Aside from the shift itself already being brutal, there's the fact that my shift ended at 9, I got home at like 9:45...and I work at 9 tomorrow, meaning leaving at 8, meaning getting up at 7, meaning latest bed time of 1.

...It's 12:51 right now and counting.

...That time might seem like a lot, but three hours is nothing when it comes to filling my routine. I need to attend to various miscellaneous stuff, including eating, in that time, and all-around?

I had zero me-time; everything I did was an obligation in need of attendance.

I wanted me-time.

I have had the desire to rant in my blog about real life stuff in my life for the last few days--I've since forgotten, but even if I did remember, no time anymore because of this schedule.
I have had the desire to talk about an actual idea of mine! One I've talked about recently, but which is not the civ 3 game mod.
I have had the desire to work on said mod, but not the time.

I basically haven't been able to do anything, because I've been too busy.

And thus.

​Work sometimes sucks.

So this'll go down as a Saturday entry technically, in spite of it really being a Friday entry. I'll have to make sure that I blog tomorrow before midnight so as to not mess the archives up, which is the reason I'm not putting this on Friday. (If I did, it'd appear before my previous entry.)

The good news is...
...I think I have a semi-coherent, semi-solidified tech tree!

The bad news is, some techs may be in awkward orders...and the tech tree doesn't QUITE work as-is right now.

To wit:
​I didn't research this more specifically, but eyeballing tech trees, at the very top, a tech tree line can hold EITHER: 3-4 techs with 3-4 items within the row, OR: approximately 6 techs with 1 item within the row.
Elsewhere, not blocked by the science adviser, it's about 4-5 techs with 3-4 items within the row, OR: approximately 8 techs with 1 item within the row.

By my eyeball estimate, each column/level of the tech tree can hold 6-8 total items (1-2 of them being in the "top zone").

That means that the low-ball estimate we're going for is (6 * 4) + (6 * 3) = 42 techs per level, distributed appropriately.

And if we're lucky enough to score the high estimate, we get (8 * 5) + (8 * 6) = 88 techs per level, more than enough.

...The problem lies in the distribution.

There are 12 steps right now in the modern tech tree--a full 4-6 steps over the maximum.
The second and first ages (at 8 and 7, respectively) are little better in that regard.
The only one which is fine is the third age, at 6 steps of techs.
Meaning each and every single one of my ages is at risk of violating the maximum allowed width, of being too long, of the row continuing too far.

...And the techs in each column aren't much better. 
The modern age is fine, but the third age has a 6, a 9, a 7, and an 8. The 9 definitely won't fit and the rest doubtfully will.
The second age isn't much better--two 6s, and a 7.
And the first age? Two 7s and a 9.

These being the more notable numbers, with others still being 5 and below.

Right now the first age, cut down pretty darn far, is at 45 techs total.
The second age fares little better, at 41.
The third age is a far more manageable 34, with the modern age at an even better 28.

Which if you do the math, is 148 techs total.
This is probably the final number for what I need.

I just need to create the gymnastics necessary for this.
Part of this process, too, will be figuring out what things are assigned to what techs.
I can safely assume...oh wait, looks like I forgot the governments a little bit. Which ones do I need? 
Blood Cult, Tribal Council, Oligarchy, Imperialism.
Welp, that makes it 154 techs total.
And adds another two 6s to the first age, totaling 48 now.
With the second age now having 42.

But as I was saying.
I can safely assume government techs will pull double duty in most cases.
I can safely assume many military techs will be for multiple things.

I can also safely assume that these things can be mapped successfully.
In fact, let me try to do exactly that.
I'll see if there's any which I can cut out.
​This might be stepping ahead a little bit, but I think this is worth it in the end.

It's most of the way to being 6 am, and I'm still awake.

Was reading much further into Worm; just finished Drone 23.1. Honestly at this point--I may know only a single incredibly mild spoiler; literally everything else I can think of that I knew in advance when starting, has already transpired.

​Totally worth it, though.

I could formulate words, and did so, but I was basically, start to finish, in every aspect of my life, unable to really formulate thoughts. This morning at work, for instance, I thought I might actually have a day of being fully nonverbal. (That may sound ridiculous...but if you could have seen how I was, then you'd understand why I had that thought.) I did eventually talk to family, but mostly just automatic stuff.

Even in written words, I didn't think much. I mean, I did a little, and the further into the day it went (especially once I got to talk to my girlfriend), the better it was, but all said and done, altogether, today is a not-very-active-brain day. It's not that I've been vegging out.

I know the feeling of vegging out; if this were vegging out, I'd describe it as vegging out. It's just flat-out not being able to truly think on a deeper level, for far more than I should.

Admittedly, I wrote this one plagiarizing from this:

...But imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

It's not an exact duplicate, but if you listen to that and then read what I wrote, you'll see the parallels fairly easily and understand why it is unambiguously stealing from them.

I decided to call it "I'm not better off dead".

It goes like so.

When I was born,
I didn't ask for this
Yet I have no less right to exist.

I've been torn
Stuck in-between
What I feel and my upbringing.

I'm in pain
Taught what I am isn't right
Yet there's nothing wrong with my mind

I know the hate
It's deeply affected me
But I'm still a human being


I'm sick of this
I have a wish
Let me share my view
I've got a rant for you


It's not an act!
It's not a choice!
Why can't you hear my voice?

Not for attention!
Not to be seen!
Why must you twist everything?

It's not a joke!
It's not pretend!
I'm not better off dead.

