My Phases of Being Introduced to Aurora

So I've been pretty much listening to Aurora on repeat the past 2-3 weeks, and I felt like making a post about "My Phases of Being Introduced to Aurora". In other words, the order I got introduced to various songs. 

I'm not sure exactly why I wanted to write this/document it, but here we are nonetheless.

Phase 1: What You Might Expect

Phase 1 were her two most popular songs, Runaway and Cure for Me.

I had these two songs are repeat so much that I almost texted my family group chat about them but did not. But, like, these were like worms digging into my brain. I just needed to hear them again and again.

Phase 2: Two More Added

After who knows how long of only listening to Runaway and Cure for Me, I decided to just pick a random mix of her songs and listen. None of them super stuck with me, so I went back to listening to Runaway and Cure for Me. 

But after a bit, I came back around and added Conqueror and Running with the Wolves to the songs on repeat.

Phase 3: Non-Music Stuff

I'm not really sure if this should be considered a Phase as it was only really a couple hours during one evening, but I think it's an important part of the process of getting to know a artist/band.

I watched random interviews, funny moments, particularly good moments live etc. She has an hilarious Dance Tutorial that I watched, and I learned that she's the voice of the North Wind in Into the Unknown, which is neat.

Phase 4: Grabbing Songs Left and Right

Phase 4 is where it really opens up. I started including random new songs (new songs to me) into the loop. At this point, Runaway, Cure for Me, and Conqueror have taken a back seat and see less play, although Running with the Wolves still gets its fair share of listen time.

This phase has included several listens to many songs, but the ones that have risen to the top include: A Temporary High (which for the first many listens reminded me so deeply of Mamma Mia for some reason that I looked to see if it happened to be in the sound track (it is not)), The Innocent (who's very beginning reminds me of the very beginning of Bleed It Out by half alive (which reminds me of this track from the OST of Ping Pong The Animation)), This Could Be A Dream (who's beginning instrumentation reminds me of this track from the OST of Outer Wilds (which I'll finish playing one day. Maybe.)), Soft Universe, The River, and The Flood. I'll chunk Animal, Exhale Inhale, and Everything Matters on this list as well, although I definitely listen to those less than the others listed.

Phase 5: The Future

Aurora has a ton more songs that I haven't listened to, who knows how many more will get added into the loop. I'll probably listen to The Seed some more. Outside of that, couldn't tell ya. But it's been fun to randomly get into a new artist again; I feel like it's been a while since I've done so.

I Tier Listed All 500 of my Blog Posts | 500th Blog Post Special

Wanted to do something special for my 500th blog post, so I did!

I made this over 10 hour-long video that I expect no one to watch any part of, haha. In it, I go through every one of my blog posts and discuss my thoughts as I assign each of them a tier.

https://youtu.be/1yg_ldhIhCc

I used a spreadsheet to record the tiers, which you can view using the link below. The spreadsheet also includes titles, dates posted, and links to each blogpost. There's also a (not perfect but pretty close) word count column which is not shown in the video!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E5I6DRgSkvo77r6bKuqqxkePTv1BUIkzZlS_lKlEEM8/edit?usp=sharing 

If you don't watch the video (which is the course of action I recommend) than glancing through that spreadsheet is a great way to look through some of the history of my blog. 

I love you all, and I am grateful for any amount of my blog that you have read throughout the years. Here's to many more years to come!

Twenty One Pilots Tier List (Breach Update)

Aha! The updated Twenty One Pilots tier list is finally here! And will presumably be the last all-songs-ranking for a while as, by the sounds of it, Tyler and Josh are going to take a well-deserved break.

My previous ranking can be found here.

Couple informational notes:

1. The Line is specifically the live version from the Game Awards. The original version would still be in S or S- somewhere, but not top 10. I just looooove the scream and prefer the shortened version.

2. Once again, I note that I do not rank songs from Regional at Best that have a Vessel version -- I only rank the superior Vessel version.

3. I also note once again that it's not a perfect list -- I did not go through every comparison and double-check every ranking/compare every song to both their neighbors to confirm it's sitting in the perfect spot.

