I eventually made a somewhat redundant video.

Well, some of the points are new, anyway.

Let me elaborate on my journey.

I wasted a frankly stupid hour and a half trying to convince AI video generation platforms to output a useful video and failing completely.

Many of them, it turns out, are quite skilled at making it seem like they’re going to do it only to yank the football away at the last second and want money.

I should have given up after maybe 45 minutes but I am a stubborn and persistent cuss and sometimes that takes me to very dumb places.

It’s a pitfall all us Taurus types know all too well. Only once we do whatever it was we were trying to do does the stubbornness fade away and leave us thinking that was a stupid waste of time.

But oh well. It’s not like I have anything better to do.

That’s how I ended up with good ol Steve AI up there. That’s one seriously low effort video I generated, but it was free.

I’m going to play around with different settings to see if I can generate something a bit more presentable. As far as I can tell, good old Steve there is not keeping track of “computing minutes” (LTX) or “transcription minutes” (Descript) or “credits” (nearly everybody else) or whatever.

Whoops, I was wrong. Got one vid for free and that’s it forever. Le sigh.

The thing is. I totally want to pay these amazing websites for access, although at this point it would be hard for me to pick one because I’ve tried so many of them that they have started to blur together.

I rally should have been keeping notes. (Yeah right. )

If I had to choose right now, I guess it would still be Descript. Their suite of features is pretty good and I am dying to see if it can put clips to my voice and make me the happiest lazy documentarian in the world.

Although if I was forced to find the clips manually all by my little old self, it would at least encourage me to keep my videos very short.

That reminds me : I should give making YouTube Shorts a try.

But if I had loads o’ cash I would also throw some LTX’s way because their engine is spectacular. It makes such high quality stuff with just a few words.

I wish I could have platinum plus memberships in them all. I would have so much fun.

Other than pointless stress, I have had a quiet day. Discovered an obscure game called Elex in my Steam library that I didn’t remember and looked pretty decent so I decided to give it a shot.

And I’m enjoying it. It’s a decent attempt at a science fiction/fantasy blend and I find the world surprisingly convincing and engrossing and there is no shortage of quests.

And I finally remember to buy some armor, so the combat should be a little easier. I have gotten savaged to death by monsters a LOT.

But meh. It’s interesting enough to keep playing and it’s less frustrating than the original Pillars of Eternity, which I was playing before now.

I just cannot keep up with real time combat, even with plentiful pausing. I can handle the small normal battles but the big fights are completely beyond my poor brain.

I just can’t handle chaos.

But I am definitely enjoying Monster Hunter 2. The original was great and the sequel is just as much fun.

So there’s that.

More after the break.

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The fading away of a sad child

I think I have written before about this “fading away” feeling I get, like my internal combustion engine is trying to start up but the engine just ain’t turning over.

And the first question is always whether or not it’s an emotional or physical issue.

Probably a little of both, to be honest.

I know that I have lived under the tyranny of mental illness for a very long time. That I have been afraid of life and afraid of leaving my far too tiny comfort zone and afraid of getting truly excited or engaged about anything apart from the very thin gruel I can derive from video games.

And underwriting it all is that irrational feeling that I can’t possibly make it on my own. That if I go out into the “real world”, I will somehow perish.

Which makes no sense. I can do all the components of being a grownup, at least in theory. But when I imagine myself taking it all on, I just shrivel up inside.

I fade away. I surrender. I run away on the inside.

And I can talk about needing to stay and fight and while I would definitely be better off if I could do that but I don’t know that I can do that.

It’s so hard to tell.

There will always be that rough, manly voice in my head telling me that I just need to man up and stop being such a pussy and get in there and get things done.

But the man stands on the shoulders of the child and my inner child is not at all well. He’s been terribly damaged for his whole life and has lived in muted misery inside the seemingly impregnable fortress of my smooth persona for so long that the very thought of leaving its protection and joining that exciting world outside its windows seems both impossibly exciting and just plain impossible.

Maybe it truly is physical. Something wrong with my heart, something the stents didn’t fix, and my body is actually just defending itself by keeping me from doing things which might trigger a heart attack.,

But I somehow doubt it. This is a disease of the spirit and I don’t know what to do about those. All I can do is live my life and try my best to heal that sad little boy inside.

He’s doing better now.

But he is still very sick.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.