pshaw_raven: (Good Medicine)
I just saw that I wrote an entire post last week and never sent it. I've deleted it now, but I feel a bit dense, LOL. We got home with head colds - probably head colds, anyway - and they seem to be relentless. I've been sick since the first of May. This sucks, I'm tired of being tired, and I'm annoyed that I'm missing the last few cool mornings until November. I'm used to being able to push myself, but I'm not sure what to push or in which direction. "Listen to your body"? The signals change every few hours. I just want this over with.

Anyway. The only thing I've felt much like doing besides reading is gaming. I'm almost through Environmental Station Alpha. I'm in the post-game where things get both more challenging and more unhinged. There's a spike maze that you get through by using your dash, and I haven't managed that yet. It's not quite as bad as the cannon challenge in Owlboy but it's testing my button mashing abilities.

I also bought a Kingdom Hearts bundle on sale, which apparently has the first two games and a set of ... is it DLC? There may actually be seven games here. Fox wanted this series as well, and I decided to get it when I found Disney hadn't made any dick moves like "family sharing disabled." I'm literally just starting out with this franchise, though I've been curious about it for ... omg two decades. I've made it to the Olympic Coliseum, and the Deep Jungle. I noticed I've been picking up special moves I can swap out, and I wonder if I'll earn move slots for those, and for equipment.

The Zucchini Singularity has begun here, and I have a grocery bag of squash to turn into bread, muffins, and stir fry. The cherry tomato plant in my garden that randomly started up Leeroy Jenkins style in a cinder block has flowers on it now. We've gotten almost three inches of rain this month, so the sand road is much better, which I would enjoy a great deal if I felt well enough to go for a run.

I managed to tidy up my writing space, so perhaps when my brain isn't clogged with mucus I can do some of that. Dhhieofjkdnjdkfslfl
pshaw_raven: (Antlered Owl)
I was recently asked about two-player RPGs and today came across a great publisher out of the UK - Critical Kit! One of their games is "Be Like A Crow" so I may be slightly biased in my enthusiasm. I've downloaded the sample booklet for the "Wires in the Woods" game they've launched on Backerkit and I'm reading through it now. It looks interesting and I'm considering actually backing it.

I've been pretty good about not spending a ton of money this summer since dropping all that cash on a bike. It's actually nice enough outside to go ride again so I'm thinking of either taking it to Orlando in a few weeks or perhaps trying to ride my road, since it seems pretty firmly packed now. Anyway.

I know there's a ton of dice lurking around here somewhere. I don't have my own anymore but I think Fox would let me use one of his sets. That'll keep me in business until I can buy the Florida Mann set. I also need this because I will never NOT find rickrolling funny.

I've also got my copy of Inscrutable Cities that I haven't done anything with yet, except spill coffee on it. I keep collecting these solo games and then not actually playing them. Why? Ugh - Little Me would have been ecstatic! Especially as I was forbidden to play RPGs - mom was convinced D&D was satanic, and I was banned from even watching the cartoons. So guess what I started doing as soon as I moved into the dorm at college. (No not smoking weed. Well. That, too.)

On a more mundane note, I had a fairly productive day. I got out early and picked up the remaining branches and sticks from the storms so that I could mow. One of the pines lost a branch from high up - a big one larger around than my forearm - and it drove itself at least a foot into the ground when it fell. Which is why we don't go outside during the storm. I've still got some trimming and push mowing to do, and I can finish that up tomorrow. I've got my errands mostly run for the week, though I have to be out Wednesday for a doctor appointment. For now I still need to fold some laundry and make dinner - pork and tofu yakisoba.
pshaw_raven: (Skeleton)
I'm alive LOL. The past week or so I've been dealing with what I can only describe as crushing fatigue. Just enough energy to do the minimum, which also means no workouts, no walks, no extras. I'm feeling somewhat better, just in time for Debby to come wreak havoc. Fox and I have already bought gas and etc in case it's such a rainmaker that we get stuck back here for a while. He and some of the other guys out this way can work the road with their tractors if it gets bad, and we can run our generator for ten straight days if needed. Typically we don't run ours 24/7 but that's how we mentally measure the amount of gas we have.

I can tell I've slacked off on yoga, too. I know it'll all come back soon enough but man I am so stiff. I also canceled my strength app, though I plan to continue lifting. But it's time for marathon training, which means I need to lift more like a runner and less like a bodybuilder. It's guided me through enough that I know how to do my fall and winter lifting, and I'll be more motivated to stick with it because I know how much it helps my running. I still hate weighted lunges but man they are SO good for my wonky hips.

If I weren't so dead I'd think about making a couple of loaves of shokupan today.

The only thing of note that I've really done is I finished Okami. I also collected all the stray beads, which means I'll never need to do the Devil Gate Trials again. (Three Great Tengu at once. THREE. This was after defeating TWO OTHERS) I've started a new game+ but until Steam fixes whatever they messed up with controllers I can't progress beyond the first fishing game. Hopefully they actually DO something about that, because it's not just Okami that's affected, but this is also Steam so who knows. I started playing Hob, not sure where I saw it recommended, but I'm enjoying it immensely. Hob is entirely wordless. No dialogue, no written signs, nothing. Your powerups have descriptions in one sub menu but nothing is ever really explained to you.

I'm going to try to get a short treadmill run in this morning. I would have gone out to run on the road but it was already 78 when I got up, and there isn't a breath of wind outside. If it were breezy that would at least bring some relief but it feels like a sauna. There hasn't even been much bird or squirrel activity in the yard, and usually the Cardinals start cheeping once the sky begins to get light.
pshaw_raven: (Hornet - Git Gud!)
I noticed that I've worried and worn the left thumbstick on my controller to the point where it has no little bumps or texture remaining, AND it's starting to tear. Unfortunately I love soft silicone and rubbery textures, and will rub and poke them endlessly when I have them in my hands. Shopping for replacements is a bit overwhelming as everyone and their grandmother makes replacement pads, but I think a pair from Kontrol Freek might do the trick. When did I start using the thumbstick instead of the d-pad, anyway? Hm.

