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Podcasts

- Memories of Toys R Us
  May 5, 2018Podcasts / Words of JenI wrote this piece on May 4, 2018. My inspiration came from the news that Toys R Us, one of my favorite stores when I was a little kid, had filed for bankruptcy. I read “Memories of Toys R Us” on episode 036 of Words of Jen. My first memories of Toys R Us are from when my parents would gather up all four of us kids and load us into their Chevy Suburban truck. It was blue with a thick, white, stripe going across each side. My youngest brother named it “the bye-byes”, because every time my parents put him in it, they told him “We’re going bye-bye”. It had enough room for three adults to sit in the front, and a bench seat behind it that could easily hold four giggling, excited, children. No one used seatbelts back then, although the vehicle did have a few of them. My parents stopped putting me, and my siblings, into car seats as soon as we got old enough to sit up by ourselves. Back then, I remember thinking that Toys R Us was a magical place. There, on the shelves, within reach, was every toy we had seen on the commercials that played in between the Saturday Morning Cartoons we watched on TV every week. I think my parents used Toys R Us as a way to take a break from parenting for a while. They allowed us to wander around the store, mostly unattended. We never left the store without making a purchase. Often, it was something small. My mom frequently bought bottles of bubbles. These would be stored on top of the refrigerator where we couldn’t reach them. When the weather was nice, my mom would take us all into the backyard and blow bubbles for us to pop. One time, my mom and dad bought a kiddie pool for us. Sometimes, we left the store with toys that weren’t for us. A visit to Toys R Us often happened shortly after I, or one of my siblings, got invited to the birthday party of a classmate. It was frowned upon for a child to attend a birthday party without bringing a gift for the birthday girl or birthday boy. Toys R Us was the most convenient place for parents to shop for a gift. When I was in elementary school, most birthday parties were held at McDonald’s. Parents had to call ahead so the McDonald’s would set aside enough space everyone. The party included the equivalent of a “Happy Meal” for each child, an orange drink, and a large, rectangular, birthday cake. Parents could throw their kid a birthday party at McDonald’s, and come home to a clean house. When a child at my school had a birthday party, his or her parent would invite all the kids that invited him or her to their birthday parties. Birthday invitations were made of paper, placed into sealed envelopes, and handed out at school. Parents found the invites in their kid’s backpacks, and everyone went back to Toys R Us to buy gifts. They had unwittingly set up a suburban mom reciprocity system. In 1983, Cabbage Patch Dolls became ridiculously popular. These dolls became the toy that every kid wanted for Christmas. I remember watching on the news scenes of full grown adults rushing towards the aisle of Cabbage Patch Dolls, and getting into fist fights with the other parents. They pushed, they shoved, they grabbed dolls from other parent’s hands. It was terrifying. The parents in my neighborhood likely went to the local Toys R Us to battle for however many Cabbage Patch Dolls they could get their hands on. I remember unwrapping a Cabbage Patch Doll that Christmas, as did all of my siblings. I tried not to think about what my dad might have done to get us those dolls. I remember when Toys R Us started stocking video game consoles and the games that went with them. One of the most trafficked aisles in the store was emptied out and replaced with a wall of pictures of individual video games. Underneath each one, there was a plastic pocket filled with paper video game slips. The amount of video game slips corresponded to the amount of physical stock of each game that the store had. It was exciting to search the aisle in the hopes that there would be a video game slip for the game I wanted. At the time, games ranged in price from around $30.00 to $40.00 – which sounds cheap today, but was considered expensive at the time. If you wanted to buy a game, you had to take the paper video game slip to a booth where an employee would take it. Waiting to see if there really was at least one copy left in stock was stressful. The experience either led to success, or intense disappointment. The games couldn’t be stocked on the shelves, with all the other toys, because it was believed that people would steal them. Game cartridges weren’t very big, and could easily be slipped into a purse or coat pocket. I remember being annoyed that the sign above that aisle declared that video games were “boys toys”. I played video games, and I was not a boy! To me, this felt like one more battle to fight. As a girl who had been playing with Star Wars figures since kindergarten, I was tired of adults trying to shoo me away from toys I enjoyed and push me towards toys that they decided were for girls. (As a note, Toys R Us eventually did stop labeling their toy aisles as “boys” or “girls”. They did this in 2013.) As a college student, who was broke and in between semesters, I was in desperate need of a temporary job. My mother’s second-cousin happened to be the store manager of the local Toys R Us. They were in need of seasonal workers, and I was hired immediately. It was the first time I worked in a retail store during the holiday season. This was in the early 1990s, and I had been eighteen-years-old for about six or seven months. I loved it! I was given two specific tasks: pick up and put away the toys that got left on the floor, and bring more stock out of the back room and fill up shelves. It was easy, and fun. There was something about being allowed to organize the chaos around me that was relaxing. The best part was helping confused parents try to find the toys their kids wanted for Christmas. I remember moms coming up to me and asking for help. “My son wants a… one of those turtle ninja things? Do you have those? The one he wants is called…. let me see…” The mom would shuffle through a handful of handwritten lists, looking nervous and terrified. It made me happy to find exactly the toy the mom was looking for, and watch her visibly relax. What made me so good at this was partly because I was the one who had been stocking the shelves – so I knew what we had. It helped that I had watched several episodes of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon on TV, too. There was a manager at the Toys R Us who one day, out of the blue, asked for my help with something. My cousin the store manager said to do whatever the managers asked, so I followed him to the gigantic stock room. He moved a ladder on wheels, that almost looked like stairs, to one of the towering shelves. The manager told me that a customer needed a specific toy, and the last one in stock was on one of the upper shelves. These shelves were more like platforms that extended across an entire aisle. He asked me go climb the ladder and get it for him, explaining that he couldn’t reach it and was too heavy to climb onto the shelf. So I did. At the time, I was a starving college student who barely weighed more than 100 pounds. I climbed into the shelf, grabbed the box the toy was in, and turned around. To my surprise, the manager had climbed the ladder and was right behind me. I handed him the toy, figuring he was going to rush it out to the customer. Instead, he stayed put. I moved towards the ladder, which was my only way down. He didn’t move. This next thing I knew, his hands were on my legs, holding me down, and he was trying to kiss me. This was not my first #MeToo moment. It wasn’t even my first #MeToo moment that took place at work. I kicked him. This forced him to back up, and he had a second where he lost his balance. I remember that the manager was angry about being rejected. He threatened me, saying that I almost made him fall. He said he was going to tell the store manager that I wasn’t following his orders, and that I would lose my job. “Go ahead. She’s my cousin. Which one of us do you think she’s going to believe?” The manager, who was probably about five years older than I was, became very pale. He got off the ladder, and I watched him walk away before I climbed down. About a week later, I heard from the other Seasonal workers that he quit. I wondered how many of us had been victimized by him. I stuck with the job at Toys R Us until it was time to go back to school. My cousin was happy and promised to hire me back next Christmas, but I didn’t end up taking her up on that. In short, life got in the way. Instead of coming back to my home town in between semesters, I went with my boyfriend to his parent’s house. Overall, it felt like my experience with Toys R Us had come full circle – from an overly excited little kid who wanted to run through the aisles of toys, to a young adult who was picking up the toys other excited kids left on the floor. All these years later, I find myself feeling nostalgic about Toys R Us. My generation of “Toys R Us Kids” have all become grown-ups. The store that once felt magical is about to disappear. Memories of Toys R Us is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...
- Jen’s Lore Corner: Adria – Episode 001
  April 11, 2018Jen's Lore Corner / PodcastsWelcome to Jen’s Lore Corner, a podcast about the lore of the Diablo video game series. This podcast started as a segment on the Shattered Soulstone podcast. I decided to re-release those segments in their own podcast, with new episodes to follow. In Episode 001, I talk about the lore of Adria. She’s one of the oldest characters in the Diablo “universe”. Previous to recording this episode, I wrote a long blog post titled “The Lore of Adria“. You might want to check that out for more information (or to catch whatever you may have missed in Episode 001). You can find more of my Diablo-related blogs at Book of Jen. They are all in the Category called Diablo III. If you enjoyed this episode please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you! https://media.blubrry.com/bookofjen/p/content.blubrry.com/bookofjen/Jen_s_Lore_Corner-Adria-Episode_001.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Android | RSS...

