Previously, in Trip's Life...
30 September 2010 - Thursday
Work: I spent most of the day writing code to make
future maintainers shake their heads sadly turn
an almost-useless web page into something we can easily work with.
Visual Entertainments: Slayers Next
25-26: The really alarming victory!
Next week: Slayers Try!
Food: Toasted herb slab, heirloom tomato, sea salt,
salad, and win!
Cats:
Miau miau miau!
Make a comment!
29 September 2010 - Wednesday
Work: Partial check.
Modern Medicine: I still have two eyes, at least for
the moment. I have a followup appointment in like November (which should
indicate the urgency of the situation). Also, sleep consultation on
Friday.
Textual Entertainments:
Roadkill is the fifth book in Rob Thurman's "Cal Leandros"
series. The major threat was destroyed at the end of the fourth book,
but there is still plenty of fallout to make Cal's life miserable, and
plenty of other threats to annoy everyone. Also: UNDED KITTEH CAN KIK UR
ASS.
Visual Entertainments: Completely failed to catch up
on Chrome Shelled Regios because I'm not very bright.
Food: Um. PB&J on sourdough is like food, right? (I
considered chicken strips, but my apartement really didn't need more
thermions.)
Silly Computer Games: Check.
Cats:
It is definitely too hot for plush cats like Ghirardelli. I bet Aspen is
doing well now that I have cut so much of her matted fur off, though.
meep eyestalks! by marith (Thu Sep 30 17:15:33 2010)
Binocular vision is important! What can they do to fix it?
Re: meep eyestalks! by Trip (Fri Oct 1 08:17:27 2010)
Enh, not that important. I rarely interact with your puny three-dimensional reality anyway.
(But if it does need fixing, it may involve LASERS!)
Make a comment!
28 September 2010 - Tuesday
Work: Why do people break their clusters in the
afternoon, not in the morning?
Fortunately(?), the brokenness turned out to be more than could be
immediately fixed, so I only stayed an hour late before escaping into
the night early evening.
Textual Educations: Misquoting Jesus (Bart
Ehrman) is definitely popular-level, but a good introduction to the
generations of inadvertant (copying errors, "corrections" of what were
obviously previous copying errors) and deliberate (literary and theological
harmonization, pre-emptive denial of talking points for heretics) changes
between what was first written down in the first century CE and what's
worshipped as the New Testament today. I really don't see how anyone can
think of it as anything other than pure human invention, but then I
wouldn't, would I?
Visual Entertainments: Bah, lateness.
- Soul Eater 45-46: Only five episodes to go, so I guess
it's not surprising they've started wrapping up plotlines. I would have
expected more screen time for dealing with such a long-running villain,
though.
- Higurashi When They Cry II 12: That explains a lot
locally, but doesn't even address the global elements of the setting.
- Shakugan no Shana II 9: It really shouldn't be any
surprise that Margery is not a nice person. Also, is that plot there?
I missed Chrome Shelled Regios 14-15 but Dave gave them
to me on a thumb drive, so I can catch up.
Cats:
Twelve toasty paws! Ghirardelli seems to be the exception to the rule
that cats don't like fans, as he will often come and sit near me when I
have a fan on me to blow the thermions away. Sometimes Marmalade will
too, but he won't sit right in front of the fan.
Make a comment!
27 September 2010 - Monday
Work: Check.
Silly Computer Games: Check.
Cats:
There doesn't seem to be much fighting any more. Also, Aspen is very
adorable when she rolls on her back and puts her paws in the
dead-squirrel pose.
Make a comment!
26 September 2010 - Sunday
Gaming: Some of the PCs are now entangled in
intrigue surrounding the soul-sucking rock of doom and the city
elections. Also, elves and shadow monsters jumped them at the old
pumphouse, which was exciting because I didn't trim down the monsters'
horrible attack of horror when I converted them from elites to normal
lurkers. Next session: elf interrogation!
At least Paul didn't show up to watch me flail. But it might have
given him confidence to know that there was someone worse than he could
possibly be even with half the players. (Nine PCs?! He's crazed!)
