So we are mostly a light chatter alongside RPs and other things these days. Most conversation being in either bitching or appreciation, with ocassional sharing of good stuff at sort of a more subdued capacity than years past.
I admit sometimes I cross my own board these days with...nothing really to say that fits in that. So, a thread just to talk about your day, or whatnot. Not really a blog, but for those who may want to just chatter a bit about how things are going in their life without a 'go read my facebook' or something.
Good idea.
I was dozing at the computer when I saw this. I'd turned on a Mario Maker video, which is usually a great way for me to fall asleep at the computer. I like Mario Maker, it's very soothing in its way. Nostalgic and pleasant, you know? It's a good thing to fall asleep sitting up, since my shoulder doesn't always like laying on it and I wake up in pain if I do.
Not much else going on right now, I'll toss a post here in earnest tomorrow. For now I need sleep.
For the last few weeks, I've been practicing making handmade udon noodles. Just now I think I finally got the process down pretty well.
Quote from: KLSymph on September 13, 2018, 02:04:21 AM
For the last few weeks, I've been practicing making handmade udon noodles. Just now I think I finally got the process down pretty well.
That sounds neat. What's involved in the process?
Huh, that does sound neat. I am so lazy about cooking.
Been back into stardew valley, and watching AMVs myself.
A very https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA3bP7PiC9c
Ditching graduate school and getting a Real Job again was the right decision so far. The work itself is more sensible
and I have more time and less anxiety to do other stuff. Also, the petty politics in grad school was... yuck. I think I posted about it at one point.
Starting to re-develop hobbies, tried speaking Japanese to Japanese people (lots of Japanese people in Toronto nowadays), bit of writing.
Quote from: KLSymph on September 13, 2018, 02:04:21 AM
For the last few weeks, I've been practicing making handmade udon noodles. Just now I think I finally got the process down pretty well.
Any reason you picked handmade udon in particular?
(For some reason an archetype in Japan seems to go along the lines of "retired bank functionary opens a soba shop to pass the time".)
Sounds pretty solid, Drac. I'm doing DM work, but when am I not doing DM work?
That aside, I'm not doing much. Very much a mentally absent day, an unplanned day off so my mind is drifting. Getting in some Complex Doom: Clusterfuck, which is a fun and crazy Doom mod. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykPRoCN6nic
Quote from: Arakawa on September 13, 2018, 04:18:42 PM
Ditching graduate school and getting a Real Job again was the right decision so far. The work itself is more sensible and I have more time and less anxiety to do other stuff. Also, the petty politics in grad school was... yuck. I think I posted about it at one point.
You did, glad to hear you got out of there and landed on your own two feet.
Not much here. Work and school. Down to one class for graduation and I'm in my third semester for Blacksmithing.
Got offered a job to be a demonstrator Blacksmith during holidays/events at a local heritage museum. Probably going to jump on it. Good weekend filler thingy.
Quote from: Anastasia on September 13, 2018, 04:45:18 PM
Quote from: Arakawa on September 13, 2018, 04:18:42 PM
Ditching graduate school and getting a Real Job again was the right decision so far. The work itself is more sensible and I have more time and less anxiety to do other stuff. Also, the petty politics in grad school was... yuck. I think I posted about it at one point.
You did, glad to hear you got out of there and landed on your own two feet.
Cheers for that. Grad school can really be kind of a trap.
Quote from: Iron Dragoon on September 13, 2018, 07:33:52 PM
Not much here. Work and school. Down to one class for graduation and I'm in my third semester for Blacksmithing.
Got offered a job to be a demonstrator Blacksmith during holidays/events at a local heritage museum. Probably going to jump on it. Good weekend filler thingy.
Pretty cool. Still sucks you're not getting to use your air mechanic skills.
Quote from: Anastasia on September 13, 2018, 01:03:31 PM
That sounds neat. What's involved in the process?
It's very simple. Mix flour, salt, water. Knead into dough. Let dough sit covered for an hour, then flatten with and fold a few times. Flatten into a sheet, then cut it into strips. Dust with flour so it doesn't stick together. Cook by tossing into boiling water for ~7-10 minutes, or refrigerate. Here's the video tutorial that I recommend. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuXHbaP1X98&t=177s) Although a lot of Youtube videos have various extraneous steps, like the whole "knead with your feet thing to be traditional" thing that I don't want to do. Even my linked video asks that you dissolve the salt in water, which as far as I can tell makes no difference versus just mixing it with the flour before adding the water. And every tutorial says cover the dough in plastic wrap or ziploc, when putting in a bow with a lid seems to do the job.
