Shout out to video games for making me push off this post for half a week.
Actually that isn’t totally fair. Yes, video games are a large culprit, but I have also been busy running around a bit doing chores and such. For instance I had a lovely time today going out with my mom and grandparents, Rhea and Joe, to get my Grandpa’s walker fixed before having lunch over in old town Torrance.
The walker couldn’t lock down, it had a screw loose, which is a bit of poetic writing in itself that is by no means lost on me. I love my grandparents, but they are getting up there.
Grandma does read my blog stuff on occasion though, and if this is one of those times when I just so happen to be vaguely making fun of them, then my apologies! You know I love you both a lot.
However I didn’t want to spend a huge chunk of this post, for as short as it’ll be, talking about my adventures with the old folks today. It’s just my excuse for waiting so long to finish writing the damn thing.
Instead I’d like to spend some time talking about Gladeo.
You all remember Gladeo, right? The internship I jumped into last summer that I’ve stuck with — despite an admittedly sizable chunk of time when I was dealing with medical issues and dropped the ball. But that’s beside the point.
Now that this summer is getting into full swing I’ve started to plan out more work that I’ll be doing for the nonprofit. Trying to find some industries to dig into, interesting representatives to interview, all that good stuff.
Part of that initiating work for me has been going through my blog/website here and fleshing out my ‘Gladeo work’ section. See, a few months back, Gladeo released a brand new, better optimized website. Before there was an awkward split with profiles on careers filling up one site while the highlights on people who work in that industry were on a different site.
Now everything is all together and it looks much more sleek.
Plus, there’s a better indication on the site showing who wrote what pieces, so it’s much easier to cite the profiles and such I’ve worked on if I decide to go out for more job interviews!
As a result, I revamped the Gladeo portion of my blog, like I said. Not only did I add in all of the pieces that I’ve worked on but haven’t had the chance to talk about because they were lost in the editing process as that new site was being finished, I also fixed the wording to reflect terms that we now use.
It isn’t ‘career profiles’ and ‘career highlights’ anymore. Now we’re calling them ‘career profiles’ and ‘spotlights,’ because even Michelle, the founder, realized that the similar nomenclature was a bit confusing from anyone looking in.
Really that’s about all I have to say on the matter, so if you’re interested in reading the work I’ve done for Gladeo you can now check out that page over on the right!
With some work already lining up, I’m hoping to update that page a good bit more over the next few months. I’ll be sure to keep everyone who’s interested in the loop.
In the meantime, if there’s anyone (preferably in the L.A. area) that’s well intertwined in a particular industry, be it entertainment, tech or anything honestly, that you think has an interesting story that could help the youth of the world determine whether they want to go into that kind of career, don’t be afraid to let me know.
I’d be very interested in talking with them!
P.S. In case anyone’s curious, the title of this post isn’t just me fellating myself for doing an amazing job changing a couple of minor details on my own website.
Normally I try to have this kind of Fire Emblem Heroes post out early in the morning, but after exploding all over Pokémon news yesterday I couldn’t bring myself to stay up late to write more.
So enjoy this later-than-average look at the Legendary Lobster himself: Supreme Samurai Ryoma.
If foe initiates combat, grants Attack and Speed +4 during combat.
Bushido (B Skill)
Deals +10 damage when Special triggers.
Guidance (C Skill)
Infantry and armored allies within two spaces can move to a space adjacent to unit.
Clearly not wanting to be upstaged by his younger sister, the crown prince of Hoshido is here with his first alternate form since the game was released. Instead of being a grounded samurai warrior, he has taken to the skies on a legendary Kinshi mount to bring swift destruction using his legendary electric blade.
As our seventh Legendary Hero, Ryoma brings all water-blessed allies +3 Health and +4 Defense when they enter battle during a water season. Something particularly interesting about the banner this time around is that it actually laid out exactly how legendary hero stat bonuses work:
This, by extension, also just about confirms that there are only going to be 16 Legendary Heroes all together. Unless they do something like add more elements of course, but that’s a bridge we can cross when we get to it.
I quite like the chart. It’s succinct and shows pretty neatly how the developers have begun to plan things out.
Next presumably is a fire element Legendary Hero with a Resistance buff, and I’m interested to see who they choose to fit that role.
But we’re not here to discuss future content. Let’s discuss current content.
Many of you who know Fire Emblem fairly well like I do probably thought the same thing:
Why the hell is Ryoma a flying unit?
It’s rather bizarre seeing him take a Kinshi mount, because it seems like the only Legendary alt that’s somewhat out of character. Sure, Kinshi are great mythical beasts associated with the Hoshidan royal family, but Hinoka made far more sense riding one than her brother does here.
