2023-03-16:

Fri:
With Karen wanting Monday to do her stuff, I only had the OneDrive thing to do.
It worked! Whatever they changed worked, it let me open and use the app finally. Hopefully they'll roll that into the latest software and we caught it early enough no customer will see it. That would really look bad.
Looked at some server stuff briefly.
Tried to set up the new ARM development unit we got, but we don't have the right video adapter. Why didn't they just use HDMI? From what I read it needs an "active" mini displayport to DVI adapter so mine must be "inactive" sorry I mean "passive." Why not just use HDMI and skip all that nonsense, MS? Now we have a useless box we need to order an adapter for. Brilliant. Thanks for NOT including it, very Apple of you. *wipes tear* Morons.
Got a good haul, lots of salad this time. More sandwiches, but I couldn't carry them all. I shall have to make a second trip to my parent's house to share this bounty with them. But that is a thing I shall do! So help me I'll do it.
Saw my parents, did the shopping. It was snowing pretty good. Not as badly as that storm I was driving in to Sean's not that long ago, mind.
Got back here, checked sites, videos.
Played Legacy. Yes, that one. No, I didn't "technically" buy it. Would you, given her view on that sort of thing? Of couse not. I have thoughts, but I shall save them for Sunday.

Sat:
3 jobs to get to today. Straightened up in the morning, my parents are coming over.
Out to the first. Very simple stuff, didn't take me long. Like putting the password for his wireless into his phone. And showing him that his printer is not a scanner. There was some third stupid question I forget, it took me all of 15 minutes, it was pointless. But still a half hour to get there, meaning an hour round trip. Yay. Loved it, 10/10 would drive out there again.
Had lunch.
Out to #2. He did have a google router. Odd. He either didn't tell me the home software saw it when we were trying to set it up over the phone or it wasn't working. I unplugged it and it worked when I tried it, so either option is still on the table. We got everything hooked back up to it no problem. Took less time than we spent on the phone, as expected. Should have just driven down there and back it would have been less time wasted for me.
Then back home stopped at optical drive guy. He had plugged it into his laptop which worked, before I got there. I did a few minor things there. And petted "pup" his cat. I've met the cat twice before (extra toooooooes!) but he told me the cat's name twice while I was there. I think he's losing it.
Back here for some Legacy. It's a good game, but not a great game. More thoughts in tomorrow's entry.
The parents came over. We watched a very strange movie, the Elm Chanted Forest. Such reused animation. So plot. Wow.

