Stackbabbin' Bumscags

So, apparently The Powers That Be have decided "Georgia's roads can go fuck themselves." A portion of a major interstate (I-85) collapsed after a large fire broke out underneath an overpass, a few days after that, there was a fire under a railroad track not too far from 85. Just yesterday, I-20 had a gas line burst under it, causing the road to buckle, launching a motorcyclist, and now a portion of I-285 has flooded. Now I'm just waiting for the Kaiju attack on I-75, or perhaps the Earth Elementals will rise up.

Endless Space plus Disharmony DLC is currently $1

Case spent a few days getting all of the endings. I'll get around to playing Nier later, right now I'm too invested in Horizon Zero Dawn.

So, a chunk of a major interstate collapsed today because something under an overpass caught fire. Atlanta's traffic is about to get worse, and who knows how long repairing the damage will take, since DoT's are notorious for being slow as fuck.

Congratulations on being adopted.

Day 2 of new cat ownership and she's already in my lap! She also explored more of my room, and conquered her initial fear of the big nasty, noisy floor fan.

NEW CAT GET!!! Though the reality is more like "CAT ADOPTS NEW HYOOMANS" Will post pictures of her soon. She is currently sequestered to my room so she can adjust to the environment, with very minor (under the door) interactions with Vash. She's very chill and has so far settled into my room somewhat. She laid down for a bit, hissed at the litter box since it smells like Vash a little, but she did rub her face on it. I'll leave her be for the most part so she can explore her surroundings and get comfortable.

Is it fat or is it just a giant floof beast?

My latest gaming obsession has been Endless Legends. It's sooo pretty, even without being uberultraHDgrafiks, and I love the gameplay compared to Civ.

I had a minor interest in DDEternity but once I saw that it was going to be an always-online game, even if you were playing solo, I lost interest. I get that it was so they could move all character data onto their own servers to prevent people from just modding their gear, but at that point, I wasn't going to pay again for something I already had.

The problem I had with DD2 was that the only effective way to get Defender's Medals was from the three daily and one weekly mission you were given, unless you were already at "endgame" content. And each Hero cost 10,000 Medals, so of course it took more than a week of grinding for the Medals before you managed to unlock one Hero, much less all 6 unlockable Heroes. Then there's the Hero Deck, which is simultaneously a good and bad addition. It lets you swap between your Heroes even in Combat Phase at the push of a button, and everyone in your Hero Deck gets exp at the same time. But you can only have 4 Heroes in your Deck at a time, and initially, the Deck limits how many characters you can create. You can unlock more Hero Cards for 2,000 Medals each, which will let you create one new Hero per card. During earlier builds, the only way to get new Hero Cards was to pay cash for them. Which means that if you want to unlock every Hero and have 1 of each Hero available, you will need to grind up a total of 72,000 Medals. Trendy Entertainment made Dungeon Defenders even more grindy than it was in the first game, and quite frankly, it's just not enjoyable anymore.

Yeah, Dungeon Defenders 2 released the Dryad as a new unlockable Hero. She was unique, but the way to unlock her (like with all the other Heroes that were added) was to either pay cash up front, or grind for Defender's Medals.

Not the last, one more comic is to be made. Loved the bit with Medic. Holy shit Helen looks badass.

The only thing I'm really interested in so far is Epic Battle Fantasy. I guess I'll wait and see what gets added later.

Last night got down to 3F (-16C), I turned myself into a blanket burrito.

Schools in 2 counties decided to cancel tomorrow because of ice. We didn't get too much snow, not even a full inch here, but the temperatures dropped down to single digits thanks to wind chill, and it all froze. My driveway was a sheet of ice, and my mother's car was similarly frozen. I had to chip out a rough path behind her car's rear tires so she has the possibility of being able to get out of the driveway tomorrow, and I had to grab a hair dryer to thaw out the driver's side door handle so I could get the car running.

Whoops, today's forecast got colder.

Jesus christ people went crazy about the piddly 1-3 inches of snow we're getting. Went to the store on Thursday to grab a couple things to just get through the weekend, and for once my Wal-Mart had almost every checkout lane open and I was nearly back-to-back with the end of the self-checkout line. Doesn't help any that the Weather Channel was doing a helluva job getting people worried "EXPECT TO STAY HOME FOR 3 DAYS AS SNOW BLAH BLAH BLAH", every 2 hours my phone was buzzing from a weather alert from the app. I mean, yeah, it's pretty fuckin' cold - 23F, feels like 13F thanks to wind chill - but it's not the end of the goddamned world. Saturday, though, is looking to be even colder. High of 26, low of 14, with winds staying above 10mph all day. It's a good thing I just made a giant pot of chicken noodle soup today.

