Cav's Place

After Silverthorn, my expectations for A Darkness at Sethanon may have been quite low, but it hardly seems possible not to be surprised and amazed by it either way. The prologue sets the stage and, while the early chapters otherwise remind of the rather immature heroic fantasy from before and the supposed “surprises” are all too obvious, the story eventually transforms into an epic of great intensity and mind-boggling scope, dealing with the fate of the entire universe, touching upon the concept of other dimensions, and going all the way to the beginning of time and back. The pacing does vary due to the alternating points of view, but overall it becomes more and more alert and new elements, including actual surprises, keep being thrown at the reader as well. It would provide excellent material for a movie, or in fact for a few of them, and some scenes may even require this, being almost too much to be left to the reader’s imagination… Though, at the same time, some may be impossible to properly portray in a mere movie as well.
That said, there are many flaws, starting with an unexpected number of typos, especially considering the fact that the edition I read was printed decades after the initial release, plus that, at least in this edition, there are also two places where the space indicating a new scene is missing and said new scene starts so abruptly that I wonder whether at least its first paragraph may not be missing as well. Yet those are minor matters, far more important being the fact that too much is skipped, too many questions are left unanswered, too many things seem unexplained or to not quite add up not because the author is withholding information for later use, but because he doesn’t know it either. The book is far too short and, while they appear to have greatly improved by the time it was written, the author’s skills not sufficient to do justice to such an audaciously ambitious scope and setting… Then again, I’m not sure that anyone’s could ever be.

Rating: 4/5

Did start reading A Darkness at Sethanon on Monday and definitely plan to finish it and also write the quick review tomorrow, since there’s a protest Sunday evening that I want to attend. Having unions as the main organizers will be odd for me, but this time the activists I know are fully behind it as well and in fact there’s quite an unusual alliance of groups that would usually be at odds with each other but which now have a common enemy, so I’m somewhat wary but definitely want to at least have a look. So reading and posting Sunday evening probably won’t be an option, which means I’d sure like to read some 60 more pages today, so I won’t have to push tomorrow instead.

There’s really little to say otherwise, but I’ll start with Sunday, when my mother was brought back here by my cousin, to be here while dad went on a trip this week, which meant I had to give up on my hopes of actually getting some days alone… And also on the plan to make something I wanted to eat that Sunday, which I meant to do after dad said he’ll bring her Monday, before even that plan changed on short notice, as it often tends to happen when it comes to them. And she was also brought quite early on Sunday, so I was in the kitchen at the time, trying to at least make myself a salad and rushing to at least close the door when I heard the key, especially since my cousin briefly came up as well and brought at least what I understand is his adopted son along. Heard that his wife was with them as well, but I’m not sure whether she also came up and then quickly went back to the car or waited for them there, and either way during those few minutes I was fighting back panic caused by the fact that some other person was around. Wasn’t fighting back the rage caused by a child being here, of course, instead just mentally cursing and wishing them “nice” things because of it. Sure, at least they didn’t personally add to the population, but that doesn’t make it any less of a living representation of the world’s worst problem.

Other than that, Tuesday I went to buy a few things, checking out three hypermarkets again and getting just toothpaste from one, tofu and a small black radish from another and another black radish from the third. The radishes were just over a third cheaper at the second, but I somehow missed the fact that they had some from Romania on offer despite checking prices there first, then going to the third, then returning, so I ended up just grabbing one from the third, thinking to at least get something if I used the free bus they provide to cover part of the distance both ways, using the time to read a little more, since I had taken the book with me, then realizing I spent 0.18 RON (a little under $0.05 or €0.04) more by doing so. But I also found 0.13 RON (just over $0.03 or just under €0.03) in coins while there, so the difference was less. It could have been important though, since in the end I spent exactly 0.13 RON more than I had when I left, coming back with all of 0.03 RON, which were also found elsewhere.