Diablo III

- Champion – Completed! (Season 13)
  April 23, 2018Diablo III / Diablo SeasonsI’ve played every Season of Diablo III, but this is the first time I’ve completed Champion. I was super excited when I finally finished the last objective. It took so many attempts! There were times when I wanted to give up, because I got really frustrated. I’m glad that I made myself keep trying. This blog post is a continuation of the one titled “Champion – Halfway There (Season 13)“. You might want to check that one out before scrolling through this one. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Champion – Killed Urzael and Azmodan! from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv One of the objectives in Champion requires players to kill Urzael, and another objective requires players to kill Azmodon. In the video above, I finally managed to kill them both! The work I did getting my Necromancer more Paragon points, along with the changes I made to her gear and the skills I was using, made this possible. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Paragon 300! from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv I hit Paragon 300! This is the first time I’ve done that during a Season of Diablo III. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Playing with Variables from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I started to feel like I wasn’t making very much progress. So, I started playing around with variables. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Time for one Greater Rift run from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I had just enough time to run through a Greater Rift and try and level up some Legendary gems. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Stream Full of Distractions from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv The one in which background noises create constant distractions. Even so, I managed to level up a Legendary Gem. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF The Sound of Cockatiels from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv When I first started streaming on Twitch, I would play at 2:00 in the morning. Later, I decided to see if I could find a more “normal” time to stream. In the video above, I streamed in the afternoon. The result was a stream that included commentary from my cockatiels. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Leveling Godok of Swiftness to 25 from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I finish leveling my Godok of Swiftness Legendary Gem to 25. My hope was that this would be what I needed in order to make more progress through the Champion objectives. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Bounties and Level 20 Seasonal Cubist from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, my plan was to run some Bounties so I could get more Crafting materials. The goal was to clear more stuff out of my Stash by putting it into Kanai’s Cube. In doing so, I accidentally got the Level 20 Seasonal Cubist objective (which isn’t part of Champion). Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Prime Cut with extra Skeletal Mages! from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I figured out how to get more Skeletal Mages than I had been using before. I also unexpectedly got an Achievement called Prime Cut. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Running some Bounties from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I ran some more Bounties and put more stuff into Kanai’s Cube. I really don’t want to carry all this stuff back with me when Season 13 ends. Watch Diablo III: Season 13 SSF Nephalem Rift on the Wrong Difficulty from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I thought I was running a Nephalem Rift on Torment X (but it was actually on Torment VIII). Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Disco Party of the Damned from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I still hadn’t realized that I was on the wrong difficulty level. Somewhere in the Nephalem Rift, I got stuck behind a doorway that was filled with Skeletal Mages (on my side) and a bunch of blue monsters on the other side. “Disco Party of the Damned”. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Another Nephalem Rift attempt on Torment X from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I make another attempt at completing a Nephalem Rift on Torment X in 6 minutes or less. I’ve made a lot of changes to my gear, skills, and strategy – but am not quite fast enough yet. Eventually, if I just keep trying, I’ll get there. The question becomes: Can I do that before Season 13 ends? Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Good Eye Seasonal Achievement from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv I decided to run some Bounties so I could collect crafting materials and put more items into Kanai’s Cube. Accidentally earned the “Good Eye” Achievement. It is part of the Seasonal Achievements that I never bothered to work on in previous Seasons. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Paragon 400! from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv This was the point where things changed for the better. I hit Paragon 400! It was the first time I’ve gotten that many Paragon points during a Season. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – The Realm of Terror and Sad Machine from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I finally was able to complete two of the three Champion objectives that I needed. I earned “The Realm of Terror” and “Sad Machine” – and it was exciting, and stressful, and fun! Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Destroyer of Rifts from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv The last objective I needed to complete was called “Destroyer of Rifts”. It required players to complete a Nephalem Rift on Torment X difficulty in 6 minutes or less. I had a hard time with this one – and was super excited when I completed it. Destroyer of Rifts: Finish a level 70 Nephalem Rift on Torment X difficulty within 6 minutes. I have now completed the Champion part of the Season Journey in Season 13. This is a big deal for me, because the farthest I’ve gotten before this Season was Slayer. Champion – Completed! (Season 13) is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...
- Champion – Halfway There (Season 13)
  March 29, 2018Diablo III / Diablo SeasonsSeason 13 was the very first time I attempted to complete any of the objectives in the Champion part of the Season Journey. The experience was both exciting, and frustrating, at times. It required a lot of problem solving to figure out what I needed to do to get my Necromancer ready for Torment X. This blog post contains the Twitch videos I recorded as I worked towards the halfway point of the Champion part of the Season Journey in Season 13. One of the first Champion objectives I completed was the one that requires players to Master a Set Dungeon. I think I completed at least one Set Dungeon previous to Season 13. This was the first time Mastered a Set Dungeon. I Mastered the Grace of Inarius Set Dungeon. There are two Primary objectives: Rip bones from 100 enemies with Bone Armor, and Kill 200 enemies that are afflicted by a Bone Armor tornado. There are three Completing Tiers. Basic: Complete one objective and kill 170 monsters within the time limit; Mastery: Complete both primary objectives and kill all monsters within the time limit. Target time: 5:00. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Starting Champion from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv I decided to pick at the Champion objectives and worry about one at a time. In the video above, I completed the objective that requires players to Master a Set Dungeon. I also completed the Conversion Incursion objective. Then, I started working on Greater Rifts for another objective, and completed Greater Rift 34. The Blessed Priests: Complete 1 Primary Objective and kill the initial amount of enemies in the Grace of Inarius Set Dungeon. Say Grace: Master the Grace of Inarius Set Dungeon by completing all objectives within the time limit. I started Season 13 with my Banner decorated with Necromancer stuff. The Blessed Priests Achievement gives players the sigil. This is what the Banner Sigil reward looks like. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Whimseydale Rift and more Rifts – Champion from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I got a Nephalem Rift that had ponies and Cuddle Bears from Whimseydale in it. After that, I completed a Greater Rift 35 and a Greater Rift 37. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Rifts and More Rifts from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I worked on more Greater Rifts. I completed a Greater Rift 37. Still have a way to go before I can attempt Greater Rift 40. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Champion – Greater Rift 40 Yosolo objective from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above I completed a Greater Rift 40 – for the first time ever! Greater Rift Level 40 completed at 8:00:299 Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Trying to improve my build from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I make some changes and try a few things in an effort to improve my build. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Not Ready for Greater Rift 40 from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I make another attempt at Greater Rift 40, hoping to improve my time. Things did not go as well as I had hoped – but the better gear helped me to complete the Greater Rift 40 and upgrade a Legendary Gem. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Many Deaths in Greater Rift 40 from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In this video, I attempted to do two things: get a better time on a Greater Rift 40, and upgrade a Legendary Gem. One of those goals was a success. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Champion – Upgrading Followers from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I continue working on getting a better time in Greater Rift 40 and trying to level Legendary Gems. I also upgraded two of my Followers. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Greater Rift 41 from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I completed a Greater Rift 41 and worked on leveling Legendary Gems up to 35. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Champion – One Legendary Gem to 35 from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I managed to get one Legendary Gem to Level 35. (Two more to go). Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Champion – Working on Leveling Legendary Gems from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I continue working in leveling Legendary Gems to Level 35. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Champion – Full of Bugs from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I get one more Legendary Gem to Level 35 (one more to go) and start working on the third one. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Champion – Up and At Gem Objective from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I finally complete the Up and At Gem objective. I also got my best time in a Greater Rift 42. Greater Rift Level 42 completed at 7:51:616 Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Champion – Nothing But the Best from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I spent a lot of gold and completed the Nothing But the Best objective. It is what I call a “gold sink”. By the time players reach Champion, they have already spent a lot of gold to level up all of their Crafters. The Nothing But the Best objective requires players to spend gold by raising up their gems until they get enough of the right kind to make a Flawless Royal Gem. Keep putting money into the machine until it pops out what you want. It isn’t exciting to do, and it isn’t fun. After that, I started working on Bounties in an effort to get my Necromancer enough Paragon points to play on Torment X. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Champion – Running Bounties for Paragon points from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I ran some Bounties in an effort to get more Paragon points. My hope was this would make my Necromancer strong enough to complete more of the Champion objectives. I also wanted to gather Crafting materials so I could get stuff out of my Stash and into Kanai’s Cube. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Out of the Stash and into the Cube from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I start trying to empty my Seasonal Stash by putting as many items as I can into Kanai’s Cube. I’m a “digital hoarder”, and my non-season Stash is already full. I cannot possibly take everything back with me. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Organizing my Seasonal Stash from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the above video, I begin working on organizing my Seasonal Stash. Hopefully, this will make it faster for me to find things that can be put into Kanai’s Cube. It should also make it easier for me to know what I already have so I stop putting multiple copies of items into my Stash. This was the point where Torment 10 got extremely difficult for me. I am determined to complete Champion this season, so I kept trying. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF Champion – Urzael Squashed Me from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I tried killing Urzael. Things did not go well. Urzael squashed me (over and over again). Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Between Torment 9 and Torment 10 from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I keep working on making my Necromancer stronger. Despite my best efforts, I was still sort of “stuck” between Torment 9 and Torment X. Watch Diablo III Season 13 SSF – Torment 10 hates me from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I reached the point of frustration, and was convinced that Torment X hates me. Champion was definitely a challenge for me. This blog shows my experience as I worked toward the halfway point of Champion in Season 13. I wasn’t ready to give up yet! Champion – Halfway There (Season 13) is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...

