Forcing myself to ignore the news and do things that make me happy

And I’m only achieving half my goals. I so far have totally ignored whatever noxious bile has spewed forth from the media, completely unaware of current events. I also read some comics, which sorta makes me happy, or at least doesn’t make me unhappy.

I have been plotting various means of financing my hot rod. One thing I have considered is pitching it as a program for Discovery networks, watch the Witch on a Bicycle try to conjure a car from nothing or less than nothing. Poverty chic, as seen on TV. One thing is for sure, robbing banks is out as I would be caught before I got out the door since I can’t move faster than a slow walk. I have never been a smooth talker so conning people out of money isn’t going to get me anywhere. Not to mention my ethics won’t let me unless I was stealing from thieves. As a Chaotic Good player character in this game stealing from Evil NPCs doesn’t conflict with my alignment, but my low Charisma stat is keeping me from doing con games.

Segueing to my life as a D&D character, I would be a terrible adventurer. I have a high Int and Con, but my Speed is very low and as previously mentioned my Cha is practically a dump stat, along with Wis. My Str used to be pretty good before I got old and beat up. If I was a D&D character I would have to be some kind of a magic-user class, because I would never make it as one of the fighting classes or a rogue. Seeing as I have died and come back, maybe some kind of necromancer? if there was a way to be a necromancer as a Chaotic Good alignment. I don’t know really what I would be as myself as a D&D character. That would be an interesting psychological test. Looking it up, there is no way to maintain any kind of good alignment while creating undead. So I could be a necromancer but I couldn’t raise undead and stay Chaotic Good. But as a character of Good alignment I could control undead that others had raised. Much like Real Life (which is a terrible game BTW), cleaning up after bad is still considered to be Good.

Being even more random, I have discovered that when making lentil stew I need to start the lentils 2-3 hours before chopping the rest of the vegetables and putting them in the pot. I started the lentils this time at 1100 and had the rest of the vegetables chopped and in the pot by 1120 (I had to find where Mrs. the Poet keeps the veggies after I got the lentils started), but the lentils lack hours being properly done at 1545 while the other veggies are either done or nearly done. BTW the other veggies are a medium potato per person and half a large carrot and a slice of onion. The slow cooker is almost full which means enough food for both Mrs. the Poet and myself. This was an experiment to discover the proper amounts so we have discovered that the amount of time to done is broken into 2 segments. It’s all data, experiments are meant to obtain data, and I can still eat my mistakes, so it’s all good and I know better for the next time. I really need to find out why the lentils I get at my local store take so long to cook down into a gravy or sauce state with this cooker. Research (Google is your friend) says that lentils take up to 10 hours to reduce to the gravy state in a slow cooker, so this cooker is just not transferring the heat to the food as quickly as the old cooker with the fixed crock, but is in line with the characteristics of other cookers. Basically it boils down to “I’m impatient”.

I found a resource for doing the initial design and setup for the TGS2, and later sorting after testing with better understanding of why things do what they do in response to changes in setup. I plan on devouring it at a later date, but I just did a cursory examination today. I discovered that my personal research and derivations are mirrored in this site so I know I was on the right track doing my own thing.

Advertisement

I’m late because Dallas Pride Day on Wreck-Free Sunday

Yeah, short post tonight. I worked a 2:15 shift in the HRC booth at Dallas Pride Day today, quietly letting people know about membership options and what we do at HRC. Yes, I said “we”, because I am a dues-paying member of the Human Rights Campaign (two years now, officially). Fortunately the day was cloudy and cool, but dry. I don’t know how we managed that, but I’m certainly not going to complain about it. After my shift I made a lap around the festival area picking up about 6 pounds of swag of varying degrees of usefulness (I now have enough SPF 15 chap stick to last for a couple of years, and I also have several dozen condoms of varying sizes with about a half-dozen lube samples). I also picked up 3 grocery totes including one that is insulated for frozen and refrigerated foods, and 3 more drawstring bags/backpacks. The grocery totes will always be useful (until they wear out), but I guess the drawstring bagpacks will just hang around gathering dust because I already have stacks of those from other places where they throw around a buncha free stuff. There are some of those that are falling apart because they were not made too well to begin with and they have seen at least one year of hard service totin’ stuff around, so those will get put in recycling and the new ones rotated into service as the old ones expire.

