That One Time I Did A Study Blog Called: Daily Updates from a Daily Man in the Middle of a Downward Spiral But Realized the Power of Friendship with these Ten Easy Steps and Here's How You Can Too - Not Duty Free

For some reason this phrase forming reminded me of this moment from dougdoug’s stream where his chat plays geoguesser vs Neuro AI: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxRpoYkVhfevdScqp5dQoSLViF3qM5lKQe?si=iIzwQ9gor5DJmTlY
Oh well, I don’t know if there any people knowing about anything about those two, but I find them amusing

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This log gives me some ideas :bulb:

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No Ai here, just buffoonery.

In this day and age it’s easy to forget that humans have that capacity as well.

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Entry the thirteenth - July 31st, 2025

It’s a Thursday once again! Can you believe it?

Today was a relaxing, but SHOCKING day for my reviews and overall Japanese progress. Although, I wiped out six reviews lickity split, I noticed something…rather odd?

Do you see it? I am no longer a master of N1 Japanese! What happened? Well, intrepid truth seekers, Bunpro added more Japanese grammar! Oh my goodness, am I so grateful. Even though it was only four new N1 grammar points, it’s four more N1 stories to tell.

Too often we forget that we live in the age of abundance. It’s so hard to appreciate what we have when we get more and more in our lives! Bunpro staff, I want to expressly tell you that this update makes me genuinely happy. THANK YOU. Truly.

This is making me rather introspective. Let’s go on a journey. Think vibe coding but with feeling (sorry, comp sci student here, still trying to process the feelings thing).

On X, formerly Twitter (Bunpro, you gotta update the icon!), I follow exclusively Japanese accounts --usually it’s smaller accounts of Japanese gamers, usually those who are Xbox gamers (buuut that’s a topic for another tangent!).

Let me tell you of a man who makes me incredibly happy each time I see his posts:

Every. Single. Day. Each day this man posts an image of him enjoying a beverage --usually a Pepsi BIG ZERO, or on rare occasions a Coke Zero with an empty Coca-Cola glass. Once or twice a week, he adds in a small snack along with the picture.

What does this mean, you ask? Stop asking the wrong questions, I say! Think about the beauty of this: I don’t know of this man just that he is a gamer and a connoisseur of sugar-free soda products. What’s his work life like? Stressful? Who knows? But once a day, I connect with this man who lives on the opposite side of the world in a culture completely foreign to my own… and just briefly I am on the same wavelength as him.

This is a man enjoying the moment and sharing it with his followers. I will share his joy with you all. I wish you all a small, but joyful moment like his.

There’s beauty in routine, there’s beauty in the mundane, and I eat that up. Granted, I am more of a Coke guy than a Pepsi guy, but I can let my prejudices slide just for a moment to appreciate true art in a world where mundanity is dying a slow breath against the ever-prevailing culture of grinding and productivity.

Your slowest moments in life are usually the most beautiful!

Thank you, Bunpro staff for adding more grammar when you had zero obligation to! I will cherish each one.

Thank you, intrepid truth seekers for spending each moment of your day reading the ramblings of a man who should be more productive.

Until tomorrow, I bid thee adieu.

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Entry the fourteenth - August 1st, 2025

It’s a Friday once again! Can you believe it?

Today was a monumental day for my reviews with 4 reviews being destroyed by the might of my Japanese linguistic abilities.

In my rampant acts of foolishness, I regret to inform you all that I forgot to mention that I added A NEW GRAMMAR POINT. Yes, yesterday, I was the proud studier of the ru-verb grammar point. I suppose if I had to place the blame away from me, it was the Bunpro staff for adding more grammar and getting me too stimulated.

So, I had to simmer down. Usually I do this with games, but today I chose a classic. I chose Shenmue.

Just look at that beauty. Fun fact: You can press the B button instead of A and that’s perfectly fine. Oh, boy, I hope someone got fired for that blunder!

This game is unironically the cure for the ailing games industry. You may suggest that Yakuza would be a more modern version of this, but you are most definitely wrong! Shenmue embraces the void in a way that most games are afraid to do so.

You are only fearless when you explore into the unknown! Shenmue is the rare example of such a game.

I will demonstrate such fearlessness right now. Imagine you are in a Japanese kitchen in 1986. You have that image in your brain, right? You peruse through the room and decide to open a curious drawer .

Look closely at this image. Yes, it’s exactly what you would expect from an ordinary drawer from any kitchen. But just look at it for about 30 seconds. What did you notice? Did you see the slight curvature of cloth on the edge? Or perhaps you noticed the artifacts on the edges of the utensils?

But what utensil spoke out to you the most? For me it was the curiously elongated fork on the far left.

