Tag: marith

No gaming, because even though we aren’t going to Roseville, we cancelled too late to reclaim the time slot. Instead I got up before noon to go grocery shopping, and then went over to play Minecraft with everyone. I’m working on a 9-Channel Lavamatic, because every town needs one, but the most accessible lava is way off thataway, so I spent most of the afternoon being very bad at Cartesian orienteering and too stubborn to just build a landmark. If I ever make it back to town, I think I have enough lava to finish filling the reservoir, but I still need enough iron to build nine cauldrons, some more stalactites, and more polished diorite and water to build the safety moat.

Since Ken, who does most of the cooking, is still at Kublacon, we had Thai food and pizza and repletion and happiness.

In my own world, I replaced some poorly-organized chests with slightly better-organized barrels. They stack better, and also don’t autocombine.

Read: Valkyrie (Craig Alanson): And then everybody died! Not really, we’re only like halfway through the series, but that was quite a twist.

Written: Only 93 words, boo. Maybe it’s okay if I write 107 tomorrow.

There’s no going to Roseville because there is only sickness, but It’s not like I gave up having today off. Mostly I slept stupidly, though.In the evening, Marith came over for anime and pizza, but the pizza was bad. The anime was good, though.

Watched: Mob Psycho 100 3.3-5: You know it’s bad when calling yourselves the Giant Broccoli Cult would be a step up.

Read: Bones of the Past (Drew Hayes): Further supervillainous adventures of Hephaestus and friends. Includes superheroes being butts, supervillains being terrifying, and an extremely ambitious plot for vengeance. Also, the secret origin of Fornax!

Written: 154 words

I got up and almost went grocery shopping, but then went back to bed instead. Social Minecraft is today because Nonny and everybody are busy tomorrow, so I can shop then.

This week, I explored the desert some more. It turns out to have two rivers, which may explain why I couldn’t find the riverside cave I found earlier. It also has at least two wells, which are pretty but mostly useless since thirst is not a thing, a bunch of cactus, and some suspiciously rectangular skylines that are not desert temples. I bought some custom banners from Nonny’s banner shop,which now has a colored sheep breeding program as part of its supply chain. After we finished, I went to my own world and finally found two cows to lead back to my paddock. Once my wheat crop comes in, I can make them smooch adorably and spawn new cows, and finally I will have a steady supply of leather for books.

I was on call all afternoon, but the customers were quiescent.

Read: Renegades (Craig Alanson): Immediately upon returning from their last expedition, the PCs have to steal their ship back from duly-constituted authority and set out to save Earth by doing the impossible. Again.

Written: 152. If only two points were enough to draw a line…

Of course, not going into the office at all is the best, even when there’s a meeting first thing.

Watched: RWBY 9.2-4: Yep, very Wonderland. The cat is kind of alarming.

I stayed up past midnight playing Minecraft, which caused my eyes to turn into little spirals. I got two side halls in my grand orange terracotta hall dug, and most of a third (except for the random lump of gold ore that I can’t mine because I have no iron), explored some caves of dripstone and death, respawned on the steep slope of plummeting and zmobies several times, maybe saw some iron ore before getting exploded by a creeper, and finally hunted a third sheep so I could make a bed to respawn at home. When I put it that way, it was a lot of Minecraft!

Written: No writing, only video games.

It is also the birthday of my slack friend who loves manuls the most, so clearly she wins at life.

I can’t get up in the morning to write, but I can get up to slog all the way up to Mountain View for the blood draws I’ve been putting off. You’d think that would be much more work, but it’s a simple task with no cognitive requirements and a real scheduling requirement. (Later it turned out the busses were all messed up and I did have to think about what to do, and also walk, but it started out easy.) By the time I got back to San Jose, it was apparently church time, because I was able to get seated for brunch immediately. I almost certainly should not have eaten any of that, but it was really good.

Then I got home and it was all Minecraft all the time. Nonny is sick, so it was remote Minecraft, but I found a secret ravine behind a mountain that had piles of coal, and then a cave with more coal. I also got lost a lot, and missed out on seeing the amethyst geode, but that’s okay. There will be be more Minecraft parties. When everybody else was done, I made worlds based on the RNG seeds of Marith’s world with red sand and a mesa and a huge dripstone cave, and Ayse’s world with giant holes everywhere. I haven’t done much hole exploring, but I have a jungle house and a great hatred of bamboo.

Read: Chosen of Chaos (Benjamin Medrano): It’s like a cross between Dark Matter (dragons and wizards in space) and Tenchi Muyo (some individuals are as powerful as entire fleets of ships). There are almost no male characters, but the MC is so OP (in combat, in finance, in bed…) that she never faces any challenge whatsoever.

