Previously, in Trip's Life...
31 July 2006 - Monday
Oh, look, it must be Monday.
* * *
I have won zangband again, this time as a warrior. I could try to win
again without save-scumming, but I think I've used up most of the fun
already.
* * *
Now half-way through American Gothic. Yike.
* * *
Cats: Zoomy! And armpit-snorfling!
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
30 July 2006 - Sunday
Ayse and Ken didn't make it to Rachel's birthday party because Aime
exploded and they had to spend all afternoon at the vet's. (But Aime
will be okay!) Marith and I went and hung out and poked at holographic
jigsaw puzzles and ate stuff until we got socialized out and went
home.
* * *
There was a vague plan to play board games, but it never
materialized, so I watched a lot of American Gothic
instead. Wow, so much doom is coming.
* * *
Cats: Because I was lame about getting up, I got so much
Dani-snuggling!
Writing: check.
Aime! by Ayse (Mon Jul 31 22:04:27 2006)
She is in fact so okay that she's spent the vast majority of the day in my lap, hiding her face in my elbow and sleeping. And in between she has been doing usual kitten things, like bugging Jinian and staring out the window and partaking of kibble.
Re: Aime! by Trip (Tue Aug 1 10:11:59 2006)
Yay! I am glad she is doing well and can continue to participate in the Kitten Opera!
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29 July 2006 - Saturday
The thermion load is infinitely more livable this weekend than last
(okay, not literally infinitely, or inanimate objects would be coming to
life), but that doesn't make me more productive. (Shock. Surprise.)
* * *
Yay reading.
* * *
Cats: Marmalade jumped into my lap and purrbucketed me for a bit,
then climbed onto the back of the sofa and groomed my hair for like half
an hour while I read. Awww!
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
28 July 2006 - Friday
Indeed, even though we also had Earl and Cat, the leftovers were
plentiful. But that's okay, because at the time we didn't know that we
were going to escape Los Gatos relatively unscathed.
It was a pretty good production of The Lion in Winter,
amateur though it was. Ah, the snark.
Amber should indeed be more like that. The backstabbing doesn't need to
be as concentrated (unless you're doing a con game or other one-shot), but
the dysfunctional family dynamics and everyone being connection multiple
ways is key.
Not that this brings me any closer to being able to run
Amber, mind you.
* * *
Cats: So very very orange!
Writing: check.
amber dogs! by Ayse (Mon Jul 31 22:03:14 2006)
Everyone being connected multiple ways is relationship dice, isn't it? Can one run Dogs sufficiently simmishly to make people happy and still get the sweet sweet relationship dice?
(Or maybe it's just pre-genned characters. These are not carefully constructed thoughts.)
Re: amber dogs! by Trip (Tue Aug 1 10:09:25 2006)
Amber dogs, trapped between the red dogs on one side and the green dogs on the other, because amber means GO REALLY FAST! Okay, maybe not.
I think relationship dice can be at a large angle to simmish gaming, if not actually orthogonal, but I'm not sure whether Dogs can ever be simmish. Relationship dice are fitting for Amber in Winter, though, because they don't specify love or hate or any other single attitude. On the other hand, in such a PC-vs-PC sort of game, they'd be used for practically every conflict.
What I thought of when watching LiW was the relationship maps from Sorcerer, connecting all the characters with "irrevocable ties of blood and sex".
I'm not sure how to get that tangled of a mess without actually playing through creating it, though. Just writing down previous interactions on pre-gen character sheets might not be enough. Playing a few prologue conflicts to build up the bad blood before locking all the PCs into the infinite box might work.
Gaming is hard, let's watch anime.
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27 July 2006 - Thursday
Now I have shopped for tomorrow's picnic. It all seemed so reasonable
at the time, but looking at the total, I can only conclude that I was
subconsciously worried that we might be trapped in the hostile
wilderness of Los Gatos for an extended period.
* * *
Finished Maburaho. Sadly, it failed to worldbuild enough
to make the Big Final Choice seem necessary enough -- other solutions
weren't sufficiently ruled out.
This is what happens when gamers watch specfic.
* * *
Cats: Marmalade is being affectionate again! Yay big orange love!
