Big props to all the teachers who did not murder me and/or leave the profession for good when I was younger.
Played: Lancer. Only in Lancer is this a problem we would solve by punching it with giant robots. I guess this is an important lesson about the trauma of war.
Read: The Ancient Magus’ Bride vol 5-6 (Kore Yamazaki): Death and Christmas!
Written: 218.
Another one I’m in favor of!
Exciting news at work, possibly good, more likely neutral, definitely unexpected.
Played: Lancer. The horrible plan that could not be avoided is put into action, and goes okay, although not well enough to avoid the set-piece battles, and we are far too late to save the future of the colony. Finally, we reach the scene of the crime and gaze upon extremely distressing sights. Next session, the Final Boss!
Written: 123. We haven’t gotten to The Mushroom yet, but the MC finally made the terrible decision. Next: the consequences!
I no longer use libraries that much, but will always defend and celebrate them, because libraries are awesome.
Boss B is back from vacation, so I had to get up early for 1:1, but all is well.
Played: Lancer. The PCs talked to the historical war crimes NHP in orbit and found out some about the other historical NHPs, but mostly spent a lot of time talking about what to do next and coming to the conclusion that they’ve only put off the thing they didn’t want to do, not found any way to avoid it.
Read: The Abandoned Heiress Gets Rich With Alchemy and Scores an Enemy General! vol 2 (Miyako Tsukuhara, Satsuki Sheena): Road trip to another kingdom that has dragons, but also has demon problems. Further tsundereness.
Written: 120. Meh.
Are you sure about that?
Played: Lancer, although we had no Kelsey. The spiderbots that were placed on the mantelpiece in the last session were definitely used against us, and it hurt a lot, although we were chewy enough that the station scuttled some of itself to try to get rid of us.
Read: From the Red Fog vol 1 (Mosae Nohara): Unrepentant tween serial killers in Victorian England, with the occasional spot of rape. Do not want.
Written: 122 terrible words. I’m not just saying that, they actually aren’t working. I think I need to back up a bit and approach this scene from a different angle.
But in Canada, every day is poutine day. I hear.
Early meeting was cancelled, but I didn’t find out until I was already up, so bah.
Played: Lancer. We finished shooting down killsats with giant robot pistols and made it to the creepy abandoned space station, which naturally is full of rabid Second-Comm repair mechs. At least I can punch these ones.
Written: 166, mostly spent rewriting yesterday’s words. I think I might be reaching the point where there are so many notes about things to fix that I should just start over.
Raar!
Played: Lancer. Of course that’s what we should be doing about orbital debris and killsats in a giant robot game. Never mind that it’s completely ridiculous
Written: 166.
Hello, please accept this gift of space yogurt.
Had no brain and accomplished almost nothing at work. I have to get the things done tomorrow! And not stay up forever the night before getting up early to commute.
Played: Lancer. We spent the entire session trying to make a plan to accomplish our really stupid goal, without managing to make it any less stupid. It is both what we clearly need to do to find out what’s going on and what the module expects us to do, though.
Written: Only 118, but I got to talk to a Real Writer about ideas I wasn’t having and now can move that tiny bit forward.
Or is it Canadian Maple Syrup Heist Day?
I was expecting to not have power until sometime today, based on the PG&E status page, but in fact it was restored overnight and I did not end up having to go into the office today. That’s good, because there was a surprise early morning meeting that would have made commuting a pain. This makes twice that I’ve ordered goat curry and then not gone into the office. I will eat you someday, goats!
Everything in my fridge and freezer has become untrustworthy, so I had to get pizza while getting gooshyfood for the cats. Fortunately I liked the pizza and they like the gooshyfood.
Played: Lancer. We got to make some decisions as both groups, but then the entire situation was overtaken by events. Well, this module is advertised as being about the traumas of war.
Written: 157.
No pie for me, still waiting on the medical-financial complex to refill my medication.
Got up early to meet, did another work.
Kit’s FIFTIETH BOOK, Death By Irish Whiskey, is out! It’s the fifth in a series, but buy it anyway!
Played: Lancer. Still playing as the corporate goons. Pretty sure the “corporate execs” we rescued were actually locals who hacked the system, but that’s an issue for the IT department. Besides, we’re not actually in favor of killer robots murdering people, even if altruism isn’t in our job description. Kelsey’s character got to run around slamming into people like a wrecking ball, so it was all good.
Written: 103, which is still in the triple digits, if only barely.
Every day I play Numbword, Connections, Wordle, Waffle, Squaredle, and Squardle (as well as Metazooa and Chrono), so uh it me.
I skipped out on the 7:30 all hands meeting, but I didn’t manage to get back to sleep, and also apparently there was actual content, so that was a poor choice.
Played: Lancer, this time for real. The corporate goons successfully fought off the robot army squad and rescued the major investor and his NHP expertise. Now they have a better understanding of how much trouble the colony is in, but maybe they can send those random do-gooders off to do something on another planet where they can’t get in the way of necessary corporate activity.
Written: 139 of outlining. I think I have a good cliffhanger, although I don’t know if it’s end of book or some random chapter or what, because I have no idea how many words this outline is supposed to turn into.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But isn’t that every day?
Apparently it was also sleep day, or more accurately, forget to set an alarm day, so I slept through my 1-to-1 with my boss. Fortunately he is cool, so it was okay. I even did a small amount of work.
Played: Lancer, kinda. We still had no Brooks, so we were able to wrap up the previous set-piece mecha battle and reap the rewards, we didn’t move onto the next one. I think we did make a couple of dice rolls, though, maybe?
