it all gets fiddly.

72. Have you ever made a page with no CSS? It's useful for your thoughts.

Your thoughts, maybe, but my thoughts deserve to be glamorous.

73. Do you ever find yourself making layouts with nothing to put on them? Or do you only make layouts when the need arises?

I seem to be accruing sites at a regular enough rate that I don’t need to create new layouts for fun.

74. Would you consider yourself a beginner? Or advanced? Somewhere in the middle?

I definitely feel pretty middle-of-the-pack. I have a good grip on the basics, but there is still quite a lot to learn. Whether or not I want to, though, is another question entirely.

74.5 Do you want learn more?

No.

75. Do you have a habit of looking at the source code of websites you visit?

Not really. It’s like peering into something private. I even feel a little guilty digging into someone’s source code when they’re trying to solve an issue; I know I’m doing it to help out, but they didn’t explicitly give me permission to look, so I still feel weird about it.

76. How did YOU learn how to make websites?

Gradually, and over a long period of time. Got the HTML basics from a library book (back when you learned these things from library books). CSS was from messing with the Wordpress blogs. There was a big break in between, then I refreshed and caught up to the current standards with a college course on web design. Since then it’s mostly been “I want to do this, how do I make it happen?”

77. Do you ever force elements to do things they're not supposed to?

No, I always ask their permission first. But also no, I try not to do this. Semantics exist for a reason.

78. Thoughts on floating elements?

Are we talking like just positioning an element over another element, or actually using display: float in the CSS? Probably the latter, right? Dunno, it’s a tool in the toolbox. Not my favorite tool, but it has its uses.

79. When you're sizing stuff, what do you use first? Do you use px, em, %, or something else?

Really depends what I’m doing. Trying to get in the habit of using em/rem more, I use that a lot for text positioning and sizing. % is used more for window positioning, and px for fine-tuning decorations.

80. Do you have a favourite font?

Despite enjoying the art of typeface design, I don’t think I would say I have a favorite. I like Helvetica, which I know makes me basic. I also think Garamond is really elegant, though I don’t actually have a reason to use it ever.

81. Would you run a website with another person? How would that work?

I have so far managed to mention both my site cross goss! and my pal Sorbier. We actually run it together! There was a lot of email back-and-forth as we built it (mostly Sorb did the design work while I bitched about wavy underlines), and then I converted it to an Eleventy setup. The idea was we’d use a shared folder so we could both run builds, but that hasn’t panned out so far. For now, I’m handling the building and uploading, but I’d like to revisit this sometime so I don’t have full control over everything.

82. Do you surf the Web to find new personal websites very often?

Sometimes! Poking around is a good way to kill a couple minutes.

83. Do you bookmark other people's websites? How would you feel knowing someone else bookmarked yours?

I… don’t really bookmark websites. If you’re on Neocities, I’ll follow you there. If not (or sometimes if so), if you have an RSS feed, I’ll subscribe to it. But otherwise, no, I don’t really bookmark sites for the purpose of checking back in regularly to see what’s new. That said, it’s vitally important to me that you bookmark Skep’s Place and check it for updates every 27 minutes.

84. What do you want people to be most impressed with when they see your website?

“Wow, not only does this person have an impeccable sense of style and taste, but also he’s very funny, all of his opinions are objectively correct, and he’s quite handsome as well.”

85. Are you interested in technology outside of websites? Do you collect?

Not particularly! I mean, a little bit—I built a gaming PC once, I used to run Linux many years back—but my interest in those sorts of things has waned over the years, largely because they require a level of time and effort that I no longer want to dedicate. Consumer tech, on the other hand, is less “I don’t have the energy” and more “I don’t see a reason why I should care”; I feel like much of it struggles to justify its existence.

86. How often and for how long are you online?

I used to be online all the time for long periods of time. Now I’m online all the time in really short intervals to see what’s new. I guess that’s an improvement?

87. When it comes to your website, who is your target audience?

Skep’s Place is fun for the whole family! Or I guess the true answer is: anybody who enjoys reading my nonsense, really.

88. Have you ever been interested in XHTML?

Okay, so I want to preface this by saying I am largely ignorant of XHTML and my response is based off of wherever the hell my current understanding of it came from. But: I thought XHTML was really an evolution of HTML that meant a properly-coded page would validate as proper XML? Or at least that was the intention? Which is I think why making custom elements works. I’m likely off-base, but at the moment I’m not seeing what there is to “learn”, or why. Obviously, I’m not interested enough to look up what the correct answer is.

89. Do you program in general? Have you ever written a program for use with or on your website, not counting simple JavaScript?

I dropped out of a Computer Science major, so I know the fundamentals of programming but really not much else. I don’t make apps for my website, but I did make a program in Python once for a previous job: it was a screen ruler to help me judge distance in road imagery.

