Author: Trip the Space Parasite

It is now very unlikely to get any darker! Could still get a lot rainier, though.

I did make it into the office today, and it was not a lot less crowded than usual. I probably should have skipped the potato salad that came with my cow meat sandwich.

Read: The Girl I Want Is So Handsome! (Yuama): Complete fluff, a cute 1st-year meets a handsome and athletic and stacked 2nd-year and they fall head-over-heels for each other. The only real conflict is “she couldn’t like me that way, it must just be friendship” and even that doesn’t stand in the way very long. Complete in one omnibus of about two tankobon.

Read: Kiss the Scars of the Girls vol 1 (Aya Haruhana): When each vampire girl at Secret Vampire Girl School turns fourteen, she’s assigned an older vampire girl to mentor her in learning all kinds of important things, like how to feed on humans without getting murdered. They don’t seem to be very good at it, even when lesbian drama isn’t getting in the way.

Read: to ask about loyalty (tasara_bokka): Vorkosigan Saga fic, allegedly canon-compliant but a different perspective on Miles and Ekaterin’s wedding. I liked it fine, but probably would have appreciated it even more if I remembered all the books better.

Watched: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts 3.7-10: The triumphant conclusion, after struggling with principles and also with giant monsters. Random character: “Who would even come up with a plan like that?” Main cast, in unison, “Kipo.”

Watched: Bee and Puppycat: Lazy in Space 1: A young woman who has been fired from every job on her mysterious island encounters a strange creature that gets her temp jobs on Walkr planets. It is more surreal and has a chiller aesthetic than Steven Universe, but reminds me a little.

Written: FAIL, although I did scribble some notes of things that need to be revealed in one project. That’s not quite a plot, since the MC should also have personal development or something, but it’s stuff that would go in an outline.

Crap, they’re ganging up on us!

I meant to go to the office today, but slept poorly and when I woke up it was just not happening. I hope somebody ate my lunch and it didn’t go to waste. Apparently yesterday the office was pretty deserted as people go on holiday, and I can’t imagine today would have been any better, but it would have showed willing or something.

Read: Jack of Hearts (and other parts) (LC Rosen): A high-school boy who sleeps around a lot gets talked into writing a sex advice column for the totally-not-a-student-newspaper and also gets stalked and blackmailed. Definitely the sluttiest and probably the least romantic YA protagonist I have seen, but also one of the more stressed and traumatized ones.

Watched: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts 3.4-6: Humans kind of ruin everything, don’t they?

Written: Caught up on journal, which is still FAIL.

I dunno, probably none of the interesting days want to be this close to Christmas.

Last 1:1 with my boss for the year, all is chill.

Played: Lancer. We played the team of corporate goons sent to protect the colony’s valuable resources, with completely different mechs than the random weirdos that are trying to make things better for people. After the setup, we only got one round into the combat, but surely next session (whenever it is, maybe Boxing Day) will be exciting.

Written: FAIL.

Unfortunately I am incapable of doing any cooking, but I hope people who don’t suck have many delicious cookies today!

The power went out in the afternoon, taking local cellular with it. I walked up the street a kilometer or so and found a gas station that had both power and open wifi so I could tell work what happened, but it was raining so I went home and bibbled uselessly until the power came back. Fortunately there was not a lot of work.

Watched: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts 3.1-3: Human-level intelligence apparently includes human inability to cooperate even in the face of extreme danger.

Written: Even more FAIL. Are you maybe getting the idea that I suck?

I like maple syrup, but pretty sure the arm widget doesn’t.

Today’s major event: I thought about going to the other chicken tenders place before grocery shopping, but it was rainy and I remembered their outdoor seating as being uncovered, so I went to the regular place and ended up not sitting outside anyway. So excitement. Much decision. Wow.

I got packages, but they were mostly boring household stuff. Some of them might be presents. Or not.

Watched: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts 2.5-10: Just because they found another problem doesn’t mean the first problem didn’t need resolving. I’m pretty sure that’s not how that death trap works, though.

Written: Continued , unending FAIL.

 

Darn, I’ve run out of chocolate-covered chocolate.

Somehow I got up and did things today. Not sure how that happened, but here we are, with fresh produce and bao and flu antigens and the return of anime night and everything.

Watched: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts 2.3-4: Looking for Kipo’s backstory, but getting Wolf’s along the way.

