Tanvan's Journal

First thoughts on the Steam Controller

2015-11-11T12:26:26Z

I like it. But I'm aware that since I bought it I will naturally be biased toward it to justify my purchase of it. With that in mind here's what I currently think of the experience of using it.

The unboxing was nice and simple. The controller was sitting in a nice cradle and the usb dongle and batteries were right underneath it. Yes. Batteries. This controller takes two AA batteries. Not a big deal for us, we have a stock of rechargeables already, and getting a few more for a new device is fine. People that have gotten used to sitting a controller on a cradle for charging might be put off by this, but batteries are easy and you can swap for fresh as soon as you need it. No sense yet for how long batteries will last, I've only just gotten the controller yesterday/today.

After unboxing, the first thing I did was plugged in the batteries, then the dongle. I launched Steam and got a prompt to install a firmware update on the controller. I did that immediately with no problems. You are prompted to use Steam's BPM (Big Picture Mode) to get the most out of your controller. This is the first big problem/annoyance that I have. I have several games that I purchased through non-steam sources. You can't configure the controller for those games unless you launch them through Steam. I can do it, but I'm annoyed that I have to. Other controllers are just detected as controllers and have their own configuration tools when necessary. Then, it's bad enough that I have to use Steam, but I also have to use Big Picture Mode. It's great for the TV, but when I'm literally sitting at a distance that I'm comfortable using Steam proper, I don't like being forced to use the dumbed down cousin.

The Steam Controller is a controller, and after a little confusion I managed to use it to navigate BPM and launch the Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth. I didn't care for the default controls, so I found one of the first big selling points. Everything is configurable. In addition to the buttons being configurable themselves you can use a button to shift modes so that the other buttons do something different. Kind of like hold Shift or Ctrl to modify your keyboard presses. Someone did the math and figured out that it is possible to have 130 distinct inputs with this methodology. Not that I think anyone would, but it's possible. But more important than configurability is that you can share your configurations. Right now there are no ratings, but they are sorted by most used. I don't think that the best is on top, but if you are on top you are going to get more people trying yours first. If it's good enough it will keep its top spot even if it isn't the best it could be. After trying a couple I found one that I'm mostly happy with. It isn't perfect, but it was good enough for me to get a handle on using this controller with a game I'm already familiar with. So far it performs very well.

The touch controls are just the right kind of responsive, with two exceptions that I think I can fix with some personal tweaking. The first issue is that since there is no traditional D-Pad, moving on an exact diagonal is hard. This is a problem in Isaac, because that is the only way to avoid walking on some floor spikes. It occurs to me that it is a rare enough need to have to be that precise that I can mode-shift and have keys dedicated to moving on those diagonals. Problem solved. The other issue is that I have the buttons and the mouse-pad both bound to X Y A B, for shooting. Sometimes one is more comfortable than the other. In particular I'm more comfortable navigating menus with buttons and shooting with the touch pad. The problem with this set up is that B is the right-most button which is right next to the bottom portion of the pad, which is bound to A or shooting down. The pad is sensitive, so if I go to use B to back out of a menu, I sometimes hit A on the touchpad first which selects or enters a menu. Or if I had wanted to use the buttons for shooting, sometimes I'd try to shoot left, but instead would shoot down. For me the buttons and the pad are just a little too close. Nothing too horrible, but I may be able to tweak some sensitivity to have that not happen anymore. Overall I'm happy with it. It turns out I really like the "grip" or "paddle" controls on the back. I thought they would be more "niche" but I'm using them in place of the L and R buttons to place bombs and use pills/cards. It feels more natural and less confusing than using the L/R buttons and L/R triggers. Overall, it will take a bit to get used to, but with some personal configuration I'm convinced that the controller will be better for this than using my plugged in PS3 controller.

Next I tried something without any native controller support, Marvel Heroes. That was a shit-show. I really hate the community profiles for that game, so if I want to do anything I'll have to sit down and self-configure everything for my play style. One of the configurations had something useful I hadn't used with Isaac. Using the internal gyroscope to move the mouse. That worked very well. But the rest of the bindings were very confusing to me, so I'll continue using Mouse + Keyboard for now. I have hope that I'll be able to set up the controls to be good, but the quickbar is so essential to that game that until I figure out an intuitive way to use the abilities that I want to use is I need to, it will be hard to switch. There are rumors that Marvel Heroes 2016 will have native controller support. If that happens, then I'll be able to use a profile that makes sense at that time.

I tried to play a controller only experience next, with Valkyria Chronicles. It was very intuitive with default settings. I did have a complaint that the Analog stick was too sensitive during the aiming phases of the game. But in game using the d-pad was a quick fix for sensitive adjustments. I'll want to browse some community profiles, but I completed a mission with an A ranking on my first try with this controller, so it wasn't holding me back at all. Using the track-pad as a right analog stick worked fine, and I may or may not tweak it's settings. I think it may be a touch too sensitive for me, but I'll give it some more game time to settle.

