Corner of Bourbon & Division

So the latest round of diplomacy at the White House ended up as a bullying/shouting match between Trump, Vance, and poor Vlodymyr Zelensky. I think Marco Rubio was there too, but he didn't have anything useful to say. Zelensky left empty-handed, and if it wasn't obvious before that Trump is firmly in Russia's corner, it should be patently obvious now. I watched a little bit of it, and what the media are qualifying as a "shouting match" was more a case of Trump and Vance loudly talking over Zelensky every time he tried to advocate for his country.

It boiled down to "You didn't kiss the ring enough, so now you get nothing." It was so gross, but also I think that it was a long shot for Zelensky to walk away with anything but his pride once this was done. I'm livid on his behalf, and also incredibly worried, because if Ukraine falls, it will tip the political and economic balance in the world in a huge way. It's not for nothing that Ukraine is called the "breadbasket of the world." Not that it's been able to produce a ton of agricultural exports while it's been at war, but having it fall under Russian control would be a global disaster.

In Canadian news, my province elected Doug Fucking Ford for a third term with another fucking majority. Apparently the people of Ontario were just salivating for four more years of corruption, scandals, greed, graft, and more gutting of our healthcare and education systems. We're already teetering on the brink of disaster, and this will definitely put us over the edge. Covid and bird flu will break our already fragile hospital system, and Ford has already taken a hatchet to all the programs that support vulnerable kids across the province.

I'm so frustrated. The only glimmer of hope that I have is that Ontario tends to vote the opposite federally of what they vote provincially, so this might, MIGHT mean that the Conservatives will have a harder time getting in during the next federal election, which will be happening at some point in the pretty near future. The Liberal leadership race is still underway, although it looks like Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of Canada, is the frontrunner for that race. I am not thrilled about him, because he leans VERY conservative, but he's still better than the shitheads currently in charge of the Conservative Party. Not by much, granted, but still better. I'd prefer an NDP win, but apparently Canada is still too racist to vote for a party whose leader isn't a white dude. We don't even like voting for women, as a rule.

In the meantime, I've been mainlining Critical Role some more so that I don't spend all my time having ontological crises about the state of the world. All the episodes that I have left are five hours long, sometimes more, and the finale is eight and a half hours long, so I still have literally over a full day's worth of watching to do. I just started Episode 117, which is essentially the Beginning of the End. If anyone remembers what regular television used to be like, it's like the ramp-up to Ratings Week/season finales, when television shows would produce episodes with increasingly high stakes and cliffhanger endings in order to hit the climax right when it was time for Nielsen ratings to boost their viewing numbers. Except this is a lot more organic because of course Critical Role just streams online, so there's no need to create artificial suspense. The nature of D&D games creates its own suspense, because unless you're a tiny group with no audience willing to play marathon sessions for 12+ hours (and I have been part of those groups in the past!) you have to stop the session *somewhere*, and that usually means a cliffhanger of some kind. Needless to say, the stakes have never been higher in a Critical Role campaign, and 

So right now Critical Role is keeping me sane. I will have to find something else to take its place when I finally finish the current season. I'll probably go back to audiobooks, since I have a long tbr list in all my various apps. It's the only "problem" with marathoning Critical Role--it's incompatible with reading or listening to audiobooks, and my reading streak from January has taken a serious hit. Since I have about 28 more hours of listening I figure I'll probably be done by the end of next week, and then I'll get properly back into my books.

 Slowly making my way through my weekend day shifts. D&D ended at a reasonable hour but then we stayed up chit-chatting, and I got to bed very late considering it was a work night. I hadn't had the chance to play this particular D&D campaign in several weeks due to a bunch of scheduling glitches and last-minute emergencies for a bunch of us (distributed pretty evenly across the board). We're doing a D&D/gothic horror mashup with Masque of the Red Death, and it's a lot of fun. The nice thing about having a D&D group who are all in agreement that what's important is the story and the character development is that you don't get the unpleasantness of having some players who want to powergame or murder-hobo their way through generic dungeons. You also have the advantage of everyone, including the DM, pulling in the same direction of "what will make the coolest/most affecting story?" We left on a cliffhanger of an entire building just falling off a cliff into the sea. Oops? (It was not the party's fault, for the record.)

