Showing posts with label IRL update. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IRL update. Show all posts

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Where You Can Find Me

I have a couple of outlets I use all the time. I am now back on Facebook which is a big change. I am not using the whole "Link in the comments", so my only way to attract followers is word of mouth. You can also see me on Mastodon.Social and Dice.Camp in addition to MeWe. My last outlet, one that I am going to start working hard on this year is Ko-Fi

As always, you can find my products on DriveThruRPG. There is also my secondary store on Ko-Fi. Tomorrow, I will be posting about the differences between each shopping experience. 


Saturday, December 30, 2023

New Ko-Fi Store


My store on Ko-Fi has just opened. I am leading with items that will never change, like my AD&D Character Sheets for Unearthed Arcana and my Hex Pack. These items are pay-what-you-want and are IDENTICAL to those offered on DriveThruRPG. There is no need to duplicate your efforts if you already got them from DTRPG. This is simply a different shopping option. https://ko-fi.com/philviverito/shop

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Topical Topic

I haven't been posting regularly and tried to lead my Dungeonland review with a massive tangent on current events. I have made this its own post. 

I've mentioned my love of Disney. but I have yet to mention my wife's love of Lewis Caroll. When we first met, I pigeonholed her as a non-reader. I was very wrong, she is merely a non-book collector. I was shocked to find that she had read everything by Lewis Caroll, Poe, and T.S. Elliot plus many, many more. She reads something and disposes of the book. 

Blasphemy! How could you get rid of books you read and liked? We are still working on this issue.

This is one of those odd times where our interests collide on a topical subject and also highlights the need for patrons of this website.

How do a D&D module, Lewis Caroll, and patrons merge with current events?

AI, of course. 

I imagine that most of the people reading this site expect me to produce my own content, with my own opinions no matter how odd or off-beat they may be. It's a matter of getting a different perspective. By way of example, I did a review on dx/db. The author dropped in to say thanks, while some of my readers on social media absolutely hated this title and said so. 

Well, I engaged with both and everyone is happy. This website is a service to people of all kinds and perspectives. And I thank them for those differing views. 

Let me take a moment to thank some major backers of this website: Blackrazor, Pulp 716, and a co-worker. 

Blackrazor provided dozens of games after the house fire. Pulp 716 provided a safe haven for my family after the same. It's a wonderful place to meet up, buy THEN read comics, and relax. And my unnamed coworker provided a fabulous Macbook, which comes in handy for writing posts for These Old Games. 

My coworker hit the nail on the head when he asked, "How is that useful? What can you do with a computer too old to connect to the internet?" 

The answer to that is easy, I use it to disconnect from the internet. He didn't see the value in that until I showed him my workflow and then it all made sense. Basically, I write my text and note what sort of image I want in my post on the iBook. Then I can sneaker-net a USB drive between computers and use Blogger's integration with Photos to get the images from my phone. 

Very rarely do I type directly into the Blogger interface, usually only to change wording or kill a typo not found by Apple Works and whatnot. Today, I tried to use it for speed and ease of use. 

Yeah, wrong. 

The interface has broken down. I am experiencing a corporate AI takeover. I use Chrome and Blogger plus Grammarly. At some point, the various spell-checking options switched to highly aggressive mode. It's crazy, I can't really type anything in the standard interface without getting a mess of suggestions that make no sense.  

I've turned it all off which was about as effective as turning off Skynet was. 

On top of this, I have noticed the integration with Photos has gone off, like 6-day-old Chinese food on a soft taco shell. It could work, but I am taking chances. 

If I didn't have the refuge of my good ol' iBooks, I'd be screwed. 


Sunday, September 17, 2023

What's Up?

Man, things never go the way you expect. Stuff changes. 

As you can see, there have been some changes to my website. Minor stuff that I always meant to do. 

On the right, I now have a contact form where you can email me directly. Also on the right is a new link to The Magic Candle Company, a product I very much enjoy. We haven't done candles since the house fire, but they carry oil diffusers. If you want the coupon code instead of the link, it is TOGWEB for 15% off. 

Other changes since the start of this year have been work-related. We picked up a second home, cute rental property in Clifton Springs near Canandaigua to simplify work travel. It's odd having a landlord again. My wife does travel nursing and this facilitates this. Having a vacation home is pretty cool, too. 

