Not exactly an up-to-date announcement for most of you I’m sure, but I have, for the first time ever, bought an entire music pack for one of my VR rhythm games because Lindsey Stirling is just that amazing.

One of these days I need to set up a playlist (of sorts–Synth Riders natively supports the option but Beat Saber doesn’t) to determine the order in which I play different songs since I’m using this for fitness. I’ve noticed many times that even on the same difficulty level some songs require considerably more activity than others. Shadows, for instance, is much more of a workout versus First Light having more the the feel of a warmup or cooldown. Meanwhile Shatter Me is just plain stuck in my head.

Granted that does assume that the difference in difficulty from one song to the next will stay the same as I improve enough to increase the actual built-in difficulty levels, but only time will tell. Bear in mind my fitness level is still such where easy mode has my heart rate reaching the higher tiers for most of the workout in these particular games.

In other news, not trying to turn my hodgepodge of a main channel into more of one, but I have been musing on and off lately about ASMR videos. Specifically, what, from the perspective of video niches, is a meaningful difference between ASMR and nature sounds videos? Because I have to say, if we’re discussing ASMR in terms of the physiological response to different sounds, nature sounds (like thunderstorms) are what do it for me, but as a niche I tend to see people doing more hands-on things.

In any case, I did an experiment with my GoPro recording a thunderstorm passing overhead a few nights ago so that’s getting added to the backlog whether I end up calling it ASMR or not. Obviously if I’m relying on my real-world environment instead of downloading sound effects my ability to produce such videos will be limited to what’s going on outside, but it’s something I’d be interested in trying… depending on how well the camera picked up the sound. (And if I do it again maybe I’ll try opening the window next time–while there was no actual plan to get video footage out of the deal it would’ve been nice in hindsight if I could’ve gotten that without seeing the camera blinking in its own reflection, plus there’s the more critical detail of parking it behind a curtain with no airflow causing it to overheat and shut off three times before the storm had ended, whereas I was hoping to get a recording that lasted as long as the battery did.)

And finally got some of that decluttering done. I have, courtesy of Vine, a new VR stand I like (I’d like it more if it was charging friendly but I digress) so my old one got tossed into the pile of things to be donated, my person humidifier got relocated from my bedroom to the much larger living room (turns out that the smoke detector can’t tell the difference between all of that mist the thing puts out and, ya know, smoke) so my “personal air conditioner” that I bought to help keep me cool while exercising got moved to the shelf unit by my bed, so now the dresser is a titch less cluttered…..

I finally, finally filed away the assorted user manuals that have been piling up on top of my desk. The desk has not been “cleared off” in the process, I’m afraid, but I did use that space to relocate some mugs full of pens and bookmarks and such that were making the area around the aforementioned VR stand very cluttered.

And on the fitness front, I made the executive decision to donate that sit-up machine I’d bought solely for the purpose of using with Zombies Run bodyweight exercises, on account of how much dust it was accumulating (achoo!) from being shoved under my bed for space-saving reasons…. only to realize that the very next episode of the Dragon Rider training had me doing crunches. Oof.

Still plenty of decluttering to go if I’m ever going to get rid of that extra desk and reorganize my room for floorspace, but it’s a start.