The Septembers

It's been a pretty stressful last few weeks.  I suppose I should vent a bit about it - I really hate when everything has to be walled away and then you're given permission to do something.  It is fairly difficult trying to use OSS when the assumption is "just update it to the @next version" and it'll be fixed.  I had run into this recently when having to push an Angular 5 project to IIS when it started screaming to install 'extreme-code-plugin' (patent pending) and suddenly I'm missing an entire node_modules folder.  It's even worse when the assumption is that a Dev is the master of his desktop (Administrator) when it is suddenly taken away.  Being hamstrung to security rigour can put a screeching halt to things.

I dunno.  I'm hoping that this project has a light at the end of the tunnel before my vacation time kicks in.  I'd hate to take a week off right in the middle of something and lose face in the process.  If there was any question as to whether or not Americans are hard-working, it should come to light that taking vacation time when there is work to be done is still at the forefront of our thoughts.  I reckon the odd part is how we still manage to be optimistic in the face of this all.

In addition, I'd like to get back to my side projects, but I have been horribly tired the last few weeks as well.  All I want to do is sleep when I get home, but I'm trying to extend my day out (nee unnecessarily) just so my routine doesn't get messed up.

There's always tomorrow.

Service Fabric updates

So after hitting a breakthrough at work, I also came home and knocked a few things outta the park.  For starters, I managed to get all of my framework stuff up and out of 2.1.301 and up to 2.1.4 - I am hoping for 2.2 to be released to production, but those things take time.

I did manage to get the EF stuff migrating and updating the database.  Fears are, however, that since I'm tying Character objects to subscribers, that stuff may be in flux for a while.  At least I got down the basics.  Should be full-steam-ahead however from there.  The best bet would be to have a solid weekend to knock against the SF to see what kind of noise it makes.

Also, I'm kinda dreading having to talk to the installation people - they took way too long to get me a quote (in addition to installing the darn TV) that I'm just going someplace else.  I really don't want to wait a full week just to get a quote and then gawd knows how long to get it up on the wall.

Texas Roadhouse and the weekend

Well, another week has gone by and thankfully there is a 3-day weekend ahead.  I got to start it off with a nice dinner with the siblings at Texas Roadhouse and came home to watch 'How Not to Summon a Demon Lord.'  The anime is really trash, but it is 25 minutes of time to kill whilst I think about code stuff.

Of which, I'm making a test character to see how well it maps up to the bootstrap template I used.  Depending on how easy it is, I can also apply that knowledge towards Tim/George's initiative tracker.  There is just a lot of stuff going on with that tool.  Ultimately, I'll have to also figure out the plumbing for logins, adding people to groups, managing permissions, a database of characters, and then also how to integrate NPCs into the system - which is going to be far trickier, methinks.

Also, the nice thing was that NewEgg decided to put a rush on the package, so hopefully it will actually arrive at its destination instead of getting swallowed up in the USPS hole like the last one did.  This is why it is bad to have unaccountable unions who can just muscle over the government and make it say 'Uncle.'

Gah.

An unexpected first world problem appears

: Having acid reflux but the only last thing you ate was your psych pills.  There are most definitely worse things out there, but having to choke down vomit else you have an episode has to be at least in the upper middle.

Game day playtesting

Today was pretty fun, we got to test out the chase rules system and went over an old map to save someone who we faked their death.  The nice thing about it was there was tension and everyone played their part and it was still fun.  It is cool to not have a game focus just on RP or on combat but still felt like you were using your skills and abilities for your character and accomplish something big.

That is why I really enjoy tabletop games - it is not only participating in a story but have a group of friends to share the enjoyment with.  There is something to be said about being in a room with friends that you don't get with playing online games, seeing a movie, or breaking bread.  It's something I feel is missing in the 21st century and I would wish more people would get into it like they did in the 70s.

Package missed

Well.  Crap.

I had a package that was supposed to go to a friend's house and.. well... it didn't arrive.  Now I'll have to find out what the heck happened to it.  I hope it was just the post office being the post office and not doing something right.  That's what happens when you let a union take over a government office.  Barely get any work done but they still get paid and their precious pensions.

Ugh.

However, I'm not ready for the stress of it, so I'm going to put it off till Monday and see if it resolves itself by then.  Entirely possible that it will and I'll have headaches for nothing.

Oh well,  I'm going to fiddle around with the literary character sheets for now - should be a snap with Dreamweaver to help do all of the fancy bootstrap stuff.

Yay! Frickin' YAY!

I got the cards set up, they are showing the proper dialogue boxes, the card deck doesn't have a horizontal scroll box, and now I'm on the bit for the tag clouds.  I'll probably have to dig around for a good look on the items (I kinda want to have stylable items like pills or rounded boxes) but I can push this to my fabric and see how that pans out.

I think the next big step is adding user registration, cookie caching (a quirk of fabric), and a full character generation system.

Also, Bright was pretty good.  It seemed like standard fare and 'The Dark Lord' bit somehow felt shoehorned into it - most of the actors seemed to choke on saying it.  Otherwise, the action was pretty good and the acting was passable.  The corrupt-cops-fighting-over-the-wand scene was a low point in the movie.  It cheapened the characters as villains.