T w e n t y S i d e d
DM of the Rings Remastered CXX: Luck Thief
DM of the Rings Remastered CXIX: Oops.
Wednesday Action Log 06-04-25
This week has just been Rimworld.
I finally got around to trying some of the DLC content, and the Biotech DLC is just, good. Having xenotypes and being able to collect genes from the different xenotypes, is really cool. I’ve also just gotten a Mechanitor so now I can get little helper robots. Sure, I can also get combat robots. But, I really need the Roomba to clean my base/ There’s dirt and blood in every room and nobody has had time to clean it. Mostly because either someone is bleeding everywhere, or they are recovering from bleeding everywhere.
The other DLC I finally played was Anomaly. It’s fine. Unlike all of the other DLCs it doesn’t seem to add anything that fundamentally changes how I play. It mainly adds some useful but niche items, and some new enemies that all seem to have their own gimmick. It’s fun, but not adding to the game as a whole.
Anyway, what’s up with everyone else this week?
Continuing the theme: Things Break in the Summer
I spent a lot of time last summer talking about how everything was breaking. The last few days I’ve spent on car repairs. Nothing serious, but time consuming. In fact the days I set aside to plan and write this particular post have been spent on blow-outs and blinkers. I’m about to go get one more thing working and then take a shower and maybe even go to bed after. I don’t normally drink what are most-commonly-known as soft drinks or carbonated beverages, but it was hot enough today to take a Coke Zero break, and then have another later.
So, my apologies for not having anything substantive ready for this week. The ease with which I replaced the Manjaro installation on my desktop with Mint has me itching to try other distributions again, using what I know now. I was planning on trying a Bazzite install (without the nVidia drivers) until the child that is running Bazzite mentioned that since an update early this week Bazzite started asking them to log in to the wifi network every now and then. They aren’t *disconnected* from the network…everything is still working. The system has just started asking them to log in again. They finally clicked on the prompt and it opened a webpage having to do with Fedora. But we have no idea what is prompting this behavior. It did NOT start out doing this; it happened as part of an update.
Troubling.
Anyway, that’s it for now; see you next week!
Wednesday Action Log 05-28-25
This week I’ve played more Rimworld.
Instead of trying the new content with the DLC, I had started a new colony because I wanted to start in a different biome and I didn’t like what I had built so far. So I’m about where I was last week but with a better colony.
I also got to play Zombicide for the first time in roughly 10 years. It was fun, even though I got confused because of a card saying something about AP, when there are both actions and A mechanic called adrenaline, and I wrongly assumed that AP meant action points. Me getting confused didn’t really matter in the end because everyone playing was also learning the game.
So anyway what’s everyone doing this week?
I HATE the Summer
We had our first verifiable over-100 degree (F) day this week. The house we live in had a new A/C compressor and blower installed around 2010, so the part-owners we share ownership with still think of it as “new.” The system it replaced was installed when the house was first put up back in the mid-to-late 1970’s, so since that A/C lasted 30 years the one that’s 15-years-old is, obviously; new. Here’s the trick: when the “new” A/C was installed the empty-nester family didn’t use half of the house regularly. So they got a SMALLER compressor. It’s rated for just about 1/2 the square footage of our house. As a result we have installed supplementary window units in 2 bedrooms. It would be in all 3 bedrooms, but the window was removed in the third bedroom around 2010 as well when the bathroom next to two of the bedrooms was remodeled to have a giant bathtub. The owners then installed too-small of a water heater to fill the tub, so it never got used. That’s the bathroom that I recently renovated, by the way. I talked about it last summer. Keeping two bedrooms closed off from the central A/C system helps the small A/C compressor, but it is showing its age and honestly we need a third window-unit or mini-split for the living room. Every modern window unit we’ve installed has resulted in a DECREASED electric bill as we cut down on the demands on the central A/C. Kind of shows how far technology has come in the last few decades.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “I HATE the Summer”
DM of the Rings Remastered CXVIII: Descriptive Text is Sometimes Important
From The Archives:
Diablo III Retrospective
We were so upset by the server problems and real money auction that we overlooked just how terrible everything else is.
Bethesda NEVER Understood Fallout
Let's count up the ways in which Bethesda has misunderstood and misused the Fallout property.
Please Help I Can’t Stop Playing Cities: Skylines
What makes this borderline indie title so much better than the AAA juggernauts that came before?
A Telltale Autopsy
What lessons can we learn from the abrupt demise of this once-impressive games studio?
Silent Hill Turbo HD II
I was trying to make fun of how Silent Hill had lost its way but I ended up making fun of fighting games. Whatever.
Could Have Been Great
Here are four games that could have been much better with just a little more work.
Rage 2
The game was a dud, and I'm convinced a big part of that is due to the way the game leaned into its story. Its terrible, cringe-inducing story.
Starcraft 2: Rush Analysis
I write a program to simulate different strategies in Starcraft 2, to see how they compare.
Silver Sable Sucks
This version of Silver Sable is poorly designed, horribly written, and placed in the game for all the wrong reasons.
Project Button Masher
I teach myself music composition by imitating the style of various videogame soundtracks. How did it turn out? Listen for yourself.