Anyway, after the festival I was supposed to get a quick D&D session in, but one of our players was in the Pride Parade with the Sisters of Indulgences and nobody could contact her to find out if she wanted to play. Turns out that after the parade the Sisters were granting indulgences in exchange for “adult” beverages for a couple of hours after the parade, because have you ever walked a mile and a half in stiletto heels? It hurts the feet and exhausts the calves and nobody wanted to move after the parade, and they had to leave their phones turned off so as to not interrupt the important business of Pride Day. So our healer was incommunicado most of the day, and as she and the DM are GGF there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth (not really, worried looks and frantic phone calls with no answers). With no healer and no tank because I didn’t know my character sheet was at home well there wasn’t much reason for playing a game that was almost guaranteed a TPK. So when our Wayward Sister finally returned we went to Taco Bell for dinner because we were all about to pass out from hunger.

Then I came home. The End (headdesk).

PSA, Opus

Our DM is very good at TPK, and the Feed

Today’s post is getting a late start because of another game session with the Kinky D&D group. After getting my head pointed the right direction last time, after it was removed by another party member under a compulsion, my character was ready to take on the world, and plunder the dungeon. Unfortunately we ran into a pair of succubi, sisters as it happened, and once again we had a Total Party Kill. The only one to escape was my NPC apprentice, the half-elf bard, because she ran when she saw what we were up against before the first spell cast or shot fired. Which was good considering that my character was the only one to get a shot off at the succubi, causing enough damage and disruption to the one I hit that she was out of the battle for the rest of the fight, but in the meantime her sister managed to get all the other characters compelled to attack the other members of the party, which given how lethal our characters are is probably the best strategy rather than going toe to toe and slugging it out (except with my character, he can’t fight in melee and has to keep taking 5 foot steps back and casting defensively so going toe to toe with him is a good idea, and going toe to toe with him by compelling another character to attack is even a better idea). Where we made our mistake was not attacking the succubi immediately as they were being held prisoner and we figured they would prefer a unimpeded release to combat. We had a better than even chance to take them out had we just gone in shooting instead of trying to negotiate for their release. Anywho, the bard managed to find the efreeti outside the dungeon (that we had only entered in the first place because there was a tornado coming), and convinced him that it was in his best interests to revive the party so we could rescue his sister from the half-fiend, half-green dragon who was intent on using her as breeding stock. He honored her wish to revive the party and get all the treasure in the dungeon from the areas we had already cleared, and then we moved on to taking care of the efreeti’s quest to save his sister from being forcefully impregnated by the fiend/green dragon. At this point we all had to level up. My warlock is now level 9 and does 5d6 damage with his Eldritch Blast, has a +7 attack bonus against the touch AC at ranges up to 250 feet, and a +8 bonus at ranges inside 30 feet. My apprentice is now 5th level and no longer has to fork over 500GP to my character at every level after this, her apprenticeship is complete (but she’s still an NPC).

The Big Story comes from the Great White North, as a head-on wreck between two cyclists kills one and puts the other in hospital. Jacques-Cartier Bridge bike path crash kills 1 and Fatal cycling collision on Jacques-Cartier Bridge Basically, someone crossed the centerline before daylight on a blind curve (because of the walls that keep the cars out of the bike lane) and heads literally butted. Both cyclists had head injuries, and neither one was wearing a helmet. To prevent with built environment, same thing as I say for drivers, slow down to a speed that you can stop in the distance you can see clearly. To improve the built environment replace the concrete walls with heavy steel bollards filled with concrete and put a transparent wall on the bicycle side of that.

The other Big Story is on this side of the northern border as a suspected drunk driver drives on the wrong side of the road and hits a cyclist head on and kills him instantly. Cyclist killed after being struck by suspected drunk driver on Lookout Mountain and Golden dad out on evening bike ride killed by alleged drunk driver The only thing that will prevent a wreck like this with the built environment is changing the built environment. Driving drunk is already against the law, driving on the wrong side of the road is against the law, and passing more than one vehicle and passing on a double-yellow line are also both against the law. My change recommendation is public execution of drunk drivers and public destruction of their cars, preferably in a single step operation.

