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A couple of days ago, Hearthstone released their newest expansion and the standard game-mode underwent the yearly rotation. This is the best time to start playing the game.

I've been an avid Hearthstone player for many years, having even reached Legend, but I hadn't actually played standard in a rather long time, preferring to spend my gaming hours on Battlegrounds

the auto-battler game-mode

instead. Because I've played a little Balatro, recently, I decided to give standard a try once again, after a years-long hiatus.

At first, I went with the basic recipes. Hearthstone provides three recipes for each class, two of which are built around the current expansions, and one of which is the so-called "Core" deck, which is meant to display the class identity. I'm a Rogue player and have been for a while, so I went with Core Rogue for my first game back.

I got my ass handed to me.

Repeatedly.

Well, that is to be expected. The recipes suck, I'm rusty, and there's a lot of people trying out the powerful new cards! As such, I decided to try and build my own deck. I've played a lot of Pirate Rogue, so I looked over the Pirates available for the class, duck-taped a deck together and gave it my best try!

I got obliterated.

Repeatedly.

That is the path of the card gamer, I suppose... Frustrating, yes, but there's glory in loss when victory is inevitable. I decided to go check out what people were actually using and copied that. I had

and still have, actually

copious amounts of gold and dust, which allowed me to craft and buy the cards I needed to build a competitive deck. I looked over the most popular Rogue decks and got them running with a few tweaks I thought would improve the success of the strategy. The expansion came out not a long time ago, so the decks are by no means optimized.

That's when I started winning.

The first "real" deck I tried was called Bounce Rogue. It's a common strategy for Rogues, this bounce. I love it. I thought it would be similar to Miracle Rogue, which I love, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. Admittedly, I could very well be playing it wrong. Still, as a Rogue veteran, I find that unlikely. Looking now, it seems that that decks' winrate is plummeting, while other competing decks are rising as the premier Rogue archetype.

Namely, Protoss Rogue. Protoss are a relatively new thing in Hearthstone. If you're familiar with other Blizzard IPs, you might recognize Protoss as the name of one of the factions in Starcraft. I tried that deck out as well and haven't looked back. A few other Protoss decks have also been gathering some steam, but I've stuck with my initial build.

I went from Bronze 10 to Platinum 9 in a few hours, and had lots of fun along the way. I love the cool mechanics all over the game, the way different classes are trying to win games... It's a lot of fun to discover the new stuff.

My one issue, so far, has been Demon Hunter. I remember when Demon Hunter came out and was completely broken. I don't know how broken it has been, since then, but it seems to still be broken as of right now. Whenever I face a Demon Hunter, I'm inclined to forfeit the match immediately. They're the most common class on the ladder, at least the class I've seen most so far, and they absolutely wipe the floor with me every single time. Well, not every single time, I suppose. I did beat a Demon Hunter player once, with a combination of horrendous draws on my opponent's part and miraculous luck on mine.

Regardless of the state of the META, for now at least, I'm having fun. I'm not sure if I'll commit to getting Legend just yet, but I'm thinking about it. I might try out some other Rogue archetypes that are being developed, too.

I hate Demon Hunter!

The winrate seems to corroborate my impression that this deck is absolutely running through Standard...

What actually beats this?

I wish we used Latin phrases more. I use ad eternum with some frequency, idem too, but I wish there were more. Id est, et cetera... Abbreviations have cursed us! Latin is so cool... And then people don't even know what it is because we don't write it out. I've seen some atrocious spellings of "et cetera," let me tell you! Moreover, these phrases are often relegated to technical language. I hate it!

I dealt with my Syncthing, file organization, and I cleaned out my password manager.

It feels so good to have things in order. The Synchthing side of it was a little sketch, to be honest, but I managed with some filters, nothing crazy. The password manager took a long time, since I was fixing weak passwords, changing emails, and deleting old accounts, but it was fun in its own way. I'll say: I'm socked at how many services have weird restrictions on passwords. I dealt with a website that required a password to be between 8 and 10 characters long and not include any special characters. I'm not kidding. 8 and 10?! RIDICULOUS! How are they storing this stuff... I don't trust it at all.

Quite a few other websites also ban certain special characters, which is weird but fine, and a decent number of them have a character limit of like 20. 20?! It's so weird... Shouldn't these things be hashed? Why is there a character limit at all... Why is it freaking 20?!

IDK if I mentioned it before, but I also fixed my Firefox CSS. It was alright, but I figured that there was something wrong about it, like there was something about the way I wrote it that wasn't quite correct. I tried to fix it, and ended up mucking everything up, but I managed to pull it back and improve. In the midst of all that, I figured out how to make the browser content float with a box-shadow and rounded corners à la Zen. That style isn't for me, but I could enable it if I want.

I like the minimalist look. Pic related.

I wonder though, if others might prefer the other look. Pic also related.