Written: FAIL.
Isn’t that every day ending in y since at least sometime in November 2016?
You’d think the night after a night of poor sleep would have extra sleep, but no. That’s not even counting having to get up an hour and a half early to start a morning of four meetings and an afternoon of dentistry and laundry and not being able to eat until almost bedtime because my face was numb.
Played: Lancer (without Brooks). We scared away the smaller giant bile worms, but the larger ones had to be put down to make way for Alien Archaeology. On the upside, the explosions revealed a discovery of even greater significance. Also all those points I put into Agility paid off and I didn’t get slimed even once.
Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 27 (Tomohito Oda): In this volume, Komi and crew play Among Us, and then some people talk about kissing. Hardly any actual kissing takes place, because high school manga, but it’s cute anyway.
Written: FAIL.
Or, on my social slack, International Arguing About What Constitutes A Dumpling Day.
Virtual Friday, since I am off for convention-going from tomorrow. I hope my coworkers are not mystified by the notes I left.
Played: Lancer. No mecha battles this time, only being amazed by the [SPOILER] and other [SPOILER]. Mecha battles next time.
Written: FAIL.
Arrr!
Played: Lancer. We have discovered an astonishing thing (at least as far as the characters are concerned) that I suspect will turn out to be something different. Probably next session we will play the other spuds who are defending the corporate colony from the oncoming horde.
Written: FAIL.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Not sure why World Population Day is less than nine months after International Kissing Day.
Early morning meeting for the CEO to tell us how we all have to suffer because the board set higher goals than Sales could reach. No layoffs this time, though, and probably my team’s hiring will not be affected.
In Minecraft, I built a hole to the bottom of the sea with the power of SAND, but it’s very slow and uses a lot of shovels, and even though the fjord out front of my great hall is allegedly a submerged ravine, I’m not finding much in the way of mineral wealth. Also I forgot to find and watch the Minecraft Musical.
Played: Lancer. I contributed nothing and also mistook a tree stump for a giant robot, so apparently I might as well have not bothered to show up. I should probably be writing on Tuesday nights anyway.
Written: FAIL, because I was wasting time gaming.
Lots of meetings, including a long customer meeting that finally ended with getting them working again. That was satisfying, even if it was new boss R that found the important information.
I got Friday off, just in time for the Roseville trip to be cancelled due to illness. I think I would not have trained up on Friday and back on Sunday, because that is too much time on the train for time spent visiting friends.
Played: Lancer. No fight this time, which is probably for the best since Vivian had no internets and wouldn’t have been able to teleport and teleport and teleport. Instead we worked on fixing our spaceship and some other stuff that’s clearly not as important, and ended on the cliffhanger of the city being attacked. Time for a giant robot battle!
Played a little Minecraft, dug up some of the wooden parts of the sand mine, pillaged a couple of mine cart chests, and also dug up all the track I could find. Then I avoided the zombies and found a village, or maybe a dead village since it contained pillagers that shot me.
Written: FAIL. Gaming and getting ready for office tomorrow instead.
Played: Lancer. This time, our victory condition was to get to the far end of the map, past the annoying enemy mechs, and rescue the civilians. Alas, Vivian had to drop right at the beginning, so we weren’t able to cheese it with teleports, and it turned out to be a lot harder than last session, or at least a lot more painful. We didn’t even get to tick a clock!
Instead of going to bed, I searched Minecraft for blue flowers, but found only caves full of coal and copper and DEATH.
Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 24 (Tomohito Oda): Well, now they’re an item, but they don’t seem to know what to do except be even more awkward. All the other characters are way too invested in the ship.
Read: Somebunny to Love (Zoe Chant): Latest of Kit’s “Virtue Shifter” novellas (?), in which a rabbit shifter finds her fated mate and bangs his brains out, and nothing even slightly bad happens at any point.
Written: FAIL.
My plan for beautiful floating dye gardens foundered on three reefs of hubris and poor design:
Played: Lancer. Since this is a module, we had a fancy map for our first mech fight, and special rules and victory conditions and everything! We also had about 3 license levels extra, so we triumphed OK even without Kelsey’s character on our side, and double reinforcements on the other.
Written: FAIL.
Managed to fix an upset customer, whose problem was not what they originally thought. Let’s hear it for the Knowledge Base!
Played: Now Ken is running Lancer, because somehow he still likes it. We’re using a module, which might be a bit weird because we’re three levels in and have our own spaceship, but I’m sure it will all work out. Somehow. Even though we’re stuck on a planet that’s full of replicant military hardware and/or monsters.
Written: FAIL.
Fortunately the time I had to get up today to attend early meetings was the same time I have to get up tomorrow to commute, so I’ll be awake and alert the rest of the week! Right?
Played: Lancer. NO giant robot fights this time, just discussion of the new age of blinkspace exploitation we have enabled. The End! Not sure what we’re playing next, but it will be without Dave, as he is no longer up for weeknight gaming.
Read: Blackwing (Ed McDonald): Dark fantasy in the shadow of two groups of immortal wizards fighting over the world and the magical devastation they leave behind. Or maybe it’s fantasy noir, since there’s corruption, betrayal, loyalty, mean streets, etc. Several named characters do survive until the end of the book, though!
Written: FAIL.
Played: Lancer. Everybody was healthy enough to game, so we finished the conceptual combat in the depths of blinkspace, and will find out what that was all about next session, which will be the end of the campaign.
Written: FAIL.