Fountain Pens & my first Lego set

Well, another week goes by. Not a lot of difficult things happened this time around! I got my first set of Lego, I got into fountain pens now (maybe?), played a bunch more of Silksong and Hyper Light Drifter (surprisingly!) and have had some tasks at work that refused to get off the to-do list.

That was the tldr but you can keep reading if you want!

🧑‍💻 There’s this pending task at work that keeps getting delayed and it’s been like, almost a year at this point since I knew we should be doing it, and we still haven’t because things just aren’t ready and nobody actually cares or wants to implement the change anymore.
📹 They removed the videocameras from the dining room at work! resist Big Brother y’all. (Apparently they’ll just install proper standard cameras instead of whatever cheap one they put first, but I think it’s just a rumor, we’ll see).
🖋️ It finally happened. I am the proud owner of a Platinum Preppy Fountain Pen. There have been some hiccups, I probably could have done a better job cleaning it and getting it ready to use with some YouTube video, it wasn’t too smooth and ink stopped flowing all the time. Now I understand it though, I can see where this can lead, and well, now I have a Pilot Metropolitan shipping my way, oops.
✍️ Regardless of the pen type, I’ve been writing a lot more on regular notebooks, and learning to do cursive again. Some of it has been random scribbles just letting my mind roam free and writing whatever, others have been actual notes about things. It’s been fun! I still struggle with some letters, and some of it is in Spanish and I stink at writing signs that English doesn’t use (accents and tildes), anyway.
👕 I finally own some Chrono Trigger merch. I got a shirt from The Yetee (titled “Beyond Time”), I thought it looked awesome, so I bought it on the spot. It was an absolute impulse buy, but it’s Chrono Trigger, the neck cut is a little tight, but everything else is totally awesome.
🧱 A friend of mine saw the recently released Lego GameBoy set on Costco, and instantly thought about me and asked me if he should pick it up. The price was 15 bucks lower than on Lego’s website, and I’ve been thinking about getting it since I saw it announced, so I didn’t hesitate. He gave it to me a day later, and after a few hours I built it! It’s my first Lego ever, and I couldn’t be happier. Sadly it doesn’t actually work, but Natalie is working on it.

Gaming

What can I say? Hollow Knight Silksong is still a joy after about 53 hours of gameplay, I am basically in the end game of Act 2, I managed to beat the second to last boss earlier in the week, but I backtracked to complete some unexplored rooms in the Deep Docks and Far Fields. I faced against the Savage Beastfly again—this time with lava—I did an epic gauntlet—this time with lava—and I faced against two bosses at once—this time with lava. I think that I should explore some areas I abandoned earlier—because they have something worse than lava on them—and I don’t even have their maps yet. I could also face the last boss right now, if I wanted to. A choice must be made. I really want to see what this game has to offer to the fullest.

By the way, my friend who is playing the original Hollow Knight has actually completed the Path of Pain and a lot more of the game, however, he accidentally skipped on a bunch of the Grimm Troupe DLC, so, rest in peace. I think he’s facing the actual final boss now, and may beat it this week.

This weekend I saw my friend again who has been helping me beat Hyper Light Drifter, so we dedicated another couple hours to it. We’ve been finding a lot of secrets, and finally raised the four pillars that lead to something happening in the town right at the center of the world map. It feels very Majora’s Mask for some reason. In any case, I started to get a feel for chain-dashing too, but it’s definitely a finnicky game mechanic that apparently annoyed a bunch of completionists—I saw some reviews on GOG about that. I only want to collect what I can and not worry too much though, and I’m having a good time. We did some great boss fights and will hopefully continue the adventure next weekend.

I’m still having fun with Slice & Dice, exploring the mechanics of this game and trying to win when all odds are against me, it’s a trully awesome endeavor, and discovering achievements when I try something random is very fun.

I meant to start Soul Reaver but I ended up focusing on Silksong, and Hyper Light Drifter took away my not-Silksong time. Will get to it soon.

