A weekly status update from everyone’s favourite caffeinated weirdo.

Welcome back to Whatcha Up To! Coffee here, and here’s to the end of another week.

Last week was very busy – quite possibly the busiest of the year, so far. Birthdays, Halloween, Diwali celebrations and the 12th year anniversary for myself and Mrs. Coffee. This week… Well, I won’t mince words – this week sucks.

My heart goes out to all of my American friends for what happened during the 2024 election. This outcome not only affects you folks; it will also have indirect repercussions up in my neck of the woods. Thus, I commiserate with your suffering and fear. Hope still remains, even if it doesn’t look like it. Hope for a better future where kindness, decency and love for one another overshadows hate, division and apathy. Whether it be four or forty years, we will get through this, somehow, some way.

The best thing to do in the immediate moment, in my opinion, is to cut the noise out, mute the news and indulge in a distraction, if only for a moment. Give yourself space to breathe, to regroup, to live. Then, continue the fight.

With that said, here’s what I’ve been up to this time around:

Whatcha Playin’, Coffee?

I finished the main campaign for Shadow Generations. That is exactly how you do a redemption arc! Shadow is officially cool again, though we can all agree he was never uncool to begin with. Rather, his coolness was misguided by poor choices in the past. Shadow’s campaign was excellently presented and contained a fair number of twists and turns I didn’t expect. The level design, I think, has to be the best of the Modern Sonic era. I found only a few hiccups with Shadow’s control and any mistakes I made were on me, rather than on the game itself. If this is the future of Sonic, then I embrace it with open arms.

Speaking on embracing things, Echoes of Wisdom has me wanting more adventures with Zelda herself. I’m nearing the final stages of the game and I honestly don’t want it to end; I’m having way too much fun with it. What I felt stood out the most was puzzle solving in the side scrolling areas – it gave me a lot of Zelda II vibes. Which then makes me yearn for a proper, official remake of that game, or even The Legend of Zelda. Heck, make it a twofer and combine both games into one, seeing as they’re connected to one another. Oh, that would be epic!

Finally, I caved and downloaded the new Pokémon card game for my phone. I gotta say, it has been fun pulling old cards I used to own. It makes me want to start collecting physical cards again and maybe even try my hand at battling? The game seems to have changed a lot since the old days. An old dog like me could stand to learn a few new tricks, right?

Whatcha Writin’, Coffee?

The Backlog Busting post for Forspoken is all but finished. You can check it out on Tuesday. I have an outline for Chapter 26 of the fanfiction but I’ve felt too exhausted to write anything, given this week’s events. Well, except for now, that is.

Whatcha Readin’, Coffee?

I finished listening to The Tainted Cup last week and I got curious as to what other books the author had written. Prior to this one, he had finished a trilogy with some interesting magical cyberpunk-like elements within. Maybe the better term is arcane-punk? Or sigil-punk? I dunno. The first book is called Foundryside and I’m already hooked onto it thanks to my local library. It’s like what Forspoken could have been, I feel. I’ve only just started, but I’ll see if that similarity still stands in the future.

Also, here’s your friendly reminder to go visit and support your local public libraries! They need you now more than ever.

How’s Trainin’, Coffee?

You know that mad, frantic feeling you get when you want to do something about the things you can’t control? Well, that happened to me after Tuesday night. Long story short, I stopped focusing on the things I couldn’t control and focused on what I could instead. That meant pouring myself into vigorous exercise.

In this case, this week was a conditioning week for me to get my body back into the groove. Formwise, I’m feeling pretty good, aside from slight, ongoing pains in my knee and ankles. I’m gonna mix things up by returning to kettlebell workouts next week while scheduling a checkup with the doc. Which reminds me; go check in with your doctor sooner rather than later!

That’s it for what’s been happening recently. Anything new on your end? Let me know below. Otherwise, I’ll talk to you next week!

~Coffee