Pandemonium Fortress

With perfect timing Alice joined the game after I finished gambling some better belts for us. I had just exited my "me" character and brought in the pack mule toon to do a Countess run. So he left the game and I came back in with my nearly nude sorceresss.

We jumped to the Flayer Jungle waypoint and Alice quickly led us to Lower Kurast and we tagged our waypoint there. Yay! No more of those convoluted jungles to wander thru. After roaming the sewers for a while we found the lower level and collected Khalim's heart to finish that part of the quest. From there we ventured onward and this picture shows us entering Travincal.

We killed off the council members and Alice transmuted the giblets and the flail to make Khalim's Will. This picture shows her smashing the Compelling Orb. She must have whacked it a really good one since you can see she was completely turned around after hitting it.

This then allowed her to open the stairs to reveal the entrance to the Durance of Hate.

On level 3 we battled and defeated Mephisto.

Which brought up the portal to the next act.

Alice went to talk to the residents of the Pandemonium Fortess and I hid in the fireplace so she couldn't find me when she came back to chat with Tyrael. (Really. She said she didn't notice me there for a couple of minutes.)

She finally found me. :)

When I stepped out of the fireplace and Alice turned to chat with me, Tyrael had the audacity to fondle her breast with one of his tentacle-like wings. :(

So, this is where we are now. Alice wanted to be naughty and stay up playing, but since it was 1:00 am for me, I had to get to bed. Or, rather I had to blog about our adventures and then go to bed.

Edit: After reading Alice's comments, I've added this picture showing how Tyrael was fondling her ass too. My comment in the picture was answering her question of "Is Tyrael an angel?".

An Eye and a Brain

Ok. So both Alice and I had good reasons why we shouldn't play the game tonight. I'd allowed my sleep schedule to get messed up by playing so much yesterday and well into this morning and she has to get up in a few hours to get ready for school. (Her first day back after her holidays.) However, I messed up in our game yesterday and didn't pick up my Jade Figurine and when the game crashed and we got back in, it wouldn't let me complete that quest. I created the game tonight just to finish that one tiny portion and get our characters synchronized questwise. I was also in our private room on Teen Chat and Alice was there, but still sleeping.

Well, she'd read my earlier comment and was going to come into the game to let me know she was awake but just then I completed the quest and had my potion reward.

We chatted a bit and not surprisingly it was mostly about the game. We re-confirmed that we shouldn't play tonight and then being the naughty girls we are, got into the game anyhow.  Here we are jogging in the rain to warm up prior to fighting the evil monsters.

This next picture is where we found the Gidbinn yesterday to complete our second quest of Act 3. I didn't get a picture of it then, so I'll include it here.

Still out in the jungle/swamp area, this picture shows Alice using a throwing spear or javelin.

The next quest for us was to find Khalim's eye and rumor has it that it could be found in the Spider Cavern. Here we are ready to jump inside.

Well, sure enough, there were spiders in there.

And bugs.

Next we ventured into the Flayer Dungeon in search of Khalim's Brain.

As you can see in this next picture, one of our sidekicks is busy starring at the wall while the rest of us battle the monsters.

Now we have two of Khalim's giblets and need to venture into the sewers under Kurast to find his heart. That's somewhere beyond the junglely forest and we've not found that area yet. Since Alice is back in school, you can rest assured that quest will have to wait until the weekend. (Right?)

A Date with a Big Bug

Here we are in the Far Oasis looking for the entrance to the Maggot Lair.

Now in said Maggot Lair looking for a stick.

Here we are in Tal Rasha's Tomb. I don't remember if this is one of the false tombs or the real one. (Alice decided to explore four or five of the false ones before we went into the real one.)

Alice blows a hole in the wall.

We jumped right in and Alice is doing some kind of flame thing while I keep the big bug chilled. Of course, he is chilling us too, but we were prepared for that.

Duriel just whomped me pretty hard. You can see the dizzy swirl around my head.

Here's the last shot of him before we finished him off.

Alice goes to release Tyrael.

Having completed all of our quests in Lut Gholein, we set sail across the ocean and arrive in glorious Kurast. (Looks a wee bit dismal to me.)

Alice goes exploring while we girls wait patiently.

Alice explores some more.

And now we are back on another quest. Here we are in either the Spider Forest or the Flayer Jungle. Alice saw the murky water and wanted to go swimming, but I suggested the swamp prolly wasn't the best place for that.

Thumb Twiddling

I was twiddling my thumbs while waiting for our game to begin and decided to post a couple of pics showing my current set up. This first one shows my stash, what my character is wearing and the items in her backpack.

The next one is the character screen showing my current damage, defense and other stats. The 113-184 normal Attack Damage includes a level 6 Enchant. Glacial Spike damage of 33-42 is at level 3.

