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Video games, wood preservation, PC hardware, and a quick trip to Las Vegas. Read on.




This isn't actually about space flight simulators but rather Switch games I picked up for the Hawaii downtime. Both happen to have a sci-fi setting.




Me and J have almost covered the aboveground map, mostly working through Volcano Manor and the Leyndell.




This isn't actually about flight simulators but rather Switch games I picked up for the Hawaii downtime.




I hit the big one. Luckily this game is co-op so I didn't have to do it alone.




Slay the Spire was one of the PS+ games a month or two ago. I'd heard good things, so I gave it a whirl. Here's a pictoral commentary:




Investing, video gaming, internetting, parenting, learning - the usual.




I was thinking about doing a post of some of my favorite sprites of all time (Kirov reporting) but went down a rabbit hole and didn't return in time.




Just some scenery and light commentary from mine and J's Elden Ring adventuring.




I have another post queued up for real world stuff like Ukraine and the market/return of Gamestonk, but let's talk about the big March PS5 releases.




The plan for this month to rave about Horizon: Forbidden West and Elden Ring. The Ukraine crisis was an ominous but interesting situation three weeks ago. Sadly, now people are fighting for their country and seeking refuge and having their lives destroyed by a pointless invasion.




Is this yet another reason to go cash/oil gang? The Ukraine saga has taken a few interesting turns since last time.




This one is all about plateaus and precipices. And other things.




Jan 1's covid spike looked bad, but case rates have just kept going. As such, here's a long post that covers fractals, autoencoders, style transfer, and some vidya.




So other than progressing plot and content, I don't expect to have much to add to my initial take on Far Cry. Well, except a surprise visit from Danny-f'in-Trejo.




Another variant, another Far Cry, another Cowboy Bebop, another L4D, another Nioh, another Mass Effect. Oh yeah, and I mentioned all of them last month. (What I'm saying is my post title is totally on point.)




Rewind 19 months:




I was okay missing the first round of PS5s; launch day hardware isn't the best and there weren't a ton of games available. Now, a year on, I'd like for mine and J's next game (Back 4 Blood or Far Cry) to be on the new system.




Posting has been somewhat hamstrung. For one, I've upgraded my phone and camera hardware. The other blocker has been an overhaul of my photo preprocessor.




Jack arrived!




Let's start with the hardest-hitting item. Costco has a $200 handle of baijiu. I'm not sure if it's more shocking that someone decided bamboo liquor was worth importing or that there is a baijiu that costs more than 8 yuan.




Breakthrough cases? Pshhh, this is fine. Right?




Big moves this week for the two tickers I've been following most closely. First, some (dark) giggles about a company I don't go near in any sense:




A lot going on in this one, here's a quick table of contents:




I tried to think of a better title - I really did. It's bad now, but in a couple years I'm going to say, "A portmanteau *and* that word we no longer use, spluh". But, like, that's what it was. Memorial Day weekend and then the memening of GME, AMC, and BB. There's no other way to describe it. I'm sorry but I will not apologize.




The backyard terraces need fencing. Since there are two terraces, it almost made sense to connect the two and create a verdana/gazebo/pergola/palapa over the middle terrace.




This guy no longer has to worry about covidd (spelled thusly: c-o-v-i-d-d, the extra 'd' is for a double dose of the Moderna).




Fire Emblem Three Houses post. That is all.




Hey, I got it. First dose, anyway.




I had put my max difficulty/evil plot arc Fire Emblem playthrough on ice so that I had something to do on flights and layovers for our Jamaica trip.




Danielle arrived.




Failing miserably is something that everyone does from time to time. They either obsess over it or pretend to grow from it while quietly obsessing over it. Sometimes the fails aren't of the "I did the right thing and didn't succeed" flavor but more of the "I know better but still did it" flavor. The beginning of February has been pretty faily in kilroysville, but I see it as an opportunity to grow.




It's 2021 now. Not too different from 2020 but people are more optimistic.




Whether it's the fireplace, the geforce, or sunny surf sessions, xmas vacation has been about staying warm.




The covid surge that everyone expected after Thanksgiving has hit. Jes is busy at work. I can get by with games, streaming, jogging, and taking the dog out.




