A Diversion of Sorts

It's been a long week at work, and I'm within sight of the weekend.

Normally I'd be moving forward with getting an antenna set up outside for my amateur radio work, but I'm going to shelve that for a little while.

Why, you may ask?

Because the roof is going to need replacement.

After the storms blew threw here a week ago last Tuesday, I'd wrestled with filing a damage claim on the house. I mean, we had some siding blown off, but I'd recovered them and all that's really needed is that they be put back in place. Still, I decided to go ahead and file a claim just in case there's more damage to the siding than I realized. 

Say hello to the siding section that blew off.
It's about 2' high by 8' wide.

The inspector came here last Saturday and went around the house, checked out the siding and the roof, as well as the small plastic shed that we inherited when we bought the house. It's only 6'x8', and I've been thinking for at least a decade that I'd like to replace it with something big enough that I could actually stand upright inside it, but it was more off in the distant future. 

When the inspector finished, I noted he'd marked up in chalk several places around the roof. I asked him if the roof seemed sound, and he replied that it was. The gutters were also in good shape as well, thank goodness, so I figured that we'd hear about maybe there was enough damage to the siding that we'd get a few dollars out of it once you take out the deductible for our homeowner's insurance.

Imagine my surprise when I got a call from the claims adjuster mid-week that our insurance had deemed four of the six roofing sections* had enough damage to warrant replacement. Now, they did admit that a roofer coming to perform the work would likely want to replace the other two sections as well, and if the roofer could provide evidence of additional damage they were willing to work with the roofer to adjust the claim accordingly. 

Oh, and they also threw in a few hundred dollars to replace the plastic shed with another one.

"Do they even make those any more?" I asked during the phone call. 

"Yes, they do; we checked."

"Huh." That was unexpected.

But since the roof will need replacement, that means that my antenna will have to wait until the roof is done, then I can finish my work up there. I guess that means it'll be late this year, at the very least. 

Now I have to find a roofer that is NOT a fly-by-night group. I've got access to Angie's List, but I'm also going to talk with a few neighbors who have had their roofs replaced in the past several years. The guy who did the roof way back in 2004 has long since retired, so I think that I'm going to have to find someone new.

*Two sections on the house, two on the attached garage, and two on the covered porch.

#Blaugust2026

Time For a Short Catch-Up

I might as well get this out of the way.

As of August 19, 2026.

Yes, if you can count, I got Joan to L70. I was in the middle of the Ring of Blood group quest when she dinged, so I was kind of busy and didn't take a screencap at the time.

If you'll also note from that screencap Neve is at L51 now --and boy have I been dragging my feet with her-- so she ought to reach Outland sometime in late September.

As for what to do next on the Alliance side, I've brought Hoots over and have started leveling her. I realize that the optimal way to level a Hunter is to go and get a Ravager as a pet, but as you're quite aware I march to the beat of my own drummer. In Hoot's case, I probably will not get into very many instances regardless, as I just prefer solo work with her. Good thing, as Hunters are a dime a dozen on the Anniversary servers. Between Hunters and Druids, they make up what seems to be 90% of the gatherers out in the field. 

In other news, for the first time in 2-3 months I logged into Retail.

You don't say...

Of course I just logged in and fished for a bit, but the cry of seagulls and the rolling thunder of the surf was quite pleasant to listen to.

You can tell I'm not serious about doing anything other than fishing because I actually have the "Fishing" command on my main bar (#9). I know that I can move it around wherever I want, but given that I'm not really doing anything else on this toon, why bother? At least she's low enough level that I don't get the "catch up" option when I come back to her after having been away for a while.

Alas, poor Quintalan.

Given that Quintalan hasn't been played since early Cataclysm, so 2010-ish, there'd be a LOT of catching up to do.

From Reddit. Well, and
World of Warcraft on Facebook.

#Blaugust2026

Writing and Re-Writing

There are times when I sit here, writing away, and I have trouble making things click. It's more prevalent when I'm writing fiction, but I've had it happen during regular blog posts too. There's no way around the reality that it really sucks when it happens. 

What drives me bonkers is that I'd write something, decide it really isn't going in a way I want it to, and start over. When I do push through all the way to the end and then go back to edit it, I still end up tossing all that writing for something else. 