(Whoa-oh, hey-ay)

I'm not better off dead!


When I seek comfort
I can't turn to my family
They'd reject me as a fiend

I am hurt
I want to live my life
So why do I suffer this strife

I've been down
I struggle not to be
I shouldn't live with the bigotry.

I'm not loud
I can't express myself
So I've been living in a hell.


I'm sick of this
I have a wish
Let me share my view
I've got a rant for you


It's not an act!
It's not a choice!
Why can't you hear my voice?

Not for attention!
Not to be seen!
Why must you twist everything?

It's not a joke!
It's not pretend!
I'm not better off dead.

(Whoa-oh, hey-ay)

I'm not better off dead!

(The bridge would be an instrumental.)

It's not an act!
It's not a choice!
Why can't you hear my voice?

Not for attention!
Not to be seen!
Why must you twist everything?

It's not a joke!
It's not pretend!
I'm not better off dead.

(Whoa-oh, hey-ay)

I'm not better off dead!

(Whoa-oh, hey-ay)

I'm not better off dead!


This isn't necessarily a song written about me, but my living situation was obviously the main inspiration behind the lyrics, with a touch of making it more generic so that it'd be something anyone !cishet (take your choice in terminology) could identify with, but also touch on deeper subjects like feeling suicidal, being disowned, and so on, for things out of their ability to control, and the ignorance to come with it, and so on and so forth.

I wake up and just really don't feel like going to work, but force myself to go anyway. Initially I start out feeling fairly bad, but then shortly after, as if my body suddenly wakes up, I hit my stride and feel fine...for a few hours. And then. CRASH. I want to go home, and yet have time left in my shift still.

And when I do get home, I just sorta...collapse.

​I need to get better.

Today, I felt like I was actually recovering! I didn't feel fully recovered, but I felt like I was at least beginning to recover! I wasn't tired, had no fever, no cough, not so much as a sore throat. Everything was fine.

...Until about an hour before tae kwon do.

At which point.
I started coughing.
I suddenly developed a sore throat.
All my energy vanished.
And I began to feel like I was burning up, feverish.

With a vengeance, the sickness was back and plagued me for the rest of the day pretty much.

I'm not getting better.

By which, I mean, it loves to invent new anime. Phyrra and Cyrus, as you may recall, was birthed by this method. I had a story I meant to blog about but didn't get around to which was another one, and today I had yet another one, albeit this one kinda self-plagiarizing from the previous one.

I don't have the time to explain it today, but it was a really interesting one, to say the least.

Speaking of Phyrra and Cyrus. I didn't do anything productive aside from making content which may actually appear as like five minutes of filler in an episode. Basically, you'd know this if I uploaded my ramble on metals, but adamantium is a metal in the colliniverse. (Specifically, it is akin to steel, in that it is not in of itself, per se, so much a single metal, as much as it is a refined version of a different metal, of which there are dozens. As steel is refined iron into dozens of different alloys, so too is adamantium a refined version of a different mythic metal with dozens of different alloys.)

So today I was wondering if it was in fact possible to have Wolverine expies, that have adamantium melded to their bones--the answer is yes...but that it is not only incredibly expensive, but also incredibly stupid. It can be directly compared to, beit our world or Phyrra and Cyrus's, making a full-body plate male armor...out of gold. Yeah, it's something you could do. It's not going to kill you to do it, either.

It's just a waste of money because in real life it is utterly worthless. The properties of the metal mean that whatever benefit it could offer in theory, when molded into that form, don't work in reality. Still, some people do it anyway. It does offer more mass behind, say, a punch; it does make bones unbreakable, which can be convenient for someone who would break bones a lot.

But the tradeoff is that even the most dense of bones is lighter than the lightest of metals to plate the bones in, so you'd become much, much heavier, not to mention, less flexible. Bones are designed to be a bit flexible; adamantium...isn't. So you become stiff, almost robotic, and need to be much stronger, and are still weighed down.

But seeing as this is a setting which has plenty of golorgs (I need to do the ramble on them as well; short version, that's short for golem organism which is the magical-based equivalent of a cybernetic organism, aka, a cyborg), and there are some situations where it could come in handy (say someone was born with the condition of brittle bones, which is a thing in our world so why not in Phyrra and Cyrus), plus, there's no rule which says that you need to have every bone be adamantium.

It's still incredibly expensive to do, but on a small scale for those who have an actual use for it, it can be done. Not something you'd want to do if you can go without, though, thus, why it'd be stupid for people to just randomly do it. This would come into canon as maybe being a five minute segment if that of a throwaway quick fight for fun, where a contestant would have it and Phyrra would topple them.

​Something I could easily do away with, or expand further, as the need arose, basically.

Sure enough, not enough time for me to do what I want to do!
I had a double ramble planned with two topics, one revolving around Bard in Phyrra and Cyrus and the other covering a dream I had last night which I extrapolated into a fairly interesting anime story idea. (The dream was that I was watching said anime show with my siblings, and then later watching it by myself on my TV...in spite of not having had cable TV for at least a year or two if not more.)

Alas.

I need to go to bed, because I've got work tomorrow.

​Tomorrow will also be a "so many things, so little time" day for the record. I'm anticipating about half a dozen obligations by my estimate. I'll count it as a win if I get half of those done; I'll double my win points if one of said things is girlfriend time. <3

I succumbed and bought Civ 3.
And have played it.
But surprisingly...I'm not feeling as addicted to it as I thought.

Which is good, I suppose.

Still ate up most of my day though.