Monthly Archives: June 2013

Time to Move the Computer?

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My wife is a huge “reality” tv fan and I think her favorite has just started, Big Brother. The nice thing for ME about her watching Big Brother is they (CBS) does this thing called live streams most of the time so there is always something for her to watch. The bad thing is there is always something for her to watch and how our computers are set up (right next to each other) that means that I have to hear all this noise.

Guess I need to expand on that just a little in case you don’t know the show. The idea of the show is take a bunch of people and lock them in a house full of cameras and make them vote themselves out a person a week until there are just a few left all a while making them play games for both prizes and “power” in the game structure.

Okay fairly simple idea for a show even though I don’t watch the show why would that make me want to move my PC?

What you might not think about is the game is full of political BS meaning everyone whispers all the time as to try and not be over heard by everyone else. Meaning for people that watch the “live” streamings there is little audio help from CBS so you end up maxing out your speakers. And it is a simple fact that if you are the one trying to hear something it needs to be about 400 times louder for you then for everyone else in the house to be able to hear. It is just a simple fact.

So either I need to talk the wife in to using her head phones or I might just be better off moving my PC into another room for the next 3 months so I don’t have to hear how girl A is pissed that boy B is talking to girl C because she said she is sisters with famous person I don’t give a fuck…

And yes that was the story for my hour of DDo time last night as I slowly worked on the eGh explorer zone alone except for my army of hires. Yup, that is the other down side of giving her something to watch, my main DDo partner now has other things to do besides get me loot and xps….

What a double edge sword this show is.

Well back to work,

 

<3s

My New Handicap

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I tweeted I think on Monday that the wife gave me my anniversary gift, a Logitech G600 mouse.

Oh yeah….

OMG, that is a lot of buttons…. What was I thinking?

Okay, first of all it is not really that many buttons okay it but work with me.

G8/G7 are for mouse modes so they are not important for game play.

G15 –G20 is mapped to control 1-6 and I have mapped control 1-6 to be 1-6 on the second game bar. I never did so before because when I first started playing control + numbers was difficult for me on my old ThinkPad laptop. When I moved to gaming Pcs I was set in my ways. Now I had a chance when I moved to the Merc keyboard but still I didn’t bother. But one of the reasons I wanted this mouse was to get more quick keys in my grasp.

G9 and G12 are for my second row control 9 and 0 keys.

Hey it seems strange not to just map a key to control and use the number keys and I might try that later… IDK. There is something to one button pushes in my mind, even if I “loose” quick access to 2 of the possible quick keys. And I say that because…

G10 and G13 are mapped to next noncombat / previous noncombat. My old MX 500 I had the forward button mapped to next noncombat and if I got over zealous with my clicking I would have to click through again vs backing up.

G 11 and G14 would be next combat and previous combat (my MX500 the back button was next combat see the above issue with just one button for targets). And the G14 is working, but for some reason G11 doesn’t want to do any of my commands. I am going to try mapping it to some letter and use notepad to see if it is working at all. My gut says no…

Now if I could just get a touch screen and touch the icons I need as needed maybe I could be a hair faster….

Okay back to the grind,

<3s

13 Years and Counting

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Sorry about missing yesterday’s post. I will see what I can do to make it up this week sometime, but today is a busy one. Today is the actual day of my 13th wedding anniversary.

WAIT, it is my 14th wedding anniversary. Oh my… I can’t count or do simple maths…

Wow….

It hasn’t always been easy, but more often then not it has been good times. To anyone out there that might wonder if I am really the ass I seem to be and the answer is yep. But somehow I manage to keep her around. I often tell her is foolish to put up with me, but I am glad she does.

Okay if you want a DDO theme post I need to get some things done and find an idea to start with.

<3s

Destiny Planing: McPlunderer

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I got some real DDo time in this weekend, mostly rocking my rogue and I was super pleased. Yes as I thought there is an issue of running out of HPs in some cases but for the most part I felt healing from the healers was about the same as when rocking Darth. As for kills I only looked once at the end of a quest but most of the time I was leading kill counts (the one time that stands out I had 69 kills vs low 20s and high teens) not that kill count is a good judge of dps (2wf and massive sneak attack for the last hit is okay however) but I do know I was assassinating the hell out of trash mobs every time my timer was off cool down and big boss fights were amazing during manyshot bursts. Not that I was quit keeping up with Tobril during his Furyshot bit I expect to more then keep up when I get my own sneakfuryshot!

Anyway I wanted to show you how I am leaning in the destiny department.

 

Planed Fury Path

 

Planed twists at the moment are Grim Precision, Stealthy and Cocoon. Meaning I need 11 total twist points which is not too hard to come by with just low hanging fruit with a little work in the crossover destinies.  Now if I can just make a gear list happen simi soon.

