ck's weblog: the universe, mocked

After six and a half years, I've finally worn away enough silicone from my original set of silblades to warrant replacement. It's probably not surprising that I replaced them with another pair of silblades.

Paul and Chelsea got married this past weekend at The City Museum in St. Louis. The couple invited guests to bring a change of clothes and explore the museum after the reception, so we did just that. It's an amazing place, and a great workout. Four days later, my upper body is still sore from all the climbing and my bruises are just beginning to fade:

Mel and I have been playing Bayonetta as of late. The titular character is the last in a race of ancient witches fighting against the forces of light for reasons that she's mostly forgotten. Her magical powers flow through her hair, which lashes out at her foes in the form of oversized fists or boots.

In the game's opening scene, a bunch of angels manage to slice off all of Bayonetta's clothing. She reacts by immediately creating new clothes for herself from that same magical hair. They look normal for the most part, but as she gets deeper into advanced combo moves, she needs more magic, and sensibly, turns her clothing back into hair.

There's a lot of ridiculous sexualization in the game, but for me, the first encounter with Joy takes the cake. Joy is a shapeshifter, impersonating Bayonetta to kidnap an annoying little girl. When Bayonetta catches up with them, she shoots Joy in the head, which naturally triggers a dance-off. After a brief Bayonetta vs. Fake Bayonetta fight, Joy takes a break to masturbate herself back into her true form:

Bayonetta shows a lot of parallels to Shoot 'Em Up, and I like it for many of the same reasons. It's all ridiculous fun, whether I'm strapping grenade launchers to every limb, tossing a baddie in a guillotine, or ice-skating through the holy hordes dishing out pain from my demon katana.

I'm not sure if we'll make it through the game at "hard" difficulty to qualify for the Penny Arcade Bayonetta contest, but we'll probably end up trying.

I took the first of my four mandatory furlough days earlier this week. Thanks to FLSA, I'm running into some scheduling issues. During the week in which a furlough day is scheduled, normally exempt employees are treated as hourly. That means that:

1. I may not do any work in the 24 hours that constitute my furlough day.
2. I may not work more than 8 hours in any day.
3. I may not work more than 40 hours total this week, including 8 hours for furlough.

If I were to break any of those rules, the University of Illinois would find itself in violation of federal law and would be quite cross with me. We've been warned that employees who violate the rules face suspensions and possible fines.

We are expected to work during business hours, so the new-to-us rules mean that during the week in which a furlough day is taken, an employee is effectively disallowed from working outside of business hours. That means that employee can not be on call during the entire week containing a furlough day.

It was announced yesterday that we can also just take a pay cut equivalent to the furlough plan while continuing to work. I haven't heard much enthusiasm for working without pay, though, so I expect I'll get to continue to juggle schedules for the next few months.