August 18, 2024 - bloghan 7
bloghan 7! This week was more weighted towards the latter half in terms of things that I ended up doing. It turns out that "the big deadline" was not this past Wednesday, but actually isn't until September. So. I guess I could do a lot more this week?
Tier list of the week
This week's tier list: web browsers. This tier list is focusing on ones that I have heard about and can recognize from the icon, since on that tier list maker website, there's not usually any annotation text on images. Here's the tier list:
Ordered tiers, but unordered within tiers. Honestly, even if Mozilla has to start being a little less user friendly because of Google giving less funding to them, I don't think I could switch from Firefox. Then again, I said that about Chrome before I knew more about what it did in the background.
Personal updates (achievements, reflections, and antics)
Start of the week was mostly work focused. On Monday, the tests that I had put in on Friday were all passing, but since so much had changed between Monday and Friday, I had to re-run those tests, so I didn't get useful results from them until Tuesday. Until then, I decided to work on a task that I had been putting off, since it was only an improvement to another test. It was actually a lot simpler than I thought it was, and while I initially tried to do it with regular expressions, a coworker pointed out to me that Python string methods would do what I wanted, but he only pointed it out after I loudly complained about regular expressions. I tried making my change and running it, but it failed because one other team didn't follow proper conventions, so I had to retry with a correction specific to that team. It caught me by surprise, but I guess those kinds of people make it out of university too.
I mentioned how my frustrated and accidental loudness got me the secret to avoiding regular expressions. The office is quiet for the most part, except for the corner where all my closest coworkers are (they are very, very chatty, it's like a high school in there) and this one cubicle occupied by a guy who has been with the company for years. People keep going there to argue with him (my boss's boss quite a lot, actually), and each time, it escalates into near yelling. My cubicle situation involves a booking system, where each day I reserve a cubicle for my use, and the one that I like to sit in the most (it's close to the close coworkers corner) also happens to neighbour the arguing cubicle. Whenever the arguing starts to escalate, it throws me off of my work, so I just get up and wait around in the close coworker corner until it stops. The cubicle reservation system is quite annoying, since I can only book two weeks in advance, you can't keep anything in that cubicle, and people will go ahead and sit in cubicle's you've booked. But next week, I am getting my own spot in the close coworker corner! Because one of them left on Friday.
All the other things I did that were not work were basically to celebrate and see off that coworker. Except Tuesday. Tuesday, after my shift ended, I headed to the lunchroom where those close coworkers had set up a game of 'Cryptid.' It's a game with a map full of tiles with different traits, and every player has one clue, and if you were to combine all the clues, they would lead to exactly one spot on the map. I joined midway and formed a team with someone, and we won the game (I wasn't much help). Afterwards, we went to foosball, and let me tell you: I understand why people don't want to go up against people who spin. It was a terrible experience, since this guy would spin, the ball would bounce on three different edges all over the table, and it would just go in one of the goals. Maybe I just have terrible reaction time (most likely), but I feel like at that point a simple wrist flick would be enough? What was worse was the way he would just constantly spin the middle players, without pause. It was so loud, and caused the ball to just pop up and out of the table. The worst of all was when my teammate started copying the spinner, but instead of applying it with any strategy or aim, he just spun for the sake of spinning the thing. The middle figures of both sides were just spinning as fast as they could be spun, and the only relatively still players were the goalkeeper and the defenders. My teammate kept making Star Wars noises as he spun too, because it brought him luck or something. It was such an overwhelming match on both my hand-eye coordination and my ears. That game went 10-9 somehow. I am very hesitant about ever touching the work foosball table again, since I think we dented the ball and the wall.
Wednesday was a game night at the place of "the coworker who was leaving." After eating some Chipotle (I got a burrito, no one was shocked that I finished first because everyone else got bowls) I played a bit of 'Throw Throw Burrito' (it was alright, a bit too "stop and go" with the pacing), and some 'Wavelength' (goes on for a while, but gives ample conversation time in between I guess?), and we ended the night with 'Here to Slay,' which I loved. It's a card game that feels like an RPG akin to 'Dungeons & Dragons,' where you have heroes in different classes that you can play, modifiers to dice rolls, monsters to defeat, and special actions to take. I am a fan of those kinds of things, and while having 9 players dragged things quite a lot, I am so proud of that one slick combo I pulled off. That's synergy I haven't seen since my last successful roguelike run. I want to play 'Here to Slay' again, but with fewer players, just to see how far I can take that kind of synergy again.
Thursday was bowling and karaoke night. We started at Chipotle's for food (got a bowl, everyone was shocked that I finished first), then went to this bougie place for bowling. I'm not really one for bowling, I'm pretty bad at it (I get my strikes and spares occasionally though!), and I find it really boring (especially with the wait time between your frames when going with more than 5 people), but it turns out that I can send a 7-pound ball straight down the gutter at 45 kilometers per hour. That's cool, I suppose? My group got a talking to for using bowling balls that were too light for us, but near the end of our time we were using those light bowling balls to see who could roll the fastest ones. My bad, I guess.
