October 6, 2024 - bloghan 15
This week felt like an up-and-down kind of week, but looking back, it was mostly ups, with just one or two major downs. Work was almost exclusively ups (morning held most of the downs at work), and so was home, but that was where I had to deal with most of the downs.
Tier list of the week
This week's tier list: hours of the day, specifically rating how good they are for waking up in. For example, I personally quite like the time between 11pm and 1am, but those are terrible hours for one to wake up in. Also, this isn't accounting for naps, just regular, end of the day, sleep. Here's the tier list:
Ordered tiers, but unordered within tiers. Seeing 12pm as low as it is might surprise some people, but if I wake up at 12pm, I feel bad about missing some of the earlier peak hours like 10am.
Personal updates (achievements, reflections, and antics)
On Monday morning, I first checked the logs to see if my changes had fixed that tool I was told to fix last week, but I realized that just fixing one file path wasn't the solution to the whole issue. After conversing with another colleague, I figured out that a version change of some other tool was responsible overall. That morning at work made me feel like a detective in one of those detective games, collecting all this evidence from docs, coworkers, and error logs of various tools, and then putting it all together to determine where the error lied. I managed to apply a fix, but in order to make sure it was applied to everyone's work, and not just mine, I had to message someone to get it pushed to everyone's workspace, noting in that message that it was finally done. Lunch that day was somewhat boring at first, as I just kinda sat there and ate my sandwich, but it got a bit less drab as I talked a bit about deer and extinct species with some other coworkers. But then I saw out of the corner of my eye that my work rival had discovered 'Exploding Kittens' on the break room's board game shelf, and was playing it with some other coworkers. I had played 'Exploding Kittens' a lot in the last 3 years (though not as much in the latter of those three), so it was amusing to see it from an outsider's perspective. They saw my watching and invited me to play: once in game, I tried to screw over the guy on the right after he helped me once, and I got repaid by being incessantly targeted down by him (he had a 'Defuse,' 'Attack,' and a 'Skip' by the time I was out, nothing I could have done). It was pretty fun, and my work rival took the game up to his desk. He won the first round (the one I just watched), therefore he liked the game, as he does with any game he wins the first round in. When I got back home, I set my sights on finally removing the door on this website, and I'm pretty sure I was successful? I don't have tools like UNIX's grep or find on this platform, so I can't be 100% sure, but it seems to be gone! It took me a surprising amount of time, especially considering all the obfuscated code that I had to deal with (HTML moment). Why did I put all that there?
First thing I did at work on Tuesday was to check the logs. Surely, after my path change on Friday and my tool change yesterday, it would just work, right? Except, when I looked at the logs... the path was back to what it was pre-Friday? I was sure I changed it, and looking at the history of my changes, I did for sure. When I went back to check what it said in the site which updates everyone on changes, it said that someone had made a change to the file containing the path after I had changed it, this someone being the person who I asked about the issue in the first place. I updated everything, and saw that my change got reverted completely. I asked her why it got reverted, and she said they were doing some overhaul on this particular file. The one I asked her about last week, and that I asked for permission to change. The very same. If she was going to overhaul right after I made my change, wouldn't have been great to, I don't know, tell me about that before giving me permission to change it????? I ended up not asking about it any further (except permission to change it again), and changed my particular part back. This tool runs nightly, which is why I check in the morning if it ran, so this was just another day of delay on seeing if it was working. At lunch, I got roped into more 'Exploding Kittens,' and ended up in an alliance with a new player and the player from yesterday who I tried to screw over, against an alliance of another new player and my work rival. This other new player was being coached by my work rival in playing the game, but he was looking at her cards and directing her how to play them in a way that was teaching her, yes, but also helping him out and targeting me down. I was playing 'Alter the Future' almost every turn to try and save the new player (his turn was right after mine) as well as myself, and eventually, the alliance won and knocked out my work rival. After that, I promptly lost as the alliance fell apart. We headed back upstairs after that good match, with my work rival yet again taking the game upstairs with him. As I slowly got back into the groove of working, my work rival propositioned me to another couple matches of 'Exploding Kittens,' Just one-on-one. We played three matches and I won the best of two, mostly due to luck and also good playing around/with the 'Streaking Kitten.' He seems to have gained a sort of "grudge," (I don't know the correct word for this), and now he's keeping track of our 1v1 wins against each other. Clearly, I have a lot of work to do at work.
