You how with dogs and I say dogs because I used to know dogs that would do this, or even kids, I remember Marley being like this. When you open a bag of chips and, you’d think, there’s nobody around but as soon as you opened it they come around the corner like mine, mine, mine ! That’s my wife when I open a can of fizzy water, especially right after dinner. Because she knows I’m making vodka sodas. 😅

(Side note: before posting this I read it to my wife. Her response — jerk! 😅)

For a while, probably months now, I have been having this itch to start a Microcast. I have had different ideas, for example, one was to talk about my day while commuting from work back to my house. Which now thinking about it, that would have been a bad maybe. As far as audio quality possibly? Anyhow, Now with the whole staying at home and working from the home deal I, one, have more time to do such things and two I am alone at home. The wife works at a hospital so she still has to come into work and the little ones go from one controlled environment, our house to another controlled environment, their grandparents. Otherwise, there is no way I could get any work done. Thus, I have a quiet house for myself for a few hours.

Yesterday I was listening to the Microcast Studio show by Jean MacDonald to see if maybe by listening to it I would pick up a few things that would give me some encouragement to start off. Also, Micro.blog is giving, for lack of a better term, free Microcast hosting until the end of April, so it’s a great chance to experiment. Although the few episodes I got to listened to were very encouraging, the one thing that I picked up and stuck in my brain was audio quality. And, this is a little biased because it is something I have been thinking about and my main excuse to not get into the Microcasting wagon. And that is not having a decent or dedicated podcasting microphone. Which is BS too because I have made a few appearances in the past, on three different podcasts, and not having a mic didn’t prevent me from saying “duck it, Imma ducking doet!”.

Still, I went down the rabbit hole, again, on finding different mics, some of them had been recommended to me by some friends only to find out that most of them are currently out of stock or there are very pricey, at least on the Amazons. This also got me thinking. Do I really want or need a dedicated mic for what I need/want to do?

My idea right now is just to, what would normally be a short post of a though or whatever it may be, instead of posting it in text format, do it in audio. Maybe it’ll be a 3 min cast or 10, whatever. Perhaps I don’t need a dedicated mic. Maybe My EarPods are good enough. It is not like I am trying to make a living out of this or a professional thing. But at the same time, I would like to put out something nice or decent. Also it just occurred to me that I’ve got two different kinds of headsets that I use for either gaming or Zoom calls for work. Maybe I should test with those, hm! Yesterday though, I did record a few things just to play around and experiment, using my EarPods. I tested both Wavelength and Ferrite. Ferrite’s audio file seemed to have a little bit better quality over Wavelength ’s and also picked up more extra sounds, like me pacing back and forth around the house. Now, it would be a matter of posting the audio. I am sure that with Wavelength will be just as easy as posting a blog post from the Micro.blog app, not much tinkering from my part. With Ferrite I am not sure hows that going to work per se. I am pretty sure it’s not rocket science but when I am about to learn something I have never done before I rather have as less friction as possible. At least until I figure things out and dare to add more complexity to it.

Alright! That was a lot of rambling!

For the past few months I have been having some minor lower-back pains. For the longest time I have been trying to figure out where that pain was coming from. First I thought it was from Luna’s baby carrier and the way I wasn’t handling it. The baby’s rocking chair or my couch or maybe I did something weird while working out, etc. And possibly, all of the above.

Recently it became a little more clear that it was a lack of stretching of my part. For the past few months I have really kicked of my workouts and not skipping leg day (😅). But I hadn’t been stretching before or after my workouts at all, tsk tsk tsk. I should have know better.

About a week ago or so I found some stretching exercises, especially to prevent lower-back issues. Which it either was too late or I did something right that then on Saturday felt worse!

Thing is, today I went to a physical therapist, just to make sure I was still salvageable (😅). Well turned out, I was right, all my pains are related with me not stretching out properly. So they got me all unbroken and sent me home with some exercises. I feel way better, still I’ll make a move that will trigger some pain but it’s much much bearable than before mostly when sitting down for too long.

I am going to take a couple of days to work on my stretching and healing before I kick back into my workouts and such.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Can someone explain to me toddler’s obsession with trash bins and toilets please! 🙈

Om Malik Can you trust anything on Instagram? – On my Om

And then there is Instagram, which I have given up for Lent. I must say, it is quite a relief to not be looking at all those other photos and perfect lives. It is great to not think about where I could be, and instead be grateful for where I am.

But the best part of not being on IG is the absence of influencers and ads selling me substandard shit.

