Sat Jan 22 2022

Sleep 0445 to 1315. (8-1/2 hours)

• Car Wars 6E play mats. There are four colors (red, blue, green, yellow) but blue is already sold out. The play mats are actually not that needed and since I can't get the blue I guess I'll skip buying them.

Sun Jan 23 2022

Sleep 0500 to 1300. (8 hours)

• When I first preordered Sonic they charged me $49.50 first first month. I finally figured out that they did apply that as credit for my first month but it wasn't clear in the bill.

Mon Jan 24 2022

Sleep 0300 to 0430. 1030 to 1330. (4-1/2 hours)

• Received a letter from my home insurance company saying that my policy will now be billed to Mortgagee (i.e. the bank I'm making home payments to). I remember this being the case in the beginning but my bank wasn't aware if the arrangement so didn't bill me so when my homeowners insurance became delinquent it was a bit of a hurry to change it back so I could make payments. Hope this doesn't happen again in December.

Tue Jan 25 2022

Sleep 0130 to 0930. 1800 to 1900. (9 hours)

• I didn't realize BBEdit is $40 per year through Mac App Store. I thought it was still $100 per year. Or you can get BBEdit from Bare Bones and it's $50 for permanent license for that release. New version every two years and upgrade is $30 so four years (max) for $80 or $160 via subscription. Yikes. Anyways I thought it was much more expensive -- at $50 I think I will buy a license.

Wed Jan 26 2022

Sleep 0315 to 1215. (9 hours)

• Bundle of Holding - Goodman Gems. These are mostly generic GM's advice books. Not really interesting.

Thu Jan 27 2022

Sleep 0300 to 1100. (8 hours)

• HOA Meeting.

Fri Jan 28 2022

Sleep 0430 to 1030. (6 hours)

• Didn't get much done this week.

Surviving Mars Bundle is the base game plus all DLCs except for Below and Beyond for $10 which is pretty good.

Surviving Mars ($30, Owned)

Deluxe Edition Upgrade Pack ($10, Owned) - skins, background music, and art book
Space Race ($13) - sponsors, which provide events, items and missions
Green Planet ($20) - terraforming

Colony Design Set ($5) - 25 new buildings
Project Laika ($6) - 8 domesticated animals
In-Dome Buildings Pack ($5) - 8 buildings

Marsvision Song Contest ($4) - background music
Mars Lifestyle Radio ($4) - background music
Stellaris Dome Set ($4) - dome skins

For me it's $61 of DLCs for $10 and even if you remove the skins and music it's $49 for $10 so I guess still not bad.

I forgot to rank which team I want to win the Super Bowl. Luckily it is very formulaic. Expanded playoffs this year so 14 teams in it.

I rank from last to first:

• Lowest rank: Super Bowl winners for last 10 years, most recent winners lowest ranked
• Super Bowl runner ups for last 10 years, most recent participants lower ranked
• Total Super Bowl wins
• Total Super Bowl appearances, last Super Bowl appearance

Who do I want to win the Super Bowl?

1. Tennessee Titans (1 Super Bowl appearance, 1999)
2. Arizona Cardinals (1 Super Bowl appearance, 2008)
3. Cincinnati Bengals (2 Super Bowl appearances)
4. Buffalo Bills (4 Super Bowl appearances)
5. Las Vegas Raiders (3 Super Bowl wins)
6. Green Bay Packers (4 Super Bowl wins)
7. Dallas Cowboys (5 Super Bowl wins)
8. Pittsburgh Steelers (6 Super Bowl wins)
9. Los Angeles Rams (Super Bowl 53 runner-up)
10. San Francisco 49ers (Super Bowl 54 runner-up)
11. Philadelphia Eagles (won Super Bowl 52)
12. New England Patriots (won Super Bowl 53)
13. Kansas City Chiefs (won Super Bowl 54)
14. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (won Super Bowl last year)

Sat Jan 15 2022

Sleep 0515 to 1115. (6 hours)

• Apparently The Levelator was updated to 64-bit app and released on the Mac App Store. Hard to tell if this is the original company (which seems tobe defunct) or someone using the source code to compile and publish it.
• B&B #5. A short noisy session but not too bad.
• Music no longer has conversion settings. You can only convert to AAC and I'm not sure if it picks settings dynamically or will always do 256 kbps (VBR) at Stereo 44.1 kHz sample rate. It does make for files about 4x larger than before (1:25 hours is 171 MB) though I guess with larger disk space and faster Internet it doesn't matter as much.

