📏 Weekly Measure: 2025 W31

I was hoping to get this update out yesterday, but there was a tsunami warning for most of the Pacific side of Japan and out of an abundance of caution, we (me, Daikon, and Henry) evacuated for the day. The tsunami passed Japan without much incident, and I’m very glad that damage and injuries elsewhere were also minimal given the sheer force of the inciting earthquake. By far, the most dangerous element of this was the sweltering weather and risk of heat stroke and heat exhaustion. It was quite a hectic day, and a good reminder to brush up on tsunami evacuation precautions and staving off heat stroke.

I wrote this on Mastodon while we were waiting for the all clear signal, and thought I should repost here:

Even if the tsunami sounds low (e.g. “only” 30cm) reminder that tsunami are NOT normal wind-blown waves, they are the water version of an explosion with physical shock waves radiating out, you WILL be swept off your feet at MINIMUM. Always take tsunami warnings real seriously

From NHK World News: Tsunami precautions

The best case scenario for any disaster like this is people evacuate and take all the precautions and it passes without incident and it feels like you did all that for nothing. But the reality is that “nothing happened” feeling IS the win condition. Even if it seems overblown or like maybe you are safe enough, you do not want to be caught on your back foot if “nothing” ends up being a huge “something”

Another tsunami misconception is they look like the Great Wave Off Kanagawa ukiyoe by Hokusai. Tsunamis look “boring” ie they don’t have that big surfer crest. It just looks like all of the ocean is getting onto the land all in a hurry. It looks almost banal but as I said earlier it is the water equivalent of an explosive shockwave, so do NOT go look at the water, do not go to take photos, I know nobody following me needs to be told that but, y’know, just in case

In Hilo there is a famous story of a tsunami that hit in 1960 and caused massive loss of life because residents thought it wouldn’t be that bad, or they thought the initial wave was the whole thing and returned to their homes afterwards, only to get hit by MUCH higher subsequent waves. Don’t be like that. The 1960 Hilo tsunami gets passed down through the generations and across the islands for a reason

Henry encourages you to know your emergency evacuation routes, have your evac packs ready and waiting by the door, and to stay cool and not panic as you wait for the all clear 😎

# Other personal news

# Getting back into Indie Tsushin updates

You can read more about that here! Of course, just posting that I want to update the site more does not automatically mean the site will be updated, so I need to also figure out a way to stay motivated and hold myself accountable without burning out again.

# Happy Hour moved to Sundays

I also talked about this in the Indie Tsushin post, but yeah, Happy Hour streams are moving to Sundays because our weekdays were getting pretty spotty. However, having said that, there will also be days when we’ll actually be streaming on Saturdays since it turns out, even our Sundays are kind of spotty.

Speaking of which, our stream this week is probably going to be on Saturday, since Tokyo Game Dungeon 9 is on Sunday (!!!) and we’ll be going to that, assuming the typhoon doesn’t hit that day. I haven’t announced the streaming schedule change on social media yet, but I’ll probably do that later today.

Our stream last week was also on Saturday as well, since we were planning to go to some summer festivals on Sunday… but then we saw the heat index and noped out. Ah, you gotta love summers in Japan.

Games played:

• 🪲 Kabuto Park by Doot and Zakku
• 🐦‍🔥 Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To by Soft Not Weak

# Choju Yokai Giga got ten Steam reviews!

Choju Yokai Giga finally got ten reviews on Steam and has a Positive rating!!! 🎉 I am really quite pleased. If you played the game, we would love it if you could leave a review! Even a friends-only quick review like “good game” helps us get some visibility with The Algorithm™, so we appreciate it.

I really need to update the CYG website. It’s been under construction forever 😱 I also need to get around to making the Hamayumishi website as well… I am so behind! I need to get off social media and get back to making websites again!

# Blaugust is a go

Tomorrow is the start of Blaugust and I’ll be doing it to the best of my ability! It is a month-long community blogging event where participants blog (or do their best to blog) every day for the month of August. I’ve signed up in the past but never made it to the end. Will 2025 be the year I finally stick to it? I hope so!

# Stuff I played

# Kabuto Park

As you can see in that above Happy Hour vid, we streamed a bit of Kabuto Park! Then I live-tooted some of the cute screenshots I took while finishing off that save file.

