Sunday, June 27, 2021

The Vacation

 

The Vacation

Here we are

Covered in ticks

The children lunging toward the pond

In defiance of any vestigial sense

Of self-preservation.

When we enter

My monkey tries to break the dishwasher

Then the washing machine

Before settling on spraying water about the kitchen.

Later we lock ourselves out of the cabin

My phone and the car keys inside.

Whenever we eat at a restaurant

My monkey howls and throws feces

While my juvenile ape eggs him on.

When it is bedtime they jump and laugh

And beat each other, bouncing off of the daybed 

Like caffeinated frogs.

After two hours, there is nothing left in the tank

and so we lie down for an uneasy sleep.

 

The next time I'll light my money on fire.

 

It was an experience. 

 

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

MSi Optix MAG27CQ Review

 

"What the hell?" you might be asking. Didn't I just buy a new monitor to replace my MSI Optix MAG272QR? Yeah, you are right, I impulsively purchased an Acer Nitro VG 252Q from Walmart for the rather expensive amount of 260 bucks. The Acer's 240 Hz refresh rate sure is nice, but what I couldn't get used to was the downgrade in resolution from 2560 by 1440 to 1920 by 1080. Everything looked blurry. As far as gaming goes, graphically intensive games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Control appeared grainy and last-gen, like games from the 360 era. Thankfully, the corporate dystopia that we live in gave me an excellent opportunity to upgrade by way of Prime Day. Newegg was running a competing sale, and I snagged the MSI Optix MAG27CQ, a very similar panel to the one my five-year old ruined. It's a VA panel at 27 inches, equipped with Freesync and a 144 Hz refresh rate. The curve is pretty sweet; that's pretty much the only real difference I've noticed between the MAG27CQ and my old MAG272QR. Well, there's a difference of 16 Hz between refresh rates, but I don't think anyone can notice the difference between 165 Hz and 144 Hz. This is a great panel for the low price of 250 dollars (with tax). Unfortunately I don't have the box or receipt for my Acer, so I'm going to have to take a hit and sell it. Anyway, if you play single player games primarily for atmosphere and immersion, don't let anyone tell you that 1440p isn't much of an upgrade over 1080p. It's actually an increase in pixel density of 78 percent! Red Dead 2 looks amazing again, and so does everything else I play.

New Music Video: Sweet Jane

 

One of my favorite songs of all time. I kept the arrangement simple, just acoustic guitar setting the rhythm along with a bass, with my strat doing overdubs. Still the year of covers, but I need to upload something original pretty soon or there will be more covers than songs I have written.

Sunday, June 13, 2021

My Five Year-Old Broke My Monitor: Acer VG252Q Review

 

My oldest child tossed a toy at my MSI MAG272QR 27 inch 1440p 165 Hz monitor(Jesus that's a lot to type), damaging the crystals beneath and resulting in about half of the screen displaying a black space streaked with the color spectrum. Needless to say, I was pissed. A quick drive to Walmart resulted in my buying an Acer VG252Q 24 inch 1080p 240 Hz monitor as a replacement. Walmart is the only game in town, and the Acer was the best monitor they had that wasn't a 4k screen that would require a supercomputer to game on. The VG252Q is G-Sync monitor; it works fine with my AMD 5700 xt. As for the 240 Hz refresh rate, I can't really test it out, because I don't play anything that runs that fast on my computer. Downgrading to 1080p is very noticeable, however, especially in general desktop usage. Gaming wise, I can turn everything up to High in Control and Ultra in Red Dead Redemption 2, which helps offset the lowered pixel count. On the bright side, I don't have to worry about upgrading my graphics card in a year or two--the 5700 xt is a beast at 1080p. Yet I'm missing those extra three inches of screen space, as well as the general clarity 1440p provides. Nevertheless, I do notice the more accurate color reproduction of the Acer's IPS panel--my old MSI monitor was a VA panel, and colors often looked washed out. 

In short, 1440p is noticeably better than 1080p; however, being able to turn up the graphics settings helps. I like this Acer, but I miss my MSI MAG.

Friday, June 11, 2021

Control First Impressions

 

Control is currently free from the Epic Games store until the 17, and if you're a fan of atmospheric third-person shooters, I recommend picking it up. You play as Jesse Faden, a young women drawn to the Oldest House, the base of an inter-dimensional quasi-government entity known as the Federal Bureau of Control. When Jesse arrives, the Oldest House has been taken over by a malicious entity known as the Hiss, and she soon becomes Director through a pretty cool sequence of events. Control is dripping with Lovecraftian menace, and it's obvious that the X-Files is another big thematic influence. It's weird, and pretty fun. Jesse has a regenerating pistol that's an Object of Power, and she soon obtains the ability to telepathically throw objects at her enemies, which is a blast. The Brutalist architecture of the Oldest House is unique, and you really get the sense of being stuck in a vast labyrinth. My only complaint so far is that this game is a beast to run. On my solidly mid-range Ryzen 7 3700x/5700 xt build, I'm hovering under 60 frames per second at High settings and 1440p. Medium settings boosts the framerate considerably, but I recommend keeping those extra graphics settings and playing with a gamepad, which feels better. I'll do a full review when I've completed the game.

Sunday, June 6, 2021

Tech Ramblings: Be Quiet! Shadow Rock 3 Review

 

No more RGB, but this thing matches my graphics card better.

My computer was noisy as hell, due to my MSI 5700 xt Evoke OC, which was overclocked and overvolted, and my Wraith Prism CPU cooler, which came stock with my Ryzen 3700x. Modding the Evoke and undervolting/underclocking fixed its noise problems, but the Prism still remained. I purchased a Be Quiet! Shadow Rock 3 to replace it, mostly because it was affordable and well-reviewed. Well, I don't have thermals or any of that stuff to compare it to the Prism; I think it keeps it a couple degrees cooler, but the Prism was always sufficient at that job. It is, however, almost completely silent. Now that I have the Evoke's fan speed locked at 55 percent, gaming is a far less noisy pursuit than it was before. The Prism had configurable RGB lights that I could sync with my Razor keyboard, and my son was disappointed that the pretty fan was gone. However, the Shadow Rock's black and chrome looks go better with the Evoke, and RGB quickly lost its novelty for me. So yeah, this is a nice replacement. It's keeping my 3700x at around 46 degrees Celsius, which is pretty cool for my 23 degree Celsius room.

The urge to constantly tinker with my system has become a hobby unto itself. Future upgrades will likely include a NVMe drive, maybe another 16 gigs of ram, and a new graphics card probably a year or two out, assuming that things ever get back to normal. My motherboard is an x570, so I could always put a more powerful CPU in there, at least until AMD switches to AM5. There's no reason to upgrade right now. I don't have a performance reason, despite what the internet might say, and the current hardware shortage is insane. 

New Music: Firefly

  A twelve-year old song that I wrote in Cincinnati. I don't believe it was ever played live, which is a shame, since it's a nice li...