Author: kirabug

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Day 421: a year

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 421:

Another thing my numbering mistake hid from me is that I’ve been here at least a standard Old Earth year now. I say “at least” because the day lengths here are obviously extremely shorter, but I’m at 421 of them, so I’m still pretty sure that I passed 365 Old Earth years.

As for now many Standard years I’ve been here, well, to be honest, i’m not even going to try to guess unless someone wants to miraculously drop me a horrible-rock-to-Standard-day converter. And if they do that, and don’t pick me up, then they are horrible people.

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Day 420: bad accounting

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 420:

So yesterday I got back a little early from my work and decided I wanted to look up when something happened in here…

…and discovered that when I’d meant to number day 300, I had numbered it day 230.

I don’t know what I was thinking.

Probably I had taken a blow to the head recently.

Anyway, I could try to go through a hundred or so posts and try to renumber them, but that would make a mess of most of these pages, so I’m not.

Instead, I’m just going to keep going like nothing happened. Because really, having some numbers out of whack, while extremely embarrassing, isn’t nearly as important to my life as making sure the zombies can’t get in the windows.

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Day 349: Diamonds!

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 349: I found a pretty good sized cache of diamonds today!

It was under a vein of coal. I almost didn’t dig out the coal but then I thought I still don’t know whether the seasons here eventually change and it would not be a good idea to get myself into a situation where I couldn’t remember which of the eight bazillion abandoned dig sites I left it in.

So I dug it out, and underneath was a huge (for diamond) cache of diamond ore stuff. (It’s hammer-able which is very odd so I hesitate to call it diamond just like canned cheese food needs that “food” label at the end to remind you that it’s edible.)

So huzzah! Diamonds!

I’m going to dig around a bit more here and see if there are any more relatively close, and then it’s back to the attempts to reach the mountain.

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Day 348: Still looking

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 348:

I’ve found more of that electric red stone, some of that weird blue stone that makes my books glow purple, lots of granite, some andesite, and a bunch of duckens that followed me down here, but no diamonds yet.

Feeling a lot better so I’m pretty sure I don’ have a parasite as my understanding is parasites make you feel increasingly worse, not better. I guess those immune system stimulants they gave us were long term? Or the microbes down here are gentle? Heck, for all  I know my body just couldn’t break down the protein in the ducken meat raw.

Anyway, no diamonds, but no food poisoning. I’ll count it as a win.

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What I wrote in 2018

Publications

It’s yes, I should write an eligibility post season again.

Short stories published in 2018

“The Ground Shifted”,  published by Dreaming Robot Press in Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide Volume 5.  Each year the publishers collect science fiction stories appropriate to middle-grade readers regarding exploring. They emphasize diversity in characters and situations.

“You know about this?” Rosetta replied. “It’s a half a cat.”

“Well, technically it’s a holographic presentation of half a cat. The house’s AI sends her in when there’s something it can’t do and needs the inhabitants to take over.” Auntie replied. “I wonder if the ventilation system is clogged again.”

“WHY IS IT ONLY HALF A CAT?” Rosetta stabbed into the keyboard.

“You’ve only got a half a house, so she’s only half a cat,” Auntie replied.

Poetry published in 2018

“Food Shopping”, published by Lycan Valley Press in Darkling’s Beasts and Brews: Poetry with a Drink on the Side.

The parking lot’s dimples retained last night’s storm
each wheel well shimmering with rainbows
when the Cadillac rolled in, heavy.

You threw open the door and clambered out.
First sandals, then navy blue cotton pants
festooned with smiling crescent moons
then a linen shirt,
puffy sleeves stained with potions and charms
a beard that covered eyelet and drawstring close at the collar
A practiced motion tucked the point on the hat of a wizard point under the door frame

You were muttering even before you had the door closed.

Other stuff

If you’re more of the User Experience or Design wonk, you may be interested in my list of posts on The Interconnected, where I’ve published numerous articles on UX, Design, and being a human in the internet age.