January 31, 2021 5:47 PM
Winnie-the-Pooh
About a month ago, I said I was going to read all the Roald Dahl books. And since writing that post, I haven't read any more of his books. The problem is that I don't own any of them, so I have to take them out from the library, and with Covid, they only do curbside pickup. I have to request the book first, and the first few books I requested have taken a really long time to be available.
So, I decided I would read a book that I already own. At the moment, I only own four reading books, and one of them isn't even in English. I hadn't read The World of Pooh in such a long time, and it's my favorite book ever, so I figured I was due for a re-read.
One of the things that I don't think I appreciated before are the poems. Pooh is always turning his thoughts and adventures into songs and poems.
It's a very funny thought that, if Bears were Bees,
They'd build their nests at the bottom of trees.
And that being so (if the Bees were Bears),
We shouldn't have to climb up all these stairs.
There is so much in these two books that makes me smile and laugh. I love the writing style and the nonsensical logic. Every character is just so damn snarky and mean to each other without meaning to be. Well, except for Eeyore. I think he means it. It's all lighthearted, so no one takes anyone else too seriously.
"Thank you, Piglet," said Pooh. "What you have just said will be a Great Help to us, and because of it I could call this place Poohanpiglet Corner if Pooh Corner didn't sound better, which it does, being smaller and more like a corner. Come along."
But besides the silliness, there are also really touching moments in each story. And sometimes those are a little silly as well.
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.
_ {" `,.-~--. ,"\ _.-~~~-._ `; ` ,; ,-' `~. : :____,'_________________`._ ,'. .,; /\ .,.' `. ; },~ ' { / / \ \ (\, -' `. ,: : : : ; : : ; ,'~~'. \ : . .\ /. ` ., __,./ Y _ : `-.; ; ; { } :' ; Y~-~'; .~: ; `.,.-' y~-'_. `~-~" /////// J) "~' ////// /////// ,, /// ////////////////// //////// Piglet is actually much smaller than that, but, you know, limitations of ascii art.
Winnie-the-Pooh always gets a solid 6 out of 5 stars from me.
December 30, 2020 11:34 AM
Roald Dahl
As a kid, my favorite author was Roald Dahl. I was just really into his weird, kinda gruesome sense of humor. I had mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to read more, and I decided that [re-]reading all of his books would be on my lifetime TODO list.
I'm also trying to read them in the same order he wrote them. The first book he wrote is called The Gremlins. Apparently he wrote this in partnership with Disney to make a movie, but the movie never actually got made. It was alright. It certainly read like a Disney movie.
The next book I read is a collection of short stories in Someone Like You. I don't think I'm really a huge fan of short stories. Some were kind of interesting, some kind of dragged.
Overall, not that exciting yet. I'll start getting into his bigger hits next.
December 13, 2020 2:38 PM
Guardian's Crusade
When I was a little kid, I played a lot of Playstation. My family had a PS1, and we also had a decent collection of games. One of my favorite video games was Guardian's Crusade.
,,=. -------------------------------,,=. ------------------- // \| _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ // \| __ _ _ _ _ _ __ || | | ^ |_)|\ | ^ || | }}/ ' || |_)| |/ ' ^ |\ | ` || ___ | ||_|| \| )||_||\ | \_ || | \| |\_ |_|| )|-- \\ || \_// \' '|/ |/ \| \/ \_) \\ _ ' '\_/\_)/ \|/ |_, \\_||-------------------------------\\_//-------------------
Now even though I loved this game, I was never able to beat it as a kid. This was partly because I was (and still am) just terrible at video games. But I was also never able to beat it because I didn't have a slot on my memory card to save my progress. Crazy, right? I would just keep playing this game from the start over and over.
Yeah...I had a memory card, but it was full. If I was smarter, I would have just freed up space on that memory card. But for some crazy reason 10 year old me wasn't able to figure out that.
Anyway, this is a cute little JRPG where you take in a little pink creature thing who helps you to save the world. I happened to see this game in a used game store maybe 7 years ago? I had to get it for the nostalgia. I started playing it again, and the game is way longer than I expected it to be. (Though, you can apparently speedrun it in about 3 and half hours.)
|\ /| \|\/|/ '(O)(O)' ; .. ; \\'. __ .'// ( ) `-.__.-' // \\ ` `
At some point, you actually lose your pink companion and have to fight a boss by yourself. I cannot tell you how many times this took me. I kept losing and I kept fighting more monsters to gain more XP just to try the boss again and still lose. Turns out I just had a terrible strategy. But I ended up overpowering myself so much that once I beat this boss, the rest of the bosses were WAY easy.
The navigation in this game is also interesting. They hide chests in hard to find places, so you have to keep reorienting the camera so you don't miss anything. And of course when I do that I end up getting lost and forgetting which way I entered the cave. Before you get to the final battle, trying to get from one town to another is a pain in the butt. You eventually get this "water spider" that allows you to cross the ocean but it moves. so. slow. Eventually the pink thing learns how to fly and you can use that instead, but I don't think it moves any faster.
But one really interesting part of the game is that you get to collect special items called Living Toys. They're like Pokemon, and you gotta catch em all. You even need to collect a certain Living Toy just to get access to the World Map. They also make battle really interesting.
Anyway, many years after I first played this game, and still many years after I re-picked it up later in life, I finally beat it! (Beat as in finished the story. I did not find all the Living Toys) And I did it without consulting an online guide! Afterwards I did check an online guide, and I realized I was playing this in the most inefficient way possible.
Overall, about 24 hours actually spent playing this game, so it's really a pretty short RPG. I had fun, and I'm glad that I can finally cross this off my list!
December 6, 2020 7:25 PM
Educated
I've been trying to read more lately. Like, read things on paper, not on the internet. I wanted something to do during my weekend breakfasts that didn't involve staring at a screen, since I don't think it's good for me to look at a screen so early in the day if I don't have to.
I've been keeping a list of "books to read" and Educated by Tara Westover was on the top of it. I don't really remember when I added that book to my list, but I have a feeling I saw it at a hipster book store and it looked interesting. Plus it was on the New York Times Bestseller list and had pretty high reviews on Goodreads.
/\ ## /##\ Can you tell this is a pencil? `#*` ...No? Neither can I. / \ . o . / ,^~. \ |`' `'| | | | |
Educated is a memoir, and I like reading memoirs. It's like reading about a celebrity in a magazine, but it's in the form of a chapter book, so you feel like you're doing something productive.
This book wasn't quite what I expected. I thought I would learn more about her education, but it was really about her family issues. It's actually kind of disturbing, especially because it's a true story. But overall, this was a gripping tale. Very enjoyable read.
August 2, 2020 7:56 AM
Rakuen
Earlier this year, one of my friends showed me a game called Rakuen, which tells the story of a boy and his mom going on adventures while in a hospital. It's an interactive novel with cute pixel art graphics, so I was immediately sold. You know, once the game went on sale in Steam.
, .~. /\ .~. /\ /{ \ /\ ,.-~'*/*'~-., <,.-~'*`*'~-.,> (| @ @ o) : .___, ,' `-._.-' This is my drawing (typing?) of the main character in the story.
My sister and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. It gets super emotional, in a good way. I am very slow at video games and I think I spent 9 hours total on this game, so it's quick. 5/5 stars.
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