Kevin C. Wong

January 2020

DunDraCon 44 - Saturday Plans

Saturday night is the Rainbow so that limits my choices.

*** 247 Star Trek: Ascendancy

Saturday 11 AM on Salon 1 Table 6 for 6 hours
Room Map
GM: Ray Vincent
Type: Board
System: Star Trek: Ascendancy
Edition: 1st
Players: 5
Provided: All materials provided by GM
Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome
Game Content: Mainstream

I want to try this 4X Star Trek game and Ray says he has enough for a five-player game (I think starting set is 3 players).

223 Something Stinky in Footsrest

Saturday 10 AM in 379 for 6 hours
Room Map
GM: David Lowe-Rogstad
Type: RPG
System: Dungeons & Dragons 5
Players: 6
Provided: Characters may be provided by GM
Power Level: 5th-8th
Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome
Game Content: Family

I also want to try out D&D 5th edition so this is a good backup game.

Saturday is when to use your priority registration, which kind of means hoping to crash Friday games (totally doable, last year the Friday sessions I went to had open spots).

362 The Invasion of Hyperion

Saturday Noon on Salon FG Table 9 for 3 hours
Room Map
GM: Jeff Yin
Type: Sci-Fi Miniatures
System: Battlefleet Gothic
Players: 10
Provided: All miniatures provided by GM
Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome
Game Content: Mainstream

A second backup game in case I don't get into one of the other two.

Chess - IsakGallo v KevinCWong

I played this game during a 3+2 (3 min + 2 sec per move) arena tournament. It was my first game of the tournament and after this game I was to stressed to continue. I played black.


IsakGallo_vs_KevinCWong_2020.02.09


IsakGallo (919) v KevinCWong (938) Feb 09 2020 [ PGN ]

1. Nfe d5
2. d4 Nc6
3. Bf4 Bg4
4. Nc3 e6
5. Ne5 Nxe5

Here I thought I can't let him keep a knight there and didn't want to weaken king's-side castle by pushing f pawn.

IsakGallo_vs_KevinCWong_2020.02.09_5.Ne5_Nxe5

6. Bxe5 Bd6

Yikes! I left my h rook open for capture but neither of us ever saw it. Instead he focused on my bishop move and we traded bishops.

IsakGallo_vs_KevinCWong_2020.02.09_6.Bxe5_Bd6

7. Bxd6 Qxd6
8. f3 Bf5
9. e4 dxe4
10. fxe4 Bg6
11. e5 Qe7
12. Qd2 O-O-O
13. O-O-O f6

After some more moves we both castled queen side and I decided to contest the center. I think I checked time about now. At this point he has 2:27 and I have 1:29 so I knew I had to speed up a bit.

IsakGallo_vs_KevinCWong_2020.02.09_13.o-o-o_f6

14. exf6 gxf6
15. Nb5 a6

He attacked my a pawn. I moved it up to force his knight back and I was also conscious that if he moved his knight to check me it would trap his knight, and that's what happened so I was up a knight for a pawn.

IsakGallo_vs_KevinCWong_2020.02.09_15.Nb5_a6

16. Na7+ Kb8
17. Qe3 Kxa7
18. d5+ Kb8
19. Qb3 exd5
20. Rxd5 Rxd5

20. Rxd5 was a blunder but I was so focused on the enemy rook I missed the checkmate and took his rook. Instead 20...Qe1+ forces him to block with his rook and then I take it with my queen for checkmate.

IsakGallo_vs_KevinCWong_2020.02.09_20.Rxd5_Rxd5

21. Qxd5 Qe3+
22. Qd2 Qxd2+
23. Kxd2 Ne7

Here I thought I'm fine trading queens since I'm a piece up. He has 1:22 and I have 41 seconds.

IsakGallo_vs_KevinCWong_2020.02.09_23.Kxd2_Ne7

24. c3 Rd8+
25. Kc1 Nd5
26. Bc4 Ne3
27. Re1 Nxc4

My pieces were in good position and he had his rook trapped. I used a rook-check to develop my rook and get an extra tempo. We were moving quickly and he left his bishop undefended and suddenly I was two pieces up. He had 1:14 and I had 38 seconds.

