Report on 2024 Goals

Reaching Out to People/Staying Connected to People:

        In my drafts for this goal, I had a much more structured version lined out. Although I didn't follow that exact path, I definitely feel I hit the idea behind my goal, which I'm happy about. Definitely felt like I did a good job of reaching out to old friends, keeping connected etc.

Bread and Butter Work-out Goal:

        Did not fulfill this goal. The goal was to just do a few minutes of push-ups/sit-ups before showering each day. I felt like overall I stayed active enough (lots of walking to class/work), but besides that, really no exercise besides a good stint of Beat Saber and a couple other stints that lasted a couple-few weeks each.

        This is definitely something I want to improve upon after reading chunks of Spark for my family's book club. It's generally difficult for me to motivate myself to exercise as the physical benefits currently don't hold much appeal to me. But the other benefits outlined in Spark very much do, so I just need to consistently remind myself of those in order to build up a habit.

Reevaluation Goal:

        I didn't do a particularly great job at this goal. I think I did better at the general concept compared to other years, though, so I do think I'm improving in this aspect. It just wasn't as consistent or concrete as my original planned outlined it to be. But overall give myself a passing grade in this department.

2024 Campaign Related Goals:

        The 2024 Campaign will be concluded tomorrow! 8 sessions (including session 0) of wonderful fun. Of course, some sessions went smoother, had better moments, more interesting combat, more impactful sequences etc. than others, but regardless of the individual quality of each session, I'm just grateful for the time I got to spend with my family and the memories we all got to create together.

Reading:

        I read a lot! And it was great. I got around to all the major books I had plotted out for myself, I believe. There were many several small books that I never got around to, but that's okay. The Conglomeration exists, but I suppose I'll write what I read here as well:

        Most of Skyward Novellas + Last Book, Books 2-5 of the Stormlight Archive + Novellas, Book Club books (Boundaries, Ella Minnow Pea, Spark, Moby Dick, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and Endurance (some more thoroughly than others)), Giver 1 and 2, The Hobbit, Alcatraz 1-6, Warbreaker.

        I have much more reading to do in the future! Which is wonderful.

Spiritual Goals:

        I never posted any of these on my blog in any form, but I thought I'd report that these have been going well. My scripture study specifically has improved a lot this year compared to the year prior.

Blogging:

        Decided to dedicate most of next week's post talking about this alongside stuff moving forward, so feel free to check out that next week:)

Thoughts After Watching the First 6 Star Wars Episodes For the First Time

How I managed to make it this far in life without seeing the Star Wars films, who knows. Especially considering how much I love fantasy/sci-fi as a genre on the whole. Not only that, but there were actually several key spoilers that I managed to somehow miss until I watched the movies.

Pretty Important Spoiler Things That I Didn't Know Until I Watched the Films with my Roommate:

1. The clones are actually clones?? 

        Okay, yes, I feel kind of silly for this one. It makes sense that they're actually clones. I just thought they were called that because they all wore identical armor and such, haha.

2. Related to #1: What Code 66 is. 

        Did not know about the whole 'activate brain chip thing in the clones, kill all the peeps, take over the universe' thing.

3. Darth Vader is Luke's Father

        Jk, jk, I definitely knew this, haha. Just thought it'd be funny.

4. Darth Vader gets a mini-redemption at the end

        Didn't know this until watching Episode 4 or 5 when I sad something related to me being so sad about how far Anakin has fallen and I said, "Darth Vader redemption arc when?" And then my roommate and Ben said something like, "I mean, he gets his 5 second redemption at the end of Episode 6." 🙃 Really wish I didn't know that when I watched episode 6, can't believe I got spoiled right before it, haha. It's okay though, it was still sweet.

Some other general thoughts:

It was really good! I do plan on watching episodes 7, 8, and 9 at some point. We'll see how far into the Star Wars universe I get into after that. Wouldn't surprise me if I end up watching the Clone Wars because 1. It's been highly highly recommended to me by two individuals and 2. It apparently builds up extremely well into Episode III, which is my favorite episode.

I love Episode III. It's so tragic, and it hit me in the feels. Also the lightsaber scenes were phenomenal. I love Anakin as a character, so Episode III was so sad:(:( Anakin appear as a force ghost at the end of Episode VI made me so happy. 

I think my rankings of the episodes would go something like this: 3, 6, 1, 5, 2, 4. Lots of hot takes in there, but that's how I feel right now without thinking about it all too much. I don't know why I'm such an episode 4 hater either.

Twenty One Pilots Tier List (The Line Update)

Happy Birthday (yesterday) Mom!

Previous Tier List can be found here.

I didn't do any huge revamp since my most recent update was only six months ago. I made some minor adjustments to other songs, and knew I could make some bigger adjustments, but didn't want to go super crazy with it. The biggest changes were to all the songs on Clancy.

Next Semester (goated song) appearing in the top 10! Vignette overtaking Level of Concern to make top 3. Snapback climbing up. Navigating lowering. At the Risk of Feeling Dumb lowering. Those were the biggest shifts I believe.

Oh, yeah, and The Line being added, of course. With a debut in S- tier. Fantastic song.

Half Alive Tier List (Persona Update)

Happy Birthday Hannah!!

Link to my previous tier list here.

This rendition doesn't feel very final in any way. For some reason, it was really hard to pin things down. But, alas, here it is. At the very least, I feel fairly decent about the tiers themselves. But within the tiers: chaos. I don't know, there are a few songs though that might be in a weird tier because sometimes I listen to them I just feel like it's an easy S tier. Other times, I'm just not vibing. It's weird.

Upcoming Tier Lists/Holidays/Book, and Tournaments

For my post this week, I was originally planning on revamping my Half Alive tier list because they just came out with an album just over a week ago, but I decided I wanted more time for the songs to marinate before I do that. So for this week, I'm just going to write about stuff and such.

Twenty One Pilots also just released a new song, "The Line" for the Arcane 2nd Season Soundtrack. New Twenty One Pilots music of course always makes me happy. So I plan to take another look at my most recent Twenty One Pilots tier list, shift things around as I feel fit, and add The Line in. So two music tier lists coming probably back to back.

Been having a ton of fun at Smash Tournaments this semester. A lot of great competition entered into the scene this semester, so it's been a blast. Haven't been keeping on top of updating my results on my SSBU Tourney Results list, but I just updated it, so 👍 My Keepnote of stuff to add to The Record has also been piling up. Updated that as well.

Went to a sealed event for the new set of Lorcana with Ben on Thursday. I took 1st and he took 2nd, yessir! It was a lot of fun. Sealed and drafts are so much fun.

Thanksgiving and Christmas is almost here! Which means my internship is coming to a close, which is kind of wild. Internships been great. Very excited to spend time with family over the holidays.

Wind and Truth is almost here! So so so excited.

Board Game Recommendations To Two Friends of Mine

I wrote this blog post for a close friend of mine, Milana, and their husband, Cecil, so they can make some educated board game purchases. But hopefully this can be a resource to anybody or any couple looking to buy board games. The rest of this post I'll be speaking as if I'm talking to them directly.

Hey! Okay, so I'm not going to talk about every single game I've ever played as we discussed I might do. I decided that might be a bit much 😅 But instead I went through the top 1000 on boardgamegeek.com and looked for all the games that fit two main things. 1. They work well with 2 players. 2. I like it enough to actually recommend it in some form. Which, obviously, turned out to be a lot still, haha. 

Note: Like, almost all these games are strategy board games. Those just tend to be the type of games I play.

