I will not be using <details> to spoil, though I’ll add skip buttons between each videogame I bring up. I will also list each game in release order, some games may feature multiple epic moments, I won’t mention all of them, but I’ll mention some, so if you are playing a title without fully completing it, it may be best to skip it altogether.

If you have played any of these games and you agree with my choices, or prefer different moments, please tell me about it!

Final Fantasy VI - 1994

skip to the next game

Do I really have to talk about how many iconic scenes this game has? It is stuffed with some of the most memorable scenes in the whole series!

The Opera scene continues to be filled with emotion to this day, and it was such a flex on the Super Nintendo days.

However, the most iconic moment has to go to the way the story of this game evolves after reaching the halfway point. I can’t think of many games that have been able to pull this off, have the world go to ruin, allow the villain to win, and end up with our characters separated all over the map, losing their will to fight. A bold choice for 1994.

Chrono Trigger - 1995

skip to the next game

With the time travel mechanic in Chrono Trigger, we are able to see many landscapes across time and space. There are way too many moments to count there.

The inciting event of the whole thing, where our characters discover the fate of the world and the evil that lies within the planet itself

The eerie atmosphere of the End of Time is also incredible, a place in the middle of the void with a strange man who knows way too much, standing under a lamp post.

But the cake has to go for that amazing reveal, the floating islands of the Kingdom of Zeal, with the sound of the Corridors of Time, one of gaming’s most iconics soundtracks.

Terranigma - 1996

skip to the next game

The story of terranigma is truly something to behold. I played about eleven hours of it and it was quite a mindblowing experience. Thankfully, one the most iconic moment of the game happens early, and it’s the moment you step out of the starting town, and realize what the world around you truly looks like.

The Super Nintendo’s graphics are at its best with the effect going on in the overworld, the color palette, the music, and the crystal blue, a simply stunning view.

Final Fantasy VII - 1997

skip to the next game

The jump to 3D has come to the Final Fantasy VII, and one of the most intriguing intro cinematics ensues. That starting sequence is unforgettable, Aerith, the city, everything on it is great.

There’s a few more cool moments in this game, such as the awesome escape from Shinra and out into the overworld, an unexplored landscape for our characters to journey through.

In any case, I am yet to play more of this game, so I will leave it there for now.

Resident Evil - 1997

skip to the next game

Come on guys, it’s the zombie! I already described that moment in my review for the game.

However, after that one, an iconic moment of the game has to bee the puzzle involving the paintings, that one is not only an incredibly well design moment, but the oucome when you do it wrong truly takes you by surprise.

There’s some more cool moments in this game, the jump scares are plentiful. I’d say the apparition of the Hunters has its place too, I really had to run away as soon as that thing showed up…

Resident Evil 2 - 1998

skip to the next game

How the Licker is introduced is awesome, it is the Zombie all over again, but with some more teases before the reveal. These scenes alone make an excellent case for the fixed camera angles of classic survival horror.

I actually really liked the way Mr. X shows up in-game too, but my favorite moment has to go to look at Mr. X through the security cameras, as he slowly approaches, destroys it and continues walking at his snail-like pace, what a menace!

Parasite Eve - 1998

skip to the end

This game has plenty of great sequences, the very intro is simply cinema, and the cutscene that kickstarts the story! With people burning in flames out of nowhere while the opera singer sings, as if everything is fine.

In fact, every single cutscene in this game is kind of epic, the very first rat mutating into a hideous creature, the piano scene with Eve revealing herself, the giant blob made of a whole audience of people, the horses on fire running about, so many moments horrific cutscenes and events.

But again, that crying statue of liberty takes it all.

Final thoughts

Like Gabz, I have so many more memories of many more amazing games, we are still in 1998 after all!

A continuation shall come at some point in the future. I actually quite liked the chronological order, but if I play some old game in between the ones mentioned here, and it also has some epic moments in it that I haven’t talked about, I’ll have to break the chain, sorry not sorry!

In any case. I would love to see more posts like this, what are some of your favourite moments in videogames you’ve played? Please share!

This is day 18 of #100DaysToOffload and day 13 of #Blaugust2026

Today however, I was on a rush, I got out of my house way too late and I knew I would have to run if I wanted to make it in time…

I didn’t want to run.

Instead, I knew that I could make it to the opposite side of the neighborhood and catch a regular bus. If it arrived on time, I could rendezvous with my work transport just in time.

The public bus failed me.

It got to the stop with only one minute left on the clock. I could still catch up to the work transport if the driver was a little late, which happens sometimes.

My hopes paid off, I saw the bus waiting for me and I was only a couple streets away in a direction where the driver would see me running towards the vehicle.

I got off the public bus and ran, my hands up to let the driver know I wanted to get in. Still waving my hands and walking towards the bus, it started moving towards me, I made it—I was only a dozen steps away from it now.

Then it drove past me.

Well, swinging my arms around as if I was stranded on an island and a plane flew by. I ran after the bus making myself as visible as I could, I even managed to catch up with it for a few seconds, before it inevitable sped up. It didn’t see me on the mirror, or at all. Or maybe the driver chose to ignore me because I was late and the guy was grumpy this morning.

I was left there stranded with no clear idea of what to do next.

I send a message to my mom though she doesn’t see it, I think of calling her, I think something else instead—a risky bet that could pay off.

My work bus takes a pretty roundabout route to pick a bunch of people up, the public transport is more streamlined, and there is one spot where both transports meet again, which means I could still take the route to work from there—if everything goes well.

Another public bus is taken, and I think about some other options. Scrolling for a bit, I consider complaining in the the bus chat group. There, I remember a coworker who recently got a car, so I call and ask for a ride. Thankfully, he agrees to help me out, though there’s a catch—the public bus has no stops near his place.

There are two options: hope the public bus catches up to the work bus and hope the work bus sees me this time, or walking for about ten or fifteen minutes and have a sure way to get to work.

I can depend on variables I don’t control, or I can submit myself to walking what I should have walked from the start.

I learned the lesson now, don’t you worry.

We settle on a spot about ten minutes away, I have plenty of adrenaline rushing through me by now because of the stress of the whole thing I don’t even feel tired after the fact.

As I make it to the pick-up spot, something hilarious happens. I see the work bus on its way! I am too far to get on it this time, but now I know I could have met up with it if I had followed my original plan. Something to consider next time.

In any case, my friend asks me if I can make it to another spot instead, only about three minutes of walking distance, totally fine at this point.

A friend from church drives by, sees me and asks me if I need a ride or anything. Truly divine providence and pretty unexpected stuff. I’m so thankful, but I let him know I already have someone to pick me up and he goes his way.

My mom finally messages me worried, telling me I should have called her, she says she’s at the gym and it’s late and all of that. I let her know all is fine and send her a pic of where I’m at. I’m waiting for my friend in that very same gym.

Soon after my ride arrives and we head to work like nothing happened.

This is day 15 of #100DaysToOffload and day 10 of #Blaugust2026

I did have a relatively easy idea which was a quick draft before my actual post of the day.

So, here’s a list of things I still do as a young adult that most of society expects me to stop doing, or something?

Whatever, here it goes:

• Moving my legs a lot while standing up. I do little dance steps and I turn around smoothly and all that. Some times people say it looks like I want to use the restroom, but I’m just vibing! Probably hyperactive.

• Play with my handheld consoles on the bus. This should not be weird at all, but I do feel a certain pressure to not do it, especially on the transport to work, purely because nobody else does. Maybe nobody cares but I feel like they do.

• Send messages stating what I need and not much else. I am very annoyed by messages that are “Hey” and then “Can you help me” without saying anything useful for me. I always send a full, specific message when I need something.

• Wearing shorts. You can even see it on my pixel art profile picture. A lot of adult men at least in my city/culture only use jeans unless going to the gym. I’d wear shorts everyday if I could.

• Running up or down staircases. Even skipping two steps at a time. Why does everyone have to go so slow? It’s not just age, since my school days I was held back by my friend group lol

The more I go the more I feel like there’s probably other people doing this actually and I’m just doing one of those “am I the only one that does this?” posts that proceed to describe the most common thing ever.

But hey, this is Blaugust and I’m already one day behind so, you take it or leave it.

Wait a minute, could this post be that so-called “human slop”? Perhaps that could be a question to reply later, or not, who has time for that?

This is day 11 of #100DaysToOffload and day 6 of #Blaugust2026

I’ve written before about my ongoing games, which games I would start over instead of resuming, why I abandoned them, and the like.

This post will be different. Not a list of games, not excuses as to why I stopped playing them. My plan is to share with you exactly where I stopped playing and trying to remember what I was doing and where I was going! So, an excercise on my own memory, I guess.

It should be obvious but I won’t actually look at gameplay videos or guides and such, this is just what my brain remembers and I’ll share it with you here. Of course, there may be spoilers in case you haven’t played these videogames, but you may also not care, and I could also be wrong!

If you are okay with being exposed to some sections of the story of these, let’s go! Think of them as the memories of some old hermit or something, if you wish.

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition

Last Played: June 20, 2025

I literally stopped at a perfect spot, in my opinion. I have been searching for the location of Ygddrasil, the giant magic tree of the world in Dragon Quest, and I have been looking for some special orbs of energy or something that will let me access it!

I am not completely sure if I already have all of the orbs or not right now, but after countless, wonderful adventures and thirty hours of gameplay, I’ve made it to a magical city, which is where the twin sisters that are members of my party—one of them shrinked by some curse at the moment—were born.

At this point, the guy in charge, who is wise or something, just told me the story of my ancestors who saved the world in what I guess would be, the “Elusive Age” of the game’s title! The story was told by showing some beautiful art engraved on the walls in some sort of sanctuary.

After all of that was done, the guy finally opened the door, which should, lead me right through to Ygddrasil at last.

