04
Jul
2020

I never knew the joys of free Epic games until now.

categories: action and adventure, RPGs; word count: 295 words

It never even crossed my path that Epic Games had been offering free games every now and again (okay, to the tune of… once a week or so) until they began Trending on Twitter for offering Grand Theft Auto V free.

Of.

Charge.

Needless to say, as soon as I found out about that, I jumped on it, downloaded the Epic Games game installer, and downloaded that as my first free game. I first got into Grand Theft Auto with the third game in the franchise, finding one quest so difficult that I remember stealing a tank and eventually successfully catapulting myself across a bridge that I just barely got over to start the next section of the game. At any rate, getting back to what I came here to say — since downloading Grand Theft Auto V free, I’ve kept checking back to download each free game they’ve made available, although I think I’m going to have to start juggling which games I actually have downloaded copies of on our computer (all of them will remain in our library though) because one of them might have involved biting off more than I could chew with it taking up nearly three-quarters of our one terabyte hard drive on our PC. I was gobsmacked to see just how much space it actually took up when I looked at the amount of hard drive space that we actually had free on our PC and… well, yeah. You probably would be too. You probably were if you downloaded ARK: Survival Evolved and ARK Editor when I did. I have no regrets though because that is the sort of game Bub enjoys.

No regrets. I swear. Even though our PC’s hard drive is practically screaming uncle at this point. Seriously.

03
Jul
2020

It took me awhile, but I eventually succeeded.

categories: personal; word count: 181 words

Surprisingly, it took me longer than I had thought to find an old copy of Windows Movie Maker (which is just the easiest thing for me to use at this time because it doesn’t have that much of a learning curve… I grew up using it, and I’ll teach myself something more complex later) to download. Apparently it doesn’t come bundled with Windows any more — shocker, seriously — and to get the 2020 one you have to pay for it, which I don’t want to do right now. Maybe I’ll want to do that at a later date, I don’t know. Just not right now. It still confuses me a bit why a basic movie “maker” (editor) that used to come bundled free with Windows now doesn’t, and to get one you have to pa— oh, wait a minute, profit. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?

I am so excited that I can actually use our camcorder as it has been intended to use, though.

Also note that I’m not celebrating the Fourth of July here, but instead Juneteenth, until further notice.

02
Jul
2020

It is official! I have completely fixed the camcorder!

categories: personal, RPGs; word count: 250 words

I’m not sure how I did it beyond changing a few video recording settings on the actual camcorder itself (which, in the grand scheme of things, seems banal)… but now I can record video on it and effortlessly upload that video to our laptop without any problems at all, which makes me really happy because now this laptop is not only salvageable but completely functional! I’m not sure why I didn’t think to do this sooner, but changing minor and almost banal settings on the camcorder shouldn’t have been something that completely restored the video settings on the videos from… what they used to be, these large black and green blocks that were unsalvageable messes. Of course, like I said in one of my previous entries here, with the pandemic continuing to go on there probably aren’t going to be that many videos made until this is completely over and done with. As an asthmatic, I am at elevated risk of complications if I do contract this — the kids, being as low-risk as they are, could asymptomatically incubate it for up to fourteen days, and in that time period they could effortlessly pass it on to me with all three of us being none the wiser to the fact that it had happened (until, well, it did, because I would have next to no asymptomatic period with my health history).

Meanwhile, I still think Lightning Returns is just… weird. In a really weird sort of way. Weird. It’s just weird.

01
Jul
2020

Well, this may not have gone as it was intended.

categories: personal; word count: 301 words

My neurologist wanted me to try lisinopril to see if it changed the frequency and severity of my migraines in any positive way (lessening either). After working my way up from 2.5mg to the intended 5mg dose, maintaining that for a little while, and finding the side effects that I could feel tolerable, I then began to notice something that was not only possibly intolerable from a clinical standpoint but concerning. I was beginning to get a bit “puffy” in a manner not quite like prednisone (I know what prednisone “puffiness” feels like and when it occurs), having to urinate more, and I was beginning to gain weight in spite of that when my diet and exercise had not changed at all. After doing some research on the side effect profile of this medication, these are side effects that this medication can have, and the individual that generally has these side effects most likely discontinues taking the medication as a result of these for… well, whatever reason.

At first, I thought that things weren’t going too bad with this medication, and then… well, this. Heh.

“Well, this,” seems to be a staple of me describing this medication to varying individuals in my care team.

Well, this.

I don’t mind gaining some weight from taking certain medications if there is a net positive from me taking that medication — prednisone is perhaps the primary one here, and the primary reason for this — and I can put up with a lot of side effects from treatment if the end goal is me comparatively being healthier, feeling better, and being in less pain. But for lisinopril, gaining weight and “feeling puffy” are not desirable side effects from treatment. These are warier side effects that you have to alert your care team to, it seems like.

29
Jun
2020

One step closer to… whatever this is, honestly.

categories: personal; word count: 281 words

Since I had to get us this new laptop, I have been fighting for the better part of successfully loading everything else on it to get the camcorder to successfully be able to upload video without the video portion of it looking green, pixelated, and just plain weird. I am not sure why it was doing that, because it worked just fine with our last laptop (even when the keyboard didn’t). Working around my migraines, which slowed this down, I kept at it whenever I could mess with this… so a little bit here, a little bit there, sometimes nothing at all here and there. But I think I actually made progress making it so that recorded video can now actually get on this computer! That only took how long now? But all I have to do is get the date stamp to go away on videos, because for some reason it’s showing a date of 2018 (and, I mean, if I can’t, as long as I can upload videos… whatever, I’ll gladly accept that), and I think I’ve actually gotten to the point where I can now get videos from the camcorder to this computer without screwing up the video something incomprehensible!

I’ll probably record more video, like the ones that I was recording of taking Bub to the park and on walks playing Pokemon Go, when this pandemic is over with… whenever that is. Although I acknowledge that the protests were (and are) necessary to affect change, I can also see that they have contributed to the localized spikes in some areas of it in some states, and have even raised the infection rate of some states as a whole.

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