Cav's Place

Somebody posted today on a group about those on another group taking the Political Coordinates Test, so gave it a go as well, since it definitely seemed very similar to Political Compass and I wanted to see whether the result will differ significantly from the one I got the last time I took that one, in 2014. So this is what I got:

Your political coordinates are:
· 80.6% Left, 75% Liberal

On the economic axis, the result is pretty much exactly the same, 80.6% compared to what would on the same scale be 80.0%. On the social one, on the other hand, this says I’m much more liberal, 75% compared to what would on the same scale be 55.4%. Of course, didn’t take that one again since 2014, but that old result seemed quite accurate and my position on the social axis had changed very little over the years in that test, so I doubt it’ll be too different if I’ll take it again and don’t care to. Then again, I didn’t notice many questions that struck me as relevant for this axis in this test I took now, so there are differences in what’s being asked, and I guess this one doesn’t include many things I had to think about.

Note: The review refers to the edition included in Sword, Steam and Sky: Four Book Fantasy Bundle.

Excellent writing, interesting setting and characters, and quite a relief to see the focus staying on the main characters and only a couple of times briefly switching to the scheming going on elsewhere. The flowery descriptions are written so well that they’re a notable positive aspect, the dialogues are natural, believable, and the same can for the most part also be said about the characters. It’s somewhat unpleasant that, despite being part of the group all along, those guards remain generic, expendable and largely ignored, but the main characters have very different personalities, with facets, layers and pasts that are gradually revealed, as their interactions and bonds become deeper. You will get to cheer and even actually care for most of them… Or at least I did.
The problem, however, is the postapocalyptic setting. Fortunately, at least in this book, there are only glimpses of it, so I could largely ignore it and not let it detract from the rest, but I could have really done without it, perhaps only mentioning something about it a few times in order to explain some details about the setting, and the fact that the action takes place on Earth, not on some fantasy world. That’s a matter of taste, of course, as I simply dislike the genre, but To Journey in the Year of the Tiger would in pretty much any other way be the start of a good fantasy series, yet, however occasionally and briefly, it insists on jarringly tearing the reader away from all its other aspects, from the atmosphere and even the mindset that suits reading such a book, and jumping into something entirely different and, at least from my point of view, out of place. Definitely makes me dread what’s coming.

Rating: 4/5

Actually even a day before writing the review for Disciples, I got back to Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. Last save was on December 27, but I knew what I was supposed to be doing, so after at first reloading a few times due to losing heroes, before getting a good feel of their actual strength again, two days later I finished that scenario and therefore also the Nomad campaign, then moved on to the next one, which I sure started very badly and due to missing what I was actually supposed to be doing went at it the very, very hard way, and if there was a second hero available at first there definitely was none by the time I could push the enemy back enough, which will hurt me for the rest of this campaign. And now that I could finally get back to what I should have been doing over 150 turns ago, I forgot what I had been told, and made some bad decisions as well, then just decided to go with it to see what happens before I lose my armies, ending up not saving and going back to the save made last night when I’ll get back to it.
But that’s not the only reason why I just want to quickly write this and get it over with, the other one being that yesterday I also started reading To Journey in the Year of the Tiger, which I got a while back after picking up a bundle that was free at the time. Yes, that means I decided against getting right to The Way of Kings after all and starting with something which I have to read on the computer, but either way there are two things I want to get back to as soon as I finish writing this. Wouldn’t have bothered with it at all now, but since yesterday dad finally did something he said he’d do two and a half months ago and I kept that day out of the posts written at the time in order to write about the whole thing when it’ll actually be done, I guess I should get it out of the way now and get back to playing and reading later.

