$400+ raised thanks to all you lovely people that donated (and continue to donate)!

Here's the final beardy photo and the aftermath.😚

Important Extra Life Update and GIVEAWAYS!!!!!

With just days to go to Extra Life day on Saturday, the last push to get a few extra dollars for the charity is on.

As regular readers may know (and if you're my Facebook friend or Twitter follower, you've already been spammed to death) rather than the usual 24 hour gaming marathon, I've opted to shave my beard for the charity. Originally the plan was to shave my goatee but I decided to go all out and grow a full beard then lose the lot.

Ginger beards FTW

As it turns out, not only has this turned me into a pariah in the local community and my own household, not to mention the constant itching, the growing of the beard has turned out to be a greater hardship than shaving off my goatee, so honestly I can't wait until Saturday!

So, to make it all worth while, I need your help. A small donation will help and the charity supports the Miracle Children's Hospital Network, raising money to help sick kids. It doesn't need to be a regular donation. Even a one off $5 will be greatly appreciated and make my suffering this last couple of months worth while.

As an added incentive for my gamer friends, there are a couple of giveaways I've offered through Twitter. If you comment on this blog to say you've donated, I'll add you to the draws for...

1. Steam Code for the brilliant Orcs Must Die 2

2. Beta code for Trove, an interesting looking new MMO from Trion.

and...Exclusive to this post

3. A $10 voucher code from Looney Labs, makers of chaotic card game, Fluxx

You have until 9am Saturday 25th October to donate and comment and increase your chances by retweeting my twitter posts to your own followers, oh and most importantly,

DONATE! It's for the kids!

Blaugust Day 31 - Gaming recommences and the end of Blaugust.

Today the PC has continued to frustrate And Lotro simply refuses to run smoothly even on low graphics settings. What I did try was to run Guild Wars 2 and amazingly it ran as smooth as anything. I suspect it might be unrelated to my overheating issues, and perhaps a recent patch is clashing with something. Eve seems to running reasonably ok but I was delighted to be able to play a fantasy game so Guild Wars saved the day.

I managed to rack up about four levels, more than I've done in the whole of last month and even obtained a new companion, I little piggy! 

And so this is my last post for Blaugust, and although I came a little late to the party, I've enjoyed having a reason to post every day. I'll certainly be making a concerted effort to post often through September...(Bleptember, anyone?) and hope you'll continue to read.

Blaugust Day 30 LOTRO lag and Lips

It's on somewhat of an anticlimax that Blaugust draws to an end as I'm barely gaming thanks to my PC that is now slowed to a crawl. I did manage to log into lotro and complete my Hytbold dailies. I've now got 5 out of the 6 armour pieces and I've unlocked the smithy to run dailies for compendiums (used to make relics for Legendary Items) so once I have my final piece, I'm done with Rohan, or at least the first section. I don't need to see Hytbold completed - I did it on Windfola already so I'll be wending my way to Wildemore and not a moment too soon..at level 88, everything is just a little bit too easy, even with the soup like lag.

On a brighter note, today we celebrated my nephew leaving for University and my upcoming birthday, with Big ole BBQ. We had some unseasonably good weather and afterwords the alcohol had flowed suffieciently that I was asked to fire up the Xbox for family favourite 'Lips'. This is the Xbox version of Playstations Singstar, a karaoke game with two wifi connected mics. My sisters in law love the game and after numerous attempts at Aha's 'take on Me' Mariah Carey's 'Touch my Body' and Destiny's Child 'Survivor', everyone went home happy.

Blaugust Day 29 - Spyware stops play

Been a quiet few days, gaming wise. On top of the fan issues my PC has been reduced to a crawl by a bunch of spyware I managed to infect myself with. Things seem to be almost back to normal though I definately need to get the fan sorted out.

Got in a little LOTRO. Pinestro the warden has hit 88 and crafted his Second Age level 85 spear. I was almost not going to bother, as at the rate he's levelling he'll be looking for a 95 and then a 100 but according to Turbine, the legendary item grind is coming to an end as you'll be able to 'lock in' the item you have from100 onwards. The endless grind every ten levels is ridiculous currently so that will be a welcome change.

Also played a little Eve but nothing more than mining and training. I've established a trade between myself and my corporation for the sale of the Ice I'm mining, so hopefully the profits will start coming in soon ( as I'm down to a paltry 10 million Isk after buying and fitting a second Mackinaw.

Blaugust Day 26 - Postcards for Josh

A couple of days ago I wrote about about my history with gaming. One of the good friends I referred to, in fact the first person I corresponded with through PBMs and subsequently met years later, is Jason Johns and he or at least his son, is the subject of my post today.

Joshua Johns is seven years old. He's already an avid gamer, a huge Minecraft fan, so he's definately "one of us"

On the 6th of March this year, Joshua was diagnosed with Pre B Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.  Since March Josh has been treated with seven different types of chemotherapy and has spent time in hospital on four different occasions with suspected infections. He has had a central line inserted into his chest and now has an ng tube in his nose which is used to feed him as his weight dropped drastically. The chemotherapy has affected his legs so he is unable to walk very far and has a wheelchair. It has also affected his hands and so he is also unable to write. Josh hasn't been able to attend school since he was diagnosed in March. At the end of the school term Josh was sent homework for the holidays which included writing a diary of what he did in the holidays and to send a postcard from his holiday. Unfortunately he is currently going through a particularly intensive block of treatment and so won't be able to go away on holiday this summer. 

For this reason his folks have decided to make his summer homework a little bit different. They have bought a large World map and are asking everyone to send a postcard to Josh from wherever you are if you have the chance. They will then mark the areas he receives postcards from on the map and send this map into school with the postcards in September. 

So if you're going away on holiday or even if you fancy sending a postcard from home please send to Joshua Johns at 2 Swansmoor Drive, Hixon, Staffordshire ST18 0FP. 

If you want to see his progress, there is a Facebook group called Postcards For Josh.

Blaugust Day 25 - the Treasure Hunt grind is over!

So pretty much most of the weekend was spent In LOTRO, in the damn Treasure Hunt. Now I've been sucked into this occasional event on a number of occasions, each time testing my patience to its limit. The hope of a random drop of the Treasure Laden Goat or the grinding of tokens for a emote I'll never use.

 So what attracted me to bang my pick into the ground over and over and race other hungry treasure hunters to berry bushes every fifteen minutes to earn a new pick (and risk being called 'rude' as I was on one occasion!)?  

Cosmetic pets....

Turbine have finally release these to non-Loremasters and everyone is after one, and for a mere 300 treasure tokens, an ugly beast with a blade for a beak could be yours. So I did it...I dug and dug, and chased berry bushes using caffeine induced speed boosts, and I got 300 tokens. Now I'm the proud owner of a green beaked beastie that I'll probably summon a couple of times before I forget he's there.

Oh MMOs, you do like us to run round your little hamster wheel, don't you?