Average score:
?.??/10

Working together

Last month we made an effort to present a cohesive character. That didn't exactly not work, but the meeting showed that we've still got a long way to go. Each character needs to have his essential nature come through the performances more clearly, so that the others feel comfortable passing problems to him when they need that perspective and attitude. Because not one of the eight characters is good enough on his own. But together, we can get somewhere. By the end of this month, we want to be in a place with the blog where every one of us has an outlet for talking. Other readers of the blog are no longer as important, and there's no tracker script here anymore. This is about us, and what we need in life. We'll figure out the rest as we go.
First activity (Thu.): Fluidity 3:08
First activity (Sat.): Web browsing 0:21
I want to get to the last level of Fluidity. Not to beat it, but to get to it. And I need to continue the second chapter of Living In Hyrule, because I want to prove I'm not useless.
Time allocation: Mundane activities 3:39
Fluidity 3:08
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ("Living in Hyrule") 2:46
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box 1:12
Composing 0:28
Wii Fit 0:17
Fluidity is fantastic. It keeps surprising and delighting me. And I was both surprised and delighted when I saw that the final ability is to squirt the pool of water upward. That seemed like it would be a lot of fun. I'll admit, there is some fun to it, but it's mostly frustrating because it feels broken. It's a big game made on a small budget, and I'm sure there were all sorts of pressures and realities to deal with, but if this is the best they could do they should have either cut the squirting out of the game entirely, or made the squirting sections much easier than the rest of the game to draw attention away from the bad feel of it. Because it does feel wrong, it feels ridiculous. The problem is that the Wii remote doesn't have an analog stick, not when you're holding it sideways like you do in this game. It just has an old-fashioned digital pad. And with a digital pad you can't aim precisely. So if you're trying not to lose any drops of water, and you've got to squirt them all really far up, you can't aim with sufficient precision. They got around this (sort of) by ignoring the gravity on the ground as soon as you start squirting. This lets you tilt the controller to change the gravity of the water that's falling at the top (and thus aim it), without losing all the water at the bottom that you carefully positioned. At least, that's the thinking behind it. And it's mostly useable, but it is clumsy as heck. First off, that means that as soon as you press the button, you've got to suddenly tilt the controller to a new position because the whole function of tilting has changed. And in the split second until you manage to do that, you're losing water. So every time you press the squirt button, it's a panicked rush to tilt it just the right amount in as little time as humanly possible. And this process has absolutely no connection to the feeling of squirting water. Secondly, you can squirt from mid-air, and if ignoring the gravity on the ground was weird imagine how ridiculous ignoring the gravity from mid-air is! Between that, the jumping, and the "collecting" that has all the water droplets fly toward the center of the pool, suddenly the physics simulation which was perfectly intuitive up to this point in the game turns into an indecipherable mess with water going every which way and no clear way to control it. It's very disappointing from a game that's been so consistently excellent up to this point.

Speaking of which, I'm going back to the earlier levels and I'm just amazed by how much there is there that I zoomed right past.
Notes: I got to the last level of Fluidity, solved many puzzles in Professor Layton, and wrote a few paragraphs of Living in Hyrule.
Performance review: Plenty of progress, earning an 8 out of 10. But I did some things which were not scored, I broke character by being too passive on two separate occasions (including the first activity of Friday), and I spent too much time on mundanity when I should have been racing forward. With the stricter rules about penalties since the meeting, I'm going to have to take points off for this. It's not enough to just do things, you need to do things in a way that fits the character. The gamer hasn't gotten enough attention, and you're way off.
Score:
First activity (Sat.): E-mail 0:12
First activity (Sun.): Comics 0:25
It's debatable whether we've been making progress, or just wasting time when we should have been getting things done. Personally, I believe we've been making real progress which is going to help us succeed. I believe that together, we're stronger than any one of us. But in the self-meeting, the programmer argued that the addict should be running everything. And heck, he's got a point - the addict has proven himself to be the most reliable of all us when it comes to getting things done. He's more reliable than the worker, whose whole deal is supposed to be that he gets things done reliably, but he gets distracted by TV shows. (With the way they've been going, their names ought to be swapped.) I don't want to reach the next meeting and find the group breaking down. This is where the blog has been heading, and I have enough faith in the blog and its story to know that this is going to work.
Time allocation: Reading 5:12
Mundane activities 5:12
Doctor Who 4:03
Watching a movie 2:51
Listening to a gaming podcast 2:07
Comics 1:21
Angles and Circles 1:01
E-mail 0:48
Notes: I listened to and read several fascinating discussions on the internet, which covered such diverse topics as interactive storytelling, the logic behind laughter and the first few years of Batman comics.
This closing statement is directed at the explorer.

