In the previous entry, backlogs were prominently featured. I personally found that I pay more attention to my backlogs now—I loathe the feeling of forgetting something I need or want to do only to remember it weeks, or even months in the future. Which is why I’ll always feature an “On backlogs” section at the end of synaptic-saturday entries from here on out.
Furthermore, I’ll be including a “On the horizon” section as well for things I’m looking forward to! While it’s great to keep things in check, I believe looking ahead is as important.
Double-edged blades
To my friends: sorry for sounding incessant—but I recently switched from cartridge razors to safety razors and the difference is just leagues apart. Both the shaving experience and the savings are phenomenal.
It’s been a long while since I’ve wanted to try switching—probably half a decade ago in undergrad. I think what held me back is the common notion of nicking yourself if you aren’t careful. However, during my first week of usage, I haven’t drawn blood yet!
The switch was definitely on a whim. My mom was getting something shipped off of Amazon, and the razor was an impulse buy; and a great one at that! I got this exact rose gold Zomchi model with that same grip. I believe the difference in the models is the grip, but the build quality (and configuration) is pretty much idiot-proof and standard.
Before this, shaving felt like an absolute chore. I used cartridge razors, as the electric ones never really worked for me (and tended to straight up pluck hairs sometimes). That experience was only enjoyable when the cartridge was fresh, as it dulled pretty quickly, even after the first shave. Not to mention that I usually do multiple passes to get a clean shave. Surprisingly enough, I still sometimes nick myself even with cartridge razors. I’m quite unsure if that experience is unique to me, but all that led to me just not shaving for a week, sometimes.
The shaving experience
Initially it was… anxiety-inducing. Who isn’t afraid of cutting themselves with a literally razor-sharp blade? However, that soon came to pass. Once you’ve gotten a few strokes in, you’ll have enough confidence to shave slowly and steadily.
Tedium isn’t found anywhere here. It’s as if every stroke has a purpose, and shaving hair is no longer a statistical probability but now a certainty. A single stroke leaves your skin clean, and even the sound and sensation of the blade brushing against your follicles is therapeutic.
On the “printer ink model”
I tend to look at reviews after I’ve used the product—for example I watch those “Should you buy (Game X)” videos after I’ve bought the game. With these, I looked up the Wikipedia page for safety razors after my first experience with one. To my surprise, what I’ve called the “printer ink model” all my life was actually, formally, the razor and blades model.
For those not in the know, the model pertains to having a relatively cheap (even selling at a loss) primary product, which complements a relatively expensive (with steep margins) consumable. Which is why I’ve called it “the printer ink model” for most of my life. We used to have a business that did printing, and at an early age (<10), my dad taught me how Canon and HP made money by selling printers cheaply, and ink at an insane markup. A story for another time, but I vaguely remember we had to take our printers to NCR to get them modded to have a continuous ink system. Interestingly enough, all the stuff I said about printers are also in those Wikipedia pages.
However, I digress. Cartridge razor prices are just absolutely predatory. Five hundred PHP for two refills? And I tend to go through a cartridge in 2-3 weeks, and that’s already pushing it! The disposable multi-blade razors aren’t better either.
With these safety razors however, the initial investment is a bit steeper. I believe I got mine at around 600 PHP, which is already a bargain, as it’s listed at ~1500 PHP (other brands are also in the same price range). However, the blades themselves are dirt cheap. You could buy a pack of 100 at around the same price of the unit itself. As for durability, I’ve found a blade lasts me a week or two before it dulls. It’s still usable if I push it beyond that, and I hear that some people even sharpen the blade itself. Regardless, it’s definitely a win against corporate greed.
Over-engineering, and the beauty of sales and marketing
It’s also interesting doing a deep dive on the history of safety and cartridge razors. The Gillette Mach3 was introduced in 1998, only a year before I was born. And twenty years before that, in 1975, SNL made a parody advertisement on the “Triple Trac,” a razor with three blades—inadvertently predicting the Mach3. I had to look for that snippet myself, luckily, someone from Reddit uploaded it (and downloaded it for us for posterity)
Absolutely hilarious. What Wikipedia doesn’t tell you, is that the parody ends with “you’ll believe anything.” And we did. We still do, even outside razors and blades, but that merits a philosophy degree and an hour-long read. Why do I say that? When the Mach3 released, Gillette’s sales went up to 4.3 billion USD1. And no, it wasn’t 4.2 the year before, it was a whole 50% increase, and that was still around thirty years ago. Gillette spent 300 million USD in marketing.
