Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Wednesday: I'm kind of done with this crossover thing.

Mostly because I'm coming in from Supergirl, and they're spending all their time talking about characters I have no interest in.  I'm also trying to figure out why they decided to make Oliver Queen super hardcore.  He's Green Arrow.  He shoots people with a bow.  He's kind of been silly since forever.

But, here's this gif stolen from io9, showing my favorite scene from yesterday.
And it was rainy today.

When I went to get lunch, I saw that someone had lost a Tsum.
I also saw this map while reading my internet stuff today.  A quick search indicates it's from the Southern Poverty Law Center, so it's probably pretty accurate:
I'm glad to live in a "zero" state.
But while searching, I found a webpage that was shouting about how "the most incidents are happening in states that voted for Democrats!  Democrats are really the racists!"  Except, duh, obviously that's stupid.  What's a common feature for blue states?  "High GDP?  High levels of education?  Increased safety nets that help people recover from problems?"  That's right, blue states tend to be more populated, which is why this bullshit election is such bullshit.  In any case, let's plot the incident numbers against population:

Huh.  Wow.  You can fit a large amount of the trend with just "population."  My by-eye fit indicates that you're likely to get one asshole for every 400k people in the state.  



Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Tuesday: Back to work.

Ugh.

Two years ago I was still in Alameda after Thanksgiving on my first visit there.
That picture also shows where a birthday party was, as well as like 92 Pokestops.

I was planning on putting a bunch about today's comic book TV shows, but it's late, and I'm tired, and so here's just a bunch of points.


  1. Supergirl is a better show than the Flash, which I suspect is largely because Supergirl is upbeat and happy, and the Flash just spent a large chunk of this episode whining about how he changed the timeline via time travel, and now everyone hates him.
  2. I would watch an entire hour-long episode of whatever show, as long as it was just Melissa Benoist smiling as Supergirl while all the other heroes fought her for "training."  "Ok, so that one almost got me in the face.  Not that that would have actually hurt me, since you're shooting arrows at me.  Still, it was a good shot, and if I wasn't super fast and also invulnerable, it might have hurt!"
  3. They totally are using the Cincinnati Union Terminal as the good guy base in the Flash world, and that's great.
  4. "Wait, why does the name Lyla ring a bell?"  It's because she's Harbinger.  They thought, "we need to have a government agent person, who should we choose?" and went with Harbinger.  What.
  5. Mind controlling superheroes is dumb.  Stop using that dumb crutch to make your story work instead of being creative about how to make Supergirl not immediately crush all the bad guys.
  6. Agents of Shield only has one more episode before "winter break."  I just rolled my eyes, but you can't see that.  ðŸ™„
  7. Shooting the episode twice, to do the "real world" view first, and then again to do "ghost world" view was nice.
  8. "Maybe let your robot girlfriend read the demon book so no humans get corrupted?" was like my first thought.  Why don't they use Robot Girlfriend more?
  9. Second point on the topic:  "Hey, wouldn't it be a good idea to back up Robot Girlfriend before having her read the demon book, and then format her and reinstall from the backup afterwards?"  I mean, sure, Robot Girlfriend has her own agency and should have rights, but maybe being safe with demon book information is a good idea?  That would definitely prevent her from making creepy brain wireframes with her (let's just say) dimensional folding wireframe editor gloves.
  10. Third point: WTF is that dude from the mummy doing at the end of the episode?  "Instead of reinstalling Robot Girlfriend from a not-demon-book version, I'm going to sit in a chair with sunglasses on, and sing shitty songs to her while she makes creepy brain wireframes."  You are bad at everything, dude from the mummy.
  11. The Inhuman side story is dumb, and I don't care about that Senator.  Can we get more Ghost Rider instead?
  12. I mean, I want more Ghost fucking Rider.  That side story is bad.
  13. Hopefully they don't kill off Ghost Rider to go back to the Inhuman story.
blarg.


Monday, November 28, 2016

Monday: Home again.

Returning home means getting up stupid early.  And I forgot to disable all the backup alarms since I woke up with the first one.  Whoops.

I got another pastrami sandwich.

SFO is generally Team Mystic.  There are a lot of Pokestops, but I didn't spin many of them.
 United has a new garbage plane, which switches the standard 777 2-5-2 seating arrangement to a 3-4-3.  This is done by cutting more than an inch off of each seat width, and does little except to give United 11% more possible revenue.  Fuck you, United.
And look at these shitty armrests.  The only bit that's padded is the 8 inch strip at the back of the seat. 