<3s

Product Ideas and Other Quick Thoughts.

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So this is continued from Friday. Any references are directed at last week but the thought train was on track and I don’t want to derail it too much.

So work has had me on the ropes all week keeping my brain busy all day, even my DDo time has been effected to some degree. Think it was Wednesday night all I did was hunt explorers in the Kings Forest while my mind wondered about work stuff. But it is Friday and I finished one of the projects that has been on my plate/mind and I missed a day so I need to do a double post today to make up for it. So here are some random ideas for things I would either like to have or sell the idea to someone else to make….

Giant size construction blocks and hanging wallboards… The other day my wife and I were talking about needing to add some more storage options to different rooms and my brain started down this path of wouldn’t it rock if you could buy huge Lego like blocks that you could use to make your own custom shelves? And what if there was a board you could hang on the wall so you could build out into the room?  Think about it. It would be the ultimate in custom shelving. Say you have a 34 inch Tv and you have a rocking entertainment center but it can only fit a 36” tv. So if you want to go up in size you also have to buy a new entertainment center.  But what if you could just dismantle your system and build the perfect unit for your needs. When I was first starting out I used milk crates and 2x4s. Sure I could use normal sized legos for my shelves but how much will that cost? Nope make me some foot to two foot blocks. Add some flat panel blocks and I could replace all my furnisher in my house with legos.

Personal aquponic tray, basically this would be a tray with a bell syphon and a pump that would sit on top of say a 10-gallon tank. Ideally it would be raised up a little so one could still get to the fish but it would hold the light and maybe not totally replace the filter but in an ideal world it would. In this tray you could rock a simple flood and drain system for lettuces and herbs.  I would also love to build smaller complete systems that would hold just a few plants and just a few fish. Like you would put in a kids room, maybe set up with a divider for a couple of betas….

A battery charger that you can attach to any bike and use a friction wheel riding on the tire to charge the batteries. This way you could use a street bike or a stationary bike they all have wheels, right?

While I am talking about things that are more fun then helpful why isn’t there a gym that is more or less an adult sized jungle gym? I remember a few years back my family was hanging at a McDonalds in some little town waiting for someone for some reason. This little McDs had a play place and it didn’t have a size limit. So when my son and niece asked me to come play I did and it was great.  Sure I can find a gym with a climbing wall but I can’t chase my son (or now little niece as Remmis is now 13 and doesn’t play anymore) in a nice protected area with ball pits and whatnots.

That is where I left off last week almost done.  Just needed a closing…. But I don’t have one today either…  Would you buy my stuff?

<3s

Need More TR Cache?

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I am not sure how this thought got started in my head but now it has wiggled around a bit and I need to get it out. I know dear readers, I am both sorry for what is about to happen below and you are welcome….

What if you could take your old raid gear (or any bound to character on equip item really but for this though process I am looking at raid gear) and via some ritual convert them in to some kind of “smaller” version of the item so they could be collected in a bag/chest/container to save room. And then if you need said item again you could enlarge it again via a ritual most likely converting said item to a current version of said item.

Now we would need to add a way to monetize this system as well as keeping a free in game option, say via some kind of turn in or rare item drop to shrink and another to reconstruct that could be sold in the store or bought sold via shards like a purple dopant…  Or we could easily buy shrink/enlarge mats and they start us off with a small container say one that holds 5 and then sell larger containers or container upgrades via the store like cannith grafting.

In my mind I see this Bag as more of a “trophy case”.

Running with the thought that this is a “trophy” case, we could have this do some cool things. First add a guild trophy case that more or less gathers a list of all the characters in the guilds items in their case and then show the totals.  Like if I have a chattering ring and a circle of hatred in my case and Tobril had a circle of hatred and a Tharn’s goggles in his our guild list would be like 2 circle of hatred (mouse over for owners) 1 chattering ring, 1 Tharn’s goggles.

At the same time this might also be a good place/time to do some exporting for public viewing, like how we have the guild APIs but better.

The main perk however, would be helping free up inventory with out having to add more pack or bank space. Think about it. How much old raid gear do you leave in your TR cache? Me I have caster gear that gathers dust on melee lives and melee gear during caster lives.

Many talks with Glinn about inventory space, I think I understand that is it a big deal to add more space in banks or packs. Due to the nature of the beast that is the character file in the backend. But a system like this would be amazing and as I understand “bags” are a lot easier.

OR on the flip side… they could just make a chest that any item/s can go into with no rituals and be super cool.

