And that’s what was for lunch at the office, so I win. Although there was a customer call in the middle of it, so also I lost. The weekly training meeting has returned, although it won’t be weekly most of the time, so I remembered that I need to shut up and let other people talk more.
Had to get my neck ultrabeeped after work, results to follow next week. It would be nice if they found a fixable thing, I guess.
Written: 236.
Truly a blessed day!
Avoided going to the office by having to get up to interview a potential new manager at 8:00. The UK guys did most of the grilling, but I helped a little. We didn’t end up rating the candidate very highly, though.
Because I am A Idiot, I went to Barnes and Noble to get the latest Marvel RPG in hardcopy and also accidentally bought a huge pile of manga to put on the other pile of manga I haven’t read.
Read: I’m A Wolf, But My Boss Is A Sheep vol 2 (Shino Shimizu): Further workplace romantic shenanigans, now with additional rival who is in many ways a better match for FL but no, she has to admit she has feelings for ML.
Written: FAIL.
256th day of the year, I guess.
Had the late work and a shower because I felt unclean, and then it was like the day was gone. Or maybe just my brain.
Read: Crazy Food Truck vol 1 (Rokurou Ogaki): A middle-aged action hero with a food truck and a superstrong superdim young woman without clothes wander an inexplicably-dehydrated wasteland fighting everybody. I presume we’re supposed to care about the female lead’s mysterious past and superpowers and breasts, but meh.
Read: Wilderfeast Quickstart (KC Shi): A game where you take care of giant monsters, or if they’re too far gone with civilization rabies, euthanize them and feast on their bodies to gain their powers. Your weapons are giant kitchen implements made of ancient magic metal. Describing the feasts you make is not optional. Combat is one-dimensional and anchored to the giant monster.
Written: 320.
Now I have to remember Aspen and Ghirardelli and Marmalade and Benny and Aimee and Jinian and so many other cats and doggos and assorted other animal friends.
Another pretty useless day, prepared for calls that never came and wakefulness that also never really came. I did manage to sign up for Confluence the Living Archive, a DCC demo, and Paperdemon Art RPG, leaving only Saturday morning for Games on Demand.
No actual gaming today, because Dave is still covered in germs and using Roll20 for an actual battlemap is a huge pain that Jeremy is not prepared for. Story games win again.
Written: 136.
Also National Teddy Bear Day and Wonderful Weirdoes Day.
Since I didn’t have to do anything except wait for phone calls all morning, that’s all I did. This activity combines well with sleeping. Eventually I got to hand it over to Coworker L and go grocery shopping, which was moderately successful. So, I kind of did two things today, counting morning and evening on-call as half a thing each.
I also thought about game design a whole lot, but in a despairing kind of way because so many of these ideas are not fitting together. Six rolls is definitely too many to resolve the most simple attack, though.
Watched: Helluva Boss 2.5-6: I guess it was nice to see Blitz’s sister, but the new writer is just bad. Even in this genre, the characters deserve more respect than that. Ep 6 was way better, and opens up plot, and also I actually like Fizzaroli and Ozzie. (Although Ozzie and Stolas should have been more useful.)
Read: “The Curing” (Kristina Ten): Magical realism plus middle-school clique fads equals a dismaying mess and permanent damage.
Read: “The Three O’Clock Dragon” (John Wiswell): More magical realism, train dragon vs corrupt mayor. I think this may be a reflection on current NYC politics, but not sure.
Read: “The Job at the End of the World” (Ray Nayler): Not fantasy, barely even SF despite being set in our climate-disaster future in which all the works of humanity are as nothing before the fire tornadoes.
Written: 193.
SWIDT?
Fortunately work was light today, but I have to be available in case the Special Customer calls between 19 tonight and 13 tomorrow, and same tomorrow night. The expected number of calls is zero, though.
Watched: One Piece 1.1-2: Marith liked the first episode, so we continued on to the Evil Clown episode. The clown was definitely evil! Also more of Luffy’s backstory. Shanks was pretty great, it’s no surprise Luffy thinks of pirates as heroic. Not sure about this anti-Straw-Hat task force, though.
Written: 242, although I ended up deleting most of it after. It wasn’t going in the right direction.
