That’s every day!
I did not go to the office today, because I had the gastrointestinals and did not want to be away from my bathroom for the length of a workday or even a commute. Sadly I still had to work.
Read: Alien Clay (Adrian Tchaikovsky): Academia under totalitarianism, extrasolar incarceration under totalitarianism, an alien biosphere that totalitarian thought can never comprehend.
Written: 212.
I need to get some paper bags to put books into for taking to the used book store. Maybe Marith can steal some for me.
Lying with my head on a pillow kind of worked for sleeping, but not very well. I had to take the morning off to recuperate, but my upper torso is feeling a lot better, so I was able to actually do so, and then work in the afternoon. Also, none of us have to stay late on Fridays any more under the new system.
Watched: The Ancient Magus’ Bride 2.24: A little bit of climax, mostly denouement (spellcheck thinks I got that word right on the first try, go me). This is where the latest English volume of the manga ends, so we’re completely in sync and left waiting for more to be translated.
Read: The Witches’ Marriage vol 3 (Studio Headline): Surprisingly, the end! The challenges Melissa and Tanya face in this volume are the Final Trials, and to nobody’s surprise they manage to open the gates by acknowledging their true feelings and enter paradise.
Written: 134.
I don’t know about this one, it sounds like waiting for the harvest to begin.
I had to get up early to make sure nothing was on fire, but did not have to go into the office, so I’ll count that as a win. More customer meetings, but finally the smart person got involved and everything got sorted.
Today it feels like whatever is wrong has moved into muscle or connective tissue or something, which makes previously trivial tasks like “bending over to deal with floor-level cats” and “lying down with my head on a pillow” annoyingly painful. I know people can throw out their backs; have I thrown out my front?
Read: A Whisker Behind (WR Gingell): A spinoff from the “Between” books, following Athelas on his own. I don’t know what the rest of the series will be like, but in this one he is in Korea dealing with gumiho murders and being twisty.
Written: 182.
I am reliably informed that every day is Kitten Day, but that does include the 10th of July.
Went in to the office today for the first time in weeks, didn’t enjoy it. It was just me and boss (who is town for like the third time in four weeks or something, poor guy). I ate a chicken gyros and did a bunch of customer meetings, bleah.
My upper chest and throat feel weird. Congested, or ossifying, or something. Maybe deliquescing. I’m sure it’s normal at my age and nothing to worry about.
Read: “King Arthur and Her Knights” omnibus (KM Shea): Seven individual volumes, each seeming fairly short, about a 21st century woman who gets yanked back in time as a replacement for the intended King Arthur, and actually does a surprisingly good job despite not knowing much Arthuriana except that Lancelot and Guinevere suck. She makes a good-looking teenage boy (tall, perfect teeth, no pox scars, etc) and isn’t bad at speechifying and making people want to be better than they have been, but of course at the end everything unravels because that’s how Camelot goes.
Read: I’m In Love With The Villainess vol 5-6 (Aonoshimo, Inori, Hanagata): Oh no, a rival! Also zombies and stuff, but the rival is much more distressing to the OP main character. The villainess is definitely continuing to come around, though.
Written: 134.
To the extent the Supreme Court will let us not have kings, anyway.
I went back to Ayse’s skeleton farm to build up levels and complete my diamond suit. I broke the anvil, though, so I had to go home to finish up. Also I’m going to need to go back to drop off a new anvil.
In the evening, I trundled over to Monkeycat Towers to see fireworks. I meant to be on time, but was suddenly starving as I passed In’n’Out, which used up all my spare time but not any extra. I also meant to be not a plague vector, but Ken was extremely nervous, so we just stayed outside and I masked the whole time. There were fireworks on that side of the hill! There were fireworks on another side of the hill! There were fireworks here and there and the other place across the city! However, when Ken and Jus were going to drive me home (because the bus doesn’t run late on holidays) there was a large and alarming fire on the next hill over and there had to be a delay so that they could pack bags and cats in case of evacuation. I did eventually get home, though, and also nobody I know was incinerated.
Written: 113.
Just because you don’t know what it is doesn’t make an alien!
Did some work, had a Google meet with the team and the guy who is joining soon. He seems okay. Maybe too gung-ho, he might make me look bad, but I don’t need help with that.
Last day of work, I kept the rest of the week as vacation despite the lack of Roseville. Hopefully I will test negative soon so I can get some of the errands I’ve been putting off done. I did manage to throw out a couple of piles of stuff that I haven’t touched since I moved in, although there’s still so much to go.
