Sat Jun 22 2024

Sleep 0415 to 1015, 1530 to 1630. (7 hours)

• DDO with the Daves. Dave S and I did one or two Litany of the Dead p1 then started the last one when Dave W arrived (Dave W hadn't done the pre-reqs and we're way over-leveled so didn't want to bore him; Dave S is fine with easy quests). We then did last two Red Fens missions.

Sun Jun 23 2024

Sleep 0600 to 1330 (7-1/2 hours)

• Bought the 4 PDFs from YouCanBreatheNow Games. They're each 4-page pamphlet format (print double-sided on one page then fold). Small little adventures for OSE or Basic Fantasy. Each PDF is $2 to $4, $12 for all four.

Mon Jun 24 2024

Sleep 0600 to 1045 (4-3/4 hours)

• Gave in and spent $5 for a second base builder in Star Trek Fleet Command. It's one of the ten small purchases I need to put on my debit card each month.

Tue Jun 25 2024

Sleep 2300 to 0500, 1000 to 1245 (8-3/4 hours)

• I've been visiting Lima while C3s are in Yosemite. She actually eats the half can of cat food. About half immediately then half an hour later some more and another bit later most of the rest. So I guess without Coco there she would get more calories.

Wed Jun 26 2024

Sleep 0230 to 0900, 1-1/4 hour nap (7-3/4 hours)

• Sacramento Kings draft guard Devin Carter with the 13th pick.

Thu Jun 27 2024

Sleep 0630 to 1345 (7-1/4 hours)

• Last night with Lima. C3 coming back tomorrow.

Fri Jun 28 2024

Sleep 0700 to 1415 (7-1/4 hours)

• Finally got around to get a hair cut.

GOG's Summer Sale is currently running.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Mythic Edition ($27, 70% off) - This includes a season pass: two campaigns and rogue-like mode. Some of the DLC are also on sale: Through the Ashes ($5.20, 60% off) a mini-campaign; Inevitable Excess ($5.20, 60% off) high-level adventure; The Treasure of the Midnight Isles ($5.20, 60% off) - a region to explore with an optional rogue-like mode.

Myst 30th Anniversary Collection ($43, 57% off) - Myst Masterpiece Edition (1993), realMyst: Masterpiece Edition (2014), Riven: The Sequel to Myst, Myst III: Exile, Uru: Complete Chronicles, Myst IV: Revelation, Myst V: End of Ages Limited Edition, Myst (2021). I already have Myst Masterpiece Edition and Riven from GOG and other than the first everything else is Windows. Still, it's a nice bundle.

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration ($28, 30% off) - This is both history (with timeline, interviews, documentary) and 100 games from the Arcade to the 2600, 5200, 7800, Atari 8-bit computers. It's an interesting package. Windows.

Orbital Blues bundle is for a space-western RPG a la Cowboy Bebop. For $19 you get:

Orbital Blues RPG (2021) - 200pp
All that Glitters (2022) - 60p adventure
Chega de Saudade (2023) - 60p adventure
Everjoy (2023) - 56pp adventure
A Starborn Resistance (2023) - 48pp world supplement
Trouble at the Rock of Tariq (2023) - 54pp adventure
Wayward Stars (2021) - 72pp art book

Other SoulMuppet Publishing products not in this bundle

A Hundred and Sixty Acres (2022) - adventure
Electric Sheep Shuffle (2022) - adventure
Jumpgate Charade (2022) - adventure
Station-Bound Semitones (2023) - adventure

It's kind of nice that it's one core book then a bunch of adventures, though I guess adventures can add supplementary rules.

Sat Jun 15 2024

Sleep 0915 to 1315 (4 hours)

• Popeyes for a 10-piece meal. Rewards points expiring today and buying something resets the 6-month expire timer.

Sun Jun 16 2024

Sleep 0515 to 1115 (6 hours)

• Apple has a new Help Me Choose page to choose a Mac for you. The last question is max budget ($2500). Also some options are below the fold and it's not immediately apparent so the first time I didn't choose any coding-type choices and got MacBook Air for $1500. Second time I was more aggressive and got MBP 14" M3 Pro/18 GB RAM/1 TB SSD for $2400.

Mon Jun 17 2024

Sleep 0100 to 0900 (8 hours)

• Animeigo Wiki has a Bubblegum Crisis page which has (at the bottom) downloads for the old R Talsorian Games' Bubblegum Crisis RPG, supplements, and Dark Horse Comics Grand Mal TPB.
• I wonder what they used for their wiki as it has a nice and simple look.

