[WhiteGhost]

On 4/18/2024 at 3:33 PM, DarK_RaideR said:

It was a general strike day

Do you get a lot of those over there?  I am trying to imagine the absolute chaos that would ensue if that ever happened over here

 

Also, nice to see workouts back in the updates

[DarK_RaideR]

16 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Do you get a lot of those over there?  I am trying to imagine the absolute chaos that would ensue if that ever happened over here

Not really, and when we do it's a one day deal so people can join the protest downtown. Which is a damn shame if you ask me, but let's not get into that.

 

16 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Also, nice to see workouts back in the updates

It's nice to be doing them again!

 

Monday 22 April

 Cooking: Had to rush off to work, so no breakfast and took leftover cauliflower rice/couscous with beef mushroom stir fry for lunch. I did however make fish fingers in a tortilla wrap for dinner and also cooked a couple of pork steaks to be chopped up for future dishes, so two points there.

 Media Production: Listened and posted about the album of the day. Also listened to a new one that came out on Friday.

 

Not skill point related in anyway, but also "assisted" my girlfriend fiance in booking tickets to come see me late next month. I put that in quotes because I didn't really do anything, just a screen share for reassurance she was doing everything right with the booking. She's too awesome to need me to hold her hand through this. But yeah, tickets booked! Much excite!

[Heidi]

5 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

tickets booked! Much excite!

WOOHOO!

[DarK_RaideR]

Tuesday 23 April

 Cooking: Made me a breakfast burrito wrap and another to take to work for lunch. Got a sudden invite from a friend I've been trying to meet for a while now and we met for ramen dinner after work, but was still hungry late in the night and after a workout, I made myself a quick salad since I'd already chopped the lettuce to be stored for future wrap use. Scoring the full three points for the day.

 Charisma: As mentioned, met with said friend and had a nice evening out.

 Fitness: Did my workout later in the evening, adding one extra rep on each set to slowly do a progressive overload before I raise the weight and bump down the reps again.

Spoiler

3x16 Rear Delt Flyes

3x16 Side Lat Raises

3x11 Bench Press

3x11 Pull Overs

3x9 Overhead Press

3x13 Biceps Curls

3x16 Skull Crushers

3x9 Front Squat

3x9 Romanian Deadlifts

3x16 Calf Raises (with a pause at the top)

 Media Production: This habit of hearing the album early on at work with my coffee while things are still quite helps a lot get it out the way. Made the post later in the evening and also got to listen to another album from my backlog, so overall success.

[Jarric]

On 4/22/2024 at 3:03 PM, DarK_RaideR said:

There will be campaign reports. Thus far we only did the opening session, a basic adventure to set us up. I'm playing a Netherese (human) wizard, who was tasked by the captain of a flying ship with investigating/repairing a malfunctioning (sabotaged?) elven beacon used by said flying ships in transporting people from the ground to a flying enclave. We came together as a group, went there, botched a roll to restore it, fought some magical copies of ourselves, managed to restore it and ended the session flying up to the enclave. Longer version under spoiler to avoid Wall of Text.

  Hide contents

The game is set at the start of the Age of Discovery, which is right after the absolute peak of the Netherese empire. Also when Spelljamming is starting to be a thing (and before everyone involved in it decides the Netherese are arseholes and want nothing to do with them) so we might end up sailing the Planes. Another element of the era is a rising feel of human supremacy, as after repelling the frequent orc raids and deciding they will never be truly safe until they've completely wiped orcs off the face of the planet, the Netherese begin to harbor a more universal human supremacist approach, minus dwarves because they're useful little miners and craftsmen.

