LadyCrimson

Bought a small, cheap "laptop" table as a desk extender. I was using a clamp-to-desk board but it was a little too small and kept slipping so I'd have to readjust the clamps all the time. Table is much better. Hacksawed the metal tubes so min. height could be a little shorter and didn't use the included cheap wheels (sits on carpet in my case). Stable enough for a heavy KB, food plates, drinks, etc. Not something to support a lot of weight but it does the job of portable desk-top just fine. Even has a long slot to rest your tablet/phones in. And - mail order wise, imo Choi's kimchi is the best one. One of the few snacks/sides I can eat tons of without guilt so I get it often. I woke up this morning and shoveled some into my face first thing, in fact. Mmm. Can you imagine life without tastebuds? I sure can't.

HA!

Started a game of Medieval Dynasty. Couldn't figure out how to craft the starter stone axe. Finally looked it up and realized the controller doesn't seem to access the crafting menu properly. Works fine for almost everything else but ... oh well, KB/mouse is near at hand and I can just use it when I must. Then I realized that this is one of those survival games where your hunger meter drops super-rapidly and you need to eat like 10 steaks to get it up again. Who the heck eats 10 steaks per meal, honestly. Are these "steaks" the size of quarters? Maybe some skills eventually helps it out some but nope, not dealing with that type of survival. Anyway, game settings allow you to turn on/off most "survival" aspects but you can only do it at the beginning of a new game. So I started over and turned off hunger/thirst and inventory weight limit. I am not spending 20 minutes carrying 10 logs back and forth to a storage bin constantly just to build a pre-fab small hut. Maybe I'll try it with all that back on later, but for now... Anyway! Outside of that - I'm liking the game so far. Good for exploration and management etc. Tried poking a boar (I may not need to eat but I could sell the meat!) and it trampled me. Good times.

Netflix - Spycraft, 8 episode series. I liked it. Can pay full attention or use it as background while cooking or something else. Presented with uncomplicated methods and examples aren't dwelt on in great length. Goes into the far past methods and current concerns. Nothing masterful but a decent documentary series.

Netflix - The Dig. Interesting topic, sedately paced (zzzz) movie. But I'll watch Ralph Fiennes in almost anything so...still, it was more attention-keeping to search/read up on the whole, factual story then it was to watch the movie itself.

I bought some Carr "whole wheat crackers". I expected crackers. What I got was a thick round sweet tasting cookie. Sweeter than graham crackers. I learned about "meat glue" recently and how in the US they even put it in a lot of "bread-y" products and apparently there is something called "crab spaghetti" where they mix crab with tons of meat glue to form strands and ... ...in another 100 years food will all be labeled as "food product" because there will be no actual real food. Edit: unless you grow it yourself.

Rain and more rain = ants in my computer room. Darnit. It's very rare they come in here. After my initial cleanup I'll be spending the whole day crushing the odd stray ant here and there with my finger. Sigh. On another note, Amazon Fresh is working fine in my area again - no mobile needed, no waiting list, often same-day/4 hours after you order it delivery. Awesome. Thus I discovered pre-packaged broccoli-slaw. That's the stalks of broccoli (left over from when companies sell you bags of just the crowns, I'd guess) turned into spaghetti like strands. I don't care about making cole-slaw out of them - but stir fry those up with my usual other stuff and texture/taste wise it's almost like I am eating ... chow mien. Only it's not bread-carbs. I'll be getting a couple bags of those every week now. My new favorite thing!

^ The 2nd one was slightly better than the original/first movie, but that's not saying a whole lot perhaps.

Yeah...I mean it's not like I was expecting Oscar-worthy films, and they did have some amusing moments here and there. But even for what they are, they were not even all that much "fun." Watchable, but ... Also - I watched that Godzilla vs. Kong trailer. I have a feeling we saw all the main action sequences that will occur in that trailer and the rest of the movie will be made up of long reaction shots of various star cameos. Remember when trailers made you want to see the movie, vs. feel like you already saw the movie? That said, I'm sure those scenes will be be giant-monster movie mayhem fun.

