Northern Monk is a supermarket level brand, but this is solid, fruity and sweet, reminds me of BrewDog’s Double Hazy Jane. Maybe with how hard it is to find barrel aged stouts, it’s time for me to switch to Double IPAs instead.
Category: Aleosha Blog
-
Retrogamers
It’s uncanny how similar our stories are.
I started playing in ’95, but my first console was Xbox 360 in 2010. Before it I only got Gamecube for a month or two from a friend to play Eternal Darkness and Resident Evil Zero.
And now, I have probably 15 consoles, and even exactly the same CRT this guy has.
And of course I modded my original Xbox, modded my Dreamcast with SD card, modded my PS2.And the second video that hit close home was this one:
I’m just not at the 2nd CRT stage yet 😅
-
Eggenberg Urbock 23
Only 9.5% ABV, not 23%, what a disappointment 😅
Well, not really, 23 refers to sugar percentage, and basically means triple.
Interesting that it’s a lager, not ale that I usually drink.
Deep amber in colour, with no head to speak about, but a bit fizzy.
I know I lately complain about Belgian beers tasting bland. This is not the case here. While not too complex, it is still very interesting, with orange notes, almost like a concentrated Blue Moon. The aftertaste is bitter from hopps, but unlike triple IPA, I didn’t feel the bitterness while sipping. -
Dithering on CRTs
Dithering is a technique to fake transparency, most famously used in Sega Genesis and Sega Saturn consoles. When CRT attempts to display a grid of pixels, it blends them instead, producing the desired effect. Waterfall from one of the Sonic games is a famous example, although I never liked Sonic, so I’m not sure which of the games had it. Streets of Rage 2, on the other hand, is a game I like, and the bar scene is another famous example, so I decided to test it.
The problem with capturing artefacts though, is that they are, well, artefacts, side effects. Famously trying to record a CRT using a camera produces Moire pattern, that isn’t visible to human eye.Raw
Retro Crisis GDV-NTSC MegaDrive Dirty
This is the optimistic impression
Retro Crisis GDV-NTSC MegaDrive RF100
This is the pessimistic impression
This is the “reality”, same emulator on CRT:
There are a few issues with the “reality”, though.
Even though the picture is 200M, there’s the lighting in the room, and how my phone camera reacts to it. Then there’s the natural curve and reflectiveness of the CRT TV, and the fact that I can’t hold my phone absolutely level. Then there’s also the fact that this is a PAL TV, so it has to either underscale or overscale, because it’s a weird 720×576 resolution, but MegaDrive outputs 448 lines, so there are 64 blacks pixels at the top and 64 pixels at the bottom.I don’t own a MegaDrive, but I do have a Dreamcast with SCART cable.
So let’s try again on the Sega Smashpack Volume 1 for Dreamcast that has Streets of Rage 2.Raw:
Emulator on CRT:
Hardware Dreamcast on CRT:
-
Kilkerran 16
Another bottle that I failed to purchase from Masters of Malt. Found it forgotten on one of the cigar sites, but waited too long, and it disappeared as well. So when another random wine store stocked it, I had to get one. The fact that concierges almost lost the bottle tucking it away only added to the exclusivity.
Colorwise, much darker than Kilkerran 12, as expected. Smoke and sherry on the nose. Tastes like balanced sherry: not too sweet, not too muted. If I had to pick, I’d say “stewed apples”. Aftertaste is slightly oily. It does have a bit of “wood polish”, maybe, but you need to look for it. Overall, I’m quite pleased, although I wouldn’t pay more than 100GBP for it. -
Benromach 15
Got that bottle because a lot of YouTubers were raving about it. And what a disappointment. I guess sometimes you get what you pay for. At 57GBP for a 15 years old, it’s not a bad whisky, but it’s definitely not a fantastic one either. 43% ABV makes it easy to sip, but that’s it. There’s plenty of smoke to my taste, a bit of sweetness, classic Speyside for sure, but I had better mystery bottles.
The only positive is the mouth coating oily aftertaste. But other than that, I frankly must say it’s second worst purchase of this year, after Springbank 5. I planned to get a Cask Strength too, but now, I think I’ll skip it. -
CaDA Master C61505W Viva Hypercar (Ferrari La Ferrari)
4th bag, exactly 5 hours. Funny, that there were two symmetrical parts, I built one in 35 minutes, and I thought I’d build the other one quicker, but ended up spending exactly 35 minutes on the second part too.
In the end had to redo a part, the model could benefit from some text instructions, as you have to align the pieces just right for a cross-piece to go through them.
Also, that part definitely breaks Lego rules. To achieve some of the curves the pieces are put at very strange angles. -
Tacticus
Unlocked Nubari from his release event. Cheap character, 100 shards.
