The Patent Dragon's Zone of Soul Retraction

Fucking marvellous. My primary Ultima Online account is having billing problems. I should've expected something like this, now that my back is getting better...

Yup, still coughing and sneezing and generally feeling sh8 right now - and to make matters worse, I may just have broken Minecraft as well. I went to take on the fabled Ender Dragon, and *boink* no sound in game, before, during or after...

Wonderful. I've posted an enquiry on the MC boards, but 99% of the time, my requests for help get ignored there, so I'm not holding out much hope. Update - sorted by a relog. Weird, that.

Meanwhile, I stick to the schedule...



Sunday, Tuesday AND Thursday, as planned...!

Remember that Starbound "Episode Zero" I posted earlier in the week? Don't hold your breath for more, 'cause this game just managed to piss me off intensely. Being in early development, it had had a tendency to have wipes of characters and worlds as things changed in the game, (but hey, they did warn us)... until a recent announcement that that wasn't going to happen any more, to the delight of many, myself included. And then, just a day or two ago, one of the game devs broke something, and now my saved game is crippled, with a bunch of stuff now missing, and irretrievably GONE.

That's enough for me to want to walk away, and for a while, that's just what I'm doing. Last time that happened, I never went back to the game that screwed me (hello, Kerbal Space Program). I simply DO NOT have the time to waste on a game that keeps biting me, and I'm not getting back that *checks Steam* EIGHTY-NINE HOURS I've already put into the game.

And just after the highs of the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY trailer, too. Way to trash my high, bitches...

Ooooohkay. So, it looks like the current incarnation of Stargazer Project: Season 4 is dead. A nasty conflict, between two of the key mods involved, has set off a highly irritating "chain reaction", and I'm now going to try and "debug" the whole mess, to try and see what I can put back in. I was going for a Pacific Rim kind of vibe, which required new mobs, particularly of the more powerful kind, but I may not get to put those back in - unless omitting the "prime suspect" in the whole mess means I don't get the same trouble again...

We shall see - but that doesn't stop this from being an unholy train-wreck that's cost me the last eight or nine days' work, and invalided all the recordings involved. Of course, I could use it all as "dream sequence" footage.

I'm actually thankful that yesterday (AKA Saturday) is over. It's been a fairly shitty day - a mod crash took my Minecraft save with it, and four days' worth of Season Three development... including *sob* all that oil, and the fuel I produced from it.

So I cheated in an expensive piece of equipment, and a bunch of diamonds to fuel it. I'm not going to apologise for that, not for one second...

Now, let's see how Sunday and Monday go. PLEASE let's have the rest I've earned...

The laptop started making a very unpleasant noise last night/this morning. Switching off and restarting did not seem to fix things - cue a second straight early night, plagued by the fear that my gaming machine was about to fail on me.

Perfect sodding timing, right?.

So far tonight, following a trip to the local repair shop that revealed nothing (and thankfully cost nothing), things have been fine. No industrial-type fan noises, Kerbal Space Program still hates me - at least there's new Family Guy... awww, it's finished... (and followed by many-time repeats of American Dad)

So, the embedding for videos (see yesterday) is bugg(er)ed now, just like Star Trek Online and Marvel Heroes, for some screwy reason. I've also spent much of today doing a virus check to see if that's anything to do with the gaming issues (it isn't), and... yeah, I've really had my fill of all this crap.

I should be in a better mood. On Friday, the new desk for "Ace Labs" (aka "The Office") arrived, less than ONE DAY after it was ordered, AND I was told it would be next (very shortly to be THIS) week. Now that is service! Hopefully, our window-fitters will be able to lift the mood as we go into another week of hopefully final upheavals...

Ah screw it. I'll watch some more videos, then maybe head to bed early(er)...

No news on the windows. Big news, that...

Elsewhat... My Minecraft projects aren't going as well as expected. At the weekend, I went ahead and gave the mods I wanted to use for Season Two a try. Both seemed to work... until some textures went missing, and reappeared when the second of the mods was removed. *sighs*

Time for a break, maybe?

Done: watching over the exams!
Done: received my Rush ticket!
Not Done: Star Trek Online patching. It's "Legacy Of Romulus" Day, but I haven't had the chance to play yet. maybe before LOR-Day becomes LOR-Yesterday...?

There's no real hurry. The next three days are intended to be seriously laid-back, especially tomorrow - which just happens to be personal "sacred day" Spiritwalk...

Later, Dear Reader...!

Update: Patching done! Let's go (or very possibly crash in a heap of binary soup)!

Update on the Update: "Unable to log in for an unknown reason" - America is AWAKE, maybe? Gods, this is like Ultima Online's "Age Of Shadow" expansion all over again, but in stead of necromancers and paladins, it's Romulans...

Lonely This Christmas continues, as the Fulcher family Christmas takes an unexpected turn, with an unplanned guest - and elsewhere in Tony's world, the effects of this unanticipated arrival are felt by someone else...

Release Notes... There we go - the OFFICIAL release of the final version of Chapter 2. Only four days late, but at least it's out there, and work on the final Chapter will commence today.

Gaming takes a definite back-seat until Tuesday night. I thought I had hit a "game killer" last night in Terreria, accidentally triggering the "end-game" well before its time, but consulting the gaming community has eased my mind some. Even so, I am very much in need of a break from all that digging...