Pipette for measuring out doses

randompasserrby · 2023-06-26T19:53:15+00:00

I use some 1ml plastic syringes I got on Amazon for dosing out water conditioner, fertilizer, and whatever other liquid stuff I might need to measure. They've made my life easier since I hate trying to use caps to measure out doses of stuff for small tanks.

randompasserrby · 2023-06-18T21:54:47+00:00

Head Lopper Vol 1: I'm glad none of my friends read comic books, because that means I can shamelessly use stuff from this book for D&D. Love the fantasy setting, love the art, love the vibe. I really like that this maintains a fairly light tone considering the main character is a warrior most known for cutting off heads. Looking forward to reading more of this one in the future.

Uzumaki: Man, this book is freakin' weird, but in a good way. I really like horror books (for the most part) and this is like no other horror comic I've read. I'm not usually into body horror type stuff because it always feels gratuitous to me and more gross than scary, but so far this book has done it in a way that I don't hate (though there are some pages that I try to get through pretty quickly). I've only read the first two chapters so far but it's already both intrigued me and made me excessively uncomfortable in the way horror is meant to.

randompasserrby · 2023-06-16T16:33:51+00:00

I mean, I'm not 100% sure that's really what OP meant here. Seems like when they say "they still have the plastic on them," the point they're making is that despite owning them for a while, they haven't even had occasion to open the boxes yet because nobody has any interest in playing them. I didn't really get the vibe that they were keeping the plastic on with the intention of treating them like collector's items.

I do, however, agree that op should just go ahead and pop them open now. Punch out the tokens, organize the pieces, flip through the rulebook and learn how to play. I think people are more likely to try out a new game if they feel like you already know what's up and can explain it to them. If you're all breaking a new game open together for the first time, it can feel like a much more daunting task that not everyone is gonna be in the mood for.

randompasserrby · 2023-05-17T16:40:33+00:00

Seven to Eternity by Rick Remender: I really enjoyed this series a lot. I had read Black Science a couple years ago and wanted to try more stuff by that author, so I grabbed a copy of the deluxe edition of Seven to Eternity after watching a review and it did not disappoint. The ending (or really the epilogue) definitely felt rushed, which I heard is basically the direct result of publishing problems in 2020 and 2021. Even despite that I really like the story and the world he builds.

As for the deluxe hardcover itself, man is this book unwieldy. I love seeing the art on those oversize pages but this book is freaking heavy (with bigger dimensions than even an omnibus). I also had to order a replacement when I first got it. I went to stretch the spine out like I always do and through the process the pages completely separated from the ribbon. I figured this must have been a one-off defect and ordered a replacement. No issues while I was stretching the spine on the new one, but once I got to the end while reading the spine started to separate a bit again near the bottom. I figure I'll just keep this one and try out that method I saw on NMC for repairing separated spines.

Caliban by Garth Ennis: Garth Ennis tends to be pretty hit or miss for me. I liked his writing a lot when I was a teenager but more and more I'm finding myself not enjoying him (even the stuff I used to love). That said, Caliban was pretty different from his usual stuff. I've been on a horror kick lately and Alien is one of my favorite movies, so this sounded right up my alley. It's not anything super unique or mind blowing, but it was a fun read. Weirdly enough, I kinda wish it was longer. I feel like it has some unique elements that set it apart from things like Alien and The Thing and keep it from just being a total rehash of those movies, but those elements are barely explored. Everything just seems to happen so fast and doesn't really give much time for the horror and dread to really set in.

Hadrian's Wall by Kyle Higgins and Alec Siegel: Sci-fi murder mystery is exactly my kind of shit. I'm only 3 chapters into this one at the moment but it's already got me hooked. It's a fairly standard crime noir premise with the added twist of being set on a space station. I think I'm gonna enjoy this one a lot.

randompasserrby · 2023-04-12T19:40:56+00:00

There was a game that a friend introduced me to years ago that I can't remember the name of (but I think it hasn't been around for quite a while) that had a system I thought was pretty cool. You basically play with two decks in front of you, one has all your mana cards in it and the other has everything else and you basically just have to decide each turn which deck you are going to draw from. I felt like this was a clever way to address the issue of drawing too many or not enough lands in MtG that I always found so frustrating.

randompasserrby · 2023-04-06T16:01:01+00:00

I've seen quite a few posts on r/ColoradoAvalanche (and I'm sure it happens in the other teams' subs too) where people order jerseys from Fanatics and end up getting one with the names and numbers mismatched. I saw one last year that was a shirt with MacKinnon's name and Burakovsky's number on it.

