There’s a couple of others things I’d like to post about from the happenings this week, but they’ll take a smidgen to get my thoughts on beforehand, and this week has been a rather rough one. However, just right-quick thoughts on the Switch 2 I can do.

The official announcement of the Switch 2 after an absurd amount of rumors over the years is both a relieve and also just exhausting. However, the console itself looks like a nice uptick from its current predecessor and the fact it can play everything the Switch can is a colossal boon. I am excited for it, and I’ll more than likely jump to the Switch 2 near its launch assuming that I’m not knee deep in a project or a cost that would deter such a plan.

The official launch video that Nintendo put out is both really nicely put together, but to me a bit somber. I have a launch Switch, and the only difference is that I changed the reddish/cyan Joycons out for neon green/pink many a years ago. When I was early in my traveler year, my mom – Mama Kosmikros (or Mama K) asked what I wanted for Christmas the year it came out. I was with my trainer at the time and he was coming home for the holidays, and since we lived so close it worked out for me too. So, when Mama K asked me this, I responded with just simply ‘a Nintendo Switch.’

We return home for the holidays: my trainer spends it with his family, and me with mine. I swap the early tales of my journey thus so far with the family, and spent a lot of time with them since I know I’ll not see them all again for quite some time thereafter. Christmas Day rolls around and there was just the one box for me, and it was the Switch. I was so excited to take that back out with me, and I had two games from the get-go (neither of this writing have I still completed): The Legend of Zelda – Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. I played Breath of the Wild a lot before heading back out and a lot while with the trainer.

Once I was out on my own traveling the country, the Switch became an integral part of my daily life. I’ve played so many games on it, and continue to do so to this day – and was a lifesaver during the latest Hurricane, Milton, when power was very limited. To see the Switch 2 coming this year and saying goodbye to such a wonderful console that has been like a good friend all these years makes me a bit sad.

When the time comes, I won’t fully say farewell to my Switch; it’ll still play a part in my life in some way shape or form, and I’ll be sure to take good care of it for many more years hereafter as well.

Kind of ‘off-the-cuff’ this morning, as I didn’t really plan anything for this week. RL & projects have kind of pulled me away from the usual PC work & play that I’m accustomed to. Not that it’s a ‘bad’ thing in any way, in fact I welcome it as it’s been really fun to step away from all the screens for once and do some more handsy-onsy things.

Of course there’s still the usual Final Fantasy XIV routine, but with a lot of the legwork done from previous expansions and mostly everyone caught up to par, there’s a bit more rest-time that can be allocated to other things. One being the never ending train project. Over the weekend I soldered all of the joiners to make it one whole circuit, well most as I still need to be able to relocate it for the new track bed to be placed first. Once the new track bed is down, then the remaining joiners will be soldered and then finally re-mounted once again.

I’ve tested the wheels on the soldered track and it runs so gosh darn smoothly, so I am very much looking forward to seeing this all done and running again just on that factor alone. It’s still a long ways off for it being completed, but seeing the trains running again will be a nice milestone.

Also watched Pixar’s Soul over the weekend for the usual Saturday Dinner/Movie routine. It was pretty good, but not what I expected in a mostly good way.

I think that’s really it for now; doing well aside, still not really interacting with Social Medias. There might be some ‘new challengers’ appearing here and there here aside from Aiki, the Cousins, my dear cats, and I but that will wary on everything else happening.

Happy Monday, y’all! Kick some tails! Remember that y’all always have and will got this.

Now with the holidays passed us, it’s time to take on the first full week of the year! Past weekend was more the usual, but still tinkering with the train scape as that has moved to a full blown project now. It’s had some ups and a lot of downs, but with each down is another thing learned about it all. Ms. Frizzle always did say ‘make mistakes!’ and they have certainly taught me a bit about what the hoobers I am trying to accomplish with this!

The train’s first phase of the project should conclude in a week or so, mail deliveries withholding, and then it’ll be off to plan the remaining phases between everything else going on this year. It’s not as bonkers as the last couple of years with me trying to slow down on working on projects (sans the aforementioned and one other), which will be a nice change of pace.

More of the normal things with regards to Final Fantasy XIV, and still moving along slowly with both Horizon Zero Dawn and Sea of Stars; not much else right now beyond those three things. It will be nice to get back into the usual routine of things and hopefully slow down enough to relax like it used to be a while back.

Happy Monday y’all! Let’s kick some tail!

Here we are, 2025! The year of 2024 has passed, and we’re now heading forwards into the new one.

Personally, it was a pretty good year – multiple unique weather scenarios aside (*glares meanly at Milton*). It’s still been an insane perpetuation of busy that doesn’t seem to want to end, but we made it through. I know folks have had a year of varying journeys, but tails were still kicked and have gotten through it as well.