Sun:
Mostly Legacy, if I'm being honest. Now for the thoughts. You can skip ahead if you want. I'll mark the section.
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So I wanted to time how long it would be until what we know from the HP verse is violated but I may as well not have bothered. It happened in the first cut scene. Again and again, honestly. Our two heroes are in a flying carriage and are attacked, falling to their deaths. It's going to be a short game. But wait! Without a wand one of our heroes uses the summoning charm and gets hold of a key they had been looking at. The key just so happens to be a portkey and takes them elsewhere. Wait, how did he know it would do that? He had just seen it for the first time a moment ago. If I was falling to my death I would be worried about, you know, not falling to my death more than grabbing some key I had just seen. What if it hadn't? How would they have escaped falling? I guess he could teleport himself... But you see my point. Magic, actual spells cast, need a wand. But not this time, I guess? Then they are teleported. Remember the first time in the movies we see a portkey used? It's at the world cup, and the adults are seen strolling on air to land and smirk while the kids are violently thrown to the ground. That was from a standing start. These people are falling to their deaths. But the teleport cancels their momentum and they land stationary. So which is it? Do portkeys throw you around or don't they?
Now for the game itself. It is pretty well packed with detail. Too much, really. You are handed a book, a magical book, because you're a fifth year just starting school here for some reason that's not explained. Are your parents muggles? Were they traveling? Did you move from another school? Not explained! Maybe your parents are dead, they are not mentioned, and you don't seem to know any spells so maybe you were in an accident and lost your memory? Anyway, back to the book. You are given it to help catch you up because you are, of course, 4 years behind your peers. You suck! Just kidding, not explained. You open it. The pages magically fly away. Uh, what? If you want me to read about the castle and the area around it, maybe leave the pages where they are? Nope! In typical wizard fashion they do everything the hard way and make you go get the pages yourself. Oh, and they're invisible, (but not all of them? Some fly around like birds?) so you have to keep spamming your "show me invisible stuff" spell every 10 meters to not miss any. Great. May as well have that on a macro. But doing this, getting the pages back I mean, and this is key: raises your level. (more about levels in a second) There is a maximum cap on your level at 40, so they can sell you DLC that raises it. It is a modern game, after all. So naturally you go skipping down the corridors and to the village (hey remember that place? Like, in the books how you had to get a signed slip and everyone went as a group, and teachers were there, and you went like once all year? Nah, just go whenever you want. Do what you want! Whatever, no consequences for any action for you, star child.) to find these missing red and blue pages. Wait, no, that's a different game. Just regular colored pages. And doing this has raised my level to 20. Right, I am now halfway leveled and I've only just at the end of my playing on Sunday gotten my broom and the Room of Requirement. I still have about 100 pages to find because there are about 200 of them in those two areas. Clearly the developers didn't intend for you to rush about finding them all at once or did, and gave you massively too much XP for doing so. Because the map is HUGE. HUUUUGE. But here's the thing. If I've gotten this leveled and am still unlocking core mechanics of the game, I'm pretty sure I'll be leveled to the max before really needing to explore the wider countryside. I still have a massive amount of pages to find in the castle, after all.
SO WHY WOULD I BOTHER GOING ANYWHERE ELSE TO DO SO? I can't even unlock locked doors for crying out loud, so I still don't have all the core mechanics yet. And don't get me started on that being a mini-game, or finding "statues" to "level it up." That's not how any of that works in the Hpverse!
I won't find better gear once I hit that cap, that's leveled too. And let's talk about that. If you're more than half way to a level (it seems) any gear you find is for the next level. So what the world, yes, the physical reality of that universe is telling me, "sorry, you can't put on that hat, you're not high enough "level." Wait what? I can't wear a hat? It was ridiculous in FF when they did the whole "licenses" thing and it's ridiculous now. It's a hat. Let me put it on my HEAD. If you really want to lock me out of stuff I'll be able to wear in twenty minutes anyway subtract the difference in my "level" and the "level" of the "gear" when I put it on. Problem solved. But not being able to wear a hat, or a scarf, or a pair of gloves is stupid in the extreme.
So you've got max gear, there's no reason to explore the wider world, meaning all that work they did on that was meaningless. But let's keep talking about gear. Until I unlocked the Room all gear was known to me. But as soon as that mission became available clothes I picked up somehow were unknown to me. "What is this strange garment I have seen twenty times before already? I just can't figure it out." You have to go into the Room and use a special table to tell what the gear is. WHAT? Who came up with that mechanic? Please stab your own eyes out so you never see anything beautiful again. I can't tell what a robe is? Without a special room? This is STUPID.
But you know who is not stupid? My character! She's a Hermione. She can practice a spell once and master it. Remember how long it takes our HP heroes like Ron to learn magic? Or poor Nevil? They're useless, for most of all the books. Heck Nevil has his moment in the spotlight holding a sword, not a wand! But not me! I fly once, I'm taking the broom trial and beating the record holder on the first try. I'm shown a spell, it always works for me. I'm the best! Personally with those kinds of skills I would simply be at the library or asking everyone around me to show me what spells they know so I would know hundreds before the month is out. But we'll only know a dozen before the game is over. Great.
But you know won't be in the dozens? The people I've murdered in cold blood! That will be a hill you could ski down. Leading up to the castle, and then walking around outside it, I've been attacked (for reasons?) by goblins and humans alike. And of course I had to murder them. Remember stunning spells? Disarming charms? The full body bind? Maybe blinding them? The jelly legs hex? Heck I know the disarming charm, and the summoning charm! Why can't I just disarm them and then grab their wands? They'll be absolutely no threat to me at that point. Nope. Murder. In fact I can go into the forest and just murder anyone I find there. Oh, they're "bad guys." Sure. Sure they are. I'm still killing them in cold blood. No investigation is ever done. No remorse on my part. Even the first time I'm attacked I don't vomit for half an hour thinking to myself "oh my god I just killed those people why are they trying to kill me this magic stuff sucks you can have it back etc." Nope. Just went on with my day apparently. Wow. Such nerves. I'm supposed to be a fifth year. That means I'm like 15 years old. Soldiers are put through hell to be ready to pull that trigger in wartime, (doesn't always mean they can!) but a fifteen year old is just fine going out to the forest and murdering some dudes. Sure, I buy it.
And what is this "ancient magic" garbage? Isn't all magic "ancient?" Hasn't it been around forever? Of course it has, in the HPverse magic didn't just appear one day, it's always been around. Magical creatures are around, magic was done by elves, goblins, heck humans are pretty late to the game having "recently" started using wands to focus it. Makes no sense why this person and this person alone (along with two others in history) can "see" this "ancient" magic. Also, why hasn't all this magic broken down? We're traveling through all these caves and such in search of ???? and all the bridges still get built from nothing when we hit the targets with magic. Don't wanded charms break down over time? How does it all still work?
People are pretty brave in this time, too. The game is set in the 1800s I think, not that wizard society is any different in this time than in HP's time yay stagnation! Magic makes you stupid I guess, anyway, I'm confronted in a bar by the bad guy and instantly every wand is out to defend me. Like, the bartender is like, oh no you aren't messing with this kid here! Neat! And on the road I meet a lady and she risks her life for me too when out of nowhere (how did they know where I was? Divination magic isn't a thing in HPverse) some "bad guys" come to grab me. A total stranger. Huh? Where were all these people when Voldi was taking over magical Britain? Did we lose our nerve in 200 years? Wasn't it a group of like 40 people that caused all that terror? If Voldi hadn't gone after Harry personally he would have won, remember. With a handful of dudes. Pretty sure it was. Maybe standards are slipping at the school. Nah, that Dumbledore guy he's the best headmaster, right? Right? Right????
And the castle itself is all wrong. There are not enough bedrooms or bathrooms for the number of kids there, but there are plenty of grand, open spaces, staircases, fields, and galleries. Is it a school or an amusement park attraction? Are you telling me we needed the Room of Requirement for setting me up a space I could grow a few plants in and put my magical cloth identifying table? There wasn't a spare room they could give me, and just give me the key to it? And would the school allow a student to just brew up any potion or grow any plant unsupervised? Remember, any use of "underage magic" sets off the trace (remember that?) so I shouldn't be doing any magic in the halls, the surrounding countryside, the village, etc. The minestry (remember them?) would be there in a flash. So certainly they would not be giving me leave to just brew whatever inside the halls. I could, quite literally, blow myself and a sizable portion of the castle up. I mean you're playing with magic here, and it can go wrong. Ask Luna's mother. (Remember her?) And outside them, should I really be flying around on a broomstick where any old person can see me? I'm given a mission to take some potions 1000m that way, good thing I just bought a broom I guess, and I just fly there. (side note: While doing so I was thinking, is this an unintential reference to Kiki's delivery service? I mean I'm a witch delivering stuff on a broom.) No concern for being seen at all. Also, why would you think to ask a random patron of your shop to work for you? Do you trust me that much to not just run off with your potions? Why? You have an employee spinning the sign around out front (a different one every day?) make them do it. No child labor laws in the 1800s, and if certain people have their way we'll get there again! (look it up, just recently "someplace" passed a law losening restrictions for child labor. Great, that's... yes that's what we want. Kids working in mines again. Unbelievable.)
Why is only gold a currency, and not silver and bronze? Everything is in even gold pieces. Ron's family was lucky to see a gold piece when we went to their vault, but I'm getting 200 gold for a ratty set of gloves I found in a chest by the side of the road? What?
Also why are all these chests and bags of gold just laying around? I don't touch the ones inside shops or houses because that's called stealing but the amount of gold I've just picked up off the street is staggering. Where am I putting it all, anyway? I have 8,000 gold coins on my person. That's got to be quite a bulge.
Am I a super genius? Every puzzle in the castle I've been pointed to has been from a person that's given up on it but the solutions seem pretty easy to me. In a castle full of kids (ravenclaws!!!) I'm the only one that has ever looked at the doors with the funny animals and the math on them and found the page in the textbook about what number the animal is and opened the door? I know someone was working on it, I found a blackboard with the solution on it. That's how I knew what to do. But only the doors I've opened are opened, and they stay open so they've never been opened. Very odd.
And my character never seems to eat or sleep. Days can go by as I roam the castle (remember the rules against that?) as time does pass in the world, but I don't get hungry or tired. That's pretty nice actually. I know, I know, Skyrim is the same but at least in Oblivion you raised levels by sleeping, and in hard mode games like Fallout you do have to drink and such. It's just odd that everyone leaves the corridors and you're just derping along by yourself without a care. In HP everyone was terrified of being caught out of the dorms after dark. But I'm just taking a swim outside in my "small-clothes" so don't mind me.
Maybe I could go on but you get the point. Is the game fun? Eh, it's not skyrim. I don't know what it is. What exact quality makes it less fun. I do want to play more, especially now that I finally got the Room unlocked. Don't get me wrong. But it seems like Skyrim just did certain things better. It's a much harsher world so it's expected you're killing bandits that are trying to rob you, or vampires, or necromancers and the undead. But here it just feels icky, you're supposed to be roll playing a kid. The world of Skyrim was huge, and wandering it was enjoyable because every few feet there was a tomb or ruin or magical stone to look at. Here in Legacy there's really no need to leave the castle or Hogsmead. So why bother with all that outside stuff? And there isn't as much to do as you're probably going to fly over most of it because you get the broom fairly "early" in the playthrough, at least I assume it still is, given the above that I haven't unlocked all the mechanics yet. Skyrim said "pick a direction and do what you want." You could go to a town and smith, or enchant, take over the magic guild, or actually follow the plot and be the dragon born. Here it's "go to class but at the same time find these pages in the castle." It's only open world in a vague sense. Things are happening to me, but I could play 100 hours in Skyrim and not touch the main quest. In fact I did. I took over all the guilds, made a literal fortune, enchanted sick armor, became a vampire, the works. And there's still more to do there! Without doing the main quest in this game I wouldn't get the spells I need to survive out there. That's not "open world." I guess that's what being a kid feels like, you can see a whole world out there... I say kid but I mean adult. I'm not going anywhere, you crazy! But back to the game; There's so much you can't do that you should be able to, stuff Skyrim let you do 10 years ago. (or however long it's been, and it's been a long time!) I can't brew potions and sell them to make money. I can't pick herbs and sell them to make money. I can't make my own spells. I think there is a limited enchantment system but again, haven't unlocked it! I can only make money by selling the excess clothing I pick up off the street. How does that make sense? (or opening specific chests or pouches that people have dropped by the roadside. Or stealing it, of course.) Can I make new stuff on my own? Like custom robes? I have no idea. In Skyrim I could do all those things. Buy up iron, make daggers or helmets, and sell them back. It was fun working with new materials and you could make tons in little time. Here you actually have to wait in real world time for potions to finish. Yes, sit there and do nothing in game, not even a stirring mini-game, to make potions. It just shows you the pot. So dumb.
I need to play skyrim some more...
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I didn't only do that of course. I also made pie.
The usual sunday stuff, and sites. Made my two calls I got over the weekend. Told a guy how to tell his wi-fi was working, and just looked a system over, it wasn't doing what she said. Also took another call with some questions. Nothing for tomorrow. Yay!

