Previously, in Trip's Life...
30 November 2008 - Sunday
Vacation: Still recovering. Tomorrow I need to
hassle Taos about work, though.
My apartment seems so squalid now. Sigh.
Gaming: Ayse is still recovering from the hideous
plague of death, so no Thrace for us.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Hurray for Super Affection Beast Marma-Marma, who sleeps on my arm!
Writing: Still vacation. Really.
Make a comment!
29 November 2008 - Saturday
Vacation: Recovering. Ayse and Ken and Dave have
returned to Mountain View with the rest of my Powell's loot, though!
Silly Computer Games: Whee, NPPAngband.
Cats:
Marmalade often kittybreads giant plush kitty Violetta and then sleeps
on her, but today while he was doing that Aspen went and curled up on
Violetta's paws. KAWAII!
Writing: Uh, I'll call it vacation. Yah, that's it.
Vacation.
Make a comment!
28 November 2008 - Friday
Gaming: After many moons, Al got to run his Ptolus game
again. This was the musical comedy episode: a drunk stage director hired
the PCs (minus Ayse's character Erika, who had all the skills and
contacts we needed for the adventure) to keep an eye on the star of his
soon-to-open show because he thought he overheard some gangsters talking
about whacking him on opening night. The kid turned out to be a scion of
the local Crime & Evil Family, Inc, mixed up in some sort of internal
family politics, and the plot to kill him turned out to be real (if
somewhat mysterious). However, no obstacle was too much for our heroes to
overcome in protecting this kid, not even Ken's character Johann (the elven
martial artist) having to go on stage in drag before an audience of
dozens!
The promised percentage of the gate was not very much, because this
was the theater for the lower class, but later a C&EFI representative
delivered a more substantial reward.
There was some investigation into Karl's mysterious box, but it
remains extremely mysterious.
Raul the mechanic went to the temple of the Rat God to investigate a
horrible cyborg monster they had found, but couldn't do anything with it
and didn't want the Rat God to have a working cyborg monster anyway.
Later he ratted them out to his contacts in the secret technology
underground.
Tavern rumor had it that steam-powered automata were stalking a
particular street, so Raul dragged everyone out to help him look for it.
While hanging around the bad part of town in the middle of the night, they
saw some blue gnolls (also mentioned in rumors), but the gnolls did not see
them. As advertised, a steam robot in the shape of a dwarf climbed out of a
well and started trundling along looking for "abominations", at which point
the two blue gnolls came running back and axed it.
Karl's ancestors protected the PCs during the ensuing fight. That's
his story, and no one has a better explanation for how the two fiendish
gnolls landed a total of one hit during the ensuing fight. Despite their
near-immunity to normal weapons, they were brought down and their heads
taken as trophies.
Raul's contacts in the secret technology underground copped to
building steam robots to fight against cyborg monsters, although that
one was a prototype and shouldn't have gotten loose. Then they swore him
to secrecy.
Level UP! 3.5 levelling seems so complicated and annoying compared to
4th edition levelling.
Vacation: Oh no! Ayse has become sick with the
hideous plague of doom and must be quarantined in the upstairs library.
Hopefully she has not infected all of Roseville by having made mashed
potatoes yesterday.
Since Ayse and Ken weren't going anywhere, I got a ride back to
Mountain View with Marith. We didn't get back until almost 2 in the
morning, but finally I was back in my own parasitelair! Yay!
Food: Left-overs. It is the way of our country.
Cats:
Marmalade: "Yay! You're home! YAY!"
Ghirardelli: "Oh, it's you."
Aspen: "What?! I thought we got rid of you!"
Twelve paws!
Writing: VACATION.
That fight by eyelessgame (Wed Dec 3 13:10:52 2008)
I am sending that d20 off to pasture. It could not roll above a 7...
Re: That fight by Trip (Wed Dec 3 15:30:01 2008)
Don't mess with the ancestors, man!
Make a comment!
27 November 2008 - Thursday
Happy Happy National G(luttony|ratitude) Day!
Vacation: I continued to be a poor guest, but Marith
and I did divert the small creatures by playing Settlers of Catan with
them. Robert 0wnz0red us because we didn't prevent him from getting both
big sheep production and the 2:1 sheep port. Oops.