I really blame the writing of some 80s era cartoons for some of this. Some of the writing for Voltron, a show my brother really watched but I was kind of peripherally involved with, has shown up in earlier drafts of some of my stories. When I go back and edit and I say "Holy crap does this sound bad! Where did this come from?" I find out weeks later watching some random YouTube video a clip from Voltron or Star Blazers and realize the origin of that dialogue.

For an example, this particular snippet of dialogue took me about 3 weeks to write to where it's in this form. Obviously it's still a work in progress, so it'll likely look different than at this point, but at least I like the flow and the direction of the dialogue.

“Hmmph.” My sister sat down next to me and stared out over the pond. 

 

If she thought I was going to overshare, which was the sure sign of a guilty conscience, she was going to be waiting for quite a while. Still, I figured I’d lay out the one thing that Linna likely most feared. “I’m going to have Zarg do it.”

 “Do what?” She tore her eyes off the far end of the pond to look me over.

“The investigation that needs to happen. I’m not an idiot, you know, and I’m quite aware I’m not healthy enough to do it myself.”

 Linna’s face twisted; not quite disgust, and not quite disapproval. “And you’re going to let her do it.”

“Yes. She knows a lot about the Cult, after all, and people always underestimate her.”

My sister involuntarily glanced over at the slumbering Neve.

“I already cleared her,” I supplied. “What about your Draenei friend?”

“She’s safe as well.” Linna had a long pause as her face went through a myriad of emotions.

“You’re thinking of that place, aren’t you.”

Her expression settled on anguish. “Card…”

“They don’t know her like they do me, so it’s safer for her to do it.” I felt strangely at peace with that admission. I’d always done things myself, and relinquishing the responsibility for investigating my curse was a difficult step to take. It was also going to be quite dangerous, dealing with the Cult of the Damned, but if there was one thing I was confident about it was that Zargala could handle herself. “If you get a chance, can you carry a note from me to Mathias? He deserves to know about what happened here.”

“Yes.” Another pause. “I don’t want to lose you.”

I nodded. “Nor I you. But you have to trust me.”

“You don’t make it easy.”

“My name wouldn’t be Cardwyn if it was.” I looked around. “Carys should be back soon.”

“I told her she could come back when I was done talking to you.”

“I bet you didn’t make sure the other two weren’t snooping.”

Linna stared at me for a moment. “Shit,” she blurted and split.

I heard her footfalls fade, then I turned my focus back to the pond. “Okay, Lewys, I know you’re out there. Come on out.”

There was a rustle in the brush, and a very guilty-looking nephew emerged.

I raised an eyebrow as a smirk crept across my lips. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not going to explain what we were talking about.”

“But…”

“Sometime later, but not now.” I patted the ground next to me. “Sit.”

He dragged his feet a bit, but Lewys eventually sat down. “Take my other rod,” I told him. “I loaned it to Briganaa, but she’s not here right now.”

Lewys picked up the fishing rod and began casting with me. “Aunt Linna was really mad at you,” he finally offered.

“Yeah, I know.”

“How come?”

“Why does everybody think I’m going to tell them that?” I sighed. “Okay, I’ll give you this much: she was scared.”

“Scared? Aunt Linna?”

“Yes, she was. She was scared of what I might do, because I sometimes do things without thinking. And in our little talk that you so conveniently eavesdropped on, I assured her I wasn’t going to do anything like that.”

“Oh.” He made a face. “This is all hard.”

“Yeah, life is hard. Even when you’re all grown up.”

"That doesn't seem fair."

"It isn't. But I'll let you know if it ever does turn out fair; I think I'd like that every once in a while." 

 

I suppose I ought to have saved an earlier draft to show you what I wasn't keeping, but still I wanted to share a bit about the difficulty I face in writing. It can be a lonely and humbling process, and agonizing over something as simple as this is a guaranteed way to drive me nuts. 

But the thing is, I derived some inspiration from the fact that many famous people --geniuses, really-- agonize over their craft in their own way.

Here's a short clip of Maximillian Schell and Leonard Bernstein discussing Beethoven and what made him a genius. 

Speaking of geniuses...

