DEC 24

2025

Wednesday: the only part of my dream that I can remember involved the itnroduction of a new antagonist into a fighting series. The guy resembled Sagat from Street Fighter, he had a leadership role in a criminal or military enterprise, and his gimmick was his preoccupation with TV news. The current story would influence his attacks somehow; the only example he could provide was that a news story about missiles meant he'd do a jump kick from a particular direction, but I woke up before we could see how that worked out for him. I immediately got through the bathroom and came into the office to post this update, as well as the one for the past day or two.

My workload is low enough that I didn't feel the need to clock in very eary, so I spent a couple of hours running Lemix dungeons as a blood death knight. These Remix events might be my favorite way to play World of Warcraft; it's a lot like watching somebody play through a game I enjoy, but I can fast forward through the parts where the pacing bogs down. I was in the mid 60s when it was time to shut down and switch to my work device.

My shift was comparably easy: the Resolutions team had to back up the phone lines again, but Accounting has barely been getting calls. On the downside, I mishandled a couple of groups initially because pending transactions weren't showing on the group invoices. Fortunately, I caught the mistakes and got them corrected, so the only real stress of the day was self-inflicted. More salad for lunch, during which I caught up on this week's Castle Super Beast podcast before returning to the Lil Indigestion Blue Prince playthrough. I showed on my first break and shaved on my second break, as we had plans after work.

The first part of our plans involved sitting in the traffic trying to turn onto Morris because of the holiday traffic jam around the Miracle on South 13th St. We regretted not moving our car when we had the opportunity earlier in the day. I offered to block cars long enough for Julie to pull out, but this didn't end up being necessary. She drove us down to Denise and Larry's, where they had us make ourselves plates of pistachio chicken fingers, ham slices, various breads and rolls, an egg salad casserole, mac and cheese, corn, chocolate pretzels, and various other desserts. I'm probably forgetting some of the food on offer. We brought the wines we'd picked up, but I just drank some Diet Dr Pepper that Denise had procured for me. (And a Coke Zero at one point.) We met some of the extended family, and after dinner, we settled in the addition to receive presents and watch A Christmas Story. Julie got a puzzle, we both got a subterfuge/deduction party game, and I got an Eagles stocking cap. These were welcome gifts, but completely unnecessary. I think Julie and Denise particularly enjoyed just catching up and talking about work-adjacent current events. We'll be hanging out again on Saturday with the rest of their family. As people started filing out, we decided to make our exit as well, and I drove us back home, with Julie providing directions on her phone. Traffic was still worse than we expected, but I nosed us into a parking spot near Broad without difficulty.

After treating the cats, I got right to bed, though I did stay up long enough to make progress on the current UmaMusume events. I also caught up with my parents at some point today, and they notified us to expect a big package of various possessions of mine was on its way, along with Dad's assortment of impulse buys from online stores. We all agreed that this is likely to be delivered sometime around 2030 or 2040.

2024

Tuesday: woke up a little early, despite my late night. Main goal for today was to pack for our trip to Wichita for the wedding. I ran to the store for cat treats and water, and while I considered going by Target for socks, the chaos in the parking lot gave a strong incentive to take care of that on a different occasion. I brought Taco Bell home again, and while I ate, I watched the start of Kastaclysm's Silent Hill 3 playthrough. Julie got a notification that her prescription was ready to be refilled, so we walked down to Rite Aid, possibly for the last time. (I think the location will be closed since the parent company filed bankruptcy. There shelves were starting to empty.) I confirmed that Rite Aid didn't have any socks, so we stopped into the shoe store next door. Back home, I gathered the litter while Julie took out the recycling. I finally replaced the worn out plastic bag I'd used for the recycling in the office with my the mesh bag from the shoe store.

With the trash and recycling staged for later, I took a shower before packing my carry-on. I had a little bit of salad to use up, while Julie made an omelette for herself. While we ate, we watched the series finale of Lower Decks. We're both disappointed that the series has come to an end. Since we weren't really in the mood to just jump into Buffy, we just watched a few episodes of Bob's Burgers. While we watched, I spent some time grinding money in one of the base adventures in Vampire Survivors. Since I started to drift off, we called it quits, and I took the trash bags out to the bin, after which we treated the cats. Julie headed to bed, and I posted this update.

2023

Sunday: my annual coughing spell is back in force today. I had been dreading my return to work after a week away, but Christmas Eve call volume is pretty low, and I was just doing floorwalking and catchup project work anyway. My shift bid results came up today confirming my schedule for the next six months will remain the same. Once work ended, we had dinner plans at the Cheesecake Factory with another couple. I debated whether I should refrain thanks to my cough, but so far this is the same respiratory issue I have dealt with every year for the past eight years, so I decided to just down more cough medicine and carry cough drops with me while wearing my mask. I enjoyed the conversation, and the food was pretty good, but our waiter was a little overworked with the number of tables he was dealing with. Once we got back home, I finished watching the Pat Stares At stream I'd had on earlier while preparing for this update. I'm hoping I can avoid talking at all tomorrow.