JAN 01

2026

Thursday: tossed and turned a bit getting to bed thanks to congestion from my cold. Woke up initially around 2:30, but that was too early, so I slept again until 7. In my dreams, pushing shopping carts and sharing food and other such routine activities became the real-world analogs to fake digital horse training. After I awoke, I just lay in bed for a while, and Julie actually got through the bathroom first. I then read a bluesky thread by the dreamwidth person about livejournal's probably imminent shutdown for non-Russian users, so I decided to get up and try to archive the old accounts that Julie and I had. But first, I had to write this part of today's update and the majority of yesterday's, as is my current method. Much of my morning afterward consisted of catching up on videos, Hearthstone, posting about our LiveJournal woes on various websites. I had cereal for breakfast and salad for lunch. I spent a little time in World of Warcraft at the midpoint and end of the day, in which I created a tauren rogue for Lemix, but in the afternoon, I joined Julie in the living room to play Red Dead Redemption 2 for the first time in years. (Julie spent much of the day setting up the new laptop she'd bought a year or two ago.) I was pretty far along in the RDR2 story; I did a job for Rains Fall and another job for Dutch, plus two optional hunts with a veteran, and Arthur rightly complained about his health. Most of my time was spent just navigating the environment and reacquainting myself with the controls and the goals I had been pursuing. Eventually it was time to start dinner, and I went into the kitchen to make vegetable pasta with feta using Julie's rehydrated peas. Despite using too small a frying pan, the recipe came together well, and we ate at our respective computers. I watched some more Sean Plott and played WoW until I felt sleepiness descend. At some point, I got into UmaMusume long enough for the Champion's Meeting: Scorpio Cup first round, and I was astonished that in the five races, each of the characters on my team of Gold City/Maruzensky/Agnes Digital won one herself, which qualified me for the... A Group, I think? I don't normally do well enough in CM events to pay that much attention to the structure. I can't imagine the next round will go well, since I'll be placed with all the whales.

IS THE 12/30/25 COUGH STILL HERE? YES

2025

Wednesday: I started my new year with my regularly scheduled weekend, but Julie had the day off for the holiday. She was in a miserable mood brought on by a lack of sleep, thanks to our upstairs neighbor's party noises that lasted early into the morning. She spent the morning rewatching Schitt's Creek. I came out long enough to play Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete, after which I transcribed all my vacation updates for this website that were missing from the last week of December and the second week of October. I gathered up the litter and took a shower. Over on select button, I've been threatening to get back into Final Fantasy XI, and I began that process by downloading a bunch of game files while I prepared our vegetable pasta with feta for dinner. Julie was enjoying her gummies too much to help me with the trash, so I brought that and the recycling out to the curb after we were finished with our meals. While I ate, I watched videos on how best to get FFXI working on modern hardware, and before I went to sleep, I was able to resume playing. My character Terica is on Asura, which I have been assured is the best choice for most purposes.

World of Warcraft Achievements:
What Could It Be? - Completed on: 1/1/2025, 2:15:00 AM

2024

Monday: woke up late, and "woke up" is a generous way of putting it, as I spent hours afterward trying not to drift off. Julie made eggs, bacon, and toast, and in the afternoon I got the litter and trash before vacuuming. For dinner, Julie made the spinach, carrots, and chickpeas over rice dish which we haven't had in a while. We watched a little more MacGyver before deciding we'd rather be watching Murder, She Wrote. I tried playing some Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy and made decent progress, but between the fact that my mouse is wireless and the lack of a good surface to use it on, I decided to stop after reaching the hot tub. The next two days promise to be miserable, but maybe with enough cough drops, the endless procession of phone calls for work won't be unmanageable.

2023

Sunday: after our New Year's Eve party, we walked back home through the fog, umbrellas at the ready. I snoozed until the early afternoon before running the vacuum in the bedroom; I took a long time to write yesterday's update. Once I finished, I cut up an onion and prepared a pressure-cooker goulash recipe I picked up last month. I scalded my mouth a bit, but it was still good. We played another round of Civ VI, but I got knocked out as Spain after I retaliated against Australia for trying to invade.

Steam:
Sid Meier's Civilization VI - Naming Rights
Sid Meier's Civilization VI - Drama Queen
Sid Meier's Civilization VI - Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures