In no particular order, an update on various interests and hobbies.

Clocks

The mantle clock is running strong, but about five minutes fast per day. It uses a balance wheel, which is a particularly fragile and difficult-to-adjust mechanism, so I haven’t taken it down and tried to fix that yet.

The grandfather clock is out for repairs with a professional. Again. He thinks he’s found the source of the problem, and intends to publish a youtube video about it. I think it’s probably a good (or bad) sign when someone has to post a video about a new and interesting way that a clock can break. (It was magnets.)

MiniDisc

Since he was here to collect all the parts of the grandfather clock, I asked the clock guy (who also does radio repairs,) if he wanted to take a swing at one of my MiniDisc players. It was sold as non-functional with the description of “makes a whooshing noise.” I bought it because it came with what turned out to be a true goldmine of discs recorded “by a Los Angeles DJ.” The player was in beautiful physical condition, and it’s now repaired and working after a swap of the digital to analog converter.

Oh, and I bought a copy of Pure Moods on CD to convert over to MD, because it feels somehow cosmically right. Also the way this particular album looms in the psyche of people who were kids in the 90s. Young me would probably be ecstatic that we finally had a copy.

TTRPGs

I think I’ve lost one of my Earthdawn books somewhere in the house. I’ve done a thorough-enough search to think that maybe I never actually had it, but there’s some anecdata to suggest that I did. Unrelated to that, I was able to find a copy of Prelude to War at a local(-ish) used book store, leaving only four books missing from my 1e Earthdawn collection.

At the same time I also picked up The Complete Sha’ir’s Handbook, which is wizard archetypes for the old D&D setting of Al-Qadim. It’s in pristine condition and was a pretty penny in the bookstore’s rare book room. I usually prefer to buy play copies, because Toys Are Meant to be Played With, but sometimes with these old TTRPG books it’s either buy the perfect copy at collector’s prices or accept I won’t own it. Even play copies are rare. These old D&D settings are interesting to me, and the books are often very “of their time” in an almost charmingly unaware way. Nobody who wrote this book had ever heard the word appropriation, and it usually shows.

The hardbound copy of Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast finally arrived. It went directly on a shelf, because I don’t currently have the capacity to do anything with it, but I remember being charmed by the concept and thinking it might be light enough to convince some local friends to pick up casually without having to resort to digital play. With all due apologies to people who can only ever get their gaming group together on Discord, it’s not the same.

World of Warcraft

WoW Remix: Mists of Pandaria is probably the best and smartest thing Blizzard has done since Wrath of the Lich King. No I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic. It’s that good. I think part of why it’s that good is that it’s meant to be a limited duration event, which means that it can be fun in a way which is not also trying to prolong my subscription past its natural lifespan. It’s not trying to sell me any DLC.

It’s a reminder that somewhere in the shambling husk of Blizzard Activision is the beating heart of the company that made Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2. That, if they weren’t in the throes of a dark insanity known as shareholder primacy, they might actually be capable of doing the one thing anyone actually wants them to do: making a good game.

I hope they keep this format and go on to do it for other expansions. I’d be especially glad to see it of Shadowlands, the one expansion I never got around to playing.