Tag: collecting dust

My New House in EverQuest

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest1 Comment

Thanks to the 13th anniversary of EverQuest, Sony Online Entertainment has given me the three expansions I was missing so I was finally able to buy a house.  At first I bought the 1 bedroom for 5k (forgot the exact amount) but then I noticed how tiny it was compared to the rest of the houses in the neighborhood and decided to go get a refund and buy a 3 room house instead for 10K.

I have been noticing from inspecting my items that some of them say they can be used in the front yard or in a house, so I figured why not grab all of those items from my bank and place them, and now I have quite a nice display of old armor that has been clogging up my bank for years.

I had to resize some of them so they were bigger on the wall because it didn’t look good that some of them were huge while others were tiny.  Notice my wizard epic in there?  That was my first epic, when I upgraded it to epic 1.5 I got to keep my epic 1 which has been collecting dust for years, so now it can collect dust on the wall.

It isn’t just old weapons that I could decorate it with, I was also able to add my trade skill trophies to a table which I bought for that purpose.

The one on the left is my brewers trophy, the one in the middle is my tinkerers trophy and the one on the right is my baking trophy.  My brewing and tinkering are both 287 so I just need to get them to 300 and they will look different on the table.  I am only missing my trophy for fletching, jewelcraft, blacksmithing and tailoring, but maybe one day I will get there.

I had a little bit of fun with buying decorations.  I bought a cute 4 poster bed and a dining room table for the other room with a slab of meat and a loaf of bread that I placed on the table which also has 4 chairs.  Then there are 3 pictures on the walls and garden gnomes in the front yard.  Yes, I know, a gnome who has garden gnomes in his front yard.  Hilarious right?  The problem was, they were too big, I was half the size of the garden gnomes so I had to shrink them down.

I hope you can see them.  I don’t know why it looks bright and cheery in the game, but then when you leave the game all of the screen shots are really dark.  I don’t know how to fix that.  I let Picasa do an auto fix, but it still looks dark.  Perhaps someone might tell me how to fix that.

Well, enough working on the house, I better get my moneys worth and start actually playing the game instead of focusing on a stupid house I will probably rarely ever go to.  At least I was able to lighten my bank, and I have made all of my alts co-owners so I can lighten their banks too.

Oh and just in case I forget to mention, you can’t just buy a house and that’s it, you have to pay a daily or weekly upkeep fee.  I am paid up for the next 8 weeks lol.  In Lord of the Rings Online you can only pay for 5 weeks up front, at least in EverQuest I was able to do 8 weeks.  I’m sure I can do more but I’m not positive how far in advance.  And if I run out of money then I can always go back to my shaman character and make a buttload with alchemy to pay for more time.

My Freaky Spirit Board Story

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, HalloweenLeave a comment

For some odd reason, last year I was addicted to the idea of making a spirit board. So I learned how to do wood burning after a friend bought me a wood burner. I bought all this irregular wood (it’s cheaper) along with some other wood burning accessories.

I printed out the pattern that I wanted to make it with and traced it all out on the wood then I burned it on. I cut a planchette from a cheap piece of wood that I bought from Wal-Mart and found that it was too big for my board so I cut it down to half its size.

When everything was cut and everything was burned I was ready to put lacquer on it all. The odd thing is, the planchette was missing. I searched all over my bedroom, all over the tool shed, all over the back yard. I could not find it anywhere.

At first I thought maybe I should just make a new one but then I started thinking that perhaps it’s gone for a reason. If I made a new one who knows what might happen. Is it gone because someone took it? And when I say someone I don’t mean a living person, I mean a spirit who doesn’t want me to use the Spirit Board.

So, I never made another planchette and the board sits in the same spot untouched collecting dust.

I would still like to use it some day and I guess I’m waiting for the planchette to return to me, giving me permission to use it. Does that sound silly? I mean, I could just make another one or I could use a shot glass if I really wanted to use it.

People are always saying that you are opening a portal by using one of these and I don’t know if that is true or not. People are always saying these are evil but I think that all depends on who is using it and how they are using it. I don’t believe in good or evil, I just believe there are ghosts out there and I want to communicate with them.

The reason I haven’t used it yet is just in case there is a possibility that someone may be right and I was wrong. I don’t want to end up bringing some bad juju in my house ya know?

It’s been over a year now and Halloween is coming which is when you would use one of these but I’m still not sure I should even though I want to.

New Purpose for Stakes

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

Years ago we bought these stakes from the garden section of the local hardware store.  No, we don’t have a vampire problem.  We were putting grass seeds on the grass to grow new grass and to prevents people from walking all over the new grass we put the stakes in the ground and used this green tape on the stakes.  Although, that didn’t do much good, people broke the green tape and walked on our lawn anyway.

We still have all these stakes though and don’t really know what to do with them so they just sit on the patio collecting dust.  I just got an idea today…

I’m going to take the sander and sand the sides of them then use those zig zag type of metal nail things that you hammer into 1 piece of wood on the side then you hammer another piece of wood onto the other side of the zig zag nail to join the 2 pieces of wood.  I’m going to put some wood glue in there and attach maybe 5 of the stakes together then press them tight and let the pieces dry.  I’m going to do this with several of the stakes so I have more than just 1 or a few pieces.  I’m going to keep 1 stake for every board that I make so I can use them to stake the board into the ground.

Why would I need to stake boards into the ground?  Because I’m thinking that maybe I can use these boards for wood burning projects.  I can wood burn patterns for gardens as gifts for Christmas.  I think it will be neat.  I could burn maybe a picture of fairies sitting on or flying around mushrooms or maybe some gnomes or something lol.  I think it’s a neat idea and it gives me free wood to burn on since we already have the wood lol.