Battlestation Reviews: Thoughts and Prayers Edition

In this edition of Battlestation Reviews: Thoughts and prayers, lime green Lego racecars, people who try too hard, and more!

I’ve finally done it.

Way back in May, I shared my old setups from over the years, and mentioned some improvements that I wanted to make to my current one. One of those improvements was buying a third monitor and moving the other two monitors above that.

I decided it was finally time to make the purchase, and bought myself a 34″ Samsung Odyssey G5 curved monitor.

The monitor itself is okay. A little underwhelming, but that’s because I’m not sure what the best color settings are for this thing. Every other monitor in the world has a million different YouTube tutorials on optimal color settings, but for some reason Samsung Odyssey G5 owners are keeping their mouths shut about good color settings. The few tutorials I’ve seen for this monitor straight up blow. It’s currently the end of October, and this article is set to publish in December, so hopefully by then I’ll have my shit sorted out.

I also tried putting the two 27″ monitors above the new monitor, but it looked stupid. I instead settled for putting one above the new monitor, and turning the other one on its side and placing it on the right. It’s basically a dedicated Spotify monitor now, which is fine with me. This is what I’ve got:

There’s a few more tweaks I need to make, but we’re almost there. Then maybe I can pursue my dream of building a real desk and ditching this IKEA bullshit.

Anyway, this time around we’ve got some good ones. We’ve got clutter, we’ve got lime green Lego racecars from AliExpress, we’ve got men who barf pink. We even finally get to find out exactly where all your thoughts and prayers are going!

Oh, and I noticed that in the last couple of Battlestation Reviews, I didn’t post anything too flashy. That changes today. We’ve got one so flashy that I should be including a seizure warning here.

But I’m not, because trigger warnings are for pussies.

1. Guts and glory

I’m divided on this one.

On one hand, it looks a little too busy, with screens, lights, and figures thrown everywhere almost haphazardly.

But on the other hand, it’s not really that bad if you look a little closer.

I’m going to award some points for those giant flowers that are behind the monitors. Everyone and their mother has the fake ivy in their setups, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen fake giant flowers. The color coordination on them is good too. Most rookies would have three of the same color, but this person has the sense to do one white, one red, and one yellow (I think?). It goes great with the string lights and the light projector that’s putting little glowing dots on the wall.

Those fake jellyfish always look good in other people’s setups, but when I bought them they looked like busted garbage.

In a nice change of pace from the usual collectibles, we’ve got some Disney representation here. Actual Disney, not that technical Disney nu-Star Wars crap that Redditors love so much. I see Jimminy Cricket, Donald Duck, and a whole lot of Toy Story. Points awarded for good taste. Now if only you had some Gaston in there…

I really should get around to checking out Berserk. I’m in the middle of like ten different anime right now, but it’s on my watch list. Somewhere by the bottom, close to Bleach and Fist of the North Star.

I’m giving this a 6/10. It’s busy, but it’s not so busy that it’s an eyesore or something. If you moved around some of the screens this would probably look a bit better.

2. Thoughts and prayers

This is a classic 4chan schizostation.

When this guy’s not waging war against the Jews on /pol/ or posting in Nobody threads on /x/, he’s probably taking lithium supplements and telling the voices in his head to shut up while snacking on deodorant sticks. I’m not exaggerating for effect on this one, look at the shelf in the background, there’s a deodorant stick that looks like he took a bite out of it.

My man is over here using a chair for a table. Jesus Christ. This is a real shithole. How can anyone live like this?

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that this man’s trash can (which is probably filled with jizz tissues) is exactly where all your thoughts and prayers go. We truly live in a godless world.

7/10, based schizo anon.

3. Thanks for the reminder

I really don’t know why I like wood panel walls so much. I think it’s because they invoke memories of when I was a teenager and we’d hang out in my friend’s finished basement bedroom (which had wood panel walls) playing PlayStation and listening to Linkin Park. My own personal feelings of nostalgia aside, standard dark brown wood panel walls are usually quite ugly. This person, however, has painted theirs. I think the light blue is kind of ugly, but that’s just personal preference, and it still looks better than the usual dark brown color. Some points awarded.

