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Second Semester or 2 Fast 2 College!

I'm colleging and gaming and blowing up

2024-02-10

Ruby May Valentine

I just started my second semester of college last month. I’m having a great time! I’m taking an introductory writing course, a math course, and Japanese 102. The schedule this semester has been a lot easier on me than last semester. I take my first two classes in the morning; I have Japanese at night on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so for half the week I’m completely done with classes by 10:50AM. I love it!

Quite a few people from JPN101 are in my 102 class so there’s some familiarity which is nice. I’m learning quite a bit more grammar at a faster pace this semester, and more kanji. We’re starting to learn more casual language too which is a plus, so I’ve been practicing that more online. I’ve been trying to find time to practice with some of the classmates I met last semester, but things keep coming up, but hopefully there will be time soon. Overall, I’m having fun with Japanese still and can’t wait to be able to express myself more with the language.

Writing class has been really great. My professor is very nice and helpful. I also can’t stop writing now. If you head to the new writing section of my website, you can find some short stories I wrote over the last few days. I want to write a novelette before too long but I’m working my way up with smaller pieces of writing first. I eventually want to write full novels but that’s a ways off. The class has made me feel a lot more comfortable with writing now that I understand the rules a bit better. I’m sure I’ll only improve as time goes on.

We got another cat which I somehow failed to mention last time; his name is curry. He’s very cute but quite energetic as he is only 11 months old; we got him in August, so he was about 5 months old at the time. He was quite scared at first which is only natural but he’s quite fond of us now. He meows a lot; we thought pot roast meowed a lot, but curry has him beat for sure. I like the little guy he’s a good cat.

I’ve been playing Like a Dragon 8 which has been an absolute blast. I was a little bummed out at first that there weren’t as many arcade games nor any home console in this one. I quickly forgot after noticing there’s an entire Pokémon/Dragon Quest Monsters game and an Animal Crossing game within Like a Dragon 8. They’ve made some improvements to the turn-based combat as well; area of effect spells are much easier to time now for instance. In Like a Dragon 7, enemies could still move after an AOE spell had been cast, but now they freeze in place once you confirm the spell. It’s a small detail which huge consequences. There’s also plenty of other mini games to keep you entertained if you’re not already overjoyed with the two entire other games they packed into this one. There is also a rogue-like randomly generated dungeon crawler in this one. It’s really nice if you need to level up fast for the next section of the story. I haven’t finished it yet but will do a full write up once I have. Overall, Like a Dragon 8 is the best Like a Dragon game to date.

I’ve also been playing fighting games more after a classmate roped me into playing something called “Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising.” It’s quite a fun game but I remembered I actually do also enjoy games like Street Fighter and Tekken, so I picked up Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8. I haven’t had much time to play them yet, but I already really like them. I want to get better at fighting games. I played an older Street Fighter game against some random guy at the arcade last night; He completely washed me. I’d like to offer at least some challenge to the average cabinet shark at the local arcades so a soft goal this year is to git gud at fighting games.

Due to the infectious energy of my writing class, I want to offer more focused pieces on here about various things I enjoy. If you go to the new writing section of my website, while sparse, you’ll see that there is a tag system. I have to manually implement this and while it is tedious, I do enjoy it. Focused pieces of writing, say about a specific game, will be over on that section of the website going forward. They will have tags that I like to imagine overtime will be quite populated with various writings. You will of course also find my creative writing and various other stories there. The main blog here will continue to be whatever other random shit I want to talk about. I plan to add more navigation to that section of the site soon but for now you can use the “2024” tag to see everything published there so far. Your browser should have back and forward arrows in the meantime.

Thank you for reading! If you have any comments, suggestions, etc., shoot me an email! I’d also love recommendations for anything, music, games, books, pasta shapes, whatever! Have a good one!

-Ruby

MARRIED TO WIFE AND SCHOOL!

SCHOOL IS HARD, MARRIAGE IS EASY

2023-11-21

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link

おはよう‼️こんばんは‼️ごめんなさい🙇‍♀️ 3月間毎日大学へ行っていますよ。だからブログをアップデートしませんでした。ごめんなさい!!!!!!!!草、大学はいいですよ。好き好きですよ。読みと日本語と数学をべんきょうします。先生とクラスメイトはとてもいい人ですよ。でも、あたしはとても忙しいです。 毎日うちで寝たいですよ。でも、がんばれ‼️www でも、大学が大好きです。一昨日インディちゃんと結婚しました‼️すごい日でした。あたしはとても嬉しいですよ。ありがとうございます。

Phew, that was difficult, apologies for any grammar mistakes if you read Japanese. Also, if you read Japanese, skip this next paragraph.

Hello, good evening! I’m so sorry! For the last 3 months I’ve been going to school every day. So I haven’t updated my blog. Sorry!!! Lol, school is very nice. I like it a lot. I’m studying reading, math, and Japanese. My professors and classmates are very nice people. But I’m very busy. Every day I just want to sleep at home. But I’m doing my best!! Lol, but yeah I love school. Also on Sunday I got married to Indigo!!! It was an amazing day, I’m so happy 😊 Anyway, thank you for reading.

So yeah I’ve been fucking BUSY, I’m a full time student. The workload I face every week is far beyond what I ever could’ve imagine, I don’t have very much free time hence the neglect of my blog, but I’m forcing myself to sit down and write something finally. It’s been so hard to do anything I enjoy outside of school, which to be fair I enjoy very much, but we’re nearing the end of the semester. While things are quite hectic right now I’ve sort of gotten into a routine where I can carve out time to do things I enjoy. For instance, updating my blog! School really is awesome though, I’ve made a few friends which is awesome. I’ve also learned soooooo much more Japanese in a way where I can actually communicate now and express my thoughts. I’m only in JPN101 but I’m doing very well in it, I currently have a B grade. I plan on getting my grade back up to an A. I got sick for a solid two weeks so missed a week of school which set me behind on the course and I did not great on a few tests, but now I’m caught up and ready to defeat JPN101. I’m going to do my best on the final oral exam.

Other than school I’ve just been playing the new Like a Dragon game, Like a Dragon Gaiden. I finished it shortly after came out and am now replaying Lost Judgment. I can’t wait for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Like a Dragon 8) in January, I’m so excited. Like a Dragon Gaiden came with a demo for Like a Dragon 8 and it was awesome!!! Highly recommend the entire series of course.

Finally, I GOT FUCKING MARRIED BRO!!

