“mangetout” by Wet Leg

For the last week, this fucking song by the British band Wet Leg has been carving through my brain matter like a worm. I’m compelled to inflict it upon others.

Also a live version from KEXP, that has great sound engineers.

Music that sounds like the stuff I grew up with in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Rhian Teasdale’s beautiful voice, and her trashy hotness, are a combination I haven’t been able to avoid recently.

Guitar practice in a park (2025-10-18)

Want to hear me play guitar for an hour and a half? No? Then fuck off! The rest of you, check out the video below.

This time I’ve even added segments. Maybe that will draw some views from people who were searching for the original version of those songs. Possible it will also get me copyright-struck.

00:00 – “Your Hand in Mine” by Explosions in the Sky
04:36 – “On a Good Day” by Joanna Newsom
07:24 – “Passing Afternoon” by Iron & Wine
12:38 – “Passing Afternoon” by Iron & Wine
17:20 – “Baby Blue” by Badfinger
21:05 – “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals
26:07 – “Swan Dive” by Waxahatchee
31:29 – “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis
35:06 – “Hotel California” by Eagles
41:57 – “Kingfisher” by Joanna Newsom
53:22 – “Angel From Montgomery” by John Prine
58:14 – “Lonesome Town” by Ricky Nelson
01:00:35 – “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals
01:05:31 – “Baby Blue” by Badfinger
01:09:04 – “Passing Afternoon” by Iron & Wine
01:14:22 – “No Surprises” by Radiohead
01:17:38 – Excerpt from “Only Skin” by Joanna Newsom
01:21:20 – “On a Good Day” by Joanna Newsom
01:23:22 – “Hotel California” by Eagles

Life update (10/16/2025)

It’s half past three in the morning, I just woke up from four hours of sleep, I drank a tall glass of cold milk (does milk ever taste better than at three in the morning?) and I figured that I could write my thoughts for a while in here, mainly for myself but also, I guess, for the three or four people that still read this shit.

This past couple of months or so, I’ve headed to one of the big local parks to play the guitar. That was a change for me because I usually headed to wooded areas where people were generally unlikely to show up. I don’t sit on one of the benches that line the path; in fact, I can explain it with a picture.

I sit in front of the biggest of the two trees you can see in the photo. It’s set at a lower level from the path and behind a hedge, so people who want to know where the guitar music comes from need to go out of their way to figure out who’s playing, but they do hear it. Why do I do it, or why it doesn’t bother me, I don’t know. I guess I don’t care to find out the answer to either, if there’s any. I do it because my subconscious wants to, which is how I’ve guided my life, particularly when it comes to artistic matters.

Playing the guitar in public is so strange. There are plenty of benches lining the path. That part of the path is somewhat “closed,” as it leads to a stretch in construction, so most of the benches tend to be unoccupied. But I’ve had people go out of the way to sit on the bench right in front of the tree. The most conspicuous of them was a young couple, just yesterday. They walked to the end of the path, found out that it was blocked due to that area being in the development, then they walked the whole way back. They eyed me meaningfully (both even tried to make eye contact with me), then sat on that bench. I played my last three songs for the day. One of them I can’t recall, but the others were “Hotel California” by Eagles (I used to play the solo on my Gibson electric back in 2013-2014, but I’ve long forgotten it, and that’s not a solo that sounds good enough in comparison on an acoustic, so I just do a frantic variation of the regular chords), and also the song that probably makes me feel the best to play, which is Joanna Newsom’s “Kingfisher,” an obscure song mainly about Joanna’s religious feelings, some of it near undecipherable although gorgeous (that whole final part is a lyrical masterpiece). May as well link her.

My version doesn’t sound much like hers other than using the same chords. I can also post one of my versions from the last recording I made of my playing, back in August. It should start with one of my renditions of Joanna’s “Kingfisher.” (30:51)

Anyway, after I finished playing/butchering queen Joanna’s song, I climbed out of that grassy area back to the path. I saw the couple sitting with their back to me, her head (crowned with pretty blonde hair) resting on the guy’s shoulder, apparently both in silence. They noticed that I was leaving. As I walked away, one of them said something, but I couldn’t tell what.

