I mean, not exactly, but resigned, I guess? Apparently being me does not involve smooches.
Since I didn’t yesterday, today I did my grocery shopping routine which now involves a pastrami sandwich, multiple flavors of Diet Dr Pepper, and a book store. I ended up with a lot of groceries and it still doesn’t come close to refilling my empty fridge, but hopefully less of this food will languish forever and more of it will get eaten.
Written: 128.
Year of the Dragon, which is definitely auspicious and not a sign of doom.
I was too lazy to go grocery shopping before getting back to be on call all afternoon, and even if I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have been able to go to the ice cream store. Instead I flopped around and then had to do some work and complain bitterly and throw out five bags of food from the fridge that was no longer trustworthy after the power outage. Eventually that ran out and Marith and I went over to Monkeycat Towers. We meant to go for anime, but instead we had really good Chinese food from Ken and Among Us with Nonny, which was all pretty great. I managed to win as the imposter! Then we switched to hide-and-seek mode, which I didn’t really understand because I’m old. Seeing people makes me happy.
Read: “Stubborn Stains” (Delia Marshall Turner): Turner wrote two books of an interesting fantasy/SF trilogy and then apparently disappeared, but now I learn that she has written the third book and this short story about a schoolteacher who gets involved with magic and a whole book about the schoolteacher! (The books are only available on Amazon, boo, but I’ll probably buy them anyway.)
Written: 125.
But I ate the pizza yesterday! It was pretty international pizza, though.
Watched: Nothing, Marith was dead from work.
Read: House of Stars (saltacuentos, Lion Illustration): Very adventure, much fairy tale, wow. The romance is unfortunately het, but the art is very nice. Complete.
Written: I’m writing the new chapter, but that doesn’t mean I know what’s going on or if this is even the right thing to write. Maybe I should work on the project that has an outline, although I still haven’t decided what the aliens should look like. Anyway, 149.
It has been a really long time since I flew a kite.
Today I did go into the office and eat butter chicken pizza. It was okay. Also I did my job or something. Whatever.
Read: The Moon on a Rainy Night vol 1 (Kuzushiro): High-school yuri, but the deuteragonist is very hard of hearing, and yes, it causes actual problems, and yes, she has a lot of feelings about it. I don’t know anything about the hard of hearing, especially in Japan, but the author seems to have done their research judging by the existence of a bibliography.
Read: Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Witchcraft and Mayhem (Roseanne A Brown): After discovering the other part of her heritage at the end of the first book, the MC leans hard into it, which causes even more trouble than she already had. But it’s okay, now she has a plan for paying off the debt she just incurred to [SPOILER] in the third book, which surely cannot go wrong!
Written: 123. I have finished the chapter (not that I have chapter divisions) so now I have to write another one and I have no idea what needs to happen next.
One of the characters in Kitten Words likes to put things in order, so he’s named Dmitri after the person who put the ATOMS in order. This makes me happy, because that’s what self-indulgence is for.
The early-morning meeting that was going to be yesterday and got displaced by the surprise meeting was today, but this time I did not order lunch and then fail to get it.
Spent a lot of time trying to catch up on email that kept arriving even when I couldn’t get to it.
Written: 113. But not kitten words.
Or is it Canadian Maple Syrup Heist Day?
I was expecting to not have power until sometime today, based on the PG&E status page, but in fact it was restored overnight and I did not end up having to go into the office today. That’s good, because there was a surprise early morning meeting that would have made commuting a pain. This makes twice that I’ve ordered goat curry and then not gone into the office. I will eat you someday, goats!
Everything in my fridge and freezer has become untrustworthy, so I had to get pizza while getting gooshyfood for the cats. Fortunately I liked the pizza and they like the gooshyfood.
Played: Lancer. We got to make some decisions as both groups, but then the entire situation was overtaken by events. Well, this module is advertised as being about the traumas of war.
Written: 157.
If only we could get all the disasters to happen on Feb 5th, planning would be a lot easier.
The power was still out when I woke up, and didn’t show any signs of being restored, so I ended up going to the office at the suggestion of the boss³ who was worried that we aren’t putting on enough of a show of being office team players. Well played. There was no lunch because only Tue-Thu are the official office days, but Pocky is like a healthy meal, right? Right?