Watched: Sacrificial Princess & The King of Beasts 1-4: Our first show for revived anime night! It’s pretty fluffy, with hardly any humans being devoured on screen, and so far the princess is only being compassionate, not getting into administration like rumor has it she will. It’s a full season, though, so we have plenty of time yet. Probably not enough for the cat princess to redeem herself, though.

Read: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom vol 8 (Satoru Yamaguchi, Nami Hidaka): More of the same, including a flashback to Katarina’s earlier teen years when other girls were just as unable to deal with her. Apparently next volume they graduate and get jobs, but I can’t imagine it will change Katarina at all.

Written: FAIL.

Is two a herd? They certainly sound like it when they stampede in the middle of the night!

I did several works, but feel like I should have done more. Oh well.

Watched: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off 4-6: An entire subplot to tie in to the original story, sure. Get it, Wallace! But now Ramona has solved much of the mystery, so it’s time for another plot twist!

Read: Blackguard vol 1 (Ryo Hanada): Zombie apocalypse of the future, the arcology’s greatest defender fights alone with a sword and has a death wish, he gets partnered with a more orthodox bad ass, etc.

Read: The Shiunji Family Children vol 1 (Reiji Miyajima, Reiji Yukino): Forbidden teenage love that’s suddenly not forbidden. Despite the ML complaining that living with five stunning sisters isn’t like a harem romcom, it’s obvious where this is going.

Read: Paladin’s Faith (T Kingfisher): Another of the ex-paladins gets tangled up in the problems of a beautiful woman, in this case the mysterious best friend from the first book in the series. Intrigue, espionage, romance, and demonolatry ensue.  I liked it, but it didn’t seem like the espionage adventure and the demon adventure had any connection except one happened right after the other. It could have been two novellas just as easily.

Written: FAIL.

A good day for Ayse.

This new transit route has worked correctly three times in a row, and only requires getting up ten minutes earlier than the defective route, so I guess I’ll stick with it.

Office lunch was salad with pulled pork, which the arm widget liked much better.

Read: Magical Girl Incident vol 2 (Zero Akabane): As per usual, the explanations given to the MC are woefully incomplete, but at least he knows he isn’t the only one (even if the rest of them are a bunch of loons).

Not Read: Mob Psycho 100 vol 1 (ONE): I liked the anime, but I couldn’t get into the manga. The art style is weird, and I don’t know.

Watched: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts 1.10-2.2: Kipo and her ever-growing assortment of friends (apparently the favored stat for humans is Charisma) solved the problem they thought they had, which resulted in a much worse problem.

Written: FAIL.

 

Boo, office. Apparently the local COVID admissions are still green, though, so the CDC does not recommend that everybody else in the office mask. Arm widget said my fried chicken sandwich lunch was No Good, I guess it’s okay that all the breakfast carbs were for the capitalist oppressors.

Read: The Skull Dragon’s Precious Daughter vol 1 (Ichi Yukishiro): An elderly dragon adopts a discarded human girl, but finds that even death cannot release him from his parental duties. I’m not sure about the role models that are being provided for this poor girl!

Read: Magical Girl Incident vol 1 (Zero Akabane): An office worker encounters a monster and in a fit of heroism transforms into a bona fide magical girl. WTFery ensues, but there is apparently some rhyme or reason to what’s going on. Not clear why the coworker has such disturbing resources.

Watched: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts 1.7-9: Almost to the end of the first season, and of course the problem Kipo thought she had is not the real problem.

Written: FAIL.

No idea what that’s about, but it sounds like fanfic.

I had an hour and a half of meetings before my normal workday even started, so it was not a day of great cheer. Technically I was sad that we didn’t have Brooks and Kelsey and had to cancel gaming, but really it’s probably for the best that I didn’t have to try to brain in the evening.

Written: FAIL.

I didn’t think mountains really needed a day, you can’t miss them, but okay.

I did some work, I guess, and then I did gaming homework. My Lancaster build is almost certainly the worst one ever, and I must never show it to Ken, but hopefully he won’t ask too many questions about it. (He absolutely will, and will think I am stupid.)

Written: FAIL, mech design doesn’t count.

These cats are very insistent that they are entitled to three gooshy meals a day and a minimum of eight hours of snuggles!