The second half of Thursday was karaoke. Outside of one time I did some at a friend's house, this was my first time going out for it. It was actually a place quite close to work, and it had this really cool neon lighting on black marble tile aesthetic (I don't know if that's common or just that one place). We were led to this room, given menus, and just like that someone puts on 'Party in the USA' and the room is deafening. Karaoke was fun, but to be honest, I kinda wish that my experience with it last week wasn't my first. With 9 people, it's pretty hard to get to what everyone likes. For example, a lot of those so called 'white girl bangers' were songs I didn't know, so I sat there quietly bobbing my head to the beat as my work rival hit high notes that somehow were not falsetto (I was very shocked when he pulled those out, and he didn't think anything of it???). One guy was yell singing over everyone whenever he didn't have the mic, but he had a good voice so I was okay with it. Surprisingly, a third of the people there had very low pitch accuracy, and the oldest person among us could rap very well (there were quite a lot of awkward pauses whenever slurs came up, which is a good thing I think). I got handed the mic for 'Waving Through a Window,' 'Don't Stop Believin',' and 'Dancing Queen,' and I think I did very well for myself? I haven't exercised my lower register much, but I used it for those latter two songs, and it went very well. People seemed pretty surprised by it. I left quite early, since the guy giving me a ride home was feeling super dead and wanted to go early, and I didn't really mind. After "white girl banger" number 13, I was kinda done. I'd like to go to karaoke again, but not with so many people, and maybe with fewer songs being sung as a group, and more chances for people to do true solos or duets.
Most people from the close coworker corner were planning to come in on Friday, even though the majority of the office does not come in on Fridays and works from home instead, just to say goodbye to the one who was about to leave it all behind (well, he'll be back in January, allegedly), since it was his last day. I was planning on coming in that day... if my throat weren't suffering from a bit of a cold and all that exertion at last night's karaoke. I did my tasks and all, but the one who was leaving called me near midday, to let me know that I would be taking over a task assigned to him by my boss's boss (good for me if he knows my name, I guess). At the end of the call, we said goodbyes: I wished him luck in school and that I'd see him in January. He wished me luck in my role, and that was that. To be honest, I didn't really feel upset over him leaving, but I know that some of my other coworkers were close to tears. Which I don't really understand, but I think I've just always been that way. I've been noticing it more and more over these past few years, but I feel like compared to my peers, I can more easily leave people behind, if that phrasing makes sense. I can make friendships, and I can make close friendships, but I feel like I find it really easy to just up and leave. Sure, it hurts a bit, but not so much that it brings me to tears. It's pretty normal to have to let go of such things, but I'm not sure if being able to let go so easily is a good thing. Maybe that's why I always feel the way I do. And maybe, just maybe... I should invest in a menthol cry stick to make myself seem more normal.
Saturday was my first chill day after all the events of the week. I was planning on going on a little hilly walk, maybe see a nearby park, but there was a pretty intense thunderstorm, so I stayed inside. Using the trick where you see how far away the storm is by counting between the thunder and lightning, I found that I was the closest to lightning I've ever been (within 1 kilometer), so I was not about to risk going outside and getting more water jammed up in my phone speakers. The lights stayed on the whole day, only flickering a couple of times, and my Wi-Fi was intact throughout, which was not the case for some of my coworkers. It was supposed to be a very cozy day, and it was up until I dropped a full spoon of mayo on the pair of pants that I was going to sleep in. It was after midnight and I really wanted to go to bed early to prepare for Sunday. So, I threw the pants in the washing machine, without bothering to wipe off the mayo, put some detergent on the mayo, and set it to "soak." Why did I put it on "soak" mode? Why? The machine started to shake, I went to investigate after the cycle was done, and it drains out. I inspect and sniff the pants, and they seem clean, but they are dripping water. It's too late in the day for me to hang it outside, and for me to machine dry it since the dryer is so loud, so I hang it indoors and position a mop bucket underneath it. A very frustrating experience that I probably will not learn from.
Sunday was the day of the carnival. I didn't even know that it would be a carnival, I only knew it was an "exhibition." Got picked up at my place, and driven to the subway. Met up with other people at another station, then headed downtown for lunch. It was this Korean place, with two Michelin stars. I got the pad thai, but was warned that it would be very spicy by my friend who had been before. She told me to get the mild, I got the medium. Food arrived, and it had some red flakes on it. I... did not taste any spice. My mouth felt sensations of spice, my nose felt it, but I just didn't taste any spice. I don't like spice anyway, since I've eaten so much of it, and have since grown tired of it, but oh well. The food was good, I got to say I went to a Michelin star restaurant, but I don't really want to go back, since they had flies in the restaurant trying to land on people's food, and there were no methods of removal/trapping that I saw.