As for this week’s run, that was yesterday, the time being 48:44, with intermediate times of 4:26, 5:14, 5:50, 4:29, 5:12, 5:57, 4:37, 5:09, 6:03 and 1:47, making for lap times of 15:30, 15:38 and 15:49. Good weather for this time of year, but the air did feel rather cold, so I had the training shirt on me as well again and, more notably, breathing took some more effort. But this also meant I watched my breathing from the beginning and managed to avoid those liver cramps this time around, and there were no difficult moments otherwise, even that worn right shoe rubbing the back of that foot less, so that wasn’t a problem either. Its effects on my socks are noticeable though, and I only have a few pairs of warmer ones, so ending up with them torn because of it will be a problem.

Other than finally cleaning my room a bit and changing the stuff on my bed yesterday, didn’t do much since the previous post. Didn’t even start A Darkness at Sethanon, so I definitely have to read that next week, to finally catch up and have 11 books read in the first 11 months of the year, leaving me to see what I’ll pick as the last one in December. Did poke at the sixth scenario from that “Divine Empire” series of scenarios in Disciples, some two months after dropping it after the fifth to try to get back to Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, but it’s not going well and I already reloaded twice, after losing my main hero, the first time stupidly, the second time because I was in a situation I couldn’t get out of, so had to get back to an earlier save. Also went through just one more turn, and one more fight, in that Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic scenario, but there I’m at the end and in a clear position to win, so I’m more interested in trying to get the most experience and exploring the entire map first.
I guess I could also mention that I got back to using the Kone XTD after nearly a month of using the spare mouse and I didn’t notice more double clicks just yet. The issue does become far less noticeable when the temperature it’s lower and it just got colder now, so that may help me stick to it for a little longer, but without a way to somehow manage to open and fix it, this is at best a matter of delaying the inevitable. But the Kone AIMO was actually launched and they brag about microswitches lasting ten times as long as those on the Kone XTD, so I guess it will be an option when it’ll get to Romania as well, assuming the full price will be the same I’m seeing elsewhere in Europe and I’ll also be able to extend the warranty period to at least four years, even if, as I mentioned before, it doesn’t mark a return of that button above the wheel that I really want, retaining the number by having one at the base of the thumb area instead, has at best entirely pointless, and possibly detrimental if not completely turned off in every way, lighting as a major focus instead of something to be done away with already, and also uses the new software instead of this one I know causes no issues. I just really, really hope it’ll be much more reliable, and otherwise that it retains the shape and the functions, because the mouse is what I use the most if you think about it and I got really used to a good thing, the Kone XTD fitting me just about perfectly in every way, the only small complaint being that I can’t set buttons to start programs directly and have to first create keyboard shortcuts and then set the buttons to act as those shortcuts instead.

But this post’s title mentions a small traffic spike, and that started on November 11, when I posted a comment on an article about the recent, and hardly surprising, WP-SpamShield mess. Since I had quite a bad experience with that developer myself, I included a link to my post about that mess in the comment I posted there and that attracted quite an unusual number of visits. Had noticed a couple of visits to that page just before that as well, probably due to searches prompted by these developments, but between October 12 and November 10, so in the 30 days before posting that comment, my site had a total of 123 visits and 163 pageviews, therefore averaging 4.1 visits and 5.43 pageviews per day, while between November 11 and 17, so in the week since posting that comment, I had 100 visits and 133 pageviews, therefore averaging 14.29 visits and 19 pageviews per day. The peak was on November 12, when I got 26 visits and 38 pageviews, with the next day following with 23 and 35, respectively.
Either way, it was mildly entertaining to see how others quickly got to the same conclusion I eventually did back then, quite nicely spelled out by someone in the comments of that post as “Talking to Scott Allen is like talking to a brick wall.” A brick wall that finds ways to assign blame to anyone and everyone else for any issue that may come up, mind you, while portraying himself as some sort of perfect programmer, with his work being perfect products that have only advantages and can’t possibly cause issues. Also, a brick wall accusing anyone who says differently of abuse and harassment, and then goes as far as blocking messages and even banning said, shall we say, detractors from accessing his site completely, as it happened to me. And, on that note, when I checked after posting that comment, and once again now, I saw that the ban is now an aggressive one, any attempt to access the site redirecting me to a file called 1000GB.zip, which I assume would do what the name implies if I’d somehow allow it to start downloading or opening. Since in that discussion there was a debate about the need for specific malicious intent in order to identify something as malware, I’d say that redirect would fit the bill, wouldn’t you?

