2022-11-10:

Fri: Not much at work, didn't get any versalink stuff. Just waiting for John's "lease" to expire so I can have my device back and finish up the upgrade testing I already know will fail. Forget the bank stuff, so I just went shopping. No toothpaste? Or vitamins? Odd. They did have cat food. Saw my parents. Back here, started the leaves as it was still light for a bit. Got the driveway done at least. I know it doesn't take me too long to do the leaves but still, it's probably going to be busy tomorrow with all the running around I have to do. Virtually and otherwise, of course. With rain forcast for Sunday I want the leaves done and to the front by then. No like wet leaves! Then sites for a half hour before game. We made it to the next town and started the next adventure. We're just about to be attacked. We were dealing with a lot of worms. Well, the others were, I just took the sensible action of flying over them. Sucks to be you guys! Sat: Got up and did the leaves. Only took an hour and a half, leaving me a half hour before calling Mr. Outlook. There's a lot out there, but with still some to come down I'll have to rake at least once more. It's fine, fine, I don't hate it. It's fine. That went fine, if a bit long. Until 12:30 but at least he had decent questions. Ate a quick lunch. Then out to see the laptop guy. He had questions, which I answered. About both machines, don't know why he would even worry about the somewhat crappy old desktop when he has the laptop now but it's his life. Back here I put up the lights. Have to wait until dark to see if I did a good job of course but they're up. I put the little ones on the tree in the front this year, that seems more reasonable to me. Red and green on the left side, then the huge string of mulicolored ones to the right. Some of the green and red don't work, of course. Sigh. I only had them a year right? Of course they were used but still. Stuipid things. At least they're wired such that others do work. Watched a movie, for the fifth of November. You know which one. I see no season the gunpowder reason should ever be top knot. Then my parents came as I was adjusting the lights as it was dark out. It looks a bit off, but what can you do? It's lights, so my holiday spirit gets a +1 bonus on attack rolls. Then movie with them. Then movie without them. Then bed. Sun: Started the print, hopefully the final print for this year. It's been a long road. Sites. Did the paperwork, that didn't take too long. Put up the last string of christmas lights. It was rainy in the morning but it cleared off. I figured out a way to put the last string of multicolored up on the right side, on the bush, so that should look fine. In 20 or so days I can light them up. Had lunch. Print is going okay. Finished one of the indi games. Watched some episodes of a certain frog show. It's no owl show, but then, what is? Started another game, trying to get through them, there's so many. Finished it, won't be replaying it. Wasn't that great. Why do some of the Mac games not open? Ah, figured out a work around. It's command line based, very odd, but it will at least work? Print came out okay. Much better than the other one. Time to sand it just a touch, and make the cloth parts. I sanded it! Looks great, I'm glad I took the time to re-print it. Fits good, I think it'll look pretty good. If I can pull off the cloths parts, and by pull off I mean put on. I've got a month or so, we'll see how it goes. In between all this I talked to the far away guy twice. Go away dude. And the old guy called like 6 times. I'm not here! Okay, only 3 times, but still. I'm going back there tomorrow. Yay. Got ready for tomorrow. Finally set the clocks back. Honestly, I can sleep in all I want on Sunday, why give me an extra hour then? Pointless. But give me an extra hour to sleep before a monday and then you've got something! Mon: Not much exciting at work still. I did do another upgrade test, which promptly crashed the machine or something and put up a scary warning. Had development people get the logs. I was given wrong information that we had a new versalink build we did not have. So that was a thing. We looked for it but didn't find it. Got a mini-haul going out the door. I saw the salad was gone so I figured it would be dinner time. Nope. Just two pizzas, some burritos, 3 muffins I'll have for breakfast, and some bags of my 2 favorite kinds of chips. I'll take it. Out to apartment guy. His biggest issue was edge and yahoo, somehow changing all the words he was typing. Like just typing "te" put in "too." And erasing stuff started putting in words too. I couldn't figure out why, he had no extensions, the machine is new it can't have stuff on