Hey!  Hey…  How y’all doing?

So, uhhh… How have the last 9 months been, guys?  Sorry I’ve been missing; last year was transitional in a bunch of ways and unfortunately this project was the hobby that took the greatest hit.  While part of me has definitely missed this, I’m mostly living in self-pity mode because all I did was delay the completion of this project by another year, making Oaty McLoafy the spiteful covid breakdown that will never end.  But let’s not dwell on that today – let’s instead get this unused writing muscle moving by completing the yearly sidequest of gushing about about the positive things that helped me through 2025.  It’s not all media this year!  I’m branching out!

#10 Rusty Lake Games

I am not new to Rusty Lake, but I was newly obsessed earlier this year.

The Rusty Lake series is comprised of early flash-style point-and-click adventure games that introduce us to a detective trying to solve a murder of a young blonde lady named Laura in the 1970s and gradually devolves into a supernatural reincarnation story that involves entwining three families in their quest to gain immortality.  Yes, it’s meant to invoke Twin Peaks, but if you’re not much of a David Lynch fan I wouldn’t pass this up based on the association.  It stands on its own.  The games are odd, unnerving, creative, and disorienting.

My first impression of Rusty Lake was relatively mild – the artwork and gameplay of their games evokes the early flash games found on Newgrounds or eBaums World.  This, to me, was a double edged sword, because while I found the Cube Escape Collection incredibly nostalgic, I also mistakenly assumed there wouldn’t be much depth to them.  Find the items, solve the murder, escape the room.  I also played them on my phone, which historically isn’t exactly the medium I use for serious gaming.  I’m there to idly merge food, manage a virtual cafe, make sure my fallout shelter doesn’t get overrun by death claws, build the tallest and most fun tiny tower ever…  Y’know, kill time.  I didn’t really acknowledge the overarching story until I continued the Rusty Lake games several years later, specifically with Roots.  And even then, I was playing them in the midst of a year-end depressive spiral in 2021 where I blew through the entire series in 5 days, so I was like half processing what was even going on.   But I kept track of the developer and played each subsequent release when they hit the Steam store afterward.

In 2025, Rusty Lake celebrated their 10th Anniversary with the free release of The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show.  Now in a much better state mentally, I decided I needed to refresh my memory on the batshit bananas overlapping timeline that spans several centuries and 18 games.  I was in the weeds researching family trees trying to connect the dots between characters and their animal counterparts.  Thank God for the wiki cause I 100% would have recreated Charlie’s Pepe Silvia board.

While all the written material put me on the right track, I wanted to solidify the info by revisiting some of the games (and also yapping on stream for several hours about how creepy these families are).  Since I was basically a barely functioning mushroom the first time I played them I thankfully didn’t remember the solutions to really any of the puzzles, making it feel like I was playing these games for the first time.  Slowly I realized these low-res assets I dismissed in 2021 because I thought they were reusing them to save money were integral to the plot, subtly revealing how this cultish knowledge was handed down between generations of people.  It goes beyond the games as well, where finding clues in the Rusty Lake social media, websites, and live-action videos helped unravel parts of the mystery.  I can’t fully explain how enjoyable it was to dive further and further down the rabbit hole of the Eilander, Vanderboom, and Vandermeer families while tickling my conspiracy minded brain.  I can’t wait for Servant of the Lake to be released.

#9 Typing Tests

I have been battling in the great keyboard war for several years now.  At one point I was using a solar-powered wireless keyboard designed for a Mac, but the battery on it wasn’t intended to be replaced which resulted in a treacherous screwdriver-armed excavation into the drawer that held the coin cell to change it every year or so.  This resulted in the keyboard having a huge wolverine-style chunk taken out of the case, having to obtain a necessary backup USB keyboard (that I found unopened for $5 at the thriftstore!) if the thing ever died or wasn’t charged up enough, and hand cramps because the keys on the keyboard were flat.  But at least it was solar powered and white, amirite?

