It's cold. 23°F, feels like 15. According to weather.com, it's not going to go above freezing for a week. Brrrr.

I must share with you this bit of wisdom from Jeff:

Hmm... that means...

GET OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW! The antenna is a DOPPLEGANGER!!!!!!

Having found an antenna this morning, beribboned in patriotic colors but in a prone position, I assumed it was from Jeff's Tracker and emailed him. His reply was educational. My antenna is the antenna of Edith, my antenna is the antenna of the Car of Steph. O antenna which I had from my driveway! Er. Anyway, what it was doing lying unceremoniously there, instead of proudly pointing the way from Edith's fender to the sky above, I don't know. I will investigate tommorow, when it's light, if it's not snowing or something.

I solved the Squeaking Berserker problem. When I reached tenth level, I gave her the traditional Viking nick-surname of Gjallandi, "shrieking." :) (Much better than Knarrarbringa, "merchant-ship bosom.") On the other hand, I'm wanting to try something else before I get too frustrated with this one.

Why? Maybe because I just finished reading The Hobbit and want to blow stuff up like Gandalf. Or maybe the cold has gotten to my brain.

Really, that book is not as childish as I had thought. Peter Jackson could make a decent movie out of it, I think, in a way that would appeal to adults. Not sure that'd fly too well *after* the trilogy though...

This was the revised edition, where Tolkien changed Bilbo's description of how he came across the ring to make it more consistent with certain things later. I don't remember there being quite that much allusion and foreshadowing in the original... or else I just missed it. It's been a while. At any rate, I'd have preferred the version that I thought I remembered. :)

The barrow-wight scene did indeed happen in Fellowship of the Ring as I thought, not The Hobbit as Bubba claimed. Glamdring and Orcrist were found among the troll loot, and while Gandalf kept Glamdring (which, indeed, should have been glowing and driving back the goblins and orcs in the movie), Orcrist was buried with Thorin.

One thing I particularly liked was, from the point of view of Bilbo, the Dwarves and Wood-Elves were all being ridiculous and unreasonable. Rather than the comical, 7-meals-a-day, furry-footed hobbit stereotype that I dislike so much, what I really got was that they were an easily content, quiet race. On the other hand, Elves seem to be annoying, silly twits. More so the Wood-Elves from the lake region, but even Elrond was the sort of guy a hobbit would borrow a hankie from, and that just ain't right.

I went to work this morning. Nobody had mentioned we were closed (except for Customer Service), so I assumed we weren't. We were.

Went home after about half an hour of that, and stopped at Target... which was amazingly uncrowded for Christmas Eve. I bought a General Electric optical mouse with two scroll wheels, because it was the most bizarre peripheral I have ever had the chance to purchase, and it was cheap. The second wheel is supposed to scroll horizontally, which doesn't seem terribly useful and apparently only works in IE. But ever since I got an Intellimouse Explorer at work, I've wanted the scroll wheel and back/forward buttons for web browsing, and now finally I have one that works.

To recap: Microsoft mouse = expensive, but good. Logitech mouse = pretty expensive, but decent. Kensington mouse = cheap, but bad. GE mouse = really cheap, good, and nobody will believe you own one.

Steph, in den mother mode just prior to leaving, reminded me profusely that stores and restaurants would be closed on Christmas and I better remember to buy stuff at the grocery store in advance. Well, I would have if the stores didn't all close at 5:30. Guh.

Ah well, there's stuff in the kitchen, maybe not the greatest selection but who says you can't make peanut butter fried rice anyway? I bet Morimoto-san would do it. He would spray it with vodka and flambe it with a blowtorch and serve it with salmon roe, and it would remind someone of summer meadows.

I have an orange-vanilla scented candle burning sideways in a glass jar. (Yes, I'm one of those people who has to incessently play with candles as they burn.) The wick is long gone, but a stray match just happens to be sticking up out of the liquid wax in the proper arrangement to keep burning. Been like this for maybe half an hour, even though I thought it was gonna burn out about 20 minutes ago. I wonder, if I blew it out now, let the wax solidify and relit it, if it'd still work...