There's four things I put for every game:

1. Complexity (1-5 scale)

        1 = Uno levels of complexity -- you could teach/play this game with practically everyone

        2 = Catan level -- Still quite straightforward, but definitely more complex than games like Uno

        3 = Uh, losing good games to compare things to that you both would know.

        4 = Pretty dang heavy

        5 = The most complex games I've played

        Don't worry about 1-3. I would hesitate before showing 4 or 5's to friends that don't have a lot of board gaming experience. Granted, I honestly don't know how much board gaming experience you have Cecil. But you're both more than competent anyway, so y'all will be fine.

2. Core Game Mechanics

        Okay, so I've actually decided to break down many of the core game mechanics so you can have an easy reference to what they mean. So feel free to skip this section until a game peaks your interest and you want to hear more about what the game play actually looks like.

        Action Selection: Each turn you choose 1 of several different choices. Rinse and repeat. For example: Each turn you may do two of the following: 1. Move 2. Remove a disease cube 3. Build a research center 4. Find a cure. Action Selection is pretty broad though and can vary quite a bit from the very basic example I gave.

        Engine Building: I think this will appeal to Cecil since I know he likes rouge-likes. Throughout the game you get stuff that makes you stronger and stronger allowing you to get more stuff that makes you stronger and stronger. Beginning of the game you are weak. End of game you feel like you can do everything.

        1v1 Combat: Game style like Risk where you are constantly punching each other in some direct way. I know this can be a push away for some people, which is why I'm labeling it.

        Big Deck of Cards: There's this huge deck of cards that you're drawing from which makes each game different because you're drawing different cards each game.

        Deck-Building (also Bag Building): You start the game with a bad deck. You add cards to your deck throughout the game making it stronger and building up combos etc.

        Spatial Reasoning (which often goes hand in hand with Tile Placement): You have a grid of some form and are placing special shaped tiles onto it. Typically the goal is to fit everything as neat as possible or to fit certain things next to each other. Think Tetris, I guess.

        Co-op: The game is cooperative, all the players are working together to win.

        Word Association: Typically some variety of "I saw this word, which makes you think of this other word". Codenames is a prime example of a word association game.

        Drafting: Limited number of resources/cards/something. We take turns picking from the same resources/cards/something. So each time you have to pick what you think is best for you (or perhaps pick what you think is best for your opponent to block them from getting that thing because once you take it, it is no longer available for them to take).

        Resources/Resource Management: Currency in some form is a big part of the game. You have to be careful how you spend your money/wood/steel/wool etc. And then at some point you typically produce some more that you can then spend.

        Asymmetrical Powers: Everybody has something super cool about them that makes them powerful in some way that others don't have.

        Push Your Luck: You have choices that could benefit you but that come with a risk of losing some of your progress.

3. Game Length

        This section is, uh, self-explanatory.

4. A paragraph on additional thoughts/notes about the game

        Same with this one.

Highest Recommendations (in no particular order):

Scattergories

        Complexity: 2

        Core Game Mechanics: Word Association

        Game Length: 30 minutes maybe?

        Scattergories is goated. But Milana already knew that. Hopefully Cecil already knew that too, but if you didn't I hope you learn it soon because it's true. I suppose Scattergories definitely works better with more than 2, though, now that I think about it.

Wingspan

        Complexity: 3

        Core Game Mechanics: Engine Building, Big Deck of Cards, Action Selection

        Game Length: 60-90 minutes

        This game has become a mass hit over the past 5 years. The bird theme is a big draw, super fun to see all the different birds. I enjoy the game because of it's straight forward clean engine building and because of the theme. Play birds, get stuff, do cool combinations, play more birds, feel more powerful. Feels good. And is super aesthetically pleasing.

Dominion

        Complexity: 2

        Core Game Mechanics: Deck-Building, Engine Building

        Game Length: 30-45 minutes

        My favorite game of all time probably. Big draws to it for me are its quick and snappy gameplay and its replayability. I've played this game probably more than any other board game and each game is still fresh and fun. Really enjoy all the combinations and things you can pull off. It's so clean and simple and fun. The base game is free on Steam, so check it out there first if you want.

Patchwork

        Complexity: 2

        Core Game Mechanics: Spatial Reasoning/Tile Placement

        Game Length: 30-45 minutes

        This game is honestly so good. Built for two-players. The two core mechanics explain it all, really. It's all about fitting together these pieces, figuring out the best way to fit everything into your board. Trying to spend as few buttons (the currency in the game) as possible but still getting the pieces that fit the best. Great great great game, would recommend more than Wingspan and Dominion, honestly.

Just One

        Complexity: 1

        Core Game Mechanics: Co-op, Word Association

        Game Length: However long you want

        Okay, yes, yes, this game does not work with 2 players. But just go glance at this blog post and you'll understand why I put it on the list anyway.

Pandemic

        Complexity: 2

        Core Game Mechanics: Co-op, Action Selection

        Game Length: 45 minutes

        Big draw here is good, clean, simple co-op. You're working together going around trying to stop a global pandemic. The gameplay itself is just some basic action selection, so the choices individually aren't crazy complex, which makes it not intimidating. But there's definitely can be a lot of depth to those decisions making for some tight interesting decision making.

Kingdomino

        Complexity: 2

        Core Game Mechanics: Drafting, Spatial Reasoning/Tile Placement

        Game Length: 15-25 minutes

        Played this one with Milana before, so not going to talk much about it. Good, simple, tile drafting. Fitting it into your 5x5 grid to get you the most amount of points.

Also Recommend:

7 Wonders Duel

        Complexity: 3

        Core Game Mechanics: Drafting, Resources

        Game Length: 30-45 minutes

        7 Wonders is a wonderful drafting game, but it requires 4-7 players to shine. 7 Wonders: Duel has taken a lot of the core awesomeness and made it into a 2-player game.

Splendor Duel

        Complexity: 2

        Core Game Mechanics: Drafting, Resources

        Game Length: 30-45 minutes

        2-Player version of Splendor, which honestly should also be on this list.

The Castles of Burgundy

        Complexity: 2

        Core Game Mechanics: Action Selection, Tile Placement

        Game Length: 45-75 minutes

        I think this hits a nice spot for a lot of people. Honestly just feels like a cozy game to me. Pick some tiles, build your place, get tons of points. It's great. It's satisfying.

Quacks of Quedlinburg

        Complexity: 3

        Core Game Mechanics: Push Your Luck, Bag Building

        Game Length: 60-90 minutes

        Purchase cool ingredients to add to your bag of ingredients. Pull out ingredients and add them into your pot to make the best potion. Each ingredient has fun diverse powers. Can be a tad luck based for me even though it is definitely not all luck and the better player generally wins.

The Search for Planet X

        Complexity: 2

        Core Game Mechanics: Puzzle Solving/Critical Thinking, Action Selection

        Game Length: 60 minutes

        Played this with Milana before. It's soooo good and clever and awesome. It's everything Clue has ever wanted to be.

Azul: Summer Pavilion

        Complexity: 2

        Core Game Mechanics: Tile Placement

        Game Length: 30-45 minutes

        Put colors and symbols of the same type next to each other on your garden and get points! This is my favorite version of Azul because it's a bit deeper than the other versions, but feel free to look into normal Azul as well.

Wavelength

        Complexity: 2

        Core Game Mechanics: Word Association

        Game Length: 45 minutes

        Doesn't really work well with 2 players, but it's my favorite double date board game of all time. There's a free app for it. Download it and give it a whirl and see what you think (the two player for the app is great (and obviously you could do the same two player version for the actual board game, but I just don't think it's as good with only two)).

