January 5, 2025 - bloghan 28

Welcome to the new year! The first bit of this week was all lead up to 2025, but the second half felt all celebratory-like. Honestly, this week felt pretty fun! Way less depressing than last week. No clue why. Here's what I got up to this week:

Tier list of the week

This week's tier list: the customers from 'Papa's Freezeria Deluxe' ranked on if they would jaywalk or not, and the various levels of jaywalking that they would commit. This is how I will be ranking characters in media from now on. Here's the tier list:

Ordered tiers, unordered within tiers. Honestly, this one is surprisingly harder to fill out because of the fact that they are human characters living in a world hwere jaywalking and streets and roads presumably exist. So while there's not many that wouldn't know about the concept of jaywalking, I just tried to imagine if the characters would or would not jaywalk. There are roads and such on Calypso Island, where the game takes place (this is proved by the food truck driving up to its location when you choose to open it), but I know for sure that some characters would be upstanding or more risk-averse, just by looking at the type of person they are by their clothes. Hey, this game doesn't really give them much personality outside of that anyway, so I think the "judge a book by its cover" approach works here.

Personal updates (achievements, reflections, and antics)

I wake up on Monday morning really tired. Even though my alarm woke me up on time, I ended up sleeping for just a little bit more, and woke up in a panic 10 minutes later. I did manage to squeak out of my door just in time to make the bus, seeing my regular bus driver for the first itme in about a week. It was pretty rainy today, and I was a little worried about my headphones, but it ended up not being a big worry. When I walked up to the office, the parking lot was extremely empty, making me wonder if I had missed a message of today being a holiday too, but once I got inside I saw a lot of my coworkers were in. I sat down at my desk, and right after I did, my work rival did too. We looked at each other for a bit: it had been a week since we last talked. We caught up, on his little trip, on what I've been up to, about how hard that holiday special cryptic was, and the work that we had to do. Once we got into it, we got a visit from a coworker, where we mostly repeated what we had already talked about. After a little lapse in conversation, and some discussion on this weird update message I was getting on my laptop, we got up to go talk to the people in the crossword cubicle. Of the four usually occupying it, only two were in, and they were both working a bit, but happy to converse and catch up with my work rival. My work rival went back to his desk before I did, as I had brought my laptop to sit around as they did their thing, like water some of the plants that they were asked to. Eventually I went back, seeing that my work rival was having a call with one of the coworkers who usually sits in the crossword cubicle. This guy is from the same region as I am... this is the first I'm really talking about him, so we'll call him "my/the compatriot." Currently, the compatriot was visiting that home region, so I assumed that my work rival was just catching up, but they were actually talking about the compatriot's task. I did tell him he should talk to my work rival about it, since my work rival might have done some work which was relevant to the task, but they also asked for my input too, on how Absconder might apply to the problem at hand. I gave a little advice of how it could be used, and agreed that my work rival and I would continue to look into it. Once the call ended, another coworker walked in, showing us that there were snacks in the break room, before leaving again. He accidentally left his snack behind in our corner though, so my work rival and I headed off to go return the snack, then get our own. On the way, my mentor saw me and was about to ask me about the progress I had achieved, but I told him I'd be back in one minute. My work rival and I went to return the snack, then to the break room, grabbing the last two snacks available. He opened his right away, commenting on its weird taste, and I placed mine on my desk, and headed to my mentor's cubicle. He opened with how it was really "impressive" that I brought the error count down from 2000 to 19, and the solutions I presented made sense to him, at least. There were two things of note: the 19 errors, and the 420 warnings. We decided that he would do a deep dive into the remaining 19 errors, and that I would start examining why Absconder was returning these 420 warnings. Getting to work on that, I moved back over to the crossword cubicle, where I continued working as the conversation went on, though there was a bit of a lapse as they tried doing the non-checked crossword I gave to the main group on Christmas Eve. They got almost everything, needing one answer to be given to them (just how it is with non-checked ones), and we eventually settled into a rhythm of just working on stuff with things occasionally being brought up. After a while, we all went down for lunch, where we ended up just getting into a really long and drawn out conversation. The most remarkable topics were gift discourse (my work rival tried to argue that cash was the best gift, and we all thrashed his idea quite quickly), roommate discourse (I really am quite lucky I live alone, huh?), shower discourse (does no one else just stand still for 2 minutes affter turning the water off and before towelling?), and cooking discourse (apparently, I'm to show up at my work rival's place on Sunday to make chili with him??). The whole time, I was on my laptop working, trying to track down just one of these 420 generic warnings, having very little success. We stayed there for a long time, and it wasn't until I cracked a joke about how yet again, my work rival was doing no work that we went back up. I was asked if I had another crossword ready for today, which I didn't, but my reply of "I'm on hiatus" was not met well. I had run out of crosswords in my stockpile, and while it was the holiday season, I still had a little more work than usual to do. They were fine with it eventually, at least. Regardless of crossword or not, both me and my work rival moved over to the empty seats in the crossword cubicle, just to keep up with what was going on with the people who were here. While there, we did a little bit of work, looking into new applications of Absconder that might help the compatriot, and I tried to track down where that one warning might have been coming from. I kept getting dragged into random converstaion that would pop up occasionally, but I would try to not get too wrapped up in them, as I did have something to work on. For example, at some point, they started talking about how their parents disciplined them as kids, and while I could have shared personal info during this, I gave them some irrelevant information that made it seem like I was sharing a lot, when I hadn't shared anything of note at all. The world runs on information, as do people, and that's one way you can make it so that people feel like they know a lot about you when they don't actually know anything of note. Fill what you say with enough truthful garbage that the less obvious lies or omissions become accepted. My work rival decided to go home early (slacking off as usual), and almost as soon as he did, everyone was able to actually start working again. Crazy how that works. I still had an hour left in my shift, but it was really mind-numbing. I was just cross-referencing two text files to try and figure out where the warning might have triggered from, but while one was simple to understnad and could be read top to bottom, the other had me jumping around to multiple places in the file, sometimtes bouncing to the same place from different locations. At some point, the coworker who shares a name with my landlord jokingly asked if I wanted to come with her to the mall to pick up some clothing order she had, and I agreed right away. She asked if I was joking, and I told her that I wasn't: I really was down, I wanted to