El Progeso Del Peregrino Has Moved!

Hello everyone; today is the big day. Today is the final time I’ll be publishing on this website. For weeks I’ve been working on my new website and it’s clear that it is now time to bring the Blogger era to an end. This website will continue to exist for the indefinite future, but baring extreme circumstances there will be no more future updates to it. Going forward, all of my online writings will be published on my new website, which is:

www.ricardopedia.com

I hope you’ve all enjoyed the journey of El Progreso Del Peregrino. As you might remember, the name of this website translates to “the pilgrim’s progress.” For almost six years we’ve been on a pilgrimage together, through travel blogging, gaming commentaries, life stories, political opinions, writing adventures, random thoughts, and so much more. Every pilgrimage eventually comes to an end, however, and today the pilgrim that is this website crosses his own finish line, handing off the baton to the next pilgrim.

See you all on the new website!

-Ricardo

Where would I go?

If, for whatever reason, I were forced to leave America and live in another country that I had visited in the past, which one would I choose? That question was posed to me at a dinner party a while ago. At the time I threw out a quick answer but afterwards I thought about it some more and today I’m going to share six countries that came to mind as a possible new home. Certainly if I took the time to ponder the question longer I could come up with addition locales but these are the ones that came to mind first.


Spain
I think I’ve more extensively explored Spain than any other country I’ve visited. There are plenty of towns that I could see myself settling down in, such as San Sebastian, Segovia, and Granada. Long ago I could speak Spanish at a high school level and I’m quite confident that with a little time and effort I could recover those skills and move beyond into full fluency. With my Mediterranean skin color I also fit in, to the point where Spain has been the only country I’ve visited where locals have mistaken me for being one of them. Obviously my American accent gives me away once I start speaking but I think I could assimilate pretty well into Spanish society.

Japan
Living in Japan might be cool, but there’s the fact that I’d forever be gaijin. Foreigners can have a hard time getting work visas, they’ll never become citizens, and Japanese is a notoriously difficult language to master. I guess I’d have to make up my mind on whether the interesting parts of Japan would be worth the hassle that a gaijin like me would have to endure to live there.

Britain
This is sort of an obvious choice just because there would (theoretically) be no language barrier and the culture in Britain isn’t too far off that of America. The problem with Britain would be that I’ve only been to London, so I can’t say that I’ve seen much of the country and thus wouldn’t have an informed opinion about living anywhere outside of the capital.

Korea
Korea might offer a good compromise for living in Asia in that I’d get the experience of living in East Asia but without some of the trouble that would come from living in Japan. While I did like Japan more than Korea, I still thought Korea was a fascinating place and I think I could find a good place to lay down roots. The Korean people are also probably the friendliest I’ve met in the whole world, which is a great bonus. Yes, I’d have to learn Korean, but from my casual observations it doesn’t seem like it’s as hard to learn as Japanese.

Croatia
The Balkans region of Europe is an interesting place and my personal favorite of the nations there is Croatia. The capital city of Zagreb was enjoyable both times I visited and is the nation’s most advanced city, so I would find a place to live there. Croatia would also have the benefit of being a little cheaper than most other nations in this post.

France
Much like Croatia, I could live in France but it would be in a very specific location. There are lots of nice places in France, but for me I’d pick the Normandy region. Normandy is a quiet (and rainy) part of France that’s full of history but doesn’t attract the big crowds like you find in Paris or other parts of France. If I had my pick of towns I’d opt for Bayeux, a centrally located and very charming town that’s got most of the conveniences of a large city but without the traffic and other annoyances of big cities.

Trump’s State of the Union Speech 2018

I wasn’t able to watch the 2018 State of the Union speech when it aired and instead I brought it up on Youtube the following morning while I was at work. Don’t worry; I was working while watching and listening to it and my boss, who sits next to me, had also missed it so he didn’t mind. Trump’s speech was longer than I expected—I had assumed he wouldn’t go longer than an hour due to his experience in showbiz and his love of Twitter—and it was also better than I thought it would be. Indeed, it was a strangely positive and encouraging speech overall. Back when Trump was inaugurated the phrase that I remembered most was “This American carnage stops right here and right now.” The speech seemed like a pretty dour assessment of America, even with Trump’s pledges to make things right. With the 2018 State of the Union Speech the quote that stands out to me came early on when Trump said “Let’s begin tonight by recognizing that the State of our Union is strong because our people are strong.” I’m not a fan of Trump but I can’t deny that his speech made me feel good about America and being an American. There was great storytelling in the speech and Trump fulfilled the president’s role of being America’s biggest cheerleader. Overall I’d give the speech something like 8.5 out of 10. True, the whole thing was political theater and I haven’t yet gotten around to looking at the fact-checking reports on Trump’s claims, but as a speech I’d say it was pretty good. I’m quite impressed that Trump didn’t go off-script into one of his tirades common on Twitter and my only major criticism of the speech in terms of its feel and presentation was that it was too long. The opening 30 or so minutes were strong, then things started faltering a little bit for the second 30 or so minutes, however Trump regaining momentum in the final 15 minutes. Having the North Korean refugee near the end was a powerful move and the image of the refugee holding up his crutches will likely be the most memorable sight of the entire night, at least for me. By the time this writing piece is published Trump will no doubt be back to his usual self, but for that hour and twenty minutes he actually came across as a great encourager and unifier.