We went for the carnival after that. Getting there was a bit of a pain, through navigating streetcar routes and the different blockades put up to accommodate the carnival. The word that best describes it was loud: the sounds, the smells, the sights, all very loud and overwhelming, which I guess is just how it goes. We wandered for a good bit, just looking at the weird fried food and the different games. It started to rain, so we headed into the actual exhibition part of the event. There were a surprising amount of tech booths advertising gaming PCs and laptops, and a lot of clothing and jewelry stuff too. One of the girls wanted to check out the dog show, so that's what we did next. I get nervous around dogs, but since they were down on the performance floor, and I was up in the rafters, it ended up fine. The dog show was fine, I guess? I didn't really get the appeal with the dogs jumping over large hurdles or running through tubes, or doing choreographed dances, but the Frisbee section was pretty cool. After the show, one of the girls and I got separated from the main group, so we briefly explored a leggings outlet just outside the dog show area. She suggested leopard print for me, but I don't really agree with that personally. After rejoining with the group, we watched a Maori haka performed on stage, and had a brief stint trying out a pinball machine and the original 'Frogger' and 'Donkey Kong' arcade cabinets. Then: the light show.
We had tried to get into the hourly light show before, but always missed the entry time or got into the line too late. When we got in, we were seated in a pretty dark room, save for some holograms providing ambience to the center of the room. The show starts, and these synthesized tones start to play, and the hologram lights begin to shift. It was a pretty sight, but the show was completely stolen by the violinist. He walked in, and just gave a monumental performance, showing a whole new side to the instrument. His playing was amazing, but you would appreciate his performance so much more if you knew violin or played it before. The way he applied vibrato to finger positions I never thought vibrato was feasible on; the way he could so effortlessly work in pizzicato notes to accentuate tremolo sections; purposely using string crossings to add extra flair; the use of string harmonics; all these different skills and techniques, blended so wonderfully, so technically, it was amazing. After the performance, I asked for the chance to talk to him, and I told him about a class I took once. The prof said once in that class that "art is the creative expression of skill," which I didn't really get but just accepted. That performance I just watched made me understand what the prof meant. The violinist looked so happy to hear that, and he was! He went in for the handshake, but then decided to give me a hug. I didn't think it would be that profound. He asked if I played violin, and I told him I had not picked it up in 3 years, but I was amazed at how he applied the techniques in the way he did. He gave me a practice tip (practice against a tone/changing tones and do finger dexterity exercises on the violin neck), and gave me his contact info, telling me to let him know if I ever got back into violin. I was fanboying over that performance for the next 10 minutes. Even as I'm writing this, still not over that performance. Now I want to get back into violin.
After a bit of calming down, we all rode on the chairlift that took you from one side of the carnival to another, got yelled at by carnival staff for trying to cross between stands, and I watched as some of them went on one of the real spinny carnival rides. We hit the food court after, but everything was very unreasonably expensive (18 dollars for two tacos??? seriously???). We ate, some people left, I stole my work rival's wallet and gaslighted him into searching the bag of someone who didn't have it while having another person hold the wallet in front of him, and ate three-quarters of a burrito bowl. Once that had wrapped up, we hit the main carnival one last time to play games. Two guys won a 2-foot tall Squirtle plush at the game where you throw baseballs at beer bottles, and announced that they would be keeping it at the office in the close coworker corner. One girl won an avocado plush by smashing two plates in two consecutive baseball throws. Finally, my work rival lost ten dollars at the basketball game (the ones with elliptical hoops), but he won a Yoshi plush at the balloon darts game. I didn't go for any prizes, since no vendors were offering an official Landorus Therian plush as a prize. Once we had our photo taken on multiple film/Polaroid/iPhone cameras, we called it a night and headed back. The carnival was a fun time, though the light show was easily the peak of it for me. And that's why I ended up getting back to my place so late at night that I only finished half of this bloghan on the Monday and Tuesday after.
Future plans
OK, work will still be kinda intense, but not as intense as I thought it would be? I think this week I will be able to get more reading in, like starting 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' and finishing 'Delicious in Dungeon.' I might do a little more work towards that one Advent of Code puzzle, but probably not. I might buy myself a menthol stick though. That might come in handy for tough meetings. I'm not going to make promises, but if I did, I would probably still break them here anyway.
Song of the week
'Waving Through a Window' (https://youtu.be/A9fGB1ln13E) from 'Dear Evan Hansen' is the song of the week. I've listened to it about 2.5 hours this week, after one of my coworkers suggested I sing it for karaoke. The first time I heard it, I listened to the lyrics for the most part, and recognized a lot of phrases I've said to myself when it came to forming relationships. I really feel like I relate heavily to these lyrics, though not in the way that the titular character does in the musical. The symbolism and lyricism is so good in this song. I quite liked the introduction instrumentation, mostly becuase it sounds like such a 'song from a musical' introduction, and because it also sounds a lot like the introduction of 'Kiseki Hikaru' by Aqours. I wonder how much longer I will be waving through a window for?
Call for suggestions
And now, the end of bloghan 7 is here. I need to pad out this paragraphs so that it rolls out into two lines, so that my headings don't break, so if anyone has any suggestions on how to get around that without a forced line break (doesn't work), I would love that.
- bubbler