Written: 238 words, which is not much for a week. Maybe two weeks.

Yay, no commuting! Lots of customers, but whatever. I did at least as much work as I would have in the office, so bite me, capitalists.

Also I can have cleaners in when I’m not at the office, so my apartment is slightly less squalid.

Watched: My Hero Academia 6.24-25: Uraraka finally got to do something, even if it was only make a speech, and now the team is back together. Apparently the next season will consist of a single scene that takes 25 episodes.

Watched: RWBY 9.1: Well, that’s better than what it looked like was going to happen at the end of season 8. Maybe. Also, brightly colored!

Read: Zero Hour (Craig Alanson): Even more shenanigans, but Skippy’s quest has advanced by one milestone. Also everybody is even more doomed than they were before they tried to fix things.

Read: Trouble on Paradise (Craig Alanson): Side characters from book three get into extra trouble, but the explosions don’t damage human-alien relations. Much.

Written: FAIL.

No office today, so I was able to handle my part of the zillion customer cases that came in without unnecessary discomfort and humanity. Spent a while setting up an important tool because the automatic copy from the old laptop didn’t happen, but I think overall it was better to set up the current version fresh.

Watched: My Hero Academia 6.21-23: Well, that villain didn’t last very long. Deku is becoming totally OP by the expected method of abandoning all self-care, but All Might is still not to be fucked with. Two episodes left in the season!

Read: “Salt Water” (Eugenia Triantafyllou): Kind of like “Ponies” but mermaids and fish and not darkest horror.

Read “Fitting In” (Max Gladstone): “Wild Cards” universe, a former reality-TV superhero and other Jokers protect a local institution from goons.

Written: FAIL.

Went over well before dinner to play Minecraft with Ayse and Nonny. I explored a swamp and a large mountain and only died a few times, so that was fun. Then Earl appeared (Cat was not feeling up to humans) so we talked about books and ate ham and various delicious sides and there was great happiness. Not sure Ken’s heretical explanation of Easter and Ayse’s Catholic explanation left Jus any the wiser, either alone or combined.

When I got home, we played even more Minecraft, because we can do that from different places, and used a copy of my world. I’ve barely started exploring the caves of the next island over, and Ayse and Nonny built a boat right away to sail hundreds of blocks away and rampage Acacia Island!

Read: Spy x Family vol 9 (Tatsuya Endo): End of the cruise ship arc where Yor murders everyone, but the focus is more on Anya and then there’s some small stories with various characters, including Bond. It’s hard being a doggo when humans are so weird.

Written: FAIL.

grocery shopping, burger lounge chicken tenders, egg dying, dumplings, barbecue pizza

Stayed in bed all morning reading, but finally had to get up and go grocery shopping. Since I never managed to get lunch, I ended up eating at the burger place next to the grocery store, which had chicken tenders that were battered(?) instead of breaded, so that was tasty. Then I went over to dye eggs with Jus and Nonny and fam, and ended up staying for Chinese dumplings. (Also I traded Ayse a dumpling that she was already going to have in her fridge as leftovers for a slice of barbecue pizza.) It was a pretty good afternoon.

Read: Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m A Giant Monster (Richard Roberts): Eighth in the series, third of the spinoffs about secondary characters from the first arc. This time it’s the catgirl made of glass, who has to mostly use her healing powers to fix the microfractures she gets from walking around, sitting on insufficiently-padded chairs, etc. It is thus a book about disability and chronic pain as well as having a supervillain for a brother and finding mysterious ancient artifacts and so forth. I like it at least as much …Queen of the Dead.

Written: FAIL.

At least I didn’t have to commute today, but where did my month go? Where did my quarter go? What is wrong with my life? Why do I only have one sister to come watch anime with me?

Watched: My Hero Academia 6.18-20: One of the downsides of making heroes an idealized class, or alternately, of entrusting society to “them” instead of “us”.

Read: You Sexy Thing (Cat Rambo): Soldiers who retired to run a restaurant get pulled into interstellar intrigue and piracy, with a living ship. For no apparent reason, there’s magic as well as high tech. Not like there needs to be a reason, I guess.

Written: FAIL.

Today I went to visit Ayse and Ken and everybody to play Minecraft socially. That’s definitely better. Also we had delicious Thai food and Ken made me a sugar-free chocolate cream pie, because it was nominally my birthday celebration. I could not blow out the candles with a single clap, though. I guess I need to practice up for next year!

Written: FAIL.

Yay, I get to work from home again! But there’s still a multi-hour customer meeting every day and it looks like we’re going to continue next week.

