Some Catch-Up

When last I wrote, Androcon was about to start (the invasion of Doctor Who fans at the Gjovaag house) and I'd just had a couple of very nice weeks of writing for the newspaper again.

Ok, first off... Inkwell is very healthy, and in fact has been playing more often than before. He's a bit befuddled by all the people who have visited, starting with the Androgums, then my parents, sister and niece, then the appraisers looking at the house. Now he's in the habit of running upstairs and hiding behind the bed when anyone comes to the door, which was actually useful today because I knew when the newspaper arrived.

He's also back in the habit of announcing when he gets into his box. I find it really amusing every time and I don't know why.

The Doctor Who on Twitch marathon is ending today. While none of the other Doctors reached the heights of London 1965, it was an excellent and fun way to see other people's reactions to the show as some of them saw it for the first time. I didn't watch continually, but I caught enough to be amused.

I have put in a hold for Hope Never Dies at the library in the hopes that it will be as goofy as the cover illustration indicates.

I am absolutely convinced that someone made this San Diego Comic-Con graphic just for me:

I saw this Facebook post on Friday the 13th and immediately submitted two stories I happened to have written that only needed a little polishing. I did not expect any response at all until after San Diego Comic-Con, and so was surprised to get acknowledgement of my submission in only a week. Very cool.

I was able to see Doctor Who meet the Muppets thanks to people taking videos at the shows in London, but I'd really like to purchase an official DVD of the shows. I've heard they don't do that, which is a shame. I bet it would raise a bit of money for charity even with the production costs.

If you know about or have played the Uncharted games, Nathan Fillion did a MAGNIFICENT job in a short video based on the games.

Yes, this made me squee. A lot of the Aquaman news recently has made me happily squee away. I mean, the movie poster was fun, but the trailer... oh, the trailer...


I must confess that I laughed hysterically for about a half hour about this particular headline:

News from San Diego includes a new creative team for Aquaman. I'm iffy about the art, but there's nothing wrong with Kelly Sue DeConnick as the writer! And she's the first female writer to take on Aquaman, which is interesting, but I won't cut her any slack.

DC's new young adult books are going to include both Mera and Jackson. I'll be getting the Aqua-related ones for sure, but some of the others also look pretty good.

I have not had a major depressive episode in three and a half weeks. Some of it is all the awesome Aquaman news, some is certainly being able to write for the newspaper again. Sadly, while the depression seems to be holding at bay, the anxiety and fibro pain have been as bad and worse than ever. Ug. Still, no depression is a win!

Hey, a super-relaxed Inkwell!

I really like this starry night house and kind of want to paint our house like that, only with a TARDIS in it. But I've been warned that blue paint fades very quickly, so I'm not sure. Maybe someday we'll just get a nice TARDIS blue door.

Yes, I have pre-subscribed to DC Universe. I suspect I'll get my money's worth out of it. Yes, of course I pre-subscribed in time to enter the Aquaman sweeps, although there is almost zero chance of me winning.

At the same time, DC Universe Online, the game I play, announced their next "downloadable content" (DLC) will be Atlantis. As the game has already had a ton of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern content, it's nice to see a couple of DLCs (including the recent Deluge) featuring Aquaman and his friends.

If you haven't seen the winners of the Eisner Awards yet, here they are. I hate to admit I'm not familiar with most of them, but the ones I know I like.

I was happy to read this story about a kid and a hot dog stand. Someone called health inspectors on him, but instead of shutting him down they helped make sure he was up to code then paid for his license. Excellent news!

The moment Jason Momoa met the son of Aquaman's creator, Paul Norris.

Get your orders in for Ahoy Comics. I'm looking forward to most of their books, and I don't easily jump on new publishers.

Lastly, the Washington State primary is August 7th. We just received our ballots a few days ago, and last night both Eric and I voted. We dropped off the ballots in the drop box this morning. Now we wait and see.

Computer Issues.... again.

I have fiddled with my laptop to the point where, with a generous helping of electrical tape and the occasional tap on the screen, I'm able to usually not have monitor problems, huzzah. I ended up having to take off the screen itself, which I was loathe to do. I managed, but it was annoying and I broke a few more little pieces of plastic and basically I just need a new computer.

