Previously, in Trip's Life...
30 June 2017 - Friday
Marith and I finished watching Cowboy Bebop. It is so
doomed, although the story Spike told about the cats made me sadder than
anything that happened to humans.
Make a comment!
28 June 2017 - Wednesday
Today, Dungeon
World and Pizza My Heart! I ate
two pieces of pizza, which was about 1½ more than I should have, but
so tasty! Then I was a terrible GM, although at least I had a
super-contrived and stupid way of getting Kelsey's character joined up with
the others.
Amulet Rampant (MCA Hogarth) is the third in the "Prince's
Game" series, in which some of the main characters attempt to recover
from the events of the two previous books. Contains lots of kinky gay sex,
palace intrigue, and crossovers with other series in the same universe.
Make a comment!
26 June 2017 - Monday
Today I went to work. It was not very interesting. Then I tried
to start rewriting my
NaNoWriMo from scratch, but
didn't get very far, partly because I have forgotten how to use
Scrivener, but mostly
because I am rubbish at writing, and everything I write is terrible.
Make a comment!
25 June 2017 - Sunday
Today I accomplished zero things.
zero things by marithlizard (Wed Jun 28 00:33:18 2017)
I don't believe you, if only because the local police blotter failed to say anything in reference to noise complaints about superloud indignant miaoing coming from an apartment near downtown. :)
Re: zero things by Trip (Wed Jun 28 15:28:16 2017)
Doesn't count, they made me do it!
Make a comment!
24 June 2017 - Saturday
Bah, summer. Who needs it?
- My Little Pony 14: I'm not sure exactly what the lesson of
this one is. Possibly the horrifyingly anti-American "expertise means
something".
- Durarara!!x2 3.1: And so the fellowship is formed!
- Vision of Escaflowne 19: Folken's fiendish kissing plan takes
effect!
- Hanamonogatari 1: It's Ougi again! Or maybe not. Either way,
Suruga is probably doomed.
- Steven Universe 2.16: This actually explains a lot about
Onion. And makes Amethyst slightly less tragic.
My Pathetic Vampire Life (Ishikawa Rose) is pretty meh. I don't
think the conceit supports even a whole volume, never mind apparently a
series.
Make a comment!
23 June 2017 - Friday
Lunch bought us Thai food, which probably makes up for one of the
Sales weasels messing up my name.
The Other Side of Secret (Hideaki Yoshikawa) is very
shounen, with the cleavage and violence, but I like summoning doors to
alternate dimensions of creepy horror and treasure, plus the main character
has a non-nebbishy character design and also is devoted to his kitty.
Mystery and gruesome death ensues!
Make a comment!
22 June 2017 - Thursday
I tried to do work today, but mostly read Wonkette.
Also read today (well, finished reading):
- The Girl From the Other Side (Nagabe), about a
smol girl and the cursed monster who takes care of her now that the other
humans think she is also a cursed and curse-spreading monster. It is mostly
quiet, and I like the design of the monster (who is naturally much better
than most of the humans we see). Vol 1 ends on quite a cliffhanger,
though!
- Kobold Press's Tome of Beasts 5E
which is nominally for their Midgard setting, so it has lots of fey, lots of
Norse- and Eastern-European-flavored monsters, and clockwork constructs,
but D&D is usually such a mishmash that these monsters could be used in
most campaigns. Yay monsters!
LINKS LINKS LINKS!
They melted!
The secret life of art.
Australian lightning.
How
alarming.
Kinetic sculpture from found materials.
Tentacles
+ machine shop.
The penis
seat (no, really).
The Beetle Buddha.
Megahat.
Make a comment!
21 June 2017 - Wednesday
Dungeon
World and Chinese
food!
Knowing that Kelsey will return next week, I expected people to grab the
target and skedaddle, but no, they let him slip away and then went back to
trying to break into the upper parts of the temple in search of loot and glory
and secret knowledge. Mostly, they found confusion and junk, but they are
keeping at it, so next time I will let them into the third level. I even have a
plan for getting Ursula involved, although it is somewhat cheesy.
I suck because I prepared too much again.
Like the past few volumes, Spectrum 23 (ed John Fleskes)
seems to be mostly M:tG card art and the rest weirdly stylized in a way a
don't like, but there was some good stuff too.
