melworks

Today has been a glorious day.

I slept in until 12:30, then got up and got dressed and went to the grocery store.

Came home and washed sweaters, then had supper and have been rewatching the first season of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. I'd forgotten how crazy the second half of that show gets, during the First Class Magic Examination.

I've got four eps left to go before I finish the first season and then I'll check out the second season, but I really want to wait for the dubbed eps because that's how I watched the first season.

Happy Solstice!

I'm celebrating with champagne, blueberry muffins, good music and a Solstice candle.

Currently listening to S. J. Tucker's "Solstice Night."

Looking forward to the return of the Light!

Followed up with Andy via text but he never got back to me, so I'm just going to assume that everything's okay with his mom, heart-wise. IYKYK.

In other news, August has been deliciously cool and a bit damp so far in my neck of the woods. We've had overcast skies and highs in the low 70s since the beginning of the month. Sadly, I probably won't be able to see the Full Moon tomorrow, but que cera, cera.

Work has been good. The drama between John and Jorg was rectified and now we have Dayne helping out on Saturdays as well. Honestly, we've got so many people on-board right now, just working for credit and stuff, that Jorg's scrambling to find stuff fof them to do.

Finally got the last issue of The Great British Bump-Off: Kill or Be Quilt the other day. The ending was a bit lackluster, to be honest. This month should see the last issue of 'I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer' come out as well. Then I'll have to find something else to add to my subscription.

Been playing around a bit with ChatGPT and Gemini over at talkai.info. Their neutral to upbeat responses are incredibly irritating and many times they fail to give correct answers to questions, but will give you related information which is irrelevant to your question. It is good, however, for generating basic bitch lists. I'll give 'em that.

Still watching a ton of anime. My favorite this season? Season 2 of 'My Dress-Up Darling.' It caught me completely by surprise and I look forward to new episodes every week. :)

So, the dizziness has definitely improved. I still get a bit woo-woo when I get up in the morning, but I can now tilt my head back without too much worry of everything spinning. So, that's progress!

Also, I've gone down a size on my belt.

So, things seem to be going pretty good.

*looks up, waiting for the anvil to fall from the sky a la Looney Toons style*

Ah, April. When the new seasons of anime drop. Here's some thoughts on the new shows that have dropped that I've watched so far.

Rock Is a Lady's Modesty - hmm. The premise is unusual. The adopted daughter of a rich guy gets sent to a posh school for the upper class and has to work hard to fit in, which means denying her true, more common, nature. She meets another girl, who is secretly a hardcore rock drummer. They have a jam session in the old abandoned school and Rich Girl 2 accuses Rich Girl 1 of being a lame-ass guitarist. Then leaves. As far as setup and character work goes, this was pretty good. I'll give the next ep a shot.

The Brilliant Healer's New Life in the Shadows - First ep was sort of meh. MC is an underground healer with an in-place harem. They spend more time with the harem girls than with the MC. It's sort of meh. Am curious about the ghost living in the MC's house though.

Your Forma - I get definite 'Ghost in the Shell' vibes off of this one. MC is a police detective who dives into people's brains to investigate their memories. Her partner is a genteelly snarky android. I honestly don't know if this one has legs. We'll have to wait and see.

The Too Perfect Saint - The MC is the latest in a long line of saints and supposed to be the most powerful one of her bloodline. But because she doesn't smile, people are freaked out by her. She's engaged to a Prince, who's a typical dick, who breaks off the engagement and makes arrangements with the saint's dick social-climbing parents to sell her to a neighborhing country. Nice character work in this one, especially regarding the MC's motivations. Will watch more.

Once Upon a Witch's Death - The MC is Meg, a witch's apprentice who gets told she's been cursed to die in a year, when she turns 18. The only way she can save herself is to collect tears of joy from people. MC seems like a likeable enough character, and the animation in this one is quite good. Will probably watch again.

