Tag: umbrella academy

Look, it’s 2024! Insert meme here.

I had to get up at 7 to be on call, which I was late for, and then I had a thing that needed attention right away so there was no going back to sleep. Eventually I got to stop being on call, which I was also late for. Not an auspicious start to the year!

In between, I at least got to play a little Minecraft with Ayse and Nonny. I haven’t played in a long time, it turns out.

Watched: Umbrella Academy 3.9-10: Pretty sure listening to Five is always more sensible than listening to any of the others, and this was no exception. Now the season is over and everything is ???WTF??? yet again, but next season allegedly will wrap it all up. I doubt it will resolve the discrepancies in scale, but all visual SF has to suffer from those, because all people with enough money to make a theatrical movie or Netflix show are complete morons.

Read: Strange Machines (ed Marissa Van Uden): I actually read this a while back but forgot to note it, so here it is. Subtitled An Anthology of Dark User Manuals, it is what it says on the tin. Stories include “A Brief Guide to Surviving a Human-Forced Reset”, “How to Install Organic Prostheses”, “Implementation of Eusocial Technologies in the Office”, and “How to Talk to Your Luvvbot-3000 about WWIV”. None of them are very long, so it’s more like the instructional blurbs from the backs of the boxes than actual manuals, but a lot of them are quite dark.

Written: 212 words. This actually is auspicious!

Marith could not come because she doesn’t want to be sick and still have to go work in our third-world hellhole, but I fear no germs so I went to have New Year’s Eve sushi and games and movies and companionship. (There was also Korean fried chicken, but we had so ridiculously much sushi that we didn’t get to it.) There were hugs and chonky cats and eventually toasts and fireworks. Bizarrely, transit did not have after-midnight runs for partiers, so I had to beg a ride home from Ken, but that was the only flaw in an otherwise lovely evening.

Watched: Umbrella Academy 3.8: I guess that’s one thing to do while destroying the universe.

Watched: Mystery Science Theater 3000 4.21: Circus on Ice and Monster-a-Go-Go. That movie definitely earned its place in the “Worst Movies of All Time” bucket! Apparently it was built on the bones of an incomplete previous movie, but that doesn’t come close to explaining the awfulness.

Played: Innovation. I’m still terrible at this game but at least Jus didn’t beat me. (We tied for last.)

Played: Uno. Ken kept catching me out on calling uno, hmph.

Played: Poetry for Neanderthals. Another of the “try to get your teammate to say the word” games. The schtick for this one is that the prompter can only use words of one syllable, and if they mess up, a member of the team gets to hit them with an inflatable club. It’s surprisingly fun even when nobody gets clobbered! Ayse and I beat Ken and Jus, based mostly on one round where I immediately picked up everything she laid down.

Written: Holiday. Tomorrow for sure!

Also another Bacon Day (it was meant to be Lentil Day, but right before the deadline…)

I did not want to get up and go grocery shopping this morning, but this afternoon I’m on-call, tomorrow is Retail Hell of NYE, the day after that is NYD and on-call, and then I’m back at work, so there was really not much choice.

Watched: Umbrella Academy 3.4-7: Well, that’s messed up.

Written: FAIL.

I feel like we’ve already seen this one, but I’m fine with extra chocolate.

Went back to work, which is good because otherwise Coworker T would have been the only one there for much of the day. He probably could have handled it, but it’s good that he didn’t have to.

Watched: Umbrella Academy 2.10, 3.1-3: Hey, look, it’s another disaster! With the only thing worse than the Umbrella Academy! But the main characters all get major points for being cool (if not chill) about Viktor.

Read: Daemons of the Shadow Realm vol 3 (Hiromu Arakawa): Not as many daemon battles this volume, but some politics and setup for a big fight next time. The daemons really do just have completely arbitrary powers, it seems like. However, based on FMA, I suspect we will eventually see some rhyme or reason.

Read: Timber Wolf (Murphy Lawless, Zoe Chant): The first Virtue Shifters story from Kit, and it shows. There’s an actual antagonist! Also the first appearance of Noah, whose control of the town only grows with each successive book.

Written: FAIL. I don’t know how to write. I never have. All is delusion and futility.