Followup on this post: https://sopuli.xyz/post/50995422 stating I'd play through Pokemon FireRed Inspired by this post: https://sopuli.xyz/post/50902769 which gave me the idea

Quick recap: I grew up on and enjoyed JRPG's starting in the 8 bit era. But I was never able to get in to Pokemon. Decided to give playing an entire game through a try.

I played via an emulator. I made pretty liberal use of a fast forward toggle to speed up the combat.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. Learning the strengths and weaknesses of various Pokemon, picking out a rounded set of Pokemon and abilities and there being a bit of strategy in what to play and when was a pretty satisfying gameplay loop. Feels like a similar vein to deckbuilding games. The plot was paper thin, but I know the game was intended for a wide age demographic. Besides, I found it actually suited me in this case since as some of my play sessions were short and sometimes several days apart.

That said, I can't say that I'm a convert. I don't find that I have any interest in trying out any other games or anything else in the franchise. And that's OK. I'm glad I gave it a shot.

I haven't had a space where I could sit and listen to vinyl for the past couple of years. I've been building an office/shed and now I have a space!

The amount of room I have is limited, so I went with a soundbar instead of discrete speakers. It's not a high end setup, but I'm mostly happy with it.

• Turntable: Fluance RT80
• Soundbar: Klipsch Flexus CORE 100
• Subwoofer: Polk Audio PSW10

The soundbar does not support analog audio, so I got an analog RCA to digital TOSLINK converter. All the ones I could find are pretty cheap. If anyone knows of a higher quality one, please let me know! I feel like there's a little bit of clipping with the audio. That's using the built in preamp. I have a preamp with adjustable gain in a box somewhere. Might be the fix once I find it.

Records are stored on these wall mounted shelves (Yes I know it's slightly uneven. I might fix it eventually.). I have more of those shelves so I can expand as needed.

Relevant post: https://sopuli.xyz/post/50902769

I said in this post that I've never been in to Pokemon, but I'd come check the post again in a couple of days, see what's the most recommended game and play that game through. And I'm doing just that!

I counted by games recommended. I didn't additionally weigh by "likes" for a given comment. I was also a bit selective when it came to comments mentioning several games. I took one of u/Manalith's comments as a vote for FireRed / LeafGreen and they specifically suggested it as a starting point to get in to the series, which is what I'm doing. But I otherwise disregarded comments that recommended more than two games. There was a fairly large spread, with any given game only being recommended once or twice.

But, there was also a comment stating:

Gen 3 is definitely my pick, doesn’t really matter which one.

One comment mentioned Emerald and two comments mentioned FireRed / LeafGreen. Which are both "Gen 3" games, according to Wikipedia. So treating that was one vote for each, putting FireRed / LeafGreen at three votes. Chose FireRed over LeafGreen because it's the first one written.

I will play the game through without doing any kind of research or looking at a walkthrough. I probably won't aim for a high level of completion. I'll do another post when I complete the game, and share my thoughts.

i was just thinking about martial arts movies I used to watch. Ones starring Jet Li or Jackie Chan spring to mind. With beautifully choreographed and visually impressive fight scenes. With the notable exception of the John Wick franchise, which I do throughly enjoy, I feel like you don't see much of that anymore. But maybe they do, and it's just not on my radar. And I'm thinking less gun fu more kung fu.

I did do a low effort search (skimmed an IMDB new martial arts movie list) and there's a few on there I hadn't heard of but looked like they might be the flavor I'm looking for. But I also thought to ask the lemmyverse.

I would prefer ones that don't use any CGI. In am cool with practical effects, even if a bit absurd. In English would be nice too (not dubbed), but I'm not adverse to subtitles.

Here hoping for some commiseration, if I'm being honest. Looks like travel communities on Lemmy are pretty quiet. Guess we'll see!

Yesterday I mailed in my passport for renewal. It expires in a month so it's effectively useless right now anyway, so it shouldn't matter. But I feel trapped in a way I didn't before yesterday. I hate it.

I only have a couple of friends that have traveled internationally and both of theirs have lapsed and they both have the means to travel so I'm inferring from that that it doesn't bother them in the same way.

Anyone else that does/would feel the same way?

I'm thinking something like vintage computing, Linux/BSD, makers. Not limited to those, but not things that are more fandom focused like comic con or anime. Maybe video games, if it's more indie, less corporate. No shade intended for fandoms. I've done a few comic cons and what I've learned is it's not that enjoyable for me.

I live in one of the four corners states. But it doesn't necessarily have to be in a Western US state. It's more about travel costs. Like it'd probably cost me about the same to go somewhere in the midwest as it would to Los Angeles. More expensive flight (but still fairly cheap) but lower costs for food and lodging. East coast or Mexico/Canada are probably out of the question, those flight costs are a bit too high for me to justify.

Some context: I did Vintage Computer Festival Southwest (VCFSW) last year, and I really enjoyed it. Going again this year. And I would love to find some others with similar vibes, but don't know where to look. I found a handful of different searchable convention lists and searched for VCFSW on each of them as a litmus test, which they all failed.