2024-12-19:

Fri:
Did a little PJL stuff. FIgured I would as I just loaded the newest version and wondered if things had been fixed or not. Most had, but there's still an issue as it doesn't know how to count.
Figured out the bugs for Joe.
Tried IPv6 in the config file, no go there. Shocking I know. I was right about something.
Looked into the Joe bug list, uploaded it to the Jira site so he can look at it. Some bugs are slated to be fixed in this release that are not closed yet.
Then not much else. Very quiet there today.

Did shopping, got a new work calendar, some nuts, and toothpaste.

Saw my parents.

Then back here for game. Dungeon 3, part 2!

And there's going to be a part 3. We didn't even get through the second spell. I figured it would go much faster now that the most abstract parts were out of the way and they understood the spell structure and what was expected of them. I hoped they wouldn't get to dungeon 4 too soon because I didn't have it ready. I knew they had the "help 5 ponies with magic" quest but that would go fast too right? Nope, didn't get anywhere close. And Sean had to leave because Martok was bleeding. Poor little guy has a sore on his leg!

Sat:
Wrapped gifts, got them all done. Not the stuff for The Game. That will come in time.

But big news.

There's going to be a new game in town, folks. Yes, that's right, throw that Magicraft game away, what even is that? Who cares? Come Jan 23 it's going to be FF7 Rebirth time. Coming out on Steam and Epic at the same time because hey, Square can learn from their mistakes. Yeah, get this- if you put out a product and I can't buy it, you can't make any money. An exclusivity deal releasing your game for PS5 when most people have a PC? Then they wondered why their sales weren't meeting expectations. Yeah, who. Would. Have. Thought? And I can pre-order it on sale already? It truly is Christmas.

Aw man. Jan 23rd. I... kinda want to take a day off now. Like, I get the 1st off, and the 20th off already. Three days in one month? I don't know. It's just a game... that I've been looking forward to for like two years now. Seems juvinile to take time off work specifically to play a video game. I mean, what am I twelve?
Wait, four years? The PC version came out in 2021? And this won't be until 2025? Ouch. And this is still only part two of THREE? Better play it slowly, so it lasts another 4 years.

Guy canceled. Said he wasn't feeling well. Hopefully I can walk him through getting his PC back online tomorrow and not have to waste another hour driving back to the exact place I am going later today.

Magicraft run.

Then left for Sean's. We finished the spirit quest and are left with more questions than answers. No human popped out, just another weird spirit that left for home. After gifting us "great power and wealth." So who did we really free? The good one or the bad one? I expected to see the human that got swept up in the whole thing and vanished during the ritual but no. Weird. He didn't attack us, so there's that. Malachite got twice as big, and I took Aptitude: Magic. The size thing will be somewhat of a problem going forward, but forget about all that. Look at this awesome gift Alyx made me! LOOK AT HER.





Clearly above and beyond! Huge thank you to Alyx for this effort she's far more than I deserve.

And while I didn't get pictures Stan got Cthulhu, Sean got a phoenix, and Michelle got a possum. All just as well done, each one must have taken days. Wow. Ah, I didn't have to. Naturally Alyx took a picture of their work. Here's the set!



Sun:
Called wi-fi guy. Thankfully it was as easy as just hitting connect to get him back online, and him moving his truck. His shop is some ways from the house, after all. Thank goodness, no driving.

Finished the wrapping of stuff for The Game.

Had lunch. Read my Sunday Stories. One story is posting again after a very long delay, had several chapters up.

Did a Magicraft run. I messed it up. I should have had the wands doing the opposite thing they were doing. I realized it too late. Well, live and learn.

Got ready for tomorrow.

Three calls. Ordering a new PC for Rose.
Stopping at two places tomorrow, because I'm a glutton for punishment. The second place is just down 250, should be quick. Her laptop is either not working and should be replaced or it's fine and she's just doing something wrong. The other is just down the street from work, a setup from last week. So that could take 10 minutes or 2 hours+ you never know.

Then Randy who I didn't reach.

Didn't reach Rose again where did she go? I need to know if her monitor has HDMI. Ugh, ordered the PC, I can get an HDMI adapter fairly quickly if I need to I guess.

Sean wants to do Xbox.

Mon:

So I got this weird Visa card in the mail, right? No explanation at all. I was worried my identity had been stolen somehow and they were supposed to be watching the mailbox to intercept the card. It was some health equity company (topical I know) that I had never heard of or done business with. But looking at the benifits page at work, there it is. Card shipped such and such a date, still inactive. Huh. So they randomly sent me some debit card I didn't ask for, and actually can't use because Xerox isn't putting any money into some medical account for me to spend. I would have to do it. But why would I do it? I have other debit cards, moving money into this one just to spend it seems... weird? Still, maybe send some sort of "here's why you're getting this card" with the card instead of just a blank sheet of paper the card is stuck to so people (such as myself) don't freak out? Is that too much to ask? Oh it is? My bad, sorry about that.
Spent some time changing passwords, it's been 90 days after all. Can't have our internal, nobody knows about or can reach the machines the accounts are on passwords getting compromised or whatnot.
Then a demo.
Humm, I have to work on the Game, the pony story, and the emberhaven story. Eh, I guess I don't need to rush the last one, we have no firm date for the next session! Boooo!

Anyway, work wise we got the weird driver thing we were expecting last week, so I loaded that up and tried it. Seems fine, though it doesn't work with v4 drivers which is all the new machines offer it seems? I told it to do v3 drivers (don't you love MS?) but it gave me the global driver which I still don't think is v3. Anyway, it picked up the new devices and printed so that's probably all one can expect.