Reading

I am around 40% of Babylon’s Ashes now, chapter 20! It has been pretty awesome thus far, with some interesting characters sharing a lot of perspectives on things that I didn’t quite expect. I am having a hard time understanding the Belter accent this time around though, it’s a little confusing. However, the plot and how everything changed after the events of the previous book has kept me reading quite a bit.

I am up to chapter 154 of Ariadne in the Blue Sky. I mentioned last week how the plot had completely turned around, and this has remained true on this latest arc. The action and the revelations have been pretty mind bending, it has amped the stakes up quite a lot, and I think I’ll be flying through the next chapters pretty soon.

I started A Short History of the World ✨ by H.G. Wells in audiobook format. I started listening to the Boring Books for Bedtime podcast—although Librivox has it available as well. I love how old-timey this book is, Wells is showing quite a bit of his character and thoughts on the topics at hand. I thought it would be super serious and academic, but it’s actually rather approachable and enjoyable to see, kind of like a blogpost, plus all the thoughts about how things were when this book was written. It’s been kind of awesome. No idea about which chapter I’m on though, didn’t pay enough attention—I was asleep—it’s still “part 1” though.

Watching

I still don’t get around watching the latest episode of Alien: Earth because reasons, I am baffled by this, but maybe, maybe this week.

I am still having a fun time with Record of Ragnarok, one of the gods has decided to side with humanity for the next encounter, and I am looking forward to the spectacle of it! Very anime stuff going on.

Decided to watch one of the quintessential Heist movies as well, Ocean’s Eleven! It was actually surprisingly fun and super engaging. The title in Spanish is “The Great Scam” and I didn’t realize this was the movie that it was until I saw the cast and realized it wasn’t just a random Netflix movie, but one of the best the early 2000s has to offer. It was like a more light-hearted Mission Impossible, good stuff!

Around the web

Fountain Pens are taking over my life and I am in extreme danger, if you are reading this please help me by not sending links to cool pens to buy or cheap notebooks to write on. The blogposts themselves are fine though, it’s just the videos.

Blogposts

There are blogposts here, can you believe it?

Younger people and AA batteries - A particularly interesting musing from Rubenerd. Batteries that you can swap in an instant are not as common anymore, in phones the battle is lost except for a couple options, but even in cheaper components, built-in lithium (or whatever technology) is replacing the good old AA or AAAs you can buy anywhere. In Mexico we just say “Triple A” and “Doble A” like in English, btw, but with the Spanish pronunciation of the letter and words, of course.
My Forever games - The title alone is already inspiring. I may have favorites, but do I have games that I know I’ll just keep playing forever? I may have to write about this. Monster Hunter Freedom Unite would definitely be on the list though. But what of Chrono Trigger? find out in the next episode.
We’re all old or young to someone - A few weeks ago I remember seeing a kid calling a cashier “madam” (señora) instead of “miss” (señorita) at a restaurant. When the kid went somewhere else, I looked back at the 17 or so years old worker having an existential crisis, as one of the other workers died laughing. This post reminds me of that. I’ve been called “sir” quite often now, it feels weird, but it’s life.
Contacting the small web - Bojidar decided to communicate with a bunch of bloggers and turned it into a bit of an experiment. The methodology feels a bit weird to me, kinda like how “experimenting on people” sounds wrong, but it’s no big deal to be honest—in this case—I enjoyed the read!
Unplugged? More Like Unraveled - Actually imagining a society without computers in today’s world is kind of difficult, this is a very interesting musing. Like, of course computers weren’t a thing during most of Humanity’s existence, yet it’s hard to grasp for some people today, including me!

YouTube

You can tell my mind was focused on one thing this week huh.

Why do people like fountain pens so much? - I don’t get it but I get it.
How to find cheap notebooks for fountain pens - I’ll just keep using the one I got that seems to be fine, and not use the ones that aren’t fine.
Adam Savage’s great pencil decision - Not about fountain pens but still, Pentel looks like a cool brand.
What no one told me about Fountain Pens - Well, now I was told, good to know stuff!
Can you beat Donkey Kong Country without jumping? - Brain see monkey, brain happy (genuinely awesome journey!)