Tune Vids Baby! oh yeahh

Steam-Powered Giraffe - I'll Rust with you




The Newfangled Four - Hello My Baby... Through the Years




Conchita Wurst - You Are Unstoppable

Dimash Kudaibergen - S.O.S D'un Terrien Detresse

at the Tokyo Jazz Festival 2020

The Cog is Dead - Another Cog in the Machine




The Petersens & Ger O'Donnell -The Fox

Sand Fleas and Bedbugs on you and pets

Life experiences... yeah.. I have had my share of bug battles.. this is my quick and cheap way to mow down their numbers before they totally get out of hand. from actual life experiences.

A. head lice.  If you got them, you will likely know it fairly quickly. they itch! and you can just about see and feel the little beggers walkin around . If you want to get rid of them, find yourself a ready lice comb,  a jar of mayonnaise, and a plastic grocery bag.... you heard right.. mayo. It seems they cant handle the oil of mayo.. not olive oil.. although its good for your skin, it wont stay on your head long enough to suffocate the lice on your head. take the mayo and spread it everywhere in your hair and scalp.. put the plastic bag over your hair/mayo mix like a shower cap.. simply to keep the mayo in place on your head. give it some time, until the mayo starts to 'melt and drip a bit (about 30 mins?) then go take a shower and wash your hair. give it a day or three, then reapply to catch all the new hatches you missed the first time. the mayo will have caused the glue on several of the eggs to come free.. but not all the eggs will fall out of your hair that first time. A lice comb is handy so make sure to keep it on hand in a med kit or some such for future bug infestations you might encounter... especially if you own cats.

B. Fleas. What a Pain these bugs are. best way to cut down their numbers is a constant vigilance.. that lice comb (see above), some dish soap (like dawn) and a glass. comb out the cat, being careful around furry elbows, nipples, and whiskers, then quickly grab the comb tines and pull the red/black of fleas, flea dirt, and cat fur off into the glass of extra soapy water (I would also have a long chopstick or other such to stir the fleas etc down into the water.) repeat as needed.
Now for a quick hazard warning to watch for, when putting down a soapy water dish near a light, for fleas to jump into... it works, yes, fleas are attracted to the light and will jump into the water and drown.. but.. there will also be fleas that missed the jump in your carpet all around the area.. and the infestation will eventually get pretty thick in that area.

C. Bed Bugs. there is no easy way to really be free of these pests..but... knowing a bit about them can help... they are active mostly at night and in the very early dawn.. they can and will often climb the walls and fall off, hoping, I guess, to find a tasty snack by landing on you in your bed. they will also cluster in gathers and folds of your mattress, sometimes staining it with little spots of black. when they bite, its often multiple times in one area and often you wont even feel them until well after the deed is done and the bug has moved on. I have tried most bedbug sprays and bombs to no avail... best bet is to buy a sturdy bedcover and encase your bed in it to deal with most of them, be prepared to have that case on for like a good year tho. and get out a spray bottle for rubbing alcohol (at as near to 100% as possible) to catch the ones you didn't encase.. like on the walls, on the case itself, on the floor or in other 'tight' places they can cram themselves into. the rubbing alcohol dries them up pretty quickly. keep after them.