Writing: check.
picnic by kit (Sun Jul 30 03:00:39 2006)
*laughs out loud*
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26 July 2006 - Wednesday
Tentacles!
(via Martha
Wells)
* * *
I spent the pile of money for Lost Girls. It's not
actually that much for a boxed set of three hardcover GNs. Eventually I
will probably actually read and comment upon it.
* * *
Suprise lack of Dragon-Blooded, as Ken returned from work feeling
unwell. (Probably a side effect of the perfidy of doc control.)
* * *
More Dead Like Me, not so rutful! Or at least, I liked
it better than the last couple.
* * *
Ayse watered and cold-packed the cats again, because she is so nice,
but I think it may not have been necessary, because Marmalade was up and
about instead of just lying comatose on the kitchen linoleum.
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
25 July 2006 - Tuesday
Fewer thermions today! This is a good trend. I wish it to continue.
* * *
I've been reading An Anthropologist On Mars (Oliver Sacks)
only ten years behind the times, and the section on the man who regained
his sight after being blind since early childhood, and the problems he
experienced, made me wonder what enhanced senses would produce the same
effect when bolted onto a stock human brain. (Of course the social effects
would probably be different.)
My first thought was something like radar or echolocation, with a
direct perception of distance (we all know that time and c are the same
thing as distance), but vision has enough hacks for finding range that
knowing the range probably wouldn't make a difference.
Something that really senses in three dimensions (crudely, that must
be represented as voxels, not pixels), like dolphin sonar
or Snow Crash-style mm-wave radar, would probably do it.
The other thought I had, based on Sack's description of sight being
spatial while the perception of the blind is more temporal, is that
ChronoVision™, where the past, future, or both states are
perceived as well as the present state, would also cause
brain-meltage.
(Abstractly, these both increase the incoming information from a 2D
array of small vectors (R, G, B, maybe range) to a 3D array of such
vectors. Combine them for 4D fun!)
Now you know what I think about on the bus.
* * *
UPS has delivered to me a T-shirt with the
certified correct and properly attributed version of the James Nicoll
English quote! Muahahahahahaha!
* * *
Marith is very pleased with Princess Tutu. Everyone is
still pleased with Otogi Zoshi and Bleach,
and confused by Kiddy Grade. Thus, Tuesday Night Anime has
succeeded.
* * *
Cats: Apparently raisins and grapes are toxic to cats. I did not know
that. Fortunately, I'm not a big raisin fan, but I should be sure to keep
Marmalade and Dani away from my stash of frozen grapes.
Writing: check.
thinking on the bus by kit (Thu Jul 27 09:56:33 2006)
I'd read a SF novel or short story based around that premise. She said encouragingly. :)
raisins cats and Oliver Sacks by Ayse (Thu Jul 27 10:32:00 2006)
Is the Sacks book you're reading the one that talks about losing all colour vision and ending up seeing in black & white? I found that most fascinating, although I bet if I reread the book I would have all sorts of new thoughts, as my brain has grown since I first read it (about ten years ago in fact!).
And I had no idea about raisins and grapes! Jinian loves sharing grapes with me, although she just licks them, but I guess I should stop doing that!
Re: thinking on the bus by Trip (Thu Jul 27 10:58:30 2006)
The angel in the pirate fragment has excessively enhanced senses. Hmm...
Re: raisins cats and Oliver Sacks by Trip (Thu Jul 27 11:10:28 2006)
Yes, that's the one! That's the first chapter in the book. I will be glad to lend it to you when I am done.
Apparently the lethal dose is around ½-1 oz/kg of body mass, so just licking a little grape juice probably won't do much, but meep.
Onions and avocados are also bad for critters, and the seeds of many fruits (mmm, cyanide).
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24 July 2006 - Monday
Work is mostly air-conditioned and I have a fan mounted on my desk,
so there is not too much dying of the thermions.
* * *
Marith came over because my apartment is so much cooler than hers, and
we watched another episode of Dead Like Me. I dunno, I think
second season is failing to get out of a rut. But we're only three episodes
in, so there's still time for George to burst into flames.
* * *
Cats: Wonderful Ayse checked on them this afternoon and gave them
cold packs to lie on and fresh water to drink, so they were perfectly
fine despite the heat! Yay!
