New wallpaper, movie going, plus anime! - W15

This weekend was packed with quite a bit of stuff, I wonder if things will calm down a bit now that the Easter vacation period is over.

• 🎨 Modified my website design, just a bit! I created a new background wallpaper pattern featuring icons of game consoles, videogames, hobbies and the like. I also went back to a Serif font, which would be Domine. The corners are also rounded again, in case you didn’t notice. I felt like changing things just a bit.

• 🌕 I watched the splashdown of the Integrity on YouTube alongside my sister, honestly the whole thing has made me feel so happy. To think we are going back to the moon and see it in my lifetime. There’s so much going on in this world, looking at the vastness of space is less overwhelming, awesome stuff.

• ✍️ Particularly happy with my review of Resident Evil, it’s more of a retrospective on the game than just the usual review I do. It ended up being my longest post from recent years. What a game!

• 📕 My XTEINK X4 saw a lot of use this week, and even some abuse because I left it on my back pocket and sat on it like three times. I am happy to say that it has managed to survive very well through those challenges, yay!

• ✉️ Got a couple of nice emails from people lately! And I am happy to have made a few new connections and friendships lately with some people from the web. Turns out that humans are still out there!

• 🃏 At first I thought that Coup—the card game I bought a week ago—wouldn’t work out, since the few times we played it was rather stale. However, the full friend group finally returned from vacation on Sunday and we decided to give it another go. It was a total success! Trust issues ensue!

• 😐 To make matters worse, I also bought Liar’s Uno, which is Uno with some bluffing elements. We don’t play it yet, but I am looking forward to see how things go, will report back!

• 🍿 Went to the movies once more to watch the Super Mario Galaxy Movie, this time the place was much more accomodating for my grandma, so we had no issue getting higher up in the rows!

• 🛍️ There was another shopping spree at the mall after the movie. I got some new shirts. I also purchased a Hot Wheels of Yoshi from Mario Kart! I only have Toad and Yoshi, but they are the only ones I play as in the game, so my collection is complete.

• 🧱 At the same time, a friend of mine was shopping elsewhere and saw the Lego set of Ocarina of Time’s Final Battle, which I almost bought last week. I ended up asking him to get it for me and well, now I have quite a project to build, at some point…

Watching

Completed

• The Super Mario Galaxy Movie - I found this to be an enjoyable trip of nostalgia and wonder! I don’t think there’s a lot of depth to it, but I had fun and couldn’t help but look at all the references here! I am also extremely tempted to start Super Mario Galaxy already…

• Malcom in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair - Malcom in the Middle is literally my favorite sitcom of all time. I was afraid this special would ruin it all. But it did the opposite. I absolutely loved my time here, the new characters and dynamics and all. The comedy hit just right and the fact that the original voice actors for the Latino dub returned brought me a lot of joy. There’s maybe a couple who changed—I didn’t look it up—but the essence is right there, it was good to see these characters again.

Ongoing

• Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 - My sister wanted to watch this with me! And we got to eight episodes. It remains kinda confusing—reading the manga didn’t help—and with a bit too much exposition at first. However, now that we are int The Culling Game, the action and character interactions took over, and I have had a lot of fun! Will definitely keep watching.

• Gurren Lagann - I started this anime ages ago, but kind of stopped by episode 12 for some reason, I rewatched a few of those episodes and decided to resume it! It’s a crazy Mecha anime with very over the top animation.

Gaming

• Terranigma - I returned to this gem for a bit and completed the fourth tower, there’s one tower left, and I also want to find the two secret areas of the underworld!

• Balatro - I continue to fail at this regularly and trying again.

Reading

Completed

• To Be Taught, If Fortunate - What a read this was! I ended up flying through the second half once, reading the whole thing on my XTEINK X4. This book follows the journey of a group of astronauts exploring a variety of planets that are deemed to inhabit life. It’s a wonderful book with a lot of creativity and a nice degree of hard science, which I didn’t expect for a novella of its size. I loved its themes and even grew fond of the characters. It’s a book that inspires you to love space and science, but doesn’t shy away from some dark themes and plot twists as the plot moves forward. I will write a bit more about it on an upcoming short review.

Ongoing

• Fly Me To The Moon - Up to chapter 245. Just the usual cute and fun rom-com. Although there’s a bit of thrill recently with a secret that could be unveiled and change the dynamics a bit yet again. Just enjoying the ride!

• Blue Lock - Up to chapter 342. The match has been tied, and the changes within the Blue Lock them can be felt! This match againsnt France has been a fun arc so far.

• Kingdom - Up to chapter 871. Fully catched up now, awesome stuff as always. It’s never too late to start this manga y’all.

Words I looked up

I’m stealing this section from Amin’s weeknotes.

• Trellis
• Lichen
• Peristalsis
• Pine (verb)
• Annelid
• Ebb

That’s what happens when you read a novella with some hard science elements, I guess.

Around the web

Blogposts

• Finding My Way Back - I am so glad to see Jedda once more on my RSS feed and on the fediverse as well. I’ve missed her and perhaps some of my readers too!

• visions of an embodied internet - Perhaps I’ll write another blogposts by hand with my fountain pen and snail mail it to you. Or I won’t, because I’m lazy and my country’s mailing service is terrible.

• Disparaging Nouns - This is such a funny post. I can relate, as a native Spanish speaker, the same thing happens between Spain, México and other countries in South America.

• What I Write With: 3 Cheap Fountain Pens, and a Mechanical Pencil From the 1970s - Need I say more?

YouTube

• Inkscape Tutorial: How to Make a Repeating Pattern - This is the tutorial I followed for my website’s wallpaper pattern, it worked!

• Gaten Matarazzo’s most underrated Legend of Zelda game / Shelf Quest - I didn’t know this series was a thing, but this video with the actor that played Dustin in Stranger Tings simply walking through a retro gaming store was awesomeee.

• Could an Average Human Beat the Great Plateau in BOTW? - This is such a genius premise and so silly at the same time. How would a human do inside a videogame?

• A First Timer’s Honest Review of Ocarina of Time - This was a wonderful video where someone played Ocarina of Time for the first time and loved it. Therefore I loved the video too.

• Balatro, But Every Ante The Player Swaps… - Believe it or not, I had never seen a playthrough of Balatro from start to finish, much less by multiple people in one video. It was definitely fun.

• How Pre-Rendered Backgrounds Defined Early 3D Gaming - This was a wonderful essay on the history of prerrendered backgrounds, which are prevalent on Resident Evil, but kind of defined a whole generation of games. Good video.