Rosalia Rambles

Tag: magic

  • Redundancy ‘Review’: Day 52, “Party Time!”

    Redundancy ‘Review’: Day 52, “Party Time!”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning revellers and ravers, welcome to Day 52 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It is a good friend of mine’s birthday today, and considering the last two years I have not been able to celebrate their birthday properly with them, I am putting a fair bit of effort into hosting a party of sorts for them.

    Went out and bought a bunch of picnic snacky bits, got plenty of drinks, and even made a loaf of bread which is going to be the subject of today’s review… yes I am reviewing something I baked myself, I have thoughts on how it went and also it is my website I can blow my own trumpet if I want to.

    We are also going to be doing a small Magic: the Gathering event with some Edge of Eternity pre-release kits I picked up a week or so back. Considering the time we are starting it is not going to be a proper sealed event, so we are doing a sort of bodge job Commander sealed instead, which should be pretty fun.

    Sent off my first invoice for my contracting work yesterday as well, which gave me an idea of how much my labour is actually paying me and… being honest, so long as I can keep my stress levels in check, I can see myself comfortably seeing out the end of this contract which would give me plenty of time to see how life will change in the meantime.

    And at the very least, I now have a very decent nest egg to take with me to my convention trip in September, which considering that has been my goal for the majority of the year should be an extremely good time to relax, cut loose, and be a big nerd for a weekend.

    So, as mentioned previously, my review subject today is the loaf of bread I baked for my friend.

    On pure looks alone, this has honestly turned out incredibly sexy. It has a perfectly crunchy crust on top and whilst the bottom is a little craggly and overly coated in flour, for a first attempt I think it turned out pretty good.

    The basis that I used for making this loaf was a Basics With Babish video where he goes through Jim Lahey’s No-Knead bread technique, mixing together flour, water, yeast, and salt before leaving it to ferment for twenty-four hours to make a very inflated and sticky dough.

    Despite the fact it rose a lot within the bowl during the fermentation process, it did turn out flatter than I anticipated, which I am not sure to attribute to the technique I used, the overly long fermentation time, or not properly folding/proofing my dough after I had taken it out of the bowl.

    That said, after cutting a tiny piece off and sharing it with my partner, I suddenly understand why everyone says that homemade bread ruins all other breads for you – it was absolutely delicious for how simple of a technique it was to get together.

    It was definitely a good first foray into bread baking as well, and considering one of my goals this year is to make a ciabatta loaf, I think I made the right first step.

    Thank you for reading this bread-based edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax this weekend and enjoy some good food.

    Here’s the video I used for my bread loaf as well:

  • Redundancy Review: Day 32, “Siesta”

    Redundancy Review: Day 32, “Siesta”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning legends and planeswalkers, welcome to Day 32 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Is it past morning in the UK? Yes.

    Am I still going to say good morning in each review? Yes.

    It is another day of peak temperatures in the UK, with the current heatwave expected to start tailing off tomorrow leading into cooler temperatures and hopefully some rain. Even just heading out for around an hour this morning was near unbearable due to the humidity retaining heat in the air and making it hard to move around, with me needing to douse myself in cold water shortly after returning home.

    After playing some games and doing some card sorting as the sun rises to the highest point in the sky I suddenly remembered I needed to write today, but surprisingly I feel a lot better writing the review later in the day than in my normal morning slot – plus it gives me a good excuse to sit still and just focus on a task that does not require much physical movement.

    My new contracting role officially starts on Monday, with me feeling… cautiously optimistic about it. One of the things that I am going to try do with this role is not taking things too personally when stressful situations are ongoing like I did with my last role, I am a contractor here to help but ultimately unless the position becomes permanent I do not want to feel much of a personal attachment to the work.

    That is something I do need to consider when it comes to looking for a full time role outside of the pipe dream of getting to do writing as my job every day, the desire to have passion for what I am working on. Whilst I can detach myself emotionally to some degree, I want to feel excited about what I am working on or what I am learning about, feeling enthusiasm for the skills I can develop.

    Regardless, not going to sneeze at an opportunity to build a safety runway further, especially as, outside of my convention trip in September, I have very few major birthdays and events coming up that I need to plan for/spend for, which means I can build a very good buffer of savings before Christmas hits and hopefully I can take a few unpaid days off as winter hits, ideally relaxing on my birthday.

    If you want to help me enable doing this day to day, consider hiring me/helping me out. Aside from when friends and family pay for meals, I fund every review topic myself, so commissioning some work or getting in touch to help provide funds for review topics would always help.

    And because my brain is actually functioning enough to write today, I do have a review topic!

