Monthly Review, September 2022

September feels like it just *disappeared*, but look, I have evidence! Let’s take a look…

Homestead

Well, it’s “cooling down” some here in Texas, which means that it’s only ninety degrees every day instead of over a hundred. I’m starting to putter around outside a little bit more, getting some garden stuff set up and clearing some brush from the yard, doing some repairs on the chicken coop, but I’m still not fit to spend more than half an hour out there without falling over. Soon, though!

Pozzo is over her broodiness, but Didi picked it up for a few days before we set her straight. Everybody is being good babies right now, though.

I’ve got a “free stuff in austin” alert set up on craigslist, and it is dangerous. I did manage to score a big load of free lumber one day, so, worth it. Now just gotta get myself out to the workshop again to make some use of it. (We’ve got quite a pile of pallets and reclaimed wood out front, I’m sure the neighbors love it.)

Health

Early on in the month was pretty rough brain-wise, but things calmed down after a while. Just not sleeping or eating well, I think, and spending too much time inside. Fixing that!

Blood sugar is doing okay after a spike last night, but coming back down, even after eating some sweet, sweet pancakes and birthday treats. Exercise and eating human food and medicine seems to work—weird, right?

Games

I ordered a print run of Grackle Teeth from Mixam! Just a test run of a hundred copies, but they look great! Took a bit of re-working to get the files set up for print (note to self: do that from the beginning, even if you’re sure you’re only doing a digital version, because yeesh) but I’m really happy with the way the books came out, and they’re actually a little bit better organized than they were before, so, bonus. I’m still getting an online order form set up for them, but they’ll be available soon!

RPGs

• We’re starting the runup to the end of our campaign of Stars in the Dark (our Star Wars-reskinned Blades in the Dark game). We’ve been playing for over a year now, and it feels like we’re starting to wrap up a bunch of character and plot stuff, so we’re going to bring it to an intentional end in the next month or so, instead of letting it drag and fizzle out. It’s been a fantastic time, and everyone really enjoys playing with the group, so we’ll probably start up something else after. I can’t wait to see what happens!
• Did a nice hangout with Anders and some other folks from the Gauntlet to talk about solo RPGs, too, which was nice. The time was sketchy for me, so I only made it to one of the four, but I got some more things to check out, so worth it.
• Speaking of, I did some solo play of A Torch in the Dark over on twitch, inspired by the hangout. It’s cool, and the work put into it is pretty impressive—I’m having trouble getting the narrative part down, which is tricky with solo games, but mechanically it’s pretty sweet.
• Also in solo land, I continued my Starforged game, also on twitch, venturing down into a crazy space vault and getting into big trouble. Ended on a cliffhanger with my guy almost getting eaten by a giant bug, so we’ll have to keep playing to find out what happened.
• We did also get a second episode of the Wizard’s Grimoire in (guess where) with Heath and Nic, and continued the adventure of our fledgling wizard trying to decode this ancient signature. I finally unlocked a bit, so, excited to do more of that. (This game is cool in that it has one “player”—me—and two volunteers who are basically in the “GM” role, who don’t have to be the same each time, so if anyone wants to give my wizard a hard time, holler.)
• The Between is still cranking along—our Mother brought her child to life, they wrapped up the Limehouse Lurker and Sally No-Face, which got Hargrave two new creepy housemates, and Francis our Undeniable is starting to get juicy. I also introduced a new threat that I wrote for the occasion, involving a Horrible Goose, so we’ll see how that turns out…
• Finally got to play Agon during GCOG, which was a treat, and I’m looking forward to trying it again (or probably running it) sometime soon!
• I played through a four-session run of Coyote and Crow, which was fine. We had some bumps with the system, which is a bit crunchier than my taste runs these days, but everyone was cool about it, and we had a good time regardless. Not sure I’ll come back to it, but it’s a super neat setting and seems like it’d be really fun for folks who like that kind of thing.
• Played two sessions of Devil, Aim For Me, a creepy western one-shot for Trophy Dark, which was fantastic. Trophy has a habit of getting these really deep characters with only a tiny bit of setup, and running them through the wringer in no time flat.
• Played a bit of CBR+PNK, also for the Gauntlet Community Open Gaming con, which was nice. I’ve only run it, so being on the player side was interesting—I like the system, which is tuned for tight cyberpunk one-shots, and our run was pretty straightforward. I think missions with some kind of sick twist work better for the system, but we still had a blast.
• (Missed an opportunity to play Owlbear Omelette with PlusOneExp, but that was me being dumb and assuming the game was pm instead of am, durr. Next time!)

