Previously, in Trip's Life...
30 June 2009 - Tuesday
Work: Jobs futilely applied for: 1.
Visual Entertainments:
- Kurau Phantom Memory 10-11: We can haz teemwurk nao?
- Code Geass 12: Marith wonders how the main characters
can kill Britannians all weekend and then show up for school and sexual
harrassment by the student council president on Monday like normal
teenagers. ("Genre conventions" is not a satisfying answer.)
- Avatar 15-16: But why wasn't the Dire Mole hexapodal?
- Bleach 140: It's like plot! Kinda!
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Check, barely (even after joining the
"Make whatever weekly quota you set for yourself or Rachel will point at
you and laugh" writing club).
Make a comment!
29 June 2009 - Monday
Work: Recruiters talked to about a job that might
not be horrible: 1.
Food: Susannah lured Marith and I to Satsuma to
dinner with her one more time before her departure. Yum, sushi! Yum,
mysterious rolls not on the menu that the chef makes for Susannah
because he understands how cool she is! Also, Marith received Peculiar British
Candy as a present.
Random Encounters: Merlin, Lynette, their sprout,
and Lynette's mom (who is surprisingly cool for a chance-met person)
appeared mysteriously at Satsuma!
Gaming: Susannah could not give me candy, so she
gave me Continuo and
then we got crushed by Marith (246-242-242).
Cats:
Ghirardelli and Marmalade got so very admired and brushed and adored by
Susannah! Aspen hid in her safe spot, though.
Writing: Double check.
Make a comment!
28 June 2009 - Sunday
Gaming: Ayse and Ken are just back from San Diego,
so although we discussed talking about Thrace, there was too much flatness
to actually game. Sniff!
Food: We tried a new pizza place, z pizza. Their pizza is thin-crusted
and full of vegetables. Yum!
Cats:
I am the worst cat-dad ever! Not only did I move the cat tree with their
food dish on top of it, but I put in its place a box that makes
noise! And now they can't see out that window! And I even
closed the balcony door most of the way so they can't see out as much!
That the horrible noisy box emits cold air does not seem to be much of a
consolation.
Writing: Double check.
Make a comment!
27 June 2009 - Saturday
Visual Entertainments: Finished the disc of
Fate/Stay Night. Enh, it's okay.
Food: Salsa is a vegetable, right?
Cats:
Twelve melty paws covered in insulating fur. :(
Marith and I finally went to OSH and got some garden netting and
nails so I can fence in the balcony when I feel ambitious. Perhaps that
will make the kitties happier.
Writing: FAIL. (Thermion... flux... too great...!
Neurons... melting...!)
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26 June 2009 - Friday
Work: FAIL.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Check.
Make a comment!
25 June 2009 - Thursday
Work: Additional jobs found to apply for: 0.
Visual Entertainments: Couple episodes of
Fate/Stay Night. I think I mostly remember what was going
on. (Oh, yah, it was DOOOM!)
Silly Computer Games: I made level 100 in Pirates. Somehow this
does not feel like a meaningful accomplishment.
Cats:
Twelve paws covered with keratinaceous filaments!
Writing: Double check.
Make a comment!
24 June 2009 - Wednesday
Work: FAIL.
Visual Entertainments: Ayse, Ken, and Earl all had
to bail from Wednesday Night Whatever due to travel or preparations for
travel, so we failed there. I stayed home and watched Darkside
Blues, which is sort of cyberpunk but with random magic bits and
no resolution. Very peculiar.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL. No particular reason, I just suck.
Make a comment!
23 June 2009 - Tuesday
Work: Additional jobs found to apply for: 0.
Visual Entertainments:
- Kurau Phantom Memory 9: You'd think a shadowrunner
would know how to drop out of sight better.
- Code Geass 10-11: Huh, I wonder where they got
those? Not the sort of thing you can knock together in an auto
body shop after-hours, I wouldn't think.
- Avatar 14: Mutter grumble woo accomodationists grumble
bah.
- Bleach 138-139: It's like plot! And combat!
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Check.
Make a comment!
22 June 2009 - Monday
Work: Jobs futilely applied for: 3.
Visual Entertainments: Fourth disc of Desert
Punk. Enh.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Check.
Make a comment!
21 June 2009 - Sunday
Gaming: Palo Alto D&D4! When the eye monster got the
drop on the PCs, instead of vice versa, it managed to put two of them down
before being forced to flee. Next time, it will get them for sure!
