Month: July 2024

Sorry, Marith!

Did not go to the office today, did do some work,

Read: Heretical Fishing vol 1 (Haylock Jobson): After an unhappy early life, our Australian hero who just wants to fish and avoid paparazzi gets isekaied to a litRPG world with a broken system where fishing is in fact heretical, but so what? The fish are still biting. His strange Australian pro-fishing behavior causes people to think he’s up to something and conspire against (or for, or just around) him very entertainingly. Also, an ever-growing number of adorable(?) animal companions.

Written: 154.

I presume they mean dessert rather than art, here in the neo-Puritan future of 2024.

Tested negative two days after exposure. It’s a start.

No gaming, Kelsey is dead from too much to do.

Read: Demon World Boba Shop vol 1 (RC Joshua): Isekai litRPG, the hero ends up in a world where for historical reasons everybody considers it a sacred duty to treat each other well, and becomes a bubble tea vendor. There is a surprising amount of drama for such a peaceable setting, though.

Read: The Sweet Escape (Destiny Howell): Actual Perils & Princesses adventure, written by an Ennie-winner. Wrinkle tables, good. Ticking clock, good. Do I need more railroading for a con game? I can make the area smaller, that might be good. It probably doesn’t need that many hexes. Why am I so bad at this? (Because I’m dumb, obviously.)

Written: 325.

Instead of going to a waterpark, though, I went to a birthday party. HAPPY HAPPY RACHEL-DAY (observed)!! There were some people I hadn’t seen for a week, some people I hadn’t seen for a year, and then some people on top of that. Also foods and conversation. I was definitely the lamest person at the party.

Written: 153, all terrible.

I don’t seem to like chicken fingers (strips, tenders, whatever) anymore. It is very sad.

Did several shops today, so the cats can continue to feast upon gooshyfoods. Also did some more landscaping and copper-oxidizing and whatnot in Minecraft.

Read: United Fleet (Sean Fenian): More improbably-successful wish-fulfillment with alien shipyard and asking people to be reasonable.

Written: 149.

Not sure there are still sysadmins, though. It’s all site rel or devops or whatever.

Read: The Moon on a Rainy Night vol 5 (Kuzushiro): Oh no, feelings!

Read: Library System Reset: Overdue (KT Hanna): LitRPG isekai, the heroine is sucked into the interdimensional(?) library of all magic and has to revive it, at least partly by retrieving overdue books despite hazards and outright enemies. Who doesn’t like libraries?!

Read: Bearing Gifts (Sean Fenian): Sheer wish fulfillment. The aliens bestow their gift (poisoned thought it may be) on a neurodivergent old techie guy of exactly the same demographic as the author, in thousands of years of technological civilization the aliens never invented hacking so getting around the limitations is trivial, all the biotech works fine on humans, and least plausible of all, when Our Hero explains logically to world leaders why none of them should have this power, they all stop trying to get hold of it.

Written: 126. Not sure if this scene is going so poorly because a) it’s no longer the scene that belongs here, b) I already wrote it once and writing it again, even slightly different, is just ugh, or c) any writing is beyond me.

 

Wow, it’s been a long time. It’s also National Intern Day, so obviously I need an intern to make me a hot fudge sundae!

Did go into the office today, ate a spicy burger, did hardly any work, did remain masked around humans and their virus-filled faceholes.

Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 3: Edwin’s closet full of milkshakes brings approximately 2/3 of a boy to the yard per episode.

Read: Kaina of the Great Snow Sea vol 1 (Tsutomu Nihei, Itoe Takemoto): Tsutomo Nihei far-future megastructures, this time an atmosphere canopy anchored by giant tentacle-trees. Young man in the last village atop the canopy is surprised to discover there are people on the surface, etc. Not sure what the snow sea is made of that doesn’t automatically solve a water shortage, but I’m sure all will be revealed in due course.

Read: No Man Left Behind (WR Gingell): The actual conclusion, in which many surprising events occur. Some of them are perhaps more surprising to the characters than the reader, being heartwarming when Athelas has given up on his heart.

Read: The Moon on a Rainy Night vol 4 (Kuzushiro): This volume is more about deafness than romance, but they are still adorable.

