juliebarkley

I will do a proper update tomorrow. Have been feeling rather dizzy and headachey and a bit out of it all day. Not sure if it a combination of allergies, hormones, and not eating enough for a couple of days, or if I really am coming down with something. I guess I'll know after a bit of sleep. Night.

And it was done ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Exercise: I was tired on getting home from work, but I still made sure to at least stretch. And also went for a walk. I am achy all over; Literal Immortality made me WORK. I feel so unfit. Prayer: I had one opportunity and I squandered it with no good excuse. NerdFitness: I have had trouble settling in to read anything. Not sure if it's the tiredness being distracting, or just wandering mind. So did read a little, but couldn't get into it. Purging: Shall do now. Okay, I'm back. After getting a few CDs I feel I need to at least listen to, I found one that I swear I have never seen before, and have heard of nothing on it. Easy. Gone. New Shiny: Angband: No diving today. Tiredness also kills. But I did have a look at his equipment because he found a few neat things last dive. Turns out by replacing the Amulet of Resistance with the new Jewel Evenstar, Jinjin has resistance to everything resistable except nexus (and blindness). High-level resists are not super reliable and don't always reduce damage by much, but everything helps. And this should help with the constant experience drain he's been suffering too, because the Jewel has both nether resistance and hold life. (High resists block a variable amount of damage from their element, but also the other effects of those elements, like blindness, experience drain, hallucinations, etc.) Every resist is found on just a single item though, so if I want to be able to swap any gear at all (and I will) this situation may not be permanent. And my house was full so I had to throw away some old things to store the new ones. So I played the housecleaning and purging game even in video games. Notable kills: None. BGA: Nope. Work: Start of day: 557. End of day: 604. I have brought home a pile of picture books, and then added "top book of picture book pile" to the list once for each book. This will blow up the length of the list, but many of the tasks on there are similarly short, and because these have a due date, this should get them done a bit faster just because they'll pop up more often. More coming in the next week or so. Long-term: Nope. Work was so much better today. I had people at my programs. I got actual concrete steps done to making my future programs happen. And I got to eat outdoors in the lovely warm sunshine when there are relatively few lovely warm sunshiney days left. Then hung out with some friends online and watched some stuff together. I may have had a cloud of tiredness all day, but otherwise, it was a really nice day.

Or tried to sit on my arm while I type, or nuzzle the corner of the screen, changing its angle and risking pushing the whole laptop onto the floor. One of those things. He's creative. Just like a real cat. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Early report for me. I both had a lot of energy at work and was also extremely annoyed by the end of my shift. Tech was being difficult; I was opening a lot of tabs in web.archive.org, and the automatic internet filter must have thought I was abusing the system and blocked it for me and only me, forcing me to use generic workstations and awkward workarounds to finish the job I was doing (the way the system is set up also does not allow us to access our personal work OneDrive on generic workstations). Then I found out that a bunch of processing work had been left for me despite another coworker being in the position for an hour and my having noticed them having a nearly half hour chat with a customer - not helping with reader's advisory or tech help, but just chatting. (Said processing work was once primarily my work in my old position, but that position no longer exists, so now it is everyone's work. But habits are hard to change and it is sometimes still getting left for me.) Then the same coworker made a comment that I must have nothing to do when I finished up that processing, then backpedalled faster than I have ever seen anyone do before when they saw how fast my eyebrows went up. Because I am in the hair-on-fire-trying-to-prep-everything stage of the job. And also because this isn't the first time I've heard condescending comments from this staff member, or other people, about children's staff, and I was already not in a good mood. (Having worked both adult and children's library positions, I assure you that the children's staff have a heavier workload, lower budget, and get way less respect despite equal or greater required skill than the people working adult-oriented positions. Imagine a childless person smugly telling a new, bewildered, sleep-deprived first-time mother how it must be like a little vacation getting to stay home and watch TV all day with your child, and how much the mother would want to punch that person in the face, and you have some idea how I felt in that moment.) Anyway. Rant over. Point is, I had some aggression to work out when I got home, so I picked the Literal Immortality program on GMB because has more cardio in it. And holy crap, the combination of plyometric pushups and bouncing split squats was good for working out that loose energy. Oof, I'm going to be sore later. I could barely walk by the end. I may settle in to do some challenge reading, but that's the only other challenge-related thing I'm doing today. (Okay, might try to learn a new game.) Because I also made the hard decision to bring home the pile of picture books that I need to go through for work. It's getting more and more clear that I'm just not going to have time to check them at work at the moment (though I absolutely SHOULD have time). The pile now has over 100 items and it's literally not stable, so I'm bringing it home in bits and pieces and adding it all to my task list. (They are easier to work on in short bursts anyway, for me at least.) So that list is about to explode in size and I'm kind of pissed about that too, because I do not want bringing work home to be a regular or expected part of my job. So I am not working on that today. Or playing Angband, because pissiness leads to inattention leads to death. Reading and board games and language practice - this is the way for tonight.