If anything, I would imagine Ryoma to fit the archetype of someone like the Black Knight better. A hulking armored unit with samurai gear turned up to 11, stomping around like an impenetrable tank that fires back from all distances with his Raijinto.
Would’ve been pretty dope if I say so myself.
Even though that isn’t what we got, what Legendary Ryoma is certainly isn’t anything to scoff at. Sword-wielding fliers are a rare unit type in Heroes, and even if I have a personal bias for the Elincia that has served me so well, the Hoshidan crown prince is imposing to say the least.
Stat-wise he’s near perfect based on what we can see in his legendary battle. Attack and Speed stats that are both around 50 while still having a baffling high defense stat for a flying unit. Even his resistance isn’t so bad, so he’s well-rounded enough to take a hit and retaliate.
In fact, that’s essentially what his base skills are meant for. If he can tank that bow or that magic attack, not only can Ryoma counter attack from a distance, but his attack and speed are buffed by his A Skill and he deals an insane critical hit thanks to the signature Bushido B Skill.
With it, his distant counter Raijinto also acts like a Wo Dao weapon. It’s kinda nuts.
I’ve seen some buzz talking about how Ryoma may just be the strongest Legendary Hero we’ve ever gotten, and I can’t say I disagree. I had expected a complete glass cannon based on his flying attribute, but those defenses don’t lie.
However, he isn’t the only thing available on this summoning banner. Also in the eight percent pool are:
Being blunt about it, the red stones are the only ones I truly care about in this pool of focus units.
Ryoma is obviously the chief goal, but Sigurd and Tiki are both solid options to summon for me as well. Both units are perpetual projects of merging that I tend to be working on, and both are frequently in use in my army. Plus, Tiki is about to get a new legendary weapon, so she’ll be even more fun to see in action.
Beyond that, I already have both the Legendary Nifl sisters and Legendary Grima — though I do find it interesting that Legendary Lyn is not on this banner given the fact that she’s the last one we saw implemented.
The Christmas and New Years units that are returning aren’t exactly my favorite either. I already have Azura and probably wouldn’t bother with anyone from the Christmas side but Tharja.
Though if they brought Tharja back she would be in three different summoning banners at the same time right now… So I can understand the restraint.
The non-special units, Hardin and Innes, just seem kind of random honestly. They’re both good of course, but not necessarily good enough for me to bother pulling them.
So that means we’re just sniping the red orbs fellas, where are those-
… Oh I see.
Yeah that has been a bit of a pattern for me on this banner so far, just pulling singular red stones. In the case above, Ares was a cool compensation unit since I didn’t have him before, but beyond that I haven’t had a whole lot of luck.
This time I swear I’m going to keep my orb counter above 50, I won’t break that promise. There are still brides waiting in the wings for me somewhere, I hope.
That said, orbs are available through Ryoma’s legendary battle.
Except if you’re going to try that, you should know it’s a little…
Intense.
The dude basically surrounds himself with long-ranged units so he can wear you down before coming in for the kill. I’ll admit that the map does a great job showcasing why Ryoma is so powerful, but boy that Infernal difficulty hurts when you need to get through so many waves of reinforcements.
Oh well. Even with the Tempest Trial cleaned out for me, hopefully I’ll be able to stock up on some more orbs somewhere or another.
Beyond that I don’t have too much more to say about this Legendary Lobster. What do you think about him? Is he too overpowered? Or just overpowered enough?
Let me know in the comments below, and while you’re at it let me know who you think the next Legendary Hero is going to be! I’m down to start taking bets.
I had a totally different post planned for tonight.
But you know what?
The Pokémon hype train is too. God. Damn. Real.
Return to the Kanto region and experience a classic Pokémon journey in a whole new way with Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee! on the Nintendo Switch! Coming November 16, 2018: https://t.co/kXLdxUMjjA#PokemonLetsGopic.twitter.com/EKzQsTbDuE
That’s right folks, we’ve got a brand new trailer for a brand new Pokémon game, and you know damn well it’s time for me to go back to my Sun & Moon lead-up days of deeply analyzing anything and everything I can get my hands on.
This is about to be a long piece picking apart each and every piece of the trailer that I can.
Hope you’re ready. Because I am.
Let’s Go, Pokémon!
So obviously the first thing to address when it comes to discussing the brand new upcoming games of Let’s Go, Pikachu and Let’s Go, Eevee is the tie-in to the mobile app Pokémon GO.
However… The app didn’t have a whole lot of staying power.
It got stale rather fast for me, and there were things about the game that needed to be implemented that weren’t until it was too late.
I still haven’t gone back, even though they’ve officially started to release Pokémon from the third generation (my personal nostalgic favorite).
Where the trailer for Let’s Go begins, it seems as though they’re setting up this title to be almost like a port of Pokémon GO for the Nintendo Switch. Which, in all honesty, would make zero sense considering what the appeal is for GO.