There's not much going on at work today. I'm on the Marine desk, and handling an incident involving a grounded cargo vessel that has attracted the attention of the directors, but everything is fully under control, so I've been continuing my catch-up of Critical Role. I've watched ten episodes (I think) since the last time I talked about it, and holy cow, so much is going on! I'm currently watching the live performance from June 15th, 2025. Sam Riegel has made a surprise appearance! I thought Episode 91 was the last I'd see of him for a few months, so it was fun to have him show up. I don't think he'll be here for more than just this live show, but still, it's nice to see his face.

I think the next three or four episodes are a separate story, so I'm not sure if that means Matt will DM for the same characters but in a parallel universe kind of thing, or if a different DM will run the show the way Brennan Lee Mulligan did for the events of the Calamity or Aabria Iyengar for Exandria Unlimited. Whatever they decide to do, I am excited to see what happens. Usually these smaller arcs offer a deeper glimpse into the lore of the world, and I am a sucker for lore.

I still have three and a half hours before I get to go home, and then I have to send out the announcements for Quaker Meeting when I get home. Which reminds me, I need to prepare for my turn at First Day School next weekend. I somehow let myself be roped back in, which is not my favourite thing to do. I always feel singularly unqualified to teach young people about Quakerism when I myself know so very little, even after all these years. When I was the Clerk of FDS Committee I spent so much time stressed the fuck out, and I am not really looking forward to going back to anything remotely resembling that. At least this time I won't be the Clerk, and I've only committed to one Sunday a month, which isn't too bad. Probably what I'll do is arm myself with a whole ton of arts & crafts supplies and try to make the activities as child-led as possible while doing my best to keep it thematically Quaker. There's a lot happening in the world right now, and depending on how old the kids are (it varies a lot), we can gear whatever we're doing toward whatever is on their minds on that day.

We'll see how it goes, I guess.

I did manage to wet block the Hubris Shawl, although it's so big that I didn't have a surface large enough to hold it, so I'm not sure how good a job I did. I did have a sneaky but unformed plan to try to drive to Montreal and back at some point next week, although I don't know how 'd manage that with KK's work schedule. She's asked me to attend a pre-retirement course with her Wednesday and Thursday, and she's planning to be in the office Monday and Friday, and on top of that I have a medical appointment on Tuesday. If KK could switch one of her in-office days to Tuesday I could manage it, but I don't think she will. After that I won't be able to visit my parents for at least another month, which is very sad. Maybe I'll ask for a day or two off in the coming weeks, but there aren't a ton of options on the schedule. Everyone and their cousin is off on courses, which means that there's very little wriggle room for the rest of us to take time off. It kind of sucks, and since I'm the most recent hire, I am last to be considered for everything. *sigh* One of the drawbacks of shift work, alas.

This week just flew by, holy shit.  I have been watching the finale of the second campaign of Critical Role, but it's a monster episode--over seven hours long!--so I expect I won't have finished it before the end of the weekend. It's been a very satisfying finale so far, with lots of deep emotional resolution for some really fraught characters arcs, and a surprise twist early on in the episode which truly caught me off-guard but in retrospect makes perfect sense.

The internet is rife with rumours that the cast aren't going to stay for Campaign 3, that they're all burned out and want to move on to something else. I can understand being burned out after the pandemic, but they have also built an entire business based around the show, so I am quite sure we won't lose them entirely. Worst case scenario I think some of them might choose to take a step away from the gaming table to focus more on running the business end of things, but I think people's fears that CR will be cancelled outright are misplaced. If nothing else, the cast have all talked about doing Campaign 3, but they're just not ready to make any kind of official announcement. I'm guessing they will take the summer "off" in the sense that they'll do a bunch of one-shots and maybe give Matt Mercer a break from constantly DMing. Running a multi-year campaign week after week for years is a herculean task, even if it is a passion job for him.

I rarely if ever watch the one-shots, so I am weirdly looking forward to getting the summer "off" from CR as well. Kind of like back in the good old days of regular TV seasons, when shows would stop filming for the summer and you could spend your days outside not thinking about your favourite characters except to look forward to the fall premieres of your regular TV shows. Yes, I am a weirdo, and I know that most people just want endless episodes without interruption, but I am kind of an "absence makes the heart grow fonder" kind of girl, and CR is wonderful but also super long--the average episode is over four hours long--so it's a pretty intense time commitment each week if you watch regularly.

I didn't intend this post to be all about Critical Role, but here we are! I am off to bed now because it's past 9 pm and I have a big weekend ahead of me. The plan is to take Peggy out for a long run early both tomorrow and Sunday, and then when she's good and tired I will head to KK's house earlier than I normally go (I usually go in the afternoon, but I am going to aim for mid-morning) and do a really hard push to get as much done this weekend as possible. I think if I crack the whip KK will follow my lead, and if we do a massive push this weekend and show real progress it might motivate her to keep working on her own even if I'm not there to help during the week.

