Willenator's World

I’ve had my brother and a few friends tell me that I need to read the Stormlight Archive books. I picked up book 1 and loved it. I just finished this book, and I loved it as well. I didn’t read this one as fast as I had read the previous book. I think a lot of it had been the fact that I started this one almost immediately after finishing the first book. I think the length of these books were kind of getting to me a bit, so I ended up slowing down and taking the book in different chunks. By no means is that a bad thing. I will say that as I hit around the 60 percent mark, I got to the point where I struggled to put the book down because things really started picking up.

I’m very pleased with the way the story continues to progress. This book focused primarily on Shallan this time around giving us a bit of her back story. Some of the revelations about her past that come to light near the end of the book are really surprising. I think that is what I love about the book is how we are given bits and pieces of things as the main plot moves along. Eventually, the threads come together nicely while some new ones are made.

Shallan is a fascinating character. I was getting a little frustrated with her progression in the first half of this book because I felt like she was getting sidetracked too much with her side quests. However, it appears that those side quests will end up revealing some fascinating things in the next book. At least, I hope it does. Either way, I found myself wanting to slap her upside the head and be like, you are supposed to be doing other things instead of fixing ledgers or getting involved with a shady group. Oh well. She doesn’t listen very well.

Kaladin is still my favorite character. There is a part in this book where he finally accepts what he is and embraces it, and that moment was so vivid in my mind that it made me get a little tearful in happiness for him. I rarely get to a point where I want to cheer out loud while reading, but I came very close shortly after that. Kaladin’s progression has been a fascinating one to be a part of, and I can’t wait to see where the story takes him in the next book.

I’m glad people finally convinced me to give these books a chance. I am really enjoying them. I have picked up book 3 and 4 in the series. I don’t think I’m going to jump into book 3 just yet. I need a bit of a palate cleanser before I do. But, I am looking forward to it. I’m sure this story will continue to amaze and impress me. There is a reason so many people love these books.

And it was amazing! Wow. If you enjoyed the first two Sonic movies, you will love the third one. Oh, who am I kidding!? If you loved the first two movies, you probably already saw the third one.

I just love how Sonics adventures keep coming and this one pulls so much from the Sonic games that it is crazy to me. I haven't played a lot of Sonic games myself, but I was able to spot a lot of the Sonic lore that I've read over the years or looked into on the games that I haven't played.

It was such a fun movie, and Jim Carrey's portrayal of two Robotniks in this movie is just the icing on the cake. It was obvious at the end that they have another movie planned. I'm sure this one will do well enough to solidify that.

My wife and I just got out of the theater. We saw Kraven the Hunter, which is a movie I have been interested in since it was announced because the Kraven character has always fascinated me in the comics. We both enjoyed the movie and had a pretty good time. We had the whole theater to ourselves, which is always a fun surprise. Also, it says a lot about the interest in the movie considering I think this was the second weekend for the movie to be out.

I will say it is a little sad that this character wasn't put up against Spider-Man, since Kraven is one of his original big bad villains, but it was a good cinematic origin story for the character. I was super excited when they mentioned Rhino because I have always been curious how movie makers would create Rhino, and I thought this iteration was decent. However, much like Kraven not battling Spider-Man, here we have a handful of Spider-Man villains that are kind of going at each other: Kraven, Calypso, Rhino, and The Foreigner.

Either way, I enjoyed it. I tend to not take movies too seriously and over think them because I just want to be entertained. I would love to see Kraven appear in other stuff. The guy that plays Kraven did a pretty decent job, and I loved the ending shot. Will be interesting to see if we get any more of Kraven in the movies down the road.

I like and hate Christmas music. I have a lot of Christmas songs that I enjoy listening to when Christmas rolls around each year, and the music is generally uplifting and improves my mood. The problem is, I often feel like we don't get new Christmas music very often. Most people just perform covers of already popular or traditional Christmas tunes. This puts us in a situation where it is possible to hear about 30 renditions of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. After a few times, it just gets old very easily.

