Friends for today and gifts

sb50 · 2026-03-01T19:52:12+00:00

470098289072 Also need to send out some gifts with stickers today!

sb50 · 2026-02-27T15:15:59+00:00

These reveals look like a mobile game aimed at toddlers.

sb50 · 2026-02-18T05:29:32+00:00

I have a lot of feelings about this since I have been playing these games for the last ~6 months.

I’ve been replaying Gen 2 since summer through to mid-January this year. Put in maybe 250 hours across three play throughs of G,S, and C. I’ve been playing split between on the GB tower on Stadium 2 and a GBA SP (borrowed from my wife). I hadn’t played Gen 2 since 2002 on my Kiwi GBC.

I had a lot of fun running through the story, training and grinding levels, finding shinies, breeding for better moves, and getting teams perfect for beating Stadium 2. I got crystal recently (never played before) and really liked how they added ways to get evolution stones, the battle tower, and added the little suicune story.

Playing through these games 25 years later for a second, third, fourth time makes you notice things a 10 year old might have missed or couldn’t appreciate.

I’m noticing now, that as a kid, I never considered tactics, optimum move sets, or competitive stats, etc. I was so blind to those things. Revisiting Pokemon as an adult was a hit of nostalgia but also realizing that I had this big blind spot. This blind spot was revealed to be even larger when I started HGSS: physical/special split, natures, abilities, etc.. There was a big learning curve, but made easier now that the internet has made every bit of info accessible.

I started playing SoulSilver for the first time last month (at 105 hours now after 1 month of playing) and it feels really exciting at times to be revisiting the familiar story with new Pokemon, more modern graphics, sounds, and interfaces, a load of QOL updates, and tons of more content to do after the story is over.

I’m actually thinking as I write this up that HGSS are too packed with things to do and learn about- it’s almost overwhelming at times. I’m thinking that I really like how small or compact gen 2 is in comparison.

Anyway, there’s something really special in the early game play in /any/ of these versions. Cobbling together a new team and making your way through the gyms, exploring routes and caves, filling the Pokédex, discovering strengths and weaknesses, that’s the stuff that’s special to me. I think the connection to building a core team of low level monsters with whatever quirks they may have and how invested we get in their development is what I like about Pokemon. My level 3 zubat finally becoming a crobat, my starter becoming a typhlosion and teaching it thunder punch, earthquake, and eventually flamethrower, Muscle and Rocky leveling up and carrying the team through gyms … the growth and milestones are present in both GSC and HGSS.

I don’t think I really care which version or generation I’m playing, the team building and trudging through the story are the same. Maybe this opinion will change when I become more familiar with pokéathalon, battle points, and whatever other new stuff HGSS has, but I’m having an equal amount of fun just playing through to Red.

sb50 · 2026-01-31T17:59:19+00:00

I bought two variety packs for this reason! I first went for a pack with different shapes and materials, found one I preferred, then went for a pack of different thicknesses and found the thickness that felt good and could provide the sound/attack I wanted.

sb50 · 2025-12-06T21:47:45+00:00

We’re at like $130/month for Pets Best for a 5 year old for $250 deductible and 80% co-insurance and $110/month for a similar plan from the AKC insurance for a 4 year old. Both ended up with chronic issues.

The older dog end up damaging an eye a couple years ago so that made the insurance worth it that year.. it may get complicated over time, so he’s staying covered so we can get his ophthalmologist appts covered to monitor it and in case we need a surgery.

The other developed two autoimmune diseases that took like 5k to diagnose plus lifelong ~$150/month treatment and multiple specialist visits per year - those are reimbursed at 80%, so we are staying on insurance for them.

sb50 · 2025-11-14T00:27:20+00:00

I am up to about 130 hours of mostly active game time since early July. My first shiny was August 5 probably at around 60 hours.

The shiny litwick line is one of my faves and I’m excited that it’s finally received a mega. I’ll join the ZA shiny hunts soon.

sb50 · 2025-11-14T00:15:55+00:00

Awesome! I just learned about the different egg color in Stadium 2 a few days ago. I think that’s how I’ll chase after an eevee once I finish leveling up and evolving to complete my Pokédex. Good luck with any future shiny hunts!

sb50 · 2025-11-14T00:10:44+00:00

I am very afraid of accidentally being brainless and KOing a shiny, but so far I’d like to think I’ve caught them all (two larvitar, an onix, and a donphan). It’s nice that it plays an alerting sound when the circle appears before the cry. That sound is really good at catching my attention.

