General

The good was the weekend had incremental progress for the audio project, but the not-so was the lack of rest I sorely needed. Another issue did get addressed, or rather came to a compromise, which was good but ate well into Friday evening causing a bit of setbacks on its own. I’m glad it was figured out ultimately but was certainly a reminder to avoid such tasks during a work week twice over.

The relaxing I did manage to get involved getting ready for Patch 7.1 as much as possible, watching all of the current season of Tart Trek: Lower Decks, and getting in a little bit of Portrait of Ruin. All of this was very nice and much needed especially after last week and the weeks coming ahead.

I was hoping to get more back end tasks dealt with as well, but those hit some hard snags that I’ll have to plan according or otherwise risk losing a lot. There was a quirky little project that was in this category that did manage to get pulled off, which so far has seemed to help control things around the house a bit better (audio-project adjacent I suppose).

Hopefully I’ll have a full week of goodies for this one, especially with the aforementioned Patch 7.1 coming out tomorrow. Looking forward to it and seeing some of Aikirees’ past life in the process as well. Next weekend ideally getting in a lot more rest now that some of these tasks have been addressed too.

Happy Monday y’all! Kick some tail! Y’all got this!!

The first full week of November is coming to a conclusion, and it has been a pretty long one with that. The fact that it is so busy is fine, but it does take its toll on a repeated basis. Just glad and thankful I’m in a place & industry that I like surrounded by cohorts as well.

With that though, looking forward to a pretty quiet (audio project withstanding) weekend ahead. We’re pretty close to being in a good place for the launch of Patch 7.1 next Tuesday, and we’re all looking forward to seeing that. 7.0 has been a nice fun time though, so not ‘antsy’ per se, but seeing where the story is going to go now along with peering into Aikirees’ 9th Life will be a nice addenda for certain.

Small setback on the whole audio project thing last night, which crunched my night down by a lot. Made it through the remaining portion of the evening pretty well, but between that and the whole week, I’m pretty worn down now. Side-note, this is why I don’t do weekly projects unless it’s an emergency because it usually wrecks havoc on the next work day. It’ll work out though even with some additional trial and error, so no big thing to sweat about.

Happy Friday y’all! Have a wonderful day and weekend ahead!

I’m at a loss for words, once again this has happened…

We just need to keep fighting evil, continue doing all the good we can, and spread kindness & positivity as much as possible. Reach out lend an ear to friends and family, especially in LGBTQIA+. Give lots of hugs, and be the best one can be.

It’s going to get dark, but we’ll get through this and we have to make sure it cannot happen again.

We well y’all. Be ‘zee awesome’sies.’

Zonked out a smidgen earlier last night due to the time warp from the weekend, but did get some more audio organization done and some Horizon Zero Dawn in to round out the night.

So, today is Election Day in the USA, and for some baffling reason is a contest. This really shouldn’t be a contest as there is clearly one person who is right for the job (and no, it’s not the Orange Menace), but here we are. Hopefully enough sense will have come out to vote and this will be over in some way shape or form.

If you haven’t voted and can, please go out and do so as all of them count in some way shape or form. Sitting it out is really not something anyone can do as there is so much at stake currently and for the future. If you have voted already (or like me did it early), just relax, go on with your usual day. There’s not much else that can be done and we’re not going to know for some time anyway.

I’d advise staying off any Social Medias as there all going to be more negative than usual, if that’s even possible. I realize that’s not saying much as that seems to be the trend everywhere is to just be negative even if it’s for the sake of it. This is an article in itself I could easily write about now, but that’s (possibly) for another time.

If one wants to watch or keep up with the polls, do so in spurts, and from more neutral sources if possible as that should help things stay to what’s fully fact. Don’t forget to eat well, drink lots of water, and get a good sleep in as well. Whatever happens, we’ll get through this even if we have to kick a lot of tails in the process. Be ‘zee awesome’sies,’ be kind, and be well.