The USB backup keyboard defaulted to my main keyboard after a while, but it never really felt comfortable to type on, either.  I swapped to the USB LED lighted monstrosity that came with my prebuilt computer earlier this year to see if I’d like the feel of it better, and I did, but the keycaps were wearing off super quickly and there was no way to replace them cause it was a membrane keyboard.  So I had 3 keyboards, none of which I could use long-term, and simultaneously saddled with the guilt of replacing three functional devices with one that wouldn’t kill my fingers.

Ultimately, I decided to treat myself and purchase a non-solar wireless mechanical keyboard.  And new keycaps for funsies.  And a new desk mat and wrist rest because I spilled superglue all over my old one.

Look at her, she’s magnificent.

New keyboards require a little bit of time to get used to, and unfortunately I discovered during this period of adjustment that I didn’t type with my ring or pinky finger on my right hand, like ever.  I’m not sure if this is a bad habit I picked up recently or if I had always typed like this, but once I noticed it I couldn’t unnotice it.  This led to about a month of feverishly taking typing tests online trying to train my fingers to do the things they’re supposed to do in pursuit of my endless quest to improve my WPM.  After several consecutive days of typing the most unhinged random sentences I am now… almost exactly as proficient at typing as I was before this mess.

Trying to use my right hand the “proper” way is still significantly slower, and because I’ve had like 30 years of typing the “wrong” way I dip back into it all. the. time.  But whatever.  At least I’m trying.

Also, what’s the point in using the right shift key?  I have never in my life used it but I’m supposed to for half of the keyboard? Why?? I can type with two fingers at once on my left hand; I’m talented like that.  And don’t get me started on the one space vs two space after a period debate.  I understand it’s not necessary anymore, but I don’t care.  You’re gonna have to pry my double space away from my cold, dead hands.

#8 Flying

Yes, Yes, I realize that right now is a terrible time to take a plane anywhere, but this is more of a milestone brag as opposed to a lifestyle recommendation.

When I was a kid, I had to fly to Arizona twice and I hated it.  I was pretty anxious back then, and that feeling of having my feet touching the bottom of the plane but the plane not touching the ground was incredibly unsettling to me.  Having to depend on someone else to get us to where we needed to go without being able to assist that experience at all?  No fucking thank you.  I decided if I needed to travel somewhere I would drive and that would be the end of it.

I was able to coast on that attitude for 22 years, and then my company was acquired by another company and suddenly they wanted to mail me all kinds of places to talk about stuff.  Places in the country I couldn’t feasibly drive to.  I was basically forced to nut it up and tackle my fear of flying.  And let me tell you, it was… fine.  It was absolutely fine.

Some of the credit for this I think can be given to the steps I’ve taken in the last few years to travel on my own.  They were road trips, sure, but having the confidence to drive across several states alone, eat in a restaurant by myself, stay in a hotel, sign up for events solo… it primed the gears to tackle the final boss of having to travel to the airport and sit in an airplane for several hours.  I even went to Boston with my friend and we had fun on the plane there and back.

Since everyone I know flies Delta out of DTW it was thoroughly recommended to me (and I used them for my first flight to Jacksonville), but I was curious to see how different they were from the other airlines.  Over the course of the year I booked American Airlines, JetBlue, United, and Southwest, earning my 2025 flight bingo.  Honestly, JetBlue was my favorite.  Any airline that makes you use your own tablet to connect to their godforsaken wi-fi to watch any in-flight entertainment can get fucked, holy hell.  I don’t know why that process is so fucking abysmal; nobody from another plane is going to try and steal your goddamn wi-fi while you’re in the air, just allow devices to connect, jesus christ.

If you would have told me even a few years ago that shy of 40 I wouldn’t have crippling flying anxiety I wouldn’t have believed you. I feel like I’ve unlocked a new sort of freedom that would have never been possible before.  I’m planning on longer trips now, like an Alaskan cruise in 2026 and a trip to Ireland in 2027.  Just don’t expect me to pivot to travel content moving forward.  Those movie musicals aren’t going to write reviews about themselves.

#7 Home Improvement Projects

I’ve been home improvement influenced by Jenna Phipps and Tia Weston.