The kobold and his zombies, although worth almost as many experience
points, were trivial in comparison, which only goes to show that someone
doesn't know how to structure encounters properly.
Level UP! Now I can use the level 6 monsters against them,
muahahahaha!
Food: Apparently it is not safe to leave a bowl of
raspberries near me.
Silly Computer Games: Oh dear, I have gotten sucked
into Mad Scientist on
Facebook. The doom, the doom.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
20 June 2009 - Saturday
Visual Entertainments: Susannah and her Kevin lured a
bunch of people to Bringing Up Baby at The Stanford. This is only a
personal opinion and should not be taken as a general disrecommendation,
but: Wow, that movie made me want to strangle Katherine Hepburn's
character. Also, LEOPARDS DON'T LIVE IN BRAZIL!
Random Encounters: Angie brought her new boy, Chris, to
the movie. He seems like an okay guy. I guess she can keep him.
Food: After the movie we went to Kan Zeman for an earlyish dinner. There
was plenty of food for everyone, even those with strange dietary
restrictions, and I got to see all the Bertanii together in one place.
Susannah's Kevin and Angie's Chris compared colorblindnesses. The falafel
was crunchy. A good time was had by all.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
19 June 2009 - Friday
Work: FAIL.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
18 June 2009 - Thursday
Work: FAIL.
Food: Susannah and the fabled Kevin lured Marith and
I and Chrisber to Chef Chu's for the Chinese feasting! We feasted!
Apparently Chrisber removed his ponytail months and months ago, but I
didn't know this because the only events that are cool enough for the
Bertanis to attend but inclusive enough for me to attend were the Gollub
parties, and the Bertanis always left early to take care of Teo and I
always arrived late to carpool with Marith.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: I doinked around some, but ultimately,
FAIL.
Make a comment!
17 June 2009 - Wednesday
Work: FAIL.
Food: Ha hah! I had lunch with Susannah at Thai City
and you didn't! I bet you didn't even know she's not dead!
Cats:
Twelve paws that have been pronounced excellent and beautiful by an
international board of experts!
Writing: Check.
Make a comment!
16 June 2009 - Tuesday
Work: FAIL.
Visual Entertainments:
- Kurau Phantom Memory 7-8: Oh the doom for Ayaka!
- Code Geass 9: Oh the doom for Kallen!
- Avatar 12-13: Surprise ninjitsu!
- Bleach 137: Fighting! And Plot! But mostly Fighting!
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Check.
Make a comment!
15 June 2009 - Monday
Work: No new openings worth applying for.
Visual Entertainments: Finally got a working copy of
the second disc of Darker Than Black. The preview for the
next disk suggests that questions may finally be answered, but is
probably just taunting me. I might get it for Tuesday Night Anime
anyway, though.
Cats:
Two orange ears, two black ears, two... wait, did I count those already?
No, there's another set under the coffee table, okay two orange ears...
there are some more on the cat tree... so that adds up to...
ELEVENTY-NINE!
Writing: Check.
Make a comment!
14 June 2009 - Sunday
Gaming: No Thrace! Ayse and Ken were alive despite
being partied to within an inch of their lives yesterday, but Marith
wasn't, so instead we played Carcassonne with all the tiles and Ayse
won.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Check.
Make a comment!
13 June 2009 - Saturday
Food: Today was Ayse and Ken's housewarming party,
complete with barbecue on the HUGE BRICK GRILL of DOOM associated with the
other half of their duplex. Assorted people showed up, including Earl, the
Mittmanns, the Zadiks, some people from Neil's D&D game(?), Marith, and
Dave. We feasted! We conversed! We gave housewarming gifts!
Gaming: I wish I had better ideas to give Earl for
his Champions game.
Cats:
One sleek orange tail, one sleek light orange tail, and one HUGE FLUFFY
BLACK TAIL!
Writing: Check.
Make a comment!
12 June 2009 - Friday
Work: Rejections Received This Morning From
Yesterday Afternoon's Recruiter People: 1.
Cats:
When one smooths back all the fur on Ghirardelli's cheeks and the sides
of his head, his head looks ridiculously tiny against his HUGE FLUFFY
BODY. Also, Marmalade seems to have returned to the wicker basket.
Writing: Check.
Make a comment!
11 June 2009 - Thursday
Work: Recruiter People With Potentially (But Not
Actually) Viable Positions Spoken To: 2.
