ALTTPR first seed

I finished I guess what you could call my first "real" Link to the Past: Randomizer seed, clocking in at 2 hours 41 minutes.  The seed actually started opening up pretty quickly, though I made some kind of egregious mistakes along the way.  However the biggest two time losses were 1) Hunting around for tempered sword a bunch even after go mode because I wasn't sure whether (or how?) I could do Ganon with Master Sword (spoiler: it's not terribly bad, just use spin slashes and take your time), and I carelessly flooded the key on left side of Swamp Palace accidentally (nooo).  There were some other times when I made some random mistakes because I wasn't really paying attention, etc.  Here's some bad stuff I remember happening:

- Did the usual save+quit from kakariko but should have kept going since I had shovel
- Took an early death in mini moldorm cave since I didn't really know how to go accomplish that without bombs...
- Decided to go into back of escape only to realize I had 0 bombs left...
- Stupidly tried to see if I could do the Hera bomb jump without a sword (yea no), then didn't realize I needed to fall into the top end of the hole to do it the normal way, d'oh
- Took a death at Blind, I had cane of byrna but didn't account for how quickly it would drain meter without half magic.  I was still swordless at the time so had to just give up and come back later...
- I need to learn how to route skull forest...
- I need to remember the key logic for PoD...
- I need to learn how to route ice palace...
- I couldn't check digging game because I had picked up gary's chest...
- Lanmolas fight in GT took way longer than it should have, I was trying to be clever and use silvers but should have just fell back to fire rod from the beginning
- Was trying to splash deletion flipper glitch to check waterfall cave (since I had forgotten to fake flipper earlier) but couldn't exactly remember how
- Stumbling through ice palace with master sword only trying to deal with the pengators was kind of painful

On the plus side I was still sub-3 hours despite boots being in Ganon's Tower (!) so I was basically forced to go without boots for most of the game.  I didn't even get fighter sword until over an hour in (!) so considering all that I guess it wasn't too bad...

Twas fun...

Still got it :)  Not a new record, not even close, but I managed an M rank in Death mode, topping out at 580-ish after failing to deal with an awkward misdrop on the left side of my stack.

The less of an audience I have, the more freely I can speak.

It's nice to be off the radar, if only for bit.  I took this measure because I was not feeling well at all, but though I have recovered, there is no need to rush back to the feed, since...well, there is little of value there.

Sometimes, just the act of disconnecting is enough to elicit some sense of peace of mind, even though I know that in the end it's not like anyone would even care or notice.  But at least there is a feeling of isolation -- and I mean that in the good way.

I took today mostly to rest and recover, not because I necessarily needed it, but because I know that mental and emotional health is important, and must be maintained lest we "get sick".

I found some unexpected answers last night.  Pit up so plainly against these things that I felt such a distaste for, it was nothing short of obvious that I believed in something that was the opposite.

A test post, just for making sure I'm off radar.  Because it's been a while since last time :)

Sayuri

But there ARE truths, beliefs which in the face of turmoil, in the face of self-doubt, that you are unwilling to compromise.  When you have lost sight of yourself in the face of who you wish to be, there may yet be a self-image that represents what you know to be right in your heart.

Calm, polite, peaceful, and tranquil.  A gentle breeze passes us by and she has no yearning to be something that she is not, because she yearns only to be what she always has been.  She has always been with me, all of this time, but it is during the times of distress that I turn toward her most.

Because it is in these times that she shields me from both the harsh shine of the sun and the cold winter chill, and instead gently holds a lantern up against the darkness.  She need not promise warmth, nor compassion, because promises are fragile things compared to the certainty of the past.

It's time for yet another update...

Dance
Couple of upcoming events:

This Friday (1/24) - I DJ at Friday Night Waltz.  This conflicts with a "mini unjammix" night, but alas, that's how it is.  I've just finished the final changes to the setlist and will be posting that at some point in the coming few days.  As usual, I've hand-edited over 50% of the songs...

February 1st - Viennese Ball.  The usual, I guess.

