It's Taro Tuesday.

Taro is visiting for a day and the pet store got new toys in neither of us could resist.

Staying in tonight and pretending I live in a sports bar.

Started DOA 6 Last Round and got jump scared by English VO.

It's been wild the last few years seeing more traditional games press begin to understand competitive Pokémon. After literal decades of "to be the very best" fluff pieces, or the only point of reference to VGC being the hotel poop incident, it's amazing to see articles like this. He really gets it!

Playing Champions in the cafe after work is neat. Hope they update the UI for different aspect ratios soon, but it's nice that it works at all.

Skipped the Storm game because I had to work at 1am and needed some sleep ahead of time. Might have to watch when I get home despite knowing the result.

Started 11-0 in ranked and have an ongoing 11 win streak in casual. Going to pretend I'm amazing and that it has nothing to do with a million new players on mobile that think Starraptor is good for some reason.

Been putting in extra hours at both jobs lately. Too burned out to put any thought into the Champions update so just threw Mega Mawile on a team. Quick 7-0 and then thought I should branch out since I run M-Mawile too much. Now realizing this is the 1st day in 6.5 years it's been legal. Help.

I went to VGC Nationals/NAIC 12 years in a row but skipped the last 2 years. They're doing this to bring me back specifically. You're welcome Chicago.

Not going to NAIC for the 2nd year in a row and feel like a fool. I know I'm not playing this season but I still could be in New Orleans right now with all my friends. How many years did I go when it was in Ohio?

I hear this mans voice in my head anytime I've seen anything exciting for the last 20 years. Truly irreplaceable. Absolutely devastating.

Got to hang out with this goober a bit the other day.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Oh it's Corgi day? Have a few of my favorite old Taro pics.

It's 90s night at the Storm game tonight and so far they've played mostly early 2000s music... I'm also trying not to think about how most of the players weren't alive in the 90s.

Bus I'm on just t-boned someone who ran a red light. Everyone seems fine. Don't think I'll make it to the game tonight anymore though.

Sometime in the next week I'm going to start an Extreme Admirer run in Pokemon Champions. Starting with the first 6 mons in the pokedex and every time one gets the 10 win Admirer badge it's replaced by the next mon in the dex.

First bus was 20min late. 2 scheduled transfers haven't shown up. Not going to get to the Storm game before it starts. If a bus doesn't come in the next 10min I'll probably just bail entirely.

Well, I went 4 hours without watching someone else's dog.

it's Taro Tuesday.

I know bud, this is a rough.

It's Taro Tuesday.

I have several guesses.

It's a good day.

Got my lease renewed, got passes for worlds. I can now stop stressing the summer.

Taro is here.

The bad news: I'm going to miss the Seattle Storm season opener this weekend. The good news: I get to babysit my favorite Storm fan and we'll watch it from home.

Global challenge off to a good start.

Alright, I'm here for preseason. First ever game for Portland so that's pretty cool.

I went to a Premier Challenge tonight because I needed to go to the Bath & Body Works next door. No cut, 3 way tie at X-1, I lost the coinflip to identical resistance again. Then forgot to go to Bath & Body. That's probably my last SV event.

Amazing! This just showed up from @remapradio.bsky.social after winning their 2024 NFL pick 'em league. Signed by @robzacny.bsky.social @patrickklepek.bsky.social and @cado.bsky.social ! I love it! Now does it go on the trophy shelf or do I try start a sports shelf?

I know I'm being pedantic, but it still drives me insane every 6 months when everyone calls the latest community tournament the "largest VGC tournament ever!". They are never actually affiliated with the Video Game Championships nor are they ever even a 10th the size of the global challenges.

Was hoping they would have upped their game this year, but the local Seattle Storm broadcasts still look like they're being shot on a 2004 era flip phone and commentary audio is still 2 seconds behind the game.

A screen fell out of 1 of my living room windows during a wind storm 6 weeks ago. Since then a series of escalating blunders by the apartment maintenance team has been driving me insane.

Still have no idea what to run for the GC, threw some random things on a team this morning and my reads are at least getting better. Used Ally Switch for the first time since 2014(?) and holy crap it's still funny as hell watching all confidence drain from your opponent.

Have my first day off in almost 2 months tomorrow. Going to try build my first team that's not just vibes and get out of Master Ball 2. Or I'll sleep the entire day, haven't decided yet.

Is the rating system in Champions bugged or is your placement some sort of combo between rating and number of wins? For context number 2 on this list has played like 3x the number of battles as the rest and is ranked higher than my other friends despite a lower rating.

Bank error in your favor! Champions gives you bonus VP for ranking up, and if you drop and go back up you get the bonus again. This is all from me bouncing between Masterball 2 and 3 for a couple games.

Was going to register and then spend the next month talking myself out of it but, luckily the Champions ladder added new tiers the same time registration opened and I missed registration because I was seeing how the new tiers work. (Was auto-promoted to Master 3 and took 1 battle to hit Master 2)

I don't need to do NAIC this year. I've got basically no CP so I'd have to make finals for it to be worth it. No idea how well the tournament will run on new software so might be a shitshow. I should just skip it and do LAIC after Worlds instead.

The 2026 Seattle Storm:

I know I've complained the last few years that the Storm seemed allergic to playing their centers. Sure seems like that's about to change.

Made it to Master Ball Tier, took 40ish games to do it. What's amazing is I haven't seen a single rage quit yet.

I love this game.

Got home from work, put a new team together, started my first battle. Turn 1 I set TR as they tailwind. Knock out 2 of their mons then next turn. Going to wrap it up turn 4 and then... they couldn't wait the 15 min to let ongoing battles finish?

Alright that's enough Champions for tonight. Did like 12 games, made it to greatball, learned they nerfed Salt Cure. (It doesn't do bonus damage to Steel anymore, didn't check Water) Will work on an actual team tomorrow night but was fun to play around with Mr Rime again for the day.

YES!!!

It's time.

Can't believe we went from first snow of the year to air-conditioner season in just 3 weeks.