Hello Welcome to Nat's Great Page Time Journal

I'm gonna write stuff here

April 21th 2026

Nothing that exciting, just hanging in there. There was a Chinese webnovel I read years and years ago thats getting an animated adaptation (release that witch). I am really enjoying it, although I seem to recall the main character eventually creating a police state. Oh well.

Stalker 2 is still good, I think I figured out the crashing issues, and they were being caused by frame generation and upscaling. It's not even that intensive of a game, so I just turned all that stuff off and its been great since.

I hope everyone is surviving,

April 21th 2026

I was getting pretty far in SRW Y, when news of the expansion came out yesterday. Now there are a bunch of other shows I need to rewatch, and I might need to start my campaign over to hit all the bonus missions. Ah well.

Been playing Stalker 2 instead now. I never finished on release, and I want to be prepped for the expansion. Despite a few years to cook its still pretty buggy... Its rare these days for a game to crash so hard that it bluescreens my PC, but thats not an uncommon occurence. Still worth it despite that, and at least the quests don't seem to break anymore.

I hope everyone is surviving,

April 18th 2026

Its been a very few rough weeks for Natalie. It's wierd how stress creeps up on you. You're managing it until you're not. Doing my best to manage it better after some difficult incidents in the last few days.

On the positive side, sword practice is going well. I am waiting to finish the intro course before buying my own practice sword or joining the club, but I think I will. Helps get out some of the stress I'm feeling at the moment. I also started reading another Zola Book "The Beast in Man". So far very good, all of his books seem to be. Where Germinal was more about working class politics and survival in trying conditions, Beast in Man is much more about love and lust and compulsion. Real good.

I hope everyone is surviving,

April 5th 2026

Its a new month! I debated createing a new page, but I decided to just keep going on this one. Overall I want to make some more changes, and remove frames, but no need to worry about that now. I want to do a lot of things, but life keeps getting in the way. I have all these plans but when I get home I just end up eating cheese and drinking wine.

I have sword practice again tomorrow though which is good. I practiced a little too much after my glass, and then my arms were all messed up for the rest of the week, so I need to take it a little easier. I kind of want a metal practice sword, but I should finish the intro course before spending more money.

I hope everyone is surviving,

March 30 2026

Another week!

Nothing too exciting this week, but I did start sword school today, which was fun. I'd wanted to do HEMA classes for a long time, and southern california has one of the nation's few full HEMA gyms. I live a little closer to it now so I decided to do the intro classes. Mostly just learning how to hold them and footwork tonight, but excited to learn more. Apparently the school just did the world's largest sword tournament, so they're pretty serious about it.

fight on!

March 27 2026

Made some progress on things at work, and been playing Expedition 33, which is very good. People play up how french it is, but I don't really see it. I've been reading a lot of French literature lately (Zola) as well as some french films. So far in the game no one has had an affair yet, nor has a secret mistress been revealed. Also zero Milfs. Not sure how it can be french without those elements.

Fortunately I have the day off today, went with wife to see Joanna Wang in LA last night. Apparently she used to be in the Taiwanewse pop scene, but most of her set was indie rock. Felt very much like the stuff I would go to in highschool so I enjoyed it. Most of the audience seemed to be international chinese and taiwanese though, and I think they were maybe expecting something different. It was really good though! Anyway got back late, so we took the day off today, we also had midnight in and out on the way home which was lovely. Nothing like a midnight milkshake.

hang in there!

March 22 2026

Missed a few days... work continued to take a lot out of me. I guess thats why I get paid for it though. Hoping this coming week will be better though.

Followed my advice from the previous entry and spent more time doing things and less time fretting about. Saw a good movie at the Frida, which is the local independent theater. I'll definitely add that to the local flavor section once I make it. Next thing I need to do is more stuff outside the home, need to go meet people in the real world and do things with them. Well. We'll see how that goes.

Still thinking about dem boots. I guess I just need to sit down and write it.

Ganbatte!

March 17 2026

I went back to the grind yesterday and the grind won. Ground me to bits!!! At least I was so tired that I went to sleep early, which is always a help.

Realized I need to spend less time mucking around online and in discords and more time doing things. Not the first time I've had that realization...

Anyway, got some good ideas for the website. I want to do a retrospective on my boots (exciting I know) and maybe start adding some sections for local orange county flavor.

Hang in there everybody!!!

March 15 2026

Felt out of it all day, went for a few mile walk but it didn't really improve things. Spent most of the afternoon finishing Germinal, which incredible. I enjoyed it so much that I dropped it off at the library after and got another one of his novels. I don't really like modern historical novels, I generally don't find it interesting or useful to hear what modern people think life was like 100+ years ago. However Zola is writing about the 1870s from the viewpoint of the 1880s, so it feels much more genuine. The Beast and Man is next on the list.

Kind of a waste of a weekend, I think I was too exhausted mentally do do anything interesting.

