You know, if we just mulched the billionaires, it would do a lot more for threatened species than having an obscure day. Just saying.
Back in the office today, ate a lot of fancy salad, did some works. Casualties were light.
Read: Winter’s Gifts (Ben Aaronovitch): American adventure with horrifying weather and history and general Americanness. Special Agent Reynolds is just not as interesting a character as Peter, though.
Written: 262.
Kind of late on that one, oh well.
I did some works in the office, and also ate a sandwich, so I guess that was okay, but still a waste of time and energy.
Read: Deep Navigation (Alastair Reynolds): Collection of short stories from the 90s and 00s, only one of them in the “Revelation Space” universe, but all full of SF doom.
Read: The Year My Life Went Down The Toilet (Jake Maia Arlow): A 7th-grader who already has to deal with being gay and her grownups being mortifying and her best friend getting a new interest is also diagnosed with IBS. She doesn’t deal with it well, but it’s really a lot.
Written: FAIL.
Apparently everybody thinks I’m the bee’s knees for getting that customer working yesterday, so that’s good. Not so much meeting today; I was able to get other stuff done, which was nice. Also not betrayed by the train this time.
Written: FAIL. Brain, why?
Sadly, we had burritos at work. Also customer calls. So much customer call. We got one customer working again, though. Then the train was very late, so I had extra customer call from the station while waiting.
Read: Heart of Malice (Lisa Edmonds): A magic PI with an extremely traumatic past gets zorched by magic a lot. Also there’s a hot werewolf guy and a sketchy vampire guy and some kind of mystery.
Written: FAIL.
Everybody loves the void!
Traffic was horrible, probably because parents all drive their children to school in individual vehicles, so I didn’t make the transfer to the train, but the long bus got me there like twenty minutes later, which isn’t too bad. Customers were still somewhat numerous, but not like yesterday. I did a command line thing, it was okay.
I could not find the things I was looking for in my useless room of useless piles of useless comics.
Watched: Good Omens 2.3: Oh good, more ominousness!
Read: A Restless Truth (Freya Marske): It’s the same magical intrigue from A Marvellous Light, but the quest has extended to America, which can only be reached by water, so it’s time for the ocean liner murder mystery! With enthusiastic sapphic interludes.
Written: FAIL.
Went to the office, didn’t die, still a lot of customers.
Spent the commute making notes on how to turn Champions into something that isn’t even slightly like Champions. None of my ideas are consistent with each other, and none of them would work on their own.
Written: FAIL. Have I lost momentum? Or do I just hate capitalism?
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.
Fortunately we did not have beans ‘n’ franks for office lunch. We did have sandwiches, but there wasn’t even cake to celebrate the end of our time in this office. Next week, no office; the week after that, new office. I guess I should figure out what trains to use to get there and back home.
Emptying the sea isn’t rewarding, so I switched to trying to get bees, but managed to mess up both smoking the bees and harvesting honeycomb from the hive. Bah!
Read: The Mandroid Murders (Robin CM Duncan): It’s the future. A private eye who is a horndog and a fashion plate gets stuck with a teenaged mob heiress. Together, they fight crime, although really those guys had it coming.
Written: 274 for the day, 1050/1000 for the week, 9059 overall.
Office, with burgers. Since this is our last week in this office, I piled a bunch of stuff into a sack to bring home, where I will probably throw it away.
I found my copy of the Nimona comic, which I still had, but looking through my storage room did not really reduce my urge to throw everything into the sea.
Written: 388 words again. I guess the range of possible values there is small enough that a repeat isn’t that surprising. 776 words for the week, 8785 overall.
Went to the office again, so Former Coworker A could meet up with us for Costco food court lunch, which people had been trying to do for weeks in memory of the old days. Costco is only a block form the office, so I guess in the old days before we had fancy bribes to get people in the office like delivered lunch, everybody would go to Costco for pizza and hotdogs.
Now I am on vacation.
Read: Kelcie Murphy and the Academy for the Unbreakable Arts (Erika Lewis): 12-year-old with special parentage and secret magical powers finds out she’s going to magical fighting school, weird teachers, puppy love, war in the magical world, Celtic mythology edition. Some disability representation, more authentic modern-orphan backstory. Doesn’t seem entirely well-edited.
Written: 419 today, 1244 for the week, 6660 overall.
Went to the office, it was annoying, ate a sandwich, it was okay.
Written: 347 today, 825 for the week, 6241 overall.
Went into the office, found out the office is moving to about a five-minute walk from the place I lived before I moved to San Jose, ate some fairly satisfying Reubens.
Written: 459 today, 1012/1000 for the week, 4393 overall.
In the office again, for Chick-Fil-A and meetings about support for the ~Special~ customers, which the now-sacked Boss R was supposed to have gotten sorted and which is not sorted. Also my custom of commuting home in the middle of the afternoon is now officially approved.
