Sat Mar 22 2025

Sleep 0100 to 0845 (7-3/4 hours)

• DDO and Crucible R3 again this time with Csr’s Bard/Rogue. More careful and we finished it with only three deaths. In Test of Agility you can be lucky and have no whirly blades in which case we got me and Dave S to the final room and he was able to get the Horn. For underwater I forgot you can have hireling pick up your death stone and then you can move your ghost and teleport your hireling to the ghost to keep moving forward through the water.

Sun Mar 23 2025

Sleep 0130 to 0930 (8 hours)

• One thing about Viki app is that it’s bad about keeping track of what you’ve watched. I look at tv show episode list and it says I’ve watched episodes I haven’t. The watching list also sometimes doesn’t update and I start rewatching the last watched episode instead of the next one. All the more annoying because a minute of commercials starts maybe 15 seconds into watching an episode, and if you jump forward over commercial breaks they’ll start playing anyways (reminds me of the old CBS web site tv watching experience) so kind of jumping around trying to find where you left off takes a while.

Mon Mar 24 2025

Sleep 2200 to 0200, 0715 to 1115 (8 hours)

• Stifel called saying we had an ACH to the old bank account and we should use the new one. I didn’t realize when they closed our bank account it was permanent. We had Marcyl sign to re-open it but it was actually a new bank account. Also, I’m not sure where that ACH came from since Stifel’s web site is not that informative.

Tue Mar 25 2025

Sleep 0500 to 1130 (6-1/2 hours)

• At least through end of April MLS has had 6 games on Apple TV+ each week. It’s a bit more than I’d like since watching one game a day means once Friday Night Baseball starts it’ll overflow with 8 games per week.

Wed Mar 26 2025

Sleep 2300 to 0400, 1100 to 1400 (8 hours)

• Dinner at C3. Costco rotisserie chicken with white rice and broccoli. CJr and I played some Super Smash game on his Switch (broadcast to their TV).

Thu Mar 27 2025

Sleep 0515 to 1315 (8 hours)

• Stillfleet Bundle of Holding ($21). Far future dark science fiction. Does not look that interesting. I’m more Star Trek rather than Warhammer 40K.
• HOA Meeting. Went well I think. I probably stress too much the days before the meeting.
• Saw that Dungeon of the Endless: Apogee is on sale for $2. Although it hasn’t been updated in 4 years it’s pretty much a complete game and as long as it keeps running on my iPad I’m fine with it.

Fri Mar 28 2025

Sleep 0145 to 0245, 0715 to 1215 (6 hours)

• Oracle has reportedly suffered 2 separate breaches exposing thousands of customers‘ PII. I’m not really worried about operational repercussions. From my observation even if an issue affected one or a few customers there would be engineers doing an RCA and figuring out how to prevent it from happening in the future then implementing fixes and that’s within like a one-week time period. For a security breach probably a longer investigation but I’m sure there are plenty of engineers and upper management focus to find the root cause and fix it.
• A bit of DDO until Dave S arrived then one Gloomhaven scenario.

This itch.io bundle from David Blandy is composed of his RPG products. Between Two Cairns reviewed some of the Eco Mofos pamphlet adventures and although mixed review I did see that this $20 bundle was ending Apr 01 1600 PST and it looks intriguing enough to buy. BTW Blandy's stuff on DTRPG is twice the price which I guess is his strategy.

Eco Mofos ($10)
Solo Mofo ($3)
EM01 To Put Away a Sword ($5)
EM02 Into the Antlion’s Den ($3)
EM03 Abyss Protocol ($3)
EM04 A-Hole in the Ground ($3)
EM05 The Silo ($3)

Lost Eons ($20, owned) - "solarpunk sci-fantasy"
Lone Eons ($10) - solo version
Lost Eons: Haven of Aves ($10)
Lost Eons: Land of Iron ($10)

Babel ($10) - journaling game
Gathering Storm ($10) - collaborative world-building game

Creeping Death on Station 66 ($3) - system neutral microsetting (on Mars)
Welcome to Brighthelm ($3) - system-neutral microsetting
Welcome to Mars ($3) - system-neutral microsetting
Welcome to Wrongwood ($3) - system neutral microsetting

Actually I think I'll skip this bundle because I'm trying to cut down on bundle purchases and will probably buy the Delta Green and BattleTech RPG bundles this month.

