I recently decided to invest some of my hardly-earned Salad money in a 2014 remake of a very old game called Fallout 2.
It’s a game from way, way back before the Fallout series was even 3D, so it’s a 2D turn based isometric RPG like Baldur’s Gate, Pillars of Eternity, or Pathfinder : Kingmaker.
And when I installed it and started playing, I discovered something wonderful.
I have never played it before!
Everything I thought I remembered from playing Fallout 2 must actually have happened in Fallout 1. So now I have a completely new (to me) Fallout game to play!
And that is Christmas in August to an RPG nut like me.
Plus there seems to be a robust modding community, which makes things a lot more fun. I’ve already installed a few.
One of them adds a ton of content just by digging into the game files and implementing a bunch of stuff the original game devs meant to have in there but had to take out because they didn’t finish it in time or somesuch.
Presumably the patch completes or fixes what needs it then re-includes it in the game, which is pretty kewl.
So far, the main issue I have with the game is that everything is kinda tiny. I guess that’s what happens when you have an old game running at modern resolutions.
But playing it is giving me eye strain headaches, so I am going to need to find a fix. I will see if running at a lower resolution makes things more visible to my weak eyeballs.
I’ve had this problem with very old games before. It’s mildly amusing and/or ironic that the problem with playing an old game is that my computer is too new.
Luckily, I still have Kingmaker and Assassin’s Creed : Odyssey to play when I need to remind my eyes what things are supposed to look like.
Or I could just, you know, look away from the monitor at the real world, but where’s the fun in that?
Reality is highly overrated.
Meanwhile, had another adverse health event this morning. I was hanging with the fuzzies and eating breakfast like I usually do around 8 am when I started feeling quite unwell. I felt incredibly hot. Like, not just a little feverish, and not just like it was hot out. I was feeling so hot that it became hard to think and my head felt thick and the inside of my skull was tingling and it felt like something bad was coming on.
And I just sort of lingered in that state for a while because I wasn’t thinking very well and so the thought, “Hey, this could be pretty bad. ” took a while to happen.
The really ironic part is that I was still chatting with my fuzzy friends like normal. Somehow, that part of my brain was working fine.
Once I had gathered enough of my wits to form a quorum and therefore make decisions, I said goodbye to the fuzzies and then…. I was stumped.
On some level, I knew that I maybe should call Julian’s cell and get him to take me to the hospital, or maybe even call 911, but that kind of decision was so far beyond me that light from me wouldn’t reach them for thousands of years.
So I went back to bed instead. By default, essentially.
Luckily, I did not die or have an aneurism, so… that’s good. Looking back, I think the problem was that my pores had gotten clogged and so the “fever” lasted until enough sweat built up to flush the pores out again.
Or whatever. My body doesn’t need a reason to do weird scary shit any more.
More after the break.
Telling people what to do
I have a lot of natural leadership qualities.
Intelligence, sensitivity, understanding, judgment, charisma, and a genuine desire to help people, to name a few.
Plus I am just enough of a socially detached weirdo to be impartial and fair.
I will do what I feel to be right every single time.
But I have never sought leadership roles besides low level community organization and the occasional directing gig in amateur theater.
And I duck or dodge leadership because I don’t want to be tied down with responsibility. I am an artsy fartsy free spirit type and I prefer to maximize my autonomy.
But I am starting to reconsider that position. I could do a lot of good if I found the right kind of leadership position – knowing me, one I would create myself.
What’s more, I am beginning to realize that I am, deep down, a very pushy person. Not in a domineering way, exactly. More like being the yappy little dog that nips at the sheep’s heels to keep the herd moving.
And I am very opinionated. And often I feel very frustrated when things are not going the way I think they should.
To me, this all leads in one very specific direction : telling people what to do.
Not in a mean way. If you have to make people fear you in order to get them to do what you want them to do, you suck as a leader.
True leadership means being the person people turn to when they don’t know what to do and to be that person you must seem smart, confident, and like you understand the big picture and have everything under control.
That way people will take your direction and not even feel like it’s someone telling them what to do. After all, it’s something they are seeking from you, not something you are imposing upon them.
What they want from you is whatever bit of action or information they need in order to go do their individual task.
Do that right, and people can relax about the big picture and concentrate on doing their part to the best of their ability.
And I think I could do that if I could just get over this childish aversion to responsibility.
The world needs me.
That should count for something.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.