Giantpaper.org

Category: Reviews By Me

They may be short. They may be long. (Or not even beautifully written pieces of work.) But by golly, they are reviews!

  • Dragon Quest Builders 2

    Dragon Quest Builders 2

    I finished DQB2 a little while ago, and have been too busy playing the post game to actually post about it.

    Here are my thoughts:

    Spoilers Inbound (Post-game spoilers included)

    Features major spoilers throughout the game (including the endgame).

    • Malroth — I already see him as my BFF so there’s that.
      • But (not sure if this was discussed) I’ve been thinking about the origins of the demon version. So Hargon summoned him in DQ2? Was Malroth living in a separate dimension this entire time up until that moment? And then when you get to Malhalla, you can get this substance called malrothium, which the description says is some sort of mysterious element extracted from the Master of Destruction. Like it’s definitely not from the human world. (Maybe he’s from Malhalla originally…which is a separate planet. 👀)
      • After seeing his tastes in food during Lulu’s tea party, I wonder…the reason why we never see him eat anything is because all of the food they’ve encountered so far is too “normal”? Wonder if he would like the food from Malhalla better. 🤔
    • Lulu — Y’know, I don’t hate her as much as other people. I wished she would shut up about Lulutopia (“no offense, Lulu, but this ain’t your island 😤”), but she does care about her friends (particularly, the Builder and Malroth, since they’re the only family she has at this point), and wouldn’t even budge from the dock when they were stuck in Skelkatraz, waiting for them to return.
    • Krumbul-dun — These folks care way more about having a bar than a bedroom with four walls. 🤷‍♀️
    • Skelkatraz — Gotta say, they did such a good job at making you hate this place. (Also the scene following that with the Builder, Malroth and Lulu was just 🥺).
    • Moonbrooke — I admit, thanks to TvTropes (and I gotta stop looking up TV shows/games on that site that I haven’t finished yet), I already knew what was going to happen and was pretty steamed at THAT part (you know the one). On the other hand, when I finished the island, I found that very few people actually wanted Malroth in prison, and the ones who did are dead. They’ve spent their entire lives in a warzone—all they’ve ever known is war. So I actually felt sorry for them. I went back and planted more crops for them (and trying to build them nice rooms, but they all want to live in the castle along with the Builder and it’s getting difficult trying to stuff 6+ people in said castle and still have enough room for a dining hall, kitchen, training room, etc). Just wish they would recruit a farmer to harvest them. :/
    • Malhalla — Never thought a monster afterlife would feature less betrayal than an island inhabited by humans. Was really glad I got to bring them back to my island eventually (minus Adamn, Zebadee and Drackson, who weren’t at the Ark for some reason), but wish we could’ve brought the actual Ark. I might turn this island into a vacation resort.
    • Buildertopia — Pro-tip: Move the teleportal to where you want your town/house to be. Otherwise your only warp points are going to be at the dock, which is separated from the rest of the island by a huge gap that you can’t bridge over (like the explorer’s shores). Also finding the large Blossom Bay type works best for building a farm, unless you’re planning on growing mostly sugar cane and rice.
    • [EDIT] Ordelia — This lady has been living underground by herself since she was a little girl (according to her), but she’s wearing clothes that fit her and is able to think and talk (kinda) like an adult. 🤔

  • Google Analytics vs. Statcounter? 🤜🤛

    Google Analytics vs. Statcounter? 🤜🤛

    I’m not monetizing GPORG so I’m not that concerned with the number of visits. On the other hand, trying to get a lot of visitors has turned into a game for me. And it’s getting hard to play without the right “scoreboard” (Google Analytics, Statcounter, etc).

    But first! Let me tell you about my long-ass attempt to reinstall Google Analytics.

    I’ve switched between Google Analytics and Statcounter. I like Statcounter’s simplicity, but Google Analytics has some features I like (bounce rate for instance), but is otherwise too OP (and confusing) for me. So I was using Statcounter for a while, and just recently, decided to give GA another try.

    The problem is, when I uncommented the GA code, I found out the hard way that the tag would not track for some reason. Note that I didn’t change the property or anything. In fact, the tracking code under the admin tab is literally the same as before.

    The solution I found while digging around the internet is to install Google Tag Assistant for Chrome to figure out what’s going on. I use Firefox and I have Chrome, but I use it as a “work browser”*. It’s signed into my GSuite account for work, and modded out with all my extensions that I need for my job. I even have have the “starting tabs” set as my work Gmail and a couple other essential Google Sheet files. In fact, I knew that once I open Chrome, it’ll probably notify me of a new email, because I installed an extension for Gmail sound notifications. So I decided to look around for more info.

    *some people have work computers, I have a work browser.

    After poking around the GA dashboard, I found the option to upgrade to Google Analytics 4! I wasn’t aware there was a version 4. So I guess I’m on version 3?

    I upgraded. It had me create a new property, and connect the Universal Analytics property to the new v4 one. I did that and noticed it had the option to add the new code (with the new *ahem* measurement ID). But I already connected the GA4 property to the UA property, so I don’t need to do that…right?

    (And here, I realized that the previous version of Google Analytics is NOT Google Analytics 3, like I thought based on the logic that the new one is Google Analytics 4. It’s called Universal Analytics.)

    🤷‍♀️

    Either way, you can tell if a JS file is being summoned on a page by going to the web inspector, then looking for the file in the table (you may have to refresh your browser window if there is no table). In my case, I was trying to find anything from the domain googletagmanager.com or heck, anything from any of Google’s sites. Buuuuuuuut….

    Sooo….yeah

    At this point, I decided I was desperate enough to try Google Tag Assistant, so I opened up Chrome (and very quickly closed all the work-related tabs–already got an email notification in the 0.00001s I had my Gmail tab open!), and installed Google Tag Assistant.

    Soooo, the interesting thing is if I use the old UA code (pre-GA4), GTA complains about the site having multiple tags. If I use the new GA4 code, it notices that it’s a Google Analytics tag all right…but the ID is either missing or not valid???

    🤯

    And so, I thought maybe GA4 isn’t ready for primetime yet (I did get a notice at the bottom of the dashboard thanking me for being an early adopter…ummmm…). I tried deleting the GA4 tag BUT WAIT. I can’t because it’s linking the GA4 property to the UA one????

    (So far, there doesn’t seem to be an option to delete the Google Analytics 4 property.)

    Statcounter to the Rescue!

    So maybe Google Analytics might not be for me after all. Statcounter DOES show bounce rate, but you have to dig around for it (in an obscure window). But installation is stupidly simple. 🤷‍♀️

    Sooo…TL;DR?

    If you read through this entire post, trying to figure out what my point is (and are undecided on which one to use).

    Use Statcounter if…

    …all you want to do is track how many visitors come to your site and other basic info (like geographic location, timestamp of visit, IP address…). It does let you label IP addresses and look up how people are navigating through your site btw.

    Use Google Analytics if…

    …you need more features like ummmmm…conversions, goals and such. (Or if you have a digital marketing team, cuz a lot of digital marketing teams are well versed in Google Analytics.)

    Or heck, use whichever one you want. 🤷‍♀️

    Say, What was That About #privacy?

    Yes, I use an adblocker + VPN + Cloudflare’s DNS to minimize people snooping on me. But here I am tracking you guys???? Ummmmm?????

    Visitor tracking is for my own curiosity. I don’t sell anyone’s info to anyone. You can read Statcounter’s privacy policy. If you’re still uncomfortable, I won’t guilt people to into unblocking Statcounter if they already have it blocked. Like I said, I don’t monetize GPORG, so there are no ads to block. 😀

    Edit: 2020/11/21

    I decided to give GA another try, and nothing. I commented out the tag, so only Statcounter was able to run. Later on, I ran GPORG through Google Page Speed Insights and got a pretty good score (upper 90s). BUT. Two things surprised me:

    1. It complained about “unused JavaScript”. The “unused JavaScript” was Google Analytics.
    2. Wait, Google Analytics is still running on GPORG???

    I kinda went hm, and realized I commented out the wrong tracker tag (Statcounter). But hey! I checked the Google Analytics dashboard and found one pageview! So it looks like it’s working! Google Tag Assistant just needs to update itself for GA4 I guess???

    And here’s the “unused JavaScript” GA code Page Speed Insights insisted I remove:

    Sooo…yeah.

