Y'all thought the apocalypse was gonna involve undead zombies or nuclear holocaust or something

Turns out the most dangerous threat we face out there is each other

And it's not because of coronavirus

PPMD of course will always be in our hearts simply for the way he played at the time, but Armada quickly became my favorite smasher since it was so obvious that he has the work ethic, discipline, and brainpower that so many people lack.  Everybody wants a quick answer, whether it's a practice method, some sort of new software, or physical tool that supposedly will shortcut them to success.  It really bugs me when people so obviously ask questions that they put zero work into figuring out on their own.  To me I think Armada represents that virtue of simply putting in the effort and figuring out things yourself rather than relying on being handheld by anybody.  And I know for a fact that he hates this attitude of looking for quick answers without putting in the homework.

Of course, I understand that community teachings and knowledge sharing is a very great thing, and important to us all.  It's only because of countless resources (mostly available on the internet) that I've been able to learn so much in my life.  But every. single. thing. that I've ever gotten good at, has been on my own.  Music production.  Game dev.  Tetris.  Glowsticking.  Video Games.  Cooking.  Poi.  Even social dance, to some extent.  I've never had a mentor in any of these things, I've never needed a community to learn from, I've never felt the need or even desire to ask other people questions directly.  Because so many of these things, you can simply just put in the homework to figure out yourself.

How many smashers do you think would get a ton of leverage from 20XX and unclepunch but just "never got around to figuring it out"?  How many people never figured out how to use a DAW because they didn't even bother reading the manual?  Maybe it's just my learning style, I never got anything out of institutionalized learning anyways -- I would sit there in elementary school simply reading the textbooks and absorbing the material by myself.

In more recent years I had become more involved in trying to knowledge share back to the social dance community.  That has been a fulfilling and rewarding experience, but I've realized over time that even though I think that's valuable, I think I'll always still respect those people who simply put in the work to figure out everything themselves.  Because that's the way that I always worked, too.

There is of course a time and a place for discussion, for community iteration, and for feedback.  But it's only after you've put in the homework.  Don't ask questions that you could get answered by just looking up yourself in a few minutes.  It's really not respectful of people's time.  Do your damn homework.  Go to office hours because you =already tried= to do the homework and failed, not because you just want someone to feed you the answer.  Do you really think all of us got to where we are because somebody else held our hand along the way?

That said, it's great when someone who actually DID the homework wants to ask a question about something more advanced.  These are the kinds of questions that are =rewarding= to answer, because you get the sense that you were actually an invaluable asset here, not just a substitute for a little bit of effort or a replacement for google.

My sleep schedule is off-whack at the moment, so I'm half-nocturnal and half-not.  Harkens back to the college days...

It's become a bit more clear to me that I've been neglecting some of my normal work habits, so my music and letter output have been suffering a bit as a result.  On the plus side, I've at least still been making progress here and there on other things -- that Colors of Your World speedrun quality-of-life update is about done, for example.  I guess it's time to get cracking...

I mean what else am I gonna do, look around on social media or something?  ...

Three-day weekend, huzzah!  Perhaps the only thing better than having a 3-day weekend is, of course, having a 4-day work week...

Yesterday was filled with quite some excitement...we butchered 3 quails and cooked them in a curry recipe.  Turned out alright -- I think pairing the quails with strong flavors is a good choice since it can get a little squeamish if you just taste the raw flavor of quail.  If we do any again (hopefully we won't have to in the near future) I will probably try marinading them.  I have really gotten used to....."taking care" of the quails.  The culling process was a little interesting this time as I used the....."pull the head off" method.  Which seems very intense, but actually is very quick and proven to be a humane method.  Just takes a little bit of mental preparation, of course.  Plucking and cleaning all 3 of them out definitely took time, but I am pretty used to the process by now.  Who would have thought that a little dainty princess like me would be OK with such things....

Played a lot of DDR last night too!  Very fun, and I think I am starting to get my old stamina back.  Was able to pass Dead End and Dynamite Rave, for instance.  We'll see if I can do stuff like Drop Out, haha...Not sure what other hard songs I used to use as benchmarks...I should try doing DXY! at some point, I remember that song being quite a workout.  I'm starting to get a lot more comfortable with crossovers, there's been a couple songs that have been good for working on those.  Of course, recognizing some of the patterns ahead of time is still beyond me at this point; it's something that will take some practice and foresight.

Missed this week's r/alttpr seed, I instead just did a practice seed...maybe I shouldn't have, but it ended up being a new experience as it ended up being my first ever pedestal seed xD  I think I last locationed the bombos medallion (on pedestal) for getting into Misery Mire...amazingly, the run was only a little bit over 2 hours, despite =feeling= much slower.

RO adventures continue...My character is doing pretty well, although we are currently at a point where we're not sure exactly what we should be doing besides leveling up.  There are some instances and dungeons that we've tried that are definitely beyond our reach at the moment, so not quite sure what the best way to proceed is besides just doing more of the same sort of exp quests.  We got the 3rd member of our crew back into the swing of things today, so that was fun.

