Last week, and what a week it was

[dorchadas]

I'm currently sitting in my mostly-packed-up apartment listening to podcasts on an extremely-rainy Sunday. If this is the last week I live in my old apartment, it's been a good one.


Wednesday was Employee Appreciation Day at work, which usually sneaks up on me but this year I actually remembered in time so that I didn't bring a lunch and got to fully appreciate the buffet. Every year prior to this I've forgotten, which hasn't actually stopped from getting buffet food, but it does mean that I eat two lunches. I still ate basically two lunches today, but both of them were the tacos, hamburger, bean salad, chips and salsa, and watermelon that the buffet offered rather than one being my standard salad with chicken. Not that I have a problem with my standard lunch--at this point, I've been eating it for almost seven years without any problem.

There was a talent show that I caught the end of that proved to me how corrupted by memes I am. One of the acts was a dance team (called "I AMA Dancer") that performed to a pop medley. One of the songs was "Party Rock," and my thought as soon as I heard the first few notes was "Why isn't this Cruel Angel's Thesis?"

After work I briefly went home and then walked out to Blowfish to meet thosesocks for dinner. Due to recent surgery she's on a soft food diet for two months, and knowing that I was a ramen connoisseur (to the extent that I can be while not eating pork), she asked me about ramen places that I liked. Blowfish is up there pretty high--it's one of the few places in the city that has beef ramen--so I immediately suggested it. And it was a success! thosesocks told me how tender the pork was and how much she liked the food, so I'm glad that I was able to spread the word of Blowfish. There have been three sushi restaurants in that same spot while I've lived here, but I think the third time is the charm.

thosesocks also gave me all her old hair ties now that her hair is short, so maybe I can take people's advice and braid my hair before bed so it won't get quite so horribly tangled.

Friday after work I walked over to Vermillion to meet docezra for dinner. We've known each other for over a decade--we were guildies together in the Pig & Whistle Society, back when I played World of Warcraft--but this is the first time that we've ever met in person. When he said he was coming in on a work trip and asked if we could meet for dinner, Vermillion was the first restaurant I recommended, and he immediately seized on it as exactly the kind of thing he probably would never find in Huntsville. Final verdict: approved.

It's always a little weird meeting someone in person if you've only known them from the internet, but this was lovely. We did a bit of WoW reminiscing, about the late-night Kara runs that we did when I was on Japanese time and some people in America stayed up really late to join us, but I haven't played WoW in almost eight years now, and docezra said that he popped in for a couple of months every new expansion and then checked out again, so most of our conversation was about different topics. I heard a lot about life in Huntsville, and how the rent was low but no restaurant ever stuck around. Chicago is expensive, true, but there's really only one place I'd rather be for the food.

(You can probably guess where that is 🇯🇵)

On Saturday, my parents came over to help me pack, and in about an hour we had cleared off all the bookshelves and my media shelf and put everything into boxes. My living room is a mess of huge boxes, suitcases, and packing paraphenilia, but there's a whole lot less work I have to do myself now tomorrow and overmorrow, so I'm really glad for their aid. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to put everything in my new place--being where I've been for five years meant that I was buying things specifically because they fit the layout of my current apartment and I'll have to relocate them all--but I'll find a way.

Saturday night I thought about going out, but what actually happened is that I sat down to try out a Doom mod called Castlevania: Simon's Destiny and then got up three hours later after I had beaten it. More about that at the link!

This afternoon, lisekatevans texted me to say that she was nearby filming a quick retake of a scene for a small fan film she's in and asking if I wanted her to stop by, so she came by and I fed her lunch while we sat amidst the boxes. After an hour or so she left, begging off my invitation for her to come to another of tom.hen.12's board game afternoons at Dice Dojo. That turned out to be perhaps a good thing, because when I got there, no one else was there and the board game room had been almost entirely taken over for a Magic: the Gathering tournament. I waited for ten minutes, no one showed up, and I left.

I did spend a bit of time looking around and in the tabletop RPG section, I found a copy of Band of Blades, a game that's a riff off Blades in the Dark. thosesocks loaned me her copy of Blades in the Dark to read (and maybe run) when I met her for coffee two weeks ago, so I picked up Band of Blades and then read the back with increasing excitement. Battle between the forces of good and the undead hordes, champions of good corrupted by the evil overlord, a group called the Legion staging a fighting retreat back to their stronghold...it's basically Myth: the Fallen Lords as a tabletop RPG! I mean, GURPS Myth exists and I own it, but this is a take on the themes rather than a translation of the game directly into a tabletop system. And now I really hope I like the rules of Blades in the Dark when I read it, because if I do, I'll probably buy a copy of Band of Blades and try to get that off the ground. Maybe it'll scratch the same itch as that idea for an Anabasis Mountain Folk game in Exalted.

The rest of today is prepping for the week ahead, because even though I'm moving I haven't taken the entire week off and I'll still need lunches for most of it. I'll cook, finish off more of what's in my fridge, watch anime, and maybe play Hyrule Warriors. Otherwise, today is a day for relaxation.