Besides The Hobbit, DAOC, and candle maintenance, I have also managed to work on the Seshat article a bit. Echoing the development of play.net, I'm making version 2.0 with a planned 2.5 to build on those improvements later. I've gotten to the really interesting part now, which is also perhaps the hardest part to write without sounding kooky. I'm trying to make it all make sense, once little piece at a time, to people who aren't immersed in the culture and haven't spent the last three years figuring out what's so special about a goddess who takes dictation. :)

John Rhys-Davies said of Lord of the Rings two years ago: "I believe we are making a film that will be bigger than Star Wars." Time will tell, I guess... but for me it's already bigger.

Trying to fit the whole saga of Middle Earth into a movie, even 3 movies, is insane. The medium is not capable of doing some of the things Tolkien did. With that limitation in mind, I was still expecting good, hoping desparately it wouldn't be bad... and I got excellent.

No, not perfect. But better than I could have reasonably expected.

I don't have a problem with Jackson fudging a few plot points here and there to tighten it up as a movie -- making Saruman more of a factor, inventing Lurtz, skipping the barrow-wights and (thank goodness) Tom Bombadil. I think Galadriel's test went a little overboard, a stronger impression of travel time would have been nice... minor quibbles though.

The thing that bothers me is that people will see this movie, and think "great movie, I'm glad I didn't read the books." Granted, Tolkien's writing style and pacing can be horribly dull at times -- but there is a world of detail in there that the movies can only scratch. For example, Elrond's line about the Elves "going west" wouldn't mean much to viewers who thought they were just going on a road trip or something... you'd have to have read the whole trilogy to really get it, and the Silmarillion to get ALL of it, and a smattering of both Celtic and Egyptian lore adds further insight. As a matter of fact, I don't know if the movie even got across a sense of geography, which is an important facet of the quest.

On the other hand, there's a certain grace to Tolkien's work that was captured almost perfectly, and a seriousness to the movie that will hopefully show people that fantasy doesn't have to be goofy like Xena or Willow or the D&D movie. Who knows, maybe we'll see some kind of renaissance in the genre.

The roommates are gone for the holidays and I have the house to myself. The cats are, as predicted, going nuts. They make enough noise sometimes that I think Steph and Jeff are upstairs stomping around. :)

I've started back on Dark Age of Camelot again. I've returned to Midgard, this time with a Berserker. Her name is Dwey, and I've considered starting over with a male and a better name -- you wouldn't think a big strapping Norsewoman would squeak like an elf when she gets hit, but she does in the most annoying way. But with a couple days' investment in levels, and some nice items found and given, I'll just learn to live with it.

So far, this character feels quite powerful. I know I've said that before, but a Berserker can really put the damage on. The Left Axe style has some great moves. While dexterity, dodging and parrying help a bit, the berserker's way is supreme offense -- kill quickly and don't worry about pain until after the battle. And within a couple of weeks or so, shapeshifting will be implemented (cue Metallica music) and I'll be able to run with the wolves. Or bears. Or whatever they're going to do. :)

I knew I've read a Discworld novel before... and I'm pretty sure it happens to be the one I'm reading now, Soul Music. I'm a bit flustered that I can't remember for sure. The bit with the Klatschian Foreign Legion seems awfully familiar, as do Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler and the Librarian (ook ook), but I don't remember Sarah, Imp or The Death of Rats at all. Hmmmm.

This cold has sucked away some of my holiday cheer, but a small part of me is determined to be merry just to spite the illness. Take that, stuffy nose!

I would have missed work Wednesday, but we had a surprise meeting on something, er, fascinating. Bwahahaha. I should have had somebody drive me back home afterwards though.

