Soooo, This Day Kinda Tanked
Mar. 29th, 2019 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickNot entirely horrible, but:
-->While having my breakfast (banana bread with a glass of milk), I couldn't help but think the milk tasted a bit -- tangy. Which stunned me as my parents had bought the damn gallon yesterday, and the date printed on it was 4/4/19. Mom was not pleased when I told her, as you might imagine. I felt oddly bad because I was worried it was just me imagining things -- buuut, when they returned the milk, a) they said that the attitude of the employees at the store suggested this wasn't the first incident and b) they noticed the cooler where the milk was stored apparently wasn't closing properly! So that was fun. Fortunately the new gallon they got tastes fine.
-->Finally got myself up and dressed, went to the bathroom -- and discovered I'd started my period. *facepalm* You know, I should have expected it -- I got it way early this month, so I knew there was going to be some bleedover (pun semi-intended). But I didn't feel especially bitchy this week because work wasn't horrible, so I thought maybe it'll line up with the beginning of April. . .fortunately, I'd only JUST gotten my underwear, so I was able to give those a quick pre-wash without worrying about my pants.
-->But, as typical of my period, my motivation to do anything that wasn't a) binge-reading tumblrs or b) watching YouTube videos was pretty much sunk. I couldn't even get up the mental energy to do any writing on Chapter 18. Hell, I went looking for a prompt list, thinking maybe I could at LEAST do some one-sentence stuff, but that was a bust too. *sigh* Though I suspect I MIGHT have been able to pull something off if I'd just started a bit earlier. Both because I might have had some more energy. . .
-->And it would have been before the Fallout 4 debacle. No, I didn't start playing the game and discover I didn't like it. I never even got to START. Here's what happened:
Attempt 1: I boot up Steam, then double-click Fallout 4's icon, wait for some last-minute loading, wait for the launcher to come up, and wait for the launcher to choose my graphics settings. It chooses "Low," to my surprise -- I figure, "okay, Launcher, I know better than you" and go into the options and set that to "High." I change nothing else, close out the options menu, and click "Play."
The game starts up -- BEHIND the still-open Steam window. Not even full-screen -- it's playing in a windowed mode, despite the fact that wasn't checked. And when I go to try and click on it -- I can't. The damn thing's done SOMETHING to my mouse where I can't move it out the area where the Steam window is overlapping the game. The opening video and music are playing, but I can't do a damn thing to actually LOOK at it, close Steam, or really do ANYTHING. Desperate, I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL, and open up the Task Manager. That appears in the area where I can move my mouse --
Except the line actually showing "Fallout 4" is above where I can reach, and the end task button just below.
FORTUNATELY I figure out how to highlight the game's line with the spacebar, and some VERY DETERMINED mouse-wiggling gets the cursor JUST enough onto the button that I can hit "End Task." It takes a minute, but FINALLY the game closes down.
Attempt 2: All right. First things first -- close the Steam window. Second things second -- bring the launcher back up and set the graphics settings back to "Low." Obviously the Launcher does know best. Third things third -- hit "Play" again and hope for the best.
My screen freaks out. As in, goes black, then starts flashing black and gray while the music from the opening screen plays and I get occasional glimpses of my desktop. Stunned, I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL again -- this briefly brings things back to normal by bringing up the "Lock," "Switch User," etc. menu screen. But the moment I go out -- back to gray and black flashing. I manage to bring up Task Manager on the third go, and the screen stabilizes once it comes up, allowing me to kill the game once again. Cue me actually crying a little from frustration (and period).
Attempt 3: I've looked up a few things on my iPad at this point, and apparently flashing -- though not like what I had -- has happened to people before. I can't find my PARTICULAR problems, but I do note based on what I have found that maybe my screen resolution is wrong, and the game may not be using my graphics card right. So: I pull up Nvidia's Control Panel, and make sure Fallout 4.exe is using the high resolution stuff. (I also look for new drivers, but can't find any for my particular graphics card/Windows combination.) I also open up the launcher and change the screen resolution to match that of my actual screen. Hit "Play" again.
Some improvement -- screen is still flashing black, but at least now it's also playing the opening video of the game. Attempting to actually START the game does not work, so I ended up CTRL-ALT-DEL-Task-Managering out again.