I tried to play Towerfall with the controller, but I'm not familiar enough with the game to know if the controller is holding me back or if I'm just bad at the game. On the one hand, I got a really fast time in the time trial with this controller. On the other hand, there are things that I expect to be able to do, like move while having an arrow out, ready to fire. And I'm not sure if the control support is bugged so you can't move with an arrow out, or if that is part of the game. Obviously it works, I got my fastest time trial time so far.

I like the controller. It wasn't perfect on anything that I tried, but in many ways the experience has been superior to a traditional controller. Add in the fact that I'm not used to the technology and that I can tweak the things I was having a problem with, I'm convinced that I'll be very happy with these controllers. If you can use one before buying it, that would be a good idea. It won't be for everyone. There was an article that described this controller as Dvorak to the traditional QWERTY with keyboards. I agree. It will take getting used to. It will take a different kind of muscle memory to get the most out of the switch. But in the end, it will be a better experience.

Humble Bundle gaming

2015-11-06T23:25:50Z

I've been trying some games from recent Humble Bundles.

Let's start with Hack n Slash. It's an interesting title that starts you off as an elf with a sword that can literally hack the computer world. Hit an enemy and maybe you change Aggressive to False. Or make it do zero damage. Or change it from Bad to Good so that it attacks your enemies. Door locked? No problem. Just hack it and change the locked value from True to False.

I've enjoyed the game for the most part. It's fun to solve the programming puzzles or to break things so that you can gain a ridiculous amount of health. You don't have to know anything about programming to play, but without a small amount of background I feel that players would be completely lost without some sort of guide. As such it's a niche title that could have been great with some sort of tutorial and polish. It gets a "do not buy" from me unless the "hack the planet" mindset sounds irresistable. I like it, but I'm a particular sort of nerd that does programming puzzles on Project Euler for fun.

Next up is Massive Chalice. It's a turn based tactics game that spans 300 years of time in your kingdom. The gimmick is that you need to keep the kingdom from being overrun by baddies, but only your "Heroes" can survive a single attack from them. The Chalice will save the kingdom, but it needs 300 years to charge up. This creates a situation where you have to breed bloodlines and have multi-generational dynasties of heroes. Some heroes are infertile, some are exceptionally fertile. But maybe an arranged marriage doesn't work out to get children because they are passionless. No children means no new generation of heroes to defend the kingdom.

Also, when you set up your heroes to start popping out babies they don't adventure anymore. So you have to manage your roster and get heroes a bunch of experience while they are young, then set them up to try and get as many babies as possible that will carry forward some of that experience and maybe take a bloodline weapon as well.

I like it and can recommend it for anyone that likes turn-based tactics games with permadeath. Hero genetics are random, so there is a ton of replayability.

Last up this week is Lumino City. This is a point and click puzzle game. You like games like Myst? This might be for you. You are a girl trying to find her Grandpa who was kidnapped in the opening scene. The gimmick/hook here is the graphics. Lumino City was hand made and stop-motion photographed to make up the graphics of the game. Check out http://luminocitygame.com/ to see what I mean. The puzzles so far haven't been too hard, but if they are there is manual left by your grandpa. The table of contents will say that the useful page is (9* the number of bushes on the clifftop + 21), so looking for hints is a small puzzle all on its own. For me this is a definite buy. It's available on iOS, Mac and Windows. I haven't gotten too far yet, but I only stopped because the game had crashed. Something odd happened with Adobe AIR.

Art post - Waterfront

2015-10-23T00:49:55Z

Still messing about. For this I used Krita and Deevad's brush pack. The scene is inspired by a particular Bob Ross painting. Enjoy.

Art post - Day the Second

2015-10-15T22:52:33Z

Enjoy the flowery-ness of this mountain scape. Still not where I want to be with this, but these studies are fun at least.

Art post - Evening mountain wallpaper

2015-10-15T01:14:40Z

I made a digital painting. One of the reasons for the new computer was that I wanted to work on my art. Our old computer just didn't have the oomph to keep up with my drawing tablet. This beast does just fine, so this is me messing around with MyPaint to see what kinds of things I can do.

New computer - Part 2 "She's ALIVE"

2015-10-12T01:38:32Z

GlaDOS, our new computer, is running smoothly. (The previous Desktop computer was named Wheatly.) No issues so far except for some excessive heat. I'll be fixing that on Monday with an after market cooler.

I initially ran some burn-in benchmarking tools to really ramp up the temps and make sure that all the cores on the CPU were working. I ran it and got no errors, which is good. But the temps got up to 87C, which is ... not bad, but not good either. This particular processor throttles near 100C, I think. So, I could leave the stock cooler in place and save some money, or I can buy an effective after market cooler for $30 and not have to worry about the heat ever again. So, upgrade it is.

I have to say, PC gaming is pretty. I mean, really, the graphics are gorgeous when you have the hardware to make it happen. I installed the Witcher 3 yesterday, I didn't have a chance to try it out until today, but it is amazing. Just riding your horse and watching the sunset is fun. I think that this really tells me that we won't be buying a console this generation. GlaDOS games better than the current gen consoles by a long way. And by the time that she is starting to feel long in the tooth, the next gen stuff should at least be on the horizon.

