User blogs

Inspired Unreality open game chat is Saturday at 11:00 AM Central. This is the first Saturday of the month so our topic is Fantasy and Science Fiction. This is a broad topic including literature, movies, television, and games. Everyone is welcome. All Fantasy and Science Fiction is on topic.

Inspired Unreality is held every Saturday in the gamerplus chatrooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. If you haven't been to Tenkar's there's a link for you here.

https://gamerplus.org/index

We had a couple of days downtime on our main page again. This time I was able to figure out the problem and repair it. Thanks to FollowMeAndDie for helping me solve this issue.

https://gamerplus.org/user/FollowMeAndDie

Last weekend I visited Eclectic Geekery, Sarah's and Megan's bookstore, and I played chill jazz piano at Beatles Park.

https://gamerplus.org/user/Sarah

https://gamerplus.org/user/Megantopia

I livestreamed over twitch using my phone hotspot. The entire rig, piano, pa, phone, and streaming equipment runs on batteries. So I can go anywhere where my phone gets good signal and livestream without an extension cord.

Way cool.

Gamer+ post with photo (Thanks Carl).
https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4526

HairyLarryLand Twitch Stream (please follow)
https://www.twitch.tv/hairylarryland

Sunbathing In "Low Earth Orbit" on Youtube (please follow)
https://youtu.be/mfRIxCOc3Xw

I don't want to forget about family game last Saturday. My son Carl was DM playing Castles and Crusades. Around the table was my grandson Conner playing a thief, my son Kier playing a fighter, I was a dwarven cleric, my Foster grandson, Simon, played a wizard, and my Foster grandnephew, Luke, played a wizard. Game highlights are at this link.

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4524

Please forward this email to your gaming friends and share this link.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/905

Thanks,
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
https://mastodon.social/@hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

Tonight! On Inspired Unreality. Actual Play!

GM Sarah is running a DCC one off. It will be fun. I've played in her games before. She is a convention GM for DCC hosting games at major gatherings.

Sarah is also one of the volunteers leading the NEA Gamers Guild and their convention, NEA Game Fest. They had a successful convention in Jonesboro, Arkansas, just last month.

Inspired Unreality open game chat is held every Monday night at 9:00 Central in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. You can find more information and an invitation to Tankar's Tavern here.

https://gamerplus.org/index

The game tonight starts at 9:00 but we will be there early for character generation and other pregame prep.

Next month, on December 13, we'll have actual play again with vbwyrde hosting.

So we have a schedule.

First Monday of the month we discuss fantasy and science fiction. Third Monday of the month we have a guest or a game. All other Mondays are for open game chat, bring your own topic, all gaming is on topic.

So, now, to go off topic for a minute, Vivian and I went out to the Craighead Forest Bandshell yesterday for live music. I played chill jazz piano for a small and rotating audience. Eleiser joing me on trumpet for the second set.

A good time was had by all. We saw some old friends for the first time in two years. And we stayed warm with coats and throws. It was 60 degrees so great temperature for playing music but a little chilly in the audience when the wind blew.

This is a safe way for Vivian and I to return to our old habit of gigging out regularly. We might get warm Sundays this winter (after all it is Arkansas) but unless there is yet another surge we really look forward to Spring.

I tried to livestream with a hot spot but that didn't work so I just settled for recording and I don't think that worked either. But the plan is to livestream and record from the bandshell just like I do from the twitch studio and the twitch porch.

If you're on twitch follow me here.

https://www.twitch.tv/hairylarryland

I also added our RSS feed to the right column on the Main Page at Gamer+. Here's that link again.

https://gamerplus.org/index

If you have a gaming blog, vlog, podcast, or channel with an RSS feed let me know and I'll add you to our feed.

Please forward this email to your gaming friends and share this link.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/846

Thanks,
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

Tonight on Inspired Unreality we will be discussing fantasy and science fiction. This is a broad topic so to spice things up a little bit I'll be reading a few of my super shorts to juice the conversation, so to speak. If you write fantasy or science fiction, stories or modules, bring an excerpt to read. So, reading original fantasy and science fiction to spark the conversation.

Here's my website where I publish my super shorts.

https://sffshortstories.com/

Inspired Unreality is held in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. If you haven't been to Tenkars Tavern here's info and an invite.

https://gamerplus.org/index

Robert S. Conley writes

"It occurred to me recently that the original release of Dungeons and Dragons is best viewed as a supplement. Not to the Chainmail Miniature wargame but to the unwritten rules, systems, and methods the miniature wargaming community of the early 70s were using."

