Alex Rodriguez Bacardit's Blog

After many years investing in companies, a lot of you have asked me about investments and how to make the most out of your spare money or a few bucks you want to take more risk with.

The answer is: I don't know.

I wrote this for some friends a few years back and I've decided to repurpose it as a blog post for a wider audience. Hope you enjoy it!

The reason why I started investing in startups is because I was spending too much money on concerts, travel and beer. Actually, after a HUGE fuckup that cost me 1000 euros, I decided to invest that amount in a startup for the first time.

So, if you want to learn from someone who hasn't had any kind of financial training or education and that merely invests to outsource his/her finances, then so be it.

I'll give the high-level overview, but I will go into more detail in the investments section I'm writing (work in progress, as of July 2023).

I started investing in startups because, well, I'm surrounded by them and by people who do it.

Investing in startups - Pledge funds

High risk, relatively low entry barrier, moderate to big returns.

I started investing in startups through L��nzame, which is a pledge fund. A pledge fund is sort of a crowdfunding for startups, where pledgers are investors. When a startup wants to raise funds through L��nzame, they share their conditions with about 500 professional and non-professional investors within the L��nzame network, and L��nzame do the rest. Similar platforms are Crowdcube or Republic, just to name a few.

As such, they charge two fees (don't know by heart, but it's around 8%):

Once when you invest in a deal. Once in the event of an exit (successful sale of the company, and therefore when you earn your returns).

Good:

They give you dealflow very often. You can start investing from 500 euro per deal. They're great at selecting startups. Actually, very good. It helps non-professional investors to start investing their first money.

Bad:

The commissions are high. You're actually buying a service through them, so you can't deduct this as an investment in your tax filing (renta/IRS).

If you want to just learn and play a bit, L��nzame are a good entry door to this world. Their portfolio is pretty impressive, I must say.

I started with them but pretty soon I started getting investment proposals to do on my own, but before that, let's see another option.

Investing in startups - Real funds

If you want to get more serious, you get involved in a fund. It requires a big commitment of money, but basically you give them money so they can invest for you.

L��nzame is a "opt-in" method, kinda like a crowdfunding. Real funds can be "opt-out" but not really. Usually, there's no consensus and they invest your money for you.

Two years ago, I was invited to be part of the Itnig Future One. Itnig is an ecosystem of startups from Barcelona, all built with Ruby on Rails (Quipu, Factorial, Camaloon���), so I thought it'd be interesting also for MarsBased, to be close to them.

Funds require a big commitment in money. In this case, I think they had three tiers: 10k, 15k or 40k per year, and a commitment of 3 years minimum. According to your investment, you get shares in the fund, and they do the rest. No commissions, and as a partner of the fund, if you ever want to quit, you sell your shares to another member and that's it.

Good:

No commissions. Usually they're more oriented to get better returns for the partners than in a pledge fund. They can get better dealflow if the fund has sufficiently good reputation. Less management. Once you pay, that's it.

Bad:

Higher barrier of entry. Usually hard to get in if you're not in the ecosystem.Investing in startups - Business angel

I used to think that in order to be a business angel you need to be certified or have a minimum of money or investments: bullshit. Anyone can be one.

If you're ever invited to invest in a company and want someone else's opinion, I can help you with that. I usually ask experts in the field of the startup, and then decide myself.

After being in the startups ecosystem for 3-4 years, I started to get invited to invest in companies. You can do two things: buy primary and buy secondary stock.

To put it simply, primary means when you invest in the company directly. Usually, it means bigger amounts of money, more paperwork, and to appear on their cap table (the relationship of shareholders-number of shares).

Secondary is when you buy shares of a partner extra-officially. For instance, I own secondary shares from companies of friends who want to cash out and make some quick money. Founders do that between investment rounds, in order to get some quick cash, and usually it's a good way to let friends invest in your company who wouldn't be able to afford primary because the minimum investment check in primary is - for instance - 15k. You can buy secondary for almost any quantity. I usually buy 2-3k at a time.

Good:

No commission. Sometimes, the best startups don't go to funds and they only raise through friends. Fast and with very little management. Literally, you can invest ANY amount.

Bad:

Beware of investing in friends. You need to do the audit and due diligence. Lots of back and forth negotiating conditions. If you're not well-known, you might not get any deal ever.Cryptos

I don't wanna talk about cryptos.

I literally bought cryptos the day before bitcoin went from 20k to 3k. I know they're way above 20k now, but I'm not following the news/market. Luckily, I didn't sell, but I don't know what I'm doing here and I haven't bought ever since.

Extremely volatile but with extremely good returns if you know what you're doing. In my opinion, I've treated this category as gambling in the past and now I don't do it because of my own personal values.

Stonks

Stonks is code for "stock". This means, you buy shares of publicly traded companies through platforms like Revolut, Interactive Brokers, eToro and such.

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The moment you buy your first stonks you turn into this guy

I started in August 2020 and did it for about a year. I've been investing a small percentage every month in a lot of tech companies and the plan is to think long-term, buy every month and never sell.

Before the 2022 tech market crash, I had averaged returns between 13 and 18% since then, which is extremely good, if you think that some of the best markets will give you on average 7.5% in a year. After that, welll��� not so good.

Also, on top of your money growing, you will earn the dividends that these companies pay out at the end of the fiscal year to their shareholders. Unless you earn big percentages, you will get misery, but it'll grow over time.

Startups, for instance, if they have profits, they reinvest them into the company, and don't pay out dividends. This happens very rarely, really.

Good:

Invest any amount. There's a lot of platforms out there. No need to get sophisticated software unless you want to do it seriously. Available to everyone.

Bad:

A lot of people fall prey to day trading, which can be highly addictive. Since it's a real-time thing, it creates a bit of anxiety at the beginning. Takes some time until you learn how to do it properly. If you want to do it right, you need to keep an excel to track your money.

I think I can stop here and concentrate in the investments guide! Stay tuned for updates!

Thanks for reading!

Hi again! I haven't really updated this page as much as I wanted last year, so from now on I'll update it every fortnight. In fact, I haven't updated it for a year and a half. Apologies.

Current location & travels

Right now, I am at home.

While I have always been a travelling soul, since 2020, I have geared down in my travelling plans.

I used to travel about 40% of my time during my 20s and early 30s, but my personal situation has changed. For one, I have tired of the always-travelling lifestyle, but I've also started to grow a family and I want to spend more time at home with them.

After 11 years living with friends and on my own, I left my famous Taxdirt Rocks apartment to move to a nearby, bigger apartment with my girlfriend, her son, two cats and two turtles.

You can check my past travel activities, though. I share all my trips using Nomadlist. While in Barcelona, you can book me for a quick call to tell me how can I help you or your project.

Of course, I do a sensible amount of business travel, but not as much as I did in the past. I visit San Francisco once per year, Madrid once per month and I visit our MarsBased clients around the globe once per year, approximately.

My plans for 2023 are to visit California with my new family and maybe check two different countries. I also have to make it up to Greece, for not visiting her during 2021. Previously, I had been going to Greece every year since 2009.

Goals

2021 was a transition year, for me. I had to transition from being a single remote worker & concert-goer to a family man. My goals from previous years make no sense now, as I have to juggle my own internal intentions with the deeds of co-running a family.

Basically, I don't want to plan for too much, as I know that habits are hard to pursue with this life change. It's maybe more advisable to pursue fewer habits but better ones.

Side projects & interests

Two projects occupy part of my agenda nowadays.

First, I play in a punk rock band called RES!. We play fast and melodic punk rock in the style of RKL, early NoFX and other Californian bands. I play bass and do backing vocals, although I sing a song or two in concert, when we play versions of other bands. Check our first album: Sou tots uns fills de puta.

Second, I co-host a podcast about business and technology called Foc a terra with my good friend Marc Collado. It's in Catalan.

I also invest in startups. Let me know if you have any interesting projects, especially in the B2B SaaS realm.

What am I working on?

At MarsBased, we are hitting a record year in both sales and profit. It's the third year in a row where this happens, so I'm elated with the situation of the company.

Since the company is really stable on sales, I am enabling everyone in the company to do their best, while leading our efforts in marketing and sales. I am very busy also with our podcast: Life on Mars.

As for Startup Grind Barcelona, we have been a little over one year doing events offline, after 18 months of online-only efforts (which sucked). Our monthly events are going well but we've lost a lot of support in sponsors and partners. For the time being, I'm funding it through MarsBased because I can't afford to spend time looking for partners and sponsors, as it's a huge opportunity cost for me.

Food, drinks and such

2021 has been a year swamped with minor health problems, which wouldn't have been a big deal in and of themselves if isolated, but most of them came together. Therefore, I haven't been able to heal properly nor work out, so I'm slightly out of shape but going back to regular training.

I haven't done as much cardio as I used to do (mostly running) nor weight-lifting, and I think it'll be hard to go back to my good shape. I'm between 7 and 10 kg away from my ideal weight.

One thing that doesn't help to get in shape is beer, but I've cut down on drinking significantly. Now, I hardly ever party, but I like my couple of pints of craft beer like the next guy. I tend to drink only during Saturday night, as Saturday is my cheat day in my diet.

Random trivia

I stopped reading my age in books as I'm too tired now to accomplish it and have a whole new set of other obligations.

Since 2019, I have been getting a lot of tattoos. I'm close to 20 now. I am planning to get both sleeves done between now and Summer 2023.

Another year, another reading challenge! As it's been the case with the last few years, in 2021 I committed to reading a number of books equal to my age. This time around, I've struggled too much to complete it, and had to spend the entire day of December 31st reading two books to make it.

But I'll leave the details for another post. Let's get on with the list!

In case you're curious, check the books I read in 2020 or the books I read in 2019.

This time around, according to my Goodreads reading challenge, I have read 8899 pages from 34 books, although, to be honest, one of them has been War and Peace, which could be easily counted as a dozen books packed in one. I didn't, and I regretted it the entire year round.

Considering that the shortest book (Kafka's Metamorphosis) is only 67 pages long, it's nothing compared to Tolstoi's War and Peace, which is 1329 pages long. Tolstoi's book is almost 20 times longer (and definitely, heavier).

As with previous editions of this blog post, I will categorise the books in three tiers: Must Read, Good enough and Not for me.

Let's jump right into it!

Top of the crop

I always end up with a long list in this category. I read a lot of classics and books that are recommended to me, so I'm not out for adventure much. It's pretty easy that I'll love a book if it's a classic or someone thought it'd be a good fit for me (but has to know me well!). Most likely, books in this category will be subject to be read again in the future.

The Shadow of the Sun - Ryszard Kapu��ci��ski

This book has been an eye-opening one for me. What this man experienced travelling around Africa, most people won't live in a thousand lives. Every page made me wonder more about what is it like to be in X or Y country, knowing that most likely, I will never visit most - or any - of the places described in the book. However, this book has left me with a terrible thirst to travel around Africa and know more about its peoples and cultures.

A hell of a dense book, but worth every word if you're passionate about learning, cultures and travel.

NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories - Jeff Alulis

With great contrast to the one above (and definitely to the next one), this is hands down the best damn book ever written about a music band. It's crude, raw and at times tasteless, much like punk. It's like unprotected anal sex in a McDonalds' privy or even dirtier.

Take drug abuse, cheating, sexual fetishes, gang violence, homelessness and really bad music, and throw them into the blender. Take that mixture and shoot it up between the toes in the dirtiest corner of the Tenderloin, in San Francisco. That's how real and brutally sincere this book is, and how every band fantasizing about the rock and roll business should read.

Barbarians at the Gate - Bryan Burrough

I was cautioned that it's a freaking dense book about M&A (mergers and acquisitions) and that only a portion of it is interesting because it contains a lot of personal stories and backgrounds. I devoured the entire book nonetheless caught up in the spiral of business frenzy surrounding the story of RJR Nabisco.

Why I liked it so much, I don't know. I don't relate to the corporate industry, I am not familiar with the companies/brands mentioned and I don't seek to pursue this kind of career, but it trapped me all the same. I guess it's written well and I found particularly interesting the lifestyle and shenanigans pulled by Ross Johnson. Thanks, Mike, for recommending it, if you ever read this!

Confess - Rob Halford

The autobiography of the legendary frontman of the heavy metal band Judas Priest. Rob Halford starts from his working-class upbringing & sexual discovery in the 60s, through eras of crazy drug abuse until his recent years.

This book brought me to tears a couple of times and I can't recommend it enough if you want to be wronged about everything you know about the music industry and stardom.

Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams - Matthew Walker

This book should be mandatory in schools and its contents should be taken into consideration when imagining the society of the future because there is no way in cold hell that we can't undo some of the historical wrongs messing up with our sleeping needs. Sleep is a fundamental part of well-being.

Rework - Jason Fried & DHH

I re-read it every year. Easy to read, still valid nowadays, and plenty of stuff to learn from, if you're running a business of whichever size.

Good booksWhat Does This Button Do? - Bruce Dickinson

I have always been more of a Maiden than a Priest fan, even though in recent years I've come to love both. However, Bruce Dickinson's autobiography is an excellent book for each music lover out there, be it or be it not an Iron Maiden fan. However, I admit I won't remember many passages of it because Bruce's life has been less interesting - to me - than Rob's.

If you're looking for a great book that's also written well, this is your book. Rob Halford's effort borders on being too casual and clumsy, but that probably made it feel more authentic, in a brilliant display of vulnerability. This one, while great, left me wanting more fragility.

Why Him? Why Her?: Understanding Your Personality Type and Finding the Perfect Match - Helen Fisher

Don't get fooled by the cheesy title or the subject - this book is written by the founding team of Match.com and talks at length about types of personalities (one of my favourite pseudo-sciences) and dissects their behaviours in different scenarios and how they interact with one another. I now see my relationships - not only affectional, but also at work or with friends - differently, being able to understand more other types of people and adapting to them. Solid read, a bit too long in my opinion, but well worth taking the time to read it if you're into this kind of stuff. Thank you, Martina, for the recommendation!

