Cav's Place

Last Saturday night I started eating dinner at 3:30 AM and was initially in bed before 5:20 AM, but then got back up to compose an SMS to Elena P., wishing her a happy Easter and better days, for old times’ sake, and was only back to bed at 5:40 AM. Didn’t send that SMS just then, of course, but after modifying it a little I did send it after I woke up, and then also sent one to the guy I gave those 70 RON to, just in case it’d serve as a reminder. Meant to call both, which would have also allowed me to learn if the phone numbers even work, at least the one that guy gave me having been unreachable when I accidentally called from dad’s phone, but couldn’t get myself to do it. And there was no reply to either, of course.

Monday Micky woke me up at 12:30 PM by meowing, but since it had been announced that a large number of games were going to be added at the start of the month and that was yet to happen when I went to bed, and dad was also away, that meant I could get on-line to check The Community Giveaway on the GOG.com forums, seeing Siege of Avalon: Anthology there, asking for it and receiving it soon after that… What made it even more awkward than usual was that somebody had nominated me for Tyranny: Gold Edition before I checked, so I had to refuse that nomination, the game actually being one I specifically don’t want to play because of the plot, and then ask for something else. That always felt like not a nice thing to do, but with the game I was nominated for not even being on my wishlist, I have no idea what prompted that nomination… Either way, though I’ve been interested in Siege of Avalon for a long time and even created the wishlist entry for it back when the feature was implemented, I’m now playing Bound by Flame and trying to get myself to write the review for Venetica, so I didn’t jump to install it right away. Besides, it’s a remastered version that was just released and they’re still finding bugs and releasing patches for it, so it’d be a good idea to wait anyway.

Still on Monday, forgot to bake beets that evening, but at least I had other stuff for the salad I made that night, being able to avoid cabbage, as I want to do before a run, and even more so before covering a half marathon distance, that being the plan for Tuesday, when the alarm was set to ring at 2 PM but I again got up a bit earlier. In fact, after first waking up to pee at 10:40 AM I kept waking up, despite not needing to go to the toilet again, and thought that the alarm was going to ring since the second time that happened, but only checked the fourth time, since it still hadn’t, seeing 1:46 PM and getting up at that point. Then I had the usual stuff plus raisins in dark chocolate added to the yogurt and cereals and an energy bar expired since October, drank most of the tea, put on the full running gear, with some money and bags in the pocket of my tights, and left at 4:10 PM, when the reported temperature was about 21°C, being supposed to hold quite steady.
Well, I guess I wasted that energy bar after all, since I had been saving it for a moment when I thought I had a chance at a better time over this distance, which obviously hadn’t been the case last month, but it wasn’t the case now either, the time of 1:50:36 just barely avoiding a huge embarrassment, being a mere 11 seconds less slow than that previous one. Sector times were 4:28, 5:16, 6:11, 4:41, 5:17, 6:11, 5:15, 5:25, 6:15, 4:54, 5:39, 6:30, 4:59, 5:33, 6:29, 5:01, 5:33, 6:38, 1:56, 6:26 and 1:59, making for lap times of 15:55, 16:09, 16:55, 17:03, 17:01 and 17:12, plus 10:21 for that final portion. Admittedly, I likely stood still longer, as that time on sector one of lap three shows, because I somehow forgot to tighten my shoelaces before the start and the right one came loose, ending up knotted as well, so I spent some 30 seconds on it, and also tightening the other one, while I was at it. But that’s obviously no excuse, and the target time should have been no more than 1:45 in itself, which I allowed to get up to 1:47 because I keep being excessively cautious when avoiding other people and there were no sectors without seconds lost because of that, so I calculated that I’d lose over a minute because of that, so the total could perhaps get to two minutes by adding the issue with the shoelaces. However, it was clear from lap one that I won’t manage anything of the sort, what I thought as the realistic target becoming 1:48:30 before that stop and 1:49 after it… Yet that’d have required sustaining that lap three pace, not counting that lost time, all the way to the end, which didn’t happen at all, the following laps being even slower than that third one, including that lost time, lap four making it clear that the only remaining target was avoiding the embarrassment of being even slower than the previous time, and I pushed all the way to the end to barely manage even that.
I had to push against the wind on a part of that long sector three turn on lap one, but otherwise the weather was fine. I wasn’t, on the other hand, something in my abdomen stinging from the start, though I felt it less as time passed, and my leg muscles seeming quite tired, also from the start. There was also some pain at the back of my right knee, which became the whole knee from sector three of lap four, though it got better again after a while. In addition, I think it was on sector two of lap six when a certain pressing need appeared, and on sector two of that final portion, so the seventh sector three, there was some pain in my left side and I needed to snap my back and, since I’m still trying to avoid those rather brutal moves I used to make, couldn’t quite do it. And there was no single sector, not even the short ones in that final portion, without seconds lost because roadblocks, excessive caution or both made me stop or at least slow significantly, on top of all the weaving, going the long way around or squeezing through all the people. And it was also in order to avoid another person that at one point I used the slightly raised part, towards the lake, and ended up stepping on the edge of the curb, barely managing to avoid falling and making it a good thing that it happened in a paved area, so I was already making sure my ankle was firm and didn’t twist it. This happened on a sector three, but I kept trying to remember the lap even towards the end of the run and couldn’t, so I can only say that I believe it was lap five, because I don’t think this happened around the same time I noticed that knee getting worse, since I’d have made a connection but only recalled thinking that it was weird that I noticed the knee pain on sector three of lap four when the previous sector’s time would otherwise indicate a problem.

As I saw those target times slipping away, I set my mind on penalizing myself by giving 1 RON for each minute over 1:47 to some buskers, and picked two guys for it, but decided against making that detour as I went back through the park on my way to that newer Kaufland, thinking I’ll do it on the way back… And ending up just setting those 4 RON aside, since I could no longer find them then. On the other hand, a very tiny detour, of just a few steps, made in that Kaufland’s parking lot, also proved useless, since I spotted a cart with a coin in it, but it actually was connected to the others, the coin being stuck, so I couldn’t get it.
Once inside, I found piles of deeply discounted bread and got four for dad, also got four bundles of green onions, though they were quite wilted and discounted only to 0.50 RON, and since I was there at 7 PM, when their bakery products get discounted, also got the last two of one kind of pastries and last three of another, plus the last bread of the kind I get from there. The employee was taking her time with the labels, however, also talking to someone on the phone and at one point saying she’s fed up with Kaufland, so I waited after her before getting that bread, wanting to make sure it really was discounted and hoping nobody else will get it first, only going to it once she did place the label, again showing that discount of 51% instead of 50%, and the full price also still being the regular one. They were also discounting various fruits and vegetables, however, an employee still placing them in bags and filling a part of that area with them, and while many were apples but they were imported and I therefore didn’t care, as I was waiting I grabbed a bag of bananas that seemed better and the only one of what the label stated were black radishes, finding when I got back that it actually contained beets. That also made the discount lower, black radishes costing over a third more than beets, and one was really rotten, but I can use beets as well, when I don’t forget to bake them, so it was still all right overall. Either way, after I was done with everything else, I also got a few small lemons that also had a low price and went to the self-checkout, which did tell me to keep the product on the scales until the end after placing one of dad’s breads there, but didn’t actually cause issues, allowing me to continue after I removed it, put it back and then hit OK.
It was somewhat weird when, as I was wandering around the fruits and vegetables area, a woman called me over to say she couldn’t find those large cucumbers in the menu of the scales, the fact that she had called me specifically making me wonder how did my running gear, with the blue-green t-shirt that the text on the back clearly states is from the half marathon, seem similar to the red or black clothes with the store logo the employees wear, but I just told her that those are sold by the piece and moved on. But another person also helped me at the end, because I only had two flimsy bags with handles, one of them very flimsy and small, and one without, and after rushing to put everything back in them to allow the next person to use the machine, I couldn’t quite pick them back up after scanning the receipt in order to open the gate, someone else actually walking through when I did so and the gate closing again while I was struggling with the bags, at which point that other woman said she’ll help and took some of them, getting me through the gate. That obviously felt awkward, but at least I could take my time and arrange everything properly, putting the bananas and lemons in the bag with what I later found were beets, placing it in the one the bananas had been in, to reduce the risk of tearing, and tying them in a way that created an improvised handle. That still left the bread and pastries just barely stuffed into that one bag I had that wasn’t that small, with the green onions in the one that was, and focusing on holding them in a way that reduced the risk of tearing meant that when I got back, a bit before 8:40 PM, the tips of a few fingers from my left hand, the middle one in particular, were quite purple, though at least they quickly recovered. And I also saw blood when I removed my left shoe, the corner of a nail having jabbed the toe next to it while I ran.
After only having a piece of pasca and a banana earlier, made mamaliga again that night and only started eating at 3:10 AM, though I had spent a few minutes licking the whisk in the kitchen before that. I was only back in the kitchen at 5:15 AM, washing the other stuff before scraping what was left on the pot, and in bed at 5:45 AM. It wasn’t even 8 AM when I first woke up though, and had a hard time sleeping after that, kept twisting and turning, feeling hot, likely dehydrated, unsurprisingly also had acid reflux, so at 9:10 AM I was up and on the computer, and also made and quickly drank tea, making another later that day.

