So I bought and downloaded Morrowind yesterday.

It’s the third game in the same series of games that Skyrim is in, a series called The Elder Scrolls. Skyrim is the fifth (and apparently last) game in that series.

I decided to get the game so that I would have something besides Skyrim to play that would not be too different from it.

And that is sort of what I got. But also, not.

Predictably, it’s a great deal less sophisticated than Skyrim, and I am not just talking about the graphics. It takes way way longer to get around in Morrowing than Skyrim because there is no Fast Travel function which lets me, in Skyrim, teleport to places I have been before.

Nope. You walk most places or you don’t get there. You can pay a mage to teleport between towns and board a giant insect called a Silt Strider to move between continents, but it’s not the same.

But that would not be so bad if it wasn’t for another factor : destinations are not marked on my map. Instead, I get directions to where I am supposed to go and I haaaate (and suck at) following directions.

To me, one of the most dreaded phrases in the English language is “you can’t miss it”.

Want to bet?

And I am not much for wandering and exploring, especially when the landscape is highly repetitive and devoid of landmarks like in Morrowind. That just increases my sense of disorientation and makes me want to flee to the last place I’ve been that was an actual place.

Usually a town.

And this map thing is a major potential deal breaker for me. I am mission-driven to a considerable fault, and to have to hunt around forever to even find the place where I am supposed to do the thing really frustrates and depresses me.

And I play video games to escape my depression.

Sadly, I have played it for too long to be able to return it, so I am stuck with it. And it cost me $20. and that’s big money in my little life.

So I guess I will try to make the best of it. To be honest, in hindsight, this was the perfectly predictable outcome of my purchase. What did I expect from a game that is over a decade old and two games behind Skyrim? Did I really think it would be a comparable experience to Skyrim?

If so, I was a fool. Honestly, I think what happened was that my goal-oriented mind clicked in and when that is active, I do not think about the decision to do the thing in between said decision and doing it.

That explains a lot of the more questionable decisions in my life. I get an idea to do something in my head and that shifts all my mental resources into doing it and, in a sense, I don’t return to the state of reason till I have done it.

Kind of scary, in a way. Like I am not really in control. But it also means I can get things done with great speed and energy, so there’s that.

And it’s not just that the games are so far apart in terms of sophistication and playability. What I failed to take into account was that I have been playing Skyrim for a very long time and thus have added a ton of mods that make the game into exactly what I want it to be, more or less.

To go from that to raw Morrowind was quite a shock. I have started getting mods for it but there are, of course, far fewer of them and that mod scene is not nearly as well developed as the Skyrim one.

So I dunno. I have started a new character who is a mage in Morrowind and that should suit me better than my previous character, who is an archer.

In Skyrim, I like playing archers. But in Skyrim, ammo is WAY cheaper. Mages don’t need ammo, they need magic energy, and that regenerates on its own over time.

So it is possible that I will be able to find a way to have fun in Morrowind despite the radical culture shock I am experiencing.

But if not, I can always go to plan B, which is to re-install one of the 32 or so games I have purchased on Steam in the past and which are therefore just sitting there on my Steam account, ready to be downloaded and installed.

Probably the original Dishonored. I bought Dishonored 2 but found it quite overwhelming. I had forgotten just how complex the game’s controls were and what a learning curve I had to surmount in the original game in order to play.

The difference is that in the first game, you were introduced to the various elements were introduced a lot more slowly. So I am hoping that if I play through the original again, I will pick up the necessary skills to play the sequel.

And if not that, it would probably be Witcher 3, an amazingly deep and fun game that I played a LOT back when I first got it. And back then, I knew neither jack nor shit about modding, so this time through could be a LOT more fun.

Same goes for Fallout 4, which is a lot like Skyrim but in a post-apocalytpic science fiction setting instead of the usual Tolkein fantasy setting of Skyrim.

Modding THAT could be a lot of fun, and I know for a fact that there are plenty of sexytimes fun mods for it, so that could add a whole new kind of fun, and this time, it would be in a somewhat realistic-ish setting.

So I got possibilities. The one thing I don’t see happening is my going back to Skyrim. I am quite thoroughly sick of it now and I really need to move on.

I am sure I will return to it someday, but for now, I am glad to be out of it.

It’s springtime. Time for renewal.

Even for shut-ins like myself.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Soon to be a children’s book written by me and illustrated by Robin Bougie.

Well I didn’t say what KIND of children it was meant for.

Anyhow, today ois a very busy day for me, at least by my standards. I suppose that by the standards of busy peoiple with complex lives, it would practically be a day off, but I am a nothing person who does nothing, and so for me, it’s a big deal.