Quoted from his blog post, "The original release of Dungeons and Dragons was a supplement."

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4312

This is an interesting post with a few interesting comments as well.

Yesterday Megan did a 12 hour twitch stream for Halloween. If you've got a spare 12 hours you can view it here.

https://www.twitch.tv/megantopia

I featured myself on my From The Archives Of Something Blue podcast which will be aired on KASU Wednesday and Saturday. But you don't have to wait. You can listen now at the Something Blue website.

http://sbblues.com/2021/10/31/from-the-archives-of-something-blue-october-31-2021/

The featured song is a modal blues I wrote called "Blue Goose". The archives go back in time 40 years or more but they start yesterday. I recorded "Blue Goose" on my twitch stream last week. And the spoken content is an overview of the whole project. It's almost nine minutes long and worth the listen.

Please forward this email to your gaming friends and share this link.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/841

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

Tonight! Inspired Unreality Open Game Chat. Last week we enjoyed chatting with Peaktime. Tonight is bring your own topic. All gaming is on topic. Next week is the first Monday of November which means we have a topic. Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Last week we worked on a table for chat topics about RPGs. Don't have a topic. Roll one up.

D20 table for chat topics about RPGs
soon to be a D100

What is railroading and why is it bad?
Sandboxes
What makes OSR better? What makes OSR worse?
Free Kriegspiel
Hex crawls
Megadungeons
Random Encounters
Combat free roll playing
Systems of handing out XP to players
Group XP vs Individual XP
How online play has changed RPGs
Fudging rolls?
The Quantum Ogre

Ok, that's just 13 so far and they could use some refinement. But we're still brainstorming. Come brainstorm with us. Or bring your own topic. Or suggest favorite RPG chat topics for our dice rolling table.

It will be fun.

Inspired Unreality open game chat is held in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. More info and an invite here.

https://gamerplus.org/index

All our best to Alan and his family who have been having health issues. I chatted with him yesterday and he is planning on joining us tonight.

Are you on twitch? Follow these channels. If you have a twitch channel let me know and I will add you to the list of Gamer+ gamers on twitch.

https://www.twitch.tv/hairylarryland
https://www.twitch.tv/megantopia
https://www.twitch.tv/searchingforgryphons

On Halloween Megan is doing a 12 hour stream on her twitch channel. No spoilers but she has been working on some visual effects and I am sure she will play many spooky games.

Join her stream and follow her channel. Congratulate her for reaching affiliate status.

Please forward this email and share this link.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/838

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

First off, thanks to Robert S. Conley for joining us last week on Inspired Unreality. We got a quick tour of his very creative career and then launched right into some rollicking roll playing reminiscing. I hope to chat with him again.

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4270

If you want to learn more about what he does and what he's done here's a link to his Gamer+ page.

https://gamerplus.org/user/robertsconley

Tonight on Inspired Unreality we'll host open game chat. Bring your own topic. All gaming is on topic. Inspired Unreality is held every Monday night at 9:00 Central in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. Everyone is welcome. If you've never been we have info and an invite here.

https://gamerplus.org/index

At the same link you can see the new Gamer+ search feature. It's Enhanced by Google and it works pretty good.

Gamer+ Gamers from the NEA Gamers Guild are hard at work preparing for the NEA Game Fest on October 15-17, 2021.

https://www.neagamefest.com/

And I've added another chapter to my book, "Setting Up A Twitch Studio, Using Tech Creatively", Livestreaming Buskers Off The Grid. This one's way out there. In the future. Eventually.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/829

Please forward this email to your gaming friends. And here's a link to this newsletter online that you can share on social networks.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/830

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

When you get the creative flow going you want to keep it going. I find a new project focuses attention and keeps me involved. So sometimes you have to look to the future to try to envision new possibilities.

And that's where I'm at with livesteaming buskers off the grid. I've done a couple of failed experiments with my phone but I don't have good reception on the twitch porch so that probably doesn't mean much. I'm a lot further along with the busking equipment than I am with the livestream stuff.

There are many battery powered amps available. I chose the JBL Eon One Pro for about $500. I am very happy with the sound and the battery life. It also has Bluetooth which I use for playing my iReal Pro backing tracks from my tablet. I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab A and it has good battery life.

