Why are there so many customers, and why do they all think our product should function correctly? Ended up staying late because it’s Monday and then an hour later than that so the next person wouldn’t be alone.
Tried to get more information about why the office was closed last week, but no dice.
Written: Didn’t write any, but moved stuff around and edited a little and got things set up to edit more if I ever become less stupid.
Accomplished mostly nothing today, but have to be on call for special customers all night.
Written: 134 words, bringing me to 1522 for the final week and 15275 for the ten-week-long challenge. That is right at 150% of my goal, so that’s good, except my goal was 1/3 of what it was last time, so that’s bad. (The frogurt is also cursed.)
I mostly did nothing today, but finally in the hottest part of the day I bestirred myself to do a thing and another thing and a bonus thing and also get dinner. Now I only have to do some of the things tomorrow, not all of the things.
Read: Battle of the Linguist Mages (Scotto Moore): Wow, that was quite a thing! More deranged than Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, at length like Wild Massive (and with a crossover of sorts) so it just keeps getting more and more craziness.
Written:176/1388/15141. I made it over the 150% mark with one day to spare!
Mine was several days ago, but close enough!
After telling everybody in the office “Go home for the rest of the week. No reason.” the company told everybody “Get back in the office this week. No reason.” That does not make me confident that they have identified and mitigated any safety issues.
Watched: Good Omens 2.2: I am in awe of the beard. Also, angels r dum.
Written: 220/1212/14965.
Read: Yokohama Station SF vol 1 (Yuba Isukari, Gonbe Shinkawa): After humans get tired of always doing construction work on the Yokohama train station (I assume), they make it self-constructing. Centuries later, the island of Honshu is a single giant train station and humans have built a new civilization in its depths. A hapless youth from one of the scraps of unbuilt land around the edges must go into the station and navigate its capitalist dystopia. This feels like it would be better as prose.
Written: 316/992/14745.
No commuting for me! Yet somehow sleeping in until the normal time did not make me alert and awake and functional and useful.
Read: Bloody Sweet vol 1 (NaRae Lee): A bullied Korean high school student ends up with a vampire servitor who turns out to be an emotional support vampire, to both of their surprise. Probably there will also be some kind of supernatural nonsense.
Written: 285/676/14429.
The most blessed day of the year!
Our new office is not blessed, however, since in the middle of the day, everyone who was there got sent home and the office is closed for the rest of the week. No reason. I asked, but really, no reason. So that’s not worrying at all.
Played: Lancer. This session was all downtime, but we got to level up, and also we fixed our ship and made some kind of contact with one of the groups we’ve been fighting. Brooks’s character is probably going to get eaten by the rogue NHP lurking somewhere across the ocean.
Written: FAIL.
On Mondays I have to stay on call until 19:00, so I can put off starting until 10:00, but it seems like that just discombobulates my schedule without giving me any satisfying rest. It’s like I don’t even know how to be alive.
Written: 391.
I have friends! Somehow. But I am not gaming with them because Dave is still full of germs and Jeremy is slightly under the weather. Not that I have any brilliant ideas for what we should game. I could not even come up with an idea for a 4-hour con game. Perhaps it is time to give up entirely.
Read: Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You (Scotto Moore): A music blogger discovers a band that plays the most amazing music ever. It is straight downhill at ever-increasing speed and weirdness from there.
Read: Unbreakable (Mira Grant): This is not actually Madoka Magica fanfic, but that’s about where it is in terms of genre. The last two surviving magical girls in a world that no longer needs them find out the real story behind the fluffy magical advisors and improbably-named enemies.
Written: 290 words, for 1283 this week and 13753 in nine weeks. Tomorrow is the last week of the challenge.
Written: FAIL. I spent all evening rereading kitten words and being appalled by the inconsistencies and dangling threads.
Watched: Good Omens 2.1: Well, that can’t be good. Hopefully the cute lesbian B-plot will somehow solve everything, because Heaven and Hell are still not particularly competent.
Written: 259.
Obviously not a very important holiday, right?
Back to the office, it was not any better or any worse to have teammates there. We learned about the upcoming release, which will obviously be the best thing ever, ate pasta, and did not die. Commute still okay.
Read: A Half-Built Garden (Ruthanna Emrys): Aliens show up and are all like, “Oh good we got here before your planetary ecosystem collapsed entirely! Come with us if you want to live, which of course you do!” and the anarcho-environmentalist humans are like, “It still needs a little work, but we’re not abandoning our homeworld just because you did.” Negotiation and cultural exchange and internal conflicts ensue. It’s a good solarpunk future, though.
Read: “Compulsory” (Martha Wells): Unsatisfyingly short Murderbot vignette.
Read: “Detonation Boulevard” (Alastair Reynolds): Cyborgs race across Io’s hellscape in nuclear trucks, and capitalism ruins everything.
Read: The Secrets of Insects (Richard Kadrey): Horror short story collection, with a few pieces from the “Sandman Slim” universe, but mostly serial killers/cultists/monsters (not well-delineated categories). Some people get theirs, but it’s almost always the greater of two evils that remains.
Written: 200/734/13204.
Finally went to the new office, completely forgetting there was an all-hands meeting during commute time, so I ended up sitting out back for an hour listening on the phone before finally experiencing the new very small space. I don’t care about not having my own desk, but having too many humans breathing the air is annoying. Lunch delivery is the same.
Overall, the commute is a lot better, because it’s one leg shorter.
Written: 269/534/13004.
Remember when there was more than Google and Amazon and Facebook?
Went to get my teeths cleaned, found out that some fillings had escaped and need to be replaced.
Played: Lancer. Boss fight! We stopped the fiery berserker just before before its reactor exploded and also just before my mech melted into a puddle from all the burn loaded onto it. Not only do we level up, but there’s a promise of information next session.
Written: FAIL.
But, I just talked to people yesterday! How can I have to interact again today?
Written: 265, total 12735.
I went to the Gollubs’ not for gaming, weird! It was a pretty sedate old-person party, but there were three cakes and a million cheeses and two dogs and several humans. I had nothing to talk about, because I never do anything and also I suck. Eventually I went home again.
Written: 131/1381/12470.
Why am I not a tiger? What am I doing wrong?
I went grocery shopping and stuff, which I don’t think tigers do, and then I laid around the rest of the day, which is a step in the right direction.
Read: The Hungry Dreaming (Craig Schaefer): An intrepid reporter, her steadfast partner, and a teenaged runaway get tangled up in the secret history of New York dating back to the Revolutionary War. Despite the investigation and existential dread, it’s not Lovecraftian at all, but I was wondering for a while there. Apparently the start of a series, although I’m not sure where it can go from here.
Read: “That One Night” (Emily Rath): Straight-up one-night-stand smut, although apparently the prologue to another book or series. I dunno, choking still seems weird to me. Shows what I know about sex, I guess.
Written: 266, 1250 for the week, 12339 overall. No weird sex stuff.
“Cut down, not across.” (Like anyone remembers alt.sysadmin.recovery these days.)
Usually I don’t get much grief from vaccine side-effects, but the old-person vaccines I had to get yesterday are more obnoxious than most. Still better than either shingles or pneumonia, I’m pretty sure.
Even had I been minded to, I couldn’t have reasonably taken the day off sick since two people were out and one called in sick, but whatever. Fatigue and headache build character, right?
The high point of the day was definitely going with Marith to see Barbie. That was really quite something, even if I’m just Ken. (Actually, people said I have Allan energy, so :shrug emoji:.) Apparently some of the thing it was is Innana’s journey to the Underworld, so that’s awesome.
Written: FAIL.
No confirmation from the office that we have valid Internet, so we’re all WFH today. This turned out a little annoying for me, as I had to go to my afternoon doctor appointment in Mountain View from way down in San Jose, instead of from just down the street, but hey, if the company can’t be arsed to get network working before trying to make people go in to the office…
Now I have many referrals to specialists which this time I will definitely follow up on and not ignore for months on end, right? Right?
Written: 170/984/12073.
I did not go into the office because I have to be available until 19:00 which makes commuting a pain, so I missed the office-opening brunch but also missed going all the way to Mountain View only to find that the network is rubbish.
Read: No Matter What You Say, Furi-San Is Scary! vol 4 (Seiichi Kinoue): Furi-san is just not that scary any more, so it’s become a pretty generic high-school romance manga.
Read: The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Jack Flash and the Faerie Case Files vol 1 (Yu Godai, Mako Oikawa, Kore Yamazaki): Another spin-off, this one about a fae detective and her werewolf brother in New York. I don’t know if the author doesn’t understand American prices, or if they’re supposed to be grossly underpaid, but yikes.
Written: 198/814/11903.
But I don’t want to get up.
Played: Nothing, Ken’s household is full of plague and woe.
Read: She Loves To Cook, and She Loves To Eat vol 1 (Sakaomi Yuzaki): What it says on the tin! A lady who likes to cook but lives by herself and has no one to eat her cooking notices that the lady down the hall has a huge appetite. A beautiful friendship ensues, and might become something more. Do not read this when you are hungry, though.
Read: “After the Animal Flesh Beings” (Brian Evenson): The robots that survive humanity have their own problems. It is not a happy story.
Written: 616 for the day and week, 11705 overall.
New coworker R is now part of the team, but is still being onboarded and stuff so we don’t know much about him yet. Hopefully we will not have to fling him into the crocodile pit.
Written: FAIL. I got sucked into rereading kitten words instead. Which I guess is a good sign or something, but isn’t productive.
