Yet again I started playing EVE Online, and have been having more fun with it this time around. I finally have the skills to fly the ships I was aiming for, plus changes over the last year made it better as well. I’m aiming to be able to make enough ISK in the game with my two accounts to be able to play without having to pay actual cash each month. You can buy an in-game item which converts to 30 days of game time (and you can also buy the item on the website to redeem in-game to sell, which is where they all come from). Going rates, as the market is completely player-based, are something like 460m. Which isn’t that bad, I think I can make that sort of credits fairly quickly with my current characters/ships. One kicking ass, and the other helping with support skills, and looting/salvaging to sell to go along with the mission rewards and bounties for killing things.

All pretty much meaningless to you if you don’t play the game, but whatever ;)

Originally published at chrisgushue.ca. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been trying to read more again lately – I used to do that constantly. Having the Kindle app on my phone since last year helped a little, and getting an actual Kindle for Christmas was even better :) Plus actual books that I’ve been reading.

Eric Flint was suggested to me as an author to read a long time ago, and I finally got around to starting one of his books this week. 1632, the first in a series/universe of books. I’m only 14% into it, but it’s pretty good so far. A few books in the series are available for free via the Baen Free Library, and other ebooks are reasonbly priced ($4-6), available in multiple formats, and DRM-free. Worth checking out if alternate history science fiction sounds good to you.

Originally published at chrisgushue.ca. You can comment here or there.

Well, after doing some more research and playing around with things in VirtualBox, I think I’ll be using Debian+XFS after all. ZFS seems like it would be great if I didn’t have plans to extend my RAID array. Now I guess I have to play around more with md+lvm+xfs things to see just how it works. And find out how it handles spreading things out over multiple RAID5 arrays – seems like lvm can do that from the little I read, I just don’t know if it’s a good idea or not.

And make sure that Sick Beard and SABnzbd work fine on there as well. Other than that, I don’t really need anything else running on there that I can think of.

Originally published at chrisgushue.ca. You can comment here or there.

My ReadyNAS is pretty much full, so I’m planning on building a server to replace it – see server-todo for some parts I’m considering.

I was going to go with Linux and XFS, but after some initial research, FreeBSD with ZFS sounds better. As long as I can add new drives in the future and expand the RAID array. For example, I have 4x2TB drives in RAID5 and I’d want to add a 5th to it. Anyone know offhand how easy that would be? Well, the actual question should be assuming 4x2TB drives in RAID-Z, how easy is it to add a 5th drive? And more after that?

Posted originally via my phone while at work, so it was a bit brief. I was poking around a bit at FreeNAS (in a VM) and it seemed interesting but more limited than I want. A proper BSD installation couldn’t hurt, since I’m not afraid to mess around with the system. Even if I don’t have BSD-specific experience, my Linux usage years ago should help somewhat with a command line and overall ideas. And actually, I might rethink the motherboard choice, and go with ECC RAM. I’ve never read much on that, so I don’t know what my options are.

Originally published at chrisgushue.ca. You can comment here or there.

Pictures of outside of our new place, including the great view!

Originally published at chrisgushue.ca. You can comment here or there.

I finally was able to check out a Kindle in person, since The Source started to sell them. I must say, I was pretty impressed. Page transitions were much faster than the Kobo I tried at Coles, and overall the device just felt better in my hands. I wanted one anyway, but after playing with an actual device a little bit, I’m sure of it now. Not right now, but it’s definitely on my list of toys to get.

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been poking around a bit lately at ripping some of the TV shows I have on DVD to MKV format, so I can store them on my ReadyNAS NV+ and play them via XBMC on whatever computer on my network. After some issues, I think I have it figured out. It doesn’t help that the show I was trying first is Supernatural, and there are more titles on the disc than there are shows, because some have recaps and some don’t. And they aren’t in any sensible order, so you have to watch the video to see which episode it is.

