Going in With Eyes Wide Open

I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking, but I signed up for Blapril.

It's not as if I don't have things to do, games to play, work to keep me busy, or family to keep an eye on, but I guess I just wanted to to it.

Well, and looking back on last month I was uncommonly busy, posting-wise.

Even if you take out everything affiliated with One Final Lesson I still posted seven times, which is high for me. I typically try to hit a once/week posting schedule, with a couple of extra posts thrown in every month, so I'll freely admit that March 2020 was definitely unusual from my blogging output.

Of course, March 2020 will be remembered for another particular reason that I need not expand upon here.

***

And now I have to come up with a boatload of topics on an almost daily basis. I realize you're not required to do that in Blapril, but come on. You know what you're getting into when you commit to something like that. And unlike my last several forays into NaNoWriMo, I'm going to try to make this stick.

Why should it be different this time, you might ask? Probably because I actually finished a story.

Sure, it was a "shouting into the void" moment, but once I started writing an "origin story" of sorts for Cardwyn, I simply couldn't stop even if I wanted to. And now that I finished an actual work of fiction, I've found I can't stop. It's like I've been transported back to 2008-9, when I first joined LiveJournal and began to connect with all sorts of aspiring writers. I burned through a lot of virtual ink during that time, writing something that could only be described in hindsight as Mary Sue meets Marty Stu with lots of angst in the way. But being able to step back and realize what was happening, writing wise, meant I could actually write something better the next time around.

And less cringe worthy.

At the same time, I dropped fiction in favor of, well, this blog. I found it sated my need to write while keeping me on a (semi) regular schedule.

To be honest, I even stopped reading or watching fiction, because I felt I couldn't devote the time to it that I felt it deserved. I was happy to see SF/F take a more prominent role in our fictional worlds --written, visual, and virtual-- but I couldn't see myself devoting time to books, movies, or comics because of my completionist tendencies. Well, that and the desire of a lot of content creators to inject a lot of "pathos" into stories just to make the stories feel more "adult". Like I've said many times before, I don't need that in my fiction because if I wanted that I'd just turn on the news.

But you know how to get the fiction you want? You write it yourself.

And you actually finish the damn thing. And post it as proof that you finished it.

***

And now I've come full circle, with an urge to write fiction and devote more time to writing non-fiction as well.

Which includes doing something stupid and signing up for Blapril.

Oh well, I guess you couldn't say that I don't know what I'm getting myself into.

#Blapril2020

Wordpress Doesn't Seem to Like Me

No, really.

I've commented on several Wordpress blogs lately, including The Last Chapter Gaming Blog, Kamalia et Alia and The Ancient Gaming Noob, but the comments never appeared.

My first thought was that I'd somehow screwed up and pushed a Cancel button or something instead of Post Comment, but I've since discovered that there is no Cancel button.

Okay, I thought. Maybe I ended up on a spam list somewhere.

The only issue with that is that I'd assume that if that were the case I couldn't post on Blogger hosted blogs as well, but I have no issues there.

So go figure.

It's not as if this sort of thing hasn't cropped up before. My wife managed to get our main PC infected several years ago, and even after I removed the infection our PC showed up on some block lists that our ISP subscribed to, so I had to wait until our PC vanished from those lists before we could connect to the internet once more.

I'm kind of hoping that's not the case, because removing infections can be a royal PITA.

Saturday Musings in a Brave New World

In these extraordinary times, when "shelter in place" and "pandemic" and "cancelled" have become active parts of our lexicon, I've been wondering about gaming. Obviously, if you're stuck inside the house one of the activities you can do --by yourself or with family-- is play games. If the mini-Reds were a lot younger, we'd be playing a ton of boardgames in our free time*, but nowadays they've been playing video games.

And yes, that includes MMOs.

The oldest mini-Red has noticed an uptick in gamers in LOTRO recently, and I've noticed more players online in WoW Classic as well, although the opening of Arathi Basin might have something to do with that.

As for ESO I can't tell, because I mainly craft these days.** and I've only been puttering around Belsavis and Hoth in SWTOR lately, which aren't typically your most populated zones.

