December 2025 Entry:
2025 comes to an end.
MISC=========================
- Watched The Match (12.01). I didn't like it, but I didn't dislike it. I think because it was very much the student-teacher trope that I could predict what was going to happen. There were some cool moments like when Go pieces would be laid out. But other than that, I found myself losing interest here and there. I had to watch the credits separately (thought there was something to see) because I needed to go to work. Again, not bad, but not great. I don't even recall how this popped into my list of things to watch.
- Headed to CVS before work (12.01). Had a 40% off coupon that would expire and I checked to see if there was anything I needed that I'd been holding off on. And that thing was new bristles for my electric toothbrush. I ordered it for pick-up, which I had never done before. I figured it would save time in hunting for the item as I was going to work. When I got the item, the bag felt odd. As soon as I stepped outside, I pulled out the item and the box was open. Immediately went back to the same worker and showed her that it was already opened. She called for a manager to come to the front to check on things. Both of them were stunned. I can remember her questioning "who do you think would have done this" because it's not a highly sought item (I assume). Plus that means the person opened the package, took out the contents, and then wrapped it back in the bag to be picked up. Thankfully the manager found another box that was unopened. They apologized, I thanked them, and I left. And because of that, I probably won't make another order for pick-up.
- I had the flu at the beginning of December (12.02-12.08).
Night 1 - I could tell I was getting sick as work went on. I was getting more chills and my muscles were aching more than normal. While I could have stuck it out and done more cleaning that night, I'm glad I left early when I did. As soon as I got in the car, I coughed up a storm. The whole ride back home, my body was in so much pain. Almost immediately after I got home, I threw up. I was able to do what I would normally do the rest of the night, I did sleep early and took some NyQuil. Unfortunately, I threw up a few more times throughout the night solidifying I was sick.
Day 2 - I called off work. I let my parents know I was sick (even asked my dad the night before to pick up soup tomorrow as a precaution). I did all the things I normally do when I'm sick, but my body wasn't responding like it usually would. That worried me a lot. The fact that I couldn't keep anything down meant I wasn't having a high intake of anything leading to no energy and strength. Plus I was getting way hotter than normal. I asked my parents to take me to the nearby ER, which they were okay with. I figured it's better to go early instead of waiting it out hoping I could maintain myself (because I wasn't). Checked in around 2PM, showed them a note of symptoms I typed up (I could barely speak at the time), got checked on, had my blood pressure taken, was asked some questions, and was given a flu/COVID test. 15 minutes later, the result was the flu. They recommended three different medications (one for the flu itself, one for the cough, and one for nausea so I could eat). Those were to be ready in a couple hours. My parents took me home and they got the medications for me to start later that day.
Night 2 - The nausea medication helped instantly like the doctor said and I was able to keep food in me. The other medications were to be determined as the one for the flu was to be taken twice a day and the coughing four times a day. I tried to go to sleep around 8PM, but that's when I was getting way too hot again. Not only that, but my body was cramping up. My mom helped by bringing frozen bottles of water to cool me down, but it wasn't enough. I headed downstairs as my dad earlier mentioned I could sleep downstairs so I wouldn't be alone at night. I pointed out the cramps and he started to massage my hands. My mom joined shortly after to help, but I suddenly felt the urge to vomit. I didn't, but I still went to the bathroom. That's when she started to feed me ice chips (a first time trying that for a fever) and lightly rub my arms and neck with ice cubes to help lower my body temperature. They brought me back to the downstairs bed and massaged my legs while I nestled a warm water bottle next to my cramping stomach. Maybe an hour later after they were done was when I simply fell asleep. I woke up a few times (coughing, feeling hot, etc), but would be able to roll back to sleep. I eventually went back to my room as my dad's snoring was very loud. It took a little time, but I eventually was able to sleep for a few hours.
Day 3 - More resting. Had to catch up on all the sleep I lost the last couple of days. Thankfully I could tell I was feeling better. Shout out to the Game Informer Super Replay playlist helping like many other times I've been sick over the years. I tried to watch a couple of videos, but couldn't really do it due to some being overstimulated.
Night 3 - The night was not great as I was having very bad back pain. Even with some pain medicine, it persisted throughout the night. It was rough as the slightest movement could trigger a jolt of pain. I'm pretty sure I passed out from the pain.
Day 4 - Felt a lot better. Still had many symptoms, but I had more energy (even if it was a little). This was also my first time back in front of my computer. I needed to get back to being upright and see how long I could last. Also to slowly adjust my eyes back to focusing on a screen.
Night 4 - Another tough night of sleep. Instead of my back, it was my stomach. Similar instances of slight movement would give so much pain. I thought it was due to hunger, but even after eating some crackers, the pain persisted. I know I fell asleep eventually due to exhaustion.
Day 5 - Woke up with stomach pains similar to the night before. I did take a pain pill to help and that made it go away over time. Other than that, I felt even better than the day before. Finally took a shower (waited for the fever to go away). My time being up and in front of a screen and moving around in general greatly increased as well. I did replace my bed sheets since I spent more than enough time stewing in the sickness of sheets already.
Night 5 - Finally ate something that wasn't doused in soup. The soup did vary with what was in it (rice, noodles, various meats and vegetables, etc). But since the stomach pains weren't actually something internal like I was worried it was, I figured this would be a good time to try something more solid. Pizza being the first meal was fitting. Only ate two slices. I did eat some soup later on at night because I wanted to make sure I didn't wake up hungry at 3AM or 4AM like I have been. It took a while to fall asleep, but this was probably the longest duration of sleep I had without interruptions.
Day 6 - Woke up more tired than normal, but decided to try daily routines such as stretching. After playing a demo, I did feel fatigued so I laid down falling in and out of sleep until eating spring rolls for lunch. Played games for the first time since being sick. It was good to know I could keep up with it without feeling queasy or distracted.
Night 6 - The weather is warmer so I was constantly changing how much I should wear as I was feeling cold or warm. Overall, this was the most normal I have felt. Had a little trouble falling asleep, but that was the worst of it.