Still no power when I got home, but at least I had realized that I could use my full-charged work laptop as a power bank for my phone, to read books I had already downloaded.
Marith was also grouchy about the lack of power so we went to Cheesecake Factory outside the Land of No Power and ate things that weren’t cheesecake. We could not bring leftovers home, because no refrigeration!
Read: The Savior’s Book Cafe Story in Another World vol 2 (Kyouka Izumi, Oumiya, Reiko Sakurada): The super-mage tries to keep living her quiet life uninvolved with anything except books and customers and one customer in particular, but of course that never works.
Read: The Yakuza’s Bias vol 2 (Teki Yatsuda): More yakuza stan hijinx. It doesn’t feel to me like there are any new jokes, so I probably won’t keep reading, but maybe that’s just because I’m old and not cool.
Read: The Drab Princess, The Black Cat, and the Satisfying Breakup vol 1 (Rino Mayumi, Machi): Light novel about a princess who tries to become an archmage so she can get out of her arranged engagement and make room for her younger sister who her fiancé obviously likes better, and the hapless archmage she dragoons into helping her. A lot of people get involved, and no one has any idea what anyone else is feeling, because that’s the genre.
Written: Still THWARTED.
Another one that should be every day.
Successfully made it to gaming despite the weather, then successfully made it home despite the intense weather. It, as they say on the Internets, fucken WIMDY.
Unfortunately, when I got home, I had neither Internets nor electricity. Usually PG&E gets it fixed pretty quickly, but everything was still out after I took a nap, so I went back to sleep. This was probably not the best thing I could have done, but it was easy.
Played: Librarians Errant. A two-fight session! First, as the team was seeing off the astral pirates, their ship was attacked by a dragon made of evil books and its sycophants in a literal flame war. They drove off the dragon and saved the books, but now the githyanki are stuck in Waterdeep trying to arrange transfer credit at the university. Then Shia was accosted by an origami butterfly that led the team cross-country to a deserted mill/smuggling den where Gladys’s minions were up to no good. They managed to set an ambush instead of just charging in, which was only partly successful because 5e doesn’t let you block enemies’ movement but did involve Grumman stealing a coach with a hootin’ and a hollerin’. The villains escaped, but the senior librarian was rescued in good shape and admitted the team might be worthy to be called librarians, but only very junior ones and only until next time they screw up.
Written: THWARTED.
I had the ice cream for lunch dessert, but it was Humphrey Slocombe “Secret Breakfast”, so I’m saying it counts.
Apparently my new Saturday routine is to go to Togo’s and eat a pastrami sandwich and drink multiple flavors of Diet Dr Pepper from the drink robot, on the way to the book store and grocery store. The ice cream store doesn’t open until noon, and I usually try to get my act together before then, so it will have to be intermittent.
Watched: Puella Magi Madoka Magica 10-12: The end! Jus was appropriately emotional at finding out Homura and Madoka’s deal. Not sure what to show her next, maybe Revolutionary Girl Utena.
Written: 122 of outlining. I don’t know what these aliens should look like. I wrote some stuff down, but it’s probably not right.
Still not feeling great. Tried to do some work, with mixed results.
The cats were still not eating any of the food I had, so I went and bought some different food, and apparently that is somewhat acceptable. I hope it’s not just that it’s new, because there are a limited number of brands I can buy.
Watched: Hazbin Hotel 1.7-8: Season finale! The power of friendship prevails! But there is lots left for the next season, because even if Charlie saved Hell, it’s still Hell.
Read: Blade of the Moon Princess vol 2 (Tatsuya Endo): More running around in enemy bases and learning to use the sword and also some backstory on the rival princess.
Written: 174.
I failed at today. When I got up to try to commute, I felt pretty bleah, so I stayed home. On the one hand, nobody could complain about how I lowered the tone of the office, but on the other, I had ordered goat curry and samosas for lunch, and my coworker had to eat it instead.
The cats seem to have decided to scorn all the food I bought for them, including the like 50 cans of gooshyfood I just bought. Maybe if they get hungrier, they’ll eat it?
