games | Elder Scrolls Online: Frost Atronach Crown Crates

I know, I know. I write, then I don’t, then I do. Now I missed the best season of them all, and here I am for Winter season instead. The truth is, October and November are the very busiest damned months of the year for me. And while in December I don’t feel the Christmas Spirit or Holiday Spirit, I still feel elevated due to surviving another year, and hopeful for the next one to be better. So here I am.

On December 12th the current ESO Crown Crates will change into Frost Atronach, Winter season one. As we all probably learned by now, they don’t try too hard to fill them with new things, which is perfectly fine by me. But since we are getting a free box this month to sample, I thought it’s still worth mentioning.

The most notable things in the crates seem to me the Opaline horse mount, and that little fawn pet. It’s just that, horses in ESO are stupid loud, so when you get used to riding a cat or a wolf, it’s kinda difficult to get used to constant clopping all over again. And as for a fawn, I see it would make a great decor for a house, but I’ve lots of wonderful pets, so I won’t be sad to not get the precious thing.

You can read more about the Frost Atronach Crown Crates on the official Elder Scrolls Online Page. And now, let me tell you how you can get some without spending a dime, legally, by ESO rules and regulations. Tried and tested.

If you need crowns, but don’t feel like spending real life money, but are able to make gold in game, there’s a Discord server called “Crown Network” and their current exchange rate is 400-425. So, if you need 1 box for 400 crowns, that’ll be 170.000 gold, which is nothing if you’re a super-crafter or something.

What happens is, by their guidelines, you request an exchange, log into game, meet at designated wayshrine, and hand your gold to a broker for escrow. The broker then will request the seller to buy you what you want for the crowns. You receive it, and confirm receiving it, at which point broker hands the gold to the seller. Everyone leaves happy, you leave a nice review for them on Discord, so everyone knows the seller was legit, and the broker was good.

And if you just need some gems, connect your ESO account with Twitch, and go watch twitch streamers play ESO on weekends or event days. Under their stream, just below the title there’ll be “Drops Enabled” in green. Which means you don’t need to do anything, just sit there, watch, knit, solve your puzzles, or mute the tab and go watch youtube. Next day you’ll get one Oroborus crate, which usually contains junk you can exchange for a few gems. Little by little. Or you can get lucky and get the rare mount/pet! There’s many twitch streamers who do ESO, so I’m sure you’ll find one you like.

ED | Coca-Cola Energy Drink

You know, I like all kinds of generic energy drink, even those sour ones from unknown brands with super weird cans. But this is just a no.

Do you see that “no sugar” sign on top of the can? Yeah. Coca-Cola company has no damn clue how to use sweeteners. This tastes like a flat cola with too much stevia in it.

Verdict:
1/5
Would not drink again.

magical adventures of the elven kind on redbubble

 

Thanks to some awesome scoia’tael I have both infiltrated the ranks of Redbubble artists, and am also selling my prints on various items. So far the most popular being pillows and bags. And recently I was provided with a picture of one of those items!

This is an A4 size bag, and I was assured the colors are very true to original, and the quality is also to full satisfaction. I don’t know what can be nicer to hear to an artist (at least one who has to sell their work via other media, and so can’t quality-control, as I dare assume we like to do).

Redbubble provides prints in many shapes and forms. All you, as an artist, have to do is upload a hi-res piece, and choose what you want it presented as. And as a customer – you just need to choose what you’d like the most. I am told even the blooded Faoiltiarna Isengrim’s face looks good on a pillow!

If you want something of your own, here’s it all:

• Soukyan Blackwood Redbubble
• This particular piece of Iorveth
• Real cool stuff by Tanastish

tidying up and lost treasures

Yesterday, as if on purpose, everything fell into the same basket of “you need to organize“: needed to listen to my audiobook a bit more, and staring at the wall gets boring real fast; then this goth vlogger from UK uploaded a video of how he tidied the horrifying mess of a room – layers down to the carpet, mummified mice corpses, for real; And then there’s the little too much energy left over after the workout. So I looked around me, thinking there’s no way I need all of these things, right? And if I really, really do, maybe I can at least organize it all better, so that I can get things? Like the time I tidied up my paints, and so now I can actually take what I need when I need it.