Erased is based on a manga (like many animes are) which began in 2012, so I think it pre-dates Life is Strange. I've had both the anime and the live-action series in my Netflix watchlist for ages. Just one of the many shows I haven't gotten around to watching. Tried Cobra Kai. The first episode was amusing with all the film references/comedy. The next two were much less amusing and I'm already bored of the macho posturing (even humorous) and rehashed highschool bully stuff. I do like the blonde lead tho - I don't remember his name - but it's weird because Ralph M. is sort of terrible. I mean he was never a great actor but it worked playing an awkward kid in those movies. In this series he's ... I dunno, I'm finding him almost unwatchable. It really was Mr. Miyagi that made the original film (the sequels were ok but not great) so watchable, imo.

Calico - some low cost indie sim/rpg with simple graphics. (Eventually) ride a giant cat! *buy-click* Medieval Dynasty - wander/explore, build up a village (that'll do work/gather stuff for you? eventually you're the boss? dunno?), hunt, collect stuff, do quests for villagers, build stuff, survive hunger/weather/thirst. Maybe if you think of something like Banished only in 3D/survival-sim format? It's been in early access for a few months and they recently added horses (if you can get enough gold to get one...). Controller friendly so no thumb-destroying mouse needed. Seems ok at the start.

Based on the sounds and initial laughter and old man's anticipatory grin I'd guess they make the cat curious/go into hunt mode making scratchy or other noises. It's like if you wiggle your toes under a blanket while in bed and a cat stalks/hunts/attacks them. The cat hitting the actual face I'm not sure about, unless it has something to do with reflections on the eyeglasses or the grin (teeth baring), or its just the area the cat knew it could reach from a floor jump. Anyway - cats go into hunt-mode because of sound and movement. The more you "play" with them like that the more likely they are to react to stuff like that even if you aren't doing it intentionally. Edit: I had a cat once who I'd pat my shoulder and he'd jump from floor to the shoulder/back. After a while he'd do it without me signalling and thus I'd just be bent over a table or something and suddenly have a cat flying onto my back causing me to shriek in surprise, especially if I had no clothes on/claws. EditEdit: he liked piggyback airplane rides

^ I decided I'd wait for all the patches before trying to do much quest-wise in this game. I mean if I'd liked it enough to obsess/play/finish it in the first couple weeks, that would've been fine and all, but since I didn't even get close to that, I may as well wait now. So maybe I'll try picking it up again in ... summer? Maybe by then at least any possible quest bugs will be fixed.

Well, I watched it via Prime, but I think it was more of a movie-movie, so... After debating for a while I tossed my hands and paid the $20 rental fee to see the end of the world movie Greenland. There's no aliens - it's another extinction-level asteroid/comet etc. type scenario. Anyway, it wasn't bad for the genre. Money shots (on home TV at least) were ok looking but not numerous, drama-peril was fairly typical for type but done well enough. One of the things I liked about it was it was all from the main family perspective. That is, it was closer to a not-omniscient viewpoint, versus going back and forth between a military HQ and multiple other leads for exposition like many disaster films. So any information you get is only as the family was getting it (TV/radio announcements, ppl they ran into), which felt more in the moment. Also, avoids having to tech-babble-splain "reasons". Some people might prefer more exposition re: very ending, felt kind of abrupt/thin. And it didn't have Morgan Freeman. $20 is bit on the high side, but when it's the usual $5-6 worth a shot if you like such films.

Dear Diary of Materialistic Whim: these Koss KSC75 over-ear small headphones that I bought are the bomb. No more earplug effect like with earbuds, or ear pressure like 'normal' headphones, which I hate. Good sound for the size, for mobile and PC/gaming. And not expensive. Imma gonna buy 3 more pairs (I'd guess they're not years and years durable) and a wire length extension for PC use. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006B486K Side note: With hubby home 24/7 now, I use headphones a lot more overall, since he seems to be in constant never ending phone meetings...even w/closed doors it'd be a bit rude to blast sound in the house during the day like I used to, ha.

It's just an 8 second funny dialogue bit from Nipton, not worth anything/not creative. Which is why I didn't understand the sudden crazy spike. Today I woke up, ate, and now I'm going to, uh ... probably spend too much money again I'll get back to y'all on that.