Textual Educations: A biography with the fairly obvious
title of Molly Ivins, by Bill Minutaglio and W Michael Smith.
I thought I hadn't read many biographies, but this book seemed to fit my
idea of what a biography is like, so I guess I know at least the cliches. I
don't feel that I got a very good impression of Ivins's personality, but
perhaps that wasn't the point of the book. It was interesting to learn what
kind of background she had come from, though, and it wasn't anything I
would have guessed from just reading her columns in the 00's.
Look, I read another library book!
Food: Crackers and cheese are like
nourishment, right?
Silly Computer Games: Check.
Cats:
Twelve paws saddened by thermions!
Make a comment!
25 September 2010 - Saturday
Gaming: It turns out that buying money, then using
that money to buy more money, then buying provinces is a pretty good
strategy for Dominion.
However, in the second game Dave triumphed with his freakish Throne Room-Ironworks-more Throne Rooms-more Ironworks-Gardens deck.
Cats:
Jinian and Aime are almost as good as my kitties!
Make a comment!
24 September 2010 - Friday
Work: I got scolded by my boss for being
insufficient diligent, so I did a bunch of stuff. We'll see if it
sticks.
Gaming: I should be preparing for Sunday, but
instead I'm lame.
Silly Computer Games: Check.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
23 September 2010 - Thursday
Work: Check.
Textual Educations: The Sociopath Next
Door (Martha Stout) is alarming, but apparently supported by many
references. There are details and case studies to make the points, but
here's the summary: 4% of the general population have no consciences and
cannot feel love, so all they want from you is for you to dance to their
tune. You can't reform them, you can't redeem them, all you can do is get
the hell away from them. The best sign by which to identify a sociopath is
that after doing something horrible, they'll try to make you pity them, but
Stout recommends that if someone does something selfishly horrible three
times you kick them out of your life on general principles.
Visual Entertainments: Slayers Next
23-24: It's not so much a doom spiral as a straight doom plummet. Only
two episodes to go!
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
22 September 2010 - Wednesday
Work: Check.
Silly Computer Games: Check.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
21 September 2010 - Tuesday
Work: I did a thing. I almost did another thing, but
was foiled by the lack of available machines.
Textual Entertainments: Third book in Tchaikovsky's
"Shadows of the Apt" series, Blood of the Mantis. Look, more
doom!
Visual Entertainments:
- Soul Eater 43-44: Go Crona! You can do it!
- Chrome Shelled Regios 13: The plot is definitely
thickening, although it's hard to say what the final consistency will
be.
- Higurashi When They Cry II 10-11: If that's been true
all along, it would explain some things.
- Shakugan no Shana II 8: Yay more Margery! (Even if it
does involve a flashback within a flashback.)
Cats:
Cats whose food dish is empty are much more affectionate and also
talkative!
Make a comment!
20 September 2010 - Monday
Work: Cow orker P, formerly in India, is here in San
Carlos to help us for a couple of months until we get some more people
hired.
Cats:
Twelve paws of scampering!
Make a comment!
19 September 2010 - Sunday
Work: Revenge of Weekend Brain!
Gaming: Weekend Brain was epidemic among the
population, so instead of Thrace we played the Ravenloft
board game. We were entertained for a
couple of hours, but it's not that great as a game. Maybe we (all except
Ken) lack the positive associations with 2nd ed Ravenloft that define the
target market?
Cats:
Twelve fuzzy paws!
Make a comment!
18 September 2010 - Saturday
Work: I meant to work on some stuff I failed to
complete on Friday, but no. This is my weekend brain.
My, the Internet really is full of things: Like cosplay pictures.
Silly Computer Games: All
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup,
all the time. I finally got a game good enough that I bothered to write
scripts to preserve and restore saved games, though. Yay spear of venom!
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
17 September 2010 - Friday
Work: The guy who's been our interim manager since
our last Support manager got laid off has been confirmed in the
position. Also we want to hire more people for him to manage, so anyone
who knows both Linux and databases and needs a job should contact me,
even if you aren't local.
