Tag: gaming

I got up two hours early (which is actually three hours early because it’s still Spring Forward Week) to go to the office, and it was worse in every way than working from home. I’m sure there are some jobs where being together in one place isn’t worse, but mine is not one of them. Home is more comfortable, has better food, has fewer interruptions, and doesn’t pointlessly waste four hours of my day on commuting. If I want to communicate with my coworkers, I will ping them on Slack like someone who lives in the 21st century.

My boss, who is from India, asked what St Patrick’s is about. I told her it was just white people nonsense, which is not an answer I’m sure she was happy enough, but “beer” was enough of an explanation.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. More of Nom’s ghosts (she will never live that down, ever), more shooting of zombies, and now the people we left safe at the base camp are freaking out. Yet, somehow, all the Marines are still alive and nominally sane.

Read: “The Backbone of the World” (Stephen Graham Jones): Mysterious prairie dog issues, uncanny strangers, impending doom on various levels, a clever plan.

Read: The Kaiju Preservation Society (John Scalzi): Just what it says on the tin. There are kaiju, somewhere, and they need preserving. It’s a little implausible that the secret is kept so well, but that’s fine. It’s a good romp and terrible people get their comeuppance.

Read: Ogres (Adrian Tchaikovsky): Sadly, the setting twist was obvious from the very beginning, although there is also a plot twist that I did not see coming.

Read: I Can’t Belive I Slept With You vol 1 (Miyako Miahara): A (hot, young) out-of-work game developer gets offered forgiveness of her back rent if she’ll sleep with her (pretty, even younger) landlady, and free rent if she lets her move in and rent out her old apartment. Super-problematic, obviously, but the leads get along and honestly seem to like each other. The twist I thought was going to be there seems to not be, but maybe it’s just unreliable narrator?

Words: FAIL.

I didn’t really get up earlier than usual for grocery shopping, but I did it with less whining, so that’s good, right?

On-call in the afternoon, but the customers were blessedly quiet.

Read: Rackham Vale (Brian Saliba, Craig Schaffer): An OSR sandbox based on (and including many examples of) the art of Arthur Rackham, featuring many faeries of various scales, mutant alligators, curses, ambitious witches, and party trees, among other fey goings-on.

Played: Zoomwarts. Surprisingly, trying the same plan again worked better. Everybody got killed, but some of them got over it, so that’s good, right? Possibly we’re going to start alternating Zoomwarts with D&D run by Ken, so that Nonny can fight monsters.

Watched: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions 1.7-8: Beach episode! But more importantly, we find out what Rikka’s deal is. Also, both positive and negative examples of romantic behavior which may be of use to Jus now that she is a middle-schooler and practically a teenager.

Eaten: Ribs! (Also brisket, burnt ends, collard greens, etc.) Apparently Jus took a break from wanting sushi 24/7 to demand ribs, and nobody was going to object.

Played: Laser tag.

Watched: RWBY 1.1 for Jus. She liked it, and we aren’t even to the trauma part yet!

Words: FAIL. I did a little revising because I figured out what one of the slang terms should be, but not very much.

Double gaming weekend! There was some doubt, but Jeremy’s dad seems to be doing well so the Gollubs and their unending gaming food were available.

Played: Lancer. No combat this session, but we saved the world anyway. I think Kappa has to buy up her Charm trigger next level, since she did so much diplomacy this mission. Not that the mission is over yet, since Dave accepted our suggestion of mutants inhabiting the engineering spaces of the blink gate we need to repair. It was a pretty satisfying session.

Words: Only 294 words, but I finally implemented the fancier (kinda) calendar for kitten words, and made a link in Writing. Then I thought about revising and didn’t.

I should have gotten up much earlier, but was too useless. I guess it worked out in the end, though.

Sought: The lost art of conversation.

Eaten: Fried chicken, shaved fennel, salad with home-made ranch.

Played: Underhand dodgeball and sneaky statues.

Played: Zoomwarts, at long last! We played late into the night because Marith doesn’t have to work tomorrow. In fact, she is on vacation! But that did not help Rosamund, Bella, or the lizards, because their plan to destroy the magic circle was foiled by a simple forgetfulness potion! Muahahahaha!

Words: 406 kitten words.

I was less useless at work today than yesterday, so that’s something, I guess. Maybe.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. More wounds, more trauma, but then the marines got to do real marine stuff instead of bored marine screwing around and were triumphant. Not that it really helped anything.

Read: “Bhatia, PI” (Shiv Ramdas): Incompetent wannabe PI with competent sidekick, modern Indian supernatural version, by the author of that hilarious rice guy twitter thread.

