Previously, in Trip's Life...
31 December 2013 - Tuesday
Well, this is it for 2013! This year has been terrible for global
prosperity and space travel, but mediocre for robot servants, so there's
still some hope for a future.
As usual, the extent of our partying power was to eat fondue at
Monkeycat Towers with Earl and Cat. (Cat had cat ears, which apparently
is the NYE customer of her people, and was ridiculously cute.) We talked
about the philosopy of aesthetics and art, did jigsaw puzzles, and tried
to hold conversations with Siri. I personally also texted with Avalon a
lot, but was too cowardly to let her get me to ask people embarrassing
questions.
As parties go, it was probably not that impressive, and I was very
sad that Avalon could not be there in person (stupid continent!), but it
was a pretty nice NYE by me.
Sorry, Aspen, you're stuck with me this year too!
Actually by Avalon (Wed Jan 8 18:26:35 2014)
How I remember it is we consulted a third party who suggested the questioning might embarrass others, so it was not about bravery. =)
Happy 2014! A whole calendar year to have together!
Re: Actually by Trip (Wed Jan 8 19:16:34 2014)
I was already wimping out, though.
Hurray! An entire YEAR just for us! (Well, okay, I guess other people can use some bits of it. If they ask nicely.)
Make a comment!
30 December 2013 - Monday
Blblblblblblblblblblblbl.
Some CthulhuTech books
that I bought at Powell's approximately one million years ago bubbled to
the top of a stack, so I am reading them in bits.
Damnation
Viewis all metaplot, because it was the 90s. Er, the second decade of
the 90s. Anyway, the Doom That Came to Earth is described in some detail,
with new mecha and stuff because it's not a mecha game without some
escalation guide. Also, evil catgirls from beyond time and space.
Twelve fliffy paws!
Make a comment!
29 December 2013 - Sunday
It would be an ideal time for gaming, except Dave is gone so we don't
have enough brains people.
Blblblblblblblblblblbl.
David Wellington wrote some fairly interesting vampire books that were
definitely horror (13 Bullets, 99 Coffins, etc),
so I picked up Chimera from the library. It was not as
satisfying, although the villainous plot might be more novel to someone
who is not me, or even not of my generation. (Cold War for the lose!)
Twelve paws that would really like the summer turned back on NAO,
PLZ.
Make a comment!
28 December 2013 - Saturday
Marith and I went with Ken and Ja Baby (and Ta Baby) for a walk in
the hills west of Mountain View. Unfortunately, everyone else on the
peninsula also wanted to go for a walk in the hills, so there was an
extended parking sequence, but once we got on the trail Ja Baby had a
lot of fun with rocks and sticks and trees and holes in the ground.
Eventually the sun went behind the hills, so we had to go home because
Ta Baby had bare feets.
I finally got volumes 3-5 of Wandering Son (Shimura Takako)
and read them all! It is still adorable, although by the 5th volume the
main characters are in 7th grade. There is naturally more romance stuff as they
get older, but that's not as interesting as the trans* stuff (lots of
manga has romance).
Changeling: The
Lost is the version? reboot? distant cousin? of Changeling:
The Dreaming for New Improved White Wolf. From what I remember of the
original, this one is pretty different, although it still involves piles of
d10s.
In Changeling, you play someone who was enslaved and transformed by the Fae,
then escaped and returned to the human world to find that their life has
been taken over by a golem who was living it just fine while they were
away and doesn't want to give it up. On the plus side, they get minor
magical powers and can recognize fellow changelings so they can form
support groups.
(C:tL is often referred to as "Changeling: the Abuse
Survivors" because being kidnapped and enslaved by a narcissistic demigod
is not as enjoyable as it sounds. Ayse also calls it a fantasy of being
special rather than a fantasy of being powerful, because changelings are
much lower-power than vampires or werewolves.)
The subtitle is a "A game of beautiful madness" since changeling
magic involves a lot of dreams, the borderlands they travel in
are full of dream symbology, etc. I'm not sure how well the fairly heavy
system supports that, but whatever.
Despite my harshness toward White Wolf, I actually like the idea of the
game, so I am working on converting it to the Apocalypse
World Engine. This would go faster if my brain were not so tiny.