I *did* miss work Thursday, but let Jeff and Mike drag me to the D&D session later. It was kinda neat, individual mini-adventures for each of us to fill out the 3 weeks game-time, one session real-time, that we had before the next phase of the campaign resumes in January. Gengh's mission was to attend a Druid gathering, but he encountered a wereboar on the way that turned out to be friendly (after the first attack at least), and gave him a nifty cloak that would have let him have full control over lycanthropy if he'd been infected, which he wasn't. But the next time we stumble across a werebear, I'm strapping some raw meat to my forearms and going in first... :)

Friday was the mega gift exchange/office party. Of course David topped everyone with great gifts, including an XBox for his Secret Santa victim (artist Chris Runyon), but there was a lot of generosity going around. I felt a bit inadequate in my own gift giving, partially because the three of us went in together on a few things, and partially due to Amazon's lateness -- the order I placed on the 6th, in which every item was "Usually ships in 24 hours," still hasn't shipped despite an updated estimated arrival date of, um... today. Mumble. Turnabout is fair play though, and I know a few people are still waiting on Amazon stuff for me as well. ;)

David had made the mistake of mentioning he wanted the complete set of Lord of the Rings action figures. Up to now, each year he has elevated the gag gift to new heights of absurdity... so this year most of us in the office conspired to turn the tables, by each buying him the same Gandalf figure. After he'd opened about a dozen of those we relented and gave him the "real" ones. :)

I brought home lots of wish list things of course, which can't be wrong... lots of reading material and music to listen to while I read it. :) An assortment of board games, a spiffy writing set from Matt and Melissa (a good glass pen, what looks like very nice blue ink, a seal and wax), fantasy miniatures, and cat toys. Whee!

I'm feeling a little bit better today, so I'm gonna go ahead and join the group for Matt's birthday lunch today -- though his birthday was actually yesterday, it's kind of lame to combine Christmas and birthday stuff together... well, I suppose unless you happen to be Jesus or something. <ducks>

The new computer arrived last Thursday. Windows XP has been a swirled, lumpy mixture of frustration and delight. The first speed bump was THEY DISCONTINUED NETBEUI. The ****ers! The network setup wizard thinger actually wanted me to run around with a floppy to all the other machines on the LAN and install some junk. Jeff helped me figure that one out (they hid a "temporary" NetBEUI installation deep within the bowels of the CD), but there are other networking pitfalls. For example, enabling sharing causes XP to forget the IP address you assigned it, so you have to go back and re-enter that.

And then one of the handful of useless things I uninstalled, provided either by Dell or Microsoft, wiped out some essential Windows file or other and I had to reinstall XP. Blargh.

However... it's fast, it's pretty (particularly with StyleXP and Glass2K, with themes and wallpaper from ThemeXP and deviantART), in a few cases the user interface "improvements" actually were improvements, and so far it seems to be pretty stable. It's worth the pain of tweaking all the settings into something reasonable (kill the default nerfed Start menu for example).

A trip to Best Buy resulted in, unfortunately, not getting the gift I was hoping to find for my parents -- but it did bag me a MAG 19" monitor that was just $130 after coupon and rebates, and a Kyro II video card (Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64MB). Suddenly things are very sharp and clear, game frame rates have gone through the roof, and incidentally, my characters in DAOC can now walk up stairs without jumping. Apparently there's some kind of issue with collision detection with the floor and low frame rates... which I don't have to worry about anymore. Good thing too, since they've implemented falling damage.

I've been playing more Ghost Recon than DAOC lately though, and probably will until I finish it. The graphics are not the best but gameplay is top-notch. The missions are more enjoyable than Rogue Spear (though a quick terrorist hunt or multiplayer battle in RS is more exciting overall than a quick skirmish in GR, simply due to the huge maps in GR).

On the tabletop front, I spent some time perusing the books again and thinking about my character plans. I plotted out a couple of different paths for Livia and decided to stick with the plan as is, making a sacrifice in ability for the moment for a later payoff, but I'll go ahead and invest in enchanting the bow she uses now. If at a higher level she wants a very heavy-draw bow to take advantage of a half-dragon's strength, she'll be able to afford the first few enchantments without much trouble anyway.

