Good evening, all. It has been a bit since my last post once again, and, my apologies. University sure does keep me busy. It's nice, though, having things to work on. I'm really enjoying my dissertation project about software for visualising hyperbolic geometry, and I might have a thing or two to post about it towards the Christmas holidays.

Now then, what have I been up to since last time? The honest answer is not too much, honestly. I have a few things to mention, but it's nothing terribly exciting. Unfortunately, not even any baked goods to show, since I've not really had the baking itch that much.

I have been playing a decent amount of Guilty Gear lately and having a lot of fun. Faust's new golf club move is hilarious and I'm getting much enjoyment out of launching all my items at my opponents. I've been playing a bit with one of my housemates too which is nice. They're a big Dizzy fan so are finally picking the game up now that she's out. They're not exactly an equal opopnent yet, but, even if they've got a long way to go, they're working on it.

Also, for Halloween, I got to dust off my Faust outfit, which was nice. Behold!

My continuted Magic the Gathering ventures have gone well, too. I'm currently testing out a decklist for Gandalf the White which aims to be a sort of control value list that is stuffed with lots of lovely artifacts and legendaries. I'm not proud enough to show it off yet, but I'll put it on the card gallery page when it's ready. Additionally, when I went to visit some friends from school near London, I went to a nearby card games shop and found a new Gisa for my colleciton, which is excellent news. And, one last piece of MtG excitement: I'm going to get to draft Mystery Booster 2 next Tuesday with my university's card games society. I'm very excited, since that set's pretty damn awesome! If I get any cool cards, I'll definitely post them.

I don't think I've got too terribly much else I want to mention. I'm looking forward to Arcane Season 2 releasing on Saturday, but, beyond that, there's not too much more excitement in my life. Just trying to survive the onslaught of work. And survival is enough! So, I'll see you in the next log post.

Salutations. I'm just here with a brief update. I am alive and suriving university. Third year is pretty weird. My timetable is less filled, but I feel even more busy than ever. It's quite stressful, but I'm managing. I don't have terribly much to tell right now. I'm still at the usual shenanigans: D&D is good and I am enjoying running it for my housemates again, I have been cooking new MTG decks (my latest is Mirko, Obsessive theorist - see the card gallery page), and plenty of video gaming has been taking place. I'm also rewatching Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, which I might write a little about in my next post, but not right now.

See you later.

Salutations. September doth continue onwards, and university is nearing its beginning. Hence, I thought it might be time for a little blog update. What have I been up to? Well, lots of gaming! As I should be in the summer holiday. And also a few days out with friends. Keep your eyes on the Cuppa Conquest page because there might be a new review or two soon.

Splatoon 3's Grand Festival was last weekend, and grand indeed it was. Me and my friends got together as we always do, and it was great fun. Though, it was unfortunate that Team Present did not pull through. And, I'm glad that seasonal Splatfests will still continue. Also, Big Run was great. We managed to defeat The Triumvirate a few times which was cool.

I've started my second playthrough of Fire Emblem: Engage with my friend Ophelia. It's fun getting a second chance to make funny builds and try out units I didn't use the first time over.

I think the last thing I can really think of that I've been up to is MTG with my friends. I'm starting to collect the cards for my Gisa, the Hellraiser deck, since it's one of my favourites. And I'm currently building Azami, Lady of Scrolls, because it is astonishing that I haven't built a wizard tribal deck yet.

I think that's about all for now. Things are winding down before I head back to university. Which is probably when I'll make my next blog post. See you then.

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!

Hello all. Here's a little update on how my summer has been going.

Recently I made the trek to Warwick Castle with some friends. It was a very good outing. I had been there twice before, but both instances were many many moons ago. I think since then I have acrued a lot more medieval fantasy based interests (D&D, Fire Emblem, etc.) which made me enjoy it even more this time. I can very much recommend it. The castle and dungeons were great, the jousting was spectacular, and it was an all round good day out.

A project me and a freind have been working on this past week is assembling Ultimate Monopoly by jonizaak. We thought if we had a bunch of people over to play it one afternoon it'd be most hilarious. However, we didn't expect it to be such a pain to compile: it needs resources from Monopoly, Monopoly Stock Exchange, Monopoly: The Mega Edition, and Monopoly Super Add-Ons. It took us a while, but we got there. We're going to play the game in August, so after we're done with that I might make a follow-up post reviewing the chaos.

With said friend I also made an orange and almond cake. Not something I've ever made before, but it was very tasty. Can recommend. It was very funny to make though, requiring you to simmer an orange for an hour so it purees more easily.

Dungeons & Dragons is a game very prevalent in my mind right now. I've been playing a lot with my group going through Lost Mine of Phandelver at the minute, and I'm likely going to be playing with another group too, soon. I'm looking forward to getting to make another character. Nothing's set in stone right now, but the updates to the Wizard in the 2024 PHB are really making me want to play an Illusioner. It's just a subclasss I've never really thought about before, but I think really suits my playstyle. I might ask if I can use the updated version since I really like the enw features it gets. We'll see. I'm just glad that I want to play Wizard again, because my old wizard was one of my favourite characters I've ever played. It's a much needed return to my roots.

