Previously, in Trip's Life...
30 September 2020 - Wednesday
I thought this morning's dentist appointment was for fillings, but
no, it was to inspect my skullular integrity. Conclusion: inconclusive,
more radiation needed.
This week in 13th Age
Glorantha, chaos monsters with a zombie on a leash annoy our heroes.
Sadly, once the nangrels are all defeated, they recognize the headless
zombie as most likely having been the expert that their quarry bought from
Olfir. This means they are pursuing the sort of chaos cultist that steals
the heads of experts, which is actually a thing.
Read:
- Wonderland (Yugo Ishikawa) vol 3-4: I'm not sure about
reasoning, "If this phenomenon that blatantly violates the laws of
physics follows the laws of physics then we're doomed".
Microwave food.
Words:
Check, I guess.
Make a comment!
29 September 2020 - Tuesday
Why is it Tuesday?
Watched:
Read:
- Planet Killer (Lindsay Buroker): Antepenultimate volume
of the series about the unassuming professor of robotics who has no
choice but to shape the politics of twelve solar systems, and not to the
advantage of people who think they're entitled to own all of it. He is
getting kind of ridiculously good at hacking, but then I guess he has
been exposed to far more network security paradigms than most people.
Panzanella and salmon.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
28 September 2020 - Monday
Boo capitalism.
Read:
- Wonderland (Yugo Ishikawa) vol 2: More tiny doom! More conspiracy doom! WTF is going on?
Last of the Chinese takeaway for lunch and dinner.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
27 September 2020 - Sunday
Even Earthdawn is better when
Powered by the
Apocalypse. (Well, maybe, I haven't tried it, but.)
I wish I'd known about
Homebrew
World at this time last year, it's definitely what I would have used
for con games.
Chinese takeaway.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
26 September 2020 - Saturday
Shopping at the correct time worked pretty well, except that a bunch
of things were randomly out of stock. Hmph.
Marith is dead from capitalism, so no Zoomwarts today.
Watched:
How does dinner even work?
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
25 September 2020 - Friday
I ended staying at work until like 20:30 because of the customer's
thing. It's not like I had anything productive to do, but still,
ugh.
Read:
- Monarchs of the Sea (Danna Staaf): Cephalopods, and how
they got to be this way. Arms and tentacles and vestigial shells for everyone!
What even is food?
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
24 September 2020 - Thursday
Marith got tapped to do extra work, because lean staffing. Fuck
captialism.
Read:
- Blade Song (JC Daniels): Standard paranormal het romance.
- Phallacy (Emily Willingham): A book about weird animal
mating is good (biology is so weird!), and a book about how humans are
weird and stupid about penises is also good, but I don't know that they
profit from being the same book.
Half a burrito the size of my head for lunch. Bagged salad for dinner.
Too many snacks.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
23 September 2020 - Wednesday
The
13th Age Glorantha
characters made it to Whitewall (which apparently is built out of Fate
runes instead of rocks) and delivered the strange wiggling thing to the
guy. They got lots of information about their quarry, and then spent the
rest of the session figuring out how to disguise Kouji in case they end
up near where she might be a wanted fugitive.
Read:
- The Promised Neverland (Kaiu Shirai, Posuka Demizu) vol
16: Augh! Splitting the party means multiple cliffhangers!
Burrito the size of my head. Somehow I only ate half and saved the
rest for lunch tomorrow.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
22 September 2020 - Tuesday
Yay, I got my glasses fixed! It wasn't free, but by my standards it
was only a nominal cost so I am happy. Also I got Thai iced tea while I
was out, because why not?
Despite some confusion, the guy finished doing the thing I set up. All
is well.
Watched:
Read:
- Cthulhu Deep Down Under vol 1 (ed Steve Proposch, Christopher Sequeira, Bryce Stevens):
Mythos stories from, or about, Australia. None of them are particularly
great.
Seared glazed salmon and carrots of many colors.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
21 September 2020 - Monday
Why is Monday? And where is the nose pad for my glasses? Under the
oven, probably. I hope the place I got them is open to being visited
tomorrow.
I set up a thing for a guy to do a thing at work. I hope it
works.
Read:
- The Vela season 1 (Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, SL Huang): Three
out of four authors that I really like, but the serial was not as great. It
wasn't bad by any means (although Solomon doesn't seem to be an SF
writer), but it wasn't as imaginative as any of them writing on their
own, and there's one bit of
worldbuilding that really makes it hard to suspend disbelief.
- The Promised Neverland vol 15 (Kaiu Shirai, Posuka Demizu):
Plan vs plan, as it was in the beginning!
Microwave food, except I heated it in the oven. Really what I should
be doing with this one is also making pasta, and then saving half of it
for another meal.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
20 September 2020 - Sunday
Test run of Scum and
Villainy with half the players! It went okay even though none of us
(except Dave) knew what we were doing. I clearly need to be harder on the
PCs, though.
If S&V doesn't work out, I'll make everybody play
Radical Catgirl Anarchy.
Watched:
The Umbrella Academy
2.7: If only Five had explained better, much of this could have been
avoided. But not all of it.
