If you’re familiar with Android, you might already know that version 5, also known as Lollipop, was re­leased back in late 2014.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4, and every time I went to check for updates, it said that I already had the latest version, even though I had Android 4.4.4.

Today, it finally updated itself to Android 5, and it’s a pretty huge change.

Overall, I think I like it because it seems a bit cleaner and more organized.

I’m personally big on distinct contrast because I think it makes things more crisp and easy to see. I think each individual item should be easy to separate from another, and contrast helps out in that regard quite a bit.

Ironically, it seems like Android 5 has reduced variance of contrast, but for some reason I’m not having too much difficulty telling apart different on-screen elements.

The first thing I noticed that I really like is the changed look of the QWERTY keyboard. Version 5 has much smaller keys than version 4.4.4, which makes it a lot easier to type. Not only is there less possibility of unintended key presses due to being off-center and accidentally touching borders between keys, but it also forces more accurate key pressing of there being less buffer space on the edges of the key.

Unfortunately, not everything is amazing, and the biggest issue I have is a buggy gallery. Every time I open my gallery, all my images appear gray, and I need to wait several seconds before they start loading up.

On the topic of pictures, the Picasa integration also seems to be gone. Now, the only way I can integrate with Picasa and manually backup my photos online is to either use the Photos in Google+ (which doesn’t let you pick the album to which you’re uploading), or to get a separate third-party app (which I did).

Another buggy thing I noticed was the display of widgets. Not only were the widgets moved to a different location (now they appear when pressing and holding your finger on a blank space on your home screen, and I’m not sure which location I like better, the new one or the old one in the apps menu), but they don’t always pop up.

Immediately upon updating, my parents’ weather and alarm widgets disappeared, and I had to manually add them back onto their corresponding pages. Mine was fine at first, but my weather app randomly disappeared after a period of time.

I tried Googling why this was happening, but all I found were basic solutions (like just dragging the widget back where it used to be), rather than possible explanations as to why it was happening.

In order to try and catch potential problems with the new operating system before I fell victim to them, I looked up common problems and bugs with the new operating system, but all of them seemed to be problems that couldn’t really be avoided with any preventative measures, and they were problems that I didn’t encounter even though I tried to intentionally reproduce the problem.

Overall, I’m content with the new update, because the useful things are actually quite noticeably con­ven­ient, and the problematic things are either bearable or have workarounds.

Earlier today, my parents, relatives from California, and I went to the Golden Corral buffet in Algonquin, Illinois.

Apparently some other relatives from New Jersey had gone here while they were visiting Illinois, and rec­om­mended the restaurant to us.

We sat over in this corner, away from most of the other people. It wasn’t actually as dark as it seems in the photo; my phone’s camera just happened to have a bit of trouble adjusting to the bright outdoors, and compensated the lighting in the wrong direction.

The first thing to mention is that they have a senior discount and an “after 1 PM” discount. We didn’t actually realize this time-based discount until we were leaving the restaurant, and I was a little upset because we had arrived at about 12:56 PM.

But, when we checked the receipt, we noticed that the cashier had given us the post-1:00 price without us having to request it, even though the payment was made before the eligible discount time. It’s always nice to see businesses be flexible and value the happiness of their customers, rather than stick hard to the rules in order to make more money.

As for the buffet itself, it wasn’t really my preferred style of restaurant, but from a neutral perspective, it’s a pretty decent restaurant. It has a lot of different American food, so if you’re a fan of American, this might be the place for you.

I personally prefer to get American food from fast food restaurants where you just get a large serving of one item, rather than tiny bits of a variety of foods. This is important to keep in mind when I say I wasn’t that thrilled at this restaurant – it’s more of a conflicting preference thing, rather than the restaurant doing anything wrong.

While I was getting food, I didn’t notice any strange odors, but when I went back to my table to sit down, there was a strange smell in our corner. It’s difficult to describe, but the best I can do is the smell of undried clothing mixed with the sweat of someone who eats a lot of fatty foods. So, if you plan on going to this particular restaurant at this particular location, you might want to avoid that corner.

