Having wandered around MM2 a bit, leveled up to 5, vaguely remembered the hoops to jump through to maximally boost stats beyond regular level-up gains, and filled in memory gaps from online guides, I decided to restart the game and avail myself of some early advantages. The party starts with 200 gold and one throw-away weapon each. Getting to the first exploit requires one character to have the secondary skill of Navigation, which is learned in the town of Tundara at a cost of 750 gold. So at the very l... (...more)

Had a useful discussion with Morgan about tattoo/piercing studios in the area yesterday. Her ink was done at 2 places, neither of which is anything like "convenient" for me, so I mentioned the studio I was eyeballing, Big Kahuna in Boca. She seemed to think they're reputable. Now I just need to shed the last 10 pounds to the top of my "healthy" BMI range and save up a bodmod fund. MM2: found Corak's Cave (C2(5,11), same world map sector as Middlegate, easy with Pathfinding) and got the Lloyd's Beacon sp... (...more)

Ear cushions for the Koss KTX Pro headphones: replaced successfully. (Radio Shack branded as model# Pro35A, but all the same stuff). I was nervous about disassembling the headset and popping out the drivers because that's usually when something plastic breaks, but it went smoothly and now is refurbed. (The volume slider still tends to drop a channel randomly, but I can cope with that.) Turns out that removing the driver mount assembly wasn't even necessary. The driver pops out of the mount easily enough if... (...more)

When I woke yesterday there was a big ol roach (cat 4, not quite cat 5) (#3 this season) just inside my front door. Opened the door to shoo it out, but it was more afraid of the outdoors than of me, so I ended up chasing it into the bathroom with the vacuum. Established that I was owed a phone call. Got more started on the 2014 formulas for the intranet EFC report writer. Chicken and spinach with some puttanesca sauce. Killed the super-cheap Turning Leaf pinot grigio with that. Last guild battl... (...more)

Went to bed a little later than I intended, because people were wrong on the internet; and woke again around 1AM, but I still woke in the morning before the alarm. Then I rolled over and caught another 40 winks. Dawdled on my way out and arrived at church to skulk to my accustomed pew in the middle of a scripture reading. My former(?) attorney was there, I tried to make eye contact but his wife intercepted. She probably wondered why this newcomer was eyeballing her husband. Sermon by Fr. Andrew, on the ... (...more)