Right now the computer is hooked up to the TV, because I use it as a media PC as well as gaming. That means we can use it for couch co-op. We don't have controllers for that yet, but we pre-ordered the Steam controllers, so we'll get those in November. I'll try to get Tanya to play The Binding of Isaac with me. The Afterbirth expansion will be out at the end of this month, so the timing is good.

The big game we're playing right now is Marvel Heroes 2015, it's a free to play Action RPG where you can play as one of your favourite Marvel Heroes. I'm not as into it as Tanya, but she has her favourite (which should be obvious from her Journal) and I have mine. I've been playing as Doctor Strange, my secondary is Emma Frost. Both are fun to play. It's a light-hearted MMO, but I'm not huge into Action RPGs. The last one that I was really into was Diablo 2, and I haven't gotten into any since then. Once GlaDOS is given a clean bill of health I'm doing a minor upgrade on our old machine, then we'll be able to play together. Wheatley runs it okay on minimum settings, but that's it. After the upgrade (30% more powerful processor), it might work a bit better. I'm not concerned about the graphics for this, but anything that can reduce lag will be good.

New Computer

2015-10-08T05:38:37Z

I'm in the process of building a new computer. Surprisingly all the parts I ordered arrived on the same day, so I've spent a good chunk of the evening putting it together.

First off, the case is HUGE. It didn't occur to me just how big it was going to be when I ordered it. It could eat our previous computer. Being big is a help, though. It makes it easier to install things without have to do twister with my hands.

Everything boots up fine. I need to install drivers and stress test it to make sure that all the parts are performing as expected. So far, so good.

I have a feeling that I'll need to buy another stick of RAM, but this is already such a huge upgrade that I won't really notice the fact that I'm running a little light on RAM for a little while.

---

So, the reason for building this is that for the past several years I've always been fighting against underpowered machines. Want to do big digital art? Computer can't handle it. Want to play some newer games? Computer can't handle it. Want to record some audio (or video)? Jump through hoops and get something okayish. I've been fed up for a while, but got a small windfall and decided to use part of that on a gaming PC. Not top of the line, but mid-highish. Once I get it all set up, I might try my hand at twitch streaming, or not. I might just enjoy not having to hack at .ini files to get things to run smoothly.

Painting/Reading/Gaming

2015-05-11T21:09:38Z

I've been on a Bob Ross kick for the past couple of weeks. He is tranquil and I was able to get several DVDs from the library and just watch him paint happy little trees and happy little clouds. Zen. Yes. I have no desire to invest in oil paints, and acrylics aren't suitable for his techniques. (At least not the ones I own.) So I've been trying to duplicate the technique with digital paint. That doesn't work very well, but art practice is satisfying in it's own way.

----

I've been reading a ton. Most notably a series starting with Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber, (probably misspelled that somewhere.) I read the first three books before stalling on the fourth and giving up on it. It's an interesting Sci-Fi series, but it just got so slow in the fourth book. Not enjoyable anymore at that point, so I'm not bothering with the rest of the series. I've also read a variety of Urban Fantasy, but nothing really stand out unfortunately. Been reading comics, too. I read Silk and Spider Gwen which are both ~issue #4. I'm worried about their storylines when the Secret Wars story forces them to all be on Battle World. (I understand if that statement doesn't make sense. It's a Marvel thing.) Reading the Dresden Files comic as well. It feels a little slow, but it's about halfway in its current arc.

----

Playing the Star Realms card game with Tanya. It's a 2-player deck building game. In space. As the game goes on, you build your deck, so every game is different. It's fun. A little luck reliant, but good.

Also playing Atelier Escha and Logy. Not my favorite Atelier game, but it's not bad. So far I'm not thrilled with the Dusk series of Atelier. But I was introduced to the Arland series and it plays differently, so that's probably where my problems are coming from. Well, that and the horrible translation/editing. They had no QC. The same word is translated differently on the battlefield than it is in a cut scene. A later cut scene has it correct. A quest asks for an item that literally doesn't exist in the game. The item that you need is called something else. Sometimes item effects are described as the opposite of what they actually do.

I'm a comic book nerd and I blame HER

2015-03-13T08:01:11Z

As you may know,invsagoth (wife), likes to read comics and has an obsession with Loki. Because of this I have been taking her to the comic book store weekly to make sure that she hasn't missed any titles. It started with one, and now she's up to four or five regular titles, so one or two a week. We have a pull-box set up, but they have missed titles on occasion, so we make a point to go in weekly anyway.

While I'm there I browse the titles, but I don't like jumping into stories midway. Most of the time I go and look at games or whatever until she's done browsing and we check out. This changed last month. Three comics came out that I really like. Silk, a new spidey character, Issue #1. Spider-Gwen, an alt-universe Gwen-Stacey that doesn't die, but instead is a Spider-person, Issue #1. And a new arc of The Dresden Files, titled Downtown, Issue #1. I read the novels as they come out, so the comic is a no brainer.