Panel De Pon released on Switch, and I managed to clear all of the first puzzle mode!  I remember getting stuck somewhere on level 4 in the past....feels nice to have cleared it.  Apparently there is an entire alternate set of puzzles -- I am currently most of the way through those, but stuck bigtime on puzzle 6-7 or so.  Only a few more.... It feels good to actually work through these puzzles, they're actually pretty satisfying!

Of course the main attraction in PdP/Tetris Attack is time trial / endless mode, and though I'm not hoping to break my previous records or anything, I've been drilling that a bit, just hoping to get my chaining chops back into shape.  It took a bit of practice to jog my memory and all, but I managed to hit some 13x chains already, so it's not like all of my skill is gone.

Took today mostly just to relax and not really do any work for once (a rare occasion, to be sure, usually only triggered by having done a lot of stuff the day before).  I have to admit it does feel nice, but we all know I'll be back at it sooner rather than later.  Speaking of which, that Unlock Everything update went out, and I did my monthly pixel art illustration as well.  Soundtrack commissions are going OK too!  -- first try on all 4 of the tracks I've made, yay!  Just have to polish all of those up at some point, maybe in the coming week, all things willing...

It's rare that I can feel happy even despite knowing that we have left part of our past behind.  I think that really speaks to what we have with us now, and how important it is.  Not only that, but the fact that where we are now is connected so strongly to where we have come from.  It is only because of all of those experiences that we are here right now.  So in that sense, the past is not truly gone, even though we can never travel back to it.  As long as we continue to remember...

A bunch of stuff has happened...I feel like I've been falling a bit behind on some of my regular maintenance tasks (monthlies art, finishing music).  Not sure if that's a bad thing (I'm lazy) or a good thing (I'm occupied with other stuff in a good way).

Adventures in Ragnarok Online have been continuing!  As always, you can catch those updates over on http://cs181ro.blogspot.com/.

I've finished re-remembering the 42 combined form for taiji, so I will just be doing those two (24 and 42) for a while now.  At some point I wanted to see if I could pick up the Chen 18 form again, but....

instead I've been spending a lot of my exercise time with the new DDR foam mat!  Pretty super fun, I've downloaded pretty much all of the songs that I'm familiar with (DDRMAX, DDRE, and DDR, Disney Mix, and Konamix for PS) and have been having a blast with that.  I'm starting to finally get down to figuring out how to read crossover patterns too, which is a new challenge in and of itself.

Mental health....sort of just oscillates at this point, sometimes (understandably) in conjunction/correlation with my sleep schedule.  In general things are going pretty ok, but there are patches here and there where some extra self-care is needed.

We finished up Birdie Burglars and have now thrown it up for both iOS and Android, hooray!  I applied a bugfix to Nyamo's Adventure, now am working on time attack modes for Unlock Everything (to help out the speedrunners), and will look into adding some speedrun quality-of-life improvements for Colors of Your World as well...

Sometime in the midst of all that I've gotta also finish up some more music, as well as do the pixel art for this month.  Phew.....

Tetris Attack, or.....rather, Panel de Pon, hit the SNES virtual console for Switch!  I had some fun taking a go at it and seeing how rusty my chaining skills are.  It took me a while to kind of get back into the swing of it, but I'm pretty decent now!  Of course, I'm still much worse than I used to be back when I was in my prime.  Pretty crazy to think that at the time I was consistently hitting 10-13x chains, and even getting to the point where getting side clears was actually starting to be important.  What a great game...it's a bit of a shame that VS mode was sort of nonsensical, but I definitely spent many an hour grinding out skill chains in Tetris Attack and Puzzle League for GBA.

Been continuing to do weekly aLttPR runs...that's been fun too.

This week I think I'm working on updates for 4 different games in as many days...what is this life

You win some, you lose some, and you keep on going.

I wasn't really sure what to write today, but I guess I will tell you two things for now.

The first thing I want to let you know is that you don't need to change in order to be happy.  You don't need to do anything differently than what you already are doing.  You don't need to become a better person, improve, go outside of your comfort zone, learn new things, or accomplish greatness.  I want you to know that "stagnation" can mean peace and tranquility.  You can always do something new, but know that every time you do so, you are giving up something in return.  It's OK to choose to remain the same.

The second thing I am less sure of, but I'll still say it anyways.  You can make mistakes.  It's very hard to change your way of thinking in the middle of a situation.  Oftentimes, when we are confronted with unfamiliarity, we freeze up and make a choice that we may not have made if we had been in a better mindset.  That's OK.  As long as you realized afterwards that there was a better way to do things, that is enough.  Enough to forgive yourself.

It feels like in years past, I often would try to consult my own past, asking "what would Timm[ie] do", searching for the answers.  Trying to figure out what a past me would have done.  Because my past self is important to me.

It still is, of course, but right now, it is a different one that concerns me.  Now, whenever I am troubled, I turn to Sayuri.  Because I know her strength.  Her gentle smile, and her aura.  Although I have found a new "role model" for myself in the way that I interact with people, that in itself is not more important than remembering to stay true to that ideal.

