Category: Life of a Space Parasite

Had to get up two hours early for a meeting, but then managed to take a shower before starting normal work, which was surprisingly nice. Not nice enough to make me a productive participant in capitalism, though.

Probably today’s best thing was that we got to hear Kelsey’s voice (and see a picture of her doggo) for the first time in… half a year? two years? Since the Earth cooled from its primordial molten state? Anyway, she is not dead and can game, so that’s all good!

Played: Lancer, because gaming has moved to Tuesday! This time we had a fight that ended before we had to knock off for the evening, in which we triumphed, so good job us. I did not try to be clever at all, I just ran into a good position and worked on chopping the enemy to pieces, and it turned out great. I should probably switch out my one ranged weapon for a longer-ranged one, though, in case I come up against someone like that flier without enough support. Also we need to investigate this mysterious energy phenomenon, but the grad student is all over that, so probably my character should concentrate on getting the ship fixed to get us and our data out of here.

Read: Chapter 5 of “Rodeo Clown“, in which Blitzo finally can’t even.

Read: What If? 2 (Randall Munroe): It is very similar to the first volume, but I still read it instead of eating lunch.

Written: FAIL.

Apparently gaming will make me get up on time, even if the sky is threatening rain.

Played: Dark Matter. After languishing in the brig for a good twelve hours, the PCs are sprung by a previously-unsuspected faction, who are kind of sketchy but at least have a plan for getting off the asteroid, even though the plan relies on finding people dumb enough to go into the zombie-infested decks in search of drive components. It turns out the zombie-infested decks are also full of giant space rats, and the zombies are smart enough to make use of doors and terrain hazards, but this time the noncombat characters (cough Sesamina cough) stay back instead of rushing in to get beat up, and things work out much better. We still complained about almost running out of hit points, so Jeremy let us level up. Yay, level 2! But there are undoubtedly more zombies, and probably the gelatinous cube will get loose at some point. I bet it knows how to use that blaster, too.

Absorbed: Only a small amount of rain, really.

Written: 396 kitten words.

I was backup on call in case the customer who said they wouldn’t call over the weekend called, but they never did. Good on them for sticking to the plan.

Marith’s car is not actually on fire yet, so we went to wave to Ayse as she lay in bed practicing viruses and eat beef mushroom sweet potato dandelion green beets. Then Marith had to go home because of capitalism, but I stayed to play Minecraft and Sneaky Statues and then went home. It was pretty nice.

Written: FAIL.

Brief team meeting first thing in the morning and then right back to the customer. They are not going to make us sit on the phone with them all weekend, at least, which is good because I have no brain cells, or at least no caring, left.

Watched: She-Hulk 3-4: A good mix of problems that can be solved by punching, problems that can’t, and fourth-wall breaking.

Read: Third Time Lucky (Tanya Huff): Seven stories about the most powerful wizard in the world, who can do almost anything but would rather lie in her hammock on a tropical coast with a cold drink and a hot guy than anything else and therefore is her own worst impediment.

Written: FAIL.

Same customer, all day. They may finally be accepting that it’s their infrastructure and not our product, but only very slowly.

Played: Lancer. This is a very sand-tasting group, but we managed to get shot down so we can start the combat next week.

Read: “Vilcabamba” (Harry Turtledove): Titled for the last town of the Incas after the conquistadores destroyed their country, a story about the remnants of the US+Canada after aliens conquer Earth. It is not any more cheerful.

Read: “Choke” (Suyi Davies Okungbowa): I didn’t understand this story, but it definitely had a sense of creeping dread from creepy white people.

Written: FAIL

Got up early for a meeting, then went right into calls all day with the same customer.

Watched: OFMD 6. Awwww!

Read: Revelator (Daryl Gregory): In the backwoods of Tennessee in the first half of the 20th century, a small cult worships something unearthly within in the mountain, through revelations brought forth by one lineage of women, until one says “fuck this” and becomes a moonshiner. There are many horrifying revelations, and also stupid men getting in the way, and a few explosions. As a bonus, now I can read tangentti‘s fics.

Written: 194 kitten words.