This week I picked up two titles, while the wife picked up one. And I grabbed the free comic newspaper, so I could find out releases for next month because I need to make sure that I don't miss cross-overs with my new favorite characters. It was at this point that I realized I have become a comic book geek. And I'm okay with that. But it's all her fault.

PSA - update your passwords

2015-03-12T22:58:40Z

I know that it's a pain to remember oodles of passwords. But best practice is to have a different password for every site. And then you need to make it hard to guess, but easy to remember. There are several ways to do this. But the easiest for me is to not remember them. That's right. I don't even know my passwords. Or rather I know one really pain in the ass password and then an application that I have keeps track of the rest. It even generates them randomly for me, so I really don't have to remember them at all. It has an added bonus of reminding me to change them.

I'm using a password manager called keepass (I'm actually using keepassx, because the user interface works better on my netbook, but it's essentially the same.) On first run, you'll set up a new database. It gives you security options for it, I opted for a combination of keyfile and password. So if you know my uber password, but don't know the keyfile you still can't get at my other passwords. I backup my keyfile and the database to a secure online location manually, just in case my harddrive dies. I also keep a copy locally on another drive. It isn't 3,2,1 (3 backups in 2 locations with at least 1 offsite), but it's good enough for me. I should find another backup location online, but I'm not sure where. Everytime you sign up for a new site and it needs a password, use keepass to create an entry and generate a password. I set a timer for how long the password is good for, so that I can generate a new one in 6 months. I could do it weekly if I was truly paranoid.

Just copy and paste the password from the database to log in. It can even be masked the entire time, so you don't even know what the password consists of. It's beautiful.

I admit, it's a bit of a bear to get started, but it really helps to keep your online presence secure. It might seem like overkill, but if your twitter gets hacked is it the same password as your email? And what about your bank? Credit cards? Amazon? The Apple Store? In my opinion it's better to be safe.

As an exercise, just in case you still think it's overkill, keep track of how many different services you use during the next week and how many have the same password as a year ago. That's a long time. And how many use the same user name AND password?

Just be safe and save yourself from potential heartache.

</psa>

Back on my netbook, fighting non-AI, playing not-minecraft

2015-03-11T17:54:29Z

Got my new RAM, plugged it in and powered everything up. Works great. I installed Antergos, an Arch linux based distro. They made a couple of assumptions that I didn't care for like giving me clunky graphical stuff when all I want is the command line version. But the install isn't bloated so I could uninstall their graphical update and installer nonsense without too much digging.

I wanted to have a J.A.R.V.I.S. installed, but I've been fighting with that. During my downtime with linux, I was on our Windows desktop that I really only use for gaming. I plugged in a microphone to try voice commands. During my config process I found out that Windows has built in voice commands. I tried it and it works really well. I was shocked. But, as good as it is I want to control my linux machine, so I need third party software. The best thing I have found so far is ILA, which uses CMU's sphinx as a backend. Damn is that thing frustrating. It almost never understands what I am saying. Where Windows just works. So I'm stalled. I want to make it work, but it is a low priority at the moment.

I've been playing around with minetest, a minecraft inspired game. Still trying to figure out the mods I want installed. I also need to find or write a better mod for mobs. All the ones out there that I've tried are really bad. It feels overall like minecraft felt in Alpha. So not bad, but not up to its potential.

Broken computer, training my very own J.A.R.V.I.S., Minecraft "clone"

2015-03-08T09:59:45Z

My computer recently died. Well, my laptop. Acually it's really a netbook. But it has been my primary computer for several years now. I had just finished backing up files to an external drive because I wanted to do a format and clean install of some flavor of linux distro. (Leaning towards Antergos, an Arch-based distro) During the install process my hdd got formatted, then I got a Kernel Panic. Turns out my RAM was failing. So, I didn't lose anything that I know of, because I just backed it up. But now I have to get replacement RAM for this damned thing. No where sells it locally, so I'm buying it from Crucial and it will/should be here on Tuesday.

Part of the reason that I wanted to do a clean install is because I need the extra hard drive space to play with making my computer respond to voice commands. I was inspired by someone that turned Chrome into a digital assistant, I want to turn my computer into my assistant. There are some software packages that I'm going to try. If it works, great, if not it will have been a fun experiment. "Jarvis, load Reddit".

I started playing with Minetest, a game engine that looks/feels like Minecraft. It's still in the early stages, but seems very promising. It runs faster than Minecraft, but is missing a lot of functionality that you have to add via mods. Most of the mods I would want are there, but don't have the polish that I would hope to see. Still, a free alternative to Minecraft is good. I even own Minecraft, but I can't run very many mods because my computers are terrible. I'll keep playing with it and see what I think.

Shining my sink and other unrelated things.