 

Our game began at a village under a flying enclave, with all 3 of our characters wanting to get there for their own reasons. However, the aforementioned beacon went off all of a sudden and all the ships except for one came crashing down. Naturally, we had to restore it before the captain would risk losing his final ship, my human wizard out of a sense of duty at least. He was tasked with this by the captain in a very "You're a wizard, right? This is magical, so fix it!" kind of way. He then noticed another PC, a young pointy-eared girl in elaborate armor and swords (more show than practicality) singing next to the resident bard. Sensing she was in need of coin, he offered to reward her (he's only got 10gp on him, but we never got into specifics, I was hoping I'd send the bill to the captain) if she'd join him and provide any necessary insight to elven culture, as my character only speaks the language. In another hilarious moment of racism being utterly stupid, I left the scene thinking I'd scored an elf for the task force, only to hear the third PC, an actual elf, talk to this half elven, actually,  girl. Turns out she has no idea of elven culture and was BSing my character, but the third PC (pretty sure he's a druid or cleric of sorts). We're quite a bunch already. Anyway, he was wise enough to come talk to the captain and offer to join while also asking if there's a reward to be had; there isn't, but normally it costs 100gp to make the travel, so anyone assisting would be getting a free ride as thanks.

 

The following morning we set off towards a nearby hill, where the beacon stands. From the elven glyphs around the base, we understood some sort of magical ritual had to be performed, but it would come at a price. We joined in as the (actual) elf led the ceremony and botched it, costing spellcasters a spell slot and anyone else a bit of their life force. That's when the magical spectres appeared, one for each. I was smart enough to not whack mine (and lucky enough to not get hit when I moved without withdrawing), not expend my last remaining spell slot and trying to flank one with my fellow players. We ended beating them without taking any serious hits, resumed the ritual and finally got it right as I gave away my preserved spell slot while the rest lost more life force. What's also interesting was how the elf girl remained hyped after the fight and actually tried to pick a fight, especially compared to how subservient she acted when we first met her. I suspect she might be a barbarian and that was secretly her still having a few rounds left in the tank after activating Rage for combat. The session ended with us on board and floating upwards.

 

 

Oh wow, that sounds like it's gonna be a lot of fun. I really like that you don't know everyone's classes yet too.

 

What system is it? 3.5e?

[DarK_RaideR]

13 hours ago, Jarric said:

What system is it? 3.5e?

5e actually, with some modifications in regards to how magic works. Also, it's only a minor aesthetic tweak but I'm enjoying how it's the era where people are "inventing" most of the established spells in the game, so everything comes with a slightly different name than you're used to and the inventor's name before it. You know, the whole "Tenser's Floating Disc" pattern, so instead of say, "Burning Hands" you get "Jarric's Hands of Flame". We've got session #2 scheduled for tonight, so expect more updates tomorrow!

 

Wednesday 24 April

 Charisma: I met with some friends after work to watch AEW Dynasty together. Was very invested in the experience, we haven't met to watch a show in quite some time, this was scheduled for Tuesday, then the host was unavailable, it was moved to Thursday (so overlap with my therapy appointment and Netheril game session) and then Wednesday, so it's been a rollercoaster ride. Real glad I did this, we had an absolute blast and I'd almost forgotten how much more enjoyable it is to watch wrestling with friends instead of alone.

 Cooking: Made my usual wrap to take to work. Dinner was takeout, obviously.

[DarK_RaideR]

Thursday 25 April

 Cooking: Made my lunch wrap for work and also had another one for breakfast while I was at it. Still counting it as a single point though. Dinner was takeout, since I went straight from work to my therapist appointment and got home just in time for D&d.

 Fitness: Had to do file some court papers in the morning, which is usually a case of long queues, but due to Easter next week I was there early and got it done in like half an hour. Thus, I used the extra time to go home, crank out a workout, shower and walk to work.