The new thing is live, and even almost kind of works a bit, but I was on a customer call all morning so the rest of the team had to complain about it without me. It’s too bad, as I really feel that complaining is one of my core competencies.

Watched: Ms. Marvel 5-6: Yay, she finally got the costume! And defeated the villains, with the assistance of her non-powered but courageous friends! As is appropriate for the genre. I hope there’s another season

Written: 390 kitten words.

I accomplished pretty much nothing today, but I wrote it off as recovering from last week, so whatever.

The schedule for Big Bad Con is nearing completion, so I guess I’m committed to this folly and need to figure out how to make a point-crawl that doesn’t suck for Dungeon World.

Watched: Ms. Marvel 3-4: That seems like a sudden change on the antagonists’ part, but now it’s time for chase scenes! Also more cute boys for Kamala.

Written: 902 kitten words, but they’re only kitten words, so meh.

I was too dumb to get up and do things in a timely fashion, but they did eventually get done. Marith was dead from capitalism, so I went over by myself to eat desi pizza and play yard soccer and Among Us with various combinations of Ayse, Ken, Dave, Nonny, and Soccer Star Jus who is undefeated in actual games.

Read: The “Imperial Hammer” omnibus, containing Hammer and Crucible, “An Average Night on Androkles”, Star Forge, Long Live The Emperor, Severed, and Destroyer of Worlds (Cameron Cooper): A band of misfits against multiple interstellar power structures to save the day. The moral of the story is, it does matter how you treat people. The technobabble of the story is sub-par, however.

Written: FAIL.

I finally got fans arranged so that I don’t die when I lie down in bed, but still have some nights of bad sleep to make up for. Grr. Argh.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. We finished the Mars adventure by destroying the terrorists’ stockpile of grey goo, and then annoying the TITAN that was the original source so that it noticed and destroyed them. Only some of us suffered deep psychological trauma from realizing that was an actual TITAN whirring away down there. I think next is more Lancer, then some gatecrashing, then we find out the shape of the solar system’s doom. Or maybe it’s just all Lancer all the time from here on out.

Written: FAIL.

Someday this will be Guillotine Day instead, but for now it is just a day when many things are closed. I did manage to do grocery shopping and get lunch tacos, although only one of those has a convenient tipping option.

I once again accomplished nothing, although this time I had the excuse of being on call. It’s not much of an excuse.

Read: “Rodeo Clown” chapter 1, a great new Helluva Boss fic.

Written: 310 kitten words.

Accomplished absolutely nothing today.

Played: Dark Matter. This time we found the rest of the asteroid we were hiding in, got beat up by the most pathetic mechademons ever to leap out of a hatch, got beat up again by police drones, and ended up in the brig. However, no one holds that against us, so once we’ve been locked up long enough to satisfy the drones we can start getting them organized to get out of this dead end. First we should probably do something about the sphere of annihilation in the engine room, though. Also the gaming munchies were excellent.

Watched: Our Flag Means Death 5: Good job avenging your husband’s honor, Stede. I think some of the crew are going to get reminded that Izzy is the kind of pirate who murders people the old-fashioned way, though.

Read: “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” (Sarah Pinsker): A story told through unordered posts and comments on a folk song website, complete with obnoxious troll. I think it was up for some award.

Written: 409 kitten words. I thought about other words but was too dumb.

I was on call all day, Marith’s car is pretty dodgy at the moment, and Nonny has some illness, so there was no gathering, and I didn’t do anything else useful today. I should have, what with having the whole day to sit in front of my computer, but I was too dumb.

Read: “Clutch Control” (Chosen_undead): Loona/Octavia from Helluva Boss, mostly during the last episode of season 1 while their fathers are having their own drama. No smut, just trying to be friends in their messed-up world. (Is smut even a thing in fanfic any more? I feel like it went out with Harry Potter, which probably just shows that I’m too dumb to read fanfic.)

Written: 638 kitten words.

I guess it’s Halloween season now. Shops downtown have started to have skeletons in the windows.

