Rants tag

Rants, ruminations, and rambling remarks from my mad, muddled, meandering mind.

Saturday, July 29, 2017

From the Desk of Rowan Blaze

Greetings, Traveler!

For the past couple weekends, I have been traveling around, myself—usually with Scooter along—gathering materials to craft a proper place for my trusty gaming rig. You may have seen some of these on Instagram or Twitter, but I figured I should share them here.

The frame holding up the desktop is made from 3/4-inch pipe held together with structural fittings (allen-wrench driven screw clamps). I bought all the metal hardware from Lowes. In the picture below, the frame is upside-down and back-to-front, as well as missing two of the flanges I used for feet.
The double braces about a foot from the bottom are probably overkill structurally, but provide a place for a shelf. In the end, I moved the long cross bars further back to provide more foot room. The long lines seem out of square in person, but I checked and rechecked the level. The desktop itself is from Ikea, both light and sturdy.
Below, you see my almost-finished setup. I have swing-arm monitor stands clamped to the back, but I need to get a DVI cable for my slightly obsolete HP monitor (shown on the left). I plan to use it mostly for holding open browsers and other programs while gaming on my newer one. I also dug out (well, Scooter did) a set of self-powered speakers (including a subwoofer, just visible below my keyboard) that have better quality than the on-board output of my monitor. (While I like Viewsonic OK, getting the one with speakers was a complete waste of money.) I also plan to get a cord hammock from Ikea the next time we're down there.
All told, the dimensions are 59" x 29½" x 40" (150cm x 75cm x 102cm). It's high enough for me to stand at the desk if I want to, but I got a bar stool with a tractor saddle for when I want to sit. You may have noticed the bare concrete floor. The house suffered a minor flood in April, and the carpet had to go. The room needs to be repainted before we put down a new floor, when Scooter and I get a chance for another home improvement project. Which (lol) will involve dismantling both my new desk and the repurposed kitchen table I took apart in order to get it into the Game Room in the first place.
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4 comments:

  1. As a fellow trackball user, and knowing the insane difficulties faced with that particular Logitech mouse (clickers wearing out after 6-9 months), I would recommend a wired Elecom EX-6. https://www.amazon.com/ELECOM-M-XT3URBK-Mouse-Trackball-button/dp/B016QCPO0G/

    Only downside to these is the black trackball is kind of garbage, but the blue one from that Logitech wireless mouse will work great. Maybe not a right-now kind of buy, but next time that thing starts to fail...

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    1. Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out. My M570 is at least a year old, and my previous one worked for several years despite suffering a few drops to the floor.

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  2. Looks like you're ready for gaming! Funcom announced that The Whispering Tide event in Secret World Legends starts on Tuesday 1st and runs for two weeks. I assume it's a one time event like how it was in TSW back in 2014. With level scaling, the devs said anyone can participate, even if they just stepped out of the tutorial and reached Agartha.

    It also coincides with the launch of SWL on Steam. It'd be nice to see some Scooter and Atomic Hawthorn checking it out... ��

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    1. I just installed SWL, and am patching up TSW, so I may be able to jump in. I'm on a business trip this week, so my time is a little more limited. But Scooter is not likely to come back.

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