Writing: check. Maybe made up a little for the weekend.
Make a comment!
23 July 2006 - Sunday
Not as hot as yesterday, but still Too Hot.
I didn't do much of anything until midafternoon, when Marith and I
went out to get ice cream and confirm that no store in town has either
fans or ice.
* * *
Gaming is usually at 17:30, but it was still too hot, so we pushed it
back until 19:00. Even with the fans, our brains were very slow and not
much use, but we levelled and got some loot sorted out and admired the
kitties lying on their cold packs.
* * *
This time I remembered to set my bedroom to cooling off
before bed time, so I was able to sleep pretty well.
* * *
Cats: Still not panting, although Marmalade doesn't seem able to do
anything except lie on his back on the kitchen linoleum. Dani is more
active, but still likes her specially cool spot in the back bathroom.
Writing: TOO HOT TO THINK.
Make a comment!
22 July 2006 - Saturday
Too. Bloody. Hot.
I went out and got yummy Thai lunch, with shopping on the way back,
but by the time I got home it was too hot to do anything except lie on
the floor and groan piteously. I read The Virtu (Sarah
Monette), the second half of the story which started in
Mèlusine, and it was pretty swell, but I might have
appreciated it more if I had a brain.
* * *
Ayse's cat Jinian got overheated and had to go to the vet! Poor
Jinian! But she will be okay; they just had to get some fluids into her
and let her sit in a cool room for a while.
* * *
It took multiple fans to be able to get to sleep, even though I
didn't go to bed until midnight. Apparently conditions are just right to
keep the weather from cooling off at all during the night.
* * *
Cats: Not panting! (It is always a bad sign when a cat pants with
mouth open like a dog.) But not very active.
Writing: TOO HOT TO THINK.
Make a comment!
21 July 2006 - Friday
We have successfully shown Ayse the middle section of Haibane
Renmei! Only four episodes to go!
* * *
Cats: still lethargic.
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
20 July 2006 - Thursday
Today UPS has brought me a small box of books, and a HUGE box of
books! It will be a pain to schlep them all home, but nevertheless I
cackle fiendishly! Muahahahahaha!
* * *
Ooh, pretty.
* * *
For reasons unclear to me, I wandered into a rightwing blog (Jeff
Gsomethingorother?), and yike. I read some biology/medicine blogs, which
naturally attract people who deny evolution, the germ theory of
disease, and other basic biology and produce acrimonious dispute. But
the harshest personal attacks I've seen there are about even with the
mildest descriptions on the rightwing blog of anyone who isn't
a neocon. Gah. Of course I was aware that neocons are insane, but it's
more disturbing to actually read their bile.
(Yah, I know I'm only about 5½ years behind the curve
here.)
* * *
I could have read some of my immense pile of books, but instead I
stayed up too late watching the end of Petite Princess Yucie.
There was plenty of extra tension in the last few episodes, but the ending
was at about the level of doom I expected.
* * *
Cats: lethargic from thermions.
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
19 July 2006 - Wednesday
Yay, UPS has brought me anime! Now I have all of Princess
Tutu!
* * *
Due to the perfidy of doc control, Ayse and Ken were not able to join
us for Twelve Kingdoms tonight. Stupid stupid doc control
creatures.
We're now up to episode 7! More doom for Sugimoto! Less doom for
Youko!
Also, fresh cherries.
* * *
Cats: I got some affection from Marmalade in the morning, before it
was too hot to touch any other living thing.
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
18 July 2006 - Tuesday
Today's indie game read: Dust Devils, by Matt Snyder (also
responsible for Nine Worlds). This is an older game, from
2002, so it's not as hard-core nar as some of the newer games like
Polaris. It has a GM and everything! Since it's set in the Old
West, it has poker-based mechanics; I'm not sure any Western game since
TSR's long-dead Boot Hill has escaped this. Stats let you draw
cards, skills and traits let you discard and redraw; make the best poker
hand you can under those constraints. Every major character has a Devil,
the sin or mistake they seek redemption for, which can be emphasized to a
greater or lesser extent in any given session. When damage reduces one of
your stats to 0 and you get involved in a conflict that uses that stat,
it's your final scene. You might win or lose, you might live or die, but
your story is over. You do get to narrate the scene, though.