My quest of learning Magic: The Gathering is going well too. I've made a deck centred around Sefris of the Hidden Ways that makes a ton of value by going through dungeons super fast. It's super fun! If a little strong for the rest of my playgroup. I've managed to find a fourth person as well, so I'm no longer stuck playing 3 player Commander. Huzzah!

I think that's all I have to tell for now. Summer is going well. I have lots to occupy myself, and when I'm not occupied I am quite happy to just sit there and chill. It's nice not having to work constantly any more. So, I shall see you in the next post. Until then!

Hello. It has been a hot minute. Let's just say that the revision season was a painful time. That's all. At least exams are over now, and I have a prosperous summer ahead of me. So, what's new?

Not much to show on the front of bakes. I wanted to bake more this term as a way to relax between work, but I just couldn't muster the energy most of the time. That does not mean it was a fruitless term, however. Behold yond marble loaf I concocted a few weeks back. I'm jolly well pleased with it if I do say so myself.

I've been going to card games at uni this term which has been fun. I've got to play as lot more MtG which is nice. I've even got to play with some friends from home over webcam. So, I'm a lot more experienced in playing. What I need experience in now is deckbuilding, which is something I will improve over the summer. Right now, I ahve a home-made Ghoulcaller Gisa deck, which is a bit janky, but I'm working on it. And, I have an Ephara, God of Polis deck which I borrowed from a friend. They're both very fun, but being such a fan of ghouls, I'm looking to keep improving my zombie deck. We'll see how that goes.

When I've not been revising or playing MtG, I've been up to my neck in TTRPGs, which has been nice. Tomorrow, I'm starting a game of Lost Mines of Phandelver as a halfling death cleric, and I also started playing Vampire: The Masquerade as a Malkavian vampire, while also running my own D&D game. After a relative draught of RPGs last term, my thirst is verily quenched now.

Other than that... Not much to tell, really. I've mostly just been working. So, thank goodness I've got a break. It's nice to just have the time to work on projects like this. Updating the site feels nice. So, I'll see you in the next update. Until then.

Hello! It has been a hot minute since the last post. You've got my university's bloody exam season to thank for that... Revision is plentiful and difficult, but I'm surviving. I get a week or so of respite now, which is pleasant.

My last post was just after my birthday. I've not been up to too much since then, really. I did mention I had acquired a loaf tin, which I've put to good use by making a lemon drizzle cake. It's a non-stick tin too, so it came out of the tin like a charm!

Now that I'm back at university, though, I've started going to card games on a Thursday. It's very fun! The people there are nice, which is good because I was quite scared about going since I didn't know anyone. Last week I played three games, winning one, which I was very pleased with. I've not had times to make any deck modifications though due to exams, so I'm heading back in tomorrow with my un-modified copy of the Gonti precon from Outlaws at Thunder Junction.

I do, however, plan to make a new deck at some point using Myrkul, Lord of Bones. I unpacked him from a booster of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate I opened recently. It was a lovely surprise, since he's my favourite god of the Forgotten Realms. And it was even more of a surprise to see he's in the top 100 commanders on EDHREC! A card that I liked being good? Preposterous!

Anyways, that's all. I'm signing off for now. See you in the next instance.

Hello all. A brief update for you as to what I've been up to.

The holidays from university have been going well. I've had lots of opportunities to catch up with friends from home, which has been nice. Though, a lot of it has been spent merely doing work, which sucks, but it's whatever. It's what I'm paying for, after all.

Most excitingly, I've finished Rise of Tiamat. Lyle has served me very well, and I'm glad to see them finish their adventure and get an opportunity to rest. The only issue is that now I crave more D&D... Hopefully we'll have another game up and running soon.

I've been spending the rest of my spare time looking into Magic: The Gathering. I've wanted to get into it for a good while now, but I kept forgetting to. One of my friends that I live with is also investigating it currently, so I am too.

I was very quickly drawn in by the existance of the Lord of the Rings set. The cards are all so cool and so flavourful. My favourite is easily Saruman of Many Colours. His mill/steal based effect is so flvaourful. It is just like how he destroys all of the natural resources of Isengard for his own use.

I very much look forward to my birthday on Sunday, for hopefully then I shall receive some cards, which is a most exciting prospect. I look forward to getting a chance to play the game.

Salutations, fair readers. I'm here for a brief post because earlier today A.B.A was announced to be coming to Guilty Gear Strive. If you know me, you'll know this has me very excited. I always thought A.B.A was an awesome caharacter that had loads of potential if they wanted to bring her back, but I didn't know if it would actually happen. Lo and behold, Daisuke has gifted us our favourite little freak, complete with a lovely new makeover.