But then as token young child sits down on the couch and Pikachu jumps into the television, all becomes clear:
Kanto.
Remake.
Even though the warning on the bottom left suggests that ‘game footage is not final,’ the intent is clear. That boy you’re watching on-screen is Red, the original protagonist. With a Pikachu on his shoulder. Standing in Professor Oak’s Pokémon Lab in Pallet Town.
Graphically, Let’s Go looks to have the same, if not better, quality models and environments than Sun and Moon — which to be fair does make sense considering the jump from the 3DS to the Switch.
Yet in terms of style, the world appears to be built more in-line with the philosophy of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (ORAS). Ostensibly this makes sense considering Let’s Go is being billed as a remake of the original Pokémon Yellow.
Keep the core of the world alive but update what we can see and juice everything up.
And sure perhaps I’m putting too much stock into the initial glances we get based on this trailer alone, but the way everything has been updated does look gorgeous. Environments on par with Sun and Moon being utilized for a faithful world recreation ala ORAS is by no means a bad combination.
Oh, and there are fully animated cutscenes too, just like the few that appeared in Sun and Moon. I enjoyed those as well, so I hope they’re utilized properly.
…
Seriously though you look at Vermillion City in the brief shot they provide and tell me it doesn’t look just amazing.
One of the reasons Pokémon GO got stale for me so quickly was because there really wasn’t a heck of a lot to keep me invested in catching Pokémon.
Yes I adore Pokémon as a series because the creatures are adorable and I wish I could have them in real life.
But I also adore Pokémon as a series because I’m one of those weirdos that actually enjoys the story and the characters.
Yeah that’s right, I play Pokémon for the story. Come at me.
Being an aspiring writer, the monster catching series was one of the earliest things that drew me to both the mediums of video games and writing. The plots of each of the seven generations of main series games are burned into my skull, and I can seriously throw down long diatribes explaining why I adore X character based on this line of dialogue they gave.
It’s that much of an obsession for me.
In that way Let’s Go, Pikachu & Eevee becomes a beautiful middle ground.
Granted, the Gen one titles of Red and Blue (plus Yellow technically, all things considered) are arguably my least favorite. I enjoy the spit out of Firered, but find myself less engaged in the world those games create than any of the others.
Despite that caveat, I do still enjoy the games and like the Kanto region for as classic and iconic as it is, so getting to revisit them is great. Especially considering those two remakes came out in 2004 and leave Kanto the only stand-alone generation not featured on the DS-forward.
The brilliance behind the marketing for Let’s Go comes off that point. This is the first time we’re getting a Pokémon game centered around the Kanto region, literally a remake of the first adventure as the trailer goes on to stipulate, since Pokémon GO was a mass phenomena and brought tons of people who played the original titles back into the fold.
Timing is everything, and I’ll be damned if that’s a coincidence.
But no, we know it can’t be a coincidence because Let’s Go is literally built with the same functionality as Pokémon GO.
The first of multiple different ways to interact with the game is through single joycon play. Literally you sit back with a joycon and play the game like it’s Pokémon.
But when you need to catch a random encounter, you chuck a Pokémon with the same minigame/spinoff style Pokémon GO offers. It’s just this time you literally throw like pitching a baseball rather than flicking your finger on the screen.
If that’s not a perfect way to not only utilize the functionality of the Nintendo Switch, but also bring the ‘catch Pokémon for real’ mentality of GO into contact with the story and immersive world of a mainstream Pokémon game, I don’t know what is.
It looks like there’s also probably a way to just hit A to throw as well, as I can already hear the complaints that this repetitive throwing will be too much.
Something iconic about the Pokémon series as a whole is its version splitting antics.
Whether you see multiple versions as a smart way to encourage kids to interact and spread a fervor for the game like wildfire, or whether you see it as a cheap cash grab that persists based on ‘tradition’ in a world where it has no place being there, you have to admit:
Playing Pokémon with a community of people is probably the core reason why it’s as popular as it is today.
The idea of the split versions has always had a particularly special place in my heart considering the fact that I have a younger sister. Going all the way back, I’d always buy both versions of a new generation so that I can play one while Aly plays the other.
Just a piece of my Pokémon collection.
… Granted she tends to give up, which makes both versions my playing grounds to try out different things. But that’s a different story.
Pokémon Let’s Go is going to take that to a whole new level by allowing us to play the same Pokémon game at the same time using both joycons.
Honestly? That would be a selling point alone even if nothing else about this were true.
That multiplayer is somewhat limited from the looks of things, essentially allowing both players to run around freely on the same screen but not putting them on separate journeys.
Instead, the catching game becomes more of a co-operative experience where things like having the right timing together improves your chances of catching Pokémon.
