I had a really, really, really lengthy blog planned for today. As much about family stuff as I could think of (the guy who fell is fine, by the way, thankfully enough), but also a lengthy blog about a couple of things I've been toying around with. As a reminder, we leave tomorrow. We're supposed to be gone by 10 local time (which is 8 my time), which means being clear before then which means eating breakfast, packing, and leaving before then. Probably in six or so hours by my guess.

I wanted to stay up for like four of said hours, so I thought I had the time to blog here--even when going on the best date with my girlfriend as is humanly possible given the circumstances (no sound available to me). But while I want to sleep as much as is humanly possible on the trip tomorrow...I'm not sure I can pull it off. I'm fighting off the urge to sleep as is, and have been since before midnight.

Kinda sucks. I feel like in spite of not having set my watch to local time (I've deliberately kept it at my time). In spite of going to bed after midnight my time (which is after 2 am local time) and waking up as late as was humanly practical. That somehow, in spite of me taking every precaution against it. My body has acclimated to the new timezone and is treating this as 2:45 instead of 12:45.

That, or being sick leads to tiredness and tiredness leads to continued sickness and sickness leads to more tiredness...

Butstill. I shouldn't be falling asleep so easily so early. And yet here I am, struggling to stay awake.

Oh well.

Won't get the blog I wanted to give and given my track record, doubt I ever will. But it's the thought which counts.

For a start, I thought of a really freakin' cool story idea which is ready to blog about, but which I should probably be more lucid to attempt to blog about. I did well in TFT today, both gaining points in ranked and also winning a match in unranked. I even performed adequately in League itself! I had to be carried pretty much, but I still managed to hold my own well enough in the games I won. Wasn't the best on my team, but helped contribute to the win both times.

My one regret for today: the day is over. Like, I did a nice workout this morning; I didn't have a hard time at work; I thought of a good story idea while at work; I had fun playing games once home from work; literally the only bummer about the day is that the day is at its end.

I've been up for 19.5 hours, and even though it's only just past midnight (12:30), I'm dead tired. I want to stay up longer. I want the day not to end. I want it continue. I want to still do stuff. But I'm just...out of energy, both physical and mental. And for most tasks, emotional. Doing the stuff I did was great, but it was also draining and I don't think I can handle any more of it for a while.

​So I guess it's to bed with me.

AAAAHHH IT'S 1 AM AND I GET UP AT 5 AM TO DO TAE KWON DO AND THEN WORK AFTER THAT AND THEN PROBABLY BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION STUFF ONCE HOME FROM THAT (yes, July 23rd is my birthday but I'll probably blog about that more tomorrow) AND I SHOULDN'T BE AWAKE RIGHT NOW WHY AM I AWAKE RIGHT NOW.

And I know that typing this out is cutting into my already-technically-below-six hours of sleep.
And I know that this'll force me to type out an entry tomorrow before midnight, because this is an entry for the 22nd past midnight when my prior entry was before midnight so if I changed the date of the blog it wouldn't archive correctly forcing me to leave it as the 23rd even though for all intents and purposes this is a second entry for the 22nd.

And I know that I am sick and should be asleep.
And I know that this'll mean the last thing I see before sleeping will be the unhealthy light of the computer (when before this whim hit me I HAD done a bit of a pre-bed digital detox which prevents that).

But dangit.

This is not a blog I'll remember by the time that I would blog tomorrow. I wouldn't blog tomorrow morning even IF I remembered this, and I wouldn't remember it by the time I got home from work most definitively.

Basically.

I had this brilliant idea before falling asleep--in fact, it was the idea I was going to use to fall​ asleep. 

Like most of my best ideas, this idea originated from the darker side of my brain. No, seriously. A fair share of my best ideas originated from the dark recess of the inner monster my mind is capable of producing. In this case, it's barely scratching the surface; light perversion is healthy enough and not really that dark so not really monstrous although that's only because of the direction it ended up turning.

