Sledgstone

I've been getting ready for spring for the last couple months and its taken up a crazy amount of my free time. We expanded our garden to be really huge last september in preparation for growing fruit and veggies. Then we decided to expand it another 6 more feet in one direction which we finally got finished last weekend. It was alot of work because our garden has an almost 6 foot tall deer fence all around it. We hammered in u-posts into the ground and attached the deer net and buried the bottom of the net so nothing will burrow under it. I should do measurements at some point to figure out its total volume. Its huge. lol.
We have 3 apple trees, 3 cherry trees, and 1 nectarine tree in there. We still have to move 3 of those trees into their permanent locations (they are only 1 or 2 year old trees so its still possible to dig them up) and we have to plant a new apricot tree in there. I prepped the two rows for veggies last month but theres alot of weed whacking to do still and plants to move. We have 4 grape vines, 4 blueberry bushes and multiple raspberry plants to move. I started a bunch of veggies from seed and those tomatoes are still in an unused bath tub in my house with a light over them getting bigger every day. I'm looking forward to getting everything planted and done so all this gardening can give me a break.

I got back from Ohio last night. My mom had a Remembrance Party in honor of my dad this last weekend. It was a really nice time. I'm glad I got to see so many people that knew my dad and talk to them about how he was a positive and/or great influence in their lives. The party was a bbq party too. My younger brother smoked 30 pounds of pulled pork and 20 pounds of bbq beef. I helped with the process. It was a great time.

Well my dryer broke after about 15 years and multiple repairs I've done over those years. I had to buy a new dryer. So far so good. I was finally able to get my laundry done again and my bathroom no longer smells like dirty socks and febreeze.

FML one of my window air conditioners broke today while it was 96 degrees. x_x

I never wanted to try to Souls game. The thought of being one shotted and having to start all over again from a single mistake always turned me off. I don't have as much time as I use to to "git gud". Fallen Order was the closest i ever played to a souls style game, but by the time you got force powers, the game became more like  inFAMOUS games than Souls. I got Elden Ring for whatever reason and honestly... I've been enjoying the hell out of it despite some soul crushing moments. I like the freedom, the exploration, finding good gear laying around without having to fight anything. Gear that will give you a fighting chance to get even better gear. You're not forced to fight any of the bosses in any particular order You can skip bosses to get to most of the world with exception of the last 2 areas. The purpose of beating bosses to to progress the story. So I've played in a way where I've gone to most the world. geared up as high as possible.. allowing me 1 fully upgraded legendary weapon.. and being able to have an easier time with the story bosses... then there are "optional" bosses that are just savage AF and HP sponges. I've beaten a few but some are just beyond my skill level. Either way, I highly recommend this game as a non souls fan. At the very least, its worth your money when it goes on discount sometime down the road.

I haven't been active on the site lately. My dad's health issues became much worse over the last few months and he passed away 10 days ago. I took a couple trips to Ohio during that time and I'm glad I got to spend multiple days with him before he passed. RIP dad. I miss you.

Mosquitos here have been a bastard the last 3 weeks! Ravenous assholes that don't even care that I have deep woods off sprayed all over my body and citronella candles are burning everywhere. I even sprayed some cutter bug killing spray onto part of my yard and those bastards keep coming for every time I walk outside. x_x Its times like this that I don't mind winter because it kills every last one of them.

Well I just landed myself a PS5 thanks to an email invite, thank fucking god. On a fricken adrenaline high right now and so freaking pumped because it means I finally get to play Cyberpunk. Gah!!!!!!!
If you'll excuse me I'm going to go calm down now and let this adrenaline high subside.

Finished Gundam SEED tonight. As cliche as it could get, I still really enjoyed it. Mecha designs were above average.... and despite a lot of recycled animation during battles, I still found them engaging and entertaining... and all the love interests swapping around tickled my fancy. Character deaths were pretty brutal as well. Its def worth watching for the average fan. Better than Unicorn, but not IBO as far as recently watched Gundam series.

One week ago my little dog Elsa had to get a surgery to remove a few bad teeth. The vet initially though it would be 2 teeth, maybe 4 max. After they did the xray they noticed she had severe bone loss in multiple parts of her jaw and the majority of her teeth had to be removed. She has 1/3 of her teeth left.  The vet thinks it is a genetic issue that caused the periodontal disease to ravage her jaw the way it did. Shes been healing but its been a struggle. Very depressing week but shes over the worst of it now. Shes starting to feel like her old self but we're still trying to find a soft food she enjoys. More bad news is after we heard it was genetic, we checked our other dog Bella because they are cousins and she has 2 loose teeth in the front. Once we get some stimulus money we'll schedule xrays for her to see if her issue is as bad. Elsa had horrible breath going on as the main symptom but Bella's breath is fine. I hope she only needs the 2 little teeth removed. My poor babies.