Cats:
Marmalade has become quite talkative lately. Also, snuggly!
Make a comment!
16 September 2010 - Thursday
Work: Check.
Textual Entertainments: It turns out Adrian
Tchaikovsky's "Shadows of the Apt" series is not a trilogy. I was misled
by it being fantasy and having only three volumes out at the time I went
to Powell's. Anyway, the second
book, Dragonfly Falling, continues the doom with some
additional doom. The first derivative of doom with respect to time may
be decreasing, but if so that just means there will be a sudden
explosion of pent-up doom in book three or four.
Visual Entertainments: Slayers Next 21-22:
Dragon Slaves: 0, Ragna Blades: 2. Now the shape of the doom is becoming
clear.
Food: Ayse demanded
Burmese
food, and so it was delivered unto her.
Next time, five orders of samusas.
Cats:
I can always tell when Aspen has been sleeping on the bed because she
leaves the remnants of the mats I cut out of her fur there. I've never
seen her groom herself, so perhaps Marmalade does her fur for her.
Make a comment!
15 September 2010 - Wednesday
Work: Stuck at work until 68923658923 o'clock.
Fortunately I didn't have any plans for the evening.
Gaming: I really need a better way to organize my
notes for PAD&D4. Something like a wiki would be good, except for when
it came time to carry the notes to gamings. Maybe I could just always
take my work laptop. (Or, yes, I could buy an iPad, or some kind of
teensy laptop thing, but I'm trying to avoid buying large chunks of
consumer electronic.)
Information is so complicated.
Food: FAIL.
Cats:
Twelve fuzzy paws!
Make a comment!
14 September 2010 - Tuesday
Work: Check.
Visual Entertainments:
Apparently I'm incapable of reading a list, but we made it all work
out in the end. Kinda.
- Shakugan no Shana II 6-7: The romantic comedy episodes
are cute, but where is our plot?
- Higurashi When They Cry II 9: That's a rabble that has
definitely been roused.
- Chrome Shelled Regios 11-12: I guess that's as close as
you get to a hot springs episode in a completely artificial environment.
- Soul Eater 42: And so they plummet inevitably into the
spiral of doom.
Food: Double mushrooms on a pizza is a whole lot of
mushrooms.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
13 September 2010 - Monday
Modern Medicine: For the first time in 561834292935
months, I went to the doctor. I appear to still be not dead, and my
ichor pressure is lower (almost as though I had started walking 5km a
day). I need to get more consumables for my ichorometer and measure the
dessert nature of my ichor, and go back in a month to be properly
phlebotomized. (By that time my current ichorologist will have retired,
but he says his replacement is good.)
Also made an appointment have my eyestalks examined, and started the
process of getting an appointment to have my spiracles experimentally
pressurized.
Work: Got in to work late because of doctor visit,
but no one actually died.
My, the Internet really is full of things: Welcome to the Underdark.
Also, Sean McMullen isn't
dead.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
12 September 2010 - Sunday
Work: I got up this morning to find two cases of the
highest priority and one of the next-highest. AAARRRRGH. Stupid humans
and their stupid mechanical minions.
Gaming: HUGE FAILURE! I mean, my players are
probably better off this way, but it is still sad when plans fall
through.
There are no time slots free until the next scheduled session, so we
cannot even have a make-up session.
Later in the evening I went over to entertain Ayse (because Ken is in
Doomtown) and she and Marith and I played Unspeakable
Words. I used all seven of my letters on the first turn with CHLAMYS
for 16 points, but started an unstoppable trend of failing San rolls.
Still, I made it all the way up to 91 points (out of 100 needed) before
losing my last little purple plastic Cthulhu guy.
Food: We tried to have very promising sushi but they
failed us by being closed on Sundays. Bah! We had to fall back on Country Gourmet. I got
spicy-encrusted salmon on a bed of ravioli and creamed corn, which was
pretty tasty, but not like sushi.
Cats:
Aime has very pointy paws!
