Sunday 24 June 2018

Plastic Bag Ban?

Starting from next month my local grocery store is going to stop using free plastic bags. As someone who uses these as bin liners / trash bags, that slightly annoys me but I realize that a lot of other places must already have this ban in place.

So for people in similar circumstances, what did you do? Purchase plastic bags or stop using bin liners altogether? Not using liners seems icky to me, but I'd like to hear your experiences if you are willing to share. :)

Tuesday 19 June 2018

A Funny Truth

Me: Pokemon is all about enslaving creatures then forcing them to fight other enslaved creatures for money and fame. Oh, and it's a kids show!

Guest #1: *ahem*!
Guest #2:  He's a fan of Pokemon.

Me: Oh, my bad - was anything I said untrue?
Guest #1: I... (pause) ... feel somewhat insulted.

Monday 18 June 2018

Photobucket: Trying to be a Phoenix

While checking on an old post I was surprised to find the previously "burned" photobucket pictures returned to life. It is apparently old news, that the company back flipped on their $400 fee and restored what was previously missing.

Restoring image links is one thing, but regaining the trust of consumers is quite another. There are just some lines you must never cross, and I think there's no coming back from what they did. Then again, there are terrible game companies out there that somehow keep afloat so, what do I know right?

Sunday 17 June 2018

Players make the Game

Just a quick follow up to the previous Forbidden Desert mini post, it seems the kids tried have a game on their own without me and found it less fun. I find that interesting given when I was "playing" I was actually only controlling the desert AI which traditionally is done by each player after their turn.

They've since played a few more of my other games and so far I've just been the arbiter / bank / rules person due to player number restrictions. It is interesting revisiting these though, and I hope to do a full list review of my collection once I have time to myself again. :)

Wednesday 13 June 2018

Printed Cartography Tip

Today's mini post is for those who still like hard copies of maps. You might find that printing out a google maps page is next to useless since the roads are white and the background is so light you can't make them out unless traveling through forest.

https://mapstyle.withgoogle.com/ works much better, especially the preset Retro style. Having visitors makes you learn things! :P

Monday 11 June 2018

Better than Monopoly

Coming from a 15 year old who is a die hard Monopoly gamer, that's pretty high praise for the Forbidden Desert. It's definitely board game season at home, and I don't think I can do more than these mini-posts for a bit. This was quite the highlight so far though. :)

Monday 4 June 2018

Deadpool 2

Even better than last time!

Once again Ryan Reynolds is fantastic as Deadpool, and with a less predictable script this time around, a handful of cameos, funny jokes and violent action sequences this is definitely now one of my favorite movies.


The bestest of frenemies!

The main negative I can find with it is that a lot of the humor will go over heads of people who haven't been watching (or have forgotten) all the other popular movies as of late (at least superhero ones).

Other than that it is an extremely well made action flick that has some surprisingly moving segments. It should be no surprise that I'm giving this five bowls of foreshadowing out of five. Will I watch it again? Yes! Even though I already watched it twice at the cinema! :)

Saturday 2 June 2018

June 2018 Status: BUSY!

I haven't really added much from last month and that's because June is going to be very busy for me, as I'm having a lot of overseas visitors over. This means I'm going to be behind on Neverwinter's next module: Ravenloft, miss the Jubilee (again), and that I'm not going to get many things done in general. I suspect my blog posting will also decrease for a bit. The updated lists look like so:

    End the year with less weight (+1.5 kg from last month, running total: +.5 kg)
    Complete NWO: Lost City of Omu (2/2)
    Learn 3 more songs (3/3)
    Draw 12 drawings of anything (7/12)
    Make a parody comic (dropped)
    Make board game 19 prototype (procrastinating)
    Complete web comic chapter 1 (needs more condensing)
    Make a simple computer game (dropped for now)
    Clean out computer games (Done)
    Clean out wardrobe

Backlog Update:

FROM GIFTS
Sims 3
Overlord 2 (Done)
Eador: Masters of the Broken World

COMPY CAN'T RUN (but I want to play)
Batman: Arkham Knight
Dying Light
Alien Isolation
Shadow of Mordor
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Satellite Reign
+Assassins Creed Unity


The "learn 3 songs" task was surprising as I learned 3 completely different ones to the ones I had intended to learn, and as I've started doing the drawing tasks I've realized how draining they are again. As such I've dropped the parody thing as I'd rather put effort into the actual comic, and I'm going to have to really plan the comic better to condense down what actually needs to be produced.

Also ditched the computer game inkling for now to focus on the original list. Game wise, Sims and Eador will probably get their own journals at some point but I doubt much will happen with that this month so we'll see how it goes. Step one is for me just to survive.

Either way I'll be dropping the Backlog section for now since it's pretty much under control, at least until I upgrade my PC. Alright June, here we go.