May 31, 2026 (but I went on a monolithic tangent explaining everything)

TIMELINE OF THE WORLD/LITERATURE

Well. Here goes... 

I started to read through the progression of Earth and life as we know it, going through the ages in attempt for me to sort of wrap my head around the different eras of time and to get a better idea of when important milestones happened. Eventually, I reached the biblical era and figured I'd juxtapose the timeline of biblical events next to the timeline of world events to get a better idea of when the biblical stuff took place as it related to the different ages of time.

I use the timeline on biblehub to help me and I tend to a passage or two a day. Also, I wanted to read a chapter of a non-Star Wars book (it's all I tend to read) to broaden my literature horizons and for the time being I combined the "timeline of the world" and my literature entry together. (Before I reached the biblical era I read The Epic of Gilgamesh who at that point I've only known from Final Fantasy).

as it stands today I read Proverbs 20 (I've been reading the NIV version of the bible because I'm a big dumdum).

 

 GOING THROUGH THE YEARS OF FILM/EARLY 20th CENTURY WORLD EVENTS

When the 2020 COVID19 lockdowns happened and movie theaters shut down, a lot of people were starved for new movies so they turned to movies of the past that they hasn't seen yet. They turned to film selections of the past five, ten and maybe twenty years.

I took this train of thought and took it to the apparent extreme. What if there were awesome movies created 50 or even 100 years ago? I love The Three Stooges and that's content from the 1930s. So I went to Wikipedia and went as far back as I could go to find the earliest pieces of film and then work my way up.

While I was doing it I figure it'd be a good idea to get a peek at what was happening in the world as time went on and movies began to evolve. I fell in love with Georges Méliès' work and (of course) I really dug the Charlie Chaplin shorts up to this point (I'm about to enter 1921).

(I've been fortunate enough to find all of these early films right on YouTube) 

As a result of trying to keep an eye on global events, it wasn't long before WWI unfolded. For this I turned to The Great War YouTube channel which turned out to be an invaluable asset as they went week-by-week throughout the events of the first world war, something that none of my schooling ever covered. Shout out to Flo, Indy Neidell and that whole team. What a fun ride.

As far as my early film journey goes, I just about finished up most of the movies on my list of 1920.  I have one to go before I ring in 1921: Stolen Moments.

At first, I tried to watch simply everything before I realized that to progress faster through this endeavor I'd have to pick and choose my films. After all, if I was actually around back then I doubt I'd be able to watch everything. So movies of note or importance (or if they just sound cool) were what made my checklist.

Before I checked off 1920's Stolen Moments, I realized that I had missed the early works of notable Legends such as Laurel and Hardy. So I've taken a detour to backtrack to check out their early works. I'm currently in 1918 and it's been mostly Hardy shorts up to this point. Laurel seems to come in September 1918 with Huns and Hyphens.

The Hardy shorts have actually been with Billy West. Apparently this dude was a Charlie Chaplin imitator and a great one at that. It fascinates me how something like that would probably never work today. You wouldn't catch a Jim Carrey or Kevin Hart impersonator releasing films in the theaters in today's era. But back then it didn't seem to be an issue.

I know I don't mind the Billy West Chaplin shorts. They're alright. They're not as funny to me as the OG Charlie Chaplin stuff up to this point but it's certainly endearing enough to me. And of course it's cool to see Hardy in action here.

Today's short was The Handy Man which I expected to be a 1918 Hardy short with Billy West but turned out (I think) to actually be a Laurel short of the same name. In the short, a newspaper reveals that a local heavyset girl is set to inherit $100K and naturally her cook and handyman duel with the fates to determine who will end up with her. It ends with a mystery man who isn't the cook or handyman that turns out to be the lady's husband all along.(?)

Very endearing but I didn't really chuckle at any of it. 

TOMORROW'S ENTRY: Bright and Early (1918)

 

DRAGON BALL Z

I've only watched DBZ in high school in 1998-2000ish. I'd watch it all up until the show got to a certain point. Then one day I'd excitedly tune in to catch what happened next only to find them (Cartoon Network) airing the first episode of the show, restarting it all. That cycle happened enough for me to eventually give up on the show and I never watched it since.

It's worth noting that around that time, I started to feel that a lot of the episodes were like 85% buildup and 15% fighting. The characters would spend a bulk of the episode powering up or talking trash before the eventual fighting would unfold and the episode would end before you knew it. Not to mention, the filler episodes. Although back in the day, I wasn't aware of the term.

Today, DBZ remains a pop culture force. It's referenced by countless people and it's all over retail environments. Eventually nostalgia seduced me like it always does to revisit the world so I started with a show I had never actually watched: Dragon Ball.

