Subject sarcastic. This will be dull.

Am I really moving this slow? My last journal entry was about 2 weeks ago, and I'd beaten Bugle 9 then. I'm still struggling with Bugle 10. Blazing.

I leave the Bugle with about 4'03". Hit the first photo normally at 3'11", though I've done as well as 3'15". That's 48-52 seconds for the city trip. I'll need just a bit more to get back. Say 55". To date, the best I've done when snagging the final token is around 25". So I need to find 30 seconds somewhere.

1) I usually hit the side of the building the first photo is on with a web zip, crawl up and hop to it. On my best approaches, I actually make a swing from the bridge directly to the token without a web zip or crawling, which saves several seconds. Need to master that.

2) I normally hop onto the fans, fully charge a jump, then push forward hard during the jump to reach the second token. I think the hop onto the fans might be superfluous, but I'm not sure that would save me any time. Think this is about optimized.

3) While falling from #2, I charge a jump and try to align the camera behind me. Land just on the cross-mark on the roof, turn on reflexes, swing the camera so the token is directly ahead of me, then sprint-jump through it, pounding X as I go. I miss sometimes, which is disastrous, but uncommon. When I do hit it, I could be a bit quicker lining up the camera. At most, that's 2-3 seconds. Close to optimized.

4) Sprint jump past the water tank, full charge jump, push a bit forward in the air to hit the token. Not sure this is faster than a well-executed hop off the water tank, especially if I could jump to it from the prior rooftop. Some experimentation is required, but I'm looking at < 5 seconds gain.

5) Drop from #4, then web-zip 3 times along tree-tops. Run the remaining gap to the water, full sprint jump to the buoy. Hop on top, full charge and a double-jump to the token. This is slow, both the zipping and the last little run. 1-2 good swings from the trees would be faster, but so easy to screw up. Might be worth the practice.

6) Fall into the water from the buoy. Yes, really. I wash up right below the next token. I think it's technically possible to get to that point faster with a really nice swing, but I just cannot do it consistently, and the swim is faster by several seconds than zipping my way back. Charge jump to the roof, land right in the corner, full charge plus double-jump to the token. This is optimized unless I improve tree-swings as per #5. Even then, I'm looking at ~2 seconds since the water is so cheap.

7) Right after snagging #6, zip off the water tank under #7. That zip often goes astray, requiring a little hop up to it and costing ~1 second. Full charge from the ground with a little lean in the jump yields the token. Slightly error-prone, but optimized.

8) Web-zip to the tank as per #7. Half charge jump to the top of the tank. Wonky collision behavior on the tanks makes it expensive to screw up, but that's rare. Full charge and double jump to the token. Optimized.

9) Drop into the street, swinging before I hit. Used to head towards the water with my drop and swing along the shore, but that's definitely slower. Two quick swings should drop me at the trees just next to the buoy. Full charge sprint jump to the buoy, 3/4 charge from the base of it to the token. I don't think my swings to reach the trees are optimal. That could be faster, and with a quick orientation to the buoy, I could shave a few seconds.

10) Full charge sprint jump diagonally off the buoy towards token #10. Web zip should drop me just shy of it and a little sprint jump yield the token.

Ok, time for a breath. At this point, I'm normally looking at between 1'30" and 1'50" left on the clock. If I'm right about my analysis on the first 9 tokens, there's at best just a few seconds I could add to that. Say 1'55". 55 seconds is my estimated return trip. So I've probably got 1 minute, best case, to snag the remaining tokens. And my current runs are fairly close to that best case. Good news: 5 tokens to go. Bad news: much harder from here on out.

11) Short sprint jump towards the water, then swing back over the land. One swing will drop me in a gap between the buildings, where I'll need a web zip to reach a new swing point. A jump and well-aimed swing from there will throw me pretty much right to the token, though I often miss and do some crawling. Room for improvement abounds. That tree-gap in the buildings costs me several seconds. A better swing might let me clear that consistently. From there, I really need to practice the placement of my swing towards the token. Landing elsewhere on that building is too expensive. Perhaps activate reflexes during this segment?

12) Sprint along the fire escape and full sprint-jump off it. Into a huge parking lot. No swing points here, but just before I hit the ground I can web-zip off the warehouse. I'll still land on the tarmac, then jog up the building, charge jump up and swing towards the token. Just one swing will drop me below it, on the ledge. Line myself up just next to the ladder on the big tank, full-charge, double jump, activate reflexes and steer into the token.

The empty expanse after the fire escape jump is brutal. Takes forever to cross that. The alternative is to move laterally a bit to a line of trees on the other side of the island and swing along those. That's also expensive even if I nail the tree swings. I'll need to time both approaches to see if it's even worth practicing.

Then the token snag is a bit slow. It would be much faster to hit that token directly off a swing, but I've never done it. Not sure I can get that precise. Not sure it's worth such a high-risk approach for the gain of a few seconds.

13) Web zip immediately to the big tank, crawl around to the token. Not much to be done here.

14) Crawl to the top of the tank, sprint jump forward, swing off the exhaust towers and try to swing straight up land on or crawl to the top of the far tower, full charge jump, reflexes and a bit of navigation to snag the token. It's oddly placed, but I rarely miss with reflexes on. The challenge here is the swing to the top of the tower. Hell, a perfectly placed anchor point would allow a swing directly into the token. But it's very hard (impossible?) to control precisely, so I'm more likely to lose some time getting to the jump point off the 3rd tower. I'll keep an eye out for improvement, but I don't think it's worth focused practice.

15) Pull backwards, away from the next token while I fall. This drops me behind the warehouse, rather than onto its roof, allowing me to swing away. Round the smaller warehouse to the right, then swing along its side. Swing or zip along the line of trees (mentioned in #12). Hold tight to the right side of the first building, swing off it, then along the right side of the skyscrapers ahead. Two swings there will launch me to the side of the building under the token. Crawl a bit to the rooftop, half charge to snag the token.

Then it's off to the Bugle.

That tree line is an issue, obviously. So easy to lose a lot of time there with a poor release that sends me straight upwards. I often web-zip my way along the top, but that's just too slow. Then the fact that I smack the side of the target building and crawl the remainder is a problem. The nearby buildings are just too low for a swing that clears the roof.

Too much verbage, but I think some conclusions jump out. If I do need to gain about 30 seconds and I'm not overly confident on those tokens which I think I've optimized, then it will almost all come via improved efficiency on the final 5 tokens. Low-risk approaches there will not suffice. That said, my thesis can be tested. I can ignore the first 10 tokens and see if -any- approach yields the final 5 in under 1 minute. If not, I still need to look elsewhere.

I think the other promising candidate for improvement is the city trips to and from Governor's Island. I think I could consistently hit that 3'15" mark and maybe improve my best to closer to 3'20". If I can do the same on the way back, I might only need to find 20 seconds of improvement elsewhere. I'll examine some optimizations in my route to the bridge and continue working on my city-swinging skills.