DragonForce returns

 Similar to that Kanye/Drake concert I posted a while back, I stumbled onto another online event. This time, though, it's something way more up my alley: DragonForce, one of the earliest metal bands I ever listened to. I even went to a concert back in high school.

Yeah, Herman Li, their longtime guitarist, is also a streamer on Twitch (I spend a lot of time on there lately...) and he's streaming their concert series with opening acts Firewind, Visions of Atlantis and Seven Spires.

 I caught Firewind and VoA, and it was awesome! The stream quality is on point and you can hear the shredding really well.

 They have these 2 giant videogame arcades set up beside the stage, and now DragonForce just played a song themed after Skyrim. Pretty cool!

Anyway, I'm gonna go catch the rest of the set.

Dutiful sports viewership

 I've been watching the Raptors a lot lately. Like, every game. Pretty much since the pandemic/lockdown started, we're talking years now. I watched them in a bubble in Tampa Bay last year. I never would have expected that I would become a sports fan, and here I am genuinely enjoying watching NBA basketball. I suppose I kinda hopped on the bandwagon after the 2019 NBA championship win. Kinda bummed Kyle Lowry isn't with the team anymore.

Lately, they've been pretty good. Fred VanVleet is playing like an all-star, starting great plays for his teammates and shooting dagger 3s all day long. I admit that I am a part of the "Fred VanVleet Fan Fleet". And Siakam has been really great. And the rookie, Scottie Barnes! So fun to watch.

That's my basketball viewership in a nutshell.

A wild Kanye concert appears

 So it's Thursday night, and like most nights I'm on Twitch for a while, looking at a couple streamers play my favourite games. I then notice that Amazon is promoting some concert, Kanye and Drake. A pretty big deal.

I tune in, and for the first like hour there isn't much, but eventually a crowd of singers populate the stands and they start singing. Twitch comments are mostly clamoring for the stars to show up, but it's not bad.

Eventually Drake and Ye show up, and they hug and stuff. Dunno where Drake went, but DAMN Ye is popping off with CLASSIC HITS. I'm talking Jesus Walks. I'm talking Gold Digger. This is so damn entertaining.

So that's what I'm doing right now. Listening to some artists perform a relief concert for a gangster in prison. Cheers!

Keep the blog runnin'

 Wow. It's been almost exactly a year since I wrote my last post.

 The pandemic is still going. I haven't seen any friends in over a year. Actually, like nothing has changed since this moment last year.

 I lost a lot of motivation to blog... but I didn't want to abandon my blog completely, so here I am. I'm not going to write much, I just wanted to make sure I wrote something because this is the longest break I've ever taken.

 I wish sometimes this was more social, not like Facebook, but that maybe I had other blogger friends.

 Wishing's a start.

A virus appears

Since my last post, a lot has changed.
Well, not that much for me personally: I'm still cooped up at home, but fears of catching and spreading a virus that has shut down large parts of society is now persistent.

I don't feel like writing much these days, but I figure I'd write at least one thing for the month of March. Yep, just living day by day, and all you hear on the news are things about the virus.

It kind of sucks. I have to be careful when I go for walks outside, trying to stay my distance from other people stretching their legs.

I wonder how long this will last.

I'm enjoying Breath of the Wild. I decided to finally get it because I knew I would be cooped up inside a lot. Meanwhile, Animal Crossing released a while back and a lot of people, Twitch streamers and folks whose stories I read online, are raving about it. I might end up getting it eventually.

It's a lonely time, but it won't last forever.

Mid-February wear

It's pretty late to be up and writing, but I have never forgotten something I read long ago that stated that the most creative writing can happen at the oddest hours.

I don't write much these days. I probably should spend more time on it. And I don't take very many pictures, but there I feel like there isn't much to take pictures of as I don't venture out and about as much. I guess I can blame the cold of the winter.

Still, I ought to publish something, and so here I am, but I don't have any photography for you because I'm too tired to go through the process of uploading and transferring my pictures from one cloud service to another. I might have to get a new Android phone (or keep desperately searching for my old one) because it makes it really easy to access my pictures directly, as Blogger is owned by Google, too.
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I have an improv event tomorrow morning. It's part of a workshop series called Reclaiming our Power, and it's a once-a-month thing where I interact with folks at a downtown social centre. I don't know what else to call it, but I'm happy that I'm going out for something I planned over a month ago. I know it's helpful to not stay at home all day.
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Maybe I'll write some poetry sometime on here, sometime. It's something to do. And it's nice to not feel judged for what I write. I just wish that sometimes, I did write and something would write back. I almost wrote to Lyra on here again. It's kind of weird seeing His Dark Materials posters in bus stops and seeing an actress incarnate a being that I refer to in a spiritual manner. Portals to other worlds, well, I haven't experienced them in a long while, but somehow, I'm convinced they're still around.

I'm surrounded by maybes. Maybe I'll try something to help get out of my funk. Maybe I'll cook something. Maybe I'll try sports - I did actually sign up for a YMCA membership again, but for now, it's mostly used for pickleball. Oh, pickleball... Stories abound about pickleball, and I play badminton once in a while, too, but not at the YMCA yet, just at a community centre.

Sports are a good thing, but when I don't do them often, I can't say I miss them terribly. I really love video games too much, I swear, it's so much easier to spend hours immersed in a virtual world, but thankfully, I have sports to do, as well.

A glimpse of my current life.