The first week of December almost always brings one of the biggest swells of the year. This one wasn't epic, but good enough to take a vacation Friday for some 0730 shooting and 0930 surfing. The lead image is a pretty good depiction of the difference between pre-sunrise shots and early-sunrise shots. The Black's cliffs make for a pretty tight window for good lighting.




Since it was just the two-ish of us, Jes and I went to the Lodge for Thanksgiving lunch.




Among Us memes are on the decline, but they got a little bump with the votingest election in US history. The lolbaters haven't played it in a couple of months, but we did have a few rousing sessions of griefing and dysfunction.




A little starfighter chat and then my next iteration in trading. I passed pilot level 15 after maybe a dozen dogfights and fleet battles, that doesn't intrinsically mean much except in the context of unlockables. I have most of the mods I want, leaving a few to acquire for tuning and experimentation. And I've acquired some fun cosmetics like the Twi'lek skin and some neat fighter paint jobs. I'm pretty happy with the rate of unlocks, though it'd be neat to have more variety in cosmetics.




I'm a few hours/levels into Squadrons and I'm pretty happy with it so far.




Pretty fun football this weekend. I have to agree with Rich Gannon however, the fake crowd noise is just silly.




You already know about the covid, now you know about the sharks. The (relatively mild) brushfires have given the sunlight a pleasant orange tone.




Covid continues, but the surge appears to have tailed off some. I guess this is the new normal until one of the many "almost-there" vaccines works out.




Covid time is time to revisit old projects and entertainment.




Still waiting on the lens, I've made headway on the monopod. I won't cut the main pole until I know how high the lens sits, but I assembled the stem piece.




The album isn't new or anything, just decided to use the art.




Saturday I put the remodeled media room to good use with some socially-responsible zombie killing. The Last of Us Pt II was released on Friday; the long-awaited follow up to a game that ranked third on J's all time list and fell just behind Metal Gear Solid on mine.




The Star Wars: Squadrons gameplay trailer dropped, he's my read.




Having bigger fish to fry, I hadn't really touched the media room in about ten years, aside from swapping some electronics and furniture. It seemed like a modest house project was in order when we hit reopening stage 2.5. The plan centered around repainting a darker, more cinematic color and moving the audio wiring from being exposed to hidden behind moulding.




From Corona to SpaceX to the Floyd protests, there's a lot going on and I'm just sitting here isolating. If only I had a 5G bioshield I could go ride some flat waves, maybe next birthday. Still, I can't complain about a beer and cheese of the month club and some home office-friendly dinosaur slippers. Thanks, Jes!




Another week of quarantined programming, video games, and hitting f5 on economic news.




Here's a little gallery/writeup on Shadow of the Colossus, the PS+ free update on the PS2 classic. In case anyone's considering a playthrough, I start with a short summary of the gameplay then - with callouts - progress to show each colossus (gameplay spoilers) and finally wrap up with the ending (plot spoilers).




Two weeks ago it was uncertain how this covid thing would play out. I don't think much has changed. I get the feeling we'll look back on this as either the biggest overreaction since terrorism or the epic disaster we absolutely could have avoided.




The last week of February was one to remember. Or forget.




At last I finished playthrough 1, so here's some screencaps, stuff I learned, and ideas I'm taking into new game+. Gameplay and plot spoilers are at the end, so some things might look a bit out of sequence.




Derrick, Jon, and I went to Whistler this year.




Here are screenshots from this decade that I like technically, aesthetically, or nostalgically. You may notice the post is at the beginning of the decade, I've chosen this as a convention so I can keep a running post for in-progress decades.




I did some more Keras dabbling since there was cold weather and time off. I continued down the autoencoder thread that I'd explored a bit previously.




Cattle's xmas Steam gift this year was Pako - Car Chase Simulator. It had me pretty well captivated for my first two-hour session. I think I worked out a little bit of strategy:




Tonight we say goodbye to the twenty-teens, so I thought I'd recap the most important things.




Winter has arrived, it's cold and wet. But that's why there's egg nog and 500W graphics cards.




Taking a few weeks off for the mcl tear, I did a photo session at volleyball. I started with a post-mounted off-camera speedlight triggered by the on-camera flash. It had the best lighting (side lighting woo), but was hard to keep the flash out of the frame. Probably would have been better to use the 20mm rather than the 50.