Closer to home a cyclist north of the Red River from WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell while riding on the shoulder of a road to the right of rumble strips intended to keep cars from driving in the shoulder. Norman bicyclist killed near Purcell I don’t see how this could be avoided by the cyclist, he was hit from behind while riding about 4 feet to the right of the fog line on an 8 foot wide shoulder, about 2 feet to the right of the rumble strip. I suspect that the driver was impaired or distracted, and that nothing short of a barrier-protected bike lane could have prevented this wreck. The likelihood of getting barrier protected bike lanes on a semi-rural OK highway is slightly higher than the likelihood of a magnitude 6.5 quake in OK City.

Over in WI another cyclist is killed by another hit-and-run driver. Suspect in custody after fatal Germantown hit-and-run crash And Suspect in fatal Germantown hit-and-run crash released from custody He is impeding the investigation by refusing to give up the driver. Of course, since he’s probably the driver he’s protected against self-incrimination by the 5th Amendment. So, screw the 5th and charge him as the owner of the vehicle, which makes him responsible for what happens with it. That’s one of the things people are constantly harping about on bicycle registration, that it makes people accountable. Well, if registration makes people accountable, make this owner account for this wreck by going to prison.

And another hit-and-run wreck. Bicyclist injured in hit-and-run The cyclist was injured but the bike was undamaged, a strong indication of a buzz job or punishment pass. This is very similar to the wreck that killed Larry Schwartz outside Plano which precipitated the Ride of Silence in 2003. The main difference here is the cyclist was alive and semi-conscious when someone got to her a few minutes after the wreck. By the time someone found Larry, well that’s why we have a Ride of Silence.

Wanna bet this one gets solved ASAP? Wayne cop struck while training for charity bike ride Nothing on what happened aside from telling who owned the weapon vehicle.

Our Daily Ted (I bet you thought I forgot). Morning Links: Caltrans may remove dangerous Topanga Cyn reflectors; Vision Zero becomes official LA policy

And still in CA, another frikken hit-and-run. MAN ON BICYCLE KILLED IN MARIPOSA HIT AND RUN I am so freaking tired of hit-and-run drivers I could scream.

Last link is from Oz. Australia’s biggest bike-lane skeptic ‘wants to destroy cycling in Sydney’ Neanderthal, ain’t he?

And I’m tired, I have to get up early tomorrow, and I’m still very unhappy about that last link’s comments section.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Unkillable Badass Poet

Multi-tasking a blog post and the Feed

I’m waiting my turn at the Player’s Handbook 5th Edition as we get ready for another campaign with a non-kinky tilt for the Kinky D&D group. I’m creating another Warlock, naturally. While we play I will filter the feed and be thinking about what I’m going to post about.

Some good news for me right off th4 bat, the comic strip that birthed the character I took my stage name from (that eventually became my Pagan name) is coming back. ‘Bloom County’ Comic Strip Is Coming Back For those not around then, Bloom County was basically Doonesbury with mixed humans and anthropomorphic animals, and usually better jokes. And a penguin. More BERKELEY BREATHED RETURNING TO “BLOOM COUNTY” FOR FIRST TIME IN 25 YEARS

Our Daily Ted part one. Morning Links: Glendora cyclists buzzed by CHP officer; LA Times maps the most dangerous intersection You know a great deal of trouble and misunderstanding could be eliminated by chaning the law to so that the BMUFL sign was no longer required to post because bikes would be allowed a full lane at all times by law.

And part two. 14-year old bike rider killed in Santa Ana crosswalk Ugh@!

He survived the civil war in Afghanistan, but died in a bike lane in the US. Afghan engineer, who aided U.S. forces, killed and son injured while bicycling Let’s see what charges they can bring to bear over killing a man and wounding his son.

After the driver got a ridiculously small fine for running over two cyclists and leaving one dead the survivor files suit for damages. Cyclist sues Ireton man for injuries in cycling accident $250 plus costs is what a man’s life is worth in IA, until the civil suit.

Boston asks that riders please wear pants something on their butts when riding bike share. Boston Bike-Share: No Naked Cyclists, Please

Talk about your major downers, imagine going to clean up a wreck and finding your boss was the victim. Ambulance crew boss fatally hit while biking; his staff answers call The narrative sounds very much like a right hook that someone wanted to cover up.