I’m referring to the fact that on June 12 I bought a new light fixture for the bathroom, meaning to switch to LEDs there as well and therefore complete this switch as much as I’m able to, leaving just the other bedroom and the living room, which aren’t my business, to use CFLs because the fixtures have small sockets and LED light bulbs with those sockets are too weak. The bathroom light kept having issues for a long time anyway, the neons starting to take a very long time, even one minute, to turn on, and not because of the tubes themselves, so I eventually used the opportunity to replace it, but that problem tended to appear and disappear on its own and after I asked dad whether he’ll replace the fixture if I’ll buy the new one and he said yes it just started working well again and he kept putting it off. He took the cover off that fixture, which let all the moisture get in there and likely led to what happened these days, but otherwise as long as it worked he didn’t seem to care about replacing it anymore, and even a few days ago, when one of the neon tubes apparently stopped working as he was doing some other work in the bathroom, he just replaced that one with another one we had around. But then it just stopped working completely, Saturday, and I think there was a bit of a flash just when it tried to turn on then, both neon tubes seeming to no longer work when I tested them after that, which seems to imply a short. Still had to take a shit and even a shower using a flashlight that evening and Sunday, but this finally prompted him to replace it with the one I bought.
Admittedly, the fixture I bought does seem intended to be hung from the ceiling, but in the store they had it on display on the wall, so that should work as well. When I went to the store and asked the guy how to set it up he said he didn’t know though, but assumed it was simple and I shouldn’t have problems. Yet I did, or dad did, not figuring out how it could work with what we have on the wall and dismissing my suggestions at first, and when I sent the store a message to ask for some instructions, as the product itself comes with none, they just ignored my message. So it was just left here in my room until yesterday, when dad did end up using my simple suggestion of just hanging a wire from the two screws we have there and hanging the fixture with that wire, just tying the ends together above it so the fact that there’s no way to work behind it won’t matter either. The problem is that he wanted to put it lower than it’d normally be if the wire would be straight, to still cover the hole the cables come through, and that and the fact that he used another wire than the one I had in mind means it’s not actually on the wall, but hanging at an angle. Using the metal bar he intended to use at first could fix that, if it’d be used to hold the wire in place, but probably not if he insists on leaving it lower. Another suggestion I had at first was to just tear up the old fixture and hang this one from its back, which should have sorted out all these issues, but it would have indeed looked ugly.
But we can fix it better at some other time, maybe after I’ll have a look and try to do it myself, since what I didn’t want to try was to make the contacts, especially since the cables coming through the wall are too short for this fixture and they had to be connected to other little pieces and then those had to be connected to it. Not quite happy with the amount of light generated though, but I knew it’ll be a fair bit less and I can manage, and it definitely is better than something that no longer worked at all, or took so long to start when it decided to cause trouble. Just hope whatever caused that one to fail, especially this last time, was just a problem with the fixture and not something with the wires, such as a risk of an occasional short somewhere in the wall, which would cause this one to fail as well and I definitely want to avoid that.

Since I had left everything else about June 12 out of previous posts as well, I’ll also add here that I went to buy this fixture after running that day, and that’s quite a walk even if using the metro, since there’s no stop anywhere in that part of the city, so I left at 2:30 PM and got back around 6:45 PM, and it was pretty hot too. Spent the later part of that walk looking down, since I’d have still needed 0.05 RON to be left with 1 RON after making the purchase, and it was just as I was on the street this shop is on, just a bit before reaching it, that I found a 0.10 RON coin. Then I got to the store and made the purchase, also opening the box and looking at the parts of the fixture as I was asking how to fix it on the wall and not being given any help. Spotted something that looked like rust in one place, and as soon as I mentioned that the guy brought another box and opened that as well to let me have a look, but when I saw the same thing in the same spot there as well I realized it was probably some glue and said I’ll get the first one after all, so I won’t get the parts of the second one out as well in order to check it. The guy said it didn’t matter, but I just took that first one anyway, and the LED tubes for it.
Then I had a look through the farmers’ market that’s on the way back to the nearest, or more exactly least distant, metro station, eventually getting a few tomatoes, aiming for half a kilogram, which was what I could afford with what little I still had, but being unable to get close enough and settling for what showed up as 475 grams. May have given the girl 0.90 RON instead of 1 RON though, not quite sure, since I dug the coins out of my pocket and was getting embarrassed and just wanted to get away. Not that there wasn’t a quite clearly awkward moment anyway, when as I was looking around a little girl came to me and grabbed my pants, really holding on as I tried to move away. Looked for her parents, seeing someone selling there who seemed to be there with her and who came to tell her to leave me alone after a moment. But she was pulling really hard on my pants while she was holding on, making me wonder whether she was trying to steal from me or to distract me while a pickpocket meant to come from behind, but that thought almost made me laugh, thinking that if they’d be looking for money in my pockets I’d search along with them.
Before leaving the market, stopped somewhere and checked the LED tubes as well, and put them in the fixture to make them all easier to carry in the bag. Also noticed that one was very dirty when I did that, and wondered whether it had been that way when I got it or I had dirt on my hands after putting them on something in the market, but seeing as it seemed very hard to even wash off when I tried to do so when I brought them here, I guess it was that way all along and I didn’t notice when I bought it. Was a bit worried about that, but it doesn’t seem to be a problem, even though I couldn’t clean it and it was therefore put in that way now.

