Migraines
No change since my last chiropractor visit and starting the new dose of Namenda. I had a migraine from when I last posted on the 3rd until the 8th. The 9th through the 11th was migraine free, and it's back today.
Other Health
So the bruises and such from my fall last week are all healed except for my left hand. I must have really bruised a bone or something as the cut is all but healed, it just still really hurts. A deep ache that doesn't line up with a laceration. I've been keeping a bandaide on it just so that the scab doesn't catch on anything and rip off.
Finances
So, I'm finally at my new 'normal'. With my major bills paid off last year combined with my reduction in pay, I'm 'making' about what I did before I started missing so much work. I've started up my Patreon tributes again. That got me thinking about having a Patreon or a Subscribestar myself, but now that my LTD insurance has kicked in, any money I make would come off the top of that. It kind of sucks if you think about it as this actually disincentivizes me working. I could pick up some spare DoorDash deliveries, maybe get a Patreon with some followers, sell my writing... but for that extra work I'd be rewarded with more paperwork and no extra money.
I'll tell you though, it is such a relief knowing that I'm financially sound again. Not just knowing, but having the proof.
I was about to give up on my LTD company sending me a statement for the December payment. Remember, they deposited both the very late December back pay and the April payment on April 29th. I got the April statement in the mail a couple days later. I didn't get the December statement until yesterday.
Family/Friends
My brother R took my other brother B and my nephews J and Z 'up north'. Into the upper peninsula of Michigan. I heard R talking to mom about the trip and was reminded just how young my nephews are. They're not kids anymore at 21 and 24, but they are still young and haven't experienced a lot. For instance, they were completely blown away by how many stars could be seen up there without any big city's light pollution ruining it. They were also blown away by seeing the Tahquamenon Falls. Now, I haven't seen the Tahquamenon Falls in person, but I know they're spectacular. I can also compare them to several other large waterfalls that I have seen in person like Niagara.
It makes me wonder, just how blown away they'd be to take an 'Uncle Calvin' trip. R loves the outdoors and showed them all the grandeur that can be enjoyed there. I love cities and would love to see how impressed they'd be in downtown Chicago when all you can see around you is buildings and just a small patch of sky directly above you. Or having them go through the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Entertainment
I've been enjoying Star Trek Discovery's last season. It feels like it's really just getting it's rhythm, and I wish it had another few years. I even appreciate them using a storyline from one of the worst episodes of the Next Generation.
I caught two movies that I'd really been looking forward to. Ghostbusters Frozen Empire and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. It's been awhile since I was this disappointed by two highly anticipated movies. And strikingly, neither of them were bad. They just weren't great.
Ghostbusters had a good back story, progressed the characters from the last movie, included great cameos from the original cast, and even had a good story. But the jokes just felt forced and fell flat. I laughed out loud at least a half dozen times while watching the previous Ghostbusters movie, but I didn't laugh out loud at this one at all.
Ungentlemanly was supposed to be good because of all the star power. Guy Ritchie, who I adore as a movie maker, Jerry Bruckheimer who always impresses with the 'big movie' feel. Henry Cavill who I've loved in everything he's been in specifically for his acting. But just like Ghostbusters, it fell flat and felt forced. Good actors, good scenes, some good action, good dialogue... but none of it gelled together and none of it made it great.
I'm currently trying to finish the Apple TV series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters as I want to be 'caught up' when the new Godzilla movie comes out on Tuesday. And much like the above movies... it just doesn't feel that impressive. Good titan monsters, but not great. It even had Godzilla himself in it... but it wasn't impressive. I'm hoping beyond hope that the Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire movie doesn't follow this trend.
New Tech
So, with my finances firmly in place I fell into my old trap. Two nights ago I was playing my Farm Land game on YouTube. I was again reminded that the game was only one part of a multipart game.
Here's the basic premise of this simply farm simulator. You start with a field (corn). You have coins. You can use the coins to buy new lands. One of the first lands that you open up is a storefront where you can sell your corn. One of the next ones is a barn where you can hire a worker to work your corn for you and then store it in the barn. You then pick it up at the barn and take it to be sold. There are about a dozen different 'crops' as well as animals to tend (eggs from chickens, milk from cows, honey from bees, wool from sheep...), as well as fruit trees. Finally there are specialty people that will collect your supplies instead of you having to go up to them all individually.
In the game, I have all the land opened up. When I play, I go to the specialist that empties all of my barns. I then go to the specialist that cares for all of my animals and then to the specialist that gathers all of my fruit. I can also go around to all the fishing holes, but that only gets me about 10,000 coins and with just those three specialists I'm getting about 10,000,000,000 coins. Screw the fish. I have two barns that I need to upgrade and each upgrade I do, I need to upgrade the farmers so that they move faster and can fill the new capacity in a reasonable amount of time. BUT, all the upgrades I have cost well over 20,000,000,000. I think the next barn upgrade on the newest barn is just under 40,000,000,000.