Visual Entertainments: 5th disc of Hikaru no
Go. On the Internet, no one knows you're a thousand-year-old
ghost (is that like a thousand-year egg that takes half damage from
attacks?), but everyone gossips about you anyway!
Cats:
Ghirardelli seems to have reclaimed his customary wicker basket. Ah
well. Perhaps I should rearrange a bunch of stuff to entertain the cats
anyway. (Like, say, getting the huge pile of books out of the middle of
the front library.)
Writing: Check. Don't worry, it will run out soon
enough.
Make a comment!
10 June 2009 - Wednesday
Work: Recruiter Phone Calls Returned Even Though I
Hate Phones: 1. New Jobs To Apply To Since Yesterday: 0.
Visual Entertainments: Finally, a fortnight after
The Pre, we watched Stige!
Ayse and Ken were properly impressed by the climax and revelations and
doom! Next fortnight, maybe Memento or maybe
Brick or maybe something else.
Cats:
For months, the oval wicker basket by the TV has been Ghirardelli's spot.
Tonight, for no particular reason, I rotated it 180° in place, so that
the low spot on one long edge is facing out instead of in. Somehow, this
was enough to make Marmalade sit in it.
Writing: Check.
Make a comment!
9 June 2009 - Tuesday
Work: Jobs Futilely Applied For: 2
Visual Entertainments:
- Kurau Phantom Memory 6: I bet he'll get his.
- Code Geass 7-8: As a reward for defeating one opponent,
you get... a tougher opponent!
- Avatar 11: Aang brings in the dice for his "112 years
old" trait!
- Bleach 135-136: It hinted at plot! Maybe next episode?
Cats:
One little pink nose, one little black nose, and one little freckled
pink-and-black nose!
Writing: Triple check, minus the 23956129521469
missed days, still equals suck.
Make a comment!
8 June 2009 - Monday
Work: Jobs futilely applied to even though they'll
hate me: 2.
Visual Entertainments: Fourth disc of Hikaru
no Go because Greencine keeps sending it to me instead of things
near the front of my list. Go hurts my brain.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Check?!
Make a comment!
7 June 2009 - Sunday
Visual Entertainments: Marith lured me to watch
The Brothers Bloom along with Cat and Earl. I liked it,
although I'm not sure I fully understood it. Maybe I was just distracted
by Bangbang.
Food: After the movie, Earl (and Cat, but mostly Earl)
lured us to Bella Luna, an Italian joint just around the corner from the
theater. The fettucine with mushrooms sun-dried tomatoes was like food!
Cats:
Twelve fuzzy paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
6 June 2009 - Saturday
Gaming: Ptolus!
Despite being almost out of spells after the rat-smashing episode, our protagonists
ascended further into the bizarre architecture of the House of the
Pythoness. They soon encountered some more undead who had to be put to rest
with extreme prejudice, but after that there were no more active threats
until they got near the top of the tallest tower and found some hellhounds.
Those weren't too much of a problem, but their buddy the roaring caprine
demon-monster looked like trouble. Fortunately James was able to push him
off an unrailed staircase (did I mention the architecture was bizarre?) and
they could jump him when he tried to come back up to smite them. The
protection of the ancestors was instrumental in their victory, of
course.
At this point the group was completely out of replenishable
resources, so they tried to leave, but there was a wall of force across
the exit. From any window, the ground appeared unexpectedly far away,
and when they tried climbing down the footing was unexpectedly
treacherous, but they managed to all escape without being sacrificed to
the spirit of the house.
One of the objects found in the house was the diary of one of the two
proprietesses from before the place was sacked by the Knights of the
Pale, from which they learned some of the remaining threats in the place,
where the person who last had the key to various locks had last had it,
the name of the ghost in the gatehouse, that the secret cellars beneath
the fat statue were opened by a spiral contrivance that had been split
in two, and that the chaos cultists had hidden objects of power in the
cellars in preparation for the upcoming "Night of Dissolution" in which
the city would be destroyed.
Armed with this information, our protagonists went back in the next day,
found the key on a normally inaccessible bit of roof, confirmed that
it's not actually the key to Karl's box, got half the spiral
contrivance, talked to the ghost of a (non-chaos) priest in the gatehouse,
tried to talk to the Cobbled Man who had the other half of the spiral
contrivance but ended up having to put him down after he flung Johann off a
sixth-floor walkway, and found the brothel treasury (which did not include
the stash of whatever the architect had been smoking).
