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Spindley Bop

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Cold Days

20160529_111343This weekend was extremely interesting.  Firstly from the whole not blogging standpoint… I guess maybe it is getting a bit easier and that scares me.  Secondly was the travel…  which meant I spent a lot of Friday and Sunday behind the wheel.  I think maybe I found a hack around this process that makes it easier for me… but unfortunately significantly harder for my wife.  Over the course of the two days of driving I used it to catch up on the Harry Dresden series… or at least get closer to caught up.  I had not read Cold Days or Skin Game, and on this particular trip I listened my way through the Cold Days audio book via the audible app.  I have to say there are a bunch of awesome things about how the app works.  Anytime I would flip the car over to Bluetooth audio it would magically start back up the app from where I left off.  This made the whole stopping the audio for a pit stop effortless because as soon as I killed the car it paused the book, and upon coming back in I just had to fire the car back up and flip the audio mood to get back going.  It even seemed to do a small bit of rollback which was useful as well for helping get back into the process.

Having a book to listen to made most of the drive fly by with me being able to take long stretches of road without really noticing it.  This is absolutely a good thing given that the route we chose to get to St Louis was a crazy long one.  Google kept trying to route us around accidents Friday afternoon, so the end result took us to Kansas City and then over to St Louis and wound up being something silly like nine hours on the road including the food stops and such.  The drive home however seemed just as long with us getting home around midnight Sunday evening.  However it overall worked its magic like we hoped it would and allowed me to spend two nights in my own bed to recharge and be ready for coming back to work today.  I am one of those people that needs a day to chill before going back to work after a long trip.  There is just so much of that process that is draining to me.  The biggest take away from the weekend however is that we really need to not let seven years pass this time before making a trip up to St Louis to see our friends again.

As far as what we did on the trip…  we ate way too much food at a whole bunch of different places.  St Louis apparently recently got an Ikea and since we don’t have one of those anywhere near us we had to make a pilgrimage.  There were a bunch of things we were looking for and wound up loading up a bag full of little things here and there.  We went to the Microcenter and I managed not to walk away with anything, even thought I drooled heavily at the presence of the Nvidia GTX 1080 cards they were showcasing.  I really want one, but if I consider getting one… I am going to wait a bit.  I’ve heard that the reference models have some significant issues with thermal throttling.  Generally speaking with any video card release it is better to wait for the second batch of cards to release with the awesome non-reference coolers like the Asus Strix or MSI lines.  We also hit up Trader Joes just because it was convenient, even though we do now officially have them.  We tried out the Cookie Butter that everyone has been raving about, and while it is good… I am not sure if it is the sort of thing I would ever make a trip to go get.  I did pick up something called Bacon Jam… which tastes like a jam… with bits of Bacon in it.  Sounds nasty, but is actually shockingly good on crackers.  At their half priced books, I managed to find the treasure pictured above.  For those that have no clue what it is… it is a Rifts system book…  not published by Palladium.  It came out sometime in the early 90s and eventually it seems like the license was revoked because I think there is only this one print run.  Super limited number of books were published and the system isn’t that good… its just more of a novelty.  I had to pick it up because at $8 I figured that was a steal even though I already have a copy somewhere.

Spindle Days

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Once upon a time I had reached a place in Destiny where I simply was not playing it much.  I had several months of bliss with the launch of The Taken King, but once my friends faded away from the game I was left with the uphill grind to try and get over 300 light… and failing to do it.  One of the items we tried several times to get was the Black Spindle, and if you have read my blog for very long you will have known about my frustrations on past attempts.  What you might not know is that the Black Spindle is essentially the reason why so many different things have transpired in game.  Squirrel and I have been friends and guildies for years now, having played lots of games together in the past.  Several months ago on a Black Spindle day he courted me to attempt to get it.  So I spent time and got to know his friend Jex in the process, and even though we failed to get it in the end… we had a lot of fun doing so.  It was through these two that I was introduced to the Axioma Clan, a group that has helped me immensely through me learning the ropes of modern Destiny.  It was the Black Spindle that ultimately lead me to take up this banner but it continued to elude me.  Every time the Black Spindle was available, either I couldn’t play… or we seemed to be unable to get the resources to make it happen.

