wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
Well, since I got back from the Not-Balticon Excursion, there really hasn't been a lot going on. I put on a lot of weight while I was out there and have been struggling to get it off, and over the last week or so I've been making good progress on that. I may even be under 390 by the time the convention rolls around next month. BP and BG have mostly been good. 

Speaking of which, we've had a trickle of memberships come in, a couple of T-shirt orders, some ideas for programming, and as usual no response from DoE or various nuclear industry folks. We'll just have to do without them, I guess. 

Speaking of doing without things, it is with great displeasure that I discovered the Pahrump Valley Times had closed their Tonopah office and with it the only copy shop for a couple hundred miles. Good thing I'm going to Las Vegas this week for an NSSAB meeting, because not only do I need to mail out con flyers to Jolie at Libertycon but my zine for StippleAPA to Jeanne. Well, I should have plenty of time before the meeting on Wednesday and on my way out of town Thursday to attend to those matters. 

I've been Ingressing a little but mostly just recharging things from the recliner; been doing my dailies and picking away at the current FGO event, and attempting to win a Planet of the Mongols setup in Civ5. Also continuing to reread Behold! Humanity! while also slogging through Mimi & Toutou Go Forth as well as the Fate: Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya manga omnibus. The former may convince me to give Conrad's Heart of Darkness another go. 

[personal profile] troika called me this morning for Father's Day and we hung out on the phone for about an hour talking about stuff. It was good. 
 
wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
So I basically came back broke from DC. This means that I've been mostly staying in, doing some cleaning, doing research, playing Civicrack, reading...and that's pretty much it. I did take an advance from Speedy Cash to fill holes in checking accounts and keep the pantry stocked with necessities, and eventually part of my travel reimbursement from the VA came in, but I've been very careful not to spend any money on anything I didn't have to until Friday when the VA disability check comes in. 

I finished Escaping The City and have moved on to The Thing from HR. I did look up desert homesteading online and found a useful YouTube video on rainwater harvesting, which looks a lot cheaper than drilling wells looking for water that may not be there...although there is that big honking salt marsh across U.S. 6, which seems to indicate that there's some kind of water under the sand and rocks. 

I finished Traum and for now I'm just doing the daily blue gem stuff, saving my SQ, and doing the occasional interlude or rankup quest. 

Did some Ingress over the weekend but stayed in yesterday and today eating hoddawgs but no zorgrot since I hate that stuff. Bush's Zero-Sugar beans are decent. Also killed a box of potato skins, which turned out to be disappointingly small. Weight has unsurprisingly gone up. 

We couldn't beat the Bravos at the Launching Pad, but we did avoid the sweep. Friday, it's the Brewers at RFK. 
wombat_socho: SSuiseiseki (SSuiseiseki)
After three days, a fair amount of sleep, and occasional ibuprofen, the pain in my lower back around my right hip is mostly gone. It might have to do with weight loss, too, though my scale is still telling me I'm too fat. I can believe it. 

Management never did come around to inspect the apartment, but that's OK; I needed to bag up a bunch of garbage anyway. Tomorrow I'll chuck it in the bins before I head for the post office to see what's waiting for me besides junk mail. 

Am continuing to make my way through the Spiral Arm novels and currently I'm beginning On The Razor's Edge. I'm also browsing through Travis Corcoran's Escape From The City, which despite being aimed (seemingly) at people moving to New Hampshire or other states with lots of woods has a lot of useful advice regarding septic tanks/fields and other necessities of rural life. 

N'APA 276 arrived today; I skimmed through it, and the amount of political BS has reached the annoying level. I shall have some harsh words for a few folks and moderate corrections for others. On the positive side, apparently there is now a Las Vegas APA in existence. I'll have to reach out to them and offer Son of Silvercon as a meetup & collation space, maybe even join up, although three APA might be stretching it. Speaking of which, I converted my zine for StippleAPA to a PDF and sent it to Jeanne. Have to write her a check when I get some money. 

