December 1, 2024 - bloghan 23

It's already December, and although November left me trapped in the maze of memories and emotions I wish I could forget, December will at least help to distract me from them. As a bonus, it is officially the best month of the year to capture a picture of a streetlight at night in a snowstorm, with that halo-like effect that appears when the right conditions occur. Hmmm... what is that effect called? Perhaps it's named something, I don't know, pure and true? I guess I'll have to think on it...

Tier list of the week

This week's tier list: months of the year. Since I've experienced most of the year so far, I thought this would be a good tier list to do now. Keep in mind this isn't specifically for 2024 or anything, just something for months in general. Here's the tier list:

Ordered tiers, unordered within tiers. I really don't like February for personal and non-personal reasons, and I love both December and October for personal reasons, and I guess a few non-personal ones. Some months right before those top tier months have the potential to be high tier themselves, but others just... they just can't measure up.

Personal updates (achievements, reflections, and antics)

Waking up on Monday morning was actually pretty tough. I found it hard to get out of bed: it was wrapped around me just right, and it was so, so warm. Eventually, I did have to get out, and face the day. I walked in to work to a bunch of emails, including one my manager sent me on Friday, which somehow I didn't see? I needed to just make an update to something that my direct predecessor made last year, only a couple words. I sent out my changes for a couple things today, and heard Steve mutter more about his task load out. My work rival came in a bit later than usual, plugged his laptop in at his desk, and then grabbed it and left. I did not see him again until the end of the day, but was told that he was in another cubicle for some reason. I finished my manager's Friday task during lunch, put up the next crossword (they liked this one, even if it was a bit more straightforward than last week's favourite), and lost my mind over Mr. Excited's task. I had a hot chocolate (I need to get myself a tin of that stuff so I can have it instead of boiling water in the coming months), and worked a bit more. I saw my work rival at the end of the day, and he mentioned something about his monitors not working. I was surprised by this, as I thought he went to that other cubicle because he needed to focus on a task, but no, it was just that the monitors at his desk weren't recognizing his laptop. He headed home, and half an hour later, I did as well. It started to rain to an unnoticable degree, so I put my hood over my headphones, and gloves between the top of the headphones and the underside of the hood, to ensure no moisture got inside. I got home and started writing this bloghan, but somehow ended up trying to figure out which version of 'Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!' was the one I heard in my youth. I ended up deciding it was Dean Martin's original rendition, but I swear his emphasis on some lines was completely different from what I had heard, but it definitely was not a cover by Frank Sinatra or the original by Vaughn Monroe, because those had a lot more jazz than I remembered. It really bugged me a lot that I was unable to come to a satisfying answer for so long. I wrote bloghan, cooked food, boiled some water, and started making my first PCB in a while... that is, if I still had the license. My license expired for the software I already had on my laptop about a year and a half ago, so I need to go through the process of renewing it... except, they've redone their process of renewal? It was quite confusing, but I managed to re-apply. I ended up doing a complete uninstall, and somehow signed up twice, accidentally created a support ticket with the wrong info, thought I got two licenses when in reality they were for different things, and also got signed up for some sort of design course too. Uh... I thought that maybe I should just start tomorrow.