Since I got to Wednesday, that afternoon I ordered some books, nonfiction and in Romanian, after a known activist recommended some on the topic of economy and I saw some environmental ones too, that publisher having a major sale that day only. The environmental ones, Europe: A Natural History, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History and Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, are books I had actually been interested in for a while, even allowing for the possibility of reading them in Romanian, but that only meant checking a few times to see whether the Library somehow had them, actually purchasing them, even at such low prices, not being something I had considered. And those I picked out of what Claudiu suggested, Capital and Ideology, Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future and The Great Escape: Health, Wealth and the Origins of Inequality, are nothing I’d willingly read, this last one in particular seeming to be something I’ll find just infuriating. Still, the first at least presents a Leftist perspective, though it’ll clearly be very far from what I’d want to see and will just be a long and hard read either way, and the second one deals with the one topic that I do care to look into when it comes to economic matters, albeit again likely not in a manner I’m likely to not find frustrating. The one that I should be able to read easily is the seventh, Unde nu-i cap, vai de popoare (Where There’s No Head, Woe to the Peoples), which I added to get free shipping. The price was just under 1 RON less than the shipping would have been, but at least I got another book and supported a rather Leftist TV show host, maybe the only one left here, since it consists of a collection of commentaries from the show from a few years ago.

Otherwise, Wednesday I did have both breakfast and lunch, but after those less than two hours of sleep in the morning, only got a very brief nap, lasting mere minutes, in the evening, started eating dinner at 3:25 AM and got back in bed at 5:20 AM, so it was no wonder that Thursday I felt quite exhausted… And those hours, 3:25 AM and 5:20 AM, repeated the following night, though that was after taking care of some things I had left in the kitchen for quite some time and then also finishing a newspaper.

Well, I definitely had no chance to recover yesterday, because I again mentioned in the comments that I preferred the delivery to be made after 3 PM and yet, just like last time, I was woken up before 10 AM, actually at 9:45 AM this time, by the call. Despite the different stores, it was even the same number, so I guess this guy is the one from that delivery company who deals with this area and that’s the time when he usually gets here on his route, but this time around it was even worse, because he didn’t call when he was a few minutes away, but said he was just in front of the building, and since I was in my pajamas and dad was asleep after having worked that night, I asked whether he could give me ten minutes and he agreed, though he didn’t sound happy about it. So I changed, closed dad’s door, turned on the intercom and grabbed the money, the amount again being rounded up and the guy actually asking when he called whether I had that amount, so I didn’t even try to give him coins again, losing 0.56 RON. Then I unpacked the books and slowly got ready to go out, being awake so early meaning that I could do everything I had sort of considered doing that day.
It was a few minutes before 1 PM when I went out the door, first checking this nearby store for the price of the margarine dad gets, because I had asked him whether he wanted me to get him one, since it’s now on sale at Penny, and he said that price was higher than the one he buys it at from here, being adamant that he wasn’t referring to a different weight… And obviously being wrong, the price I saw being higher by almost half! Either way, I then also took some time to look through the used books placed outside a store I passed, also quickly checked a Mega Image, and eventually reached my first actual destination, a location of the Library that had Capital in the Twenty-First Century, still in Romanian, this being the only one of the books recommended by Claudiu available there, so I had decided to get it and start with it.
Well, that experience was as unpleasant as the previous two times I went there, and for the same reason. The door was blocked, so I greeted the woman who was there, but she was on the computer, the desk is some distance from the door and she didn’t react, so after waiting for a moment I hesitantly went around that desk and chair and took a couple of steps, trying to look for the economy section without getting too far inside. Couldn’t see it from there, however, so I wasn’t sure what to do, turned to look at her a couple of times, seeing no reaction, but when I finally took another, even more hesitant, step she finally seemed to notice me and asked if I didn’t see that desk in the door, sounding annoyed and telling me to wait there. I said I greeted her and assumed I could come in when she didn’t answer, she said she didn’t hear and came to take my Library pass, but didn’t also take the slip of paper with the book title and location, which I had also written down after checking the site. Then she took her time with my pass, also asking whether I had borrowed a book from there before, and I said I didn’t recall, thinking about it and eventually adding that I had perhaps borrowed a movie some two years earlier, which was in fact perfectly accurate, but I wasn’t sure and said so. Either way, she even asked for my full name, though it’s even written on the pass, and then finally asked what book I wanted, took some time to search for it on the computer as well, and when she gave it to me she also told me I can use any of the contact methods to extend it if I’ll need to… And, while I don’t mean to, since it has just over 1000 pages, it’ll be hard to read, and after two days I’m yet to even start, I fear that may end up being necessary after all…
Moving on, I was out of there at 1:45 PM and went to the Carrefour from Obor, getting some more of those bagels for my mother, and also one bag for myself, plus some garlic and some expiring eggs. At the checkout, the guy who was ahead told me in English that he needed to get an onion and I just nodded despite not really catching what he had said before that, so when the cashier finished with the person who was before him I looked hesitantly at her and she motioned for me to go ahead, so I did. The label on the bag with the garlic wasn’t straight and wouldn’t scan, however, so that guy came back while she was still struggling with it, for some reason needing to try to type the code twice before it finally worked, and then she also asked whether I had 1 RON and when I said I didn’t she said she didn’t need the coins since her problem was not having 1 RON bills for change… Which struck me as odd, since she’d have needed to give me 4 RON with the coins and 3 RON and a bunch of coins otherwise, so if she had no 1 RON bills the coins made no difference… But I didn’t want to make that guy wait even longer, so I dug in my pocket and retrieved a 1 RON bill after all, since I did have those four I wanted to give away… And somehow lost a 0.01 RON coin, since I had slightly miscalculated the total, it wasn’t needed and I have no idea what I did with it when I meant to put it back, the interactions meaning that my brain was pretty much disconnected by then. But at least that was a negligible loss.
After thoroughly checking that I hadn’t lost anything else, I also went to that big Mega Image from that area, for bio (organic) cloves that actually ended up being over 30% cheaper for the same weight compared to the regular ones I’d otherwise get, and they also come in a jar, albeit a plastic one. The problem is that the difference is likely in large part thanks to the quantity, 100 grams instead of ten, so I spent an amount I can’t really afford at the moment, but I’ll work something out, and at least it means I won’t have to worry about these for a long time.
I got back at 4:20 PM, but after showering I took care of some issues with the entries for those books on Goodreads, getting the description of the one I borrowed to be fixed, adding these editions for Capital and Ideology and The Sixth Extinction and also having this edition of Postcapitalism combined with the others, then stayed on-line until dad got back and it was therefore quite late in the evening when I had lunch… And then it was 3:20 AM when I started eating dinner, after spending quite a lot of time getting the bad bits out of a small cabbage dad bought and never touched… Which I’ll be doing tonight as well, and I had lunch rather early, after waking up, the good thing being that said cabbage is very small and I’ll finish it now.