February 21st - I'll be hosting an event at the GCC.  Exact details TBD, but I might host some private lessons beforehand.  It's been a while since I did any, and I don't know if I care to prepare a full workshop for this.

April 11th (?) - JaSmix.  Get hyped?

Dance has been..."interesting" in the recent months, but I actually had quite a lot of fun at Bon Bon Ball this past Friday, which was very nice.  I can't say that that was really because of any of the things I've been thinking about with regards to dance, but rather I think I just happened to be in a better mood that night and was not feeling very overwhelmed.  I was also really excited that it was the weekend, so I'm sure that helped.

Poi
I haven't practiced a ton, but have practiced a bit!  I've gotten down a tuck turn sequence that feels really cool and satisfying, so that has been great!  Not really sure what I'll be working on next, though.

Randomizer
I still haven't gotten into doing actual legit runs, but I did a session where I just ran through Super Metroid Randomizer and save/loaded state a bunch to practice various things.  I've gotten a lot better handle on some various rooms now, or at least have a better idea of how to execute them in theory.  My Phantoon fight is still really bleh, but on the plus side, I can actually do the 2-tap/3-tap shinespark charges in Draygon's room now, so that's awesome.  I also spent a while learning how to do Baby Metroid Skip, which is still quite hard for me to get consistently, but I =have= been able to do it a few times, and I basically "get it", which feels great.  I spent some more time working on Zebetite Skip too, which I always found really hard to do.

Next I'd like to do basically the same thing but for a LttP rando seed.

TGM
I actually whipped out the old arcade stick and played some games of TAP (Tetris, for those of you who don't speak obscure acronyms) and it felt great.  Even after playing SRS Tetris games a whole bunch, I've found that my ARS instincts and learned intuition really haven't dulled that much at all.  Handling Death 300 speeds is a bit out of comfortable reach for now though -- I think I'll have to really really grind if I want to get my shot at Death GM again.  Ah, well, there's always the "Carnival of Death" to look forward to at the end of March...

Puyo Puyo
I think I've gotten to the point where I need to start watching some videos and such to get new ideas.  I think I've practiced enough that I know of certain situations that I have a pretty hard time of, so it's time to figure out what to really do with them by watching other players and learning from their ideas and experience.

Space Alert
We had a surprisingly--no, =amazingly= successful session, with me captaining (as usual) with two fellow crew members -- one a veteran who I've often taken into the Deep, and a rookie that I trained myself what seems like not too long ago.  After getting not one but two perfect missions (minus some harmless-yet-concerning tripping), we decided to take a higher pay grade mission into one of the slightly more dangerous areas of the Deep.  It was still nothing compared to the stories I've heard of the Red sectors, but halfway between our usual area and the "Yellow" zone, so we encountered some phasing threats, as well as the dreaded "Ninja" that boarded our ships and made our lives difficult.  Luckily, our crew was calm and I was able to take control of the situation relatively well.  Our various expertise was really starting to show its utility in these missions -- my experience as mechanic often provided us with just the right amount of extra punch in the laser cannons to take out a ship, and Kotz at one point seemed to be able to simply meditate for all of 20 seconds before calmly punching some frequencies into the laser console, bypassing the failsafes to squeeze just the right amount of extra joules out of the reactor.  It was...thrilling.

Life (let's face it, probably the only section that you care about)
Hmm, it's difficult to really sum things up.  Let's give some various points:

- Last week was a really long week for me.  I felt a feeling of stress and anxiety towards the end of the week.  Fortunately that went away with the weekend, which went off to quite a great start.
- I dug up some negative emotional weight that I've been carrying around with me for quite a long time, and started to bring it out into the open.  This was something that I guess was a lot more important than I gave it credit for, because I started crying after thinking about it a lot more.  That's really good though, it means that I am at a point where I feel like I actually have the strength to confront it and face it.  I'm very glad.
- The feeling of anxiety seems to have resurfaced a bit, which concerns me.  I will try to get a good night's sleep tonight, and be honest with myself about anything that feels "scary".  I have some guesses right off the bat, namely both work and dance organization -- not that either of them is bad, but rather that they involve stressors.
- This doesn't really "need" to be said, it should be a given, but I have been feeling very grateful for my close relationships.  I guess what I actually mean to say is that they have been going very well and I feel like despite whatever hardship I am going through, I am able to draw a lot of strength from them.