Gaming: While being antisocial, I read Lords
of Madness, the D&D3.x book of abberations (aboleths, beholders,
illithids, neogi (interworld slavers and raiders from one of the later
monster manuals), and something new for this book that crawls inside
people). Mm, tentacles from
beyond space and time! I think they did a pretty good job of explaining
the monsters' behavior enough for a GM to use them while still making
them completely inimical to sane humanoids, although it does mean that
abberations have severely limited emotional range compared to humans. Oh
well, I guess you can't really explain [glyph 1] or the wonder of [glyph 2]
to human gamers.
Also, aberrations don't appear to reproduce sexually: it's all
cloning, with occasional mutation. But they plan to eat all the humans
before evolution could do much for them anyway, so I suppose it doesn't
matter.
Visual Entertainments: Some of us could not escape
before Al showed us the Thanksgiving episode of Sports
Night. It was not explicitly turkey-based, but there was an
uplifting message.
Food: Check! The Thanksgiving feast is pretty well
established as including turkey, yams, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry
stuff, green bean casserole, rolls, more yams, more stuffing, more
cranberry stuff, and more mashed potates. And rice, because that's the
starch of choice in Sherilyn's ancestral homeland. Also there were
desserts containing pumpkin, blueberry, apple, and jello.
My stomach was still recovering from recent abuse, so I couldn't eat
as much as I normally do, but I was able to eat some of everything I
wanted, and it was all good, so it seems wrong to want more.
Cats:
As of last night when Marith and Dave left, they were all fine.
Hopefully they will continue to be fine until tomorrow night. I have
left them alone for similar periods before and all has worked out, but I
worry anyway.
Writing: VACATION.
Make a comment!
26 November 2008 - Wednesday
Vacation: Today was all about the driving, and also
the being zombitastic. We got into Roseville about 19:00, and I at least
was a pretty useless guest from then until I fell over a couple of hours
later.
When Ayse went to check her email, she learned from the Orycon mailing
list that a third of the con had come down with what Ken and I had.
Apparently the CDC thinks it's a norovirus.
Esparza's is exonerated!
Food: Fruit for breakfast, left-over fruit for
lunch, and the mildest bits of Thai take-out for supper. Possibly not
the best food for a recovering stomach, but it seemed to work out okay
for me.
Cats:
No paw report today, because I wasn't smart enough to find ssh on a
Windows box. But Marith and Dave will be here and I can ask them in
person.
Writing: VACATION.
Make a comment!
25 November 2008 - Tuesday
Vacation: FAILURE. I spent the night being feverish
and chilly and progressively emptier, but I figured that was just the
Tex Mex Grease Bomb of Death in my unconditioned stomach. When I called
Ayse and Ken, though, I learned that Ken had spent the night in similar
condition and was in no shape to do anything except lie in bed groaning
weakly. We cursed the name of Esparza's and notified people we would be
late to Roseville and did nothing except read Powell's loot while Ayse
ministered to us.
The hotel people were very sympathetic and nice about letting us extend our
reservations, and even sent up some ginger ale on the house. I suppose
one doesn't get into the hotel business without at least some
inclination to take care of people.
Gaming: I finished reading the D&D4 martial powers
expansion, which as one might expect is a huge pile of additional
pre-generated menu items to use when assembling a character. In fact,
probably about half of all future D&D4 books will be like this, which is
kind of depressing. I understand why they do it, from both a financial
("Must keep them buying new stuff every month!") and market share ("Must
steal WoW customer base!") perspective, but for gaming that uses seconds
and feet (as opposed to the more abstract indie systems), I don't think
anyone has yet done better than Hero.
Food: Toast, white rice, and ginger ale.
Cats:
Marith alleges that they are all fine, unlike me.
Writing: VACATION.
Illness by Ken (Tue Dec 2 18:13:36 2008)
A note for other readers: It turned out not to be Esparza's fault, as like a third of the con caught Noro-Virus, which has symptoms very much like food poisoning.
Make a comment!