Negotiation Genius - Deepak Malhotra

I thought: "it can't be better than Never Split the Difference" and that I wouldn't learn anything from this book. Boy, was I wrong. Truly great book about business and negotiation, even for experienced people (been doing sales for over ten years now), there's always something new to be learnt on these pages.

Soul Music - Terry Pratchett

While I won't include this book in the top5 of my favourite Discworld episodes, I think that this is one of the most remarkable books because of its unique story. Maybe it hit close to home because it's about music and being in a band, but I remember so many passages from it, that it makes me feel bad about all the other Discworld books I don't remember anything from. Great story from beginning to end. Would probably read it again.

The Trial and Death of Socrates

One of my favourite compendium of passages of the life of Socrates. If you want to learn about how the ancient Greeks talked about love, you should go for this one. Also, it's pretty funny how open they were about getting drunk in public and things that happened when they were highly inebriated (and, sometimes, horny).

Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett

If you know me, you know I like the mythological figure of the golem. I don't know why, but I find them memorable and feel instant sympathy towards them. This is why I liked this book so much, but it's definitely not one of the best Discworld books. Solid effort with lots of emotional value for me.

Men at Arms - Terry Pratchett

Like every year, I need my dose of Pratchett & Discworld. Classic among classics in this crazy universe, I particularly liked reading between the lines and all the social justice & politics being discussed in this book. Pure genius.

Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

I admit I felt ashamed for not having read this until this age, but then again, I don't very often do what people tell me.

I loved this book, and even though it feels at times that you will know what's coming up next or where the narrative is headed towards, you will mostly be wrong about it. Great classic overall.

Notes from the Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky

A tale of misanthropy, self-derision, cynism and dark humour. Great stuff in the guise of a classic that left me in want of reading more stuff from this author. Thanks, Judit, for the recommendation!

Hacking Communities - La��s de Oliveira

La��s is a friend of mine, who I met at Startup Grind while she was running the chapter in Buenos Aires, and then in Kuala Lumpur. Over the years, we developed a friendship and met in conferences around the world. If there's someone who gets community, it's her.

One of the main takeaways for me is that, finally, there's someone talking about privilege and class in all the business & startup bullshit out there. It's taken years and years until some people, coming from less privileged backgrounds have bubbled up to the top and haven't forgotten about their roots and upbringings. La��s makes a clear distinction of people coming from a scarcity environment versus those brought up in abundance, and that hit very close to home, in my case.

Blood and Oil: Mohammed bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power: 'The Explosive New Book' - Bradley Hope

Very entertaining book about the fights for power in the Middle East and how they affect the global economy (and the role of big players like Facebook, Trump, Amazon, Twitter and the like). Thank you, Josh, for recommending it. I enjoyed it very much.

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exup��ry

Classic. I had to re-read it to comment on it with a friend and I liked to re-discover it. It's a book that can be read easily and brings always something new. Definitely not crazy over it, but I find it easy to recommend it and it brought me back to my childhood.

Del llau del nigromante - Nicol��s Bard��o

My first book in Asturian language! I admit I found myself struggling with it in the beginning (I've never learnt this language, but I have some notions of it), but I got the hang of it pretty easily. Great GREAT story and definitely didn't see the ending coming. I will be looking for more books from the same author.

Time's Arrow - Martin Amis

God, I love me some brainfucking sci-fi, but this one really made my brain go bananas. This is the life of a person told backwards. Even the dialogues are written backwards, so it's a bit hard to follow, but I loved the idea, the execution, and even though I feel like I need to read it again to fully understand it, I think it's a great book for sci-fi lovers.

El Banquete de los Dictadores - Victoria Clark & Melissa Scott

A book about the favourite dishes and culinary preferences of the s.XX dictators from all over the world. Frivolous at times, and an excessive use of imagination in many declarations like "this might have actually never happened" and a consistent lack of citations or references, but it's an entertaining book you can learn a lot from. Devoured it (no pun intended!) in a day or two and took note of a few recipes I want to try myself.

Think Again - Agam Grant

One of these classic American business books that are good for a few pages, and then explain the same concept over and over again. A book that could've been a blog post, but a really good blog post. I've picked up some interesting concepts about how to defy established knowledge, but I don't recall much else.

Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett

Another great Discworld book discussing social classes and aristocracy. Great story, very funny at times, and time good spent altogether, but I fear I won't remember much from this book. Hell, I don't even remember it right now.

Hijos del Nilo - Xavier Aldekoa

Phenomenal essay about the current state of affairs in Africa and travelling through it as a journalist. Probably would have been higher up in the rankings were it not the fact that I had read Shadow of the sun before this one, so the bar was too high. This one's lighter and way more enjoyable in my opinion, if you can't endure dense books.

Maskerade - Terry Pratchett

Pratchett's take on The Phantom of the Opera and the opera world in general. Especially funny and pretty solid considering I don't particularly enjoy the witches as characters in Discworld, but this one really clicked on me and I will hold it in high esteem

Songs of Innocence and of Experience - William Blake

It had been a while since my last book from William Blake, so it felt like the right time. Enjoyed it, as always.

The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

Believe it or not, I had never read this book, and to be entirely frank, I decided to go for it because I needed short books to complete the reading challenge. Great stuff, but I don't understand how people go apeshit crazy about it. The messages between the lines about family relations, life/work balance, social constructs and whatnot are there, but I might be too simple of a person to get it altogether.

The Subterraneans - Jack Kerouac

Tales about the 1950's San Francisco underground, as narrated by Jack Kerouac, one of the most prominent authors of this movement. Beautifully written, too hipster-ish for me, but I enjoyed the style and the dialogues, even though I finished it without having really grasped what it was all about. I guess he didn't know it himself, either.

Mundo Tarugo - David Bonilla

Very good stuff. Loved the interaction between his own writing and the ones by other people from the industry and friends from the Spanish startup ecosystem.

Not for meWar and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

The worst mistake of my life. Period. Not only should I have not started it but I should've left it unread and ditched it for good. What a fucking waste of time that goes to prove that classics aren't for everyone.

The Misanthrope - Moli��re

Allegedly a comedy. Allegedly a classic. Definitely not for me.

Jordi Pons - No tendr��s cojones de hacerlo

A book about Pep Guardiola's time at FC Barcelona, containing interviews with famous people and Bar��a legends. I found the style too bland and uninteresting. You'd think there's no way that a book about Guardiola could be boring. You'd be wrong.

The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity - Esther Perel

As much as I like reading about taboo subjects, this one hasn't surprised me at all from any angle. Boring, repetitive and dull. Feels like a compendium of articles written elsewhere and sewn together to scrap a few extra bucks. Missed opportunity to open up and talk about this controversial topic.

Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett

Definitely the worst Discworld book I've read so far. I just don't get Rincewind nor his stories or storyline. It bored me to tears and made me want to stop reading Discworld for a few months to recover from this one.

This is it! This year I'm taking a break from these exhausting challenges and I will only be reading 15 books. More details on my next blog post!

Now Playing: Carcass - Heartwork

Funny how a lot of people expected that the turning of the year would improve things significantly from 2020, as if nothing had ever happened. Obviously, it hasn't been the case, and we're still stuck at home with a pandemic all around the planet.

2020 was a wild year. No one really expected this and, worst of all, we don't know how long this will go for. We're starting with the vaccinations, but at current paces, it'll take years until everyone is properly given their dose. However, there's hope: it seems that the vaccinations are, for the most part, pretty effective.

All right, let's get down to the periodic update.

Current location and travels

2020 was the year I was going to slow down on travelling. Fewer trips but more meaningful, less but better and so forth. COVID-19 helped with that.

However, I have been able to travel a bit during 2020.

First, I went to Berlin for work with one of our clients. Even though the trip was short, it allowed me to switch context and leave my apartment behind after almost four months confined in it. I spent one week in Berlin doing remote work and a few socially-distanced meetings, before buggering off to Stuttgart to visit a friend. The situation in Stuttgart was way better and there were almost no limitations there regarding mobility or the schedules of bars and restaurants. That allowed us to do a bit of socialising and then we also spent quality time in nature in the Black Forest.

After that, I spent a week in Formentera, probably my favourite place on Earth, with the folks of Noise Base, the music podcast I co-host every Sunday (in Catalan). It's a metal podcast of mostly non-metal music.

We came up with the idea during the hard confinement, and we've been recording it since early last year. We've got 20 episodes so far, and we decided to spend some time together at one of the members summer house in the beautiful island of Formentera, to bond deeper as a team

Every year, I commit to reading a certain amount of books to keep up my habit of reading. Lately, I have been committing to the number of books corresponding to my age.

In case you're curious, check the books I read in 2019.

According to Goodreads, the platform I use to track all my books, I've read 9437 pages from 33 books, of very varied natures. The shortest book is 63 pages long (Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions) while the longest one is ten times that amount of pages: 674 (Neil Gaiman's American Gods).

Even though I love philosophy and sci-fi, my reading voyage took me well beyond those two areas, and I finished 2020 with a very diverse selection of works, that I'll try to categorise as best as I can in the following list.

For clarification: it is very hard to categorise and order the books, so I've done my best to put them into a few categories, but within these they're not listed in any particular order. Also, as opposed to previous years, I think I've read very good books overall.

At the end of the first version of this blog post, most of the books were in the first category, so I had to re-distribute a bit, and I'll justify each book as to why it's placed in which category.

Top of the crop

In order to have fewer books on this one, I would describe the books that made it to this category as freaking memorable. They are books I will remember for years to come and that I have found myself wholeheartedly recommending to and fro and will most definitely read again in the future.

Dire quasi la stessa cosa - Umberto Eco

My good friend Alessandra gave me this book as a present because of the many conversations we've had as multi-languaged cats that we are. This is a long-ass essay on translation. Umberto Eco analyses the art of translating books through the translations he's done himself or the ones of his books (most importantly, the ones for The name of the rose).

To translation- & languages-aficionados like yours truly, this is a real gem. It is pretty dense but I found myself enjoying it deeply and devouring it in a few days only. The fact that he analyses texts and translations in all the languages I speak gave me the possibility to understand 100% of the concepts and nuances, and even found some translations in Catalan (a lot of them, actually!).

I learnt a lot from this book. I have been translating stuff, non-professionally, for as long as I can remember, for all contexts (professional, songs, helping friends, etc.), and I think I might've gotten it wrong a lot of the times precisely because I've never studied the theory. However, I also think I nailed it when I went out of the traditional way of translating and I was reinventing the texts I was working on.

Dear Ijeawele, or a feminist manifesto in fifteen suggestions

This is one of the most eye-opening books I've ever read. In just 65 pages, the author writes a manifesto as an answer to a letter she received from a friend, asking how she should raise her child as a feminist.

Classy, direct, funny, challenging and blunt at times, I think this is a must read for everyone wanting to raise their children as feminists, and, quite frankly, for everyone who wants to make this world a better place to live in.

The ocean at the end of the lane - Neil Gaiman

I am not good at externalising my feelings, but I cried at the end of this book as if there was no tomorrow. The sheer beauty of this novel, by one of my favourite writers out there, Neil Gaiman, brings you into a beautiful and magical world where this story takes place.

Undoubtedly, this is my favourite Gaiman book so far because of the combination of beauty, length, rhythm, visuals, characters and story, overall. I don't know if I cried because of the story or because the book was ending. Or both.

I will most definitely read this book many times throughout my life.

Lemmy, White line fever - Lemmy

For context, Mot��rhead have always been one of my favourite bands. Yet, I never got to see them live, and circa five years ago, Lemmy died and left us orphans of a myth, a symbol, a legend.

This is an autobiography of the history of Mot��rhead, the legendary rock 'n roll band that inspired most of the rock/punk/metal bands we listen to nowadays. It is an open-hearted recount of what happened and how it happened, brutally honest and dry as fuck: the way they used to play.

If you like music, this is absolutely indispensable: there are stories from when he used to be the roadie of Jimi Hendrix, to the latest Mot��rhead albums, without excluding the worst times, their experiences with drugs and other stories hard to believe.

Barcelona startup - Mar Galt��s

I have been involved with the Barcelona startup ecosystem for about ten years now. A couple of years before I started my company, MarsBased, I started attending events and learning from startups with a lot of enthusiasm.

Soon enough, knee-deep into my own entrepreneurial adventure, I've learnt more and more as time has gone by. However, if there is one person who has been around for long enough to narrate what's been going on in the ecosystem, that person is Mar Galt��s.

Mar worked for one of the largest newspapers, La Vanguardia, for well over twenty years, covering business and startups, and she's interviewed and written about virtually every single company in Barcelona.

What I loved about this book is how back it goes and how well it flows, describing the evolution of the Barcelona startup ecosystem through the different phases, waves and their protagonists. A must read, if you're in Barcelona and want to learn about the origins of our ecosystem.

Also, I want to thank Mar for including me in the book. That was a huge pleasant surprise!

Chernobyl prayer: a chronicle of the future - Svetlana Alexievich

This book recounts the story of the Chernobyl disaster: how it happened, and most importantly, what happened after.

A brilliant depiction of what followed one of the largest man-made catastrophes of history is a heart-breaking compilation of individual stories, with names and surnames, embroidered with exquisite detail.

Far from trying to be a sensationalist recollection of this chapter of European history, the book is written to inform with the precision of a surgeon and the objectivity of a journalist.

Growing up in the 90s, I remember seeing those scenes of horror in TV, and, of course, I have always been familiar with what happened, but I never learn beyond what was taught to us in school.

Be warned: this book is not for the faint of heart, as it describes many times very vividly the effects of radiation.

It's about damn time - Arlan Hamilton

To say that Arlan's story is inspirational it would be a huge understatement.

Starting out sharing motel rooms with her mom and then becoming homeless for a while, Arlan bounced back with determination, hustle and sheer willpower to change the course of her life and those of many others.

Now, Arlan is a well-known venture capitalist at her own firm, Backstage Capital, helping underrepresented communities to get access to venture capital.