IsakGallo_vs_KevinCWong_2020.02.09_27.Re1_Nxc4

28. b3 Ne5
29. Kb2 Nd3+

I was moving fast, thinking I might not have enough time left to win. Then he made a mistake and I forked his king and rook. After I took the rook he resigned a move later.

IsakGallo_vs_KevinCWong_2020.02.09_29.Kb2_Nd3+

30. Kc2 Nxe1+
31. Kb2 (resigns)

Other than that early blunder it was my opponent making the mistakes while I tried to just play solid.







Diary - Jan 18 to Jan 24 2020

Sat Jan 18 2020

Sleep 04:15 to 09:15, 10:30 to 11:30.

  • Really not in the mood to work.

Sun Jan 19 2020

Sleep 03:30 to 10:30. 15:30 to 18:00.

  • Still didn't work much but not really expected to this weekend (but still have to report progress in sync call)

Mon Jan 20 2020

Sleep 04:00 to 11:00.

  • Steve Jackson Games Pocket Games KS bundle shipped today. ETA Thursday. Weight: 30+ lbs!

Tue Jan 21 2020

Sleep 02:00 to 10:00.

  • Wine 5.0 released. I have no idea if this means we're closer to a 64-bit version of DDO client for macOS.
  • Ju Wenjun ties Aleksandra Goryachkina in game 11. She leads 6-5 going to final game, though Goryachkina will have white. Maria and Joe did commentary for chess.com.

Wed Jan 22 2020

Sleep 02:30 to 10:00. 30 minute nap.

  • One of Maria's friends, Gannikchess aka IM Mikhail Lushenkov died today. He had been battling MM (Multiple Myeloma), a blood cancer.

Thu Jan 23 2020

Sleep 01:45 to 12:00.

  • Apparently kekw is the laughing shortcut for Koreans.

Fri Jan 24 2020

Sleep 03:00 to 10:30.

  • Also, wkwkwk is laughing shortcut for Indonesians.

DunDraCon 44 - Friday Plans

*** P18 Vacuum Echoes

Only available via On-line Pre-registration
Friday Noon in 377 for 6 hours
Room Map
GM: Keith Johnson
Type: RPG
System: Mothership
Edition: Player's Survival Guide
Players: 6
Provided: All characters provided by GM
Power Level: Average, like the crew of the Nostromo
Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome
Game Content: Mainstream

I saw a Mothership supplement on sale at DriveThruRPG so read about it a bit. It seems to be an RPG for 80's and 90's space horror games, like Alien/s. Would like to try it out, though the system is still in development.

Also, this game ends at 18:00 giving me time for dinner.

P64 Space Hulk

Only available via On-line Pre-registration
Friday 2 PM on Hall Table 4 for 6 hours
Room Map
GM: David Camp
Type: Sci-Fi Miniatures
System: Space Hulk
Edition: 3rd
Players: 8
Provided: All miniatures provided by GM
Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome
Game Content: Mainstream

As an alternate this is probably fun. Miniatures combat in a wrecked space ship.

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

*** 114 Cthulhu Trek

Friday 8 PM in 159 for 6 hours
Room Map
GM: Gene Lancaster
Type: RPG
System: Trail of Cthulhu
Edition: 1st
Players: 5
Provided: All characters provided by GM
Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome
Game Content: Mainstream

Assuming I get into P18 there is no need to do 119 so this becomes my first choice.

119 A Pound of Flesh

Friday 8 PM in 165 for 4 hours
Room Map
GM: Adrian Romero
Type: RPG
System: Mothership
Players: 5
Provided: Characters created for game
Power Level: Mid
Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome
Game Content: Mature Themes

If I get into P64 then this becomes my primary choice for the evening game as it ends earlier.

2020 Primary Election Ballot

President of the United States
ROBERT ARDINI

US House of Representatives, California 14th District
CRISTOS GOODROW Occupation: Technology Executive

California State Senate, 13th District
SALLY J. LIEBER Occupation: Ret. State Assemblywoman/Enviro Advocate

California State Assembly, 22nd District
KEVIN MULLIN Occupation: California State Assemblymember

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

Prop 13. AUTHORIZES BONDS FOR FACILITY REPAIR, CONSTRUCTION, AND MODERNIZATION AT PUBLIC PRESCHOOLS, K–12 SCHOOLS, COMMUNITY COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES. LEGISLATIVE STATUTE.

$15B in bonds, mostly for construction projects. $11B estimated interest over 35 years.