But I've also been playing a lot of Civ IV games, and the second mini-Red has been playing a lot of Civ V.

What have you noticed? Has there been noticeable uptick in gaming?




*Relatively speaking. I work from home, and that hasn't changed. And my wife still works retail, and her job hasn't shut down yet as it's kind of important to distributing food and supplies.

**I've got it in my head that I'm going to do all of the expansions (both major and minor) in order, and that means saving up money to either subscribe or buy the mini-expacs outright, so I'm kind of in a holding pattern there.

You know the world has turned upside down when....

...I pull out an album I've not listened to since roughly 1990.

My wife asked me to fix her old Magnavox
stereo system, ~1987, so...

Some of the oldest mini-Red's university stuff is to the right; her university is going virtual for the rest of the semester, and I'm pretty sure that the second mini-Red's university will follow shortly.

EtA: Aaaand we just received word that his university is definitely going virtual. I guess it's time to hit the road again.

Happy Tenth!!

In the midst of everything going on, I forgot to mention that Kamalia of Kamalia et Alia has celebrated her tenth blogoversary on March 9th.

Kamalia's Gravitar.

I've enjoyed her fashion sense with her Sunday on the Promenade recurring series, having been able to create fashion outfits out of the tons and tons of WoW gear that you can use. Me, I'm just happy if I don't look like Burning Crusade clown gear, but maybe I should learn a thing or two about fashion sense (and I don't mean wearing white after Labor Day).

Over the years, Kamalia has seen her family grow with two new additions, and I can truly appreciate her efforts at keeping the blog running with two little ones around.

Happy Tenth, Kamalia!!

Two Inc To Lumber Mill

Yes, that means that Arathi Basin opened this week on WoW Classic, and Zul'Gurub and Nightmare Dragons next month.

A short refresher. And no, that's not
Cardwyn on the left. (From Wowhead Clasic.)

I guess that makes up for E3 being cancelled, among other major cancellations out there. eSports is but one venue being hit with the Covid-19 pandemic, but for gamers eSports and cons such as E3, PAX, BlizzCon, and GenCon are huge social events. Of course, gamer events are, comparatively speaking, small potatoes to some of the cancellations and/or modifications happening in other areas, such as the NBA suspending the rest of their basketball season, the NCAA Hockey and Basketball Tournaments to be played without spectators, and the Italian Serie A football season suspended.

Fast news week, if you ask me.

Shooting Robo-dinos with Arrows -- Coming Soon to a PC Near You

To get away from fiction for a while, news came out yesterday that the PS4 title, Horizon: Zero Dawn, is coming to PC.

From The Verge, who credit Guerilla Games.

Of all the PS4 exclusives, this is the one I was most interested in, and I know I'm not the only one. However, I'd kind of resigned myself to never seeing the game on PC because, well, Sony would like to keep their exclusives in-house and make you buy a PS4 instead.

I guess Sony must have run the numbers and decided there was more money to be made by releasing the game on PC rather than keeping it in-house. I'd like to think that's the case, as I can't possibly be the only PC gamer who simply doesn't have an XBoxOne or PS4 lying around.* Additionally, it certainly seems that consoles are driving the video games market, so PC ports can be more trouble than they're worth: with the XBox and PS architecture, you only have to design for far fewer sets of hardware than in the PC market. Additionally, PC gamers are used to much higher framerates and graphical detail than can be found in the console market. Nevermind that the number of PC gamers who have hardware that can achieve those lofty heights aren't that numerous, that the potential is there is the important part.

Officially, Sony is saying that they want to lure PC people into using the PS4, but I believe that everybody who wants and/or owns a PS4 already has a PC, so chasing after dollars from people like me --who don't have and don't want a PS4-- is kind of a head scratcher.

But hey, I'm happy to accept this lure by Sony. Sony had better not expect me to drop the full price for the game, however, as a) I don't have that sort of money just lying around, and b) I'm busy with other games first.




*I'm not including the Nintendo Switch here, as third parties aren't exactly flocking to putting their latest and greatest on the Switch. Their loss, in my opinion.