I’ll post pictures when we get them back from the photographer but holy shit I can’t believe I’m an actual wife now who has a wife.

Anyway, good luck out there, the highway is dangerous at night.

ルビー

Rain Rain Rain!

It's Monsoon Season, woo!

2023-07-25

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link

HEY! IT'S BEEN A MINUTE

The Weather

It’s monsoon season here in Tucson, so it’s both very rainy and very hot! Our swamp cooler hasn’t been working worth a shit due to the humidity so we had to crowdfund for a portable AC unit lol, before we got it it had been regularly 90-93 degrees Fahrenheit in here every day, but last night the inside temp was 77! Woo! But yeah monsoon is really ramping up now and I’m excited, it’s my favorite time of year in Arizona because I love rain! I’ve been really scared of lightning in recent years for some reason but I’ll tend to just enjoy the rain momentarily then go back inside unless there’s no sign of thunder or lightning lol. The other day our whole street flooded quite a bit which was wild! I’ll miss monsoon when it’s over but am also looking forward to the more agreeable temperatures in Winter, and it’s been raining all winter the last few years so I’ve still been getting to enjoy lots of rain even when monsoon has ended, so it’s great!

College

I start college in a little under 5 weeks now, I’m really excited! My first classes will be Japanese 101 and writing, I’m looking forward to both, unfortunately I don’t have any computer engineer classes my first semester but next semester I think I should have introduction to circuits I think it’s called, either way really looking forward to it! I should be getting my disbursement for my financial aid a week or so before classes start so I’m hoping to get some school supplies and what not, and then in September when my loans are disbursed I’ll be getting a laptop! I’m looking at the new MacBook Pro models since I figure a solid computer will really help with school over the next like 6 or more years, I’ve decided I want to get a master’s degree after I get my bachelor’s because it will give me more job opportunities, I have eyes on a company I want to work for and I hope I can work there, it would be the dream, if I do work there I’d like to pursue a PhD in computer engineering while I’m also working.

Japanese learning

I’ve been studying a lot! My friend Renkon (check out their blog!) recommended me this site renshuu.org and it’s been really helpful, I’ve been learning a lot more stuff and it’s been good at keeping me engaged, I’ve been trying to aim for studying 3 hours each day lately and it’s been going good so far! I’ve also been watching a lot of Japanese movies and shows without subtitles to practice listening and see what I can pick up from context and such, and just for general exposure to the language, I’ve watched all of the Senritsu Kaiki Files films and have watched nearly all of the Ju-On films! I’ve started watching the series Ju-On Origins now which is cool so far! I’m hoping to pick up some more Japanese edition manga for helping with reading, but I’ve also been using Satori reader which is fun! Also I've been learning the language for over a year now, wow!

Games

I’ve been playing Like a Dragon 6 and Dragon Quest II recently when I’ve had time, the rumors are true, Dragon Quest II is a lot more difficult than the first one and even more recent ones lol, I like it a lot though the early games are so fun to get into, I haven’t had a ton of time to play games because I’ve been getting ready for school and planning my wedding of course, and now that I have a better climate to work in (Thanks AC!) I’m going to get back to working on a new comic I’ve started for my Patreon subscribers, it’s in Japanese and the English title is Scary Month, it’s about a kitty cat guy that moves into a haunted house! I’ve really enjoyed working on it so far and I can’t wait to share it with everyone. I’ve also placed some games from Nice Gear Games, please check them out! They also do Indie Tsushin where they interview Japanese independent game developers and post digital zines including the interviews plus a bunch of game reviews! It’s a very cool project and I highly recommend it!

My friend also sent me Ring Fit Adventure and Live A Live and I’m looking forward to playing both, I’ve been wanting to get more exercise so I think Ring Fit Adventure will be really good! I’m probably gonna set it up and play for a bit tomorrow if I find the time! Review to come!

Also Enix announced a new Dragon Quest Monsters title to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the series, I’m really excited to play it!!!

Social Media

I’ve been posting a lot on Twitter again which is now “X” lol, really silly, I guess Elon has been obsessed with trying to name things X for like two decades or something, which was funny to me because during the height of my psychosis in 2016 I was obsessed with the letter X. But yeah, the platform is rapidly deteriorating, he rate limited DMs, so you have to subscribe if you want to DM people past the daily limit, I will not be doing this, and also they’ve been dropping huge amounts of cash on verified right wingers for “engagement,” the numbers seem to be totally fudged in favor of a select few freaks, $25,000, for tweets? Yeah I’m sure that was the natural selection of ~the algorithm~ lol.

I’ve also been using activitypub based social media, despite a few bad experiences when I first started using it I’ve found some cool communities on there, tech.lgbt and calckey.jp, people are really nice to me on there and seem to engage a lot with what I say which is a nice feeling, using stuff like twitter I usually don’t get a lot of people commenting on what I say or engaging in conversation with me, so it’s been a nice change using mastodon and calckey (now called firefish I guess?).

I really like posting, and I think the fediverse is one of the better places to do it, I kind of want to set up a forum for me and my friends to use before too long, I like self hosting my own things, it’s fun connecting via the internet in more personal DIY ways, I want to plug my IRC server more soon but I’ve been having issues with the machine it’s running on (Orange Pi 3 LTS). I think a forum will be a cooler project though, I think I’ll regularly back it up on archive.org just to preserve my own little history on the net, also check out archive.org and support them if you haven’t!

Music

I’m working on a new album! I don’t know if I mentioned that last time, I released Hour of the Rooster (my second album) earlier this year, but I’m working on a brand new one! It’s called OUR FM, it’s a concept album, I’m excited!

Anyway

I think that’s all I got in me this time around, I want to update the blog more frequently, I’m going to aim for once a week, thank you for reading, take care!

-Ruby

The Party Changes Jobs

I'm going to college, wow!

2023-03-27

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link

Hello! Good morning!

 a bunch of CDs with the obis, Shizuka - Paradise of Delusion, Daft Punk - Alive 2007 (deluxe), Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You (maxi), The Weeknd - Beauty Behind the Madness, The Weeknd - Starboy, Giorgio Moroder - Deja Vu, Meli’sa Morgan - Do Me Baby, David Ruffin - The Unreleased Album, Savage Garden - Savage Garden, X Japan - Blue Blood, Tatsuro Yamashita - Moonglow, Tatsuro Yamashita - Go Ahead!

It’s me, Ruby.

I’ve been busy making major life decisions and such!

