Tag: monkeycat towers

After sleeping in forever like a stupid lump, I went over to play Minecraft. I ran into the wilderness, then burrowed into the depths of the Earth in search of dripstone, then died horribly in burning lava. After that Nonny switched to Geometry Dash for his Youtube channel, so Ayse and I made our own world. We have bamboo and a verdant cave and a house that’s more or less zombie-proof and a desert village right next door and a paddock to lure animals into. After that, we ate delicious pork chile verde that Jus and Ken made and then I came home to write.

Written: 578 words, for a total of 2035 this week and 5416 overall. Only three weeks out of ten and I’m already halfway to my goal!

We had no Marith, but we played Minecraft anyway. The 9-Channel Lavamatic and Obsidian Condenser are done except that I need five more dripstone stalactites and when I went looking for some I ended up stuck in a cave full of lava and apparently with lots of water above me so I can’t dig out. Also Nonny built a cobblestone generator that (usually) puts the cobblestone right into a chest. After that, we ate grilled imitation meats and went to a park and searched for the lost art of conversation and Ayse tried to talk me into getting cats. I have to admit, cats are good.

Written: FAIL. That leaves me at 1647/1000 for the week, though, so I guess I set my weekly goal appropriately for my level of lameness.

No gaming, because even though we aren’t going to Roseville, we cancelled too late to reclaim the time slot. Instead I got up before noon to go grocery shopping, and then went over to play Minecraft with everyone. I’m working on a 9-Channel Lavamatic, because every town needs one, but the most accessible lava is way off thataway, so I spent most of the afternoon being very bad at Cartesian orienteering and too stubborn to just build a landmark. If I ever make it back to town, I think I have enough lava to finish filling the reservoir, but I still need enough iron to build nine cauldrons, some more stalactites, and more polished diorite and water to build the safety moat.

Since Ken, who does most of the cooking, is still at Kublacon, we had Thai food and pizza and repletion and happiness.

In my own world, I replaced some poorly-organized chests with slightly better-organized barrels. They stack better, and also don’t autocombine.

Read: Valkyrie (Craig Alanson): And then everybody died! Not really, we’re only like halfway through the series, but that was quite a twist.

Written: Only 93 words, boo. Maybe it’s okay if I write 107 tomorrow.

I was on call from 7 to 19 o’clock, because capitalism, but the customers were pretty quite so I was able to sleep in next to my phone, and also visit Ayse & fam for Eurovision 2023. Earl and Cat also put in an appearance and we ate bread and roe and borscht and pelmeni and watched ridiculous stage performances and had a good time. I didn’t like the songs as much this year; I remembered some of the spectacle, but little of the music. However, agreement was universal that Finland was robbed.

Because there were technical difficulties, it took a lot longer to get to the replay of the finals, so we spent some time watching the first semi and part of the second, and didn’t finish until well into the evening, but it’s not like I had a better use for the day.

Marith was not there because she is dead in anticipation of an upcoming trip with her abusive mother.

Written: FAIL.

Today I lay abed for most of the morning, but then played huge amounts of Minecraft. Despite the risk of horrible death germs, I went over to Monkeycats’ and we played in Nonny’s world all afternoon. I tried to do some mapping, but succeeded only in messing up Ayse’s giant map, so maybe I’ll stick to wandering aimlessly and mining things. Also Jus and Nonny opened their shops, bringing capitalism to the world of one-meter cubes, and we had a bonfire party. Then after a dinner of Ken’s Famous Turkey Chili, Nonny and I played in a copy of my world, and explored the alien landscape at the bottom of the big cave near spawn. It was blue and glittery and we never saw the actual ancient city, but the Warden saw us. Briefly.

Read: The Invisible Man & His Soon-to-Be Wife vol 1 (Iwatobineko): She’s blind. He’s invisible. Together, they work at a detective agency and flirt adorably.

Written: 207.

Went over well before dinner to play Minecraft with Ayse and Nonny. I explored a swamp and a large mountain and only died a few times, so that was fun. Then Earl appeared (Cat was not feeling up to humans) so we talked about books and ate ham and various delicious sides and there was great happiness. Not sure Ken’s heretical explanation of Easter and Ayse’s Catholic explanation left Jus any the wiser, either alone or combined.

When I got home, we played even more Minecraft, because we can do that from different places, and used a copy of my world. I’ve barely started exploring the caves of the next island over, and Ayse and Nonny built a boat right away to sail hundreds of blocks away and rampage Acacia Island!

