Author: Trip the Space Parasite

I still suck, but in a more productive fashion today. Slightly.

Started the new brain pills (and decreasing the old brain pills) today. Next change in two weeks.

Read: FAIL.

Written: FAIL, but I finally watched the full editing video. It was a pretty good advertisement for the $500 full course, so kudos to Angela James‘ marketing powers. However, I am not anywhere near the point of having that much of a need for editing. I did learn the name for what I would need if I ever finished anything, though, which is “developmental editing”. Also “line editing”. Also “a brain”.

The only useful (…) thing I managed to do was go the bookstore after gaming to make up for not going yesterday. It’s not that I need more books, but at least now I know I could go grocery shopping after gaming if I completely failed on a Saturday.

Played: Lancer. We had the fight that was foretold last time, and showed that the opposition’s careful setup was useless against modern mechs. Unfortunately, that was pretty much it. At least we got to level up again, and can claim to have made the Lancers look good.

Read: Starship For Sale (MR Forbes): A young man dying of brain cancer and his best friend get sold a spaceship far beyond their tech level for complicated reasons that result in them being embroiled in a Star Wars-like universe of scams and blaster fire with only a single, vaguely trustworthy, native guide. Theoretically things will be explained, but I’m not sure it will end up making much sense.

Written: FAIL, although I listened to part of a zoom presentation on being a good editor. Possibly my problem is that I have to get better material to work on.

Skipped looking for new manga to rush through grocery shopping, so I could get to Ayse and Ken’s in time for Eurovision! It’s finally streaming legitimately in the US, so it has a real start time and everything, and we had a very nice afternoon. Even Marith showed up, although Eurovision is not her thing, and we ate frittata and something involving garlic anchovy olive oil to dip veggies in,

It is no surprise that Ukraine won, but their entry was actually good, so that’s fine. Much more surprising, the UK came in second, getting possibly more points than in every previous Eurovision combined! No one knows what to make of that. There were too many ballads, but also bangers like Moldova. Norway was the Maximum Eurovision this year with the masked banana wolves, but Australia and Serbia were also up there, albeit in completely different genres. France was totally robbed, their entry was a banger. Spain was okay, but did better than they would otherwise due to the butt floss visuals. The American presenter was very fabulous and had angel wings.

Nonny showed me a bunch of Splatoon stuff, and eventually I played a little Zoomwarts with Jus and Marith, and then Dave kindly fetched us burgers from down the street and we ate and played three-square until it was time to disperse.

Played: Zoomwarts! Bella and Rosamund and the lizards seem determined to find out what happens when you blow off Bellatrix Lestrange-Riddle’s explicit instructions. I’m sure that will go well for them, especially if I manage to prepare for their expedition into the land of the dead.

Read: “Min Zemerin’s Plan” (Katherine Addison): Short story set around Witness for the Dead.

Written: FAIL. I did not accomplish anything after I got home.

Blew off work in the afternoon to go meet my new Primary Care Physician, who is astoundingly perky and cute-sounding and swapped recommendations for SFF books and how can anyone be that energetic? Anyway, I have referrals for sleep and brain and a prescription for brain pills and am probably not dead.

Watched: Moon Knight 1-2. Okay, that’s pretty interesting, even if the implications re free will are unexplored. (I have no idea what ancient Egyptian theology thought about free will, if anything.)

Read: Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor (Xiran Jay Zhao): Contains approximately 300% more Chinese history than Iron Widow, but 90% less murder, 100% fewer threesomes, and 75% less Wu Zetian. And it’s set in the near future on Earth and full of magic and written for middle-schoolers. Probably already banned in most red school districts.

Written: 422 kitten words.

Teeth cleaning, wheee. At least I have apparently been doing a good job with the flossing and the brushing.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. As was foretold by the decahedral oracles, my first character was eaten by a bush robot. Then Brooks’s character, the last remaining of the original set, went mad and ran off into the depths of the TITAN to protect his team. My new character and Vivian’s second character, like Dave’s second character, all turned out to be transhuman infiltrators not particularly concerned with the Jovian project, so now we just have to get out of there and all will be well.

Read: Yakuza Reincarnation vol 1 (Hiroki Miyashita, Takeshi Natsuhara): An old and old-fashioned yakuza is done in by scuzzy modern gangsters and reincarnates into the body of a princess in a fantasy world beset by the kind of problems that need yakuza honor (and punching) to solve.

Written: FAIL.

Marith had to get her mouth fixed today, so I went along to keep her from wandering into traffic when they threw her out still full of anesthetic. It was all fine, just time-consuming. I managed to do a little work before going over to Ayse and Ken’s for the Amerivision finale, so I guess it all worked out, or something.

Eaten: Sushi! Apparently I joined in the grand tradition of ordering too much.

