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Comments
Maybe this is just the artist equivalent of writer's block?
Additionally, Stephanie's brother actually came back!... in a set that's even bigger and more impractical than last time. And last time he came in the biggest set available that year. Why does LEGO not want me to have him.
I also found out that there will be, wait for it, JUNGLE themed Play Cubes. Even though my heart lies with the Heart Boxes (Play Cubes are really just glorified plastic chunks), I have no idea if I can honestly resist the collectability of these for much longer.
that feel when you're browsing Wikipedia and suddenly find what reads like an apocalyptic log
Though I what I find more interesting is how I ended up there; an old lady at our faculty was asking for directions to get to the auditorium, I guide her there and she invites me to attend so I do, turns out the conference was to commemorate said lady, who's an expert in concrete, and although the conference was about her and not concrete itself, all she wanted to talk about during her turn was concrete.
I don't know how others would feel about this story, but for me it's kinda uplifting.
But like also always take advantage of a captive audience.
Does MtG frequently do joke releases?
Also: I can't tell if this was timely or an accident.
Yes, a third edit: The Pokémon card game is one that I've learned should be played with a deck that is either half Trainer cards or more Trainer cards than Pokémon cards, yet Booster packs include two trainer cards out of ten cards.
Speaking of which, three days ago I started playing again Forge, the MtG engine I've sometimes mentioned, then time's flied without me making good use of it, just like what we talked about in the video games thread. I thought it'd feel good to use it to brush up on Japanese but not really.
I'm not going to stop but I gotta ask myself more often if I'm actually enjoying it and do something about it if I don't.
I went to Metal Archives to look for that band from Mozambique, and found this: https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Scratch/62774
They released a single demo in mid-Eighties and split up. I checked the names of band members. One guy went through a string of similarly short-lived bands, the other finally ended up in a functional band and despite dying in a car crash some ten years later, seems to be still remembered as part of the band. I'm thinking mostly of the first guy.
What's his life like? Does he reminisce his rockman days with fondness, jamming on a guitar once in a while, or is it follies of youth to him now? Is he still dabbling in music for a living, whether as a musician or a record company employee, or did he leave the business for good? Does he think of himself as a failed rockman, or is he rather comfortable with his life now, having put that part of his life behind? And what does he think of the other fellow: does he think the break-up cost him a potential career, or that he got out before also ending up dead, or were they on friendly terms despite the split?
(edit: he might also have ended up in a band playing some other genre. Metal Archives is rather specific about music genres. Also, he might have become, like, an actor or otherwise an entertainer - not a rock star, but definitely closer to it than custom kitchen delivery. I seem to have defaulted to assuming he's living Al Bundy's life, while it can be anything really.)
It's funny, how these few lines of text make me think so much of it.
> rockman days
lol i'm now imagining him reminiscing about his youth cosplaying as Mega Man on Halloween
I kinda want to bring up my, umm... resentment towards socialism again, but not really.
I had a bigger post but I deleted it.
I'm not sure why I'm posting this.
Edit: Wording.
With all the free time I've kinda wanted to, I dunno, discover a new thing, like a new hobby or a series I hadn't heard about. Or try something new with the stuff I'm already into, or something.
Vaguely related, it bugs me that the internet is short on large programming tutorials, like weeks long spent working on a single thing, and this is important because there's loads of stuff in software engineering that only comes up in large projects, like working in a way that doesn't screw you over down the line.
I've been seriously considering starting a blog about toys, specifically mini dolls (anything under 6-8" I guess) and maybe some action figures. I've probably mentioned this before.
I'm constantly thinking about how it would be a waste of time and how it would change my perceptions of things. Then again, I've spent a lot of time building stuff in LEGO and MCX, so I could at least shift gears. Spending time writing descriptions could also improve the rest of my writing.
Maybe I really do just need to go ahead and do it.
tl;dr - mullmullmullmull...
Well, it would be something like what I do here, but with more history, background, and detail.
