a side-effect of the pandemic has been the perfect storm of boredom and acceptance of virtual meeting technology, which led to me participating in four different "tabletop" RP games across three groups. how's that going now?
in 2020, Friday game moved online. eventually we paused our kind of bleak Star Wars game and moved to playing Savage Worlds superheroes. then in 2021 we switched to a lethal D&D dungeon crawl when the GM got too busy, then picked up the Star Wars game again.
in 2020, the Friday group also started playing through Descent into Avernus on Tuesdays, via Roll20. I joined once I was done with school that November. we finished the complete campaign in late 2021.
in 2021 C and I started playing D&D on Saturdays via Roll20 with friends from college and others - a game played across four US time zones (and elevation from sea level to "high altitude" and corner to corner of the contiguous 48).
at approximately the same time in 2021 we started a FATE game (Trojan war era) with a completely different group of locals on Discord. near the end of the year we transitioned to D&D via Shard.
depending on how schedules lined up (tues and fri weekly, others every other weekish) I either had a steady 3 games a week or 2 a week alternating with 4.
in 2022: Tuesday transitioned to a game set in Savage Worlds' cyberpunk Interface Zero setting. my character for this is a blantant Murderbot rip-off and I love them and their seven itty bitty drones and their arm guns.
Friday Star Wars came to a natural close. the GM literally fulfilled my character bio that I had written in 2019: my character was an Empire war criminal, a True Believer weapons designer who was frozen in carbonite and thawed too late to join the rise of the First Order, looking for a way to Make the Galaxy Great Again... not that the party knew that. I'll remember this one for a long time; she was a full on support character (super badass at mechanics and computers) and hid or ran from combat unless it involved starship gunnery. her last scene was demoing the new technology she had developed to Admiral Thrawn. swoon (we may go back to these characters again someday, but I think she will have to be an NPC. others in the party have devoted themselves to the new republic, so yeah...)
some life stuff has happened to the Tues/Fri fam, so this week we played cyberpunk Tuesday and Friday and will be Friday-only going forward.
Wednesday game (gnome Wizard/Rogue librarian) is chugging along, as is Saturday game (Dwarf champion fighter using the Building Chatacter Gimli build). so three games, three groups, anywhere from 1 to 3 games a week.
recently someone posted on one of the Seattle subreddits that their olive tree was fruiting. this isn't as weird as it sounds, we're technically a Mediterranean climate. which sent me down a rabbit hole of researching what can grow well here. we can also have fig trees (there are a quite a few in my neighborhood), kiwi vines, and some jasmines (in addition to the more expected hops, berries, hazelnuts, apples, cherries, and plums).
anyway, a regional nursery also sells wintergreen as a full shade groundcover. and i'm like huh, that's kind of like teaberry. i have fond memories of foraging teaberries with my father. teaberry is my favorite flavor of ice cream (which seems to be regional to Pennsylvania); i'm also a fan of Clark's Teaberry Gum. the ice cream is pink and i would describe the flavor as mild wintergreen to folks who haven't had it.
guess what? wintergreen is gaultheria procumbens, which *is* teaberry. it's the same plant. it's not that we have a plant in the Americas that's like some plant in Europe, wintergreen is from North America and it's not a member of the mint family. wintergreen is teaberry and it grows in the woods behind my grandparents' farm! the leaves and essential oil contain salicylic acid, hence a history of being used for medicinal tea (teaberry!) and how common it is in liniments.
so i tell![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
varina8 this and how excited i was to learn about it, and she's like "that stuff grows all over Capitol Hill".
anyway, a regional nursery also sells wintergreen as a full shade groundcover. and i'm like huh, that's kind of like teaberry. i have fond memories of foraging teaberries with my father. teaberry is my favorite flavor of ice cream (which seems to be regional to Pennsylvania); i'm also a fan of Clark's Teaberry Gum. the ice cream is pink and i would describe the flavor as mild wintergreen to folks who haven't had it.
guess what? wintergreen is gaultheria procumbens, which *is* teaberry. it's the same plant. it's not that we have a plant in the Americas that's like some plant in Europe, wintergreen is from North America and it's not a member of the mint family. wintergreen is teaberry and it grows in the woods behind my grandparents' farm! the leaves and essential oil contain salicylic acid, hence a history of being used for medicinal tea (teaberry!) and how common it is in liniments.