Tomato-thyme chicken.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
19 September 2020 - Saturday
Ugh, only one cleaner was available so it took forever and I didn't
get shopping until forever o'clock. I hope it's not because all the
other cleaners have the rona from having to clean crazy white people
houses.
Jus made the most amazing video for Zoomwarts, which I cannot share
with you because Internet privacy of minors. Your loss, because it is
amazing.
This week, Bella browbeats some more house elves, spills some more
beans to Dumbledore, and completes another week of survival at
Hogwarts.
Watched:
- Fruits Basket (2019) 2.24: Go Yuki! Go Machi!
- Mob Psycho 100 4-5: Reigen had actual good advice, surprisingly enough.
Better than the lack of advice the new character received, certainly!
Also, the grass is always greener on the other side of the corpus
callosum.
Read:
- Fly Me To The Moon (Kenjiro Hata) vol 1: Despite the
back cover blurb, the female lead appears to have to supernatural powers
except being a girl. Fortunately repressed Japanese boys take 2x effect.
How does eating even work?
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
18 September 2020 - Friday
At least today's distressing news got me to donate a bunch (on a
human scale) to the critical Senate races?
Read:
Leftovers.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
17 September 2020 - Thursday
I don't think my analysis from yesterday was useful to anyone.
Watched:
Read:
- Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen (Jim C Hines):
Middle-school roller derby girl and her autistic brother against
creatures of stinkiness and magic. It's not really much of a contest.
- Scum and Villainy (Stras Acimovic, Lohn LeBoeuf-Little): Criminal space adventure, Forged in the Dark! The setting is very Star
Wars-like, but not so much that I have to hate it despite the
usual problems of scale when non-technical people write about space.
It's a good thing I've read it, since I have to run it on Sunday.
Chicken fried rice.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
16 September 2020 - Wednesday
Went back to the dentist to admit that I haven't started flossing, or
contacted the other dentist about replacement teeth, and also to get
touched up (not in the fun way) and polished. I did at least make the
appointment for the other dentist, and being flossed wasn't
that bad so maybe I'll be able to do it.
In 13th Age Glorantha,
instead of the PCs being murdered for being so sketchy, they were given
a theoretically minor delivery task in exchange for an
excuse to meet the person they want to talk to. This seemed great until
the package started flopping around weirdly and trying to escape in the
wrong direction and getting through containment. Then there were
minotaurs, but Mernyr managed to turn it into a scuffle between one of
them and Jorendona, which ended when she cut off his beard and the other
minotaurs laughed at him.
Microwave food.
Words:
Check, very technically.
Make a comment!
15 September 2020 - Tuesday
Spent most of the afternoon working on analyzing a thing. Wrote a
shell script, which eventually worked.
Watched:
The Umbrella Academy
2.5: Just because repressing your emotions ends catastrophically doesn't
mean letting them out will end happily, Vanya. Even
especially when you've been listening to Klaus.
Tilapia with lemon butter and potatoes and stuffed gnocchi.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
14 September 2020 - Monday
Marith got home at 23:00 last night and had to be at work at 9:30 this
morning. Capitalism must die.
Read:
- Prime Deceptions (Valerie Valdes): Sequel to
Chilling Effect. Serious story and characterization, with
silly elements embedded in the setting (like acronyms) to distract from the
mass murder. Almost exactly the same genre as Scum and
Villainy. Serious human-alien romance where the alien is not just a
prosthetic forehead.
Microwave food.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
13 September 2020 - Sunday
I did a little more shopping, which I guess justified my
existence.
Nachos.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
12 September 2020 - Saturday
Getting up earlier to go shopping does work better and isn't actually
more unpleasant.
Zoomwarts! Bella only threatened to murder Rosamund a few dozen
times, and she successfully smuggled treacle tart to Harry Potter. No
lizards were harmed in the making of this game.
Watched:
- Fruits Basket (2019) 2.23: Yep, that was somewhat Cinderella-like.
But with extra Hanajima.
- Mob Psycho 100 2-3: That was quick! Also surprising in other ways, but now we see the theme
of the series. Maybe.
Rosemary chicken.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
11 September 2020 - Friday
Yay, it's Friday. Now I can fail at important things instead of just
work.
Microwave food.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
10 September 2020 - Thursday
Sky is retreating to previous levels of smokiness. Alas, I cannot
blame the air quality for my tiny brain.
Leftovers and salad and doom.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
9 September 2020 - Wednesday
As Kelsey said, "Who opened the hellgate and forgot to close it?"
That is not the color the sky is supposed to be!
This week in
13th Age Glorantha,
Mernyr and her band of misfits make it to Wilmskirk and try to find out
where Olfir the Wanderer is through both official and unofficial
channels. Both bear fruit, surprisingly, and next session they might get
a meeting set up, and if not (and if they don't get crushed by the
wealth of Gold Goddi) they have a good idea where to start looking for
him.
Read:
- The Black God's Drums (P Djeli Clark): Airships,
atmospheric warfare, and African magic in steakpunk!New Orleans.
