Podcasts

This month was rather light on podcasting, only listening to 28 hours of podcast episodes, which is less than half compared to January.

• Into The Aether - Same weekly listening as usual! Great things to come such as the PS1 and the PSVita bonues episodes! Some great games talked about here that caught my interest were Danganronpa, Under the Island, and CAIRN.
• Trash Taste - I catched up on a few episodes where they rated the anime taste of their audience, talked about surviving apocalyptic scenarios, and their favorite things of 2025.
• Sir Khan - Listened to some Warhammer 40K lore about the Ultramarines and similar things. Love the audio work on these ones.
• SAYER - Just some episodes I slept to, to be honest.

Gaming

This month I barely touched my Nintendo Switch, with my Anbernic RG35XX SP and my computer taking up most of my gaming time, for once! it’s so weird because it’s the same thing that happened on February of last year!

Completed

• Resident Evil 2 - I didn’t expect for this game to grip me in the way it did, but this classic of survival horror accompanied me during two straight weeks on my commutes to work, and I completed the Leon A and Claire B scenario right on time. The review is up so feel free to check it out! Spoiler: I absolutely loved it and you should give it a try too. This game is so good it may steal a spot on my Top 25, not joking at all, many great mechanics and excellent replay value too.

Started

• Peak - This is a very fun multiplayer game where you cooperate with friends to reach the peak of a mountain! You go through different biomes, find helpful items and try to not die or run out of stamina to keep going! I played with JP for a couple sessions, as well as some friends from Discord.
• Grapple Dog - I had acquired this game last year in the a Humble Bundle and started it on a whim! I’ve done a couple of the worlds already and having a blast. It’s a fun platformer with grappling mechanics, great physics and fun level design.
• Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero? - I only really poked a this one for a second, but it’s a tough as nails platformer similar to Ghosts ‘n Goblins.

Ongoing

• CrossCode - On the last day of the month, I played this one for an hour, which amounted to the most played Switch game of the month. I am making progress though and plan to focus more on it during March.
• Ninja Five-O - I completed all of the easy mode of this game, but I want to give it another go in Normal to access 3 levels that are unavailable to me, and see the true ending of it all.
• Final Fantasy VI - I made some more progress of this SNES classic at last, as I continue to find my friends again and plan to fight against the evil Kefka.
• Donkey Kong - Tried this gem of the original Game Boy, considered to be one of the best puzzle platformers of all time.
• Nintendo Switch Sports - I think we played this for like 15 minutes for a bowling match and then ran out of time.

Reading

Maybe it’s only one book, but it’s more reading that in January, which is a win for me. I read 481 pages for 9 hours, 36 minutes.

• Persepolis Rising - Read up to chapter 31, which makes me super happy, as I finally started to recover from the reading slump I was going through. the pace was kind of slow as well, but it is already starting to pick up and I can’t wait to finish it early in March.

Manga

I enjoyed a great new manga this month, and continued on with some serials. The chapters of Planetes are longer than some other weekly manga, which is why the count seems low. In any case, good progress was made.

Started

• Planetes - Read up to chapter 16. I had this one on my TBR list for a long time, and for some reason I finally decided to give it a go. This is a masterpiece, up there with Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou when it comes to thought-provoking—although not as comfy—manga to read and be engulfed by. A great piece of science fiction about the life of crew of space garbage cleaners in their day to day lives.

Ongoing

• Spy x Family - Read up to chapter 129. Just a couple more chapters with a bit of a focus on comedy and action this time around.
• Blue Lock - Read up to chapter 337. The match against France has begun, and it is already shattering the way Blue Lock has worked so far, the french are giving them a run for it, and Isagi has been rather useless so far. I’m really interested to see how our characters evolve from here!
• DanDaDan - Read up to chapter 224. Really enjoying the progress on this one, and the way the new villain is approaching our protagonists is rather smart as well, I’m looking forward for more developemnt of this arc.

Movies / TV Shows / Anime

I didn’t watch any movies or anime, and I can’t really say I watched any TV Shows either. I pretty much just stuck with whatever my parents or grandma (who has been with us for a whole month now) decided to watch in any given time. I guess we watched some Bones, some The Good Doctor and similar dramas, but only during dinner or lunch time, and never really staying until the end.

I did watch a lot of Resident Evil youtube essays though.

Music

I continue to have pretty much the same taste in music as always, but decided to share the top 5 albums of the month this time around. All of them are videogame soundtracks!

• Plants vs Zombies Soundtrack - Laura Shigihara
• Outer Wilds Soundtrack - Andrew Prahlow
• Hyper Light Drifter Soundtrack - Disasterpiece
• Gris Soundtrack - Berlinist
• Minecraft - Volume Alpha - C418

Goals for March

I think it might be cool to share some goals I want to have this month! To fill these a bit more and just have something to look forward to.

• Survive my workmate asking for like 3 weeks of vacation and leaving it all on my hands.
• Finishing Persepolis Rising by the first week of the month.
• Watching a couple of movies, maybe going to the cinema once.
• Listening to some more City Pop again, maybe find a new artist.
• Completing two videogames! I should go back to Silksong, or play a short videogame like Monument Valley 2, I am also curious on Strange Jigsaws, which I bought on a whim on January…
• Finish, maybe, my relisten of Wolf 359, and writing a review or a post about it.
• Finish season 3 of Dungeons and Daddies, since it’s over and I really should go back to it.

Finishing thoughts

This was the first month where I finally had home office from work again after quite a while, I am so happy because not only does it give me a chance to spend my dead time in other fun things, it is just nice to not wake up early just one more day…

I must say, a lot of my time this month was spent scrolling on social, it is one of the reasons I stopped sharing my device usage this past few months, I have really dropped the ball lately and lost control of my screen usage like crazy. I may need a bit of a detox, if I’m honest. Maybe another monthly challenge to consider…

For now, this is it, good bye!

This is day 23 of #100DaysToOffload

I’m rather impressed with the amount of reading I got done in this regard, it easily balances out the fact I missed my reading goal this year. I started a few very long series, continued with a lot of familiar faces, and even completed a couple of titles that I had been following for a while.

Completed in 2025

Ariadne in the Blue Sky

Start: 2025-08-10 End: 2025-11-09

This started out as a super random choice, if I’m honest, the kind of thing I would have never found if it wasn’t because I checked the page of the artist who worked on Claymore and realized that they also worked on this, which was released later on in 2017.

Ariadne in the Blue Sky leaves the dark fantasy, revenge story of its predecessor and goes for more wholesome setting, a journey through a colorful world full of cities and races to meet and explore, all to fulfill the dream of a girl escaping from her sheltered life dictated by her parents. This is done by teaming up with Lacile, our protagonist, a happy go lucky kid with a mysterious past and the power to weild light as a weapon.

Soon we realize this girl is actually a princess from a floating city in the sky, and multiple people with their own agendas want to capture her, bring her back home, or something in between.

This shonen manga is full of great moments and the story is a mix of fantasy and science fiction, there are many characters that well meet and join the journey. It really was a wonderful story from start to finish, and when the plot unfolds and more serious things start to happen, it only gets better. If I can complain about anything, there are quite a bit of fanservicey panels that made things kinda weird.

Overall, I really, really enjoyed this!

Erased

Start: 2025-11-18 End: 2025-11-19

A young adult struggling through life has the power to rewind time minutes at a time in order to avoid catastrophe. This is triggered by accident though, not at will, and even when he saves the day, he ends up in trouble for it. However, life isn’t that bad, he has dreams of becoming a Manga artist, and does honest work delivering food. Until one day an unexpected event changes everything.

After her mother falls victim to a serial killer and is chased by the police, he’ll be framed as the culprit, and be chased by the police. In the momment, he will accidentally trigger his power and go back—further than ever before—eighteen years in the past, as a child, still in primary school, the time where a series of serial killings happened in his city, by the same man who murdered his mom. He’ll meet and befriend one of the victims and stay close, with the goal of saving them and figure out how to trap the killer, and save his future.

This was absolutely incredible to read, the elements of mystery, mixed with coming of age elements, the nostalgia for being a kid again, the thrill of the chase and the revelations. The way the plot unfolds and of course how the past and the present intertwine, it was a fantastic read. A pretty short manga that I finished in a couple days.

Komi Can’t Communicate

Start: 2021-11-13 End: 2025-12-05

Everyone should know about Komi at this point, one of the most popular rom-com mangas and animes of late. Komi-san is the prettiest girl at school, but she’s also completely unable to hold a conversation. Since she’s so pretty, nobody even tries to approach her anyway, giving her a certain reputation as a serious, prestigious girl.

Of course, she’s just normal, and Tadano sees through this, becomes his friend, and decides to help her on a goal of hers, to make 100 friends in a high school full of weirdos!

This was the first manga I read, I was so new into this I even felt shame for reading a cutesy romance. Honestly, looking back, I’m so happy I gave it a go! It went a little overboard with the amount of characters it handles. Komi and Tadano make a great couple, and I loved the variety of situations they went through. Despite how convoluted it got, I think it stuck the landing really well and it was a wonderful journey to finally complete.

Started in 2025

Hunter x Hunter

Start: 2025-01-23

This is simple. Hunter x Hunter is absolutely my favorite manga this year. A fantastic journey that I started in January and constantly read until I was forced to wait, because it’s currently on hiatus.

This is simply a masterpiece. We follow Gon at first, a young happy go lucky kid that wants to find his dad and follow on his footsteps of becoming a Hunter.

Wait, what are you saying? That’s the most generic and predictable plot ever? Shut up and listen to me.

This is as good as it gets.

There is an artistry to this stuff, and Togashi—the creator of this series—knows this very well. Everytime you think the story will go somewhere, it goes elsewhere, every arc I’ve read of this is unique and a pleasure. If Ariadne manages some great plot twists, flashbacks and the like that move the story forward, HxH will completely flip the script, it will go from a tournament arc to a videogame isekai to a heist to a political intrigue, and of course, the ultimate, the glorious Chimera Ant Arc, one of the most incredible stories I’ve ever read. There are dozens and dozens of chapters where Gon won’t even show up. The whole party of characters is awesome and each have their own incredible journeys, and when they team up? Even better.

Absolutely give this a read, but if you won’t be able to stop like me for more chapters to come out, maybe wait…

Chainsaw Man Part 2

Start: 2025-09-18

If Hunter x Hunter is the ultimate example of what a shonen should be, Chainsaw Man is the ultimate deconstruction of the genre. We don’t have a happy go lucky guy, we got a horny dude who gets combined with the chainsaw devil, and a bunch of other people with emotional issues who also have contracts with devils, all of this to keep other devils in check and humanity alive, or at least try to.

Hunter x Hunter peeks behind the courtains of the stereotypes of the genre many times—and it does so masterfully. However, Chainsaw Man rips off the curtains and presents us a bleak reality where nobody gets what they want just because they are trying their best. I finished the first part of the series ages ago. In Part 2, we get a new protagonist with a life that also sucks, and she blames Chainsaw Man for it. She ends up in terrible situations time after time, and ends up combining with another devil who wants a similar goal, to defeat Chainsaw Man.

The events going on here are funny, horrifying, often full with sexual tension and of course, carnage everywhere. It is not a read for everyone, but it eventually becomes a sort of parody, while also being sort of serious, and having and excentric undertone the whole way through, it feels like the author is perfectly aware of how ridiculous everything is, while still getting us to care about the characters and what sort of lesson will be learned in the end.

Usogui

Start: 2025-03-21

While the weakest of the entries I started this year, this is only because the other two are absolute masterpieces almost from the getgo, while this was a bit of a random pick.

This is a gambling manga with action elements mixed into it. That’s the main draw of this story. It’s not just about a smart guy who makes bets and gets rich. This is a gambler who stakes his life against all odds at every moment.

There are Yakuza-like organizations and plots to cause an economic crisis by launching missiles at some buildings. At the same time there’s a seemingly simple game of Old Maid going on where the loser will end up dead, hanged by the neck.

The one thing that can be kinda rough about this manga is the art. It is completely serviceable, but it’s kinda realistic and kinda off at once, it is a known fact that it will get a lot better later on—just look at some screenshots of some popular panels and they are insane—and I am looking forward to that. Oh, and I only read around 60 chapters so far, and it has more than 500! I will probably stick with it though, it’s kind of hype to see the types of bets and the stakes going on each arc.

Ongoing

• Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End - Still a fantastic journey thus far, but it got in hiatus again and I am caught up. The current arc involves a plot against the most powerful mage alive, a ball room dance and a visit to the longest-lasting empire in the world! It is exhilarating. I love the multiple plots coming together, the “bad guys” are having quite the spotlight as well which makes all the different perspectives of why they want to do what they want to do.

• Kingdom - This is PEAK alongside Hunter x Hunter, but we are dealing with a true Epic with 800+ chapters. We follow the journey of Shin, a slave boy with a dream, who at this point in time has managed to become a general of his own army, fighting for the unification of all of China under the kingdom of Qin. Right now, the biggest war against Zhao, a state opposing this unification, and Riboku, the biggest obstacle, the general who wants to put a stop to it, are battling against our protagonists. Each army has 400,000 men, and the stakes are higher than ever.

• DanDaDan - One of the craziest manga I love to read, the protagonist somehow ended up shrinking and everyone is trying to find a way to cure her, they are on a plane and a giant shark tornado destroys it, they use a giant serpent to go to the eye of the tornado (a literal giant eye) and stop it, I am not sure of what else is going on, but it’s ridiculously fun and actually heartwarming.

• Blue Lock - A new arc approaches, the U-20 World Cup! After some good training, the team is ready to face in the group phase with England, France and Nigeria! Japan is at their best, but will it be enough? Just some epic shots and moments to be found here, super entertaining.