so i tell
varina8 this and how excited i was to learn about it, and she's like "that stuff grows all over Capitol Hill".i stayed up late several nights this week to finish the homework i was complaining about on Monday. as it was, there was a point where i gave up on getting 100% test coverage and just turned the damn thing in. (there were three fucking lines that i couldn't seem to exercise.) i asked for any advice on how to actually get that last bit in the comment on my pull request.
so yeah...i got full points on the assignment and teared up a little at getting praise for it.
this week is all about debugging - we have a buggy script that runs the functions we wrote for the previous assignment and we need to use logging and debugging techniques to understand what's going wrong and fix things. this is much more intuitive and fun for me - scratches the same itch as untangling knotted yarn or solving a maze. banging my head against all those objects really does seem to have embedded some OOP understanding; i'm looking at the script and seeing things that are subtly wrong just reading it, which is a nice feeling.
Excellent work! I always think that 100% coverage is a questionable goal in practice; however, here is a command you will find really useful to see more details of coverage issues...
so yeah...i got full points on the assignment and teared up a little at getting praise for it.
this week is all about debugging - we have a buggy script that runs the functions we wrote for the previous assignment and we need to use logging and debugging techniques to understand what's going wrong and fix things. this is much more intuitive and fun for me - scratches the same itch as untangling knotted yarn or solving a maze. banging my head against all those objects really does seem to have embedded some OOP understanding; i'm looking at the script and seeing things that are subtly wrong just reading it, which is a nice feeling.
(excerpt from slack, mildly anonymized. pirate B will be the gamemaster.)
C [10:09 AM]
I’ll go Mystic.
pirate B [10:12 AM]
Mystic it is! I look forward to your dynamic use of Psychic and Magical Celestial Silver powers!
Also, if you chose to play as a magical girl I would let you transform into your costume as a free action as long as you describe it in aching detail everytime that you do it.
pirate D [10:13 AM]
So mystics have both magic and psionics right? That’s pretty groovy.
That seems a bad idea… :confused:
pirate A [10:14 AM]
Yeah they are really cool. Magical toolbox.
pirate D [10:14 AM]
Though the notion of interrupting a foe with costume montage that doesn’t actually stop time for everyone else is an interesting battle tactic.
pirate B [10:16 AM]
Yeah I would literally stop the fight and everyone would have to wait and watch.
me [10:17 AM]
@C plz.
pirate B [10:18 AM]
I laughed out loud. People in legal are looking at me and I am not sure how to explain.
I just put my head back in my work
But that was a genuine offer
pirate B [10:31 AM]
It's just I could see you both in my head at the gaming table and I could see you just wordlessly say "please" and may a little prayer motion with your hands. and then C just slumps in his seat like he does when he is defeated.
C [10:09 AM]
I’ll go Mystic.
Mystic it is! I look forward to your dynamic use of Psychic and Magical Celestial Silver powers!
Also, if you chose to play as a magical girl I would let you transform into your costume as a free action as long as you describe it in aching detail everytime that you do it.
pirate D [10:13 AM]
So mystics have both magic and psionics right? That’s pretty groovy.
That seems a bad idea… :confused:
Yeah they are really cool. Magical toolbox.
pirate D [10:14 AM]
Though the notion of interrupting a foe with costume montage that doesn’t actually stop time for everyone else is an interesting battle tactic.
Yeah I would literally stop the fight and everyone would have to wait and watch.
me [10:17 AM]
@C plz.
I laughed out loud. People in legal are looking at me and I am not sure how to explain.