Make a comment!
11 September 2010 - Saturday
Work: No explosions today! Perhaps it will be an
okay on-call weekend!
Gaming: Okay, that's like preparation. I can note
down some names tomorrow.
Textual Entertainments:
An Empire in Black and Gold, the first in Adrian
Tchaikovsky's trilogy about steampunk industrial revolution,
insect-themed psionic powers, and fascist wasps.
The setting would work pretty well for an RPG, I think. The various
races are about as different as D&D races, they all have exciting
powers, and there are giant bugs.
Make a comment!
10 September 2010 - Friday
Work: Check. But I have to be on call this weekend,
bah.
Cats:
Apparently it is the season for Aspen to go snuggle next to Marmalade
when he sleeps on the bed!
Make a comment!
9 September 2010 - Thursday
Work: Check.
Food: Salsa fresca and vegetarian burritos.
Visual Entertainments: Slayers Next
18-20: Finally we meet the main villains of this season's plot arc, but
there are still six episodes to go so they can't really get blown up
yet.
Cats:
Jinian is still an excellent cat.
Make a comment!
8 September 2010 - Wednesday
Work: Check.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
7 September 2010 - Tuesday
Work: You can run from Monday, but it will always
catch up.
My, the Internet really is full of things: Life on Titan?
Visual Entertainments:
- Soul Eater 41: Soon, the doom.
- Higurashi When They Cry II 7-8: It's important to offer
hope in a horror story, so it can be CRUELLY CRUSHED.
- Chrome Shelled Regios 10: Wow, Shante is obnoxious. But
she probably won't be eaten by a Pollution Beast. Maybe.
- Shakugan no Shana II 4-5: I'm pretty sure everyone in
this show would be better off if they listened to Yuji's mom more.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
6 September 2010 - Monday
Work: Holiday!
Many fewer things were broken by customers today.
My, the Internet really is full of things: I am appropriately
ashamed.
Sequential Entertainments: STONe
(Sin-Ichi Hiromoto (don't look at me, that's how it's spelled on the
cover)) is like Star Wars crossed with Dark Sun.
Textual Educations:
Yes Means Yes! (edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica
Valenti). You'd think it would be obvious that "well, she didn't
actually kick me in the balls" is a pathetic standard for sexual consent and
everyone would be better off if they only did things that everyone
involved was enthusiastic about, but way too many humans are both stupid
and evil.
The thirty or so essays in the book are from a pretty diverse lot,
ranging from someone who wrote "womon" and "womyn" apparently completely
seriously all the way to men, but they're mostly not crazy, which is
doing pretty well for a sampling of thirty people.
Also, yay IMPACT!
The Tyranny of Things: There were 45 books in the
box of stuff from Powell's, so I had to find 45 books to put into the
outgoing pile. Since I haven't been doing this regularly when I bring
new books into the apartment, I really need to get rid of a lot more,
but it's a start.
Cats:
Four paws of suspicion, but eight paws of affection!
Make a comment!
5 September 2010 - Sunday
Work: Argh, why do customers break things on
weekends?
Gaming: Thrace! We went up the other fork of the river,
past the village of the Chaotic Good crazed anarchist
cult, to the creepy village of creepy children. It was very creepy. Lycoris
used her disguise magic to get the creepy kids to let her into their creepy
village, but instead ended up in the gnoll war of centuries past and
escaped with one hit point left. We suspect bizarre and possibly unsavory
time magic.
One advantage of using a mod of Apocalypse World for Dark Sun is that
hours of min-maxing would no longer be productive or even possible. I
suppose opinion is divided on whether this is actually a feature.
Textual Pillagings: The shipment from
Powell's arrived today! I have so
many new books! I don't have any new places to put them!
Food: Beef stew with potatoes and tastiness!
Cats:
Aspen chased Ghirardelli down the hall and into my room! So cute!
Make a comment!
4 September 2010 - Saturday
Work: Either nothing is happening over the long
weekend, or email is hosed, but my test message made it through.