24 November 2008 - Monday
Vacation: Today Ayse and Ken took me around the
Hawthorne district, where they hope to not only live but lure everyone
else to live too. I'm not a connoisseur of either houses or cities, but
it looked nice enough.
After breakfast, we wandered up and down Hawthorne street admiring the
wide variety of used clothing stores, used record stores, and Powell's
branches. There are two of those, one general (which would be a quite large
and fine used book store if it were not in the same city as Powell's Prime)
and one specialized in home and garden books. I ended up with another bag
full of books, including one on the chemistry of food and some from my
list. Muahahaha.
In the evening, we went back to Powell's Prime, and I got two more
bags of books, for a total of five. Lots of entries checked off my
list, but gah.
Food:We started the Hawthone tour with breakfast at the
Bread and Ink Cafe (the
Waffle Window was tempting, but we went in and sat down), and ended it with
dinner at Esparza's
(which is actually several blocks away, but whatever). Wow, wild boar
tacos and buffalo enchiladas!
Cats:
Paw count: 12.
Writing: VACATION.
Make a comment!
23 November 2008 - Sunday
Vacation: Last day of Orycon! Only one panel today, on
urban fantasy, and we missed half of it. Some discussion of the difference
in how the fantasy part is adapted to the modern world, the modern world
adapted to the fantasy, both, or neither, in various works; also of the
importance of sense of place, even when describing a completely fictional
part of a city.
Loot: Ayse got a necklace
with bees, which she will no doubt eventually post about with great
glee. She also made me buy a coat, which probably can't escape being
photographed forever. Then, there was Powell's! Two bags of books, many of
them checked off my master list. Muahahaha.
Gaming: On Genista's recommendation, I made Ken and
Deeann and Curtis help me try out Agricola (how do you
pronounce that, anyway?), a cheerful game of subsistence farming. It even
has sheep counters! However, it is very complex and full of things, which
was more than our con-addled brains could handle, so we gave up half-way
through and went to do other things.
Food: Yay Wildwood! Ayse was
extra-happy because she could get her duck rare, but the rest of us were
plenty happy with our assorted fish and mammals and grilled lemons and
appetizers and yum.
Cats:
Paw report still favorable!
Writing: VACATION.
Make a comment!
22 November 2008 - Saturday
Vacation: More Orycon! Today's panels:
- "Apocalyptic storytelling" — there are all sorts of apocalypses, which
tell more about us than about them.
- "Structure of writing" — question too vague. Conclusion: yes, stories
have structure.
- "Discovering new planets" — the planet imaged in visible light was
pretty cool, but overall there was nothing I didn't already know.
- "Science for rocks" (I don't know what the title means either) — about
how to fake science; notable mostly for the (to me) horrible split
between the two male panelists, both engineers, and the two female
panelists, who both disavowed any knowledge of science or engineering.
- "Non-Western mythology: an unexploited resource?" — half the panel
was non-honkie, so the topic was actually "how to exploit someone
else's mythology without pissing them off excessively", which is
probably more useful since the mythologies themselves are in the
library; the three conclusions were "acknowledge the work of those
who came before", "document all your changes because your new versions
will live forever on the Internet", and "do something to pay for what
you take" (spreading the information wider may count for the
last). The first two I can certainly get behind; the third was fuzzy
enough to mostly avoid problems with information not being property.
I was too lame to go to the masquerade, so I can't report back to my
friends who costume, but Ayse lured me to hang out with her and Ken and
her friend Scott and Scott's wife Shannon and Scott and Shannon's friend
Lee. For a while I was token sober person while they all became tipsy on
a wide assortment of booze and told amusing stories, with a few breaks
to embarrass me. (Why do people keep spreading those scurrilous rumors
about me?!) Then they decided to go out and (watch Ayse and Shannon)
play Fish Barrel Bang, first at a very loud and ostensibly pirate-themed
party and then at the con dance. Ken was pleased at getting the DJ to
play his requests, and allegedly the DJ was pleased at getting
interesting requests. However, I don't dance, and when people starting
breaking out in smooches, I realized that it was no longer the part of
the party for people like me, only for people like Ayse and Ken and
Scott and Shannon.
