JAN 08

2026

Thursday: got up and clocked right into work. It felt like I spent the entire day working on approximately two groups, which is pretty frustrating. Julie made spaghetti for dinner, and I ate before doing a little bit more work to try to finish the group I'd started. (Part of the difficulty I was having was Goose insisting on lying on my for so much of the latter part of my day.) When I finally decided to sign off for the evening, I went to the living room, where Julie had been listening to an Agatha Christie novel on her phone. She switched to her block puzzle game, while I got into Red Dead Redemption 2. It turned out that I was maybe two missions away from completing Arthur Morgan's story, after which I continued right into the epilogue. The end of this game had a lot of vibes in common with the very end of Metal Gear Solid IV. When it got late enough, I treated the cats and went to bed to do my UmaMusume quests. John seemed to want to tent with me, but he took a long time just sitting on my chest while I held the covers over us to decide whether to situation himself under my legs like usual. When he did finally settle down, Mim spent an hour or so pacing around trying to figure out where his scent was coming from; once he finally came out and tried to lay by my leg, she growled enough to run him off, and I fell asleep.

2025

Wednesday: my late night translated into being way too tired to get up at a reasonable time. I pulled myself together enough to put on my warm jacket and drive to the store. (I discovered something about myself while I was shopping today. When I can't find my preferred merchandise and its shelf is sufficiently disorganized, if I can face the merchandise properly within 20 minutes, I'll do so. At minute 21, though, I cut my losses and grabbed the Ice 12-pack rather than the bottles of black raspberry I'd been looking for.)

I brought our Taco Bell back home by 2:30, and we ate a late lunch. We'd thought we were going to go to the gym today, but Julie had too much of a headache. We then bundled back up to walk to Rite Aid for an immunization follow-up. (I think this was for hepatitis B? We spent some time talking with the pharmacist about the current recommended schedule for similar vaccines.) I should have worn an overcoat, because even with my hooded brown jacket and gloves, the wind was cutting right through me. It wasn't a long walk, though, and once we got back home, I vacuumed the bedroom and the office before making taco soup for dinner. While the chicken works fine as a replacement for beef, I neglected to pick up any tortilla chips, so once it was cooking, I ran back out to the corner store to buy a bag. The store on Broad was closed already, but at the other end of the block, the place by the gym had plenty of varieties to choose from. While I was wearing more now than I'd had on for our pharmacy trip, the sun had gone down, and I was wearing shoes without socks, so it was even more miserable.

Once I was home, we had dinner while watching the end of the fifth season of Buffy, though I was also unlocking some secrets in Vampire Survivors. (I was inspired because a video last night had reminded me of how triumphant the climax of the "Ode to Castlevania" expansion feels, and I realized I could use the associated character to overcome some challenges I had been struggling with.) Rather than move on to the next season, Julie was eager to rewatch and to introduce me to Star Trek: Prodigy, so we watched the first couple of episodes of that. Then, I treated the cats and came in here to post this update!

2024

Monday: woke up super early to work on a project, though I did watch some streamer reactions to the FFXIV FanFest while I ate some breakfast cereal. My work shift went alright, as despite being in WAVE season, my department's call volume was pretty low, and we didn't have to back up the Reservations team. After work, we went to Quizzo with Meagan, Justin, and Phil, though we arrived an hour and a half too early, so we had some waffle fries at Lucky 13 to kill some time. The trivia itself celebrated major events in 2023, and perhaps because there were only seven or eight teams, we managed to come in first! I crashed in the egg chair right after we got home for a few hours before getting up to work on my IF project.

2023

Sunday: A late start with eggs, sausage, and toast for lunch. At the gym, I did my favorited "mountains" cycling routine while rereading a random selection of Zarf's commercial game reviews from the last 5 years. Julie was the recipient of a spare ticket to the Flyers-Maple Leafs hockey game, so she headed out around 5 PM. I had a big salad for dinner while watching LPs on YouTube.

While I was in the bathroom, the sink drain seemed to be a little backed up, and while trying to check for a clog, I accidentally disconnected the metal plunger used to close or open the drain, so I had to reclamp it. Later, Julie returned with Phil, and we talked about cats and Civ and board games. I watched some Civ VI videos to see if we could figure out why we were struggling to adapt to the game's changes until we both crashed.

At one point in the day, I tried to help Koop with an itchy ear, but the itches were too much and she had to scratch with her leg as well. Like a fool, I didn't stop my own efforts, and in the process my hand got flayed. I have at least 17 separate scratches on the back of my right hand near my thumb.

Steam:
Sid Meier's Civilization VI - Army of Cthulhu