Book Reviews

- The Girls of Atomic City – by Denise Kiernan
  December 21, 2017Book Reviews / non fictionThe history classes you took in school undoubtedly covered at least some portion of World War II. It is unlikely that your history textbooks included information about the incredibly important work that women were doing. The full title of this book is The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of The Women Who Helped Win World War II. It was written by Denise Kiernan. Obviously, this book is non-fiction. It includes a narrative that was based on the interviews that Denise Kiernan did with several women who worked in Oak Ridge, Tennessee – a town that officially did not exist – at the Clinton Engineer Works – which also did not officially exist. Secrecy was vitally important because those who were hired were actually working on the atomic bomb. None of them knew this was what they were doing until after the bomb had been dropped. The majority of people who worked there were women, several of whom were young and unmarried. The women who had the opportunity to work at the Clinton Engineer Works were told almost nothing about it. They didn’t know where they were going to travel to, other than it was in the United States. They weren’t told what kind of work they would be doing. Some were given a vague estimate of how long the job might last. Imagine being a young woman in the 1930s who has to get on a train in order to travel to the location of her new job. You don’t know how long you will be on the train, or where it will take you. No one can come with you. All you have is a suitcase and perhaps a small amount of money. You are told that everything will be taken care of. You are wearing your best dress and brand new shoes. When you arrive, you discover that the Clinton Engineering Works has no sidewalks, and one or both of your shoes are sucked into the mud before you know it. If you’re lucky, and among the first to arrive, there might be a dorm room waiting for you – which you have to share with another young, unmarried, woman. Those who arrived later ended up on a waiting list and could find themselves living in temporary shelter while more dorms were being built. The Clinton Engineer Works was, of course, run by the United States military. As such, there were some military men who worked there. It wasn’t unheard of for the young, unmarried, women to find a soldier to date (and potentially marry). Oak Ridge grew quickly, but not fast enough to keep up with the constant influx of new-hires. Eventually, there was a movie theater, a store, and other types of recreation set up to alleviate the stress and boredom of the people who worked there. (It also appeared to help reduce the depression that many workers were experiencing.) Family homes were built, one after the other, all of them the same. They were built with a newly discovered material that was a mix of concrete and asbestos. If I remember correctly, most if not all of these homes were offered to married soldiers. It didn’t take long after newlyweds moved into one of those homes for a pregnancy to occur. While some women were thrilled to quit their jobs and stay home cooking and cleaning, others found themselves feeling bored and isolated without co-workers to socialize with. The Clinton Engineering Works was segregated. White families, who were not eligible to live in one of the newly built homes, were able to live in what was either a trailer or a mobile home. Unmarried white women, who arrived alone, eventually ended up in an all-female dorm. There were cafeterias in place that were open at all hours to accommodate the shift workers. Black people who came to work at the Clinton Engineering Works did not fare as well. There was one area for black people to live in. There were no dorms, and no cafeterias. People were housed in small huts with three or more people of the same gender. One of the women whose story was recorded by Denise Kiernan was named Kattie Strickland. She and her husband came to Oak Ridge to work as janitors. They weren’t allowed to live in the same structure because the black workers were not only segregated from the white workers, but were also segregated by gender – even if they were married! The book juxtaposes chapters that describe the working and social life of the woman at Oak Ridge with chapters about what the scientists were working on at other locations. You might have been taught the names of some of the male scientists who took part in developing or creating the atomic bomb. There were women scientists, too, but you might not know their names, in part because some had their work stolen from them and their names essentially erased. One of the things I found fascinating about this was the level of secrecy that everyone was able to maintain. People who worked at the Clinton Engineer Works, or anywhere in Oak Ridge, were not allowed to write home about what they were doing. Some learned that their letters had arrived to their loved ones only after having parts redacted. No one was allowed into the area unless they had the proper badge and reporters were rarely allowed in. This would never work today, where everyone has a cell phone, Google Streetview has created very clear maps of nearly everywhere, and the internet spreads even the most unbelievable rumors like wildfire. The whole narrative builds up to the day the atomic bomb was dropped. Suddenly, everyone who was doing mysterious jobs at Clinton Engineering Works became aware that what they were really doing was helping to build the bomb. Many people who came to Oak Ridge did so because they were told their work could help end the war. Most of them had a loved one who was fighting in that war, and that they wanted to come home as quickly as possible. They went from feeling good about helping bring their soldier back home – to feeling all kinds of emotions about having unintentionally built the atomic bomb. The scientists also had mixed feelings about what they had created. I found this book to be fascinating. Denise Kiernan did a wonderful job of weaving the stories of the women she interviewed into a narrative that makes you feel like you are right there with them. This book will interest people who are history buffs, who want to learn more about how the atomic bomb got built, or who enjoy learning about day-to-day lives of “The Girls of Atomic City”. This book review of The Girls of Atomic City – by Denise Kiernan is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...
- Civil Disobedience – by Henry David Thoreau