Random Encounters:
- Scott: Ayse's intermittent friend for years, also a friend of Emily
and I think Chuck. He is dramatic, but somehow in a way that does
not make me gag on pretentiousness, I think because he doesn't take it
seriously.
- Shannon: Scott's wife. She is a Redhead and does genetic experiments
on snakes for fun. She owns a dress that is only three microns thick.
- Lee: A friend of Scott and Shannon, a grey-haired bearded pagan
blacksmith. He listens well.
Food: I'm sure I ate something today but I don't
remember what. Probably something in the hotel restaurant, or maybe con
hospitality.
Cats:
Marith says they're all still okay!
Writing: VACATION.
Make a comment!
21 November 2008 - Friday
Vacation: First day of Orycon! Registration was
hugely inefficient until Ayse volunteered to help, but then became much
more functional.
As con panels always are, the panels were unfocused and often
hijacked by audience members with poor social skills (and if I can tell
someone has poor social skills...), but I managed to extract at least a
sentence or two of content from most of them.
From the panel on "Writing when your brain is mush": set up a routine
so when you do X, your brain knows it's writing time; experiment with
writing and revising at different times of day to see when your brain is
naturally in the best states. (Several people mentioned that although
they're night owls, they write best first thing in the morning.)
From the "Twisting history" panel (audience suggests historical
divergence points, panel of alternate history writers riffs
entertainingly), I learned that humans can't follow even simple
instructions like "No Civil War or WWII".
Between panels I wandered through the dealers' room and art show, but
I'm pretty sure both were better at past Orycons. Stupid STUPID
Republican creatures trashing the economy, I guess.
Later in the evening, Alexander James Adams (fka Heather Alexander)
and his new band Tricky Pixie
played. They were pretty good! AJA's voice has settled in since I first
heard him perform, and the crazy vocalist/all-instruments chick and
crazy cellist chick he's hooked up with are entertaining and musical.
W00t!
Random Encounters: Ken's old boss Deeann (sp?) and
her husband Curtis have settled in the PNW after wandering the country
for several months, so we suddenly encountered them at Orycon!
Food: For brunch, Bijou Cafe
introduced me to their goat cheddar and bacon omelet! We were very happy
together, although possibly not as happy as Ayse and her oyster hash!
Apparently a Portland trip is not complete without Sushi
Ichiban (formerly Sushi Takahashi), so we dragged Deeann and Curtis.
One of my shrimp tempura rolls was past its best, but otherwise the
sushi was satisfactory and extraordinarily cheap. It's almost as though
Portland is near an ocean or something.
Cats:
Marith reports all is well!
Writing: VACATION.
Make a comment!
20 November 2008 - Thursday
Vacation: Today, we drove. Ken got back from work at
about 14 o'clock, and by 14:45 we were trundling northward. Then, we
trundled some more. Then, we trundled some more. We got into Portland
about 1:30. Tud.
Food: Sometime in the early evening, we began seeing
signs for some restaurant called Granzella's that was the local big
deal, so we stopped there. We only interacted with the
deli-and-fancy-groceries section, but it wasn't too bad. Ayse had to
exercise restraint to not buy good jam.
Cats:
I'm sure Marith and Dave will take very good care of them, but I still
worry!
Writing: VACATION.
Make a comment!
19 November 2008 - Wednesday
Work: Taos has finally given up on that assignment.
Sheesh. Well, perhaps they will find something while I am on vacation
and I can start soon after I get back.
Gaming: No Earthdawn because Ken was dead. We played Tigris & Euphrates instead
and I lost ignominiously.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Marith and I took all three cats to the vet for an annual checkup and they
did not like it at all! Aspen ran as soon as she saw the carrier, but I
finally cornered her under the library couch and carried her by the scruff
of the neck to her doom without getting clawed. Marmalade fought
surprisingly much considering how laid-back he normally is, but did not
maul me either. Ghirardelli didn't want to go into the carrier,
but didn't fight.
I put Marmalade and Aspen together in the big carrier, because they are
usually snuggle-friends, but there was so much growling and swearing!
Ghirardelli, by himself in the little carrier, issued the occasional
complaint, but was not too loud.