Oh, forgot to mention something funny: The larger cutting board we had was badly cracked for some time and eventually broke for good while dad was using it, so yesterday he came with another one which he said my mother bought while they were somewhere together and then gave to him, saying it was for me. Well, it’s the smallest size available, according to the label, and I definitely wanted a significantly larger one if we had to replace it anyway, and also one made of a single piece, so it’ll last longer and also not be glued with who knows what, so that’s another “surprise” and “present” that whichever one of them actually bought should shove somewhere, but the text at the bottom of the label definitely deserves a picture. I mean, “High quality bamboo, special artwork, natural green, envirenmental proteetion and sanitation, People need bamboo for inhabitancy under the circmstance eating without meat”? Some automated translation tools would have done a better job there!

In the previous post, I mentioned that I was having a cold, but also that it wasn’t too bad at that moment. Well, it sure got bad right after, and that night, or more exactly Thursday morning, sure was nasty. Felt like I was having quite a fever, to the point that thoughts were starting to be rather fun, nose was full of crap and it was starting to get into my chest as well, and of course I ended up feeling weak and woozy and everything seemed to hurt. Took two pretty strong mint and eucalyptus candies before trying to get to bed, but those had pretty much no effect, so after somehow managing to nap a little before I first had to wake up to try to get the crap out, at 6:20 AM, there was hardly any sleep until quite late. Rather hard to persuade your body to relax into the state needed for sleep when you can’t breathe, after all.
Stayed in bed until 3 PM, at some quite early point folded my pillow and kept my arms under my head so it’ll be higher, pulled up the blinds at 9 AM as well, in case the light would help, but went to blow and spit crap out in the bathroom at 7:35 AM, 8:25 AM, 8:55 AM, 9:15 AM, 9:45 AM, 10:15 AM, 10:45 AM, 12 PM and 1:15 PM, for some reason had to pee each of those times as well, and maybe only napped for barely a few minutes again at some point between 6:20 AM and 7:35 AM, before going around 11 AM to ask dad whether he still had any Airwaves gum left which hadn’t been used as a cat toy. Know that has some effect, so was hoping it’ll work where those candies didn’t, and after he found some that did seem to be the case, but unfortunately neighbors started drilling just then, so it was only after 12 PM, maybe after 12:30 PM, that I managed to nap a little more.

Still, after pushing through that, feeling the fever go down and struggling to blow and spit out as much as I possibly could each time, struggling until all the muscles involved hurt and I felt quite lightheaded, I felt that I had made it through the worst of it. And that indeed proved to be the case, the rest of the day being less of a problem and managing to sleep in the morning. Woke up once, or more exactly woke up the first time, coughing and struggling to breathe, pretty much passed out an instant later, then probably mere moments later woke up again, still coughing and struggling to breathe, and could finally make my way to the bathroom and try to get as much out as possible. However, though at that moment there seemed to be a fair amount in my chest as well, once I got back to sleep I could stay asleep until the early afternoon and since then it’s been just a matter of making sure I keep clearing everything out, the situation improving rather rapidly.

There’s still something there, but it hasn’t been an issue for the past few days, so I could take advantage of the one day with good weather, which was actually Monday, and run. After that, I went to buy a few things Monday evening, since I was out of bread so that definitely couldn’t wait, and then went to two other hypermarkets for some more things yesterday. Nothing much to say about that, other than the fact that Monday evening I again tried to get plastic bottles and aluminum cans to the machine at that hypermarket, since quite a lot had gathered due to what dad used but I actually had a way to carry most of them without it being either difficult or too visible, but when I got there I saw the machine say it was full, so I simply dropped them off in the underground parking lot yet again.

