Weekly proof of life: mainly media
Feb. 7th, 2026 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
umadoshiIn movie news, Cineplex has a listing for Zhu Yilong's new movie, Scare Out, which is apparently opening in Canada on Feb. 17. I refuse to let myself be excited about this, after having so much hope about Dongji Rescue last summer. But maybe it'll open here and I'll be able to see it! At least the 17th is before the crunch at work starts.
Reading: To shake things up a bit from Kurosagi, this week I reread the first two volumes of Hikaru no Go. In both of these cases, I'm pretty much relying on Goodreads to tell me when I get to volumes I haven't previously read. Awkwardly for my sense of "what even is time?", this means that I now know that I first read vol. 1 of Hikaru no Go in 2006 and vol. 1 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service in 2008.
My sense of how far I got into Hikaru no Go is completely nonexistent, since I know I read some number of volumes at some point, and I saw some of the anime (long enough ago that I know we were still living in the co-op we moved out of over fifteen years ago), andscruloose and I (much later) saw the c-drama in its entirety. It's all rather a jumble. But seeing the c-drama did inspire me to finish buying the manga, and I guess its time has come!
I did wind up reading all of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and the upshot, given my uncertainty about finishing it to begin with, is unsurprisingly that I doubt I'll pick up the second book. I think it's very safe to say that LitRPG is not my thing. I did wind up liking the book more overall than I would've thought back around the 40% mark or so, though.
Watching: We're caught up on The Pitt and one episode behind on Frieren. We've also seen the second episode of Midnight Mass, which has a lot of animal harm; I don't have any triggers that I'm aware of, but it was enough to be upsetting.
Playing: I think I've finished Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven, which is to say that I've finished the main plot and done a few wrapping-up things, leaving me free to idly manage the cult and do dungeon runs, but that's usually when I wander off.
Weathering: We're having some of what I would call Normal Snow for the second time this week. The first time, a few days ago, I realized I've started to basically think in terms of "winter days that are cold but not much is happening outside" and "snowstorms", without much in between, but that's probably a result of leaving the house so rarely as much as it's a byproduct of climate change.
Reading: To shake things up a bit from Kurosagi, this week I reread the first two volumes of Hikaru no Go. In both of these cases, I'm pretty much relying on Goodreads to tell me when I get to volumes I haven't previously read. Awkwardly for my sense of "what even is time?", this means that I now know that I first read vol. 1 of Hikaru no Go in 2006 and vol. 1 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service in 2008.
My sense of how far I got into Hikaru no Go is completely nonexistent, since I know I read some number of volumes at some point, and I saw some of the anime (long enough ago that I know we were still living in the co-op we moved out of over fifteen years ago), and
scruloose and I (much later) saw the c-drama in its entirety. It's all rather a jumble. But seeing the c-drama did inspire me to finish buying the manga, and I guess its time has come!I did wind up reading all of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and the upshot, given my uncertainty about finishing it to begin with, is unsurprisingly that I doubt I'll pick up the second book. I think it's very safe to say that LitRPG is not my thing. I did wind up liking the book more overall than I would've thought back around the 40% mark or so, though.
Watching: We're caught up on The Pitt and one episode behind on Frieren. We've also seen the second episode of Midnight Mass, which has a lot of animal harm; I don't have any triggers that I'm aware of, but it was enough to be upsetting.
Playing: I think I've finished Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven, which is to say that I've finished the main plot and done a few wrapping-up things, leaving me free to idly manage the cult and do dungeon runs, but that's usually when I wander off.
Weathering: We're having some of what I would call Normal Snow for the second time this week. The first time, a few days ago, I realized I've started to basically think in terms of "winter days that are cold but not much is happening outside" and "snowstorms", without much in between, but that's probably a result of leaving the house so rarely as much as it's a byproduct of climate change.
vomitting up a stream of consciousness
Feb. 5th, 2026 08:44 ambellHi all, again ♥ I'm flexing these voice muscles. In text. You know. As you do when you're out of practice and a vortex of opinions, memories, and thoughts swirl in your brain. To switch to a gross metaphor I'm wielding floss to clean out the mental tartar. May the specks fall where they fall. Watch out!
Also: I'm struggling to reply to comments. Sorry ♥ I'll keep trying!
- I'm coming up on 3 years as a shelver at the library. Pros: I love the work. Everyday is an alphanumerical puzzle I solve using my body. I barely have to talk (though still more than I prefer). My branch has nice people. Cons: it's part-time, my Union is in cahoots with The Machine, and I'm tearing my body apart. You will pry this job from me only when I'm incapacitated.
( Herein lies morbid content, including world events, suicide, and death. )
- Is it weird to follow up that with more positive notes? Ah what the heck it's my style. I'm flying out to Japan next week on vacation. I'm going to Chugoku to visit prefectures I've never seen before. I want to learn and vibe and eat. The world's so interesting.
Also: I'm struggling to reply to comments. Sorry ♥ I'll keep trying!
- I'm coming up on 3 years as a shelver at the library. Pros: I love the work. Everyday is an alphanumerical puzzle I solve using my body. I barely have to talk (though still more than I prefer). My branch has nice people. Cons: it's part-time, my Union is in cahoots with The Machine, and I'm tearing my body apart. You will pry this job from me only when I'm incapacitated.