Mon:
Was quite busy, as expected.
Wiped out the server settings so Kathy could go over it later. Then did the Ken thing. I thought he was going to get it to work, then have me back to do the thing. No, it still didn't work, so we were trying various things. We finally worked around it, just to get a job into the queue, and opening the app on the device now gives an error. Yay! You guys really have it together.
Then had lunch. Karen came, guided her through that. She made some notes, it's painful watching other people struggle, but at least you have to do the same thing 3 times in a different place and she was much quicker the second and third time.
Then had a meeting about cards.
And that was pretty much it. It was about 3:00 by that time, not going to start something that late in the day. Ha!
Brought my parents more food stuff.
Checked sites, one call tonight. Ate dinner.
Got ready for tomorrow, Sean wanted to do Xbox but he was getting home late so I figured I had at least an hour. I did some Legacy stuff. My "moonstones" which I had about 150 of went fast. I only made a few stations, luckily I had just enough money and stones at the end to build one machine that makes moonstones. You can have 3 at once. So it can make me enough to build the second, and those two can make me enough to build the third.
Then we did warframe. Luckily I got the part I wanted and I only needed 1/2 the crystals to build the weapon I wanted. Neat. I could even build the melee weapon with one more part. I may farm out a few more crystals on my own I have almost enough just to get it out of the way.

