I'm a 90s kid from southwest Germany and never noticed the console wars. Nobody I knew owned a Sega console here. It was NES, SNES (and some C64, Amiga) and later mainly PS1, PS2 (with N64 and GameCube being less common) that everyone owned. This is just from my childhood and other kids I knew.

I never saw a Sega console in the wild here. From talking to other people online it seems Sega was popular in the UK, but not here. It'd be interesting to try and get memories of folks from different European countries for comparison. I can't comment on the USA of course, the gaming market was probably way different there.

As for Nintendo and Sony, if there was a rivalry in advertising I didn't notice it. For the most part people played whatever console they grew up with although I'm sure many switched from Nintendo to Sony as they got older. I remember the kiddie image for Nintendo was prevalent, Sony had games that appealed to older players. By the time I started using the Internet in the early 00s the console wars had already died down.

Personally I've never had any "mine is better than yours" discussions with friends because the games we had on our consoles were different. I was an N64 kid but often played PS1 (Crash Bandicoot, Rayman, Pandemonium) at a friend's house and enjoyed it. And we had many great multiplayer sessions (Mario Kart 64, Mario Party, Banjo-Tooie) with the N64 at my place. It was just a different console, there was no rivalry mindset with us kids.

"Along the North Strand" (Child 4)
Sung by young Irish Traveller woman Kitty Cassidy in Dublin in 1967:
https://youtu.be/bnHSWxBxCu0

This is a style of singing that has fallen out of fashion. I think it's very beautiful.
A version of the Bluebeard story. It's haunting. One of my favourite ballad performances of all time.

The Gypsy, Roma and Traveller People of Ireland, Scotland and England held onto the tradition of ballad singing and storytelling long after it died out elsewhere. The last tradition bearers of the British Isles.

I like Little Matty Groves. It's a folk song about a love triangle. People may know it from British folk-rock band Fairport Convention.

This Appalachian version by Sara Grey is a great example:
https://youtu.be/gBkpmpn6nH4

I did some version comparisons here:
https://www.youtube.com/@Liederfuchs/posts

Early settlers from England and Scotland brought the song to the USA and Canada. It faded from memory in Britain but remained popular in the mountains of Appalachia and the fishing communities of Newfoundland.

I love old ballads with their stories about lords and knights and ghosts and elves and love and tragedy and all that stuff people entertained themselves with centuries ago. It's like musical archaeology and time travel into a different era.

It's a bit of a personal message but let me post it.
I got very happy news today. The legal battle I had for years has an end. And the mental strain on me too. I won.

I had a cycling accident in 2016 from which I never fully recovered. I can no longer work my job because of chronic health problems. I'm autistic.

Now I finally get disability support.

My mood is on an all time high since that appointment is behind me. I feel so good.

Psychological stress can make you physically sick. I didn't know what was causing my back pain until the psychological cause of it was gone.

My back pain is completely gone now. I'm one happy fox. 🦊🧡

I wish you all a Happy Pride Month!

Be yourself, be proud, be happy. Thank you to everyone who accepts and supports LGBT+ people.

I'd like to live long enough to see a world where nobody has to be scared, ashamed and hiding anymore for being gay or trans or otherwise different from the norm.

Feeling good today. I just wanna say.
Still taking it easy. I'll take care of myself and enjoy the weekend.

Have a nice Friday! See you all again soon.
In good health and good mood. 🧡🦊

I'll be offline until next week to focus on health. Having terrible back pain problems. I need to do exercises and avoid sitting at the PC. Sorry about that. :/

I'll come back soon when I feel better. ❤️

Autism is not a disease. I don't feel sick. My brain just works differently and it leads to misunderstandings.

If I had a chance to be "cured" from it I wouldn't want to. It would not be me anymore. All I wish for is a better understanding of autism in the public, to make life a bit easier for us.

Arcade Donkey Kong
Rayman 1 / 2
Chrono Trigger
Zombies ate my Neighbours
Gothic 1 / 2
Shadow Man
Mario All-Stars
Yoshi's Island
Mario 64
Zelda Link to the Past / Ocarina of Time / Majora's Mask
Advance Wars
Command & Conquer / Red Alert
Resident Evil 1 / 2
Parodius
GTA III

My favourite example of false friends are

German "wo" = English "where"
German "wer" = English "who"

"Wo ist..." means "Where is..."
"Wer ist..." means "Who is..."

You may get these two words mixed up if you're not familiar with both languages. I always found that interesting.