This came up while playing Okami, which is an amazing game and one I really wanted to play when it came out, but I didn't own a console. I eventually bought a used PS2 on eBay at some point, and a copy of Katamari Damacy, but I kind of forgot about Okami until it went on sale last year on Steam and Fox bought it for me. He had it and played through it several times and wanted to share that. So far I'm enjoying the hell out of it, but I got to Kaguya's digging mini-game and I am just filled with white-hot rage. When I do manage to get a Waterspout to shoot her up to a block, SHE JUST SITS ON IT. WHY ARE YOU JUST SITTING THERE GET UP AND WALK OMG KAGUYA. If you want me to help you dig up your whatever-it-is down here you've got to work with me and stop being ... YOU. So I'm off farming belief and demon fangs to upgrade my number of ink pots and to get a golden ink pot, which is supposed to replenish ink at a much faster rate. Because I get the feeling I'm going to be using a lot more brush techniques on this one than any of the previous mini-games.

I think when she is just sitting on the waterspout, I might be able to use Galestorm to blow her off onto a solid block, as long as she doesn't just turn around and walk back into the pool, which would likely have me putting my head through the wall out of sheer frustration. This one goes right to the top of my "Most Annoying Mini-Games Designed By Satan Himself," along with Hyper Light Drifter's soccer game.

In my IRL-farming-simulation, AKA my garden, I've got some food worked into the pumpkin and pepper beds, and the tomatoes that gave up the proverbial ghost in the heat are ready to be hoed under. The cherry tomatoes are still going strong, and I have another pattypan squash ready to be harvested. At this point I have enough of those little squashes that my next round of lunch prep may be curried squash and basmati rice. I should also save some seeds from that squash - it was a volunteer and it's turned out to be a vigorous, productive little plant.

Catching Up

Jun. 4th, 2024 08:50 am
pshaw_raven: (Dopey Runner)
Gaming: I still heartily recommend Little Kitty, Big City to basically any and everyone. It's a cat simulator. It's super cute. You get to wear hats. A reviewer described it as "Stray's laid-back cousin." I'm also nearing completion on Psychonauts, and I'm enjoying it so much that when Psychonauts 2 goes on sale I'll be picking it up. Some of the platforming is challenging, but on the whole it's worth the effort, and I'd recommend taking it slowly rather than bulldozing through to the end. Wander around and chat with NPCs and some interesting, darker currents of the story reveal themselves. And holy crap, some parts get pretty damn dark. Some parts are also laugh-out-loud funny, like Vernon's long-ass story he tells in the TV room.

Food: I have a LOT of cherry tomatoes and I'll be making a roasted cherry tomato sauce tonight. I came across the recipe last year when I was freecycling stuff locally and every person I met up with either brought me a bag of cherry tomatoes or zucchinis. Or both. I also have a couple of pattypan squash that I'm considering roasting up Japanese-style as a side. I'm not sure on this one as Fox is not a huge fan of squash, but will eat it depending on how it's prepared. Roasting it like a kabocha is something I can see doing, as they aren't as soft as zucchinis, but it might also be a good candidate for tempura. Because frying.

I've also been busy baking, and now make one or two loaves of sourdough bread a week, plus yesterday I made myself a batch of liege waffles as snacks to replace GU stroopwaffels when I'm on training runs. The GU cookies are good, but they're expensive, so I save those for race days.

Running: I'm starting formal training for my fall races soon, and I'm tempted to post more detailed stuff here about my workouts, but I have no idea if anyone's interested. I might just use a cut, you can read about them if you're curious or skip if you don't care. But I'll be looking at starting with the Penney Farms 5k in October, Wine & Dine Two-Course in November, Space Coast marathon on December 1, and Dopey in January. Then probably Gate River Run in March for funsies. With all those different distances, I'm picking from different training plans and I'll be adjusting as I go. Training for a fast half should help me run a faster full marathon, but I'll need to add longer weekend runs to get my endurance up. Or you can add me on Strava or Garmin Connect.
pshaw_raven: (X-Ray Forest)
We're finally having nice weather, so Saturday Fox and I headed to Florahome for our long workouts. Well, Fox is cycling so his ride wasn't super long, but I needed a long run, and my last two hadn't been exactly stellar. I headed up a side road and passed by FPL's solar farm before deciding on more or less a whim to go into Etoniah Creek State Forest and run a section of the Florida Trail. I knew from the map it would connect with a road on the other side of the forest, then back down towards 100 and the rail trail, which would lead me right back to my truck. Easy.

Oh boy did I not even once think about that trail until I was too far in to really turn around.

Not to dump on the trail maintainers - they're all volunteers and they do a great job, but we also just had a major hurricane, and there's only so much people can do each weekend. There were a lot of downed trees to contend with, including a big pine that fell almost ON the trail, necessitating several yards of climbing through its branches. On stretches where I could run, I kept up a decent trail pace, but I was frequently forced to walk. But it was a nice day, no other people out, and I just stopped worrying about my pace and distance and stuff, and just enjoyed the run.

Except for about a half mile of open area that was just thick with sand spurs. Fuck those things. There was a convenient bench on the other side of that patch where I sat down to pick them all off my socks and shoes. Yeah, these things.

