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The week I picked to start watching birds was also the week that
nature decided we needed nothing but rain or snow at all times.
Whoops.

It's funny, even though I'm not seeing the birds as often, I
have been noticing the levels of seed in both of the feeders
slowly going down. Nothing is really going crazy for the suet
cakes on the one hanging feeder but hey, at least they seem to
enjoy the mixed stuff I threw in the feeders.

Speaking of bird seed, I didn't realize that just going to the
hardware store and buying 40lbs of black oil sunflower seeds was
something you could do until yesterday. It's a lot cheaper than
the blend stuff I find at the supermarket and more birds seem
to prefer said sunflower seeds. I think I know what I'll be
doing after I run out of the current bag of mix that I have.

I like doing this. It's peaceful.
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Tabletop game writing has been going quite well! I started off
with nothing but a tiny idea in my head, two paragraphs of text
in a notebook. Right now I have a third draft of a world
timeline which some people have already told me has "more detail
than most people will probably bother with", four factions for
the players to (possibly) encounter throughout their travels,
and the start of a gear page describing arms and armor since
those are usually quite important to people.

I am finding that some of my creative liberties and timeline
shifts somewhat deviate intentions from the core material. If
I was worried about matching the official storyline then I would
be quite worried, that said I always forget how poorly-written
the Cyberpunk books were until I start engaging with them.
Details are sparse, dates in one book won't match the dates for
the same exact event in another...

I'm proud of myself. It's been four years and I think I've still
got it. I'm hoping to be happy with the setting documents by the
end of the year, then I'll get onto the tedious work like an
online rulebook (cutting the stock rules and altering ones I
dislike is a drag but having things in writing helps). Maybe
I'll have a game to run next year?
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Some friends and I noticed an ad from a new gun shop on the i90
border of PA and NY where they mentioned $34.99 Anderson AM15
lowers. I've been looking for a new firearm project, why not go
get another AR lower to make into something neat?

I got said lower, the current plan is populating it with fairly
standard parts (maybe a cassette trigger instead of mil-spec?)
then testing it with my 20" upper. If it works well, I'd like to
file a Form 1 and make it into a SBR. 300 AAC Blackout has
seemed quite cool for some time now, I'd like to make a 10.5"
retro build for said caliber, and I'd also like one of the 12"
T91 uppers that Wolf brings into the US.

We also stopped by a second shop where I found a lightly used
PSA 5.7 Rock frame for $40. I've said for a while now that I'll
try 5.7x28 out when I can find something chambered in it at a
reasonable price, I'd say $350-400 is a pretty damn reasonable
price.
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I finally fixed up my IBM 5150 motherboard, nine sockets went
down for Bank 0 and then I buzzed out continuity between all the
chips to find which ones got disconnected by traces pulling off
the board during desoldering. Some 32awg wire later and the
thing works! No more 201 or PARITY CHECK 1 errors, now I'm just
back to needing a keyboard.

Not much other retro computer work has been done over the last
few days because there really hasn't been much else to do. I got
myself to quit looking at eBay for new boxes so damn often which
definitely helps the wallet.

I will be shipping a box out from ZenMarket this week, said box
is going to have some cool stuff like a Power Macintosh 4400 and
an Exidy Venture PCB, so I should have some fun little repair
logs to start up come December.
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