Re: Digital Decluttering

I managed to make all three deadlines.

I worked for four blocks of three hours each, for two blocks per day, but that’s incidental. The secret of productivity is being able to concentrate on a single project for an extended period of time. And the secret to being able to concentrate?

Emotional stability.

I don’t want to suggest that ADD is a mental illness (any more than diabetes or high blood pressure is a mental illness), but it’s been my experience that it’s healthier to work for six hours a day six days a week than ten hours a day seven days a week. Who would have thought.

Speaking of which, something I noticed when I was cleaning out my email account was that I didn’t used to get so many emails four or five years ago. Even before the pandemic, I think "always online" email culture had already started to become unmanageable for a lot of people, myself definitely included.

Hades Redux, Part Four

I've spent a lot of time playing Hades during the past month, and I think it's fair to say that I enjoy it. I would recommend (and have recommended) Hades to anyone who enjoys video games, even if they hate Rougelikes. It's a long game with a lot to discover; but, like Breath of the Wild, you have to commit to around four to six hours of unpleasantness before you get to the good stuff.

I've come to appreciate the graphics, and certain elements of the storytelling resonate with me, but I think my initial impression of Hades was correct - it's essentially a game about grinding. It's also a game about things getting better, but it starts out rough. The story is interesting, but it doesn't unfold in a way that compels you to follow it, especially not through the dozens of hours of repeated playthroughs necessary to get to the ending. If Pyre is interesting to read but not too terribly fun to play, then Hades is fun to play, with the reading being somewhat tangential.

Bravely Default II comes out later this month. If I haven't gotten to the epilogue of Hades by then, I'm probably going to put it down and walk away.

*nervous sweating*

I moved to a new apartment during the pandemic. Due to one thing and another (mainly the city of Philadelphia being hot garbage), I haven't been able to set up an internet connection. I have an unlimited data plan with my mobile network, so I use my phone as a hotspot, and it works fairly well. Unfortunately, the mobile network won't connect to my PlayStation 4, which means that I can't stream anything on my tv. I can use the HDMI cable for my drawing tablet to project my laptop onto the tv screen, but it's a hassle and doesn't look great to begin with.

This doesn't bother me, since I haven't been interested in movies or television recently, but it's been tough on my husband, who loves cooking shows and European football but hates watching things on a small screen. The obvious solution is to watch DVDs, but the only DVDs I own are anime. This is therefore what my husband has been watching for the past six months, and it shows. I wrote a short comic about this (here).

My husband was sad when we finished Azumanga Daioh, so we started watching Nichijou. He immediately got the opening song stuck in his head (to be fair, it's really catchy), and it blew his mind when I told him that the musician, Hyadain, uses voice modulation software to sing all the parts. My husband wanted to know if Hyadain has done anything else like this, so I told him about Super Mario Hyadain. If anything, this song is even catchier than the Nichijou OP, and I've caught my husband listening to it on his phone a few times.

So earlier today he said to me, "I never thought Bowser was in love with Peach, but I guess that makes sense. That's really sweet. Do you think anyone's ever written fanfiction about them?"