Which isn't going to happen soon.

Still, my computer was working and the monitor is now mostly behaving. Then yesterday morning, after a three-hour power outage in the middle of the night, I noticed that the computer wasn't charging. I got the message "Plugged in, not charging" when I looked at the battery icon. Um. Ok.

I generally use the computer plugged in, although I frequently take it downstairs unplugged... so it's not a thing that would completely break the computer for me. But it's worrying. What if the battery has gone bad, or I somehow damaged it during my efforts to fix the screen? A visit to Google and I learned that Windows 10 laptops have this problem A LOT. Not just a little, but so frequently that there is a lot of information and misinformation out there about it.

I found the solution that finally worked for me on HP's website, after trying a number of different things and having every one of them fail. I had been using the HP diagnostic tools to see if the battery itself was failing, but got lots of green lights as far as it was concerned. It even started charging for a brief moment during the testing! To fix it "completely" (as far as I can tell), I ended up following these directions:

Perform the following steps to isolate the issue and arrive at a fix:

Power off the laptop.

Disconnect AC adapter from the laptop.

Press and hold the power button for 15 seconds.

Plug the AC adapter back in.

Power on the laptop.

Uninstall the battery drivers and then reinstall them:

Open the device manager.

Expand "Batteries". Right click on the ACPI drivers and select uninstall.

Close the device manager.

Restart the laptop. While restarting, Windows will reinstall the battery drivers.

Thank goodness, removing the ACPI drivers fixed it. I have no idea what ACPI drivers are or any interest in learning, but they apparently have something to do with battery charging. I was ready to do the next step, a BIOS flash, but was not looking forward to it since there are so many things that can go wrong when you get down to the firmware level.

As I was working through these steps, hubby-Eric told me about a lovely video promo for a Supernatural/Scooby-Doo crossover, so I of course had to watch it... and there was no sound. In fact, every single attempt I made to turn up the volume, it reset itself down to "2" and didn't move. Guess who had to reinstall sound drivers right after reinstalling battery drivers?

Doing all this with a nasty cold and barely any brain power was difficult as well. I suppose I thrive on it, though. I love troubleshooting. I just wish I didn't have to do it quite so often. And I wish I could run more things on my computer (like Fallout 4, which I could eventually get through Steam via Swagbucks). I want to buy myself a Dell gaming laptop, but the cheapest ones that will run what I want are $800 or more. First-world problems, I know. At least with my repairs I'm still able to play DC Universe Online, which I now have ALL the downloadable content from, thanks to Swagbucks, and enough left over to buy the Aquaman DLC when it comes out later this month.

DC Universe Online is going Aquatic...

First there was the announcement that Mera has been added to the Valentine's Day event...

Now DCUO has announced that the next DLC/episode will be called "Deluge" and will be based on the Aquaman storyline featuring the terrorist organization of that name. The new episode will launch next month some time, and will feature Aquaman, Mera, Black Manta, Corum Rath, and Starro! In fact, the Starro event from last year will be folded into this episode.

Aquaman content already in DCUO includes a low-level mission in which you fight off an Atlantean invasion in Metropolis then rescue Aquaman and Mera from Circe, the summer event featuring an Atlantean civil war between Ocean Master and Aquaman's forces fought in the waters near Metropolis, and the aforementioned Starro event which included an Atlantean outpost taken over by Starro after the scientists there made mistakes while studying Starro.

This new episode will be available for a couple of months to everyone, including free-to-play gamers. Right now, the Earth-3 episode is available to all. The development team has set up a system where each new episode has an "event" side that's available to all players of the game until the next episode comes out. Once the next episode is released, anyone who hasn't bought the episode (or a membership to the game) loses access to it.

DCUO has three levels of players. The free-to-play gamers are able to access the main game and the most current "event" episode. The Premium players are people who have spent at least $5 one time on the game, and have a few small perks... and access to any episodes they've bought along with the main game. Players with a membership (legendary players) have access to all episodes for a monthly fee. I'm a premium player.