(Although it's tempting to think that an indie Western game that
predates Dogs in the Vineyard must have inspired it, the idea
of using stats two at a time is the only obvious similarity.)
* * *
The end of Gunslinger Girl wasn't as explicitly doomed
as Marith expected, but I think it was still pretty doomy.
We've already seen the beginning of Otogi Zoshi, but now
we have seen it recently, so when we see more next week, we can be all
contextual and stuff.
Still sad that Orihime's coolness is not better displayed in
Bleach.
Next week, if disc 6 of Princess Tutu arrives and I can
confirm that it's the last one, we'll start watching that. Otherwise,
Super GALs!
* * *
Cats: Cutest Dani-tummy!
Writing: check.
More Gals by Carl (Thu Jul 20 05:30:29 2006)
So... you know the second season of Super Gals is coming out December 1st (all at once as a box set, subtitle only), right?
Although that's only 20 weeks away so if you watch one episode per week until then you won't run out before more arrives. Or at 2 episodes per, start it September 5th, right after Labor Day, and you're solid.
Or is each complete season considered a whole for these purposes? Like Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex vs GitS SAC 2nd Gig?
Gunbuster (licensed at last!) vs. Gunbuster 2 (20 years later)?
Complete Anime by Dave (Thu Jul 20 08:44:46 2006)
It's not exactly seasons, since some shows do come out over multiple seasons, but that's generall correct. (Utena, for example, is one show, whereas the two GitS are distinct.)
Re; Complete Gals! More Anime! by Trip (Thu Jul 20 09:21:03 2006)
Since Princess Tutu is complete, we won't be watching Super Gals until later anyway. Thus, no problem!
Make a comment!
17 July 2006 - Monday
Wow, not dead from customers. Is this really Monday?
* * *
spore finished downloading the first episode of Simoun,
which someone-or-other recommended to Marith, so I watched it. Huh. It's
got physically implausible flying machines, girl-smoochies, and possibly
magic. So far, it seems like the same genre as Scrapped
Princess, plus yuri.
* * *
More American Gothic. Hm, [event] suggests that
[character] is [spoiler], but [character] was in [place], and it doesn't
seem like a single location should both have [event] happen and allow
[spoiler] to enter.
* * *
Cats: Still quite orange. Also aloof. I think they think it's too hot
for affection.
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
16 July 2006 - Sunday
Space Pirate Zeta! Finally!
This was the dungeon crawl episode, as we descended into the depths
of Spiny Norman and explored its hominid-derived ecosystem. Information
was gained, although many mysteries still remain. Next session: the Nest
People and their thinking rocks!
* * *
I finished reading the omnibus of the first three Liaden novels that
Ayse lent me. They are indeed hurt-comfort profic, and not very
worldbuildy at all, but at least the Liaden did not turn out to be
Perfect Space Elves that existed only for the sexual gratification of
Mary Sue. In fact, every group appeared to have at least some xenophobic
rat bastards. Even the turtle-aliens, who were overall pretty cool.
* * *
Ayse was cruelly detained by after-class meetings, but escaped
moments before we could execute any alternate plan, so none of us were
deprived of sushi!
(It hardly needs to be said that her teaching was extremely
triumphant.)
Yay sushi!
* * *
Cats: Oh so orange!
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
15 July 2006 - Saturday
I have now read Don't Rest Your Head, and it is pretty
cool. Listed as inspirations are Morrison's Doom Patrol,
Gaiman's Neverwhere, Nix's "Keys to the Kingdom" books, and
Simon Green's "Nightside" books, so by the time you finish this sentence
you should know if you have any interest in the genre.
If you stay awake too much and too long, you start to see the ways
into the Mad City, a dream realm inhabited by Nightmares like the Tacks
Man and his Pinheads, the candle-crowned Wax King, and Mother When and
her Ladies in Hating. On the other hand, you get magic powers.
As I mentioned earlier, PCs get multiple kinds of dice: Discipline
(always), Exhaustion, and Madness (if they want them). The GM only needs
Pain dice. Every die is on average half a success, but whichever sort of
die has the highest number showing dominates the conflict, so using a lot
of Exhaustion or Madness dice will get you successes but plunge you into a
spiral of fatigue and insanity. If you accumulate too many Exhaustion dice,
you keel over and the Nightmares home in on you; if Madness dominates too
many scenes you lose Discipline and gain permanent Madness, and eventually
snap and become a Nightmare yourself.