The whole book is a marvel to read, and Arlan's sort of punk-ish attitude as an underdog that is disrupting a traditionally conservative sector such as VC definitely resonated with me. I also appreciated the connections with the music scene and Arlan's previous spells working with bands and musicians, hence the moniker of her VC firm.

If you think you have what it takes to go out there and eat the world, you should definitely read this book.

Disrupted: my misadventure in the start-up bubble - Dan Lyons

What I thought it would be a fun book about a 50-year-old guy going to work for Hubspot turned out to be a harsh critique about the tech bros culture that festers in the startup scenes around the world. Coincidentally, that is what Dan Lyons thought, too. He wanted to write a book about his adventure as a boomer going into a millennial-driven company, but reality had other plans for him.

Fun at times, but mostly harsh, raw and poignant as the story unfolds, this book is a perfect example of everything that's gone wrong in startup scenes. Kudos to Dan for speaking up, even though he's had an enormous amount of shit coming his way for having made this story public.

Pyramids - Terry Pratchett

Let's change register here.

Terry Pratchett, mostly renowned for his grand opera Discworld, wrote a fucktonne of books during his life. Of course, some are better and some are worse, but I never came around to reading them all.

Experts on the subject recommended me to read a few of them in my teens, and while I enjoyed most of them, I never grew an interest to read the rest. Also, most people will read the two or three most famous ones and that's it (usually, Guards! Guards and Mort). But I have never gotten anyone to recommend Pyramids.

This is by far my favourite Discworld book. The underlying social critique to working-class ethics, monarchies and other dubious instruments of power, religion and whatnot makes this book not only fun to read, but it constitutes a sledgehammer thrown into the glass ceiling of establishment.

This book should be mandatory in schools.

Reaper man - Terry Pratchett

Reaper man follows the Death storyline of Discworld, and it tells about the very own Grim Reaper taking time off his/her/its normal job, thus causing a breach in reality because even though people don't stop dying, well, they're not properly being taken care of. I won't spoil you the rest.

I loved how well this book is conceived and executed, very much like Mort is, but I found the story of Bill Door fantastic and wished there was no end to it. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, and damn fun too.

Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow - Yuval Noah Harari

Back to serious business, Homo Deus is the follow-up book to Sapiens. I had read Sapiens in 2019 and loved every bit of it, but as the saying goes, second parts are never great.

In this case, I beg to differ. Even though I was quite sceptical about this book for 1) being a second part and 2) it sort of hinted that we need more religion in our lives, the book proved me wrong in all the ways and more and managed to make me love it more than its predecessor.

Funnily enough, the book starts ranting about how we're going to be facing pandemics every now and then as a result of the hyper-connected society we're living in, and as I was reading it, I was connecting it to what we've been living throughout 2020 altogether.

This book is brilliant and provides food for thought for years.

Do what you want: the story of Bad Religion - Jim Ruland

If Mot��rhead have always been an example of the bad guys in the music business, for their fuck-all attitude, their raw sound, their fast and aggressive music and lyrics and their vertiginous lifestyle, ridden with sex, drugs and other vices, Bad Religion have been sort of the other way around. While all punk rockers used to do drugs and be angry about society, Bad Religion provided a sort of intellectual approach to social critique through fast and aggressive music, well peppered with catchy choruses and memorable melodies.

This book recounts the 40 years of the iconic punk band Bad Religion and their comings and goings in the music scene.

Other bands have been more open about their personal situations and their lifestyles, but Bad Religion have pretty much consistently avoided putting their personal stuff under the spotlight. That's why this book is so special: it contains a lot of personal stuff, a surprising amount of drugs and addictions, lots of struggle and most of all, how to combine being the hottest punk band in the world with every member having their own life and business going on.

Good booksThe five dysfunctions of a team - Patrick Lencioni

Patrick Lencioni's books are always a breeze of fresh air. He manages to explain business concepts in fictional novels. In this case, leadership and management are dissected in this book telling the tale of a new CEO taking over a company outside of her sector and how she deals with the situation from every team member's perspective. Lightweight and easy to read and well interesting nonetheless.

The man in the brown suit - Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is a must for me. Every year, I need to re-read one of her books, at least. This is one of my favourite Agatha Christie books, and I had entirely forgotten most of the plot and the ending, so it almost came as a new book to me. What a great story!

Hired: six months undercover in low-wage Britain - James Bloodworth

This is a very good book that goes into the trenches of politics in technology. James goes undercover in a few companies like Amazon and Uber to unveil the underlying misery rooted in these ubercapitalist companies exploiting lower classes all over the planet.

While it might be a tad sensationalist for those who aren't interested in this subject, I found it a very interesting perspective in the form of a social experiment. The tech dystopia won't happen because companies won't save us from governments, it'll happen because governments won't be able to catch up with the tech giants.

The myth of meritocracy: why working-class kids still get working-class jobs - James Bloodworth

Following on the above, I dug deeper into James' work and found this small gem. Utterly recommended if you are cognisant of this struggle most people suffer from, and if you're not, you should read it too, because how the fuck else are we going to stop this gatekeeping if we don't spread the word?

Norse mythology - Neil Gaiman

After reading The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, I decided to devour all of Neil's works, because I totally loved that book. I started with Norse Mythology, without knowing what was it about - I mean, without knowing whether it was a fictional novel or just him explaining Nordic mythology. It turned out to be Neil's vision of the Nordic mythology, explaining the different tales in his own way, as he'd like to pass them down, and I found this very beautiful.

Loved this book from beginning to end: the pace, the characters, Neil's touch, the feelings arousing from the stories and the stories themselves. This book is fantastic, and maybe I should've placed it in the first category, but didn't want to overstuff it.

American gods - Neil Gaiman

After reading Norse Mythology, I decided to go for Gaiman's masterwork, American Gods. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it brilliantly written from beginning to end. I perhaps found it a wee bit too long and I remember struggling to see it finishing towards the end of the book, but would wholeheartedly recommend it nonetheless.

American Gods is a depiction of what happens when people stop believing in old gods and create new ones, like technology, money or fame. Shadow, an ex-convict, will have to face a brutal adventure in his new life after prison meeting the requests of all sorts of godlike folk.

Small gods - Terry Pratchett

Coincidentally, right after Neil Gaiman's, I read Terry Pratchett's own version of this god-transformation phenomenon. Although from a very different perspective, I found it amusing how two friends decided to write about the same topic - on purpose or not, I won't know, I guess - but this one is a classic Pratchett's satire picking on religions on the imaginary world of Discworld.

One of the most well-rounded Pratchett's works, I reckon. Definitely in my top ten books of Discworld.

Paprika - Yasutaka Tsutsui

Every now and then, I like to spice things up and go well beyond my literary realms and read something unexpected of me.

In this case, it's not the first Tsutsui book I read, and I must admit I am liking them.

This is a fictional novel about lab experiments on dream control in a Japanese dystopian society. The concept of dream-analysis and of dream-manipulation stimulates my brain so much that I want to read every book about it, and this proved to be a good investment. While it goes a bit out of hand towards the end and found it hard to relate to, the entire book is a solid read with all the characteristics of a very well-rounded book.

How to - Randall Munroe

Randall Munroe is the man behind the (in)famous xkcd webcomic. Last year, I had read What if? and truly loved every bit of it, and if I am not mistaken, I rated it as one of my favourite books of 2019.

This is a sort of continuation of the book, giving absurdly exaggerated scientific instructions to carry out very simple and mundane things like digging a hole or jumping. I mean, I can't come up with a better explanation. If you love absurd and overly exaggerated humour peppered with extremely unnecessary scientific demonstrations, this is for you.

Definitely, a good book between dense works to take a breather.

Flowers of evil - Charles Baudelaire

I had read this book in my teens and wanted to review it in its original language. I have been taking French lessons this year, and I wanted to test myself, so I read it in original version with the English translation next to it.

To think that this book was banned and censored many times, thus almost not making it to being published, makes me shiver. We would've lost a brilliant piece of art, disrupting many of the established thoughts and beliefs of Baudelaire's times and beyond. Drugs, sex, Satan and other seemingly incorrect things are being discussed in poems of endless beauty, and I especially enjoyed it this time because I could understand about 80% of the original texts.

Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett

Arguably, Pratchett's most famous book, if I don't err. For many many years, my favourite too, but I hadn't read as many as I have now, so it's dropped off the top of the list, but not much. Guards! Guards! still remains one of the classics and my all-time favourites because it features, well, the guards, which are some of my favourite characters in the Discworld universe and some of the best plots of his entire works.

A very good book to start in the Discworld odyssey, if you've never read one.

Moving pictures - Terry Pratchett

I went on a Discworld spree, this past year. I needed to take my mind away from the real world from time to time to stop being overwhelmed with the whole pandemic and the struggle out there. Luckily for me, all of them have been fantastic, so I kept reading.

Moving pictures is a harsh critique/satire of Holywood and the entire cinema and film-stardom industry. Probably, one of the most obvious social critiques in Pratchett's works, as they're normally disguised or not so blatantly obvious, but this one goes all-out against Holywood. Based on the Wizards storyline, this features a whole bunch of unusual characters that will be missed in the following books, as I think that all of the characters in this book could have a book of their own.

Paradoxically, this is a book where Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler gets to be on the spotlight, and it turns out to be a very interesting character after all!

Witches abroad - Terry Pratchett

While I've never been a fan of the witches storyline, I totally loved this book. Finally, I've been able to enjoy the witches as characters, after reading many of their books. I've always found their stories devoid of any sort of plot or interest, while keeping the dialogues interesting, but it just doesn't cut it for me.

This book provides a good mix of all and was hands down a very good read for the warm days of summer.

Lab rats: how Silicon Valley made work miserable for the rest of us - Dan Lyons

Lab rats is the follow-up to Disrupted, a book I've mentioned further up in this post.

Dan Lyons goes on with his well-founded rant against the giants in the tech industry and how they're trampling every sort of moral value and social rule out there to bag bigger profits at the end of the year and to outgrow their competition at all costs��� and how this all will backfire at us as society.

The people vs. tech: How the internet is killing democracy (and how we save it) - Jamie Bartlett

Same as the previous one, another interesting take at how technology is disrupting our moral values and how we will see the quality of democracy perish as tech giants meddle with our communications, advertisement and, most of all, privacy (or lack thereof).

Not too convinced about Jamie's suggestions as to how to save democracy, but at least he offers some potential solutions while all other authors out there are just lazy whistleblowers jumping on the cool bandwagon of dissing tech as evil.

Meh booksGive and take - Adam Grant

Good analysis of the actors in a business ecosystem classifying them as givers, takers and matchers, but not much beyond that. This book should've been a blog post.

Essentialism - Greg McKeown

Being into essentialism and minimalism myself, I found this book too entry-level for me. Generally, a good book, but too much chaff, which sort of contradicts its purpose. Should've been half its length.

Pax - Sara Pennypacker

Read my first book in French this year. It's a good children's book, so I guess I enjoyed it more for the fact that I can actually read books in French than for its story.

Avoid theseEl co��o de la Bernarda es declarado patrimonio de la humanidad - El Mundo Today

It's a compilation of some of the most famous news of this satyrical news portal in Spain, but there's nothing more. I thought there'd be a bit of history of the company/project or notes by the authors/founders, but no.

The startup community way: evolving an entrepreneurial ecosystem (Techstars) - Brad Feld

After having read and worshipped all his books, I found this one to be extremely delusional. A huge let-down, as it feels like he's taken bits of his previous books, refried them, and mashed them up together in a new book.

Also, Brad, it's 2020: we know about Boulder already.

Won't reviewThink Video - Several authors

Present from a friend. Since I might be extremely biased here, I won't review it publicly.

Alright! This is everything from my side! Took a while longer than expected to write this one, so apologies for the delay ��������

I'm pledging to read 34 books this year, as it matches my age, and will continue to do so until whenever possible (or until I burn out from so much reading!)

Now Playing: Children of Bodom - Bed of Razors

What up! It's been a pandemic since I last updated this, so I've got a lot of stuff to update you on.

Current location & travels

Guess what? Still stuck at home.

It's been three months since my last update. It was around early March, when the COVID-19 pandemic was breaking out on a global scale, and we had been just called into lockdoen in Barcelona. We didn't know how long was this gonna last for.

Of course, many of my plans went right into the rubbish can, but I'm happy to say that this is way better now than what we've been through, and I want to send a big shoutout to the families of the affected. Fortunately, I haven't had any close case, but I know others who haven't been so lucky. We're in this together.

I started in 2020 with the intention of travelling less, as during 2018 and 2019 I had travelled over 50% of my time. That is A LOT. In fact, before we were shut into lockdown, I had only flown to the US for the annual Startup Grind Global Conference, in Redwood City, California. In regular years, between January and February I would've done at least three different trips, but I didn't know what the future had in store for me, or for the whole planet, for that matter.

Other unfortunate consequences of the pandemic is that a few of my friends have had to postpone their weddings. I had a couple in Italy, and the most important one for me, one of my best friends, Diego, was getting married in M��xico. Last year, I was supposed to visit M��xico, but he told me "hold it off till next year, so you can come for the wedding and then travel around". I guess I will have to wait for another year, to visit M��xico!

I was also supposed to visit my sister in Holland, on my way up to Inferno Metal Festival, but that got postponed too, and like a lot of things, it'll have to wait too.

For now, I have no clue about what I'll do this summer. Last week, I spent a long weekend in an airbnb outside of Barcelona, with pool and barbecue, and we spent a couple of days at the beach, and it felt fantastic. I wouldn't say I recharged my batteries completely, but it felt good for a change to switch context, house, meals, etc.

Goals

I wrote this post at the beginning of the year to track me, to see if I'm doing well at building habits and following them, and the truth is that 2020 will be an odd year.

I seem to be very consistent and disciplined when I am on my own, either at home or travelling, but when other people are around, my habits don't rank too well in my priorities list.

For instance, I kicked off the year pretty well during the Xmas break and the first month, hitting my goals pretty much every day, but February was the opposite: first I spent two weeks in the US for the conference and then doing business, so I pretty much missed all of my goals for two weeks straight, and when I came back to Barcelona, I had friends visiting for the other two weeks of the month, so I failed miserably at habits.