Cue me saying "Fuck this," opening Origin, closing out Steam, and going into Sims 4 and updating my movie theater lot with my new custom content bathroom stalls. (It's also now technically a "cafe," with the addition of an espresso bar in the concessions area; and I added in some of the new Get Famous posters and some lot traits -- Teen Hangout, Up-And-Coming Hot Spot, and Party Place.) I also added some cool new lots to my library, just because. Sims 4 may be janky at times, but at least it fucking RUNS. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Fallout 4. There's a couple other things I can try, based on my research, but part of me is very tempted to go "sunk costs, live and learn," uninstall the damn game, and just replay Bloodlines as a Malkavian. (Another janky game that at least RUNS. . .admittedly with a lot of fan help but at least Troika didn't WANT to release a buggy broken mess.) Either way, NEVER fucking buying a Bethesda game again. Fuck them and their inability to make a game that will just START.
So yeah, it's -- *sigh* Yeah. Let me note the better things that happened so I don't go to bed feeling like I want to punch someone:
-->I did have a nice solid OXBox/OXtra marathon this afternoon:
1) Reasons why Connor of Assassin's Creed III was let down by his own game, major ones being he had the unfortunate luck of being the next protagonist after fan favorite Ezio; his grumpy character makes him relatable but less fun to play; the new colonial America setting wasn't as fun to navigate; and all of his best missions were optional and time sensitive, meaning they were easily missed.
2) Times games had enough of your bullshit and "rage quit" on you -- an early example being the X-Files game where you could get a game over from ringing a bell on a motel counter too many times. (However, having worked in retail with one of those accursed bells, I am actually all in favor of this -- the lady was RIGHT THERE!) And another game had killing your brother result in a quick game over -- never mind he would be shortly killed by the plot. (Not by you, to be fair. . .)
3) Bad decisions made by evil video game corporations -- to my delight, the UAC from DOOM (2016) got a mention for using hell energy to solve an energy crisis. Less welcome was an appearance by the Five Nights At Freddy's series (for not replacing their haunted killer animatronics -- honestly, guys, the problem is them covering up the reason for the hauntings in the first place), but fortunately it was at the end of the video, and the spoiler warning crawl let me know it was coming, so I could scroll down the video and not have to look at the characters (STILL creep me out like no one's business).
4) NEW 3 WAYS TO PLAY ON THE NEXT HITMAN LEVEL YAAAAY XD Yeah, best video of the bunch -- 47 wandering around a suburban neighborhood, with two targets and some intel to gather. This is the first part of another two-parter, with each of our favorite trio having killed one of their targets. Andy, of course, methodically set up his assassination by flooding the house the guy was staying in with sedative gas (courtesy of a much-too-kind-hearted exterminator), and smoothly snapping the guy's neck. . .then proceeded to drag the corpse around in an attempt to find a window to drop it out of to make the whole thing look like a tragic accident. XD Did not succeed and settled for dropping it over the upstairs banister. Jane, meanwhile, choked out a nurse and stored him in a box for later (his disguise would be good for getting near the other target), followed a story mission that led to her becoming a muffin seller, then a realtor, showing the target around a house (with the most hilarious descriptions possible from 47 XD), then accidentally stumbling upon a way to kill him via booby-trapped safe room with an explosion that would make Mike proud. XD
And speaking of Mike. . .showed up in the level dressed as a clown, stole some explosives at the first opportunity, just tailed his target around for a while, invaded a barbecue to set up an explosion kill, FAILED the explosion kill (he killed a bystander, but the target himself was only knocked out) and had to run as he was getting shot at, climbed a treehouse and pulled off a damn near IMPOSSIBLE shot into the unconscious target's head, and then had to hide in the long grass while he waited for the heat to die down. XD I love these videos. XD
-->Also got to watch The Sim Supply's latest foray into building Max Power's new dockfront house, and have more breakdowns about glitchy stairs refusing to snap to the right spots and being deleted by moving the ROOF. XD Also about how no doors are right for the modern home he's building and why can't the frames match the window frames?! But he got a rough floorplan done, so yay there. Perhaps Max and family will move into the house sometime this century. XD
-->And Mom made chocolate chip cookies, which -- yeah. The more chocolate, the better in my current state.
And I think I've just used up the last of the gas in my tank for this update (did not expect it to get so long. . .but did not expect all that Fallout 4 bullshit). Probably just gonna head to bed in a little while -- I'll attempt to catch up on everything in my inbox tomorrow, after I'm done with the room clean. Hopefully the weather will be better -- it was kinda gray and drizzly all day, and thanks to my period fucking up my sense of temperature too I've been unreasonably chilly all day. Fingers crossed it gets up into the low 60s like they said it would. . . Night all.