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
27 December 2013 - Friday
Today, I used my mighty vacationing powers to... go to the doctor. The
doctor was very disappointed that I had gone so long without renewing my
prescription for brain-inflator supplies, but did not require another
sleep study.
Blblblblblblbl.
Sacré Bleu (Christopher Moore) is a novel about the
color blue. Kind of. It's also about painters in Paris in 1890 or so, and
how crazed they were, and why (because of the color blue, obviously). It is
pretty entertaining, but there were a few bits that made me go, "This is
more horrible and less funny than you seem to think" because blargh.
Hello, very opaque cats! Hello!
Make a comment!
26 December 2013 - Thursday
Happy Boxing Day!
The germ level at Monkeycat Towers has declined to the point where
they felt safe inviting people for dinner, so they did. Cat could not
make it, but Earl was there with the usual suspects (minus Dave, who is
still er somewhere). Ham! Vegetables! Companionship! Eggnog!
But then, kitties!
Make a comment!
25 December 2013 - Wednesday
Happy Christmas!
No, wait, Sad Christmas! Monkeycat Towers is full of plague
again! There is no dinner for us!
Instead, there is Hobbit II: Let's Kill The Dragon With
Fire. With bonus elf quasi-love-interest (hook the generators up
to the Tolkien gravesite!).
Okay, it wasn't that horrible, but it was fairly divergent from the
book and definitely too long. The dragon should have eaten them all in
round 1.
Avalon's package contains kisses, and a book about cats! Yay!
Fortunately, FPD delivers pizza fast, even on Christmas Day. Marith,
being unaware of this, needed emergency chicken strips, which I did not
withhold, because it's Christmas!
The twelve paws of Christmas!
Make a comment!
24 December 2013 - Tuesday
It's Christmas Eve and I am still going blblblblblbl, but at least I
have a package from Avalon!
After rereading the previous couple of volumes of Empowered
(Adam Warren), I was prepared to read the new volume 8. My, that's a lot of
doom. And suspiciously non-theological doom, unless I'm misrecognizing the
"security" that chases Emp and SS out. But, now we know about the
Mysterious Asteroid!
Wrath-Bearing Tree (James Enge) is a direct sequel to
A Guile of Dragons, and continues the backstory of the main
character from Enge's earlier trilogy (This Crooked Way,
The Blood of Ambrose, The Wolf Age). In this
installment, Morlock gets a girl (although we know it ends badly), foils a
conspiracy at the highest levels, and meets some really creepy and horrific
gods.
The more time I spend going blblblblblbl at the computer, the more
opportunities cats have to be opaque!
Package! by Avalon (Thu Jan 2 18:54:41 2014)
Not as nice as my package was!
Re: Package! by Trip (Fri Jan 3 10:28:29 2014)
Pish! Also, tosh!
Well ok by Avalon (Fri Jan 3 17:34:38 2014)
You have a pretty nice package. =)
Re: Well ok by Trip (Fri Jan 3 20:11:34 2014)
BLUSH
Make a comment!
23 December 2013 - Monday
Today, I shopped for food so that I will not starve when stores are
packed tomorrow and closed the day after. Then, I played
Brogue
and read
CaptainAwkward.com.
Blblblblblblblbl.
Cats demand attention!
Make a comment!
22 December 2013 - Sunday
Today, History
of the World! But we did not get to finish because Robert takes a long
time to calculate his moves, and kids have to eat super-early, and general
doom of too many humans. We went to the sushi buffet place for dinner, but
I think I am now clear that the food there tastes weird in some indefinable
fashion and I do not wish to return.
After dinner, Marith wanted to return home, so I went with her, partly
for the cats but also because there probably wasn't really room in the
Monkeycatmobile even without Dave (who has returned to his brood-kin for
the solstice period).
I feel like I should write more about Roseville, but we don't do very much now
that we are too disorganized and/or full of kids for proper gaming. It is like a
vacation!
The cats are fine, although they completely devoured the large bowl of
extra crunchyfoods and then knocked it onto the floor.
Make a comment!
21 December 2013 - Saturday
Oh no, I forgot my dice! Fortunately there is a gaming store in
Roseville (or one of the adjacent suburbs? I'm not sure) where I can get
dice in case gaming breaks out, and also implement the next stage of my
plan for someone to run 13th Age.