On Tuesday, I didn't have the same waking up problem. I got ready for the day, but on my way to throw out the garbage, I lost my balance and caught my fall by tapping my hand against the brick wall of the house. I got cut, and it stung a lot, but I'm sure nothing will come of it at all. I bleed all the time, just kinda out of nowhere, so it's nice to know the source of it this time. Unlike taking out the trash, I got to work uneventfully. Steve wasn't here, and my work rival was still having trouble with his monitors, so I ended up alone at my desk again. I worked on a little bit of stuff, and a little bit of my next crossword, and eventually went for lunch. There was very limited conversation at lunch: things about short story stuff, the location's holiday party, music, my "eclectic" tastes/favourites, the process of making a crossword, things like that. After we were all done with lunch, I went up and put my next crossword up on the board, this one being my final 5x5 one, and the one with Schrödinger clues. I wasn't feeling very confident in it, and my ferars turned out to be correct: it was actually very tricky. I think it was a combination of having three squares that could be more than one letter, as well as a couple of uncommon or rare words, and some really stretched definitions. While they liked the puzzle, and thought that my clues were good, I agreed with them that it was pretty close to impossible at their skill level. I worked there as they were solving it on and off for 30 to 45 minutes, remarkably longer than the 15 minutes they had become accustomed to needing. It was frustrating for them, and hard for me to watch, as I was able to pick apart all the little flaws in this crossword I wrote last week. I got good feedback, and headed back to my desk. This time, I actually started implementing some solution to Mr. Excited's task, making some sort of slow, stumbling, error-filled progress. I got invited by the player of "Celeste" to go to the Asian supermarket after our shift, since she was greatly missing the freshly baked buns. I agreed right away, since I was greatly missing those barbeque pork buns. She got saddled with an additional task befor eleaving, so I ended up chatting and working for an additional half-hour. Right before we left, she asked what I was planning to get: I was thinking to get those barbeque pork buns, and maybe some hot chocolate powder, but she interrupted me there, asking why I wouldn't just take home the hot chocolate powder packets provided at work. After We eventually left, and as we pulled out of the parking lot, we noticed that the person who had parked in front of her had "OPEN SRC" as their license plate. Given the nature of the work at this building, it gave us a good laugh: "must be one of those senior guys who's been here for years!" At the supermarket itself, we marvelled at the grapes that were 60 dollars, a giant gift box of fruit that I may get my landlord for Christmas, the existence of asparagus, and those fresh buns having proper labelling. I spotted that there was a new type of fresh bun: barbeque pork! I had to grab it, just to try it, to see if it measured up to the steam buns I was here to get. I was hoping that some fresh coooked rice or noodle would be there too, so I wouldn't have to cook those on my own tonight, but no such luck this time. We left, and I got dropped off at my place. After saying hi to my neighbours, I walked inside, warmed up my fresh bun, drank some boiling water, and started writing this bloghan. Once I had finished that, I started the grueling task of that one last assignment: I had to finish it by this Friday, but what a slog! I asked a friend for some advice on how to do one part of it, and to my surprise, he sent me all his work, showing and telling me that I was overthinking how much I actually had to put into this. I was really touched by his help, and very grateful too, but I couldn't help but wonder if something wicked was about to come my way... like, I don't know, a singular poisoned doughnut hole? I went to bed really late this night, which I was sure I would regret the following morning.