I think she looks so cool. Her hair being the colour of oxidised copper implying that her hair in Isuka and XXAC+R was orange because it was copper that hadn't oxidised yet is brilliant. She is also teeming with Fullmetal Alchemist vibes. Being a homunculus is one thing, but Paracelsus literally opening The Gate and her clother having "HOHENHEIM" written all over them is another thing. I'm such a fan. She's so expressive as well, which makes her seem really funny. And the cherry on top is how they're really leaning in to the fact that Paracelsus is a demon. I like his goopy black mode, and I especially like his red creature form during Law Is Key, Key Is King.

Also, I'm very excited for her theme. Symphony sounds amazing, as we've come to expect from NAOKI!

That's all for today. The rest of life is going pretty alright, so I don't have much to talk about other than this. I'm so very hyped! A.B.A, less than a week away!

Hello, readers. This month has been going pretty alright. I went on a day trip to Oxford recently which was quite nice, and definitely a highlight of recent times. A friend of mine was in a play which I went to see, and it was very good. I didn't manage to get any spectacular photos, so here's an average one I took of the river, and one of a beautiful painting in G&D's:

Also, while I was there, my friend and I made white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake. (Recipe is by iconic Mary Berry, and can be found here.) We also used his bread machine to make chocolate bread. It was certainly an unusual beast to say the least. It was surprisingly like normal bread, only truly tasting like chocolate when proper chunks were in your bite. I didn't think to take photos before they had begun being devoured, but here they are nonetheless:

Another bake of mine recently is classic scones. I made a batch for Mother's day to make a cream tea in a box. Recipe is, again, Mary Berry's, which you can find here.

In the gaming department, I've been playing a lot of my new copy of Splatoon 3, which is a game I've been meaning to get for absolutely ages. Found it in the local CEX for £30 and thought "why the hell not". It's as spectacular as I expected. I'll be representing Team Keyboard in next weekend's Splatfest, so watch out!

That's about the highlights of my life since last update. I don't have much to say right now, cause I'm quite tired. Thankfully, it's the end of term now, so I'll be heading home soon for a much needed break... If you can even call it that, because I've got 5 exams to revise for and 2 programming courseworks to do. It's whatever. I'll hold out, because I always do. See you then.

Oh, also, look at this gigantic cobblestone monolith I've been working on in me and my friends' Minecraft server.

Don't mind the cows.

Hello all. Here's a brief blog update.

Today (or, well, now yesterday) was Pokemon Day. The Pokemon Presents livestream was very good. I am pleased that the leaks about Unova or Johto games were wrong. It was very nice to have something not predicted by leaks. A lovely surprise indeed.

Though I've not been playing it, I've been listening to a lot of the Splatoon 3: Side Order OST. Splatoon music always goes hard, but man, this is another level. And I'm a big fan of dedf1sh too. It's cool that the game properly commits to them being non-binary, cause that's not something that gets represented properly nearly enough.

Also, here's some blondies I made last weekend: Recipe is here.

Lastly, university is going pretty ok. I've just got to wade through the end of term turmoil induced by having two big programming courseworks to do now. Then, on the other side, all that awaits me is the further despair of revision. Such is university indeed... See you in the next blog post.

Finally finished

Me and my friends are doing a Bad Apple jigsaw, send help

Today has been a very good day for me, mostly on the merit of the fact that I finally managed to move all of my Pokémon off of my DS and onto my Switch. This is very important to me because I have a lot of fond memories of playing Pokémon when I was younger. I poured hours and hours into it, and being able to transfer that to the newer games is simply wonderful.

In case, by chance, anyone else reading this has a 3DS with custom firmware and is receiving error code 006-1608 when trying to use Pokémon Bank, here's how I solved the problem:

Open FBI and check the tickets for your system's titles. Look for these tickets:

• 0004000E000C9B00
• 00040000000C9B00
• 0004000D000C9B00

Delete any that are red (which in my case, was the third one), since these tickets are not being used by the system. You should only have two tickets left: one for Pokémon Bank, and one for its update data, and both of them should be green. This should fix the issue.
Source

Me and my babies having a picnic together:

I don't know how I just posted about Minecraft without mentioning my beloved pet, Mr. Sniffington. Here he is:

After a few weeks I'm returning to my Minecraft server with my friends. I'm in a pretty decent position currently, with half a stack of diamonds and a quarter of a stack of blocks of iron, though I'd like more diamonds so I can duplicate my smithing templates for armour trims and netherite gear.

Here's my house:

If I make any significant milestones, I might make a few more posts about what I'm up to.

Been playing a lot of Barony with my friends today. We got the 4-pack in the summer sale and I've been having a blast. My plan for tomorrow is to trawl through my Steam inventory and sell things on the community market to make a few pounds so I can get myself the DLC that lets you be a skeleton.

I like roguelikes a lot, so this one's one of my favourites on the merit of being able to enjoy it with my friends. I also just really like the classical RPG systems it has, and the voxel graphics. It's a really great package.

Beautiful Faust Art!!!

I recently commissioned Laurie to draw a Faust icon for me, and oh my goodness did they do a great job!

You can find the picture also posted to his Twitter, here.