However, the gaming that broke out was Dungeon
World with too many players of too young an average age, so I kind of
horribly played Brogue
for a lot of it. Because I suck.
We also played Puerto Rico,
which is indeed similar to Lords
of Waterdeep, and ate some food and talked about some things and
wrangled very many children.
You are not dying, cats, right?
Make a comment!
20 December 2013 - Friday
Fortunately the customers were quiet today and I was able to finish a required
refresher course on not being visibly a horrible human being before trundling off
to Marith's workplace. They have a pretty nice office, although it is still mostly cubes.
Also I am not sure about that massage chair. I think it would have been a
completely different experience if I were a girl.
The dinner place recommended by Marith's cow orkers was extremely
pastrami-intensive and also not even slightly healthy, but it was tasty, and I am
on vacation, or something..
Surprisingly, all the people on our road did more or less the right things and
we made it to Roseville at a reasonable hour!
Many people are nostalgic for Barsoom, and many of them write SF, so
George R R Martin and Gardner Dozois got them to write stories for the
anthology Old Mars. Some of the stories are straight-forward AH with
habitable Mars, but a fair number are dreams or visions of ancient Mars/Martians,
and at least one is both. Somehow, it's just not the same, though. I think my
nostalgia is broken.
Northwest of Earth is the complete collection of "Northwest
Smith" stories by C L Moore, space adventure written in the same era as
Lovecraft was writing. Thus, there is not a lot of space, except for
settings on the various planets, but lots of ancient secrets, abominations
in hidden places of every world, pre-human creatures unknowable by man,
etc, complicating Smith's life of minor villainy in the spacelanes. I'm not
sure if it's exactly what I hope for from 30s pulp SF, but it is definitely
what it is.
The Silver Dream (Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves, Mallory Reaves) is the
sequel to Interworld. It adds a potential romantic interest, and a
whole bunch of additional complication in the setting, but does not resolve
anything, so presumably there will be another book or five.
The cats have lots of extra crunchyfood and water set out, and I gave them a
double ration of gooshyfood this morning, so they will be okay until Sunday,
right?
Make a comment!
19 December 2013 - Thursday
Finally I went to see the doctor. I have lost 20 pounds in the last
year!! Since the only thing I've changed is my diet (meat--), I presume
that's what's responsible. However, the doctor thinks I should get more
protein, and still less fat, so I guess it's non-fat cream cheese for my
bagels, and more chicken breast and fish at meals.
Despite that, my ichor quality is still not good, so I have an
additional pill to take every day, and need to get supplies to check my
ichor daily and keep a log and go back in three months. But, I have
prescriptions for everything again and successfully made an additional
appointment that I had been putting off, and a new one the doctor
recommended.
I still have two appointments to make tomorrow, but I have momentum.
Momentum is good, right?
Working from home was horribly unproductive as always, but I did
reproduce a problem and schedule a meeting.
Not so many Avalonsmooches tonight, but I chatted with her and one of
her other boyfriends (who I already knew) while blithering around at
chores and dinner and stuff.
Marith has decided we should leave for Roseville directly from work
tomorrow (we only work about 2km apart according to Teh Googel) so it is
time to commence worrying about the cats! I bought them another big water
bowl when I went to pick up my prescriptions, and we expect to return
Sunday, so I am sure it will be okay. Probably.
Cats! You know about the No Dying Rule, right? Right? (Cats: "Of
course we are going to die, because you NEVER feed us gooshyfood! Never
EVER!")
Although I do not know the backstory, I picked up the first two volumes of
Blood-C (Ranmaru Kotone, CLAMP), because CLAMP. Sure enough, those
were CLAMP character designs! The basic story is straightforward
cute-schoolgirl-fights-horrible-monsters-at-night, but there does seem to be more
to it than that.
InterWorld (Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves, Mallory Reaves) is YA
interdimensional fantasy, with a hapless Earth teenager yanked into the war
between Magic and Science, but a cut above most such because Neil Gaiman was
involved. Despite the main character being in high school, though, it seems like
it was written for a significantly younger readership.
Make a comment!
18 December 2013 - Wednesday
Yes,
this.
Not that I have any cause to complain, he said, going home promptly at 17:00
after not volunteering for any work with people on the other side of the
globe.
