I guess is fair to assume that most of us either woke up to very awful-bull-shitty news or went to bed last night angry, sad, and feeling powerless. Of course, I am talking about this.

As someone that has been battling depression and anxiety, and the father of two daughters, things like these really affect me. I feel so overwhelmed by all the feelings and thoughts that come pouring into my head every time I doom scroll through my Twitter feed or some news outlet. All I want to do is leave social media altogether. I don't want to read anymore, I don't want to watch any more videos, I want to be completely desensitized. But that would be like burying my head in the sand, it seems selfish and makes me feel guilty. It is almost as if it's my obligation to keep on social media, to keep doom-scrolling and reading and get angrier and sadder, otherwise, I am ignoring the issues, and, again, it makes me feel guilty. Like I am dismissing what is happening and not giving it the importance that deserves.

And yes, we have to be enraged by this, it is awful and it is wrong. But, how much can we take? How far can we allow ourselves to go down this rabbit hole before we go mentally ill of everything that is happening? Is it OK, to have a moment or just don't think or step away without feeling guilty? Especially when it is one thing after the other. 

Perhaps today would be a good day to not be around on social media...

Or perhaps just like with video games, rage quit everything.

Neal Adams, who helped reshape characters like Batman, Green Lantern, and Green Arrow, has died. He was 80 years old. Adams fought for creators rights in comics, conducted regular Q&A sessions with fans on social media, and created or co-created numerous beloved characters, including John Stewart, Ra's al Ghul, and Man-Bat.  

  Source: Legendary Comics Artist Neal Adams Dead at 80

This is very sad news!

Growing up, I knew about his work without knowing it was his. I guess I did not pay too much attention to who the creators of my favorite comic books were, at the time. Then around 2014 or so, I remember discovering Kevin Smith's Podcast called, Fatman on Batman, where he would invite and talk to comic-book creators. I very fondly, remember his first interview with Neal Adams, it was a two parts episode. That's how long his story and conversations were. Everything from him getting into comics, to making it into the business, and fighting for the creators' rights. Fighting for the creators of Superman. The way he told these stories, was very cinematic like you could see what he was narrating or telling very clearly. He was such a creator and storyteller.

I remember listening to those episodes over and over again.

Sadly those episodes are no longer in the current podcast's catalog, I would love to revisit them and revive these stories in my head. 

Thank you, Neal. May you rest in peace.

My problems with task managing apps, are not the apps themselves. Well, maybe a little. I always say things like, "I would commit a hundred percent to X app if only had a Windows app". Even when they do, I fail at them. Again, is not the app, it is a hundred percent me. I am awful at managing tasks, I forget to write down or add things to my task manager or notebook. If I do happen to add things, I forget to check and forget I have things in said system. 

It is not the app failing, I think. It is me, the problem. 

Wish I had more discipline in this regard.

Elden Ring on the PlayStation 5

Whelp, I've done it, Elden Ring for PS5 has been somehow, acquired.  Believe me, when I say, I am very nervous and scared about this game. This game, or this style of the game rather, is not necessarily my cup of tea if you will. I mean, It is a fantasy game, with monsters, and opened world, yes, I am all about that. But, I am more of a hack-and-slash, guns-blazing type of gamer. Games in which I need to be patient, strategize and think of every aspect of my charter's build, it's something I avoid at all costs.

That being said, there was something about Elden Ring that I felt compelled to want to play it. Not sure if it was the graphics, the hype around it, or what. The same happened with ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights on the Nintendo Switch, a dark fantasy 2D RPG, souls-like game. I learned to have patience, to learn my opponent's movements, and not attack hastily. The same will have to happen with Elden Ring, I suppose.

I have barely played the game, perhaps about an hour or so. My first impressions are, that this game looks beautiful, the graphics are outstanding, and the few monsters I have encountered are scary looking. Well, let's face it, anything in this game will scare me, most likely. The little I have seen of the world looks huge, and again, I have barely scratched the surface. The voice acting sounds very crisp, I also play with headphones so that adds some I guess. The story, so far it's a little vague but intriguing. Oh, and I have died a lot, like, a lot.

This game was not cheap, I better put on my pants and grind through it, I don't want to abandon it. I will take my time, one gaming session at a time until I figure it out. I have even been watching youtube videos like The Beginner's Guide to Elden Ring. I did abandon ENDER LILIES, back when I was playing it, I guess it was not so much of the difficulty but its Metroidvania aspect, which I got tired of it. Let us see how I fair against Elden Ring.