Played: Back to Eclipse Phase 2, to finish the Mars adventure. Fortunately our mass of silverfish had a major freakout after too much exposure to TITAN bullshit and set off the self-destruct so we had to awkwardly excuse ourselves instead of staying there making long-term gaslighting rolls on each other forever. Now we can execute our brilliant plan to dry up the supply of this particular TITAN bullshit and keep Chi’s sister from committing further atrocities.

Written: FAIL.

Had to get up early because the UK people have some kind of holiday. But they cover for us when we have a holiday, so whatever.

Finally decided to run Dungeon World again for Big Bad Con, since it wasn’t completely disastrous last time. I’m pretty sure I’m a worse gamer now, though.

Read: FAIL.

Written: Made a bunch of notes for Big Bad Con, most of which will probably be worthless.

Pretty much all I did today was go to Rachel’s birthday party (finally held because Jeremy stopped being full of covids). I ate too many party snacks and didn’t drink enough hydrations and saw a lot of people I haven’t seen in quite a while. They are still way cooler than me. I gave up on masking, so I should remember to test on Thursday or Friday.

Read: Cinnamon Bun vol 1 (Ravens Dagger): LitPRG about a teenaged girl named Broccoli Bunch who flings herself into a fantasy world and gets assigned the class Cinnamon Bun, which comes with important skills like Friendmaking and Cuteness and Jumping. She has many cheerful and only slightly alarming adventures and talks a whole lot. Alas, the other two volumes seem to only be available on Amazon.

Written: FAIL.

Feeling much better but not entirely. Managed to go grocery stopping twice without disaster striking, but accomplished nothing else today. Jus is hanging out at the mall with her friends, Nonny is playing the teaser for Splatoon3, and Ayse is napping, so no socialization today. I guess it’s a day of rest, which is another way of saying I suck and can’t get anything done.

Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 20 (Tomohito Oda): The snowboarding episode, also the “there was only one bed” episode. But nobody whose business it actually is freaks out, so good for them.

Watched: Hazbin Hotel pilot: Despite the nonstop murders, it feels slow, and the OP character doesn’t have any personality beyond being so powerful he doesn’t have to care about anything, which is 700% less engaging than Stolas.

Written: 428 kitten words.

Spent all night with my digestive system being unruly, then it was mostly okay when I went to get my tooth reinstalled (which went fine), then it rebelled again on the way home. Ugh. Fortunately, or not, I was still able to do work as badly as ever.

Read: Bad Moons Rising (Brian Clevinger): Solar-system scoundrel adventure by the author of Atomic Robo,. A minor criminal, her ancient but surprisingly performant spaceship, and the strays she picks up along the way vs capitalist intrigue and assorted annoying gits.

Read: “D.I.Y” (John Wiswell): Queer disabled wizards save the world despite the best efforts of major institutions.

Written: 485 kitten words.

Didn’t go to the office, no one said anything about it. It probably went on my permanent record, though.

Played: Lancer. We finished the raid on HA, so that’s probably enough Lancer for now. I was 100% useless for the entire three-session combat, so whatever. If we play again, I’ll ask Ken to design a damage-dealing mech for me. We don’t need three support weirdos per actual combatant.

Written: FAIL. I have to get up extra-early to go to the dentist tomorrow.

After waking up early and going “fuck this”, I decided to go into the office after the early meeting instead of before, and then found out that boss A’s kid is sick (probably not covid, but still yucky) and the going-into-the-office plan fell apart. There was some movement towards everybody going in tomorrow, but people were too wishy-washy about whether it was really happening, so I’m using my own discretion and if they don’t like it, they can make an actual plan next time. I’ve been interacting with people over the Internet for more than 30 years, I feel no need to marinate in the virus pits just so I can say I was in the same room as my coworkers.

Watched: Helluva Boss 1.6-7a, 2.1: Another episode of violence in which Millie and Loona save the day because they are awesome, and then all feelings all the time. Apparently the second part of the S1 finale is not out yet, but based on the first episode of S2 (which is), it’s probably Blitz feeling terrible about his poor life choices.

Watched: Our Flag Means Death 4: I had not previously understood how over the top Stede’s ship is. Also, cliffhanger ending!

Written: 595 kitten words.