ACNH Fashion: Redefining Duck Lips

I have been playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Nintendo Switch since mid-January of this year and I have been loving it despite the game being the grindiest title on this side of the modern crafting genre. I believe I have found the best looks for my character this week. It's so fashion, it's so adorable... It's so stupid! It's the one aspect of the game that I enjoy the most - customizing my character using the vast options available with seemingly never-ending new pieces being introduced daily. I am wearing this combination at all times and when I change things up, I will make sure to post an update on this site!

The Transformation Begins?

It has been two weeks since I started getting back into Yourself!Fitness on the X-Box and I haven't missed a session... yet! The funny thing about this "game" is that after you have used it for a while, like months into the program, Maya would sometime hint that you can skip a day every now and then. I believe she even encouraged me to not do it on my birthday if I remember correctly. Like I was going to fall for those traps however because let me tell you, getting scolded by Maya when you miss a session didn't feel good at all! Now despite how desperate I am to start shedding some weight off, I am taking things slowly this time around. I started a new profile and after my fitness evaluation, Maya recommended that I work out five 15-minute sessions a week. When I saw that at first, I wasn't too happy. My peak with the program in the past was four 30-minute sessions and one 15-minute session per week. So I started re-adjusting the schedule like mad until I came to my senses: if I pushed myself too hard, I will most likely get injured again - I am older now - and that would mean quitting yet another workout routine. So I left it at the recommended level and just recently bumped ONE day to 30-minutes after my second evaluation - the game checks your overall progress every 10 workouts.

Maya asks not because she cares... It's because she doesn't want you to slack off.

Haven Is Real, Heaven Is Not

Sometimes, a game is wrapped around such an inspiring, clever, and beautiful idea that you can't help but immediately fall in love with it. Such is the case with Haven by The Game Bakers which follows the plight of two lovers who, as the game describes itself, "gave up everything and escaped to a lost planet to be together." The whole idea of the star-crossed lovers is not new and is of course grounded in reality. In the world we live in, people have been and many still are forbidden to fall in love on the basis of political affiliation, social status, skin color, religion, and sex. The game embraces "love, rebellion, and freedom" as everyone should be by now. But human evolution on this matter has been slow, thanks to old traditions - most notably religion since it can't be questioned - and perhaps, tragically, this will never change because humans are forever cursed to be this way. The title of the game is perfect: Haven. It's common where we are often told that we ought to secure the rewards of the afterlife, the so-called "heaven". But when the values represented to achieve that don't match our own, it's no longer our truth. It's always interesting to me that people are quick to justify their life choices for something that's not based in our reality. Singer Belinda Carlisle seemed to get the message in the late 80's with her hit Heaven Is a Place on Earth but sadly, that didn't become the turning point for humanity. And she got one thing wrong: Heaven just doesn't exist anywhere, period. Haven however, does because it's a completely realistic concept.

Do you smile when you see two people kissing or do you start judging them?

From Miku to Boa to Nergigante?!

What a jump eh? So yes, what began as a negligible side hobby has now turned into a quite a monster... literary! Behold, the latest entry to my slowly expanding collection of figurines, Capcom Figure Builder Creator's Model Nergigante:

A beautiful, though menacing, 12" monster.

Letting Go Is Painful Yet Liberating

I have moved so many times these past 5 years that I really don't want to do it anymore. Unfortunately though, I will be doing it again in the near future and I am not really looking forward to it. Being in a new place is actually nice and refreshing. It's the act of moving that is extremely exhausting, especially when it comes to managing the transition of my physical gaming items - not to mention the recent additions of fancy figurines. As much as I hate thinking about moving, I am ready for it however. I have started cutting the fat off my gaming collection as in, you know, those boxes and product enclosures that I know I can certainly live without. At this point, what I have is pretty much everything that I want to be with me until the day I leave this existence.

Moving amiibos is easy. I just layer them in between my clothes and call it a day.

Before You Get Fat You See the Ring?

Fitness is an important part of my life but these days, I have not been keeping up on keeping fit. Late last year, I started using Ring Fit on the Nintendo Switch as my go to exercise routine and I was able to keep to my schedule for about a month and a half before I had to stopped when I scraped the crap out of my left knee. Though I didn't see much progress in terms of weight loss, the routine did increase my stamina and endurance. I wouldn't say that Ring Fit doesn't work because in the past, whenever I get into an exercise routine, it would usually take at least two months for me to see real physical difference. 3+ months later, I feel that it's high time to get moving again. I have made the decision to stop using Ring Fit however because I know that I am not exercising as intensely as I could: too much fun, not enough sweat. I like that Ring Fit made me feel like I was playing a game instead of working out, and that very factor dominated my choices of exercise routines these past several years. But it's time to take it seriously again, without any gimmicks this time around like motion tracking nor cute monsters to kill. It's time to go back to Maya with Yourself!Fitness on the X-Box. It looks like the last time I attempted a return to Yourself!Fitness was in 2014, which feels like a lifetime ago. I hope that things will go smoothly this time around so that I can get the same result the first time I committed to this workout program. Oh, and there will be no streaming me doing my workouts anymore because I want no distractions. I want to be in the zone and I want to feel healthy again! Maya's a bit scary though so let's hope for the best!

If there's a will, there's a Maya.