Month: July 2019

Three bug bites in

Ooh boy, time to write about my day as Democrats yell at each other in the background again.

Last night I mentioned going to swim in the pool today.

I made good on that promise, because how could I not?

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It’s a beaut.

The water was also perfect today. Just cool enough to counteract the heat without freezing my toes off.

Fun fact, while I was getting that picture of the pool I noticed all of these cute old pictures of my grandparents that made me smile:

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Also there’s a terrifying cat statue.

It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.

A return to the pool also meant a return to one of my favorite pastimes: Watching geckos climb all over the mesh fencing.

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Look at this little guy, he’s so sweet.

Yet in a jarring turn of events, I found it was easier to watch the geckos than ever because I’m officially too damn big for the pool.

The deep end is 6 feet. I’m 6’2 or so.

Last time I came to Florida I was definitely not tall enough to stand in the deep end with my head above the water, which means it has been longer since I’ve been here than I thought. That blew my mind.

But before going for a swim, wading in the existential dread of time and noticing my growing collection of bug bites, I helped Grandma throw together french toast.

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More vacation food photos. Sorry.

A nice, hearty breakfast. The kind of breakfast that I needed because part of my day was spent working out computer issues for both grandparents.

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Here’s Grandma being cute at the computer, though. Before I make you cringe.

For Grandpa I simply helped update their computer software and readjust his settings back to normal.

But for Grandma… Poor girl… I had to show her that she could scroll further down the website she was on to get to a link.

I finally understand what it’s like for my Dad to be technical support.

Luckily, after that technical supporting and writing the next portion of my Pokémon fanfiction (because that’s still a thing and you can read the first six chapters here), I reaped the reward of some BBQ from Lucille’s.

But if you’re like me and thinking about this Lucille’s, you’d be wrong.

We went to THIS Lucille’s, which also happens to be a BBQ restaurant chain.

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Except this Lucille’s is better because the staff wore shirts that said, “The Biggest Rack in the Business.”

It was a hilarious joke on the female employees, but even more hilarious on the male employees. Equal opportunity racks.

During the time in-between these events, today was a good day for video games.

Fire Emblem Heroes dropped a banner for the newest game’s loli dragon prophet:

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My only real issue is that her dragon form is just… Herself?

It’s very bizarre.

Also I spent some orbs and just got my fourth Legendary Lyn, so I’m salty and moving on.

Moving on to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which dropped its newest DLC fighter just last night!

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Hero is one of four protagonists from different games in the Dragon Quest series.

My personal favorite of the four choices is Eight from… Dragon Quest VIII, appropriately enough. He’s got a sweet bandana and a little mouse friend.

Plus he’s very photogenic. Check this out:

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I actually like the Dragon Quest additions a lot. The stage based on the tree of life Yggdrasil is cool, the music additions are solid and the character is fun to play as.

He’s got a mix of Link’s swordplay and Robin’s charging magic attacks. But then he also has a Metronome-style RNG wheel of magical spells that are insane.

Just look at this thread:

How Sakurai allowed this character to exist is beyond me.

Then again he also has the option to literally kamikaze himself, so 10/10 amazing character.

Now we wait for Banjo to show up. In the meantime, I’ll be in Florida for a bit longer.

Supposedly we’re hitting up a museum tomorrow. So stay tuned for that!

Floridian Voyeurism + Yesterday Review

Floridian Voyeurism + Yesterday Review

We’ve settled in for the night to watch the CNN Democratic Presidential Debate, so I figure it’s as good a time as any to start my second day debrief.

Despite being exhausted by jet lag and obscene humidity, I woke up early to accompany Grandma at L.A. Fitness.

She got me a temporary membership at her gym for the week, and it had all the same amenities that I’d normally use.

Though it was arguably more fun because I could stand above the crowds with cardio machines on the second floor:

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While there I got to meet all of her gym friends. It was a little weird, but in an interesting kind of way. Like looking into a person’s secret double life.

After that we hit their local supermarket to perpetuate my vague sense of voyeurism.