I've highlighted my Stealth Armor in the screenshot so you can see the stats without me typing them all. I made it in Studded Leather because it's lightweight and I like the look on my character. (She looks like she is wearing pajamas with silver lace.)

My weapon is a Gemmed Flail with a Tal Rune, a regular Skull and a regular Topaz and has a fast attack speed.  It has a base damage of 1 to 24 and the rune and gems add 1-22 Lightning Damage, +75 Poison Damage over 5 seconds, 2% Mana Stolen per Hit, 3% Life Stolen per Hit and +50% Damage to Undead. The last being standard for a mace class weapon.

The necklace I'm wearing is the Amulet of the Viper which adds +10 to Life, +10 to Mana and Poison Resist +25%.

Alice gave me my shoes which are Hsarus' Iron Heel Chain Boots with a defense of 8 and adds +20 Faster Run/Walk and Fire Resist +25%.

The Belt of Regeneration has Replenish Life +5 and holds three rows of potions.

My circlet is not particularly exciting but does have 50 defense. My gloves and rings add some resistance, poison length reduction and 17% better magic find.  The Bone Shield is two socketed with regular Diamonds and adds +22 to all Resistances.

Ok, so well, I'm still waiting for Alice to wake up.

Edit: It's 10:15 pm now. I've got to go to bed.

Tal Rasha's Tomb

Yay! We got to play tonight. We cleared out the Arcane Sanctuary and made quick work of the Summoner. He left a nice pair of yellow gloves for Alice.

Here we are after having gone thru his portal to the Canyon of the Magi.

We cleared out about half of the Canyon and then popped into the true tomb. Alice led us almost directly to our destination.

(That's her hiding behind the pillor since she is wearing a hat.)

We didn't get to go after Duriel since we've not been into the Maggot Lair to get our sticks. We do have the headpiece but not the shaft.

True Martians

We are now in the Arcane Sanctuary which is floating in space. Alice said she feels like a real Martian now. :)

We are 21

Alice and I are now level 21 in our game. B-net was being a bit flaky today, but we only missed about 45 minutes of play time out of the dozen hours or so we played today and yesterday.

Our last completed quest was teaching the Claw Vipers that it's not polite to steal the sun and make the world go dark. (It was funny tho, I mentioned to Alice as we were approaching the entrance to the Lost City that if we go there, it would get dark. She said something like: "It's already dark." Well, in we go and it did get dark. She was like: "Oh. I see what you mean.")

I didn't take any cool pictures of our battles today and the one picture I took in town is sorta more of the same as the last post, so I'll skip it. Besides, it's in there and I'm in here so I don't have it handy and I've got to get to bed now.

Relaxing at Atma's Tavern

Another great night of playing Diablo. :)

After killing Andariel in the catacombs, we crossed the desert to Lut Gholein. Although tired and weary upon our arrival, the grief stricken Atma implored us to venture into the sewers beneath town and extract vengenence on some Radiment dude.  Being the kind hearted girls we are, we obliged her.

In this screenshot, Alice and I are taking it easy in Atma's tavern after our adventure underground.

(That's me behind the bar preparing to get a drink for Alice.)

Alice and Jessie Tackle The Smith

I had a delightful time tonight (or this morning depending on your perspective) playing Diablo with Alice. We just turned teenagers (level 13) and cleared out the monastery. It seems Charsi was in such a hurry when they all fled that she left behind her hammer.

In this screenshot we are fighting The Smith who is guarding it.

After that we did a little bit of the first jail level and then decided I should go to bed and Alice should have breakfast.

My Lovely Amazon Girlfriend

After some trial and errors, Alice and I finally got our computers to let us into the same Diablo II, Lord of Destruction game.  Here we are in town after a short bit of playing tonight (or early this morning in her case).

(I'm the short one on the left.)

We cleared the Blood Moor and the Den of Evil. Akara was really happy about that.  Next we ventured into the Cold Plains, killed a few monsters and then ran into a rather nasty boss pack of Shaman's with their cute little Fallen hoards.  I wasn't dressed for the occasion and still hadn't assigned my stat points, so we ran back to the waypoint and jumped to the Rogue Camp.

The picture above is after allocating my stat and skill points and shopping for clothes. I haven't yet set my hot keys for the skills to assign to the mouse buttons. I'll be sure to do that before we venture out into the wild next time.

New Moon and Eclipse

I was driving home from work today and Nellie decides to go somewhere else.  I hung on wondering where she was taking me.  Turns out we went to my favorite store in the whole world.  (The store which only had Twilight last time but this time had the next two books.)

