2025-W32 EOW Report

Anti-Goal Cycling

• I am slightly delirious as I write this. I have been up since 7AM on August 9th Pacific Time and it is now 930PM on August 10th JST, which means, aside from a brief nap on the plane, I have been awake for almost 23 hours. Regardless, this week was not productive. Actually it was SUPER productive because if I start my week on Sundays, then Sun/Mon was still the Garage Fiction retreat in which I did a ton of development work for prj:MINOS. But once I got back to my brief interregnum week at work between GFP and Japan, I was exhausted and ended up crashing a lot. I realized I had slept very well on the retreat, waking up at 830AMish and when I threw my body back into the 4AM wake up schedule, it really messed me up. But of course, now I’m messing up my circadian rhythm again on JST. So fun. Outside of Mon/Sun of doing work on prj:MINOS, I managed to type up my retreat notes into the reMarkable on Friday morning. Or was it Thursday. I forget. What is time anyway whenever you travel to Asia. It’s all timey-wimey confusiciousness anyway.

Four Thousand Weeks

• Monday pancakes. Savery was spelt wrong. Americano. Back to AirBnB for a full work day. Hyper-focused on prj:MINOS. Took an hour walk circling the block in Musquem where we stayed. Presented what I had to the group, got great feedback. Dinner was DoorDashed sushi – I don’t know where from. Was it Greenleaf? Hung out on the balcony, talked about daydreams. How I process faster. Magic systems. History. Making stuff up. Airships. Said goodbye, but then popsicles. Goodbye again. Wednesday, one last dinner on the last night. Yaletown Brewery. Chicken Club Sandwich. Met (as in met-met and had an actual conversation) Bryan’s wife.
• Making sure I had everything in place as much as possible for all client work – but still missing a few things for Client B. Need to get it done while on trip.
• This trip felt a little more rushed, a little less prepared, a little more figuring things on the fly, but with three Internet-enabled teenagers, so bandwidth for logistics, planning, and administrative was also more evenly distributed. Middle one seems them most competent. Eldest knows, but then hits a wall of indecision when instructions aren’t clear (like me) and will need to learn to just move forward and keep adjusting mid-flight. Wife has her way of doing things and gets annoyed when not everyone is at her speed, and I’m asking questions because it’s my way of talking aloud and figuring it out with verbal cues. It’s chaotic and it sorta works.
• Being on a plane for 10 hours forced me to get back into novels again finally. Finished Binti Trilogy (2015-2018) after dropping it post-Iceland last year. Brought all three of Osamu Dazai’s novels that middle one left on my bedside wing-tipped armchair. Been sitting on that chair for almost six, eight, maybe even ten months? Maybe it was November of last year? Anyway. Gonna crush all these novels while travelling.

Story Introspection

• Finally saw Thunderbolts* (2025) and Wicked: Part 1 (2024) – again, because airplane. Just haven’t really felt motivated or had the time to watch any visual media this whole year, nor felt compelled to. Regardless, I enjoyed Thunderbolts* quite a bit. Smart, clever writing, clear simple ARC, stuck the landing with humor. Wicked: Part 1 had enough interesting changes and/or I forgot enough from seeing the musical back in 2013 that I was engaged the whole time. The spectacle and musical arrangement and the choreography was all excellent. And yes, yes, Ariana Grande’s actual pale skin color and not the tanned one we’ve all come to know and love threw me off too. Loved that Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenowith made an appearance and singing with their counterparts. That was fun. And I am still off the opinion that as awesome as Michelle Yeoh is, there’s a little bit of oversaturation going on here. Or should I say oversaturacious or whatever Ozians do to add emphasis to their words.
• FINALLY FINISHED Binti Trilogy as I mentioned above.
• Started Jeph Loeb’s Batman/Superman DC Compact. I don’t know what to think of this. It’s written in a way that’s compelling, and I want to find out more, but even as I’m reading it, there are so many parts where I don’t care, and after I finished the arc, I didn’t feel satisfied. One one level, it’s early 2000s and/or just standard action superhero fare and fights must happen. On another, I just didn’t have much emotional connection with either Batman nor Superman. But the plot was written in a way that made me want to at least find out what happens and not give up on it. It’s a really unique emotion for me.
• Greg Rucka’s Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League was so SOLID. The pacing was perfect. Just enough action. Lots of nice quiet talky bits for the drama. Pacing was just solid.
• Finally read issue #5 of Assorted Crisis Events. Kept putting it off because I knew it was going to be heavy and good. Deniz Camp doesn’t disappoint.

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