These are also great:

Sagrada

        Complexity: 2

        Core Game Mechanics: Drafting, Spatial Reasoning/Tile Placement

        Game Length: 30-45 minutes

        Great, simple, pretty game. Rolling dice and putting them into your stained glass window. Picking which dice you think will net you the most points. Probably honestly works better with 3 or 4, which is why it's not in a higher recommendation category. I think I may have played this one with Milana at some point? Not too sure.

Qwixx

        Complexity: 1

        Core Game Mechanics: Dice Rolling

        Game Length: 15-25 minutes

        Very simple dice rolling mostly luck game. I believe I have played this with Milana.

Terraforming Mars

        Complexity: 4

        Core Game Mechanics: Resource Management, Engine Building, Big Deck of Cards

        Game Length: 90-120 minutes

        I just love this game so much that I had to put it here even though I'm not so sure Milana would like it. But maybe you would! Just great great engine building resource management fun. Tight gameplay. So so good.

The Isle of Cats

        Complexity: 3

        Core Game Mechanics: Drafting, Spatial Reasoning

        Game Length: 60-90 minutes

        My parents have played this game a TON, which is why it's on this list. I also really enjoy it. There's the full version which I enjoy the most and a family version, which is exclusively what my parents play.

Small World

        Complexity: 3

        Core Game Mechanics: Area Control, Asymmetrical Powers, 1v1 combat

        Game Length: 60 minutes

        My cousin Joseph played this game a TON with an old girlfriend of his, which is why it's on this list. I also really enjoy it. Imagine Risk's area control, but fantasy themed with cool powers, more strategic combat, and quicker gameplay. It's great.

Summoner Wars (2nd Edition)

        Complexity: 3

        Core Game Mechanics: Grid-based tactical strategy, Asymmetrical, 1v1 combat

        Game Length: 30 minutes

        Love this game. Gameplay is tight and engaging. Each deck feels fresh and unique.

Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala

        Complexity: 3

        Core Game Mechanics: Action Selection??, Drag and Drop Pieces??

        Game Length: 60-90 minutes

        You know Mancala?? Now imagine that, but, like, waaay different. And you get this awesome game! Seriously super cool game that has a constant barrage of interesting decisions to make. Sorting through them all to find the best one can be tough (in a good way. But also in a bad way if it takes 90 years like it does sometimes).        

I honestly don't really know why I put these on the list:

Ark Nova

        Complexity: 4

        Core Game Mechanics: Action Selection, Resource Management, Tile Placement, Big Deck of Cards

        Game Length: 2-3 Hours

        Ehhhh, just buy Terraforming Mars instead, imo. This game is good though.

Spirit Island

        Complexity: 5

        Core Game Mechanics: Co-op, Asymmetrical Powers, Area Control

        Game Length: 2-3 Hours

        This is probably the most complicated board game I own, which is why it's probably not a move. But it's also top 3 favorites, which is why I'm putting it on this list anyway.

Chess

        Complexity: ???

        Core Game Mechanics: Abstract Strategy, 1v1 combat

        Game Length: ???

        Yeah, you already know what chess is, so I don't know why it's on this list. But Chess is great!

Rest In Peace, Pam

I wanted to make a letter to Pam who passed away a year ago today. As I began to write it, I felt that a blog post was not the proper place for it. This post is still in memory of her just not a post written to her. In experience #3 in my homecoming talk, I talk about Pam. Feel free to read that here to understand more context on who Pam is and who she is to me.

I miss Pam. I know she's doing well on the other side. I hope her kids are doing well. Pam is a truly special person. She is amazing. She is so strong. And I'm so proud of her. I wish I did a better job of letting her know that in this life. But I know she knows now. I'm so excited to see her again one day.

I could write so much more, but I'll refrain. I feel a small blog post in her memory is best for today. I'll take some time today and read through some of my journals during the months I had the blessing of getting to know her:)

Rest in peace, Pam. Until we meet again:)

I mean, it's a post, I guess

So it may or may not be 3:16am (at least it's not 4:16am -- thanks Day Light Savings*)**. And I may or may not be extremely tired. So. I'm not going to do anything crazy for this post. I came so close to missing this week's post; I'm really glad I didn't. 8 left to go in this year after this one! Pretty crazy. Not sure what I'm going to do for next year -- I think my current gameplan is to swap to an every other week schedule, but I also might just swap back to a 'I'm going to post at random times with no set schedule' schedule. Okay, I'm going to sleep. Good night***.

***Except not really good night quite yet because I've still got to write these footnotes real quick****

****Yes, yes, the footnotes are seemingly out of order. And yes, yes, that footnote did just have a footnote.

*Really wish they would just get rid of Day Light Savings, but I will still thank the extra hour we get back every fall. Except not really because it gets dark SO early. But for that singularly night of sleep, it's quite nice, quite nice.

**Friend came in town that Ben and I haven't seen in a while, so we stayed up playing Smash Ultimate with him. 'Twas a blast. I swear, like, 93% of days this semester I've gone to bed at a good time.

Report on my other 2 Lorcana Store Championships

Wanted to report on my other two Lorcana Store Championships that I went to the two Saturdays after the one that I reported on during this blog post.

Had toooons of fun. I love Lorcana and competing in Lorcana. There's this super big tournament in Seattle happening right now and part of me wishes I had made the arrangements and up and gone. There are so many fun and intriguing decisions, and I think the meta is super cool right now. Super glad I decided to go to all three Store Championships.

2nd Store Championship:

In Swiss:

I fought against 2 aggro decks, which I feel quite comfortable against. One got really close, but I managed to get the win in the end 2-1. The other one I had a tight grip on the whole time and got a clean 2-0. 

Fought against an Emerald Steel Discard deck. Got quite lucky Game 1, I put out 2 Flynn Frenemies and my opponent didn't draw any of their removal, so I won very quickly. Game 2 was a lot closer, but a well timed Be Prepared won me the game. (Neat side story: He was looking into the company that I'm currently doing my internship for, so I got to tell him a lot of information. Felt like a neat little tender mercy for him that I got to be a part of). 

Fought my good buddy Austin who I met when first going to Lorcana tournaments. Him alongside me and my two roommates were the consistent group that went to tournaments every week. We had an extremely competitive set and I was able to clutch it out in the end 2-1:) 

My last opponent in Swiss (John, the goat) and I decided to a agree to a draw so we both got guaranteed top 8 (this is very common behavior in competitive Lorcana). Finished with the top seed.

In top 8:

My first opponent was an aggro deck, which as stated before I feel comfortable against. Won with a clean 2-0.

My 2nd round opponent was a super cool guy named Alex. We had a very tight set and he clutched it out 2-1. Some of the most fun games I've played (he stated this the following week as well). Was happy with how I played because he said he normally feels super comfortable against my deck (Ruby Amethyst) with his deck (Emerald Amethyst) and thinks the match up is heavily in his favor, so to get that close to winning was awesome. He said he was very impressed with how I played.

Final placement: 3rd.

3rd Store Championship:

In Swiss: 

Was one turn away from losing to a Queen combo-wombo, but won the turn before that happened. Won 2-0. 

Fought in the mirror match, which is such a wonky match-up. We split 1-1.

Won against a hyper aggro deck, 2-0.

Had two of the closest games you could possibly dream up, barely winning 2-0 when my opponent was at 19 lore at the end of both games (quick reminder: you need 20 to win). Heckin' wild games.