Buying just the Eco Mofos stuff individually is $15 (at the current 50% off sale price). And that comes from a different purchasing category so I might do that early morning Apr 01.

Addendum: Changed my mind again and bought the bundle. This is because the color Eco Mofos is $10 not $5 which makes individual purchase $20 so might as well get the bundle.

Humble Bundle has a Delta Green: RPG, VTT & Fiction Collection for $25.

The $25 level is all stuff from a previous bundle so if you have that bundle (which was $18) you don't have to rebuy it for $10 so that's decent of them.

Even though the $15 level is mostly VTT, handouts, and anthologies/novels (less interested in all those) there is still enough RPG stuff to be worth it so I'll buy at the $15 level.

$5 Level

Delta Green: Need to Know (quick start)

Delta Green: The Way It Went Down (anthology)
Delta Green: The Way It Went Down, Volume 2 (anthology)

Delta Green: Extremophilia VTT (Foundry)
Delta Green: Extremophilia VTT (Roll20)

$15 Level

Delta Green Viscid VTT (Foundry)
Delta Green Viscid VTT (Roll20)
Delta Green: Reverberations VTT (Foundry)
Delta Green: Reverberations VTT (Roll20)
Delta Green: Puppet Shows & Shadow Plays VTT (Foundry)
Delta Green: Puppet Shows & Shadow Plays VTT (Roll20)
Delta Green: Music From a Darkened Room VTT (Foundry)
Delta Green: Music From a Darkened Room VTT (Roll20)
Delta Green: Convergence VTT (Foundry)
Delta Green: Convergence VTT (Roll20)
Delta Green: Need to Know VTT (Foundry)
Delta Green: Need to Know VTT (Roll20)
Delta Green: Jack Frost VTT (Foundry)
Delta Green: Jack Frost VTT (Roll20)
Delta Green: Agent's Handbook + The Complex VTT (Foundry)
Delta Green: Agent's Handbook + The Complex VTT (Roll20)

Delta Green Digital Assets: Murder Board Pack 2
Delta Green Digital Assets: Esoterica Pack 1
Delta Green Digital Assets: Classified Pack 1

Delta Green: Through a Glass, Darkly (novel)
Delta Green: Strange Authorities (anthology)
Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy (novel)
Delta Green: Tales from Failed Anatomies (anthology)
Delta Green: Extraordinary Renditions (anthology)
The King in Yellow: Annotated (anthology + Kenneth Hite comments)

Delta Green: Puppet Shows & Shadow Plays
Delta Green: Convergence
Delta Green: Handler's Screen (own)
Delta Green: The Good Life
Delta Green: Dead Letter
Delta Green: God's Hunt
Delta Green: Dead Drops

The King in Yellow Tarot (78 cards + 28-page guide)

$25 Level

Delta Green: Agent Dossiers (own)
Delta Green: ARCHINT (own)
Delta Green: Static Protocol (own)
Delta Green: The Complex (own)
Delta Green: Iconoclasts (own)
Delta Green: Black Sites (own)
Delta Green: The Labyrinth (own)
Delta Green: Control Group (own)
Delta Green: A Night at the Opera (own)
Delta Green: God's Teeth (own)
Delta Green: Handler's Guide (own)
Delta Green: Agent's Handbook (own)
Delta Green: Conspiracy (own)
Delta Green: Impossible Landscapes (own)

Delta Green Evidence Kit: God's Teeth (own)
Delta Green Evidence Kit: The Labyrinth (own)

Delta Green Digital Assets: Public Interest 1 (own)
Delta Green Digital Assets: Law Enforcement 1 (own)
Delta Green Digital Assets: Murder Board 1 (own)
Delta Green Digital Assets: Known Vectors 1 (own)

Sat Mar 15 2025

Sleep 0400 to 1200 (8 hours)

• Gaming at Dave and Sophia’s house. We got about 90 minutes of D&D in. Dinner at Pho Nam which was ok.
• More Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. My gun finally broke although my other guns not so bad. We’re a bit over half way through the main plot.

Sun Mar 16 2025

Sleep 0600 to 1200 (6 hours)

• Bought The Sunless Citadel (3e) as my last GM’s Day purchase.

Mon Mar 17 2025

Sleep 0500 to 1300 (8 hours)

• After paying the second half of my property tax and this quarter’s HOA special assessment (one more to go due in June) I have less than $5500 cash. That gets me into mid-May so hopefully ORCL stock is better then.

