January 2018 ladies' month update

2018 has been off to a great start, and taking these adventures with leading ladies has been quite fun. It certainly hasn't brought any kind of profound transformations, but that wasn't really the goal. I was raised by my mother as she worked 2 jobs and put food on the table until she could teach my brother and I how to take care of ourselves. Proud to be a mama's boy.

Thematically, my other media has been on a pro-woman kick, too, in addition to my selection of female protagonist games. I'm reading the fourth book in The Kingfountain series, of which the first 3 books were about a boy named Owen who uses magic to solve problems and defend a kingdom. To my surprise (I don't read book abstracts), the fourth book focuses on his daughter, who is coming of age and into her own character, realizing that she would rather be a warrior like her father, than a wizard like her mother. She's setting up to raise a legion of all-female warriors, which is of course an exception to the book's established culture of male warriors. The author doesn't club us over the head with injustices that we can't do anything about, and instead establishes a flexible culture. My takeaway was that if you're writing a fantasy book, the culture in it doesn't have to be such an obvious patriarchy and mimic real history. The genre is already fantasy, meaning the reader should be ready to be open...why not build a different culture too! This obviously applies way beyond gender, too.

Do££ar$ and Pound$

HRH. I also have to give a shout out to Netflix's The Crown, which is a biographical drama about Queen Elizabeth II. Folks, I am sucked in. It helps that the show is visually stunning, and the music is done by my boy Hans Zimmer. The second season is really good at adhering to per-episode themes, and, while a small part of me hopes for minimal embellishment in the storytelling, the show is so good to watch that I'm happy in fantasy land. This article says that the writer is pretty accurate, but that's only one article. Regardless, seasons of TV means you're spending a long time with characters and get to know them quite well, and this still-reigning queen is both inspiring and unenviable with a great story to tell.

What girl doesn't have a sword and shield under her bed?

Nostalgia powers activate!

A fearless girl and her teddy. As far as my ladies-first gaming goes, I changed up the original plan and began with the Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus. This exploratory action platformer has a great soundtrack, and mostly-enjoyable gameplay. It's unabashedly inspired by Zelda 2, and has some really clever boss fights. The most frustrating part of this game is that double-tapping forward makes you dash. This is a nightmare on precise platforms when you're crawling to the edge, or trying to close the distance to attack enemies with your incredibly short dagger. The game has an opening crawl ala Legend of Zelda, and other than a final 1-minute scene, is pure uninterrupted action. Also, at a $5 sale price, this is an easy recommendation.

Can't high jump...there's only place (2) things to hit...

Hard-as-nails. Between rounds of mostly choosing Rei, Gen. Leia Organa (no longer "princess") and the two female Empire badasses Iden Versio and Cpt. Phasma in Star Wars Battlefront 2, I also got around to playing Momodora, which is a lot more like the later Castlevania games, and pretty damn difficult. The 16-bit art is pretty awesome, but I've only given the game 2 hours because I've died a lot. Neat graphics, challenging gameplay, but I have a feeling it gets easier and more enjoyable later on.

There is a LOT of listening to people talk in this game.

Temporal Yap-fest. Dreamfall: Chapters has been like cheesecake for me: it's really heavy and I can only stomach a bit at a time, though I enjoy it. This game is all about the atmosphere and it's reinforced by the dialogue. The setting is pretty futuristic and the neat tech is coupled more with politics than weapons and war. So far. This is all so detailed that I feel no shame in using a guide to find out which choices to make. Characters talk for literally 1 minute at a time, and if I'm asking the NPCs every single question, it's just too many details to remember. If you like story and dialogue-driven games, like Telltale games, this game is for you. I'm fine to glean what I can off the choices my guide has made for me.

2018 set your goals now!

I spent most of 2017 with unpredictable income, due to both unemployment and a sporadic work schedule. I closed the year with a full-time job and now I have a steady paycheck. For those of you who are fortunate enough like my recent self to have predictable income, you should set your sights on some financial goals for the year. I'd set my goals quarterly, rather than waiting until the gifty Christmas/Chaunnakuh/Kwanzaa season to try and tally everything for 2018. So, if you've never saved before, and make $15-20 hourly, start with $100 by the time your favorite flower blooms in April. Double it for the quarter after that, and build up to 10% of your annual income. The average person in my age group saved -1.8% in 2017, so you can be that much better off! I'm personally aiming for 30% this year, on the $2000 monthly (Seattle minimum wage), but I've been living frugally for 3 years. Two years ago, I saved $3000 of my total $17,000. That was 17%. You can do 10%.

If you are wondering how you can put aside that much money, click on the label 'frugality,' on the right side of this blog, and you'll see all my posts with suggestions how to live dat frugal life. Some of my favorites that I actually live by are: cooking for myself, driving minimally, eliminating unnecessary subscriptions and buying a year at a time instead of going monthly, knowing good 3rd-tier brands, making my own coffee, and regulating my hobby by completing more games than I buy. Also, if you get paid every 2 weeks, there are bonus treasure months with 3 paychecks. That does not mean shopping spree, unless it's splurging on a decent coffee maker to ween off your thrice daily $4 coffees, or some good tires to make driving safe.

The last huge financial decision is that I live outside of Seattle proper. This means I get to take advantage of the $15 minimum wage, which is about 30% higher than my local suburb. This means that I am a good 15 miles from work, and take the bus because parking is unreasonably high ($20 per day). The commute is roughly 8 hours per week, which is a lot of reading time. Another advantage of dat suburb lyfe is that there's a supermarket right across the street that I don't need to drive to. I'm also not paying downtown rent in my food prices, so things are cheaper in general.

The finest brrrrick wall! I've ever seen...

I usually put people to sleep talking about this stuff, and yet others will brick wall me and say that saving $8000 in a year is impossible, or that they can't make sacrifices. Okay, so save $1000 this year and you'll still be ahead! That statistic of millenials going 1.8% further into debt last year was for people making $52,000 ($26 hourly at full time)! Avocado toast indeed! If you're in this income bracket, I double-dog dare you to do the $8000 that I am shooting for. Even if you're raising a family, I think you can still follow some of my suggestions and come out ahead.

A little patience paid off immensely

What to do with your nest egg? I strongly urge you to do some research on investing. Investopedia allows you to create a fake stock account with $100k that simulates investments on the actual market. I did this for 3 months before determining which stocks I'd buy with real money. I've personally had great luck investing in Vanguard S&P 500 stock and I'm not the only one. My thoughts are that if American businesses are as ruthless as they are, they'll know what to do with my money. Worrying about market crashes is silly because if it happens, we're screwed anyway, but temporarily. Don't invest money you need now; that way you can be patient with the returns. 4% may not look like much, but once you make it to your first $10,000, that's a brand new yearly PS4 Pro you've earned yourself (though hopefully you'll just add that money to the pile.)