melchar

Yay - happy birthday to me. Born on a rainy Hallowe'en morning while my dad listened to baseball on radio. Until I was 5, I thought people dressed up & gave away candy because it was my birthday.

Really good birthday present was an 11th gen iPad - which is the year's culmination of presents [Xmas, Valentines, anniversary & now birthday] - and worth it. However, after the actual BUYING the 'geniuses' at the Apple store were useless at setting it up or transferring the data from my current [6 year old] iPad. Wasted 2 hours there with them unable to install the needed update to the pad, much less do the data transfer.

Back home, Trey spent an hour fixing what they messed up - essentially scrubbed it back to factory specs. Then he spent another 90 minutes doing a fresh install, then update to the current OS & then did the full data transfer. He was helped by our wifi being roughly 4x as fast as that at the Apple store. He was [& IS] awesome.

I had an interesting 'conversation' with someone passionately, violent opposed to industrialization today. They wanted humanity to 'go back to nature' and get rid of all the machines, since machines were causing global warming. They made my head hurt.

Commenting just about the climate-change part, I did agree that industry & humanity has absolutely affected the Earth's climate & help cause some of the overall warming, but not as much as vulcanism.

But ... it was hard to get across the idea that 'warming', in general, is not a completely bad thing. Back in the 1970's - when I was studying geology in college - my teacher's HUGE worry was that the earth is WAY overdue for another period of glaciation. Interstadial periods - the time spent between Ice Ages - have averaged between 10,000 and 40,000 years long. The current interstadial period that we are now in is the longest one on record.

So we are overdue for an Ice Age. Currently, estimates are that the Earth can support up to 12 billion people - as long as we can keep producing food at our current rate. BUT - if there is a glaciation, then the MAXIMUM number of human beings that can live on Earth is maybe one billion - and those only at equatorial regions.

Humanity can survive global warming, albeit with quality of life degradation for some of us. Personally, I HATE hot weather. There will be more disease. Melting glaciers will cause sea levels to rise - which will cause huge problems in low-lying coastal regions.

There is the speculation that melting glaciers will make the ocean less saline - and cause ocean currents to move & change. If the Gulf Stream shifts too far then it is likely that the British Isles will get MUCH colder: like Iceland cold. Plus more brackish water means that there is less fresh water. And I've read that the worst case scenario could be a sea level rise of more than =*100 feet*= in some areas! At THAT rate - as examples - much of Florida & Louisiana would be underwater ALL the time. The Central Valley of California floods & can't be used for agriculture. That's pretty bad for the U.S., but there are Pacific Ocean island nations that may cease to exist.

That could be bad, but if there is an Ice Age most of us will die. Since I don't live in an equatorial region - and neither did the person I pointed this out to - that would include us. They didn't want to admit this, so that led to a huge argument about people dying off from starvation & disease, if 'industry' was prevented from using machines, since those self-same machines are how food & medicine are now produced.

I don't think I really got my points across well and just feel frustrated that there are people who think 'X' can be fixed by stopping other people from 'doing a thing', without thinking about the consequences.

As stated elsewhere, I would be much happier if all Micro$oft execs were forced to do all of their computing on Recall first. Then, once THEIR information became public/was exploited & the like, maybe they would understand the concerns of other people.

Also - just saw this:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/04/microsoft_analysts_recall/
and this:
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/06/windows-recall-demands-an-extraordinary-level-of-trust-that-microsoft-hasnt-earned/

We originally had 2 old-style, boxy, cathode tube TVs - one 30 inch, one 16 inch - both heavy ... until ...
about 15 years ago when our larger boxy TV was replaced by a big-screen 40 inch plasma TV Xmas gift. It lasted about 10 years, then died & my sweetie's sister gave us 2 46-inch LCD TVs. [She was paid for veterinary services in 5 LCD TVs].

One LCD replaced the dead plasma TV & the other replaced our smaller boxy tube TV. The OLD plasma TV went into our 1-car garage for our car to nuzzle up to every night. Both old tube-TVs worked, so were donated to GoodWill. The new 46" LCDs were nice, then one died after about 2 years & ANOTHER friend gave us their 50 inch LCD they just replaced. So a 46" went into the garage.

That 50 inch replacement began dying a month ago, making 3 dead big-screen TVs. They count as 'hazardous electronic waste' & require special disposal. A different friend is doing major housecleaning & has been making many disposal runs. She took ALL 3 of the big ass TVs along with her yesterday. [This saved us $400 that a haulage company would have charged.] Disposing of the plasma TV cost her an extra $25, which we paid - but we also promised her a NICE dinner for her wonderful help.

Yesterday we also went out to CostCo & bought a new 55 inch LG LCD TV [$350! TVs are so much less expansive now] - plus got 2 standing fans & a small box fan to prepare for summer. It was a big shopping trip for us - even though all 3 fans cost only $90 more.

Tonight we took our friend out to dinner. She chose Red Lobster. The food was delicious & had a marvellous time.

the tl;dr version = there was a garage fire near ours, but we're okay.

Longer version = Spent time outdoors in 38 degree [F] weather from 4am till almost 6am on Tuesday morning because of a structure fire. Our condo is the upper, end unit of a building on the west side. The north side faces closed detached garages with roughly a 20 foot gap between the buildings. Under our building are also garages - [3] 2-car garage sized & [2] 1-car garage size.

