Natterings From Nepantla

I think I'm finally adjusted to the new work schedule. Just in time for it to be disrupted by visiting relatives and a time change!

Cat

Marlene, showing off her variegated toes. Both hind feet have black center pads and pink toes. The front center pads are mostly black, with a mixture of pink and black toes. I'm not sure how you get a black pad surrounded by white fur, but she's managed it.

Fandom

It's almost time for Orycon. I don't feel ready!

Gaming

The friendly local gaming store had its store championship, everyone playing with a single just-unsealed deck. I got a very strange deck which, across four rounds, won big twice and lost big twice.

I keep meaning to start taking a look at the DS games I got at PRGE, then going, "Wait! I should finish my replay of Fire Emblem: Awakening first!" So I've done a few more chapters of that and am about to see if I manage to get Chrom paired up with Olivia or not.

Books and media

Started reading Portable Australian Authors: Australian Scienc Fiction, edited by Vann Ikin, a collection showcasing the history of Australian sf from the 1800s up to the modern day of 1982, when it was published. Main impression of the early stuff: boy did it love its race wars. Then again, I've just read a piece from 1915 where the survivor of a super-technological society advocates aggressive eugenics and the hero disagrees. In fact he goes so far to suggest that the treatment of aboriginal peoples around the world in his own time may have been a tad unjustified...
( Politics )

That new rain gear that was going to take three weeks to get to me? Showed up three days ago. Aramark is taking "underpromise and overdeliver" very seriously, it seems.

Cat

The most relaxed cat on the Catio Tour, in the best-named catio they've ever had: Fort Catsop (after locally well-known landmark Fort Clatsop).

Fandom

I now have a supporting membership for Smofcon 37, now that it offers supporting memberships. Last year's Smofcon streamed a few program items, and when the topic came up this year someone (perhaps snarkily) suggested that it would be great if the remote listeners were helping pay for the cost of streaming, whereupon several of us said that we'd be perfectly happy to pay for some kind of online-only membership to help defray costs.

Gaming

Only two people showed up for this week's KeyForge session, likely due to Rose City Comic Con happening this weekend. We played a couple of non-official games and I made a decision about what deck I'll bring to the next one.

Tried to make some actual progress toward my goal in Sunless Skies instead of just flying around exploring. Also went back to Fire Emblem: Awakening for a couple more chapters on Hard mode.

Books and media

I finished browsing through the Basque book and got picked up Terminal World by Alasdair Reynolds, which I'm most of the way through. Great setting, nice crunchy sf, and a good pace of revealing clues so that you can play along with the characters and figure out things before they do; but also some very Hollywood villains and a repetitive tendency for characters to dismiss things as "people you don't need to know about" or "no one goes there" or "never mind what the side effects are" followed by those things shortly turning out to be very important indeed. The protagonist is a pretty smart guy and I wish he'd started asking a few more questions by now. All in all, a great example of why Reynolds is just an author I read to tide myself over between new Peter F. Hamilton books.


I took my first look at the upcoming anime season and aaaaaaah it looks bad.

( Politics )

I got to go to OSCON 2019 this week. Saw interesting and not-so-interesting presentations, learned things, might have a new favorite programming language. (Full disclosure: I get excited about new programming languages very easily.)

I'm seeing a lot of posts all around the net the last couple days on the topics of Boy It's Hot Today and What The Moon Landing Means To Me. It's only just topped 80F here, and as a child of the 1980s, the moon landing is primarily associated in my mind with reading bitter commentary about how Kennedy blew up the chance to do space right.

Cat

Barbecue Cat, one of Phosphor's feral relatives, considers whether it's worth getting up from the nice warm patio and scurrying away, or whether the human might keep its distance.

Fandom

Here a are the rest of the summer premieres. I seem to be on a country music quote kick.

Somebody on the Amazing Stories editorial staff is tinkering with the look and feel of the blog. It looks like maybe I can stop worrying about finding at least one screencap that looks decent when trimmed to a square image.

Books and media

Nothing watched beyond anime. I am definitely going to keep watching BEM even though it looks like it won't be bloggable due to limited distribution.

I finished reading Lost Cities of Africa and will say something more about it at some point.

Gaming

The impending release of Fire Emblem: Three Houses is getting me excited about Fire Emblem all over again, except I don't have a Switch and won't be getting one any time soon, so instead I've gone back to Fire Emblem: Awakening for a playthrough on Hard mode.

Have also been checking in on Fallen London. I'm not really sure what I'm doing but I seem to be making progress.

( Politics )