Tue Jun 18 2024

Sleep 2245 to 0430, 1515 to 1730 (8 hours)

• Last week started playing Star Trek Fleet Command with a new account. The old account I had paid $5 for a second builder but I can buy it again if I need it on this account. Don't know how long I'll keep playing it but I do love slowly building up my space station.

Wed Jun 19 2024

Sleep 0700 to 1230 (5-1/2 hours)

• Dinner at C3 with Steph. Dinner from Cha Thai Eatery.

Thu Jun 20 2024

Sleep 2300 to 0430, 1500 to 1700. (7-1/2 hours)

• Nemo in Poland so early streams for the next three days and then she's back to Toronto.

Fri Jun 21 2024

Sleep 0130 to 0330, 1245 to 1745. (7 hours)

• Borderlands 3 with everyone. Christopher has been farming for legendary equipment so now we've all got a fairly good selection. Woo hosted the game and he has it set that everyone gets their own loot which quadruples the number of items we collect. It's a bit too easy this way.

I've been going through each section of 20 choosing the best women artists then if any of the 4 slots are left the best men artists. For mixed gender bands it's usually the lead singer that defines the band for me.

#50. Kate Bush: Hounds of Love - Not an artist I'm all that familiar with though I've heard the name often enough.

#49. U2: The Joshua Tree - Some great songs in this album.

#45. Björk: Homogenic - Another artist that has a good following but I've not really listened.

#42. Janet Jackson: Control - Janet Jackson is very good and I loved her Rhythm Nation album.

Now looking at #80 down to #61.

#79. Lana Del Rey: Norman F*****g Rockwell! - Del Rey has been around for a long time and is quite good but I've never listened to her music.

#78. Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John has a lot of good songs over a long career.

#77. Madonna: Like a Prayer - a classic and I'd guess no artist is repeated so this is the best Madonna album.

#61. Sade: Love Deluxe - I've only heard slow songs from Sade. Not necessarily quite my style of music but maybe a whole album would change my mind.

Sat Jun 08 2024

Sleep 0300 to 0800, 30m nap. (5-1/2 hours)

• CSr and I went to visit mom and dad. CSr bought them new iPhone 14 Plus phones so had to help them set them up with Xfinity.

Sun Jun 09 2024

Sleep 0545 to 1245 (7 hours)

• Answered a telemarketing call. After 30 seconds it's obviously automated since it pauses after each of my responses and when I was colloquial it asked for a clear answer.

Mon Jun 10 2024

Sleep 0315 to 1215 (9 hours)

• iPadOS 18 will drop support of my iPad Pro which I got in Sep 2017 so 7 years of support is a long time.
• Three or four fire alarm tests in the evening. Probably units missed in the annual test but was a surprise as we didn't have any notice or maybe I missed it.

Tue Jun 11 2024

Sleep 0600 to 1400 (8 hours)

• Steam client is quite broken on macOS 10.14 in that the main window is mostly black with a strip at the bottom. You can navigate and stuff but the upper part of the window is black so the install button is blocked. Sure, Steam app stopped support of 32-bit clients earlier this year but didn't think it would be this broken.
• Looking around looks like the thing to have done is, if you have an older version of the client on a backup then restore that. Unfortunately downloading an older version of the client doesn't work because it's a bare app that will download support files on startup. You can disable client updating but you still need the base support files which means a new install will download the latest version. Since I don't have the old version of Steam backed up I'm out of luck there.

Wed Jun 12 2024

Sleep 0530 to 1330 (8 hours)

• DDO Expansion 7, Magic of Myth Drannor, on pre-order.
• Dinner with CSr and CJr. Joy Sushi. Bento box with chicken katsu and salmon teriyaki. Back in Jan 2019 this was $18, now it's $24.

https://www.ddo.com/myth-drannor

Thu Jun 13 2024

Sleep 2315 to 0630 (7-1/4 hours)

• Facebook looked my testing account and wants me to verify by uploading a photo ID. I'd rather not.

Fri Jun 14 2024

Sleep 0000 to 0200, 0730 to 1300 (7-1/2 hours)

• 4-player Borderlands 3.

There are two bundles, SR5 Essentials and SR5 Missions. SR5 Essentials is from 2019 and I probably declined since it was only some 5th edition books and no adventures. SR5 Missions is one big supplement and the rest are campaigns and adventures.

There are lots more SR5 products published in book or just PDF, maybe enough for another couple of bundles. So I guess I'm not inclined to buy these bundles, noting I already have much of 1E, 2E, 3E and 6E. I'll pass and maybe it'll be on Humble Bundle one day and even as two bundles there it'd be like half the price of Bundle of Holding.