Oh well. Perfect is the enemy of good, as they say. Or something like that, I don't recall the exact phrasing.

Nothing exciting has happened to me the last couple of days anyway. I took Peggy for runs, I puttered around the house, and I caught up on all the episodes of Critical Role I missed for the past five or six weeks. That's kind of it. I stayed up waaaaaaay too late last night listening to Critical Role (I catch up by listening to the podcast version rather than watching it on Twitch or YouTube), and then work called at a slightly ungodly hour this morning, so I went back to bed and then slept for a very, very long time. Peggy was very patient with me, so I took her out for an extra long run in the late afternoon, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

I've signed up for more "good manners" training with Peggy. Since the incident last Monday with the attempted poultricide, I think it's necessary for everyone's well-being to get some professional help to get her to listen to me better. I got complacent during the pandemic because there was so little mischief for her to get up to, and last summer she seemed to calm down about the chickens after a while. Clearly that was a false sense of security, because we were a hair's breadth away from massacred barnyard fowl. 

That's it for me. One day I will have exciting stuff to post about, but today is not that day. The only "excitement" around here is that Ontario has declared a lockdown because we're now in an uncontrolled third wave of the pandemic. Of course, our government's definition of "lockdown" appears to be "keep everything open because THE ECONOMY," but that's what you get when you elect a conservative government. *sigh*

 I ended up not coming back to my post, and now it's Thursday.

I will not, alas, be staying up for Critical Role tonight, because it's 18:30 and I can barely keep my eyes open. Better to go to bed early and watch tomorrow, when I'm fresh. Otherwise I'll just end up nodding off during the show and missing all the important stuff anyway. I'm pretty excited, because Vox Machina are all at Level 17 and above now, which means their story is ramping up toward the End Game of Level 20, and I can't wait to see what Matt has in store for them!

I've been lured into a new video game called Stardew Valley by fearsclave , who is responsible for so many of my bad habits that I have truly lost count. It's a fun little game, although I'm finding certain aspects a little frustrating. I spent a couple of days obsessing about it, and then I had to work, which generally put the kibosh on most of my extra-curricular activities anyway. I may go back to it tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning, depending on how soon I decide to be boring and go to bed.

Otherwise, life proceeds as usual. I have done no unpacking since the weekend, when my parents visited, and I should probably get on that. Living out of half-opened boxes ain't all it's cracked up to be, but I'm also a terrible procrastinator, and apparently I'm willing to put up with a lot of inconvenience to avoid unpacking properly.

I promised myself I'd be doing more in May, and yet this week I have been a mix of mysteriously extra tired and also pretty busy, video games aside. I'm still not settled into anything remotely like a routine here, inasmuch as I am able to have routines in my life at all these days. There's a lot of upheaval at work again: more people leaving, a couple of new people coming in, but more going than coming, and so now I'm probably going to have to go back to training newbies, which I really don't enjoy. Bleh.

I also am kind of dipping my toe into paying closer attention to hockey. Yeah, I don't understand it either, but there you go. My home team are out of the playoffs ("No, Habs, no!") but my not-quite-home team, the Senators, are still in it for now, so I'm rooting for them. Many, if not most of my online friends are Penguins fans, and although I can't quite bring myself to root for an American team, Sidney Crosby is at least Canadian and is, I must say, pretty magical on the ice. So it's fun to watch my Pens friends get all excited about their boys.

Okay. My brain has officially turned to mush tonight. Time to give it a rest. :)

I got home yesterday and, knowing Critical Role was starting around 22:00 (it airs at 19:00 Pacific), I decided a nap was in order. Due to landlady shenanigans and other, less vital things, I didn't get enough sleep the previous two nights, and Critical Role often keeps me up well past 1:00. So I curled up for a nap, and slept right up until 21:50. Not quite my intent, but I definitely needed the sleep, and then CritRole ended up lasting until nearly 3:00, so it worked out for the best.

It also means I didn't write the promised post, but never fear, here it is now!

