missizzy

This week, for the first time, we heard a little bit about our future prospects in this brave new government. The one thing I feel I can rely on is that I am going to remain employed for the rest of this fiscal year, and probably for at least a few months after that. Which certain reduces my and and my mother's anxiety for a little while. We were trying to figure out how to survive on only her pension, and we probably could've done that, but it's nice that we won't have to yet.
Among the things that now seems to be settled on is that we are switching to Fios, though we're not going to do so until the early summer, because my sister wants to be present to oversee it. I then will have to decide whether I want to try streaming or not. It's a little more complicated to do so as a federal employee than it used to be.

My new computer has now been fully set up. The last step there, yesterday, turned out being testing plugging my older, higher-quality pair of speakers into the right jack, and discovering they worked fine then. The older computer has actually now at briefly had trouble with both pairs, though it seems okay with the new cheaper pair right now. I'm starting to wonder if it might have been a good thing I got the new one, if this one is really starting to go. Still, I'm making more use of the older computer at the moment, if only since most of my stuff is still on it. I've started to slowly move it over, and then I'll likely phase the new computer in more.
I also did something today I'd never actually done before. I went into the bank account, into which my paycheck is directly deposited every second Wednesday, to make sure I had actually been paid. Which I was. This time. I'm going to have to check each time for a long while, I'm afraid.

The cables and speakers arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, I still can't plug the monitor in, because it's got a fancier socket than I realized. So these two computers are still sharing one monitor, which might even be making the internet worse on both of them, though I hope that eventually moving the new one to another part of my room over a meter closer to the modem in mom's office might help with that. The speakers, on the other hand, worked maybe a little too well; I ended up taking the computer's volume down pretty low. They aren't the steadiest of speakers either.
But they're still very usable, and with audio, I can now use the computer for the purpose I bought it for. It took me a lot of time to download Baldur's Gate to it, and though I found the instructions again for moving the savefiles over, the folders didn't form until after I opened the game, and though I then immediately moved the files in, when they didn't appear at first, I got worried. I started a Gale origin run, marveling all the time at how fast the game now responds to my commands, not to mention the new phenomenal quality of the imagery I couldn't have before. I got to his meeting with Lae'zel (I had thought about him romancing Wyll, up until the moment she landed in front of him, and hello, future wife vibes!), then went back to the main menu, and the save files were by then showing up. I went to various spots from my first playthrough at random, reliving the endgame fights, taking Scratch for a walk in the park, exploring a couple corners I'd overlooked the first time round, kissing Gale multiple times, all without lag, and loving how beautiful my Tav now looks in it. Plenty of gamers probably take that sort of thing for granted, but I don't think I ever will.
The final test, of course, is to see if Elder Scrolls will run on it. That I try tonight.
What with us going back into the office full time next week I have to go out anyway to get tights I hope won't rip immediately, and I'll get a plug while I'm at it. I'll carry a photo of that damn socket on my phone into the store to make sure I get the right thing this time.

I spent six hours today struggling to put my new computer together. There were a lot of tears, a surprisingly amount of sweat, and even some blood involved. I have to really hope I didn't damage anything in the process. Well besides the plastic thing at the end of PCIe slot I put the graphics card into; I then had to take it out to correct a stupid mistake, and the plastic thing snapped. I think it was just a holder, though, not part of the circuitry itself, and slot is still holding the card without it. I tried not to touch any of the circuitry, I really did, but...when the power cables seemingly thwarted me I emailed my sister's friend for help, and he's given me advice. I used it to get said cables all plugged in, but I'll probably sleep on the rest. At least everything will be able to overnight in the case; it'll just be a matter tomorrow of getting everything plugged or screwed into place.
I also tried to find new tights and new masks to order. My current ones are all going, and will not get me through five days a week. But tights that aren't all nylon and spandex and therefore don't necessarily rip on the first wearing have been very difficult to get for over a decade, and machine washable masks aren't easy to find anymore either.