As for Monday’s run, that was definitely the right moment, with a reported high of 20°C and the wind lessening later, so the fact that it was after 4 PM when I went out the door and a fair bit after 5 PM when I finished the run meant I only had a few gusts to deal with in the early part, even though it was getting rather dark at the end. Not quite dark enough to mean I couldn’t check the time on my stopwatch normally though, and even though the nice weather meant that there were quite a lot of people to find my way around, I definitely preferred that to yesterday’s wind, which felt like it was about to knock me off my feet when I went out then, or to the weather we’re getting as of today, which is more normal for this time of year, with highs below 10°C, a fair amount of wind and an increasing chance of rain as well.
As for the time, it was 48:43, so I still managed to stay under 49 minutes, which felt quite nice under the circumstances. Sector times were 4:21, 5:09, 5:55, 4:35, 5:02, 5:56, 4:36, 5:13, 6:03 and 1:53, making for lap times of 15:25, 15:33 and 15:52. Started rather fast, actually thinking that I felt that I was pushing hard enough for at least 4:25 on that first sector, so if it’ll be worse I’ll be in trouble, but it wasn’t and that mostly calmed me down, though that rather slow first sector of lap two got me a bit worried again, before the fast second one calmed me down again. And it should have been 48:42, but there were some women standing right at the park exit, on the side I finish on, and while I considered just steering myself maybe a meter to the left in order to get a clean finish, I decided against it, which meant that instead of finishing with what’s pretty much a jump, as I usually do, I had to slam on the brakes in order to be able to get around them, and under those circumstances I stopped the stopwatch at 48:43.01.
Either way, wasn’t sure how it’ll work out when I started and definitely didn’t want ten kilometers in more than 49 minutes just yet, before the weather gets nasty, so I was ready to either get back to seven this one time, in case I’d have finished two laps in a time which would have pretty much guaranteed under 35 minutes over that distance but would have been too much to stay under 49 for ten, or to struggle for a really hard 16, aiming to just stay under 1:25, if I’d have barely managed to cover the first two laps in about, and possibly slightly over, 32 minutes. Definitely dreaded that prospect, but I wasn’t going to allow myself to get back to seven and not even stay under 35 minutes over that distance, so 31:50 for two laps was absolutely the maximum time for that to be an option.
Fortunately, I didn’t need to resort to either of those options, though I still had some crap to try to breathe around, on top of the usual liver cramps and rib pain felt mainly at some point during the second lap, until I could work my way around them again. That was something I had to manage, but until lap three it wasn’t much of a problem. On lap three, however, I had to cough, and while the first time was fine, the second time, close to the end of the second sector, resulted in sharp pain in the lower right part of my abdomen, where there tends to be some dull pain most of the time when I move anyway, making me think it’s either something radiating from my hip or who knows what else. Worse, coughed a couple more times after that, with the same result, something feeling like it was about to give in that spot, so I had to adjust my breathing to try to avoid coughing again before the end. But I did it, so all’s well that ends well.

After being among people at this time of year both Saturday and Sunday, and on little sleep Saturday as well, it’s not surprising that I now have a cold, or at least I hope it’s just a cold. Felt my throat just start to be a little sore when I woke up yesterday and knew what was coming, which was one reason why I ran that day as well, knowing I should take it easy once it’ll really hit me, and that happened last evening. Not that bad at the moment, sore throat, nose just starting to be runny, feeling a bit weak and colder than I should, but let’s see how it’ll develop and how long it’ll last, because at the moment the forecast states that the only day when it won’t rain next week will be Tuesday, in which case I really should be running again then.

Speaking of running, yesterday I actually wore my training shirt as well and the time was 48:23, with sector times of 4:14, 5:10, 5:54, 4:27, 5:05, 5:56, 4:31, 5:13, 6:07 and 1:46, making for lap times of 15:18, 15:28 and 15:51. So actually matched the first sector record, in part thanks to the fact that the guy who had just passed my starting location right before I started looked behind when I caught up to him and pushed harder, first staying ahead and then actually slowly increasing the distance between us towards the end of the sector, and that made me push a bit more as well. But he went on a different route shortly after that and I didn’t maintain that pace, not that it’d have been possible either way, considering the gusts of wind. I seemed to be running against the wind on most straights, three of them just on sector two, leading to those relatively poor sector two times. But at least I managed to get below 1:50 on the final sector again, for the first time since setting the current overall record, over a month ago.