Played: Dark Matter. However, after leveling up to level 7, for all the good it did us, we finished the campaign! Space hamsters were saved from the Abyss, the guardians of the threshold were able to retire, etc. Not sure what we’re going to do now, but we have two whole weeks to think about it. Is everything I run terrible? Yes. Am I likely to end up running anyway? Probably.
Read: Karen From HR ch1-8 (Unpretty): Batman fanfic about an employee of WayneCorp, who has a hard and unusual life and then meets Bruce Wayne in person so things go sharply downhill. Kind of harrowing, but also Corinne is great for some extremely dark comedic value of “great”.
Written: 295 today, 1542/1000 for the week, 11089/10000 overall.
American date style is stupid.
Cleaners came early in the morning, so I was up to go grocery shopping before being on call all afternoon. There were some customers, and a lot of uselessness. I tried to take a nap, but didn’t do a very good job.
Read: The Accidental Summoning (Kos Play): Teenage boy discovers the secret LitRPG world somehow hiding behind modern life, tries to summon a magic teacher and ends up with a cute teenaged girl, learns that his magic is the Forbidden Ultimate Power, etc. Except for being set in the US and a book, it would be a cheesy shōnen anime.
Written: 253/1247/10794. Not sure this is going anywhere useful, though.
I have nothing against Australian lemon-choco cakes, but probably wouldn’t have picked this for my header if Coworker T hadn’t used it for his fact in the meeting today. (My fact was about turtle butts.)
Watched: Murder Drones 4-5: Still pretty ???, but then YouTube rolled over to somebody explaining his theory of what happened, and it seemed pretty plausible. No idea whether it’s correct.
Written: 181 today, 994 for the week, 10541 overall.
Finally signed up for BigBadCon and booked a hotel room and put in the vacation request for work and stuff. Now I just have to die in a pit come up with something to run. Or admit that I can’t GM worth beans.
Read: MonsTABOO vol 3 (Yuya Takahashi, TALI): After the tragic events of vol 2, our MC is back not just for revenge but to expose and tear down the whole rotten edifice of monster bloodsport.
Read: The Executioner and Her Way of Life vol 1 (Mato Sato, Ryo Mitsuya, nilitsu): People from other worlds always end up causing catastrophes with their isekai powers, so the church has special assassins to bump them off as soon as they arrive. This new girl is too powerful to just shank, though, so the assassin has to travel back to headquarters with her, which will certainly not awaken any feelings in her cold black heart.
Written: 156/813/10360.
We have no office this week, so I don’t have to commute! Being at home is a lot more comfortable. It’s not even too hot.
Despite the lack of commute, I somehow left the apartment anyway. Not sure I approve of the outside world.
Read: The Detective is Already Dead vol 1-2 (mugiko, nigozyu, Umibouzu): The trouble-magnet teenaged sidekick of a monster-hunting detective thought he could return to a comparatively normal life a year after the detective’s death, but no, there’s another mystery, and another after that.
Written: 261 today, 657 this week, and 10204/10000 overall. Let’s see if I have any motivation for the remaining 3½ weeks.
7:30 meeting, ugh. However, it’s less hot, so that’s something?
Played: Nothing, Ken has too much work and Kelsey has too little stable employment.
Read: There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless… vol 1 (Musshu, Teren Mikami, Eku Takeshima): She wants to be best friends. She wants to be girlfriends. Whose view of the ideal relationship will prevail? And what about that really cute girl with the soft hands?
Read: The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This vol 2 (Takashi Ikeda): More grownup lesbian slice of life. Not a lot happens, but the main characters are good with that.
Read: Daemons of the Shadow Realm vol 1 (Hiromu Arakawa): New series from the creator of FMA. Not sure about it yet, but that’s quite a genre shift in the first volume.
Written: 215/396/9943. I think I recovered from forgetting my MC’s tragic backstory, mostly. Feelings are still the worst, though.
Capitalism, why?
Jus is at 3D Printing Camp this week, away from home without a parent for the first time.
Written: 181/181/9728.
On call in the afternoon, but hardly any customers came to annoy me, so I was able to be very bad at Minecraft. I’m sorry, bees! I didn’t mean to kill you all through my incompetence! But I did eventually succeed in harvesting some honeycomb to make beehives, for when I figure out how to get bees to my farm. (It’s too far to lead them with flowers, so I think I’ll have to enchant a Silk Touch axe to steal the whole nest.) Also I found a hole in the ocean, which is pretty impressive but didn’t have anything special at the bottom.
Read: Nimona (Noelle Stevenson): I still want to throw all my material belongings into the sea, but I haven’t yet which means I was able to dig up my copy of the Nimona GN from like eight years ago. It’s different in many ways from the movie, but still the same story, which is pretty good adaptation. Or maybe Nimona is just that strong of a character.
Watched: Estab Life 5-6. For an episode that was all about underwear, that wasn’t actually that much fanservice. It’s also impressive how four people on a five-person team can all have both Cha and Wis as dump stats.
Written: 209/1377/9386.