Read: I’m A Wolf, But My Boss Is A Sheep vol 1 (Shino Shimizu): Gender roles and unrequited lovein Japanese corporate culture. The carnivore(-descended otherwise perfectly normal human)/herbivore(ditto) divide is not used to particularly illuminating effect, alas.

Words: FAIL.

Surprise, we were the studio audience for a training video. No one told us to laugh, though.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Oh no, is this the part where we have to be clever? We’re not clever, we’re meatheads by design! How about we give Nom more shit about ghosts instead of being clever?

Read: FAIL. (Hey, if not writing is a failure, how can not reading be better?)

Words: FAIL.

On call, but nothing happened, so that’s good.

Played: Zoomwarts. Bella is probably not a vampire yet! Less clear about Baby Lizard.

Eaten: Assorted tacos from the taqueria that the burger place turned into for lunch, and then carne asada burritos for dinner.

Played: About 5000 steps of assorted roughhousing.

Read: The OP Lich Is A Returnee vol 2-4 (Stuart Grosse): Mostly infodumps about the magic system, interrupted by the OP Lich steamrollering anyone who puts themselves in her way.

Words: FAIL. I’d say I used up all my creativity on Zoomwarts, but that’s making an assumption that’s probably not borne out by evidence.

More customer calling, but we got The Expert (former boss M) to explain things to the customer. Now they have action items, instead of just waiting for us to come down from the mountain with stone tablets.

I went on another walk to get gaming food, but when I got home with my satay and eggplant (and finally, brown rice), I wasn’t hungry. I don’t think that’s how that is supposed to work!

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Release the duckling-bot! Also, what is with Nom and all these ghosts? Maybe ghosts like cigars too.

Read: Bad Moon On The Rise (Annie Bellet): A weretiger hitwoman kills a bunch of people, most of whom probably deserve it, rescues the girl, somehow keeps her not-very-elite team alive, etc. I think this is a spinoff of another series, or maybe the furniture of urban fantasy is considered sufficiently well-understood at this point that settings don’t need to be explained.

Words: FAIL.

Played: Lancer. We got bonus licenses so we could put up an overwhelming show of force against some scrubs that thought they could mess with Unity, and it went really well for about three rounds (yay gravity cannon!) until we found that the enemy was also bait, and we all got sucked through blinkspace to an unknown planet that is having some kind of military conflict. Apparently we’re going to have to pick whichever side is most aligned with fully automated luxury queer space communism, or failing that, whichever side is most likely to be able to produce exotic matter, and use our mechs to assure their victory. Also, at the gaming table, I was thoroughly encroached upon by a dog.

Words: 432 kitten words. Does anyone care? Probably not.

Surprisingly, I’m not on call for any part of today! Not that it had any impact on my complete uselessness.

Played: Zoomwarts. Bella, Rosamund (now conscious), and the lizards are making progress, but nothing is ever easy. Now they’re all in the vampire room (aka morning solarium), although only Baby Lizard and Bella are actually chained to the wall.

Eaten: Instant coq au vin, romanesco (not tesco fresco), goat brie, etc.

Watched: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions 1.3: Rikka has a minion!

Played: Murder Mystery until Nonny got frustrated, then Sneaky Statues.

Words: FAIL.

HAPPY HAPPY VIVIAN-DAY!!

I, sadly, had dental cleaning, but it was pretty quick, which I think is a good sign. Still don’t like the fluoride gunk all over my teeth for the rest of the day, though.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. We finally got a PC fatality, mangled internally by a strong magnetic field(TM) yanking around and heating up his highly sus cyberware. Also an intimate view of Nom’s surgically-installed cigar-smuggling organ, replicated dead commanding officers, and late-night ghosts hallucinations. So far my character is mostly fine (thanks to drugs) but I should probably have a replacement character ready.

Words: FAIL.

Both the cleaners and I were off a week, so I told them to go ahead and show up this morning. I had to get up for all-day on-call anyway, so it worked out okay. Marith was dead from having to come in on her “day off”, though, so I could not travel to Monkeycat Towers. It turned out that some customers were breaking things working this weekend, too, so it wasn’t just a theoretical tether to my work computer.

Played: Zoomwarts! There was another big fight against the evil vampiric teacher and her minions, but at the point where we left off, Bella and Baby Lizard seemed to have the upper talon. Surely there is no factor they have not considered.

Eaten: Not Ken food, and also not a final burger from the burger place which is turning into a taco truck. There are many other restaurants on my street (which is not actually mine) but none of them are quite as portable as burgers. And they were even Impossible burgers!