Read: “The Year Without Sunshine” (Naomi Kritzer): Ordinary working-class people coming together during a near-future climate disaster. It’s the wealthy professionals that go all Mad Max.

Read: “One Man’s Treasure” (Sarah Pinsker): Even when there’s actual magic, rich people abuse it and leave huge messes for poor people to clean up.

Written: 305, some fiction and some adventure notes. After reading an actual Perils & Princesses adventure, I realized I need a doom counter and some wrinkle tables.

What do you mean tell an old joke? I am an old joke!

No office today, I had dentistry in the afternoon. The hygienist was very approving of my tooth care, so go me.

Read: Food School (Jade Armstrong): Slice of life comic about being in a treatment program for eating disorders.

Read: Behind the Curtain (WR Gingell): Athelas and YeoWoo and Camellia and Harrow are all kind of getting along, and It looks like everything has been resolved and the mysteries uncovered, but that is obviously not the case, since there is a whole fifth book to come!

Written: 212.

I’m a boring old white guy, I’m allowed to like vanilla.

No gaming today, Brooks is out with family stuff and when we only have three players, any absence is enough to cancel.

Read: Wet Behind The Ears (WR Gingell): Well, that’s a cliffhanger ending for the middle book of a pentology!

Read: Otherside Picnic vol 10 (Iori Miyazawa, Eita Mizuno, Shirakaba): More problems leaking over from the Otherside, more gay girls in need of rescue, possible growing recognition of feelings between the two heroines.

Read: How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying (Django Wexler): After going through the time loop hundreds of times, always dying horribly and never saving humanity from the Dark Lord, the isekai heroine decides fuck that, she’s going to become the Dark Lord and be destined to win. This may involve a lot of murders, but does that even matter in a time-loop setting? Also, hot orc girls. Naturally, everything goes awry and disturbing revelations are revealed, but a thousand years of experience goes a long way.

Written: 169.

Definitely a good day for ice cream, at least in the Northern hemisphere!

Played: Librarians Errant. After missing two sessions because I was first full of Covid and then full of hubris, we are back to Jeremy’s game. Tracking down books, fights with summoned cow monsters, kobold crime lords, the usual. Thaïs got uglified which was extremely mortifying, but not beyond the power of remove curse to fix, fortunately. Now the team has a case that looks like possession to stick their noses into, so they have to take presents to a lich who was involved in magic jar research and find out who might be responsible. Surely this will be a simple and safe trip with no complications.

Read: I Ran Away To Evil vol 1 (Mystic Neptune): A heroic princess (raised by quite abusive parents) goes to die trying to defeat the Dark Lord but she never gets around to fighting him because they’re too busy getting very wholesome crushes on each other and also administering his socialist paradise. Since they have heard of the birds and bees but never seen any, they are pretty awkward but adorable. Also there’s some plot stuff with her former kingdom trying to invade the Dark Enchanted Forest and recapture her. LitRPG, but the genre has reached the point where they don’t have to explain much, and blushing has no level requirements.

Written: 145. That’s not how to write either.

On the one hand, I feel like this should be a global holiday, and on the other hand, what impact has it had? Humans still suck.

Managed to get up and go shopping not too late, so I could do the other shopping I failed at last weekend and still be at home to sit in front of a fan and go blblblblblblbl. Played a little Minecraft, but the lag was awful so I logged out again.

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 4-6: Murder! More murder! Weirdos! More weirdos! Occasional bits of serious plot in between the comedy!

Written: 170. How does writing work? Not like this, apparently.

I am so bad at this. Have I ever made a friend in my life? How?

Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 1-2: The dead boys are very dumb, but at least their living sidekick is a little better. Also the exposition is clunky, but whatever. It’s a cute show.

Read: The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Wizard’s Blue vol 5-6 (Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo): The war is kicking off, excellent time for a multi-chapter flashback to Ao’s past, which I don’t think we were previously very aware was mysterious. But it is!

Written: 256.

Where are my lemon drops?!

Went to the office, everybody was there so I had to mask, ate part of a huge pile of chicken bits and sweet potato fries, did some work or something, train failed so I had to ride the bus home and got back late.

