The Patent Dragon's Zone of Soul Retraction

"...a brand new gaming PC!" - or at least that's what I'm now researching. Yeah, I got the laptop back yesterday (with a new fan in it), and following some advice from Ultima Online associate Aurelius (thanks, my friend), I searched online for any indication that this laptop's issues might be something others have encountered, and perhaps solved without any additional expense - only to learn that a whole bunch of folks have experienced the same overheating. There is an official "solution", in the form of a fan override program that forces the fan to work at maximum speed on request...

I installed it, and it worked just ONCE (so far). I got good FPS and a fairly cool system for a short stint at Minecraft, and Star Trek Online ran pretty well after that... BUT the heat then was definitely on the increase, to what felt like dangerous levels.

This is getting beyond a freaking limit. There may be other things I can do, but I'm now certain those will only be short-term work-arounds. A new desktop gaming machine is becoming imperative.

Time to climb the Mount Doom of computer specs. unfortunately, I don't seem to have a Samwise to share the journey with me...

In general, I'm feeling a bit better today, depending on the circumstances. Sometimes, it's almost as though I haven't got a problem at all, and others, I can't even get out of bed, but on the whole I am in less discomfort than previously, so that's a good sign.

Meanwhile, it's New Game Time - I bit the bullet, and took a shot at TERA Online. It's very pretty, but the game system does seem reminiscent of Guild Wars, and that wasn't a path I enoyed seeing MMOs going down. We shall see how things go.

...it's ME that's leaking. Urgh, I'm ill...

A good opportunity to not only get all my Long Live The Queen videos titled and processed, but also make a start on my Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday planned release schedule...



Yay... *sniffs*... *sneezes*...

I've been hard at work churning out more episodes for Stargazer Season 2, following on from what was left of my weekend, and Chapter 28 is just now rendering. I'd been thinking I'd be able to round things off at thirty chapters, but it's looking to end up at more like thirty-five, by my reckoning. I'm doing my very best to keep videos around the 15 minute mark, and that sometimes means cliff-hangers...

Meanwhile... Arrrrgh! Everyone on YouTube is doing South Park: The Stick Of Truth play-throughs! This is something I really want to play, but right now, I'm not shelling out £40. Nope, not happening.

First, this:-



FINALLY... things are coming together with ...Stargazer Season IV: Nightmare Scenario - and that we can attribute to a pair of villagers who were fruitful and multiplied (and several villager zombies who got cured).

Elsewhat... Did some shopping. Ordered some stuff I've been meaning to get, and some imminent essentials. Spent one of my Christmas presents.

Bought Saints Row IV, half price on Steam. Now watching the download crawl by - gonna be a while... but instead of struggling to find something to watch in the meantime...

(Holy crap - is it Conference Championship weekend ALREADY??? Crazy...)

...I can carry on reading A Game Of Thrones. A fantastic read so far, and this is a book I've had for months, maybe year(s) (it was one of my Mission 101 "buy a book a month" books).

Two hours to go...

Back to work Monday, but I still want to squeeze every last moment of relaxation - a.k.a Minecraft and excellent space exploration sandbox Starbound - out of my time off. Also, I'm shopping for essential equipment, and maybe setting things up for Blockbuster Season, so that I can make the most of my Christmas cinema gift-card windfall...

Writing? Not just yet, but this weekend, there WILL be progress. I still have some type-up to do from last month (and last year).

Also, Ultima Online - the first hunt of the year!

Yup, it's that time of the week again; time for...



Note to self... "record the final leg of the game!"

Minecraft Update Watch... So, I did an audit of my mods in Minecraft, and found out this:

Total "Headline" Mods: 10 (counting several inter-connected mod "modules" together, if that makes any sense)
Mods currently OK in Minecraft V1.6.4 : 7
Mods discovered during analysis that are worth adding to my "suite": 8, probably 9
Mods from original list that can be replaced by newer, perhaps better mods : 2
Favourite mods that are either unlikely to be updated, or are known to be skipping V1.6.4: 2

Story is, I can do the update, and still have a thoroughly enjoyable gaming experience, but I will be losing two elements of the existing set-up that I will miss... so, do I take the plunge, knowing this but bringing myself closer to being up-to-date, even though it may knock a hole in my plans for "Season Two", in that I will have lost a mod that's a key part of the intended storyline?

*sighs*

Coming Up... A movie review for Gravity.

Gods, what a hopeless week, blog-wise. Probably the worst I've ever managed, actually...

Truth is, I've been been stuck in that "oh, it's gone midnight, so I may as well not bother" frame of mind. I've also been digging various tunnels through The Nether, fretting about whether I managed to get myself a dose of DVT (arse was just numb from a poor seating arrangement) blah blah blah...

Yup, not been doing an awful lot other than the ol' Minecraft right now. It hasn't really helped that it's been really hard to make any progress at lately, and through no fault of my own. Like at any time, if you're not given the right information, there's fnaj all you can do about it.

So, now it's the weekend, and time to recharge, and hopefully get sh8 sorted. Stay tuned to see how badly I suck at THAT.

Terrific. Minecraft is getting another patch, which will probably break the game as far as my Season 2 mods are concerned - and just as things are getting interesting... although I did have a serious scare earlier, when my experimental Nether-ship - in development in the "surface" world, experienced a horrendous bug-out, and for a few minutes, I was seriously worried that my character was completely stuck, and the whole project - the whole of Season 2 - was heading down the toilet. Thankfully, I was able to rectify some of the problem, saving the map at the cost of dismantling version 1 of the "Dauntless" - and I may just open a fresh Nether portal to make a test-flight in operational conditions just a bit more comfortable.

On other matters... well, there's very little to report. Damn, it's unexpectedly warm right now...

...and the Redskins are 0-3. Great.

I was going to post a widget for my latest Steam purchase, but it wouldn't work, so I'm now stuck for something to post tonight. Yeah, I'm that desperate...

...well, not really, but I have little to report, beyond the ongoing preparations for ...Stargazer Season 2, and of course there will be more videos posted tomorrow - I'll be "double-timing" the Season 1 videos just to clear the way for the imminent new material.

Oh, hold on, here's something...

(Marvel's) Agents of SHIELD - 8pm, Channel 4... in ONE WEEK.

Drop-everything TV, I'm thinking.