Click on water to feed fish

Saturday, January 6, 2018

A Brave New Year

It seems F.O.R.E.V.E.R since my last entry -- Christmas and New Year already come and gone -- so here is a bumper edition :-)

To welcome 2018, I led a therapeutic/ nourishing class today ... after all, we can take a step back, reflect and contemplate at the beginning (as well as the end) of a year, right? Why not start a new year with calmness and solid grounding. And everyone in the class loved it! The slower pace and the gentle stretching. After months of not being able to stretch my right shoulder today I can finally do it; I didn't push it though but it felt great especially after months of immobility. The physio - painful that it was - really helped. I plan to go to a level 2 yoga class tomorrow. The instructor is not one of my favourites (too ... athletic) but there are just no other choices. Also, I think it's important to have a practice that challenges the body (at least once in awhile). There are now so many poses that I am working on that I like but not quite there yet: handstand, seated wide-leg forward fold, split, wheel with straight arms ... also, elsewhere, my (outer) knees are definitely not getting better (chronic pain) so will see where my yoga practice will take me this year. 

Game-wise, I've returned to Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire after a couple months away (spent WAY too much on this MMO) and only because my guildie mate wanted to pass my account onto someone whom I don't think would do a great job maintaining it. Luckily the guildie I did entrust the account to did a GREAT job in not only in sustaining it but actually made advancement with it. So now I feel my base/empire is a lot stronger/ powerful than when I left it. Also it appears Square Enix, who holds the licence to the whole Final Fantasy franchise, is not happy with studio Machine Zone, which basically turned the title into a money-spinning thing, instead of a proper game for the Final Fantasy fans and community and gamers who are genuinely interested in the title. There are now rumours that SE will pull the game next month ... I love the game still but let's get a proper studio to run it not some greedy, money-grabbing enterprise!



I have also started Danganronpa V3 ... tbh, I think the aura around this franchise is gone. I spent, like, five hours+ just to do the prologue and first chapter and it was WAY WAY too long. I quite like the new cast but ... oh well, will see if I will stick with this. I certainly am in no hurry to finish it. Have also been trying to finish Escha & Logy in the Atelier series... I actually really enjoyed playing this game -- I finally got my head around the synthesis/ crafting -- but there is a time limit to the game and it appears I won't be able to tackle any of the big bosses until second playthrough so I've kinda left it there (for now). And I am still very slowly playing Final Fantasy XV on my PlayStation 4...  I completed quite a few side missions last time but I forgot to save -- and then got salightered -- so I will have to reply those again ... all in all, there is enough game stuff to keep me busy this year.

On the gadget front, after the VERY disappointing Sony Xperia XZ1 compact -- Android 8 or Oreo is so full of bugs -- I went back to the LG G5 and to my (pleasant) surprise, the phone is pretty good and with the Cam Plus added onto it, I enjoy using it for gaming/ photo taking and social media. Just as well I didn't re-buy the XZ1 compact!!! And a friend also got me the Black Edition of the KeyOne, which is great since I've dropped the one I am using a few times and I wanted to have a spare just in case this one dies! 

So here we are. Now we have the Chinese New Year to look forward to (in February) !!