My theory of course is that something will stop me before I do that, and all of what I’ve gathered, including my party members, will be dispersed somehow by some bigger evil. I may be wrong though, I am probably just affected by one of the games in here…

Final Fantasy VII

Last Played: May 2, 2025

We have been on the run from Shinra for quite a while now, and I’m not totally sure of where I’m at story-wise, I may be telling stuff that happened much earlier, but I’ll write away…

I believe last I played, I managed to escape from Rocket Town, it was a place where a giant Rocket—if the town’s name wasn’t clear enough—failed to launch or something. We saw some of the backstory, shared by a guy who was there, it was very traumatic I guess and he is taking care of—or being cared for by—some lady who was also there back then…

Anyway, Shinra showed up—they are the bad guys by the way—and I ended up stealing—or borrowing maybe—a flying airplane! This was super cool because I thought I would finally be able to explore the whole world. But it’s way too early in the story, so of course I was shot by some missiles and my plane lost the ability to fly, landing on the sea. So, now I have a way to travel by sea using a broken airplane!

I believe I headed to some place where all of my powers got stolen by one of the characters in the game. I was super weak and not ready for that at all, so I decided to reload my save and head elsewhere—I think I looked online and that was a sidequest I could save for later either way. Instead I went to some other place where there was this ugly forest, and then a cutscene telling me I would get lost if I didn’t have some item…

So then I went to the place where I can play games and there are bets and casino stuff and I talked to some guy who gave me that item, I think. So I think I should simply go back to the other place and try to walk through that mysterious forest to continue the story.

Outer Wilds

Last Played: January 23, 2026

This game is absolutely ruined by spoilers, go ahead and skip this if you want to play it. Please play it first, it’s absolutely worth it after 11 hours of playtime and I’m just a silly person who refuses to continue it with no reason, proceed with caution

I’m literally only writing this so the people playing this game can get excited I mention it and then email me to say I’m missing out, basically provoking them to interact with my post and bring more traffic to my website

On this game there are a lot of options and paths for me to take, so there’s really no right way for me to proceed as far as I know.

Last I played, I was visiting a twin planet, which fills with sand over time. The most interesting places there are some underground cities that slowly fill up with said sand as time progresses.

I think I was trying to get to some weird fossil that was there, which I could see through a crevice in a wall. Apparently, reaching that fossil will provide me with information, which I will need to progress in a different planet. I expect this information to be useful in multiple places, which is something that has happened before playing this game. My theory is I will be able to go beyond the electrical field that protects the core of the sea planet.

Another interesting path to take would be the weird non-euclidean seed thing that seems to be playing music and go on infinitely. I launched a scout inside that seed and it really did go on forever… I don’t know how to get in there myself, because the entrance is too small for me, but I’m definitely curious and also extremely scared by it.

There’s another dead end that I’m yet to reach, in the planet that is slowly devoured by a black hole. There is this weird mining structure, that I can’t really reach for some reason. I have been trying through multiple angles, and it just stays too far away for me… There seems to be some way to reach it if I step in one of those stones that reverse the gravity, but I can’t find the path just yet. I also want to get inside the Tower of Knowledge or Wisdom or something like that, can’t recall the name.

Don’t give me any clues, by the way.

Suikoden II

Last Played: Around 2020

This game was absolutely awesome, but I think I got lost for a bit longer than I liked.

I believe that I had been in a city for a while, and then one of the main characters or a main character’s friend tried to take the life of the leader of the resistance, or something like that—the resistance to some sort of conqueror who is probably the main villain of the game, I’ve heard he is a very popular antagonist but I don’t know.

Anyway, I think the attempt failed, or maybe it worked and then some other guys showed up to help keep things afloat while I escape or something.

So I went to another city which is near a coast, and I am supposed to take a boat or something, I think, or maybe to talk with some character that will tell me what to do next.

This is the kind of game where you can get a bunch of characters to be part of your party rotation, kind of like Pokémon I guess, so I was also trying to find interesting looking sprites that would probably end up as allies.

In any case, I believe I got annoyed because I couldn’t figure out where to go from where I was, I even recall returning to previous cities in the map trying to find out a way to go.

I am honestly really liking the story of this game, it was very interesting and deep! And the trauma of the main character seemed rather interesting.

Xenogears

Last Played: Around 2021

Oh yeah… now this brings me back…

I don’t think I have mentioned Xenogears very much, but along Suikoden II (and most PS1 games I’ve played), it survived the transfer from my PSP to my current handheld emulator and it’s still there waiting for my return.

Last time I played I think I was escaping from some sort of forest. It was only the opening hours in the game so there’s not a lot to spoil yet. I remember being extremely confused by the rotating camera controls, but eventually going to some last boss fight that blocked my path to the exit of the forest.

I believe the boss fight was against some giant dinosaur or something? It would be quite cringe to be wrong about this, maybe it was just a regular mecha, or a mecha dinosaur! I really can’t remember well.

In any case, we managed to exit the forest and met some new member for the party, I believe, and headed outside.

We ended up in a desert, with some oasis city in the middle full of merchants and stuff, I believe I was even warned by one of my companions to not trust their word or something…

Triangle Strategy

Last Played: March 2, 2025

I have an overarching idea of what was going on, but this game is so full of twists and turns and dialogue, I actually don’t remember what was going on last time I played!

I remember there were these factions fighting for resources, I remember I took certain decisions too. I saved the Prince of my kingdom and I refused to surrender him to the enemies.

I believe I even went through a battle where a lot of my people—I am a Lord or something in charge of them—ended up losing their houses to enemy fire and the like.

From there, the Prince who is also my best friend decided to escape, maybe to surrender himself or something. Now maybe this was not actually what happened and it was only one of the many choices available that I am yet to take. It’s weird how I really have no idea.

Seriously there are so many narratives going on at once I don’t recall a single one, but I will still continue where I left off if I ever pick it back up.

Parasite Eve

Last Played: Around 2024

I had to end with a banger right? Even though last time I touched this game was in 2024, that really is only because I took my time to transfer the PSP save to my Anbernic handheld yet again. I opened the game and I was surprised to see it still working!

You see, I was playing a Spanish translation ages ago, and I wanted to switch to English, and to use the Chicago Font romhack just because. I was surprised to see my save worked perfectly fine despite the language and romhack change, it was cool to have no problems caused by that.

Story-wise, I was visiting the hospital and learning more about mythochondria, I was just about done with the part where I realize that I received a kidney transplant from a japanese girl or something. There’s also this weird ghost of a different little girl, who is guiding me through the hospital to the roof top. Of course there’s enemies everywhere and they have this annoying bouncy projectile that keeps hitting me.

It turns out that Eve, the antagonist of the game is up at the roof, and she is now a giant naked lady with spider legs. I believe my weapon set needed a lot of upgrades though, so I was unable to beat her.

I know what happens after that because I got spoiled by some playthrough on YouTube a while back, but I still want to see what happens with my own eyes!

Finishing up

If you read through all of that without playing any of the games mentioned, I gotta give kudos to you, I really feel like I sound like some weirdo telling stories by the campfire of lives I never lived or something.

In any case, those are games with a story and with stuff going on that I remember somewhat. There are plenty of other games that I haven’t completed either but don’t really have a plot, such as Lumines or Ridge Racer , so I obviously skipped those.

Now, in case the opposite case is true, and you have played through a few or many of the games on this post, what are your thoughts? Does my memory fail, or was yours reawakened? Let me know which one should I continue or maybe start over, one of these days, or months…

This is day 10 of #100DaysToOffload and day 5 of #Blaugust2026

It is quite a contradiction, or at least compared what some other people who would say something like: “Look outside! Look at the green fields, the mountains and trees!”, whenever one spends time on a screen instead.

Of course, embracing the little moments in life is extremely important, accepting moments of quiet boredom has its place, and the wonder of nature is not under dispute here.

The thing is, looking at something won’t necessarily cause it to be engraved into your memories. However, if you were doing something fun, or thought-provoking, if you have a strong emotion or an interesting conversation, then a moment can become more substantial.

There are games that have truly trapped me, stories that have managed to get a grip all by themselves, little context comes to mind, just a world, a fantasy, a group of characters, beautiful, self-contained moments only some games can provide.

Other games are able to bring me back to places of my past, even if they are not great by themselves, they are intertwined with moments that are never to be repeated, and I want to focus on those today.

Obviously, one of my earliest memories involves the PSP, during one of many visits to my uncles’ house. The place was one of those Mexican-style houses that had a central area with no roof and a concrete floor. Those were great times!

My older cousin had a PSP, and I asked him for permission to play with it. The coolest game he owned was Motor Storm Arctic Edge, which happens to be one of the best racing games in the system. I loved the slow motion camera that showed up whenever I crashed. I remember how often I’d want to play it, but I was always shy to ask for it.

You see, since my cousin had a job—or maybe he just went out of the house often—even if I had permission to use it, I had to search his room and look for the PSP to play. This was quite the task, because I was never quite sure of where anything was… I tell you, the house was an absolute labyrinth, or maybe it was the fact I was six or seven years old.

Halo 3 was a huge part of two of my biggest friendships. A pair of brothers who were in the same church as me, one was younger and the other older than me, just a year apart from each other. They had an Xbox 360, a huge CRT TV, and of course, a game library!

Their house was the place to hang out on weekends. The coolest console, the coolest games, and parents who were good but not overprotective. We were good kids, we didn’t curse, we stayed quite while gaming at night, everything was truly great.

We played for hours and hours! Be it multiplayer, Forge mode, and the fantastic campaign, truly epic times. This game and these friends were there in one of the few times I was willing to stay up for hours beyond midnight, going to sleep until 4 or 5 am, just because we had to finish that campaign before the sleepover party was over. We would put blankets on the floor, rest against the sofa, life was so good.

The game remains a core memory, these friends are still great, even though we haven’t met in years, I treasure these years fondly.

It was around 2013 when I had my first proper experience with Minecraft Java Edition. It was on a friend’s laptop, who allowed me to play on his world, I believe it was version 1.6. This is when I stayed in the US for a couple of weeks by myself, under the care of my friend’s family.