You did. It is done. Prepare to be cheered.

Well, find me and friend me, or PM me your Duo username, and I will happily join your cheering squad!

Ongoing Habits: Exercise: I finished shaking the dust out of my soft furnishings! There was SO MUCH. I have got to get myself a proper rug beater, because this amount of dust can't possibly be healthy, vacuuming can't get it all, and besides stirs up lots of dust in the process. And is noisy. In the meantime, we used a rowing oar today. Prayer: Yes, once! NerdFitness: Did a fair bit of reading. Purging: Just a bookmark. But I did learn how to play a CD minidisc. New Shiny: Angband: Most of today's diving was rather boring, until I got to another Omens of Death level. I tried to map the area, and got this: What the heck is going on here?! The failed zapping and monsters burning went on for a while (because Jinjin is not the most brilliant mind and using items requires some thinking apparently). When I finally did get a map, I could still see no reason for all the death, and nothing pinged my ESP, which was all more than a little unnerving. But hey. We're here to explore. Let's explore. The good stuff all seemed concentrated in the bottom left corner of the level, not in vaults, but still with a lot of nastiness around them. Yet all looked doable. The only unique was Tevildo Prince of Cats, and last time I met him he was easy. (The was actually one other, Baphomet the Minotaur Lord, but I only ran into him near the end and realized very quickly that I couldn't take him, but could outrun him.) The only other thing that seemed worth worrying about was a Great Swamp Wyrm, but Ancient Dragons were already getting to be fairly easy, so with a bit of care, it should be okay. Oh, and in the same corner, I found the source of the early-level monster barbecue, though I couldn't yet see what was in there: (Tevildo is that purple f, by the way.) This level turned out to be much harder than I had anticipated. Tevildo was quite robust; last time I think I killed him with magic and never got near him in melee due to his summoned cat herd. But he is a beast if you get withing scratching distance. Constantly blinding me (one thing I have no resistance to). So did a few other enemies in the area. And confusing, if I forgot to swap out my ESP helmet once I found him. I would teleport away and come back, only to be quickly worn down again. And he can heal. Even with a speed boost, I was making only slow progress. I got him to half health before giving up, having already wasted way too many healing potions on him. So I teleported him away, planning to steal any good loot and then peace out. But he kept coming back. Just like the cat in the song. JUST LIKE A REAL CAT. I swear I sent him away three times at least, as well as teleporting away, and he just. Kept. Showing. Up. So annoying. I never did find out what was in that lava pit (other than a bunch of demons). There were a bunch of items on the island in the middle, and heck, maybe more too, but I saw the name Osyluth in my enemy list (and Tevildo coming up behind me), looked at my HP and inventory, and abandoned it as a bad risk. Teleported away, zapped my rod of recall and started to walk until it activated. Spent the last of it running from Tevildo again. Stupid cat. Jinjin himself is doing great. Level 39, max depth reached is now 63, maxed out character stats (and fully maxed STR and CON at the moment). And remember how happy I was to find a Ring of Speed last time, so bring him from a sad +4 to a less-likely-to-die +9? Well, the game was so very stingy with speed items for so very long, and now it's throwing them all at me at once. He's running at +17 right now, and even has some speed-granting items to spare. That's basically endgame-level speed. Might be time for another equipment rejig. Notable kills: The Phoenix, Shelob Spider of Darkness. BGA: Nope. Work: Start of day: 562. End of day: 557. Might do more. Long-term: All of my ETF options, whether Canadian or American-listed, are now selected. All I have to do is finish the buying process, and I can call this a good investment in my future! I feel like I had something to write in this space five minutes ago, but it is now completely gone. So completely unlike Tevildo. Also annoying.

