Author: Trip the Space Parasite

Penguins! They exist! Had you heard?

Today I accomplished all the things I planned to do, surprisingly. I did get up too early to get phlebotomized, then made it to the bookstore, a sandwich shop, and the grocery before arriving back home in plenty of time to be on call all afternoon. I was even able to almost entirely ignore customers and travel to Monkeycat Towers to watch more Madoka Magica. So yay me, I guess.

Watched: Puella Magi Madoka Magica 4-6: We finally got to the episode where Kyubey explains what’s really involved in becoming a magical girl. “Why does everybody react the same way when they find out? I don’t understand humans.”

Read: D&D5e Tome of Beasts 3 (Scott Gable, Richard Green, Kelly Pawlik, Sebastian Rombach, Mike Welham, et al): A pretty good monster book, although like all modern D&Ds it takes a Linnaean approach to monsters.

Written: 175.

Where would we be without them?

Spent most of the workday on a customer call where I contributed little, but not quite nothing.

Watched: Hazbin Hotel 3-4: Okay, it’s better, especially since we got both Angel Dust and Husk doing things.

Read: Call the Name of the Night vol 2 (Tama Mitsuboshi): This volume reminded me a lot of Witch Hat Atelier, with the magic medicine lessons.

Written: 189.

At least it’s not Thesaurus Abuse Day, or I’d feel called out.

I missed the primary connection to get to work, but the fallback train is still not bad, and I got to the office in time to get my preferred desk (the one that lets me see when lunch is there). We got Ethiopian today, and not even the penalty for corporate delivery lunch could make it not pleasing.

Tried to get Jus to join the alternate Sunday game, but she is not at a stage of her development where she can go places and do things of her own volition yet. I feel like I could at that age, but a of all, like I actually remember anything that far back, and second of b, I had so many fewer commitments to plan around because it was 1984.

Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 28 (Tomohito Oda): I guess that passes for mushiness in this genre! Also Komi is getting better at friending and I think the series is probably close to the end.

Written: 111, which is more than 99.

Went to the office, closed some support cases, ate a Reuben. It was the opposite of warm, but the big medium pile of pastrami was satisfying.

My brain finally wandered back to not-Champions, although without having resolved any of the conflicts I was stuck on. It did occur to me that any of my ideas involving 4d6 (3d6 success + 1d6 level of success, or whatever) could be flavored as CMYK for that four-color goodness. Not sure if that should matter (like different results depending on which color is highest), or just be a reference.

Read: The Skull Dragon’s Precious Daughter vol 3 (Ichi Yukishiro): Field trip in search of a reptilian kami that turns out to not be who they expected, but Eve foils the villainous plot and all is well in dragonland.

Read: Otherside Picnic vol 8 (Iori Miyazawa, Eita Mizuno, Shirakaba): Sorawo and Toriko are always fine when they go into the incredibly dangerous Otherside, so is it really that dangerous? Turns out the answer is yes.

Written: 268, some words and some outlining. Although it’s an obvious point at which the MC could end up in the place and see what happened, it’s probably not enough time for things to have reached an interesting point.

Let’s watch all the Republicans whine when they get judged by the content of their character!

It’s a holiday, but I had to cover the afternoon, and ended up watching a lot of training video. Now I know a little bit more about kubernetes than I did before, or at least can put what I know into a little bit more context.

Read: The Skull Dragon’s Precious Daughter vol 2 (Ichi Yukishiro): More dragons, more magic, some dwarves, an elf, and an adorable baby.

Written: 209.

If only I had looked this up ahead of time, I could have gone to Togo’s instead of finding out that I don’t like chicken strips any more! But I got multiple grocery shoppings done anyway, so obviously I didn’t really need a lunch.

Now I’ve tried Caves of Qud, after downloading all the updates for like a year.The interface is clunky and the display doesn’t make things as obvious as my old eyes would like, but I can definitely see spending a million hours on it.

Written: 348.

Today was a day of uselessness I mean relaxation.

In the evening, we had anime again, so I at least had to leave the apartment, even if it wasn’t exactly useful.

Watched: Puella Magi Madoka Magica 1-3: Jus is now old enough to see this! We got to the all-important third episode, so she wants to keep watching.

Written: 254.

I’m RIGHT HERE! But bald enough I probably don’t count any more.

I had to quote the lines of output to a customer that said exactly what he wanted to know and clearly labeled it, and then I had to repeat that those lines meant what they said. Yes, okay, ESL, but he was completely fluent otherwise, just not willing to read. Customers, ugh.