You've been trying to fit a big idea into a small space. If you want a forest, you need it to be expansive. It's not a forest if you can't get lost in it. So forget what's on the paper. That doesn't get you to where you're going. I don't want to scare you, but the game needs to be bigger if you want to keep the forest idea. It needs to be much bigger, so that after a while in the forest you stop having any sense of how close you are to things. That's the feeling you want, and to get it the bottom of the world needs to be around 3,000 pixels lower. I'm just pulling this number out of my ass, you understand - it might need to be even more distance. The idea you came up with with Moshe's help, of changing the frequency of circles as you go and randomizing the whole thing, that's the right approach. But flip the idea around: at the top it's too tight to move through, and at the bottom you start worrying that there's no world there anymore. Take those little ideas from the bottom of the paper, and spread those out over thousands of pixels squared. Add some more intricate patterns as well, but all of them small. These ideas will float in the emptiness. There's no easy "teleport" back. Eventually you start fading out, and slowing down, and you'd better move back or the game may end with an empty screen. In order to get down there you need to pass a lot of circles trying to keep you in. If you leave, you deal with the consequences. The right side of the page is the opposite of this: it keeps getting more crowded, more chaotic, more uncomfortable. No one will want to go right, and if they do they'll want to either quit or find their way back. This is an equally important, and equally difficult part of the design. But it's absolutely crucial, and it should be done sooner rather than later. I know it's not pleasant to draw, so I recommend handing those sections over to the addict. I recommend he start on Sunday, with the person holding on as long as possible after Shabbat to mitigate the risk of depression.
Performance review: There are a lot of different ideas floating around here, and most of them (sadly) don't seem to fit together at all, but we'll see if the various ideas go anywhere. This collaboration between characters is very much what I want to see this month. Also, a specific physicality seems to be creeping into this performance. I like that. Go further with it.
Score:
First activity: Liight 0:30
There are two challenges today.

The first is to publish the comicbook review, while establishing a framework for many other such posts to be made. I want these lighter posts to be accessible from a search engine, so I'll use the Living in Hyrule method with two differences. The aspect ratio is fixed for each page (The writing was paced to fit this size.), which I hope will make this slightly easier than that was. But the more substantial difference is that this iFrame needs to be totally seamless. So I need to make a page (following the explorer's designs) which stands on its own, but also looks like a simple part of the blog's main page when put in that context. Each post like this needs to start with a spoiler warning, which automatically jumps to a comment on activation if you've come to the URL with a comment anchor.

The second challenge is to reduce the load time of the page. This is really a worker kind of project, more than mine, but first I need to figure out what he can do. First off, I can halve the filesize by switching from UTF-16 to UTF-8. I'm not sure why I encoded it with UTF-16 to begin with. I'll need to save a UTF-8 version as a separate file, and then compare the two to see if I'm losing anything and if so how to adapt. I also would like to reduce the number of iFrames that load automatically, by placing most of them behind links. (My assumption, which will need to be tested, is that if their style is set to "display:none", the browser won't load the page inside.) This will involve placing extra Javascript in every single cross-post link that leads to an iFrame. There are quite a few. Finally, I have a few habits which were encouraged in HTML4 and XHTML but which the web seems to be moving away from, like using CSS for italicizing text rather than an <i> tag. Getting rid of these excesses should make the page even smaller.
Time allocation: The blog 6:24
Games night 4:31
Mundane activities 2:41
Liight 0:30
I'd really like to keep going tomorrow, because there's still a lot to do before I can publish the blog post. But I spent 4:26 on that, and I do need the worker tomorrow to deal with all the tedious blog-cleaning.