The way multiplayer interacts with battle is a little funnier, as it seems like player two gains access to another member of your party so you both can fight at the same time.
While I can only imagine creating infinite two-on-one situations will make the journey relentlessly easy, I can’t help but relish the idea of reversing the terrible circumstances of Sun and Moon where enemy Pokémon called for help all the damn time.
A few other things I’d like to note in this section:
From the brief battle sequences we see, as well as whatever capturing is shown off, it appears like most every environment in the game will have an equally unique battle locale. Which is amazing and highly encouraged, hopefully beyond even what Sun and Moon offered.
Pokémon appear to roam wild as overworld sprites in Let’s Go. I can only hope this will be less of a gimmick-y ‘hey look who shows up here’ and more of a way to flesh out the living world, as obviously a game that’s going to be a Kanto remake with a complete battle system will also have random encounters to facilitate grinding for the Elite Four.
While I love the idea of multiplayer, it does currently leave me second guessing the possibility of this being a Pokémon game with full online functionality too. It seems like the focus is going to be solely on Kanto Pokémon, so will there be wi-fi battling and trading? It doesn’t seem like it, which may cut down the game’s longevity, but we’ll see when more information comes out.
New Toys for Kanto
You can use the #PokeBallPlus as a Joy-Con in #PokemonLetsGo! Good things may happen if you place one of your favorite Pokémon into the device and walk around with it in the real world. It will be able to connect to Pokémon GO as well! pic.twitter.com/I18Y55odpp
Along with just using a single joycon, Nintendo is also going to be releasing a little Pokéball toy that can be used in place of the traditional controller as something to throw at wild encounters.
That seems to be the pattern for Pokémon games lately, releasing a gimmicky object alongside their titles. Remember the Z-Ring for Sun and Moon?
This one seems cute but not necessarily something I’ll be chomping at the bit to go out and buy. Beyond that capture integration, the chief thing it seems a trainer can do with the Pokéball is bring Pikachu (or Eevee) along with you to make noises.
According to this tweet, the functionality purely extends to Kanto Pokémon — which is what leads to my trepidation from before about the existence of wi-fi connectivity acting as an extender for Let’s Go.
It also seems to me that the Pokémon you bring in from the real world will only be accessible through a special location, GO PARK.
I suppose it could be wonky to have to transfer things like stats between such totally different games, so I understand… But that is a shame.
Makes me feel slightly less apt to pick up Pokémon GO again to transfer my cool Pidgeot over. But we’ll see.
More, More, More!
There are a number of other things throughout the trailer that warrant discussion as well, but I’ll try to sum them up more quickly since this is already getting long in the tooth.
Red and Leaf ride a hell of a lot of Pokémon in the trailer. An Onyx, a Lapras and a Charizard at least. I can’t quite tell based on this trailer alone whether or not all Pokémon will have rideable functionality for something or another, or whether this replaces HMs similarly to Sun and Moon, but we’ll see. I hope it’s the latter.
Concurrent with the previous point, it seems as though every single Pokémon does at least have an overworld model programmed in-game. There are scenes where it appears as though they can follow you as well, such as the red-and-blue striped underground tunnel where two players are followed by Nidoking and Nidoqueen. Will full Pokémon following return from Heartgold and Soulsilver, even if just for Kanto Pokémon?
Eevee and Pikachu are customizable! The player character probably isn’t considering they’re supposed to stand in for Red and Leaf, and I don’t have a problem with that, but the fact that the game’s mascots can have outfits is too cute for words. I just hope they stay dressed up during battle!
Someone somewhere used Seismic Toss on a Magikarp for the trailer and that person deserves a raise.
Did I mention there are full cutscenes in the game? Well, one of those is the Mewtwo encounter. Player model appears to have more facial range than the Sun and Moon protagonist, so that’s again a plus for Let’s Go.
Concluding Thoughts
Okay, so there are one or two other things to touch on oh-so-briefly before wrapping this sucker.
First: Eevee’s voice.
Look. I get it Game Freak. Pikachu got special treatment starting in Gen six, where it started to say its name because mascot. It was cute and I get it.
Eevee didn’t need the same treatment, even though you’re trying to fill that same cute mascot niche. I’m not a huge fan of Eevee saying its name like in the trailer.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m playing Let’s Go, Eevee all the way because Eevee is far superior to Pikachu in my opinion, but still.
Also at the end of the trailer was a tease to a brand new Pokémon being shown off somehow in-game. On Twitter, the Pokémon folks do confirm that this will be a 100 percent totally brand new Generation Eight Pokémon.
With #PokemonQuest and #PokemonLetsGo, there are so many new ways to explore the world of Pokémon! Trainers can look forward to even more with an all-new core series Pokémon RPG title in development for the second half of 2019! pic.twitter.com/d5uiIpenMI
Because oh yeah by the way, new main series Pokémon title in 2019.
