A Personal Update

I try not to post too many personal posts on this site. Trying to look at least a little professional haha. But when Real Life interferes with the blogging, I think it’s time for a quick update as to explain the lack of updates lately. This is one of those personal posts about me, the blogger, and not really relevant to the other topics you see here. So if you’re curious, click on to read more, and if not, no hard feelings. Go check out some of my game reviews or something instead :).

I’m in the process of moving right now. House is due to close on February 1st. I have spent a long time living in really poor conditions and our new home might be poor to a lot of people (still trailer trash lol) but it’s a god send to me and my family. We’ve been living in absolute hell for the past 2 years now. Living conditions so bad it’s like a 3rd world country; Most people in America probably can’t imagine living the way my family has been forced to live for nearly 3 years now – electrical problems (running the entire mobile home on one electrical outlet), plumbing problems (having to fill and boil jugs of water just to do the simplest of chores, bathe, wash food, wash dishes, rinse hands, brush teeth, etc), physical holes in the floor, roof leaking, no heat, no air, mold growing from the cold and the leaks, and in a bad neighborhood (there was a murder in our trailer park 3 doors down due to drug related incidents. There’s also a convicted sex offender that lives in the park) Luckily we are “Movin’ on up” to a deluxe trailer in the sky, or at least in a better neighborhood. It’s taken us a long time to be able to improve our situation. — But we are finally here. Getting ready to move into our new home. To put it into perspective, our current home is from 1963. Our new one is from 1998, quite a big step forward. It has central air and heat, and is not a fire hazard (one outlet with extension cords) nor health hazard (the water issue, as well as the leaks and mold).

This means a lot of exciting things for me, which will directly impact my blog too in a way since it’s all good positive things which enable me to further pursue my hobbies. Most notably, I will be able to have company – I’ve been dating my current boyfriend for 3 years, and he’s never spent the night at my place, or even been over to see it, because shortly after we started dating, it began falling apart quickly to the point where I became ashamed to have anyone over to the house. – While this doesn’t impact the blog, other guests being able to come over will! I run a meet up group – which sadly, much like our (soon to be) former home has fallen into disrepair. I plan to revive and reactivate the meetup group. This means I will be posting video reviews of the boardgames we play, or attending conventions, or watching and reviewing more anime, etc.

The other big thing is, I get two rooms to myself. Right now, due to the heating problems, and mold and electric and other problems, I’ve been sharing my room this winter with my family. Not a big deal – but it did make it impossible to Vlog (do video reviews). I want to get into “Vlogging” in a “big way” in 2016. I suspect almost every review or post I do to be accompanied by a video review in the near future. I may even go back and do video reviews for a lot of the items we’ve already reviewed on the site as well.

This is somewhat tied into the above point, but one of my most beloved hobbies is collecting Asian Balljointed Dolls (and similar toys and figures). Right now, there’s no where to put my collection (can’t put in my room cuz of my cats.) – That’s all about to change. I’m dedicating one full room to my collection (one wall or cabinet might also house some of my vintage retro videogame cartridges if I find they’re in acceptable condition still to be displayed.) With my “doll room” as I’m calling it, everything will be clean and cat free. It will make my photographs better. I will have a desk set up to work on my dolls, do faceups (I have like 6 blank heads right now lol). And most excitedly will just have several cabinets to display my collection. Better photos make for better reviews. Also for people who love asian balljointed doll photography and looking at others’ works, this will give you reason to follow me on twitter and instagram 🙂 — Also with a doll room, I have room now to grow and expand my collection – and plan to do so soon. ^^ My birthday is in may. It’s a perfect time for a new doll harharhar… And new dolls mean new reviews for the blog. <3

The other room is mostly just a sleeping room – except for, the fact that my big screen tv will be mounted in there, and my game consoles (probably only have 1 or 2 out at a time though, want to keep everything tidy). Here’s the rub, I haven’t been doing game reviews lately because 1.) While playing (and reviewing) Norn 9, we lost our electrical outlets in about 2/3rds of the house. My bedroom already did not have electricity and was running off an extension cord going into the kitchen lol. But now, it’s connected, along with the kitchen and living room, to one measely outlet in the living room. — I’ve been told not to turn on my TV or Game consoles for fear of burning out the one outlet that we have left, which is running our electric blankets and space heater in my room which we definitely need this time of year without any other sources of heats and holes all over the trailer. This was back before Christmas 🙁 — I miss my games. I still really want to finish Norn9!

The other thing that happened is, my “gaming” computer (which actually was just a cheap middle of the line Acer with a dedicated Radeon graphics card good enough to play most games) – but here’s the thing, after being my loyal companion for almost 3 years, it decided to go to that computer heaven in the sky about 3 weeks ago – most likely due to a result of said faulty wiring in our mobile home.

So now, I have been occasionally borrowing my grandma’s HP Stream chrome book piece of junk computer, which clearly, obviously, cannot play games – I actually downloaded a couple of older games and things, but you know, can’t play much of anything with its meager ram and craptastic Intel graphics card.

So at some point, once I move, my next priority is to either fix my old “gaming” computer, or just buy a new one. But obviously we need a lot of other important things for our home (like appliances, since it didn’t come with any). So my PC gaming has been effectively crippled for the moment — but my console gaming will be able to be picked right back up once we make the move. And getting a new PC or fixing my current one is definitely high on my priorities list. Just a matter of being able to afford it first.

In the meantime I’ve been doing anime and mobile game reviews since that’s largely all I have access to. I plan to do up a review for Hearthstone soon – it’s my latest addiction, just started playing it this week (I know, I’m VERY late to that party lol.). I love it though, it’s a great game and helping me pass the time while my other mainstays are out of commission.

I’ve also been sick with the flu and a bad sinus infection but am on the mend and should not be deterring me from writing up a few posts this weekend and scheduling them to go out to fill in over the next few weeks while I plan to be quite busy with the move.

Actually, I’ve not yet set foot into the house myself. I’ve only seen it from the outside. My family purchased the home, and has been the ones doing the paper work and site visits while I’ve been either sick or working the past month. So I’m pretty excited to get the keys! I plan to spend the first night sleeping on the floor for good luck before we even move in. My mom said she’ll come with me, and we’ll rent movies and get a pizza. Fun times.

I will try to respond to comments, feedback forms, email, or social media inquiries in a timely fashion still throughout the move. But if I don’t get back to you right away, hey at least you know why now :).