My last opponent (Tim, super cool dude) and I agreed to draw to both get guaranteed top 8. Finished with the 2nd seed.

In Top 8:

Round 1 was not somebody I wanted to fight against and I was quite nervous going into it. They played Emerald Steel Discard, and I know I won that match-up against a different player the previous week, but I don't feel comfortable in the match-up. Feel like I made some smart decisions and was able to get a dominating board presence in both games. Big Sisu (a card I added in for this tournament) being the finisher in one of them. Won 2-0 advancing into top 4.

Round 2 I fought John who was piloting Steel Sapphire. He got some really unfortunate draws and I won in a fairly anti-climatic 2-0.

Round 3. Fighting Tim piloting Ruby Sapphire. Winner takes the tournament. And I'm fighting against a good match-up for me! Too bad I lost 0-2, haha. Yes, I got some bad card draw luck, and he stated that he got some really good card draw luck, but that's the way it is sometimes. Really wanted to take home to victory, but my run ended at 2nd.

Final Results:

So in the end I placed 5th/24, 3rd/25, and 2nd/18. John totaled up the points from all the tournaments and I ended up getting 3rd overall. Tons of fun.

Winnings:

Won a $10 gift card in a drawing completely unrelated to my placement. Spent a couple bucks extra to get 2 packs with it.

Won a lot of packs (19 in total from the 3 tournaments, I believe), got some very playable cards, although nothing really pricy. Still waiting to open my first enchanted. 

Won 3 Mirabels valued around $40 each right now, one for each top 8 (picture below).

Won a Mirabel playmat for my top 2 placement (picture below).

I, uh, can't seem to find a way to rotate the images from within blogger, and I've decided to let them be the way they are.

My Staple Party Game Recommendation

Is Just One the best party game of all time? Quite possibly. Is it my favorite party game of all time? No, I really like Scattergories, but let me tell you why if I'm to recommend a party game to somebody, I will almost always bring up Just One.

Just One might just be a perfect party game. It honestly kind of blows me away. Here are some reasons why in no particular order:

1. Super flexible with player counts.

It says 3-7 on the box. 3 player games are fun, although miss some of the magic. 4 player games are good if you're up for a challenge. But 5-7 work just wonderfully. I've played games with more than 7 and it still works great, even up to 10 works great. Other games need more specific numbers*, but Just One really works fantastically with any count between 5-10, which is just so convenient.

2. Players can easily flow in and out of them game.  

New player shows up at the party? Not a problem, they can hop in at any time.

Player gets a phone call? Not a problem, they can hop out at any time.

It is simply so easy for people to come and go and needed, which is incredibly nice for a party game.

3. Variable time length.

In the rulebook it gives a specific number of rounds to play, but you can really do however many you want. Only got 10 minutes? A-okay, give it a whirl for 10 minutes. Want to play for 40 instead? Go for it! This is yet another reason it is so easy to get to the table.

4. It's incredibly simple to explain.

It legit takes, like, less than a minute to explain. Such a good thing for a party game.

5. (Practically) all ages can understand and play.

Young? Middle-aged? Old-ish? Don't matter. I've seen all age ranges have a blast with this game.

6. It's simply fun.

Perhaps the most important of them all. It's just a lot of fun. Literally every individual I've introduced to this game has a great time. Literally every single one. Okay, I guess my gramps struggled understanding what was going on so he didn't have a great time, but besides that: Literally every single one.

Seriously, I swear this is the best party board game of all time. It blows me away. And it's sold at a very affordable $20-25 (amazon link here). Like, it's actually insane. If I had to name good qualities for a party game, Just One has every single one.

Is it even a game though?? Or just an activity?? Perhaps I shall have to write a different blog post about some thoughts on this fascinating ongoing discussion of what counts a game and what doesn't.

*See last week's blog post.

Best Player Counts in Board Games

Decided to bold the most important sentences so you don't have to read the whole thing to get the gist because there's a whole lot of fluff in here, I think.

So I started typing up a different blog post and then one of the footnotes was growing too long with no sign of slowing down, so I decided to make it it's own blog post, haha. And then when I post the original blog post presumably next week, I'll just link this blog post as the footnote, haha. Granted, I realize now that I could probably do that with several different parts of said blog post, but for now here's this one.

I find it is frequently difficult to get the proper number of people for many board games. Specifically party games.

Many other games work just fine and dandy with 2-3, which is quite easy to obtain (well, depending on how much the people around you like board games, but that isn't the point of this post).

But, man, party games just have weird sweet spots that can be tough to hit exactly.

Now this is not to say the games listed below don't get to the table, they most certainly do. I'm just saying how sometimes needing a specific player count is tough and a little awkward. This fact is important for a small part of my next week's post and I've chosen to talk about it in-depth here.

Captain Sonar. Fantastic game, love it tons. It really does feel like you're in a submarine hunting another submarine. But you really want exactly 8. Two teams of 4 with each team member on a specific task is just prime. Any less than that and you start sacrificing. 6 is the second choice as two teams of 3 with one person on the two easiest tasks works just fine. 7 is a bit awkward because one team inherently gets an advantage. Anything less than 6 is just a no go.

Secret Hitler doesn't work well on odd player counts (I think every odd player count?) due to a silly bad guy exploit. If the bad guys kill a good guy, then half the players remaining are good and half are bad. Tied votes are considered failed. From there on out the bad guys just vote no over and over again, effectively flipping over the top policy over and over again. With an overwhelming number of bad guy policies, they are very likely to win. Of course, if no one knows this exploit than the game still functions. 

On top of that, social deduction games similar to Secret Hitler really want higher player counts. 7+. Lower than that is just not prime. And with Secret Hitler needing to avoid odd player counts, that leaves 8 or 10. 10 could be argued to be too many, although does work just fine. So 8 or 10 players it is. 8 (or 10) players being the only actually good player count for Secret Hitler is kind of rough. Especially when the box says 5-10 players is possible. It looks so easy to get a group of 5-10 players, but really it's 8 or 10. 

Just talked to my roommate about prime number of people in a game of Avalon and he said 7. He even went on to say that pretty much every other player count is arguably just not good. 8 is fine, he says, but can be rough due to some game balance issues, 9 would probably be his 2nd choice. And then 10 is just too many people with too few rounds. 5 and 6 are just not enough players.

Letter Jam you really want 5 or 6. Any less than that and it just doesn't work as well with so many letters not tied to peoples words.

Now perhaps it's not that big of a deal; even my more specified numbers are pretty feasible. It just makes it a tad more uncomfortable to get to the table sometimes, something that a party game definitely wants to avoid.

Of course, again, reiterating, that it's not that big of a deal. I've had great 3 or 4 player games of Letter Jam. Great games of Avalon and Secret Hitler with all player counts above 6. And Captain Sonar working just fine with 6-8 is honestly a pretty good range. So, yeah. Not big deals. But the point I'm trying to get across will hopefully make more sense in my next blog post. 

Oh, and happy late 24th birthday to me, I suppose.

My First Lorcana Store Championship

Went to a local Lorcana Store Championship yesterday! I had to miss the afternoon session of General Conference for it, but it's okay, I'll watch them soon.

Here's a quick recap of how the tournament went:

Played a Ruby Amethyst Bounce Control deck! I'll link my decklist here. I plan on making a couple card swaps for the next two store championships that I plan on attending this upcoming two Saturdays. I sold pretty much all my other expensive/meta-relevant cards in the other colors, so Ruby Amethyst it was! But that works out just fine because I enjoy its flexible playstyle and it's a meta-relevant deck right now.

