2024-12-05:

Fri:
Finished the magicraft run I started last night. Got about halfway to the final boss in the final area. There were just too many projectiles for me to keep up with. I really liked my loadout too.

Worked on the pony game for this evening. Made a few tweaks, drew up a room just in case they wanted to see it. They did!

Had lunch.

Did more shopping. Or should I say finished the shopping? I think it's over. Nice.

Good news. Mom did not break a rib, it's just bruising. Doesn't really change how much pain she's in but at least the pure light of knowledge now shines down upon her. Hope it heals up soon!

Did another run.

Straightened some things out, nothing all that productive.

Then did game. We got through dungeon two, Sean is already claiming the new system is "going to be unnessasarly complicated." Uh huh. Maybe get the whole system under your belt and see what it can do for you before jumping to conclusions?


Sat:
Did a run with one of the new sets I unlocked. I don't quite like it as much, but allow me to vent for a second. The AI is just a TINY bit wonky in this game. I had an auto wand going that released a meteor every so often, right? As one does. I had gotten pretty far and was messing around with my spells, as one does. I got a really neat combo where I could basically shoot a zillion swords out and was really happy with it. MP consumption was low, I could do it a lot, sitting pretty, right? I had 22 health so I knew I was in trouble but figured the new spell could keep me alive long enough to get more health.

My own meteor hit me and killed me just as I was going through the door.

Go ahead, read that sentence again. The AI was not smart enough to cast nowhere near me instead choosing to land the attack right on top of me. (Usually it just hits an enemy, so it's never an issue.)

I was SO MAD.

For a few seconds. It's just a game. But that was pretty cheap, game. Never using meteor again, I can tell you that. At least not on the auto attack build. Oh, I got an achievement for it? Wow, talk about "that's not a bug it's a feature." Jerk game.

Had lunch.

Then did another run. I'm saving up for some neat stuff. The auto battle loadout- in fact all loadouts- can be upgraded. You get a second "free" wand. And I can still buy another normal wand slot, meaning I would have 4 normally and 6 with the auto battle build. Now that would be a sight to see. That WILL be a sight to see, I should say.

Did some reading. (some of the Sunday stuff) Checked sites, watched videos.

Then left for game.

Ben wasn't there, I had my suspicions I was remembering he said he wouldn't be there. And lo, he was not. It was a rare "Robert show" anyway. I had the exact magic we needed to solve the issue. I used my "drone" shape-shifting spirit to turn into a mouse and check out the house of the suspect, thus finding the evidence the town guard needed to move against the kidnapper. Good thing the kidnappe was correct in her suspicions.

Then we briefly started the next adventure, getting a poem supposedly detailed enough to lead us to the escaped victim of demonic possession. The real reason we went into town.

Sun:
Threw the holiday playlist on and put the tree up.
Had lunch.
Finished decorating.
Checked sites, finished the stories I didn't read yesterday.
Did another run of Magicraft, I'm very close to getting the resources I need for the wand slot upgrade.
Getting ready for next week, and then we did some Xbox. With the story seemingly done what's the point of doing these odd invasion missions anyway? I don't get it. Are we getting something special from them? It's hard to know...



Mon:
Not much action at work. We did get a final build of the versalink software (from like a month ago? It was a couple of weeks at least) so Christina was loading it on some devices. I checked my bug against it, once again, and it was fine.

Wrote the next chapter of the pony book. A long one, but used up all the content so that's all good. Didn't get to proof read though.

Cases are pretty empty, I doubt I get much, if anything, this week. Two weeks in a row with no haul? Very sad.

Got cat food after work. It's been snowing here, not like in some places mind you. We have been very lucky.

Three calls? You've got to be kidding me.

I finished up a Magicraft run I started before xbox yesterday. I was just going for the 900 resources I needed to get to OVER 9,000!!!! didn't think I would see it through. But I did! Got it beat on normal now. Bought the upgrade, so my auto-battle build should now have 6 wands. I got some nice spells that time, I tell ya.

First call was just doing an app password for a guy. Easy. Five minutes. He's still using Windows Live Mail, yes, the 2012 app that will soon be 13 years old. I guess it still works?

Second call was "don't get third party antivirus, it's useless. Just use the built in one." Two minutes.

Then an hour and a half on the phone with lucky contestant #3. Just trying to get her printer on the wi-fi. Oh look, it took all that time to determine she had two routers in her house. The router her laptop was connected to, and the router the printer was connected to. NEAT. SO GREAT. It kept returning to the "wrong" IP (trying to get her to follow the simple directions in the HP manual on the printer control panel was an exercise in frustration and what took 2/3 of the time in this case. I would say "now touch this or that" and she would insist it wasn't there, only to *it's a miracle* 5 minutes later say "oh there it is." Like, really lady? Really?) and I finally figured out why when I went to look at her router settings, figuring I couldn't becasue it's spectrum and you need the "app" to do it. But I got some weird TP-Link router and was like "what the heck is this?" Of course she had no clue. Maybe take some interest in what makes your life work? Also; Do not have two routers in your house. It's called interference, and oh look you'll never know which router you're connected to.

What a waste of an evening. I mean I just would have played more magicraft but still.

Tues:
More snow. Got stuck behind 2 plows heading into work, so we went 35mph the whole way. I can't imagine the line behind us. It was fine, I saw 2, yes 2 people run off the road on the short 6 mile trip to work. Sheesh. We didn't get that much snow, hardly a coating. See, this is what all that rushing around gets you. In your desparation to save a few seconds by exceeding the speed limit by 10mph or more now you're stuck in the snow for an hour or two. And you have to hope your car isn't damaged. Well, not to worry; you won't learn anything from it.

Had a demo in the morning. In place of Joe's usual meeting. Got through about half of it, so we'll be doing another one. 8:00 tomorrow! Love those. Don't expect me there until 8:05 or something.

After the demo I loaded the software. This was the afternoon actually, a bit after the demo. I just messed with it a bit, I'll start the testing tomorrow. I didn't have time before the next meeting. At least that's what I told myself.

Did the proofreading.

Cases are still empty, no food for us.

Did my "performance review" stuff. Hopefully I did it right. They want to move to a 3 month "check in" with managers? Are we being punished? It's all "so problems can be resolved more quickly" but I think they mean "we don't trust you to be adults and do your job so now we're going to be looking over your shoulders 4 times a year!"

Had the onedrive meeting. It's now an hour as well, ugh. But it was basically one guy telling us stories about his grandmother that made lots of money on the stock market and lived to 101. Because the actual guy left for a call. So... that happened.

No more snow during the day it seems like. Sun was out!

Got Alyx's gift in! Whew. What was I worried about? Plenty of time.

In other good news, some of the original people are going back to Shapeways. They may yet get out of bankruptcy and stay around. Good. I liked that place.

Checked sites, did a bit more Magicraft. One of the bosses just wrecked me in one hit. I thought I had over half HP or more, but he hit me and I just died. I was robbed!

Oh well, unlocked more spells and such, we'll try again tomorrow.

Thankfully, no calls today.

Wed:
Made good on my promise! After the demo (at 8:00 may I remind you, but I was on time and everything no so problem) I got one model done for the IdP feature and the multiport hub. Sent in my findings, don't want bugs yet. And the multiport thing isn't done, we have another demo to finish that up Friday.

Cases are still empty of food. Hope you don't plan on buying your lunch I guess?

And that was pretty much the whole day.

One of dad's gifts was refunded? And the reason was "I asked?" Uh, no I didn't. Sigh.

Came back here, checked sites.

No calls.

Another run, on hard. I made it pretty far but not all the way.

Got ready for tomorrow.

Ordered new gift for dad. Basically this and the other thing on the way will be the last of it. I get that in, I can wrap it all and that will be that.

Thurs:
Ugh, snow! ... or not.

The morning was fine. There was a little accumulated but the roads were clear. It started to get pretty bad about 3:00 though, when I was watering the plants I was looking outside and thinking "is that skeleton in the break area our mascot now? Who brought it? Who keeps posing it? Who dressed it in festive christmas attire and..." and something about the drive home and how windy it looked outside? Who can say.

Anyway, work stuff. There was some. Went into the other room to complete what I could of the multiport hub test, finish another round of the IdP with Yubikey test, and realized the PJL stuff was demoed way back weeks ago (it feels like) so I could do that too! Yay! So I got three projects tested today. Not too shabby. Except for the rug in the lab, that thing needs a good vacuum.

Had the usual meetings. Once again no progress on deciding how to encrypt key info in the config file for onedrive, OR how to do the simple counting of devices so they don't have to be licensed individually. Those guys are making it way harder than it needs to be. It seems to me.

Then the status meeting, Don is out tomorrow, Christina Monday. James is taking like from the 17th on, and Don was like "I imagine Robert has some too." Some here meaning "time off." He has a good imagination. Seeing as how I've never taken a single day off in 10 years (apart from one sick day that one time) he would need to imagine it because he's never seen it in person. Odd thing to say, he knows I don't take time off. Did he.... forget?

Then plants time. A lot of the plants have moved. There's no one and no plants in the front area. There's a few in the middle area I hit up, and the usual ones in the back area where again there is hardly anyone. I skip the "new" area where the people are, they can take care of their own plants.

So that was work. The drive home wasn't too bad, but windy and low visibility.

Worked on dungeon stuff. Made it a little easier to follow so I'm more organized tomorrow, and made a few diagrams. Who doesn't love a good diagram?

No calls again. Loving it.

Looking ahead not sure what I'll do tomorrow. I could do another model of course. Ah, finishing up the multiport hub stuff, once the demo is done. Right, right, 8:00. How could I forget? Oh and some driver thing Kevin sprang on us. "Oh, you tested a driver before, so you have a test plan." We do? Uh, okay, I'll have to scrounge that up.

Shopping, don't think I have enough yet for the bank. Then seeing my parents. Home for game.

Saturday is the Veilwood game again. Two in a row. Then next week is Pyre again. Then it should calm down and I can start having my parents over on Saturdays again.

Sunday... wrapping? Yeah, might do that. It's only 3 weeks you know.
Obviously more Magicraft. I mean, was there any doubt?

Hope everyone has a good week, and I'll see you back here next time. Sean's Thursday thing didn't happen so he wants to do xbox. Bye!