Canandaigua and Clifton Springs are beautiful places with a rich history and amazing natural resources. There are many homes dating back to the Revolutionary War. They have a game shop called Dork Forest Comics and is just down the street is a sulfur spring. Believe it or not, Elvis, Elizabeth Taylor, and Paul Newman used to visit the sulfur spas. 

The springs don't smell all that bad. Being a natural property of the springs the smell ebbs and flows from day to day. It is very pleasant due to the canal-like setting and the wildlife that inhabits the waters. 


Back in June, we lost our rabbit Bo (left). He was 6-7 years old and well-loved when we adopted him last year. My daughter insisted on this guy as he had little chance of being adopted due to his age. She was probably right. 

He jumped right in with our other pets and rapidly became a member of the tribe. Even the dog was sweet on him. He had his own feed patch of our garden, with cucumbers, basil, sage, and dill. 

Now that Bo passed, we discovered we can't do without a rabbit in our home. 

Please help us welcome Fiver. 

Like Bo, he is an atypical rabbit. He is a cross between a Continental Giant and a Flemish Giant. He could get quite big, as in fever-dream big. I hesitate to say exactly how big. When I was a child, I had 2 dwarf bunnies that refused to stay small. Rabbits are highly variable animals. 

He is a sweet guy. The picture to the right was taken a few weeks ago when he was 9 weeks old and about 7 lbs. We are waiting to have him neutered in the next few weeks. While we only have one bunny and we don't want ANY chance of having 11 bunnies. 

One of the ironic things about keeping cats and rabbits is both animals have traits that feed off of each other. Dominant cats expect to groom submissive cats while dominant bunnies expect to be groomed by submissive rabbits. Cats will groom rabbits. This is so cute but can have unexpected and disastrous results if not monitored. 

Our smallest cat, Seraphina has decided to take on the role of a dominant, mother cat with Fiver playing the role of the kitten. Where this goes wrong is Seraphine's interactions with the other animals. She shouldn't be big enough to dominate the 65 lbs. dog or even the 10-12 lbs cats, but she tries. The other larger cats attempt to out-dominate her by also grooming the dog which causes growling, hissing, and occasionally fights between the cats that the German Shepard Pit Bull mix tries to stop. Nobody has been injured but we have to keep an eye on it. 

Our dog Tori should have her own stat block here because she is not your average dog, but that is a post for a different day. 

Back to the website stuff. Recently, I lost all of my stats due to a change to Google Analytics. That's annoying. I am relearning my way around Analytics again. As a consequence, my Ko-Fi project has taken a hit, first slowing, then stopping altogether. 

On the DriveThruRPG front, I have implemented changes that will force changes to most of my products. You can still order them on DriveThru but soon they will also appear on my Ko-Fi page. This means people who like my products will have to make a choice, do you order from Ko-Fi or DriveThruRPG. 

So far, all of my products on DriveThru are PWYW. At this time, I have no idea how I will present my products on Ko-Fi. I am going to start with the Hex Pack and my character sheet for AD&D as these products will never change. I do not have a set time frame to do this. 

What choice are you making? If you want 100% of the proceeds of a purchase to go to me, then Ko-Fi will be your ticket. However, if you support DriveThruRPG and its various programs of philanthropy and support for new content producers, then the choice is clear. This is one of the many reasons I am moving glacially slow on this. I really love DriveThruRPG but I want to develop products off of their site, mostly because I see myself offering physical goods DriveThruRPG can't really support, as in not books. I need to be able to offer a one-stop shop which I believe will be Ko-Fi based. 

I didn't mean to write this much, but I think I am calling 2023 my rebuilding year. You are going to see new media in 2024, so I hope you hit those subscribe buttons and follow me in this process. 

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Update From The Real World

We've got about 43 (correction - 56.) days until we return home. Progress is really happening now. We have a heater, walls, floors and now paint. Windows come next week as do cabinets. 

It is unbelievable how much work was needed to get this back to livable. 

Before After

Kitchen

Kitchen (reverse angle)

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 1

Living Room

Living Room

Dining Room

Dining Room (Reverse angle)

Bedroom 2

Bedroom 2
There was nothing left to take pictures of
Bedroom 3

Bedroom 3

Bathroom

Bathroom

As we are coming to the end of this project, my oldest son Paul has stepped in to do the drywall, mudding and painting. My wife picked out the paint colors. 

Obviously, we need a toilet, tile, actual floors as opposed to the shown subfloor. But it's coming along. 

It's been a long 226 days.