６月２６日 （金）
Regular degular Friday. I “work” from home on Fridays, so I got a good chunk of reading in in the morning, did laundry, etc. I’m working on a cross-stitched Christmas stocking for one of my siblings and I made decent progress on that too.
6月27日 （土）
Went to my mom + her wife’s new place to hang out and play board games. We played That’s Not a Hat (fine) Rat-a-Tat-Cat (one of the best games) and Catan, which I’d forgotten I actually like! Saturday’s my night to make dinner, so I made this chicken / asparagus / potatoes and these carrots from Kikkoman (they have good recipes). すごく美味しかった！ Now it’s time to play shmups and watch GCCX. Bonus pup for your enjoyment –
That chicken dish looks so goooood. Do you use the potato starch? It’s kind of annoying to find sometimes as opposed to corn starch but I do feel like it makes a subtle but noticeable impact, especially for fried stuff like karaage.
Also the names for the Kikkoman products are ridiculous!!! Hahaha
Yeah, I came across some cranky review of the steam machine that prattled on about how the specs aren’t that great for the price or whatever. I’ve never been much of a hardware tinkerer myself, so the allure of a prebuilt machine is pretty nice, though…
If you get it you’d better post pictures!
６月２８日 （日）
今日のパネル
Mini readathon today, got 1h35m in. Finished カブトムシ yay! I learned that all detectives know how to fly planes and helicopters and that if you’re a detective’s assistant, you can use a gun (even if you are a child).
It was reaaaaally good. I’d never really thought about putting potatoes in a stir fry before. I did use the potato starch – it’s a little elusive but we’ve had luck finding the bob’s red mill brand one (I thiiiiink you’re in the US too, pocket?). Corn starch or whatever would be fine though.
Kikkoman is very silly, every time I make one of their recipes I’m like “what the hell is that? oh, just regular soy sauce then…”
That’s part of my hangup…I want it to be my alternative to a PS6, basically. (I don’t play a lot of AAA games but I do play Remedy’s games and those are often a bit demanding.) I love the shape of the cube…if it’d launched at their intended price (under 800) then it would be a no-brainer. …all of this is kind of moot, though, since I got waitlisted! 
so if I get a chance to buy it it’ll probably be next year, when I’ll be in grad school and have no money !
６月２９日 （月）
今日のパネル
Mostly regular day. except I forgot my ritalin ER prescription, so I had to take the IR i had in at the office, and it put me right to sleep. I conked out for like half an hour before lunch 
Annoying! But I managed to get my reading in, plus that nintendo 4koma when I got bored with emails. Softball tomorrow so I’ve to be sure to do all my studying early on.
６月３０日 （火）
今日のパネル
This afternoon I waited in line for TWO HOURS to get food from this japanese place that’s closing today (they’ve been around for more than 30 years!). Thank goodness my boss just does not care / notice when I vanish…
A nice game of softball tonight, and we even won 24 - 7 ! Wowie.
７！月１日 （水）
今日のパネル
I was supposed to have an ENT appointment today, but they called yesterday evening to reschedule. I was ready to be annoyed bc I made this appointment in December, but apparently the doctor got called to the operating theater…fine… I’d already taken a half day and said I was wfh so I just stayed home and lazed. It’s hot here – 95f / 35c – and it’s going to be hotter tomorrow. Bleh! But today I got some reading in and made good progress on my stocking project. Now I’m in an unpleasantly restless mood but that’s sort of par for the course lol.
７月２日 （木）
今日のパネル
Behhhh it’s hot. (97f / 36c +.) No good! I want winter back!
Sat around in the AC all day sort of half working and fully reading. Somehow still got overheated and now have a bit of a headache. Played a little of the new Rhythm Heaven that’s out today, started Koudelka (PS1) on the mister. Now I’m watching my video game news show and feeling like man, the video game capital-I-Industry is pretty toast. Thankfully there are a bazillion beautiful retro and indie games to play! ()
Reallllllly ready for sumo to be back. I want to see the wrestling!! I want to hear the 呼び出し call!! 10 days! I can make it! And to tide me over in the meantime, SGDQ starts on Sunday!!!
７月３日 （金）
No panel today…enjoy this screenshot from Koudelka~
Evidently played more Koudelka today, I’m enjoying it. Though often it’s so dark I can’t tell where anything is!
Not as much reading today, I guess because it’s still so hot. But I got all my studying done pretty early on, which feels nice.
Woof, yeah, it really is, huh? I’m with you though; the indie scene has been much more appealing than anything AAA as of late. I do love the technological marvel of a solid AAA top tier graphics game, but I really have little interest in playing them anymore.
Always yes to that item!!!
