I did have a thought to play Guild Wars<\/em>, the first time in a while. It wouldn’t start, and I suspect it’s because I first installed it on Linux back when I built the computer. I’ve updated the graphics card and the Linux kernel since then, and already have had to redo the WINE settings to get some other games to work. Or, in some cases, just re-install; which is what I did this time. Guild Wars<\/em> installed readily and played immediately on finishing the install, but I noticed my armor settings are all wrong. Trying to figure that one out as I type. My first thought is simply that not all the graphics are installed yet, as one of the things that isn’t showing up is secondary dyes. I’m not even sure all the primary dyes are showing up. (double checking an image from a few months ago, it’s all *way* wrong) I’ll put it this way: I went to log in and immediately got hit with a huge download. It’s been going for a while. I know the servers are set to not expect much traffic, and I’m connected to a VPN at the moment, so my bandwidth is probably severely limited. It’s probably only a gigabyte or so, but when the connection is throttled it can take a while.<\/p>\n I’ve mentioned previously my computing needs include a side screen or second computer\/laptop that plays YouTube (or something else, but usually YouTube) while I type or play, or read, or whatever. I turn the YT off if I *really* need to pay attention to what I’m doing, or if I *really* want to catch what’s in the YouTube video that’s playing. One of my less-common viewing habits is big equipment repair. You know how a big trend in automotive videos is “barn finds” and getting old cars parked next to manufactured housing to run? I watch some of that, at times; but I find it more interesting to see someone get a D8 Caterpillar tractor that’s been sitting in a marsh for 30 years running. And then seeing if it’s worth fixing up and selling on, or using, or junking. I’ve been catching up on the Diesel Creek<\/a> channel because of that. It is a bit shocking to see how much the proprietor\/host of the channel, Matt, has grown. The second episode on his latest D8 (not the first one he’s picked up) has two other people mostly just doing filming.<\/p>\n A recent YouTube find that is fascinating is Thai car shows. Not a “Concours d’Elegance” or anything like that. Apparently the trend in Thailand is to mod a car, mostly pickups and vans, with a truly unbelievable and unusable amount of speakers, amps, and lights then show off your skills in a car display. And have a woman in a carefully-constructed outfit of swimwear or lingerie and pantyhose or tights, plus some extra bits to make sure no “accidents” happen, dance in front of your speakers. The YouTube videos all seem to be overdubbed with a playlist of recognizable re-mixes. The music is pretty good, although I’m pretty sure I’ve sampled just about all of every playlist. The dancing women, and at least by presentation and allegation it’s always women; the only dancing men are visiting the car show, are of varying ability. The repetition and music makes this good ASMR, or at least it does if it fits one of the patterns you enjoy. Some people like mouth sounds and that is an immediate “no” for me. Rapid movements are also very popular, though I rarely enjoy it. Oh, the point is these dancers, the women who perform for car shows, have a “name”: Coyoty Women. I checked far enough to know the “Coyoty” is supposed to be “Coyote,” and you will see the correct spelling used sometimes. But usually it’s just “Coyoty.” This trend goes back to around 2012, 2014; I think. The original idea seems to be an adaptation of Japanese “race queens;” you can look that up yourselves. The dancers apparently started out wearing team outfits and even dancing in groups, but that evolved into solo dancers at community shows and increasingly(?) less clothing. Stick-on tattoos also seem to be fairly common. It’s so bizarre. The image below is, understandably, a very tame representation.<\/p>\n I also tend to watch air disaster videos. I was once a big fan of the Mayday<\/em> television program, although I tend to seek out sources that more informative or insightful these days. 74 Gear<\/a> is a good option, as the presenter Kelsey is actually a 747 pilot, primarily 747 cargo variations. For the best insight on various accidents, Chloe Howe’s Disaster Breakdown<\/a> may be the single best source. She engages in a lot of independent research that includes traveling to the sight of accidents. DB is quite binge-able, as Howe has been making videos for several years and only reached the level of success to fund long videos the past year or so. Many of the early videos are only about 15 minutes long.<\/p>\n For car-based videos, I’m very picky. I have tried a lot of the standard and popular vids but apparently my tastes are a bit different. While I do watch the occasional Doug DeMuro recording, most of the YouTube creators that got popular about the same time really turn me off. And I don’t watch for self-help, either. There are things I can do, and things I can’t, and sometimes I go looking for new information; and I’m happy to leave it at that. What I *do* watch regularly are Dead Dodge Garage<\/a> and Sarah-n-Tuned<\/a>. Both hosts\/presenters center their own interests and goals, and therefore their own personalities which I happen to not find objectionable. The style and the personality, that is. They also both have fairly distinctive Intros…maybe *that’s* the secret. (“Hi. I’m Jamie. This is Dead Dodge Garage.”and “Hello! People of the world on the internet watching internet videos that have to do with cars. Welcome to this…-points to subject of the video-.”) Jamie spends a lot of time getting Chrysler engines running that probably shouldn’t ever be run again. He takes an approach similar to the diesel rebuilds I like to watch: clean it as little as possible and just try to get fire, gasoline, and air to meet however necessary. Sarah, by contrast, CLEANS EVERYTHING CONSTANTLY. Her project cars take forever and every day you could eat off of any given part. How Sarah has gone for years without any major, ongoing sponsorships is honestly a tragic story, really. The sponsors who pay for a car to be re-built to give it away (she’s tried a couple of times) aren’t compatible with her perfectionism. The sponsors who want their product centered and talked about don’t like that she won’t promise to only use their brand. Basically she’s not brand-friendly, and that means she has worked 7-day weeks for years to keep her video output as high as possible. This is another channel I started watching about the same time it started. It’s also notable that Sarah *does not* supplement or incentivize her channel with “cheesecake” in any way…despite even some friends pushing her to do so. The closest you could even imagine would be the occasional pic that could be used as a desktop wallpaper:<\/p>\n The rest of my current YouTube playlist has a video on a scam that involved the actor Tom Bosley (I’m guessing he was hired to advertise something…that happens a lot), the latest from comic creator Ryan George, something new from Aging Wheels, a guy in Missouri who primarily shows off rare, cheap import cars and tiny commuter cars, Geo Girl and Scary Interesting, a recent VWestlife who is a second-tier Techmoan, and a stack of ASMR videos to try.<\/p>\n Tomorrow maybe the dust will finally be gone for long enough I’ll have some interest in accomplishing things again. It doesn’t hurt that most Spring Breaks will be over this weekend, I think. One school district that affects us had Spring Break two weeks ago, but most other school districts in the area used this past week. So, here’s hoping things get back to normal.<\/p>\n That’s it for now, see you next week!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last few weeks have been awful, weather-wise. See the splash image above? That’s the sky. That’s dust. And the image pictured is on a good day. We’ve had a couple of 40 – 60mph days and probably six 20 – 40mph days. A dozen or more 15 – 20mph days. I’ve been dusting most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[638],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paige-writes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58520"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58557,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58520\/revisions\/58557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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