Wednesday morning, I definitely felt the impact of staying up last night, but it didn't stop me from finishing my morning routine faster than usual. I got to the office, saw that my work rival wasn't in, Steve working too hard, and no important emails or DMs. I got to work on getting Mr. Excited's task to a reportable state, while also working on my next cryptic. Me and Steve had a little chatter, and I grabbed some snacks from the break room (I grabbed some salt and vinegar chips for my work rival - he HATES those), and stole another hot chocolate packet. Right before we went for lunch, I got my task for Mr. Excited mostly working, and I sent it to him, hoping that he would take a long time to see it. Lunch came by, and it was a little less quiet than the last time my work rival wasn't there to join us. There was some talk on musicals (and how people upload full musicals on YouTube by putting "slime tutorial" in the title to dodge copyright), as well as some discussion on how Steve keeps getting one kind of task over and over again, and a bit about social media like Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr. There was a little segment where one guy tried iced tea with some milk... he said he didn't like drinking milk on its own, but he'd rather do that than whatever this combination was. Mr. Excited walked into the lunch room at one point, so I sat up straight, hiding behind someone else so I wouldn't have to talk to him. Soon after lunch ended, I went to go put my next crossword up on the board: it was my first 6x6 one, and I wasn't very proud of it. The clues were awkward, and the words in the fill weren't as common as I preferred: a historical figure, a reference to 'Lord of the Rings,' some slang that hasn't been used since the 1800s, and some very forced wordplay. We expanded the grid up on the board, and two of the girls were writing the clues. One, my co-DM, was solving them as she wrote them, but as we were writing the clues, the VP came by, and requested that no solving attempt would take place until he "got a screenshot of it." As he walked back to his desk, I utttered that it was a whiteboard - how could he take a screenshot? He turned back (I felt great fear as he did), and told me that he meant a picture with his phone. I decided to put an author's note, preemptively apologizing for this puzzle being more frustrating than normal, and that the next would be better, and decided to work in this cubicle until the picture was taken. I quite like seeing the puzzles get solved in front of me. Soon enough, the VP came back, got his picture, and everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and tried to solve it. They got some of the easier ones right away, but pushed their way through by taking breaks and coming back to it with fresh minds over the course of about 30 minutes. Their thought process made me realize there had been a transcription error when copying the puzzle onto the board (the clue that was 4 letters then 2 letters was labelled as 2 letters then 4 letters) and a clue error in my original (I said something was an anagram when really all I ended up doing was moving around the spaces in the word), but those got fixed relatively quickly after discovery. I ended up paying a visit to his cubicle (it was HUGE compared to everyone else's) to let him now, but he kinda looked busy as he said "I'll keep that in mind," so he probably didn't remember it. They were mostly satisfied with the puzzle after solving it, saying it really wasn't as bad as I thought it was, it just had a few awkward things. I guess they did get lucky with some of the words, so that's probably why. I went back to my own desk, and started working on that one task the director gave to my predecessor in August, which I inherited. I had no other tasks which I could proceed on without feedback or further instruction, so I just did that. I needed to port it over from one project set to another, so I got started on that. There were some times when Steve and I would get visited at our desk by other coworkers; not managers or people above us, just other people who were taking a break. We discussed more on crosswords, on snow, on my apparent "predisposition to violence," and a whole lot about my headphones. Apparently, my headphones had a thing on the inside of the cup where it can sense if I take them off, and if I do, it automatically pauses the music. I thought that ring in the cups was some sort of ear sweat stain, but this was way better. I tried it with 'Coffee,' and it just worked. I then accidentally activated speak to talk (pauses music when it detects me talking or me humming - the latter case being quite annoying!), and took a whole lot of time trying to figure that out. While I usually do the manual pause before I'm taking my headphones off to work, which is more hand movement, I probably will keep doing that, since if I'm taking the headphones off, I'm probably already about to turn them off. I worked some more, finishing the port over, but encountering an issue when trying to actually perform the task itself with the new project. It takes a while to set up though, so I had a bit of idle time. It was then that the girl at work who has the same name as my landlord came to me, and asked if she could use my computer's storage space to run her task in, since she was soon going to run out. Her manager told her to ask me specifically, and after a bit of joking that she was my landlord and that I had to do what she asked, we got that set up. I worked some more, and soon, it quickly became time to leave. I set up one last, well, set up, before leaving, so that it would be ready for tomorrow, and then headed out. Right before I headed out though, I passed by the cubicle with the crossword whiteboard, where my coworkers there told me that the VP and that director of another team came by to talk about and fill in the puzzle. Apparently, the VP really loved the 'Lord of the Rings' reference (of course...), and really hated the Roman history/philosophy question (what you got against my boy Plinius??), and said the error of the 4 letter, 2 letter being written down as 2 letter, 4 letter really had him stuck for a while. The other director said that looking at these puzzles was a great way for him to feel stupid just before he leaves the office, with the VP adding that sometimes they feel like you're being beaten over the head. The other director followed that up with "and then I get home and get beat even more," then both of them laughed and continued on like nothing important was said??????? Is the other director ok??? They talked some more about some of the more clever clues, and the other director said that I could "make millions" if I turned this to an app... yeah, so no one told him that other newspapers have their own cryptics on their websites, plus, I don't know if I can keep up a pace of one cryptic a day. They headed home before I did, with one of them presumably getting beat once they did, and I headed out too, after wrapping up the conversation in which I found out about all of this. I got back, started working on some bloghan stuff, and hopped into a call with a friend from home. He wanted to livestream a game for another group of friends of his, but wanted mme to co-commentate with him. Now, the game he chose was 'Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga,' an RPG. While I like a lot of RPGs, I don't think that many of them keep me hooked and interested very well: 'Pokémon' is something I like, but I've never eactually beaten a game because I get so bored in the first route. It was honestly something similar with this game, but I still tried to keep myself engaged, even though I was getting very sleepy as we were going on. My commentary was alright, I suppose, and although the stream idea fell through, recording the video was smooth for the most part. There were parts where I couldn't see what was going on, but I think I did well enough. It was also hard to bounce off what my friend was saying, mostly because he was playing the game and reading out what was happening on the screen, but I think that will get better as time goes on, as we get more in tune with what we're going for with this. I don't really mind bouncing off the game dialogue all that much. After that finished, we reviewed a bit of the audio and chose the thumbnail, and then I took time to prepare the slides for my assignment. I was too itred to record it then and there, so I went to bed instead.

