Author: Trip the Space Parasite

Early meeting for the new boss3 to introduce herself and tell us why the teams who are under her are under her (but not why the teams that obviously should be under her aren’t), how we are vital to the success of the company, etc. I mean, she’s not wrong, but I am, as always, skeptical that it will make any difference. As always, we’ll see what happens in practice.

Then I went to take another step in the journey of Tooth Implant. I now have a thing stuck to the implant, and the implant is well stuck in, so in a few weeks I will get measured for the crown, and sometime after that maybe get the crown installed. Then I will be able to chew on the right side of my mouth, if I remember how.

Since the dentist is even further from the office than my apartment, I made this a WFH day even though Wednesday will normally be an office day. Also I got Coworker K to switch days with me so that I can do the late thing on the days when I am WFH and not have to make the cursèd late commute from the office, and also so I can keep gaming.

Read: Bayonet Dawn (Scott Moon): Military SF, marines rather than navy, with mysterious aliens and lost siblings and apparently some kind of conspiracy, but it’s just not well-written. Multiple viewpoints are random and jarring, character motivations are dubious, I’m not sure the military works that way, etc.

Words: Check.

I was afraid the customer would never let go, but I guess it was like 2am for them so they eventually did and I got to leave at what I hope is a reasonable time for days when I don’t have to stay late. Despite the transit app having become useless, I found a route that should get me home by 19:00 (later if I stop for a burger). That’s not terrible, I guess.

Read: Demon Thief and Slawter (Darren Shan): Backstory of one of the major characters from Lord Loss, then back to current doom, with bonus magic and psychological trauma and death. Especially death.

Read: A Fistful of Evil (Rebecca Chastain): An aimless and horny 20-something gets a job hunting monsters, which she would have been trained for if she hadn’t refused to use her magic powers since they first grew in, which means she is a hapless n00b but her heart is definitely in the right place and she does her best despite being surrounded by hot guys. It’s supposed to be humorous, but is extra-funny because it is set in a suburb of Sacramento where I have often vacationed.

Words: FAIL. Technically I had time, just not any energy.

Normally I will be in the office Wed/Thu/Fri, but this week it’s Mon-Tue-Fri due to appointments scheduled before the capitalist classes randomly changed the structure of a work week, and because Boss A is on spawning leave (and just spawned today!), Monday is also a day when I have to do the thing at 18:30, which means I didn’t get home until 210239 o’clock. This is not okay.

Read: Demon Slayer vol 1 (Koyoharu Gotouge): Generic shōnen adventure about getting stronger to defend the weak, which I guess explains why it’s so popular. Would almost certainly be better if the demon-infected sister was the protagonist instead of a comatose motivator for the male hero.

Read: Lord Loss (Darren Shan): A teenaged git is traumatized by his family being eaten by demons, but eventually finds out what is up with that, and other mysteries of his ancient and weird lineage. The first of a series, but the preview of the next seems to be about someone else, so who knows.

Read: Pillar of Heaven (Kitty Shields): A barista gets a job offer she can’t refuse which draws her into the underworld of magic, psionics, and really obnoxious rich people. She must save the day.

Read: The Library of the Dead (TL Huchu): A young medium tries to make a living and also do the right thing in near-future, post-collapse Edinburgh. Lots of creepy magic and hustling and poverty and the occasional high-speed wheelchair chase.

Words: FAIL.

It is too hot out.

Played: Edie’s D&D game, in Edie’s new house. The new place is about 900% less annoying to get to, and probably also about 900% larger. It has the same combined living room-dining room-kitchen with island as the Petterson’s new place, so it has a very familiar vibe despite being full of boxes. Also it was full of gaming munchies and ridiculous refrigerators and gamers (but not Rue, they were at camp). After a lot of house talk from the grownups, we played what turns out to be the penultimate episode of Edie’s game, in which our attempts to learn the gnolls’ side of the story are in vain and we just have to murder them. We did find a larger camp, with what looks like a gang boss of gang bosses of gnolls, so probably that will be the climactic fight of the campaign.

Words: Check, although the way I’m counting words for editing is not very rigorous.

I really do mean to walk to grocery shopping, but maybe not until fall.