It's been more complicated than I thought getting the seamless iFrame to look the way a standalone post would. Firefox seems to follow my instructions pretty precisely, but Chrome rounds all fractions of pixels down so that you end up with a pixel-wide gap between the part of the post that's actually on the page and the part that's a separate file. I've changed the way I'm rendering it to a more counter-intuitive mishmash of approaches. It works, that's the important part. When the main page starts loading, it has to calculate the font size for these new sections based on the width of the window. Adjusting when the window resizes is possibly something which could be added in the future, but for now I'm assuming that the browser won't be changing shape. If it does, not that much will be off anyway. I don't feel comfortable with anyone else continuing this particular project. There are too many challenges left: including the comments in a way that doesn't break the illusion, positioning the arrows in a way that fits both the post page and the index, responding to anchor information after the fact. This is my kind of project, but I just didn't have enough time today to finish it.

I was confused about the blog's file format: it actually is UTF-8, which doesn't mean what I thought it did. To cut the filesize in half, it'll need to be converted to ASCII. I've gone far enough with the process to see that this can be done. All the special characters I've ever used can be replaced with HTML codes: for instance, é can be written as &eacute;, so I've replaced all of those. The same goes for Hebrew letters, and symbols. Once I've replaced all these symbols with their HTML equivalents, it'll be safe to lose the Unicode stuff. Then it'll load twice as fast. At least, that's the theory. It may be that the time is needed for the rendering algorithms regardless of the downloading, in which case improvements might be minimal. But it's worth a shot. I haven't gotten started on hiding the iFrames.
Performance review: None of this seems overly stimulating.
Score:
First activity (Tue.): Watching Game of Thrones 1:06
First activity (Wed.): Watching the Nintendo press conference 0:48
First activity (Thu.): Reading more Nintendo-related things 1:03
I'm starting very late, and I know I'll have to take a penalty for that.

From 5:00 to 6:30, clean up the blog. From 6:30 until the holiday starts I will watch TV. After the holiday I will burn a DVD I've been asked to burn, which should take no more than ten minutes. From 8:40 to 9:10 I will clean my room. Then I'll keep going with the blog until 10:30. I'll read comics until 11:30, and then score. Someone else can jump in then, or not, but I can't think of anything else I need to do today.

I'm not good enough, but today is going to be perfect.
Time allocation: The Nintendo story 5:07
Mundane activities 4:25
TV 3:17
Comics 2:22
Watching a movie 1:42
The blog 1:30
Notes: These times aren't representative of the day. I replaced the worker after the first 4:30, because his intentions didn't seem as interesting as the press conference which I'd forgotten about. He hadn't done anything of value in that time, with the instructions the programmer gave him turning out to be totally useless since ASCII doesn't actually save space compared to UTF-8. But the worker doesn't really think things through, he just accepts orders blindly. Poor guy. He watched TV for 1:52, and the other 1:25 were the person's (watching The Voice with Dena). The full time of the day was 18:23, which means that the worker and the person both spent less than a third of the day, so retroactively those should be treated as a pause in the game and technically shouldn't be in this list. There should be no TV-watching at all written here, because I didn't watch any TV.
I think there's enough that's interesting about Nintendo's E3 presentation that I can write a whole long blog post about it, but I can summarize by saying that I think they've spread themselves much too thin by releasing the 3DS and their business model is no longer sustainable.
Performance review: This review is written by the programmer, filling in for the thinker. You have overstepped the power which the rules give you to control a day. Only the person is allowed to take over a day he didn't start. You took this day from the worker without consent, and I have to tell you that you've made the worker very upset. I'm instituting a new rule, effective immediately, that anyone other than the person who spends time in a day they didn't start is not allowed to return in any capacity (including writing the performance reviews) for two weeks. We will discuss this rule at the meeting, but I'm implementing it today because you are a risk to the rest of us. We can't be effective in our roles if someone is going to take our time away from us. Because this rule was not in effect at the beginning of this day, I can't take off points for that. But I can take off points for everything else. The opening statement did not fit your rules, since it wasn't you who wrote it (-1 point). I hold you responsible for the two TV shows watched that you're not allowed to watch, and am choosing to take off 2 points for that. There were activities before the worker officially started the day, and normally he'd be penalized for that but since you seem so eager to own this day that's on your head (-1). There also was no exercise on any of the three dates (-3). That is a total of -7 points, meaning that the most you could possibly get is 3/10. But as it happens, I don't personally think your closing statement had any value, so your final score is zero. Please remember this when you next decide to steal from us. For the next two weeks I will be writing these reviews. Goodbye.
Score:
First activity (Fri.): Fluidity 1:45
First activity (Sat.): Angles and Circles 0:49
I want to know how Fluidity ends.
Time allocation: Mundane activities 4:09
Fluidity 3:52
Angles and Circles 1:58
A movie 1:40
Comics 1:23
Piano 1:09
Notes: I watched the movie "The Thin Man". It wasn't great. I also read a bunch of crappy old Spider-Man comics while listening to the soundtrack of the Spider-Man Broadway musical.
The bottom of Angles & Circles is a very tricky thing. I tried following the thinker's advice and put a big line of circles on top, but I tried to keep it interesting and blend it with the chaos of the battlefield and that was a mistake. The circles ended up with a similarly chaotic character to the angles, and the whole game seems like a waste of time as a result. This spot here is crucial, because this is the circles on their own and it needs to be more peaceful. You escape the battle into the forest, it's not a continuation. So I'm going to have to erase most of what I did today; it's just too damaging to the whole.