see what the mall was like, and I wanted a free ride home too. She started joking about the cocktail dress thing from last week, and I felt a little fear, and that prompted the other person in this group cubicle (another girl) to ask what the context behind that was. I explained all that, and also voiced something that I'd noticed. When it comes to me, I get a lot of comments from girls of that nature, of me being put into dresses and skirts and such, and my eyelashes being so long and nice to curl, stuff like that. I don't really care too much for that kind of stuff, but what was really confusing to me was why this only seemed to happen to me. Compared to my other male peers, I feel as though I get a disproportionate amount of those comments directed at me. It doesn't make me uncomfortable, but why is it so easy, so natural for others to do, even before I share with them that this kind of thing always happens to me? I proposed this question to them, and they said that they didn't feel like I was the only one receiving it, but I raised a suggestion that they had never done this with my work rival. They thought for a moment, and realized I was right, and offered... no explanation. They started fawning over my eyelashes and how they were so long they didn't even need to be curled, so I huffed and went back to work. Once it was jsut me and the coworker who shares a name with my landlord, she asked me if I actually was going to go with her, still thinking that I was joking. I got a little nervous, since I had missed the last bus back already, but she realized then that I was serious. Eventually it was time to leave, and so we both headed out and down to her car. On the way to the mall, I asked her about if she was getting questions from friends on if she's coming back to our company, since she was ending this Friday. People ask me all the time, and I'm never really sure if the answer I've been giving is satisfying enough for me and the asker. She yapped for a bit as pulled out of the parking lot, and her car's currently silent audio system decided to proc loud music then and there, startling me quite badly. She had the gall to laugh, and continue talking about how she would respond to the question I posed to her, as if it had never happened, but honestly, what she told me was very insightful. We began to talk about her new job that she would be starting next week, way down south (comparatively), and how she had to start packing, and just how much she had to pack. She asked me about what I had packed to prepare to come here, but my advice wasn't as applicable, since as a guy I simply had less clothing considerations when packing, and I also brought a bunch of things like pans and plates and spoons with me, instead of buying them when I got here. We got to the mall, and after a struggle to find parking, we went inside. When we walked in, she had to tie her shoe, and I walked up to that thing in the mall (the thing that guy was breaking in the mall in that Jay Eazy video). She asked me to type in the name of the store, but I didn't know which one she was going to. She got up, and typed in the frist three letters, accidentally spelling out the name of a manager on our team. Even when she's off work, she's still on that grindset. We get to the first store, and its probably the most bougie store I've ever been in. It was so drab, so beige and grey, and it just seemed so.... needlessly fancy. I could tell that every employee was extremely fashionable though. We were technically done, but there was a Japanese goods store just across from us that she wanted to go visit, so we did. Apparently, she was looking for a nice gel pen and something to help her with packing or moving, but according to what she said then, the quality had gone down since the last time she had been. She couldn't even find a black gel pen that was not part of a pack, and the packing cube things were so much more overpriced than the ones she got from Amazon. I did find this really neat notebook with dotted pages which I ended up buying, planning to write my crosswords on paper inside it. There was another store we checked out as well, which also seemed Japanese in origin but more for clothes? We were only in there for 5 minutes or so, but it had so much more color than that fancy place, even if it wasn't as fancy. Finally, we went to this athletic wear store, one that I was told was really overpriced. The coworker who shares a name with my landlord (why'd I make that her codename??) had a 25% off discount, and this time we were going only for me. You see, earlier today, I had shared with her that I have not worn shorts in years, because of something my sister did. My sister once rubbed her palm on my leg in a circle, twisting some leg hairs together, proceeding to pull on it really hard once done. Since then, I have not worn shorts. Now in this store, my coworker's goal was to find me a pair of shorts that I would be comfortable in. She began to explain to me things like inseam, lined vs unlined, what's good for running and what's good for lounging, what makes you look taller or shorter, and popular styles with guys. Basically all of it went over my head, so she gave me 5 shorts of various lengths and sizes to try out in the fitting room, waiting for me outside. I got in and tried them in order of length. The longer ones were kind of uncomfortable to me: I didn't like the amount of fabric that was flapping around, between and surrounding my legs. At some point, I saw movement behind me, and I was concerned that there was a window or something that people could see through: it turned out to be a mirror, the movement being my own. Once I tried on the shortest inseam shorts that I was given, I immediately knew I liked them. A lot. They were comfortable, and they were not bothering me like the other ones were. I felt kinda bad about it though, so I took it all off, changed back into my typical jeans, and started to head out. But I stopped myself. Can I... just leave the changing room? Is there something I have to do first? A sign or something I have to flip over? I poked my head out, making eye contact with one of the employees there, who was hanging some clothes. I asked him if I could just leave, and he told me "yeah, you can just leave, all good!" I was almost out of the changing room, when another employee asked me if I found everything alright, or if I needed more sizes. I didn't really want to show that I was looking through shorts so I just said that everything was fine, and she left me alone after that. I convened once again with my coworker, and ahsamedly, I shared that the shortest inseam ones were the most comfortable for me, and that I was on the fence about getting shorts because of it. They weren't even that short, it was just the fact that they were the shortest of the choices given to me. I felt so... indecent. In the time we took to put things away, I eventually decided that I would get them. After some more conversation on how marked up everything was, and the cashier making a mistake when wishing us a happy holidays, we started to make our way out of the place. Befroe we did though, my coworker spotted a lingerie store, and she wanted to check out the pyjamas. We went in for about 10 seconds, as she examined the pyjamas on display at the front of the store. She touched them, stating that she hated the texture, then looked at the price tag, stating that she hated that even more. We left the mall right after that. In the car, it finally set in for me that I had gotten shorts, which I hadn't worn in years, but she told me that I should try wearing them, and if I ended up not liking them, she'd return them. She dropped me off at my place, and I went inside, having chores to catch up on. I tried the shorts on while doing so, and the feeling from the fitting room was the same. To be clear, I will never be going out with shorts, of any length or style, ever again, but for my time here, it is nice to find something so comfortable for lounging while staying in. After playing some games, cooking one last batch of pesto pasta, and changing back into some regular sweatpants, I finally went to sleep. How did so much happen to me on Monday???