I also got cool shit in the mail and will hopefully have more cool shit to show off before too long, the other cool stuff is coming from Japan via economy shipping so who knows! Lol!

ANYWAY

I’ve decided I’m going to be going to college to become a computer engineer, I am very excited to learn and hope I can become the ultimate computer genius. I’m not entirely sure what a computer engineer does or anything but apparently I’ll get to learn all about how computers and electronics work, which is very practical to me and the money should be good if I can do a good job, and I will. I’ll be attending college for the first couple of years to do prerequisites and then transferring to university for the computer engineering program, I also hope to take Japanese language as an elective because my main goal is to move to Japan and be in the field there and I suppose it will look flashy to employers if I have solid language credits.

Speaking of learning Japanese, I have acquired many Japanese learning textbooks because while Duolingo is fun and all I’ve realized it is quite stifling my learning for the most part, just a few hours of reading a language course textbook made a lot of things make so much sense! Turns out, studying grammar directly is a great way for me to learn a language! So yeah I’ve been studying a lot more the last few days mainly as that’s when I started getting the books and I’m already feeling more confident that I’ll actualize my goals!

Speaking of reading!

I read Dune! The first novel I’ve read in like 15 years! Yes the last novel I read was when I was like 10 years old, silly, and yeah I read a 900 page dense sci-fi novel, and I loved it! It gave me confidence to pursue the above goals of reading Japanese language learning textbooks, seriously after reading Dune I feel like I can read anything!

I’m on to reading Dune messiah when I can as I’m mainly reading the grammar and kanji textbooks and such lately.

Time Skip

It’s been a few weeks since I started writing this blog post as of this line, and I have a bunch of cool CDs now! I’ve been collecting Japanese releases that have the obi, and there’s a picture of most of the ones I have so far at the top of this post, I have more coming lol.

I’ve been listening to a lot more music now because of this which is nice, I sort of stopped listening to music for the most part except on rare occasions which sucked, I love music, but now I listen to whole albums at once pretty much daily which is really nice, right now I’m listening to III by Masanori Nozawa, Masanori Nozawa is an ambient producer and DJ from Utsunomiya, Japan. He also runs the label Medium, I have a few releases from the label now and they’re all very nice ambient works, highly recommend!

I’m going to be registering for classes very soon, and then starting school in May supposedly, looking forward to it, a bit nervous because it’s going to be a big change but everyone in my life is rooting for me so that’s nice.

Last night I had a computer disaster, I made the silly decision of trying to get my PC equipped to upgrade to windows 11, and it did not end well, I messed up the setup and when I changed my BIOS to launch with UEFI it made my PC unable to boot, lol, luckily a friend helped me they told me how to remove the CMOS battery to reset the BIOS and that fixed it, and so I decided to not get windows 11 after that dreadful experience and install software that gives me a dock instead, we have windows 11 at home! Lol

windows 10 desktop only featuring a dock, a clock, and the weather, the background is a cropped version of The Edge of the Desert, Arizona by George Elbert Burr which is a landscape drawing of some trees overlooking the desert and it's cloudy

I’ve been working on my new album that releases in September, Hour of the Rooster, it’s like 17 tracks now, which is crazy, I’m really looking forward to everyone getting to hear it, and plan to do a CD release if I can manage it, I’m hoping to get some friends to record some stuff for the album just waiting to hear back from everyone, they’re gonna listen to the album to see what they wanna add to it.

Speaking of if you’d like to hear the album in its current state, email me and I’ll send you a copy! Thanks!

Anyway hope you have a good rest of your day!

-Ruby

What a time to be alive

It's Friday, I am tired

2023-01-27

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link

Hello everybody!

a picture of my desk, showcasing my raspberry pi 4 in its new red and black case!

I am very tired while I’m writing this, I’ve been having problems with getting to sleep lately which sucks! For a while it was just, I was staying up really late and sleeping during the day but now it’s also staying up all night and then not sleeping until the following night, sucks!

Other than that things have started to feel normal again now that Pot Roast has been back home for a while, I’m still super paranoid about him getting out again though which I guess is better than him getting out again due to me not worrying about it as much, he’s been doing good, he’s caught a few more mice too lol, seems to be a never ending supply of mice here, it’s insane.

Indigo is in North Carolina currently but will be back the night of me writing this post (2023-01-26) It’s currently nearly 5am and yeah, I haven’t slept, I’ve just been “doom scrolling” as people say nowadays, which I was doing good with not doing for a few months! I think I’m gonna try to write here more often than I have been doing to keep myself off twitter especially, I for some reason cannot help but click on alarming trending topics and reading horrible, hideous, posts, which results in panic and despair, which is not healthy. I’d like to just completely delete twitter, but I do enjoy seeing posts from friends and my mutuals in Japan that post about video-games and the weather there.

I ordered a bunch of CDs last month which have been arriving throughout this month, building up a nice disc collection is fun, I’ve also been ripping the CDs so I can add them to my raspberry pi 4 based media server so I can stream the audio on my various devices, it’s cool! I’m my own streaming platform, and with the discs backing it up, aside from a major disaster and deep levels of bit rot, no one can take the music away from me on a whim like we’ve seen streaming platforms do time and time again especially more recently lately, with adored media. I’ve pretty much only been listening to stuff I actually own now instead of streaming via Apple Music, which has led to a deeper appreciation of the music honestly, I had actually mainly been listening to Young Thug’s album Punk for about two years now until I started getting more discs because it was basically the only album I had on disc, I think I still have a copy of Deadmau5’ > Album Title Goes Here < from my teen years but it’s buried in a storage bin if so, and is certainly missing the majority of the case, (whoops!). I really like that album; it’s a shame Joel Zimmerman is a prick.

Speaking of pricks most of the CDs I’ve been buying are Kanye West albums, I’ve been a long-time fan but decided hey, with the ever-growing amount of horrible shit he’s saying and doing, I don’t really want to support him financially in the slightest! So I’ve been buying up discs second-hand so as to not directly contribute to his ever massive wealth via streaming, and to say the absolute least, I miss the old Kanye.

I also got Daft Punk’s “Discovery” on disc, and have more Daft Punk discs on the way, I love Daft Punk! My mom introduced me to them as a kid and would play their music all the time and I’ve been listening to them ever since, a huge inspiration to my sound, I’ve covered a few of their songs even, their music means a lot to me so it’s nice to have it on disc once again! We actually had A LOT of music on disc including Daft Punk but thanks to fucking iTunes and Apple we don’t have that anymore, my mom had ripped all of her music to our computer and added it to iTunes and decided hey I guess we don’t need this massive amount of discs anymore, and of course later on due to iTunes and general computer fuckery, we lost all of that music, a sad tale told many times at this point I’m sure, oh the dawn of the mp3.