D. the Sand Flea. yes, the little 'hopping' creeps you find at the seashore, in hillocks and tufts of long grass and along the tide line. No they are not actual fleas. and No, they don't have issues with salt. their bites hurt and then itch and often leaves little trace of its happening.. but for a tiny itchy spot on your foot. and no, they aren't just for the seashore. they can be transferred via sand taken from the shore to places far inland where it might be used for cat-boxes or/and children's sandboxes. they are a light brown, nearly transparent color, until they have fed, then they become dark and look much like a flea.. but do not often leave 'flea dirt' behind like a regular flea would. their numbers will increase very quickly and make like a moving carpet on your pet to avoid being seen. if your pet is small, it could very quickly become disastrous as they will put your cat into anemia which can become a kitty medical emergency. trust me on this one, not a good situation to have happen. flea/lice combs wont catch them, flea sprays, and powders are a no-go.. even the dawn dish soap bath has no real effect.  the expensive flea pill you can get at the veterinarian's <b>will work</b>.. temporarily. but not nearly long enough to avoid re-infestation.
but, I think, there is one thing that might just work to cut them down on you and your pet. Try this. Get a cloth or paper towel you can sop up with a whole lot of hydrogen peroxide and apply it directly to the fur and skin of your pet. it starts working near immediately to relieve the itch of the sand flea bites as you dab it on everywhere around the affected area, it quickly seems to drown the sand fleas and their bodies can be easily combed out afterward.
(and no, I had 'no idea' sand fleas were even a thing before I encountered them.. I only discovered this possible remedy some time after the death of my best four-footed friend and family member, when I found myself the recipient of their veracious visits.)

I do hope this short remedy list helps you out. let me know with a comment below, I'd appreciate it.

and then there are them there games...again.

luv the game but hate some of things in it? yeahh.. me too. here I give a voice to those things in the games I have tried of late. granted most of them are games still in coding works.. but thats the thing really? they need the feedback most during times such as this. so, here we go.

My Time in Portia

What a Beeeutiful game!! sweet color, gorgeous graphics, and such freedom, running around all over town and country, picking up wood, and stone, and checking out crops and animals and finding chests with goodies in them.
Its a shame the quests keep getting in the way! XD no, seriously, I like the quest idea, i love learning about the lives of the townsfolk with whom the higher your rep with each one,.. the more you learn about them. I like the idea of building things to help solve those quests, with each one fitting totally in with the character and situation they show up in.

Here is the problem(s) i encountered tho.
The quests... from the start.. was always a bit over my head. example, townie wanted a sword to practice with. didn't say what kind of sword, but for "to practice with". I had seen practice swords available to be made via my little workbench... so I thought, ok, the guy wants a practice sword. right? and accepted the quest, thinking it would take me all of a moment to run back to the workbench and get a practice sword. I had wood. easy-peasy. nope. got there only to discover, he wanted a 'bronze' sword. bronze? isn't that like, a mix between copper and tin or something?  ok, so it'd take a bit longer to make this sword... i needed metal. but where to get that? i wandered around a little, finding nothing but stone lying about. then i remembered something about a 'ruins' which might include mining... after a bit i found an entry in town that let me in and i found copper... then tin. yay! back to the house and..how much did i need again? hrm.. nothing to show a bronze sword on the workbench.. assembly? oh wait.. maybe i need to smelt the two together in the furnace first and then itd show up... so i created a furnace and smelted the bronze into bars. still nothing. hrm.. maybe i need to build up to it... i made a practice sword.. then another.. and another... well i can make an enhanced practice sword.. i need an upgrade for that. whaa? after looking about for a bit, i found an upgrade weapons box being sold (supersuper expensive!) in the town's tool shop... took about all of the trade coins i had but couldn't seem to do anything with it.. eventually, i returned home and put the thing in a storage box and let the day go by... then with another look, i found i could upgrade the practice sword. yay! i learned it used the upgrade box thingie, still in the storage box, later on. but still no bronze sword. eventually, i managed to gain enough boxes to upgrade my axe and pick plus one and still no bronze sword. ... and the quest ended... never to return.
ok, that was crappy, but wasn't to end there. eventually i learned that no failed quest returns... at least not in my version... not even the main story quests. add to that, all quests were timed, but over your ability to solve them by at least 2 levels. AND..  even when you jump through the research hoops correctly... you still sometimes lack in exactly how quests are to be solved. example... build a boombox.. they supposedly sent schematics but I see nothing changed in assembly instructions.. nor anything different listed in the workbench or furnace. the questor npcs have nothing to add either. So... uhh... what to do before the timer is done and i lose the quest forever? do I need to dash to the wiki again, hoping someone else has instructions ..again?
frustrating. Someone let me know when the quests get straightened out and I'll try to return for this otherwise wonderful game, please!

