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Author: MichelV69

Backyard Aquaponics Update, 2021

Backyard Aquaponics Update, 2021

Published by MichelV69 on May 25, 2021

Post Views: 3,207 Well, Let’s Start at the End of 2020, First So the season ended well last year. Of course, it was the Fall of Anno Covitatus, which meant that a lot was going on. Amongst other things, I had some mental health challenges that simply made social media in general and blogging in particular a lot more effort than it was worth. That’s mostly sorted out now and I’m doing a lot better. The “Dutch Bucket In Bucket” concept for the tomatoes worked brilliantly, as you can see from the photo to the right. 12 plants in 9 buckets produced a wealth of all three kinds of tomatoes we planted. We had cherry tomatoes for grazing snacks, slicing tomatoes for summer sandwiches, and of course sauce-making…

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You Need A GM Sheet

Published by MichelV69 on April 21, 2021

Post Views: 462 So, a while ago on my Twitch Channel, I made the assertion that you need a “GM Sheet“. If you’re a Games Master / Story Teller for a Table Top Role Playing Game (TTRPG) group, and you don’t have a GM Sheet passed out to your players, and then periodically reviewed for currency, you aren’t just lazy. You’re straight-up doing it wrong. I’ve been told, both directly and indirectly, that an awful lot of LGTBQA+ and BIPOC / WOC folx hear alarm bells ringing if a GM/ST doesn’t have or, even worse, doesn’t know what a GM Sheet is for. This is something that’s been in the TTRPG community for about five years now. As a DAWG GM/ST, it was only something I found out…

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How Big is the World?TTRPG Map - The Duchy of the Mists - My Homebrew Setting

How Big is the World?

Published by MichelV69 on January 11, 2021

Post Views: 628 Hi, am after a little help from #DungeonMasters. Looking to run an online game for friends during lockdown and wondered how many of you created your own world, and how deep did you go creating it? #ttrpg #DnD #dungeonsanddragons #RPG #DnD5e @Chinn3rsTV on Twitter That is an excellent question, and it comes up often from new GMs watching my live-stream. The short answer for Twitter is cruxxed around a primary question; what is the fastest that power and news can move? The speed of military power and regional news is what restricts the speed of decision making and governance. In a very broad sense, everything else exists within that framework. If you put a map of Europe & the USA side by side, you’re going…

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An Impossible Dream, NowSpellbinder Nightfall Dice - Diehard Dice

An Impossible Dream, Now

Published by MichelV69 on December 5, 2020

Post Views: 651 So, one of those things that’s been on my “bucket list”, since I was a teen, was the idea of being a table-top role-playing “Games Master” for a “game on TV”. Back in the 80s and 90s, it was just absurd to think that idea would or could ever be a thing. First off, “Nerd Culture” or “Geek Culture” was universally scorned. Games like Dungeons & Dragons were reviled by mainstream culture, subject to crazy-killer movie mythology, and the like. A quarter century or more later, and a lot has changed. “Critical Role” took the cultural world by storm, “Which Alignment Are You” memes are passed by board-room execs, and eSports have multi-million dollar prize purses available. Two-story TV stations fit in the space of…

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Backyard Aquaponics 2020 – Quick Update 03

Backyard Aquaponics 2020 – Quick Update 03

Published by MichelV69 on June 24, 2020

Post Views: 1,215 In spite of the heat-wave we’re currently suffering through here in Morell, Prince Edward Island, I was out yesterday doing some planting on the aquaponics system. I needed to get the Dutch-Bucket-in-Bucket system finished up to clear the way in the Media Grow-bed for other new plants. The concern, based on prior experience, is that tomatoes do a lot of root-production before they start showing substantial growth above ground. So while it looked like not much had changed since I put the plants into the media bed, I suspected that wasn’t the case. Sure enough, when I tried lifting the first tomato plant, the roots had expanded sufficiently that I couldn’t actually just pick it up. I had to under-cut the plant and then lift…

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Backyard Aquaponics 2020 – Quick Update 02

Published by MichelV69 on June 22, 2020

Post Views: 870 The strawberry tower is finally set up, and sleepy plants are in, as of Saturday. Most of them are already looking much less dormant as of this morning. The tower, as you can see, is full of “hydroton” clay pellets; there are 4 “bays” per tier, with five tiers. That gives me space for 20 plants, which is what I’ve done. I had a handful of plants left over, so they’ve been planted in the green horizontal flood-and-drain pipe running horizontally at the top of the image below. The awkward plumbing is actually the out-spout end of a typical bell-siphon. There is a 710ml pop-bottle being used for the “bell” over a 25mm SCH-40 PVC stand-pipe, which then drops down to the “T”. There is…

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Backyard Aquaponics 2020 – Quick Update 01

Published by MichelV69 on June 12, 2020

Post Views: 1,410 More stuff has been planted / transplanted. I’ve moved the first batch of tomatoes out of the grow-pipes into the flood-and-drain media bed. The roots were already 20mm+ sticking out the bottom of the net-pots, so I’m glad I did that now. New pack of tomatoes, plus some basil, added as well.This is temporary, as I need to finish the hybrid Dutch-bucket-in-bucket system, and that will be where I move the tomatoes to. That’s likely next weekend, as I’m waiting on a couple of bags of clay pellets to be delivered. Still, progress is progress. More updates to follow. I post semi-regular video updates to YouTube, if you’d like to listen to me ramble and Muppet-flail. Either way, feel free to leave comments and questions…

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Thoughts Against Gas-Pedal Pacing in TTRPGs

Published by MichelV69 on March 3, 2020

Post Views: 1,533 “It is a fast [plot]? // It’s fast enough for you, old man.” “Pacing” is one of those nebulous issues in story-telling.  Generally, it refers to how fast a story progresses through the arc of events of the plot.  In an era of non-stop-action movies, it’s easy as a GM to feel that things need be a rolling boil at all times in our Table-Top Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs).  I personally think that’s a mistake. “Just Write” on YouTube does an interesting talk-about “Rise of Skywalker” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD5mLw0A8vI) .  One of the remarks he makes is that the director’s trademark style is to push the plot ahead at a frenetic pace by virtue of exposition sequences that drive action sequences.  There are no scenes as a common…

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