Day 7 - Colder morning to wake up to and my stomach was feeling queasy. That had me worried, but that slowly subsided. Almost took the nausea medicine since I still have plenty, but I didn't have to. The rest of the day I kept mentally checking if things were getting any better/worse since this was the tail end of a week. Wanted to make sure things were staying on track. The flu medication was finished, the cough medicine is still being used, and the worst thing that really has lingered is losing my voice. Plus I promised work I'd be back on Wednesday.
And that's where I'll end the story of having the flu. It did its thing and it was not fun. Shout out to NXT Deadline for getting my adrenaline up just like they did last year when I was sick (fun show). Shout out to my mom for trying her best and trying to avoid getting what I had, but ultimately she got it from me even though she had the vaccine (it went through her faster than me). Shout out to my dad for doing what he had to to take care of us (picking up food and medication and more). Also a weird side effect; my right bicep is healed. I haven't mentioned it much, but my right bicep would hurt from the smallest movements. My guess is that not being as mobile gave it enough time to heal, yay.
It's crazy because a year ago I was sick and missed a week of work. Last time it wasn't the flu and from what I wrote in my blog post, it wasn't as bad. Hopefully this won't happen a third year in a row.
- John Cena's final match, wow (12.13). I enjoyed it, I soaked it in, I shed some tears. Thank you, Cena.
- Re-upped my health benefits (12.14). I think I waited until the last minute last year too. Same plans, but with a few adjustments.
I finally opened up my Black Friday purchase, an electronic air duster. I was always bad about buying more cans of compressed air. This was a great solution. It works really well too.
- Met up with a customer turned friend, APW (12.15). We kept talking online for months after our first meeting. She posted a photo of some kimchi fried rice she made and I jokingly said to save me some. After a bit of back and forth, she was going to drop some off at work. But I was then called off from work. I asked if she still wanted to meet up and she was down for it. I offered to get boba and a meal since she was giving me a meal, but she took a raincheck on that. We ended up meeting at a Target. I was there early so I walked around until she showed up. She handed me the fried rice, we walked a lap around the store, and sat down at the little restaurant that was there and talked (dogs, work, escape rooms, etc). It was really nice. After about an hour, she had to go. Walked her to her car, mentioned she could always hit me up to do an escape room, hugged, and went our separate ways.
I ate the fried rice for lunch the next day and it was wonderful. It took a while to get the tupperware back to her as the holidays came up. Finally ended up meeting (12.28) at Long Coffee (never been there before) before the dog she was taking care of was going on a playdate. I put a bag of gummy bears in the tupperware as a thanks and she brought up the Tupperware Rule, which I didn't know of. I was just doing something nice, ha. Chatted about random stuff for about half an hour before she had to leave for the playdate.
- Texted back and forth with a friend while at work (12.16). We didn't make any plans prior, but we just wanted to hang out after work. It almost didn't happen as I was originally scheduled to work until 10PM and that would have been too late since we both worked the next day. Luckily the day was slow so I asked if the staff would be okay if I left early. Met up with them and just had another deep talk about many subjects. Never realized they were a picky eater, ha. Thank you for your time as always.
- HeXagon members met for dinner at Sushi Haya (12.19). The original plan was a potluck at NRM's, white elephant, and karaoke to end the night. But since NRM recently got sick, he didn't want any of us to catch it hanging around at his place. That's when the Sushi Haya plan came to be.
I bought my white elephant gift around 5PM the day of (found it easily) and then went to meet NE at their workplace and hang for a bit. I was there for maybe about half an hour looking around at stuff and chatting with him before heading out to Sushi Haya. I was the third to arrive. Ended up with 6 of us. NRM ordered a table setting to celebrate the two birthdays (NE + HD). Food was great and chatter was plenty. The robot server did well (got to see the birthday celebration). And our server was cool and made jokes here and there. He ended up only charging 4 of us as a surprise birthday gift for the 2. That was awesome and funny as originally I was going to pay for NE's dinner and NRM was going to pay for HD's.
We still did white elephant, but at the restaurant. We cleared up some space and 5 of us went in. I was first to choose and we went all the way around. My gift was last to be opened...not 1 but 2 rotisserie chickens, ha. I saw an Instagram post about that a week prior and figured that would be an excellent gift that almost no one would turn down. I was also the first to steal as I took NRM's gift. It had 2 packs of Pokemon cards (I had him open them) and 2 aespa gifts. One was two photo cards (Winter and Ningning) and the other was a random aespa Rich Man guitar pick (Karina). NRM ultimately ended up with chickens and that's when the stealing round ended. I think that ended well as everyone was satisfied with what they got.
After that was done, I pretended to get a phone call and excused myself to leave. Went to my car to get something. I came back in with a serious look on my face and handed NRM a laminated sheet of paper. This was the project I alluded to in an entry or two ago. On the front was pictures with each member and NRM with the title HeXagon NRM Fan Project 2025. On the back was a printout of a ticket for night two of TWICE in Austin. This was the original ticket NRM had to turn away after getting buyer's remorse. But those of us that went to the TWICE documentary, after the movie we talked about doing something for him for bringing us together as friends. I suggested buying his ticket and we can all chip in to give it back to him. I sent out messages to each member separately about the project, the price, and the photo. I bought the ticket off of NRM the next day saying I had a coworker that wanted to go and he agreed to sell it (of course I held on to it for him). Slowly collected everything (had to find photos for some of them). Then it was just deciding on when to give him the gift, which ended up being this dinner event. He thought the gift was simply the front side. Then he turned it around and realized it was the actual ticket he bought. He had no idea and the fan project went off without a hitch. Thank you for being a good person, NRM. You deserve the ticket.
We took some group photos in the entrance and the outside before splitting ways. Cheers, HeXagon.
- Christmas party part two with Friendsmas at Rannchan and G's (12.20). I let them know ahead of time that I would be late due to work. I ended up being there half an hour later since work got busy. I ended up there around 8:30PM. The 6 that were there (2 had left earlier) were playing Jackbox games, specifically The Devils and the Details. They were all engrossed so I only greeted a few during and the rest after. I sneakily joined the audience and caused chaos and none were the wiser (I told them after). 2 of them left shortly after and it was just the 5 of us. I gave them their gifts (the only ones I bought stuff for) with one being something I bought from work before I left. Then I opened my gifts. There was only one unfortunate gift I had to turn down as the version that was bought was the international version of Final Fantasy VII and VIII even though I had placed the US version in my wish list and I already had the international version. They were going to exchange it for the US version, but I ultimately said to exchange it for Final Fantasy IX as I had neither version. The rest of the gifts consisted mainly of candy and snacks and those will last a long time. We stuck around to talk about stuff until parting ways at 10:30PM as 3 out of the 5 of us had plans the following day. Even though it was brief, it was good to be around them for the yearly tradition.