- Tuesday Mooney Talks To Ghosts (Kate Racculia): Not
fantasy, probably. Geeks and mysteries solved and unsolved and how to
ethically billionaire (compared to what we have now, anyway) and I like
all the characters except the antagonist, which is why it is so
agonizing when [SPOILER].
Microwave food.
Words:
FAIL.
Make a comment!
8 September 2020 - Tuesday
It's like Monday, but at least it's not quite as hot. (Instead it's
smoky.) The work meetings were like Tuesday, anyway. My manager is back
from vacation
Watched:
- The Umbrella Academy
2.4: I don't think we knew that about Vanya. (Possibly Vanya didn't know
that about Vanya.) But trust Luther to make even literal laughing gas a
downer.
Read:
- Wonderland (Yugo Ishikawa) vol 1: Suddenly, everyone is
tiny? WTF? Also augh cats! Societal breakdown! Government conspiracy?
And who is this? WTF?
Salmon of seared tastiness and cinnamon squash.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
7 September 2020 - Monday
It is Labor Day, but I did not do anything to tear down the tyranny
of billionaires. In fact, I really didn't do anything at all because it
is SO FUCKING HOT. The end.
I tried to get Thai food again, but failed. Instead I have
Chinese.
Words:
Check, but meh.
Make a comment!
6 September 2020 - Sunday
I did run
Princess World
and wrapped things up, but it was pretty terrible. Dave did most of the
talking, which is not something you expect from a gaming session. I am
failing to bring new gamers into the PBtA community! Anyway, they did
save the galaxy for the time being, but did not have enough fun doing it
to want to do it again.
Since people want more stabbing, we are going to switch to
Scum and
Villainy. We'll see how that goes.
Read:
- Spy x Family (Tatsuya Endo) vol 2: I feel a little bit
sad for Anya, having to know so much about humans.
Salad and leftovers.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
5 September 2020 - Saturday
I really need to set an earlier alarm for shopping. But some of the
shopping did get done, and also all of the Thai iced tea.
In Zoomwarts, Bella found out who had her family photo and was using
it for personal gain, got rid of the girls Dumbledore assigned to keep
an eye on her, found a possible solution to being set on fire by ghosts,
and did not turn completely evil. Keeping a list of people who need to
be set on fire is not giving her the moral high ground.
But fortunately all I really have to do for Zoomwarts is have peple
not tell Bella about the unforgivable curses, and Jus is happy. Tomorrow
I have to run Princess World, which will probably be terrible.
Watched:
- Fruits Basket (2019) 22:
More Yuki character development in the conclusion of the conversation
with Student Council Guy. Marith thinks all the parts involving Soma
family secrets were internal monologue and she's probably right, but I
think it would be awesome if they just told people.
- Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These 1:
Pretty visuals, and much faster-moving than the original, but the space
combat is very dumb WWII rehash. We will not be watching more of this
despite the homoeroticism.
- Mob Psycho 100 1:
I hate the animation style, but the first episode was interesting enough
that I'll buy into the hype for now and presume it gets even better. We
all hope that guy gets his come-uppance, though.
Salad and leftovers.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
4 September 2020 - Friday
It's extra Friday, because long weekend. But I have to run two games
this weekend so it will be full of failure.
Leftovers.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
3 September 2020 - Thursday
Reduced work meetings again because boss is out. Wheee.
Read:
- Hair in All The Wrong Places (Andrew Buckley): Middle
school werewolf. As is usual for books with male protagonists, the
female characters are more interesting. Humorous, although there
is some violence.
- Gateways to Abomination (Matthew H Bartlett): Short
stories and vignettes about impossible,
hallucinatory, and generally horrific goings-on in New England. Only a couple
of bits are explicitly Lovecraftian, but the stuff about WXXT could
totally be a
CoC
module.
Microwave food because I forgot to eat leftovers.
Words:
Check.
Make a comment!
2 September 2020 - Wednesday
In this week's
13th Age Glorantha,
the band disregards Garstal's warning about the attack bats and heads
south to the Emerald Earth Temple to consult with Sernernalda, the wyter
specialist, only one day late (which is completely Mernyr's fault). They
engage in a ritual to sort through spirits to find one that would be a
good wyter, end up rejecting a snake spirit, and finally settle on a
more abstract Harmony spirit. (This will give the Trickster something to
subvert in his spare time.) In exchange for drunken singing, the spirit
will help the band communicate and know when someone is in trouble, and
help with group skill checks. Surely this will help them track down the
missing coin purse.
Tilapia and veggies that Marith made earlier before she expired of
capitalism.
Words:
FAIL.
Make a comment!
1 September 2020 - Tuesday
No stress about meeting with my boss because she's on vacation all
week!
Read:
- Sisters of the Vast Black (Lina Rather): Eccentric nuns
and their slug-based bioship vs fascists. Sadly, another Tor novella
pried as a novel.
I actually boiled raviolis, although I probably did it wrong. But
they are full of goat cheese and sundried tomatoes and beside italian
sausage.
Words:
check.
Make a comment!
|