90. Speaking of programs that help you make websites, what do you think of static site generators (SSGs)? Have you ever used one?

In general, they all seem absurdly complex, and I don’t like how many of them rely on Javascript to pull in the parts of the page when it’s loaded by the user; your site should be fully usable even if Javascript is disabled. I’m currently using Eleventy (or whatever the hell it’s rebranding itself to right now), which is also absurdly complex but at least spits out static HTML files. I will say: it has been a huge help in managing my site since I have literally hundreds of pages (thanks, Three Kingdoms).

91. Do you keep a hitcounter? Why or why not?

It might be nice if you could guarantee an accurate count, but from my understanding most hits that register are going to be from bots and crawlers, so the numbers are incredibly, incredibly skewed. Besides, this way, there’s no proof that Skep’s Place doesn’t get millions of visitors per day.

92. Do you frequent forums? Which ones?

Remember when I said I used to be online for long periods of time? This is what I was doing! But that was ages ago, and forums are a dying breed. I actually tried making a simple one a year or so ago! But it wasn’t active, and then the platform decided to shut down. Oh well! Back to email.

93. Do you write your page content directly into the editor, or do you prepare it elsewhere, like a text document or a Word document?

Until recently I largely wrote directly into the editor, or sometimes a note app, depending on the device I was on at the time. Recently though, I told myself “what I need is a writing space I actually enjoy using”. I vibe-coded (sorry) a simple page with a text area and a series of buttons on the side for all the goofy punctuation I use that I typically have to input with alt codes, like en and em dashes, curly quotes, and ellipses. Later, I added keyboard shortcuts for these and implemented OverType to make Markdown stand out. That’s literally all this page does; I type a paragraph and copy it out into the editor. I was planning on customizing the colors or adding some sort of rudimentary saving ability, really make this an editor I love, but I just haven’t gotten that far.

94. Do you think you appear cool to others? A more accurate answer now: do other people ever say you're cool?

I have it on good authority that I am, in fact, cool. I will not reveal my sources, suffice it to say they do possess the necessary credentials.

95. Are you embarrassed of your old work? Have you ever deleted everything out of shame?

The stuff that’s on my website now is kind of the extent of my work; I haven’t been doing it for all that long. I’m not particularly embarrassed by any of it, though sometimes I will revisit pieces to correct typos and improve phrasing and such because that’s the kind of thing that makes me cringe. Of course, you may have noticed by now that I have a tendency to inject a lot of humor (or attempts at it, anyway) into my writing, and comedy is one of the art forms most susceptible to aging poorly as attitudes shift over time. I like to think I have a pretty decent sense of decorum, but I’m as flawed as any of us. All we can do is try to be better. So maybe some day I’ll have to go back and revisit something to make it clear that Past Skep was a complete and utter dumbass (and let’s be clear: I am). Just know that I’m doing my best to ensure that Future Skep is a better person for it.

96. Would you close down your website if you couldn't update it, or would you leave an archive?

For a couple years now, I’ve been half-considering implementing an apprenticeship program to train my successor who I can secretly pass my site to someday, in a sort of Dread Pirate Roberts scheme. Assuming I never actually do this… I don’t know that there’s much reason for Skep’s Place to stick around. Personally, I feel like we place a little too much emphasis on collecting, recording, and archiving the ephemeral, refusing to allow it to stay confined to its moment in time. I’m pleased that you enjoy my site; I enjoy writing it. Someday, you will stop reading, and I will stop writing, and that will be that. And that’s okay. I’m glad we got to do this together.

97. Do you reveal a lot about yourself on your website? Or are you more secretive?

You don’t actually need to know that much about me. It would ruin the magic.

98. Are you willing to reveal who your best online friend is, and/or if they have a website?

My oldest online friend goes by Dani, we’ve actually known each other for… well, it’s getting up towards the 20-year mark. We’ve even met in person a couple times. She doesn’t have a website, though I really need to see about getting her to write for The Reading Project.

99. And do you optimise the images on your website?

Wow, random-ass question for Number 99, but all right. Uh, I have learned that I probably shouldn’t use uncompressed .pngs for posting full-size screenshots. I'm more likely to use .jpg or .webp than I used to be, and I do resize images where needed so they’re not obnoxiously large. But I don’t put any special effort into it.

100. We're out of time! How do you feel after answering 100 questions? ....other than exhausted.

Well, this took a lot longer than I would have liked. I… wouldn’t say that all of these questions are winners, but it is what it is. It was an interesting diversion and gave me a chance to talk about some things I don’t normally get to talk about. But for now, it’s time to get back to what makes this place Skep’s Place.

