Weekly status update [0023/????]

I almost completely missed that yesterday was Friday the 13th.  Thanks, Reddit!

• Finished reading The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.  Like many Stephenson novels, it picks up a lot in the rear half, and I went from struggling to read more than twenty or so pages of it at a time to tearing through the last couple of hundred pages in a day.  It’s Stephenson Ending Ratio is only about a 0.3 or so as well, which is a pleasant surprise; it’s still too abrupt, but it actually answered most of my questions.  I suspect Nicole Gailland (the co-author) had something to do with that.
• I also finally finished Minitel: Welcome to the Internet, which was a fascinating look into a bit of technology I knew nothing about.  The idea that France was effectively connected to its own private Internet in the mid-’80s is kind of amazing.  It was a very slow read due to the huge numbers of footnotes–I have to read them immediately, and flipping back and forth in the book is so slow–but Minitel was one of the better Platform Studies books.  Next up is the one on the Super Nintendo.  I expect to be at least mildly disappointed, as I am Error (the one for the NES) is maybe my favorite volume of the series, so I’m going in with too-high expectations.  Further news as events warrant.
• Played way, way too much Diablo III.  I have all but one trophy for it now on the PS4, and that trophy requires a lot of boring grinding.  I’ve been doing said grinding while watching people on Twitch, so it’s not all a waste of my time, but it’s moments like this that I regret ever hunting down trophies and achievements.
• Actually did some puzzles again for the first time in ages.  It was mostly multi-sudoku, but I also did two Trigons.  Fair warning: even “easy” Trigons are hard, and the really hard ones are damn-near impossible.  It’s not uncommon for single puzzles to take me upwards of two hours of continuous solving.  Said solution is all the sweeter for the result, though.
• Went through another fairly lengthy fast (no zero-calorie days, thank goodness).  I think it helped with once again recalibrating my satiety.  I will say that the rotisserie chicken I had from Walmart today for breakfast-and-lunch was one of the tastiest things I’ve had… but I know it’s because as of this morning just about anything was going to be delicious.
• Not a whole lot of social interaction outside of Twitch, unfortunately.  My semi-regular online gaming partner has been busy with other things, we haven’t had a board game night in ages… I should probably figure out something I can do to see actual humans on a semi-regular basis.  Probably.

I’m going to the dentist on Monday, which is the first big medical-y expense I’ll have had since I retired.  I didn’t keep my dental insurance, so I’m… apprehensive about how expensive it’ll be.  Guess we’ll find out!  Other than that, though, I feel like things are going well overall.  It’s as unexciting as always, but I’m still not bored, and won’t be for the foreseeable future.  23 weeks in: so far, so good.