I'm adjusting my plan for Marabi slightly, and proposed some changes to my Fan Dancer prestige class to bring it more into focus as a sort of flashy martial arts thing... concentrating more on actually fighting than on support through distraction. At this level she qualifies for Fan Dancer, and instead of focusing on qualifying she now has several training options. I'm thinking I want to go the Expertise » Improved Trip » Knockdown path, maybe the previously overlooked Improved Expertise (for those times when I need to just hold off a creature and not get hit), and there will probably still be room in there for Whirlwind Attack eventually. Marabi will never catch up to Rico (master of the Big Fricking Maul) so she'll have to rely on tactics and on not fighting fair. :)

I'm still in the dark about poor Gengh. Guess he's just gonna stick with Druid and see what happens. Staying flexible about feats, and training in skills that I think might be requirements for prestige classes in the upcoming Barbarian/Druid/Ranger book. Heh.

I'm pretty secure about my plan for Few -- Cleric to 3rd will qualify me for Divine Agent which I'll take all the way, with some scattered Contemplative levels. The RP aspects of that path fit the way I see Few developing, and though other training paths would be more powerful, I'll have flexibility and style on my side. :) If the DM approves it I'll train in Leadership and pick up a fighter cohort; any other feats will probably be Turning-related, metamagic or defensive in nature. And he definitely wants one of the Barricade Bucklers from Song & Silence. :)

Nearly all my Christmas shopping is done. Some of the stuff will be late for the office gift exchange, thank you Amazon. You'd think December 6, ordering only things that are supposed to ship within 24 hours, would have been enough time for a December 14 party. Not so. Estimated shipping dates have slipped at least once on everything and twice on one thing. Feh.

The whole thing just doesn't feel right this year. Maybe because I'm staying home, shipping gifts to family members, buying gifts for a different set of people than I usually do, and going in with other people on some large things. Hmm.

Have I mentioned lately how much I like my company? :)

We too have felt the bite of the angry, starving bear, but though we got mauled like everyone else we stayed standing... and still got generous Christmas bonuses. Yay! The holidays are a big deal at Simutronics, with a traditional massive mid-December gift exchange as well as several parties. It's not our most productive month (heh!), but it's a reminder that we make games and are supposed to be having fun.

And yesterday I arrived at my cubicle to find it decorated beyond reason with streamers and balloons wishing me a happy birthday. I'd have taken a picture if my camera had been there (maybe I should just leave it at the office, heh!). Then the company took me to Tachibana for lunch, making it my second birthday meal at a Japanese place for this year (mom treated me to Jo-To in Sarasota). Someone -- I didn't catch who since there were a lot of us at the table and a lot going on, but thank you :) -- gave me Forgotten Realms and Magic of Faerun, nicely rounding out my D&D collection, and the boss bought me Ghost Recon. :)

Thanks for linking to Dell Outlet, Suz! I couldn't find a better deal anywhere else.

One additional tip for shopping there -- you can get a better price during times of less internet traffic. The lower priced computers sometimes sell in a matter of seconds, and your chances are better with less competition. Prices are pretty low in the morning, peak in the afternoon (though the prices are still quite good generally), and drop again as the evening gets later.

I spent most of the day with an eye on the prices, and at around 2:30 AM wound up buying a $509 Dimension 4300, 1.4GHz P4. Not quite as good a deal as Suz wrangled, as the rest of the machine is a bit weak for gaming needs -- but still a lot of machine for the price. And oddly enough, it comes with a free Palm m105 PDA.

Upgrading to 256MB or 512MB RAM is gonna be cheap, and Best Buy is having another 10% off thing next weekend, so I'll be looking for a likely video card. If I find I can't live with onboard sound, I'll have an excuse to get an Audigy... but I'm more likely to want a decent monitor first.