Watched: American Song Contest 2022 ep 8: What are these juries smoking?! Or perhaps better asked, who are they to be so out of touch with America? (10 regional juries assigning 12/10/8/… points like Eurovision, then 56 states/territories doing the same thing and almost turning the list upside down.) We were all very sad when the 70s soft-rock guy from Washington topped the jury chart, but then AleXa won with “Wonderland” because every K-pop stan in the US voted for her or something, so it was all okay. They had the regional jury representatives videophone in to announce who got the 12 points, just like Eurovision. Not all the reps (all previously-eliminated contestants) had the proper Eurovision spirit, but it made me happy.

Played: Living room soccer.

Read: Beyond The Eyes Of Mars (Glynn Stewart): 12th in the series where FTL, stealth in space, and antimatter production are all literally magic. The heroic Martian navy is still cleaning up breakaway factions of the great revolt, and still learning increasingly horrible things about the rebels (which possibly should have been obvious to readers, but I don’t think was telegraphed at all). Also something that came up as being extremely important about 6 or 8 books ago was finally mentioned again, although none of the viewpoint characters knew the significance.

Written: FAIL.

I woke up at the usual time, wandered around a bit, settled back in with a bunch of screens, and then it was four hours later. Apparently I used up all my thing-doing power yesterday. I did finish the work thing from yesterday, but that’s it.

Read: Huntress (Glynn Stewart): Fifth in the series about space pilots fleeing assassins to become mercenaries, in which the assassins apparently have not given up at all. Also, space Quakers.

Read: “Balefire” (Glynn Stewart): Paladin vs demon, before the village has to be destroyed to save it.

Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 18 (Tomohito Oda): I mostly don’t care about these other characters, give me more Komi and Manbagi!

Written: 309 kitten words. I still have not managed to reread last year’s NaNoWriMo project so I can continue it, because I know 100% of it is terrible and needs to be redone, but I can’t start it over because that way lies never finishing.

Instead of sleeping in, I got up at the usual work time and walked to grocery shopping. The sun supported me in this by mostly not coming out until I was done, so thanks! More walking to get lunch and finish off the parts of my shopping list that could be done on the way. Then I was on call, so I did a little work stuff until I realized I had started off completely wrong and gave up to go to Ayse and Ken’s for pizza and hugs. Marith was flat, so that was more walking, and then a lot of playing foursquare in addition to socialization. A surprisingly full day, even if we didn’t get any anime or gaming.

Read: Nettle & Bone (T Kingfisher): A little grimmer than many T Kingfisher books, maybe, but full of possessed chickens, fairy godmothers, sturdy practical women, muscular men with tragic pasts, terrifying underground labyrinths, and all the other paraphernalia of fairytales.

Written: FAIL.

The morning training meeting ran more than an hour over, but except for the last bit where even the presenter was losing focus, it was all really good information, so I’m not mad.

When I went to get tacos to eat before gaming, I was reminded of the date. I can’t object in principle to… Modern Mesamerican? drumming and dancing, but it was very loud.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. For some unfathomable reason, the Jovian Marines went looking for trouble, and definitely found some. They also found a spaceship that is probably not at all a trap. Next session, my character gets to die heroically to save the squad. It’ll be great.

Read: FAIL.

Written: FAIL.

Today was the online portion of the company customer conference summit thing, so I spent the day half listening to presentations, half answering cases, and not doing a good job of either.

Read: “The Long View” (Susan Palwick): Not sure what I think about this, it does seem a little like a slam on the worldview that the new generation shouldn’t have to suffer just because previous generations did.

Written: 586 kitten words. I guess that’s something, but meh.

This time, up early for an all-company meeting. The new CEO is not such a boomer, at least, but so far the company is still chugging along in the same direction at the same speed acceleration.

Read: The Gutter Prayer (Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan): A young woman returns to the city of her murdered ancestors, which has too many sorcerers and way too many gods. Practical theology, both revolutionary and criminal, ensues. Apparently the rest of the world is in even worse shape, which we will probably see in future books.

Written: 446 kitten words.

What the fuck, Democrats? We elected you to stop this shit, not stand around wringing your hands and pretending bipartisanship has been a thing in this millennium!

Did some work to keep the capitalist machine feeding blood to its fascist masters. But I didn’t enjoy it!

Eaten: Tasty Vietnamese food.

Watched: Amerivision semifinals part II, up until the point where Nonny threw a temper tantrum about not getting to stay up indefinitely late. We’ll have to watch American Samoa’s entry and the final jury results another time.

Written: Continued FAIL.

I had no brain at any point today.

Something I read on the Internet suggested that opening links in new tabs is usually not the right path, especially when thinking about accessibility, so I guess I’ll change how I do things.

Played: Lancer, at long last. I leveled up my invisibility, but sadly, we had to make Unity look good, so the whole session was diplomacy and investigation, and we only got to the pre-fight cliffhanger. Next fortnight for sure! Probably.

Watched: Star vs the Forces of Evil 6-7: Yep, still ridiculous. I want to see Star’s next instar.

Written: 520 kitten words.

In the morning I went to watch Nonny run approximately a million laps for fundraising at his school, as Jus did in years before. It was a pretty nice day for being outside, aside from minor tree orgies. I didn’t manage to eat breakfast or lunch, but I did manage to go grocery shopping, so whatever.