I want artists to create new Christmas music. Not just redo stuff that has already been done. I have been actively trying to seek out unique songs this year to play around Christmas, and it has been kind of a fun adventure. I think people often fall into the trap of thinking the traditional stuff is what is expected around this time of the year. Maybe we can encourage others to try more unique stuff.

I do have one exception to this rule: Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I have to enjoy their Christmas every year. It's tradition. ;)

The new Dark Universe section of the upcoming Epic Universe park in Florida is going to be the best area. This video from bioreconstruct shows the fire effect testing on the windmill of the Burning Blade Tavern. Watch till the end to also see some lighting effects on the top of Frankenstein Manor.

Seeing this video makes me want to see this area so much more. Ever since they started announcing the different areas of Epic Universe, I knew Dark Universe would be my favorite area. I hope to experience it in 2026.

Love coaster construction updates! Here is another one from Cedar Point showing us how progress is going on Siren's Curse.

A great companion to this is an image that I spotted on Reddit today showing an aerial view of the construction site as well courtesy of Precision Drone Service. Check it out. Link to the Reddit post below the pic!

Precision Drone Service image found on Reddit

Today has been an interesting one for me. My wife found my old yo-yo collection that I haven't really touched in over 20 years. I opened it up and was excited to see some of the old yo-yos that I used to play with a lot. I spent a few hours taking time to play with each one remembering some of the tricks I used to do with them.

That lead to me bouncing around on the Internet looking at various yo-yo stuff because I don't really see yo-yos in the wild anymore. I knew yo-yos were still a thing, but I didn't know how much of a thing until I went down a rabbit hole of articles and videos and sites all dedicated to yo-yos. Once I was done with that, I decided it might be time to buy my first new yo-yo in a long time because I want to try out some of the newer styles of yo-yos that didn't exist when I played.

We shall see how this goes, but I'm excited!

Canada's Wonderland released their first construction update for their new 2025 rollercoaster: Alpenfury. Check it out:

I'm super excited to see a new coaster coming to Canada's Wonderland, and Alpenfury looks like it is going to be a fantastic ride. I also love the fact that they are using Wonder Mountain for another coaster! This is nuts.

You can see all the details of this new coaster on Canada's Wonderland page here: https://www.canadaswonderland.com/alpenfury

Warner Bros. Pictures released a full trailer for A Minecraft Movie today. I just watched it, and wanted to share a few thoughts. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, I encourage you to check it out:

Let me be honest. I don’t think this movie will be amazing, but I did see a few things that give me hope that it won’t be terrible. First, this trailer seems to show the movie will be somewhat faithful to the game in terms of how the world will work. The view of the Minecraft world looks like a nice realistic texture pack you could apply to the game. I liked that they had sound effects from the game, and I was happy to hear the classic music play when it shows Steve entering the world. I’m still not sure why we need those additional four people beyond Steve in the movie, but it is what it is. We shall see how that plays out.

I’m sure we will see at least one more full trailer before the movie releases that might hint a little more about the plot of the movie. Minecraft is a survival and crafting game, so maybe they will play off of the survival part. Maybe Steve and crew will end up fighting the Ender Dragon, or maybe there will be another person that is teaming up with all the baddies to try and destroy the world. Who knows. It will be interesting either way.

I do plan to see this when it comes out. I am a fan of Jack Black and Jason Mamoa, so I look forward to seeing their roles in this. I think Jack will probably play a decent Steve since Steve is a character now and not just the player. I am curious about Jason’s character. He does reference being a late 80’s gamer, so I’m sure that will play into something as well. We shall see. Let’s all cross our fingers that this will be something we can enjoy.

Today marks the day when Twitter's (cough, X, cough) new terms of service goes into effect that essentially gives Twitter the rights to use anything shared on the platform to train Grok, their AI program, as well as some other stuff that a lot of people aren't thrilled about. As a result, I think we have seen the biggest jump from Twitter yet, and it appears most people are jumping to Bluesky.