However, I do want to do some Christmas shopping for people other than myself, so that may wait a bit. :)

My smiting Cleric enountered Stupid Group Syndrome last night in the Tomb of Mithra. People who expect a Cleric who isn't trained in healing and says so, to do nothing but heal -- rather than to keep an eye on the situation and do whatever makes sense tactically -- are not going to be satisfied no matter what you actually do. Even playing other classes, I've never been in a large group that works well together inside a dungeon -- and I'm wondering whether a coordinated group with the right combination of people in it would even do all that well. I was getting better loot, more experience, and was not dying, when soloing creatures of my own level; with that group I died twice, got no loot, ended with slightly less experience than I started with, and logged off to go read a book instead.

That's the problem with multiplayer games... all those darned players. :)

I'm 30 and (almost certainly) diabetic, but I'm happy.

A blood test is not a festive way to kick off a birthday. My blood sugar was stupidly high, but that did not really come as a surprise. To be honest, I still don't want to see a doctor... but I do want to take care of this. I'll go if necessary. Meanwhile, my mom gave me some information, I'm going to look up more online, and definitely will put more effort into watching what I eat.

On the other hand, this is definitely a moving birthday event.

St. Louis welcomed me back with cold, wet, dreary weather. I love it. Granted I would personally rather not freeze my butt off, but I did feel like the city was saying hi. A bit like the dialog between John Constantine and London in Sandman -- "The usual. Full of people. Raining. How about you?" Something about it lifts my spirits.

The cats are both happy to see me, and to sniff my suitcase. Lily was rubbing her scent all over it this morning; I wonder if the flight covered it up or if Amber and Kyoko can still detect it.

Elemental Honor Guard is defunct already. A small membership, and not very active -- probably because many of the constituents had main characters on other servers, but came to join the guild just because they liked the concept. I was going to post on the guild board when I got back here, but it's already dried up and blown away. Perhaps stronger leadership and more patience would have saved it, perhaps not.

At any rate, I've gotten really frustrated with the life of a Theurgist, and for the moment at least, am focuing my gaming efforts elsewhere. Level 20 seems to be an impenetrable barrier for Sywy -- earn some experience and coin, lose it again to a death, earn it back, lose it again, ad nauseum.

I decided to try out a Ranger, since they seemed to be the most effective overall among the bow-using types... and I found that bows are just not as much fun in practice as they are in theory. Casters have more fun, I think.

Next on my list was Cleric, and I'm enjoying that immensely. Another female character, natch. (Hey, the Ranger was male. I tried. Besides, if I have to watch someone's butt as they run around all over the place... heh.) Specializing in Smiting, though I will catch up a bit on Rejuvenation in a few levels. People talk about the power of Theurgists solo -- but in general, Mairiona seems more secure and competent than Sywy. She can handle surprise attacks well, can solo single yellows or pairs of blues, has less downtime after a fight, can lend help to fellow hunters in trouble, and in a couple of levels will be a vital asset to groups as well as a competent soloist. Dungeons will be much friendlier to her than they were to Sywy. So far, the only real downside is the difficulty in dealing with named quest monsters in large groups, but usually that requires, at most, waiting one more level before tackling it. No problemo.

Another long overdue journal entry. One could blame DAoC for my lapse, but recently my schedule's looked like this:

Tuesday Nov 13, Jeff's D&D campaign session. Second night of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and we seem to be doing okay so far. Not quite the case for a couple of hapless NPCs...

Wednesday Nov 14, a naming ceremony Dua. If I haven't mentioned how much I love those, let me do so now. It's definitely the strongest "community thing" we can do online. :)

Thursday Nov 15, Mike's mostly-evil D&D campaign. If memory serves, none of our characters died this time. I did try to feed a shark to a stalactite... long story.

Friday Nov 16, Harry Freaking Potter. I didn't read it and probably won't ever, since the non-readers seemed to enjoy the movie more than the readers. Entertaining movie though, even though that one instructor really wasn't Shirley Maclaine.

Saturday Nov 17, barbecue and Mike's mostly-good D&D campaign, at Melissa & Matt's. Good stuff and a fun session, in which we finally took down the evil cleric that's been harassing us and killing various party members and allies since February or so. Nana nah nah, nana nah nah, hey-ey-ey, goodbye.