She’s happy now with her amazon music though, and I don’t blame her, the wealth of most of the world’s sonic creation at your fingertips? Hard to pass up. I also have Moonface’s “Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I’d Hoped” coming, and additionally “Skullgrid” by Behold… The Arctopus, great music overall! I’m hoping I can get a WORKING tape player with audio out before too long though because I have a shit ton of tapes and I’d like to record their contents and add them to my media server, a daunting task but I feel the need to do it. I’ll probably end up ordering more discs next month if finances allow, they are rather cheap after all, most of the discs mentioned I acquired for $10 or less, buying second-hand rules!

I might actually hit up the local used media chain Bookman’s here before too long because that’s also a great way to get CDs outside of eBay and Discogs, and I might check out new stuff I haven’t heard before, or even find stuff I forgot about, I love music.

I’ve also been getting lots of VHS tapes and DVDs which I’ve been ripping the DVDs but haven’t gotten around to recording any tapes, because you know, you have to let the entire movie play, and that’s a long time to not use my computer lol, I have Takeshi Kitano’s “Outrage” trilogy on DVD now, as well as Fireworks, and I have Sonatine coming in the mail too, I’d like to get Brother, great movie, all of his movies are great. Highly recommend.

I’ve been watching a lot of “The Brave Yoshihiko” lately, it’s a Dragon Quest parody comedy inspired by Monty Python and The Holy Grail, it fucking rules. I highly recommend it, especially if you play Dragon Quest games. It’s hilarious even without context though, I love it, I’ve basically just been watching it from the beginning to end every week at this point, it never gets old!

I also added a shop and page to showcase artists I like the work of on the website here, you can access those pages from the home page, give it a look!

Also it’s the next morning I took a break from writing this post, Indigo just got back from North Carolina last night, glad they’re home, it’s very weird when they’re not here, was having a really hard time sleeping because of it and still am, once again! I’m planning on just staying up all day and pushing through it, I really wish I could just retain a normal sleep schedule, it’s hideous to me the habits I’ve formed since this dog sitting job I took last year, I’ve been staying up later and not sleeping a lot ever since lol, I was having trouble sleeping at the peoples house because I always have trouble with sleeping in new places and that just snowballed into my once again disordered sleeping.

I got a new case for my Raspberry Pi 4, it’s running real cool now because of the fan that came with the case, really happy with it, looks cool too! The official case they plug is basically a plastic coffin for the poor thing so this is a major upgrade, it’s cool that a little computer has been doing so much for me, i.e. managing my media, I love it! I hope to one day upgrade to a legit server setup though, big bulky hardware and all lol.

I also made a new comic, it’s about Pot Roast going on a Dragon Quest style adventure, inspired by the TV series The Brave Yoshihiko, which is in itself a Dragon Quest parody, it’s listed in the shop for a print copy but you can also get a digital copy here: https://bxnshy.itch.io/the-brave-pot-roast-and-the-demon-kings-forttress. I took the “no budget” concept from The Brave Yoshihiko and sort of applied it as an art practice, I will spend as little time drawing the comic as possible, so I’m doing quickly, purposefully poorly, and not thinking about it too much, drawing like a child basically, it’s pretty fun to draw this way, not measuring out anatomy and objects and shit, it’s the most fun I’ve had making a comic in really long time, it’s going to be an ongoing series and I’m gonna make the next issue soon, I think if I can handle it there will be a new issue every month, don’t hold me to that though lol, it is however very easy to draw this way so I think it’s possible.

Also, I am running a gofundme to pay off some medical debt, dental specifically, I basically accepted a ridiculous loan that’s impossible to pay off monthly so I’m trying to raise money to pay it in full so I can stop wasting money on it, as I do not make very much money, ($257/mo is my income lol). If you feel like helping or sharing, here’s the link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-ruby-with-medical-debt.

Anyway, thanks y’all, have a good one!

-Ruby

Happy Thursday

It's Thursday, and it's been crazy over here since the last post!

2023-01-12

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link

Happy Thursday!

What a week, for me at least!

Pot Roast was missing for EIGHT DAYS he got out because we thought he was in the bedroom when he wasn’t and the door didn’t close all the way when we went outside, what a fucking nightmare! I’ve had plenty of horrible experiences including being homeless for two years and going to jail twice!!! but I gotta say my cat missing for a bit over a week was the worst week of my life, I was just absolutely miserable, we finally got him back thanks to my neighbor he was hanging out in her yard, I actually had a hold of him a couple days prior but he escaped again when trying to get him in the cat carrier, luckily last Indigo was home so we drove over there this time and got him in the car and then put him in the carrier, it went very smoothly and now he’s doing good, I think he missed us cus he’s been all over us since getting back, the first thing he did though when getting back home was look for mice, then he fell asleep for a few hours lol.

Now we’re being extremely more careful I’m honestly anxious about opening the front and back doors at all now because of this experience but hopefully will get back to being normal soon, I’m just so worried he’ll get out again is all, he’s a great cat so it really was horrible thinking I might never see him again before we got him home! a picture of my orange cat pot roast about to jump down from the dresser

In other news

My friend gave me a raspberry pi 4 for free so I set up a media server on it with plex which has been super convenient, I’ve been ripping my CDs and DVDs and soon thanks to the same friend gonna be ripping some blu-rays! I have a few of those two in one things like it has a blu-ray and a dvd and I guess blu-Ray is better so I might as well rip the better version, I actually ended up ordering an orange pi 3 LTS to play around with due to the raspberry pi shortage and more importantly recent behavior from raspberry pi (the company). If the orange pi 3 LTS goes well I want to get an orange pi 5 and build myself a cyberdeck this year if I can swing it, I think it would be fun!