I guess it’s time for another rushed post in this series, and I’ll again go with three bands from the same country that released new material within the past year. This time around the country in question is Sweden, and that’s because I’ll start with Vengeant, which I’ve been meaning to mention since March, when I happened to listen to their first song, Angel’s Battle Cry, and can finally do so now, seeing as they released a second one as well, The Unreal. So it’s not a matter of picking two songs, but simply of linking to the only two that are currently available, but that’s not an issue in the least. They do tend to start rather too angrily, and maybe maintain a bit too much of that sort of sound throughout the songs for my liking, but I guess that’s to be expected, considering the name, and the vocals shine, the choruses are great and overall they’re definitely a band to keep eyes, or ears, on.

The second band is Purple Nail, which for some reason doesn’t have a page on Metal Archives even though it’s been around for a long time and I’d say the genre shouldn’t be an issue. Either way, they uploaded a teaser stating that a new song is coming soon, but at the moment the only one uploaded within the past year is World in Flames, so that will have to be my first pick, while for the second I’ll go back to what I guess was another “age” for them. I could have made it easy for myself by selecting the only older song that they have an actual video for, but I decided not to and ended up wondering what to pick, because there are several songs I ended up liking and that one isn’t one of them. Left this decision for the end, after writing the rest of this post, and then found that I didn’t have time to go through them again, but could eventually get back to it and settled on Inverted Dreams. Either way, both the overall sound and the vocals were good back then and are good now as well, and now they also seem to want to send a message with their music, so they definitely deserve attention.

As for the third band, I’ll go with Erain. Their single recent song is Leaving for Elysium and I initially thought that this was their only release, but I just learned that they recently “resurrected” after a long hiatus… And also that the band was another one of Jessica Lehto‘s projects, and the reason why I mention this is that I included another one, Once There Was, in the second post in this series, back in 2008. Back to Erain, they now have a new vocalist and give the impression of wanting to break away from that past, but the few songs released back in 2013 are available not just on a different YouTube channel, but also on the band’s current ReverbNation one, so I listened to them and will go with Perdition as the second pick. This new song is much more professional and shows potential, but the old ones, while likely not relevant for the band anymore, aren’t bad either.

That series of three runs in five days I mentioned in the previous post became one of four in eight, so I’ll get right to it, starting with last Thursday, when the alarm was set to ring at 2 PM, but I woke up at 1:40 PM and, while I spent a little more time under the blanket, I was up a few minutes before the alarm and turned it off. Had the usual stuff, opening another pack of those nicer biscuits expired since September and having some, with added honey, as the sweet thing, put on the full running gear and, after mostly wasting time on the toilet, left at 4 PM, when the reported temperature was 19-20°C, supposed to hold steady or maybe drop by just 1°C by the time I’ll finish. It was windy though.
The decision to start that series of three runs in five days then was quite sudden, after seeing that the forecast didn’t seem to offer me a chance to do so this week, plus that I’d have needed to complete it during the week, trying to run around or even on Easter clearly being a bad idea. So I went for 16 km and the time was 1:20:53, with sector times of 4:22, 5:13, 6:04, 4:35, 5:09, 6:04, 4:46, 5:20, 6:07, 4:54, 5:23, 6:18, 4:52, 5:26 and 6:20, making for lap times of 15:39, 15:48, 16:13, 16:35 and 16:38. Saw that I was looking at 1:21 pretty much from sector two of lap one and feared that I’ll fail even that, but in the end just made it… Not that it really matters, not staying under 1:20 being in itself a failure.
There was no more pain on the right side of my chest, while on the left there was an uncomfortable feeling from the end of lap one, but I wouldn’t call that pain either. Still on minor physical issues, there were some warnings from my right knee and left ankle from the start of lap four. Otherwise, those little flies are back, and I ran right into a cloud of them right from the start, ending up with a few on my face, then felt one on my eyes a couple more times, so I had to try to avoid those as well. But one of the bigger problems was the wind, including on straights. Had to fight it on the long one on sector one of lap three, and on that long turn and the last straight on each sector three from then on, at times on the long one on sector two too… Felt it on that long sector one straight on laps four and five too, but wasn’t really trying to sprint on that one at that point anymore. Yet the even bigger issue was that it was quite crowded and I was still particularly wary of people, so I was often weaving and going the long way around, several times I took to the grass for a bit, including going around garbage cans a couple of times, and there were quite a few worse moments.
Almost found myself in another crash with cyclists on sector one of lap five, when two were rushing towards me, I stayed on the inside, leaving them the lane and the outside, but the first also took the inside, trying to even cut the turn, we tried to avoid each other, the second cyclist tried to avoid both, I barely managed to stop and they barely missed me, going around on either side. And there were a few other moments when I barely managed to avoid others. Recall one on a sector two, maybe on lap three, when I don’t even know how I managed it, I guess out of reflex, when a kid on a scooter wasn’t making up her mind, both sides were blocked by walkers, I sidestepped her, immediately sidestepped the other way to get around the people behind her and found myself facing another girl on a scooter, who opened her eyes wide when I appeared in front of her, and I guess her mother was next to her too, and I can’t recall whether I somehow squeezed between them or sort of jumped aside, to clear the mother as well. And another moment involving cyclists was also on a sector two, either on lap one or two, three of them passing each other, one going my way, two the other. I ended up facing one, and since the others passed while taking the turn we both tried to use the newly cleared space to avoid the other, and I was fortunately able to stop myself in time to allow him to just get around me.
Lesser issues were, for example, a broken sprint on the long straight of sector two of lap one, when a kid chasing a ball missed getting it, had to continue chasing it and got in my way. Or a huge crowd making me slow and then take to the grass for several meters on sector one of lap four. And I almost punched a small dog, after a big one stopped and moved towards it and in front of me, I squeezed between that one and the bench the small one was on, moving my fist out of the way of the large dog, and almost into the snout of the small one as it noticed the larger one, jumped on the back of the bench and started yapping at it, the older man who had it managing to yank it back just in time. But those are just examples, as there were issues on most sectors and I had forgotten some of them even by the time I finished the run. At least two girls on roller skates opened the way for a part of sector one of lap five, after the straight.
With dad working again that week, made mamaliga and ate earlier that night. But something had an odd taste in the salad and I thought it was probably some of the cabbage, so I ended up wondering if I had properly washed the top leaves I initially set aside, after deciding which to discard and which to keep. I kept feeling that taste in my mouth over the course of the next day, but it went away after that and there didn’t seem to be any other obvious consequences.

