This year, Jace’s June birthday and Joyce’s July birthday were celebrated together at home with cakes from Conti’s, classic dishes, and family visits, followed by a church trip. The celebrations also included foodie outings at Tim Ho Wan and Din Tai Fung, plus masses at SM Megamall and Ayala Felix. Reading became my main pastime this month, replacing Netflix, with manga, manhwa, and novels like The Exiled Heavy Knight, The Return of the Crazy Demon, The Ruler of Darkness, and The World After the End. These stories offered a mix of strategy, humor, dark fantasy, and survival themes, making reading both relaxing and addictive. On the gamedev side, I invested in Kenney All-In, a $10 bundle of versatile assets perfect for prototyping and simple projects, adding to my earlier purchases of Asset Forge and Kenney packs. For content creation, I experimented with Kokoclone, a fork of Kokoro TTS, to voice my Kdrama Pajama YouTube channel, though the voice-copy quality still needs improvement. I also explored Gemma 4 Eb models via LM Studio, finding them useful for lightweight AI tasks like OCR summaries and text automation. Altogether, the month blended family milestones, creative experiments, and tech exploration—a balance of food, faith, fun, and future projects.
This Month's Quote
“Every morning, remind yourself: maximize your strengths, expand wisely into related opportunities, and protect your health — because wealth without wellness is incomplete.”
“Strengths create wealth, pivots spark growth, health sustains it all.”
Jace and Joyce Birthdays'
A year of blessing...
Technically, Jace’s birthday falls in June, while Joyce’s is in July—just a week apart. Since their celebrations are so close together, I usually combine them into one entry. This year, both birthdays were celebrated at home in a simple but meaningful way. We bought different cakes from Conti’s and prepared the usual spread of spaghetti, pancit, chicken, and assorted dishes. Nanay, Joyce, and Jace’s cousins came over, making it a warm family gathering. After lunch, we also visited the church to keep the day special and grounded.
Aside from the birthdays, this month we tried dining at Tim Ho Wan and Din Tai Fung, which added a fun foodie twist to the celebrations. We also dropped by SM Megamall for our weekend church mass, even though it was quite far, and later tried attending mass at Ayala Felix. Altogether, it was a month filled with family, food, and faith—simple joys that made both Jace and Joyce’s birthdays memorable.
Manwha Manga
Reading manga and manwha is addictive...
This month I’ve been hooked on reading manga and manhwa. I haven’t opened Netflix for several days, so reading has become my go-to way to relax—or maybe my favorite procrastination chore. On top of that, I’ve started diving into novels, though I realized I should probably stick to completed ones so I can binge them straight through without waiting for updates. Read the ff. The Exiled Heavy Knight knows How to Game the System, The Return of the Crazy Demon, The Ruler of Darkness and The World After the End. Here are the ones I’ve started:
- The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows How to Game the System — A fallen knight uses cunning strategies and loopholes to rise again in a world that underestimated him.
- The Return of the Crazy Demon — A wild, unpredictable martial artist makes his comeback, bringing chaos and humor to the world of martial arts.
- The Ruler of Darkness — A dark fantasy tale of power, ambition, and survival as the protagonist seeks dominance in a dangerous realm.
- The World After the End — Humanity faces extinction, but one survivor discovers secrets that could change the fate of the world forever.
Kenney All in Assets
Gamedev but No talent for arts go for paid assets...
I’ve been a Kenney asset user for quite some time now. Over the years, I’ve purchased a few of his products like Asset Forge and the Kenney 1 and 2 packs. Recently, I was contemplating whether to buy Kenney All-In, and in the end, I gave in because I needed some specific assets for my projects. Honestly, at just $10, it felt like a no-brainer—basically the price of a coffee or a couple of drinks, but in exchange you get a massive library of usable assets. For prototyping or even simple projects, it’s an incredible deal. Kenney’s work has always been reliable, clean, and versatile, which makes it perfect for quick game development experiments or jams. If you’re curious, you can check out his full collection here: Kenney Game Assets https://kenney.itch.io/kenney-game-assets.
.Kokoclone
Clone your voice but not really...
I’ve been experimenting with Kokoclone (Hugging Face https://huggingface.co/spaces/PatnaikAshish/kokoclone), which is forked from Kokoro TTS Voice AI (kokorottsai.com https://kokorottsai.com/). I mainly use Kokoro TTS to voice my Kdrama Pajama YouTube Channel, since it offers natural-sounding voices that fit well with the content style.
With Kokoclone, I’ve been testing its translator and voice-copying features. While it works, the quality isn’t quite there yet—certain aspects of the original voice don’t get fully replicated, and the emotional tone sometimes feels flat. It’s promising, but definitely needs further improvements before it can fully capture the nuances of a voice.
That said, tools like Kokoro and Kokoclone are exciting because they open up creative possibilities for content creators like me. Even if the tech isn’t perfect yet, it’s affordable, accessible, and evolving quickly. For now, I’m using it as a supplement to my workflow, while keeping an eye on updates that might improve accuracy and naturalness.
LM Studio Engine
Locally run ai models...
Aside from running local image and video AI models on my M4 Mac Mini, I’ve also been exploring the Gemma 4 Eb models through LM Studio. I find them quite useful for automating simple AI tasks such as OCR summaries and other minor workflows. The experience has been surprisingly efficient—LM Studio makes it easy to run these models locally without needing heavy cloud setups. While they’re not perfect for complex tasks, they’re excellent for lightweight automation, quick text processing, and experimenting with different AI-driven utilities.
For me, it’s a nice complement to my usual image and video AI experiments. Running Gemma alongside my local models gives me flexibility: visual tasks on the Mac Mini, and text-based automation through LM Studio. It feels like a balanced setup for prototyping and everyday productivity.
Junior High, Yousician, Learning App, Academys Genius Swordsmaster | Habagat, Injured Feet, Super Health Center, Extra Remake, Tutorial Hard