I should probably try to talk myself out of the inclination to act every time I think “I could probably make this look nicer”.  I typically succeed, but only marginally.  Problem is, after I’m done with the project all I can see is every mistake I made in the process to improve the thing, so in my brain it looks worse.  Why.  Why am I like this?

It started around covid when I decided to compulsively redecorate my living room and I think it’s coming up again because I’m starting to realize I’m never going to be able to afford to move out of this house.  And if that’s the case I might as well fix the things that have been bothering me for 13 years, like touching up paint and changing cabinet handles and caulking the bathtub again.

This year I repainted my metal front door salmon, which was its own can of worms.  See, the previous homeowner had done this before and had painted over the hinges, the weather stripping was trashed, and the door was dented in a bunch of places.  I figured I could remove the paint, smooth out the dents and replace the hardware for a fresh new look.  Simple, right?

My first mistake was using paint stripper to remove the old, peeling paint because it was an absolute nightmare to remove the stripper.  After 2 days of breathing in fumes that I’m sure will give me cancer, I discovered I used the wrong paint to repaint the door because it started to rust in some areas.  TURNS OUT, latex paint + primer that claims it can be used on metal is absolutely fucking lying to you.  I had to sand down parts of the door so I could put down an oil-based primer before painting over it again with latex and now part of the back of the door where it was dented before looks like crap in a totally new way.  Whatever.  After a literal week working on the door every day I was so fucking over it.  But go ahead – ask me about weatherstripping, installing peep holes, hardware and doorknockers.  I could give you an earful of advice.

After the monstrosity that was the front door project, I needed a quick win.  My attention turned to filling in holes and touching up wall paint that has been bugging me for literal years, which only took like 5 minutes of time to fix (not counting drying time).  Then there was repainting cabinet doors, swapping out their hardware, installing a ceiling fan in my office (OK my dad did that one, but I bought the fan and held the tools when he needed me to).  My parents sold the lake house this year and I took ownership of several nautical-themed items, renewing my quest to transform my basement into the belly of a boat.  I assembled flat-pack furniture, rewired lamps, hung pictures, created an actual dining area…  Last thing on my list is to replace the downstairs couch with a pullout daybed because I like sleeping down there in the summer when it’s hot out.  Problem is, I’d need to figure out how to get the couch up the stairs and dispose of it… we’ll see.

One of these days I’ll actually replace my guest room with a full on vanity/closet experience, because nobody stays in my sad old IKEA guestroom.  I’m making this place work for ME, finally.  Only took over a decade. 

#6 Cursed Coloring

I have a very high-stress job and I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until I started wearing a Garmin and it would constantly tell me to do breathing exercises while I was on conference calls.  For years I would fidget with my rings, stress balls or anything within reach at my desk, but after I had dug out the eyes from my zombie squishy and broken the clicker from my 5th pen, I realized fidgeting was not a good long-term strategy.  I transitioned to completing digital jigsaw puzzles during calls because it helped calm my mind, but it wasn’t physical enough to scratch the anxiety itch.  That’s where the end of Joann Fabrics came to my rescue.

I, like the rest of my crafty friends, mourned the death of Joann’s when they announced their closure.  The store by my house was massive and the people who worked there were so fucking nice and helpful.  They had everything I could think of in terms of supplies and their yarn selection was pretty decent for a big-box craft store (to my dismay, my local small-business yarn store closed several years back, prolly in part to stores like Joann’s, but I’m choosing to ignore this).  Journeying to Joann’s for the last time to pick apart its corpse, I came across this random non-AI coloring book:

I mean, if this wasn’t designed directly for me I don’t know who it’s for.

Not being much of a coloring fan myself I didn’t see an immediate use for it, but Joann’s was closing and I couldn’t resist picking it up for bargain-basement prices.  I also don’t remember why I was gravitated to it during a particularly hair-pulling work-related conversation I was having, but there I was, scribbling a fine-tipped sharpie marker to a bunch of donuts.  After the donuts were cookies, and oranges and suddenly I was up to 9 very-cursed images.