Read: Ruby Finley vs The Interstellar Invasion (K Tempest Bradford): An 11-year-old black girl who likes bugs finds a mysterious bug and trouble ensues. Even though it’s set in the present (smartphones, Twitter, etc) the main character gets to ride her bike around the neighborhood and visit her friends without having an adult and a car and a schedule.
Read: “The Star-Bear” (Michael Swanwick): I think I’m not Russian enough, or not Russian-lit-reading enough, to get this one. Pretty sure the bear is a metaphor, though.
Written: 102 today, 1215 for the week, 2862 overall.
Back to the office for no good reason. American restaurant pasta for lunch. Light customer activity, which would seem lighter if we weren’t missing so many people.
Read: Spell Sweeper (Lee Edward Fodi): It’s the anti-Harry Potter, where the main character has tiny magical powers so instead of learning real magic at Secret Magic School, she’s on the janitorial track, and her hated rival is the Chosen One, a magical prodigy, tall and beautiful, beloved by everyone, etc. Naturally they have to work together to save the world, despite the unhelpfulness of the adult wizards.
Written: 229, 1113, 2760.
We had two separate going-away celebrations for Coworker A (who was Boss A when I joined), who is leaving us to go back to her ancestral homeland. She’s been a pillar of the team the whole time I’ve been with Aerospike, so it is sad to see her go, but hopefully she will do well in this new phase of her life!
Written: 229 for the day, 1103 for the week and overall.
Taco Wednesday in the office.
New (minor) Minecraft version, but I only logged in enough to make sure my main world still works.
Read: Some Desperate Glory (Emily Tesh): Yes, the MC is supposed to be that awful at the beginning, because she is starting her story of personal growth (and saving a lot of people) from the very bottom. Much of the plot could have been avoided if the aliens had a better concept of security, but that wasn’t really the point.
Written: 305 for the day, 878 for the week and overall.
Went to the office, found out New Boss R has been canned after six months, not much work got done after that. Details are scarce, but apparently he just wasn’t measuring up. I hope these times are not going to be too interesting.
Read: The Witch King (Martha Wells): Much more like the Raksura books than Murderbot, of course, but still pretty good. MC is a body-switching demon, magic is complicated, imperialism sucks, human customs vary. (At least, I think they’re human; no mention of intermarriage, though, so maybe it’s a zillion different species like the Raksura books.)
Written: 187.
Went to the office, ate Panda Express (probably not made from real pandas), spent too much time screwing around with the stupid Windows laptop I have to lug around for Federal support, came back home, blugh.
Read: Critical Mass (Craig Alanson): Kind of deus ex machina, but triumphant. Yet apparently, not the end!
Written: 238, somehow.
Office again, this time with okay Thai food and Coworker R’s anecdotes about his checkered past. And customers, I guess.
When I got home, I pillaged the sand mine for wood and tracks, but mostly found zombies.
Written: 277 words. Not quite to the maggots yet.
Yuck, commuting. Managed to do a work or two, though.
Read: Armageddon (Craig Alanson): Oops, they ran out of charmed life. Also, it seems like sooner or later Skippy is going to get his wormhole transit card proactively revoked.
Read: Chamomile #1-323 (JezMM): I couldn’t remember where I was, so I had to start from the beginning. Oh no, such a burden, reading about silly cute people.
Written: 207 words, somehow.
More office, this time Chinese food in honor of AAPI Month. I wasn’t a complete idiot in the technical meeting, so yay? I managed to both commute without delay and pick up my prescription on the way home, so I think I’m pretty much sold on this routine even if sometimes transit betrays me cruelly.
Usually I keep my computing devices quiet unless I have explicitly asked for a noise, but I finally tried turning the sound on while playing Minecraft and it was okay. Knowing monsters are around doesn’t seem to help me avoid them, and hearing distant zmobies while digging through the dark rock of the moderate depths was more creepy than useful in any case. I got no diamonds but a lot of redstone, and also found clay while boating around on my way back. Plus, I now have a paddock for cows, and a wheat field that will eventually give me the materials to lure them into my paddock and force them to reproduce. Bookcases, here I come!
Written: FAIL.
Office, bleah, but I managed to successfully commute in the afternoon after eating Togo’s sandwiches.
I kept digging for diamonds, but found everything else, including an amethyst geode. I don’t think amethyst blocks or shards are useful for much, but they’re very pretty. I’ll have to go back later and see if the crystals have regrown. (I know they regrow, I don’t know how long it takes.)
Kindle has taken to choking on epubs I get from Kobo, so I guess I’m switching to the Kobo app for reading (except Kindle Unlimited). Probably for the best, but annoying.
Read: Mavericks (Craig Alanson): Sixth or so in the series, this time mostly a cut to another group of humans making their way in the hostile universe while the series MC and his glowing beer can are waiting out a problem. Even the aliens that have engineered themselves to be genetically superior are pretty dumb.