There were 24 attendees. It was Swiss-Style for 4 rounds, and then they did a top 8 cut. The top 8 proceed into a single elimination bracket.

My Round 1 opponent was a person whose husband plays a lot of Lorcana. They play it with them, but this was actually their first tournament. They played a hyper-aggro Amber Amethyst deck. I got a couple really helpful Brawl's and Fox's that kept their aggro under control enough to win 2-0.

My Round 2 opponent was a fellow Ruby Amethyst player. Overall, did not feel super happy with how I played this match-up. Took some risks that really back fired. Maybe that was just me being unlucky, idk, but I lost game 1. I got a solid curve game 2 and just played much safer to win game 2. We didn't have time to finish game 3, so it went in as a draw.

My Round 3 opponent played an interesting aggro Amber Ruby deck. Felt like it was pretty much just worse aggro Amber Amethyst. Won with an easy 2-0. We played a friendly game after against a different deck of theirs. That deck was so goofy funny, I love it. It was a deck revolving around The Queen - Disguised Peddler.

My Round 4 opponent, I fought an opponent who was undefeated thus far. Super cool dude, we talked quite a bit while waiting after our round. He played Sapphire Ruby Control non-Sisu oriented. Sapphire Ruby is always scary, but I managed to get enough early presence game 1 and game 2 to win 2-0. Was very happy with that victory.

Which means I made top 8. As the 2 seed! Very exciting.

My Round 1 in top 8 was against a cool dude named Ryan who I lost to in a weekly back at the beginning of the year. He was also playing Sapphire Ruby Control, but he did have Sisus. We had a very very competitive set with back and forth gameplay. All came down to game 3.

I was slowly able to get some questers on board getting work in as he continues to ramp up. And then the ending of the game happened. And, well, I'll just post a screenshot of my messages I sent to my two friends Joe and Tyler after the game happened:

(Lady Tremaine and Tamatoa and Lucky Dime and Goat links for reference. Note: You need 20 lore to win)

So freakin' sad. I had it! But, alas, tcg's do be like that sometimes. Did some rough math, and it was about a 5% chance that I draw two uninkables in a row there.

Had a blast overall though! Love getting in some competitive game playing in. Super satisfying. Got 5th overall (due to my 2nd seed in the final bracket, I placed higher than the other people who lost at the same time as I did in top 8), which is definitely respectable. Excited to hopefully compete in two more store championships the upcoming two Saturdays!

This time around, I won 4 packs (all of which were garbage), a Nala Promo, and a Mirabel Promo (scroll down slightly to see the promo version). Not sure how much Mirabel Promo will sell for yet, but we shall see.

My Staple Anime Recommendation

If I'm recommending an anime, which anime to recommend is simple to me now. It's Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. And I think it will be that way for a very very long time.

I think Frieren is a masterpiece. But not only a masterpiece, a lovable masterpiece that I have no qualms* recommending to literally everybody. It has great animation with a clean looking art style that wouldn't deter anyone**. There is next to no nudity/other sexual stuff***. It is just a fun adventure with great characters, and incredible world-building. It's genres are, perhaps, the most universal liked and easy-to-get-into genres: fantasy, action/adventure, and drama, making it extremely approachable. It's just so good. For everyone.

Yes, obviously if I knew the individual whom I'm recommending an anime to better, I might recommend them something more tailored to them; there are several anime I love more than this one, but that's because they fit me more perfectly. I'm not saying this will become your favorite anime. I am saying that I am extremely confident that you will enjoy this anime and won't regret watching it. And that applies to practically everyone. 

Go watch it. You won't regret it. It's just good stuff. It's simply a high quality way to spend some entertainment time.

*Okay, one qualm. There is a particular scene that is disturbing enough/overall the action and violence is probably a bit much for children. But besides that. Zero qualms. Okay plus one more: It's not done yet. So I guess two qualms. If someone really wants the anime to be done already, then I guess they'll have to wait to watch this incredible show.

**Unless you just hate animation as an art style in general. Not sure what to do with that opinion other than say you're missing out on so much goodness.

***If you want to know the most inappropriate things regarding this, here are very minor spoilers of the only two things I remember that would fall under this category. When I say they're the most inappropriate things in this category, I also mean they are the only two things in this category that I can remember. (Note: I, ofc, could have missed some): 1. A could floats by, and a character comments that it looks like a women with big boobs. 2. A spell that can look through clothes is used on a man. The user of the spell thinks 'small'. Nothing is shown, the frame is just of the man, no see-through image or anything.

Chess Phases (but honestly mostly side-note adventures)

So I've been playing a lot of chess over the course of these past few weeks. I've spent, if I remember correctly, a total of 38ish hours on the chess.com chess app over the course of 3 weeks.

It's been a blast, I love chess. It's also incredibly frustrating when I do something super dumb, haha.

I think it's fascinating how I go through these Chess phases. I wrote that a couple months ago. Shortly thereafter I just stopped playing. And this isn't the first time I've done that, haha. It's the second. [Explaining the joke here because I think it's funny [Side note: I think explaining jokes can sometimes be funnier than the joke itself since you get to reflect on the cleverness of the joke]: Typically when people say 'this isn't the first time I've done that' it implies that they've done it time and time again. But that's where the subversion of expectations come in and I say it's only my second time, which I think is quite rather subtly funny.]

I mean, chess is really good. And sometimes I do just get a burst of motivation to compete in a new thing, and chess sometimes becomes that thing. There's soooooo much to learn, which I enjoy doing. [I don't think that sentence makes sense grammatically, but it makes sense anyway. I feel I do that a lot. [Side note: note sure exactly why brackets feel more appropriate than parentheses in these past couple circumstances. I think it may be because I want it to be on a side-note/lower level, but the idea is separate enough from the previous sentence that parentheses don't feel right. I think this is why there's a period between as well. Typically with parentheses you'll often find I don't have a period separating them because the ideas are too connected for the period separation to make sense]]. Not sure why it ebbs and flows so suddenly, though. [I think it's kind of funny/quirky/interesting/fun that when I use so many parentheses (and in this case brackets (whoa, I just used parentheses)) and then I continue the thought as if they were never there presumably causing this tedious need to glance back and figure what on earth I was talking about before the whole side-note adventure.]

My Wonderful Journal

The more I think about it, the more I just love my blog in terms of journaling. Seriously. I just think my blog is just a wonderful place of my thoughts and passions. If you want to know who I am, this is the place to look. And, as such, it is my wonderful journal.

I have over a decade of my thoughts just pooled here. It is fantastic and hilarious to go back and rediscover again and again what __ year-old Alex wrote and thought about. I am thoroughly glad that I have continued to post throughout the years. And I really see no reason to stop.

August 2024: What I've Been Watching (Part 2)

This post is spoiler free for all shows/movies talked about. Feel free to check out part one here.

Steins;Gate + the OVA (which in my mind is practically episode 25)

I adore this anime. 10/10. Seriously a masterpiece. I ranked it my 4th favorite anime in my recent top 10 list, and I decided to rewatch it to see if it truly deserved that ranking. And it does. It is SO good. 

I think a big thing that makes it so wonderful to me personally is it hits perfectly/fuses perfectly probably my favorite genres/themes. It does mystery/suspense perfectly. But it also does pulling-on-my-heart-strings perfectly. And that's pulling-on-my-heart-strings in both happy and sorrowful ways.

