I bought a flat with a friend of mine, and other than the three months of actually arranging the purchase, we’ve had a month of hell moving from a rented 2.5 bed house (with attic space) to a 2 bed apartment. Downsizing FTW!- we hired the largest skip we could get as a residential customer (16 yards; that’s big) and filled it in a couple of days, plus four trips to a local charity shop (Croydon Animal Samaritans – love ‘em to bits) with so much stuff it’s not funny, then finally had a couple of trips to our local recycling centre with the remaining bits and bobs.

Only problem we have now is that it took us two weeks (and then an hour on the phone) to get BT to acknowledge our flat exists (when flats on the second floor and above of our phase of the development have existed since before we moved in… nice joined up thinking there BT! Ya didn’t think people would want to live below the second floor???). We’re scheduled for a telephone line install on the 15th May (AM, we’ll see…) and then, and only then, can we talk to them about broadband! I’m desperately hoping that the “you can have BT Infinity!” email I received a couple of days ago is correct and we can get BT’s fast fibre offering; their website also says we can, but it also says because I’ve got an outstanding order I can’t make changes… Again with the joined up thinking BT!

Still, we’re just about sorted as far as “communal space” in the apartment goes, which is nice. And in a perfect example of the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, the battery on my UPS decided it would die last night (only the second time I’ve turned my rig on since moving mid-April); mere days after we don’t have a hire vehicle so I can get it to the local recycling centre easily… Oy!

What does this mean for my gaming life? Well, not a whole heap of a lot right now. There’s still no FTB Mod Pack, so still no change on my server. However, it does mean we’re that little bit closer to those two. More news as and when I get it.

Right now, I’m getting set up for streaming (http://twitch.tv/pantsmanuk), but until my lovely ISP doubles my bandwidth it’s an exercise in futility; too many dropped frames. Having said that, it’s good to test things, I’m close to having a usable stream (even with my current bandwidth), and I’m enjoying my infrequent streams… I’m mostly playing with ComputerCraft currently, but I also enjoy the odd KSP launch. I don’t announce my stream tests currently, but if you see me on, drop by.

Season 4 as had been described previously is over. I won’t drag over the bones, but I just stopped enjoying it a fair old while ago (hence the Vechs map and FTB video series). EE2 is massively OP (I know it, you know it, Pahimar knows it… that’s why he’s hard at work on EE3), and that’s an end to it. We mourn your passing, season 4…

(New) Season 4 will be along just as soon as the FTB team release their lovely new modpack; I really enjoyed playing with all the mods again in FTB, and their new modpack will give me everything I had in seasons 2&3 (and while doing FTB), and a whole lot more besides, and I honestly believe it’ll make for a great season/series (esp. if I can get it running on my server).

I bought it on day of release (for PC, expecting next day delivery from Amazon, it arrived three days later… *sigh*) and I’ve been enjoying every second of it that I’ve had a chance to play so far – I’m only on the second mission, but I’m replaying each mission exhaustively to find all the bonus lewts (bottles of wine and gold ingots); trying to figure out ways to get up-close and personal for the hands-on kill, trying to figure angles to take out isolated soldiers, getting into stupid ranged fire-fights with opposing snipers, and most difficult of all for me, getting a hang of the ballistics at Sniper Elite difficulty.

I enjoyed Sniper Elite well enough, but not to the same visceral extent I’m enjoying this… The immersion is the best I’ve enjoyed in a third-person shooter, beating Splinter Cell (a *very* hard thing to do in my book). No videos, I don’t have spare disk-space to transcode 1080p footage to 720p for YT right now.

Yahoo! a second upload and a couple of restarts and everything is coming up roses.

I’ve already downloaded Vechs’ new Lethamyr SH CTM map (version A, haven’t seen any of my usual LP YT subs doing it yet, so figure that’ll give me a chance) and I’ll give it a go tonight in an attempt to tide my own channel subs over until there’s something good and EE2 to give you all.

I’m going to do my darnedest to complete the map “legit” (although I don’t expect to finish it in a single sitting), and will make 15 minute episode(s) out of whatever footage I have when I die (come on, you and I both know that’s what is going to happen…). Expect to see the Sphax texture pack in full effect, but otherwise I have no other mods installed for this.

I am watching The Misfits taking on version D (or C, can’t remember now) but they haven’t really gotten so far as to spoil my own play, which can’t start until I get home from work at 17:00 GMT. Hopefully I can get Episode 1 of a few out before tommorrow.

I’m giving consideration to going SSP while I wait for EE2 SMP for v1.2.5, given I’m the only player on the server at present. Pahimar has already done an SSP-only release with v1.2.5 compatibility. I believe I’m right in saying he’s looking to drop MLMP as a requirement on SMP and that is what is taking the time; Forge/FML being different to MLMP.

Well, this coming 4-day weekend, I’ll get properly started on the water cooling. I’ve got the blocks for the CPU and GPU, along with the radiators and the proper RAM (16GB of Corsair Dominator, yum). I’m just looking to get the interconnection lengths right and ensure the pumps/reservoirs all work without leaking as a first step, and once I get the RAM and mobo blocks, I’ll add them into the loops and test again before installing in my case.

Just to “heads-up”, I’m going to start with some wood punching etc, but my intention (at the start) is to follow the EE “Getting Started in v6″ guide to the letter; well, as closely as I can… there’s no promises of finding diamond in any particular strip mining operation, after all (at least until I have a Mk3 Divining Rod, that is).