BLOG -- My Vacation Week (Feb. 9 - Feb. 17)

Well, I had vacation this past week (Feb. 11 to Feb. 15). Not too much happened, but I wanna keep a record of it. This may not be interesting for you!

Overall, I was pretty glad to be on vacation since the weather this past week was horrible. Though... because of the horrible weather, I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do on my vacation. For example, I had wanted to watch a movie in theatres and to go karaoking, but I stayed at home most days 'cuz the weather was just too horrible.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 9

I know this is just before my vacation starts, but I want to note this.

I went over to my sister's place to do our usual tradition of making chocolates for Valentine's Day. We tried a new recipe -- a vegan chocolate recipe that called for cocoa powder, coconut oil, and maple syrup. I didn't choose this recipe 'cuz it was vegan -- I chose it 'cuz I thought it'd be easy to make. Only 3 ingredients (that are easy to acquire) and the only instruction was to mix the three until evenly combined. How can we mess it up? Well... somehow we did!

The recipe called for 1 cup each of cocoa powder, coconut oil (melted), and maple syrup. We went with a slightly different amount with the coconut oil and maple syrup due to somebody's comment on that recipe page. I also think I didn't melt the coconut oil enough. In the end, the mixture had an oily residue and was stuck firmly on our plastic chocolate molds. It was a total bust! :(

Later in the day a friend came by and we and my sister's hubby all played this card game called Tanto Cuore. It was really fun once we got the game flow! Maybe I'll blog about it in the future.

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 10

I spent much of the day trying to blog. I knew what I wanted to blog about (something Valentine-related), but it just wasn't coming out right. As mentioned last week, I ended up scrapping the original blog and did something short and sweet.

I shared an old audio recording of me singing "Eyes on Me". Little did I know that the next day would be Final Fantasy VIII's 20th anniversary!

MONDAY FEBRUARY 11

Not too much happened today. I finished watching Season 5 of The Office and then watched Dead or Alive. I've always had this desire to watch all movie adaptations of video games... even though I know how painful it can be (video game movie adaptations don't exactly have the best rep!).

The absolute worst video game movie adaptation that I've watched so far was Double Dragon.

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 12

I was planning on going outside today, but the horrible Winter storm kept me indoors. What did I do instead?

Well, first I caught Stephen and Mal's Breakfast Stream on Twitch. I always like trying to tune in when I'm on vacation since they stream while I'm normally at work.

Afterwards, I bought some tickets for the Kingdom Hearts Orchestra that's coming to Toronto in July. I am quite excited! I gotta try playing through more Kingdom Hearts games before that time.

Later on, I tried to continue working on my text-based game while being distracted by other things. My mind was nagging me to do other things like re-sub to Final Fantasy XIV, or clean my room, or play more video games... 

Originally, I was aiming to finish my text-based game during this vacation and then realized how overly ambitious it was. I think -- I would have been able to finish it during my vacation -- if that was all I did. Sometimes when I think something is simple -- it actually turns out to be more time-consuming and complex. It's not always a bad thing... but it can really throw me off on when I can get something done. u__u

At night I decided to watch Corpse Party: Tortured Souls, an OVA anime series. It was a big mistake to watch it at night! I'm usually not affected by animated blood / gore / horror like I would be from watching live-action blood / gore / horror, but this one actually made me really uneasy. I'm not exactly saying this anime was good (the video game is wayyyyy better for characterization and setting up the atmosphere -- and way better endings!). For some reason, the anime just scared me. The opening theme is great, though.

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 13

I spent most of the day working on my text-based game. I was a lot more focused today thankfully!

Later on I re-subbed to Final Fantasy XIV and did the Valentione's Day event. One of the event items was a Tonberry knife so I had to have it, hahaha.

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 14

The most notable thing for me today was catching Stephen and Mal's Breakfast Stream on Twitch. Yes, they still stream during "special" days if they fall on a Tuesday or Thursday (due to this, I was able to catch them on Christmas last year and New Year's this year)! 