Since I’m going in reverse order, there are a few things to mention about Sunday as well, which weren’t included in the previous post, which was something of a mix between a personal one and a proper protest report but nevertheless only covered the protest itself. As such, I’ll start by mentioning that I walked both to Victory Square and back from Constitution Square, since dad had the metro card, and that I saw a mouse when I entered the building, at the top of the stairs, ending up chasing it to the next floor and watching it struggle up another flight of stairs to get there, since I was coming from outside and it was running away from me, so I couldn’t chase it out.
What I really want to add, however, is the fact that on the way back I managed to take my best picture yet of the night sky. I tend to take a very long exposure shot of the sky in a dark place on a street when I come back from somewhere well after dark, have the camera with me, the sky’s sufficiently clear and there’s a parked car conveniently placed in such a dark spot, placing the camera on the car, so it won’t shake, but normally I hold it tilted, don’t just leave it pointing straight up, so the image ends up badly shaken anyway. But this time I found a darker than usual place nearby, since some streetlights still don’t work, and just left it pointing straight up with the maximum exposure time and ISO setting my old camera is capable of, so 15 seconds and 800, respectively, and it came up with something quite nice, at least if you ignore the lens issue that makes a spot appear darker. Would have been better if closer to the new moon, I assume, as that was just after the full moon and it was close to the pictured patch of sky, so I assume that light drowned out some more stars. But still, there are plenty of stars there that I doubt you could spot with the naked eye from the city unless you have incredible eyesight.