The fact that Beethoven struggled and agonized over the creation process makes me feel better about my own struggles. Not because I think I'm a genius, but because people of Beethoven's stature struggled to come up with their works of art. And here I am, just struggling to put words on a page that made even a smidgen of sense. 

So many other modern creators, particularly those who loudly proclaim their own genius, loudly trumpet the ease at which they make their creations. Yet I think it is more humbling to see the real struggles people have --and what they have overcome-- that inspires me to try harder. In that case the real genius is perseverance. 

#Blaugust2026

The Attraction of the New

Have you ever had that urge to start a new game, but you were reluctant to pull the trigger because your lack of impulse control would mean that you'd spend all available time on it?

Yeah, that's me.

Oh, I have some impulse control, it's that the interest in the game would override whatever I do have until that initial 20+ hours are out of the way. 

Then there are games where you make a poor decision very early in the game and you pay for it hours later when things are a lot more difficult to course correct.

Like this game.

For some reason, I pick a starting location that by the time the city gets to a pretty decent size --typically when you need post-secondary education-- I suddenly realize that my starting location was really crappy. 

I guess that means I'm like just any other urban planner out there.

That "poor starting location" is not confined to traditional city simulators, but also those in another world.

What made me think that starting a colony
on Mars while surrounded by mountains
was a good idea?

That screencap, from a Surviving Mars game from earlier this year, highlights my lack of planning. I look at the mountains and think "Ooo, pretty!" or maybe "Ooo, resources!" but it never works out that way. It just ends up being a royal pain in the ass to maneuver and build around. Gameplay like that emphasizes that people who do this for a living and have spent years trying to figure out where to build a base on Mars (or the Moon, for that matter) are much better at it than me.

Oh well. I suppose there's always playing Civ V for a change...

It could be worse, I suppose.

#Blaugust2026

Meme Monday: Saved Game Memes

Yes, I play MMOs, which technically have no "saved game" feature. However, I do play a lot of other video games that are not only single player but also allow you to save your progress. 

(Just because I can knock out a game of Age of Empires or Civ IV in one day doesn't mean that I'm not familiar with saving my progress.)

Of course, saving your progress and coming back to it later have their own issues. Hence this Meme Monday.

Of course you did, Joey. 
From Reddit (and Friends).

Yes, this is me. From Pinterest.

Again, this is me. From Reddit.

This happened once in a game of TI-99 4/A's
Tunnels of Doom. However, I was the older brother
and it was I accidentally overwrote my younger
brother's save. From Memedroid.

Yeah, I automatically think that this is gonna be bad.
Video games have conditioned me to think this way.
From Pinterest.

Wait, what?
From Thunder Dungeon.

#Blaugust2026

Do We All Use Quest Logs?

I sometimes wonder just how much real life mimics video games. Or novels, for that matter.

Sure, there's the obvious comparison, that the latter two are not reality, and reality is closer to a stream of consciousness than the latter two are*, but I often wonder whether we view life as more of a series of tasks just to make things manageable.

I suppose the most obvious form of that is how games and stories --particularly in Fantasy-- emphasize the quest as basically a task manager.

From Matthew Willis and swordscomic.com.
Also from the BBC.

When I used to keep track of my work activities in a daily calendar** about 30 years ago, I never looked at it as a "Quest Log", but in it's own way it was. Even today, while I don't keep a formal to-do list, I run over all of the things I'm supposed to do in a given day and set about doing them. You know, things like "do a load of the laundry", "cut the grass", and "write a blog post"***.

Okay, cutting the grass might not happen since we're supposed to have rain today, but the other two are getting done.

Is this us attempting to make sense of the world and cutting down to easily serviceable tasks, or did we train ourselves to do this because we looked at what we did in video games and books and thought "You know what, we could do something like this in real life!" Either way, I think Franklin Planner is making a lot of money on this.

From Wikipedia on Franklin Planner.

*Although my reading of Mrs. Dalloway for an English seminar at university might beg to differ about the "stream of consciousness" part.

**I had so many things to do in a day, I was lucky if I got about half of them done in about 12 hours.

***That's mainly a "during Blaugust" thing. Admittedly, I start writing after 9 PM when I remember that I ought to write a post.

#Blaugust2026

Happy Hour at the Dungeon

It's kind of a tradition in MMO group content to find someone who's been imbibing some alcoholic beverages. I mean, it's typically an after hours activity, and if you're at home (or at an internet cafe) and you're of the right age, why not have a drink or two?

