Good Morning Friends! Last night I did not do a ton of gaming because around 7 pm I went outside… and largely stayed there until 9 pm. I got a message from my wife that Greybie had shown up in the backyard, and I wanted to get some lovins. Greybie is such a good boy, and once again I tried to coax him to hop up on my lap and failed miserably. He however wanted pretty much constant attention and would reach up anytime I stopped petting him. I had the original intention of going out and reading, but instead, I pretty much spent all of the two hours that I was out there… hanging out and spending time with Greybie. Our backyard is a bit of a peaceful oasis, and I’ve realized that I actually do like entertaining folks… just exclusively of the fur-bearing kind.
Tripod was a bit calmer last night and instead of pacing back and forth under the table, she hopped up in one of the chairs and watched us from a few feet away all night long. There was one moment where she slinked her way over behind me… then suddenly thought better of it and retreated back to her chair. I did not move to intercept because I wanted to make sure she had the confidence to be closer to us without fear of us trying to grab her or something. This is truly the long con when it comes to Tripod because she has been in our backyard going on five years or so, and it feels like short bursts of progress. She always seems happy when I come out to feed and lingers nearby… but never really gets within touching range.
As soon as we went inside for the night, she was over roaming around my chair to investigate the area. She spent a lot of time sniffing everything to get her bearings. She clearly recognizes me as her human, because when it is just my wife out in the yard she doesn’t get nearly as close as she does when I come out. I just don’t think she knows how to interact with me yet, or has the confidence to actually come over and get attention. She will stare intensely at Greybie when we are petting him and then will start rubbing up against the legs of chairs and such scratching her own head on them. My hope is that she will eventually put the two together and realize that humans do a really good job of being head-scratcher.
While I was going to the effort of posting videos on Catfriend Television, I decided to go ahead and post this video of a rather rotund raccoon visiting the front yard early this morning. I’ve seen as many as four at once, but more recently we’ve just had this one showing up every few nights. I’ve also posted about the possum that visits the backyard and very occasionally the front porch. I’ve yet to capture anything terribly unexpected, but apparently, my dad has four deer that roam around their house. When I went up there to take him to a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, I had to stop while they crossed their driveway. He also has two new cats that showed up, which are rather friendly… Bonnie and Clyde. I’ve yet to get a good photo of Bonnie who has come to visit me each time I’ve been up there lately. She just had a litter of kittens, so I look forward to playing with some tiny fuzzballs at some point.
As far as gaming goes, I think I have wound down Path of Exile for a bit and started picking back up Last Epoch. There is a big patch that is set to land next week, so I am getting back in the swing of things and preparing for that. There is also a new content update for Guild Wars 2 that is about to release next week as well, so I am sure I will be spending some time exploring that as well. I made an attempt at Maven and failed miserably and called it “good enough” for the Crucible League, and will likely just buy a carry next League so I can have the advantage of four void stones. Eater of Worlds and Searing Exarch are so easy to get to… but The Elder and Maven are such a colossal pain in the ass to even get to the fight… let alone defeat them. I don’t really enjoy bossing, but I want the ability to get base T16 maps for everything… so I will likely just spend the currency to get someone to carry me to victory going forward and get it over with.
I hope you all have a great weekend. It is raining like crazy here so I expect it to be a very indoors weekend for us. I’m hoping that I get some more time hanging out with the outdoor cats however.
The post Greybie is Pure appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Hey Folks! I spent some more time yesterday tweaking and leveling my Wintertide Brand Occultist. I’ve dialed up the defensive layers a bit and I have a Watcher’s Eye that should also help whenever I can get the free passive points to allocate a jewel socket for it. This is never going to be a bossing character for me, so with that in mind, I am largely leaning into comfortable mapping clears while upping the survival. Essentially I think my next play is to pick up another strength travel node, which should allow me to drop a +30 strength node and then use that point to allocate the socket for the Watcher’s Eye.
I had a Dawnbreaker laying around in my vault that I picked up off Searing Exarch, and I decided to give it a spin. Sure I lost some damage by dropping the caster shield with +1 to cold gems, but I also gained a number of defensive layers baked into the shield alone. Essentially what this is doing is splitting some portion of the damage I am taking and then making it resolve against my Fire Resistance. Sure my Fire Resistance is not amazing and nothing like the 90% that I have on my Juggernaut… but it is enough to sort of blunt the blow for all other attacks a bit. The shield alone is worth almost 2000 armor by itself and has a small amount of life baked into it along with a 46% block chance. While it doesn’t make a ton of sense thematically… so far I am thinking the Dawnbreaker is helping.
I recorded another video yesterday afternoon of me playing the class and talking through some of the decisions that I am making. Now this video was recorded before I made a number of tweaks like the Dawnbreaker last night but still shows the general state of the build. If you want to look at the state of my tree here is a POB, but note that I currently am muling a new wand with my Juggernaut to level it because I can handle crucible progress so much faster with that character. In the grand scheme of things, I am pretty happy with where things are so far. Sure it is weaker than most of my other builds but I am actually enjoying running around with Wintertide Brand again. Would I start that build in another league over RF Jugg? Probably not. That does not mean however I am not enjoying myself.