First of several links to social actions to remember cyclists killed and demand actions that will prevent future cyclists from getting killed. Memorial set for UA scientist killed on bicycle Another drunk driver killed another cyclist, if there was just some kind of way to keep drunk drivers from driving before they killed someone… [interlocks]

Another drunk driver killed another cyclist, so another protest is done. Cyclists rally for safety on the roads Part of the problem is infrastructure, a big chunk of the problem is enforcement, and another part of the problem is attitude on the part of drunk drivers. That is why I suggested taking the car of a drunk driver away and selling it if they managed to not hit someone, crushing it (with or without the driver) if they did hit someone.

More protests from CA. Candlelight Vigil Held in Honor of Cyclist Killed in Hit-and-Run I think nearly everyone who reads this blog knows what I think about what should be done to hit-and-run drivers. Let’s just say for the new readers that it isn’t pretty nor constitutional, and involves a high-speed car shredder. On the positive side it would all be over with in less than a second.

This ties in with that lawsuit in IA I liked above. Friends Of Onawa Cyclist Hit And Killed Last June Push For Road Safety

Another Ghost Bike in ABQ. ‘Ghost bike’ memorializes fallen cyclist

Last link is from Oz. Family of Victorian cyclist killed in hit-and-run, Gordon Ibbs, make emotional plea for suspect to come forward Again, a hit-and-run driver that kills needs to get the maximum punishment for killing.

There were several links today that I had to forgo because the ads on the site got hacked by malware. I think about 1/3 of the links I filtered were hacked before I could post them.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet (the one without feathers)

What adventures on a wreck-free Sunday

Sorry this is so late but I didn’t get home to start writing until almost 2200, and I didn’t get to sit down to begin this post until much later, as will be explained much later in the post.

But first, D&D, the non-kinky kind. I DM’ed a game session that I have been planning for months, old-school character creation. Old-school is rolling 3d6 in order on the character sheet and taking whatever you get as your stats, then trying to create a usable character from that. I nerfed it even more by saying all the characters were from one tiny farming village that had about 25 people including children and 2 books, a book of complete herbology and a second book that would allow a literate adult to teach enough literacy to the village children to be able to understand the book of herbology in about 6 years. That prevented any kind of character class that depended on long training by a master, like monks, paladins, certain kinds of fighter classes, and most magic users that didn’t depend on wild magic like some sorcerers and warlocks. We ended up with some decent fighter/woodchoppers using axes and fighter/farmers using sicles. And one sorcerer who had 2 healing slots. Nobody took my up on the offer of a warlock that had a 50% chance of casting “Cure light wounds” by casting Sickening Blast backwards, because that would make a warlock a very useful character to have in a fight, do as much damage as an archer with a greater chance of getting a hit, and then heal like a cleric with a bad choice of spells…

The game went well, there were 5 kobolds who had been harassing the villagers going to and from market day every week either going or coming depending on if their need for food, gold, or trade goods was greater that week, and the villagers decided to train up as best they could and do something about it. The attacks had been going on so long that the kobolds knew the villagers’ names and the villagers knew the kobolds’ names: Olaf, Jon, Pawl, Jorje, and Ringo. In the first encounter in the dark on the way to the market town the party managed to kill 3 kobolds before driving the other two away, Pawl was dead in the first two rounds and Jorje and Ringo were rendered unconscious and killed when the others ran away. That left Olaf and Jon to attack on the way back and hopefully get some trade goods since they missed getting the fresh and preserved vegetables on the way in, but no luck. They both died within 3 rounds.

Then our regular DM for the kinky game rolled up a quick encounter while I rolled up an old-school character to play with the other 2 players. We had a type of weak lycanthropy attack the village in wolf form and between friendly fire and wolf damage we lost 20% of the population (from 25 including kids to 20 with one dead kid lost with 4 adults). I’m embarrassed to say I was responsible for one friendly fire incident as a villager out having a dalliance with a woman in a nearby village returned after daybreak to be mistaken as the person spreading “wolf sickness” a weak kind of lycanthropy that could be cured by herbs instead of magic. We did manage to get the person spreading the sickness after the friendly fire incident, we cured most of the people who got bitten, and there was much sorrow in the village.

Now why I was so late getting the blog post up.