I truly hope that everyone has a very amazing year ahead filled with all the best moments with the most wonderful journeys throughout. I realize it’s not always the smoothest paths while out there adventuring, but even the trials we have to climb over make us ever the more stronger afterwards. Every single one of y’all is strong, and will kick so much tail. Y’all got this, we got this, and we’ll show the year what we’re made of!

To a wonderful 2025, and beyond! Let it be ‘zee awesome’sies!’

Hard to believe this is the full final week of the year! Past weekend was brisk, but went well. The model trains scape is finally back up and running with a few minor adjustments to be made, but for now it runs well thankfully.

Finished Doctor Who’s latest season, and caught up with Star Trek: Lower Decks as well, along with clearing out a few lingering RL items that were in dire need of being addressed. So now it’s just cruising to the holidays and seeing family with a nice dose of rest.

Not much else; Sea of Stars is moving along, as is the usual Final Fantasy XIV tasks for now. Patch 7.15 comes out tomorrow, which I feel is a smidgen early, but that’s alright. Looking forward to it, but will probably be over the weekend instead of during the week itself as this is to be expected to be a very arduous week ahead. This will impact posts unfortunately.

HQ itself is festive for the Starlight Celebration that started today, and always love to see the decorations for that up around the city-states as well. Apparently even Jeuno has some festiveness happening, and I suspect I know what that all entails – Aikirees and I will pay a visit there during the event and see for ourselves too.

That’s it for this one, y’all have a wonderful Monday and week ahead! Kick tails, and y’all got this!

I had some ideal concept planned for today, and I don’t think it’ll be ready for tomorrow either. I might squish in a Fashion Report adventure from last week for tomorrow, but due to primarily some RL mechanical interruptions (there’s the usual RL things too in there), will have to postpone a smidgen.

I still got a handful of longer story-styled posts to get up here eventually, but need a good amount of ‘quiet time’ to do so, and it’s just not really happened yet, but it will soon enough.

Y’all have a wonderful Thursday! Y’all got this!

This weekend was pretty good. Got a bit of tasks done that I’ve been wanting to address; still a lot remain, but good to see movement. The model train project I decided to move into a smaller-long term project and work on that on and off a lot more than I have the past few years, even with having both engines dead in the water.

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of by beloved cat, Vladimir, having crossed the Rainbow Bridge. I had my sad moments, but I know Vlad would not want that, so I just pushed through with things that needed to be addressed. Lit the rosemary candle for him that I got from the vet where he was cremated for the last time – I wanted it to last the first 10 years, and it successfully did as it burned out last night.

There’s a lot of ’10th’s’ coming up, and I feel they’re going to affect me more so than usual – a lot happened back then and a lot has happened since. Lots of retrospectives I suppose.

Sea of Stars is progressing well, but I suspect I’m still fairly early into the game; very much love it though. Finally got around to taking on a bit of the crafting back log around HQ over the weekend as well; still a smidgen of a stockpile, but seeing a dent in it helps tremendously.

One week at a time, and we got this. Y’all have a wonderful Monday!

Hope everyone had a very wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving holiday this past week/weekend. I got much needed rest and made some headway on tasks that I was starting to get concerned about. There’s still things to be done, but the focus is starting to funnel a specific direction instead of being colandered different ways.

Might have mentioned this last week, but started Sea of Stars last week as well, and fell in love with it nearly immediately. After spending a few hours with it, I really want to see where this goes. The battles are not quick, but intuitive and being turn-based gives me time to process them instead of panicking to react quickly. It’s a nice change of pace and pretty fair with it so far. Shelved Portrait of Ruin right now, as I need some time to think about tasks in it now.

Started the newest season of Doctor Who, and… so far don’t really like it honestly. There’s fun parts for certain, but the overall tone of it just isn’t working for me. That’s just me though and it is fun mostly, so someone else’s mileage will vary. I don’t know if I’ll continue this season or not though as I’m starting to feel that my time could be better utilized elsewhere – being as busy as I’ve been and all.

Weekly Final Fantasy XIV is still looking pretty much the same with with Jeuno: The First Walk being newly added as a weekly task for goodies. That will last about 13 weeks and then stop until 7.2 where it all changes again then. Just have two classes left to level and all of the ones we play will be taken care of again!

The 7.1 Main Scenario post will be up in the next day or so, but the Vana’Diel one will take more time as that’s just so much to talk about. There’s probably going to be a snapshot or so adjacently related to that being put up this week too, but it’s not really a spoiler in relation to it (nor will I post anything about the raid itself without a warning).