It's an interesting look for sure.

My bike has really been frustrating me. I tuned the brake, but I must've done it wrong. They're not good enough... Maybe I should just go get them tuned at the store, but I did get them tuned at the store not that long ago and they're somehow fucked again. I suppose that folding it and whatnot might fuck with the brakes, but gee man it really sucks...

Well, best to have it as I have now than before; before I struggled to brake, now they brake too much... Sigh...

By the way, the word "brake" is so unintuitive, I feel like. Why isn't it just "break?!" Break does imply things being... Broken, like, to break one's stride? Meh

I really feel like eating a snack right now. I ate a lot today, as I did yesterday

as I do, every other weekend

but I'm really craving some snacks; I'm talking potato chips, specifically.

I have so much on my mind that I find it hard to put it all to words. Also, I mostly feel that it'd be silly to put it all to words! I don't want to put it all to words, but it's hard to make things clear and pick out the parts I do want to write about.

Generally, I think the main points I want to get across are that I want to be a low-maintenance person. I don't want to need much. I did a little broad inventory of my stuff with my brother today, and it's really not much at all. I use very few things a lot.

Oh, I tuned my brakes yesterday. Didn't actually get a chance to test, them

will do so tomorrow

but I'm excited to see if I fixed the issues I was having.

Had a great day today.

Sushi with the fam, did everything I wanted with my laptop, even managed to clear some space on my phone, got some things set up that I wanted to for a while with my dad... It was just a great day.

My Linux experience so far has been nothing short of incredible, by the way. I mean, I am considerably more tech savvy than the average person, but I really don't feel like this took any more technical expertise than getting started with Windows. Some of the things I did, like hardening my Firefox and setting up Wireguard, sure, but that has nothing to do with Linux per se.

I don't know. I just... Haven't managed to find fault with it just yet.

And the clear performance improvements are making me feel like a fool to have waited this long to switch...

I'll go eat some chocolate.

I'm officially on Linux!

Installed Linux Mint, still doing some customization and whatnot, but it's working so far. Well, it's not the first time I've used Linux, of course, but it's the my first time actually committing to daily-driving it.

We'll see how this goes, hopefully well...

I'm hungry, as I write this. I could eat, sure, but what should I eat is the question. I could make rice, for one

that could be nice

or I could go and buy some bread and eat that. Both options sound viable, but the latter does require me to go outside, and it is currently raining rather heavily.

Sewing... I sewed some patterns into my hat. Nothing special or... Not even a pattern, really. Just some lines. Sashiko-inspired, maybe? I love sashiko, and I did buy the needles and thread thinking of sashiko, so maybe that's fair to say. It's not actually sashiko, though. It does look kinda cool; I think so, anyway. It gives the boring old black cap a new feel, it makes it look weirder and more unique. And it is unique, not just because of the things it's seen, as a hat, but because I didn't follow any guides or lines, I just sewed what I felt like, and so it is as it is and nothing else is quite like it. I think that's somewhat poetic.

I got my new jeans today. Second-hand, of course. They're great, I think. No major blemishes. Sure, there was a little bit of a heel-bite on the right side, but it's so small that I didn't even notice after I put them on. They're a bit longer than the size I've been wearing. This was on purpose, of course; I wanted to try it out because my mom said it might be better. I don't necessarily agree or disagree, now that I've tried them on. They're basically the same as my old ones! We'll see, we'll see... Regardless, it's good that I can now feel confident in buying a longer size. Nice!

I think I'll go buy some bread...

I spoke with my parents today... It was lovely. I love talking to my parents.

I checked my jeans today; clean! I think I got the stains off. Much better day today... Today was good.

Lunch was great... Though I don't quite remember what it was... Oh yes, it was a mix of veggies and mushrooms and soy with rice and salad. A fantastic apple, and a thin but good vegetable soup. Oh boy, oh boy!

I had some discussions online today that were less than pleasant, but that's how it goes sometimes. I should get off the internet more. Read more. I haven't been reading enough.

Sometimes I feel like there's a me out there that I want to be. I can even see a path to reach him. I hope I can take the right steps. I have taken some good steps this week; I haven't had any chips... I basically replaced them with bread! Bread it much healthier and more filling (and way cheaper!), so I consider this a win.

I got back on my SoundCloud account. Lots of interesting music there...

I feel good. Can't wait to meet my brother and grandma this weekend.

My mom says that we're the kind of people for which things always go right, but they have to go way wrong before. Things get fucked and screwed, it's annoying and frustrating, but if we just keep walking, things end up fine in the end. My whole life, this has been true. I feel like it has made me a very passive person, though. If things always work out in the end, why try? And so I haven't tried, and things have worked out. Still, I feel like there are some things that require some effort to achieve, even for us.

I can see some goals I want to achieve. I'll try and be strong.

Today was a terrible day.