Name: Hopnoxious DIPA
Style: American Imperial IPA
Brewer: Sockeye Grill & Brewery - Idaho
ABV: 9.0
IBU:
Rating: 5/5
Notes: pretty smooth for a DIPA

Something has been in my mind as of late is getting some sort of external backup system. Especially to store my photos, I don’t have a massive amount of storage on my MacBook Pro and I dislike external hard drives a little bit. Honestly, I rarely use mine. I trust iCloud enough to store everything but as they say, Two is one and one is none.

I have heard of multiple solutions on the different podcasts I listen to, Backblaze been one of them. Actually, that is the only one that comes to mind. This is something I am gonna have to dig-in into and figure out what the best solution might be.

Help?

Name: Better Hazy Than Never
Style: New England IPA
Brewer: Boise Brewing - Boise, Idaho
ABV: 6.5
IBU:
Rating: 4/5
Notes: Citrucy , taste some pineapple 🍍

My Mission is to go out and get groceries, and it scares me a little bit. Normally we would get our groceries these days from Walmart. We would order online and go pick it up, almost no interaction with other humans. But the quality or the availability of things it’s a gamble and many times we either don’t get enough of something or other things we don’t get at all.

Today I have been handed the task of going out, into the wilderness of our local Albertson’s and buy some groceries. Usually, when I go in-person to our local Albertson’s, it’s for an in-and-out kind of thing. Grab some chips and queso, beer, milk – out! Today it will be different and I will be spending more time in the store that I would like but it needs to be done. Luckily this is not a very crowded location, the people that go there are very conscious of the social distancing and giving some space, for the most part. Obviously, there will be a situation in which two people might end up to close to each other because, you know, limited space.

At least I will be by myself and at the moment there won’t be anyone in the house Workplace when I get back. I will wear my super magical mask, my Superman hoodie (never go out without my Superman hoddie these days), I have my hand sanitizer and I’ll take care of everything and clean before the people that think that live in my Workplace comeback.

When you can’t leave the house but still have the urge to do some “photography”

Saturday

Name: Sofa King Sunny
Style: American Pale Ale
Brewer: Payette Brewing - Idaho
ABV: 5.0
IBU:
Rating: 3/5
Notes: it’s okay, a hazy pale ale

Name: Hop Diggity
Style: American Imperial IPA
Brewer: Mother Earth Brew Co. - California
ABV: 8.2
IBU:
Rating: 5/5
Notes: 🎶 I like they way you work it, Hop Diggity

I totally forgot that Good Friday is today! The reason I knew was only because yesterday I was chatting with one of my coworkers and before we finished our conversation he said, “enjoy your three-day weekend”. I was confused and had to ask him why and he replied “Good Friday, no workie”. Now that today I woke up knowing this fact, all this things are going through my head.

Puerto Rico it is very religious, or at least when I was raised, Good Friday is like a big thing. You can’t go out, school is closed, actually school is closed the entire week. Some business were closed too, going out was frown upon, playing loud music — was frown upon. It was a day were everyone stayed home, watching Christian movies all day on almost every channel because regular programming was portably also frown upon.

I even remember when my birthday for whatever reason, it would fall on this week, it would have suck if it was on Good Friday. Luckily for me, the few times I remember my birthday, as a teenager, falling on this week was either Saturday or Sunday — phew!

So, right now I am blasting music, I am planning on doing yard work and who knows what else. In other words, I will be committing sin (😆).

It’s been about a month now, give or take, since the working from home/staying at home thing. Not a whole lot has changed in some aspects, like the girls are still going to the Grandparents house, that’s pretty much all my commute these days for me. Workload and all that jazz it’s pretty much the same except for some of the manual stuff, since I am not on site. I have more time for myself, I can play video games in my downtime or watch a movie if I wanted to, work out, etc. And for the most part I have been able to handle it pretty well, but then I have days like today, or rather, today is the first time I have realized this. I am bored to my mind, I am starting to feel kind of depressed, in a way. I am finding hard to motivate myself to keep motivated to stay active and work out. Today for example I was going to do my Yoga thing that I had got into this week and couldn’t do it. Also I am having a hard time concentrating “at work”, I know I have stuff to do and take care of but I am in this meh! state of mind I don’t like it. I barely know what day is what or anything that used to be routine and clear.

I am really having a hard time today.

WARRIORS OROCHI 4 Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch.

Well, I have done it, after lots of debating with I-self I did it! Over the weekend, I have purchased Warriors Orochi. I had been hesitant to buy it for a couple of reasons. There are other games I would also like to play that are also cheaper than this game. Some other games are coming out soon. Also, the Musou gaming style formula, it is one that, once you have played a game like this, you have pretty much played them all. I have played a lot of these games.

