Digimon Story: Time Stranger

Digimon Story: Time Stranger releases in four hours, so I decided to finally try the demo. It certainly scratched that monster collector itch (and the "number go up" itch), and I think I'm glad I tried the demo seven hours before release, because I want to continue my adventure, darn it. I want to Digivolve my guys into Champions. The demo cut off at an oddly anti-climactic place, but it did have a nice climax about fifteen minutes before then.

Speaking of the game, I chose Gomamon as my starter for Lord God Jinnai solidarity (otherwise, I'd have went Demidevimon). I didn't expect the starters to have voices, but they do, and it's not R. Martin Klein. Who is this impostor. Darn it, to think I could've had Lord God Jinnai on my team for real... (Then again, that voice actor is old; he might be retired anyway.)

Work (October 1)

As for general stuff, yesterday was a busy day at work. A guy's entire ceiling fell, and him and I (him doing basically all the work, I swear) pulled it out, so it wasn't resting on top of his stuff. I'm weak regardless, but for the past four days (since Monday), I've had a bad shoulder (presumably from sleeping on it poorly, but it healed on Tuesday then started again on Wednesday?) It's quite mysterious, so I hope it goes away soon enough.

This Weekend: Family going to Pittsburgh

Starting Saturday, into Monday, the rest of my family is going out to Pittsburgh, both to see some sights (we never really explore Pittsburgh itself outside of walking around it during Christmas), and to help pack stuff up for my grandparents, who are moving out of their house on October 14th. We're all sure it'll be tough for grandma, but grandpap is looking forward to it, given he's the one who has to do most of the work in their current house, and it's getting tough with him in his 90s. The house isn't made for old people, given you're immediately met with steps when entering. The home will have an elevator, and three meals a day.

Personally, I fear old age and helplessness, as someone too shy to make real life connections, so I literally am as frugal as I am mainly to make sure I'll have enough to go into a nice old age home when I'm old. In general—for literal months, if not over a year—I've had this sense of dread about aging and growing old and deterioration, and I wish the thoughts would go away. Perhaps I'm having my mid-life crisis in my early 30s? Ha. That's not good, since I'm sure it'll only get worse as I age. It's crazy to think likely over a third of my life is over, and as for my best years of life, probably halfway done or more.

Digimon!

I've been playing Digimon: Time Stranger all week, and quite extensively, clocking in about 70 hours from October 3 (happy birthday Deems) to 9. It's been a very good game, though not without its faults, mainly in the Digifarm. But the classic evolution path stuff is great. The game is said to be completed in around 40 hours, yet I'm at endgame (with sidequests to complete) at 70, because I've been trying to unlock every digimon in the log—and have also admitedly left the game on sometimes while doing other stuff, just to get Digimon through training for those evolution requirements. I didn't bother with Personality as much as I should've to meet evolution requirements, but that feels like a hassle anyway, at least for anyone but one's main team.

One can literally see when I was playing the game, because I had no Changelog updates here from the 3rd to the 10th. Ha.

I'm a little disappointed in myself for doing nothing for #NotReallyInkingInOctober, but Digimon aside, making this website is still some sort of project, so at least I'm being productive in some form—Digiweek aside. As is often the case with me, now that I'm in endgame, I have less motivation to play, thus haven't touched it in almost a week (I'm writing this on October 16). I do hope to finish it soon, since I'd actually like to review this on Steam. It deserves it. I want Digimon to succeed. I've watched so many videos of people—especially those who only knew of Digimon from their childhood—playing this game and being surprised and impressed by it, and that's been great. I don't particularly care about "MoistCritical" or whoever, but he's a popular dude, and even he played and enjoyed it. A win for Digimon, given hes' a popular guy.

Due to this game and general hype, I've grown very nostalgic for the series, and have been listening to a lot of Japanese music from the show; it makes me want to rewatch the series. Every single one (that I watched, so up to Savers ... though I don't actually have much interest in Frontier but maybe I'd like it more as an adult). I heard there's a new anime out and it's pretty good, but two episodes (one at the time) isn't enough to really tell, so I'm holding off for now. Ghost Game started out promising, but ended up being a slog I dropped pretty early on.

Jim Thorpe Day Trip

Full write up here.

The family (my middle sister and her husband included) took a day trip to Jim Thorpe today, to ride this train. We had to park pretty far away at a church (parking cost $25), but the walk down was nice enough. We got our tickets for open window seating at 12 PM, and looked inside the visitor's center for a bit. Tim bought some treats from the Italian Bakery outside, and we all agreed the cinnamon roll was the best. He bought a blueberry scone for me after I looked at it, which was very nice. It was not as flavorful as I thought it'd be for how many blueberries it was blasted with, but it was still good: very "earthly" in taste.