• Spy x Family - The slice of manga prevails! Who cares if the plot doesn’t move forward even an inch? All the characters and side-characters keep getting fleshed out in wonderful ways and I honestly can’t complain at all. One of the most beautiful backstories or romance and tragedy I’ve read happened in a few chapters, and it has been a lovely time.

• My Wife is from a Thousand Years Ago - Wholesome rom-com! I just love it! They finally got married (at least on paper) and now they are just getting ready for a proper wedding and the like (they really took more than a hundred parents for the lady to actually become a wife, but anyway). This just just so fun and wholesome to read, and the fact it is chinese means some interesting cultural stuff happens too.

• Yokohama Kaidashu Kikou - I love this with a passion, you have no idea, I love to read every chapter, I savour them like the sweetest of treats. A hopeful and nostalgic post-apocalyptic land where we follow the peaceful life of Alpha, a robot lady with a coffee shop and a lot of friends. Please please please read this one, it is filled with charm and love, hope and melancholy. I don’t ever want it to end.

• Sakamoto Days - Ultimate action sequences at their best, this is pretty much just a super cool shonen manga to be reading, it doesn’t have the best story but I absolutely love the art and the characters. It has been a while though.

• How to Grill Our Love - A wonderful rom-com manga where the couple is actually married in the first few chapters, and they bond over grilling food. Of course, this also means we get some wonderful art that will get you very hungry. It’s really cute though! I love it.

• The Way of the House Husband - Haven’t gone back to this one in a while, but it’s a very funny comedy manga about an ex-Yakuza who married and lives a normal life as a house husband, but everyone is scared of him and his funny gangster mannerisms.

• Uncle from Another World - I should return to this one too, I just haven’t had the drive for it! It’s a fun one, half isekai, half slice of life. I guess I just got plenty of good fantasy to fill myself.

• One Punch Man - It’s One Punch Man, I don’t need to tell you anymore. It’s always a sight to behold, even if the story is a little bit wonky right now.

Finishing thoughts

What a great year it was for my manga I must say, I absolutely loved a lot of my ongoing series, but the highlight has to go to Hunter x Hunter, what a wonderful discovery, I wish I had started it earlier but at the same time I didn’t because I don’t wanna be waiting forever for the next chapter.

The fact that Komi Can’t Communicate is over is also kind of crazy for me, and the other two mangas I finished were awesome too for completely different reasons.

Looking forward to how this year goes!

This is day 3 of #100DaysToOffload

I also wrote quite a few blog posts in between the weeknotes and the reviews, which makes me quite happy. Still not as many as March, but that was just a really good streak that broke by the last half, compared to the consistency of this month. I’m happy!

Overall, it was a rollercoaster of emotions, my sister currently studying abroad visited, my parents were travelling for a variety of reasons, my birthday happened, and at the same time, it just felt kind of normal, weird stuff.

Regardless, here is the media I enjoyed throughout the month.

Podcasts

I listened to a total of 57 hours of podcasts! It’s been a relatively quiet month, to be honest.

• Welcome to Night Vale - For sleep and not much else, but sometimes the plot is so good I relisten.
• Into The Aether - Some great episodes, they recently got rid of ads and went indie again, love it.
• Darknet Diaries - I listened to many great stories, Shannen’s (Ep. 145) was my favorite.
• The Ten Minute Bible Hour - Now at chapter 12 of Matthew, but it remains super interesting.
• Retro Game Time Machine - The episodes on Left 4 Dead was fun, I always wanted to try it.
• Dotzip - The 5 hour long episode about 1000xRESIST, it was beautiful and glorious.
• The Worst Community Report - Just some fun banter from people in the Discord server I’m a part of.

Movies

There were a lot of movies this time around, like, I don’t think I’ve watched as many movies in a single month since I started doing monthly summaries! I’ve been thinking that I already dedicate a paragraph or so to all of these on my weeknotes, so I’ll just stick to one-sentence reviews from now on for media, I think.

• A Minecraft Movie - Fun, ridiculous, but uncanny animation, Jack Black has fun.
• How To Train Your Dragon 3 - Perfect finale, an amazing trilogy and closure to the characters.
• Arrival - Cool concepts and amazing visuals with some mind-bending moments.
• The Fugitive - Cool thriller with Harrison Ford being chased by Tomy Lee Jones, it can only be fun.
• Tangled - Probably the best of the 3D Disney animation movies? Great songs too.
• Transformers One - This was a great prequel/origin story and I love it, a rewatch.
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - Pure nostalgia for me, amazing VFX for the time though.
• World War Z - A zombie movie where they go fast, what were they thinking?
• Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning - Thrilling action sequences, convoluted talks in between.

Anime

It is always a good month when I actually get to complete an anime show, which was the case this time. Even if I don’t know if it was best use of my time, I still think that if I enjoyed it, it was worth it.

Completed

• Solo Leveling - Good adaptation, meh animation but it gets a lot better on season two, epic finale.

Ongoing

• Mashle Season 2 - Really fun, I love the dub localization, it just makes me laugh, but the action is cool.
• Death Note - Only three episodes in, but yeah, it’s good! I am going slowly for no real reason, hmm.

Manga

Quite a few ongoing series! And of course, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou! I’ve been having a lot of fun with all these.

• Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou - Simply perfect read for the turbulent times of today. Just amazing.
• How to Grill Our Love - Wholesome side-character stories for now, still great and cozy.
• Hunter x Hunter - Catching up and slowing down, the plot just keeps thickening, good stuff.
• One Punch Man - Finally returned to this. New arc is developing, Saitama remains OP.
• Sakamoto Days - Fully catched up now, and I am on cliff-hanger, oof. Still, top-notch action here.
• DanDaDan - Ridiculously fun arc with tornadoes, while still having incredible character development.

Books

One finished, one started, not bad, not great. Will the day come when I can read as much as others?

• The Big Time - What a weird book to have finished, an interesting work for its time, but confusing for me, as a non-native speaker.
• Nemesis Games - Finally started the fifth book of The Expanse. This is off to a great start, since all the characters of the crew are having their own concurrent arcs right now, and they are quite fun and distinct from previous adventures.

Gaming

Yeah I just love videogames, what an incredible medium. The games I completed represent many facets of my taste and I had a blast with all of them. It is extremely weird for me to just roll credits three times in a month, but it was worth it.

Completed

• 1000xRESIST - Maybe my favorite game this year? It definitely looks like it.
• Ys: The Oath in Felghana - An incredible action rpg that ticks all the boxes, recommended.
• Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow - What a Metroidvania, an amazing entry that’s remains among the best.

Ongoing

• Hollow Knight - I am in the endgame now, exploring as many corners I can find because I want to enjoy this game as much as possible. I will face the final boss some time soon! Maybe some of the extra bosses as well.
• Dragon Quest XI - Still charmed by this story, I played hours this month, and I’ve made it to a pretty big moment of the story. This game just sparks joy.
• Final Fantasy VI - I also progressed a lot here, made it to the second half of the game, and it’s so good, holds up great today. Gotta level up my characters though.
• Full Metal Furies - The current choice with my couch gaming friends. it’s been great to fight cool bosses and hordes of enemies.
• Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade - I didn’t really play it much, but I intend to complete the story this month to be done with it.
• Monster Hunter Rise - Did a high rank mission and realized I really need to upgrade my equipment.
• Super Mario 3D World - Just some levels here and there.

Shelved

• Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver Remastered - I got this on Steam but it got picked for October in my gaming club, so I decided to play it until then, the original voice acting and the remastered graphics are super good though.

Device Usage

Laptop

I used my laptop for a total of 75 hours. Not a lot to say here, I use my computer at work a lot more lately, for obvious reasons.

• Firefox for 37 hours
• Zen Browser for 14 hours
• Alacritty for 10 hours
• Signal for 2 hours
• PPSSPP for 1 hour

Phone

I used my phone for a total of 252 hours. That is definitely a problem, I’ve been way too active on Fosstodon and Polymaths Social this time. At least I cut down on YouTube consumption and the like. I also returned to some mainstream social media lately, but at least I didn’t use them much, ugh.

• Tusky for 42 hours
• Fennec for 41 hours
• Mattermost for 28 hours
• Tubular for 25 hours
• Signal for 21 hours
• Discord for 17 hours
• WhatsApp for 16 hours
• Mihon for 8 hours
• Instagram for 7 hours
• Lite for 5 hours
• Reddit for 2 hours

Kobo

Not a lot of reading compared to other months, it’s a bit of a shame, but it’s the cost of finishing so many videogames! Time ends up going somewhere else.

I read 291 pages in 6 hours and 10 minutes

• The Big Time for 2 hours and 10 minutes, 96 pages
• Nemesis Games for 4 hours, 195 pages

Final thoughts

Not a lot to add this time around. I hope you guys have a great day. Thank you for reading this post. What were you up to this month?

This is day 92 of #100DaysToOffload

Extremely prolific on the blogging side of things, with a total of 17 posts. Which may be less than some other months this year, but still feels like I was pretty consistent overall, and I wrote a couple of new favorites, that gathered quite a lot of attention and conversation from fellow peers. Such as my post on the constant need for a source of entertainment or my feed organization issues.

Of course, my phone decided to start failing on me, so I ended up migrating to a new device, the Xiaomi 12T Pro, and it has been a prety mixed experience, but I am overall happy with the performance and the slightly more degoogled life.

I also managed to start and continue conversations via email and messaging apps with plenty of people from the Fediverse and online friends. Hello to all of you!

And of course I bought a new desk and mechanical keyboard, I reorganized my bedroom and a upgraded my old laptop from Fedora 37 to 42 on a single day (actually, it was right now, but I might write about it anyway).

Overall, a lot of crazy things. For now, let’s go over some of the media that I enjoyed throughout May.

Podcasts

• Into The Aether - I have enjoyed a lot of the new episodes, Brendon is on vacation so there have been some nice guests for a couple of episodes. I literally don’t miss a week at this point, it’s a great show.
• Welcome to Night Vale - Just the regular bedtime listening, although a couple of the episodes proved engaging enough, so that I relistened to them on my way to work.
• Dungeons and Daddies - Finally got full in to Season 3 of this show. I am extremely engaged now and it has been a hilarious time. I listened to like 4 or 5 episodes this month and it was a joy! I didn’t think it would, but it hooked me again.
• The Ten Minute Bible Hour - Still reading Matthew 10 after like a year, but I am here for it. Honestly, some very good episodes lately!
• Sir Khan - I had a mini craze for Warhammer 40K again, so I listened to a long episode of this show to scratch that itch.
• NPC & XL - I have been listening to every episode of this podcast so far, it is almost a ritual for me, although it’s also an extremely tempting show, almost dangerous to me.

Movies

• Thunderbolts* - A fantastic superhero team movie, I genuinely enjoyed it. Finally, a good movie where heroes have problems and where there’s actual people to be saved. It has been way too long without one of these, a must watch in my opinion.
• Blackjack 21 - A movie I watched in two weekends, it was a pretty interesting and kinda silly premise of a bunch of nerds (who are way too attractive to be nerds) are in a group of card counting (lead by their teacher) and the main guy wants to make money for Harvard so he bets on 21, the card game. It was kinda whacky but an OK time.
• Karate Kids: Legends - Went to the movies to watch Jackie Chan again, I was so happy. This movie goes way too fast and makes a ton of weird decisions and skips over way too many things. But when a fight happens, it’s just a delight, you can tell where the choreography comes and is inspired by, and it was all just plain fun. Watching Danie LaRusso was also pretty fun, as well as the post-credits scene!

Anime & TV Shows

• The Last of Us Season 2 - Oh boy I pretty much didn’t like the direction this went on. I already knew what happens in the game but I really thought it could be different this time, but man, this was just so mixed for me, the visual effects were amazing sometimes and absolute trash other times, the deus ex machinas were way too much this time around. I will probably keep watching the next season because my sister wants to, I would stop if I were by myself.
• Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 & 3 - Finished watching this show for the second time, it was a complete joy. My favorite anime, most likely. I really recommend giving this one a try, as it really is some of the best character development I have ever seen in any story.
• Dr. Stone Season 4 - The latest season of Dr. Stone really takes the science to the next level. Now that they are on their way to the United States, our party will have to face against another group of humans who have developed science even further than them. The development of the story here is quite fun, and I really enjoyed it, although I had to turn off my brain a couple of times.
• Weak Hero: Class 1 - I initially hated this show, it was so different than the manwha, which is some of the best I’ve read. Turns out, and I realized after a couple episodes, that this is a prequel, and expands on the story quite a bit. So, I ended up really respecting what it did, although I heard the second season is a mess that tries to fit the rest of the story in like 8 episdoes, so, no thanks.

Manga

• A Rare Marriage: How to Grill our Love - Up to chapter 89. This has always been a pretty wholesome manga to read, it’s a slice of life romance comedy about the shenanigans of a newly wed couple who bond over cooking, and other things! It’s just a nice comfy read.
• Hunter × Hunter - Up to chapter 374. The arc has finally begun, this arc is quite different to the rest, there is political intrigue, there is murder, it’s a bit of a whodunnit, new ways to use nen, it has a lot of good stuff so far.
• DanDaDan - Up to chapter 189. I only read a few chapters, and it’s as bonkers as ever, I just love these characters, although I didn’t read that many chapters this time.

Books

I finished:

• Cibola Burn: Can I really say more about a book from The Expanse series? I have already written my review for it, and since it’s already the 4th one, I included spoilers, since they are quite unavoidable at this point. It is a pretty great continuation for the story, although, somehow, I felt like the stakes were slightly lower this time, but that’s what happens when most of the plot happens in a single planet instead of in a solar system level scale. Good stuff and great new and returning characters!
• The Space Merchants: An amazing book that holds up despite its age, the review is already out too. This is a great satire about a guy in the upper echelon of society, thanks to his job as a copysmith for an huge advertising business. Now he has to advertise Venus as the next frontier for Humanity, but his plans will go south. Good stuff.