I was surprised at how good I felt, both mentally and physically, when I was done. Tired, yes. I was out of it to the point where when I made pizza that night, I forgot the sauce on one of them. And the next day I found I was stiff and sore that morning, but by breakfast, I felt better and was moving normally. So, I didn't quite get as much distance as I wanted, but I maintained a good pace for the kinds of places I was running and wasn't wiped out after. Plus, I saw some Hawks doing a territorial display. Not too much other wildlife, but they probably all heard me crashing around and stayed away. Which is good because one of the sandy patches looked to have some small bear tracks. That, or some little kid really needs to cut his toenails.

I gotta add yoga back into my routine. Between weight lifting and running, I feel kind of stiff and very mildly achey. Like a 1 on a 1 to 10 scale, but I'd prefer a zero.

I've stopped playing anything requiring fast inputs and stuff on my Steam Deck. Yes, it's a little slow, but so is my brain. So normal gamers with good reaction times might not have a problem with it, but I'm better off doing any fighting or tight platforming on my desktop PC. But this is also not exactly why I got the Deck. I have plenty of things like turn based, resource management, and other lower-key games I'd like to play, and they're perfect for laying on the couch or hanging out in the camper. I loaded up Kingdom Classic, Abzu, and Death & Taxes. Kingdom is interesting, and I'm already on day 16 or 17, but I think I fucked up and don't have enough builders.

But I do want to finish up Blasphemous 2, and I'm on the next to last boss fight. As with the first game, the next to last boss is turning out to be a really tough fight. This guy even has Crisanta's sword so you know he's a bastard. Overall I'm really pleased with the second game and looking forward to any DLC they decide to put out. I like most of the modifications and changes, and the ones I don't like, I understand.
pshaw_raven: (Crow with flowers)
My Steam Deck finally arrived. HUZZAH

The "out for delivery" and "no attempt made" back-and-forth was probably not actually my package going to a truck ride every day before returning to Ocala, but more likely someone scanning the bin and then not touching any of the packages inside. Anyway, Fox managed to talk to a real person at FedEx about it, and the next day it showed up. FedEx Ground, so I've heard, is usually third part contractors, so the service can be inconsistent. That's why I had this problem this time, but when I order Feisal's insulin and it comes "regular" FedEx, it's here within 48 hours.

Anyway, Deck is awesome. I started off with Aperture Desk Job, which was basically designed to give new Deck users a tour of their equipment while fending off attacks by sentient, armed washing machines. I also have Dead Cells and 20XX running on it, and really am enjoying the experience of playing on it, much more that Crowley enjoys the experience of being a Steam Deck stand. He'll like it better this winter when it's blowing all that warm air on him. Blasphemous 2 is out today and I'm not sure if I want to install it on the Deck as well, or play on my desktop and enjoy the gorgeous backgrounds on a massive widescreen monitor. Decisions, decisions. *le sigh*

But I have more catching up to do today, so I'm waiting until the last task is marked off my list. I still don't feel entirely recovered from whatever I've had, but I'm done with taking it easy. I had an hour run yesterday that went well, and I felt good. Next week I'll start weight lifting again. My body still feels stiff and heavy, and just awkward. My jaw hurts where I've apparently been clenching it in my sleep.

We passed the one year mark of net metering on our solar array, and were positive something like 600 kw. So the guy who designed our system did a great job. Eventually we'll start setting up batteries for power storage for when the grid's down, but as of right now we don't intend to go completely off-grid. And the power co-op did a good job of upgrading the lines a few years back. We still have random outages, but not as many and they don't last as long. And I think a lot of that is unavoidable when so much of your lines and things run through such heavily forested areas - you're going to take damage.
pshaw_raven: (Swandog Raven)
I got sidetracked while I was sick and went from milk bread recipes to moon cakes, and wound up reading more about snow skin cakes than I ever intended. As much as I'd like to try making them, they look like they require several specialized purchases - not just the molds, but certain kinds of rice flour, filling ingredients, etc. So I think I will just plan a trip into Jacksonville at some point and buy a box, rather than investing a bunch of money in equipment I may only use once a year. I don't want to end up like people my mom's age who have plates and stuff that they only use at Christmas or something, and otherwise it sits around taking up space.

Obviously there's nothing to stop me making moon cakes whenever I want, but Fox may not like them, and if he doesn't, I'm certainly not going through all that effort just to make a treat for myself.

Another day of waiting on FedEx, also. Steam started offering refurbished Steam Decks, and I'd been saving up for one for a while, so I went ahead and grabbed a refurb. It was supposed to be delivered Thursday, but every day, it just goes back to the depot. Yesterday it even said "delivery not attempted." I thought about trying to redirect it, but the page for selecting a location has none. Like there are no FedEx locations anywhere in the world - it's a blank map. I'm not sure what to do at this point aside from contacting Valve, which I'll do if it doesn't arrive today. I'm not holding my breath, either. They're up front enough to actually put on the tracking info that they didn't try to come here, and didn't even contact me using my contact info which is listed on my FedEx account ... even Amazon will at least shoot me a quick text if they think they can't get their trucks down our road. And UPS is the king of DGAF and the brown trucks will show up in all kinds of conditions. Dunno what's making "the world on time" have cold feet.

Maybe UPS is so fearless out here because Fox went and pulled out a stuck delivery truck once using the tractor, LOL.

Anyway. I'm going to try to catch up on more household stuff today and then look at starting running again tomorrow. I'll be a week behind on training, but not a big deal. The "long run" I missed was an hour forty-five, so it looks like it was a scale-back week anyway. And the weather coming up looks more like our normal summer heat rather than the murderous climate-change fueled suffer-fest we were dealing with.
pshaw_raven: (Bike Bird)
I realize I've not posted anything here in a while, but there hasn't exactly been a lot going on. Mostly just bitching about the heat. I can go out and run in this if I get out very early, but I'm still wiped out for at least an hour when I get home. I can even manage a long run if I fill my hydration vest with an electrolyte mixture, but it's brutal out there. Too bad man-made climate change is a hoax, right? (sarcasm - there's no good way to include a sigh and an eyeroll here)

We're heading off camping this weekend because why not go camping in the middle of August. :D It's camping at Disney so it's less bad, but you still have to go outside. We're planning to do our park stuff in the early mornings and late evenings, and then just hide in the camper during the heat of the day. I should be able to manage later nights than I'm used to since I'll be able to nap. I couldn't relax enough to nap in a Disney hotel because of the "health and safety" inspections. But no one's coming into the camper so my anxiety brain feels like it can stand down.

