980315 - Today was a wonderful day. After meeting Sir Lagsalot again in town, I gave him one of the two communication crystals I prepared. We both had some business to attend to, but after a while he returned to my shop In Vesper. We went inside and talked for a long, long time, and guess what! He declared his true love for me, how romantic, I'm so happy. He's such a nice and handsome man; I really love him too. He accompanied me out on my daily hunting trip although it was very late for him where he sat. At first we found just a rat and a chicken, and I felt embarrassed that my normal hunting ground was so barren. But then we found a panther. Sir Lagsalot offered to wrestle the cat while I practiced archery. Then we even found a harpy and killed that too. Unfortunately my love had to leave, I watched over him until he timed out, then I continued my hunt. A ratman named Chaktuki was next on my hit list. Ah who cares what ratmen are named anyway, I only know one name right now, Sir Lagsalot, *sighs and smiles*. I killed a ghoul too. As you may know, this is right outside Covetous. Here are all the pictures...

Then I went into Covetous. Oh I killed a little of this and a little of that, but today's topic was the Gazer's Corner. I fought no less than 6 gazers there together with a very nice man named Waltraut. Most of the gazers seemed to like to eat me over anyone else, and at one point I was in serious trouble. A well timed In Vas Mani from Waltraut saved me however, and there was much rejoicing - and looting of course. It was great fun, and I didn't see one single PK:er. Oh the ominous signs of eviscerated bodies lied here and there inside and outside the cave of course, but that's quite normal, nothing to worry about really. If you read this, Waltraut, come see me in my shop in Vesper, and I'll give you something nice for your trouble. There still is no point in chasing monsters for economic reasons, even with gazers it's almost a losing proposition. But it sure helps my combat skills, and when those gazers persist in getting into my face, even my wrestling gets a boost. But as I said, finally I ran out of reagents and had to return, I didn't have one single pearl left but had to recall with the aid of one of my emergency scrolls. Still, it was fun, this time of day in Covetous is fun, yes really. It's a pity it's not like that always.

980314 - I went to Covetous today too. When I was out hunting I found nothing but a bull and I got bored. Going to Covetous around lunch hours, European time zone that is, is very pleasant. Many monsters and nice players, and very few PK:ers. I apologize to the two ladies whom I killed a gazer just in front of. I thought you were in trouble since you were hurt, but on the other hand I left you the loot. But anyway it was a very relaxing experience. However, my strength and dexterity gained some points at the cost of my intelligence, now I'm back to 90 again, darned, my archery and tactics is gaining rapidly though. I also spoke to a huge number of players in town and stocked up my vendors with scrolls. I tried to manufacture two more island hopping kits, but lag became too much and I returned home to talk to more people before lagging - sorry - logging out. I think Boomer and the rest of OSI is lying (as usual - I'm sorry to say) about the item problem - the way I see it the game is suffering from a terrible memory leak, probably unresolved pointers. Why do I think that? Well, you see lag is non-existent after a server reset and then builds up gradually until late European afternoons when the game is completely unplayable - and lag increases after every server backup. Now how could that be, indeed...? (Of course it's unresolved pointers). I think they should resolve this issue first before trying to do some other crap that reduces my real estate. I also realized that a lot of players don't know that you can identify an item an NPC is selling (not a vendor - a NPC person). But you can target an item in the sales list, even if the targeting cursor disappears. There you are, aunt Sandralene teaches you something new every day, doesn't she? Naturally this can be done with arms lore too. Don't get cheated by the NPC armorers and provisioners - find out just what kind of items they are trying to sell you.

After server reset the lag disappeared almost completely, as usual. Now this is late morning in the states, which means there are two possible explanations. Either we DO have a serious memory leak in UO or the servers are suffering from morning sickness. Now I honestly doubt that the computers are pregnant, but of course one never knows with those Americans. Anyway, I was busy with the shop all evening, very busy, very, very busy. This is because I do have a lot of persons who like to come and ask me about different things in the game. Now I certainly do like talking to my customers, but it's darned hard to mark identified magical items with long names correctly when I have to talk to other players at the same time. I also met Albert Einstein today in serious need of a Resurrection scroll. Since this was a very special and deserving case, I sold one to him, but he had to pay me real good. It wasn't until he failed his recall spell, I suddenly realized I should have asked him who was going to cast it. I wonder what happened, a person who has trouble with casting 4th circle shouldn't go near an 8th circle scroll. Another person that I talked to today was Lysilda, from what I understand she's OS's sister. She gave me many instruments to replace those lost during the party, actually many more than I lost. I thank her for that, now I don't have to fear running out of instruments even when hosting the Kleptomaniacs' Yearly Party. I had only a lowly magical necklace to give in return unfortunately. Finally, I just realized that whenever you get mad at OSI, you could always go bash those totems representing Designer Dragon that appears in various places in the game. I enclose a small picture of "Designer Dragon" and me - I call the picture "Whack!" - even a magical wand can hurt when you get it slapped straight in the face.