  May 13, 2017Book Reviews / classicsCivil Disobedience is an essay that is usually published inside a book that contains other writing by Henry David Thoreau. The reason is because Civil Disobedience is extremely short. There’s enough room to put it at the end of Walden. My copy of Walden was a Barnes & Noble version that included not only Civil Disobedience, but also a timeline of Thoreau’s life, an introduction, and a detailed section that described the meaning behind some of Thoreau’s references that were commonly understood at the time, but mysterious and confusing today. Civil Disobedience was written in response to real life events that Henry David Thoreau experienced. In 1846, he traveled through Massachusetts. His purpose was to go to Concord, to run an errand. (He needed to go to the cobblers to pick up his shoe that the cobbler repaired). A man named Sam Staples was the tax collector and warden of the county jail. Thoreau had been refusing to pay his poll tax. This type of tax dates back to the colonial era of the United States. In some cases, the poll tax was a fee that people would have to pay before they were allowed to vote. An eligible voter who could not pay the poll tax would not be allowed to vote. After the Civil War, a poll tax was often used as a means of preventing blacks from voting. Encyclopedia.com explains: …Along with other disenfranchising techniques, the poll tax was designed to be an instrument that could evade the reach of the Fifteenth Amendment (stating that no state may deny or abridge the right of citizens to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; citizens may not be prevented from voting due to race) and any other federal intervention. In order to be eligible to vote, an individual had to pay a poll tax. In some cases, the poll tax had to be paid almost a year in advance of the election, and in other cases the tax had to be paid for a certain period of years…. In some other states, the poll tax was a form of revenue placed upon everyone – not only people who wanted to vote. In Thoreau’s case, the poll tax functioned in a way that is similar to how tollways do today. Those who travel on the road must pay some money before they can continue to travel. Thoreau refers to it as a “highway tax.” Henry David Thoreau intentionally chose not to pay the poll tax as a protest against the United States government’s support of slavery and the Mexican-American War (which began in April of 1846). Thoreau believed (and, I am paraphrasing here) that if he paid the tax, his tax dollars could be used to buy “a man, or a musket to shoot one with”. Thoreau stopped paying his poll tax in 1842, but the consequence of doing so did not catch up to him until 1846. The sheriff (who was also the warden of the county jail) in Concord was Sam Staples. He had failed to take action against Thoreau for several years. The History of Massachusetts website points out a book called “A Historical Guide to Henry David Thoreau”, which says that the poll tax had nothing to do with the Mexican-American war, and that Thoreau’s arrest was technically illegal. It said: …Thoreau’s jailing was, it seems, an accident, and maybe a legal error. The tax that Thoreau refused to pay was a local one, not connected to the state of Massachusetts or the federal government, and according to one scholar who has studied the issue, it was unrelated to any funding for the Mexican War (Hoeltje, “Misconceptions”). Another scholar suggested that Staples’s action was illegal; Massachusetts law empowered him to lay hold of Thoreau’s goods and disburse them to pay debts, but not to place Thoreau under arrest… The year before his arrest, in 1845, Thoreau moved to live on land that was owned by his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was there that Thoreau built a cabin near Walden pond, grew his own beans, and lived a very minimalist existence. It seems to me that there wouldn’t have been much property for the state of Massachusetts to “lay hold of” and “distribute to pay debts” if it had chosen to do so. In 1848, Thoreau gave a speech called “The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Government” at the Concord Lyceum. The essay was first published in 1849 in the first numbers of Aesthetic Papers edited by Elizabeth Peabody, and under the title “Resistance to Civil Government”. It later became known as Civil Disobedience. Civil Disobedience starts with: I heartily accept the motto – the government is best that governs least and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. From there, he discusses the idea of using one’s conscience to determine what is right or wrong, and standing up to the government that fails to do what is right. Part of that discussion includes: …Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as God…. There is a lot in Civil Disobedience that I feel can be applied to the political situations of today. It is an essay that has often been mentioned, or quoted from, or noted as an inspiration of civil rights leaders who peacefully protest against the actions of a government that they feel is unjust – in the hopes of achieving equality and justice for all. There is a paragraph in Civil Disobedience that could be applied to a variety of political situations where people are being oppressed: …If injustice is part of the necessary friction of government, let it go, let it go; perchance it will wear smooth, – certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn…. In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau describes the night he spent in jail. It appears that he did not find that night to be terrible at all. He shared his cell with a roommate, a man who appeared to be nonviolent and who gave Thoreau advice about prison. Each man had his own bed and his own window, and was given meals. Someone else, it is unknown who, paid Thoreau’s poll tax for him. In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau states that the person “interfered”. In any case, Henry David Thoreau was out of jail. He picked up his repaired shoe from the cobbler’s and completed his errand. I recommend that everyone read Civil Disobedience, if for no other reason than to understand why it has been so influential on many people who are interested in civil rights, justice, and equality. It it not a long read, but can be a difficult read unless the book you picked up includes a section that helps explain what Thoreau was referring to or trying to say. This book review of Civil Disobedience – by Henry David Thoreau is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...