Tues:
Snowing, and it's going to get worse.
Had a morning meeting, then worked on the new PC. Got it moved over to the rack area, I think some kind of virtual is being put on it? Why? Don't ask me, we could just run whatever right on it, right? I guess it's easier to get rid of if we needed to do something else on it though.
Had the Joe meeting.
The customer job person from yesterday worked on the device and got the app opening. This let us see the job, completing the test. We were supposed to meet at 9:30 so I went into the room. There was a woman there, she was like "What are you doing in here? Who are you?" She was very mean and I hate her. She should work to be nicer to people, because then people will be nicer to her. Jerk.
Got my stuff, hope I never see that person again.
Had lunch.
After that I worked on NDES or whatever it's called. Yes, the thing I couldn't get working 4 or so years ago has finally come to haunt us. Neat. The best part is, I can't even get back to the state I left it in all that time ago. It gives an error. Not a useful one, of course. I think it's a cert issue, because it's always a cert issue. I think it's expired, the certs it's looking at expired last year. I followed a guide because you can't just click on it and say "move the date" or anything sane like that. No no no no no no, don't be silly. You have to jump through hoops. Hoops I say! Jump for me monkey! Where was I? Oh yeah, I think I messed it up. But the error didn't change so how would I know? Thinking of erasing them, trying to uninstall this, and set it up from scratch again. Don't know if that would work. But what do I have to lose now? It doesn't work, so then it would just still not work.