Last Saturday I wanted to go to Kaufland after the run, looking for some evening discounts when they still had to close at 6 PM, so the alarm was to ring at 1:30 PM, but I got up at 1:19 PM and turned it off. Had kept waking up that morning, but also kept managing to get back to sleep quickly, so I did get a fair amount of sleep, if you add it together. And I had the usual stuff, again with some of those nicer biscuits, with added honey, as the sweet thing, and left at 3:45 PM, when the reported temperature was 16°C, supposed to hold steady during my run, so I had the full running gear but also an undershirt, plus a few bags in the pocket of my tights.
The time was 50:45.81, with sector times of 4:31, 5:23, 6:07, 4:46, 5:27, 6:17, 4:44, 5:23, 6:12 and 1:55 (1:54.90), making for lap times of 16:01, 16:30 and 16:19. Didn’t try to remember the exact times, didn’t even look at them, because there was no point and I needed to focus more on all the people. The realistic aim was to just stay under 52 minutes, maybe 51:30 if everything worked well, with a first lap in 16 minutes and then going towards 17 minutes on the next two, but I feared getting to 53 minutes and things looked bad when I failed that first lap goal. However, things didn’t go quite as badly as I feared after that, so after lap two I was clearly aiming for 51:30 and after sector two of lap three I switched the goal to 51 minutes, managing to stay safely under that target in the end. Awful time, of course, but after walking and sleeping little and not at the usual time the previous day and considering the crowded park and my current form, I took it as good enough.
It felt rather windy at first, but it seemed to drop later. Interestingly, though some of that uncomfortable feeling returned in the left side after I was done, my ribs no longer bothered me while I ran, and there were no other physical issues either. Actually, there were even moments when it seemed I was actually running well. Brief ones, of course, because the park was crowded, though the number of people wasn’t actually that high and there were stretches of even up to a couple hundred meters where I had a straight path to go for it. Yes, there was a lot of squeezing through and going the long way around otherwise, and plenty of roadblocks, but not so much because of actual crowds.
There was a large crowd on that long sector two straight on lap one, making me run on the grass for quite a stretch, I again had to get on the grass on a sector one, I forgot if on lap two or three, when several people walking next to each other were blocking the whole path, and the crowd that often gathers in front of that stall on sector three made me go around behind the stall at least on lap one. I remember meaning to do the same on lap two, but can’t recall whether I actually did or found a way to squeeze through at the last moment. Do know that I could get through that spot normally on lap three, at least. On the other hand, there was a roadblock that formed just ahead of me at the end of sector two of lap two, under the bridge, so I had to briefly stop there too. And, though there were probably no actual roadblocks, there were just too many people on the long sector two straight on lap two and I had no room to try to sprint.
The worse problem, however, were unpredictable people, mostly children… Plus one small dog. That dog was on sector three of lap two, on a very long leash that blocked almost the entire path, the people being on one side and the dog allowed to go on the other, and when I tried to go around it, it went for my feet and got something, didn’t look to see whether claws or jaws, into my right shoe! Or at least into the shoelaces, not sure… And the woman holding the leash just smiled and said it was just playing! Yes, suddenly grabbing someone’s foot, while they’re running too, was just fun and games for her! So I had to stop for a moment and then push past it… And soon after that, three girls on scooters were coming across the path, the first two looking at the others and away from me, so I avoided the first by going behind her, but the others decided to stop just then and the second turned around before the third, who was the only one looking my way, could warn her, so I barely managed to avoid crashing into her, and shouted at them as I went past. And earlier, at the start of that long sector one straight, I forgot if on lap one or two, an older kid on a bicycle was unsteady, going the same way I was and tending to lean and turn to the left, which was the side that wasn’t otherwise blocked by people, so he blocked me and threatened to even fall over me as I tried to squeeze past him and I shouted at him as well and went on the grass. And on that same straight, certainly on lap one, I first had to deal with a girl who was spinning and suddenly, maybe when she got dizzy, went one way, cutting right in front of me, and seconds later a boy came running across the path, then decided to stop and turn around right in front of me, so I had to stop again. And there were other similar issues, but those are the ones I clearly remember.

After the run I jogged to Kaufland, getting some lemons that weren’t as cheap as before but were nevertheless cheaper than they’d normally be, green onions and a lettuce that were on the evening discount and extremely cheap, just one orange, some cheese that the day’s 30% discount applied to and an expiring bread for dad. When I saw the price of the green onions, I first took four bunches, but when I pulled the label back to get another look at the price, the employee who was dumping them in a pile said that it no longer applied and they were even less, and I guess the lettuce and oranges were in a similar situation, because the price I was charged was lower than the listed one. The handful of oranges that were left were rather bad, however, which was why I just got that single one. Also checked for that kind of bread that I get from there, but at first just one was left and the regular price was still listed, and by the time I checked again it was gone.
When I got in line at the self-checkout, the older woman who was ahead of me asked how much the green onions were and when I told her she said she’ll leave the cart there and grab some, so she did that and then returned in line… Only to almost immediately start looking uncertain and uncomfortable, and leave the line again, taking her cart as well, before her turn came, saying she had forgotten something else as well. As for me, had no issues with the self-checkout, but had a harder time figuring out how to carry everything, since I had just taken one bag with handles, and a flimsy one at that, and two even flimsier ones without handles. But I eventually worked something out and got back, obviously no longer jogging.
Made mamaliga again after dad left, for the fish he had made… And rather burned it, likely at least in part because I put in what was left in one of his bottles of kefir from the beginning, since I had to finish it now that he apparently became quite religious and is fasting until Easter, the fish being an exception since it was allowed the following day, and he said he did manage to cook it then without tasting. Either way, after a long time spent trying to scrape most of what was left on the bottom of the pot, I got in bed at 5:20 AM.

Sunday night I again didn’t waste a moment in the kitchen, not even going to pee despite feeling the need, yet still only started eating dinner at 3:15 AM, though I did have an apple at 1:30 AM, and had lunch earlier in the evening. Also, when I got back to the computer at that point, I saw that the difference between CPU time and elapsed time for BOINC tasks had been about a minute and a half per hour more than normal, and when I checked I saw that the Bound by Flame process was still running, and had obviously been running for some five hours. I normally check the running processes often, but I guess I didn’t that time, and I wonder what happened, whether a double click resulted in it starting twice and somehow working like that or it actually failed to quit properly. But at least it hasn’t happened again since then.

After getting in bed at 5:20 AM again, Monday the alarm woke me up at 2 PM. Then I again had the usual stuff, the yogurt being a “creamy” one with 10% fat, and the sweet thing also again some of those nicer biscuits, with added honey, but I also munched on some more of the dried crust of mamaliga stuck on the pot since the day before, when dad had made more, since I had kept that pot in my room for that reason. Just wasted time on the toilet, on the other hand, nothing coming out even though I felt I had to go. And it also seemed like the filling from a tooth on the lower right was coming out, or that said tooth was chipped, and it still seems that way, though nothing actually fell out yet. Either way, wore the full running gear and left just before 4:05 PM, when the reported temperature was about 21°C, supposed to drop by a couple of degrees by the time I’ll finish. It was cloudy and windy, however, so it seemed chilly on the way, except when there was a break in the clouds.
The time was 1:19.49, with sector times of 4:14.06, 5:14.84, 6:03 (6:02.18), 4:38, 5:17, 6:08, 4:42, 5:24, 6:06, 4:42, 5:22, 6:16, 4:36, 5:15 and 5:52, making for lap times of 15:31.08, 16:03, 16:12, 16:20 and 15:43. Pushed on the first sector, and that time made me decide to remember the exact ones for the first lap, sticking to that idea even though I was already tiring and the next two sectors were poor, the second one admittedly also being affected by briefly stopping because of a dog with a long leash. Either way, the target lap times were 15:30, 16:00, 16:30, 17:00 and 17:00, for 1:22, so things didn’t look good after I missed the first target and got even worse when I also missed the second. But when, after three laps, I found myself well ahead of the target, I started thinking of 16:30 on the last two, hoping to beat Thursday’s time. And after lap four that seemed pretty certain, so I thought I could even afford to hit the wall and just pushed from the beginning, the better first sector making me think of 1:20:30, while seeing 1:13:57 after the second made me wonder whether 1:20 was possible. That required the fastest sector three of the day, or at least one matching the first lap’s, considering the exact time, but I nevertheless gave it everything. Also, annoyed that the problems caused by people were likely to make me fall just short, I was no longer willing to lose any time because of that as I approached the end and even shouted at two, one who was running ahead of me and being a little slower and another who had just passed me on a scooter but then slowed and was about to block me, to make way, which they actually promptly did… And then I was quite amazed when I saw that time. And I’m referring to that sector three time in particular, as I hadn’t managed such a fast sector three since that last good time on ten kilometers, back in February, and I had just done it on lap five!
Physically, the only issue was that the wasted time on the toilet had some slight consequences from lap four, the need becoming quite pressing on sector two of lap five, but as I gave it everything on the following sector, I was no longer aware of that either. On the other hand, the forecast claiming that the wind would die down at least between 5 PM and 6 PM was wrong. There might have been a brief period, after I got past the halfway point, that was better, but otherwise it was quite windy, and I also had to fight it on plenty of straights. And, while it was definitely far less crowded, the people still caused some issues as well.
I recall two times when I had to briefly stop, once on a sector two, once on a sector three, multiple people coming from different directions in spots where other paths meet the one going around the lake. Another time, at the end of a sector two, under the bridge, I had to squeeze past a kid on a bicycle who was rather unsteady and riding next to the lane. There was also a man on a bicycle who kept staying off the lane and always looking at the boy, I’d say a teenager, cycling next to or behind him, never ahead, getting in my way multiple times as we kept meeting. And I clearly recall that it was on sector one of lap five when another cyclist, a middle-aged woman, seemed to be riding calmly on the lane and then just stopped and partly turned towards me with a smirk just as I was about to pass her, though the smirk might have been for another person I had just passed. And there were various lesser issues as well, but they slipped out of my mind as I focused on pushing that hard at the end.