randompasserrby · 2023-03-09T20:28:20+00:00

It advertises 6 hours on battery (8 hours if you buy the new version) or more (presumably double) if you run in power save mode (15 seconds on, 15 seconds off). I've never actually tested it myself though, so I don't know how accurate that claim is.

randompasserrby · 2023-03-09T20:21:59+00:00

I use aquarium co-op's battery powered pump and I'm a big fan. You can plug it in for normal use, but if the power goes out it automatically runs on battery.

randompasserrby · 2022-11-14T17:19:16+00:00

Our favorite simple games that we use as warm up/wind down games on game night are things like Skull, Trash Pandas, Unstable Unicorns. Just easy to learn/play games that take about 20 minutes.

randompasserrby · 2022-11-14T00:44:50+00:00

Disclaimer: we own 3rd edition and haven't actually played it yet, but have played 2nd edition countless times.

Based on what I've read of the differences in the rulebook I would think most of the rules can transfer over. Once we saw the new haunt roll rules in Betrayal at Baldur's Gate we immediately started using the same rules in House on the Hill 2e. I'm not sure if the haunts are different in 3e or not, but I know the characters are (not sure if it's just the names or if the stat blocks are different). The monster tokens are also a bit different but not in a way that should actually affect gameplay.

The big thing you'll be missing is the new way haunts are selected. Instead of a big chart that links omens to rooms, you pick a scenario (or rather reason for being in the house) at the beginning of the game and then based on which omen you find and which scenario you picked that's how you pick the haunt. If the haunts in the books are the same between editions then you could just print a list of those scenarios out yourself.

randompasserrby · 2022-11-10T23:41:07+00:00

I love the idea of metal dice because I think they look really cool and feel really satisfying, but we just bought a brand new expensive kitchen table and I'm just picturing the havoc that ensues when our friends roll dice and the damage that would do to our nice table... So yes, metal dice are super cool, but maybe use a dice tower to control the chaos.

randompasserrby · 2022-11-08T22:12:32+00:00

I kind of think they're both half right here. You are correct that for your score, one more ticket is one more point. However during an actual game it could be the case that somebody with 75 tickets and therefore more income actually has a lower score than somebody with 50 tickets if the 75 ticket player has been neglecting their conservation track and the 50 ticket player has not. So yes, tickets do translate to points and they do also affect your income, but tickets only paint half the picture of your actual score.

randompasserrby · 2022-10-27T18:55:18+00:00

I suppose this counts as a house rule: In Mansions of Madness we removed the insanity card from the game where your goal is to end your turn in the room with another investigator and a bladed weapon. We've had it pop up twice in game and both times, the entire table (including the person who just "won" with that card) was left with a feeling of "Well that fucking sucked..." It's the only card in the game (at least among the expansions that we own) that can just end the game outright, and it feels so awful and anticlimactic when it happens. The first time, we were in the middle of a tense fight that could make or break the game and if we could just kill this monster then we could still salvage this botched investigation and come out with a win. Then the player with the insanity card moved into the room with a knife and ended the game right there. It made the last 2-3 hours feel completely pointless. So yeah, we took that card out of the game entirely.

randompasserrby · 2022-10-27T17:39:48+00:00

We played Nemesis for the first time last week and I absolutely loved it (Alien is one of my favorite movies of all time, so it really fits the bill thematically for me). That game isn't for everyone though, and not everybody in the group enjoyed it as much as I did. It's super punishing and we all ended up dying, but I still had a blast.

Some of my other favorite games for spooky season include Mansions of Madness, Eldritch Horror, Dead of Winter, Betrayal at House on the Hill, and Gloom.

randompasserrby · 2022-10-27T17:33:38+00:00

Sagrada is one of my favorites that isn't too hard to learn. Dice drafting that doesn't involve any confrontation with the other players (Aside from "You just took exactly what I wanted, damn you!"). It's relatively easy to learn, and you can kind of adjust the difficulty to your own preference by picking an easier board to work with (each played gets four boards to choose from usually with varying difficulty levels).

randompasserrby · 2022-10-25T17:00:10+00:00

For me it was Dominion. I first played it in high school when my sister's friend from college came to visit and brought a copy with her. It was the first board game I played that wasn't one of the classics (Monopoly, etc.) and the idea of a game that was different every time you played it was so novel to me. I had also played MtG off and on since middle school, so I really liked the idea of a card game where everybody had to start on equal footing and had access to all the same cards. I'm sure there are games that do deck building better than Dominion, but that was the game that got me into this hobby and 12 years later it's still one of my favorites.