Played: Zoomwarts! This time it was NPCs dueling over Harry and Bella got to be mature. But she still owes the mermaid two arms or a huge pile of jewels, and the new potions professor is still up to something, and the Holiday Party is still impending!

Watched: Yona of the Dawn 19-20: Yona’s primary stat is definitely Bravery, or maybe Loyalty.

Eaten: Thai food! Ken is not here to cook, he is off hiking somewhere, so we ordered in.

Played: Super Mario Party, or at least like six of the zillion minigames. I was terrible at them, which is only to be expected from an old person who rarely plays video games, but it was fun.

Read: Over the Woodward Wall (A Deborah Baker): It’s a little like Oz, only more Seanan McGuire and philosophical and faerie bargains, and also it pretty much ends halfway through the story and the next book won’t be out until this fall!

Words: FAIL.

WFH today, although possibly I shouldn’t have. I have Mon-Tue-Fri next week, though, so it’s not like I won’t suffer for capitalism.

Read: Star Eater (Kitty Shields): A teenaged boy has a void demon and a (literal?) star living inside him, which gives him powers and ruins his life. He runs into monster mobsters, cute girls, cute boys, criminal conspiracies, unexpected crushes, chemistry, and other problems. I liked this, although it really needed to be edited at various levels.

Read: Bofuri * I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense vol 1 (Jirou Oimoto, Yuumikan, Koin): For a change, the character is not trapped in the VRMMORPG, she logs out all the time, but she found a broken part of the system and is nigh-invulnerable so doesn’t have to take anything seriously. Probably funnier to video gamers?

Words: check!

Yep, that was terrible. Being in the office was fine, even (though I hate to admit it) more productive, but four hours of commuting on top of a nine and a half hour workday is just too much, and the party with office party food did not make up for it. (Parties rarely make up for anything, IME.) Thursday is my turn in the barrel, so most days should not be this egregious

Read: Call of the Night vol 2 (Kotoyama): Our disaffected teen is probably not actually getting any closer to falling in love with his obnoxious vampire friend, but they are definitely friends. In fact, he may be up to three whole friends by the end of the volume!

Read: New Star Rising (Cameron Cooper): Unimaginative space opera. I don’t think the author knows how time or space work, maybe not numbers at all.

Words: continuing my streak of “technically not nothing”.

Welp, looks like I have to go into the office tomorrow. This will be terrible.

Read: The Blacktongue Thief (Christopher Buehlman): High magic low fantasy, but it’s low fantasy because of the viewpoint character. His traveling companions are on a heroic, possibly even laudable, quest through a world that really needs fixing after three wars against genocidal goblins, but Kinch is not epic. It’s an interesting world, though.

Words: barely.

There’s an official get-back-under-the-thumb-of-the-boss-class event on Thursday, and it looks like I need to be in the office during business hours (or more) Wed-Fri from next week onward. This may not be consistent with gaming.

Read: Call of the Night vol 1 (Kotoyama): A disaffected teenager meets an obnoxious vampire while wandering the night streets, and decides he wants to be a vampire too. Unfortunately, this version of vampirism requires him to fall in love with her, and she is pretty obnoxious.

Read: King of Attolia (Megan Whalen Turner): Not as twisty as the previous books, but then we know too much about Gen by now to take anything at face value. Costis doesn’t, though. Poor Costis.

Read: White Trash Warlock (David R Slayton): Urban fantasy with extreme doom for minor characters, and moderate doom (with bonus family drama) for major characters. Being gay and having Second Sight in Oklahoma is Not So Great.

Words: check, barely.

Apparently we are supposed to be back in the office for at least three days a week starting on Thursday. Fuck capitalism.

Read: Queen of Attolia (Megan Whalen Turner): I tried to read this before and failed, but I blame the pandemic, because it is actually pretty awesome. I’m not sure what I can say that’s not a spoiler, though.

Words: FAIL. I have no excuse, I’m just dumb.

No gaming, our GM is unavailable, possibly due to moving house. Instead I shambled my way up to Mountain View to get my ichor sucked out before my doctor appointment tomorrow. Then I shambled back home to be completely useless all day.

Read: Jack Four (Neal Asher): Polity demilitarized zone, horrible humans, horrible bug monsters, amnesia, the old ultraviolence, fairly predictable twist.