No Medals for Secrets (Elliott Kay) is the fourth book in the
"Poor Man's War" series, and goes off without the original main character. But
that's okay, and we finally get to see the aliens alluded to previously. They
are somewhat alarming.
After reading Down Among the Sticks and Bones the other
day, I wanted to reread Every Heart A Doorway (Seanan McGuire)
because I didn't remember the details. (In fact, I seem to be bad at
remembering endings in general.) There are definitely some inconsistencies,
but I can see Jack and Jill not being completely truthful about the
circumstances of their return.
Raven Strategem (Yoon Ha Lee) is the sequel to
Ninefox Gambit, in which plans come to fruition. I might have
appreciated the plans more if I had remembered the end of the previous book
better (see above) but they were still pretty satisfying in a cryptic kind
of way. The setting is still way above my head.
LINKSPAM!
From Aristotle to AI.
The Shaolin Flying Monks Theatre.
Connecting
Lego to nonLego.
Origami.
Books of Unusual Size.
Evolve!
Evolve! OK!.
Kaonashi coin bank.
Neglected movies
which I had never heard of, although some of them sound intriguing.
Mukimono.
And, of course, Affinity.
Make a comment!
18 June 2017 - Sunday
Even too hotter! But this time I was walking to PAD&D5, so
it was probably worth it.
The Heroines of Red Larch are not able to catch the [SPOILER] fleeting from
last session's battle, but do track them all the way back to Red Larch, where
some of them have taken hostages and are issuing demands. The [SPOILER] has made some
kind of deal with a [SPOILER], and they are threatening to destroy the town
with [SPOILER] unless the Heroines agree to stop persecuting [SPOILER] and
work for [SPOILER]. Lam yells, "We will never serve you!" and tries to grab
the means of destruction and get it out of town before Rimardo can do anything
even slightly clever. A fight breaks out, but the hostages/human shields are
not damaged, the [SPOILER] is slain, and [SPOILER] is captured. Not much loot, but
there is a party.
The next day, the Heroines head back out to [SPOILER], where the
remaining [SPOILER] probably went. No one in need of crushing is currently in
residence, but they find their way to the hidden [SPOILER].
Next session in 3 weeks, since 2 weeks is the holiday weekend of
Roseville-visiting. But it means Edie will be out again, so we'll be short a
ninja. (Actually, it's the ranger who's short.)
I wimped out and rode the bus home, because it was still too hot. It
continued to be too hot all evening, so I was not able to do anything except
stare blankly at
tumblr and flail at
MPQ.
MADCAP
is an attempt to combine PbtA
with zany cartoon hijinks a la Toon. It is also still in beta
(though on Kickstarter, obviously), but so far it is not looking like as
successful a design as HotFA. The "moves"
are so fuzzy they are barely mechanics: "or make something up" is not a
valid option for a move in anything that I would call PbtA! I understand
where they're coming from with wanting to leave the possibilities for
zaniness unrestricted, but I don't think they're doing it in a way that
meshes with PbtA at all well.
I am trying to decide whether to send them email about it, or just shut
up because the Internet is already full of negativity and Wrong. (My
opinion is obviously worthless because otherwise I'd be getting somewhere
with SCOOS2.)
MOAR LINKS!
Fading ice.
Hypothetical
exoplanets.
A city of
women.
A robot
that makes paper airplanes.
Classic
Western pictures with women instead of men.
Funguses!
Bears with plans.
CIA
board games.
Even more strange photos.
How
differentials work (with bonus train wheels).
Make a comment!
17 June 2017 - Saturday
Today it is too hot, but I went grocery shopping anyway. It built character
or something, I guess? Also there is a festival of some
kind
happening in downtown Willow Glen, so I get to be a crotchety local scowling
at all the damn tourists.
Ken's high school friend and her husband and their offspring are in town,
so Ayse wanted to sushi them at Yuki
Sushi, but there is a huge horrible stupid festival in the way! We had to
go to Sushi
Infinity instead, which is not as good but had seats for us. It's like
victory!
Apparently Courtney is a literary agent, but I did not get to talk to her
because I am Nonny's uncle.
Marith is not dealing well with a job that requires standing for four hours
straight. :(
- My Little Pony 13: Today's thing that is not more important
than friendship: competition!
- Durarara!!x2 2.12: That didn't really resolve a whole lot, but
then this is the middle arc of three.
