Another week, another post. Let’s dive right in shall we?
General Life
I’ve had a couple of ongoing projects going on for a while. Both around getting some digital stuff organized. One, I have a zillion bookmarks, and I’ve been working on building a personal “Digital Garden” for many of them. A lot of them are just bookmarked for potential reference, so sorting them down into a bunch of markdown files sorted by topic is more useful than a cluttered menu system of bookmarks.
I didn’t work on that much though.
I did work on sorting my personal document library. I moved everything into Joplin recently. I like it, I tried Obsidian but decided I hated Obsidian. I’m also avoiding things like One Note that use proprietary formats as much as possible. Joplin works great, I can sync it easily, in an encrypted format, I can export it back out to a bunch of sorted markdown ffiles if I need to get rid of it.
What I’ve been doing is going through all of my old entries and adding tags. Very simple tags, generally one for most entries. I’m not going to go too deep because one, I’m not done, and two, I kind of want to do a post on it all on it’s own.
Otherwise it’s mostly just be the usual grind of going to work.
Gaming
Mostly the same as it has been.
Pokemon Yellow
I believe last time I was stuck fighting Misty, the second Gym of the game. I am both, not much beyond that, and have done a lot in between. I actually don’t really remeber how the pacing of these original games was supposed to feel. I can say, Mt Moon is a tremendous slog. I expected to be over leveled facing isty, but she slaughtered my team. Specifically, her Starmie slaughtered my team.
What a pain that thing is.
So I set about trying to grind some levels. Get Pikachu a little stronger, maybe find a plant Pokemon, since Misty is water. I also was slowly but sirely leveling up the Magikarp that you can buy for 500g to evolve it into Gyarados.
Along the way, I headed north from Cerulean city to find Bill, Pokemaniac who created the “PC Storage” you use for Pokemon. I am not entirely sure how this thing works. Are they digitized? Where do they go? Also the Bill encounter was really anti climactic. He was turned into a Pokemon, you help cure him, he gives you a ticket for the SS Anne you use later.
Anyway, Gyarados.
You ask me what my favorite Pokemon, i will often answer Jigglypuff, or Skitty, or maybe Syther. What i won’t answer, is Gyarados. I probably should though. I think in almost every single game I’ve ended up with Gyarados on my team if possible. It’s a beast. It’s tank, it hits super hard. Its just all around useful. It was the first Pokemon I maxed out in Pokemon Go (It’s name is Gary Deus), I had one way back in Pokemon Blue.
It’s not goofy like Jigglypuff, it’s not cute like Skitty, it’s just an actually useful monster for battling with. Gyarados knew one useful move facing Misty, Bite, and he chewed right though Misty’s Staryu and Starmie.
I mentioned previously about trying to avoid falling into my same old team, but it’s getting so tempting. I even got a Charmander that some dude gave me. I have a Rattatta, I’m almost halfway there for my OG Elite Unit of Gyarados, Raticate, Charizard, Kadabra, Hitmonlee and Mewtwo. I’ve even started encountering Abras. But I want ot be different. I wan tot get my Nidos to King and Queen. I want to keep using the special Pikachu, I want to experiment.
Anyway, since then I’ve been putzing around trying to find where to go next. I got the Bike, I need to get Cut. I’m resisting looking up wher eto get Cut, but I probably will because I am kind fo annoyed with how stuck I am and Cerulean City has possibly the WORST layout to navigate. Seriously, who is the city planner here?
Fortnite
There is a new season in Fortnite, it’s super hero themed, which was expected, but I have not played it a lot. I’m not sure it really excites me much honestly. I’ve never really been into Superman and DC in general, though it’s not super themed around DC Comics, just generic Super Heroes.
Ovewatch
Despite that I’ve gotten to the end of the Battle Pass (still not purchased yet), I am still playing some. There was a little brief period where the team balance felt better somehow, but lately it’s back to being annyoing one sided victories or losses. I really dislike steamrolling, even when winning. It’s boring. I want some good back and forth.
Infinity Nikki
I think this one rolled over to a new patch as well, which kind of sucks because I am pretty sure it means I came up 1 piece short ont he Ice themed water walking outfit. I really wanted that.
I mean, that’s the point right, get you to spend money. But it’s stupid annoying. I don’t mind spending money in games, but I hate buying “currency” in games, especially when the currency is designed to “encourage” dropping hundreds of dollars.
The outfit banner will come back around eventually, but it’s still annoying, and it’s not the first time it’s happened. I mean, I only burned all of my earned diamons on the thing and pulled like 150 times.
But no real point in complaining about the gatcha of a gatcha game I suppose.
On the new patch. I think all the weirdness of the last patch really hurt my enthusiasm for the game. Even the good part of the “normal story involving piecies” kidn fo had moments that were a bit weirdly buggy. The plot was funny though, if you take the bath salts as a euphamism for drugs. Like basically the piecies were having a hard time because of bad drugs. Hell I think bath salts itself are some kind of drug, I don’t know, I don’t really keep up with “drug culture”.
Music
Nothing new other than I tried to get my dad and brother to go to the final REO Speedwagon show over in Champaign, but neither was up to it. My brother is working and dad doesn’t really want to be out that late and that far fom home I think.
I’m not super into REO Speedwagon anyway, but I thought it might be fun and it was affordable.
Movies and TV
I’ve been sort of taking a break between story arcs in L&O:OC, mostly because I don’t think I can handle powering through shows with 20 episodes seasons anymore. So we watched through Star Wars Skeleton Crew. It’s really good. I should do a write up maybe. I mean, it’s a very “G rated kid Oriented” Star Wars, but Star Wars has never been super violent or dirty anyway. The “G Rated” is more fromt he “plot simplicity”, which honestly wasn’t all that simple.
That said, it probably could have been streamlined down into a movie. Though I don’t think there was too much filler. In the end, almost everything ended up becoming relevant. I wanted more when it ended.
We also watched Captain America Brave New World. It was… ok. It felt kind of weird overall, a sequel to Hulk (the one with Edward Norton), without Hulk. But more weird, it felt like it was trying too hard to recycle old plot points. The Leader is basically just a bootleg version of Zemo, except Zemo ended up being possibly the best villain and The Leader was mostly forgettable. There was the whole, obvious, “Oh, I bet that random bitchy assistant chick is a Black Widow”. I did like that they were really pushing that Sam is not Steve. Not so much in his determination, but more that, Sam is just a dude. Without his wakanda suit, he struggles. Like really struggles to fight these super powered forces.
It’s a pretty good dynamic honestly, and one of the positives of the plot.