Thankfully, Tuesday was a lot more chill. While it was new year's eve, my throat was feeling a bit sore, so I woke up, sent an email saying I was ill, and worked from home. Back in my home city, today would have been a day off, but I guess this place is just backwards in that regard. I interspersed work (the same tracking down of warning causes) with a whole slew of chores: sweeping the floor, doing laundry, folding clothes and putting them away, washing leftover dishes, such and such. I was able to do this because my task required me to have things run for while before I could examine them, so I did these chores in those in between times. Lunch came by and I started working on another cryptic crossword for the people who went into the office, since they sent the classy message: "when's the next cryptic. no pressure tho." Once I had finished and sent that one off, I decided to actuallly focus more on my work. I threw on my "lock in" playlist, and started tracing through those text files from yesterday, this time with a little more drive. I found two places which may have triggered the warning in those files, but I still wasn't convinced. I decided to recreate the project, or at least theg parts I needed to, in a very watered down rewriting that I could test really quickly. The plan was to make it so that only that one interaction I wanted to see was present, to see how Absconder would deal with it in a way that would give me that same warning. I had said before that this position doesn't really lend itself to letting me design stuff as much as I fix or check a previously existing design, but when making my own mini "playground" version of the project, I got that feeling I had missed for so long. Once it was all finished, I ran Absconder a few times on my sample project to iron out things that I had designed incorrectly, and then finally ran the check I wanted to, getting... zero warnings? I changed some things. Zero warnings. I reverted half of the changes, kept the other half. No warnings still. I reversed the changes and non-changes. Rewrote one part of it. Changed things to express the pattern I was testing in a different way. Through it all, zero warnings were made by Absconder. What? How? I had to go back to where I saw the warnings to figure it out. That's when it hit me: the warnings themselves weren't reporting on the parts of the project that I was looking for, but only one relevant part of the project and some other part. That's why Absconder didn't give a warning in the mini version of the project, because I had recreated the correct interaction between the relevant parts! It's good to know that it was all correct in the end. Around this time, I was receiving some messages from my coworkers asking about something in my puzzle, and I pointed them towards a common mathematical identity which was part of the clue. At least, I thought it was common, I guess they'd never heard of it? After dealing with that, I took a short break, and came back to see that my mentor was asking for an update on those warnings. I started sending him some messages explaining what was going on, but I was having a hard time phrasing it well, and he was having a hard time understanding it, so we ended up having a call instead. Once I was in, I told him I would share my screen, wishing him a happy new year at the same time. While I struggled to figure that out, he said, unprompted, "man, I hate that new year's eve is on a Tuesday! I wish it was on a Sunday like a year ago... I guess money isn't free." Not knowing what to say to this, I just awkwardly laughed, and then talked about how back in my home city, new year's eve was a day off in addition to new year's day. We launched into the actual reason for the call soon after, and after some misunderstandings from both of us, we figured out what was going on. Satisfied with the answer, he told me that he had yet to go through the errors, but that I should try to figure out why the warnings existed in the first place: even if they weren't for the parts of the project that we needed, why did they exist? After that though, he told me that since it was new year's eve, I should "just chill" for the rest of the day, before ending the call with some well wishes for the new year. Well, I did just that, not really doing too much more on my work laptop for the remainder of my shift. After it did end, I went ahead with playing more games, and doing more chores, and finally, finally finishing 'A Court of Thorns and Roses.' At the end of it, I can say that I did enjoy the story that Maas had crafted, as well as the symbolism and the world that she built. The big twist at the ending of the book, I don't really agree with all the way. Sure, Feyre needed to be saved, but I feel like making her immortal defeats the purpose of how she, a mortal, was showing up all these immortals, in both their trials and in mental fortitude. I fear the message of the indomitable human spirit was lost there, but maybe I misinterpreted that as one of the messages? The romance throughout the novel was really compelling, and I found that it drove the plot forward well, and I think the relative lack of sex scenes made this feel more like a fantasy novel than a romance, which felt like a really good balance for the story being told here. Also, I was right about the riddle. It was so obvious, blatantly so, but it did still make me smile when Feyre finally got the answer, throughout the pain racking her body. Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot, and I'm probably going to be reading the next books in the series. As soon as this was done, I moved into doing my last plan for the night: cooking myself a good new year's eve dinner. I had already decided on a baked potato loaded with sour cream, chopped spinach, chopped bacon, and shredded cheese, but I had a feeling that wouldn't be filling enough, so I decided then and there to add fried rice to the menu. To make a baked potato, I got rid of its eyes, washed it, dried it, have it 28 stab wounds with a fork, rolled it around in sunflower oil mixed with salt, then threw it in the air fryer for 40 minutes at the maximum temperature, flipping it over halfway. On my counter and stovetop, I cooked the bacon and rice separately, chopping the spinach and bacon (once it was cooked). I chopped up the last of my leftover vegetables, using the bacon grease to fry it in preparation for the fried rice, cooking some meatballs in the microwave right away. It was pretty stressful managing all these things in the kitchen all at once, but also a little fun? It's almost like... 'Papa's Freezeria' in real life!? Sorry... bad joke. At the end of the process, once I had plated my completed fried rice and baked potato, I sliced open the potato with a butter knife (straight through, easy!), then stuffed it with a little too much sour cream, spinach, and bacon, meaning that the cheese kind of sat on top, still cold. Still, it was really amazing, probably the best thing I've cooked all December! I enjoyed it quite a lot... I'm probably going to be buying a lot more potatoes pretty soon. I ate it rather quickly as the new year approached, trying to figure how to time a song to drop right as the new year hit. Because, you know. I have nothing better to do in celebration. The new year came, and it was... well, I guess it was January 1st. back to doing the things I wanted to. I started playing 'Freezeria' once again, but about 15 minutes in, I heard what sounded like gunshots outside. I rushed out, since it reminded me of my home city, but I saw colourful lights in the sky: fireworks... oh, yeah that makes sense. Heading further outside, I was surprised by just how close they were to my place: it felt like only three blocks away, maybe four? Just as suddenly as they started, they seemed to end. Starting 15 minutes after midnight, and only being up for 5 minutes..? Maybe it was delayed due to rain? I went back inside, but only after 5 minutes of gameplay, they sounded again. I rush out again, and there's a short display for another 2 minutes. This cycle repeats about 3 more times, and each time, I'm surprised by it. Honestly... The reminder of home was nice, but what was going on with that display??? I completed a littl emore of 'Freezeria,' getting very close to finishing it, and went to bed.