That’s another thing to get hyped about, but hype will wait for another day in that particular train’s engine.
For now we still need to get through November 16, 2018 when Let’s Go Pikachu & Eevee will be released upon the world.
If you couldn’t tell already, I’m super duper excited for it. I was pretty burned out on Pokémon after the back-to-back release of Sun/Moon and their Ultra sequels, but this is a whole new adventure with tons of unique bells and whistles to get ready for.
I do hope after the 2019 games are released that Game Freak takes a bit of a break, both because it would be well-deserved and because fatigue may set on if they start to push out a big game every single year for too long.
Though Marvel’s been going strong for 10 years with the same philosophy and look where that has them. So who knows!
All I know is that despite trepidation for a few key points I’ve listed throughout this analysis, I’m excited for the Let’s Go Pokémon games all the same. It has probably pushed off Dark Souls as a major game to purchase for the console since I now need to save my money.
Sorry Dark Souls, we’ll have our day.
I’m also ready for more and more news to come out about the game in the coming months. How will the new character designs look? What sort of new things can we expect to be added into the game’s lore? Will Jesse and James appear as a part of Team Rocket like in the original Yellow?
Expect to see me blathering about it from now until November.
So, until the next news comes, tell me internet: What is YOUR opinion regarding these new Pokémon games? I’ll undoubtedly be seeking reactions on my own, but I’d like to know what the people who follow me think too.
I don’t believe I’ve ever felt the need to describe myself as having been “emotionally patriotic” before, but that’s frankly the best way I can bring to words part of how I felt during the Memorial Day ceremony I attended today.
The City of Redondo Beach put on the event at Veterans Park this afternoon, which for context is a nice sized park with a memorial statue right next to the Redondo Pier.
My view from the back row at the Memorial Day ceremony.
Part of the reason I came out to the event, besides showing my respect for our country’s fallen, was because my alma mater’s band was performing — including my sister.
They did a great job not just during stand-alone performances like the one above, but punctuating the entire event with pieces of ambiance. For example, the band’s Trumpet Trio took the place of a bugle to play out recognizable military salutes and calls.
However, the National Anthem was what really got to me in an unexpectedly intense way.
Part of that was because it was a very sweet, slow and drawn out rendition being performed, and the high school kids really nailed the emotional delivery.
The RUHS Wind Ensemble preparing to perform.
But it wasn’t just on them.
When the song started, it was just the band playing against the nearby crashing of the waves and seagull cries. Then, a couple members of the audience began to sing under their breaths, barely loud enough to be heard. It was mostly older folks who I would later see stand during the performance I linked above.
A more full-scale shot of the audience at the event.
Those few singing members of the audience eventually blossomed into a fervent performance from just about everyone in attendance. It slowly built up throughout the song and left everything to wrap with a unified call for the “home of the brave.”
Totally unprompted. Totally unplanned.
Completely beautiful.
Like I said right at the top of this, I don’t often get very outwardly emotional with heavily patriotic things related to, say, military service. That isn’t to say I’m not emotional of course, it’s just typically a more silent, introverted and somber emotion.
But I actually cried a little at that moment during the ceremony where the audience unexpectedly joined in on the National Anthem.
Because of that and other parts of the event, like the keynote speech by U.S. Coast Guard Captain Jose Penã and the presentation in honor of Vincent Barbee, a local RUHS student that died not too long ago, I found myself walking out feeling much more deeply moved than I had expected to.
Though the Master of Ceremonies punctuated the beginning and end of the event with jokes about Stormy Daniels and a George Washington impersonator in the audience, so there was also a good amount of chill Southern Californianism to break up the emotional introspection.
As a quick aside, the video I posted in this piece is actually something I took on my iPhone at the ceremony.
Decided to try something new with this blog post since I wanted to upload my sister’s performance directly here, but haven’t exactly been able to in the past because uploading video directly to WordPress is awkward with how much space it takes up. So I tried posting the thing to my unused YouTube account, that way I could link to it.
Hopefully it works as an experiment, because if so that’ll open up the possibility of my doing more video-oriented content in the future.
I’ve been on a bit of a cleaning kick lately. Getting the house straightened up tends to be one of my first big summer projects, as we’re coming fresh off the busy end of a semester/school year where things tend to become a pig sty and I feel a little bad about how little I’ve been able to contribute.
So far I’ve hit part of our main living room, the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom. However, I took a bit of a distracted turn when starting to look at my room.
I thought the state of my wallet when I started was interesting as some sort of example of my “constant carry” mental state, so I wanted to take the chance to run through exactly what I found.
Who knows, maybe it’ll be interesting to compare that to whatever I carry in the future.
