Like I Could Care Less (That Means You Do Care)

2/21/2025

Ohhhhhhh. Booooooyyyyyy.

Been playing with FF11 some more with friends. We made some good progress thru story events and other things. There were some miscommunication along the way.

Oops. All was good though.

CrossCode!

Good progress for the most part. I finished up most of the sidequests in the Bergen area, getting what chests I could. Then it was moving on to the next area. I didn't particularly feel like exploring on my own this time: it was becoming a little too much keeping track of all these puzzles. I am getting more convinced puzzles are the weakest part of the game—but they CAN be fun to figure out. Maroon Valley did not largely fall into that category.

This little bug arena was challenging but I didn't get past the optional second wave quest. It sure was a adrenline rush thoughbet. I gave up and moved on after a few trys.

Emilie grows on me. She's adorable.

A nice little homeage.

Some of these puzzle rooms are getting annoying. But it felt nice once you do figure them out, like this one. I don't appreciate backtracking in these thoughbet and it is incredibly annoying when you get doors you can't access yet. I don't know if I can be bothered coming back here for it.

So ... moving on. I watched the Weird Al 2022 movie and the Fast and the Furious since me and my bf have been meaning to for a while. They were both great. We also watched the 0079 movilie trilogy. Wow, what a series!

It still holds up to this day. I have a tinge of regret I didn't show him the TV series: because by cutting out the filler you also cut out tons of character development and reactions to character deaths (we also pointed out FMA did this too, it is what it is).

now with 0079 out of the way it's finally time to show Sunrise kino. I showed him the 1st episode of War in the Pocket. I noticed it had a English dub, so I'm giving it a chance. We only watch the first episode so far because I wanted to give GITS s2 some love too. We meant to watch the Sailor Moon S movie but it had the wrong subtrack. Oops.

I found out about Drawn Together, a cartoon from Comedy Central in the mid 2000s'. It's a pretty capvitating little show! Number 5's VA from Kids Next Door was in it and I think Bubble's from Powerpuff Girls. Timeless parody show. Enjoying it so far. Good way to ruin your childhood as you knew it.

Been contemplating a design for the domain. More of a concept: Windows 98 splashscreen with PS1 startup noise but instead of the windows design it'd be a mulberry tree, then you'd click enter and it takes you to a XP desktop. It's a overwhelming concept and I got ahold of one such template, but I'm not sure I can pull it off.

Been slacking off on adding my fictions to the workshop page. I didn't have the freetime this week to do it but I think I will do it soon.

Reading wise, chipping away at Iliad whenever I get the chance. Writing-wise, haven't had the time this week. Will probably outline more in the wagie.

Cha-cha for now. But before you skiddadle, some charming advice from Lala and Amuro.

Hey Mr Dandy! Hey Mr Joy!

2/16/2025

It's been a great week. I hope everyone who bothers to read this has or had a good one too.

Let's start off with the website! I think I have a solid foundation for it now. I'm happy with the way it's all come out so far. The only thing left to chisel away at is the workshop typewriter page. Right now its pretty damn mopey and I want to just throw in some of the past little flash fictions I've done in the past and a simple link to the Cosmic Saga page on Royal Road. Boy, for someone who sure hates his own work I sure can't help but bring it up, can I?

I had a good Valentines. At the mahjong battlefield table I played 5 hanchans (essentially in leyman terms 5 full South games) and won all of them in first place. One of them I had over 60k points. That was nice. I rarely achieve this feat.

[Boris voice] Very nice!

My boyfriend also won that 6th hanchan, robbing me of first. But I love him all the same.

Saturday:, I usually work this morning shift. But I requested the day off to go to a social friends by friend event—best I can describe it as a musical chairs where the machine god pairs you at random with one other person for 5 minutes. I've been doing these for nearly as long as they've been hosted (nearly 6 years?) and always dropped the ball and the spaghaetti one way or another. Being apologetic, kawtowing for my past sins, rapid-fire questions my pairing mate has to mentally juggle. It was lame on my part.

This year I did it right for once. I'm relieved it went well. Though, I didn't bother going to the last portion with fellow american players(I mostly hang out english-speaking Europeans) beacuse I was too overwhelmed and simply I was socially dead. Tired.

So I logged off to play Cross Code for a bit to recharge my stuff and recharge socially. I finished the rest of the dungeon. The boss was such a cakewalk compared to the puzzles. Disappointing.

Yup. You could defintely say that again!

I backtracked a little to find all these locked chests. It was fun but frustrating trying to chart the paths you're suppose to take to get to some of them. Then I got to the penguin cave.

Seriously?

Seriously? Not pictured because I was too frustrated to remember to screencap and I am not going back for the sake of it: a simple locked chest you can't access after painstakingly platforming to it. This game is starting to give me PTSD playing Shantae.

This boss fight was cool at least. A rapping penguin where you fight the audience. Very cool.

I'd check out the VRC social tab to see how the instances are going—only to find out both were capped. Bummer. Easy excuse to play Cross Code a little more.

Fast forwarding to now. I had the usual tramatizing day at work. A lot of customers wished me well at work, a lot more than usual actually. I found it sort of peculiar. In between customers I was working on my draft's outline—the Cosmic Saga spiritual rewrite. Right now its title is tentative 'A Game of Cosmic Titans' or just abbv it to AGCT. I've been attempting to do this more—it's oddly therapeutic. Maybe I got too emotional doing so. They say write what you know ... but what if all I know is sorrow?

I think I've had some good luck chiseling away at the outline. I've been neglectful of the draft itself to focus on it. And I justify it since I stopped at a point where I needed to outline anyway. In the past, I used to pants write given the nature of weekly serial writing; something I did nearly every week for 4 years, though in reality it was more like 2 1/2 because my one-month recharge hiatus turned into a 2 1/2 year one. It's easy to look at it in retrospect and say, yeah. I was defintely lying to myself and the readers. I axed it to come to peace with that fact. I still can't come to peace with it.