The train ride was nice, lasting about 45 minutes. All the family but my dad and I sat on the side that said there'd be a "waterfall," but in the end, my dad and I picked the right side, by far. We got a lot more views of the river, while they often got a rock wall, and the "waterfall" was a literal joke. Yes, literal. It was a joke. On the way back (this wasn't a round trip; the train just moved the other direction to get back), they mostly stood on my dad and my side to see our view.

After that, we headed up to Palmerton to take a tour of the Waldorf Hotel (haunted house), but we ate at Country Junction first, which is right next door. I had Jalapeno Poppers. I explored the place a bit before the food came, and it was certainly interesting seeing an arcade and bumper cars in the same room as furniture to be sold.

My uncle arrived and he talked for a bit while waiting for his pizza, talking about how the attraction had been going thus far. Over 300 people on opening night, which was apparently a record (for opening). Then, we drove over to the house and got our tour of all four haunts, starting with the Butcher House, then Infection, then the Corn Field, and finally the Haunted House. We also got to see where they sold merchandise (apparently making $1000-2000 a day, just on that), and the old food truck he de-wheeled and painted and sold food in. The truck isn't even fully painted, given the back is hidden, so a little bit of it is still white (as opposed to grey) on the other side. He said that the deep fried oreos sold the best, costing so little for a single oreo, yet selling for a few dollars. His funnel cake was also frozen and cheap, and took a mere thirty seconds to make. Very interesting. He also told us about the fabled tree he'd pee on since it was too far to rush to the portable toilets (frankly, they might have a line during work hours anyway, though he didn't mention that).

My favorite was Infection, because it was very atmospheric and kept to a common theme. It was really neat that all the broken down cars and boats and the like were old delinquent vehicles from storage. A great way to recycle. It was neat learning Bailey played a role in the Butcher place, "sacricicing" herself to save the customers, who were "part of" the exhibit (being followed by a butcher wanting to slaughter them?). The Corn Field was fine, but probably my least favorite, since it was more of a homage to various scary movies instead of consistent theming like Infection, but for horror fans, that does sound pretty nice, to have all these references to movies they like. And the house itself was great and nostalgic, especially since it now has cult movie fame, eheheh.

Speaking of which, my uncle says a lot of people visit as fans of the movies, taking photos, and if my aunt sees them, she'll offer to give them a tour on the spot for $50 a person, so they make a lot of money just from that too. Fun.

I love seeing the inner workings of things, and have nostalgia for their first haunted house that I worked at (just selling food), and I've been wanting to see this one for years. It's nice we finally got to do it again, and as a full (nuclear) family.

Grandparents Moving

My grandparents (on my dad's side) moved into their new home today. I wasn't there for it, instead staying home to work/take care of the cats for three days (Monday through Wednesday). As usual, I liked my time alone, and spent it downstairs, in my mom's computer room. I didn't do anything particularly interesting while they were gone; I just worked on this page every day, while watching YouTube/listening to music in the background. Despite this, I did think it was worth mentioning here, since it's a big change in my grandparents' lives, and somewhat ours too, given we'll be having the holidays there instead from now on. Given my poor memory, it's best to write this down and date it; I can't even remember years things happened, let alone seasons or months.

Finally studied Code

I don't even remember why (except someone posted a link somewhere, probably when I was searching for a solution to something), but I read all of InternetingIsHard's HTML/CSS tutorials (outside of the mobile/image one, which I skimmed), and while I'm still a baby, I know so much more. Even with 'div>', I could only guess what they were, and I guessed right overall, but it's nice to know 100% that they're just a box for just about anything. I didn't know that stuff like 'header' and 'nav' were just other 'divs' under different names for SEO. Huh. And 'span' is just a 'div' but inline.

I'm still not well-versed in flexboxes, but at least I know a bit more about how they work. With that knowledge, I made the Gallery right sidebar for reaching other pages (it used to be within the reel, on the top).

Perhaps the biggest thing I learned is the simple fact that having extra numbers next to stuff like 'margin' and 'border' makes the pixels affect specific directions. It's such a small thing, but it opened up my world so much. I definitely should've looked into this sooner instead of just slowly figuring out what stuff probably did, by messing with it, but eh; messing with stuff is its own type of experience, like a frustrating puzzle.

On Spiders and Spiderwebs & Finally Cold!

It was a sunny day and it's starting to get cold, so I decided "I should actually open my blinds at work for once," thus I did. Doing so, I noticed there was spider webbing all across the bottom. I didn't care, as spiders are great, but I did figure keeping spider webs around looks bad, so I took my broom and started dismantling them.

...And in the process, something moved: a stinkbug. I have a phobia of those things, so I freaked out for a moment, before realizing it was well dead, plenty dried up, and it only "moved" due to the spider web I was currently destroying.