Quickly checked the nearby Mega Image on the way back, but another actual shopping trip was planned for that evening, so I went back out a few minutes after 7 PM. The main destination was that newer Kaufland, but I first stopped to look for something at that Penny, didn’t find it, and when I went out, having taken the empty bags out of the jacket’s inside pocket just so the guard will see them instead of a bulge, he nevertheless asked what did I get, seeming surprised and suspicious when I said they were just my empty bags, but letting me go after seeming to consider it for a moment, without asking to have a better look or touch.
Once I got to Kaufland, I found the evening discount, for some reason actually 51% instead of 50%, applied to the bread I get from there and two of them left, so I got them, plus an expiring bread for dad, and then the last piece of something sweet that also had the evening discount applied, and for which the price actually halved again by the time I checked out. But it was when I got to the vegetables that I saw truly huge discounts, grabbing eight bundles of green onions and four of wild garlic at a mere 0.05 RON per bundle! Yes, the bundles of green onions were quite small, with a fair bit cut away, and the wild garlic was rather wilted, but they were costing next to nothing. And bananas were also heavily discounted and I could still find good ones, so I got some of those as well, likely for my mother. The onions weren’t discounted, on the other hand, but I got some of those as well, since they looked nice enough, we were running out and dad has this laughable idea he picked up from somewhere that onions supposedly draw viruses out of the air, so he’s been sleeping with one cut in half next to the bed, throwing it away the next day… And, speaking of dad, he had asked me to get one more thing, and I spent quite some time searching for it… And forgot all about the can of mushrooms I wanted to get for myself.
There was nobody else at the self-checkout when I got there, but the first machine seemed to have issues with the touchscreen, had to keep trying to get it to register what I was pressing, and when I selected the wild garlic it asked me to place those bundles as well as some apples on the scales, which apples weren’t even in the same menu, not being vegetables, so I have no idea how it thought I had selected both. But I didn’t care to call an employee to help, just moving to another machine, where everything worked without issues. Then I arranged the purchases in the bags, took a moment to find the bin for used masks and threw away the ones I had, had a few looks at the few pastries that confectionery still had, looking for a sign stating that they were discounted at that hour, but when I saw none I walked away and was back here at 9:25 PM, a somewhat notable thing being that I spotted a hedgehog on the way.
Dad annoyed me again after I got back, throwing away some vegetables he had used for a soup, then removed from it, saying they made it too thick, claiming to freeze them for later use, then taking them out that day, supposedly to use them, but then saying he won’t use them after all and freezing them again wasn’t really an option at that point. When I told him he infuriates me with such things, he said he couldn’t see why, since he’s doing it, not me. I said it means I fail, don’t have any effect on him, and he said we can’t all be the same, live the same way; we behave differently and have different values. So I said that rapists and murderers can claim to have different values too, and he cheerfully said that yes, we’re all different, all I could still manage to reply to that being that it’s no reason to accept it. Either way, I’ll also add here that I started eating dinner at 3:35 AM that night, without having had lunch earlier, only eating that sweet thing from Kaufland after I got back and an orange after the run, before leaving again. Finished eating at almost 5:10 AM and was in bed at 5:30 AM.

I have been in the kitchen more or less briefly without a mask during this period, a couple of times staying for a few minutes even when dad was also there, but the longest period before today was Tuesday, when I went there minutes after dad left and stayed there, without a mask, for almost 40 minutes, though I did try to breathe either at the window or at least partially covering my nose with my arm and sleeve. Otherwise, had lunch that afternoon but then, unless you count licking the thing the roes bought by dad had been in, I only started eating dinner at 3:15 AM… And got in bed at 5:25 AM.

Wednesday I realized I could still take proper screenshots if I run Bound by Flame at 1280×960 in windowed mode, and also that when it won’t work it’s likely because it runs out of RAM, so the issue may not be a single setting, but a combination of them, making the maximum settings I can use for screenshots harder to determine, and likely different for cutscene, scenery and action ones. Either way, I again had no lunch that day, going to the kitchen in the evening to cook something, thinking I might just finish in time to quickly eat it before 1 AM and then go right back for the rest, but there was no chance of that, so I ended up staying there until I finished everything and only got back here and started to eat at 3:25 AM… Unless you count licking the bowls that some cheese had been in, since I noticed that some of what would have been dad’s part until he decided to fast had visibly spoiled, even though my part, which had also been in a bowl for the same amount of time, was still just fine, so I had to throw that part away, add some of the part that was around it to what I cooked and move the rest, mixing what was in both bowls with something else I still had. Got in bed at 5:25 AM again.

With next week’s forecast making me question whether I’ll be able to run at all, hoping to fit the planned half marathon distance then if I will find a good enough day but also having one more ten-kilometer run, the one I should have done before this series of three runs in five days, to check off the planned list before that one, Thursday I ran yet again. Woke up a couple of minutes before the alarm rang, at 2 PM, but was quite sure that it was just about to ring, so I waited for it and got up when it did. Then I had the usual stuff, again with some of those nicer biscuits, with added honey, as the sweet thing, put on the full running gear plus an undershirt, used the main bathroom and then wasted some ten minutes or so trying to get the toilet to stop leaking and failing, and left at 4 PM, when the reported temperature was 15°C, actually supposed to increase by 1-2°C by the time I’ll finish. Though it was cloudy, the fact that there was little wind meant that it didn’t really feel colder on the way to the park than Monday.
The time was 48:41.53, with sector times of 4:12.91, 5:04 (5:03.37), 6:02.33, 4:36.26, 5:13 (5:12.29), I think 6:02.12, I think 4:26.64, 5:16 (5:15.54), 5:57 (5:56.86) and 1:53.21, making for lap times of 15:18.61, 15:51 (I think 15:50.67) and I think 15:39.04. I’m quite sure I correctly recall that time for sector three of lap two and was wrongly thinking of it as 6:02.09 over the course of the next sector, but while there’s no way that’s correct, there’s a slight chance that this is also wrong, which would lead to wrong times for lap two, sector one of lap three and lap three, albeit by hundredths or at most a few tenths, so the seconds are clearly correct. Either way, this was the least bad time since that last good one, from February, but a minute and a half slower than then and a complete failure compared to my initial target, since I noticed the good conditions from the start and wanted to just go for it, aiming for another time under 48 minutes and 4:08, or at least under 4:10, on the first sector. Couldn’t even sustain that pace until the end of that sector, however, then sector two showed me that even 48:30 was highly unlikely, that poor sector three made just staying under 49 minutes the only realistic goal and the pretty bad lap two made me seriously worry that I’ll fail even that, seeing as I needed a similar time on lap three for it. Pretty much begged myself to manage it, thinking that sector one was my only chance to gain time, but while it was where I gained the most, I also gained on sector three, which was actually also the fastest sector three.
As I already mentioned, the conditions offered no excuses, as there was hardly any wind, physically I felt just fine and there were relatively few people to deal with, significant stretches being almost clear, so while I still lost a bit of time by going the long way around, at times because I was excessively cautious, there were no issues except needing to keep an eye on where some dogs with long leashes were going in a couple of places, maybe slowing a bit out of that perhaps excessive caution, and probably doing the same whenever I met two groups of cyclists who were also covering multiple laps, the small one, of three, being fast while the other being large but slow, the fact that I could see them coming from a distance and had plenty of room to stay away from them meaning that there was no risk. A lone cyclist who was also fast and going the same way I was surprised me a couple of times, but he was the one coming from behind and could see me, so if I heard him I just tried to not change direction and it was his job to avoid me, which he did without issues.