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The gym and supermarket were nice reprieves from the heat, which I’ve come to find are godsends because WOW is it ever hot in Florida.

Grandma and Grandpa decided that we should go out to the movies later in the afternoon to continue our A/C hopping.

We saw Yesterday, that film which asks what would happen if The Beatles suddenly didn’t exist.

I have… A lot of things to say about Yesterday.

But I’ll get to that later. Don’t want to conflate my dislike for the movie with my enjoyment of the day.

If nothing else the experience of going was worthwhile, even if the movie wasn’t.

We were going to a special restaurant for dinner until storm clouds rolled in. So we shifted plans and went to a less outdoors-y experience with Renzo’s Pizzeria.

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Grandma and Grandpa say they’ve been going to this sweet little Italian joint for years, and I can see why. The pizza was very good.

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Had to be that guy and photograph my vacation food. Sorry.

As was the company. I got to hear the stories how Grandpa quit biting his nails (a request from Grandma when they were dating) AND how he quit smoking (thanks to a bet with someone who was supposed to lose weight and wound up gaining it).

Also, this was a thing:

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From far away the mouse looked like it had demon teeth, but it just has the Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff mouth.

Which is way funnier.

After dinner we came home, had some tea, put on the debate and the rest is history.

But I think it’s time for a much less divisive subject than politics: Movies.

I’m going to tear Yesterday apart under the cut, so if you don’t care about that sort of thing (and I wouldn’t blame you), go ahead and get back to your lives.

Tomorrow I’m thinking it’s time to finally hit the pool, so stay tuned for that and other exciting developments.
Continue reading “Floridian Voyeurism + Yesterday Review” →

The Bachelor in Florida

The Bachelor in Florida

Hey.

Been a while, huh?

I’ve been enjoying my “book writing sabbatical” perhaps a little too much. A lot of my novel has gotten done, but there have been plenty of things over the last month I easily could have blogged about.

I was almost completely by myself for three weeks as Mom and Aly went to New York for a summer music program.

During that time I went to the L.A. County Museum of Art for a graduation party.

I bought Mario Maker 2 and made a bajillion levels.

I hosted a full-on sleepover with my friends.

We saw Disney usher the end times by announcing some great looking Marvel movies at San Diego Comic Con, despite my hatred for their entertainment monopoly.

I completely skipped the Three Houses banner in Fire Emblem Heroes.

Dad and I caught up on the latest season of The Flash, I finally saw (and was blown away by) Shazam and I watched Spider-Man: Far From Home for the second time.

Lots of potential content. But as you can tell, I’ve mostly been keeping my day-to-day exploits on social media.

More time to focus on the book and all that.

However, I might return to daily posts for limited time.

This week I’m on vacation in Florida, invited by my grandparents when they came to California for Graduation. I figure that’s worth recording for posterity.

Today wasn’t the most exciting part, however. Hence the long recap.

I flew out of LAX at 9:30 a.m., where I got to sit through that classic California traffic one last time.

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This was actually my first solo experience in the airport. Every other time I’ve gone places there were family members or school-related functions to keep me company.

But it was easygoing, despite oddities like having to walk through a dog pen for the TSA or having my departure gate flip between two locations multiple times.

I decided to be that guy and get a GIF of the takeoff once we boarded. Which turned out nice in my opinion:

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Then about four hours later, after isolating myself from the outside world to write and catch up on podcasts, I landed in Fort Lauderdale.

Though it was technically seven hours because I traveled into the future.

Isn’t technology amazing? I flew nearly 3,000 miles in a fraction of a day.

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That was such a cool realization after we landed.

Though it was immediately followed by the realization that I decided to go somewhere with 90 degree heat and 64 percent humidity at the end of July.

I guess it was worth it considering I got picked up by these two:

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Even if they took me to The Habit for dinner and gave me flashbacks of late deadline nights at The Daily Titan.

After that we came home so I could unpack and watch American Ninja Warrior with them over a cup of tea.

