One of my favourite heavy metal bands is GWAR and one of my favourite movies is Empire Records, so this song is a no brainier to be featured in the advent.
Used to great effect in the movie to demonstrate the effects of a weed high, its a really good song, although Lindsay and Megan aren’t fans, but then they don’t like a lot of heavy metal.
On Friday I completed BioShock, it meant I played an extra 3 1/2 hours, but I really wanted to get it finished because I was really enjoying it!
I was initially worried when going back to it, that I would actually end up having my good memories tainted if it didn’t stand up to modern games.
Well my fears were unfounded, it was just as good as the first time round, and the remastered version was amazing, it felt and looked exactly the same, but sharper and better looking.
So glad I picked it up in the summer, and oh my god that moment in Andrew Ryan’s office!
Next week I start on BioShock 2, looking forward to that as I only played it through once back in the day.
I will admit that I really missed achievements, it’s a big reason I love Xbox, that sense of, well achievement.
The BioShock collection is fantastic and I am so glad it’s in my collection, even better it has BioShock Infinite which I never got the chance to okay before!
If you want to watch me play it though in its entirety, you can follow this link to a playlist with all the video in it.
But I don’t recommend that, I am a terrible gamer!
Lighting Changes
Seeing as the studio is now my main home, the inability to just go up and down stairs when I want will do that, I am focusing on making it a comfortable and nice environment for me.
One thing I have been struggling with lately is eyestrain, I am not sure if it’s the fact I am a couple of months overdue for an eye test or that I am just getting older.
But it’s annoying and I have moved some LED strips around to attach one to the rear of the monitor and the upstairs TV.
I got the one fitted to the monitor on Monday, it’s got a Zigbee controller so interacts with the Hue system perfectly, which is nice.
Megan has also contributed and has bought a pair of Trådfri bulbs from IKEA for the studio to replace the simple white bulbs we currently use to illuminate the painting area.
Again these use the Zigbee protocol so will be controllable via the Hue Bridge and be able to be controlled by Screenbloom for some interesting effects in the office.
I am giving some serious thought to some more cosmetic lighting in the office, a strip under the rim of the desk for example, just stuff to make the place look cooler, and absolutely a cinema light box!
What I Am Modelling
Took a few days but I managed to paint Rippa’s Snarlfangs for Uneerworlds.
This means I am 50% if the way though the Unserworlds warbands now.
Eben Brooks is a kickass filk artist who has proclaimed himself the superhero of San Diegio.
I picked this song for the advent, not only because it is such a positive representation of polyamory, but because I think it captures me, and I am someone who has never mentally aged beyond seventeen.
Megan has been pestering me for weeks to reorganise my desk, specifically by getting rid of my Citadel Painting Tray.
Well I followed her advice and I have to say, she was right, so now I have a hit more space on the desk and a permanent home for the Switch dock.
Plus it really does look a lot tidier, and you can see the RGB effects from the speakers a lot better.
I did also reconfigure the setup for the speakers, because the Xbox One and Switch connect to the monitor via HDMI, they bypassed the speakers. Which meant that I only had the option of hearing them through the crappy inbuilt speakers or by plugging in a headset to the monitor.
So what I did was grab a 3.5mm cable and plug the monitors headphone socket into the 3.5mm socket in the speakers.
I moved the cable organiser from the side of the desk and put it on the back, this now holds the 3.5mm extension from the PC, and a 3.5 mm extension that heads to the side of the desk to keep the headphone cable from trailing over the desk.
So somehow trying to reduce wires and faff under the desk, I actually added more wires!
I am still trying to figure out how to be able to listen to the music from Pretzel when I stream and feed it all though the Mixer, so far the solution involves physically feeding the music through an audio cable from the PC to the mixer. Which is not how I want to do it, the mixer is a USB one, I can hear the music through the headphones, but it just won’t record in OBS, quite frustrating and I just can’t quite figure out what’s going wrong.