Played: Librarians Errant. The team’s first assignment this session is tracking down the entrepreneur jerk who tried to hoard all copies of an important textbook. This requires beating up her little gang of  undergrad goons, but Thaïs gets to use a second-level spell and anyway the opposition are kind of wimpy. Only Flint gets beat up much before the team returns to the library in triumph. The next day, as they sort books, the library is invaded by bullywugs looking for volume one of the magical series! Every librarian is mobilized, and the team is set guarding a door deep in the lower lower stacks. Bullywugs come from the sewers, so this is not as pointless as it might seem, but it’s still a surprise when a  very senior librarian appears, chased by bullywugs and fire-breathing giant toads. She is definitely authorized, and also the shelves of archaic legal tomes are now on fire, so the team piles through the door after her and tries to lead the bullies off in a different direction through the maze of even more obscure (and now burning) stacks. Then they find the opening to the Elemental Plane of Books, or something, and the magic card catalog. Thaïs was already looking for books on shoggoth-banishing, so she makes a catalog card for it, and everybody follows the card across the walkway of flying books to the book island. The book on the podium tries to bite Thaïs’s hand off, so she zaps it, and we break as the other books flap to attack.

Watched: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts 4-6: A master villain! Mysterious powers! Metalheads! The shortest romance subplot ever! Probably for the best, as Kipo is way younger than I thought.

Written: FAIL.

Tried to see The Marvels, but there were only two showings a day and neither of them convenient, so I just bought some groceries and went home.

Watched: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts 1-3: A human girl from a postapocalyptic underground enclave is trapped on the surface where everything is mutated and weird and has picked up random scraps of human culture. Fortunately she falls in with some other humans who are willing to help her find her people, although they don’t like the way she tries to make friends with everything. It’s not up to the level of Steven Universe or She-Ra but it’s pretty entertaining.

Written: FAIL.

What do you mean, “pretend”? Same direction and speed as everybody else, though.

Watched: Derry Girls 3.4-7: More hijinks, but then sudden tragedy and the future and even more future, the end!

Read: The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This vol 4 (Takashi Ikeda): And they achieved some professional success and stability, and lived happily ever after, the end!

Written: FAIL.

I rode the other bus to the other train station to catch the same train, which required getting up a little earlier but was otherwise entirely satisfactory. But, was the bus being pretty much on time today just a fluke? There’s not a lot of margin for error there.

Training meeting made me feel like I know something about my job, but that’s just hubris, I’m sure. Lunch was chicken tikka with both rice and naan, which made the line go up Too Much. It was quite tasty, but maybe no white rice next time.

Read: I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into A Girl vol 3-4 (Azusa Banjo): Romance! Cuteness! Other romance! Beach episode! Summer festival episode!

Watched: Derry Girls 3.1-3: Crime hijinks! Maternal hijinks! Colm’s powers used for good(?)!

Written: FAIL.

 

Hooray!

Tried to go into the office, was betrayed by the bus simply not showing up, ended up super-late. I obviously need my robots to make me a better plan. Beet salad for lunch, which even with chicken did not make my line go up much.  Then tried to replenish the cats’ gooshyfood, but forgot how these particular busses work and missed the gooshyfood emporium’s hours. I have enough for tomorrow’s breakfast and that’s it, so I better not mess up tomorrow!

Read: I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into A Girl vol 2 (Azusa Banjo): New characters are introduced, but there are still zero (0) people being mean to our genderfluid cutie, which is probably completely unrealistic for modern Japan, but is exactly as it should be.

Watched: Derry Girls 2.4-6: Teenage hijinks, morbid hijinks, teenage hijinks, major historical events!

Written: FAIL because I am dumb.

A mysterious figure who abducts and devours poorly-behaved children is all well and good, but I’d rather be eaten by the Yule Cat for not wearing my Christmas socks.

I can see the line on my phone (which I only check one million times per day) go up when I expect it do, but it seems to also randomly go up at some times and not at others, so hell if I know how this carbs thing works.

Had to get up early because it’s Tuesday but then that was preempted by getting up even earlier for a different meeting. Ugh.

Played: Lancer. Two weeks in a row!  We finished in the fight from last week in like half a round and then steamrollered the negotiations between the various factions of the rightful inhabitants of the planet and the corporate newcomers by showing them our spaceship. 110% Pancakes brings us success once again! Next week we’re playing the corporate team getting murdered by possessed machinery, so I guess I should actually build that Lancaster.