Words: 453 assorted words.

Played: Lancer. After holidays and plague, we finally reconvened to continue showing the mad scientist in his cockroach lab that his abominations aren’t all that. Not even if they are being piloted by quick-grow clones of my characters. As a player, I like the Horus stuff, but I don’t have any trouble playing a character who is “thanks, I hate it” about every single thing we learned.

Read: My Dragon Girlfriend p1-525 (Fawnduu): Cute slice-of-life-with-secret-magical creatures. Simple art, extremely gay, no, gayer than that. (I think there is a total of one male character in the first 500 episodes, and he doesn’t last long). The pictures are not particularly risqué but those ladies are definitely making the cryptid with two backs in some scenes. So are those ladies.

Read: Admiral’s Oath (Glynn Stewart): Spin-off from another series that ends with the protagonists smashing the antagonists’ military-industrial complex, focusing on the fallout of that smashing and how honorable soldiers (in space, with missiles and also massive charge imbalances that should vaporize their ships) try to protect their nation.

Words: FAIL.

I have finally taken a rapid test. It came up negative, so there’s a distinct possibility that I don’t currently have COVID!

Played: Zoomwarts, in person. I oppressed Bella and the lizards a lot, but they did make progress toward their goal of everybody not being dead. Except the vampires, who were definitely dead.

Eaten: Leeks! Romanesco! Lemony chicken potatoes!

Played: Steal the ball, by any means necessary!

Read: Between Kings (WR Gingell): Everything was very confusing in the first book, but now, in book 10, everything is actually wrapped up, even the things that we only discovered in the middle books. Victory: Pet!

Words: 331 words about kittens.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Somehow, all the Jovian Marines are still alive, possibly because they dragooned the guy who’s been there for ages into leading the day trip into hell. Also because my character can curl a pickup truck.

Read: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom vol 5 (Satoru Yamaguchi, Nami Hidaka): More ridiculousness, but then kidnapping! Oh no! Will Katarina be okay?

Words: FAIL.

Why is getting out of bed so hard? I must be doing something wrong. On the other tentacle, chewing and swallowing both work better than yesterday.

Played: Zoomwarts, over zoom. Bella and the lizards did save some people, but now they’re facing down an irritated vampire in a hallway full of black pudding. This will definitely go well.

Read: Equilibrium and Fortitude (Glynn Stewart): 3rd and 4th in the series, and apparently the end? Not that the main characters won’t have more adventures, but maybe they can be slightly less outclassed and existential, thus less bookworthy.

Words: 503 kitten words.

Although I had no meetings scheduled for the afternoon, that did not actually make it a good time to take off work because I had meetings all morning which made it hard to find time to get ready to go. But, somehow, I did it and made it to the dentist for crown replacement. Apparently now crowns are while-U-wait instead of just taking measurements for a later appointment, but I made it back in time to pretend to do some work and even get a soft dinner of chicken tenders. Which I then chewed on the side of my mouth I have rarely used this millennium, to protect the (abused flesh around the) new crown, probably hurting myself more than if I had just chewed on the crown side. You’d think I’d know how to eat by now, but no.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Apparently this station is even creepier than the marines originally thought. Also, daily survival rolls to go with the daily SAN rolls! Dave’s character failed, but we managed to keep him from being dissolved by acid. This time.

Words: FAIL. Did I mention I have to get up two hours early tomorrow?

For some reason, my body did not want to get up early today. Maybe because I got up early almost every day the past week? Nah, can’t be connected.

Played: Zoomwarts! Virtually, because Jus’s entire household is isolating due to plague, but the game is called that for a reason. Everything is just getting worse and worse for Bella, and probably for the lizards as well. They’re unpetrified, but makes the tastier to werewolves. Muahahahaha.

Words: 421, but I should stop writing kitten words now because I’m already almost two weeks ahead, and the revision needs work.

Hey, I got to wake up at the normal time for a change! Also people said I’m good in the training meeting because I don’t freak out when the scary senior guy asks questions.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Back to the Jovian marines, who are already finding out terrible things and losing SAN, and it’s only their first day deep in the asshole of Jupiter.

Read: Failed Princesses vol 4 (Ajiichi): Awww, that went about as well as it could.

Read: Positively Izzie (Terri Libenson): Another graphic novel about the drama of two middle-school girls (who appeared as side characters in Invisible Emmy)which has a surprise ending.

Read: Becoming Brianna (Terri Libenson): This time, only about one girl. Mostly. Also bat mitzvah anxiety and a cool rabbi.

