1. Last full week at work. One of my assignments was to make a particular alteration in the code. It was a matter of changing a single parameter in Javascript. It then took over a day to get it approved and pushed through for testing.

Probably this is something that happens all the time in IT, but it’s one of the things I really don’t like about the field, or at least this job: 50% hunting for the problem, 2% solving it, 48% jumping through the administrative hoops to get the solution up and running.

2. Ember Days again, and Autumn is upon us. Fast and pray for the harvest and for priests.

It is easy to forget (which is part of the problem) that we are just as dependent on agriculture today as we ever were. Our food comes from the same place it always has: it cannot come from anywhere else. This is something that gets driven home to me visiting my sister and her friends: most of us live very much apart from the reality of what we are dependent on. Bread and vegetables come out of the ground: meat comes from animals raised and slaughtered. Anything goes wrong with that, we’re in deep trouble. So pray for the harvest and remember where your food comes from.

3. A good discussion by Larry Correia and Steve Diamond about the need for writers to develop thick skins:

4. Evening relaxation lately has been revisiting Super Mario RPG. What a fun, creative, flat-out delightful game that is! It’s one of those old RPGs that was just bursting with an eager will to entertain, full of clever, easy going jokes and seemingly random oddities, like a town populated by mining moles who all speak with southern drawls, or the wise old ‘Frogfucious’ who makes his entrance being dangled from a Lakitu with a fishing pole to try to make it look like he’s floating, or evil knock offs of the Power Rangers showing up out of the blue as a late game boss. It’s really one of the top games in the series – no light praise – and I’m not the only one who says that. Plus the soundtrack is great:

5. Here’s a winning late-game strategy for anyone playing it; if you can get hold of both the Lazy Shell armor and the Safety Badge (you get the latter from the chest monster in the Sunken Ship; the one that probably killed you the first time you found it), put them both on Princess Toadstool (Peach) and keep a good supply of syrups. Then, after focus-levelling Bowser’s basic attack, go beat Jynx three times and give his belt to Bowser: this will send the King of Koopas’s already-high attack and defense into the stratosphere while also correcting for his low speed. Finally, level Mario in a balanced or attack-focused style and give him the Ghost Badge and the Lazy Shell weapon (until you beat Culex, which you can do with this method, then give him the Quartz Gem).

Between the three of them, you will be effectively unstoppable. Peach has multiple options for healing and reviving party members that cost very little magic, and between that, the armor, and the badge, nothing but an extreme combination of circumstances will kill her. If you’ve been using your flower jars and such wisely, then by the time you reach Bowser’s Keep you should have enough magic to heal the whole party at least ten to fifteen times before you have to recharge. Meanwhile Mario and Bowser can now both hit like trucks for no magic cost, unless you want to sprinkle in some of Mario’s special attacks (Bowser’s really aren’t worth bothering about), wiping out most normal enemies in a single hit.

In this way, albeit after tackling a few tough challenges, you can pretty much sail through any enemy in the game through sheer attrition if nothing else.

(You can swap in the other two as well for specific fights, or according to preference, but generally you want to keep Peach in the party at all times. She’s the keystone that makes you invincible).

6. One of the really fun parts of RPGs is when you’re approaching the end of the game and, between your levelling and equipment, you start to feel ridiculously powerful. Another favorite example of this was at the end of Knights of the Old Republic, where, among other things, if you’ve levelled your ‘break droid’ power you can literally wipe out a whole army of attacking droids with a single blow apiece.

7. Oh, and other good news: Bofuri season 2 has officially been confirmed for a January release date, with the same cast, crew, and creative team! A teaser trailer is up, though only in Japanese, but it shows the same gorgeous and creative artwork as the first season.