I feel like the weeks didn’t go by so fast before I started writing these entries lol. Regardless, that’s another week down! Not too much going on this week…

I did have some sleep troubles though (yay) so that probably put a slight damper on things. I also got an update on my COVID booster (with a flu shot) which was a bit rough on my near the end of the week. It’s certainly better than COVID, but it did kind of wrecked my plan to play some more Trail in the Sky over the weekend :( Oh well.

However, despite all of the hindrances, I still managed to make progress in my reading and gaming, plus I watched a few movies! So, let’s get into the updates!

Watching Stuff

John Wick (2014)

My husband and I decided to watch this cause my husband really liked this movie, but I hadn’t seen it yet. I really enjoyed it! The movie is mostly fight scene after fight scene and I thought they were all really exciting to watch.

The only thing that I didn’t like (which sounds like a spoiler but isn’t cause it happens very early) is the dog dying! That scene was one of the first times I’ve ever full cried while watching a movie. Honestly I would have stopped the movie there if I didn’t know that what to expect from the rest of the movie. I would not have wanted to risk seeing more than that! Since my husband reassured me that was the only instance of dogs getting hurt in such a way, I got through that scene and was fine for the rest of the movie. I get that was supposed to be the main hook of the movie, but I would have appreciated it more if hurting the dog was done off screen at the very least?

Still, I did really enjoy the movie! If I do rewatch it in the future though, I’m probably going to fast forward through that scene.

Just Mercy (2019)

I did a paid study where one of the required tasks was to watch this movie (probably can’t say anything specific about the study though so I won’t elaborate on that).

It’s a story of a black lawyer working to help out people in prison with the death sentences, particularly if they didn’t have a fair trial. I don’t remember what year(s) this takes place in (near the end of the movie was early 90s I think), but it’s based on a true story. As you can imagine from the topic, it’s a very heavy-hitting subject matter, so it wasn’t exactly a happy watch. It was an engaging watch though, and I don’t really have any complaints about it. Pretty depressing how most of it still feels relevant today though.

Book Stuff

No progress with The Tea Enthusiast’s Handbook or Art Before Breakfast.

DONE: A Dead Djinn in Cairo (P. Djeli Clark) - 50pgs

My mom-in-law recently read A Master of Djinn and was talking about how good it was and how much she thought I’d like it. Instead of starting with that book, I decided I would read the novellas that take place before A Master of Djinn. It sounded like there were references to these novellas in the full novel, they were pretty short, and I was able to quickly get them from the library, so why not?

A Dead Djinn in Cairo was the first one, and it centers around a murder mystery of a djinn in Cairo (bet you wouldn’t of guessed that from the title :P). I loved the atmosphere of this novella, the twists of the plot, and I especially loved the main character. Well, honestly I really enjoyed all of the characters, but the main one especially so.

So yeah, I just overall loved this! I moved onto the next novella right away lol.

DONE: The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (P. Djeli Clark) - 65pgs

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 is the second novella in this universe. Like the previous novella, I’m pretty sure you can guess what the mystery revolves around here!

This takes place sometime after A Dead Djinn in Cairo, but the main characters are different here. At first I was a bit disappointed, but they quickly grew on me. Honestly I can’t think of much to say about this that I didn’t say for A Dead Djinn in Cairo though! It was good and I enjoyed it!

After reading these two novellas, I’m now very exciting to read A Master of Djinn! I’ll probably read a short story first (which takes place right before the novel I think, and it’s free), and I’m debating about finishing off a different series first, but regardless I really want to get to the book soon!

Game Stuff

Added (Purchases/Gifts):
Grapple Dog (Switch)
Dicey Dungeons (Switch)
Tactics Ogre: Reborn (Switch)*

*This was something my husband purchased, so I’m not getting to this any time soon even though it’s a new release lol. I’ll play it at some point, but that will have to be sometime after my husband is done playing it.

Subscription Addition Highlights:
Game Pass: +2 games

Not many subscription additions this week (not complaining though!) with only two new games.

One of them is Ghost Song which isn’t immediately appealing to me, but it’s hard to say based off still images. It seems like it’s a 2D, slow-paced adventurey type game. I might like it, but maybe I won’t. Hard to say without trying it.

The other new addition is Return to Monkey Island, a new game in the well loved Monkey Island series of point-n-clicks. I tend to be very bad at point-n-clicks (I can’t seem to wrap my head around the logic on how to progress) so I’m not sure if this would work for me or not. I also don’t know if it would be a good entry for someone with no background in the other Monkey Island games. Still, the humour of this series (from what I’ve seen/heard anyway) sounds like it could be my thing… I might have to do something digging around to see if what would be the best place to try the series out. And maybe seek out a walkthrough in advance if the game is a bit too moon logic-y lol.

Games Played

Pocket Card Jockey (3DS eshop) - 23:57 (+17:12)

Geez, I swear… The time played just got more ridiculous! Honestly it’s so easy to just pick up and play, that it was just easy for me to start up even when I was super tired.

That being said, I can’t really say that there’s much to update on. I continued to play solitaire games, trying my best to win as may races as possible. I raised and bred more horses, with some help from QR codes. You can share your horses with others via QR codes, so I went online and got a few good ones from other players. You can’t race with those horses, but you can use them for breeding. Breeding up good horses is incredibly slow, so I went with that to speed it up a little.

To beat the game, I think you need to win the Royal Derby. I have most of the other cups for winning the other races, but this is one that I don’t have yet. It’s really difficult to even get a chance to race in the Royal Derby! The requirements are a bit unclear, but I think you have to win a bunch of races in a row with a non-mature horse? Honestly I’m not sure since my attempts at searching for a more specific answer were not successful, so I guess I’m just going to keep at it!

Genshin Impact (PS5) - 165:05 (+6:22)

Yeah it seems like I also spend a lot of time on Genshin lol. I forgot to take notes (ugh) but at least I somewhat remember what I did this week?

This week I finished off the latest Sumeru main story quests, which I ended up really enjoying. I did have a bit of trouble understanding how the heck I was supposed to do the final boss, but I eventually struggled my way through it lol.

I also focused a lot on making progress in the current events. One of the events was one where you did various mini-games using a selection of different characters. It was a neat way to try out characters I don’t normally play and the games were pretty fun and not too lengthy. Really enjoyed this one!

The other current event involves capturing various fungi monsters, training them, and using them to fight against other trainers. It’s very obviously riffing off of Pokemon and is very silly. The combat with the fungi is a pretty simple action type thing where you just direct the fungi what enemy to focus on and when to use their skills. I’ve enjoyed it so far! I still have a lot of the accompanying story to go through, so I’ll definitely be working through this event for a little while longer.

I keep avoiding doing various fighting-type tasks for leveling up my characters though… It’s not that I dislike doing them (with a few exceptions), but I tend to gravitate towards the new shiny stuff instead of the repeatable content. New shiny stuff is too distracting lol!

No Progress

Astro Bot Rescue Mission (PS VR) - 0:45
Everybody’s Golf (PS4) - 36:51
Harvestella (Switch) - 2:21
Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4) - 50:08
Trails in the Sky FC (Steam) - 3:42

Backlog Update

Backlog: 2317 (+5)
Time to Beat: 47,263 hrs (+29 hrs)

Nothing particular shocking here :) Games get added, numbers go up!

And that’s it for the week! Hopefully the next week will have some good game time! I do have a VERY early doctor appointment to go to on Thursday though, so that day might end up being not particular productive lol.