Sat Apr 23 2022

Sleep 0045 to 0815. (7-1/2 hours)

• Got security cam footage for the guy who wants to report to police that his package was stolen. On second look the burglar used a wide chisel and pried the front door open which I guess means the lock wasn't fully engaged.
• CW3 are camping this weekend so no DDO. Got to sleep early and wake up early for once.

Sun Apr 24 2022

Sleep 2300 to 0400. 0700 to 0800. (6 hours)

• Woke up early to see the end of Anna Cramling's 24 hour stream. Then a nap before Nemo's stream.
• Spent a few hours researching a bug and am disappointed when another developer talked to me about the issue I gave two things that could be done (check the run logs and check with test run owning team) but apparently neither were done.

Mon Apr 25 2022

Sleep 0345 to 1000. 1100 to 1200. (7-1/4 hours)

• Guess I was wrong. Huey's '80s Radio s2.1 dropped so I guess both it wasn't a really old show and it's in production. Cool.

Tue Apr 26 2022

Sleep 0245 to 1045. (8 hours)

• Paid off first $50k of mortgage after 4-1/3 years.

Wed Apr 27 2022

Sleep 0245 to 1015. (7-1/2 hours)

• Apple 96W Power Adapter is shipping. So that's one more item I won't have to lug back and forth to work.
• Maybe buy AirPods Max so I don't have to bring headphones back and forth...

Thu Apr 28 2022

Sleep 0030 to 0830. (8 hours)

• Twitch is removing the Friends feature because no-one really used it. They expect instead that you should Follow your friends. Oh well.

Fri Apr 29 2022

Sleep 0300 to 0930. (6-1/2 hours)

• Oops. Power adapter does not come with a cable so I'll need to buy a USB-C to USB-C cable.
• Herman Miller chair delivered. FedEx was nice enough to leave it at my front door cause it's heavy. But maybe would have been a bit of a fire hazard if I wasn't home to take it in immediately.
• The chair might be broken or I just can't figure out how to adjust seat height.

So IRS 40K contribution limits for 2022 are

$20500 regular
$6500 catch up

I just realized catch up contribution is calculated separately. You specify once percentage contribution for regular and one for catch up. When one of the contributions hits its limit it stops.

So far this year I've made 7 contribution payments (3 parts regular, 1 part catch up) for a total of $8296.

Regular = $6222 / 7 * 24 = $21333, so that's on track to max out
Catch Up = $2074 / 7 * 24 = $7111, so that's on track to max out

Everything looks fine.

The Hostile bundle presents an RPG and supplements based the Cepheus Engine which in turns is based on Classic Traveller. This is a science fiction RPG in a universe more along the lines of Alien, Outland and Blade Runner -- more gritty both in terms of dirty ships and violent deaths.

I expect these are LBB-sized books so letter-sized page count is probably half or less.

Hostile Rules (2017) - 239 pages
Hostile Setting (2021) - 321 pages

Introduction to Hostile, Technical Manual, Tool-Kots
Situation Reports x5

Gunlocker (2020) - 45 pages, compilation of previously published weapons
Hostile Reference Screen (0221) - 26 pages, screen and reference material

Explorers (2021) - 71 pages, scout book including a survey ship and 36 worlds
Dirtside (2019) - 65 pages, animals and environment
Colony Builder (2021) - 105 pages, build a colony

Alien Breeds (2018) - 41 pages, a specific xenomorph plus a sample colony and and adventure to tie them all together
Synthetics (2020) - 47 pages, clones and androids
Gunboats & Shuttles (2020) - 69 pages, a collection of small craft with deckplans
Marine Corps Handbook 2215 (2018) - 119 pages, description of a Marine Expeditionary Unit plus Marine character creation
Crew Expendable (2019) - 80 pages, space truckers with a sample ship, 36 NPCs, and random contract-creation tables

There is an rpg.net thread which started a few months ago but is now talking about the bundle. I read a couple of online reviews and although the reviewers liked the rpg and setting from the description it doesn't seem like something I'd buy. Guess I'll skip.

Sat Apr 16 2022

Sleep 0400 to 0900. 90 min nap in car. (6-1/2 hours)

• Darn. The way Pinnacle setup their Deadlands KS the amount I pledged can only be used for product not shipping and if I don't use it all in this order the rest is wasted. So I have to both order an extra $18 in products and pay $18 shipping. Oof.