I have a Roland Go Piano that runs off batteries and it has nice keyboard action and good piano sound. But since I've been livestreaming I notice the difference between it and my Roland FP-4. Both in playability and in sound. I could use the midi out on the Go Piano and play from a midi library on the laptop. This might not take up too much cpu.

I would rather busk with a good hammer action keyboard. There are some good keyboards that use batteries. Just not the ones I'm looking at. So I'm looking into a couple of Deep Cycle 12V batteries and an inverter. This rig would also run my pellet stove in the winter if we lose power so I am justifying the expense that way. Otherwise this probably wouldn't be an affordable solution for me. There are smaller batteries that might run just a piano and one battery and an inverter would be a little over $100.

There are also consumer battery charger/jump starters with 110 outlets. Again the multifunctionality may justify the expense.

I bought an Acer Aspire E5-576 laptop that has enough cpu and ram to livestream video. I have used it for livestreaming 720p from the twitch porch. This laptop has an exceptionally long battery life, 9 hours or more of regular computing. Unfortunately livestreaming is not regular computing and the fully charged batteries only last a little under 2 hours. Which is actually pretty good for livestreaming buskers. An inverter might extend that life to do a three hour show with breaks but I would have to see how much battery it would take to power the piano for three hours. It could be that two hour shows are more realistic.

They are certainly more realistic for my endurance. I do a two hour stream from the HairyLarryLand Twitch Studio every Sunday and I don't really want it to be any longer.

I also have a USB foot switch that I cover in the DIY chapter so I can even have two webcams and switch between them when I'm busking.

So if I happen to find a busking spot with good wifi I'm home free.

And if not? My phone has a hotspot that will hook to my computer with a USB cable. It's a 4G phone so if I had good reception it might work. More modern phones would probably work better. There are many livestreamers that stream direct from their iPhones.

There are also dedicated hotspot devices with monthly fees for bandwidth. It's kind of hard to justify this expense based on a busking income but that actually depends on what you are doing and what kind of budget you have. You may also have other uses for a high end hotspot. If you're travelling while busking and stopping where you wish a hot spot like this might be just the ticket.

And then there's always plan B. If you don't have wifi and you don't have good reception for your hotspot you can turn on record and post the video later.

Right now I have three dreams for the future of my livestream. We've streamed from the twitch porch a couple of times and I feel like that's all set up and ready to go. You can read about that in another chapter. I am looking forward to more livestreams with Bebop Beatniks from the twitch porch.

My current dream is finding soloists to collaborate with me and turn my jazz trio livestreams into a quartet. Whether they do that on their livestream or in their video or audio studios it's all good with me. My songs are licensed Creative Commons Attribution so there are no copyright issues stopping anyone from collaborating with me.

Livestreaming buskers off the grid is my future dream. So this chapter is out there. In the future. Eventually. Maybe I'll be able to do this and maybe not.

"A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s heaven for?"

 - Robert Browning

"Wee Will" is Caper's song of reckless spending, a favorite of proprietors of gambling establishments and sure to earn him a spot on their stage. "Wee Will" has many verses in which Will alternately gets rich and poor and in which he remains happy throughout. Here's the first two verses.

Wee Will was born
with nary a coin
and his parents had naught neither
His Ma said
Will is gonna be rich
but no one would believe her.

But then one day
Around mid may
Will tripped and skint his knee.
And what did he see
buried under the tree?
'twas the shiny glint of gold.

(everybody sing along)
Gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold,
Gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold.

He's rich beyond his wildest dreams. But of course it doesn't last.

Tonight on Inspired Unreality Vivian and I will be writing more verses to "Wee Will". Join us to write verses or just to chat about whatever you want, as long as it's gaming. Bring your own topic. All gaming is on topic.

Inspired Unreality is held in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord every Monday night at 9:00 Central. More info and an invite here.

https://gamerplus.org/index

Next week.

Inspired Unreality
September 20, 2021 at 9:00 PM Central

Special Guest - Robert S. Conley, Creator of Blackmarsh and The Majestic Fantasy RPG

Our topic will be the difference between writing classic D&D vs. 5e?
How to write for both?
How to convert from OSR to 5e?

I know that sounds like three topics but they are very closely intertwined.

Robert S. Conley links.

Blackmarsh
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/89944/Blackmarsh

The Majestic Fantasy RPG
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/337515/The-Majestic-Fantasy-RPG-Basic-Rules

Bat in the Attic
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/

Robert S. Conley on Gamer+
https://gamerplus.org/user/robertsconley

Looking forward to this.