Wednesday was a day off for me, and as such, I didn't really do much that was noteworthy. More notable was the fact that it was Dia Kurosawa's birthday! After making the breakfast I consistently had last week, I sat myself down and wrote the bloghan section for Monday. That's basically all I did all day. Yeah. It was that long. I did do other chores in between, like washing leftover dishes and doing a second load of laundry, but for the most part, I did not really do any other useful thing. While I did catch up with a bunch of bad board game videos that I wanted to watch, and wore my new shorts for most of the day, I didn't really have anywhere else to be on this holiday. I couldn't go out for lunch either, since everything seemed to be closed. Near the second half of the day, I got into some more distractions, coming really close to finishing 'Papa's Freezeria,' reaching the true ending of the game, but still a ways away from fully completing it. The day came to a quick close after I made dinner, which was a reprise of last night's dinner: fried rice with a loaded baked potato. I managed to actually cook it all a whole lot faster than last time, and in my speed, forgot to stab the potato with a fork. During my flipping over of it at the halfway point, I opened the air fryer drawer and did a limited series of stabbings, before continuing with the cooking. I also used a little less bacon and spinach, since I used too much last time. Honestly, a great dinner, and a good lesson in stabbing potatoes more often, to avoid having small undercooked sections in a well backed potato. New year's day was honestly kind of boring, but I did appreciate the break.

Thursday was also sort of boring. Coming in to work, both my work rival and the coworker who shares a name with my landlord were not in the office, as well as my mentor. I got to work, trying everything I could with various Absconder tools to figure out exactly which places teh warnings came up from, if not from the relevant project parts that I wanted to analyze in the first place. I kinda wish that I didn't make the whole process report this type of warning, so that I wouldn't be asked to delve into this side tangent in the first place, but I went ahead with it anyways. At the same time, I was trying to make a fill for a crossword, including three 5-letter words, and it was not working out. By now, the main blocker on me finishing crosswords is no longer the clues, but actually getting a grid fill that I like. I was alone in my little corner, with my Japanese coworker taking his holiday in Japan, my work rival working from home, and Steve deciding to work in another cubicle today, away from the sunlight. I also notice that I have gotten a message from someone from IT, telling me that I needed to reboot my computer, since I was supposed to do it a month ago, as per their policy. I had never heard of this policy before, and none of the other coworkers I've talked to have rebooted except for Steve, so I decided that I would do it, since I wasn't making any headway on my curernt Absconder load. As I do that, I decide to move over to the crossword cubicle, talking a little bit to "Celeste," about the mall trip on Monday, and about how this week has been, and of course, about 'Freezeria.' I also decided to check in with the compatriot, who's working from home in my home region. Asking him if my work rival sent him the stuff we did together earlier this week, he replied with a no (of course... of course...), so I decided to send him a small tutorial just by memory. However, he wasn't experienced with the first step, and also none of the other steps, so we had a call to figure this all out. As I was guiding him past the first step, we realized that the second one would have to be done differently on his device than on mine, so while he fiddled with settings to get that up and running, he asked about what the recent going-ons in the office were like. I answered about myself (because I am a bad, self-centered person!), and relayed the events of the mall trip, but then asked about what he was up to while over there. He replied that he had not yet gone to the mall this holiday season, and that outside of that, he's not done much. At this point, he had figured things out on his end, so we continued, with me showing him how to set up Absconder with the files provided to him. The setup was smooth, strangely so. Perhaps with this slightly different application of Absconder, things just. Worked better. Lucky him, lucky him. Once Absconder was all ready to go, I showed him the different tools that the work rival and I used on Monday, sharing with him how he could use them himself. He thanked me for this, telling me he'd play around with it more (he probably won't), and that he'd talk with his manager about it tomorrow. Once that was all done, it was basically time for lunch, which was really quite quiet. We didn't have much discussion, but we did talk about how the coworker who shares a name with my landlord will be having her last day at the company tomorrow, and about the recent Cybertruck explosion in Vegas. Masterful gambit, Elon: you've made a vehicle with a reputation where people can't initially say for sure if the car just kinda exploded or if it was rigged to explode before seeing footage of it. I tried to work during this lunch period, and even after lunch too, but I just can't figure out where Absconder is finding these warnings. None of the tools are able to show me this information, and I'm starting to get frustrated with this. When my mentor asks me if I got any progress, I told him that there was not a way to find this information. He told me that he would think on what the next course of action would be, and left it at that. There wasn't much else left for this day. I signed the goodbye card for the coworker who was leaving tomorrow (made it a generic goodbye message hidden by a cryptic clue!), talked a little more about the goodbye plans for tomorrow, and then headed home. When I did get back, I mostly just played games and cooked dinner, not really doing anything of note before going to bed. Well.. alright, I did play quite a bit of 'Papa's Freezeria,' coming really really close to that 100% completion metric, but tonight was not that night.

