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At retail work, I now have a key for operation of the mechanical forklift and scissor lifts. My direct training will be tomorrow, and all should go without incident. Here's hoping my actual use of the machines will have the same results. Days when I have to work and my wife are at home are rather long, just for the lack of taking a moment to visit her when she goes to lunch.

Draft.

18820109 13:44:19

XV-N-3540

Exeter entered the lobby and was gratified to see that the instructions were followed. The man sat with his back to the entrance and alone at the table with only a single newspaper on top of it, positioned as if it was for a person seated across from him. His brown and scraggly hair matched the hue of his dusty jacket. Exeter approached the bar while maintaining a distance from the point and making sure to not look over and make eye contact with the man beforehand. Once he stood at the bar, he held up two fingers to the bartender, and the silent request was obeyed. He hunched over and shuffled his hands invisibly under the surface of the bar until he held up both hands with one mug full of beer in each and brought them up to be served. Exeter left a silver buck coin face up on the bar before taking the mugs over to meet the man. He maintained his distant stare for a few seconds after Exeter sat down across from him, and physically jerked his head in surprise when he realized that the meeting was now underway.
"R, is it?"
"Uh, oh! Oh yes, yes it is, pleased to meet you. I am indeed as you say." He sat up out of his chair and extended an open hand across the table. "I am Roderick. Roderick M-"
"Sh! I got it!" With the quickness of a blink, Exeter grasped and released Roderick's hand.
"Um yes, then, yes, very good. Heh." Roderick sunk back into his seat with his chin nodded to his chest in nervous embarrassment.
"Relax, friend. Take a drink if it helps."
Roderick heard the word "friend" used, but the curt and gravely tone of his voice wasn't very reassuring. He felt obliged to follow through on the suggestion to drink and took the mug up to his lips with both hands and took a generous swig into his mouth. The beer was a heavy wheat with a flavor that strongly lingered.
"Good. Now, I know why you sought me out. Well, generally, that is. Rates vary on the mark."
"Oh, well, this is, this is in fact not that exact kind of request that I'm making, no. See, I came here with the desire for instruction on the act. I will be the actor."
"Oh, will now you? This seems to be a rather long way to go just for that kind of tutelage."
"Um, this city also happens to be on the way to my final destination. I intend to go to England."
"Really? Even more interesting. Heh, who are you looking to meet? Her Majesty?"
Roderick responded by quickly nodding twice.
"Seriously. Honestly?" Exeter took a moment to take a drink of his own to give time for further response to come, and it didn't. "Well then. I guess I can see why you want to get this right. Not that it's my business, but why her?"
"I. I labored for years over a series of stanzas, to commemorate her reign. I spent countless days pouring my soul into those words. When I felt I had given the best product which the Lord and Providence could inspire in me, I sent it away for her to read. She did, and she even sent me a response. But the response-", Roderick struggled to speak further as tears began to collect and stream from the corners of his eyes, "- the response, was so cruel and rude. It was an insult of the highest order and against all that I had done. I will never forgive-"
"Yeah, I understand, I got it, all right." Exeter compelled Roderick to cease his story with a wave of his hand. "So uh, anyway, how do you plan to get close enough?"
"Well, good sir, I have been practicing using a pistol from that moment, and I reckon my aim to be accurate at one hundred yards. If I can-"
"All right, look. First of all, I'm sorry to inform you that I actually don't use firearms. I have other tools that I use, yes. But in your case, you want to use the element of surprise to assuredly make your strike count. Now, you'll need to plan-"
"Excuse me, but you say you never use a gun? At all? Yet, I was assured of your reputation as-"
"That's something you'll have to trust me on, for now."
"Oh, this is most troubling. Most awful. I don't know if I can trust myself to keep a cool head if I were to attempt something physical in nature. I was intending to keep distance all along."
"All right, fine. Let me walk you through some steps which might help you out anyway."
"Very well."
Exeter spent the next hour going over points of stealth, surprise, mapping, and planning with Roderick, and gave an earnest effort to instill some of his wisdom; but he didn't expect any of it to take hold. The main paid him for his time so he didn't feel that it was particularly wasted in this instance, but he couldn't help but to feel annoyed at having to do all of this for someone who intended to kill an actual Queen because she insulted someone's poetry.

---

Songs. I went through the start of the run feeling like I was slow, and everything came to a halt when I got to the Super Mario 3 BGM chart. (In case you're wondering, it's not the exact rip of the Fami music; it's more of a deliberately recomposed facsimilie.) Even with the added notes is an easy song to play, and my first play of it left me at a 57% B. Most of the line graph shown me hovering around the C rank range throughout the song. I put the hi speed setting back to my usual 243 white number, down from the 233 where I was before, and as if by magic, I get an 80% AA play immediately thereafter. I guess I'll have a bunch of new records to get once those prior played songs come around again. After putting up with that, I had a game crash due to hold notes and key presses being frozen, and the crash occurred when I attempted to restart the song. In order to move that problematic song to the reject pile, I went through the song load logfile and found that an entire 10GB directory was duplicated within one of my other folders. I think the cleaning up project will come sooner than later.

Lunar Beat. Extra Mode. Double play. "@" denotes Random chart modifier. All songs are of highest difficulty type unless specified.
First line, by column; song title, EX score percentage and letter grade rank, EX score value and pass/fail, judgment readout (just great, great, good, bad poor), highest combo reached, note count of chart under Extra Mode, original note count of chart, percentage increase of Extra Mode notes over original note count, timestamp.
Second line, by column; pass count / play count, EX score percentage difference from record, EX score value difference from record, judgment readout difference from record (if current play is new record), highest combo reached difference from record (if current play is new record), timestamp of old record (if current play is new record).

Code:

			EX% & Rank	EX.p/f	pg.gr.gd.bd.pr		combo	nc	onc	%+nc 	date
r8u			22.91 E		1271.F	366.539.1044.334.1185	0048	2773	1269	118.51	2013-10-26T00:19:19:049Z
0/1

sensation chance 	28.04 E		1410.F	435.540.895.288.967	0092	2514	1016	147.44	2013-10-26T00:23:12:434Z
0/1

sound heaven		45.74 C		2075.F	682.711.556.120.450	0112	2268	1490	052.21	2013-10-26T00:27:42:553Z
0/1

space embryo		53.91 C		1859.F	661.537.393.43.197	0145	1724	1156	049.13	2013-10-26T00:32:07:882Z
0/1

star tune		40.65 D		1802.F	603.596.704.119.442	0117	2216	1003	120.93	2013-10-26T00:36:58:833Z
0/1

sunlight		54.47 C		1875.F	644.587.406.36.138	0162	1721	0998	072.44	2013-10-26T00:41:56:850Z
0/1

super mario 3 bgm	80.96 AA	0957.P	393.171.17.4.9		0266	0591	0206	186.93	2013-10-26T00:49:02:457Z
0/1

synth girl's heart	32.07 E		1646.F	532.582.755.354.1014	0123	2566	1223	109.81	2013-10-26T00:54:55:337Z
0/1

the least 100sec og	32.31 E		2335.F	766.803.1096.338.1268	0023	3631	2116	071.15	2013-10-26T01:00:00:001Z
0/1

the sinking world	66.42 B		2499.P	944.611.240.31.154	0213	1881	0718	161.97	2013-10-26T01:07:41:809Z
1/1

the sorrow of islands	40.42 D		2264.F	771.722.774.213.745	0057	2800	0981	185.42	2013-10-26T01:14:46:003Z
0/1

time to eye		38.94 D		1493.F	475.543.525.134.580	0113	1917	1168	064.12	2013-10-26T01:21:18:265Z
0/1

trans			39.81 D		1626.F	566.494.573.133.610	0112	2042	1240	064.67	2013-10-26T01:26:29:897Z
0/1

uncle arabian		39.26 D		1581.F	558.465.528.222.614	0039	2013	0867	132.17	2013-10-26T01:51:30:129Z
0/1