Read: The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Wizard’s Blue vol 2-4 (Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo): This is as far as I have read before, so everything after this will be new. Sadly, it looks like the faction that likes to dress Giselle up in gorgeous Chinese clothes is being set up as the worst of a bad lot, so probably normal outfits from here on out.

Read: [Psychokinetic] Eyeball Pulling (FreeiD): LitRPG, the MC’s anomalous class is obviously going to lead her to deep revelations about where the System comes from and what it’s for and all, but I don’t care that much.

Written: 147.

🙂 🙂 😀 🙁 T_T (old school)

Went to the office, Coworker T was there for some reason so I had to mask, but whatever. Ate some short ribs between two toasted rice things, which apparently is a Korean hamburger-equivalent, did some work, might not have looked like a complete idiot in front of my boss.

Read: The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Wizard’s Blue vol 1 (Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo): Rereading so I can read all the volumes (that I have). French alchemists are kind of ridiculous, Ao is adorable, Giselle is pretty adorable too.

Read: Behind Closed Doors (WR Gingell): Further exploits of Athelas and his new gumiho buddy as they get manipulated into doing good deeds (sometimes) in the course of accomplishing their own selfish ends. So far it’s going okay, but not great, which is what we expect of book 2/5.

Written: 324

Hello, Snek Friends!

Played: Perils and Princesses. Kelsey does not have enough brains left after work and Renfaire prep and 2024 life to run D&D just now, so people took me up on my offer to test my BBC adventure on them. It did not go that well, since Ken hates my GMing and also adding a giant spider attack to show how painful combat is was the wrong move in every way, and also we only had about half of the necessary four hours, but I guess we’ll see what happens next week.

Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 30 (Tomohito Oda): I guess somebody wanting to marry both you and your boyfriend counts as a friend…? Also Manbagi and her new boy are doing well and may even be able to hold a serious conversation someday.

Written: 179.

Ran one errand today, did not involve putting people who inherited their wealth and power into guillotines. Failed at another errand and will have to do it some evening this week. Was otherwise completely useless all day.

Read: Koalafied for Love (Zoe Chant): The latest of Kit’s “Virtue Shifters”. I didn’t like this one quite as much, although the Inner Koala was definitely quite a character. The characters weren’t as interesting to me as some of the others, and also no antlers were involved at any point. Still fun, though!

Written: 162.

Technically I was on call today, but only as backup in case the weekend shift (we have that now!) ran into something they couldn’t handle, but they didn’t, so I guess I’m fairly gruntled. I was much less gruntled with my whole endealment yesterday and the day before.

I felt a little queasy so instead of getting a big wad of pastrami and sauerkraut, I had a normal roast beef sandwich while doing my shopping and it worked very well. Good job, me.

I did a little landscaping in Minecraft. A diamond shovel with Efficiency 5 just tears through hills, but it also tears through bees that wander into the line of fire, so I had to take a break to go recruit some bees from another hive and breed them up and stuff. Still haven’t managed to set up a flat place for aging copper.

Shoulders still sore, weather still hotter than I would prefer, but embodied existence not much more unpleasant than usual today.

Holy crap, what happened to Republicans thinking “gun control means being able to hit your target”?

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 1-3. I have seen some episodes of this, but did not remember the way [SPOILER] walks in and goes “nice comedy show you got here, let me BLOODILY DISMEMBER it”.

Read: No Man’s Land (Elliott Kay): My reading list says I read all previous books in this series, but I don’t remember any of the new alien threat events that this book follows on from. I was able to figure out what was going on well enough that I didn’t feel a need to immediately go back and reread, although I may at some point. Also, I hadn’t remembered that main character’s original job in his local armed forces was specifically preventing war crimes, but there need to be more people on that duty. Also also, extremely worrying details about aliens. I feel like the humans are not scared enough of the Krokinthians, never mind some of the new guys.

Read: Buck the Halls (Zoe Chant): I thought I had read all of Kit’s “Virtue Shifters” novellas except the latest, but no! I had somehow not read this one! I really liked it, because Inner Stag! Tragic Antlers Incident! Additional, Possibly Even More Tragic Antlers Incident! Also no sex and I didn’t miss it, so I must be old now. (Narrator: What does he mean “now”?)

