I explain the why and the how of it in this here video :
I won’t know for sure if practically gnawing on the camera as I speak will have solved our problems with low audio levels on my vids until Le Gang and I do a Zoom tomorrow night after Denny’s.
I suspect that the real culprit is Zoom and that maybe there’s some setting Julian can adjust on his laptop to boost audio output levels to something audible.
It’s worth a shot, anyhow.
Sorry about the sudden volume jump during yesterday’s bloopers, by the way. The camera falling was way louder than everything else and that was especially harsh on the people who had their volume turned way up so they could hear me.
Ouch. Sorry. Next time I will level the audio.
You have to admit that it’s some pretty cool footage, though, right?
You know, there’s footage and there’s mileage but there’s no yardage.
We should get to work on that.
Anyhow, like I said in the vid, today’s been a day of niggling irritations. Spellrogue crashed my computer a 4th time, so it looks like that problem is here to stay, ergo I can’t play my favorite game now.
And there’s only $3 left on my Steam account, so I can’t buy something new to replace it. And I ran out of steam with Darkest Dungeon. It’s a great game but I have reached a point where I can’t move forward without risking the characters I have built up over time in fights they will most likely lose, and I am just not built for that.
Some of them I am genuinely fond of and all of them have “been through a lot” with me, and represent a significant investment of time and effort, and I would hate to have to start over with a brand new slate of characters, so I am kind of at an impasse.
I think I am just not ruthless enough. In a time of war I could never order men to their deaths, despite otherwise having the makings of a brilliant strategist.
I just imagined how I play strategy games, making the decision to sacrifice these troops here to get those troops over there, and what that would be like if the soldiers were real.
And it’s a chilling thought. I feel cold right now just thinking about it. I could never.
Anyhow, that’s why I stopped playing Darkest Dungeon. I might go back to it and grit my teeth knowing my beloved characters are probably gonna die, but eh.
One has to ask how much emotional stress a game is worth.
I could also turn the difficulty down, but I hate doing that. It always makes the games so easy they’re downright insulting, at least to me, and I would rather leave off playing than end up disgusted with the game.
I’m a complicated man.
When all else fails, I can always dig through all the games in my Steam “library” and see if there’s a classic that I haven’t played for long enough for it to be fresh to me now.
That’s what I do with books, after all. I haven’t added to my personal “library” in ages, I just keep reading the same 100 or so books over and over.
That would be a problem if I still read as voraciously as I did when I was a kid, but I don’t. Right now I am old, so I prefer to sleep.
Kinda sad, ain’t it?
More after the break.
A little bit more
Brace yourself, here comes more of my mundane minutiae.
I decided that this would be the week where I branched out from my usual Michelina’s frozen pasta entrees and saw what else was out there for a fellow on a limited budget and an even more limited time he can remain standing to eat.
And as I already knew, nobody can complete with Michelina’s on price. Their frozen pasta entrees are like ~$2.50 and nobody else comes even close. They clearly have mastered their little part of the market and that’s all there is.
The little pot pies I get and love come sort of close because they are ~$3 and are definitely a full meal unto themselves.
Well this week I decided to get one of these President’s Choice frozen entrees and see if I thought they were worth the extra money because they are $5.55.
So, three bucks more. More than twice the price. Yikes.
The one I am starting with is a Fettuccine Carbonara. For those of you unfamiliar with carbonara sauce, it’s basically alfredo sauce with little bits of bacon in it, and it is every bit as wonderful as that sounds.
And I am eating mine now, and it’s pretty dang good. I dunno if it’s worth paying twice as much, although I will note it at least has the decency to be around 30 g bigger.
Or heavier. Massier? Whatever.
Anyhow, the sauce is fantastic and the pasta is tender and delicious, so, rave review from yourself truly.
I dunno if I will get one every week, but I will probably check to see if I can squeeze that extra $3 into my budget that week or no.
It’s more filling than the Michelina’s too, which is a plus. Normally when I make a Michelina’s I have to make some garlic toast to go with it because they are not quite filling enough on their own.
These things are, in my opinion. So there’s that.
And in general, I am happy for any example I can muster of my looking around to see what else there is out there for me, even one as minor as this.
It shows that I am becoming a healthy enough animal to start showing an interest in exploring my environment and testing my boundaries.
And even in this, that took a lot of anxiety getting out of my fucking way.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.