( Herein lies morbid content, including world events, suicide, and death. )
- Is it weird to follow up that with more positive notes? Ah what the heck it's my style. I'm flying out to Japan next week on vacation. I'm going to Chugoku to visit prefectures I've never seen before. I want to learn and vibe and eat. The world's so interesting.
Weekly proof of life: media intake | impending weather | manga work
Feb. 1st, 2026 02:07 pmumadoshiOne link, which hopefully won't be paywalled: "Rachel Reid's wild Heated Rivalry ride" at The Globe and Mail. The whole "local girl makes good" element of the HR show taking over the world is a very nice cherry on top of the whole thing, and I really liked this profile.
Reading: I'm maybe 30% into Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl and wavering about continuing. I've gotten better about DNFing things, and this time I actually have the book out of the library, so the good old financial sunk-cost fallacy isn't in play. But I still don't like DNFing.
I've also read some more of Braiding Sweetgrass and reread vol. 2 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.
Watching: Crunchyroll wasn't in the mood to work when we attempted to watch last week's ep. of Frieren, so we're two episodes behind on that. (Annoyingly, Netflix keeps saying it thinks we'd love the show, but only has season 1.) Hopefully we'll get caught up on the most recent ep. of The Pitt tonight.
On top of those currently-running things, we're now one episode into Midnight Mass.
Playing: Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven continues to delight me.
Weathering: There's another storm heading in, due to arrive tonight, but it looks like it's veered enough that our local forecast is now for a somewhat more reasonable amount of snow than I'd been hearing before yesterday evening or so. Apparently it's also bringing fairly high winds, so there's the usual "will the power stay on?" worry. (Our neighborhood has been really lucky on that front this season, andscruloose and I are pretty well prepared, so it's not a huge worry.)
Working: I turned in the final volume (!) of Pet Shop of Horrors on Friday and immediately tried to switch to the next volume of Now That We Draw, since that's due mid-week, but my brain was Not Having It; I suspect it was the sheer tonal dissonance as much as anything. But then yesterday, what with the storm warning and all, I basically did the last four-fifths of the book in one sitting to make sure I at least had a workable draft, and now my brain is pretty crisped. (It's not a very text-heavy or tricky rewrite, and the translators make it pretty painless, so four-fifths is a lot at once but not the feat it would be with some series.)
So now I have a draft with just a couple tweaks still to be made and a final read-through to be done, and I'm tempting fate a bit by not trying to get that all off my plate today, but I think letting it rest for a day before reviewing it is extra important given that I did the draft so fast. So I'm gambling a bit, but also have something I can submit with caveats if need be, if we do lose power for three days or something.
Sleeping: Sleep has been distinctly Not Great for the last few (?) nights. I've been doing decently at getting to bed in a timely fashion and mostly not taking forever to fall asleep, but I've been having even weirder and more stressful dreams than usual and it's all been very restless.
Reading: I'm maybe 30% into Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl and wavering about continuing. I've gotten better about DNFing things, and this time I actually have the book out of the library, so the good old financial sunk-cost fallacy isn't in play. But I still don't like DNFing.
I've also read some more of Braiding Sweetgrass and reread vol. 2 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.
Watching: Crunchyroll wasn't in the mood to work when we attempted to watch last week's ep. of Frieren, so we're two episodes behind on that. (Annoyingly, Netflix keeps saying it thinks we'd love the show, but only has season 1.) Hopefully we'll get caught up on the most recent ep. of The Pitt tonight.
On top of those currently-running things, we're now one episode into Midnight Mass.
Playing: Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven continues to delight me.
Weathering: There's another storm heading in, due to arrive tonight, but it looks like it's veered enough that our local forecast is now for a somewhat more reasonable amount of snow than I'd been hearing before yesterday evening or so. Apparently it's also bringing fairly high winds, so there's the usual "will the power stay on?" worry. (Our neighborhood has been really lucky on that front this season, and
scruloose and I are pretty well prepared, so it's not a huge worry.)Working: I turned in the final volume (!) of Pet Shop of Horrors on Friday and immediately tried to switch to the next volume of Now That We Draw, since that's due mid-week, but my brain was Not Having It; I suspect it was the sheer tonal dissonance as much as anything. But then yesterday, what with the storm warning and all, I basically did the last four-fifths of the book in one sitting to make sure I at least had a workable draft, and now my brain is pretty crisped. (It's not a very text-heavy or tricky rewrite, and the translators make it pretty painless, so four-fifths is a lot at once but not the feat it would be with some series.)
So now I have a draft with just a couple tweaks still to be made and a final read-through to be done, and I'm tempting fate a bit by not trying to get that all off my plate today, but I think letting it rest for a day before reviewing it is extra important given that I did the draft so fast. So I'm gambling a bit, but also have something I can submit with caveats if need be, if we do lose power for three days or something.
Sleeping: Sleep has been distinctly Not Great for the last few (?) nights. I've been doing decently at getting to bed in a timely fashion and mostly not taking forever to fall asleep, but I've been having even weirder and more stressful dreams than usual and it's all been very restless.