They had special bit alerts up just for Valentine's Day. For those who don't know (I didn't know what they were until I created a Twitch account and looked it up), bit alerts are special animated alerts that pop up if you send through a certain number of bits (the currency for Twitch). When I knew which alert I wanted to see again (after everybody else sent through bits to see the different alerts), I waited for a good time to send it through. I didn't want to interrupt them as they talked seriously about their ingress (spelling might not be right) issue, Stephen's vertigo, and about the Nintendo direct that happened yesterday (I should have tuned in to that!).

When I thought there was some down time, I sent through the bits. As it was sending through, Mal suddenly said "Speaking of Valentine's Day...". Right then I thought, 'Oh no! My bits are going through and I can't stop them! I might ruin this moment!'. Thankfully, Stephen and Mal laughed and took it coolly.

If you want to see a clip of that moment, you can watch it here: https://www.twitch.tv/stephengeorg/clip/ImportantAuspiciousTapirChocolateRain

After the stream, I spent pretty much the rest of the day cleaning my room. My room is still a mess... but at least I can walk around a bit more.

For Valentine's Day, I ended up giving myself a gift: I pre-ordered Catherine: Full Body Premium Edition. I had been resisting for the longest time because I already had the original PS3 game, but the trailer sold me. While I'm not the biggest fan of the puzzle element, I am very curious how the story and characters will change because of the new character.

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 15

I went out (first time since my vacation started) and did multiple errands. First, I went to a BMV (used book / DVD / Blu-Ray / CD / board game store) to sell some of my old DVDs / Blu-Rays. Then I went to Shoppers Drug Mart to look for some decently priced discount Valentine's Day chocolates. Then I went to Bulk Barns to buy some silicone chocolate molds. Then I went to my sister's place for Take Two of chocolate-making.

This is the first time in all my life that I have ever made chocolate twice in the same year for Valentine's Day. I just couldn't accept the bust that was the last chocolate-making session, hahaha... 

We followed the recipe this time and it turned out much better. We also melted regular chocolates and placed them in molds as a back-up in case the vegan chocolate turned out to be a bust again. All-in-all, this session was a success, lol.

Some of the chocolates we did. The chocolates on the right were 

the vegan chocolates (aside from me putting peanuts and gummies 

on some of them), and the chocolates on the left were the 

fun melting-chocolates-and-putting-them-into-molds. 

A close-up shot of the molded chocolates. They're robots! 

What we did with the leftover chocolates mixtures. The gummy roses and chips 

dipped in chocolate tasted horrible, hahaha. The random 

splot of chocolate has peanuts mixed in.

After the chocolate-making session, my sister and I watched some episodes of Criminal Minds (we're a few seasons behind now, I think). I ended up staying over at my sister's place since we were planning on watching more of Criminal Minds the next day.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 16

We didn't get to watch more of Criminal Minds, but instead we watched 1408, this old-ish Stephen King movie I had been meaning to watch for a long, long time. It starts off very creepy and good, but then gets too over-the-top in the last half. It makes me a little sad, thinking about that movie.

When I got home, I watched Clue, another old-ish movie I had been meaning to watch for a long time. It had potential -- that's it, hahaha...

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 17

I hung out with a friend today. The most notable and embarrassing thing was that I slipped on some ice and banged my knee and scraped a couple of my fingers. What a way to end off my vacation! Hahaha... I hope I heal up okay.


If you are still here, thanks for reading! Today is Family Day in Ontario, so I get to lounge around for a bit longer. I'll either be watching Audition (a movie my sister had adamantly told me not to watch years ago -- maybe I'll be able to take it better now!) or starting Undertale (I finally bought it off PSN!). Maybe I can do both! :)

For those who have Family Day today, I hope you have a wonderful Family Day!

To everybody, thanks again for reading! Next week should be a continuation of the Game of Thrones blogs. I really want to finish those before the last season starts! Anywho, take care and until next time! :)