I can't give up on the story even though I've accepted I matured faster than I was writing it. There are times you need to learn the attitude of the knife and cut off what's incomplete and say it's finished, because it ended there. I did that—I like to think I did. But this story just means a lot to me ... and sometimes as an author, as the creator, that's a bad thing. You need to separate yourself from your darling, from your works. But it's my baby. I can't give up my baby after all.

I lean back on my chair and glance at my spartan bookcase—Frank's Dune saga. The Odyessy, Stranger in a Strange Land. Rendezvous with Rama. How did they do it? They're gods in my eyes and I feel like I let them down because I stumble and caterpillar crawl their paths and I can't live up to them.

Okay. That's enough being melodramatic for now. The outline, I think, is coming along nicely and for the present that's what only matters. To be honest, I'm reluctant to talk about the outline or the draft too much. And believe me, I want to post progress on it but it's not always a good idea. To paraphrase Frank: "the energy I could be spent talking about my work in progress is energy I could be spending writing the story itself". But ... it feels good not to be cooped up in my mind prision with it. I want to come down from the mountain and talk about it.

Alright, I really gotta wrap this up now. Last but not least valentine messages from my mahjong waifus. I nearly forgot to check it before a friend in the Mahjong instance on Valentines mentioned it.

Bonus: a drawing someone did of my avatar at the friend by friend thing.

So long, space cowboy.

Is This Thing On?

2/13/2025

I tell myself with each passing year; "this year will be different. This is the year I improve my wellbeing and be a better person, this time for sure!" and as romantic as that sounded I was blunted with several roadblocks. My PSU an hero'd and I had a genuine fear I lost everything—this was back in mid January. About the week of the 20th. I had just gotten on VR Chat when all I hear is a loud POP!. Pitch bladkness in my room; no source of light from my PC.

Luckily, no such incident came to be and only the PSU was knocked out. But boy was it a painful and grueling week going around researching what I needed and boy oh boy was it a nightmare getting the right solutions for this surprsingly acute pickle I found myself in.

In any case, the situation was resolved—but it was just issue after issue getting all the cables plugged in and I learned a hard lesson with professional prebuilt PCs (OriginPC especially) they're too professional. Professional overkill. I was so nervous having to cut the little bits holding cables in place. It was a nightmare even unscrewing the little case which held the busted PSU in. New thermal paste, figuring out what new pin went there ... I made only one PC myself and that was back in 2012. 2014. Never again I told myself.

After that whole ordeal ended my boyfriend got banned for a week less than a week later in VR Chat so we got to spend more time in FF11 and Fortnite.

Playing with them is always a fun experience.

January was over before I knew it. I decided to cold turkey vaping starting the 1st because I feel my tolerance was getting too high. I vaped for the first time a few days ago when I started playing CrossCodes and I think it helped. I also stopped vaping because I found out I lost some 10-15 pounds(4kg) and I weighed 105 pounds (47kg).

Yeah.

I needed a change in diet so I laid off that and started eating rice/veggies and rotating it with noodles every few days. My eating habit is horrible and it's one of the ways I coped with stress, and the vaping was likely counterbalancing that. I like to think I'm making good process fixing my diet now thoughbet.

Ah yes, CrossCodes.

7 years ago I first started up CrossCodes right after playing Senran Kagura Estival Versus because it was in my sights for a while. I had saved right before you go down to the bridge and talk to the captain. I exited the game and told myself I'd play it another day ... and I just simply never did. It wasn't because I didn't like the game or anything I geniunely just had a lot going on at tha time. And before I knew it, time flew by. A whole seven years before I sat down and played it again. And boy is it fun.

I got as far as the miner puzzle games before I got puzzled though. Up to this point of the game it had good combat, good natural progression, it was great. Then the puzzles hit you in the face and I see now why nobody talks about this game anymore. They're the weakest part of the game so far. I'm still determined to finish this because this is practically the only game on my backlog left. After that, I want to write and read more.

CrossCodes aside, after I finish it I may start a first-time playthrough of Rome1 or Civ3 but that's a post for another day.

On the anime side of things, I bing watched the second season of SAO Gungale Online 2. Coindentically it was also nearly 8 years since I watcehed the first season. I was putting it off as it aired but I was glad to revisit it and the characters after so long.

And as soon as it came back it's gone again. At least until another 8 years. Lol.

Moving on with anime, I'm excited to be able to show my boyfriend Gundam Universal Century anime. Specifically I'm showing him the compliation movies because plowing through more than 100 episodes and even getting ahold of them would be difficult. It'll be new for me too since I haven't visit the series since 2014 and I haven't seen the movies myself. Only downside is ZZ never got movies so it's the only ones I'll have to look for and show him one day. Similiarly we're going to dive into VOTOMS which neither of us have seen; and I want to show him Samurai Flamenco and Higurashi, as well as Nekomonogatari and the rest of Shaft's adaptations of Nishi's series.

Well. That's it for now. Oh. We finished Gasaraki recently and it amused us both the Japanese were right on the mark about trade war with US ... it just wasn't them, it was the Chinese. And it was way ahead of its time predicting the hyperinflation the US is experiencing right now this very moment. Fasincating series but it failed to endure the test of time and ultimately failed to gain meaniginful traction and competition to Gainax's Evangelion.

I'm reaching the point where there's nothing particularly else interesting else to ramble about. This post got bigger than expected. I will figure out a autoscroller one day—not that anyone will read any of this and that's perfectly fine. Though, it would be interesting to set up a counter and a guestbook/chatbox I see often on other neocity domains.

Until then ... so long, space cowboy.