That night I only started eating dinner at 3:30 AM, albeit after again having had lunch earlier, and got in bed at 5:20 AM. But it was also Thursday when I got to level 9 in Bound by Flame, getting that skill that gives +50% experience for stealth kills and those within ten seconds of one, so continuing became tedious and frustrating, my goal becoming to always gain that additional experience, which is obviously impossible plenty of times. But then I realized that there’s no way to get stealth kills when I reach the village, and a lot of experience is gained for getting there, so the current plan is to reload an earlier save, get there sooner, calculating how much to gain on the way in order to use that experience to just get myself to level 9 or perhaps not even that, then go back in order to maximize the use of that skill.

Last night I did only a little better, starting to eat dinner at 3:25 AM. However, that was after not only having lunch in the evening, but also going through about half of an old 500-gram bag of bagels while writing a good part of this post, and also in part caused by not only washing what dad had used and moving something he made into a smaller pot, but putting the recyclables in a bag as well, getting ready for this morning, when I again went out without sleeping, the large stores ignoring the date and being open, the day’s 30% discount at Kaufland being for paper towels, which dad goes through at an infuriating rate, and toilet paper, and my parents wanting a few other things as well.
I left at 6:15 AM, taking all the recyclables, dropped the rest off in a bin I spotted on the way, making a small detour for it but then continuing from there and therefore, I’d say, not even losing time, also dropped off those things I drop off at Kaufland once I got there… But found that I shouldn’t have even bothered with that location, since they had none of the pastries my mother wanted, nor any of those packs of fabric softener. Both were supposed to be on sale this week, and while I searched quite thoroughly and didn’t even find a label or empty spot for those packs, which might indicate that they had sold all of it, the spot for those pastries was obvious and the fact that they were on sale was even announced while I was there, but when I asked an employee who was in that area whether they were already out or were yet to make any that day, considering the early hour, she said they didn’t have any. And, as a bad sign for the future, I also noticed that the price of the bread that I get from there had increased.
At that point, I had a choice between checking that Carrefour as well and then coming back, hoping that they were going to make or get some of those pastries by then after all, or heading straight for the location at Obor, and also between getting the paper towels, toilet paper and onions from there and then carrying them all the way or not doing so and risking to find none left once I got there. And I guess it was the lack of that fabric softener that decided things, so I ended up not buying anything from this location and not checking this Carrefour either, leaving a little before 7:30 AM and going straight to the Kaufland from Obor… Or almost straight, since I made an attempt to use that unpaved road that eventually turns into a footpath running alongside train tracks that Google Maps suggested when I looked for the shortest route between the two locations, but the stray dog I spotted right on that path and the others that started barking at me from various yards before I even got close to the fences convinced me that my initial decision to use proper streets to go around that area, as I have been doing, is the correct one, even if it adds a little to the distance.
Turning around once I saw that dog meant I lost a little bit of time, but I might have also gained a little bit at the end, finding a better, or at least a straighter and simpler, way for the very end of that route and getting to that location right at 8 AM. And I found everything I was looking for there, though there weren’t many packs left of the toilet paper and one of the kinds of paper towels I was looking for, and the two unopened boxes of those packs of fabric softener might not have lasted long either, though it’s possible that they had more of those that they could bring later. I was a bit uncertain when I saw that the announcements still listed yesterday’s discount and there were none in the area with toilet paper and paper towels, but I asked an employee who was there and she confirmed that they did indeed apply, which did prove to be the case. And I also saw that the bread that I get from there was still at the old price at that location, or at least that was what the label indicated.
However, there were issues at the self-checkout, albeit first caused by me making a wrong selection for the one piece of pastry I had bought for myself, not noticing that there were two similar options and the second was in fact the correct one, and then, seeing as there were few people and the other machines were not in use, again just moving to another instead of asking for an employee to cancel. Since the employee was actually paying attention, she almost immediately went to that machine, to again make it available, then asked whether I had used it and when I confirmed she said something about not blocking more machines and came to help, so I explained that a much higher price had appeared and she insisted on checking that I had selected the correct item that time, really paying attention when she looked in the bag and even rather pointedly saying that she wanted to check that I didn’t have something cheaper than what I had selected, though it was obvious that she suspected the opposite. And then, though at first she did let me continue on my own when I said I was fine and also told her what the other pastries were, she obviously kept her eyes on me and when the machine “forgot” that I had selected the other pastries after telling me to place them on the scales and asked me to scan the product first, which is a behavior I have experienced before, she immediately returned, saying that she just wanted to help and dismissing the fact that I said things should be easy after those pastries, everything else just needing to be scanned, saying she wasn’t so sure about that, placing the onions on the scales, I guess to check that I wasn’t trying to cheat with the weight, and only after that overriding everything in order to quickly scan the other products with no risk of further errors.
That sort of interaction obviously had quite an impact on me, but I nevertheless just took a moment to check the receipt and make sure the discounts had been properly applied, then even went to that other place that’s also there and asked whether they had any poppy pretzels. I was told that they were yet to make any that day, however, so it was 8:50 AM when I walked out and, after initially again taking a few steps in the other direction, used that shorter route to also go to that Carrefour, getting cucumbers, carrots and a discounted thing for myself. Dad had asked for three of those large cucumbers from Kaufland, where they were 1.49 RON each, but those were imported and when I weighed three that I actually picked to be somewhat larger than most, I saw 840 grams, making for 5.32 RON / kg, while Carrefour had Romanian ones at 5.99 RON / kg, so I chose to get them from there… And then evened things out in a bad way by getting the carrots from there, as planned, even though I noticed that those were imported, so I at least just got a handful, for dad, and none for myself.
I was out of that mall at 9:35 AM, got back here just before 10:25 AM… And realized that I had lost the receipts. I recall taking the one from Kaufland out of my pocket as well when I got the one from Carrefour, but I’m not sure what I did with them after that, especially since the key for the cabinet I had placed the purchases made from Kaufland in was in that same pocket. Maybe I tried to put them in another pocket and missed it or they fell out, maybe I put them back in that same pocket, then they got stuck to my hand when I took the key out and I didn’t notice, or maybe I held them in my hand, thinking I’ll put them in the pocket after opening the cabinet, but when someone stood right behind me, obviously waiting to either use that same cabinet, being one of the only two large ones that still had keys, or retrieve something from one of the smaller ones right above it, I just rushed to get away from there and either forgot that I had placed them on the floor in order to retrieve my things or dropped them by reflex just then, to have both hands free to grab the bags. And there’s also a chance that I still had them after taking my bags, but then lost them while rearranging things in them, a few steps away, since I do recall thinking that I should turn around and have another look when I walked away but deciding against it. I recall every product and price, of course, but it’s still annoying.
Either way, to finish what’s another awfully long post, I’ll also add that, after taking a shower, I spent almost five hours in bed, but only managed to sleep about three… And then I guess I decided that the start of a new month is a good enough moment to stop being so careful around here, so I didn’t put another mask on after showering, and was even in the kitchen and around dad for quite a while. This obviously makes me even more anxious, and I’ll be watching for any sign that something’s wrong, especially since I heard that my mother currently has a cold, even if it really is just a cold, and dad has been there and is going again tomorrow, but it had to happen someday…