Now that the weather is warmer, my wife has been spending a lot of time out in the backyard in the evenings reading. Around 8 pm I decided to go out and check on her, since often she comes in way earlier than that, and found that Greybie had decided to hang out as well. He’s been coming around to the backyard more often lately and it is pretty great. So I spent about an hour out there petting him and trying to coax him up onto my lap. He is still a little too skittish for me to actually lift him up and place him there… and expect him to do anything other than run away. When not actively getting attention he would set up shop underneath one of our chairs and just lay there.
All the while we were back there Tripod was over on the concrete patio off our kitchen… some 15 feet away. Greybie and Tripod seem to tolerate each other, but I am not certain they are actually friends yet. She kept coming closer to us… like she wanted to come over and get attention as well and then would retreat back under the patio table rubbing up against the chairs. I feel like she is on the brink of being more sociable, but I am not entirely sure how to tip her over. Our thought is maybe if she watches us petting Greybie… and him being seemingly happy about it… that she might realize that she too can get love and attention. I would honestly love it if Greybie set up shop in our backyard as well because at least knowing those two cats are relatively safe and happy would be a load off my mind. He lives somewhere down the cul de sac but given that he spends MOST of us time in the orbit of our house… I don’t think he has another family.
I really need to start taking my Steam Deck out into the backyard with me and playing something while just chilling with the feral cats. Last night was delightful but other than when I was actively playing with Greybie I was somewhat bored. You can only screw around on your phone so much before it is no longer interesting.
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Good Morning Friends. Some days, you just are not feeling it at all and struggle to find the initiative to move forward. Today is one of those days. I don’t have any clear focus from the gaming front to drive my writing, so I am sitting here floundering a bit. I am sure I could fill up my pages with more nonsense pulled directly from my misadventures in Path of Exile, but I hate doing that if there isn’t anything I am trying to say. Instead, you are going to get a post of me talking about cats. We will start this off with a picture of Josie in her new favorite spot. We’ve bought so many of these self-heating pads at this point. There is one upstairs in the loft, another beside me here at my computer, one on the downstairs couch, and the first one that lives on the bed. Most recently we picked up two and put them in the greenhouse window in our kitchen… please excuse the mineral-streaked windows because we have not been out to clean them this season. She loves this spot more than any other because it is probably the warmest and also allows her to keep tabs on the backyard ferals.
Speaking of Backyard Ferals, most recently now that the weather has become warmer my wife spends most of her evenings reading on the patio just off our bedroom. Lately, it seems that the grey tabby cat that we call “Greybie” has taken to hanging out back there with her. Normally speaking he is a front porch cat, but is seemingly exploring our backyard as well. I would be perfectly fine if he took up residence there more permanently because I would worry about him far less if he had a known safe place to be. I am wondering if eventually, he will start curling up on my wife while she reads, because he is the most friendly of our feral population. When I feed in the morning and evening he seems way more interested in getting love than he does the food. He is not so tame that a wrong movement at any time won’t send him running away, however.
Tripod the usual resident of our backyard is becoming more used to having human beings active while she is. She had disappeared for about a month and when she came back she has been way more friendly than usual. That is not to say either of us can actually touch her, but she is way more willing to eat while I am standing nearby than she used to be. More recently with my wife spending as much time in the backyard as she has, Tripod is getting more used to humans while she is active. She has always tolerated me, but for whatever reason when my wife came outside she went hiding. Now I guess she is getting used to a quietly reading human presence and has started lounging about. This was taken from the first day I noticed she didn’t flee, she had taken up a location on the lawn on the far side of the patio off our kitchen.
The next day my wife sent me this rather blurry photo of a phenomenon I had witnessed of her spread out and snoozing on the glass-top television on the kitchen patio. So it seems like she is starting to get way more willing to let her guard down when either of us is out there. She still talks up a storm while I feed her, but shows no real sign of letting me get close enough to pet her. I mean she has been our backyard cat for going on five years at this point, so the progress that has been made has been excruciatingly slow. I am not sure what happened while she was gone from our yard for a little over a month, but it seemed to have given her a new appreciation of the relatively safe place she has to call home. I am not holding my breath that we will ever be able to touch her or even pick her up… but one can hope I guess.
There is zero doubt that Tripod owns our backyard. I honestly feel bad that at some point soon we will be opening the pool and depriving her of one of her favorite spots. There is a place where our pool cover sags a bit giving her a little hammock on the edge that she spends a good deal of time lounging in. We’ve contemplated getting some work done on our back deck to replace a good chunk of it, but I admit I am a bit worried that it might drive her off permanently. She has found her way back to our yard a few times after disappearing for a bit, so part of me hopes that she would do the same again after the construction was finished.