Read: I’m In Love With The Villainess vol 1-3 (Aonoshimo, Inori, Hanagata): Modern person isekai’d into their favorite otome game scorns all the male love interests because she likes the snooty rival character much better (in a masochistic sort of way). I read the first two of this back when, but did not remember much of what happened when I got volumes 3-6. Now I remember!
Played: D&D5e. We finally started Kelsey’s adventure (I think it’s a module, but I have not looked so no spoilers), albeit without Vivian. Quin the half-elven bard/rogue Harper aspirant, Puck the fairy cleric/rogue trickster, and Opal the earth genasi rune knight successfully infiltrated the dungeon and beat the snot out of some horrible badger-hyena monsters, because you can do that when you’re 9th level.
Written: 213. Good thing I don’t have to get up tomorrow.
Also apparently the end of the US in all but name. Maybe Canada can conquer us and impose their Supreme Court?
I am still testing positive, but now the Pettersons are also testing positive so Roseville is cancelled for everyone.Boo Covid!
Did some work, built some stairs in Minecraft, that’s about it.
Read: Frenemies With Benefits (Lydia Sharp): She just wants to get some experience so she can seduce the boy she really likes, but then there’s a lot of sex and fake dating and real feelings and everything is a disaster until the drama gets resolved.
Written: 215.
Don’t cross the streams! It’s bad when a whole asteroid becomes a meteor!
I managed to get some things done today! I ordered some stuff online, because I can do that from quarantine, I filled out PDF character sheets for the six (not eight!) classes in Perils and Princesses and added a bit to the adventure. Still needs somebody to talk to in case nobody picks the gift that talks to animals. Then I rewarded myself by going to Ayse’s skleleton factory and murdering forty-plus levels worth of skellies and getting covered in bones and arrows and crappy bows. It still wasn’t enough to enchant all my stuff because I didn’t think to take it with me, but I only need like eight more levels to finish. Then I can think about getting axe/shovel/hoe in enchanted diamond.
After a week of eating the same old food I bought just before testing positive, I doordashed some Thai food. Just the appetizer was enough for dinner, but that’s okay, I can eat more tomorrow.
I caught up on journaling, too.
Watched: She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man 1-4: Too much pointless backstory, not enough animation budget.
Written: 158.
But I am still terrible at getting pictures of my cats.
Slept way in, was completely useless all day. I played Minecraft for a million hours, including a trading expedition that only got me a few emeralds but a lot of random ore, and enough levels to enchant my diamond chestplate. Then I brainlessly mined blackstone until I had two chests full. It was a lot of mining but now I should be good for building things that match my castle.
Non wanted to play Among Us, so we did, because we do that even in quarantine. I was not very good as a murderer, but I did kill some weird little Minion-looking guys.
Written: FAIL. Didn’t even manage to note down villain stats for the adventure I haven’t managed to playtest.
Alas, I am still in quarantine, so no food truck food for me or my viroids.
The on-call arrangement is changing, which necessitated a very long and confusing meeting. I think this plan is doomed because nobody really understands it, but we’ll see.
Smelted up even more levels, now I have a magic diamond sword!
Read: One Killer Problem (Justine Pucella Winans): High school murder mystery with many queer characters and also actual violence, nothing cozy. It’s almost like death is traumatic.
Written: Covid, but maybe it’s actually FAIL at this point.
Wobblies!
I once again didn’t get up at a reasonable time, but is it because I have Covid, or just because I suck. I did get up in time for the first meeting with the new grandboss, and did some very dumb work while vaguely listening to the CEO suck up to the head VC.
Eventually I stopped pretending to be useful and smelted up some levels in Minecraft. Not enough levels, but getting there.
Read: My Dear, Curse-Casting Vampiress vol 4 (Chisaki Kanai): Still not telling us anything about the ML’s secret backstory, but at least some of the crazed vampires know it.
Written: Kinda but not really?
Yes, let us refrigerate the world!
Did some more work today, even got on a call with a customer and got them going again. Still coughing, though.
Since I have my own anvil now, I went ahead and got all the books I want for my diamond gear, bringing me down to 23 credit at the Autonomous Workers’ Collective and Bookstore. I am going to need to mine/smelt/murder a lot more before I can get all the books onto the gear.
Read: “Goblins & Greatcoats” (Travis Baldree): I would definitely read a lot more about this goblin.
Read: Bitter Waters (Vivian Shaw): Greta Helsing and her vampire friends encounter an ethical conundrum, about which they have many feelings, because vampires are people too. Even extremely important vampires.