Anyway, it'll be fun to be at Disney on my birthday. We've done this a few times for Fox, but his birthday also falls very close to Wine & Dine race weekend. In my case we've been in August, but we'll actually be on property on the day. I don't have anything super specific I want to do, but whatever I do ought to involve ice cream, so if it feels like something we could do I might ask for a trip to Beaches & Cream, unless I see something inside EPCOT that's serving ice cream, like outside the normal offerings.

In books this month or so, I read some pretty weighty tomes. I finished Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae after having it sitting on my shelves for literally decades. I bought it and read maybe the first twenty pages, but if I remember correctly I had to put it aside to write my thesis, and Paglia doesn't touch on the authors I was writing about. I do wish she'd gotten around to bringing us into the twentieth century, but I enjoyed her take on Emily Dickinson. I feel like Paglia might be one of those people who would agree that Hamlet is best read as a black comedy. I also read Sleep Demons: An Insomniac's Memoir by Bill Hayes, an engaging book on sleep and the lack of it. My insomnia problems aren't as bad any more, but it's always encouraging to hear from someone who suffered with it as a child, given how often I was told I "couldn't" have trouble sleeping. It's tempting to go down a rabbit hole with this one - Hayes has written a lot more, and has worked with Oliver Sacks, whose writing I also enjoy.

I'm currently reading Chuck Tingle's horror novel, Camp Damascus about a gay conversion camp in the wilds of Montana. I preordered, but have been saving it for the trip, so I just started reading. I also received a gift for preordering, a spiffy yellow bandanna that says BURN IT DOWN, which nicely sums up my feelings about any and all conversion therapy. In addition I've got a copy of Picnic at Hanging Rock which should be fun. I have not seen the movie, but I'm familiar enough with the book's reputation to know some people think it's a true story.

In gaming, I hit the halfway point in Okami, which I'm still enjoying greatly. I also picked up Rain World again and started a new campaign as the Survivor, and I'm finding it actually a bit easier than the "easy mode" Monk slugcat. Monk does less damage with his attacks, and is slower and less agile. For me, the Survivor's more robust movement makes some of the platforming sections a bit easier. Not that anything is actually easy in this game. I hit on the idea of "activating" echoes as I go around the map, and then backtracking with my earned passages to actually meet those echoes, and that's worked out well for me. I'm about to head into the game's last major area, and the home stretch for getting my slugcat back to her family.

Fox is considering getting me a new bike, because we just discovered my old one is a steel frame. He thinks I might have an easier time riding an aluminum frame, and maybe save The Tank for later. Or donate it, IDK. His parents know a lady in Orlando who refurbishes bikes, so I might be able to buy a pretty good bike through her for cheaper. I'm still not really looking at riding competitively, running is going well and I'm far less likely to crash into things.

Monk Mode

May. 1st, 2023 08:54 am
pshaw_raven: (Hornet - Git Gud!)
I started playing Rain World when the DLC was released - I don't own Downpour yet, but I'd had the game gathering dust in my Steam library and decided it was time to try it out. I'm still on my first play through, which I started as the Monk, since that is the "easy mode."

Cut for spoilers ... )
pshaw_raven: (Hell of a Butler)
There hasn't been a lot going on here this week, so I haven't thought to post much. Mostly preparations for the ultra on Saturday. Over the weekend, Fox was trying to do some tractor work, flattening out an area in the back where we'd cut down some trees that were blocking the solar panels. The ground's all churned up, and if it's flatter, it can grow grass which I can then mow. It's also near one of the major trails he cut through our forest going over towards the access road in Belmore, so if that gets a little more love, it will be much easier to head over there on foot, rather than driving ten miles or so out of my way to get to the trailhead off Sharon Road. But the tractor threw a code, along with a big-ass red light and a lot of high-pitched screeching as if simply starting the engine were going to cause the whole thing to explode.

So we loaded it onto the trailer and took it over to AgPro. They cleared the code and ... nothing's wrong. The tractor's onboard computer just freaked out for some reason. They're doing "winter maintenance" on it while it's there, cleaning filters and checking grease fittings and stuff like that. We'll be picking it up tomorrow, and running a few last minute race errands. Fox wants some bananas, I want to see if Academy has travel-size Body Glide I can stick in my pack, and we may swing by the address given for the starting area to make sure we know where we're going. We should be good on everything else and ready to go. But, as Mike Tyson has famously said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

The trail will start punching around mile 3 or 4, and will keep swinging the rest of the way. There's a LOT of up and down for a Florida race - most of which are pancake-flat, even on trails. The last three miles even feature non-stop elevation gain, woohoo! I love running up hills when I'm already exhausted. On the other hand, two thousand feet of gain over thirty-one miles isn't THAT bad. Right?

I finished playing Axiom Verge 2 the other night when I completed a speedrun. Four and a half hours isn't exactly super-speedy, but I mopped up several more achievements and felt like I'd enjoyed myself. I've gone back to Little Nightmares and made it to the Geisha's Chambers. Getting through the Guests was pretty hair-raising. I think I've also missed a couple of Nomes, but it looks like once you finish the main game you can jump around and hunt for collectibles. I also have the DLC, and Little Nightmares 2 ready to go. I'm really impressed by the look of the world they made - if it's safe enough I sometimes like to just explore the rooms and look at things. It really is nightmarish.

