Dan Ruscoe

Blog

  • Milwaukee Zoo Lights

    Went to see the lights at the Milwaukee Zoo.

  • Usenet Kooks and Flamewars

    Usenet was a wild place back in the 90s and early 2000s.

    People would get into great discussions, but they’d also fight with each other. And they’d fight a lot.

    Flamewars were big arguments between two or (usually) more people. Some people would take things so far as to report people to their ISPs for having arguments on Usenet. It got a bit silly at times.

    If you managed to cause enough trouble, you might be labeled a kook. It was a very derogatory label that would follow you around from newsgroup to newsgroup.

  • The World Has Lost Adam The Woo

    According to many sources in the YouTube community, YouTuber Adam The Woo has passed away.

    I’ve followed Adam’s adventures for years and his channel was amongst my most frequently watched. This is absolutely heartbreaking.

    Adam touched a lot of lives and will be greatly missed.

  • New Year Text Congestion

    Remembering how, in the early to mid-2000s, the mobile phone text message system used to get congested by all the “Happy New Year!” messages. I don’t think I ever had one actually get through.

    This was back in the days when text messages would cost ten pence each to send. I wonder how much money BT and Orange made over Christmas and New Year from texts alone.

  • 3D Modeling the Hodag

    I’ve been doing some design work for my upcoming game, Blood of the Cryptids.

    Here’s my low-poly take on Wisconsin’s own cryptid, the Hodag.

  • Readme Files

    One of my obscure hobbies is collecting readme files from old software. I even have a website for it.

    It’s an interesting glimpse into the past of software development.

  • Ghost Game

    This is a screenshot from a game prototype I made years ago.

    It’s a point-and-click adventure game I had some ideas for. Posting it here so I remember to revisit it eventually.

  • The Beano

    I have a small collection of Beano comics and annuals just for the nostalgia.

    I’ve never been able to find the exact issue, but I have my name printed in a copy of the Beano thanks to a joke I submitted in the 90s. It would have been around 1996. Sadly, my original copy is long gone.

    It would be fun to find that issue some day.

  • Started a Patreon

    I started a Patreon to help develop a new video game I’m calling Blood of the Cryptids.

    The game is going to be a retro-style first-person shooter where the player fights cryptids.

    I’m basically combining my love of retro PC gaming with my love of cryptozoology.

  • The Argos Catalogue

    Getting close to Christmas always reminds me of looking through the Argos catalogue for gifts.

    Luckily for nostalgic people like me, there’s an archive of the Argos catalogue from the mid-nineties.