How is/was your day?

Coming back to this, because after wearing both watches for most of the time, I've discovered something clear and conclusive:
The watch that I wear on my right hand, whichever it is, always goes slightly faster, and the watch that I wear on the left hand always goes slightly slower.  So yes, it's the tension in the mainspring.  Obviously, if one moves the hand around just the right amount, the watch will be precise. 
 

 Eh, It's easier than that I think.  Just me cooking and baking, is me holding still with left hand and cutting, stirring and beating with my right hand.  I write, paint, shave and brush my teeth with my right hand.  See any pattern here?     ...etc.

I've had weird stomach aches for a day, and felt pretty bad in an indefinite kind of way, uncomfortable. Probably fever. Also I had an itching red rash all over my chest.

Same thing about a week ago. Then suddenly today it struck me: - The peanuts!  


As I explained many moths ago, I can't eat most brands of peanuts. I'm not like dangerously allergic or like that, but I can get sick. The weird thing is that there was a brand that I could eat just fine. Nothing. And then there are nuts that I get violently sick by, like free bar/pub nuts.

I don't know why I got tempted or figured it would be okay, It was a brand I stopped eating a decade ago, and I haven't had peanuts since... oh, I really don't even remember, probably last time I got sick. But they were special price...

I spent a little too much time watching a sim race, Coke 600, with Jimmy Broadbent.

After spending hours managing his position, tires and fuel, he was in a comfortable position to win (he won 2021), but with some 50 laps left, it all went to hell and became considerably more dramatically entertaining. He had to move up into second position, because the second wasn't driving fast enough and the leader was starting to slip away, which is not a good thing towards the end of the race. However, the second placed driver struggled mightily against his passing and eventually hit him, sending him down into the infield and way back in the field of cars.

Now, a lap at speed takes only about 30 seconds. Good to know.

The call was made to pit, so he did. Exiting the pits he just touched a white line and somehow got a black flag penalty, stop and go 30 seconds.
Some time later, trying to get back through the field, he got rammed hard and suffered a 50 second (about) repair in pits.

So far typical NASCAR, right ?

Then at the end, only three, 3 laps remaining, he was back on the lead lap, but last in the queue under yellow flag. Race position 17, ahead of lapped cars in front of him of course.
- He finished sixth! 🤣

Today I got a new bookcase for my Tolkien collection.

Nothing much has moved in the war as such, but we're a slight bit inside Germany and there isn't much action, so no casualties either. Maybe it'll start up when the winter breaks.

Air war and sea battles continues to go well, but destroyer crisis is slightly worse. I didn't take the destroyers for bases deal, because USA is behaving really weird, not an ally, and ignores all it's "guarantees the independence of". Done nothing about the Mexican juntas aggression. So I figure I won't get access to the bases after the deal, and frankly, obsolete destroyers is not really what I need.

This is the first time I'm actually enjoying playing HoI4. Previously I've been mostly annoyed by what the game doesn't do and what it does, and overwhelmed because I hadn't learned all the small tricks of micromanagement. This time I've managed to stay on top of it and be well organized. It's lots of work so you need to be at it from day one.

Still hadn't learned everything. I made a mistake I learned something new from. You have to make up more than one fleet for the same region, if there are areas that present special challenges. So only the fleet that has task forces that can cope with the challenges, be it land based air or shallow water or more technical enemies, have those areas as operation zones. That way you can protect other, older ships with less anti-air etc. in the other fleet. You can't make that decision on task force level. Every Admiral will send all task forces into all designated zones for his fleet. This has to be managed at fleet level.

Another is managing aircraft types. It follows the same principle. You have to use what you have where it can do the job. The most basic is the blue star, which means the wing will only be reinforced with aircraft of the same type. When you eventually get ready to upgrade a wing, there may be two alternatives. If you upgrade from Hurricane to Spitfire, you change to (-) which means it'll upgrade to any type, which will always be the most modern type available and be immediate if there are planes in stock. But if you want to upgrade Gladiator to Hurricane, but keep Spitfires for other wings, you set it to reinforce to only 'outdated' types. It will still upgrade immediately to Hurricanes, if such are available. And you also need to set the little green lamp for every type, to mark it as current or outdated. And so it goes, lots of small, 'secret' buttons to push.

But for the first time since I got this (and I haven't played much), this game is fun. And that is because I've managed to stay on top of things. And if you do, the war pretty much runs itself. This is mostly a production, training and logistics gameplay, even if you can order about individual divisions (fun, but not a good idea, while you can make spectacular pinchers, casualties are worse than if you let the Generals run it).

...Continuing HoI4. The war has bogged down. The front is not moving. Germany-Austria-Hungary refuses to break.
I have pretty much sunk all of Germany's navy, but I get a lot of ships damaged, by German air, as I try to uphold naval supremacy in the Danish belts and the Baltic.

Don't know what to do. Maybe try an invasion on the Northern German coast?

I've figured out that a second, strong upgrade of all those old Battleships is very cost effective, so that is underway, as well as mass production of Destroyers, now that I have built a large number of shipyards.

Yesterday I was at the hospital to get a three monthly CT scan and checked in. I was 25 minutes early for the appointment. When I entered the waiting room, I greeted the people there, as is the custom and how I was taught. People all of a sudden laughed. They told me that they haven't seen that in a while. So I told them that it was how we do it here. It's a good custom of a great country. Dutch people like to complain, so they told me how bad the government was and so on. I counteracted every argument, until everybody laughed. After 5 minutes waiting I was called in (to my surprise). So I told them: "See? With a positive attitude everybody cooperates with me. You can wait, though." They laughed again. Even the radiologist giggled. Me too, because I was the last in and the first out.

I accidentally slapped myself in the eye pretty hard and it just does not stop hurting.

 There is a definite risk of detached retina in that case  (it doesn't hurt, but a hard punch to the eye may cause detached retina).  If so, this will not "heal" by itself and it will lead to blindness rather rapidly.  As time passes, you'll lose more and more and that sight will not recover.  Symptom is you see shadows and curtains, and flashes.  If you suspect this, you should keep in as much stillness as possible, preferable on your back and somehow get to an  eye clinic's emergency ward.  If you see those things I mentioned, shadows, curtains,  you should probably call an ambulance and get there on a stretcher, rather than moving by yourself.


Don't want to scare you.  Hopefully nothing like that happened to your eye, and only other parts are damaged.  In any case, do not rub your eyes, in fact, never do that, anyway.

- Bloody Hell! 🤣 Italy sunk my whole navy. HoI4 of course, and not really, "just" my Mediterranean strike force. But that's bad enough. I exited the game in disgust without saving. If I ever start this game again with an earlier save game, I have to look into ways of reinforcing my Mediterranean navy. Otherwise, I had retaken command of my expedition force and started pushing into Germany. I thought things were going well, and my air forces and navy just got better and better. I thought I was steadily whittling away at Italy's fleet, sinking submarines, destroyers, convoys. I shot down so many aircraft over Malta that Italy stopped bombing. I was chasing Italian forces across North Africa. Surely I was doing well?

(Feels like playing Chess and thinking your position is strong, then suddenly losing the Queen.)