The busiest month ever is about to begin

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My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

It’s tournament and convention season.

Our Heroes of the Storm team’s boot camp for the playoffs to qualify for BlizzCon started yesterday, and this year, it seems like I’m going to be the one tending to all the tournaments and conventions. We’re at the Red Bull studio in Santa Monica, CA, and I’ll be around this area for a while.

I get a short break after this boot camp for about a week, then we’re right back at it with a staff meet-up, likely another boot camp before BlizzCon, TwitchCon preparation for our exhibitor booth and our panel, the actual TwitchCon convention, BlizzCon Opening Week, and finally, BlizzCon.

My latest blog post was a failed attempt at making some homemade nigiri. As you can probably imagine, the reason I did that is because I love sushi, but I didn’t want to pay the relatively high price of buying sushi in California.

I have to eat out anyway while I’m out here, so I decided to take the opportunity to eat some real sushi. For lunch, I had a poke bowl, and for dinner, I had some triple salmon combo thing that came with cooked salmon, raw salmon, and salmon eggs.

Poke bowl

Salmon combo with raw salmon, cooked salmon, and salmon eggs

A lot of what is happening at the boot camp is confidential, so I can’t really share many details of what’s going on, but I’ll definitely be posting more food photos while I’m here (because I’m pretty sure I don’t need to keep the type of food I’m eating secret).

 

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Homemade sushi is impossible

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My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

Remember my homemade California rolls from a few months ago that ended up looking more like California tacos?

Homemade sushi is impossible

My homemade salmon nigiri didn’t turn out much better…

 

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My first ever albacore tuna steak experience

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My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

I feel like these posts are now more so a tradition than anything else, but today, I had my first ever albacore tuna steak.

Albacore tuna steak

I’m still on my mission to try out as many different food products as possible, and this time, I snatched up some albacore tuna to cook up. Unfortunately, I couldn’t eat this entirely raw because there was no confirmation whether or not it was appropriately flash frozen, then kept at appropriate temperatures for safe raw consumption, so I seared the outside. But, I kept it borderline blue rare.

Unfortunately, I forgot to snap another photograph after I cut into it, but this was an interesting experience – my brain couldn’t figure out whether I was eating cooked fish or sushi the entire time.

When I was focusing in on the taste of the center of the meat, it distinctly tasted like sushi, but if I were to have cooked it through the whole way, I think this is pretty much the same as any other fish – a lot of the flavoring comes from the seasoning instead of the actual meat. (Or my taste buds just aren’t properly fine tuned yet to tell the difference.)

 

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I went to my first ever mobile gaming tournament

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My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

When I first started gaming, I was a console gamer – I played on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and Game Boy Color. But after those two consoles, I found more interest in computer gaming, and hadn’t really touched console gaming since getting interested in games like RuneScape and StarCraft during my middle and high school years.

I think that makes it needless to say that I didn’t really play mobile or tablet games either when they started coming out. Hearthstone is obviously available on mobile devices, but I still play on the computer; Tempo Storm has a Vainglory team, but I never really got into it because I prefer games like League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm, which can be played with a mouse and keyboard.

To attend a mobile gaming tournament and see how big it’s become was an interesting experience. Yesterday, I attended the Vainglory8 2017 Summer Unified Live Championship at the Globe Theater in Los Angeles, California.

Vainglory8 2017 Summer Unified Live Championship in Los Angeles

Vainglory8 2017 Summer Unified Live Championship in Los Angeles

Vainglory8 2017 Summer Unified Live Championship in Los Angeles

I stopped by the tournament because I’m local to Los Angeles now – I live near Tempo Storm’s team houses, which meant it was about a 50-mile drive to get to the venue.

Tempo Storm ended up not having a great showing – the team got eliminated in the first round against Nova eSports. But, the experience itself was pretty interesting. As you can probably tell from the final photo, I managed to snag front-row seats. The live audience viewership of the event was nowhere near what I’m used to for other esports, but it wasn’t completely empty either, which convinces me that maybe mobile gaming tournaments will actually become a bigger thing soon.

 

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Sweet Sapphire grapes

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Apparently, these aren’t miniature eggplants … they’re actually grapes.

Sweet Sapphire grapes

Remember the grocery shopping trip I went on yesterday to Albertson’s, where Mango got his first puppuccino? While walking around looking for some fruit, I noticed those things. Because they looked so strange, and I’ve never seen these kinds of engineered grapes before (it’s either they’re not very popular in the Chicagoland suburbs where I grew up, or my parents just didn’t ever get them), I bought some.

I washed them and tried some today. They literally taste exactly like normal grapes.

It messes with your brain a little bit when you expect to taste baby eggplant, then once you take a bite, it explodes into sweet, juicy goodness.

 

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