Got a new bike for the first time in a long while. Decided to finally pull the trigger on an electric cargo bike, and got the Specialized Globe Haul ST with two front panniers and the passenger kit, which lets someone sit on the back. It’s great! I’ve been using my old Cannondale Super-V outfitted with a Superpedestrian Copenhagen wheel, but that’s been discontinued (so who knows about any support), and because everything is contained in the wheel, it’s both short on power and range.

While the Haul is still limited by “class 3 ebike” regulations (28mph pedal assist, 20mph throttle), the extra torque makes a HUGE difference going up hills.

I’ve been picking up and dropping off the kids at school, and getting to either school is trivial. I can make it take effort, I can make it take almost no effort. It’s great. So trading a car ride + no exercise for a bike ride + some exercise is a win. It’s also been weighing on me more that even though the Tesla doesn’t take any gas, it *does* take a lot of energy, since it’s a big heavy car, and an eBike is going to be monstrously more efficient. And in the week and some that I’ve had the bike, every time I’ve taken it out it’s replaced a car ride. So that’s been more than half of the excursions out of the house. It’s basically, “Am I going to be carrying something I absolutely cannot carry on the eBike? Then I’ll take the car.” So winging, picking up large foamboards for J’s presentation at school – stuff like that.

But yeah. Good stuff.

Been playing Halo Infinite and Fortnite almost exclusively these days – Halo’s gameplay is great, but holy cats the progression system sucks. They’ve made big improvements since launch, but it’s kind of unbelievable that their live ops team is moving this slowly. I can only imagine the announcement of a move to Unreal must be brought on by how outdated their internal engine must be, and how hard it is to keep pace with stuff like Fortnite.

Fortnite, on the other hand, has a genuinely amazing progression system, but the gameplay’s starting to get a little boring. I assume that’s one of the drives that Epic’s making for Unreal Engine for Fortnite – being able to take advantage of the player base and tech to build something different is pretty tempting, and knowing that they’re going to pay folks who make content… I’m looking into it.

Otherwise, mostly smaller games – Citizen Sleeper is excellent, Pizza Tower is insane. Picked up a handful of 3DS games before the eShop shut down – Metroid: Samus Returns (which feels surprisingly like Dread, though I shouldn’t be surprised – same dev), Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice (the only one we didn’t have AFAIK), the “other content” for Fire Emblem: Fates, and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team – a series I’ve always liked but never gotten particularly deep into.

The 3DS is an odd duck. The 3D is really quite good, and it makes games on the platform feel really unique. I probably wouldn’t have picked up rando games at the closing of most other shops, because remakes will eventually make most good games accessible again. But the 3DS… it’s so reliant on the hardware that once those games are gone, they’re never going to feel the same again.

So yeah. We’ve got a couple trips coming up that I’m super excited about. Heading back to Maui in a bit, and then this summer, finally going back to Korea & Japan for the first time in 20+ years. Been learning both Korean & refreshing Japanese via Duolingo, which is pretty damn good. Progress is slow, but it’ll be way better than nothing. 😀