Written: 368, somehow. I guess it’s easy to write a 13-year-old being dramatically depressed?

I need to get some paper bags to put books into for taking to the used book store. Maybe Marith can steal some for me.

Lying with my head on a pillow kind of worked for sleeping, but not very well. I had to take the morning off to recuperate, but my upper torso is feeling a lot better, so I was able to actually do so, and then work in the afternoon. Also, none of us have to stay late on Fridays any more under the new system.

Watched: The Ancient Magus’ Bride 2.24: A little bit of climax, mostly denouement (spellcheck thinks I got that word right on the first try, go me). This is where the latest English volume of the manga ends, so we’re completely in sync and left waiting for more to be translated.

Read: The Witches’ Marriage vol 3 (Studio Headline): Surprisingly, the end! The challenges Melissa and Tanya face in this volume are the Final Trials, and to nobody’s surprise they manage to open the gates by acknowledging their true feelings and enter paradise.

Written: 134.

I don’t know about this one, it sounds like waiting for the harvest to begin.

I had to get up early to make sure nothing was on fire, but did not have to go into the office, so I’ll count that as a win. More customer meetings, but finally the smart person got involved and everything got sorted.

Today it feels like whatever is wrong has moved into muscle or connective tissue or something, which makes previously trivial tasks like “bending over to deal with floor-level cats” and “lying down with my head on a pillow” annoyingly painful. I know people can throw out their backs; have I thrown out my front?

Read: A Whisker Behind (WR Gingell): A spinoff from the “Between” books, following Athelas on his own. I don’t know what the rest of the series will be like, but in this one he is in Korea dealing with gumiho murders and being twisty.

Written: 182.

I am reliably informed that every day is Kitten Day, but that does include the 10th of July.

Went in to the office today for the first time in weeks, didn’t enjoy it. It was just me and boss (who is town for like the third time in four weeks or something, poor guy). I ate a chicken gyros  and did a bunch of customer meetings, bleah.

My upper chest and throat feel weird. Congested, or ossifying, or something. Maybe deliquescing. I’m sure it’s normal at my age and nothing to worry about.

Read: “King Arthur and Her Knights” omnibus (KM Shea): Seven individual volumes, each seeming fairly short, about a 21st century woman who gets yanked back in time as a replacement for the intended King Arthur, and actually does a surprisingly good job despite not knowing much Arthuriana except that Lancelot and Guinevere suck. She makes a good-looking teenage boy (tall, perfect teeth, no pox scars, etc) and isn’t bad at speechifying and making people want to be better than they have been, but of course at the end everything unravels because that’s how Camelot goes.

Read: I’m In Love With The Villainess vol 5-6 (Aonoshimo, Inori, Hanagata): Oh no, a rival! Also zombies and stuff, but the rival is much more distressing to the OP main character. The villainess is definitely continuing to come around, though.

Written: 134.

Possibly every day is chocolate day.

Now that I am not full of Covid and despair, I was able to test my Perils & Princesses adventure on the Sunday gaming group. Some problems were revealed, but people seemed to mostly enjoy it, so I will move forward with making myself unable to escape.

Need to figure out how much extra prep is worth doing for something I’m only going to run twice. Like, of course it would be easier at game time to have cards to hand out and fight over than to have players roll dice and write down the table lookups, but enough easier to justify figuring out how to make cards?

Written: 126 of scribbled notes for improving my adventure and/or its presentation.

 

Another massive failure on my part.

It is the Saturday before a normal work week, so I went grocery shopping as normal (including pastrami sandwich and webserial chapters and bookstore accidents), and it is a normal Saturday so Marith and I went over to watch anime with Dave. I am going to declare that chapter of Covid closed.

Watched: Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts 22-24: This usurper has a more cunning plan than the last, but his personality defects are not any less. HEA!

Read: Hell For Hire (Rachel Aaron): 5000 years ago, Gilgamesh conquered the afterlife and now controls almost all magic, access to heavens and hells, enslavement of demons, suppression of human awareness of the supernatural, etc. Not everybody appreciates the rule of the Eternal King, though, and various people’s dissatisfactions lead to violence. (Also possibly romance.) The FL’s secret identity is not actually very secret, but that’s okay. Presumably the revolution will really get going in the next book.