But I’m 700 words into the post and am just now getting to what I should be writing about in it, which is how Saturday went, when I volunteered at the Botanical Garden for the second time, taking part in this year’s Autumn Cleaning after first going to the Spring Cleaning back in March. Admittedly, there may be less to say this time around, since we were organized into teams of three and each given an area to clear, but things changed after a point and there are a few other things to mention as well, so I’ll get to it.
See that back in spring I meant to wake up at 7:30 AM, waking up ten minutes earlier instead, and still managed to leave before 8:30 AM, but now I woke up at 7 AM and still only left at 8:20 AM. Nevertheless, I actually got about two hours of sleep, since I went to bed a bit after 4 AM and think I was asleep around 5 AM, which I didn’t expect. And then I got some three more hours in the evening, so overall it wasn’t bad, as there are plenty of days when I only actually sleep about five or five and a half hours without needing to wake up at a certain time, but I did work for a good six hours on just those initial two hours of sleep and was feeling rather out of it in the evening, even after that nap.
Either way, arrived there at 9:15 AM again, or maybe just a minute or so before, registered, drew a ticket as I was told, since this time the “prizes” were different gift shop items instead of the plants everyone got back in spring, arranged things in my backpack and waited until, right on time, Anca again led us all to the same area in front of the gift shop, where she told us what we were going to do that day and gave that speech about safety. Unlike last time, however, now she said we should work in groups of three and asked whether we’ll form our own groups or she should, eventually telling those who did form their own to go to one side while she quickly assigned the others, which led to me working with what I believe was a married couple. Or at least they had the same last name, but I can’t say I noticed any displays of affection, so I guess it’s also possible that they were siblings.
After that was done, we were told to grab the tools and follow her to the area we were to work in, or more exactly she said she’ll try a bit of positive discrimination and told the men to grab everything and let the women walk without a care, resulting in general laughter. And I actually grabbed six rakes, three in each hand, which became rather difficult to manage after a while, since we walked farther than I thought we would. But when I stopped for a moment because one was about to slip, a girl asked to take it instead, and then when we all stopped a bit before our destination, to wait for everyone to catch up, Anca spotted me and told others to help out, so within seconds I was left carrying a single rake, the one I ended up using.
Once in the proper area, we were told each team should work on a strip that’s about two meters wide, Anca eventually assigning the areas as well, and clear everything between the fence and the path on the other side. And since my teammates had grabbed the pruning shears and also gardening gloves for all, I stayed with the rake, though I also took the offered pair of gloves this time, since they were significantly better than what had been offered last time. Still not as good as mine, which I had with me, but good enough, so I kept mine for another time. Considering a few things we found among the leaves, it was probably a good idea not to take back and reuse what was used to protect my hands anyway.
After that, we got to work, with them usually pulling and cutting plants while I raked and tried to put everything into a pile, switching from one to the other because he took the area between the path going through there and the fence, which was small but full of large plants to clear away, while she started making her way from that path to the end of our strip. And we started quite quickly, advancing faster than others, but later during the day other teams did get ahead, not that any managed to finish their strip. Not that I’m aware of, at least. But, of course, the length of the strips varied significantly, the width was also not quite equal, and there was a significant difference in what and how much there was to clear in each of them, so there’s no way to really compare.
The problem was that once again the tractor took far too long to arrive and could load far too little, and this time there were no employees helping to load either, plus that it just tended to stop at the beginning of the area, away from where we were, and then, especially later, maybe again on the other side, after going around. And without someone to organize this again, there were a lot of piles building up. We tried to take a couple of baskets to where the tractor was, but it took too much time away from the actual work for too little gain, so we largely just built up our pile until Anca first asked the men to carry as much as possible directly to the place where it should really be gathered, which was quite far, and eventually asked everyone to drop everything else and just carry. So I ended up going the long way with a basket first with him, then with her while he went ahead with a wheelbarrow, then with an older woman who was on the tractor and helped me dump a basket in it after I was left alone with it. I’m sure I know her from somewhere too, but whether that’s from March or from some protest, I have no idea.
In between, my teammates did take a couple of breaks while I just kept working, seeing that I could do so and not even feeling like trying to find some tea, since someone had offered coffee a couple of times but that apparently wasn’t done for tea as well. Then again, when they took their first break, she went to bring something for all of us, but I’m not even sure if she brought tea for all or just water for me, because I didn’t even look at that cup, leaving it on the fence where she had placed it. I’m used to not eat or drink until late, after all, and at that point it seemed like it’ll be harder to get back to work after a break than to just keep going. And we did seem rather disorganized after that, actually, but that was probably due to the fact that we were all in the same area, after he had finished the one near the fence, and started to have to stop and carry baskets all the way too.
Rather nasty was the fact that, among leaves to rake and plants to pull and cut, there was trash of a different kind as well. And while a few plastic cups or wrappings from various things are one thing, there were also a couple of apparently electrical devices, unrecognizable for me but looking rather suspicious, and two syringes. Those were definitely the most troubling, and after spotting the first one while raking the area the guy had cleared I initially left it there, making sure he was aware of it as well, and then went back to pick it up with a leaf, so not even my glove will touch it directly, and leave it on the fence, on the outside. Then I did the same with the second after spotting it right after putting the first one away.
Either way, finished with the bottom of my boots full of mud, since it had rained a little the night before, and dirt all over, but my jacket had been up in a tree most of the time and I had my shoes in my backpack as well, so I changed out of the boots at the end. And speaking of the boots, I took them again now and my attempt to glue the bottoms back still held for the left one, but the front part of the right one came loose again right after I got there, on the way to the gift shop area at the beginning. But if I could do the work with both of them loose back in spring, I managed with one now, and it didn’t seem to have gotten worse than it was back then at least. I’ll definitely need to do something about those though, if they can be fixed at all anymore, because winter is coming too.
And speaking of finishing, Anca had apparently made the call to end the day’s work while I was still returning with that other woman after carrying that last basket. And since she also stopped to gather a pile of gloves left on a bench by others and then told me to get back and grab a bunch of rakes left against a tree, by the time I got back to the group my backpack and jacket were apparently the last ones left in a tree, somebody asking if they were mine, though I then saw that my teammates were still in the area too, having gathered their things but only walking towards the group after I started running to grab my stuff too. But getting back to the group just as they were leaving meant I was left with nothing to carry on the way back, another guy having picked up several rakes that time and refusing others’ repeated attempts to help until almost reaching the gift shop area.
Once there, we took the group photo and received our rewards, in the form of the diploma, the badge and the permit granting four free entries to the Botanical Garden, plus the prize each had drawn, without looking, at the start of the day. I got a magnet, being able to choose the text from what was still available, so I just pushed aside the first one, which said “enjoy life” or something like that, which I frowned at, and quickly grabbed the second to get out of there, and that said “be kind to others”. Other possible rewards were things like keychains, bookmarks or pens, plus one t-shirt and one pot, the ones who won those being told to go inside the gift shop and pick from what’s available there. In addition, two terrariums were given separately, at the end, as additional big prizes to two volunteers whose names Anca drew… Though she had to draw four to get two who were still there, even though she had told everyone to stay because there will be two big prizes at the end and those who’ll leave will lose their chance. And one of the names drawn was that of the girl I had been in the same team with, but they had both left just before that moment, so she missed her chance. Tried to send a message to someone with that name from the group, just letting her know she shouldn’t have left, but there’s no picture, so I can’t know whether that got to the right person or not, and I got no reaction so far anyway.

