San Francisco

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I’m in SF for the week for work. If you want to do things, ping me soon, as the rest of my week is getting pretty booked.

It’s been a fun week. Dinner every night has been with someone… Local all-you-can-eat pizza with Mark and Ian on Sunday; Stone for tasty Bi Bim Bap with Mark, Andrew, Jeremy, and Ian on Monday; Ironside for mediocre mac and cheese with Sharon, Charles, and Ian on Tuesday; and Delancey Street Restaurant with Ian yesterday.


Yesterday was a dev team outing to Sonoma to go ziplining. It was actually pretty awesome despite my fear of heights. I think the knowledge that I was always tethered to *something* (even when we were walking up the spiral staircase in the trees and across the suspension bridges) helped a lot.



The weather here is also a really nice change from the horribly humidity and heat of Pittsburgh. Normally I’m not a fan of Bay Area weather, but summers I could get behind.

The rest of the week is filled with awesome plans, starting with games night tonight.
People are awesome. I wish there was this much to do in Pittsburgh. But still, as a whole, I am much happier in Pittsburgh. And the only reason I’m so busy is that I’m trying to cram in as much as I can during my week here.

Yay life.

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When everything goes wrong

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It’s only 10:30 AM and it’s already been a day full of unhappiness. Primarily in KoL.

I was on day 8 of my ascension (of what really should have been a 7 day, but still). DD screw meant I was short a key (two Boris, one Sneaky Pete, and one breath spray), so I had to open the DoD and get a wand (which I don’t do in Bees runs, since you don’t need the bang potions). Completed the battlefield with around 70 adventures remaining (after filling stomach, spleen, and drunkness), which should have been plenty. Except getting the wand took around 55 adventures. Spent an adventure making a disco banjo, The hedge maze decided to screw me, requiring 8 maps to pass (despite perfect solving of the puzzle). Tower took the expected 6. My last adventure was spent defeating my shadow (also did the familiars, but they don’t take an adventure), meaning I was left at 0 adventures ready to face the Sorceress. With no way to generate more turns. Sigh.

The worst part is it’s really my fault. I had two misclicks during the nuns (readventuring instead of healing), causing two beaten ups, wasting two turns of +400% meat buffs, which really probably ended up costing around 4 or 5 turns. Misclicked when trying to buy more MMJ, accidentally spending an adventure instead. Misclicked twice on the battlefield, getting beaten up and losing that adventure. Any of those being different would have meant I’d have the single adventure I need, including not running the DD again today hoping for the last key.

On the plus side, this at least means I’ll have plenty of adventures tomorrow to level to 14 and grab Flavour of Magic as intended. (Would have also been okay without DD screw, but meh.)

In my frustration with this, I had also completely forgotten the reason for getting up early in the first place… to check in to my flight tomorrow. As a result, I checked in well over 30 minutes after the starting time, and got the boarding number B56. Which means I’ll be stuck in a middle seat on the long flight from Pittsburgh to Phoenix (then to San Francisco) tomorrow. Sigh.

Additionally, today is the West Virginia walk. I ended up not going, and now regret not going. Sigh.

Now I’m not in the mood to work on Investigations cards, meaning the game is not going to be playtestable for my trip to SF, meaning it won’t get playtested until next month when I go to Tim’s. Sigh.

Edit: Joined up with the West Virginia people after lunch, only to bail about 3.5 hours later because it was way too hot. In doing so, managed to completely forget that today was Lilli’s birthday celebration and missed that too. Fail.

Life

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life has gotten an update. Yay life.

Life has been rather busy lately. Not particularly in the mood to write about things though, so here’s a dump of some photos instead.



Activities

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Greg has been away this week for a conference, so I have been alone in the apartment for the past few days.
Kind of ironic then, given that he keeps telling me I need to get out more, that this has been one of the busiest weeks I’ve had in a long time.

Most people who know me know that I don’t handle being alone well (even if this normally entails nothing more than existing in the same apartment as someone else), so I’ve been seeking out things to do.