Watched: Hazbin Hotel 1-2. I feel like they put it into too many focus groups and everything interesting got scraped off. None of the characters are nearly as interesting as the ones in Helluva Boss, possibly because all their problems are external (except maybe Angel Dust). I hope it does well anyway, but I was definitely hoping for more.

Written: 199.

 

No apparent connection to turkey and gravy.

Read: Candy & Cigarettes vol 6 (Tomonori Inoue): Having accomplished their goal, our antiheroes discover that there is still a lot more murdering that needs done. Reminds me a little of Starter Villain.

Read: The Spirit Bares Its Teeth (Andrew Joseph White): Transmasc autistic necromancer in a C19 England where only men are allowed to do necromancy and AFAB people with the gene using their powers is as abhorrent as being trans or neurodivergent. Content warning for every terrible thing that can happen to young AFAB people in a C19 “mental institution” and some extra horrors that necromancy makes possible.

Read: My Poison Princess Is Still Cute vol 1 (Chihiro Sakutake): Human knight who respawns whenever he’s killed is married off to the demon princess who emits a lethal miasma, to make peace. 4-koma jokes ensue. The characters are not as charming as they’re supposed to be, although the male characters are the most meh.

Written: 215.

Made it into the office, did some work, ate some greasy “East-Coast-style” pepperoni pizza, made it back home without getting rained on excessively. I guess that was a successful day?

Read: The Witches’ Marriage vol 2 (Studio Headline): Further interactions between the earnest young witch and her partner the sexy older tsundere witch. Other witches butt in, there are magical mishaps, they go to Witch Marriage School and have a beach episode, etc.

Read: Have Sword, Will Travel (Garth Nix, Sean Williams): A sketchy magic sword drafts a boy who doesn’t want to be a knight, and his friend who would much rather be a knight but is spurned by the sword. Adventure and multiple villainous plots that need foiling ensue, and maybe the kids aren’t terrible at knighting after all.

Read: Candy & Cigarettes vol 4 -5 (Tomonori Inoue): Miharu’s tragic backstory, and then it’s off to America, because that’s where they keep the massive gun battles and desolate wastelands.

Written: 253. I came up with a better cliffhanger, although I’m not sure how the MC can possibly get out of it. Maybe that means it’s the right choice.

Every day I play Numbword, Connections, Wordle, Waffle, Squaredle, and Squardle (as well as Metazooa and Chrono), so uh it me.

I skipped out on the 7:30 all hands meeting, but I didn’t manage to get back to sleep, and also apparently there was actual content, so that was a poor choice.

Played: Lancer, this time for real. The corporate goons successfully fought off the robot army squad and rescued the major investor and his NHP expertise. Now they have a better understanding of how much trouble the colony is in, but maybe they can send those random do-gooders off to do something on another planet where they can’t get in the way of necessary corporate activity.

Written: 139 of outlining. I think I have a good cliffhanger, although I don’t know if it’s end of book or some random chapter or what, because I have no idea how many words this outline is supposed to turn into.

Programmers that make software? Programmers that arrange convention panels? Both okay in my book.

The first actual gaming of the year is unsurprisingly D&D. Time to roll a d20 to confirm that nothing happens!

Played: Librarians Errant. We start with the fight against animated books that was threatened last time, and the team pretty much get their asses handed to them, since each book is about as strong as one PC and they outnumber the team three to one. Fortunately their mentor shows up to save them and forbid them from returning to the Main Branch of Library Space until they are much higher level, so nobody actually dies. He also tells them to absolutely not engage with the renegade Librarian Errant who got past them in the stacks. Naturally, as soon as they’re done doing cleanup work and get to go pillage an estate sale, they run into her again. They do try to get word back, but their mentor is nowhere to be found, and shadowing somebody is the opposite of engaging, right? They each stake out the snooty auction hall in accordance with their personal idiom, but only Thaïs, who gets a job as one of the waiters because she looks good in a uniform, gets kidnapped. Next session, villainous monologue! I’m not sure what Thaïs’s resistance to that will be.

Written: 202. A bunch is still outlining, but maybe it will turn into real fiction.

I think there needs to be more burning of Trump (in effigy, with votes, whatever).

Read: Hell Followed With Us (Andrew Joseph White): Gay trans bioapocalyptic body horror turned up to 12. This is absolutely not a book for the faint of heart.

Watched: I Am Not Okay With This 1-3: A teenage girl in some decade suffers the usual teenage problems of family, friends, peers, sex, romance, poverty, etc, while strange things start happening. Reviews say “superpowers” but I think she might just be haunted.

Written: 102, which is still more than 99.

Hurray for birbs!