Fortunately the meeting is in the morning, so I was able to skip out early to go see Jus perform in Once Upon A Mattress (clean middle-school version). There was singing! There was dancing! There was heteronormativity, but otherwise it was great all around! We will be able to say we knew famous actress Jus when she was just starting out!

Writing: FAIL.

Grocery shopping worked so well yesterday that I was able to sleep in until it was time to get ready to play Minecraft. Then I went over and played Minecraft and did not die hardly at all. Also we had a barbecue and stayed up partying and fighting off zombies all night. I still don’t dare go underground yet, but I chopped down a bunch of trees and dug up a bunch of sand and stuff. Then we logged out and ate Thai food.

Read: The Ascension Game vol 1 (Ace Arriande): LitRPG apparently based on some game that’s like Minecraft with more boss fights, but I’m pretty sure the ridiculous smut parts were added later. They do not help.

Written: FAIL.

Was I smart today? Only vaguely, I think. Mostly I read Nebula nominees, and probably didn’t appreciate them enough.

Watched: My Hero Academia 6.16-17: Backstory for Hawks, additional backstory for the Todorokis. I understand that regulating parenthood would be nothing but wall-to-wall abuse, but some people really should not be allowed to reproduce.

Read: Wild Massive (Scotto Moore): Artificial multiverse, colonization/assimilation, genocide, theme parks, revenge, sufficiently-advanced sorcery, unethical experimentation, higher powers, sufficiently-advanced technology, mayhem, shenanigans, narrative warfare, and no romance. It was a pretty wild ride.

Read: “If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You” (John Chu): An actor meets basically-Superman in his secret ID at the gym. Slice of life.

Read: “Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold” (SB Divya): I figured out which fairytale this was as soon as we saw the MC’s full name, but I don’t think it was supposed to be a puzzle, just less Eurocentric.

Read: “The Prince of Salt and the Ocean’s Bargain” (Natalia Theodoridou): Original fairytale with a  modern sensibility.

Read: “Rabbit Test” (Samantha Mills): I really hope Christian fuckfaces aren’t still going to be denying women reproductive freedom in a hundred years…

Read: “Your Eyes, My Beacon: Being an Account of Several Misadventures and How I Found My Way Home” (CL Clark): Kind of Beauty and the Beast, but sapphic and there’s a lighthouse and it’s different.

Read: “The Calcified Heart of Saint Ignace Battiste” (Christopher Caldwell): Young priest spies on a spooky ritual in Spookytown and learns that the orthodoxy is a lie.

Read: “The Goldfish Man” (Maureen McHugh): Homeless lady has a hard life for a while and then meets a strange person on the streets.

Read: “Ribbons” (Natalia Theodoridou): Another modernish fairytale, in a world where fairytale things happen. Not sure what the ribbon is a metaphor for — there’s already plenty of queerness.

Read: “This Village” (Eugenia Triantafyllou): Welcome to Wicked Witch Town.

Read: “The Coward Who Stole God’s Name” (John Wiswell): The most beloved man in the world reveals his true self to a reporter. Chaos almost doesn’t ensue. Read to me like a direct commentary on celebrity/billionaire adulation.

Written: FAIL.

No gaming, Rachel is sick enough to go to urgent care (although apparently not with anything exotic). Since my day was suddenly free, I went over to play Minecraft with Nonny and everybody. I accidentally cut down Ken’s prized birch trees, but also cut down trees from the forest and built a wooden house to keep monsters out and got killed by zombies and spiders and drowning. You win some, you respawn at home some, I guess. Also we ate food and played “IRL Among Us” which works surprisingly well.

Written: FAIL. Maybe a couple of hours of Minecraft is all my brain is capable of in a day.

Somehow made it to Friday, but I must be doing something wrong. I’m pretty sure a very mild workweek like mine should not lead to such bleargh. I barely had enough energy to eat Chinese food and watch anime with Marith.

Watched: My Hero Academia 6.13-15: Well, that was inconclusive, except for all the people who died. Setbacks are par for the course in shonen, though.

Written: 148.

Oh yeah, I don’t like going grocery shopping on Sunday because it’s way more crowded and things might be sold out. But the salads are fresher…

Ayse has germs, so Marith stayed home but I went to play Minecraft in person with Nonny and Jus and everyone. I’m still really bad at it, but at least I can go to sleep when it’s night. I put my smoker down somewhere with part of an earthen-walled compound and forgot where I put it! Then I ate some of Ken’s delicious cooking and petted three cats and heard about Jus’s love life and went home. There was rain.

Written: FAIL, but I have an idea, it just needs a bunch more ideas and an actual plot.

It may have been a three-day work-week for me, but somehow being sick is not like an actual long weekend, so I am perfectly happy with it being Friday.