Sunday was spent pottering about mostly, I rerouted a few cables around the back of the desk to make the whole setup look tidier.
On Wednesday I put in place a monitor stand which would allow me to slip the keyboard underneath it when not in use. And I also swapped the HDMI switch for one with a remote and extended IR receiver so that I could locate the box under the desk.
What I Am Modelling
The first things I painted this week were a squad of Intercessors and Inceptors for my Blood Ravens.
The Inceptors are armed with Plasma Exterminators and the Intercessors are armed with Stalker Bolt Rifles.
All I have outstanding for them is the Indomitus box, a set of Intercessors I added earlier in the year and the Terminator Chaplain and Librarian that got released this year, oh and a Stormhawk Interceptor.
I then moved on to a squad of Death Korps of Krieg Grenadiers for Niki, along with two Heavy Flamer teams.
Once done with them I got Rippa’s Snarlfangs to the table and started work on these bad boys.
At the same time, I started work on the last Nighthaunt from Soul Wars, that’s the Grimghast Reapers and Glaivewraith Stalkers plus Crawlocke the Jailor.
I did them them finished, which means I have completed all of the models from both Age of Sigmar starter sets now.
Blood Ravens Intercessors with Assault Bolt Rifles
What I Am Reading
I read The Fractured Void by Tim Pratt and I will be getting a review up in the next couple of days.
What I Am Playing
On Friday I did four hours of BioShock, I am getting on well with the game and probably will be finished in a couple of weeks.
I was supposed to stream The Witcher III on Monday but Megan was expecting a phone call from the doctors and was very nervous, so she asked me to hang out with her instead.
On Friday night I tried Among Us for the first time, which was a lot of fun, although I kept getting voted off even though I wasn’t an Imposter!
I had a couple of games of Apex Legends on Saturday to try and test out how my new setup would work for streaming more intensive games, the bigger monitor with higher refresh rates is pretty taxing on my modest GPU.
First off I ran a new Heaven benchmark, whioch gave me a score of 3725, which is lower than what I got when I was running at 720i, but that’s expected I suppose.
Before the GPU I was getting and FPS of 52.8, with the GPU I got up to 217.0, but now with the bigger screen I am getting 147.9, but that’s still pretty good I think.
Anyway here are the videos of the live streams.
On Tuesday I played a single two hour session of The Witcher III.
And I also played a little bit of Star Wars: Squadrons that night as well
What I Am Backing
I am back Wyrd Science on Kickstarter, it’s got some articles in it by friends, and I am happy to jump in on this because I really want it to fund.
What I Am Cooking
On Thursday I made our teas a Colcannon Cottage Pie, which was really nice.
I want to try it again but with lamb instead so it’s a shepard’s pie and throw in some marrowfat peas. I think that this is a dish I would cook for nibbling as it’s jam packed full of veg.
Then on Friday I cooked again, this time I made Mongolian Glazed Chicken Wings, served with sides of Garlic Spinach in Chicken Broth, and a Chinese Cucumber Salad.
Since last years musical advent was such a huge sucess, I think its only right to bring it back this year!
So lets start with one that got cut from last years list, but only because I ran out of days, plus the artists had already been featured a few times!
I give to you today, This is My Jam by The Doubleclicks, a song which is really about loving things and being cool with people loving different things.
Take consoles, I am absolutely on team Xbox, but in no way do I look down on folks who play Playstation, that’s simply what they prefer. For me its all about the controller, Sony have never made a controller that I have found comfortable to use for myself. Plus I love Game Pass.
But if you like Playstation thats awesome too, I have no reason to hate on anyone who likes what they like, and I wish other people would act the same. We all like different things, and as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says
Behold a beautiful garden full of flowers, shrubs, and trees. Each flower has a different charm, a peculiar beauty, its own delicious perfume and beautiful colour. The trees too, how varied are they in size, in growth, in foliage—and what different fruits they bear! Yet all these flowers, shrubs and trees spring from the self-same earth, the same sun shines upon them and the same clouds give them rain.