Are you looking to build a small army of followers to cheer you on?

What kind of martial arts are you doing? Super curious how online school works out for you!

Ongoing Habits: Exercise: I took some stuffed animals outside to beat the dust out of them. Then the pillows. That was fun and easy, so I decided to keep going. Why not do all the soft furnishings, I thought? I grabbed a comforter and a quilt and took them out. HOLY CRAP the dust that came out of them! I think I could probably have gotten more, but those things are heavy, and shaking them vigorously left me very tired. Definitely exercise. I will have to finish the rest (including a moving blanket that weighs almost ten pounds!) tomorrow. Prayer: There were no sound alarms, but the banner is working. I am annoyed that technology is screwing with my good intentions. NerdFitness: Just reading today. Purging: Found an iPod in today's box. Early gen. I think I literally never used it, and I don't think there's much point in working this old tech into my systems when the software to support it was never fun to use anyway. New Shiny: Angband: I made minimal subs to my armour, but there's definitely some stuff worth hanging on to for later. Bought up all of my replacement gear and made a good first run where I picked off some uniques (and then teleported off a level accidentally by reading the wrong thing 🤦‍♀️). Dumped my Phase Door scrolls and only realized I forgot to buy them back again when I was already back in the dungeon. This resulted in a hair-raising situation where I was teleporting between The Phoenix and an assortment of other breathers and a lesser titan. Teleport tends to bring you to roughly the same regions, and because the dungeon level was a bit small, it was mostly shuffling me between these two. I had to ditch with The Phoenix almost dead. My fault though. Finally found a Ring of Speed. This makes things so much more comfortable! Notable kills: Rogrog the Black Troll, Vargo Tyrant of Fire, Itangast the Fire Drake, Scatha the Worm, Ar-Pharazôn the Golden. BGA: Nothing new today. Work: Start of day: 566. End of day: 562. Long-term: I've almost picked out US-listed alternates for the ETF categories from last challenge. Some of the buying hasn't happened yet, so with this list in hand, I can finally finish! It's probably all in my head, but having the window open and having the dust shaken out of the curtains and blankets has made my space feel cleaner and fresher all day. I also got enough stuff out out one of the to-be-purged piles that I could merge it with another pile. Always exciting to see proof of progress. I'm now imagining what I can do with those shelves once the stuff is gone. It would be really nice to shift the craft stuff so that I have more than two feet of closet space for my hanging clothes, but that may not be possible. Still, I'm starting to develop piles of stuff again and I need to pay attention to them. At some point I should do another light pass through my stuff Marie Kondo style. I like the way she frames the decluttering not as "what should I get rid of?" but "what should I keep?". It makes it easier for me to get rid of things that way. (I grew up with people who didn't get rid of anything, and I am still not great at it.) I try to picture the thing in a shop and ask if I would buy it today, or even pick it up. Will I actually use and love it? Does it fit in the life I presently live, and the life I would like to grow towards? Stuff like that. It's nice to have the extra room, and I can't think of anything I got rid of that I regretted yet.