I am not doing very well at letting Avalon go to bed at a sensible hour!
I did not understand about the seedy underground world of street-level spelling
bees until I read Buzz! (Ananth Panagariya, Tessa Stone). But now I
do.
Now it is snuggling time, cats!
Make a comment!
17 December 2013 - Tuesday
Spent like an hour trying to solve a problem which reduced to one I had
previously solved. Maybe I should take writing KAs more seriously...
No Avalon for me! Only for other people!
The 29th annual collection of The Year's Best Science Fiction in
Gardner Dozois' Opinion is actually pretty good, although few of the
stories made me want to never write again. (Mostly just the Yoon Ha Lee
one, which I had already read .)
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
16 December 2013 - Monday
It's Monday again, but if I can survive this week: vacation!
I still have no idea why Avalon likes me, but I'm glad she does.
Knights of Sidonia (Tsutomu Nihei) continues to have more
and more doom, both within and without. But also the pickup line, "I
feel like photosynthesizing". (It didn't work, because baseline humans
can't hold their liquor.)
Still Sucks to Be Me is, naturally, the sequel to
Sucks to Be Me (Kimberly Pauley). This time, the intrepid
heroine has to face amorous jocks, historians, vampire conspiracies, and
all the other hazards of rural Louisiana.
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
15 December 2013 - Sunday
No gaming, gingerbread party!
I think someone counted sixty people coming in, although I'm not sure
they were all there at the same time. It sure seemed like it, though!
Some of them were even people I knew.
There were more than enough kids to completely fill the construction
room, so the adults didn't get to make any houses, but some of us got to
be judges. First place: Tracy Island from Thunderbirds.
Second place: dragon's lair complete with dragon, lava pool, pile of
gold and gems, and dismembered gingerbread people. Tie for third place:
everyone else.
Unprecedentedly, Ayse and Ja Baby attended, because Ja Baby wanted to
see the kids she met at the Zatzparty the other week. Hopefully Ken will
not disown her for having Republican cooties.
I ate what was probably too much candy, but not really that much in
total. I did eat way too much onion-soup dip with potato chips. Despite
Avalon's (general) encouragement, I did not find any non-Internet girls
to ask out.
I did get many smooches from Avalon! Also purrbucketing, not from
Avalon.
Make a comment!
14 December 2013 - Saturday
I successfully got phlebotomized. Now the doctor can scold me with
charts and graphs to back him up.
I also bought a new belt, since I have underflowed my old one.
As cultural appropriation is the core of Californiaism, we carry on
the tradition we stole from Chrisber and Gretchen of making ginger
cookies for St Lucia Day. It is the way of our people now!
- Nurse Angel Ririka 8: We heard that this gets better,
but so far it is not delivering. Maybe we will ditch it in favor of
Wandering Son.
- Cross Game 40: Go for it, Aoba!
- Toaru Majutsu no Index 11-12: That is a pretty
villainous plan, all right. Logistics as a branch of Mad Science?
- Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood 29: No, being a
king does not mean you are above cheap extortion. Why would you think
that?
- Legend of Korra 7: There's no time for red herrings, we
only have twelve episodes to save civilization!
Miau, cats! Miau!
Make a comment!
13 December 2013 - Friday
Happy Friday the 13th!
I finally called the doctors' office to try to get my presriptions
reinstated, and they did not crush me like an insect! I have to stop
eating tonight so I can get blood drawn tomorrow, and see the doctor who
is subbing for my previous doctor while she spawns, on Thursday.
No Avalon for me!
Complete in two volumes, Sickness Unto Death (Hikaru Asada,
Takahiro Seguchi) is a tale of philosophy and mental illness. On the
upside, it's not often you see a counselling student as a manga
protagonist. On the downside, there's really only one mental illness people
ever write about.
I don't remember why I picked up Cat Girl's Day Off[*]
(Kimberly Pauley), but when Marith mentioned she had heard it was good, I
moved it up the list.
[*]Okay, okay, cats and girls. But no catgirls!
It was not super-outstanding, but pretty entertaining wacky hijinx
ensued, with obnoxious and/or embarrassing superpowers on all sides. I
am not certain about the characterization of the cats, but they did have
characterization, so I won't complain too much.