Other than that, Saturday I found a note on the kitchen table asking whether I could go to Auchan to get cat food, so I did, getting bread and yogurt for myself as well while I was there and ending up a few coins short and wondering whether I’ll find them in or around the machine, since I could use that to pay then. Spotted one coin under a shelf, then took my chances with the rest and did indeed find even more in the first machine I tried to pay at, if admittedly the second I looked at because the first one was broken. But before all of that, took a detour on the way there to check another recycling machine that was supposed to be near this other farmers’ market, the one I go to when I want apples. But while I did find it, I also found that it wasn’t working either, and the one at Auchan was still broken as well, after all this time. The company they belong to still hadn’t replied to my e-mail asking about the one at Auchan by then, but when I sent them a message on Facebook mentioning this other one as well they did reply… Only to ask at what time I tried to use it, saying they wanted to check something. Still nothing else after I answered the question, nor about the one from Auchan, so no idea what’s going on.

After finishing the campaigns in a month, I poked on and off at that series of “Divine Empire” scenarios for a full year before finally finishing all 21 of those as well. In addition, I played all 18 of those scenarios where this was an option with the Undead Hordes, the remaining three, which were the 18th, 20th and 21st, being played with the Empire (Humans). So certain details about the campaigns, or those specific to the Mountain Clans (Dwarves) or Legions of the Damned (Demons), may be a bit sketchy in my mind by now. But I did take some notes, so anything important should be covered, at least if I noticed it in the first place. I only played with mage lords though, so I won’t know anything specific to warriors or guildmasters.

I again find myself reviewing a game, and in fact a fantasy TBS game, that I can say I enjoyed at least to some extent, but finding it difficult to think of the specific reasons why. For a turn-based game it is, of course, crucial to create that “one more turn” feeling and Disciples does do that well enough, sometimes making me lose track of time while playing. Couldn’t play for hours in a single stretch though, due to a bug I’ll mention later, but when a scenario caught me, or I just wanted to finish it, I’d just quit when I needed to and then get right back again and again. Plus, I not only finished the campaigns in what for me is a pretty short amount of time, but also decided to go through that series of scenarios that’s actually longer than all the four campaigns put together and, while admittedly after a much longer amount of time, actually did so, which should count for something.
There were some interesting scenarios as well, for example the last one from the Legions campaign, or some of the last “Divine Empire” ones, though that unfortunately did not include the very last one. While playing the campaigns it was also pretty nice to see that the races required pretty different approaches, yet all could work once you figured them out. I mean, the Undead are supposed to be the hardest to play with, but after really struggling through the campaign I found that I had learned to play them so well that I preferred them for the “Divine Empire” scenarios, and it was while playing their campaign that I also won a scenario by conquering the enemy capital, even though you’d probably think that, despite the relative weakness of the units, the Empire would be best suited for that. Even did it while still being far from figuring out how to make the best use of the Undead, what units and advancements to pick… Which is in fact another positive aspect, the low number of different units that you can recruit being compensated by what happens when they level up, the significant improvements and the fact that their traits may even change significantly based on your choices, offering a sense of advancement that provides motivation to keep going through the early part of scenarios in order to reach those later stages.
But maybe the main thing that made me keep going was a sense of comfort, if I may use the term, given by the Guardian defending my capital city. Sure, enemy capitals are defended in the same manner and completely defeating an enemy is extraordinarily difficult, so they’ll always pester you to some extent, but defeating the enemy lords is not normally a requirement for victory and having this protected capital means that you can explore and keep your better units on the move without worrying that you may lose everything if an enemy slips past you. And the fact that resources are obtained according to who owns the terrain also largely does away with those silly moments seen in other games when mines or other resource-generating locations keep changing hands. Rod bearers can still do something about this, and using them effectively, especially early in a scenario, is crucial, but for the most part you can focus on exploring, advancing and achieving the objective.