Y’all have a wonderful day ahead. Be good to yourself, and spread that goodness – even if it’s a fun tale or story that you like to read or tell.

Another Time Warp down, and only two months left of the year. Doesn’t really feel like it’s been a year as it certainly went swiftly by. That ole recollection talk is for the end of the year though. The past weekend was very lovely – saw family on Saturday night, albeit a shorter evening due to two of our work schedules just being tirelessly busy. It’s that time of year though with the holidays fast approaching everyone is starting to get ready for it all. I don’t mind as I do like the busyness and all.

Picked up Clock Tower Rewind for Switch the other day, and have kind of been plucking away at it slowly. I enjoy it a lot but I’m pretty bad at it! The controls are very much of their time, but they have that charm with it and it’s really not all that rough to get used to on the fly. It’s good classic creepy fun and as I go and unfold more of the story, the more I really want to not only see it to the end, but also get the best ending!

Still plugging along with Portrait of Ruin and still overleveled for the time being, which I honestly don’t remember being an issue when I first played this, but then again, back then Ecclesia wasn’t out yet so that might have something to do with it. Along with that, right now just keeping status quo with the weekly tasks in Final Fantasy XIV until patch 7.1. Music project is coming along nicely, with the support of an older PC that I resurrected, it’s moving quicker now so hopefully by the end of November, that will be all wrapped up.

I’m not sure how much I’ll have ready to post this week, with things getting more busy, but hopefully I’ll have things up daily as usual. Fashion Reports are all caught up now(!) so from here on out, those will be posted in rears if there’s one we made from the week prior. This week there will not be one, so might just slot in some more adventure items or a blog stuffs post. There’s still a few long posts coming down the pipeline once I get some downtime to work on those. Possibly as early as this weekend since I’m not visiting/seeing any family until Thanksgiving now.

Coming up to the first year of starting Kosmikros’ Corner up as well; it’s been a really wonderful adventure that I hope to continue on for as long as I can. I think that’s all there is to this one, until next time, happy Monday! Y’all got this, kick some tail!

Didn’t really have anything special planned for today, but Happy Spoopy Day everyone! Y’all have an absolutely fun filled one today! Enjoy some scary movies/stories, lots of goodies, moosics, and all the fun spoops! Upmost importantly, stay safe through it all and take care!

I’ll probably space out what happened in their own posts over the next day or so, but this weekend was just absolutely wonderful. The quick items are that I finished the Fallout Season 1, and loved how that concluded; with that though, I am now looking forward to the next season when it comes out. Haven’t started Star Trek: The Lower Decks new season yet, but should probably be sometime soon. Doctor Who might be up first since it’s nearing the end of the year though.

Still plugging along in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin with the 2nd painting cleared now. Probably will end up meandering the halls of Dracula’s Castle trying to remember where the next one was, which is fine as it’s been even fun doing that. I think I’m way over leveled right now due to said meandering, but once I find the next painting that will be put to the test I’m sure. Clock Tower’s remake comes out soon too, and I really want to play that – looks like a good scary fun time.

Now to the big fun things. I ultimately did go to both Burgundy’s 6th Anniversary show, and then Aikirees and I went over to our friend’s Free Company’s Halloween party right after that for the remainder of the evening. I’m really glad I got to make the 6th Anniversary show and see a lot of folks again. It was vibrant positive energy throughout the entirety of it and the performances were stellar as always! I got there a smidgen earlier than the show starting and was a little overwhelmed by the Troupe welcoming me to the point I kind of froze up. Once everyone started getting into place I was fine and it brought back a warm nostalgia that I hadn’t felt in a long while. After the performance concluded, I met up with Aikirees and we headed over to a friend’s Free Company’s house to enjoy their annual Halloween event. This was such a fun time with music, dancing, decor, costume contest, games, and some very lovely goodies for everyone who attended.

