June 2026 Summary

June is over! Did you know this month was my birthday? Yeah it’s kinda crazy, a lot has changed, I am twenty six now yet more than half the movies I watched were Direct-to-DVD 50 minute films made to sell action figures!

More things happened of course. The World Cup is going great for my country, Mexico has managed to break out of the group stage and win their first knockout game in 40 years, I am incredibly hyped to see the match against England next, to any readers from there, hope you guys have fun with the game! I know us Mexicans will absolutely party!

Anyway, my Summer Game Challenge is in full swing, with progress made for multiple games as well. I decided to also add an update to the music, which I often ignore because I listen to the same albums a lot, especially to sleep, or while reading The Expanse. Here’s the gist of it all.

Podcasts

• Into The Aether wins with the regular weekly episodes. A lot of chatter about Mina The Hollower, Adventures of Elliot, and Brendon’s new gaming news site Overworld, really cool stuff.

• Eye of the Duck was second with a couple of episodes focusing on The Chronicles of Narnia and also Spielberg’s Artificial Inteligence. Really interesting points were brought up.

• Trash Taste made for some excellent background noise again, with many entertaining conversations about anime films and shows.

• Boring Books for Bedtime Readings continues to deliver. H.G. Wells’ A Short History of the World is super interesting and nice to sleep to.

• 99% Invisible showed up again! This time with one episode talking about the history of the Vuvuzuela and its rise during the 2010’s world cup.

Books

Completed

Tiamat’s Wrath really subverted my expectations with, changing what I didn’t know I expect fromThe Expanse, it was a roller coaster of emotions, there were losses I was not expecting and events I couldn’t see coming. I already wrote my thoughts on my review for it.

Ongoing

Clarkesworld Magazine #211 is still being poked at, but my focus on The Expanse kind of stopped me. The current sci-fi short story I’m reading for it is one of those absurdist ones that are interesting but not fully gripping me yet.

Started

Leviathan Falls already changed things in the very prologue of it all. This is the final book of The Expanse but I’ve heard both good and bad things, so I am going to get to it for July!

Videogames

Completed

• Monument Valley: Ida’s Dream was an extra set of levels for Monument Valley that I found challenging and with some nice extra mechanics. It took me less than an hour to beat but I enjoyed it!

• Metroid Prime Remastered grabbed me and didn’t let me know. The perfect transition for Metroid into a new dimension. It was a lovely game and I wrote a BUNCH of thoughts about it on my review already. Tl;dr: A must play on the Nintendo Switch.

Ongoing

• Hollow Knight: Silksong finally saw some playtime! I finally have done what I need to unlock the quest that will then let me unlock the final act of the game, I am looking forward to it!

• Full Metal Furies also saw some action, completing a couple of stages with friends!

Started

• Transistor took me by surprise. I started it suddenly when I didn’t feel like going for a cartridge to play on my Switch and remembered this game from Supergiant existed before Hades was a thing. I have been delighted to play it and I’m very close to the end…

• Fire Emblem Awakening however, also took me away from Transistor now that I have a New Nintendo 3DS XL that happens to be extremely easy to carry on my commutes compared to the Switch. The game is a delight and I’m glad to return to it after many years, when I tried it on a friend’s 3DS. With my experience playing The Blazing Blade, it’s quite great!

Manga

Thought it would be a good idea to split the Manga I’m reading between those that I follow on a weekly or monthly basis, and those that I often fly through because I have a backlog to catch up to, finished or not! Some of the ones I’m caught up with may be behind by a couple chapters, but nothign significant.

Caught up

• Blue Lock - Chapter 351. The next match is about to unravel, though the team is going into a bit of a struggle as the Blue Lock ideology itself was challenged during the last match.

• Spy x Family - Chapter 136. As fun as ever, this arc with Loid stuck in a party hosted by secret service agents was just hilarious. Loved how it only got crazier over time.

• Heavenly Delusion - Chapter 82. The mystery going on is ever-growing, I kind of want to wait again to have some chapters to catch up with, because this is a monthly release and now I have to wait a bunch.

• Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You - Chapter 62. Some very stressful events have been happening lately, the drama is growing, but I hope the protagonists manage to grow from this for the better!

