Now that Flash is officially unavailable, we’ll just have to keep looking into the backup solutions people have come up with, like Flashpoint to view old web content in native players for a variety of plugins, or that Ruffle thing which converts the Flash data into web standard formats. At some point I’d like to put together a page about the things I’ve found in Flash over time and hopefully have ways to access all of that stuff as well.
As far as anything else, it’s weird that how a year ago, this was the day I was looking to make flights and get to a hotel for a convention all the way over on the east coast, the last convention I’d be doing for quite some time, so I made luck with the timing, and didn’t even get the usual con flu likely thanks to having the foresight of getting a flu shot for the first time. I usually didn’t before, but now it’s a thing I do since the side effects are cut way down aside from the usual mind control drugs that cause people to spend a lot on holiday shopping. I certainly did that this winter, as I’ve got a whole new PC setup with a VR kit.
I am getting way into VR and that has been most of the games I’ve bought in the winter sales. Possibly wanderlust, as before everything closed up I was gradually getting more reaching into socializing and conventions, but we’re back to square one for those, eventually. I have been checking out VRChat in the past days since I’d gotten the kit. You really get all kinds in the public worlds, and anyone who livestreams themselves in a populated public room is either foolish or brave. I’ve definitely encountered a variety. At some point I was thinking to put together a custom avatar when I get back into modeling, by then hopefully my account would be trusted enough to upload things. For now, I’m just picking up whatever usually robots I find.
Also in video game stuff, there’s still Animal Crossing. That had a New Year’s event. It also had Thanksgiving and Christmas parallels as usual. While the marketing is very Northern Hemisphere-focused, up to the point where Nintendo’s Australian YouTube account is still using the same footage for Animal Crossing update trailers, the game does actually account for the seasonal differences, including a spring theme for Turkey Day furniture (previously Harvest Festival, but I guess changed to account for how spring isn’t typically associated with harvests) and noting the sunny weather on Toy Day. It has been interesting playing a Southern Hemisphere island, and now the trademark cicadas are showing up. I’ve really only known about cicadas from Animal Crossing and anime.
I have no idea how the year will turn out. I’m not a fortune teller. I don’t exactly know how to read tarot cards or if I’m supposed to include the squirrel or joker or how to play poker cards. I think patience is important, even as thin as that runs, so I’m just going to play everything safe, including not flailing around too hard in VR. I’m keeping my senses open for any VR conventions in the meantime.