World of Warcraft

- World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Alpha
  April 25, 2018World of Warcraft / World of Warcraft BetasI was fortunate enough to get into the World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Alpha. After thinking about it, I decided to roll a Void Elf and make her a Warlock. The Void Elf is one of the Allied Races. The best thing about Alphas is the amusing “bugs” that players can find. The goal is to find and report all the bugs so they don’t make it into the final version of the game. I play World of Warcraft on a Mac. My first few attempts at playing the Battle for Azeroth Alpha resulted in failure. It was possible to select a race, class, and gender. When I hit “customize”… the game promptly crashed. Since I couldn’t report that bug in-game, I went to the Forums. Several other players, who also use Macs, had reported this bug, and I added my comments to theirs. The bug got fixed, and I was able to customize my Void Elf. Ready to play! The game started me off with this lovely demon minion, so I tested that one first. Not all of the Battle for Azeroth Alpha videos I recorded while streaming on Twitch were good. A few got recorded while I had my sound settings messed up, and this made them unwatchable. One of the first quests I picked up involved going into a mine. The NPC (non-player character) in charge of the mine berated Gendrendia because she wasn’t wearing a mining helmet. The next thing I knew… she was wearing one. Here are some of the videos that worked. Watch World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth Alpha – Aggressive Deer from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I repeatedly encountered some very aggressive deer. They rush over to pick a fight with a player. I also reported some bugs (which is the whole point of playing an Alpha). Watch World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth Alpha – Stuck in Combat from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I found a significant bug. After fighting and killing some enemies, the game kept me in combat. I was stuck in combat after that, and could not heal by eating food. Watch World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth Alpha – Skinner McGuff and Stabby Jane from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I found some NPC’s with interesting names. One was Skinner McGuff that wanted me to collect poison for him (by killing a certain number of bugs and dinosaurs that ate the bugs). He’s a sketchy guy, and I wonder if players will encounter him again sometime. The other was a Castaway named Stabby Jane. She sends players on several quests, one of which requires the player to find items that three Castaways have lost. She is missing a locket. When I found the locket, the description said it contained a photo of Stabby Jane and another woman. We don’t get a clear answer of who the woman is. Could she be Stabby Jane’s sister? Or, is the woman Stabby Jane’s wife. Players are left to decide that for themselves. Watch World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth Alpha – Amusing bugs and a Creepy Child from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv There were plenty of bugs to report this time! My game crashed twice, and I had to close it and start again. A glitch caused my Warlock to rise from the ground in a way looked horribly unnatural. I quickly discovered that my character could turn, but could not walk. Once again, I restarted the game. The birds are still glowing after death, but fail to open a loot window. My character got stuck in a position as if she was trying to loot something. I could make her walk, but the instant she stopped – she went back into a looting crouch. These are just a few of the strange bugs I found this time. There is a quest chain that involves an extremely creepy child, who wants to have a tea party. I’ll leave you to watch the video to get a clearer idea of why I think the kid is creepy. Watch World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Alpha – Gorehorn and Nevermore from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv The first thing I noticed after logging in this time was that my minion was now blue. Up until this point, this minion was a white and light purple color (as seen in the videos I posted earlier in this blog post). I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I wandered through a graveyard and randomly killed things. My best guess is that there are quests connected to that area – which I haven’t picked up yet. I decided to go hunt two of the creatures that showed up on the map with a star – Gorehound and Nevermore. There were also Treasure Chests appearing on the map. Of course, I wanted to go find them. Watch World of Warcraft – Battle for Azeroth Alpha – Rescuing rangers and fighting skeletons from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I picked up a quest that involved going into an area and rescuing Rangers and their pets. Interestingly, it didn’t seem to matter which ones I rescued. The pets were separate from the Rangers, and the game did not require me to match them up. The quest area overlapped with a few other quests and a Bonus Objective that required me to kill skeletons (and other creatures). I love fighting skeletons! When that was done, I randomly stumbled upon an area that was overrun with Quillrats and their Matriarch. Not much happened after I killed the “big bad”, so I think there must have been a quest for this (which I had not picked up yet). Watch World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth Alpha – None of those are spices! from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I found a bug – a boat went directly through a rock. I wandered around the market area of a town I’d never been to. The spice vendor sells a lot of interesting things, but none of them are spices. Eventually, I went back to where the Castaways were at so I could turn in a quest. It turned out there were other quests in that area that I failed to pick up – because the game had a weird bug and I didn’t end up on the coast where I was supposed to be. One quest involved killing the Sirens that were luring sailors to their death. The Sirens don’t seem to care if the sailors are male or female. Anyone will do. This quest led me to where the NPC I came here with ended up. I think this area was where I was supposed to start. I ended up fighting a rare spawn called Fowlmouth – a huge parrot (that insults the player’s mother). Later, I picked up an escort quest that involved following around my drunken NPC friend Flynn. Watch World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth Alpha – Alcohol and Malfunctioning Cannons from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I completed a few quests in the pirate town. The pirates like their alcohol! I found a “bug” that resulted in a malfunctioning cannon. In the video below, my character (and her NPC friend, Flynn) join the pirates. Sort of. Both of them have to wear purple pirate hats. Gendrendia the Warlock doesn’t like her hat. Watch World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth Alpha – A pirate’s life for me from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Gendrendia the Warlock doesn’t like her hat. I didn’t know it at the time, but the video below would be my last one from the World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth Alpha. It was time for the Beta to begin! Watch World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth Alpha – Searching for Treasure and Feeding Pretties from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv In the video above, I worked on a quest that required me to find clues about a stolen treasure. It seems like a very fitting quest to come from a town full of pirates. Another quest had me searching for an NPC named Rodrigo – who wanted me to feed his “pretties”. Rodrigo is my favorite character in that town! World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Alpha is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...
- Lunar Festival Elders in Eastern Kingdoms
  March 9, 2018Holiday Events / World of WarcraftShortly before the 2018 Lunar Festival started in World of Warcraft, I learned how to stream video games on Twitch. I decided it would be fun to make short videos about where to find the Elders. Watch Grayn the Rogue sets off Lunar Fest Fireworks and honors Elder Bronzebeard from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Bronzebeard is located inside Ironforge. This video includes lots of fireworks! Watch World of Warcraft Lunar Festival – Elder Goldwell from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Goldwell is located in Kharanos. Watch Grayn honors Elder Hammershout during World of Warcraft Lunar Festival. from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Hammershout is located outside of Stormwind. Watch Grayn honors Elder Stormbrow in World of Warcraft Lunar Festival. from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Stormbrow is located in Goldshire. Watch Grayn honored Elder Skychaser in World of Warcraft’s Lunar Festival from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Skychaser is located in Westfall. Watch Grayn honors Elder Highpeak during World of Warcraft’s Lunar Festival from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Highpeak is located in The Hinterlands. Watch Grayn honors Elder Rumblerock in World of Warcraft’s Lunar Festival from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Rumblerock is located in Burning Steppes. Watch Grayn honors Elder Silvervein in World of Warcraft’s Lunar Festival from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Silvervein is located in Thelsamar. Watch Grayn honors Elder Bellowrage in World of Warcraft Lunar Fest from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Bellowrage is located in Blasted Lands. Watch Grayn honors Elder Snowcrown during World of Warcraft Lunar Festival from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Snowcrown is located in Light’s Hope Chapel. Watch Grayn honors Elder Moonstrike during World of Warcraft’s Lunar Festival. from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Moonstrike is located in Scholomance (but not in the dungeon part). Watch Grayn honors Elder Meadowrun in World of Warcraft’s Lunar Festival from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Meadowrun is located in Western Plaguelands (inside a cave). Watch Grayn honors Elder Windrun in World of Warcraft’s Lunar Festival. from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Windrun is in the Eastern Plaguelands. Watch Grayn honors Elder Dawnstrider in World of Warcraft’s Lunar Festival from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Dawnstrider is in Flamecrest. Watch Grayn honors Elder Graveborn in World of Warcraft’s Lunar Festival. from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Graveborn is in Brill. Watch Grayn honors Elder Starglade in World of Warcraft’s Lunar Festival. from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Starglade is in Zul’Gurub (but not in the dungeon part). Watch Grayn honors Elder Ironband in World of Warcraft’s Lunar Festival. from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Ironband is outside of Blackchar Cave in Searing Gorge. Watch Grayn honors Elder Obsidian in World of Warcraft’s Lunar Fest. from Queenofhaiku on www.twitch.tv Elder Obsidian is in The Sepulcher. This video shows my alt (Grayn the Rogue) earning the Elders of Eastern Kingdoms Achievement....

Out of Spoons (Chronic Illness)

- Head Full of Pollen
  April 10, 2018Out of Spoons / Spoonie Poetry and ProseTen point four today If I make no sense later Blame pollen and drugs Head Full of Pollen is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...
- Everything Hurts Today
  March 31, 2018Out of Spoons / Spoonie Poetry and ProseMy eyes are itching Pollen count is ten point five And everything hurts Everything Hurts Today is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...

