Pokemon Go Fuck the Rules

Admittedly, one of the things I was really looking forward to on my trip to Seoul was that I would have the opportunity to catch a Farfetch’d in Pokemon Go.  Why am I even still playing this game? is this notable?  Because Farfetch’d is a regional exclusive Pokemon that’s exclusive to Asia, and Pokemon Go wasn’t even allowed in South Korea until literally like two weeks after I had left the fucking country last year.

So the only people who had Farfetch’ds were those who lived in Asian Pokemon Go countries, those who cheated and spoofed their IPs to look like they were in Asian Pokemon Go countries, or tryhards like me that traveled to other countries and actually tried to capitalize on the local Pikachus, wanting to fill their coffers with Pikachus with geostamps listing the places of the world they’ve been to while playing a kids game.

Anyway, during my first morning in Seoul, I went out on a walk because according to the Seoul Pokemon Go Map, I noticed that there was a Farfetch’d within a reasonable walking distance from where I was.  I needed to catch this motherfucker because I really wanted to knock this task off of my list as soon as possible, because I didn’t really want to be the asshole not seeing the world around him, because my face was buried in my phone; the irony of this statement is not lost on me, considering at any given time, 80% of the South Korean population has their faces buried in their phones.

So I get to the location where the Farfetch’d was noted to have spawned, and sure enough it spawned on my phone.  Through bated breath, I unloaded the full arsenal of raspberries and Ultra Pokeballs and hoped that I could catch it and it wouldn’t break free and run away.  It took three tries, but I secured the catch, and then I felt a tremendous amount of satisfaction at getting to be the ultimate tryhard that had just secured a regional exclusive in North America, Europe, and now Asia.

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Forever questions

The afternoon after I wrote my last post, I got home from work and I went into the backyard with the dog for some routine ball time.  In between throws, I scoured the ground and all the numerous patches of clover, looking for a four-leaf clover.  I know that at my old house, the backyard was rife with four-leafers, but it never took away from the happiness from finding one, with the hopes that somewhere in the world, the magic of the luck of a four-leaf clover could be cashed in, in some capacity.  And given the intensive dread that existed at that time concerning my family, I felt really, really hopeful that I could find just one more four-leaf clover in my new backyard.

I couldn’t.  Even after nearly 45 minutes of looking for a four-leaf clover, there were none to be found in my new house.  Even the dog was tired of running for the ball at that point.  There simply wasn’t one that I could find.

But it’s not that it would have mattered anyways.  About an hour or so later, I received a phone call from my sister, who let me know that her husband, my brother-in-law and father to my niece and nephew had passed away two hours earlier, well before I had begun my search for a four-leaf clover.

Even now, I replay the conversation in my head, and it brings tears to my eyes every time, hearing details of his last moments, and how he seemingly held on just long enough for his kids to make it to the hospital so he could say goodbye to them.  It’s difficult to even type out these words and keep my composure, thinking about it.

The thing is, all this happened right on the day in which my vacation was starting.  My first flight out was just hours away after getting off the phone with my sister, and I felt trapped in this unwinnable bubble that whatever I did was going to be the wrong decision.  Despite the fact that my sister insisted that I go anyway and try to have the best time I could given the circumstances, I still felt like an asshole embarking on an international vacation when someone important to my family had just died.  Sure, I know my sister, and I knew my brother-in-law well enough to know that they’d both have wanted me to go, but it still didn’t entirely feel right.

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Photos: Seoul, Korea / Manila, Philippines Vacation

[2020 note]: this is a photo dump of the vacation that mythical then-gf and I took to Korea and the Philippines, by virtue of gaming the layover system on a trip to Manila and staying in Seoul as long as possible.

As enjoyable as the trip was overall, it was still a difficult time, as my family was going through a particularly difficult time, culminating with my brother-in-law’s battle with sarcoma coming to an end, just days before the trip.  But still, mythical then-gf and I made the best of our travels, and I did enjoy getting to see Seoul through her eyes, in spite of the blustery cold, and then our brief adventures in Manila, where I lost my phone in an Uber like an idiot, but thankfully got it back, but not before it took a huge dump on one of our sparing days there.

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Life is complicated

I specifically earmarked this particular day to write about how I was about to embark on a vacation back to Korea, with a brief stop in the Philippines, and how excited I was.  It was exciting to be going back to the Motherland, because I had such an amazing time when I went for the first time last year, and I was really pumped up about this time going with mythical gf, since she’s such a Koreeb, and it would be fun to kind of witness the excitement of a first visit through her eyes as well.

