Keyrock

I'm starting a new batch of mead today. The last batch was a hit with the family over Christmas, it mellowed out significantly over the month or so it sat in bottles. This time I'm switching to wine yeast instead of ale yeast in an effort to increase the ABV up to weak wine levels (9-10%). There are a bunch of wine yeast varieties and I have no experience with them so I purchased a couple that are well suited for mead according to the manufacturer: I'm going to try out the K1 first. I intended to use raspberries and mint again but my local Food Lion was out of raspberries and I didn't feel like driving to another store, so this time it's blackberries and mint.

When it comes to seafood I'm all about the eel. Tuna is great, tilapia is good, as is crawfish. I can get down on shrimp and crab. Lobster is whatever, I'd never order it, but if you put a plate of it in front of me I'd eat it. Scallops and oysters go in the trash, where they belong. I don't think I've ever had octopus.

Today we have C-Hox at Niners and Bolts at Jags. I'm torn on the first game since the Geno redemption arc is such a fun story. However, I can't root against Big Brock, therefore I must root for the Niners. I'm rooting for the Jags in the second game.

I'm getting ready to fight The Elder in Valheim. My gear is plenty good enough, I'm at 30 armor and I have a max level finewood bow and a full stack of fire arrows. The battle itself should be easy. Before I go ahead and kill Mr. Giant Tree I've been scouting real estate for my future fortress. I've got a promising location already but I'm going to do my due diligence before committing to anywhere. Ideally, it will be a location in the meadows zone on the shore located relatively close to as many other zones (black forest, swamp, mountain) as possible for easy acquisition of a variety of resources. Once I kill The Elder and get their power I'll be able to get into swamp crypts and be able to get iron which will unlock stone building pieces to build my fortress with.

But what about Hitler on Ice? https://youtu.be/ybuKQf9p5jg

Different brooms are available. I wonder if I can ride a push broom?

I'm 100% going to go House Slytherin in the Hogwarts Legacy.

I still don't know if I've ever had the Rona. I suspect I have, given my job and all the people I'm constantly around at truck stops, but I've never gotten tested because I've never had a reason to get tested. I'm either really lucky and have completely avoided it for 3 years or I'm really lucky and have been asymptomatic.

At one point in the game last Sunday Dak threw a pick 6 but the defender dropped it. I guess Dak must have felt the guy deserved another chance because on the very next play he threw another pick 6 to the same defender and this time the guy hung on to it and took it to the endzone. Dak was ATROCIOUS in that game.

They put the Boys at Bucs game on Monday night, I guess to delay our early exit from the playoffs as long as possible. Obviously, I'd love it if we went on a run and won the Superbowl The Big Game. Since that ain't happening, the next best scenario would be us getting blown out in super embarrassing fashion, 45-3 or something like that, McCarthy getting canned and Jerry backing up a shipping container full of money to Sean Payton's house. What will actually happen is that we'll lose in the most gut wrenching manner possible, McCarthy will be back next year and I'll hate everything. I guess once we inevitably lose I'll be rooting for Big Brock and the Niners.

In a preview of wild card weekend, muh Boys played like utter dog**** against the Commies.

IMHO Lady Pank's best song: Zamki Na Piasku word for word translates to Castles on Sand or Sand Castles.

Lithuanian porter: It's quite tasty and not nearly as heavy as I expected. It has a really nice hint of sweetness and is relatively easy to drink.

When did this Dry January thing come about? I feel like this year is the first time I've heard of it. Obviously, I'm not participating. /drinks beer

Nobody sings it quite like Ian Gillan, but I thought that gentleman did a pretty good job.

Delightful Polish lager: I also got some Lithuanian porter that I haven't drank yet. Poland and Lithuania have a long history and were once one country, so I have a lot of love for all things Lithuanian. I'll report back when I drink it. As an aside, my mom did one of those ancestry tests and it came back that she's 2% viking, which means I'm at least 1% viking. Now I feel justified drinking out of a horn:

I have to show off the stylish góral hat my folks got me for Christmas: I think it goes well with my dirty porn stache.

I rolled a new world in Valheim because I got an absolutely atrocious seed in my last world. I stuck with the crappy seed for a while in hope that it would get better as I explored further but it inexplicably just kept getting worse and worse, plus it rained constantly, though I'm not sure if weather is determined by seeds. That's the thing with procedural generation, sometimes you get a bad roll of the dice. I kept the same character and I still have all my skills and the gear and items I had on me, so building a new house didn't take too long. I'll have to kill Eikthyr again, but he's a pushover, so no big deal. I suppose I could jump back into the crappy seed to get all the stuff I have stored in chests, but I probably won't bother, the best thing I have there is raw tin, which is easy enough to get. This new seed seems a lot better so far

I walked into my local ABC Spirits today and saw a 1.75 L bottle of 12 year old Dewar's. I didn't even know they made 12 year old in that size. God help my liver.

This is why it was so smart for Obsidian to establish a couple of their own IPs, namely Pillars and Outer Worlds. Now they're not beholden to any IP owner. People talk about wouldn't it be cool if Obs did another D&D game or another Fallot game? Sure, but I'd rather they just focus on their own IPs for the exact reason of avoiding situations just like this.

Ultimately it comes down to meeting your goals. What are your goals? Is it 1440p max settings? Is it 4K max settings with RT? Is it 1080p with medium-ish settings? Then the next question is does your current setup meet those goals? If no, then get the cheapest parts that will meet said goal. There's something to be said for future-proofing, but how far into the future are we talking? Game developers tend to design games with the lowest common denominator in mind, which is the MSony consoles in most cases. We are relatively early in the current console cycle and I have doubts we'll see mid cycle upgraded models like last time around. With that in mind, I don't see games making any giant leap in requirements for at least 4 years, generally speaking. There will, of course, be outliers.

Nosferatu Nic Cage?