Unfortunately, it's also a tradition for people to over imbibe in group content.

There was one time back in January 2022 where our TBC Classic raid team was raiding Serpentshrine Cavern, and we were testing out a new Main Tank. He seemed competent enough, and while I could hear the occasional glug of a drink, I didn't think anything of it. I mean, I used to have a beer when I raided before my hospital stay, so why not someone else? Well, right before we were to take on Lady Vashj, we'd prepped for the pull and.... Nothing. The "new" Main Tank didn't pull. He didn't respond to our calls in Discord.

He had passed out right before the pull of the last boss in the raid.

Oops. 

We quickly scrambled and to a replacement MT to show, but no, we didn't kill Vashj on that raid. 

Oh well.

Anyway, I bring this up because last night I was taking a break and goofing around on the Anniversary servers, and I figured I'd get into an instance or two. If nothing else, they ought to be pretty standard runs for a Friday night. 

Have I ever mentioned my naïveté before?

On the first run, there were three guild members: tank, healer, and Enhancement Shaman DPS. The Healer was drunk. And by drunk, I mean "he was doing shots of tequila" drunk. Despite that, we were doing okay, until the latest shots hit his system, about 2/3 of the way through. 

How do I know this? He started speaking of himself in third person. 

At one point, the Shaman had died and I made a quip about reaction times and the Shaman replied saying "I'm laughing so hard I'm crying right now."

People died enough times that someone thankfully dropped a repair bot, so we could repair without our gear breaking.

Still, it was a fun run, if for nothing else that the Healer provided enormous amounts of unintentional comedy.

The second run was a bit different, because the Mage didn't speak English other than "GO" or "YAY" or "SAD" or "HAPPY".* Still, I could tolerate that were it not for the tank being inebriated, so he wasn't being that attentive to the Healer. At one point the Healer specifically said after a boss fight "brb bio", and the tank kept right on going. When the Healer came back and managed to rescue a bad pull, she pointed out she said "brb bio" and tank replied with "we didn't die".

::rolls eyes::

The tank made a couple of other bad judgements in the run, one we recovered from and one... we didn't. Luckily I was on Joan, and therefore I had Soulstoned the Healer just for such an emergency. The Healer then called out the adds that we had on that pull and the tank claimed innocence.  At least that didn't turn out to be a big row, but for certain the Healer split right after the last boss. Can't say I blamed her.

I guess it's a pick your poison sort of situation: if you make people laugh and you're obviously silly about it, that forgives a host of sins. But if you're pushing when there's no reason to, and because you're a bit drunk you're not quite as fast with reflexes as you think you are...

Hey, it wasn't my fault this time!!!

*At the end of the run, I asked for a portal in both English and Spanish, and no bueno.

#Blaugust2026

Amusing Guild Names, 2026 Edition

Here's something I haven't done in quite a while: Funny Guild Names.

I have a bunch of them that I haven't done anything with, and now's as good a time as any to post some of them. (That's the polite way of saying I couldn't schedule a post correctly and it accidentally posted last night instead of today.)

#Blaugust2026

Duck Duck Go Goes Where Google Doesn't

Well, duh.

If you've heard of Duck Duck Go, you know that it has hung its hat on your privacy, whereas Google has prioritized company profits. I've been moving my search more and more over to Duck Duck Go, and one big relief from my end is that DDG does believe that this blog exists:

I even got ahead of the AI Context Parallelism
blog. From August 12, 2026.

That makes me feel pretty good to know that both Bing and DDG know I exist. Alas, Google still thinks I'm a figment of people's imagination:

As of August 12, 2026.

Their AI doesn't even have the correct blog, much less a direct entry to it. Thanks to Atheren for referencing me at least that one time, which is how Google knows there might be something there.

And for completeness, here's Bing's results:

As of August 12, 2026.

Funny how the graphic they have there is a pretty old one about Mass Effect, but hey, at least I'm at the top of the search results.

I've kind of given up trying to understand why the supposed "best search engine evah" can't find a blog that's been around since 2009 and has over 1800 published posts. I guess they want money from me to suddenly "improve" my search results --I know that Bing does-- which would effectively turn Google into the 2020's version of Yahoo. You know, that's not exactly a comparison I'd be proud of if I were Google.

#Blaugust2026

Teaching That Old Dog (Again)

I will say this about AI: it's driven me to learning a new programming language for the first time in 30 years.

In O'Reilly We Trust, which I guess
makes me an old fart (tm).

I know Python has been around since the early 90s, but when I was learning Perl and C++ in the mid-90s for my then software QA job, it seemed to have no really big use for me. In the late 90s Java was the new hotness --despite how crappy the memory leaks were-- and Python only really took off in the 2000s when my job utilized Perl and shell scripting, so... Python wasn't needed.

And now, with Claude Code from Anthropic being the new thing, I have to learn Python so I can perform proper code reviews when necessary. Apologies to all of those YouTube sponsorships from Boot.Dev, but I'm going to learn it how I taught myself Perl: reading a book published by O'Reilly* and figuring it out myself. I might not have code to review, but I'm sure that'll be how I'll end up learning it: by looking at code to see what it does and whether it does what we want it to do.

So... thanks, AI? 

But could you at least have given me an extra year of puttering around with amateur radio before you exploded like you have in 2026?

*Mine was Learning Perl by Randal L. Schwartz, 1993. Yes, the First Edition:

Here it is in all it's glory.
It's still holding up fairly well for
a well-loved 30 year old book.

#Blaugust2026

Not Exactly a Gaming Evening

Yesterday was pretty wild here for non-gaming reasons.

From the livestormchasers.com Instagram feed
for August 11, 2026.

There were a about 3 or 4 of what I'll charitably call F0 or F1 tornadoes in that line of storms that hit us last afternoon --including one just across the Ohio River in Northern Kentucky-- but my neighborhood was missed. One tornado was a couple of miles south of us, another a couple of miles north of us. 

And really, you don't need a tornado to do some massive damage. This is what happened to a gas station in Brown County, Ohio, a couple of counties to the east of Hamilton County (where I live):

We lost some vinyl siding on our house, but luckily for us it landed across the street completely intact. That's relatively so, because it slammed into their front door before flopping to the ground. (I'm still not sure how it stayed intact.) I ought to be able to put it back into place when the roof over the garage dries out and I can safely get up there to put it back. We got extremely lucky overall, with only that damage, whereas our neighbors had chimney caps torn off, trees toppled, and debris crashing into the side of their houses, damaging the siding. There has also been downed trees, power lines, and even in the Columbus area (the central part of the state) a car driving on the I-71 interstate was flipped over by the winds that hit them in the late morning. 

As for us, a tree toppled across I-71 here in Cincinnati and crashed into a truck that had the bad luck to be driving by.

Before you ask, yes the two of us are both fine, and my son who lives on the east side of Cincinnati was fine as well. My wife was at work, and they closed up the store and ushered everybody --employees and customers-- into the fire safety corridor, which was the safest part of the building. They were there for 45 minutes, but outside of hearing the noise from the storms they had no idea what was going on. 

As for me, I had a doctor's appointment earlier in the afternoon and got home in time before the storms hit. When the sirens went off I turned on the news, and when WLWT's Meteorologist Kevin Robinson said for my immediate area to head for shelter something slammed into our back door, picked up by the wind, and I scampered to the basement and stayed there until the worst of it passed.

So yeah, gaming hasn't exactly been on my mind this evening.

This intersection is 2 miles from my home as
the crow flies. And no, that's not mountains;
That's clouds and rain. From Steve Bowling via WCPO.

#Blaugust2026

Not Exactly a Unicorn Week

Even though I didn't play much on the Anniversary servers the past week, when I did play I had a good time grouping with people to run some instances. If you're used to pseudo-random groups* being completely silent during instance runs, then the runs I was involved with last week were anything but that. 

Yes, yes, I know, I can be chatty when I'm in a group and someone breaks the ice, but this time around I was far from the most active in any of the groups. When I was on Joan, that didn't come as a surprise because inevitably someone would comment on the name "Joanofdark", but when I ran as Neve on the Horde side there was another chatty person far more interested in social connections than I was in her dungeon runs. 