Yesterday I had no real intentions of doing anything other than chilling on the sofa, and playing some Final Fantasy XIV.  However Squirrel and Jex pinged me over twitter to see if I was around… or more so they thought that I was still on my trip.  As it turned out we were able to get a group together and make it happen.  After a few screw-ups, largely from me not having touched a controller in about a week…  we managed to get through the ship and down all of the taken mobs with about 30 seconds left.  So finally I had the damned spindle in my inventory, and happened to have a 335 hereafter ready and waiting to infuse into it.  I cannot tell you how much it meant to me, to finally do this with the group that helped get me back into the game.  It was Squirrel and Jex who’s siren song coaxed me back into Destiny with the promise of candy, and ultimately it was that same group that won the day and got the spindle.  That said I cannot thank Axioma clan and our leader Wet enough for giving me a place to hang my hat and introducing me to so many other opportunities.  Here I am sitting at 335 light and there is no way that could have happened without the clan as a whole.  The frustrating part is that I often times cannot reliably join in clan Shenanigans on a regular basis, even thought I wish I could.  Most of the activities happen after 9pm my time… and since I get up at 5:30 in the morning for work I just can’t handle many late nights during the week.  I tried it for several weeks, falling back into the habit of getting to bed after midnight, and it destroyed my ability to function.  I am hoping that once the time shifts once again I can get back to regularly joining in.  It might not seem like much but that hour makes all the difference in the world.  Until then I will have to keep joining in when I think I can handle having a late night.

NBI 2016 Soon!

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NBI2016

This is apparently the year of us getting our acts together a month late.  The whole Developer Appreciation Week thing… was supposed to happen in March but instead we did it in April.  Similarly the Newbie Blogger Initiative generally kicks off in May, but instead this year we are shifting it over to June.  Honestly June probably makes a lot more sense, especially for those folks with families because May means the insanity that comes with the end of the school year.  This years event is being marshaled by Doone of XP Chronicles and will contain a lot of the features that we have seen from past years.  However you might be asking yourself… why NBI?  Well to be honest, it is this incubator to help bloggers get started.  We all make the same sort of blog posts we make every year, but what it does a great job of is breaking down the barriers between those who used to only be readers, and are now starting out on their own.  Bloggers are this well that needs to be replenished every so often, because so many folks set out with good intentions and for whatever reason end up leaving the community.  Even us grizzled veterans need a fresh infusion of spirit every now and then to keep going, and in many ways this yearly event does that.  We begin to remember why we started our own blogs and why we got into this mess in the first place.  The biggest take away for me however… is that we have this long list of bloggers who have participated and are still actively blogging today.

Here is a big ole dump of some of the blogs that were once in a Newbie Blogger Initiative Class and are still active…

I feel like I probably missed a whole batch of blogs in there somewhere while crawling through my back posts about the Newbie Blogger Initiative, but regardless you can see this process has an effect on our community.  I support this notion largely because when I started blogging I had something like this to help me out too.  The “Blog Azeroth” forums were a similar incubator of excellent blogs related to the game World of Warcraft, and through them I found the support structure I needed to take my first steps into this world.  Now a bit over seven years later I am still blogging… and until recently doing it every day.  As a blogger you are going to need a community to bounce ideas off of, and if nothing else to tell you that you are doing an excellent job.  It can be extremely draining to sit down at a screen and unburden your soul in post form.  The other bloggers that I interact with on a daily basis, are my support structure and they can be yours too.