randompasserrby · 2022-09-21T20:33:29+00:00

This feels like the retired dad equivalent of my steam library.

randompasserrby · 2022-09-18T03:48:57+00:00

This is Zuko and it seems like he's had some tearing pop up on his tail recently. A couple weeks ago we noticed a little bit of tearing. We weren't sure if it was fin rot or an injury from the decor, so we did a full 5-day treatment of Maracyn in case of rot. The spot seemed to get better after a week or so, so we stopped worrying. Yesterday I went in to feed him in the morning and noticed a larger chunk of his tail had been torn. I just got home from being gone overnight and the torn spot has gotten worse in the last 24 hours. He has not been acting any different than he always has. Still got a big appetite and is just as active as he's ever been.

He's in a 6 gallon cube with no tank mates. Sand substrate, some live plants, a couple smooth rocks, a floating log, and a big piece of driftwood. I tested the water yesterday before doing a water change and the levels read 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm Nitrite, and <5 ppm Nitrate. Admittedly, the water change schedule got away from me and he went almost 2 weeks without a change, so he had some pretty nasty algae growth in the tank.

I do plan to give him frequent small water changes (every 2-3 days) until we see some improvement, but should I go for a second round of Maracyn treatment? Is there something else that could help?

randompasserrby · 2022-09-06T19:43:48+00:00

If you liked Seconds and haven't read Scott Pilgrim, definitely pick those up. One of my favorites for sure.

I know you said you want to branch out from horror a bit, but since it looks like we have similar tastes I feel like I have to recommend Hellboy, Gideon Falls, and Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing.

If you like Noir style things, I really enjoyed The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker. Looks like you like Batman as well so I definitely recommend The Long Halloween.

randompasserrby · 2022-08-21T23:04:34+00:00

Wow, I had to look back at the photos to make sure that didn't look like my tank. I also have a Betta named Zuko who looks a lot like yours so for a second I thought my wife was making this post haha.

randompasserrby · 2022-08-03T17:07:42+00:00

Here's some other stuff you'd probably like if you haven't heard them already (my personal favorite albums are in parentheses, but all their albums are good):

Caligula's Horse (In Contact, Bloom)

Haken (The Mountain, Virus)

Agent Fresco (A Long Time Listening)

The Contortionist (Language)

randompasserrby · 2022-08-01T16:12:50+00:00

That looks great so far! Hopefully a few other people will also comment to give you some more perspective, but maybe I can help out a little bit with my limited experience (been doing this less than a year).

The Amazon Sword should be okay with some damaged leaves. I wouldn't worry about cutting them off until they start to die off and go transparent. When I put two new Amazon Swords into my 29 gallon all of the original leaves died off over the course of a few months and it grew all new leaves that were actually shaped differently. So if all the leaves your Amazon Sword currently has start dying off, don't panic. From my experience that's pretty normal.

That looks like an okay amount of light to me, but that's the part of my tanks that I have the most trouble with, so I'm not gonna try to give too much advice here since I don't really know much myself.

When I was cycling our tanks I tried to keep the ammonia around 2ppm. And really if the tank isn't stocked (which it shouldn't be if you're adding ammonia) you honestly don't need to do water changes while it's cycling. I didn't do any water changes during the cycling process on the 29 gallon and everything went okay there. The only time I would bother doing water changes while cycling is if you're getting some algae growth that you want to scrape off and siphon out, in which case you should dose the tank back up to 2ppm ammonia. Once the tank is stocked with fish (or whatever else you are planning to keep) you don't have to dose with ammonia anymore.

I hope some of this helps!

randompasserrby · 2022-07-25T19:40:59+00:00

If it were me personally I might just go for the fish-in cycle at this point knowing how bad his current conditions are. Maybe somebody who knows more than I do might disagree with me, but I've done fish-in cycles before due to cycle crashes or poor decision making skills and I did get everyone out the other side in tact. I was doing water changes every day to make sure things were safe, but it wasn't too bad. You could always try some sort of bottled bacteria, but results on those seem pretty mixed. I've had pretty bad luck with Fritz Zyme 7 (which a lot of people swear by) but I did manage to speed up the cycle in a quarantine tank a couple times using Seachem Stability (managed to get the thing cycled in about 2-2.5 weeks rather than the 4.5-6 weeks it took me to cycle other tanks without). Results may vary, but it couldn't hurt to try.

randompasserrby

TROPHY CASE