Read: Spy x Family vol 9 (Tatsuya Endo): End of the cruise ship arc where Yor murders everyone, but the focus is more on Anya and then there’s some small stories with various characters, including Bond. It’s hard being a doggo when humans are so weird.

Written: FAIL.

grocery shopping, burger lounge chicken tenders, egg dying, dumplings, barbecue pizza

Stayed in bed all morning reading, but finally had to get up and go grocery shopping. Since I never managed to get lunch, I ended up eating at the burger place next to the grocery store, which had chicken tenders that were battered(?) instead of breaded, so that was tasty. Then I went over to dye eggs with Jus and Nonny and fam, and ended up staying for Chinese dumplings. (Also I traded Ayse a dumpling that she was already going to have in her fridge as leftovers for a slice of barbecue pizza.) It was a pretty good afternoon.

Read: Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m A Giant Monster (Richard Roberts): Eighth in the series, third of the spinoffs about secondary characters from the first arc. This time it’s the catgirl made of glass, who has to mostly use her healing powers to fix the microfractures she gets from walking around, sitting on insufficiently-padded chairs, etc. It is thus a book about disability and chronic pain as well as having a supervillain for a brother and finding mysterious ancient artifacts and so forth. I like it at least as much …Queen of the Dead.

Written: FAIL.

Today I went to visit Ayse and Ken and everybody to play Minecraft socially. That’s definitely better. Also we had delicious Thai food and Ken made me a sugar-free chocolate cream pie, because it was nominally my birthday celebration. I could not blow out the candles with a single clap, though. I guess I need to practice up for next year!

Written: FAIL.

I thought I had nothing scheduled for today, so I lay abed for a million hours, but then I found out it’s Minecraft day! I made my shopping trip extra-short so I could make it to Monkeycat Towers by 14:00, and we crafted some mines. Literally, I think we all spent most of the afternoon underground. I found a cave with a spider spawner and a treasure chest, but that was all there was to it, so I started delving into the depths of the cartesian coordinate system, and found some coal and iron but also a vast underground realm with way too many surprise pits over lava. I put a door on it to keep the endermen from getting out and started a new minestair, but maybe I should go back and work on building walkways over the pits. I have iron pickaxes, so in theory I should be able to mine better stuff than coal and iron that far down.

I wonder if it would be any fun to play Minecraft on my own.

Written: FAIL.

Grocery shopping worked so well yesterday that I was able to sleep in until it was time to get ready to play Minecraft. Then I went over and played Minecraft and did not die hardly at all. Also we had a barbecue and stayed up partying and fighting off zombies all night. I still don’t dare go underground yet, but I chopped down a bunch of trees and dug up a bunch of sand and stuff. Then we logged out and ate Thai food.

Read: The Ascension Game vol 1 (Ace Arriande): LitRPG apparently based on some game that’s like Minecraft with more boss fights, but I’m pretty sure the ridiculous smut parts were added later. They do not help.

Written: FAIL.

No gaming, Rachel is sick enough to go to urgent care (although apparently not with anything exotic). Since my day was suddenly free, I went over to play Minecraft with Nonny and everybody. I accidentally cut down Ken’s prized birch trees, but also cut down trees from the forest and built a wooden house to keep monsters out and got killed by zombies and spiders and drowning. You win some, you respawn at home some, I guess. Also we ate food and played “IRL Among Us” which works surprisingly well.

Written: FAIL. Maybe a couple of hours of Minecraft is all my brain is capable of in a day.

Oh yeah, I don’t like going grocery shopping on Sunday because it’s way more crowded and things might be sold out. But the salads are fresher…

Ayse has germs, so Marith stayed home but I went to play Minecraft in person with Nonny and Jus and everyone. I’m still really bad at it, but at least I can go to sleep when it’s night. I put my smoker down somewhere with part of an earthen-walled compound and forgot where I put it! Then I ate some of Ken’s delicious cooking and petted three cats and heard about Jus’s love life and went home. There was rain.

Written: FAIL, but I have an idea, it just needs a bunch more ideas and an actual plot.

Played Etherfields with Ken and Dave, but not Ayse because she is sick. It has a lot of pieces, even in the tutorial, but so far is relatively comprehensible. There is a lot of it, too. Then I went to sushi with Ken and Jus, because she got a 4.0 GPA and deserves a celebration. Good work, Jus!