The Valuables
Here’s the stuff I won’t outright show you, but it’s the stuff you’ll expect to see no matter what.
Boils down to this:
My Driver’s License
My Cal State Fullerton ID
My AAA Card
My Family’s Health Care Card
My Family’s Vehicle Insurance
My Debit Card
Pretty generic stuff. Just don’t expect me to be silly enough to post pictures of my numbers and such to be abused by whatever internet trolls are lingering around.
My Lucky Coin
In a complete 180 degree turn, here’s something that isn’t vital to my survival, but also isn’t something I tend to part with very often.
I can’t tell you exactly where or when I got my hands on this Lugia-printed silver coin. I can’t tell you why I wound up putting such high praise into it.
All I can tell you is that it will always be sitting right behind my Driver’s License in its special outward flap. For luck.
It’s goofy, but what can I say. I’m a superstitious guy when I want to be.
My SPJ Card
Probably the most recent addition to the cast, here’s my membership card for the Society of Professional Journalists.
Though I’ve been interested in joining the organization for some time, I decided to wait way too long for some reason and didn’t get my hands on this until a few months ago.
Considering I’ll be aiming to get myself more actively involved in the CSUF branch of SPJ going forward, it won’t hurt to keep this sucker around.
My Library Card
If my SPJ Card is very recent, this library card is very old. I’d argue at least 10 years, but the plastic itself doesn’t actually indicate how long ago I first got it.
All I can tell you is it’s at least old enough to warrant my mom having signed the “for anyone 18 and younger” parental signature space.
If nothing else, digging this sucker out has made me think about just how long it’s been since I used it.
Perhaps I’ll take a trip down to the Library one of these days, just to hang around and study if nothing else.
A single GameStop Gift Card
How much money is still on this thing?
Why am I just carrying it around?
Who gave it to me?
What is making me put so much thought into the damn thing?
All of these questions and more linger as I gaze into the sleek red-black-white physique of this particular card.
Some Membership Cards
There’s a bit of a “Tale of Two Cities” deal going on with these cards, for as random a combination as they may be.
The Men’s Warehouse Rewards Card is the more bizarre of the two. I’ve really only used it once back when I needed to get a suit for my high school graduation.
On the other hand, I actually use the Which Wich Rewards Card all the time. Way more than I probably should, honestly.
What can I say. There’s a Which Wich right next to the newsroom, so it’s one of the three or four restaurants that are constantly in my circulation of places to eat.
So whether or not I’m going to carry this with me
Too many Starbucks Cards
Okay, look people. I drink Starbucks pretty often. Like more often than I probably should – a pattern apparently.
But this is ridiculous.
Obviously most of these cards were gifts from others, but what sick delusion broke its way into my head forcing me to keep all of them in my wallet at the same time?
Actually, that’s not fair. Not all of them are in my wallet.
I also found three or four Starbucks cards sitting on my desk hidden under piles of junk.
Seriously what is wrong with me? I literally spent a good 15 minutes today just jotting down Card numbers to throw them all on my digital account for ease of access later.
Did I really think it was more beneficial to just carry all of this extra junk?!
Sighs…
Sometimes I’ll never understand past Jason.
Punch Cards
Probably more interesting than the plastic rewards cards I pointed out earlier are these punch cards I’ve decided to carry around for some reason or another.
The one on the left is for a local car wash right around where I live, one that actually does a pretty nice, thorough job not only cleaning the outside but the inside of the car.
However… Fate can be a cruel mistress. I’ve only had the chance to go once, hence the one stamp on the card, because the back window on my car is still broken.
Haven’t been able to get the thing properly washed in months. So that’s great.
The card from the ice cream place is a bit more interesting to think about why exactly I carry it around.
I’ve only gone to that place a few select times as well, with probably my only visits coming from times I’ve hung around the Del Amo Mall with my friend Samantha.
There’s only two stamps left till we get a free dessert, so I guess we’re going to have to hang out again soon whenever she’s finished with her semester over at El Camino.
Last but not least…
Good old Washingtons.
Er… Washington.
Only have one dollar on me right now. So I guess it’s a good thing I decided to stay inside and clean rather than go out, huh?
That really wraps it up for my wallet excursion. Like I said, perhaps I’ll check back on this post in a few years and see where I’m at in my life based on the contents of my wallet.
Though in the meantime, I am curious to know if any of you have anything particularly bizarre or special in your wallets/purses/whatever it may be.
If you do and you’re interested in sharing, let me know in the comments!
Alright look. I don’t have any sort of deep, philosophical thoughts that are way up my own ass today about human psychology or the value of sentimental material goods. Haven’t exactly done enough today to warrant that kind of thinking.
All I’ve really done was clean the downstairs bathroom and watch Deadpool 2.