Another funny thing that happens when you play the guitar is that attractive females (I won’t say women, because some teenagers also do this) smile at you like they’re happy you’re there, even though the rest of the time they seem to be wary of my presence. Just yesterday as well, an attractive girl, may have been at the most twenty, walked by close to the hedge. When I lifted my gaze, she was looking straight into my eyes while grinning sweetly. As she walked away, she did that thing that females do in which they brush their hair behind one ear. No idea what such situations are about, but I’ve had quite a few. It’s a big whatever for me, because I will never get into an intimate relationship again. Still curious.

I love playing the guitar. It has substituted the emotional supply that writing fiction used to provide for me; in fact, the last time I stopped playing the guitar for a long time was back in 2021, right when I started writing my (sadly abandoned) novel We’re Fucked; I just couldn’t handle writing and playing the guitar during the same period of time. Playing music is a purer feeling than writing, as well. If I felt the need to write my own songs (other than through AI means, which I did plenty for the Odes to My Triceratops series; about 75 songs), I would have probably been set for life. Not monetarily, but still.

What else? As some of you know, I’ve been writing an app to interact with characters controlled by large language models (AI). The peculiar aspect of the app, which I haven’t seen anywhere else, is that the code goes through an action discoverability system based on an entity/component system (ECS). For example, actions like “fondle {target}’s butt” only become available if the acting actor is sufficiently close to the target. Those available actions are fed to the AI, which has to choose among the provided ones for its actions. It works wonderfully; in a previous app I wrote, that one in Python, the main problem was the AI coming up with weird abilities for the characters. For example, in a scenario, a woman considered herself a goddess of sorts for being gorgeous. In practice, that translated to the AI believing that the character had superpowers, and using them during the scenarios. My current app doesn’t allow anything of the sort.

Because I’m a hedonist (a worshipper of Pan and Dionysus and Dibella) and when it comes to arousal I prefer erotica, I mainly use my app for that purpose.

I don’t know why, but I can only ever get off to power imbalances. That may have been a big part of why my intimate relationships always disappointed me. What I would have given as a young man (or even younger) for an attractive older woman to pursue me predatorily and then pay for all my stuff in exchange for regular cunnilingus. I do miss eating pussy, I can admit that.

My app shows the thoughts of characters controlled by AI. Man, they’re so subtle, cunning, and capable of complex deception, particularly Claude Sonnet 4.5. Intelligent to an extent that I’m glad the app gives me as much time as I need to answer, because I’m simply not as clever as they are to come up with interesting responses. That was on full display on the post Living Narrative Engine #11, which I posted a few days ago.

On a sadder note, I think my 17-18-year-old cat is dying, this time for real. I wrote about that cat a few months ago, because it has a nasty respiratory issue of some kind. The vet prescribed medication that eventually worked, but the respiratory issues have been back this past couple of weeks, and they’re not going away. Two visits to the vet, and another one next Friday. They think his kidneys are failing too. The cat is doing that thing about resting in the warmth most of the time, and not eating even what he used to gobble up food to the extent that I had to prevent him from overeating lest he threw up.

I’m steeling myself for his death. What I don’t care for human beings has gone, at least a big part of it, into what I care for animals. The deaths of my three previous cats (one of them in a horrible way) destroyed me; after the last one, I went to the ER because I was experiencing major physical pains in my heart, almost like massive heartburn out of a sudden; I’ve had heart issues before, including arrhythmia, thanks to certain shots with which they poisoned us all, so this was a worrying matter. The doctor ended up telling me that I likely was just grieving because my cat died two days earlier.