Words: check, I guess.

I successfully went shopping, although I did not walk there, so that was like an accomplishment but not really? Also I ate a lunch that was not horrifying.

Played: Zoomwarts. A new love interest for Bella! A new reason to skulk about the secret passages of Hogwarts! Catalog shopping! Lizard drama!

Watched: Yona of the Dawn 17-18: You know, he has a point. And his boss is awesome.

Watched (by somebody, not me): Kaleido Star 5. I had to play Bloons TD 6 with Nonny and his parents.

Read: Dear Noman vol 2 (Neji): The end! It was fundamentally a ghost story, so the ending was always going to be sad, but it was hopeful too.

Words: Check, ish.

Jus’s virtual Shakespeare Camp presented their abridged video of the subplot of Twelfth Night (there are only four of them!), which was extremely cute. Jus played two characters who were distinct (Maria and Olivia), and Malvolio was thoroughly pranked.

After that, I went to a medical facility to have my thyroid ultrasonicated, which involved lying down in a warm, dark room and therefore almost put me to sleep. Later I will find out if my thyroid is mutating uncontrollably.

Watched: Avatar the Last Airbender 3.13-14: Prison break episodes!

Watched: The Case Study of Vanitas 1: Vampires, top hats, airships, mysterious maladies, extreme smugness.

Words: Check.

I can’t complain too much about work with a two-day work week, but I can be completely useless! Surprise: it’s new coworker S’s last day, she has to be a SAHM. Less surprise: boss A is on maternity leave after today, more or less.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. EP is really about 80% careful preparation by weight, but we managed to recover some of the casualties of the group the person we’re looking for was with, and got a little information out of them. Also, we avoided getting eaten by the horrible Exsurgent monster, so yay us.

Read: I Swear I Won’t Bother You Again! vol 1 (Reina Soratani, Haru Harukawa): Kind of like My Life as a Villainess but without isekai elements. While rotting in prison for the attempted murder of her illegitimate half-sister, a noblewoman wishes she had it all to do over again, and finds herself a year in the past. Her plan to help, rather than hinder, her half-sister and the prince getting together so she can retreat to a convent to do no more harm is definitely getting derailed by the fact that social interactions are a chaotic system.

Read: Gearbreakers (Zoe Hana Mikuta): Cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic mecha story of love, revenge, betrayal, murder, and other fun stuff. The technical bits are pretty ridiculous (because mecha) but it is very dramatic. If there were less torture, I might recommend it to Jus.

Words: FAIL.

Back from Roseville vacation (no Roseville actually vacationed in). There were friends and food and Jus got to see Elyssa again and swimming and Josh is TWENTY how is that even possible?! and board games and swimming and pirate fireworks over the back fence and Kate’s hair is so short and I only blew up the toilet once and too much heat.

Played on vacation: Roll for the Galaxy (I still suck at it), Terraforming Mars (I… surprisingly came in second?), Codenames (Jus had the insights!).

Read on vacation: Lockdown Tales (Neal Asher): Short stories, Polity or post-Polity, mostly full of violence and depravity and robots and sometimes aliens.

Read on vacation: Drifter’s Folly (Glynn Stewart): Fourth in the series about humans trying to put galactic civilization back together after destroying the alien empire, following up on the great betrayal of book three.

Read today: Artifact Space (Miles Cameron): Space opera with a plucky teenager escaping rape-culture horror to fake her way onto a giant spaceship and save the day repeatedly despite alien economic intrigue and imposter syndrome.

Words on vacation: NONE.

Words today: FAIL. I did read through what I wrote on one project, and it’s pretty terrible, so maybe not writing is for the best.

Had to get up an hour earlier than usual for all-hands song and dance. Yay us, boo them.

Read: Bridge of Souls (Victoria Schwab): I feel like this volume’s villain raises questions that should be answered, but it seems to be the conclusion of the trilogy.

Words: FAIL. Accomplished nothing useful after work, eventually decided to try going to bed at a sensible time so I can get up and go to Roseville tomorrow.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Because this is a game that does not have mechanics for flashbacks (and because Kelsey had been drinking all day), we spent most of the session discussing preparations for Iapetus, but did get there and see what we’re going in to by the end.