I know this has been going on for a while now, I mean, the last couple of weeks, everyone is talking about it. Talking about Musk and Twitter. Is he buying Twitter, is he not, bleh, bleh-bleh. Though I am not a fan of the guy, at all, the little trolly-jerk in me, way on the back of my head, wants the guy to own Twitter. Why? Just to see what happens. You know, what if? For purely entertainment purposes. I use Twitter, still. Do I love it? No. Does my existence as a human being depend on it? Heck no! 

So, go ahead, have at it! DOET!!

I wonder. Sometimes, it takes you a while to find the near-perfect writing/blogging workflow or setup. In truth, this can be applied to any creative or professional endeavor, but let us focus on blogging for now.  The moment I found my near-perfect workflow, it was the moment Ulysses added support for Micro.blog. That was all that I needed to commit to the app, and now, they get my monies every year for the subscription.

Now, sometimes, even the perfect setup can, eventually and for reasons, start to get a bit boring. Does that make sense? I think I am currently at that stage. I do enjoy using the tool (or tools) I am using at the moment and works perfectly. But every now and then, I have the itch to try something else, something shiny and new. And it is usually something I already have, something that I just haven't used in a long time and feel the need to tinker with it.

Then, there's the pros and cons process, I outright try the "new" thing, and then you start finding all these roadblocks. And because is not going as smoothly – or think it won't go as smoothly  – you quit and don't even try.

That is me. Usually. I don't even try.

Maybe is time to adventure out and try things and actually give them a fair trial and make an effort to overcome said roadblocks.

The worse thing that can happen is that it solidifies my current setup.

Previously on, Games I have been playing, our hero (yours truly) finished Horizon Forbidden West on the PlayStation 5 and was playing a lot of Streets of Rage 4 on the Nintendo Switch. Also played Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales. This past week (or a few days) I got to pick from my very extensive and never-ending gaming backlog and purchased a new game, duh!

On the  Switch, Nobody Saves The World has finally come out. An action RPG, with some roguelike elements. This game has been a lot of fun so far. Your character can discover and transform between a variety of forms like a rat, a robot, or a knight. The more you use different forms and evolve them, you'd discover more forms to swap between them. Like any RPG you have many quests to complete. You've got dungeons and a fun story.

On the PlayStation, I am playing Need For Speed Heat. I know, everyone in the neighborhood is playing GT7 or Forza or whatever recent car racing games are out there, this game is from 2019. I have always been a huge fan of the Need for Speed series. This game, I picked it up back in 2021, on Black Friday sale, a few days after getting my PlayStation 5. Over the weekend I launched the game and, I have been racing my way through Palm City. I think the last NFS I played was Payback, In that one, you had three different protagonists and each had their different skills for different types of cars and race events. On Heat you are back at a single character but you'd tune different cars for different race challenges. Also, you have your daylight and nightly races. In one, you make your bank $, on the other you build your street-cred. And like every other NFS game, the cop pursuits are the most fun and stressing part of the game, at least for me.

I will eventually get around to playing GT7 and got my eyes on Elder Ring as well, but for now, this will be it. On the Switch, most likely my next game would be Chrono Cross, which I had in the queue before Nobody Saves the World but, oh well.

I can barely remember the last time I didn’t feel sick. It has been a constant struggle. If it is not a stuffy nose, it is the constant coughing, at least for me. When things start to get better, one of the girls gets sick. If one of them gets sick, eventually, everyone will get sick, in some way. Then there’s the constant paranoia about COVID-19. Getting tested and the smallest indication. So far, though, no one has been positive (knock of fake wood). But it’s a constant at this point, can’t catch a break, as they say. I don’t know if it’s the constant change in this crazy weather we are having, one day is nice and warm, the next day we get strong chill winds, next thing you know you’re getting snow and hot again. Or just is. And it is not just our household, grandparents are sick, uncles are sick (even the ones out of state), and the people in town.

Although this week we decided to change things up a bit, Marley had pinkeye (under control now) but had a cough all night, and Luna decided to have a fever last night, coughing and congested. And guess what? We think she's got pinkeye too!

As far as I can tell, I have my regular allergies symptoms and exhaustion, Annie as well, as neither of us could sleep. Marley only has her sore throat from coughing all night. 

Can’t wait for the day of no sicky kids and sleepless nights.

I have slightly updated my About page. 

This time I wanted to make sure I listed every RSS feed option available for my site, or at least the main ones. The everything feed, short, long, and photography posts. The Macro Feed, only for long posts, and the Photography Feed, which is basically my glass RSS Feed. I have also integrated the Glass feed to the Micro.blog's cross-posting.

I am aware that there are readers the might not fancy every little post. Fortunately, there are options :)

Nash:

Create like there is no metrics. There’s no followers. There’s no likes. There’s no comments. The only thing waiting for you is the canvas.  