In this case I wouldn’t play until the late hours of the night or anything like that. I have to admit I was confused easily when he wasn’t there to explain me what to do, but a couple of times he would be there, and show me simple redstone tricks, how to get chickens to follow me with seeds, and the like. It felt weird to be taught all of that when he was younger than me but it happens.

Outside of Minecraft, I remember a lot of that time, the music playing on the radio (yes, they played music from the radio) was Daft Punk’s Get Lucky—one might say this song is more engraved in my memory than Minecraft itself but shhh. His house was one of those super cool american houses with dishwashers and super cool room temperature everywhere. How would I not want to play Minecraft in such a cozy place!

I am kind of cheating here since these are memories at home, but times have changed so much since then I don’t even care. You see, I don’t live in the same house, and I played Monster Hunter Freedom Unite while I was still in high school, while I still had vacations that lasted for like two months, when I could afford to just use my computer and have some fun playing via VPN parties and the like.

I don’t even have the same laptop anymore, I lost it to an unfortunate bottle of water that got tripped over on the table, sitting there for my laptop to absorb for a whole night. I remember talking with kind strangers over voice chat, hunting huge beasts like the Lao-Shan Lung, casually bantering to each other, getting advice, and doing specific attacks to troll each other sometimes.

As a portable game, I have many more memories with it. High School in general would not have been the same without my PSP. I really gave it a lot of use back then, what a handheld it is to this day, I do miss when I had so much free time though.

I’ve talked about The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask before, it is one of those key parts of my childhood, which introduced me to emulation for the first time ever. Project 64 and all of what that entails. You can read about that story here

However, Majora’s Mask was another of the games I played on that now dead laptop too, after beating Ocarina of Time—I already made a post mentioning that too.

I went on a trip to grandma’s house, around 2017 and literally brought my whole laptop with me just to play it… Or at least that’s the only reason I remember bringing it with me. Playing on the bedroom, with my cheap Xbox 360-style controller, and going through some ice-themed dungeon with multiple floors and the Goron power to spin like a wheel!

On that same trip we also went to city of my childhood, where my friend who introduced me to emulation still lived. I even reached out to him, to let him know I was playing just like he did. Of course, he didn’t even remember I watched him play, such a significant moment for one person can be just another day for another. Such is life sometimes.

I am yet to complete Majora’s Mask, and my save file is long gone—probably with that laptop—but it’s tied down to that moment for me.

During another stay with my uncles around Christmas time, 2019, Epic Games decided to gift Celeste to everyone. Back then I still used Windows, and my uncles had just remodeled their house a while back—this has just unlocked a lot of other memories for a later post.

In any case, without a lot of responsibilities and plenty of time during vacation, and after celebrations were over, we stayed there for a few more days, waiting to celebrate the New Year too, and before it arrived, I managed to play through the entirety of Celeste’s main story!

That was a wonderful time, an incredible test of endurance, and even though I didn’t do every single level (there’s a lot of extra content!) I am more than happy with what I accomplished. I still recall when one of my cousins wanted to try it and couldn’t get past the level I was on, that made me feel a bit cool too, heh.

When I wasn’t feeling like playing on my laptop, I also started Suikoden II on my PSP, one of the prettiest JRPGs for the Play Station, with jaw-dropping pixel art and a really interisting premise. I played like 6 hours of it and to this day, that’s all the progress I’ve really managed to make on it… I should return to that one some day, and to Celeste too!

There’s probably some other titles I could talk about, other places I could remember, just a few more memories:

• Super Mario Bros, 22+ years ago. This was in so many memories, on an original NES, and like two or three clone consoles with cousins and friends, this game was somehow part of my childhood 20+ years after its release.

• Crash Tag Team Racing, 20+ years ago, a visit to a family I don’t even remember, a Play Station 1 and friends whose faces are blurry, I don’t understand how this game is theere, but I played this before Mario Kart.

• Wii Sports, 18+ years ago, a friend’s house, playing on the living room, one of the few times my mom lectured me because I lost my temper, this was because I lost a boxing match against the CPU.

• Ben 10: Protector of Earth, 16+ years ago , a younger neighbor I visited often had this one, we always played it, I loved the cell-shaded look and riding fire waves as Heatblast. This memory one sparked as I was writing this post.

• Mario Party 3, 13+ years ago, playing after church with three friends on the same keyboard, with Project 64 on a desktop running Windows XP, shouting at each other like maniacs.

• Battle for Wesnoth,12+ years ago, the first I ever played on Linux, on my middle school’s computer lab. I remember the desktop was XFCE. The game was in English and I didn’t get most of it.

• Parasite Eve, 5+ years ago, a title that got me so obsessed I read the original novel, watched countless video essays, and saw the Japanese movie, without ever completing the game itself.

This is plenty enough, I’d say.

I wonder what the future will hold, and I can’t help but think if videogames will still be part of that. I see the posts from people older than me, and I daydream where I’ll be when my turn comes. What game will I be playing when I finally buy my own car? What console will be on my pocket if I ever go on vacation overseas by myself? what will be the first game I play together with my wife, or even my child?

It must be said, I don’t remember the videogames I played during most milestones of my life, like my graduation or when I got my job. Some moments simply stand on their own. I guess the memories of even the smallest things can last more than one may imagine, games involved or not.

This is day 5 of #100DaysToOffload.

This post was originally inspired by Bojidar’s EDC post, but I remembered I had this draft pending completion after Rubenerd’s did one too. So, kudos to them for making me want to catch up at last.

In case you are wondering, I already did a post like this a while back. Check it out if you want! it’s very bare bones though.

• Wallet and keys. There’s nothing special about either of these. I do carry cash very often compared to my European friends.

• The Casio AQ-S820W has took a hold of my wrist lately, replacing my Casio Royale since the moment I bought it. It is a little big, kind of like my CasiOak, but I don’t mind at all, I love wearing it and it’s been niced to get used to the analog style again. No complaints.

• My Kobo Clara 2E continues to reign as my main reading device. Since I am currently reading the last book of The Expanse, I simply bring this everywhere. I still bring my XTEINK X4, I always leave it in my backpack, though neither is seeing a lot of use because of the next thing.

• A gaming handheld. Right now it’s the New Nintendo 3DS XL, which truly earned a place in pocket, due to my ongoing playthrough of both Fire Emblem Awakening and Ocarina of Time. Any handheld could easily be swapped here. It would have been the PSP, the Anbernic RG35XX SP, the smaller Miyoo Mini Flip, or even the Nintendo Switch, depending on what I feel like.

• A pair of nameless wired earphones. They are the ones that came with my Innioasis Y1—though I haven’t used that music player a lot lately—since they are perfectly serviceable with whatever handheld console I’m using at the moment. The Switch does work with Bluetooth but it’s just more practical to go wird.

• The Nothing Ear (a) are incredible wireless earphones though. I’ve had them for almost two years and they work great! However, my constant use of the left earphone at night has made battery life uneven, and unusable with ANC, they still work very well without it though. My Nothing Ear (open) have worked wonders in quiet environments, but they are not as ideal when I’m in crowded places. Excellent during cycling though.

• A Nothing (3a) is my phone of choice! There’s not a lot to say about a phone these days, it has a great back design and the cleanest non-Pixel firmware there is in the form of NothingOS. A very serviceable device I’m happy to have despite it’s annoying AI button.

• An iPhone SE 3 which was given to me by my workplace, I get phone calls from work so it happens. Hate it, but it’s alright.

• A Tupperware Eco Twist has been my water bottle since my high school days. I know that everyone recommends stainless steel nowadays, and I do have an Owala, but after I left it at the gym, I’d rather not risk it. Not a good idea to get expensive stuff if you are as forgetful as me…

I guess I could mention a few more things, such as my 3DS case, or a bunch of loose coins. Keep in mind these are things I carry with me during my work days, I rarely go out during a weekend but when that happens I only bring my phone, wallet, and possibly a handheld.

To end this post, here’s an of out of date Knolling I made inspired by Bojidar’s. I should have made a new one with my 3DS but the dark/gray/white color aesthetic seemed better anyway, so I couldn’t be bothered. Besides, I do continue to use my PSP to play some titles like Black Rock Shooter and Ys Chronicles I.

This is day 3 of #100DaysToOffload

Remember back in May when I chose to participate in the Summer Game Challenge? the point of that was to select ten games and commit to completing at least four of them before September 7 (Labour Day for the US) or in my case, September 16 (Independence Day for México). It’s not an official challenge and there’s no website for it or whatever, just a personal commitment with the goal to play more videogames in a certain amount of time.

So, my original list contained the following games (you can just check the linked post for more details about each of them):

• Grapple Dog
• Terranigma
• Hades
• Outer Wilds
• Hollow Knight: Silksong
• Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
• Metroid Prime Remastered
• Chants of Sennaar
• Emio and the Smiling Man
• Pipistrello and the Cursed Yo-Yo

From there, I’ve completed Hades and Metroid Prime Remastered, and the original goal was to complete at least four of the games in the list!

However, as you may have noticed, I ended up playing other titles instead, completing the following so far:

• Transistor
• Monument Valley: Forgotten Shores (DLC)
• Monument Valley 2 (+ The Lost Forest DLC)
• Monument Valley 3 (+ The Garden of Life (DLC)

That is an amount beyond what the challenge asked for, even if they were not part of my original selection.

So, while a side of me feels guilty the titles I’ve beaten are shorter games (Transistor is about 6 hours, and the Monument Valley games bundled up take about the same time), there’s other games in progress that have been quite longer. They are story-based titles, so it is to be expected. The list of these is as follows:

• Fire Emblem Awakening (35+ hours)
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (5 hours)
• Black Rock Shooter (2 hours)
• Ys I & II Chronicles (1 hour)

Even better, that’s on top of the already pretty great list of completed titles so far, which would be:

• Monument Valley
• Resident Evil 2
• Resident Evil 1
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

If you follow my weeknotes or monthly summaries, this is not news to you, but I I wanted to write on my overall gaming schedule at the moment.