Making progress in Lostbelt 6.5. I've decided to just abandon Azur Lane. I have enough 2d boobs to stare at without it. 
wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
I finally emerged from my apartment today after being a hiko since Wednesday, because I needed to do laundry before heading down 95 to Las Vegas and a meeting with the heads of DoE's environmental management department tomorrow morning. It's not going to be a very long meeting, but since they asked for both the chair and myself, I figured I ought to get off my ass and go. Barb will reimburse me, since this is an NSSAB dhaba, and another half a grand in the NSB account will be nice, especially with Social Security short-sheeting me this month. 

Wound up not going to the community Thanksgiving dinner; instead I bought a 14-pound frozen bird (the smallest I could find) and roasted it in a bag, but unfortunately it was still pretty dry. Fixed stuffing, mashed potatoes, a sweet potato, a baked potato (which wound up being chopped up as part of this morning's breakfast) and an acorn squash. I was going to also bake a loaf of bread but there was enough going on that I didn't. 

I don't remember what I had on Friday. Spent most of the day wrestling with the cube shelving for the living room, which was slightly less of a pain in the ass to work with than the bedroom shelving and held more stuff. Found a number of things that had gotten lost over the years. Now I need to sweep the area between the cube shelving and the old Target shelves so I have room for another shelf which will allow me to collapse some of the stuff in the living room against the west wall.  

Saturday I was going to go to the post office, but I didn't. Stayed inside, ate Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner, played a lot of Civ6, sorted through the available players in preparation for the draft this week.  

Today I did a bunch of required training on Inkling. I'll pile on to the rest of it when I come back from Vegas; it'll be hard enough to deal with the blogging tomorrow and Tuesday. 

Finished rereading Alliance Rising and Alliance Unbound; reread Cloud Castles, which is why I was up until 0400 and didn't get up until 1330 today. Still went out and did a little shopping for tea, yogurt, and butter, then did laundry and came home to find I have a new neighbor across the hall. Maybe I can bribe him to shift some of these damn boxes. 


wombat_socho: comfort eagle (Comfort Eagle)
Put in a full day with the balancing board today after using yesterday afternoon to get my ears lowered, check in with Dr, Hsi, and get my PTIN renewed. It was pretty cold this morning, so I broke out the field jacket and gloves, though I really didn't need the latter. 

I decided since my appointment with Dr. Kletzky is in the late afternoon tomorrow, I'll just drive down in the late morning, do the appointment, and then crash at the Strat before returning here on Thursday. That way I only miss 1 1/2 days, 2 at the worst, instead of missing 2-2.5 days. I might even manage to pick up a few things at Walmart on the way back, or on the way to the Strat. 

I'm getting used to Civ 6, even though the cartoony leader portraits are still annoying and I'm not keen on some of the mechanics changes. Won at level 3 with good old Julius Caesar, and am currently attempting level 4 with Teddy Roosevelt. On my way to crushing the treacherous Aussies, after which the Brazilians are going to get it right in the teeth. This took priority over blogging; after all, I can easily catch up tomorrow. 

Time to hit the rack.  
wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
Was up late last night doing corrections on Starfighter Girls, which I think is going to need a read-through for continuity and the insertion of Liao's suicide, although I suppose I could just leave that in the background and never explicitly describe it. Also need more sections from the Imperial point of view. 

Frittered away a large part Saturday playing Fallout: New Vegas. The character I intended to be a punchy blonde counterpart to Veronica has been slowly evolving into my usual sniper Courier. On this run-through I did the Honest Hearts DLC, killed a passel of White Legs, died a lot, and wound up leaving a bunch of stuff in a suitcase at one of the camping areas. Might see if I can go back and get it after I refloat the Lady of the Lake. Meanwhile in Azur Lane, still no sign of Amagi. I have, unusually, run out of oil and cubes. I'm putting off the end of LB6 in F/GO because what looked like it was going to be a happy ending turned to shit in a hurry, and I have problems of my own. 

Misread the schedule; I faced the Dodgers on Friday and lost two games out of three, mainly because I had to face Nolan Ryan and Don Sutton in the first two games, and I couldn't buy a hit off either of those assholes. So it's the O's and the Red Sox, then Pittsburgh next week to finish the season. 