The lockdown has been great for my habits, as I have almost nailed ALL OF THEM for three months straight, but as the opportunities for meeting people opened up, I've been back to an irregular schedule again. I guess the main thing is that I know I can follow them but I also don't want to be a slave of my habits.

Side projects & interests

2019 wasn't a great year for side projects. I have literally spent 0 minutes in side projects, as I've been more focused on getting habits right and writing my first book.

In general terms, I am getting more and more into investing and M&A. This is because I am doing business development for my company, so I get to know a lot of people and therefore a lot of deals. One of my goals this year is to grow my network of investors, brokers and companies that normally acquire startups, and cultivate a good relationship with them.

This way, I will not only find out about interesting deals for me to invest, as far as startups are concerned, but I will be able to help my clients at MarsBased, our partners and also the Startup Grind Barcelona community, including our sponsors and providers as well.

So far, I have invested in Kantox, Consentio, Mailtrack, Hireflix, Globatalent, Vocdoni, Upstock and four other companies. I plan to become a full-time investor someday!

If you've got an interesting project, let's talk. I'd love to help out, even though my maximum ticket is 5k euro. I like helping the startups I invest in by giving them clients through my personal network.

As for non-work side projects, I'd love to start a band this year. I've had a bunch during all these years, but I feel like I've never committed 100% to any of them. I also want to be as fluent as possible in Greek by the end of the year and improve my German.

What am I working on?

At MarsBased, since we're always booked up for the next four to six months, I am working to get us more press and to get to speak in bigger events and podcasts this year, whilst growing the company on the content side.

Since the company is really stable on sales, I can concentrate on enabling the rest of our company to do their best. I am also getting some consulting projects, which allow me to bring extra money into the company.

As for Startup Grind Barcelona, we have been forced to cancel our annual conference and to move our monthly events to online. Sucks, but people before business.

Last, but not least, I will be promoting a bit more my first book. Here you can find it on Amazon here.

Food, drinks and such

In 2019 I've overeaten in excess. Indulging in too many social events and celebrations, I've really missed any regularity in healthy eating habits and I've gone up to 90kgs, my maximum weight ever, for the second time in my life. This time, however, I'm much more in shape, as I've built up a considerable increase of muscular mass.

Since I didn't take any action to correct course in 2019, I will have to do it this year. I've already done some change in mentality and taken the first actions.

Last year, I didn't do as much cardio as I used to do (mostly running) and have done more weight-lifting, and I think this has played a role in the change of my body shape. That, and beer.

Like in the previous years, I am getting more and more into sub-genres of Black Metal. I was always a Black Metal person, but now I'm pretty hooked on Depressive Black Metal and Raw Black Metal. It's a kind of music I don't get tired of.

Random trivia

I'm on a 33-book reading challenge on Goodreads. I do this every year to force myself to read outside of the computer screen. I do read on my Kindle, though, as I only like paper books for decoration purposes. I find them uncomfortable to read in bed.

Last year, I read 33 out of 32 books. I am trying to read my age in books every year. It'll be a challenge, but for when it becomes ridiculously difficult, I plan to work less and have more time to read.

In 2019, I only got one tattoo. I want to resume this year, and get, first and foremost, a David Bowie tattoo. It'll be the German chorus of Heroes.

If you know me, you know that I am a huge music fan, and I can't conceive my life without music. I'd say I listen to music to most of the time I'm awake. I also go to one or two concerts per week. I like to contribute to the concert-goers scene by submitting the setlists of the concerts I attend to Setlist.fm.

After enjoying A LOT giving another run to the classic Pok��mon Red, one of the first Game Boy games I ever played, I decided to do the same with the second generation of the saga.

Full disclosure: Pok��mon wisdom level OVER 9000.

I've recently re-played Pok��mon Red and I blogged about it, journal-style.

I thoroughly enjoyed going down memory lane, so I decided to do the same with the follow-up. For Gen I, I played Red, and that's why I chose it this time around, but for Gen 2, I decided to play Crystal, because it's sort of an enhanced version of Gold/Silver (equivalent of Yellow for this generation). I remember I bought Gold, back in the day, but wanted to try Crystal, as it has some slight twists in the adventure and the creatures available.

Let's go!

Day one: Getting off the ground

One of the things I remember about this game is that it was the first generation to introduce shiny Pok��mon (even though they were hidden in Gen 1). So the initial part of the game of fetching the Egg from Dr. Elm and whatnot feels eternal, as you don't have any Pok��balls yet you're encountering wild 'mons. In a way, you're praying to avoid encountering any shiny species, as you wouldn't be able to catch them.

I don't remember much my team from Pok��mon Gold, as I remembered my team from Pok��mon Red. All I remember was that I picked Totodile as a starter and that I had a Hoppip and a Mareep in my team, but that's right about it. Even though I played it a lot, it was just a fraction of the hours I played Red.

So this time around, I decided to build a team around the fire starter: Cyndaquil. For that, I wanted to use Lapras as a water Pok��mon, but normally water species, in most games, are difficult to find until mid-game. The fact that Poliwag is available right after the first/second town made me decide against this funny guy. Also, I've never played the Poli family and they're fast and strong enough (and Poliwrath is double-type Water and Fighting, so it'll be interesting to try this one).

Next up, I wanted a sweeper. I remember Heracross being one of my favourite 'mons and I never got around to play it, but you don't get it until before Elite Four, so fuck that. I considered Tauros, since you get it at a relatively-early point in the game, but then I found that Phanpy is also found between the first two towns, just that it only appears in the morning. Since I'm playing at night, it'll require waking up early tomorrow to catch it.

Team:

Cyndaquil: Level 11 (Tackle, Leer, Smokescreen) Poliwag: Level 7 (Bubble, Hypnosis)Day two: Half a team already!

Woke up early to catch a Phanpy. The first time I got one, it fled right away, so I decided to put him to sleep using Poliwag, so at the second attempt, I managed to catch it. Levelling it up has been quite a pain in the arse, as it came at level 2, and tackle is one of the worst attacks in the game.

I managed to bring Phanpy up to an acceptable level by beating wild 'mons and a few trainers, and then I proceeded to sweep the Sprout Tower, the first Gym (it was so easy that I think I didn't even notice it - I was taking a call while playing), Union Cave a couple of areas and then the Slowpoke Well.

As for the next members in my roster, I refused to get Nidoking and Fearow this time around, not because i didn't like themm, but because I played them in red already and wanted to choose something else. They're great, and Nidoking is especially fun. Fearow is just convenient but pretty dull to be honest.

I also discarded the idea of having a grass type in the team. Bellsprout didn't seem much fun, and since I've got Poliwag, I've got enough Gen 1 on my team already. I also don't like grass types that much. They're pretty slow and rely too much on condition-altering moves, so I've decided to skip Poison, Grass and Flying types for this game. I'll use a Tauros, instead, just for the fun.

I decided to stop right before the second gym, with the following team:

Quilava: Level 17 (Tackle, Leer, Smokescreen, Ember) Poliwag: Level 16 (Bubble, Hypnosis, Water gun) Phanpy: Level 14 (Tackle, Growl, Defense curl)Day three: Hatching & catching eggs

Change of strategy. Seeing that Tauros and Donphan have a terrible moveset in the game, I decided to just keep one of them: Donphan (mostly because it's Gen 2 and because I already have Phanpy, but its moveset is really appalling!).

I decided to ditch the bull Pok��mon and get grass into the game with Exeggutor. I have never played this one, and the fact that I'm pretty close to getting it very early in the game, makes it an interesting choice. I know I'll have two Psychics in the team, but it'll compensate all the games in which I haven't had a single psychic type around.

So, back to the adventure, the gym was a walk in the park, with Quilava burning through all the battles. After that, Togepi hatched, so I had to go back to Elm, not without first grabbing HM01 Cut, so I could travel a bit faster and reach a few unobtainable items otherwise.

On the way back, I almost got tempted of getting a Bellsprout or a Sandshrew in the team, but decided against it both times. I really like to have my team complete as early as possible to stop worrying about the level difference every time a new 'mon joins the ranks.

Anyways, I didn't remember the trip back was just to get an Everstone. Else, I wouldn't have done it (but maybe it would've prevented me to progress? dunno) so back into the Ilex Forest, I cleared it up easily and managed to catch a few species I didn't have like Oddish, Caterpie, Weedle and Venonat - in case there's something like in Gen 1 requiring you to have a certain number of capture species to obtain special items like the Itemfinder or the Exp. All.

After the forest, I could almost see the remaining three members of my team. Actually, the first one of them came really fast. The first headbutt on a tree gave me the egg Pok��mon, so it was an easy catch (they show up asleep). After that, got the bike so I could hatch the odd egg faster and saved the game.

I want an Elekid because that's the electric type I wanna play in this game. I have never played Electabuzz, and it usually is a species you get well late into the game, so it's worth spending a few soft resets - all the more reason if they can hatch shiny!

My first attempt resulted in a Tyrogue, so I decided to soft reset.

Anyways, before venturing any further, I finished the day with:

Quilava: Level 19 (Tackle, Leer, Smokescreen, Ember) Poliwag: Level 19 (Bubble, Hypnosis, Water gun, Doubleslap) Phanpy: Level 17 (Tackle, Flail, Defense curl, Mud slap) Togepi: Level 5 (Growl, Flash, Headbutt, Charm) Sandshrew: Level 5 (Scratch, Defense curl, Cut) Exeggcute: Level 10 (Barrage, Hypnosis, Reflect)Day whatever: Still hatching eggs

After 2 Tyrogues, 4 Cleffas, 3 Pichus, one Magby, one shiny Iglybuff and two Smoochums, I managed to get my first Elekid. I haven't been as lucky as to get a shiny one, but I'm pretty happy at the possibility of playing Electabuzz for the first time ever.

I've played a couple of hours to train Elekid, and it's a good pain in the ass until it learns Thunderpunch at level 9. After that, it can slay Pidgeys and Spearows easily and get through pretty much anything. I suspect I'm still a long ways to go to level it up until level 18-19 where the others are at, but it'll be worse to do it with Exeggcute.

My team is right now:

Quilava: Level 20 (Tackle, Leer, Smokescreen, Ember) Poliwag: Level 20 (Bubble, Hypnosis, Water gun, Doubleslap) Phanpy: Level 18 (Tackle, Flail, Defense curl, Mud slap) Elekid: Level 13 (Quick attack, Leer, Dizzy punch, Thunderpunch) Sandshrew: Level 6 (Scratch, Defense curl, Cut) Exeggcute: Level 10 (Barrage, Hypnosis, Reflect)Day five? : Just training

Spent a day training a bit to level up the team so I the weakest team members aren't left behind. Elekid is pretty fast to level up, once you get Thunderpunch, but Exeggcute is a pain in the ass. Barrage is an awful move, and on top of that, it misses too much and does not get STAB. Would be nice to have a grass-type attack. I believe Oddish gets Absorb pretty early and Bellsprout starts off with Vine Whip.

At least, its defense is good enough, and once it reaches level 13, Leech Seed gets you to heal during battle.

Because I want to speed-run to get Eevee, I needed to defeat the Normal gym leader first, to get past Sudowoodo. The gym was pretty easy, with Exeggcute putting everyone to sleep and leech-seeding them whilst ploughing through with Elekid. Even Miltank proved to be easy with this combination.

Once defeated, I got the Squirtbottle for the next day. Off to sleep.

Right now, I've got:

Quilava: Level 20 (Tackle, Leer, Smokescreen, Ember) Poliwag: Level 20 (Bubble, Hypnosis, Water gun, Doubleslap) Phanpy: Level 19 (Tackle, Flail, Defense curl, Mud slap) Elekid: Level 19 (Quick attack, Light screen, Dizzy punch, Thunderpunch) Sandshrew: Level 6 (Scratch, Defense curl, Cut) Exeggcute: Level 15 (Barrage, Hypnosis, Reflect, Leech seed)Day six: Team is complete!

I've begun the day marching off to get Eevee, and to my surprise, it came at level 20, so no need for special training. I thought it'd come at level 15 or so. I also caught Sudowoodo on the way to get Eevee, which also comes at level 20, but since I'm playing Donphan - despite it's appalling moveset - I see no reason to include a pure Rock type in the team. I also played it the first time around for a good part of the game, so no novelty here.

Right after that, I've spent a few bucks buying the elemental punches for Elekid at Goldenrod's big store, and Heatbutt for Eevee (spent the free TM on Togepi early on). Also, on the way up north, got Rollout, which is a game-changer for Exeggcute. Whereas before it was a pretty useless attacker and had to rely on Leech seed + Hypnosis combo, Rollout kicks major asses.

After wiping out all the trainers in the three routes connecting Goldenrod and the next town (can't be arsed to check the name), I ended up the day with this team (looking good!):

Quilava: Level 20 (Tackle, Dig, Smokescreen, Ember) - Item: Charcoal Poliwag: Level 21 (Bubble, Hypnosis, Water gun, Doubleslap) - Item: Berry Phanpy: Level 20 (Tackle, Flail, Rock smash, Mud slap) - Item: Berry Elekid: Level 19 (Fire punch, Ice punch, Dizzy punch, Thunderpunch) - Item: Berry Eevee: Level 20 (Tackle, Headbutt, Sand-attack, Growl) - Item: Berry Exeggcute: Level 15 (Barrage, Hypnosis, Reflect, Leech seed) - Item: Quick clawDay seven: Morty

The Ghost gym was pretty fun. I always loved Ghost types but never played any.

In Generation I, Ghost types plainly sucked. Not only do they not get powerful Ghost-type attacks (Night shade is a fixed-number attack to 20 or 40HP, can't remember now) and the other one is Lick, which is great to inflict paralysis, by doesn't do much damage. Also, you can only get Gastly in Lavender Town, and it's a bit far into the game. Moreover, Ghosts are weak to Psychic in Gen I, so we if take into consideration that the Gastly family is double-type Ghost + Poison, that makes it 4x weak to Psychic. That's dramatic.