The point of it all is to actually play and get rid of games from my backlog. That’s technically something that’s still happening, although the fact I didn’t have a 3DS back in May, does mean the backlog is simply growing as much as it is being trimmed down…

Speaking of backlog, my Low/No Buy Challenge is technically ongoing so, for the sake of transparency, here’s a list of every videogame I’ve bought this year so far…

• Animal Well (Switch)
• Crow Country (Switch)
• Gris (Switch)
• He Is Coming (Steam)
• Into The Breach (Steam)
• Metroid Prime 4 Beyond (Switch)
• PEAK (Steam)
• Pokémon Legends Z-A (Switch)
• Strange Jigsaws (Steam)
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (3DS)
• Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (Switch)
• Vampire Crawlers (Switch)

Umm, that’s less than two games per month! So… win?

Moving on…

My New Nintendo 3DS XL has proven to be an excellent device for my needs. I use it during my commutes to and from work, when I’m early to the office, and even at home! My Anbernic handheld remains charged, and I have dabbled on setting up game art on it again—they got lost during an update—and getting offline RetroAchievements setup on it, I’ll write about that at some point.

Here and there, the PSP has seen some use too, with my Nintendo Switch being the most abandoned of the bunch lately. I’ll probably have to start one of the titles in my original list if I want to return to that console soon. I know for sure that my parents will go on vacation, which will leave my house free for me to enjoy some solo gaming time at the TV at last!

I should go back to reading too, one of these days…

Can you tell how messy this post is? I should have done sections for every little thing I talked about, but I’m lazy and this is good enough… Maybe I’ll format it a bit more later on.

This is day 2 of #100DaysToOffload.

My group sat next to another coworker, she’s older in age than most of my group, from another generation that would often work more than the others unprompted and at the same time complain that she’s doing too much and nobody else does anything. At least that’s what my coworkers say about her when she’s not present, but I don’t really see a reason to share the critiques.

She’s rather friendly at lunch time and my group and hers get along well, even if they throw shade at her, they do that for pretty much everyone—I suspect every single group at work gossips about each other in the same way.

Today, she made a question directed at me, the title of this post, and people started to give answers and share their thoughts about me.

They said things about how I eat carelessly and don’t really gain much weight. I am a bit fat but it’s true that I don’t look it, though people who know me for a long time can see my body has gotten bulkier than in my early college years. They also said I’m young and naive, even though I’m quite aware of some things they are not, and just because I rarely talk, doesn’t mean I don’t listen or think about things.

Perhaps, they said, is that my first job has been very acomodating, that I didn’t have to fight as much as them to get where I am. I never had a job where I was heavily pressured into things or shouted at or with the usual Mexican work culture of getting overworked and underpaid, and of course, I am in no danger of losing my position anytime soon.

Eventually they made a few questions and realized that I am not married, and that I still live with my parents. That ended up becoming a joke and sort of a final answer to close the topic. And well, it’s true, I can use my money in a lot of ways that bring me joy, and not having to worry about rent or buying groceries is a huge plus.

Many of these things are true, and some are not so true, but neither reason is why I’m always “happy.”

By the way, all the shade and critiques and jokes like these are very common in my country, we call it carrilla and while it can get close to bullying, it’s actually playful and friendly, and doesn’t mean to hurt anyone. Mexicans can be very offensive and is hard to accept for a lot of people, just wanted to mention it in case anyone here feels like this is wrong, abusive or something.

During the discussion I did answer questions, I laughed at some ridiculous claims, I acknowledged how I hadn’t gone to the gym for ages and many other things. I participated, but I never actually answered why I am like this most of the time.

Honestly, it’s kind of a corny answer, and it’s also an incomplete one. There are many factors that have made me into who I am.

I kind of wanted to reply in a playful manner, give them carrilla, point out how they’d be happier too if they stopped complaining about everything and actually did something they were passionate about, besides drinking or partying when they are all five years older than me!

Again, carrilla is not something serious, they’d get it, I obviously lack knowledge about their lives and ignore a lot of things, but we would laugh which is what matters.

Though a part of me finds it true. I wish conversations didn’t revolve around work gossip and complains sometimes.

A topic of conversation that popped up was about the new generations, how we are stuck to our phones, how we have so many means of communication yet we remain silent and shy. It was an interesting observation, and I wondered why that is.

I can’t easily bring up what videogame I am playing at work, it is difficult for me to share which book I’m reading, and even if I mention a somewhat popular TV show or movie, these adults just don’t seem to be aware of what’s new! Or they’d ridicule me for doing that instead of adult things, I guess.

Like, seriously, I would love to chat about things, anything that I am passionate about. Or listen about anything they are passionate about, but nobody seems to do anything interesting, or at least nobody is interested in opening up and talk about it.

And even then, when I am almost always silent and rarely talk about me, they can tell how happy I am all the time.

Of course this isn’t true, I am not always happy, I get stressed out about many things, I worry about the future of the world, I care about my friends and people around me going through difficult times, many losses have been had this year than I ever expected. I am sad when people get into dumb arguments online, I have cried because of moments like that before.

I’m human going through life and wants people to get along with. I guess focusing on different things, trying to see them through different angles. I also write, and that really is great, even if I can get a bit smug because of it. I’m not better than them, or superior in anyway due to this mindset.

I don’t know, it’s not just videogames or books, which I enjoy don’t get me wrong. I have true friendships, online, and in person. I have a hope that things will get better. I am content with what I have, and I have faith, which sustains me through it all.

I am curious, what is the impression you cause on other people? Are you also a cheerful person? or are you often seen as a grumpy one? It’s funny because I always thought I’d seem grumpy and serious, but I guess I’m just happy during lunch time because I get to eat!

In any case, it’s more than being single and living with my parents—but I can’t deny that helps a lot too.

This is day 94 of #100DaysToOffload

So there’s this girl I invited to watch a movie, and I do kind of like her, and I do know that my parents are already okay with it (which isn’t a must but it’s appreciated because I generally trust their judgement), so we’ll go tomorrow, and see how it goes from there.

But here’s the thing, my family will be there, my parents, my sibling, everyone will go to the movies.

Now, I don’t intend to be romantic, I simply invited her as a friend, should I be intentional and say I’d like something serious already? There is nothing wrong with that. I also know she likes my parents, and would happily chat with my mom forever. I get kinda embarrased about it.

Basically, she’s kind of a childhood friend I only met for like a month before she moved elsewhere more than a decade ago, and somehow we live relatively close now, and it’s kind of like everything has been served on a silver plate.

Due to the internet I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many people, many women included there who I’m happy to have as friends! I have some great connections but never really tried like, dating through this medium, or in any medium. Still, some of those friends have told me how dating is hard and such, and I won’t deny I have been interested on pursuing a long distance thing. But at the same time, I don’t really know how anything is supposed to be done.

When my dad met my mom, he was direct, he told her his intentions and that he wasn’t playing any games. But me? How can I be sure? Is the fact that I’m insecure about this a good or bad sign?

And now, just like it happened when I got my job, things seem to fit together like a puzzle, and, just like my job, I am not sure I’m comfortable with how it could go.

Maybe I am overthinking it? Maybe I am just blind and she already just sees me as a good friend and we will go nowhere anyway? I think her life is way better structured than mine, from what I’ve seen, so perhaps she will think I’m still like an adult kid and a good friend and leave it there.

Another problem is that she lives a city away, and I don’t drive. So if things actually go somewhere from here and we actually start something more than this sort-of-date-with-my-family-there. Would I have to get a car or just take a bus whenever, ask her to pick me up? That feels a bit too much.

Another thing, should I tell her I’m serious from the start? I want to be serious, I don’t really feel like getting into the “dating” people thing like some seem to be about. I have a feeling she’s serious about it too, like, whenever she dates she will not mess around either.

But I don’t know, I’m just a little worried and a bit excited, and also conflicted. I like her, perhaps, but I can’t deny I’ve liked others too, and there are so many things that I’m not sure I’ll be able to be without.

Like, I want someone to share my hobbies with, and while I feel like we will get along with anime and movies and the like, I’m not sure what her feelings are on videogames. Am I already thinking too far ahead, I guess I wouldn’t mind keeping those for myself.

Oh right, but my parents will be there. Is that good or bad?

Like, I know my mom will cause a lot of conversations to spark (she is super talkative) and I will technically get to know her through that. But should there be a moment where we just part ways for a bit just to talk between us? Or should I just not force that? Talk it out with my parents that I’d like to be left along? that I don’t want them to interfere? But also, what if I do? What if I can’t say enough by myself?

For some reason I also act like I don’t want my parents to realize I like her even when it’s kinda obvious. I actually messaged her out of nowhere last Monday, and we got to a call from there. It was after work, I stepped off the bus early and literally walked from downtown all the way to my house, for more than an hour, and we talked the whole time! So I can hold a conversation, yay!

But! I also did it, because I didn’t want to be in a phone call with her while at home. I didn’t want my parents to be like “tell her hi for us!”

During our conversation, I had to hang up for a bit, and when we returned she actually talked about how she was so surprised I reached out, that she told her mom about it. She told her mom I called her! Like, was it in a casual way?, was she so happy she had to let her know? I have no idea.

Why am I kind of ashamed of this? Oh right… I also feel like I could hurt someone else.

Yep, there’s another girl, and even though I only see her like once a year during some big church events, we are cool! We don’t really chat or anything, I’ve been shy to pursue anymore because she’s even farther away, but I’ve known her longer and feel like she likes me, maybe I do too. But still, we are just friends, maybe it’s all me. Also, they know each other, and they are good friends too, what am I even doing aargh.

The drama continues I guess. I won’t be posting this to my big account, an exclusive for avid readers of my RSS or my blog or those who may see it shared in a smaller account, feel free to reach out in private if you have some advice or thoughts. I have been told to not trust the internet when it comes to things like this though, so whatever.

Now, if you are someone who maybe has somehow developed a crush on me because of my blog and the posts I’ve shared, and you are interested on videogames and share a lot of the same hobbies and thoughts I’ve expressed here, and you were hoping to someday confess your feelings and that I would share the same interest on you. This is probably your last chance, who knows!!?? I don’t.