Tue Mar 18 2025

Sleep 0200 to 0930 (7-1/2 hours)

• Ryan and Brian from R&S Erection came by for two work orders: fix slamming glass door (replaced a part) and peeling panel on a fire door (nailed/screwed panel back in though imperfect, will send us a proposal to replace fire door).
• Before we’ve had Vortex do door work. Not sure why we used R&S Erection this time.

Wed Mar 19 2025

Sleep 0300 to 1100 (8 hours)

• Trader Joe’s for groceries.
• Dinner at C3’s house (Corina working away). Delivery from Kajiken.
• Dave S called and he’s been laid off. He was expecting it and had applied for a lot of internal jobs and has been doing interviews. If he does get another job at Goggle it’ll probably be out of the country.

Thu Mar 20 2025

Sleep 0115 to 0815 (7 hours)

• Christopher Sr mentioned that his sleep therapist said waking up at about the same time every day is best for your Circadian rhythm. So I will try to wake up around 0845 each day.

Fri Mar 21 2025

Sleep 2000 to 0000, 0500 to 0845 (7-3/4 hours)

• DDO without CSr as he and CJr are at a Boy Scout overnight event. The three of us tried The Crucible at R3 and lots of dying without a real Rogue. At one point my client was bugging out so I restarted and when I came back it dumped me in Korvos and out of the quest so we didn’t finish it.

This time I had almost a month to watch before it expired again.

Love Next Door - 10 episodes as I continued from the last time
No Regrets in Life - 12 episodes which I was watching slowly but did the last 7 in one night
Something in the Rain - 16 episodes and so good
Wonderland - movie, kept putting off watching last half but finished in the last subscription day
The Last Kingdom - season 5 (10 episodes) and finished the series
Forecasting Love and Weather - 16 episodes
Destined with You - 16 episodes

I bought five items over five days. I think these were all reviewed by Between Two Cairns podcast.

AD&D 1E modules

C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
DL1 Dragons of Despair
N3 Destiny of Kings
N4 Treasure Hunt
UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave

The Evils of Illmire - a 126-page zine (1/2 page size) module for Old School Essentials. "The Evils of Illmire is a "mini-mega" hexcrawl adventure module designed to provide dozens of sessions of perilous wilderness exploration and dungeon crawling."

The Sunless Citadel - D&D 3E 1st level adventure

Sat Mar 08 2025

0600 to 1300 (7 hours)

• We played Gloomhaven. DS finally changed characters, to the Berserker. A bit tricky to play. 10 HP and has many actions that do more when the Berserker has less HP. Has some self-healing and DW has one or two heal allies actions.

0800 to 1315 (5-1/4 hours)

• DriveThruRPG has their GM’s Day Sale going on. I’ll probably buy 5 or 6 small items as it helps fulfill my monthly debit card number of purchases per month.

Mon Mar 10 2025

Sleep 0215 to 1045 (8-1/2 hours)

• Shave and showered. I find I don’t shower much these days and sometimes go about a week or more.
• Walked to Walgreens for 9V batteries (2-pack for $18.50 or so) for my garage door opener. Then to Mi Rancho for Chicharrones, instant coffee (which is the only type of coffee they have), and pan dulce.

Tue Mar 11 2025

Sleep 0800 to 1400 (6 hours)

• CrossOver 25 released and now uses Wine 10.0. For macOS it now supports Red Dead Redemption, GOG Galaxy, Epic Games Store.
• Installed Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Still has the problem where it can’t save settings and displays an error dialog. Does seem to show the dialog less often than before.
• Installed Red Dead Redemption. Using my old settings and it works fine but maybe it’s the modifications I made before.

Wed Mar 12 2025

Sleep 0215 to 1030 (8-1/4 hours)

• PayPal changed it so that it’s impossible to send INR funds (India Rupee). You have to use Xoom which only allows sending USD or CAD and they have conversion fees.

Thu Mar 13 2025

Sleep 2330 to 0100, 0730 to 1130 (5-1/2 hours)

• With Christopher gone I spent five days doing two runs per day of DDO Anniversary Party and I got a d12 for my Cormyr alt character. Also lets me catch up on XP since Christopher’s character gets more.

Fri Mar 14 2025

Sleep 2315 to 0600, 1000 to 1330. (10-1/4 hours)

• We played Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands with the full group. Tried to see if CSr VPN-ed into my network LAN mode works but it doesn’t as I suspected. Today I had fun since I have a gun that has regenerating ammo and shoots homing magic missiles so I don’t really have to aim.