SR5 Essentials ($31)

CAT-27000 Shadowrun 5E (2013)
CAT-27004 Run Faster (2014)
CAT-27005 Chrome Flesh (2015)
CAT-27002 Run & Gun (2014)
CAT-27003 Street Grimoire (2014)
CAT-27006 Data Trails (2015)
CAT-27007 Rigger 5.0 (2015)

SR5 Missions ($32)

CAT-27110 Seattle Sprawl (boxed set) (2016)

CAT-27400 Splintered State (2013)
CAT-26S051 Lethal Forces (2017)
CAT-27405 Toxic Alleys (2017)

CAT-27485 Boundless Mercy (2015)
CAT-27481 Firing Line (2013)
CAT-27482 London Falling (2014)
CAT-27480 Sprawl Wilds (2013)

CAT-27200 Stolen Souls (2014)
CAT-27300 Lockdown (2015)
CAT-27231 Dark Terrors (2017)
CAT-27450 Bloody Business (2015)
CAT-27451 Market Panic (2016)

CAT-27401 Serrated Edge (2016)
CAT-27402 False Flag (2016)
CAT-27403 Ripping Reality (2017)

WWDC opened this week and the keynote was yesterday.

iOS 18

• iPhone 14 and later can send and receive Messages via satellite (was limited to SOS only). I wonder how much it'll cost one it's a paid feature.
• Multi-page Control Center seems a bit much since CC is a bit confusing to me due to a lot of small icons without text. But I guess I simply don't create a second page of controls.

iPadOS 18

• Calculator app, which also adds Math Notes: handwriting recognition, deciphering formulas you write and calculating results including graphs. It's neat use of AI even if I'll never use it.

macOS 15 Sequoia

• iPhone Mirroring so you can remote control your iPhone -- meaning Mac automation tools will be able to remote control an iPhone (blindly even if they can't read what the iPhone showing).
• Tiling a window by dragging it to the edge of the screen and letting macOS suggest a tile. Not as versatile as Mosaic which is the app I use now but it's nice having basic capabilities built-in.
• Passwords app. I hope it can replace Keychain Access though I can't tell if Passwords supports secure notes.

Apple Intelligence

• Half the keynote was on this. It's more like a framework that is integrated into apps in various ways. Since Apple's AI efforts are all on-device no-server it makes Private Cloud Compute interesting for third parties that want to do more, maybe aggregate, AI work that maintains privacy.

Sat Jun 01 2024

Sleep 0700 to 1230 (5-1/2 hours)

• It's been over a week and still gives me "Account verification is Pending. Please try after some time." when I try to download Fusion Pro. Broadcom process is very slow. I give up.

Sun Jun 02 2024

Sleep 0530 to 1330, 30m nap (8-1/2 hours)

• Lunch with C3 at Gao Viet Kitchen.
• Played Laser Kittens with CJr.

https://gaokitchen.com

Mon Jun 03 2024

Sleep 0100 to 0200, 1030 to 1530 (6 hours)

• Met with Coil guys and showed them around a bit. They're starting install today and it should three weeks.

Tue Jun 04 2024

Sleep 0000 to 0945 (9-3/4 hours)

• Twitch raising US prices Jul 11. it'll be $6 instead of $5. Mobile app prices will increase at a future date. I guess I'll subscribe via mobile for a month or two if I can.

Wed Jun 05 2024

Sleep 0600 to 1000, 1530 to 1700 (5-1/2 hours)

• Received Moonlight on Roseville Beach hardcover. Kind of the size of those old Hardy Boys small hardcover books.

Thu Jun 06 2024

Sleep 2230 to 0945 (11-1/4 hours)

• Twitch added ability for mods to issue a private warning, which must then be acknowledged by the target. You also get user warning count just like for timeouts and bans.

Fri Jun 07 2024

Sleep 0700 to 1400 (7 hours)

• Gloomhaven with DS playing on his work MBP. Usually he uses Riley's laptop but R needs it this weekend. Work MBP he can't use Bootcamp so no Windows games and can't use emulators so no CrossOver for DDO.

This Delta Green RPG bundle is almost a superset (except for Handler's Screen) of the Bundle of Holding one and that one cost $40. Yikes!

The price is $18 and even though I either own or don't care about most of it. The four books I would want are worth $85 as PDFs so the bundle still makes sense to buy.

