What have you purchased recently?

[Dirty Hipsters]

So last year for my birthday, I got a brand-new chair to replace my old one.

I then got this reply, which I immediately shrugged off because I thought that 1) It was already purchased, so I couldn't exactly do much about it anyway, and 2) Because I had heard literally nothing but good things about Secretlab, so I assumed it would be different.

Well, I guess I was wrong about No. 2, because today, one of the armrests fell off.

The metal plate that held the arm rest onto the chair had completely been sheared off, at all four joints!

Luckily, I am still covered under warranty (5 years), so I can hopefully get a replacement, but it still stings having a £400 chair failing after not even a year.

So yeah, don't be me, take @Dirty Hipsters advice, and get a good-quality office chair instead.

I hate being right about things like this, because the Secretlab chairs actually have a pretty good reputation as far as gamer chairs go, but I'm pretty sure it's because most of the reviews of them are initial impressions or maybe after a couple of weeks of use rather than 6 months+.

 

[Ezekiel]

So that when I'm watching movies in darkness and there are brighter scenes, the white of the wall doesn't stick out. Maybe the black bars will fade slightly into the bedsheet as well. I don't know. But I'm excited to find out if it enhances the visual experience.

It works! The black bars almost fade into the bedsheet. I'm no longer distracted by the white.

 

[Gordon_4]

I hate being right about things like this, because the Secretlab chairs actually have a pretty good reputation as far as gamer chairs go, but I'm pretty sure it's because most of the reviews of them are initial impressions or maybe after a couple of weeks of use rather than 6 months+.

Yet I could sit here all day and sing the praises of my racing style chair that has soldiered on under the terror of my ass’ regime for almost a decade with only cushion wear and tear to show for it. And I’m inclined to say it’s had a full decade of actual use thanks to all the working at home between 2020 and 2022.

Sometimes you just get lucky I guess.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Stuff I bought this week:

A new phone.
An HDMI cable.
A copy of Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Two tickets to see the "new" Woody Allen movie.
The Last Door, from the guy that made Blasphemous.

 

[BrawlMan]

Best of the Best: 4 Movie Collection just came in the mail today.

 

[SckizoBoy]

A new PC, at last... though it won't be delivered until after the new year holidays.

Having said that, could not source a decent GPU for love nor money, so having to settle for a cheap placeholder until something better shows up is a bit annoying.

 

[Chimpzy]

Traded in my launch Switch, and got an OLED model instead. Not so much for the better screen (tho it does look significantly better), but because by all accounts it has the best battery life. And because I suspect my personal valuation of a portable gaming system that lasts 4 hours or longer will skyrocket in at most 6 months.

 

[Bedinsis]

I bought the lowest tier Music Creators Unlimited humble bundle. I listened to the sample tracks, liked it and since it was royalty free I figured I could use it for one of my various projects that I never do anything on.

Only after purchasing it did I realize that they only provided sounds and sound effects for helping me create music like the ones in the sample track. And I cannot create music. Oh well.

 

[Gordon_4]

A new PC, at last... though it won't be delivered until after the new year holidays.

Having said that, could not source a decent GPU for love nor money, so having to settle for a cheap placeholder until something better shows up is a bit annoying.

RIP on the GPU situation. What placeholder did you get, out of curiosity?

OT: I managed to find a complete collection of The Sandbaggers; an old British Cold War spy series about SIS getting up to its full and dirty business.

 

[Worgen]

A new router.

 

[SckizoBoy]

RIP on the GPU situation. What placeholder did you get, out of curiosity?

GTX 1650... sight problems and questionable taste in games means I don't need anything particularly good to play what I play at satisfactory settings. As a compromise, I wanted to get something from the 2000 series, but my wife's contact couldn't source any (originally, I was thinking of one of the Radeon cards from last gen... same problem). They suggested the 1650 instead since they could get it for relatively dirt cheap.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

A new router.

Which one?

 

[Worgen]

Which one?

Ended up getting annoyed and just getting an asus, sounds like you can automate them rebooting.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Ended up getting annoyed and just getting an asus, sounds like you can automate them rebooting.

You can. I have an Asus router that I got my parents, and I have it set up to reboot every time they shut down their desktop PC (which usually happens when they go to bed for the night).

They started having issues with Wifi dropping a couple of years after I first bought it for them. At first it was happening once every couple of months but then it started happening once or twice every 2-3 weeks. My parents aren't really tech savy and it was stressing them out even though all they had to do was push a button to turn it off, wait 30 seconds, and turn it back on.

After setting up the automatic reboot it hasn't been a problem.

I've also found that asus routers may run a bit hotter, so don't place them on carpet or they will overheat. This may seem obvious but I've seen way too many people have their router and modem sitting on carpet under their office desk.

 

[Worgen]

You can. I have an Asus router that I got my parents, and I have it set up to reboot every time they shut down their desktop PC (which usually happens when they go to bed for the night).

They started having issues with Wifi dropping a couple of years after I first bought it for them. At first it was happening once every couple of months but then it started happening once or twice every 2-3 weeks. My parents aren't really tech savy and it was stressing them out even though all they had to do was push a button to turn it off, wait 30 seconds, and turn it back on.

After setting up the automatic reboot it hasn't been a problem.

I've also found that asus routers may run a bit hotter, so don't place them on carpet or they will overheat. This may seem obvious but I've seen way too many people have their router and modem sitting on carpet under their office desk.

Performance gear tends to run hot, its going on a metal shelf in the closet so it will be fine. Really to do a reboot you just need to unplug and plug it back in, best practice is to leave it unplugged like 10 seconds, just to make sure the capacitors have time to discharge and the ram is totally cleared. But, that is also an old practice, not sure if you still should do it with new ones, probably not really needed most of the time.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Vacation to Hawaii.

What? Don't look at me like that. After working from home for 2 years without an actual vacation during this pandemic I'm pretty burned out and need a break. I'm vaxxed, I'm boosted, I have N95 masks for the flight. I live alone and am not in danger of infecting people when I come back from my vacation. I'll self-isolate for 10 days before I go.

It'll be fine.
It's fine.

...

 

[Worgen]

Vacation to Hawaii.

What? Don't look at me like that. After working from home for 2 years without an actual vacation during this pandemic I'm pretty burned out and need a break. I'm vaxxed, I'm boosted, I have N95 masks for the flight. I live alone and am not in danger of infecting people when I come back from my vacation. I'll self-isolate for 10 days before I go.

It'll be fine.
It's fine.

...

I've been talking with my gf about going there, I've never been and she has and she really liked it. I figure once the steam deck comes out and crazy people on planes calm down we will go.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Bought one of those DIY moulds that you dip your holding hands into for my girlfriend's Valentine's gift. I've bought her a necklace that when illuminated from behind projects the words "I love you" in 100 languages, a necklace that contains moon dust, and had two posters framed from her trip to Paris she'd had for years that detail various wines and the regions of France they're from. I'm running out of romantic nonsense to buy and surprise her. Next year? Walmart gift card, from the heart.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Uuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaa... The next volumes of the manga I've gotten into were all over the place in terms of availability. Some I was able to order normally but others were going to be on a waiting list until March or even MAY so I said screw that and went looking on Amazon (I try to buy from Barnes & Noble if possible) and had to buy one of them used since it was out of stock otherwise and two others are going to be delivered all the way from freaking Alaska where there was only ONE copy of each left in stock. Like damn, I got in on this series right under the wire in terms of availability.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

T.Flight Hotas 4 because my old 3D pro died in the arse.