Sunday night I had another late lunch, finishing just a little before going to the kitchen at 1 AM, and then after taking time to read a newspaper there again, started eating dinner at 3 AM. And then I sent a comment about an article about the German Greens on The Guardian, since the article didn’t accept regular comments. It wasn’t published and I guess I could have gotten away with just posting it here as the second post of the week, leaving all of this for next week, but I decided against that and will post this instead, covering the period between Sunday night and Wednesday, plus Friday, but skipping Thursday and yesterday, when I ran, since next week’s forecast made me decide to do that series of three runs, 16, ten and again 16 kilometers in five days, in spite of everything and the fact that I’m clearly not ready for it.
Back to Sunday night, after sending that comment I asked for Bound by Flame from The Community Giveaway on the GOG.com forums, and after waking up I redeemed it, actually installing and starting it right away. Dad came back while I was downloading and I didn’t hear though, and while he might have told the truth when he said he had just turned the power strip on, the computer being off when I went there to look, he did do that, so both of us showed up as connected for a bit. Either way, with what’s mostly the mix of medium and low settings it chose at first, the game runs very smoothly, so I’m now trying to increase a few and see what the limit is. One problem is that it gets my CPU even to 65°C or so, also preventing its speed from dropping when the integrated GPU needs more power, so if I was looking oddly at Venetica doing that and getting it to 60°C or so, this is a fair bit worse. And I can’t seem to take screenshots, the game itself not seeming to have a way to do so and trying to get any otherwise resulting in a screenshot of what’s “behind” it, as in the desktop or some other program, if any’s running and not minimized. It can run windowed, and I can take screenshots that way, but it’d have to be at a lower resolution, since the window borders cause a bit of the actual image to get cut off at the full one… So I’ll think about it, since it just has a few Windows ones added on MobyGames. Hope I won’t think for too long though, because if I get through the early parts and don’t keep all the saves, there will be things I won’t quite be able to take screenshots of anymore, especially if I’m to avoid spoilers.

Before moving on from Monday, I’ll also mention that I cleaned my room a little that evening, and also changed the sheets and the blanket that’s under them and flipped the mattress over. And that mole I was worried about looked better when I showered, and the area seems to have pretty much fully recovered by now, so it was likely just a case of my usual skin issues acting up. On the other hand, Tuesday evening I got really down when dad was getting ready to leave and I got up to go to the kitchen, so I told him I’m quite done with being cautious and, since he had a check-up that day and was told his lungs were improving amazingly well, I was going to start getting back to a more normal behavior… However, while that evening, after he left, I left the kitchen window open and got back to my room for two hours, then closed it when I went there, and I have been to the kitchen without a mask late at night, before going to bed, a few times since then, after having the window open for hours and the mask on while making my food, I’m still too wary to be without a mask when he is or has been around without the place being aired very well since then, or to actually get back to eating there, or to risk eating things he might have eaten from or even simply kept around, or to be a bit less thorough in how well I clean everything I use. Was thinking to try to start dropping these precautions next week, after the third run in this series, but Friday he said my mother has a cold, and he went there to drop off some medicines, so I have another reason to be wary, even if it would be true that it’s just a cold… Not that I have any reason to believe him when he says that, but hope it’s true for the sake of my mother and, even more so, grandmother.

Getting back to the chronological order, Wednesday dad went to Kaufland to get himself some things and I had told him that cat food was going to be 30% off on Friday, gave him the catalog, reminded him it’ll be Friday when, Tuesday evening, he said he remembered me saying that something, he didn’t remember what, was going to be on sale as of Wednesday… And he bought two packs of those treats for Liza and two cans for Micky anyway, and had actually written them down on his list, of course saying he forgot and, since he actually wrote those things on the list, I must not have told him properly. At least he didn’t get even more, but how else, exactly, was I supposed to tell him?!
Either way, it was also Wednesday when I finished Venetica! This is another game I asked for and received from The Community Giveaway on the GOG.com forums, in October of 2019, and then actually started a little later that month, playing until late November and then only continuing this January, after finishing Syberia II, sticking to it since then, in parallel with Lords of Xulima until the end of March, when I decided to focus on it in order to finish it. Also submitted 27 more screenshots for it on MobyGames, since there were only 23 and all of them from the early part of the game, and the notes I took while playing have 871 words, so I’ll be writing a review, but let’s see when I’ll manage it.
To finish with Wednesday, sat on the toilet without a mask that evening, since I also wanted to shave after that, and while shaving I spotted another very visible fully white hair, which I plucked and kept. Then, though I did also have lunch, albeit earlier, I meant to start eating dinner a bit earlier than I’ve been starting lately, so I went to the kitchen and washed and cleaned after dad’s cooking during the evening… Yet it was still 3:10 AM when I actually started eating. But I checked the logs then and saw that Defrag had finished just before 3 AM, so I wouldn’t have wanted to get on the computer if I’d have gotten here while it was running. Either way, after submitting those screenshots for Venetica and taking care of everything on-line, it was past 5:05 AM when I finished eating, and 5:25 AM when I got in bed.

As for Friday, that Kaufland discount meant that I again left without sleeping in the morning, at 6:20 AM, and it again rained. Not at first, but a few drops appeared after a few minutes and by the time I got there, a bit before 6:50 AM, it was drizzling… And went through that trouble for nothing, because the kind I know they don’t stock much of and therefore run out of in the morning whenever it has a significant discount wasn’t available at all. I mean, I know that they don’t have the 1.5 kg bags at all, but they normally do have the 800 g ones, yet now only the 200 g ones were available, the price of those negating the discount. I even asked the employee who was stocking that area, but she told me to look for myself, which I had obviously already done. So I just grabbed the other kinds, which would have almost certainly remained available later as well, wandered around for a bit, looked again, also checked the boxes stacked there, still seeing none of that kind, and eventually went to the self-checkout and was out at 7:20 AM, also having a quick look in that Carrefour after that but not getting anything.
I didn’t want to give up that easily, however, so even though a proper light rain had started and the fact that the kind in question hadn’t been available at all was a bad sign, I then I went to the Kaufland from Obor, getting there a bit after 8 AM… And still not finding any, and not getting anything else either, except a pretzel from that place that’s also there, as they were just making the first ones of the day when I exited Kaufland. Meant to eat it when I got outside, even pulled my mask away, but decided against it at the last moment, went back in to use those scales that are next to the area where you can place your purchases in your bags to get a label and close the paper bag the pretzel was in, and was finally walking away around 8:35 AM… Only to realize as I almost left the parking lot that I was using the old route, so I then turned around and used what should be the shorter one, though I’m not sure it was still shorter from that spot, to also go to that Carrefour, getting a few expiring things.
There was the option to go to a third Kaufland, using a route I had prepared but still hadn’t used, but there seemed to be no point in it and I was sleepy and had to run again the next day, so I decided against it and wandered around that farmers’ market for a while instead, getting some cheap apples and a bundle of green onions. Had seen better ones at that price, and one place, outside, that had some at half that price without them looking too bad, but for some reason decided to get them from that guy and even respected his “don’t touch” sign, so I asked him to give me one and he picked one that actually looked worse than others, quite obviously selecting it specifically, since he seemed to mean to pick another, then stopped, had a good look at the pile and picked that one.
Though it was still raining and I was still sleepy and still had to run the next day, I had also been considering getting some peanut butter for a while, to try a vegan source of protein, and one I had seen on Mega Image’s site seemed unlikely to be available in most of their regular stores, but would quite certainly be available in that large one from that area, which also has that “Equilibrium” section, so I went there after that, finding that I had pretty much just enough in smaller bills and coins to get it without needing to break another 50 RON bill, only being left with a few coins after doing so. It was cheaper elsewhere, but it meant either a significantly larger order in order to avoid a shipping fee, waiting for it to be available again in a store or, as I only realized after getting back and did another search, going to a place I had never been to… This latter option would have likely been the better one, and it’d have meant saving just about 3 RON, or 22%, but on top of not being aware of it at the time, going there would have taken me close to that third Kaufland location, so I doubt I’d have done it that day even if I would have known. Either way, the cashier was the same one who mentioned she’d have wanted change in the morning instead of before closing before, and I was apparently her first customer, as she had just opened, so she wanted to say she was happy for the small bills.
Really had to pee at that point, after having in fact started to consider going to the toilet ever since getting to that second Kaufland, but decided to just keep going and was in the building at 10:40 AM, just barely holding it in long enough. Then I showered and was in bed for over five hours in the afternoon, but only slept for perhaps three, also needing to get up to pee a few times, as it tends to happen when I’m so exhausted, and I had also held it in for so long, which obviously didn’t help my bladder. Either way, spent almost two and a half more hours in bed in the evening, but only added about one more hour or so of actual sleep, then had an apple and yogurt and cereals before 2 AM, but then ended up starting to actually eat dinner at 3:30 AM.
Dug into that peanut butter then, wary because of my only previous experience with it, when dad bought some when I was little and I disliked the taste so much it left a lasting impression, but it was fine this time around. Of course, things taste differently when you’re a child, and my tastes also changed and I easily put up with plenty of things I might dislike if I cared more about taste, or food in general, and I’m quite sure that what dad bought back then was of poor quality too, but at least it means I can eat this without issues now, at least before runs. I am a bit wary of the fact that the layer at the top definitely tasted sweet even though it says it’s made of 100% peanuts, also specifying that there’s no added sugar or salt, but I doubt I can do better without looking at things that are way more expensive… And, considering the price per unit of weight, this is the most expensive thing I bought to put on bread at dinner in a long time, if not ever, as it is.

