September 8, 2024 - bloghan 10
Today in bloghan 10: somehow, even less happened this week. Really, only a couple significant things happened this week socially, and for work I only had one task that I had to work on this week. Super quiet.
Tier list of the week
This week's tier list: zodiac signs. This tier list is not about what I think of each constellation or the myth behind it, but from the common descriptions of what kinds of people fall under these signs, such as Machiavellianists being Scorpios. Here's the tier list:
Ordered tiers, but unordered within tiers. I'm a Scorpio, but I still can't stand some of those headstrong types like Aries. I think. I'm not entirely sure to be honest, all of the descriptions were weirdly vague.
Personal updates (achievements, reflections, and antics)
I'll start with work. While I was working on a building a tool last week for another team, this week I had to put that on hold and do another merge type deal. This time, I wasn't merging very many things, only about 70 files or so, so it wasn't so bad. I could do it maunally! I tried doing that and got tired of manually copying-and-pasting file paths by the second file. So I spent the first day making a Tcl script to do that for me from a list of files I needed to look at. I did that, and then spent two days previewing that merge, then two days doing it, and the last day of that, double checking those merges and pushing them to the project. I may have forgotten to do the checks I'm supposed to do before pushing, but I'm sure it's fine and that I'll have no emails about it tomorrow. Maybe.
That's about all that happened at work that's work related. I continue to enjoy my desk (we had a desk decor competition, I set both my monitors to the vertical position, and almost put a paper airpllane between, before my coworkers stopped me from submitting that to HR. I am now keeping my monitors like that, I like it!) and eat lunch with my coworkers. I've been getting to know some other coworkers I hadn't talked to much before, having some discussions, distracting each other from work. Things have finally begun to stabilize since those old coworkers left, but my current coworkers srill ocassionaly bring them up saying things like 'oh, I miss them maaaaan.' Makes me roll my eyes every time. Other than a couple comments on my flexibility and slyness, not much else happened at work.
Except D&D.
I was so nervous on Tuesday. We had only planned to do character creation, but still, I wanted them to like the process. In retrospect, I should've just done pre-generated characters for the mini adventure we would do in September, to speed things along and get them actually playing the game. After everyone was present, and another coworker of ours asked what we were doing, I started them off with a little imagination exercise to get them introduced to role-playing and the freedom of choice in this game, as compared to video games. It seemed to illustrate the point well, and so we went into character creation. I was originally planning on getting people to fill out a pdf, but I realized that migth not be a great idea to do it on our work laptops. Then I realized that I looked up "government psyop" multiple times on my work laptop, so I thought it would be fine. One player (the girl who had played before), brought up D&D Beyond, which was the official tool the the publishers, Wizards of the Coast, developed. We went with that, and it's where I discovered that for some reason, they're releasing a major rules shakeup in a new edition of the 'Player's Handbook,' which I have some thoughts about. Throughout the session, I felt a bit like this experienced player was overstepping bounds and making decisions for me, but her suggestions were pretty good, so it was fine. We spent a while doing it, with the experienced player helping out the person who wanted to do magic, and me helping out the two who wanted to play characters more on the side of fighting. That other coworker walked in later, and ate her lunch, watching us 'play' the game. She was actually surprised when we reached the end, apparently not having played the game. Well, that's just how session zero goes I guess...
The two players that I thought would be bored by this were actually very excited to play! They told me they liked the character creation process, and how they got to tweak numbers and equipment and spell choices to make the character theirs. The player that I thought would like it the most ended up being pretty bored, because he was more excited to actually get into the game and do stuff in a fictional world with his character. He sounds like he wants to make a big impact in said world... which is not a great sign for his enjoyment of the more low-stakes adventure I'll be running. The non-invited coworker seemed pretty interested, but also a bit wary of what we were doing. For now, we use a conference room at work since it's a bit quieter, and unused around the time we play, but I guess we'll have to use the lunch room if it ever gets occupied. Pretty excited, and also a bit scared, for next week.
