Previously, in Trip's Life...
31 December 2018 - Monday
This time Marith and I successfully saw Into the Spider-Verse, and
it was pretty good! Now I understand Miles's powers in MPQ.
I wonder if we'll get this version of [SPOILER]?
In the evening, Earl fondue (not made out of real Earls), as is the
New Year's Eve tradition. This time we broiled the meat portion, which
was logistically much better, and we still had the cheese and chocolate
death courses for dipping with brain forks. There was some discussion of
watching things, but mostly we searched for the lost art of conversation
until it was time for toasting and then home-going.
We are so old and sedate that there was almost no one on the roads
yet by the time Marith andI drove home.
Words:
102.
Yearly total: 91474. That's actually not completely dreadful. These are
all first-draft words, and not very good ones at that, so it's a long way
from being anything even if they were all the same things, but there are
probably published books that are not much longer than that. I probably
need to increase my quota for the new year, though.
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30 December 2018 - Sunday
Marith and I tried to go to a movie, but failed because the only
seats were in the front row, which is not workable. (But apparently
other people paid for those seats. Necks, how do they work?) We got
better tickets for tomorrow.
In the evening, I went over to Ken's and even though we had no Dave,
we had Mike and Brooks to play
Gloomhaven.
Splitting the party worked, mostly, and I got my murder rat up to 3rd
level, so I can have even better cards that slowly trickle out of my
hand, never to be seen again.
Words:
126.
Weekly total: 1560.
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29 December 2018 - Saturday
I was too lethargic to let the cleaners in, but we eventually got
things sorted out and do not have to live in squalor.
We thought about doing board games because Dave isn't available to
watch anime, but no one had enough brain.
- Non Non Biyori 8-9: Poor Komori. Someone should tell
her that being an adult isn't worth it.
- Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju 4: Aw, rakugo for kids! (It's
probably not a dead art form if kids like it!)
- Love, Chuunibyo, & Other Delusions 2.12: Rewatch
for Ken and Marith. Still cute.
Words:
305.
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28 December 2018 - Friday
Today, I got out of the house and did some things! Like getting my
hair cut for the first time in approximately my entire life, and
ordering new glasses.
More
Ancient Magus' Bride, more doom! I mean, Chise seems to
mostly come out okay in the end, but there's still a lot of doom.
Words:
160.
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27 December 2018 - Thursday
In a possibly futile attempt to seem like we didn't spend the entire holiday
season as somnolent lumps in our separate caves, Marith and I went to
the
big library downtown. It is
certainly very large, but not prosperous in fiction. I did get a library
card (because the librarian was more helpful than the one at my local
branch) and check out Step Aside, Pops (Kate Beaton). Kate
Beaton rocks.
New She-Ra 5-7: soggy princess, terrifying princess, and
magical aunt.
Words:
239.
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26 December 2018 - Wednesday
It's Boxing Day, which I guess is the day when Santa goes to
Australia in his sleigh drawn by pugilist kangaroos?
More The Ancient Magus's Bride. Every girl needs a giant
terrifying black dog with a tail longer than its entire body!
Words:
218.
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25 December 2018 - Tuesday
A nifty Newtonmas to all!
Ayse and Ken fed us many tasty foods (yay duck!) and also there was
great sloth.
The Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle (Kagiji Kumanomata) is
there because the demons have kidnapped her to hold hostage and now have
no idea what to do with her as she runs roughshod over them in her
pursuit of a good night's sleep. She cuts up the living rugs of smothering to
make bedsheets, steals priceless magical artifacts to adjust the
temperature of her quarters, breaks through walls to get better
ventilation, and generally crushes the demons underfoot without even
realizing. There is little if any ongoing plot, just one ridiculous
scheme per chapter, so it may eventually get old, but after three
volumes it's still pretty amusing.
Words:
124.
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24 December 2018 - Monday
Watched some more She-Ra, otherwise hid from the
capitalist frenzy of Newtonmas Eve.
Ran and the Gray World (Aki Irie) is about a young girl
(upper end of elementary school, maybe?) who is sad because her mom, a
glamorous sorceress (possibly the glamorous sorceress) is
always away on important sorcery business, leaving her stuck with her
dad and big brother. She has a pair of magic sneakers that turn her into
a grownup. Adventure ensues!