So more or less, I log in in the morning and do a collection. I then log in about three hours later and do another collection. And then another three hours after that. I now have enough to do an upgrade, so I upgrade. Then I start over and wait for another three hours.
Now, if this were the real game available on iOS, Android, or the Nintendo Switch, I could open up new lands. These would assumingly have new crops and barns and fruits and animals. I could be tending several farms all at once, instead of putting in 100% effort to get another 1% results out of this one farm.
Well, the day before yesterday I tossed my hands up, said 'fuck it' and decided to get a Nintendo Switch. I think I mentioned before that the iOS and Android versions of this game have a ton of ads and microtransactions. I don't want to play that kind of game. The Switch version of the game doesn't have that problem and only costs $8.
I'd glanced at Switchs before, but I now needed to know the differences. I saw that there are three actual consoles. The Switch Lite, the Switch, and the Switch OLED. The Switch is the original console that came out seven years ago. It has a 6.2 inch LED touchscreen that has two 'JoyCon' controllers attached to it. It also has a dock, that connects to your TV. When it's in the dock, you can remove the JoyCons and either play with them in each hand, turn them sideways and play on one of them (making it easy to play two player games) or connect them to a separate controller like a normal game console. So, basically the Switch can switch between a portable gaming device or a normal TV bound game console.
The Switch Lite can't dock, the JoyCons don't come off, and the screen is just a little smaller. Basically for a little less money, your Switch is just the portable version and doesn't switch. The Switch OLED is the same thing as the OG Switch but it has a 7 inch OLED display.
To be honest, with my use case of just wanting to play this Farm Land game, the Switch Lite is my best option. I don't need this on a TV, nor do I need the dark blacks from an OLED screen. But I know damned well, that if I find that I can play one game on it, I'll find more. They of course have a subscription service (Nintendo Online) that lets you play online vs other people, save your games to the cloud, and gives you access to over 100 Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Gameboy games. That's just $20 a year. For $50 a year they add 32 Nintendo 64 games, 15 Gameboy Advance games, and 44 Genesis games.
And that doesn't even include any of the original Switch titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, or Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I've always had an interest in games like these. They're far more relaxed and laid back when compared to the games I play on the computer like Assassin's Creed or Cyberpunk 2077. I haven't been able to play many of my normal games because they simply take too much concentration, but maybe I could play these more simple games? And since my computer monitor is a TV, I an just hook it up via an HDMI cable and change the input when I want to play.
So, not the Switch lite, but the OG Switch.
BUT, like the Steam Deck before it, I can always take the Switch with me when I travel and at that point, the OLED screen will look great. The Steam Deck looked good, but I noticed that the screen wasn't as good as an OLED. Plus, I can just pull it out of the dock and play it in front of my TV when I'm too light sensitive.
So, not the OG Switch, but the Switch OLED.
Decision made. BUT, there are four versions of the Switch OLED. Actually there have been several OLED versions, but there were four that I could find. The two original versions are basic color variations. The console (screen) itself is black on both. The red/blue one has a black dock with red and blue JoyCons.
And finally, there's the The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Edition. Oddly, this is still just another color variation, although it has a lot more style to it. The dock has a large Zelda specific graphic on it that's white and gold, the back of the console has Zelda style circle pattern, and the JoyCons are both stylized.
None of these include any extra games or anything. The Zelda version goes for $359, while all the others are $349.
For me, the white ones are just out. Even if I liked white, which I don't, I smoke a lot and it would soon turn yellow. Not cool. Ironically, the white one is unique to the OLED version while the red/blue one looks just like a regular OG Switch. There ARE small differences between the OLED version and the OG version, such as the screen being a touch bigger and the dock having a LAN port, but at a glance the red/blue one would look like any other standard Switch. The Mario edition wasn't completely unique as there had been a previous Mario edition of the original Switch, but it still stood out and i honestly liked the red dock. It's not my normal color choice, but I always associate red with Nintendo, so it fit as far as I'm concerned.
That made the Mario edition the easy choice. But it was also a little more rare. I could find the Mario edition at the Nintendo store and Amazon, but it wasn't available at Best Buy, GameStop, Target, Walmart, or any of the other normal locations I checked. I thought that was a little odd as the Mario edition came out in October of 2023 while the Zelda edition, that came out in April of 2023, was available at all those locations, along with the white and red/blue editions.