Catching up

• Shikimori’s Not Just Cute - Chapter 160. Super nice to return to this rom-com. I didn’t realize how I missed these characters, the main couple continues to be great and it has been more stable than Komi Can’t Communicate, though a bit more bland at times. Still great tho.

• My Wife is from a Thousand Years Ago - Chapter 287. Some cute moments and a vacation trip. Some other things happened. Good manhua (Chinese comic) rom-com as always.

Anime

Blue Lock (Season 1) - Episode 2. Well this is just the anime of Blue Lock and I already know Blue Lock is great. The art is nowhere near the manga and this is supposed to be the best looking season. It’s still cool and the epic moments are hype with the music and the japanese dub.

TV Shows

Avatar The Last Airbender (Live Action Season 2) - Episode 3. I do like that Toph shows up, she fits well. I don’t really think I like the rest that much, a lot of the story has been butchered. No Library, no enchanted jungle, or forest spirit or anything, weird.

Movies

• Disclosure Day - Spielberg does another movie with aliens and proves they are not AI generated.
• The Martian - The most accurate sci-fi film ever? Probably, gotta read the book soon.
• Mission to Mars - An honest attempt to do 2001: A Space Odyssey again, it wasn’t close but it tried.
• Max Steel: Bio Crisis - Max gets a robot friend and saves a random island from radiation.
• Max Steel vs The Mutant Menace - Max gets a new boss and recaptures an enemy he let get away.
• Max Steel vs The Toxic Legion - Every enemy unites to wreak havoc, but Max’s best friend saves the day.
• Max Steel: Makino’s Revenge - A guy makes Max famous, then cancels him, until Max exposes him instead.
• Max Steel: Monstrous Alliance - Every enemy unites against Max, but the boss’s daughter saves the day.
• Terminator Salvation - This is a pretty good film but not a good Terminator film.
• Rocky - This is actually beautiful, cinema. An awesome slice-of-life with a boxing match in the end.
• Toy Story 5 - This is a worthy sequel with a great and nuanced message and fantastic nods to previous movies. Go watch it.

Music

I pretty much just played these albums before going to sleep every night.

• FTL Original Soundtrack by Ben Prunty
• Outer Wilds Original Soundtrack by Andrew Prahlow
• Into the Breach Soundtrack by Ben Prunty
• Plants vs Zombies Original Soundtrack by Laura Shigihara
• Minecraft - Volume Beta by C418

Finishing thoughts

This month was quite crazy, with a lot of things happening that altered the course of many plans. From my bike rides during the morning, making it so I listened to more music and podcasts, to my sister visiting and making me watch movies and shows I didn’t foresee.

Zero complaints though, the month was wild, the Summer Games Challenge is going quite well and the

Goals

As you can see, procrastinating is my second name

• Participate in July Reply
• Cycling every weekend
• Try a bicycle commute to work
• Create some pixel bears for a few friends (2/10)
• Play all the games from the UFO 50 collection (3/50)
• A full website redesign
• Finish a pending commission for a friends
• Finish a pending commission for my parents
• Complete 15 videogames (6/15)
• Complete 15 books (7/15)
• Read the whole bible in a year (66/365)
• Finish Listening to Wolf 359 (45.5/61)
• Fully sorting and labelling everything on my shelves for once
• Make something to simplify keeping track of these goas

Finishing thoughts

It seems like my “goals” section remains stagnant, my bible reading definitely slowed down a bit, I didn’t listen to Wolf 359, and whatever else I missed.

Getting a 3DS definitely reshaped my last week or so, as I’ve spent some time configuring things and getting games for it.

I also need to setup my bike for a ride to work, I want to give it a go for once! Use it a bit more than just weekends. No promises, but I even returned to the gym after a two month long hiatus, I want to give it another shot. My muscles are sore! So that’s pretty good I’d say. I realized my weight went up by almost 3 kilos, I really need to get a grip on that.

All in all, a good month with lots of things going on, I am 26 years old now, and the fear of adulthood is kind of sinking in a bit more for some reason, we’ll see how things go.

This is day 88 of #100DaysToOffload