Words:
388?! Where did all this typing come from?
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23 December 2018 - Sunday
Marith and I started watching the new She-Ra, which is
actually pretty good! It is definitely for kids, so very simple in some
ways, but none of it makes me want to fling things. Also I see why there
is so much Adora/Catra shipping.
Words:
163.
Weekly total: 1157.
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22 December 2018 - Saturday
Ayse has decided to learn to make Swiss rolls. There may be imperfect
attempts that need to be disposed of.
- Sailor Moon Super S 135-136: More monster-of-the-week,
but the villains have plans. I don't think Jus understood the jealousy
over Mamoru, which is good. That's a trope that can die with this
generation!
- My Hero Academia 61-63: Rewatch for Ken, since he
missed the end of season 3 the first time around.
Words:
124.
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21 December 2018 - Friday
Last day of work for the year! We got free food, as well as backpacks
of a somewhat strange design, and company logo socks. I actually did
some work for a change.
Now Marith is caught up on Hibike! Euphonium.
Words:
256. I tried writing in Comic Sans as recommended by tumblr for extreme
productivity, but it has no italics, so it didn't work for me. Maybe
sometime I will try using bold instead.
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20 December 2018 - Thursday
Marith is still full of Connecticut germs. It is very sad.
Avalon does not have germs, but does have work. However, there is a
puppy at work.
I believe
the Cruel Empire of Tsan Chan
is only mentioned once in a single Lovecraft story, but that limited
source material didn't stop someone from fleshing it out for
Call of Cthulhu!
It's 5000AD. Cthulhu has risen, and taught humanity new ways to shout
and kill and revel and enjoy themselves. All the earth is aflame with a
holocaust of ecstasy and freedom, except for the Empire of Tsan Chan, which
keeps that kind of madness at bay with massive magical wards, brutal
repression, and unwholesome bargains. It's not a pleasant life, even for
the mutants and cyborgs and liches at the top, but at least most of the
population still have their own minds. Mechanically, the
philosophy/religion/indoctrination gives you a second Sanity track: as long
as either SAN or the Way is above 0, you can be a functional human being,
and the Way isn't reduced by the horrors you encounter in day-to-day life
in Tsan Chan.
There are plot hooks/campaign seeds for every stratum of society:
commoners, military, the travelling magistrates of the judiciary run by the
liches that founded the empire, the divine hybrid nobility, the eunuchs who
have been ritually mutilated and modified to be able to survive the
Empress's presence, even the allied Serpent People or ghouls. They would
all be extremely grim, but what are you playing CoC for?
Words:
152.
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19 December 2018 - Wednesday
13th Age
extra Thai food!
Without Mike's strong vision of what we should be doing, we had to
resort to simple measures like disguising ourselves with stolen cultist
robes and sneaking back to scout around some more. Sadly, the cultist
robes did not grant darkvision, or the ability to pass through the
labyrinth unhindered by assorted horrible monsters. Ow.
No gaming until next year!
Words:
103.
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18 December 2018 - Tuesday
Avalon is busy being oppressed by aunts and work, so instead of a date
I spent the evening watching anime with Marith.
- The Ancient Magus' Bride 5: Chise really should not be
surprised about that, since the entire show about is about the
bittersweetness of transient things. Also, splendid cat king is splendid.
- BBK/BRNK 3: Rewatch to get Marith caught up.
Also I returned to tumblr, which really is mostly still there, but has
a very desolate feeling anyway.
Words:
158.
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17 December 2018 - Monday
Hurray, Marith made it back! With pictures!
We celebrated by ordering pizza and watching two more episodes (3-4) of
The Ancient Magus' Bride. Yikes, that is quite a
cliffhanger!
I avoided tumblr completely today, and anecdotally, my notifications of
people I follow posting stuff or my posts getting reblogged, were way
down. I wonder if Oath (can you get any more obvious that corporations are
an invention of Nyarlathotep, guys?) will notice.
Words:
201. Maybe I should stop writing and just die in a pit forever.
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16 December 2018 - Sunday
It seems like barely a week ago that I made the trek to Palo Alto, but
it's already time for PAD&D5
again! Except no Deirdre, who apparently has to work all month while her
boss goes to holiday parties.
