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It's September! Goodness, time is indeed flying. But while it has been flying, I have been doing many silly things! So, here's an update on such matters. Huzzah!

One thing I have been doing a lot of lately is board games. I have had a few sesisons of playing Fortune Street with friends which has been brilliant fun. That game is absolutely crazy. In one match someone had a monopoly before having even been around the board once. And the stock market is just disgusting at making you money quickly. I wish the rest of the series wasn't Japan only.

Fortune Street hasn't been the only property trading board game I've been playing though. I've had a few rounds of regular Monopoly with people before playing a big game of Ultimate Monopoly (which I talk about briefly in this post). It took a whole afternoon for us to finish the game, but it was amazing fun.

We had 7 players, so the board being so big worked quite well. We really needed the extra properties. But, it was surprising which ones really took off. The utilities, which there were now 8 of, were a really big hitter with little investment, and high-end properties were a lot better than before because you only need all but one property of a set to build improvements. That, and the board's properties were bought out rather quickly thanks to the Mr Monopoly face of the speed die letting you move to an unowned property.

The added mechanics of stocks, bingo, and travel vouchers were welcome, but the former two were quite underwhelming. Travel vouchers were grand though, letting you move a specific number of spaces rather than rolling. It really helps you to get properties you need or dodge high rent properties.

That's most of the excitement in the past half a month or so. I'm starting to get to the point where I'm looking forward to returning to university. Not wholly though, still dreading my project... Whatever. I'll survive. See you in the next post.

Salutations! Welcome to the mid-August update. I've not too terribly much to tell, but I do have a few things worth mentioning.

My RPG escapades are proving fruitful. I'm running D&D tomorrow, which is exciting, because I've missed playing with those players. And, I've started Rime of the Frostmaiden with some friends from home.

In my quest for the perfect MtG deck I am making progress. My second deck made by me, headed by Gisa the Hellraiser, is doing numbers among my usual playgroup. Many, many zombies get made, it's crazy. And she even acts as a zombie lord, which is something incredibly nice to have in the command zone. If you're at all interested, take a look at the decklist on the card gallery.

Lastly, I simply have to mention my latest obsession: a new farming sim called Fields of Mistria. I have been having a lot of fun. It's such a breath of fresh air to play a farming sim which is... er, well, not Stardew Valley. It has a number of improvements over that game and I am enjoying it so verily. I will perhaps write a little bit more in-depth about what is just so enchanting about the game.

Hello all. A brief update on the site today.

Firstly, a new page: card gallery. This is for my various MTG ramblings and to show off my collection.

Secondly: I am forming a webring. It is called Wizard Webring and it is for people that like wizards and fantasy media. I made it because I've got a few friends making sites, and so when they're done we can link our sites together via it. But, if you're reading this and I've not mentioned it to you yet, feel free to contact me about joining.

That's all this update. No other news on my life. So, I'll see you in the next post. Until then.

Hello all. 'Tis August, so I thought it's about time I updated the old blog. So, here I am!

First thing's first: behold my latest bakes! Fistly, brownies. I usually just make chocolate fudge cake because it's my go-to easy cake. However I wanted actual brownies this time, and took to BBC Good Food. The recipe is a bit expensive because it needs lots of dark chocolate, but it produced perhaps the nicest brownies I had had in a long time.

Secondly, an olive oil cake. I was a bit sceptical about this one but it was actually really lovely. The olive oil really enhances the texture. Can recommend! Shoutout to Lily for lending me her ultra-fancy actually-from-Greece olive oil for it.

Cuppa Conquest was a fun project for my holiday in Norfolk. Now I am home though, so don't have much to add to it for now. Perhaps another time! Norfolk was great though, lots of nice places to go to, and we were right by the beach. Most relaxing!

I got back from holiday just as Bloomburrow prereleases began, and on that weekend I met with some friends for lots of MtG gaming. We played with our new Bloomburrow Commander decks and it was so much fun. Miss Bumbleflower is an absolute beast! Of the 3 games I've played with her so far, she has won me 2 and got me joint second in another (me and the other last player were having an infinite value showdown and ended up calling it a draw because we were hungry). We also split the cost for a draft booster box of Phyrexia: All Will Be One, and that was really fun. 'Twas a great weekend!

One last thing on the topic of MtG: I keep making cards based on me and my friends' D&D characters, so I might make a page for those at some point soon. And I also might make a page to dump my MtG dekclists. Keep your eyes peeled.

Anyways, I'll see you in the next post. I must get back to having a whimsical and joyous summer! Until then!

Good tidings. I have one thing on my mind right now, and it's Bloomburrow. I am so excited for this new Magic set it's crazy. The cards have such cute art and the cards seem actually wuite powerful (a nice change after the last 2 sets). I have the Peace Offering Commander deck on pre-order and I cannot wait to go and collect it. I have 2 friends also getting Commander decks from the set and I'm very excited to get to paly with them. It's just been a while since I had some new cards, so I'm really looking forward to it.

I also have something to annoucne: a new page on the site, being Cuppa Conquest. It's my quest to find the best tearoom around by rating them all comprehensively. If you're interested, do check it out. I've just gone on holiday so there'll be lots of tearoom trips soon, so I should have a good amount of reviews soon! I will also add a map to it at some point to show my tearoom-faring adventures.

That's all. Might have some holiday photos posted here soon. Until then!

Hello all. I hope this log post finds you well. I've done a little bit of renovation in the log department. Mainly, we now have an RSS feed! You can paste in the link to the RSS feed into your RSS feed reader of choice to receive notifications whenever I update the log. How dandy!

https://beanrob.com/log/feed.xml

Another small change: posts are now presented in pages. Might make browsing a little less painful since you won't need to load every post at once merely to see one post.

What else have I been up to? Well, not too terribly much. Desperately, and unsuccessfully, hunting for jobs is the main thing, since I need a way to make money for rent next university year. Other than that, I've mostly been playing lots and lots of video games! I am perhaps biting off a bit more than I can chew though: I am currently playing through 4 RPGs. Which is definitely a lot! But I just had lots of games I wanted to play this summer.

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My current favourite is The World Ends With You. Until this summer I didn't really know anything about it. I had heard people speak well of it in past, saying it was an exceptional DS game, but I had never really looked into it properly. The way I ended up playing it was one of my friends wanted to do a Pokemon soul link for Pokemon HeartGold Version. I wanted to play on original hardware, so I spent a bit of time getting my old DS flashcart working. When I was loading it up with ROMs, thinking about what I should use it to play, I remembered hearing good things about TWEWY, and here I am.

My thoughts on the game are fond. Combat is still quite hard to me even though I'm on week 2. It's just a bit overwhelming having to handle the combat on both screens. But I do like it a lot. The pin system is so customisable. And the story is pretty decent too. But what I love most is the music and aesthetic of the game, because if you take one look at the game you can go "Yep, that was made in the mid-2000s." Which is something I love. Not sure why, but I do just love how games were then.

So I'm having a very good time with TWEWY! I definitely want to play the sequel when it comes out. And, FYI, my favourite chracter is, by far, Minamimoto. He's so funny and I like his hilarious way of speaking. He's one of those characters that just makes me feel very seen.

The other games I'm playing throught at the mintue are the aforementioned Pokemon HeartGold Version soul link, as well as Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros. and the Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door remake. Though I don't have much to say on those. You know me: love my Pokemon, love my Mario, simple as.

Anyways, that's all. If you subscribe to RSS, please do let me know. I'll se you in the next post. Until then!