What struck me the most last week, however, were the number of people who mentioned to me at the end of the run that they'd added me to their Friends List. In all of the cases, they mentioned that in addition to a smooth run they had a good time just hanging out with me. As I told one of my friends group later, "It's amazing how not being an asshole works out."

Hey, why is everybody looking at me?
From Memedroid and Dogeloaf using
the OG 'Scooby Doo, Where Are You?' cartoon.

There are times when it feels like being nice to people in an MMO is an exercise in futility, but last week proved to me that there are still people who prize a good connection in an MMO over other things. I have no idea what the rest of this week will be like, but you never know.

*The LFD automated queue finder doesn't exist on the WoW Classic Anniversary servers. Instead, it's a semi-random process where your name gets thrown up along with everybody else who is looking for people for a group, and it's up to you or another person to actually assemble the group based on what person you want. Some classes (Mage, Protection Paladin) have an easier time of finding groups than others.

#Blaugust2026

Meme Monday: Miscellaneous Memes for August 2026

Wow, it's been March since my last Miscellaneous Memes post? That explains why I've got a bunch of memes lying around.

Uh, I can't remember where I got this
meme. It's been a while since I obtained it.

Heh. At least it's better than some MMO names.
From Imgflip.

It actually was pretty humid outside today.
From iFunny.

Truth. From Pinterest.

I have actually been that person who gets beat
on multiple times. From the Blizzard Forums.

Will installing Microprose's Darklands count?
From Fity Club.

#Blaugust2026

A Short Sunday Annoyance

I have been wrestling with a household issue that is both annoying, frustrating, and vexing: fire alarms.

About 2 years ago, our long running fire alarm in the hallway at the top of the stairs started going off for no good reason. I cleaned it off, reset it, and a couple of days later it would go off again. I sighed, went down to Lowe's, and discovered that they didn't carry any of the battery operated fire alarms anymore. They had wired fire alarms and fire alarms with a sealed battery in them that were supposedly good for 10 years, and that was it. So I picked up one of the 10-year alarms and installed it.

A few months later THAT alarm started going off at random times, so I grumbled and got a replacement. Finally, we had some peace and that alarm behaved as it should: only going off when I actually tested it with smoke.

So, that was how things stayed until about 3 months ago, when that alarm started going on the fritz. I reset it, cleaned and dusted around it, and it stopped the random behavior. 

Until a couple of days ago.

This time around, I decided that I was done with these First Alert fire alarms misbehaving so I went to Home Depot to see if they had other brands.

Sure enough, they had the Kidde brand instead of First Alert*, and whaddya know, there were AA battery operated fire alarms available in addition to the 10 year sealed models. And they were a LOT cheaper, so I picked one up and just installed it about 1/2 hour ago.

I don't know if enshittification has hit something so basic --yet so critical-- as fire alarms, but if they start asking for subscriptions for these things I think I know the answer.

*Back when we first moved into our house Home Depot had First Alert, then they switched to Firex, and in 2009 Kidde bought Firex out and the brand name changed to Kidde. Go figure. Lowes wasn't in our area at the time, so I have no idea what they carried back then.

EtA: Corrected spelling and grammar.

#Blaugust2026

Talk About Your Perfect Storms

I was watching this video from Gameranx about the potential Sony PS6 launch being in a perfect storm of problems, and it got me to thinking.

This video was focusing on the console itself, but the shortages affecting all parts of the computer industry will not only affect the next generation of consoles (and PCs), but the peripherals and monitors/televisions as well. When you get down to it, all electronic devices utilize memory and storage and processors to a greater or lesser degree, and the shortages across the industry will also impact the price of those devices too. 

Looking to upgrade your television to a 4K or 8K version to take advantage of the new capabilities of the PS6? It'll cost more.* Need a decent sound bar? That'll cost more too. How about a new headset or controller? Yep, those will be hit by price increases as well.

Sure, RAM prices get all of the attention, and justifiably so, but it's not like they're alone in price increases. The data center boom is sucking up all available manufacturing capability to the point where components earmarked for the consumer market (or even the traditional business market) are put on the back burner. Don't be surprised if the lack of priority extends to manufacturing such as automobiles, commercial jets, and even items such as those damn Flock cameras.**

I do wonder whether the conspicuous consumption of electronics in general will grind to a halt given all the headwinds we're facing. Job losses, hardware shortages, software price hikes, economic uncertainty, and tariffs all combine to create a potential perfect storm to nuke consumer spending. Of course, a lot of these companies aren't interested in consumers, but the B2B market space that LLMs live in. The thing is, if people can't afford things, that will create a ripple effect backward through the economy, and the push to adopt LLMs will suddenly dry up when companies' bottom line becomes affected.

