Drifting to the left

TL;DR: If your game controller isn't working, it's not your fault. My apologies if you clicked on this post expecting to see a political discussion. It's difficult to talk about the real topic of this essay without using the word "left". The actual topic? Joystick drift on a PS5 controller. A trivial topic, to be sure. There…

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No murder, no mystery

It looks like the murder mystery party I'd planned for Dec 7, 2024, is not going to happen. That's the TL;DR version. The rest of this post goes over the details, if you're interested. I'm not sad Let's get this out of the way: I'm not actually disappointed by this. A murder-mystery party is fun, and I…

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1400 days of Klingon

qaStaHvIS wa'SaD loSvatlh jaj tlhIngan Hol vIHaDtaH = I have been studying Klingon for fourteen hundred days. I don't have anything new to add to my earlier essays on using Duolingo to learn Klingon. Frankly, I've grown weary of the daily practice. I see the same phrases over and over again. I don't feel like I'm learning…

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Baldur’s Gate 3 – Playthrough 10 – Easing up

Did you think that title means that I'm finally easing up on playing BG3? Sorry, no. I mean that I'm taking it easy on you. I know my blog is read by perhaps a dozen people. When a couple of them make the same observation, it means a lot. That observation is that the last couple of…

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Murder Mystery Party – Which category are you?

I know it's only been a week since I sent out my last post on this party, to be held on Saturday Dec 7. Normally I'd wait a couple more weeks before asking folks for information. However, circumstances are different this time around. I have to make arrangements for the venue now. Believe it or not, it…

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Murder Mystery Party

I hosted a Murder Mystery Masquerade for my 60th birthday. It's been five years. A couple of friends suggested that I don't wait until I'm 70 before doing a mystery party again. The date will be Saturday, December 7, 2024. Save the date! The place: I could use some suggestions for the venue. I think we'll only…

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BG3 on the Mac

If you regularly read this blog, you know that I've posted a lot about Baldur's Gate 3. You also may remember my long discursive posts on using a Macintosh desktop. Therefore, here's the post you've been waiting for: A lengthy description of my problems running BG3 on my Mac. (If I could, I would have added "...…

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Split conversations in MacOS Messages

The principle reason I'm writing this post is that I just got off the phone with Apple Tech support. They gave me to answer to a question I asked them that's been asked in a couple of other places: Mac Messages Splitting Named Group Chat Into Unnamed But Same Group on the Apple Discussion Forums Group text…

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Vote Forward

I just got back from a letter-writing party at a friend's house. The point was to write letters as part of Vote Forward. You send hand-written letters to folks who haven't voted recently. The goal is to boost voter turnout. Everyone who writes a letter is encouraged to use their own words, as long as the tone…

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Baldur’s Gate 3 – Playthrough 9 – Laurelin

Content warning: The story gets dark. That's shown in some of the images, especially those that reflect the relationship between Laurelin and Astarion. If you somehow got to this post directly: This is another post in my BG3 series. I’m not a skilled player. Don’t expect tips for soloing Honor mode. It's both a playthrough write-up and…

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