If all of that wasn't enough, the fact that Gengar is only obtained through trading makes it even more useless to play a Ghost-type in Gen I.

In Gen 2 you can get a Gastly right away in the first town if you're playing Crystal, but again, Haunted will only evolved while traded, so what's the point? And the other Ghost-type in this game, if I am not mistaken, is Misdreavus, which you get towards the end of the game, so - again - not worth it.

But I digress. The Ghost-type gym was fun because I trolled them immensely with Eevee. I started all the fights with Eevee to sand-attack the most first opponents and then switch over to Exeggcute and Rollout the shit out of everyone. Quilava made a good job too with Dig, as most opponents are dual-type Poison anyways.

The final fight wasn't trivial. His first two 'mons we're rather easy, but Gengar is a monster. Gengar is faster than most of your team at this point (it's stage-two evolution), hits hard - really hard - with Shadow Ball due to STAB, is a level 25 (five levels above all my team) and can put you to sleep AND heal itself with Hypnosis + Dream Eater combo. A true beast.

I managed to get its accuracy down to almost zero with Eevee, but it Mean Look'd me so I couldn't switch over to anyone else. At this point, it was pretty tedious because Gengar was missing most of its attacks. Eventually, it took my Eeevee out and I took Gengar out with Quilava instead.

Another good thing I did was teach Exeggcute Rollout. Putting opponents to sleep with Hypnosis, then using Leech Seed to heal a bit and Rollout is a great combo. Even more so if it's holding Quick Claw, as that might ensure hitting first than the opponent. If levelling up Exeggcute between level 10 and 15 was a pain in the ass, now it's a real joy. Even more so after it learns Confusion, the first Phychic-type attack on this team!

After defeating this gym, you're able to use HM03 Surf, which is obtained after defeating the dancing kimono girls in a building nearby.

Surf is not only a great attack, which will be very useful on Poliwag, but it also opens the possibility to go backwards in the game to get items you couldn't have access to. I went back to the first town, and then did all the way up to this point to get a couple of Rare Candys, Soft Sand (good for Phanpy), a couple of HP UP/PP UP, Mystic Water (good for Poliwag) some berries and whatnot.

I decided not to venture any further and leave stuff for the weekend.

Team status:

Quilava: Level 23 (Quick attack, Dig, Smokescreen, Ember) - Item: Charcoal Poliwag: Level 22 (Surf, Hypnosis, Water gun, Doubleslap) - Item: Mystic water Phanpy: Level 22 (Tackle, Flail, Rock smash, Mud slap) - Item: Soft sand Elekid: Level 22 (Fire punch, Ice punch, Dizzy punch, Thunderpunch) - Item: Berry Eevee: Level 24 (Quick attack, Headbutt, Sand-attack, Shadow ball) - Item: Poisoncureberry Exeggcute: Level 21 (Confusion, Hypnosis, Rollout, Leech seed) - Item: Quick clawDay eight: Surfing to fetch the medicine

Moving on to the next routes, there are quite a few trainers to take down. It's been great to train up my team before hitting Olivine.

In Olivine, the gym leader is not there because of the sick Ampharos plot, which requires you to fly to Cyanwood City by surfing. Levelled up almost ten levels with Elekid and a few more for Exeggcute. It's pretty annoying when you get poisoned by Tentacool's and Tentacruel's Poison sting, but we managed to make it to the other side of the sea.

Lo and behold, Suicune was awaiting on the side of the shore. This is one of the plot twists from the Gold/Silver versions, but you don't get to battle. Instead, you battle its hardcore fan whose name I can't remember. Easy battle.

After that, I decided to beat the local gym, almost single-handedly wiped out with Exeggcute, but Poliwrath managed to put me to sleep, and almost wiped out the rest of my team. Elekid had to come to the rescue and Thunder punch it to oblivion. Elekid then evolved into Electabuzz upon hitting level 30.

I then realised that Exeggcute doesn't evolve by levelling up, and googled how to get a Leaf Stone. Apparently, really late into the game unless the picknicker on route 34 finds one for you. I went back to her to get her number after getting HM02 Fly right after beating the gym, and suspected this would take AGES, but I got a call from her within five minutes. Went back to her and finally made my Exeggcute evolve.

Also got a haircut to Eevee to see if it can finally evolve, but I guess that'll take a while.

My team right now is, ready to face the Olivine City gym leader:

Quilava: Level 24 (Quick attack, Dig, Smokescreen, Ember) - Item: Charcoal Poliwag: Level 24 (Surf, Hypnosis, Water gun, Doubleslap) - Item: Mystic water Phanpy: Level 23 (Tackle, Flail, Rock smash, Mud slap) - Item: Soft sand Electabuzz: Level 30 (Fire punch, Ice punch, Dizzy punch, Thunderpunch) - Item: Berry Eevee: Level 27 (Quick attack, Headbutt, Sand-attack, Shadow ball) - Item: Poisoncureberry Exeggutor: Level 26 (Confusion, Hypnosis, Rollout, Leech seed) - Item: Quick claw

For six years, I have been running MarsBased and Startup Grind Barcelona at the same time. Even though they're both the same company, management-wise they are two separate companies: two teams, two bank accounts, two budgets, two different sectors, and so on.

People often ask me how am I able to spin so many plates - or, better, two big plates. Although I am fairly chaotic as a person, I must say that I have become a creature of habit and a fairly organised and disciplined person.

I hope this blog post answers many of all the questions I've been asked throughout the years!

A bit of context

MarsBased is my own company. We're 15 people, full-time, providing consulting services of web and mobile development to clients around the globe, but mostly in the US, UK and Spain. All of our profiles are developers apart from our office manager. We don't have an office, but we have an office manager.

Startup Grind Barcelona is the local branch of Startup Grind I lead in Barcelona. It's sort of a franchise, and we host monthly events and an annual conference for entrepreneurs and people in the tech scene. It's mostly volunteer-based - we have a team of 8 people, all volunteers - although we've got our Office Manager from MarsBased working on this project, too.

Even though Startup Grind Barcelona resides inside of MarsBased, I treat them as two separate companies, and it'll be easier for the reader to understand the whole situation by understanding it this way.

How do I do it? Keep reading!

Themed days

At the end of the day, MarsBased is my own gig and my own company, so most of my efforts need to be focused here. MarsBased gets 4 out of 5 days every week of my time and mental bandwidth.

Startup Grind is sort of a side project, and throughout the year, Startup Grind gets only one day per week of my time. In order to keep concerns separated, my weekly agenda looks like this:

Monday: Sales (MarsBased) Tuesday: Startup Grind Wednesday: Growth, Marketing & Communications (MarsBased) Thursday: Strategy (MarsBased) Friday: Hiring, Company Culture & Chores (MarsBased)

However, about three months every year, prior to our annual Startup Grind Conference (we organise one every May for circa 1000 people), I need to allocate more time for SG due to the sheer efforts required by an event of this size, so I change it to this:

Monday: Sales & Partnerships (MarsBased/SG) Tuesday: Startup Grind only Wednesday: Growth, Marketing & Communications (MarsBased/SG) Thursday: Strategy (MarsBased/SG) Friday: Hiring, Company Culture & Chores (MarsBased/SG)

To have themed days doesn't mean that I'm a taliban about this distribution. If something urgent comes up on Tuesday, not related to Startup Grind, requiring my attention, I will work on it. This is a plan to which I adhere 80-90% of the time. It's the rule, not the exception, and it gives me peace to know that my life is sorted this way.

That also helps me to plan. I know I only have one day to work on Startup Grind per week, so I never overbook me. If that happens, I tell other people affected by this decision "I cannot work on this until next week. Is it a problem if I get back to you by next Tuesday?" - 90% of the times, it works.

If you're familiar with Jack Dorsey's schedule, which allows him to run Twitter and Square at the same time, I drew a lot of inspiration from it. I'm not good at coming up with new things, but I'm great at adapting other people's ideas and improving them so they work for me!

But��� what do these categories mean? Let's break them down!

Monday: Sales & Partnerships

Following up with potential clients, partners and sales leads on Monday is a best practice overall. Everyone wants to catch up with a fresh view, well-rested from the weekend.

On any given Monday, I tend to work on the following:

Write a blog post for MarsBased: First thing in the morning. I get my best ideas when I'm well-rested, so while everyone catches up with reports and stuff after the weekend, I blog. It's useless to call people at 8-9am, while they're still catching up with everything going on in their companies. Follow up with emails I got over the weekend: We don't work on weekends, but a lot of people do. I will answer all these emails after I've written the blog, so they get a proper answer from me in due time. Work on sales leads: I then work properly in all the leads we've got on our sales pipeline. Usually between 15 and 20 at a time, but not more. That includes calling them, sending kind reminders, providing them with further documentation, signing off documents like NDAs or contracts and solving doubts for them. It usually takes most of my day. Same for Startup Grind sponsorships/partnerships: During conference times, I use this day for working on the sales pipeline of Startup Grind, too.Tuesday: Startup Grind

Running a Startup Grind chapter is not an easy task. Especially if you want to run a good one.

Over the years, we have become one of the top Startup Grind chapters out of the more than 600 we've got around the world. In fact, we were elected chapter of the year 2016, and been on the top 3-5 ever since in many categories.

During Tuesdays, I basically do the following:

Answer all Startup Grind emails: At most, you know I'm getting back to you on Tuesdays, if you email me to the Startup Grind email account. Work on partnerships/sponsorships: We send about 2-3 proposals to companies per week. Plan next events: We host at least one event per month, but we always have the next 3-4 months lined up to make our life easier. Wrap up past events: Sending thank you notes, invoicing sponsors, reporting to partners, sending snippets to press, paying expenses to our team, working on the feedback from the past event and whatnot. There's always a tonne of things to do. Work on the conference: To be able to work on it only the two-three months prior, we work a bit on it every week. This way, we spread our work throughout the year, and it definitely clears up the backlog to be able to focus on the most important things when it matters.Wednesdays: Growth, Marketing & Communications

Wednesdays are always exciting. As a marketing aficionado, I find myself doing my most creative work on Wednesdays. Experimental projects are also stuff for Wednesdays.

Traditionally, I used to write all of our MarsBased, Startup Digest and Startup Grind newsletters, but not anymore, hence the "communications" thing. I don't do them anymore, but I review them, or I still do internal communications. Usually, I update the MarsBased on stuff.

Let's see Wednesdays into more detail:

Account reporting: Between Monday and Tuesday I catch up with all of our clients, so on Wednesdays I process everything, digest it, and report to our team so they get feedback from the client, visibility for the upcoming months and so forth. Work on content: Whatever other content needing a bit of a push, Wednesday is a good day to work on it. That mostly includes our corporate website, our Handbook, our Playbook, presentations for events where I'm speaking, etc. Improve our SEO: Everything I know about SEO, I learnt on my own. I still do small tweaks here and there to our websites on a regular basis to try new stuff, and also to fix the bits I break with so many experiments. Review newsletters: My team runs the newsletters now, but I make sure to populate content for them or to review them before they get sent. Work on StartupsBCN: We have been curating an online community for entrepreneurs on Slack for five years now. Even though it doesn't require too much attention management-wise, it's good to keep improving it and adding cool features and content to keep it lively. Review websites: We've got a bunch of websites online, so on Wednesdays I update their content, audit them, fix bugs and whatnot.Thursdays: Strategy

Thursdays are always pretty diffuse days. I admit I almost never get to work on strategy because things accumulate from the previous days. However, an ideal Thursday would see me doing the following:

Review goals: I check our annual goals for both MarsBased and Startup Grind and see how we're performing, how far are we from meeting them and what can be done to get closer to them. I also eliminate goals that don't make sense and make new ones throughout the year. Review Google Analytics: I rarely ever do this anymore, but I used to do it a lot in the past, and get reports off Google Analytics. Review Google Search Console: This one I still check very often because it's fundamental if you want to have excellent SEO. I'm very passionate about organic SEO so I live inside Google Search Console. Take decisions: If I need to make decisions that I don't need to bounce off my partners at MarsBased (something small, quick marketing actions, or even Startup Grind things), I block a couple of hours and work on them. Prepare the weekly partners meeting: Every Friday, I have a quick call with my co-founders at MarsBased to review, discuss and take decisions on everything in the company. I prepare this meeting the day before to sleep on things.Fridays: Company culture, recruiting & chores

Fridays are casual days and pretty easy. I tend to work a bit more every day so I can work less on Friday. If I can, at 2-3pm I'll stop working on Fridays to have a longer weekend. I usually accumulate lots of small tasks from the previous days to plough through them on Friday. It's my "mechanical tasks day".

Reports: I write a minimum of 5 reports for my team every week. They help me to line up ideas in my head, keep everyone informed, take action on overdue stuff and report asynchronously. No useless "status update" meetings. Tidy up: I do a quick review of Google Drive and Basecamp to archive unused stuff. By doing a bit every week, it always looks organised and tidy. Don't let it accumulate. Send receipts to accounting: I collect all my expenses of the week and send them to administration on Friday in a single email. Small tasks & chores: As I said, accumulated stuff from the previous days gets dealt with on Fridays. Partners meeting: A one-hour meeting with my two MarsBased co-founders to walk through all the things in the company requiring our attention, but mostly sales opportunities, hiring and occasional fires. Review CVs: Although I'm not very active in the hiring process of MarsBased, I tend to receive CVs outside of the regular circuit through recommendation, so I like to review these ones. Everything related to company culture: Mostly it's either working on the Handbook/Playbook or reporting to the team on the cool stuff we do and how our company culture helps them to run the company. Review investment decks: Although it's not strictly work-related, I check all investment opportunities on Fridays. It takes me one or two hours tops and I tend to do it while having lunch.Saturdays and Sundays

Contrary to Jack Dorsey, I take both days off. Of course, my companies are not of the magnitude of his, but I believe in a strict balance between life and work.

However, I oftentimes like to gear up on Sunday evenings to prepare the week ahead, and this is something I wrote about on Give Yourself a Head Start on the Week by Gearing up on Sunday Evenings.