2015-02-17T13:24:44Z

I was browsing reddit the other day and I came across a link to the FLY lady to help you clean and organize your home by building better habits over time. Since I never built good habits growing up due to my horrid home and family life, as an adult I live in a constant state of messiness. It doesn't always bother me, but sometimes it's overwhelming and I just want everything to be nice and tidy. But that would take days of cleaning to achieve.

Anyway, some of the stuff on the site is kind of hokey (blessing your home by cleaning it), but an interesting thing that she asks you to do to start is to shine your sink. Usually our sink is filled with dirty dishes that need to go into the dishwasher, but didn't fit in a load for whatever reason. Maybe I was baking or something so there are mixing bowls and such. But we have a two basin setup so if one is filled with dirty dishes they weren't really in the way, even if they piled up. So I shined it via her instructions, and have been keeping it spotless. It has an interesting side effect of getting me to clean dishes immediately and unload the dishwasher asap. Since I won't let the dishes pile up, the dishwasher has to be emptied and filled. If it's too full, I find the best things to handwash and do that while the dishwasher runs. The end result is a much happier kitchen. And a kitchen sink that is probably the cleanest it has been since moving in.

I'm not sure how much of her stuff I'll do, but I think that the small habits built up over time will be crucial to me successfully keeping things happily organised.

--

We decided to fund the Conan Kickstarter. It comes with so much stuff that I will have hobby painting stuff for a year. The game itself looks pretty fun and Tanya wants to play as the Overlord, so I guess I'll be playing as the heroes. We rationalised the cost as a valentines day present to each other.

--

Our FLGS moved. The Grand Opening of their new location was on Valentines Day. It was a big event, but Tanya and I were getting over colds, so we didn't stay too long. We did manage to play a couple of rounds of Cash and Guns. Interesting group game, though I don't know that I'd really want to play it again. The new store is bigger, so there is more merch on display. I'm looking forward to next weekend when we can really browse. It was too packed with the event crowd to really get a good feel for the place.

The Conan Kickstarter / Lost Sleep

2015-02-04T14:41:18Z

I heard about the Conan boardgame Kickstarter a couple of weeks ago. I've been keeping an eye on it ever since. It's a very tempting buy. There's a week left and there are SO MANY things you get with it because of stretch goals. I may never even play the game itself, as is. If we get it I'll probably be spending my time painting the minis that it comes with. The kickstarter version will have over 200 at this point. At least I think there are that many, I counted a while ago and don't feel like recounting right now. Regardless, it's ~~a lot~~ oodles. (An aside, when talking about "many things", a lot has multiple definitions, where oodles is just that, so I try to use it because it is more precise language. Once I realized that, Tanya invsagoth made me a drawing with oodles of oods. I can't remember if it was for v-day last year or my birthday or anniversary. But it was adorable.)

Anyway, at $135 + shipping it's a steal for what you are getting. But it's still $135 + shipping which is TBD, and it's a hard to rationalize the expenditure on something that I don't intend to used for its created purpose. Then again, minis are not cheap. And this come with oodles of high quality minis. Plus the game has been crafted with the help of an expert on Conan to be as canon as possible, so it could be my entry point into the fandom.

--

I haven't been sleeping well the past few days. I keep waking up in the middle of the night all sweaty. It isn't overly warm in our apartment and it isn't a cold sweat like from a nightmare. I'm just very warm. And this is without Tanya in bed with me (because she's apparently nocturnal at the moment). When she's there that's even more heat. She's like a space heater when she's sleeping. Not sure what's going on. I don't really want to turn the thermostat down too much. Tanya is very cold during the day and has a hard time getting warm. And like I said it isn't that warm in here. Merely comfortable. But all the sweating is leading to a bit of dehydration in the night, which in turn is leading to me waking up with a headache. But today waking up at 4am gets me to write some thoughts on lj, so that's something I guess.

Morrowind / Lemon Ginger Chicken

2015-01-08T00:59:52Z

Let us start with food. I made some chinese style chicken, using my current goto method for crispiness, (cubed, tossed in dry tempura, then egg, then panko, then deep fry) then instead of using a spicy orange sauce, I tried using a lemon ginger sauce. It was a little on the sweet side, but I don't think I used too much sugar in the sauce. I think it's because I used meyer lemons and they are naturally sweeter than what I usually get. I use ginger out of a tube from the herb shelf in the produce section of the market. It works better for me than fresh.

I served the chicken with some fried rice. The rice had carrots, leeks and was seasoned with what I am calling "ham jello". I reserved all the juices from when I cooked christmas ham, after it cooled the fat was resting on the surface so I skimmed it off and what was left was brown gelatinous flavor. It's a little salty, and a little smokey. I used it in place of soy sauce. I'm making an effort to use it, because I have no idea how long it will keep in the fridge.

--
I have reinstalled or rather installed for the first time on our current desktop computer, Morrowind. Such a fun game. I'm having trouble getting all the right mods and patches installed, but I'm pretty close. I enjoy upping the prettiness when I can. I currently have the FPS outside sitting at 35 and inside is around 75. I would like outdoors to be a bit faster, but I can live with it for now.