4. I note: This is NOT a tier list of what songs I think are the best, but RATHER which songs are my favorite. Obviously I think there is a correlation between the two, but there are various instances (prime example is Redecorate, I think) where I recognize the song is amazing (great production, lyrics, meaning, vocals, sound etc.), my enjoyment of the song just doesn't match.

Some thoughts:

    More B-Tier and C-Tier Songs

I really tried to be more honest with this version. Not that I was dishonest in other versions, but I tried to avoid as much as possible the thought of "But I love that song" even if in reality it's not my favorite. This is reflected in the fact that B Tier and C Tier are much more full than they used to be.

 
I think as TOP's discography became larger, it's become more clear which songs I gravitate back to to relisten and which songs I tend to skip over. This has allowed me to more easily to identify which songs I should truly rank lower.

(Man, remember when their discography was small enough where I had a sidebar dedicated to my rankings of all of their songs? And I updated it regularly in small adjustments instead of in these bigger revamps?)

    Trees Dethroned from Number 1

I put Next Semester as my favorite instead of Trees! Trees has long held my #1 position, but I think of, and most often want to listen to, Next Semester the most frequently out of any TOP song. In my previous ranking, Next Semester was #5, so after considering it, I decided to shift it to #1. 

Interestingly enough, Downstairs' existence is another reason I decided to shift Trees down off number 1. For as long as I can remember, the ending of Trees was my favorite conclusion/piece of any TOP song. That now belongs to the ending in Downstairs. Because Trees was dethroned in this, for some reason that felt like additional permission to drop Trees' ranking to #2.

In general the rankings mean the following:

S: Favs of all time, goated.

A: I love these songs (obviously this love scales down as you get to A-)

B: I like these songs (obviously this like scales down as you get to B-)

C: This is where I start getting much more mixed opinions and, especially as we slip down further in the Cs, I would say I don't like the songs. They still have redeeming qualities, though, and I do enjoy occasionally relistening to these songs, especially those in C+.

D: I don't care to listen to these songs and do not like them.

F: I actively dislike these songs quite a bit.

December 2025 Journal Entry

        Blue Prince (again)
        (contains only minor trophy name spoilers and minor spoilers for the strategy of beating the game in one day)
        Well, if last month was the month of Blue Prince, then this month was the month of... Blue Prince again? Yep. I'm honestly surprised it didn't happen with a different game first, but Blue Prince is the only video game this year to successfully dominate my video gaming time in not just one month but two. To be fair, it only dominated the 2nd half of November and the first half of December, so it really was just a timing thing to be counted for two months, but yeah.
        My enjoyment of the game has gone downhill, unfortunately. The game slowly shifts away from what I originally fell in love with. Instead of a rouge-like puzzle game, it just becomes more and more exclusively a puzzle game. You become so overpowered that the rouge-like elements become an after-thought, even a hinderance/annoyance, to testing things/solving the puzzles.
        That being said, I still adore the game and would recommend it highly. And when I spend a while away from the game, I become excited to dive into trying to solve the puzzles yet again. But, yeah. Enjoyment has definitely dropped.
        We've stayed true to not looking anything up* and only have two trophies left (one trophy being 'get all the trophies', so effectively only one trophy, which is the 'solve all 8 inner sanctum room puzzles' (we're only missing one sanctum key and already know the answer to the puzzle in the room)). What's kind of unfortunate is I think my enjoyment/satisfaction would have been much higher if I had just given up at some point and looked up how to do everything else.
        We've poured hours and hours into staring at/talking about random things that we don't even know if they mean anything. These hours have not been enjoyable. However, these hours did lead to a couple of really tough puzzles being solved which I am quite proud of.

        My current gameplan is to get the last trophy without looking anything up and then spoil myself on everything else.

        I could write and talk a lot more about Blue Prince. 

        *I just remembered: During our many attempts to complete the game in one day, I got discouraged and watched the video of the world record speedrun to see if there was any big secret we were missing. Nope, they did it just the same as one of the paths we had plotted. We did take a couple small strategy pieces from the video, though. Before we were drafting the closet to the right of the entrance hall at the very start, but instead copied them and started doing it from the top -- a small difference that probably doesn't change a crazy amount in the grand scheme of things (but is probably better considering the fact that the world record did it). We also started focusing more on saving a reroll for the outer room.

