Felt the itch to write a blog post so…. here’s a blog post!

I’m not sure where I’ve said what these days, but we’re getting ready to move from Raleigh, NC, to the suburbs of Wilmington, NC. So after years and years of talking about moving North to get to cooler weather…we’re moving south about 2 hours. So it’ll be even hotter! BUT, we’ll also be about 30 minutes from the beaches and even closer to Wilmington and its boardwalks and fun-seeming things to do. We’ve lived in Raleigh for 13 years, on the outskirts, and have gone into downtown Raleigh about 3 times. It just holds no appeal for me. But Wilmington is a bit tourist-y, and there are rivers and bays and oceans to explore if I don’t mind driving for 20-230 minutes. So I’m hoping I’ll become a bit more active. Since our doggo Lola passed I barely move and it is starting to have a real impact on my health and energy. I watched both my grandmother and mother lose their mobility by doing exactly what I’m doing (ie sitting indoors all day every day) and I don’t want to follow in their footsteps (none of the men in my family lived long enough for this to be an issue).

Anyway, we’re excited, both for the new locale and for going from a 2 bedroom to a 3 bedroom townhouse. This means 1 bedroom to use as a bedroom, then we each get an office/cave. I’ll finally have my own space again!! Right now we share an office and Ms Crafty McCrafterson has it PACKED with crafting tools and supplies to the point it’s hard for me to even get to my PC. But now I’ll have a nice gaming space with star-babe posters on the wall and open space for doing some VR and stuff. Woot!

But the actual process of moving is daunting for us, as we’re old and un-fit and every time we do something we have to take a day to recover from the exertion. I suppose we’ll get in shape during the process (our lease doesn’t start until just before Thanksgiving so we have over a month to prepare). We’ll hire some young strong folks to move the big stuff but hope to move a lot of the boxes and things ourselves, but we’ll see how that works out and if the economics make sense.

But yeah, big exciting changes coming up!

Gaming Updates!

Meanwhile, maybe partly due to having all these moving-related issues in my brain, I’ve been gaming quite a bit once again. Two games in particular have grabbed me.

The first is Little Rocket Lab which I tried on a whim, not expecting to really play it (it was on Game Pass and I needed to play a Game Pass game for MS Rewards Points and this was a small download). I LOVE it. It is basically Stardew Valley only instead of farming you’re manufacturing stuff. Initially you’re banging rocks with a hammer but you very quickly move on to automated drills, conveyor belts, machines that assemble things, machines that move items, and so on. I’m still early days so I don’t know how complex it gets. It’s a game that doesn’t appear to have any time pressure. You get quests and stuff but (so far at least) no deadline for getting them done. Like Stardew Valley it runs on a ‘day’ system where you eventually collapse if you don’t get to bed in time, but there’s no stamina meter or anything like that.

Resources do run out and I wonder if that will be a kind of gating mechanism eventually, but there seem to be ample outcroppings of iron, copper, rock and coal available, which is all I’m working with so far. And we just repaired a port and are importing container ships full of old computers and stuff. We’re going to be recycling the circuit boards from these if I ever figure out how to use a crane to unload the boat. But I wonder if we’ll get other materials from recycling, too.

Anyway I’m finding it a delight. It’s on Game Pass but also on Steam; there’s a demo on Steam and right now it’s on sale for $15. If you like Stardew Valley and are interested in, or curious about, automation games, I think this might be a must-play. Extra bonus points for me: it’s a “Play Anywhere” title on Game Pass so I can play at the PC or from the couch on the Xbox, and work on the same save.

The other game I’m really sucked into is Wuthering Waves. I finally got some characters to level 90, and I’ve been playing through the main story quests in an attempt to catch up. Those quests are long though, and feel like they’re best consumed in a single sitting. This has kept me up much too late for more than one night! And I’m still quite a few updates behind even though I’ve clocked 150 hours or so, I would guess.

I also completed the Pioneer Podcast (their version of a Battle Pass) last time around and I’ve got a good start to doing so again. It’s week one and I’m already to level 20 (of 70) so I feel good there. I start each night working on Daily and Weekly Pioneer Podcast tasks, which includes burning through the day’s stamina (Waveplates, I think Stamina is called) and I use the goodies I get from doing that for improving character and slowly building up some new characters I have in the works, after some lucky pulls.

My current team is Havoc Rover, Carlotta, and Baizhu (spelling?). I’m working on Shorekeeper to replace Baizhu on healing/support duties. I’ve gotten pretty good with Rover in terms of dodging, blocking and using her abilities, to the point where if I’m really in the grove I can beat an early-game boss without ever switching to a different character. I button-spam with Carlotta and every time I fight with her I think “After this I have to go through her tutorial to learn how to play her” then promptly forget to do that. She’s uses a gun and jumps around like Yoda so I’ve been doing OK button-mashing with her. But I should really learn to play her better.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on around here in the middle of October. Exciting changes afoot, exciting games being place.

[Note on the images used in this post:  Images are screenshots from Little Rocket Lab or Wuthering Waves. The image at the top of the post was modified via AI to remove UI components from the shot, which is why it has a Gemini watermark in the bottom corner.]