Minecraft
Now for those of us who have played this game several times, we don't see much of the issues that new players might see..because to us, they are oldhat. I recently got to watch someone play this game that had never played before. and I remembered some of the things i wish i had known when first starting out. there's kind of an order thats useful for beginners.. and oldhats as well.
a) huge rule of minecraft. "Do not dig straight down." you don't know just what you might find yourself suddenly dropping into the middle of. trust me in this, it's good advice to remember. (this should also be the rule for jumping or falling into really deep holes in the ground as well. you-gunna-die.)

when starting a new world, theres a little button you could push that'l really help. a starting chest, which will appear somewhere close to where you spawn in. In it, you will often find either a wooden or stone pickaxe, an axe of the wood chopping sort, some food, and a couple of logs/wood. take those, take the chest, and the torches, if any, that are around it.

first order of business, you need 3 sheep.. . if you kill three sheep and punch/use an axe on a tree or three youl have a bed to sleep through the night unmolested by the nighttime bad guys (a couple logs/wood blocks = makes wood planks, which will make a crafting block. 3 planks and three wool = a bed)
if sheep cannot be found nearby... find the nearest hillside to tunnel into or gather enough dirt blocks, wood blocks, or cobblestone to make a quick shelter to while the evening away... or you can just take your chances with all of the zombies, skelies, spiders, creepers etc, that are going to come by and say hi to you. why risk it on the first day?
there is also the off-hand chance you might see a village right nearby you can then get to and steal a bedspace for the night. (you'l make the villager whose bed it is, sad, if you actually steal it... just sayin. consider the villager.) now, remember, this is 1.14.. not 1.10. so there are a couple of hazards you need to be aware of.

1) if you stay awake 3 or more nights in a row the undead fliers (called phantoms) will come swooping out of the night sky to get a piece of you... make sure you either gain a bed to sleep in, or a solid roof over your head with walls to keep things out.
2) the drowned. zombies will turn into drowned if in water long enough, and they can walk the land at night... as if that wasn't enough, there is also a chance they will spawn with a trident... which will mean a quick death if you arn't ready and well armored. (also bear in mind if trying to explore underwater... they can swim through a one block wide hole. so be careful.)
3) pillagers happen... and they have crossbows. (and you thought getting skewered by a skeli with a bow was deadly.)
4) zombie raids do happen around town. and theres a lot of them.. all at the same time.
5) those little green creepers explode in line of sight. big ouchies. (they dont seem to really mind the daylight either.)
6) dont look at the tall black endermen with the eyes and purple sparkles. (keep your cursor off of them or) they will find you, even if you are waaaaaay over there. if you do look at one, get under cover quickly! crouching to get under a leaf block or under a 2 or 2 1/2 block high overhang. hopefully they wont reach you with their long arms because they can hit really hard. bear in mind though, they may try tearing your shelter apart to get at you. (I once had one tear half my porch ceiling apart before i managed to kill it with my sword)
rule 7) there is no rule 7
8) cave spiders. found in abandoned mines. poison. quick as a wink, moves through one block spaces, and just all around baaad news. worst of the monsters imho.
9) sleeping in a bed in the nether or end is a mega explosive no-no! (especially if you are perched on a ledge above a lava lake.)

and a few good things..
1) spiders are generally non-aggressive in the daytime.
2) creepers and the phantoms are afraid of cats.
3) skeletons are afraid of wolves.
4) endermen are afraid of water/rain.
5) ring the town bell and the nearby villagers will typically panic and get behind a closed door.
6) fences (and stone 'walls') cannot be generally jumped over. (but for spiders)
7) there is still no rule 7.
8) blocks just above the waterline by a block space cannot be jumped up on from the water.
9) the torch is your friend. monsters will not spawn within its bright glow.
10) a pail of water is also your friend when in a pinch. washing monsters a few feet away for needed breathing room, for putting out fires (and lava).. and for scaring the bleep out of endermen. (see no,4 of this particular list)