Fox found a YouTube video about "how did they update and patch games before the internet?" We both laughed, "They didn't." And ... yeah, they didn't. If you bought a glitchy game, it sucked to be you. You'd have to buy the next version that hopefully had bug fixes included. Of course, now we have games with day one patches. Looking at you, Cyberpunk.

Fox also found a way to let me share my Steam library to our living room TV and play with minimal input lag. I'm still going to blame my poor gaming on input lag, though. Stray looks amazing on the OLED screen. If I weren't so weird about "bothering" everyone with the sound of my gaming I'd embrace this more, but I worry that it'll annoy Fox, who has said on several occasions that he is not at all bothered by it. That doesn't stop my Anxiety Brain from worrying about it, though.

And Clip Studio gave in to the whiners and Luddites, and the new version will no longer include an AI generator pane. *throws up hands*
pshaw_raven: (Autumn Leaves)
I conked out early last night. I'm enjoying getting some extra sleep, and the time change is messing with me, because it's so dark out early, it feels like bedtime. I ended up not running yesterday, but today I plan on wrapping my toes and heading out for a three-miler. I ordered some silicone toe caps, but they won't be here until Saturday or Sunday, because apparently there's a holiday this week or something.

I finished playing Axiom Verge 2 - well, I finished the main story. You can re-open your saved game and start from the shrine right before the final boss, and then go back to clean up collectibles and such. I apparently managed to finish with less than half the weapons and upgrades, LOL. I enjoyed the first game Thomas Happ made, and was really looking forward to this one, too, and it didn't disappoint me. My only complaint is that while I enjoy exploring and poking around, some of the exploration mechanics can make it difficult for me to figure out where I am. This game features the ability to leave the Breach at any point, and in some places you have to enter, leave, and re-enter the Breach to get to places in the Overworld, and I'm just left sitting there wondering where the hell I am. Yes, I can see the map, and no, it's not helping. XD

I picked up Little Nightmares 2, and a DLC bundle for the first game, which I plan to go back and finish next. I got a little stuck because I was achievement hunting, and replayed "The Kitchen" so I could get "Kitchen Hand." With the extra DLC areas available to me, I'm looking forward to playing again. I also need to finish up Bendy and the Ink Machine, but I'm very stuck on the last boss. Like, seriously stuck. I've watched numerous videos of people beating this thing, but I can't seem to get more than two hits in. It's one where I'm going to just have to embrace the grind and play every night until I get it.

I'm also in the middle of Okami and Transistor, both of which are really good, but they're so involved, I can't really split playing them with other games. I can go play Hades for an hour, and then come back to it a week later and just pick it up again. Okami requires more sustained focus, for me anyway.

My neighbors are having Jamie's mom over this week, and I got to meet her yesterday. I also got to watch the littlest child have a meltdown because he wanted to hold a brown beetle one of his sisters found. I also had to suppress the urge to be "that person" and tell them how they could make a little terrarium for the beetle and so keep it indoors as a pet. This is coming from someone who routinely kept roly-polies as pets, along with crickets and caterpillars.

Finally - and this is very important - there is a Red-Bellied Woodpecker at my feeder.
pshaw_raven: (Autumn Leaves)
Here's some recent Disney photos, including starting line pics and some crowd scenes Fox was able to get. Gideon's Bakehouse, some of the Fab 50 statues, food (obvs), and one very random Skyliner pic. I deeply dislike the Skyliner, but we're forced into using it to get certain places. During one of it's numerous stops and stalls, Fox was able to zoom in and get a picture of this safety placard showing how to clip on to the pylon for maintenance work. I may add more race photos in later, but so far I only see one where I don't look like Jeffery Dahmer. Fox says my facial expressions are "determined" rather than the way I describe them, which is "derpy, but also murderous."

Last night I accidentally finished Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. I say "accidentally" because I was not expecting to beat the final boss on the first try. But I did go in with the best armor in the game, a seriously overpowered great sword, and a ton of healing items. I'm also at 99.90% map completion so that's going to bother me. I started a new game and briefly played Zangetsu, who has a pretty good move set, but it looks like he doesn't pick up items? I know he wouldn't collect shards, but I'm hoping for some different story and dialogue from him.

Once I get that map at 100% I plan to move on to finishing Bendy (stuck on the level four boss ATM) and I'd like to start Axiom Verge, which I just picked up on sale.

On the printed side of the world, I have just started on the Battle of Borodino in War & Peace. How many different ways is Tolstoy going to describe Bonaparte as "fat?" Because he is pretty relentless in his descriptions and it's hilarious. His passages talking about Napoleon's military "genius" are also dripping with sarcasm. I would expect no less from a Russian author, though. I am probably about five hundred pages from the end now, and I feel like I can reasonably expect to finish by the end of the year. So far it's been a very worthwhile journey.

Today's plans include more laundry, finding the instruction booklet for my meditation clock, and getting back into the swing of drawing every day. I needed to reset the meditation timer and found that I don't remember how to do it, and the company doesn't seem to provide PDFs of the instructions. So it's either trial and error, or hunt down the little booklet, which I'm 95% certain I didn't throw away. No running today, but this weekend gets me back into training with an eight-week ramp up to running Dopey in January. It's going to be tough but I'm sure I can manage it. I have a six miler tomorrow, followed by a 90-minute run Sunday. Then the long runs start increasing by two miles each week until you hit twenty, which is usually enough training distance to get you through a marathon. And all the training load gives me a terrific excuse to bake more.
pshaw_raven: (Hornet - Git Gud!)
Just last month, Death's Door released and I picked it up in pre-order. This is one I think you'd call a metroidvania - you can revisit previous map areas as you gain new abilities and there are new bits you can access. I've enjoyed this one a lot, and not simply because I get to play as a cute little Crow with a bigass sword. The pacing is good, there's enough stuff scattered around that backtracking isn't so much of a grind, and the soundtrack is terrific. I should have got that when it was on sale.