I’ll go into more about those both in a separate thing with some photos too. It was all so wonderful and fun; I can’t recall the last time I ventured away from HQ like this, and I am very glad to have done so. Happy Monday to everyone! Y’all have a wonderful day ahead! Last week of Spoopy Month, let’s make it count!

I thought I had everything planned out for this week, but apparently not which is fine. The week and few days post Milton have been higher-chaos-than-usual feeling, and it might have climaxed yesterday bleeding into today. Built a little something for the office’s networking social gathering happening this evening that depicts mostly what we’re capable of creating. It’s a custom-built/printed version of Connect Four based off an older prototype that I took a few months to make prior, so hopefully it will be informative as well as being a fun item. Most of us don’t need to be here for the event, so we’ll head out once it begins.

Completed Order of Ecclesia a couple of days ago at 100%, so have now moved on to Portrait of Ruin for the next game in the Dominus Collection. Coming from Ecclesia to Portrait is kind of a noticeable contrast in terms of how it’s presented that I have very much forgotten, but still the same familiarity that’s been around since Symphony of the Night. I like this one a lot, but not as much as Ecclesia, so it’s been a fun nostalgia trip for certain!

Guess it’s time to get back at it, until next time y’all!

This weekend was exactly what I was needing after Milton came through the week/end prior. We all got caught back up in Final Fantasy XIV, finished the F-Zero 99 event, watched a lot of the Fallout Series, and just had a moment to simply sit down and rest.

Last week was crazy busy. Between seasonal projects, the post-hurricane orders came blazing in. Keeping up with it all was a bit ear raising, but we did ultimately come out on top. Hoping now until next year we can keep that pace very swiftly. Saturday was the big catch up in Eorzea, which was a great success, and then yesterday was a bit of both with a lot of cleaning catch-up that wasn’t able to be done prior due to lack of power.

The Fallout Series I’ve fully enjoyed; there’s a few slow spots (they do ultimately play out rather well), but overall I’ve loved every bit of it. Looking forward to finishing the series really soon. The F-Zero 99 event was fun and I’m glad was a lot less ‘grindy’ to complete, and I even was able to finish Ace League to get the Wild Goose’s counterpart! Great fun all around!

I think that’s it, kind of jumpy but overall really wonderful weekend. Here’s to the last week and weekend of Spoopy Month! May y’all have a really wonderful one!

Usual goodies will be returning soon! Possibly later today, or tomorrow at the latest hopefully; there’s been some adventures in technical tribulations the last couple of days. Yesterday was on ‘I.T. Mode’ reorganizing the office’s closet, which was in dire need of it. Supposedly our modem went out, so the owner went and got a new one, meanwhile I went ahead and got the area for it all nice and cleaned up so everything was all in one nice place.

It was fun, but did eat a bit of my day up, along with the loss of network capabilities for the office, so there was a bit of catch-up to deal with. The homestead side seems alright and I did plop the new hard drive into the PS3 making it a whopping 1TB over the 40GB it initially had. Since it’s the original Fat model, the base OS was still on the system itself; so once the drives were swapped over, it was only a matter of minutes that it was back up and running!

I did backup the old drive, so once that part was initiated to ‘recover’ the data, then it did take some time since it was at the mercy of the USB drive’s speed. Not a big deal, just let it do its thing while I went off to the next evening task. With that done, however, it’s off to just finish cleaning up the music library and get everything on there. That part is taking time, but it’s making progress again now that Milton has passed.

The Cousins returned to Eorzea last night; it was a big jarring, but they got their legs back pretty quickly and resumed where they left off prior to the hurricane excursion. We’ll all be catching a bit back up as the week progresses, but nothing overly daunting to say the least. All Saints’ Wake’s event looks to be a lot of fun so we’re looking forward to that as well!

Until next time y’all!

Wasn’t really able to post or plan much out last week as once Hurricane Milton pre-planning went underway, there was no time to pause and think about anything else. I’ve encountered a lot of natural disasters across the nation during the year of traveling, but I think I’d place going through the eye of a hurricane up there in my top three ‘do not want to do again.’