So You Want to Be a Blogger

You won’t likely find fame or fortune, but you will find is a great outlet for all of those thoughts that keep collecting dust in your brain.  I personally started out as one of those folks that rabidly posted on game forums.  I would create great walls of text about the things that I was passionate about.  I never really thought about creating a blog until I read one that made me realize… this is the sort of stuff I already write on a regular basis.  You’d think it would be simple as that, but in truth it is a lot easier to post a comment on someone else’s site than to create one of your own.  That is why we are here to help.  During the month of June the good sponsor bloggers in the NBI are going to be helping you out with writing prompts, and events that cause you to come up with content to post.  Folks like me will be mining our brains trying to come up with posts that might be helpful about the technology behind blogging, and that sort of thing.  All you need to do is…

  • decide where you are going to blog
  • come up with a catchy name
  • create social media accounts on every platform
  • set a posting schedule
  • come up with cute artwork
  • take lots of screenshots

wait…  I’ve overwhelmed you.  The truth is there are more aspects of blogging than could ever be dumped into a single post, but what we are really offering you is a hand up.  It is hard breaking into any community, and it is hard doing anything for the first time.  It is my hope that we can serve as Sherpas to climb this Everest.  What you can do is check out the various resources, and from there we can get you started in the right direction.

As always if there is anything particular I can help with as you start your journey, post a comment and I will help as best I can.

 

 

Questionable Tolerances

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Incomplete Saturday

bluejay

Morning Folks… it’s been a bit since we talked.  Well in truth its been two days… but it feels like it has been much longer.  Now is the time for me to see if I remember how to write a blog post.  In truth this was an odd weekend for me, and in ways that I didn’t quite expect.  For three plus years now my mornings have centered around writing a blog post.  So when I suddenly removed it from the equation…  the morning felt somehow without meaning.  What I mean by that is all of Saturday it felt like something was missing, and in a way that I find it hard to articulate.  You know that feeling in the back of your head when you know that you forgot something… but can’t quite figure it out.  It was something along those lines, with the key difference being I knew precisely what was different.  However I survived and managed not to write a single word… though I did find myself significantly more active on twitter, slack and discord than I normally am on the weekends.  I guess if I am not dumping out things in long post form, they ultimately make their way out regardless into tweets and such?

Sunday however was delightful, and I felt zero remorse for not making a blog post.  I think a huge part of this comes from the fact that I already scurry around like mad on Sunday mornings making sure that everything is done for the latest AggroChat episode.  After waging that battle I found myself struggling to try and find the desire to write a blog post.  Honestly had I done nothing but cut out Sundays… I think in the grand scheme of things my quality of life would have improved massively.  As far as the streak… it is not good and broken and I no longer have it looming over my head.  That said…  I do feel a minor bit of lament over having done it.  Once a streak is over… it is over.  Now I could start anew and begin working to beat three years… but I doubt that is going to happen.  I also doubt that I am going to permanently take off weekends from this point on.  In the back of my head how, weekends are optional time… and if I happen to have a post I want to make awesome, but I won’t necessarily feel pressured either way.

Table Saga

unknownbirbs

One of the constant topics of discussion for the last few weeks has been the backyard and whether or not we wanted to replace the table and chairs we had back there.  I know it is heady stuff and of extreme interest to you all.  The set that we currently have was handed down to us by some of our neighbors and while perfectly cromulent…  it is not exactly the easiest thing to sit at for long periods of time.  At the beginning of the season we picked up a set of Adirondack chairs that sit up straight rather than being permanently stuck in an awkward partially reclining position.  The idea was that we would get some sort of new table to go with these chairs that would work at their height level.  Further idea being that we could eat at the table or at the very least comfortably use a laptop or something while hanging out in the backyard.  Something you should know at this point is that we do the majority of our grocery shopping at ALDI these days.  Another thing you should know is that ALDI has some truly bizarre shit at times… not the least of which last week was a garden table that fit pretty much the dimensions we were looking for.  Even better is that it was just shy of $50, which moved it into serious contention.