Written: 201.
A day for Marith!
I did go into the office today, but the person who freaked out wasn’t there and anyway it was quite busy so there wasn’t a lot of “between tasks”. I did get the sexual harassment training video squared away. (TL;DR: don’t be a disgusting asshole and you’ll be fine.) I also ate a pile of pork and dried mushroom dumplings, which were sadly underwarm but otherwise good.
Read (while commuting to work): Glitch vol 2 (Shima Shinya): The investigation club continues to investigate, we see more of the other members’ families, and then they get some of the weirdness on them.
Read (while commuting home): My Dear, Curse-Casting Vampiress vol 3 (Chisaki Kanai): Besides having maxed stats, the male lead apparently has the superpower of making vampires like him. Unfortunately this includes vampires who do not buck the stereotype of being crazed killers as well as ones who do. Also, ritual magic FTW.
Written: 203.
I am actually supposed to take 20 days of vacation this year, which may involve some planning.
Unless, of course, I have to live behind the bus station in a cardboard box. In my 1;1 with my manager, I learned that my habit of reading on my phone between tasks has been causing someone in the office to freak the fuck out, and it’s not somebody who can be ignored. I blame capitalism, because there’s sort of a reason for this, but if people just minded their own business, everything everywhere would be much better. My manager confirmed that my work performance is fine, this is purely about how things look in the office. There is an obvious solution here, but the whole back-to-the-office initiative was rationalized by the CEO wanting his domain to look prosperous.
Written: 146.
It me. You damn kids!
Did a work. Continued deliquescing into a pile of sludge. How is January almost over?
Written: 177. But I am not great like Kit, who has mastered the timeline software. Also I had to redo some of yesterday because my MC doesn’t know that she shouldn’t blame the mysterious person for the awful thing.
I think I like the concept of Lego more than the actuality, but I’m still pretty glad it’s a thing that exists. One of the better uses of plastics.
Today was a lot of nothing. I felt a lot better, though.
Watched: The Imperfects 1: Three teenagers find out they have superpowers completely paid for by the accompanying disads, and the mad scientist who did this to them has skipped town. Despite the line about “a banshee, a chupacabra, and a succubus” there is not so far any indication of supernatural elements, just improbable biotechnology.
Written: 471. Admire how I am not feeling (very) bad about not doing this every day!
But does “chocolate cake” mean chocolate crumb and any kind of frosting, any kind of crumb and chocolate frosting, or chocolate crumb and chocolate frosting?
Today I ate a pastrami cheesesteak, which was okay, did some grocery shopping, and was a massive lump because I felt lethargic and headachey and bleah. My guess it was side effects from the vaccination yesterday. Still better than anything I’ve ever heard about shingles.
Watched: Puella Magi Madoka Magica 7-9: Oh good, Jus was appropriately disturbed to find out how the magical ecosystem works and what Kyubey’s role is.
Written: 147.
I didn’t celebrate, but I do like peanut brittle! I should get some of the See’s sugar-free.
No commute to the office today, but I did have to ride the bus a lot to get to the doctor for my second shingles vaccine dose. It was kind of a pain, but I got some reading done, and I’m okay with going to some trouble to not get shingles. It sounds dreadful.
Read: The Archive Undying (Emma Mieko Candon): Sometimes the AI gods of far-future city-states implode, taking any worshippers who happen to be directly connected with them. Sometimes the worshippers survive and can be used to make giant robots. It gets more complicated from there, with intrigue and M/M romance and existential despair and poor decisions and brain-eating.
Read: Reborn As A Vending Machine, I Now Wander The Dungeon vol 1 (Kunieda, Hirukuma, Hagure Yuuki): A vending machine enthusiast is killed by a falling vending machine and isekais as a magic vending machine. Fortunately he falls in with someone superstrong who carries him around so he can provide his bounty to many adventurers. There is a lot of murder and colonialism, though.
Read: Glitch vol 1 (Shima Shinya): A high school and middle school sibling (the older might be nonbinary?) move to a small down and team up with some other kids to investigate the strange creatures and mysterious apparitions of their town. Has a nice clean art style and mysteriously strange mysteries.
