Welcome to my silly little webbed site! Based loosely on the old Aster's Archives magazine, but with my own flair and interests and all the pixel art is my own.

I'm a big fan of experimental musicals, puppetry, animatronics, and claymation! I have a lot of obscure interests so I love building pages where I can collect links and photos that aren't otherwise easy to find in one place.

Check out my entry (and others) to the 32-bit cafe spring code jam!

Who is Aster?

Asterion ("Aster" for short) was created in 1988 as the mascot for Daedalus Games, a small chain of in-person stores which sold console games and early gaming and educational software. Originally he had very little personality, intended just to be a cheery face on the logo, but gained more character when he was introduced as the host of their gaming tips-and-tricks magazine Aster's Archives, which soon grew in popularity beyond those who had visited the stores themselves.

Half-bear and half-bull but far from a vicious beast, he was far more interested in chowing down on cheese puffs than adventurer's skulls. He had an approchable low-key attitude, and was the "cool older brother" type known for his dad jokes and brightly colored Hawaiian shirts. His namesake - the Minotaur of greek legend - and theming matched the rest of the store, and his designs often featured cheesy pixelated versions of patterns seen on Greek pottery. He got a few pieces of promotional merchandise, mainly smaller items like branded keychains and pins, but I've seen a couple bigger things like lunchboxes and plushes. And of course, the magazine issues.

In 1996, the company re-located their California flagship store into The South Coast Plaza. A brand-new animatronic Aster was positioned in front of the store to catch the attention of potential shoppers. He was waist-up only, with the rest of him positioned behind a fake cashier's desk. The desk and surrounding shelves were covered in merchandise and fake snack wrappers with mythology-based pun names. By 2003, the store's themeing and vibes had become dated and their sales struggled as the internet took over the market, so the company had a massive overhaul and re-branding. In the change, Aster as a character was dropped and his likeness laregely removed from stores, including the animatronic itself.

Learn more about Aster and Daedalus Games

Click here for the Aster gallery!

Fun stuff

Got questions? Need advice? Music recommedations? Want to just stop in and sign the guestbook? Hop on over to Ask Aster and write in!

I can hear the faint squeaks of the rats in my walls. . .
(say hi to my pets!)

"We are all dying, and art is what keeps us alive in the meantime."
- William Gibson, playwright

To Do:

  • Add tabs to blog and character lore pages
  • Clean up Cuckoo-Clock heart & No.44 shrines
  • Honestly we could use some new css in general to clean things up
  • Make list icons unique (I just realized they deserve to be pixelated too)
  • Add more Aster lore
  • Add blinkies to graphics page
  • Make new graphics collection page
  • Add blinkies back to computer scrolls
  • Re-do footer buttons to actually be useful
  • Add 32 bit cafe button
  • Add those links to the sketchy Dave Malloy bootleg uploads
  • Fix the graphics and blinkies collection and move into correct folders
  • Make a class for all chatboxes
  • Add webrings when accepted
  • Decide whether I like the new layout

Devlog

April 13 2024

  • Added to-do section to shrines
  • I also followed a bnuch of people on the neocities theater & musicals tags

April 12 2024

  • Updated board game page with some reviews & recommendations

April 11 2024

  • New shrine!!! for my board game collection

April 10 2024

  • Fixed up the Jack and the Cuckoo Clock heart shrine! I'll finish cleaning up the links and post it soon
  • Blog post

March 31 2024

  • New blog post

March 30 2024

  • Animatronics webring!

March 26 2024

  • Blog post

March 22 2024

  • Updated button scrolls on home page

March 21 2024

  • Aster is playign minecraft now
  • Mostly did a lot of work cleaning up a new layout for my partner
  • blinkies cafe button

March 20 2024

  • And so the great graphics renovations begin!
  • Searched out an downloaded all the stuff i had hotlinked (sorry)
  • Uploaded all my other stuff I had saved
  • Started fixing stamp names
  • Moved some of my other graphics and gifs around to consolidate
  • Seriously I had way too many folders with vague titles and ideas of what was suppoed to be in them
  • New footer
  • Fixed graphics on the main page
  • Fixed graphics on pets collection
  • Fixed graphics on entrance hall
  • Didn't need to fix anything on my about me or ask aster pages, but they got the new footer
  • Fixed all the graphics on the page I store my artfight attacks
  • Fixed a couple more footers
  • Fixes on purple radio plush page
  • Cleaned up footer on site links
  • Refurbished graphics page
  • Got all my stamps, buttons, and larger gifs and such uploaded, plus the graphics I made myself

