Teamfight Tactics: No Thanks!

Riot Games' autochess variant, Teamfight Tactics, that had just entered open beta on Wednesday is without the doubt the most attractive and polished compared to the rest in this emerging new genre of quite lazy and very random faux-strategic "chess". I played the game for a bit and you know what? It's pretty darn fun! That is... until I was reminded why I left League of Legends to embrace Heroes of the Storm completely - the horribly toxic community, not to mention that HotS is just leagues better gameplay-wise in comparison. Sure, HotS has its share of nasty people but Blizzard is beyond brilliant to allow players to completely turn off all chat and pings. I learned recently that Riot Games also allowed at least for the pings to be muted - one still has to edit a config file to completely turn off chat in LoL for some reason, a feature that should be included in-game - but apparently, they have forgotten to enable this in TFT. After a couple of games, I was caught off-guard when suddenly, my screen got pinged to death during a match by a player who was silent during half the game because his team got beaten by me and suddenly had a string of good luck and started a great comeback. Every time he demolished my team to shreds, I would get the question mark pings all over my screen. Yeah, I was pretty much done at that point. Unprompted sore winners are the worst. Will they ever enable players to mute pings in TFT? I hope so but if not, the game is certainly not worth it when I don't have to deal with that abuse in Valve's Dota Underlords...

I just want to chill playing a game like this and not be exposed to childish behaviors.

Life Is Unthinkable When Death Is a Certainty

One of the benefits of being middle-age, at least for me, is that you get to think about life and death, a lot. Well, to be frank, I have been preoccupied with the inevitability of death as far back as I can remember. It wasn't so much of a fascination. It was more like a realization that fueled the decisions that I have made throughout my life. I recognized from an early age that there is an end to me and I should do everything in my power to prioritize myself so that I don't have any regrets before I expire. The difference now that I have lived 40+ years of my life is that there is a sense of creeping dread that I have not felt in the past whenever I think about my end. I suppose when I was younger, I knew - or perhaps I was hopeful - that there was at least some significant distance before I would eventually get there. That illusion is no longer present anymore.

On some mornings, I look like Hina from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

Trying Something New with the Wii U

Ah, exercise. Something that everyone should be doing and it is something that most people just don't do, myself included. The last time I maintained a fitness routine was back around 2015/2016 with the help of Nike+ Kinect Training for the X-Box 360. It was the most viscous training regiment out of all the video game exercise programs that I have tried up to that point but it was also apparently very effective. As I look at the pictures of myself from back then, it is obvious to me now that I looked a hell lot healthier than the way I look now.

The thing is, it has always been very hard to force oneself into embracing an exercise routine. I know that I need it but making it happen takes some convincing because my body knows that there is going to be a lot of pain involved. I have to cheat a little bit to get things going and that is the reason for me to recently pick up Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2013 for the Wii U. I know, it's a very old "game" but it's new to me. Most importantly, having access to this new exercise program seems to help in motivating me to get going because I always like trying new things. As a matter of fact, I think that I am going to start using this tomorrow! It's bad enough that I am getting old. The last thing I want though is to be old and fat. Wish me luck!

Is it your shape? My shape? His shape?