If that’s pretty much all I can say in favor of the game, now comes the easy part, the negative aspects… Though I guess I could start with something that’s more of a missed opportunity, a lack of a potential positive aspect, because if it’d have actually bothered me I wouldn’t have gone through any scenarios after finishing the campaigns, if I’d have done even that, and considering the other issues I definitely wouldn’t have enjoyed it to any extent. I’m referring to the leaders and the combat. For one, leaders are weak, being somewhat comparable to level two units of their type at level one but then advancing very slowly, so regular units with a similar amount of experience will likely overpower them, one consequence of this being that it’s mandatory to choose the Leadership ability whenever it’s offered. But on top of that, there are little tactics involved in actual combat, having little to do except to simply keep attacking and hope the random number generator determining hits and misses won’t go too much against you.
Moving on, could get to the story next, which obviously caught my attention so little during the campaigns that I remember pretty much nothing of it by now, nor did I mention it in the notes I took. Still, at least that means it wasn’t in itself a negative aspect, and what atmosphere the game could create, in large part through the graphics, as aged as they are by now, did give the sense of a struggle and the need for survival, which can provide sufficient justification to go through fight after fight. On the other hand, the “story” of the “Divine Empire” scenarios seems to be nothing more than some lines of text thrown there largely as an afterthought, hardly offering anything positive in the sense of an actual story and being worse at providing useful information than, well, actually providing said information directly.
Speaking of those scenarios, a decent story would have been important not only to make it easier to put up with starting over time and time again, not even being able to take one leader and a few items from the previous scenario, as you can during the campaigns, but also to get you through those that pretty much share the same map, with only a few small changes. They did put some effort into the final ones, though the very last one apparently didn’t take the flaws of the AI into account and is therefore a complete joke, but before that point… Let’s just say it’s all right in small doses, which is why I took so long to finally get through all of them, giving up for months at a time because it was getting quite tedious to do pretty much the exact same thing multiple times in a row without even any decent story as motivation. Why couldn’t they have found a way to make this series of scenarios, which is basically the Gold Edition’s additional “campaign”, into one or more actual campaigns, I don’t know.
Since I mentioned the AI, it definitely won’t be winning any prizes. Sure, the game’s hard enough even so, and the AI also has advantages to make up for those failings, such as units automatically gaining some experience each turn or quite obviously knowing my armies, and possibly those in ruins as well, without spies, but seeing it consider wards and immunities as the same and waste attacks randomly attacking units with either is messed up, and it doesn’t even keep track of which wards get used up, so instead of attacking a warded unit again in order to actually deal damage, the odds seem pretty evenly split between it doing so, attacking another warded unit, and attacking one with immunity to that kind of attack, if all are present. It also seems to spread spells and summon attacks around if multiple leaders approach, often not causing enough harm to matter if it doesn’t have access to the powerful spells, and at times it even summons in the wrong place, having the summoned creature need to go around other armies to reach the intended target, or at times be unable to reach it at all.
Getting back to the advantages the AI has, there’s also one which I consider to be a bug, and that’s that it definitely keeps some of its gains, such as unit experience or advancements or summoned units, obtained after the end of the player’s turn if the autosave from the end of that turn is reloaded. However, such bugs go the other way for the player, since if you level up a leader at the end of a campaign scenario and then reload the starting save for the next one, you will not get to choose the new ability again. When you first start the scenario you will get the choice, but if you reload that starting save you won’t get it anymore, so you’ll lose an ability. Not sure if I tried it with reloading a regular autosave at such a time as well, as I specifically avoided doing that after noticing this bug. Then again, found the fact that you get to choose the new ability at the start of the next turn after a leader levels up instead of immediately to be quite unpleasant in itself.
Back to bugs, while I obviously can’t know whether this has to do with the version I played, from GOG.com, or with my specific system or anything else, the one I found most frustrating was that one that made me unable to play for more than about one hour at a time. The exact time varied, I think I saw as little as about 45 or 50 minutes at one point and maybe up to an hour and a half at another, but typically after a little over one hour the game crashed. Not sure what caused the variation, but the crash always happened when something moved on screen, meaning units on the map but also the animation of at least one of the Hordes’ “Dragon” damage spells, if not others as well, and I think always when it was my turn. Fortunately the autosaves meant that I never lost much even if I did forget to quit before it happened, though reloading an autosave did mean offering the AI some slight advantages, due to the other issue mentioned above, and it was annoying either way.
As for the little things, the sounds for the Undead sure are annoying, with the Banshee possibly being the worst. Believe it or not, this is the first thing I wrote in my notes about this game, the Hordes’ campaign being the second I played, and despite playing 18 “Divine Empire” scenarios with the Hordes as well I never got used to it. Nor did I get used to how long animations feel after a while, or to the focus being moved to the capital city at the start of each turn, or to each summoned creature that you happen to have taking its time dying before that. Getting a message for each item taken instead of a list if there are more taken at once also gets tedious, as does needing to move, including when buying or selling, items one by one. And it’d also be useful for the guard stance to be saved instead of only in effect for the current turn, so selecting the next leader would only cycle between those you mean to actively use.
In addition to that, diplomacy seems rather tacked on, not offering some useful options, and the descriptions of the lords only being listed there likely means they may not even be noticed. On another note, campaign scenarios won by transforming a certain percentage of the map seem odd, because you may well need to avoid winning too soon in order to level up your main leader or find the best items to take to the next. And having the area controlled always listed at the top of the screen but having to toggle between displaying the available resources and seeing the minimap is a strange, and simply bad, design choice… As is the lack of any sort of grid, to let you figure out how far armies can go, or that the attacker always flees on turn 11 of a fight but there’s no turn counter anywhere. And I do wonder how can they possibly justify making human archers more accurate than elven ones, and for that matter making the simple archer, a basic unit the Empire can recruit right away and which also attacks at a range, have the second most accurate attack in the entire game, becoming the single most accurate one when it quickly advances to marksman.