Opened my email today and was flooded with comment notifications re: one of my 9+ year old FO:NV videos, making me go wtf? Its view count (relatively speaking) exploded apparently. Was scratching my head as to the reason for it - I guess this could be why? Silly YouTube recommendation algorithms. I heard it was a separate DLC-like format, which I assume means I can't take the main game NPC's in with me? Pity. Does look interesting tho, and well made. And yes I double-posted again.

Re: the patch (which I haven't installed/played yet): some PC users are reporting a lot less crowd density even with it set to highest. Anyone else notice the same? I wonder if that was supposed to be only for console versions but got put into the PC patch by mistake. Or if it's another sign of how even the PC version will have its graphics generally "downgraded" for performance reasons vs. just adding more low-low graphic setting options.

Well at least I'm not sitting around eating out of CostCo sized M&M jars. Someone on a game forum posted pics of those, good lord those things are enormous. Anyway, it's less the diet per se so much as having to think about it. I am an auto-pilot person. More annoying right now is my right hand is still in arthritis flare up mode (left too, but not as severely). Every time I think it's improving I do something like wash the dishes and I'm back where I started. Thumbs/fingers tend to freeze/claw up like a broken fork, with any use, where I have to force pop it back into a straight position vs. a frozen claw. So computing/gaming, holding books or a camera or gardening or much of anything that requires my smart hand is largely off the table for the moment. Last time it was 3-4 months before it really 'got better'. Thus I am simply ... bored out of my mind - there is only so much Netflix I can stand. And one of the things I tend to want to do when bored out of my mind is ... snack. It's a wonder I've never become truly fat. At least my genetics were good in that area.

Me: "Life sucks." ============= *binges Chinese melodrama, cathartic cry* *binges Korean melodrama, cathartic cry* *spends too much money on stuff I don't need* *reads some Alan Watts* *watches Shawshank Redemption for the umpteenth time* ============== Me: "Life is ... moderately tolerable. Oh yeah, need to buy some groceries...." Hubby (shouting from across the room): "I better not see any chocolate or cookies added to that list!" Me: "...Life sucks."

I dunno ... I don't see how that benefits an average schmuck like me who doesn't OC or anything like that. I doubt most such who are like me have ever used two separate cables on any gpu and they've all "been just fine for 5-10 years." eg, the life of using the thing. It might be the most "optimal" in an "OCD" tech kind of way but it isn't really that important to the average person over the average use/lifetime of the product. Hubby's an electrician type (as well as IT/network and all that other stuff), I asked him, and he doesn't give a fart/worry for something like this, so I won't either. I'm not saying one shouldn't do it, mind, everyone's got their things, but I'm just not going to care enough to bother because it doesn't trigger any of my personal "ocd" tendencies and I've never had a problem from not doing it.

Assuming my google-fu wasn't astray ... I don't like those kind of games either. Not my thing in my "old age." One vs one/small groups combat finesse or whatever one wants to call it was never one of my desires from games (that's another game aspect that has become too "common" for me). Hence my past love for stuff like Diablo clones, 3+ party rpg's, and RTwP over turn-based etc. I'd rather play original Doom and just run around hallways shooting people with my double-barreled shotgun. RTS battles I used to like - but more for figuring out the layout and unit strategies that can rofl-stomp everything. I'd still like to see more games where combat is extremely optional most of the time and only mandatory in certain story bits. Kind of like Death Stranding maybe. The older I get, the more combat bores me no matter what the mechanics. Killed one demon/ogre/knight/peasant, killed them all.

Just to say ... I don't really have a "bucket list" but if I did it would be to visit that cat island at least once. I hear they've spayed/neutered most of the cats there now so in another 10-20 years it won't be as over-run. If hubby dies unexpectedly, I wonder if they'd mind if I lugged 500lbs of cat food over there and moved into an abandoned house. Just retire/die there. No cats in my tiny hut (allergies), but just go outside, play with cats all day, go inside/shower, sleep, wake up, repeat. I wouldn't even need video games.

My problem for a while now has been multiplayer/online focus. Even if a game can be played single, the online focus design still intrudes way too much in one way or another, far as I'm concerned. I like big open world-ish games for exploration/discovery and inventory management aspects (and I remember how few such games there were, once) but yeah, the way many do them now has become too generic or hodge-podge for the moment. Trying to hit all the demographics or whatever.