For me, this means I need to earn enough money through Swagbucks or something to buy the DLC when it comes out (probably about $10), since we can't spare any real cash on it. I haven't used Swagbucks in awhile, because it's really a spammy thing, but I recently got back to it. Through it, I can get Steam gift cards. With the Steam gift cards, I can buy stuff, including the DLCs from the DCUO game. I considered asking for Steam gift cards for Christmas and my birthday, but I felt guilty about it so I didn't.

The good thing about Swagbucks is that I can set it to show a bunch of videos while I'm writing, and I'll earn a few pennies every hour that way. The bad thing is when I get distracted from my writing by the videos and actually start to pay attention to them. At least one of the ads captivated me so much I actually sat and watched the whole thing and forgot what I was writing about. Not good.

A Sunday Review

Here are reviews of the DCBS comic books that I've gotten around to reading and reviewing, sorted by the original shipping date:

• May 4th
• Green Lantern #52 - So this is basically Hal winning a single fight. Really? That's all for the final issue before rebirth? Ok. I think I'll go read something else now.
• Batman Beyond #12 - Something is being set up here with Terry being brought back, sort of. I would like to know what it is. But again, it's just one fight until the end of the book and not much else going on.
• Scooby-Doo Team-Up #16 - Zoinks! Jinkies! This has to be one of the funniest of the team-ups so far thanks to the Wizard deciding to give a couple of the meddling kids powers based on their own catchphrases. This was one worth checking out if you love Scooby and the Marvel family.
• Spider-Man 2099 #10 - So, is the entire issue a flashback to how Miguel got to the first two pages? Yes, yes it is. While the situation with Tempest's mom appears to be settled, more threats are always on the way and in this case, Miguel may be jumping in too deep. Time travel is confusing, even when it's only two distinct times and places.
• Doctor Who 10th #2.9 - I'm not sure what the witch was, except that it was linked to the Doctor and Gallifrey, and that's bad news. This issue was more than a little disjointed, even after rereading the previous issue. Not my favorite story, but I'm still interested in finding out what the link to ancient Gallifrey is.
• Rough Riders #2 - More team gathering, and testing. All pretty fun. Good artwork, interesting premise. I'm looking forward to seeing where this series goes.
• Beasts of Burden: What Cat Dragged In - This is one fine book, and very creepy and sad in this case. This issue focuses on the cats, particularly one cat that was a former enemy of our hero animals. We learn what she left behind and yet desperately attempted to reach again. Fantastic artwork, wonderfully touching and sad story. A must-get if you've read the other issues in the series, but not the best jumping on point if you haven't.

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I tried out two online multiplayer games this past week. Both of them are free to play with extra content available for a price. I am figuring that I won't get particularly addicted to either game, although it's always a possibility with a person like me.

Anyway, let's talk about my experience, since that's what this review is about. First of all, I downloaded and installed Steam, the gaming system that allows people to use these games and many others. I'm not sure I had to do that, but I was trying to play catch up with some other folks I know online. So it was partly due to that and partly curiosity.

Steam is slightly annoying but overall funny. It acts like a game itself, urging people to earn accomplishments such as making friends, joining groups, adding games to a wishlist and playing games. All very silly, but probably extremely effective in the overall scheme of appealing to a bunch of gamers.

Now, as for my gaming cred, I don't have much any more. I gamed quite a bit as a teenager on the C64, and even did a bit of gaming, including multiplayer stuff, at college. I've told my college gaming story more than once, and probably even on this blog before: My friends Dan and Carl set me up on a computer with a text-only MUD (multi-user domain) that was based on a fantasy setting. We started playing Friday afternoon. A few minutes after I started, Dan tapped me on the shoulder and said it was time to go to dinner. So we went, then game back to the math hall and played some more. A few minutes later, Dan tapped me on the shoulder and said, "It's time for breakfast." so we went. And then came back and played some more. A few minutes later, it was lunchtime and we went, then came back. Then dinner again... and breakfast... and lunch... and as we went to Sunday dinner Dan told me he was cutting me off since I had classes the next morning.

So, yeah. I've done the gaming thing.

