It's weird, I feel like I've been overall doing a pretty good job of things, but on the other hand there's things that I haven't been completing.  I still have that Shiori writeup to do, but I also recorded a bunch of footage for an extensive Ice Palace routing guide that I have like a third of the way done.  Well, I guess there have been various factors at work...

On the plus side, yesterday I spent a bunch of time with the chickens, which was nice.  Their coop door doesn't get closed at night anymore, but they've been fine with that.  White Chicky still doesn't really come out at all, but she seems happy and normal enough otherwise.  She needs more nail trims, but at least I gave her a foot soak yesterday.  I'll have to make sure their food and water and everything is all stocked up, because I'm leaving for a trip this weekend.

Besides that, yesterday I did a bit of good work on Rhythm Quest and today I was actually doing good work toward my job, not to mention taking care of some kitchen chores.  I've actually been cooking a little healthier / lighter lately, I know there was a point a week or two ago when I just started getting worried that I was starting to feel a little lethargic.  Like, that wasn't necessarily food-related, might have been a dopamine thing or a sleep thing or mild depression or I-don't-really-know-what, but I feel like eating light and healthy can help with that regardless.

I'm now the proud and happy owner of a new Neo80 keyboard!  I spent a good bit today putting it all together and I've been happily typing away at it and enjoying the experience so far.  There's still a bunch of stuff that I am going to have to poke around at with this keyboard, including for one, tuning the spacebar (might need to balance the metal bar itself, or might just need to apply more lube, or in the worst case just order some better stabilizers), but also just going through all of the different possible configurations -- more foam, less foam, different mounting styles, PE sheet vs no PE sheet, etc.  So far I've been both very pleased at the fact that taking the PCB out is soooooo easy (ball-catch latch system plus magnetic connector / no ribbon cables) and also pleasantly surprised that the different mounting styles actually...kinda feel and sound different!  I mean, of course, they are supposed to, but honestly from the talk and videos around them I was expecting the differences to be quite insubstantial.  I mean, don't get me wrong, some of them are subtle, but they're noticeable, which is cool!  They're often hard to pin down, but I'm looking forward to just getting to know the keyboard better and finding an ideal configuration that I'm happy with.  And then of course there's the matter of like, do I want to put different switches in there, or maybe those ceramic keycaps will restock, and then what do I want to do once my Cycle7 gets here??  Well, that is all stuff I can look forward to!

The other thing I can try to look forward to is my upcoming trip!  Honestly it really snuck up on me; earlier toward the beginning/end of the year when I first planned it I was sort of like "I wish it would come sooner..." but somehow the last couple weeks kind of just...went by, and now I feel like it kind of arrived without me really paying attention to it.  But I'm sure it will be a nice visit and a nice change of pace.

A friend of mine was interested in giving Baldur's Gate 3 a try together so I joined in and rolled (okay, "rolled" is technically not accurate since there are no attribute rolls in character creation anymore) a paladin so I can go big on divine smites and just throw around big numbers, while keeping mostly quiet on the decision-making since of course I've already played through a large swath of stuff during my previous playthrough(s) of the game.  We'll see how it goes, I feel like it's been kind of fun on the one hand, but I'm not honestly sure they will remain into it and I think the pacing of the game is such that it might not be the right fit.

Playing with another person sort of leading the way did really make me think about what the "average person's" experience with BG3 (and I guess other games, but mostly BG3) is.  And like, when I say that I'm not talking about what decisions do they make in their dialogues or how do they choose to tackle various situations, or even like how they handle combat (though I guess a little bit of that), but more like...how much of the game do they even interact with, how many key NPCs do they just walk by (I definitely ignored a bunch on my first time through), how many interface options get left unused.  Like, how much of the game does the average person even know to play and how do people engage and enjoy the content in the game?  BG3 is fascinating in the way it has a bunch of good stuff but also just kind of fails to organize it in a very tight and cohesive way.  Of course you could argue that that's sort of the point; it's setup so that you can have these moments where you just discover random things in various nooks and crannies.  But it's just wild to me how scattered all of the content is and how much "extra stuff" is all over the place, whether it be random trash loot, books that don't have much relevance, characters with one or two lines of unremarkable dialogue, or simply slow walking between point A to point B.  It's a weird game because I feel like there's a little something for everyone there -- some roleplaying and decision scenario antics if you like the D&D aspects, some storytelling and narrative arcs if you're into the characters, some combat strategy if you're into tactics, some inventory hoarding if you like being the RPG klepto, and even a healthy dose of build variety if you want to just theorycraft and minmax.  But for every one of those different aspects there's A+ content mixed with what I'd call C- content.  Like there are some really interesting narrative decisions that you get to make over the course of the game, but then at one point you get to a telescope and you have this incredibly clunky dialogue sequence of choosing "move the telescope left / right" where the game gets to tell you "the telescope now points to the left."  And for all of the enjoyment of the core tactical combat system there are those moments when the enemies are like on the inside of a building while you're on the roof and you're trying to fight the camera, the UI, and also your movement abilities in order to just get into proper combat with them.  And for all of the cool feelings you get when you are able to really wrap you head around your characters' abilities and spells and use them to great effect, there are the remaining 30 abilities that you never really bother to use because there are just so many random unremarkable or mediocre things you can do.  Like yes, I get it, it's kind of clever that you can carry around a candle in your inventory and the place it on the ground and dip your club into it to make your club do some extra fire damage.  But the sheer tedium of doing that defeats the entire purpose.  Was it really worth cramming all of these extra features and dialogues and NPCs and houses into the game if most people really wouldn't miss them?  Would it not make for a better experience if you trimmed all of the "fat" so we could just get to the stuff that actually matters?

I will say that playing the game with a controller has been a surprisingly pleasant experience; in a lot of ways it really works better than the base controls, though I imagine the WASD-movement mod strikes a good balance.

Anyways...tomorrow I guess will just be about me trying to square away everything I need to; checking in for my flight, finishing up my work if I can, making sure the chickies can survive while I'm gone, doing OHC, and recording a patreon video, plus of course packing.  If I have some extra time I'd love to stream some rando, but we'll see about that.