The only part that I was tripping up on was water to flour ratio, since this was the first time I've really worked with dough. I was trying to get a dough that isn't sticky and clammy (and looks like the videos) but it turns out I was using too little water so the dough was extremely stiff and flattening it took a lot of force, and cooking it left the inside still raw. Once I finally iterated to a wet enough dough and just got over the messy dough on my hands, it all worked out.
Quote from: Arakawa on September 13, 2018, 04:18:42 PM
Any reason you picked handmade udon in particular? (For some reason an archetype in Japan seems to go along the lines of "retired bank functionary opens a soba shop to pass the time".)
I want to learn recipes that I enjoy at restaurants so I can spend less money eating out (currently I can sear a decent steak as well, but that's about as far as I've gotten). I've tried a few Japanese recipes, and I can't say I'm too successful (http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,1228.msg1054538.html#msg1054538). Udon is very simple and needs no exotic ingredients. It's also a reasonable entry point into making pasta (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew-3-8itpjc).
As for the archetype, I dunno, I hear that noodle shops are a ton of work (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmIwxqdwgrI).
Yeah, I've been watching so many cooking videos.
That video's pretty awesome plus it made me want pasta.
---
Quote from: Iron Dragoon on September 13, 2018, 07:33:52 PM
Not much here. Work and school. Down to one class for graduation and I'm in my third semester for Blacksmithing.
Got offered a job to be a demonstrator Blacksmith during holidays/events at a local heritage museum. Probably going to jump on it. Good weekend filler thingy.
How many more semesters do you have in blacksmithing, Iddy?
Quote from: Anastasia on September 14, 2018, 10:57:19 AM
How many more semesters do you have in blacksmithing, Iddy?
Well, as many as I want, really. But two more until I'm considered at Apprentice level, which basically means I can do a range of simple things by myself.
Quote from: Iron Dragoon on September 15, 2018, 04:08:37 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on September 14, 2018, 10:57:19 AM
How many more semesters do you have in blacksmithing, Iddy?
Well, as many as I want, really. But two more until I'm considered at Apprentice level, which basically means I can do a range of simple things by myself.
Makes sense. Sounds like a lot of hands on learning for it, really like an apprenticeship.
Quote<Dracos> Hal, Merc, I and Kaldrak succeeded in...cheating aggressively against elder horror until it gave up.
Some might say that we are the cheatingest cheaters that ever cheated. But technically... you're only cheating if the elder gods catch you and devour your soul! And if there was any cheating, Umordhoth can't prove it from behind his eldritch prison!
So football happened today. I'm a Redskins fan, so naturally I regret everything. (Read as: They lost. Badly.)
In other news, I need a haircut. It's stupid but it's always something I put off, thinking if I don't mind my hair getting a bit long, I can save money on haircuts.
Quote from: Merc on September 16, 2018, 10:07:58 PM
Quote<Dracos> Hal, Merc, I and Kaldrak succeeded in...cheating aggressively against elder horror until it gave up.
Some might say that we are the cheatingest cheaters that ever cheated. But technically... you're only cheating if the elder gods catch you and devour your soul! And if there was any cheating, Umordhoth can't prove it from behind his eldritch prison!
You can't prove it was us! Nobody can!
Quote from: Anastasia on September 16, 2018, 10:40:23 PM
In other news, I need a haircut. It's stupid but it's always something I put off, thinking if I don't mind my hair getting a bit long, I can save money on haircuts.
Have you thought about doing it yourself or having a friend do it with a haircutting kit? I keep my hair real short so I've saved a ton of money over the last ten years doing it myself.
As for me, I have been housesitting a couple dogs, four cats, a bunny, and way too many fishies in probably more fishtanks than one person should have. I'm looking forward to going home tomorrow. Also I had to game on my laptop instead of my desktop, which mostly worked but was kind of sad in comparison to my PC.
Quote from: Kaldrak on September 17, 2018, 03:46:59 AMHave you thought about doing it yourself or having a friend do it with a haircutting kit? I keep my hair real short so I've saved a ton of money over the last ten years doing it myself.
