Good question.  To summarize, Weirdmageddon IRL happened. Both before and during COVID. Oh wait, you mean to my blog? Well... My blog has been officially on hiatus for some time. It isn't dead. Stay tuned... :) - Arca "Arjay" Baran ...  Oh wait, too short of a post? You want to know what is coming next?  How about this, I publish my 25 draft posts (not including this one)... As shown below: Ah, but most of those are either empty, or super duper outdated and irrelevant. I don't think I'll be finishing any of them... with the exception of one particular empty post. ;) That's this one:  (Sorry if the screenshot is a bit blurry, by the way.) In the future (by that, I mean either if I'm extremely bored before school is over, or mid-July... the latter seems more likely) my posts will be different than what I've been doing for the past 4 years. I'll try to make them more opinion and story oriented. So, if there's particular current events that I'm...

Hello, everyone, this is Arca. It's been a while, but yesterday I celebrated my 16th birthday! Obviously I wasn't able to go see a movie with my friends after going to a restaurant for dinner as I usually do, but I devised a fun way to make up for it with Discord. Discord has both text chat, audio and video features, and features a way to stream one's screen to multiple people at once... so in other words, it was perfect for a virtual movie-watching party! If you said that no new Star Wars movie was releasing this year, well, luckily, you'd be incorrect. The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special was a short 45-minute movie on Disney+ that released last month, but I held off on watching the pseudo-time travel/Christmas movie parody until my birthday party!  So, to start from the beginning of the day, I woke up, ate some pancakes, and then was greeted with a surprise! I had gotten a birthday wish from the person who plays my favorite Star Wars (and possibly fiction in general) c...

(Above you can see the spooky edits I made to both my profile picture/blog favicon and my personal Discord server's icon for this year!) UPDATED: I wrote this in the morning, but now, in the evening, I updated it at the bottom :)  Hello, everyone! I know I haven't posted in a long, long time. A lot has happened since mid-July. For one, school has continued (in-person, kind of) through hybrid school for many people where I live. I was hybrid for a short amount of time but am now back to remote. Many, many exciting things have also happened. The article I wrote with the fantastic team at Curious Science Writers got published! It's about using wearable smartwatches to fight smoking addiction, a problem that likely affects at least someone you know in your life, like a family member or loved one:  https://curioussciencewriters.org/2020/10/26/going-from-ismoke-to-no-smoking-with-wearables/ .  I know I've talked about technology constantly on my blog, but this article is more...

Image Source Hello, everyone. Saturday was the Fourth of July, AKA Independence Day. Happy (late) Fourth of July to all! As you probably know, this is celebrated all across America for it is the day that the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress. This, of course, led to the birth of the United States, independent from England. Normally, it would be celebrated with fireworks and barbecue parties. It still is... without any precautions by those who aren't practicing keeping themselves and others safe. But with precautions by those who are. Or, just not at all in the places where public fireworks got canceled and no one invited you to a barbecue party so you just have to barbecue some chicken yourself. Or eat a veggie burger if you're vegetarian, I suppose.  On Saturday, I started out on the Fourth of July by going to a half-capacity beach for the second day in a row. Some people clearly, blatantly didn't care about social distancing and this conc...

Image Credit: Collage done by me. Background image credit goes to Nintendo, but the various "thonk" emojis are just stuff that I found from a Google Image search and the sources are too many to list here. They're scattered across Deviantart, Reddit, and elsewhere.  Hello, all. This is obviously a strange summer with quarantine and whatnot. I have no travel guaranteed, nor any in-person summer camp. I have lots of time on my hands, and an innate urge to be productive. So, yes, this is literally a godsend and practically the perfect summer for a blogging renaissance that I've been waiting for all these years. Go figure. So, any grand plan? Schedule? Detailed agenda? Nope. I will be able to do daily posts all throughout this month, but they will be sort of a Super Mario question mark mystery box. No standard length, nor a topic. I will simply write whatever I feel like writing on a current day. A current event in gaming or another thing that catches my attention, a revie...

Image Credit: Sony via TechRadar I have many close friends that I haven't been able to visit for a couch gaming session for a while. One of which is a pal who lives an almost two-hour-drive away from me and owns a PlayStation 4. Under normal circumstances, I would have maybe visited him once a month or once every two months. We could hang out, play soccer in his backyard, and then eventually get worn out and then go back inside. We would get to play some local multiplayer Gang Beasts (a GIF of which is shown below) or Rocket League , or take turns with the controller playing a single-player game like Marvel's Spider-Man .  GIF source:  https://giphy.com/gifs/wMquyogN7d6Jq/html5   Our current time, obviously, is not normal, unfortunately. So, how would I celebrate his upcoming birthday with him from a distance? I could play a game online with him... or I could take it a step further with Share Play. Share Play, which was talked-about all the way back since the PS4's i...

Embedded above is a video player that automatically will play a playlist with all four videos in chronological order documenting the five days I spent in Dominican Republic (half of which was spent with my pal Ege) two years ago, or you can see it at this link:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqv99ToFqgJ9FeKXqNAWnEMIAY0Faskg2 I just uploaded part 4, the final day of this vlog series, and you can watch it below or at this link if playback won't work for you on this post:  https://youtu.be/ysd7fAtxK2o This is the final video of my Dominican Republic vacation from 2 years ago. It turns out that I had approximately a minute of footage featuring my pal Ege left. Enjoy more HD footage of the Caribbean Sea as well as our day trip to the scenic Altos de Chavón and a short visit to Bayahibe to mark the end of an awesome vacation! Enjoy, and stay safe, everyone! :) This is Arca, signing off for now. Have a good one.