March 19 2024

  • Started cleaning up and re-organizing blinkies and stamps
  • Meant I had to break most links to them though, like in the computer scrolls

March 17 2024

  • Fixed a couple blinkies and such that were broken
  • New blog post

March 12 2024

  • NEW ASK ASTER
  • Fixed some blinkies too
  • More site buttons from surfing

March 11 2024

  • one thing about me is i love adding site buttons
  • click for Palestine

March 10 2024

  • spent some time surfing, added new buttons!!!

March 8 2024

  • More blog entires
  • Palestine stamp

Sept 25 2023

  • 2 new Blog posts
  • Finally got the Writer's Block Webring functional

Sept 15 2023

  • Added Acing the Internet Webring!
  • Fixed chatbox css

Sept 14 2023

  • Blog post

Sept 13 2023

  • Added Comedy Club Webring!
  • Fixed up button section on home page

Sept 11 2023

  • Re-organized some graphics and blinkies behind the scenes
  • Messed around with the Mysterious Stranger shrine, background is better but still not satisfied

Sept 10 2023

  • Started cleaning up the css and standardizing those parchment colored boxes
  • added to-do box
  • made more things individual scrollboxes
  • speaking of which, added literal scrolls to them lol
  • borders are rounded now
  • made a transparent main so I can mess with different borders!
  • added a black transparent background to the container to help with eye strain

Sept 9 2023

  • Finally added a browser icon! It's a little rat
  • Added more fun sites and buttons

Sept 6 2023

  • Little edits to About Me
  • Clown bear on a motorcycle babeey!!!!

Sept 3 2023

  • Realized I needed to start a new page for my blog since it's now September lol

Sept 2 2023

  • Blog update
  • Ask Aster update!

Aug 29 2023

  • Blog update

Aug 24 2023

  • More shifting around, "Archives" now takes you to Aster's lore page, and added a "Shrines" button
  • Added new labyrinth hall and made a new header to accommodate
  • Cleaned up navigation on shrines
  • Worked on the Cuckoo-Clock Heart shrine until my brain hurt. I figured some things out but I still don't like it.

Aug 24 2023

  • Made a new pets page since the chat page I used to keep them on is defunct. If people have more recomendations of virtual pets let me know, I'd love to add more!
  • Haha I am re-doing the formatting on my Dave Malloy shrines again
  • Finally updated the purple radio plush shrine! It's so fun now! The photos are a little big though and are slowing it down so I might re-do those.
  • On a roll! Also gave The Mysterious Stranger a fresh coat of paint. I still need more sparklies though. And cats. The background is kinda a placeholder.
  • Exists the page editor covered in blood (I do not want to know how many hours I spent working on my site today)

Aug 23 2023

  • Minor updates, spent my free time surfing my mutuals' sites and added a few more buttons!

Aug 22 2023

  • Finally started a devlog!
  • Changed the "chat" link in the navbar to "ask aster" and the "blinkies" link to my new blog, you can still find the blinkies by going to my links page or clicking on the little Aster on the computer.
  • Finally fixed the navbars to all the Dave Malloy archive pages, though they still don't have much on them.

This week's Dave Malloy quote:

"on the way hand, yes, i absolutely believe in the idea of life as art, of my every action and interaction and view of the world being the great living artwork that i spend my life creating. and thus so long as this piece is given my attention, concentration, my skill and love, my work towards mastery, then i am living the complete life, the life full and worthy. and my artistic endeavors, the silly songs and scattermess writings, are just a small part of this larger more important whole, my life, my god and love and child. this is the way hand, smiling and clear.
the other hand, is, such a raging jealousy everytime i read or see or hear something that ahs me to the core. and i want to do that! i want to do that! i want to do that! gallileo crying in the snow, this hurts so much. oh it does. it does! i want to write a novel, and have a platinum album, and make a series of internet sensation videos that get optioned by hbo. oh the fame and the quality are entangled, i know they are. i do, damn it, i do! oh hell! i do!"
-Dave Malloy, Pointless 20 June 2005