Read: Tunnel of Bones (Victoria Schwab): Our main character and her ghost go to Paris, which is also extremely haunted, and find even more terrible ghosts there, but at least they have someone to phone for advice. Pity about the reception in the catacombs.

Read: Drugstore in Another World vol 2 (Kennoji, Eri Haruno): Unnecessary drama, some mod-cons. Probably not worth continuing.

Words: FAIL.

Read: Half a Soul (Olivia Atwater): A young lady with only half a soul (which produced symptoms that look a lot like autism) tries to make the world a better place and also find love in alternate Regency England. A very anti-wealth, anti-war, and anti-cultural appropriation story, with faeries and an obnoxious magician.

Read: City of Ghosts (Victoria Schwab): A 12-year-old girl has secret ghost-interacting powers, a secret ghost sidekick, and parents that unwittingly drag her to the most haunted spots they can find (in this case, Edinburgh).

Read: The Border Keeper (Kerstin Hall): A mysterious and deeply suspicious visitor comes to the immortal guardian of the border between the mortal world and the realms of the gods, and causes a lot of trouble. Mythic and fantastical.

Words: check. This is more or less the end of the thing that distracted me from my stated goal for the writing challenge. I guess now I have to figure out how to produce a second draft. Should I edit the text I have? Should I rewrite it from scratch, knowing what I know now? Should I delete it and pretend it never happened?

Wait, is this year really almost half over?! WTF, I hoped for more from each of my few remaining years!

Read: Blood Tally (Brian McClellan): Sequel to Uncanny Collateral, our part-troll collections agent and his snarky ring get tangled up in another surprisingly important affair

Read: Death of an Irish Mummy (Catie Murphy): Third in Kit’s “Dublin Driver” series, and the main character is already taking a lot of grief for having dead bodies turn up. I’m surprised the cops don’t just throw her in jail whenever somebody in Dublin is murdered, to keep her from getting involved.

Read: A Pilgrimage of Swords (Anthony Ryan): Sword and sorcery, a protagonist with a horrible past and a cursed sword, monsters, dead gods, distant lands with strange customs.

Read: The Kraken’s Tooth (Anthony Ryan): More sword and sorcery. The main character might feel bad about his bloodstained past, but he’s still awfully hard on places he passes through.

Words: Check, barely.

Read: The Left-Handed Booksellers of London (Garth Nix): Fairly standard urban fantasy based on British myth and legend, set in 1983 because London in that year has special significance to the author, with a punk art student protagonist and a genderqueer love interest. Doesn’t stretch the bounds of the genre, but I found it fairly charming.

Read: Uncanny Collateral (Brian McClellan): Modern urban fantasy in the seedy underworld of soul debt collectors. Part-troll bruiser protagonist in over his head with only a snarky magic item and a web of dodgy contacts to help him survive.

Words: check.

Played: Edie’s D&D game. Jeremy and Rachel were doing something non-gaming-related, but Edie is perfectly capable of feeding gamers on her own and also sending creepy-crawlies to ambush PCs just because they’re completely incapable of remaining quiet when interesting mushrooms and flammable deadwood are around. We also found the gnolls that are oppressing our new friends the thri-kreen, and they don’t seem to have their own side of the story to tell unless you count grunting and howling, so I guess we need to deal harshly with them. We did get a prisoner, at least, so we can interrogate it next session, which will be at the new Gollub place much closer to Dave and I. In fact, after going to Palo Alto for gaming for like twenty years, I think this was the last time we will make that trek. The end of an era!

Read: The Tale of the Outcasts vol 1 (Makoto Hoshino): A mostly-invisible demon and an exploited urchin girl become friends in Victorian England.

Words: FAIL. What kind of excuse is “used up all energy going to gaming in Palo Alto” anyway?

The cleaners came and cleaned Marith’s old room. Now I could use it for something, if I were competent and energetic. But I’m not, so I went grocery shopping and ate some lunch and gave Marith her swamp cooler, and eventually went to Ken and Ayse’s. I had not realized it before, but Truffle has sporadic white hairs in her black coat to go with the white spot on her tummy, so she is a Night Sky Kitten!

