September 2017

Crafting Pet Peeves

Hey, it happens. Sometimes things bug us or rub us the wrong way. Today while I was working on my scarf I came across a pretty big pet peeve. In the screenshot above you’ll see one skein of yarn that transitions between pink /purple / blue and various shades of those. It’s ‘chroma’ by knitpicks, and it also varies in thickness from thick almost bulky, to thin, almost lace. The problem is smack dab in the middle of that picture where it abruptly shifts colours with no transition even though the rest of the scarf has transitions.

Turns out the yarn was split in two places, and it threw everything off.

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I don’t mind the thick / thin consistency as it’s advertised when you purchase the yarn, but I don’t like splits in yarn, and I don’t like the issues caused by those splits. In this case that bright pink should have slowly transitioned to a light purple and then to a blue but instead a huge chunk was missing (all of the blue, and two purple transitions). I didn’t have enough yarn to fix the problem manually so because I was already near the end of the scarf I decided to just try to ignore it and cary on.

I’ve been working on this scarf since August 19th. Scarves are a LOT of work – and this is probably the first and only time I’ll make a scarf in fingering weight (she says unconvincingly). It is much quicker to knit something in bulky weight yarn, or at least worsted. I tend to like fingering weight yarn because it’s lovely sock yarn which is my favourite thing to knit. My yarn stash has a LOT of fingering weight (you can find me over on Ravelry as Stargrace, of course). Thankfully, the scarf is now done, and it looks great on me. We don’t get a lot of really cold weather here, so I wanted to finish it in time for fall to get the most use out of it. It’s one of the only pieces I’ve actually knit for myself.

Do you have any knitting or crochet pet peeves? What do you do to combat them (if anything can be done) and how do you avoid them from happening in the first place? Let me know in comments!

Casual EVE Online Streams (Maybe?)

I love playing EVE Online, but every time I return I tend to forget whatever it was I was working on or working towards – it’s just that sort of game. I’ve been flying around in a Tengu for some time now, working on faction missions in order to be able to work with higher level agents for R&D (research and development). It’s what I’ve been working on for what feels like years now, because I tend to wander to and from the game.

Now that I’ve got a schedule set for streaming (see previous post) I felt like I could add some sporadic streams in there too, ones that don’t follow a schedule and don’t have a whole lot of hands on required. EVE Online lends itself to this very well – at least the way I intended to stream it. I did a practice stream today (you can find it over on my twitch channel along with my YouTube channel) where I don’t have my microphone active and I just fly around space looking at interesting things. It’s a relaxing chill stream with absolutely no pressure, something where you can listen to the EVE Online music (which is just fantastic) and if anyone has a question or two I’m around to answer them but things are pretty quiet. These streams are very different from my scheduled ones in which I’m doing a lot of talking and my little guy is roaming around yelling into the microphone. I can’t promise they’ll happen every weekend, but I’m hoping they do.

I noticed my computer was having issues trying to keep up with the stream this time around. I’m wondering if it’s my video card (a gtx 760) which is quite dated. The rest of my computer shouldn’t be too bad as I did upgrade it not that long ago. Video cards are pretty expensive and I can’t afford to go all out right now for one. Life is full of expenses, especially once you bring kids into the picture, and we’ll be moving in January to some where we don’t even know yet, and we have to prepare for stuff like that. Who knows how long it will take for our stuff to arrive. So I’ll have to see if I can tweak some settings and get the stream running smoother. For low intensity games like RimWorld I don’t seem to have many (any) issues, but for graphic intense games (EVE Online is an amazing looking game) I get a message from xsplit mentioning my computer is a bit strained.

Anyway. We’ll see how it goes. It’s nice to be flying again, and I’m sure I can come up with some things to do now and again. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Crafting, and Legendaries..

There has been some discussion lately on twitter regarding legendaries and ascended bits and crafting – and it inspired me to maybe go after my own. I don’t own any of the legendaries, and the only ascended stuff I even know about is the vendor sold stuff at the laurel merchant along with the PVP merchant. I didn’t know there was crafted stuff (side note, the website gw2efficiency.com is amazing).

