Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

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@Tyranexx Best of luck to you, it’s seemed like you’ve taken decent initiative so far. I’ve also found myself admittedly quite lazy over the last few days with little in the way of legitimate reasoning. Yesterday morning I forced myself to haul… myself to the gym and ironically I felt better after one hour there, than I did that time the previous day when I did absolutely nothing.

Hopefully you and I aren’t the only ones who dislike liquorice, which by the way, is how it’s spelt in Queen’s English! Liquorice in any country is horrible, and who better to tell me that than the seminal German candymaker, Haribo? I had some of their liquorice and it’s not much better over here. To start it smells awful so that’s already a terrible first impression, and then it tastes awful. And I’m in agreement that I would make exceptions for caramel or peppermint. When I was younger I used to visit a store after school and buy chocolate. One whole 100g bar every day. My family only caught me when they decided to meet me outside our apartment, while I was walking home scoffing four packs of Oreos, and from then on I’ve been cold turkey on that stuff, thank God.

I haven’t tried true American saltwater taffy but the word “saltwater” is already a very good first impression, it sounds so… delicious. American food from experience is just way too sweet. Most times whenever I eat a store-bought cake or whatever, I’d end up getting sick because of the sheer shock the cake would give me from the sweetness. In fact it did happen for one of my birthdays, where I spent half an hour being sick because of how sweet my cake was. All the while my friends ate it, not that I was complaining! It even happened last week, at my local M&S café, when I got a free slice of chocolate cake with my hot drink. Is it a surprise that I ended up feeling ill afterwards? Cheesecake is one exception though, it’s just too nice to refuse.

Well promise keeping is a decent quality to have as far as humans go, I’d like to think I keep my word too. Most times if I don’t it’s not out of malice but sheer forgetfulness. Scott the Woz is quite funny, his writing is just sublime. And sometimes his on-screen gags go too far, like when he bought a shopping trolley’s worth of Chips A’hoy boxes, or fifteen copies of one game. His style is a combination of funny jokes and legitimately educational and informative delivery. I did watch one of Erick Landon’s videos on video games with revenge subplots, and it was pretty well thought out. At least Xenoblade, one of the foremost revenge stories I’ve heard of, made it! I’ll link this one from StW; a video, fittingly, on remakes and their ilk.

I haven’t used my pool much, surprisingly. You’d think the weather would have made me go in more but the simple truth is that it’s not heated. In the winter it’s too cold, and in the summer it’s too hot. I went in my compound pool for an hour a few weeks ago and it was exhausting to the point my arms were dead after two laps. Hot water is meant for relaxation, and I suppose your mind just shuts your muscles down in hot water. There’s a feeling, with a specific word in a Nordic language, for sitting by a fire during a cold winter. I love that feeling.

Sad thing about my beloved dog is that he’s not very smart. But I suppose that’s to be expected, humans are just on another level of intelligence and perception. Cute enough though, and he provides licks on demand. A very happy bunny indeed when he sees us every morning, so there’s no shortage of energy either. I also went down a very large rabbit hole of Daft Punk goodness, and went back into it when I began writing this paragraph itself. The album “Discover” is the epitome of masterful electronic music, so I’m very surprised I don’t listen to it as much as I should. Some of their songs should be played in the background of my life. Have fun cruising down what would be my memory lane, I’m sure you’ll find some great stuff!

I feel very lucky I managed to snag a copy of the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 collector’s edition, while you mention collector’s goodies. Steelbook, soundtrack, artbook, and a game. I wanted the Xenoblade DE one but they kept running out of stock! I did get the Twilight Princess HD amiibo and CD, but that’s about it for me. I hope a game comes out that forces me to get the collector’s edition, because the CDs and the artbooks in particular are quite nice.

I’ve beaten the Ancient Cistern in Skyward Sword, and boarded the Sandship before some afternoon viewing of the Olympics, more on that later. I copied my save file before I fought Koloktos, so I could play it as much as I wanted. I usually didn’t have too much trouble with Koloktos before but I nearly died this time, when playing with the button controls. What a boss. The music is also so powerful, especially in the second phase. I’d agree that it has very strong dungeons, but when I thought about it, at best it has the second-best dungeon design in the series, to Twilight Princess.

I finished DDLC, and it’s been such an emotionally taxing experience. Nothing external, if you saw me play you wouldn’t think much of it but it just latched onto my train of thought like an obsessive crush. It left me with a sense of heavy melancholy too. But I really recommend playing it. I’ll say this though, it’s a bit on the short side. But I read way too fast, which is why I started a second playthrough to absorb it better. It should take about ten hours from start to finish. Then replaying it to get some cool content of course. I think the cost is very good for the amount of stuff you get. So yeah, I’d love to hear your thoughts on that one in the future, it’s such a great experience.