Gloomy thoughts for a Saturday, I suppose, but still I look at the short-sightedness of all of this behavior and think that there's going to be a lot of upset people in a couple of years.

*Or manufacturers like Samsung and others will put ads directly into their software, like Stellantis is doing with putting ads on the screens in their cars.

**Just remember, when you buy a smart doorbell such as one made by Ring or Google (the Nest) and use a subscription to save "your data", it's really going to be deposited in one of these data centers. It may not be one utilized exclusively for AI usage, but it will be put in a data center. It's more a matter of "pick your poison". I'd personally consider a doorbell camera if it meant I could keep the data locally on a hard drive, but those that do (such as TP-Link) don't exactly give me warm fuzzies in terms of security.

***Well, a Friday as I was writing the bulk of this while sitting in yet another presentation about using LLMs to improve my output.

#Blaugust2026

A Vacation from My Vacation

Last evening was the first time I'd been on WoW in several days.

Oh, stop being dramatic.
From Titanic.

It's not that I was tired of WoW or anything, I just didn't log in. There was no pressing need to get on, and I was doing other things, so that was that.

It's always good to gain some perspective by stepping back from what you're immersed in to look around a bit. That's the important part of taking a vacation --not the actual going and doing part-- but rather the self-evaluation made when you step away from your work for a while. I don't think it an accident that the "Great Resignation" came about after the Covid-19 Pandemic. People had plenty of time to think about their lives and the direction they wanted to go, and... They weren't happy with where they were headed. I can't say I blame them one bit, because I know I did.

Given my age, I suppose it's no surprise I've begun reading up on retirement and what it is like for people. I've often quipped that I'll never actually be able to retire, as multiple economic downturns have pretty much sealed the deal for me on that part, but still I wonder if I could make it work. And how other people make retirement work for them as well.

For me, one thing is certain: I'm not one for traveling. My experiences traveling, beginning in my childhood, have never been what I'd call enjoyable. If a family vacation was "not miserable" then that was about as good as it was going to get. Even as an adult I found the few family vacations we took to be not very enjoyable because for certain people in the family a vacation meant "GOGOGO" and "DODODO", when all I wanted was to park myself somewhere and just close my eyes and relax. And as you can imagine, I did not win those familial battles, so I gamely had to deal with it. 

It's kind of ironic that I play games and read books that frequently involve traveling from one place to another, because I'm just done with dealing with all that in real life. Perhaps its because it's more an idealized way of travel without having to do it yourself, particularly given the prices of everything surrounding travel, but it could also be having to witness how cringey some travelers are. You know the old joke about how if you're speaking to someone in another country and they don't understand you, the solution is to speak it LOUDER? Yeah, I've seen that in action. That and a ton of other faux pas that give a credence to the stereotypical Ugly American abroad. And for me, that's just in my own freaking country. 

But right now, stepping back from WoW for several days was what I needed and I didn't even know I needed it. I felt refreshed when I logged in last evening, and I ran a couple of dungeons with people who I didn't know but had an enjoyable time with. I realize that is pretty much the luck of the draw, but falling into a group with a tank/healer combo who were from the same guild and were happy with my output (as in: not pushy into how to maximize my DPS) was pretty much chef's kiss. 

It was low stress and enjoyable, and that's all I could have asked for.

EtA: Fixed a typo.

#Blaugust2026

Gen Con 2026 - Emptying the Backpack

When I mentioned in the previous video that there were things to unpack, I wasn't kidding.

I typically bring the backpack I use for work when I go to Gen Con.* It prevents me from going crazy and buying all sorts of stuff at Gen Con because it had all better fit in that backpack. I realize I could just carry around an extra bag, but come on. Have you SEEN the crowds at Gen Con? We're talking about ~74,000 attendees over four days, and the place was already crowded enough without me lugging around an extra bag. I also held some things for my son, so my parts of my backpack were already spoken for.