Final thoughts

You can't be 100% disciplined and follow the above strictly every week and every day. However, if you stick to them 90% of the times, you will build a habit.

The above is a result of four years following this recipe. I've iterated them many times and my daily planning has suffered many changes, but on the whole, they look pretty much like when I started following this strategy.

It is important to know that I had been constantly mixing things up and not respecting the schedules most of the time, then I wouldn't have built the habit.

For instance, if I cannot finish all the reports on Friday, I don't work on them on Monday, I just don't send them, and I try to cover two weeks in the next one. If I can't do all the stuff I wanted on Thursday, I postpone it till next Thursday. I am only allowed to cheat the system by sending small tasks to Friday, if they take bare minutes to complete them. I can't recall any big task being sent to Friday ever.

Of course, exceptions can be made, as long as they are exceptions. When exceptions become the rule, any and every system is broken.

Alright, that's it from me now! Hope you found this useful!

Now Playing: Judas Priest - Tyrant

Anyone who knows me is aware of the fact that I'm a huge Pok��mon fan. Although I only played the first two editions of the saga on the first Game Boy, I more or less kept in touch with the saga through other by-products like the Trading Card Game or at my friends' houses with their newer consoles.

Since we'll be spending a lot of time confined at home, I decided to buy a Nintendo 2DS XL and play through all the games in the saga, as I have recently reconnected with Pok��mon through Let's Go! Pikachu and Pok��mon Sword on Nintendo Switch. I enjoyed both games very much.

This article isn't intended to be a walkthrough, but it's mostly to keep the story to myself and to relate to my original game, which I remember fondly even to this day.

Full disclosure: Insane levels of nerdiness ahead.

A bit of context

Nostalgia struck me immediately when I switched on the game: the opening animations, the music, the sheer slowness of the classical Game Boy and the 8-bit artwork brought me back to when I was ten, and my dad brought me a Game Boy from Japan. I also received a copy of Pok��mon Red in English, which forced me to learn English at a faster pace than my classmates.

I can still remember by heart some facts from my first game:

I chose Bulbasaur as a starter. Before hitting the first gym, I got stuck in the game and spent countless hours training my Bulbasaur, so I beat Brock with a Venusaur level 34. I killed Zapdos and Articuno. Obviously, I hadn't saved first. I obviously used Masterball on Moltres. I loaded some of my critical 'mons with useless HMs like Cut and Flash. I had no clue what I was doing.

In fact, my first team, with which I beat the first Elite League was:

Venusaur: Solar Beam, Razor Leaf, Hyper Beam, Cut Raichu: Mega-kick, Thunder, Strength, Flash Raichu: Mega-punch, Thunderbolt, Body Slam, Swift Parasect: Cut, Dig, Solar Beam, Slash Dewgong: Surf, Ice Beam, Strength, Bubble Beam Dugtrio: Dig, Earthquake, Fissure, Slash

Then I captured Mewtwo (obviously taught him Strength, Psychic, Blizzard and Solar Beam or something stupid) and Moltres (with Fly, Sky Attack, Fire Blast and Take Down or Double Edge), replacing a Raichu and Parasect from my main team.

Clearly, I had no idea what I was doing.

Anyways, let me tell you how I've been reviving this old gem, now on my Nintendo 2DS XL.

Day one: Leaving Pallet Town

I still know the game by heart. God knows how many times I spent playing it, and how many times I've completed it after the first time (not without transferring all my 'Mons to Pok��mon Yellow).

The first thing I did, was to retrieve the Potion on the PC, before heading out to meet good old Oak.

I really wanted to pick Squirtle this time, as I've never chosen it as a starter, but decided to revive the full thing again. So I picked Bulbasaur.

The first battle with my rival was tough, and I won by a really small margin (with 1 or 2 HP left), and it made me think of how the evolution of the rival has been throughout the years.

In the first editions, your rival was always kind of mischievous, naughty and picked on you all the time. It was a proper rival. However, with the most recent generations, even with the remake Let's Go Pikachu/Eeevee the rival is extremely friendly and the best friend of your character, which kinda misses the point of a rival.

Anyways, knowing there's not much to do in Pallet Town, I headed up north, confronting my first hordes of Pidgeys and Rattatas (I didn't miss this part) and completed the task to get a Pok��dex as a reward.

This time, my gameplay is consisting of staying in an area until I catch all the different Pok��mon available in that area. In the meantime, I am training my team, because in this game, experience share wasn't activated by default (it was an item you collected somewhere down the road - and I thought it was useless, so I stored it in the PC in my first game).

This time, I decided to play with a team of mostly Pok��mon I can get in the first half of the game, so I devised this team:

Venusaur: Obviously, but with proper moves this time. Nidoking: Fully evolved at level 16, as soon as Mt. Moon and with an insane list of learnable attacks? Gimme that! Fearow: I wanted Dodrio, but comes too late in the game. Never played a Fearow, so it'll be interesting. Dugtrio: Since I can't trade, Golem is not an option. If I had the blue edition, I'd go with Sandslash, but it'll be Dugtrio again. Jolteon: Instead of two Raichus ���� Starmie: Gonna take a while to get this one, but one of the best 'Mons in this edition.

Before hitting the Green Forest, I decided to confront my rival again, not without a bit of training prior. My team was:

Bulbasaur: Level 13 (Tackle, Growl, Leech Seed, Vine Whip) Nidoran(m): Level 10 (Tackle, Leer, Horn Attack) Spearow: Level 10 (Peck, Leer, Growl)Day two: Green Forest + Pewter City + Mt. Moon

I set off for Pewter City, getting first into yet another trip into nostalgia: The Green Forest. When I first played, it was immense, now it's just a walk in the park. Actually, it's even easier with Bulbasaur and Nidoran, since they can't be poisoned.

It took me a while to bump into a Metapod and a Pikachu, so I trained quite a lot. I already had Vine Whip in Bulbasaur, so I knew that Brock was going to be a piece of cake, so I decided to train the other two, just in case.

I ran into a bit of trouble with the trainer before Brock, as his Sandshrew killed my Spearow and nearly one-hit KO'd my Bulbasaur with a critical scratch, but I eventually finished him with Nidoran. After a quick visit to the Pok��mon Center, Brock was very easy. I finished Brock with all my 'Mons at level 15.

Bulbasaur: Level 15 (Tackle, Growl, Leech Seed, Vine Whip) Nidoran(m): Level 15 (Tackle, Leer, Horn Attack, Poison Sting) Spearow: Level 15 (Peck, Leer, Growl, Fury Attack)

This game can be a bit tricky if you're trying to speed-run it or if you have no clue about types and its advantages/disadvantages. But if you know them, it's just a piece of cake.

EXCEPT that Generation one had strengths and weaknesses all messed up. In Gen 1, Bug was super effective against Poison, and the other way around, and Psychic was super-effective against Ghost, if I'm not mistaken, so if you know the theory from the new games, you need to spend some time adapting.

Another thing that was pretty fucked up is that critical hits were tied to the creature's speed, so it's easy to get critical hits from freaking Raticates and Pidgeottos ALL. THE. TIME. - and other broken mechanics. One that is favourable to me, is that when a multi-hit attack like Fury Attack gets a critical on the first hit, it gets it with the rest of them. My Spearow has been causing havoc around Kanto, so far.

After a good share of training, and some nice gold coming with it, I reached Mt. Moon, which was also great, because I was very lucky encountering Clefairy and Paras right away. I evolved one Clefairy ipso facto into a Clefable to get the Pok��dex entry, and used the other Stone Moon to evolve my recently-evolved Nidorino into a Nidoking. That's right, the fastest second-level evolution in the game, and a great powerhouse capable of ploughing through pretty much anything (perhaps, except, faster Psychic types).

By the way, I remember having bought Magikarp for 500 coins back in the day. It scarred me for life, so of course, I didn't buy it this time. I wonder if by any chance, this Magikarp you buy is at least better on average than the ones you get in the wild, or it's just the first scam I fell prey to when I was only a child.

Besides my Nidoran, my Bulbasaur also evolved. I also collected the Helix Fossil, as I did back in the day, to get an Omanye. In fact, in Let's Go Pikachu, I ended up training a Kabutops because it's an incredibly useful creature with that game's moveset. Not so much in Gen I.

I finished the day with this team, ready to battle Misty:

Ivysaur: Level 22 (Tackle, Poison Powder, Leech Seed, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 20 (Tackle, Thrash, Horn Attack, Poison Sting) Spearow: Level 18 (Peck, Leer, Growl, Fury Attack)Day three: Misty + Bill + Hopping on a boat!

I ploughed through the first two trainers in Misty's gym only with Nidoking, just to have a perfect Ivysaur to battle the gym leader. In fact, it one-hit KO'd Staryu and needed only two Vine Whips to get past Starmie. Useless to use that Defense X on Starmie, Misty. You'll never learn!

After that, up north to beat a shit-tonne of trainers before meeting Bill. I sort of expected to get Eevee here, but it dawned on me that you got it as a reward for completing a certain amount of Pok��dex entries, maybe - I'm not sure, and I don't want to spoil it. So, nothing remarkable up there, except that my Spearow evolved into Fearow!

Once I completed everything that could be done in Cerulean Town - except for the man who'll trade you a Jynx - I went down to the city with the harbour (Vermillion Gym?), but almost straight to the Diglett cave, to catch my new companion, upping my Pok��dex to 52 seen, 26 caught.

After getting the Old Row, of course, I fished a Magikarp just for the lols, and almost headed back to Viridian city to get one extra Spearow to exchange it for a Farfetch'd. I seem to remember I used Farfetch'd as the Fly guy back in the day. I obviously also taught it Cut, even if my Bulbasaur and Paras knew it already!

With everything that could be done in this town crossed off, I hopped on the S.S. Anne, for yet another trip down nostalgia lane.

Some of the fights have been a bit tricky, and since I don't remember where the room with a bed to sleep was located, I ended up going a couple of times to the Pok��mon Center. Remember, this is Gen I without an emulator, so walking around is excruciatingly slow and painful.

Another thing that is extremely painful is training a Diglett. It's got very weak defense stats, and since there was, in this generation, no way to know if your 'Mons were good or not, I just got the first one I caught. It takes two hits max to defeat him, so I ended up going out just putting him up in every battle only to switch to someone else, to have him get experience until he learnt Dig.

After he gets Dig, he turns into a killing machine. One hit-KOing Growlithes, Rattatas, Ponytas and Pikachus, and even taking out the rival's Charmeleon in just two blows, Diglett is the weakest link of the team no more.

After defeating the rival, and getting HM01 Cut, it was time to teach some leftover Pok��mon in Bill's PC this move so I could get into the next gym, but that's a task for tomorrow.

Final team for the day:

Ivysaur: Level 24 (Tackle, Poison Powder, Leech Seed, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 24 (Tackle, Thrash, Horn Attack, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 24 (Peck, Leer, Growl, Fury Attack) Diglett: Level 22 (Scratch, Growl, Dig) Paras: Level 8 (Scratch, Cut)Day four: Lt. Surge + Back to Pallet Town

I started the day going straight to the Lt. Surge Gym. I spent about 20-25 min trying to activate the switches to open the door leading to the gym leader. They're random, and if you fail to spot the second one, both reset, so it takes a while to get it right, and there's no algorithm to help you.

The fight was pretty easy. Diglett was enough to bring down Voltorb, Pikachu and Raichu in one single hit, and prior to that, the other trainers in the gym weren't too much of a challenge either.

After getting the badge, I decided to move east, to catch a glimpse of good ol' Snorlax! In the very same gate leading to the big boy, there's the Prof. Oak Aide who gives you an Item Finder if you've collected 30 different species of Pok��mon. However, I only had registered 26, so I decided to spend some time going back to Pallet Town to collect some items I couldn't do before.

After beating all the trainers nearby Diglett's cave (I believe it's route 11), I went through the cave, but didn't bother catching a Dugtrio (or trying) because I had few Pok��balls left, and because my Diglett will be evolving very soon.

Getting out of the cave, there are a few items scattered around, a guy who wants to trade an Abra for a Mr. Mime (will be back later - I ran out of balls when trying to catch one) and the other Aide who gives you HM05 Flash, if you've registered 10 different species on your Pok��dex.

In Viridian City, there's TM42 (Dream Eater) with the snoozing guy, and then I decided to catch another Spearow to trade it for a Farfetch'd back in Vermillion. I also decided to train an Ekans to make it evolve, but decided it's gonna take too long and gave up on it.

Being stuck at 29 species, I decided to call it a night, and I'll go tomorrow back to the guy trading an Abra for a Mr. Mime before heading into the Rock Tunnel. My Diglett still needs 2000 xp before hitting level 26 and evolving, so I guess Mr. Mime wins, and I will need it anyway.

I finished the day with the following team:

Ivysaur: Level 25 (Tackle, Poison Powder, Leech Seed, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 24 (Tackle, Thrash, Horn Attack, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 24 (Peck, Leer, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Diglett: Level 25 (Scratch, Growl, Dig, Sand Attack) Paras: Level 8 (Scratch, Cut)Day five: Backwards and into Route 10

I couldn't spend a lot of time playing, so I didn't do much other than going to the guy on the other side of the Diglett tunnel, to exchange my Abra for his Mr.Mime (Marcel!). On the way back, my Diglett evolved into a Dugtrio (finally!) and then I got the Item Finder. Useless, because I know all the hidden items in the game, but I like getting all the "mini-quests" done.

Back to Cerulean, I exchanged my voucher to get the bike and finally move around a bit faster. I also taught Flash to Mr.Mime so I could enter the Rock Tunnel, but didn't make it. I finished the day with this team:

Ivysaur: Level 26 (Tackle, Poison Powder, Leech Seed, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 25 (Tackle, Thrash, Horn Attack, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 26 (Peck, Leer, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 25 (Scratch, Growl, Dig, Sand Attack) Paras: Level 8 (Scratch, Cut) Mr.Mime: Level 10 (Confusion, Barrier, Flash)Day six: Back to Pewter City and into the Rock Tunnel!