These garages open to the north & across from them is the single long row of detached garages in a single floor building & are also [3] 2-car garage sized & [2] 1-car garage size. At the far east side of the 1-story garage area is where the dumpsters are. Sometime very early Tuesday either the furthest east of the 2-car garages in the single floor garage building or one of the dumpsters behind that garage caught on fire.

Just before 4am I heard sirens & there was a pounding on our door as the local police went door-to-door waking folk up & having everyone to leave our building. I woke my sweetie up - myself being awake & online - & grabbed my purse & a blanket. We went outside & had to stay outside until the fire was knocked down.

Showing how sudden stress works, I was not wearing shoes & forgot to grab my glasses. [Being near-sighted I can work on the computer without them just fine & am only blind beyond about 5 foot.] All in all we were fortunate. The dumpster area is a loss, as are the [3] 2-car garages in that 1-story garage building. The 1-car garage NEXT to that seems to be okay & that's where our car is. When we are allowed**, we'll be able to learn if it sustained harm.

Of our condo building - the condo across from the fire had one of their windows crack, but that appears to be the only damage our building took. So NOT an experience I hope to repeat anytime soon. It was quite cold outside.

Time spent today was finding that fire & police investigators determined there was no crime involved in the fire, so the investigation is done. [**We were asked to not open or enter our garage until the investigation was over.] PG&E has said power will not be returned to the building until the Homeowner's group finishes repair. Homeowner's group did start tearing down the dumpster area. By this point it was the afternoon & a light rain was falling.

So Thursday will be when we pull the emergency manual use-once cord to open the electric garage door when the power is out, so we can assess our car's condition. Crossing fingers that everything is well - which is probable since the 2-car garage next to us, with its ruined door, did not sustain fire damage - except by proxy, since the firefighters had to tear its door off to get water in there to dowse the fire in the garage beside it.

Tangental observation = the notes written in equipment about each of the companion's underwear is hilarious!

All 4 of these are hilarious = worth listening 2-3x to = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YG0Fd63_70

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAjwwubCygo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g5VvEPFucE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGcHyn6PycI

Today I learned that you can 'speak with animals' to the owlbear & it won't attack. You can even heal the owlbear's damage ... which does not get it to befriend you or improve her mood. However I -also- learned that if the random movement of the owlbear cub brings it too close to one of your guys that mommy will atttack. ...so will the cub.

I also learned that it is possible to accidentally heal a foe ... like, say, an OWLBEAR - if it is right next to your bard and the mouse click doesn't hit the target like I thought it had.

Despite that, my level 3 guys survived the fight & the owlbear didn't. It very much helped that I had Astarion doing bonus action hiding & sneak attacks with bow. It also helped that Lae'zel was in the party & took the brunt of mommy's attacks - AFTER she FLEW over and attacked my bard ...who was the furthest from her cub... & did 90% damage to him in round #1.

Changed my trio of character choices for Baldur's Gate 3. I am playing each of the 3 classes through each part of the game, taking turns, so that I can experiment with different dialogue and action choices.

I also decided to make the 3 characters as a high-elven bard, a high-elven sorceress & a tiefling paladin. [High elf being chosen for the wide variety of cantrip choices.]

On the nautiloid ship, I had all the characters in the paladin play-through gang up on the demon when we reached the helm. It killed the mind flayer and then we managed to take it down & my pally got its flaming greatsword. In none of the 3 plays did 'Us' manage to survive the fight at the helm.

At the Old Ruins, both the deception and the persuasion responses convinced the 4 bandits to run away. The paladin got a class-related 'paladin intimidation' option that also scared off the 4 bandits.

Inside the Old Ruins, performance got the bard's group inside - there was a fight with the door-keep & that group managed to survive a fight with the other bandits. I tried using stealth and was not particularly successful with that route.
The sorceresss's group used deception, then the same fight with the door-keep & spells were much more successful against the bandits.
The paladin announced himself at the door -which had to be lockpicked open- and the door-keep went and warned the bandits. This grouped them up very nicely for Gale to grease then firebolt - and the pally's class skill to make their barbarian only attack him made the fight easier to deal with.

BG3 has been consistently fun as heck to play.

Bought 'Baldur's Gate 3' on launch day, then spent a couple days brushing up on D&D 5th edition rules, so I knew the class & skills I wanted most: bard & persuasion, perception, stealth, sleight of hand, performance & deception.

Wish I could have 2-3 more skills, TBH

Started my first play-through and 7 hours later, disengaged to make dinner / do other things for a few hours. About to dive in again and the game is simply gorgeous. The music is lovely. My only real complaint is that there is no easy way to look UP.

Moving along after our 37th wedding anniversary & I'm still as dippy/in love with him as ever. I possibly love him more, TBH.

The horror show of wedding #1 - which lasted half a year before I tried to nullify it [he wouldn't agree] & then divorce the guy [he fought] - so it took almost 18 months to get unhitched soured me on marriage.

So my sweety & I lived together for 5 years at my insistence, and he STILL wanted to marry me. 37 years and I want to go on for another 500.