If video playback above doesn't work for you, go here:  https://youtu.be/yyNAt-7eI3E Hey guys, this is Arca. In the last vlog featuring Ege (part 3 out of probably 4) of my Dominican Republic vacation from 2 years ago, we do a little bit of everything; kayaking, enjoying the Caribbean Sea, and hanging out at the pool! Enjoy, and stay safe, everyone! :) Here's a playlist full of all the parts of this vlog series in order thus far, which will be updated once the final video, Part 4, is uploaded (most likely tomorrow):  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqv99ToFqgJ9FeKXqNAWnEMIAY0Faskg2 This is Arca, signing off for now. If you liked this vlog, be sure to like and subscribe, and maybe share it with a friend bored during the quarantine who would like to see some fun-to-watch footage of a very scenic place that most people won't be able to go to anytime soon. Have a good one!

In part 2 of this blogging series featuring never-before-seen vacation footage from 2 years ago with “Oha Dude” Ege (subscribe to his channel “onefluentmotion”), we wrap things up for Day 1 of 2 with Ege by kayaking and more! Featuring humorous events as usual. Part 3 will be probably coming tomorrow, but if you’ve liked this series so far, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with a friend! Stay safe and well, everyone! :) If you haven't already, also check out Part 1 of this vlog series!: https://youtu.be/tcu8LSlKlEY This is Arca, signing off for now. Have a good one.

If playback doesn't work for you above, go here: https://youtu.be/tcu8LSlKlEY My vlogging barrage, continued! This is another “long lost” vlog of a spring break of years last, this time from 2 years ago(!) when Ege “Oha Dude” (please subscribe to his channel, “onefluentmotion”!) and us went to Dominican Republic in a beach resort together! I had 3 times the amount of footage I was expecting, so I dedicated an entire part 1 video (out of originally 2, but now it’s presumably like 8 lol) to us having a water splashing tournament... on just the start of Day 1! 😮 Enjoy, and stay safe. :) Part 2 will hopefully be made in the next day or two. Also check out The AABO Show, where today I am finally posting the birthday vlog for Ali/Burak that we recorded last month!:  https://youtu.be/mRTcGP1LnV0 It turns out that I don't have any Acadia National Park Footage that I can find. :/ So instead, once this massive amount of footage is done being edited (I somewhat doubt I'll be ab...

If video playback above doesn't work for you, watch this vlog here!:  https://youtu.be/AmqriFTZz6Q This vlog is 3 years late. It was the continuation of the much-viewed Cancun blog series on The AABO Show, but on Day 5, when Arca (me) and Onur we’re exploring Isla Mujeres and Ali and Burak has already left. But now, with hours available of free time due to the quarantine, and a brand new editing software to boot, I have finally edited together Day 5 of Cancun (the TRUE missing “final day”) for you all to enjoy on my own channel, since it can’t qualify as an AABO Show video! Enjoy, and stay safe, everyone! To see the complete playlist of all the days of my Cancun, Mexico trip (Days 1-4 featuring Ali and Burak, and Day 5 without them), go here!:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKmFM61ZhTqBy2kNHW1On34v_UP6a0x6T Be sure to check out my official YouTube channel, the new and permanent home of all non-AABO Show videos and vlogs that I will make!:  https://www.yo...

This is Arca. As of today, I will be making several key changes to this blog. Watch the video above at 3:00 AM on Wednesday (this post is scheduled to publish itself at midnight) to learn the details. But whatever you do, don't use fidget spinners at 3 AM!!!!<br /> <br /> https://youtu.be/ISYySQ0AR8c To summarize:<br /> <br /> <ol> <li>I will leave this blog, likely for good.</li> <li>I will switch (likely permanently) to using Hubpages, which is the company that acquired Squidoo, my third-grade blog platform.</li> <li>Xiang will be free to do whatever he wants on this blog.</li> <li>The AABO Show is cancelled.</li> <li>Taner Baran is now my primary YouTube channel. I am quitting using Arca Baran.&nbsp;</li> <li>If you're wondering about that epic music in the background, its name is Darude Sandstorm. You're welcome.</li> </ol> <div> ...

Long... have I waited. And now, your coming-together, is your undoing... of being able to continue blogging. Who am I addressing right now? All of my peers who are relieved to stop blogging for life at the end of this project. I may be relieved, but for other reasons. Namely, now I don't have to rush to create a post on a day that I don't feel like it or it was too late, and also I don't have to remember to copy and paste the first paragraph plus a link on my "Edublog" class page so that my classmates get exposure to it and my teacher knows which posts do and don't qualify as Edublogs on this blog this month (in short, it's literally every single post I've put on this blog in March minus literally just one post written and published entirely by my new contributor, Xiang). Basically, if you have been confused throughout this month as to what an "Edublog" is, it's a post on a class blog for my English credit that I'm receiving extra ...

Hello, everyone, this is Arca, and this is my second-to-last "edublog". Today I decided to write about a type of thing that we've all been using a lot of during this quarantine situation, which is a web app. Web apps are programs that can be run in a browser like Google Chrome as a website, or for some, alternately downloaded to a computer. It runs all of its processes over the web, but behaves like an application, which is why it can be called a "web app". I have listed just a sample of 5 of my "favorite" ones and briefly described what I like about each of them and why, and as well as some constructive criticism of each of the programs. Let's face it, even the best thing in the world has some faults, since nothing is perfect.  Discord Discord is great since it has done as much as possible to be an all-inclusive chat and community platform designed specifically for gamers, regardless of platform. It runs on PC or phone and tablet, which...