It took a minute to get over the existential panic of finding out I’d be staying in the “adult” bedroom usually reserved for Mom. But then the relaxation kicked in!

Or maybe it was the jet lag…

Either way, that’s all I’ve got from today. Stay tuned for the next leg of my journey tomorrow, whatever it may include.

Not at all refreshing

Not at all refreshing

When the last summer banner came out, I was convinced it was the only one we’d see this year.

That 50-day period was incredibly deceiving, because here we are staring down a Binding/Blazing Blade summer banner. Featuring our sixth variant of Lyndis.

Sigh.

Let’s break my anti-Summer Initiative for the second time this week and talk Fire Emblem.

Summer Refreshes

I really should play Binding and Blazing Blade sometime soon to get personal connections with some of these characters…

But for now, a few of these units at least have impressive skills that it would be a shame not summon for them.

For instance: Lyn (despite her market saturation) has an impressive weapon in the Deep-Blue Bow, which gives her insane stats alongside Sturdy Impact.

Roy’s friend Wolt also has a special “win more” weapon in the Big-Catch Bow that buffs him when his opponent is weakened. Plus his Brazen Attack/Speed 4 is too good for any mortal to possess.

Ursula and Lilina stand out less because I’m not a huge dagger fan, even though Ursula’s Scallop Blade has the same “win more” effect.

So Lyn and Wolt are at the top of my list.

Which is good because one of them decided to give me a break after multiple disappointments trying to summon Laevatein.

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Look at this good +Attack archer boi.

I appreciate you helping me save orbs, so we’ll see how I can put you to work.

In the meantime there’s no better way to recoup those orbs than a good old Paralogue.

Paralogue 36 — Summer Refreshes

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This paralogue follows right on the last paralogue’s heels. Anna has recovered from the psychosomatic illness that resulted from hiding her mercantile side and decides to…

Just kind of sell things again. Regardless of what the nobility thinks.

I guess that’s character development?

It doesn’t seem to matter however, as the Order of Heroes arrives at the beach to find all the heroes in fancy swimsuits:

Being “magically” forced to buy skimpy outfits seems like it would be a major plot point, but it’s thrown away by the second map because Lilina and Wolt just talk about protecting each other for the sake of Roy.

Riveting.

Once the summer heroes are all beaten down, it’s revealed that Anna was the one convincing heroes to buy new swimsuits.

Just not our version of Anna.

Thus, foiled again, our Anna vows to return next year with an even crazier scheme to sell more things.

The fact that this little story drops its most interesting element is pretty disappointing. Kind of makes this experience one of the weaker paralogues overall.

But at least it gives us one of the most unintentionally real things that has ever been written down in a gotcha game.

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I’m still upset that we were lied to and given another summer banner. Intelligent Systems be wasting our orbs all over the place!

Sure, thinking we wouldn’t have another banner was entirely speculation.

And I didn’t have to waste a lot of orbs to get Wolt.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be upset! You can make it up to me by helping me get Laevatein, Intelligent Systems.

I’ll be expecting her.

Anyway though, let me know what you think about these new summer units. I’m a little salty if it wasn’t obvious, but I imagine some of you are very excited to see a few of these characters come around again.

Pretty sure this is the last blog thing I’ll have to worry about this week, so wish me luck on jumping back into my novel.

Sword and Shield news: Exclusive trainers and Gigantamaxing

Sword and Shield news: Exclusive trainers and Gigantamaxing

I can’t believe I’m going to break my self-imposed blogging restriction on account of Pokémon today and Fire Emblem tomorrow.

Here I was ready to sleep through the morning, but no. Apparently I have a problem.

Let’s just jump in so that I don’t spend a billion years writing this post — as I tend to do with these updates. I’ll keep it short and sweet by focusing on three things addressed in today’s trailer:

Version exclusives, new Pokémon and… Gigantamaxing.

Sigh.

Version Exclusives

Version differences are not new to Pokémon.