Read: Death by Irish Whiskey (Catie Murphy): Fifth in the “Dublin Driver” series and also the author’s FIFTIETH BOOK. This time the murders are at a whiskey competition and Meghan really tries not to investigate (for all the good that does anybody).
Written: 107. It’s not nothing.
Admire my Windows-free lifestyle!
Back to the office. The customers were rabid today, but I got a crispy chicken sandwich.
Read: The Yakuza’s Bias vol 1 (Teki Yatsuda): The boss’s teenage daughter drags the middle-aged old-school yakuza to a K-pop concert and a whole new world of fandom opens up before him. Most of the other yakuza are bemused, but a few get it. It’s definitely an “explain K-pop fandom to the mundanes” manga.
Written: 105 of outlining. It would be nice if I could just keep outlining and then add punctuation to get a complete draft, but it doesn’t seem very likely. Also I need to decide what these aliens look like now that I know where they come from.
Mmm, plant protein.
Not only did I miss the first connection, the following train was cancelled entirely, but I still made it into the office, ate a salad bowl thing with veggies and meat and grains, and did some work.
Read: A Cat From Our World and the Forgotten Witch vol 1 (Hiro Kashiwaba): Decades after the magical prodigy saved the world, she has fallen on hard times, so she tries summoning a guardian beast and gets an enormous cat. Problems ensue, but the cat is a loyal friend. Also apparently every character except the forgotten witch should get played with until they come apart.
Read: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End vol 1 (Kanehito Yamada, Tsukasa Abe): Decades after the team of heroes saved the world, the elven wizard is upset to be reminded that humans don’t live even a century. She sets out to learn more about humans as a way of remembering her friends, taking the apprentice of one friend with her. Although the premise is sad, the story isn’t that sad, or maybe I just don’t have a heart.
Written: 138.
No pie for me, still waiting on the medical-financial complex to refill my medication.
Got up early to meet, did another work.
Kit’s FIFTIETH BOOK, Death By Irish Whiskey, is out! It’s the fifth in a series, but buy it anyway!
Played: Lancer. Still playing as the corporate goons. Pretty sure the “corporate execs” we rescued were actually locals who hacked the system, but that’s an issue for the IT department. Besides, we’re not actually in favor of killer robots murdering people, even if altruism isn’t in our job description. Kelsey’s character got to run around slamming into people like a wrecking ball, so it was all good.
Written: 103, which is still in the triple digits, if only barely.
Yes, Sage, it is lunchtime!
Did a work. Whatever.
Written: 165. I might be writing everything I deleted from yesterday, but it’s better now.
A gaming session is like a playdate for gamers, right? Definitely a comparable maturity level!
Played: Librarians Errant. Thaïs is doing okay at rescuing herself by pushing Gladys the turncoat librarian out a window, but doesn’t mind at all when her friends show up to help. There’s a comparatively minor kerfuffle and then everyone escapes with the books Gladys bought at auction, which are only moderately helpful in tracking down the Education, but take that, Gladys! Serves you right for locking cute girls in boxes! Martin is still nowhere to be found, so the next day the group is given into the care of Garth, an extremely hard-ass Librarian Errant who immediately takes them back down to the Elemental Plane of Books or whatever it is to help clean up the hellfrog damage. Naturally, they barely get started before Thaïs trips over some githyanki book thieves and a running fight breaks out. Alas, the githyanki excel at fighting in the narrow stacks and Lily is forced to surrender when she’s the last one standing. She does talk the githyanki out of taking a book that’s not on their list of books that the library stole from them, but the astral pirates make their getaway pretty much entirely successfully. Bah!
Maybe next time I’ll remember what shocking grasp is for.
Written: 141. I may need to delete it all, but that’s a problem for Future Me.
Penguins! They exist! Had you heard?
Today I accomplished all the things I planned to do, surprisingly. I did get up too early to get phlebotomized, then made it to the bookstore, a sandwich shop, and the grocery before arriving back home in plenty of time to be on call all afternoon. I was even able to almost entirely ignore customers and travel to Monkeycat Towers to watch more Madoka Magica. So yay me, I guess.