I realized a lot of things on this website are just going to be items I consume (wine, food, media, consumer goods). I'm not sure how I feel about that. At the moment its because I think consumer capitalism is a bit broken, and there are almost no spaces for people to speak honestly about products as there is always a financial incentive. So I want to highlight what I really think, because it does matter, otherwise bad products will drive out good.

Either way, back to the grind tomorrow!!!

March 14 2026

Went to bed early last night, and then got up for a morning bike ride. After that though my day got a bit derailed as I spent most of the day dicking around in elite dangerous and trying to find some unclaimed xenobiology sites. It was extremely relaxing though. Went to Mitsuwa for dinner as well and got Mapo-Yaki, when I should have been good and eaten at home. Oh well. Stress kills, maybe I'm saving money in the long run by just eating fried noodles to calm myself down instead of going to a therapist.

Still, annoying I haven't found many alien plants. Maybe I'll try for a bit longer tomorrow.

I'll try to go to bed early again tonight, I love sleeping in but if I do it on the weekend, I can never go to sleep on Sunday night. Wish me luck finding some alien bacteria tomorrow!

March 13 2026

Ugh what a week, just one thing after another at work. It's wierd when you hit your late 30s, because it starts to hit you just how long you've worked (20 years) and how long you're going to have to continue to to work (at least another 25) before even considering the possibility of retiring. Though that's if you're lucky! Plenty of people have work until they're put into the ground. Could be worse though, at least I have a job I enjoy and get some fulfillment from.

Though I'm so exhausted I mighht not even be able to enjoy the weekend properly. Does anyone else ever have that issue? Being so tired you can't even have fun? I've been too tired to sleep before, though thankfully less often these days, it was more of an army thing. I didn't even want to write this entry, but a colleague at work encouraged me.

Anyway, I'll do my best to get some sleep, and some exercise tomorrow morning, and all that other nonsense that is supposed to help you live a healthy life. We'll see if it helps!

March 12 2026

Missed Yesterday! Oh well. Had to drive into LA today for work, ate at a old school joint for lunch called Cougar Burgers. There are still plenty of places to get a good burg out there if you have eyes to see. I hadn't been to Hawthorne for years, but it was pretty nice, nicer than I remember. LA in general gets a bad reputation, when most of the city is pretty cool, and people are nice.

Hoping to have a quiet weekend as the last few days have been crazy at work. Definitely need to wax my car though, its been a few months and feeling neglected.

March 10 2026

Had La Zi Ji for dinner and went to see a chamber Chorus + Orchaestra. Was very good, but someone was falling asleep periodically and snoring. Apparently they didn't find it that exciting.

Not going to get much done on the website today, but have a wine review I need to post tomorrow. I also need to figure out how to trigger git pulls on my server without needing to log on and run them manually. Can't be that complicated, but I haven't looked into it yet. I think its Github actions? Anyway, going to get an early night tonight.

March 9 2026

Three days in a row! A new record.

Back to work today, though thankfully no emergencies, thought it does make it so I have less to talk about. Spent the last couple of hours writing things here, which was more fun than I thought.

Eventually I'll have to find a better way to organize things, but there isn't really any point in worrying about it until I have more things written. There are better ways to handle this than raw HTML files, but there is something artistic in doing all this by hand, like woodworking, or painting. Its handcrafted HTML (`･ω･´). Also I don't even have all the pages written, so I should finish all that and make sure all of the links work before worrying about it.

Read a lot more of Germinal last night, and its funny how much different it is than an english novel of the period. Emile Zola (author) wants to make sure you everyone's relationship status, and since everyone is having an affair, it takes a lot of time to get through. He actually wrote a series of 20 interconnected novels during this time peroid, and after I finish Germinal I plan to pick another at random and read that next. Fortunately, I think most are translated.

March 8 2026

Rode on the bike to REI to buy a plastic water bottle, went about 8 miles, but got Inn and Out nearby while I was there which sort of cancelled out the exercise. Still, was nice. I always like riding along the canals here, reminds me a little of Japan.

Did some housekeeping after I got home, and then a little more work on the website. I kind of doubt anyone will ever see this, but feels nice to work on something thats not tied to one of the giant social media platforms. Of course it will end up getting scraped for training data anyway, but c'est la vie. I also got a new throttle for playing Elite Dangerous, instead of doing dual stick. Currently enjoying it a lot, maybe I'll review once I finally make a tech page.

March 7 2026

Wow a journal. I haven't kept a journal for a very long time, ever since I left the army. I've tried a few times but it never seemed to stick.

Maybe this time will be different.

Anyway a pretty lazy day today. Walked for an hour or two up in the hills behind my house, and did some bounty missions in Elite dangerous. Then I had a small lunch, played Fantasy Maiden Wars, and eventually had dinner (Mapo Tofu) Currently reading Germinal, a late 19th century French Novel by Emile Zola. It is about how much it sucks to be a french mine worker, and a burgeoning socialist movement in the mines. In that respect it does remind me of the Jungle (Upton Sinclair) which I've always enjoyed as a period piece. Anyway, going to figure out how to upload this to the website, read a few more chapters, and continue to avoid all of my household chores until tomorrow.