I finished Fluidity, but my question wasn't really answered because there wasn't much of a grand finale. The last level was fun enough, but it was just another section. It wasn't anything special. So I went back into the earlier levels and started collecting things. Some of the collectibles are hidden in really devious places, because they want to be sure you know the area like the back of your hand. You can't find this stuff on your first time through. There's a bonus minigame that you only unlock when you've gotten everything, so I'm going to keep hunting. I do love a good treasure hunt.

My piano composition is moving forward slowly. I've got so many different versions of the piece, and even though I've rejected them all for one reason or another there are little bits of each that are stuck in my head. I'm trying to include every idea that's grabbed me, to hopefully end up with a definitive rendition of this theme. I keep wanting to go off script and do something fun, but then I remind myself "Definitive!" and instead I emphasize the parts that I feel are the most defining elements of the composition.
Performance review: This is the programmer writing. You know several "places" better than yesterday, if we extend the meaning of "places" as I believe was intended in the Rules. You have not spent more time watching movies than being creative. Based on the notes and the closing statement, you don't particularly care for most of the "places" you've been to. A point needs to be taken off for exceeding the acceptable mundane activities.
Score:
First activity (Sat.): Composing 1:14
First activity (Sun.): The blog 2:13
First activity (Mon.): The Legend of Zelda 1:09
  • Finish the second chapter of Living In Hyrule
  • Write the second episode of Dungeon Master
  • Get the comics post up.
  • Finish the piece of music.
Everyone underestimates me, but I'll show that without any specific schedule I'm going to be able to do what none of them can. I'm a gamer. I make progress on things.
Time allocation: Mundane activities 7:02
The Legend of Zelda 6:49
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box 3:45
The blog 3:35
Composing 3:06
Dungeon Master 2:40
Today I made the worker jealous he's not me. With no schedule, no external motivators, nothing but my own perseverance, I made more progress than any of the others is capable of. I finished my piano composition. I co-wrote the second Dungeon Master screenplay. I got the post that's been giving everyone so much trouble onto the internet. But not one of those things compared in terms of sheer satisfaction to my experience going through the original Hyrule today. I've never beaten the 1986 game yet. It's very hard, especially compared to all the later games which expect every player to finish. The Legend of Zelda, most players don't finish. If you get to the end, it's because you have proven yourself and not because you've just sat there for enough hours. And I was never sure if I was capable of beating this game. Well, the jury's still out because I haven't quite beaten the game yet. But today I learned that I've gotten better at this game than I thought. I deleted the file I had, where I'd gotten halfway through the game (with much difficulty) and lots of powerups, and I started over. I was surprised to find that I actually remembered where most of the dungeons were, and that once I got in I understood what I needed to do. It was scary, but not overwhelming. I would hide in the doorway, and wait for one monster to be alone and then attack and retreat to the doorway again. And I'd leave each dungeon in the middle, find some powerups and then come back. In these few hours I got farther into the game than I've ever gotten before. I passed five dungeons, getting the whistle (which I've never managed to do before) and the bomb upgrade. The game world seems a lot smaller now that I'm starting to understand it, and it feels like it was made just for my personal exploration. The lack of refinement means that you always know you're on your own. Sink or swim, it's on you. No one actually expects you to survive, or find your way around, or save the princess. This adventure is too big for you, and that means something because it's not on rails. It's just rules and world design and you. What a pure and wonderful experience this game is.
Performance review: This is the programmer writing. There is a lot of progress, so much that this should be a ten. But the day was started improperly (no exercise), and mundane activities are too high.
Score:
First activity (Mon.): TV 1:07
First activity (Tue.): Undeclared ?
 
