A few things to come clean with this week: I spent more money than I probably should’ve, I found myself on social media more (though I didn’t participate directly), and I’ve stopped writing in that notebook I showed in week 1. While I’m not thrilled with that regression, I’m not going to let it get to me and I’m going to try to rectify all that this next week.

What did I do this week?

On Sunday, I went on a trip with my brother down to Eau Claire. Despite having gone down only a week before, I had been wanting to go somewhere with him and among our options for a day-trip, Eau Claire was the best one. I comforted myself thinking I wouldn’t buy as much since I had already been down there once before.

We didn’t end up caring much for the mall, so we ended up over at Books-a-Million shortly after. I was almost prepared to get a lot of manga, but upon seeing a lot of the retail prices I ended up putting 90% of the stuff back (go me!) Plus I tried to keep in mind that I had just recently gut my entire manga collection in favor of digital. I still ended up with a copy of Initial D Omnibus 1, some discounted Light Novel, a cheap POP keychain of Toga from MHA, and 3 Chainsaw Man blind gacha things.

Side note about BAM: There was a woman with about 10 kids that came into the store while we were both looking at manga. The kids were hellions. She apparently told them they could get two things and there’d be one or two of them that would throw some pretty bad temper tantrums. Though the worst of it is one kid who kept playing with this toy that constantly said the same phrase (Something like “Can you say that again?”) They had it say that, and I exaggerate not, like 100ish times.

After BAM, we strolled over to Gaming Generations. I initially did not expect to get anything here as I was about to have no consoles after this trip (more on that later) but I didn’t account for them to have giant Sailor Moon plushies. They had two in fact, one of Venus and one of Neptune. I looked them up online and they apparently were going for 40 something, while at GG they were only 27. I decided to grab Venus because she’s one of my favorites (incidentally favorites are Mars, Pluto, Venus and Moon) I would have gotten Neptune if she looked a little nicer (though I also didn’t want to get her without Uranus there) or if I wasn’t already planning somewhere in my head to get some of the others online later >_>

After that, my brother wanted to visit some card shops. He’s pretty into both the Pokemon TCG and the One Piece one. I don’t know if he plays it much online (he certainly doesn’t play it at home) or if he simply just enjoys collecting (I’m thinking it’s more of the later) I ended up taking him to two places: Legendary D20 gaming and Undercity games. Both of which were in these really tucked away corners of Eau Claire (not hard to get to driving wise, but the buildings they were in were more complex than a simple store on the street) He didn’t find much at d20 but I guess he managed to find a few singles at Undercity (which made me happy because up to then he hadn’t been getting much and I wanted the trip to feel worth it to him)

That was the extent of our trip about Eau Claire. The driving was good and the trip was pretty good apart from that family in BAM. Though that wasn’t the end of our road trip. On the way back, I ended up going into Gamestop in Rice Lake and trading in my PS5 along with my piddly Playstation collection. Got 200 of it put on Steam cards because that was all they were allowed to do. I had been told to come back tomorrow or that I could do it online. I wasn’t going to do the former (after such a big day trip) and I knew the online thing was bullshit because I’ve tried it before. Thus I’m going to have to wait until the next time I have to stop in Rice Lake (probably in July)

I toyed with getting a Switch Lite with the rest, but I couldn’t really justify it. I did, however, end up getting 3 more of the Chainsaw Man blind bag things that I got from BAM. My reasoning behind getting 3 at each location was that there was a third of the characters that I wanted and that if I had a multiple of three, I was guaranteed to get one (No I didn’t seriously think this, but I joked about it)

After Gamestop came a trip to the Wal-mart that was across the street. There I picked up a bluray set of Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers and the two movie set of the Rescuers. I thought about getting more but I remembered that without my PS5, I was without a bluray player (I do have workarounds) Thus I held myself back (I also almost got an Initial D mousepad out of the novelty of it being there, but I managed to hold myself back)

When we returned home, I opened up my 6 Chainsaw Man figures and got: Kobeni, Power, Himeno, Makima, Pochita, and Meowy. Considering I only wanted girl characters and I didn’t get any repeats, I would say that I was really lucky. Too bad I wasn’t playing the lottery eh? 😛

I also immediately went online to try to track down some of the other Sailor Moon plushes. I ended up snagging one of Mars, Saturn, and Pluto. Pluto only because there was a good deal with her bundled with Saturn. I thought about Moon and some of the other main scouts, but at around 40 a piece, that would really add up. Something I might look into later.

