Having a bit of crisis with this beast lately, I must admit. Nowhere near giving up, just a combination of Depression Dumb* along with the mountain of crap necessary to meet the Minimum Viable level and it seems like I've been staring at the same code forever and having nothing happen, which isn't even true at all.

But let's talk about what's working even though it won't even compile right now. I just wrote an inventory handler, which I needed to write in order to handle equipping/removing wearable gear, which also needed to be able to send events to notify the gear logic that it's been put on/taken off, in case there are special things that need to happen**, and it also needed to be able to ask gear logic whether or not it was okay for the player to put the gear on because maybe there are stat requirements, or take it off because maybe it's cursed, which all led to a whole other level of cascading shit to support those changes, like figuring out repeating interval timers, and smoothing off the rough edges in the language or adding new features or refactoring code to make things cleaner and simpler to understand.

I mean, shrug, yeah, that's what it's like when you're creating a new complex system from scratch, you want to do something you can conceptualize very simply "hey let's dress the simulated dudes up so they can fight in armour and with real weapons so I can test the assumptions I made about character design and feel like I haven't been wasting my time with this idea" and then it's two weeks later and you still haven't done it because basically you said, "hey let's get in the elevator and ride to the first floor and see how it looks" and then woah fucko before you can do that you need to smelt some iron ore and invent electricity.

I'm really hopeful that it will be a good environment to tell great stories in. That's why I'm making it. I want to be able to tell interactive stories, and to allow other people to tell stories too, in the same universe. And all of the work I'm doing right now is basically to establish the rules of the universe and make sure they're consistent and fair, and it's really just feeling rather tiresome right now. There's probably some comparison to be drawn with a major world religion, but enh. 

​* For those just tuning in, I have some pretty severe depressive episodes at times and during them, my brain feels like molasses. I could probably, should probably, write about depression sometime, but it still feels like pointless whining, even though I know that isn't true. So we'll see.

** From my debugging console: owner['event_equip']=function(parm) { if (parm["on"]) { console.log('The spirit of the dead cow thanks you for wearing its skin.'); }

I got up at 4, wrote until 5:30, went to work. Worked until 15:30, then went to Pendle Hill. It's 18:00 now. I just noticed this poem by Marge Piercy written on poster board over the door to the Kiln Room.

"The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest 
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Had to share this here for my bookworm friends:

I've heard it said that if you don't throw up after a run, you're not training hard enough.
Today, I almost trained hard enough.
Also, the fitness center at my apartment complex is alarmingly popular at 2:30am.

Yesterday was a nice, easy 5 mile run in 58 minutes. I decided to try watching a movie while I ran. Running outside is more fun than watching a movie on a treadmill. For the future, I definitely need to use a different pair of earbuds - my ear still stings from where my sweat shorted the ones I was wearing.

It's been more than a month since the last time I ran a mile as fast as I could, so I tried it again, but this time on the treadmill. Last time, I averaged 6.8mph; this time it was 6.5mph. The amount of misery I'm experiencing right now suggests that I should probably make this a bigger part of my routine. It's really amazing how it takes longer to recover from running one mile at ~6mph than it does to actually run 5 miles at 5mph.

Issues of imaginary-animal-cruelty aside, every time I complete a major project, I have this irrational expectation that a parade will immediately follow.

Today we completed a project at work that has taken over a year.

This time... I did get a parade. Or at any rate a round of bourbon and several rousing toasts with the gang at work, plus lunch with appreciative folks at F&M. Who also kicked ass on this project.

Y'know how everybody else "relaunches" their school's website with a new look and the same crappy content? Yeah, they didn't do that. They threw out essentially all of it and started from scratch.

Visualize a college website that isn't musty. Livin' the dream, y'all.

Now, my responsibilities shift. I'll be spending 50% of my time working on Way to Health, a research platform for behavioral economics — the science of getting people to take their darned medicine — which we built in collaboration with researchers at Penn, and 50% working on Apostrophe, our open-source content management system based on node.js and other cool technologies also found in One Post Wonder. More importantly, APostrophe is vastly friendlier than Drupal for the folks actually managing the content. Such as our friends at F&M.

It's taking time for me to get used to this concept. I'm ready for a new challenge, but I'm also having trouble grasping that I am no longer pregnant. A year is a long time to be pregnant with anything.

Could be worse. I could be a lady elephant.

So, an update on the shows I've actually been watching lately -- some current, some a bit older.  (I'm completely up-to-date on, well, none of them, 'cause ain't nobody got time for that.)

I've been watching One Piece with my 9-year-old, because pirates.  Up to episode 19, of... nearly 700.  Gonna be a while.  I actually watched somewhat past this point once before, and it's entertaining, if prone to too-drawn-out fights.  We're also watching Keroro Gunsou (Sergeant Frog to you).

Almost finished with Nisekoi, at least the original 20 -- I understand more is in production.  Which is fine with me because I'm enjoying it.  Sure, the love triangle/quadrangle/whatever trope is unoriginal, but well executed.

No Game No Life is turning out to be a fantastic show.  Color palette is kinda garish, but the plot is quite unpredictable.  Three episodes to go. 

Continuing to crank through Fairy Tail.  I had originally pegged this as kind of a magical One Piece clone, and it clearly owes a debt, but it's got an enthusiasm of its own.  I've seen over 100 episodes now, but there's plenty to go!

The Fruit of Grisaia and TRINITY SEVEN... don't have too much to recommend them.  Dunno whether I'll finish 'em out.  Celestial Method is more intriguing, and Akatsuki no Yona has a good story starting.  I see that it will have 24 episodes, which is good 'cause it'll need 'em.

SHIROBAKO, being anime about making anime, is pretty meta, but as someone who's hovered around the fringes of acting and production, it rings true.  Similarly, as a semi-serious musician in my high school days, Your Lie In April (which gets my vote for best of this season) resonates pretty strongly.

I've liked what I've seen of Rage of Bahamut: Genesis and In Search Of the Lost Future, which is to say the first three episodes of each.  I particularly like the art style in Rage of Bahamut.

Finally (for now), I'm watching Knights of Sidonia on Netflix.  Gol dang.  Intense stuff.  I understand another season of that is being made, which is good because I don't foresee much wrapping up in the three episodes left in Season One.

As with wine-tasting, it's better to pace yourself. When you're on the Butter Tart Trail, small portions are the way to go. Otherwise you'll be overfull before you even get to your fourth tart, and that's just no good.

Dan, Tara, and I started in KW, pointed ourselves north, and set out around 9:30 in the morning. The weather was brisk but not hazardous. Morale was high.

Our first stop at River's Edge Goat Dairy was a disappointment as far as goats milk butter tarts, which we remembered as amazingly good from previous years. Sadly they haven't had the volume of demand necessary to make goat's milk butter for a while. We consoled ourselves by buying food for later: a strong cheese and a tub of chevre-in-spices-and-oil.

Kenilworth Country Kitchen was hopping at 11am. We decided on an early lunch and then a few of their 6? 7? butter tarts. These were definitely better than the best in our town from City Cafe. (And I liked them more than Dee's in Cambridge.) The crust was buttery and substantial, matched with strongly flavoured filling. We bought a few plain and pecan to share, both which were great. As we were finishing up, our waitress came by and said, "Hey, can you do me a favour? The baker forgot to label a batch." She thought they might be skor and toffee flavour, but she wasn't going to eat one to find out, but she thought we might possibly. ...Well, if you insist. Yes, they were skor and toffee, we guessed. It was tough to be sure. Maybe I'll have another bite to be sure. Yes, definitely.

In Mount Forest, we struck out at Farzer's Mercantile, which was one of a huge number of jumble shops we saw on this trip. He had just stopped buying tarts for the winter because the fall customers had dried up. Just as well, because the place was a bit on the creepy side.

Munro's on Main was a sit-down restaurant and nobody was free to take our order for a couple of tarts to go, so we went onward.

We finally broke out of our 1-for-4 record in the last place we tried in Mount Forest. The Spot Restaurant was happy to sell us a tart to go (the standard variety- with rasins). We saved it for later, and did not linger for their Butter Tart Pie, though I considered it. Next time. The tart was good, though not as good as Kenilworth's.

Heading East out of Mount Forest, Misty Meadows Country Market is a German-Mennonite general store, with everything from bulk-size cereal to baking goods to local cheese to butter tarts in the assorted pack of 6 flavours. So we bought two packs. The pecan one that we split was good, though a bit heavy on the lard flavour.

Finally we stopped in Arthur, at Shirley K's Coffee Cafe, tucked into the back of Sussman's, a men's clothing store (which had expanded to women's as well). Over the years we've driven past it a handful of times, and always scoffed a bit- but now we know to go back! They have surprisingly high quality, and prices are a bit high-end, but not crazy. I bought a newsboy-style hat and a button-down shirt. Tara was quite impressed with styles in the women's sections. They plied us with mulled cider and offered us cookies, but we held out for a butter tart. Only one. Standard rasin. Tara judged it to be her favourite- it was more custardy, and lighter in flavour than the others we'd tried. I may need to go back for another try.

On to Elora, through wonderful late-afternoon sun over stark countryside, and as the sun set (at 4:40! Grr) we looked in three or so galleries. All three  had great art, none of which came home with us on this trip, though it gave all of us ideas, some which might have been partially fueled by a group sugar high.

Back at our place, we had a light dinner of the goat's milk cheeses, bread from City Cafe, and one final tart. I don't remember where it came from, and it doesn't matter. It was good. And we have five [ no, six ] left to get through or share, which will be a challenge.

We saw Tara off on her bus back to Toronto, and now I've declared myself Done. This was a wonderful day from start to end, and I feel grateful for it. Although I wish I'd had the oomph to make it to Max and Jer's 8th annual housewarming wine and cheese party as well. Though the idea of eating anything more at all... Sorry guys. Next time.