That means I didn't end up buying board games at Gen Con, but that's okay. If I wanted to buy a board game, I'd rather support my local game store.

Funny thing, that...

My Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS) held an "RPG Celebration Sale" on July 18th, where all RPGs and both Reaper and WizKids Minis were 20% off. Oh, and if you spent enough ($50) they had a bunch of goodie bags full of freebies to give away. 

So...

Yeah, I indulged there, knowing full well that it was coming out of my Gen Con budget. Therefore, I'm counting what I purchased there as part of my Gen Con haul. My blog, my rules.

...and that's it.

Yes, I bought a RuneQuest splatbook that fills in the gaps of some of the RuneQuest mythology, and what's ostensibly the Pendragon Gamemaster Screen but with several extras...

Yeah, just a few.

The map actually won awards at Gen Con last year, so I was happy to have that included in the bundle, but there was also a Gamemaster Gazetteer and some Gamemaster Resources tucked away in separate booklets.

(Hmm... I ought to do an RPG From the Past on Pendragon in general.)

Both of these items were printed by Chaosium, who were well represented at Gen Con, but I thought it better to purchase these at my local store so not only would Chaosium get paid but so would my local store.

***

Now, about Gen Con itself...

I gave serious consideration to picking up another Traveller book, and my oldest espied me perusing the volumes there in the Exhibit Hall and teased me a bit about that. However, in the end I decided to not purchase my typical annual Traveller book because I had other things in mind.

One item was a pure impulse buy:

Published by Goodman Games.

Yes, it doesn't look like much --more like a notebook that someone had doctored with stickers-- but I was quite surprised to find this at Goodman Games' booth because I hadn't heard anything about it. You see, several years ago I'd purchased this book from my FLGS:

I'm always up for a book of short pieces from experienced game designers and game masters to help me understand the process behind adventure design, and this proved to not only be a great read but full of great tips as well. So when I saw its sequel at Gen Con, I immediately snapped it up. The listing of authors on the back of the new volume didn't exactly hurt, either:

Even my wife, who looked over my purchases when I got back home, recognized some of the names: Luke Gygax (one of Gary's sons), Steve Jackson ("THE Steve Jackson??" she asked), and Sean K. Reynolds. I knew a lot more of the authors than she did, and that alone made it worthwhile to pick up.

A bit later I wandered by the MIT Press booth, and I pretty much geeked out a bit. Yes, I am a real geek if I get excited about a university press being represented at a con such as Gen Con, and unlike last year they brought enough books that they still had products to sell on Sunday. And being the history nerd that I am, I bought two books about the history of Role Playing Games:

Both of these books are THICK, each at least an inch thick, and I've listened to Jon's podcasts off and on over the course of the past year so I knew what I was getting when I bought these: well researched and well written. I mean, MIT wouldn't have published them if that wasn't the case.

I did pick up a short and sweet game about cat cuddles for my youngest --no, she's not going to play it with Mooch-- and I stopped by Many Worlds Tavern because I saw something that spoke to me: coffee. I remembered that Many Worlds sells coffee and tea, and while the only ground or whole bean coffee they had left on Sunday afternoon was decaf, I picked up some loose leaf black tea to drink when I'm not in a coffee mood:

Morning Mists Breakfast Black Tea

It'll go well with a present my oldest gave me at Gen Con which she'd gotten from a local coffee shop in Milwaukee:

From Stone Creek Coffee. I've discovered that
Milwaukee has quite a few good coffee shops.

Oh, I guess I ought to mention a few freebies I got as part of attending Gen Con:

The little die in the pouch came from Many Worlds Tavern for purchasing the tea, the poster of the Daggerheart expansion that came out was being just handed out at the end of the con, and I figured "why not" and picked it up. That last one, the Knights of the Dinner Table comic, came from Kenzer and Co., and for me was a blast from the past. I have several KotD comics around (somewhere) that I'd picked up a couple of decades ago, so seeing a freebie just being handed out like that made me happy. I got to see an old friend again.

***

So, that's it. Not all that much, but enough for me. The books alone will keep me busy when I'm not working on radio or writing or gaming.

The crowds aside, I'm looking forward to next year's Gen Con!

*Minus my laptop, of course.

#Blaugust2026