Passed up doing laundry today in favor of a brief run to Raley's for tea & yogurt and a stop at Love's for some Godfather's pizza. 

Aside from the FMJRA and Rule Five Sunday, I also posted to the Substack

Took advantage of points and early booking to get a good price on my flight up north to MSP for Anime Fusion. My hotel room in the con block is already reserved as well. 


wombat_socho: SSuiseiseki (SSuiseiseki)
I've been spending a lot of my weekend playing Fallout: New Vegas (again), and this time I think I'm going for an NCR victory instead of my usual Yes Man/Independent Vegas victory, because I'm kind of a softie and would rather croak Mr. House than the remnants of Veronica's pitiful family, who live in a hole in the ground and don't get out much. On the other hand, the Great Khans are going to get slaughtered, because my current courier isn't that good at speech checks and one of the influential Khans I need to talk to is on a mountain south of Quarry Springs surrounded by deathclaws, and after dying twice trying to get past those, I say the hell with it. Besides, I've already killed a mess of Fiends, Vipers, Powder Gangers, and various scrubs & assassins from Caesar's Legion, so what's a little more genocide in a good cause?

Not sure if I'll take Labor Day off from blogging, since I have to be in Vegas on Thursday for a cardiology appointment, and despite my best intentions it seems I always miss a day of blogging somewhere in there. 
wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
My reimbursement for the Test Cell C waste observation came in yesterday, the VA kicked in three reimbursement checks today, and of course since the 1st of September falls on the weekend, I got my VA disability as well. Threw money at the credit cards, ordered stuff that was on sale (and some manga) from Amazon, and spent most of the day blogging and playing Fallout: New Vegas. 

The trip to the post office yielded some glargine from the pharmacy, coffee, my new glasses, and a care package from Caitlin with postcards, a thank-you note, and Fission-chan Helldiver stickers, Very cute! 

Earlier in the week, I got swept by the Yankees, but tonight the hitters went nuts and we swept the Twins at RFK in three blowouts. Even Don Stanhouse(!) got a win in an emergency start because everyone else was tired. 

At this point in Fallout, I've butchered enough Legionaries that yesterday I got dogpiled in the Fort despite having the Mark of Caesar. Well, I fixed their asses tonight. First me, ED-E and Veronica killed every one of those Legion boyfuckers at Cottonwood Cove, and then we sailed upriver to the Fort, butchered a bunch more at the gate (after a couple of false starts), and then croaked the Praetorians in the weather station before doing what Mr. House sent me to do. After that, we didn't have to fight our way out, just quick-traveled to the North Vegas Medical Clinic, picked up another implant, and reported in. Next I get to tackle the Omertas. Joy. 
wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
Management woke me at the disgusting hour of 1000 to inspect the apartment, which they did, and found my housekeeping not up to snuff (big surprise) and said they'd be back next month to follow up. My cleaning lady is coming Friday, which ought to help quite a bit, and in the meantime I need to bag up some more garbage and haul it out. 

Aside from that, I am probably going to have to go in front of an admin law judge for my SSDI on account of how they think I earned too much in 2019 and 2020; the joke's on them because I got nothing in the first three months of 2020 and the 2019 payments were part of the "expedited claim review" during which they lost my file, which led to me being evicted and other unpleasantness. Anyway, I should be able to beat the rap since I still have the venostasis ulcers that were the cause of me being on SSDI to start with, I only work three months out of the year (and it takes me a week to recover from that) and on top of that, according to the VA, my stress-induced asthma has gotten worse. 

I am splitting my attention between Ralts Bloodthorne's newest book, The Stock Car Race, The Order Of the Death's Head (which supersedes The Theory & Practice of Hell to an extent), and The Cardinal of the Kremlin, which I found on the shelves in the community office while I was waiting to sign some papers. 

I'm logging in daily on Azur Lane and Fate/Grand Order, even if I'm not doing much else; the current ROC campaign seems to have chased most of the Japanese off the continent, and I expect to blow through the puppet armies and retake Manchuria soon before liberating Korea. In Fallout: New Vegas, I need to figure out how to get in the damn bunker now that everyone in Caesar's Legion wants to kill me on sight, Mark of Caesar or not. I don't think I'm beefy and deadly enough to just wade in and kill everyone yet, and I'm not too interested in going to Big MT to get that way. Yet. 

