The Grouch's Trash Pile [Baldur's Gate 3]

Honestly I think it's pretty cool that they can be played in browser or via an app for phones/tablets. A ton of people play games on their mobile devices - I know I play a lot on those, because convenience. That's a whole new market for a text based game, imo.

 

I totally missed that the textadventures site has a mobile app! Thanks for pointing that out; it kicked my brain right back into gear since now it's thinking of the site more like a storefront where things will be Seen and not like a repository where things go to collect dust. That's what I was getting stuck on, but the only feedback my brain was giving me about it was 'what's the point, it isn't Really Mine this way bluh bluh bluh'.

 

In a fit of extremely ill-advised curiosity brought on by regaining access to my dA gallery, I unblocked the Asshole on the book of face and immediately regretted it. On the bright side, now I know that the mere sight of him doesn't send me into flight mode anymore, it sends me into fight mode. The man has this weird smug half-sneer in all his photos, which results in an extremely punchable face. On the dark side, I had to actually find this out with my own two eyes. Blech.

Speaking of the dA gallery, I lost access because I deleted the associated e-mail years and years ago, after the Asshole sent me an e-mail whining about why I hadn't come to visit him while I'd been in the US recently, oh, and sorry about the death of my cat. Who had died three years previously. Anyway, I just ditched the e-mail address and was like well it's attached to dA but it's fine, I don't update it and don't want it, it can be a decoy if he wants to fuss at something.

But recently I was like no, it's not fine, I don't want deadnamed stuff out there or art of my OCs out there and not under my control, and tl;dr is that I fortunately managed to dig up the old address to help with proof the gallery is mine, they pretty promptly switched the associated address, and it's back in my control. I got it renamed, deleted a bunch of old self-portrait stuff and some personal stuff, adjusted some descriptions, and put up a message that it's only still up for archival purposes. Debating whether or not I'll kill the comments; lots of dead name occurrences in there, but for now it's just hidden.

 

I wish I could pick winner and witnessed, oof. *hugs*

 

Back has decided my bed is the most uncomfortable place on earth and I can barely sleep half the night before it starts giving me major grief. Why.

I could desperately use a soak in a hot tub but we only have a shower stall, so I've been using my microwavable compress and wishing it was bigger/the weather was cooler. It's normal summer hot again, so only 20-21C, but that still makes heating pads kind of uncomfortable to use, even sitting in front of a fan. It is, however, the only thing that has helped -- stretches and exercise haven't done much of anything. :(

 

For me sometimes turning my mattress makes it feel different as I'm single and only use half the bed. So I turn the mattress to make a dent in the other half :P might that work for you? I don't turn it over usually, I just turn it 180 degrees.

 

Oh thank you for bringing that up! You've made me realize that it's been years since I last rotated my mattress and it's high time I do so.

A part of my problem is also that my desk chair is pretty uncomfortable. :/ I try to get up and walk around and stretch regularly in addition to my normal exercise, but it hasn't really been enough/it's hard to mitigate the problems from a bad chair. Never buy gamer chairs, folks! They've overpriced pieces of shit.

 

That totally sucks. I hope it gets better soon!

 

I tried this on Wednesday when I changed the bed linens, and I think I actually turned it -- I got distracted halfway through and then couldn't remember if I was rotating it clockwise or counterclockwise, lmao -- but REGARDLESS between that and fixing my bed slats (which is... kind of a story), it's helped a lot. So thank you again for the suggestion!

 

So glad it was useful to you!

 

Getting a new computer \o/

My current one is okay, but I bought it used and stuck my old Windows 7 hard drive in there. I couldn't upgrade to 10 since I, uhh, had the version that fell off the back of a truck, and the hard drive is 9 years old at this point so I knew I was going to need to replace it... and this summer I've started getting bluescreens from my video card overheating. I had to roll back the driver to the early-this-year's version just so I have fan control access, since the control panel widget is gone on the Windows 7 version of the most recent drivers; setting the fans to spin up sooner and more aggressively has helped the heat issue, but my FC friends were recommending I replace the thermal paste, which looks like an undertaking -- and one I'd have to go through shenanigans to do, since I do not have a good work environment for delicate computer surgery at home.

Anyway, the tl;dr is that replacing all of that was looking about as expensive as a new computer, but J's friends were talking about a model that's currently on sale for 400€ off and it looks decent enough, so we nabbed that for me as well as a monitor since my current one has had a 1-pixel wide vertical stripe of stuck yellow pixels for, uh, some years now, that I've just been kind of living with because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My brain is hollering at me that since I didn't research this for a week straight I'm making a terrible mistake, but eh.

