Lurker > MegamanXfan21xx

I finally had a dream of my mom. It felt so real and I could see her so clearly. I got to tell her I loved her. Don't know why it took so long when I had dreams about other recently passed loved ones sooner. I had a dream about John a couple weeks after he passed, too. I won't say what happened out of respect, but he's happy.

Even started to have a dream about our female cat a couple days after she went. She was just casually sitting there, grooming herself. Unfortunately, it was a windy night and the bedroom door was cracked open, so it being blown shut woke me up.

Cartridge88 posted...

I like to think Elise had a lot to do with it
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/recast-and-roleswap/images/2/25/Elise_from_Dan_Vs.png

Her and the supermodel from the very first scene of the series.

https://youtu.be/yrYZwuevnas?si=SeQx1Ok93gINDyAy

Just found out that the entire Dan Vs. series is officially on youtube. It was almost as popular as FiM back in the day, with a good overlap of people who liked both.

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Cartridge88 posted...

could've been the emotional stress.

https://www.carpalrx.com/stress-anxiety-carpal-tunnel
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15736742/

Interesting. It was likely a combination of emotional stress, poor posture, and playing games while having a poor posture. During the few brief weeks when I had moved into mom's room while she was still alive, I'd spend my downtime in her bed and prop myself up on an angled pillow while playing games. I thought a sore back would be the only real issue from that; one I could solve by merely twisting my spine a bit.

Hey, you wanna hear another thing to put in the "worst possible timing" list? When I woke up on the day my mom would ultimately pass away, the right side of my right wrist was hurting for no damn reason, and it never stopped. It persisted all the way up until I remembered my mom had a vibrating back massager a few days ago, and using that on my wrist has made the pain go way down.

Thankfully, it didn't stop me from being a pallbearer, but holy shit, the audacity of this particular bit of timing. I don't have any idea what caused it. If I had slept on it funny, wouldn't it have healed up after a day at most? Why can I not have even a sliver of real peace?

Hope I can have a normal bedroom again some day. My old room was the windowless basement. After a couple years living here, I got tired of having to choose between games and the sun, so I moved my PS4 upstairs and really only used my room for sleeping and storing clothes.

After mom passed, I moved into her room, but I can't bring myself to make any changes to it (and there's a good amount of sentimental stuff). I swapped out her mattress for mine and moved the memorial cards I'd gathered over the years to her room, but that's it. Even without her stuff in it, it's fairly cramped and has outdated wallpaper, so again I only use it for sleeping.

Another grandma-level dinner from the neighbor. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and strawberries with poundcake for dessert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxdxcayMgV0

Found some channels that do recreations of various creepypastas in SFM. Cheesy, I know, but creepypastas themselves are cheesy, so it's appropriate.

Watched the latest Silent Hill livestream with my brother. They showed some extended gameplay of the 2 remake, which looks pretty good. Though it was kind of ruined by the setting sun putting a lot of glare in the room, even with the blinds down (they're opaque). I haven't played the original in over 12 years, but it wasn't terribly long, so I still remember most of it. I'm glad they made James look more like his original self, since the initial design had a bigger jaw, so he looked too masculine for a soft-spoken everyman.

They showed a commentary piece by the director of the next film, plus some brief snippets of it. I think it could turn out really well. They showed that they hired contortionists for the nurses again.

Aside from merch and a soundtrack release for the free Silent Hill they released recently, that was it. Nothing about the other games. I was really interested in more info about Silent Hill f, with its more Japanese horror direction. I've got The Short Message downloaded, but since it came out when my mom's downward spiral truly started, I haven't gotten around to playing it.

Nice, they're bringing PS2 games to PS5 (though you need PS+). One of the first games they're putting in is the first Sly Cooper. I fucking loved that when I was 11. I think that, aside from the good gameplay, the atmosphere was what really gripped me. Since it's primarily a stealth game, the environments were generally darker, seedier, and the soundtrack was fairly low-key. It was certainly a change of pace from my other most-played game at the time, Sonic Adventure 2.