I think I might set up a pi-hole on the orange pi I do have coming cus network wide ad blocking sounds funny as hell to me I wanna see what the behavior is like for that lol. The media server is really nice especially because I have it setup for remote access so I can stream my music and whatever other media wherever I’m at, I don’t leave the house a ton but sometimes we go on drives and stuff! I’m currently ripping season four of the twilight zone, I got a good deal on it at bookman’s (local used goods store), it’s taking forever because it’s six fucking discs, I’ve also been finding old Japanese movies on the internet archive to add cus I thought that would be fun. a picture of a raspberry pi single board computer with some flash drives and an external hard drive plugged

I also got some cool stuff in the mail from Japan, Dragon Quest IV collector’s set, boxed copy with the inserts of super Mario advance 4, and dragon quest 1 + 2 in box for game boy with all the inserts as well, it’s actually the third copy I have of this game but I wanted a boxed copy, my goal is to have all the dragon quest games complete before too long, which I’ve nearly achieved actually, I’m mostly missing the DS games at this point I’m gonna get the DQ X offline version to fill the DQ X void, I wish a mainline game wasn’t a completely online experience but oh well lol.

picture of dragon quest iv collectors edition box picture of dragon quest iv collectors edition booklet

Also looking forward to getting to the JavaScript side of my online course so I can do slideshows on here for photos since posts like this tend to have a bunch of them.

I’ve also been decorating the house in the style of “maximalism” because my fiancée Indigo likes that stuff, I like it too now though it’s fun and very chaotic lol. my dining room with walls full of objects and pictures

I also got red backlit keycaps for my keyboard! I really like how they turned out! a picture of a keyboard with red backlit keycaps and white LEDs

And finally I edited some old photos I took in 2015, hope you like them! a photograph of someone in a pig mask holding a burning piece of paper a photograph of a sheet in a yard floating in mid air a photograph of a sheet in a yard floating in mid air in a different shape a photograph of a sheet in a yard floating in mid air in a third shape

Anyway I hope you all have a great day!

-Ruby ruby as the hero from dragon quest, animated and crab walking

Happy Hanukkah!

eighth night

2022-12-25

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link
picture of a hanukkah menora with 9 candles in front of a window

Hey Everyone!

Happy Hanukkah! 🕎︎

It's the last night so wanted to make a quick post, hope everyone has had a good week!

I went up to Mt. Lemmon with my fiancée so that was fun! Also on the fifth night my blinds caught on fire, that was fun! Lol

Also I released a music video of one of the tracks from my newest album!

Have a great night!

-Ruby ruby as the hero from dragon quest, animated and crab walking

Cross Stitch Craze

I've been crossing so many stitches!

2022-12-16

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link

a cross stitch of king dragon from dragon quest

Hey everyone, hope you’re doing well!

I started learning how to cross stitch on October 17th of this year and just finished my first big project! It’s King Dragon from Dragon Quest 1 but I made him red (of course). It’s not perfectly accurate to the actual pixel art because of the simple fact I was working on it for like 12 hours straight at a time for nearly three weeks and was losing my fucking mind lol, so I messed up in a few spots, it also did not help I was using this water soluble canvas that was warping like crazy because it would get soft from my sweaty ass hands and then harden up again when I wasn’t working on it in weird shapes and stuff so it made it hard to make stitches and count properly, I’ve since started working on some smaller projects with regular waste canvas which is water soluble but still uses actual threads that you just pull out after soaking it in water instead of the entire canvas being water soluble itself, it works A LOT better than the water soluble stuff so I am liking it quite a lot, I did a little ghost looking Dragon Quest slime on one of my t-shirts with it!

cross stitch of a white and black dragon quest slime on a red shirt

I’m going to be doing some more projects soon but much smaller than the King Dragon one, it took so long, I was so exhausted from it, but it was very fulfilling to finally complete it and now I have a cool shirt! The shirt actually has a bunch of designs on it and I plan to add more but I’ve been wanting to decorate more of my other clothes lately since I did such a huge thing on that one and it's already pretty packed with cross stitching lol, I’m planning on doing some of my pants and jeans next! I highly recommend cross stitching, it’s very fun and affordable! You can get a lot of embroidery floss for like 60 cents each at a fabric or crafts store and the waste canvas I use is also very cheap, and needles, also cheap!

Dwarf Fortress

a picture of dwarf fortress screen that says The Creative Eggs wishes to reside in Gemsides for the purpose of entertaining Citizens and Visitors. Do you approved this request? and two buttons one that says approve and one that says deny.

I’ve also been playing a fuck ton of Dwarf Fortress, it’s very easy to be playing it and completely lose track of time, I’m not very good at it yet but it’s also very complex of a game and very hard lol, my third fortress which is my current one is about 10 years old now (in-game time) and my Duke just died with no heir so we’re back to just having a mayor now, each spring (sometimes autumn?) a bunch of goblins come and wreck everything and kill like a third of the population and I haven’t had much luck trying to figure out what to do about it, last time they only killed one person but this time they brought a shit ton more people with them and just wrecked shop lol, I’m honestly just hoping this fortress fails on it’s own before too long because I want to check out the world in Legends mode which will give me a lot more to write about over here regarding Dwarf Fortress! You can choose to retire a fortress manually but I just kind of want to see what happens if they fizzle out lol, things are not going well after all! The population of the fort used to be like 120, now it’s diminished to 54 currently. a screencap of dwarf fortress that shows a bunch of graves in a large long room

I highly recommend this game!

Death Stranding Director’s Cut

a picture of Sam from Death Stranding standing in front of a city, in a field with a corpse on his back, the death stranding director's cut logo is in the top left of the picture

I’ve also been playing a lot of Death Stranding Director’s Cut! It was on sale as an upgrade from the base game on steam ($6 wow!) which I didn’t get super far into because I got distracted by other things plus Death Stranding is scary so I can only play so much at a time lol. Death Stranding is so cool though, it’s the first game I’ve played that’s been Directed? Designed? By Hideo Kojima and I love it, it’s such a funny game while also being terrifying as well as chill, the music beats that happen during story stuff like when you’re walking to the first city you encounter are awesome and very relaxing, the game is really just a roller coaster of feelings to experience, I’m looking forward to getting back to where I was in the base game to experience more of the story, which is mostly why I’m playing it, I saw someone recently write about how the story isn’t its strongest part but I really love it honestly. I’m also going to be playing Metal Gear Solid for game boy soon so looking forward to checking out an older Kojima game! But yeah highly recommend Death Stranding especially if you’re into horror! Sam from Death Stranding on a futuristic looking motorcycle

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet a picture of a party from pokémon with a pokémon named shakshouka at the head of the party with a bunch of pokémon eggs filling the rest of the party, I cannot remember what the pokémon is called, sorry

I’ve also been playing a shit ton of Pokémon Scarlet! It’s very fun, I have Scarlet and Violet so my sister has been playing my copy of Violet on her switch, this entry is very fun and I love all the new monster designs, especially the spoilery ones I won’t mention here in case you want to play it and be surprised! The new auto battling mechanic in the open world is also a very nice and very welcomed feature. I don’t have much else to say about the game that isn’t full of spoilers, but I’ll probably write more about it at some point!