Then, it was time for D&D. We were still in the midst of the same adventure: 'Celeste' managed to sell the cart to her character's noble 5th cousin (twice removed), but delayed the sale so that they could still use it for the rest of the adventure. 'Kite' and 'Nikon' stood down and allowed the town sheriff to arrest the thief, and 'Rhythm' put on a performance for the bored bar-goers who were hoping for a bloody fight, collecting 85 silver pieces. After a bit of discussion, they headed out to the bakery, where the recipe was lying in wait for them to grab and give to the wizard who granted them the task. They reached the bakery, and I described to them how there was the smell of apples, and a great big tree that looked like it had a face, and that the door seemed to be barricaded... yeah, they didn't latch on to any of the hooks and just broke in (which is fine but RIP to all those notes). 'Rhythm,' who had played before, did some exploring outside, but didn't want to separate the party, and headed to the front with them. They looked around the bakery (I'm surprised they didn't try to loot the counter), and for some reason, 'Kite' happened to rush right towards the room I had intended for them to visit last. I interrupted with an encounter against some goblins, who only saw 'Kite' and not the other three players. The other three players took advantage of stealth and pelted from afar/approached quietly, while 'Kite' ran right up to them and... got hit twice through AC 18 and went down to 0 HP. My work rival, who plays 'Kite,' went onto his phone right away after that as the goblins got burned/radiated, stabbed, and sliced in two. They managed to stabilize and bring back 'Kite' (I didn't know the rules on downed players because this was the first time it happened to me!!), and explored more of the bakery, until 'Celeste' went down to 0 HP outside of combat from pure unluckiness. We called it there, and while I was expecting them to be somewhat upset about it, they said it was fine, just a bit of bad luck, and it was still fun. We went to the Asian supermarket afterwards, where I saw this tall girl wearing a university hoodie. She must have been above six feet tall. I pointed her out to my work rival, and he looked at me, then at her, then at me again, and he said, "bro, she looks 30." I told him, "I thought she was 22 or something," to which he responded with, "I think that's a ring on her finger." Why must this world do this to me?
Wednesday, I check the logs again, but something wasn't right. A different file path than the one from yesterday had changed by one word, even though that different file path has been consistent for the last couple of months. I asked this same coworker about it, and she said that it was changed yesterday, and it will stay like this for the foreseeable future. I was really annoyed now, since once again I wasn't warned about this sudden change to a tool I've been working with recently. This time, I had to add that single word to the fix I made on Monday, and get it pushed to everyone again. I could see the last message I sent to this guy, saying that it was the finished fix. What a wonderful impression I've made. Lunch made me feel way better though, as yet again, we played 'Exploding Kittens,' this time with 8 players, the 'Streaking Kitten' and 'Imploding Kitten' expansions, and every bomb in the deck just to speed things along (it still took an hour). My work rival was working from home that day, but the guy I targeted on Monday was there. It was a very fun round, given the sheer amount of bombs in there. At one point, I got fact-checked on the spot about how stacking 'Attack' and 'Targeted Attack' cards work (I was right), and how 'Attack' cards are really like taking two turns instead of just drawing two cards (I was right, again). There were a bunch of crazy plays made just to screw people over many turns in advance, but eventually the game ot to the point where I was supposed to take six turns in a row, and the person going after me had zero cards in their hand (the guy I targeted on Monday). I had a 'Defuse' in hand but nothing to get around these six turns, so I just decided to look at the top five cards with 'See the Future x5.' The top was an 'Exploding Kitten,' and I had no choice but to draw it and use my 'Defuse.' That allowed me to put it anywhere in the deck, where I decided to place it so that after my five remaining turns, the next person would have to draw the 'Exploding Kitten,' unable to do anything about it since he held no cards. I counted it out, and placed it. The whole time, he was begging me not to go for the easy target, and that I should go for someone with actual tools in their hand to force them to use those tools, but I wasn't hearing it: this time, I was going to get him out before me, and not get screwed over in the process. I started speaking a bit more slowly, more deliberately, as I drew my next five cards just as slowly, and explained, "when a pack of wolves hunts a herd of deer, they always go for the weakest link." I drew the first four cards, no problem, the table now quietly watching me, to see if I had really done that dastardly action. On the word "link," I drew...
An 'Exploding Kitten.'
I miscounted.