Someone made this, maybe they used their own kitchen cutlery as a reference picture? Why did they add a slight curve to the cloth for something that most would just give a passing glance at? Wouldn’t it take more time to add a curve wouldn’t that slightly increase the polygon budget for this Dreamcast game?

In Shenmue, there’s a mechanic in which you can stare at framed images. In fact, here’s one of my favorite framed pictures in the starting home of the game:

Look at that mountain. Is it a low res Mt Bunji? I don’t see any marshmallows hugging it, so I have my suspicions.

But there’s a hidden mechanic behind merely looking at this rather nondescript picture frame.

You can…wait for it…remove it from the wall. Yes. Do you think there’s a secret message behind this picture frame? Maybe a goodie? Something worthy of your time?

Lo and behold, this is what is behind this picture frame and every single picture frame in your home. It’s a fine wall, I suppose. I am not an expert on walls, sadly. Does this speak to you? Even I am grasping straws here!

I often think about how interesting it would be to have a modern day Shenmue (not three!) where there really isn’t a goal or objective. Where you can just immerse yourself in a period of time in an area of Japan and interact with as many pointless objects as possible.

Would be a killer immersion simulator for language learners who can’t afford a trip to the country they are learning the language from.

Maybe games can just be, not just do!

Be on the lookout for sailors, everyone!

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Four reviews? Man, chill out bro. You might sprain your wrist from all that typing the way AI Art Masters toil from typing four words and pretending they just created God’s work.

Be sure to take breaks, drink plenty of water, and try not to go into deep rabbit holes about comedy actors that disappeared in the mid 2000s. Especially in the middle of study sessions.

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Based on the streak, the OP is at least 2,737,908.5 years old.

Meaning, they got to see:

  • The invention of stone tools by Homo habilis in East Africa. The OP was at least 50000 years old at that point.
  • The emergence of Homo erectus, who used fire and migrated widely. At that point the OP was at least 700000 years old.
  • The evolution of Homo sapiens, when the OP was at least 2.4 mln years old.

If I were you, I would listen very closely to any words of wisdom from such a species.

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Entry the fifteenth - August 2nd, 2025

It’s a Saturday once again! Can you believe it?

Today was another memorable Japanese learning experience with only 3 reviews destroyed by my sheer willpower alone. I can now just look at reviews and complete them. No typing needed!

Remember when I mentioned I X, formerly Twitter, about two posts ago? Yes, yes controversial platform…but this bothered me a lot.

image

For better or for worse, the little bird is dead and buried. But…what does Bunpro post on Twitter? Is it good? Do they go for spicy political takes? Casual posting of mundanity? Let’s find out!

Immediately, I noticed that Bunpro isn’t verified. I don’t see the checkmark of officialness. How am I supposed to know they pay around $8 a month to be official? Yes, I know it’s linked from the official Bunpro website, but I don’t trust easy! Especially when it’s painfully obvious!!

But look at that, 1,410 followers. That’s a pretty decently-sized neighborhood worth of people following Bunpro. Really puts things into perspective, eh?

With that many followers, surely there’s a ton of engagement, right? (Spoilers, I looked ahead before typing this.)

Instead of emotionally reactive “hot takes” we have…something unique?

Aww, cute! They still use hashtags. But pay no attention to the engagement at the bottom! I will get to that momentarily.

So many posts are just these little content drops teaching Japanese. Which is cool, I suppose. Who…who makes these? I never seen these on the forums or the website proper. There’s little cartoons that look to be taken from some repository.

Clearly there’s effort put into these but look:

The engagement on these posts are ridiculously bad! Despite the effort put into them, which is respectable, there’s something to say where a man posting an image of a soda each day is getting more engagement than this.

There is something so sad about a call to action that is fallen upon deaf ears. You know what? I won’t reply to the Twitter thread, but I will give an example sentence just for you, unknown Bunpro social media poster:

トイレしてる間にドアを開けておいたら、義母に見られて心臓止まりかけたらしい…まじで死にたい。

I encourage you all to come up with your own sentence and make tribute to the social media engagement gods.

Screaming into the void again? I know that feeling all too well. Notice its use of emojis telling us to think. Alas nobody dropped anything in the comments. But I shall drop one more sentence just to pay tribute:

ズボンのチャックが開いていたようだ…会社のかわいい受付さんと話してた時に。見られたかも…?

Who are you, Bunpro social media poster? What’s your day to day like? Hobbies? Favorite food? I would like to know this person and write a minimum 100-page biography on them. Unironically. If I ever get the chance to do so, I will make it a special thread just to give them the kudos they deserve.

Remember to tip your waitresses, everyone!

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