Other than these things, not much happened outside of work. Wednesday was a trip to the Asian supermarket to grab more BBQ pork buns and to return the oversized pot lid. This week, I also spent a bunch of time watching videos on 'Deltarune' theorizing, rules updates and some refreshers for D&D, and 'Kirby' lore. I hopped on a couple of calls with some friends from home, as one played 'The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,' I distracted them with garbage noise and my struggles with the 'Robobot' True Arena, and another popping in and out to the tune of the nighttime combat music of 'Sonic Unleashed.' I also had a call with an old clubmate to catch up and talk about said club. We talked about some of the problems that we saw in it, talked about the new leadership, talked about the clubroom, and talked about what we'd come back to eventually. That was most of the socialization I did this latter half of the week. Oh, and I also went on a walk today! Bought some wooden pencils, looked at some local parks, procrastinated washing dishes and prepping for tomorrow. Honestly, a pretty lax weekend, where I usually woke up at noon and went to bed around 4. I should probably fix that...
Future plans
I've come to a realization when it comes to these future plans: it's ok for me to not complete them. Just ask all the things that I wrote on these in the past and never got around to going back to!
- D&D prep: I did an embarassingly small amount of this, compared to the amount I really need to do. I blame my sleep schedule. Which means it's my fault. Standees are done, but I had to switch up my plans completely so they're actually only half done. Session pace planning did not happen for the same reason, as well as maps. I would try theatre of the mind, but I've already made half of the standees...
- Spaghettini: I changed my mind on this, focused in on biryani.
- Biryani: Got my tomatoes, cut my veggies, spiced my microwave-defrosted chicken, and cooked 3 days worth of parboild rice, and ate it all for dinner in 3 days!
- 'Kirby: Planet Robobot': Well, I tried the True Arena. Tried. Wheel worked for me in the normal Arena, but I've been trying to beat the True Arena with ESP, Archer, Leaf, Mirror, Poison, and Wheel again. No luck, can't get past stage 4 usually, and my best was failing at stage 7 with ESP.
- 'Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney': And it's done! This badge does indeed prove that I am a lawyer.
- Haircut: Short hair was made up by Big Clipper in order to sell more haircuts. We cannot give in.
This week, I've got to plan out a bit more for D&D stuff, since I will be running the same campaign twice, one in-person, one online. That will also require me to read more into the new rules for 5e 2024 or whatever people are calling the new-ish semi-ish edition. I will get a haircut based on the result of a coin flip, and this week I will make chili!! I'm going to give another couple attempts to the True Arena, and I think I'll do a run where I use the Archer ability and play as lamely and defensively as possible, just to see if I can beat it. I might just remove the door as well, but we'll see if I get to it. Also, it's Kotori Minami's birthday on the 12th! She's my favourite character from 'Love Live! School idol project' and yes, she is one of the characters I may be referring to when I say "blorbo from my shows."
Song of the week
'Combat Evaluation Program' (https://youtu.be/sHKPnKN7MmY), from 'Kirby: Planet Robobot,' is the song of the week. It's the theme that plays during most of the fights in the True Arena, and apparently 'Robobot' has one of the hardest True Arenas in the entire series, so I feel like I'm going to hear it just as much this week as I did last week. This game is honestly becoming one of my favourites, even if it's causing me to bash my head against the wall. At least that's only happening in this mode. The music surprisingly has a lot of depth, and the gameplay does feel good, in both Kirby and mech sections. They really nailed how there's two different feelings of power in the two different playstyles, but each feels good in its own way.
Until next time
Well, I guess bloghan 10 didn't have as much content as the ending of bloghan 9 tried to insinuate. We'll see how D&D goes this week, since we're actually going to be playing the campaign, and I guess I'll share about it here? Hmmm, but the online people read this bloghan... I'll figure something out. I always do (eventually).
- bubbler