Sword of the Demon Hunter: Kijin Gentosho - in the past two children flee their abusive father and find sanctuary in another village where sentinal guard a holy princess. time passes. the brother grows up and becomes a sentineal to the princess. his little sister, who appears to be a demon, does not grow up but remains young and innocent. Until she thinks the princess is betraying her brother and she loses it, transforming into an adult form, and killing the princess. Her brother, now also a demon, loses his shit and swears revenge on his one-time sister. Time jump ahead to the modern era, where the brother is returning to the village, to complete his revenge quest on his sister. First ep was 50+ minutes long. Good story. Good animation. Will check out the next issue.

The Unaware Atelier Master - The MC, Kurt, gets kicked out of the hero's party because he sucks at combat. But it turns out he's got the highest rank possible in noncombat/crafting skills. He is completely oblivious to this, thinking its totally normal to build a log cabin house alone in a single night. This was very meh, and I hate the English dub, so if I watch more I'll watch with subs.

The Beginning After the End - MC is a king from another world who dies and gets reincarnated in a fantastical world. First ep is all about him being a baby and trying to understand what's happened to him. The MC is a clueless, unlikeable dolt who just kills it for me. Utter trash. May try ep 2 to see if things get better, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire - MC was a good person who got screwed by his wife and boss, then died and got reincarnated as the son of wealthy nobles in a sci-fantasy world. The humor in this segues into adult territory, which was sort of surprising, and the story got a bit darker than I expected, but this felt like a typical isekai. Very meh.

I finally got my breaks fixed. Went by Brakes for Less this afternoon and they were able to get me in and out in under two hours. Cost about $700, altogether, but it's worth it for the peace of mind.

Between bouts of writing false starts and dubious porn, I've continued to watch anime. Just wrapped up 'Shangri-La Fronteir' season one and about to dive into season 2. The show is genuinely interesting and has moments that are funny as hell. The main character, Sunraku, is a VR player whose avatar is a shirtless dude wearing a bird mask. Events happen in the game that prevent him from wearing any kind of armor, so he's basically stuck wearing the bird mask and relying on his game stats to survive. This isn't really as big a problem as you'd think, since Sunraku has spent years playing trash VR games and learning to compensate and exploit bugs in those games to win, which makes him a brilliant strategic gamer.

I suppose the show falls into the isekai genre, since it involves a different, albeing digital world. But the brightness of the dialogue and the character iinterractions make it a nice change of pace from most of that genre, which, I must admit, gets really repetative, really fast.

So, once more, I'm doing the diet thing. I sort of need to as I can tell I've put on weight. My clothes are getting a bit snug.

I started this last month, but go sick and that just sidetracked me so much that I decided to wait until March to start over. And here we are in March and I'm starting over.

So far, so good.

I went and saw my mom today, which is always "fun." Mostly, I just sat there for three hours while she bitched about other family members, etc. I left when it got dark.

Don't get me wrong. I love my Mom, but sometimes visiting with her is a bit . . . much.

I saw on FB that there was an Anti-Trump protest planned for the statehouse today, but there were conflicting times. The FB page said it was going on at 2PM, but the official site said it was happening at noon. In either case, I didn't go, although I did think about it. I've never been to a protest before in my life, but the fact that I'm considering doing it should indicate just how fed up I am with the way things are going.

In other news, my new diet is going well.

I've decided that Tuesdays will be a Free Day for me when I can step off the diet fasttrack and just take a breather and enjoy some things. I think that's a good way to save my sanity. Or what's left of it. Ha!

Today, after leaving Mom's I stopped off at Circle K and grabbed an extra large Polar Pop and filled it to the brim with Cherry Coke. This may, or may not, have derailed my effort to quiet the Soda Monster that lives in my brain.

Points: 100
Points Used: 08 (Polar Pop)
Points: 92

If anyone out there has ever worked retail, I'm sure you've had That Customer who spends a lot of money, but doesn't seem to have a lick of sense. I got one of those today at the Store and was glad to see the back of him. The rest of the day was just kind of 'Meh.'

After work, I went by the grocery store and picked up some staples for the week: bread, mayonaise, pimento cheese spread, chicken salad, sun-nut butter, egg salad and a couple of sausages. I'll supplement them, as need, with fresh fruit and veg over the week. And, technically, I've still got a 'staple spot' open.

Did not spend any points today.

Points: 112