In the games

What the hell, let’s talk about what is going on in what passes for my actual life.

It ain’t much but it’s all I’ve got.

I finished Cryptmaster, Not felt the need to play more just to fill out more words yet. I guess I sort of miss the game. I wish it had some kind of “new game plus” mode where I could keep all the words my heroes know but start back at the beginning of the plot. Then I would have something more interesting to do than just mindlessly fight monsters.

But I can’t even find the option to start a new game at all, which is tres tres bizarre.

Over in Assassin’s Creed : Odyssey, I am continuing to enjoy ancient Greece despite the fact that I finished the main plot last week or so.

The end of the main plot was really lame.[1] Sure, I killed the main baddie from the early game, but he didn’t even put up a fight. I guess that was supposed to seem like I had finally caught up with this skeevy coward who committed so many evil deeds from the shadows and finally gave him the brutal justice he deserves, but it was just way too easy to feel like victory.

He didn’t even have tough bodyguards or anything.

Oh well. At least I have also fought the Minotaur, the Cyclops, and will eventually fight the Medusa. And one other classic Greek monster I can’t think of at the moment.

Not the Hydra, sadly. The 12 Labors of Herakles are canonical fact in this universe so good ol Herc already took of that one.

I was pretty disappointed when I got to the exterior of Medusa’s lair and it turned out that I was not high enough level to do the quest to get inside.

I was all pumped up and ready for another tough boss fight! But no, alas, I have to go do other stuff in order to level up.

Luckily there is this whole secondary main plotline to keep me busy. It’s more or less an echo of the first main plot, with two new groups of conspirators (the Hunters and the Order) for me to hunt down and kill. And I haven’t even finished killing the first one (the Cult of Kosmos) yet!

I’ve been busy. I will get around to it eventually.

Over in Pathfinder : Kingmaker, I have once more ignored my kingdom to the point where the people rose up and destroyed it. Ooops.

The thing is, I don’t actually know what I am supposed to do to prevent that. And reading documentation for the game doesn’t seem to provide the answer, so I have decided that I am just going to turn on automatic kingdom management and let the computer worry about keeping my peasants from slitting my throat in the night.

Kind of a bummer, really. I mean, I have built all kinds of cool shit for the citizens of my barony. And as far as I knew, I was treating them quite well.

But apparently that’s not enough. Yeesh.

What do you people want from me??

It was a lot easier in the sequel, Pathfinder : Wrath of the Righteous. Way less hands on management of your kingdom because you are kind of busy prosecuting a war against the demons streaming out of the World Wound.

Dramatic, is it not?

There’s even a few mentions of the World Wound and the goings on around it in Kingmaker, which is exactly the kind of continuity porn we nerds love.

Hey look, this thing references that other thing! And that rewards me for paying attention and knowing the lore! And I really, really like that.

We’re not that hard to please, really.

I guess that’s enough for now. Hopefully I will think of a better topic for part 2.

More after the break.


You know, in a way, I’m still a child genius. Because I’m still a genius. And emotionally speaking, I’m still a child.

My aching back, redux

You know what pisses me off? I still have no idea what’s wrong with my back.

None whatsoever. And neither does my GP, Doctor Kelvin Chao. And furthermore, he doesn’t care. That’s very clear to me now.

Around twice a day, when I get out of bed and stand up, the small amount of jostling that walking subjects my spine to will set off excruciating paroxysms of spasmodic back pain that feels like a giant with iron hands is grabbing my spine and squeezing it like it’s a recalcitrant tube of toothpaste while also twisting it like it’s trying to turn my spine into a spiral staircase.

I paint pictures with words.

I am trying to get better at making sure I leave myself some water in the glass before I lay down because I can get from the bed to the computer chair without much pain and once I am in the computer chair, I can take my muscle relaxant, cyclobenzaprine, and within ten minutes my back is relaxed enough for me to move without whimpering

But only if I have the water I need to take the pill.

Back to Doctor Chao, it’s clear to me that he considers a patient who has stopped complaining to be cured. What the actual problem is, he does not give a shit. He wrote you a prescription, you stopped bitching at him, he’s done.

This is wildly inadequate. I mean sure, the cyclobenzaprine controls my symptoms, but my back is still terribly fucked up and without knowing why or how he has no idea if it is going to get worse or what I should do to make sure it doesn’t.

But who cares? He got the fee for my visit, so everything is fine from his end.

So he doesn’t know what’s wrong with my back or my legs or my arms, and he’s perfectly fine with that because the longer things go undiagnosed, the more often I have to come in and see him, and the more fees he gets to make.

I rest my case.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.



Footnotes    (↵ returns to text)
  1. Sorry if I already told you all this.