Thursday, I chose to work from home. The forecast said that there would be snow today, and I wanted to be able to see when it happened, if it did. So, I forewent my regular WFH day on Friday, moving it to Thursday. For the most part, I got my work done: Mr. Excited gave me some feedback on what I had given him earlier this week, and I was making some good progress on getting that newly ported over task to work. I had my tea in my mug, which was on my coaster, on my desk, but I was getting really wrapped into what I was doing, that I neglected that mug for a little bit, letting the tea go cold. When I finally thought to take a sip, I didn't realize that a little bit of tea had ended up on the bottom of the cup, but hey! That's ok, right? That's what the coaster's for. Except because I had left the mug and coaster alone for a bit, the two started to stick together. When I lifted the mug, the coaster came with. I was still processing this when the coaster fell, and in my surprise, I dropped my tea all over the floor and my desk, and a little bit on my work laptop. I froze, having no idea what to do first. I think I chose wrong though, as I cleaned up the desk with a towel first, then wiped off the laptop (leaving it on), then the floor. A whole run of bad luck started for me there, with all the things I was running just starting to fail. My coworker who has the same name as my landlord got the results of whatever she was doing on my storage space back, and she wasn't very happy with the results, giving me something else to do on my storage space right after. I was also doing a bit of laundry while this was all going on, but when I went to go check on the machine, it was stuck in the sensing phase, just swirling water around gently for who know how long. I had to restart it and switch up the wash type to get it to do some actual washing. After lunch, I sent over my next 6x6 crossword to the people in the office, and pretty soon after that, my work laptop's touchscreen decided to stop working funcitonally (it would constantly register a whole bunch of phantom inputs whenever I used it in a specific corner, and my touchpad would refuse to work as well. I had to resort to using the nub on the keyboard, which was fine, but I didn't realize how much I missed using my touchscreen. I did the whole "uninstall device" thing for both the touchpad and touchscreen, but I had a bad feeling it was a direct result of the tea, not some other type of failure. My landlord (actually my landlord, this time), was doing something with ehr garden, and she called me out to help her with something heavy that needed to be moved. Being able to help out with that made me feel a bit better about what was going on, so during my break I pulled out a game to play for a bit, and lost every game. Wonderful, really. Just wonderful. It was getting dark out, and as Sam 4 said: "the darkness is really getting to me." I got a message from my coworkers, asking if I had a small 4x4 crossword for them to do, and they set up a little call so I could talk to them while making it. When I joined the call, they asked how I was doing, and I made a bleak joke that didn't land, so even that's not going well for me. My laptop was still ocassionaly freaking out when trying to do work, so I put my focus on that requested 4x4, as I got feedback on the 6x6 I gave them earlier. Well, I tried to get it done in 30 minutes, which is how long it took me to make the last 4x4, but this time it took me 40... just embarrassing performance, really. I sent it to them, and they solved it in less than 10 minutes, but they stayed on the line to talk until the end of my shift, which I appreciated. As soon as the work day was over, I shut down my laptop, and stood it upright over a towel, to see if the touchpad issue would get better the next day. I was really distracted with all that had happened to me today that I nearly forgot about D&D. This session, I really dedicated myself to making a whole mystery, with enough clues given so that the players could fully identify how the crime had taken place, the motives, and who did it. I had some ideas of where things could be placed, and made a "Schrödinger" room, a specific room they would encounter no matter where they went, with a little bit of variation between each location, and very similar overall clues. That was just in the interest of time, and not necessarily to just make it so that the players would be right on their first guess of where to go. I call it a "Schrödinger" room becauase once they found one, the other would not be hinted at, even if it was there. They had a really fun time colleciting all the evidence, but they did not write any of their findings down, so when it came to the public confrontation with the culprit, they had some trouble remembering what evidence they had and needed to present. There was one slight misstep on my part that did impact the smoothness that I had planned with fully cohesive evidence, which was the book of demonic rituals that the culprit used and left behind. I was sure that "Harold," a tiefling character, knew the language that it was written in, and I planted the evidence across the map and bodies with that assumption in mind: "Izuku" was the one who found it, so I had to say he couldn't read it, but when it was presented to "Harold," and I looked at that character's languages, I realized that "Harold" couldn't read it either! I could only communicate so much to them about the circles seen around the town and the circles in the book, but without the descriptions I had in mind for them, they couldn't really use it as I intended. Eventually, they were able to use the rest of the evidence to corner the suspect, and we ended off the session right as the villain finally revealed himself and his power, It was really amusing at first to see the players struggle with how one of the physically impossible acts had occurred, due to the world of the game having magic but as tehy got more and more frustrated, I eventually had to challenge their asssumptions. There was also a frustrating point where the players never tried to break a door they couldn't open (it was unlocked, just stuck), and somehow they ended up breaking down the back wall from an adjoining room. While they felt a bit iffy on those things, and I felt a bit iffy on the whole book of rituals situation, I think that it was one of the most well run D&D sessions I've ever done. The whole mystery thing was something I had never tried befroe, seeming a little too intimidating to pull off and pull off well, but I unironically think that playing games like 'Ace Attorney' and 'Danganronpa' have helped guide me in how to make a good mystery to play through (though defintely not to read through!). The final bit of this day was finally recording my video for this last assignment. I had gotten some feedback on the slides and my delivery from "Izuku" and "Harold," as well as timing information from that friend who shared his slides with me. It took me a couple of takes to get me something that I was happy with, and after trimming it with the native Windows photo app (surprisingly, it was alright!), I submitted something that was due back in September! It was also really, really late, so I went almost immediately to bed.