I had a party to go to for one of the members of the D&D group having a birthday. After doing the service this morning (see last Sunday’s post for the script) my ride to the party and I went and got some party supplies (birthday cake, soda, hotdogs, and burger patties) and went to pick up the birthday boy from work. When we got to the place of work the car we were riding in blew a coolant hose, and we dumped large amounts of coolant and money into the car making sure it didn’t blow up before everyone got home, and we had to stop several times on the way back from the party to refill the radiator. We also had to let the car sit and cool off before we could add the coolant, so what should have been about an hour trip home took about 3 hours instead. I had to miss evening services as they were long over when we went past the church on the way home, and as I pointed out it was nearly 2200 when we got home and after 2200 before I could fire up the computer to make this post. Now I feel something like one of the kobolds from yesterday. Only a little more alive than they ended up.

And that’s why I’m late

PSA, Opus

Home maintenance and hot rod engineering on a Wreck-Free Sunday

I just got done replacing the doorknobs on every entry door in the house as we had 2 out of 3 fail and become unlockable this week. So I had a gift card to Lowe’s from one of my non-writing gigs sitting around, that I used to buy 3 mid-level security locks on Friday, then spend about 40 minutes on the first lock and another 40 total on the next two swapping out the locks. That means Mrs. the Poet won’t be able to get in the house when she gets home unless I leave the door unlocked except for the deadbolt. As for what caused the lock failure, I’m thinking it might be that they are the original locks installed when the house was built back in 1985, and they are worn out. I mean seriously the individual parts work just fine separately but put them together in the door and you get a latch that jams and doesn’t latch. Well I spent $55 of my gift card to buy new locks and just over an hour installing them in the doors.

I’m currently working on the design for the brake bracket for the front because the rear bracket is a buy and bolt on but this is a unique application for the front brakes. The Wide 5 hub and the four-piston caliper on the early Ford spindle axle are very uncommon, and always done with custom parts. I can think of only 3 cars running this combination since I started reading hot rod and custom car magazines back in the late 1960s, and none with the size disc I will be running on the Sprint T. I will be putting a 12.19″ disc inside a 15″ wheel which will just fit with the caliper I chose, the AFCO F88 for a .810″ thick rotor. So I have been using a rear axle bracket for the caliper with a known center distance (for welding the bracket to a 3″ diameter rear axle tube with a 11.75″ disc) and extrapolating from there for the 12.19″ disc and the larger (5.5″) flange on the early Ford spindle. And this is what I do to relax from writing about bicycles.

Yesterday’s D&D session was held in my living room, and was the “kinky” game, the one where sex is a weapon for social interaction and we have pages of special rules for sex. Basically this is what you would get if you crossed D&D with a porn movie. Since I try to keep sexual things out of the blog I can’t report much about what I did except that my character leveled up again because of the CR of the enemies we went up against this session. I mean seriously this could have been another TPK and reset to the previous save point that’s how dangerous and numerous the monsters were in this session.

And I have managed to feed myself again this week, not that I’m any kind of chef or anything. I just managed to not give myself food poisoning so far. 😛 Today was easy because we had potluck for lunch and dinner at the church, to which I brought my famous-at-the-church beans and rice. I have been keeping a sink with soapy water sitting waiting for dirty dishes and so far I have been keeping ahead of the dishes without running water every time I had a dish that needed cleaning. Even with everybody from the D&D game having a clean glass for their beverage of choice I still managed to keep ahead of the dirty dishes.

Just as I was finishing the post the Sprint Cup race in Sonoma finished, with “gimpy” Kyle Busch winning the race. I used quotes because Kyle had that horrific wreck in Daytona at the beginning of the season where he broke his leg and the ankle on the other leg and had to spend weeks in the hospital and more time getting rehab to restore strength and range of motion in his legs and here he is at the end of the first half of the season winning a road course race, the kind of race that is the hardest on a driver’s legs on the Sprint Cup circuit.

And it’s almost time for evening services, so I’m cutting this off.

PSA, Opus the Poet

RPG Group now with 33% more estrogen!

I had my first game with the new RPG group (the “kinky” game), and I can foresee problems already. Not with the game, but with working the game in with my weekly schedule. I was in the middle of cooking beans when the text came in that RPG was “on” for tonight if I was interested, which meant I had to get most of the actual “cooking” part done before I could leave and then grab some beans when I got home after game finished. And I never got to the Feed Folder in my inbox, so I will be dealing with 4 days worth of links when I do the post later today (I’m composing this at 0045), yay!