Although DRYH has a fairly traditional player/GM split,
the Five Questions of character design are supposed to make it easy for
the GM to design scenes around the PC's damage: What's Been Keeping You
Awake?, What Just Happened to You?, What's On the Surface?, What Lies
Beneath?, and What's Your Path?
I don't think DRYH is intended for really long
campaigns, but it's certainly not one of the "everybody dies by the end
of the first session" indie games that the Forge produces.
* * *
Pirates! Arrr! And tentacles!
Apparently the new "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie has been getting
bad reviews for overly complex plot. Reviewers must be getting dimmer.
Anyway, it had pirates! And tentacles! With suckers big enough to pull
your head right off! And a cool voodoo lady!
Also, someone has been reading their Tim Powers.
On the downside, it was really only half a movie. I hope the second
half (next installment?) comes out soon!
* * *
Cats: Orangest ever!
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
14 July 2006 - Friday
Today we(ADKMT) had an extremely clever plan, which involved
Danish-style open-faced sandwiches and also Hamlet. The
execution of the plan was not so clever, as Marith had not told anyone
she wanted to come nor bought tickets, so she had to phone the box
office, and then we got quite quite lost because taking the exit we had
planned on would have involved sitting still in traffic for uncounted
ages.
Our planned picnic turned into trying to make and eat sandwiches very
quietly while sitting in plastic chairs watching Hamlet,
which was not as much fun, but on the other hand, everyone died! And
what more can you ask for? Oh, right, a crazy Ophelia. We had that
too!
* * *
Cats: So cute!
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
13 July 2006 - Thursday
This
speaks to me.
* * *
I really meant to go to the bookstore after doing laundry, but sloth
overcame me. Very sad.
* * *
UPS finally managed to deliver my copy of Don't Rest Your
Head (Fred Hicks)! I haven't fully read it yet, but I am interested
to note that it uses an idea I put into Exaltedway as an option, which is
using different colors of dice so you know what source of plusses
contributed to your result. I'm so cool I can think of ideas that are
almost like ideas that real game designers think of!
* * *
Cats: I have CATS! They live with me, right in my apartment! How
weird is that?
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
12 July 2006 - Wednesday
The customers seem to be letting up a little today.
* * *
Our genius enabled us to turn the two-minute execution of a plan to
drive the wasps out of "our" airship into a three-hour extravaganza of
magical translation, fear of superhuman intellects, algae farming, and
drug dreams. We are teh w1nz0rs!
* * *
Cats: For some reason, Marmalade took a great interest in my right
foot. Experimental sideways fanging (if you've met a cat, you know what
I'm talking about) tickles.
Writing: FAILURE. There was enough time between escaping post-gaming
lethargy and bedtime that I could have written a little bit, but the
cats wanted attention, and then it was pretty late.
Make a comment!
11 July 2006 - Tuesday
Bah, customers.
* * *
There was a tremendously clever plan to cancel Tuesday Night Anime and
instead see Raffles at the Stanford, but it foundered
on the refusal of the schedule to conform itself to our wishes. Also, the
garage didn't give Marith her car back. Then Marith went to sleep, so there
wasn't even anime after all.
Instead, I watched some American Gothic that Earl lent
me. Wow, that's a pretty creepy evil sheriff.
* * *
Cats: Marmalade is so fierce against string that he turned completely
upside-down!
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
10 July 2006 - Monday
Bleah, Monday already. Why can't all weekends be four days
long? I'm ready for my post-scarcity future now.
* * *
Finished the first boxed set (6 episodes) of MI-5. Yike.
Well, I suppose one can always get new friends...
* * *
Cats: When they first acquired me, I was worried that shy quiet Dani
would be all neglected in favor of boisterous purrbucket Marmalade. But
now Marmalade is so busy and important that he has little time for
random affection, and Dani is the one who always sits by or on me and
purrs and rolls upside-down when I pet her. (Only the most cynical would
consider what the temperature has been like recently and which cat has
more fur.)
