It's September! The clouds have been out more and more lately, and a chill has crept into the morning air. Another busy week has come to a close. I am excited that I've had some work things to move on, both for comail and a few other projects, and I had some fun outings over the course of the week to report.
What I've Been Up To
Got my week off to a good start, and had KBBQ with at Baegopa in the CID. I would say the food was somewhat unremarkable but it was a great time, and I felt like I got some real good practice in grilling meat with nobody else to tell me what to do. I thought it was funny that she suggested bbq when neither of us knew how to grill meats, but I suppose I bear some responsibility for not mentioning my lack of skill until we arrived at the restaurant. Had a great time. The guy at the table next to us was very friendly all night and offered help cooking, and then when he left, he said something completely insane which I am mad I cannot recall at this moment. If I remember it, I will update the blog, but suffice to say it was maddening enough to haunt me for the remainder of the evening.
Tuesday, I basically worked all day, but Wednesday, I had occasion to venture to the Bellevue Library in order to fix an issue with my King County Library card. It's always a fun time when you get to cross the floating bridge, it never gets old and feels like a profound achievement of engineering (even though apparently it might be killing fish). I wore my Heely's there and I have to say, Bellevue is probably the most Heelyable place I have ever been. Every sidewalk is new and perfectly smooth, with tons of shallow hills you can just roll down forever. Perhaps there is a negative correlation between a place being Heelyable and having a soul.
Before going to the library, I went to a place called Mom's Table1, where I got a mediocre Caprese sandwich. I feel in hindsight that they almost certainly had better food options and it was my poor decision making that led to this disappointment. I was hoping for coffee, but upon glancing at their beans, I decided there was probably a better place nearby in this concrete jungle of a city. I headed to the library and was pretty impressed. It was big, clean and easy to get help with my card issue. I walked around for a while, marveling at the size of the place and how quiet it was, something that is not often true in the Seattle libraries I've been to.
After fixing the issue, I looked at my phone for a coffee place hoping for something interesting in the area, and saw a decent looking place called Story Coffee2. I rolled down over, getting sort of confused when I found myself in front of an imposing "Human Upgrade Center", with no cafe in sight.
I did a bit of sleuthing and eventually found the place. I was delighted to find it was a welcoming and inviting space that seemed to take coffee extremely seriously. They sold all sorts of interesting beans and had shelves full of cool coffee contraptions, some which you could buy and some just there for display. I ordered a honeycomb latte and waited, marveling at the marble trays they had for sale while I waited. The place was characteristically expensive, as you might expect from a cafe a few blocks away from a Louis Vuitton and an Hermes, but also not absurdly overpriced. I was extremely pleased with the coffee. At first, the honeycomb was a bit awkward, but as it melted into the drink, it imparted a delicate flavor and it was easier to eat the thinned bits of cookie left. I would probably come back to Bellevue just to get this again.
I also must confess as I sat the cafe, I was editing this video of myself heelying around Bellevue, which got some moderate number of views on Bluesky.
Finally, it was time to leave Bellevue for my next chore, which was going to Progressive RC, which I was excited to find out was an FPV drone store accessible to me via light rail in Seattle. Unfortunately, I clearly didn't do enough research, as I was confused to show up to what appeared to be a huge warehouse. Undaunted3, I proceeded to walk into the warehouse and knocked on the door with their address. Nobody came so I yelled at them through these transparent slats they had where a sign pointed for picking up orders. They said they can't let anyone in, that there is no "Progressive RC" store, just a warehouse, and that if I wanted to buy something I should just order it online and they could grab it for me. This was sort of disappointing, I was hoping for a place to share knowledge, where I could ask questions and get advice, but no one wanted to talk to me. Instead, as I looked through their website, I realized they are basically just dropshipping last generations AliExpress drone parts at a small markup, meaning buying from them is 100% worse than just ordering the latest stuff directly from China via BetaFPV (which I should really stop procrastinating).
It was raining pretty hard on my walk to and from the warehouse, and really the only upside of this whole depressing saga was when I got back on the light rail home, there was a nice woman named Susan who chatted with me about working at the City and offered me career advice. She did sort of ghost me when I emailed her, though. Maybe I will try again, I know emails can be an intimidating place.
Regicide Status Update
Wednesday night, I played Regicide Legacy with my friends again. It's a great game, so I wanted to do a little aside to tell people about this game I've been playing roughly once a week with my friends.
The game commands a nearly $100 price tag, which seems like a lot because it is, but it is definitely the nicest legacy game I've experienced. Our latest adventure put us at the end of Box 5, and I am always sort of in awe at the way the game makers managed to weave a story with all these cards, adding new characters and removing characters while keeping the game pretty balanced.
I will say box 4 was an absolute nightmare, to the point where my friends almost totally quit the game, but I'm glad we got through it.
