Category: life

games · life

I’m mostly just tweeting these days (Updated on November 2, 2023)

koukoupuffsLeave a comment

Edit on November 2, 2023: Twitter/X has spiraled to the bottom of Hell. My new hangout is at Bluesky (koukoupuffs@bsky.social). I’ve removed the link to my Twitter profile.

I was hoping to find a way to make my tweets the content for this blog but it looks like I’d need a business account to make use of plugins capable of providing that function.

Anyway, like the content on this blog, my tweets mostly revolve around computer or video games I’m playing or LINE Webtoons I’m reading at the moment. (Genshin Impact has been a focus lately. :3) There’s also some political stuff thrown in.

An old screencap of my main team from my secondary account which I play on an irregular basis. They’re at level 50 now. I was happy that I managed to draw Qiqi as she’s one of the few characters I really wanted. Well, I still want her on my main account too. 😛
The sub team which is mostly for mining and shooting things. XD Their levels are higher now as well.

Screenshots and videos from my main Genshin account (which is played on the PS4) is on Twitter and I post some on Instagram from time to time. Check the link below or the Instagram feed on the sidebar for those. 😀

I retweet a lot as well. Most retweets consist of photos of cute animals like sparrows or rabbits, fan art from Kirby, and artwork from various indie artists.

Honestly, one reason I stopped posting here is that I’m not on my computer much and WordPress’ mobile iOS app was unstable for the longest time. Maybe it’s better now? I haven’t bothered to check obviously. XD

life

Adventures in Looking for the Right Cell Phone Case

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Updated March 21st, 2018: I finally found the case that fit my needs. Now I feel like an idiot for not buying it first. -_-

I purchased a Huawei P10 Lite in January. It’s a great little no frills Android mobile phone that’s sufficient for my needs. Call quality is pretty good as well. The only issue is, like many mobile devices, its back and sides are quite slippery to hold. Naturally, I went shopping for a phone case so I could get some proper grip.

The first one I bought was the Spigen Liquid Clear Case. I love the quality but unfortunately, it’s not anti-slip. However,  it provides more grip than the bare phone.

Since I didn’t want to be constantly paranoid about dropping my cell phone, I decided to try another case. I selected the Simpeak Premium Soft Protector Back Case. It looks nice, fits well, doesn’t feel like it’ll slip out of my hands, but there’s one problem — it dries my hands. I’ve been struggling to find a proper comparison for the feel of the material but all I’ve managed to come up with is that it feels like fine sandpaper, or even a typical sheet of printer paper.

As this Simpeak case met my expectations for being anti-slip, I’ve decided to keep it for the time being. I’m still not satisfied though. What I’m hoping for is a case that’s like the one I got for my MediaPad M3 tablet by kwmobile. I can’t think of an adjective that could accurately describe the texture of this either but it’s somewhat like the plastic from a clear shampoo bottle or hand sanitizer. Basically, your skin will kind of stick to it.

I did consider getting a kwmobile case for my phone as well but opted to try different sellers mostly because I needed a case as soon as possible. kwmobile products come directly from Germany which means at least 1 to 2 weeks for delivery.

Anyway, my third phone case was by a company called MYLB. I received this one about 3 hours ago today. Here’s the link to the product on Amazon Canada:  https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B06XSW7GS1. I posed a question to owners this time to get an idea of the feel of the case. They all made it sound like it was different from the Simpeak one. But, to my dismay, it turned out that it was identical to the Simpeak one. (Obviously, no one has the dry hands issue so I suppose it has to do with my own skin. :P)

I wish I took more photos but my mind was so set on getting the thing out the door to the post office for a return that I just have this one:

Simpeak and MYLB cases for the Huawei P10 Lite
The Simpeak case is on the left.

The whole “[c]arbon Fiber Pattern and stylish wiredrawing design” on the back is exactly the same as well.

Honestly, I should have looked at the photos from the Simpeak case again before buying the MYLB one as I had no memory of the spiderweb design and “The Ultimate Experience” in the interior. That alone should have been a red flag.

Speaking about clones, I must point out that the Valenth one is also made of the same mold. It even uses the same photos as the MYLB one on its product page. I’m convinced it’s one Chinese manufacturing plant making these things and packaging them under different brand names for various (possibly Chinese) companies. 😐

In the end, I ordered a kwmobile case. Crossing my fingers that it’s the perfect one for my needs.

 

games · life

January Potpourri: Games

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Wow. It’s been a while since I last posted. It’s mainly because I have trouble thinking about topics I want to spend time writing about. I suppose serial tweeting things that could be topics doesn’t help matters. 😛 Guess I’ll just write about whatever comes to mind. :3

Watch out though — a wall of text is incoming. XD

Mobius Final Fantasy

For everyone following this blog because of Mobius Final Fantasy — I’m sorry but I most likely won’t be writing much about the game anymore as I’ve lost interest in it.

Final Fantasy XV: Moogle Chocobo Carnival

I’m guessing this place is some magical dream that also allows you to take things back to the real (in-game) world? XD After all, only Noctis could participate in the festivities.

I’m disappointed in the prizes we can exchange medallions for. I suppose it’s not a bad option for people looking to stock up on food materials or to get the items needed to upgrade weapons. I may have done the former if there were more mini games to choose from. The best parts of the carnival was the Whack-a-Cactuar and fishing. 😛

I completed the quests with the chocobo chicks (I spent a good hour total looking for my 15th baby chocobo), moogles, park decorating riddles, got all fishing prizes except the reel, and got some bonus photo challenges. The waiter mini game, target shooting, and chocobo racing don’t interest me. I did try them out though.

If they’re going to do another event like this, I really hope it won’t be in Altissia. I still hate navigating the bloody city. >:| But at least Noctis could point warp and Carbuncle allowed fast travel so it was less painful than usual.

Also, those fishing rod and reel prizes should have been carnival-themed skins instead. Is it even possible to get the top prize without having a stronger rod than the prize itself?

Tap Titans 2

A mindless clicker/tapping/incremental free-to-play mobile game. I inherited a clan from the player that created it recently. I assume he was too busy to play. We were stuck at clan quest 9 for a while but after removing inactive members and changing the clan description to include rules and expectations, we finally managed to get some team work going that allowed us to fly through clan quests 9 to 16.

Incidentally, in any game with guilds and clans, if you’re not planning to put some effort into contributing to the group somehow, please don’t join. Similarly, if you’re doing it simply for a “join a clan” achievement, just leave after you get it.

Anyway, here are just a few things that bother me about clans:

  • The weekly clan quest participation counter resets based on local time. I wish the developer would use UTC as the standard instead. Perhaps midnight UTC or something.
  • Players joining another clan retain their participation count from their previous clan. It would be better if they started back at 0 since their past efforts mean nothing in the current clan.
  • Clan names can’t be changed. At least it’s not giving me the option to. :\
  • Not about clan design but, on iOS, there is no notification that a clan quest is available in the notification center or lock screen. :\

Unrelated to clans: Despite all the bug fixes the game has undergone, it still abruptly terminates if I try to watch an ad. Sometimes it even crashes after I watch one. I’ve already written to Game Hive about the issue and they replied saying that it’s device-related. 😦 I’m using an iPad mini 2, for what it’s worth.

Endless Frontier

Another pretty mindless incremental mobile game. 😀 It’s also free-to-play. What I like most about it is that the developer hands out  premium currency like free food and you can also earn it easily as well. But like all F2P games, unless you’re whaling, buying premium items should be done in moderation.

Premium buffs for things like 3x game speed and permanent skill upgrades cost 100 , 500, or 700 gems. The more expensive offerings are evolving and buying units; their price tags are in the thousands.

If you’re into the PvP battles, gems will be spent cycling through opponents to find some that you can actually win against. Each cycle costs 3 gems but you win 10 gems after defeating the other team.

Despite the need for premium currency everywhere, I’ve yet to hit any pay wall and game progress is rather smooth and painless. With each revival, my little army of elves, undead, humans, and orcs progress further than their last run. 😀 However, I anticipate a bit of a “slow down” since unit enhancement is requiring a lot of medals now. :\ (Er, there are 5 currencies in the game but only gems can be purchased. Everything else is earned, won, or given by the developer as special bonuses.)

I can’t comment guilds or guild wars as I only joined one for 5 minutes and didn’t know what I was doing. XD The instructions are not thorough enough. I suppose I could have asked fellow members though.

Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate

This is my current video game love. Typical Musou cheese, but it’s fun getting to alternate between three characters in battle. My permanent team consists of Wang Yuanji, Kaguya, and Seimei Abe. XD I loved Wang Yuanji in Dynasty Warriors 7 & 8. Used her to death in both games. I also loved using Sima Shi in them as well but his crowd control relies too much on combos with strong attacks. 😐 The three I’m using can destroy mobs with regular attacks so I don’t need to worry about when to hit the triangle button. Yes, I’m going through the game on Normal difficulty. :3

The weapons system is also pretty fun to work with. I still feel that Freedom Wars should have done a similar weapons upgrade and customization system instead of the idiotic piece of shit the developer came up with.

In terms of game progress, I just finished the second ending last night … which unlocked new stages. X_X I do wish the game were shorter since there are still battles in chapters 5 – 8 to unlock. ^^;

I wonder if there will ever be Warriors game for the Final Fantasy franchise? 😡

Oh, one complaint about WO3 — there are hardly any variations on missions and they’re all KO-based. Considering there’s a weapon attribute that can prolong combos, why not have combo-related ones too? :\

More random babblings under the cut. Well, more like just answers to a video game-themed questionnaire that’s been circling on Twitter lately. Continue reading “January Potpourri: Games” →

annoyances · life · shopping

On Cables and Tablet Stands

koukoupuffsLeave a comment

There are two kinds of cables I despise: 3 feet cables and ones made of cheap plastic and wires that break apart.

I know short cables make a lot of sense if you’re using the device in a car or if you don’t plan on using your device while it’s charging. However, 99% of the time, I want to use it and in some cases, the power outlets in the house aren’t close enough to a table for me to place my tablet or phone on. Heck, even worse is when an outlet is near a chair or sofa; the pathetic length means I won’t be able to sit comfortably anyway.

For example, here’s my computer desk. Please excuse the terrible terrible mess. XD I’ll be getting a desktop in the near future so hopefully, the next photo I take won’t show the network cable goofily dangling about:

Power outlets in my computer room
A reason I despise 3 feet cables for my portable devices.

By using the power bar on the right side, I CAN put a device near the edge of the desk. However, I CANNOT make use of the power bar under the central opening or the wall outlet on the left the same way. In either case, if I use a 3 feet cable, I have to set the device on the floor.

But look! I have a 6 feet cable plugged into the wall outlet! I just received that today. :3 It’s the Anker 6ft Nylon Braided USB Cable with Lightning Connector and it works as intended so I don’t have much to say on that. I do hope it lasts longer than the cheap Monoprice cables. I went through 2 of those because of the following problem:

Monoprice 6 feet Lightning cable
If you read reviews of any cables with plastic jackets, you’ll see that this is a common issue . 😐 But the bigger issue is that the wires within the insulation are frayed which makes the cable impossible to use.

Monoprice 6 feet Lightning cable
It’s a piece of shit. :/

The residue on the jacket near the connector is from the electrical tape I put on it. Unfortunately, tape doesn’t help with BROKEN wires. =__=

The first Monoprice Lightning cable I had lasted about 7 months. The second one, which I got as replacement thanks to the lifetime warranty, worked for a bit over a year. Incidentally, I take it that “lifetime warranty” refers to the lifespan of the first cable so if the replacement goes kaput, you’ll have to buy a new one? I wrote to Monoprice to see if I can get a third cable last week but I’ve yet to hear back. 😛 It doesn’t matter if customer service ever replies though because I’m done with the company’s cheap crap. (The cable’s only $6 US so I’m sure you can imagine the quality that comes with that price.)

For the record, I did use the cables frequently since I charge the tablet everyday; I plug it in once the battery goes down to ~69%. I always grip the connector when inserting or removing it and never once pulled on the jacket.

I’ll be sure to update this post if the Anker cable suffers the same or similar problem some time down the road.

Now on to the tablet stand! Continue reading “On Cables and Tablet Stands” →

annoyances · life

April: 30 Fucking Days of Awareness, Appreciation, or Days

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Earth Hour and Daylight Savings are stupid
Earth Hour and Daylight Savings: They’re both stupid.

One of my pet peeves is how people can pull “awareness days” out of their asses. There’s even a goddamn website with a list of these things.

My issue is that a lot of them are either asinine or just things that should be celebrated EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE YEAR. But I suppose, in the case of Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, those can be seen as “extra special kindness days” rather than “Gee, we should be nice to Mom or Dad that day.”

One of the greatest offenders to me is Earth Hour which is annually observed on the last Saturday of March. Why only choose the one freakin’ day to “create awareness for climate change”? Shouldn’t we be doing something (like conserving energy) everyday?? I’m sure as hell aware of climate change and wholly believe in it. I don’t need 60 minutes of darkness to remind me that it exists.

At any rate, I decided to try my hand at thinking up some awareness days and decided to make every single bloody day in April a part of the madness. Some of these may already exist; I didn’t comb through that site or Google for this crap. If there are duplicates then it just goes to show how easy it is to designate a day for something mundane. 😛

An expletive is included with each day for emphasis.

  • April 1st – Look Both Ways Before Crossing The Fucking Street Day
  • April 2nd – Read a Fucking Book Day
  • April 3rd – Talk to Fucking People Day
  • April 4th – Fucking Mobility Day (i.e. walk, run, cycle, drive, roll, etc.)
  • April 5th – Fucking Immobility Day (i.e. staying stationary like lying in bed, sitting on a chair, etc.)
  • April 6th – Fucking Messy Rooms Appreciation Day
  • April 7th – The Grass is Usually Fucking Green Appreciation Day
  • April 8th – Fucking Respect All Races and Genders Day
  • April 9th – Fucking Invisible Sicknesses Awareness Day (because not every kind of illness is physically obvious)
  • April 10th – Fucking Antarctica Appreciation Day (or sub that for any country people don’t really talk about)
  • April 11th – Fucking Oxygen Awareness Day
  • April 12th – Fucking Oxygen Appreciation Day
  • April 13th – Synchronize All Your Fucking Clocks Day (if you haven’t done so already)
  • April 14th – Fucking Furniture Appreciation Day
  • April 15th – Fucking Anticipation Awareness Day
  • April 16th – Keep Dogs on a Fucking Leash When in Public Day (designated areas where they don’t need to be using one are exempted, of course)
  • April 17th – Fucking Washroom Break Appreciation Day
  • April 18th – Stop Fucking Tailgating the Car In Front of You Day
  • April 19th – Stop Leaving Shopping Carts in the Middle of the Fucking Aisle Day
  • April 20th – Stop Fucking Westernizing Shit in Foreign Moves & Shows Awareness Day
  • April 21st – Original Fucking Pronunciation Appreciation Day (e.g. karaoke is read somewhat like kah-rah-oh-kĂŠ)
  • April 22nd – Pay Attention to Fucking Fine Print Day
  • April 23rd – The Customer is NOT Always Fucking Right Awareness Day
  • April 24th – Fucking Ground Floor Appreciation Day
  • April 25th – Merry Fucking Christmas Day
  • April 26th – Fucking Obsolete Businesses Appreciation Day
  • April 27th – Fucking Sun Awareness Day
  • April 28th – Fucking Moon Awareness Day
  • April 29th – Fucking Awareness Day Awareness Day
  • April 30th – Enjoy Your Fucking Life Day
Android · games · iOS · life

Is there a Freemium Players Annoymous? I think I need it

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Pusheen Cafe
A Pusheen Cafe show in CocoPPa Play. 99% of what you see in the image are premium/paid items.

The South Park episode, Freemium Isn’t Free, totally explains how freemium games get consumers hooked. It may be satire but the writers completely understand how the evil scheme works; you take a mediocre concept, slap on repetitive gameplay and tons of wait times to impede a player’s progress, offer a PAID ALTERNATIVE to remove the waiting and then suddenly, the game is FUN and worthwhile because you’re playing at a regular, decent rate AND you’ve invested money into it. 😛 Continue reading “Is there a Freemium Players Annoymous? I think I need it” →

life

[LIFE] Let’s Talk About Great Wall Brand’s Wuji Baifeng Wan (White Phoenix Pills)

koukoupuffs2 Comments

I get nasty pangs below my tummy that come and go for about half of an entire month. The pains usually last 30 minutes to 1 hour and can happen at any point of the day. I’ve had them wake me up at 4 in the morning a few times. Not fun. I even logged some of the experiences and have yet to see a pattern in terms of the time of day they occur. So basically, I spend about 10+ days in a month feeling miserable. This is excluding the usual monthly visitor. Ah, the wonders of the female body.

My family doctor’s given me some antibiotics (Mefenamic) which do work, I guess. I mean, it’s kind of hard to tell considering the pain tends to go away by itself anyway.

Anyway, my mom picked up some Wuji Baifeng Wan made by Tianjin Zhongxin Pharmaceutical Group Corp. Ltd. under the Great Wall Brand label from a local Chinese grocery store. (You can see an image of the packaging and some general information about its uses at Amazon.) She took these kinds of pills when she was young and figured that I could give them a try too.

The pills themselves are fine but I’d really like to punch the people that designed the capsule that holds the pills because …

乌鸡白凤丸 or 烏雞白鳳丸 pills are contained in a plastic capsule that's wrapped IN WAX for some unfathomable reason.
The 乌鸡白凤丸 or 烏雞白鳳丸 are contained in a plastic capsule that’s wrapped IN WAX for some unfathomable reason.

I suppose, decades ago, this was the method used to keep the capsules from popping open themselves while in transit from the factory to the stores and they’re maintaining the tradition nowadays too? Whatever the reason may be, it really has to go. I’m not sure what the quickest method is for removing wax but I’m pretty sure nothing compares to simply opening the plastic shell. Tianjin Zhongxin Pharmaceutical Group Corp. Ltd. must be too damn poor to get new machinery and shells with clasps, I guess. Actually, I’m not sure why no reviewer on Amazon mentioned the idiotic design.

Thankfully, there are other companies that also make the white phoenix pills and don’t package them in some ancient traditional method.

Edit: We tried another brand later on which actually had an illustration of how to open a damnable capsule  — you’re supposed to apply pressure on it such as stepping on it with your foot.  9_9

life

I like writing stories

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Well, they’re more like play scripts because they mostly consist of dialogue and character actions. ^^; Although I’m not going to share any of them publicly, I find myself thinking back about how I did let some friends read my stories before. It was nerve-wracking waiting for a reply and their opinions since I’m terribly self-conscious about any creative works I make. But the waiting was worth it because some of them gave me feedback that allowed me re-evaluate various aspects such as plot, character motivations, logic, etc. in ways that I never would have considered. I actually kind of miss those kinds of critiques so now I’m wondering if I should let someone read a current story just to get some ideas of where it should be going or how some things could be changed.

However, one of the biggest problems of my writing style is that, not only is it poor, but it’s incredibly disjointed and contains many notes and points that only *I* understand. I’d imagine they’d makes things rather difficult to follow. ^^ On top of this is the fact that I use WikidPad to help me organize ideas so I have things separated into sections like “Main Characters”, “Main Story”, “Ideas”, and even something like “Secrets” so in order to even begin to comprehend one section, the reader may have to refer to another one. But there’s the also the danger of learning too much ahead of time too, I suppose. ^^ Those earlier stories that I’ve let others look at weren’t divided all over the place and were actually written in proper story format though.

Now that I think about it, I did write a summary of the general plot idea and character information for a friend along with sending her the mess that was the story itself. ^^; I suppose I could do that should I decide to share one again.

Anyway, this was something I just wanted to get off my chest. ^^