Had another demo.

That all took up the morning.

In the afternoon I thought about The Game, I think I've got everything planned out I just need to make the pieces.

Christina was out again, so pretty quiet around there. I didn't even see our developer guy.

Oh, and I spotted another bug in the PJL stuff. It's not that hard, you know?

Went out to second work. I don't want to say his device was slow, but it took an entire hour to go from turning it on the first time to actually being able to use the machine. With all the updates or whatever it was doing that I didn't tell it to do, and only a dual core 1.1ghz processor (they still make those?) it took forever to do anything. Sheesh.

Went down to see the other lady. Found the house in the dark. She didn't need me, it was fine. Sigh.

Back here, checked sites, had dinner.

Sean wants to do xbox? What happened to crash test?

Tues:
More work than I expected today. Christina looked at the driver thing I tested yesterday, hey may as well. So we went back and forth a little between ourselves and the driver lady.

Had the not-final demo and Joe's meeting. They found a problem I found last week and showed the developer guy who acted like he was seeing it for the first time when shown by someone else. Uh, no? I showed you that specific behavior at least a week ago. Whatever. So they need to get that fixed and demo it.

Wrote 3 bugs, two at the request of development and one I simply feel should be changed. We have an "info" button but no matter what language you use it's always an 'i'. That doesn't work. Nobody not English Speaking raised person will know that i is for information. We should use something different. Or change it with the language.

Started the next pony chapter. Didn't finish it had go to another demo. That one took from 2:30 to 4:00. Sort of. The demo was short, but then they stood around talking about stuff. Work stuff but still.

Then came home.

Checked sites, had dinner. Got ready for tomorrow.

More Xbox.

Wed:
Longest work thing today was another voice demo. Sort of impromptu, I got the notification for it like 20 minutes after it "started." They wanted to record some stuff, but clearly they are not technical people. They should have had the audio run out a USB adapter (which is supported) to a laptop to record (and pass through) the audio from the printer. (It's a gabi replacement, screen reader stuff for the blind, supposedly Xerox is one of the only companies to include it by default and not charge, so good on us). But they did not. So I didn't hear half of what it was saying, if that. But they went through it.

Otherwise read the brochure about the voice thing, saw Don and got more pepper flakes, finished up the chapter and did the proof reading. He's working from home and then is out for I think most of the next week if not all of it.

One call when I got home.

Checked sites, had dinner.

Half an hour to reload his printer. Well, 25 minutes to get him to open the thing he already had on his desktop (that he insisted wasn't there forcing me to redownload it with him) and 5 minutes to figure out he somehow deleted his printer and I had to add it back.

No xbox, Ultimate Bun is going to take 36 hours to build soooooo.

Worked on The Game. Made the board, looks good. Now if I just had access to a printer somewhere... Where could I go to get access to... a... printer????

Whoa, the market is down a thousand points? I lost $2,000+ off my portfolio today. THANKS MUSK YOU'RE THE BEST.

THANKS TRUMP, SUCH A GREAT GUY THIS IS A PREVIEW FOLKS STRAP IN. Do you feel America, becoming great, again? Do you?

Oh sorry I was shouting there... Whoops.

Got the PC I ordered in. I'll have to look at it sometime. I doubt I'm getting there before she leaves so there's no rush.

Thurs:
Meeting day. Had the usual meetings, the onedrive meeting where it seems we are somewhat closer to figuring out how to implement what the guy who speaks for the customer says the customer wants. Then the status meeting. Hardly anyone was there, of course.

Wrote the latest Emberhaven chapters, got through all the content we did.

Went to a demo for the expanded username stuff.

Joe says I can test the multiport and IdP stuff now and write bugs. Oh, I'll write bugs.

Printed the board for The Game. Just need to do the cards now, and make a few tokens.

Came back here. One call, another new PC coming in. Am I going to have to work Saturday?

Nope, he wants after Christmas. Sigh, but I really should offer the other lady the same opportunity. It's the same setup after all. So I looked into the PC, seems it made it here nicely. And Tinker is having fun with the packing material. You have so many toys!!!!

How many times does a windows system booting for the first time have to check for updates? Ugh, it's doing that same crap the laptop did. I hope this too doesn't take an hour. Nope, only a half. And only because I needed to unplug the ethernet cable to get the account user bypass thing to work. Who knew?

I didn't reach her. Okay, I guess it's after the holiday then.

Looking ahead not as busy this coming days. Not doing game tomorrow, Neil is getting up early on Saturday to drive. But I think we're doing something with him on Saturday, he needs to be here to open part of his gift.

Tomorrow though shall be the usual. Ugh, I'll probably load the latest release on the 620 and test it out. That will be a good test. Maybe sneak in making the cards, it'll only take a few minutes. Shopping, better go to the bank, I actually have more checks than I realized. Whoops. Clear that out.

Shopping of course, and seeing my parents.

Over the weekend I must finalize the components for The Game, and make the candy. That's the last holiday thing to do. I really should do the paperwork for last month, that kind of slipped through.

Then next week is pretty busy. My mother's birthday on the 23rd, the Eve on the 24th, then The Day. I have a thurs appointment for the setup, and then we shall get together again. Yes, you and me, connected by these words I have typed.

So please, have a safe and happy Christmas, let us gather together to share stories, me to you, because that's how this medium works. Doncha know?

See you then. It's then only a few days until another Eve. Where did the year go?