Spoiler

Still sticking to 5kg dumbbells as I build upwards #ProgressiveOverload

3x16 Rear Delt Flyes

3x16 Side Lateral Raises

3x13 Overhead Press

3x13 Dumbbell Rows

3x11 Decline Pushups

3x16 Hammer Curls

3x16 Triceps Kickbacks (I REMEMBERED TO DO THESE INSTEAD OF SKULL CRUSHERS YAY)

Weighted Lunges, did 1 set of 12 on each leg, big nope

3x9 Front Squats

3x16 Calf Raises

 

D&d Netheril campaign report:

Spoiler

We were set loose on the enclave, which apparently was a hive of villainy before it flew off the ground and still attracts nefarious types as the archwizard's forces try to maintain order. Since each enclave has its own rules set by its archmage, we were instructed to learn those and basically do two things. One, find a patron to sponsor us and vouch for us whenever required, two, make a deal with the Pactmaster. On our way out the skyport, we saw a map of the enclave on the wall, with main sites of interest  having some illusion magic there that produced a little 3D graph when you pressed on them. We each went our separate ways based on our individual interests, since we're not yet technically a bound together group.

 

The (suspected druid) elf headed to the Pactmaster, who turned out to be a Pactmistress and the deal was to submit himself to whatever task the enclave and the archwitch might require of him. Basically a case of registering yourself, otherwise you're out the system and might end up as a nameless corpse in some dark street with no one caring. In return for this kind of security, and access to enclave services like the arcane libraries, one would have to perform any assigned tasks, or pay 1.000gp, or give something to one "Angel of Coin" who we'd later hear that "takes away something you consider priceless and pays you lots of gold for it", whatever that may mean. Either way, the elf didn't want to blindly submit to this in case he's assigned something that goes against his morals, decided to keep his options open and visited one of the academies, where he met a halfling lecturer that claims was actually a human polymorphed into a halfling when a spell backfired. I kinda missed the rest of that scene because dinner finally arrived, almost an hour after I'd placed my order.

 

The young half elf took to the local arena, where the gladiators, most of them slaves, fight all sorts of weird beasts. She witnessed some girl fighting a bunch of undead, probably ghouls, and wanted to help her, but was stopped by someone that told her bets were on and she wasn't allowed to interfere with the gambling. She then offered to heal said unconscious girl after the fight, which was when I out of character found out she's actually a priestess of Selune, the moon goddess. Which I find extremely interesting because my character has experimented with (and been tainted by) the Shadow Weave, an alternate source of magical power created by Selune's dark sister and nemesis, Shar the goddess of darkness, loss and despair. Either way, she wanted to fight in the arena herself and was told this is a slave owners' arrangement; if she's a free person, she needs to register with the Packmistress first in order to be allowed to risk her life in the arena.

 

My character headed off to the merchant district, where all sorts of impressive magical gadgets are sold, trying to chat up a merchant about where he can stay the night (it was still morning, but he wanted to make arrangements). He was actually sent to a drinking establishment as the merchant misunderstood that lodging was a priority over food and drink, but he still managed to find a half elf in what looked like a uniform. Assuming he's a member of the local peacekeeping force, he approached him, found out the assumption was correct and tried to get some information about this place from himself. Apparently this half elf had a Patron who took him in before he even joined the force and is on the lookout for arcanists like my character. We decided to meet in the evening after his shift and I headed to the Pactmistress, where I met the half elven priestess. Our characters made their respective deals and I brokered a deal for her to come with me and meet this prospective Patron, who happens to be around the academy (one of three in the enclave!) where our third PC was hanging out. That should be where we'll pick it up from next time.

 

All in all a fun session, we're still laying the groundwork but as much as I appreciate atmosphere and big cities, I'm itching for some action. Let's hope this patron can send us off to do a bit of adventuring.

 

[DarK_RaideR]

Friday 26 April

 Cooking: Single point for making a lunch burrito that I took with me to work. Easter is next week so we were busy lining up everything, making sure we don't miss any upcoming deadlines etc. Left work at 20:30 feeling wrecked, carried some beauty products I'd grabbed and a 5kg pack of catfood as I walked back home, smashed a pizza and went to sleep early.