Video Games

• Did some Demeo runs with our Saturday morning vr golf group, which is always fun. Smashed that Rat King good.
• Played some Walkabout Golf with them too, of course. El Dorado!
• Been playing Beat Saber for exercise pretty steadily, and I’m starting to get pretty good again, so, ramping up the difficulty some more! SWEATY
• Got hooked on Vampire Survivors for a couple of weeks, which is intense. Highly recommended if you like bonker-ass bullet heaven shooters.
• Made the mistake of getting Minecraft hooked up on the old xbox one for Nic, and wound up getting sucked in for several hours. That was a rough couple of mornings.
• Grabbed Dicey Dungeons for a bit on Steam, which is fun and has a neat dice mechanic, but I feel like I got it.
• Spent a little too long grinding away making numbers go up at NG space company, for “research”. Got boring, and still don’t have a good idea for an incremental game that I can build.
• Played through Little Inferno in a night—such a weird, compelling little “game” where you pretty much just buy toys and burn them in a fireplace. Loved it.

Media

• Picking at Farscape a little bit, but feels like an obligation at this point. Not sure I’m gonna make it through season three.
• The She-Hulk show is still really cute, some super good episodes, but it feels like it’s missing something overall. Enjoying it, though!
• Started watching Andor, and holy crap, this is my jam. If you liked Rogue One, you’re gonna love this.
• Cyberpunk Edgerunners on netflix is exactly what it says on the tin. If you like the whole hyperviolent heads exploding cyber implants robots shooting corporate bullshit neon dark future stuff—which I do—they do it one hundred percent.
• Started watching Lower Decks, which seems fun.
• Went to see the new Texas Comedies play Murders and Moontowers which, again, delivered exactly what we were expecting. Very fun.
• Gonna emphasize this here: BARBARIAN, HOLY SHIT. I linked the trailer there, but don’t watch it, just go see it. It’s scary as fuck, and probably the best horror movie I’ve seen in years, and we’re in a run of really good horror movies right now.
• Saw Don’t Worry Darling with Nic and Pai, and… well, it was pretty. This is the year of our lord two thousand and twenty two, and if you’re (spoilers) gonna do vr/computer stuff in an obvious twist, everyone knows how computers work these days and you can’t do stupid shit with it. ANYWAY.
• Ordered a copy of Would, Could, Should off of eBay, which is a little pamphlet of science fiction short stories that came with an old Penn and Teller book to be used as a prop in a trick, but the stories are actually super good, and I can’t find my copy, so here we are. (You may have seen an adaptation of one, The Pain Addict, on an episode of Black Mirror.) I don’t think they’re available anywhere online, so… I might fix that.

Work

My cohort did their final projects—which were great, as always—and graduated, and I’m into the new cohort immediately after, bam. We’re supposed to get a three-week rotation off after each cohort, but as far as I can tell, we’ve never done that since announcing it at the beginning of the year, so… cool. Just gonna keep doing my thing, man.

Someone in management in another department who has been a giant pain in the ass for some folks just left suddenly, leaving a weird void, but that’s fine by me. Shouldn’t really make a difference for people who do actual work, and maybe stuff will fall into place a bit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bringing up the new cohort of fourteen new folks. Everyone seems cool, and they’re starting their first project end of the month—lots of work to do, but that’s the job.

Other Stuff

Nic’s grandma died, so they went to North Carolina for a week to take care of all the stuff around that.

Spent some time with Pai, getting her hair dyed and running around some. Driving her to early classes a bunch, so we get some sleepy chats in there.

Mmmm… I dunno, just kind of chilling, doing chores around the house, maybe learning a little bit of Godot if I feel like it.

Plans

It is the Fall of Embarkment, so I’m gonna get out some more. Need to put up a sales page for the Grackle Teeth hard copy, and get the Roguelike deck and zine prepped and out the door. Thinking about Halloween plans is a little stressful, so we’ll see how that goes. Otherwise, just gonna do my thing, man, and see what happens.