I said the above and put my hand, now useless, in the discard pile. Everyone began to laugh, and I did alongside them, but yet again, I didn't get that guy out before me. He smiles and says something about cockiness or something. He had a bit of a smirk, but it was a friendly smirk, as if to say that he respected what I was going for there, even if I didn't pull it off successfully. And you know what? I respected him for that, too.
Then he draws an 'Exploding Kitten,' and everyone at the table loses it.
The game wraps up later with two players battling it out, with one player holding a 'Defuse' and a revealed 'Draw from the Bottom,' and the other player with two 'Draw from the Bottom,' unrevealed. The 'Defuse' gets used, and the 'Exploding Kitten' is placed on the top of the deck, no trying to hide it or anything. One 'Draw from the Bottom' is played by the player with two (now one) of them, netting them a 'Swap Top and Bottom.' The last card of the one with the last 'Defuse' is played, another 'Draw from the Bottom.' Keep in mind, there's still an 'Exploding Kitten' on the top of the deck, so the player with the last 'Draw from the Bottom' does just that... and gets an 'Exploding Kitten.' The game ends in us losing our minds again. That was probably the most amount of fun I've had playing 'Exploding Kittens,' specifically with eight people. Usually with eight players, it can get pretty dry between turns, but big moments like these kept happening, so it was great all around.
The final big thing that happened on Wednesday was me finally finishing the first steps of the task I was doing for another subteam as a favour. After I reported my progress, the guy who assigned it to me expanded the scope of the script. That was fine, the scope change he had in mind was something I was going to need to do for the director's task, but it bugged me that he called it "our task." Like yeah, I get that you described it and what it should output and all that, but I was the one who wrote it and tested it. You just told me if the test results looked right or not. Whatever...
Thursday was more on the sad side when it came to work. One of the people on my subteam had their last day tomorrow, and there was going to be a team lunch at a nearby steakhouse to say farewell. While he hadn't been with the company for all that long, he was in a very high position (just barely below my manager), and it really seemed like he would be missed. Even though I never interacted with him, I felt like I should go, since we were on the same subteam, but a lot of my coworkers not on my subteam went for free food. I arrived first with one of those coworkers, since the calendar invite said noon. However, unbeknownst to us, at 11:59am, there was an email that pushed back the lunch to 12:15pm. So there we were, first to arrive under the company reservation, two very young looking guys sitting alone at the far end of a table for 20. Eventually, people filtered in, and I saw my manager and the director, my work rival, the girl I have beef with, the guy leaving tomorrow, and some other people I've worked with in my time here. After we ordered, the guy leaving the next day wanted to see the people on the edge who he had never really seen before (these were the coworkers who came in just because they heard free team lunch and weren't on our subteam). He looked at me first, and said "I already know you" (I guess he knew me from seeing me in subteam meetings and all, but I never met him!), and then got names and subteam names from those guys. The waitress came back and asked the girl I have beef with something, and since I knew we ordered the same thing, I assumed it was the same question. I didn't hear that question, so I just answered with "the same." We all got our food back: manager and director got burgers, other coworkers got 8oz steaks, club sandwiches, or seafood platters, the guy who was leaving got some sort of fish dish, and I got this steak poutine thing. One guy had to run to reschedule a meeting to make room for this lunch (he realized while there it would take longer than scheduled), so he ran back to the office, rescheduled that meeting, then ran back, and ate his steak then. I realized that I indirectly answered "medium rare" to the steak doneness of the steak in my poutine, and this was technically the first time I was having steak from a restaurant like this. I wasn't expecting it to be as chewy as it was, but it was juicy and tasted nice, so it was all good. The poutine itself was very rich and very salty, and apparently it had some sort of weird mushroom oil on it? I guess that must have been part of the richness. It was a good lunch, I liked it, even if it was egregiously salty. The director paid for it on the company card, said the real life equivalent of "ntd," and the guy who was leaving went on a really long closing speech that wasn't much of a speech, but more a recounting of his work history. People seemed to be satisfied with it, and they've known him longer, so I guess it all worked out. Back at the office, I began to work on stuff, until I got a message from my manager, asking me to head to his office. I sucked in my breath, but I'm starting to get used to him just kind of calling me places without context, and the situation being fine afterwards. And it was! He asked me if I enjoyed the lunch (I did!), and what I was working on (task for director, task for the other subteam, task he gave me to fix the tool). He was curious about that tool, and I explained about the file path stuff, and the script, and the updated flows. Not only that, but he also seemed very impressed at how I chased down the leads to figure out the root cause, and he had one of those "ooohhhhhh" moments when I was explaining the root cause. Then, he gave me another task, one handed down to me from yet another subteam (straight from the manager of that subteam this time), and explained it (ad the relevant concepts) to me outside his office. I was told to make it a priority, above all other tasks. It also just so happened that this subteam manager happened to be my work rival's manager, and her fast response time to my questions made for quite the nice thing to lord over my work rival.