You too?! Didn’t expect that one, but at least you’ll be able to relate to the shortcomings of American English. I’m not good on the spot either so it’s a miracle I was in contention for the win at all. So glad I had the chance though but my public speaking’s improved dramatically since then. I’d rather deliver a speech than do another spelling bee. Who needs those when you have autocorrect?!

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Eight notifications, all for this thread. I feel loved. My summer schedule is generally somewhat nuts, not to mention I've been taking mini-sabbaticals from the internet when I feel a little overwhelmed. Apologies if it takes me a few days to get back to people sometimes.

Funnily enough, the closest I've also been to Japan is being in the Pacific Ocean off of Southern California. I was 14 at the time. That was actually a painful experience; I sustained a pretty bad sunburn at Sea World San Diego the day before (I did wear sunscreen, but I'm pretty sure I sweated it off), but I foolishly entered the water with blisters....Sunburns are bad enough, but when the wave action ruptures said blisters....There's a reason "salt in the wound" is a widely used English expression.

@MarioLover92 Overall, I like traveling. Minus all the necessary, albeit frustrating, security processing. I highly dislike being touched by strangers unless it's "allowed" contact and from the front, like with handshakes. What keeps me from going too far though is time and money. I get more vacation and personal time than some, especially since I've built up the latter, but I'd rather save some of it for sick days or emergencies. I typically don't take off from work more than a few days at most.

@ThanosReXXX I'll tentatively give some of the black licorice a try and do have a means to offload it if I end up not caring for it. I'm certainly game for trying some of the fruit flavors. I'll keep an eye out for those kinds! Looks like the Walmart chain sells the half-moons online, but they appear to be out of stock right now.

On olives: I'm odd about these too. I love black olives but can't stand green ones. I used to think it was due to the pimento shoved into the center of many variations of the latter, but it turns out I don't care for the olive itself.

Duly noted on sugar vs. milk. I'm pretty sure water doesn't do much to blunt the burning even if it does offer (very) temporary relief.

@VoidofLight Digimon is one of my favorite monster franchises, barely second to Pokemon. I watched the anime up until Savers/Season 5 when it moved off of our local Fox/WB station onto Toonami/Cartoon Network (didn't have cable at the time). I watched the earlier parts of Season 6/Xros Wars/Fusion, both subbed and dubbed, but I couldn't really get into it. I just wasn't into the fusion aspect of things even though they did introduce Digivolution later. I did like Season 4/Frontier overall, but I do agree that it was a step down compared to the previous three seasons.

I still need to dive into the Cyber Sleuth games on Switch. I haven't touched them yet; they're currently backlogged.

@Snatcher I'd forgotten Splatoon 2 was also blocked from save backups due to anti-cheating measures. I'm not into the series, but I do know some people put a lot of time into the games.

@Dogorilla The other three Professor Layton games on the DS, used anyway, are pretty cheap to find overall; it seems odd that Last Specter is a different case, though I suspect it didn't have as long of a print run since it released after the 3DS was out. Possibly in part due to Layton's London Life too. Most new and CIB quality DS and 3DS games are pretty pricey now, even some loose cartridges go for a pretty penny.

I've been collecting all the Layton games I can get my hands on. I've had to give up on getting Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright since the cartridge is so expensive. I could download it, but the game is pretty robust and I'm not very interested in expanding my micro SD card storage at this point to accommodate it. I have all the DS ones now, and I just need Azran Legacy on 3DS. I was able to find Miracle Mask new for a good price a few months ago, but Azran Legacy definitely didn't have much of a print run and is very expensive used (roughly $80 USD). I'll end up downloading that one as I do have the space.

@bimmy-lee It was at a restaurant without milk. I had to make do with water. That wasn't the worst experience though. I tried a whole chip full of "Insanity Sauce" at a Mexican restaurant in Chinatown when I went on that high school Washington, DC trip I mentioned a few pages back. The sauce was aptly named; I drained at least 4-5 large glasses of water in an effort to stop the burning. Nearly called the fire department. Which also nearly led to a fiasco at a mall we went to afterward. The bathrooms were literally in the most out-of-the-way place you can imagine. _{Thankfully, I made it.}

Weirdly enough, other bell peppers don't bother me. Just the green ones. It's definitely something with the flavor; it corrupts just about everything. I can only tolerate them when they're smothered in layers of ranch, and at that point I'm better off not eating them.