I'm not a windows admin! I shouldn't even be asked to do this crap. People who do this crap get paid way more than me. Because they have to do this crap!

Not much snow, it was tolerable on the way home.

Checked sites, ate dinner. Then did Xbox with the others.

Wed:
It worked. I removed the two certs, then the feature from the server. I then followed the guide for putting it back. Whew. At least the test I ran shows it working. That didn't take too long this morning.
That was the most major thing. Discussed what level of access to give others to our server with Don. Did a proofread of a document for some new cards for Joe. Sent him those.
And then not much else. Back to being bored, thank goodness! This work stuff is terrible! How do people cope?

Came back here, no calls, ate dinner. Checked sites.

More Legacy. Murdered a few more people, no big. Helped a goblin. Popped balloons. Opened another cabinet and found a few more book pages.

Thurs:
In the morning I worked... on putting my new character for the AI game into the form and finding the errors in it. Picked my spells, Sean made the character but didn't do that. Neglected a few skills, like, uh, swimming, so I'll have a few things to put my first XP into I guess.

Helped get a new user into our server. I mean, it was mostly my fault to begin with, but let's not do that thing where we point fingers and wonder who is to blame for everything.

Then the meetings. Did not get the promised onedrive update before I left for home.

Stayed a bit late as my after work job wanted 4:45. Got there.

Everything seemed fine, quick even, for a spinning rust drive. But you know what wasn't spinning? Two of his case fans. Which was really all of his case  fans. That could be a problem. I got one spinning, the other one, uh, kinda broke when I was cleaning it off. Nice.

Came back here, no calls again, thank you very much.

Checked sites. Ate dinner.

So what's ahead? Taxes that's what.

I'll put onedrive through the paces tomorrow if we've really gotten it. Otherwise nothing else planned in the work space.
Probably go to the bank, then do the shopping, and see the fam, some celebration or another who can say why.
Then the new game with Neil. Just Neil. No Mizzy. Huh.

Then Saturday... I don't know. no space angel game until next week. I'll have my parents over. Otherwise not sure. Probably play some game or another.

Sunday is tax day, so we'll be doing that in the afternoon. And next Monday is Squeaker's adaptaversary. He's been with me 14 years. He's an old man!

That about wraps up this week. We're half way through March already. Can you feel that April sunshine? No? Me either. I'm cold.

See you later!