After all of that… Disciples: Sacred Lands is not a bad game, and the scenarios added in the Gold Edition do give you more to play if you so wish. It’s a simpler game than others in the genre, being pretty light on both tactics and RPG elements, but the Guardians and the way resources are obtained allow you to focus on what you need to do, and advancing your units and leaders and getting through difficult battles may be sufficient motivation… And it pretty much needs to be, since the story isn’t and there are plenty of reasons for frustration that you’ll need to put up with, including bad design choices and some bugs. But expectations, including about interface and features, and also about AI, were somewhat different back when it was released, so some leniency may be in order if played, and reviewed, now.

Since it was pretty much a complete joke, the AI opponent not daring to attack that dragon and letting me freely transform the map, actually finished that final “Divine Empire” scenario Sunday, so I can finally count Disciples as finished, after taking just one month to finish the campaigns and then a full year, on and off, to make my way through these scenarios. That means I really should be writing a review for it, since I was saying I’ll always review a game I finish if it has less than three reviews on MobyGames, and also if it has exactly three and I liked it or think I have something in particular to say not covered by the others, and the Gold Edition has none, while the base game has two. But since I’m still putting that off, I’ll just write this personal post now, to have a first one this week.

Monday I did something which may well prove to have been a very bad idea, but I had the money for this set aside all year, was rather necessary considering what I mean to do, and saw what seemed like a good sale in a store I could just get to, being in this nearby mall that also has a Carrefour, with a Kaufland also being nearby. So I first took the electronics I had forgotten last time, plus the plastics gathered since then and some of the paper, dropping it all off in the appropriate places, and also checking some prices at Kaufland since I had to go there to drop off the electronics anyway, but only buying cat food when I got back there, after getting everything else. Then went to Carrefour, seeing that the price for that better kind of pumpkin was indeed, and still, that surprisingly low one, this time the price label being placed correctly, so I bought one of those, plus another watermelon.
Then went to Hervis, for what I had in mind. I’m talking about a pair of new running shoes, actually looking for some specific ones I had decided on while looking through what they had on sale on the site. The site stated that this particular store had them in size 41.5, 42 and 42.5, among others, and I wanted to try all those sizes, since the old ones are 42 but may be just a little bit large, yet at the same time running shoes should be a bit large. However, they were high on the wall and I could only reach a 43.5, smaller sizes being so high I couldn’t even see whether they even existed. Did try though, not trying to climb but stretching as much as I could, and also looking through the boxes at the bottom, finding them all empty. That must have somehow made another customer think I was working there, though those who do wear black t-shirts with the store logo and I had a plain white one with a little green, since he asked whether I had some other model available in a certain size, seeming a bit bothered when he had to ask twice and then surprised when I asked how would I know. I was actually checking out and trying on those shoes in the larger size then, just to see how they feel.
One problem was the listed price though, the site listing 199.99 RON (€43.02 or $49.09) but the label listing 299.99 RON (€64.54 or $73.64). Not sure whether it was while I was still trying to work up the courage or after I had done so and the employee was getting new labels, but I saw another guy checking out a pair of these shoes, then looking at the price and immediately calling someone, saying there was a problem, at which point I muttered that I was looking at that too, though I doubt he heard. Either way, when I did go to an employee to point out the pricing issue, he pulled out his phone, checked, confirmed it and said the correct price was indeed the one on the site, apologizing for the wrong one on the label. Then he got the ladder and got a 42 down for me, which seems to have been the only pair in that size that they had, before going to get new labels to replace the wrong ones. Only asked for a 41.5 as well when he got back, and never did ask for a 42.5, as it was getting increasingly difficult to keep saying something. Since I was trying on the 41.5 when he finished placing the new labels on the others, he grabbed the 42 as well, but at least placed it within reach when he put it back, letting me know.