And started:

• The Big Time: At first I was a bit confused by it, since its style is older, more classic than Space Merchants. However, after some dictionary lookups, I quickly got into the plot of this tale, about a battle across time between the Spiders and the Snakes, two mysterious groups that have fought since times unknown, all of this from the perspective of some really strange characters living in The Place, an area outside of time where warriors go to rest after their countless battles.

Gaming

• Dragon Quest XI - The story has had some amazing developments, I have escaped from some people that wanted to capture me, I decided to go to Costa Valor, so I can open the gates to the open sea and navigate towards new places to explore. The objective of the game is now clear, to find the 6 gems that will lead me towards Ygdrassil, a huge tree that seems to be quite important to the world at large, and my destiny as the Luminary. I’m quite happy to see what’s next!
• Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow - I have explored more and more of the castle, defeating plenty of bosses and getting new equipment. I faced some interesting blocked pathways that made me realize my soul skills can be used for more than just offense or defense, but to go through obstacles in fun ways. I unlocked some new abilities like turning into a bat, and one of the strongest swords in the game.
• Ys: The Oath in Felghana - I have reached the final door for the last boss fight. I still haven’t gone in, because I still want to farm to upgrade my equipment and get new weapons. This has been quite a journey and I really want to beat it sometime this week.
• Final Fantasy VI - I only played this one for a bit, I am on my way to the Sealed Gate, traversing through a dangerous cave filled with lava pits and traps. I think I am close to the exit though enemies here are quite annoying, since they have lots of health and the easiest way to defeat them uses a lot of mana.
• Hollow Knight - I barely played anything this time, but I really look forward to play more of it sometime soon, I guess my Metroidvania slot is currently filled with Aria of Sorrow!
• Full Metal Furies - We managed to advance to the second world/area and have had a blast unlocking new moves for each of our characters.
• Astro Boy: Omega Factor - I am still playing some stages of this game, it’s just a fun beat ‘em up to play during my commute to work.
• Solomon’s Club - Another little Game Boy game with one-screen puzzle levels that are quite fun. I have mentioned it before but I hadn’t played it in a while, just simple gameplay and mechanics, not much else.
• Hades - I did a couple of runs, but I haven’t really done any more progress other than some interesting story bits and buying new stuff for the House of Hades.
• Final Fantasy VII - Barely played anything of this one, but I had some fun setting up my Anbernic handheld with bluetooth controls and HDMI output and exploring the Gold Saucer to get some item I need to continue the story!

Device Usage

Mobile

I used my phone for 155 hours

• Tusky for 25 hours
• Signal for 17 hours
• Fennec for 17 hours
• WhatsApp for 14 hours
• Tubular for 13 hours
• Discord for 8 hours
• K-9 Mail for 5 hours
• Instagram for 5 horus
• Bottled for 5 hours
• Mihon for 5 hours
• Element X for 4 hours

Laptop

I used my laptop for 96 hours

• Zen Browser for 45 horus
• Firefox for 15 hours
• Alacritty for 12 hours
• Thunderbird for 3 hours
• Signal for 3 hours
• Inkscape for 2 hours

Kobo

I read for a total of 11 hours

• The Big Time for 3:16 hours (123 pages)
• The Space Merchants for 5:03 hours (263 pages)
• Cibola Burn for 2:15 hours (107 pages)

This is day 75 of #100DaysToOffload

Manga remains as one of my favorite sources of entertainment and story-telling, I can read it almost anywhere, at any time, in short bursts or for a whole day. Chapters range from 20 to 50 pages, can be read in a few minutes, they are easy to pause and resume without losing the plot, the visuals of course contribute and provide information beyond words about whatever is going on in the story, it’s such a simple thing. And while comics in general are, I have found the simplicity of the black and white and the diversity of the stories in manga to be very enjoyable to me.

Although I kept up with most of the manga series I follow, I didn’t complete as many as last year, since most of the current manga I read is still ongoing. Regardless, here’s an overview of everything manga related!

Completed

I can count the manga I completed with only one hand, that’s quite sad, but I guess it makes sense. This year I finished a lot of manga above 100 chapters, and the previous year many series I finished were below 50 or 20 chapters in some cases, so it’s all a matter of perspective! Some of the manga I completed this year was really good! while others were kinda bad and all over the place. So, let’s start from the bottom.

Creature

I took my time on this one, simply because it shifted what it was about way too much, I could have finished it in 2023 but I lost a lot of momentum during the last couple of volumes, until I decided to be done with it.

It starts out really interesting, with a bunch of monsters coming down from the depths and attacking Japan, there’s lots of chaos and people are trying to survive, there’s creatures of gigantic size, and swarms of smaller ones as well, danger everywhere, people dying everywhere, fighting for survival against impossible odds.

Somehow, it evolves into a power fantasy where the protagonist awakens some power ranger stuff and fights the monsters, then he has a daughter, then they make a cloning machine to make copies of him, then they clone some other guy who goes crazy, then some cosmic horror stuff is going on with creatures that are the size of Japan itself and then, and then, and then. I don’t know what’s happening but at least its over and it was quite the trip.

From here on, I can recommend all the manga I completed! Rejoice! Now on to the next one.

I started it in August 25th, 2023 and completed it in August 7th, 2024.

Remina

I read this because I wanted to check out more works by Junji Ito, and this one seemed to tick a lot of boxes for me; it is kind of science fiction, and it has some cosmic horror elements on it! It takes place in future Japan, and it’s about the discovery of a planet or star—can’t quite remember—that ends up coming closer and closer to Earth at a disruptive pace. This is kept a secret for a while, but eventually the truth is revealed, and panic kicks in.

The whole world goes crazy. An expedition is sent to intercept and explore the planet as well, and they face horrors beyond description. Remina, named after the daughter of the scientist who discovered it, became a celebrity while the planet was still far, but now people start to think they should sacrifice her to get the planet to stop. It is all a mess, mass hysteria kicks in, and a lot of other things happen, it was only 6 or so chapters long so I think it’s worth a read if you can stomach the bizarre moments that are a staple of Ito’s style.

I finished this one in two days, from March 15 to March 16, 2024.

Just Listen to the Song

This one is a one-shot, about how things get taken out of proportion when people don’t enjoy things for what they are and stuff. The story itself is about a guy singing a song for a girl he likes on video, the girl refuses and instead publishes the video online. From there, theories about why the video exists pop up, conspiracies about ghosts appearing on it, what happens if they play it backwards and stuff like that. It was an interesting insight on how people can go too far on such simple things, when they could just listen to the song. I completed it on May 3rd.

Jujutsu Kaisen

I technically didn’t finish this one in 2024, but it’s close enough so I would rather mention it here. I think this is a pretty good action manga where Jujutsu sorcery is a thing and sorcerers fight evil spirits and the like, the story is much more than that of course. The concepts is cool, and the character design is epic, the overall plot is quite neat. However, I had a really hard time following some of the action, and there was a lot of lore and exposition that ruined some of the pacing for me.

I think the anime is better than the source material in this case. Regardless, I read all of it, and I thought it was pretty entertaining. I also read the original one-shot that would become Jujutsu Kaisen 0.

I started it on September 11th, 2024, and completed it in January 2nd, 2025

Death Note

If you grew up during the 2000s, you definitely heard of Death Note thanks to the anime’s popularity. Every edgy teenager in school had a notebook with the death note design, and all this time I just didn’t care much about it, however I decided to read the manga right before Christmas for some reason, and I loved it!

The story is about LIght Yagami, an ace student who gets a strange notebook, and any person whose name you write in it, will die. He decides to become a paragon of justice and rid the world of criminals and evil. As the mysterious murders continue, L, the best detective in the world, decides to find the cuprit behind it all. This story develops in fantastic ways, secrets are uncovered, plans are developed and the rules behind the Death Note are uncovered. It was so gripping, I finished it in a matter of days. Just read it, it holds up well! It does have some annoying fan-service moments, but other than that, it’s awesome!

I also read the short stories and one-shot related to it!

I begun this one on December 24th, and completed it by the 29th.

Monster

If Death Note seems too edgy, or even too over the top, that’s fair. Before it, I read another thrilling story full of twists and turns and with a very different tone to it.

Monster is one of the best works I’ve read in the medium. I think it is probably one of the best introductions to manga a person can have. It is the story of a surgeon who tries to do the best and help people, be a good person, until he chooses to save the life of a little kid, and that decision developes into a whole conspiracy against him, where he is framed for murder and persecuted by the police. He decides to take action to prove his innocence, and the plot develops further.

There is a lot to love here. The characters are great, the plot is absolutely thrilling, the revelations, the twists, the art, everything is masterfully crafted into a story that reaches beyond what people think of “comics but japanese”.

If you are only going to read one manga in your life, Monster is among the best choices, In fact, it’s probably too good compared to lots of others, so if you intend to read more, maybe save it for later, because it will set the bar too high for the rest.

This one I started it on December 14, 2023, and finished it on June 24, 2024.

New Ongoing Reads

I actually didn’t really start many new series. I started JJK and Death Note in 2024 but most of the time I kept up with manga I was already reading. Still, there’s a couple new things!

Uncle from Another World

I had a lot of fun watching the anime of this, and I decided to give the manga a go as well! I was laughing all the time, especially because the protagonist is a Sega fanboy and there’s lots of references that just made me chuckle. The story itself is about a grown up guy who lived in a Fantasy world while on a coma in the real world, and once he woke up he lives with his nephew and shares stories of how things went, however, he is socially inept, can’t take any hint, misjudges situations and ends up in trouble all the time, since he can use magic now, he has a spell to visualize his memories, and his nephew always cringes at how horrific his choices were, even if things kind of worked out in the end.

It’s a total parody of the Isekai genre and I quite like it, but I haven’t continued reading it much until now in 2025, it does have some fan service moments, but it kind of gets away with it…? Not really, but it’s funny.

Elfen Lied

I don’t know why, I felt like reading something kinda dark and more mature and I found this one, it’s about a girl that has mysterious powers, and has been locked down in some military lab. When the story starts, she manages to escape, killing everyone in her way in gruesome ways using her telekinetic powers, because of this, she’s completely unstoppable, and anyone who approaches her simply dies.

She ends up in the shore of some beach in Japan and some guy finds her and decides to protect her, she apprently lost her memories of her escape. It has some mystery and things to uncover but I stopped reading it for quite a while, the art wasn’t my cup of tea.

Shadow Star

This is another manga that is kind of similarly dark, I found it in a random YouTube Short (I am trying to not watch them anymore, but alas) and the premise seemed interesting. What if kids had Pokémon and used them for evil? It’s not quite the same, but it’s still about kids who have creatures called shadow dragons—most of them don’t look like dragons at all—and well, they want to take control of the world and get rid of society as we know it.

There’s quite a lot of unsettling events that happen in this story. The protagonist is one of those super optimistic ones, except that she has no idea of the real danger she’s in. Some of the situations here are really bleak and terrifying. I kinda want to keep reading it as well, but the pacing suffers a bit, and I don’t really like the art.

Regular reads

Last, the reads I’ve been following for years now, that I started before and I still read whenever a new chapter shows up. All of these are pretty good and you should check them out!

• Kingdom: I keep talking about Kingdom, because it really is the best of the best. This manga is absolutely fantastic. A truly epic story, fantastic characters, incredible art and thrilling military action. It is the whole package, it’s majestic.
• Frieren: This one makes me reflect about life and how fragile it is, but it also makes me happy to be alive. I love the story here, it is charming and it also has great action moments and visuals. The characters are so wonderful and I love their dynamic, it’s really good.
• Yokohama Kaidashi Kihou: This one is absolutely wonderful, it is a slice of life manga about an android who owns a coffee shop and lives a quiet life after catastrophe striked and most of modern civilization was lost, the remaining people just live in peace one day at a time. It’s a wonderful work, filled with simple, yet toughtful moments that linger in my mind after every chapter. I don’t read this one often, I don’t want it to end.
• Sakamoto Days: This one is action, like, superb, rule of cool as it gets action. You follow a retired hitman who just wants to protect his family, and he’s the best! And not only that, but all the characters are so loveable and it has genuinely heart warming moments.
• DanDaDan: Now that the anime came out, I read more and more of this and liked it a lot! It has great action and some crazy moments, it is totally unhinged, but it’s not afraid to commit to what it starts and it some how pays off.
• Komi Can’t Communicate: I haven’t read much of Komi as of late, but when I do it remains as cute and funny as ever. I kind of lost the thread of what is going on sometimes, because there are chapters that focus on different characters and that goes on for a bit until we go back to Komi and Tadano. Still, it is nice.
• One Punch Man: This is still as fun as ever! But I admit I lost a lot of momentum reading it, because once I start I can’t stop, and I have to wait for months for new chapters to release so I can continue bingereading them all. It’s One Punch Man, you know how it is.
• Fly Me To The Moon: This one is a bit of a romcom manga but it has quite a bit of mystery as well, it manages to be intriguing and also rather fun, I like it!
• Blue Lock: This is the current sports manga I’ve been reading, it’s just cool. It is starting to get a tiny bit repetitive at the moment, but I feel like the plot should move forward after the chapters I’ve been going through lately.
• Heavenly Delusion: This one is a fantastic mystery/science fiction/horror story that does a lot of very interesting things. I can’t help but devour the chapters when I get into it. The post-apocalyptical setting, the truth behind everything, it is a very unique story in the medium.
• How to Grill our Love: Just another slice of life manga about a young married couple who enjoy food and cooking. It makes me hungry when I read it, and it’s just kind of wholesome.
• My Wife is from a Thousand Years Ago: This one is actually chinese, and it’s also a romcom about what the title says, except they still don’t get married because she doesn’t have an id, and it’s China, so it’s a pain to get one. Still, it makes me laugh a lot but it probably is the least good of all the ones listed here.