The lock that had been previously apparent in the horrible statue was
hidden when the group got to it and couldn't be found even though they
searched the statue until it sucked stats out of Erika. Finally it
spontaneously revealed itself after one of the statue's occasional
creepy utterances and they could get to the cellars!
The first chamber below the statue looked empty until Johann was far
enough down the ladder to get jumped by the giant skeleton lurking
there. He couldn't climb back up while the skeleton was flailing at him,
so everyone else had to jump down and try to help him without getting
flattened. It was tricky, but Karl summoned up another big skeleton to
distract it while James and Johann beat on it, and somehow no one except
the skeletal guardian ended up defeated.
The next chamber, reached by puncturing a repulsive biological
membrane and climbing down a shaft, contained two minotaurs frozen in
ice who began defrosting as soon as Raul poked his head in, so the group
decided to come back after recovering from the skeleton fight.
On their way out of the house, they noticed some antisocial personage
concealed in darkness watching them, but when Johann tried to tackle it,
it flew away with a great flapping of wings. It might or might not be
the same creature that accosted Erika earlier.
Much loot was gained (and mostly sold), and many characters are close
to 5th level. W00t!
Food: Despite our hostess's fears, no one starved to
death while we were there.
Cats:
Marith was worried that Aspen might be feeling poorly when she
permitted petting earlier today, but Aspen seemed fine when I got home.
I think it was just that she was too comfy to be bothered to get up,
like she sometimes is when I put my horrible paws on her. I will claim
this as a victory for Kitty Socialization!
Writing: VACATION.
Make a comment!
5 June 2009 - Friday
Work: Doink doink doink. But I didn't concentrate
enough to make actual progress, so FAIL.
Vacation: Marith threatened to come to Roseville,
but she is too dead from new job, so the car was not crowded. Zoom!
Cats:
I hope they will be all right!
Writing: VACATION.
Make a comment!
4 June 2009 - Thursday
Work: Well, that part of the logic looks right, but
I should figure out Active Record and put my db tables in the right
format to actually use it.
Visual Entertainments: Finished another disc of
Hyper Police. Oh the mysterious doom!
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
3 June 2009 - Wednesday
Work: Doinked around a little with Ruby on Rails,
trying to retrieve the understanding I had immediately after reading the
book, but mostly FAIL.
Gaming: We didn't know that Mike was going to show
up until he did, so Ken had no Earthdawn prepared (and also no brain
from work). Instead, we introduced Mike to Starfarers of Catan! I
started off getting no production, then getting production on other
people's turns so I could get rittered on my turn, then dying in a pit.
Eventually I got some double trade good production on a 12, though, and
from there I was able to claw my way to the lead by the time we called
it a night. (This timing was not coincidental.) So, uh, yay me. Or
soemthing.
Cats:
I cruelly seized Aspen and oppressed her with tummy-gitchins! But note
that I did not actually eat her! Not even a little bit!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
2 June 2009 - Tuesday
Work: FAIL, with a side of EXTRA FAIL.
Visual Entertainments:
- Kurau Phantom Memory 4-5: Oh the doom of eggs!
- Code Geass 6: Never send a mastermind to do a ninja's job.
- Avatar 9-10: How old is Katara supposed to be, anyway?
- Bleach 134: Bah, filler.
Cats:
Three cute kitties with four paws apiece!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
1 June 2009 - Monday
HAPPY HAPPY KIT-DAY!!
HAPPY HAPPY LYNETTE-DAY!!
Work: working gcc install => working mysql install
=> ruby DBI gems => journal entries loaded into database on spore. Of
course this is all still fail, since I can't possibly do enough to make it
look like I haven't wasted all the time I've been off work, but you can
sort of see the skills under the rust.
All the information I can find says the ruby DBI stuff is supposed to
escape special characters in strings inserted into a prepared SQL
statement with ?s, but it doesn't seem to. Bah.
Gaming: I should make monsters for the next PAD&D4
session, but what if I make them wrong? The system seems to think that
the difference between a level 4 monster (175 XP) and a level 5 monster
(200 XP) is significant, but that's not a very big difference.
Visual Entertainments: Tried to watch the second
disc of Darker Than Black, but as is so often the case with
GreenCine, the disc was bad. I sent it back and watched some Hyper
Police instead. Oh the doom that follows spring-time in the city
of the beasts!
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
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