The series’ initial hook was monsters exclusive to Red and Blue version so kids would trade in order to “catch ’em all.” Every generation has had exclusives since.

Gold, Silver and Crystal started the trend of different versions having unique legendaries that changed details about an overall identical story (though Yellow technically led the way by making an anime-inspired version of Red/Blue/Green).

Arguably the first major game-to-game change was the Magma/Aqua split in Ruby and Sapphire, even if they were just different villains in the same circumstances.

It wouldn’t be until Emerald version that they truly stood out as different entities.

In Sword and Shield we will be getting version exclusive Gym Leaders. Sword will have the Fighting-type Bea, while Shield will have the Ghost-type Allister:

Images courtesy of Serebii

We haven’t seen differences in the Gym Leader roster since Black and White, where the eighth Gym could feature Iris or Drayden. Though Iris was clearly better since she went on to be the Unova Champion.

These newbies will have to battle for who is better. To me, it’s an even match so far.

Allister is a Mimikyu lover with a Shy Guy mask. Meanwhile, Bea is a Hitmontop lover who must be getting all the fan art on account of her exposed feet.

Both seem like great additions to the canon!

The trailer also introduced Rose, chairman of the Galar Pokémon League, and his assistant Oleana. As far as I’m aware they are not version exclusive, but there’s so little about them that I couldn’t figure out where else to slot this.

You’re welcome.

New Pokémon

Can’t have a Pokémon news update without new Pokémon, though one of the monsters revealed isn’t new:

Yamper

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Image courtesy of Serebii

Yamper was seen in Sword and Shields’ E3 demo, but now we know more about the adorable Corgi with the heart-shaped butt.

For instance, he charges electricity by chasing cars and has an ability that lets him catch one Pokéball. Literally playing fetch.

That’s really all we need to know.

Alcremie

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Image courtesy of Serebii

Alcremie is a foot-tall pile of whipped cream and strawberries that drugs its opponents with whipped cream that chefs also like to use on desserts.

Because if Game Freak wants us to know anything about Fairy-types, it’s that half of them are edible.

Also Alcremie becomes a giant cake when Gigantamaxing…

But we’ll get to that.

Rolycoly

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Image courtesy of Serebii

I’m all-in on Rolycoly for its name alone.

This new Rock-type is essentially a mobile ball of coal with a lamp that must have been a godsend during the Galar Industrial Revolution. It’s new Steam Engine ability increases the Pokémon’s speed when hit by Fire or Water-type moves.

So you know.

It has Overheat synergy?

Duraludon

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Image courtesy of Serebii

We’ve saved the weirdest for last.

Duraludon is our first Steel/Dragon-type since Dialga. But instead of being a wicked cool time dragon, he’s like…

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Image courtesy of the Sword and Shield website

I’m not even sure what he looks like. Some kind of weird gun? Or airplane part?

But hey, this weird airplane part goes head-to-head with Tyranitar apparently.

So it has that going for it.

Gigantamaxing

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Image courtesy of Serebii

I don’t have a lot to say about this.

I gave my thoughts on Dynamaxing last time, but the fact that there’s a special version of that mechanic only adds to my hesitation.

Gigantamaxing Pokémon are extra exclusive variants of Dynamaxed Pokémon that trainers can sometimes find during Max Raid Battles.

They look different, have better stats and a more powerful “G-Max Move.”

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Image courtesy of Serebii

Like… Is this something we’ll have to breed onto our Pokémon if we want competitive Gigantamaxing over Dynamaxing?

I don’t know, man. The official website only has so much information, so I can’t fully speak to the merits of this mechanic.

All I can say is I’m unfortunately still not into it.

And that’s that, ladies and gentlemen. New Pokémon information to salivate over.

While I’m not enamored by Gigantamaxing and the latest crop of monsters are more on the weird side, I’m still plenty excited overall. Especially by the prospect of having more unique trainers to meet on each journey through Galar!

So let me know what you think of this latest trailer.

While you do that, I’m going to make use of this closure and go back to sleep.