Final thoughts

Overall, not too bad! It took me a while to finally publish this recap, I think I still have to do one for anime and then I’ll be done, ready for the overall overview of the year. I hope it goes well

This is day 7 of #100DaysToOffload

December was fun! I had vacation time, the first time I’ve been on vacation since I started working, it has been pretty fun! I went to visit my family in Veracruz, in a small town there where my grandparents on my dad’s side used to live. I visited aunts, uncles, cousins and such, I had a great time.

Besides everything mentioned here, I also played quite a bit of tabletop games, such as Mexican Train, Exploding Kittens, Uno and the like.

Podcasts

This month was pretty similar to November, mostly listening while asleep and such so, yeah…

• Welcome to Night Vale for 20.2 hours. Sleep lots of random episodes, good stuff.
• Retro Game Time Machine for 10.3 hours. I have to admit I don’t even remember which episodes of this I listened to, oops.
• Into The Aether for 9.3 hours. Apparently the new Indiana Jones game is insanely good, aldo Dragon Quest III is the only game tempting me to buy it, I will probably fall for it.
• Dungeons and Daddies for 5.6 hours. The story is getting fun again now that a new character showed up and is so chaotic and fun I love this.
• Trash Taste for 4.9 hours. Their episode rambling on tabletops games with ProZD was absolutely fun!
• Late Night Linux Family for 4.8 hours. Just the regular news and events and developer linuxy things.
• NPC: Next Portable Console for 4.4 hours. Listening to Brandon and friends talking about handhelds is always fun, there’s something about the audio that is really bothering me though, like white noise or something.

  Manga

  Lots of manga was read this month, it was really nice to have during my vacation trip.

• Death Note: I completed this manga in a matter of days, it is a very interesting story where we follow Light Yagami, as he finds a notebook that will kill any person whose name’s written in it. Yagami is an ace student and intends to bring justice and rid the world of evil, until L, the greatest detective, decides to find the culprit of these mysterious murders. This was a fantastic read! I understand why it was so popular back in the day, kinda want to watch the anime next. I also read all the official short stories.
• Jujutsu Kaisen: I read lots of JJK this time, up to chapter 224, the action is great but I really think that a lot of things are happening just for the sake of the plot without much justification, some things are explained afterwards but its been a little hard to follow. Still, the action rocks!
• DanDaDan: I am still reading this and I caught up to the manga, its very fun and some crazy stuff is happening. I keep enjoying it a lot.
• Frieren Beyond Journey’s End: I also caught up to this, I just love these characters, and the stakes of the adventure are quite good, it’s thrilling, I want to keep reading!
• Kingdom: The new arc is evolving quite nicely, there’s been a bunch of politics and non-action sequences that I still enjoy, and it looks like war is upon us soon enough as well, epic.
• Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou: I read a couple of chapters of it this month, always enjoyable and nostalgic somehow, I will keep reading this at my own pace, monthly mayhaps.

Movies

• Gladiator 2: We went to the movies to watch this one and I kinda liked it, it was a nice movie to eat popcorn to. We went to a really fancy cinema that was twice as expensive as normal, I don’t know why, but we could still afford it so it wasn’t that bad, besides, the seats were super comfortable, and the popcorn was really good. The movie was OK.

Gaming

Since I decided to complete 5 games before I buy one, I’ve been working hard at it to finish some games soon!

• Hollow Knight: I made a lot of progress in this game already, playing it for around 15 hours, I have enjoyed it a lot. It is quite the challenge but I still really like the atmosphere and the gameplay quite a bit.
• Hades: This game as proved to be much more fun than I thought this last two months compared to when I started it early in the year, I really should have given it a proper chance to evolve more and play it more consistently, hopefully I beat it once this month.
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: I keep dropping this game for long times and then playing it for 3 hours straight, I really think I’ll finish it this month though, hopefully.
• Super Smash Bros Ultimate: The usual party fighting game I play every sunday with friends, what’s not to love?
• Super Mario Bros Wonder: I played this solo for a bit throughout the month, really fun platforming, may finish it by March if I don’t forget to play it or something else shows up.
• Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury: I’ve not played it since the last time I mentioned it weeks ago, but I played it this month, so here it is.
• Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword: I played like 10 hours of this game this month, it is absolutely amazing, although I admit I have made a lot of use of save states, since I don’t want my characters to die.
• Final Fantasy VI: I finally returned to this game for a little bit, I also watched a 15-hour long playthrough of it that literally ended where I stopped playing, so that’s fun.

Books

My goal this year was 12 books, and I somehow managed to finish 3 in December, making for a total of 15!

• Caliban’s War: Fantastic continuation for the series, I will read the next one now that the new year has begun! Not much more needs to be said, I really enjoyed it, the world building keeps being top notch!
• Farewell Earth’s Bliss: A dark, bleak future where humans colonize Mars by sending criminals sentenced to live in isolation in the red planet, where a society of convicts has developed. An interesting work with no optimism to be found.
• Roadside Picnic: An amazing take where aliens came to Earth, and then left without further to do, abandoning a bunch of junk and scrap behind, technology beyond human comprehension. The characters move the story forward on this one, a simply fantastic read.

Device Usage

I used my phone, my Kobo and my Anbernic handheld quite a bit, the latter doesn’t have a time activity tracker yet though, but here is what my other devices say.

Laptop

I used my laptop for a total of 76 hours, I was away from it for more than a week, so it only makes sense!

• Firefox for 52 hours
• Alacritty for 7 hours
• Inkscape for 4 hours
• Calibre for 3 hours

Phone

I used my phone for 190 hours, I was on vacation without my computer, so it only makes sense.

• YouTube for 56 hours
• Mihon for 30 hours
• Signal for 16 hours
• WhatsApp for 15 hours
• Firefox for 14 hours
• Tusky for 13 hours
• Discord for 11 hours

Kobo

I read for 27 hours! Almost 30, but didn’t manage to

• Roadside Picnico for 7:53 hours, 484 pages
• Farewell, Earth’s Bliss for 7:14 hours, 444 pages
• Caliban’s War for 11:40 hours, 762 pages

Finishing thoughts

Anyway, after this I’ll work on the rest of posts looking back at 2024, those should be fun! I only need to dedicate some time to them, I have lots of pending tasks to complete right now…

Oh right, and this shall be day 1, of the fourth run of #100DaysToOffload!

Podcasts

This month was quite regular when it comes to my podcast listening. Also to save you time, I wil use the ✨ emoji when new or uncommon stuff shows up in my media.

• ✨ The Nerd Nest for 1.8 hours, this is a new one! I wanted to give a listen to their Game Awards episode and liked it.
• Welcome to Night Vale for 20 hours. Lots of sleeping listening to this podcast for once, I think I forgot to setup the sleep timer one day.
• Retro Game Time Machine for 7 hours. They’ve been doing some very interesting games lately, including Super Mario RPG!
• Dungeons and Daddies for 5.4 hours. I finally finished a couple of episdoes, but I’m still behind on the 3rd season.
• Into The Aether for 5.2 hours, because of course I listen to them!
• The Rest is History for 3.8 hours, I listened to some of their episodes on 1968, awesome stuff.
• NPC: Next Portable Console for 2.4 hours, just regularly scheduled episodes.

Gaming

• ✨ Hollow Knight: This is my current focus now that I finished PoP, and I want to beat it alongside my friends who are trying it too.
• ✨ Balatro: I returned to this for a bit to play with friends and talk about the best poker plays and jokers to try out.
• ✨ Lumines Remastered: I did a single run of Lumines and I managed to get into my own top 10 runs, but didn’t beat my PB yet.
• ✨ I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: I played this game for like 5 hours last week and advanced the story quite a bit.
• Dragon Quest XI: I continued playing this game for a bit more, I am really liking it but it has been displaced a little bit.
• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown: I finished this game, I love it, check my review of it.
• Nintendo Switch Sports: I play this with friends and my sibling sometimes and it’s super fun!

Books

• Caliban’s War: I started this book and I’m on chapter 20 of it, I am really liking it, it’s the sequel to Leviathan Wakes and it’s just as good so far.
• Leviathan Wakes: I finished this book, check my review early this month.
• Black Easter: I finished this book, liked it a bit less but it was still quite good.

Manga

• JuJutsu Kaisen: I’ve read a lot of JJK, I am beyond the season 2 of the anime and it gets so good.
• DanDaDan: I am loving this and I still don’t watch the anime but I’ve seen some shorts and I might watch it soon.
• Kingdom: I read a couple chapters, always a joy and super epic.

Device Usage

I am using my phone too much, and my laptop not enough, I have uninstalled some apps recently and I hope that helps, I will probably unsubscribe from YouTube Premium honestly, and cut on my messaging as well.

Laptop

I used my laptop for 71 hours

• Firefox for 52 hours
• Alacritty for 8 hours
• Signal for 1 hour

Phone

I used my phone for 221 hours

• WhatsApp for 53 hours
• YouTube for 43 hours
• Signal for 24 hours
• Bottled for 18 hours
• Tusky for 14 hours
• Firefox for 10 hours
• Discord for 9 hours
• Mihon for 8 hours

E-Reader

I read for 17 hours, gotta go for 30 next time.

• Caliban’s War for 7:38 hours, 485 pages
• Black Easter for 3:14 hours, 156 pages
• Leviatan Wakes for 5:10 hours, 333 pages

Finishing thoughts

I made a lot of blog posts because of #WritingMonth, not my best streak at all, but still filled with variety and the start of my week notes as well.

I think I will try to focus on reading more, it’s been a little difficult to balance out my gaming and my reading, but I think there’s a way, maybe calendar blocking or something like that? I don’t know. Should I plan this out some more? maybe. For now, it is now December, and I’ll see what this month brings, lots of gifts I hope!

This is day 96 of #100DaysToOffload

I have to say that during this month I felt like I didn’t listen to that many new podcasts, or new episodes at all, I actually didn’t reach 60 hours of listening this month, and stuck with the same shows as always.

I can’t really say a lot of new stuff or highlights about these since I mention them every month, so yeah, just the names this time

• Into The Aether for 15.1 hours
• Trash Taste for 10.6 hours
• Welcome to Night Vale for 6.9 hours
• Late Night Linus for 5.3 hours
• Retro Game Time Machine for 3.3 hours
• Unexplained for 2.4 hours

Movies

Even though I didn’t really watch any anime or shows this time around, I did watch more movies than usual, which was quite interesting to me.

• Transformers One was not a movie I expected to like enough to even write a review of it, it is actually a fantastic movie that I recommend watching at some point, both fun and tragic, and it works!
• Casino Royale was the first of Daniel Craig’s James Bond movies, and it is a very fun time! I think it was a little long, we actually watching it in two days because of that, but it was still pretty good.
• Quantum of Solace is the black sheep of these newer Bond movies, and I can see why, as the direction and fight scenes felt a lot clunkier, but I still enjoyed it for what it was.
• Skyfall regains its footing and has a lot of epic Bond movies, neither of these three movies (maybe the first one) is a masterpiece but hey, they kept me hooked so that’s good.
• Hercules (the Disney one) was started by my sister on a whime and I just kept watching it, the animation of this movie remains stellar and I wish more 2D animated movies were a thing.
• The Thing from 1982 remains one of my favorite movies due to its direction and fantastical practical effects, and even though I am not a fan of horror as a whole, just the plot and concept of this one is absolutely fantastic, frightening and scary.

Books

• Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey from the Expanse series was not finished this month, but I only have like 10 chapters left now, I have really enjoyed my time with it, and the only reason I didn’t finish it was because of procrastination and also that I didn’t want to get ahead of my book club.
• Black Easter by James Blish is a rather interesting book set in a world where magic and demonology are actually real, and I started it on a whim when I catched up on the previous book too quickly. It is rather interesting and I’ll probably finish it in November as well.

Manga

Jujutsu Kaisen was everything this time, so, not a lot else to talk about as other non-mange things entertained me more this month.

Anime

Dungeon Meshi was watched up to episode 13 with my sister, still awesome! And it got some interesting plot developments, I hope we finish it in November.

Gaming

• Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade is a tactics RPG I started playing ages ago, I recently got back into it on my Anbernic RG35XX SP and it is honestly really fun!
• Nintendo Switch Sports was a recent purchase and I’ve played with family and friends at home, it is quite a relaxing game. I am a bit annoyed that there are still many games missing from Wii Sports and Resort that did not get an update for this game, but it is how it is.
• WEBFISHING is a very interesting fishing game where you can play online with others and chat while fishing and collecting different things. It is a rather relaxing and cozy game that I feel everyone should try!
• Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition was started early in the month and has pretty much become my night time videogame, so far the early hours of the game are rather nice, and every time I load up the game it tells me how the story is going so far, I really just getting back to it, playing 30 minutes and always reaching a good point to save, or just put the Switch to sleep and continue later.
• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown had a lot of momentum the first week of the month, playing like 8 hours of it in just 3 days, but other things got in the way. I must finish it in Novebember, it has proven to be a fantastic game and I just keep doing other things, but it is definitely my top game of the year.
• Astroboy Omega Factor for the GBA was a little gem I didn’t expect to enjoy as much, I think I played like 3 hours of it in a day and I think I will finish it soon this month, if I remember to pick it back up.
• Monster Hunter Rise saw some action later in the month, playing online with a friend and teaching them the ways of the hunter. I look forward to playing some more during these last couple months.
• Faster Than Light was not played much, but the last week of October I managed to finally reach the final stage and I almost defeated the final ship, I only needed to do one more hit, but it wasn’t meant to be…

Device usage

For some reason, this month I decided to try an app to chat with random people around the world, I do not think the app is really good UX-wise, but it somehow kept me entertained a lot, cutting down a lot of my YouTube usage and Manga reading. As I met interesting people to chat with, I moved to other apps, I only used it like 4 hours in the last week of October and it’ll probably see less usage later on.

Regardless, here are the stats.