- Vision of Escaflowne 18: Time for the Big Reveal!
- Koimonogatari 5-6: If Dave is right about what happened at the
end, that puts kind of a different spin on things.
Heroines of the
First Age is still in pre-Kickstarter beta, but I am looking forward to
it: mythic fantasy, Powered
by the Apocalypse, with monstergirls!
standing by marithlizard (Tue Jun 20 03:29:44 2017)
In defense of my feet, standing for four hours is fine! Four hours followed by a break and then another four is harder, etc. Fortunately good shoes do seem to help.
Re: standing by Trip (Tue Jun 20 13:16:02 2017)
I'd have trouble with even the first four hours, although it usually gets me in the back rather than the feet. Walking is okay, but just standing in one place, bleah.
Make a comment!
15 June 2017 - Thursday
I guess I did work, or at least attended meetings, but it doesn't feel like
I have done anything useful today.
Down Among The Sticks And Bones (Seanan McGuire) is a prequel to
Every Heart a Doorway, about Jack and Jill's adventure beyond the
portal and how they became what they did. The answer is: doom. So much doom.
Then additional doom on top of that.
Make a comment!
14 June 2017 - Wednesday
Apparently Dungeon
World really does work best when I don't prepare anything except a
vague idea of what the NPCs might do if not derailed. I did make some
mistakes, but they weren't related to preparation, more to narrating combat
("Uh, okay, roll Hack & Slash again" is not a valid thing in DW). Now I need
to figure out what the main remaining NPC is going to do now that the PCs'
wackiness has disrupted their brilliant plan.
Swirls.
Comics from one of the The Simpsons artists.
Glass conservation.
But can it get through Cannery Row?
This
one looks better for outdoors.
Essence
of dog.
ipnot.
Unusual bookcases.
Load-bearing
Felt.
Make a comment!
13 June 2017 - Tuesday
Training people is hard. I don't know what to say other than "ask people
for help when you need it".
A Peace Divided (Tanya Huff) is second in the series that
follows the protagonists of the "Valor" series in their new
quasi-demilitarized role as interstellar SWAT in the post-war universe.
Archaeology continues to claim a surprising number of lives.
I finally read through Eclipse
Phase PbtA and am ambivalent about it. I mean, it is probably a
completely functional game, but it's not the way I would have done it. But
is it really fair to ding an adaptation for being too faithful to the
original? It's definitely derived Dungeon
World (physical stats, an all-purpose "do something with any
appropriate stat" move), but goes even more back toward the norm of RPGs
(which Eclipse
Phase does not really deviate from) by having mix-and-match character
generation rather than playbooks, a complicated system for making things
harder or easier, and long lists of morphs (no list of weapons, though;
instead, there's a simple design system for weapons that reminds me of Diaspora).
As a conversion of Eclipse Phase,
sure, okay. As a PbtA
game in its own right, not so much. And of course it doesn't fix any of the
things I think are wrong with EP, but I really can't expect other people to
do that right.
Make a comment!
12 June 2017 - Monday
While I was waiting (futilely) for my boss to dial in to a meeting, everyone
else in the office buggered off to the other office to meet the new coworkers
and eat free food. So apparently I suck and they all hate me. On the other
hand, I'm not stuck in San Mateo, and I was able to let the former office
manager in to prep for the conference tomorrow.
I'm writing this today, so: more links!
Song for
Three Soldiers.
Lake Baikal.
Paper in glass.
Glass on paper.
The Year of Knots.
Architectural
fantasies.
Tiny
and vitreous.
Seven at one blow.
I still don't know what to make SCOOS2
characters do. Maybe problems come out of local gates, and the adults of
course deny the existence or at least the nature of the problems, so
monster teens have to handle them? But if they're actual problems, why
don't adult monsters/sorcerershandle them? Maybe I should just stick with
Sweet, Sweet Uranium (Sweet, sweet ley line nodes? Sweet, sweet human
organs?). But none of this has much to do with school. Ugh!
Make a comment!
11 June 2017 - Sunday
Today, I managed to go to Target and buy some things for my apartment, but
otherwise was extremely useless. With useless sauce on top!