Goes to show that while the tech is important, marketing is importanter. Or something like that. I would say that they’re equally as important so as to pander to friends in tech or in marketing—but if that was to be the case: why don’t double edge safety razors dominate the market?
New friendslop
My friends and I have also tried out a couple friendslop games lately.
RV There Yet? (Not recommended)
The first one is RV There Yet? by Nuggets Entertainment. It wasn’t an exceptional experience. PEAK has always been the gold standard (and personally, PlateUp before that, sorry Overcooked!) and this game just couldn’t keep up. I believe friendslop games should have:
- a FAFO period when you’re still learning the game, which should allow for eureka moments during experimentation, which is amplified when you figure things out with your friends;
- enough activities for 3+ players, if the tech is good enough, good scaling should allow 1-2 players to not be overwhelmed and 3+ players to not feel idle;
- a clear end goal, where all players can work towards.
For example, for PEAK and PlateUp:
- FAFO period.
- You booted up PEAK for the first time, or for the first time on a new map. You explore the terrain, explore routes, among other things.
- Likewise with PlateUp, you start learning recipes, optimal layouts, and sweaty gamer techniques.
- Engagement.
- PEAK, as a climbing game, forces everyone to climb. Even in death, the ghost spectator can help the remaining survivors map out routes they normally couldn’t see in first person. There’s a natural scaling element to that.
- With PlateUp, the number of customers grow with the number of players. This increased volume (and the increasing complexity as you unlock more recipes in the run) encourages players to keep up with the demand.
- Clear end goal.
- It’s as clear as day with PEAK: climb up, get rescued. Optionally, might I add, is that everyone makes it out. There isn’t a benefit to that (as the run is still marked done as long as one of you survives), but it allows for great “no dwarf left behind” or “leave me, you have to save yourself!” moments.
- Likewise, your goal with PlateUp is to survive the run, with the option of “prestiging” your run (called “franchising” in-game) to generate a new, harder run to start from. The formal end goal is to get to Day 15; but you can continue the run indefinitely.
However, I saw these shortcomings with RV There Yet?:
- The FAFO period is redeemable. It has a similar exploration vibe with PEAK, but since the map is handcrafted (and there are only two maps, at the time of writing), you’ll likely experience this just once.
- Engagement is where RV fails big time. You need one guy driving the RV, and that’s basically it. You really can’t repair the RV while it’s moving (and there are few instances where you’d need to), so the driver in actuality can also be the repairman. With another player, they could help spot the vehicle outside (when maneuvering over tricky terrain) but that’s it for two players. The other players don’t really do much aside from fucking around.
- There is an end goal, but saying it’s clear is overstepping it. Sure, I know I need to drive out of the map, but… where? Where does the road end? A map is generously provided but there’s no general direction as to where the hell the end is.
Then, there’s the bear. It’s only there for shock factor. And one thing about a shock factor is it only works the first time. Which is why Lethal Company is played like an atmospheric horror game at the start, and a pure bunnyhopping, parkouring extraction game at the end.
The bear is unkillable, and sometimes two of them spawn. The only deterrent, bear spray, is barely found anywhere. Not to mention the bear can destroy the RV in a few seconds. The bear also kills you pretty fast as well.
If the RV gets destroyed or everyone gets wiped, the game restarts at the last checkpoint. So the bears only exist as a form of time pressure once they spawn, since they can’t cross bridges or water. It’s honestly stupid. The game devolves to:
- See bridge or wacky path.
- Try to cross.
- See bear.
- Die.
- Repeat (2) from last checkpoint until you cross.
- Go back to 1.
And that devolution does not include any player scaling, or even any incentive to gather loot and explore. Honestly, if they remove the bear, and remove the checkpoint system, it will be a better game. Why?
- If we remove the checkpoints, the pressure to keep the RV in tip-top shape and careful driving is higher. While there’s no scaling, there will be more work to be done, and more player engagement.
- The bear needs to be removed then, since it’s an incredibly easy way to lose and would not allow for experimentation. The game shines when players work together solving a tricky driving problem, and losing N minutes just to do everything all over again a la Groundhog Day is not what I had in mind for a game night.
