#PastebinMonday 07/14/2025 Distracted by Horse Girls Edition

Distracted by Horse Girls Edition

'Sup, doods!

I caved. I can’t resist monster-raising games. AND you’re gonna make the “monsters” into beautiful girls with horse features that are based on real-life horses that raced in Japan? You’re gonna take the existing anime and turn it into a gacha game?

Where’s the Philip J. Fry “shut up and take my money” GIF when I need it?

That is Uma Musume Pretty Derby. It’s become a Japanese institution full of anime, manga, and multiple video games for the past seven years. The main game that released on PC and mobile in 2021 in Japan just got released globally about three weeks ago. I’ve been resisting the urge to consume my time with playing it on my phone while, at the same time, watching everyone and their mother play it and go crazy with it like they suddenly became horse racing fans. Of course I was going to play it someday. So far, I’ve won the URA Finals with Sakura Bakushin O and Vodka. I’m currently about to lose my mind failing with Daiwa Scarlet because I was led to believe that front runners had it easy. They still have it easy… er… than the rest. I’m saving myself to pull for the Kitasan Black support card that is supposedly meta PVP relevant in the JP game today and set to come out this week so that might be holding me back. For now, I will be content to lose sleep over completing Biwa Hayahide’s story while I still can. I’m not going to whale, though. The only free-to-play game I’ve ever thrown a lot of money at is Hearthstone and it hasn’t kept my attention in years. I do expect this game to consume me for multiple months, however, if not multiple years.

Do you want me to stream it? I am open to pivoting into a part-time Uma Musume streamer as an excuse to stream more.

In news more relevant to my direct interests, I was able to pull myself away from Uma Musume long enough to qualify for this weekend’s Tetris Attack Poochy Open. And wouldn’t you believe it, doods, I managed to put yet another personal best into my Easy – V-Hard backlog. I managed to put together roughly the same exact seven second improvement TWICE, including in qualifying to take what I presume will be the number one seed. How often have I failed to close out tournaments as the 1 seed? I guess we’ll find out if I do it again this weekend.

In other news, I am quite disappointed in myself, doods. I had every intention of recording for my tutorial series on Saturday. I was all together with my recording setup ready to record every relevant thing I could possibly do to make the videos as good as I could get them. And then… my microphone stand gave out. I’ve been using the same tripod boom stand for five years. It gets in the way from having to be on the floor, but it did the job of staying far away from me during stream. Now, it can’t. I basically have to stand it straight up in order to get my cheapo microphone close to my face. Now it’s too much in the way. It was starting to sag a fair bit a long while ago, but it would manage to hold long enough to do a stream. It’s no longer able to do that. I gave up yesterday and purchased a decent desk-mounted arm to replace it, but I spent way longer on Saturday than I care to admit trying to figure out why the stand was giving out when I hung the microphone out away from it. By time I settled on the workaround, my mind was too tired to do anything so I gave up on the tutorial recording. I’m hoping to make the time this week to start recording. Just gotta power through the impending sleep deprivation.

By the way, doods, please remind me to smile more. My resting sad face is becoming obvious to the tourists.


Today's (permanent) extra streaming goals:

Goal #1: record footage for my Puzzle League tutorial series. The scripts are done! I am now challenging myself to find time amidst my tournament duties to work on recording the gameplay. I would then need voice-over on top of that. I’m prepared to go all in on this for the rest of this month.
Goal #2: release the Puzzle League tutorial series YouTube shorts once a day until they're all done. I really do think I need to time the release of the series with a ramping up of my streaming schedule so that I can take advantage of whatever there is to gain from releasing the shorts. This could start September. This could start November. I have no clue.
Goal #3: clean up my own stream layout. Most of the framework necessary for a semi-proper stream is done now thanks to streaming the process, though I'm not currently motivated to stream any other part of it at the moment. Next major objective is to make alerts. I have stream reaction clips to put in. Emotes, one or two alternate overlay themes, and alternate timer themes would come soon after. As soon as I think of things to put in, I will add them to the list. I added a list in a dedicated channel in my Discord server. If you have any time to kill and want to contribute, check it out.
Goal #4: catch up on video archives that I have yet to upload since I restarted streaming. I may put them on a separate channel.
Goal #5: edit personal best videos in Tetris Attack Easy – V-Hard (post commentary recorded) and Normal (post commentary recorded)—and everything I did in Pokemon Puzzle Week—and that S-Hard PB—and that V-Hard WR—and that Easy – S-Hard WR—and that TA Easy PB—and another Easy – V-Hard PB (thrice). Standalone archival videos are already attached to my speedrun profile. I'm hoping to make eye-catching productions from each speedrun. I'm considering it to be my personal test to be a YouTuber. I was failing miserably even before my location situation changed.
Goal #6: finalize the tournament layout once and for all in a way that I can adapt for every game we might play. I have a volunteer to help broadcast the matches in my stead. I have a lot of videos I want to get out of the way first.

This week's schedule:
Friday @8pm-11pm ET – TA2026 Poochy Open Tune Up

Now if you'll excuse me, doods, I have another personal best to highlight. Wait, it rained on three Sundays in a row. How did that happen? That’s my life story for the week. Until next time, everyone, be decent to each other. Later, doods!

--Cards