8r4d Greeted by Mt Fuji on the horizon as we landed. #japan we are in you. [read more...]

8r4d Waiting to board for a looooong flight to #japan from #vancouver. We’ve never flown eastbound before so even tho I’ve been in this airport a lot, I don’t think we’ve ever been in the international terminal. [read more...]

8r4d “you gotta train on something…” she says, while we watch someone get lessons driving the airport ramp while we wait for our first flight.

pixelazy We were watching a movie and missed the best part of tonight’s #northernlights show but ya’ll left a bit of colour in the #sky for us later on in the evening. Thanks.

gamerdad While many would be reluctant to compare a game like Diablo 4 to Baldur’s Gate 3, the two really have quite a lot of commonalities, at least in my head. But then obviously, they are completely different games… and I really only draw attention to the comparison, again, because I have both on my play-roster these days and yet the pick-up-and-play nature of Diablo 4 has me often leaning into spending time there over the this-battle-could-take-an-hour focus required for BG3.

As a result, I am actually kinda sorta making progress in the world of Diablo.

And I will caveat here: I don’t pay for Playstation Plus anymore. The value proposition for me personally is so low that I can’t even bring myself to drop a measly hundred bucks for it. In other words, I’m playing the campaign offline and solo, which to some is probably heretical.

Late last week I trounced through the last objective of Act I and moved onto the second.

I mean, look: this is pretty much a hack and slash game. The achievements are measured in how many thousands of this type of enemy did you slaughter with a sledgehammer or how many of that type of enemy did you manage to obliterate within eight seconds.

The story is a kind of christianity-adjacent story of a fallen angel ascending from hell and chasing across the world map as she unlocks more power and fuels up her allies to lay in waiting for you to arrive and to battle against. Deep stuff, ugh, ok, maybe only a little.

gamerdad The first time I ever played (with any significant progress at least) this silly little game, I marked my milestones by only a handful of completed objectives.

The most of those was passing through the “got greenhouse” progress state.

If you are unfamiliar with Stardew Valley, just know that it is a cozy game with about a thousand little objectives that you need to complete by collecting, growing, making, selling, giving, or consuming the countless objects that can be collected, grown, made, sold, gifted, or consumed in the game.

One of those is an aggregate challenge that includes mostly growing and gifting often high difficulty collections of certain objects that an only be obtained through multiple sub-challenges or clever game progress. The end result is that this little run-down greenhouse that has been on your farm since day one suddenly gets repaired and, voila, you have a great place to ramp up your permanent farming production and elevate your in-game income to the next level.

Among all the relationship-building, exploration of the maps, expanding of the farm, and progressing the story, I unlocked the greenhouse on the third day of Summer in my second in-game year.

That is actually, real progress.

8r4d Another #datenight at the #theatre

pixelazy Those #autumn #sunset evenings, huh? #sky November sunset skies brought multiple people out into their yards to snap photos.

8r4d Now that the snow has arrived and the cold winds are whipping through the streets, our Sunday #running adventure was a little chillier than we’ve been acclimated. We logged a simple eight klick run plotted to keep the wind at bay and avoid the too icy trails. Post-run coffee tho was definitely a warm up.

8r4dsfeets Dark evening. Frozen sidewalks. Sheepish dog.

8r4d The [insert varmint here] definitely saw its shadow and now there’s six months of #winter left. First #snow of the season, huh.

8r4dsfeets November winds. Cold feets. First snow.

pixelazy #shadows and #silhouette and #sky art in the park on a chilly mid #autumn evening.

adventuredog Yeah I like climbing stuff. Gotta problem with that?!

pixelazy #downtown at night [read more...]

8r4d Today marks the third anniversary of this applet and website. Back in November 2022 I launched the first version of a little tool to share some pics of our New York vacay while simultaneously avoiding Big Social Media.

I never would have thought I’d still be using it three years later, let alone spending a full day improving the code (yet again!) But here we are.

I haven’t still not decided if I’ll ever release said code, but I’ve been working quite a bit to ensure it is stable and secure. I’ve added new features over the last couple months and just this past weekend stabilized my dashboard login so that it’s secure and reliable while traveling and posting on foreign networks. It been more work than actually packing for the trip itself!

8r4d #movie night at #westedmontonmall with the #runcrew at the imax where we celebrated the 40th anniversary rerelease of Back to the Future!

8r4d The first #running adventure of November was still snow-free. [read more...]

adventuredog It’s November. And maybe just a few more snow-free walking days left this year, huh? [read more...]

pixelazy more #sunset #sky in october theme colours while out walking with the Kid and the dog.

pixelazy October #sunset #sky [read more...]

pixelazy A hazy view of the downtown on our way to a chilly road race.

8r4dsfeets Racing days. Starting lines. Drizzly fall.

8r4d Our Sunday #running adventures culminated at another race. I haven’t raced in well over a year so the ole start line anxiety kicked in pretty hard. It was raining and cold but not quite freezing, so sixteen klicks was tougher than it should have been, but I got it done in the end.