More cycling, good reading, great food - W21

Behold, another week goes by, and here I am writing the introduction after being done with all of it. This time I’ll actually publish it in Monday, which is always the intention but not often what happens.

Not a lot of videogames, not a lot of manga, not a lot of much, but I did continue and made great progress on The Expanse, and also had some great food all week long, so I really cannot complain.

• 🚲 I went on another bicycle ride on the weekend. This time I decided to explore and find a route I could take to get to my workplace! I am happy to say that, although a bit bumpy, I found a relatively safe path I can take, avoiding highways and most of the dangers. I would only have to cross the road to get to my place. It’s about 9 kilometers and I plan to try it out this week!

• 🔒 I also got a bike lock! It isn’t really of any brand per se, and I actually got a couple recommendations via email from you guys, but after cycling around my city and seeing some bikes just laying sideways in public I figure that the culture in my small town is just rather chill. Maybe I’ll end up paying the price but the lock did have good reviews! It just wasn’t 100 bucks like some of the ones I saw on YouTube.

• 🕯️Lights went out during a pretty heavy rain just as I arrived home, it was kinda fun to light up some candles around the house for once. I actually spent some of that time reading on my Kobo, which was fun.

• 🐶 Saw some cute puppies near my house. They were street dogs but looked super adorable. A neighbour built a small shelter filled with fluffy blankets and the like. My family already has two dogs and we can’t afford another one, but they seem to be doing well and some people already adopted some!

• ✍️ Wrote a bunch of blogposts this week, of varying quality and topics. I am happy to have done so. One got a little famous which is always kind of fun, got some great emails as well, something that’s appreciated whenever it happens, I even replied to all of them!

• 🕹️ This was a long month and I resisted purchasing a lot of games, but eventually I saw Metroid Prime 4 Beyond and gave in to the temptation. It was on sale and I can still buy a game per month anyway. It would have been nice to go fully clean for once though. Alas.

• 🎧 Another neat purchase of mine that was fueled by my current obsession with cycling was the Nothing Ear (open), which are earphones that don’t isolate my ears from the outside, making them pretty good for outside activities where you need to be aware of your surroundings, such as cycling or running. Cool stuff!

• 🌮 Some friends visited from another state and we all went to have dinner together, we got to a taqueria and I ate a bunch of tacos al pastor and some gringas too. Picture below.

• 🍔 Went out with family again to the mall. This time we got some burgers from Carl’s Jr, which are my dad’s favorites and honestly, mine as well. They are a bit pricier than McDonald’s or Burger King at least here in Mexico, but they are so good!

• 🌮 On Sunday some members of the church decided to prepare and sell some Enchiladas, and they were absolutely glorious. Even as a Mexican I must confess I don’t often like this particular dish, but they were extremely tasty this time around. No pic of them this time, but of the preparation process, for variety.

• 🗓️ I kind of invited a girl to a date? My parents would be there so not really but so so? I don’t know, she couldn’t make it anyway because it was way too sudden, but she did offer a different time that day but I was the one who would be busy at that hour. So nothing happened, but yeah.

Reading

• Tiamat’s Wrath - Up to chapter 38, At 55% progress it’s quite clear that this book got me good! There have been a lot of different viewpoints and events happening, and the plot keeps doing twists that just work in a cosmic scale! Duarte’s empire continues to rule, his daughter following on his footsteps while dealing with teenager problems. The resistance led by Saba, Bobbie and Naomi keep doing their best to thrive in the underground, Holden is now captive living in luxury, Amos has gone missing, and plenty of other crazy stuff. But as Elvi and Fayez sort-of-lead some research on alien technology in the systems under Laconian control, the military guy in charge will start an experiment that will put everything in chaos once again. And chaos it has caused, but those are spoilers!

• Heavenly Delusion - Up to chapter 65. This has been burning slowly lately, it’s definitely one of those manga with pretty long arcs and even side quests that aren’t quite over in a chapter. It has been amazing so far though, and so many mysteries have finally been answered lately. But of course, they only lead to more questions that have kept the story moving. I would have thought such things would feel artificial, but the characters and everything has seemed pretty logical and nuanced. Loving this so far.

Watching

• The Mandalorian and Grogu - We saw this one at the mall and it was very entertaining! It is no masterpiece but there was plenty of actions and lots of cool moments in it. I also adored the soundtrack quite a bit. It’s been seven years since the last Star Wars Film, and even longer since the last good Star Wars film. This is a self-contained story that doesn’t build up to a lot, but it has charm and it’s fun nonetheless.

• Kung Fu Panda - Saw this while going out to eat tacos. They had it on the TV when it was getting started and saw until the end of it! This movie is a masterpiece and I am always happy to sit and watch it, even more so with some tacos in the mix.

Gaming

• Minecraft - On Sunday, my friends and I got together to play a Minecraft survival world. There were four of us and it was quite chaotic as always. We mined for a bit looking for iron until most of us had armor and equipment. We also tried our best to

• Super Mario 3D World - I actually did this last week but forgot to mention it. Last Sunday we played this a bunch! Doing the last world of the game, lots of lava and danger everywhere. We are doing all we can to get all the stickers and green stars of every level!

Around the Web

Blog posts

• Iconic moments in gaming - This was an awesome post sharing some epic moments, some from games I know, and some from games I haven’t played, which I decided to skim throgh anyways. I already forgot whatever spoilers I may have read. I may write my own post of this type!

• Something About Reading - Any post about reading is always a magnet for me, building up the habit or struggling to do so, tips and tricks, the culture surrounding the hobby, etc. This one got me thinking about many of those themes and some more! Joshua is cool.

• Wishing You Could Change Artists - This one was very thought-provoking. We all know the feeling. Finding or getting into some book, manga or piece of art, enjoying it a lot and then realizing that the person behind it is kind of weird, and yet, sometimes that weirdness could be what led to such art in the first place. Good stuff.

• On people writing about their use of AI - I share a similar feeling. Why do you have to do this?

YouTube

• How The Amazingly Burly ‘Buffalo Bicycle’ is Changing The World - This was a very cool thing to find out about. This bike is specifically made for developing countries to require as little maintenance as possible, while also being extremely affordable and built to last a lifetime. A product with a mission, super cool.

• Adam Savage Rebuilds His Stolen Bicycle! - I enjoy stumbling on videos from this guy talking about whatever current hobby I’m into. And this was a treat! A bit of a life story along the building process and the like. A good time for sure.

• The Magnet Suspension Skateboard - I had never seen this channel before, but apparently the guy has been around since the early days of YouTube. This video where he builds a sort-of-hoverboard from Back to the Future was extremely fun, and the end result is actually awesome.

• Timex Just RIPPED OFF Casio! (And Their Watch Is Much Worse!) - What a mess, seriously, I rarely watch videos about stuff that’s just chaos like this, but honestly it just made me laugh. What is Timex even doing?

This is day 70 of #100DaysToOffload