Another day without too much time for the game. I cycled back to Pewter City to retrieve the Old Amber from the back part of the History Museum (you need cut). Then, back to Cerulean through Mt.Moon to sell some stuff and to deposit useless items into the PC. I had almost forgotten how small your inventory is, in this game!

That said, I embarked into Route 10, and proceeded to beat the shit out of every trainer who opposed me until the entrance of the Rock Tunnel, where I also caught a Voltorb on the first attempt.

I wish I could've reached level 32 so Ivysaur could evolve, but that will have to happen tomorrow.

I entered the tunnel with this team:

Ivysaur: Level 29 (Tackle, Poison Powder, Leech Seed, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 26 (Tackle, Thrash, Horn Attack, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 26 (Peck, Leer, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 26 (Scratch, Growl, Dig, Sand Attack) Paras: Level 8 (Scratch, Cut) Mr.Mime: Level 10 (Confusion, Barrier, Flash)Day seven: Getting Jolteon!

The benefit of having only three/four 'mons in your team, is that you can level them up faster than if you have six, of course. Some people like having a full squad at all times and levelling them all up, and then replacing them with new ones as they catch them. I, for one, like to level up only the necessary ones and get my dream squad as soon as possible.

That's why the Rock Tunnel felt like a breeze for me. With Ivysaur beating pretty much everyone with Vine Whips and Razor Leaf (lvl 30), he finally evolved into Venusaur halfway through the tunnel. A couple of trainers had some plant Pok��mon that proved to be an easy prey for my Fearow.

It's been 3-4 days with the same squad, so I decided to speed-run to Celadon to get Eevee, so I skipped Lavender Town and headed to Celadon through the Underground Path.

Once there, I got the Eevee from the back of the Pok��mon Mansion and went straight to the big store to acquire a Thunder Stone and evolve it right away. I also got a bunch of TMs to teach my team (just not now).

Having 5 out of 6 slots taken in my squad, I will only be missing Staryu, which will be tricky to get. I need to get past the Snorlax south from Lavender town, and that will take beating the entire Team Rocket to get the Scope Silph and then go up the Lavender Town Ghost Tower and clear it up as well. It is a bit of a stretch, but it will be well worth it, and my team will be complete.

By the way, looking to get to Fuchsia (forgot there are two Snorlaxes in this game - guess what, I killed both in my first game!), I got HM02 Fly. I'll teach it to my Farfetch'd along with Cut, so I can replace Paras.

Having done that, I ended up the day with:

Venusaur: Level 33 (Tackle, Razor Leaf, Leech Seed, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 27 (Tackle, Thrash, Horn Attack, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 27 (Peck, Leer, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 29 (Scratch, Growl, Dig, Sand Attack) Paras: Level 8 (Scratch, Cut) Jolteon: Level 25 (Tackle, Sand Attack)Day eight: Speed-run to (almost) get Staryu!

Yesterday, I left the game once I got Jolteon. I immediately taught him Thunderbolt, used TM48 Rock Slide on Dugtrio and stormed off to the Casino to defeat Team Rocket.

Ah��� those spinning mazes! How complicated were they when I was ten or twelve and how stupidly simple are they now. This is a pretty nice dungeon, after all, as it provides varied fights, a nice amount of cash and really good rewards, such as the TM containing Horn Drill, a Moon Stone, one Nugget and the TM containing Double Edge (if I'm not mistaken). I taught Double Edge to Fearow, and Horn Drill to Nidoking, and proceeded to kick ass on a cosmic scale.

I made it in one run, reaching Giovanni with a full Venusaur and Nidoking, having almost exclusively used Jolteon for the Zubats/Golbats and the Psychic types, Dugtrio for the Poison types (Ekans, Koffings and Grimers) and Fearow for everything else.

Giovanni was easy: Venusaur wiped out Onix and Rhyhorn with a single Vine Whip and then I decided to spice things up by trying a Horn Drill on Kangaskhan, but failed at it. Ended up defeating with Thrash.

Once I got the Silp Scope, I darted to freaking Lavender Town to complete the Ghost Tower, where I was greeted by my rival. It's always nice to beat him. It was fairly easy, this time around, as everyone on my team was almost five levels stronger than his counterparts.

On the way up, I made sure to capture a Gastly and a Cubone, but wasn't lucky enough to bump into a Haunter. I'll have to come back. Actually, it was kind of fun to see some of the weird dynamics (such as Seismic Toss - fighting type - hitting Ghost-types and I had forgotten about Night Shade not being affected by neither immunity, weakness nor resistance). I also read that Psychic types were immune to Ghost types on Generation I. How crazy is that? I had totally forgotten about this.

Not much to report here: endless hordes of Gastly to battle and an easy fight with the level 30 Marowak - easy for my level 34 Venusaur, that is. After that, the three final rockets, and I got my desired Pok�� Flute!

Down south again, to battle the first Snorlax, I actually ended up killing it with a critical hit from my Nidoking, so I had to restart. I thought it was going to be an endless fight (and I packed a hell of a lot of Great Balls), but a single hit of my Fearow's Double Edge downed his HP to about 15% and I caught him with a single Pok�� Ball. Go, me!

Right after our chubby buddy, I found the house of the fishing enthusiast, who gave me the desired Super Rod. Finally!

After that, I marched southwards avoiding pretty much every battle (except for three I couldn't possibly avoid) to fish in Route 19. After a few attempts, I got my Staryu, which I evolved right away into a Starmie and proceeded to teach my team a few TMs, finishing the day with this team:

Venusaur: Level 34 (Tackle, Razor Leaf, Leech Seed, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 30 (Body Slam, Thrash, Horn Drill, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 31 (Peck, Double Edge, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 29 (Scratch, Rock Slide, Dig, Sand Attack) Starmie: Level 15 (Tackle, Ice Beam, Bubblebeam) Jolteon: Level 31 (Swift, Thundershock, Thunderbolt, Quick Attack)Day nine: Training Starmie to beat Erika!

Sounds counter-intuitive, but I wanted to defeat Erika, the grass-type gym leader with a water-type Pok��mon. However, it was my motivation to level up Starmie, which was 15 levels behind all my other creatures.

I thought it'd be a great idea to go back to other areas and catch some species I couldn't catch before, so I started in the Rock Tunnel, to catch an Onix (when I went through it, I found one, but had no space in Bill's PC so had to kill it and go switch the box), a Growlithe and a few other species.

Since I taught Starmie Bubblebeam, it was easy to train and kill pretty much everyone with ease. In fact, when it was about level 17, I ploughed through the trainers I had skipped when going to Celadon, so now I've properly dealt with everyone. By the time I reached Celadon, my Starmie was level 22, so I went to Erika's gym all the same.

I almost completed it in a single blow, killing pretty much everyone with single-hit KO's using Ice Beam (super effective against Grass types), but on Erika's first Pok��mon, Victreebel, I couldn't kill him with one hit. Instead, he knocked Starmie out with a critical hit Razor Leaf. The rest of the fight was a walk in the park using Fearow, and so I got my fourth badge.

Starmie won three levels fighting through the him, and then I taught Venusaur Mega Drain, so I ended up the day with the following team:

Venusaur: Level 34 (Tackle, Razor Leaf, Leech Seed, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 31 (Body Slam, Thrash, Horn Drill, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 33 (Peck, Double Edge, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 32 (Scratch, Rock Slide, Dig, Sand Attack) Starmie: Level 25 (Tackle, Ice Beam, Bubblebeam) Jolteon: Level 32 (Swift, Thundershock, Thunderbolt, Quick Attack)Day ten: Another Snorlax and off to the Bike Road!

Not a very ambitious day. I spent it mostly catching the second Snorlax, selling stuff to get more moneys and then beating a couple of trainers at the Bike Road.

I feel like playing more, but work isn't forgiving. Good news, though, Fearow learnt Drill Peck!

I finished the day with this team:

Venusaur: Level 34 (Tackle, Razor Leaf, Leech Seed, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 31 (Body Slam, Thrash, Horn Drill, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 34 (Drill Peck, Double Edge, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 32 (Scratch, Rock Slide, Dig, Sand Attack) Starmie: Level 26 (Tackle, Ice Beam, Bubblebeam) Jolteon: Level 32 (Swift, Thundershock, Thunderbolt, Quick Attack)Day eleven: Saffron City

I started the day going to Saffron City, which I didn't remember, but it is also taken by Team Rocket. I also found out something I didn't remember: Starmie does not learn any move by levelling up. So goodbye to natural Hydro Pump and most of all, goodbye to Recover ����

After getting TM29 Psychic from that man in the southeastern part of town, I headed to the Battle Dojo. I managed to beat them all with Starmie, after giving it a couple PP UPs to increase the PP of Psychic. I took Hitmonchan as a reward, like I did in my first game.

Before going to the Silph Co building, I healed at a Pok��mon Center and I also taught Venusaur the move Mega Drain to ensure proper healing.

Silph Co is a pretty demanding building, with 31 battles. I could have done it all in one blow, but I wanted to avoid using potions and most of all, I wanted to enjoy the game, not suffer. Between Starmie and Dugtrio, I managed to wipe out everyone before facing my rival. Healed up at the 9th floor, and then I proceeded to face him.

I was surprised about the level of his 'mons. Most trainers in the building have got levels 25-28 whereas my rival had 37-40. Between Fearow and Nidoking I beat him, and although I could've done Giovanni right up, I decided to heal again to enjoy the battle.

Giovanni was a good contender, but also not much of a battle. Even though I was some levels below, most of my Pok��mon have got tier 1 attacks, like Psychic or Ice Beam on Starmie, Earthquake on Nidoking, Slash on Dugtrio or Drill Peck on Fearow, for example.

Silph Co takes a good hour of your life to beat it - considering you don't get lost within it. So I decided to stop right here and right there so I finished the day with the following team:

Venusaur: Level 34 (Take Down, Razor Leaf, Mega Drain, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 35 (Body Slam, Earthquake, Horn Drill, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 35 (Drill Peck, Double Edge, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 35 (Slash, Rock Slide, Dig, Sand Attack) Starmie: Level 35 (Tackle, Ice Beam, Bubblebeam, Psychic) Jolteon: Level 34 (Swift, Thundershock, Thunderbolt, Quick Attack)Day twelve: Beating Sabrina + Bike Road

One of the things I noticed today is that all of the sudden, my Nidoking lost its cool. Even though he can still thrash through everything and one-hit KO most stuff, especially since I taught him Earthquake, I feel like replacing him by something cooler to spice things up. However, I will keep my team as is, because that's what I committed to in the very beginning.

I have been very tempted by Tauros and Dratini from the Safari Zone. I have also considered replacing Fearow by Dodrio, but same: I will keep the originals.

Basically, today has been spent in beating the shit out of everyone in Sabrina's psychic gym, mostly with my Fearow (Drill Peck one-hit KOs pretty much everyone) and then using Starmie and/or Dugtrio for the Ghosts, since they're second type Poison. Jolteon came in pretty handy dealing with the Slowpokes and Slowbros too.

The final battle with Sabrina was fun. Since I remember that her Alakazam was pretty obstinate on using Recover all the time, I tried freezing him using Ice Beam (from my Starmie). However, I didn't succeed, so I corrected course and I proceeded to slow him down using Bubblebeam. This way, whoever came after Starmie could beat the crap out of 'Zam. I switched over to Nidoking, expecting another Recover, but it one-hit KO'd me with Psybeam, so no luck this time.

I then killed him with Dugtrio.

After the gym, I decided to use Dugrio as much as I can because all the way to Cinnabar Island and back he'll stay put in Bill's PC in order to bring someone who can do Strength and Cut (I don't think it was needed but just in case).

Then, I set out to cycle down the Bike Road, which fortunately, everyone was using types weak to Ground: Electric and/or Poison. Since Dig doesn't have much PP, I killed the minor Rattatas, Zubats and such using Slash, and then killed off the three Birdkeepers before Fuchsia City with Rock Slide.

Ready to do all the stuff in this city - Gym, minor quests, Safari Zone and then all the trainers between here and Lavender Town that I could avoid on the way down - I finished the day with this team:

Venusaur: Level 35 (Take Down, Razor Leaf, Mega Drain, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 35 (Body Slam, Earthquake, Horn Drill, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 39 (Drill Peck, Double Edge, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 39 (Slash, Rock Slide, Dig, Sand Attack) Starmie: Level 37 (Tackle, Ice Beam, Bubblebeam, Psychic) Jolteon: Level 35 (Swift, Thundershock, Thunderbolt, Quick Attack)Day thirteen: Beating everyone left in Kanto

Having a complete team, I decided to go back to routes 12 and 13 to beat each and every single trainer there (remember I avoided most to speed-run to get Starmie). So I did it, and won a bunch of levels, especially on Dugtrio.

Along the route, I got Exp. All for having caught at least 50 different species, but I don't think it'll be that necessary now. This item would've been great at the beginning of the game, but now it's almost irrelevant. Most of all, it slows down your game a lot, since it has to prompt a message for every member of your party every time they win experience. I deposited it in the computer.

Not much to report today. It's been about 30 different battles, give or take, and I saved before meeting Koga. Nidoking also levelled up a few levels, because he won't be used much before Cinnabar Island either.

Here's my team:

Venusaur: Level 35 (Take Down, Razor Leaf, Mega Drain, Vine Whip) Nidoking: Level 38 (Body Slam, Earthquake, Horn Drill, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 39 (Drill Peck, Double Edge, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 43 (Slash, Rock Slide, Dig, Sand Attack) Starmie: Level 38 (Tackle, Ice Beam, Bubblebeam, Psychic) Jolteon: Level 35 (Swift, Thundershock, Thunderbolt, Quick Attack)Day fourteen: Beating Koga + Safari Zone!

The gym was a breeze. I expected more poison types, but there are about 50% of Pyschic types, mostly Drowzee/Hypno (because of Poison Gas), and I seem to remember a Kadabra or two.