So I guess this is how you make a blog post when you are not feeling like writing a blog post. I am sure tomorrow I will be back with my normal gaming nonsense.
The post Backyard Cat Intermission appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Friends! This year I have been more than a little bit scatterbrained and unfocused. As a result, many things have slipped… not the least of which is realizing that it is apparently anniversary time. For whatever reason I tend to start a lot of things in April and both the anniversary of Tales of the Aggronaut (April 17th, 2009) and our AggroChat Podcast (April 13th, 2014) landed this month. Then there was April 26th of 2013 when I started what I called the “Grand Experiment” of forcing myself to blog every single day which lasted a little over three years before landing on something more manageable of “every weekday unless I really don’t feel like it”. You could say that this also ultimately led to the creation of Blaugust because I personally found a lot of success in forcing myself to blog damn the torpedos.
In the grand scheme of things the key to longevity for me, was to shift my focus of this blog as a vehicle for some specific planned idea… and instead just make it about whatever I happened to want to be talking about at the time. This is my blog… the Bel does dumb nonsense blog… and if you are along for the ride awesome. If this is not your jam, that is also awesome because I realize I am very much an acquired taste. I don’t have an overwhelming number of readers to be honest, but the ones I do have… end up being exceptionally loyal. Most of them are people that I legitimately consider friends… which is why in part the whole recent verbiage of “Good Morning Friends” is not inherently dishonest. I realize I am mostly talking to a circle of friends that occasionally has some rando stumble into that conversation. The thing is… those randos are also more than welcome to hang out and become friends too.
When I post on social media that I am not making a post for a given day… it isn’t out of some ego trip because I know the world continues to tick along just fine if I have not extruded words. I do it because in the past when I have skipped a day… I had a lot of folks checking in on me to make sure I am okay. I do it out of a sense of not wanting to make this community of friends that read my ramblings worry about me. Honestly, my favorite part about joining the Fediverse and leaving Twitter has been just how many new faces I have seen join the ranks of people who appear to be consuming my nonsense each day. I want you all to feel welcome, but also I am still mostly writing these posts like I am talking to myself so… sorry for not being more interesting.
So if you have been reading my blog for a bit, you will probably be familiar with Tripod… the admittedly horribly named three-legged feral calico cat that lives in our backyard. I’ve not talked about this situation lately because it honestly really depressed me. Roughly a month ago… two dogs got into our yard under the front fence and seemingly chased her off. We’ve been watching anxiously hoping for any signs of her, checking the video camera feeds multiple times per day hoping for a glimpse of her. We were starting to worry that something had happened to her. The next-door neighbor saw the dogs chasing her, but also that she got away from them and they did not follow. However, we’ve learned from experience in the past with other backyard ferals… that when they disappear they are often gone permanently.
However last night while my wife was sitting on the back patio reading, she showed back up. I went out and put some food out but she was too skittish to come over and eat. My hope is that once my wife went inside she fed, though I did not notice her on the camera. That said she is also pretty damned good at avoiding detection algorithms. This morning she was milling around the little house we have in the backyard for her, so my hope is she spent the night there. When I go out to feed in a few minutes I am hoping that she comes out and eats. I mean it isn’t like she is defenseless and I am certain that she is more than capable of catching a meal… but she also looks way thinner than when we last saw her. I cannot explain fully what a gift it is to see her again because we were overwhelmed with concern for the last several weeks. So much so that I just could not bring myself to write about it.
In other nighttime visitor news… we have a few adorable Raccoons and at least one very chubby Possum that come by. I really should start uploading to Catfriend Television again, my dumb YouTube channel that I started during the pandemic where I uploaded clips from our security cameras of cats and other visitors. There is one video clip that I have somewhere that shows two raccoons up on the porch, and another few waiting in the wings on the sidewalk. I feel like some people would have a drastically different reaction than I do… but so long as they are not causing a mess I am more than happy to have them visiting. When I was a Scout camp counselor, I remember some raccoons getting into my igloo cooler and stealing my dry Gatorade powder. Maybe I should put some out for them and see if this group likes that too. I know it was a raccoon because there were sticky red paw prints leading out of my tent.
Lastly, I recorded another one of my dumb videos yesterday. I have been running up an alt in Path of Exile and was amused at just how easily Toxic Rain Ballista/Caustic Arrow deletes mobs. I was talking to my friend Ace about it and decided to record a video showing it off. Granted this is just the campaign and I have no idea if this will continue into mapping… but I am probably going to do a follow-up video once I have verified that it still remains good. Like always I mostly record these for me, or for some other purpose than to ever get YouTube viewers. I enjoy making these short dumb videos, and just like with my blog… am perfectly fine if no one actually consumes them.
Anyways! I am officially in my fifteenth year with this blog and I just want to thank you all for following me on this journey. At this point, daily blogging is so ingrained in my person that I am pretty sure I will be doing this 25 years from now as well. The slow death of social media has only served to drive home just how important it is to me to have a place on the internet that I can call entirely my own.
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