Thursday night was a D&D night, online with the people from home. And this session was... certainly something. 'Izuku' was especially grating this week, as was 'Harold,' but at least 'Harold' was trying to stay on track with the story. 'Izuku' felt like they were doing a lot of derailing, but I think it's because I gave these specific characters a social situation. They rolled into town, went into the bar, and just made things as awkward as possible with the inability of 'Izuku' to talk to anyone in a normal, civilized way, and the insistence of 'Harold' to end every sentence with 'Harold,' making it hard to figure out when the player was trying to initiate dialogue with other people on the VC or non-player characters. After meeting NPCs based on an unsettling aubergine fellow, a common D&D tavern "story hook figure," two ranchers based on a couple I know in real life, and a snooty elf, they managed to sell the horse and cart, and scare off the thief trying to steal the cart. They then went into the town hall for no good reason (they knew where they had to go next, the bakery), and just prattled about stroke and stroke prevention/intervention to the poor receptionist. 'Harold' began to pick up on some of the frustration/desperation in my voice, and proceeded with the story, but 'Izuku' decided to just stay inside and not notice that 'Harold' had left. Honestly, what I'm describing here doesn't really describe all the antics they got up to that just made things way more complicated than the social encounter in the town was supposed to be, and now only one person was bothering to go to the bakery and the other was being a nuisance in-game and at the table. I called for a five-minute break, and honestly, I really wanted to just end the session there, but the players wanted to keep playing. I almost put my foot down and ended it, but I decided to just ask them if they had any ideas on how I could get the adventure back on the rails. As soon as I asked it, an answer materialized in my brain, and I put it into action: I applied a little bit of deus ex machina, and had the voice of the mentor of 'Izuku' suddenly appear in his mind, making him rush out of the town hall, towards 'Harold,' sparks flying in the air, and say "I am here!" I hate this group of players so much. I am, however, very happy with my use of a virtual tabletop for the bakery itself (a usage which was revealed a minute or so after 'Harold' and 'Izuku' got reunited, so it took my mind off that whole ordeal), and even more happy that they bothered to explore around the bakery: they fought the violet fungus hiding in the trash pile ('Izuku' went to town on it with a shovel and had a really long-winded monologue about how anyone could be a hero - relax, man, it's just a singular fungus), and interacting with the tree with a face on it (it was actually a treant, and it told them to leave it alone!). Thursday D&D was a lot more stressful for me this time, but somehow, the players found this more fun than the previous Thursday D&D session two weeks ago. Strange, but what can I do? I made pizza pops for dinner, then went to bed. On Friday, I worked from home, working on that new task, and not much else to be honest.
Saturday, I woke up past noon, and just wanted to go back to sleep again. I felt strangely groggy and incoherent, more so than usual. I got up, and walked to the washroom to wash up, and all that, when I looked in the mirror and thought that I was in a "different place" in the mirror. Leaving the washroom, I walked into the kitchen. My kitchen's ceiling has a "lower" and an "upper" portion, and as I walked under this "lower" portion, I felt like my head was really close to it. I wasn't going to bump into it, but I never noticed that my head was that close to hitting it. So now I'm left wondering... did I recently grow taller?? Whatever the case, I felt a bit more invigorated that day due to me finding out about the existence of the official "hi jo" hat, and I did a couple of things: I read "A Court of Thorns and Roses" out in my landlord's garden, under the fall afternoon sun. It was calming, peaceful, beautiful. Though some of the content in the book was a bit weird (Tamlin gives me the creeps), and some of the wording was a bit awkward (maybe I'm being too critical of the style used), it's the setting that has captured my attention the most. I also got a text from a short girl who made me crazy uncomfortable last winter (I will never mix up weird comments for flirting ever again), and spent a good amount of time discussing how to respond in a way that discourages her further contact. I did this discussion with the friend who plays 'Harold,' and this time, it was my turn to be infuriating, constantly backing in and out of sending the text message, drawing allusions between me and Johnny Joestar (and the short girl and the US President) from 'Steel Ball Run,' making and abandoning an edit from the same, putting on 'Tusk' by Fleetwood Mac and insisting that I only send the message when I'm at the good part of the song, and going to ChatGPT to ask it to apply Gyro's 5 lessons to the situation, and also just repeating the advice my friend was giving me back to her as if I came up with it originally. Man, I love trolling. Eventually, I was satisfied with my revenge, and sent the message. And hey! I haven't gotten a message back, so here's to it all working out!
