MacWorld has an article on upcoming Apple+ TV programs.

Mythic Quest season 2 - This was an ok show and I'd watch season two.

Foundation - I'm really looking forward to this. Read the books when I was in high school so don't remember too much.

Masters of the Air - A limited series about WW2 bomber crews.

Sat Mar 20 2021

Sleep 0530 to 1400. (8-1/2 hours)

• Spent a few hours gathering my tax documents in pdf (or screen shots if I couldn't find the electronic copy). Uploaded to Box for my sister to use.
• Finally took the time to unlock my Optum HSA account after over a year. Now I have $10k to invest, though limited choices (mostly Vanguard and Schwab 20x0 mutual funds).

Sun Mar 21 2021

Sleep 0530 to 1200. (6-1/2 hours)

• Whole Foods and got Fruit Frangipane Tart (they didn't have any fruit tarts).
• KFC for fried chicken. The Outdoor Supply Hardware across the parking lot was open and had a decent amount of cars parked in front.

Mon Mar 22 2021

Sleep 0430 to 1230. (8 hours)

• Unfortunately, Music app does not deal well with an album that has dozens of tracks, which some audiobooks do. I'm starting to stitch the audio tracks together using GarageBand and it seems to work fine so far.
• HOA Meeting. Sonic Internet approval crawling forward. Now I understand why they want every unit to agree because they're going to do their own wiring alongside existing Comcast wiring to every unit. I'm sure they only want to come out once and not every time a new unit wants to subscribe.
• Two intriguing points. With two cables you could subscribe to both Xfinity and Sonic Internet if you're worried about redundancy. Also Sonic says they'll provide free 5Mbps Internet to non-subscribing units. That's fast enough for a lot of purposes except high quality video streaming.

Tue Mar 23 2021

Sleep 0330 to 1130. 1 hour nap. (9 hours)

• Finally only a couple days behind on my web site. That took several months getting closer and further away. Writing five entries a week is sometimes a lot and I get behind easily.

Wed Mar 24 2021

Sleep 0330 to 1100. (7-1/2 hours)

• Ah, I think I see the problem with Mail + Exchange. Mail Rules are applied on headers before message contents load. If the rule moves the message I lose the contents and only see the header. I'll try adding a rule that examines message contents and see if that forces content loading.

Thu Mar 25 2021

Sleep 0230 to 11:15. (8-3/4 hours).

• The rule seems to be working. Last few auto-routed emails have the body also. I lost about 50 days of auto-routed emails but in general they are not as important.

Fri Mar 26 2021

Sleep 0430 to 0930. 1-12 hour nap. (6-1/2 hours)

• Signed up for Paramount+. Let's see if I can watch all the Star Trek shows in a month.

We recently did Caught in the Web which took three trie to complete. First time on Reaper 1 and we did finish barely but the completion bug kicked in and it didn't register a finish. The next two times on Elite which turned out to be harder.

First meeting with Lolth. On Reaper I think we wiped but resurrected ourselves near the region exit. Then I walked to the top of the ramp and shot Lolth carefree because she wasn't reacting. Once down to 0 hp we continued, never having seen the legs or hand. In the last fight we wiped a couple of times. Then we made a stand at the top near the exit. Christopher and Sophia's characters managed to kill all the small monsters there which wiped the portal guardians and opened the way out.

On the second run we also brought Lolth to zero but this time the exit didn't open so couldn't continue the adventure. Eventually we triggered her then fought the legs and ran away from the hand. On the final fight we couldn't quite manage to kill the portal guardians and stay alive. Lolth is pretty deadly and a good aim.

Third run went much like the second and we were stumped. Then Christopher and I went all the way to the far side of the island from Lolth. I snuck up closer to where I could see her and shot her without her reacting and brought her to zero. Once she's gone I don't think the portal guardians respawn so kill them all and exit.

Unless that was a glitch we can kill Lolth in the final fight by being at the farthest edge of the island opposite her.

I've been using Apple Mail forever and have lots of routing rules mostly for work. Once we migrated to Microsoft Exchange I still use Apple Mail and it has Exchange support. But I found that a lot of emails only had the header and no body.