We used to have a family friend who did it way back when, actually. We'd spend a Saturday at my grandparents getting all of our hair cuts, a real homey family sort of event. It eventually fell by the wayside as those things tend to do, moreso when my grandmother had to go into a nursing home.
That's a good idea, should look into that.
Last weekend, Merc, Hal, Kal, and I cheated our way through the elder gods in Arkham Horror.
This weekend I am playing too much stardew.
And getting kinda tired of the work bullshit.
Played way too much slay the spire. Did a 350 floor run with a basically invulnerable build. Finally let it die there, and it still took ten rounds of doing nothing (Had a stash of fairy potions).
I knew Catastrophe was really strong, but the core of it was the spoon relic + Apparition + motion blur. Plus running into an event that upgraded everything. Basically, as the game kept ramping up the difficulty, it really didn't do anything since everything was just doing 1 point of damage. After a while on top of that there was just the entire game's set of relics. Ended up doing like 10+ boss finishes of no damage with the set.
The Redskins are 5-2, they don't suck for now. I'm waiting for them to regress to mean, but it's nice being a winning football team for once.
Otherwise it's all job applications and hoping. I had a few interviews earlier in the month that didn't pan out, so back to the drawing board. One I know I ran into a chunk of bad luck on via a candidate that was super duper qualified while I was only super qualified. What can you do, y'know?
Continued practicing Japanese with real Japanese people at local exchange. Getting in over my head here.
There, there are tables of 4 people with non-advanced Japanese learners grouped advanced English learners and advanced Japanese learners with non-advanced English learners. So there is at least one language where people can have a legitimate conversation.
Last time got swapped midway (due to random no-show Americans blamed on Black Friday) to a much more advanced table where I could only catch 40% of the conversation. Was interrogated on which anime I had watched. Japanese were surprised I heard of Future Boy Conan.
Definite difference between advanced English learners and non-advanced English learners. Advanced English learners are "I want to study abroad / got bored of working part-time job so decided to work part-time job in exotic American city and put 'English' on my resume". Non-advanced English learners are "my boss told me to go here for 1.5 years -_-;;".
I'm back from traveling and hanging out with Hal in a great week of comradery. There was much dragon's crown and japan was entirely taken over by Oda and dragged to hell. Tried switch version of world ends with you. Still mediocre controls!
Barely slept right the last couple nights. Got strongly harassed about one of my workers being on vacation.
Miss having enough hands to get work done :(
Sounds like a good vacation, at least.
Back at work. Focusing on developer tools...
Kind of not practicing my conference talk ;_;
Job hunting continues to be rough, unfortunately.
Lessee.
Job hunt continues. No real updates there, I've been out of work a few months. That's usually when it gets harder to get a job, unfortunately. One of the little ironies of life is that it's easier to get a job when you have a job.
Randomly, I've been refreshing myself on the DCAU. Good times and good memories there, no two ways about it.
Game failed to ship this week. Maybe next. Been stressy with things breaking at work.
And being lightly sick for a while. At least that has passed.
GDC coming up. I don't wanna get ready.
I started Spring Cleaning early.
DUST EVERYWHERE.
That must be why I'm sniffling so much this morning. Why couldn't you kep that dust contained to your place? Why'd you let it get EVERYWHERE?
You tell me, Mercury. I blame you for the idea.
The closest I can think of suggesting a clean up action recently was asking if you could clean out that spammer the other day. :p
See? It is your fault.
Got summoned to jury duty.
This is a first for me.
Good luck. Hopefully it's quick and painless for you.
I requested a postponement, but apparently they'll only contact me to let me know if it's denied.
Feels a little....
>_<
Yeaaaaah. Like it's setting up ways for it to go wrong.
Going to Game Developer's Conference. Gonna talk at it on monday. Then manage energy for being interested in things for 4 days after that!
That sounds like a conference, alright. Congratulations - I remember when you were just going to college to be a game dev. You've really made it, huh?
Quote from: Dracos on March 16, 2019, 07:47:42 PM
Gonna talk at it on monday. Then manage energy for being interested in things for 4 days after that!
Good luck, talking at a conference takes energy. More usual that conference talks at you. Sometimes with jetlag.
I remember listening to a conference talk on the C++ concurrency model while jetlagged.