Now, about the game. Everybody died in the first encounter. No kidding, we encountered some kind of plant-based tentacle monster that was a cross between a Venus Flytrap and a bad hentai manga, that started out cleaning the stable by eating 3 horses, and ended up with 4 adventurers and a town guard NPC as a final course. This caused a reset because, well it’s a really bad game session when you get the entire party eaten before they even get a chance to introduce themselves as characters.

Reset went better with better rolls for everybody and slightly better tactics because we learned the sleeping rooms at the inn were on the side overlooking the stables and the monster could be seen from the visiting men’s room window, so I used Eldritch Blast from the window until it reached up to grab me then used a paralyzing invocation on the creature until it actually got paralyzed and then just kept throwing EB at it until it died. The creature would only take full damage from magical attacks or bludgeoning weapons, poking holes in it with swords or arrows would only cause partial damage and if you didn’t get enough damage in it would heal up and you were back to where you started, which was what got everybody killed the first time because I was the only one that wasn’t using a sword or bow on the creature (including the NPC town guard that got eaten because we took too long to kill the creature before the reset). The mayor of the town was impressed that we managed to kill the creature which was just the latest of a worsening monster infestation, which was causing the town major problems because they were not a big enough or established long enough to have a stockade or stone wall around the town to keep the monsters out.

While we were tracking down the source of the monsters, we had an encounter with a creature made entirely from discarded or lost magical items. When we defeated the creature all the magical items were left lying on the ground and I used my Warlock abilities to try to find out what they were. I found one that seemed like it would still work, and seemed to be a belt of Giant Strength. It was actually a cursed belt of gender swapping which I discovered when I put it on. Now I need to find someone who can break a curse from a cursed item. And apparently my character is a pretty good-looking woman now, because the female-liking female members of the party thought it would be a great idea to seduce me… My character was the only male member of the party that fought the plant-creature and survived the reset, all the other surviving party members were female and we were “introduced” during battle at the inn where we were staying.

And that’s where the line “now with 33% more estrogen” came from in the headline.

PSA, Opus

For April Fools I will go play D&D

Yep, no foolin’:P

Ima go play kinky D&D this afternoon/evening. How do you play “kinky” D&D? Well let’s just say there are a lot of “house rules” in this one and leave it at that, because this is my first game session.

PSA, Opus

The Greenville Ave St.Patrick’s Day Parade was not a Fun Time, and other stuff on Wreck-Free Sunday

Yesterday was a painful experience for me going to the local Big Parade. Getting there was not that bad except that the new shoes have not been modified to compensate for the hunk I lost out of my left leg back in ’01, so I was working on MOABackaches by the time I walked to the bus stop, but that eased off when I got on the bus and transferred to the train and the other train. Sitting with my pelvis level really takes the strain off my back. So the pain is just because I have to keep the muscles contracted on the side of my back opposite that leg which after a while restricts blood flow and causes all kinds of other problems that combine to result in a quiet stream of mutter expletives until I can sit or lie down and take the strain off. When I take anti-inflammatory drugs the pain is lessened, having the lift in the shoe for the short leg does a heck of a lot more to reduce the pain, both together is the best thing I have found so far.

Anyway, I got to the parade site about 90 minutes early because you really need to get there early to have a place to stand where you can see the parade. Remember the twinges I was getting on the way there? By the time the parade made it to our spot those “twinges” had progressed to feeling that the short leg was on fire and someone was pounding on my foot with a sledgehammer (that was on fire). I’m not looking for sympathy here, just telling it like it is. But I was not the only person having a bad parade.

Yes, that cooler just fell completely apart apparently from a structural defect combined with a heavy load of drinks and ice. Talk about a bummer.

And speaking of pictures, the pictures I took Friday night of the people picketing my church finally showed in my in box this morning, what took you?

Seriously, you guys didn’t have anything better to do on a Friday night?