- G invited myself and Triple-S to the grand opening of a new Round1 (12.21). G was invited by them as a creator so we were able to go in early before the doors were open to the public (part of the mall). We saw other creators around that time as well filming stuff (shout out to the pretty blonde Asian girl). I had never been to one so I was excited to see one in person. They picked me up around 8AM and we arrived around 9AM. We checked in and got a tour from one of the managers. Then G go their gear together for myself and Triple-S to film things throughout the day (I won't bring it up all the time, but just assume we filmed everything). It was mainly us following G as they pointed out stuff and described and gave backstory on specific things they interacted with (arcade games, claw machine prizes, etc).
The first main attraction we did were the crane games. G got one Miku statue after spending 20 minutes on it ultimately to have it fall down in between turns. Around 10:30AM was when we took a short break before we played a game of bowling (we received a coupon for one free game). Next up were the arcade games. I finally got to play Dance Rush. I did roll my ankle during the first song, but kept going. It was cool to see how much control you actually had. It definitely can be challenging like any other rhythm game (shout out to the one girl who was really good and doing spins). G tried out a few specific games as we continued on. We ended our filming with the Spo-Cha (sports challenge) area. We were given free 90-minute vouchers. Signed our waivers, waited a few minutes as the staff wasn't sure how to use the vouchers, bought Spo-Cha socks, and proceeded to follow G as we went around the upstairs area. We did the trampoline/joust, batting cages, mini-golf, jump rope challenge, basketball bounce area, and ended with riding the mechanical bull. That's where we wrapped up our filming by putting everything back in Triple-S' car.
We walked around the mall for a bit as G needed to stop by one shop to pick up clothing. It's been a while since I've been in a crowded mall. It did feel nostalgic simply walking around. Nothing really stood out to me in general other than checking out stores I've never been to. Triple-S bought something from the Lego store. Then it was back to Round1 to finish out the rest of the credit we had on the card. G did receive a creator card with 400 credits to start, but we added more money to the card. I think in the end I put $50 worth of credits into it. My main targets for prizes in the crane games were a large Eevee and a Frieren mimic figure. While there were other Frieren figures, I wanted the mimic one as it was the silliest. I did try a few smaller crane games, but came back to the ones I had my eyes on. For the Eevee, I grabbed the prize cushion every time and every time it fell out of the crane's hands. For Frieren mimic, you had to line up the hook that dangled on a chain to pick up 1 of 3 boxes. 80% of the time I was able to land the hook on the box, but it never ended up in a position to actually hook the box. I felt very defeated as I put in so much money and walked away with nothing.
We left at 5PM to go to Bonfire Wings for dinner. I had not eaten anything all day minus a small snack before leaving and drinking water. It all started to hit me during this drive so I was mainly quiet while my body was exhausted and low on energy. The wings were good, but I was more into the fries. I had not had a good offering of seasoned fries in a while so these tasted wonderful. The wings were nothing to scoff at, but I felt like they were similar to other wing places. We talked about stuff in general like the food stream not too long ago and how to make the next one better, our accomplishments of the year, etc. At some point, another customer was watching the football game on screen and exclaimed out loud when a big play happened. She apologized, but we let her know she was okay as she was enjoying herself. That's when dialogue between her and G opened up as they started to talk more about sports. After I came back from throwing away my food and going to the bathroom, the conversation had shifted to figuring out our ethnicities. And then she got emotional as she talked about her son who commited suicide. I then shifted from our table to sitting with her across from her. She let stuff out and told us about her son. I interjected a few times mentioning how we could tell how much she cared for him by the way she was talking about him. She almost cried a few times. We ended by giving her words of encouragement. I said something like end the year by eating some good food. She gave me a hug and we left. Of course we talked about her and that whole exchange in the car. G and Triple-S got boba. I would have, but I still had my drink from the wing place. Then it was just more conversations in the car back home. G got dropped off first and I was last. Got home around 9PM.
I did what I could to catch up on social media and videos, but I was very exhausted. Lots of sore muscles. I even had a cramp in my left leg, ankle, and foot on the car ride home before G was dropped off. It was an eventful day that was originally going to end at 2PM, ha. But it made for (what I believe) a nice big event to end the year on. Thanks again for inviting us, G.
- Last minute plans for Handam (12.25). BL contacted HeXagon members to see who was available. In the end, it was only five of us. I had no plans other than starting A Space for the Unbound. Dinner plans were for 7PM. BL was there first waiting. I was second. It had been a few months since I went to Handam so I was surprised that their waiting area had arcades now. The one that caught my eye was for Marvel Super Heroes VS Street Fighter. I picked some fighters and BL chose his. Shortly after, we both realized the buttons were not properly configured. What would be strong kick was mapped as all three kick buttons. We finished our match and I realized there was a menu button at the top of the control panel. I pushed it and it made sense. This was on an emulator that had 3000+ games on it ranging from platformers to racers to fighters etc.
The rest of the gang showed up and we went to be seated. I recognized the server that checked us in and it took a bit for him to remember me. Then the owner came up and she recognized me right away. They were two of the four workers that came to make reels for us at work (their fifth didn't work with them). The other two weren't there, but I was glad they recognized me instead of me having to ask if they remembered me. We sat and BL gave us surprise Christmas gifts. All were Kpop related and something towards our favorite groups. Mine was ITZY's GOLD album. The rest of the night was eating good food and sharing stories. When the bill came, I asked for the owner. When they visited me, they promised to give me a discount when I go eat at their workplace. It wasn't applied and she realized why even though she told the staff to give our table a discount. We were thankful for the discount. We left around 9:30PM. The rest of them went to get boba while I was tired and went home. The last thing I did was open up the GOLD album and take photos (thanks again, BL).