Read: Season of Skulls (Charles Stross): Further adventures of the former henchwoman of a Bond villain in the dark future of Britain under Nyarlathotep, as she keeps trying to disentangle herself from his plans after murdering him a book or two previously. Most of the Laundry books put the characters into another genre to make them suffer more, and this one is Regency romance but meta and with more necromancy.
Written: FAIL.
Back to the office again, only sandwiches this time. Also I didn’t manage to hide in a conference so I had to wear my mask a lot, but I tried going home in the middle of the afternoon and logging back on, and this time it worked pretty well.
Read: Forging Hephaestus (Drew Hayes): A small-time superpowered thief gets drafted for the villain’s guild and assigned to a retired high-level villain. The guild minimizes conflict with superheroes by having a few rules, and even fewer penalties for breaking them. Shenanigans, crime, and betrayal ensue.
Read: A Kiss of Light and Flame (M Owens): Described as a yuri light novel, and extremely light. One antagonist, no plot twists, but there are two girls who fall in love.
Written: FAIL.
Boo, commute. We had the good chicken tikka masala naan burritos for lunch, at least, and after I retreated to a conference room to eat, I forgot to come out, so that was slightly less unpleasant than many office experiences even if probably less polite. Also I remembered to grab a burrito for dinner tomorrow, although I didn’t have a way to transport the tasty tamarind sauce.
On the upside, I finally found blue flowers for my Dye Garden! They were in fact just past the cave I died horribly in yesterday, and just before the cave I died horribly in today.
Written: FAIL.
Back to the office yet again. This week’s weather isn’t so bad, despite my whining. Also it’s been a fairly quiet week on the customer front, at least compared to the past couple.
Trundled around in Minecraft getting murdered by zmobies.
Read: The Slaughtered Lamb Bookstore & Bar (Seana Kelly): She’s a werewolf who survived a serial killer and now runs a bar and bookstore for San Francisco’s secret supernatural community, he’s a hot and surprisingly nice vampire. Together they fight crime, and are kind of adorkable, and also kick ass. There’s a lot of plot and violence, but also a HFN (I assume, based on the existence of multiple sequels) so is it PNR? I dunno how genres work.
Read: By A Silver Thread (Rachel Aaron): Set in the same magic/cyberpunk future as the dragon books, this time our MC is a fae changeling in thrall to a blood mage. It goes downhill from there, in ways that revolve around the nature of fae in this setting. There is a kissing subplot, but it’s definitely not a romance book.
Written: FAIL.
Back to the office, despite Coworker L, who was there last week, being down with Covid and HR sending out a notification and everything. At least the trains are back to normal this week, although that doesn’t necessarily help when the busses are late.
Grass successfully spread into my dye gardens, so I was able to create some additional dye. Still need to find red and blue flowers, though. With red, blue, yellow, white, and light grey, I can get every color of dye except black. That still requires hunting squid, since I’ve never seen a “wither rose”.
Written: FAIL.
Instead of waiting until the usual quitting time to start commuting home, I commuted back in the middle of the afternoon. I felt obligated to work later after that, but at 18:30 I was home, in comfortable clothes, hydrated, and full of ice cream health, which is better in every way than 18:30 yesterday.
Because I took it into my head to make a great hall of red sand and/or orange terracotta (not actually red sandstone), I spent most of the evening digging and making stone pickaxes and digging some more. Eventually I decided the main hall was grand enough, so now I know how large to make the side halls for proper symmetry.
Written: Still FAIL.
Trains still weird this week, which is inconvenient, but I’m in favor of electrification. Renewable renewable OK!
The office is still uncomfortable and annoying, even though they gave us sandwiches. My masking is definitely slipping. 🙁
Read: Fog of War (JN Chaney, Terry Mixon): I think the authors just like writing about this new character, because although he’s given a lot of important exposition, he didn’t need to take up that much of two books. But it’s always good to have additional doom placed on the mantel.
Written: FAIL. I didn’t even manage to waste time on anything specific, I just got home and ate a dinner and then suddenly the day was over.
More commuting, this time with bonus cascading transit failures. I made it in before the first meeting, so I guess that’s okay. Maybe I’ll get up even earlier next week, because the trains will still be messed up. It’s for the cause of electrification, which I definitely approve of, I just wish they could be better organized about it.
Read: Black Ops (Craig Alanson): Book four or so in the “Expeditionary Force” series, which Earl reminded me exists. A human fount of insane ideas and an absolutely terrifying ancient AI try to keep Earth out of the crosshairs of various asshole aliens, with mixed success but 110% shenanigans along the way. Has the problem common to MilSF where even the allegedly very advanced aliens have only incrementally better rifles and helicopters and whatnot, but who doesn’t like shenanigans?
Written: FAIL.