useful things to know.
a) punching trees works. punching stone/cobblestone doesn't really. (i mean to say, you -can- but you wont get anything but for maybe bruised knuckles and wasted time from it)
b) a wood pickaxe gathers cobble and coal (I think)
c) a stone pickaxe will gather cobble, coal, and iron
d) an iron pickaxe will gather everything but obsideon.
e) a diamond pickaxe will gather any rock/gem
f) axes chop trees.. each type doing a better job of it, while lasting a long time.
g) this is pretty much the case for shovels and armor as well.
h) sand and gravel suffer from gravity effects.
i) generally, water flows... it will move into the block you just removed, down a hole you just created or around a waterlogged fence and down a hillside.
j) bubbles are often created by either a lava block or soulsand. the former drags you down, the latter pushes you up. they -can- destroy your boat...but at least you can breathe while in them.
k) crouching while on a lava block = no damage taken. walking on soulsand.. slower than slow.
L) kelp can be used as food or as fuel.
m) crouching, being still with the mouse, and having a raw cod in hand might just make a friend out of a stray town cat.
n) giving bones to a wolf might just make a good 4-footed friend as well.
o) fishing poles are a terrific tool to have on hand... using one not only catches fishies but enchantment books, leather, string, tags, and enchanted bows as well.

I can see for pages n pages

Considering a webpage "return", for simple lil comics and suchness. I'd like to add it here, just to keep things in one place.. but a blog isn't really of the format I'm looking for.. i dunno.. rusty brain on the subject makes for weak motivation or inspiration. ..still in loose-leaf thought process. to be continued..maybe.

a tidbit on my daily life...

I bought a vacuum. Hope it's a sturdy thing considering what I'm about to put it through...a whole bunch of years worth of carpet dirt/dust/bugs and cat hair.
and I got a new-to-me computer!! Ty Aztaro! Rana has a new home and I love her very much! <3
thankyou! look at all the space! and the graphics!..so much better! and and... she's just wonderful!

gamesgamesgames, the epicness continues

Yeah.. Minecraft is still in the portal picture for me. on the upside, I am enjoying peaceful mode, and keeping it shallow in order to learn a bit more about the pillagers... from outside the villages. I really rather like the new villagers.. and their trading updates, thank you, Mojang. on the downside, I still dont like the pillagers showing up on my front lawn and tormenting my sweety kitty, or in my sheep pen out back, although the wandering merchant has been fun. I really don't mind the llamas either... and I'm glad for the milk to wash down the bitter taste of those darn illagers.
I did figure the issue with my being unable to get into 1.14 btw. turns out, it -was- my graphics driver (yeas, the integrated one). it was saying the drivers were up-to-date, but really they had not updated since 2004 or something. I had to uninstall those old drivers, and force the computer to actually update to the new ones. so now, I can get into single-player snapshots and updates for longer than 5 seconds. I'm still having issues with the portal into realms though... boo. Feels like a familiar issue though... very familiar.

update: the portal to realms fixed itself. yay! also, they made the pillager patrols follow the same rules as the other mobs in minecraft. put down enough light, and they wont spawn there. double yay! now.. to figure out just why there was only one villager left in my first town. I know they were not terribly pleased with me, when i was there last. but did they all move away? I didn't see them arrive in the second village i had been roosting in... where did they all go?


Here's a small shout-out to a few other good portals (games) that i have gotten a quick chance to check out. These ones seem to work fine for low-end PC's, like mine, and I find them worthy of the time spent looking at them.
What do I consider low-end? well, anything below the GB I suppose. something that could be dl'd easily.. and played on my aged(read: a tinkerers dream for some.. and a nightmare to everyone else) win 7 nyvid pc. ie.. nothing special in power, space, or graphics.