<3s

Gear Up: McPlunderer @ 20

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So Monday night the wife took her Dps/survival build to 20 and a few runs of raiding the giants vault and an explorer or two in the devil’s battle field I had also reached even more epic levels!  Shit, my amazing lvl 12 and 14 gear is not so amazing now….  To the epic sheet and the DDowiki.com!

First thing I did was gather all the bits to make an epic Midnight’s Greetings. This guy is most likely a staple for most of my adventuring. As almost max INT rogue build (1 point went into DEX to hit 21 for future things) the eMG is amazing: +10 uses my slightly higher DEX for hit/dam and a score of other key abilities including a RED SLOT! Like I assume many of you, I started to use a red slot even in my melee builds for devotion to power my healing from the epic destinies. A +10/11 weapon would have a 30/33 implement bonus and that is huge if you’re trying to lessen the use of scrolls and wands; every point counts!

So what else did I grab real fast? At 18 I crafted a 6con/GFL ring with a yellow slot. But my maths were off and it is a lvl 20 item… grumble. But I have it on now. And I was able to slot 6 CHR. By doing that I was able to free up my cloak and belt slot. On the other finger I nabbed a tear 3  lvl 20 Ring of the Buccaneer were I went ahead and slotted Fort to free my helm. While nabbing that ring I also nabbed one of the Treasure Hunter’s Spyglasses that is a tear 3 lvl 20 item and filled its green slot with PRR which does a lot of cool things for my rogue, including cutting back on item swaps for skills. Chasing that thought of reducing item swaps I took my Gnoll Hide gloves and slotted Str and vitality letting me but my +6 STR gloves back in the bank.

In an attempt to fill now empty body slots I grabbed a Drow Piwafwi and my 2/3rds finished CordOp helm. And yes my belt slot is still empty…  And my boots are practically empty. Thing they are dex boots with 20% striding slotted in a yellow slot. AKA junk now.

So I am looking at belts and boots today as well as things that are simi long-term items. I can limp along like normal until more permanent items are ready to go. So I am leaning towards making a list of handy FR commendation items when we start the web flagging as well as a list of GH and High Road items I would like to have as options….

If you had a gear list for an assassin or dps or ranged rogue let me know other wise I know what my left side of my brain is doing as my right side gets some work done.

<3s

Gurobo Farms Update: 6/16

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I got a tone of things to do today so I decided to do a greenhouse photo update for you all today. But before i get to new pictures i want to say two things real fast. One, got the rogue to 20 last night and in the next few days we will see how the build runs in epics slash how the gear up is going. Two, i think the full effect of the new growth is best if you go back and take a look at some of the older garden updates. Take a second and take a look at some of the older greenhouse updates!

Now some pictures.

Peppers! You can see the Banana peppers in the back. The 4 Jalapeno’s plants are rocking. If you have a real good eye you might be able to see the Bonnets and the Bells. Everything is fruiting super well.

Jalapeno close up. Count the flowers and think about how almost everyone becomes a fruit…. Many Jalapenos!

Cucumbers. I know it is hard to tell but there are 3 in this shot. One big boy that is a little older then the other two but they are all doing really well.

Keep in mind that the cucumber shown here is about 4 inches long.

More peppers. There are 2 different kinds but both are super hot. I wonder were i put the habaneros? They were great last year.

This is one of the most impressive plants in my eyes. This is the watermellon. Yep i have it climbing on a heavy duty cage and i think it is doing really well. It even has a few flowers…

This is the other most impressive of the plants to me. This is the punkin. Again i wish i had some kind of scale… That box it is on just to keep the grass down under it is about 4 foot tall and those larger leaves are about a foot across. BIG PLANT.

Here is a shot of the west side of the greenhouse. Most of the other plants are blocked from view by the ground cherry but this tray also has a few okra plants that are really fruiting and a cluster of strawberries that are going mad. If you look carefully you can also see the grapes climbing the walls. 

Oh hey, a few other things in that last photo. The wife’s caves and the two buckets of carrots.

Even more peppers on the left and some sweet melons on the right. The melons are kinda freaking the wife out with their burst growth each day. She swears that she waters in the morning and they are X big and then when i get home after work we go water and they are MUCH bigger. All i know is i hope to have some melons soon.

Don’t think i can have an update with out showing you the tomato “bush”. I don’t really deal with the tomatos but i know there are 5 or 6 on my kitchen counter and at least 4-5 more about ready to harvest and 12s that are still growing.

Here is a shot of the most southern tomato plant, and as you can see he has 3 easy to see fruits ripening on sunday when i took these pictures.

One of the Eggplants. And yes it is fruiting already.

An Eggplant that is not fruiting…. yet.

And here are my new Blue Berry bushes. I am hoping that they will do really well on the south side of the greenhouse. I could use a nice wall of something to hide the lack of trimming and how i haven’t got the pavers laid around the base yet.