Played: Zoomwarts. I should probably have sent in a Death Eater with a wand to focus things, but Bella was sufficiently oppressed, I think. The lizards got some leads on how to get arms for the mermaid, at least.

Watched: Yona of the Dawn 15-16: Uh oh, the new king is surprisingly competent!

Played: Squirt gun battle! Nonny finished me off by emptying the magazine of one of the large squirt guns over me, so I was pretty much the soggiest. I had to borrow a towel to sit on before Marith would let me ride in her car again.

Not watched by me: Kaleido Star 4. Jus and Marith and maybe Dave watched it, though, so that’s fine.

Words: check, somehow.

Yay, it’s Friday. But now I have a weekend full of stuff. I think weekends should be longer.

Read: Black Sun (Rebecca Roanhorse): Epic fantasy in a secondary world based off pre-Columbian Americas. Giant crows, the revenge of those whose customs were swept away to bring about the current enlightened age, anti-mermaid prejudice, and DOOOOOM.

Read: Star Eater (Kerstin Hall): Young woman vs dystopian society, but at least it’s a cannibal magic dystopia with bonus body horror that she must bring crashing down.

Words: check.

Felt reasonably productive at work, although probably it’s not true. And then in a feat of unrivaled dexterity, I yanked my arm robot right off, even though it had like four days left. Sigh.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Gaming is on Thursday now! We finished deciding what to do with the treasure monster from the current adventure, now that Kelsey is here, and immediately moved on to visiting the TITAN-haunted ruins of Iapetus to look for a missing coconspirator, because that is guaranteed to end well.

Words: FAIL.

How is it already Wednesday? How is it only Wednesday?

Read: Dead Star (Simon Kewin): Our heroes try to uncover the mystery behind the galactic theocracy that has carefully destroyed all previous history and is probably destroying everything. Many ancient alien artifacts are involved, as well as severe trauma, subterfuge and paranoia, and a poor understanding of gravity assist maneuvers.

Read: The Witness for the Dead (Katherine Addison): Semi-sequel to The Goblin Emperor, following the Witness for the Dead (priest/undertaker/detective) as he goes about his business far away from the imperial court and yet still gets mixed up in multiple murder mysteries.

Words: check.

Read: “Wet Nails” (Shira Glassman): F/F smut, a lonely grad student is comforted by the ghost of a vintage film actress.

Read: “Practical Boots” (CE Murphy): Do not mess with the half-faerie, she will kick your ass!

Read: “Fearless” (Shira Glassman): F/F romance, older (40s) protagonists, music and flirting.

Read: Spy x Family vol 5 (Tatsuya Endo): A strong (yet ridiculous) opponent appears!

Words: Check.

Happy Father’s Day to those who deserve it!

I tried eating indoors at a restaurant, and it was slightly uncomfortable but mostly okay. Apparently I worry a lot more about the stupid stuff I do that makes people think less of me than I do about mere threats to life and health. I did wear a mask walking to the grocery store and shopping, at least.

Mostly I’ve sat in front of this computer doing nothing useful all day, which feels like a waste even though it’s a weekend. I don’t want to just take time off from doing capitalism stuff, I want to do my stuff! But that would require energy which I have never had.

Read: “Knit One Girl Two” (Shira Glassman): short modern f/f romance with extra fanfic and Judaism and cuteness and colors.

Words: check, although I really should have gotten more done.

As always, I meant to get up early and walk to shopping, but I feel less bad about it today because it was Too Hot. The heat is definitely also why I was half an hour late taking over on-call from the previous person and maybe even why there was an active case so I couldn’t run Zoomwarts. But we went over to Ayse and Ken’s anyway, and ate Provençal chicken and rocket salad, and watched anime and played freeze tag and admired the Mushroom Sisters and heard about Pierce’s great cobweb adventure.

Watched: Yona of the Dawn 12-14: Now that we’ve seen the two extremes of the Dragons, the other two will have to be sensible, well-adjusted people, right?

Watched: Kaleido Star 2-3: I’m sure it’s deliberate that Kalos is a terrible communicator, but still: terrible. Also the entire character of Fool should have been dropped.

Read: The Ever Cruel Kingdom (Rin Chupeco): Wraps up everything from The Never Tilting World, including an indictment of capitalism.

Words: FAIL.