I recently watched a video that is a 5-hour deep-dive covering all known details about every Mountain Dew spin-off flavor:

Despite not having consumed a Mountain Dew in approximately ten years, I watched the entire thing. I can’t explain what possessed me to do it. I think my subscriptions were light that week. However, this video left me with a lot of unresolved questions:

Question 1

Is there really a market for multiple yearly flavor drops and restaurant-exclusive releases? I mean, I already know the answer to this: of course there is, or they wouldn’t keep doing it. But does the sales data really suggest that a significant number of customers who were originally going to purchase another soda instead choose a limited-release flavor? Plus, keep in mind that even if this is the case, those customers might have originally bought an original Mountain Dew or another Pepsi product, in which case switching to a limited release has little actual impact.

I guess this tactic must inspire people who like Mountain Dew to go out and buy more Mountain Dew. Again, the math of it all really seems like it shouldn’t work out—factoring in all the R&D, marketing, and production changes—but the evidence clearly shows I am wrong. Apparently, I should never go into business. Speaking of which…

Question 2

Shouldn’t a global conglomerate like PepsiCo have some sort of consistent brand strategy between countries? Like, I get that different markets will have different tastes, production challenges, things like that. But then you get cases where a flavor is released in the US, Canada, and Poland. Why Poland of all places? Or I think I recall the video talking about Canada taking part in the guess-the-flavor Halloween special one year, but Canada got the prior year’s flavor. Just like all these little inconsistencies that make it seem like the regional offices are all pretty much doing their own thing. It’s so bizarre.

Question 3

At what point do these flavors stop being “Mountain Dew”? By that, I guess I mean, what defines Mountain Dew?

To illustrate this, say you have original flavor Coca-Cola. Eventually, you release Cherry Coke. That’s Coca-Cola flavored with cherry. Cool, we agree that makes sense. Vanilla Coke, it’s Coca-Cola flavored with vanilla. Got it.

Then you release Sprite, but you call it Lemon-Lime Coke. Can we actually get away with this, or is Sprite too distinct an entity to be convincingly labeled “Coke”? If so, where’s the line? If not, what does calling something Coke actually mean? Or does it just become a term that is familiar but devoid of meaning whatsoever?

You see where I’m going with this. Personally, I didn’t think Code Red was Mountain Dew back then, and I still don’t, and you won’t convince me otherwise.

Question 4

Is there any discernible difference between many of these flavors anymore? What makes “a jolt of blackberry” different from “a blast of wildberry”? I have to be honest, if I’m eating something fruit-flavored that is not an actual fruit, my general response is “this tastes like fruit”. Something might taste like fruit differently, but in the end it all amalgamates to some vague fruit-like flavor. I sort of just assumed we were all okay with being lied to like this because we liked the illusion of choice. But can that illusion sustain a years-long marketing campaign?

…Again, resoundingly yes, why am I writing this.

Anyway, the biggest takeaway I had from this video was: I sure could go for a Mountain Dew. And I did go out and buy one, which makes me suspect this five-hour-long piece of indie media was actually a guerilla marketing campaign.

Of course, I bought original flavor. It was satisfying! At 77 grams of sugar per bottle though, I’ll have to wait ten more years before I’m allowed to have another.

I’ve been seeing mentions of bubbles.town around the space the past few days. This is essentially an aggregator of blog posts from a large but vetted list of sites, and includes the ability to vote and comment on these posts. The most-liked are featured for a bit, in a style similar to Reddit.

Generally, I think this is neat. There are enough sources to have a handful of new posts every hour or so; it’s nice to be able to duck into when I’m bored and need a quick distraction. One of the stipulations is that sites are removed if they average more than one or two posts a day, which strikes me as a good limitation. You can’t ever ensure a baseline of quality with these sorts of things, but this helps.

I won’t say I’m fully in love with the implementation. I think the ability to “favorite” blogs and see only posts from those you follow might eventually lead to popular voices being followed more and thus being upvoted more, crowding out interesting posts from less-popular sources. Which kind of feels against the spirit of it all. Of course, you’ll first need to sign in if you want to be able to vote; the only way you can do this is via a Fediverse account. Which… ugh. I understand they don’t want to have to manage usernames and passwords—I don’t want to either—but again, ugh. No thanks. If I want to follow a site I’ll just subscribe to their RSS feed.

But anyway, overall an interesting idea, and something I’ll probably keep coming back to every once in a while.

Me, three weeks ago: “The site redesign took a lot of work, but it turned out great! I love how it looks, it has way more character, it’s gotten a huge positive reception, and I learned a lot making it. I’m really proud of what I built!”

Me, today: “What if it actually sucks though.”

I’m not fishing for validation; please enjoy this anecdote and carry on.