April 2023 Retrospective
This is going to be a very brief retrospective because I am currently in a rush to pack my bags for an upcoming flight.
The Good
Vacationed in Seoul, South Korea
You can read my daily updates under the #Seoul2023 tag but the gist is that Seoul was a lot of fun, the food was amazing, and it is a place I would recommend everyone go to at least once in their life.
The Bad
The Slough House series
In my experience it is very rare for a book series to continually improve. Most overstay their welcome and become rote and boring long before they should have concluded. But somehow Mick Herron's Slough House series keeps getting better and better with every book I read.
Well this month I read the sixth and seventh books and have now lost almost all of the interest in the series. Their plots have done exactly what I chastised other long running series for and have just become over-the-top insanity as each book needs to have higher stakes than the last.
At this point there have been eight books published in the series but I honestly don't know when I will get to it, if ever.
Resident Evil 4 Remake
I beat the Resident Evil 4 Remake but unfortunately nothing I complained about last month got any better. Everything that annoyed me just got worse as the game went on. The enemies became more nimble with higher health pools and the aiming continued to disappoint. I truly believe that if I was playing on PC with a mouse and keyboard I could potentially enjoy the game but it still doesn't come anywhere near the original Resident Evil 4.
That being said I have absolutely loved watching YouTuber's such as Bawkbasoup and WaifuRuns speedrun the game. There is no doubt that Capcom is also a fan of their efforts and went out of the way to make the RE4 Remake an entertaining game to speedrun. While I may not have have enjoyed it, the Resident Evil 4 Remake has been a blast to watch.
Honourable Mentions
Read Horus Rising
I have been a fan of Warhammer 40,000 since I was like 13 years old and stumbled upon the old Games Workshop in a basement corner of the Eaton Centre. This month I finally dipped my toe in and read my first 40K book, Horus Rising.
I'm not going to try to sugarcoat it. Dan Abnett is a really good writer but at its core this book is still about juiced up Space Marines taking to the stars and murdering everything. I'm not going to try to defend that any more than I would try to defend Reader Player One. This is escapism for the types of geeks or nerds who enjoy this kind of science-fiction. I really liked it and am definitely going to read some more books in the Horus Heresy series.
Leafs advance past the first round
Somehow, despite being severely outplayed, the Toronto Maple Leafs managed to defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning and advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in 19 years.
I am now looking forward to them getting swept by either the Bruins or Panthers.
Review April Goals
- ✅ Write about our trip to Seoul, South Korea.
- ✅ Finish reading Joe Country.
- ✅ Read Slow Horses.
- ✅ Beat Resident Evil 4 Remake.
- 🙅🏻♂️ Start exercising.
- 🙅🏻♂️ Prototype an app using Apple's Stable Diffusion package.
May Goals
- Run at least 50 kilometres.
- Play Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp.
- Play Darkest Dungeon II.
- Read a book.
- Prototype an app using Apple's Stable Diffusion package.