It's a poem or a folk ballad I once found in a book, "Folk-Songs of the South", by John Harrington Cox. Quite mysterious, it's been on my mind today. Only four verses exist.

And then came Black Phyllis, his charger astride,
And took away Annie, his unwilling bride.
It rained, it hailed, and I sat and cried,
And wished that my Annie that day had then died.

And then came her true-love from over the moor,
And left them a-cursing his cross on the door.
It rained, it hailed, I waited no more;
I knew that my Annie he soon would restore.

He fell on Black Phyllis with wild lion's roar;
They fought and they struggled for hour after hour.
It rained, it hailed, though wounded and sore,
He left Phyllis a-dead on the moor.

Then swift as a bird to his true-love he fled,
Found the cabin in ashes, the ground all a-red.
It rained, it hailed, though swift he had fled,
He found he was too late; his Annie was dead.

I sing it to the tune of "Fair Nottamun Town" to which it is related by the third line of each verse. I wish there was more of it, but whatever existed is lost to time.

Is Black Phyllis a kidnapper? Or a picturesque description of a disease taking Annie away?
We'll never know but it is intriguing.

Felt like making a journal entry about this. I hope that's okay.

I was diagnosed relatively late, at 21. I was talking to a student counsellor back then. I'm thankful to her for noticing it. Maybe I would never have found out otherwise, I'd never heard of Asperger's before talking to her. Then I went to get checked and it was diagnosed.

Previously I had been diagnosed with ADHD as a kid. But it never felt exactly right. Some of it didn't line up.

All the little things, my special interests, avoiding eye contact, my struggles with social interactions. It made sense now. As a kid I was fascinated by lightbulbs, later it was carnivorous plants, things like that. I always had niche interests that I spent a lot of time and effort on.

The problem with me becoming stressed in noisy rooms and running away. I could not explain. Or me refusing a handshake at a birthday. When I talk to someone and avoid direct eye contact it was seen as me being absent-minded and rude. And I couldn't say why. Now I can explain it and people understand and aren't upset with me.

Friends sometimes ask me "Why did you want a diagnosis?" or "Doesn't knowing that make you feel bad?". But no, I'm glad to have been diagnosed because being able to explain yourself makes life easier.

Autistic people can probably sense they're a bit different. But they can't explain why they're different if they don't know it themselves. And explaining is the first step to being understood by others. It's so important.

I'm sorry if this journal entry is a bit random. It was on my mind today after talking about it with a friend.

I sleep with a fan in the room because I like the noise
Like white noise, it helps me fall asleep
But I keep getting a cold from it 🦊

I could record the fan noise with my portable recorder and play it at night but I'd feel so dumb doing that

As a little kid my grandfather took me along on a truck ride one day and I heard on the radio a song, "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" with a beautiful melody.

I desperately wanted to remember it, so I wrote down what I heard of the refrain.
Back at home I looked it up and found out it's based on an Irish folk song, "Drimindown".

Eventually I found a recording of "Drimindown" and it was so fascinating to me, it started my lifelong passion for folk music.

It had an outlandishly strange tune to my ears and a macaronic refrain. A mixture of Gaelic and English.

It was a spellbinding experience to hear that for the first time as a kid of 11 years.

I just love autumn, it's my favourite time of the year.

The colours, golden brown leaves between sunshine and morning fog, smells of mushrooms and wet ground, season of nuts, plums and apples.

A world that's fading to be reborn again next spring.
Melacholic, cozy, serene and beautiful.

Every year I look forward to Halloween so I can sing folk songs that fit the season.

The fairy ballads "Tam Lin" and "Thomas the Rhymer".
The ghost ballads "Sweet William's Ghost" and "The Suffolk Miracle".
And "The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry".

They're all wonderfully mysterious and spooky songs.

It's still a bit too early but I'm already excited for spooky season. ^-^
Something to look forward to.

Today was a really great day for me. I haven't felt so happy in a long time.

My health is better, my motivation and energy to see and do stuff is back. Eventually I'll figure out better social interactions, too.

Now I'll enjoy a bit of wonderful cool apple juice 🧃🦊
And then sleep. Good night!

Pizza Tower is now my personal game of the year. I recently got it as a surprise gift from a friend and I enjoy it so much.

It plays similar to the old Wario Land games on the Game Boy, but much faster paced, with the focus on dashing through levels at breakneck speed and perfecting your runs from start to exit.

I don't have that many hobbies, videogames being one of the biggest interests for me, so I hope it's okay if I sometimes start rambling about games and other non furry things on here.