Read: The Agartha Loop second ed ch 1.8-1.35, 2.1-2.6 (RavensDagger): I didn’t diff the text, but it’s pretty similar to the first edition, except that it hasn’t caught up to the same point.

Read: Katalepsis ch 1.1-5, ch 2.1-6 (Hungry): Our main character has spent a decade believing she’s schizophrenic after imagining a twin sister and having a massive psychotic break, but as soon as she goes off to college, she meets a hot lady who tells her the monsters aren’t hallucinatory. Not explicitly Mythos, but lots of references. Extremely gay.

 Written: 114.

I didn’t accomplish anything today, but I did visit friends and search for the lost art of conversation and eat cheese fondue, salad, chocolate fondue, and German chocolate cake and get hugs and play Goose Goose Duck. I’m pretty sure the conversations other people had while I was playing video games with kids were better than the ones I had, but I got some good book recommendations. It was a nice evening, and now that we’ve had fondue, it can officially be 2023.

Written: FAIL.

And a Nifty Newtonmas to all!

Marith and I went over to Monkeycat Towers for dinner and presents and children and happiness, and it was very nice. Earl and Cat were also there, so we had morbid dinner conversation because we’re a bunch of weirdos. I did not get any presents in wrapping paper, but I did get delicious food, delightful company, and the Hug Assortment Pack. Also we played some Goose Goose Duck, which is like Among Us with more complicated maps and more character roles. I did not manage to be so sus that I got spaced even when that was my victory condition, which was a little disappointing.

Read: Icebreaker (Glynn Stewart): Standalone fantasy of a kind that used to be more common. Not sure about some of the worldbuilding (that seems like an awful lot of information loss), but I enjoyed it anyway.

Written: FAIL.

I really need to do more, better, works. Instead I did some works and then went over to visit Ayse and Ken and Dave and Jus and Nonny. We had vague intentions of watching something but instead we just ate Thai food and searched for the lost art of conversation and chased Nonny around. It was very nice.

Read: The Baby-Sitters Club: Kristy and the Snobs; Good-bye Stacey, Good-bye; Jessi’s Secret Language (Ann M Martin, Chan Chau, Gabriela Epstein): vol 10-12, which is all that currently exists. Stacey really did leave! I guess Kristy can’t go all class warfare if she lives in a mansion too. Jessi’s language is not all that secret, although I’m sure it was more so in back in the day. She uses it for good, though.

Read: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village (Maureen Johnson, Jay Cooper): Spoiler: The only way to win the game is not to play. Includes Goreyesque illustrations.

Written: 134 kitten words, finishing the entry I was working on. Tomorrow, if I am not dead from working and commuting, I will write things that are not that.

Today, I did one thing! I went over to play Monster Game with Nonny and family. Then I stayed for food and also the first episode and a half of Wednesday. It wasn’t great, but I enjoyed it and was sad when I had to leave to catch the bus, and finished watching the episode on my own when I got home. Then I did no more things.

When I got home, the water was out, no ETA for a fix.

Written: 386 kitten words.

Did nothing all day until it was time to go over to Ayse and Ken’s and partake in a feast which I had no hand in creating. Arguably that’s the best kind, and I know it makes my friends happy to feed people they love, so I’m probably just having an existential crisis. Anyway, it was an amazing feast, and there was even rainbow jello, so everybody was happy and also round. There may have been hugs.

Then I stayed up until a million o’clock doing pretty much nothing, so uh good holiday I guess?

Read: Talyn: Rebirth (Benjamin Medrano): LitRPG, main character is a succubus but actually tasteful, something is up with the system.

Written: 423 kitten words.

Grocery shopping worked okay, except that I skipped going to the bookstore so I could get back in plenty of time for minigolf  and then the buses are all different so I turned out to have had plenty of time. Not that I have any shortage of reading material and anyway I should redo my list of things to buy.

We had a Marith and a Jus for minigolf, so that was nice. I might even be getting slightly better at it. Afterwards I went to play Band Hero extremely badly (I just cannot sing, vocals don’t come out, because I only ever subvocalize along to music) and eat some pretty darn good hummus. Jus sang a lot of Joan Jett, which is good.

Written: 175 NaNoWriMo words, which I am supposed to celebrate even though it’s basically nothing.