In the end, I got the 42 after all… Even if when I got to the checkout and asked about the warranty I was told it’s just 30 days, as it tends to be for clothing items bought from stores, even though I saw just these shoes, sold by the same store but through the “marketplace” of the largest on-line store from here, as having a two-year warranty, but I didn’t want to order shoes on-line and those charged shipping as well. Two years is what Decathlon offers for everything too, and what I had, and made use of, for the old ones, but couldn’t see anything there in this price range that looked interesting enough. So I really hope I won’t need that warranty, because it’ll be one huge waste of money if they won’t last, this being the most I ever spent on any item of clothing or shoes by a huge margin.

Actually put the new shoes back on before exiting the mall and walked back wearing them then, only then noticing the lack of that little thing holding the shoelaces at the front that the old ones have, and which pulls up that part of the shoe when the shoelaces are tightened, while without it that harder bit ends up pressing on the bottom of your toes if the shoelaces are tightened. But, after noticing that, I tightened the shoelaces differently on the left shoe and it hardly seemed a problem, yet of course just walking in them for a bit wasn’t any sort of useful test and I wanted to run in them as soon as possible, which I did Tuesday. Again wanted to go relatively early, though not as early as last week, so didn’t set any alarm, but got up after happening to wake up around 8:20 AM. Only went out the door at 10:15 AM though.
Did get a bit worried on the way to the park, the left shoe not feeling quite right, seeming just a bit tight at the back and even more at the little toe, but it was all right while running, everything except it being tight at that toe seeming almost solved by the time I was done, and that toe not looking too bad after I was done either. And they do help while running, as at first I had to get a feel of, well, stepping again, as they absorb the shocks way better and also push the foot back up a bit, so I knew I was going too quickly and had to hold myself back a few times over the first sector, getting a good time even so, 4:17.52 to be exact. And the overall time was good too, 47:55. Sector times were 4:17, 5:03, 5:51, 4:26, 5:01, 5:54, maybe around 4:28, maybe around 5:05, 5:57 and 1:53, making for lap times of 15:11, 15:21 and 15:30. On lap three I again forgot to check the time after sector one, as I was calculating what times I needed to stay under 48 minutes and I just got lost in that at just the wrong time, so I know the first two sectors were covered in 9:33, that when I did look it was 4:41 after the start of the lap, and that it was likely less than 15 seconds after what I consider to be the end of sector one, but otherwise I can only estimate.
That little toe did sting a bit after I was done, but like I already said, it didn’t look too bad, and it seems to be in a somewhat odd shape anyway. The thing is that if I look, the little toe on my right foot seems to press harder against the shoe, yet I feel absolutely nothing wrong there. I probably should have tried the 42.5 as well, especially since the listed length of the 42, 26.5 cm, is smaller than that of the old shoes, which are also size 42 but list 27 cm. But those are just a bit loose at the back, especially the right one, which is probably also why the cloth ended up tearing a bit there and I needed to protect that heel with something for quite some time now, so I think this is still the best size I could have chosen. Now it remains to be seen how I’ll feel in them in the longer term… And how well they’ll last, also since I may have spotted a little area, in the middle, where that bottom layer of rubber may not be glued on quite right on the left one. Not really sure though, and don’t want to start pulling on it.