I did manage to have a functional metabolism all night, although I still didn’t like getting up in the morning and doing some work.

Watched: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off 7-8: Yep, that’s a Scott Pilgrim plan, all right. I can’t help but think that Ramona could do better, but of course that will be a different timeline. Anyway, musical theater, massive battle, the end!

Read: Frogkisser! (Garth Nix): A young princess goes on a Quest to defeat the evil sorcerer who is trying to take over her kingdom, which involves a lot of transformation spells. The Quest gets pretty complicated and also smelly, but she has an assortment of friends and allies and it’s not like she can go home until she’s done.

Written: 252, although half of it was terrible and half was just notes. Actually maybe all of it was terrible.

We have always celebrated World Hypnotism Day. It is the best holiday. You should celebrate it too. Join us.

More beeping and cats to help me sleep, more going to the office, more sleepiness in the afternoon. Today I had some kind of Mayan pork and roasted vegetables thing for lunch, which was pretty good and also did not make my arm widget freak out. I also ate a dinner of carbs and stuff, so hopefully there will not be any beeping tonight.

Read: Secrets of the Silent Witch vol 2 (Tobi Tana, Matsuri Isora, Nanna Fujimi): Continued undercover magic school intrigue, with bonus accounting.

Read: The Luis Ortega Survival Club (Sonora Reyes): A mostly-mute autistic high school and her friends have had it with rapist-boy and aren’t going to let him get away with that shit any more.

Read: Candy & Cigarettes vol 3 (Tomonori Inoue): Ah, the “captured and forced to do a job for the bad guy” arc.

Written: 205.

But I slept poorly, because my arm widget decided to beep annoyingly at me during the night. I guess I didn’t eat enough dinner? But I got up and went to the office anyway. The train was a mess because at-grade crossings are still somehow a thing, but because my new route is so much better, I was only like five minutes late. Did some works, got very sleepy, ate half a tandoori chicken pizza for lunch (didn’t seem to upset my arm widget at all, so I guess thin crust was the right choice), did some gross shell scripting to find out the shape of a customer’s doom. Despite being sleepy at work, I was very productive for a brief period when I got home, instead of immediately lapsing into torpor. Not sure how that happened.

Read: Candy & Cigarettes vol 2 (Tomonori Inoue): Further morally-questionable exploits of the 5th-grade assassin and retired cop as they work to take down the criminal mastermind through extrajudicial murder.

Read: Light From Uncommon Stars (Ryka Aoki): A runaway trans girl, a diabolist violin teacher, and interstellar refugees cross paths in the Asian-American community of modern-day Los Angeles. It is very much about trans and refugee and violin star and demon servant experiences and trying to build new lives. I liked it, but

Read: Secrets of the Silent Witch vol 1 (Tobi Tana, Matsuri Isora, Nanna Fujimi): A high-level witch with social anxiety  so severe she had to invent silent spellcasting to avoid talking (and maybe on the spectrum as well?) has to go undercover at magic school to protect the crown prince. Hijinx ensue.

Written: 139, which is trending in the wrong direction but still valid.

Back to work for real, boo. I woke up early for 1:1, but it turns out my boss isn’t back until tomorrow, so it was all for naught. Then I did some works, whatever. I guess it was okay.

Played: Nothing, Ken had to take Jus to an appointment because Ayse is not up to it tonight. It is inauspicious but on-brand for the first gaming of the year to be Lancer and cancelled.

Written: 140. Still more than 99, so good enough!

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.

Finally, something I can participate in!

I slacked in sick to work, because I did not sleep at all last week, and slept all morning instead. By afternoon I was able to go get my glasses fixed and scarf some fries and soup, and now I am pretty much back to normal except for my face being even uglier than usual.

Read: Hitomi-chan is Shy With Strangers vol 7 (Chorisuke Natsumi): Only seven volumes and copious help from shippers before a love confession!

Watched: Wednesday 7-8: Yeah, yeah, Uncle Fester, power of friendship, mysteries, plot twists, all fine, but a of all, it’s 2023, Wednesday and Enid can totally smooch, and second of b, the final boss was boring. The secondary villains were fine, it should have been just them. It seems extremely likely I will watch the second season when it comes out anyway.

Watched: The Seven Deadly Sins 1.1-3: Maybe the plot is great or something, but the “hero” is always perving on a young woman who is completely dependent on him, and it’s just not funny.

Written: FAIL.

Didn’t manage to go into the office, but otherwise not too dreadful, the customers have been fairly quiescent. However, I apparently forgot how to operate my body, and there was vasovagal syncope and blood everywhere and my glasses got bent, and nothing was any good. Not what I hoped for from an evening!