I have written another chapter for my book, "Setting Up A Twitch Studio, Using Tech Creatively". It's called "Get Back On That Treadmill" and it may be the last chapter. The last chapter in the book, not the last chapter to be written.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/822

Last night we watched "Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons and Dragons" on Amazon Prime. They definitely got into the idea of creative flow, a key concept in my book.

I also want to mention that Will Hose, long time family friend and gamerplus gamer, Spark, is moving back to Jonesboro. It will be great to have him close at hand again. Will has been a regular guest at our events and our podcasts. I hope to get him to run a game on Inspired Unreality later this year.

https://gamerplus.org/user/Spark

Spread the word. Forward this email to your gamer friends. Share the link on your favorite websites. Especially if they're your own.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/824

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

Ok, this just happened to me and it will happen to you if you undertake a creative project with a schedule.

Things go wrong. Life happens. Stuff breaks. It's inevitable.

My router went out. And before it went out it went intermittent. So I missed a stream.

I checked everything out. I reset the router. I was at the piano. And before I even started to play the internet went out. I knew it just wasn't going to happen.

Fortunately I called my ISP and he helped me detect the problem and I had another router in place for my next stream. But it can be worse.

Way worse. Sometimes stuff comes up and you miss a week or more.

My advice. As soon as you can, get back on that treadmill. Yeah it was kind of nice not having to do all that production work and promotion. It's always nice to have a little extra time in your day.

Still periods of creative flow don't happen all the time. They are to be treasured. Get back on the treadmill and make it happen. Again. Churn it out.

This is a different issue than making a decision to take your efforts elsewhere. To write a game instead of playing some games. To write a book instead of writing more music. These decisions are for you to make. It's your life to live.

But don't let temporary technical problems or real life issues interrupt your flow. Get back on the treadmill.

There are some related issues. Sometimes you have downtime that doesn't affect the stream but hinders some other aspect of your work flow.

After my ISP and I determined that my router was bad I went and pulled another router off the back wall of my house where it sprays wifi out to the icosahedron. I replaced my router with this router (thanks Megan) and we had internet back. Except for one thing.

For my network setup I use the DD-WRT firmware because it supports virtual LANs. I have one LAN on 192.168.1.1 and another LAN on 192.168.2.1. The first is for our daily internet use, wired and wifi computers and other devices that need to connect to the internet. The second is for my web servers, the ones that host hairylarryland.com and hairylarry.rocks. There's a firewall. It's a security thing.

Unfortunately the router I pulled of the back wall doesn't support DD-WRT. So I ordered another, even more up to date router, that does support DD-WRT. Which means a weeks downtime on my servers.

So I can't post to hairylarryland.com and even worse my peertube instance runs on hairylarry.rocks. So it's part of my workflow to post to these sites and I can't so I have to devise workarounds to post my videos and promote them on time. I can still upload to the Live Music Archive and Youtube. I can still promote the Youtube videos but I can't promote the playlists which live on peertube.

And then when I get my new router in, burn DD-WRT to the firmware, and configure it I will have to play catch up.

Sometimes playing catch up will hit you in the back of the head. I played my Sunday stream just before everything went haywire. I missed my Tuesday stream. Then after I patched things together I played my Thursday stream and I logged my songs.

When I went to edit the videos I checked my Sunday stream for the notes.txt file and guess what? I never made these 10 videos. I logged them. Things went haywire. And I got off my procedure.

So instead of having 5 videos to edit I had 15. That's when you really have to buckle down. It's possible to catch up. I did it. It really helped that I was familiar with my work flow. I have to admit I spent less time on some of the videos than I would have if I wasn't playing catch up.

So here's your executive summary.

Technical problems or life issues. Get back on the treadmill.

Missed part of the workflow for a short period. Catch up.

The most important thing, however, is right now going forward. The essence of maintaining your creative flow is to absorb yourself in your project and to just do it. The most important stuff is the stuff you are working on right now.

Join us at Inspired Unreality open game chat tonight at 9:00 Central. Inspired Unreality is held in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. More info and an invite here.

https://gamerplus.org/index

We had a good chat last week night at Inspired Unreality with both Alan and Datum joining Vivian and myself. As happens with those two we drifted off of games and into philosophy.

Next week Inspired Unreality will be about Science Fiction and Fantasy. We do this on the first Monday of the month. That's right, it's almost September already.