The only two major points of frustration were a seriously hard platforming challenge late-game to get to a Vitality Shrine. This wasn't helped by my brain deciding it was going to confuse "roll" with "fire" so I'd go to fire my hook across a canyon and instead, roll off the cliff. I'm not a particularly good gamer, as you might imagine. Otherwise that one might have been a lot less annoying, though it does still rely on speed and timing to get through. The other was an early game mini boss, I guess it's called a Black Knight, but a lot of people on Reddit have started referring to it as "thicc knight" due to the way it looks. I think it's supposed to be some sort of clockwork, but I honestly don't know. It's incredibly hard to defeat early on when you have few upgrades and one melee weapon, but eventually it just clicked and I got it. I'm at probably the end of the game now, so I need to decide if I want to go back for collectibles, or do that on a new save file. There's an achievement for completing the game using on the discarded umbrella as your melee weapon, and I'm going to try it. It'll make some of the fights drag out, but once you learn the patterns it's just a matter of not getting hit, and not confusing roll with fire. I love this one, it was absolutely worth getting and worth playing.

Last night I finished The Messenger. I try to play games as blind as I can. So in this case, I had no idea how long this one actually was, and kept getting frustrated when new stuff would come up. Surely THIS has to be the last area. Nope. I think dying a lot is supposed to be a part of it, because I did die an awful lot, even for me. I think I got through some areas just with lucky button mashing. I have no desire to go back for collectibles, since after the game's midpoint, some areas become a whole lot more difficult and it doesn't feel worth the rage to do it. I've unlocked NG+ but have not started a new game yet, nor have I started the "Picnic Panic" DLC. Honestly, I've never been so relieved to roll credits on a game. I was damn tired of this thing, and completely fed up before I even got to the last area. Again, I did go in blind, so I didn't know what to expect, and I think a second playthrough might go better now that I do know.

Honestly, it was a lot of fun, and the art is spectacular, but for low-skill gamers, some of the sections are nightmares. Most of it is the fun sort of difficult, where you're motivated to keep trying and happy when you do succeed. Towards the end, it seems as if there are screens that are difficult simply to be difficult. They're not fun or motivating, and when I'd get across some section I'd been stuck on and die before making it to the next checkpoint, I'd have to just shut the game down for a while because I was so pissed off at it, and at myself. I'd give it four stars out of five - I think the main problems I have with it are "end user" problems and not as much the game itself.

A rather quieter game experience is Never Alone (Kisima Inŋitchuŋa) which seems to be a much shorter one set in the far north and based on a traditional story from the Inupiaq. The control feels a bit soft, but it's not bothersome to me. In fact, if you start struggling with a section, the game guides you through it, showing you where to go and stand at each point - which came in handy early on, with a balance puzzle that was driving me nuts because I wasn't quite grasping the physics of it. Anyway, you also get to play as an Acrtic Fox and it makes adorable fox noises.

I'm at about halfway through this one, and will go back to it this evening. Along the way you collect "cultural insights," which are short documentary clips about the Inupiaq, and are scattered along the route as owls. So I get to collect owls with my fox. (insert happy bird noises) I'm saving those up to watch at the end. So far Id' highly recommend it for a shorter, somewhat easier game with good art and a very engaging story. And honestly, I play these games for the stories.
pshaw_raven: (Putin on a Kit)
Registration for the Boston Half Marathon isn't open yet, but they've posted the dates. You'll need to run your virtual race September 17 - 19. Coupled with Fox's hope to do another Disney trip in September, which would be a late birthday trip for me, since going in August isn't fun, I may put aside the Tour De Pain until 2022, as it falls on August 13 - 14. That opens up space, saves me some registration money, and allows me to focus on just half marathon training. Then, if all goes right with the world (and I have no reason to assume it will) we'll have Wine & Dine in October/November and Marathon Weekend in January. So I don't want to overbook myself.

I'm dealing with stupidity between my doctor's office and the insurance, they say the doc denied a refill, so I left a message. Honestly, isn't there some way to cure anxiety disorders? It seems like it would be easier than dealing with this bullshit, and not needing RX refills means I could avoid the doctor more. There's got to be some way to do that.

I have no idea of the interest levels, but I'm considering either taking video or live streaming an attempt to get the "Bronze Medal" achievement in Blasphemous. It requires you to get through the bronze doors of the church within three hours, so I'd need to get through the first four boss battles, while skipping all the side quests. I'd also be doing it with a "penance" in place. Straight up video capture would be less interesting, since it would only be the game's audio files, but a live stream would probably be rated R for strong adult language.

I got to touch a mole the other day. The terra cotta dish I put corn in for the squirrels and rabbits (keeps the squirrels out of the bird feeders) holds water when it rains, so I went outside near nightfall to tip the water out. In doing so, I uncovered a mole who'd burrowed underneath the dish and when it didn't move, I tried stroking its back. I was surprised at how soft and velvety its fur was. When it didn't make any attempt to leave, I picked it up and it let me hold it for a little while before pooping on me, then trying to dig its way out of my hands, which felt really strange. I finally put it back in the hole it had dug under the corn dish, and it dug its way out of sight. I think it's still out there, because there are more mole hills around that dish this morning.

In a Haze

Jan. 23rd, 2021 12:32 pm
pshaw_raven: (Raven with Coffee Mug)
I normally take Garmin's sleep reports with a grain or two of salt, but the last few nights I have gotten less than an hour of deep sleep, and I feel like someone who is not getting a lot of deep sleep. I was a zombie yesterday and went to bed early - early even for me - and this morning I saw I'd gotten over nine hours of sleep ... with about 40 minutes of the deep kind. So, great. I don't know what's changed this week that I'm suddenly doing this but if it continues I'm going to look at starting a magnesium supplement and see if that helps.