Unlocked Ragnar through Guild War. Once he was very important in Guild Raids for his double melee damage buff.
Unlocked Typhus from a random pull, although I was farming him, so I was missing just some 20 shards. Still, it’s a very good result, as he’s the last Death Guard I was missing, and Death Guard are nasty.
My next goal I’ve set to promote Celestine to Mythic, since I had her close enough, and got her Mythic weapon from Rogue Trader shop. Mythic weapons are interesting, because they alter how character plays. In Celestine case, she’s able to resummon her minions if she lands a kill, or to land an attack if they are alive, which should make them and her so much stickier and nastier. Got lucky with her “10K damage” mythic quest, as I had exactly the Tyranid boss lined up: big enough the damage, but not leveled enough to mitigate with armor.
-
Moby Dick, Herman Mieville
By the 3rd of the book it suddenly changes styles, and each chapter becomes a separate inner monologue of a different crew member: Ahab, Starbuck, Stubb.
At that point I also started to doze off a bit, as 1850 style of the author became very tiring. He has the tendency to pile adjectives, or to ask rethoric questions over and over again:
What kind of oil is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil, nor castor oil, nor bear’s oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil. What then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils? -
IKEA Fjallroding
One reason I’m so interested in those knives is that they use 10Cr15MoVCo steel (10Cr15CoMoV to be more correct). Which is Chinese variant of a Japanese VG-10, which in itself a very good steel.
A 15cm Shun Classic utility knife with VG-10 steel costs aroung 130GBP. A 14cm IKEA Fjallroding utility knife costs 30GBP. -
OutIn Claro and Timemore Black Mirror Mini
Seven years ago, when I was just getting into coffee, there were just a few coffee scale models, and those were expensive. I literally hunted for a Brewista scales all around Amsterdam. Nowadays, they’re half the price, and there are plenty of models to pick from.
Although I replaced my Brewista with Acaia Pearl some 3 years ago, I still use it in my travels. But the plastic started falling apart, so I decided to replace it with something.
My first choice was Timemore Black Mirror Mini, which is confusing, because it’s slightly smaller than Nano. But it didn’t come with a travel case, and my main purpose was to have it for travel.
OutIn Claro looks and performs so much similar to Timemore Mini that I’m pretty sure they have the same components inside. Same accuracy, same response times, even the same size. Only difference is the shape: Claro is rount, Timemore Mini is square, and the fact that Claro comes with a case. -
Moby Dick, Herman Mieville
After my success with Blood Meridian, I decided I’ll give Moby Dick a go, which is cited as an influence.
It is one thing when you are forced to read a book at school, although I never was forced to read this particular book, with a time limit. It’s another when you are an accomplished man, and decide to read it at your own leisure, or to listen to it, in any case.
I was wondering how a book about a whaling expedition would be 24 hours long. An hour in, and Ishmael hasn’t even got to bed. I’m not sure if the book intended to be a puzzle, with all the talk of Lazarus and what not, or if the author just wanted to pad it.
Shortly after captain Ahab is introduced, and it’s 20% of the book, there’s a 30 minute long venture into the classification of whales, which isn’t scientific by any means, as it explains that the sperm whale is the largest of all the whales, and that it’s a fish. -
Pet Sematary (1989)
Despite being not of the highest opinion of the original novel and also pessimistic about the prospect of putting it into film, there are actually positives to the firsts adaptation.
First, they portray the cementary and the deadfall very convincingly. Second, it was hard for me to imagine what kind of a road where heavy trucks pass that would also be easily accessible for kids to run into.
Norma is completely removed. Church now scratches Louis almost immediately, then comically throws a dead rat into his bathtub. Missy, kids nanny, who was mostly a too happy non entity in the book, here is a depressed lonely woman, who hangs herself at Creed’s basement when she discovers she has cancer.
I didn’t expect to see King himself playing the preacher 😅
They combined kite episode and Gage’s death into one. This works much better than in the book.
Also, in the movie Jud doesn’t run away after encountering Timmy, they are the ones to set fire on his house.
I swear, Pascow (I was listening to the book, so I thought it’s Pascal all that time) is the best part of the movie. I think it’s the same dark humour American Horror Story adopted all those years later.
In the end, though, I think Pet Sematary story is unsalvageable. To make the final twist work, Rachel has to die. And in order for her to die, she has to be killed by Gage. But getting killed by a 2 years old is embarrassing. -
Pet Sematary, Stephen King
Completed Pet Sematary.
There is an interesting story about Rachel’s sister, Zelda, slowly dying from an incurable disease, hated by her family. Because that’s the truth.
Then there are musings about wether it’s better to have a dead kid or a retard.