Words: FAIL.

No side effects, except a minor headache. I hope this means my immune system is quietly competent, and not slacking off. “New antigen? Throw it on the pile, we’ll get around to it. Probably.”

Omicron is not so prevalent (yet) that Marith and I cannot visit Monkeycat Towers, so we did.

Watched: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions 1.1-2: Rewatching because now Jus is old enough to appreciate it.

Watched: Fruits Basket 2.1-2: Ayse and Ken have only seen season 1, so we are rewatching it with them, and then eventually we will all watch season 3 together.

Eaten: Delicious Thai food! Also like one seasonal ginger cookie. It was good!

Played: Zoomwarts. Since we changed the schedule to game when Marith is both tired and allergic, maybe it was best that all her characters were petrified? (No, it was not best.) But Bella continued to be heroic despite the IMMENSE DOOM closing in from every side and now she has an excuse to look for Harry.

Words: 208. I think I used all my brain socializing.

Too many meetings. Nobody even likes meetings.

Apparently the fine needle is not enough, so the medical apparatus needs to take core samples of my thyroid, because nodules. This is sounding alarming geological. I hope the next step isn’t strip-mining.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Vivian’s adventure concluded with moderate bloodshed and no existential threats to the solar system, so we’ll call that a win. It’s nice when some Firewall alerts turn out to be just regular shenanigans and not TITAN shenanigans. That was probably the last game of the year, since Dave is out next Thursday and the Thursday after.

Read: Gürlz (Serge Birault): Cartoony style. Young women in modern or postapocalyptic clothes. Improbably large melee weapons with eyeballs and bad attitudes. The author as a vaguely octopoid blob, sometimes with his wife/dog/childblobs. Skull-faced robots, or their decapitated heads. Much more cheerful than this sounds!

Words: FAIL.

Played: Lancer. I mean, mostly we talked about kids these days and how the world is going to hell and made dreadful jokes, but also our characters found a crater and a crashed spaceship and a giant cockroach-base and a mad scientist. Rumble!

Read: Chamomile #1-243: 20-something retail slice of life, with only minor surreal elements (like brush-eating hair), very cute.

Read: Looking For Group (Alexis Hall): What if the hot elf girl in WoW Totally Fictional MMORPG turns out to be played by a guy, but you still kind of like him, and everything is great until you listen to your asshole friend too much and screw everything up? Not at all deep, but cute.

Words: 689, but I’m not sure they’re right.

Visited: Ayse and Ken and Jus and Nonny and Dave, because everyone is vaccinated now, and some people are even boosted. Yay, human contact! Grown-up conversation!

Played: Zoomwarts. The PCs went into the plumbing to show the teachers where the basilisk lair was, and I let the dice do their thing. Now Bella is frozen, somewhere under the castle, with a bunch of petrified or half-dead people and limited firewood. I wonder how she’s going to get out of this?

Eaten: The turkey chili of happiness.

Watched: Nothing, but maybe we have a plan for next time.

Words: 364 words about kittens.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Ken is just back from San Diego, so Vivian started her adventure and Ken’s character will get involved in the mess next week. (Actually, his character is probably one of the people we’re trying to rescue, so technically they’re already involved.)

Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 16 (Tomohito Oda): Cultural festival, and Komi is not the princess in the play. Well, not the play where the princess has lines. Also, Manbagi seems to have just realized the shape of her doom.

Words: 269 words about kittens.

Ugh, customer, was waiting until I was trying to do something useful with my afternoon and then sending a bunch of messages that required nothing but acknowledgement really the best use of your Saturday? None of that couldn’t have waited until Monday.

Played: Zoomwarts, finally! I forgot how everything works, but at least there was a flood of rats. That’s something, right? Right?

Words: 554 words about kittens. I got distracted by trying to manage my thousands of browser tabs.

This week has too many days, and this weekend isn’t going to have enough, I can just tell.

I got to feel like I knew what was going on in the training meeting today, which is always nice.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Ken still hasn’t had time to prep the usual campaign, so we made characters for a side plot where terrible things happen to Jovian Marines. It’ll be great.

Words: 231, which isn’t many, but Thursdays are usually 0.

I guess I did a work, or something.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Only little, mostly followup from the last adventure(s) while trying to get our NPCs to stay on track. Then we started thinking about characters for the playtest version we have of the Ninefox Gambit RPG. I’m afraid it may require an actual character concept, so I’m probably going to have to drop out.

NaNoWriMo Words: FAIL. I tried to write some after gaming, but my brain is too dumb.