Stinkbugs behing behind those blinds are an utter nightmare for me, since I'm quite close to the blinds, while it's very difficult for me to kill them there, with all the stuff on the windowsill (along with the blinds tending to be closed; if they were on the blind, not the window, it'd be nearly impossible to hit them. As such, I realized having tons of spider webs surrounding this window is actually super good and maybe I should just let the webs be. Please, kill all the stinkbugs who ever decide to climb on that regrettably(?) very sunny, attractive window.

Also, this week is the first time I thought multiple times "my winter coat would be nice," and my dad made the first fire of the season today. Hurray for fires.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger

I finally finished Digimon Story: Time Stranger. Very good game. The end credits showing our party throughout each big fight was super nice. I liked it so much I left a Steam review: my second ever. I'm done with playin the game for now, but I have still been watching a lot of other videos about people playing it. It's so nice to see non-Digimon fans reacting to and enjoying it (and learning about all the weird evolutions).

Library Trivia

I went with my family to our local library's trivia (I went last time too). There were more people here this time (last time, it was just three groups). Even better, an old guy and another guy, who were both loners last time (though the old guy normally had his whole family here) teamed up again, and apparently, have been texting each other? Despite the old man's family being here this time, he still teamed up with the other guy. They did well.

I think there were five teams total (including us). The librarian team, a team of two (one lady was some library higher up), the big family, the two guys, and us. Dad and I studied by looking up Halloween trivia during dinner, and that helped us a lot. We were first place up until the last round, where we were in a three-way tie with the family and the two guys, but sadly, we got second place by the end, since the last question was difficult (not a single person got it): What year will Halloween fall on a Full Moon. At least three teams (including us) chose 2030 since I guess we like round numbers. The correct answer was 2039, I think.

It was neat learning that in Ireland (and I think most of Great Britain), they used to make jack-o-lanterns out of turnips. They're way scarier. Here's a plaster cast of one, from Wikipedia.

As for other things, Lincoln is said to haunt the White House, "Candy Corn" used to be called "Chicken Feed," and the mask used for Michael Myer in the Halloween movie was a $2 William Shatner mask, painted white.

World Series

Mom stayed up later than me last night, watching the Toronto Blue Jays and LA Dodgers in the World Series (game 3 of 7). Sadly, the Dodgers won at 2:50 AM in the 18th (tied for the longest inning World Series game; darn it, they were so close to being the longest). My mom was rooting for the Blue Jays, because she doesn't like the Dodgers, but sadly, they lost. Now it's Dodgers 2, Blue Jays 1.

Yesterday, I decided to finally pick up Baldur's Gate 3 again, because I was itching to try Monk, as Idunn. I decided to do Dark Urge for the first time, since I've heard one should. At first, I found it really cringey, and it still is, but now I'm realizing why people like it: it has its own progression, like the other party members, as opposed to being a blank slate. I wasn't expecting to see an entirely new character appear and get a cape but here we are. It's a pretty good cape too.

Trick-or-Treat

Trick or Treat was today, despite the earlier downpour, but they made the right call, as it was perfectly fine weather since around 1 PM. Last year, we only got four kids (two groups of two), and dad, I, and mom bet we'd have 4, 5, and 6, respectively. In the end, we had ten, in five groups (...or was it twelve, in six groups?). Wow. It really does vary year to year.

• 6:20: Group of 3. Jimmy from South Park, TV head, and Bat.
• 7:05: Group of 2. Bunny and Lorax.
• 7:13: 1. Motorocyclist.
• 7:14: 4. Power Ranger, princess, and maybe two faeries.
• 7:36: 2. Snoopy and Woodstock.

For reference, in the past:

• Trick or Treat 2017: 17
• Trick or Treat 2018: 15
• Trick or Treat 2019: ?
• Trick or Treat 2020: 2
• Trick ot Treat 2021: ?
• Trick or Treat 2022: 19
• Trick or Treat 2023: 6
• Trick or Treat 2024: 4 ( 2 groups)

October Ends

It's my fault, as usual, and nothing major, but as is often the case, I'm disappointed with myself for not really "celebrating" Halloween, be it drawing something Halloween-themed, or even just watching something spooky. I kept wanting to, while also having no interest, which is a common theme for me. The idea of doing it is appealing, but the execution isn't. 'Tis a shame, but oh well. I suppose it'll be the same when Christmas comes (though I tend to care more about Halloween, so the urge (and disappointment when failing) won't be as strong.

World Series

Also, darn, The Blue Jays lost their first home game, meaning the World Series won't end on Halloween. Now it's tied up, and it all depends on tomorrow's game. Boo. I didn't watch any of this game (outside of checking the score downstairs twice). In general, I haven't watched much, but sometimes I stick around for an inning or two.