The core mechanism of the game is pretty simple actually, and can be played with a simple deck of cards. You basically try to fight an increasingly difficult series of bosses with your friends while making sure you have enough resources to face the next boss. Each suit does different things, and if you are careful you can sway them to join your team. The co-op mechanic of everybody being responsible for the survival of everybody else makes the whole game feel a bit tense but forgiving, you don't want to screw over your friends, which is a nice change from lots of other competitive games where you might feel some level of guilt for your deceptions.
I really like the legacy part of the game, it's quite satisfying to add stickers on to different parts of the game and have your deck slowly become different more tuned, and the story makes certain characters memorable as inside jokes.
I've been kind of cycling through friends playing it, though at this point there are enough "extra" mechanics that I worry it would be hard to get someone new up to speed.
I like seeing update bluesky on how things are going. Here is a summary of our questing.
If you decide to get the game and play with some friends, let me know how it goes! I've heard that playing with four people is basically max difficulty, and yet to me it is the only way to play. Maybe three people is enough, but I find the social aspect the most fun, even if we lose.
Thursday, girlgoose and I headed to the Seattle Japanese Garden to experience free first Thursday. She had just bought a piece of art from the artist Yoshi Nakagawa, who was having an exhibition there. Her art was really impressive, highly recommend you go check it out if you have the chance! Here are some pictures of my favorite works from the exhibit.
And some pictures from just walking around the garden. They are working on a big project, rebuilding a wall in a traditional method. I'm not super familiar with it, but I hear it's quite involved. For me, I was mostly there to look at moss. I love moss.
I am also excited, now that Signal has allowed users to link multiple phones to one account, I can actually use my light phone to stay in touch with friends without having to awkwardly introduce them all to a different account. This inspired me to make a simple write-only bluesky post app, which is something I've wanted for a while. It feels really nice to use and have no sense of engagement.
Saturday was my big adventure day, and embarked on an early journey to Port Gamble, a place which, having done no research of my own before the trip, I merely assumed was full of slot machines and poker tables. We met at around 9am and headed to the fast ferry to Kingston4. We (mostly me) loaded up our bike bags with snacks at Grocery Outlet, then embarked on the long, somewhat harrowing journey to the Port of Gambling. It was certainly not my favorite bike route, there was mostly no bike lane, and we spent quite a bit of time on stretches of 40-50mph roads with super narrow shoulders. I kind of spent the entire time tensed up wondering when we'd arrive. Eventually, we did get there though, and were greeted by the lovely Port Gamble Water Towers.
We ended up eating and exploring the area for a while. There were a number of sort of kitschy shops, a pretty great restaurant, and an extremely cool yarn store, which I wish was there to see, though the journey to see it was pretty arduous. Eventually, we headed out, and took a long path through a mountain bike park, which was great for a long time until eventually we were spit back onto the 40 mph road with the 2-inch wide shoulder, where I simply dissociated until we got back to Kingston.
In classic Kingston fashion5, the ferry was not coming for over an hour, so Kevin and I got a single beer each at the brewery by the ferry terminal and chatted. There was a little kid in cowboy boots who asked for a beer, and to my absolute shock, the bartender gave him one. I guess we didn't get IDed either. Eventually, we did get on the ferry, and let me tell you, those fast ferries sure are fast, because I was probably back in my apartment about an hour after we got on the boat.
Here are some more pictures of the trip for inquiring minds to enjoy.
Anyways, that was basically my week! One highlight of Sunday was successfully avoiding being sharked by at my friend's poker game, despite momentarily having a stack that looked like this.
I Saw the Signs
Here is the weeks collection of signs. Beautiful, are they not? You will notice Bellevue and Kitsap County both have rizzless signs designed explicitly to prevent people from having fun. Food for thought.
What's Coming Up
This week! What's Happening!
For one, I am returning to Portland! After a very short hiatus, girlgoose wanted to go see this Tsubamesanjo Craft Fair this weekend, so we are returning! Always looking for Portland food / coffee recommendations for when I'm there.
I am extremely distraught to realize this trip means I will miss the greatest rock paper scissor tournament in Seattle history. I am begging somebody to go in my stead and record the event for me. Perhaps even win the trophy in my honor? 🥺👉👈
Mushroom foraging basics class at Skal Bear Hall - Thursday, September 10, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Modular synth performance at Pacific Science Center (FREE!!) - Sept 12, 6 - 9 PM. Catch it after your rock-paper-scissors victory lap??
Best of the Net
Intransitive - Really cool strategy-based rock paper scissors game someone made.
More Hype for the Slate Truck, how I yearn for a lil gray EV. Perhaps the Chevy Bolt is still superior.
Coconut Lang - finally, Python with all the things I loved about R
had a tomato party and I am jealous.
BBalort - baked beans malort, yum
Hey, look at that. All done. With 20 whole minutes left of September 7th! Time management at it's finest. Now let's see how long it takes me to write all that alt text6... Thanks for reading, hope you have a lovely week.