- Watched Superman (12.28). I had $2 credit on Amazon so I used it and paid the rest to rent it. I was very close to watching this in theatres, but never ended up doing it. But I'm glad I thought about watching it before the year was over because it was a great piece of media to end the year on. My only negative was the jokes, but it only bothered me a little. Other than that, I was surprised that there was very little character building. It's as if they figured you knew who the main established characters were so we're just going to have things play out. For someone that is familiar with them, I was pleased to just jump right into things. The story itself was done well in establishing this version of Superman. Krypto was used more than I would have assumed. Every character I thought was represented well. The fights and action scenes were fun to watch and never felt like they overstayed their visit. Definitely recommend it for Superman fans. Whenever Supergirl comes out, I'll be ready to watch it.
- Another KPop Demon Hunters shirt (12.30). I only bought this because of the Batman The Animated Series homage. Great stuff.
- I unfortunately lost my Karina guitar pick (12.31). I realized it while out at HEB for work. I was walking into the store and just looked down at my bag and it was gone. There are only a few places I would have lost it; at home, at work, or at HEB. I don't think it's at home because it would have been noticeable. If I lost it at HEB, no way I'm finding it. My hope is to find it at work as I can think of a few places it could be or maybe it'll pop up while cleaning.
Ended the night with a short meeting with a friend after work. Caught up, watched some fireworks, parted ways. I'm glad they were the last person I interacted with (in person) for 2025. You're incredible.
GAMES=========================
- Demo Showcase Shorts continues. 12 demos. One was a co-op only demo called We Were Here Together. Two were repeats with Drag x Drive and Sonic Racing: Crossworlds (NS2 version). The biggest stand out was Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. I knew what the demo was and knew it would be long so I made sure to carve out the time for it. I did use some of the extra head start options, which made it easy, but it's good to know that I could turn these types of things on if I had trouble with the main game (to be played in February).
I also decided to not play any more demos after Final Fantasy VII. There was only one more, but I thought that was a great demo to end the year with. Plus it wouldn't hurt to have more demos to start the year with (if more than the one accumulate).
- CounterAttack: Uprising was a Demo Showcase Shorts favorite from 02.20.25 (12.01). As I mentioned in my posting after beating it, I do agree with the positives I originally gave it. It definitely was a zone out and shoot things type game. Never felt overwhelming. But that might be different in the harder campaign paths. Were the campaigns not so long I would have made the attempt to do more. Other than that, I do think having so many different power-ups was not necessary. I rarely switched to anything different other than to try them out if they seemed worth it. If you're interested in this, try the demo. And if you're interested afterwards, wait for a sale. While I actually got it for 75% off, it was actually 80% by the time I actually got around to playing it. So you can definitely get it on a deep sale.
- Got my Twitch Recap 2025 (12.02). Interesting to see as I felt this year I've been the least active in streams. I can only picture it being less and less as time goes and only really dedicating any real stream time towards a handful.
- BATTLE CRUSH was originally the free-to-play game of the month (12.02). Upon booting it up, a notification popped up saying an update was needed...even though I always update games before playing them. Nothing was advancing it so I went to check the online page on Nintendo's site...and it was gone. Not a good sign. A quick Google search showed that the game was cancelled on 11.29.24. It only lasted a few months due to a low player count and that makes sense. I just didn't know.
So the real free-to-play game of the month was Vivitter for Nintendo Switch. This oddly enough was accidentally left off the schedule (might have been an oversight) because it was the next one on the list, but not the next scheduled. But I'm glad I got to play this because I really enjoyed it. It was a collection of micro-games that required only one button to push with the occasional use of the analog stick. It was fast and silly. The real challenge that could get frustrating is the timing. Everything requires excellent timing to get a higher score, which you need to achieve a gold medal for each game. My only gripe was that there wasn't a quick retry option. If you fail, you have to go through the whole introduction sequence again, which could take a good minute or so just to try it again. Other than that, I recommend giving it a try.
- SOLAR JETMAN was the NES NSO/NC game of the month (12.07). I don't think I rented this so maybe a cousin had it. I definitely have memories of playing this game. Well, the first level anyways. I remember how the game played too. It's not an easy one, which the first level misleads with. Not only that, but stages are large. Without maps, you could run out of fuel and have to return to base to get a new one many times over. Add to that different types of gravity and enemies and the already rough traversal is multiplied. Conceptually, it's good. Execution requires patience and accuracy. If you don't get used to the controls in the first stage, you will have a tough time trying to make it through the rest of the game. Even with passwords found online, I still had to reference maps to make sure I wasn't going way off course and only finding what was necessary. I would never have guessed the game genre would change upon the last stage. I think it's worth a try, but overall hard to recommend. You will know right away whether you want to continue playing it or not.
- Jet Force Gemini was the N64 NSO game of the month (12.08-12.09). Never played it before. Heard it was good. I wasn't really into it. Sure it's early 3D, but it felt very slow overall. The aiming wasn't great either making some fights not fun. I didn't know that you swapped characters either so when I thought I was done with one character, I didn't know you were to continue with the other. But I thought that was neat and powered through to get what I thought was the end. We beat the boss, a cutscene played, and the game kept going. We had to collect the missing ship parts in order to unlock the final area and fight the final boss. I had no idea that was a thing. I looked it up and found lists of how to attain each one. I collected a few (one of them being fairly tough, another requiring backtracking to find a stage I never made it to, etc). And then I read about the next part listed that required you to save every Tribal (good NPCs) in the game. I thought about it and looked up how many there were...and then I decided to stop. There was no way I was going to play through everything again to make sure I saved every single one. I already wasn't having that much fun with the game, but now it's required to play through it all again and be sure to use the correct character per area because not everyone has access in order to save the Tribals. I don't mind a bit of tedium or planning, but not for something I wasn't enjoying. Originally I had this game slated to play until the 14th, but after a few minutes thinking about whether to go for it or not, I decided to cut my losses.
- Finally picked up my pre-orders (12.10). When they called saying they were ready on the fourth, I asked how long they could hold it since I was sick. Normally it's 3 days, but they said they can make an exception since I had the flu. They definitely had plenty of copies of Metroid Prime 4, but they didn't have much of Sylux. I think mine might have been the only one. Headed off to work and then took photos the night of and the next morning.