Written: 104 of catgirl high jinks, but also some prep for gaming tomorrow.

I end up typing as much as I can these days, but I still carry a mechanical pencil with me, just in case.

Today I was still on vacation again, and also it was very hot, so I didn’t get much done IRL. I did relocate my Nether portal to be on the same elevation as the other portals on the Nether side, and created a portal for the skeleton farm so it’s easier to reach. My interior design was so bad that Ayse had completely rebuild the Overworld side, but it did work, and now I have a full set of enchanted diamond tools and only 9 credit left at the AWCAB.

In the evening I bestirred myself to finally, finally, go and get a new phone. In one swell foop I more than doubled my iPhone level, and hopefully now I will see fewer messages about support being discontinued. The saleslady was very helpful in putting on the screen protector (which I usually misalign) and transferring everything over, and also I got a free Android tablet. However, the bus was very unhelpful on the way back, so you win some, you lose some.

Also the cleaners came, which took up a chunk of the afternoon but made my apartment less gross.

Read: I’m In Love With The Villainess vol 4 (Aonoshimo, Inori, Hanagata): Both class warfare and forbidden love in one volume! The MC’s obsessive memorization of the game is pretty OP, but it’s all for love, or something.

Written: 168.

To the extent the Supreme Court will let us not have kings, anyway.

I went back to Ayse’s skeleton farm to build up levels and complete my diamond suit. I broke the anvil, though, so I had to go home to finish up. Also I’m going to need to go back to drop off a new anvil.

In the evening, I trundled over to Monkeycat Towers to see fireworks. I meant to be on time, but was suddenly starving as I passed In’n’Out, which used up all my spare time but not any extra. I also meant to be not a plague vector, but Ken was extremely nervous, so we just stayed outside and I masked the whole time. There were fireworks on that side of the hill! There were fireworks on another side of the hill! There were fireworks here and there and the other place across the city! However, when Ken and Jus were going to drive me home (because the bus doesn’t run late on holidays) there was a large and alarming fire on the next hill over and there had to be a delay so that they could pack bags and cats in case of evacuation. I did eventually get home, though, and also nobody I know was incinerated.

Written: 113.

I really should have taken that advice, because it was 105 degrees (that’s 40 for our prospective Canadian overlords), but I did a couple of errands because I finally tested negative and wanted to get out of the apartment. Now I mostly just want to pack myself into the freezer.

Also planted some Minecraft plants, although I do not have the fancy automated farms like Dave and Ayse.

Read: Adia Kelbara and the Circle of Shamans (Isi Hendrix): Being 12 and an orphan is bad enough without sudden evil magic busting out and everyone who could help having disappeared, never mind having to save the world. African setting, although horrible white people are invading.

Written: 221.

Just because you don’t know what it is doesn’t make an alien!

Did some work, had a Google meet with the team and the guy who is joining soon. He seems okay. Maybe too gung-ho, he might make me look bad, but I don’t need help with that.

Last day of work, I kept the rest of the week as vacation despite the lack of Roseville. Hopefully I will test negative soon so I can get some of the errands I’ve been putting off done. I did manage to throw out a couple of piles of stuff that I haven’t touched since I moved in, although there’s still so much to go.

Read: I’m In Love With The Villainess vol 1-3 (Aonoshimo, Inori, Hanagata): Modern person isekai’d into their favorite otome game scorns all the male love interests because she likes the snooty rival character much better (in a masochistic sort of way). I read the first two of this back when, but did not remember much of what happened when I got volumes 3-6. Now I remember!

Played: D&D5e. We finally started Kelsey’s adventure (I think it’s a module, but I have not looked so no spoilers), albeit without Vivian. Quin the half-elven bard/rogue Harper aspirant, Puck the fairy cleric/rogue trickster, and Opal the earth genasi rune knight successfully infiltrated the dungeon and beat the snot out of some horrible badger-hyena monsters, because you can do that when you’re 9th level.

Written: 213. Good thing I don’t have to get up tomorrow.