Other Video Games

- Plant Nanny
  March 7, 2018Other Video Games / Plant NannyPlant Nanny is an adorable app that is designed to remind people to drink more water. It isn’t a video game, but it does include gamification (in a similar way to the Epic Win app). The goal is to grow a variety of cute plants from a seed to Level 4. After a plant hits Level 4, it goes into your permanent garden and grows more seeds for you. Every time you drink water you are supposed to go into the app and give the plant you are currently growing a virtual drink. In order to figure out how much water you need to stay hydrated, the app starts by asking your gender and weight. If your weight changes, you can go into the app and update it. At the time I am writing this blog, I have lost 25 pounds since the time I started using Plant Nanny. The amount of water it wants me to drink has not changed. The plants will start looking sickly if you don’t drink enough water in a certain amount of time. They look absolutely miserable! This is probably to encourage dehydrated people to drink more water, if not for themselves, than to help their virtual plant feel better. It is possible for your Plant Nanny plant to die. You get plenty of warning before it happens. If a plant dies, you have to start over with a new one, which can be purchased with seeds. Here is a look at the types of Plant Nanny plants that I managed to grow to Level 4. Some are easier than others. There is a star rating on each plant type that gives you a clue about their difficulty level. Devil’s Ivy Devil’s Ivy – Level 1 Devil’s Ivy – Level 2 Devil’s Ivy – Level 3 Devil’s Ivy – Level 4 The Devil’s Ivy is now in the garden. Cactus Cactus – Level 1 Cactus – Level 2 Cactus – Level 3 Cactus – Level 4 The Cactus in now in the garden. Dandelion Dandelion – Level 1 Dandelion – Level 2 Dandelion – Level 3 Dandelion – Level 4 The Dandelion is now in the garden. Benjamin Mushroom Benjamin Mushroom – Level 1 Benjamin Mushroom – Level 2 Benjamin Mushroom – Level 3 Benjamin Mushroom – Level 4 The Benjamin Mushroom is now in the garden. I will update this blog after I grow more plants big enough to put into the garden....
- Hearthstone: Kobolds & Catacombs – Defeat 5 Dungeon Run Bosses
  January 29, 2018Hearthstone / Other Video GamesKobolds & Catacombs is a Hearthstone solo player expansion. When the expansion was launched, it offered players the opportunity to do a Dungeon Run. Players started with a quest called Begin a Dungeon Run. After players completed the first quest, a new one appeared. To complete it, players needed to “Defeat 5 Dungeon Run Bosses.” I picked up the “Defeat 5 Dungeon Run Bosses” quest right after completing the “Begin a Dungeon Run” quest. I used my Rogue deck and defeated one Dungeon Run boss. The game allowed me to choose a Treasure. (The Treasure, and other card choices, are limited to the Dungeon Run. Players don’t get to keep them.) Kobold: Oh OHHH big treasure! You is picking one, only one. Make good picking. Bosses Defeated as Rogue – 1 The screenshot above shows an example of what kinds of Treasures players might be offered to pick from. My favorite is the Mysterious Tome because it was fun to see what random secrets would appear, and what each one would do. Mysterious Tome: Passive At the start of the game, play 3 random Secrets. Kobold: Cards you are picking now, cards for being in your Dungeon Deck. Players got to choose from three sets of cards. Whichever one you picked went straight into your Dungeon Deck. Players (and bosses) started with low health points and a very limited number of cards. Both increased with each new match. Picking from three sets of cards was the mechanism by which Hearthstone enabled players to build up their Dungeon Deck. Frostfur: These furbolg warrens feel unnaturally cold… Frostfur was the next boss that appeared. The bosses were (somewhat) random. Frostfur starts out with 15 health points, and my Dungeon Deck started out with 20 health points. At the top of screenshot above, it says “Challenge 2/8”. This means I’ve beaten one Dungeon Run boss with my Rogue Deck. (That would be the boss I defeated for the first quest.) Kobold: One dungeon run is to be fighting eight monsters! One for each finger. Maiev Shadowsong vs Frostfur Frostfur: I told you kobolds to – oh – what have we here? Kobold: As you be getting stronger, monsters be getting stronger. Kobold: Pecuniary elasticity is important part of kobold empire mixed-market economic doctrine. Frostfur has a sparkly blue Hero power called Freeze. “Freeze a minion.” Maiev Shadowsong defeated Frostfur VICTORY! The quest I was working on required me to Defeat 5 Dungeon Run Bosses. I had now defeated 1 out 5 bosses. It turns out the boss I beat to complete the previous quest did not count for this new quest. Kobold: Be winning more fights, be taking more loots! Is kobold way! I don’t remember which set of loot I picked. The reason I put this screenshot in here is to point out that every time a player beats a boss, they get to pick a set of three cards. Those cards get added to their Dungeon Run deck. Players don’t get to keep the loot after the Dungeon Run ends. The second boss in this Dungeon Run was Seriona: A twilight dragon bent on draining your minions. Seriona starts the match with 20 Health Points. My Rogue deck starts the match with 25 Health Points. The screenshot above says that I have defeated 2 Bosses as a Rogue. One of them was Frostfur, and the other was the boss I defeated to complete the first Dungeon Run quest. That number is the total of all bosses killed with a specific deck. Kobold: Stupid Twilight Dragon be making kobolds weak! Er, weaker! Maiev Shadowsong vs Seriona Seriona: I sense great power. Come closer… Seriona: Feeeed…! Seriona’s Hero Power is called Fading Light. It gives a minion -1 Attack. This is what the Kobold was referring to when he said that Seriona makes Kobolds weaker. Every time she uses her Hero Power, one of my minions got a little bit less effective at attacking. Maiev Shadowsong defeated Seriona VICTORY! I have now defeated 2 out of 5 bosses. Blackseed: This furbolg’s dark magic twists the other dungeonfolk. The next boss is Blackseed. He starts with 30 Health Points – and so does my Rogue deck. At the top of the screenshot, it says “Challenge 4/8”. It also says that I defeated a total of 3 bosses with my Rogue deck. Maiev Shadowsong vs Blackseed Blackseed: Something wicked burrows here… Blackseed: You do not see the shadows…but they see you. Blackseed’s Hero Power is called Evolvomancy: Transform a minion into a random one that costs (1) more. Blackseed: Who is the monster here? Blackseed: There is another, far below… VICTORY! I have now defeated 3 out of 5 bosses. The next boss was Fungalmancer Flurgl. He starts with 40 Health Points, and my Rogue deck starts with 35 points. Maiev Shadowsong vs Fungalmancer Flurgl Fungalmancer Flurgl makes noises that sound like Murlocs do. It turned out that Fungalmaster Flurgl has a Murloc deck. Fungalmaster Flurgl’s Hero Power is Fungal Infection: Give your minions +1 / +1. Maiev Shadowsong was defeated by Fungalmaster Flurgl. Kobold: Is okay. Better to be dying young than to never be dying at all. This ends my Dungeon Run with my Rogue deck. I defeated 4/8 bosses total. I needed to defeat 5 bosses in order to complete the quest. Instead of giving up, I gave the quest a try with my Mage deck. Jaina Proudmore vs Wee Whelp Wee Whelp: Feeding time? Wee Whelp’s Hero Power is Baby Breath: Deal 2 damage. VICTORY! I have now defeated 4 out of 5 bosses. The next boss was Pathmaker Hamm: There’s more than one way for a kobold to dig a tunnel. Kobold: Hamm be bestest tunnel-digger. “Dig” is euphemism. Jaina Proudmore vs Pathmaker Hamm Pathmaker Hamm: Demolition time! Pathmaker Hamm: Hahaha. Pathmaker Hamm’s Hero Power is Unstable Explosion: Deal 1 damage to two random enemies. Pathmaker Hamm: Boom baby. BOOM! Jaina Proudmore defeated Pathmaker Hamm. VICTORY! Defeat 5 Dungeon Run Bosses – and you will a Kobolds & Catacombs card pack. Hearthstone: Kobolds & Catacombs – Defeat 5 Dungeon Run Bosses is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...