Until later. This post doesn’t count for #100DaysToOffload.

Anyway, I haven’t really gone to a lot of new places lately, but I have done and seen some cool things nonetheless.

Last weekend was the first time I put some air on my tires. They were already feeling low on my previous trip—I think that’s one of the reasons I couldn’t catch up to other commuters before—so I decided to check them today. In my country, there are quite a lot of vulcanizadoras. They are small workshops where cars can patch wheels, put air on them and some other basic car maintenance. They really can be super simple. The one I went to is literally just a roof, no walls, no nothing, just a couple of guys sitting on top of some wheels by the side of the road.

Something I realized about my bike is that the valves are different, and they have different stems. (I had to look that up, that’s the name of the hole through which you inflate them). I wasn’t sure if the place would have an adaptor, but things worked out in the end and it wasn’t even expensive, they let me pay whatever I wanted. I probably went beyond their expectations by at least a dollar or two, everything happened in just a couple minutes, and riding away felt so awesome with my wheels gripping much better and feeling swifter than before.

The streets were full of puddles and some mud too, but I went carefully—no fenders, remember?—and avoided most damage. There was another commuter there and I followed him up for a while, this time I managed to surpass them eventually.

I went through some big puddles rather slowly and got to stay balanced despite the slow spin, it was rather fun, to be able to do all that. I hope getting fenders gives me even more confidence in the future to just ride through it.

The ride was fun, went downtown again and even visited the shop where I got my bike from. I wanted to check right then and there if I could get the hardware I wanted, but they were closed. No big deal, I rode back home, following the same path I took the first time I got on this thing.

The bicycle culture I’ve gotten to see in my city has been rather pleasant. A week before inflating my tires, I wanted to go to the park downtown again. On the way there, I was among a cluster of commuters, three going my way, another two going in the opposite direction. It felt cool to be among so many bicycles for a brief moment, in the same street!

When I got to the park, I actually saw another bunch of bicyles parked together—none of them were locked. Even if they hadd been, they were leaning on the weakest possible fence ever, pretty much just wires. There was nobody around, nobody seemed to be worried at all.

I kept riding and saw the park was rather filled with people this time. Some were doing excercise, some people were jogging around the same road I cycled through, and there were a few other parked bikes inside.

I’m shameless and made sure to ride along every bicycle I see, I love to know, how many of them are fixies, how many of them have disc brakes, what brands are common, which ones are less known. My bike continues to be the only Fuji around. I have seen two Specialized, one looked like a mountain bike, the other was a city bike with a retro look. I have seen a bunch of Giant bikes too, with quite basic designs. There’s also Mercurio, Alubike, and some Green Plus—all of these seem to be Mexican bicycle brands. The latter is a bit of a higher tier, judging by the prices online.

After so many videos from Europe and the US, or about my own country, from Guadalajara or Mexico City and how bike theft is so abundant. Seeing my city be so non-chalant about it was a bit of a relief. I already had my suspicions this would be the case, as it feels like everyone here knows each other well.

As of now, I am yet to leave my bike parked for a significant amount of time without a direct line of sight, I don’t know if I’ll ever need to do that either way, but I feel confident knowing things are likely to go just fine.

After this many trips, I continue to be pleased by the culture in my city, the cars have been pretty respectful, although I’ve had a few close calls at slow speeds when I get careless. Nothing serious would have happened, other than the scare either way. Being aware of surroundings is still important, slowing down and looking at both sides of the road, stuff like that.

Still, the freedom of just going wherever I want by powering this machine, the spin of the wheels, the force of my legs multiplied and turning into motion. It’s all awesome, I love this. I want to do it more. I need to try that commute to work, I just fear getting sweaty at work.

Perhaps a change of clothes is all I need.

This is day 86 of #100DaysToOffload

These writings force me to write in a certain way, and I enjoy doing so, but it’s not the only way I like to write.

Some of my favorite artices here have been prompted by the most random things, I really appreciate getting to that state. Like sharing actual thoughts on things happening or on the message of a book or a series of videogames that go beyond what a review often has.

A part of me was going to reminisce on some of my favorite posts of that type, but that would just end up being another listicle, another task that would require me to do extra work. Like how game reviews need screenshots or categorizing critiques, or how weeknotes require me to check my gallery to see what I did.

I guess I just want to ramble again without any sort of defined path.

This post is just a short—future me here, not that short—acknowledgment of that. It has been happening for the whole month, so things don’t feel as fruitful as I’d like. It feels like I’m going through chores. Don’t get me wrong, those reviews are 2K words each because I had a lot to say about those videogames I loved, and because I am very happy when people put those games in their radar.

Writing those reviews and notes gives me joy, but it can feel daunting sometimes. I just want to write about writing for once, I get to do it every once in a while. I get to do it on my blog.

How have you been? What have you enjoyed? When was the last time you were in silence and contemplated the way you went through the motions of some task without any extra thing going on?

I keep reaching for podcasts, or some video in the background, or music, many times, but absolute silence while doing the dishes? Embracing boredom? It can be difficult today to do so.

As I write this though, I am in complete silence. A rare ocurrence for me lately, and it has been awesome. This paragraph is written on top of another five paragraphs I had already written, interestingly enough. I don’t always skip and write all over the place! I guess I really needed to ramble.

Yesterday I watched Rocky, one of those classic movies everyone should see some day, and I was surprised at how simple it is. There were a few scenes that happened in silence, with only some background noise and the characters doing things without saying anything. That morning scene where Rocky just swallows five raw eggs and goes to run actually hit hard, not joking! what a movie.

Reading reviews, I agreed with one of them saying it’s not really a boxing movie but a slice-of-life, that of a nobody who gets the chance of his life at challenging the champion. A lot of things happen just because Rocky decided to, he was not just going along either, but building himself up to train for this fight. Even then, he doesn’t think he can win, but he just wants to stay up for the whole 15 rounds.

And he went from a nobody, to the one guy who managed to resist Apollo Creed. He didn’t get the win, but he prevailed, and despite the fame and glory, he just went looking for Adrian, his girlfriend. Rocky didn’t care about winning or losing, he was conscious enough to call her name, and so he did, reunited with her again when credits rolled. What a finale, what a simple thing, simple storytelling is beautiful and rare, they don’t make movies like this anymore, do they?

Perhaps I am also tired of saving up spoilers on my reviews—sorry if I ruined the finale of Rocky just now, it’s still worth a watch—because it is through those bold choices in media, where I get to think the most, where I get to awe at what’s happening before my eyes. Maybe I should just do that from now on? A spoiler section where I get to gush about how unbelievable and awesome the art humans create can be?

Maybe that’s on order, not a list of things, not a top 5 or a favorites, just write about whatever things have gotten me to think just a bit more about this world, about hope, about how to keep moving forward.

There’s this sense of sadness when I begin to write about what I wish I could write about, but I am overall happy, because I’ve already written this much in the first place and writing is what matters to me, and for the most part, I love it.

This is all a ramble, but those are the kinds of posts I enjoy the most. Looking back, I think part of this was inspired by a post by isa where she talks about her personality affecting what she writes about, unable to write about what she likes because… idk? that’s just how it is sometimes? But she will try to do it in the future (maybe).

Funnily enough, I have the same problem sometimes. I already wrote about drafts that just don’t quite feel like something I want to publish. Part of that is the superficiality of it all.

Like, how I disallow myself from writing of some topics because of the sort of image of me it may create on a vacuum. When I shared my full physical Nintendo Switch collection, I kept thinking about how it probably makes me look like a guy with money to spare and a privileged life, meanwhile it’s just me with a stable job, still single and living with my parents. Even saying that feels like I am being a show off, I guess it’s true in a sense.

A long while ago I read about how X or Y is a privilege, and it feels wrong because privilege feels like a bad word nowadays. I have enough time to spend it writing here saying nothing, and I have done this dozens of times in the year, across more than 600 posts, and I keep going. Not many get to write like I do. I was about to go on a tangent on AI, but I won’t, moving on.

If you are still here, you may be about to say the same thing I’m already thinking: just write.

So, I am doing so, I am writing and considering where to go from here. To be honest, I’m already quite satisfied, I am just letting my thoughts flow and my fingers type and it’s working out pretty well. I wonder if I should add some breaks between these paragraphs, although there’s not so much of a theme between them, I wasn’t going to say more about LLMs, but they don’t get to top this raw aimless river of words, yay!

No need to remember what the book was about, no need to look for graphics or pictures to represent a theme. This is all just text, and there’s no point to it, and I love it so much.

Perhaps I should make a Junited post too, just for good measure. Or shut up, let you simmer these words in silence, get drifted away by something else, something worth your attention, or mine, and move on.

Enough, for now?

This is day 85 of #100DaysToOffload

My mom wanted me to go with her to some place, and even though she would just take me with her on the car, I decided to simply go ahead and take my bike to meet her there.

It has been raining lately, but that only made the weather comfy and cloudy overall. Riding with a purpose felt quite cool, and as always, the ride itself was awesome and freeing. I must admit though, I felt a bit sluggish, as the air was going against me and I had to work my legs a bit more than expected. Still comfortable enough.

I took the ideal path and even though I did arrive later—cars are fast after all—the timing was ideal. And just like that, I had done the first actual trip from X to Y. We went to a park for a class my mom gives to some kids in that neighborhood, it was in a public park and I just left the bike nearby on sight, since there were no good spots to lock it.

When we were done, I took the bike and returned. All this time I’ve rode my bike and went pretty much on a circle, never staying anywhere, simply riding and then going home, until now, a trip with a destination!

Later my church was going to do a small charity at a nearby hospital, giving away food and praying for those in need. I decided to head there using my bicycle once again. This time things got fun.

The waters were set free, and rain fell upon me, but honestly? That just felt awesome, it was a light rain and it didn’t really disturb me much. The feeling of the raindrops against my face felt rather great, I didn’t bring any sort of jacket, just the usual shirt and jeans, but I didn’t care. I made my way to the hospital and this time I decided to actually park the bike. I bought a u-lock a while back, so I locked things up against a hand rail nearby. Since we were outside the building I had it in sight at every moment anyway.