Okay, again, for the new people, there is something you should know about me:

( A brief history of Phnee and roleplaying )( Excited rambling about Critical Role behind the cut )

Hello, and welcome to the new people from the friending meme! I am trying to be better about posting. We shall see how long my good intentions last! This is a really nice road I'm paving, I wonder where it leads? ;)

I had a bit of a day today. In the grand scheme of things it wasn't anything terrible, but it felt unnecessarily stressful. My current landlady and I have a bit of a fraught relationship. She's a hot-tempered Italian lady who runs a hair salon. She favours long fake nails, platinum blonde hair, skin-tight white jeans, and an enormous white SUV. Now, I'm not usually one to make a big deal over cultural differences (I will totally cop to being a snob, but I'm a self-aware snob, at least), but I think it illustrates where we have trouble communicating. She tends to perceive a problem and immediately fly off the handle and threatens to evict me (always over voicemail), and then once we've actually spoken in person she calms right down again, because it's never as dire as she assumed it was. This has happened three times now, and each time, once I've seen her face to face, she climbs down off the ledge she's on and apologizes for pitching a fit. It's exhausting.

Anyway, today wasn't a threaten-to-evict-me day, at least. Instead, she called at 16:00 to tell me that she'd hired people to come clean out the air vents, and they were coming at 17:00. Yeah. That's right. One hour later. Actually, she first said they'd be there between 17:00 and 21:00. We had the following exchange:

Landlady: "They're going to be there between 5pm and 9pm."

Me: "I'm working tomorrow, [Landlady]. On work nights I'm usually in bed by 8pm, because I have to get up early."

Landlady: "Oh, GOOD, you'll be home, then!"

Me: "..."

Me: "No, [Landlady], what I meant was, I'm home at that time, but I'm usually asleep."

Landlady: *breezily* "Oh, well, they'll probably be there at 5 anyway."


As it turned out, they arrived at 16:40. Now, new people to this LJ will not be aware that I am, to put it mildly, a terrible housekeeper. Combine that with working long shifts, as well as four cats and a dog, and you may not be surprised to learn that my house is, on a regular basis, a disaster area. Today was not an exception to that, and so I did a bit of a mad scramble to get things moderately presentable so that the workmen could come in and access all the air vents and registers.

The noise terrified all the pets, to the point I had to bring the dog outside so he'd stop freaking out. Two of the cats hid under the shelves in the pantry, one hid on top of a bookcase, and another under my bed. Poor kitties. Then my landlady informed me that ANOTHER crew was coming for furnace maintenance, "between 6pm and 10pm." I showed great restraint and didn't lunge at her throat. Feel free to drop off cookies in this handy container here. *puts box out*

Anyway, the furnace guy actually arrived at 19:30, and was gone an hour later, so it wasn't too terrible. It's now way past my bedtime, but I'm all cranked up from running around after workmen, so I'm trying to wind down by writing an LJ entry. Could be worse.

I got more work done on the garden today, in more exciting news. I obtained some cucumber seedlings and took them, the dog, and some gardening supplies to the community garden. I had spotted a (rather expensive) planter at Costco yesterday, and decided to acquire it today, but it was sold out when I got there, much to my disappointment. At least it saved me some money. So now, unless I decide to squeeze in some herbs, my community plot is completely planted. Time to sit back, water and weed occasionally, then reap the rewards! The tomato seedlings seem to have borne up well overnight, too, which is a good sign. Here's hoping the cucumber holds up as well!


I repotted all the mint into a planter on my patio, but ran out of energy before I could get to the basil, thyme, rosemary, and remaining tomatoes. Even if I'd had the energy, it was soon after that my landlady called and set the furnace adventures into motion. I was going to try to get the rest done tomorrow after work, but I just got reminded that I volunteered to help clear out the garden at the Quaker meetinghouse tomorrow evening already. Whoops! Guess it may have to wait an extra day. I'll water the seedlings well and hope they can tough out another day or so.

Someone remind me that, in the next few days, I should talk about D&D! I started watching an online stream/show on Twitch called "Critical Role," which is literally a livestream of a D&D campaign. You know how, very often, watching other people roleplay if you're not in the game is super boring? This show is the exception to that rule! It helps that it's run and played by professional voice actors. I love the show so much that it actually inspired me to get back into D&D and roleplaying, and then somehow some of my Twitter friends ganged up on me and now I'm actually running a game for them. We've had two sessions so far, and I'm pleased to report that, fourteen years after I ran my last game, I no longer suck as a DM. I'm still learning the ropes, but I've figured out a bit of the mental flexibility required to juggle plot lines and the like.

In short, remind me to go into detail about this later on! I mean, most of you may find it boring, but I know for a fact that a few of you are gamers, and therefore I need yell at you about how awesome Critical Role is. ;)

On that note, I should head to bed. Sleep is a precious commodity around these parts.