It turns out that all my routing rules only need the header and when Mail moves an email it doesn't bother downloading the body. An easy fix that's been working for a day is to add a routing rule at the top that looks at the email body.

Description: No Operation - Force Load of Message Contents

If (any) of the following conditions are met:

• (Message content) (contains) "xyzxyzxyzxyz"

Perform the following actions:

• (Play Sound) (No New Messages Sound)

I didn't see a no-op action. Playing "No New Messages Sound" is fine because I turned it off Mail sounds: Preferences > General > Play sounds for other mail actions = off.

Sat Mar 13 2021

Sleep 0600 to 1230 (6-1/2 hours)

• DDO: We tried Caught in the Web (Reaper 1) and after much struggle finished it but I triggered the bug where it doesn't mark the quest finished so no rewards. At least now we have a good idea what to do for next Friday's try, probably on Elite.

Sun Mar 14 2021

Sleep 0630 to 1330. (7 hours)

• Worked languidly most of the day while watching Twitch.

Mon Mar 15 2021

Sleep 0315 to 1230. (9-1/4 hours)

• Late start and not really trying hard today.

Tue Mar 16 2021

Sleep 0300 to 1130. 1 hour nap. (9-1/2 hours)

• San Mateo County is moving to Orange Tier which means most places can open at 50% capacity or (100, 200 people) whichever is lower.

Wed Mar 17 2021

Sleep 0330 to 1030. 1 hour nap. (8 hours)

• Was thinking of putting my audiobooks in Books app but it stores them in a weird location (~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books/Audiobooks) and you can't edit the info in iBooks so no way to change Title or Category in order to organize them better. Guess I'll use Music app instead.

Thu Mar 18 2021

Sleep 0300 to 1100. (8 hours)

• Woke up. Shower. Feel alive.
• Ten days since my last shower. During pandemic I'm taking a shower about every 7 to 10 days. I probably do get stinky but I can't tell. Wonder how my apartment smells after a year and I've opened the patio doors two or three times.

Fri Mar 19 2021

Sleep 0400 to 1130. (7-1/2 hours)

• Based on this article ( https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/mask-up-how-to-choose-and-maintain-the-best-masks-for-use-against-covid-19/ ) I ordered some Kenneth Cole masks (shipping is a bit expensive but so it goes). The one mask I have is getting old but the Etsy seller is inactive. I have some other masks I bought form another Etsy seller but they don't seem as good so I've had it as a todo to buy more masks.

Hyperborea bundle is based on the OSR Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea RPG 2E plus a bunch of adventures. This is really what I want: a bundle where you get an RPG and adventures to play rather than a bundle where you get an RPG and supplements and almost no adventures.

Core ($10)

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea RPG 2E ($19, Owned)
Rogues Gallery II ($5)
Hyperborea Referee Screen ($10)

Adventure Collection (+$17)

Rats in the Walls and Other Perils ($10)
Anthropophagi of Xambaala ($10, Owned)
Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes ($10)
Beasts of Kraggoth Manor ($10)
Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess ($10, Owned)
Lost Treasure of Atlantis ($10)
Sea-Wolf's Daughter ($10)

I already have the second edition rulebook and three adventures, two of them in this bundle. So it's $65 of products for $27 which seems like a good deal.

Sonic Internet - Sonic needs access to every unit because they will install their own cabling next to existing Comcast cabling and drill parallel holes as required. Units will still be able to subscribe to Comcast. So in the end each unit will have choice of:

Xfinity cable tv
Xfinity cable Internet
Sonic fiber Internet

and can subscribe to all three, which is intriguing if you need two Internet connections for redundancy.

So far 12 units said yes and 1 said no. We might have to persuade every owner to agree before Sonic does any installations cause I bet Sonic doesn't want to keep coming back to install more cabling.

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

We're discussing ending contract with security company. They charge $900+ per month and do log things they see on patrol. But twice nightly patrols are very cursory (and I notice they like to park outside playing radio loudly for a few minutes before they start their patrol, like warning all the thieves a security service is nearby).

The money can be used for a better lock system and a camera for front door so that a resident can see who is ringing doorbell before unlocking the front door.

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

Long discussion about EV charge stations, especially in regard to having most owners pay since they don't own an EV. The two camps are install EV stations everywhere and get various tax incentives or let owners buy their own within HOA recommendations.