I am that way too. I have to fight the hoarding urge in this game though. You can only carry 23 items (identical items, like those staves of teleportation, stack). And unlike most games, the stuff in your inventory is vulnerable. Potions can be broken by a cold attack, fire can burn up your scrolls and staves and arrows, and lightning can render your wands and rods worthless hunks of metal. And anything you are not wearing can be stolen. It's a good incentive to USE the stuff in your inventory; SO much better than having your "good" stuff destroyed before you can! I have everything set up in Notion, but I've learned only the basics to get me going. I know there are automation features, but I don't know exactly what they can do yet, or how to do it. Example: I would love to have a list of button where I can enter a date, and it will create an item on the calendar and add a list of tasks to the task list, with due dates backdated from the date of the event. I have the calendar and task list set up, and I have a list of tasks for recurring events with the required backdate for each, but I don't know how to set up the automation part. I have a feeling there is a LOT this program can do that would be helpful. But it takes time to climb that learning curve, and I have to do the shorter-term stuff before I can get to that. (Which is a shame, because it sounds like a lot of fun to play with and poke at.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ongoing Habits: Exercise: I did not leave the house today. Prayer: Okay, there were no alarms today either. Hopefully that is fixed now. NerdFitness: A little bit. I posted even. Purging: A bunch of papers - some old patterns, some notes that I took, some stuff that's now obsolete. And I found some genealogy information that I will copy into my online family tree, then get rid of too. New Shiny: Angband: It was a good day for our plucky hero. The very first thing he saw on climbing down the staircase was Saruman of Many Colours. That is a lot of scary. At least he has lots of other options beyond SUMMONING ANCIENT DRAGONS. I teleported him away and cleared out a whole one room when he came marching back. Okay then, Saruman. Let's go. Potion of Speed and a quick prayer to whatever his deity is, and we crossed swords. This fight went easier than I had thought, mostly because he didn't do much summoning and opted to hit me rather than cast spells rather often. He teleported me away halfway through the fight - rude! - but I eventually made it back over and finished him off. Didn't drop anything good though. Six exceptional objects, my eye. The next level was an Omens of Death, which usually means vault country. There were two (and one vaultlike room which turned out to be fake news). First I stumbled on this one. Chock full of monsters, but many of them are really not that bad. A couple would need to be teleported, but that's cool. And they look like they'll stay put until I'm ready for them, which is even better. Then I found the second one. Haha, developers. So funny. This one also looked surprisingly doable, so I just went ahead and did it. Lured out a few things to kill one by one, then broke into the eyes and took out a couple of ancient dragons. There was a lot of good loot here. I filled up my inventory space and threw out my food to make extra room. On to the other vault! This one required a little more care, but its design made it possible to fight just one monster at a time by taking only a few rounds of hits. So I did that, then ran in to clear out what was left. I had to teleport away only two things. And there was a bunch of good loot here as well. I made some tough decisions deciding what to throw away so I could stash it all. And if my stuffed-to-bursting inventory didn't already tell me a trip to town was in order, I noticed that the Balrog of Moria had set up camp in the hallway around the vault. Good thing there was no need to go outside. So now I have a bunch of stuff in my house, and I have actual CHOICES about what to wear in some of the armour slots. I need to take a good look at my options and pick a good combo before heading out again. And for the love of god, remember to rebuy the crucial stuff that I dumped to make shlepping room. Notable kills: Saruman of Many Colours. BGA: I lost really badly at Ticket to Ride three times in a row. Perhaps this was punishment for not trying something new. Work: Start of day: 570. End of day: 566. Long-term: No.

My copy arrived a couple of days ago. It's titled Midnight Riot instead of Rivers of London, but FantasticFiction assures me that they are the same and they have never failed me yet. I'm confident that this will not matter for prize purposes.

No thanks needed. (Also congrats on your basement!) You've mentioned this juxtaposition of life chaos or a heavy workload a couple of times. Are you like me, where if life things feel overwhelming or out-of-control, you tend to start up an organizational project or similar that you CAN control as a way of coping?