Read: Evil Empire (Joel Shepherd): Sequel to Angelina. After the exciting events at the end of the last book, all the protagonists have a powerup, but so do their enemies, and now they’re finding out why. It’s not good. However, the looming threat seems more pulled out of someone’s hat than grounded like the first book.

Read: Slugblaster (Mikey Hamm): I’ve read most of this, I’ve played it a few times, but now I have actually read it all the way through.It’s still great, there are zillions of random tables for everything, maybe I should try running it at Big Bad Con next year. Except I’m too old and not cool enough.

Read: Ogami-San Can’t Keep It In vol 2 (Yu Yoshidamaru): Now that the gimmick has been established, it doesn’t have to come up as much. Ogami being a horndog and Yaginuma being whatever he is and their friends shipping them is enough for most of the drama. You can get it, Ogami!

Watched: Komi Can’t Communicate 1: The anime is much like manga panels put on the screen, and I’ve already got 394569 volumes of the manga.

Watched: Wednesday 3-6: The plot thickens! Wednesday’s doom increases, as does her parents’ and her friends’ and really that of everybody she comes in contact with, and the other characters are actually not shy about calling her out on it, which is nice.

Written: Only FAIL.

 

Celebrated by going grocery shopping, because it’s the weekend, and doing laundry, because it’s Tuesday. Also by sleeping in a lot and being extremely useless,

Watched: Bee and Puppycat 1-10: The first series was on Youtube, it turns out. Also not as good. The writing and especially the art improved significantly from the pilot to the series, and then another leap forward when it was remade as Lazy in Space. Now that the remake exists, the original is really only of historical interest.

Written: FAIL.

Happy Merry to all who celebrate!

I celebrated by doing nothing useful all day and then going over to Ayse and Ken’s to eat food and see people and admire Jus’s presents and stuff. Poor Nonny is pretty sick, but I risked the germs for companionship. Even Marith did!

Despite most of the food being carbs, my arm widget didn’t freak out. It’s almost like eating a real meal made of real food is better than microwaving one unit of Capitalism Chow. (Also, ham.)

Written: FAIL.

I accomplished absolutely nothing useful today, because I am A Idiot. The cats did get three gooshy meals, though.

Read: Jangli (Ashvi Gupta): OSR set in pre-Hindu(?) Western India. It reminds me of Pendragon, with the PCs wanting to get glory but doing it through adventuring to protect their clan territory from monsters and witches, and going to battle against other clans, and not having magic of their own (so not like Runequest). Pretty standard OSR system, limited advancement, mass combat rules.

Watched: Bee and Puppycat: Lazy in Space 13-16: The end! Many things were wrapped up, some things were left mysterious. Plotwise there is plenty of room for more, although it would probably be okay if nothing more was ever explained.

Watched: BNA 1: I dunno, it was the next thing Netflix played, because their algorithm is trash. Something about beast-people being oppressed and getting stuffed into their own city and human terrorists and wolf superheroes.

Written: Nope, still FAIL.

 

(Comes before Christmas Eve, but is not that great.)

I failed to get produce at the farmers’ market, but did get some food to keep me going until Christmas, then went grocery shopping and got some more food to get me to Boxing Day, when I plan to go shopping again. Also finally tried the other chicken tenders place because it wasn’t raining, but meh.

Watched: Bee and Puppycat: Lazy in Space 8-12: Netflix doesn’t seem to have the 2013 series. I blame capitalism. Anyway, we get more about Puppycat’s backstory, and plot, and the weird people who live with Bee on her island. Puppycat did an actual nice thing! I think this series is Steven Universe + FLCL + pastel.

Read: “Zeta-Epsilon” (Isabel J Kim): So what’s it like having an AI stapled to your brain?

Read: “Day Ten Thousand” (Isabel J Kim): Very meta, about guys cloned from ten-thousand-year-old dead guys in the future or the past or alternate timelines or different drafts of the same story about suicide. Not my thing.

Written: FAIL. You’d think I’d be able to do something while on vacation, but no.

I know most cookies last a while, but it still seems like this should be closer to Bake Cookies Day.

Half the US team and our boss were on vacation today, but work was quite light. Good job having a holiday code freeze, customers! Now I’m off until next Wednesday.

Watched: Bee and Puppycat: Lazy in Space 2-7: The island is weird, Bee is weird, the aliens she does odd jobs for are weird, everyone on the island is weird, but Puppycat is actually less weird than in the first episode. But apparently this is actually the second season?! I need to figure that out so I can watch more effectively.

Written: FAIL.