Laptop

I used my laptop for a total of 81 hours

• Firefox for 55 hours
• GIMP for 5 hours
• Alacritty for 4 hours
• WEBFISHING for 5 hours
• Faster Than Light for 2 hours

Phone

I used my phone for 222 hours

• Bottled for 44 hours
• WhatsApp for 30 hours
• YouTube for 30 hours
• Signal for 20 hours
• Firefox for 18 hours
• Tusky for 17 hours
• Discord for 14 hours
• Instagram for 8 hours
• Mihon for 4 hours

E-Reader

During October, I read for a total of 12:42 hours, 748 pages:

• Leviathan Wakes for 9:39 hours, 568 pages
• Black Easter for 2:30 hours, 138 pages

Final thoughts

So, yeah, a lot of my time was completely stolen by that chatting app, but I think I’m over it now, and I want to focus on both reading and gaming more this month of November, as well as writing a lot of blog posts! I actually joined #WritingMonth with the goal of 15 blog posts before the month ends.

This is day 85 of #100DaysToOffload

Podcasts

I only listened to 69 hours of podcasts this month, compared to 96 in august, quite the opposite huh.

• NPC: Next Portable Console is a rather new podcast that talks about the world of portable gaming devices, from the cheap retro handhelds by Anbernic and Miyoo, to official ones like the PSVita, portable mods tabletop consoles and high end stuff like the Steam Deck or Ayaneo lineup, also accesories and related news in this small world. I’ve listened to every single episode so far.
• Retro Game Time Machine has been back at it for me, with episodes on Minecraft, Bayonetta, Mirror’s Edge and others, I was quite hooked this month.
• Welcome to Night Vale was my usual bedtime listening show, I actually got quite hooked on a recent arc, so I re-listened to some older episodes instead and will go back where I left off when I’m awake.
• Stuff You Should Know made some interesting episodes on glasses, the 1904 Olympic Marathon and Internet Mysteries!
• Vergecast, Late Night Linux and Into The Aether were of course part of my listening cycle.

Anime & Shows

• JuJutsu Kaisen Season 1 & 2 were introduced to me by my sister. I wasn’t really that much into it at first, but it quickly got really, really good, and we basically binged the whole thing in a week.
• Dungeon Meshi was started only a few hours ago, still during September, and we watched the first 4 episodes, it was quite an interesting premise with charming characters, so we will probably keep watching it and finish it during October.

Movies

• JuJutsu Kaisen 0 was a requisite before going into season 2, and boy am I happy to have seen it, it is a prequel to everything going on during the anime show, but the backstory is quite awesome! Great action sequences and fun anime moments, and an epic setup for things to come in the series.
• Officer Black Belt is a korean action film about a martial artist who fights against predators and abusers, becoming a martial arts officer. The film tackes some serious issues, and it’s one you can’t judge by its horrible cover on Netflix, it has a weird tone and comedy sometimes, but the action is genuinely great and kept me entertained for a bit.

Books

Behold, books are upon us.

• Hothouse was finally finished by me, after like a month of hiatus due to gaming and manga and stuff. Anyway, I was really amazed by this book, everytime I picked it up I was inmersed by its world and environments, I highly recommend it.

• Leviathan Wakes is the first book in the Expanse series, and I’m currently in the process of reading it! I am in a small book club now and I’m flying through its pages like nothing else before, having to commit with other people helps a lot too, and it’s nice to talk about what’s going on. The book follows multiple plot lines masterfully, and has quite a great world I’m very invested in very much.

Manga

• JuJutsu Kaisen was something I started as soon as I finished season 2, I actually went back to the beginning again, and it is really cool to see how those pages were brought to life in the show. I am enjoying the art and the panelling quite a bit on this one.
• JuJutsu Kaisen 0 is actually the oneshot that started it all. I think the movie is much better, but it’s nice to see the early design of some of the characters, very cool stuff.
• DanDaDan is so so close to finally get its anime released, so I’m doing my best to catch up with it, if only JJK hadn’t shown up, I am only 20 or so chapters behind, so that’s good!

Gaming

I bought quite a lot of games last month for my Switch, but I’ve only really played the following:

• Faster Than Light is something I didn’t expect to like as much, but it did, and now I’ve played it for like 11 hours in 2 days, it is a great game with simple mechanics that are hard to master. I am really having a fun time with it and probably will for a while longer.
• Monster Hunter Rise saw a lot of action this month, I have done quite a bit of high rank quests, but I didn’t play as often as before this month. Still a fair bit though.

Device Usage

Laptop

I used my computer for around 40 hours

• Firefox for 15 hours
• Faster Than Light for 11 hours
• Alacritty for 5 hours
• Inkscape for 4 hours

Phone

I used my phone for 185 hours

• YouTube for 48 hours
• WhatsApp for 26 hours
• Tusky for 17 hours
• Signal for 14 hours
• Discord for 12 hours
• Mihon for 10 hours
• Firefox for 9 hours

E-Reader

I finally had enough usage time for my Kobo to be worth sharing.

During September, I read for a total of 11:20 hours, 737 pages:

• Leviathan Wakes for 5:48 hours, 330 pages
• Hothouse for 5:07 hours, 384 pages

Finishing thoughts

I am happy to finally be reading more lately, it is always nice to see progress being made on that part, but I have also enjoyed a lot of the gaming and the anime I’ve watched, so it is cool to be able to do all that. Podcasting + Faster Than Light will probably be a killer combo during October, so we’ll see!

This is day 77 of #100DaysToOffload

Podcasts

I listened to 96 hours of podcasts! Although a fair amount of that was while asleep.

• Trash Taste had some really entertaining episodes recently so of course I listened to some of them!
• I listened to many of the Late Night Linux Family shows, more than usual for some reason.
• The Vergecast was also really interesting lately, with their episodes about Gemini and Google being a monopoly
• Stuff You Should Know was indeed awesome
• Darknet Diaries was left behind for a bit lately, but not anymore
• Into The Aether had some fun stuff, but they took a break for a bit so, yeah.
• Dungeons and Daddies was also fun, I am following season 3 as episodes come out.
• Relatos de la Noche remained on top, as my new favorite for night time listening.

Anime & Shows

• Dr. Stone was pretty unexpected, but I chose it on a whim and I basically caught up with it and now I’m just waiting for the time a new season, probably the last one, comes out. The plot is quite interestin; in a world were humanity got turned to stone, pretified for millenia, and the elements deteriorated every building and sight of its existence, leaving almost nothing left. By sheer luck, a teenage scientist breaks out of his petrification, and decides to figure out how to undo petrification and build back civilization with the power of science!

• Loki season 2 was quite the ride, I watched it with a friend in 2 days and it was pretty entertaining, I really like the timey-wimey stuff in it. There were some great developments but my biggest take-away is that I want to watch Doctor Who again.

Manga

• Sakamoto Days made a return with all of its might. I had forgotten how crazy it went with a lot of its fight scenes. I appreciate the creativeness of a lot of its panels and how things developed, it got me hooked until I catched up to its latest chapter. There are a ton of stunning visuals here and I can only hope the anime for it—they definitely have took their time releasing one—manages to do it justice. I am on chapter 178.

• DanDaDan is got a lot of reading time from me as well, but I still a few dozen chapters until I catch up with it. Still, the arc I read was totally crazy like always, but a bit smaller in scale. Despite this, the new character is definitely among my favorites now. I am on chapter 129 so far.

• Creature! is a manga I started a while ago and that I found totally amusing to read, it wasn’t good in the same sense as SD or DDD, but its art was too good for a story that kept going all over the place. I kinda want to find more stories like this of humans surviving some world full of unsurmountable creatures and dangers in some apocalyptic world that also has a serious tone, other than Attack on Titan I guess, which also evolves into something different but in a better way.

• How to Grill Our Love is maybe my favorite cooking manga—a.k.a. the only one I’ve read—with a wholesome marriage in the middle of it all. I don’t know what else to say, its a pretty comfy read and I want to it all the food being cooked in it.

Gaming

• Final Fantasy VI has been really enjoyable, I played a ton of it last month, pretty much a third of the story is complete.
• Monster Hunter Rise has also seen a revival, I am almost done with the village quests and I’ll be doing some of the Guild quests soon enough. I really want to get some new gear though, like the Nargacuga set and some more elemental weapons.
• Trails in the Sky FC saw some progress early in the month, but it stalled for a bit later on, I’ll still try and return to it since its been super enjoyable.

Reading

• Hothouse by Brain W. Aldiss is a book I returned to after a while focusing on gaming instead of reading. The story has evolved in unexpected ways and I want to finish it quickly in September to focus on another book!

Device usage

Laptop

I am not sure why but I think I kinda borked my ActivityWatch data for this month, I don’t really know what happened exactly, but I’m fairly angry right now…

Phone

I used my phone for 223 hours which is kind of horrifying but welp.

• Youtube for 52 hours (help)
• Facebook for 25 hours (help)
• WhatsApp for 20 hours (help)
• Aniyomi for 19 hours (Dr. Stone lol)
• Tusky for 17 hours
• Discord for 15 hours
• Firefox for 12 hours
• Mihon for 11 hours
• Signal for 9 hours

E-Reader

• I read Hothouse for for 4 hours and 8 minutes, 204 pages

Final thoughts

Anyway, I lost my laptop data but I am quite sure I didn’t use it very much anyway. Especially because of the anime binge-watching I did earlier in the month as well as the manga and book reading. And of course, the amount of YouTube I consumed.

I guess everything always balances out and it is what it is. Regardless, have a good day everyone!

This is day 68 of #100DaysToOffload

Podcasts

• Stuff You Should Know: I listened to a TON of episodes, literally like 12 episodes that came out this month. This is such an interesting Podcast and the host are really nice, I can sleep to it, or just have it in the background. I wish they had a Patreon or something without ads because that’s the only annoyance here.
• Dungeons and Daddies: The 3rd season of the show just began and it is going great so far, it is a completely different adventure very separate from the previous two seasons, and that’s great. I am liking it quite a bit.
• Relatos de la Noche: This is a horror podcast in Spanish, but there’s actually an English version now with the same host! It’s called Tales of the Night, give it a listen! It’s pretty good.
• Into The Aether: The main hosts of the show went on vacation for a bit, returned for the Nintendo Direct and then vanished for another bit, but the special episodes with guests have been awesome.
• Trash Taste: Back again with the boys, their episode on the most popular games of all time was unhinged.

Manga

• Monster: Masterpiece, I completed this and it was fantastic, the intrigue, the mystery, the climax. This is something you should give a read to, or watch the anime! Even if you hate anime or manga and their tropes, you should give this a go. Completely unique psychological thriller, it’s really worth it.
• Dandadan: With the upcoming anime of this manga where both the paranormal and alien invasions exist, I decided to keep reading this and yes, it keeps getting crazy, the panelling and the action here is great fun, and the story just keeps getting weirder and crazier but in a fun way. This is the total opposite of Monster, but it’s still good.
• Blue Lock: I went back to this sports manga and it is just, unhinged. Crazy moments and panels just keep coming and the stakes get higher, everything for the sake of scoring a goal! Honestly kind of ridiculous moments but the hype is still real despite it all.

Anime

• Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: The first season of this anime was finished by me and my sister. This is one of the most beautiful pieces of media I’ve seen in a while. This is a fantasy anime that gracefully deals with the common tropes that plague the genre. It is a wonderful story with amazing animation and incredible tought provoking moments. If you are confortable with silence, and contemplating the beauty of your existence, give this a go.

• Mob Psycho 100: I introduced my sister to this anime and it still rocks.

Movies & Shows

• Inside Out 2: The sequel is here, and it didn’t disappoint at all! I quite liked this movie, it is not as tight as the first one, despite the short runtime, but it’s still a fun time.

• The Acolyte: The new Star Wars show in the block. Not as bad as I’ve heard but not as good as some say, I think. The directing is weird, the cuts are strange, but the intrigue is there and the plot is kinda moving, so far I’ve watched 4 episodes and I plan to keep going, so yeah, good enough so far.

Games

Here’s where the fun begins once again! Since I got a Miyoo Mini Plus I have kept playing a lot of stuff.

• Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga: I finished this game after actual years of starting and leaving over and over again. I am so glad I finally started this and got it done, it was a great game and a fantastic entry to the RPG genre.
• Metroid Zero Mission: I got this done in a bit over 4 hours and it was great, this is not the first time I complete it but it felt great to know my way around it and just know how to move and stuff. Despite it, I still forgot some things and figuring my way around things was awesome as well.
• Kirby’s Dream Land: This was a short game, the first Kirby game ever, and it definitely has all of what would turn the franchise into the success it is. It’s short and sweet, worth a playthrough!
• Final Fantasy VII: I managed to move my save file from my PSP to my Miyoo Mini Plus, and it has been a fantastic way to return to it. I am finally making progress again, and it’s awesome! I just got out of Rocket Town and just exploring around.
• Pokemon Unbound: After getting the Anbernic RG35XX SP, I decided to also try playing Pokemon once again! It’s been quite fun, and it’s a great game for the bus rides. The clamshell form factor is truly nostalgic for me.

Device Usage

Alright so here is what I’ve spent my time on!

Laptop

My laptop was used for 55 hours

• Firefox for 44 hours
• Alacritty for 3 hours

Phone

My phone was used for like 166 hours

• Facebook Lite for 32 hours (idk what happened I’m sorry)
• WhatsApp for 21 hours (idk what happened I’m sorry)
• Tusky for 16 hours
• Discord for 16 hours
• YouTube for 14 hours
• Signal for 10 hours
• Tubular for 9 hours

Finishing Thoughts

That was a lot of stuff, I somehow used Facebook more this month as well, rather strange I gotta say.

Anyway, this is it!

This is day 60 of #100DaysToOffload.

I mostly stuck with the regulars this time, but there’s one show I listened to years ago, and I’m going back to it.

