New Oven and Homeworld 3

We finally ordered a new oven/cooking-range because the old oven (bought around 2006 when we got the house) decided it no longer was able to consistently ‘oven’: It would preheat, then suddenly not be able to heat anymore once whatever was in the oven. Thus, cookies and cakes and roasts and such would… sorta cook, but otherwise be warm-and-raw-in-the-middle after the assigned cooking time. The handy househusband took it apart, tried to resquare it, put it into test mode, and still, it was a coin flip every time we turned it on whether it would actually hold heat as long as we wanted. The best hack we could figure was taking out a burner and having a small shop fan blow down the vent to stir up the air inside and keep whatever thermostat from getting stuck, and that only marginally removed the undesired new behavior.

The new one is going to be here in a few days and is a Frigidaire Gallery (GCRE3060BF) all electric with a glass cooktop that has 5 ‘burners’ and all the convection/air-fry goodies. The glass cooktop will be new for us but I am already ordering the microfiber towels/polishers and glass cooktop cleaner and working with handy househusband on where to keep the “cooktop towels” so we don’t accidentally grab something that will make things bad/worse/scratched when there is a spill. We’re ready to ruler-check the flatness of our plans and getting used to the idea of not shaking/wiggling/moving anything while it’s in contact with the glass.

Also, the fact that it is a Frigidaire Oven/Cooktop makes me happy because I love incongruently named appliances (ovens/fridges from whirlpool, fridges/washing-machines/dishwashers from hotpoint/toastmaster, ovens/dishwashers/washing-machines from Frigidaire… etc).

Otherwise, I am now seeing a lot of Internet Scuttlebutt about the release of Homeworld 3. Thus I pull out my Geriatric Millennial spittoon and talk about being there when Sierra released Homeworld as their Last Game:

Because they were made/released by Sierra, there was the very annoying hack of “you either have to buy the game guide or replay it a couple of times or you won’t have enough resources/items to finish the game and/or get the good ending.” I didn’t even play it that much, I just watched my brother play it on his (very fancy) gateway 2000 desktop with 300 whole megahertz and SVGA graphics dumping into a formidable Trinitron CRT monitor. The same computer setup that saw me get the BEJEEZUS scared out of me when I tried playing my brother’s copy of Half Life. But I do remember thinking Homeworld was just GORGEOUS as a game and I loved the little trails the very fancy ships left as they skittered about doing ship things.

A couple of decades later… I couldn’t remember the name of Homeworld… but I got into EVE online for a spell because I thought it was an MMO expansion of Homeworld because the spaceship design was equally pretty (a style I am going to call “Dark mode ST:TNG”) and the “there is a nefarious thing that is trying to conquer/killinate all of the other groups” and “The further away from civilization you get, the more dangerous it is, but the rewards are better” tropes.

I finally remembered Homeworld was the name of the Sierra game and was sad to realize that there was no connection between it and EVE Online. But I am glad to see Homeworld continues to have a spiritual sequels. I don’t wanna play them (because they probably have that annoying game hack where you have to buy the game guide or play through it multiple times to suss out the resources you need to get the good ending)… But I would like to watch other people play.