Season 1 Disc 1
title00: S01E01 46:22
title01: S01E04 42:08
title02: S01E04 41:13 (no recap)
title04: S01E02 43:10
title05: S01E03 43:27
title07: S01E02 41:33 (no recap)
title08: S01E03 42:32 (no recap)

See how annoying that is? Hopefully some of my other shows aren’t so bad. It doesn’t help that I haven’t seen past episode 9 of season 1 yet, so I can’t easily tell what episode sometime is.

Anyway, I’ve decided on using MakeMKV to grab things from the disc, and then run it through Handbrake to convert into the format I want. For some reason ripping directly with Handbrake causes it to have all sorts of audio and video glitches (on my Windows system, it does work fine – although slower – on my Mac). But since I don’t want to encode all of it anyway, the extra step works fine.

At some point I plan to pick up a Zotac Zbox HD-ID40-U to use as a HTPC. It’s currently on sale at NCIX but I’m going to wait until at least the summer to see what spare cash I’ll have for something like this. I’ve seen some reviews and video of how well it works, and I’m impressed. Perfect for what I want it for. I already have a hard drive and 4GB of memory lying around from my laptop, so it won’t cost me as much. And I’d likely stick Ubuntu on there so I don’t have to pick up another copy of Windows 7 (I miss playing around with Linux anyway).

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

We finally got around to playing Settlers of Catan with four people, and I found it to be rather long and boring. With a lot of downtime between your turns. I also had a couple of games of Memoir ’44 last weekend, and that was a lot of fun. Looking forward to more games of that.

In work news, our yearly inventory is finally over, and it apparently went well. We sure put enough work into it, and I’m glad it’s done. Next thing to look forward to after some long weekends are my holidays! Can’t wait. Even if I have no plans, it’s just nice to be off.

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

If I had paid attention when I placed that last order for games, I would have noticed that Red November was actually a pre-order. And would likely be at least a 5-6 month wait since it hasn’t even started reprinting yet. I didn’t really want to hold up my entire order because of that, so I switched it out for Memoir ’44 – probably one of the top games on my list that I don’t have yet. Great service from Starlit Citadel made that pretty easy :)

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

Well, bacon is awesome of course, but that’s not really the point here. Just ordered a few more games. I was planning on getting an expansion or two for Dominion (Intrigue and Prosperity) and/or something else but Starlit Citadel was out of stock on the card sleeves I use, so I’ll wait on that. I wanted to get the Pandemic expansion, but it’s apparently out of print at the moment. Likely to be reprinted, hopefully at least.

So here’s what I ended up buying:

• Ascension: Chronicles of the Godslayer
• Red November
• Dust
• Neuroshima Hex

Dust I had planned on getting anyway, but the others are all more recent discoveries. Since the majority of my board game time is just two players, I was really focused on finding games that play well with two. Ascension is another deck-building card game, though with different sorts of mechanics than Dominion, and much easier setup/teardown from what I can tell. Red November sounds like a fun and quick co-op game. And Neuroshima Hex is sort of a tile laying wargame that seems to have fairly basic rules but lots of potential for strategy.

On the digital side of things, I’ve decided to stop playing MMOs altogether. Rift is pretty awesome, but I just don’t have the motivation to play anything in that genre anymore. A little burned out on it, I suppose. And wanting better content. EVE Online is another one I enjoyed playing from time to time, but also got bored often with it. There are plenty of other fun games I have for PC/Xbox360/PS3 to play. I am looking forward to Diablo 3 whenever it comes out, of course.

I’m not sure how, but my site had been infected with something for a little while (thanks Gavin). As far as I can tell, it’s cleaned up now. Let me know if something weird happens or breaks.

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

Well, I don’t know about soon, but I think this is what I’m going to get next in the way of board games.