 

Another DDolite Weekend 6/17

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Once again real live decided to keep me from my keyboard but this time it allowed me to see some old pnp friends and get in about 13 hours of pnp in. Yes I skipped DDo for Dnd. Good times.

One of my good friends, Dustin, finally decided to become exclusive/official with the girl he has been dating for a while now. And she is a fairly thoughtful person and wanted to get him a really great birthday gift for their first Bday together, so she arranged a surprise Dnd weekend. A lot of us drove up (some as far as 5 hours one way) to rock some dice and good times were had by all.

Via private messaging (to keep the surprise) I said I would do the healer thing and decided I would do a melee/healing druid. Very much in the style of a DDo druid with one exception I would rock out as a dinosaur. Let me tell you there I not a lot more badass guys then an Ankylosaurus.

You have to handle some size issues but there is not a lot more scary then having an attack of +2 (greater magic fang) 3d6 + 1d6 +24 + power attack (6) on a healer at level 6….

Sam Smash.

It was lots of fun and I can’t leave with out a short story of some of the good times.

During one fight, the party was fighting (mostly zombies) at this logging camp with outbuildings and tall overseer tower. The party leader (the Bday boy) and the wizard were more or less opening a door to the camp and thowing a fireball into the room mostly clearing them so I wasn’t doing a ton. Then our sniper decided to use the tower for a major height advantage he was attacked by what was clearly the boss of this area. So I wild shaped into a pterodactyl and took the fight into the air, which was fun if short as a pterodactyl also has a big attack.

So I just flew around waiting for something major worth getting into for a few rounds. When the party was running away from a few bug swarms into storage area for storing felled trees out of the rain a huge bug burst out of the ground throwing logs all around a was about to really tear into the party (that was trailing a few bug swarms behind them).

I flew up some more above the fight and wild shaped from the pterodactyl into an Ankylosaurus more or less one shoting this super bug. Guess having 3 tons of heavy fall on your head is bad news… It was the first time Jen, Dustin’s girl, ever saw “the blue whale” attack and many good times was had.

Well back to work.

<3s

Inbox: Advice for Bobby pt2

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Earlier in the week I started to answer an email with some advice for a player I called Bobby, and today I want to tackle the other big topic in his email playing DDo with someone that shares your bed.

New information:
Bobby has a non-English speaking girlfriend (and I don’t really know if they share a bed)
This GF, Pepper (as I struggle to pick a girl’s name and see my Iron Man toys on the desk) was a DDo player (casual) but has had a year long forced break due to hardware problems. And feels she is back to newb status.
No mater what Pepper will always lean more on the Casual side.

Okay first of all, having people you love share your hobbies just makes those hobbies more fun. But at the same time they can also suck the fun out of things. And I am about to go in to some things that might get me in trouble but I would not give up playing with my wife for anything.

Okay there are hurdles both in playing and in your relationship. And there is not a lot of tips I can give you to avoid those, all I can say is look back at my other main tip of being honest and try to power through. Knowing when to shut up is also a killer skill, one I might over use… Okay things that bother me or can if I let them and tips, some or both at once.

Comments made about how things are going often are just venting and not really directed at anyone or at the group. This is my main issue playing with my wife. She is a glass is half empty girl at least 80% of the time. And I work VERY hard to not be the same; she might say that is just me arguing with her all the time. And she is probably a little right, but mostly if I am having a good time (and if I am playing I am normally having a good time) then I don’t want to see everything with that “the sky is falling” point of view. At the same time I was told once that I have a bit of a “fix it” mentality, and that wanting to fix everything is very male. If there is a problem I try to fix it and if I can’t then I need to stop and let it go. So often I take this venting to heart and try to fix things when this happens I need to realize it is going on and I need to let it go. Trying to “fix things” will just make it worse. Oh and game bugs, you have to try to be immune to them bothering you.

Being “bull headed” or pressing on verse retreating. This is another tough one to explain, but my wife (Tobril has this same issue as well but often with different issues) is good with a challenge to a point. Then things hit a wall and she wants to find a path of less resistance and as the un-official team leader it is often my job to make the call on no we can keep on or your right lets cut our losses. All I can say is you have to be truly honest when evaluating those situations. And if you are in a group and they are the leader then you have no grounds to argue with them it is their call.
Last one today is about giving them advice. This is another place where I struggle as if you don’t like my advice then that is on you but if you give your wife advice and then she decides she doesn’t like it then you get to sleep with one eye open. I think the best you can do is try to answer questions the best you can but sometimes you just have to point to the wiki or the forums and say I can’t help you. You have to decide this one for yourself and that can cause fireworks also…

Did that help at all?
<3s