August 18th, 2014

Postings will be erratic until my schedule stabalizes and I get my routine down.  Its a good kind of erratic.  Generally the upper portion of my posts are done whenever they come to mind and posted in whichever blog it is appropriate, I then go back and shorten them to 3 paragraphs or so and put them here.  The dailies are of course done the day after their date.

August 18th, 2014

Wow, so I've been watching some Gummi Bears episodes with my girl because we like that sort of thing.  That show is SO mature and coherent compared to the stuff they show kids these days.  I vaguely remember the plots of each episode we've watched so far because I used to watch them nearly 30 years ago.  It has knights, kings, princesses, ogres, goblins and even some steampunk elements.  Really the only big downside is that there is no true overarching story, its the usual "new plot every saturday" kind of thing.  The animations are really really good too, right up there with Disney's 90's movies.

I started Ni No Kuni over the weekend.  I guess I really do not need to tell you that the graphics are jaw droppingly great.  They really nailed the look of Studio Ghibli with the graphics, and its so nice that in some places the only way you can tell the difference between animation and in-game graphics is that the animation is LESS smooth when the whole screen is moving.  The fighting is sort of a mix between pokemon's monster gathering thing, and Kingdom Heart's menu driven real-time action combat.  I love it so far, though admittedly I'm not super far into it.  If I had to issue a complaint on top of all this praise, I'd have wished for a more "Princess Mononoke" and a bit less "My Neighbor Tortoro".  Meaning, its very younger audience friendly.  Still, in a sea of ultra-modern, super pop-culture influenced RPG's, its refreshing to have this kind of take on games.

I love Honeydew.  There is a upper-tier neighborhood next to my girlfriend's home that has a family with a huge garden.  They leave a stand outside their home with fresh produce and prices.  They have lots of great stuff from cucumbers to squash.  My girl and I took a walk around the neighborhood and I ended up picking us up a honeydew melon and a spaghetti squash.  I'm nervous about spaghetti squash because I'm hoping it doesn't have a pumpkin taste to it.  The Honeydew melon was REALLY REALLY great.  I love honeydew for having the texture of cantaloupe, but a taste more like a refreshing watermelon.