There is one absolutely non-canon thing that I like having installed. It's called Alladin's Bottle. Once you get it, it is a portable house. It is scripted to use Mark/Recall so it does conflict if you are also using those spells frequently. But it is a home with storage for everything, places to train, places to display your armor sets, places to just lounge around. In the most recent version I could find I guess there is even an arena of sorts.

Eventually I'll open up the construction set again and build my own home, but a home you can keep in your inventory is very useful.
It's in a cave sort of near the beginning of the game, and is designed to be acquirable around level 10. I haven't even gotten the new bottle but the description has me excited.

Mousling Painting #1

2015-01-05T10:21:43Z

I mentioned earlier that I had ~~gotting~~ gotten some mousling miniatures to paint. I "finished" the first one this weekend. I still need to put it on a base for gaming, and it needs a clear coat. But other than that it's done. I think that the painting in these pictures looks a little sloppy, but keep in mind that these are only 17mm tall. At arms length they look pretty good.

This is my first painted miniature endeavor and I'm pretty happy with it for a first effort.

EDIT: The reason I don't post many pictures is because flickr hates me. Just getting these posted and uploaded was a royal PITA.

Holiday cooking and leftovers / PC Gaming

2014-12-29T19:34:29Z

This year I decided to cook a Christmas ham. Nothing fancy, just bought a spiral cut ham from the store, wrapped it in foil and baked it. It was huge, and fed the two of us in a variety of ways all weekend. Still a bunch left, which I may just freeze at this point so that we don't get sick of it. With the ham, we had mashed potatoes, fresh gravy flavored with the ham drippings, crescent rolls and some fresh cranberry sauce.

Day 2 I made up some sandwiches; lettuce, tomato, ham, mustard, cranberry sauce.
Day 3 We ate a platter of leftovers, subbing stuffing for the mashed potatoes.
Day 4 I made a breakfast with fried ham niblets, mixed into scrambled eggs and cream cheese, served in mini bell peppers. The peppers were deseeded and cut in half. It was great finger food.
Day 4 part 2, Potato and leek soup. Sauteed leeks in butter on medium low heat until soft, added chopped potatoes and carrots and a the ham bone to the pot, then added enough chicken stock and water to cover. Brought the soup to a boil, then reduced the heat and let it cook for an hour, then let it sit for a while because I cooked it too early. When it was time to eatI tossed a couple of Boules in the oven and reheated the soup, just to a boil the turned off the heat, removed the bone, pulled the meat off and tossed it back in the pot along with some reserved juices from the ham, some heavy cream, and buttermilk, then attacked the bowl with an immersion blender. You could use a regular blender, in which case I'd blend it cold then reheat. Once it was smooth I added some chopped ham to the soup and let it heat up. I served it in bread bowls, made from the Boules. Very good soup.

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I've been looking at the Steam Sales this past week and grabbed Super Meat Boy. I'm late to that party, but it was 95% off so $1 or so. I also grabbed The Binding of Isaac, Rebirth. I had been watching some LPs of it and Tanya told me I should probably just buy it to play myself. So far I've killed Mom 4 times, and her heart once. Fun game.

I'm pricing out components to build a cheap gaming rig. What I have is so far out of date that it is pitiful for newer games, if they can be played at all. I think I want to build something that will be able to play No Man's Sky comfortably. As it is going to be on PS4 I'll want at least that level of power, which apparently can be had for ~$500. I'll keep an eye out for deals and I can probably salvage some things like my hdd's, for a new build. I may start with new case, PSU and GPU, then upgrade the Mobo and CPU a little later. Or even start without the new GPU. Mine is adequate but if I want to upgrade it I'll need a bigger PSU. Not sure of the plan. My birthday is coming up, maybe I can rationalize some components as presents.

Headaches causing lack of sleep / The 2014 Fruit Fly Massacre

2014-12-24T10:45:55Z

I have/had one heck of a headache tonight. Unfortunately all the painkillers to deal with migraines that I have at the moment include caffeine. They work fine, not as good as the imitrex, but fine. But if I start getting a migraine late in the evening I have to choose between pain and sleep. Once it hits a certain point I know that sleep won't make the pain go away. I'll need painkillers. But, if I can fall asleep I'll wake up and take something immediately. Not ideal, but it's the best I can do. Tonight I decided that it was too early to try to sleep and I didn't want to be in pain all night, so caffeine it is. Blah.

We had a fruit fly infestation last week. I'm not exactly sure what produce they came with or where they were breeding. I'm guessing something in the trash, but they just wouldn't go away. They were annoying, so I put together the most effective fruit fly trap I've ever used. It's simple. An empty 2-liter soda bottle, some apple cider vinegar, a few drops of dish soap. The fruit flies love the smell and enter the bottle the soap mixed with the vinegar makes it so they get stuck in the liquid, I guess it has something to do with the surface tension. Once they are in the bottle it's hard for them to fly out anyway. Two days of this sitting out in the kitchen and the bottom of the bottle is full of fruit flies and there are none flying around. All dead. Aside from the trap, I also made sure that I took out any offending trash and cleaned the garbage disposal.