I was really feeling the lack of sleep on Friday morning, and also the lack of milk in the fridge. For the first time in my life, I tried instant oatmeal with boiling water instead of milk and I'm never doing that as long as I can help it. It just feels wrong... I decided to forgo doing that ever again. I also replaced my morning tea with a cup of boiling water... alright, actually, that one's not too bad. I head out for work, a little bummed that I'm going in on Friday, since I decided to take my work from home day yesterday, just for the chance to see some snow. It was very silly of me, yes, but you can't expect me to explain everything I want and need. While I was waiting for my second bus, whistling along to a 'Love Live!' song, I saw something white fall from the sky. I thought I was hallucinating it, but more started to fall. Finally, it was snowing. Sure, it was barely anything, really, just a paltry amount, not enough to cover the ground, but it was snowing!! Everyone who drove past must have been very concerned that there was someone in the bus hold laughing for no apparent reason, but it had finally happened! All the things that had happened yesterday didn't seem so bad anymore. Man. Finally! Snow. Some who know me may think it's strange, these feelings that I've gained towards the stuff, but really, it's fallen to my heart like snowflakes from the sky. I got into work, got a replacement lanyard (it snapped on Wednesday), and got to work. Honestly, I was a little too preoccupied with writing in clues for my new 7x7 cryptic, but the task I had decided to focus on that day was really not working out all that well for me. It was nice that the touchpad was acting up nearly as much as it was yesterday, but it still freaked out occasionally, so I still had it disabled. My Japene coworker, the only one sitting close to me today (Steve and the work rival were working from home today), told me I might as well file a support ticket with IT under "low priority," since things were working for the most part. I did that, and got a message from our IT staff ten minutes later, asking if I was in the office and free after lunch. I agreed, surprised that they would get back to me so fast on a "low priority" ticket. After getting milk from the break room for the tea I brought to work, filling the milkless void of the latter half of this week, I did a bit more work, then went for lunch. One of the guys in charge of my team (not above the director, but kind of like... beside him?) asked us if we had any friends working at direct competitors to our company. My co-DM responded and said she did, and when she was asked if they talked about work, she was very careful to make sure it was clear she didn't share any confidential information. The next question he asked to our group was what the main difference between our experience at this company, and our friend's experience at the other, and someone muttered "the pay" (ours is much better). The guy laughed, told us maybe we need less extra events, and then left us to our lunch. After lunch, I put up the next crossword, a 6x6 with the theme "hot and cold." One guy guessed one of the clues near the start, but it was off by two letters (it was a word with the same root, but a slightly different defintion/part of speech), which ended up screwing over the group as they were in the late stages of the crossword, not sure which parts of their fill were incorrect. I think this caused them to not like it as much, but if that initial guess hadn't happened (or if it was correct to start with), I think they would've liked the puzzle more. Just as they finished up, and got their explanations for some trickier clues, it was time for me to go up to IT and get my whole laptop situation figured out. My touchpad trouble was starting to come back, so it was perfect timing. In my ticket, I only mentioned the touchscreen, since that was the only thing giving me trouble in the morning. When I got there, was a bit early, so I hung out of view beside the door frame. However, they saw my outline by the door, and called me in, expressing surprise that my issue was with the touchscreen, as people don't really use it. I told them it was because I thought I would report it now, rather than when I was giving it back next year, but they said that it wouldn't be that much of a worry. The guy immediately tried the touchscreen, and it just started freaking out, even more than when I was doing it. It opened some things that I maybe should have closed, just in case the phantom inputs would change or delete something really important. He realized that this basically made things non-functional, and although he didn't ask what happened, he told me I should be more careful, since I