Read: Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook With My Fluffy Friends: The Figurehead Queen Is Strongest At Her Own Pace vol 1 (Yu Sakurai): Apparently all light novels with female leads start with them getting their engagement called off and exiled by the crown prince (who is an asshole). This one also gets her pre-reincarnation memories at the same time, but fortunately escapes to a country where she can engage her remembered foodieness. There are also fluffy animals, and political intrigue.
Written: Covid.
Christofascists are still big mad about it.
I slept in some, because my energy levels were low, but eventually got up and did some work-like activities. I am still testing positive, and now Marith is testing positive because I wanted to watch anime. Hopefully she will be only a little sick and get to rest up for a week.
I finally built a bridge to the Warped Forest biome, getting the achievement for visiting every Nether biome, and also put in signs so maybe other people can visit it. I have enough warped stalk and whatnot to last me for a while, though.
Read: Ogami-San Can’t Keep It In vol 5 (Yu Yoshidamaru): Ogami is still kind of a horndog, but this is a fairly serious volume anyway, with thinking about their future and Yaginuma’s family being weird about letting go of him and such.
Written: Covid, but I’m not sure that’s an excuse any longer.
But would International Walrus Day be more surprising, or less?
Being sick is boring, so I was logged in to work, although I didn’t accomplish a huge amount.
Dave’s new base with the evil road and looming Sky Thing (apparently it produces mobs and drops them to their deaths) are very impressive. My Black Castle of Blackness is pretty wimpy in comparison. Maybe I need to rebuild it. But instead I tried to make a bridge across the lava sea to what I still think is a Warped Forest Biome, got blown up by a ghast, went mining to build up levels to enchant my diamond gear so ghasts can’t blow me up, and got quite a bit of ore before finally being murdered in a double sklelton ambush.
Read: The Dark Lord’s Daughter (Patricia C Wrede): A teenager from Earth is kidnapped to inherit a Dark Domain, which might go more smoothly if her adoptive mom and little brother weren’t also kidnapped. Intrigue, strange customs, no romance, great magical power but it’s the strange artifacts imported from Earth that end up saving the day.
Read: There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless… vol 5 (Musshu, Teren Mikami, Eku Takeshima): Still pursued by one beautiful girl, just finished with fake(?) dating another one, our main character runs away with yet a third girl, this one she has an actual crush on (even though she tries to deny any smooch-related feelings).
Written: Covid.
An important day for all water-soluble organisms!
I did not do anything even slightly useful today, but I was mostly conscious, just not energetic.
Watched: Helluva Boss 2.9: That was a pretty terrible day for Blitz, but he both deserved it and asked for it. It was also a terrible day for Stolas, who really didn’t.
Read: The Splendid Work of a Monster Maid vol 4-5 (Yugata Tanabe): I thought the undercover maid jobs would go on forever, but no, the story is actually complete in five volumes, everything wrapped up!
Written: Covid.
Apparently at one time I really liked onion rings, and my brain still goes “onion rings! yum! we should get those!” but when faced with onion rings in person, they are too deep fried.
Jeremy wasn’t able to prep for Librarians Errant, so I had a chance to test my Big Bad Con adventure on people, if I was not too sick and could finish getting my act together. I wasn’t sure if I was too sick, so I went grocery shopping to see how sunlight and fresh air would make me feel, and then on the way home I picked up some Covid tests since I was still coughing and that was it for gaming.
You held out a long time, immune system. Good work.
Since I have a real disease instead of just a lack of commitment to capitalism, I felt justified in lying down for a nap, but then I was weirdly semiconscious for twelve hours.
Written: Covid.
I meant to go into the office, but I slept so terribly that it just wasn’t happening. I hope somebody enjoyed my grilled salmon and baklava. Did a small work.
Did a lot more flattening of terrain in Minecraft, which isn’t exactly productive, but is oddly soothing.
Written: 367. I thought the script was off by one, which can be the most annoying errors to find, but no, I changed one word in addition to adding 366, so it was spot on!
But does “chocolate cake” mean chocolate crumb and any kind of frosting, any kind of crumb and chocolate frosting, or chocolate crumb and chocolate frosting?
Today I ate a pastrami cheesesteak, which was okay, did some grocery shopping, and was a massive lump because I felt lethargic and headachey and bleah. My guess it was side effects from the vaccination yesterday. Still better than anything I’ve ever heard about shingles.