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Annoyingly, there's been some deposits made to my mom's now-closed bank accounts that we're likely never gonna get our hands on. We got a check for $333 made out to her from a credit card company about her account closure. My brother also neglected to sell her stocks before closing her accounts, and I think she had a couple thousand invested in them.

Helping to care for the cats and my mom (even before she got sick) really gave my life purpose. Now that they're all gone, I don't know what the hell to do with myself. There's nothing to do but some mild house cleaning, going for a walk in the park (before winter puts a stop to that), going to the gym, and playing games. I never developed any real hobbies, likely due to my mental illness. I guess games are a hobby, but the shit I've gone through in the last year sucked most of the enjoyment out of them.

Cartridge88 posted...

I've never been the best gift giver, either, all I can think is like giving him a vacation, or just like a weekend where he doesn't have to do anything and can just rest.

A vacation is definitely way beyond my budget. Only thing I can think of is a session with that massage therapist I saw a couple times to deal with my shoulder strain.

Anyone have gift suggestions for my brother? He did a lot of the heavy lifting in the final days of my mom's life, like staying up all night to give her constant care. After she passed, he settled her accounts, and put together a photo slideshow and album with my dad. I wanna pay him back, but I don't know what to get him. He says me making dinner is fine, but I feel I could do more.

https://youtu.be/hBvaU3L-HP0?si=TPjQCA7gTmHKiRw3

First time at the gym in god knows how many months. It's depressing that my mom won't get to see her other kid get in shape, but I just gotta do this. She carried me for longer than any parent should, now I have to learn to carry myself.

Cartridge88 posted...

https://64.media.tumblr.com/992a054aa404d1ee0573a4707c781e42/8af0bb78817ad61a-18/s640x960/eed109dc34b4c42b66b1c7046c58f07343c850bf.pnj
https://64.media.tumblr.com/1f157f139e2cdf98137457987127bfc4/8af0bb78817ad61a-d4/s640x960/633b7eecef2afb7d5e54ba05fdb91c6c0cbd304f.pnj

That reminds me, some of the videos I've been watching are about finding the origins of scary images like those. I don't think they found Jeff's yet, but they're getting very close.

Thinking about Frutiger Aero reminds me that I'm disappointed the Nintendo Switch didn't have any real style or personality in its presentation. Everything is minimalist and flat, the theme options consist of a white or black background, and there's no music aside from extremely brief jingles from certain menu options. There was gonna be music for the Eshop, but they cut it, leaving it to rot in the files until hackers dug it up and posted it.

https://youtu.be/t9jx504Wtk4?si=RYvDaeQXh0Mpdi-f

I guess after the Wii U failed, they didn't wanna put too much money into presentation, focusing more on the hardware and must-buy games.

Think I'm getting humidity headaches. Ever since we stopped using the A/C so much and Spring progressed, I've been getting headaches more. A search tells me that drinking more water and getting more exercise can mitigate them. Doesn't help that we've got a mild ant infestation in the kitchen, and I'm sweaty and miserable and still a ways off from recovering from my mom passing.

I have aspirin, but I don't wanna take too much. I already had an increased intake of it in early 2020, when the shoulder strain headaches hit.

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Nice, another quiche from our neighbor. This is especially nice because she had lung surgery last month, so she's been really tired and unable to interact with us much. Guess we can add that to the pile of "things with bad timing", since that was shortly before mom passed, so we were without her cooking or company at a time when it would have been most appreciated.

Holy shit...

My brother gave me an ethernet cable to hook up to the PS5 so it could free up more wifi for him, and its connection speed is an absolutely titanic 740!

Just hope it doesn't suffer the same fate as the last time I tried a wired connection. In late 2011, our internet briefly got shut off after failure to pay the bill, and when we got it back up, my PS3's ethernet connection just stopped working. No matter what the hell I did, it just plain wouldn't work. We switched to wireless shortly after.

Oh, that's nice. My brother got the new router set up while I was asleep. The password is my mom's birthday. But I suspect it's a double meaning. My mom's birth month was also the month he met and adopted his cat in, so he named her after that month.

