Welcome to the Mansion

When I was around 11 years old, I loved a site called Waluigious. It was a blog, run by someone going by Artemendo, that featured dozens of bits of Mario ephemera, jokes, and idle wonderings. The site is only preserved now via the magic of the Internet Archive, but even so, many of the posts are no longer accessible.

I don’t know why Artemendo decided to give up Waluigious. Maybe I did at one time. But I felt a kinship for this writer who put all these trivial thoughts and ideas up for people like me to see – kids, at least in some proportion. As I’ve gotten older, I play videogames less and less. I have less patience for playing. There’s now a gnawing sense of “what else could I be doing?” that hangs over every minute. Still, though, my head is filled with these same thoughts that have been knocking around since I was first entranced by these old games. So, here is my outlet.

The Seashell Mansion is a location in Link’s Awakening where Link may trade seashells for various upgrades. It’s faintly mysterious – you are bestowed gifts by the unseen “Spirit of the Mansion” – and serves as a repository for these secret collectibles hidden in the game. In that vein, this blog will become a collection of those thoughts that wash up on mental shores. Bits and baubles with nowhere else to go. Things that I would hate to leave behind as my life moves forward. They will be kept here.

Welcome to the Mansion. Stay as long as you like.