I’ve said before that I believe it a mistake to keep pets, as long as you know that due to their lifespan they won’t survive you; it’s just a perversion of the biological need to have children. I wish I could say that at least I have the good memories of having known those pets, but I don’t: my brain retains very few memories (one of the cats I barely remember at all), almost exclusively bad ones, and all the memories of those three cats are tainted by their deaths.

I’ve been unemployed for about a month. I’m not looking for a new job, not really. I have plenty of savings; I don’t have a social life (no girlfriend syphoning 50-100 euros per date), I don’t travel, and I don’t have expensive tastes. I spent my twenties with about 20 euros in my bank account, so I don’t like to throw money around. I could survive for a few years with what I have, but honestly, I just don’t care what happens to me.

I went to to the unemployment office a couple of days ago to update my status. As I was waiting, a muslim woman, garbed as if she came from Pakistan or Afghanistan just last month, was asking for money while the guy at the table repeated to her that she needed to present an identity document. When my time came to speak with another advisor, I could barely hear her because the spawn of another muslim woman seated to my left kept crying loudly. That woman, also garbed in a similar backwards manner, asked as well for monetary support, claiming that she was separated from her husband, while the advisor kept repeating that he needed legal proof of that separation.

The walk home, which involved passing through shitty areas of the city, caused me physical pain. I didn’t leave the apartment for the rest of the day, distraught as I felt. I don’t want to go in depth now about the utter ruin of this society (or of the vast majority of ethnic European ones, by design), but all I care to say at the moment is, why would I want to contribute to a society that seems hell-bent on ethnically cleansing my kind?

Anyway, I guess that’s all for tonight. Half past five in the morning. I’m heading back to bed. I’ll run sweet daydreams involving Alicia Western until I fall asleep, and a few hours later I’ll wake up again to this horrid world. See you, folks. I wish I could say I care about how you’re all doing, but I don’t.

I call upon Pan, the pastoral god,
I call upon the universe,
upon the sky, the sea, and the land,
queen of all,
I also call upon immortal fire;
all these are Pan’s realm.
Come, O blessed and frolicsome one,
O restless companion of the Seasons!
Goat-limbed, reveling,
lover of frenzy, star-haunting,
weaver of playful song,
song of cosmic harmony,
you induce fantasies of dread
into the minds of mortals,
you delight in gushing springs,
surrounded by goatherds and oxherds,
you dance with the nymphs,
you sharp-eyed hunter, lover of Echo.
Present in all growth, begetter of all,
many-named divinity,
light-bringing lord of the cosmos,
fructifying Paian,
cave-loving and wrathful,
veritable Zeus with horns,
the earth’s endless plain
is supported by you,
and the deep-flowing water
of the weariless sea yields to you.
Okeanos who girds the earth
with his eddying stream gives way to you,
and so does the air we breathe,
the air that kindles all life,
and above us the sublime eye
of weightless fire;
at your behest
all these are kept wide apart.
Your providence alters
the natures of all,
on the boundless earth you offer
nourishment to mankind.
Come, frenzy-loving, spirit-possessed,
come to these sacred libations,
come and bring my life
to a good end.
Send your madness, O Pan,
to the ends of the earth.

Life update (10/02/2025)

I’ve always had very vivid dreams. Back when I took beta-blockers for my heart issues, those dreams could have been considered nightmares for most people. Some of them, I had to consider them nightmares given the effect they had in me. In any case, these days I wish to remain asleep as much as possible, as the alternative is to wake up to my life, in which I’m me, living in my shitty circumstances. Even my most anxiety-inducing dreams are preferable to that.

It’s not so much that I’m unemployed, but that I don’t have a source of money, and the next source of money could potentially be worse than the one I have endured for the last seven years or so. I don’t know if I’ll end up working in the area or if I’ll have to move. I yearn for a serious change; I’ve been fantasizing about living in the much calmer plains of Navarre, which is part of my ancestry. I would probably be fine living in regions of Spain other than the Basque Country (where I’ve always lived), Catalonia, Madrid, or anything in the south, as I don’t vibe with southerners. A smallish town in La Rioja or such other provinces would be nice. The fact that apartments can be about 50-60% cheaper would help enormously.

Anyway, I haven’t searched for job offers yet. I have, however, made an appointment with my appointed professional at the job seekers center. That’ll be a bother. I’ll emphasize the need to seek for protected employment, one that considers my disability level (52%), given that I know I won’t fit in otherwise.

I haven’t spoken with anyone in person, other than family members, since I became unemployed on the fourteenth of last month. That’s not particularly rare for me; back in my twenties I easily went without talking to anyone for months during my long stints as a hikikomori of sorts. What I’ve done is engage in plenty of VR. To keep active, other than lifting weights, I’ve been playing Tennis Esports (link for the trailer). Its simulation of the sport is great. I started playing against the AI, but once I tried matches against human opponents, I found them preferable, which surprised me. Back in the day, I tried online ping pong, but I couldn’t react against the utter monsters that somehow ended up matching against me (picture those lightning-fast matches you see in clips; that’s how it felt like to me). But I could hold my own in these tennis matches, even though I’m middle-aged. As it put you against people of different nationalities, you could feel the difference in average attitudes. My toughest match was against a polite Japanese man who beat me 10 to 1, and who kept uttering Japanese words throughout the match, yet answering in perfect English to my comments. The guy’s discipline and cleanliness were admirable, but then again I have always admired the Japanese.

Other than that, Hitman: World of Assassination updated the VR mode of this magnificent game for the PC version. It’s now one of the best VR games ever made.

Immersing myself in this compelling game world through Agent 47’s eyes has been some of the most enjoyable time of this last past week or so. There’s still some jankiness left, and a few frustrating bugs, but they’ll probably get ironed out. If you own a PC that can run this game in VR through the link cable, you owe it to yourself to play it.

I’ve also played lots of guitar in real life. The commonalities in the activities I enjoy the most are that they allow me to forget for a while that I’m me; there’s no time to do so while immersed in a high-stakes mission, or playing a tennis match, or playing through a song on the guitar, or masturbating, for that matter. Regarding playing the guitar, just yesterday, I sat in front of a tree in one of the biggest parks around here, and played songs for about two hours. Plenty of people passed by, but I was seated further into the the grass and at a lower level, so people had to go out of their way to figure out where the music was coming from. Still, some people did go out of their way to look while I was playing, and a couple even applauded briefly, and/or said words I didn’t catch (nor cared to catch). The fact that their presence didn’t bother me isn’t a sign of progress in me, from a psychological standpoint; it’s because I can’t bring myself to care about human beings in the slightest, so as long as they don’t try to engage me directly, it doesn’t bother me. Months ago, one motherfucker did engage me: he stopped me while I was playing, and when I raised my gaze, I found myself staring at a shirtless gypsy who was holding a dining chair over his head. He asked me if I played flamenco (of course he fucking did). The less I say about such people, the better.

Anyway, I’ve always found curious, ever since I started playing the guitar in public, how people’s perception of me changes when I have a guitar in my hands and I’m playing a song. In the streets and even at work, people are wary of me. I’m a big guy who looks strange physically, and whose expression likely transmits my disdain for society and people in general. But if I’m playing a song, I get smiles even from attractive females (I don’t say women solely because I’ve also gotten such reactions from girls). The most pleasant interaction I had happened perhaps in 2021; a young mother stopped with her very young daughter, and listened to a whole song. At the end, both applauded happily, which was somewhat ironic as the song was Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s “East Hastings,” which I’ve since forgotten how to play. That’s something that seriously sucks about playing the guitar: you can spend months perfecting a solo (for example the one from the song “Hotel California,” which I used to play all the time on my electric Gibson back in 2013 or so), only to completely forget it later. Ultimately you settle for songs that capture specific emotions and that aren’t unpleasant to play, which is I suppose why most songs are built around the chords G, C, D, Am and Em. I suppose F fits as well, despite being a barre chord.