At least there are some people fighting against the less legal acts of Trump. But of course he has a perfect legal right to take our telework days away, and I got in yesterday to the news that that's getting implemented over 30 days. I still got to telework today, but I have no idea if I will on Friday or not. Though I'm hoping we can at least get the mass transit benefits program do something to cover the increase in our commute expenses before we all have to go on site full time. If that doesn't get abolished too.
I am also a little cheered up this evening, since after days of watching the "arrive by" date get closer and closer and it still hadn't even shipped, I got the notification after ending my workday that my graphics card has shipped at last, and it will apparently be delivered tomorrow. When I'll be headed to a D&D happy hour as I resume my request to find another group, and I probably won't get around to putting the computer together until this weekend. Just in time, too. I'm currently watching one Twitch streamer stress test the new BG3 subclasses, and I'm looking forward to using some of those in my Gale run. Although I also have to hope the cats don't get any of the boxes open to damage to pieces before then. I left everything in its packaging, but the box the power supply came in is starting to show wear and tear....

My graphics card has still not yet shipped. I've started checking. And one pretty much has to prepare for delays at this point, what with the area getting struck with an ice storm the day before the polar vortex is scheduled to show up. It's all very well to snicker at what this means for the inauguration tomorrow, but there's still the matter of all the ordinary inhabitants of the area who will have to go about things like dental appointments in the biting cold. Unless mine gets cancelled, which may well happen, though it's in the afternoon. At least I managed to get the calendar already, and can go straight home afterwards.

Ended up staying home this entire week; the library was open yesterday, but the roads even then were so uncertain enough only a minimum of people went in. Today, of course, we have off, and I actually watched most of Carter's funeral. I liked Ford's eulogy.
I finally got the IT guy to remote in, and he promptly informed me my normal login has admin privileges. He was nice enough to stay on while I started the Windows download and setup onto the flashdrive, and confirmed exactly what I was trying to do, which makes me much more confident I've done it right. Five of the eight pieces of hardware have also now arrived, and today I ordered a screwdriver. I was originally intending to go out and buy one, but it's still way too cold out. When I ended up going to the Giant for a replacement chicken, I actually dug out the long johns I used to wear during my grad student days in Buffalo!

My year actually started with my winning a Sims kit. I stayed up for the first hour of it watching a certain twitch streamer named SpringSims count down to his own new year one time zone over, and I won it in his giveaway. Taking that as a sign, I ordered all the pieces for my new PC that morning. And then promptly hit a snag. Ordering Windows as essentially one of said pieces means I have to download it and put in on a flash drive (I bought a pack of those that afternoon; they'll be useful for moving my files as well), and to do that, I have to log into my current computer as an admin. Which I'm currently unable to do; I don't have the password or the security question answers. I actually emailed the guy who set it up back in 2020, and he's said he'll remote in and set up a new admin account, but I don't know when. There's time, at least. The first pieces are now arriving, but the graphics card that's the reason for all this apparently isn't going to until the back half of the month.
Also having arrived in this area is snow. We had some flakes back in November, but our first proper snow shower of the season was a squall that hit yesterday, and was accompanied by at least one thunderclap. My mom ended up seeing that famous thundersnow video for the first time. This morning we woke up to a dusting on the ground. And, of course, we currently have seven inches predicted for Monday. But the way the weather is these days, I don't count my snow until it's on the ground.

Yesterday I finally managed to get in touch with the guy from the IT service, and learned that the kind of graphic cards these games require basically mean you need to get a proper gaming PC to play them. We've bought all our stuff from this service for years, but they don't sell those. He sent me links to a couple of possible PCs from a big computer store, and strongly recommended I get a service plan from them, too. Except that you can only get those if you actually go to their store all the way in Fairfax. Not really practical for me. My sister has now contacted two of her gamer friends, and hopefully I can get some further guidance from them.
I've started thinking hard about how I can migrate my files myself, if need be. I even looked up where on my computer my BG3 savefiles are. I'd kind of really like to take those with me, maybe even relive some of my favorite moments from my first playthrough without the lag. Those I've also been going back and taking more phone photos, just in case I end up needing those to remember it by.
(I actually went through the whole Act I weave scene, intending to see it to the end this time, but Sara failed that second check again! Guess that's just an inevitable part of her and Gale's story.)

Well, I think this will be the last one, since I'm done with the playthrough and everything. I decided yesterday that what I really still wanted to do was be nice to the vampire while establishing what happened to everyone in the series. This fic more or less manages all that.

( They found him the second night after it all ended. )