All the THINGS

2014-12-22T05:43:45Z

The other day we were in the mall and I saw a Dark World Loki toy. She wants all things Loki and those figures are really hard to find, so I grabbed it for her immediately. It can be a "Christmas" present. So she has it. And has taken some pictures with it already. We went to the mall today to watch the Christmas figure skating pageant. While there, I saw that they had another Loki toy. Since she unboxed the other, I grabbed this one too. After I gave it to her I was greeted with more *squee* sounds. After we got home she told me she that she might want to unbox it in order to have a custom one, since they pose so well. So I hopped on Amazon and found a seller with one left at a reasonable price. So that will happen.

I am drowning in Loki...

Michaels has had some really good sales this past week so we picked up some things. A $200 art table for under $80. A couple of art kits normally $20 for $6. And other odds and ends. A lot of the art kit stuff is junk, but for the components we will use $6 is a great price. The table took an evening to assemble and I'll need to mod it just a little bit, the predrilled holes aren't perfectly aligned, so a couple of parts don't line up quite right. But the table is very big and useable. We have it set up in the bedroom because that room gets the best light.

For an early Christmas present I got two cases of Mouselings by Reaper Miniatures. (The Heroes set and the Tavern set.) They are the cutest things. I can use them to do miniature wargaming and make scenery for them and stuff. I've been eyeing them for about a year, so it was sort of a no-brainer to grab them when looking for wargame stuff. It isn't steampunk zombies, but these will look nice just painted and displayed. For gaming, I just have to find the right rules or make up the right rules to play with them. I'm trying out the rules for Swordplay by Two Hour Wargames. If those don't work, I'll try something else. Regardless, I love the figures. We picked up some primer today. I'll spend some time tomorrow cleaning them up and removing flash. The next day I'll start priming them. I may take some pictures of the progress to post. I'm not sure.

Manic is as manic does / Gaming / Christmas

2014-12-19T10:31:38Z

I go through these phases that, for lack of a better term, I call manic. Basically, I feel compelled to do or learn something. I will spend days, but usually not more than a week doing or learning about said thing. I lose sleep. I neglect things. I am exhausted and it takes me a couple of days to recover, first catching up on sleep, then catching up on everything else. Then I tend to ignore whatever it was that I was compelled to do.

I should probably discuss this with a shrink, because it isn't exactly healthy. But I don't want to lose that drive that I have when I'm riding that high.

Anyway, this time I got a wild hair that I was going to get into miniature wargaming/train modelling. I spent days researching scales and the multitudes of games out there. I watched so many videos with tutorials. And unlike previous phases, I'm through to the other end, and I still want to do it. Not sure what to think about that.

Right now I'm torn between two scales for trains and two scales for wargaming. I'm not going to get into the details, because they are complicated. Essentially, for trains I'd go with either HO or N and for wargaming either 28mm or 15mm. 15mm is close to HO, but it isn't exact. But HO trains are bigger than N, so I could set up more interesting scenes in N. 15mm armies can be epic, in a relatively small amount of space. But 28mm figures tend to have better detail and would probably be more fun to paint.

I kind of wanted to match the scales, to be able to use the same terrain pieces on both hobbies, but I don't think I will. Right now I'm leaning toward 28mm and N. That may change. At this point I'm exploring different rule sets and companies to buy minis from. Now that I'm off my high it is much more slow going, but it is getting there.

On the gaming front, I've been playing a little Pokemon Y and FFX HD.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it. I hope your family drama is mild.

Jake Sully - Superspy/ Homemade Chinese dinner.

2014-11-22T00:46:45Z

Tanya picked up a secondhand Avatar toy, Jake Sully. He's very poseable so we've been having fun taking turns putting him in ridiculous positions around the apartment. So far he's been found peeking out of the medicine cabinet, hanging from the stick to turn the window blinds, on the inversion table, in the shower, on a toy horse, hanging from a rolling pin, etc...

He's been hiding in Tanya's alternate purse for the past couple of days. It has a Captain America shield clipped to the strap and I have him holding the shield. She hasn't noticed yet. She figured it out from clues on the way to work. It's been fun. I'm excited to find out where she's going to put him next.

I'm making chinese for dinner. Orange chicken, pork egg rolls, and shrimp chow mein. I may post recipes, but since I pretty much just wing it I'm not sure that a recipe would do anyone else much good.

Tabletop Season 3 / Quesadilla / Cabbage Rolls / Turkey Loaf.

2014-11-17T06:45:42Z

Season 3 of Tabletop was released this week. Just watched it today. I'm looking forward to future episodes, but I wasn't too thrilled with this one. I think that trying to up production values made the score summaries hard to follow. I'm hoping that they fix that for the future.

