General Blog

Elder Scroll Digital TCG

I’ve finally started playing the free-to-play game “The Elder Scrolls: Legends”, a digital trading card game. It has the concept of lanes for cards, which can only interact in their own lanes, a player life total, being able to attack a specific target without the defender choosing how to block etc, and an increasing amount of magic to cast cards each turn (as opposed to “lands” in a game like MTG).

As you might imagine, it features the fascinating lore and concepts from The Elder Scrolls series.

From what I’ve played, it seems like a great game.

News

Eclipse Should be Number 1

I recently ran across an online ranking of IDEs, and Eclipse is apparently just barely below Visual Studio – you can see the full rankings here:

http://pypl.github.io/IDE.html

As much as I love Visual Studio, especially now that it’s free for individuals in its full form, I just appreciate the look, feel, and layout/interface of Eclipse much more. There is some relief in seeing that number 3, Android Studio, has less than half the share of either Visual Studio or Eclipse.

General Blog

Tortex Picks and Metronomes… Playing Faster!

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately working on clean, fast alternate picking on electric guitar. I’ve noticed I like a slightly thicker pick for this than general playing – so I’m back to using green Tortex picks, which are .88 size; I might try an even thicker pick at some point.

I also bought a mechanical metronome, which I thought was just cooler than a digital one or a phone app. It’s a cheap Chinese model but it works fine. It’s amazing how much more productive practice is with a strict time, like a drummer or metronome provides.

The work seems to be paying off as I’m playing fast lines much cleaner already.

General Blog

Revisiting an Old Game

I recently got back into playing “Total Annihilation: Kingdoms”, one of my absolute favorite games of all time. I particularly like the sides “Veruna” (a force with excellent navy presence) and “Taros” (the “dark side”). Aramon is okay and Zhon and Creon, not so much…

The game has an excellent campaign with a great story, and came with a 40pg booklet full of lore and info (which, sadly, I discarded a few years ago). Ultimately, I spend most of my time playing the machine in free battles.

I also have the expansion pack, which comes with dozens of extra maps and a second campaign (and the side of “Creon”, a sort of steampunk force).

News

Schecter Guitars Introduces an Intriguing New 7-String Guitar

I don’t personally own any 7-string guitars, but Schecter recently introduced a 7-string electric guitar with fanned frets – what they call multiscale – where the lower strings (low B, low E, etc) are longer than the high strings. This makes all of the frets look crooked or “fanned”.

Very cool – though I would never want a guitar with fanned frets… I can’t imagine it does wonders for muscle memory and navigating a fretboard quickly.

http://www.schecterguitars.com/guitars/2018/c-7-multiscale-sls-elite-detail

General Blog

Meditation Stool

Having meditated for over 15 years, I finally purchased a proper meditating stool… and it really is amazing how much easier it is to sit for an extended period as opposed to choosing a particular yoga pose to stay in. I got it for under $40, made of acacia wood and quality fabric online. There’s definitely less stress on my leg joints as well.