Gaming: Finished the Dark Sun monster book. Look,
monsters that will eat you if you go out into the blasted wastelands of
Athas! Or even if you don't!
I found the
Dark
Sun mod someone did for Apocalypse World,
but it seems only so-so. Admittedly I haven't played Apocalypse World,
so maybe I don't understand the awesomeness, but I'm pretty sure making
defiler mages and preserver mages different classes isn't as good as the
4th ed system. Also, I don't think using D&D stats for AW really works,
although obviously it's technically possible.
Textual Entertainments: I should probably get a
real copy of Child of Fire, since what I have is an ARC
that some random guy handed me in the bookstore a couple of years ago,
and I think Connolly should get all the moneys.
These are the books I would write if I were able to write books and
also were much cooler than I actually am.
Visual Entertainments: Planetes 13-14.
Sadly, it looks very unlikely that there will be anything like that
human presence in space within the next 66 years. Possibly not even
within 660 years.
Cats:
I haven't been separating Ghirardelli, since he was with the others all
the time I was gone, and things seem to mostly be going okay.
Make a comment!
3 September 2010 - Friday
Work: Apparently we got a new [SPOILER] while I was
out. Huh.
Textual Entertainments: Game of Cages,
the second book in the "Twenty Palaces Society" series by Harry
Connolly, is just as awesome as Child of Fire. In fact, now
I have to go back and reread CoF because there is no other
Connolly to read!
Anyone who wants to run Call of Cthulhu should read these books so
they can understand what happens to NPCs in a universe like that.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
harry connolly by kit (Sat Sep 11 12:13:49 2010)
moo hoo hoo i have access to book 3 :)
Re: harry connolly by Trip (Sat Sep 11 18:21:12 2010)
Augh! You are TAUNTING me! You fiend!
Re: harry connolly by kit (Tue Sep 21 03:37:04 2010)
Yes. Yes, I am taunting you. moo hoo hoo hoo hoo!
Re: harry connolly by Trip (Wed Sep 22 08:04:04 2010)
Because you are a FIEND! A fiend in Kitful shape!
Re: harry connolly by kit (Wed Sep 29 05:06:59 2010)
Yes. Yes I am, in fact. :)
If it makes you feel better, despite having access to the book, I don't seem to have the ability to read anymore, so it doesn't matter...
Re: harry connolly by Trip (Wed Sep 29 16:17:33 2010)
Don't worry, Spawnling will eventually stop hogging the brain!
I dreamed that you wrote an entire series of books I was unaware of, but some fool set off an alarm clock so all I remember is that they were about space pirates and were apparently fantasy because you had to have special powers to fly spaceships. There was also something about needing identity papers.
space pirates by kit (Fri Oct 1 14:22:36 2010)
I could write that, sure. :)
Re: space pirates by Trip (Fri Oct 1 19:56:07 2010)
No doubt! What was surprising in the dream was that you had written many of these books and I had never heard of them at all!
Re: space pirates by kit (Sat Oct 2 03:01:54 2010)
ah was SNIKY!
Re: space pirates by Trip (Sat Oct 2 15:13:21 2010)
Like a space pirate! or a FIEND!
Make a comment!
2 September 2010 - Thursday
Work: They don't seem to have died without me, which
I guess is good.
Cats:
Jinian and Aime also seem to be fine!
Make a comment!
1 September 2010 - Wednesday
Travel: Because we are super-organized (sometimes)
we got our rental car turned in and made it to the terminal with plenty
of time to spare.
Julia was once again the best baby on the plane.
California: Man, walking in Portland was so much
nicer. Why did we come back?
Gaming: I finally finished my own copy of the Dark
Sun Campaign Setting book (I forgot to take it to Portland). Look, it's
like sand pirates, only more doomed!
Cats:
TWELVE PAWS!
It took Marmalade and Ghirardelli a while to forgive me, but
eventually I got love from them. (Aspen will never forgive me for either
having someone else take care of her OR coming back, but what can you
do?)
Marith is an excellent cat-sitter!
Make a comment!
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