I'm on MCL tear number... err too many. Still, that just means no vball or sball, I can still game and do GBES events. For Brian's expedition, we started with Tiger Tiger donuts and finished at Street Car for some unbelievably hot chicken.




The August-September handoff has been hot and muggy - perfect weather for AM runs and surf sessions followed by afternoons in the cave.




August meant it was time again for the annual Vegas trip. The Silverton was a pretty chill spot that was convenient for us, but there was good and bad. I killed it at craps, and Matt at the giant Wheel of Fortune machine. As usual, pai gow was a slow, losing battle. Corey and I posted up at a roulette table while we were waiting for the crowd to thin out elsewhere. Three times we caught the dealer (wheeler?) clearing his chips off a square Corey had won - pretty darn sketchy. For the re...




July is beach month, we did some vball at dog beach where Lana and Kaf and Herman got some swimming in.




The Women's World Cup and Gold Cup have offered some exciting and anxiety-inducing soccer.




Between some great new releases and an attendee crew, this was a pretty fun E3.




After travel and catching up, things are getting back to normal.




Who doesn't love a good list? In this post:




A couple small changes that are fairly evident below: I created an about page and a list of lists.




Moved here.




A long while back, J sent me his top ten video games of all time per an ongoing discussion about such matters. It took me some time to furnish my own, but I have at last.




Last month's journeys were followed by an early March trip out to the east coast, so suffice it to say I've been happy to spend some time in the man cave.




2019 has been all work and all play.




The PUBG snow map dropped this week. After a bunch of squad and some solo, I've played the map all of once.




Jes and I went up to Seattle/Burien to see Jon/Tori's new place and new pup. Jes went up early, I joined on Friday and we took Pepper to the shore.




The Brogue Squadron finished the Heroes of Eturi campaign, winning three victory points to one with one VP mission to spare. The final few scenarios included some cool variations like a space station and ground station.




First and foremost: Tori and Jon got a pup.




Still more heat, still more man cave.




Brutal heat has meant lots of tabletop and video gaming between surf and pool sessions.




The Gentleman's Beer Exploration Society took a short hike to Bitter Brothers brewing. It wasn't exactly the backcountry, but it was a great day to be outdoors.




The usual routine didn't work out so well. Between a broken down Metrolink on the way back and an unfortunate fatal incident on the tracks going north, I spent eight hours on the train to three hours at the expo.




J and I are pretty far along Monster Hunter, so for a change of pace we started another playthrough of The Division. We're hoping two years of fixes have solved some of the endgame/pvp stuff. There's also a bunch of dlc that might be worth checking out.




Since Jes enjoyed rafting, I thought maybe she'd like an ocean kayak for her bday. We did a sunset paddle before going to see Isle of Dogs.




Jon, Dan, Derrick, and I took a trip to Park City. After considerable research, it appeared Snowbird would have been the preferred resort (acreage, conditions) but has a small and expensive inventory of on-site accommodations. To add to that, many of the ski areas have insane rental tax rates. Who would have thought Park City would be the more reasonably-priced option (for a ski-in/ski-out trip plan).




Few spoilers inside. But first, more renovation.




Santa brought me Horizon: Zero Dawn. Here's some media and discussion, nothing in the story beyond an hour of play is spoiled.




The usual drive. Jes accompanied on the way up but had to fly back for work. We stopped for a night in Burbank and did a meal with her family.




As avid historians of video games, J and I have a pretty good depth and breadth of experiences. This'll be my first attempt at a list feature [l], written in 2019 but backdated to 2017 when he actually authored the list. Also it's actually a top eleven due to a last-minute addition/re-think.




Jes and I took Kaf down to the cove. Rain had washed part of the path away, so we had a difficult descent and even more challenging return.




The Duc needs a new clutch, a valve adjustment, and maybe some troubleshooting of the cutch hydraulics. Between that, 50k+ miles, and having my eye on the ebike scene since I first saw them at Laguna, it seemed like a good time to go for it.




The Cooley Halloween party moved to the Tonkers' place due to special circumstances, but it still had costumes, pizzas, and beers. Jessica's Gamora costume won best of the night, (another) Chris's beekeeper won worst.