I tried to have a thought about game design, but it didn't go anywhere. It's
already obvious that whatever travails
SCOOS2
characters face, they have to have consequences that either adults don't find
important ("It doesn't matter if these peasants don't like you, just devote
your time to studying and you'll make much better friends at Harvard!") or
adults think will never happen ("There are no clowns hiding in the Internet to
eat your face, go to sleep!"). But that doesn't tell me what the travails
should be.
In Girls' Last Tour (Tsukumizu), two young girls travel
through a depopulated and war-scarred artificial environment. As of vol 1,
we don't know where they're going, or even where they've come from, never
mind where they are or what happened. It is the opposite of
action-packed.
Make a comment!
10 June 2017 - Saturday
Ayse and Jus are camping out with the Girl Scouts, and Marith is working, so
no anime for us! I went over to see Nonny for a bit, but then went back home
and resumed being useless.
Kindred Spirits on the Roof (Hachi Ito, Aya Fumio,
Toitensu, Liar-Soft) is apparently based on some visual novel, but the
manga is just a couple of schoolgirl shoujo-ai pieces.
In Red Riding Hood and the Big Sad Wolf (Hachoujou Arata),
the wolf (who is human) is a big softy and Red Riding Hood is a sadistic
pyromaniac who just wants to see him suffer and weep. It is not my sort of
manga.
Make a comment!
9 June 2017 - Friday
Because my job gives me unlimited vacation hours, I took the afternoon
off to go to Yuki Sushi and The Dancing Cat with Ayse and Jus.
Yay, sushi! Yay, kitties!
We met many cats who were very nice (and also Bella), but I did not feel
a need to kidnap any of them. This time. But it's only $10 to get in and
admire the current crop of cats, and the places is right on the 64 line, so
who knows what will happen in the future?
More links!
Maps
of places that never existed.
A 20-cent pocket centrifuge.
Amazing optical phenomena.
The Comedy
Wildlife Photography Awards of 2016.
The top 100 space photos of 2016.
"Jolene" at 33RPM.
The beautiful bugs of Belize.
Why ever leave the bookstore?
Thierry Bornier's pictures of China.
Pictures
of an 8000-year-old bog.
Looking at these all in one place, I see that a lot of them are from Affinity, which is
reasonable since it's an excellent blog full of nature photography as well
as links to cool stuff.
I wasn't sure how Dan Wells's "John Cleaver" series could be brought to an end, but
Nothing Left To Lose is not unreasonable, at least thematically.
Practically, I'm not sure that arrangement would be free of outside influences,
or stable against them. Still, it's definitely an end to the story.
Make a comment!
8 June 2017 - Thursday
After being behind here for like two months, I am finally almost caught up!
Hurray! Maybe now I can start blathering about games and stuff. But in the
meantime, have some links!
The Radium Age of SF.
Why
cognitive biases exist and what you can do about them.
Art
made from shadows.
17
badass women from 2016.
Industrial
choreography.
Fear the mantis shrimp.
Single-stroke
dragons.
More links later if I stay caught up.
No Cowboy Bebop tonight, Marith's schedule got changed. I
will stare blankly at tumblr instead.
Vol 2 of Kiss & White Lily for my Dearest Girl (Canno) is
about a different couple and I didn't like it quite as much. Still cute,
though.
Nightstruck and Night Magic (Jenna Black) are the
first two of a (probable) trilogy about a sudden infestation of dark magic every
night in Philadelphia and how it ruins one girl's life (and the lives of those
around her, naturally) in particular. She has a plan, though! Well, kinda.
Make a comment!
7 June 2017 - Wednesday
Indian
food and Dungeon
World again! This time I didn't prepare much, but I did have things
talk to the PCs and also try to eat their faces, so it went better than
last time.
Make a comment!
5 June 2017 - Monday
One of Marith's neighbors somehow managed to park her in on both sides,
so I might have gotten there faster if I walked, but we did somehow manage
to get to the theater in time to get decent seats for Wonder Woman!
It was pretty swell! I would rate it as highly as
Rogue One, at least. Diana
was pretty unequivocally heroic and good and inspirational, the romance was
not too contrived or ridiculous, minor characters were good enough that they
could have used more screentime. I was a little sad that the plot twist I was
hoping for did not materialize, but, superhero movie. Also, I understand why
every woman on Tumblr is gay for Gal Gadot.
Sadly, though, I cannot get over the niggling thought that it's set in WWI
rather than WWII because no one with the money to make a movie wants to
present Nazi-punching in a positive light.