There were not a lot of people outside this time, but after announcing it to some people, even nurses and doctors showed up. It was kind of fun a dozen of them in a row with their medical attire. Don’t worry, there plenty of food for actual patients and people waiting outside.

Then the rain got stronger.

I decided to unlock the bike and bring it closer with me, all the rain soaked it completely, and my seat was not in the most comfortable state. A couple minutes later I was told I couldn’t have my bike in the entrance area—where we were—and that I should go park it in a different place. The guard explained to me that she had no problem but she was told by a superior and I kind of understood. Instead of parking it, I just carried it with me and stayed with it nearby as I judged what to do.

I didn’t want to leave my bike in the rain, but I also couldn’t stay there forever—maybe I could but I didn’t want to get the guard in trouble. I saw a trash can that was located far from the entrance, and decided to just put it there. It was still covered from the rain, although I couldn’t lock it properly. Still, it was on sight and soon enough we were done.

The return home was quite fun! I went ahead and the rain was much stronger, there were puddles everywhere and I had to go through a couple of them. Alas, the commute was very fun! Not a lot of cars to cause me trouble in any of my trips either.

It was not until I got home when I realized my back, and the lower section of my jeans, was full of mud stains…

So, I need to buy fenders now, I guess!

This is day 76 of #100DaysToOffload

I often call myself an introvert, and due to yesterday’s post, I got some helpful feedback, advice and opinions about it, which I appreciate a bunch! Some got me thinking about how introverted I really am, and the sort of behaviours I often adopt when facing different situations.

Maybe I could make a quiz or something—but nowadays most of those websites are just AI slop. I’ll just write and describe what goes through my head, and I’ll let you judge what you think of me in this regard. Obviously, as I’m the source of these descriptions there’s a bias here, but anyway, my interactions in real life and online differ a bit, depending on the context.

First of all, I consider myself to be much more active and outgoing online. After 6 or so years on Mastodon, I am somehow close to 3K followers. There are a lot of duplicates and people who migrated and follow me from multiple accounts, or are no longer active, but the point is that there’s people who have found me interesting and worth talking with, which is cool! Number go up, brain happy.

I love to get comments and (usually) reply to them, I like when my posts get some attention—unless that translates into toxic Hacker News replies—and people are inspired by me or reach out to me about many topics. I have made online friends and I can name many of them, they are real persons and I’ve had some honest chats, some that are only technical or superficial, but many have been really significant and valuable to me too.

As for online gaming, when I was a teenager I would happily spend hours on Monster Hunter Freedom Unite with strangers all over the world, many times I used voice chat and had a lot of fun. There is a YouTube stream archive out there from some small Spanish YouTuber where I played with him for a couple of hours straight! It was epic. A while back I wrote about the Guild Cards I had which contain information of fellow hunters I played with, including a column with the date we last interacted. Thinking about how it’s been almost ten years since then makes me feel very old…

More recently, I haven’t had a lot of issues playing Peak with some friends from the Fediverse and also the TWG Discord server. The game has proximity voice chat, and it’s an essential part of the gameplay to cooperate with each other, I’m rather active, constantly seeking to help (or be helped) by the people I teamed up with, joking and bantering about random stuff. Some of the people I had never even met, but there was always someone I knew, which brought me confidence to be myself. The goofy nature of the game helped to build a chill atmosphere, everyone was super friendly. I did not fear joking around with my teammates a bit nor trolling them a bit (and helping them out afterwards). I died plenty of times myself and got to be a little ghost haunting the surviving players. Haven’t played this game in weeks though but whatever.

Be it Discord, Signal, Threema or XMPP, I don’t have a lot of trouble interacting with groups of people I know, and I am often the one who will try and start a conversation there, by sharing a blogpost I wrote, or something I’m currently doing (right now that means sharing videos of my Tomodachi Life island). The same goes for messaging specific people, I have plenty of chats on Signal that have been going for a long while and that have helped me develop some true friendships I appreciate a lot.

However, I don’t have interest on long-running online threads where I keep being mentioned about things I have nothing to do with. My friends in the Polymaths’ instance often get into “hellthreads” talking about rather deep stuff, or some TV show I don’t know anything about, or politics; and I rarely engage after the first three or four replies—which turn into dozens and dozens by the end of the day—even worse when more random people get involved and things end up blowing out of proportion. It’s usually harmless banter, but the notifications do build up.

I don’t interact much when I don’t care about a topic, and I try to not switch themes on a chatroom until it’s been a while since the last message on Discord. I often stick to one or two channels, and get familiar with a few active users there. A common practice of mine which you may already notice, is that I love to share my blogposts everywhere, and to spark conversations about them. I can’t help it, I do like to have some attention after all, I’ve even been called out on it by the mods of some communities a couple of times, especially when I am constantly sharing progress updates on a game and such (sorry TWG). I’ll often share and photos of books or manga I’m reading, and stuff like that.

Online group calls are very varied and heavily dependent on the group, but the latest ones I joined were for the Homebrew Website Club. The circumstances there have been rather dire for me though, as I am often on a busy place, only able to listen. At the same time sometimes the topic goes to places where I don’t have anything to add. There’s a bit of technical chatter sometimes and I can’t add a lot since I’m unfamiliar with it.

It’s one of those times where I feel kinda out of my league. Even when blogging and playing around with my website is one of the things I do the most, I am really terrible at talking about it. I feel like everything I say is pretty obvious, but I’m sure if any one of them reads this they’d say the opposite. Either way, I’ve not had the chance to talk many times, I enjoy being a listener though.

Where it goes a bit different is in the TWC Discord’s voice chats. There is a reading club and a gaming club, and both hold meetings where there are discussions and everyone gets to share their thoughts! I’ve participated on these for Soul Reaver and Resident Evil 2, and talked quite without many issues. However, there was not a lot of exchange required from me, I said what I had to say during my turn, and then I didn’t provide much feedback, simply listening. There’s also the podcast episode I participated in, which was I still can’t believe I did, I am told it was pretty good, but I am yet to relisten to my own voice, I remember saying my piece and nerviously laughing at whatever my cohosts said during their turn, again, I just enjoy listening.

One-on-one calls with online people have been rather nice. I rarely do these, but it has happened on Discord, with random conversations here and there. I recall one where we just rambled about the PSP for almost an hour, it was quite a fun time though, and I even learned about a couple games that are now on my backlog, like Black Rock Shooter. There was also that one time I watched a movie with a friend I randomly met on some app where you meet random people, and then we talked about manga, anime and videogames for a long while. Tt was one of the few times where I could give all sorts of recommendations, ramblings and suggestions to someone who was pretty new on all of it and had a lot to learn and experience in those hobbies yet.

Perhaps talking comes easy to me when a) It’s about something I’m interested on and b) I don’t need to look at anybody’s face while chatting. These voice calls do have one deterrent though: The language barrier.

I am a bit iffy on my pronunciation and self-conscious about structuring spoken sentences in English. It’s not that I don’t know how, I write these paragraphs without any problem, but the process of saying the words continuously in conversation makes things weird for me. It’s not the main factor anymore though, just something that lingers from time to time.

The more I write this the more I feel it’s just a simple matter of being familiar with the people I talk with. A single common interest or goal is enough for me to hold a conversation and go from there.

But the problem is I don’t like to reach out to someone for the first time. I don’t know how to start conversations in person. I can write something here but I don’t get to just recite it in some public place until someone stops to listen and wants to talk, after all.

Once I am with friends in real life, I have no issue being loud and joking about things and suggesting we play some card game or setup my Switch for some multiplayer fun. But what gets me to actually talk or make friends in the first place? Well, being in a situation where it’s better to interact than not, perhaps?

I think I’ve mentioned before how I’m one of the more senior members in my friend group at church. I live closest to the building, within walking distance, so my house often hosts extra activities: Nintendo Switch gaming, tabletop games and, every once in a while, a session of Land of Eem. Not too long ago my “social battery” ran out rather quickly, I’d even escape home from everyone as soon as we were done, although my friends would walk there too and visit anyway. I rarely said no, but I knew that when I did they would get it, it’s just how we are lol

I don’t really mind having guests, I let my friends use my Switch or play while I am just using my phone, when I don’t really feel like socializing. My home is theirs and I’m happy to have some background noise and sometimes just watch what they do without feeling forced to say a thing.

Honestly that’s just the best for me, to be around people who are happy to have you among them but don’t expect you to force yourself into whatever’s going on. It’s a little weird after all since it makes me a bit of an “outcast” but it’s still cool. Sometimes, I am being grumpy for no reason they will tease and annoy me, but that’s often because I’m at fault and way too unfocused. For example when I agree that I’ll play with them but I keep scrolling and getting distracted on my phone and the like. It’s okay when things are made clear from the start instead of ruining what we had planned, after all.

Either way, I’ve made an effort not to be as grumpy anymore, and switching to more active board games that I bring to church instead of going back home where I can escape to my room and turn into a hermit has helped too.

Of course, I am also a complete hypocrite. When someone in the friend group pulls out their phones, I will very much be annoyed when they use it during a game and. Some times, since I’m the one in charge in my house I get to ban phones out during visits where everyone agrees to play together, except for mine of course.

At work most of the interactions happen during lunch, it’s the same group every day and I don’t really feel like I belong, nor do I feel that I want to. The chatter there is full of gossip, drama, complaining about workmates or the boss or some other topic. Sometimes they’ll talk about current events and things like that, but the focus is never where I’d like it to be. There’s also a lot of teasing and dirty jokes. These are often part of my culture, the kind of thing that gets one cancelled on social media especially in a place like the fediverse, but that’s just how things are here. I don’t feed those conversations, hence why I stick to reading or using my phone, even though I come off as quiet and shy, which I guess I am.

A few times some device I have or thing I do comes into conversation, and even then I’m like “this is going to lead nowhere, I’m only going to look like a show-off”, for example, as cool as the XTEINK X4 is and how I keep boosting posts about it and recommending it online, someone saw me using it at work and I just summed it all up as “it’s an e-reader” and said nothing more.

