Monthly Review, February 2024
Homestead
Aside from a cold snap, it’s been quite pleasant and warm this month. The bunny and chickens are doing good—we switched up the chicken feed, and they’re demolishing it and turning out some eggs again!
I got all my scraps together (plus some new ones scavenged from the recent bulk collection day) and finally built myself an outdoor work area. It’s got a nice little miter saw station and plenty of flat space to work on—hopefully it won’t get miserable when the heat starts in earnest, but we’ll see.
Health
Allergies are quite bad in February, and that kicks off a month of having no energy at all. Combined with the usual brain weasels, and it’s not a great combination. I’ve been getting back on sugar again, too, which is also not ideal, so, need to address that soon.
Games
RPGs played:
- Some weekly Mothership on Thursdays with the 5 Million Worlds crew
- Tried out Dead Belt, a solo space hulk scavenger, which was neat
- Slugblaster went great as usual, and we’re getting near wrapping up, I think!
- Played a game of Lady Blackbird in person at a local game shop
- Started up our weekly Stars in the Dark (Star Wars-themed Blades in the Dark) campaign again, with the same group, which is awesome.
- Playtested a couple of sessions of Depths Unfathomable, a card-based FitD seafaring fantasy game
- Got in a few more sessions of our Mecha Hack quarterly
- Also got some good action in our quarterly of Court of Blades
- Ran some Psi*Run for the OH online open gaming weekend
- Played the Hunted, which is great
- Ran a game of Eat the Reich with the Faded Havens (plus one), definitely need to dig deeper into that one…
- Had a couple of weeks that had skipped games for various reasons, which is cool, but man, I miss ‘em.
Also played through Oxenfree on Steam, which was fine, but a bit slow for what I was looking for. Very nicely designed and scripted, though, and short enough to run through in an evening.
I picked up Cloud Empress at a local game shop that has a fantastic wall of indie games, and it’s pretty great, definitely on my to-run-soon list.
Media
- Watched the new Mr and Mrs Smith series, which was way better than I expected it to be.
- Checked out Command Z, a little sci-fi time travel web series by Steven Soderbergh, which is exactly what is sounds like.
- Pai recommended Hazbin Hotel, which I loved, but is a *lot*.
- Also finally caught the Nimona movie, which was also delightful.
- Binged the new Netflix Avatar series. It’s… not good.
- Watched the two existing seasons of Danger 5 on youtube, an Australian spy comedy about trying to kill Hitler every week (an inspiration for Eat the Reich, above), again, exactly what it sounds like.
- Finally finished listening to all 200 episodes of the Magnus Archives, so I’m ready for whatever’s next on the podcast list now…
Work
Still unemployed, which would be great if it weren’t for the whole not getting paid thing. I’m half-assedly working on a couple of little side hustles, mostly selling owl houses and raised beds and stuff on facebook marketplace, but it’s not what I need. I’ve been on hold with TWC for three months now, and I haven’t been able to collect a penny of unemployment in that time, which is also less than ideal, and I’m not sure what to do there.
Other Stuff
Putting that new workbench to use! Built some owl houses and some bat houses, designed and build a new zine stand for my table at Staple! in a couple of months, and just getting that stuff in order in general.
Nic is doing great, submitted their thesis for defense, and being married to them is still amazing after a month! Pai is also doing well, they’re doing the driving on the way to school in the mornings, so that’s coming along nicely, too.
Other than that… I dunno, it’s been a fuzzy month.
Plans
I dunno, man. Probably take a weekend to go down to Houston to visit NASA and see some whooping cranes in March. Heading to South Carolina for Nic’s sister’s wedding, and spending a few days extra to visit folks down there. Figuring out what to do next?