But between those two, there isn’t much.
Being in the literally cycles for the post couple of years made me acutely aware of POV changes. And I’m the last third of the book it switches first to Rachel, then to Jude abruptly. Although Rachel still has Louis tone of voice.
One 80% of the book remaining, and Louis hasn’t even dug his son. The 3rd part starts on 90% of the book.
And the last part makes the least sense. “Timmy” says he has grudge with Jude, but Jude didn’t do anything to him in the 40s, he ran away. Also, neither Timmy nor Gage have any reason to kill either Rachel or Louis. It’s chaos for chaos.
And yeah, for an entity that can plan and influence, maybe making a killing machine out of 2 years old wasn’t the best idea after all. -
Skies of Arcadia
I tried playing it once, and for some reason I remembered it being very difficult, as the first boss wiped me out. Either I didn’t farm at all back then, or I didn’t understand what the healing items and spells are called. Because they are called “sacra”. Of course every game has to invent its own spell nomenclature.
It’s an early fully 3D RPG, which is great, as most PSX era JRPGs were either 2D or using 3D models on pre rendered background. What isn’t great is that Dreamcast has only one analog stick, so you can’t rotate the camera. And since the game uses random encounters, moving around is not always desired.
The setting is why people like this obviously very teen game, which can be summarised by two words: flying pirates.
One of many mechanics the game doesn’t explain is switching the element of the weapon. You can do it at any moment, and there is “red” and “green”, but which colour is effective against which enemy is unclear to me. -
Sony Trinitron
Spent an evening trying to connect CRT to a modern PC, using HDMI to VGA and VGA to SCART. At first, I thought it would be completely impossible. CRT was displaying an image, but it was repeated three times horizontally, and with wrong colors. Colors got fixed by disabling scaling in nVidia settings. Getting a single image of right proportions took a lot of trial and error. But with CRU and a lot of tinkering, I did manage to get it close enough, albeit the image is slightly overscanned, maybe because the TV was calibrated for PS2 before. Still, it’s amazing it works at all. The resolution I ended up with is a weird 576p, but hey, as long as it works.
-
Dreamcast on CRT
Tried a proper SCART cable for Dreamcast, from the same seller I’ve got my Xbox cable. The picture is colored now, which is good. But the TV doesn’t switch to SCART input like it does with Xbox. Not sure if the cable isn’t wired correctly or it’s the Dreamcast.
Played Skies of Arcadia until the Pirate Island, but on the later. I think it’s the fact that both the console and the game are PAL, but the flickering is quite noticeable. Talking about how CRTs are superior to OLEDs 😅
One weird thing is that Street Fighter 3rd Strike was playing sound, but no picture. Went through multiple PAL and NTSC versions, until I found only the GDI version works for some reason.
Not that I plan to play Street Fighter 3 on Dreamcast, as I don’t have a fighting stick for it, and I really don’t like the gamepad. It’s just Street Fighter 3 is like Diablo 3 to me. I know exactly how it looks and plays, so I install it on every console I own. -
Tacticus
Unlocked couple more characters. Most of the shards came still from Anniversary Event.
Unlocked Patermine, last shards were from Guild War. That’s the most expensive Genestealer, and the last I needed.
Unlocked Kharn, another powerful Legendary. Last shards from Guild War. One of the most damaging characters in the game. Also, he’s a berserker, so if there’s no enemy character nearby, he will attack and most likely kill one of yours.
Cyrus, again most shards from anniversary, because I had to spend them on someone, and the last few from a random code gift, out of all things. Not useful.
Aunshi. Once he was mandatory, as the ability to use Active skill twice is very powerful. Now I think the meta has moved on, but hey, still not bad.
-
Alien Breed 3D
I’ve heard about Alien Breed games, which were topdown shooters. But I didn’t know they had a FPS spinoff, and at first I thought it was just some demo or prototype. I wish it was, because it does look like a joke.
It’s a Doom clone, which means they have sector elevations, like stairs. It also stole Doom door sounds and shotgun sounds, although shotgun is animated like a pump action, despite being double barrelled. And they stole button bitmaps too. And of course you need to collect colored keys to open doors.
The real problem, though, is that half of the screen is taken by UI, and the game window is so tiny and pixelated it’s almost impossible to understand what’s going on.
Then there’s the level design. I replayed Doom and Doom 2 not long ago, and mostly, they are fine. Never did they make me press four buttons in a row in the same room to proceed.
(more…) -
Xbox 360
It’s quite amazing that a year later, with BadUpdate 1.3 and BadAvatar it’s possible to boot directly into Aurora. Unmodded Xbox 360 is as good as a modded one now. And the best thing, I don’t need an USB drive to stick out of my console anymore.