I just put my head back in my work
But that was a genuine offer
It's just I could see you both in my head at the gaming table and I could see you just wordlessly say "please" and may a little prayer motion with your hands. and then C just slumps in his seat like he does when he is defeated.
cardboard to plastic
Aug. 26th, 2018 10:06 pmi have a giant novelty Shivan Dragon card on my desk at work.* it started a conversation that led to me doing an inventory of our Magic cards in order to build some decks and get back into playing more regularly. we have a lot of cards; enough that they inspired the purchase of our Alexandria Codex.** when i started to check to see if we had anything of value, C planted the idea of using them to buy a kayak.
the long-story-short is that with a bit of research and some legwork i turned 80 cards (an invisible loss from the collection) into kayak money. my goal was to be completely budget-neutral and only spend from the card proceeds. mischief managed.
a deck worth of Magic cards buys:
i'll have all of it in my possession in time for the long weekend. very excited.
* which came from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_monkey_king cleaning out his basement mumble-mumble years ago. i missed hanging out with him at a potluck today due to the craigslist thing mentioned below :/
** RIP GeekChic
***philotera hooked me up with Sailor J, who was looking to trade it in for a model with a larger cockpit. for my lifestyle it has to be a packable boat due to lack of storage and lack of vehicle. i could get a regular kayak cheaper, but then i would make the cost up rapidly in paying for marina rack space, and that doesn't even take into account paying for a car to move it anywhere else.
**** today's drama involved the paddle. i was going to buy a Camano (a model up from the Skagit) and safety gear from a craigslist guy, but someone bought it out from under me. dude contacted me after i had already booked a zipcar to go to his house and it was too late to cancel. but i now i had this car to use for 90 minutes...so i took my money to the REI Labor Day sale and got the paddle that i could afford new instead. which is still very nice and made in Washington. the safety stuff and the dry bag were also on sale.
the long-story-short is that with a bit of research and some legwork i turned 80 cards (an invisible loss from the collection) into kayak money. my goal was to be completely budget-neutral and only spend from the card proceeds. mischief managed.
a deck worth of Magic cards buys:
- a used Oru Bay+***
- float bags (no bulkheads in the Oru, this keeps the hull buoyant in a capsize)
- spray skirt
- safety kit (paddle float, bilge pump, really loud whistle)
- a Werner Skagit paddle****
- a 15L dry bag
i'll have all of it in my possession in time for the long weekend. very excited.
* which came from
the_monkey_king cleaning out his basement mumble-mumble years ago. i missed hanging out with him at a potluck today due to the craigslist thing mentioned below :/** RIP GeekChic
***
philotera hooked me up with Sailor J, who was looking to trade it in for a model with a larger cockpit. for my lifestyle it has to be a packable boat due to lack of storage and lack of vehicle. i could get a regular kayak cheaper, but then i would make the cost up rapidly in paying for marina rack space, and that doesn't even take into account paying for a car to move it anywhere else.**** today's drama involved the paddle. i was going to buy a Camano (a model up from the Skagit) and safety gear from a craigslist guy, but someone bought it out from under me. dude contacted me after i had already booked a zipcar to go to his house and it was too late to cancel. but i now i had this car to use for 90 minutes...so i took my money to the REI Labor Day sale and got the paddle that i could afford new instead. which is still very nice and made in Washington. the safety stuff and the dry bag were also on sale.
social media hacking
Aug. 12th, 2017 08:20 pmi've been staying away from facebook, which is great for my mental health but cuts off a major communication channel for my friends with kids. that blows. it also means that i don't see posts from my niece and nephew, who are awesome young adults.
one of my friends has been trying to get me to use Facebook Purity but since it's a browser extension and i'm more likely to look at facebook on mobile, it's not useful to me. which is too bad, because i need keyword blocking.
but i found the best thing: Friendly. (or at least it's the best thing as of today.) for my purposes it's definitely worth slipping them a couple bucks. basically they take the facebook mobile page designed for developing countries and customize the display. it even includes messaging.
here's my preliminary keyword list: trump, homeless, clinton, hillary, congress, share, 45, copy, white house, breitbart, bannon
i probably don't need "homeless", it's just instinct from NextDoor. i added "45" and "white house" after my first browse.
i can still see topical stuff and news that doesn't mention the forbidden words. i can't see earnest "copy don't share" memes, i can't see rage posts about political stuff. i'll probably need to shape some keywords for the left-leaning fake news sites (the people who used to share the right-leaning ones have mostly unfriended me) but they need to slip though first.
