MAR 03

2026

Tuesday: thanks to my late night, I was not conscious when Julie departed for the airport for her days of out-of-state work. While my work from last night paid off in a huge way, the quality of my workday was diminished by the number of calls I had to take and the complicated nature of the assistance I was required to provide. On the breaks when I wasn't napping in bed, I caught a little bit of Grinding Gear's assault on the new variant dungeon (The Merchant's Tale), a little bit of their Minecraft stream from last week, and a little bit of the final reveal video for Cataclysm. (The set is doing a lot of things I like, but other than being happy about the tools priest is getting and being happy to have colossal minions back again, I'm not desperate to play it to the degree I was with sets like TITANS or Showdown in the Badlands.) As soon as work ended, I went out to the living room to keep Mim company for a bit, turned on the TV, and immediately fell asleep until after 10.

So, how did I spend my first night without Julie? I made my usual orzo, ate dinner while finishing some of those videos I'd started earlier in the day, and then spent a little time with John and Juice in the living room while watching some early season 4 BoJack Horseman. After I put the food away, I treated the cats and came into the office to clear out some Hearthstone quests, using a Mill DK list that's about to stop working with the upcoming Standard rotation. I wrote this update, and then I planned to get into WoW: Midnight just long enough to do my auctions and get to the next questing spot. Tomorrow morning, I need to make a list of all my plans for the day, and then follow it rigorously.

2025

Monday: had a busy morning at work, in which I split my time between trade sanctions emails and follow-up requests before I started taking calls. I ended up helping an internal agent with a call that lasted two and a half hours due to a system error, so I had a much delayed lunch break. Bad for my handle time stats, but I love this kind of complicated investigation. After my shift, Julie and I prepared for Quizzo, but the bar was packed. We were fortunate to be seated almost immediately after our arrival, and we had our usual orders. (Grilled Caesar salad for me; buffalo chicken for Julie.) While we managed to outperform the teams in our immediate vicinity, we didn't quite place.

After we got back home and I treated the cats, I logged into WoW to try to defeat Zekvir before the close of season one of The War Within. I probably should have put more effort into preparing in prior weeks, because despite numerous attempts, I'd only managed to bring him to 15% health two or three times before it reached 4:00 AM. It's frustrating to feel like the goal was within my grasp, if I'd just given myself more time to pursue the objective. Ah well. At least they're saying that the reward is still going to be available in season two, albeit at a reduced drop rate.

2024

Sunday: took more calls than I would prefer at work. Julie did her store run today since it had been drizzly yesterday, and she picked up more grapes for me. I had a Moondrop Isle meeting today, but I did do a little bit of Hearthstone first since today's Twist format let me play one of my old favorite shaman decks using the Kel'thuzad/Reincarnate combo. Julie made chicken fried rice for dinner, and like usual, we enjoyed it way too much. I spent the rest of my evening doing design, troubleshooting work, and a little bit of writing.

2023

Friday: another late start, and after work I had more of Julie's casserole for dinner. I spent a lot of the evening thinking about projects I'm working on and watching related videos.