Other News a picture of an orange cat sleeping on a blue blanket

I’ve added an RSS feed for how many mice Pot Roast has killed, it’s currently at 13, and I’m not so sure it’ll go any higher because I haven’t heard any lately lol, he’s very skilled and patrols the house to find them and screams if he can’t find any. Also unfortunately Pot Roast has been diagnosed with FIV which is weird because the shelter is supposed to test them for that but we took him to his first vet visit and he tested positive for it, luckily we have insurance for him so regular vet visits won’t be a problem for us and he’s a strictly indoor cat because I’m very opposed to outdoor cats in general so he should be all good but it’s of course a bit worrying. a picture of an orange cat sitting on top of a computer in front of a blue wall (naughty)

He’s a great cat. We also got a baby gate to keep the dog out of the bedroom and let Pot Roast jump in and out of the bedroom as he pleases because he loves yelling if to be let in or out lol.

a picture of me and my fiancee standing in the mountains

Indigo (my fiancée) and I have been working on the “Save the dates” for our wedding and are going to be sending those out soon, I think they turned out pretty good!

a drawing of a goblin holding a thumbs down and a peace sign with either hand

I’ve been tuning more and more out of social media which is strange to me I used to be posting on twitter constantly, I think this blog has helped quite a lot with that it’s somewhere I can talk about things in my life and thoughts I have in a longer form with less pressure, I’m not sure if anyone reads these even but it’s nice to put it out there any way! If you do read these feel free to email me if you want to comment or just chat!

a picture of a desk with a computer and many monitors

My sister gave me a computer monitor so now I can have a total of 5 monitors active if I really want to lol, very funny to me, two regular monitors, a drawing tablet, a CRT TV, and my iPhone or iPad Pro.

an orange cat with a transparent background looking up and down

I’m going to be working on more video content/art soon so I’m looking forward to that, I want to do a let’s play and some video art as well but not entirely sure what game I want to play and what art I want to make.

a drawing of ruby as the hero from dragon quest

I’m also going to be rebooting my podcast soon, stay tuned!

ANYWAY

I have to get back to fighting slimes, so thanks for reading I hope you have a wonderful day!

-Ruby ruby as the hero from dragon quest, animated and crab walking a photo of many red objects, surely too many to list

Dragon Quest

I love Dragon Quest!

2022-11-14

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link

a drawing of a dragon quest slime, a king slime, and a slime stack in front of a mountain

Hello again!

Hope anyone reading this is doing well today, if not I hope your day gets better! I wanted to talk about Dragon Quest a bit today! I first learned about Dragon Quest More formally in May of 2022, however I had played Yakuza: Like a Dragon beforehand But didn’t really pay attention to the Dragon Quest part, at least the title, I sort of assumed it was a generic rpg name they came up with for the game, criminal, I know. Flash forward and now I’m obsessed with Dragon Quest and everything to do with it, and give it the proper respect it deserves.

If you don’t know about Dragon Quest it’s considered the first home video game console RPG and is massively influential to pretty much all RPGs that came after it, as well as many other things, from movies to television shows (highly recommend The Brave Yoshihiko btw). Pokémon for instance was inspired by Dragon Quest V for the Super Famicom, iirc Dragon Quest V was basically the first monster taming game, at the very least the most influential, especially at the time of its release. I have very many Dragon Quest titles on disc or cassette, as well as some digital only copies on Mobile (iOS) and Nintendo Switch, I have yet to play them all but I did however finally beat Dragon Quest 1 for the first time a couple of weeks ago and I’m very pleased with myself, I played the remake of the original Famicom game for Super Famicom, it’s probably my favorite version of the game at least in terms of graphical style, I really wish they would’ve used the graphics from the Super Famicom version for the mobile and switch ports, they went with a Dragon Quest III Super Famicom remake style which is also good but it removed a cool fog effect from one of the towns that I really enjoy looking at when I’m in that town.

ANYWAY

Dragon Quest has really changed my life, it’s brought me a great amount of joy and basically endless entertainment, as well as huge amounts of inspiration for my own work and art, I’d really like to make my own turn based RPG eventually because of it, I’ve been getting more into making pixel art and sprites in my free time because of it and can’t wait to be able to apply the game development skills I’m learning to making my own game, it’ll be fun to see what I end up coming up with! I’ll probably end up releasing it on itch, and if it becomes ambitious enough, steam.

I’m really excited for Dragon Quest XII, yep twelve titles, and that’s just the main games lol, apparently it’s going to have a darker theme to the story which seems like a fun change for the series, it’s usually mostly lighthearted, and a lot of other people seem to be really excited about it, they also are revamping the combat system apparently but I guess staying true to the basic mechanics as well which is good to hear, I really like turn based combat so it’s nice to hear it’ll still be around for the next major entry, Dragon Quest XII doesn’t have a release date yet but I’ll be patiently waiting for it, also it’ll be the first game to be released at the same time globally instead of in Japan first, so I think I’ll get it in English for convenience since I’m still a beginner with learning Japanese!

If you’re interested in Dragon Quest after reading this, and I hope you are, here’s my top recommendations for games you should consider playing from the series!

Dragon Quest I

I recommend the NES release versus the Famicom release (especially if you don’t know any Japanese) mostly because it has a save battery, but also if you’re looking for something more modern I recommend the switch or mobile versions! They’re both great, the switch version has a bit of a strange graphical style but I recommend it anyway, it honestly grew on me after a while. Also a big tip for playing Dragon Quest games, especially the first one, is to talk to everyone you see in towns and such! It’s a great way to get around and figure out where to go without the use of a guide, though I recommend a guide if you get stuck, there’s plenty out there thankfully!

Dragon Quest XI S:

Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition

A bit weird to jump this far ahead probably but I can’t recommend this game enough, specifically the definitive edition with the crazy title you see up above, it’s possibly the best turn based RPG of all time, this is what really made me fall in love with the series after playing the first one for a bit, and made me want to play every single Dragon Quest game in existence. It’s on Switch, PS4, and Steam, I have the switch and PS4 versions but I guess Steam is the best. The great thing about the definitive edition other than being on more accessible platforms is that you can play the game in either a 2D pixel art style or full 3D graphics like a typical modern game, I’ve only played the 2D version, which I highly recommend doing, but also plan to play the 3D version too, the 3D version doesn’t have random encounters while the 2D version does, and some major cutscenes are still in 3D in the 2D version, and they look incredible as well! I hope if you play any Dragon Quest you play this one, because it’ll likely get you hooked on the series, which is a good thing in my opinion.