Of course, I had to lookup a lot of the manga I wanted to buy at BAM on CR to see how much it was, and most of it was significantly cheaper there. I didn’t end up buying any, but unfortunately I did get a little caught up buying some Chainsaw Man figures that were on sale (I guess the blind bags really got me craving Chainsaw Man shit)

Thankfully, that was the end of my spending that day. Though I have had to stop myself from spending more (I swear once you visit those sites, you find yourself on them again and again) Going to TRY hard not to buy anything else (that’s not already planned) for at least the next month or so.

Speaking of almost buying stuff. I’ve been fluctuating between buying a new monitor since one of them broke when I was installing my new standing desk. Actually did I mention I bought myself a standing desk? I thought it might help some of my constipation issues (not being seated all day) and I needed a somewhat bigger desk. It’s really nice.

Anyway, one of my monitors suffered a minor dent. You can’t see it very easily if you examine it while it’s off, but when it’s on, it’s clear as day that’s its unusable. Fortunately, it is only my second monitor of my two monitor setup and I do have an older monitor that I’m using in the meantime. Though neither of those are as good as the one that broke (either the color is not as good or the refresh rate is meh)

Might still keep an ear out for a good deal for one in the future. While I mostly play games that don’t require much, I did notice some screen tearing trying to play Eiyuden Chronicles yesterday. I can circumvent it playing on my TV, but I don’t always want to be sitting in my bed when I’m playing games. We’ll see.

Speaking of Eiyuden, as of yesterday I’ve played a good chunk. My overall impressions so far are mixed. On the one hand, the music and graphic styling is pretty reminiscent of Suikoden. On the other, it’s nowhere near as good as Suikoden with any of the mechanics. The game runs too sluggish in comparison to Suikoden’s snappy nature, and it’s slow to get into a real hook as far as the story goes.

I’m also not one to bitch about localization, as I understand that there needs to be changes to suit different audiences. However, the choices taken just don’t fit. One particular case that jumps out at me is when a character (an adult with a gruff Japanese voice) calls another adult a “farthead” I understand others were getting upset at stuff like “chud” but for me, I find this a much worse offender.

Since I didn’t mention it in my previous post, I did finish both Mob Psycho season 3 and Made in Abyss season 2. My ultimate verdict is that both were good, although I’d say I enjoyed Made in Abyss a lot more. Mob was comfy and heartwarming, but Made in Abyss just made me feel a lot more everything else.

Sad that Made in Abyss doesn’t have much more beyond that. I kind of wish it was an RPGMaker game instead of an anime/manga. Much as it probably wouldn’t share the same kind of popularity, it really gives me the vibe of some of the games I’ve played on there before. Not to mention that if it was a game, it probably be complete by now.

Since finishing those two, I started rewatching Mushoku Tensei and watching Gundam 0079. I chose to rewatch Mushoku as I hadn’t seen it since I saw the first 12 episodes when it came out and I wanted to go in with the plot fresh when I watched the stuff that had been released since. Gundam, I’ve been interested in watching all the various series, and despite watching the compilation movies of the first series, I found I retained nothing.

Gundam 0079 is actually a lot better than how I had it sold to me initially. I know it probably had to be pretty decent for becoming such an iconic show, but back when I watched the compilation movies, that’s what everyone was recommending. I guess because it made things easier/quicker to get into Gundam. However, I think in terms of developing characters, the original series is leagues better

I’m debating starting other series. Thinking about starting 86. Though it depends on where I find the time.

Planning on posting some pictures of my various setups next week. Stay tuned