My eyes went wide when it happened, ngl. It is a direct descendant of Moria, so that makes perfect sense. I like the simplicity of it. (Which isn't actually all that simple - all of those colours have meaning and there is so much variety in a single letter!) I have real trouble getting oriented in 3D game environments, managing camera angles, and just being able to see/process things fast enough in the more realistic, details graphics to figure out what is going on. (A problem that otherwise mostly affects my ability to enjoy action film and my ability to drive. Though that latter is a big one.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two-day update. Assume that I did basically nothing on Thursday and you have it more or less correct. Ongoing Habits: Exercise: Nothing either day. By my habit routine I should have exercised on Thursday, but I knew that I had D&D that day and couldn't remember the time, so I decided to check first thing on getting home. Turns out I was already almost ten minutes late. Good thing I didn't go straight to exercise! Prayer: On Thursday, every single alarm went off while I was on my way to work, at work, or on the way home from work. Literally no opportunity. Today there would have been opportunity, but I do not recall hearing the alarm a single time. It may just need a reset - it does this from time to time. NerdFitness: Quite a bit actually! Mostly short challenges. Turns out the best way to get me to read you challenge is to post infrequently and not attract too many followers. 😅 Purging: A random DVD for a film that I've only vaguely heard of and don't think I'll ever watch. (The reason there are so many CDs/DVDs/games on this list is that when I moved the first time, the time it would have taken to go through the maybe piles just wasn't worth the space it would save in the truck, so it was postponed in favour of more fruitful categories. It's all down to only two shelves, and I'm going through it at my leisure as I get decision fatigue quickly from it.) New Shiny: Angband: The diving is lots of mostly-easy exploring, interspersed with moments of pure terror. I'm not sure if this is a bad sign that I might be a bit low and need to ease up, or a good sign that I'm not growing complacent and can spot the things that could kill me BEFORE I die. My gear has improved a bit, but not quite as much as I'd hoped. Artifacts have been very thin on the ground on this run. Example: there is a set of daggers that are colloquially called the *thancs: Narthanc, Nimthanc, and Dethanc. These are identical, but do fire, cold, and lightning damage respectively. They are excellent early-game weapons, but usually replaced by level 30 or so. I found Nimthanc quite late, somewhere in the teens (my weapon until then was CRAP), and have found only one artifact weapon since (the pike Til-E-Arc, which I have never seen before). Well, on this run, at level 49, I finally found my second *thanc in a vault. 😂So useful. I did not bring it home. (It actually still does respectable damage because my strength is so high that it gets the full 6 hits per round.) Oh, speaking of strength, I should give you an update on Jinjin himself. As you can see, he's still the beauty he's always been. But those little exclamation marks next to STR, DEX, and CON? Those indicate that those stats are maxed from a character point of view. The *** on STR in the Best column show that my equipment bonuses have driven my STR right to the absolute allowable maximum. Jinjin is literally as strong as he will ever be. Ooh, and I see that he is running ever so slightly overweight after coming nowhere near the burden limit for ages. A quick glance tells me he has 40 POUNDS of Staves of Teleportation in his inventory (they are important, okay?) I took some chances on vaults today, teleporting away some scary uniques (and a dracolisk), only to get nothing spectacular. Still, the incremental improvements have helped. I have been able to hold my own against ancient dragons as long as I am careful. Careful is key. I have a new problem. I have been stocking up on wands and staves that do important things, like teleport too-hard monsters away, or stun, or give me a decent ranged aoe attack. But I haven't seen any scrolls to let me recharge them in the shops for three visits. None in the dungeons either. And some of the monsters are starting to drain charges from my pack to heal themselves during melee. I was briefly down to only two remaining uses of Teleport Other, which makes me nervous what with the calm-then-panic rhythm we are running on these days. Notable kills: Gorlim Betrayer of Barahir (with my fancy hat of confusing/stun resist, he was easy), Eöl the Dark Elf. BGA: Nothing new today. Work: Start of day: 564. End of day: 570. Hmm. I don't remember adding things, but I must have yesterday. I worked on it only a little bit today. Need to throw some time into this. Long-term: No. Work stress is building up a bit. I still feel like there are a lot of moving parts to remember, and I'm constantly in danger of forgetting something. (This on top of the million smaller things that need doing, and with regular interruptions during what is supposed to be planning and concentration time. It can be very hard to focus and get things done.) I need to review the notes from our last planning session (which laid everything out in a handy schedule) and figure out how to work this into the system I've built for myself, so that I don't miss things. If I don't, I WILL miss things. And that would be bad. I have some ideas for how to keep track of these things, but not quite the technical skills to pull them off yet. So something makeshift will have to do for now.

Are you surviving the garage project?

