The Twilight Zone

The real one, not the Golden Earring song.

I had one of my “reality moments” today, and it was a pretty big one.

I’ve been having my usual trouble regarding what game I want to acquire next. I have a slot open now that I have finished Assassin’s Creed : Odyssey and all its DLC.

There’s a bunch more I could do in the game. I could finish killing all the members of of the Cult of Cosmos so I can find out who the mysterious leader known only as “the Ghost” really is, and then kill him or her.

And I am not incurious about who it is. But I am totally burned out on that game now, The only way I would keep playing it now is if there were cash prizes.

But anyhoo, whilst in the throes of indecision’s agonies, I decided it was time that I tried the fourth Elder Scrolls game, Elder Scrolls : Oblivion.

So I bring up the page on Steam where I would download and install it, and I am about to do that when a little factoid commandeered my attention.

Not only had I played the game before, but I had played it for 444.12 hours.

And yet, I had no memory of the game at all. Zero, nothing, nada. And yet I had played for the equivalent of eighteen and a half days.

What the FUUUUUCK?

Eventually I started to remember the game, thank God. I think I had forgotten it because it’s enough like Skyrim that the two kind of blended together in my mind.

But I was totally in a reality conflict for a few long minutes there. What I was staring at seemed patently impossible.

Who was this strange person who had played this game for so long under my name?

If this was a movie, that would be a pretty nifty way to reveal to the protagonist that he had multiple personalities.

It’s hard to describe that feeling of broken reality. i mean, terror is definitely in there, because what could be more frightening that things not making sense any more?

And confusion, of course. But I think at its core it’s about a very nasty form of cognitive dissonance as two versions of reality clash violently in your head.

You have two mutually exclusive beliefs on the most massive of scales, and that makes our puny human minds hurt!

And I suppose I am more prone to these moments than the average Joe or Josephine because my absentmindedness makes the misfiling of biographical memory all too easy. Especially at my age.

By this point in life, I think your memory banks are full and therefore nothing new can come in without something else going out.

Kind of like a packed night club. Nobody gets in until somebody leaves.

I’m also more prone to these “reality moments” because of how much time I spend in my head and therefore not really interacting with reality much at all.

I wish I knew how to stop that. I want to spend more time in the real world in order to tether myself to something more solid and reliable than my fluctuating mental state.

Trust me, ye ascetics, you do not wish to leave the material world behind and become a being of pure thought.

You think it will be Nirvana, but trust me, it’s a lot more like Gehenna.

I think the only way I will be able to stay out of my head is if my surroundings become a great deal more pleasant.

Right now, when I stick my head out of my turtle shell, all I see is my shitty filthy trash filled bedroom, and that sends me right back into my shell.

But I am slowly cleaning the place up. Perhaps eventually my surroundings will at least be inoffensive to me.

What I really need is a couple of weeks in a good clean hotel room. That would give me time to gather my strength for tackling the big cleanup back home.

Some day I will be able to afford to have someone come in twice a week o clean up my living space and make it more livable.

Until then, it’s all up to me.

So what else is new?

More after the break.


Oh yeah, the crashing

I swear, it’s like the universe is forcing me to play video games less.

And it does this by crashing my effing computer after something like 20 to 30 minutes of play. Or less, in the case of Pathfinder : Kingmaker.

That’s the one that REALLY pisses me off because I am so close to finally finishing the god damned thing…. after 248 hours of gameplay!

But the fucking thing crashes before I can even finish one battle.

I might see what turning down the graphics settings will do. It might help. I am chagrined to have to do it, but at this point, whatever lets me finish is gold.

If I do manage to finish the fucking thing, that will put extra pressure on me to find my next game as I will only have Fallout 2 left to play.

And I’m enjoying it but it’s pretty ancient. It can’t really carry the load of my gaming habits all by itself. So I will need to find something else.

I’ve reinstalled a game I acquired long ago called Trials of Fire. It’s quite good but it’s really frigging hard. That’s why I haven’t played it that much.

I might have to do the unthinkable and start off playing in Easy mode.

No… my pride will not allow it.

Oh, and another mystery : at some point I acquired Borderlands 3. And then promptly forgot I had it.

Installed it. It said I’ve already played for 3.4 hours. I started it up and did not recognize the intro, but bits and pieces are coming back to me now.

Of course, it fucking crashes too. Argh.

Next month I have GOT to get a better power supply.

Hopefully that will fix it. If not, I am going to have to get spuug over to take a look at the graphics card because its fans never seem to turn on any more.

Maybe there’s a setting somewhere that’s gone askew. I dunno.

If this keeps up I might actually have to be more social and productive online.

What? It could happen!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

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