it. So bizzare. Switched to firefox, that fixed it. Back here. No calls, yay! Checked sites, ate dinner. Tried playing a very odd game. Turned out to be a puzzle game. Not really my cup of tea, not after Myst kicked my butt and I decided all puzzle games needed to die in a fire. But I figured I would give it a shot. Maybe after 30 years (yes it's been that long!!!!) we've learned a thing or two about making them. So the game begins (and settle in because I'm telling you the whole bizzare story) with me having to rescue a witch, yes complete with broom and wand, from a tree she has crashed into in my back yard. I need tools?? to cut her broom free. So I head to the shed in my own back yard. The shed has a lock on it. The lock needs a four digit code that I am told is a month and a day. So 0123 for jan 23rd for instance. So already it's not a puzzle it's a effort in brute force. If I (a burglar) wanted what was inside all I would need is patience. Try 20 codes a night and I'll have it open in a month. Outstanding. But there is a further "clue" to the "puzzle" (which again I remind you is for a lock, for a shed, in my own back yard. Clearly my character would know the code. Clearly. But I digress, and not for the first time) in the living room. So I head into the house. I poke around. The only thing I find that's odd is a box. A wooden box. With some squares in the top, and the squares have holes in them. Okay. The holes, apparently, need to be filled with tiny... we'll call them metal disks... with 1-9 on them. Now let's take a second to think about this box. How does it "know" what little metal circles I've put where? Magic? Is this a magic box? It's not explained. If it is, why? What is so valuable back in the shed that we're protecting it with not one, not two, but three (I came to learn) puzzles? (Once you open the box there's a puzzle to get the clue) Do you really think someone is going to break into your house looking for the clue to this stupid little lock you have outside? NO. They are going to cut the lock. With their lock cutters. Which they most certainly have. But again, I digress. I try various combinations, first putting them in 1-9 order going clockwise. Then counterclockwise. Then I get "smart." The blocks on top of the box (that if someone did break into the house to find would simply be smashed apart. It's a wooden box. Not metal. It's stupid all the way through) are all a different size. Ah hah. What if the biggest one is the 9 and the smallest is the 1? Then I just figure out which is next biggest/smallest, and go from there. No. That's not it. Realizing this may not even be the right thing to be doing I resolve to brute force the lock. It won't take that long to punch in every date from January to December, will it? The UI works against me here but I'm up to May and decide no, I can brute force this, meaning I've "solved" the puzzle and "what if I just looked it up?" I did. It was Aug 26th, if you were wondering. So I finally open my own darn lock in my own darn back yard guarding my own garden tools and cut the witch free. She practically demands I take a "wishing stone" off her hands "in thanks" and this shows my character is not an idiot. My first pleasant surprise! She actually says to the witch "If you had something like this, why did you use it and free yourself, rather than waiting for someone to get you down? You would still have two wishes left right?" To which the witch replies "can't explain, byeeeeeeeeee" and flies away. This is dodgy as heck. So our "hero" waits until the last second and again shows actual intelligence. She wishes for something small and insignificant to see how much of a "monkey's paw" this thing is. Quick side note: if a witch is in a hurry to get rid of something seemingly as powerful as a stone that can grant wishes, your first and only wish then MUST BE "I wish this stone never existed." That's IT. A genie is a different story, you might be able to tell by how they act how the wishes might go. Or make sure they understand the wish and explain any consequences beforehand. Maybe. But a rock? No. Bad idea. Anyway, she wishes for a candy bar. That's it. One small candy bar. Easy. Suddenly her mom is shouting about if she's leaving for the "night market" soon, as it's now midnight. Huh? What's this all about? She wanted a candy bar, not a trek into the wilderness. But she goes. (Okay, maybe she's not as smart as she seemed?) She finds a booth where a woman is going to make her a candy bar. Sweet. She can get home and get this madness over. HAHA NOPE The woman spills all her stuff all over and instead of saying "can you watch the stand" or whatever (This is the work of an enemy stand!) she sends