    As part of my trip out today and as a portion of the greater organisation work I have been doing around my flat, I needed to get a new card binder. Sorting through almost eight years worth of Magic: the Gathering rares, mythics, and foils has led to my multicoloured binder specifically exceeding its capacity. Thankfully there is a very solid independent collectibles store in the main shopping centre in town who were more than happy to help me out.

    So rather than buying a standard binder/card album, what caught my eye today was a pack of Gamegenic 18-pocket ring binder pages, with the box stating that its contents could hold 900 cards total, being more than enough for what I currently need whilst also giving me a fair bit of future-proofing.

    The pages feel high quality, and with them being sideloaded instead of toploaded it means the cards are more secure to being shaken around. One of my main worries when I was buying the pages was that it would not fit the binder I had picked out to go alongside it, but upon closer inspection the pages have a wide variety of holes along their margin, making it almost impossible to find incompatibility.

    Gamegenic are newer on the scene compared to card storage & protection giants such as UltraPro, Ultimate Guard, and Dragon Shield, but each time I end up buying a Gamegenic product I find myself pleasantly surprised at the quality of it. 

    That said, the actual ring binder I got today is an UltraPro product, and as this shop specialises more in Pokemon cards than in any other product, my options were limited to Pokemon-themed ones, but that is no issue.

    I managed to get a pretty neat one anyway.

    Thank you for reading the Redundancy Review today, please keep yourself hydrated in this warm weather and do not exert yourself too much when it comes to physical activity.

    For more information on Gamegenic products, visit their website here: Home – Gamegenic

  • Redundancy Review: Day 11, “Hot two? Damn”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/) 

    Good morning risers and shiners, welcome to Day 11 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It is currently a wondrous 23 degrees Celsius outside at 9:15am (73 degrees in Freedom units) with the humidity at 59%. Combine this with the clay oven construction of the flat I live in and we get a formula for it once again being too damn hot. Thankfully the temperature is supposed to go back down to reasonable levels with 20 degrees being the peak instead of the lower part of the curve.

    Outside of the supply run I did with my partner yesterday, my productivity was minimised despite my best efforts to try to keep doing tasks – after a while of just moving small distances across the living room I turned into a sweaty mess that needed to sit down.

    Hopefully once things cool down and the flat returns to a reasonable temperature I can keep on my domestic quest to finish all the outstanding housework and tidying.

    Caught up with a friend and colleague of mine yesterday who mentioned that Poncle had closed applications for the QA engineer role, so hopefully I get to hear back soon enough (also cause I sent him the link to this site, if you are reading, hi!).

    Due to meet with the Jobcentre on Monday as well, hopefully I can get things sorted out with them and start receiving some extra money to help out with things.

    If you would like to help me out with my money situation, then I am available to be hired for writing work. Reviewing video games, card games, and board games are options alongside commissioning me for fiction – I love expanding my horizons and I would love working with you on your next project.

    So as part of my housework list yesterday, I resumed sorting my Magic: the Gathering cards. For those unaware, I own… a lot of cards…

    …possibly even too many one might say… this is not even a full representation of the entire collection, considering the amount of binders and commander decks I own.

    Though with consideration to today’s review subject, pictured above, keeping the collection organised has become easier.

    Those cardboard boxes are called BulkBox QUADs, being able to hold 3600 cards across four channels. They do require some assembly before use, and I will admit to minorly fucking up the construction on one of them but that is not a fault of the video tutorial I followed – created by Bulkbox themselves.

    Before purchasing this product, my cards were stored in a Fenrir Games 5000 count longbox that I had owned since around 2019. It definitely served its purpose for the time I had it but in my current living situation, it was difficult to use it without struggling to find a home for it.

    That is where one of the features of the BulkBox really appealed to me – a set of three QUADs fit perfectly into one IKEA Kallax cube. Having a massive amount of Kallax cube space already in my flat made it the ideal upgrade for my card storage solution.

    Picture taken from BulkBox’s website

    Even with the amount of cards currently spread across all three of the boxes I bought, I do not feel them bowing or bending whenever I pick them up – something I often encountered when needing to move my old 5000 count longbox. Even considering the somewhat botched job I did on construction, the Bulkbox holds up fantastically to the amount of cards I am putting into it.

    That said, I would consider Bulkbox to be premium-priced storage solutions. For a bundle pack of three QUADS (with free UK shipping) cost me £35. I do consider it worth it for serious collectors of cards and Kallax enthusiasts (that Venn diagram is a circle), especially if you want to minimise the footprint your collection has.

    Taking into account the rest of the collection I need to sort, it is likely I will need to buy from BulkBox again, and I know I can be assured of their quality.

    I think that covers everything for today, I am going to go focus on staying cool with soft drinks, frappes, and ice cream. Thank you for reading today, please stay cool and treat yourself to anything that cools you down.

    For more information on BulkBox products, visit their website here: BulkBox the best trading card game storage boxes