Though the same characters and world, DB felt like a different version of the show and I actually ended up enjoying it A LOT and was bummed when the ride eventually came to an end. However, that meant that it was finally time to revisit my late 90s. It was time to revisit DBZ and there would be no Cartoon Network "back to the first episode" business to stop me this time.

I bought these orange DVD sets that seemed to do the trick (although I've read nothing but bad reviews on these things). My biggest beef is that the Rock The Dragon intro isn't on them. So before each episode I throw it up on YouTube to properly kick things off.

To match the vibes of the late 90s I'll only watch an episode at 5PM EST and a lot of the times I miss it due to simply life happening.  The last episode I watched was Mysterious Youth that sees the apparent debut of Trunks.

I seem to have some MEGA Mandela Effect going on because I seem to only remember Trunks from my High School buddy's pirated PS1 DBZ fighting games (or was it GT?). Although it's possible I simply somehow forgot about him on the DBZ show but I remember making it up to the Cell and Androids saga on Cartoon Network before they eventually sent things back to Raditz and Nappa.

NEXT EPISODE: Another Super Saiyan?

 

 STAR WARS

It may take 327 paragraphs to properly convey my longtime love of this franchise so I'll just skip the love talk and talk about what I've been going over.

Sometime around 2006/2007ish I started a project where I consumed all of Star Wars media in timeline order. I loved it because it really fleshed out the films as well as the other accompanying media and helped made the universe feel living and breathing.

I made it as far as a few years into the clone wars before the Disney canon wipeout. As a result, I missed out on awesome content like The Force Unleashed games and any of the awesome post-ROTJ stories and games. (Although I do remember playing the first level of TFU where you're Vader going through a Kashyyyk village mirking unfortunate furry bois. I stopped there and told myself that I should stop there because when I eventually made it to TFU on the timeline it would feel so much more incredible. It's 2026 and I still haven't made it there. I also have read post-ROTJ books like Heir to the Empire and Jedi Search although it was circa third and fourth grade and my memory is iffy on their stories)

My amended plan when Disney wiped the canon was to complete the new canon to keep up to date and then return to the old one but something always just seems to get in the way to prevent me from making headway.

With the new canon I made it up to the sequel trilogy at one point but then with the continued releases of new content I'd always get pushed back on the timeline. And when The High Republic was introduced, FUHGETTABOUTIT! I've been stuck in this era for a few years now. It's not bad, a lot of it is great stuff. I'm just not as gripped by it as other places of the timeline. As a result of this, I haven't played any of the Jedi: Fallen Order games. 

At this point, I've been trying to get through the Young Jedi Adventures series. It's absolutely for kids although I do find it endearing but after a while I kind of just want to move on. Which can be frustrating. IT'S WORSE. HE'S OVERLY CRITICAL. HE DOESN'T LISTEN! HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND! IT'S NOT FAIR! (sorry, I can never resist a quote when it pops into my head uninvited). Admission: I do watch this show on 2x speed though. The very first time I've done such a thing.

Also shout out to Nubs. He's my favorite thing on this show. It's also dope how he's voiced by the GOAT Dee Bradley Baker. My fiance and me have an army of minion plushies and Nubs might just have to be a non-minion draftee into the army.

Also, I have really dug how they've introduced some THR stuff from the books onto the show with characters such as Loden Greatstorm, his padawan Bell Zettifar, Bell's charhound Ember, Estala Maru and the Starlight Beacon space station. It really helps a big dumdum like me better visualize some of that stuff.

Today's episode was: Mystery of the Opal Cave/Clash

TOMORROW'S EPISODE IS: The Great Leaf Glide/The Harvest Feast

 

VIDEO GAMING

Long story short, I missed out on a lot of games from a lot of different eras growing up so my backlog today is more unbelievable than most. Add the games of today's era along with cool games from even not too far back ago and you've got yourself a serious checklist. 

I figured what I'd do is dedicate one day to one particular game. Kind of like how you'd wait an entire week to watch the next episode of a TV show that you're hooked on (shout out Maul: Shadow Lord. Yeah, I make no sense. I break timeline for this and the live action shows like Mando but I'll keep waiting to play something awesome like Fallen Order. I get it. Kill me. Kill me now).

What my weekly gaming schedule looks like:

MONDAYS

KINGDOM HEARTS NIGHT 

Shout out to Garfield. Do we get lasagna on Mondays? What's the deal?

I've never played it myself but my little brothers were obsessed with it enough for me just to know some of the characters. Today I think I'm near the end of the game up at Hollow Bastion. Although I've been stuck in a Hades Cup thing.

Also Elder Scrolls day. 