I was expecting the idea to probably lead my mind down the road of things like rape, torture, the like--which is, yes, dark. But my mind surprised me...because it didn't. Instead? Well it still started off with the potential to go down that road, but didn't actually take it.

The basic idea that popped into my head was, (pardon the incoming language but this is verbatim the thought driving the idea and is something meant to come directly from the mind of a teenager who would use such language) "What if an average teenaged guy made a wish, that was actually granted, to 'have a female me that I can fuck'?"

You can probably understand why I was expecting that to take a darker turn--it's not like that's the sort of thing which doesn't already exist in hentai. Similar premises are actually staples thereof. (Yes I read hentai back in my teenage years. No, I don't anymore, but not because I don't want to; my reasons for not doing so now are purely because teenage me didn't care about infecting my computer with viruses whereas adult me is paranoid and that quite literally is the only reason I DON'T still do it...and I admit even then I take peeks using google image search in incognito mode, just making sure to not actually VISIT any site. Which I imagine isn't entirely risk-free still, but is probably significantly LESS risky than going to the sites. MY POINT BEING. I know from experience that similar stuff appears in hentai because I've actually read hentai with similar.)

The thing is...it snowballed out into an entirely different direction. This being the average teenaged guy, he was someone who I imagined as, while stupid enough to have made that wish and not realizing the consequences of it enough to not make it, after having faced it realized what went wrong and not take advantage of it, having more of a "my god what have I done?" moment upon realizing that someone with all his memories, thoughts, and feelings, was now standing in front of him, as a girl.

And as he's heterosexual, he realized very quickly that outside the influence of magic, she wouldn't be attracted to him; outside the influence of magic, she would potentially not even be a 'she'.

And the story I imagined would mostly follow her, albeit having him as a prominent character, as s/he would go about life after having been created.

...It was a brilliant idea.
I really really really liked it.
...But it was about this time that I realized.
"...Wait.
...Isn't that basically Ellen from EGS?"

And I let out a great big siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhh.

I DO think the idea didn't come from EGS at all. Had absolutely zero influence on its creation or evolution at all.
I think I came up with the idea separately, and had I not read EGS, I'd have had proof that any resemblances were purely 100% entirely coincidental.

...But since I HAVE read EGS, and keep up to date on it no less...there's the lingering doubt of maybe I did subconsciously get biased by it and end up making an almost clone of her, just as a different take.

OH WELL.

Was worth a blog entry at least.

And now if you don't mind I'm only getting five hours of sleep now so need as much of them as is possible to be actual sleep.

It's just that with shutdown week at work, I don't work for six days (stupid bloody staff meeting scheduled during last day of shutdown week means I don't quite get the full week). No work, no need to go to bed at midnight. Also, with depression set in as well (it comes and goes but is still definitely here to some extent), I had free time.

Lots of free time.

As in.

"Binge-read about 840ish comics in a night", time--albeit spread out across two comics. One appears to be on a hiatus for whatever reason (the tvtropes page didn't mention why, but it's probably something which I could track down the info on why if I searched, but I don't need it to recognize that not updating for a year is a hiatus for some reason), but was quite the good read in the form of dream*scar.

The other still updates, and is called The Fantasy Adventures of Jack Cannon. Though I haven't read them yet, I also picked up two extra comics which I may or may not get around to binge-reading this week. I just...kinda...felt like reading, I guess? Depression tends to be the time I do a lot of that. Comics can be kinda uplifting to read (even if the content is anything but--within reason), and for some reason I just am really good at reading stuff.

Those 800 pages? It was done in less than three hours. That's about my estimate, at least. Didn't mark the exact begin time, but I know that I started well after midnight--I started on TVTropes, with a browse based around the EGS trivia page (image liiiiiiiiinks), and it was only from there after reading multiple pages (well parts of them anyway) that I found the comics, which is where my estimate comes in.