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime / Slime Mori Mori 2

This spin-off for DS is awesome! It’s a totally different gameplay style, you play as a Dragon Quest Slime and help rescue other slimes from being trapped by some bad guys, you also do fun tank battles where you launch stuff out of the tank, and even launch yourself, if you’re interested you should check out some gameplay footage to get a feel for how it’s like before deciding to purchase as DS games can be a bit pricey nowadays unfortunately, there’s also always emulation of course however, or a hacked 3DS, either way give this game a try!

Every other Dragon Quest game

After you play those three, play every other Dragon Quest game, totally worth it!

IN OTHER NEWS

I’ve been updating the visual look of the site quite a bit, I’m really liking how it’s looking so far now, feels pretty cool lol, I’ve also been working on using semantic markup to make the website more accessible and easier to navigate for people using screen readers, going to be learning more about that during my course so I’m looking forward to getting further along in the course! I’m excited to learn JavaScript too because I guess you can do quite a bit of cool stuff with that, I’m not entirely sure of the possibilities but I’m excited about learning them!

I also finally was able to stock up again on Maxim instant coffee, it’s a really good instant coffee from South Korea, recommend it if you don’t like instant coffee, it’s worth a try at least it might change your mind about instant coffee! It certainly changed mine.

I also stopped smoking and switched back to vaping instead, I’m feeling a lot better already, smoking really messes me up, I got a brand new vape and it’s awesome, first vape I’ve ever had that uses USB-C for charging and firmware updates which fucking rules, I had the guys at the shop I frequent make a banana menthol juice for me with additional cooling effects (they call it koolada). It’s really good, though a bit too sweet so I’m gonna take it back to have them change it up a tiny bit with a bit more menthol and a bit less sweetener! I’m currently vaping right now as I type this, yay vapes!

I think I’m gonna try to relax a bit today, have been working pretty heavily on my course and this website, have some cleaning to do today is all just tidying up the house and what not.

Also it’s cold as fuck here in Tucson! I hope it rains some more soon at least, I guess it’s possible!

Anyway have a great day!

-Ruby ruby as the hero from dragon quest, animated and crab walking

Pot Roast
is a very good boy!

All about my new cat.

2022-11-09

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link

an orange cat who is a good boy

Hello again!

We got a cat!!! His name is Pot Roast and he's about three years old. I LOVE him!!! He's incredibly sweet and friendly and warmed up to us right away, we're following the shelter's guidelines for introducing him and my dog to eachother so he's in the bedroom for a couple weeks for now, keeping the dog (Pork Chop) out of the bedroom is a hassle so far but it's going good at least, no security breaches lol. We have their food bowls on either side of the door so they can get used to smelling each other cus that's what the shelter recommended, and I have a blanket on my couch for Pork Chop to lay on and I'll be bringing it in to the bedroom tonight for Pot Roast to lay on, something the shelter also recommended, luckily Pork Chop loves cats and Pot Roast used to live with a small dog, Pork is small, so I think things will go well once they can finally meet face to face, but yeah following the guidelines for introduction set by the shelter has really lowered my anxiety about the whole ordeal but I wish Pot Roast got to explore the whole house already, but it'll be worth it for the animals to get along without any fear being introduced! Also we got one of those deodorizing and scented cat litters and I never thought I'd say this about fucking cat litter but it smells really good lmao. We're going to the store today to get him one of those engraved collar tags to put his name and our info on it in case G-d forbid he ever gets out of the house, hopefully never happens but he's really chill so I don't think he'd try to bolt outside but we're just gonna have to be really careful from now on when it comes to opening and closing the front and back doors. Pot Roast slept in the bed with us last night which was cool cus he spent a good amount of time yesterday hiding under the bed so I'm glad he's starting to feel more comfortable already, he's also been purring constantly and like rubbing up against our legs when he's walking by so I think he likes it here! Here's another picture of him:

an orange cat who is a good boy

Other News!

I've been having a really fun time working on my website and this blog, also I'm taking the blog off Big Cartel and just adding a link to it on my links page over there because mirroring it between the two sites is such a hassle and actually having hosting now where I can upload files makes working on the blog so much easier, and working on html and css stuff in general! It's really fulfilling carving out my own little space on the internet like this, one that's really mine, I think I mentioned previously I'm going to be taking udemy courses on html and css, and I think since my host allows it I'll try my hand at JavaScript cus I guess you can do pretty cool stuff with JavaScript from what I've been hearing anyway, the reason I started learning this stuff in the first place and I can't think the staff enough for this but this new social media website Cohost allows HTML and CSS to be put into posts you make, and it's been really fun working within the limitations provided to create fun looking posts, and yeah that's what led to me learning this stuff and I'm thrilled! I can't wait to see what this website will look like in the years to come as I learn more and more, I'm also gonna begin archiving each major version of the site beginning now so that if anyone ever wants to see what it used to look like I can send them the files, I could maybe even add it as like sort of a hidden feature of the site where you can see how it used to look in its early days if you have the right link lol, but yeah it's been a blast learning this stuff and I'm having the time of my life!

Hanukkah is swiftly approaching and I'm looking forward to making latkes and other fried foods! Also it's fun cus we usually have a few closes friends over to play dreidel and drink wine and what not, my fiancee is considering more and more the idea of converting, I'm obviously not pushing them either way, but it'll be fun to help them with that if they decide to convert, I also imagine I'll be going to shul a lot more if they do, lol. I actually still haven't found a shul to go to here in Tucson, I stopped going to mine in Tempe because of you know the pandemic, but luckily they started doing some online stuff, but now I'm in Tucson and need to find a new one, luckily there's quite a few Jewish facebook groups in the area so I'll probably start more seriously looking there, though it's still a bit nerve racking to go somewhere with so many people during the pandemic so I might hold off, I'm still undecided.

I'm still job hunting but I found out my clinic offers vocational help so I'm going to be calling them soon to figure that all out, probably a better lead than applying to anything under the sun, I've had a few interviews now and none of them have panned out unfortunately, getting a bit demotivated but I really want money lol.