 

wombat_socho: SSuiseiseki (SSuiseiseki)
I suppose I could also describe this as a report on the state of my fandoms, and it will probably wind up on the Substack in somewhat altered form... 

"In the beginning, there was the Word." So it is with me; I have always been an avid reader, preferring SF, historical fiction, military & naval history, and biographies to other genres, though I did go through a stretch where I was reading a lot of mainstream fiction. Gave up on it because most of it was depressing and/or tales of awful people doing awful things or living awful lives. (See Bright Lights, Big City or The First Deadly Sin.) I still do a lot of reading and have the Kindle and physical libraries to prove it.

Reading SF eventually (inevitably?) drew me into science fiction fandom. I attended conventions in the Baltimore/DC area and elsewhere from 1974 (Discon II, the Worldcon in DC) until 1983 when I got married and moved to Minnesota. There I became more active in traditional fanac: I pubbed a perszine, joined and dropped out and rejoined Stipple-APA, became involved in media fandom thanks to Space: Above & Beyond and the 59th Ready Reserve Squadron, went to a few Minicons, more Convergences and Diversicons and Arcanas, volunteered and served on staff for some of those, and eventually became heavily involved with anime fandom at Anime Iowa, so much so that I was one of the founders and chairmen of Anime Detour, which I remained on staff with until I left Minnesota for Virginia in 2007. I returned to Anime Detour (and continued to volunteer there) after moving to Virginia and Las Vegas, but eventually the staff there did my son dirty, and I severed all connections with them. I'll be going to Anime Fusion in Minnesota this year for my son's 40th birthday, but purely as a spectator. I dropped out of Stipple-APA after descending into abject poverty in Virginia, but after moving to Las Vegas in 2015 I became involved with the National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F), sporadically contributed to N'APA, and eventually became treasurer along with wearing a few other fezzes. I am currently the chairman of Son of Silvercon, a small relaxicon in Las Vegas that aspires to become a mid-sized regional convention. 

Fandom led me into historical boardgaming/wargaming, which was a big thing in the 1970s and 1980s before TSR bought SPI at bankruptcy and gutted the hobby. I was a D&D dungeonmaster and a Traveller referee; I was also interested in several other RPG (Twilight:2000, Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green) but never actually played them. Wargames are still around, but it's a lot harder to find opponents, and games, like everything else, have become a lot more expensive thanks to inflation and the fact that it's a niche hobby now. Mostly I play video games like Civilization and Hearts of Iron IV, which have some of the flavor of the old monstergames. I used to be involved with EVE-Online as part of Goonfleet, and was there when we broke Band of Brothers, lost Delve and fled to a new home, reorganized under Commissar Mittens and grew to be a great power in the game again, but I don't remember clearly when I stopped playing. Probably in 2018, when I got horribly sick and was homeless for a couple of months. Everyone I used to know in GF is out of the game now, and I don't feel any strong urge to go back. Aside from the aforementioned strategic video games, I also play Fate/Grand Order and Azur Lane on my phone, the former more than the latter because Azur Lane's story is confusing and silly by turns. Played Cookie Run for a while but it wound up being more grindy than cute, and Girls Frontline just didn't hold my interest. I should probably get out and play more Ingress because the walking would be good for me. 

I came very late to baseball. As a kid, I was a fan of the Washington Senators, who moved to Texas in 1972 and took my interest in baseball with it. My now ex-wife was a Twins fan, though, and between her interest and Rotisserie baseball, I got back into it. For a few years I scored games at home for STATS, Inc. and published a newsletter on the independent minor leagues (which caused some road trips to towns like Aberdeen, Austin, Duluth, Fargo, and Madison) but that fell victim to Anime Detour, which pretty much ate my life from 2003-2007. I played fantasy baseball on Yahoo for a few years but dropped out of that; I was also involved in a Pursue the Pennant league until it fell apart in 1992. Nowadays, I casually follow the Nationals, Twins, and Red Sox, and am managing the Senators in a Dynasty League Baseball league run by fellow blogger Pete (Da Tech Guy), but Major League Baseball's current commissioner has alienated me with his woke stupidity, and I'm not much interested in seeing the A's when they move from Oakland to Las Vegas in a couple of years. 