As you can see, my craft has evolved over time, expanding my medium from just sharpies to also include colored pens and colored pencils.  This, of course, was an intentional artistic vision based decision and not one bore out of the fact some of my markers were running out of ink and I didn’t have the colors I wanted to use anymore.

I refuse to improve my coloring skills.  I enjoy these pages of eye-assulting mediocrity that are gradually disintegrating because they’ve accumulated several water and food-based stains.  I have finally found a way to physically convey what it feels like to be a product manager at a software company.

#5 The Fitness Marshall

When I was a runner I never reached the coveted endorphin nirvana that people claim to experience.  I generally suffered the entire time, which is why I never picked it back up again after I got sick.  Trying to find something to replace it for physical activity has been rough, because I’ve tried all amounts of yoga, pilates, weights, cardio, etc, and I couldn’t stick with any of it because again, it’s boring and I hate it and I’m tired.  But I was sick of being tired all the time and constantly worrying that I’m going to get old and decrepit and fall down my stairs and break all my bones because I have no muscles left.  That’s where The Fitness Marshall stepped in.

Caleb, Allison and Haley dance along to pop hits that I didn’t know I enjoyed until they were replayed 700 times in my basement.  The routines are easy to follow, but not so repetitive that I get bored while I’m following along.  Also, Caleb is charismatic and funny, so even when he’s being extra and telling us how sexy we look I don’t cringe or roll my eyes.  I’m kinda “Yes, chef” about the whole thing.

One of the best parts is they also include low-impact variations, including routines that can be done while sitting down in a chair for those with mobility issues or injuries.  When I first started dancing again my knees functioned similarly to that of an 80-year-old shut-in so I appreciated the modifications.  And sure, it is incredibly corny, but I fucking love it.  Do I want to dance every day?  No.  But there are some days that I can’t wait to do it, and during the workout I can’t stop smiling.  That has never happened when I tried to do any other number of things to get my body moving.  The Fitness Marshall is a positive, silly place that I can escape in for a little bit and feel better about myself after working out.

 Moments that live in my head rent-free:

• “I’m a biter cause I’m anxious.”
• “And slap it”
• “You have saved the town and your mental health.”
• Allison when Britney Bitch hits
• “What’s a Koontz?”
• Bria’s face when Caleb says “Shake them boobies!”
• “Thank youuuuu!”
• “I’m the captain, bitch.”
• “I love the way she says ah-row.”
• “…Judas’ work.”
• “Celebrate your self control!”
• “Cameron, I swear to god, if you ever cheat on me…” 

There’s a playlist of my favorites here – It starts with some warmups to get the body moving, ramps up to some more high-impact songs, and ends with my mid-tempo favorites.  I tend to skip around depending on what I’m sick of hearing at the moment, but I always find myself revisiting routines after a little break.  I could dance along with a lot of these in my sleep.

#4 Smoochies

Smoochies hasn’t been on enough peoples 2025 best albums lists and it’s fucking criminal.

A friend turned me on to Ashnikko during the pandemic and I very quickly became obsessed with her entire discography during quarantine.  It started with “STUPID”, “Invitation”, “Working Bitch”, and “Daisy”, with “Halloweenie IV: Innards” and “Slumber Party” added to the roster later.  She’s a gay AF, tumblr-coded, chaotic anime girl who isn’t afraid to be horny on main.

When I heard “Itty Bitty” I was beyond excited for Smoochies to drop.  Ashnikko does bratty hyper pop super fucking well and I needed more of that in my now very corporate life.  So much of this album is S-tier – “Chichinya”, “Full Frontal”, “Itty Bitty”, “Wet Like”, and “Daddy” are the ones I go to the most often, but I am not glazing when I say there’s literally no skips.  I can’t tell you how often I get lines fucking stuck in my head.  During work “botox in my frontal lobe” just repeats.  Some of my favorites: 

Is this too much?  I wanna take out my IUD.  

Is this too much?  I wanna read your favourite books, see your childhood bedsheets and be friends with your mom.

I shaved my hairy toes for you, I’m a hobbit. 