I both started and ended with one drawer, but it took me hours and hours. It can be taken out completely, luckily, unlike what I had before, where a drawer was locked in, and you couldn’t even open it the whole way. Anyway, I browsed in it a bit, took out electronics that are supposed to be in another drawer, so I assume they have legs and migrate at night. And then spotted the holy grail of my 90s existence. The CD Folder. A basketball shaped 20~ CD slot folder, with a beer title on the front. From a contest they had where they required you not log into your facebook account for 7 days or so; nobody questioned how they’d know back then. It was easy, because back then I already led a double life and had two facebook accounts.

Anyway, I open the folder up, thinking this will surely be justifiable, right? I couldn’t have just kept this while moving things from one place, to another, to another, all the way to 2019, right? Well… There were some old driver disks for items I no longer even possess. Then there’s the image disks, with photographs. Totally normal. And then there’s disks with images… Imagine you’re 12-14, first time on the internet, on the wave of celebrity notebooks people kept in schools, trading cut outs with one another. You find your favorite band, or cartoon even… And so you just save every. single. picture. to your pc. And, apparently, burn it onto a disk. Then there’s 13 hour long video of a trip to Sweden. Some obscure J-Rock band music that I can only vaguely recall. And then there’s the weird stuff, like 3rd Volume of an obscure manga, and nothing else.

Needless to say I cut them all up, and tossed in the trash. Cutting up was necessary, I promise you that. But that’s not all of the story, no. The best treasure I found among the disks was the CD/DVD ROM Cleaner Disk. You heard it here first, folks.

Gather around for I’ll tell you a tale of this ancient artifact of old. Way back when your tower pc made horrifying sounds whenever you turned it on, and was so fickle it needed a lot of maintenance, or so you were scared into believing, there were these disks with bristles on them. You’d pop one in, it would whirl and whoosh, show you a little video of what will happen inside of your ROM now, with such hyper-realistic 3D graphics that your 13 year old self might have believed it to be real live footage. Then it would show you a slideshow of wonderful images from all kinds of magical places all over the world. And, after the half hour that you were mesmerized, it would be done, announcing it by playing this loud trumpet sound through the speakers you forgot to unplug.

Here’s the image for the nonbelievers! I decided to keep it. Maybe I can confuse my niece with it, when she’s older. I have some floppy disks too.

So due to all the people posting about how this cleaning virus got them, I assume it’s a pandemic. Wish you catch it too, maybe there’s something to uncover, some lost pen or a childhood memory somewhere in your room? Here’s a link to the Herbs and Altars, Dorian’s video of his tidying up an unspeakable mess I was very delighted to witness. There’s something so delicious about watching mess disappear:

And if you got an IG, please do share the link with me, especially if you post these random strange things, and don’t just identify as something one: bookstagrammer, beautygrammer, whatever-else-there-is-grammer.

 

Games | Far Cry: New Dawn | A Study in Neon Cold Pink

I love this game to bits, and am currently replaying it with a friend. I wish more of it was submerged in that blue haze with intense neon pink flames. Best cold tones, best intense tones.

 

ED | RedBull Winter: Cherry + Cinnamon

Ah, how I love that redbull comes up with these wonderful limited editions for winters and summers. My summer hit was that delicious coconut and berry flavored one. Last winter it was plums and also cinnamon I think, and this year it’s cherry and cinnamon.

The can is a beautiful orange-red tone, very autumnal in a sense, but just like a hot winter drink in another. Flavor itself is as promised: of pretty good cherry juice with cinnamon that got carbonated.

Honestly, I’d rather have the plum one than this, but it’s pretty good for what it is. So my verdict is:

5/5
would drink again.

2019 Inktober | Panda’s Adventures so far…

 

Panda has discovered their inner self. The magical fae sorcerer dreamer self.