Sunday Nov 18, "lunch" with Matt, Melissa, the Zelinskis, Joe and Steph. Great Vietnamese place in St. Louis called Pho Grand, followed by pie at Tippin's... about a 5 hour jaunt all told. It was great though.

Monday Nov 19, get up way too early and fly to Tampa to visit parents. Things were actually running nice and smooth at both airports, but realizing that the guy peeing in the next urinal over has an M-16 strapped to his back, and it's not an airsoft gun, is strange to say the least.

The cats immediately had to check out Kyoko's... er, my suitcase. Jasmine is much the same as ever, but at least she hasn't hissed at me yet this time around. Lily is also just as I remembered, a real "Pet me! Pet me! Get away from me!" cat. My parents are also as I remembered, though mom frosted her hair. I of course shaved mine off, and I'm not sure they're used to it yet. :)

Tuesday Nov 20, pre-Thanksgiving turkey dinner with parents and grandpa. And that night in DAoC, I spent (wasted?) some time tailoring, was present for the formation of <Elemental Honor Guard>, and made 20th level. That was fun. :)

Wednesday Nov 21, drive with parents to Tallahassee (about 6 hours) to visit sister. The Sardine is living in half a duplex with her girlfriend, who was away on her own Turkey Day family visit the whole time. Neat place though, big kitchen, big living room, two good sized bedrooms, a nifty den in the back. Retro furniture, thermos collection, posters of Coltrane, the Beastie Boys, and Ani DiFranco. Four cats.

Pyewacket you've seen before. She's grown a bit, but is still in the running for "Cutest Thing on Four Legs." Also present were Gunther ("Gu"), a grey tiger who's my favorite of the four personality-wise; Columbia, a hefty brown feline with hygiene problems; and Moose, a part-Siamese beauty who's sweet but skittish.

That first night we ate at a nearby Chinese buffet that didn't suck. The only things I didn't like were the Mongolian pork (I'm picky about pork anyway) and the egg drop soup which, inexplicably, was full of corn. Everything else was fresh and not too heavy and far better than anything found on any Chinese buffet in the Midwest.

Thursday Nov 22, vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner. The Sardine's friend Stac(e)y -- a teacher, Classics major, DJ for the college radio station, and possessor of anime-style blue hair -- made up an incredible batch of cookies, something Greek that involve rice and spinach, and an amazing garlic salad dressing. The main course, "Veet" nuggets with some traditional Turkey Day side dishes, was easily overshadowded. But before the meal we listened to Stac(e)y's radio show... which ran late because her replacement didn't bother coming in. She threatened on the air to play a Journey album if someone didn't come in to relieve her, and finally someone did. :)

Friday Nov 23, loafing. We watched maybe half the 11-hour Iron Chef marathon, including the one where Bobby Flay was allowed to save face and the one where the commentator boldly challenged one of the chefs and got blown away. Chris took me to Vinyl Fever, a local indie music store, and I bought too many CDs... one too many, I would say.

Amon Tobin, Supermodified. Some of it is the kind of acid jazz illbient stuff I was expecting from the MP3s I've heard. Some of it is more along the lines of Future Sound of London. But it's all good.

Varttina, Ilmatar. This may be their best one yet, though admittedly I missed one along the way. One of the tracks was actually kinda spooky. They're breaking away from the cute/sexy Finnish chick folk with weird mathematical undertones to something else, and I don't know what, but I'm liking it.

The Cruxshadows, Mystery of the Whisper. I seem to remember reading a good review of these people... but maybe I misremembered. It's cheap and trashy goth rock... which has a certain appeal I guess. But I'd have preferred better songwriting, a vocalist that doesn't sound like Fred from the B-52's, some dignity and self-respect maybe. To be fair I only listened to three tracks, but I imagine after scanning the album for decent songs to extract to MP3s, it'll go in the "sell this someday" pile and not be played again.