As much as I have spent time talking about my cleaning habits in the past, there’s clearly a much more overwhelming force taking up brain space right now that I need to vent.
An X-Force, if you will. Because movie humor.
So I’m going to blather on for a while to debrief after that rollercoaster of a movie. Cool? Cool.
If I get into anything spoiler-y I promise I’ll let you know ahead of time. I’ll also put it under a ‘read more’ line on the blog here just in case. Continue reading “Deadpool.”→
After my biweekly Gladeo meeting this morning, Mom and I travelled out into the Wild, Wild West of Palos Verdes to take care of some chores.
Namely chores for my sister, who happens to still be in school and couldn’t make the trip out herself. But hey, what are siblings for if not to be a stand-in where extra hands are needed.
See my sister is a high school musician for those of you that haven’t seen me talk about her before.
Pretty awesome stuff coming from our little flutist in this mid-piece solo. She’s definitely got a future in the business! pic.twitter.com/rbCupBVT10
She plays flute primarily, but also dabbles in a number of other instruments including saxophone, piccolo and keyboard. Today’s trip happened to be for the piccolo specifically, as she’s been renting the thing for so long that now she wanted to buy it from the music store.
It’s this place in a shopping center called the Promenade for anyone who lives local and might know what I’m talking about.
Pretty nice place, honestly.
The thing that has stood out about this trip in particular for me, however, is the fact that I thought this was going to be a brand new excursion when it turns out I’ve been here before.
Memory and how remembering things works has always been an interesting subject for me. Getting to learn about cool, underlying brain mechanisms is one of the reasons I like being a psychology minor at CSUF.
Video games have always been an excellent associative trigger for memories (because of course they are). Playing Pokémon Sapphire always brings me back to raising a Wingull named Lt. Sergeant in my grandparent’s house in Florida. That sort of thing.
Don’t ask me why that was the Wingull’s name, though. I had some strange thing about raising a Wingull army that I don’t remember the genesis of.
That said I’m getting way off topic.
Being back at this music store and the Good Stuff restaurant nearby that we also ate at last time we came over here:
Has triggered a very specific and more recent memory within me.
Summoning this big lug in Fire Emblem Heroes:
That’s right, I’m right back at the restaurant where I once wasted all kinds of orbs just to summon the Mystletainn master himself.
Whether that particular binge of orbs was worth it is questionable in hindsight, considering Sigurd came into the game a few weeks later and outclassed my cavalry swordsman…
But for the positive memory and emotional association alone, I think the summon was plenty worthwhile.
When I graduated from high school a few years back, my parents got me one of the most important, physical gifts with real-life practicality that I have ever received:
That’s right, a pen and pencil set.
It seems a little bit strange to pick apart over 21 years of constant, loving support and choose something like this as an example of something I regard so fondly.
But it does make sense if you think about it!
As a writer by trade, there are few things more important than the right hardware. Notebooks, pencils, pens, audio recorders, etc. I quite literally live my life by these items through my college student/journalist career.
Add onto that a heaping dose of superstition by my allocating generous amount of credit for things like my grades into the old ‘lucky pencil’ cliché and you’ll be hard-pressed to find any of this stuff leave my side.
The thing that really stands out to me, however, is the dichotomy of the two writing utensils. Those differences are essentially what inspired me to write this silly little post.
Just a quick look up-close will show you why. This is the pen part of the set:
Rather nice and clean, even arguably near-perfect for how long I’ve had it, as I mostly use this thing to mark dates on my calendar.
My dad is a fan of fountain pens, and I’ve seen him spend a lot of time keeping them pristine. This pen isn’t quite up to that standard, but I still feel a happy amount of pride seeing the thing look so nice.
Now compare that to the pencil:
Talk about grungy and well-used. Pretty much the exact opposite of the pen.
It’s a perfect depiction of the difference in quality that comes from use, because I seriously use this sucker for everything. It’s worn down, with some of the metal finish scraping off throughout and the grip toward the tip starting to rust and smooth off.
Even the back of the pencil is a shadow of its former self with an eraser that’s used completely down to the nub. I actually have to take the whole thing apart just to add extra lead into the thing.
Compared to the pen, you might think that the pencil being in such a worn-down, kind of disgusting state would drive me crazy.
You’d be right, to an extent. There are moments where I get some raw spots on my fingers from the messy grip, which inevitably serves to leave my hand smelling like worn metal for a time.
Arguably there’s something to be said about my right hand just being a greasy mess. That’s probably the only explanation as to why the pencil would get to this point, and it’s a clear symptom of my overuse.