Mind you, it wasn't that bad, of course it wasn't... But I'm still reeling from it.

Now, to start off, my alarm didn't go off. Or rather, I predicted my alarm wouldn't go off, and it didn't, so my safety alarm did go off and it was OK but it was a pain in the ass to confirm that my alarm didn't go off. I still have to fix it; I don't even know what's wrong.

Then, I fell off my bike. I bike to school, so I'm used to the commute. It's not particularly rare for some inconsiderate prick to hog the bike path, so I barely got annoyed at that... I just went on the side, fine, and then made a turn to get back on the right way. It rained last night. I was going a little too fast... I hydroplaned? I don't know, but my tires slid! There were people around, but seemingly nobody noticed. It wasn't particularly noisy, I guess, but I felt simultaneously relieved that nobody saw me and offended that nobody came to my aid! Whatever... The much bigger issue was that I was wearing my favourite jeans, which are now in the wash on account of the green stains all over them. OH THE TRAGEDY!!!! MY JEANS, MY JEANS!!! WHYYYYYYYY!!!! and other lamentations... My hands still hurt a little bit, I did cut myself, though I didn't bleed or anything. I'm fine. The bike was fine. But the jeans...

Alright, that's OK. I got to school relatively unharmed. Lunchtime came around. I happened to see my housemates as I was exiting the canteen. They greeted me, alright, no problem, but then they tried to shake my hand. I thought they were going for a dap. TWICE! I missed... Two handshakes, in a row. It was awkward. Well, they showed no signs of anything, but I felt it. I felt it. I know it was terrible, I still feel it. I literally screamed out as I wrote this paragraph, that's how painful this is for me.

You're not ready.

Then, I met a colleague and his girlfriend. Just a few paces from my failed handshakes. Guess what? I waved, he reached out, I reached out, he kept walking, then his girlfriend reached out, I took my hand away because he kept walking. So... I missed another 2 handshakes. 4 handshakes.

In a row.

4 handshakes in a row. Missed.

Am I the most awkward being in existence? Perchance.

The pain, can you imagine the pain? What I'm feeling right now?

Dirty pants, wounded hands. Wounded hands.

I am not joking, by the way. I know the events of this day seem wholly unbelievable. You, reader, must be thinking something akin to "this dude is lying on the internet," but I assure you, this happened. This really, really happened.

I'm gonna go write my fanfic and... I don't know, drown my sorrows, I guess...

I've heard that fanfic is a less scrutinized kind of writing. There's a lot of very young people doing it, a lot of hobbyists and people that are doing it just to do it, so there's less pressure, as a writer, due to the lower quality expectations of the format.

I suppose that makes sense.

That's not the reason, but I did start writing a fanfic. For a long time, probably since I first watched the show as a kid, my favourite Avatar: The Last Airbender character has been Azula. I just love basically everything about her; not on an individual level, necessarily

she's a violent murderer

but as a character, she's awesome. However, I don't like seeing people suffer.

Azula really isn't a bad person, despite what I might've said before... She was just raised by a violent, imperialist murderer to be a violent, imperialist murderer. She certainly had some mean streak about her, but I like to believe that overwhelming talent and ambition is something that can be harnessed for good. Moreover, I like to imagine that, given the right circumstances, she could've been swayed to the good side and seen the error of her ways and led a good life, even after doing such terrible things.

I've had this concept in my head of a while of an ATLA AU where there's another character that does that for Azula. A character that plays the role of that kind heart that guides her to righteousness, without letting go of the fire that makes Azula herself. So, I decided to write it!

Wrote the first chapter already, and it was a lot of fun. I basically just sat down and BAM!, wrote all of it. Had to go over it a few times to fix some mistakes and inconsistencies, but it was actually pretty decent. Well, for someone like me that doesn't really write much beyond these posts... I do write other stuff occasionally, though. Meh, I don't think it matters. It's good practice regardless, and I'm letting myself believe that there's no pressure. It's only fanfic, after all!

I don't mean that to say fanfic is an inferior format, of course. It's not.

Actually, my little brother loves fanfic. We used to go on walks during the summer and he'd tell me all about what he had been reading, so I know the plot of a lot of popular fanfics without ever having read them. I'm... Oddly familiar with the genre, for someone so uninitiated. Mostly Harry Potter fics, that's what he likes to read. I believe he still does read them rather often, though he's also into light novels.

Anyway, I'm happy with what I wrote, and I'm excited to write more! I love that I have a firm idea for what I want to happen... I feel like a lot of the storied I come up with are very movie-esque, if that makes sense. I feel like they'd be much better movies than novels. Maybe I'm a very visual thinker. I don't know, I much prefer books than movies, personally, so I think that's kind of a weird thing... Then again, I love YT videos. I don't know.

I'm not sure I mentioned it before, but I started reading Shadow Slave a while ago.

That's it, for today.