７月４日 （土）
今日のパネル
Some coooool stuff in this volume.
All these companies are trying to price us normal folks out of games, which sucks. It’s rare that I really want to play a AAA game, but I’d like to be able to! (And if i dont play control resonant in september i WILL die!) But yeah, indie stuff is so much cooler nowadays. Plus the more retro games I learn about the more of them I want to play!
Speaking of…
Perfect thing to go with that cheese…
７月５日 （日）
今日クーデルカ
Uwwwwwaaaaaa work tomorrow nooooo
Started Sailor Moon 3. The little kid is so annoying…I hate these kinds of characters . Made a lot of progress in Koudelka (got to disc 3!) and also am almost done with my cross stitch stocking. I was hoping to finish Koudelka this weekend but I think I have like 3 - 4 more hours left, sigh. But! SGDQ is here! Yay 
GDQs are good because you get to believe in humanity a little bit lol. Plus it’s something to watch alllllllll week at work.
７月６日
今日のパネル
So here’s the problem. I’m going to grad school in the fall and I’m quitting my job to do so. Buuuut I’m working through most of August to save up the most money, so I haven’t told my boss / colleagues yet. I already was totally fed up with my job, but now that I’m leaving it’s even harder than before to care about any of the pointless BS that I have to do. I certainly didn’t care about email before, and I definitely don’t now that I get to escape. It’s always worse after coming back from break, so today was pretty bleh. And we don’t even have softball this week…
In better news, I ordered some more books (
) and they should come this week. I’m contemplating joining the intermediate manga club, but looking at the poll choices makes me want to buy more more books…
７月７日
今日のパネル
Nothing much to report today. Oh but my new books came!
I ordered via buyee and when the package came in to their warehouse I got two notifications. I figured it was just a dupe in their system because I only had one order going. Of course I open my package today and it only had half of my books, despite them being a) rather small and b) all from the same place. I should’ve paid more attention, but why did they split the order into two packages?? so odd…now I have to pay shipping again lol.
It’s cooled down really nicely finally (only 67f / 19c!), rained all day today. tomorrow naturally 83f / 28c again. I work in publishing, and tomorrow we have something called launch. Launch is when the editors introduce books from a future season (this round is for summer 2027) to everyone else. It’s where non-editors / managers get to learn about the books for the first time. It’s usually pretty interesting (depending on which editors are presenting, and how many books they have). And this is my last one! I think I’ll get udon to commemorate the occasion
７月８日 （水）
No panel…I’m sleepy! I wanted to read more but I can’t focus, bleh. Should’ve read in the morning.
Launch was fine / decent. We actually didn’t go long this time, which is rare. I don’t have to talk in these meetings so I sit in the corner to avoid the camera and just take notes. Sometimes people are really stupid, though…today someone from our distributor (company that stores and sends out the books we publish for us, as well as sells / pitches them to bookstores etc) suggested Sharks as a title for a book about shark conservation. Like really…? do you think just Sharks has good SEO…?
I did not have udon today bc I was too lazy to walk that far. So I got sushi instead hee hee
７月９日 （水）
今日のパネル
Whew it was hot again today. I got takeout for lunch (sushi again hee hee) and boy was that a difficult walk. Got boba too so I can’t complain too much 
Someone from a different dept at work is retiring, so they’re pushing part of her job on to me. It’s no big really, but joke’s kind of on them since I’m leaving at the end of next month!
Ah yes, an incredibly general title for a specific topic. Might as well just name it “Book” at that point!
I’m envious of your walking-distance udon shop. Plenty of Japanese restaurants around here but haven’t found a close one that I trust for udon.
７月１０日 （金）
A ho hum Friday. Mostly just watched SGDQ. Didn’t really feel like reading during the day, annoyingly enough. I think it’s just too hot still!
I wasn’t paying attention so I didn’t realize my level up would bring me to 30!! Wow!! I’m quite pleased. Took a bunpro jlpt practice test to celebrate:
I took it sort of 中途半端 mode, so I’m happy with that result. As expected I need to grind grammar. I have the Soumatome N3 grammar book but I’d like to get Shin Kanzen Master’s as well. And I should start listening to Nihongo con Teppei Z daily…
I want to be generous since the people at our distributor have more job experience than me, but they have NEVER suggested a good title lmao. It’s good that I’m not on camera for these mtgs, I’ll say.
It’s pretty nice! Though it’s like a 15 min walk from the office so I go only occasionally. They have four things on the menu – hot udon, cold udon, hot spicy udon, cold spicy udon. Nothing else!!
Nice job with the level up!!! 
Half way done! Are you planning on working your way to level 60?
Congrats!!!