This is a trip that had been planned for the better part of the entire 2017 year, where lots of money, planning and more money had gone into nailing down travel and lodging in order to get the optimal prices at the optimal times in order to accommodate both our work schedules and allotted vacation times.  But it was done a long time ago, and since then, it’s always been the constant milestone to look forward to, the thing we’ve been counting down the months, then the weeks, and then the days, up until today, when we eventually embark.

But as its often said, life doesn’t operate in a vacuum, and an infinite number of things exist all around us at any given time.  I don’t really know to segue to it in a smoother transition, but based on the title of this post alone, it should be expected that an unfortunate turn is bound to happen.  But there’s a medical issue in my family and to cut to the chase, there is an uncertainty on the amount of time this person has left. 

As far as I’m concerned, this could not possibly have happened at any worse of a time, but naturally I am not the actual person concerned.  But it doesn’t make it suck any less that a life hangs in the uncertain balance, and I’m in a trapped feeling position of not knowing what I can do, because life isn’t about me, there are others involved, and every choice affects others in a variety of manners.

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Turds in the pool

Ever since Rito rolled out the League of Legends update signifying the end of season 7 and into the preseason of season 8, things have been a little bit interesting in my gaming observations.  Among the very numerous things that have been changed up, I would have to say that one of the more notable actions was the removal of the level cap, which for the previous eight years had been level 30.

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure why Riot decided to do such, but I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that once 30, many players go off and create alternate (smurf) accounts, so they can either have multiple accounts to play from with ulterior motives, or if they’re actually really good players, climb the ranking ladder with multiple accounts and/or then try to sell them for actual currency.  Either way, they end up diluting the player pool with multiple accounts, and I feel like by removing the level cap, it incentivizes continuous play on one main account, since there’s no more limit to how much the account can level up to.

However, one of the (I feel is like an) unintended result of removing of the level cap is that there’s a mad rush of players suddenly looking for the quickest way to level their accounts beyond 30, so they can have some bragging rights or try and look better than they actually are, by getting their accounts higher than everyone else.  Effectively, when Riot removed the level cap, level 30 became the new level 1 all over again.

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New names don’t always equate to new beginnings

File this under “shit nobody but me will really give two shits about” – the fairly, newly formed City of South Fulton has voted on its official name moving forward: Renaissance, Georgia.

I don’t hide the fact that I’m extremely guarded on the internet when it comes to stating anything that discloses my general locations, but I have openly disclosed that my previous place of residence was most definitely on the southern side of the Metropolitan Atlanta area.  I’ve also said that this is a mistake that I vow to never make again, and that I’m confident that I could not even be given money to live down there again, and it would be a safe bet that it would be a snowball’s chance in hell that such ever happens again.

However, despite the fact that I no longer live on the south side, I can’t help but still be somewhat interested in the happening that occur down there.  Sure, most of it is usually crime related or other things that are tragically ironic, but now that I don’t live there, I can witness the things that go down there in something of an anthropological manner, because it really is fascinating to me the sheer disparity in quality of life the south side is privy to compared to just about all other reaches of the Metropolitan area.

One of the hot topics in my fleeting days in the south side was the proposal that the southern chunk of Fulton County, so ironically endeared as simply “South Fulton,” was trying to attain unincorporated city status.  And with just cause too, because it’s about as secret as sexual harassment in Hollywood that the allocation of Fulton County resources was like 65% to the northern half, 25% to the area surrounding the airport, and a paltry 10% towards South Fulton.  South Fulton had the worst infrastructure, the most promises that went broken and unfulfilled, and a general sense that nobody gave a shit about the south end of the county.

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People are fucking dumb

For reasons completely outside of my comprehension, I’ve come across numerous articles about how people are deliberately smashing and breaking their Keurig machines out of protest for them pulling their ads from some talking head show.

The first thing that comes to my head is: why??

Keurigs are expensive machines.  I love my Keurig.  It allows me to have consistently reliable coffee at the push of a button, and I never have to worry about making too much or too little, and ever since I switched to a reusable pod, the whole wasteful argument from k-cups goes out the window. 

I would never destroy my Keurig because I disagreed with their non-business related views; they’ve already gotten my money, what’s the sense of destroying it out of protest and denying myself future coffee that I rely on and enjoy so much?

Even if I were in a position where I had replacement hardware for my Keurig, and could feasibly destroy my Keurig so I could try and fail to farm attention on social media, I still wouldn’t.  Instead, I could give my old Keurig to someone who might benefit from having one, or better yet, donate it to charity, so I can inflate its value on my taxes and actually make a little bit something back from it.

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