        Christmas
        Christmas was a blast. Most of the Jamieson crew got to stick around for a while longer than they did last year, which was awesome.
        Played some Moving Out 2 and some Overcooked 2. Overcooked 2 is a ton of fun. Moving Out 2 is, uh, not.
        Hadn't gotten to play Smash Bros for the past few months with Ben up at college and all, so I got my fill of that, which was great.
        Got Sky Team for Christmas and played through all the base game scenarios. Expansion is currently coming in the mail. Great game.
        Had the last session of the Mistborn 2025 Campaign in person -- just like how we did the last session of the 2024 Campaign last year in person. Great session. Epic moments. Really good epilogue stuff for our characters. I have loved both the 2025 and 2024 Campaigns.
        Filmed two videos for PerazzoBrothersGaming, first one out already, second one out hopefully later today.
        Played a lot of Dominion this year, which was wonderful; I love that game so much.
        Played various other board/card games -- Finca, Raccoon Tycoon, Brass: Birmingham, Liar's Dice, Flip 7, Burst, DroPolter, Things in Rings. My favorites being: Brass: Birmingham, DroPolter, Sky Team, and Dominion

        DroPolter but Mouth
        Okay, this deserves it's own header thing, haha.
        So. DroPolter is one of the board games I referenced above. It's a wonderful simple game in a small box. In this game you have five differently shaped objects in your hand. You flip over the top card of a deck which shows you the items you need to drop. Everyone races trying to get those objects out of their hand first (using only the hand that has the items in it -- your other hand can't help).
        If you win the round, you get a bell and if you get to five bells, you win. The trick is you put the bell into your hand with the rest of your objects. And if you ever drop the bell from your hand, you lose that bell. It's a beautiful catch-up mechanic -- the more bells you have in your hand, the more difficult it becomes to safely drop the correct items. 

        From that information you might be able to deduce what DroPolter but Mouth is, hahaha. Now, important note: NO, we did not use the small little choking hazard items that you use in the normal game (which would also be very gross to put into your mouth). Instead you put five differently flavored lifesavers into your mouth (which all have a hole in the middle, so, uh, theoretically not a choking hazard). Each game piece displayed on the cards is associated with the different lifesavers. Through taste, you had to spit out the correct lifesavers in order to win the round.

        It was TOO funny. We were cackling so hard while discussing it beforehand and when we actually played it. We got me, Joseph, Ben, and Eric to play. Ben won and I got second. We got our first couple rounds on video and it's mostly us trying to control our laughter so we could actually try to win the round. After the first couple rounds, we managed to focus up and have some semi-competitive rounds that felt half luck based but half getting surprising decent at identifying individual flavors.

        Joseph said DroPolter but Mouth was probably the hardest he laughed in 2025.

        Failed to Finish Twenty One Pilots Tier List
        Was having a really tough time with the early stages of it, so finishing just kind of didn't happen. And then Christmas happened and stuff.

        Job Starts Up Feb 2nd, Oh Boy Oh Boy
        Will be spending my first couple months in Colorado and then somewhere else that I don't know yet after that.

November 2025 Journal Entry

        Random side note: I updated last month's journal entry with two pictures of me and Hannah dressed up for Halloween, so check that out there if you want.

Blue Prince

        Well, if last month was the month of not Hades II, then this month was the month of Blue Prince.

        Note: No spoilers are below so you are safe to read on:

        Heard the game was good. Knew it had rouge-like elements, which is amongst (if not my) favorite genre/mechanic. Saw that I could use it through game share with Andrew's library. Started playing with Eric on his birthday. We proceeded to pour a lotta lot of hours into it in the next week and a half.

        I control the character, Eric takes notes, and we make decisions together. It's a blast. All but maybe 3 of the hours we have in game we've done together. Eric has enjoyed many puzzle games in the past (ex the Myst series) and it's been great to spend this time with him.

        The game is so good. I've been absorbed and that absorption has only recently petered off -- for the first few irl days of Eric and I playing, I thought that it might shockingly overtake Silksong as my Game of the Year. After another week of playing Blue Prince, I'm sticking with Silksong as of right now, but, like, seriously been loving my time with Blue Prince.