Already Own

Delta Green Agent's Handbook
Delta Green Handler's Guide
The Labyrinth
Evidence Kit: The Labyrinth
The Complex
Iconoclasts
Impossible Landscapes
Static Protocol
ARCHINT
Conspiracy
Agent Dossiers

Extra Accessories - which I probably wouldn't buy anyways

Digital Assets: Known Vectors Pack 1 ($15) - blank handouts and in-world documents
Digital Assets: Law Enforcement Pack 1 ($15) - blank handouts and in-world documents
Digital Assets: Murder Board Pack 1 ($15) - 500 PNG and WEBP files
Digital Assets: Public Interest Pack 1 ($15) - blank handouts and in-world documents
Evidence Kit: God's Teeth ($5) - handouts

Worthwhile Items

God's Teeth ($25) - 264p 6-adventure campaign that spans two decades
A Night at the Opera ($20) - 206p with 6 independent adventures
Control Group ($20) - 180p with 4 independent adventures
Black Sites ($20) - 210p with 7 reprinted adventures

I have a definite but low level dread watching a lot of dramas today because I often expect a character to get shot in the head with graphic blood spurt and all.

This began with Saving Private Ryan which has an intense opening sequence: D-Day at Omaha beach. Lots of people dying suddenly and rather graphically. It has other instances of graphic sudden death but that first scene is definitely the worst.

At the time I don't think it affected me that much but after that there seemed to be more movies with graphic sudden death and even tv shows were doing it (way toned down of course more like surprise suddenly killed without the graphic part).

The dread has slowly gotten a bit worse but not that bad. Like right now I'm watching Megan Leavey and she's been deployed to Iraq and I keep expecting bad things to happen at any time so I watch a few minutes and in some scenes I might watch without sound (I always have subtitles on) and only focus on the dialog not the rest of the screen.

This is a bit different than watching a horror movie -- I get the regular horror movie dread but there the gory deaths are expected. It's when I'm watching a regular show with a bit of a dramatic or quiet moment and I get a feeling of dread that someone is going to die even though that has in no way been hinted at.

I was watching an episode of New Amsterdam (#3.16 "Perspectives") that reminded me that my fear is a bit PTSD-like. In that episode a bunch of high school students got PTSD from a realistic shooter scenario that was run without warning (not even the teachers knew it was a drill).

Sat May 25 2024

Sleep 0330 to 1100., 45m nap. (8-1/4 hours)

• Didn't realize this before: my building doesn't have any x13 units so no 113, 213, 313 units. We skipped over those numbers.

Sun May 26 2024

Sleep 0700 to 1300 (6 hours)

• Got an Amazon email asking me to link my Amazon Rewards credit card to Amazon. Doing so would give Amazon access to those credit card statements so they would get my purchasing data with that credit card. No thanks since the benefits -- I can view my credit card statements from Amazon and pay my credit card bills from Amazon, which would also mean linking my bank info to Amazon -- don't seem worth it.

Mon May 27 2024

Sleep 0115 to 0700, 1:45 nap (7-1/2 hours)

• I listened to a review for B10 Night's Dark Terror (levels 2-4) and now I want to run that next. On the positive side it's sort of the logical next module after B2 because it's relatively close to the Keep on the Borderlands and is meant to transition players to Expert Set and outdoor adventures.

Tue May 28 2024

Sleep 2245 to 0300, 0730 to 1130 (8-1/4 hours)

• Got my EVCS doc signed and notarized. A+ Mailboxes is not in a great place because their front and side parking gets blocked by commute traffic so hard to get out. I parked around the corner.

Wed May 29 2024

Sleep 2300 to 0400, 1400 to 1630. (7-1/2 hours)

• Spent about 4 hours watching Sonic get Internet working in the office. They installed an ONT there when they wired our building but I don't think it was ever connected a cable to the splitter. They had to drill a hole in the floor because the other two holes are filled. Then the other problem is that the office was assigned to the far splitter which would have been another 100' or so but the tech got the central office to change it to the near splitter (now I wonder if they got the office and recreation room ONTs mixed up). Tech was really good about tying the new cable to the existing wiring so it's not hanging loose and looks professional.
• Dinner at C3's. Cjr and I played an hour of Laser Kittens. Thai takeout for dinner.

Thu May 30 2024

Sleep 2345 to 0900 (9-1/4 hours)

• Thinking about Coil WiFi installation. They will use conduit to protect the Ethernet cabling but the Comcast and Sonic cabling runs throughout the garage ceiling and it's not protected that way. So is that just an excuse to charge an extra $100 per 20' of cable run or does Ethernet cable need more protection?

Fri May 31 2024

Sleep 2330 to 0130, 0700 to 1100 (6 hours)

• Borderlands 3. We got a couple hours doing side quests.