Sun Jan 16 2022

Sleep 0600 to 1300. (7 hours)

• 49ers beat Cowboys in Dallas. Next up is Packers.
• I forgot to mention this before but The Peanut Shop holiday gift pack turned out to be quite expensive. Like pay x1.5 for about 1/3rd of the peanuts except nice holiday packaging and you get three types instead of two.

Mon Jan 17 2022

Sleep 0430 to 1100. (6-1/2 hours)

• Sonic has been down since at least 1000 when they sent an sms. Then an hour to get a tech to check central office (30 min). But problem wasn't there so a tech will be by tomorrow morning. Perhaps not as many fields techs as Comcast, though it is a holiday so most likely less field techs available.

Tue Jan 18 2022

Sleep 0345 to 0915. 1700 to 2000. (8-1/2 hours)

• It's annoying how janky Bluetooth gets on my MBP sometimes. I'm thinking it's worse when WiFi connection is poor (and especially since I'm connecting via my iPhone hot spot).
• Sonic interruption. What happened is we were having a dead tree removed and one of the branches fell off and hit the Sonic cable, disconnecting it. So not Sonic's fault and I feel better about that.

Wed Jan 19 2022

Sleep 0345 to 1245. (9 hours)

• Whenever I restart Handbrake it doesn't remember the last encoded settings then if I don't notice I'm encoding a bunch of stuff at 1080p instead of 540p. One clue is that conversion speed goes from about 150 fps to about 75 fps.

Thu Jan 20 2022

Sleep 0415 to 1215 (8 hours)

• Twitch implemented being able to mark users as monitored or restricted. Monitored means all their messages will be highlighted for mods. Restricted also doesn't forward their message to other viewers. But if they're restricted they see that so it's not a shadow ban which is what I think most mods want.

Fri Jan 21 2022

Sleep 0330 to 1130. (8 hours)

• I've been cheating a lot on my calorie counter app by stopping when I the limit then trying to make it up in the future. So now I have to catch up and start adding my old eats (I was keeping track) so CARROT Hunger is getting angry at me.

Mork Borg Compatible bundle is a bundle of I guess third party products for this Swedish death metal post apocalyptic fantasy RPG. It's very cool graphics though the core book ($15 pdf) is not included in the bundle. Page counts are a bit dubious because I think even the core rules are not standard page sizes yet not digest sized.

Box of Shadows (newyear Studios, 103pp, $12) - campaign module including a 30-page scenario
The Bridges of Múr and the Endless Sea (newyear Studios, 92pp, $12) - 21-location hexcrawl, connects with Box of Shadows

Calo's Book of Monsters (Philip Reed Games, 64pp, $10) - 20 monsters
Tower of Scoundrels (Philip Reed Games, 20pp, $5) - adventure

Fisk Borg (Sprinting Owl Designs, 62pp $12) - fishing rules and adventure

The Masticator Gate (SkeletonKey Games, 74pp, $26) - three-adventure campaign
Endless Demon Deck (SkeletonKey Games, 37pp, $8) - a deck for building random demons

Forbidden Psalm (OptimisticNL, 90pp, $13) - 28mm skirmish miniatures campaign game

The Vaults of Torment (Christian Eichhorn, 72pp $15) - modular dungeon
The Temple of the Kragen God (Christian Eichhorn, 72pp $15) - sea and island adventure

$27 for the bundle for $128 of stuff. It's a definite maybe.

Two Bundle of Holdings for Palladium Fantasy RPG first edition and second edition.

First Edition ($26)

The Palladium Role-Playing Game (1984, Revised)
Book II: Old Ones (1984) - includes 4 adventures
Book III: Adventures on the High Seas (1987)
Book IV: Adventures in the Northern Wilderness (1989) - includes 3 adventures
Book V: Further Adventures in the Northern Wilderness (1990)
Book VI: The Island at the Edge of the World (1993) - adventure sourcebook
Book VII: Yin-Sloth Jungles (1994) - includes 4 adventures

The Arms of Nargash-Tor (1984) - the first Palladium FRPG adventure
Fantasy Game Master Kit (2012) - (not a GM screen)
Palladium FRPG Paper Miniatures #1: OCCs (2014) - 24 paper miniatures
Palladium FRPG Paper Miniatures #1a: OCCs - Female (2015) - 24 paper miniatures
Palladium FRPG Paper Miniatures #2: Monster Races (2014)
Palladium FRPG Paper Miniatures #3: NPC Enounters (2015)

This is most of first edition.


Second Edition ($31)

Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Second Edition (1996)

Book 8: The Western Empire (1998)
Book 9: Baalgor Wastelands (1999)
Book 10: Mount Nimro (1999)
Book 11: Eastern Territory (2001)
Book 12: Library of Bletherad (2000)
Book 13: Northern Hinterlands (2001)

Mysteries of Magic Book One: The Heart of Magic (2009)
Monsters and Animals 2E (1996)
Dragons & Gods 2E (1996)

Bizantium and the Northern Islands (2015)
Land of the Damned 1 - Chaos Lands (2001)
Land of the Damned 2 - Eternal Torment (2002)
Wolfen Empire (2003)

This is much less complete than the first edition bundle. There are second edition versions of several books in the first edition bundle but none included here. I guess they decided you can use the first edition versions mostly fine.


I guess overall a good selection of stuff but I've stayed away from Palladium after the one time I read the Robotech RPG rules when I was a teen. Maybe I'll change my mind before the bundles end.

Sat Jan 08 2022

Sleep 0345 to 1115. 1 hour nap. (8-1/2 hours)

• Organized my novels book case.

Sun Jan 09 2022

Sleep 0515 to 1200. (6-3/4 hours)

• Twitch streams ended early so got a chance to take a shower and go grocery shopping.
• 49ers beat LA Rams (in LA), now 10-7 and in the playoffs.

Mon Jan 10 2022

Sleep 0400 to 1215. (8-1/4 hours)

• Bought Bundle of Holding Stars Without Numbers bundle.

Tue Jan 11 2022

Sleep 0030 to 0200. 1600 to 1830. (4 hours)

• Two hour HOA meeting with EV charging participants. I feel for David who was coming into this meeting hoping to get group consensus decision and coming away with a bunch of information he needs to get before people are willing to commit. Meanwhile there is a deadline sometimes this Fall before we lose our subsidies.

Wed Jan 12 2022

Sleep 0315 to 1145. (8-1/2 hours)

• Now committed to continue Bunnies & Burrows campaign. Session #5 originally scheduled for Mar 21 2020 before lockdown and stuff.

Thu Jan 13 2022

Sleep 0345 to 1145. (8 hours)

• After a lot of work I wrote up a 5-page GURPS OSR B&B rule summary and character sheet. But after transferring one of the characters over the numbers were still too good and really all I want is to use GURPS 3d6 skill tests. So in the end we have two modifications:
• Every Trait has a Skill Level = Trait Base + Trait Level.
• Skill modifier = (6 - DV) * 2. e.g. DV 8 is a -4 modifier

Fri Jan 14 2022

Sleep 0315 to 1115. (8 hours)

• Received my semimonthly salary $2734 vs $2728 last year. This is after a modest salary raise and increasing my 401k contributions. Looks like I calculated correctly.

One-Roll Engine bundle is semi-interesting because I just read about the history of it in Designers and Dragons. But other than the dice mechanic the rest of ORE is a bit too narravist.

Godlike - rpg about super powers in WW2
Wild Talents 2E - rpg about super powers in the modern age
Better Angels - rpg about super villains

Black Devils Brigade - Godlike campaign
Will to Power - Godlike supplement
Grim War - Wild Talents setting
eCollapse - Wild Talents setting
This Favored Land - Wild Talents setting

Only one adventure/campaign make this rather uninspiring so I'll pass.

Stars Without Number is an OSR RPG starting with Basic D&D and adding science fiction stuff, some of which is from Traveller. The concept is interesting so I was probably going to buy the bundle even before looking at its contents. For $22 we get:

Polychrome (2011) [$5] - cyberpunk supplement
Skyward Steel (2011) [$10] - Navy supplement
Suns of Gold: Merchant Campaigns for Stars Without Number (2013) [$10]
Dead Names: Lost Races and Forgotten Ruins (2014) [$10] - supplement for creating dead civilizations
Starvation Cheap (2015) [$13] - military supplement
Sixteen Stars (2017) [$7] - 16 locations with adventure seeds
Stars Without Number: Revised Edition (2018) [$20]
Stars Without Number: Revised GM Screen (2018) [$5]

No adventures but on reading reviews SWN is more toolkit and sandbox. Actually Sine Nomine Publishing doesn't seem to do adventures (there is one), though there are 3rd party publishers that do them. It would be nice to have a few adventures or a campaign. On the other hand it's $22 for $80 (retail PDF) so a pretty good value.

Sat Jan 01 2022

Sleep 0330 to 1315. (9-3/4 hours)

• Bundle of Holding: Five Torches Deep (OSR based on D&D 5E) and Vagabonds of Dyfed (OSR based on Apocalypse Engine) RPGs. Not really interested in either of those rule sets so I'll skip this bundle.

Sun Jan 02 2022

Sleep 0330 to 1130. (8 hours)

• 49ers win at home. Now 9-7 and will make the playoffs if they win next week and maybe if they lose (NFL went to 17 game season this year). Trey Lance started for an injured Garoppolo and did ok with one really nice deep pass for a TD.
• 232.4 lbs

Mon Jan 03 2022

Sleep 0300 to 1100. (8 hours)

• Bundle of Holding: Modern Age and The Expanse RPG. This is a re-offering from 13 months ago with nothing new (they mention if there are new books). I still think it's too heavy on sourcebooks and not enough adventures. I'd like enough for a campaign and many bundles fall short of that.

Tue Jan 04 2022

Sleep 0230 to 1030. (8 hours)

• DriveThruRPG New Year Sale. Old Basic D&D modules for 35% off which is better than most DTRPG sales.

Wed Jan 05 2022

Sleep 0200 to 1100. (9 hours)

• About a 10-min power outage this evening. Seemed fairly localized but we did get a PG&E alert just before the power came back on.

Thu Jan 06 2022

Sleep 0315 to 1115. (8 hours)

• Going back to office pushed back to Mar/Apr.

Fri Jan 07 2022

Sleep 0130 to 1030. (9 hours)

• We had a war room and we're working on a possible regression issue today (found by some of our automated tests). Pretty much 9 hours straight though my manager was the most active and doing the thinking, doling out tasks to me and another developer as needed.

QB1 Matt Stafford (LAR)
QB2 Joe Burrow (CIN)

RB1 Nick Chubb (CLE)
RB2 Saquon Barkley (NYG)
RB3 Melvin Gordon (DEN)
RB4 Chase Edmonds (ARI)
RB5 Darrel Williams (KC)

WR1 Amari Cooper (DAL)
WR2 Terry McLaurin (WAS)
WR3 Tyler Lockett (SEA)
WR4 Nick Westbrook-Ikhine (TEN)
WR5 Kendrick Bourne (NE)

TE1 Travis Kelce (KC)
TE2 Dawson Knox (BUF)

IDP Harrison Smith (DB, MIN)
K Robbie Gould (SF)

IR1 Ryan Fitzpatrick (QB, WAS) - went on IR in week 1 and never came back but Joe Burrow more than made up.
IR2 J.D. McKissic (WR, WAS) - had some great games then lost him the final third of the season.

Once we got into the playoffs my policy was no roster changes so I ended up with one empty bench spot and my bench was actually not good.

Regular Season

Division 1

1. Nate (12-1) PF 2546.28
2. Kevin (7-6) PF 2278.12
3. Gerber (6-7) PF 2438.74
4. Btente (5-8) PF 1982.56
5. Budda (4-9) PF 1901.56

Division 2

1. Bitsy (10-3) PF 2334.44
2. Emad (8-5) PF 2223.34
3. Noob (6-7) PF 2118.58
4. Sepehr (5-8) PF 2257.88
5. Ranger (2-11) PF 1802.48

Tie breaker is total points scored.

Playoffs

Winners Bracket

Round 1

#1 Nate and #2 Bitsy get byes.

#3 Emad 183.90 beats #6 Noob 149.78
#5 Gerber 210.02 beats #4 Kevin 188.00

Round 2

#1 Nate 184.46 beats #5 Gerber 144.66
#3 Emad 179.58 beats #2 Bitsy 161.36

#4 Kevin 157.54 beats #5 Noob 137.64

Finals (two weeks)

#3 Emad 437.34 beats #1 Nate 366.14
#5 Gerber 342.80 beats #2 Bitsy 331.44

Consolation Bracket

Round 1

#7 Sepehr 181.36 beats #10 Ranger 128.16
#9 Budda 134.16 beats #8 Btente 109.60

Final (two weeks)

#7 Sepehr 321.96 beats #9 Budda 250.86

Final Rankings

1. Emad (11-5)
2. Nate (13-2)
3. Gerber (8-8)
4. Bitsy (10-5)
5. Kevin (8-7)
6. Noob (6-9)
7. Sepehr (7-8)
8. Budda (5-10)
9. Btente (5-9)
10. Ranger (2-12)

Sat Dec 25 2021

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

• Christmas! CW3 gave me a turtle dice bag. Dad and mom gave me money. Dave W bought me some Steam games.

Sun Dec 26 2021

Sleep 0200 to 1000. (8 hours)

• Drove home from parents. At times fairly rainy. Only saw one accident and passed another which I didn't see but Apple Maps said it was there.

Mon Dec 27 2021

Sleep 2300 to 0800. (9 hours)

• It's so cold. Makes me not in the mood to do anything. Winter Break starts out badly.

Tue Dec 28 2021

Sleep 2330 to 0400, 0500 to 0900. (8-1/2 hours)

• Went to DMV to have my identity verified for Real ID. Was worried that printed copies of my bills wouldn't work but they accepted it so I'll be getting a Real ID in a few weeks.
• There were a dozen people in line but an appointment gets you to cut the line. Then you get a number and go sit waiting to be called. After verifying and paying for the ID you go to another line for photos (there was one person in front of me). All in all took about an hour.

Wed Dec 29 2021

Sleep 0000 to 0800. (8 hours)

• Setup this Hue Light Switch I bought when I moved in like three years ago. It's a five minute process but I would always think about doing it but then forgetting to do it. It's set up to control the living room and computer area lights.

Thu Dec 30 2021 Sleep 0230 to 1030. (8 hours)

• Epic Game store really slow today, I think because they're giving away the last three Tomb Raider games.
• Been trying to figure out why VMWare Fusion with guest macOS 10.5.5 (security update) and alter the keyboard and mouse stop working. Spent most of a day and still can't solve it. Guess we'll again some day.
• The reason I was using VMWare is I wanted to download the macOS installers since the old ones have expired certificates. But here's a page that points to MDS, an app that will (among many other things) will download the installers for you.

Fri Dec 31 2021

Sleep 0130 to 11:00. (10-1/2 hours)

• Finally catalog and rearranged my military history/fiction bookshelf. The objective is to not have any more mil his/fic books than I can fit in the bookshelf and right now not much space left (even using the top as a shelf) so might not have room after I finish my pile of unread books.