Tag: gaming

I made it home in plenty of time to game because the bus was just late enough that I could catch it instead of sadly watching it pull away, but I would have been in time even without.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Well, at least we found out what happened to the crew? That’s something, right?

Read: Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir): It was very much what it was, which I guess it not a surprise to anyone who’s heard of The Martian, but I liked where it went with the fundamental idea.

Read: Devil’s Candy vol 1 (Rem, Bikkuri): Many magic high-school manga leave me meh, but I liked this one. Possibly because although the characters are mostly doofuses, they’re sincere doofuses, or because the world-building notes are pro-knowledge/anti-superstition, or because eldritch horrors are definitely the best judges for a fashion show. Apparently it’s a webcomic, so I can read more without waiting for paper to happen.

Words: FAIL.

Good thing I’m working from home again, because there was an even larger all-hands meeting early this morning. As usual, little information was conveyed. Then the customers attacked, but I cruelly abandoned my coworkers to go have cells sucked out of my neck. It was not particularly painful, except the part where I have to wait a week to find out if my thyroid is trying to kill me.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Yep, Iapetus is full of Nopes. One of them shot the Chi in the good body, but he survived. Njall and GML found some creepy stuff in the ship, and are going to poke it with a stick next time.

Read: The Maid I Hired Recently is Mysterious vol 1 (Wakame Konbu): The maid is hot and good at her job and works for only room and board, so the orphaned young master is certain she’s up to something. Embarrassment ensues. The maid probably is mysterious, since her eyes and a select few of her emoting effects are printed in reddish-purple instead of black and white.

Read: Bec and Blood Beast (Darren Shan): More backstory, then more modern consequences involving madness, body horror, violence, and death.

Words: FAIL

It is too hot out.

Played: Edie’s D&D game, in Edie’s new house. The new place is about 900% less annoying to get to, and probably also about 900% larger. It has the same combined living room-dining room-kitchen with island as the Petterson’s new place, so it has a very familiar vibe despite being full of boxes. Also it was full of gaming munchies and ridiculous refrigerators and gamers (but not Rue, they were at camp). After a lot of house talk from the grownups, we played what turns out to be the penultimate episode of Edie’s game, in which our attempts to learn the gnolls’ side of the story are in vain and we just have to murder them. We did find a larger camp, with what looks like a gang boss of gang bosses of gnolls, so probably that will be the climactic fight of the campaign.

Words: Check, although the way I’m counting words for editing is not very rigorous.

I really do mean to walk to grocery shopping, but maybe not until fall.

Played: Zoomwarts! This time it was NPCs dueling over Harry and Bella got to be mature. But she still owes the mermaid two arms or a huge pile of jewels, and the new potions professor is still up to something, and the Holiday Party is still impending!

Watched: Yona of the Dawn 19-20: Yona’s primary stat is definitely Bravery, or maybe Loyalty.

Eaten: Thai food! Ken is not here to cook, he is off hiking somewhere, so we ordered in.

Played: Super Mario Party, or at least like six of the zillion minigames. I was terrible at them, which is only to be expected from an old person who rarely plays video games, but it was fun.

Read: Over the Woodward Wall (A Deborah Baker): It’s a little like Oz, only more Seanan McGuire and philosophical and faerie bargains, and also it pretty much ends halfway through the story and the next book won’t be out until this fall!

Words: FAIL.

I successfully went shopping, although I did not walk there, so that was like an accomplishment but not really? Also I ate a lunch that was not horrifying.

Played: Zoomwarts. A new love interest for Bella! A new reason to skulk about the secret passages of Hogwarts! Catalog shopping! Lizard drama!

Watched: Yona of the Dawn 17-18: You know, he has a point. And his boss is awesome.

Watched (by somebody, not me): Kaleido Star 5. I had to play Bloons TD 6 with Nonny and his parents.

Read: Dear Noman vol 2 (Neji): The end! It was fundamentally a ghost story, so the ending was always going to be sad, but it was hopeful too.

Words: Check, ish.

I can’t complain too much about work with a two-day work week, but I can be completely useless! Surprise: it’s new coworker S’s last day, she has to be a SAHM. Less surprise: boss A is on maternity leave after today, more or less.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. EP is really about 80% careful preparation by weight, but we managed to recover some of the casualties of the group the person we’re looking for was with, and got a little information out of them. Also, we avoided getting eaten by the horrible Exsurgent monster, so yay us.

Read: I Swear I Won’t Bother You Again! vol 1 (Reina Soratani, Haru Harukawa): Kind of like My Life as a Villainess but without isekai elements. While rotting in prison for the attempted murder of her illegitimate half-sister, a noblewoman wishes she had it all to do over again, and finds herself a year in the past. Her plan to help, rather than hinder, her half-sister and the prince getting together so she can retreat to a convent to do no more harm is definitely getting derailed by the fact that social interactions are a chaotic system.

Read: Gearbreakers (Zoe Hana Mikuta): Cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic mecha story of love, revenge, betrayal, murder, and other fun stuff. The technical bits are pretty ridiculous (because mecha) but it is very dramatic. If there were less torture, I might recommend it to Jus.