But despite this rework there are still magazine holders on the plane.  When was the last time planes had magazines for people to read?  Prior to that, when was the last time a passenger decided to read a grubby pre-read airplane magazine?  Or, to be fair, anyone read a magazine in print format?
I then got to HNL, and went to get cash for my cab ride home.  Unfortunately, something was fucked up with the ATM, which would not let me withdraw any money as I was unable to enter a value that was a multiple of "~MULTIPLE~".  Good job failing to set this value, and good job not checking that a valid value was set.  I mean, this is only super obvious and trivial, but I guess I don't make ATMs, so what do I know.  As a continuation of this, no ATM carries anything but $20s now.  Why is the "how much do you want" screen not just in "how many $20s do you want"?

Then, I had to wait in the cab line, because I guess it's also super hard to look at the arrival screen, and pre-request some cabs to show up when the planes land.  Why is all this simple and obvious shit not implemented?

Finally, I got a cab, and had to basically do the guy's job myself.  Piikoi Street.  It's a main makai-mauka route, and is like 6 lanes wide in the busiest section.  My address is larger than 1000.  Each 100 step in the address denotes a crossing of a large perpendicular street.  So obviously, the cab driver wanted to take Nimitz, which not only would double the trip time, but would start us at the beginning of Piikoi.  We'd have to drive on surface streets to drive even more on surface streets.  "No, take H-1.  Kinau exit."  Shouldn't knowing the city be a prerequisite for being a cab driver?  It got worse when we neared Piikoi, and he wanted to turn right onto Pensacola.  Why?  Because he has no clue how the roads work.  "No.  Turn left at the next light."  "Left?" he asked, pointing his hand right.  "Left!  TURN LEFT HERE!"  Piikoi is one-way at this point.  You cannot turn right from Kinau.  I guess, however, if you aren't clear which way "left" is, then the tricky features of one way streets is beyond you.

Then I went to Target, and everything is more expensive here than it is in California.

I am so far behind on links that I'm going to be putting up a bunch for the foreseeable future.



Sunday, November 27, 2016

Sunday: last vacation day.

I guess tomorrow is still vacation, but I'll be traveling in a shitty seat because United hates its customers. Also it doesn't quite count as a proper vacation if it's just me at home.  In any case, important things were done today:
Korean BBQ.

Somehow we had basically the same amount of food, despite only having two people this time.
 Then more Pokemon.
I finally used an incense.

Geese continue to be jerks.

Sunset.

Night.

Machi Koro.

I didn't win.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Saturday: it was a rainy day.

This tiny puppy was not super happy about it.


I finally got a Ditto.

And a Jinx.

Dinner at Koja, with delicious umami fries.

And a macaron.

Bird party.
 Then despite it being cold and rainy, we wandered around the park for an hour.
San Francisco across the bay.

Oh, come on.

Venomoth is my default sacrificial Pokemon to stick in a gym.
Then I did some evolutions:

Ninetails.

Machoke.

And finally, Gengar.

Friday, November 25, 2016

Friday: leftovers and a three hour tour.

A Pokemon tour. I was able to completely fill up on items, and I caught like thirty Pokemon, including at least one new one.

Alameda has good parks for Pokemon hunting.

And a lot of medals.

Gym victory one.

Julie put her Ditto in.

Squirrel!

Maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way.

Another gym. I put venomoth in a lot.

A Farfetch'd sighting!

Another squirrel!

Another medal!

I think I've made two levels while here.

A good sunset.

AR mode is really only for framing animal shots.

Third gym.

We briefly stopped at Target. It had calmed down, but they still had the fences around.

We turned leftovers into a colcannon. It was yummy.

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Thanksgiving: oh my god why is there so much food I think we may die seriously there is so much food.

Some of it was brought.

Corn bread stuffing, Brussels sprouts, potato salad, mashed potatoes.
Some of it was easier to manage on the stove.

Butternut squash soup, braised kale, sweet potato casserole.
 A full plate.
Starting at 12 o'clock: potato salad, braised kale, less good stuffing, good stuffing, green bean casserole, roll, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes with super delicious gravy, the soup on the side. I put cranberry sauce on the roll, but I was too into eating to take a new photo.

Apple and pumpkin pies.
I still have a pumpkin cheesecake cupcake to eat.

And when I get my laptop out, I want to link to all the recipes, so I can keep track of them better in the future.

Also there was drawful:
Saturday night in Iowa.

Ghost cruise.