Seems like I didn’t have less to say after all, or not much less at least. But before ending this I should also mention that I got myself a pizza on the way back, from the same place I tend to buy from when I happen to do so, also going to the toilet there and then watching them try, and apparently fail, to figure out how to fit a group of 14 that was apparently coming a bit later in a small room. They were still struggling with that when the pizza was ready and brought to me, at which point a waitress insisted on giving me the “bill”, which was in fact the receipt, in a small basket even though I just tried to grab it straight from her hand. Then there was some confusion when I tried to pay there as well, the waitress I tried to give the money to probably being new, since she didn’t know what to do about that, and the one who seemed to be in charge taking the receipt from me and going with her to the register to show her… And then I had the young waitress rush after me on the street to give me back the receipt, which I had just left with them since they were using it when I left with my pizza… Which was a bit awkward, but also nice, seeing as some won’t even give you a receipt at all. And the pizza was once again tasty, of course.

Oh, forgot something that happened Monday night, when I went to the kitchen: The remote in the kitchen is held together by rubber bands and one had snapped, so I removed it and put another one there, but that was a tiny one which I stretched really tight in order to wrap around that side three times. What happened next was that I heard two loud snaps behind me when I went to the bathroom, but couldn’t figure out what the source was. Eventually did quite a long time later, when I was about to actually start eating after making a salad as well, and I wanted to change the channel and saw that rubber band missing. So I assume it snapped and launched with quite some force in a random direction, as I could find no pieces of it anywhere. Just hope I didn’t eat it, since I had water boiling for tea at the time, was making that salad, had bread sliced on a plate and other food in a bowl right on the table where the remote was, and that thing must have been filthy, and so is the remote for that matter.

And on the topic of things I forgot, should have mentioned earlier that I stopped reading my story too, after that sex scene which marked the last moment I had planned from the beginning before what should be the very end of what was planned as the first book, after the entire sea voyage. That happened at the end of October, and the next day, or more exactly the next night, so it was already November 1, I also fixed the handful of typos I had noticed and written down, after which I put my story away for good, no longer having anything to do with it after about a year and four months of my brain nagging me to start writing, seven full years of daily writing and three and a half months of daily reading.
Also glanced at an old backup file I had, since I was going to replace it with the file as it was when I stopped writing, so before fixing even those typos, and that told me that during the past two years and two and a half months of daily writing I managed to add just over 78000 words, so averaged less than 100 words per day. And all of it pointless, of course, since with the exception of that sex scene and one funny moment involving the troll, which I actually didn’t even get to include, the sea voyage was a complete blank in my mind all along and just trying to push forward, writing something and hoping I’ll get an actual idea at some point, obviously didn’t work at all.