Weekend (28 Apr) - All Manner of Things: Gold, the Novel, and of course Baseball

Weekend (28 Apr) - All Manner of Things: Gold, the Novel, and of course Baseball

Happy opened an interesting can of rocks over the weekend. He was frustrated that he could not get a good handle on Serpent's Eye, which is a jewel crafting mat. A single player has a near monopoly on it and Happy was considering doing a little skimming off the top. This mat is created by combining ten Sparkling Shards. Those shards can only be acquired by prospecting. Happy's head was already starting to hurt - but he smelled gold, and kept after it.

The Auction House had none for sale. Interesting. A tip on wowhead said that sometimes the shards were worth more than the eyes. Happy asked Philly to buy a stack of Ghost Iron Ore and prospect it to see what she got. She got two 100 gold valued gems (which was a rare find, so Happy didn't get his hopes up too high), and he got three sparkling shards. Happy posted them for sale at a very optimistic price just to see what the market would do.

Well, Philly's engagement as a jewel crafter got JB involved. Happy had all these gems Philly had acquired during her profession leveling that he didn't quite know what to do with. JB showed Happy how a golden lotus and a gem could make money. Happy has been selling golden lotus at what he figured was a pretty good price, but turning that golden lotus into a gem had the potential for even higher profit.

There was one major caveat, though. Prices over the weekend seemed pretty high, and one player in particular seemed to control much of the action. High end gems were available only in very small quantities or not at all, so the prices were way up there. If that is more the norm than the exception, Happy could have found a bonanza. Happy is keen enough about the idea that he made an unprecedented decision to upgrade one of his bags from a 20 slot frostweave bag to the newest general purpose bag, the 28 slot Royal Satchel. The bags are expensive and the process of learning to craft it is long. Wild can't make them. The going price is 4-5,000 gold. Happy figured he got a bargain at 3650g. He doesn't feel like buying any more, though.

Then there was a flood of news on the writing front as the leader of my writing group sent a number of invitations to writing events that are coming up in May. Those details will be posted on my JadedWalker site later in the week.

Finally, there was baseball. In the last report, the Padres had closed out an abysmal series with the Giants, losing all three games. The team had a 5-13 record, the worst start ever for the team, worse even that last season, which was the worst season ever then. The team broke their own record for failure.

Then the Milwaukee Brewers came to San Diego and the losing streak extended to six games. And finally broke when the Padres salvaged the last game of the three game series.

The team that had swept us in San Francisco was back, only this time it was on our own turf. We were there for two of the three games, and I have the Sunday afternoon game sunburn to prove it. The Padres swept the series in three exciting games and are on a four game winning streak!

The Padres will be on the road this week.

Real Games

22 Apr 7-1 Loss vs Brewers (Reality 4-2 Loss, Promise 9-3 Win)

23 Apr 6-3 Loss vs Brewers (Reality 4-2 Win, Promise 8-7 Win)

24 Apr 2-1 Win vs Brewers (Reality 3-1 Win, Promise 3-1 Loss)

25 Apr No game

26 Apr 2-1 Win vs Giants (Reality 10-5 Loss, Promise 3-1 Loss)

27 Apr 8-7 Win vs Giants (Reality 3-1 Loss, Promise 3-2 Loss)

28 Apr 6-4 Win vs Giants (Reality 4-3 Win, Promise 10-9 Loss)

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Comparison	W  L  GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Padres 2012	76 86 18.0	.247	651	4.01
Reality Autoplay	84 78 10.0	.243	667	3.69
Promise Autoplay	80 82 10.0	.249	688	3.81
2013 Season	W  L  GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Actual Results	9  15 5.5	.244	85	4.39
Reality Results	11  13 4.5	.255	94	4.08
Promise Results	11  13 3.5	.233	101	3.65

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