Watched: My Hero Academia 6.10-12: Dabi’s big reveal! Immediately undercut, but still, fuck that guy.

Read: Katalepsis ch 19.1-14 (Hungry): Oh no, I’m caught up!

Read: Past the Redline (RavensDagger): A spaceship racer from Earth is flung across the galaxy by a mysterious technobabble accident and runs roughshod over all the aliens there by virtue of advanced technology and a massive suit of plot armor. Many poorly-justified murders ensue.

Written: FAIL with FAIL sauce and a light dusting of FAIL.

The meeting I have to have facts for is cancelled, so I can save my facts for later.

Watched: My Hero Academia 6.7-6.9: Well, this is going about as well as one might fear. But Aizawa is METAL AS FUCK.

Read: Katalepsis ch 10.1-10 (Hungry): Wow, that guy is obnoxious.

Written: Eternal FAIL. Unless you count recreating D&D character sheets, which I wouldn’t. Maybe creating them the first time.

Managed to get up and look in Marith’s car for my phone and go grocery shopping with my phone, somehow. Then I wobbled around all day until Marith came over for anime and Chinese food.

Watched: My Hero Academia 6.5-6: The fight continues, although it’s moved into a new phase now that the villains have way more damage output.

Read: Colorless vol 1 (KENT): Mysterious solar flare mutated everybody and blasted almost all color from the world, now the mutants are fighting over what color remains and how to use it to rule the world or not. The blurb calls it noir, but it’s really more like Batman.

Read: Namekawa-san Won’t Take a Licking vol 1 (Rie Ato): The title sounds like it could be yuri smut, but really it’s just nonconsensual sliminess. Boo.

Read: Vigor Mortis ch 175-181 (Thundamoo): Now I am caught up. Allegedly there are only twenty or so chapters remaining, which seems plausible. I think the endpoint is probably continental domination.

Read: The Agartha Loop ch 1-35 (RavensDagger): Magical girls with military backup, monsters, parallel universes, time travel, gay romance, and of course time loops. Chapter 35 is where it comes back around to the beginning, so I figured that was a good stopping place for tonight.

Written: FAIL and more FAIL.

 

Finally it was time to see Jus on stage! It was a very abridged version of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, but Jus got to be the off-screen voice of the housekeeper and also a skunk in Aslan’s army so she could fight the person she likes. No word on whether she got to drag them off to her lair. Good job, Jus!

When I tried to go to bed, I could not find my phone anywhere. Hopefully it is in Marith’s car and not on the theater floor or something.

Read: Vigor Mortis ch 136-174 (Thundamoo): Continuing transhumanism, mutation, soul editing, extradimensional assholes, super-evil viewpoint characters, super-evil antagonists, etc.

Written: FAIL.

 

I didn’t accomplish anything today, but I did visit friends and search for the lost art of conversation and eat cheese fondue, salad, chocolate fondue, and German chocolate cake and get hugs and play Goose Goose Duck. I’m pretty sure the conversations other people had while I was playing video games with kids were better than the ones I had, but I got some good book recommendations. It was a nice evening, and now that we’ve had fondue, it can officially be 2023.

Written: FAIL.

Spent almost the entire day and then some on a customer call. I hear they got things working after I left.

Marith came over to watch anime and eat Cheese Disk, which used up all the rest of my brain.

Watched: My Hero Academia 6.3-4: Yep, this fight (to be fair, it’s on two fronts so far and may expand) is going to take up the whole season, isn’t it?

Read: The Drowned Lands (Benjamin Sperduto): Adventure in the doomed post-apocalyptic age between Cthulhu destroying civilization and reshaping the Earth’s surface and him actually waking up. Cultists and rain everywhere, magical artifacts, theocracy, inevitable doom.

Read: The Atlas of the Latter Earth (Kevin Crawford): The default setting for Worlds Without Number, in a fair amount of detail. It seems like too much detail to me, but it’s not like I don’t know the urge to keep creating, and many of the bits are pretty good. Also it’s for OSR, so I guess detail is expected?

Read: The Path of Duty (Eric Thomson): Second in a missiles-in-space series with very old-fashioned space navy and unending corruption which is the real enemy. It’s clear the invading aliens would not be a problem if humanity could get anything together to fight them instead of treating the entire war as a profiteering opportunity.

Written: FAIL.

It was not, in fact, okay that I stayed up until 2:00. But if I have to completely waste a day, at least this is a good day for it.

In the evening, Marith came over and we (re)watched the last episode of My Hero Academia S5, and the ridiculous baseball OVA, and ate some balsamic chicken stuff. It was like human contact, at least more so than playing Slay the Spire for 873 hours in a row.

Written: 328 words.