The dealer who sold us our tractor has offered a pretty good deal on a winter maintenance job, so we took that in today. They'll replace the filters, change the oil, and do a once-over to check for any problems, make sure nothing is likely to fall off or explode. And they're going to wash it, LOL. We typically hose it off and clean it after using it extensively but that will be nice. I mean, if Fox just drags the road one afternoon we don't bother, but for things like our recent drainage ditch project it needs to have the stinky swamp mud cleaned off.

Feisal is going to be a sad kitty. I'm getting a wireless gaming mouse today. If you plug it in, it will charge, but unplugged it will run for about 60 hours. This has become an issue lately because he's decided the Most Fun Thing Ever is to jump on the desk and try to chew on my mouse cord. The fabric cover is torn and pulled in places because of this. The most recent version of this game is grabbing the cord and trying to take the entire mouse. Now, happily he only does this when I'm gaming or attempting to work, so it's not like he gets up there and chews on it when I'm gone. But it's still annoying as hell and he killed me a few times in Hollow Knight with his shenanigans.

Do any of you crochet or sew or something, or know someone who does? I kind of want a coffee cup sleeve but my sewing skills mainly apply to repairing things and sewing on buttons. In this, Year Two of the Pandemic, our Wawa is still asking that we not bring reusable cups, and I used to always bring my own cups. It's a small thing, but if I could at least not have to get a sleeve for the cup it would make me feel slightly better. I'll probably just find something on Etsy.
pshaw_raven: (Hornet - Git Gud!)
I try not to get involved with too many games at once, since that can get overwhelming for me. But I usually have three or four I'm playing at any given point as I work my way through my Steam library.

Last night I finished a playthrough of Hollow Knight - finally! I fully intend to start a new game, but it was immensely satisfying to get to the end. And I'll go ahead and admit I'm an achievement hound and a completionist, so obviously there's plenty more to do there.

I'm also currently playing a point-and-click, Demetrios: The BIG Cynical Adventure! which promises "eight to twelve hours of fun!" It's from a French developer and so far it's just hilariously wrong. Plenty of gross humor, and the puzzles and such are challenging but not overly so. I have not gotten so stuck on anything that I needed a walkthrough guide. The game also has a built in hint system, so that's helpful. I'm enjoying collecting "game overs," where if you see an opportunity to do something stupid and kill yourself or go to jail, you get a game over screen. But then you can just continue where you left off. Usually the game over screen says something snarky about what an idiot you are.

I started playing Bendy and The Ink Machine, which ... holy shit. That game went from 0 to 100 real fast. I kind of wanted to save this one for when Hollow Knight was done, both games being pretty immersive and engaging. I want to give each more of my attention, rather than pondering strategies for one while playing the other. I forget which chapter I'm on here, but I know my next objective was "Save Boris," so I guess I gotta go save Boris. Actually I was kind of getting to like Boris, he seems nice, unlike every other bloodthirsty psycho cartoon I've met. I also picked up an achievement for squeaking an absurd number of Bendy dolls, which was absurdly fun to do.

And I want to finish up The Talos Principle, which I started playing in 2016 and dropped for some reason. For a couple of years there I was just not doing much gaming. Anyway, I know I'm fairly close to the end of this one, and given the huge gap, I think it would be worth my while to just finish up and start a new game to play through without a five year hiatus. I started again and remembered what I liked about it so I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. But I also really hate those floating attack orbs - WTF. I'm trying to get through a maze right now where you basically have to try to outrun the stupid things and needless to say, I keep dying.
pshaw_raven: (Bergman)
I didn't get a ton of reading done this month. I'm currently reading The Shining by Stephen King - as someone who has been a fan of King since middle school, I'm surprised at myself for not having read this one. I read a lot of his early and middle-years work, up through maybe Green Mile. And I'll probably go back and start catching up at some point. I'm also reading the Discourses & Selected Writings of Epictetus because I'm a huge nerd.

I finished The Magus by John Fowles (highly recommended but with some reservations,) and Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, which reminds me, I need to go find that grape ice cream recipe. So far as I'm able I'm trying to read what I already have. I've been able to weed out a few novels so far, starting them and then quitting when they failed to hold my attention, rather than forcing myself to finish them. I did need to buy a book, which came today.

With everything going on right now I felt like reading something superficial. I wanted the book equivalent of a box of meringue cookies. Edward Gorey was a big fan of EF Benson's Mapp & Lucia novels, which I gather are on TV now in Britain, but that sounded like a good diversion. Unfortunately, and the reason I'd not read them before, I only had the last three books in the series. At the time I was buying them they were apparently out of print in the States and I was having to gather them from used book shops. An excellent excuse to spend weekends scouring the French Quarter. Anyway, I broke my "no book buying" pledge and purchased a collected edition of the first three novels (bonus short story!) through Amazon Marketplace. So right after The Overlook Hotel burns down, I'm headed to 1920s England.

On the gaming front, there's a Steam Sale and I picked up We Happy Few, Gathering Sky, and Shovel Knight. SN is a collected edition with all the games, including the co-op Shovel of Hope. My controller is terrible and I'm looking to acquire a sturdier, nicer X-Box style one soon. I cracked the d-pad, and I'm also looking to get a faceted d-pad replacement. For whatever reason the joystick controller doesn't feel right and doesn't seem to work well for me. I also had a brainstorm and tried Cuphead with it, and hey, I got past the tutorial. Go me. *sarcastic thumbs up goes here*

I started We Happy Few (which really works much better with keyboard controls anyway) and I'm working through Arthur's story. On Hollow Knight, I have destroyed Herrah the Beast and opened the final Stag Station, so I got to go to the Stag Nest. I'm back in Queen's Gardens, probably going to try to take on the Traitor Mantis next. I got another nail upgrade, so I'm on Channeled Nail now, and there's only one more upgrade. And I lost all my money in Deepnest, so now I have no qualms about trying some of the trickier platforming segments.

