Ramping Up - Week Notes

This week I returned to an essay I’ve been struggling to write for over a year. It feels like once a month or so I start over. Just refining and re-bullet-pointing the same ideas over and over again. All of the lists I have so far are pretty much the same. I think I need to find a solid 8 hours of contiguous free time to bang out a full draft. That kind of free time is hard to come by, and I have other projects I want to work on with that kind of time block too.

The biggest problem is that the idea is huge and touches a lot of things in my professional life. I feel the need to address a dozen different things that would need to change if my idea is correct, and defend against a dozen potential counter-arguments. Fitting all that in while staying on topic, and maintaining a “one thing to remember” theme feels impossible.

Hopefully I will carve that time out soon, because it keeps coming up. It’s very frustrating to have nothing to point to that summarizes my ideas for reference and use. I guess I need to put this higher on my priority list.

Experiences

We went to Otherworld and I felt super inspired! It made me feel the same feels as I got when we went to The House on the Rock. Of course the sheer scale of the House is incomparable, but Otherworld made me feel the same call to create I felt then. Otherworld’s style, very Pendleton Ward influenced, was fantastic. So alien, just a little bit uncomfortable, but also somehow extremely comforting.

Games

I played 5 more demos since I last wrote. Each one for something that has been on my Steam wishlist for a long time.

inKONBINI was the best and brightest of these demos. This game has pretty much instantly moved to my 5 most anticipated games on Steam after playing. You play as a college kid working the night shift at her aunt’s convenience store. It’s a store management sim, but has narratives as well, and an incredibly chill atmosphere.

The other demo I really enjoyed was Wheel World. It’s a bicycle racing game with fantastical elements. It is open world but that world looks like it’s going to be fun sized and curated rather than massive and empty. The gameplay itself feels very polished. The fantasy elements of the story works well with the art style.

My journey to finish Cave Story MD has stalled a bit. I hope to get a few practice runs of the final level in today.

Anime

I joined a new anime club and we’re watching Frieren. We’re about 10 episodes in and I’m enjoying it so far! The depiction of life after completing your life’s work really hits me hard. The sakuga is truly impressive, with some of the highest quality sequences I’ve seen in a tv show in a long time.

Reading

I picked up The Bangalore Detectives Club from my library’s digital collection. I finished it in just a few days. It was really fantastic! Set in 1920’s Bangalore, the setting was far from what I usually seek out. Similarly to my reading of The Three-Body Problem, it gave me a view into a culture and time period that I don’t usually think about. Unlike that book though, I came away sure that I’m going to read the next book in the series. I love cozy mysteries, and this definitely had a bit of Murder, She Wrote dna in it.

I read the first volume of The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy at All and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was delighted to find full color pages for the first 4 pages - until recently US translations usually printed those in black and white to save money. The rest of the book is in black, white, and green just like the cover. The story itself is very good! I’ve been growing a bit tired of high school age yuri. My recent favorites have all featured adult characters, like Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon. But this one still caught my attention because of the title and the art. I’m glad I picked it up because the music theme is something I really enjoy.

The Journey Continues

With the warm weather, life is ramping up. We’ve done so much in the past two months and it really doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. It’s almost all stuff we want to do though. So much better than having nothing.

I hope you’re doing what you want to do. Until next time

~Stay chill and enjoy!