I like those hutches that are built into the wall, but I don’t think I’d ever do that myself. I rearrange my shit way too much, I wouldn’t want something so permanent on my walls. Not everyone is a nutcase like I am though, so I’m awarding points for these stylish little hutches.

If I wasn’t running out of outlets, I’d probably get a lava lamp. Those were the shit when I was a kid, and it’s kind of neat to see them making a small comeback almost 30 years later. We just can’t get rid of these things, can we?

Thanks for reminding me, I still have one of those lime-green green racecars that I bought off AliExpress over a year ago and still haven’t put together yet:

Give me a moment here, aaaaaand…

Alright, done.

The rest of the setup is your standard decor of posters and figures, nothing too special. I’m giving it a 5/10.

4. YWNBAW

YWNBAW.

As we all know, YWNBAW stands for “You will never be a winner”. You’ll never be a winner. Not when you’re a man in his 20’s larping as a girl with this gaudy pink barf you call a setup. Only an eight year old girl would think this looks cool. Also, why the fuck did you blur the butterfly? Idiot.

Someone like you can look forward to a very bright future of being automated out of your work-from-home coder job at a big tech company.

0/10, this is the ugliest shit I’ve ever seen in my life, gtfo.

…

Actually, looks like Reddit beat me to it. They were apparently banned at some point.

5. Keep it simple, stupid

If this setup were a pack of smokes, it would be Winstons, because there’s no bull.

This Anon has not so much as a poster on his wall. No fancy Govee lights, no anime collectibles, no Funko Pops, nothing. Sure, he’s got LEDs in his computer case and six monitors, but other than that there’s really nothing else. One bed, one computer, zero bullshit.

As I sit in my computer room full of bright flashing colorful lights, posters, and anime figures, I can’t help but think that maybe I’ve become lost in all the glitz and glam, that I’m living a life of frivolous excess and overstimulation. Perhaps I need to return to that sense of simplicity that came with not having 80 billion things in my room. You’ve really given me something to think about here, Anon.

9/10, Anon is truly an inspiration to us all.

6. You’re trying too hard

Speaking of frivolous excess and overstimulation…

If I had to caption this picture, my caption would say “Meanwhile, on the Starship Dorkprise…”.

This looks stupid as fuck. Those big boxes with what I’m assuming is supposed to be alien language on them are pointless and dumb, which goes great with the equally stupid and pointless Mandalorian “This is the way” placard in the bottom left corner. Why are Redditors all generic retards who oversaturate their setups with the same generic Star Wars crap? What the hell even is that white box on the wall on the right? It looks like a cheap hand dryer you’d find on AliExpress that looks flashy but just barely dries your hands and breaks after two weeks.

This is the kind of setup you get when you have more money than sense. It’s needlessly flashy, it’s pointlessly expensive, it’s generic Reddit fake nerd crap. This person is probably a STEM graduate who uses this setup to play the latest AAA titles while posting to Reddit about how great new Star Wars is and defending minorities.

Also, for some strange reason, this image is saved on my computer as a JPG. Yet when I upload it to WordPress, it turns into WEBP. I have no idea what’s going on there, but it annoys me. I have an irrational hatred for the WEBP file format, and I don’t want that shit on my website. That makes this setup even worse.

9/10, I’m just being a jealous hater. Nice sci-fi aesthetic and color contrast. I wish my setup looked this cool.

We’ll be back in a couple of months with another Battlestation Review. You know the drill, submissions welcome, send us an email at [email protected] with your setup or leave a comment, blah blah blah.

Angry_Jerk

Adam “The Angry Jerk” Baker is the CEO of The AJnet Organization and Editor-in-Chief of AJnet Magazine. A grizzled internet veteran of over 20 years, he writes about politics, culture, and whatever else manages to annoy him that day.

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