The room has been feeling unusually hot lately, I need to put it several degrees lower to make it feel as it was earlier, nonetheless the air conditioner is otherwise working seemingly fine, if I didn't spend my days here I wouldn't notice anything. It's been unusually hot lately but this was kind of sudden and it's been like this continuously for days. I suspect it's because of the fan's motor, it had a problem again like last time and looking at it the fan's speed is not constant, at times it seems to slow down very suddenly, though of course I'm not sure if that's not normal, just putting my hand there it doesn't feel different. That would also explain a slight snapping sound I was hearing not long before that, though, as if it were freezing then thawing.
Edit: I realized the air conditioner was frozen, after letting it thaw the fan started behaving more like what one'd expect. Nonetheless the air conditioner is freezing easily, I think a cleaning is due. I cleaned it up recently but that was with a blower and without taking the main cover off, so that probably wasn't enough.
I went a step further and added my cards as flashcards so as to remember their meaning and pronunciation, and what I was doing felt a lot like collecting vocabulary* (it's a collectible card game after all) so I put two and two together and began collecting my opponent's too, then those I could recognize, then all of them. It's something I had thought about before and man, I should've started doing this ages ago. For some reason I have good memory when it comes to MtG cards and apparently it works out in Japanese too.
I'm doing this on a per-block basis. For flavor reasons I had started with Kamigawa and I'm nearly done with it, next will be Theros (the Ancient Greece one) which I already started, I wanted to do Lorwyn next (the British isles one) but for (size?) reasons Forge's Lorwyn world includes lots of non-Lorwyn cards. There's also Innistrad (the gothic horror one) and Tarkir (the several Asian cultures one) but there's no world for them (in my version, at least) and Ravnica (the Eastern Europe one) but that's three blocks. Oh and the newer ones I don't know about.
This has to be one of the geekiest things I've done.
* Granted, a lot of it are several ways of saying "see", "foresee", "destroy", " fury", "soldier" and plant stuff I don't know what they mean in any language.
What a twist.
I opened another Capsule Chix, this time from the Ctrl+Alt+Magic collection. Probably my least favourite collection out of the entire line. I've had (very mild) walking nightmares about accidentally getting the limited edition from this line, who is a mermaid. That means no legs, which limits the customization options.
I did get the dreaded "rare" fabric piece. I've had smaller dolls before, like Lil' Bratz, that were definitely built for fabric clothes. Capsule Chix fabric pants appear to all have one universally terrible cut, and the "tops" are a joke. So, luckily (?), I got a pair of pants.
I had to remove her lower legs to even get them on, and even that was a challenge. So, here's Little Ms. Ctrl+Alt+Magic (name pending). I think she looks kind of like a traveler. You can see I've already changed her shoes. She came with gladiator sandals, and those weren't going on with these pants on. I also gave her Wild Child's bag.
The top I got came with these terrible wings, and in the guide I thought they were permanently attached. Thankfully they came off.
I guess I should mention her giant unicorn horn. Not my favourite trend, but I don't absolutely hate it or anything.
I finally got a normal pair of hands! They're... very splayed, but I can't complain now can I? I gave them to Papa's Favourite*. Now she's very, very expressive. I also gave her Ctrl+Alt+Magic's shoes and bag.
Wild Child hasn't changed much (aside from gaining her a name, specifically after this song). I guess I've mainly decided she can go without a bag.
I considered giving them normal names like human people have, but I've never been one to give my dolls "names". It seems trite. I mean, I named my teddy bear as a child, but he wasn't a toy, he was real.
*Yes, that's her name, I know it sounds slightly creepy, but it stuck in my mind. I also realized that the song I linked to has a line that goes "Papa don't preach" but I swear I don't have some sort of Papa complex.
I should also mention that I've opened a Mega Construx account on the official site, and that's like instagram but for builds. I have the burning desire to maintain it, but I think it's time to seriously consider uncoupling from MCX like I did LEGO Friends. I've been in overdrive the last few days, building lots and lots of different things.
I admit that it's fun and engrossing. It even made me seriously wonder if I should have studied something in school that was about working with my hands (like mechanical engineering I guess). But it's kind of taking over a bit as my main hobby, in a way that nothing else has. I've barely watched any anime in the last few days.
Well, there's also the clubs, I'm guessing in other places there's a better selection than the FSAE. Oh, and the oddly relevant LEGO mechanical engineering competitions and stuff.