Sun Apr 17 2022

Sleep 0230 to 1015. (7-3/4 hours)

• AGI is just over Roth IRA limit of $126k so I have to remove excess contribution. Unfortunately adding money is a few clicks but removing means filling out a form and sending it to my brokerage.

Mon Apr 18 2022

Sleep 0300 to 1100. (8 hours)

• Fed and State combined effective tax rate 19.44% Total refund is $7200.

Tue Apr 19 2022

Sleep 0330 to 0930. 1 hour nap. (7 hours)

• PhotoChess started playing Stream Raiders. With Marbles and Chess at the same time. Lots going on.

Wed Apr 20 2022

Sleep 0430 to 1200. (7-1/2 hours)

• Bundle of Holding - Sly Flourish. Game Mastering advice books. For the most part not into advice books, especially ones tailored to D&D gaming.

Thu Apr 21 2022

Sleep 0600 to 1200. (6 hours)

• This is a real splurge but I ordered a Herman Miller Embody Gaming Chair for $1575 (with tax and 15% off + an extra 5% with code BOTEZ5). The good office chair Steph handed down to me a decade ago is still pretty good but definitely falling apart a bit. This new chair should last me until I retire and it's nice having a good chair.

Fri Apr 22 2022

Sleep 0315 to 0915. (6 hours)

• Chess.com verified accounts. I think it's a good idea since if you're caught cheating with a verified account you're out $15. Kind of like when a game company required tying a phone number to an account it really cut down on cheating. Yearly $10 fee not great but I will probably do it. Have to remember to do it Aug 01 so it matches my annual membership renewal. Which I guess brings up the point that adding verified features to paid memberships would accomplish the same goals, though with a monthly fee instead of yearly.

The other tough Raid Shadow Legends dungeon is Spider's Den. What makes it tough:

• Before every turn a champion takes two spiderlings arrive (to a maximum of 10). And if a champion has an ability that gives them an extra turn another two spiderlings arrive before that extra turn.
• Every other turn the big spider eats all spiderlings and heals 3% per each consumed.
• The Spider is immune to heal reduction so you can't prevent it from healing if it goes.

So the key things are that the Spider heals like crazy and all those spiderlings can do a lot of damage if you don't kill them before they go.

My team is an hp burn team:

• Ignatius (leader): leader for his defense and here for his hp burn wave to set everyone on fire.
• Venus: another hp burn aoe.
• Arbiter: for speed and team resurrection
• Scyl of the Drakes: for healing and stunning to keep the spiderlings from attacking, and she has Relentless set
• Ursala the Mourner: for defense and team resurrection

Two aoe burners and three people to keep everyone alive. Make it so that each time a spiderling goes it burns big mama. This is a 90%+ win team on level 25 and often it's down to Ursala (or maybe Arbiter) resurrecting everyone else before she dies.

I have a MacBook Pro 16" (Late 2019) which has four Thunderbolt 3 ports, all of which support USB-C (both use the same connector shape). Currently I have it connected as:

1 - Thunderbolt to DisplayPort: Dell U2717D monitor
2 - Thunderbolt to DisplayPort: Dell U2415 monitor
3 - Thunderbolt to USB-C: Power Adapter
4 - Thunderbolt to USB-C/USB-A adapter: Dell U2717D USB bus

Dell U2717D bus has:

1 - Hard Drive Dock (USB 3.0)
2 - Glorious Mouse adapter
3 - USB to Lightning for iOS devices
4 - Drobo 5C (USB 3.0 Type C)

The way it's setup hard drives to each other and to MBP is kind of slow. Even connected with USB-A cables both the HDD and Drobo are twice as fast if connected directly to MBP.

The monitors support DisplayPort 1.2 MST (multi-stream transport) which means you can daisy chain them together. But turns out macOS does not support MST so you do have to connect each monitor separately.

I'd like to have the HDD and Drobo connected faster. Currently it's not exactly slow (I can watch videos from my Drobo fine) but file transfers do take longer than I expect. But even if I use USB 3.0 cables the bottleneck is MBP since the computer handles copying and the Dells support max 5 Gbps.

Sat Apr 09 2022

Sleep 0730 to 1245. 1-1/2 hour nap. (6-1/4 hours)

• A resident wants to find out what happened to their large envelope with very important documents. I check the security cam and see it being delivered and then it got moved away from camera. Checked for that day and next day and fairly sure no one took the envelope. If it was that important why did you not pick it up that day or the next day?

Sun Apr 10 2022

Sleep 0500 to 1130. (6-1/2 hours)

• $7k Roth IRA contribution for 2021. As long as my AGI is $125k or less I'm fine. Otherwise I need to withdraw the extra by tax extension deadline in October.