My favorite part of the trip was the dessert. They have a massive variety of desserts, including cakes, chocolate fountains for strawberries, cotton candy, and an ice cream dispenser. This was actually the first time I had ever had cotton candy on a stick since I was a tiny child.

We had an older male as our server, and he seemed a little bit too nice. He made sure that we had every­thing we needed, and came (almost excessively) often to refill drinks. One peculiar thing I tend to do at buffets is to reuse my old plate for my second serving in order to help them cut down on dishwashing costs. At the Golden Corral, I didn’t even have a chance to do that because my old plates were taken away so quickly.

Overall, from my own personal perspective (which means taking my own preferences into consideration), I would rate this restaurant 5/10. From a non-biased perspective, I would rate this restaurant 7/10. I would say it’s a solid restaurant, but there was nothing that made me say “wow,” which is generally needed for me to give anything a 9-10/10 rating.

I thought simulation games, like Sim City, were easy.

My experience today with Cities: Skylines made sure it was absolutely clear that they are not at all easy – at least not for beginners who have no idea what they’re doing.

I decided to try out Cities: Skylines because I’ve literally never played any simulation games before, and I wanted to try it out. I expected my experience to be very relaxed and easy – just build some roads, con­struct some buildings, and watch my city grow.

…

I had to completely destroy and restart my city three times before finally managing to figure out how not to immediately go bankrupt.

Cities: Skylines really puts your city management skills to the test. It starts you off easy, only having you manage a few utilities, but as your city grows, you need to keep track of everything that you would need to survive in real life.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stream my first experience with Cities: Skylines because my streaming software appeared to have some conflicts capturing the game. (When I did a window capture instead, I lagged so much that I think I had about 6 FPS. I already have pretty low FPS when playing Cities: Skylines without streaming, on minimum graphics settings.)

Steam says I have about four hours of game time on Cities: Skylines so far, and in those four hours, I built five cities (three of which no longer exist due to bankruptcy).

The first city I built that managed to stay alive reached almost 2.5k population.

The second city I built was with the infinite money mod, and served the purpose of easing my curiosity as to what the mid-game was.

I stopped playing when I realized I was getting overwhelmed and needed to take a break.

I feel like Cities: Skylines is a much more stimulating game than I originally thought it was, but I think I need to read up on it and do a lot of research on the intricate workings of the city before being able to fully enjoy the entire simulation experience.

This game received quite a bit of hype when it first came out because a lot of people said it was the better version of Sim City that everyone wanted.

I haven’t been completely captivated by the game yet, but I do feel like my first experience with it was positive, and I did have some fun. Although it won’t be a game that I will play on a regular basis, it’s definitely something I’ll boot up once in a while when I have some spare time.

In case you’ve been wondering why I’ve been out of action for a little bit, it’s because I’ve been sick since yesterday.

Apparently, something I ate on Wednesday night wasn’t safe – possibly some reheated pasta or some old bacon – and it upset my stomach. Enough that I randomly woke up in the middle of the night and vomited for the first time in literally about four years.

It appears like I got a stomach virus that is preventing me from digesting food, because, ever since I ate this morning, I’ve felt full all day, and the liquids I’ve been drinking seem to be sitting inside of me and sloshing around whenever I move.

So, I’ve been laying at home since yesterday, busily being sick. I start feeling a bit better when I go outside and get some fresh air, but then I rapidly become dizzy again and return to my bed.

I’ve been spending most of my time on my phone, browsing through Twitter, Instagram, reddit, and other sources of interesting content. I’ll probably be spending most of the weekend watching the North American League Championship Series (assuming I’ll be un-dizzy enough by that point to be able to look at my laptop screen for extended periods of time).

I’m hoping I’ll be better enough by at least Monday so I can start posting some more content and get back to my regular daily routine, but that’s not really a guarantee, so expect me to be missing for a little while longer while I recover.