I haven't gamed much since college, and the years have definitely passed me by. I played some old stuff recently, using the VICE emulator for C64 to play Wasteland and Standing Stones (I will finish Standing Stones this time, I swear it!). I enjoy the old stuff, but I'm also craving newer games. I want to see what's come along since I last gamed regularly. I played a bit of Castle Wolfenstein and Doom in my time, but it's been a very long time since I played a current-ish game.

Back to this week, after installing Steam I looked for a couple of games I could play. There were two that caught my eye: Star Trek Online and DC Online. I know fans and critics of both of them. So I downloaded both of them. DCO took about four hours to download and another hour to install. STO took about 8 hours to "Patch" after it had downloaded.

I tried STO first. I started out at Star Fleet Academy, just about to get my assignment after graduation. The game leads you through some basic combat training, then sends you to a ship where you go on your opening cruise. Of course, it doesn't go right, and you run into some trouble that puts you in charge, crazily enough. The controls were complicated and I couldn't find a quick way to open up a "help" window or anything that would tell me what buttons to push. There were hints and clues, but I found myself befuddled by commands and irritated by the controls.

Then, after a bit of combat, I was told to meet with another ship. The map showed me where, and I went there and... nothing. So I flew around and entered the rendezvous point again. Nothing. By this time I'm really getting irritated and just mashing keys, but I flew around once more, figuring I'd ragequit in a second, and on the third try the scenario started. I seriously needed a hint as to what was wrong, and how to fix it. In any case, I found it frustrating enough that I didn't bother to continue. I may go back to the game, but at the moment, I'm just bored with it. So, 8 hours of downloading and less than an hour of play.

The next one I tried was DC Online. I'd heard that I wouldn't enjoy it due to a lack of aquatic action, and sure enough, there was no Aquaman anywhere. The main plot involves the need to create a bunch of superheroes to fight off an invasion by Brainiac. I rolled up a hero character with mental powers, and she started up in Brainiac's ship, trying to escape while disabling the ship. My first problem was that I couldn't figure out how to hit anything. I had to restart and find a help page. The official help pages were totally useless. Everyone just assumes you are familiar with gaming protocol or something. It also makes you wait for a few minutes to get back into the game, unless you pay for the privilege of getting in faster. That's annoying.

So, apparently, when playing with the keyboard, you use your mouse buttons for hitting. Once I figured that out, it wasn't nearly so hard to play. However, I did have another problem. I somehow deactivated my powers. To give you an idea of how weak the first things I faced were: I managed to defeat them with my bare hands. But once I'd figured out how to turn my powers back on, I had a much easier time of it.

At the end of the battle, Superman popped in to help out, which was fun. Then I was back on earth, and interacting with other players. Which wasn't so much fun. I don't enjoy team playing, and I got invited to multiple teams before I'd even figured out the movement controls (I was literally still bumping into walls). I declined the invites and went on a couple of quests/missions, which were actually very engaging. I got to save Zatanna and Raven and fight alongside Cyborg (after first, as is traditional, fighting with him). Along the way I picked up gear and got new skills. Along with each new power is a little chart on how to trigger the attack with the mouse. I need to take notes.

The lack of Aqua-characters is mildly saddening, and the frequent interruptions by other players was also annoying (the chat was filled with garbage). But the game was fun. If I can figure out how to make sure other players don't keep inviting me to things, maybe I'll play it a little longer. Especially since one guy invited me to a team while I was getting my butt kicked by a tough demon-thing, and because I couldn't figure out how to dismiss the invite quick, I nearly "died". Thanks dude. I did figure out on another play through how to turn those off, but it was really irritating for me. I'm a solo type of gamer, I'm afraid.

Looking out over Metropolis.

Anyway, for free games neither was too bad. I would much prefer a single player game, but that's just me. I'll probably play both a little more. At this point I can imagine getting addicted to DCO, although it doesn't seem too likely with all the people being annoying. I don't see me playing much more STO, although that also could change, depending on whether or not I figure out the controls.

My eventual goal is to play the Fallout series of games, as well as the sequel to Wasteland. I've been watching vids of Adipose playing Fallout 3, and I think they are my kind of thing. But since that requires actual money, I'll have to wait.

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Past Sunday Reviews -- My Kindle Wishlist