#320

Nov 17, 2024

Books

This week I read:

Planetes by Makoto Yukimura

The Planetes manga and anime are regarded as masterpieces, but I have to say I think this is actually a rare instance where I prefer the adaptation to the original. It’s still a good story, but I think the pacing kind of sucks.

The main thing that stood out to me there is the Tanabe / Hachimaki romance: in the anime, Tanabe is introduced very near the beginning (maybe even in the first episode?) and we see the relationship slowly developing over the course of episodes; whereas in the manga she arrives several chapters in and I didn’t really get a sense of budding romance at all. We see a few scenes of them being close, but not really how and why they became close.

I got that impression about a lot of the character motivations: it felt like people acted the way they did for the story, not as a consequence of previously established character traits. It’s funny, because not only is the Planetes anime very character-driven, the same author writes Vinland Saga, which I’ve not read yet but has another very character-driven anime. Maybe I somehow missed it all in the Planetes manga?

Roleplaying Games

The Halls of Arden Vul

A very combat-heavy session this week, though the party crushed it as usual.

They’re overly cautious, I think, so it’s always a bit one-sided when they do finally decide to take a “risk”. There’s a bit of tension between the players, too: one player is very cautious, always wanting the characters to be fully rested and prepared and to spend lots of time and money on information gathering; another player is not exactly gung-ho, but just less cautious and more willing to take risks. Which sometimes leads to disagreements over the party’s course of action. Not sure how to resolve that yet.

Interestingly, we ended the session engaged in a frontal attack on the territory of the Cult of Set, which is something the overly-cautious player has been advocating for for a while, but the less-cautious player has been opposed to! An unexpected role-reversal for sure.

Akkadian

Anki

I’m now one week into using Anki for vocabulary. I have cards (both English to Akkadian and Akkadian to English) for all the vocabulary in Huehnergard up to and including chapter 9.

It’s tough going. I find nouns easier than adjectives, and adjectives easier than verbs. Verbs in Akkadian are very regular, and a lot of the verbs that have been introduced so far are very similar. But I can tell that it’s helping.

Puns

I came up with a neat ambiguity (calling it a “pun” is a bit of a stretch) the other day:

Some verbs can take two objects (an English example is “to give”, as in “I [subject] gave him [object 1] a hat [object 2]”).
Adjectives can be used as nouns: generally to mean “a thing that is X”, but some have more specific meanings, like “dannatum”—“a [female singular] thing that is strong”—usually means “fortress”.
If an adjective modifies a noun, the adjective comes immediately after the noun in the sentence and is in the same grammatical case.

So: “šarratam dannatam abqur” could be read as either “I claimed (abqur) the fortress (dannatam) from the queen (šarratam)”, interpreting “dannatam” as an accusative noun, or it could be read as “I claimed (abqur) the strong queen (šarratam dannatam)”, interpreting it as an adjective modifying (and so agreeing in case ending with) “šarratam”.

I bet this led to centuries of fun over in Babylon.

Miscellaneous

Teeth

I went to the dentist for the first time in several years. I’ve been meaning to register with a dentist ever since I moved to London in 2018, but just never got around to it. In that time I’ve gradually developed a large cavity, so this year I felt that it was finally time (and it’s November now: I still nearly didn’t make it this year…)

Anyway, I had the appointment, and unfortunately there seems to be quite a lot of work needed. I’ve got another appointment next week to determine if the big cavity is salvageable or not, and then will begin the course of treatment.

New Chair!

I got my old chair second hand when I moved to London, so it’s 6 years old now, and as you can see the seat cover has frayed to the point of giving way, exposing the padding which has been disintegrating a little more every day.

I picked up a Secretlab TITAN Evo plus a lumbar pillow as a replacement, and it is so comfortable. It’s firm, some reviews said too firm but I like it, provides good support, and moves very easily. I am a little concerned about the build quality, as it came in pieces that I had to assemble myself and parts of it just clip on or are held in place with magnets, but I guess I’ll see how well it holds up.

Games

Last weekend I picked up a few new games, and I’ve tried them all our now:

WEBFISHING is a lot of fun, it’s a very cosy game which makes it easy to while away a few hours fishing and chatting. The community is very friendly, and the fishing is simple but enjoyable.
Path of Achra isn’t really the game for me. It’s essentially an automated roguelike where the only decisions you make are about your build, which I knew before buying it, but it just didn’t really grip me when I tried it.
Fields of Mistria is ok, I’ve played a few Harvest Moon-like games, so this is just another one. I’ll play it for a bit but I usually get bored of these games once my farm is raking in a bunch of money: completing it isn’t that attractive once I feel I’ve “figured it out”.