I just did a speed test, and got a whopping 184 mbps. Last I recall, our previous router only got half of that. Oh, and the fact that we actually have a password now is nice, too. You know how messing with router settings is a pain, so we never bothered with putting a password in.

Edit: A second test capped at 240.

Found a box in my mom's room that contained a bunch of greeting cards written to her over the years. Most of them were birthday, Valentine's, and Mother's Day cards from me, my brother, and my brother's ex back when she lived with us. A few were from my grandma, one from both grandparents (before my grandpa passed on Christmas 2010), and a couple from the 90s. Most 90s ones were from my dad, and they actually had words of love in them. Considering they divorced when I was a kid, it's impossible to believe they were once romantic towards each other.

Some cards had the years they were received written on them. The latest year I found was 2022. After that... things began to fall apart.

It's been a month since that awful evening. I miss hearing her voice, hugging her, talking with her, laughing with her, and making her smile.

Been on something of a binge of things from the 90s and early 2000s, since it's comforting to me these trying times. I found out about this thing called Frutiger Aero, an aesthetic that was common from about 2002 to roughly 2013. Basically, it's when devices and operating systems had a bright and bubbly aesthetic, often with nature at its most ideal or in harmony with mankind. It's something that really needs to make a comeback, because we desperately need some cheer and optimism nowadays

https://youtu.be/nh6COqa9HCo?si=dA0Q-fIm0WC0nCnJ

There was some big youth sporting event at the park today. It was nice to be around a big crowd of people who weren't in mourning for a change. I overhead that there was some kid with the same first name as me, and it sounded like he was a decent player. Sure hope your future is brighter than mine, little man.

Also realized another reason we can't get another pet. With us keeping the central heating and cooling use to a minimum, that cat would be very uncomfortable. I remember when ours went out for a few days, the male cat would lay down on these decorative tiles the previous owners put in (hate those, BTW) on the floor just because they were cool.

It's been almost a month, and I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around it. I'd gotten so used to having another presence constantly in the house, and in two years, three of the five beings living here have passed on. And those last two went less than two weeks apart.

We're gonna be getting a new router today since everything is gonna be switched over from my mom's account to my brother's. And like every other time we've had to switch routers, I expect it's gonna be a bitch and a half, fighting us every step of the way. We gave up on the last one since it wouldn't go through, despite having a connection and the right password. God give me strength...

I've quit caffeine, or at least am trying to. I was going to last year, but then my mom got diagnosed, and I was gonna need all the alertness I could get to help care for her.

The withdrawal headaches suck, but aspirin can mitigate the worst of it.

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Man, I seriously can't remember the last time Spring was so nice. Then again, positive thoughts have been in very short supply over the past eight months, after my mom was diagnosed. Now that I've begun the healing process, I feel fairly good again, and positive emotions are almost foreign to me.

https://youtu.be/jKaC8ID9VtI?si=3VrKUux4WiDv6j3i

Hope you're all having a better Mother's Day than I am. Get her something nice, spoil her, and tell her you love her. You never know when her last Mother's Day will be. Last year, we had no idea anything was wrong with her. Less than a year later, me and some relatives were carrying her coffin to its final resting place. Cherish your parents (as long as they're not pricks, that is).

Saw that "ghost" again. Turns out it's a Muslim woman wearing one of those headscarves. For some reason, she was standing in front of the window with her head bowed. Not facing out, but towards the center of the room. I guess she doesn't know how creepy she looks. She must have moved in somewhat recently, because I've never seen her, and I've been going for walks in that park for years.

As all these advertisements keep reminding me, Mother's Day is coming up. Great timing as always.

God, she was only 70. It hasn't even been five years since grandma passed. My mom deserved another 5-10 years.

I was going for a walk in the park that's next to me, and I saw some unmoving humanoid figure covered in a quilt in one of the neighbors' upstairs back windows that was standing right against the window. I looked at it for a moment, then kept walking. When I came back for a second lap, it was gone. I decided that was enough outdoor time for today.