Was it worse this watch-through because I knew pretty much everything that was going to happen? Sure. Do I wish Daru made less innuendos? Of course. But, man, I love this anime. 

And this time around, it's sticking with me. I'm continue to think about it. I find myself wanting to listen to music from it (speaking of which, the soundtrack is phenomenal). I think the previous two times I watched it, I may have been more focused on the mystery/suspense; and perhaps because I already knew those things this time around, my focus was more on the pulling-on-my-heart-strings things, but those pulling-on-my-heart-strings things continue to reside in my heart in a wonderful way.

All the Other Steins;Gate Stuff (Steins;Gate 0, the Movie, and the other mini-episode things)

Random thing I want to state because I don't want anyone messing this up: Release order is 100% the best way to watch Steins;Gate for your first time. Also, frankly, you don't even have to bother with all this extra stuff, just watching the originally series is plenty wonderful enough. I enjoyed Steins;Gate 0, the Movie, and the other mini-episode things, but I don't think they're necessary at all to the Steins;Gate experience.

Mini-episode things were cute. Glad they exist and glad I watched them, but not much more to note in the department. 7.5/10

The Movie was good, even great. It was just a little weird watching because there's debates on whether is actually canon, granted, that doesn't mean parts can't be head-canon etc., but I feel like it through-off my emotional attachment to what was happening while I watched it, if that makes sense. But I definitely enjoyed it:) 8/10

Steins;Gate 0. Really really quite good. I think I have a probably with prequels/midquels though? (Steins;Gate 0 takes place between episodes 22 and 23 of Steins;Gate) Some scenes simply did not land with me as much as they perhaps should have simply because I already knew the outcome of it all. I consistently have this problem with prequels, I find. Unless it's a totally detached prequel, that is. But if the main characters are the same in both, I find I struggle getting nearly as emotional invested.

Regardless, it was wonderful to spend more time with these characters that I love. I feel even more attached to the characters overall, which is wonderful. And even with the whole prequel thing, there were still some fantastic moments that still shined through for me. 9/10

Psych Movies 2 and 3:

Finally caught up on the Psych movies, which was great! I forgot the 3rd movie was already out when I went to watch the second, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Both were great! 8.6/10 maybe? I could try to give them different scores, but I don't want to. Think I preferred the 3rd one though?

Lots of laugh out loud moments, as you would hope for from Psych. Overall both are very clean, which I appreciated. Great character moments. Continuations of arcs that were good. Great stuff.

Mission Impossible III:

Eric was watching this, so I decided to watch it with him while playing some Balatro.

Super solid action movie! As, allegedly, all the mission impossible movies are. Felt like the twists and turns were done well. Ending was great. The characters felt realistic.

9/10 maybe

August 2024: What I've Been Watching (Part 1)

This post is spoiler free for all shows/movies talked about.

My Recently Read/Watched/Played Etc. List is currently chock-full of animes I've grinded through over this past month. I thought I would briefly talk about them.

Update Note: After writing a lot about the four things listed below, I've decided to split this post into 2 posts (¿¿maybe 3?? Idk, we'll see). I don't want to saturate this post more than I already have, and I still have a lot to talk about (especially about how much I love Steins;Gate).

Pluto:

Pluto was inspired by/takes after/¿is? Astro Boy. I've only heard of Astro Boy before watching this, so I knew practically nothing heading into this.

The animation is phenomenal. The suspense is great. Super clean anime, which I appreciate. I definitely enjoyed it overall. 

Probably give it a 8.4/10 or somewhere around there. Will say I wasn't too fond of hour long episodes, but it wasn't awful, just a preference I have.

Runtime: 8 episodes, 1 hour each

The Last of Sheila:

Was planning on just talking about the animes I've watched, but I'll talk about the movies too.

The Last of Sheila is an older (1973) mystery whodunit.

Watched this with Eric. I liked it quite a lot! The mystery and reveal were really well done. Good twists, good ending, good stuff. I missed a couple chunks near the beginning, but got the entire second half-ish.

8.3/10 maybe? Granted, ranking movies and tv shows side by side is wonky to me -- it's hard for me to directly compare the mediums, but I'll try regardless by continuing to give things rankings.

Runtime: 2 hours

Dr. Stone:

Dr. Stone is an anime that follows an older teenager who reawakens from his petrification 3700 years after the all the humans on the entire earth mysterious got petrified. He's incredibly smart and knowledgeable and attempts to rebuild civilization with science! 

Part survival, part action, part mystery, part teaching science (most of it only being half-true science as far as I can tell (based on truth, just super simplified is my understanding))

Really enjoyed this one! Lots of fun with enjoyable characters. Am excited for the next season coming out next year. Just a comforting show.

For how much it appears to be targeting children, I wish they had less curse words and a specific character with less revealing clothes. Granted, I wish that regardless, but especially because they seem to be trying to appeal to children with certain 'teaching science' sections.

Thanks for the recommendation Elder Bailey.

8.7/10

Current Runtime: 58 episodes, 20 min each + 1 episode, 1 hour

Kaiju No. 8:

Kaiju No. 8 is just one season in, but it was fantastic. It's a Kaiju world with Kaiju destroying task forces and such. Follows a character that *minor spoilers and such*. Not even sure why I have the previous sentence if I'm not even going to elaborate, haha, but I'm leaving it.

Action is phenomenal. Animation is great. Got surprisingly attached to the characters and their arcs even in the short run time of the first season (12 episodes). Definitely some peak stuff right here. Besides a lot of Kaiju blood, it's super appropriate, which is great.

Seriously great stuff. 9.4/10, could easily go up with future seasons. (Weird/interesting thing: I rated it a 9.4/10 because that feels right, but if someone asked me to rate this a 9 or a 10 with no digit nuance and such, I would give it a 10 even though 9.4 is closer to 9. I think that's interesting.)

Thanks for the recommendation old roommate Joe (which I specify because it's not cousin Joe).

Current Runtime: 12 episodes, 20 min each.

My Current Celeste Accomplishments

So I've played a lot of Celeste in the past couple months. Many of the accomplishments felt too small to add to my Recently Read/Watched/Played Etc. list; it would be dominated by Celeste if I had done so. But I wanted to make note of them here; I am quite proud of them after all.

The updates revolve around Golden Strawberries and Speedrunning, both of which I am currently taking a break from, so I thought now would be a good time to report on it.

Previous Accomplishments:

So, as stated previously in other parts of my blog, I have 100%'d Celeste twice, once on the Switch and once on my PC. During my 100%'ing on my PC, I did full clears so I could also have the golden flags in my notebook. 

100%'ing includes doing all the A, B, and C Sides. Collecting all the red strawberries and hearts. And, the hardest of the achievements, beating Farewell and collecting the moonberry. (And a couple other random achievements)

Golden Strawberries:

Since then, I have gathered many golden strawberries which are listed below:

Chapter 1: A, B, and C Sides (alongside A-Side's winged strawberry)

Chapter 2: A, B, and C Sides

Chapter 3: A and C Sides

Chapter 4: A and C Sides

Chapter 5: A and C Sides

Chapter 6: C Side

Chapter 7: A and C Sides

Chapter 8: C Side

Current (First Page Of) Notebook:

Note: Steam has my total playtime for Celeste at 116.5 hours, the other 46.5 hours come from speedrunning and such. (Another Note: My time on Celeste on the Switch is about 70 hours (about 8 of which is 2 Guys 1 Controller (our playthrough before we recorded it, that is)))

Speedrunning:

I've also been doing some Any% runs for fun. I have now gotten a sub 50 time, which I'm pretty happy about. I posted it and got it verified on speedrun.com. You can check my speedrun out here.

