Ordinary Decent Gamer

January 1, 2015

Raspberry Pi is Alive, and the Dawn of the New Year

The title says it all. The Raspberry Pi-based weather station is reporting live to Weather Underground, allowing access to the weather conditions in Magheralin from anywhere in the world! Trying to get the Pi to do what I wanted was tricky, but the solution was a different program. I changed from pywws to WeeWX which…

December 31, 2014

2014 in review…ish

As always I’m including the automated annual report for the blog. The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. I shall have to put together a proper annual review when I get time. Here’s an excerpt: A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,800 times…

December 30, 2014

There’s Snow Place like the Mournes, with a Slice of Pi

The days immediately following Christmas are almost always a blur, after the excitement and preparation for Christmas day. First up was my birthday on boxing day, a day which is traditionally spent entertaining friends and family with little room left for an actual birthday celebration. I enjoy spending time with different people, but it would…

December 25, 2014

Christmas Time!

A multi-part post! I started writing this morning but was quickly swept up in the Christmas preparations until dinner was served just after 2 pm. After some intense eating and present opening, we are currently relaxing and watching Monty Python Almost Live. The fire is roaring and we are all in a food-induced comatose, so…

December 25, 2014

Merry (almost) Christmas!

The big day is almost upon us and I am starting to get excited. Today featured an intense burst of cooking, including cranberry and apple sauces, honey mustard ham, and the charlotte royale! And continuing on from last year’s tradition, I am brining the turkey overnight to add flavour and moisture to the bird. Any…

December 24, 2014

On the Eve of Christmas Eve…sort of

It has been Christmas business as usual at my house, and my time has been consumed by shopping, visiting friends and relatives, cleaning, baking, and entertaining. The big downside of doing lots is that there is almost no time for writing, even though there is plenty to write about. We have had three sets of…

December 15, 2014

Hemingwrite and the Humble Mega Drive

The Hemingwrite is here! (almost) Damn! There are so many things that I want but could never justify, and one of those things is the Hemingwrite I mentioned about in an earlier blog post. It’s a high-tech typewriter, combining a mechanical keyboard with an e-ink screen and not much else. As far as distraction-free writing…

December 6, 2014

The Market Adventure!

Where is the time going?! I haven’t managed to get writing in a while, so here come the excuses… Business Stuff I have been ramping things up with Newforge Rings in the run up to Christmas, including my first market appearance at the Black Box on November 30th. Selling things online is one thing, and…

November 24, 2014

Writing and Super Meat Boy

Writing never used to be something I found difficult. When I first started this blog I was posting every day during Gamescom 2011. Following that I still posted every other day for a good while. Recently I’ve been finding it difficult to set aside the time to just sit down and write, and always seem…

November 11, 2014

Illness does not become me…

I hate being sick. I try to be as productive as I can in everyday life, and I particularly loathe losing an entire free day. On the eve of Halloween, through the fault of Gucci Chip on the Lisburn road or some other nefarious mechanism, I ended up with food poisoning/gastroenteritis, and I was out…