This seems to come up every year or three. Let's look at recent history:

2016 - Prop 51. School bonds, $9B in bonds. (PASSED)
2016 - Prop 55. Tax Extension to Fund Education and Healthcare. (PASSED)
2012 - Prop 30. Increases income and sales taxes temporarily for education and public safety funding. (PASSED, part of it still ongoing to 2030)

Guess I was wrong, nothing much in the last decade, though the most recent was a big bond measure. This one is bigger at $15B. Then again $15B is not that big compared to the annual state budget.

As I read the cons they are the typical points trotted out every time:

1. leads to higher taxes
2. some money will be wasted
3. bonds end up costing much more because of interest
4. school funding can be better spent

They did add:

5. don't confuse this Prop 13 with previous Prop 13 property tax limits (which, btw, is why we have to keep borrowing money to pay for schools).

I'm voting YES.

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

San Mateo Union High School District - Measure L

SAN MATEO UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT CLASSROOM REPAIR/TECHNOLOGY MEASURE
$385M in local bonds paid via $15.55 per $100k property tax (so for me like $125 per year).

I'm all for local bonds since they're paid by corresponding increased taxes, unlike state bonds where repayment comes out of general funds which often means indirectly by increased taxes.

I'm voting YES.

Diary - Jan 11 to Jan 17 2020

Sat Jan 11 2020

Sleep 04:00 to 11:15.

  • 49ers beat the Vikings 27-10.
  • Titans upset the Ravens 28-12.

Sun Jan 12 2020
Sleep 05:30 to 11:00. 1 hour nap.

  • Chiefs come from 24-0 to beat Texans 51-31.
  • Packers handle Seahawks 28-23.

Mon Jan 13 2020

Sleep 02:30 to 11:30.

  • Oracle Plaza Cafe has Kambucha on tap.

Tue Jan 14 2020

Sleep 02:00 to 09:30.

  • Oracle Plaza Cafe has a kiosk for ordering grill stuff. It's kind of nice.

Wed Jan 15 2020

Sleep 03:00 to 12:45.

  • Slept in, worked from home. Was nice.
  • Stayed up late watching Maria and Joe commentate Women's World Championship game 7.

Thu Jan 16 2020

Sleep 04:45 to 10:30.

  • So at home I have two monitors: 2560 x 1440 + 1920 x 1200 and at work my two monitors are: 1920 x 1080 + 1680 x 1050. Yet it seems so much less screen real estate at work. Maybe I have to reduce text size.
  • Aleksandra Goryachkina wins game 8 to go up 4-1/2 to 3-1/2 over FIDE women's world champion Ju Wenjun. Four games left.

Fri Jan 17 2020

Sleep 02:45 to 08:00, 11:00 to 14:00.

  • Working from home. But not really. Kind of brain dead.

Upcoming Theatrical Movies

Time to watch trailers (using Apple's Trailers app) and see what's interesting.


1917 (Dec 25) - Dave S liked this movie. Two soldiers must reach a battalion and stop a planned attack. Made to look like one continuous shot.

Color Out of Space (Jan 24) - Adaptation of HP Lovecraft's story starring Nicolas Cage and Joely Richardson. Special effects don't look too bad so this version (this is the fifth) may be the most visually realistic.

The New Mutants (Apr 03) - A neat, colorful comic book turned into a gritty maybe thriller superhero movie. Not sure I like the change in tone. I guess this is MCU since 20th Century Fox (who owned the X-Men movie rights) got bought out by Disney.

No Time to Die (Apr 10) - The latest James Bond film with Daniel Craig playing the lead role for the fifth and final time. Cool locations and great action sequences.

Birds of Prey (Feb 7) - A lot of comic book films. This one features Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and her temporary female superhero allies. Kind of all hinges on Margot Robbie who is crazy good as HQ.

Bloodshot (Mar 13) - Another comic-book film, this one with Vin Diesel playing Valiant Comics superhero Bloodshot. A bit darker as he's being manipulated by his company to do assassination work all the while thinking he's avenging his murdered wife (who may also be a memory construct).

Black Widow (May 1) - The trailer is not specific about whether this is before or after Infinity War/Endgame. But at least we finally get a Black Widow movie with Scarlett Johansson and action looks good.

Wonder Woman 1984 (Jun 05) - This looks like it'll be awesome!

Top Gun: Maverick (Jun 26) - Navy jets and Tom Cruise.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Jul 10) - Thirty years after the first movie, two kid descendants find their grandfather's Ghostbuster gear just as ghosts appear to terrorize their small town. I guess more of a Goonies/Stranger Things take on the Ghostbusters.

Tenet (Jul 17) - A super-spy where the secret agent (John David Washington) can reverse time? Not sure what his powers are from the trailer.

Morbius (Jul 31) - Sony's MCU (Morbius being a Spider-Man villain). Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) is crippled and has a rare blood disease. The cure turns him into a vampire. Villain or anti-hero?

Humble Bundle - Australia Fire Relief

Once I cut out games that I can't play on the latest OS then there isn't much in the bundle for me. The most interesting is Euro Truck Simulator 2 which I used to think would be boring but I watched a streamer playing one of the Truck Simulator games and it's quite peaceful driving around with the sun shining and the truck sounds.

In any case, don't think I'll purchase this bundle.

Mac-compatible games, 64-bit

  1. Armello ($20)
  2. Euro Truck Simulator 2 ($20) + Australian Paint Job Pack ($1)
  3. The Adventure Pals ($15)
  4. Regular Human Basketball ($5)
  5. The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game ($5)
  6. Quest of Dungeons ($5)
  7. The Gardens Between ($20)

Mac-compatible games, 64-bit, owned

  1. Crawl (own)
  2. Satellite Reign (own)
  3. Hacknet (own) + Hacknet Labyrinths DLC (own)
  4. Assault Android Cactus+ (own)
  5. Machinarium (own)
Mac-compatible games, 32-bit

  1. Hollow Knight ($15)
  2. Void Bastards ($30)
  3. Hand of Fate (own)
  4. Paradigm ($15)
  5. Mr. Shifty ($15)
  6. FRAMED Collection ($10)
  7. Tower of Guns ($15)
  8. Rising Dusk ($7)
  9. Death Squared ($15)
  10. Paperbark ($9)
  11. The Stillness of the Wind ($13)

Other Games

  1. Duck Game ($13)
  2. Primal Carnage: Extinction ($13)
  3. Think of the Children ($10)
  4. Feather ($10)
  5. Paper Fire Rookie ($10)
  6. Masquerade: The Baubles of Doom ($15)

[ Humble Bundle - Australia Fire Relief Bundle ]

Diary - Jan 04 to Jan 10 2020

Sat Jan 04 2020

Sleep 05:00 to 12:00.

* Gaming at Dave and Sophia's.
* Played a couple scenarios of Ghostbusters board game. Seems a bit easy in that you can take a scenario really slowly with little time pressure.

Sun Jan 05 2020

Sleep 07:15 to 13:30.

* Stayed up way late watching Bikfoot. Ended up donating 5k bits and 20 subs to see him sing.
* Dinner with C3 and Steph at Wursterhall Restaurant and Bierhaus. Nice atmosphere and meal was good but not great.
* Watched chess.com's stream of Women's World Championship game 2. Actually chat wasn't too bad.

Mon Jan 06 2020

Sleep 03:30 to 09:30. 1 hour nap.

* First day of new Pro Chess League season!

Tue Jan 07 2020

Sleep 04:00 to 08:30. 09:30 to 14:00.

* Caught up on sleep?

Wed Jan 08 2020

Sleep 02:00 to 09:00.

* We're being asked to work weekends. Well, not quite asked but suggestion is strong. Except I've already been working most weekends to keep up with the project.

Thu Jan 09 2020
Sleep 01:30 to 09:30.

* Work work work

Fri Jan 10 2020

Sleep 03:45 to 08:30. 11:30 to 13:30.

* One of the older neighbors forgot which apartment he lives in and was trying to get into mine. But I remember he mentioned once that he lived on third floor and sure enough it's #319.
* Dinner with Dave S at Duende, Oakland.
* Took a fall after dinner, skinned my knee and banged it up a bit.
* Saw Jay & Silent Bob Reboot with Dave S.

2020 Budget

Mostly trying to figure out how much I can spend on Twitch. I'm making a huge assumption that I'm getting money from dad, which is kind of sad. But in the end everything seems to even out if I can stick to my budgets.

2020-budget

AB Gossip

S is a small streamer. Has PMed me and asked me to visit his channel a couple of times, which I find a bit creepy. But it also seems like nobody ever raids him. Yet people treat him cordially.

So he had to make a new account, S2, because his main account is having login issues. He told me this because we have a cordial relationship. But when I greeted him as S in AB's channel he PMed me saying that he'd rather keep it secret there because his main account was banned.

Now, AB is very tolerant of trolls and rarely bans anyone. So S must have done something pretty bad to get banned. I'm very curious and could maybe ask one of my mod friends to look at the account history to see if there's a mod note, ban note, or clue in the message history. But I haven't asked.

Anyway, so a month or so later AB is streaming and S2 is there. And when S2 is there he tends to @ the streamer and chat with me and sometimes the streamer chats back and AB was doing that, chatting back to S2. Then C tells AB who S2 is (and I haven't told anyone but S2 wasn't really keeping it secret, often saying in chat this was an alt account of S). AB thanks C and then proceeds to ignore anything that S2 @s to AB. This goes on for a few minutes and a few messages from S2 and eventually he's timed out or I'm thinking banned.

So whatever S did, it's definitely not forgiven. And I'm not sure how many people noticed that exchange.

Oh, I did end up blocking the main S account when he went to N's stream and was really coming on hard offering to give N chess lessons. I find that creepy because people repeat their offers while N politely ignores them then finally says she doesn't want lessons from random streamers. There's a whole group of chess streamers/viewers who I blocked for that behavior in N's channel and S was one of them.

Site Updates - Dec 01 2019 to Jan 04 2020

Reviews


Diary - Dec 28 2019 to Jan 03 2020

Sat Dec 28 2019

Sleep 04:00 to 12:30.

  • Ice cream with C3.

Sun Dec 29 2019

Sleep 04:15 to 12:15.

  • Worked a full day.
  • 49ers beat Seahawks in Seattle. 13-3 record gives them #1 seed in NFC.

Mon Dec 30 2019

Sleep 04:00 to 12:00.

  • Catching up with my web site writing.
  • No work done today.
  • Bought a Humble Bundle Pathfinder settings. All settings or player companions and maybe one or two rules supplements. No adventures. I think a good number of these were free so not as impressive a bundle as you'd think for $40.

Tue Dec 31 2019

Sleep 05:15 to 12:30. 30 minute nap.

  • There are always a few people who point out that 2020 is not a new decade since there was no AD Year 0. Still, everybody treats it that way (and it comes out nicer to have "the 20's" include 2020) and just treat the first decade as only having 9 years.

Wed Jan 01 2020

Sleep 05:00 to 12:30.

  • Oops. Let my air bud headphones go through the wash and now the sound is very washy and people can't hear me. Time to recycle them.
  • Another support messaging session and a call with Apple Card Services. I have to get them and my bank on the phone at the same time for account verification. Quite a bother.

Thu Jan 02 2020

Sleep 01:30 to 09:30.

  • Back at work.

Fri Jan 03 2020

Sleep 23:00 to 09:00.

  • I'm glad I don't have peanut allergy because they are delicious!

Financial Summary

Oracle 401k = $904k
Microsoft 401k = $45k
WCBS 401k = $15k
Roth IRA = $192
HSA = $30k

Oracle Restricted Stock = $8k
Oracle Stock = $77k

Total Retirement = $1271k

Checking = $63k
Savings = $55k
Other Cash = $4k
Credit Debt = -$20k

Total Operating = $102k


How much do I need to retire?

Right now I'm just under 10x salary which the above article says I hit my retirement goal. Now, this assume I don't get any more salary increases but then again I'm also going to continue saving and probably double the retirement fund by the time I retire.

It goes unsaid but I'm assuming I must have no mortgage left when I retire and that I own a home.

I tried my 401k retirement calculator but I got a PHP error halfway through. I then tried my Roth IRA provider retirement calculator and assuming I'm spending $88k per year (i.e. my current salary minus current taxes) and remain with an moderate growth investment strategy I actually keep gaining money during my retirement with an 80% confidence (i.e. in 20% of scenarios the stock market tanks enough that I'm in trouble). With a conservative portfolio once I retire I'm basically dying with the same amount of assets at an 87% confidence level. It's actually 93% confidence if I go with moderate investment.

So I guess it looks fine for now.