Humble Bundle's Warhammer 40K Roleplay: Wrath & Glory bundle is a repeat of a previous bundle of the same name but now with extra books (and you have to buy this bundle to get those books). For $25 you get:

From previous bundle:

Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Core Rulebook
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Forsaken System Player's Guide PDF
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Rain of Mercy PDF
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Gamemaster's Screen
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Litanies of the Lost
Warhammer 40:000 Wrath & Glory - The Graveyard Shift PDF
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Church of Steel PDF
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: On The Wings of Valkyries PDF
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Bloody Gates
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Redacted Records PDF
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: The Lord of the Spire PDF
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Affliction Ascendant PDF
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Gutshiva's Kommandos PDF
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: The Null Hypothesis
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Departmento Munitorum Shotguns PDF
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Brass Tax PDF

New books:

Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Space Marine 2 - Purge the Swarm ($5)
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Nemesis - Wretches of the Writ PDF ($3)
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Threat Assessment: Xenos PDF ($15)
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Redacted Records 2 ($20)
Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory: Starter Set ($20)

All the new books are supplements not adventures so even at a big discount not planning to buy this,

Mörk Borg Core Bundle ($25)

Mörk Borg Core Rules ($25) [OWN] 96 digest pages "Mörk Borg is a pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG about lost souls and fools seeking redemption, forgiveness, or the last remaining riches in a bleak and dying world."

Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory ($10) [OWN]
Mörk Borg Cult: Heretic ($10) [OWN]

CY_BORG Core Rules ($25) - 168 pages
Pirate Borg ($20) - 166 pages
Mörk Borg: Ikon ($5) - 47 pages

CY_BORG Darknet Bundle ($18) "CY_BORG is a complete rules-light, rage-heavy SFRPG compatible with Mörk Borg."

Beyond CY ($15) - supplement
The CVLT of the Hadron Lamb ($15) - adventure
Darknet Filth ($15) - two short adventures + other stuff
Down Bad ($15) - three short adventures
gutter_PVNKS ($15) - city supplement includes 2 adventures
Krok Hunters ($2, 2pp) - mini adventure

Mörk Borg: Tribute ($15, 48pp) - supplement for Mörk Borg and CY_BORG


Since I own half of the first bundle it does make it a bit pricey and the second bundle requires the first bundle. Guess I'll skip as my initial enthusiasm for Mörk Borg has cooled.

2025-03-16: OK, I did end up buying both bundles.

Sat Mar 01 2025

Sleep 0530 to 1300 (7-1/2 hours)

• CSr, DW and I played Gloomhaven. Ran well considering CSr was hosting from India.

Sun Mar 02 2025

Sleep 0515 to 1215 (7 hours)

• I find auto-correct is really fast on my M4 Mac. But it’s not great with names and especially Korean names so when I’m writing a K-Drama review I have to be extra careful to re-read what I wrote. The auto-correct is so fast I often miss as it “corrects” a Korean name into English words. I suppose if I was using Korean language it would get the names right.

Mon Mar 03 2025

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

• The three books I checked out three weeks ago were not renewed. I think it’s happened once before. I have about 2/3rds of Run Silent, Run Deep read and I’ll try to finish it in the next two days.

Tue Mar 04 2025

Sleep 0715 to 1430 (7-1/4 hours)

• Stayed up watching the last four episodes of Something in the Rain.
• Warehouse 23 GM’s Day Sale though mostly 15% off (Fantasy Trip 20% and 25% off). I’ll wait for a bigger sale to buy GURPS PDFs.
• Celestial Bodies KS, a “GMless and solo-able tactical mecha game”. Interesting concept I guess though I’m fine playing BattleTech solo.

Wed Mar 05 2025

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

• Mango not really my fresh fruit choice. Whenever I peel it and eat it I make a mess and the taste is ok. Reminds me of crab: work to crack the legs and get a little bit of meat out and then it tastes ok. For both getting at the edible portions is not worth the effort. Mind you I’m fine if someone else does it.
• Went to library and checked out three books. Apparently my library card expired most likely why my previous three books weren’t auto-renewed.

Thu Mar 06 2025

Sleep 0815 to 1415 (6 hours)

• Hard time getting to sleep last night.

Fri Mar 07 2025

Sleep 0530 to 1330 (8 hours)

• CSr in India shopping so it was DS, DW and myself for DDO. Did the last couple of Gianthold 13’s at R3 then Mired in Kobolds at R1 with the optional dragon mom battle.