apparently set the record for the newest machine broken. They went ahead with their electric screwdriver (it was so high-tech for a screwdriver, but useful still! My dad might like it if he worked on computer stuff more often than outdoors stuff), took out some cards from the inside of the laptop, swapped it into another laptop (also basically brand new), and ran a bunch of updates. The whole time, the IT guy was amazed at how the touchscreen seemed to have its own agenda, just tapping everything on the screen. While we waited for updates, he told be to be more careful in general (I will be for sure, after this incident), and not to leave my laptop in my car (I don't have a car??), then started yapping to me about stuff. He asked my age first (I think I gave him the right age but I'm genuinely not sure), expressed disbelief at how young I was, then asked what my dream company I would want to work in was. He shared that he was asking everyone of my age that question. I waffled on about how this industry wasn't what I expected, and I would maybe want to go into another, but I don't know enough about that other industry to know which companies are in it. I then went on about how school prepared me for calcs and tests and not enough on design and analysis and all that, and ended my response there. It was silent for a bit, until he asked me for a company name, saying that I almost got away with distracting him from it. I waffled more, and eventually just told him the name of a power company. He talked more about other companies down in California, and if I'd take an offer with them if they paid for housing and all that, to which I said no. I don't want to go to California or Texas, mostly because winter there would suck. No regular snow? No thanks. That just wouldn't sit right with me. Things went on like that for a while: comparing this city to my home city, especially in regards to winter and snow, talking about things like the tech center in my home city, how the transit is in both (better here than there in my opinion), how the traffic and drivers are (worse here than there). He asked if I was being supported by the company to move over here, and I told him the relocation stipend was covering all of it, which led to more questions about where I'm living, if I had roommates (none, so all the missing food in my fridge is solely my fault), how my landlord was, and then he cracked a joke at my expense, saying that I've probably been eating nothing but microwaved food since I got here, but that's "just how it is" at my age. I shared how I actually had a very limited cooking repetoire (chili is my favourite), and he was actually impressed, sharing stories of his cousins who only ate Hot Pockets or cup noodles. Around this time, the updates were almost all finished, and there were only a fwe admin steps left. The IT guy gaev me a little about himself, about how he ended up at the company and how he was glad he found what he wanted to do early and got into it here, though he wished he had work from home days like I did, and warned me that I should figure things out before my position here ended.After some more administrative things having to do with this shell swap, I essentially got brand new hardware, and a warning of "we're watching you." Believe me, I'm never letting this happen again. I just can't. I went back down to my desk, feeling a bit bad about the record I've set, and about how a bunch of other people are stuck with much older laptops than I was, but my Japanese coworker was very reassuring that it really was just an accident. I worked a bit, went to the break room to get some hot chocolate, burned my tongue (still feeling it on Sunday), and finished my first 7x7 cryptic crossword. Then, I locked in to the tune of the song that had been stuck in my head all day ('Supporting Me'), and got a whole lot done. I headed home right away after that, spending my time at home cooking, generating another 7x7, and getting stronger cybersecurity. I got a weird friend request from some user who I had no connections with, and one friend told me that it was possible for my password to get stolen just by accepting the request. I looked into what my Google account password was, and was shocked that I really had 8 lowercase characters as my password for years. How have I not gotten hacked?? I went through all the accounts I had, deleting ones I didn't need anymore, putting more secure passwords on things that I used a lot, and turning on two factor authentication wherever I could. I had some new and long passwords on the things I used most, and all of them had 2FA. After that was done, I went to bed early, so that tomorrow I could get more done. The workplace holiday party was tomorrow, after all.