-->While having my breakfast (banana bread with a glass of milk), I couldn't help but think the milk tasted a bit -- tangy. Which stunned me as my parents had bought the damn gallon yesterday, and the date printed on it was 4/4/19. Mom was not pleased when I told her, as you might imagine. I felt oddly bad because I was worried it was just me imagining things -- buuut, when they returned the milk, a) they said that the attitude of the employees at the store suggested this wasn't the first incident and b) they noticed the cooler where the milk was stored apparently wasn't closing properly! So that was fun. Fortunately the new gallon they got tastes fine.
-->Finally got myself up and dressed, went to the bathroom -- and discovered I'd started my period. *facepalm* You know, I should have expected it -- I got it way early this month, so I knew there was going to be some bleedover (pun semi-intended). But I didn't feel especially bitchy this week because work wasn't horrible, so I thought maybe it'll line up with the beginning of April. . .fortunately, I'd only JUST gotten my underwear, so I was able to give those a quick pre-wash without worrying about my pants.
-->But, as typical of my period, my motivation to do anything that wasn't a) binge-reading tumblrs or b) watching YouTube videos was pretty much sunk. I couldn't even get up the mental energy to do any writing on Chapter 18. Hell, I went looking for a prompt list, thinking maybe I could at LEAST do some one-sentence stuff, but that was a bust too. *sigh* Though I suspect I MIGHT have been able to pull something off if I'd just started a bit earlier. Both because I might have had some more energy. . .
-->And it would have been before the Fallout 4 debacle. No, I didn't start playing the game and discover I didn't like it. I never even got to START. Here's what happened:
Attempt 1: I boot up Steam, then double-click Fallout 4's icon, wait for some last-minute loading, wait for the launcher to come up, and wait for the launcher to choose my graphics settings. It chooses "Low," to my surprise -- I figure, "okay, Launcher, I know better than you" and go into the options and set that to "High." I change nothing else, close out the options menu, and click "Play."
The game starts up -- BEHIND the still-open Steam window. Not even full-screen -- it's playing in a windowed mode, despite the fact that wasn't checked. And when I go to try and click on it -- I can't. The damn thing's done SOMETHING to my mouse where I can't move it out the area where the Steam window is overlapping the game. The opening video and music are playing, but I can't do a damn thing to actually LOOK at it, close Steam, or really do ANYTHING. Desperate, I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL, and open up the Task Manager. That appears in the area where I can move my mouse --
Except the line actually showing "Fallout 4" is above where I can reach, and the end task button just below.
FORTUNATELY I figure out how to highlight the game's line with the spacebar, and some VERY DETERMINED mouse-wiggling gets the cursor JUST enough onto the button that I can hit "End Task." It takes a minute, but FINALLY the game closes down.
Attempt 2: All right. First things first -- close the Steam window. Second things second -- bring the launcher back up and set the graphics settings back to "Low." Obviously the Launcher does know best. Third things third -- hit "Play" again and hope for the best.
My screen freaks out. As in, goes black, then starts flashing black and gray while the music from the opening screen plays and I get occasional glimpses of my desktop. Stunned, I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL again -- this briefly brings things back to normal by bringing up the "Lock," "Switch User," etc. menu screen. But the moment I go out -- back to gray and black flashing. I manage to bring up Task Manager on the third go, and the screen stabilizes once it comes up, allowing me to kill the game once again. Cue me actually crying a little from frustration (and period).
Attempt 3: I've looked up a few things on my iPad at this point, and apparently flashing -- though not like what I had -- has happened to people before. I can't find my PARTICULAR problems, but I do note based on what I have found that maybe my screen resolution is wrong, and the game may not be using my graphics card right. So: I pull up Nvidia's Control Panel, and make sure Fallout 4.exe is using the high resolution stuff. (I also look for new drivers, but can't find any for my particular graphics card/Windows combination.) I also open up the launcher and change the screen resolution to match that of my actual screen. Hit "Play" again.
Some improvement -- screen is still flashing black, but at least now it's also playing the opening video of the game. Attempting to actually START the game does not work, so I ended up CTRL-ALT-DEL-Task-Managering out again.