Watched: Puella Magi Madoka Magica 7-9: Oh good, Jus was appropriately disturbed to find out how the magical ecosystem works and what Kyubey’s role is.
Written: 147.
Finally, something I can participate in!
I slacked in sick to work, because I did not sleep at all last week, and slept all morning instead. By afternoon I was able to go get my glasses fixed and scarf some fries and soup, and now I am pretty much back to normal except for my face being even uglier than usual.
Read: Hitomi-chan is Shy With Strangers vol 7 (Chorisuke Natsumi): Only seven volumes and copious help from shippers before a love confession!
Watched: Wednesday 7-8: Yeah, yeah, Uncle Fester, power of friendship, mysteries, plot twists, all fine, but a of all, it’s 2023, Wednesday and Enid can totally smooch, and second of b, the final boss was boring. The secondary villains were fine, it should have been just them. It seems extremely likely I will watch the second season when it comes out anyway.
Watched: The Seven Deadly Sins 1.1-3: Maybe the plot is great or something, but the “hero” is always perving on a young woman who is completely dependent on him, and it’s just not funny.
Written: FAIL.
I’m short on bears, though. Also, shouldn’t this be shortly before Fat Bear Week? I’m sure party snacks are dense in calories!
My mucus is decreasing, but possibly asymptotically and not necessarily to zero, so still not in the office.
The new Murderbot is out, but it seems to follow on directly from the previous situation, so I had to reread.
Read: Network Effect (Martha Wells): This is the one the new book follows on from, I could tell even though I apparently didn’t remember it very well until I read it. I thought there was a lot more stuff with [SPOILER], but no.
Read: Fugitive Telemetry (Martha Wells): Published after Network Effect but set earlier, when Murderbot was hanging out on Preservation keeping an eye on Dr Mensah. I therefore did not have to reread it right now, but I did anyway, because Murderbot.
Written: FAIL. Only reading.
I mean, I kind of do, I’m just really bad at it!
Skipped going into the office to avoid sharing my mucus, although possibly I could have gotten away with it.
Read: She Who Became The Sun (Shelley Parker-Chan): It’s fantasy China, the Mongols have invaded, tragic backstories for everybody, but tragedy spawns ambition that will not be denied, which in turn spawns a whole lot of murders. There are a lot of terrible people, including the protagonists, but also a few good people and a lot of people who are just trying to get by. There isn’t any magic per se, but there are definitely supernatural elements to the world that can be taken advantage of by the few people aware of them. There are So. Many. Feelings. I was afraid this would be too hard to read with my 2023 brain, but although a lot of terrible things are done, it was not too much to deal with.
Written: 189 words, which is almost more than nothing.
Happy birthday, Nonny!
I had to get up early for bonus meetings, which are actually a feature of every normal Tuesday now but that doesn’t make me like them any more. I had no brain, I did some work, I read some more GLOG stuff, I coughed up a bunch of mucus, I read an essay about how Tolkien orcs and D&D orcs are in fact still racist no matter how much you say “it’s right there on the page they aren’t human” or “Professor Tolkien would never”. It also convinced me that D&D-style stats are bad, even if you manage to avoid racial modifiers (which hardly anyone does). All the “natural ability” or “innate potential” type stats are like thinking your IQ is what matters, instead of what skills and decisions you actually make with it. This does affect my game design thoughts, since I was already tending toward BitD-style actions or Castle Falkenstein-style skills for the Champions thing.
Played: Nothing. Not only is Ken busy with Nonny’s birthday, Vivian got her brain electrified today.
Written: FAIL. Too many snuggles, not enough free hands.
Yeaaaaah!
Of course Monday the 13th is also the most cursed of days, but that’s on theme. Probably explains why Coworker T brought COVID back from vacation, so he’s still out and Coworker K just left on vacation.
Still kind of coughy and generally disgruntled with biology.
Read some more GLOG stuff. BONES gives up on stats as chance of success entirely and uses them only for slot-based inventory capacity. A sword, a spell, a best friend, a bag of gold, a recurring nightmare, each one takes up a slot in the appropriate inventory. Wounds and stress and madness take up slots too, and kick out what you already have if there isn’t enough room.
Written: FAIL.
I had pneumonia when I was a smol, so will never say anything against antibiotics or modern medicine.