Also, Dani is so much more genki than when she first came to live
with me!
Writing: check.
cats by Marith (Wed Jul 12 23:58:14 2006)
This suggests that living with you has been good for both cats! Marmalade is happily occupied as ruler of the Carpet Empire and Spaces Above, and Dani is thriving on the attention.
Re: cats by Trip (Thu Jul 13 08:52:53 2006)
Possibly!
I am not the best cat-dad ever, but I am an okay cat-dad, I think.
Re: cats by Marith (Thu Jul 13 09:07:29 2006)
beams For you, that's quite an admission. :)
Make a comment!
9 July 2006 - Sunday
Not much of a day, but I did finish the first draft of Exaltedway. I'm sure there are
thousands of things it needs, but it's a start.
* * *
I keep seeing recommendations for the "Liaden" books, but it appears
to be an infinitely long series so I never bothered to get any. When I
saw a book by the same people (Sharon Lee and Steve Miller) prominently
labelled "book one of <new series>", though, I picked it up.
It's not bad, but it didn't seem very world-buildy. Maybe I read too
much Stross and Bear. Maybe I'm just a freak.
* * *
I just did in Oberon again, so apparently I play too much zangband.
Maybe I can redeem myself by watching MI-5.
* * *
Cats: Will not starve, since I remembered to buy food for them.
Writing: check.
Liaden books! by Ayse (Mon Jul 10 13:06:48 2006)
I have an omnibus of a few Liaden books which I am very fond of, or at least was fond of when I first read them n (5?) years ago. They are worldbuildy in an organic sense, in that I think the authors started off throwing in lots of cool stuff, and then spent some energy trying to justify it, which doesn't make for elegant worlds but can make for a lot of fun if you're a person who likes coming up with justifications (like me). The Liaden books I've read are just begging for fanfic; it's the sort of world that a reader (perhaps especially a teenage reader?) can easily imagine themselves into, and there's plenty of 'unimportant unloved person turns out to be super-special and cool' to go around. And there's a pet librarian! Who can resist that?
Anyway, if you want to borrow them sometime you can! They are good light reading -- er, in the sense of not too brain-intensive, not in the sense of being fluffy, since they have plenty of bad things happen so that the characters can be rescued and comforted and fed ice cream afterwards.
Re: Liaden books! by Trip (Tue Jul 11 08:59:47 2006)
Sounds like hurt/comfort profic? :) But sure, I'll borrow them.
Make a comment!
8 July 2006 - Saturday
Today I read the latest(?) Diana Wynne Jones book, Conrad's
Fate. It was by no means bad, but it did not make me gibber with
the coolness like, say, Homeward Bounders did. Ah well.
* * *
Squack! Marith gave me more birthday present! (Yes, my birthday was in
March, but I'm still 36, so it's all okay.) Not only
do I have an excellent plush weasel named Nelson, I also have art! Yay
Marith!
* * *
Today's cool image: don't mess with the
fox!
* * *
Cats: Marmalade's new nickname is "Opacity-kun".
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
7 July 2006 - Friday
Yike, I been linked! Almost as
though I knew from books!
* * *
After some sadness involving TVs that don't know how to handle 16:9
images, Marith and Dave and Ayse descended upon my Pit of Cats so Ayse
could see the first disc of Haibane Renmei because Marith
thought it was very important that she do so. She was right! Yay!
Then there was talking on the couch until 2965129512 o'clock at
night, but that was okay!
* * *
Cats: Fawn all over the people they rarely see, even though they take
me for granted!
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
6 July 2006 - Thursday
Still not quite the new Monday, although Thursday may be the new
very-late-Sunday-night.
* * *
I forgot to record this at the time, but I have the original of the cutest sailor Cho
picture ever because I donated to Kagerou.
* * *
Nothing is happening tonight. Weird.
I guess I'll watch some more Maburaho, which is kind of
sweet despite being gravity-defying harem anime.
* * *
Cats: Marmalade has graced me with his purrbucketing! I am getting
better at sleeping through the morning purrbucketing, though.
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
5 July 2006 - Wednesday
Surprisingly, Wednesday isn't the new Monday this week, or if it is,
it's a light Monday. I guess all our customers got wired on beer and
barbecure over the long weekend and didn't have time to break their
Minis.