Some weird arguments about getting level 1 stations now when the standards are in flux and technologies are in flux -- what if hydrogen is the future. (To which I was thinking: fuel cells, really? And Level 1 is a standard which will probably be around for years. Even though I no longer am buying a new car any time soon I'd buy an EV charge station.)

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

Topic about reserve fund investments. Can we do something with a bit more yield like an ETF or mutual fund? Not currently due to our HOA rules and because board would start being liable if the investments lose money.

(I remember laws were put into effect in the 80's when the market tanked and cities were going bankrupt because they had invested in the stock market rather than something rock solid safe like bonds. I bet this also happened with HOAs and similar laws were enacted. Unfortunately with the reserve fund investments you're probably always losing money when you take inflation into account. But you're only supposed to have enough money in reserves to fund future projects so there's a limit to how much money will be there in the first place.)

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

Pool usage. I think we decided on 4 people, with a sign up sheet and a waiver. Four people is the current limit, though we've suspended pool usage during COVID-19. There was also a reservation system. The waiver is new.

Sat Mar 06 2021

Sleep 0400 to 1200. (8 hours)

• DDO: We did Temple of Elemental Evil p1 on Reaper 1 and it was fairly easy. Cleaned out the dungeon and only had one sticky point (fighting a gelatinous cube in a small room). I remember the first time we played this it was crazy hard.

Sun Mar 07 2021

Sleep 0515 to 1215. (7 hours)

• Christopher told me that Cjr has been diagnosed with ADHD. Before it was attention deficit or some other term where it's significant but not enough to be a condition.

Mon Mar 08 2021

Sleep 0230 to 1230. (10 hours)

• GarageBand when you share a track to Music the file ends up correctly in Music but there is also a copy at the root of Music which you can safely delete. But if you don't know that you can unknowingly dump a lot of files there.

Tue Mar 09 2021

Sleep 0430 to 11:00. (6-1/2 hours)

• Sometimes someone starts a conversation and I don't remember where we left off. I go along and hope he gives me enough clues that I remember.

Wed Mar 10 2021

Sleep 02:30 to 04:00. 0830 to 1400. (7 hours)

• Wandered into the wrong chat and saw BotezLive offline chatters gossiping about Taylor Swift. Kind of weird when it's a bunch of guys gossiping.

Thu Mar 11 2021

Sleep 1130 to 0730 (8 hours)

• One of RapidWeaver 8's UI misses: the bottom of the window has text editor controls (text style, indentation, heading levels, etc.). Click the button to create a list and the list options popup us all the way at the top of the window.

Fri Mar 12 2021

Sleep 0330 to 1130, 1 hour nap (9 hours)

• Bit of a drive then Trader Joe's and Safeways.

The Daedalic 15th Anniversary bundle is quite good. There is only one tier for $13 which gets you $198 of games ($115 of games I don't own and run on my Mac).


Deponia ($1, Owned)
Chaos on Deponia ($2, Owned)
Goodbye Deponia ($2, Owned)
Deponia Doomsday ($2)

1954 Alcatraz ($10, Windows)
Anna's Quest ($2)
Blackguards ($10, Windows)
Blackguards 2 ($2, 32-bit)
The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav ($2)
The Dark Eye: Memoria ($2)
Edna & Harvey: Harvey's New Eyes ($2)
Edna & Harvey: The Breakout ($15, Windows)
Fire: Ungh's Quest ($1, 32-bit)
The Long Journey Home ($30, Owned)
A New Beginning - Final Cut ($10, Owned)
The Night of the Rabbit ($20)
Silence ($20)
State of Mind ($30)
The Whispered World Special Edition ($20)
A Year of Rain ($15, Windows)


Still, these are mostly story games where you wander around solving puzzles to continue. Guess I'm not in the mood to buy this bundle.

Curve Digital games feature in the latest Humble Bundle. I guess older games are the lower levels and newer games are at the pricier levels. $1 and $7 levels have nothing for me. $9 level has 2 games ($40 retail) but based on how much I disliked Bomber Crew I doubt I'll like Space Crew. That leaves For the King at 55% off and I don't think it looks interesting enough.

