FEB 01

2024

Thursday: after my late night last night, I slept in a little bit such that I didn't start my grocery shopping trip until after 1 PM. I first went to the Subway on south Broad for lunch, and at Acme, I picked up my usual groceries, plus more parmesan cheese, and for a snack, I got two bags of chips & containers of dip. That way, when Julie finds the badly-hidden bag and lightly-obscured container of dip, she won't notice the better-hidden duplicates, and for once, they should hopefully last until next Thursday. When I got back home, I had to move the car after unloading groceries so the construction guys on the corner could back their truck up without having to block the entire street with their vehicle.

Once Julie was done with work, we took our first trip to the gym in months. It turned out that our decision to get pizza from LaScala's Birra was pretty timely, as we noticed that the change in ownership has gone through, and it's operating under a new name now. We'll have to see how the new (?) menu compares. At the gym, my preferred cycle was already occupied, but it turned out the third machine wasn't as broken as we always assumed, so Julie and I were able to both cycle for the duration of our trip. I spent the time rereading old entries of Ryan Veeder's blog and considered how I would characterize my experience of the year 2023.

Back home, we got cleaned up and had more cabbage patch soup for dinner. I was able to run a couple of loads of laundry, and as I ate, I got to watch the resumption of the weekly Disco Elysium stream I enjoy, which went long thanks to being offline for more than a month. I checked into Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, and Final Fantasy XIV in rapid succession, before ending the evening with a trip back to Fallen London, in which I've started the new exceptional story about Ol' Fritz, a terrifying zee-beast. Now, I need to go to bed, so I can get some project work done tomorrow.

2023

Wednesday: shopping day. Trying to spend as little as possible while still get out of the apartment for a meal, I decided to subject myself to the local McDonald's. (It wasn't the worst time I've had in one of their franchises; I used the time eating to read through a Phyrexia: All Will Be One card spoiler. Julie's been hinting I should find more activities outside the apartment, and there is a prerelease event coming up...)

After lunch, I headed to the Acme by Target to get my midweek groceries. Errors this time included picking up an unneeded loaf of bread and not getting more lunch meat. Tried to come home by way of Juniper since I thought construction on our street would make parking too annoying, but I was waylaid by some guys loading furniture in a pickup in the middle of the road, so my parking job still involved multiple parallel parking attempts.

Once the groceries were loaded, we headed for the gym, and I got stuck on a cycle with no internet connection since my current cycle is out-of-order. Julie gave me the wifi, though, so I started reading through reviews and Club Floyd transcripts on my phone. Back at home, we cleaned up and I prepared a slow cooker goulash recipe I've started enjoying before settling in for more Civ VI. This time we went for a Pangaea map type with secret societies and barbarian clans, and Julie was on track for a science victory before we called it for getting too late. We did save the game so we could pick it up again later, though.

After Julie went to bed, I stayed up and played through the entirety of The Little Match Girl 3: The Escalus Manifold, which took me, uh... until Julie woke up the following morning to go to work! Whoops!