I like short games that tell you right up front that you can beat them in one sitting because then I can just block off an evening and have a really lovely time without worrying about it turning into A Whole Thing. On top of that, Kabuto Park is just very sweet and cute. I cannot recommend it enough, as well as Doot Tiny Games’ other works.

# Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island

I was in the mood for another quick, beat-it-in-one-session game, which led me to finally playing Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island. It’s a simple and charming first-person point-and-click narrative game that you can beat in about an hour.

The dialogue is so cute and funny and had us giggling the whole time:

I think more games should advertise themselves with “This is a short game!! You can beat it in one hour!!” I will make a beeline for them.

I love that basically your only action in this game (besides talking to characters) is holding up your magnifying glass and making everything look all funny. Does it do anything? No… besides making me crack up every five minutes. I am easily amused, okay.

There was also, unfortunately, book slander 😔

slight spoilers

I also didn’t know the frog detective’s in-universe blog was real! (There aren’t any spoilers, but these blog entries do get referenced in-game.) I love these extra touches. I had a great time, and now I am looking forward to playing the second and third cases over the next few days.

# Recs on places to get book recs

Someone asked me where to get book recs and I threw a bunch of links at them. And now, I am throwing them at you, too.

# News and review sites

These are the big five I have pinned to the top of my RSS reader:

• Literary Hub (LitFic) - Reading lists, exerpts, interviews, and reviews
• Electric Literature (LitFic) - Reading lists, excerpts and original fiction, reviews, and news
• Locus Magazine (SpecFic) - Reviews and news
• Strange Horizons (SpecFic) - Literary magazine with original fiction as well as book reviews
• Book Riot (all genres) - Reading lists and news. They have excellent coverage on book bans going on around the US, but they also unfortunately have a ton of listicle “buy all this stuff” type articles that I’m not a big fan of

I also like subscribing to short story magazines since they also are a great way to learn about new writers, and then I can look up their other works:

# Literary magazines

• Clarkesworld (SciFi)
• Uncanny Magazine (SpecFic) - More fantasy than SF
• khōréō (SpecFic) - Focus on writers and writing in diaspora
• MONKEY: New Writing From Japan (LitFic) - Focus on Japanese literature (though not exclusively)
• FIYAH (SpecFic) - focus on Black writers and writing
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies (SpecFic)
• Augur Magazine (SpecFic) - They also have Tales & Feathers, a cozy slice-of-life SFF magazine that I love

# Newsletters, blogs, and podcasts

A couple more recs of recs:

• Short Story Rex - Monthly newsletter with short story recommendations
• The Supernova Short Fiction Review - Blog with SFF short story recs
• Tsundoku Diving - Blog on Japanese media including books
• Books & Boba - Podcast on Asian American writing

Also, if you like a specific writer and they’re on social media, you should follow them and see who they rec and who are their influences. Finding a new fav writer who is open about their influences is like finding a whole new library of works, some of which you may never have heard about before. Going down reading rabbit holes is a great way to find more cool books and authors!

# Anthologies

Multiple-author short story anthologies and year-end awards lists are also an EXCELLENT way to find new writers, it’s like getting one of those chocolate samplers. I love digging into them and finding cool new writers. Some off the top of my head:

• If you like LitFic, you can’t go wrong with the yearly O. Henry Best Short Stories of the Year anthologies
• I still haven’t touched this enormous bastard of a book, but if you like cyberpunk, there’s The Big Book of Cyberpunk edited by Jared Shurin
• The New Voices of Fantasy edited Peter S. Beagle (!!!) and Jacob Weisman reignited my love of fantasy when it released
• Lightspeed Magazine (another excellent SFF magazine) put out a FREE anthology of some of the stories they’ve published
• A Thousand Beginnings and Endings edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman retells Asian folklore in some cool neat ways, though this is a bit more YA for my tastes
  • And if you liked that one, Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food and Love edited by Elsie Chapman and Caroline Tung Richmond, another book with a focus on Asian writers
• You could do worse than checking out the titles on awards lists, such as the Booker Prize longlist

I love books and book recs from other folks (i.e. not one from an algorithm) so please never hesitate to tell me your book recs, or recs for places to get book recs!

Anyway, I will be back tomorrow with another blog post! Probably!!

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