• SAYER: this is a science fiction show that features an advanced AI who introduces the listener to their new home, the man-made second moon of Typhon. This is a fantastic bit of fiction, and I quite enjoy listening to it. It feels a bit like Welcome to Night Vale, but more dystopic and futuristic.

The regulars were: Into The Aether, Eye of the Duck, Stuff You Should Know and Late Night Linux.

Books

I didn’t read as much this month, I focused on many other things as my last few posts might tell you. I still started one book though.

• Hothouse by Brian W. Aldiss, is an awesome piece of science fiction set a couple millions years in the future, where humanity has devolved into a more tribal existence, while vegetable life has become the dominant predator and lifeform, in a World where the earth stopped rotating, and radiation has changed the environment in unimaginable ways. So far, it is super inmersive and well crafted, and I hope I finish it this month.

Manga

• Kingdom: Still following the current arc, if a few chapters behind. Our protagonists got bamboozled and the rest of the army is in dire need of help. Just go read Kingdom, I beg you. I read up to chapter 786.

• Monster: The finale is approaching, I only have 17 chapters to go to see the conclusion of this story. It is such an intriguing thriller and there are a lot of answers, and even more questions. A truly amazing story this is.

Anime

• Haikyu!! Seasons 1-4: I have heard of this anime many times, proclaimed among the best modern sports anime shows. I have to say, I think I agree. I quite like volleyball, and I found the evolution of the characters, the rivalry, the challenges and how the Karasuno overcomes them, to be simply awesome. Besides, this is a show I watched with my sister, just so we can see the new movie that just came out in my country, and I have to say, I can’t wait!

• Ace of the Diamond: This is a random anime I picked up out of a Short on YouTube. Why did I go for another sports anime? I have no idea. So many other things I could watch, and yet, I am still watching it. This is an anime where the protagonist is actually going through a lot of trouble before he actually becomes good, and I am quite hooked on his journey so far.

Gaming

Here comes the juice of it all. I got a Miyoo Mini Plus recently, a little emulation handheld with support for a lot of different systems from the PS1 and below. And it comes with fantastic features like quick game switching and an activity tracker app, to see how much I use the thing!

Because of this, I’ve gamed a lot more than before. It doesn’t help a got a fancy new game for the Switch that also hooked me completely.

• The Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown: This is a Nintendo Switch title that completely took me by surprise. I already expected great things when I listened to the Into The Aether episode about it. I have played it for a dozen or so hours and its really fun to explore, the combat feels tight, although the story is rather weak. It is somewhere in between Hollow Knight and Metroid Dread with its challenging boss battles, as well as the satisfying movement of Ori.
• Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga: What can I say, I have played this for a while already and I am 10 hours in so far, it is such a fun little story and the combat system, while turn based, requires a lot more active input compared to a Final Fantasy or so, since you can defend from enemy attacks, or add bonus damage. I completely recommend this game. No random encounters, no grinding required, no complicated menus, no random party wipe attacks. It is one of the best entries to the genre, in my opinion, and I am still not done with it!
• Advance Wars: A fantastic little tactical RPG that I’ve been playing for a while. Like Mario & Luigi, it is a perfect fit for the Miyoo Mini Plus! I played almost all of the tutorial stages and I have enjoyed it a lot.
• Celeste Classic: A challenging platformer that I completed on the Miyoo Mini, it was very fun, but I admit I used save states a couple of times.
• Super Mario Bros Wonder: I am still playing levels from time to time, this month was particularly enjoyable, since I played it with many different people

I played many other games for testing on the Miyoo Mini Plus, but I not many exceeded the hour of playtime, so I dind’t mention them for now.

Device Usage

Laptop Usage

Notice the rise in editing tools for the theme and icons I created for my Miyoo Mini Plus, as well as my file manager for the same thing. Of course, I blogged too.

• Firefox for 52 hours
• Thunar for 12 hours
• Alacrity for 11 hours
• Inkscape for 11 hours
• GIMP for 10 hours

Phone Usage

I used my phone for a total of 203 hours. You can notice I changed from YouTube to Tubular late in the month, and I’ve been using Signal a lot more to talk with my friends!

• YouTube for 36 hours
• Tusky for 34 hours
• WhatsApp for 23 hours
• Signal for 19 hours
• Discord for 19 hours
• Cromite for 11 hours
• Aniyomi for 9 hours
• Tubular for 7 hours

Kobo Usage

I only read for 3 hours this month. A bit of a letdown, but I am not sad about it, I enjoyed my time gaming and watching anime with my family.

Finishing thoughts

This month was crazy, packed with a lot of stuff, but I had a great time with the WeblogPoMo challenge and everything else.

This is day 55 of #100DaysToOffload

Anyway, here’s what I did during the month of January!

Books

• Out of The Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis. Still in progress, a fantasy disguised as science fiction, liking it a lot! The age of it feels a bit more, not in the concepts but the writing, the way some things are described are fairly alien to me, but I guess it makes sense since it happens in a different planet.
• Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, truly thought provoking, you can read my review of it too! I was very impressed by the ideas showcased in it the whole way through, glad to have gone blind into it.
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, absolutely great book! Wrote a review here. I think I would have liked it a lot more if it wasn’t because the main plot twists were spoiled by the not so good movie. Still really enjoyable.

Movies

• Godzilla Minus One: This was the movie that got me started this year, I paid to bring my family to watch it. It was absolutely beautiful, stunning. The acting, the plot, the sountrack, the effects, the concepts, the meaning behind it all. This movie was insanely good and you must go watch it. That atomic breath scene literally made me cry.
• Shin Godzilla: This is not just another Godzilla movie, I’ve known about Shin Godzilla for ages but I didn’t really bother watching it until now. I am satisfied with it, the style is a lot different to Minus One’s, but I still had a really good time with it.
• Godzilla vs Kong: I mean, this is just fun. The fights and the effects are awesome, as well as the sound design, not much makes sense about the story, and the cinematography is a bit weird sometimes, but its enjoyable nonetheless.
• Spectre: We watched this James Bond movie out of nowhere and it managed to keep me watching it, it had been a while since I just watched a good old spy thriller and this one wasn’t half bad. Not a masterpiece, kinda wanna watch the other Bond movies now.

Podcasts

• Into The Aether: I kind of started listening to this podcast almost as episodes come out, its actually kind of fun to interact in the Discord server about whatever happened in each episode, I’ve discovered some games that I actually want to play! Because they’re older games and romhacks, fun!
• Pretending to be People: This is a podcast kind of like Dungeons and Daddies but using different game mechanics, I forgot the name of them but anyway, it is a bit of a murder mystery story and I am liking it quite a bit so far!
• Retro Game Time Machine: Still liking this podcast a lot! Just good old game reviews and a bit of a look back at what was going on back when it came out.
• Revolutions: The French revolution is coming to an end and I think I’ll keep listening to whatever’s next, very good stuff as always.

Manga

• Monster: Ever since Tachiyomi stopped being supported I kind of stopped reading manga, but I have read a couple of chapters of Monster this month, not much else though.

Videogames

• Lumines: I am addicted, this game is so fun. I think I’ve played for 15 hours or something and I am still trying to beat my record, it is beautifully simple, and the music is great too. I played on my PSP initially but I ended up also buying it for Switch, still play on both though, since the PSP is better for work commutes.

• Triangle Strategy: This is a tactics rpg that I wish I could’ve played more, I like its art and story, as well as the gameplay, but it feels too important to just play while doing something else, so I have not dedicated as much time to it.

• Limbo: This is the first game I finished this year, I wrote a review for it here
• Ori and the Blind Forest: This is the second game I finished, a beautiful Metroidvania that I loved a lot. Wrote a review here
• Ember Knights: This is a roguelite that I’ve been playing with my friends on the weekends, super fun although a little laggy on Switch. It plays a lot like Hades and its quite addicting.
• Ultimate Chicken Horse: A fantastic party game that I’ve played with friends on Weekends, its great fun for pros and noobs alike.
• Super Mario Bros Wonder: I got this game and have played it a bit with my friends, but I need to give it more time too.
• Final Fantasy IV: I got the ship that will lead me to the moon and then maybe I’ll finish this game once and for all.

Device Usage

Laptop

I used my laptop for 57 hours

• Firefox for 38 hours
• Alactitty for 8 hours
• GIMP for 8 hours
• Inkscape for 1 hour

Phone

I used my phone for 211 hours

• Youtube for 52 hours
• WhatsApp for 46 hours
• Tusky for 21 hours
• Librera for 15 hours
• Cromite for 12 hours
• Discord for 12 hours
• Signal for 7 hours
• Facebook for 6 hours
• Bible for 4 hours

This is day 9 of #100DaysToOffload

Thankfully, I got some vacation time, which allowed me to do do quite a lot, from listening to more podcasts while cleaning up my room, to playing a bunch more videogames, while watching movies too. Regardless, too many things to list, but I will still try.

Podcasts

• Into The Aether: This lowkey videogame podcast was about to upload its GOTY episode, an Epic, with a duration of 6 hours. I could’ve finished a videogame while listening to it, and I am sad that I didn’t. I listen to some previous episodes just to catch up a bit too.
• Retro Game Time Machine: This podcast is just cozy and I keep listening to it quite a bit, but I didn’t listen to their GOTY episode just yet, which is only 2 hours long or so.
• Stuff You Should Know: During one of my free days I started listening to this podcast while cleaning up my room and it just picked some random episode, all of them were incredibly interesting topics that I should indeed know!
• Ars Paradoxica: An audio drama that keeps on giving, I only listened to 3 or so episodes this month, but it was good.
• Dungeons and Daddies: Just keeping up with the show, going good, give it a listen!

Movies

I also watched quite a bit of movies this time around, and I also made sure to log them on Letterboxd. Here’s some of them

• A Quiet Place: For some reason we picked this movie as the last movie of the year, and we finished it in 2024! The most iconic scene (which I wont spoil but you know if you know) actually happened right when the New Year started!
• Spider-Man: No Way Home: We watched this movie together, and it actually ended at 11:00 pm, I wished we had started it an hour later, because it is a more wholesome movie to end the year with than A Quiet Place.
• Home Alone: Classic movie of the season that is still very funny.
• Home Alone 2: Classic movie of the season that is still very funny.
• Midnight: A Korean thriller that follows a deaf woman threathened by a psycho killer. Quite a terrifying plot, not going to lie, tons of suspense. I originally wanted to just play on my Switch but it was just too good to miss.
• Spider-Man 2: Classic movie that remains as one of the best examples of what a Superhero movie should be about, a complete masterpiece.

Videogames

As I mentioned in a previous blogpost, I started to record the playing times of games I own, which should give me quite a bit more data to add here too. For now, let’s start as always.

• Citizen Sleeper: I finished this game mid-December, it was a great, short story-driven RPG with a unique style and characters, I wrote a full review here.
• Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga: I got this game to play in couch co-op with my sibling and it is indeed quite fun!
• Hades: A fantastic roguelike too, with a pretty great story, which I’ve played quite a few runs of. I am quite fond of its gameplay and mechanics, but I can’t help but feel like my best runs are a result of luck and level-ups rather than actually improving my combat skills.
• Spelunky: This is a roguelike I tried recently, and it is really fun! The gameplay is easy to understand, but it is quite challenging and merciless.
• Ember Knights: This is another roguelike with similar combat to Hades but it also features couch co-op gameplay, we actually got quite far one time where I was playing with two other friends, and we did quite a bunch of attempts.
• Limbo: A very special platformer with a unique atmosphere and great puzzles and mechanics, this is just a must play that everyone should try.
• Ori and The Blind Forest: This is a Metroidvania style game that features a beautiful artstyle and wonderful animations, I am playing it at my own pace, it got great platforming but I am not a fan of its combat at all. Still, I’ll keep playing and see what I get.
• Hyper Light Drifter: This is a top-down action adventure game, kinda like Zelda, with incredible pixel art and challenging combat, it even has couch co-op mode. I am liking it a lot, but I haven’t advanced much.
• Final Fantasy IV: I decided to continue my adventure on this game on my PSP, I almost manage to escape from the Sealed Cave!
• Ninja Five-0: This is a small arcade platformer game where I am a ninja fighting crime, the gameplay is surprisingly entertaining and the controls feel quite good.

Manga

I read quite a bit of manga this month, right after I did my blog on my favorites of the year, one of these also became a favorite of mine.

• Monster: This manga took me by surprise, I was going to watch the anime, but I just wanted to go a little bit faster and decided to read it instead. This story is truly phenomenal. Its about a doctor who is betrayed by his own morality, involved in a series of murders that lead to him being the main suspect. I can’t tell you much more, just go and read it already.
• Fly Me To The Moon: I read quite a bit more of this manga, and got to some really interesting chapters that go beyond what normal slice of life stuff goes, I think it is worth checking out, plus it has a lot of sugar in it too.
• Weak Hero: I finished this manhua, and what an ending. I didn’t think a school nerd against the bullies story would work and develop like this one did. The art is great, and so is the plot and the fantastic characters, give it a read, there’s a reason it was in my favorites of the year.
• Survival: This also made it to the list of favorites, for good reason. A kid survives in the post-apocalyptic wilderness where 90% of the planet is now under-seas. This is his journey, read it.

Books

• Ender’s Game: Because of the amount of other things I did, I only read bits and pieces of this book during some free time and commutes. I am still liking it a lot and I’ve read 60% of the story so far.

Device Usage

This list doesn’t really track my Nintendo Switch usage of course, which was quite high during my holiday vacations. Regardless, I would say the amount of games I listed is enough of an idea, so here’s the rest of devices I used!

Laptop Usage

I used my laptop for a total of 75 hours, and here’s some of what I did!

• Firefox: 49 hours
• Alacritty: 13 hours
• Discord: 5 hours
• Inkscape: 5 hours
• Steam: 1 hour

Android Usage

I used my phone for a total of 174 hours, thanks to the vacational period I guess.