Basically, when a conversation at work focuses on me or requires my input, I try to make it die down as soon as possible… I don’t like to stand out, I’d rather they keep talking about whatever they saw on Facebook and such.

As an aside, I keep noticing how I do these sorts of dismissive remarks about normal people sometimes so I should make it clear, this is mostly for hyperbole and maybe comedic effect and I know—or want to believe—that most people have plenty of goals, activities and hobbies that bring them joy, and they are obviously not two-dimensional caricatures. Alas, they rarely bring those topics to conversations at work. I am not superior to anyone just because I have niche devices or hobbies, I am not better because I play single-player indie games instead of FIFA or Call of Duty or because of whatever hobby or craft I’m good at, and similar dumb comparisons I make sometimes. Maybe I feel guilty because a part of me does feel some pride about “not being like them” but I know it’s just a silly thing to think okay sorry bye.

In many situations I could have gone on and on about me and my interests—I mean just look at this post’s word count—but at work all I’d get is “ah so you use it to read during work hours”—which yes I totally do—but the teasing is just annoying to me, and I am sure at least one of the people there dislikes me or is jealous of me for some reason. Maybe I should just change my friend group, but I am not that bothered by it. I am used to how things are and I don’t hate the people I’m with, I laugh way too much at some of the random complaints and stories told there, I just don’t really say much myself nor do I want to spend any more time with them outside of work hours.

Then there’s the friends I’ve made ages ago, from high school or from previous places where I used to live. I don’t speak with the vast majority of them, but every once in a while a status update on WhatsApp (yes that’s what I have to use to communicate in my country) will spark a conversation. I don’t share links to my blog to people I know in real life, but I share photos of the games I play or the books I complete. The latest for example was a short chat of 4 or 5 messages with my best friend from University, when I shared the latest Lego I built. We haven’t seen each other in ages, but I did convince him to buy a Miyoo Mini Plus back in the day.

Also, if I know your birthday and I have you on my phone contacts it is very likely that I’ll send you a Happy Birthday message even after years without talking to you, for no reason whatsoever. Fine, maybe if you are a highschool crush of mine there’s a bit of a reason but I’ll shut up about that.

There have been times where I met those friends in real life, and I don’t have a problem talking as if we’ve never stopped! It has always been fun to catch up and see where we are at in life. Sometimes our interests and hobbies have completely drifted off, but I still manage to find common ground most of the time. I can’t recall an old friendship of mine that I would want to avoid nowadays.

Same goes for cousins and family members. I am extremely grateful about how nice my extended family is. There seem to be some issues between brothers here and there, but me and all of my cousins (there are dozens) get along extremely well. The age difference between us all is rather big, but small groups with similar ages are easily made and it’s always fun when we get to reunite during Christmas and the like.

I still don’t really come up with talking topics or anything, but I am happy to go along with what they talk about, and more than pleased when I bring my Switch and my cousins brings it too and we get to do some epic Mario Kart tournament. I happily annoy and tease and play around with my extended family all the time, which is fun.

Almost nobody in my family and real life people I know are aware of my blog. There’s only like five people who know it exists, but nobody is actively keeping in touch with whatever I share here that I know of.

Look at me, writing another blogpost about myself and putting you all through such a ramble. Perhaps I wrote this all for me more than you, but I appreciate if you made it this far. I am shy and introverted, but I also try and interact with the people around me, I am pretty outspoken online and even a bit of a troublemaker, I will barely be able to look at someone in the eyes, and I won’t even notice you if we find each other on the streets. I guess I could keep going on and on, but I don’t want to spend any more of your time. Introvert or no, I’m just another person trying to get by, living on this pale blue dot.

This is day 59 of #100DaysToOffload.

Write a blog post about this moment in time—what you see, smell, hear, feel, taste? Where are you? What were you doing immediately before this? How are you feeling both physically and emotionally in this fleeting moment in time? What do your senses notice about this particular moment in your life?

The weather here has started to warm up, no longer that cold—it’s never that cold compared to the north during my childhood—so I don’t need to wear more than a hoodie, and I take it off after I get to the bus to work. It’s warm enough during the rest of the day.

I’m at my workplace, sitting on a pretty comfy office chair, on a large desk with adjustable height and the usual peripherals as well as my work phone, ID and earbuds case—a water bottle too, of course. I plugged my laptop into the dock and the monitors light up, email, work chat and other programs already open—boring stuff. My backpack is by my side—I should probably leave it on the coat hanger behind me.

It’s an open office space so all I see is desks around me, some fake plants—they are rather pretty though—and some meeting rooms that are walled by clear panels. Six or so desks away to my left there are windows. The sun is out, but the air was still fresh when I got in.

I’m typing this up before any other coworker shows up. The only noise is the ventilation, which is always a bit colder than I’d like, so I put on my hoodie again—just to be comfy.

When I was getting ready earlier, I had a mug of coffee and a couple of cookies. It definitely woke me up, but I was chatting with some friends on Signal and kind of got distracted.

I ended up running late to the bus stop to work—which is ten minutes away when walking—but there’s a public bus that gets me closer and quicker, saving me like 6 minutes or so. The only risk is the public transport may not show up for up to ten minutes, which means I would miss my bus to work completely. A risk I was willing to take this time.

The bus arrived right on schedule and I got to my work transport—with a couple minutes to spare—without breaking a sweat! I was listening to the latest episode of Into The Aether from the moment I dressed up until I got to my seat at the bus.

I carried my Switch to work today, so I went ahead and played Into The Breach during the commute, I managed to get to the first boss of the first island before the ride was over. It was a perfect run so far with no damage to the grid, but I had started it on Easy difficulty, I still need to get better on Normal.

There’s a meeting where I have to speak and suggest solutions and I actually feel somewhat nervous about it. It’s literally nothing I haven’t done before, but I keep overthinking it, even though I’m like, the one “expert” there who knows what’s going on. It’s a weird feeling to have.

One coworker just showed up, I wished them a good morning, many more have started to arrive now, so it’s time to call it done, maybe I’ll write another post if I get more free time later. I’m feeling inspired.

This is day 32 of #100DaysToOffllad

Helping with the media and worship presentations during service at my local church is a common task of mine. I probably should have done more to prevent this and set some guidelines beforehand, but now that it happened, I wouldn’t let it fly. After a short explanation of why, I saved the day, and educated one more person about the horrors of AI slop. I wish that had been the biggest mess of the day…

The morning kept going, I finished the presentation, song lyrics, the usual stuff. I have no breakfast on Sundays, I dressed up—more formal than usual, I was feeling fancy—and headed out with my family!

After the service was over—with AI nowhere to be seen—everyone stayed to have lunch together.

My church has been collecting money for a new building, so each week a different family prepares and sells a meal for everyone—we are a rather small group—to acquire funds and enjoy the time together.

I get in line for my serving—some great tacos de bistec that I couldn’t stop eating—and I sat on a different spot than normal, since most of my friend group helped prepare the orders, or handle cash. I was enjoying myself, listening to the chatter without saying much. I start to hear about violence going on in the streets, about drones flying above some areas, things start to get a little tense.

As much as I hate it, I install Facebook again—still the most popular social network in Mexico. I read the headlines, I read posts from the government in my state and my city. I hear the people around me, sharing their own thoughts and updates on the situation.

Some people with friends or contacts elsewhere start to get phone calls, people checking up on each other, people making sure everyone is safe. A few leave early, but things keep going pretty well.

I talk about it on the fediverse, in some group chats. I check up and see this is news worldwide. Flights are delayed, roads are blocked, hotels closed their doors— nobody in, nobody out.

The leader of the biggest drug cartel in Mexico died.

After this military operation, the narco is acting in retaliation with terrorist acts all over the country. The posts online from the local government are clear: go home and stay inside.

Things were going fine. People left at a rather slow pace, those who stayed finished their meal, and things went on as usual—the kids played and ran around outside. We were all rather calm, it was no big deal.

Perhaps is in moments like these where faith shines through, and being together brought a sense of peace amidst the chaos. Maybe it’s naive, maybe we are oblivious to reality. But we rest assured, beyond any despair this world may bring.

And the day went on, we returned home, and enjoyed a quiet evening. My mom decided to catch up on her current TV show of choice, my grandma joined her, even my dad. They made some popcorn too.

I wasn’t feeling like watchting TV, and I stopped reading the news. It had been a while since we had popcorn, so I got my own bowl and went to my bedroom to watch Resident Evil retrospective videos and essays clean up and get it tidy.

Later I returned to my playthrough of Resident Evil 2. It has been such an enjoyable experience, and it felt a bit surreal this time, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that I’m surviving a zombie apocalypse while there are vehicles on fire and buildings closed all over my state. At least I don’t think Zombies stand a chance in Mexico, I admit I chuckled at the intrusive thought.

Checking my emails, I realize I won’t have to work on Monday, and that my gym would be closed too. Not much to worry about, just an unexpected day off, a welcome development despite the circumstances.

A bit later, my church did an online call, where we prayed together about the whole situation going on, everyone arrived home well, and even though shops and the like were closed, we all had our needs covered. We prayed for the authorities, forgiveness for those committing these acts and their repentance, for the people who suffered a loss, and those who struggled because of it all.

My dad prepared some migas con huevo for dinner—probably my favorite way to eat eggs. I was happy that I wouldn’t have to wake up early tomorrow, and things went as normal, then it was time to go to sleep.

The thought about how I could have realized absolutely nothing if I hadn’t been with other people is also weird, I really am completely unaware of the news most of the time, but when stuff like this could happen all of a sudden, I see now why some folks are often very worried on what’s going on around them.

I guess I should try to find a balance. It’s easy to ignore that which doesn’t affect you, I guess, but then it does, and now what? I do hope that I’ll remain calm even then, maybe I can say it because nothing really affected me much, just the tension in the moment. I don’t know, I’ll figure something out.