[DarK_RaideR]

Saturday 27 April

 Charisma: Went out for drinks and dinner with some old classmates from my second masters' degree.

 Cooking: Cooked up some leftover fava beans to make a dip and empty the cupboards. At the same time, cooked up a bunch of mince to have protein filling for my wraps next week. Counting those as a single skill point. Also tossed a spicy pork sausage in the air fryer, which I had with lots of mustard, lettuce and gherkins in a tortilla for lunch.

 Fitness: Had another go at a workout, still bumping up reps till I get to the maximum of the suggested rep range so I can up the weight and drop back to minimum reps for another build-up.

Spoiler

Still using 5kg dumbbells, 15" breaks between sets/exercises and focusing on technique, ROM and using the negative reps

3x17 Rear Delt Flyes

3x17 Side Lateral Raises

3x12 Bench Press

3x12 Pull Overs

3x12 Overhead Press

3x14 Biceps Curls

3x16 Skull Crushers

3x10 Front Squat

3x10 Romanian Deadlifts

3x17 Calf Raises

 Media Production: You might have noticed I've been busy enough to not do this lately. Doesn't help that I don't have my wireless headphones. Either way, not good for a project that's about an album a day, but life happens. Back on the saddle, got the day's album heard and commented on.

 Video Gaming: Had to wait home for cat food to be delivered during a widely determined timeframe (which wasn't adhered to, but whatever) so I used the opportunity to knock a few more games off my backlog. First up was WonderBoy: The Dragon's Trap, a loving remake of the old classic by Dotemu, folks who gave us Streets of Rage 4 and TMNT: Shredder's Revenge. I really tried to get into it, but it's got that Metroid approach where you go around loops in the same world until you fight a boss and gain a power that allows you to access different bits of that world. Would have been fine, if it was a little more obvious where you're supposed to go. After a while I got tired of running around the same areas -with respawning enemies, mind you- and started losing focus, which started a spiral of frustration. I decided I didn't need that, so I moved on to the next game, Hero of the Kingdom 2. Visually, it was like a cheap rip off of Heroes of Might and Magic but I tried to give it a chance. The gameplay was extremely underwhelming though so I didn't spend too much time with it. Last up was Truberbrook, a classic point and click adventure that had a pretty decent point and click game flow of "be faced with puzzle, find item(s), use items to solve puzzle, proceed". Must have spent about 4 hours in before I completed it, with the delivery arriving shortly before the finish.

 Wellness: So on Friday, the head lawyer had a long meeting with some cheapskate, noisy, spoiled clients and the soundproofing isn't that good, so I gave myself permission to go out for a walk, catch some sunshine and send off the bad vibes. I ended getting a bunch of beauty products, which I put to work the next day. Given my skin condition, the face cleanser and the moisturising cream were great and they made me feel great throughout the day. Also used my new luffa showering after the workout and I did grab a new bottle of medicinal shampoo, but that hasn't come into play yet.

[DarK_RaideR]

Sunday 29 April

 Fitness: Got my fourth workout of the week in, the Progressive Overload is starting to slow down. I'm hitting my current ceiling, thus starts the grind to break through.

Spoiler

All exercises done using 5kg dumbbells and the usual parameters.

3x17 Rear Delt Flyes

3x17 Side Lateral Raises

3x14 Overhead Press

3x14 Dumbbell Rows

14/11/11 Decline Pushups (Was going for 14 but burned out during the second set and stuck to 11)

3x17 Hammer Curls

3x14 Front Squats

3x17 Calf Raises

3x17 Skull Crushers (My arms were smoked after the Hammer Curls so I pushed this to the end in order to give them a chance to recover. Couldn't even do a single Triceps Kickback rep, so I resorted to Skull Crushers instead)