    (Google Analytics gets loaded through the Google Tag Manager domain apparently. 🤷‍♀️)

    Well…fine, Google. If you don’t want me using your Analytics tracker, I won’t! 🤨

  • FINALLY…The Impossible Whopper

    FINALLY…The Impossible Whopper

    Waaaay back in March last year, I decided to switch to being vegan. I won’t go into too much detail, but the main reasons were for animal welfare and for the environment. And hearing that Burger King just recently introduced the Impossible Whopper to the world made me go 😱.

    When my meat-eating peers decided to journey out to get a hold of Popeye’s recently introduced, much hyped chicken sandwich, I decided I would go out with them and get BK’s recently introduced, much hyped Impossible Whopper.

    It normally comes with mayo and (I’m assuming like most cheeseburgers) cheese, which I ordered without. When we got home, I added my own Follow Your Heart vegenaise and the last bit of (ancient) Violife block cheese I bought a long time ago.

    The taste was juuuust like a regular fast food burger. Depending on your view of fast food burgers, this may be a good or bad thing. But there you go. The Cheesecake Factory sells Impossible burgers, but you can tell they’re just black bean burgers. The only other place I know of that can cook Impossible burgers to taste like fast food burgers is the food truck, Vuture Food. 🥺❤️ So yeah, it’s pretty darn awesome.

    And oh yesss, I remember when it was first introduced, there was a lot of banter on both sides of various issues.

    The Impossible Whopper Is Cooked On The Same Surface As Meat!

    (Ye gods, the lawsuits involving this. 😑)

    Unless if it’s actually stated it’s cooked on a separate surface (or if it’s from a vegan/vegetarian-only restaurant), expect your meat substitute to be cooked on the same surface as meat.

    Take these into consideration:

    • Places like BK didn’t originally have anywhere to cook non-meat meat, sooo suddenly expecting them to have a separate area is unreasonable.
    • Having your veggie burger cooked on a surface that was previously used for meat doesn’t change the fact that someone ahead of you ordered meat.
    • Also making a big fuss like this just discourages more restaurants from wanting to serve non-meat eating people, which in turn will mean there are less people who will want to try veggie foods. When you think about the above bullet point, this actually hurts animals more.

    There are some non-meat eating people who can’t even digest the slightest amount of meat juices (I thankfully, might not be one of them). If you’re one of these people, you might want to try veg-only restaurants. Burger King will also microwave your Impossible Whopper for you if you ask.

    (But really….microwaved Impossible burgers…? 🤔)

    Burger King Profits Off Of Animal Cruelty And Exploitation! Why Are You OK With Supporting This Company?

    Ohhhhkay, unless you actually grow your own food, you’re always going to be supporting a company that sells meat, eggs or dairy–usually all three. Trader Joe’s, Sprouts, Whole Foods?

    Also by buying veggie foods from companies that also sell animal products tells said company that there is a market for veggie foods and that they should make more! And more animals win!

    *insert major healthy concern here like soy, the fact that it’s junk food, etc*

    No, it’s not healthy. But neither are regular cheeseburgers. Unless if you’re eating an Impossible Whopper (and other processed veggie junk foods) a lot, I wouldn’t worry about it. Pretend it’s a meated cheeseburger and have it as a treat. 🤷‍♀️ I’m actually excited meat eaters are willing to give veggie foods a try.

  • Star Wars: The End of an Era (No Spoilers)

    Star Wars: The End of an Era (No Spoilers)

    I’m probably being overly dramatic, but I finally saw Rise of Skywalker. 🥺 I’ve heard a lot of people were disappointed, that it didn’t answer all the questions or it created more questions. But you know, I kinda don’t care! I think it was a great end to the “main” Star Wars movies.

    It scored a lot of nostalgia points for me. In particular seeing returning characters we haven’t seen for a while aaand had a few callbacks from the prequels1. (And Rebels and Clone Wars but I didn’t watch Rebels till after, still finishing Clone Wars after a giant hiatus.) Which was 🥺 complete nostalgia fuel for me.

    If you’re uber into Star Wars2, you might enjoy it just because of those reasons.

    1. Being one of few, probably about…20? people on the planet who actually liked the prequels.
    2. As in, Wookieepedia is your Bible, you know the backstories or at least the names of even the background characters who are seen for 10 seconds, etc