Moving on, went back out after that, since there was a note on the kitchen table to get some sugar that was on sale at Carrefour, and also got some plums and carrots while I was there, and some cat food of another kind from Kaufland, since I had forgotten about that the previous day and the money left along with the note could cover that as well. Also noticed that it was a good thing I got that pumpkin and watermelon the day before, since even though normally Carrefour changes prices Thursday, the watermelon had gotten 50% more expensive, while that type of pumpkin got to a price that’s more normal for this time of year, some four and a half times more than what I got it for. I’m yet to cut and bake that pumpkin though, so if there’s any particular reason why it was so cheap I’m yet to see it.

Also saw yesterday that The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, which I had ordered earlier this month, when that store I prefer to buy from announced 20% off everything for one day, had arrived, but I only got the e-mail letting me know I could come pick them up at 3:15 PM and by then dad had left, using the metro card, and I didn’t know when he was going to be back or whether he’ll leave again after that, so I caught up on some sleep and left picking them up for today. So I at least bought something from them this year as well, after having done so once per year since 2012. The time of year changed though, since the orders were made in April in 2012, March in 2014 and 2015, and February in all other years, including the one I ended up canceling earlier this year.
It was rather odd when I got there though, as they didn’t even have that little sticker there anymore, so if you don’t know where you have to go there’s nothing letting you know they’re in that house. There is one of those stickers on the door, but it’d be hard to notice through the fence. At least that told me I was at the right door, yet it remained stubbornly closed when I got there, after they had unlocked the gate for me. Not sure whether I had to push harder or they had to unlock that as well and didn’t, but I tried opening it a few times, then went around and looked at the other door, seeing that there was no sticker there, then went back and tried again, eventually hearing someone inside tell someone else that someone was at the door, so she came and opened it.
Things went well after that, but somewhat less well on the way back, since for the first time in quite a while I took the metro the wrong way… And didn’t even realize it at first, to get off at the first stop, only doing so at the second, which is a pretty complicated station that I haven’t used in many years, so even if I’d have remembered anything it wouldn’t have been useful. But since I had dad’s monthly pass I could just go through the exit gates and then back in through the entrance ones right in front of them, changing lines without having to try to figure out whether I could have done that without reaching the gates. It did mean I ended up on that second train after 5 PM, after I had gotten on the first one just before that time, and it clearly showed, the second one being far more crowded.

So now I still have a review to write, which I won’t be doing tomorrow but really should do before the end of the week. Also still have a protest report to write, but not that sure I want to, though either way I should write about what I did during the August 11 and 12 protests, since I left that out of the previous post. And then, or possibly even before any posts about protests, I really should start reading something, likely starting with just these books I picked up today. They’re really big ones, so they’ll take me a while, but I really should get back to reading, since I haven’t read anything since May and this year I’m falling behind even that crappy goal of averaging one book per month. If I’ll at least manage to finish these two by the end of September, I’ll have four more to read in the remaining three months to at least manage that.