Sorry about that. Sometimes I just have to let the bad thoughts OUT.

Today was busier even by my Thursday standards because in addition to the usual therapy appointment (1 pm to 2 pm) and the usual Paragon meeting (leave at 7 pm, home by 10:30 pm), I had my first full eye exam since 2008 between 3:30 pm and 4:50 pm, and that’s a lot to do.

It means today will encompass around 6 “active” hours, which is a lot for me. “Active” hours are hours in which I am out of my room and out of my apartment with and around others who are not my immediate group of friends.

Those are the times that drain my social batteries no matter how good a time I am having. Normally, having two of those in the same day leaves me drained.

So throwing a very long series of eye tests into the mix makes today rather challenging for poor ol me.

To be honest, right now, at 5:30 pm, I ma quite stress out and I am probably going to lay down for a bit before it is Paragon time.

But not before I relate the kick to the nuts I got at the end of my appointment – apparently the province, in it infinitessamal wisdom, has decided that they will only pay part of the cost of the eye exam for people like me so I had to cough up $65 of my own cash money, money the province had given me in the first place, for the visit.

Well ain’t that a fun kick to the nuts. What, did they think we freeloading disabled people were abusing the system by getting eye exam after eye exam because they are free?

Or did they decided that they were just not being enough of a cunt to poor people yet and so they punched down to make themselves feel better?

Now I can afford the fee. So I am not going to go hungry because of it or anything.

But it seems like such a shocking dick move for the province to give me a check then claw that money back for something as medically necessary as an eye exam.

Apparently,. to them, sight is a luxury.

So I am rather pissed off about that. I already have massive trust issues and this boot to the breadbasket from an unexpected place doesn’t help my feelings of vulnerability and despair and btiterness about my life any.

What’s next? Making us pay half the tab in the emergency room? BEFORE treatment?

It’s downright un-Canadian, I tell ya.

Time for rest.

Aaaaaand I am back. It’s 10:30 pm, like I predicted, and I am well fed and in a pretty good mood now that I have completed my Very Busy Day.

Fruvous the fox would make such a cute children’s book character, don’t you think? And be the perfect little innocent scamp who keeps getting into trouble because he has the bad fortune to be both impulsive and clever. But not as clever as he thinks he is!

And I suppose, if people insisted, he could even do it wearing pants.

Tonight’s Paragon meeting ended up not happening. First Farth said he wasn’t feeling up to it – neither was I but I was going to show up anyway – then Amos bailed and that left just me and Felicity.

And so we just drove around for a while then ate supper at Wendy’s. We had a splendid time because we’re both such wonderful people to talk to and I ended up back home at the exact time I predicted earlier, so the evening was, by my standards, a success.

And now I am on the other side of my Very Busy Day, and it makes me feel good. I got through it. I survived it. It honestly wasn’t that bad. And now I can relax knowing that I actually accomplished something today, namely get my eyes thoroughly checked out.

And phew, everything is good except, of course, my prescription has changed. No big deal,. thats been the case literally every tiome I have seen the eye doctor in my life. My nearsightedness has a tendency to drift, that’s all.

I am looking forward to having a new pair of glasses and thus (I hope) experiencing good deal less eye strain and general squitiness. The optometrist said that I can expect my new glasses within seven to ten business days.

So, two weeks, basically. Fine. Apparently, my prescription contains a small correction for astigmatism and so it takes longer to get and/pr make the lenses.

Nice to have an explanation for that at last.

Oh, and something terribly amusing happened when I went to pick out my frames. When I finally picked a pair and gave them to the East Indian fellow who was my salesman, he looked down at them and then said “SIR! THESE ARE RATHER FEMININE! ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT THEM?” in a panicked voice.

I laughed and told him I was pefectly fine with that. I was tempted to add “don’t worry, that will give people the exact right impression. ”

Presumably, in his native culture, the attitudes are far more conservative and a man accidentally wearing feminine glasses could be a massive social catastrophe for the man along the lines of being caught driving a girl’s as a boy in the Seventies.

My first bike was a girl’s bike. But I had no friends so it didn’t matter.

And it’s not like I had a macho male image to protect.

Anyhow, I found the whole thing rather amusing and it was good to laugh after the marathon of tiny indignities and discomforts of all those eye tests.

Then I unexpectedly got charged $67 for the exam and I was depressed again,.

But I already covered that earlier.

Thanks for making me feel worse, province!

I will talk to you nice peopl again tomorrow.