Today's Fox's birthday (yay!) and we're not really doing much. I'll be making a pizza later, and we have some key lime cake. Tomorrow I'm probably going to do my last yard cutting of the year, but today I'm just cooling it. I pulled my calf muscle again, but it feels almost normal today so I might try a short run tomorrow. And I mean it really feels almost normal, not "almost normal except a little tight." I hopefully have given the thing enough time to heal up properly. It feels weird not running all this time.

And I upgraded my phone, but as usual, it's surprising what things don't automatically work. And I lost my house in Neko Atsume so I have to start that over. But I like the new phone, it's a lot lighter weight than the old one, so it won't be as much of a nuisance to run with. My Garmin actually will play music and run GPS at the same time but it will drain the battery fast. So for long runs, I'll carry my phone for music. If it's a shorter run, then I don't mind killing my battery quicker.

It's a gorgeous afternoon here so I'm thinking of getting my bike out of storage and pedaling around the yard some. Depending on how solid the sand feels on the road I might ride down to the turn. I'm just tired of being cooped up inside with the miserable hot weather, and I've played video games so much today my thumb is sore. But I got to take the Last Stag back to where he was hatched, so that was great.
pshaw_raven: (Lawrence - LOL)
I've been wavering back and forth with wanting to go to the used book shop lately. They're open and have a mask requirement, but I can't really get myself to go shopping around for anything I don't strictly need. Grocery store and Home Depot trips are both unavoidable and necessary, and the only really optional thing I do any more is go into Wawa for coffee. Yes, I could just fill up my truck and leave but let me have this one thing.

That being said, I should call and ask when they'll be taking books again, as I have a decent load. Nothing like the massive dozen or more boxes I was dragging in there in 2018 but I do have probably a couple of those white file boxes I can get rid of. I've been setting aside books I finish for sale or donation after I ask myself, "Really, are you ever going to read this again?" Usually the answer is no. Last week I also went through the entire house and listed every unread book, excepting roleplaying guides and books. I have 124, not all of which I am actually interested in reading any more. I have a lot of Middle Eastern history that I have no interest in now, and I wouldn't be sad to part with a lot of it. Some of the fiction looks good, some looks "eh" at best. I just need to stop making it such a point of pride to finish everything. If it's not that good, just quit. Toss it onto the "sell shelf" and find something else.

So with all those unread books sitting around I'm trying to shop my own shelves for now. For example, I found a copy of Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, which I have somehow not read yet despite driving out there shortly after moving and looking at her home. They were closed that day but I looked through the fence, then walked around in the forest and groves some. Bought some oranges at a farm stand.

Next week we ought to be able to open the windows, finally! I'm so ready for fall weather. The house could really use a good airing out, get all the cat farts out of here.

I have some food prep chores for today, a short run, and some household catching up to do. I bought Untitled Goose Game yesterday and spent a couple of hours playing that, so I missed a workout, the kitchen's still a mess, and I'm surprised I remembered to set up my coffee pot and bring the bird feeders inside! ROFL yes, I'm having that much fun. I'm on the "back gardens" section now.

I am enjoying going back to gaming, though it did take a while to clear soe mental baggage out. I don't like doing things I like doing because I feel bad about doing something just because I like to. It's a childhood quirk - you have to earn your time doing fun things (which does make some sense yes) but then the goalposts would be moved, and you never managed to actually earn your play time. Whatever you were meant to do was subject to change with little notice, and if you didn't get it all done, you should have worked harder, not been so stupid, paid attention to what you're doing, stop being so lazy, etc. You know how it is. So I tend to avoid doing things strictly for my own enjoyment as an adult, which I'm sure would make my mother extremely happy.

This weekend looks like it will be too rainy and gross for bike riding, but next weekend should be great. The 10k is Saturday, so perhaps Sunday would be a good day. I'm going to look at going to Gold Head Branch, or if Fox doesn't want to go, I might drive to Keystone and ride the bike trail there just to get some practice.
pshaw_raven: (Autumn Leaves)
The official first day of autumn actually feels like fall. Yesterday was pleasant and today it was actually nice and cool when I got up. The humidity is still high or we'd have the house open for a while, but by next week it should be comfortable enough for some of that.

So, while I knew it was extremely likely that Disney Marathon Weekend was going to be cancelled, yesterday they finally made it official. But they seem to have learned from the Wine & Dine cancellation and actually took steps to entice people to not request full refunds. For half our Dopey Challenge fee, we still get all six medals and the "opportunity" to run virtually. You also get the Dopey tech shirt, and you can get the other five if you want to pay extra. We're awash in tech shirts so we're going to pass on that one.

I think with Wine & Dine, if they'd allowed people a similar option maybe more would not have cancelled. I was just not thrilled with the medal designs, and for me the big draw of doing that race was actually being there for the Food & Wine Festival. But for this, it will allow me to do my fourth Dopey Challenge, and while there isn't the "Disney Experience," there also isn't a required minimum pace, no bathroom lines, no corral waits, no getting up at three a.m. unless you just really want to, and no mental pressure to try to PR.

Today I'm trying to clear some chores and routine things early so around noon, I can start downloading Untitled Goose Game on Steam. I can pretend to be a bird and terrorize people! Wait, I already do that ...

Speaking of, I purchased the instructions for making a paper raven mask from one of those papercrafting sites. Next time I'm out I'll need to pick up some sheets of colored card stock.

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