You know, if we just mulched the billionaires, it would do a lot more for threatened species than having an obscure day. Just saying.
Back in the office today, ate a lot of fancy salad, did some works. Casualties were light.
Read: Winter’s Gifts (Ben Aaronovitch): American adventure with horrifying weather and history and general Americanness. Special Agent Reynolds is just not as interesting a character as Peter, though.
Written: 262.
Kind of late on that one, oh well.
I did some works in the office, and also ate a sandwich, so I guess that was okay, but still a waste of time and energy.
Read: Deep Navigation (Alastair Reynolds): Collection of short stories from the 90s and 00s, only one of them in the “Revelation Space” universe, but all full of SF doom.
Read: The Year My Life Went Down The Toilet (Jake Maia Arlow): A 7th-grader who already has to deal with being gay and her grownups being mortifying and her best friend getting a new interest is also diagnosed with IBS. She doesn’t deal with it well, but it’s really a lot.
Written: FAIL.
I did several works today, but feel like I should have done more. I blame capitalism and the lack of samosas.
Played: Nothing, Ken has the rona.
Written: 312.
I, uh, gave money to unionization efforts? Does that count?
Finally got my act together enough to do one (1) errand, so, uh, go me? No, not really, I still suck.
Second round of signups for Big Bad Con was slightly less of a disaster than the first round. I got signed up for Plant Girl Game and Rats in the Cellar, anyway. Four more slots to go!
Watched: Sweet Tooth 1.1: Randomly picked from Netflix offerings because I’d heard of the comic it’s based on. So far it is not a very unique take on the post-apocalyptic genre, although at least Earth hasn’t inexplicably lost all its water. Not sure if I’ll watch any more.
Read: Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz (Garth Nix): A collection of all the stories about the godlet-hunting magic puppet and his human sidekick published in various places, which I’d only read I think three of. It’s a great adventuring setup that I should really steal some time.
Read: There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless… vol 2 (Musshu, Teren Mikami, Eku Takeshima): That was not okay, Mai! But the text does not treat it as okay, which is better than some. Also our main character needs to think more about what she’s doing to the other character’s hearts!
Written: 196.
Gaming is cancelled due to Covid among the Monkeycats, so I have nothing to do today and might as well continue to die in this pit.
Watched: One Piece 1: I don’t remember much of the manga, but that was pretty cool on its own merits. Luffy seems kind of… off, but apparently that’s intentional. Also everything is ridiculous and Roronoa is hot.
Read: Just Friends (Ana Oncina): Two girls meet at summer camp and fall in love among mild teenage shenanigans, with flashforwards to their future relationship. Not entirely cheerful.
Read: Dungeon People vol 1 (Sui Hutami): A high-level thief gets drafted to work in administration of the dungeon where her father disappeared so many years ago. Mostly about meeting new coworkers and how to use fax slimes to file the dungeon paperwork.
Written: 220. Not exactly about skyscrapers, but they’re there in the wide shots.
But as with normal dates, I lurk here alone in my fetid pit of creepiness and despair.
What I do in my pit is mostly sleep, apparently. It’s a long weekend, so I can put off shopping until Monday and just deliquesce here. I was on call all afternoon, but absolutely nothing happened to force me to do anything.
Read: Shikimori’s Not Just A Cutie vol 5 (Keigo Maki): Sports festival chapter, which of course Shikimori is good at so it’s more about the less obviously awesome side characters. I might have exhausted my interest, though.
Written: 311, which is coincidentally the number of flavors at Basking Shark Ice Cream. Maybe I should write more kitten words, but it would still be too easy and nobody would care.
But September means Big Bad Con is almost here!
Finally finished Good Omens 2, I was not impressed. It fulfilled Marith’s fanfic need to see more of the main characters doing stuff, but I didn’t like some of the stuff they did, or much of what the secondary characters did. Also, it was clear setup for subsequent seasons, which just seems foolhardy in this world of streaming services.
Written: 186.
Maybe there was bacon for office lunch. I don’t know, I wasn’t there. I was being on call from 7 to 13:00 while coworker K is out. It wasn’t that painful, maybe because I didn’t do a very good job of being awake and alert. It all worked out in the end.
