A blog about things that are interesting
I am a somewhat avid gardener, I only garden on my balcony though and have had some success growing things like Butternut pumpkin, Sage, Broad beans and Mexican hot chillies.
One thing that surprised me is that the chilie plants lasted a good 2-3 years before they became to old to produce chilies and the frost here finally claimed them.
Took this photo as we were heading back from a BBQ at nara peace park near civic in canberra probably the most colorful sunset I have seen. many thanks to Thien as without his help this photo would not have been possible.
So I recently tried to recreate a flavor of a particularly well liked burger from a particular burger store.
it was according to the internet a simple recipe:
beef with garlic flakes and white pepper
sliced and browned sesame seed bun
Pickles tomato sauce and american mustard raw white onions sliced and american cheese.
Tasted really good, but not as similar to the real thing as I would have liked. and after all the ingredients were calc’d in it was as expensive if not more expensive than just buying it from the store which surprised me.
So the deed is still going strong. I am slowly pulling in the much needed silver using the beverages skill to make coffee and the like for other wurmians.
So the website that I use to create food in Wurm has been down a while and I have not found a good replacement so I made a substitute:
It can be found Here.
Art and myself have had a long distant history, I have always admired and liked the art done by others but rarely do I feel inspired to do my own art rather relying on other methods to placate the creative urges.
Sometimes though I have a little twinge that says do art.
So I have been having a blast playing Wurm online, it pairs really well with eve online and Runescape. Basically setup Eve online on one screen and Wurm online on the other and switch between them depending on which one has the more interesting content at the time. Runescape as a third game to play when I am worn out from playing the other two.
I play on the North Freedom Isles cluster on one of the PvE isles. The deed I am on is shared between 3 or 4 people and we all do tasks together such as road building, Guard tower raising and other things such as digging and surface mining.
I also pick grapes and harvest maple sap and turn the both into wonderful wine to drink and give those long timer affinity’s that make learning skills easier.
Wurm online recently was released on steam and even though I had previously played the game I had not gotten into it, this time I certainly have and have been having a great time.
The North freedom isles server cluster is a fresh cluster that was released around the time of the steam launch so if you are thinking of trying the game out now is a great time to do so.
Smokeycastle celebrates Christmas
Just a quick post to wish everyone Happy Holidays this Holiday season! May you spend the time happily with Family and Friends, get lots of tasty food to eat and many presents and happy memories!
Smokeycastle grows some Vegetables
Gardening is a pastime that I have always enjoyed. I live in a unit so I do not have much space to garden but my balcony gets a lot of sun and is great for growing plants in pots.
As you can see I have a number of plants growing from pots here and am decently happy with the outcome of my spring planting. From left to right I have a 1 million scoville chili, A tomato plant, A honeydew melon vine (that also has baby chili plants in it, A pumpkin plant that also has two chili plants growing in it. The last pot has a succulent that grows year round that I have had for a couple of years now that even survived a house move too!
I have been growing plants on balcony’s for the last 6 years and have had decent success with the best harvest being chili plants. I have grown brassicas, herbs and broad beans to varying success previously.
I am thinking that I will during summer maybe invest in buying a solar powered water pump and build my own hydroponic vertical column. It remains to be seen if the plants in that will survive being that they will only get water during the brighter days. I have never done hydroponic setup and am looking forward to the challenge. With vertical hydroponic setups you can get a surprising amount of plants growing in a small amount of space, and being in Australia getting enough sun is not an issue. hopefully even though Canberra winters are cold I should still be able to grow year round with that setup. Currently I use the winter months to recondition the soil in the pots and to make a compost from the household scraps.
Smokeycastle plays No Man’s Sky
No mans sky has been a real treat to play. Even before it got patched I really enjoyed the solitude and game play that no mans sky had to offer.
When no mans sky launched I enjoyed playing through the story line and exploring and naming things. I never made it to the center of the galaxy but was fully content with the content that was available.
With the introduction of the NMS NEXT patch I reloaded no mans sky and got to enjoy the fun that was base building, farming and collection of resources from nature. Additionally the introduction of multiplayer elements was a real treat and allowed myself and friends to play the game together. I had a real blast making bases and helping friends build bases or teaming up for some conquest and exploration of worlds.
I really enjoyed the expansive story line found in the atlas rises update and I was finally able to ‘complete’ the story, I chose to remain in the Euclid galaxy for now since that was where my friends were currently and I hope that in the future that choice does not turn out to be a bad one.
I am really looking forward to some possible new updates such as the No Man’s Sky: BEYOND update which is said to increase the multiplayer portion of the game and also to increase the story elements of it too!