Time allocation: Mundane activities 6:49
Hanging out with family (grandparents, Benjy) 5:44
TV 4:56
Lode Runner 4:55
Comics 2:41
Reading 0:14
 
Notes: My brother Benjy, as well as my father's parents, came from America for a short visit. My grandfather mentioned a good Apple II game called Lode Runner, so I downloaded an emulator and indeed it is fun. (I've reached level 18 so far.)
Performance review: This is the programmer writing. I don't recognize a particular character here, and you're not making it very easy by not writing opening or closing statements. So I need to decide whether this adds anything to the month. Based on the plans for the month, I'd have to say no. No one can trust you if they don't even know who you are. You've done nothing for the blog, nothing for the rest of us. So whoever you are, don't ever come back.
Score:
First activity: Looking at photos of my father and his brothers as kids 0:18
My grandparents, Benjy and his girlfriend, and a bunch of other extended family members are coming over later for a big barbecue.
Time allocation: A family barbecue 4:14
Mundane activities 2:51
TV 2:45
Lode Runner 2:33
Comics 1:10
Practicing my piano piece 0:26
Photos 0:18
The barbecue was nice. A relative named Shiko was there who I was able to show all my games to. I also got to talk to Benjy a bit, though I always feel like I'm missing some sort of opportunity when I try to spend time with him. I played some piano, and impressed people. So, it wasn't a bad day exactly, but y'know. It's family: never exactly what I'm hoping for.
Notes: I finished watching the season of The Amazing Race that I was on, and reached level 24 in Lode Runner.
Performance review: I don't know how meaningful a connection I've actually formed with anyone here. I don't know anyone better today than yesterday. But they know me a teensy bit better, and maybe that's enough. (Programmer: I'm going to have to take off a point for not getting any exercise done.)
Score:
First activity: Watching this video 0:13
Last night I dreamt that I saw Aviella and wasn't sure if it was her because I'd forgotten what she looked like.
Time allocation: Music 9:39
Mundane activities 3:20
Writing an e-mail 0:52
Notes: I watched a TV-movie version of H.M.S. Pinafore and decided that I don't want to be in the Jerusalem production later this year. I wrote to Aviella, which counts as "switching to the person" as the Rules call it, and will be ignored for the scoring.
I made a recording of my piano composition. The blog post I just wrote that contains it is my opening statement.
Performance review: That's not bad. (Programmer: I need to take off a point for your not exercising.) Why would I need to exercise? I'm a musician. (Programmer: If you would like to object to the Rules, bring it up at the next self-meeting.) We need the thinker back. You've let the power go to your head, man.
Score:
First activity (Fri.): undeclared ?
First activity (Sat.): undeclared ?
 
Time allocation: ? ?
I didn't write down the times because it didn't seem essential. But I did a lot. I discussed the Gamer Mom designs with Kyler, watched a TV show with Dena, and started participating in an Ocarina of Time community playthrough. All in all, a good day.
Performance review: This is the programmer writing. There are no limitations on how many points can be taken away for breaking rules, and it seems like the most basic rules of the game have been broken here. Not essential? Without keeping track, there's no way to properly measure and score! Without paying attention, all the other rules are meaningless! This is a zero-point day.
Score:
First activity: Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box 1:20
The addict is begging me to let him spend a whole day in Zelda games, but someone needs to put his foot down for what we need and that person is going to be me. I was supposed to get Friday and Saturday to figure out how to present ourselves to other people in the future, but it is part of the game to give priority to real people when they are present so the person had every right to replace me (though not to so blatantly disregard the rules!). It's my turn now, so Zelda will have to wait a week or two until there's a hole in the schedule. I've exercised a little, and now I'll drive all the chaos of the past few days out of my head with some Professor Layton.