Mon Apr 11 2022

Sleep 0030 to 0500, 0630 to 1030. (8-1/2 hours)

• Went to work. Someone "borrowed" my USB-A to USB-C adapter so no keyboard which means I have to use my MBP keyboard so no external monitors. F that so I went home.
• Gosh darn it. Forgot my power adapter so I have to go back to work. Oh well. Grabbed a USB-A to USB-C adapter so at least I can work there.
• 96W USB-C Power Adapter still scheduled for Apr 21 to May 04. I checked and all three power adapters are backordered to May 25 to Jun 08 delivery.

Tue Apr 12 2022

Sleep 0415 to 1145. (7-1/2 hours)

• Backed Shield Maidens KS. Added Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022. £140 total.

Wed Apr 13 2022

Sleep 0330 to 1130. (8 hours)

• At work again. Twice in a week!

Thu Apr 14 2022

Sleep 0000 to 0700. 1 hour nap. (8 hours)

• Didn't notice I had gone back to using Brave to watch Twitch and then was wondering why the UI got laggy.
• So sleepy all day today.

Fri Apr 15 2022

Sleep 0430 to 1030. 1 hour nap. (7 hours)

• Last night was checking security camera footage because resident reported a missing package. Apparently someone broke in using a straight edge to unlock the front door from the outside. The lock is like a regular door lock (sloped rear edge) instead of like a deadbolt (cylinder) so if you can push on the slope it will push the lock and unlock the door.

Raid Shadow Legends Fire Knight Castle is the toughest dungeon (well, Spider's Den is about the same) and it took me a while to get a team that can beat it regularly on stage 25.

What makes him tough

• A shield that blocks most damage. You have to hit it 12 times before it goes down and it comes back up when he goes.
• Fairly high regeneration, higher when the shield is up but still high when the shield is down.
• His attacks reduce Max HP, which I find rarely comes into play but means very even battles you'll eventually run out of HP.

The team I use

• Arbiter (lead) - for speed and resurrection
• Coldheart - 4 attacks to take down the shield and a big decrease turn meter attack
• Venomage - blocks healing, reduces attack if Knight is poisoned and if poisoned can inflict decrease attack debuff
• Yannica - for raw damage but also can get off three attacks and I have Relentess on her so sometimes she gets off more attaks
• Scyl of the Drakes- for healing and I also have Relentless, can also inflict decrease speed and turn meter so that's nice

If all goes well Fire Knight's shield goes down in turn 1, Venomage hits him with block healing + poison, Arbiter speeds up everyone just enough for Coldheart to decrease turn meter which gives Venomage a chance to hit him with decrease attack (sometimes Fire Knight gets to ten debuffs and decrease attack isn't inflicted).

With max decrease damage Fire Knights attack doesn't kill anyone so it's easy to break down his shield and keep him heal blocked and decrease attack debuffed. Key is that if everyone survives his attack they don't waste time getting resurrected.

If things don't go as well Fire Knight kills Yannica and Coldheart. Arbiter resurrects both and the second time around Venomage does her magic.

Unfortunately about 25% of the time the timing is off and Fire Knight kills everyone before Arbiter can resurrect everyone (her resurrect has a four turn cooldown and sometimes she comes in having just used it for the increase turn meter effect).

I finally got a Rhazin Scarhide and once I get him ready I might try using him instead of Yannica. In practice about the same number of attacks per turn but Rhazin has a decrease turn meter 100% attack which might mean Venomage gets her two attacks off before Fire Knight goes the first time.

Trying to choose games I haven't chosen before.

Realpolitiks (2017), $3 (80% off) - One of those complex real-world politics-wargames, though apparently less complex than a Paradox game.

Superhot One of Us Bundle (2016), $17 (60% off) - Bundles the original Superhot and the second sequel, Superhot: Mind Control Delete (the first sequel is Superhot VR). Superhot is sort of an abstract graphics FPS where when you're not moving all action stops (i.e. antagonists and bullets stop moving).

Coffee Talk (2020), $9 (30% off) - You're a barista in fantasy modern-day Seattle. Listen to people's stories and serve the appropriate tailored coffees to branch the stories. It's different.

Sat Apr 02 2022

Sleep 0545 to 1215. (6-1/2 hours)

• Termite inspection this morning. Kept lightly napping until they came to my door. Then slept another couple of hours.

Sun Apr 03 2022

Sleep 0500 to 1200. (7 hours)

• Twitch on Firefox. Window can be narrower so easier to get three streams with chat up on my 24" monitor (main stream is mod view then two viewing streams). But video has problems on slower vpn.

Mon Apr 04 2022

Sleep 2215 to 0115, 0545 to 1045. (8 hours)

• Annual alarm testing. Very loud.

Tue Apr 05 2022

Sleep 0600 to 1300. (7 hours)

• I just could not get to sleep last night. Lying in bed for hours.
• Twitch UI is so laggy in Brave that I switched to Firefox and it's fast now. So was not a network issue as I suspected before. Maybe it's a caching issue.

Wed Apr 06 2022

Sleep 0030 to 0830. (8 hours)

• Was wondering why I keep getting Twitch ads even though I'm subscribed. It's because on my other browser I have TTV LOL extension installed.
• Ran into it because I was wondering why Brave is so slow running Twitch but that's the only extension I'm running on Brave. Of course if Firefox becomes slow I guess it's the extension after all.

Thu Apr 07 2022

Sleep 0400 to 0900. 1 hour nap. (6 hours)

• Steve Jackson Games' Cars Wars and Ogre Playmat preorder. 4-pack City Block Playmat 1, Giant Ogre Playmat, and can buy the four Car Wars Dashboard Mats (Red, Blue, Green Yellow). $248 with shipping.
• After you create an order you can't edit, as far as I can tell. Had to cancel my order and create a new one.

Fri Apr 08 2022

Sleep 0330 to 1130 (8 hours)

• Friday Night Baseball has commercials. Sadge. Although if you watch the replay you can skip forward.
• Sports + close captioning not good. It's putting the CC on the bottom and that's where stats and such go... I can create a custom Captions setting. Small text, no background. Can't specify where to place captions though. At least captions will be better on other videos I watch.

This bundle is for Cubicle 7's Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound RPG. Apparently this is a setting after the original Warhammer Old World is destroyed and a new world is rebuilt by the god Sigmar and this world also partially collapses.

CB7-2500 Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound (2020) - 352 pages
CB7-2503 Gamemaster's Screen (2020)
CB7-2505 Great Parch Map (2022) - A1-sized map
CB7-2509 Crash & Burn (2020) - 25-page intro adventure
CB7-2510 Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound Starter Set (2020) - intro rules and adventure + city guide
CB7-2511 Blood Tide (2020) - Shadows in the Mist p1, 40 page adventure
CB7-2512 Anvilgard City Guide (2020) - 40 page city guide
CB7-2513 Rotten to the Core (2021) - Shadows in the Mist p2, 30-page adventure
CB7-2514 Petrified Wood (2021) - Shadows in the Mist p4, 35-page adventure
CB7-2515 Crucible of Life (2021) - Shadows in the Mist p3, 39-page adventure
CB7-2516 Aqua Nurglis (2021) - Shadows in the Mist p5, 32 page adventure
CB7-2517 Balancing the Scales (2021) - Shadows in the Mist p6, 32 page adventure
CB7-2518 Champions of Order (2021) - 144-page splatbook
CB7-2519 Bestiary (2021) - 192 page monster book
CB7-2520 Fateful Night (2020) - 18-page small adventure
CB7-2522 Trouble Brewing (2020) - 21 page adventure
CB7-2524 Streets of Brightspear (2020) - 19 page city resource book
CB7-2525 Doomed Lands (2021) - 16 pages of locations
CB7-2527 Stars and Scales (2021) - 55 page splatbook
CB7-2528 Refuges of the Realms (2021) - 16 pages with 9 refuges
CB7-2529 Through Fire and Smoke (2021) - 12 pages of environment traits
CB7-2530 Steam and Steel (2021) - 127 page equipment book

CB7-25xx The Fall of Anvilgard (2021) - Shadows in the Mist appendix

--------------------------------

Other items not included

CB7-2504 Shadows in the Mist (2021) - #2511, 2513-2517 and Fall of Anvilgard?
CB7-2535 Artefacts of Power (2021) - 143-page stuff and rules
CB7-2533 Champions of Death (2021) - 144-page splatbook
CB7-2534 Champions of Destruction (2022) - 160-page splatbook

CB7-2539 Reap and Sow (2021) - 16-page Free RPG Day adventure (free download at C7 website)

So this bundle seems to be all published products except three big sourcebooks (which I care less about than adventures). A little annoying that you get the individual adventures rather than Shadows in the Mist big book, which I think of as the second edition of the adventures. I guess it's done this way to make the bundle look bigger.

It's $18 for the bundle which is too good to pass up.

Pelgrane Press's The Esoterrorists bundle is for one of their early Gumshoe System RPGs.

PELG-01 The Esoterrorists 1E (2006)
PELG-03 The Book of Unremitting Horror (2007) - monsters
PELG-04 Six Packed (2007) - adventure
PELG-05 Albion's Ransom 1 - Little Girl Lost (2007) - campaign supplement
PELG-06 Profane Miracles (2008) - adventure
PELG-07 Dissonance: Music for Esoterrorists (2008)
PELG-08 The Esoterror Factbook (2009) - rules/setting supplement
PELG-10 The Love of Money (2011) - adventure
PELG-12 The Esoterrorists 2E (2013)
PELG-13 Albion's Ransom 2 - Worm of Sixty Winters (2013) - campaign supplement
PELG-14 The Esoterror Summoning Guide (2013) - background and adventure
PELG-16 Worldbreaker (2016) - campaign supplement

This is all the regular Esoterrorists books published so far so a complete set for $19 is quite nice. Ends tomorrow so bought it.

Sat Mar 26 2022

Sleep 0400 to 1000. 1300 to 1600. (9 hours)

• DDO: We did a last run and I got Legendary Fusible Sceptre of Impulse so my next character is set. Then we tried Caught in the Web and I had forgotten how tedious it is so we stopped when Ana died at the last battle. Now it's time to reincarnate.

Sun Mar 27 2022

Sleep 0400 to 1200. (8 hours)

• Interesting Twitch Gifted Subs page. Does not seem to track really small and/or infrequent streamers as I've done 50-sub bombs that don't show up.

Mon Mar 28 2022

Sleep 0500 to 1200. (7 hours)

• HOA Meeting. We had a politely angry discussion with vendor whose project ran a couple of months over for part 1. Management company rep suggested next time we do this in executive session to avoid embarrassing vendor in front of HOA members

Tue Mar 29 2022

Sleep 0400 to 1200. 1730 to 1830. (9 hours)

• Apple TV+ Friday Night Baseball premieres Apr 08.
• Just noticed that USPS Informed Delivery emails identify the sender for some of the mail. Valpak - HGTV for an advertisement. Gerber Life Insurance for maybe another advertisement (one where sender is not identified on the mail itself which is neat).

Wed Mar 30 2022

Sleep 0330 to 1130. (8 hours)

• Noble Knight Games is doing a buy 2 get 1 free sale but it's only for items marked for the sale. Sure, hundreds of items but sifting through all that data looking for what I'd like to buy is too much of a struggle.

Thu Mar 31 2022

Sleep 0400 to 1200. (8 hours)

• Shield Maidens KS is open.

Fri Apr 01 2022

Sleep 0330 to 0800. 1015 to 1245. 1 hour nap. (8 hours)

• DDO reincarnation. That took like three hours. Dave W came late (2300) and spent five hours reincarnating his and Sophia's characters. Hopefully we can try them out tomorrow.

Feats

Level  Origin        Feat
1      Standard      Spell Focus: Illusion
1      Wizard 1      Eschew Materials
3      Standard      Mental Toughness
5      Wizard 2      Improved Mental Toughness
6      Standard      Quicken Spell
9      Standard      Enlarge Spell
10     Wizard 3      Extend Spell
12     Standard      Empower Spell
15     Standard      Heighten Spell
15     Wizard 4      Maximize Spell
18     Standard      Greater Spell Focus: Illusion
20     Wizard 5      Augment Summoning
21     Epic Feat     Arcane Insight
22     Epic Destiny  Epic Spell Power (Force)
24     Epic Feat     Improved Augment Summoning
25     Epic Destiny  Elusive Target
27     Epic Feat     Embolden Spell
28     Epic Destiny  Spirit Blades (does not break invisibility)
30     Epic Feat     Intensify Spell
30     Legendary     Scion of the Feywild

Skills

• Concentration - class skill
• Repair - class skill
• Spellcraft - class skill
• Tumble - to take advantage of Illusory Escape enhancement
• Use Magic Device - to use Raise Dead and Heal scrolls
• Spot - excess skill, to see bad guys
• Jump - excess skill, need a little since Jump spell gives +30 and Jump tops at 40
• Swim - excess skill, need some but Merfolk's Blessing gives +25 at level 30

No social skills because Christopher is doing Bluff/Diplomacy and Dave W will probably do Intimidate.