I don't watch a lot of TV or movies. Used to watch a lot when I was married, but that went by the wayside in favor of watching anime, and these days I watch very little because Hollywood isn't making a lot of stuff that interests me, and I find video games more rewarding. Someday I'll probably finish watching Fallout, because it's on Amazon Prime and the first five episodes, which I saw while visiting Stacy McCain this spring, seemed pretty decent. People tell me I should watch The Expanse, and maybe one of these days I will. Webcomics fall under this heading; I was really really interested in Girl Genius, Megatokyo, Erfworld, and a couple of other webcomics, but I fell out of the habit of following them (probably around the same time I stopped playing EVE-Online, for some of the same reasons) and I can't think of any webcomics I follow at all, with the exception of Terminal Lance, Clinic of Horrors, and occasional postings by Merryweather Media. 

Not sure where this really fits in, but thanks to my Dad's final assignment with the JCS, I acquired an interest in nuclear weapons and power, which has led me to a seat on the board of the Nevada Security Site Advisory Board, a group of citizens who provide oversight to the Department of Energy's ongoing cleanup and monitoring work at the former Nevada Test Site. I don't get paid for it, but they do reimburse me for my travel expenses, which is nice, and the work is interesting, with a lot of callbacks to some weird history. For example, they're currently demolishing & cleaning up Test Cell C, which is where testing of NERVA rockets and Project Pluto went on during the early 1960s. Coincidentally, there's some discussion of nuclear rockets again in connection with Elon Musk's ambition of going to Mars. 

wombat_socho: comfort eagle (Comfort Eagle)
Two mornings of getting up at 0600 after driving down to the Stratosphere Sunday afternoon have kicked my ass good and hard. Having to detour into Pahrump for gas, fluids, and stationery at the Walmart didn't help, and by the time I got home I was seriously tempted to punt the blogging, unpack, and crash...but the notion of having to cope with today's blogging on top of Monday's did not appeal. So I did an abbreviated post to catch up on all the Substackery and other high-priority stuff. 

Monday's trip to the VA resulted in a slight change to my prescription; apparently the astigmatism is a little worse and I'm developing cataracts, which aren't affecting my vision. Yet. Dr. Lal was happy with the progress on the wounds, and they wrapped them up good and tight. I went home by way of the Sonic where I got fluids, a chili dog, and a double cheeseburger (since both the latter were on the $1.99 menu) before heading back to the Stratosphere. My eyes were still aching from being dilated, so I went back to bed for an hour or so, after which I played a lot of Azur Lane, cashed in some of my McD's rewards points for dinner, and instead of blogging spent some time on Nationalist China in HOI4. Sun Li-Jen is so far holding out nicely in the north with his big fat square divisions, which now have artillery, engineers, and will soon have flak guns. I did attempt to hold off the Eastern Pirate Devils with diplomacy, which bought me a couple of years after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, and have actually managed to lay some mines in the Yellow Sea to make the EPD Navy suffer before they sank most of my Navy. Am now researching submarines.

Since the Angels were on autopilot I played them Monday afternoon while letting missions repeat in AL. Lost two of three, with the lone win coming in Game 3 for Jim Kaat.

Today's visit to the NNSS went pretty well, though I could have saved myself the stop at Albertson's on the way since they didn't have any chicken salad and the sub I picked up will probably last me 2-3 days because it is hueg like XBox. The RWAP observation was pretty unexciting: yes, these are the metal bars they're cutting up, yes, they're going into this container (which looks like a squared-off demo dumpster with a liner), and the people that actually work for Navarro and EM seemed happy with the related paperwork, of which there was a massive quantity. We should probably make these observations mandatory for high school kids so there's no doubt in anyone's mind that we are being super careful with even the low-level radioactive waste, never mind the highly radioactive long-lasting transuranic waste. Anyhow, we were done with all that by noon, and since I was the only one who brought lunch, we all went back to the canteen, where I had a chicken bacon & cheese sandwich and a bowl of their excellent chili. Then it was off to Pahrump, as previously mentioned. 