Until next time...

Surrounded by darkness
I will find my own path in the sky

Yet, I remain bound to you

As you are bound to your cage of thorns

It's the new year!  So far, 2020 seems to be a year full of learning new things for me.

Kitchen
Kitchen organization continued and I'm pretty happy with how it's all turned out!  My new hinoki cypress wooden cutting board has been one of the best xmas gifts -- it's lightweight, great to use, and the perfect size for me.

Recipe that I'm aiming to try in the near future -- nasu dengaku (miso glaze eggplant).  I've also started freezing a portion of the ramen broth whenever I get ramen at Nijiya.  I've never been one to bother home-making stock since I just don't cook a lot of dishes that use it (though I guess that's sort of a catch-22), but now that I have a bunch of random cubes of frozen broth I may start exploring ways to use them.  I might try making a tan tan ramen again...which reminds me, I keep on meaning to make some homemade chili oil but never get around to it...now's the time...

Poi
I've been surprisingly drawn into practicing poi spinning lately, and spent a good portion of last night getting pulled into practicing random moves.  I've finally been able to clean up the planes a bit on my low windmills, and yesterday I actually managed to look up and learn two new moves -- a 4-beat thread the needle, as well as 3-beat archer weaves (though I still need to work on both).  I've also been drilling my stalls a bit, trying to work on those elusive up stalls and top stalls...

Puyo Puyo
Not sure what to say except that I need a lot more practice.  On the one hand, I'm way more comfortable with a lot of things than I used to be.  On the other hand, there are a lot of situations that I can tell I'm handling very poorly when it comes to just building a transition and tailing effectively.  I'm just going to have to sit down with it some more and think through some of these situations more carefully to come up with solutions.  At some point I'll also start watching more videos carefully to analyze other people's solutions, but for now I think I can just sort of grind through things on my own for a bit longer.

Super Metroid Randomizer
I played through a seed last night and my total time was something like 1 hr 20 minutes, though I had a few deaths and such in the middle of that, as well as some time spent looking up a few tricks.  This seed had me doing a hi-jump-less gravity jump to get into lower norfair, which I hadn't done before, and I had to refresh my memory on how to do Zebetite skip as well.  It was actually a pretty easy seed, with go mode coming pretty early on -- varia suit was at Norfair hijump location and Gravity suit I believe was at Croc, which opened up the way to do Lower Norfair and then Maridia (having picked up Speed Booster and high jump somewhere along the way) before finally doing wrecked ship and then Tourian.

I also learned how to moonfall!  Moonwalk still definitely trips me up at times, need to get used to that, but I guess might as well learn how to deal with it...

There's a couple of things that I'd like to actually go and practice (maybe using a practice ROM), specifically things like the Phantoon fight and Kraid quick kill, after that I can maybe start just recording (and streaming) real runs!

aLttP Randomizer
I haven't done a full seed lately but I've been doing a ton of routing simulation on Z3RSim (great website btw).  My execution and on-the-fly decision making probably sucks ass but at this point I'm happy if I can at least make sane routing decisions and not forget about something super obvious like forgetting an easy location with 5 items in it, as well as at least having a general sense of routing for all of the dungeons.

Suspiciously I keep on doing Z3rsim seeds where I get early cape or something like early hammer/hookshot which makes me really suspicious that it'll be a seed where Aga1 is required.  Some of them have indeed worked out that way -- there was a seed where the key progression item was on pyramid -- but others weren't.  But again, that's another decision that I'm at least getting a little more familiar with.

EleTD
I dunno if I'm supposed to talk about this one, but getting into this too.

Life
In general, has been good.  There are definitely times when I feel an anxiety in my chest, but I'm living through them just fine, thanks to a lot of things.  Sleeping better and making sure that I'm taking great care of myself as well as achieving the things I need to, is all I can really wish for and try to do.