I've used Bluesky for since August of 2023. Bluesky has felt like the closest clone to Twitter out there to me, and I always hoped that Bluesky would reach a point where I could use it as my Twitter replacement. Honestly, I would have preferred more people jump over to Mastodon as I love that platform, but it doesn't seem like that one is easy for people to jump in and use like Bluesky. Unfortunately for Bluesky, I would see a person I follow on Twitter appear and mention they were going to give it a try only for them to go quiet while they continued to use Twitter like they always had.

That started to change once Twitter announced their new Terms of Service (TOS). There was a group that jumped to Bluesky shortly after the announcement, and it continued to ramp up as we got closer and closer to November 15th. I got excited the closer we got because more and more of the accounts I followed or interacted with on Twitter were starting to use Bluesky more and more. The tipping point hit around the US election where I found myself on Bluesky more than on Twitter because I was getting almost the same content.

I'm happy to see one of the many Twitter clones out there finally feel like the one "everyone" is jumping on. I know Bluesky has a protocol that allows for federation much like Mastodon. I hope they start really pushing that part. It is also possible to follow the account @ap.brid.gy with your Bluesky account to make it possible for people on the Fediverse (like Mastodon users) to follow your posts as well. Connected accounts can also find Mastodon users that are connected too and follow them. For example, I follow Gargron, the creator of Mastodon, with my Bluesky account.

Speaking of following people, if you are interested in following me, I have links to my Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads accounts below. Feel free to click the social network of choice. I primarily use Mastodon and Bluesky. Sometimes I jump on Threads.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out going forward. I'm fascinated to see if Bluesky will continue its perceived dominance or if all of the networks pick up various people and we have to keep jumping around to talk to those we once knew on Twitter.

Willenator Followers:

I've decided to move Willenator.com away from Tumblr and onto its own server. I mainly had it on Tumblr because I thought Tumblr would be a fun platform to host my blog on. The platform was simple to use and easy to share stuff on it. I also liked that Tumblr announced they want to make it possible to federate a blog with the Fediverse, and I thought that would give me a place to host a blog and connect with others.

What I didn't understand when I made the move was that I would keep getting bombarded by Tumblr begging me to spend money. I paid to have Tumblr host my domain. I paid for the ad-free experience. I still got bugged about buying something on the TumblrMart like a supporter badge that would evolve over time as I continued to pay for it. I got annoyed by that. Then Tumblr created Tumblr Premium and started pushing that as the new ad-free model instead of what I had. I was informed that when my current year expired, that I would be automatically upgraded to the pricier option. I decided it was time to move away.

So, here I am. My blog is on its own again in its own space. We shall see how it goes. I'm thankful for you sticking around with me. I'll keep posting my usual randomness that you have all come to know and hopefully love.

New Followers:

Let me introduce myself. My name is Willenator. That is the username I have been using since I created a Gmail account many many years ago. It was actually Google's suggestion when I was creating my account to use Willenator because the name I initially selected was not available. I think I was trying to use my first name and something else at the time. I honestly can't remember. What I do remember is laughing at the suggestion and deciding to go with it. I started using Willenator wherever I could and even purchased the domain.

Willenator.com has been a place holder for various things over the years. Mainly multiple failed attempts at blogging with the most successful attempt being one where I wrote book reviews. That was fun right up until it wasn't, so I kept trying different things. At one point in time it pointed to my Twitter account and then pointed at a Blogger account. I moved it to Tumblr after that and had it there for awhile and now I have it back to being a Wordpress blog on a hosting platform.

I don't have a specific topic for my blog. I kind of post random things along with my thoughts on whatever comes to mind and whatever I feel like sharing. Feel free to stick around and see what I come up with. My main interests include amusement parks, roller coasters, books, technology, and the wide world of the Internet. I think a lot of my posts will fall somewhere in there.