Think I'll spend the rest of the week doing as little as possible while preparing for the upcoming apartment inspection. So much trash to haul out.  
wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
So my weight has been bobbling up and down in the mid-380s, which isn't as good as having it go down into the 370s but beats having it pop up into the 390s. BG has been mostly good, BP the same, but if I keep scarfing up frozen Mexican foods it probably won't stay that way. 

Raley's instituted a first responder/veteran discount on the first Tuesday of the month, which is 10% off everything and stacks with the seasoned citizens 5% discount. So I went out Tuesday and bought $110 worth of groceries for $73 after all the sales and discounts and coupons. Forgot the eggs, but I'm not out of those yet. 

After staying up late reading D.J. Butler's wild steampunk adventure The City of the Saints, I started reading Julie Frost's Pack Dynamics, but it was Too Exciting, so I put it aside in favor of Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, which has a lot of action too, but it's slower-paced than either of the preceding. I am also looking forward to John C. Wright's A Book of Feasts and Seasons, which Chris DiNote gave a good review of. 

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be on the road quite a bit. Next Thursday is a low-level waste stakeholders conference at the Molasky Building in Vegas, and possibly a photo shoot that night. Then home Friday morning...only to turn around and head back to Vegas Sunday night for some VA appointments on Monday (8/19), and a packaging observation Tuesday morning (8/20) after which I'll come home and die. Or at least pass out for a couple of days. Next month will be even busier: a cardio appointment on 9/5, the NSSAB meeting on 9/11, and then I make the hajj to the holy city of Oak Ridge from 9/22-9/27. 

One of these days I'll finish watching the first season of Fallout. I am currently in a replay of Fallout: New Vegas and despite my best intentions, I've trapped myself into the No Gods, No Masters track; I also tried to get out of Big MT without killing the Think Tank, but failed at that too. 
wombat_socho: comfort eagle (Comfort Eagle)
 Couldn't book a room at the Cannery through the Boyd website, and there wasn't much difference between the Priceline rates for Aliante and the Cannery, so I went with the former. I think the rooms at the Aliante are marginally nicer than the Cannery. I stupidly ordered mass quantities of Chinese through Uber Eats, so I didn't sleep well, and as a result instead of going straight home after refueling at Maverik. I wound up having microsleep issues after passing through Amargosa Springs and therefore stopped overnight in Beatty at the Exchange Club. 

Got home a little after noon, unpacked, did a full post in the afternoon (took forever because the internet was painfully slow), played some FNV because it was too late to hit the post office, and then wasted a couple of hours on X and the FNV wiki before deciding to just pack it in for the night.

Surprisingly, I took two out of three from the Tribe at the Mistake on the Lake. We're still at the bottom of our division, 11 games behind Pete's Brewers, .003 behind Oakland. We'll see if I can whip on Dom's hapless Royals Friday. 

Tomorrow I'll get caught up on blogging, hit the post office, and maybe stop by Raley's for tea. 
wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
So things are picking up a little with work. Had two phone appointments, a dropoff (which weirdly didn't have any documents attached) and a fulfillment return that was missing a few things. One of the phone returns closed out, but the other one has 1098T and related expenses to upload, but at least that one will be done tomorrow. I wound up putting in about 3.5 hours on the clock, which brings me up to a little over ten hours, which is what I did for the entire last pay period. A lot of the additional work is coming from some office in Carson City that I never heard of before, on the other end of 395 from where I was staying.  Apparently one of their two tax pros is in the hospital, so I get to ride to the (virtual) rescue. 

I was busy enough with work that I forgot I had a series against the Red Sox. Robot Ted Williams dropped 2 out of three; the only win went to Reggie Cleveland in relief in game 2. 