the perfect stranger to her house. Okay, sure. We arrive at the house to find her two pre-teen children are there, unsupervised. What? Isn't that child endangerment? One of these kids looks to be, like, three years old. Anyway, we are here to get the ingredients for chocolate. Which is madness, you can't make chocolate from raw ingredients in the 30 seconds a patron is going to stand in front of your booth. Chocolate, proper chocolate is HARD to make from scratch. Go look it up. There are SO MANY STEPS. I don't know how we ever did it. I'm glad we did, but... I'm getting off track again. I am pushed around by these two brats to do their homework for them, solving a "puzzle" their "father" left for them. He hates them too, I guess. They've been working on it for three whole days but somehow don't seem to have made any progress because I have to do ALL the work. I again get a wooden puzzle that has a key in it, again how did the wood know the pieces were in there right? They get the book out of the safe after I jump through all the hoops with the lights, and the screenshots, and the windowed mode so I can see the screenshots and do the puzzles, and they finally let me in the kitchen. You know I could break both your necks and there's not a thing you could do about it, right? Anyway. But wait! Some of the ingredients are not in the fridge. Some are in a locked cupboard. Wait, what? Why? What is so valuable about this chocolate making stuff that you need to lock it up? Doesn't make sense. No worries, the key is around here somewhere. Right? Well, in way. And here's where the game really jumps the shark. (Still with me? Great) The key is under one of the flowerpots sitting on a shelf in the kitchen. So just lift them up, right? WRONG The plants are poison. So poisonous, in fact, the slightest touch is death. So wait, you're telling me you've not only left your toddlers home alone for hours, allowed a stranger into your home, you're telling me deadly plants are just sitting out in the open in your kitchen? What if, while cooking you happen to brush against them? They're not in a case. They're just sitting there. What if, heaven forbid, one of your children touched them? Children are all over the place. Ask my parents. It's the defining truth of children. I got so banged up as a kid. Don't even ask about the suitcase incident. Is it worth the risk to protect some chocolate making stuff? Is it? IS IT? I guess it is. Don't worry, the solution is in the fridge. Not a note taped to the fridge, in the fridge. As in a bag of odd looking tiny glass spheres? I don't get it. Let's look at the plants. Turns out there's a note on the plants too. Basically if you give them water from the right can, that deactivates their killer instinct and you can lift them. That... is how plants work. Totally. Also, water. Water takes on different properties if the can is a different color. You didn't know that? I thought everyone did. So one plant says it wants that sweet, sweet, fire water. (like in Brave!! Marry me Merida, not some dopey clansman. But again I digress) One can is red. Solved. There's no world, no universe, no parallel dimension where red isn't associated with fire. Let's get that pot out of the way and then we can try to work out what the beads do. NOPE. The plant attacks me, and the screen goes dark. Now comes the really crazy part. Some lady starts talking to me as I'm dying. Me, or my character it's not clear. Basically berating me and telling me "you must have longed for death, as you were unable to solve such a simple puzzle." Uh, what? I... What? Many emotions went through my mind at this point. Is my character in some kind of simulation, like she's in Portal but doesn't know it? Is she being monitored? Is the game talking to me, at the keyboard? Is it insulting me? In that moment I decided that, yes, it's possible my avatar did indeed long for the sweet embrace of death, and I quit the game. Never to open it again. Final thoughts: Imagine what that woman has to come home to now. If it's not some kind of simulation she'll wait, what another hour? Two? Before packing up what's left of her stand and rushing home, thinking "is that total stranger eating (she would thing something else that starts with the letter r) my kids? What is happening over there?" And then getting home to find her two traumatized daughters crying their eyes out over the corpse in the kitchen. And what's she going to tell the cops? "Yes, officer, I gave this total stranger directions to my home where my unattended children were, and she must have brushed up against the poisonous plants I happen to keep in the kitchen. No harm no foul right?" NO. She would be under arrest. For murder. And