Jes and I took a trip up to Oakland to catch up with the hometown crowd and see some Raiders football. There was a bit of haze from the Santa Rosa fires, but not, like, SD in '03 or anything:




Of course more east coast trips. I can't be mad, I brought some Pot Belly peppers back this past time. And the one before that I got to ride the sweet Detroit airport tram that is overhead in the terminal.




Finished a few things this month, the first of which was a resurface job on the pool. It wasn't in bad shape, but since I'd drained it I figured I'd go ahead and apply a new layer of epoxy. The canopy made all of this considerably easier, although epoxy in an enclosed area has some disadvantages.




Assassin's Creed looked like Assassin's Creed. You get a bird this time. It lovely though.




Since Dying Light was just a bit too cerebral for two-day gamefest, J and I mixed in some Killing Floor 2.




The newest game J and I are playing is Dying Light: The Following. AKA parkour simulator. AKA lockpicking simulator.




Mark brought Civ into the office and we've played through it twice. It's pretty amazing - it captures the spirit of the franchise while making it tabletop-able and adding a few elements that don't exist in the computer game.




Two work trips this month. Luckily, there's Fire Emblem Fates, Liar's Dice, and some awesomely-named beers.




This Saturday was the annual BLAH Cape Run. We went orange this time around.




Between the Jeffsea xmas sweater party and being recruited to photo a couple of Christmas cards, seasonal garb has been in full effect.




I'm just over a week/4000 years into Civ VI. It's about what you'd expect - iterative improvements over its predecessor. Here's the downlow:




Back in July we hit Cache Canyon for some rafting. Jes and I survived the day after the Southwest computerpocalypse and barely survived the insane temperatures.




After a morning paddle out with the bros, Jes and I went down to the cove to watch the fireworks. The bluffs above the caves were a great spot, although the people on kayaks might have had more fun.




Ty got married.




Last year some League of Sporters undertook an incredible journey, one that proved too strenuous for a single weekend. But like any semi-casual athlete, giving up just isn't in our nature. To celebrate Dave finishing his master's, we completed the second leg of the Camp'n'crawl.




So J and I are letting The Division rest a bit and give the developers a chance to get their act together or move on and deal with the irate fans. I'll defer to his analysis:




We went to Austin for Ty's bachelor weekend. The shirts were absolutely top notch.




Nothing particularly interesting to report outside the media room. Soccer, vball, tennis, and occasional laundry - the usual. So, games...




I had a Utah ski trip on the books before the mcl thing happened. I decided to go anyway and made an eleventh hour decision to bring skis even if I wasn't fit to use them.




I judged Monster Jam at the ballpark because a friend/parts dealer needed a last minute replacement.




Since the futon is semi-permanently relocated to the guest bedroom, I decided to renovate the closets that used to just hang out behind it. Floor, walls, shelves. Now I have decent game storage and a surfboard check.




At long last we can crawl the postapocalyptic wasteland again, Fallout 4 is here. I haven't played all that much of it, and it's taken awhile to settle back into the gameplay style.




Halloween happened four times this year. So, four costumes.




The Galaxy S3 finally died after it took a tumble off of my soccer bag not long ago. I was way out of contract so it was a good time to evaluate the options:




August is always the craziest month. So megapost.




I just started with the Planetside 2 beta, on J's suggestion. Not for lack of desire, I haven't played Battlefield or CoD online so it's my first MMOFPS experience. It's pretty good, there are a lot of cool mechanics, although the gameplay isn't Bungie-slick.




A weekend of running, surfing, and sun is not complete without restorative video gaming sessions. J and I recently started co-oping Far Cry 4.




A long time back blogspot removed the feature that enabled publishing to an external domain. Using a little perl-fu, I created a simple markup-to-html processor and went independent. Well, that code was shoestringy and so it's finally time to EOL it.




Somewhere along the way the Duc's voltage regulator decided to crack and leak. The problem manifested as a dead (new) battery and may well have been the reason my led tails blew. The prescribed voltage/resistance tests indicated that the alternator was fine, to my relief. When I pulled and inspected the regulator it seemed pretty certain.




