What got me started

This is something I posted elsewhere that was my original inspiration for this blog:

A few days ago I was playing some nethack at work. I was playing a Valkyrie, I think and had just cleared out the Gnomish mines. And on the bottom level I had even taken out a vampire and a vampire lord. I was up to level 12 after eating a wraith. From somebody's bone file I had a cursed Frost Brand which I was pretty sure I could uncurse to some good use. I was back up in Minetown gathering stuff and about to head back down to pick up some more. I had been in a store and had therefore dropped and picked back up my dwarven mattock which I was using as my primary weapon. On the way to the stairs I ran into a cockatrice. It hit me once or twice but nothing happened. So I figured I could take it out. So I hit it. But I hadn't re-wielded my mattock. So I hit it bare-handed, and promptly turned to stone. Game over.

Just now I was rocking in another game. This time I'm a barbarian and I've again just cleared the Gnomish Mines. I've got the artifact Cleaver and I'm gathering stuff back upstairs with me. I'm down a few points of intelligence after the mind flayer I met at the bottom of the mines, but I'm a barbarian, so no big deal. I see a cockatrice via telepathy as I've got my towel over my eyes. And I kill it. But I never took the towel off. So when I step over the corpse I FEEL what is there. Hmm, it's a cockatrice corpse. That's interesting. I've just turned to stone. Game over.

I had something very similar happen a year or so ago with my best game to date. Damn cockatrices. And it's not like it isn't entirely preventable. I need to practice safe dungeon-crawling or something. Get me some gloves.