I have probably mentioned before, I have played the Dynasty/Samurai Warriors games since back in the PlayStation 2 days, Dynasty Warriors 3 being the first one, up to 9th (which it was a huge disappointment). Then, in between the regular games, you had the Extreme Legends editions and the Empires and the Orochi series, etc. There is a whole genre or series of games with the same formula and I have played a few of them like, ARSLAN: THE WARRIORS OF LEGEND, WARRIORS ALL-STARS, Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star, Fire Emblem Warriors and Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition. There is yet another game, kinda with the same formula that I belive it’s on the PS4 but I am waiting for the western release on the Switch which is Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers – so excited.

Anyhow, Warriors Orochi 4, like I said I was afraid that since I have played many of this type of game, that I would be bored or just play a little bit and put it to the side. Well, I am happy to report that, that has not being the case. I have been playing non-stop since I got it, I am enjoying this game with the same smile on my face as I remember enjoying DW3. Of course, it has come a long way since DW3, combat it’s a lot more fluid, you have more enemies on the screen which makes the hack and slashing through the field so satisfying. I am feeling right at home with this game. The strength of this game doesn’t lay in the story, especially on this one.

Set in a world on the brink of chaos, heroes from across the Warring States period of Japan and the Three Kingdoms era of China successfully defeat the evil Orochi and end his reign. These two worlds, merged by an unknown entity, are again threatened. As they begin to uncover the mystery surrounding their arrival, their discoveries lead them to one deity: Zeus, the supreme god among gods.

The controls are pretty easy to master, the action is good. In the previous games, you would select one hero and fight your way through thousands in battle, now, you have a team of three characters all with their unique abilities. I am kind of a one-man army mindset still, so even though I have three on my team, I pretty much use the same character. It plays well on handheld mode but I find it a wee bit better docked since there’s quite a lot going on on the screen. The voices in the game are all in Japanese, that doesn’t bother me except when I’m in battling my way through. There is a lot of interaction between different characters in the game and it is hard to pay attention to the text while you’re having fun hacking and slashing. I don’t think you can change the language, not sure.

Either way, I am having a blast with this game, it doesn’t require a lot of focus or too much thinking, which is excellent. Sometimes we need a “dumb” game, I am very delighted with my purchase.

I have never done Yoga before, or at least not on purpose. I have done some type of exercise before that may have been yoga-inspired, but that’s about it. Whit the pandemic situation, my workout routine and such have been obviously affected and much-needed restructuring. Thus, I thought starting doing yoga could be beneficial for both my body and mental stability. I got this little app that was recommended to me, Pocket Yoga for TV. There are others out there but this one does not require a subscription or anything so I thought I would give it a shot. Today I did my first 30 minutes session and it was okay. I mean, I definitely felt good about it and felt like I did a good session. I just had a little trouble with following a little, since I don’t know the oses or the correct names of them yet so I found myself having to look at the tv more than just listening and doing things. Also, I am not as flexible as I used to be, like at all. Probably because in the past year I have been focusing more on lifting than being functional.

Either way, I enjoyed it and I am looking forward to getting better at it.

Today something funny happened, at least to me was funny (😆). It is not the first time that has happened but the first time at my new job. Most of my interactions with other people from the company are via email and until today, I had no profile picture in either my Skype or email. In “the real world” I go by Gaby, that’s how I have been called by friends and most of my family since junior high. When I first moved to the US and some still, call me Gabe (which I kinda don’t like much but whatever) and many others, call me Gabz (this one it’s more than fine too).

So I guess, apparently Gaby, it is more associated as a girl’s name, here and probably in other places. But back home (Puerto Rico) it’s associated with either or but mostly as a guy’s nickname.

So, I have been having lots of interactions with the same lady over email and Skype messaging for the past few weeks. Today in particularly, she had a few more requests than normal to which I always replied and helped her out in no time.

At some point she sends me a message on Skype.

Girl you are on a roll today, You’re on fire!

🙁🧐😅😂🤣😂

I honestly laugh, a lot. Then I took a few minutes to think how to respond to her and disappoint her by revealing I am not a girl but a guy (😅).

So I replied:

Of course…. and sorry to disappoint you but I am not a girl but I am on fire 🔥😜😁

(emojis included)

To she was shocked I guess and very apologetic about it. Of course, by this point, I’m so used to this type of “confusion” that I told her to not worry about it (😅). I was not offended in any way, I am sure there are other people in the company that are presuming I’m girl too. So I had to do what I have not been wanting to do, which is putting a profile picture. The reason I’ve never done it before it’s because I hate pictures of me, for whatever reason and the one picture I may like about myself, I am holding a beer (😅).