Backing up older posts

While working on my new website I realized that I don’t have backups for the text of my older posts. It was only in February 2016 that I started saving copies of what I wrote online, so should something catastrophic happen to my website I’d lose all the words I had published before then. Thus I have taken on the tasks of making copies of those older posts and saving them onto my hard drive. Copying one post is a simple enough task, but copying over 200 is going to take some time.

I’ve lost my combination lock

It’s gone. I know it’s probably silly to get worked up about losing something as mundane as a cheap combination lock, but you gotta understand—I’ve had that lock since middle school and I have a certain fondness for objects that have been with me for a long time. For almost 20 years that lock served me faithfully, securing my valuables. It’s traveled thousands of miles around the world, accompanying me on all three of my international journeys. The combination to unlock it is burned into my brain. I’d gladly pay several times its value to get it back. Obviously to proper thing to do now is just get another lock, but even if I buy one that looks exactly the same I’m still going to feel a strange hole in my life for awhile.

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT beta

Two weekends ago I saw that there was an open beta being held for Dissidia Final Fantasy NT and I decided to give it a try. I’d never played a Dissidia game before, but I had seen and read things about them, so I knew the basic concept of the games and the beta seemed like a good opportunity to see if I’d actually like playing them. After downloading the beta I spent about an hour messing around with the game and today I’m giving some thoughts on my brief experience with it.

Where can I get one of these?

We’re still years away from getting mech suits like in the anime I used to watch, but each year we seem to get a little closer. The above video is a piece of promotional material that I discovered thanks to social media and it got me thinking again about how cool it would be to pilot some sort of robot suit. It also triggered the amateur engineer side of my brain about how to make the suit better. Being entirely human-powered, I suspect that it can’t lift heavy objects, so some sort of power system should be added. Maybe hydraulics. You could mount more mechanical parts to the suit’s back and that would give the added bonus of creating a counterweight that would help when lifting objects. I can’t tell if there are shock absorbers in the legs, but they should definitely be installed so that the suit can jump and land without hurting the pilot. Related to that, I don’t know if this thing can get back up on it’s own if it falls over and if the pilot is sufficiently protected from falls. Being as tall as it is, and with those large shoulders and arms, the suit looks top heavy. More weight needs to go to the middle and lower sections to balance that out.

But, yeah, concerns aside, where can I get one? For those interested, below is a more informative video on the same robot suit.

Positive tweets for game developers

Social media can be incredibly toxic. In the world of video games this is especially true, with game developers sometimes enduring torrents of abuse from people who either have an axe to grind or just find harassment to be a fun pastime. Recently Colin Moriarty, a former senior editor at IGN and cofounder of Kinda Funny, put out a video detailing some of the cyber bullying experienced by a game developer, a games journalist, and himself. It’s a great insight into what some people in the games industry experience and if you have about 19 minutes to spare it’s definitely worth your time. I’ve embedded the video below.

After watching Colin’s video I was thinking about what, if anything, I could do to help combat the tide of online abuse. At first I was drawing a blank since I’m just one person with zero online influence, but then I got an idea. What I could do is use my Twitter account, which currently is used mostly to observe the tweets of others, and start sending out some encouraging tweets. After finishing each game that I play for Late to the Party I’m going to send a positive tweet to the game’s developer. Even if I end up not liking a game I’ll still send a tweet to thank the developer for making the game. One tweet at time, I’m going to try to put a little positivity out into the online world.

Oh, and if for some reason your curious, my Twitter profile is @ricardopedia.

No more Five Guys until December

I like Five Guys, but it’s not cheap to eat there and I sometimes walk away from my meal feeling like I shouldn’t have gotten it. After thinking it over I’ve decided that I’m not going to buy another meal from Five Guys until December. An exception might be made if a friend takes me to lunch there or it there’s some sort of social gathering at a Five Guys, but otherwise I’m cutting myself off from those tasty burgers and overly abundant fries for most of this year. As much as I’ll miss it, I suspect both my body and my wallet will be better for this decision.

Post #700 was last Friday

Last Friday I published my 700th post to this website and I’m pleased to say that it was none other than the birth of the next generation of my flagship gaming series, Late to the Party. I do believe a gif is in order for an occasion such as this. Join me today in celebrating this accomplishment, and let’s all look forward to the next 100 posts!

Let's keep running towards Post #800!

