Card magic, faulty laptop, Alita - W42

This week I wrote a bunch of blogposts! Some of them were quite fun, some others were rather personal and dealing with complicated emotions, but I am once again feeling pretty chill about life. The weather continues to go colder and I’m having a really good time. I’ve been doing some small changes that already feel good and working on figuring some things out as things move along.

Here are some notes on other things that happened between October 13 to 19, 2026.

• 💻 Work has been interesting. My coworker asked for some vacations days and I’ve been covering for them. At this point it’s nothing new for me and I’m able to handle things just fine. The company has been going through some rough stuff so I’m only happy to be able to prove myself!

• 📷 I have been looking for a cheap digital camera to take photos with during the trip I’ll do in a couple weeks! Anything that’s not bulky and will be under 200 bucks should do, I think.

• ✒️ I continue to practice my handwriting quite a bit, especially during studies at church and the like. It has been quite nice! I am still rocking the Pilot Metropolitan and I happily own no more than four fountain pens, one of which was gifted!

• 🛍️ Had a bad experience returning a package I didn’t even open only for the seller to be like you actually opened it and resending it to me, opened. The system refused to give me my money back. This is the first time this has happened to me.

• 🚲 Went cycling, though not as much as last week. However, I did so with a purpose! My mom asked me to help her out with some things and I headed to where she was by bike! It was only a few streets away so I figured why not.

• 💻 My laptop’s SSD seems to be getting faulty or something. Once a week or so if I’m doing many things at one, it will get kind of stuck. When running terminal commands, it would say Input/Output Error, and any opened GUI programs crashes after a click on them. I may need to get a new SSD, tough an Arch reinstall may be enough too.

• 📚 Got a physical book! The Spanish edition—a direct translation from Chinese!—of The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu. I got it from my sibling who went to a book fair, which I was unable to assist myself but I’ll pick it up later. Also acquired a couple of books from the Kobo Shop: Blood Over Night Haven by M.L. Wang and The Wind’s Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin. Last week I also got The Poppy War’s trilogy by R.F. Kuang!

• 🕹️ I have gifted Outer Wilds to a total of five friends, I want constant updates from people around me playing it! I’ve also gifted Meccha Chameleon to four!—though it’s much cheaper so whatever.

• 🃏 For the first time in years I sat at the table with friends and performed some card magic! I was able to come up with bit of an impromptu act that ended up with very positive reactions. I even got over some insecurities with certain techniques that I rarely felt comfortable doing in front of people. I felt really good about it all though and I’m glad my audience—four friends of mine—enjoyed the show!

• 🍜 We went out to have some Korean food on Sunday night. I really enjoyed it after the little magic show I did at the table. I do feel a bit weird on my stomach today though, but it got better after I had brunch.

Gaming

Outer Wilds during the whole week, Donkey Kong during a couple commutes, and a pretty crazy weekend of LAN gaming!

Ongoing

• Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye - This DLC is as good as the base game if not better. There’s seriously nothing like this out there. I’ve loved uncovering the new secrets and the mystery behind this paralogue and companion piece to the main story. Beautiful and terrifying stuff. I am not sharing any more spoilers. A huge shout-out to the sound design of this title. The new music is fantastic, yes but the way it is used and how it changes is fantastic, and the environmental sounds and how they react to the gameplay? Incredible, magnificent work.

• Donkey Kong ‘94 - When I got sleepy reading The House on the Borderland I decided to put my brain to work finally returning to this little gem and solving the puzzles in a few more levels of the Iceberg world. Having a lot of fun! This game is truly fun and the right amount of challenge too.

Started

• Meccha Chameleon - This is a very silly, and incredibly hilarious “friendslop” game where you control a little stickman that is actually a blank canvas. The point of the game is that you have to hide and paint yourself to fit around in the environment. One of the players turns into a Hunter, and has to search for the others in the world. It’s nerver-wracking to see, as the Hunter goes passes by. You get points depending on how bold your hiding spot is as well. Playing as the Hunter and being teased by everyone has some charm too, but hiding is definitely the funniest bit.

• Astral Ascent - I tried this game for a whooping 15 minutes, looking at the awesome intro and playing for a bit too. Unfortunately my friends wanted to play something else and I didn’t get to complete even the tutorial. Looks awesome and the performance looks great on Switch!

Reading

Cyberpunk manga, cosmic horror, and of course, soccer.

Completed

• Battle Angel Alita - I finally completed the classic cyberpunk Manga! Some weird moments and crazy sequences, but it was very entertaining. Apparently this had a very abrupt and ugly ending due to the author’s health, and then Last Order came along to work as a canon finale. However, an original (still kinda rushed) ending was published after Last Order which enjoyed even if it’s not canon. It definitely got me curious on seeing how the sequel continues. I started this series years ago, so I’m glad to finally see its closure.

• The House on the Borderland - That last third of the book really got super trippy. Unfortunately it may have been a little too much compared to the beginning and middle. The ending started to pick up again but then it was over. It was definitely an interesting book, entertaining and very strange especially considering it’s a predecessor to Lovecraft and cosmic horror in general. Glad I gave it a shot!

Ongoing

• Blue Lock - Chapter 363-364. The match vs England continues to be quite thrilling. The Blue Lock team definitely has to step up their game as all odds are against them at this point. I am really looking forward to this battle of wits between the managers too.

Started

• Battle Angel Alita: Last Order - Chapter 1-4: The non-canon finale is like three chapters, but this seems like it will take a while! There’s some backstory of the original series, and a whole new bunch of arcs and things to go through for Alita herself. The artstyle has changed but it still feels familiar. Interested to see how this evolves, I’m enjoying the journey.

Around the Web

I rarely share other people’s weeknotes here, but there are exceptions.

• Weeknotes W1 - James is trying to do weeknotes! It is always fun to find more people doing the format. I also have to give a shout-out to Elena’s because she also befun recently and I love it!

• Things Are Still Worth Doing Yourself - This is a message we shouldn’t forget. Putting effort into what you love is a worthy endeavor.

• My Quest for IndieWeb Citizenship - Ilyess has been doing a lot of changes to implement IndieWeb stuff. Webmentions, microformats, POSSE and all that!

• Soft-Modding My Xbox 360 - I always wanted to explore more of this library (or maybe I really only care about Halo).

• When pencil is more permanant than ink… - Is this where my Pencil Collecting Arc begins?

This is day 55 of #100DaysToOffload