Source: Create Like There Is No Metrics

A hundred times this! 👏🏻

For the longest time, when I first started my blogging adventure, I got hung up a little bit on the metrics. That was during the WordPress days. The same can be said for Instagram at some point. Gotta have those likes!

Later I learned that, well, it is still a work in progress, that way of thinking just gets in the way and creates friction. I think we have been trained to think of attention on the internet as a competition and the need for recognition and validation of everything we put out there.

Unless this is how you make your living, then I guess I understand the need for the metrics, the likes, the views, the downloads, etc.

(Now I feel like I am going down a rabbit hole of thoughts and feelings about this. Lots of buts and what-ifs)

For me though, I just want to create and put things out there for the fun of it, create for myself first, and even if only one person reads my post, I am good with that.

STYLE: Port Barrel Aged Belgian Style Quad Ale

ALC./VOL.: 16.3%

RELEASED 2019

From the creative minds of Tonya & Sean; This masterpiece has been aging in Port Barrels for over two years. Dripping with nuances of chocolate, orange, and cinnamon, the expertise and patience put into this beer pays off in every sip.

I am not entirely sure where I picked this idea from, to be honest. Something I have been doing for the past few weeks is asking Siri, to play hits from a specific year in the 90s. Born in the early 80s, and although I do remember some of the music back then, I am mostly a 90s kid when it comes to music. Sorry, not sorry.

So, yes, I go and ask for Siri for hits of that year and play it for, well, until I have had enough and then move to the next. For whatever reason, I started with 1995. I should have started with hits from 1990, rather, oh well.

 I am listening to 1998's today, and the first song that played was My heart will go on by Céline Dion 🤢. 

This will be the least interesting thing you may or may not read today, with little child Musk trying to buy the Twitters, but, that's another post, or not.

It has been about three days, three days since I deleted Instagram from my device. I have had my struggles using this platform for years now. I have posted about it at least a dozen times, I think. But I always end up back at it. I do not because I like the platform as a photo-sharing one, if anything, these days is everything but. A shopping app! But I always find the arguments to keep it. 

"I gotta have it, so I can keep in touch with people"

"I gotta follow so and so for my kettlebell workouts"

At the end of the day, to me, it's like an addiction. I scroll and like, then, there's the infinite scrolling, the reels, the ads, the in-your-face stuff. There's the involuntary thing about comparing your joy and life with what you see, even if you try and know that you shan't. Is something that Instagram and Facebook have thought us to do in a way. 

Enough ranting!

This week, I signed up for Mailbrew. I want to say this would be my second time trying the service, although this time is a little more intentional.  I mainly to this idea from skoobz on Micro.blog, and created  Mailbrew Instagram newsletter. I added the Instagram accounts I think are worth following but I don't have to depend on the Instagram app. This way, I can avoid everything I hate about the platform.

It has only been three days and so far so good. I do still find myself looking for the app on my phone whenever I have one of those five minutes of nothingness and my brain is trained to open Instagram. I am yet to replace that bad habit with something else. Again, it's a work in progress.

I am not considering closing the account yet, but I won't be actively using it through the app or web. Unless I remember other accounts that I feel like adding to the newsletter.

We shall see how this goes

Well, today I got my cardio in. Yesterday, I promised marley I would work from home, so I could then walk to the school and pick her up and bring her scooter 🛴. Luna stayed with me today, so it was a joint adventure. Luna was in her bicycle/stroller combo thingy.

I figured it was going to be an easy walk. Well, I forgot, that I would be pushing an almost 40 pounds (18.14 kg) child all the way there, and all the way back.

Oh, and a pit stop to the park

1.82 miles (2.93 km) later, we’ve made home, and tonight I’ll have salmon poke (from Albertsons) and beer.

Drafts

NEWS: 10 Years of Drafts. That’s right, Drafts launched on this day 10 years ago. And we are celebrating with a special offer for new Drafts Pro users! Get your first year for only $4.99 (75% off)! Details

Wow! I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since the app launched according to my purchase history, I started using Drafts on April 11, 2013. That’s about 9 years, something like that? And still to this day, it lives on my dock. It feels wrong not having it there.

I have watched the app evolve ever since to the point I feel like I don’t even know how to use it 😅. And that not a bad thing. This is more to say that the app it’s so capable, that it can be as simple as you want, or as complicated as you may want. The sky is the limit when it comes to how much you can do with this beautiful and simple note-taking app (and that’s a simplification).

Congrats Greg

Today was my turn to drop off  Marley at school

Make sure she had "breakfast", check

Make sure she goes potty and brushed her teeth, check

Make sure she had her medicine, check

Make sure she had snacks, check

Make sure she has her water bottle, check

Make sure she's got her iPad, check

Make sure Gaby has a snack, check

Make sure to grab Gaby's lunch, ......... 404 🥴

SO GOOD!