I also watch through playthroughs of PC games from back in the day. One day I'll eventually play Skyrim so I thought that I might as well watch a playthrough of old Elder Scrolls games to learn the lore and how a Bethesda game generally works. I've never had a cromulent enough PC to feel comfortable enough to play a PC game which is why I've settled to just watch playthroughs. Although a few Christmases ago, my younger brother gifted me a pretty sweet laptop that could probably run these old games but I've become so used to just watching them that it's kind of just what I've been doing.

I finally finished watching the Elder Scrolls: Arena playthrough (Shout out to BluScreen_Gwen) and now I've been kneedeep into Daggerfall.

 

TUESDAYS

GTA NIGHT

(Formerly Final Fantasy Night) 

Back in the day I watched my friend play through the PS1 joints but my actual entry into the franchise was the groundbreaking GTAIII. Vice City would dominate my 2003 but I didn't make it as far into San Andreas. I don't think I ever even made it out of Grove Street. I just remember being overwhelmed with all the new side stuff you could do like having to eat and workout. I did play a cup of coffee's worth of GTA4 like a decade ago but when it comes to GTAV? Nope. Never played it.

So with the insanely anticipated (is it Phantom Menace levels of anticipation?) GTAVI, GTA day is definitely a part of my Tuesdays. I went back to watch YouTube videos of the old PS1 joints just to get my head around them (they're not really the funnest to play when comparing to the 3D era). Then I went back to rebeat GTAIII and Vice City. I'm currently playing San Andreas and I suspect I'm near the end. The last mission I did was High Noon where CJ has to chase down officer Pulaski.

Tuesdays also used to be my Final Fantasy day until I decided to take a break to better focus on GTA. For the past decade or so I played through FF1 right up until FFX before I decided to give it a rest. I didn't/don't know how to approach FFXI. Do I YouTube it? How would I even do that? I know FFX-2 is definitely the my entry at some point.

 

WEDNESDAY

DARK SOULS NIGHT 

Dark Souls and that whole genre has never been my thing. It's never been appealing to me. I like to have fun when I game not surround myself in a world of frustration. Although I do understand that the basic appeal is the extreme satisfaction when you finally make it past a certain part.

So why is it a whole ass day in my thing? It's like 2020 or something and I just copped a PlayStation 5 in what might have been the fastest I ever copped a new generation console. There weren't a lot of new games available at the time but Demon Souls was an option and it looked incredible and looked to be a great vehicle to take advantage of the console.

I think what happened was my timeline approach obsession kicked in (I also didn't just have $70 or $80 like that) and I grabbed Demon Souls for PS3 for $20 and started playing that.

I actually made it farther than I thought I would. It's been a while though. The last bosses I remember fighting was a giant knight and a giant spider. I think the last place I was in was a system of caves. I just reached a point where I found myself actively avoiding the game. I knew I'd have to dedicate an hour and a half (at the very LEAST) for each session and I just seemingly didn't have it in me for a lot of the time. It's still been eons since I had a session. Although it's still very much on my to-do list.

WEDNESDAY

HALO NIGHT 

About a year ago I scored an XBox Series X for like $450 on Black Friday (♫ "paint the devil on the wall" ♫) and apart from owning the OG XBox for a cup of coffee back in the day to play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, I've never been on green timing. Not a console war thing. Just a broke boi can't afford another console thing.

Back in the day my homies used to have Halo 2 and it was some of the funnest gaming (and friendship) experiences I've ever had...even though I sucked and was often the worst of the warriors. As a result, when I attained the console, I made an absolute BEELINE to the Halo Master Chief Collection. However, I was crestfallen (tremendous word) when I couldn't set up a game with the in-game bots to replicate the battles/maps I took part in back in the day. Maybe it was a skill issue thing.

My fiance and me watch The Big Bang Theory as one of our shows to unwind. On that show, the characters designate Wednesday nights as their Halo night. So it just made sense to me to carve out a place on hump day for Master Chief. For a while I couldn't determine whether I should start with Halo Reach or the first Halo game but I eventually went with Halo 1. I beat the first two levels but hadn't touched it in a long time so last week I dove back in and replayed the first level. This coming Wednesday I'll replay the second.

 

THURSDAY

NO MAN'S SKY NIGHT

Never in my life had I played a game that just...never ended and just kinda kept going. My younger brother, Lando, plays this too, although MUCH more competent than I. He's built intricate bases and structures. I've got a mountainside shack built with elastic bands and shoeboxes. I think I finished all of the story missions. I may have more listed but I'm not sure if they're post-game stuff that never ends or not. Like, I'm at this point where I'm not sure what I should be doing. I built a base and each game session I go in and upkeep it. So I've started watching a YouTube playthrough of AllTheShinies playing through the game and using it as sort of a checklist.

 

FRIDAYS

MONSTER HUNTER NIGHT

This franchise has been a beloved darling of my two younger brothers for like two whole decades up to this point. I remember at one point, my high school buddy shoved a PSP in my hand and tried to get me into the world. However, I was too engrossed in my WWE video game fed to do so.