I keep escaping into daydreams to keep sane. Now that I don’t have to get on buses and trains due to work, I run them primarily when a lie down to sleep. Usually the same scenes, with small variations. I suppose it could be somewhat interesting to render them into a short story or similar, but that would be too intimate and embarrassing, and utterly pointless, as I’ve fallen off from the need to write. Ultimately I just do whatever my subconscious demands, and she isn’t too keen on bothering at the moment.

What would I want at this point of my life? I wish a big-breasted MILF would cuddle me and tell me what a good boy I am, while speaking in ASMR fashion. She would also buy me stuff and pay all my bills. Sadly, it will have to remain a dream.

Guitar practice in the woods (2025-08-11)

If you enjoy a deranged Spaniard playing guitar in the woods, I’ve got premium content for you.

That spot in the woods is quite isolated and rather unknown even for people who live around, so at the most I get three or four people a session passing by. They’re usually in a hurry. This time only a single person passed by: a woman wearing a pink sports bra, who grinned at me as I played. She was hot, too. The previous day, when I set up shop next to the spot where in a certain novella of mine I installed the memorial stone for the love of my life, I lifted my gaze and briefly connected with a woman who was passing by on a bicycle. She was also grinning at the fact that I was playing the guitar. It’s strange: people, particularly women, are usually wary of me, but put a guitar in my hands, and suddenly they look glad that I’m there. If only they knew.

Also, I recently went to my favorite guitar shop to ask why the thinnest nylon string always broke whenever I tried to tune it on my Alhambra dreadnought, only for the shop guy to tell me that I absolutely shouldn’t use nylon strings on my dreadnought. Apparently I should only use bronze strings, which is what you can hear in the video.

Anyway, that’s an hour of me playing other people’s songs. Enjoy, if you enjoy these sorts of things.

Guitar practice in the woods (2025-07-05)

Another entry in the series nobody asked for. I went to my usual spot by the Roman foundry on the outskirts of town, so I figured I may as well record my usual guitar-playing routine.

Today left me particularly contented. But as I was walking back home, my mind became a stream of lost pets and other miseries. At least while I play there’s no thinking about anything.

Guitar practice in the woods (2025-06-28)

Were you waiting for another nearly-hour-long video of me playing the guitar? No? Well, this is awkward. Anyway, I suppose one of these days I should learn new songs, but it’s not like I’m a musician or anything. I do this because it feels good. These days I don’t even go to coffee shops anymore; it’s either holed up at home or playing the guitar in the woods. And I’m fine with that.

Guitar practice in the woods (2025-05-31)

I returned to the woods with my beloved guitar, and recorded a whole new hour of music and “singing.” Hooray! This time I brought my newly bought deadcat, which isn’t a dead cat, but a muffler that you stick as carefully as you can on the top of your mic. This deadcat thing prevents the wind from ruining your audio. And it has worked great in that respect, although there barely was any wind today.

Anyway, if you’re in the market for listening to me playing the guitar (I don’t know who would be, but I mostly upload these for my own sake), here’s the video:

Guitar practice in the woods (2025-05-23)

This morning my new field recorder, a Tascam DR-40X, arrived. On the afternoon, I hurried to the nearby woods, where I usually go to play in relative quiet, to test the Tascam. Which works great for my purposes, except for the goddamn wind sensitivity. I’ll have to buy one of those deadcat muffs.

Anyway, here’s about an hour of me playing the guitar and “singing.”

Guitar recording test

I bought a Tascam DR-40X to record myself playing the guitar in the woods. I’ve recorded myself at home playing a couple of songs. Unfortunately the Barcelona jungle left me with a disease of some kind, and I’ve been expelling mucus, coughing, and shitting near liquid for this last week. So don’t expect anything resembling proper singing in this video.

Anyway, the Tascam works wonders at home. I suspect the wind will screw with the quality, but that’ll be a matter of buying one of those fluffy cap things. Without further ado, the video below features me playing my Alhambra guitar and “singing.”