Well, let's see...

We were on a brief hiatus for.......reasons.......but we're back now.

So right, I was feeling pretty anxious and stressed, just generally not super OK.  I never figured out a specific trigger for all of it, but...well, to be honest, identified several triggers.  Doesn't really matter which was the needle that broke the proverbial camel's back, just, things weren't great.  Fortunately, I'm doing better now, and some of those issues have either gotten better or gotten resolved.

6 quails are now living in my office!  We have them in a big box and clean their poopies daily.  They are very cute and very dumb.  One of them has started to crow once in a while......that means they will probably be first on the chopping block to.....erm......get chopped.....and eaten :x  But not yet, they are still relatively young.

I realized today that for most of my life growing up I never once had a positive role model for human interaction.  That is not necessarily to say that all of the people I was around were necessarily =bad= at human interaction (though some certainly were), but the truth of the matter is that even if a certain interaction style works for somebody, there's no guarantee that it will work for you, or even be appreciated by you.  Truthfully, I think it was not until 2012 that I really got the chance to regularly be around somebody whose interaction style I really appreciated.

Sorry, that's not at all to mean that all of the friends I had before then had interaction styles that I hated -- but I was not really close enough to most of them, nor did I spent enough time with them regularly to really be able to model my behavior after them.  Reflecting upon some of my social habits nowadays, it's very clear to me that some of these are a byproduct of simply....not really having been exposed to other manners of being with other people.  Many of us are social chameleons to some extent or another -- often we fall into interacting with people in the same way that they interact with us, for better or worse.  But there are situations indeed, where I've realized that interacting with someone in the same ways that they interact with me, is not how I'd like to carry myself.  That is perhaps a habit that I'll need to catch myself on.

As I was growing older the easiest means of interaction was simply to avoid it altogether.  Simply not speaking at all was the healthiest way of proceeding through life, because the means through which I had been taught to speak out were not unhealthy or pleasant, in both their delivery and in their reception.  Sometimes I find that that is still true.

I finished watching all of Steven Universe!  What an interesting series that has been.  I definitely liked parts of it much more than others.  I think it was a show that was not super interesting in the beginning, but as it got deeper and delved into some real subject matter, I started to really appreciate it.  But at some point it reached a point where it started to really become something else, something....I don't exactly know how to describe it.  "mainstream" is surely not the word I would use, but I guess...more grandiose, and branching out away from its roots.  Which I don't think is a bad thing at all, but I just happened to not be a huge fan of some of those other directions.  But somehow in the end they wrapped it up in something that I appreciated anyways.  So I guess the long and short of it is that it was a rather up and down thing for me, but that is perhaps only inevitable with a show that is not really "one-note", as Steven Universe was not.  Perhaps the styles of stories are much alike to the styles in which we interact with others...

We've been hanging out on a Ragnarok Online private server!  (Nova RO) I've started posting again about those adventures, over at http://cs181ro.blogspot.com/, so feel free to check that out, though I imagine most of you will probably not find that particularly interesting.  There are lots of images though, at least ;P  Anyways, it's been me and just two other friends for the time being, not sure if I could find anybody else (though we of course would welcome anybody else!).  It's a nice way to hang out online and such, though of course I know everybody and their mothers (sometimes =literally=) are doing that via Animal Crossing at the moment.  Anyways, add that to the (somehow rather large) list of games that I've got on my plate at the moment, on top of LttP/SM randomizer runs, Illusion of Gaia, Tetris/Puyo Puyo practice, etc.

I've been doing Tai chi a little more regularly, which feels great.  I have my memory of the 24 form up to snuff, but I lost my memory of a lot of the 42 combined form, so I'm trying to get that back into my system again, which will be fun.  I have no hope of remembering either of the sword forms I used to know.....that'll probably be a while from now....

Poi has been an ongoing thing here and there, as it has been.  Taking a bit of a break from flower stuff to work on some other things like snakes and meltdowns and such.

Ordered a simple foam DDR pad to hopefully get into that again!  It's been probably 10 years since I played seriously, but I'm quite looking forward to that.

Ludum Dare results are out!  We did pretty well -- 24th overall, 52nd in fun, 48th in graphics, 3rd in audio, and even 42nd in humor.  That's pretty much in line with how we've been trending, no complaints there.  I'm personally pretty happy with our work too.  Hopefully you'll be hearing more about that once we're all done with the post-jam / mobile versions.

Work has been just fine -- I think I have been doing a good job of making sure to give myself some time and space for self-care especially since the past few weeks have been a little more challenging than usual.

Music is going slowly and steadily as usual (and as with everything in my life, it seems -- I mean, it is me after all).  I used the last two OHCs to work on soundtrack commission pieces and my client was happy with both of them, so that's great.

All in all, things are...fairly good at the moment.  Better than before, for sure.  I'm hovering around 3 or 4 out of 5 I guess?

"I'm always where you've been
but where have you gone?"

mye.