I woke up on Friday, went back to sleep, then woke up 20 minutes after my main alarm. I had to rush out of the house, skipping making my lunch and my tea. On the way, I noticed that it was snowing, just lightly, but snowing all the same. When I get to work, I don't see many people, so I sit down at my desk and start to work. It's not really going all that well, as I still can't find the source of those warnings. Before I can start to work though, I notice that someone who doesn't usually sit in this corner is here, writing in a message on the goodbye card. He had all that time yesterday to do so, but he chose to do it now?? He asked for some advice, and I just told him that a generic message is probably good enough, since there wasn't much space left on the card anyways, leaving him then for the break room, to get my morning tea all ready. I spot this weird red box in the fridge labelled "don't throw" when I grab the milk capsules for my tea, which is a little weird but what do I really care? When I get back to my desk, no one is in that corner, so I get to work... well, I get to work making another crossword. I'm waiting for feedback or next steps on basically every single one of my tasks right now, so I'll keep doing that: waiting. Around an hour after I walked into the office, my work rival walks in. I was so sure that he had completely forgotten about the goodbye to our coworker today, but I guess he can remember some things. His manager was finally back form vacation, and he was finally given some work to do, work with which he was immediately stuck. It had to do with something I was familiar with, from my work with his manager and the director, so I was able to share some of that to help him. It was touching similar parts of the project, but for a different reason. The problem made me a little curious, so I began to work on it on my own: the crossword wasn't going that well anyways. At some point during that, my mentor got back to me about his thoughts, and we had an extended conversation of where my Absconder work was draggin out these warnings from, and that instead of reporting every single possible warning found, I should instead only report the ones that relate to the parts of the project that we want. It's a fine solution, though I'd rather just bury the warnings altogether. I'm going to wait on that task though: this problem that my work rival is facing is way more interesting and fresh right now. Soon, it's time for lunch, and everyone has agreed that we would all go get lunch from the burrito bowl place. Some people order online, and the rest of us go to the place. The car ride is mostly quiet, with pockets of conversation about the coworker who we're celebrating. When we get there, we do the lineup to place our orders, and once again, I forget to ask for the addition of a quarter of the free ingredients, but at least it's not as bad as the time I missed about half of them. On the car ride back, we realize we forgot to pick up the free guacamole from some online offer, and that the people back in the office would be mad at us for forgetting. It was too late to turn around though, we'd just eat the admonishing. We got back and set ourselves up in the break room on our floor. I hid the goodbye card in its envelope under my laptop, before the coworker who shares a name with my landlord showed up. She actually was the one who walked into the break room last, since she was still quite busy, handing off all her work to Steve, and quite sick at the same time. We started eating our lunch, and it turned out that this was the first time that one of the coworkers has gone to that place, so he had made the mistake of the sad looking bowl with only half of the ingredients. After that was brought up by other people, it was pretty quiet for a while, with no one really sure what to talk about. Eventually, my work rival asked about the sickness that she had come down with, and she replied that she got prescribed antibiotics. For some reason, my work rival asked which ones she was prescribed, but she said she didnt have them on her. I stated "azithromycin" out loud, because it felt right for the type of cough she was having. My work rival laughed at the funny magic word I said out loud, but the coworker who was leaving paused, then looked at her prescription on her phone: azithromycin. Everyone was shocked that I got it, especially since apparently its a more uncommon prescription for a bacterial infection, but to be honest, I think it was more a lucky guess. After some jokes about med school and me getting a reference letter for it (no thanks...), we shifted back into silence as another high ranking employee walked into the room and spotted us all there. He was a little amused with the silence, so I proposed to the group that we should start a random conversation that will last for 10 minutes. They started talking about accidentally getting into other people's cars, or the other way around, but after two stories we fell back into silence. That conversation lasted only 2 minutes. At some point after that, someone went to open one of the fridges in the break room, propmpting laughter from three people (I still don't fully get it), and I showed my progress to the work rival on my progress on his task (he asked me why I was doing it, and I said it was to take the credit from him once I finished). After lunch was all done, people started to filter out, but told the coworker who was leaving not to open the fridge under any circumstances. I didn't really get why, and neither did she, but she obliged. Everyone had left their garbage on the table, and I realized they were planning on coming back, but they didn't plan on the coworker who was leaving to also leave right away, so whatever the plan was in the break room, it didn't go through. I put up a crossword on the whiteboard, letting them solve it as I started work on what my mentor suggested, not having an idea of where to start. Steve and the coworker who was leaving were talking about all the tasks that Steve was about to inherit, but once she went to the washroom, a plan got set into motion: everyone hide in one of the meeting rooms, call her over to it, and surprise her with... 'Happy Birthday...' I asked who came up with this plan, and my work rival was the answer. Ah, that checks out. Well, we all went over to the meeting room, with me bringing my laptop to work at the dismay of the others, while Steve called her over to the room by sending her a message about how much he liked the big table in the room. She walked in, they sang the song, and they presented what was in that red box from earlier: a cake! Ohhhh, that makes way more sense then. They got her to cut the first slice and guess the flavour, and she got it in one guess: sweet potato. Sweet potato?? They got a sweet potato cake??? They make those??? Why would you get that other than for novelty??? Well, everyone else seemed to like it, but unfortunately for me, sweet potatoes are one of those vegetables I specfically try to avoid, along with pumpkin and squash. I just can't stand those vegetables and their texture and flavour, but if I'm presented with something containing those ingredients, I'll still eat it. I decided to save it for later though, and once we presented her with the card (she got my cryptic clue in 5 minutes... they've all gotten so good at them!), we went back to our desks to work. We slowly approached the hour that she would be asked to turn in her laptop and asked to leave the premises, and once it came, I shook her hand goodbye, told her I'd probably see her in summer again anyways, and that we'd be talking over the next few months anyways due to our keyboard project, and said goodbye. Everyone followed her down to her car to say their last goodbyes, while I immediately tried her desk, since it wa s astanding desk. Honestly, I could see the point of it, but I still liked my desk more due to its window position. Once everyone returned without the former coworker who shares a name with my landlord, I went back to my desk with my work rival, listening to some music as I tried to implement what my mentor asked me to. My work rival kept trying to start up conversations, asking about the solution I had sent to him for his own task (you're welcome buddy), how much of 'Dragon Ball' lore and characters that I knew (a very surprising amount, to the point where the others in the corner didn't believe me when I said I've never watched it), and on gacha games and such. I also went and visited the crossword cubicle a couple times, where some people were having trouble focusing after the exciting events of today, and me suggesting some electronic music after they prompted me for a music suggestion ('Buzz Kill' by PIXL was my suggestion). After some discourse on cash vs card and "girl math" (that's still a thing??), I headed back to my desk, thinking that maybe I should leave early. Checking the bus schedule, I wouldn't be able to, so I decided to just get ready to go, and work in the crossword cubicle for the rest of the day, which was closer to the exit. While there, the discussion devolved into politics, my work rival arguing that people should not be able to vote if they can't pass a multiple choice test on the candidates' platforms, which I got out of by observing another group of people try the citizenship test of this country, and watching them fail it. I headed out, with no snow falling anymore, and when I got back I started grinding out the games I've been grinding usually, getting to my short term goal in one, and setting myself up for completing a game in one day. That day would have to be tomorrow though, as after cooking myself dinner really late that night, I went to bed.