The leading up to Milton was like any other hurricane that has come through, get some supplies, the ‘Hurricane Kit’ all set, charge practically everything that has a battery, get batteries for non-chargeable items, and defend the homestead as needed. They were warning us that this was the one to ‘board up’ for, which is when the Hurricane Shutters go up and/or plywood over all of the windows. My house is rated for up to a Category 3 Hurricane, but I didn’t want to chance the windows so I put up some aluminum composite sheets that I was able to get from the office to use, and this turned out to be a very wise idea.

We kept tabs on the news, the evacuation zones (I’m not in one, but if the weather gets severe enough to warrant a city-wide evacuation, it’s probably best to do so), and where this gargantuan storm was heading. It got really strong out in the Gulf, becoming an insanely powerful Category 5, but due to dry cooler air coming in, we were spared such a monstrous force. This was all forecast incredibly well, which helped to keep a lot of us calm. I was concerned even with it being a Category 3 on landfall, but knew we’d more or less be alright as long as it wasn’t any stronger.

Once all the preparations were made on Monday and Tuesday both at home and at the office, we adjourned and said our ‘stay safes’ before departing to our safety places. Now, ‘evacuating’ from a home doesn’t necessarily mean leaving the city. Around the city(ies) are Hurricane Shelters that are temporary repurposed facilities (usually schools) that can withstand the mighty force of the storm. If this was to have made landfall as a 4 or a 5, then I would have myself more than likely done the same.

Wednesday, everyone either evacuated or ‘sheltered in place,’ which is to say I stayed home and did my final indoor preparations: filled the tub with water along with every other container that I use to hold water. I knew the power was going to go out, so before that was to have happened, made certain everything was in perfectly charge shape, the flashlights were ready to go, and most electronics were ready to be shut down when or before it happened.

Up until the evening, it continued to get worse outside. I kept tabs on the radar for winds and rain, as well as keeping the local news up for progress of the incoming inevitable. Aikirees and I did our usual reset items for the week knowing that this might be the last time we would be able to for a while. Once all that was done, everything got shut down.

Doors around the house began to be closed to help regulate the pressure changes, and were only opened when absolutely necessary. I kept up with family members who were both local and out of state on how we were fairing, and also Juli & Sirena too for as long as the network held out.

Evening rolled around, and I checked the radar to see that the storm was about to make landfall about 30 miles away, which put me into getting ready for it as best/quickly as possible, but it landed far sooner than many of us expected it to. The winds ramped up rapidly, and thus so did the blips of power loss. It was raining on and off a bit throughout the whole storm, but it wasn’t as audible once the winds really picked up. Each burst of wind made the house creak in very uncomfortable ways.

The power did finally go out for good. It was about an hour or so before the Eye was upon us. By the time we encountered it, just about everyone we knew had been inside it for quite some time. It was an eerie calm, and pitch black out as the sun had set. I poked my head outside to see it for myself, as did some of the neighbors. That is a quietness that I really would like to forget, similar but not the same to an impending tornado.

About 20 minutes or so later, the other side of the storm hit with more force than the first half. I was a bit concerned that the house was going to topple, but it held steadfast. The air pressure kept changing and popping my poor ears throughout this phase as well. About this time something hit the window paneling with such a force it startled me to investigate from inside, but thankfully there was no damage from whatever it was. I lit a candle and held onto one of my flashlights as the storm raged on, finally settling in on the nook’s table to play some Switch to calm the nerves. At this point it was 01:00 on Thursday morning, and I could barely stay awake any longer, but the storm still kept on.

Finally, around 02:00, the winds started to slow, and at that point, I collapsed onto the couch to get some rest. 10:00 arrived, and I woke up to darkness due to the panels. I got changed and went outside to see what happened, as was a lot of the neighborhood too. My damage was thankfully minimal: a shrub I didn’t really like was uprooted, few shingles to be replaced, and a gutter spout’s splash plate. Took care of all that, and took the panels down to get some light in the house. We had water, which was a huge thank goodness moment in itself, but just no power.