$1 Level

• The Flame in the Flood ($15, Owned) - Rogue-like survival game through a flooded land
• Hue ($15, 32-bit) - adventure game with color-themed puzzles

$7 Level

• Table Manners ($18, Windows) - On a date, try to control your hand and not knock over stuff
• When Ski Lifts Go Wrong ($15, 32-bit) - Puzzle game where in each level you build a ski lift
• Manual Samuel ($10, 32-bit) - Control a dead person for 24-hours and take care of breathing, walking, driving, etc.

$9 Level

• Bomber Crew ($15, Owned) - Control the crew of a WW2 bomber flying missions
• Space Crew ($20) - Bomber Crew in space
• Autonauts ($20, Windows) - Build a town inhabited by programmable bots
• For the King ($20) - RPG exploration game with turn-based combat
• Narcos: Rise of the Cartels ($30, Windows) - Turn-based tactical combat game based on the Netflix series
• American Fugitive ($20, Windows) - Top-down GTA-like game where you are an escaped convict looking to find the man who framed you.

Sat Feb 27 2021

Sleep 0500 to 1230. (7-1/2 hours)

• Haven't been reading for a couple of months. Trying to get back into the habit.

Sun Feb 28 2021

Sleep 0445 to 1215. (7-1/2 hours)

• Bought The Pretty Reckless: Death by Rock and Roll. The first two or three tracks are good then it's up and down. I expect I'll like it more with repeated listenings.

Mon Mar 01 2021

Sleep 0300 to 0930. 1500 to 1500. (7-1/2 hours)

• US Snowboarding is another org that apparently ignores multiple unsubscribe requests.

Tue Mar 02 2021

Sleep 0245 to 1045. (8 hours)

• Twitch Rivals - Chess Hand and Brain. Alexandra beats Andre in Consolation finals. Nemo and Mr Llama loses to Hikaru in the Championship finals.
• Safeway grocery shopping.

Wed Mar 03 2021

Sleep 0500 to 1230. (7-1/2 hours)

• If you're an affiliate streamer then chances Twitch does not do real-time lesser quality streams. Until you get a big raid and then Twitch resets your stream and starts providing lower quality streams. The second part is relatively new behavior as far as I can tell. Before streamers would have to stop and restart their stream and hope that Twitch starts providing lower quality streams.

Thu Mar 04 2021

Sleep 0230 to 1130. (9 hours)

• Bought $200 of DDO credit (33.5k coins). Hoping I won't need to buy any more ever, or at least until 2025.

Fri Mar 05 2021

Sleep 0415 to 1215. (8 hours)

• We did Vault of Night/Plane of Night. Plane was bit hard because I couldn't damage my pillar (only had Piercing weapons) and then during the dragon fight Christopher charged into rock and got stuck there. But we did manage to win because we were all level 30.

Stellaris bundle has a good deal on this Paradox 4X space game, which I've never played. $15 for $98 of DLCs I don't own. But I don't even know if I'd like the game. Probably will skip.

$1 Level

Stellaris ($40, Owned)

$10 Level

Stellaris: Utopia ($20)
Stellaris: Plantoid ($8)
Stellaris: Leviathans ($10)

$15 Level

Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn ($10)
Stellaris: Apocalypse ($20)
Stellaris: Megacorp ($20)
Stellaris: Ancient Relics ($10)

It's that time of year to contribute to my Roth IRA account. The 2020 limit is $6k. I won't do 2021 until next year because there's always the chance I'll make too much income (2020 AGI is $120k which I might be over if not for my mortgage payments).

Current positions:

• Companies
• AAPL - $125k
• TSLA - $62k
• ETFs
• DIA - $20k
• QQQ - $48k
• SPY - $27k
• Mutual Funds
• DODFX - $4k
• DOMIX - $19k
• DSEFX - $14k
• PXWEX - $10k

I think I bought TSLA last year just before they announced a big split so that was fortunate. Still, having more than 50% of this account in two company stocks is risky so I should invest in an ETF.

Historically I've invested $10k in DIA, $10k in QQQ, $8k in SPY. I think I'll invest in QQQ (NASDAQ ETF). More risky than the other two because NASDAQ is heavily tech-based but still has good gains and better than depending on one company.