• Yomi
• Dust
• Pandemic: On the Brink
• Zombie Dice

Yomi is a pretty neat looking card game – I may just check out the print-and-play version of it to see if I want to pick up the whole thing. Dust seems to be a fun version of Risk. The Pandemic expansion adds some cool things, along with crazy hard versions of the game which I probably won’t try just yet. And Zombie Dice to fill out the shopping cart to get free shipping, though it sounds like a quick fun game anyway.

Some of the games I’ve gotten have gotten quite a bit of play and have been fun. Others haven’t been quite as impressive for various reasons. Race for the Galaxy didn’t go over well, though I think that might have been from being overwhelmed with everything in the game. I’ve found some rules to gradually introduce parts of the game, I might give that a try to see how it goes. I haven’t even tried to play Twilight Struggle yet. After a poor introduction to RftG, I want to be more sure of the rules and how the game is played before I attempt that one.

I guess the regular games with my girlfriend tend to be Dominion, Carcassonne and Pandemic, with Ticket to Ride and Battle Line getting a fair amount of play and interest as well. Stone Age was fun, we just haven’t gotten around to playing it since the first time. I keep getting my ass kicked at Dominion lately, and I’m not sure I’ve ever beaten her at Battle Line (only a handful of plays, but still…). Not that I mind losing, the playing is the fun part :) Going to give Alhambra a try tonight, probably along with my sister and mother playing too.

Things could change before actually buying more, of course. Time will tell :) I’m just very pleased that I’ve been able to spend so much quality time with my girlfriend, and friends and family, playing games together.

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

Now that my WordPress installation isn’t semi-broken, I can post this.

My newest shipment of games are here, though I haven’t played any of them yet. I’ll start on them this weekend :)

• Race for the Galaxy
• Pandemic
• Alhambra: Big Box
• Twilight Struggle

Besides Race for the Galaxy, those were among the top games I wanted to buy. That one was a cheaper card game that caught my interest somewhere along the way.

That’s plenty of games to occupy spare time for a while, now to get back into savings mode. Planning on moving this summer, so extra cash will be handy there.

I also should have a Keurig coffee machine this week, the Breville Gourmet Single Serve Brewer BKC700XL. I can’t wait :)

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

My board game playing has been successful, people I’ve been playing with have also enjoyed the games (mostly just my girlfriend so far, most of our friends probably aren’t too interested in such things). We both love Carcassonne and I just received the original River expansion, Inns and Cathedrals, and a mini-expansion that came packaged with Games Quarterly #11. Can’t wait to play a game with those new tiles.

I’ve been looking up info on lots of other games and adding a bunch of them to my wishlist. Mostly I’m wanting them to play well with just two players, so that ends up having some good looking games being left out for now. Oh well. I’m going to limit myself to buying just one or two games a month, coming to a total of ~$100 CAD including tax and shipping. That’ll give us time to give new games proper play time, and keep expenses lower ;)

So my new January games ordered are Citadels and Ticket to Ride. Not sure for February yet, but it might be Twilight Struggle along with something cheaper or an expansion. Or Alhambra Big Box edition. I have a month to decide :)

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

I still haven’t gotten around to playing all of the games I picked up recently, just Carcassonne and Battle Line. Both have been pretty fun, though. I’ve been reading up on some other games, and I think I’m going to buy Alhambra: Big Box and Ticket to Ride: Europe next. Both sound like they work well with 2 players (and more, of course) and seem to be good games.

My copy of the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion is on the way from Amazon, I’m still in no real rush for it. I’ll have to renew my account whenever it gets here, I guess. And after I sort out some authenticator problems I have.

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

All this news and chat about the World of Warcraft expansion coming in a few weeks, and I can’t get excited about it at all.

On the other hand, I’ve been playing EverQuest 2 again and having lots of fun with it! They’ve improved on the game quite a lot in the last six years.

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

I ordered some games today, after looking up some info on a few of them. Dominion really being the one that I didn’t recall hearing about, but now is the one I’m looking forward to the most. It’s a little more than I had planned to get right away, but I decided to spend a little bit more to take advantage of free shipping after a certain amount. Basically getting a game free, saving roughly $30.