Then, the challenge: a post in the style of "Little Social Games" which covers a basic strategy for interacting with other people. In essence, a script for the person, who is underdeveloped compared to some of us. My general approach will be to present a truthful account of who we are, in the interest of creating a social connection with maximum efficiency.
Time allocation: Mundane activities 2:09
The blog 1:38
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box 1:20
Freecell 1:06
Chatting with my grandfather 0:25
Oh dear. I forgot I have to go to work tomorrow. I didn't have all this time to waste, because I need to go to sleep now-ish. I barely got started, and I was having a hard time visualizing the outline of the thing. This is not good at all.
Performance review: I'm as bad as everyone else! No points for the challenge, two points for effort, and then subtract those points for mundane activities and some unallocated time between days. My god. This is going to go on record as the worst month of my life, unless we turn it around fast.
Score:
First activity: A day in Jerusalem 14:05
It may be strange to write a schedule 14 hours into a day, but I've been out until just now, working for eight hours and then going with my family to dinner and a misguided but interesting political program. I am falling on my face with exhaustion, so I will not immediately be continuing with more work. However, I do not want to extend the day too far into the 21st of June because I'm sure my selves will want to do something with that.

So here's the plan. I'm free to relax until 1:30 AM. That should give me enough time to watch the series finales of both Game of Thrones and The Killing, as well as take a short nap. By 1:40 I will have burned the DVDs I meant to burn in my last outing. Then A&C until 2:40, writing until 3:15, and score.

I'm not good enough, but today is going to be perfect.
Time allocation: A day in Jerusalem 14:05
TV 1:41
Mundane activities 1:35
Burning DVDs 0:36
Angles and Circles 0:03
I miscalculated, and there wasn't enough time for a nap. I thought I could keep going regardless, but just a few minutes into trying to get back to work, I see that was silly. I desperately need to sleep.

I put in a full day's work in my data entry job. It was good.
Performance review: This is the programmer again. The schedule was great, though personally I think the person shouldn't have gotten so much face time. Regardless, there's work here and more work was planned and that makes it a good schedule for the worker. But the implementation doesn't follow through.
Score:
First activity (Tue.): The Vintage Game Club 1:34
First activity (Wed.): The Vintage Game Club 2:51
Ocarina of Time is still as important to me as it ever was. There's a community playthrough of the game going on, and I want to both share my ideas and learn from their ideas for my book.
Time allocation: Discussing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the Vintage Game Club 9:25
Mundane activities 5:58
Practicing the virtual ocarina 2:01
The blog (adding a comment) 0:25
It's so interesting to see new perspectives on the game.
Performance review: This is the thinker. (It's good to be back.) It's a fine subject for the day, but I don't think you've really taken advantage of it like you could have. You should have spread out more: you could have written the second chapter of Living in Hyrule, played a few other Zelda games for comparison, start writing the script for a fan game, etc.. Look, you know perfectly well that this is an experience that could fill an entire life. But by focusing on one particular aspect of Ocarina of Time analysis, you forgot where and who you were. In the future you might try spreading out in the beginning of the day. Do everything you can think of for just a few minutes each, and then once you've seen everything you can delve in as a person obsessed. You know what, let's even treat this like a special event. When you start a day with this approach, we'll write "First activities" instead of "First activity", and each aspect of the experience will be dealt with separately. Let's put a 15-minute limit on each tasting. I think this will both be fun and be useful in reminding you that there's nothing outside the subject of addiction. And may I just add that I love you. I think you're brilliant.
Score:
First activity (Wed.): Watching the play Carousel 5:50
First activity (Thu.): The Vintage Game Club 0:12
First activity (Fri.): Composing 1:28
First activity (Sat.): undeclared ?
First activity (Sun.): Reading 0:19
I've been gone for two weeks, because I messed up and infringed on another character's rights. Thank you to the programmer for filling in. I know this is outside your comfort zone, but the scoring continued on schedule and that's laudable. Now, I need to apologize for my actions, both to the worker who suffered directly, and to the rest of you because my actions had severe repercussions. In essence, I jumped off a cliff that day and pulled the rest of you down with me. There was little direction, little ambition, and no cooperation. Scores have consistently been unacceptably low. The person informs me that he was uncomfortable when other people asked him "How are you?" or similar niceties. This will partially be solved by the programmer's project, but it also shows how far we've fallen this month.
Time allocation: Mundane activities 24:40
Watching the play Carousel 5:50
Writing e-mails about Carousel 4:26
Going out to dinner with my grandparents 4:20
Dungeon Master 3:58
Reading 2:32
Comics 2:15
Composing 1:28
The Vintage Game Club 1:27
Notes: I should have written down all the many hours I spent watching the 1950s game show "What's My Line?" on YouTube. I did not, so let's just say that it was a really huge chunk of the day.
I meant to make a whole post about this. But it seems there's a fine line between thinking and procrastinating. Too much of this ridiculously-long day was the latter. So I will simply summarize what I have to say.