Late to the Party - Bound

Hello everyone, and welcome to Late to the Party, a series in which I discuss video games that I’ve finally got around to playing. As much as I enjoy games, it's rare for me to play them right when they are first released. Normally it takes me a anywhere from a few months to a few years to get around to playing to a game, and because of this I've got a considerable backlog of games that I've been meaning to play. From time to time I’m able to chip away at that backlog and whenever I do so I like to write about it in this series. Today I’m going to tell you about Bound, a surreal 3D platformer. This discussion might contain some minor spoilers but not anything too big.

Late to the Party, Season 2 - The Struggle

Author’s Note: This post was written about two weeks ago.

I’m a little stressed out about how I’m going to write the debut of Late to the Party, Season 2, but I really shouldn’t be. In Season 1 it took me quite a few entries to find my footing and Season 2 will likely be the same. I just have to fight the battle, over and over again, until it becomes more of a dance than a desperate struggle. With that in mind, the first batch of games I’ve got lined up for Season 2 are all shorter games that shouldn’t take too long to beat even though I have a full-time job and other life responsibilities. I’ll train myself on these smaller games, and by the time I get to the big ones I’ll (hopefully) be ready.

Late to the Party, Season 2 - The Format

I’ve already finished the first game of the second season of Late to the Party, but at the time that I’m writing this post I still haven’t fully figured out how I want this new season of Late to the Party to differ from the old one. The approximate format of Season 1 was something like this for most of the entries:

Opening
My background with the game
Overview of the game’s story
Thoughts on the story
Thoughts on gameplay, game world
Thoughts on graphics, performance, and audio
Notable criticisms
Overall verdict
Closing

This format worked well in that it allowed me to neatly organize my opinions into separate paragraphs, but it also made for a rigid and inflexible way of writing about games. Much like the Greek phalanx, it was strong in some ways but weak in others. If possible I’d like to try to modify this format in Season 2 and find a way to more freely flow between the various aspects of the game that I want to talk about, and maybe incorporate some of the more personal elements I introduced in Replaying the Classics. I’d also like to add another segment or two to the discussion. Right now the addition I have in mind is some sort of brief overview of where the game came from.

Should I also add some type of score at the end of these writing pieces? That debate has been raging in my head for weeks now. I intentionally avoided putting any scores in Season 1 because I didn’t think of those writing pieces as game reviews, even though they had just about all the trappings of a review. Now that I’m at the cusp of Season 2 I’m split between the part of me that wants to give it a try and the part of me that thinks game scores are a gross oversimplification of a reviewer’s thoughts on a game. Maybe I should write up the score of a game and just see how it looks with the rest of the writing piece.

One thing that will absolutely remain the same from Season 1 to Season 2, however, is the variability of the length of the writing pieces. This was a good choice back then and I’m sticking with it now. With some games I need a few thousand words to state everything I want to say, while with others I only need a few hundred.

Improving Mass Effect 3 - The No Budget Option

While I was proofreading last week’s two writing pieces on improving Mass Effect 3, I realized there was in fact a third option for changing the game. This method would require no budget at all, aside from whatever it costs to have an intern write and publish a single sentence online. I call this the No Budget Option. To improve Mass Effect 3 for practically no money, all developer Bioware would have to do is confirm the Indoctrination Theory.

Improving Mass Effect 3 - The High Budget Option

SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT 3 IN THIS POST

Improving Mass Effect 3 - The Low Budget Option

SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT 3 IN THIS POST

The Last Jedi and my view of Star Wars

On Monday I laid out some of the things I found troublesome with The Last Jedi and on Tuesday I listed a few things I thought the movie did well. After reading both of those posts it would be natural to ask where my Star Wars fan level currently rests. As I said in Monday’s post, I walked out of the movie theater still a Star Wars fan after both times I watched the film. My love of Star Wars has managed to survive everything that both George Lucas and Disney have done to the series, so a single enjoyable but problematic film isn’t going to turn me off to Star Wars. At the same time, however, I can’t deny that I’m a little less optimistic then I was in the aftermath of The Force Awakens and Rogue One. Despite it’s flaws, The Force Awakens had me convinced that a bright future was possible for Star Wars and I had high hopes for where the series would go. Rogue One was a good movie and affirmed this positive outlook, but now The Last Jedi has dimmed the light a little. I still have hopes for whatever Episode 9 turns out to be—it’s just that those hopes are a little tempered now. Next in line for Star Wars is the Han Solo movie. Hopefully that doesn’t cause my Star Wars fandom to fade a little more.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Part 2

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE LAST JEDI IN THIS POST

Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Part 1

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE LAST JEDI IN THIS POST

2018: Late to the Party, Season 2

If there’s one thing I’m excited for regarding this year’s writings, it’s the second season of Late to the Party. I’ve got a lot of games lined up for playing and writing about, and next week I think I’ll be publishing a more extensive post with both the games that are currently on the list as well as some thoughts on how Season 2 will compare with Season 1. I hope you’re looking forward to this new season as much as I am.