Far From Home is far above its competition [Heavy Spoilers!]

Far From Home is far above its competition [Heavy Spoilers!]

I have great things to say about Spider-Man: Far From Home; Marvel’s first Cinematic Universe film following the bombastic conclusion to their Infinity Stone saga.

When the first teaser trailer came out, I was skeptical. It dropped before Endgame and felt like the worst example of draining tension out of character deaths.

Then the trailer after Endgame made me confident by suggesting the movie would address repercussions of Tony Stark’s death.

Far From Home is steeped in Tony Stark, using the grief Spider-Man feels literally seeing his face in memorials everywhere to bridge us into the future. I was worried about the studio’s ability to hold my interest following its magnum opus, but that won’t be a problem if all upcoming MCU films are as fun and smart as this.

Unlike most of the MCU films I review, the stuff I love about Far From Home leans heavily into spoilers, so I’m going to hide specifics under a read more.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, just know I highly recommend it.

Featured Image courtesy of IMDb

Continue reading “Far From Home is far above its competition [Heavy Spoilers!]” →

The… Anti-Summer 2018 Initiative?

The… Anti-Summer 2018 Initiative?

Greetings and salutations.

As you may have noticed, things have been a little different around here recently. A little more barren.

Don’t worry, it’s not a symptom of finally running out of ideas. I did that about a year ago and wrote about my pencil set.

Nor is it some delusion that my Naruto-Arena post is the peak of my creativity (though I like that post and you should read it if you haven’t).

There has actually been plenty of exciting blog fodder over the last week.

I attended Alyson’s fourth 4th of July parade and survived the concurrent earthquake.

I also survived the subsequent 7.1 earthquake that struck California.

Though to be fair I was far out of the range of both, and you should follow my old Daily Titan colleague Lauren Jennings to see more of the damage in Ridgecrest.

My Bachelor’s degree was finally shipped.

Over the last few weeks my family has also sat down and binged a few shows:

Good Omens on Amazon Prime Video (which has a phenomenal underlying controversy) and Stranger Things season 3 on Netflix. Both of which are extremely well-constructed and receive honest recommendations.

Even if part of my interest in Stranger Things comes from our long-time investment.

Beyond all that, I’ve also been playing a lot of Fire Emblem Warriors.

The game has been far more fun than I expected, and incorporates a number of intriguing elements in a novel gameplay style for my prior experiences. Interesting elements that might make for a perfect post.

Yet I haven’t written about any of those things.

You see, let’s go back to my Summer Initiative. It was a sort of challenge to myself:

“You’re not working on the Daily Titan right now,” I said. “So why not try writing something every day to keep your skills sharp?”

The drive to write more led to an increase in site traffic and a subsequent sense of pride that has extended my near-daily posts for about a year.

So much so that I used its existence as a part of a freelancing pitch.

With all that said, you might be wondering why I haven’t written in six days.

It turns out I might have conditioned myself to care about blogging a little too much. For some time now, what I’m blogging every day has been the focal point of all my writer’s stress.

Which is kind of a problem when you have a book you want to finish.

Thus I decided to scale back as a test. Would I be more productive on my book if I stopped focusing on daily blog posts?

As it turns out, I have been.

Over the last week I’ve gotten myself to nearly 300 pages, and I believe that’s as good a sign as any that I should scale back my blog stuff until I get through the novel.

Currently my anti-Summer Initiative is shaping up to be blog posts over the weekend while keeping my weekdays free to write the book. I’d like to finish my first draft before Mom and Aly get back from New York at the end of July.

The weekend will probably have at least one week-in-review and quicker one-offs like a piece on Spider-Man: Far From Home that I’ll write after seeing the film tomorrow.

And I’ll leave myself open to the occasional weekday post. Because I’m a Fire Emblem Heroes addict and Intelligent Systems lied about fewer summer banners.

But otherwise I’m trying more life updates through Twitter and Instagram during the week — as you can see throughout this post.

So if you’re interested in keeping up, go ahead and follow me there!