• YouTube: 43 hours
• Tachiyomi: 20 hours
• WhatsApp: 15 hours
• Cromite: 14 hours
• Discord: 11 hours
• Facebook 9 hours

Afterwords

So, yeah, December was quite a busy month right? Remember you can always follow my backloggd to check the games I’ve played!

I feel a little weird right now, I just finished the challenge, but with so many people participating this year, I may as well do it one more time…

This is day 1, of #100DaysToOffload

Sadly, Anilist, which I use to keep track of the manga I read, doesn’t have any sort of yearly recap, so I had to do gather the data by hand and just choose what I liked the most.

My favorite finished manga

This is manga that I completed this year, I will select my favorite 5 ones and call it a day.

Survival

This is a classic that I found by randomly scrolling on a MyAnimeList stacks about the survival genre and such, I found this one there. At first the simple name and the kinda ugly cover gave didn’t catch my attention that much, but the reviews were praising it a lot and I gave it a chance, and I am so glad I did. The story follows a boy who finds himself alone in a Japan (and a world) ridden by catastrophe and disaster. 90% of land is now underseas and resources are scarse. The kid has to find a way to survive against the odds, but despite the challenges, the enemies and the people he finds along the way, his hope to reunite with his family keeps him going. Be aware that this one is more about enjoying the journey, rather than the destination though. That’s all I will say. Still, go check it out! This is a longer one, around 119 chapters plus an extra volume.

Weak Hero

This is actually a manhwa (Korean comic) that I started at some point in May and that recently finished, its about a weak but smart guy who decides to fight back against the bullies that control high school. The story is honestly quite good, the action is kinda too much sometimes, however, the characters are all really different and relatable, both the protagonists and the villains are quite well developed and they all have reasons to be there. If you enjoy action, great art, a good plot and relatable characters, you should give it a go. It has 268 chapters, but they will fly away in no time.

The Horizon

Korean artists really outdid themselves, this is the second one of those. The Horizon comes from the same artist as The Boxer, and it is a short but deep story about the horrors of war and the hope that remains despite it all. You follow a couple of kids who lost everything and don’t have anywhere to go, but forward. I don’t want to say much more. discretion is advised. Just read it. It doesn’t go for more than 21 chapters.

Green Blood

Located in the United States after the Civil War, this follows the story of two brothers, a broken young man who was trained to kill, and a kid who still has hope in Humanity and moving forward. The times are rough and the streets are always dangerous. The past comes back to haunt this family and quite a journey develops from there. This manga is also quite gruesome at times, so discretion is advised. Despite it all, the story wraps up beautifully, and despite the terrible things that happen, these brothers are willing to face it. Great art and story and quite a short one too. 49 chapters long.

Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible

Most of the manga mentioned in this list is quite dark, post-apocalyptic and such, so I picked this one to balance it out, since it has a bunch of wholesome moments. Its all about a guy who goes unnoticed on his daily school life, until one girl greets him and starts to pick on him (in a good way), making him come out of his comfort zone and having fun moments with her and his classmates, who become friends soon enough. He still helplessly fades into the background in front of their eyes somehow, but at least now they look for him. It got around 158 chapters of pure charm.

The others

In case you are wondering, here is the rest of the manga I finished this year:

• Mosquito Wars
• All You Need is Kill
• Spider-Man: Fake Red
• One Outs
• Blood on the Tracks
• Tomie
• Home Office Romance
• Gyo

Manga I’m still reading

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

I think this is my favorite discovery of the year. A story following an elf mage whose lifespan will go beyond the rest of his party after saving the world. Decades later, after the heroes are now history, she embarks on an journey of discovery, and we get to read her adventures. If you were to read one manga from everything mentioned here I believe this would be my pick, it has elements of all kinds, a fun slice of life, with some melancholy mixed there, it can get dark and gritty, it will have really wholesome moments, beautiful artwork, fantastic action moments and just a refreshing take on the fantasy genre, which doesn’t have a lot of stuff outside the isekais or super serious dark stuff.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou

This is my second pick, this manga is beautiful, the coziest of the bunch. A great slice of life about a robot lady named Alpha who owns a cafe and lives her life in a world that already went through the calamities of climate change. The population is low and the buildings and infrastructure of old is crumbling, but she remains living a quiet existence along everybody else, cherising the small moments of life. I haven’t finished this simply because it is too beautiful to end. I only read a chapter every once in a while, and I just find joy in them every time.

Fly Me To The Moon

This is a bit of a funny rom-com manga where the protagonist just skip the dating and go straight to marriage. It starts out in a really weird way, leaving us with a lot of questions, and it takes its time. It will break the fourth wall, throw random references to other mangas and even talk about itself in this fun but eerie manner. This manga takes its time to acknowledge serious things hidden behind the jokes and funsies. Don’t get me wrong, the mystery is not really that big of a deal, but I appreciate the uniqueness it brings to the table. Just give it a read honestly. Its super fun and wholesome and its nice to not deal with the annoying tropes of couples that take 200 chapters to kiss.

My Wife Is From a Thousand Years Ago

Speaking of couples that take 200 chapters to kiss… I’m joking, but they do take their time. This is a manhua (Chinese comic) featuring a guy who ends up finding a girl from one thousand years ago. He decides to help her and teach her how to live in the 21st century. When I started reading this I was immediately hooked by how funny it is, as well as the great colored art that these webtoons bring. This is a fairly modern series that’s still running too, so it will have references and such that I can understand, and some others that are just part of chinese culture, which I don’t get but I still appreciate. Honestly, this is just a fun rom-com, but I am mad because they still don’t get married, because she doesn’t have a chinese id, but that’s part of the plot too!

Heavenly Delusion

None of the currently reading mangas I’ve mentioned have the mystery and uniqueness of Heavenly Delusion. This manga recently got an anime adaptation, but I still haven’t checked it out. It features multiple characters in different locations, each with a different purpose and drive, but somehow interconnected. There are monsters, there are powerful sci-fi guns, there’s a classroom full of kids with weird features in a seemingly perfect environment, there’s a post-apocalyptic world where nobody remembers what it used to be. Mystery upon mystery and the questions just keep coming, and somehow, it doesn’t get tiresome or boring at all. Discretion is advised on this one.

The others

Here’s some other manga that I’m reading but I’ve already talked too much about them or they simply didn’t impact me that much this year:

• Kingdom.
• Blue Lock.
• One Punch Man.
• Creature!
• Battle Angel Alita
• My Clueless First Friend.
• Vagabond.

This is day 87 of #100DaysToOffload

Podcasts

Last month I didn’t listen to as many podcasts as I usually do, it was only around 45 hours of content this time around.

It was more of the usual stuff, such as Welcome to Night Vale, Dungeons and Daddies and Waveform.

Ars Paradoxica was the only (old)new show I listened to, I started it years ago but I decided to go back to it from the beginning and I am liking it a lot. Its a sci-fi drama about a physicists, Sally Grissom, who ends up travelling back in time by mistake. Its really good!

Manga

• Mosquito Wars: I finished all the 48 chapters. After All You Need is Kill, I saw this manhwa mentioned as kinda similar, and I realized that it was written by the same guy who did The Boxer and The Horizon (Two God Tier manhwas that you must read) I knew I would have to give it a go. Its simply fantastic and it goes places. Its the closest thing I’ve read to Evangelion. Just fantastic. Art, composition, story and characters, they’re all great. I don’t think it reaches the level of his other works, but its great anyway.
• Alita Battle Angel: Read up to chapter 44. I got back into Alita and it keeps going, it definitely lost some momentum but its picking up a little bit.
• Survival: Read up to chapter 85. I don’t know how I stumbled upon this old, classic manga, but it follows a boy who survives a Great Catastrophe that sinks down 90% of the planet, including a bunch of Japan. The boy has to survive against nature and what strives him to keep going is the hope of reuniting with his family. Not only does he have to face the dangers of nature taking over, but also face what such a situation does to the remnant of humanity.
• Survival: Another Story: This is a side story volume in between of Survival’s main plot, its about the boy finding a seeemingly normal city that is turned into a dictatorship. It is full of weird mysteries and stuff. I finished all 12 chapters.
• Chi No Wadachi: This is a manga I started a while ago, it is quite a psychological manga about a mother and his only son. It ended a while ago, and I caught up to finish it. It was a weird and sad story that somehow remains hopeful until the end. I think its worth it, but its not for everyone.

Movies

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes: I went blind on this movie and I was pleasantly surprised, you don’t need to know much about the universe other than it is a prequel and the main character is the villain of the original trilogy, it was very interesting and the Hunger Games were pretty action packed too, it delivered, in my opinion.

Device Usage

Because of my new job I haven’t had as much time to do anything for myself, so my time using my personal devices got drastically reduced, even more than before, since using my phone was necessary during my internship. Its a nice change of pace to be honest.

Laptop Usage

I only used my computer for 60 hours this month. Honestly, I spent a lot more time on my phone and with my family watching TV and stuff.

• Firefox got used for 50 hours
• Alacritty was used for 8 hours

Phone Usage

I kinda forgot to install Activity Watch, so I don’t have the full stats this time around. I’ll just sort the apps from most used to least used

• YouTube: I mostly used it for shorts this time. While at work its just nice to have them during my breaks.
• Tachiyomi: This is the second best thing, its quick to read a couple pages from time to time or in the bathroom lol.
• WhatsApp
• Tusky
• Facebook
• Cromite

Finishing thoughts

There are many things I’ve been meaning to write about, as I mentioned in my previous post, and I only have 17 more posts to go this year. Let’s hope for the best!

This is day 83 of #100DaysToOffload

Podcasts

• Fall of Civilizations: This podcast is very interesting, I listened to another 2 or 3 episodes and I’ve already learned more history about other cultures than whatever I’ve done before in school, alongside Revolutions. The one thing that I love/hate is that ancient poems and manuscripts are usually read in the original language and english overlapped with a bit of delay, and I just can’t understand either of them, but maybe that will improve on later episodes.
• Eye of the Duck: This podcast just has a ton to offer, very informative and very nice to listen to. I listened to the podcasts of some movies such as The Thing from 1982 and the 2011 prequel and they were very good. I have seen tons of videos about those movies and the work behind them and I was surprised to learn so many more details and curious facts. And of course, what the hosts consider to be the scenes that define those movies as a whole.
• Alice isn’t Dead: This is a bit of a weird podcast from the creators of Welcome To Night Vale, it feels like a bit of an audio journal from a woman looking for someone named Alice, its quite an experience but I don’t want to say much else, I’ve only listened to a couple episodes too so I don’t really know what it’s about really, still.

Manga

I didn’t read that much manga lately, only the first mention here is new and its fairly short anyway.

• All You Need is Kill: This is the manga that inspired the movie Edge of Tomorrow, a fantastic piece of cinema. The manga’s story is quite similar, but a lot of the aliens and machine designs are a lot different, the story and everything is pretty great on its own tho, it is quite short so its a quick read worth checking out.
• Weak Hero: The story right now is on a bit of a backstory about the main “villain” of the story and its taking some very interesting turns, I didn’t think this manhwa would grip me but I am already more than 200 chapters in and I just keep reading.
• Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: After a bit of a hiatus, it only took a couple months (from my perspective at least, older fans waited quite a bit more), for the story to keep going, and I am really enjoying it so far, the plot relaxed a lot, since the last few arcs were more action and dark phantasy focused. Slice of life is back and I am loving it.
• Komi Can’t Communicate: I mean, Komi was one of the first mangas I read, and its still very fun and wholesome.

Books

Since the year is approaching its end I also kinda wanted to read some more. I managed to finish two books!

• The Mote in God’s Eye: This was a great read, very imaginative and well written, classic sci-fi at its best, and a fantastic take on what a first contact would look like in the future. I started it in September, and since then I just had a last third to finish, and it was a joy. For some reason I kept imagining the events happening in a TV show in the style of the original Star Trek show, very bright colors on high quality film, kind of cringe sometimes but with some nice dialogues and scenes. I don’t know, but I liked it a lot.

• Project: Hail Mary: This book is a lot different than the previous one, first of all, it starts out at a first person narration, and the main character wakes up with ammnesia. So, a very different start compared to the multiple characters and perspectives going on in The Mote. Humanity has found a very interesting threat to their existence, and the only hope seems to be light years away from us. Thankfully, that treath is also just what we needed to get there. There is a lot of hard sci-fi here, numbers and physics and fun stuff that my engineering brain kinda gets but not really. I haven’t read much of the genre honestly, but I may check out The Martian later, from the same author.

Games

• Dicey Dungeons: A small deck-building roguelike that I only played for a little bit, but it is easy to get into and probably has a lot of depth. But another game won me over.
• Into The Breach: Now this, this got me hooked, I played it on my computer for like 4 hours and then I decided to buy it on my Switch, it was fairly cheap but I have already dedicated quite a lot of time, and I haven’t even tried all the mechs or completed all the islands. It is a tactics RPG that feels a lot like chess and I just wanna make the best possible plays everytime, learning to let go and taking risks. Its great.
• Castle Crashers: This is a fun beat’em up that I’ve been playing with my friends and it leads to a lot of fun. Tons of enemies, weapons, quite a bit of combos and great boss battles, as well as PvP fights. Its just mindless fun and its great.
• Velocity: This is a Mini I’ve been playing on my PSP more often, it is a really neat and tidy game, it is a bit of a shoot ‘em up with a lot of puzzle elements rather than bullet hell style stuff. Very good and portable. There is a sequel on the Switch but I would like to have access to the original too.

Device Usage

Laptop

I used my laptop for a total of 67 hours, at least on my Linux side.