Make a comment!
4 June 2017 - Sunday
It's PAD&D5 again!
This session was mostly a huge set-piece battle between two NPC
factions, with another NPC faction causing trouble and the Heroines of
Redlarch trying to disrupt everything. We played one of the major factions
as well as our regular characters, so it was a huge mess and a bunch of
[SPOILER] died, although not as many as if the Heroines had better ranged
attacks. It ended with the survivors of one faction making an escape with
the maguffin, harried by the Heroines. Next session, perhaps we will pin
down the villains and there will be a smaller-scale, but more heroic,
combat.
Continuing the theme from yesterday, today I read the first two volumes
of Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur (Amy Reeder, Brandon Montclare,
Marco Failla, Natacha Bustos), which are about a nine-year-old gadgeteer
whose family does not understand her and a giant mutant red T-Rex thing
(not an actual T. rex - no feathers!) in New York. They do, in
fact, fight crime, but also superheroes (who also don't understand her),
ape-men, gross boys, and Lunella's own genome. (Apparently there's some
larger event in the Marvel Dead-Tree Universe with aliens and genetic
engineering and wandering clouds that make people mutate? At least it's not
Nazi writers trying to appropriate Captain America.) Anyway, it is pretty
cute and might make me want to play Masks.
Make a comment!
3 June 2017 - Saturday
Instead of taking a shower before the cleaners came and then going
grocery shopping immediately after, I slept in and read Please Don't
Tell My Parents I Have A Nemesis (Richard Roberts). Wow, that is so
much doom for Penny! But it's not like it wasn't foreshadowed, and really,
she was pretty much asking for it. The next book cannot come soon
enough!
Sadly, according to the note at the end, the next book will be the last
about Penny, although not the last in the setting. I didn't like I Did
NOT Give That Spider Superhuman Intelligence! quite as much, but it
would still be okay to have more along those lines.
I don't know if reading good middle-school-supers makes me more or less
likely to work on my own subnovel, since I haven't done anything do it in
months and months. Maybe I'm too stupid to edit, or maybe I'm too stupid to
use Scrivener, but I'm
definitely too stupid.
Om nom nom!
- Nirvana in Fire 15-16: Well, that rival strategist has to
feel pretty dim now, or maybe that her patron is dim for taking such a
ham-handed approach. Also, I suspect things are not going to go well
for [SPOILER], even though he does not deserve the doom.
Make a comment!
2 June 2017 - Friday
I tried to see Wonder
Woman with Marith, but failed due to abject stupidity on my part and
doomed Marith to an evening of filling out employment applications for a
better job. This is because I suck.
We exchanged our tickets for ones on Monday. We'll see if that works any
better.
Zeroes (Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, Deborah Biancotti) is not
quite superheroes, more like the urban fantasy equivalent. The YA protagonists
have definite powers, mostly on the telepathy spectrum, but are by no means
four-color. They don't exactly fight crime, but they do defeat criminals.
Make a comment!
1 June 2017 - Thursday
Marith remains not dead, although her feets are sad. I strongly approve
of this non-dying trend, although perhaps she should get some better shoes!
Also we watched some very silly Cowboy Bebop.
I want to say something about how Faye is not drawn as idealized, but I'm
not sure it makes sense and I'm certainly not qualified to critique.
Faye by marithlizard (Sat Jun 3 12:25:09 2017)
I kinda think Faye's body is drawn as stylized, but her expressions, movement and personality are not? Like Misato in NGE, maybe, and to a lesser extent Lina Inverse. It's certainly not something we see often.
Re: Faye by marithlizard (Sun Jun 4 13:07:27 2017)
stylized > idealized. I knew what I meant, even if nobody else does!
Re: Faye by Trip (Tue Jun 6 10:51:03 2017)
Even her body, kind of. When she's on videophone from her personal ship, we always get a view right down her top, and her breasts hang down instead of bulging fanservicefully toward the viewer.
Yes, I am embarrassed to post this.
Re: Faye by marithlizard (Tue Jun 6 13:45:50 2017)
No, you're right. I was classing that under 'movement', since when she's drawn just standing still or in a pinup pose she does have a standard fanservice-type build. But she doesn't spend much time in the episodes like that, she usually sprawls around unselfconsciously the way Spike does.
Make a comment!
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