02/10/2023

Hey, this website isn't dead anymore! Probably. After much deliberation on my part and going through a bunch of ideas on what I wanted to do with this site, I decided to just keep it simple for the time being. Make it a blog now, perhaps expand on it later. Not exactly a blog though if it's barely discussing anything of note, so what's been going on with me for the past few days? The short of it is that I haven't been doing too great.

The long of it is a few different issues that have collectively come together to screw me over. First off, my Nan's vehicle broke down on her way to pick me up from school. Don't have a car myself (not that I can drive anyway) and my grandfather is down south, so I had to go ahead and ask a teacher to drive me to where she was, and they kindly obliged. Shoutout to them by the way, I'm not listing their name for privacy sake but they're a really nice person. But yeah, waited for a few hours, got towed back home. If it was just that then I probably wouldn't be writing this, but no, now both of my grandparents have come down with a stomach virus. Both have been pretty nauseous, threw up whatever they've drank, and overall, haven't been too great for the past couple days. Thankfully they're getting over it, and I still haven't caught whatever it is going around, but it's still been rather unpleasant.

So yeah, overall, personal life hasn't been treating me or my family well. There's a bunch of other issues going about with my other family as well, but aye, then things start getting too personal to post here, and I don't want to make things too sad anyway. Suppose with that, we should get onto the happier stuff - namely, my absolute addiction to Pokémon as of late.

Specifically, Pokémon Platinum has taken up all of my free time. I haven't played anything past generation 4, except for some snippets of Black, but it's without a doubt my favorite generation. It's certainly a bit slower, both on the overworld and in the battle system, but aside from that, there is so much I love about it. The music is phenomenal, the new Pokémon and moves added are great, whether it be in design, stats, or both, I much prefer Cynthia and Barry over Steven, Wallace and Brendan/May from the previous generation, and the newly introduced mechanics are, for the most part, good additions. Except for the HMs, but I'm pretty sure even the biggest gen 4 supporters can agree that the HMs are awful. Oh yeah, and have I mentioned that this is the generation where we get remakes of Gold, Silver and Crystal? Of course you already knew that, but considering how much I love generation 2, yeah this is absolutely fucking incredible. I won't say too much about Heart Gold or Soul Silver yet, since I haven't played through much of either at the time of writing this, but from what I have seen, they look like the best games in the series.

If for whatever reason you're wondering what I've been doing in Platinum, it's mainly been radar chaining for shinies. To make it brief, the Poké Radar, an item given to you after completing the Sinnoh Pokédex, can be used to chain specific Pokémon encounters together. Chain enough of them together, and you get greatly increased shiny odds. It gets way more complex than that in how to best manipulate the chain and whatnot, but that's the jist of it. This is one of the things I love about generation 4, the fact that it gives you a way to get shinies without having to beat your head against a brick wall for 12 hours until you hit the 1 in 8,192 odds. There's also the Masuda method, or the foreign breeding method for shinies, where you breed two different language Pokémon together for greatly increased odds, which is also much appreciated. Down below, I've attached some screencaps of what I've gotten so far.

Overall, very happy with what I've gotten so far. There are some more shinies that aren't posted above, but all of them are duplicates of one of the species already posted, since chaining allows you to get more than one of the shiny you're going for if you don't break the chain. Oh yeah, and fun facts, I actually had many more shiny Eevee caught the day after that Umbreon from the Trophy Garden, but I released them all considering the fact that I save stated to get to a 40 chain. If you're wondering why I'd do that, well, the chain that got me to that Umbreon also broke as soon as I went into the shiny patch, so I was only able to get one Eevee. Me being salty, I pissed on the game afterwards, and then promptly removed the shinies once I came back to my senses. Still says my highest chain as of now is a 50 chain on Eevee though, so that'll forever stain my save. Ah well, it is what it is. Should also mention that the Bibarel up there is named after Schaffrillas Productions, and it was named that because of some.. really, really shitty news that came out the same day that I caught them. I won't mention what it is here, out of respect for James (the channel owner) and everyone else involved or lost in what happened, but if you really need to know, look it up. All I'll say is that I hope everyone is doing what they need to, and that they're recovering okay. The most I can do is say that I wish the best for everyone involved, that and try to give thanks in my own weird, stupid way by naming a shiny after him.

But yeah, things aside from Pokémon.. a Nintendo Direct happened a couple days ago. No news on Prime 4 but the remaster looks cool. I'd say I'm excited for the new Switch Online additions, but I'm really not. Mainly because I'd much rather own the games instead of renting them out over a subscription service. That, and it's launching without a single mainline Pokémon game, nor the Sonic Advance series, so any interest I would've had out of the gate is completely lost. Like no, really, all I want is a way to legally play Fire Red, Leaf Green, or Emerald without having to shell out hundreds of dollars to scalpers. I've already practically done that with FRLG, the entirety of gen 2, and for some of gen 1 as well. I've heard rumors about the games potentially being released on Pokémon Day this month, which I hope to god is true. Otherwise, mild sadness, then straight back to piracy as I've been doing for gen 3 and gen 4.

Aside from all of that, things have been the same for the most part. School's been the same, online stuff has been the same, all that jazz. My birthday is coming up in less than a week now (02/16), so that's nice. Gonna be turning 18, which is scary considering I'll be an actual adult, and that plus the forthcoming societal pressure won't be great, but I'll manage. Nothing much else going on, though. I'll try to update this blog at least somewhat periodically, although considering my previous track record, that might not be held too tightly. I'll try, though.