TV & Movie Reviews

- Things from Mad Men that are Different from Today – Season Seven
  April 8, 2017TV and Movie ReviewsSeason Seven was the final season of Mad Men. I was kind of sad to have reached the end of the story, but I liked how it ended. I can always re-watch it if I want to. My husband and I watched the entire series of Mad Men on Netflix. I took notes on the things in Mad Men that are different from today. Before you read this post, you might want to read what I wrote about previous Seasons: Mad Men Season One Mad Men Season Two Mad Men Season Three Mad Men Season Four Mad Men Season Five Mad Men Season Six Warning: There are spoilers. Episode 1: Don flies to California where his wife, Megan, is living. She has a tiny black and white television. He buys her a huge console television. The thing is so heavy that it requires two big men to carry it inside. It looks like a cabinet with the television embedded in it, and I think it had built in speakers on either side of the TV. This was a top-of-the-line, expensive, color television…. that Megan didn’t want. Episode 2: * Don wakes up to a buzzing noise. It is coming from his alarm clock, which can be described as an analog electric alarm clock. The numbers flip over. * Don and his daughter, Sally, are at a diner. She wants to call her friends. Don put two quarters on the table. Sally takes the quarters, gets up, walks across the diner, and puts the quarters into the payphone that is on the wall. Today, Sally would have picked up her smartphone and made the call (or would have borrowed her dad’s smartphone to make the call). Episode 3: * Harry finally tells one of the other partners that he’s been lying – for a long time – about there being a computer that he uses to figure out the best ad placement for television ads. He’s been lying to the customers about it, too. There is no computer. This revelation sparks a conversation about the company needing to invest in a computer. Today, its hard to imagine an entire office without computers. * Betty goes on a field trip with her son, Bobby. She is a chaperone. Betty and Bobby ride on the school bus with his classmates, teacher, and a few other moms. Betty smokes a cigarette on the way, and ashes out the window. Episode 4: * The creative’s lounge is taken away from them because the office is going to put a computer there. It takes up that entire space. The only thing this computer could do was “crunch numbers” – literally computing. * The computer is an IBM 360. It is a mainframe computer that was accessed by remote terminals. It had 8,000,000 characters in bulk core storage. Monthly rentals ranged from $27,000 for a basic configuration to $115,000 for a typical large multi system configuration. * The “System/360″ became available for delivery in 1965. The office in Mad Men is getting it installed in 1969. Today, most offices do not invest in computers that are four years old. * Harry asks the IBM guy who is overseeing the computer installation to tell him where to find a keypunch service. The IBM 360 ran on punch cards. A keypunch service had people (often women) whose job it was to put a deck of blank cards into a hopper. The worker would type an operator command, and the hopper machine would feed one card at a time into a punch station. A series of dies punched holes into an individual card. Harry needed a service to make those cards for the office’s computer. * In order to operate the mainframe, a person needed to – by hand – put the stack of punchcards, in a specific order, into the mainframe one by one. * I have personally done that a few times when I was a little kid (because my dad sometimes took me to work with him.). Dropping the punch cards on the floor was a complete disaster. It meant you had to stop entering the cards, stop the computer, take the time to put the cards back in order, and start putting them into the computer again. If you accidentally put one card into the computer in the wrong order – the computer wouldn’t work. Once all the punchcards were correctly entered, you had to wait around for the mainframe to process them before you could start working from a terminal. * Don uses a typewriter at his desk to get some work done. He has a piece of white paper, then a sheet of carbon, then another piece of white paper sandwiched together. The purpose of this was so Don could make two copies of what he was typing at the same time. Episode 5: * There is now a secretary who sits at the terminal inside the room the giant computer is in. She appears to be typing something into the terminal. Behind her is a computer with a magnetic reel tape drive. * The giant mainframe computer makes a constant humming noise. The computer room always has the doors closed because it needs to be in an air conditioned room. Episode 6: * Peggy is working on an ad campaign for Burger Chef. She and Don decide to come up with a new idea rather than what they originally planned. Peggy mentions something about the ad including a mother who is picking up Burger Chef for her family on the way home from work. Don says “Mothers who work is too sad for an ad.” Peggy points out that he is surrounded by mothers who work. This doesn’t change Don’s mind. They end up going with a completely different idea. Episode 7: * This episode focuses on the Moon Landing. Everyone watches the rocket lifting off on television. Then, they watched the first space walk on television. * Peggy is in Indiana with Don, Pete, and Harry because they are pitching to Burger Chef the next day. Peggy went out to get alcohol, but Indiana was dry on Sundays – meaning stores could not sell alcohol. She ends up having to buy two cans of beer from the hotel clerk. Indiana was dry on Sundays until July 1, 2016. The laws changed on that date to allow distilleries, breweries, and wineries to sell alcohol on Sundays. The laws still did not allow people to buy alcohol and bring it home with them on a Sunday. Episode 8: * Don has an answering service. He calls and a female worker answers and tells him who called him and when. The service is not work related – it is taking calls from women in Don’s social life. * Joan and Peggy are talking to their client, Topaz pantyhose, about a problem. L’Eggs pantyhose – a competitor – is a lower price and is selling more than Topaz. L’Eggs pantyhose came in a plastic egg shaped container. Episode 9: * I didn’t see anything new in this episode, that you don’t see today (that hadn’t already been mentioned in this post or in posts about previous seasons.) Episode 10: * Sally’s friend Glenn comes to visit. He is now 18 years old. Glenn, and a female friend he brought with, ask Sally to go to Playland with them. Glenn reveals that he has joined the military and will be going to Vietnam. Sally gets very upset about this and rushes to her room. Later, Glenn returns, knowing that Sally is not there. (She was on a class trip.). Glenn came to see Betty. Betty gives Glenn a beer. The legal drinking age in New York was 18 until 1982 – when it went up to 19. On December 1, 1985, the legal drinking age in New York moved up to age 21. * Don was running late for work, so he shaves at his desk in his office while his secretary fills him in about what is scheduled for the day. He uses a battery powered electric razor. Those types of razors increased in popularity in the 1960s. * The office has a darkroom which Stan (one of the creatives) uses to develop film – usually for ad campaigns. People have to knock on the door before coming in because opening the door lets light into the room. Doing that at the wrong time can completely destroy film. Episode 11: * Peggy and Stan are working with children for an ad campaign. There is a table of toys in front of the kids. One of the toys is a metal slinky. Episode 12: * The office gets absorbed by McCann. They lose the computer that took over the creative’s lounge. Harry says that McCann has a team of people who do statistics – so they don’t need the computer. * McCann has an informal “ladies club”. The women who work there get together to complain about work (and drink). * Peggy’s last remaining creative guy chooses not to go to McCann. He is still at the old office. He says he is still being paid, so he thought he’d “make some long distance calls”. Long distance calls were very expensive at the time. Episode 13: * Don has gone on an impromptu road trip. He doesn’t carry luggage. Instead, he has a large paper bag with a change of clothes in it. The bag says Sears. Today, a lot of Sears stores are closing. Episode 14: * Don’s road trip continues. This time he is carrying a bag from Penney’s. The bag probably came from JC Penney’s (which, today, is also closing a lot of stores.) Things from Mad Men that are Different from Today – Season Seven is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...
- Things from Mad Men that are Different from Today – Season Six
