Weee, what a pain of a week, literally. On Monday it rained, not long, but very heavy. We have had small water events in the basement, but it mostly just runs to the floor drain in the less finished half and maybe I have to throw down some towels on the more finished half. This round, the floor drain wasn’t working. Plus the heavy rain. We had a major backup, thankfully mostly affecting the less finished half.
I actually can’t believe if filled so fast given how small the usual water trickles tend to be. I had checked it when I got home from work at like 5, then went to the store and checked again at like 7 and there was 2+ inches of standing water depending on the floor slope.
The process of removal was a lot of work. Basically, suck up water with the shop vac until it filled. Then, because the vacuum full of water was too full to lift or move. So I would take a bucket and carry water out the basement back door and toss it into the backyard. I got about 5-6 buckets from each shop vac fill and probably, over the course of 24 hours, filled the shop vac 20-25 times. I had to take a break every 5-6 vac fills.
So roughly…100-150 gallons of water?
Plus doing it barefooted since, water, on the concrete floor. My feet ached the first day but they felt better quick. My calves arched for much longer. Surprisingly, my arms and back didn’t ache much at all, despite tossing buckets of water.
Anyway, we ordered a pump so if it happens again I can hook up a hose and just pump it out the backdoor.
Also once the water was clear, I used the shop vac to hardcore suck the pipe to try to clear out obstructions, something I have done in the past when it got slow. Plus I ran the pipe snake down it. So far, its remained clear, but it hasn’t rained since.
Also, thankfully, we anticipated this possibility. Everything over there is in plastic totes, and up on pallets or blocks.
Anyway, crisis aside…
Video Games
Because I apparently can’t play anything new, I started going through Eufloria HD. I have finished I think the original version and the mobile version. Its kind of all the exact same game. Its a sort of, simple strategy game involving plants.
Oh wait, I did a review of Eufloria.
I also started Sky: CotL up again. Though I am not getting super hardcore about it. The new Season of Carnival with the game props is neat. But I remembered that I don’t have to super push it if I don’t want the new cosmetics. And I am not sure I want them. I’m at a point where I have like, 3-4 outfits I sort of swap between and I am good.
Toys
Its been a week for toys. I was surprised that my $5 Blokees Prime shipped from Amazon. When it asked me to “authorize a delay” I expected it to just get cancelled in a few months. I am starting to get a little collection of these kits going.
I also picked up some stuff not online, but clearanced from Walmart. The NFL Transformers are going for like $17 at the moment, so I picked up Steelskin. There is also the Cowboys one. If these go like $10 or less I may pick up that one as well.
The Superman movie figures are also going for super cheap. They are not amazing figures joint wise, but the likeness and sculpts are decent enough for my level of care about DC, so I picked up Superman and Mr Terrific. Because that was all the options they had. I want to say, the distribution on this line, which has a Build a Figure, is so wack. Superman seems to be getting his own case, with like 20+ per case, and everyone else is single packed.
Good luck with all those robot torso BAF parts.
TV
I forget if I posted about finishing Orphan Black. We finished Orphan Black. Its good. It thankfully wrapped up everything for the most part.
So I started Daredevil Born Again S2. Man, I like this show, I love Vincent D’Onofrio as Fisk. But oh man this whole thing hits way too close to home on all the stupid bull shit happening in real life US politics, it makes me uneasy watching it. I will say, this does definitely feel like a good modern angle they could use for Mutants in the MCU. Basically, an anti hero/mutant squad (ICE) and heroes/mutants (Immigrants). For Mutants they could even have a multiverse collapse angle where they ARE “immigrants.”
Anyway, we stopped after 4 episodes and will probably wait for the last four before finishing.
I also started Fubar, with Ahnahld Swahzehneggah. My wife and daughter already watched it, mostly, so its a bit of a rewatch for them. Its a fun show that doesn’t take itself seriously at all, which is kind of nice.
Music
I picked up a couple of digital albums from Bandcamp Friday.
Bon Voyage from Flippendo!, It’s a chip tune album. I wanted it because I like the track Collapsar which was in Beatstar, the rhythm game I was playing that shut down.
Shaded Lands by Owl Cat, which is a dungeon synth album. I want to say I saw it mentioned on Reddit or Bluesky a while back. It’s kind of an ambient sound sort of album.
I had another couple picked out but then I had a Kickstarter I had forgotten about come through, so I decided to wait. Especially because I also have one of my BBTS pre-orders converting soon, and that’s going to be a big wack of money. But I have the future Bandcamp Fridays on my calendar.
Projects
Speaking of calendar, I did another little scripting code project. It’s essentially a CLI based calendar that sends me daily emails in the mornings run through cron. It handles several event types and includes the weather and a little quote. I may add a few more features over time as well. also, yes, it was a Claude AI project.
The markdown files use a simple format based on the event type in one of four buckets.
- Monthly events – they just get a “month | Event name” and last all month. eg “06 | LGBTQ+ Pride Month”
- Annual events – They get “Date | Type | Description | Reminder”. eg “06.16 | Holiday | Captain Picard Day | 2”
- Reoccurring Events – Probably the trickiest, these reoccur monthly. eg “21 | Bill – Water | 4+” reminds me of the water bill every month 4 days leading up to the 21st. But it also handles irregular events eg “fri/2 | Payday | 2026.04.15 | 5+” reminds me every other Friday that it’s payday.
- Events – Standard one off events. eg “2026.05.01 | Richland Plant sale (7:00) | 3+”, but also I can add a number of days at the end to repeat, eg “2026.05.01 | Fortnite – Star Wars Events | 1 | 26” will show every day from 5/1 until 5/26.
The reminder date is a variable that tells how many days in advance to remind me. Because something I really only want a few days in advance, but sometimes I might want some prep time and want a week in advance.
In non code based projects, I picked up a bunch of plants to throw into pots and try to not kill this year… again. I’ve been at the current house almost ten years now and have yet to actually really grow anything. 2 Green Peppers, 2 Tomatoes, 1 Cherry Tomato, 1 Cayenne Pepper, one Basil, one Cilantro, 2 different Petunias. They didn’t have any mint, but I plan to stick the mint and petunias in some handing pots on the back porch to hopefully drive the carpenter bees away, because they dislike mint. Actually, they may like the petunias so maybe that’s a bad idea.