Finally pulled the plug on the latest e-thot attempting to scam me out of money after she had an online meltdown over a $100 gift card. Too much weird evasive shit, and the capper was some GChat from her "aunt". It finally occurred to me to run some of the pics through Google's image search, and sure enough the images were of porn star Gia Paige, who I'm sure is not living in Bishop or interested in having my kids...or in need of a $300 gift card. So far the card has been unusable at Raley's or Amazon, but I'm going to try a couple places tomorrow and hope for the best. If it still doesn't work, I'll call them to replace the card and see how that goes. 

It snowed a little today, which was weird because it was in the high 50s yesterday. I went out to Raley's and spent about $70 on various things but managed to forget baking powder. With the exception of a Diet Coke and some Liquid Death ice tea, everything I got was on sale or had a coupon, or it would have been worse. 

Finally won an Ice Age scenario in Civicrack, with the Germans, but it was close and Gandhi nearly beat me on points. Am now trying to win with Haile Selassie, and am about to push the Huns' shit in by way of revenge for their futile attempt to take Adwa. 

Barb reassured me that I would get reimbursed for a hotel room in Beatty for the April 17 meeting, so I hopped on Priceline and booked a room at the Exchange Club next to Smokin' Js, where I plan to feast on barbecue after checking in but before the meeting. On the way back, I'll stop in Goldfield and see what I can find that's pertinent to the Coaldale Project. I have a Five W's document written up about that, but I want to flesh it out with more details before I send it off to Doug.  
wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
 So I woke up this afternoon around 1400, ate an enormous breakfast, did the FMJRA, played some games, chatted with James about solutions for the slowness of Doom -some of which I implemented, some of which will have to wait for a time when I have a couple hundred bucks for a better video card- insulted liberal LDS people on X, ate ramen and a sandwich for dinner, and did Rule 5 Sunday.

Didn't do laundry because I was still dealing with the aftereffects of getting thoroughly zooted on Saturday. It's okay; I have socks and undies and T-shirts enough for a couple of days yet.  

So we'll do it tomorrow! That seems like a pretty good idea to me!
wombat_socho: SSuiseiseki (SSuiseiseki)
A couple weeks ago I bought a DVD three-pack containing the wretched Starship Trooper movies, and tonight I watched the first one. This time I knew it had nothing in common with the book except for some characters having the same names and a very vague similarity in plot. Very, very vague. I'd forgotten a lot of the movie, probably because it was mostly cringe (especially the battle scenes, which could have been switched with the ones in 300, allowing for some costume changes) and omitted a lot of the scenes in the book that would have made it flow better and make more sense...to say nothing of the powered armor. Well, other people have trashed the movie at greater length and detail so I don't have to. Tomorrow, Hero of the Federation. Maybe it won't suck as bad, but I have my doubts. 

I also downloaded DOOM, which took forever, and I'm wondering if I should reset the graphics because it runs slow as fuck. Felt like I was moving in slow motion. 

Aside from that, I dropped two out of three to the Giants this afternoon, and am thinking I'll be lucky to make the playoffs since I'm starting 4-5. The Angels are next up on Tuesday.

Did the usual pizza lunch today, cleaned out the mailbox, which had nothing of great importance, and spent ~$40 on tea, Kleenex, cup ramen, English muffins, and some other stuff (like remaindered almond butter) which should keep me from having to buy any more food (except maybe for tea and bread) before I get called up to Reno. 

OMG, heat

Mar. 17th, 2024 11:32 pm
wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
So I spent Saturday thoroughly zooted and did not stir forth from the apartment, no, not once. The new space heater did a great job of warming up the kitchen and living room, and I was even able to shed my smoking jacket. Bliss.

I spent a fair amount of time mucking around with Hearts of Iron as Romania; after a couple of false starts, I was able to cow Bulgaria and Hungary into submission and hold off the Soviets until the Nazis kicked their way into the USSR. I didn't take more than a couple of provinces next to (and including) Odessa before the Germans beat me into the Crimea, but my scrappy destroyers mined the shit out of the Black Sea, killed what ships of the Black Sea Fleet I could find, and my mountaineers shipped off to the Transcaucasus to take the last Soviet naval base on the Black Sea. So far I've avoided joining either the Axis or the Allies, and am just concentrating on adding a coast defense ship to the Navy and then fortifying the Odessa region to the teeth.