- My MyNintendo NSO 2026 Calendar came in (12.14). Usually they have two kinds; one for everyone and one for NSO members. This time it was only NSO. No big deal, but it just surprised me they went the exclusive route.
- Metroid Prime 4: Beyond 100% completed (12.11-12.19, 12.25). Part of me was worried I wouldn't like the game. It might have been because of the long process of it being made. But it didn't long for things to feel familiar and I was just going. Controls were good and exploration wasn't too intimidating. There were a few times I got stuck and had to look things up, but the fact that there are in-game trackers (markers on maps, percentage checklists, etc) made going back and forth from different areas easier. I was surprised with my high scan percentage each time I saw my save file, but playing each Prime game made me diligent about scanning everything (a couple times I reloaded a save because I missed something). The item collection percentage was always lower by at least 20%. The day before I finished the game there were only 3% of things left to scan (end game) and the green crystals.
Green crystals could have been better. Coupling that with the desert wasn't clicking for me. I never felt completely comfortable driving around because I would always crash into a pile of green crystals and immediately jump off to shoot the rest rather than swinging around to run into them. Plus there's a lot of nothing in the desert (duh, it's a desert). The last percentage of green crystals I was missing was in the beginning of the game. It's unfortunate that the tracker you eventually get is only for green crystals outside in the desert, otherwise I would have probably had at least one less hour of my total play time.
I gave myself until Christmas to 100% complete the game. I knew I would want to, but the fact that I was finding things at a great rate reduced the time needed to complete it. I made little bits of progress on work days (before or after work) and would have long sessions on my days off. Everything outside of Vi-O-La clicked with me and I was simply enjoying it. Died maybe 15 times at least, but they were usually for dumb mistakes or boss fights. I'm glad this ended up being as good as it was.
- Decided to treat myself to the Toree games as a Christmas gift for myself (12.25). I knew of them thanks to Nintendo Life and had played the demo for Toree Saturn so I had that on my wishlist. The first 3 games were only 99 cents and Toree Saturn had a small discount. I also wanted a proper reason to spend the rest of my gold coins before they expired.
I did order something off of eBay I've had on my watchlist for a while and figured to finally pull the trigger. And then I saw something that I may save up for in 2026 related to the same game.
- A Space for the Unbound was the final game played this year (12.25-12.27, 12.28). Originally played the demo 03.17.24 and got a physical collector's edition on 04.12.24. If I remember correctly, this was slated to be the final game of 2024.
I started over from the beginning like I normally do. The prologue played out the same and then it was on to everything else. It went a different direction than I was expecting. The story made sense and I understood the message it was putting out there. It didn't hit me emotionally like I thought it would, but that might have been my expectations. The art style was great, the music was amazing, and the game play was simple.
I have two criticisms. One is the save system. It was more like a checkpoint system. Even if you hard save at a certain point after dialogue has played out, reloading that save will take you to the closest checkpoint before that happens. So there were quite a few times I had to fast-forward through the dialogue to get back to where I initially stopped. The other criticism is trying to 100% the game to get the true ending. Unless you are very diligent and check everything or are following a guide, you can miss stuff that is only available in one chapter or needed to trigger events in later chapters. If you didn't make multiple saves to reload, you'll have to play through everything again. Sure you can fast-forward through dialogue, but you still have to do everything else. I missed triggering something in chapter two and it wouldn't allow me to do something in chapter three. In the end, I missed two things. Could I have played through everything again, yes. But I really was fine with what I got. I looked up the true ending on YouTube. It was a better way to end the game, but it was also only 2 extra minutes.
Still a great game, but I do (and already have) recommend following a guide so you don't miss anything to get the true ending.
WORK=========================
- Arrived at work about five minutes late due to the situation at CVS mentioned earlier in this entry (12.01). It didn't help that it was raining and there were a few pockets of traffic on my side of the town. KH only had one session before I arrived. I only had one session throughout the day so I spent my time cleaning and making more holiday bags. Nothing really to note. Left at 9:05PM.
- Not a busy Tuesday (12.02). At the beginning of my shift, Agent Ocean, DQ, and one of the ladies were all there for different reasons. The big thing of the day was our fire marshall inspection. The guy arrived a little early so he went around to check all he could before waiting for the one team that was currently playing to leave. Didn't want the alarms going off while in the middle of a game because it sure was loud. He had to keep it on for a few minutes. The sound was louder in certain areas, which made sense due to the rooms and hallways. Only towards the end did I think to grab a set of headphones to help drown out the noise. They weren't noise cancellation headphones, but it helped. Everything was good though thankfully. Once the inspector left (he came back a couple of times), we talked about bad customers. I was making more holiday bags during that time. They all left around 4:30PM.
I did a bit of cleaning before the next scheduled team arrived. That's when I noticed HL was late. I took the team in and she was there. Late by half an hour due to traffic and I totally understand since I hit traffic too if I'm coming in at that time. I spent about another 1.5 hours cleaning before deciding to leave early at 7PM (read about the flu earlier in the entry).
- First day back after being sick for a week (12.10). It was an earlier shift to which KH thought I was early. She left and I took care of things. I checked to see what has changed (a few things) and worked on emails. There were 4 bookings total, but I was only there for the last three. First team was late and not great so I had to push them a lot. Second team was someone I handled over the phone as they accidentally bought a Groupon for the sister location on accident. They had been to both locations and were looking for something to do last minute. I recognized them when they arrived (not by name, just faces) and they were cool. They unfortunately weren't on their a-game and didn't do so well even though they still won. You could tell they were disappointed in themselves despite having a good time. The last team was a family of four with the couple returning and bringing their kids for the first time. They did well with enough help. And while the last two teams were in, someone else I was helping on the phone arrived. They wanted to book for the following day, but also wanted a discount (kindly asked, wasn't pushy), but was iffy about giving their credit card information over the phone. I gave him the discount and he finished his transaction. As a thank you, he gave me a box of chocolate wafers.
Other than those things happening, the ladies stopped by once to get chairs (they thought we had a lot, but we didn't) for the sister location, I replied to emails, and did a wristband count. When the last team left, I took my time shutting down. Yay for around $30 in tips (majority from the last family). Not bad for a first day back. Left around 9:15PM.