        And the part I think I would enjoy least, note-taking, Eric does instead, which is fantastic. I don't think I necessarily dislike notetaking (a good example of this may be the several pages of notes I wrote to plot out everything I needed to do to 100% Stardew Valley -- but that falls more into a to-do list thing than a puzzle-game-note-taking thing, so idk), but I think my enjoyment of note-taking would only extend so far before I find it tedious. For example, I didn't want to take notes and remember stuff about *spoilers* so Eric did it instead, which was great.

        We've gotten 10 out of the 16 achievements without looking anything up anything online (except *very minor spoilers that has no consequence to how we play* and *minor spoilers which we would have seen unfold if we had just waited a couple days*). I currently intend to get all 16 in this same fashion. I have a feeling that *minor achievement spoiler* and *minor achievement spoiler* are going to be quite tough, though, but we'll see.

Pickleball

        Referenced last month getting back into pickleball and going practically every chance I get. This has continued through this month. Playing better than I ever have, I think. Ready to face off with Ben once he gets back for Christmas.

Lorcana

        Been quite invested in Lorcana this month. Listening to podcasts a lot (Podcana and ArtaCast being my favorite ones, although ArtaCast has recently gone on hiatus for a bit). Bought some sealed product, half of which I've set aside for a Lorcana draft with my family over Christmas. Playing some games, watching some games, thinking about the game.

        It's been a lot of fun, but it ultimately leaves me kind of unsatisfied as what I really want is to go to a local scene and compete there. So I'm really hoping that where I move to next will have one.

        Speaking of which:

Very Happy Job Update!!

        Last month I said I was doing interviews for two different jobs, and I ended up getting both offers!! Seriously so grateful and relieved and happy. It feels so nice to have my next step in place.

        I accepted the Implementation Consultant role with Fast Enterprises -- which is the same role my cousin Joseph currently has. I'll be working on Tax or other related software with state governments.

        Further details (start date and job location) are still pending. They have various locations across the U.S. and I could theoretically end up at any of them. They do allow you to put down preferred regions, but it is ultimately up to them. I put my availability date as January 5th, so I'll likely start sometime in January.

        Very excited and happy:)

Auzzy Update

        Got a good chunk of writing and outlining done at the beginning of the month! I hit my original goal of 10,000 words, which makes me happy. I think I still have another few thousand to go before the first very rough draft is complete, which is why I updated the goal shown on the right-hand side to 13,000. I'm close enough to the end where I have a pretty good idea what's going to go down and how things are going to wrap up, which is exciting. I think it will also mean finishing up the first draft will go by pretty quickly when I can manage to sit myself down to write again.

Mission Journal Transcription Progress

        Another great update dealing with the progress bars on the right-hand side. Put forth consistent effort into transcribing every day for a couple-few weeks. Over half way done! I stopped transcribing every day once I started playing Blue Prince, which is unfortunate, but also is fine. Plan to make more progress this upcoming month.

Found Various Lost Artifacts from my Past

        My dad located a couple of bins in the garage that contained many things which I've been ecstatic to be reunited with again.

        These treasures include:

• My various yearbooks from both high school and elementary school (one of which I've been looking for for the past couple of years to get hands on a particular signing from a friend. I told my friend about it, he didn't remember it, I told him I would send him a photo of it, I couldn't find the yearbook, now I have found it and successfully sent a photo of it to him)
• My collection of gray jackets I've worn throughout my childhood. I always wore a gray jacket growing up and got new ones as the years went on. I now have the precious collection of them again (I think there's 5 or so in total, I'd have to go count).
• Nametags from Elders from my mission. Elder Wilkins, my follow-up trainer, gave me one, and Elder Taylor, an Elder in one of my districts I became very close with (I just realized, I'm actually wearing the tie he signed and gave to me as I type this blogpost).
• A string color bracelet thing I wore for a chunk of my mission that was meaningful to me. I'm considering wearing again now that I have it again.
• Other random memorabilia from my mission and trinkets from other times.
• Various letters I received during my mission from close friends, alongside two cards written in and given to me from Pam and Apoorv, two wonderful people I had the blessing of teaching on the mission.
• A journal with 5 or so entries from 2011 of my trip to go see Andrew's mission in Iowa -- I think I might transcribe and post those to this blog to preserve them at some point.

This was in my first grade "School Memories" book. It's TOO good. Seriously so funny and awesome.