Spoiler: Specs, for the curious

Acer Nitro N50-620

Intel i5 11400
16GB 3200 MHz RAM
1024GB SSD
GeForce RTX 3060Ti

The PUS is only 500W which is kind of hmmm, but again, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's not like I have 50 million peripherals, just my keyboard and mouse (and I'll have to get a SATA to USB converter so I can pull stuff off the old hard drive more easily, and we're going to need a standalone optical drive since apparently they don't put those in computers anymore...)

The monitor is an Asus VL279HE Eye Care 27", which is not a Gaming Monitor (tm) but w/e, I do a lot more than game so.

 

As I said on Twitter, it's funny and kind of depressing that for the price of the individual components I need I'm able to just get a whole new machine. Video card prices are absolutely insane.

 

I'm not sure what part of "I would like to do content with friends, rather than running solo all the time" escapes some of my FC friends, but it's really grating to get 'advice' about checking Party Finder for speedruns or just queuing in when that wasn't even what I was talking about. Yes, thank you, I've played this game for four years and have everything at max level, and while I may be a normal mode scrub I am aware of how to use Party Finder and Duty Finder.

ngl I'm kind of bummed about the FC in general lately because it's like pulling nails to get anyone to talk in chat or Discord, because the frequent players are mostly raiders, and they mostly talk in the locked raid channels. Other friends are totally occupied with their own stuff or on other data centers, Aud isn't a fan of combat content, and J is still on free trial and moving slowly enough he should be ready to buy the game by the time the expansion after Endwalker comes out... so it's pretty lonely. I'm usually okay with running solo because I kinda have to be, but sometimes it's just too much.

 

J I know you're a history nerd and like to share interesting articles but why in the love of FUCK do you keep reading me shit out of nowhere about distressing subjects? I absolutely do not give a single solitary shit about video footage of Hitler and what it shows, and especially not out of the fucking blue!

I seriously do not know why it doesn't occur to him to ASK FIRST.

I was also already in a bad mood because I upended my sewing box all over the floor when I tried to move it and had to sit there for some time laboriously picking up spilled buttons and such, then found an escaped pin and put it aside on the box lid but when I moved the lid the pin went god knows where. Then the cats started fighting and I had to holler at them and I really want to be just DONE with today but I can't. ._.

 

AHHHHH.

So. J noticed a couple of weird spots on our ceiling that we think are newish, which means our roof might be leaking. I'm not thrilled about this! He sent a maintenance ticket in, but AHHHHH. D:

Also his computer just froze, he reset it, and it powered up with the fans spinning full blast but nothing booting and no response to the power switch. He had to switch the power supply itself off and waited a minute before switching that back on and turning it on. It booted normally and all seems well so far, but AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Today has been stressful!!!

 

Oh no, I hope all is well with the roof, or at least easily remedied if not.

 

Part of my WAH EVERYTHING SUCKS yesterday was definitely allergy hangover -- on Saturday I'd had a frozen meal for dinner that I've had many times before, but this time I got my 'whoops, food allergen' reaction, which means it was either contaminated or I have a new and exciting allergy. Hoping it's the former!

Anyway, I felt absolutely dire yesterday -- I needed a bit more sleep but I felt like I'd barely slept at all, on top of feeling physically fragile, and, welp. I still needed more sleep than I got today (I am super bad about going to bed at an appropriate time, but Gordon insists I be awake at a certain entirely reasonable time, so, you know...), but I don't feel exhausted and about to fall to pieces, so.

 

O boy back to being Stressed

My new computer is to be delivered today! Except that there was initally a mix up with packages and we got someone's expensive alcohol order. A few phonecalls later the delivery person came back, looked at the labels and apologized and handed over... my monitor, the only package he had for us. It might be a split delivery, but as far as the delivery service is currently concerned, they only have the one package for us and they've just delivered it. The store's information is that they sent out only one package. Where is my computer? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So now J is on hold for 8.4 cents a minute (ugh) to find out where the hell it is.

 

Ok, AHHHHH has turned into general grumbling -- the store is just waiting on additional shipments of the model I got since they ran out due to high demand, but they, uh, kinda forgot to inform us.



Estimated delivery date is next week, so it's nice I have additional time to actually clean off my desk and figure out how I'm gonna transfer files between machines. (Current plan is to set them both up on my desk, hope the old spare ethernet cord/keyboard still work and that my tablet can make do as a mouse, and transfer over the network, but boy, that's clunky. At the same time though it's incentive to put the scanner I use maybe once a year into storage and clear some room...)

 

It sucks they forgot to inform you, but also: thank goodness that's all it is! Shame you had to chase them down at your cost, though.

I hope things go smoothly for the next few days, you deserve a break from the stress.