Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

"You're 120 hours into Tears of the Kingdom, you don't have the Master Sword yet, you don't have hardly any of the tears, you're still missing maps of areas...how are you playing this game?!"

I kind of have a way that I'm playing the game.

First off, I stay away from the sky because I have a fear of heights. I'll go there if I'm directed to, but I don't explore it much yet. I will, but not for a while yet.

Secondly, I havetn' gone underground. Not confident enough with the number of hearts I have. But I will eventually.

Thirdly, I rarely fast travel and talk to EVERYONE. I tend to ride Eopna to destinations, talking to everyone along the way. Quick way to get clues and learn about quests to go on. If the trip is a long way off, I'll try to glide there instead of fast travel. But I will fast travel if it's an area I've covered a lot or is a LONG ways away.

When I start the game, I look at my map. Any marks I've made of stuff that caught my eye, I'll visit now. Like Korok puzzles, shrines, that President Guy. Usually these are quick puzzles. I'll clear all those out.

After that, I go through my Adventure Log, from the bottom up, and finish/update as many as I'm able (skipping sky/underground stuff unless necessary or a main quest, or quests that take me to areas I've not opened up).

After I've done that, I'll try to unlock areas I've not opened up (I still have the Lurelin areas to map.

At the end of my day, I trade in all my korok seeds, trade out any poes I may have, grab any stamina/heart vessels I can, do a run through of all 26 of my amiibo, cook food, and stay at the Gerudo spa to get all my hearts back and some extra stamina. And spend time with the gals. :)

It's led to a lot of stuff done, but not a whole lot of the main game finished. But I'm not tired of it, or getting bored (minus the busywork scouring for caves, which I've started cheating on with walkthroughs).

#tearsofthekingdom

Today's completions (2/2):

Today's completions (1/2). Haven't been able to play much lately, so I actually sat down and played for most of the day.

I feel like the game is nearly over for me, as everyone is guiding me towards Hyrule Castle. At one point, I landed on the castle and a cutscene launched telling me to go find Zelda.

I still have a lot of stuff I'd like to do just yet first, mostly seeing all the tear memories and mapping all the areas. I don't even have the Master Sword just yet. But the end is in sight.

#tearsofthekingdom

Just two gals enjoying the warm breezes of Gerudo Town....

#tearsofthekingdom

No.

#tearsofthekingdom

Colgera: Cleans and Whitens Teeth

#tearsofthekingdom

The Hyrule version of Little Caesar's Crazy Bread....

#tearsofthekingdom

Eww....

#tearsofthekingdom

I dunno if it's because I'm entering week 4 of neck pain, but I'm feeling surly today.

Wao-os Shrine should be retitled "A Monument to Bullshit." I solved it in a few seconds. Knew exactly what it wanted. The next 25 minutes were having to fine tune motion controls to get the incredibly exact solution it wanted.

It made me, the gal who got hired at Nintendo in the Wii era, the last champion of motion controls, hate motion controls.

#tearsofthekingdom

I'm not putting this behind a spoiler tag, because I'm sure most everyone playing Tears of the Kingdom has run into this, but I'm really getting fed up with the "busywork" stuff.

Not really the quests or siude adventures or what not, but the "scouring." Trying to find the caves so I can get to the underground shrines, or looking for the tears in the geoglyphs with only "They're in the appropriate places" for a clue (they're not).

I don't mind exploring when it's productive, but I've taken to looking at guides for those, cause I'm tired of wasting time running up and down things for a long solution to something that's RIGHT THERE.

#tearsofthekingdom

@tuckerteague @hannahshouse2 - Growing up in Texas in the 90s and 2000s really taught me that you vote who you want in the primaries and who will do the less evil in the main election (which is hopefully your guy).

Sadly, I watched the dismantling of any progressivism during that time, and am seeing the same process happening on a national scale now simply because the Republicans are more on board with voting as a bloc.

That was the saltiest hamburger patty I've ever had.

@Mondobizarrro - 2nd Best Burger I've ever had (with 1st being the San Antonio-only chain "Burger Boy.")

Recipe: "Whataburger uses a 5 to 1 ratio of salt to pepper in its patties."
Jenn: "At one tsp salt per pound, for two pounds of ground meat at 5 to 1, that's 2 tsp salt and a half of pepper."

Jenn: ::puts in 5 tsp salt because she got fixated on 5 to 1::

@hannahshouse2 - Mandolins are super super scary devices....but they julienne so well.....

@hannahshouse2 - My issue was that I wanted to learn, but most cookbooks just assume you already know all the techniques. The difference between "fry something" and "saute something" and "simmer something" and I had no idea what any of that was.

My roomies taught me that, as well as a digital cookbook designed for families, which meant it was written for kids with adult supervision, and had videos and images of just how everything should look at every step. If you have a Nintendo DS/3DS I highly suggest Personal Trainer Cooking and America's Test Kitchen which helped me a ton.

I'm still completely devoted to cooking from instructions, with vey little deviation or innovation, but now, at least, if I want to make something quick, I have enough skills to make, say a nice omlette instead of just scrambled eggs, or a deli trio sandwich instead of boloney.

@hannahshouse2 - Glad to hear you're learning to cook! I never learned when I was younger because in our family cooking was "woman's work" and none of the women in my family would teach me ("Get yourself a good woman, and she'll cook for you.") She didn't know at the time that, me being trans, I was trying to be the good woman who wanted to cook!

I didn't really learn to cook until I was in my 40s when I had three foodie roomies who noticed I couldn't cook, and I they taught me REAL GOOD.

@hannahshouse2 - Honestly, I'm not sure...it's in the original recipe. I'm guessing it's a way to "steam" the tomato/apples with less empty space between the food and the dutch oven cover.