Saturday morning was spent lazily, which was something I was trying to avoid. I got a bit of bloghan writing in, and had an actual breakfast (still accompanied by boiling water, though), and some limited cleaning too. I was trying to get as much done as I could before having to leave for the holiday party, which was quite a ways away. I also went to the grocery store to get milk (they ran out of the kind I always buy!? Life is so cruel...) and other things for chili, since I had it on the mind. I got back, and didn't do much, just getting distracted, until it was time to start getting ready for the holiday party. I had put on a nice dress shirt, dress pants, and dress shoes, and I also bothered to comb my hair into a somewhat nice shape, and not just rubbed a bit with my hands. I debated on if I should bring my backpack or not, since my access key to my place was very fragile and I always carried it in that bag. I decided that since I would be wearing my big winter jacket on my way there, I could probably keep the access key in an inner pocket. I headed out to catch my first bus, and as I did, iit started to snow, again! There were more flakes than the snow yesterday, and they were bigger overall too, but still not enough to cover the ground with multiple centimeters. It was nice to see it there though, as though it was pushing me onward. I walked to the bus hold, getting chased a bit by someone's off-leash "friendly" dog, and laughing in joy a little at the snow around me, then after three minutes of waiting, I got on the bus, not realizing that to catch my next bus, it would've been faster if I had just walked to that second bus stop. I was thinking about the holiday party and what I already knew about it: the buffet, the raffle, how they were going to check admission... wait. Admission? I left my ticket in my backpack!! I immediately left that bus stop and fast-walked back to my place, and for some reason, a sea shanty was stuck in my head. I was feeling really frustrated with myself, because that bus I had to walk away from only comes once every half hour, meaning I would probably be late. On the way back, there was a bus going that direction, and I boarded it for just one stop, probably saving me less than a minute, looking back on it now. I get back to my place, grab my ticket, get frustrated at myself again, and speed-walk back to that bus station from before. I get there, the wind against me the entire time, and wait 20 minutes, writing more of my second 7x7 and whistling that sea shanty. It arrived, and it was way more crowded than I expected. I kept track of the time as the bus drove, and we were behind by a inute for the most part. I get off at the stop Google recommended me to, and it said I should proceed to cross the street... but there was no crosswalk anywhere. Anyways, after jayrunning across a 70 km/h road, I found myself in a truck yard. Well, I crossed it, seeing nobody who could notice me, and reached a road which only led to some other building. Google Maps told me to keep going, but there was only the building, some private road leading into it, and a parking lot. I chose hte parking lot, which was lined by a fence, and I had a bad feeling I was going to have to hop over it, but when I got up to it I saw train tracks. That can't be right. I look at my phone again, and it says to walk alongside the train tracks. Well, I'm not hopping over a fence and making a 'Stand By Me' reference, so I did what I was told. It looked like some sort of truck yard again, but slightly different, with way more if those ports which truck beds attach themselves to. I was very glad to see that at the end of my jog across this lot, there was a road with a sidewalk. I was also oficially late. I fast-walked the rest of the way there, and it began to snow a little again! I laughed more, and after one last street crossing (there was a crosswalk this time), I made it to the venue. I saw my equivalent there, wearing basically what I was, but with the addition of a blazer. I looked around, and saw that almost every guy here was wearing a blazer, save for a couple exceptions. We waited for other people to show up, and over the next hour, a couple others filtered in. We mostly just kind of kept to ourselves, seeing managers and the VP and such walking around talking up a storm with everyone. There were appetizers being passed around: I got offered a napkin, but the person left before offering me an appetizer. That's the name of the game, I guess. I felt pretty underdressed compared to a lot of the people there, but semi-formal is really broad! People were there in jeans and collared shirts, some were in polos and dress pants, and others were wearing full suits. The first of us to arrive made bets (not involving money) on who would show up from our lunch group, in what order. I put everything in on Steve, and he was the last to arrive. Soon after he arrived, the doors to the dinner hall were opened, and we could go in. For some reason, we all chose the table right in the middle of the hall, so everyone could get a good look at us. After some words by the organizer and the VP, and a little game (a lipstick stick, a set of car keys, and a napkin get passed around in a circle at the table; the person who ended up with the car keys, me, got designated driver, evne though I can't drive here; the person who ended up with the napkin got to take the Christmas tree centerpiece on the table back with them; the person who got the lipstick got a gift card). After that, they began to call tables in groups of four to go get the food in the back. They did it by calling tables 1-4, then after that, the last four tables... which means our table, smack dab in the middle of the number line formed here, would be called dead last. The others bemoaned it, but I thought it was really funny how the universe corrected itself to ensure that the bottom of the pack stayed there. After a lot of conversation, and talk of cryptics, and maybe even doing one there, we got called up an hour after being seated. It looked like pretty good food, with two salad options (the salad servers were arguing about who got the better salad to serve), and lots of different meats, carbs, and veggies, though they were being a bit stingy with them. Only ten minutes after we got back and started eating, the organizers announced seconds. The rest of the night was about the raffle (no one at my table got anything), the classic "sticker under the chair" game (until they realized that they forgot to put the stickers under the chairs), and a dance floor DJ'd with the worst transitions (you can't play one song at the same time as another, then switch off the first one!). The music was stuff that my generation would typically listen to, but the older guys who were the higher ups still had a good time dancing. The VP was grooving with his spouse, and the Absconder guy and his spouse were ballroom dancing the whole night. We got served some strawberry cheesecake, which was delectabe, and the girls at our table dragged everyone off to the dance floor. Me and another pretended that people from our region can't dance because it's outlawed like rats are in Alberta, but I can't lie that 'DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love' made me tap my foot to its rhythm constantly. We quickly got bored of that, and headed to the lobby to line up for the photo booth, which had such a long line. By the time we got to the front of the line, I was already yawning. We looked through the props, and took our first picture of four, then took it all off for the second picture. However, as we were examining the props for the second photo, it just automatically took thhe next photo. The only person looking into the camera at that moment was Steve, with the most superior look on his face that I've ever seen. Our next two pictures turned out alright, and we got the printout with three wholesome photos and one photo with a bunch of us out of frame and Steve not doing that. After that, we took one more serious picture with a larger group, and all split up. I got a ride back from someone, sparing me from cutting across multiple truck yards and jaywalking major roads, and just like that, the night was over. Honestly, it was a pretty good party! Good food, lots of laughs, and it even left me feeling like I was going to be alone for the rest of my life, just like any other party does to me! I was feeling pretty cold, and while I wanted to write bloghan in bed, my laptop battery was nearly dead and it would be such a hassle to pull out the charging cable from its designated routing behind my desk. I solved this modern problem with the modern solution of zooming the screen in to 200%, breaking out my wireless keyboard, and angling my laptop towards my bed as I typed away, cozy under the covers. After doing my other dailies, I headed to bed.

