After a very unpleasant experience with Pixelmator Pro, followed by an OKish experience with Affinity Photo, I finally subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud. After all these years screaming that I would never pay a monthly fee to use a software, why did I finally do it?
Well, it wasn’t a comparison spreadsheets on Reddit, no Sir… What truly got me are the Lightroom presets for Animal Crossing made by creative folks like Saturn and quinn on Twitter. Yep, you read it correctly: I now pay 12,00€/month to Adobe because I want to make my Animal Crossing screenshots look cute.
After a few days of using the combo Lightroom/Photoshop on my Mac, my Ipad and my Iphone, I’ve learned a few things:
Adobe softwares are the most intuitive, I found back my PS automatisms faster then it took me to develop new ones on any other software;
If you read online comparisons between Photoshop and its alternatives, you don’t really do it for the results. You do it because you don’t want to pay a monthly fee and you need to be comforted in the idea that you won’t be using Adobe softwares anymore;
12,00€ is cheaper than the enamel pin I buy from Etsy each month (now, I’m convincing myself).
It’s weird to think that this TV-show was originally planned for a one season limited TV series, yet here we are watching the third season. Normally, Chris and I aren’t fans of psychological drama at all, we even cut movies in the middle because we can’t stand it but, for The Sinner, we gladly made an exception. This season was like a cat and mouse game between Detective Ambrose and his antagonist, Jamie. Like Chris said, it looks like Ambrose is shaking Jamie like a bottle of champagne and the cork is about to pop any minute. That’s the exact reason why we came back for more, who wouldn’t wanna see the outcome?
The main quote and plot throughout this season could make one hell of a subject for discussion, yet I’m not going to go there because when I get philosophical, I don’t know where things will end:
If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Hope Mikaelson, the daughter of a werewolf and a vampire, attends the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted and learns to use and control her supernatural abilities. IMDb
As a great fan of The Originals, I was ecstatic when I heard that there would be another spin-off of the infamous Vampire Diaries. Werewolves, vampires, witches, and demons are some of my favourite subjects so, this was perfect for our week-end dinnertime TV-show. Even though, Legacies is less deep and serious as The Originals, I absolutely love it. The Salvatore School reminds me a lot of Harry Potter, so beautiful and cozy, I sometimes wish I could live there. One down point was the ridiculous appearance of “the necromancer”, but he was easily overshadowed by some great episodes like the 80’s flashback, and the epic fight against the Grinch on Christmas.
Danielle Rose Russell is a complete badass as Hope Mikaelson, both her and Alaric Saltzman are my favourite characters of the TV-show. I just hope that it won’t take too long before season 3 will come out since a lot is on hold with the whole COVID situation.
We had to wait the middle of August to get some real summer, but it’s finally here. It’s time to slow down, eat cold pasta salads, drink ice cold coffee and enjoy the blue sky.
If you’re searching for a good playlist for times like these, Rockstar Games provided it a few years ago in GTA V. Among all the in-game radios, my favourite is Radio Mirror Park. It features a lot of soft fresh synth-pop titles that are perfect for the morning coffee or a lazy stoner afternoon at the swimming pool.
The last title of the list – Heartbreak by Age of Consent – has been our favourite song several years in a row, but there are many excellent titles that we still discover years later. As usual, it is an Apple Music playlist, not only because I’m an Apple slave, but also because it’s the best streaming service (this opinion is a fact, totally).
The iconic series UNSOLVED MYSTERIES is back. Fusing signature elements from the original series with contemporary immersive, character-driven storytelling. (source: IMDB)
To be honest, I didn’t know that it was a reboot… We watched it during our July holidays and we had a great time. I think that the narrative and the camera work are what’s making this show so entertaining.
Ok, we’re mysteries fans and we love to come up with our own theories about what happened, but this show is as much about the way the story is told as it is about the actual mysteries. Don’t take this the wrong way, some mysteries made us curious… But it just can’t rival with cases like the murder of Teresa Halbach, which, to this day, remains the murder mystery I am the most curious about.
Anyway, if, like us, you enjoy to have your curiosity piqued with mysterious unsolved cases, this show will surely entertain you. Good news: there will be a second part with 6 more episodes!
One of the greatest features of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the hourly tune. While we love all musics from the game, our favourite is 5 PM. This smooth jazz tune with a touch of 70s bass is an instant shot of good mood.
Cute teens werewolves fighting off cute teens witches on a beautiful university campus… As if every word in this sentence wasn’t enough to get us hooked, they had to invite special guests like Ian Ziering and Jason Priestley. Honestly, I hope that this show gets renewed for 10 more seasons because it makes our week-end lunches so enjoyable.
After weeks enjoying the peaceful life in Animal Crossing New Horizons, KK Slider finally visited our Islands and, by doing so, Tom Nook unlocked the terraforming app. We recently had a week off and we enjoyed our days away from our office laptops reworking the shape of our beloved Islands.
Sardoken
I had planned to keep as faithful as possible to the original design of my island. I would only move what was really necessary in order to build great yards for the residents and correct a few things like the position of the bridges.
By the end of the week, the island had changed much more than I had anticipated. I changed the path of the rivers, deleted a cliff, moved most of the buildings and relocated my house.
I am completely addicted to terraforming and I can’t stop changing the design of Lonestar to further improve it.
I only wish that they would have kept the entry of the buildings and the bridges to even numbers. For example, the exit of the airport is 2 blocks while the entry of the museum is 3 blocks, which makes it harder to center the paths. But it’s just a small complaint, the app is really well done and fun to use.
I wonder what my island will look like after my next week off…
Soforah
I remember playing Animal Crossing in 2006, Chris had bought me my first gaming platform, a Nintendo DS, and AC Wild World. I was so happy at that time roaming around in my little town, it already seemed so huge. Fifteen years later, we’re actually terraforming, crafting, and decorating an entire island. I knew that New Horizons would be different from all previous AC games, but I never expected it to be this great. When I created my island, Miskatonia, I chose one that I thought would be the perfect lay-out to begin with. 100+ hours later my island doesn’t look at all anymore like the original map. So far, I’m having tons of fun creating little nooks and crannies all over the place. So much has changed already, I wonder what it’ll look like in another 100+ hours from now.
This is the first movie we’ve watched during our one week of summer holidays. We thought it would be fitting our mood of sun and blue sky during this strange month of July. For some reason, I’ve believed all my life that Palm Springs is a place on the border of a beach with lots of palm trees, imagine my surprise seeing a desert instead. I immediately googled Palm Springs after watching the movie, and yes, it apparently is a desert resort city in California. I’ve learned a new thing that day…
The movie was fun to watch, Andy Samberg was as hilarious as always. Movies about time loops always reach their best point when the people who are stuck in them, accept their fate and completely let go. Throwing a bomb at a wedding, dressing up like a pirate, camping in the desert while stoned and watching dinosaurs pass,… life would be so much fun if none of your actions would have any consequences, the day starts over and over again anyway.
Also, those inflatable pizzas look so comfy, I could see Chris and I floating on one of those babies in our imaginary pool.
I won’t lie, we thought about stopping the movie several times, but we eventually made it until the end. The acting is bad, the scenario is ridiculous, the camera work is pathetic and the effects are among the worse I’ve ever seen.
Yet, as we are comfortably installed in our living room, far from the dangers of the US West Coast, we both agree: we had a good evening watching Sharknado.
As I was searching for a screenshot to use in the post, I stumbled upon this image:
Really, sharks in space? Now, that makes me wanna watch the next chapters.