PRGE 2018...

It took me about a week to recover from it...just barely recover.

Mainly pluses here from the event:

It didn't take long for us to get Xboxes ready for the battle arena this time around. They pretty much were working well from the time we put them away last year.

So many sales were done on day one, even with us being a little late for setup.

I got to finish up my collections (Black Label NES and Super Famicom Street Fighter games).

Added a PC Engine Duo-R to my collection, along with an AV Famicom and a Playstation Vita. The PCE is kinda janky in RGB, but I'm gonna work on it when I have time in the future, since it's been modded by a kinda questionable modder on eBay.

All in all, it was fun. But now, to try to recover from it... It's just so exhausting doing that 3 day event.

I've already "hacked" the PS Vita, but only have gone as far as that. I have to figure out how to transfer games to it, among other things.

Got too excited and forgot to report back...

One thing I didn't think about when I bid on the RAM was if it was AMD only RAM.

Thankfully, it wasn't.

...this rig is flying pretty decently!

I've been playing some games that I normally wouldn't be able to play on it...and I'm loving it! The fact that Street Fighter V and Dragon Ball FighterZ works at max settings is just awesome!

...gonna go back to playing! Maybe I'll be back if I have time to do mods.

Slowly getting a *decent* gaming rig...

Well, I upgraded the video card with a nVidia GTX 1050 Ti.

...WAY BETTER PERFORMANCE!

I'm actually surprised that I could find a high(er) end video card that would fit in this old work computer.

I just won some RAM to upgrade to 8GB. I didn't take into account that this computer might not be able to use the RAM I got, but only one way to find out.

So far, games that used to stutter when I played with the GT 710 now doesn't. All the higher quality videos on YouTube play a lot better.

Tired. I'll report back after I get the RAM installed and hopefully working.

Ok, so I'm just lazy...

Since the move, I've been really exhausted. Long drive to and from work, sometimes deplorable people that I have to help...it's exhausting.

...and we're still not moved in...technically, we are moved in the house, but as having a comfortable work room and play room, it's s-l-o-w-l-y coming along.

That thing at the beginning of the year with my computer...I revisited the other day. Since it's been a while trying to figure out what was wrong with it, I had to play around with it. It kept giving me a thermal event warning for the shutdown, so I did the obvious and reapplied thermal grease to the CPU.

...still giving me the error.

I thought it could've been the power supply, so I bought a new one and installed that. Still getting a thermal event shutdown.

More Googling lead me to check if there were leaking capacitors...low and behold, there were some burst ones.

The computer that I merged all the old stuff in was still working great, so I was gonna swap the quad core in the now dead computer into the new one, but a friend of mine gave me a CPU that *kinda* one-ups the quad core.

It was a 3.0 GHz Core2 Extreme...seems to work perfect for what this old Dell. I'm already seeing much speed improvement from the original Dual Core that was in it. Just gotta get some RAM and a new video card to get at least a semi-decent game rig going.

That Duo-R that I've been reluctant to work on? I outsourced the repair job and got it fixed...finally. I haven't tested it just yet, but I'm confident that it works...otherwise, I should have a warranty on it.

Vacation took us to Disney World. We all had fun. The best was that I finally got to see Epcot up close! I've only seen Spaceship Earth  in books and magazines. I was enamored by the architecture, so imagine my excitement to see it up close!

I did get around to finding some slim PS3's. Got a couple of them cleaned up. One I sold to a friend, one I kept and hacked. I'm also finding a bunch of Dual Shock 3's while out hunting. There were a few Dual Shock 4's that I found, that I got cleaned and repaired.

I had that 3D printer built up and made some stuff. It's a headache, but still fun.

...lazy to post pictures...I keep saying that I'm gonna post pics and keep blogging, but...well, check what I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. 

It's always around January...

That my desktop decides to die. It's an ongoing thing with technology and me, and it's getting kinda old.

Luckily my older brother had an old notebook computer that he wasn't using anymore. After he backed up his stuff, it was in my hands.

I just finished killing the hard drive and reinstalled Win10 on it. Even with it being a dual core processor, this thing is running pretty decently. It'll probably start slowing down significantly in a few months or so, like all computers do anyway.

In video game news, I got a Nintendo Switch for Christmas. I've been playing a lot of Super Mario Odyssey...already finished it, but going back in and looking for more moons. I've also got Splatoon 2 that I can play, as well as Snipper Clips. I do have Breath of the Wild for it as well, but since I finished it on the Wii U already, I'm letting my wife play it on the Switch.

I also found a pretty cheap Xbox 360 S. The console and the PSU was really filthy, so after a YouTube vid, I opened both of them up and did my usual deep clean on them. Looks way better now.

I'm supposed to be helping a friend out for the tournaments of sorts that he's gonna be doing at the PRGE swap meet next week, but work has been kicking my butt every day. Not to mention the long drive that I have to do every single day. I feel so bad not helping him, but it's just so hard to find the energy to do it...I feel back since he gave me an Atari Jaguar for helping him at PRGE.

That's it for now, I guess. I'l have to blog more this year...I know I say that a lot, but let's hope that I come through this year.

PRGE Aftermath...

Severe exhaustion. That pretty much sums it up.

I really would like to add more to this post, but I'm still trying to recover from it...albeit it's been about 4 days since the event.

Quick summary:

Broke a AV Fami and a PVM, both by accident.
Met up with friends, but didn't have time to hang out with them because of setup
Didn't get much in terms of purchases, but I did manage to sell off some stuff that I've had hanging around.
My PS2 is dead.
I bought a 3d printer that I have yet to build, let alone use.

...that's pretty much it for now. I'll go in depth hopefully tomorrow...or at least within a week.

I didn't realize...

The time in between my last post and now. Wow...

Anyway, finished moving in a sense that 90% or so of our thing are in the new house. I got my media room kinda set up. I just got a folding table to use as a makeshift desk so I have a stable table to type and mouse on...it's working OK so far.

Stood in line for a midnight release of the SNES classic...something I thought I'd never do. But there wasn't that much of a long line...perks of living in a small(ish) town.

PRGE is just around the corner, and I've volunteered myself to help out a friend here with his booth and LAN area. There's much to do before it starts, so I'll need to jump in when I can, and soon.

Currently using my old 37" LCD as my monitor...dunno how I like it...I might use it as second screen after I get my setup all taken care of in the media room, but that's gonna be some time later.

More later. Now that I have my real keyboard out, it'll be easier to blog...as long as I don't get lazy again.