i've kinda wanted to do more longer form writing so maybe every once and a while i'll just make some long-ass post about what i've been doing lately? microblogging on twitter was a thing that i did for a long time but i kind of miss just being able to just post some big-ass article about whatever it is i've been up to. so i guess maybe i'll do that
it seems like i'm in one of those phases where my tetris skill is regressing again, so maybe it's time to take a break from grinding it. kind of frustrating since i do want to get better at it for i.e. the TEC Master marathon submission I might or might not want to make some time in the near future, but there's only so much repeatedly throwing yourself at something can do, and sometimes it's better to take a step back and let your brain refresh itself. have had many cases in the past both with Distance and with Tetris that sometimes taking a break makes you play super cracked once you return so maybe that will happen here too
hard to fully take a break from tetris though since it's easy to just fire up Cambridge or something and start trying to grind while watching a video, but I should probably also just find some other stuff to play. i haven't really done much splatoon or BMS lately, splatoon I did some salmon for the big run, I also tried some X matches and uh, all of this went kind of Questionably so I would probably need to derust more, but i'm not really feeling super into splat at the moment, so, eh.
i have done quite a bit more BMS play both today and yesterday though, and that's always fun. although I'm still pretty bad at the game, relatively speaking, but I can tell that I am getting better and that's somewhat satisfying to see. it can be a bit annoying seeing how good people are when they've been playing for years and i'm just here like, "why am I not that good yet" and it's like, dude, this person has been playing for decades and you've only just gotten into it within the past like, 4 months. it pays to remember that I used to struggle to reach 500 in TGM3 World Master in the 7 minute time limit to avoid getting Lets Go Better Next Timed, but after like three years of playing I can 999 somewhat consistently now (although, I've been having more difficulty lately).
something that i do find irritating about trying to play BMS charts though is the apparent frequency of times where I've gone to download a chart from a difficulty table, and there just isn't a working link for it anymore. hell a problem with UGC in general is that it feels like such a hassle to put in New Stuff that sometimes I just kind of don't bother to expand beyond a relatively small selection of things I already know I like, but that's obviously not great when it comes to trying to actually improve at the game, since i need to play a lot of stuff to get exposure to patterns I haven't learned yet. (at least I can use Random to migitate this a bit but I'm also not quite at the level where I can reliably play with Random yet).
stuff like that does make me think about whether or not I should cough up the cash so I can play official IIDX charts. though, without an arcade nearby, the only viable option is to pay for Infinitas - which when faced with the possibility of monthly subscription, paid DLC, or pay-per-play as a monetization option, decided to just go fuck it, we're doing all three, and also apparently has a ridiculously grindy unlock system - or Ultimate Mobile, which, well, is stuck on mobile so a bit awkward, and lacks keysounding. although, ironically enough, it does seem like UM has a more palatable payment model than the PC game, which is hilarious. it seems like it's just $8/mo to get the game's entire song list...? that honestly doesn't seem terrible? although having to find out-of-region app store codes to actually pay for it would be pretty inconvenient. at least with Infinitas you apparently can just make a standard international payment and they won't say no to your money. so. I guess there's that.
granted, for the moment i am not sure i am invested enough that i'd pay a subscription fee regardless of how expensive it is, so i'm unlikely to actually commit to anything just yet and i'll probably just continue with just playing BMS charts for now given the fact that, you know. doesn't cost anything. not much else on report on other than all that, though, so i guess that's the end of this update for now