Sunday was more chill, filled mostly with writing for bloghan. I did end up taking a break to do laundry in the afternoon, and since it was sunny, I hung up the laundry outside. I began to write bloghan again when I noticed a pattering sound, and a darkening of the skies. As the rain started to come down harder, and I rushed outside to bring down the retractable rain awning and drag the clothesrack under it. The rain came, and then it went, just as quickly. I saw later that the rain had kicked up some dirt and tiny leaves onto the freshly wet clothes, so I'm going to have to wash them again. The sunshine that followed the harsh rain was very pretty, flitting through the branches and brightening up the indoors. A shame about the laundry, but at least there was a blue sky which made me stand there and look at it for 10 minutes. Later that evening, I had a call with the player of 'Izuku,' and we talked about small things like 'Splatoon' LAN events, and had a bit of fun looking through some funny Amazon reviews. I think for the majority of this day, I listened to 'Corridor of Time' from 'Chrono Trigger' on loop, because that's the kind of vibe I got from this day.
There were some other things I did this week that don't quite fit in one day, because I've been doing them throughout the week:
- Started watching 'Bocchi the Rock!' I think I might say "she's just like me for real" regarding Bocchi about the same amount of times as I said it regarding Asuka (don't read into it don't read into it don't read into it)
- Bought peanut butter! A thick layer of the stuff on a slice of toast has been my go-to snack this week, especially right when I come back from work.
- Used a dehumidifier a whole bunch! I've been using this dehumidifier next to my windowless washroom almost constantly while I'm awake, and it's been collecting quite a lot of water, which I think is a good sign?
- Mahjong! I've been playing mahjong against bots for the past little bit, in order to get stronger so that I never get banished to the land of the barbarians for all eternity, if it ever comes to that.
Looking back on this week, it seems way busier and packed than I expected it to, which is probably why this bloghan took so long. Despite all that, today, as the day I wrote this bloghan, proved to be a very relaxing respite from the explosive chaos of the week.
Future plans
The calendar thing worked out mostly alright, I'll have to move around some things so that I don't put things on days I know I'll be coming home from work tired.
- Door: removed
- Calendar: all set up!
- Reading: re-read 'One Piece' up to the Syrup Village arc, and read up to chapter 8 in 'A Court of Thorns and Roses'
- 'Thomas Was Alone': beat ten more levels than I was expecting to beat this week
- Nail clippers: surely this is something I can do this upcoming week instead
For now, the plans remain mostly the same regarding what I'm reading and playing. I will also add episodes of 'Bocchi the Rock!' to this list, and I think there might be some vestiges of the door leftover, so I'll work to remove those too. I will also try to work on my portable LaTeX USB this week as well.
Song of the week
'Daisuki dattara Daijoubu!' (https://youtu.be/JrgM9L3G5jY), from 'Love Live! Sunshine!!' is the song of the week. Aside from the obligatory "I listen to and love this song so much because it's from 'Love Live!' and I've listened to it 4–7 times this week," I also love it because of what it's trying to say, starting even with just its title, which translates to 'If It's Loved, It's Alright!' This week, I focused a lot more on actively doing, reading, and watching things I loved, and it worked out well for me! I didn't feel like I was wasting away at my computer this week, but since what I was doing was loved, it was alright. I think about this song when people tell me about things that they like/love to do that I don't necessarily like at all, like driving for the sake of driving, or blitz chess. Honestly, those sound like very stressful experiences to me, but if it's loved, then I'm sure it's alright. Why shouldn't I entertain conversation with them on those topics? Just because I don't love it? So many interesting things can be learned from those conversations, and maybe I'll find a new thing I love from it. That sounds pretty alright to me.
Until next time
We've come to the end of bloghan 15. I didn't get much of a chance to write a major chunk of this on Saturday, so apologies if it feels rushed. See you at bloghan 16!
- bubbler