- Originally had the day off, but Agent Ocean asked if I could work at the sister location (12.11). The originally scheduled employee wasn't feeling well so they were sent home. I got there around 4PM. Met one of the new trainees who has been in the industry for a bit. Got a good vibe from them. RB and CP were there with friends playing in one of the rooms. Agent Ocean left around 5PM after bringing back a Sam's order.
Then there were 5 back-to-back teams. It would have been easier had one of the teams arrived at their original start time, but due to heavy traffic they were bumped to the next time slot. So it was only two teams and that wasn't bad...until I had a walk-in for first-timers that wanted to play a room. I scheduled them for one that was already set up and the "easiest" room. I exited the original late team, brought in the first-timers, and almost had to take them out because the other game in progress was asking for help and I couldn't do it properly on the iPad. After I took care of them, I brought the first-timers back in and started their game. They weren't good and needed lots of help. At least the other team in progress was doing well enough to not be monitored as much. When I exited them, the next team showed up and I slowly checked them in. Started them about 10 minutes late as there were a few stragglers. They were easy to handle and needed minimal assistance. But the final team showed up and they were all coming in late in pairs. I texted HL to watch that team after I walked them back so I could concentrate on my teams. That last team unfortunately did a few things like force stuff open so we had to redirect their attention and let them know when the future clues would later be in play. The first-timers did well towards the end, but the final puzzle did not properly trigger. They did the answer correctly, I had them try again, and I triggered it...and it didn't open. I tried multiple times and in the end let the end-game fanfare go off. I explained it was something that I would check on after they leave, but they did the bulk of it and figured it out. They were thankfully ecstatic about it. Then it was attention to the second to last team as they were close to the end. There were a few things that had trouble with that I needed to properly trigger for them. They liked it, but they knew they didn't finish strong in the end despite winning. Then I took over the final team from HL and basically guided them along the way. Once they were done, I asked what had happened earlier and complimented them on being observant, but to not use strength to pry stuff open.
Once they left, I locked up the door and slowly started to reset the 5 rooms that were just played. I actually had to prep another room too as there were things that needed to be recharged. I was confident on most of the resets, but had to reference a reset guide for a couple of them. I did double check on the final puzzle the first-timers had issues with. Tested it a few times and still nothing so I let Agent Ocean know and put in a note for maintenance. As I was resetting the final room (second to last played), I called CG to be sure since it's been a while since I closed up by myself at the sister location. Shout out to him for taking the time over FaceTime to show me and to let me know of the smaller things like what monitors get turned off overnight. Gathered the trash, did my walk around, turned off all the lights, locked up, threw out the trash, left at 11:17PM, and got home at 12:11AM. That was a heck of a day.
- Helped tear down the room that's being replaced (12.15). That wasn't the original plan, but it became itIt was myself, Agent Ocean, HL, and the ladies. IB got called in to help with Game Mastering. The bulk was done by Agent Ocean and the ladies. I assisted where I could (wrapping, removing, moving, organizing, etc). We got dirty, ha. Plus some pieces of the set were larger than expected. The 75" TV was the easiest of the biggest pieces to move. When customers came by, I assisted IB with hosting. There was one point I had to go to Sam's to pick up an order around 7PM. When I came back, the food the ladies ordered for us arrived. It was from Piada and a lot of us never had it before. Italian food, but their main hook was basically wrapping all that into a burrito. It was very good so I'm going to keep them in mind for the future.
There was one team of twins that came. Of course I always have to make a silly comment of "you look similar" whenever there are any. They replied that they were twins. I shared a story of a set of triplets that came by. Good stuff.
The rest of the night was more removing and moving stuff. There was one roadblock with the sliding doors and how to remove them. I wasn't there when it eventually happened, but that was the biggest hurdle to help transport stuff out. Agent Ocean left when he did (he stayed a couple hours extra to help). Once the final team was gone, most of the closing duties were done. The ladies told us they would close as they were going to spend a few more minutes with some of the pieces they were confident on. I thanked them and applauded them for all they did and we left early around 11PM.
- Opened on a Saturday (12.15). I had most of the rooms set up before the first set of customers arrived. Thankfully AH showed up shortly after. It was consistently busy all day with 3 birthday parties back to back (most in a long time, plus 3 parties the next day). All of those went well. I did the majority of hosting and cleaning for the first two parties while I only hosted the last one before leaving. Throughout the day, one of the ladies and her husband and son came to move more of the set next door. I helped here and there with opening doors and guiding them through the hallways.
For the meal of the day, the team decided on McDonald's. I ordered a hot 'n spicy with fries and a Fanta. When the order came in, everyone got their food except for CS. They double checked everything and there was nothing for them. I gave CS my fries. We also ordered an extra pizza and I made sure to hand that to them right away. I did find it odd no one else ate the pizza except me by the time I left.
The last bit of business I had was to message Agent Ocean who was at the sister location to ask them to get a physical gift card for me since I forgot to do that last time I was there. He reminded me that I could ring it up remotely after he gave me the number for the card. I did that and asked him to bring it to me the next time we work together. Then I left around 6:20PM.
- Got called off on Monday (12.15). There was only one booking at the beginning of the day so upper management felt it would be better to close the venue to install the new room.
- We had a manager meeting (12.16). This was with both locations and anyone who wasn't scheduled that day to video in. Basically we were trying to make sure everyone was on the same page. Fortunately not a lot of concerns were mentioned, but on our side, we had a long discussion after the call was over. Went over a lot of topics and even made sure that other discussions were going to be had.
The new room was in the middle of being built. It was crazy to see the wood boards up and in such a fast fashion. I checked in here and there with the build team and got to know them on a first name basis. They were working hard and made a lot of progress.
While I was originally scheduled to work until 10PM, it wasn't a busy day. I was able to leave early at 7PM.
- Slowish Wednesday (12.17). Not too much going on so HL said PH (back from college) can come in later to help. Other than the progress with the new room (decorations and props were put in place), we had a birthday party at the end of the day. During that time we had a walk-in. PH stayed a little extra as I wanted to make sure the party was all paid for before he left and I'd be watching the remaining team and the party. Shout out to the mom of the party for a good conversation (gave plenty of compliments, she called me honey, and left one whole pizza the kids didn't eat for me). But it was one of those nights that I had to do everything by myself after the last team left (cleaned the party room, open reset all the rooms, tip tracker, take out trash, etc). I ended up leaving around 10:30PM.