Rimworld
yeah, ok, i know, it seems like such a graphic fail... but really, its a fine bit of enjoyment if your looking for a top-down time management style game. your three little people's crashland on a random planet, and they not only the need to survive... with all the crazy-arse animals biting at their heels, radiation, fire, or blighted wheat to make everyone jump to the emergency.. but they also need to thrive, with warring bands of tribes tromping through, tradesfolk, and mechmachine madness.. while learning new applications of workstations, keep the place healthy, happy, and clean, a bit of learned energy saving, some rocket science, and other such improvements in the effort to once more try to get off the planet. keywords: components, components, components. your going to need a whole lot of them... and that's just to be able to get to the point where you have a chance to be able to make them.

Stardew Valley.
You, like me, love the harvest moon games, right? well, here's one at least as good and in a lot of ways better. you don't -have- to be a farmer, but it sure helps. You don't -need- to mine, and a deep mine it is, but it sure is an enriched adventure. You don't have to marry either... but it connects you to the little town like not much else can. and all that is just scratching the surface. If you can, Give the creator some appreciative applause, its inspired and much deserved.

Graveyard keeper.
Get ready to laugh.. or at least a little muhahaha under your breath, at this one. there is this.. really confused... new graveyard keeper in the village... and a lot is expected of him, judging by the numerous quests he is ladled with from the start. another time-management sort... its worth the time spent just trying to 'catch-up' to the goings-on right there in the immediate area. corpses, talking skulls, a crazy donkey, and a guy who lives in a barrel as well. the need for improving the area, chopping trees, mining stone, defending against slimes and bats.. making chopping blocks and anvils to create better headstones and borders for the graveyard improvements.. making enough coin for a visit to the farmer for seeds, or for another whetstone, nevermind whats needed for better knowledge in which to make these things.. and this beast-o-burden of a 4-footed Godfather is demanding a bushel of carrots just for going this way and that on the road!

The colonists.
little self-aware robots are seeking a new home in their grand desire to live like humans, land on a random world, with likely prospects and take to building a home for themselves. Yet, another time management sort... this one is quirky but quite a bit of fun. especially with the little roadblock disagreements before the repavers are set in motion. The biggest worry, I have found thus far is.. limited surface resources. fortunately, you can move where you want the collections to be made. so if your woodcutter is clear to the left of the screen.. you -can- just ask them to cut into the forest on the right side of the screen... just might take a bit to get them to collect enough to do anything with. and I just love the names they give the various buildings. "shanta's workshop"

The Bard's Tale Trilogy "Remastered".
An old classic game once more brought to the front of the class and showing off the nicest improvements. you start with several characters in a snow-bound city with a quest to stop the bad-guy triggering all the snow! Wander the city, taking on random barbarians, mad dogs and the occasional skeleton mob while leveling up your group, enabling them to take on more dangerous creatures and the dark of the underground. and that's just the first of three games piled nicely into one.

Planetbase.
This game is a little like Rimworld.. and a whole lot like a game I recall... was called Space Colony. but instead of mostly improving the colony from the perspective of the characters, it's mostly from the perspective of the various 'upgrades'. adding more machines which would help improve the expansion of the colony from the local weather, meteors, and expected wear n tear. ...and yet, somehow, make room for traveling tourists.

other.. possible... lower-end time-management style games, if you are concerned about graphic limits.. (I haven't tried these games as of this posting.. as yet, anyway.. but i hope to sometime here.. well, but for Roller Coaster tycoon 2, which is the best of the series imo.)
Embark (like rimworld), Project Hospital, Prison Architect, Townsman, Rescue HQ, and Terraria.