• Firefox was used for 51 hours
  • Youtube for 7 hours
  • WhatsApp for 2 hours
  • Deku Deals for 4 hours (yeah, I have a problem)
  • Facebook for 1.5 hours
  • Mercado Libre for 1 hour
• Alacrity was used for 8 hours
• Into The Breach was played for 3.5 hours
• Thunderbird for 50 minutes

Android

I used my Phone for around 207 hours. I am actually surprised, seems like a lot. But I can explain!

• Tusky was used for 38 hours, 8 hours less than last month
• WhatsApp was used for 35 hours, 8 more
• Vivaldi was used for 26 hours, 4 more
• Facebook was used for 16 hours, 9 more
• Newpipe was used for 16 hours, 3 less
• Librera was used for 14.5 hours, 4.5 more
• Signal was used for 6.5 hours 1.5 less
• Markor was used for 5 hours
• K-9 Mail was used for 4.5 hours

Looks like it all balances out a little bit, maybe? Maybe I can’t explain… You got me, I don’t want to bother doing so.

Finishing thoughts

A lot of switch games, two books, a little bit of podcasts, still sleeping to Welcome to Night Vale. Somehow the Magnus Archives still has more episodes played. Everything is great. I may get a proper job at the company I’m doing my internship at, I just want to get this over with and do enough blogposts before the year ends. Bye!

This is day 77 of #100DaysToOffload.

The most noticeable for you, or maybe not noticeable at all, is that I changed my website domain! it used to be joelchrono12.xyz and its now joelchrono.xyz. It is fairly easy to forget, since I’m sure most of you only type the first couple letters and hit enter (or read this from an RSS feed).

So yeah, it should now be easier to type and remember. Its quite wild compared to how much I struggled back when I started this blog, since I didn’t have any money to spare on this.

Regardless, I should be going with what I consumed this month!

Podcasts

Just like last time, most of the podcasts I listen to are the same, but here are some I started or discovered lately.

• Eye of The Duck: This is a movie talk podcasts where they try to find the “Eye of The Duck” scene. Scenes on a movie that define the whole of it, such an interesting premise and also fantastic hosts, I have listened to their miniseries on Toy Story and the “Of The Dead” zombie movies. Very entertaining.

• Fall of Civilizations: Pretty much everyone seems to know this podcast already, its title says it all! I only listened to the first episode so far, but it was fantastic.

• Radio Rental: This is a podcast about weird stories and experiences that happened to people, it has an interesting format and the couple stories I’ve heard are so random, its hard to believe they actually happened.

Manga

I didn’t read as much manga this month for multiple reasons. Including reading a text book and trying to not use my phone as much.

• Heavenly Delusion: I didn’t read many chapters this month but they were super interesting and intriguing, this series just keeps having plot twists and they all somehow don’t get tiring at all.
• Sakamoto Days: I had forgotten a little bit about the arc I was reading, but I managed to finish it and start another! I am liking it so far.

Movies and TV Shows

• Toy Story 2: Remember the Eye in The Duck podcast, they pretty much made me watch this movie again, and it was great, amazing.
• Toy Story 3 in Real Life: This is literally a 1 to 1 recreation of the original Toy Story 3 made with stop motion, practical effects and composing. It was a joy to watch and I eventually forgot it wasn’t the original. Disney has been kind enough to not remove it from YouTube
• Malcom in the Middle: Apparently, this series was not as popular in the US, but in Mexico it has always been a top hit. To this day we watch it everyday, we used to do so in Canal 5, its been airing for ages. Nowadays however we stream it and its been great. Highly recommended, still holds up.
• My Adventure with Superman: I finished this show and I liked the interesting rendition to Clark Kent and his relationship with Loise Lane. Its a pretty wholesome and romantic show but the action doesn’t stay behind!

Books

• The Mote in God’s Eye: This is a sci-fi book, and a pretty long one! I’ve managed to read around 60% of it, and its already the longest book I’ve read. I am going to finish it this month for sure. The book is about the first contact of humanity with alien life, a thousand or so years into the future. Surprisingly realistic and the aliens are very unique, compared to the common tropes, they feel like something out of Dr. Who and its awesome.

Games

• Metroid Dread: I beat it! This game was awesome. I can’t belive how good this experience was, I really recommend it to everyone, give it a go if you have a Switch, it is just the right difficulty, but it still is worth it. The final boss was a pain, but whatever, keep going.
• F-ZERO 99: I got Nintendo’s Online subscription and this game is free when you have it! The game is super fun and provides short bursts of adrenaline and action packed racing. Very good stuff.
• Monster Hunter Rise: I bought this game digitally (I’m sorry 🤢), I’m having a nice time. I still don’t even feel like upgrading my armor though so I still have to play it more
• Monster Hunter Portable 3rd: I don’t bring my switch to work, so I’ve been playing this game during commutes and other things, just as fun and very deep in gameplay.
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: I have progressed quite a bit more but I am still pretty much in the same position.

Device Usage

Since I am still not done with my internship, and my playtime on my switch, my computer usage is very low still.

Laptop

I used my laptop for around 45 hours this month.

• Firefox for 28 hours
• Alacritty for 8 hours
• GIMP for 4 hours
• Signal for 1 hour

Phone

I used my phone for 200 hours, 17 less than last month, which probably transferred to my Switch…

• Tusky for 46 hours, I think I need to stop distracting myself…
• WhatsApp for 27 hours, again, work
• Vivaldi for 22 hours, I switched to Vivaldi as my mobile browser and its honestly very enjoyable
• Newpipe for 19 horus, I actually lowered my YouTube usage!
• Librera for 10 hours, the proof I actually read a book! I’m listening to the audiobook too.
• Signal for 8 hours
• Facebook for 7 hours, I haven’t used it much for work…
• Tachiyomi for 5 hours, yeah, not much manga this month.

Final thoughts

I am quite happy I managed to write just a little more this month, but I have to pretty much write one blogpost every 2 days from now if I want to finish the 100 Days To Offload challenge, it should be possible! Wish me luck

This is day 63 of #100DaysToOffload

Podcasts

I listened to around 90 hours of Podcasts! a third of that is Welcome to NightVale, which I sleep to, so maybe I actually listened to only half of that. Most of the time I listen to the same stuff, so here are some different things I wanted to recommend.

• Avatar: Braving the Elements: Fantastic podcast featuring Dante Basco (Zuko) and Janet Varney (Korra) doing a recap of the Last Airbender animated show. This podcast is fantastic and brings me so much joy. I am currently listening to their episode on the Winter Solstice two parter.

• Eye of the Duck: This is an episode about the most important scene on a movie. Its from the same family of shows as Into The Aether, the hosts are quite great. I listened to their episode on Night Of The Living Dead (I have a thing for horror movie reviews) and I had a great time.

Anime

• Spy X Family: Me and my siblings finished season two, and we had a blast watching it, its really easy to enjoy them all

Manga

• Green Blood: This manga is located during the end of the civil war, with everyone looking to enjoy the American Dream. The quest of a pair of brothers looking for revenge. Discretion is advised, it is quite graphic and real, but it doesn’t get to be “edgy” for the sake of it. The art is magnificent and the story is worthy of a read, if you can take some strong language and scenes I think this is a very unique setting for a manga with many lessons to be learned out of it.

• One Outs: A few months ago I watched the anime, and I was hooked. I decided to read the manga from the start back then, but I kinda stopped. Last month I decided to resume my reading and I am very happy I did. The story and the bet go even bigger, and its actually quite sick. A few things stop making sense, but the overall plot is great, a good read, especially weird in sports manga, although so far I’ve only read good sports manga.

• Hakaijuu: Now this is what an edgy manga looks like. It starts out pretty strong as a romance manga turned into survival apocalypse with huge monsters coming out of the ground. But it just keeps going and going without any idea of what to do. Horrible people become protagonists and heroes, the monsters keep getting bigger, my suspension of disbelief struggles here. If you like Godzilla, The Walking Dead, Attack on Titan, The Thing, and Power Rangers, this is probably for you. The art is too good for a series like this, seriously, too good. If your mind is bored this is good enough I guess.

Games

• Metroid Dread: I started to focus on Dread a lot more this time, I want to enjoy it as much as I can. Its great and it plays great!
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: I kinda played a little less, I got to the big elephant beast but I kinda feel like the end is approaching (Even though its not), I just don’t want this game to end, but I’ll do what I must.
• Burnout Legends: I discovered this game thanks to the Retro Game Time Machine podcast, and I decided to play it too, it is surprisingly fun and challenging, the races are filled with adrenaline and crashes and its a great quick game to boot up and lose some time in the focus zone.
• Mario and Luigi: Super Star Saga: Years ago my save file of this game died and I kinda stopped playing it, but I finally decided to return to it and its still super fun! I hope I get the time to finish it this month, but it depends on the other games.

Device Usage

With my PSP and Switch lacking proper ways to track my usage other than estimates, I can’t really say how much I’ve played stuff, whatever, my laptop and phone remain reliable.

Laptop

I used my laptop for 30 hours, A lot of that time was spent moving stuff around to my PSP since I was into a bit of a phase once again, writing a blogpost about it.

• 22 hours on Firefox
• 4 hours on Alacritty
• 2 hours in Thunar

Android phone

I used my phone for around 212 hours, as you may be able to tell, due to my internship I spend more time not at home. It is how it is

• Tachiyomi got used for 54 hours, yeah.
• Tusky got 27 hours of use, thanks guys.
• Whatsapp for 26 hours of use, not so great
• Newpipe got 18 hours of use.
• Facebook got 17 hours, due to work, not great.
• Infinity still works, so 14 hours went there
• Signal got used for 8 hours, chatting there is cool

Final words

I am done! The year is coming to an end in only a few more months, and I am still a little behind, but hey, this is still day 56 of #100DaysToOffload

Podcasts

The usual suspects, Trash Taste, Welcome to Night Vale, Late Night Linux and Dungeons and Daddies.

The only new stuff would be Talk Ville, a podcast hosted by Tom Weiling (Clark Kent) and Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor) rewatching Smallville, it is quite fun and nostalgic, very good stuff and its nice to see their thoughts on what they did 20 years ago.

Anime & Animated Shows

• The Spectacular Spider-Man: After watching Across the Spiderverse I felt a bit weird about not really liking the Spectacular Spider-Man, purely because of its design and style, slightly too cartoonish for my taste, so I decided to watch the show once and for all and I ended up LOVING it. I finished it super quickly and was utterly disgusted by its lack of a proper ending, I really wanted to see Gwen and Peter’s relationship grow too, such a missed opportunity.
• My Adventures with Superman: This is another look into Superman’s origin story and his relationship with Lois Lane and their internship at The Daily Planet, the animation is pretty good and the story is everything you already know, but told in a slightly different way, very interesting, I also really like the Superman emblem redesign.
• Spy X Family: Still watching season 2 with my siblings, super wholesome and fun, very good.

Manga

A lot of manga was read last month.

• Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: This is a MUST read. The Hero Party of a fantasy world has finally defeated the Demon King, and everything is peaceful once again for centuries to come. The heroes are now legends, but their mage, an elf named Frieren, remains alive, while his human companions grow to old age. The keeps going and 80 years later he embarks on a new journey. Absolutely fantastic story.
• Spider-Man: Fake Red: What happens when a regular teen finds Spider-Man’s suit in the trash, and ends up being forced to wear it and try his best to keep the city safe? This is a great story, that tackles what it means to be Spider-Man and has some great characters and a very unique story. Good stuff, sad its not very long, like Spectacular Spiderman…
• Weak Hero: I got into this lately once again, fun teen action drama stuff with school gangs and corruption, I already mentioned it before, nice street fights and stuff, its kinda addicting.
• Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou: This is the most nostalgic, relaxing and melancholic, yet hopeful manga I’ve read, I had already mentioned it before but it really deserves a chance, if you are only into action and stuff, calm down and give this a thoughtful read, its worth it.
• Kingdom: A new arc has begun, some political drama is coming and I am here for it. Kingdom is great so please just read it, its 700+ chapters will fly by, I promise!

Movies

• Ratatouille: Do I really need to say anything? This movie is fantastic, a joy to watch. It had been a few years since I last saw it, it felt quite refreshing, and I can’t believe I was barly 7 when it came out.
• X-Men: My younger sister started watching some of the old-gen superhero movies and I sat to watch this one too, surprisingly entertaining and it also holds up quite well, I love the effects on this one, except for the frog one, he is too goofy.
• X-Men: The Last Stand: I missed the second one so, yeah. But this one was also fun enough, I can tell why it got badly received and all that but I kinda wish they hadn’t left us with such a cliff-hanger.
• Honest Thief: Liam Neeson is yet again doing Taken, your typical fun action thriller for everyone to enjoy. Nothing too original but entertaining.

Games

• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild: This game is a masterpiece, I’ve been playing it for 30 hours or more and I feel like I still have a ton of stuff to learn, pretty cool stuff.
• Metroid Dread: I love Metroid, and this is some of the best gameplay and new mechanics on the series and the whole genre, fun and action packed, I’ve only played for like 2 hours though.

Device Usage

Laptop

I only used my computer for 30 hours this month. I must be very good at keeping myself in control right?

Truth is, I got a Nintendo Switch! the Tears of The Kingdom edition, as you may have noticed in the Gaming section…

• I used Firefox 21 hours
• Alacritty for 3 hours
• Minecraft for 2 hours
• PPSSPP for 1 hour

Phone

I used my phone for a total of 205 hours, so yeah…

• Newpipe for 31 hours
• Tusky for 30 hours, yey!
• Facebook for 25 hours, booo
• Tachiyomi for 23 hours, yey!
• WhatsApp for 20 hours, booo
• Aniyomi for 15 hours, yey!
• Fennec for 10 hours, meh.

Final thoughts

Alright, so yeah, the Nintendo Switch is great and Zelda is awesome, I don’t know what else to say, read the manga I suggested, play videogames, send me your Nintendo friend ID and lets play Rocket League or whatever.

This is day 53 of #100DaysToOffload