Exploring somnol.net’s Old Banners

Posted on July 15, 2022 by bulb

We like to redesign our sites from time to time, and earlier this year, the top-level domain got its turn. The previous design came in the spring of 2020 and featured a rotating crop of big, toony banners at the top of each page that would show up either year-round or seasonally.

While we gave up on that site design, we’re still very fond of the banners. Obviously, they’re no longer featured on the top-level site. That’s a lot of art and a lot of work going to waste! While we’d like to reuse them in another design, for now, this post will have to do.

Being a longtime reader of the Video Game Critic, I decided to take a page out of his book (or off his site, maybe?) and not just write up a bit on my thoughts on each banner, but get the people who made them to tell their stories about each one.

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beach redux

Posted on June 20, 2022 by devon

Rambling about two Pink Cats. Bonus inside.

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I don’t have a problem, I swear

Posted on June 18, 2022 by caby

A recently discovered interest of mine is collecting enamel pins. Something about having a sturdy, shiny, and aesthetically pleasing pin attached to my backpack is very appealing to me, and I’ve ended up with a fair few of them. I’m not currently looking to buy anymore, though I have a fair few in my favourites on etsy,,,

o quell my urge to buy more, I’ll write about the ones I’ve already got instead, alongside a couple photos so you can see how neat and pretty they look too. Continue reading →

Posted in Show-and-Tell | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Welcoming the eMachines Netbook

Posted on May 27, 2022 by mariteaux
eMachines EM250

For approaching two years now, I’ve had a big ol’ XP tower sitting under my desk. I call it the eMachines Box, a low-end eMachines W3507 from at least 2006, if not 2007. It needs a good cleaning and a ton of upgrades (RAM and a dedicated GPU being the big two), but even if it’s not ideal right now, it’s still a lot of fun to use on the occasion I bust it out.

Of course, you can’t just stop at one XP computer, can you? Suddenly having a job and seeing some numbers pile up in my bank account made me want to indulge a little. Through the lockdowns, I bought nearly nothing and asked for nearly nothing. I’m allowed a cool purchase or two, and a bit of longing got me thinking back to the netbooks of my (younger) youth.

I’ve now acquired one of them. Here’s my deep dive into the eMachines Netbook.

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Toothpaste Review? Yes.

Posted on May 23, 2022 by caby

Asked Cammy if I could post a review for toothpaste, and he said absolutely, so here I am~ Continue reading →

Posted in Show-and-Tell | 4 Comments

The Great Somnolescent Time Machine

Posted on April 20, 2022 by mariteaux

As I mentioned in the final recap, one thing occupying me over the past few months has been the pursuit of classic website restoration. We already have car restoration and computer restoration, but despite websites being similarly satisfying and full of moving parts, I don’t see anyone trying to rebuild old websites and return them to their original browsable condition. With the Somnolescent Archives, I have the perfect reason to do just that.

I wanna ramble about that for a bit, tell you my working methods for getting assets (from the Wayback Machine or otherwise), reassembling them, cleaning things up, and why I find it so enjoyable. Hopefully, you do as well!

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Cool folder organization stuff

Posted on April 17, 2022 by dotcomboom

Traditionally, my files for school have been stored in OneDrive by (academic year)\(class)\(semester, if applicable). Whenever I made a new document, I would file it in that format immediately. This worked okay, but there was a bit of extra time … Continue reading →

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The Change

Posted on April 14, 2022 by devon

and the frustration. Continue reading →

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Angel Girls

Posted on April 12, 2022 by caby

Caby art and their sketches! Continue reading →

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Winter 2022 – The Final Recap

Posted on April 4, 2022 by bulb

What’s this? What’s going on? Why the sudden change? Is Somnolescent falling apart? I bet it is–look, people’s sites are disappearing! Something big is happening. We said it wouldn’t last four months, and hey, three years isn’t too far off–

Grab some wood there, bub. The blog is not going anywhere, nor is the group. This is the final recap in its current form. There’s a very good reason for it, and I think the new arrangement will make my friends in the group, as well as myself (having to write all this…), happier as a result. It’s a good recap though! Lots good happening. Let’s revisit the last three months one last time.

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Posted in Group Posts, Recaps | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment