Week 2 has been difficult in regards to avoiding social media. I’m not sure why, but I’ve been bouncing over to YT a lot more often to watch things I don’t need. Not near the extent of myself before this journey, but I still watched an hour of Super Eyepatch Wolf talking about how the Simpsons was apparently good again (spoiler: The Simpsons aren’t the same as they used to be, but there’s merit in watching them again apparently) Made me want to actually watch some of the newer episodes. Maybe I will try to see them sometime.

Week 2 has also been a poor week for controlling self-control urges. I can blame some of it on being on my birthday and going to the shopping mall when I was down in Eau Claire, but it’s still all my responsibility. What’s kind of weighing on me now is I promised my brother I would take him out somewhere and he’s talked about potentially wanting to get out this Sunday. I don’t want to spend anything and I’d almost choose not to go, but I also want to spend some quality time with him.

Maybe I will go anyway. I have been thinking of trading my PS5 in for Gamestop credit. Initially, I was going to save it for whenever the Switch 2 was announced for order, but I think it’d be more effective if I can turn it into some Steam credit. That would give me enough money to pay for my PC games for the year at the least. More if I convince myself to keep it to the essentials.

In regards to what I bought, I should probably start with my trip to Eau Claire last Saturday (05/11)

I went down to Eau Claire last Saturday to spend some time with one of my best friends J. We initially decided we would grab some manjare rolls (a pizza roll, minus sauce, that we’ve only ever been able to find in specific pizza places in EC) However, the place was closed and we were forced to shift our plans to the mall food court (I still wanted something pizzaish and this was the best option)

I got myself some Rocky Rococo (a slice of sausage pizza with breadsticks) and we explored the mall. Stopped at Gamestop where I picked up an Evangelion shirt, Spencers where I got an aesthetic Japanese shirt that says “drift” and a senpai squad shirt (which sounds a lot more cringe than it is, I promise), and at a hobby shop where J offered to buy me the Pokemon model kit I was looking at for my birthday (I got Jiggly Puff)

After that, we ran over to Books-a-Million. While I did a decent job at keeping myself from buying manga (I did just recently get rid of a ton of it), I was completely blindsided by their shirts. Ended up getting a shirt from Chainsaw Man and one from Hooky (which I initially thought was Little Witch Academia, but since it’s still cute, I’m not upset) I also bought an issue of Otaku USA because I like supporting dead media.

I’d show more pictures of my haul (and maybe I’ll do that if I lose control in the future), but sadly the internet doesn’t maintain images of any of the shirts I got (or at least they don’t make it simple) I just wish I wasn’t always feeling so damn cold all the time that I could actually show off my shirts more. Though I guess that wont be too much of a problem in the coming weeks now.

After my shopping “frenzy” was over, J and I went on a walk around the university. It was crazy to see how much things had changed since we’d been there. We only took a stroll around lower campus, but I guess that’s where all the changes would have been. Then we took a bit of a stroll through the park and hopped back into the car to head back to J’s place to end the day.

He asked me if there was anything else I wanted to do, and I remembered hearing about the opening of a new Costco in Eau Claire. While we weren’t members, and didn’t know if you could look without a membership, I had never seen one before (due to living in rural Wisconsin) and was curious to see it. Turns out you don’t need to be a member just to look, and the experience was certainly interesting. While there’s nothing there that would personally get me to buy a membership, it did seem to impress J a bit, and it was definitely fun.

An overall great time down in EC. Can’t say as much for the drive down and back due to both road construction and me not knowing how my AC worked (Yeah, I’m an idiot sometimes) Though I’d still do it all again in a heartbeat (though maybe I would have cut down on my shirts a bit… yeah right 😛 )

Nothing much happened that Sunday, except that I spent more money again. You see after I finished putting together the Jigglypuff model that J got me, I wanted more, and that got me thinking about some mech girl models I’d seen before but resisted pulling the trigger on. Upon searching them up again, and seeing the insanely good yen exchange rate, I put in an order I probably shouldn’t have. Not going to beat myself up over it, but definitely need to avoid that going forward. I also ended up buying all three volumes of Hooky to read (just so I wouldn’t feel ignorant wearing the shirt I bought)

Monday the 13th was the day my new OLED TV (Samsung 95c) was scheduled to be delivered. I was pretty much glued to my door for the entire morning/early afternoon. It came around 2, and despite the box seeming like it’d been through a fucking warzone, the TV was in great condition (though it took me a bit to figure out how to safely remove it) Mounting it was a a bit of a challenge, and then I had to re-mount it twice to get it positioned just right (which was definitely a strain) but I managed to do it.

I’m not really sure what I think of it so far. I kind of expected more, if I’m being entirely honest, but at the same time, I recognize that it looks cool for certain things. I’ll need to watch/play more things before I can give a definitive “was it worth it” review. Though at this point even if it wasn’t, I can’t really do anything to return it.

Tuesday, yesterday, was my birthday. For the past several years, what that’s meant is a fairly quiet normal day for me. Nothing special. This year was not much different. I did go online and order a standing desk for myself (using special financing where it’ll cost me 20 a month) and while I’m not happy adding to my debt, I can justify it at least being for my health (I think sitting is what’s been contributing to my chronic constipation) I also got myself a nice treat from Dairy Queen and gas for my car (ouch)

I think the highlight for Tuesday was that night when I rewatched the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies. It had been years (literally since I was a teenager) since I last saw it, and for whatever reason, I had been wanting to rewatch the trilogy again. Maybe its because I’m getting old and I want to be young forever ;_;

I was surprised. When I was young, I liked the first movie, but the second movie was what I really vibed with. Upon rewatching it though, I found myself feeling the opposite. Possibly because as a young kid, I never really understood the first movie (I found myself catching a lot of stuff that probably went over a kids head) and the second movie just being a lot more of the goofy turtles I loved from the cartoon I watched religiously then

I’d go as far to call the first movie a masterpiece of film. Much of it is done so well that I find myself hungry for movies like it. The second movie is not bad, by any means, but having Michaelangelo talk about giving someone a pickle within the first 10 minutes of the movie (not sure if that was meant to be a cleverly disguised dick reference or a poorly chosen silly joke) was a huge tonal whiplash and probably only serves fans of the series.

I’m not sure if I’ll rewatch the third movie yet. While I can remember being crazy about it as a kid, I’ve heard from many that it does not hold up well at all. Considering how the second made me feel, I don’t know if I have any desire to shatter the illusion. At least not when I have other things I could be doing with that time.

That’s about the extent of my second week. Like I mentioned in a few places, it was a good one for self control, but it was a fairly positive week. This next week will be more about kicking up my productivity, I hope. Got a new exercise bike and a standing desk should be coming, so I’ll let you know how that pans out.

Until then, stay frosty