I was watching the Sprint Cup race from Phoenix while I was doing this post, and Happy Harvick won again, putting him way out in front of the standings for the Chase for the Cup. There were a lot of cars that crashed out because they cooked the right rear tire tread right off the tire which causes the car to spin and then crash into the wall, including Dale Jr. and Jimmy Johnson. There was a lot of close racing except for the lead, because Harvick basically ran off and hid from the rest of the field except for green flag pit stops…

Now I’m watching the recording I made earlier of the FIA Formula E race in Miami, an all-electric racing series in its first year. Basically everybody is learning how to race EV with spec cars so they can really go at it over the next 5 years when they will be on spec chassis and tires with free within limits powertrains and batteries. Then we will see some tactical racing because the ridiculous car change “pit stop” will be eliminated supposedly in the fifth season and drivers will be required to complete the race on a single charge without recharge/replacing the battery. So basically at this point the winner of the race counts, but not really because this is all a series to learn how to race EV as a team, which I think they could learn from talking to electric RC racers, but hey, NIH (Not Invented Here) exists as an acronym for a reason.

I joined a new RP Group that will stick to D&D 3.5. This group will lean a lot more heavily on RP than on combat so when I built my character (on a 32 point buy system) I maxed out Charisma and dumped my Strength. I will start playing on the 28th because two members of the group have a church obligation next Saturday the 21st. Incidentally the “nice” people who were at the church in that group picture above promised to come back for the Sumerian ritual this Saturday. Considering the people doing the ritual are not the most tolerant people in the world when ritual is interrupted, I do not see good things in the future for the picketers. 😛

This is going to be interesting. Tune in for the report next Sunday, and stay here for regular posting Monday through Friday.

PSA, Opus the Poet

My hair is at the annoying length on a Wreck-Free Sunday

In case you didn’t know, I let my hair and beard grow during the winter to keep my head and face warm, and the hair bit has reached that awkward length that is long enough to get in my face but too short to tie back and keep it out of my face. In this picture you can see a stray hair that just refuses to stay brushed back and out of my face.

The RPG group met again yesterday and we played another session of D&D5. After leveling my warlock I had a selection of 5 cantrips or “at-will minor spells”: eldritch blast, prestidigitation, poison spray, save from death, and mending. Of those only eldritch blast and poison spray are combat spells that cause damage, and I finally have a healing spell in the form of save from death. Prestidigitation and mending are utility spells that make living as an adventurer much easier. The first cantrip does things like clean anything or anybody a small (1 sq. ft.) segment at a time, light or extinguish small flames like candles or campfires, and make food and drink hot or cold as appropriate and delicious. Mending repairs broken things as good as new as long as they aren’t too big. The spell list says the mend can’t exceed 1 cubic foot but is not clear if the mended item itself has to meet this requirement. Save from death does just what it says it does, takes a character who is near death and brings them back to 0 hit points so they regain consciousness.

I got a chance to use three of those cantrips during the game session as we journeyed back from an ancient library to research a sigil found on a magical archway excavated during a previous game session. We discovered the sigil is for an ancient mage or arch-mage, who founded a sect that believed that some forms of magic were just too dangerous to be left hanging around where anyone with magical ability could just pick it up and use it willy-nilly so they hid it behind a magical wall under a ditto arch. There were sigils for a deity and this mage on the arch and people praying to the deity pass through the wall and receive knowledge from the deity about the contents of the chamber behind the wall. Our current reports about what is in the chamber are incomplete because the deity kinda rattled the person who stumbled through who was not expecting what happened to her. At this point all we know is there are a number of magical items of some nature, whether these are weapons, or spell books, or something else entirely is not known. Neither is the criteria for what constitutes the situation that will allow these items to be released from the chamber. Anyway, the cantrips I used in the last session were eldritch blast, prestidigitation, and save from death. The save from death we didn’t even use on a party member, we used it on the only member of an ambush team that was sent to kill us on our return from the library that was in any shape to use it on. The rest of the ambush team were sniping from the surrounding trees in the forest and were too messed up to use it on so we had to interrogate the orc and hope that he knew enough about why we were being attacked to be useful. The lawful stupid paladin was back with the party just in time for the assault, so we don’t know if the ambush team was following him from the trade city we were working for, or if they were following us from the elf city where the library was located, but several of the archers had tattoos like the drow slaves we had encountered in previous adventures in this realm.

This was where the session ended as about half the group had previous engagements to attend to. And I have to attend evening services now, so I’ll cut it off at this point.

PSA, Opus the Poet (still an unkillable badass)