that said, check out a not-atypical screen:
Edited to add: i use the Make America Kittens Again extension. apparently the T-word in this post triggers replacement of the above screenshot with sweet kitties. took me a couple attempted edits before i realized there was nothing wrong with my photo hosting 😆
one of my friends has been trying to get me to use Facebook Purity but since it's a browser extension and i'm more likely to look at facebook on mobile, it's not useful to me. which is too bad, because i need keyword blocking.
but i found the best thing: Friendly. (or at least it's the best thing as of today.) for my purposes it's definitely worth slipping them a couple bucks. basically they take the facebook mobile page designed for developing countries and customize the display. it even includes messaging.
here's my preliminary keyword list: trump, homeless, clinton, hillary, congress, share, 45, copy, white house, breitbart, bannon
i probably don't need "homeless", it's just instinct from NextDoor. i added "45" and "white house" after my first browse.
i can still see topical stuff and news that doesn't mention the forbidden words. i can't see earnest "copy don't share" memes, i can't see rage posts about political stuff. i'll probably need to shape some keywords for the left-leaning fake news sites (the people who used to share the right-leaning ones have mostly unfriended me) but they need to slip though first.
that said, check out a not-atypical screen:
Edited to add: i use the Make America Kittens Again extension. apparently the T-word in this post triggers replacement of the above screenshot with sweet kitties. took me a couple attempted edits before i realized there was nothing wrong with my photo hosting 😆
Lincoln Dinner
Jun. 18th, 2017 08:26 pmi've been involved in a series of dinners inspired by historic menus. (this started with King Midas' funerary feast a few years ago and has spiraled out of control from there.)
this one was based on the dinner menu for Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural (an annotated reference).
the damn thing is basically half meat and half desserts. by the time i had time to think about a dish (since i spent most of the last month+ in and out of movie theaters) the desserts were well-represented, so i decided to rep the "en geléé" portion of the menu. we also had oyster stew, chicken salad, chicken fricassee, tongue, fruit tarts, poundcake, and a charlotte. we watched a couple hours of Gettysburg, ate the savories, watched the rest, ate dessert.
i made this meat aspic recipe with beef.
mods:
this one was based on the dinner menu for Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural (an annotated reference).
the damn thing is basically half meat and half desserts. by the time i had time to think about a dish (since i spent most of the last month+ in and out of movie theaters) the desserts were well-represented, so i decided to rep the "en geléé" portion of the menu. we also had oyster stew, chicken salad, chicken fricassee, tongue, fruit tarts, poundcake, and a charlotte. we watched a couple hours of Gettysburg, ate the savories, watched the rest, ate dessert.
i made this meat aspic recipe with beef.
mods:
- i did the initial beef boiling in the crock pot on low during the work day, lifted out the (disintegrating) meat, then poured the liquid into a pot through a colander lined with coffee filters.
- then i added the beef to the pot and i basically followed the recipe on the stove top from the adding of the aromatics point on. if i had to do it again, i would have bagged up the aromatics in cheese cloth like a bouquet garni - picking hot floppy onion and peppercorns out of a pile of hot meat is not super fun. if i had been home on the day i made it, i would have done the aromatic stage in the crock as well.
- i was surprised at how little food a couple pounds of chuck roast turned into - one loaf pan plus one small dessert dish (my tester).
- i was afraid that the amount of gelatin it called for was excessive, but it was perfect - a set soft enough to melt in the mouth, but firm enough to unmold neatly. i embedded flat leaf parsley on the top and the bottom, in case the tester tasted good but didn't unmold well.
i had nothing to fear:
you eat it in slices (it takes a very sharp knife, cleaned between slices, to cut the meat neatly) with a bit of grainy mustard. i was surprised at how much i liked it, and it was a hit with everyone but C (who couldn't overcome the texture of the gelatin).