Thursday was a fascinating site seeing everyone outside, music was playing, people were cooking on grills, and everyone seemed to be in very high spirits. It reminded me of one of the houses I had some of my childhood in the 1990’s with folks outside in the evening hours talking and playing altogether. We all did check on the office and take care of things there on Friday, but spent most of it outside when there was daylight taking care of projects or tasks that I’ve been meaning to get to. I cooked out Friday night, some fish that would have gone bad and found out one can cook spaghetti on a grill too! It doesn’t have the same feel as boiled, but it was so darn good!

When the sun set, would just use an inverter to borrow some power from the car for a spell to keep things charged and/or powered on until bedtime. Went about watching The Mummy using a DVD drive connected to a Surface Pro 2 one of the nights, which was very delightful. Playing Nintendo Switch a lot was a good evening past time too.

About four days later, late on Sunday, the power finally was restored to cheers being heard across the neighborhood. As much as it was a rather productive time without power, the heat was started to get to the lot of us and having some normalcy return was a welcomed feeling. As for me, I went into overdrive to get as much done as possible before the day concluded – food being a major priority as having to toss out any perishable foods from the fridge left it looking a bit sparse.

But it was over, the ordeal for us had come to an end. It could have been so much worse, and I know a lot of folks did fare worse, but the good is it sounded like the loss of life was astronomically low. With that in mind, looking back on everything that happened, it was alright. Would I want to relive it? Absolutely not, nor would I want anyone to go through such a storm that includes the core of the beast. It was certainly a tale for the ever continuing adventures diary, but one story I’d like to only write about once.

I’ll go with the grim first and then go into the fun. The grim being Hurricane Milton has my entire (rebuilt) life in its iron sights. This hurricane is astoundingly frustrating as how it formed, how quick it formed, how strong it formed, and the direction – it’s absurd and feels like a natural comical satire. We’re hoping for the best, but planning for the worst seeing as it could land anywhere on our coast as a 3+. The good is that hasn’t changed much so we just need to know where ground-zero is happening.

We’ve done planning, and have started to get shields up, and we’ll have all the final preparations before this thing makes landfall. Just really hope this doesn’t go awful… While being a traveler, there’s an enormous amount of rough weather encountered out there, so certainly not unfamiliar to things getting turbulent.

Fun side, saw the family like planned on Saturday, and that was a very wonderful time; the usual catching up on things with a very lovely dinner with it all.

Guess there’s not really much to say for this one, shorter I know. Posts this week might be a bit on the thinner side with what’s about to happen. Just… don’t take what you have for granted, it could potentially be erased in a matter of moments.

Take care y’all, until next one.

I really draw a blank on naming these general ones sometimes, but weekend is coming up and looking forward to seeing family Saturday for a lovely evening. I was initially planning on doing so the past weekend but with Helene, I decided against it until that critter went through. I would love to work on some of the audio project as well, but really depends on if I have the spare time for it. The good on that is there’s no hurry as I’m pretty knee-deep in redoing the entire digital library right now. It’s a fairly big undertaking, but taking it a few steps per day has made it not too daunting.

With it being Spoopy Month, seeing family tomorrow might be our big ‘Halloween’ one for the month unless we get together again before the weekend of the 26th. It’s possible but not likely, and that’s perfectly fine. We’ll catch up early November before all the holidays kick into high gear and everything becomes bonkers then. If so I’ll grab my cute Halloween theme leggings, socks, and shirt to wear and be festive. I should look into some comfy Halloween tights too the more I think about it.

There are other things I kind of want to rant about, but 1) it’s not necessarily going to be helpful, 2) nothing to do with anything RL – but I could site the past as part of it though, and 3) I don’t know how to express it well enough to utilize only words. It’s really a lose-lose scenario overall and so I just move onto other things. It’s just… getting harder to do, I suppose. Eventually it may not or it’ll evaporate, and that’s normally what it does so dwelling on it or typing anything beyond this ‘blip’ is probably all that needs to be done.

Final Fantasy XIV related, there’s two events the weekend of the 26th that I may or may not go to. One is Burgundy’s 6th Anniversary, but if I go to that, I’d just go as a guest. The more I think about how I feel about it, the more I really would just like to leave the old uniform in the Archives; it might come out for a charity event at the end of the year if it gets off the ground, but that’s still to be determined and not in my wheelhouse. Instead, would just wear a nice dress, possibly bring Aikirees, and/or anyone else who would want to come along for the show as well.

Aside from that, an old friend’s Free Company is having a pretty big Halloween event that same night. That I’m leaning towards going to as it’s been a couple of years since we were able to go last, and that was a lot of fun when we were able to make it!

Taking a break temporarily from Castlevania to partake in the F-Zero 99 anniversary event along with the new patch 1.5 that added the Ace League. This League was originally only on the Super Nintendo’s Satellaview and only in Japan, so being able to play these now with 98 other folks is both a blast and absolutely bonkers!

I think that’s all for this one, bit on the longer end. Y’all have an absolutely wonderful rest of Friday and weekend ahead!

I don’t really have this week planned as well as I would have like due to ultimately messing around with a project that while was a fruitful endeavor took a bit of time in the process. The project in particular is another sub-project with the audio overhauling. Trying to use what existing equipment and technology and recycle it into the new set up has been rather fun but is taking time. The result was something pretty fun involving an old PSP-3000 and a PS3 playing music across the network; however, tinkering with it was both comical and a learning experience though.

There’s of course better ways to do it, but since I have these items and really like to recycle older things into new usable items, this was right up my alley. The rest of the project is more time-consuming than it is materialistically costly: this is both good and bad. The bad being the time allocated means time away from planning other things but at least there’s a low-cost for it.

I did manage to squeak out both two more episodes of Fallout, and go to Aethercon on Saturday. The Fallout series is still really interesting to me and I still am looking forward to see where this all goes. It’s kind of rare where nearly halfway through a season I somewhat can’t see where this is going yet. I think once I’m done with this show I’ll bounce back to Doctor Who and finish the new season with the 15th before the holidays ideally.

I’ll go into more about Aethercon in a separate post, but I am very glad we went. It was a very wonderful time even if it was more on the shorter side. Supposedly they’ll host it again next year and if so, we’ll probably put up our ‘RP’ flags then and get a bit more involved. We’re always in character, but it’s better to put the flag up to make sure everyone else knows it too.

Patch 7.1 Live Letter came out, sounds like Mid-November for the release. This is good and we’ll be full ready by then to take it on. Very excited for the Final Fantasy XI raid in particular – it will be nice to see somewhat of Aikirees’ first incarnation’s world.

Just some quick thoughts on it: the new Expert Dungeon’s atmosphere looks incredibly creepy, and Nashu of Hildibrand fame being in Solution Nine is (hilariously) concerning. The Extreme/Unreal/Chaotic AR/Ultimates are not something we do, but for those folks who do, kick lot’s of tails! The housing interior adjustments and sizing changing options are nice, but I don’t think I’ll ever make HQ’s interior bigger than it’s supposed to be. PvP changes coming are nice, with hopefully the 4th Frontlines coming back as that’s been gone a long spell. The Hall of Novice changes have been direly needed, as there’s a few (Dorito and Dice) mechanics that a lot of folks don’t fully understand, so hoping that will help alleviate this.

I think that will do it for this one; tomorrow is October 1st! Spoopy Month so soon! We cannot wait!! Until next time, y’all have a wonderful one!

Kind of an addenda thought from the other day combined with current adventures. This weekend, well starting today in fact, is an in-game event/convention called Aethercon that is supposedly a big RP-oriented event over on the Crystal Data Center. I kind of want to go along with Aikirees, but Datacenter Traveling’s new system may make that a smidgen more difficult unless I head there really early or really late. It’s doable, but unsure if I really want to.