2 Guys 1 Controller:

I referenced 2 Guys 1 Controller, but it wasn't until a couple days later that I realized that I should 100% add in a paragraph about that as it definitely counts as a Celeste Accomplishment. 

I have, with Ben, beaten Celeste with me holding the left half of the controller and him on the right half of the controller. When I say 'beaten' I mean chapters 1-7 A-sides. We also did Chapter 1 B-Side. Since then we've recorded some levels (and have plans to finish) and have posted them as youtube videos. You can check out the playlist here.

My MCU Tierlist

I'm sure I could do some tweaking, but I feel good about it overall. If it's not listed, then I haven't watched it. Also, I only half watched Guardians Holiday Special.

My Winter 2024 Smash Ultimate Season Recap

So I've been waiting to make this post for the PR Graphic and maybe a PR Video to published, as has been done in previous semesters. But, alas, those were never made -- well, expect a graphic Ben threw together in 2 minutes, which I just remembered, so I suppose I'll use that one, haha.

Year was wrong, but I fixed it rq, np

So Winter 2024 was my first semester back to competing after taking a break in Fall 2023. It was good to get back into it somewhat, but I definitely wasn't fully in competitive mode. Didn't make it to a crazy ton of tournaments and didn't practice that much, but it was still fun. 

Ended up #4 on the PR. Kind of sad that I didn't get spot #3, but it was warranted. I felt if I went to more tournaments, I could have overtaken AvengerSpencer, but alas, I did not.

• 4th Place (out of 27), 4th Seed, Usher Buffer
• 3rd Place (out of 23), 4th Seed, Crestwood
• 3rd Place (out of 27), 4th Seed, MLK Day
• 3rd Place (out of 17), 3rd Seed, WedNotWeekly
• 4th Place (out of 34), 3rd Seed, FF#30
• 13th Place (out of 80), 21st Seed, Provo Lan King 2/20
• 3rd Place (out of 22), 4th Seed, FF#33
• 5th Place (out of 16), 4th Seed, Smash Rexburg Summit $19
• 1st Place (out of 23), 3rd Seed, BYUI BASH #43

So I went to 8 PR tournaments and then also took a trip down to Provo for a tournament, which was a lot of fun (even though I had probably the worst choke of my entire career; thinking about it still makes me cringe how bad it was).

Lost to Echo after beating him 13 times in a row, so that felt pretty bad, haha. It will probably the last tournament match we will ever play since he moved. Echo is a very respectable opponent, so me winning that many times in a row was ludicrous, but it would have felt really good to not end on a loss.

In the most important tournament of the semester, Smash Rexburg Summit, I lost game 5 to AvengerSpencer, and I lost game 5 to Spork TWICE. It was kind of brutal.

But overall, I did well throughout the semester. Echo was my worst loss, and he's number 6 on the PR. I lost twice to AvengerSpencer, and the rest of my losses were to Spork, NinJamez, and Martin. So super clean throughout the semester (which is the argument for me being above AvengerSpencer since he has a ton of more bad losses; he just has more quite a few more wins over NinJamez and Martin, which is why he was deservedly ranked above me -- I feel if I went to more stuff I could have beaten him out, but, alas, as previously stated, I did not).

Couple super good wins/feel good moments:

1. So AvengerSpencer came into the scene the semester I didn't compete, so I had never fought him before. I first time fighting, I reversed 3-0'd him, which felt really good:)

2. Beat Martin!! In the last tournament of the semester, I won the tournament over Martin, which was the first tournament in a hot minute that Martin's attended that he or NinJamez didn't win (him and NinJamez are practically tied for #1 on PR, they went back and forth). 

In our first set, he played his Roy secondary. I won 3-1. Our second set during Grands he started with Roy, but I went up 2-0. He swapped to his main, Sora, and won the next game. This wasn't the first time this had happened to me; I got up 2-1 against his Peach secondary in a different tournament, and he swapped over to Sora to win the next two games. So a reverse 3-0 was incredibly possible. But I managed to clutch out game 4 to win the tournament:)

He was playing secondaries for most of it, so it wasn't a full-throttle Martin win, but his secondaries are nothing to scoff at; he's pulled up to tournaments and won with secondaries several times.

3. Moments from Poo vs. Theo at Summit

Legendary Photo

Poo (my opponent who has his pants down) and I are playing a very intense set in Smash Rexburg Summit. I'm feeling kind of warm in my sweats, so I announce I have shorts under my sweats and proceed to take off my sweats. Poo then proceeds to stand up, announces he has shorts under his pants, and pulls his pants down. Thus leading to this legendary photo.

Also the fact that I clutched this game from that set is hilarious.

Also Poo drinking milk in-between stocks and then almost reverse 3-0'ing me is iconic.

That pretty much sums it up:) I've been home this semester, but have gone to a couple tournaments in Reno. Not sure how many tournaments I'll be going to in the fall; I guess we'll have to wait and see.

The Story Behind My Kiwi Stuffed Animal

So I have this really cool stuffed animal Kiwi that has quite the history I wanted to share. I share for two primary reasons: 1. I just think the history is fun. 2. I wanted to write the details down so I don't inevitably forget them.

I received the Kiwi on my mission, but it's journey to me is what makes it fun. The Transfer numbers are my transfer numbers; which transfer of mine the said events took place regardless of if I was there for them.

Summarized version can be found at the end.

Transfer ??: The Kiwi began it's journey with Elder Boxall, a chill Elder from New Zealand I didn't know very well; we played Spikeball together a time or two.

Transfer 3.5: Elder Boxall gave it to his brief companion Elder Niutupuivaha. Elder Niutupuivaha had several different companions including Elder Boxall during his first 3 weeks in the mission. 

"Elder Boxall and Elder Bonnamy were being sent home due to Covid and Elder Boxall left the kiwi behind in the Swahili apartment. So of course, I took it. It was soft enough to be a pillow and I knew a lot of 'kiwis' (New Zealanders) from my childhood growing up in Hawaii so it was a little tender mercy to have a piece of the islands pop up in my first days on the mission field." ~ Jordan Niutupuivaha 

Transfer 5: He then became companions with me:) We were together for 2 transfers during which he gave me the Kiwi.

But the story does not simply end there, no no.

Transfer 7: At the end of my time in Winder, I left the Kiwi in Elder May's care (my companion after Elder Niutupuivaha; I was super blessed to serve with the both of them). 

Transfer 8: When Elder May went home after the next transfer, he left the Kiwi with his companions, Elder Jones (a super cool guy that I sadly didn't get to know better) and Elder Peterson (the Portuguese-speaking Elder Peterson, not to be confused with the tall Elder Peterson (7 ft) or my 2nd District Leader Elder Peterson). 

Transfer 9: Elder Jones left it in Elder Peterson's and Elder Peterson's next companion's care, Elder Leonardo.

Transfer 10: At this time, Elder Wilkins, my follow-up trainer, was in their zone and somehow the Kiwi ended up in his possession.

Transfer 11: Elder Wilkins then proceeded to give me back the Kiwi when we bumped into each other at the mission office during transfer day. Was a very funny moment as I had no idea where the Kiwi went, let alone in my follow-up trainer's possession.