Ongoing Habits: Exercise: I was both very tired on getting home, and more than 40 minutes late (my ride forgot about me), so I was just not able to get anything at all going. Prayer: No. The alarms went off during work, while waiting for my ride, and there must have been one later that I missed completely. NerdFitness: Yup, a little. Purging: A CD. My classical music CDs are all drifting away (except the organ ones). I'm just not that attached to any particular recording, there will be some rendition on YouTube/Spotify, and my collection was all acquired by chance anyway. New Shiny: Angband: This dive had promise, but things kept going wrong. First level, seconds in, I see this: So beautiful and tempting! And I got in and it wasn't even hard. It didn't have a lot in it though. I did kill an Ancient Dragon on this level, proving I can do it. Next level had another vault, and a lower difficulty level, so it also looked promising. Nothing too bad in it. Get in and start hacking away. Then tested an unidentified staff, which turned out to be a Staff of Earthquakes. I blew a giant hole in it and lost half the items under the rubble. This giant hole also allowed hummerhorns in. These guys both confuse you AND reproduce extremely quickly, and I had to abandon all the juicy items to their pesky breeding as I just could not clear them out. Next level had yet another vault, this one a checkerboard style. It has a few nasty characters in it, including the Phoenix and a dark elf whose name escapes me. But given the layout, I had a plan. I used Banish on the greater demons (used to be called Genocide; it eliminates a monster type from the dungeon level, in this case all the U monsters), then Teleport Other on the two uniques, and bam! I am left with a pile of loot as easy pickings. Managed to improve my stuff a little, then found a weapon that I was trying to make room for (a little worse than my current weapon, but had some interesting features, so I wanted to stash it in my house). So to make room, I test an unidentified wand by pointing it at the wall. It's now identified. Dragon Breath. The area effect burned up my new potential weapon. 😭 Hmph. At least the wand is cool. Oh, and on returning to town, I discovered that I had a Jewel-Encrusted Crown of Serenity, which protects against both stunning and confusion. This does mean that I can't have telepathy and see invisible at the same time as confusion protection, but the annoyingness of the swapping and wasted inventory space is worth it. Notable kills: Azog Enemy of the Dwarves, Castamir the Usurper. BGA: Got in a game of the second of my two new games and actually won, despite not knowing how scoring worked at the start. Work: Start of day: 550. End of day: 564. I added a bunch of stuff that had been sitting in tabs on my work computer, and didn't do a single bit of it when I got home. Long-term: No. I am so not a morning person. Should probably have taken a nap but didn't, which just meant that everything was done with low effort and any effort to do things requiring actual thought would have likely not ended well. I will make up for this lack of nap by going to bed a little earlier than normal. I'm really struggling to stay awake, so I won't. Night all!

He also complains a lot - his attacks are listed as "moan" three times for 0 damage. I always feel a little bad when he talks about missing his dogs, but they always try to kill me, so really it's his fault. Me too! Excellent! I was not sure if anyone else would. Each monster has a specific "native" level where they are meant to appear. If they appear earlier than that, you may be in for a rough time. Let me show you. The hardest dragons Jinjin is regularly running into are mature dragons. Here's one of those: These are slightly challenging, but if fought smartly, not truly dangerous. By now, he has had many opportunities to get lightning resistance, so that breath is at least halved in damage. I've also got a lot more HP and more armour than an earlier-in-the-dungeon character would have. Those claws can hurt in melee, but the chances of dying to one if not surrounded or otherwise stupidly handled are low. These are native to dungeon level 39. I'm at 44 right now, and it's a bit tricky. But these guys feel like a fair fight. The next (and final) rank of dragons, though.... These are faster, have double the HP, hit twice as hard, and can confuse you. Jinjin could fight this if he had to, with a lot of healing items and some temporary resistance and/or a speed potion, if he were faster himself. Maybe. Right now it would be a bad idea. But that's what you would expect; it's native depth is 50. Note: it is completely normal and expected for out-of-depth monsters to appear in vaults (which is what was pictured earlier). They also have out-of-depth items; it's a high-risk, (potentially) high-reward proposition. Thirty levels out-of-depth is not unusual for a vault. I think the worst I ever got was 50 level out-of-depth with Smaug the Golden once in the early 20s one game. I did not attempt that fight. Btw, character levels max out at 50. Stat gains from potions/items are also capped. So there comes a point where the monsters are either getting harder or are more frequent, but you aren't (assuming you hit level 50; I normally hit the stat caps long before then). But we are not at that level yet. He ran and lived, because his player has learned that much at least. Please, oh gods of the RNG, some improved equipment (preferably not guarded by anything extremely deadly)! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ongoing Habits: Exercise: Vitamin today was much jumping - forwards on two feet, on one foot, and to the side. My side jumping was worse than I thought, I think partly because it is meant to be more of an as-high-as-you-can jump, and my basement ceiling is low. I hit it hard, the panel moved very noisily, and I think that affected every jump afterwards. But it was fun anyway. Prayer: There was only one I could have responded to, and it was five minutes before I had to leave for work. NerdFitness: Tiny, tiny amount. Purging: I attempted, but ended up keeping all three of the things I pulled out, then stopped. (Turns out that not only do I still have the original Diablo and Diablo II on CD, I have the hardware to run them too. I was never all that great at Diablo and never played Diablo II, but I have since learned that the original was inspired by Angband and Moria and in its early version was going to be turn-based, so that makes me curious to try it again. (Diablo then inspired someone to make a turn-based traditional roguelike version, DiabloRL.) New Shiny: Angband: Nothing today. I was lacking for time. BGA: See above. Work: Start of day: 550. End of day: 552. Sounds about right. I added a few things to the list, and put most of my time into a single item. Long-term: Nope. Ever had one of those days when you're like "oh hey, I can talk about this in my end-of-day update, cool!" and then by end of day, you have no idea what you were going to talk about? That day is today. But that's okay. I have to go to bed now, will wake up tired regardless (not a morning person), and then have to perform for children, including hopping like a bunny, within half an hour of arriving at work. It is quite the way to wake up and start the day.