Marmalade ran around the examination room as soon as I let him out, and
Ghirardelli jumped up on the table and sat there like the big fluffy lump
he is until he was done and then hopped into the carrier, but poor Aspen
clung to the inside of the carrier until dragged out, and then flattened
herself to the table and tried to crawl away from the terrible monster-paws
until we let her dive into the carrier and hide her head under Ghirardelli.
She was definitely most traumatized!
Marmalade and Aspen needed distemper vaccine boosters, and Ghirardelli
still has a thing on his tongue, but otherwise they are very fine cats and
not at all likely to keel over while I am away on vacation. Whew!
Aspen and Ghirardelli rode very quietly back in the big carrier and
Marmalade complained and complained about being stuck in the little
carrier, so apparently I should have packed them that way to begin
with!
Ghirardelli forgave me right away, Marmalade forgave me after a few
hours, and Aspen will probably never forgive me.
Writing: Fail.
Make a comment!
18 November 2008 - Tuesday
Work: ...
Gaming: Nothing today.
Visual Entertainments: Rose of Versailles
10-11: Just in case anyone was unclear on why the people revolted.
Kashimashi 3: Silly. Gurren Lagann 14-15: Not
exactly the answers we were looking for, but interesting nonetheless!
Simoun 15: Also no answers, but lots of angst!
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Suck.
Make a comment!
17 November 2008 - Monday
Work: Still holding...
Gaming: Nothing today.
Visual Entertainments: Nothing today.
Silly Computer Games: NPPAngband until my
brain comes out! (At least it doesn't use a mouse.)
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Blargh. Too stupid.
Make a comment!
16 November 2008 - Sunday
Gaming: The PAD&D4 PCs got attacked by sticky
chitinous monsters on two successive nights of their escort quest, so
they know something is definitely up, but we didn't get to any of the
bits that explain what's up or provide loot. Sniff!
Visual Entertainments: None today.
Silly Computer Games: No more sudoku! It makes my
tentacles sore!
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Blargh.
Make a comment!
15 November 2008 - Saturday
Gaming: Okay I guess I know what monsters to use,
and what their motivation is. Together with my new dice bag, that should
be plenty for an adventure, right?
Visual Entertainments: Earl lured me to see the new
Bond movie. Enh. There were some good bits, but overall it was not that
great.
Also, I was sad that Bond did not get his ass kicked by little-girl cyborgs
in the Italian scenes, but I think that's just me.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Twelve cute paws!
Writing: Blargh.
Petite Italian Cyborgs by Carl (Tue Nov 18 23:21:13 2008)
I would go see QoS if it had a Gunslinger Girl crossover. Perhaps the Internet will fill in that much-needed gap.
Instead I saw Let the Right One In in Berkeley (it was great!), and picked up the Sweet Agatha RPG at Endgame on the way home thanks to lucky BART timing. They didn't have Annalise or I would have gotten that too.
Make a comment!
14 November 2008 - Friday
Work: Taos hasn't found me anything else, but
apparently that one position still wants me. Sheesh.
Gaming: Okay, that's like a plan for Sunday. Kinda.
Visual Entertainments: Origin, an anime
movie in roughly the same genre as Nausicaa. It is very
pretty and has some cool bits (which I will not spoil), but is maybe
just a bit messagey. Also, they fail at basic knowledge of rocks, but
that probably doesn't bother other people like it does me.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats: Twelve paws that must suffer the oppression of pettins!
Writing: Blargh.
Make a comment!
13 November 2008 - Thursday
Gaming: Okay, that is like a hideous plan of death
and dismay for the PCs! Muahahahaha!
Visual Entertainments: Sixth disc of
Trigun. There is a very important question which they now
have only two discs (probably six episodes -- when did four or five
episodes per disc instead of three become standard?) to answer. Also,
flashback doooooom!
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Blargh.
Make a comment!
12 November 2008 - Wednesday
Work: Blargh.
Gaming: I got the Palo Alto D&D players to agree on
what course their characters will follow for the near future, so I can
plan an adventure accordingly. I choose to count this as a victory.
Visual Entertainments: Cat is full of stupid STUPID
microbe creatures, so no Jeeves and Wooster or
xxxHolic for us! Instead, I watched the fifth disc of
Trigun all by myself. The plot, it thickens.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh!