Its been a month since my root canal. I had another appointment yesterday for the rest of the work. They removed the temporary filling, xrayed it to make sure its all good, then did the permanent filling, then shaved/shaped the tooth for the crown, then imprinted my teeth/jaw line with a mold, then put on my temporary crown. Took them an hour. My new permanent crown will be ready in 2 weeks and then I'll finally be done. This root canal situation has been quite the experience. $1200 total after insurance. I have another tooth that might need one if it gets another cavity. If that happens I think I'll have that one pulled instead since its in the far back. Screw all this. x_x

One week ago my little dog Elsa had to get a surgery to remove a few bad teeth. The vet initially though it would be 2 teeth, maybe 4 max. After they did the xray they noticed she had severe bone loss in multiple parts of her jaw and the majority of her teeth had to be removed. She has 1/3 of her teeth left.  The vet thinks it is a genetic issue that caused the periodontal disease to ravage her jaw the way it did. Shes been healing but its been a struggle. Very depressing week but shes over the worst of it now. Shes starting to feel like her old self but we're still trying to find a soft food she enjoys. More bad news is after we heard it was genetic, we checked our other dog Bella because they are cousins and she has 2 loose teeth in the front. Once we get some stimulus money we'll schedule xrays for her to see if her issue is as bad. Elsa had horrible breath going on as the main symptom but Bella's breath is fine. I hope she only needs the 2 little teeth removed. My poor babies.

A friend was able to score me a PS5 while I was at work today. I'm pretty pumped!

While wholly unoriginal. The "final" season of Attack on Titan is brutally dark and amazing. The Titan's origins are explained... but we fall back on racism and xenophobia... Code Geass/Aldnoah.Zero style and every other anime that use it as a crutch. They literally are pulling and blending aspects of WWII German and Japanese culture. But it works. I've heard the final season won't cover to the end of the manga, which I suspected since there is way to much left.... but I also heard there will be a sequel series. I stopped reading the manga when I reached the end of where it was at the time... which is still probably after this anime ends. Is it the best ever? Nah... but for me its highly entertaining.... the anime pacing, seasonal wise was handled poorly due to the no use of fillers, but at the same time not waiting for the manga to get to a certain point. I've said it before, but season 2 shouldn't exist. It should have been parts of season 1 and 3. If you binge it now, it won't make a difference though since you didn't have to wait. Regardless, this series has some of the best high tension action sequences around... and the damn near best monologue I've ever seen on a show of any medium. I'll be interested to see where they call it for the end.
I rank this the best fucking dub performance of all time... I don't even like this character, but this scene made me respect him and the voice actor that fucking nailed it... which leads to the best action sequence by the best character of this series not contained in this clip.
 

I got a root canal today. F*ck that. Took 1.5 hours this morning. The tooth wasn't cracked so it didn't have to be pulled. But he had to cut a couple millimeters off my jaw line in between the 2 teeth so a crown could get properly mounted. The inside of my jaw looks totally jacked right now. And he accidentally cut the base of my tongue because I guess I moved it by accident. That hurts more than the jaw right now. I have a temp filling in the tooth and it the tooth looks like a square. I have to let this heal for almost a month before I can get a crown molded for it. Fml.

I got a root canal today. F*ck that. Took 1.5 hours this morning. The tooth wasn't cracked so it didn't have to be pulled. But he had to cut a couple millimeters off my jaw line in between the 2 teeth so a crown could get properly mounted. The inside of my jaw looks totally jacked right now. And he accidentally cut the base of my tongue because I guess I moved it by accident. That hurts more than the jaw right now. I have a temp filling in the tooth and it the tooth looks like a square. I have to let this heal for almost a month before I can get a crown molded for it. Fml.

Did my taxes today. Got my biggest return I ever had. I found that interesting since everyone was trying to say all the stimulus checks were going to make it smaller. I also worked OT a lot this past year during the pandemic... to the tune of $11,000 extra to my base pay.

The Hobbit trilogy in 4k are completely different cuts of the movie. I had no idea. I was skimming through youtube tv the other day, put on Battle of the Five Armies in the background while I got some stuff done. Then when I sat down I figured I'd finish the movie. I put on the 4k version instead and wtf. Not only is the movie visually stunning.. I had no idea my tv could look this good. I could see every strand of hair on everyone's head and everything was so crisp I could almost tell when scenes used a green screen to film. But what really blew me away was all the extra scenes and the gore. Its like this is the R rated cut. WTF.
Bodies getting crushed, heads and limbs getting cut off and blood.. blood everywhere. WTF. And theres one extra scene where Thorin jumps on a goat and is like "I'm going to the top of Raven hill to kill that Azog bastard" and Dain says "How do you plan on getting past that army?" 6 more of Thorin's dwarves show up in the war chariot. Thorin: "We'll manage." and then theres like a 7 minutes scene of them tearing ass and mass murdering orcs on their way to Raven Hill. WTF. In the original movie, Thorin says he'll go to Raven Hill to kill Azog, the scene changes and we see Thorin and the others on some mountain goats ascending the hill. The amount of blood and gore in this new scene is brutal. I was shocked. But it was f*cking awesome.
Now I need to watch the rest of the movies in their 4k versions to see what else is new. I read the LoTR 4k versions are also getting new scenes.