Ongoing Habits: Exercise: Another lovely long night walk. Prayer: I did hear one and almost immediately forget about it. It almost happened a second time too - it took me a moment to realize what the sound actually meant. I did then respond though. NerdFitness: A wee bit of reading done. Purging: Ooh, no I did not. New Shiny: Angband: Life was rough for Jinjin today. On the first level he recalled to from town, he was soon teleported down one floor by Draebor the Imp. He wandered around that floor for a while, having a bit of a hard time (Gorlim Betrayer of Barahir was stalking with a water cannon), and was teleported down again, this time by a mage. Then he had to run down a level because he had a night mare after him (stupid night mares). And that level was another Omens of Death level. But it also had a very high item value rating, and his equipment is in increasingly desperate need of improvement, so... poke around, right? Ooh, looks promising! Look at all of the shiny items! But... so dangerous. Ungoliant the Unlight is in there, 30 levels out of depth (the black S). And a bunch of other scary stuff. And I'm running low on healing, so... maybe I can just grab that item in the hallway up ahead. Should be no problem, right? (In a screenshot that I apparently did not take, imagine young Jinjin where the cyan K is standing, and the dark green l - a hasty ent - appearing through a newly-made hole in the wall.) I DID NOT KNOW THEY COULD DO THAT. CRAP. RUN. The rest of the level also had much nastiness, so I had to recall back to town without seeing any of the lovely loot. Jinjin is going to die soon if he doesn't get some more of speed (I am at only +1) and some better armour and weaponry. He was down to 10HP at one point - luck alone saved him. Just got a helm of telepathy, which is nice, but his resistance holes are still crappily covered, his AC is less than 80, and his weapons give no benefits whatsoever other than hitting harder than anything else he's found. He could REALLY benefit from confusion resistance, which is unlikely, but a girl can dream. Notable kills: Farmer Maggot (relieved some of the frustration of the previous death level), Kavlax the Many-Headed, The Queen Ant (a fun fight), Waldern King of Water. BGA: Didn't do any today. Work: Start of day: 558. End of day: 550. Long-term: Darn. It was in the plans. I know exactly what I want to do, but keep doing other things instead.