  April 7, 2017TV and Movie ReviewsAs my husband and I watched our way through Mad Men, I took notes about things that are in the show that are different from today. This post is about Mad Men Season Six. We watched the entire series on Netflix. Before you read this, you might want to read what I wrote about previous Seasons: Mad Men Season One Mad Men Season Two Mad Men Season Three Mad Men Season Four Mad Men Season Five Warning: There are spoilers. Episode 1: * Megan uses a Kodak Instamatic camera to take a photo of Don while they are on a work/vacation in Hawaii. The Kodak Instamatic was launched in 1963. It used a 126 film cartridge. The Kodak Instamatic 104 was released in 1968. It had a holder for a single flashbulb on the top of the camera. Take a photo with the flashcube, and cock the camera for the next exposure (meaning – roll the film for the next photo). The flashcube would turn 90 degrees to bring the next flashbulb into position automatically. * The maid was vacuuming while Don was watching TV. The television had two squiggly lines of interference across it – one near the top of the screen and one near the bottom. It was not a common problem, and the TV went back to normal when after the vacuum was shut off. Episode 2: I did not see anything in this episode that was different from today (and that wasn’t already mentioned in this list or the lists about previous seasons.) Episode 3: * The news in the background on televisions in various scenes discuss the Vietnam War. It has been said that Vietnam was the first “television war”, or the first “living-room war” (the room people watched television in.) Being able to sit in your home, in front of your TV, and watch what was happening in a war far away had an effect on people. At first, TV stations were trying to be upbeat – providing wire reports or a battlefield roundup. Later, things got darker and some “horror of war” was televised. The ability to watch the war on TV had an effect on people’s opinion about the war. In 1968, the Tet Offensive happened. It appears that this is what the television news is talking about in this episode of Mad Men. Episode 4: * Joan and her friend Kate go to a restaurant where there is a telephone at every table. The name of the restaurant is “Ma Bells”. The name is a play on The Bell Telephone Company. Ma Bells was the creation of Restaurant Associates. The restaurant actually existed. Every table had a telephone on it. People called their order into the kitchen. The telephones could also be used to call someone who was sitting at another table. * Megan and Don go out to dinner with Megan’s coworker and boss (who are a married couple.). During the dinner, it is revealed that the couple are “Swingers” who are interested in swinging with Megan and Don. Swingers were people who had open relationships. Some were heterosexual, and some were bisexual. Being a swinger became popular in the late 1960s, when the “free love” movement was taking place and casual sex was becoming an accepted thing among some people. Swingers felt it was natural to have sexual desires outside of your relationship, and to act on those desires (if the desired person was consenting.) Episode 5: * This episode focused on when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. * Someone (I forgot who) turns on a black and white television. A bright dot appears in the center of the screen, which becomes a horizontal line, that eventually spread out over the screen. This was how televisions at the time warmed up if they had not been turned on in a while. * Don takes Bobby to watch a movie. They see “The Planet of the Apes.” At the end of the movie, it’s clear that Bobby liked it. Don asked “Do you want to see it again?” Bobby does, so they stay in their seats and watch the movie again. This wasn’t unusual and was allowed at the time. Episode 6: * I didn’t see anything in this episode that hasn’t already been mentioned in this list (or the lists I put together about previous episode) Episode 7: * Pete’s mother comes to his apartment. The handyman calls Pete to let him know she is there. Pete tells the handyman to fix his mother a drink. The ice cube tray is made out of aluminum. It has a quick release handle on it that you pull up to crack the ice cubes. Today, ice cube trays are plastic and you twist them to crack the ice. Episode 8: * The office is visited by a “doctor” (brought in by one of the partners of the company that Don’s company merged with). The man is not really a doctor. He was brought to “fix everyone up.” Don agrees to see the “doctor” because he is suffering from a bad cough. The “doctor” injects several of the men in the office with an unknown concoction. Based on the actions of the men who took this injection – it appears that at least some of it is amphetamine. The “doctor” appears to be somewhat based on a real person named Max Jacobson who was known as “Dr. Feelgood”. Jacobson did have a background as a doctor – but was known for mixing up unknown ingredients (along with amphetamine) and injecting that into the (often famous) people who came to him for help. Jacobson “treated” JFK, Marylin Monroe, Eddie Fisher, and others. Episode 9: * Don stops at a gas station and tries to get the gas station attendant’s attention. It was a full service gas station (which was standard at the time). People did not pump their own gas – the attendant did it for them. The gas station attendant would fill the tank, check the tire pressure, check the oil, and wash the cars windows. People paid for the gas, but the other services were provided for free. Gas stations used to hand out trinkets as well – for travelers to collect. (drinking glasses, key chains, calendars, road maps, etc). There are some places in the United States today where people are required by law to allow a gas station attendant to pump their gas for them. It is no longer a common practice – and does not come with the extra services. Episode 10: * Joan tells a potential client that Harry works on figuring out where to place television ads “with a computer as big as this room”. The first personal computer wasn’t introduced until 1975 – and they were kits that people had to put together themselves. * This episode focused on the 1968 Democratic National Convention that took place in Chicago. * Megan watches the violence that took place outside the DNC. She calls Don, who is watching it, too, (while away on business). Megan says she can’t vote – but still cares about what’s going on. Megan is Canadian. She was from Quebec. * There is a lava lamp on the desk in the Creatives Office. The lava lamp was created by Edward Craven Walker (who was a British accountant). He sold the U.S. manufacturing rights in 1965 to a company named Lava Lite. In 1968, lava lamps were marketed to executives. Episode 11: * The office, which is in New York, receives fresh oranges from California from Sunkist (who is a client). In a previous episode, Roger’s daughter told him that her husband had this great idea about investing in refrigerated trucks that ship produce. This indicates that it was not easy to obtain fresh oranges from California if you lived in New York. Those oranges were a big deal. * Sylvia and Arnold (Don’s neighbors) have a son, Mitchell, who is 18. He returned his draft card as a form of protest of the Vietnam War. After Mitchell dropped out of school, the military re-classified him 1-A. This designation meant that it was extremely likely that Mitchell would be drafted and sent to Vietnam. Mitchell tells his problem to Megan (who relays the problem to Don). Megan said that Mitchell was “going to run”. This meant that Mitchell was going to leave the United States and go to Canada in order to avoid being drafted. Megan considers helping Mitchell because she has family in Canada. Much of this episode is about how to solve Mitchell’s problem. Episode 12: * I didn’t notice anything new in this episode (that wasn’t already mentioned in this post or in posts from previous seasons.) Episode 13: * Sally get suspended from boarding school because she used a fake ID with her mother’s name on it and bought alcohol for herself and the other girls. Betty calls Don, all upset. Betty tells Don that the reason why “nothing is working” and “the bad is beating the good” is because Sally is “from a broken home.” That’s not a phrase people use today in regards to a child from a family where the parents got divorced and remarried. Things from Mad Men that are Different from Today – Season Six is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...

Cockatiels

- Fly
  March 7, 2014CockatielsShawn took this fantastic photo of Pepper flying back to the cage. Fly is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. The photo in this post is not allowed to be posted on other websites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...
- Sunbeam Nap
  June 30, 2013CockatielsTwo little birdies Sleeping in a sunbeam As though they are cats Sunbeam Nap is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites. The photo in this post is not allowed to be copied to other sites. If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Patreon or at PayPal.me. Thank you!...