I am almost 100% certain that I received the copy of Pan, His Majesty in Yellow that I ordered. It was definitely shipped, and I have a strong memory of unboxing it, but now I cannot find it anywhere. Now I’m wondering if maybe I left it in the shipping box and the cleaners threw it away without realizing the box wasn’t empty.
Read: Shikimori’s Not Just A Cutie vol 4 (Keigo Maki): It’s the culture festival so Shikimori and her boyfriend’s anniversary. Apparently Shikimori’s not the only one who thinks he’s a great guy!
Written: 240. Could be more if I hadn’t suddenly decided to look everywhere for a book I was too stupid to keep track of.
Also Frankenstein Day, which I presume means it’s cobbled together from hours stolen from days past and brought to life with ethically questionable amounts of electricity.
No office today, which on the one hand, no commuting, but on the other hand, no lunch. Fortunately I have enough random foodstuffs to avoid dying.
Written: 254.
Like the right to stare blankly into space all day. That’s in the UN charter, right?
Played: Lancer. We didn’t have Kelsey (job hunting is the worst) and ended up not having much Vivian, so although we did some exploration and found the planet was even less well-surveyed than we already thought, we couldn’t do much diplomacy or NHP investigation.
Read: Shikimori’s Not Just A Cutie vol 3 (Keigo Maki): Shikimori, her cute boyfriend, and their friends (including the one who looks like Bakugo) have summer vacation fun with surprisingly little fanservice.
Written: FAIL.
Not much dreaming today, just working. We have so many people out that an executive decision was made that nobody should go into the office week, we just don’t have time to waste on that nonsense. (IMHO, we never have time to waste on that nonsense.)
Read: Dandadan vol 4 (Yukinobu Tatsu): Horny aliens dispatched for the moment, now there’s a haunted house (probably also weirdly horny) and a rival for the ML, who shows no signs of running off with the FL’s rival to get them both out of the way.
Written: 208. Is writing fiction like dreaming? Maybe I should have written kitten words today.
For the first time in quite a while, I went over to Monkeycat Towers to play Minecraft. We didn’t do much, but it was fun anyway. Then we ate Frogmore Stew, which I guess is a regional variant of shrimp boil specific to one small island off the coast of South Carolina? It’s not actually stew, since the traditional method of serving is to pour it out onto a newspaper-covered picnic table and let the juice soak into the beach, leaving only Old-Bay-seasoned shrimp, sausage, potatoes, and corn to eat with fingers. It was definitely better than sitting at home in front of my computer all day.
Written: FAIL.
But I have no dog, so the big event today was first signups for Big Bad Con. As usual, at 12:00:01 everybody clicked to sign up for their favorite game and the website caught on fire. After a couple of hours of watching the BBC team do the sorts of things I tell people to do in my day job, the website was functional enough that I could get my two signups through. Now I am scheduled for Invisible Sun and The Gnoles’ House and can stop worrying about it until Monday week.
Watched: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid 1.8-9: A new dragon. Also too much of the old dragons, or at least the shota-con one. This is not a very good show, but it beat staring blankly into space while I ate dinner.
Written: 215.
Today’s meeting fact: Hippos can’t swim. That’s not buoyant fat, it’s all muscle and bone to WRECK YOUR SHIT. Bonus fact, hippos are an invasive species in South America.
Watched: Good Omens 2.4-5: I’m pretty meh about the flashbacks, and in general just not liking this as much as the first season. Apparently Pratchett did add something. But maybe the last episode will bring it all together and I will understand the genius.
Read: Dandadan vol 3 (Yukinobu Tatsu): The annoying aliens are back, with reinforcements, not that it’s going to do them any good against the naked yokai powers of Earth.
Read: Shikimori’s Not Just A Cutie vol 2 (Keigo Maki): Further slices in the life of a very femme-presenting but tough and cool high-school girl and her less butch and also cursed boyfriend.
Written: 325. That’s more like it, brain.
Apparently everybody thinks I’m the bee’s knees for getting that customer working yesterday, so that’s good. Not so much meeting today; I was able to get other stuff done, which was nice. Also not betrayed by the train this time.
Written: FAIL. Brain, why?
