I started writing a March review, but that subsequent quarter completely derailed with work and personal matters. I’ll write what I remember.

Digital Migrations

I‘m coming close to completing completed my password migration out of LastPass and to BitWarden. As if the breach wasn’t bad enough, they were hit with another security incident. Someone is trying real hard to get a bunch of passwords, likely not mine, and I don’t want to hang around for the next round of breaches. LastPass is now in the past.

The other digital migration I had to do in April was this entire website. Of course, I waited till the last minute – IPserverone was up for renewal but they are also terminating the service I’m on at the end of this year. There is no refund or discount for months that are not used, and I cannot afford to pay for services that I will not receive.

I moved to Shinjuru. They were very helpful and walked me through a few hurdles that I didn’t know were there. My domain was still registered to the friend who helped me sign up years ago, and I couldn’t even remember his name offhand. Thank goodness for an extensive network. We reconnected and I owe him coffee.

I have yet to finalise migrating out of Evernote. I tried several others and thought I would settle on Obsidian. But I had a syncing mishap that resulted in me losing an entire page of work, so my trust has yet to return.

Work

There was a lot of unplanned post-production with with the TV show that sprawled over the second quarter, but I’m happy to say that the show is a wrap now and out of our hands.

A joint pitch earlier in the year didn’t pan out to anything, but I was approached by some work contacts about a surprisingly similar job, which I was happy to accept because I have worked with that organisation before, and it is a step-up in job scope. Instead of being just a writer, I’m the editor. I have the skill set for it and am excited about the opportunity to try it out.

This would cover me until the end of September, so I’ll be available for new projects October onwards!

TTRPG

Over the past two weeks, I got to play Blades in the Dark with the Aunties, and Tiny Dungeon with a group I’ve never played with before. The world of Blades is fascinating, but there’s a lot to grasp. We have another session planned – for some reason, part of the team was always missing. For the original session, I was one of those missing due to a family crisis.

Tiny Dungeon was easier to grasp and the group was fun. I adore getting to play a treefolk, and we want to do this again as a group.

Other Games

I have stopped playing two of my mainstays – Shop Titan and Storium. I didn’t have the space for them during the family crisis in June. With Shop Titan, I simply stopped logging in. I’ve been wanting to leave the game for a while, but habit kept me going back to do the minimum. It’s actually rather nice to stop doing that. The game kinda lost its appeal a long time ago, and I was only keeping the guild open for the newer players.

With Storium, I didn’t have a lot of active games running. It’s summer, so the place is partially comatose anyway. I don’t feel like I’m missing much. I took a break from the new big game, handed over one game to another narrator, and told one game that I’ll be closing it by a certain date whether or not they made their closing move. Anyway, “Home. Where?” is my first and only completed game that I narrated. I’m proud of the concept and format, and the players who made it possible.

Ah, festive seasons in Malaysia. Any excuse to shoot fireworks into the sky because other people are richer than me.

But what really pisses me off is that it terrorises my dog, causing her to refuse walks and toilet time, which is not ideal because she refuses to go on our property. She would only do it when we’re out for a walk.

If Girlie Dog was caught outside when the fireworks go off, she would squeeze under my car or into the tiny legroom of the table in the corner of the porch. But being inside didn’t seem to be any better. She still paced, looking for somewhere quieter, and usually settling under my legs under my computer desk.

And let’s be honest, the best place for a dog to hide from fireworks and get some of that sound-muffling quality is under my bed. The problem was that I have boxes and tubs under the bed, and I’ve been putting off figuring out what to do with them.

Things really got rolling when I saw a rug listed for a giveaway on the local “Buy Nothing” group. It turned out to be someone living just one lorong away from me. I went by the same evening to collect it.

The rug was lightweight and fairly large. It was a shade somewhere between salmon and pink, made up of soft fluff that was easily pulled away at the edges. It would probably disintegrate if I washed it. Instead, I beat out the dust, vacuumed it thoroughly and left it in the sun to freshen it up before slipping it under my bed. I had to move a lot of boxes around to make room, but it was done.

It wasn’t that hard to teach the dog that it was her new space. She is a polite dog and I never had to deal with her getting into places where she shouldn’t be (unless there’s food involved). I lured her with some popcorn, throwing them deeper and deeper under the bed. She willingly belly-crawled inside, which was easy and comfortable since the bed had double the height clearance of my car.

On the days leading up to CNY eve, Girlie snoozed on my bedroom floor after dinner and eventually learned how to retreat under my bed when the fireworks outside got too loud. I am very pleased with how well this worked.

I even added an LED light bar so that I can check on her from time to time. It was pretty dark under there. If you look closely at the photo above, you’ll see that I also set up privacy curtains for maximum noise-dampening.

I ran a non-scientific sound test with my phone camera, recording the noise level at the height of the fireworks and then plunging the phone deep under the bed where the dog was hiding. The noise was muffled by more than half its volume. I wanted to crawl under there with the dog.

Girlie Dog spent most of the CNY nights there. It was nice to have her in the room, and nice that she has her own space tucked away from my already limited floor space. I suppose the only part that wasn’t nice was when she woke me by noisily licking her privates in the dead of night.

Firework season is over and I’ve packed the rug away. The dog has returned to her hammock bed on the porch, where she can closely monitor neighbourhood activity. The space under my bed remains empty while I look for the energy to de-own stuff that used to be there.