Written: FAIL. I should be working on the other scene, or more productively, trying to outline the project that got bogged down in detail. I don’t have an ending, exactly, but I do at least have a list of mysteries that must be revealed.

I keep resisting the urge to buy More Dice. Maybe I’m a bad gamer. I mean, for more reasons than previously mentioned.

Finally managed to start using the new bloodometers (the kind you stick on and leave in place for two weeks), so at least I could tell the doctor I was doing it. She probably would have been happier if I had done it months ago like I said, though.

Also finally dragged my computer desk into my bedroom so I could plug it back in. Fortunately it is not too far from the wifi router.

Watched: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off 1-3: After the end of the first episode (which was suitably surprising to Marith), it’s all the other characters all the time! I heard that this show is partially a response to people who esteemed Scott too highly (looking at you, SP) and now I believe it.

Written: Regular FAIL.

I did actually buy some tiny apple pies when I was grocery shopping, although I probably shouldn’t have.

Read: Handyman Saitou In Another World vol 1 (Kazutomo Ichitomo): Okay, I think the isekai-to-D&D-videogame-world genre is played out. New idea plz.

Watched: Derry Girls 1.5-6, 2.1-3: It must be a new season, Gerry has a mustache! The other characters are not much changed, even Clare, but they are still ridiculous and definitely their own worst enemies.

Written: FAIL, haven’t plugged my computer back in.

Most of the day I spent being a useless lump, yet available for customers if they needed help, but then the cats showed a great interest in the nook next to my computer desk, and when I looked, the electrical outlet there was smoking heavily. I unplugged everything from it and it stopped, but it obviously needs replaced. Maybe it’s time to think about a better apartment, but I’m not sure I’m up for doubling my rent.

Since my computer is also unplugged, I had to order pizza and watch TV.

Watched: Derry Girls 1.1-4: Everybody said this is very funny and it is! They are all sincerely ridiculous.

Read: O Maidens In Your Savage Season vol 7-8 (Mari Okada, Nao Emoto): Somehow, everything gets sorted out by the end, and yet sex remains pretty much a mystery. Also nobody dies, which they definitely would have in the US.

Written: FAIL, my computer is unplugged!

 

How is it December already? Didn’t we just start this year a few months ago?! But on the other hand, I’ve used up my brain budget, so year has to be over.

Watched: Nothing, Marith is dead from work.

Read: Ogami-San Can’t Keep It In vol 1 (Yu Yoshidamaru): Her brain produces several horny thoughts per second. His touch causes people to blurt out whatever’s on their mind. Together, they fight crime try not to die of embarrassment. It’s nice to see a female MC with a libido (instead of the secondary floozie character), although the whole thing is still awfully heterosexual

Written: FAIL.

A natural followup to Crystal Skull Day, I guess?

Back to work! It wasn’t bad, I just don’t like getting up in the morning.

Played: Lancer. Of course our attempt to get the non-corporate refugees to safety was interrupted by killer robots. We got most of the civilians out with Abrakyl’s power to make everything teleport and teleport and teleport, but the victory condition is to have all of us inside the zone and none of the enemy in the zone at some point after round three. We got to the middle of round three before having to call it a night, and it’s looking pretty good for next week. Roll20 gave me the good numbers this time and I got one or more crits every time I did a barrage, so the worst enemy is gone, as is one of the foliage management units. I was almost cool!

Read: My Dear, Curse-Casting Vampiress vol 1 (Chisaki Kanai): An elite anti-vampire cop with amnesia breaks a legendary vampire-killing vampire out of secret government custody. Together, they fight crime vampires. A weird mix of awkward romance between the leads and action-horror with body parts as spell components and casual use of high-level pyrokinesis in downtown Shibuya.

Written: FAIL.

*thows up sign of the horns*

Knowing that Saturday would be traveling, and Sunday would be gaming, I cleverly took today off to do weekend things, by which I mostly mean grocery shopping and eating chicken tenders. That went okay. I also read manga and performed my most vital duty, feeding the cats.

Read: Spy x Family: The Official Guide: Eyes Only (Tatsuya Endo): The usual recaps, character info, setting info, promotional art, interviews, etc.