Never mind, looks like his funeral home's website just went through some changes at some point, so the old link doesn't work anymore. I've posted an updated link in his topic on the other board.

Looks like John's online obituary is gone, and it wasn't archived on the Wayback Machine. Damn.

Does this mean my mom's obituary is gonna vanish someday, too?

Ooooohh... I just found a very helpful bug in Coral Island! So, if you put a storage chest inside a barn or coop, then its appearance changes for any reason (like upgrading it or requesting an appearance change), then everything stored inside that chest doubles. So, put some important resources in there, swap the building's appearance back and forth at the carpenter's a few times, and you're drowning in items. This is great for kelp, kelp essence, ore, metal ingots, and hardwood, which is irritatingly difficult to get until late game.

Best part is, I discovered this by complete accident. I initially had shears and a milk bucket stored in there for the cow and sheep, then one day opened it to find extra pairs in there.

2017 was a pretty good year for me. My brother's ex would be living with us all through the year, Yakuza 0 and Prey (2017) came out (RIP Arkane), we had no idea FiM would be ending, and the whole year was overall relaxing and happy. Of course, my aunt passed away and my old hangout forum shut down, so the good was balanced with the bad, but even with those, it was an enjoyable year.

You know, I devoted so much mental energy to dealing with my mom's sickness that I'm actually having trouble remembering when she was healthy. Is... is that normal? I'm also having trouble remembering the world before covid shit all over everything. Literally, the only memories I have of 2019 is watching Joker with my brother, and all the bad shit that happened back-to-back over the next five months.

Okay, it got downgraded into a storm warning. Jeez, can I have one nice thing without something bad happening immediately afterwards? I mean, today was essentially the very model of a beautiful Spring day.

We've got ANOTHER tornado warning that's strong enough to make the sirens go off. Fuck.

Antiyonder posted...

No MLP stuff, but

I see a unicorn on that D&D comic, and it looks similar to a modern MLP pony, so I'm counting it.

On a side note, I never really had an interest in comic books. Probably because I didn't live near a comic shop as a kid. The Sunday funnies were all the comics I had, though my mom did get me a book of Peanuts comics as a kid. I even remember it was an early birthday present because I was feeling sick or something. God, she was such a wonderful woman...

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After spending some more time with Coral Island, I'm really enjoying it. The ocean segments where you clear out trash and activate these devices to clear out oil and revive the coral reefs was nice. Upgrading your sickle to the max level makes you destroy all trash in one swing, and there's these unlockable caves full of infinite trash, so you can majorly stockpile the coffers that drop and get loads of artifacts out of them, especially when you give it drop rate enchantments.

There's some things that aren't well explained. Like, to upgrade a barn or coop, you have to choose to edit them at the carpenter, then you can upgrade them. In Stardew, upgrading them is obvious, since having a regular one will cause the upgraded version to appear in the carpenter's building selection. Also don't like how carpenter buildings, permanent crop quality upgrades, and tool upgrades require you to have the materials on your person, when you can craft anything as long as the right materials are stored away on the farm. Makes for a lot of back and forth. Also, the game never tells you that the sickle can harvest crops.

The game has some parts that are unfinished, being a fairly ambitious Kickstarter project. The mines have a storyline where you free these imprisoned beings, but there's only four and the enchantment station says "4/5 freed". There's a part of the map that's blocked by a boulder, but you can actually break it by hitting it in the right spot. However, there's just a useless dead-end cliff beyond it. The marketing point of being able to romance a merperson is false for now, since their relationship meters are locked. And there's some recycling plant in the center of the map that does absolutely nothing, despite pollution cleanup being a major theme.

There's a nice little bug I gleefully took advantage of. The New Year's festival has a prize wheel you can spin for some nice things, and you're supposed to only get three spins. But cancelling out instead of using the third spin resets your spin counter, and time doesn't pass during festivals, so you essentially have infinite spins. Two of the prizes are 10,000 gold and a big fat gemstone, so I happily spun away until I had 250,000 gold, plenty enough to fund permanent upgrades and get some new clothes without breaking the bank.