ELSEWHERE

There's so much I have to learn before I can even get started with SnowRPG (MUD edition) and it's frustrating

Started a 100 Days of Python course, plan is to do two "days" a day until they get complicated enough that I need a day to do them. One set of lessons in the afternoon and then one at night after hanging out with Lee. Hey, if I keep it up at 2x speed for long enough it'll only take a couple months to get through!

It was raining off-and-on all day, including thunderstorms. Got pretty chilly, too. Lee was feeling a little under the weather so left us to fend for ourselves for dinner, I ordered pork udon from a local place and it was pretty good. Have enough left over from it for lunch

More rain tomorrow. Lee and I were going to go to the zoo this weekend but he needed to rest his ankle after his vacation last weekend, so we'll be doing zoo next weekend. Worked out for the best with this weather, it's good days to stay inside.

Back to the clinic on Monday to redo the test they didn't get enough data for the first time. It is supposed to stop raining by then, hopefully it does and that it doesn't switch up to being too hot instead.

The python lessons today were the usual print() function, string concatenation, variable types, math. There's always math in computers, it's very frustrating.

Appointment done and back home, and even done some more python lessons. I did an extra half of a day last night so I wouldn't have to this afternoon, but I'm up for it.

I usually walk from and to the train station when I go to this clinic but today I took the bus for those legs. I'm still pretty tired from it.

And when I got there they had my appointment down as being for a different thing that I was there for, but it got done anyway. Hopefully it's done-done and I don't need to go back again in a couple weeks, though frankly at this point if it happens again I'm going to just say fuck it and not get that test done.

Next weekend is Oz's followup vet appointment but after that I don't have anything scheduled and can start scheduling new things. Or trying to, anyway.

It's gorgeous out.

Legs is hurt

New tomodachi life is out!! Immediately overwhelmed by all the decisions it frontloads you with.,..

I wish I could import some miis from the first game, but even if that were an option I have no idea where my 3DS is. It wants me to start off making (at least) 6 miis to populate the island with, so I'll need to figure out who those are going to be

Excited, though! Especially with how badly my seaman playthrough has been going. This can replace that as my check-in-on-some-digital-friends-every-day thing.

 
Python is going pretty well. Yesterday I ran into the first concept I really struggled with and I still don't really get it (dictionaries), but the lessons are really solidifying other concepts for me that I'd learned elsewhere and couldn't get my head around. I've also learned that some things I've been taught (both in python in specific and in programming in general) are no longer considered best practices and are now "bad code", so that's. Cool, I guess. But I've programmed some simple games from scratch, now, and I'm closer to understanding what I need to be able to understand the evennia documentation.

Last night I ran out of soda because I was lower than I thought I was, so if I wanted soda today I needed to either walk to the store or order groceries delivered, and I decided to be lazy and do the latter. Looking around at options really solidified for me how expensive our nearby grocery store has gotten, though. Not sure what I'll do with that information, but today what I did was order from a different store

Instacart did have walmart as having 12-packs for $6/each, which is a wild price and I definitely tried to jump on it ... only to discover on checking out that it was for a walmart 30 miles away and ordering from them would add a long-distance-fee to my total. So I did not do that.

They also had sam's club as having 36-packs for $20, which is also a good deal and I did actually jump on that, and that's how I discovered you don't need a sam's club membership to order from them on instacart -- some kind of deal the two companies have with each other, apparently. They did not have much else I needed to get, though, so I do still need to do real groceries soon.

Anyway, so that arrived not too long ago, the soda and I also ordered some plastic grocery bags (for litterbox cleaning purposes, since you can't get them via buying groceries anymore). Since I didn't have any caffeine for most of the day I have not done any python lessons and it's late enough into the afternoon that I'm just going to wait to do that until this evening.

Tomorrow, Lee and I are going to the zoo! And on Sunday Oz has an appointment to get her thyroid levels re-checked. I need to check what's left on my cards to figure out how I'm going to pay for that, and I also need to fill out my medi-cal redetermination paperwork and get that mailed before the end of the month. That involves printing out a bank statement and sending it to them through the mail, which I hate doing but at least we should have a printer here at the house I can use, so I don't have to fucken, print out my bank information at the library or something. I did try to do the paperwork online but can't find the option anywhere, despite being told that that's an option.

Alright, in a minute here I have to go chop and saute an onion so I'll wrap this up.

Went to the zoo on Saturday! Lee has not been up for the extra walking that public transportation requires since he rolled his ankle about half a year ago, so we drove and that meant we had to find parking. There is no dedicated parking for the zoo, which is pretty neat except that the area it's in is in the middle of a regular neighbourhood and right next to two other theme parks and we were going on a Saturday afternoon, so. Parking was nonexistent and we had to walk for ten minutes from the car to the zoo anyway. This still might be worth it over the walking we'd have to do with public transportation, or maybe we'll split the difference and park somewhere from which we can take the bus the rest of the way.