There's also the higher-end games that really look interesting in general.. if your really -not- concerned about graphics limits and space. (again, haven't been there.. yet.. but maybe someday)

Staxel, Ark Survival Evolved, Dawn of Man, Far Cry Primal, Astroneer, Satisfactory, My Time in Portia, Simcity series, Subnautica, the Tropico series, Anno, The Sims 4 and its different installments, the elder scrolls: Skyrim, Fable, Dungeon Keeper, Alchemist's Awakening, Ghost of a Tale, Startopia, Bannished, Owlboy, Foundation,2-point Hospital, and Craft the World.


meanwhile... life goes on in the fantasy land of mabinogi. Kita is once more trying to update her mining skill.. ugh! Windmill is still fairly useless, even at rank 3, not much can be hit with it, and even when it does, it leaves the low level imps ready to kick her butt. the chain weapon is still the best of melee weapons... ok ok, nothing much compares to her twin glads.. plus a boost of speed from final strike.(except maybe the lag monster, whose daunting freeze spells that are a serious killer... and the changes they made to places like fido dungeon to 'make combat more even'.. they meant to say "deadly" to Kita.) They merged servers recently, so am now trying to wait patiently for them to give us a chance to get our names back from the doppelgangers from other servers. what a mess it is.

Remembered Bellyaching & Pesimism thats part of my nature..

you think you got it bad....

I just lllurrve getting ill before a fun time. (sarcasm included for free)
That has happened for like three years in a row now, and its still counting.
and i dont mean one of those annoying got-the-sniffles colds.. i mean the-sky-is-falling-over, kick-em-while-thier-down kind of illnesses... just before a major holiday.

last year,.. no, the year before that, someone close to me got angry with me, cuz she thought i was making it up. i felt death-at-the-door ill, the day before christmas. turned out to be a knock-me-over sicksick, complete with a tooth abscess all rolled into one.
three teeth abscessed that time.. got all three teeth pulled.(getting three teeth pulled in one area, at the same time, is something major to me, i dont have that many teeth to start with.)

(in my family, teeth are most certainly not a strength)

both momma and dad had falsies.
additionally, mom had hearing issues (thanks mom) and the great mugwumpus had hip issues (thanks dad) plus.. a cancerball was rolling about(ty gpa n gma) and major heart issues were/are a big thing. (ty gpapa)

this last year, i got sick.. horrible cold, i think, and my beloved meow died. great time to be alive.. or not. so far, my special seasonal time 'off' has been batting 104%

wooowy, what a life!

A game in Particular..

Minecraft... aquatic (1.13) has been a great version thus far. I'm loving the new books/enchantments and the underwater decor. But for the longest time, I have been frustrated by being unable to check out the new 1.14 snapshots being hailed as villages and pillages. my loony computer kept telling me the graphics drivers were up to date.. yet they were, as it turned out, about 4 years out of date. I finally updated my ninny intel graphics drivers and the game finally let me into the latest snapshot.. and before I knew it, most of my poor villagers had died.

The hills were alive and squirming with the sound of raiders.. and i'd only been in town .. nay, in the game, for about 4 days. Now, I hear, mojang artists gleefully going on about how the pillagers have learned how to open doors. heck, my poor villagers have yet to learn to run indoors when they are attacked! the golem died first thing, and after all that effort i took, trying to get him to come home from his hillside jaunt. even though, i had fences up, they still mananaged to t-port inside and I must have racked up quite a bad omen score because I had like 3 groups knocking things and villagers over and I had not even had the time to check out the villager trade system changes or find a spider to beat on for the string to make a bow with.

After all that...horror, I have come to the conclusion, we need an option to turn off pillagers... either that or I will be spending quite a bit more time hanging out in peacefull mode. sheesh

The only way for it, seems to be peaceful mode. even on easy I quickly get overrun with pillagers. even with walls up, the determened nasties pop up inside of the villages to wreck thier havoc on all but the peaceful mode. so setting traps outside the town only catches the traveling merchants and drives village prices into the omg mode. its either that or ignore all villages and do my best to secure against the patrols on my own. Which is really sad because I consider villagers the single best combat vs the game's general lonelyness. (if that makes any sense)

Well, here's hoping they either outlaw pillagers showing up inside villages or create a means of turning the pillagers off before the update officially launches. it's either that or i now have another reason to feel stuck in an old minecraft version.