There’s still a lot of other little things to work on when time too, crafting keeps coming to mind near immediately. Just been a slew of RL tasks/issues/projects that just won’t. stop. coming. up. Hopefully soon, and I know I keep saying that, but a breather would be nice in the near future.

Did pull out of storage an on & off hobby of mine, a small model train set I’ve been working on over the years. After some attempts to fix one and clean up another locomotive engine, I was left with just the one, and as of last night, none due to I’m not even sure what happened. I got some items on order to hopefully get it up and running, otherwise I’m down two engines and the time/expense towards it all. If it is really a bust then I’ll more than likely put this hobby on hold indefinitely as it just feels like a perpetual problem every single time I want to work on it.

Kind of a messy recap, and I won’t dwell on a lot of this. There’s a lot of crazier/darker/sadder things happening out there right now, and so much very much to be thankful for currently. Be wonderful y’all, and kick lots of tail! Happy first week of December!

We got this!

Here we are, the first holiday week. Last week ended on a near 12 hour day after perpetual 10-11 hour ones. Not a great way to end it, but not necessarily upset about it; just really and truly would like things to re-balance out again. As for the weekend itself, it was pretty decent in terms of getting things done, but nowhere near where I need to be, so hoping this longer weekend will help with that. It was potentially on the chopping block due to the office wanting to stay open on Friday, but I’m putting my paw down in that regards.

Audio Project is heading into the next major phase; the reorganizing part has gone pretty well so far. The whole library is merged once again, so now it’s just cleaning up some of the album’s naming and the artwork, then off to getting all of it on the network for playing. That’s going to be so exciting when it’s done!

Dabbled in a little bit of Portrait of Ruin still, but kind of stuck now looking for the last little goodies that I’m missing (PoR didn’t do a great job with this), so will have to reference some maps and quests notes to finish it all up and then move on to Dawn of Sorrow. Parallel to that, finally started Sea of Stars and I am already looking forward to playing a lot more of that!

Final Fantasy XIV posts are coming, but will need some breather time to work on them. Patch 7.11 is tomorrow and that’s going to fix a bunch of things including the PS4 controller issue, so looking very much forward to that. Mostly progressing through the new Jeuno Raid and typical weeklies, and that’s not going to change very much for the foreseeable future. Really do just want to have a night of chatting again, but pinning it down right now is just so difficult.

The Talk of Skies of Blue

I’ll preface this with the internet is becoming so negative, that being on here in regards to any social media is wading through a lot of backhanded, passive aggressive, angry, hateful, and generally just negative remarks. The last time I was on Mastodon, it was 2/3rd’s something related to the above and 1/3rd genuinely positive or something of that regard (artwork, photos, life update, etc.). It’s exhausting to try and keep up to even weed it all out, to feel almost like a full time job in itself. I have way, way, waaay, too much going on right now to do this.

This leads me to hearing whispers on Mastodon and elsewhere about Bluesky. As of this writing, Bluesky has been the upcoming ‘successor’ to Classic Twitter well before Elon Musk took over. The reason I love Mastodon is it/was very interactive and literally everyone I met on there we had lovely chats with (aside from one person), and because of this, I made a lot of good friends there, we created the Frendedex for making events and hanging out, and even why I have three amazing friends in EOCA now. Classic Twitter (circa 2009-2012) was more like this, and back then I made a few wonderful friends too. Sadly, just due to time & life, I lost contact with them. I just hope to this day I hope they’re still doing well.

Bluesky has what more modern Twitter’s issue has – followers & numbers. I’d rather have 10 or so followers that I interact with on the daily than 1,000+ that I never do. Back in those early years, that’s what it was and it was wonderful. Mastodon is, and still mostly is, like this – sans the aforementioned negativity. Making another social media account to just start over and ‘work’ at makes no sense to me; I have my career job that I work hard in and I enjoy dearly, with EOCA being the other (albeit more hobby-style focus) that I have worked so hard to maintain and I love how it has evolved.

Being with all of this said, I will reiterate from the friends I have made, social media does have good and can be helpful for seeing what people are up to, but right now, everyone just needs to stop being so angry about everything (I understand why to a degree, but it’s not going to solve anything yelling into the void). Maybe at that point, if it ever does happen, I’ll return.

In the meantime, I’ll keep checking in over there when I can periodically, but I will very much not likely be seeing what Bluesky has to offer because I do not care one bit about all the stuff that comes with it.

I think that’s all I have for this one. Oh, decided to see if my trains worked again. After some tinkering, they seem to be okayish, but I’ll have to research how to clean them up a bit better.

Y’all have a wonderful finale to November. Y’all got this! Keep being wonderful!