The Heroines of Red Larch have to take the people they've just rescued
back to Red Larch, so more than another day passes before they can reach
the site where they hope to rescue everyone else, and of course by the
time the villains and their captives are long gone. However, while
searching the area for clues, the Heroines encounter a lone [SPOILER], who
tells them that many of the children were taken away separately, to a
local place of ominous reputation. It is dusk, and everyone knows terrible
things are always scheduled for midnight, so there is no time to waste!
On the way into the deep dark woods, the party is assaulted by random
[SPOILER] wielding [SPOILER], but Rimardo uses his Pink Sugar Crystal
Dragon attack to get rid of them with little effort.
Finally, the Heroines reach the Ominous Location, and their ninjas
locate the missing children, along with the expected enemies and a
surprising [SPOILER]. Just as they're ready to bust in and do some good, one
of the enemies reveals that it's a trap! But Mara is already out of sight
of everyone else, so she can claim she was mind-controlled by the
[SPOILER] when she tries to remove Rimardo's kidneys. Despite all this,
the Heroines manage to defeat everyone who turns out to be an enemy, and
save everyone who needs saving. What are [SPOILER] doing here, though?
Aren't they ruled out by the campaign premise?
No more gaming until next year.
Tomorrow is International Fuck Tumblr Day, so I tried to close all my
browser tabs that were open to tumblr. I spent multiple hours doing this
and I'm not sure I actually succeeded, since some tumblr blogs have their
own URL, but I certainly closed very many of them!
Words:
105.
Weak total: 969. Ugh. Maybe I need to find a different wall to bang my
head against? Maybe one with a plot. Or something.
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15 December 2018 - Saturday
Marith is away, and Ken and Jus went to Ken's work party, so it was just
Dave and me and Ayse and Thai
food for anime this week.
- Love, Chuunibyo, & Other Delusions 2.12: Awww! And we
only have one out of three straight relationships (assuming [SPOILER]
and [SPOILER] ever admit they're a couple). The End!
- Hibike! Euphonium 1-2: Before I knew the Pettersons, I
would have thought a sports anime about band was weird.
- BBK/BRNK 3: More history of the worldbuilding, but
character interaction needs to get better.
Words:
117.
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14 December 2018 - Friday
Marith assures me she is not dead and her niblings like their presents,
or at least their parents approve of the presents, which maybe be a
completely different thing.
Croma Venture (Joel Shepherd) is the 5th book in the
"Spiral Wars" series. Despite the pretty big triumph of the previous book,
the Phoenix keeps going further and further from human space
and getting involved in more and more alien political betrayals, because
the situation is always worse. The new aliens are not that interesting, but
we are getting to see some of the previously-introduced aliens act
alienly.
Words:
119.
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13 December 2018 - Thursday
Marith has departed for Connecticut, where she will be oppressed by her
relatives, as is her filial duty.
Words:
113.
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12 December 2018 - Wednesday
Time for Greek food and 13th Age! We had
a fight with some obnoxious cultists, who our necromancer now proposes to
desecrate for information and disguise. No one else thinks much of this
idea.
Bryony and Roses is T Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon)'s
response to Beauty and the Beast. It has a practical heroine,
a sarcastic Beast, and roses seen from a gardener's point of view.
Words:
152.
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11 December 2018 - Tuesday
Marith and I watched the first two episodes of
Ancient Magus' Bride, because we don't have to wait for
Saturday! Oh, right, there was that bit in the beginning where she is sold
as a literal slave to someone who talks about her being his bride, but
after that it's magical creatures and English scenery. (So far it seems to
be following the manga pretty closely.)
Humans, still not
as sapient as they think.
Words:
222.
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10 December 2018 - Monday
Yay, new book from T Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon)!
Swordheart is set in the same universe as Clockwork
Boys and The Wonder Engine, and features some of the
some places, but is not otherwise related. However, it does have snarky
characters, and also a magic sword, a rat priest, a gnole, and a road
trip.
The Mortal Word (Genevieve Cogman) is the fifth book in the
"Invisible Library" series, and it looks we may be finally getting to the
fundamental underpinnings of reality. Or maybe that was just a red herring.
Also, less sympathetic dragons and more sympathetic fey.
Words:
141.