As I grew older, I felt a stronger need to (re)connect with my siblings and I figured that diving into Monster Hunter would be a good way to do it. So I bought Monster Hunter World and stumbled my way through it.

I might have felt badass at some point until I realize that I was using something called defender armor designed to basically speedrun you through the basegame to get you to the Iceborne expansion. I still haven't made it there yet. I think the last mission I did was the optional quest: Blue Prominence.

I do remember a few missions before that I had to fight a Behemoth and it was one of the toughest, tedious battles I've had up to that point.

It might be worth mentioning that my younger brothers have complete and busy lives of their own and as a result I've never actually had sessions with them although it's cool content to talk about whenever we meet up.

I did play the MH Wilds beta but I hadn't bought the full Wilds game yet because I hadn't even cracked Iceborne yet. I thought that maybe whenever I did (insert Qui-Gon Jinn chuckling and saying "not likely") then by that point Wilds would be in its best state.

However, about a week ago Gamestop had a sale where a new copy of Wilds was $15 as opposed to $70 (I think I might have seen it go down to $40 or $50 on somewhat recent trips to Walmart). So I picked it up and introduced myself to a new conundrum. Do I ditch MHWorld and dive into Wilds? Do I leave Wilds in its sealed wrapping and continue focusing on World? Do I just play both? I still havent decided.

What I do is if I dont get game time on Fridays then I like to at least go into the training grounds on World and go through my combos to try and stay fresh with them. (I'm a long sword guy btw. My boy Mighty Keef on YouTube considers LS users as lowlives though)

 

SATURDAY

RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 NIGHT/SUPER MARIO MAKER DAY

The game is so damn good that I found myself going through molasses speed just to remain in the world. I'm STILL on my first playthrough but I do believe I'm near the very end. For the last few years I've just been doing side stuff and animal hunting. The last thing I did was catch a Legendary Rock Bass since I can now access the area they're in now that I'm near the end. I've also been trying to encounter all (16?) of the experiences you can run into with the ghost of a girl in the swamp. It wasn't foggy and creepy enough on my last session so she didn't appear to me again.

The second that GTAVI drops can we just immediately start production on RDR3? PLEASE.

Saturdays are also my Super Mario Maker days. Some of my most favorite YouTube videos are of DashieGames going through the OG Super Mario Maker but since the last Nintendo console I owned was SNES in the 90s (my younger brother was gifted an N64 originally slated for me; blocked by my bad grades), I could only ever wonder how I'd fare in these incredibly challenging, fan-made levels. 

Then one RANDOM ass day in late Summer 2022 on a trip to a different-than-our-usual Walmart, I stumbled across a Nintendo Switch OLED model: Splatoon 3 edition ON CLEARANCE for like $250. I think it was the week after that edition was released. I still don't know why or how that happened but I jumped on that thing like it was a grenade about to explode with good times. I got Mario Maker 2 and started following along with Dashie. However, with life always demanding your time and energy. It's been a while.

 

SUNDAY

SPIDER-MAN NIGHT

BORDERLANDS NIGHT

First it was the OG Spider-Man PS4 release, then it was the re-release that came with Miles Morales and now I've been playing through MM itself. The game feels shorter and more compact then SM1 but fun in its own right. I fought with Prowler on my session tonight and when I booted up the game it said I was 86% done.

For Borderlands, I played it with some different friends back in the day on PS3 and then went back through it myself when the PS4 version came out. I hit a snag in one of the DLC modes. I think it's called Mad Moxxie's Underdome or something where you fight different waves of enemies. I just can never beat it and as a result, the BL franchise has kind of fallen asleep on my list.

 

PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING/PRO WRESTLING GAMING

Since the WWF's purchase of WCW and ECW, the WWF (now WWE) has pretty much been the only game in town on TV for decades. But in the last number of years, many options have began to arise and as a result I've fallen behind on the pro wrestling scene.

So I follow the stuff like you'd read a novel. I pick up where I left off rather than just tune into that day's show. So because of this, I am currently in April 21, 2021. The last show I finished was an AEW Dynamite that had Darby Allin defend the TNT Championship against Jungle Boy.

As far as the gaming side of it, I'm obsessed with watching the computer compete against itself. In a weird way, the pro wrestling is real and unscripted in this sense. It's almost like a Pokemon or Star Wars card game of back in the day. You have one guy with a certain size, moves and abilities against another guy with a different set of attributes.

I've been simulating matches since the N64 days but only started keeping digital records since around the time of WWE '13/2K14 (Although I might have old, dusty notebooks that kept track of my PS2 era feds).

I have a separate blogger account that I use to log my results.