Is there a rule that all female first-person protagonists must at
least feel themselves to be plain and flat-chested but have busty
gorgeous BFFs? It seems like a pretty common trope.
The protagonist of Sucks to Be Me (also by Kimberly Pauley)
at least has cleavage, although her best friend is still more and cuter, at
least in her opinion. But she kicks ass, sometimes literally, and is more
or less able to deal with her parents being bureaucracy-oppressed vamires,
at least as much as any teenager is ever able to deal with her parents.
It may be for the best that I cannot communicate with my cats, even
though it would be interesting to know what they think. ("I have never had
gooshyfood in my ENTIRE LIFE EVER!", probably.)
Make a comment!
12 December 2013 - Thursday
I finished the thing to enlighten the customer and now managers have
to sign off on it, or tell me to fix it, or something.
But then I went home and there was love from Avalon and also from
kitties!
Make a comment!
11 December 2013 - Wednesday
Argh, we failed to enlighten a customer previously, so now we have to
do it only with more panic.
But Avalon is not panic! Avalon is smooches! And occasionally
strangeness, but that is okay.
The art in Spectrum 20 (ed Cathey Fenner, Arnie Fenner) is
certainly good, at least some of it, but it's not really as much to my
taste as in some previous Spectra. I fear I may be becoming
dated.
In genre, Stray Souls (Kate Griffin) is to urban fantasy
what HHGttG is to science fiction. It is serious as well as
silly, and a spinoff from Griffin's earlier series about the Midnight Mayor
of London which is pretty serious, but also pretty silly. I suspect it is
even funnier to native Londoners.
I know you think I should lavish warm affections on you instead of
playing with the little squares, Marmalade!
Make a comment!
10 December 2013 - Tuesday
The company Christmas party consisted of Italian food and
tableclothes on all the tables in the cafeteria. I think we may be a
large company run out of the Midwest rather than a Silly Valley
startup.
Then there was training which was scheduled to run until 19:00, but
actually finished at 18:15, so I was not completely doomed on my
commute. Good thing this isn't an Avalon night, though!
Dweller on the Threshold (Rinda Elliot) is standard
urban-paranormal-fantasy-romance. Monster-destroying heroine with
mysterious powers: check. Insanely manly yet sensitive hero who is
tormented by his dark past: check. Threat to all of humanity that only
these two and their quirky sidekicks can foil: check. Next book in the
series coming soon: check.
Hurray kitties!
Make a comment!
9 December 2013 - Monday
Ugh, Monday. But, only two more weeks of work and then vacation!
I foolishly wasted all my Avalon-time talking about silly things like
travel documents. Sheesh!
This brain is scratched, I demand a replacement!
Yes, cats, you are very opaque! Marmalade is also very purrbuckety!
Ghirardelli is also very fluffy!
Aspen could be opaque, but never does, because cats who are
opaque probably get eaten.
Make a comment!
8 December 2013 - Sunday
Still no calls from work! Wheee!
I spent most of the day reading and doing laundry, but there was also
some amount of thinking about Changeling World (which may or may not
have been different than staring blankly into space).
I am pretty sure the emotion-oriented Apocalypse World
stats (cool, hard, hot, sharp, weird) and moves (seize or hold by force, go
aggro) are better for this than the physical ones from Dungeon
World. I am not sure whether Seeming or Court is the correct way to
divide characters into playbooks; maybe a mix-and-match character sheet
like Danger
Patrol's is the way to go. I am also not sure what to do with Wyrd, the
obvious pun notwithstanding. If the stats are already personality, having a
separate stat for Magic Power is unnecessary, so maybe it's more like
character level? Every time you get X experience, you get +1 Wyrd and a new
move? Or every third advance, you get +1 Wyrd? But what is it good for?
Braining is hard, let's explode into a million pieces.
No Avalon tonight, I think she is spending time with her shiny new
sweetie.
Gun Machine is a police procedural with copious
grotesquerie and some horror (what do you expect, it's by Warren Ellis),
but a police procedural nonetheless. I actually quite liked it.
Hurray! Finally there is another volume of Yotsuba&!
(Kiyohiko Azuma)! Volume 12 is autumnal. Yotsuba + Halloween = DED OF TEH
KYUTE.
Wow, Ghirardelli is sleeping on the warm laundry, because Marmalade
is staying in the new box of warmth!