The Hobbit trilogy in 4k are completely different cuts of the movie. I had no idea. I was skimming through youtube tv the other day, put on Battle of the Five Armies in the background while I got some stuff done. Then when I sat down I figured I'd finish the movie. I put on the 4k version instead and wtf. Not only is the movie visually stunning.. I had no idea my tv could look this good. I could see every strand of hair on everyone's head and everything was so crisp I could almost tell when scenes used a green screen to film. But what really blew me away was all the extra scenes and the gore. Its like this is the R rated cut. WTF.
Bodies getting crushed, heads and limbs getting cut off and blood.. blood everywhere. WTF. And theres one extra scene where Thorin jumps on a goat and is like "I'm going to the top of Raven hill to kill that Azog bastard" and Dain says "How do you plan on getting past that army?" 6 more of Thorin's dwarves show up in the war chariot. Thorin: "We'll manage." and then theres like a 7 minutes scene of them tearing ass and mass murdering orcs on their way to Raven Hill. WTF. In the original movie, Thorin says he'll go to Raven Hill to kill Azog, the scene changes and we see Thorin and the others on some mountain goats ascending the hill. The amount of blood and gore in this new scene is brutal. I was shocked. But it was f*cking awesome.
Now I need to watch the rest of the movies in their 4k versions to see what else is new. I read the LoTR 4k versions are also getting new scenes.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is on Netflix dubbed. There was so much hype around this series when it was on simulcast. I really enjoyed it. The animation is well done, especially for the fights. A lot of action and gore with a little light hearted comedy. Its worth a watch.

I got the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G. Now that 5G is a thing, I felt it was time to get a true 5G phone. Plus the newest firmware update kind make the S10+ a little wacky. The weirdest thing is the standardization of all messaging apps. I kinda liked the facebook bubble chat heads... but now you have to activate it and it doesn't work like it use too. I turned it back off and its just like the standard SMS app with the previews and pop ups.
Unrelated but if you use Snapchat, it doesn't really update very well. I've had it since 2014, but only recently started using it because I got a lot of work friends on it. Little did I know it had its own sound package, but it always used my standard notification when people snapped me or typed a message. When some new features came out that wouldn't appear, I deleted it and reinstalled it. It has its own notification, including one for when your BFs snap you. When I transfered all my stuff to my new phone it reverted to using the standard phone notification so I had to delete it again and reinstall. so odd.
Anyways. The phone is big... and heavy. I like this... the ultra thin and lightweight phone thing needed to go. Shit still broke when it hit the ground. I like some heft in the hand. The screen is wild crisp. Its amazing how this tech keeps getting better. As a result the battery life is about the same. I think we peaked on that. While its bigger, so is the screen and all the features. The camera is a monster. I think its 100+ MP on the back and 40mp on the front. Its really detailed.
One of the complaints is the camera lenses make the phone uneven in the back so it will rock on the table.. I got a casemate for mine. They've always been good to me with there ultra sleek designs that don't add too much more bulk to phones. Thankfully my case evens out the backside so it sits normal. The extra millimeter this adds to the overall thickness is again welcomed IMO. I also like how the samsung transfer app basically duped my old phone into my new one. home screen, app layout, alarms, wifi connections, etc. The only thing that didn't come over where my biometric log ins to all my sites. Also my wireless charge stand works which is a plus since I use it as a bedside clock.
I contemplated the iPhone 12 Pro Max because most my friends have iPhone and their iMessage app now has reactions like FB messenger does. So when they use it it sends the whole text back with the "laughs at.... (novel of a text)". but Honestly I have so much invested into the Samsung ecosystem... plus I'm spoiled with my 5x5 app grid layout that Apple refuses to allow. 4 across is lame. Samsung makes better phones, and sells components to Apple anyways. I'll be riding this train until Apple can bring out something that really blows me away.

As someone that studied Nazi history extensively. The Man in the High Castle is a fascinating show on Prime Video. I was expecting it to be fully about what would happen if America and Britain lost the war, but its more about the multiverse... so its like alternate history and quantum leap combined? I definitely recommend  despite its slow start for non-history majors.

I got a promotion with my job yesterday. I'll now be making more than I ever have doing this. $60k a year to do something I barely got paid $35k for at my previous company. The best news is that I'll have Saturdays off, and get off by 6-7pm on most days. I don't have to go to bed like some retiree anymore. So hopefully by the end of this year. Battlefield 6 will be out... it will be good... and maybe we can get the band back together @Sledgstone and @Strider Hiryu. Even though Strider is PC master race. I'm sure it'll have cross play. My gaming life has really suffered these past 3 years.

I marathoned Breaking Bad over the last 2 weeks. I really enjoyed it. But it had one of my least favorite cliches.... and that's when there are two characters, and they're never in sync with each other. One is always on the up while the other fucks it up. Walter and Jesse just couldn't keep it together at the same time the whole series. Saul Goodman was such a good character I marathoned what Netflix had of Better Call Saul after that. Kinda slow at times, and not what I was expecting.. but still a good watch as well.