And this is the thanks I get? 

Boys please, don’t fight over me!

Go do the mature thing –

Make out.  Tongue each other!

Thigh-high, boots to the puss

I don’t want a city boy scared of the bush.

She’s killing me

I’ll put her last name on my headstone.

No more alters to your name

Every part of me that you touched has changed

Everything alchemized like clay

The place where I kept you is gone.

I’m not shy, I’ll say it: 10/10.  The aesthetic, the vibes, the beats – it’s all immaculate.

#3 Date Everything!

I had intended to catch up on a bunch of point and click games this year.  I started Citizen Sleeper while Disco Elysium, Loco Motive, NORCO, and A New Beginning were burning a hole in my steam-shaped pocket… AND after finishing my second playthrough of New Vegas I told everyone I was going to start playing Ni no Kuni on stream… There was a variety of different games I had planned to play is what I’m trying to say.  Then I found out about Date Everything! and my plans vanished into thin air.  

Date Everything! is basically ProZD’s Chairem Anime sketch come to life.  As a player you are gifted a pair of Dateviator glasses that give you the power to see all inanimate objects as real, sentient human beings that somehow are horny as hell, and you are encouraged to form relationships with all of them.  That could mean making a real love connection, picking up a brand new buddy, or creating an enemy for life that happens to be living in your house and can plot their revenge from the next room over.  It’s an unusual premise, but incredibly engaging.  Each character has their own backstory, hang-ups, wishes and fears, and it’s your job as their… landlord?  Caretaker, maybe?… to help them out (and maybe bang them for good measure).  And you’ll want to bang them.  The character designs in this game are absolutely bonkers and will make you question your morals and sanity.  Dasha, the eastern-European desk, made me feel things that uh… people would be ashamed to admit they felt about their desk.  Having everyone voice acted by a superb fucking cast (including ProZD, honestly would have boycotted if he wouldn’t have been included lol) encourages you to get swept away.

While Date Everything! is superb in its execution, it is absolutely massive in scope.  You don’t just get to date the twin pair of dining room chairs, refrigerator-senpai, bed-chan, or an oscillating fan; the game comes with 99 different datable objects (and one ghost).  To beat the game you have to form relationships with all of them so you can basically Pinocchio your furniture into real boys with your magic glasses.  What I thought would be 2-3 streams worth of content at the most turned into like 16+ and the whole back half of 2025.  Once I invested 40 hours into the game I figured I might as well keep going because I was in it to win it.  It’s going to take me 100 hours to beat a dating sim where I get to fuck my yoga mat. What a world we live in today.  If you enjoy playing dating sims, I could not recommend this game strongly enough.  But maybe just play part of it.  It starts to become a little maddening by hour 60.

If you want a detailed breakdown of my definitive object rankings, you can watch that all unfold on Twitch.  Suffice to say I have some opinions.

#2 Silly Tattoos

Some of y’all may remember my backdoor tattoo presentation during a PowerPoint Persuasion about holes several years ago.  Well, I’ve added a few more to the list this year…

At the time I was debating if I wanted to fill in my entire arm, as my very firm stance of ‘nothing above the elbow’ was becoming softer and softer.  But I’m turning 40 soon and something about that made my subconscious scream COOL KIDS FINISH THEIR SLEEVES.  So, 5 appointments and 8 new tattoos later, I’ve made quite a bit of progress.  And I will show you shitty pictures of all of them now.

Musicals are on the board!  A Sweeney Todd-inspired meat pie skull and crossbones.  This may be my favorite tattoo ever. Between his little crust hat, glitter-fied ground meat, and one nested eyeball, Kadee truly knocked my dumb idea right out of the park.

Canned Good from Bee and Puppycat.  I can hear Cardamom whining, “Whyyyy?” every time I look at it.  My niece asked me, “Why is there a baby on that can?” which unfortunately made me realize, based on the meatpie tattoo on the other side of my arm, this very well could be filled with canned baby.

A lollipop from Lollipop Chainsaw.  Nothing brings me more joy in a videogame than chainsawing zombies.