It was a lovely day, though, and the walk was not terrible. And the zoo was nice! It is not a particularly big or fancy zoo, you can see basically everything within a couple hours. But they've got all the standards and whatnot. Also all the dinosaur animatronics are still up and a few of them have even been updated to have feathers!

We got there and immediately swung by the bathroom, and then decided that our plan would be to walk toward a thing we wanted to see, and see everything on the way, and when we got there we'd consult a map again and decide on the next thing to go see.

We did happen to be at the cheetah enclosure right when a couple keepers started giving them treats, Lee thinks because a make-a-wish style thing was happening (he saw a person in a wheelchair being let into a better viewing area that was otherwise off-limits) but aside from that did not get there in time to see any of the events. I would like, next time, to get there early enough to see Guinness the alligator doing his show.

Lee took a bunch of pictures with his instant camera that turned out pretty neat. I attempted to take a few with mine, but the exposure setting got set to pinhole, so none of them turned out, and I'm a bit bummed by that. I did take a couple with my phone, and a couple videos of the cheetahs and an okapi, so at least there's that.

Halfway through we stopped at the snack stand, where churros were being advertised, and attempted to buy some churros. We'd also planned on dippin' dots because Lee has never had them, but I made the executive decision that the flavours on offer were stupid (dippin' dots should not have not-dot inclusions) and we can try them somewhere else another time. Unfortunately when I got to the front of the line at the stand where churros were being advertised on two different posters and were on the menu, I was told they did not sell them and we needed to go to the cafe. So we did that and got a giant churro to split between us, and it was not a great churro but it was pretty good.

We also hit up the gift shop after we'd seen everything, and I tried to buy a Guinness-related souvenir but they only had crocodiles and caimans for sale and no alligators? Very strange. Everything was also of course very expensive, so I didn't want to compromise on it. They do at least actually have a caiman in the reptile room, but they do not have any crocodiles.

Just before we left, I had us swing by Guinness' enclosure again, because he'd been sleeping when we went there the first time and I wanted to see if I could get a better view of him, and he was Very active and seemed about to be fed or something! Unfortunately we couldn't stay any longer to see any more, so that'll also perhaps be an another-time thing.

They'd planned, a few years ago now I think, to move the zoo to a new area that is much less accessible to me. That plan fell through, apparently, so is no longer happening. It would undoubtedly have better parking and I imagine the keepers would have been extremely happy to have more room than they currently do, but I am honestly really happy that it is still so easy for me to get to. I really should go more often.

 
Sunday was Oz appointment, and pretty early in the morning (for me). It was an easy visit, though, just getting some of her blood and sending it to a lab, no need to see a vet or anything. It was still $230, though, so that hurts. I'm also worried, because we did ask if we needed to adjust her pill schedule before the appointment at all and were told that there was no need, but her schedule means that the appointment was basically exactly 11 hours after her previous pill (and just before her next one). I also mentioned that when they took her back and the person didn't seem concerned about it or anything, so. I just know that when I go to get levels checked for whatever, they have me do it at like the midway point between when I take the medication, so they're not testing at the absolute lowest (or highest) the levels get.

 
But yeah, spent yesterday pretty tired, and between that + walking around the zoo + the weather today has turned rainy again, I also spent today pretty tired. I actually ended up napping for a good chunk of it, and have not tried to get very much done. What I did get done, though, is my medi-cal redetermination paperwork -- I filled it out on paper and then on a whim checked the website again and this time it let me do it digitally. Hopefully there's no problems with it, I'm pretty nervous.

Once I know what my insurance situation is going to be, I can start looking for a doctor again.

 
Aside from all that, I have been playing a ton of Tomodachi Life, of course. I am up to 19 people living on my island, and my island level is 47. There are definitely a hefty handful of features from the first one that I miss in this one and that I hope maybe they add back in an update or DLC, though that will likely depend on how popular it is, and it's always been a more niche franchise compared to Animal Crossing (which did get several updates and a DLC). I feel particularly like everyone on my island just gets along way too well, there isn't enough negative drama -- and it's not like I don't have a healthy mix of personality types, I'm only missing three types and the others have 1 or 2 miis in them (except one which has 3). I am hoping that as time passes the miis will get on each other's nerves more.

Relationship progression is also moving really, really fast -- I have 4 married couples already and the game came out like four days ago? Miis get crushes at the drop of a hat like they're imprinting on the first, second, and third person they see

All that said, I'm still having a lot of fun with it! Sim games where I get to make my characters and then just watch them run around, interacting with each other, and doing stuff, is exactly my cup of tea. I'm even enjoying the island design features more than I'd expected given that that is not my cup of tea. I'm sure there's plenty more for me to see, again since I've only been playing for four days. I don't want to sound super negative about it just because I do have some complaints.