 Gourmet Cooking: Had some chicken breast, so I cut it down to bite sized chunks, tossed half in the air fryer and the other half in a buttered pan to see if I can tell the difference (spoiler: I can't). Once everything was reunited in the pan, I added lots of spinach, garlic, yoghurt and crumbled blue cheese. It was delicious. Had some of that for lunch with a bit of fava and a cut up tortilla to limit the carbs, then there's leftover for my wraps throughout the week. Wasn't feeling the same for dinner, so I decided to order takeout and discovered I had a 14€ discount coupon, likely from them botching my grocery order a few days back (they forgot to put in a 4.5€ laundry detergent but I guess they refunded me for the entire order). Got me some cabbage rolls with mince stuffing and buttered slices of beef tongue as an appetizer. Had this right after my workout, it was protein-intense and delicious.

 Media Production: Listened to the album of the day plus a couple from my backlog.

 Video Gaming: Gave Wildcat Gun Machine a go. Cute graphics but not the greatest of gameplays, it's what you'd call a "Bullet Hell" game: dodge tons of projectiles in a dance of death as you shoot at various opponents. Gave up after the first boss fight and moved onto DNF Duel. For whatever reason, I thought this would be a deck building game (have I mentioned I go into most of these games completely blind?). The intro was all out anime and I struggled to keep up with the action, apparently this is a fighting game. Wasn't that turned off though and I did watch some breakdown videos, apparently it's made by the same people who did Marvel vs Capcom 3, which would explain the look and feel. Also why it didn't turn me off, because I have a lot of fun memories from the first Marvel vs Capcom game. It's also regarded as a rather accessible game for newbies to the genre, which is me, a person who last bothered with fighting games when it was considered fancy to pull off a Shoryuken, now it's all juggling and zoning and cancels and weird jargon. Still, waiting to give it a go when I have a controller, because it absolutely feels like a game that needs a controller. With that aside, I spent the evening playing Civilzation with the amazing @deftona.

[DarK_RaideR]

Challenge Recap

 

General Thoughts

Before I get into the specifics, let me just take the opportunity to say that looking back, I yet again find myself amazed at how many things can change within... *checks notes* five weeks. Yeah sure I'm in a transitional phase in my life where lots of things are changing in quick and unpredictable ways, but again it's a lot of time for just life to happen. I read my opening post of this challenge again, where I was planning to apply for a visa and due to the expected waiting period, interviewed for 2 jobs. I went from there to actually applying for a visa and sorting out the administrative as well as the financial aspects, as well as getting hired and starting at a new job, trying to find a new rhythm for my day to day routine. Now the challenge ends with me awaiting a decision on the visa, having sold off my motorcycle and wrapping up my first month on the new job, awaiting my first salary as I've figured out a way to deal with groceries, cooking, nutrition and workouts.

 

Results

 Baking: 2/10

Not too mad about the outcome here. The main goal of adding this skill was to use all the supplies I discovered when I sorted out the kitchen cupboard/pantry, because I just can't bring myself to throw them away. I'm not a person who bakes cakes or has a sweet tooth, so this was a bit of a challenge for me. As far as I can remember, I made a large tray of brownie cake with caramel on top, then I also made scones. Few of the other points were gained while using the oven to cook stuff like a frozen cheese pastry, but most of those times I crammed that stuff with something else I wanted to cook so I wouldn't use up all that electricity for a single dish. After a certain point though, I became a lot more conscious and consistent in regards to my eating, going from trying to whip up the leftovers into something so I'd empty the cupboards into eating enough protein and less carbs, especially starchy and processed ones, so the baking suffered as a result. Which is fine by me.

 

 Charisma: 4/10

I did not actively pursue to meet people, only responded to invites, so the final number isn't too shabby at all. Considering the working hours of the new job, it's quite the feat I did as well as I did, meeting my socializing needs without stretching myself too thin.

