Equinox

The spring equinox here in the northern hemisphere will be about six hours from now. Here’s my traditional spring quotation of Swinburne: For winter’s rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remember’d is […]

A few good things

(That title seems like it ought to be the title of a crossover fic between A Few Good Men and The Thing. “The truth? You can’t handle the truth! The truth is I’m a shapeshifting alien!” Nom nom nom) A few good things lately: A week or so ago, I improved the lighting in a […]

First pass on old papers done

On the one hand, I’m still feeling kinda generally grumpy. On the other hand, I’m also feeling a little triumphant (grumphant?), because I have finished going through my boxes of old papers. Or at least I’ve finished the first pass of doing that. I now have the following: One plastic bin full of papers to […]

Stressful but productive day

Today was kind of emotionally exhausting, but productive. (No advice, please.) Background: Although Google laid me off back in January, I’m still officially an employee until March 31—just an employee who has no responsibilities and no access to anything. (US law requires them to give two months’ notice for this kind of thing, but doesn’t […]

Ark Nova

Some notes about the boardgame Ark Nova: I was a little dubious about this game when I saw the Kickstarter for it. Some aspects were intriguing, but appeared to include a couple of mechanisms that I tend not to like: polyomino tile arrangement and worker placement. (But see below.) And the zoo-development theme didn’t really […]

Cleaning out the plastic-utensils cupboard

Yesterday, I noticed that my silverware drawer was getting hard to close, because restaurant-takeout disposable chopsticks and drinking straws were getting in the way. (I’ll note upfront that this is not an advice-request post; also, please be careful in your comments not to imply that reduction of clutter is inherently or universally good or positive […]

What I’ve been up to

There’s lots that I want to write about, but also lots that I want to do today, so maybe I’ll try a quick-ish (but still on the long side) what-I’ve-been-up-to post and then go try to do some stuff. This is meant as a description of what I’m up to, not as requests for advice. […]