Make a comment!
7 December 2013 - Saturday
I am on call (as backup to a new guy, which means I probably will
have to take any real issues that come in), but so far so good!
Ken had to take the test to get some kind of professional
certification which will make him super-employable, but Ayse made
extremely tasty pumpkin pancakes and well-done bacon.
Ken now has a title that has "Quality" in it twice, so you know it's
good!
Everyone of Monkeycat Towers went to Harold and Chris's winter party,
but I did not go because then they would have had to take another car and I
didn't care that much. Instead, I sat on the couch and read new
Changeling with an eye toward making Changeling World. The people who
went had a super-good time, though, even Ja Baby who is usually pretty shy
at parties, and returned so late that our plan to eat grownup pizza without
Ja Baby freaking out was imperilled! But it was okay.
- Nurse Angel Ririka 7: This week's moral lesson is:
"don't talk on the phone"?! But Nurse Angel Superglue saved the day,
even though it would have been way better if it hadn't.
- Toaru Majutsu no Index 10: I think this is the same
plot from the manga, they're just bringing the PCs in media res. If
so, it's a pretty horrible and yet impressive plot.
- Cross Game 39: Building up to the next game. They are
dropping hints about Aoba's outcome, but I don't know if I believe them.
- Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood 27-28: The
beginning-of-second-season-recap episode was okay. But now, the
serious doom!
- Legend of Korra 6: I have a theory. It is about what
the advanced form of airbending is.
Avalon had a pretty busy day too, so we did not text much, but I got
a picture of the Infamous Black Dress (with Avalon included)!
In Base
Raiders, a crossover event mysterious alien force
suddenly disappeared all the world's superheroes and supervillains a year
ago, leaving their secret bases (and who doesn't have at least one?) up for
grabs. Now crazy people all over the world are looking for these bases, to
pillage them for valuables (blackmail lists, supertech, alien artifacts,
dark rituals, etc) or secrets, or sometimes to take them over for their own
use. Once you've found the new model of the super-soldier serum and shot up
with it to gain powers, you're going to need a base, right? Of course,
these bases are secret, and usually some combination of guarded, locked up,
broken down, or overrun, so make sure you bring your 3m pole and a good
supply of batteries for your latern.
The system is a FATE variant, taken from The
Kerberos Club, which implements powers as skills, built from list of
trappings that determines what the skill can do and how much it costs per
plus. This seems like it should work, although it hurts my brain a small
amount.
Yes, cats, I did come back!
Make a comment!
6 December 2013 - Friday
Hurray, Friday! It's only a couple more of these and then it will be
vacation time!
Line War is one of many in Neal Asher's "Polity" future history
and continues the themes of "gigantic explosions and AIs that are
disturbingly gleeful about them" and "doom from the past". It also seems
to wrap up a major plotline, like The Technician did. Asher
has since written two books in a different series, so I wonder if he
ever plans to go back to the Polity.
Every story in which a human wins over magical creatures is also
a story in which a magical creature gets screwed over by a
perfidious human, and now those stories have been collected in
Human Tales (ed Jennifer Brozek). I picked it up because it
has a Seanan McGuire story (about sphinxes), but overall the quality was
so-so.
Humans really suck.
The Ninth Circle (R M Meluch), like all the preceding books
in the series, is super-cheesy military space adventure.
Twelve paws that do not seem too oppressed!
Make a comment!
5 December 2013 - Thursday
I wish some of my cow orkers were smarter. Hopefully New Boss S will
not put up with them being dim.
Oh no! Avalon was so sleepy last night because she is sick!
I do not approve. :(
Book of Iron (Elizabeth Bear) is a short piece set in what
looks like the future of the Range of Ghosts/Shattered
Pillars world, when they still have crazy skies but also have
motorcars, and "adventurer" is a recognized role in society. Erem is still
darn creepy.
The Dead Pig Collector (Warren Ellis) is a short piece by
Warren Ellis, which means it is grotesque and everyone is hosed.
Long Live The Queen (Kate Locke) is the conclusion to the
"Queen of Goblins" trilogy, in which pretty much all plot threads are
wrapped up. Everyone has the potential to live happily ever after,
except the ones who get killed.
New box of warmth is a hit with the small mammal demographic!
Make a comment!