Part of me wants to as if it is really more into the Roleplay side of things, that would be right up our alley and could be a lot of fun. However, I’m not too keen on the social side of Final Fantasy XIV right now, as the venue space/modding community has really turned me off from it. Lore purists don’t really worry me all that much, but anyone who is and berates that sort of thing to another person is just being an absolute rude piece of trash and shouldn’t ever do so nor engage in the RP community in general.

Happening as well is another Burgundy Room performance that is on my Data Center, and I’ve kind of been wanting to go to another show as it’s been almost two years since the last major drama event happened. That one in particular was pretty awful and turned me off from wanting to partake ever again. I may decide to visit Crystal for Aethercon, I may decide to just go to the show, or I may decide on neither and relax for the evening instead, especially after Helene came through.

Hurricane Helene came barreling through yesterday. We were not in the direct path, thankfully, but just skirted it enough to be a bit windier than expected. No major damage or what-not, but still need to check a couple of things around the house. The city is assessing things, but aside from being wary for the amount of water use the next day or so, should be back to normal by the end of the weekend.

It’ll be alright though, and I hope everyone who was in the direct path is safe and accounted for. Hopefully the rest of the hurricane season is a lot quieter for us now.

Until next time, y’all take care, and keep kicking lots of tails. Lots of love.

No, not that kind of Fallout; this is in reference to the game series.

Kind of a couple of days later than I wanted to get my thoughts out, but between RL being a bit bonkers and other projects, been unable to. The project I mentioned last week, speaking of, went almost near perfect in updating the multi-room audio with new hardware. There was one minor oversight and one technical failure, but it was part of the old set up so it wasn’t a major loss. I’m really happy with the final results though, and now have a road map as to what I want to do to enhance this whole thing even further.

Albeit this wasn’t technically a planned project, but cost-wise it’s not anywhere near a vast as the last one, and I play a lot of music regularly so having this all re-set back up before the next major project will definitely help things in the long run. There’s really only a couple of planned projects I want to do left before all of these initial ones will be completed. Then I can start to plan future ones whenever the feeling arises!

I think those two enjoy their countering outfits a lot. The usual progress in FFXIV, slow and steady until 7.1 at least. There’s more things I’d like to say in regards to little observations that are occurring and reoccurring and even though it’s a little frustrating to see especially being around since late Stormblood, it’s not necessarily going to change anything. Just… be kind and patient with folks one doesn’t know what they’re going through. If things are going a bit slower that one would like, it’s very much completely fine. We’re all here to have fun, not a race nor a comparison contest.

I’ll probably delve a bit more into all that though once I finalize and get the EOCA story out; it was supposed to come out a year or so ago, but due to revisions and the size of it, I had to shelve it. Ideally by or before the 5th anniversary of EOCA (not the FC), but we’ll have to see.

Anyway, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is now on the last level at around level 40 as of this post. I think I beat the game originally at 45 or so, so we’re making pretty good progress. Still need to unlock the last two bonus places for goodies, and some hidden items once I get a smidgen further in said last level, but that should wrap it up. It’s been a blast going through it again, and looking forward to New Game Plus as well. Will probably migrate to Portrait of Ruin after this.

As for the Fallout call out (hehe~), I started the series that Amazon put out, and that has been a joy. Reminds me of my time in Fallout 4 from years back; haven’t gotten very far yet, only on Episode 3 as of right now, but looking forward to the rest of it.

That’s all I can ponder for this one, next Monday will hopefully start a new segment ‘Monday Morning Weekend Recap,’ with a header to match, depending on how the morning is going. Until next time~!

I had a fairly large thing written about my multi-room audio set up needing a rework since it stopped working with my turntable, the obnoxious time spent trying to fix all this, the practical use for some (but not all) smart home devices, large conglomerate companies adding a bunch of ads and unnecessary ‘features’ to said devices, and spending more time researching how to course correct all of this. In the end I decided against it as it was just too long, and there’s so much else going awful in the world right now for this to be a big deal as it really isn’t. I will say I do miss the days when things just worked out of the box, instead of having to jump through hoops and/or update all of these things.