But Amazon works just fine. Looking at it on Friday night, I saw that it could be delivered on Sunday. Out of curiosity, I checked my local Best Buy and found that they had both the Red/Blue one and the white one in stock, meaning I could pick it up that night if I wanted. I was only mildly tempted as it was late enough that I could still get it, but I'd barely do more than set it up.
I was ready to leave it at that and accept that I'd be playing my Mario Red Nintendo Switch OLED on Sunday... but then I checked and saw that Amazon could have the Red/Blue one to me on Saturday.
I hemmed, I hawed, and I eventually decided to get the Red/Blue one to me on Saturday. I might regret it later, but I'm fairly sure I made the right decision. First, I bundled it with several other things that I needed to all be delivered at the same time. As I plan to stay all digital with this system, I went ahead and bought a 256 GB memory card for it. That should be plenty. I also got a new Ethernet cable for it so that I could hardwire connect it to my router (I also got a new cable for my nVidia Shield as it's cable was pretty well broken. And finally, since I wasn't getting the 'red' edition, I went over to Dbrand and looked through the skins they had available. And you know what? Their new Hydrodrip CottonCandy skins look really cool!
I got the Switch yesterday and set it all up. I signed up for the free trial of Nintendo Online, downloaded the NES and Super NES games (and had a riot playing a bit of Super Mario Bros (1,2, and 3), Ghosts and Goblins, Dr. Mario, Punch Out and Super Punch Out, and other various games). I bought and downloaded Farm Land and have been playing that on and off for most of yesterday and every twenty minutes or so today.
The first impression I got was that it's better on the TV/Monitor. That's not a big surprise as my migraine is mild right now and playing a game on a 48" TV is better than a 7" screen, even when they're both OLED. Unfortunately the controller thing that you slide the JoyCons into to make a stand alone controller... well, it sucks. As I purchased a $350 toy, along with a $25 memory card, $10 network cables, and $50 skins, I wasn't going to let a controller get in the way. I didn't want to do a bunch of research so I just checked out 4 or 5 sites listing the 'best' Nintendo Switch controllers. I was honestly surprised that the Nintendo Switch Pro controller is considered the best. I was kind of hoping there'd be one with lights under the buttons so I could better see them in the dark, but nope. I probably could have got deeper into the weeds and found a better controller for me, but I went ahead and purchased the Nintendo one. It helped that DBrand also has a skin for it, so it will match my blue and pink Switch.
The first impression of the console itself was that it played like a 7 year old console that was underpowered when it was brand new. It's not fast by any measure, but it has the same processor as my Nvidia Shield which is a glorified smart TV box. Just booting up Farm Land, which remember plays on iOS and Android, takes about 45 seconds.
But ultimately, I think its worth it. I've played enough of the Farm Land game that I'm almost caught up with the YouTube version I've been playing for two months. I'm going to get the $50 Nintendo Online edition so that I can play Golden Eye (you know, I've never played that before!).
Writing
I have Joy in the library. She had the interview and is being set up to fail which should add even more fun stress to her life. I think I'm going to need to write out an outline for the rest of the story. As I've noticed it got particularly more difficult to write once I caught up the last of the previous outline. I also had my first thought on an ending.
I was going to have Joy find out how to get transformed back into a man first. There'd be some complications, but it's something that she could do. Then, as she gets closer and closer to finding the information she needs, she's going to start painting herself into a corner with the men in her life. Atticus, Sterling, Bradley, and the new librarian lover Montana. Stuff like committing to having her take care of Bradley and Kylan more directly. Agreeing to Sterling's training plan that goes out for a full two years. Agreeing to Montana's request to have children. She'd do these all because she knows she's close to getting the information needed to go home. But the twist would be finding that information. She assumed all this while that it was a war that caused the disaster, but she finds out its a spatial anomaly. Something that they cannot fix or change like a comet or meteor or sunburst or quasar pulse. When she finds out that, her options are to stay in her current time or go to her 'home' time.
She could get her old body back (maybe an 'improved' body, but masculine like she was before), and resume her life, but she knows it would be short lived. Her life would end badly in the disaster or soon there after when society collapses. OR, she could stay in the time she's in now. She could embrace the culture in a way that she hasn't yet.... but she'd still have the choice; stay as a woman or change and stay as a man.
I don't know, I'm not sold on it yet, but I'm liking that idea. This whole time she's been fighting to keep any scrap of her masculinity and return 'home' and then she has to accept staying here and possibly embracing femininity.
Regardless of the ending, I need to make that outline as I have several 'scenes' in my head and would like to line them up properly. I might work on that tomorrow as frankly, I'm a little beat tonight.
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