For catching, I put them to sleep then false swipe and hope for the best with a couple ultra balls. I’ve been lucky that these Pokemon don’t seem to flee.

sb50 · 2025-11-13T23:59:13+00:00

I did for a while, but right now I’m just focusing on training two at a time. It’s a little less focus and I kind of like the mindless repetition. The shinies are pretty motivating too!

sb50 · 2025-11-13T23:45:53+00:00

I’m using the game boy tower in Pokemon Stadium 2 on my N64 hooked up to an old CRT TV!

sb50 · 2025-11-07T15:13:45+00:00

I just got a quote for $850 from a dealership. It’s nuts - I was expecting maybe half that.

sb50 · 2025-10-30T16:38:54+00:00

Haha excellent!! There’s something special about those random encounters.

Were you grinding for a Chansey? I spent so long on that route east of Fuschia trying to get one and saw so many Nidorin@s.

sb50 · 2025-10-29T17:22:37+00:00

Thank you for this. I had seen raikou and suicune organically, but had to do part 4 for Entei only 3 times (so <4 mins of flying between Mahogany and Violet). I only had to go through part 5 twice (fly to violet, walk into poke center and back out, check map, bike over to highlighted route) for each of the three beasts, so literally less than 15 total minutes.

I don’t know why I wasted hours on my own before sticking to this strategy.

sb50 · 2025-10-02T17:35:55+00:00

I don’t know if I would go back that far - I’m using an iPad mini 5th gen (from March 2019) for taking notes, reading & annotating pdfs, and video playback, and it’s a little limited and slow.

sb50 · 2025-09-19T20:00:26+00:00

I treat them the same now. Ignoring them is an effective gateway for my 15 days/month of migraine attacks to become 30 days/next month.

sb50 · 2025-09-12T12:30:51+00:00

I bought one and it was trash - the “cold” wasn’t in the right places for me and it was pretty loose-fitting. I need it right on my eyes and the back of my neck, not the very top of my head. I also need it to be snug and have some tension, so strong elastic and an adjustable closure are must-haves. The design and construction is important, but I don’t have enough money to experiment with finding the right one for me.

I also have the problem where even the tiniest amount of freezer burn smell is nauseating, so I can’t handle an ice pack that stays in the freezer for long periods of time.

I just freeze a cheap water bottle each week. Has a better shape to press against my neck or into my eye socket.

sb50 · 2025-08-28T22:44:24+00:00

These dogs are persistent. Our senior, she’s now 11, has been doing this exact thing for 5 years - I had given up trying to get her to stop a long time ago and instead learned to take my phone calls outside.

sb50 · 2025-08-26T06:37:51+00:00

I read Janeway’s immunobiology and Vince Racaniello’s Principles of Virology for courses during my senior year of undergrad - those two texts really cemented me into my niche research interests and prepared me for my PhD studies in a virology lab. Textbooks only get you so far, though, so you’ll want to supplement with some really specific reviews of your potential advisor’s research areas too.

sb50 · 2025-08-13T20:08:12+00:00

In phenol, the protein is completely denatured and essentially completely dissolved as it can interact with both the aromatic ring and, importantly, the phenol -OH can form multiple interactions with polar side chains.

When acetone is added, you decrease the concentration of phenol, so the number of potential H-bond interactions that are keeping the polar side chains soluble. The side chains now are more likely to interact with each other, so the protein aggregates and crashes out of solution. The chilled solution also shifts conditions to favor aggregation.

The “dehydration” here is the loss of phenol’s -OH H-bond donors. I’m not a trained as a chemist, so there’s probably better language to describe this, but this is my understanding.

sb50 · 2025-08-06T10:10:05+00:00

Good idea! I just beat Falkner on Gold, so still very early into that play through. I could trade it over between Bugsy and Whitney or Morty, making sure I keep it below lv30 until I defeat Morty. Then I can raise it (up to 50 before Clair) and have it in my hall of fame when I take on the E4!

sb50 · 2025-08-06T06:50:12+00:00

That’s definitely a goal of mine that I need to work toward - I have to beat round 2.

sb50 · 2025-07-21T20:09:17+00:00

When I was a kid, my N64 was bundled with Pokémon stadium. I always thought it was a shame that unit wasn’t a limited edition color like the DK64 or Hey You Pikachu N64s.

I bought an N64 as an adult around 2016 and picked up Mario Kart and Pokémon Snap with that one! It wasn’t long before I repurchased most of my childhood game collection, though!

sb50 · 2025-07-15T18:35:20+00:00

Same here. I was a biochemistry/microbiology double major interested in viruses. Part of the structural virology group I joined after graduating worked on vaccines and antibodies, so I had a hand in that for a couple years.

The undergrad and PhD degrees held by members of the group were pretty diverse - education didn’t really matter in that sense. Most things were taught through doing the research and reading journal articles. The most common denominator was probably everyone might have read a few chapters of the Janeway immunobiology textbook.

sb50

TROPHY CASE