child endangerment. And drugs. Because you know there's all the drugs in that house. It's crazy! Remember myst? The puzzle game that started it all? That didn't kill you a hour into the adventure? These developers don't. This is not the way to make a puzzle game, folks. But I've ranted enough so let's move on. Thanks for reading the whole thing. (And now I almost want to play it just to write a fanfic about how totally bizarre it is) Tues: Spent the day doing upgrade testing! Christina went home, not feeling well, in the morning. Yikes. I was around her yesterday, but not for too long. Only a few minutes. That's okay... right? Anyway, they fixed the clone issue so I wanted to do a bunch of upgrade testing. Looks good! Not much else. Came back here, checked sites. Installed Halo as it's finally co-op multiplayer. It's only been over a year! No calls, thank goodness. Started watching a playthrough of the stone game. I called it. But the puzzles would have really, really annoyed me so I'm glad I stopped! But I do now understand what the game was doing when it said I longed for death. Interesting. It certainly took a different turn than I was expecting!Ê Still, I understand the context now but at the time having the game berate we probably wasn't the best choice. We did not play Halo, Mizzy didn't have the campaign downloaded? We did a little back 4 blood. Wed: So we still have a democracy, barely. Many races were far too close for comfort and some are still being decided. But it wasn't the "red wave" it's still almost about equal. Not great, but not as bad as I feared. Honestly, how can these races be so close? Are you people not paying attention? There's a party that wants to turn this into a cristo-fascist state. They have been telling you this over and over again the last 6 years. Do you not believe them yet? Do you, heaven forbid, actually want that? Do you want to go zooming backwards into the 1800s? Do you? Because it seems you do and we left those times for a reason. They sucked! Had the Joe meeting. He was talking about cards that got lost in the mail, so I tracked down the cards we had because he was talking crazy talk. We figured out we sent them two blank cards and where the rest of the cards were. Other than that, not much exciting. I found a bunny in the garbage and saved it. Not a real bunny, a stuffed bunny. A guy came with the newest software to check out my rolling reboot machine right before I left. After installing he did not get the result he wanted. Good luck dude. Came home, washed the bunny. Had dinner, checked sites. No calls, but then a call, something about losing mail? Nope, just lost the sidebar. Of course the clear and concise description of the issue led me to the solution at once. HA no just kidding. But I did finally figure out what they were blathering about. Practiced in the new halo practice mode. They even have a weapon practice mode. There's a lot of weapons in this game. Gotta shoot 'em all. Thurs: Finished up the upgrade testing. Looks good, did a manual upgrade, an altboot with no flags, and an altboot with flags and installing a clone file. The result was a machine with the settings I expected. Well done. Had the usual meetings, first the SSO meeting, and we did get the next version of software. They still have bugs though, so it's not the last. Didn't really get a chance to look at the list, because we had the second meeting when it came in. We'll be pretty busy the next few weeks, the trunk testing can be done, D4.0 is coming in soon, and we'll get some versalink stuff as well. Only two week to Thanksgiving. Otherwise did pull a few things out of the trash, not really enough to be called a haul though. So I brought just a few for my parents this week. Hopefully I remember them, no work tomorrow. The plan is to work hard on Sean's gift. Well work hard or hardly work, amiright? Did the plants, wiped up the screens, and got out of there. Came back and did the leaves. Yes I would have preferred letting them go another day or two, but there's going to be rain tomorrow by the looks. And even if I have Saturday free, I didn't want to be dragging wet leaves around. They're almost all down, it's fine. Had dinner, checked sites, videos, the usual. No calls today. Looking ahead, as we tend to do, like I said hopefully work on Sean's gift. I want to do at least a little painting on it, and making the cloth parts. That's the focus, get it done and we can switch to family on Saturday. Friday will also see me going to my parent's, and is the bank open? I'll do the shopping too, if that's open? Have my parents over Saturday. Not sure what the plan is for Sunday. That looks like it. Guess I'll see everyone next week!