Cats:
13.7 paws, ±2!
Writing: Blarghity.
Make a comment!
11 November 2008 - Tuesday
Work: Suckage.
Gaming: The new dice bag I got for $1.5 at Daiso is
satisfactory. Hopefully I can keep Marmalade from eating it, but if I
can't, it's not hard to replace!
Visual Entertainments: Stupid STUPID matroska format
weasels are defeating me. In theory Quicktime Pro can convert .mkv to
.mp4, but in practice it runs through the conversion and fails with
error -50. (WTF is with bare error numbers?! It's not the 1960s anymore,
you can afford a few dozen bytes for a string! Losers.) We have to watch
Kashimashi instead of Oh! Edo Rocket. Fortunately
people do not hate it very much.
Gurren Lagann 13: Of course they cut to the closing credits
before the answer to the Big Question! Simoun 13-14: Well, at
least this time we got to see someone lose San in response to the answer to
the Big Question, even if we didn't see the answer. Rose of
Versailles 9: No mysteries here, just doom for everyone!
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Blargh.
Make a comment!
10 November 2008 - Monday
Work: I didn't do anything about work today because
Liralen!
Carefully Planned Encounters: Liralen!
Gaming: We took over Dave's apartment and Carl ran Don't Lose Your Edge (an
adaptation of Fred
Hicks's marvelous Don't Rest Your Head
for a setting we still call Shadowrun) for Liralen
and Ayse and I, since we didn't get to play on Saturday. I was so lame that
by the time I finished making a character we only had a couple of hours
left before Dave wanted his apartment back, but we triumphed utterly
anyway. We all got into the descriptions, so the one-roll combats worked
okay, and a good time
was had by all (except maybe the
PCs). Whee!
Visual Entertainments: Fourth disc of
Trigun, where the doom increases.
Food: Chef Chu's, and the Whole Roasted Fish of
Doooom!
Silly Computer Games: Not too much today.
Cats:
I oppressed Aspen so much with the pettins and nuzzling and
obviously false promises that I wouldn't eat her, but she took it mostly
in good humor.
Writing: None today.
Cat Fish by Carl (Wed Nov 12 07:54:51 2008)
Perhaps you could have lured Aspen to her doooom by bringing home a tasty fish head larger than she is!
Re: Cat Fish by Trip (Wed Nov 12 09:16:57 2008)
Ooh, that would have been extra-insidious of me!
Make a comment!
9 November 2008 - Sunday
Gaming: Thrace! Lycoris went with Armor Proficiency
(Leather) because it seems to be of similar utility to Toughness (roughly,
about one less hit per combat) and does not require cold baths. However,
the utility of either feat would have been zero during this session, since
it was all Resi (and some Erianthe) dealing with local politics and
horrible undead heirloom assassins. On the other hand, we did get a lead on
a monastary full of undead that needs extirpating, so there will be more
combat soon.
I think Marith feels very oppressed for having late-20th-century
values, but she shouldn't.
Visual Entertainments: None today.
Silly Computer Games: Lots.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Not very much.
Make a comment!
8 November 2008 - Saturday
Gaming: Stupid STUPID microbe creatures.
Visual Entertainments: First disc of Samurai
7, which is like The Seven Samurai with more robots.
I've seen this disc before, but now that I can make GreenCine deliver
the rest to me, I thought it was worth rewatching.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Blargh.
Make a comment!
7 November 2008 - Friday
Work: Bah, no word from Taos.
Gaming: Oh no, the Liralen Gaming Extravaganza
tomorrow might be derailed by stupid STUPID microbe creatures!
Visual Entertainments: Second disc of Nanaka
6/17. I mostly remember what was going on from when GreenCine sent
me the first disc all those aeons ago!
Silly Computer Games: Augh too much sudoku! No, I really mean too much!
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Slightly less blargh than before I put away
the sudokrack.
Make a comment!
6 November 2008 - Thursday
Work: Poked Taos, but still nothing.
Gaming: Perhaps on Saturday I will get to game with
Liralen!
Visual Entertainments: Finished the disc of
Batman Animated Series. Wow, that's retro.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Blargh.
