Roy Tang

A quote:

“You are the books you read the films you watch, the music you listen to, the people you meet, the dreams you have, the conversations you engage in. You are what you take from these. You are the sound of the ocean, the breath of fresh air, the brightest light and the darkest corner. You are a collective of every experience you have had in your life. You are every single second of every single day. So drown yourself in a sea of knowledge and existence. Let the words run through your veins and let the colours fill your mind.” – Jac Vanek

The world:

• The president of Haiti was assassinated
• Richard Branson is scheduled to go to space this weekend, kicking off the billionaire’s race to get off the planet they ruined.
• Covid19: The delta variant continues to ravage many parts of the world, including the US and even our neighbor Indonesia. Surprisingly, despite lax border controls the variant is not yet widespread here, though some people fear we are undergoing a silent surge with less people willing to be tested and undergo quarantine restrictions.

Links of interest:

• Manuel Moreale writes about how the internet isn’t broken, people are. The weird thing is that I don’t remember sharing this via pocket, but it appears I did, and it’s a decent enough read, so yay?
• NPR’s Joy Generator: A nice experiment
• The songs that inspired the Super Mario Bros. soundtrack (warning: Tiktok)

Visit the Links page for more links of interest.

From the archives, this week in history:

• 2020: Philippine Congress shuts down ABS-CBN
• 2014: We bought a Nintendo console again after more than a decade!

My stuff:

• HELTH: Had a bit of a scare early in the week, as I ran a fever starting from Sunday evening. Pre-pandemic, it’s nothing I’d just take some biogesic and sleep it off, but now we have to worry about Covid. To be sure, I had an RT-PCR swab test taken by Monday lunch time. My brother and his family had passed by the house Sunday morning and we hung out a bit outside shooting the breeze, so aside from the seniors I live with, I was worried for them, so the test was mostly to be sure and for peace of mind. I thought the test itself would be uncomfortable, but it was super quick, swab went in and out once per nostril, then one more in the throat. It was a bit pricey, as someone comes to your home to do it, but the results came quickly, got the NEGATIVE result the next morning. Hugh sigh of relief. By then my fever had gone down. I self-isolated for a couple more days just to be sure. Am completely fine now.
• I wrote a bunch of words on the blog this week. Other than the usual media reviews, there’s this post on Compshop culture in the Philippines and also some commentary on what it takes to be President of this country.
• Still sketching; Nothing I’m too proud of this week, kind of phoned in a lot of them. Here’s Squeeks from Transformers: The Last Knight:

• Watching:

  • Movies: Actually managed to watch a fair amount of movies this week!
    • James Bond run continues into the Brosnan era with Goldeneye (1995) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
    • Black Widow came out this week of course, bringing the MCU back to the movies. Linked review starts spoiler-free.
    • Watched some dumb movies (America the Motion Picture (2021) and Ice Road (2021)) during the Saturday gaming watchalong.
  • Not much TV this week apparently. Still keeping up with Flash, Rick and Morty, Loki. Mildly annoyed that Loki has one episode to go and we still don’t have any real idea who the big bad is.

• Gaming:

  • Reduced gaming a bit during the few days I was sick, but I did resume Horizon Zero Dawn and Guilty Gear Strive towards the end of the week.
  • Latest MTG set Adventures in the Forgotten Realms has dropped on Magic Arena! I’ve started streaming drafts as usual, you can follow via the MTGAFR tag
  • Also thinking of streaming some non-MTG Steam games next week, we’ll see if that pushes through.
  • Regular Saturday group played some Root and Blood Rage again, as usual.
  • Steam Sale ended without me taking any damage! Also, I think I’m pausing this month’s Humble Choice again.

• Reading: No books this week, mostly just comics.

• No online quiz night for the trivia team this week, we just indulged ourselves with the NY Times crossword and spelling bee again.

This coming week:

• Loki season finale!