The candy cane weapon from Anna and the Apocalypse.  What a time to be alive.

*Sparkles*.  It’ll really tie the room together.

Hard candy, because I am a slut for Werther’s Original.  I do not recommend an elbow tattoo, it’s like a 9/10 on the pain scale.  I had to get it touched up, too, since the ink in the bone of my elbow did not want to stay, and it hurt just as much the second time.  It’s super cute, but boooooo, you whore, elbow.

The patron saint of this website and my Twitch channel, Oaty McLoafy.  She’s been Guac-tuah’d and immortalized.  Kadee said this was the first OC she’d tattooed, and I’m honestly shocked how much of my original Oaty drawing is in there.  She’s such a lovely looking gal.

My parents sold the cottage this year and I wanted to commemorate the milestone with a tattoo of the crying onion cutting board that hung in the kitchen. When I mentioned this to my parents, my mother revealed my Great Aunt Marge had painted it!  I loved her dearly – she wielded dry humor and sarcasm like a true pro.  Thanks again, Aunt Marge, for this cursed image.

This manic progression is kind of ironic, since initially I felt weird and self-conscious about having most of my forearm covered and now I’m sprinting toward a full sleeve of dumb fucking foodstuffs and I don’t feel strange about it at all.

Next year I’m planning on getting a twice baked potato, an angry burnt grilled cheese sandwich, a parade of charcuterie foods, tiny candy corns, and a cool bean.  I dunno if we’ll complete the arm by the big 4-0, but gosh darned it, it won’t be from lack of trying.

#1 Pat Finnerty

…Don’t look at me like that.  I’m very aware he was #1 last year, too, but he’s like the only good thing happening on YouTube right now.  Very few videos on the internet feature incredible lines like, “You ever seen a chicken quesadilla and heard live music at the same time?  Then you know the fucking songs!”  We cannot ignore the Finnerty vs Chevy Trilogy. 

It truly feels like MGK is ripping through each genre of music leaving it worse off than when he found it.  I truly want to know what kind of audacity you would have to possess to take an internationally known musical standard like “Country Roads”, rewrite it to “Lonely Road”, and record a cinematic music video that showcases both your new torso tattoo and lackluster acting ability.  …Is this ‘cause he snagged Megan Fox?  I feel like that would give anyone delusions of grandeur.

Sidenote: The first time I was ever exposed to MGK was not through his shitty music, but through this episode of Catfish where he got entirely too upset about being duped by a group of girls on a show that is literally about scamming people on the internet.  He’s so unserious, fr.

It’s one thing to write a shitty original song.  It’s a whole ‘nother level of egregious to take a good song and transform it into a shitty, generic earworm that started a trend of interpolated songs that only list items from the country music checklist.  We’ve been recycling Fuckin’ Movies for over a goddamn decade now, so it comes to reason we’d be recycling the Fuckin’ Songs next.  But what the fucking fuck is “On The Boat Again?”  And as much as I’d like to think this is an isolated country music problem, this godawful 4 Non Blondes mashup went viral this year making me wonder if Pat is Nostradamus-ing us into a burning musical landscape nightmare.

We all want someone to blame for this (And I’m OK with putting most of it on MGK and LoCash formally LoCash Cowboys), but when the problem is too systemic and large, it’s only natural for someone tangentially related to catch strays by being designated the scapegoat.  And Chevy has been unscathed for too long.  Thousands of Pat Finnerty fans have co-signed the movement to Bring “Like a Rock” Back to save us all from another Chevy name drop in a song by a bedazzled pair of weirdos who willingly play tennis in a parking lot.

Look, there’s a lot, a fucking lot of fucked up things that deserve our attention right now, but getting mad at Chevy for being associated with dirtbag cash grab country music is a nice low-stakes respite that can unite us all.

At least 2025 finally gave us Finnerty’s list of acceptable I-V-vi-IVs:

I want “Guilty pleasures: Wrecking ball (Cyrus), Most of the blinks, some of the Taylors” on a t-shirt.

Honorable Mentions: