The 2024 NFL regular season just ended. San Francisco 49ers had a really bad year ending 6-11, often being ahead in games but then losing the game in the second half.

AFC

1. Kansas City Chiefs (15-2) - They looked great all year and I saw way too many last possession they drive down the field and get the winning Field Goal or Touchdown.
2. Buffalo Bills (13-4) - Josh Allen is a great Quarterback and the Bills can challenge the Chiefs in the AFC title game.
3. Baltimore Ravens (12-5) - RB Derrick Henry is a great free-agent signing though at times the Ravens did not play as well offensively as I thought they could.
4. Houston Texans (10-7) - 2nd year coach DeMeco Ryans and 2nd year QB CJ Stroud get a second playoff appearance. Texans started hot (6-2) then cooled the rest of the season so unlikely to get far.
5. Los Angeles Chargers (11-6) - Jim Harbaugh returns to NFL coaching after getting Michigan a title and NCAA sanctions. I'm not really enamored with this team though.
6. Pittsburgh Steelers (10-7) - QB Russell Wilson is not great anymore and was injured some but backup QB Justin Fields showing he's capable. They also started ok and faded.
7. Denver Broncos (10-7) - Rookie QB Bo Nix is entertaining and has played better than expected.

NFC

1. Detroit Lions (15-2) - I totally doubted them through most of the season and they winning and winning. An impressive home win against the Vikings to secure the #1 seed and this is the team to beat.
2. Philadelphia Eagles (14-3) - Started out slowly and ended strong. Once again looking like a team worthy of going to the Super Bowl.
3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10-7) - QB Baker Mayfield doing well in his second year with the Bucs.
4. Los Angeles Rams (10-7) - NFC West was so bad this year but it came down to the Rams or Seahawks and the Rams won 5 games late to win the division. Backup QB Jimmy Garoppolo got the week 18 start in a meaningless game in which he showed his usual can-play-well-and-lose-the-game-in-the-4th-quarter style.
5. Minnesota Vikings (14-3) - The rpg.net NFL thread for this year started out subtitled the Sam Darnold revenge tour and it was. Certainly a candidate to upset the Lions or Eagles.
6. Washington Commanders (12-5) - A surprisingly good start (7-1) then three loses then five wins to go into the playoffs like a team that can go into Tampa Bay and beat the Bucs.
7. Green Bay Packers (11-6) - Like QB Jordan Love so I like this team but they dominate so don't see them upsetting any other team.

Fri Dec 27 2024

Sleep 0330 to 1045, 1 hr nap (8-1/4 hours)

• We played some Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Wish I could set up a VPN so we can do LAN play without me booting into Windows but Open VPN free account only supports two external connections (I could have the server connection be on my local network so I wouldn’t need VPN myself).

Sat Dec 28 2024

Sleep 0530 to 1230 (7 hours)

• We played some DDO.

Sun Dec 29 2024

Sleep 0530 to 1130 (6 hours)

• Bought Humble Comics Bundle: Hellboy Universe Megabundle ($18).

Mon Dec 30 2024

Sleep 0245 to 1045 (8 hours)

• Hit this issue with Epic Games Store where it says your account is not allowed to get a copy of a free game. Apparently free games are per IP address so if you’re using a VPN (e.g. iCloud Private Relay) then you might hit this.
• Just saw that New Amsterdam is leaving Netflix Jan 15. I have season 4 and 5 to watch but should be doable at two episodes per day.

Tue Dec 31 2024

Sleep 0700 to 1300 (6 hours)

• Darn. Castle no longer on Disney+. If I had known I’d have watched more.
• Finally setup my new router, TP-Link Archer AX55. Took a couple of hours. I used WPS to setup the printer connection and that was easy especially compared to using the 5-button 1-line LED UI on the printer (theoretically you can also connect a Windows computer via USB).
• MBP M4 connected with 802.11ax upload/download speeds are about the same so I guess I was already maxing out the Internet bandwidth with 802.11n. We’ll see if at least computer to computer transfers are fast.
• I slightly regret not getting the Ethernet version of my printer since the WiFi it supports (802.11b with WPA2 encryption) is a bit old and less secure.
• Downloading some stuff at 0200 and I did see it go to 60 MB/s which is maybe twice as fast as before, though I guess in the day you’re not going to see much of a difference.

Wed Jan 01 2025

Sleep 0530 to 1230 (7 hours)

• Turned on Open VPN server on my TP-Link router. Pretty easy: tell it if you want clients to access internal network or internal network + Internet, generate certificate (it uses external facing IP address, I assume I can’t change it to a domain name like www2.tgd-inc.com, export config file which you can then import to an Open VPN client. No passwords or login though so it’s a home network solution not an enterprise solution. The router also supports PPTP, L2TP/IPSec, and WireGuard servers all of which you can add clients with passwords.

Thu Jan 02 2025

Sleep 0130 to 0830 (7 hours)

• Went to Trader Joe’s about 3 PM. Quite full of people with all registers fairly busy. Besides the usual they had 1 lb. bags of shelled sunflower seeds for $3 which seems quite cheap.

Fri Jan 03 2025

Sleep 0300 to 1130 (8-1/2 hours)

• TT objected to providing so much info to our Reserve Fund bank just so she can have signing authority. I will probably need to have RB be co-signer on checks which is not ideal since TT is co-approver in our AP app. Feel a bit uncomfortable having a co-signer who is not approving the same expenses.
• I didn’t realize you can change your computer/device name in Settings > About > Name. Only became a problem when my new MBP’s default name of Kevin’s MacBook Pro kept confusing me since I have two MBPs. Also don’t like Kevin’s xyz I’d rather it be Kevin xyz without the ’s.
• Oh, I did get charged $99 for the iPhone “screen replacement” which is fine since I got an (I assume) refurbished iPhone SE out of it. Only I’m worried about is if the battery is old but still normal or if it’s a newer with less wear and tear.

The Complete Night's Black Agents & Dracula Dossier Bundle from Humble Bundle is $18 for

Already Own

PELG-N01 Night's Black Agents (2012)

PELG-N05 The Dracula Dossier: Director's Handbook (2015)
PELG-N06 Dracula Unredacted (2015) - Bram Stroker's Dracula novel with a lot of "redacted and unpublished" additions.
PELG-N07 The Dracula Dossier Deck (2016) - card deck with NPCs, Nodes, Locations, Objects, and Opponents
PELG-N08 EDOM Field Manual (2016)
PELG-N09 The EDOM Files (2016) - compendium of eight adventures
PELG-N10 The Hawkins Papers (2015) - handouts
PELG-N11 The Thrill of Dracula (2016) - review & analysis of Dracula tales and stories + adventure seeds

Don't Own

PELG-N02 The Zalozhniy Quartet (2012) - 4-mission campaign
PELG-N03 Double Tap: The Night's Black Agents Companion (2013)
PELG-N04 Dust and Mirrors - Music for Night's Black Agents (2013) - MP3 album

PELG-N12 The Dubai Reckoning (2016) - 25-page adventure
PELG-N13 Looking Glass: Hong Kong (2017) - generic supplement usable with various Pelgrane RPGs
PELG-N14 The Persephone Extraction (2018) - 5-adventure campaign
PELG-N15 Night's Black Agents Director's Screen & Resource Guide (2019)
PELG-N16 The Dracula Vector (2020) - 29 page 2-session adventure
PELG-N17 Find Forever - one-shot adventure

GUMSHOE Zoom: Mind Control (2014) - 12-page article from Ken Writes About Stuff monthly series
Lilith (2014) - 9-page article from Ken Writes About Stuff monthly series

Free Stuff

The Dracula Dossier: Cuttings and New Additions - 65 pages of extras
The Dracula Dossier: Orchestral Theme Music - bonus from KS
Perveniet Calix (2015) - 7-page bonus item from Dracula Dossier KS

These can be downloaded from the Pelgrane's Dracula Dossier Resources.

I bought the Dracula Dossier Bundle which is all of the Already Own items. The rest is still a good buy for $18.