Make a comment!
5 November 2008 - Wednesday
Work: Blargh.
Gaming: Mike is spending the week dead for tax
reasons, so no Earthdawn for us.
Visual Entertainments: Extra bonus Wednesday Night
Whatever! Ken finally brought Jeeves and Wooster, so we
watched one episode of that and two of xxxHolic. I wonder how
Jeeves would handle working for Yuuko?
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
I think Ghirardelli's game is tag, since when he gets my attention and I
go raar, he runs away from me until he can get to the safe spot. (Then
he gets pettins!)
Writing: Blargh.
Make a comment!
4 November 2008 - Tuesday
Democracy: Check! Not that the electoral votes in
the national election are likely to be affected by my contribution, but
the bigoted asshaberdashery[*] of Proposition 8 is a straight popular
vote, so I could have an effect.
[*] Yah, yah, "people of good will but profoundly different
worldview", sure, whatever. Every bigoted asshat has an excuse for why what
they're doing is really the right thing, but that doesn't make them any
less bigoted. There's no special secret internal essence that's the
"real you"; whatever you do, you are by definition the sort of person who
does that thing. If you write, you're a writer; if you blow off
appointments to sleep in, you're a slug-a-bed; and if you vote to
make a constitution deny rights to an arbitrary subset of the
population, you're a bigot.
Democracy, Cont'd: W00t! The US is finally competent
enough to elect a President that's not a Republican thug! Bonus points
for racial minority! Now perhaps this country can stop getting worse!
Props to McCain for conceding gracefully instead of being a Bush-like
dick about it. I hear his concession speech was even pretty good.
However, California does not seem to be avoiding the suckage of
constitutional discrimination. Bah!
Gaming: You know, I should probably stop writing
"FAILURE" all over the place. But nothing accomplished today.
Visual Entertainments:
- Rose of Versailles 7-8: If a generation of Japanese girls
was raised on these role models, I'm surprised they have a country left.
- Simoun 12: La la angst la la love la la drama la la-- !!!
- Shakugan no Shana 23-24: Looks like they knew they had
funding for a second season when they wrote this ending. :(
- Gurren Lagann 12: Yay Nia! Yay Yoko!
Food: Neil tried a new place for anime foods, since
he now works in a different place and travels past a different set of
restaurants on his way to Dave's. Sadly, the Mediterranean wraps (in
California, anything can be a burrito) were not deemed to
provide sufficient yumminess for their price. Ah well, if experiments
were always successful, they wouldn't be called experiments.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Have I mentioned lately that my cats are covered in protein filaments?
Well, they are!
Also: days since ailurophagy in this household: at least 374! Somehow
I doubt Aspen is impressed by this figure.
Writing: Blargh.
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3 November 2008 - Monday
Gaming: It looks like Lycoris's future is tending
toward an excess of cold water and a deficit of lying abed in the
morning, unless she can divert it toward heavy leather jackets. Well, if
she becomes evil, we'll know who to blame!
Visual Entertainments: Finished the rest of the disc
of Rune Soldier. Enh. Started a disc of Batman
Animated Series. Enh.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Twelve fuzzy paws!
Writing: Suckage.
Make a comment!
2 November 2008 - Sunday
Gaming: Palo Alto D&D, in which the PCs
short-circuited the adventure by talking to the villains. If I were
cooler, I would have had the villains be completely
unreasonable, but I was only able to make them be somewhat unreasonable,
which the PCs were willing to take as an initial position for
negotiation. I will have to think of something else horrible to do to
them now.
Visual Entertainments: Some of the second
disc of Rune Soldier. Enh.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Some, but it still sucks.
Make a comment!
1 November 2008 - Saturday
Gaming: FAILURE.
Visual Entertainments: FAILURE.
Food: Birthday tapas for Ayse and
Cat!
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
I have seen each of the cats on the bed, and Marmalade and Aspen
together, and Marmalade and Ghirardelli together, but now I have seen
them all three together! If I had a camera, you would never escape the
cat pictures.
Writing: Extensive FAILURE. Also, apparently I am not
doing NaNoWriMo this year, because
I suck.
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