- Busy Saturday (12.20). The previous Saturday was busier with the back-to-back-to-back parties. RL was back from college. He easily slipped back into things, but I made sure to tell him of changes similar with PH the previous day. Unfortunately we had a lot of little mistakes throughout the day (no one watching a team, small reset errors, etc). It didn't throw things off, but it was bad.
The one party we had left a big impression. I ended up speaking with the mom and dad a lot (Brazil, the kids, tattoos, etc). In the end, they wanted to give me three slices of cake. I mentioned it was a lot so that I'd give them to the staff. They asked how many there were (7) and said they'd prepare them. I brought the first slices into the control room and everyone gasped. I said don't eat yet as I was trying to get more. When the mom and dad had the rest, I led them into the control room to present it to the team and all the thanks were exchanged. The cake was so good. The mom ended up giving me a hug and the dad gave me a firm handshake as they left. I stayed about half an hour extra, but that was a great way to end the shift around 7:30PM.
- Busy Monday (12.22). Our holiday room was completely booked out and the rest had sprinkles of bookings throughout the day totaling 14. Helped Agent Ocean with throwing out old chairs (I wanted to take one home, but the best one naturally lowered itself even when "locked") and to adjust the cameras in the new room (this took longer than expected). The new room is looking great though we did find out one of the puzzles was built incorrectly. It was the first day we started to show them off to teams. Thankfully the first was a frequent customer that is super tall (came to get wristbands we didn't have when they played). I didn't get to work on much, but had HW make more holiday bags. I did that towards the end of the day. The last booking ended with a team mishearing me say "white boy" for "white board." It was so funny that at least one of them left a review with "white boy" in it. Unfortunately even though I was asked for my name, they put Agent Ocean down for their review, ha. Left around 9:45PM.
- Even busier Tuesday (12.23). 23 total with the holiday room fully booked again. The ladies were there making sure the new room was ready to go and had their husbands and one of their kids play it. Thankfully they did as there were a few mistakes and things that needed to be fixed. Towards the end of the day, one of them called Agent Ocean to come back (left for his shift around 7PM and came back at 9PM) to host myself and HL to play the room while CP took care of the remaining teams. I originally had asked earlier in the day if a few friends wanted to test it with me over the weekend, but I had to take that back unfortunately. I even said that CP and HL could play instead, but it made sense to have the managers play. The room itself is well designed. Puzzles made sense for the most part. We asked for hints twice and beat the room with 22:19 left. The reset is something we discussed a lot after as it has to be done a certain way otherwise you will be closed off or a puzzle will remain triggered if not done in the correct order. The reset guide will need to be very descriptive. After doing the rest of the closing duties, we left around 10:10PM.
But I didn't clock out right away as I needed to send a message out to the team. One of the ladies and I talked about the company holiday party and had two dates in mind for January. I finished up and sent out a message to both locations for them to react to the message so we could get a headcount. The main concern is the college staff members and when they go back. But we kind of knew that the timing would be a conflict. If it's a conflict for more, we might do it earlier. We shall see. I left around 10:15PM.
- Santa bags, lots of hosting, first HH, reset HH, printer and pc issues, left at 9:40PM (12.24)
- 39 bookings the day after Christmas (12.26). My shift didn't start well. Other than meeting DQ and their family after playing a few rooms, the team was a bit behind. And throughout it all, I did what was necessary. Once things calmed down, I let HL know about ZM being late and she wasn't having it. He originally asked to not be scheduled, but was. I mentioned how he was coming out of state, but she snapped back with AH came back from vacation too and arrived on time (later found out she was out of the city and wasn't flying back in and possibly fighting a snow storm which ZL told me). I forget what else was said, but she ended it with "I don't care" after raising her voice and talking fast like always. I actually raised my voice a bit and said "I'm just updating you." What I didn't say was "because you'd complain if I didn't say anything and you just noticed he didn't show up until later." I felt I was going to yell so I left the room. It's crap like that that makes it horrible to work with her. It's not just "my way or the highway," it's also "I don't care about the reasons because I'm annoyed and pissed off already" and she'd find something to complain about regardless. I know I have to watch myself as I can blow up and of course that's going to be the thing that gets complained about rather than self-reflection. I even got worked up typing this out, geez.
ZM ended up showing up around 5PM due to airport traffic. I thanked him multiple times for showing up because he was needed. Not only were we falling behind due to some staff just not being on top of things, but HL was taking time to properly teach the staff to reset the new room properly, which was necessary. And it's good that three more staff members played it and are now going to properly be able to shadow others in all aspects. Once things calmed down, I left for Best Buy around 6PM. We somehow lost our laptop that we use for parties a week ago and no one knew where it was or claimed to have lost it. The manager on duty for the last party said nothing about it. And because of the business of the new room, this got put to the side. I made sure to because there was a party the following day. I never went to the Best Buy close to work (5-10 minutes). I brought the laptop with me to be safe. I waited patiently for a worker and they were very helpful. They made sure the plug fit the laptop, but wasn't allowed to actually test it. So I trusted them and bought it, but let them know I'd be back if it didn't work. I didn't get to test it right away when I got from work as resets and hosting needed to be done. I think I got to it an hour later and thankfully it worked. I charged it the rest of the day and put it back where it normally sits.
Towards the end of the shift, it was myself, CS, and ZM. We took care of the last few teams and closed things out (trash, resets, tip tracker, etc). We ended on a good note as the final team beat the record for the room they played and they now have two of the records. I gave them a free player card. They also bought a gift card as the deal was still going. I mentioned leaving a review so I could give them my discount code. That person did and I gave them my code as well as the extra discount code for the sister location. I realized that their review brought us up to 1299. Off the cuff I joked to him to tell one of his friends to leave a review since we were one away from 1300. He went to them and said something like "leave a review because these guys are good." It looked like a few were doing it, but only one did and that was enough and I joked that they can all get out now, ha. Yay for ending the night hitting 1300 reviews. Left around 11PM.