Now I've got to be extremely careful and not open them while work is so busy.

Twilight is Excellent

Wow!  I absolutely loved this book.  Both the writing style and the story itself are excellent.  I got very little sleep last night, barely made it to work on time today and I faked a reason to come home early to finish reading it.

It was fun too because there are Alice and Jessica characters in it.  (But I don't get nearly as good a role as Alice does.)  And Alice's brother makes a brief appearance in it as well.

I highly recommend Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. :)

Twilight for me from Alice

I was chatting with my girlfriend the other day and she mentioned how much fun she was having reading fanfic based on Twilight.  So I asked her for the author's name (Stephenie Meyer) and she also told me the titles of the other 3 books in the series (New Moon, Eclipse, & Breaking Dawn).

Today I went to my favorite store in the whole world (Half Price Books) and found the first book.

I love how the preface starts out: "I'd never given much thought to how I would die -- though I'd had reason enough in the last few months -- but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this."

Now that is catchy.

Makes me want to continue reading to find out what happens. And just who is narrating this thing anyhow? (Turns out to be Bella but that isn't revealed until page 4.)

So, I am pretending that it is a gift from Alice and I think I'll quit my job and spend time reading it.

A Letter I Can't Send

Dear Mom,

I'm sure you'd think it's very silly for me to write to you on my blog, but I wanted to say that I think of you often. Most especially today since it would be your birthday. I fondly remember how we'd make our birthdays a special day just for us. It's hard for me to believe it's three years this month since you passed away. Maybe by writing to you here someone who reads this will go right now and tell their mother how much they love her like I wish I could tell you.

With all my love,

Jessie

Snickerdoodle Cookie Recipe

This was my mom's recipe for Snickerdoodle cookies. I think it came from her mom or maybe my great-grandma.

Sift together:

1 cup shortening
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs (slightly beaten)

Then stir in:

2 3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoon cream of tarter
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Roll into small balls (about 1 inch diameter)
Dip top half of ball into cinnamon & sugar mixture
Place on ungreased cookie sheet
Bake at 400° fahrenheit for 8 to 10 minutes

These cookies puff up at first, then flatten out with crinkled tops.  Makes about 5 dozen 2 inch cookies.  They are exquisitely delicious.


Edit: I've been asked if there is a substitute for the cream of tarter. My online research shows that the cream of tarter combined with the baking soda is the levening agent which makes the cookies rise. The general rule appears to be to substitute 1 teaspoon baking powder for each 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tarter and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda.

So, in this recipe, skip both the cream of tarter and the baking soda and use 4 teaspoons of baking powder.

My Car at 281,000 Miles

Go Nellie, Go!

Viggo Brun's Constant

So, I was reading this article: Easy as pi: how Google bid against Apple and Microsoft for patents and at one point it mentions Brun's Constant.  Off to Wikipedia and I find that is defined as the sum of the reciprocals of all of the twin primes.  (See: Brun's Theorem.)  Here's a screen shot of the equation since I don't know how to do all the fancy formatting to type it out myself.

Then according to Thomas R. Nicely's Enumeration to 1.6e15 of the twin primes and Brun's constant article this converges to 1.90216 05824 +/- 0.00000 00030 and he states that represents a 99% confidence level.  Mr. Nicely also clarifies that the validity of the Hardy-Littlewood approximation of the twin prime conjecture is central to his estimation of Brun's constant.  (If I'm understanding it right.)

Anywho, what I noticed is the value of Brun's constant is eerily similar to the 9th root of 326 which is 1.90215 71760 (to the same number of decimal places) and that is 99.9998209% of the calculated value for Brun's constant.

All that to say: Jessie's conjecture, based on nothing more than what would look pretty, is that Brun's constant should be equal to the 9th root of 326.  Or perhaps the 17th root of 55,873 which is an even closer match.  Then again the 29th root of 125,362,647 gets closer still.  It being 99.9999999% of Nicely's approximation.  Is there any correlation here?  I dunno.

Next I got sidetracked by reading about Brun's constant for prime quadruplets and the Enumeration to 1.6e15 of the prime quadruplets article shows Mr. Nicely's calculation for that as 0.87058 83800 +/- 0.00000 00005 which is quite similar to the 5th root of 0.5 at 0.87055 05633 (to the same number of decimal places).  This is 99.9956562% of that number.  Coincidence again?

BTW, here is a fun site to play around at: WolframAlpha.  Click on examples to get started.

Jessie's Old Drawings

I think I was prolly 11 or 12 when I drew these pictures.  They are on an off white / tan paper and also have water damage around the edges.  I've tried to fix the colors as best I could.

For this next one, I was trying to learn a bit about shadows and shading.

These next three were prolly about a year later.