Finally, Sunday. A day where I had milk for my morning tea (I could not taste a difference between the milk I got and what I usually got), and a day free for bloghan writing, cooking chili, gaming, and succumbing to Steam sales. There was orignally going to be a meeting between me and my co-DM to discuss the upcoming campaign, but she cancelled last-minute, so I ended up doing the planning on my own. The day was uneventful, except for what happend just before lunch: it began to snow! And not just a few little snowflakes, actual snow that stayed on the ground. As soon as I saw it, I dashed out the door, barefoot, and giggled and grinned while spinning in circles in my landlord's backyard. Finally finally finally finally finally! Finally! I went back in when I saw someone in the backyard across from my landlord's staring at me, but kept my eyes on the window the whole time. I started listening to 'Snow halation' a whole lot that afternoon, including all the remixes of it in 'Halation Celebration,' a tribute album made for its 10th anniversary, which I began to download on my phone: you already know that's all I'm going to be listening to during my commutes in December. The snowfall stopped, and while the amount left on the ground was pitiful, I don't think I felt disappointment at the feeble amount. Honestly, I was just glad it was there in the first place, as I am, for now, with my place here.

Future plans

A repeat of last week, when it comes to getting things done. I really want to do more, and now that it's December, I think my time will get freed up slightly.

This week, the plan is simple: finish 'A Court of Thorns and Roses,' make a PCB for the first time in months, finish the home D&D campaign, make more 7x7 cryptics, plan the next D&D campaign to the point where I can send out interest forms to my closest coworkers, and maybe do that library violin thing. Maybe.

Song of the week

'Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!' (https://youtu.be/cyIY6Fb0p4Y) is the song of the week. Finally... finally... it finally snowed. I've been waiting for this, anticipating this, for weeks, maybe months now. It's finally snowed!! Finally! Back in my home city, it has been snowing since October, but over here, it's finally, finally snowed! I chose the Dean Martin version, since that's one I'm most used to from hearing on the radio, but honestly, I think this one is my favourite Christmas song. It's really quite funny how it was written in sweltering heat, as a way to express how much colder weather was wanted, and honestly, that's what I've been wishing for in the last few months too. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Until next time

While bloghan is still being written mostly at the tailend of the week, due to tiredness accumulating over that week, I'm still glad that my weekends are a lot more free now than before. I think the quality has really improved, so thanks for sticking with me so long! See you on the eighth!

- bubbler

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