There's still more:

Transfer 15: We got the transfer news and Elder Niutupuivaha was coming to replace me in the Liberty area! And so, of course, I decided to leave the Kiwi for him:)

Transfer 17 (my last transfer): We got the transfer news and Elder Niutupuivaha was coming to replace me in the Holladay YSA area! And so he brought the Kiwi back to me:)

So the Kiwi's been through a lot! And ended in my possession, which I am more than happy about; it's a great stuffed Kiwi.

Summarized Version:

Transfer ??: Elder Boxall has it.

Transfer 3.5: Elder Boxall gives it to Elder Niutupuivaha.

Transfer 5: Elder Niutupuivaha gives it to me.

Transfer 7: I give it to Elder May.

Transfer 8: Elder May gives it to Jones/Peterson.

Transfer 9: Elder Jones leaves it with Elder Peterson/Leonardo.

Transfer 10: Elder Peterson/Leonardo gives it to Elder Wilkins.

Transfer 11: Elder Wilkins gives it to me.

Transfer 15: I give it to Elder Niutupuivaha.

Transfer 17: Elder Niutupuivaha gives it to me.

Quick Maggot Story:

So once upon a time we (Elder May and I) remove the Canada Hat that was chilling on our Kiwi. And low and behold we find this:

Maggots!

We washed it many-a-times, don't worry.

Acknowledgements:

This history was compiled with the assistance of Jordan Niutupuivaha and Kyle Wilkins.

My Top 10 Favorite Anime

Not including movies, I have currently seen roughly 27 different anime, and not necessarily all the seasons of some of those anime (ex. Haven't seen Spy x Family season 2/3, haven't seen past season 1 of Attack on Titan and One Punch Man). 

Here are my top 10 favorites from what I have seen.

Note: Interesting distinction which many people I think don't realize is an important distinction: It's a list of my favorite anime and not a list of what I think are the best anime. Since it's my favorite, I can just use random perhaps unjustified opinions I have to judge things. When discussing best, I think that's a more objective question rather than subjective. Anyway, here are my picks:

HM: Promised Neverland

Starting from the bottom and going to #1, we're beginning with an honorable mention: The Promised Neverland. I loved loved the first season; it was fan-freaking-tastic. Big problem, though: The 2nd season was absolutely terrible 🙃 Like actually terrible. So here it sits in HM land.

HM: Erased

I think Erased is quite good -- I think the concept is fascinating, and overall it is really well done. The ending was a bit rushed, and the spoilers got spoiled to me (regardless, are allegedly fairly easy to figure out), so that's not good either. Regardless, I still think it's a great anime. It was in my top 10 when I first drafted this post, but then I watched Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and it shifted Erased into HM land.

10. Hunter x Hunter

Hunter x Hunter is fantastic. It's pretty much what I wanted to get out of long-running anime. It not being complete yet is bothersome to me, but if I remember correctly, the current ending is satisfying enough. Due to it's 148 episode length, I don't see myself rewatching it unless they release new stuff, but it was a ton of fun, the characters are great, some of the arcs are just so good. Great stuff.

9. Haikyuu!!

So I just rewatched/caught up with Haikyuu! It was great. Can't say I absolutely loved it though. There were many parts that were absolutely phenomenal. A ton of fantastic character moments and character arcs. The fact that they were able to build up and have a phenomenal moment about being a pinch server is just fantastic. 

But, also, like: The anime is too long for what it does? And too unrealistic? And has random subplot strings that go nowhere/feel unnecessary/I don't enjoy?  

Idk, maybe those things only bug me, but for some reason the errors in this show seemed more prevalent/noticeable compared to errors in other shows. 

8. Mob Psycho 100

I've cooled quite a bit on Mob Psycho. In the past, I would consistently say it was in my top 3 favorite animes. Now, let me say: It is REALLY good. I think what's really holding me back from ranking it higher is the third season. The third season just wasn't my favorite :/ Which is an absolute shame. 

The first two seasons are some of my favorite stuff, but I'm ranking the show as a whole, so the third season drags it down a few spots for me. If I ignored the 3rd season, I think this would most likely be top 3 or 4. And perhaps I'm over hating on the 3rd season; it wasn't bad per se, just not very good, imo. Idk.

7. Frienen: Beyond Journey's End

This is my most recent new anime I've seen and it is simply wonderful/incredible/amazing. I've fallen in love with the world and the characters, and everything is extremely well done. It could very easily climb the ranks of this list in the future. Thinking about it, frankly, it should probably be higher. Currently just waiting on more episodes to eventually release. In its current state, it feels like just the beginning, which makes it a little more awkward to rank super highly, imo. But I am very excited for more, and, like I said, I think once more does come out it could easily go up.

6. My Hero Academia

3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 were all very tough to rank. I love My Hero Academia a lot, and feel it could easily take any of the 3-7 slots. I gave Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood the edge because the ending is so good in Brotherhood, and My Hero isn't done yet. Having good endings is important to me (similar issue with Frienen and Hunter x Hunter right now). I really hope it ends satisfactory.

Another reason I lowkey feel it's not higher is its high episode count which continues to grow. As kind of referenced, this is a downside to Hunter x Hunter as well. But its peaks are impeccable, and it's just a show I enjoy. It's just fun; a comfort anime in a way. 

5. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Wonderful wonderful show. I've also seen the original, but I rewatched Brotherhood recently, and I'm fairly confident I prefer Brotherhood, so I'm only ranking it. This show is, like, actually so good. Characters are incredible, fights are superb, world is fascinating, storyline is awesome. So good. Love and agree with the fact that it's generally regarded as one of the best animes of all time.

  

 4. Steins;Gate

There's a thrill in the back of my mind when thinking about this anime. It is so tense, so interesting, so cool. So so good. Does time travel extremely well, imo. Goated anime.

3. Your Lie in April

So Your Lie in April has been my favorite anime ever since I originally watched it, but I rewatched it this year and decided it no longer was. Major plotline I just didn't like this time around is the main thing. Do I absolutely adore it still? Of course. Incredibly emotional; I cried this watch through for sure for sure. 

It would not surprise me if it slips a couple-few spots more, but for now its legacy of it being my absolute favorite for years is keeping it in the top 3. My heart is still full of love when I think of this show, and that love is simply stronger than other shows right now. But for the first time in a long while, it is not my number 1.

2. Odd Taxi

Holy, I love this anime. The characters are endlessly fascinating and fun. The storyline wraps up so incredibly. It's mix of serious and light-hearted moments is wonderful. Absolute banger. Thanks for the recommendation old roommate Joe.

1. Ping Pong the Animation

Let me tell you, this anime is a masterpiece. I'm not sure if there's a single thing I would change about it. It is beautiful and wonderful and poignant and I wrote all whole blog post about it a while back which you can read here. I did not know it would become my favorite anime back when I wrote that, but after rewatching it again recently with my roommates, I was reminded of how much I adore this perfect little anime.

Zach's Farewell Talk

I wanted to share a beautiful moment I got to be a part of when I was serving as a missionary in Holladay, Utah. At the time, I was covering 1 Family Stake and 1 YSA Stake (which I share mostly for my future self).

We met this awesome dude who was preparing for his mission. We'll call him Zach. Because that's his name. He went through some crazy things and the fact that he's alive is a miracle, but that whole story isn't what I wanted to talk about here. I wanted to talk about part of his missionary farewell talk.

In the middle of his wonderful talk, he asked for all the missionaries in the congregation to stand up. Immediately, my companion and I stand up; practically at the same time, and a few others stand up, who I assume were ward missionaries. Zach stayed silent; waiting. After a few seconds, another clump stood up. Then another. Slowly realization filled the congregation along with myself. Everybody stood up. 

Every member a missionary.