Read: Spy x Family vol 10 (Tatsuya Endo): Loid backstory!

Written: FAIL.

Not sure exactly what that’s about, but better not offend The Skull.

Played: Librarians Errant. We were chasing down a grad student who was using the overdue book for clues to treasure in a dungeon full of unexplained monsters and improbable traps, so it was a surprisingly traditional D&D adventure. The treasure was a book that didn’t belong to the library, so we left the grad student and visiting scholar to their tawdry het romance novel and noped out with the book we were sent for and some incidental loot. Level UP!

That was pretty much it for today.

Written: FAIL.

While I was on vacation, I saw a very cute baby who can stand up while holding onto things (which lets him get off the Baby Preserve), went on a three-mile hike with Ken and Dave, got help with Squaredle, ate a million unhealthy foods, saw many people I rarely see, and stayed up too late playing board games. I slept more than I wanted although not as much as my body wanted. It was a good vacation, but now, despite traffic, I am back. Marith did a great job taking care of Sage and Nightvale, because she is Best Lizard, but she was not in a position to feed them three gooshy meals a day, so they were glad to see me.

Played: Dominion. I did not win, although maybe I could have if the game had gone on longer.

Played: Ra. New to me, all about drawing tiles from the bag and bidding on them with numbers. As often happens, I seized the lead in the first epoch and then got no more points the rest of the game.

Played: Holiday Fluxx. Like all Fluxx variants, it is fundamentally Fluxx, and this is the rule of Fluxx.

Played: Puerto Rico. Moral depravity and I wasn’t even good at it! (Although neither was anybody else; it was a really close game and late at night.)

Played: Dungeon World. Jus wanted to play D&D, but nobody else volunteered and I wasn’t going to do that, so I compromised with an iron fist. An immolator, a rogue, a druid, and a wizard walk into a dungeon… and SET IT ON FIRE! Also there was some tussling with mooks and mutant frogs and traps, but by the time they got down to the heart of the dungeon, Jus had run out of gas. However, we stopped in a good place, and only had four players who are all likely to be up for gaming next visit, so I kept the character sheets and my terrible notes and maybe we’ll pick it up again.

Read: Perils & Princesses: You are fairy-tale princesses, going on D&D adventures. You have Resolve, Grace, Wit, a fairy godmother, a magic gift, one magic die per level(max four), and the contents of your inventory slots, because despite the fairy-tale theme, it’s a GLOG game. It has the usual D&D problems of “roll d20 to have nothing happen” and “everybody’s a bucket of hit points” but the system is simple and mostly player-facing. Also, because all lists and examples are numbered, it’s possible to create a character entirely randomly, which makes me want to try it for a con game.

Written: VACATION

That would have been better yesterday, for finishing My Happy Marriage.

I got up at the usual weekday time to feed some ravenous cats for the first time in their lives, but then I went back to bed. I had an alarm so that I wouldn’t sleep so much I actually decomposed into loam, but I woke up naturally by being done with sleeping, and both cats were snuggled up against me (so I must have been sleeping correctly instead of flailing). Even though it was 11:30, I’m going to declare that winning at morning.

The rest of the day was kind of meh, but I did eventually accomplish a few things on my to-do list, and also complained about writing.

Watched: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off 1: Although animated, it’s not just a remake of the comic or of the movie (although apparently it’s mostly the same cast). Same story until the end of the first episode, when it goes in a different direction. Minor detail? Complete derailment? Only another episode will tell! Maybe I’ll watch it with Marith if we both survive Thanksgiving.

Read: Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue (Dlanora): Romance is difficult! Feelings are complicated! Families are questionable!

Written: FAIL. But I complained a lot!

Nightvale counts, even though he is partly stars!

Getting two cats got me two weeks of Fact Or Share, but this time I had to use a fact, which is that deepsea anglerfish are not the size of a Nerf football, they are big enough to swallow you whole.

Watched: My Happy Marriage 10-12: We find out what’s up with the secret family and why whatsisface is being so creepy and how you should definitely not underestimate Miyo. Happy ending!

Read: System Collapse (Martha Wells): Oh man, poor Murderbot! I’m glad it has a terrifying friend to watch media with, and also that it is developing non-murdery skills for saving the day. Plus, “capitalism sucks” never grows old as a theme.

Written: FAIL.