Gaming was cancelled because plague and infirmity abound, so once again I did nothing useful. I read more GLOG stuff and like all OSR stuff I have very mixed feelings (not even counting my growing dislike for hit points). It is (or can be) way cooler than the Hasbro (or wannabe Hasbro competitor) focus group product. Roll twice on this list of vaguely goetic, extremely specific extradimensional entities to see what you can summon. Oh, you want them to be useful? Sounds like a you problem! Anyway, the world is composed of four elements: ash, bones, blood, and fish. Artificial fire is the divine element and will not burn the righteous. Dogs are sacred because they’re warm! At the start of every day, tell us which saint’s day it is, who they’re the patron of, what they help with, and how they were martyred, and get one miracle die for each one you tell us! But on the other hand, I want my characters to be cute and successful and have to roll on the Death and Dismemberment table just because the d20 hates me. I know, that’s definitely a me problem.
Read: She Loves To Cook, and She Loves To Eat vol 3 (Sakaomi Yuzaki): And now Kasuga (the one who likes to eat) has put a name to her feelings for Nomoto!
Written: Continued, unending, FAIL.
I don’t feel at all qualified to comment on what’s happening in Israel, but pretty sure an armistice would not be bad. Alas, when all you have is a nation-state, everything looks like a rival nation-state.
I was well enough to eat chicken tenders and buy groceries today, but not to do any braining, so it’s good that customers didn’t want anything from me. Instead of braining, I read a bunch about GLOG, which is a (more) minimalist, (more) DIY submovement within OSR, or something. The first rule of GLOG is obviously that there are no rules to GLOG, but if there were a rule, it would be that classes only have four levels worth of stuff, so there are no boring levels, and if you don’t die (which you probably will, because OSR) you will end up multiclassing. Other commonalities among Many Rats On Sticks (Skerples), Runaway Princesses (Alcoops), Nuclear Ooze (Micah A), Moonhop (Type1Ninja), Vain the Sword (Phlox), and Ultraviolet Gloglands (Skerples) are slot-based inventory, copious random tables, and a magic system where you spend some of your precious few magic dice on a spell, the parameters of the spell are based on how many dice you rolled and the sum of them all, doubles and triples are bad, and only dice that roll low come back for reuse. Roll under your stat instead of vs target number is common but not required. What happens when you get to zero hit points usually involves a Death and Dismemberment Table.
This is irrelevant to my own game design struggles, since I want no hit points and do want superpowers and mostly nonlethal combat and the ability to play vampires, robots, goo monsters, tulpas, living black holes, or whatever other craziness can happen in Champions, which is an entirely different paradigm, but I’ll pretend looking at any game design is helpful.
Written: FAIL.
My theory: Everything wrong with the US today is a result of insufficient Sesame Street.
Watched: My Happy Marriage 6-9: It was nice to see the random rich guys who thought they were so great pick a fight with an actual military monster hunter, but Cinderella still needs to communicate better!
Read: She Loves To Cook, and She Loves To Eat vol 2 (Sakaomi Yuzaki): It’s kind of adorable how Nomoto (the one who likes to cook) is just “Welp, guess I’m a lesbian, I should check the Internet to find out how that works” and now she has a pocket friend to discuss things with. Plus, new character with a completely different relationship to food than the main couple.
Written: 184, although it took me like two weeks to accumulate what should be half a night’s work. Neither kitties nor germs are conducive to writing. (Also I suck.)
Cosmos was pretty awesome back in the day.
Still full of mucus and customer complaints, even though really I’d be fine without either.
Written: FAIL.
It me.
My sore throat might not be COVID, but that doesn’t mean the people at work want it. It’s not enough to keep me from working, though.
Written: FAIL.
No elections here, but many parts of the country got to overwhelmingly remind Republicans that “how about we just take away your rights” is not a popular platform.
Also not popular: early-morning meetings, sore throats.
Played: Nothing. Ken suffered an unfortunate work-related setback and had to take a self-care evening.
Written: FAIL.
My symptoms are pretty much gone, but I had no energy at all when it was time for work, so I took this as a sick day and did a lot of nothing. Well, I tried to clean up some of the mess from yesterday and stuff, and some of the household objects I ordered arrived, but mostly nothing.
In the afternoon I went grocery shopping, because I didn’t do that yesterday, and now I need things to eat. It was, as they say on the Internets, FUCKEN WIMDY. First the wind tried to kill me with a tree branch, then it threw my hat into traffic to get run over repeatedly. I did manage to buy food, but it was much too adventurous and exhausting for such a mundane errand.
The wind also took out Ken and Dave’s power, so no gaming.
Read: Katalepsis ch 14.1-18 (Hungry): Back to [SPOILER] and surprising information and annoying side characters and DOOOOM.
Written: Still FAIL.