And tonight we're winging it. Vivian and I have a fallback plan where we work on our Milyagon locale. Or you may want to chat about something else. Bring your own topic. All gaming is on topic.

NEA Game Fest is in October and my kids are hard at work making preparations.

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4230

Vivian and I had a little conversation about confidence that's almost a ditty.

All you need is confidence in what you already have and the ability to find what you need.

I have confidence that we can navigate this dungeon and find the treasure.

I have confidence that you can. It's me I'm not sure about.

I have confidence that I can. You have to find your own confidence.

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4188

And I posted a chapter about checklists for my book in progress, "Setting Up A Twitch Studio, Using Tech Creatively".

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/817

Let us know what games you've been playing, what songs you've been singing, what stories you've been writing. Post to Gamer+, a social network for creative gamers. Or contact Hairy Larry below. See you tonight on Inspired Unreality.

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

No Friendica listing today. One of my webservers is down. Sad face emoticon.

Checklists

A procedure document outlines in detail how to accomplish a task. In my career in office automation I wrote a lot of procedure documents. When you're at a workplace with turnover procedure documents provide continuity when personnel changes. They can be used to train new employees and then the new employees can refer to the procedure document until they learn how to do the task.

In your own technical creative projects you probably don't really need procedure documents. They are a lot of work to make, very detailed, and you are probably not going to be training new employees because you probably don't have employees.

A checklist is a different beast. Each item on a checklist reminds you of the next thing to do so you don't skip steps. You just start at the top and continue down the list until you're done.

On my checklist, some of the items, like uploading the videos to the Live Music Archive, take a long time. So after that checklist item I place an = (equal sign) to signify a multitasking opportunity.

I look down the list for an = in the left column and I can continue there, doing other items on the list until the upload is complete. After the upload is done I can finish the skipped part of the list. The part that needed the upload to be completed to continue.

If there's just an = without an = in the left column below, that means there is a multitacking opportunity here to do something entirely different like cook or take a nap. When I upload to Youtube it takes awhile but I can't really start the promotion without having the Youtube video ready. So, take a break, read some news on the internet, or whatever.

You can (and should) devise your own notation for your checklist. Your project and promotion will have different steps and needs. Different opportunities for multitasking. Figure out what works for you.

Checklists with actual check boxes are commonly used in manual procedures but you don't need check boxes on your checklist. I mean I know the task I just finished so I just do the next item on the list.

Production checklists soon become memorized, perhaps because when you skip a step it usually results in extra work. Promotion checklists, however, are really helpful, because most web promotion is a series of independent tasks and it's really easy to forget one and miss out on that promotion.

Your tasks will be different and your promotion will be different so your checklists will be different. Checklists are a useful tool in many endeavors but especially useful for tech creators.

Here's a sample checklist that I use after I produce the video excerpts from my twitch stream (the top item on the list). The first half is uploading and adding details to the upload sites. The second half is promotion of the uploaded content.

- edit and render videos in Openshot
- rename videos with an NN_ prefix in chronological order
- capture a screen shot
- scale the screen shot
- create list.txt listing the numbered songs
- copy and edit notes.txt changing the date and updating the list
- convert mp4 files to mp3s in VLC
- normalize the mp3s in mp3DirectCut
- rename mp3 files
- upload audio item to the Live Music Archive
- upload video item to the Live Music Archive =
- update metadata in audio item
- bookmark audio item
- add audio item to kgpl
- add audio item to mixremix radio in /radio/TWStream

=
- create playlist on peertube
- make public and assign to twitch.tv/hairylarryland
- copy playlist link
- refresh 2x
- use song.txt to create description
- change playlist link in song.txt
- change date in song.txt
- upload mp4 files to peertube, in order
- search and replace song title in song.txt
- fill out screen
- wait for publish button =
- copy the share link
- edit description adding share link
- save to playlist
- after all the files are uploaded check the playlist
- upload to Youtube
- use song text for description =

- promote youtube and peertube playlist
- allow several hours between promotions
- always use the peertube text for description
- share youtube on facebook and twitter from youtube share panel
- share youtube on friendica
- share to hairylarryland tumblr
- reblog that post everywhere
- share on reddit freeculture and creativecommons
- share on hairylarryland Discord
- share to MixRemix and Hairy Larry Rocks
- post to write.as - youtube link and text from peertube
- Add youtube to Hairy Larry Rocks Links
- Add playlist to Hairy Larry Rocks Links