Also recently I finally beat Dragon Quest 1 for the first time! I'm really happy about that it was very rewarding to have done so. I played the Super Famicom remake, I think it's possibly my favorite version of the original Dragon Quest games, if you don't know it has Dragon Quest 1 and 2 on one cartridge, I'm on to Dragon Quest 2 now which is notably much much more difficult of a game, but I'm having a really good time with it anyway, probably gonna play some later today, I'm gonna make my next blog post about Dragon Quest and what it means to me so be looking for that! It's a really great series if you haven't played it, the newest one Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition is on Switch, PC, and PS4/PS5, it's by far the best Dragon Quest title I've played and I highly recommend it! I've only played it in the 2D graphics mode, you can play it either 3D or 2D in the definitive edition, I definitely want to replay it soon in the 3D mode on my PS4, I also have it for switch though lol. I might speed run the game eventually which means I'll be getting the PC Version too since I guess that one is better for speed running. Anyway, play Dragon Quest! ドラクエはすごい!

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you have a good day!

-Ruby ruby as the hero from dragon quest, animated and crab walking

Mice Circus

My house has mice
and they're getting
bolder

2022-11-07

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link

a mouse in a trap, he is alive because it is a trap for keeping them alive to release them somewhere else

Hello

Wow so soon to see you again! I wanted to talk about my mice problem that I've been dealing with lately lol. It's quite horrible but also very funny sometimes. Also the mouse in the photo is alive and well, I think, I can't be entirely sure I released him 10 miles away from my house lol.

Anyway

The other night I was sitting on couch just looking at my phone when some mice ran out in the kitchen and started causing a genuine ruckus! There's a laundry bin in my kitchen at the moment, one of those tall ones with the holes all around the sides, and they were in the clothes poking their heads in and out at different spots like some kind of fucked up game of wack-a-mole! Then they got out of the laundry bin and started like playing tag with each other just running into eachother and bouncing around and shit then one of them I kid you not started doing somersaults and I was just blown away!

The Cat

Fiancee and I have decided to get a cat soon, I know, poor mice, but I've caught about eight so far and my dog has killed two of 'em so we're getting a cat to help with the mice now, also just because we want a cat, I'm looking at this real fat one at the shelter he's awesome I hope I can end up getting him he's really adorable lol, whatever cat we get though we're gonna name him "Pot roast" because I think that would be a funny name for a cat, especially if he's a big guy.

In other news

My fiancee got a new job and they're really liking it so far which is good. Their last job sucked bad and they hated it lol. Also I've been doing my c++ courses on udemy and it's going pretty good, I mean I'm still mostly in the introduction phase but I have high hopes that it will go well, I only started learning css and html about a month ago and it seems to be going pretty good so far and I'm learning new things every day which is nice, I plan on taking an html and css course on udemy as well since I have that plan thing where it has a bunch of courses included with the plan, also gonna see if there's any good courses on learning Japanese as I've been learning for quite a few months now and always looking for more materials to learn with as I figure the more the merrier lol. I have some goals for that like I wanna be able to read novels and comics in Japanese and watch shows without English subtitles being needed, I really like Japanese crime and political dramas, especially Takeshi Kitano's Drama/Action movies such as the Outrage trilogy, and I started watching this show called "The Journalist" which seems pretty cool too! Also in the middle of writing this post big cartel said I'm blocked from viewing my own fuckin webpage I guess they don't expect people to actually use their in-house code writing tools, which is silly to me I think I might start putting this stuff into dreamweaver before I add it to the blog from now on. Actually I decided to just import this code into dreamweaver to keep writing this post! Turns out it had a ton of errors so this is certainly a better way to work on the blog lol! I'm actually looking forward to finding a good html + css course so that I can get better at this stuff it really interests me and it's super fun to do, I'm thinking one day I'll move the website off of big cartel so I can do even more stuff with it!

My fiancee and I are gonna go up to Mt. Lemmon soon here in Tucson, not sure exactly when but I'm looking forward to the trip up there and hanging out with them, it's really beautiful up there and there's plenty of places to have a little picnic so that's usually what we go for, also had the worst pizza I've ever had from an actual business while I was up there, super expensive too for how bad it was especially lol, there is a little general store up at the top though that has really good fudge they make that comes in all sorts of flavors, highly recommend if you get the chance to visit.

Check this out

Friend of the blog, Nora, does a weekly roundup every monday that's pretty fun and I've been enjoying reading their blog so far! Have a good one y'all!

-Ruby ruby as the hero from dragon quest, animated and crab walking

First actual post!

I've been fuckinf gaming

2022-11-06

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link
a gamer gaming, it's me ruby

Hello! Wanted to make my first post already, still futzing around with html lmao. Lately I have been playing very many video games. Most people that know me know that I love Dragon Quest but I also really love Like a Dragon (formerly Yakuza) and I'm very excited for the future of both series. Recently I played the "Judgment" spin-offs of Like a Dragon and fell in love! I'm really hoping we get a third entry in the series as all the characters are amazing and Yagami fucking rules especially, he's the main character! I'm currently looking for a day job which hopefully translates into being able to get more games lol, it's been slow going on the job hunt but I remain hopeful!

Also have been having a fun time playing "space shooters" lately otherwise known as "shmups," I got into them after this youtuber I like watching kept talking about Gradius, I have Gradius 1 for Famicom and Gradius 3 for Super Famicom, Gradius 3 is the first one I played as I got it first then decided I wanted to give Gradius 1 a try, I highly recommend Gradius 3 even if shmups aren't really your thing, the parody series Parodius is also awesome and silly, a "cute-em-up."

The arcade stick you see me using in the picture is the 8bitdo Arcade Stick, it's really good for any game that doesn't need two analog sticks, I love the thing a lot and use it as much as possible, I highly recommend it!

Anyway thanks for reading, wanted to keep this first post short as I still get the hang of things! Have a great day!

-Ruby ruby as the hero from dragon quest, animated and crab walking

Welcome to my blog!

a brief introduction

2022-11-06

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link
illustration of a goblin in front of a computer with a dreamy mood lighting

Hello! I decided to add a blog to my website as I thought it would be fun!

I'm not sure how often I'll update it but I thought it would be cool to update on stuff I'm doing,stuff I like to talk about, or really whatever I feel like posting!

I'm still very new to HTML and CSS so I'm also using this as project to work on those skills, one day this blog will be fancier!

Thanks for reading!

-Ruby ruby as the hero from dragon quest, animated and crab walking