Cue me saying "Fuck this," opening Origin, closing out Steam, and going into Sims 4 and updating my movie theater lot with my new custom content bathroom stalls. (It's also now technically a "cafe," with the addition of an espresso bar in the concessions area; and I added in some of the new Get Famous posters and some lot traits -- Teen Hangout, Up-And-Coming Hot Spot, and Party Place.) I also added some cool new lots to my library, just because. Sims 4 may be janky at times, but at least it fucking RUNS. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Fallout 4. There's a couple other things I can try, based on my research, but part of me is very tempted to go "sunk costs, live and learn," uninstall the damn game, and just replay Bloodlines as a Malkavian. (Another janky game that at least RUNS. . .admittedly with a lot of fan help but at least Troika didn't WANT to release a buggy broken mess.) Either way, NEVER fucking buying a Bethesda game again. Fuck them and their inability to make a game that will just START.
So yeah, it's -- *sigh* Yeah. Let me note the better things that happened so I don't go to bed feeling like I want to punch someone:
-->I did have a nice solid OXBox/OXtra marathon this afternoon:
1) Reasons why Connor of Assassin's Creed III was let down by his own game, major ones being he had the unfortunate luck of being the next protagonist after fan favorite Ezio; his grumpy character makes him relatable but less fun to play; the new colonial America setting wasn't as fun to navigate; and all of his best missions were optional and time sensitive, meaning they were easily missed.
2) Times games had enough of your bullshit and "rage quit" on you -- an early example being the X-Files game where you could get a game over from ringing a bell on a motel counter too many times. (However, having worked in retail with one of those accursed bells, I am actually all in favor of this -- the lady was RIGHT THERE!) And another game had killing your brother result in a quick game over -- never mind he would be shortly killed by the plot. (Not by you, to be fair. . .)
3) Bad decisions made by evil video game corporations -- to my delight, the UAC from DOOM (2016) got a mention for using hell energy to solve an energy crisis. Less welcome was an appearance by the Five Nights At Freddy's series (for not replacing their haunted killer animatronics -- honestly, guys, the problem is them covering up the reason for the hauntings in the first place), but fortunately it was at the end of the video, and the spoiler warning crawl let me know it was coming, so I could scroll down the video and not have to look at the characters (STILL creep me out like no one's business).
4) NEW 3 WAYS TO PLAY ON THE NEXT HITMAN LEVEL YAAAAY XD Yeah, best video of the bunch -- 47 wandering around a suburban neighborhood, with two targets and some intel to gather. This is the first part of another two-parter, with each of our favorite trio having killed one of their targets. Andy, of course, methodically set up his assassination by flooding the house the guy was staying in with sedative gas (courtesy of a much-too-kind-hearted exterminator), and smoothly snapping the guy's neck. . .then proceeded to drag the corpse around in an attempt to find a window to drop it out of to make the whole thing look like a tragic accident. XD Did not succeed and settled for dropping it over the upstairs banister. Jane, meanwhile, choked out a nurse and stored him in a box for later (his disguise would be good for getting near the other target), followed a story mission that led to her becoming a muffin seller, then a realtor, showing the target around a house (with the most hilarious descriptions possible from 47 XD), then accidentally stumbling upon a way to kill him via booby-trapped safe room with an explosion that would make Mike proud. XD
And speaking of Mike. . .showed up in the level dressed as a clown, stole some explosives at the first opportunity, just tailed his target around for a while, invaded a barbecue to set up an explosion kill, FAILED the explosion kill (he killed a bystander, but the target himself was only knocked out) and had to run as he was getting shot at, climbed a treehouse and pulled off a damn near IMPOSSIBLE shot into the unconscious target's head, and then had to hide in the long grass while he waited for the heat to die down. XD I love these videos. XD
-->Also got to watch The Sim Supply's latest foray into building Max Power's new dockfront house, and have more breakdowns about glitchy stairs refusing to snap to the right spots and being deleted by moving the ROOF. XD Also about how no doors are right for the modern home he's building and why can't the frames match the window frames?! But he got a rough floorplan done, so yay there. Perhaps Max and family will move into the house sometime this century. XD
-->And Mom made chocolate chip cookies, which -- yeah. The more chocolate, the better in my current state.
And I think I've just used up the last of the gas in my tank for this update (did not expect it to get so long. . .but did not expect all that Fallout 4 bullshit). Probably just gonna head to bed in a little while -- I'll attempt to catch up on everything in my inbox tomorrow, after I'm done with the room clean. Hopefully the weather will be better -- it was kinda gray and drizzly all day, and thanks to my period fucking up my sense of temperature too I've been unreasonably chilly all day. Fingers crossed it gets up into the low 60s like they said it would. . . Night all.
