This week, bikini clam hunting. The jokes just write themselves, and that’s before the slimy tentacles came out to play…

Amusingly, Our Darling Flat Alchemist picked out an age-appropriate swimsuit for Our Young Shopgirl that just happened to mask her large chest. Fortunately, Our Clam-Diving Gather Girls went for tiny little string bikinis that the camera was happy to zoom in on.

Credit Space

Today I Learned that some previous version of 1Password inserted literal spaces into credit card numbers to break the number into groups. It always displays them this way, but you have to edit the item to find out if they were stored with spaces or without.

This is important because some Javascript validators only allow you to paste 16 characters into a CC field, even counting non-numbers that they ignore, but then don’t run the trivial checksum against the results before you hit submit. Took me a moment…

Roam, if you want to

Apparently there’s no point in renting a pocket wifi device while I’m in Japan, because they’re out of stock at all the vendors I’ve tried. Spectrum’s international roaming isn’t bad compared to ¥860/day, but the pocket wifi would support 10 devices at once, allowing us to freely use our tablets as well while out and about. Maybe they’ll have them at their airport kiosks when we get there.

Hoe Harem 6

In which Pure Farmer Power causes the Evil Plan to backfire, awakening Our One True Best Girl to her destinies, both professional and personal.

Very personal. Seriously, Ruri, “gochisōsama-deshita”?!? That little slip more than made up for the bad CGI on the giant worms. And the excessively talky fight scene.

Sadly, Our Worst Mom also gets some screen time, although she ends up acting her age in the end.

(unrelated heroine is unrelated)

Beast Tamer 6

Team Waifu demonstrates their loyalty and their susceptibility to light petting as they follow Our Taming Hero deep into the woods to run an errand for Our Dipshit Hero. After last week’s digression, we’re back on track for harem expansion, with Fairy Loli Twin #1 begging for help rescuing Fairy Loli Twin #2. Next week, that is, and I’m sure they’ll both officially be Waifu-broken by the end of it. Pretty safe bet, since they’re in the credits…

If they keep to the pattern, I expect another episode of dealing with the hero party and two that focus on Fox Loli Waifu, leaving three episodes to introduce Yet Another Girl (a human knight who doesn’t seem to be a tameable haremette) and have her recruit the party to clean up corruption in her order as some sort of series finale.

Covid/Customs QR Code

The Visit Japan Web site processes scanned passports in about five minutes (provided you actually rotate them, not just let an iphone flag them as landscape), but apparently the Covid certification is reviewed by hand, and takes a few days. Three, for me. But now I’m all set for the trip.

They want you to log into the site on your phone’s browser to display the QR code at the airport, warning you that showing up with a printed code might take longer. Oooooookay then.

What a guy!

Elon Musk just paid three months salary and benefits to thousands of struggling workers to give them the opportunity to Learn To Code.

In which Our Killer Kitten pouts adorably when Our Sword-Dad accidentally steals her kill, and big bugs are no big deal, but a greater demon is a real… handful. Next week: the boss fight continues.

Futoku no Guild 1 & 2

Proof that there really isn’t much “fansubbing” going on any more (as opposed to just copying the work of paid streaming services), I finally found the first two episodes of this show over the weekend, each from a different group.

It’s terrible, by the way. Badly drawn, poorly written, and yet still more entertaining than some things that got licensed this season (I’m looking at you, Renai Flops).

Apps!

Post-reopening, there are two apps used for getting into Japan. One to prove your Covid status (mandatory), and one to pre-clear immigration (optional).

No, wait, they changed it again on November 1st. Now there's an all-in-one site that generates the QR codes to get you through.

Unrelated, no kids came to my door for Halloween. Something to do with the combination of rain, a dead-end sidewalk, and a 75-foot walk uphill, no doubt.

In which a teeny-tiny bit of plot leaks into the daily adventures of Our Unstoppable Alchemist, but is quickly smothered under bats, hats, and gloves.

(official art again, because there’s no fan-art to speak of)

After banishing coherent plotting and pacing, we’re going to make a second season of McPharmacist & Waifu anyway

Yeah, whatever. How they’ll put the pieces back together after throwing so much story away, I have no idea.

Fuck you, Homebrew devs

They just added this lengthy message to their software when you run brew upgrade:

Warning: You are using macOS 10.15.
We (and Apple) do not provide support for this old version.
It is expected behaviour that some formulae will fail to build in this old version.
It is expected behaviour that Homebrew will be buggy and slow.
Do not create any issues about this on Homebrew’s GitHub repositories.
Do not create any issues even if you think this message is unrelated.
Any opened issues will be immediately closed without response.
Do not ask for help from MacHomebrew on Twitter.
You may ask for help in Homebrew’s discussions but are unlikely to receive a response.
Try to figure out the problem yourself and submit a fix as a pull request.
We will review it but may or may not accept it.