4 December 2013 - Wednesday
I felt productive today! I must be doing something wrong.
Poor Avalon fell asleep waiting for me to log on, so I persuaded her
to get some rest instead of staying up until all hours again.
Meep.
In a futile attempt to seem less shallow than I am, I picked up
The Ring of the Seven Worlds (Giovanni Gualdoni, Gabrielle
Clima, Matteo Piana, Davide Turotti), because I hear they have comics in
Europe, so maybe I should see what they're like. Unfortunately, this one is
not so great. It's not bad, but the world-building is pretty
rudimentary and the ending is completely ex burro. Oh well, I am still
shallow.
I know fictional worlds are often full of horrible stuff, even when
they aren't strictly mimetic, but Jack Cloudie (Stephen Hunt)
still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The wicked grand vizier is
undeniably wicked, and yet I still had to root for his vision of the
future over the others.
Okay, this is clearly too cold for cats, even with the space heater
in my bedroom on high. I must do something.
international comics by marith (Thu Dec 5 15:16:18 2013)
You could try my copy of _Perseoplis_, which I bought in an attempt to be less shallow but have not yet managed to read. I hear it is good.
Does your apartment heating not work?
Re: international comics by Trip (Fri Dec 6 13:30:05 2013)
I could! Perhaps I will if I manage to visit Beep Street someday!
My apartment has one heater, in the wall between the living room and the cat's bathroom. This is not very useful at the other end of the apartment.
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3 December 2013 - Tuesday
Feeling significantly better today, although still kind of flat and
therefore maybe not best-equipped to deal with Surprise Reorg! second
thing in the morning.
Ever since the acquisition, we have been an appendage on Aster R&D that
does customer support, I think because the founder who stayed with Aster
wanted to keep his organization together as much as possible. He has cashed
out, though, so finally we have been assimilated into the Greater Teradata
Customer Support Empire. In fact, we now report to the same manager as does
Cow Orker D, who he speaks very highly of. I have only met New Boss S and
New Metaboss M for a few minutes, but they seem sane and definitely know
how to get things done within Teradata, which is about 1000% better than
the Horrible Boss who was apparently the best we could get by hiring from
outside the company.
Now we will have to actually follow the procedures that we are
supposed to have been following all along, which will be a pain, but I
think overall it will be much better for the team.
What? I'm just trying this optimism on to see how it fits!
Avalon is busy tonight, so I tried to eat at the new Indian place on
Castro, but I failed. I mean, I ate food, but what I ordered (pakoras,
samosas, pesto naan) was too greasy for my recently-recoved stomach.
There was no tragedy, but it was an unfulfilling dining experience.
I need a better plan for keeping the cats warm, I think. Maybe just
more Boxes of Warmth.
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2 December 2013 - Monday
Whatever it is I have, the symptoms include both exhaustion and
insomnia. After "sleeping" in I got up and felt kind of okay, so I
thought I would work from home in the afternoon, but taking a shower
used more energy than I had and I spent most of the rest of the day
lying on my bed staring blankly into space.
After microwaving some frozen oatmeal, I was able to huddle in front
of the computer for some Avalon time, but not with any significant brain.
Then I went to bed.
Dead Things (Stephen Blackmoore) is definitely noir; you
can tell by the way the protagonist gets increasingly battered
throughout the course of the book but keeps slogging onward through the
inevitable betrayals to face the consequences of his past misdeeds. Also
there is magic and horrible necromancy and sorcerous crime and death
gods.
Oof, cats.
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1 December 2013 - Sunday
What?! How did it get to be December already!?
The never-ending saga of the Sad Death of Jannik finally ended, with
the PCs thumbing their noses at the person who annoyed them most, but
not actually doing anything about the murderer. It's the Decadent
Period!
Probably no more gaming until next year, because holiday
excitement.
On the way back from gaming, I began to feel quite unwell. At first I
thought it was due to having too many little puffy cheese guys on top of
brunch on top of last night's gluttony, but it did not go away as
expected. I think I have whatever was going around Monkeycat Towers.
:(
I wish Avalon were here to soothe my fevered brow! But no, only
kitties, who are adorable and furry but not the same.
I'm not sure if the cats are sniffing me because they're worried
about me, or because they want to see if I've turned into food yet.
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