Yet I think the dichotomy between the pencil and the pen are part of what I’ve come to love about these things so much in the years that I’ve had them. Not only are they great utensils, reminiscent of a nice time in my life given their association with my high school graduation, but they also represent two sides of my psyche at some deeper level:
The somewhat OCD side that prefers to keep things clean; and the hard-working side that will keep working away at the same thing over-and-over until its worn-down and well-remembered.
…
Or perhaps I’m just putting too much thought into something otherwise negligible.
One of my favorite classes this past semester was Communications 436: Entertainment Reporting, which was taught by OC Register reporter Paul Hodgins.
While his lectures were perhaps a little vaguely laid out for my tastes, that was readily made up for by the interesting auxiliary bits he included during each three-hour class period — namely the mock newsroom sessions where we were able to write-up pieces in short bursts of time and design fake newspapers/websites/etc.
I've run down a few of my journalistic endeavors over the last week as a means of introducing a new section of my blog dedicated to my Comm 436 class assignments. https://t.co/PDrn6gFWgUpic.twitter.com/mBwcSOFVdU
This is a terrible photo of me, but I’m super proud of the work I did with @Ricky9LA tonight in Comm 436, so I wanted to share it anyway! pic.twitter.com/76p3dGqlwK
It was just the kind of cool real-life skills practice I haven’t seen come out of too many classes that aren’t taught by the Daily Titan advisor, for example.
Bonnie loves using her classes to feed into the newspaper for content generation.
The other thing I really liked about Professor Hodgins’ class was the fact that it offered the opportunity to write about subjects I might not have gotten to otherwise — more Lifestyle reporting practice, for example.
Because video games were my beat for every facet of the class, I also got to write some genuine articles in a few different styles. Ironically, the news story I pulled together about violence in video games was the only one I got out in print. However, I am still working on a profile piece the class initiated that I’m hoping to put out next semester.
The only piece that I never had the intent to publish was a trend story regarding the rise of the ‘battle royale’ genre of gaming. My sources for the story were Kyle Bender and Jared Eprem, the Titan’s spring 2018 Editor-in-Chief and Sports Editor.
Yeah, not exactly sources to use for a story if I wanted it published as something unbiased and legit.
Despite that, I was proud of how this article as a whole shaped up considering its somewhat last-minute nature. Because of that, I didn’t want it to just rot away in my school desktop folder.
So I figure what better way to put it out there than using my personal blog! Just consider it a sample of how I can write about a different subject more than an actual professional piece.
This pre-write is a little long as is, so I’m going to cut the story itself under a read more. If you enjoy it, please let me know! I’m always open to any and all feedback I can get.
As someone who typically feels like he couldn’t care less about social media, this small life update came a bit out of left field for me.
I apparently have 100 followers on Twitter now!
Probably small change all things being equal… But to be fair, it doesn’t exactly feel like I’ve tried too hard to get to that point, so I’d be willing to consider it a badge of pride.
See I started using Twitter as a part of my Communications 201 class in 2016, where one of Professor Frank Russell‘s assignments had everyone tweet things to him as a ‘test’ of being able to use the site. Since it’s an important journaler’s activity.
Ever since, my Twitter has been a somewhat mixed bag of advertising my blog posts — which brings up a whole other interesting debate about how meta this post will be when going onto the site that I don’t want to think too hard about now, live tweeting on occasion and then doing just quippy, small life updates.
Oh, and posting my Nintendo Switch and 3DS images. Because I still haven’t figured out a great way to pull those down without social media assistance just yet.
I’ll have to give an extra special shout out today to Matt Ford, who became my 100th follower on May 20. Because yeah… The fact that this happened two days ago should probably be an indicator that I don’t pay nearly enough attention to Twitter.
Hell, just looking more closely at my account for the sake of writing this short blurb has actually reminded me that I haven’t seriously updated my profile in god knows how long.
I may have picked up a new Frankenstein-adjacent avatar when my family went to Universal Studios a few weeks ago, but I’ve apparently still been listed as the news editor for the Daily Titan despite only having been an editorial assistant last semester.
(Sorry about that, Amy and Brandon. I’ll give you guys an extra bit of attention here to make up for it.)
I might be making a big fuss over essentially nothing, but what can I say. If Cal State Fullerton has taught me anything over the past couple years during classes where I’ve been forced to get more invested in social media, it’s that building an online presence is important.
Maybe this can be a wake-up call for me to actually pay my social media some more mindful attention, just to make sure I don’t fall too far out-of-date.
…
Although to be fair, if I had to guess it was this tweet was probably the one that pushed me over the edge.
You can tell what kind of finals week it has been when my sister gets this gem. pic.twitter.com/kkW8imXmGB
So here’s to more dumb (and not-so-dumb) things coming in the future! I appreciate all the love and support I’ve gotten thus far, and I’m hoping to connect with more interesting people while continuing with this long journey called life.
Jason's Blog - Work in Progress 