Anyway, I put on the one that’s on my LinkedIn profile thingy and called it good. Now, let’s see how many other will be mind blown by this reveal.

I wrote this, in Day One, six years ago.

Uff ! They have just opened a new position on disease control, very tempting. The only thing that’s make want to apply for it is that the position is as an assistant scientist. It’ll be the fastest way to get promoted from what I have seen so far. 😔 I want to stay in Biochem but, I’d love the promotion.

At the time the promotion was very needed. I did apply and didn’t get the position. Later on I got promoted as an assistant scientist in Biochem. Guess things come to those who wait.

As I have written many times before, staying fit and healthy is a goal of mine. Not for 2020, it has been since last year and I have been pretty consistent with it – as consistent as I can be. SO it has been about a year, I think since I signed up for my gym and have been working out and all that jazz. Ever since this pandemic situation, going to the gym is not an option and who knows when I’ll be able to be back at it. During these stay-at-home/ working from home weeks, I have been doing the best I can to keep up with the workout routine. Whether I do a video from youtube or find some workout online, both inside out outside of the house. Outside of the house, it’s more fun, I am glad that I have a decent yard that I can swing my kettlebell at, do my special burpees (it’s a regular burpee but jumping forward instead of upwards) and even using the girls' swings set. But in these conditions, it’s also hard to stay motivated and not fall into a boring rutine. So much so that there are days that I don’t care about doing anything, and this is not acceptable. On top of that, I have been so “focused” om lifting that I forget to listen to my body and I am a little hurt. My lower back has been killing me for the past two months or so.

A while ago someone recommended to me this YouTube channel by Heather Robertson. In her channel, she has a lot of HIT workouts that require no equipment and they are pretty good but then again I feel like I needed a rest from these High-intensity workouts. One time, browsing her channel I found this video. This video I put it in my “Watch-later” folder, it’s a stretching recovery, yoga-inspired workout. This one of the things I, now, suck at – recovery and stretching. And I don’t know what happened, I used to be really good at listening to my body, stretching, taking breaks and taking care of my body. But in the recent year or so, not so much.

Anyhow, today I took a break and did this video and these are my findings.

1. OMG, I needed this! almost every movement hurt, in a good way, like things were loosing up.

2. I am very stiff, I am not as flexible as I used to be. I am very tight and didn’t truly realize it until today.

3. I need to do more of this. I need a break from the high-intensity workouts and kettlebells and, well, I should do Yoga!

4. My lower back feels much better and I am mentally more relaxed. It felt like a good therapy session.

Now I am going down the rabbit hole looking for a good program or channel but most importantly, that is free (if possible 😅)

The only thing with this working and staying at home, I have less regard for my personal image, sort of speak. My Puerto Rican-fro it’s on full force and I don’t care (😁). I am probably using the same in-door clothes from Monday (🤣). I think I am showering on regular bases – I think. How’s your staying-at-home going?

IN OTHER NEWS:

I dislike Maluma but this song with Steve Aoki it’s pretty bitchin'

Maldad

As every year goes, for my birthday, I get a lot, well not like a lot lot but some gift cards and such from different members of my family. This year was not the exception. But, here’s my conundrum. What do I do with all of it (😅)? As we all, I always want things, I’ve got a list of things I want, whether it’s video games, movies or and something from the AppStore. Those things that are in the back of your head “I’ll buy that when I get some extra money or credits, what have you”. So when I finally get some, let’s say credits, to spend I can’t decide what I want to spend them on(😩).

The first thing I usually do is that I go to the Nintendo eShop and look through my wishlist. I have many games in there and I want them all but when “credits” are limited I have to make decisions and those are hard. Not only that there are other games up for pre-order that I know for sure I would want to play. What if I pre-order those instead? I don’t know if I am gonna be able to in a month or two from now when those games are available.

Then there is this one game in particular, Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate, this game has been in my wishlist since forever. The game at this point it’s two-years-old, I belive, and the digital copy it’s quite spendy still. Here is the thing about this game. I am a huge Musou-game-style fan. My first experience with this genre was with Dynasty Warriors 3 and this game made me fell in love with the Hack and slash/you vs a 1000 people style of game. I have played every single iteration of these games since. Then it was Samurai Warriors, same game but set in Japan and later on came The Warriors Orochi series, which combines both universes into one game. So, WO4 would be technically the 5th game in the Orochi series, and at this point, by combining all the characters in these two series, there is about a hundred and twenty playable characters total. This is one of these games that I know for sure I will play over and over again and yet I hesitate. Should I? Should I not?

• “😇 Trails of Mana it’s coming out on the twentieth twenty-fourth, you should pre-order that instead”.