That aside, last week involved a massive work-related project that turned out great in the end. It was a multi-piece recognition wall for a client, and it was probably my biggest solo-project since I left my industry the first time. Had a lot of parts that I had to plan out, cut out, and get to our installers all within a week’s turnaround. Tired my old rabbit self out in the process, but was great in the end.

The other project was hitting a milestone on a fun one I’ve been working at the office too, building out a Connect Four board with just scrap materials around the office. Last week the legs got made for it so now the board sits very nicely into that as opposed to being flat on the ground. Just have to put the game pieces box together and get the pieces printed for it all to be finished out.

FFXIV-wise, still moving along with the usual weekly tasks right now. Last Sunday being with almost everyone was very fun and made for a wonderful way to end the weekend. Hoping to be able to do that a lot more going forward even if it’s just chatting or running around a place like the Gold Saucer.

Castlevania-wise, Order of Ecclesia is coming along. Kind of got stuck but I remember getting stuck here on my first playthrough too, and it just takes a bit of level building to get back on track, and that should be soon!

I think that’s all I can think of for now, so y’all have a wonderful Tuesday!!

So, I’ve been back on Mastodon for about a week now, and while it’s been very nice to see folks that I haven’t since my departure, it’s overall… well I suppose ‘to be determined?’ Being gone from social media for so long has been really really good for me, but on the opposing side, it’s placed me in a nebulous state of what/how to interact there now. A lot of little things I’ve forgotten about social media have resurfaced – most of which can be summed up into basically ‘general negativity.’ Some folks I’ve tried to interact with that I used to only to be brushed off tends to have me lean more towards reconsidering this return. I do understand it though, I have been gone a very long time.

That’s not to say it’s all been doom and gloom. Folks/friends have general been pretty happy to see me come back, and there’s still a lot of positive/feel good posts happening throughout. It’s just… different I suppose and I guess that’s just social media in general? It might have always been there, and I didn’t notice as much (I know I contributed as well to it). Something to continue to ponder, but I’ve got enough going on to not either dwell on it and/or force myself to utilize if the feeling isn’t right. Time will tell, but in the mean time the folks & friends that I have been able to reconnect with have been for the most part a joy.

Switching subjects, recently Konami released ‘Castlevania: Dominus Collection’ for I believe all major platforms. This collection contains the three Nintendo DS games: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia. Order of Ecclesia being my absolute favorite Castlevania game of all time. I’ve played the latter two back on the Nintendo DS, but being able to play them on modern hardware and on a big screen has always been a dream of mine. I picked it up for Switch, and for the most part, just played it in handheld mode. That all changed last night when instead of playing Final Fantasy XIV, I took the night off from that and played Order of Ecclesia docked.

This was just sheer joy, and a dream come true. One area of note when I did this is the music was stellar!! The sound effects sounded a lot better too, but that music was so gosh darn wonderful to hear. The visuals are crisp, clear, and being able to see both of the DS’s screens together like that has been very well done. I can’t recommend this trilogy enough for anyone curious about theses – they’re so worth it. I picked Ecclesia first because it’s my favorite, but once I’ve completed it, will move on to Portrait of Ruin, and then Dawn of Sorrow. This is in reverse order of how they were originally released, but they’re not connected (Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin are sequels to other Castlevania’s though), so there’s no loss there.

Oh, one last tidbit since I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it; posts here are usually scheduled at 10:00am Eastern Time every weekday unless I have nothing for that day or something got delayed. Occasionally a post will be retrostamped if it’s coming but a little later in the day. Every now and then something else will get posted (like this one!) but the standard 10:00 are usually the scheduled ones.

Until next time, take care y’all, and have a wonderful Tuesday evening!