Good thing my job did not and still does not require understanding the C++ concurrency model....
Cruddy sinuses.
Beat KH3. Don't recommend it. Will possibly do a writeup? Less than the sum of its parts.
Finishing Etrian. Failing to do exercise :( Cough meds are helping a bit.
Wrote "homemade root-beer" in a fic draft. Then typed it into Google. Turns out sassafras is mostly banned by the FDA. Now researching the legal status of homemade root-beer in the USA.
And Canada. Brewpub near my workplace makes a mean root beer. I am curious if it actually uses sassafras.
Apparently sassafras is also a precursor ingredient to <heinous illegal substances>, which adds a whole other dimension to the legal intricacies.
'Tis a rabbit hole nearly as deep as the raw milk movement.
Wow...I did not know that.
Family's staying over this week, they're between houses as they had to be out of their old one a week before the new one's ready.
Cue a week of packed awkwardness. Fun fun fun. Six people, one bathroom. No one wins.
Got my first person to resign from a team I ran ever. Sadness. At least they basically just voiced no confidence in the c-suite and regretted leaving the team, but sucks.
Quote from: Dracos on April 13, 2019, 02:04:40 PM
Got my first person to resign from a team I ran ever. Sadness. At least they basically just voiced no confidence in the c-suite and regretted leaving the team, but sucks.
Sounds like it wasn't about you, at least.
Saw on FFML that Lurker is no more.
As one FFML poster aptly put it:
QuoteIT seems like a lot of cool writters have passed away before their time and will be misused
Yet sobering and sad.
Always hurts to lose an old hand in that community. Sobering and sad nails it in one.
Back from florida. Having trouble staying up late or getting up at a reasonable time (not 5 am). Bleeeeh.
Was great seeing family though. Good to see both my sis and dad are doing well.
Glad to hear, especially with how things have been. Older or younger sister, by the way?
Younger sister. She's doing so much house stuff, it's kind of a bit impressive.
Aaaaah. That sounds good for her, she doing the whole house and kids routine, sounds like?
Nope. Shame since I'm kind of unlikely to. Not gonna have any nephews or nieces to spoil. Maybe her and her fiancee will change their mind at some point. She is just doing the house and fix up house routine. proud house and all.
I built my own sofa today.
The company Lovesac, which got started selling premium beanbags, went into modular seating years ago. They sell you "sactionals": seat bases and sides. You decide how you're going to put them together, so you can build your own sofa, reconfigure it into a bed, or separate chairs. They also sell you covers for those parts.
The plan is, you order your parts + covers, they ship them to you, you put the covers onto the parts, clamp'em together, and you have your contemporary seating. It almost works the way it should.
The tricky bit it putting on the covers. Here's the promo video of the CEO who shows how it's supposed to be done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl3GDW-FBWE addresses how to cover 3 of the parts.
Here's my reaction:
0:20 seat frame: Explanation is a bit overblown. Just make sure that the holes at the top line up, because you have to put clamps into them later. If you totally want perfection, sure, but if you're trying to build something workable and doesn't look too horrible, you can slightly cut corners.
1:22 seat cushions: It's a pillow. The instructions printed on the box are pretty apt. This is not rocket science. Taking a little care to place the corners would not be amiss so you don't have large parts of flappy cover off to the side, but this is not hard.
3:20 sides: THIS MAN IS A LYING LIAR WHO LIES. "Just pull down the covers both sides about 4-5 inches at a time." No. More like, an inch or two at a time, and if it goes a half-centimeter wide (as usually happens around 75% of the way down), start over because you're not going to be able to fix it. It also helps if you're a cyborg and have a spare set of hands ready for replacement, since you'll have worn through your set of current hands trying to ease on those side covers.
Washable/Swappable covers is one lovesac selling point, and all I can say is that I'm glad I went with leather. Because honestly, there's no way I would have been able to wash those covers had they been cloth - those side covers are NOT coming off.
The sofa+chaise itself turned out pretty well. Not quite factory-assembly quality, and not quite the "Nailed it" meme. Actually putting the pieces together was fun. Think legos about half to 3/4 your size, and you have the general feeling. It's bulky enough that you're not going to reconnect your pieces every week, but very doable if you need to do it.
Anyway, that was my day. In DC, it's as hot and humid as DC.