I do distinctly remember doing a mousetrap car thing back in a high school class (or technically a summer program at a local university) that was an introduction to engineering in general. But that was high school level stuff.
Anyhow, I expected the MIT to have super cool engineering clubs, but I guess the effect of heavy workloads is universal. Or maybe you're talking about somewhere else?
Besides that, come to think of it they did teach us how to use a lathe, a gear cutter and a little bit on how to solder, so that's something.
You'd often see electrical engineering students with breadboards with stuff attached to them, so they're my guess for the field of engineering were you most tinker around with stuff.
Feel much better about the beancounting now.
But was it Ultimate High School Level stuff?
I really didn't consider this whole thing properly because the first two of those made think "what a surefire way to lose a finger/some limbs".
Thought it wasn't a personal safety thing, I had a lathe accident once, the cutting tool (which the professor had set up) came loose and began cutting where it shouldn't, sparks flew and in the panic IIRC I tried to change gears to stop it (changing it while it's running is a no-no) before pressing the emergency button, and I was super worried that I had damaged equipment that was worth more than me, but thankfully it was fine. The part I was working on got destroyed though, so I couldn't afford to lose another one or I'd likely not have enough time to finish the final project (two fitting gears) to pass the class, but those worked out fine.
I turned it on again and it's back to its usual freezing antics. My anticlimactic guess: it really is that hot outside.
I wonder if this is happening now because of the tree that got cut off.
Edit: Another voltage drop later and it was back to temporary non-functioning. I noticed that I didn't hear until after a while the sound of what I believe is refrigerant beginning to flow, at which point it was a matter of seconds before it started visibly freezing. It definitely has an (electrical?) issue besides the freezing.
At one point I wanted to let it thaw and see if not letting frost build up at all produced a noticeable difference, I set it to 22 °C and nothing happened (it totally should've), I set it to 24 °C and after a while (longer than it takes to turn off the outside unit) the fan turns off, so I turn the whole thing off. As it's happened twice already, it wouldn't turn on again until after a while.
I wonder if it's something like if it's at a setting higher than low, the fan will only work if the compressor is running. Nonetheless I decided I better stop tampering with forces I do not understand and set the fan speed to low.
I did notice that by the time the sun began to set the compressor would sometimes shut off at 22 °C, something that wouldn't happen during the afternoon, so sunlight is definitely having an effect. It still felt hot though.
I should get a room thermometer.
Post-above update: The fan temporarily stopped working again, without me having done anything to its settings or noticeable power issues.
Later into the night the room started feeling closer to what I'm accustomed to. Sunlight aside, there's no big difference here in temperatures between day and night, but apparently it's enough that it was making the air conditioner unable to reach whatever reasonable set point temperature I set it to. Nonetheless I still think there's something wrong with it if it frosts so quickly and works indefinitely without significantly cooling the room or freezing completely. I don't think it was like that before but it's not like I've been paying attention. Anyhows, it's been long enough, perhaps I can... I dunno, hope the problem fixes itself?
I wish I could see what the evaporator coils are like beyond what's readily visible. FWIW only a few parts in only one side of the evaporator frost, which I think suggests being low on refrigerant or that there's a leak thefe, and the refrigerant line outside isn't frosting or even very cold, which suggests otherwise.
And just now the fan stopped again. Gosh what the hell happened to this thing.
Edit: 23 °C is the lowest temperature setting at which the unit actually shuts off, one degree above what I'm usually comfortable with, and it's still way too hot. It's frustrating, it's not like I can't feel it's doing something and it's far from insignificant, but it's not enough and it's not clear what's not enough or if it's related to the hundreds of problems it clearly has.
I do know that if I'm in the car, about 70% of the year the sun will be so blazing hot that the heat reaching/emanating off the dashboard from the sunlight will cause the air conditioner to rev up really really hard to try and reach a decent temperature.
This only happens when I'm facing the sun, but still.
I want to build my own Pokémon deck someday. A good one. It'd be Water and Fairy typed, and probably be called "Lady of the Lake", because what else do you call such a deck?
Or maybe a Colorless type troll deck...
It'd also be nice to get in right as a new set starts, which is basically now with Sword & Shield.
Darn it.