I guess it’s just mismatched expectations. Maybe other people went into this thinking that’s fun, and that’s OK. But I was expecting an experience similar to PEAK, or PlateUp, or (insert co-op game here). After all, the devs said this was just a game jam entry, and if you’re willing to pay that price per friend for a tech demo, then you’re welcome.
Restaurats (Recommended)
On a more positive note, this one’s pretty good! While the co-op cooking friendslop subgenre has started to sound like a broken record, Restaurats doesn’t fail to bring something fresh to the table.
There are two modes to Restaurats: Career and Friendslop mode. Career mode has more of a chill pacing, and it runs generally indefinitely. Friendslop mode on the other hand, has you survive 21 in-game days (a day usually takes around ~5-10 minutes) with four starting hitpoints. A hitpoint gets reduced when you fail to serve a customer. Oh, and the pacing is much more fast: cooking is way faster, you get more customers, and you start with more recipes on Day 1.
I’ll write a more detailed review on this game later on, but to compare it with the same bullet points as above:
- FAFO period.
- The recipes are great! The breadth of content is pretty good on this one, as there are a lot of recipes to choose from (with varying levels of complexity). That’s one thing I missed from PlateUp, and we had to mod our game back then to get more recipes.
- The free-form kitchen layout, the shelving system, and minor overlaps with recipes allows for great experimentation with your friends!
- Engagement.
- Everyone has something to do. Especially on Career mode. There’s a Work Shift where you’ll serve customers and a preparation period before that where you can do your mise en place. Which means, waiters can also help out in preparing ingredients before the day starts.
- I played mainly as a chef during our first session, and I had 100% uptime. Gerald was playing a chef-server hybrid while Lance was purely on waiting duty. Lance (sometimes, sorry not sorry) helps out with pre-shift mise en place. I didn’t even notice we played for a few hours straight!
- Clear end goal.
- The end goal is similar to PlateUp, but more lax. In PlateUp, failing to serve a single customer will end the run. Our informal end goal is to survive each day (and not go bankrupt, which may actually be a lose condition).
- We’re professional gamers s, so we haven’t run into the lose condition yet. I’ve yet to spoil myself on how to lose.
The flu
Last week, as mentioned in the previous Synaptic Saturday, I caught the flu. Which flu? I’m not quite sure, but there was speculation it was an undocumented case of the H3N2 superflu that went around lately.
My sickness started around that Saturday, and I almost couldn’t get out of bed with how bad my joints ached. A fever followed that, and some severe malaise throughout the next few days. There wasn’t any special medication for it, just had to weather the storm with the usual antipyretic/analgesic.
Phlegm-riddled coughs also accompanied the flu, and stayed way after the fever period has passed. I was prescribed Co-Aleva and Fluimucil for four more days after. Acetylcysteine (what Fluimucil is, a mucolytic) effervescent tablets taste nearly the same as those Berocca tablets.
The cough is still here, and would probably persist for a couple more weeks, to probably a month. One (not-so) fun fact about acetylcysteine is that one ingests it when one gets overdosed with paracetamol. It’s a bit morbid—but when some people intentionally or unintentionally ingest paracetamol, a commonly-found OTC drug, they should drink Fluimucil immediately to reduce the inevitable liver damage the overdose in acetaminophen will do.
On backlogs
EMS work
I’ve started work again for my personal side project that I intend to peddle: an enrollment management system (or EMS). If you’re from UP, this might be more familiar to you as CRS (Computerized Registration System? CMIIW).
It’s been a project I’ve been working on for a couple of years now, and it’s still exciting to work on now. I believe I should have more time in the following few days to work on it (and probably make a more detailed post on it).
CRS-UVLe integration
Once again, I’m still working on the CRS-UVLe integration. I’ve done some significant end-user improvements which I’d love to share with you very soon. But as of now, the students in UP should be able to experience the new version of UVLe (and faculty, the integration) when the first semester of the 2026 academic year rolls in.
On the horizon
Mewgenics
I’m super excited for Edmund McMillen’s new game coming this 10th of February (probably 11 in the Phlippines?). Mewgenics, if you can’t tell by the name, is a TRPG roguelite based on some cute cat eugenics. The cats are cute… not the eugenics, of course.
I’ve been following this game for a few months now, since Ed’s first stream on the game on YouTube. I have to admit now, I’ve never really enjoyed The Binding of Isaac myself, even if it’s definitely a giant’s shoulder in the roguelike genre. But this game’s right up my alley and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it!
That’s it for today’s Synaptic Saturday. See you again soon!