I finally stepped into the new gen of consoles with Destiny for ps4. No xbone for me. Microsoft angered me far too much with crappy hardware and paid-for internet on 360 followed by the kinect snafu, subsequent lies, and a too-high price point. I'm no Sony fanboy, but a few leaked credit card numbers and prosecuting people who put Linux on their consoles started to pale in comparison to Redmond's transgressions. Sadly, Sony began charging for internet play with ps4, but at least they try ...




I stopped by the LA Convention Center to see what all the hubbub was about. The new consoles were heavily featured, with very little of the controveries featured in the pressers and internet. There was a lot of the usual stuff, more COD, MW, NFS, GT, Forza, Final Fantasy, etc. The Final Fantasy XV trailer looked pretty awesome though, annnd like they're maybe trying Assassin's Creed style gameplay(?).




My favorite englishman turned 40. We did a throwback lunch sess with Connie and afterward he and I tailgated with Cheese Shoppe sandwiches. Classy Guy had Perrier, I had Bawls.




Wednesday the sixth was e3 for me and the mforma guys. Hands down the most anticipated attraction for me was Borderlands 2. Thanks to Chris (aka zombiepancakes), we got a spot in the vip demo with no waiting. The sequel looks to have much better production quality without messing with series' excellent rpg/shooter formula.




Everyone made it out alive. No zombie flu, only a few stitches between the lot of us. The food rocked, there was a massive handegg match, dogs were all over the place.




Friendsgiving is returning to San Diego next week so I've been working hard on the house.




Flags are in. Probably game zero this Saturday.




As expected, life and times got pretty exciting. The Cathcart breakdown:




I added a second sunsail to complete the effect.




A few more Starcraft II screenshots. E.g. the Nova easter egg and a household deterrent for zerglings.




I bought Starcraft on Friday, it's been awhile since I had any rts fun. The game's great, but I think I'm done with Blizzard, they pulled some serious Sony crap with this one. It all stems from the innocuous system requirement listed on the box, "Broadband Internet connection". Here's about how it went down:




Bpf 2.0 is on its way. Since blogger dropped ftp support I've had to write scripts to migrate everything to a custom setup. There's plenty left to do and some of the parsing needs perfecting, but it's decent progress considering the job hours I've worked this month.




Last month I posted my favorite photos from the 2010-2019 decade, here's its virtual cousin. Here are screenshots from this decade that I like technically, aesthetically, or nostalgically. You may notice the post is at the beginning of the decade, I've chosen this as a convention so I can keep a running post for in-progress decades.




I bought the Sealy cal king that Costco stocks. It's comfy, it's big, it needs a frame.




So Bungie finished their contribution to the Halo series and did the dreaded franchise handoff. This has led to the titles Halo Wars and Halo ODST. After Dan came down again I had a jones for more shooter action so I picked up the recent release. As expected, it plays pretty much the same as the last three with minor visual tweaks and new features.




New lighting for the living room. You probably didn't notice, but I ms painted in a bookshelf to indicate what it'll look like sans line of sight to the light sources. Here's how it is now:




I picked up Fallout 3 a couple days ago.




Ty and I just finished Gears 2 with some help from Kevin. It was a two-sitting playthough thanks to a midweek cold.




Smash Brothers Brawl is pretty good. At first the game appears to be little different from the previous installment. The controls and mechanics are the same, in fact you can play with a GameCube controller. The canon of characters, moves, and levels has been preserved but with quite a few additions.




We finally got on the bandwagon. Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah. Apologies, sore tendons makes me giddy. Rock Band is basically Forza with instruments instead of a wheel. It takes practice, patience, and you really can't compete at a high level without knowing the track. Damn, pun counter is at two already. I'm on fire.




Why you are stoked:




First impressions (midnight until two last night)...




2007Q1 console sales:




So Yahoo reported on a study by a German research group that concluded that racing video games are linked to reckless driving.




This game will have you squatting behind every bush in sight. But hilarious duty jokes aside, COD is a lot of fun.




The Wiil deal, Wiimendous fun, I dream of Wiinie. And so forth.




J and I went to E3. The real hot tickets seemed to be n-gage, Sega, and Marc Ecko's Getting Up.




Another E3.




A couple snaps from E3 2002.




Ted, Sam, and I went up to LA for our first E3.