This year the adventures are as varied as always. From days out on the beach, building castles, to attempts in delivery services, to feeding pixie lights, gardening, spell casting… To naps in the forest. But much more colorful in compare to the previous two years. On top of that, Panda’s family recently adopted another member, a ginger tabby, so if you don’t see them all present, it is because one of the family members is not yet ready to embarge full-on.

A special thanks goes out to my dear friends who helped this happen, Simon Brooke who provided me with the inks (yes, these are all ink colored!), Simone Busch who got me those amazing brushes that are making this happen (and felt tipped markers that help me outline the magic of Panda’s world), and everyone who are cheering me on! Thank You, you’re all inspiring a lot of happiness.

ESO | New Moon Crown Crates | 19-09-19

I am very excited! As Halloween approaches, Elder Scrolls Online rolls in the new Autumn Crown Crates, called New Moon. And as per always, they’re full of spooky goodies.

Don’t know about you, but I couldn’t care less about the mounts anymore, there’s too many, I don’t give a damn. But what I do care are the skins / morphs, the adornments, nice outfits, haircuts when there are any, and cute pets. And this year has a nice share of those.

There are two new skins, out of which I really love one, since it lightens up the tone of your skin without making it look funky. Instead it looks sickly funky! The other one is a bit too mushed together for me, and you can no longer see my magical glowing tattoos, so I’m less of a fan of that one.

There are a few lovely new outfits, among which my favorite is the red and black dress that’ll surely suit my necromancer. Hey, we don’t gender our clothes here! It looks like a Chantry – meets – Dwarfs from Dragon Age.

Lots of beautiful and less so head-things. From spooky masks, to fancy jewelry. And many superb pets. Truly gorgeous little things, in both ghost forms, and spotty black and white forms.

Most of all I love the furnishing items that were not the kind that’d take lightly to pictures. One of them is the glowly little appearing and disappearing light swarm, like june bugs, but not really bugs. Another is that effect of black smokey tendrils rising from the ground. I think I’ll get them both, since they’re on the cheaper side of the gems, and I have quite a bit of those.

Not the best set of crates, but definitely pretty good one.

ED | CULT

When I saw those big red letters CULT, Far Cry 5 theme song started playing in my head. So I took the three I found. It’s truly worth it sticking your nose into those strange little corner stores.

CULT, at least here, comes in three different types. The black camo Original; the cold green camo Supreme; the light green Guarana.

Original: it’s the original flavorless flavor of an energy drink. If you like them for the taste, you’ll like this one. Definitely not bad.

Supreme: a lot like the original green Monster, but not so sweet, and not so overpowering. I liked this one too.

Guarana: my favorite one. Somehow guarana really makes a good energy drink flavor.

Definitely good and fun ones, if not of a high or known grade. Verdict:

5/5 would drink again.

log | goodbye, summer | 09-03

The day she was supposed to come, all morning was pouring rain hard. For a while I just watched the sky and wondered well, what can we do? Can we go somewhere under a roof? But, luckily, rain decided to give us the said day, and stopped a little while before she came. Her bus was late too, so I recharged all my Wizards Unite energy, ftw.

The plan was to go get sushi, sit by the lake, walk around the lake, wade a little in the lake, go get coffee, go home. And it went exactly to a point.

I’m still really happy she liked our hole-in-the-wall sushi (it’s a kiosk where you order though a little window), which indeed is pretty decent. We took it and went to sit by the lake, watching the birds in it, with their adult or almost adult children, swim about, live their life. Then went for a walk.

Took her to my favorite place, this little entry-way to the lake, like a long pathway, I don’t know what they’re called, surrounded from both sides by lake water. You can sit on slanted concrete slabs, and the flora that grows through it due to lack of keeping, will shield you from the wind and sounds.

I can’t even recall what we talked about. I just remember time went by like poof. You’d look at the clock and miss hours. You’d look again, and it’s time to go. You’d sit to wait for a bus, and there it bloody is.

It was a very lovely day. I really miss my friends now though. I hope both of them will come visit me the next Summer too. Or, who knows, maybe by the time next summer comes, I can go visit someone.