But I still hadn't had enough. After scribing a couple of high circle scrolls I got bored with the lack of players this time of the day. So I picked up my field gear and went to Covetous. Yes that's right to Covetous. At low season Covetous is usually filled with monsters and the only players there are friendly and share killing and loot. Of course there's also a lot of newbies getting overwhelmed the harpies at the entrances and whose ghosts are ooOOOoo-ing for resurrection. Now remember, if you have to go to Covetous, and I still don't recommend anyone to do so, don't let my bad example throw you off the track, but if you have to go, then be experienced or join in a large group - please. Me, myself had a good time there, first I killed harpies, then I killed rats of all sizes, then I weeded some corpsers and finally I ended up helping to kill a group of no less than 3 gazers, all the time talking to other friendly players there. After this killing spree, I was all out of reagents and after having killed one last harpy just for old times' sake, I had to use one of my recall scrolls to get home safely. This intense fighting works miracles for my archery skill and definitely keeps my magery from suffering from atrophy. Since I'm usually wearing whatever armor I pick up along the way I'm sure I don't have to tell you that my looks and clothing were in a severe state of disarray and out-of-fashion when I returned. I switched clothes immediately however, before going to the bank to deposit the looted gold and items, and going to the mage shop to buy more reagents.

But after all this I returned to my normal modus operandi, scribing scrolls, chatting with customers and shopping. By all means shopping. And chatting, but it's sometimes tricky since I have to be able to handle 2 or 3 conversations simultaneously and the lag is certainly not helping out one bit. From time to time it can get rather confusing. It's a good thing I can read my journal instead of looking at the screen. You might also have noticed that I do have a functioning guest book once again on my page. Maybe someone could go sign it and make me really happy? To be certain, I signed it myself to begin with so it's not completely empty...

980312 - I hate all those campfires that refuses to stop burning. And I especially hate seeing twenty of them in front of my shop in Vesper. If I find the culprit, I'd gladly take a notoriety hit just to kill him for that excessive fire building. I delivered the item Certyl wanted when I met him in Occlo today, he seems to hang out a lot in Occlo these days. Not a bad place to stay though, the mage guild, the bank, a tailor and a tanner all conveniently located close together. Very good city planning indeed, unlike Yew for instance. Or, so help me god, Cove. If it wasn't for Orc fort nobody would ever go to Cove, that's one boring town indeed. Speaking of towns, I am in the process of creating a World Travel Kit, every town in Sosaria plus a few more choice locations. I will manufacture one to start with and see if it sells (and if so, how fast). Maybe I should call it "Where do you want to go today?" or maybe even better "Where do you want to crash today?" No, cancel that last one, it doesn't sound good at all (even if it's true), such expensive items must be sold with positive advertising. I am also somewhat annoyed because of what one of the Wedding Party participants did. I know he asked if he could have one of my instruments and I said yes. I am not pleased at all that he took every single one of them, this was certainly not what I wanted him to do. Not that they cost that much, but the trouble of buying them again is very irritating, I will be very careful not let that individual into one of my houses again.

I also finished manufacturing my World Travel kit today - every city in Sosaria plus some other choice locations, like Lord British Throne, Crossroads and of course my shop. It sells together with 4 recall scrolls and one gate scroll, 18 runes altogether, for only 2199 gold. And yes, even Buccaneers' Den is included, it's still not a fashion statement going there - but complete is complete. An Orc Lord chased the warrior Max Delar today, all the way into town and past my shop. I ran after him and told him to stop. Then I started to heal him and cast reactive armor on him. It took a while before the orc lord was dead, but it was good practice for a beginning warrior - and great fun. We even got to loot the orc, unfortunately he was very poor. Dark Talon asked me to go on a rescue mission to save one of his friends who had been PK:ed all alone in Destard. Now it's pretty foolhardy going to Destard alone if you ask me, and I do not do rescue missions anyway. Besides I had a pressing business appointment just at this time. If people have to go and die in dungeons like Destard - then make sure to bring a friend you can gate you out once you've been resurrected...