Ongoing Habits: Exercise: I did not exercise on arriving home because I had no laundry to bring downstairs. I did go on a nice long walk in the evening though. Prayer: The alarms kept happening at inconvenient times, like less than a minute after I got a text that my ride was on their way. NerdFitness: Did a respectable amount of reading today. Still lots to go to be caught up. Purging: Officially for the task, a small number of recipe cards. Unofficially for a task on my work list, a rather large pile of song sheets. New Shiny: Angband: I sold up my goods in town before heading out, and got an ID on a weapon better than the one I was using. Only 25000gp to buy it back. Ouch. I was greeted with another Omens of Death message on level 36, but other than running into Fundin Bluecloak (more than 30 levels out-of-depth, but more annoying than dangerous) I never did figure out what made it "dangerous". The loot was bad anyway. Onward! Level 39 brought almost all of the uniques on the kill list today. Lorgan can summon, and so could a bunch of other enemies on the level, and it got ugly and hard pretty quick. Jinjin hit 39 HP at one point from a max of over 500! But we killed them all eventually. On level 40 I found an enemy that I cannot beat at melee and need to run from. Stupid night mares. The diving continues. Notable kills: Ulwarth Son of Ulfang, Bert the Stone Troll, Bill the Stone Troll, Ulfang the Black, Lorgan Chief of the Easterlings BGA: Didn't do any today. Work: Start of day: 559. End of day: 558. Despite putting in quite a bit of work and getting rid of a bunch of stuff! One of the items I pulled from the pile was a physical one, and it had a large number of items inside it. I took out all the items related to songs and put the rest back. I worked through these for an hour, checking items against my master song list and adding a few that looked interesting or that I had accidentally left off the main list. After an hour of this, I couldn't face any more, so the rest went back into the pile as a new item. Sometimes list items are quick and easy, and sometimes they end up generating more items. The list be like that. Doesn't mean I didn't make progress. Long-term: Unless you count the 50-minute French YouTube I watched to help improve my accent, I didn't do anything.

If you really like the PB&J flavours but want more protein and less bread, you could try an omelette with PB&J filling. You have exercise support cats too! (And a charming laugh. )

Maybe, maybe not. The going rate around here is roughly $130-180 Canadian, a little more in the expensive cities. That's roughly $100-150 in US dollars. I assume that from that money they have to pay their office expenses, and that that also covers for research/planning when needed outside of your actual consultation time. Maybe also some time taking on subsidized sessions for targeted populations or community-oriented programs that they do free of charge. If it does indeed cover those things, than it doesn't seem excessively high. If you don't have to pay for your space out of your earnings though, it might be. To not even consider taking on any patients that pay less though, that doesn't seem right at all. It's not exactly starvation wages. (Note that this is for therapy, not the kind of mental healthcare involving drug prescriptions. There is no public coverage at all for that here. If you have a mental illness and need to see a psychologist, you are facing long wait times rather than a price barrier. And you would need a doctor to refer you, which is also a major barrier when probably 1 in 5 people don't have one. And yes, this all sucks.)

Baby fish! Didn't take long to switch back from "man, maybe I should just chill and enjoy the fish" to "let's breed us some fishies!". Never, if you're doing it right.

Welcome back! I hope your goals are going well, but even if they aren't we are here to support you and help support if we can.

I look forward to you staying well and happy.

Ongoing Habits: Exercise: Yup. Bent-arm bear was a lot more fun than yesterday's session. My monkey stall is still not much of a stall, but hey. I try. Prayer: I don't recall purposely skipping an alarm, but it didn't happen. NerdFitness: Settling in for this now. Purging: A little stack of papers. I ended up going down a little genealogy rabbit hole due to one of them, and realizing that I need to drag up the data from an old program to expand my data in FamilySearch. Hopefully then I can link into the Great Tree of Humanity. I am hindered by the fact that on my dad's side, there are too many people named George in the same place at roughly the same time, my grandmother had a complicated history due to being orphaned early, and I've never managed to find official birth or marriage records for either of them. New Shiny: Angband: Today was primarily a dive day. Made it down to level 37. The fights are starting to feel a little fairer - I can't mindlessly run in and smack any more. (I need to improve my gear. ) I finally have a wand that lets me teleport away troublesome enemies, which will come in very handy when the Bill and Bert show up again. Notable kills: Lokkak the Ogre Chieftain. BGA: Nah, I just played familiar things today. Work: Start of day: 566. End of day: 559. Long-term: Hoping to get to a bit of this tomorrow.

Sticking to horror. I loved Jonathan Maberry's Rot and Ruin series. I also liked In the House in the Dark of the Woods by Laird Hunt, but that seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it book. If you like dark fairy tales and can tolerate a slow reveal of what is actually going on (with much confusion the whole way through), it might be up your alley.