I beat most of the gym using Jolteon and Dugtrio, before storing the latter in Bill's PC to venture into the Seafoam Islands. Koga was also a piece of cake, one-hit KO'ing every single Pok��mon he has. Afterwards, I taught Venusaur TM06 Toxic.

I spent a good time going down memory lane at the Safari Zone. I remember I got so stressed when I was a kid, that it took me like 400 attempts to find the Golden Teeth and spent too much time blocked there. This time around, though, I did it at the first attempt, and also got all the items save for one, so I took a second ticket, which allowed me to catch Parasect and Exeggcute too. However, I did not want to spend too much time trying my luck at a Chansey. Will do that later in the game, if ever.

I just wanted to make sure, before reaching Fuchsia City, that I had 50 species to get the Exp. All. item. In the end, I decided against using it, but I wanted to at least get it to tick the box.

Also, it does not really make a lot of sense to pursue a full Pok��dex playing alone. I won't be able to catch the version-exclusive species nor the ones evolving via trading (Golem, Alakazam, Gengar, Machamp).

With that said, I taught Strength to a Lapras, Surf to Starmie and prepared to leave for the islands.

This is my team now:

Venusaur: Level 38 (Take Down, Razor Leaf, Mega Drain, Toxic) Nidoking: Level 38 (Body Slam, Earthquake, Horn Drill, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 39 (Drill Peck, Double Edge, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Lapras: Level 15 (Water Gun, Growl, Strength) Starmie: Level 39 (Tackle, Ice Beam, Surf, Psychic) Jolteon: Level 35 (Swift, Thundershock, Thunderbolt, Quick Attack)Day fifteen: Seafoam and Cinnabar islands!

It's been an intense day of battling today! I surfed all the way down to Seafoam islands, knocking everyone out with one-hit KOs from Jolteon, and some from Venusaur, both of which I managed to level up quite a bit.

Somehow, the route between Fuchsia and Seafoam, and the one between Seafoam and Cinnabar seemed to be longer and more crowded with trainers, but I guess it's just my appalling memory. All the trainers were far below my level and they provided no more difficulty than a brief walk in the park.

Seafoam Islands was cool to revive. All those puzzles with the boulders and whatnot must have been extremely tricky for a ten-year old, back in the day, but this time around - with a guide to speed things up - I managed to face the first legendary within ten minutes. I didn't care to stop to collect the species I was missing.

Once I was facing Articuno, I saved. As I mentioned at the beginning of this long blog post, I accidentally killed Articuno in my first game without saving (and Zapdos too, for what it's worth).

The first time around, I managed to get its HP down to the bare minimum, but I had no means to put him to sleep, freeze (it's an Ice type) or paralysis. I threw multiple Ultra Balls at it and got the dreadful "You missed the Pok��mon", which means that your chances are low as fuck. Eventually, it killed all my team.

The second time, though, I was lucky to paralyse Articuno with Jolteon's first Thunderbolt, and the second one brought its HP down to the minimum. It took about 10 Ultra Balls to even get him into the ball, but I managed to capture it this time!

After Articuno, I was planning to capture some missing species inside the area, but turns out Articuno was the one who completed the box. Imagine if I hadn't had space for Articuno! Maybe that is what happened in my first game, so I ended up killing it.

The bit after Seafoam, as I mentioned, was short as fuck, and easy too, so I hopped onto Cinnabar Island and went straight away to revive my fossils! I left the Helix Fossil to be revived whilst I completed the Pok��mon Mansion, which, to my surprise, was trickier than I remembered!

The Mansion is a pretty convoluted maze, with the switches and the fact that most wild Pok��mon there can either burn you or poison you (and the Scientists' ones can paralyse you!). Doing it in one go proved to be a bit tricky because I ended up with only one Pok��mon alive (technically, two, because I was still carrying my level 15 Lapras I got to move boulders in Seafoam, but it wouldn't have been very useful, either).

The amount of loot you get in this mansion is not to be overlooked: TM14 Blizzard, TM22 Solar Beam, a few vitamins (Carbos, Iron, etc.), a rare candy, a Moon Stone and a bit of something else. Scientists, and specially Burglars, leave good money too when defeated.

After catching a few species, I went back to get Omanyte, and to leave the Old Amber, which'll turn into a nice Aerodactyl soon enough.

The fossil families are pretty useless in this generation. However, in Let's Go Pikachu, I played with Kabutops, and it turned into a killing machine, with Surf, Giga Drain, Superpower and Rock Slide. In Gen I, there's not real good Fighting move it can learn and Mega Drain is just very weak compared to Giga Drain.

Well, I felt a bit tired from all this battling, so I decided to leave Blaine's gym for tomorrow.

Here's my team, ready to take on the riddle master:

Venusaur: Level 42 (Take Down, Razor Leaf, Mega Drain, Toxic) Nidoking: Level 40 (Body Slam, Earthquake, Horn Drill, Poison Sting) Fearow: Level 40 (Drill Peck, Double Edge, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 44 (Slash, Rock Slide, Dig, Sand Attack) Starmie: Level 40 (Tackle, Ice Beam, Surf, Psychic) Jolteon: Level 40 (Swift, Thundershock, Thunderbolt, Quick Attack)Day sixteen - Last gyms + Zapdos!

Blaine's gym was a walk in the park. I almost managed to beat it only with Fearow, but I left Arcanine with 1HP before it knocked out my Fearow with a critical Fire Blast. Most of the previous trainers' Vulpix, Growlithes and so on went down with a single Drill Peck. Starmie finished the job with Blaine's big pup.

I seem to recall there was a way to avoid the trainers and go straight to Blaine by answering a few riddles, but I very much wanted the experience to level up even more, so I picked the hard way.

Once that was done, I surfed northwards to go back to Pallet Town, but not without picking up my Aerodactyl frist from the Pok��mon Lab.

The surfing was easy, and it helped me to level up Jolteon a bit more. Quick stop by to say hi to mom and to cure my poisoned Jolteon, and another brisk walk towards Viridian city, to battle Giovanni at the gym.

This gym wasn't tricky either and I completed it also in one go. Mostly Jolteon thunderbolting everyone except for the Rhyhorns, which were taken down either with Double Kick or else sending in Starmie instead. Starmie dealt with the entire team of Giovanni one-hit KOing everyone.

After healing up, I took the Farfetch'd out of Bill's PC to fly to Cerulean and go to the Power Plant to catch Zapdos. I remember I had only one slot in the current box (what a terrible system!) so I went straight for Zapdos. Along the way, I encountered Electabuzz, Magnemite, Magneton and the mandatory Voltorb and Electrode. All of which I couldn't catch lest I be deprived of catching Zapdos.

This time, it worked out at the first attempt: I managed to paralyse it with the first Body Slam by Nidoking, and then lowered its HP using Poison String and then Jolteon's Double Kick. After a few Ultra Balls, I caught it.

Two out of three, now it's time for Moltres! But that long cave will have to wait until tomorrow, because it's pretty dense.

Before calling it a night, I flew back to Viridian to battle my rival, who has levelled up significantly and had a great team, but still I managed to take most of his team down with Nidoking's Horn Drill, and then the last two with Starmie, whom I had just taught Thunder. I also taught Fissure to Dugtrio (to replace Sand Attack) and Fire Blast to Nidoking to replace Poison Sting.

I finished the day with the following team:

Venusaur: Level 42 (Take Down, Razor Leaf, Mega Drain, Toxic) Nidoking: Level 44 (Body Slam, Earthquake, Horn Drill, Fire Blast) Fearow: Level 43 (Drill Peck, Double Edge, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 44 (Slash, Rock Slide, Dig, Fissure) Starmie: Level 43 (Thunder, Ice Beam, Surf, Psychic) Jolteon: Level 46 (Swift, Thundershock, Thunderbolt, Double Kick)Day seventeen: Victory Road and the Elite League!

The Victory Road was shorter than I remembered. I expected it to have more puzzles and more trainers, but it was yet another walk in the park.

The only tricky part was that after Moltres killed most of my team, I didn't want to use any items to heal up, so I had to battle the 2/3 remaining trainers only with Starmie. Again, Moltres was pretty easy to catch too: paralysed with Nidoking's Body Slam and then got its HP down to a bare minimum and proceeded to bombard as many Ultra Balls as I could before he would kill all my team. It took only three attempts.

And, at last, the Elite Four stood before me. I bought healing items aplenty from the shop, thinking I would need a lot of them, deposited Lapras, got Fearow back and ventured into the fighting rooms.

Lorelei was extremely easy. I one-hit KO'd with Jolteon most of his team, save for Jynx, which hit me once with Thrash - before I put that one out with Pin Missile - and Lapras, which connected a Hydro Pump that almost killed Jolteon. However, only an hyper potion was needed to heal up after this fight.

Bruno was very easy too. I seemed to remember that he started with Onyx, so I started off with Venusaur, which only needed a Razor Leaf to take it out. For the Hitmon-brothers, I chose Fearow, but being 12 levels below was a bit too much for my winged fella. An Ice Punch by Hitmonchan drained its HP significantly and a Mega-kick by Hitmonlee took him out for good. Venusaur took out the second Onyx with the same move as before, and Machamp was taken out by Starmie's Psychic (needed two, but fortunately enough Machamp's Fissure didn't connect!).

Agatha was perhaps the easiest of the lot. I took exactly zero damage from Agatha. My Dugtrio sweeped her entire roster by using Dig on everyone, except for Golbat, which was defeated by Starmie using Thunder, first, and then Ice Beam. No damage taken, but it comes as no surprise seeing that Gengars open up with Dream Eater - a move that requires you to be asleep first �����������������

Lance was trickier, but not much either. I started with Starmie and took out Gyarados with a single Thunder. The first Dragonair resisted one Ice Beam and gave me a powerful Slam, almost killing Starmie, but I took Dragonair out with a second Ice Beam. The second Dragonair became frozen by Ice Beam, so I took a bit of time to heal up before finishim it off and switching to Jolteon to one-hit KO Aerodactyl with a single Thunderbolt. Dragonite required that I brought up Starmie again, which struck a powerful Ice Beam, but not powerful enough to take it out. Dragonite countered with Hyper Beam and left Starmie with very low HP, enough to strike with another Ice Beam and bring the victory home.

Ah��� the same old "one more thing". My rival was awaiting, and I would have been worried about the abyssal level difference between his team and mine. My Fearow was level 43, and his Charizard is level 65��� that's 22 levels of difference.

However, I came out victorious pretty easily.

Starmie connected a Thunder to take out Pidgeot with a single hit. Alakazam gave me a bit of trouble, as I thought Fearow's Drill Peck could deal massive damage, but since Alakazam started with Reflect, physical damage was reduced greatly. It took Fearow out with a single Psychic (critical hit) so I had to use Dugtrio to counter-attack with Dig and finish him off. For Rhydon, I wanted to bring up Venusaur, but I accidentally sent out Nidoking, which would be very weak to Ground-type moves (little did I know that this Rhydon has got Tail Whip, Leer, Fury Attack and Horn Drill).

For this one, I had been saving a couple of X Accuracy, so I could try the Gen I exploit of getting Horn Drill/Guillotine/Fissure to 100% accuracy, and it worked. Rhydon came down with a Horn Drill, as did Exeggutor, and as I was daydreaming of taking the other two left out with Horn Drill too, Gyarados outpaced me and Hydro-pumped Nidoking into oblivion.

Offended by that, I chose Jolteon to fry Gyarados to a crisp with a single Thunderbolt, and kept it for Charizard, which required two Thunderbolts (after Charizard missed a Fire Blast). Easy win, after all.

That's all for now. Extremely easy Elite Four, moslty to having a fast team capable of sweeping through entire teams by one-hit KO'ing them, and a few hyper potions. After the last match, I checked the moveset of the Elite Four teams and they are terrible! Leer and Tail Whip abound, Pidgeot has got Whirlwind (which does nothing on trainer battles), Exeggutor has got only three moves, one of the Gengars has got Dream Eater but no Hypnosys and even a couple of Lorelei's have got Growl, as if they were level five, or something. For fuck's sake!

I, then, managed to become the Pok��mon Master with the following team:

Venusaur: Level 44 (Take Down, Razor Leaf, Mega Drain, Toxic) Nidoking: Level 46 (Body Slam, Earthquake, Horn Drill, Fire Blast) Fearow: Level 44 (Drill Peck, Double Edge, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 45 (Slash, Rock Slide, Dig, Fissure) Starmie: Level 47 (Thunder, Ice Beam, Surf, Psychic) Jolteon: Level 50 (Swift, Pin Missile, Thunderbolt, Double Kick)Day eighteen: Post-game

To be honest, the post-game of this edition was a joke, it mainly involved catching Mewtwo (cool) and completing the Pok��dex (meh). Since I won't be able to complete the Pok��dex using only one console, I set out to catch Mewtwo.

I thus dragged myself to Cerulean City and from there I entered the Cerulean Cave. I didn't remember the wild spawns were of such a high level. I've seen Rachus and Parasects at level 64, and Kadabras and Hypnos a few levels below that, but way more deadly than the former two. On the way to Mewtwo, I managed to catch a Ditto (which froze my Starmie, by the way), a Chansey and a Hypno (which killed almost my entire team) so I faced Mewtwo, finally, with only Jolteon and Nidoking alive.

No drama here: I used the Masterball to get it done, as there's no other reason to keep the Masterball in this game - as opposed to Generation II, where you might want to use it for the roaming legendary dogs.

On the way back, I trained a little bit, but got lost and decided to Dig myself out of the place.

End.

Final team:

Venusaur: Level 44 (Take Down, Razor Leaf, Mega Drain, Toxic) Nidoking: Level 47 (Body Slam, Earthquake, Horn Drill, Fire Blast) Fearow: Level 44 (Drill Peck, Double Edge, Mirror Move, Fury Attack) Dugtrio: Level 46 (Slash, Rock Slide, Dig, Fissure) Starmie: Level 47 (Thunder, Ice Beam, Surf, Psychic) Jolteon: Level 50 (Swift, Pin Missile, Thunderbolt, Double Kick)

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