Links and Accomplishments, November

This is what I looked like for most of last week…

… I guess I’m doing these monthly now? As it turns out, traveling for a week and then being sick for the next really saps one’s will to write blog posts.

Links

The theme for this month’s links is ambience. When I work, I often listen to ambient sounds; they’re one of the few things I don’t find a distraction. Some options, depending on mood:

• Coffitivity. the sounds of coffeehouse chatter
• Rainy Mood. Rain, just rain.
• Jazz and Rain. For when sorrow like a ceaseless rain beats upon your heart (to paraphrase my beloved Edna)
• Relaxing Piano Music with Ocean Sounds. For the depths of New England winter.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote 6,803 words on Lioness
– Wrote blog post: Return to the Sceptered Isles, part one: Dublin
– Attended writing group
– Submitted “Remember to Die” to Abyss & Apex
– Submitted “Powder of Sympathy” to Uncanny

Reading (one gets a lot of reading done on planes…)
– Read Valour and Vanity, Mary Robinette Kowal
– Read 21 Days To A Novel, Michael A. Stackpole
– Read Psmith in the City, P.G. Wodehouse
– Read Dickens’ Fur Coat and Charlotte’s Unanswered Letters: The Rows and Romances of England’s Great Victorian Novelists, Daniel Pool
– Read The Disaster Artist, Greg Sestero
– Read/listened to Tremontaine, episodes 2-4
– Alpha-read chapters five and six of SC4 for Django

Other Media
– Watched Tales of Terror (1962)
– Watched The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 36
– Played/playtested Trade Empires
– Played several games of 7 Wonders
– Played several games of Kingdom Builders
– Played two games of Mysterium
– Played Among Nobles
– Reached VR8 in TESO with Falanu
– Reached 40 in TESO with Br’ihnassi
– Won a game of Beyond Earth on Mercury difficulty (Brasilia, Transcendence victory)
– Watched the RiffTrax of The Wizard
– Watched Rifftrax: Total Riff-off episode 6: Brazilian Bigfoot

LARP
– Wrote NPC PEL for Cottington Woods 3.4
– Attended Imaginary Consequences in the UK, where I…
– Played in Dying of the Light
– Played in Musþeof
– Played in Burning Orchid

Social/Travel
– Went to see Crimson Peak with Nat and Vik
– Visited Mel and Will for board games
– Had dinner with Alon
– Did a bus tour of Dublin
– Visited Kilmainham Gaol
– Visited Trinity College’s Old Library for the Book of Kells and the Long Room

Health
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 3
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 2) x 2
– 40m walk x 3
– Had a massage

Rejection Log

– “Remember to Die,” 24-day form, Abyss & Apex (thank god it didn’t take half a year, like I feared)
– “Powder of Sympathy,” 12-day form, Uncanny