MacBook Air M4. Now can do internal + 2 external displays.

MBA 13" with M4 10/8/16 chip, 16 GB memory, 256 GB storage is $1000.
MBA 13" with M4 10/10/16 chip, 32 GB memory (max), 1 TB storage is $1800.

Based on how I've used my MBP M4, fan comes on when I run Handbrake (all the time), MacWhisper (usually), or 4K Video Downloader (sometimes), DDO with CrossOver (all the time). For gaming I think I'd want a MBP over a MBA. But now with experience I think a MBA (with no fan) would still be acceptable. A MBA would need a dock for more ports since I'd still need an external drive for media storage.

Mac Studio M4 Max. There's also a higher end with M3 Ultra which apparently confuses people but it doubles the cores and 60% more bandwidth more than makes up for M3/M4 gap.

Mac Studio M4 Max 14/32/16 chip, 36 GB memory, 512 GB storage is $2000. 1TB storage +$200.

If I was buying a Mac Studio the lowest end would be just fine. But I don't need a pro machine. A Mac mini would be more suitable:

Mac mini with M4 Pro 12/16/16, 48 GB memory, 1 TB storage is $2000 which actually makes that lowest end Mac Studio rather appealing.

Apple introduced an iPad Air M3

Lowest spec is $600: 11" (13" for +$200) 128 GB (256 GB for +$100) WiFi (+Cellular for $150)

Also an Apple Pencil Pro ($130)

Also iPad with A16 chip (128 GB for $350, 256 GB for $450, Cellular for +$150) which is not much faster than my iPhone SE 3rd gen.


For $1000 you can get an iPad Pro M4 256 GB, so +$300 for a somewhat better CPU and better display.

For $500 you can get an iPad mini A17 Pro. Save $100 for a smaller display (though that's a feature not a negative) and slower chip.

I'm now not against getting an 128 GB iPad Air instead of an iPad mini even though I'd rather have a smaller display.

Sat Feb 22 2025

Sleep 0500 to 1030 (5-1/2 hours)

• More DDO without Csr. Finished Lordsmarch Droaam war quests.

Sun Feb 23 2025

Sleep 0445 to 1245 (8 hours)

• It seems like the free MLS games on Apple TV+ are just for the live airing. I noticed I couldn’t start a game from the beginning and now that the Saturday games are over they are all marked MLS Season Pass even the ones that you could see live on Apple TV+.
• I don’t have schedule flexibility to watch games live. Hopefully I’ll be able to watch the videos of the Sunday Night Soccer games.

Mon Feb 24 2025

Sleep 0300 to 1130

• Family dinner at Porterhouse. Mom and Dad. Tía Juana from Vancouver. Jaime my nephew. C3 and Steph.
• Christopher Jr was restless so I took him to Baskin Robbins while people were ordering and waiting for food.
• I had the onion soup and steak special of the day (rare). Guess it wasn’t that great for $80.

Tue Feb 25 2025

Sleep 0230 to 0845 (6-1/4 hours)

• Twitch will automatically renew my 6-month subscriptions at full price. Uh, thanks?
• Microsoft 401k is replacing Vanguard Russell 2000 Growth Index Trust (0.0148% fee) with Small/Mid Cap Growth Account (0.4432% fees). I don’t like managed funds because of high fees whilst not outperforming ETFs (and to a lesser extent index funds which to me are “ETFs with higher fees”). I should rebalance that portfolio.
• Deadlands Lost Colony: Mad World (BackerKit) - 96-page (digest-size I assume) plot point campaign. I skipped the new Lost Colony so will skip this too.

Wed Feb 26 2025

Sleep 0315 to 1130 (8-1/4 hours)

• Trader Joe’s at 2000 is emptier but also some items low stock as they restock.

Thu Feb 27 2025

Sleep 0345 to 1130 (7-3/4 hours)

• Picked up my EV rebate check and deposited it. It’s $2470 and I paid $3841 so pretty good rebate and some of the rebate also paid for HOA expenses like the legal stuff. Anyway with the money I can pay the second half of my property tax. Bit low on funds as I wait until hopefully ORCL stock price is good enough for me to sell some guilt free.

Fri Feb 28 2025

Sleep 0400 to 1200 (8 hours)

• DS, DW and I played DDO. CSr in India and having lunch with co-workers.