10/14/07
Grunt killed a handful of monsters, gave a salutory grunt to a nearby hill orc and did his best to maintain distance between him and a cockatrice. It's still a new moon in NetHack and as previously mentioned new moons make a cockatrice's hissing attack very potent increasing chances of petrification.

As for loot, Grunt now has two scrolls of identify which would count for something except that he already knows the identity of the stuff in his inventory.

NetHack is far more exciting when played all at once. Maybe saving the game after five hours then coming back the next day. Saving a game then starting the same game up a week or more later is disconcerting and usually ends in failure. Experience has taught me that one loses the rhythm of the game and the tactics one must use for the current character and their specific inventory.

I hope Sokoban is coming up next since I plan on doing all four levels of Sokoban at once rather than maintaining the one-level-a-day schtick.

Please note that you see the monsters in the screencap because Grunt is currently using a blindfold and taking advantage of his recently acquired telepathy intrinsic. The yellow "c" is a cockatrice, the yellow "o" is a peaceful hill orc and the brown "n" is a mountain nymph. Nymphs are a pain in the ass because they steal shit and teleport away. Telepathy is useful for hunting them down. Usually helps to give the nymph a name to differentiate her from other nymphs that may appear on a level, moreso if the nymph actually leaves the level. Finally the gray "0" is a boulder.

Spot let me sleep in a little this morning. Thank you, Spot. When I did drag my fat ass out of bed I went into the kitchen and discovered that a box of green tea had fallen and scattered sealed teabags over the floor and on Spot's delicious wet food. Cowboy Cookout was last night's treat.

Strange bit is the fact that the box of tea was in such a place that it couldn't have fallen on its own volition. After a second of staring like an idiot then nudged by Spot telling me to hurry and do her bidding everything was cleaned up. Next I opened the laundry room door so Spot could say hello to the morning sun. She started getting talky and I went to see what was up. She was standing and looking out the door but when she heard me she got down on all fours to look at me. Suddenly a black cat's head appeared and peered into the laundry room. Spot jumped at the door and the cat swatted the screen with his paw.

At first I thought the cat was Bad Cat, the little wild black cat who lives with Alaska Lady, but the white paw revealed that was Tuxedo Cat coming calling on the Spots.