- Came an hour early (12.29). PH couldn't find anyone to take his shift and it was busy when he was supposed to be there. I came in at 2PM and IB also came in at 1PM when he was originally scheduled for 5PM. Thank goodness as it would have been rough. Even my first group I brought in was already 20 minutes behind (I can recall the mother saying "finally" when I tended to them). In the end there were 29 bookings so it was busy throughout until the end where there were only a few. I ended up Game Mastering our new room for the first time and did three of them while HW shadowed for one. I definitely felt comfortable with it and my resets were better and faster. There were only a few issues such as a customer dropping a key in a place that wasn't reachable and a piston becoming loose (upper management said a piece was missing). Other than that, we all did our parts to make the shift smooth with minimal hiccups. Left around 10:45PM.
- Came in an hour early (12.31). HW wasn't feeling good and no one took his shift. The beginning of the day was stacked with bookings so me coming in early was needed. It was busy throughout and ended up with 38 bookings. I did leave at one point when all the staff was in the venue to buy drinks we were low on at HEB.
Shout out to the Chilean family that came by. The daughter and mom came by the day before to book the new room, but had questions about it. We booked it before they left. It was for the mom's birthday. At one point they said "vamos" and I echoed them joking that that was all the Spanish I knew, ha. Then I mentioned I knew more especially after dating a Colombian. They asked what about Chileans and I said I appreciate them more because of Stephanie Vaquer. They didn't know who she was and I gave a little information. They enjoyed their time in the room, yay. We also had a family that had done all our rooms and some from other cities. They played our newest one and they had a fun time. They had one critique that I could agree with. In the end, we thanked them and gifted them our new light up wristbands. The ladies mentioned to give those to them earlier and they were definitely delighted. After giving them, they told me that they were originally customers of the owner that is an optometrist, which I didn't know. They thanked me with a $20 tip and left.
CP, IB, and were taking our time wrapping things up. They did a great job throughout the day and especially in the end when it was just the three of us and we all were handling our own set of teams from start to end. I let them leave a few minutes early as I had to finish a few things like tip tracker and sending out a message to the team (we needed more holiday bags made). Left around 10:35PM, but didn't get home until closer to 11:30PM. Reason being that I went to get gas after work, which I had planned to. But I chose a very slow pump. Didn't know that, but I will not choose that pump from now on. Darn you, pump 6, ha.
- Opened for our final work day of the year (12.31). It was myself and CP opening and it was busy with both of us handling 5 teams at most. KH texted saying they would be late (showed up 40 minutes later), but things were easier when CS showed up around 1PM. SC and AH joined shortly after and things were relatively smoother. At one point I left to go to HEB again as we were almost out of toilet paper (5 total for two bathrooms). Came back after about half an hour (most of that time away was sitting in traffic, HEB is 5 or less minutes away) and jumped back into work. I did notice that the staff all ordered food, I was never asked, meh.
Since they were taking care of rooms, I spent time making more holiday bags. AH and CS came out to help a few times and to chat (thanks). We ran out of a few small toys to put in the bags, so I started to put random things inside them like I did last year (bag of chips, wine cups, things from our lost in found never claimed after a year, etc). I noticed a few things throughout the day. One was that if I wasn't keeping track of teams, there were times the staff left customers unattended causing us to take a few teams in late (I've noticed this happens when KH is opening or is leading the team). The other is that I was stumbling on my words here and there. My speeches are repetitive and said in a certain cadence, but something was off for me. I did notice I didn't where any of my Kpop bracelets that day either so it was an odd correlation. Nothing horrible happened, but it was a little jarring. I did make my final Instagram story for the company for the year before calling it a day. I left an hour early at 7PM.
ETC=========================
- Pulled the trigger and left a lot of Discord servers at the end of the year. I had some muted, some have not been active in years, and some I never said a thing in. No offense to anyone, but it was something I felt I had to do.
- TaeYeon - Panorama (MV)
- BoA's contract came to an end (12.30). 25 years is a long time. I always use her as the measure of how long and why I got into Kpop. I do hope she either takes time to relax or does more music without any contractual restrictions. You will always have my support.
- Ending the year with a scam match on Tinder (12.15-12.25). We were complimentary talking via the app and they eventually asked if we could exchange numbers. I did and we texted for a bit before they asked to move to WhatsApp (strike 1). I asked if we could just continue via text, but they hit me with "is this a dealbreaker." It really isn't, but it was going in the direction I didn't want. I did it anyway and we talked a lot. Shared photos (they requested one a day at the least). When we asked what we did, she mentioned that her side hustle was with stocks and crypto (strike 2). I continued talking regardless. I still questioned it and even talked to friends about it letting them know I was being cautious. She did make a request for both of us to delete our Tinder accounts since we seemed to be hitting it off well. I had no problem doing that and did it. She actually wanted to see a screenshot of me at the delete option, but I already did it and deleted it off my phone. She was surprised. I could have done a screenshot, but that would have required redownloading the app, and then screenshotting the delete screen, and deleting it from my phone again. She was okay with the fact that I deleted it...but I didn't delete the others. I didn't tell her that as I knew there was a very high possibility this was going to end in the way I was predicting. I did pause the other apps if anything.
The day after Christmas after a bit of chatting, she mentioned that her analyst had some news about trading on the market and wanted to go in on it together. I said they could try without me and tell me how it goes. They wanted to explain the basics of it and I was okay with that. However, that required downloading an app (strike 3). I asked if they could explain without me downloading the app, but stood firm that it's easier if she walks me through the app. I said they could try again without me and I said how previous matches have done something similar and I lost money and that I hope she understood my apprehension. Then she copied and pasted a comment I made about the first scam I had via dating apps saying that I lied to her about it. I emphasized that that was the first person, there have been multiple since then asking about stocks, block chains, crypto, etc. I did lie that I actually lost money, but not about them ghosting me after I refused. "Bad experiences, not just one." And that's where the conversation stopped. I even waited 48 hours before screenshotting and deleting the app just in case they wanted to try talking again about anything. Nothing. Wasted my time and energy for 10 days.
I'm tired. I'm lonely.
That's a wrap on December 2025. That's a wrap on 2025. Thank you for your support. Be cool and be kind.
"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."
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