On Monday, I went to lunch with bblum, and played some ITG after work. I managed to do extremely well on the marathon Driven, where I managed a full excellent combo almost all of the way through Energizer, and managed a full great combo up until the horrible part of Monolith. Not my highest score ever (screwed up a lot of Monolith :P), but still awesome.

Tuesday was board games at Patrick’s. Played lots of Malta! (which has been extremely well-received by everyone that has played it), some Wits and Wagers, and a new game called Crows (which I like a lot and will have to look into getting). The night ended (at like 12:30!) with some Hoopla, but limited to drawing. This resulted in such “obvious” things as these: (Answers as to what the things are are here.)


(I somehow missed getting a picture of the “Drag Queen” clue, which was a stick figure in a dress with a large…. bulge… drawn in the crotch area. No one understood what it was supposed to be. :P)

Last night was Inception in Schenley Park. Went with Keith, and was absorbed by the KGB group already there. The movie itself was excellent… I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it yet.

Lunch yesterday was the garlic eggplant with shrimp from Orient Express. I think I’ve found a new favorite thing there… it’s spicy, it’s got eggplant, it’s got shrimp, and it’s got wood ear mushrooms in it. What’s not to love? :D

Tonight will be dinner and a movie at the Loft (tasty burgers, theoretically).

Yay for doing things and being social.

Walk and KoL

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I seem to have gotten into the habit of posting at the beginning of months. Well, here’s continuing that trend.

Today Keith, Greg, and I walked from Bloomfield to Keith’s house in Ross Township for a total trip of about 19.4 miles. Hopefully the fact that things weren’t too bad (except for my shoes and socks interacting to make my toes blister) means I’ll be fine for the annual West Virginia walk this summer (almost 40 miles).

We had lunch at Joe’s Rusty Nail, and it was excellent. My $12 crab cake dinner had three huge (and meaty) crab cakes, a good-sized helping of pasta, and a generous side salad, and came with free bread and butter. Recommended if you’re in the area.

Haven’t done this in a while, so here’s a dump of photos from the hike.



It’s thinking Keith!















In non-walking news, I have finally ascended again in KoL after a hiatus of 4 years (most of it away from the game completely). The recent Valhalla revamp, prospect of doing a 100% run with this month’s new familiar (volleyball + fairy + item drops for a new area!), and the Bees Hate You path finally pushed me over the edge
And I’m glad, because the game is so much more interesting when you’re doing quests than when you’re stuck in aftercore trying to find ways to spend your 200+ adventures every day.
My first run in 4 years is a Turtle Tamer Hardcore “Bees Hate You” run with no clovers (setting up for a BM Kitty run) and 100% Li’l Xenomorph. Should prove to be interesting. Let’s see how long it takes me.

I can already say that my best investment thus far is the VIP Key, because full HP recovery (already have Tongue of the Walrus permed) from the hot tub, +muscle stats from the shower, MP regen from the pool table, and screambats from the fax machine have made the first two days so much better than they could have been. The Pen Pal kit has, thus far, been mostly useless (Box of Pokemann Band-Aids is useless in Beecore and the shield was only useful until I got a cola shield). My snowcones and candy hearts haven’t helped too much either (ran orange for extra stats and purple for some MP on day one, but would have been fine without them).

The Xenomorph has also been excellent. Got its equipment today, and the fairy aspect is proving very useful. The space area also provides good quality food and booze, which I otherwise have trouble acquiring (beers from Tavern are useless in Beecore, and I don’t have cocktail crafting permed due to my love of teet runs). The +stat buffs from the maps are also useful. I think tomorrow will finally get me up to reagent pasta (got some hellion cubes and knob mushrooms today), which will combine nicely with the pumpkin pie and fortune cookie.

So current status there is level 6 at the end of day 2, having completed through the level 5 quest with a reasonable stock of food. I think that’s the best I’ve done in *any* run (all of which were pre-NS13) but, more than that, the game has gotten much less annoying to play due to things like the VIP room and pumpkins. I suppose part of that is also the 100% run preventing me from having to mess with familiars (no He-Boulder anyway, so already have that working against me). Perhaps future runs will also be 100% runs.