I made quesadillas for lunch today. I cut the pieces of cheese a little too big, so they didn't melt as well as I'd like. And I need to get better at or find a better way to flip them. Right now I flip it out of the pan onto a plate and then slide it back in to the pan to crisp the other side. Not ideal, but the only place I've seen them made was in a restaurant on the flat top. Much easier to flip with bigger tools.

For dinner I made cabbage rolls. I made too much filling so the remainder I just shoved in a loaf pan like meatloaf. I started by blanching the cabbage to make the leaves pliable. Even then I needed to notch out the thickest part of the rib in order to roll it. Rolled a spoonful of filling in a cabbage leaf like it's a burrito and then placed it flap side down in a glass baking dish. Once I filled up the dish I poured a carton of tomato/red pepper soup over it and baked it and the loaf at 350F for 50 minutes.

The filling/loaf mixture was a package of ground turkey, a dish of cooked(steamed) brown rice (1 cup before cooking) cooled to room temp, the 1/4 cup of the tomato soup, salt, pepper, red pepper flake and 2 tablespoons of smoked paprika. I mixed it up with my hands and that was that.

I topped the loaf with straight ketchup. I wasn't even expecting to make it, so it was just winging it with remainders to see what would happen.

I was pleased with both dishes. The turkey loaf was very flavorful and firm, the same filling in the cabbage ended up with a different texture and muted flavor. The smoke from the paprika came through much stronger in the loaf. I may do the turkey loaf again as a full dish. I liked the cabbage rolls, but before I make them again I want a better dish to serve them in. A bowl is awkward for something that you want to cut, but a plate is to shallow with the soup. But it was a great use of cabbage.

Full Circle makes good / need lettuce washing tips

2014-11-15T02:07:01Z

So Full Circle took my complaint and gave me a credit for the specific items that I said had a problem with in my complaint note. That's a good thing. I need to remember that I need to be specific about the items that are a problem in the future, because I didn't get a credit for the yams, which had a problem that I didn't notice until after I sent the note. I'm okay with that, they are still perfectly usable.

The squished lettuce was a challenge to deal with. I decided to use it all on a taco salad. I washed it pretty good I thought, but it was really gritty even after I couldn't see any more dirt. It suffices to say that it made for a less than pleasant meal. If anyone has tips on how to properly clean lettuce I'd love to hear them.

Rainy day at the zoo / bad week for produce

2014-11-12T20:09:45Z

Tanya and I went to the zoo yesterday. We have a yearly pass, so we're trying to take advantage of it as much as possible. This zoo isn't like most that I've visited elsewhere. The animals are all rescues that can't be released back to the wild for some reason. They just got a falcon that is habituated to humans so it can't be released, for example. It's pretty low key, and a nice place to go for a walk.

It was a little drippy, but a pretty nice day.

We did some thanksgiving shopping for some staples that go on sale this time of year, so stuffing, cranberries, and crescent rolls. We freeze extra bags of cranberries so that I can make sauce a few times during the year. Same with the rolls, I think it says to not freeze them, but I've never had a problem as long as I've thawed them slowly in the refrigerator.

The box of produce from Full Circle was in poor condition this week. I sent a complaint and am hoping for a partial credit on this box. Most of the carrots were broken, and they were crushed against the apples, so I got a bruised apple that I have to deal with sooner than later. The lettuce was squished, so I need to use that today rather than pace it out through the week. The bok choy was broken. Some of the yams were broken. The box itself was in good shape, so this is all due to shoddy packing. Usually I'm pretty happy with what we get, this just wasn't up to par.

Sweet Butternut Squash, pasta and fried fish.

2014-11-11T16:51:20Z

Only used Butternut squash out of the produce box for Monday's dinner. I made way too much food as it is, so it's just as well. I made myself ill by eating too much. (But it tasted good.)

So Butternut Squash (inspired by a Fisher nuts commercial), cubed tossed in salt and olive oil spread in a single layer on a baking sheet and cooked @350F for 25 minutes. I did it in 2 batches because I only have one baking sheet and the squash was big. In a sauce pan heat a 50/50 mix of honey and maple syrup (I used the real stuff, no idea what the fake stuff would do to this). Add nuts, I used a combo of pecan halves and almond slivers. I would have used just pecans, but I didn't have that many and I wanted more nuts. Added Cinnamon and half a freshly ground nutmeg. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer. This is a sauce to coat the squash. I left it heating until the rest of the meal was cooked and combined with the squash at the last minute.

Balsamic Spaghetti - This was all me. Cook spaghetti in well salted water, drain. Toss with balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and italian seasoning. It was very good and the reason I ate too much.

Fried Hake Loin - I used deep fryer magic here. Dredged the hake in dry tempura batter, then egg (seasoned with s&p), then cornmeal (seasoned with s&p). Fried at 375F for 4 minutes, let excess oil drain. Tasted good, probably not the best prep for this meal. Would have been better as a Fish n Chips dinner with a tartar sauce. This meal would have been better with a baked tilapia, I think. Maybe with capers?