Sadly, we had burritos at work. Also customer calls. So much customer call. We got one customer working again, though. Then the train was very late, so I had extra customer call from the station while waiting.
Read: Heart of Malice (Lisa Edmonds): A magic PI with an extremely traumatic past gets zorched by magic a lot. Also there’s a hot werewolf guy and a sketchy vampire guy and some kind of mystery.
Written: FAIL.
Make sure your cat gets proper medical care!
I don’t have any cats. This should probably lead me to question my life choices.
Boss B is back from vacation. He has a dinosaur-patterned shirt, so is entitled to declare victory.
Played: Lancer. We had to escape from the self-unearthing menace, which was not that hard because even not counting the Sunzi that teleports and teleports and teleports (sometimes transitively, sometimes intransitively), we’re a really mobile team. Probably for the best that it didn’t take long, because Ken was feeling poorly.
Read: “MUGWUMP 4” (Robert Silverberg): An early example of human minds being exempt from time loops, which turns the comedy into horror.
Written: FAIL.
Not sure I have anything witty to say here.
Written: 113. Turns out I don’t actually know what’s supposed to happen next.
They’re an important source of protein for bats!
Finally managed to produce a medical sample and get it to UPS. Now I can stop worrying about getting it done and worry about the results!
UPS was so efficient that I did not have to wait for a next bus and was early to gaming, but that’s okay (I say as the person not hosting). It was a special gaming session, though, because after approximately 90745934 years, Chrisber has gaming with us again! Also he brought his offspring, Teo. Chrisber has a mustache now, and a lot of white in his hair, but he is still very much Chrisber. I don’t know Teo well yet, but he seems okay for a, you know, young person.
I didn’t have any brilliant ideas, and Dave’s idea did not garner sufficient support, so Jeremy is running D&D5 again (sigh). We are playing random university bozos who are about to be recruited into the Librarians Errant where we will track down dangerous, rare, or overdue books. My character is the result of an ethical experiment that turned her into a shadow magic sorcerer, so once again I am the only one without Charisma as a dump stat.
Written: FAIL. Apparently making up one (1) D&D character uses all my creativity for the day. I definitely blame capitalism for this.
Had to wake up early for cleaners, but then managed to go back to sleep like a useless lump for a while. My body refused to produce medical samples, so eventually I gave up and went grocery shopping. The UPS place is open tomorrow morning, so if my body cooperates before then, I can drop the sample off before gaming tomorrow.
Thought some more about game design. I think I had some of these ideas before. They weren’t any good then either.
Written: 267 new words, plus a little editing.
Yeah, I suck.
Had to work until 19:00 today, but at least there wasn’t an ongoing customer emergency and I was able to log out and die in a pit. I tried making nachos, which sort of worked, although the chips got completely soggy so obviously something wasn’t quite right. Maybe I need to melt the cheese substance separately and pour it onto the chips, instead of microwaving them together?
Written: FAIL.
Everybody loves the void!
Traffic was horrible, probably because parents all drive their children to school in individual vehicles, so I didn’t make the transfer to the train, but the long bus got me there like twenty minutes later, which isn’t too bad. Customers were still somewhat numerous, but not like yesterday. I did a command line thing, it was okay.
I could not find the things I was looking for in my useless room of useless piles of useless comics.
Watched: Good Omens 2.3: Oh good, more ominousness!
Read: A Restless Truth (Freya Marske): It’s the same magical intrigue from A Marvellous Light, but the quest has extended to America, which can only be reached by water, so it’s time for the ocean liner murder mystery! With enthusiastic sapphic interludes.
Written: FAIL.
Went to the office, didn’t die, still a lot of customers.
Spent the commute making notes on how to turn Champions into something that isn’t even slightly like Champions. None of my ideas are consistent with each other, and none of them would work on their own.
Written: FAIL. Have I lost momentum? Or do I just hate capitalism?
Friends are good!
Finally found out enough about what was up with the office that I don’t feel entitled to more information, and also probably I won’t die tomorrow.
Played: Lancer. After our downtime, we went to check out some mysteries, and one of them turned out to be a robot army. I guess we’re about to find out whether we made the right choices when levelling up.
Written: FAIL.