980311 - The morning after a large party you know what you must do - house cleaning - ugh! It took a while to rearrange the furniture, and put everything back to place. To top it off, Vogue had gone wild on me over the night, I don't understand - he was wonderfully happy last night when I logged out, I must have done something wrong. Now, I cannot re-tame a horse at all, that's way too difficult for me. Considering hiring a professional animal tamer, I do know quite a few of them, I finally decided to shoot him. A horse that goes wild on you is not a very good horse anyway, and besides I could use a little Energy Bolt practice. My vendors sell tremendously well, I had to make two tours to the bank to deposit all the gold, and it took me quite a while to restock. I met Certyl when I was tailoring a bit while regenerating mana. The thing he wanted me to do is not at all what I like doing best. But since he is a good friend (even in Real LifeÔ) I decided to help him. He was also willing to pay me a reasonable sum of money for services rendered. No I will not disclose what I help him out with; otherwise some other of my readers might get the bright idea of asking me the same thing... I also met Shadowdancer tailoring. He turned out to be a real nice acquaintance. Since he had never seen Occlo, I gated us there so he could have a look around the place. Unfortunately Real LifeÔ called me away prematurely, but then again there are plenty of accomplished wizards and witches visiting the mage guild in Occlo all the time, so someone should be able to get Shadowdancer back. I hope we'll meet again.

Then I had to re-supply my vendors. That took quite a while today, I had to spend a lot of time in the tailor shop to regenerate mana. I met Leafbeach's secondary characters there and helped him transfer some keys. I also met Lord Zeus who sold me a very interesting bag. I hope you like getting some extra payment Zeus, but I actually became so overloaded with all the items you sold me, that it was actually beneficial paying you a little more. Powerful bows or crossbows have become scarce indeed since people are getting more and more aware of how good archery really is - I've said that all along, now, haven't I? PhantomY dropped by my shop too; he seemed to have sobered up after yesterday, today he is happily married man. I hope he and Elana become very happy. By the way, Certyl, your order is ready now...

980310 - Two things occurred yesterday a bit too late to make my diary. First of all, I bought that horse I was talking about. I'm stabling him in my tower, he looks very nice but he eats a lot. Fortunately I have a lot of hay and dozens of apples to keep him happy. It's strange, whenever you ride into town and dismount for a second; there's always someone who approaches with the silly question "Is that your horse?" It should be obvious, not only because I just rode it 2 seconds ago, but also because I don't think anybody else would have a horse named Vogue. I wish that I could buy a sidesaddle though, riding bareback in a fancy dress does look a bit awkward, I hope I don't ruin the dress in this manner. This little picture shows him and me in my tower reception room. As you can see I'm also in the process of identifying and appreciating myself. It doesn't say so in the picture, but rest assured I do appreciate myself a lot :)

The second thing that happened to me late yesterday evening was an event that impacted my whole day today. I got invited to the wedding this evening between PhantomY and Elana. Now this forced me to think a little extra. For an engagement party, you can give the happy couple just about anything useful, like some high-circle scrolls, but for a wedding it have to be something very special indeed. I finally decided for a suitable gift and spent several hours piecing it together. I prepared a gift box with a deed to a small dragon-ship, those dragon-ships look much more stylish than the regular ones, and are perfect for two persons on a romantic honeymoon. I also included a map of the world and a sextant to aid them in navigating the vessel. I also wrote half a dozen mark scrolls and added the same number of unmarked runes, so that they could mark any interesting small island they happen to come by in their journey, I also added a few recall scrolls and a gate scroll for all eventualities. Furthermore I bought and linked a pair of communication crystals so that they may talk to each other even when miles apart. And last but not least, I enclosed a small book with my best wishes for a happy marriage. As you might understand, this took a great deal of time, and I cancelled my daily hunting trip because of this. I also had to manufacture a new set of clothes for myself; I can't go to a wedding in my business-dress, that would be rude and not stylish at all. I was very pleased with how my dress came out; the only thing you have to think about when going to a wedding is not to wear white. Only the bride dresses in white, and as you can see below I opted for a nice pink dress, hat, cloak and a pair of sandals, springtime is here and pink is a beautiful color to wear this season, and my wand and jewelry matches this set too. No, I didn't leave my shop untended altogether, I marked about 15 runes, wrote maybe 50 scrolls and put out some new weapons but that was just about it for today, I couldn't concentrate too much on the shop since the anticipation of attending a wedding overshadows everything else...

I'll be back with more news at the situation warrants. Until next time - stay safe from PK:ers

Even a tailor can walk around semi-nude in UO

/Sincerely