 

  Cooking: 7/10

Made lots of things here, which isn't new, I do love cooking. Not much of it was fancy, especially after I got into the habit of batch cooking protein stuff for my burritos and counted making these wraps as good enough to grant me a skill point. I think the core aspect of this skill was more about making edible stuff at home over resorting to takeout and delivery. I still got some food delivered on more than one occasion, but it's been kept to acceptable levels, like Thursdays when i go straight from work into my therapy session and from there into the Netheril D&d session. However, I wasn't aiming to completely cut out delivered food, this was more about not giving into temptation and the easy option of ordering when I felt like it and instead trying to make something out of what I had at home.

 

 Fitness: 3/10

Only put this on the list because we're on a fitness forum, I did not realistically expect to have any time or energy for a consistent workouts. The fact I actually got back into the habit after the halfway point of the challenge is a pleasant surprise even to me and the final number reflects just that. I've started lower than I'd liked, but it was intentional and I've quickly built back up to a good level. Debating investing into a few new plates, as the jump from 5kg to 10kg dumbbells feels a bit too big.

 

 Gourmet Cooking: 3/10

Again, didn't expect to make anything particularly fancy here and debated merging this skill with regular Cooking, but it just didn't feel right to score the same points for frying an egg and for making lobster thermidor. Much like I said on the Baking and Fitness skills, I got into a healthier groove after the halfway point of this challenge, which is where most of the points came from.

 

 Handiness: 0/10

I did not bother with this and quite frankly, I wasn't planning to. Only put it on the list because I could somehow relate a Sims skill to some sort of task I could achieve, but never really made it a priority so I can live with the zero.

 

 Media Production: 7/10

Won't lie, this was supposed to be the easy grind and I ended up missing a few days when I was overwhelmed. Still, I've enjoyed listening to the music and I've trimmed down my backlog, so it's all good in the end.

 

 Mixology: 3/10

Much like the Baking skill, I wasn't aiming to get good at mixing drinks or try out new recipes; this was here more or less as a reminder to drink up the vodka stash I'd built up in the past during darker times, because it was taking up too much space and I couldn't bear to just throw it away. While I'm at it, I also moved some moonshine into a much smaller bottle and got rid of some plum-extracted moonshine that was taking up space in my freezer after a trip to Bulgaria several years ago (the ex had gotten that, I can't stand non grape based moonshine). These days I only have a bottle of Gentleman Jack that @darkfoxx and her DH gifted me when we met in person, as well as aforementioned moonshine and some leftover absinthe. Not drinking any of those anyway. Drinking and cocktails will resume once I'm in the UK, if I'm honest.

 

 Research & Debate: 1/10

Again, this was more of a reminder to not give up on my book and finish it, especially given my yearly Goodreads challenge. It's hard, because a lot of my work involves reading and writing, so when it's time to wind down I prefer to do something a little different.

 

 Video Gaming: 4/10

The goal here was to keep knocking games off my backlog and the purpose has been served. Was really rocking this before I started work, to no one's surprise it dropped after that but I've still been doing it on weekends. Looking back on my list I've taken a total of... *checks notes* 29 games off my backlog, of which 7 I saw to the very end and completed. This was on top of chilling to games I've already played before like Sims, Civilization or Total Extreme Wrestling, so not a bad result at all. 

 

 Wellness: 2/10

Much like other skills on the list, this was meant as a reminder to take care of myself, especially as far as skincare is concerned. I think I did reasonably well and the biggest -non quantifiable- win was the facial cleanser and moisturiser I grabbed a few days before the end of the challenge. They've both worked wonders for me and I'm getting back into the habit of using them on a daily basis.

 

Moving Forward

Next challenge is scheduled to last from May 6th to June 9th. During the first week (May 6th to 12th) I'll be out of town for the Easter holidays. Then halfway into Week 3, the wonderful deffy will be visiting me, which basically leaves me with only a week and a half of actual challenge time. Therefore, I think it's wiser to skip this next challenge and retreat to my Battle Log where I'll be posting my updates in the meantime.

[DarK_RaideR]

Picking it up here next