With our neighbors out of town this weekend, we borrowed their pickup truck and used it to go pick up a table and haul it back home.  There was of course going to be “some assembly required” but after having seen IKEA directions we figured “how bad could it be”?  Now I love ALDI, but apparently there are some minor issues with construction tolerances when you are only paying $50 for a large garden table.  The first challenge was the fact that some of the screws seemed too large for the holes that they were supposed to go into.  The end result involved me essentially using the screw and truly silly amounts of torque to try and “drill” the hole larger with little metal shavings coming off of the metal piece I was screwing into.  I had to torque hard enough that apparently I ripped a chunk out of my finger in the process and had to take a quick break to apply a band-aid to stop said bleeding.  That hurdle solved we moved onto the problem of one of the six holes that the metal braces went into was not lining up… and not even vaguely close.  The end result there was to use a screwdriver to sort of bend the holes until we managed to get them to line up enough to slide the bolt through.  The resulting table seems nice and sturdy but what we originally thought was going to be fifteen minutes of our time… wound up taking close to two hours.

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Another quick note… the photos attached to this post were taken while sitting on the back patio and watching birds come visit the bush across from where we sit.  This whole bird watching thing has turned into a bit of a thing for me while we are back there.  I don’t really know what any of the birds are other than the obvious Bluejay, Cardinal or Robin.  They are adorable however as they hop around the branches looking for nom noms.  They can completely decimate a full feeder worth of bird seed in no time flat, and as a result I have started limiting myself to feeding every other day.  When I do this they tend to do a pretty damned good job of cleaning up anything that happened to fall on the ground between feedings.  The other interesting thing that I have learned is that sunflower seed hulls break down into compost extremely quickly for some reason.  I realize this is not exactly the most exciting post to make as my return from the weekend break, but screw it… its my blog and my birbs!

Digital or Physical

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Fun with Polls

A few days ago I posted a poll on my twitter feed asking a simple question about my followers gaming habits.  In the end 88 folks responded to the poll which is honestly more than I thought there would be… but far less than needed to really make it scientific and such.  Essentially I was thinking about how I have shifted from only purchasing games in physical retail stores… to almost never doing so.  In fact not counting the land-run for copies of Wildstar to redeem for bonus loot, the last game I likely purchased in a store was TERA back in January of 2011 (yes I had to look up the release date).  Even then the only reason why I purchased a physical copy was that it was not available through any of the online retailers I trusted, and I didn’t realize it was a game I would be interested in playing.  This was another case where I was following the great internet zeitgeist and getting in on the rush of yet another game…  that I would ultimately walk away from quickly.  This is also the last game other than the Wildstar land-run that I purchased from a GameStop… but that is an entirely different thing for a different day.

For Those Who Can’t See the Embedded Tweet

  • 65% – Mostly Digital
  • 16% – Mostly Physical
  • 19% – Fairly Equal Mix of Both

There are so many times that in my mind I think I represent the new normal, when in truth I am probably an outlier.  So with digital purchases I wanted to take the temperature of my gamer friends about the subject.  As it turns out I am in fact in the majority with 65% of you stating that you mostly purchase digital games.  Now the weirdity with twitter polls is that if you are using a third party client, you don’t actually see them.  As a result I had a large number of people comment directly but in those cases I am uncertain if they are also represented by a vote.  As a result I am only going to be looking at the poll numbers for percentages, but using the folks that responded to indicate trends.  Here are a few of the interesting trends that emerged.

Import Troubles

There were a few people that indicated that they purchase almost 100% digital other than when they are importing a game from another region.  This makes complete sense as the payment methods that are widely available in English speaking regions, are totally not the case in other regions.  Then there are problems for example with South Korean games where you have to have some sort of national id to be able to purchase the game in the first place.  I know from past experiences trying to play Phantasy Star Online that figuring out how to pay for a Japanese game can be maddening and there are entire guides out there that are the equivalent of showing a screenshot and showing where to click to get through the sequence of screens to make a payment.  Especially now that Amazon allows folks to order from the .JP website with non-Japanese payment methods, sometimes just buying that physical copy can skirt a whole slew of frustration.