Finished the most recent Behold! Humanity! novel, Sarah Hoyt's Darkship Renegades, and the fifth Helldivers novel - after which I took a break from that series, because it's a very grimdark post-apocalyptic series and I needed a break from such. So of course I'm rereading Long Live Death.

Took on Dom's Royals Saturday night and was surprised to take two out of three. Aside from Eddie Brinkman, my hitters seem to be better across the board this year; my starters are as good as his, and I have a better bullpen. Lost the middle game when Pat Dobson coughed up four runs and rain hit at the end of the 5th. Given another four innings, I might have pulled that one out too. Next up, Pete's Brewers. 

Did laundry tonight and had breakfast for dinner (hash & eggs) since it was the closest to a St. Patrick's Day special that they had. Also stopped by the Raley's to get fluids, margarine, bread, cheese, and yogurt. 



wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
Today the reimbursement check from NSSAB hit, as did my biweekly check from Block, so I promptly logged into the Frontier app and threw money at them. They were prompt about turning the Internet back on, so I threw money at my various credit cards (most of which were past their credit limits) and settled in to try and get caught up on a week's worth of blog posts. I wound up doing one in the early afternoon that was mostly various Substack blogs, and saved the regular linkagery for the evening post. I didn't even try to get caught up on the entire week's worth of stuff; just went back over the last couple of days and pulled stuff that looked good. As a change of pace, I let YouTube pick the music instead of going with the usual Klaus Schulze stream. 

Talked with Elizabeth in the afternoon about next week. I'm technically going to be available in the Dayton office, but that just means I'll be hanging on the telephone at home waiting for Dayton to throw me some dropoffs or schedule me for phone consultations. She says Anne will be reaching out to me regarding where I'll be staying in Carson City sometime next week. After that, I fiddled with a couple of things online, wasted time on X, and eventually got out the door for El Marques. I got there half an hour before they closed and managed to finish most of a plate of nachos and a chimichanga, though I left most of the rice & beans. Picked up a Diet Coke and trail mix at Love's and then went on home to do the evening blogging.

Steam did not synch up the Spain and Portugal games I won while I was offline, so I guess I'll have to refinish those if I want the achievements. I kind of do. 
wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
I was going to go out and do a bunch of stuff today, but aside from frying up some eggs & taters (with cheese and ham) this morning I didn't do shit. Well, I wasted a lot of time on Civicrack and X, but nothing constructive aside from finishing Carlos' tax return and sending it off to sit on the IRS and New Mexico DOR servers until they deign to start processing returns. IRS opens up next week, but I dunno when NM is going to do their thing. 

I think I'm just going to go to bed early, wake up early, and get packed for the NSSAB meeting tomorrow and my appointment with wound care Thursday. Going to pack an extra change of clothes in case this sluggishness is caused by S. aureus trying to eat me.  
wombat_socho: (Tonopah)
According to the Japanese nengou calendar, we are a few months away from the first day of the 5th year of the Reiwa Emperor's ascension to the throne, which coincidentally is a few days before I'll get paid my bonus (if I get one) from H&R Block. 

Over the last week or so, I've beaten Civ5 as the Dutch, Zulus, Polynesians, and Poles. Poland did not into space, but beat the shit out of the Romans and Russians. Still haven't nuked anyone yet. Currently seeing if there is indeed nothing like a Dane. 

Work schedules were posted for the first three weeks of January. I'm not on any of them. I'm also having second thoughts about going up to Reno for the pod meeting next week, since Elizabeth says I don't have to, and I should be conserving money anyway. Offices open tomorrow, so I'll log in after I get done paying bills and doing the morning link dump; tonight's was mostly catchup on stuff from this weekend. 

Went to Raley's on New Year's for the first Monday in a while, since they had some stuff on the $5 sale that was worth picking up for a change; went a little overboard, but not too much. I should be pretty well set for groceries for the next week or two. 

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