Watched: Slayers 1-3. Jus and Nonny are old enough to appreciate it now, possibly because everybody loves explosions and antiheroes.

Eaten: Dandan noodles and velvet chicken with snap peas in lemon ginger sauce.

Played: No Zoomwarts, Marith is too flat.

Words: FAIL

I was stupid in the training meeting too.

Played: Nothing, but when Ken canceled at the last moment due to a family emergency, the rest of us tried making Lancer characters. Our group origin is a special ops team that ended up being lost after a light-speed jump caused them to miss the end of the war. We have an engineer, a weirdo who listens to NHPs, and a pilot.

Read: FAIL.

Words: FAIL.

Yet another early meeting. I wore my swag shirt to show company spirit, and only later realized I had forgotten to unshutter my camera. It’s okay, ain’t nobody needs to see this face at that hour (or ever, really).

Read: Sheeply Horned Witch Romi vol 1 (Yoichi Abe): A girl and a boy alone at the end of the world. Or at least, everyone is asleep, there are magic sheep everywhere, monsters are encroaching, and the girl claims she made the world this way as a result of her mental health issues. First volume ends on a cliffhanger.

Words: 435 kitten words.

The new system is in place at work. Eventually it will even be complete!

Watched: Amerivision semifinals, part 1. Since we are watching at the time of transmission (I don’t think it’s “broadcast” any more), we get to vote, although only Ayse has an NBC account, so we only got one vote for the whole party. Our rule was “no haters” so we didn’t give anyone anything below a 5, but only “New Boots Goofin'” and “Wonderland” got the coveted 10.

Eaten: Cronchy chickens. Also fancy shortbreads.

Played: Not so much twirling, fortunately.

Words: FAIL.

Apparently this is the weekend day to do nothing.

Watched: Star vs The Forces of Evil 1-3: Very ridiculous. Pretty much TFOS: “Here’s your interdimensional exchange student who has vast magic powers and doesn’t know how to use them, have a relaxing high-school experience”. Bonus points for no obvious romance between the leads, and for the human lead not being helpless.

Read: “Men, Women, and Chainsaws” (Stephen Graham Jones): He totally had it coming.

Words: 243 kitten words.

The cleaners were here at 7:00, so since I was already up, I bit the bullet and walked to grocery shopping, came home, took a shower, and got lunch, all before 13:00. Unfortunately there was then chaos so I didn’t know what to do next for a while until visiting got planned, but it was still a productive morning.

Watched: Amerivision ep 5, final round of the qualifiers. Finally we got California’s song, which used the power of sexy young women but was somehow defeated by Michigan’s teenaged singer-songwriter. I think we’ll come back in the popular vote, though. Semifinals start on Monday!

Eaten: Santa Maria tritip, pinquito beans, rice, salad, corn with peppers.

Played: Spinning. So much spinning. Possibly ill-advised after the eating, but all’s well that ends well, right?

Read: Spy x Family vol 7 (Tatsuya Endo): I’m not entirely comfortable with a secret policeman being a sympathetic and even comic character, but then the leads are a James Bond-style “spy” and a professional murderer, so it’s not like the violence isn’t inherent in the system.

Words: 517 kitten words.

Now I’ve reread all of the Rivers of London books except the two I just read, and I don’t know what to read next. Also I have renewed perspective on how I shouldn’t bother to write.

Read: Lumberjanes vol 2 (Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters, Brooke Allen, Maarta Laiho): Oh, that’s what’s going on with all most of the supernatural stuff. It is magical jerks!

Words: FAIL.

Finally, a day with a normal start time!

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. After missing a couple of weeks, we are back to Jovian doom. Somehow, understanding the eye-spiders doesn’t make them less horrible.

Read: The Furthest Station (Ben Aaronovitch): Ghosts and more ghosts, and also gods! I feel like everything was not wrapped up neatly, though.

Read: The October Man (Ben Aaronovitch): Germany’s answer to Peter Grant, who isn’t nearly as geeky or as popular with river spirits, but gets the job done.

Words: FAIL.

Even earlier meeting. Customers. No brain.

Watched: Amerivision week 4 (which is actually last week, because last week we didn’t watch). Double Washington action! Laser-dispersing bodysuits! Twins! The 70s!

Eaten: Greek food.

Read: False Value (Ben Aaronovitch): Peter vs techbros with what even Douglas Adams would have said was an unhealthy fascination with Hitchiker’s Guide.

Read: Tales From The Folly (Ben Aaronovitch): A collection of short stories and vignettes, which are cute but don’t necessarily add much.

Words: FAIL.

Had to log in to work early because the UK is still on vacation.

Read: Broken Homes and Foxglove Summer (Ben Aaronovitch): Now we know Lesley’s deal, and Molly’s deal, and more about Beverly’s deal, so that’s good. Also, doom all over.

Words: FAIL. I’ve gotten up early three out of the last four mornings, and also been social both of the last two days, so I’m behind on my brain, but is that really an excuse?