Console VS PC Divide

Another group of folks commented that they are 100% digital on the PC, but almost exclusively purchase physical copies for their consoles.  This again makes sense, because digital purchases on consoles are often times more expensive than purchasing through a retailer that is offering a discount to get your business.  There is also the case that consoles have a finite amount of storage space.  I know personally I have gone through the trouble of upgrading the hard drive in my PS3, PS4, and Xbox 360 to keep from running into the wall where I am constantly having to uninstall one thing to be able to play the next.  However in this case I know I am very much not in the majority.  Even with my Wii U I have an external hard drive connected so I simply won’t have to worry about storage space.  Buying that physical copy for the most part lets you insert disc and play… even though there is a modern trend of having to wait for a lengthy install process before playing it.  Also having that physical copy allows you to trade it off after you are done with it… which is apparently a much wider practice than I would have thought.  I tend to hold onto a game forever even in a case when it was a bit of a bomb.

Physical Exclusives

Another case that came up several times is that I had a group of folks that indicated that they buy digital unless there is a physical collectors edition… and then they go with the cool boxed edition.  I think this is a combination of a bunch of things, not the least being that the physical collectors editions have statues and mock-ups of in game items that you can’t get in any other form.  Then there is also the cool factor of seeing a wall of games.  I used to have a dedicated gaming space and a huge bookcase full of games similar to the one you see behind Jasyla in most of her videos.  Then problem being after several decades you end up with so much clutter that something in me snapped and just started giving it all away.  I mean that said I have a closet packed to the brim with older console stuff, but I’ve only started holding onto the things that were particularly rare.  It can be amazingly cool however to gaze upon your collection of rare physical collectors editions of games, so I absolutely see the appeal.

Concerns about Long-term Play-ability

This one came up a few times and I was not honestly expecting it.  There is a concern that while the console might work for decades… the game companies and the digital delivery methods might be long gone.  As a result we would be unable to play digital games.  This one also makes quite a bit of sense as I have lived through both the downfall of game consoles…  as well as the downfall of digital stores.  While the Dreamcast went the way of the dodo, I can still freely play the games that I have on their goofy gigabit pseudo dvd system.  Similarly I can talk about the disappearance of the Games with Windows store that Microsoft ran…  however in that case I think they simply rolled those purchases over to the Xbox store.  There is a certain amount of liability for digital purchases, so long as the main game company is in business.  This is the reason why you still see PSP titles available through the PSN store… even though that platform has long been shuttered.  I guess my line of thought has long been that if Sony and Microsoft are gone… there are going to be wider problems with their consoles given the amount of connectivity that is interwoven.   I know when my internet went out a few weeks back, it was kinda hell to find a game on the PS4 that I could play without it needing to “dial home” for something.  All of that said… I absolutely get this concern because the only way I can play Hellgate London is because I held onto my physical copy.

Wrapping Up

I really appreciated the wide number of responses that I got from folks on this question.  Actually it turned out pretty cool, and I have considered doing something like this again in the future.  I liked seeing all of the different points of view in a question I had thought about quite a bit myself… but one that wasn’t necessarily a hot button topic.  The other big scenario that I purchase physical copies of games… are when I happen to find a deal that is too insanely good to pass up.  Even then I take that serial number… and input it into steam because the last thing that I want to do is remember where the hell my physical copy is.  I love being able to have a console or a gaming machine loaded full of options, and be able to keep them “on tap” as it were.  I guess for me that was always my dream of having some sort of a gaming system where I could simply hit play and select one of any of the games I owned.  There was a period of time where I had sixteen consoles hooked up in my loft, but the complicated system of “A/B” switches that were required to make that work is maddening.  I love that I can just flip on my PS4 or Wii U pick a game and go, and this is also a big reason why I have zero qualms about repurchasing a game on a newer system.  In the end we all have different habits and different norms, and I thought it was awesome just how free you all were with your thoughts.