* * *
Ayse was pwned by the dentist and his Novocaine attack, so she and
Ken stayed home, but Marith and Dave and I went over to Earl and Cat's
to watch the start of The Twelve Kingdoms. It met with
general approval, so we'll probably keep watching.
Wow, I hadn't remembered Sugimoto being quite so extreme.
* * *
Cats: Yes, still orange!
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
4 July 2006 - Tuesday
All flickering screens all the time! Marith and I went to see
Cars in the late afternoon, and due to some failure on the
part of the theater (we think), didn't get out until it was already time
for Tuesday Night Anime.
Cars was pretty good, although Marith and I both seem to
lack the "1950s Middle America = Utopia" meme. Not enough Happy
Days in our youth, I expect.
Then, the horrifying conclusion of Samurai Champloo! So
much doom! Even more doom than that!
Next week: Otogi Zoshi!
* * *
Cats: Ignored me all day while I was home, then fawned on me when I
stopped by for two minutes to get DVDs.
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
3 July 2006 - Monday
Sloth! Sl-- you know, I was going to type "sloth" over and over to
describe my day, but now it seems like too much work.
An insufficient number of people had today off for any sort of fun to
materialize, but in the evening there was more WoW Board Game. As usual,
the team I was on sucked the PMW. It's not clear if this is because I
always end up playing Horde and Horde is intrinsically more difficult to
play, or just because I do suck that much. Anyway, when it got too late
(Marith hadn't been able to skip out of work early, so we didn't start
until like 19:00) we had each team separately fight the end boss. The
Horde arguably mutualled with it after three rounds of combat; the
Alliance killed it dead after two. Bah!
* * *
Cats: I still have cats! They live with me in my apartment and jump
on me in the mornings and everything! How peculiar!
Writing: check.
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2 July 2006 - Sunday
Having been betrayed by the married, house-owning gamer contingent,
we had no Space Pirate Zeta today. In fact, not much happened at all. I
went grocery shopping and ate Chinese food and watched a couple of
episodes of Petite Princess Yucie.
While doing all this, however, I read Glasshouse
(Charles Stross) and Blood and Iron (Elizabeth Bear).
Glasshouse is, I think, set in the same universe as
Accelerando, but since it's in a somewhat stable period
rather than the brutal transitions of Accelerando, it's not
as mind-boggling. (Possibly because even Stross can only produce so much
bogglement per decade.) It reminded me a bit of the "Queendom of Sol"
books by Wil McCarthy, only without the Utopian unification. Plus, all
cleverness, all the time!
Blood and Iron is urban fantasy, (of the War
for the Oaks kind, not the vampire-shagger kind). It's not quite
true that no one gets a happy ending, but there's plenty of bloodshed
and a whole lot of sacrifice along the way.
(Blood and Iron might be a bit too long to read in one
sitting, because my eyes were definitely crossing by the end, but I
didn't want to put it down!)
Both recommended.
* * *
Cats: Marmalade seems to have resumed his torrid affair with
Violetta.
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
1 July 2006 - Saturday
Not just any Saturday, but the start of a 4-day weekend! Lethargy
AHOY!
* * *
Earl lured me to see the new Superman movie, despite the poor
reviews, and it turned out to not be too bad. It could have been
shorter, and like James Nicoll I'm not sure about the advanced interior
decorators of Krypton, but it didn't suck nearly as much as it could
have. Normal humans got to display heroism, which is always good!
That was about it for the day, though. Lethargy!
* * *
Cats: So many Danisnuggles! Also Marmalade was less standoffish than
usual and let himself be seized and snuggled!
Writing: check.
Spiky Kryptonian Design by Carl (Tue Jul 4 03:56:04 2006)
Kryptonian Decor reminded me a lot of that paper suggesting how to mark nuclear waste disposal sites so that they could warn people away tens of thousands of years later with no common language - "There's nothing but an ugly death here, go away! No loot!"
I think it would have worked better at 2 hours than 2.5, but I liked it despite the occasional flaws.
re: Spiky Kryptonian Design by Trip (Tue Jul 4 13:21:59 2006)
Superheroes as nuclear waste? There's a story in that, I'm sure.
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