I woke up on Saturday morning and went on my phone right away. There wasn't much to do today except finish off more bloghan stuff and finally finish 'Papa's Freezeria.' I got a message this morning too, from my work rival telling me not to come by tomorrow, as he would be celebrating his birthday with a girl, just those two. Ah, I see. Well, being told to stay away is new, but as for being unneeded in the lives of others? Nothing new on that front, I suppose. After making myself my classic weekend breakfast, I got started with bloghan, writing until I had finished one day of progress. After this, I decided to take a brisk walk outside, just to step in the sun for a bit, get some fresh air. Unfortunately, I had neglected to open my blinds this morning, so I didn't realize that it was actually cloudy outside, with a biting cold wind. That didn't stop me though! I walked around the block, making turns I hadn't made before. Whiel I had brought my phone, I didn't want to use my phone unless it was time for me to head back and I didn't know where I was. I reflected on all the houses here, thinking about if I ever had enough money to buy a house (or mortgage it, whatever you do with one), what I'd even do with it. I mean, it would be just me, wouldn't it? Do I convert a bedroom into some special room or something? I don't even know what I would do with that room. Along my walk, I discovered that the elementary school I pass by in the bus is way closer than I thought it was, and it had the weirdest arrangement of soccer fields, three playgrounds, and rings of stones and trees. Reminded me of my own elementary school, except this one was way more... well funded? Thanks to this school being along my regular bus route, I was able to walk back to my place, een as the wind blasted me backwards the whole time. Honestly, good walk! I feel like I learned a lot, even if I didn't really. When I got back, I slacked off more, playing more games than doing the bloghan I probably should have been doing. I decided that I would finish off 'Freezeria' for good, then finish the bloghan portions that I could. Just as I was about to start, the lights flickered, the elctronic hum began to waver, then finally, it all went quiet and dark. I looked around. Did I do that? The power was out, but was it just this building, or the neighbourhood. I went to look it up on my phone - on data, since the router needs power - but it was so slow. I've never had to use my data while inside my place over here, so I never realized that my data was so slow while inside. I would have gone outside, but the wind was picking up speed, and I could barely stand outside with the clothes I was just wearing. Not feeling like putting anything else on, I just resigned to sitting there in silence, staring at my phone, waiting for it to load up a map of outages. I also messaged some friends about the power outage, and started thinking about what I could do: I could play 'Freezeria' offline, or continue writing the bloghan in a text file locally, and upload it later once the power came back on. The map loaded, showing that it was a neighbourhood wide outage. I played one day of 'Freezeria,' wrote some bloghan, and ended up faling asleep, since I had moved to mt bed with my laptop. When I woke up, the power was back on! I took that opportunity to finally, finally 100% 'Papa's Freezeria Deluxe,' getting every customer and recipe. I am finally free of him. His influence. His sundae business. With $11000 saved up in fictional tips, I can now put more of my energy into other, fictional things. After more bloghan, and cooking dinner, I felt really tired, so I decided to go to bed a little early. On Sunday, I got to wake up early, make that same big breakfast, and start on bloghan, trying to get it done quickly so that my evening would get more freed up. Now that I wouldn't be going to my work rival's place for chili, I could have some time to do other things. Once I had done quite a bit of bloghan, it was a little after my regular lunch time, so I decided to combine going out for a Vietnamese sub with my grocery trip. It was not as windy as yesterday, but just as cold, so I decided it would be better if I went for them in the same trip. Walking to the restaurant required walking over somme train tracks, and it brought me back to an idea I had when I was way younger: putting a coin on train tracks, waiting for a train to run over it, and get a flattened coin! I remember that it was something that I wanted to do as a kid, but the trains in my home city didn't really make that something easy to do. These train tracks though? They definitely could be conducive to this. I got to the place, ordered the sub, and headed out once I received it after a 5 minute wait. Once at the gorcery store, a 5 minute walk away from the restaurant, I realized that I had forgotten the gorcery list that I wrote, but I had most of it memorized anyways, so it was alright. As I walked through the grocery store though, I realized that there were a bunch of things I was or was almost out of: butter, frozen berries for my oatmeal, sandwich meat, that kind of thing. As I loaded my basket, it got heavier and heavier... was I going to be able to carry all this? The price shown to me at the end of the self-checkout process was quite a lot, more than any other grocery run has cost me so far. I grabbed everything that I needed at least. When I got back, after stowing things, I wrote more bloghan, continuing to do that for hours, only getting up to take a break from sitting or to have a little snack to eat. My landlord came down when I asked her if I could borrow the can opener, and she brought both it and a bunch of grocery list pad things from what I assume to be her realtor friends, being from 2003 and 2005. Uhhh.... thank you, my landlord? I made chili, put a little more work into some new crosswords, the one-bit adder PCB, and read like 5 pages of 'Homestuck' (it was more than that, and felt like even more than that, since one of the pages was just a full on flash game??) before calling it a night.

