We've re-established our T1 guild Order of Khet. Khet, of course, means fire. Which makes our guild name much cooler than, say, "Spleens of Horus".

We've gotten much better at picking guild sites. T1 found OoK stuck between a road and a tiny pond, so that over time our camp grew over onto the other side of the road, leading to exciting bonus running to get things.

Finally, the region is more accommodating. Lake of Reeds back then was unfinished – there wasn't more than a few trees together anywhere in the place. And so when the builders got around to finishing the area, they added plenty of trees, but away from existing camps. This time we have a nice 50 wood run right behind our compounds.

Here's an interesting article on modern day Egypt and the Nile in particular, written by an author on his recent travels along that river by train. Reading it helped link up some elements of the ATITD geography a little better in my mind.

The author also claims that Egypt for all intents and purposes is the Nile and adjoining land, and all the desert that the nation possesses going East and West from the Nile has little bearing on Egyptian culture. I think he just called the Tanis community a bunch of phonies. Let's kick his ass!

When kept awake by bad pizza and a malfunctioning air conditioner, what better way to pass the early morning hours than by making fake bricks?

It got even sweeter when it was revealed that due to a nine-hour server rollback, Teppy is giving out about 3-4 hours worth of goods (player's choice). Bad if you were making bricks those nine hours, but great if, like me, you weren't. Now making fake bricks is easier than ever!

So I blew my first crack at the Body initiation (identify 35 plants and get back to a UBody or SBody within 20 minutes) because I kept eating herbs as I encountered them and eventually ate one that lowered my stats to the point where I couldn't move without dropping all my belongings, keeping me rooted for several valuable minutes. ATITD therefore taught me a valuable lesson: if you see weird stuff on the ground you can't identify, don't pick it up and put it in your mouth. Top that, Matrix Online.

Participated in a dig last night before getting ready to run over to Tanis. It turned out to be a research dig so nobody gained any stones for personal use, which was a bummer but not shocking this early in the game.

Digs are an overt example of the kind of social gameplay ATITD strives for. No matter how much of a brick-making badass you are, you're not successfully digging up anything by yourself. You have to get 20 or so people willing to gather and timesink together for an hour or more. Stat-boosting meals and fancy shovels will eventually trim down the number of diggers needed but the basic requirement remains.

Two crashes so far. Teppy went on the System channel and blamed it on a bad NIC. Therein lies the charm and frustration of ATITD: it comes off as if it's run out on some guy's basement. For all I know, it is.

Hekatef and I are running around Lower Egypt gaining citizenship. After that: Tanis (AKA Lake of Reeds). Or death. Or both.