• Carcassone (with The River II)
• Dominion
• Settlers of Catan
• Battle Line
• Stone Age

I was also reading up on Battlelore, that one looks quite nice as well. I’m sure that will be the next one I get (and/or some Dominion expansions, depending on how much it gets played). Memoir ’44 uses the same ruleset but a completely different world. Could also be a nice change.

On an unrelated note, I should add a mobile view of my web site at some point. I really appreciate the sites I visit that do so, even with Dolphin HD being a pretty good browser with its zooming and text flowing on the page (well that was easy, just installed a plugin and some minor setting changes, and there it is).

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

Does anybody have any board game suggestions, especially for just two people? Looking for something fun and new to do.

Already on my list to get are Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan, Stratego, and Battle Line.

Card game suggestions are also good, either with a normal deck of cards or custom ones.

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

The Acer Revo AR1600-U914HE is currently on sale on NCIX, and I think I might get one. I’ve been reading some reviews and they seem to be pretty good, and basically what I’m looking for to use as a HTPC. I’ve also been playing with the newest beta of XBMC and that’s working quite well with my fileserver full of movies and tv shows. Sure, it’s not the newest and fastest version, but it’ll be fine. Having HDMI is a definite plus.

Other options I had in mind were Boxee or the Logitech Revue (GoogleTV device). The Boxee is a similar price, though more limited considering how well XBMC works. Plus it’s a weird shape and couldn’t do everything a normal computer can. The Logitech Revue… well, that’s just too damn expensive.

Now, if only Netflix had proper integration with XBMC… I’ve seen some hacks for it though, I’ll have to check into that.

Originally published at gushue.net. You can comment here or there.

I was able to bring my hunter to the first wing of ICC10 this weekend, and cleaned up on loot. Along with another alt of someone that went, she got plenty of good stuff too. I didn’t get my bow, but I did get [Frost Giant's Cleaver], [Bone Warden's Splitter] and [Hauberk of a Thousand Cuts]. It’s also cool that both of the weapons have the same model, so they match :)

My main goal was to get new weapons, so I was mostly successful. I just need to return to try to get that bow. Also, one more Wintergrasp Mark of Honor and I’ll get the last piece of PVP gear I need (that doesn’t require arena points/ratings). Done!

Just sitting around before work, playing EVE Online with both accounts on both of my computers semi-AFK mining, while reading info on the Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft… yeah.

I can’t wait for this WoW expansion. Among other things, shorter raids! I’m sick of 11-12 bosses, due to my work schedule it’s really difficult for me to be able to attend a full raid split over two nights. If I bother with my current guild (I’ve mostly stopped raiding for the last couple of months) I’m able to do the first half which is fairly easy for us at this point. And then not be able to work on progression through the last half :( At least I was able to get The Plagueworks (10 player) on my druid Dardia this weekend. Guild first for downing Putricide (well, with two pugs).

When I do bother to login to WoW (not often lately), I’m just killing time doing some PvP or leveling an alt. The usual pre-expansion boredom for me. My hunter (Dardremar) is nicely geared for it again at least, like he was at the end of vanilla and BC :) Well, except for one trinket still. I need to get more WG marks so I can get Titan-Forged Rune of Determination. Maybe I should see about getting into ICC on him to see about getting a better ranged weapon (and maybe regular weapon). Assuming heals are covered, of course.

I still don’t know what character I’m going to get to 85 first. At this point, I’m thinking it might be either my druid (essentially sharing Main status at the moment with my priest) or maybe my hunter. I’ll probably end up deciding once the pre-expansion class/talent changes are live. For now, I’m having more fun playing EVE :)

Apparently my LJ crossposting plugin added in some extra BR tags in between paragraphs… weird. Didn’t do that before, but I think I may have updated it since my last post.