Followed by a shower and a beer
Jul. 2nd, 2015 10:24 pmThis week i missed my bi-weekly D&D game and my thursday knitting group. i am back in the intro series at the local yoga studio, for the second week. my return is long overdue.
it's been interesting to go back to the beginning, when I feel out of shape but seem to have certain reserves and balance that I didn't have years ago. i also have less fear, as proven by my bloody nose and fat lip.
we were working on crow pose, which i never have mastered. tonight i was able to take the full pose for a moment. surprised, i immediately collapsed and fell on my face. then I laughed. i laughed and got right back up. the assistant had to get me to stop to clean up- i didn't realize that my nose was dripping.
i never got hit like that doing martial arts; it wasn't something practiced or conscious to keep going. i'm a little surprised in retrospect that it didn't scare or embarass me. (Hella endorphins. Barely felt it.)
anyway, yoga feels good.
it's been interesting to go back to the beginning, when I feel out of shape but seem to have certain reserves and balance that I didn't have years ago. i also have less fear, as proven by my bloody nose and fat lip.
we were working on crow pose, which i never have mastered. tonight i was able to take the full pose for a moment. surprised, i immediately collapsed and fell on my face. then I laughed. i laughed and got right back up. the assistant had to get me to stop to clean up- i didn't realize that my nose was dripping.
i never got hit like that doing martial arts; it wasn't something practiced or conscious to keep going. i'm a little surprised in retrospect that it didn't scare or embarass me. (Hella endorphins. Barely felt it.)
anyway, yoga feels good.
this was a triumph
Sep. 3rd, 2008 09:22 pmi had a little biomechanical breakthrough in class tonight, getting the hip turn/foot pivot/fist rotation together in the right way. i got praise for my power, more than once. and then i was called on to demo the move for C. and i didn't screw it up.
the pork shoulder i put in the crockpot before work was ready to shred with a fork when we got home. after shredding, the sauce. very simple, very tasty. and there is plenty left for lunches.
i licked my plate clean.
the pork shoulder i put in the crockpot before work was ready to shred with a fork when we got home. after shredding, the sauce. very simple, very tasty. and there is plenty left for lunches.
i licked my plate clean.
this was a triumph
Sep. 3rd, 2008 09:22 pmi had a little biomechanical breakthrough in class tonight, getting the hip turn/foot pivot/fist rotation together in the right way. i got praise for my power, more than once. and then i was called on to demo the move for C. and i didn't screw it up.
the pork shoulder i put in the crockpot before work was ready to shred with a fork when we got home. after shredding, the sauce. very simple, very tasty. and there is plenty left for lunches.
i licked my plate clean.
the pork shoulder i put in the crockpot before work was ready to shred with a fork when we got home. after shredding, the sauce. very simple, very tasty. and there is plenty left for lunches.
i licked my plate clean.
after more discussion on the book thing, i found something that will bring me great pleasure and help with the load balancing: Bookstore Guide.
there's at least one English-language specialty store in all but one of my destination towns. they all buy/sell/trade. so i need to cover the plane trip out and a few nights, and then i get to trade books at places full of random expats and people who really want to practice their English.
and check out the "Top 5: Impressive Appearance". this is book porn: pan to see the ceiling and the tracks on the parquet floor for the book carts. i now have a reason to go to Portugal.
there's at least one English-language specialty store in all but one of my destination towns. they all buy/sell/trade. so i need to cover the plane trip out and a few nights, and then i get to trade books at places full of random expats and people who really want to practice their English.
and check out the "Top 5: Impressive Appearance". this is book porn: pan to see the ceiling and the tracks on the parquet floor for the book carts. i now have a reason to go to Portugal.
after more discussion on the book thing, i found something that will bring me great pleasure and help with the load balancing: Bookstore Guide.
there's at least one English-language specialty store in all but one of my destination towns. they all buy/sell/trade. so i need to cover the plane trip out and a few nights, and then i get to trade books at places full of random expats and people who really want to practice their English.
and check out the "Top 5: Impressive Appearance". this is book porn: pan to see the ceiling and the tracks on the parquet floor for the book carts. i now have a reason to go to Portugal.
there's at least one English-language specialty store in all but one of my destination towns. they all buy/sell/trade. so i need to cover the plane trip out and a few nights, and then i get to trade books at places full of random expats and people who really want to practice their English.
and check out the "Top 5: Impressive Appearance". this is book porn: pan to see the ceiling and the tracks on the parquet floor for the book carts. i now have a reason to go to Portugal.