Before finishing this, I’ll add that Friday there were no visits recorded in either view again, but also that I did experiment with Bound by Flame’s video settings since writing the first part of this post. A quick test shows that I can set most, if not all, parameters at least a level higher and it’ll still run quite well, at least if I reduce the resolution to 1152×864, which I need to do if I’m to try to take screenshots, but what I was actually trying to see was whether I’ll be able to take screenshots, so running it in a window and at that resolution, on maximum settings… And I learned I can’t, and that it’s a good thing I tested while running it in a window and could close it normally. Once it also crashed when I changed the anisotropy setting, but the problem is that there is some setting that makes it fail to display anything in the actual game, so the menu and loading screen will display, but after that, once I got a black screen with just the text letting me know I could interact with my companion when I was facing her, so the game was actually running, just not displaying anything, a few more times the loading screen continued to be displayed, flickering, and the last time my screen went black for a moment and I got an entry in event logs stating that the display driver stopped responding and then recovered, the game window remained black and seemed to hang, I forced the process to close, and then was left with a white bit in the lower-left corner of the screen and werfault.exe running and nothing happening if I tried to force it to close. Rebooted in order to get rid of those issues and haven’t tried to mess with the settings again since then, so I can just say that it has to do either with setting either shadows or ambient occlusion to ultra or anisotropy above x2 (low), or perhaps with a combination of these, but doubt I’ll dare to test the limits of those settings again too soon…

It was coming for a while, and today it finally happened: The new record number of COVID-19 deaths reported in one day in Romania now stands at 237, smashing that previous value of 213, reported on December 8. Yes, it’s on a Tuesday, when the numbers tend to be higher because they reflect the tests done on Monday, which include postmortem ones or the retesting of hospitalized patients which may die soon after, and Monday is when they catch up on what piles up over the weekend, when there are fewer tests, but December 8 was also a Tuesday and, either way, the fact remains, and it’s somewhat surprising that it took so long.

On the other hand, the number of new cases reported today was low, only 2931, and what’s much more important is that some measures that may actually make more of a difference, albeit probably weeks from now, were announced. The timing is interesting, to not use a stronger term, but I’d say that the bigger reason behind this timing is that the Government is trying to prove what a bad job the previous Minister of Health, who was just sacked after quite a string of blunders, was doing and that things can quickly get back on track now that he’s out of the way, in order to counter the accusations that they got rid of him because he was bothering too much with what he was revealing and, even more so, planned to reveal, since he had announced making all purchases in the field of health public.
Speaking of said former Minister of Health, while I have serious issues with him because of his connections to the private health care sector and his quite clear plans to privatize even more of it, as well as his battle with Nicusor Dan for the position of candidate for the position of Mayor of Bucharest, which threatened to destroy several years of work and led to Nicusor Dan needing to make the deal he made with PNL, significantly weakening his position and also making him drop in the eyes of plenty of his supporters, he did indeed seem to be bothering more and more with what he was making public, and also by saying that the authorities had gotten creative with the numbers reported before the elections and, most recently, that the number of deaths was also being misreported, so it’s clear that all sides united to get rid of him before he hurt their interests even more. However, it’s also clear that he didn’t even make them work for it. When you decide to expose everyone’s dirt in such a manner, take everyone on in such a battle, you need to have everything planned to the letter, with contingency plans for contingency plans, and be extraordinarily careful with your every move, tread on eggshells, so you won’t offer any excuse, and he seemed to be doing anything but that, going from one blunder to another, as I already said, and seeming to have no clear plan or project to follow even for the current crisis. So his removal will most likely mark a return to “business as usual” and perhaps eliminate the chance of getting rid of some of the filth plaguing the field in the longer term, but it may well have quite a positive impact in the short term, and on the current crisis, especially if the others will try to make a point of it, as they already seem to be doing.

To finally get to those measures announced today, they have to do with vaccinations and, with one exception, I’d say they were long overdue. In theory a person could schedule themselves to be vaccinated by phone even now, but it didn’t really work, so one announcement is that they will make it work, but also that people will be able to go to a vaccination center in person and ask to be scheduled that way, so those who can’t, don’t know how or simply don’t want to create an account on the on-line platform, submitting their personal information and scheduling themselves that way, will finally have other methods available to them. And another thing that should have been happening all along but was only announced now is that hospitalized patients will be able to be vaccinated in any hospital, so those who are in non-COVID hospitals won’t need to wait to be released and then go to a vaccination center anymore.
In addition, the mobile vaccination centers, desperately needed in plenty of rural areas, plus of course by those who can’t leave their homes, are to properly start their activity tomorrow, and they’ll be using vaccines from Moderna, so they stopped trying to push the AstraZeneca one or, worse, what was a plan to use the Johnson & Johnson one for those centers. In fact, an additional order of vaccines from Pfizer pretty much ensures that pretty much no viral vector vaccines will be needed for the entire vaccination campaign if people don’t really want them. And family doctors should also finally actually start vaccinating their patients on a larger scale, that program having a rocky start so far, while the drive-in vaccination centers, which had also been announced for quite some time, should also become operational at the end of the week. And the first non-stop vaccination center just became operational, in Timisoara.
The one announced development I’m uncertain about, on the other hand, is that businesses will also be able to organize vaccination centers and vaccinate not only their own employees, but also those of other businesses they have ties to and their family members. This had also been discussed for some time, perhaps a change being that these businesses will be able to choose any of the approved vaccines, reflecting that change of policy I already mentioned above, but handing over such a responsibility to businesses strikes me as particularly unwise… Even more so when I now see that the possibility of those businesses creating the vaccination centers for places that don’t otherwise have any, where all those who live there are to be vaccinated, is also on the table! Talk about another sign of shifting ever more of the state’s duties, responsibilities and even rights onto the private sector! But that’s another discussion, I guess…