It’s inspiring to watch other people go after these huge items – but when I look at what’s involved, it’s also completely daunting. Still.. I could use a big in-game project, no?

Have you gone after any legendaries or ascended items before? Was it as daunting a task as it sounds? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Dreaming of a Gaming Laptop

Ever since my son was born, I have dreamed of a gaming laptop. Having a desktop is great, but the chances of me actually having a moment to sit there and use it have been pretty slim over the last year. I’m more likely to be found on the floor so I can be within easy reach of my crawling little one than sitting on any actual furniture. At night time I’m still watching over him, and the desktop doesn’t exactly lend itself to portability.

I’ve been trying to find a reasonably priced laptop for some time, but I also want to make sure it can handle a few specifics. What is it that I’m looking for?

Cost effective. I don’t want to make a big purchase when it’s just going to be completely outdated and unable to upgrade and won’t play the games I have in mind any longer. If I can’t upgrade parts of it I would like to be able to at least know it handles what’s out there today pretty well, and should last at least 5 years.

Temperature control / cooling system: I want a laptop that can actually handle games without setting my house on fire. I say this because I’ve had a laptop in the past that just got SO warm I felt like I needed to use it on a tray of ice in order for anything to work and be comfortable. The internal fans used to trigger on and it felt like an airplane was trying to take off. I wasn’t playing on high settings, either. They were pretty basic.

Where some people may care about the look and design – I don’t. I want functionality and I don’t mind paying for that functionality if I think it’s got real value to it.

Battery life is somewhat important but it’s something I can do with just an hour or two of. I don’t need something to run for 15+ hours before needing a charge.

For those of you who are gaming with a laptop, what did you find that works well for you? What are your requirements? Have suggestions / tips / hints for me (as I’m completely new to this sort of shopping)? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

A Tentative Stream Schedule

I’ve been testing out whether or not I can realistically stream on a schedule if my kid is around and underfoot. Lets face it, life happens. We’re busy people and there’s stuff going on. If I stream while he’s asleep I would have to run to and from the bedroom with many AFK breaks during the stream, not ideal. He’s not a great sleeper. Of course with him under foot and awake that presents itself with a whole new round of situations, like the fact that he typically wants to be up at my desk with me so he can see what’s going on and grab various things (microphone). I’m still currently trying to raise money for a computer chair because it’s not fun to game on a giant yoga ball and it’s awkward to hold my kid up on that, too. If you want to donate, you can do so from this link here. I appreciate it more than I can express. I’m trying to get an actual gaming chair rather than just a computer chair that falls apart after a few years. I want this one to last me.

Since my husband is still away for a few more months and it’s just me and the little guy it’s important to carve out some ‘me’ time, and that is increasingly hard to do. Streaming is something I enjoy, and I want to make time for it so this is my weak attempt. It hasn’t been going poorly, but it is an interesting situation that is pretty fluid and changes from day to day.

I’ve stuck to playing RimWorld because it’s a game I know and a game that’s easy to walk away from should I happen to need to go grab a snack for the little one or free him from some sort of trouble (he’s into everything these days). I tend to stream for anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour and I don’t typically go over the 1 hour mark since real life doesn’t exactly grant me blocks of time any larger. It’s a good balance really, not too long or too short – the problem is it doesn’t give people a lot of time to stumble into my stream randomly and start watching. If you want to watch, you’re better off having some sort of schedule. Turning on notifications from twitch helps, too.

For now my tentative schedule is as follows:

  • Mon-Tue: 2:30-3:30pm PDT
  • Thur-Fri: 2:30-3:30pm PDT

I may have to start a bit later on some days but I won’t typically start any earlier. This is a block of time that’s after the naps, after a snack, and seems to work well. This week is the first week that I’ve stuck to the schedule, and I’m enjoying my adventures in RimWorld. If you happen to miss a stream don’t forget you can watch the highlights on my twitch page, or you can catch them later on in the day on YouTube.

You’ll hear my son getting into things and being a butt on stream – but as a friend says, it gives the stream flavour. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Nomadic Gamer