I’d also like to thank those who checked up on me! I’m writing this last couple paragraphs a few days later now, and it really does feel kinda melancholic. I thought about writing about my day off too, but it really was just a normal time staying at home and playing videogames. That Sunday though, that was a day full of mixed emotions, but it kind of got me to see so some things differently, it was an interesting experience.

This is day 22 of #100DaysToOffload

As an introvert in real life—hard to believe I know—I tend to avoid interacting with people, even those that I should be familiar with.

If I see friends from work, I won’t engage with them unless we actually face each other and there’s no way around it. If I see friends from University, I will not talk with them—unless she was a crush and we somehow happen to sit together in the bus, maybe I’ll say hi, but that only has happened twice so far. Otherwise I’ll probably ignore.

However, this situation was a little different, because now there is a certain social imbalance that I had never felt before. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s not a real thing, I know that we are equal, I know status based on the work you do is as vain as it gets.

And yet, I couldn’t help it. This person studied a similar career as me, could probably land a job similar to me, and yet he’s a cashier.

That is of course, absolutely fine, absolutely great for anybody. Who knows what other factors are at play here, maybe it’s only temporary, or maybe he’s still doing a Master’s degree and just needs some extra income and will surpass me eventually. Or maybe he just enjoys it. I don’t know.

But the truth of the matter is that, at least for a second. I felt bad for him. I just couldn’t look at him in the eye, I didn’t say Hi, as if I didn’t know him. I didn’t even bring it up to my parents, and I always say “oh that person works with me!” or “they were a classmate of mine!”

And then I felt bad about feeling bad, that I looked down on him like that. I guess a feeling of superiority got to me, the fact that I’m closer to some arbitrary ideal than them. A part of me wants to think I just felt bad not because he was lesser, but because this world is just kind of unfair. But well, I know part of me thought that, and it was wrong, or at least it felt wrong to me.

Or who knows, maybe it was actually insecurity of mine, mabye I felt a sort of imposter syndrome, for being in a better place because all of my circumstances just lined up better, even if he could do just as good a job as me. No idea at this point.

Maybe the other person didn’t even recognize me either, maybe they were happily focused on work and doing their thing. Maybe I just felt bad for being impolite and I am trying to justify myself just to feel better about it somehow.

To make matters more ridiculous. the reason I saw them was because the label on a product had a lower price than the one showing up on the screen, and they showed up to validate the price and change it. So not only did I not say a word to them because I felt bad about being in a “better position” than them, I did so while being a cheapskate who complains about a product being 2 bucks more expensive than what the label said.

Whatever it is, maybe it’s no big deal, maybe they didn’t want to talk to me either, I don’t know, I am terrible when it comes to reading social interactions, I just felt like writing something about it and move on, and well, I just happen to have a place that lets me do that.

This is day 11 of #100DaysToOffload

When heading elsewhere, my mom suddently had the desire to get a new case for her phone, a Redmi Note 11 by the way—a pretty okay midrange device. I have to admit I had zero hopes they would find anything at all, I tried to tell her getting something online going to be much cheaper and that we could find something she actually likes.

No point arguing with mom, she wanted to at least ask, and so we did.

After standing in front of the seller for way too long—I didn’t remember the device name and clumsily searched in the settings for longer than I’d like to admit—I was surprised they didn’t immediately said no. The guy got searching in a few drawers full of cases, under the stand, higher up, checking some sort of index every once in a while.

A few even more agonizing minutes passed where he kept searching but, eventually, he had to give up, tough luck this time around—and then my dad spoke.

My father saw a few cases in a shelf up above that started with “RN”, they were at the bottom of the pile, so only the spines of the boxes could be seen—I have no idea how my father even found them from where we were standing—the guy immediately checked closer and pulled out a couple cases for my mom to choose from.

She picked a golden colored one, and I was absolutely impressed. They did have something in the end, so they earned my respect.

I wasn’t too happy about paying like 10 extra bucks than what the case would cost online, but I digress, I took my losses and got my mom what she wanted.

I’m rather amazed by little moments like this, it really lets me know that even a tech enthusiast such as myself often ends up in a bubble when compared to other people who just use technology without being deeply interested on the latest and greatest.

The Redmi Note devices are fairly popular in some countries—I used to have one myself—and some folks who don’t follow tech as closely as I do, aren’t really tempted or in need of upgrading devices every one or two years, which means that even a device as old as the Note 11 has plenty of accesories and cases made for it, due to the marketshare these phones have among the less techy people.

The same is true for a lot of other things. Most people have not bought a Nintendo Switch 2 yet, most people won’t even realize that a Steam Machine is, plenty of regular folks don’t care their phone is 4 years out of date, and that is absolutely fine. I don’t know why I keep forgetting stuff like this…

My mom has showed signs of wanting a new phone, and I have felt like I should get something new to her, but at the same time, I think all she really needs is a nice factory reset to get her device snappy and fluid as new. I haven’t been the best example when it comes to sticking to a device for a long time, I know, buying like three phones since this blog got started… but alas.

For now, I spent more money than I wanted on a case, my dad has better eyesight than me, I should look at myself in the mirror when it comes to my assumptions, and in any case, my mom is happy.

This is day 5 of #100DaysToOffload

I was inspired by many people, such as Jeremy who was the one who gave me the final push, Jedda who was at it since earlier, or Ariadne, who was among the first I saw!

There’s also Thomas, TK, Tracy (woah that’s three T’s!), Cassie, Sylvia, Sam (wooah that’s CSS!?), and many, many more!

Since the day I started, I’ve asked myself how worth it is it to actually write down stuff like this, the random things that happen day after day, that are just a part of everyone’s life.

I have great friends and fellow bloggers who kind of don’t see the point of it, some people want to portray a certain character to their websites, which is perfectly understandable to me. But hey, my website is mostly about my life, not really just gaming or technology or reviews, if I feel like writing it, I’ll probably end up sharing it here, so weeknotes felt right to me.

Somehow, some people even said I’m part of why they decided to start doing their own weekly notes, a huge honor for me, I must say.

I am always looking forward to see what people are up to week after week sharing their story, slices of a life that are as familiar as they are unrelatable, as fascinating as they are stressful, and as fun as they are a chore. It’s life after all!

This act of documenting our day, each project, idea, event or shenanigan, is just so interesting to me, both to write myself, and to read up from others. My feed reader is almost like a weekly newsletter of everyone’s updates and thoughts, the same topic, and yet different all the time.

Of course, while some people I admire have lost motivation or gotten busy. Some others have continued to be fascinated by the everyday. In the end, not everyone has the time or the energy to commit on a regular basis, priorities are set somewhere else, and that agency is a beautiful thing too.

I will continue to write these for another year, and more, I hope! And I look forward to all of yours as well, to inspire new ones and uncover old ones, because those small parts of life are the ones that make us realize we are all just people living under the same sun, on this pot of land we call earth.

It went well last time so, yeah! I’ll even actually come up with a title that lets me search for whatever I was talking about on the post this time…

Updated Uses Page

Yesterday I took some time to update my uses page! I added some things like my music player and e-reader, as well as some apps, check the changelog at the bottom for a full list, I am not sure why I took so long to change some of the stuff there. Not even my current phone, the Nothing 3(a) was listed yet!

RL Dane suggested me to add my Fountain Pens to the page, but since I only have a couple of them, I don’t really feel like doing so. Besides, I am yet to create a page for my Casio watch collection, and that takes priority at this point in time.

I guess I could just add “Pen” and “Watch” there, list the model and leave it at that. Actually it may be already done by the time you read this post…

Innioasis Y1 shenanigans

I’ve been updating and adding music to my Innioasis Y1 and it’s been quite a fun experience. I keep thinking about switching to Rockbox now, since I am literally a couple of clicks away from giving it a go, but yesterday I forgot the device at the office like an absolute fool, and today I’ll be busy, so the switch to Rockbox won’t happen until the weekend comes.

Another reason I am interested in trying Rockbox is that one of my albums refuses to be displayed properly, no metadata is shown, it’s just the ugly filename, but for some reason three of the songs are getting recognized and grouped properly. I spent a while trying to tag it a certain way, with Kid-3 and MusicBrainz Picard, and even used ffmpeg to re-encode the file on Linux, checked the output with file and metaflac, comparing to working tracks, etc. No idea what happened yet.

Want to know which album is it? The Chrono Trigger soundtrack, dude!

Still loving the device though, my experiment continues!

Jana used Quick Reply!

It’s super effective!

Jana already wrote a reply to my reply with some extra thoughts on the matter. I find myself in a similar situation. During my Mastodon break in August—I wonder how many realized that happened—I uninstalled Tusky and limited myself to using the browser to access Mastodon only if necessary, which should’ve been never to be frank.

Initially it was just logged out, to maybe see posts linked to me in some chat. In the end I ended up logged into my accounts from the web client, and even though I managed to do it more purposefully—since there are no notifications—I still knew I was just getting around it and missing the point.

I’m not sure I want to go all in on splitting everything a phone can do into different pieces of hardware or techniques, but I guess I am kind of already doing it since I got a music playing device, a retro handheld console and my kobo e-reader. Where’s the harm in getting a camera at this point? Hmm…

For now, I’m good.

I actually already participated on this challenge, so in case you missed it or if you are wondering why I have not written anything about it, feel free to check out my answers, the seventh one might surprise you! 🤯

It’s interesting to see how themes come and go, just like how yesterday I wrote about friendships after the discourse going around it for months.

I remember a few years back everyone was talking about a reality without Javascript or CSS (including me), and it sparked a bunch of interest conversations from the webdev blogging scene. Simpler times…

Things come and go all the time, sometimes I was there, and sometimes I didn’t even know they were a thing everyone was discussing.

In a way, it’s nice to be unaware, there is some pressure that comes when everyone is saying something and you feel that you should do the same, but when a theme or idea sparks naturally instead of coming from a bandwagon, it’s nice too, it’s more you.

Anyway, not that long of a blogpost really, just wanted to share some links I guess.

What are some of the challenges or themes you wish to see again?