Words: FAIL.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Because this is a game that does not have mechanics for flashbacks (and because Kelsey had been drinking all day), we spent most of the session discussing preparations for Iapetus, but did get there and see what we’re going in to by the end.

Read: Tunnel of Bones (Victoria Schwab): Our main character and her ghost go to Paris, which is also extremely haunted, and find even more terrible ghosts there, but at least they have someone to phone for advice. Pity about the reception in the catacombs.

Read: Drugstore in Another World vol 2 (Kennoji, Eri Haruno): Unnecessary drama, some mod-cons. Probably not worth continuing.

Words: FAIL.

Played: Edie’s D&D game. Jeremy and Rachel were doing something non-gaming-related, but Edie is perfectly capable of feeding gamers on her own and also sending creepy-crawlies to ambush PCs just because they’re completely incapable of remaining quiet when interesting mushrooms and flammable deadwood are around. We also found the gnolls that are oppressing our new friends the thri-kreen, and they don’t seem to have their own side of the story to tell unless you count grunting and howling, so I guess we need to deal harshly with them. We did get a prisoner, at least, so we can interrogate it next session, which will be at the new Gollub place much closer to Dave and I. In fact, after going to Palo Alto for gaming for like twenty years, I think this was the last time we will make that trek. The end of an era!

Read: The Tale of the Outcasts vol 1 (Makoto Hoshino): A mostly-invisible demon and an exploited urchin girl become friends in Victorian England.

Words: FAIL. What kind of excuse is “used up all energy going to gaming in Palo Alto” anyway?

The cleaners came and cleaned Marith’s old room. Now I could use it for something, if I were competent and energetic. But I’m not, so I went grocery shopping and ate some lunch and gave Marith her swamp cooler, and eventually went to Ken and Ayse’s. I had not realized it before, but Truffle has sporadic white hairs in her black coat to go with the white spot on her tummy, so she is a Night Sky Kitten!

Played: Zoomwarts. I should probably have sent in a Death Eater with a wand to focus things, but Bella was sufficiently oppressed, I think. The lizards got some leads on how to get arms for the mermaid, at least.

Watched: Yona of the Dawn 15-16: Uh oh, the new king is surprisingly competent!

Played: Squirt gun battle! Nonny finished me off by emptying the magazine of one of the large squirt guns over me, so I was pretty much the soggiest. I had to borrow a towel to sit on before Marith would let me ride in her car again.

Not watched by me: Kaleido Star 4. Jus and Marith and maybe Dave watched it, though, so that’s fine.

Words: check, somehow.

Felt reasonably productive at work, although probably it’s not true. And then in a feat of unrivaled dexterity, I yanked my arm robot right off, even though it had like four days left. Sigh.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Gaming is on Thursday now! We finished deciding what to do with the treasure monster from the current adventure, now that Kelsey is here, and immediately moved on to visiting the TITAN-haunted ruins of Iapetus to look for a missing coconspirator, because that is guaranteed to end well.

Words: FAIL.

The water to the building exploded in the middle of the night, so there was no washing of any kind until the end of the work day. I used this excuse to get lunch out, because why not? Apparently the water will also be out for part of tomorrow to install a more permanent fix, but at least we have warning this time.

I did not succeed in doing more than the most trivial amount of work, because my brain is too small.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Apparently we can argue forever about the most ethical and practical course of action, but in the interests of fun, we decided to foist the AI off on some other Firewall people. (Maybe we could have come up with a better solution if we had been able to make Research rolls, but Kelsey was busy being oppressed by hierarchical capitalism.) Next week: maybe something else!

Read: Lagoonfire (Francesca Forrest): The decomissioner from “The Inconvenient God” gets into another mess, and we see that her government is every bit as horrible as hinted at, and also she has a Backstory.

Words: FAIL.

Today was full of walking in the excessive heat, but at least I got to play D&D? This was the second session of Edie’s summer campaign, and we finally met the local sophonts, who want to get us involved in their war against the other local sophonts. This is bound to go well. Also we fought some ugly monsters, which would have worked better if I had remembered my character takes only half damage from being clobbered/stabbed/sliced while hopped up on combat drugs.New theory: I don’t like D&D not because of the binary resolution or stat-centricness, but because I’m not smart enough to play it. Anyway, after walking back in the heat, I walked around some more trying to grocery shop and get chicken strips for dinner, and then was a useless melted lump for the entire evening.

Words: check.

I think I made a customer happy today, although I did not exactly fix their problem. I’ll call it a victory, anyway. Decided not to join From Written To Recommended because I no longer have any delusions that I could someday write something worth publishing. Ordered a new toaster oven so I can give the old one to Marith for her new apartment.

Read: Eniale & Dewiela vol 3 (Kamome Shirahama): More hijinks, Eniale defends her love of fashion, Dewiela almost gets away with something, they’re still friends (somehow), the end!

Played: Eclipse Phase 2: I think we’re about done here, as we have found a suitable disposition for the alarming artifact we discovered, which should protect transhumanity without infringing on any person’s rights. Next session: we go somewhere creepy! Gaming might be moving to Thursday nights. We talked about in-person, but we’re so spread-out and carless that it might not be feasible.

Words: FAIL.