Future plans

Well, my catchup days didn't end up being the holidays, but instead, Sunday was my catchup day, and mostly in the late reaches of the night. Still, I did manage to touch a lot of these tasks that I've set for myself, which is more than I can say for a lot of things the last couple of weeks. Here's how all that stuff I meant to do this week actually went:

• PCB stuff: for my one-bit adder recreation, I got the schematic all connected up. For the keyboard stuff, no progress has been made.
• Door: no progress
• 'A Court of Thorns and Roses': I did! I finished it in 2024! I liked the book a lot, which you can read about above.
• Cryptic crossword: Here's the ones I made this week, try them with these links:
  • Original 5x5 Cryptic 11
  • Original Nonchecked 7x7 Cryptic 4
• Baked potatoes: Made them, and they were so good that I'll be making more.
• 'Homestuck': Read about 10 pages?
• LaTeX USB: Didn't do work on it this week
• New show: Didn't start this
• Crossword prep: I have a single 5x5 to make clues for. That's it.

This week, I'm going to continue work on the PCB projects, read more 'Homestuck,' and possibly start watching some show or start a new game. I might have some course work to do over the course of four months that I might try to speedrun in one day, and I'll also need to make some crosswords for next week.

Song of the week

'HAPPY PARTY TRAIN' (https://youtu.be/LGvQ3lscChg) from 'Love Live! Sunshine!!' is the song of the week. Just as 'Far far away' was my "theme" of my life in 2024, 'HAPPY PARTY TRAIN' is the same but for my 2025. This song is Aqours' third single, and it's a song about what you do once you've accomplished some dream: where do you go from there? It's also about how life is like a train, where people who are riding the happy party train of life with you will get on and get off at many different stations, and at each station, there will be things waiting for you, and things waving goodbye. This year will be one that is the beginning of a transition for me in my life. A lot of people are about to deboard from the happy party train of my life... or am I the one deboarding, and switching lines? That's a ways away, of course, but it's sooner on the horizon than one would expect. I think before I reach that point, there's some things I want to experience, things I want to do in 2025:

• smell the fragrance of a freshly bloomed flower
• experience an excitement I've never felt before
• feel the warmth of a newborn wish just starting to come true
• see a daybreak which fills me with wonder
• witness a sunset that can house my pain
• write an english lyrical translation of 'HAPPY PARTY TRAIN'

I don't know if these are feasible things for me to do in 2025, but this is a song I've loved since hearing it, and one that I want to be thinking about while living through this upcoming year, riding this train which truly can go anywhere.

Until next time

Honestly, quite a fun week for me!! The highlight was the mall, but even the end of the week had some exciting moments for myself, and there was quite a bit of stuff going on at work too. I feel as though I'm about to get very busy though...

- bubbler

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