Just because we could, we gathered at Ayse and Ken’s place to eat delicious lamb date stuff and cake and tell Ayse happy birthday some more. Also we watched the antepenultimate episode of Sailor Moon Stars and clobbered people with rubber balls.

Watched: Sailor Moon Stars 198: Everybody’s dead, next two episodes will just be drifting petals and sad music.

Written: Nothing, although I made a few notes for the con.

Happy happy Marith Day!

We celebrated by going over to Monkeycat Towers to eat Thai food and watch the first three episodes of Revue Starlight. The Thai food was delicious, the anime was not what we expected. Things it reminded us of include: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Kaleido Star, Princess Tutu, Star Driver, AKB0048, and Strawberry Panic. It is of the inherently cursed yuri-for-boys genre, and also seems to rely on knowing the characters from other parts of the sprawling multimedia franchise, so we probably don’t need to watch any more.

Read: Crusade (Glynn Stewart): Completes the trilogy with Exile and Refuge. The humans and their friends defeat the great enemy with the power of archaeology, while also dealing with first contact with assholes.

Written: 348 kitten words.

Jus is now a teenager, so she got enormous quantities of sushi, and then we went back for cake and presents. The clear winner was signed original art and pins and stuff from the creator of one of her favorite webcomics. Did I have feelings that strong when I was 13? Then we played some Super Mario Party and dispersed, because Jus and Nonny and Ayse and Ken have to get organized to leave for Portland tomorrow.

Written: FAIL.

Bizarrely, people signed up for my events at Big Bad Con, so I guess now I have to come up with an adventure. I have several elements, I just have to put them together into a small point-crawl with some kind of ending.

Endings, my old foe, we meet again.

After fighting with the signup system, I ran to play mini golf with Nonny and Dave and Ken. It was very sweaty, but I think I did better than before. At this rate, I may someday be as good as the nine-year-old. (Except he’ll have leveled up by then.) Then I hung out at their place for a while until talking about food in Portland made me want to crawl home and eat Chinese food. As always, they gave me so much bonus food I didn’t even make it to my entree.

Watched: Star vs the Forces of Evil 11-13: End of season 1! A surprisingly strong showing by the forces of evil (now under new management)! Star is still her own worst enemy, though.

Written: 405 words, not all of them 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.

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.

Bah, getting up. Bah, being on call. But bouillabaisse and shishito peppers are good!

Played: Among Us. I think we might be getting better at this, although I still pay way too much attention to performing my tasks and not enough to establishing an alibi. Also apparently bodies don’t get autoreported?!

Read: “Porgee’s Boar” (Jonathan Carroll): Only arguably spec-fic. Also an example of why psychological attacks don’t necessarily work on truly terrible people.

Written: 518 kitten words, which brings me to 3446 for the week so far.

Still sleepy and no brain, didn’t get up in time to go grocery shopping, barely got lunch at a reasonable hour because I had to play Squaredle. Pharmacy didn’t have my distilled gila monster spit, and although they found another pharmacy that had it, they couldn’t guarantee they could make them send it by Monday. Marith, hero of the revolution, agreed to detour to pick it up on the way to Monkeycat Towers.

Jus was busy having teenager fun all day, so we didn’t have Zoomwarts. Marith and I went over for dinner, though (delicious home-made ratatouille and salad and berry cobbler for most of us, In-n-Out for weird non-eggplant-eaters), and searched for the lost art of conversation for a while.

Played: Among Us. I was the imposter twice, and actually won once. The other time I got caught because somebody saw me sneak through the vents from the security center. I blame the unfamiliar map!

Written: 554 kitten words for 3176 so far this week.

I was backup on call for the new person (who isn’t the newest any more, but she’s the newest who can be on call) all day, but fortunately nothing happened. Also I did a lot of nothing, although I did manage to go grocery shopping and also play too much Squaredle (and also Squardle and Waffle and OG Wordle, but those are much quicker) instead of getting a real lunch. Then we went over to Monkeycat Towers and ate delicious Thai food.

Played: Zoomwarts, end of session 2! The expedition into the land of the dead was successful, because I didn’t make Voldemort terrible enough, but I supposes it’s okay for the PCs to win sometimes. I have no idea how to top that, though!

Played: Among Us. I was definitely the worst imposter ever and deserved to be spaced.

Read: FAIL.

Written: +363 = 3576/3000 for the week.