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9 December 2018 - Sunday
It's the yearly gingerbread party! The party was kind of thin this
year because apparently a lot of people were sick, but I listened to
people talk, and ate way too much Party Snack™ and even decorated
half of a house. I am still terrible at parties, though.
Interspecies Reviewers vol 1 (Amahara, masha) is a little
bit sexy but mostly ridiculous, because how can reviewing brothels in a
fantasy setting be otherwise? It's also mostly straight, although they
at least acknowledge there are women and queer people &c. Also, bonus
points for knowing that hyena girls are better hung than you.
Words:
127.
Weak total: 986.
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8 December 2018 - Saturday
Hurray, it's turkey chili!
- Sailor Moon Super S 134: Maybe Chibi-Usa didn't imagine
Pegasus after all!
- Non Non Biyori 7: There must be many dedicated and
competent teachers in Japan, but you wouldn't know it by watching anime.
- BBK/BRNK 1-2: No one hates it yet!
- Love, Chuunibyo, & Other Delusions 2.11: Still
adorable.
Words:
153.
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7 December 2018 - Friday
Hurray, there's a new The Good Place! The major plot twist
makes it seem like a season finale, but it's only episode 3.9! Were there
three double-length episodes earlier? It's tagged as #36 overall, so maybe.
I haz a confuze.
Words:
137.
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6 December 2018 - Thursday
Words:
162.
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5 December 2018 - Wednesday
After missing two weeks due to holiday gluttony and the opposite of fun,
we (minus Brooks) gathered to eat Korean food and 13th Age. We were
successful at one of these, but less so the other. I guess you do need a
brain for gaming, otherwise you end up making plans like falling over dead
and exploding into flames while in disguise and then running away.
Words:
122.
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4 December 2018 - Tuesday
Avalon is still alive, but her job is still horrible. :(
EDENS ZERO (Hiro Mashima) is a new series by the same person
who wrote the wildly popular Fairy Tail, and seems to have the
three important elements for shounen manga: a male character with
improbable fighting skills, a female character with breasts, and an animal
mascot.
Words:
108.
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3 December 2018 - Monday
I don't want to get up and start a work week, I want to stay in bed
forever, because it's December.
Words:
177. New keyboard is loud, because mechanical, and a little confusing
because I'm used to my old keyboard that had the CMD key in the wrong
place, but otherwise very satisfactory. Which it should be, for that
price!
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2 December 2018 - Sunday
Once again, it's PAD&D5!
Having survived both the fight scene where the ground was literally
lava (monsters) and the following epic "Yo Momma" competition, the
somewhat hungover Heroines of Red Larch set forth to rescue the innocent
hostages in the encounter when they were flung into the elemental planes
(weeks ago in their personal time, later this morning by objective
calendars).
Unfortunately, despite Mara's abuse of the rust bag of
tricks to get a riding lion for herself and a riding goat for
Hazelrae, the Heorines are still on the road when they encounter many of
the people they hope to rescue, dragging a seige engine under guard by
[SPOILER] and associated monsters. The enemy riders race back,
presumably to fetch reinforcements, leaving the Heroines to defeat a
bunch of [SPOILER], a few [SPOILER], a surprise [SPOILER] that almost
eats Rimardo, and the horrifying [SPOILER]. It's not an easy fight, but
eventually the Heroines rescue Rimardo and do away with the [SPOILER]
and all the other enemies. None of the hostages are even hurt much! However,
they do need to be escorted to safety, and the Heroines need to regroup
and recharge before going to rescue the others.
Words:
FAIL. I can't be expected to work without commas!
Weak total: 1158.
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1 December 2018 - Saturday
Nonny had his birthday party with other kids today, so the usual
evening schedule was disrupted, but he was so happy with his new mermaid
tail blanket that we can't complain!
- Non Non Biyori 6: This is not the show in which things
happen, is it?
- My Hero Academia 61-63: Yep, that's pretty much the
only way Bakugo can express his feelings. But they are valid feelings!
And now it is the end of season 3, so we will have to watch something
else until season 4 is out!
I had more thoughts about not-Starfinder,
but what even is the point?
Words:
47, because my keyboard suddenly stopped producing commas! (And
less-than signs, but I don't write HTML by hand as much now that I have
Scrivener.) This is
awkward.
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