I have been playing Horizon Forbidden West on the PlayStation 5 since its release back in mid-February. I have been enjoying the heck out of it, it is a fantastic game, with amazing graphics and an amazing story. However, for whatever reason, I seem to have lost interest.

Perhaps I am saying this because I haven't touched the game in over a week and for different reasons. Maybe if I pick it up again tonight I'll be hooked regain but at the same time, all I want to do is to play games on the Nintendo Switch.

For example, over the weekend, I was playing the heck out of Street of Rage 4 on the Switch.  This is without a doubt my favorite beat 'em up game, hands down. The game was firstly released digitally, later physically, and I always wanted a physical copy of it. 

For my Birthday, Annie got me the Streets of Rage 4 - Anniversary Edition for the Switch, which includes the  Mr. X Nightmare DLC. I really hadn't played the game since the DLC came out.

This DLC, besides adding three more characters to your roster, it adds a new mode, Survival. It is pretty much a series of simulations in which you progress until you die. You don't get extra lives or anything other than food, which replenishes some of your health, and other items like weapons and such. Also, at the end of each level of the simulation, you'll get to choose between two types of "power-ups", more damage, fancy weapons, etcetera. Think of it as a roguelike run. As you progress on your run, you get to unlock more moves for the character that can later be used in any of the game's modes, Arcade, Story, and even in Survival mode itself.

Now, I am back at playing the game, this is a game I can play at any time while even playing other games, it's like a palate cleanser, a candy. 

And yes, I want to unlock all the moves now, like Pokemon.

That being said, a game I am very much looking forward to this week is CHRONO CROSS: THE RADICAL DREAMERS EDITION. It is already loaded, just can't play it yet...

Twitter will appoint Elon Musk to its board of directors - The Verge

Twitter is appointing Tesla CEO Elon Musk to its board of directors, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk will serve as a class II director until 2024.  

I can not stop wondering what this could mean for the future of the platform and Twitter as a company. These are interesting times for sure. Can you imagine if he were to  – eventually – own 14.9% of it, rather than just 9.2%?

Stay tuned...   

I am no expert, nor have I done any research on the matter. But, I have always been told, when you buy new shoes, like, running, basketball, etc, you've got to break them in before you'd seriously use them. Like you wear them for work or daily commute before you go out on a long run or something like that.

Well, on Thursday, I got new running shoes for my birthday. And instead of "breaking them in", I just went for a 3-mile hike...

I am not sure that would have been the "proper" way to go about it. My feet were hurting a lot, after the hike. However, I am not sure if it was due to the new shoes or just the fact that I haven't done hiking or long-distance running in a long long time, or a combination of both.

And it’s a wrap.

For the past few years, yes I look forward to my birthday, I like gifts and spending time with my family, but they have been, in a way, uneventful.

On March 31st, 2022, I have turned 39-years-old. This is the last of my 30’s. Next year, I’ll be 40 (dun-dun-duuuuun!).

Next year you all better call Don Gabz!

Back to the 39’s. On this time around, a really good friend of ours, and our wedding’s maid of honor came to visit, with her 11yo girl. Her birthday was on the 29th, so it was a way to see each other —after 4 to 5 years — and celebrate our birthdays.

It was a great few days, also, in a way — besides fun — exhausting. Again, we had fun, and of course, a lot of indulgences, way too many in some ways lol.

We enjoyed our time together, and so did the girls. Now, they are gone and it’s time for us to recalibrate and return to normalcy.

Until next time, cheers!

Lu and Mar are always playing these little free-games on the iPad. The ones that are always interrupted by ads for other games, and it’s annoying, mostly to them. They have to wait for the add to be over, or, if they don’t realize it’s an ad, they’ll go down a rabbit hole of adds and installing more games in the process.

This weekend, an elven-year-old, showed me the best trick ever to avoid the adds, so simple, and stupid and yet, it never occurred to me before. To put the iPad in airplane mode 😕

It is my birthday week, this usually comes with a lot of indulging. Moreover, our best friend, Melva, is coming to town and staying for a few days. And here’s the thing, her birthday was today, March 29th, mine, is this coming Thursday, March 31st. It’s a double birthday celebration of sorts.

That being said, previously, well, for a while, I have been banging the old drum of me being unhealthy, not moving or working out, etc.

Well, guess what, yesterday, I exercised, went for a run/walk, and again today, and now, I’m motivated. Yes, I have probably picked up the worst time to start, but some may say that any time to start is as good as any.

Definitely there will be unwanted — or very wanted — indulgences in the coming days, but maldita sea (as Rey Gonzales used to say) I will do my damn best, to close all those rings this week.

Cheers, 🍻

Also, I think my blog got hacked 😎