I'm guessing that the TVTropes browsing concluded at about 1:30ish? Okay so maybe it was under four hours, but I was finished before 5:30. Depending on my start time, then, guess it may or may not be that impressive. But to give you an idea of the TVTropes browsing I did, it was the pages The Atoner, Chirping Crickets, Conveniently Seated, Deadly Upgrade, Defensive What, Defrosting Ice Queen, Differently Dressed Duplicates, Distracted By My Own Sexy, Dope Slap, Education Mama, Fantastically Indifferent, Faux Yay, Filler Strips, Flat What, Gender Bender, Hates Being Touched, Humanity Ensues, and Hyperspace Mallet.

I started after midnight, made my way through all of those, then started the webcomics, and did that in less than five hours, sooooo. Reference point, kinda sorta. Point is. Pretty sure that's not a normal reading speed and that most people can do less than that in that amount of time.

One of my gifts, I guess.

Once more, by the way, my conclusion's the same as I made originally; reading vastly enriches my life, but largely gives me nothing except a method of doing something other than sleeping to deal with the depression. When you don't feel like doing anything else...it is something that at least feels like it had purpose, because, again. Enrichment. I feel genuinely enriched by the experience.

Not, mind you, particularly inspired (though there's a really good EGS sketchbook entry I'm deliberately not moving past because reading it was incredibly inspiring and I'm hoping that rereading it will get me reinspired when the depression wave has faded), but still enriched. I don't see anything productive from spending the time reading the stories/tropes. But it still felt good, and it felt like it was something that I was better for having read. 

Which, given the depression, is about as much as I can really ask for.

Oh and by the way--speaking of the time. Did I mention it's almost six am? I should probably go to bed soon. The coffee I had six hours ago's by now fully worn off. Not that that was what was stopping me from going to bed mind you. But. It contributes. I'm not particularly tired (tired enough to go rambling on in the magic productivity zone of "tired enough to wander, not tired enough to not be able to be any semblance of coherent"), but I can feel the sensation of tiredness and even if I couldn't...

...Objectively. I kinda know I should be going to bed anyway.

Soyeah.
Spent the night reading.

​Now to spend half the day sleeping.

In my defense, when I wake up at like 2 pm, have to spend most of that time prepping for the staff meeting, leave for said staff meeting, and don't get home until 9:30ish, doesn't leave me a lot of time in a day.

Soyeah, this is a day where I really didn't do much, because there wasn't anything I could do, not really, given the limited amount of time.

The best I did was what I dreamed last night, which was a game. It involved zombies, and more or less had three "base" storylines...with a twist, that you could switch storylines to some degree (not quite, it was complicated), and replay past missions to try the other storylines...but the game would remember which storylines you did first and that would have a "corrupting" effect on your attempt to play through the other storylines differently...

...Leading to a total of like 12-15+ storylines total, but still following more or less a Good/Bad/Ugly format with 'Good' as being doing the right thing and trying to survive and more or less acting as a humanitarian/civilian, 'Bad' in this case being the sentient zombie virus (it isn't just a plague, it literally has a mind of its own and the mind is pure evil), and the 'Corrupt' more or less being the 'following orders' militaristic/corporate dystopian vibe where they are corrupt and want to make use of the virus but do need to make some efforts to take decisions different from what the zombie path would be.

It was a quite interesting game idea but not one which I can remember vividly to ever make reality--plus it was contrived, convoluted, and complex enough that I don't think it'd actually be possible to code in the way I saw it in my dream? It was basically like a game designed to be played in a dream. Which was exactly what I was doing; I was playing the game in my dream.

It had pretty darn good storylines, too, but that's usually the case when I bring zombies into my dreams. (They often have very depressing undertones of repeating history often getting worse and worse outcomes until my subconscious gets sick of all the depressing deaths and inserts a magical way for things to go better; not perfectly, but a way for things to turn interesting.)

Butyeah, that's all I've got.
I have work tomorrow so I need bed now.

I played until 5 am, and started...when did I start exactly? Hmm...before midnight it'd seem. 11:30ish. Which would mean basically almost six hours pretty continuously.

I have a problem.

It's not all bad tho.

Today I did extensive work on my civ 3 mod, too.

I just did it earlier!

Tomorrow's gonna be a catch-up-on-errands day most likely.

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.