On the bright side, I’m now saving $10/month on Patreon!

The literal meaning of リブ生地 is “rib fabric”, but in context, it refers almost exclusively to snug knit sweaters. This theme brought to you by Best Girl Ruri (sadly not pictured).

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Hoe Harem 5

In which Our Wannabe Heroine Ruri instantly claims the coveted Best Girl position. Also Breast Girl, because the camera just can’t stop panning up from her impressive chest to her lively face. More, please.

Our Overpowered Overprotective Mom, on the other hand, is a real pain (literally and figuratively). Sadly, I think the writers believe her severe physical abuse of husband and son is funny. Less, please.

Next week looks to uncover The Mystery Of Ruri, while hopefully also uncovering The Body Of Ruri. Fingers crossed, but likely broken in three places by Mom, whose secret was almost revealed, and which is almost certainly the reason Our Hoe Master accidentally became OP.

(unrelated swordswoman is unrelated; I swear there’s even less fan-art for this show than there was last week, and the only picture of Ruri is recognizable only due to her costume)

Beast Tamer 5

In which Our Pricktastic Hero Party really, really needs to learn to read the room… as soon as they recover from the savage beatdown inflicted by Our Tamer And His Amazing Waifus. Seriously, I think they all need clean panties now; especially the two guys.

Next week: into the woods! Which will probably involve a cameo by the chastened hero party, and some tag-team waifu-taming action.

Clean Sweep

As in, I did a lot of sweeping and mopping, after staring in awe at just how much vegetation they cleaned out of my yard. They left the healthy trees and took out pretty much everything else, and the new plants will start going into the ground in a few days.

They should be starting on the new drainage and the privacy hedge this week, as well as ripping out the grass down by the street.

(sadly, none of the slashing crew looked like this…)

In which a mountain of exposition is bookended by some good old-fashioned goblin-slaughtering. In the middle, some very mild cheesecake, as safety bubbles protect Our Maiden Adventurer from exploitation, and even Our Bountiful Receptionist doesn’t show the goods in the bath; not that kind of show.

(Fran-art continues to be in short supply, despite the apparent popularity of the show)

Home = Depot

Yesterday, I had furniture being delivered, plants being removed, flooring being finished, the landscape designer showing up to suggest some changes, the contractor showing up to figure out how to fix the entry to one of the showers (the old piece was damaged by heavy wheelchair use), three different package-delivery companies dropping things off, “my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it”.

Sadly, they ran out of flooring and shoe molding, and while the sales rep managed to find more from the same lot, it has to be trucked in from a warehouse in California.

The shoe molding was the contractor’s late ordering, the shortage of flooring was the sales rep’s miscalculation. Despite measuring the interior and having the original blueprints in hand, instead of ordering at least 104%, we ended up with about 98%. Sigh.

Today, I’ve got a plumber coming to re-seat the last toilet (new floor is significantly lower than the old one in that room), two guys coming to help me move furniture back into place, my sister coming for the weekend, and the Dread Pirate Roberts is here for your souls. There will be no survivors.

This week, Our Flash Heroine makes a quick recovery from the effort of slaughtering the raging mob of giant flaming bears last week, enough so that she decides to visit the nearest big town and makes a three-day trip in half a day. There she meets a bad alchemist and a good alchemist, turns a profit on gooey bits, and heads home in time to invite Our Gatherer Girls to move in, get her house repaired, and make magic induction ranges for both herself and the local inn.

That sounds like a lot, but the pacing still feels like casual slice-of-life, mostly due to the time spent on Cute Girls Doing Cute Things.

(spooky cute girl doing spooky cute things is unrelated but seasonal)

Late Floor Mold

Mold-ing, that is. The flooring was ordered back in July, and arrived at the warehouse well over a month ago. So it came as a surprise to me that the shoe molding wasn’t even ordered until Friday. The guy installing the floors was equally surprised, when he asked the contractor last Tuesday when it would be on-site so he could finish the front half of the house.

So when it came time to move everything from the back of the house onto the finished sections, we had to leave 2-3 feet for access to the walls, so now everything has to get moved an additional time to put it all back where it belongs on Thursday. sigh

On the bright side, my new custom bedroom set from the local Amish furniture store is ready, and will be delivered Thursday. By English truck, of course.

(pretty sure Kiki doesn’t do furniture deliveries…)