Autechre, tri repetae++. Yummy. It's a lot more listenable than Confeld, with no tracks I don't like. Electronic beats that you can't dance to -- gotta love it. :) Vinyl Fever dropped them into "Experimental," but they're a lot more stable and sane than Aphex Twin. Still, I bet my roommates won't like it. Pblblblblt.

Pizzicato Five, Five by Five. I have to admit, part of the reason I picked this one is Steph's site. ;) But this is the one that has "Twiggy Twiggy" on it (which rocks!) and as an almost-single it was cheap in case I wound up not liking any other songs. As it happens, I do like two other songs, but "Me, Japanese Boy" also bugs me with its self-deprecation, making it hard to listen to... hmmm.

Various Artists (presented by Crowd Control Activities), Funeral Songs. A collection of darkwave/darkambient music oddly packaged with a sort of half-slipcover that said the music was for soothing the bereaved, or something along those lines. Uh, no. It's dark and dreary... and mostly wonderful. However, the tribe has spoken -- Amber Asylum's "I Saw You Fall" must leave the album. I could write better lyrics myself and that's saying a lot.

Saturday Nov 24, drive back to Bradenton. The drive is roughly equivalent to St. Louis-Chicago or St. Louis-Kansas City, but my parents prefer the back roads to the interstate. I slept some and listened to music a lot. I didn't used to be able to sleep in cars, but I'm learning. The Sardine loaned me her old CD player, one that plays just fine as long as you don't hit any buttons -- they do random things when you hit them. At least I can tell my parents I know something they can get me for my birthday coming up in a couple days here.

Sywy is still level 20, not for lack of trying. I don't think she's ever gotten halfway into the level yet; 4 bubbles of experience seems to trigger death of some kind or other every time. Usually a pursuing giant that's just a little too fast and hits just a little too hard, though death awaited on the road in Cornwall in the form of a Greater Boogey. The other fun part is that none of the hunting areas that are good for her level are near bind stones, so each death is not just a setback but a long downtime as well.

I tried RvR... sort of. My sister's machine is 500MHz, but slower than my 450 at home, and I suspect a serious RAM deficiency -- in addition to being logged on through a Prodigy dialup account rather than cable/DSL. Blargh. I teleported to the Hibernia frontier, got a nice still image of dozens of people battling on the hillside, which updated maybe every 12 seconds. Some Midgard kobold took one shot at me and missed (I think due to my bladeturn spell), but I was still trying to do a 180 and go back to more framerate-friendly ground and thus never even saw my assailant.

I'd have another go tonight, but I'm thinking once I upload this puppy it's bedtime.

I'm gonna be 30. That doesn't seem right. I think somebody miscounted.

A week and a half of no updates, I know. Free time has gone into Dark Age of Camelot.

Character roster so far:

• Sywy Gwynwyl, Avalonian Theurgist (12), Albion, Guinevere server
• Moirebheann, Lurikeen Eldritch (11), Hibernia, Tristan server
• Dwalla, Dwarf Hunter (4), Midgard, Iseult server
• Idon, Saracen Minstrel (3), Albion, Guinivere server

Chances are at this point I'll stick mostly to playing Sywy. It's doubtful I'll bring Moirebheann back in again, though a Hibernian Druid is not out of the question sometime. I do want to play something or other in Midgard (maybe a Skald or Hunter) with a fresh start.

The Ghost Recon demo is out. I have mixed feelings. It lacks something Rogue Spear has, and the graphics have not really improved. It's not entirely unfun, and I'm not going to remove it from my birthday wish list (along with Civ III, Black Thorn and a host of things on my Amazon wish list) -- but it's not the big leap forward I was hoping for from Red Storm.

Thinking about trying out contacts instead of glasses on my next (overdue) optometrist visit. Last time I tried them I was what, 14? Maybe I'm not as averse to sticking things in my eyes now. :) RGP (rigid gas-permeable) lenses were new at the time; now there are soft toric lenses that I might be able to wear instead.