I let the person take over for the time before and after Carousel. I had a smile, and warmly greeted people that I only vaguely recognized. After the show, I talked with many members of the cast who I knew from Ruddigore. That night, I had the most horrifying dream I have ever had in my life. I will not discuss the details, but let's just say it involved my family turning against me and my sister Dena dying gruesomely. I woke up shocked, and couldn't get back to sleep. I understood that this fear was coming from a place of profound loneliness, so I went to the piano and let out my emotions on the subject. I'm feeling a lot better now, because I spent some entertaining time with family and friends. I didn't need so much time to do it in, though. I've written down a few changes to my character that should be made at the next meeting.

The explorer should play tomorrow, because there are some issues with the blog that he could have fun clearing up. Tuesday should be an addict for the blog, because there are so many intended posts which simply didn't happen. I meant to write a lot myself, but obviously I never got around to it. Wednesday is necessarily the worker, because I've got another full day of data entry. I trust you guys, and that's a critical point. We need to understand at all times that we're not just in this for ourselves. That goes for myself as well as the rest of you. I'm sorry about today. I'll take steps so that it doesn't happen again.
Performance review: This is very out of character.
Score:
First activity (Mon.): The Legend of Zelda 1:21
First activity (Tue.): Responding to an e-mail from someone who found my blog 0:22
Avri said there's something hidden under a statue in The Legend of Zelda. I forget what it was.
Time allocation: Mundane activities 9:17
The Legend of Zelda 7:07
Comics 5:01
Watching a movie 3:10
Games night 3:05
E-mail 0:22
The blog 0:18
I finished the first quest of The Legend of Zelda, and by the end I felt like I knew every nook and cranny of the game and there were no more surprises. And then suddenly it's the second quest, and I have no idea where anything is! It's so exciting, after playing through the whole game and understanding exactly what that entails, to know that I have the opportunity to play it again as though I've never played it before!

The movie Amadeus is Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, but pretending that it really happened. It wasn't any more plausible than Ayn Rand's version of the story, but it was told well enough. I was watching the "director's cut", unfortunately, which didn't understand the concept of editing. I hate cuts like those, and if I'd known I would have downloaded a different copy. Still, it's not because of that that this movie frustrated me. It's a cartoonish story which thinks it's being serious.
Performance review: Watching movies is a privilege, which you earn by being creative. I was counting on you to push the blog along where you could, and you let me down. And what of Angles and Circles? Don't you care about anything? (Other than Zelda, that is.)
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First activity: Data entry work in Jerusalem 10:56
I'm very tired from a long day of work, so this is going to be simple. TV and comics until 9:00, then take twenty minutes to set Google Apps up right. At 9:20 take ten minutes to fix the blog, and then TV and comics again until 1:30.

I'm not good enough, but today is going to be perfect.
Time allocation: Data entry work 10:56
Mundane activities 3:10
Comics 1:53
Hanging out with Avri 1:41
TV 0:44
I entered four complete files. I'm pretty proud of myself for that. The remainder of the plan was put on hold when Avri came over. I gave him The Wind Waker, which was stupid. He didn't enjoy it, and an hour in he realized he'd already played it. I should have gone with Super Mario Bros. 3. You can't go wrong with Super Mario Bros. 3. Anyway, even if he hadn't come I doubt I would have followed through on my schedule because I was way too tired to have any willpower at all. I barely slept last night. Speaking of which: good night.
Performance review: I needed a nap as soon as I came home. I could have gone to sleep, woken up an hour later, and by the time Avri came over I could have been awake enough to have better judgement as to the choice of game. Because of my tiredness I wasted time browsing the web and thinking about things, neither of which fits the character.
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