I, unfortunately, don't have much to update right now. I need to order more rings of the proper sizes to continue some of my current projects, and to start some new ones. The problem is that ring gauges are measured in 2 different systems, the Standard Wire Gauge (SWG) and American Wire Gauge (AWG). A ring that's 18g in SWG is a 16g in AWG, and the distinction matters because of making sure you've got the right ring sizes should they specify what system they're using. One of the things you'll see talked about a lot in chainmaille stuff is AR, or Aspect Ratio. Some patterns will be giving you ring measurements based on the AR of the rings used, like my Cylon weave specifies that the two rings have an AR of 7.1 and 4.2, and it's a very AR specific pattern. You find the AR of a ring by taking it's Inner Diameter (ID) in millimeters and divide that by the ring's Wire Diameter (WD) in millimeters. This becomes a problem when my supplier lists their rings primarily in SWG, while having their AWG measurement in smaller text, and the site I get my patterns from has all their ring sizes listed in AWG. So when I see I need something that's 18g AWG, when I go to order, I need to buy 19g SWG. I guess it's a good time to get all these rookie mistakes out now and not much later when I've made something of a career out of this. So, instead, I'll show you how to make your own Helm Chain! With pictures! The rings I will be using are SWG 18g 9/32" for the big rings and SWG 18g 5/32" for the small rings. First step is to make a 2-2-2 chain using 4 large rings and 2 of the small rings. Then take 1 open large ring and weave it between both pairs of the larger rings, and around the pair of smaller rings. I did this by holding the chain by one pair of large rings, then letting the other two fall back, then weaving the large ring through Now put 2 small rings through the pair of large rings, then put 2 more large rings through the smaller ones. Weave one more large ring between the large rings, but around the small rings like you did previously. It's easier now that you've got more chain to hold on, and the previous "orbital" ring you added keeps the rings you need to go through separated. Now just repeat this until the chain is at the desired length, add a clasp to it, and you're done. You can now make Helm Chain.

About a week or so ago I mentioned that I would be starting my journey into making chainmail jewelry. A few of you guys (2) expressed interest in seeing my journey, and I got my materials today. Materials required: Pliers x2 Rings, size depends on your pattern, or "weave" Patience, lots of it. Weave instructions The whole thing is mostly just learning technique, and your very basics is learning how to properly open and close your rings. So I spent my first half hour opening and closing some rings to get the feel of the movement of the pliers, and how much force I need to put on them to close the rings properly. When opening rings, you push inward so that the ends of your rings overlap, then when you pull it back to close the ring and line the ends up so they meet. Overlapping the ends when opening them causes the ring to keep that shape, so when you close the ring, it keeps a nice and neat seam when closed. Once you've gotten the hang of opening and closing your rings, it's time to take up a basic weave, I decided to start with a simple 2-in-2, extremely simple, and can be used to make earrings, bracelets/anklets, or necklaces. This 2-in-2 chain is going to be a bracelet, and I have started on what's called a Helm Chain as my first lesson in weaving rings through a chain. Will get some images up soon, there aren't that many formatting buttons for creating a new thread.

Beep boop, son. Beep boop.

My only goal is to get better at my chainmail stuff, other than that, not dying. Happy new year, everyone.

Ugh. After numerous hours of Trial and Many Errors, I have finally managed to get a stable Half Persian 3-in-1 chain made. This weave is particularly tricky because you cannot safely set it down or hold it in whatever way you want, as the weave isn't stable until the point I'm at now. Moving it the wrong way, dropping it, or setting it down wrong will result in the entire thing falling apart and you'll have to start over. It involves putting 2 closed rings into 1 open ring, closing that ring, then weaving another open ring into rings 1 and 3, but not 2, the ring you're weaving in will rest against ring 2, then you'll add 1 closed ring, and then close the open ring. You'll repeat this again until the chain is of the desired length. The biggest issue I was having was that the rings I'm using are of a larger diameter than my other rings, so the weave is overall loose and floppy so far, but this is to accommodate the rings I will be adding to it once I've completed my chain. This is the beginnings of a different weave I'm attempting called the Cylon weave, which starts out as a Half Persian 3-in-1 and adds other rings.

And Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher's mom, just died.

I've lengthened my Helm Chain today, I've decided to make it a necklace instead of a bracelet. I'm now beginning my attempt at a Byzantine weave. Nope, can't do Byz, I don't have the right rings to really do that with right now. Instead I'm trying out a specific pattern that requires I start with a Half Persian 3-in-1 chain, and I'm cursing everything just trying to get this fucking chain started.