• “😈 But Warriors Orochi, hack and slash bruuuu, mass-murdering!”

Decisions, Decisions.

Astral Chain for the Nintendo Switch.

I got this game back in…Was it last summer? Maybe, whenever it came out and I played a little bit of it then I had stopped. I can’t remember the exact reason, maybe another game had also been released then and shifted my attention away from it.

The gist of this game is basically this futuristic mega city in which you and your sister (the two playable characters) are members of this special Police task force. Members of this task force are equipped with sentient armaments called Legions. With the Legions you are able you see and fight these otherworldly beings called chimeras.

So, a few days ago I picked it up again. Started right from the beginning just to refresh my memory. The game starts off with some action fallowed with some slow buildup. But now that I have pretty much done with all the semi-tutorial stuff, I am so sucked into this game. And the worse thing is that so far I haven’t had a “break” as in it is one thing after the other and you can’t stop playing because you’ve got to know what’s going to happen next! This last mission I played, I was thought for sure I was done and was gonna go back to HQ and “take a break”. NOPE!

I do like this though, games that keep me engaged and wanting to know what’s next. No chores! This game has a lot of cool fights and amazing cool looking finishing combos. Some amazing visuals and I love the art, it is very Anime-like. There’s also some puzzle elements to it but not Zelda like. As well of some investigative work, crime scenes and probably my least favorite part just because I much prefer the punchy-punchy, smashy-smashy - 😅.

The detective part reminds me a lot of the Arkham Asylum games, it’s pretty much the same deal. So if you’ve played those games then you’ll be pretty familiar with investigating crime scenes. With the difference that instead of looking fur a killer, most likely will be some nasty monster from another dimension.

Update: no wonder why i am loving this game, these are the same people who made Nier: Automata

I think Apple did a good thing when they introduced the activity app and the activity rings back a century ago. It definitely gave people a way to stay motivated to move, being active and stay healthy-ish. But with that also came, well, a lot of shaming – more like self-shaming – and guilt. Especially when someone posts their activity history, “I have closed all my rings this month”, well Fick dich good for you – 😜.

Seriously though, I know I want to be active, I like working out and keeping track of my activity but obsessing over the rings can be discouraging too. There are days I can’t close all of my rings, for whatever reason. Or there are times where I know I should listen to my body and rest but the guilt of not closing the rings takes over and then I end up hurting myself.

I think what I am trying to say is, I want to stop caring about whether I close the rings or not. Not saying I am going to stop being active and try my best to be healthy and try to close them, just not obsess over them. Or maybe I can just adjust my numbers in such a way I can close them every time with little to no effort – 😜😁.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Tomorrow (March 31st) I’ll level up – 🎂.

Excursions by Amit Gawande

Here’s Wall — a “web-accessible text-editor over Dropbox, works nicely with Blot”.

This is a really nice little tool for quick posts to Blot (or at least that’s how I see it). I always like a good excuse to test editing and blogging tools. This is very nice!

// Gabz:

4 games that define you pic.twitter.com/QnSCTg4kuO

This was a fun one.

4 games that defined me. I took this as 4 games that defined my taste in years to come in video games.

I remember buying this game along with Metal Gear Solid 2 and the play station 2. This made me felt in love with the Musou games!

This game, it was like playing a movie! Espionage and mission impossible like story line, right up my alley.

Devil May Cry. This was around the time I got into anime and this game fitted right in. Demonds, blood and magic — sold! Still a fan of this franchise.

Metal Gear! I can play any of these games anytime, from the first one to latest in this series. My favorite franchise ever!

I am the worse, when it comes going to the grocery store. You send me out for milk and bread and I will come back with bread, donuts and beer. These days, has gotten even worse. Now the list goes kinda like, get al these things and see if you can find these others.

Today for example, all I needed was a milk and since I’m out, some beer too. Anyway, I have my job/mission, as I’m on my way where the milk is I encounter some fizzy water. For whatever reason (well, we all know the reason) we have been in short supplying of fizzy water. Today there was some, and even that we don’t really need it, at the moment, I grabbed a couple! Kind of thinking “I don’t know when I’ll find these again!”

I grabbed some fizzy water and then the milk. As I was on my way to the beer area, I saw some of those mini-muffins the girls like. The last few times I went looking for them, they were out of them, not a single one. Today, they had some, so I grabbed a few. Again, because “I don’t know when I’ll find them again”.

All these decision making is based on the whole pandemic situation. I have been to the store a couple of times in the past four weeks and it’s always a gamble on what you will or will not find. Obviously, tp is one of those I haven’t seen/found in weeks! Some other times is eggs, or bread. Luckily, there will always be beer!