Watched: Puella Magi Madoka Magica 4-6: We finally got to the episode where Kyubey explains what’s really involved in becoming a magical girl. “Why does everybody react the same way when they find out? I don’t understand humans.”
Read: D&D5e Tome of Beasts 3 (Scott Gable, Richard Green, Kelly Pawlik, Sebastian Rombach, Mike Welham, et al): A pretty good monster book, although like all modern D&Ds it takes a Linnaean approach to monsters.
Written: 175.
Where would we be without them?
Spent most of the workday on a customer call where I contributed little, but not quite nothing.
Watched: Hazbin Hotel 3-4: Okay, it’s better, especially since we got both Angel Dust and Husk doing things.
Read: Call the Name of the Night vol 2 (Tama Mitsuboshi): This volume reminded me a lot of Witch Hat Atelier, with the magic medicine lessons.
Written: 189.
At least it’s not Thesaurus Abuse Day, or I’d feel called out.
I missed the primary connection to get to work, but the fallback train is still not bad, and I got to the office in time to get my preferred desk (the one that lets me see when lunch is there). We got Ethiopian today, and not even the penalty for corporate delivery lunch could make it not pleasing.
Tried to get Jus to join the alternate Sunday game, but she is not at a stage of her development where she can go places and do things of her own volition yet. I feel like I could at that age, but a of all, like I actually remember anything that far back, and second of b, I had so many fewer commitments to plan around because it was 1984.
Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 28 (Tomohito Oda): I guess that passes for mushiness in this genre! Also Komi is getting better at friending and I think the series is probably close to the end.
Written: 111, which is more than 99.
Went to the office, closed some support cases, ate a Reuben. It was the opposite of warm, but the big medium pile of pastrami was satisfying.
My brain finally wandered back to not-Champions, although without having resolved any of the conflicts I was stuck on. It did occur to me that any of my ideas involving 4d6 (3d6 success + 1d6 level of success, or whatever) could be flavored as CMYK for that four-color goodness. Not sure if that should matter (like different results depending on which color is highest), or just be a reference.
Read: The Skull Dragon’s Precious Daughter vol 3 (Ichi Yukishiro): Field trip in search of a reptilian kami that turns out to not be who they expected, but Eve foils the villainous plot and all is well in dragonland.
Read: Otherside Picnic vol 8 (Iori Miyazawa, Eita Mizuno, Shirakaba): Sorawo and Toriko are always fine when they go into the incredibly dangerous Otherside, so is it really that dangerous? Turns out the answer is yes.
Written: 268, some words and some outlining. Although it’s an obvious point at which the MC could end up in the place and see what happened, it’s probably not enough time for things to have reached an interesting point.
Not any particular dragon, just pick one who seems underappreciated.
Didn’t have to get up early for work today, yay.
Played: Nothing. Ken went to the optometrist today and his eyes were still so dilated he couldn’t read the adventure, never mind a battlemap.
Written: 170.
Let’s watch all the Republicans whine when they get judged by the content of their character!
It’s a holiday, but I had to cover the afternoon, and ended up watching a lot of training video. Now I know a little bit more about kubernetes than I did before, or at least can put what I know into a little bit more context.
Read: The Skull Dragon’s Precious Daughter vol 2 (Ichi Yukishiro): More dragons, more magic, some dwarves, an elf, and an adorable baby.
Written: 209.
If only I had looked this up ahead of time, I could have gone to Togo’s instead of finding out that I don’t like chicken strips any more! But I got multiple grocery shoppings done anyway, so obviously I didn’t really need a lunch.
Now I’ve tried Caves of Qud, after downloading all the updates for like a year.The interface is clunky and the display doesn’t make things as obvious as my old eyes would like, but I can definitely see spending a million hours on it.
Written: 348.
Today was a day of uselessness I mean relaxation.
In the evening, we had anime again, so I at least had to leave the apartment, even if it wasn’t exactly useful.
Watched: Puella Magi Madoka Magica 1-3: Jus is now old enough to see this! We got to the all-important third episode, so she wants to keep watching.
Written: 254.