The dumbest possible reason to be stressed out

On September 8, 2025 By Luther M. SilerIn video gamesLeave a comment

I am working on getting every ending on Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, and doing so either involves 1) playing through the entire game four complete times or 2) doing some fuckery with backing up your saves and, on an Xbox, preventing your game from automatically backing itself up to the cloud while you’re on a backed-up save that you don’t want to be permanent. There’s one ending that actually ends the entire game prematurely, and I wanted to snag that one tonight, but it involves being good enough with a particular boss that you can crush her more or less at will (on it) and making sure you understand exactly how the Xbox Series X’s cloud backup works and when it chooses to back up saves to the cloud. Because if you do it right, you let it back up, beat the game the way you don’t want to keep so you get the achievement, then back out of the game and delete your local save, forcing the game to go back to your previously cloud-backed-up save.

Do this wrong, and you’ve either locked yourself into finishing the game prematurely, meaning you need to play through again to get the other endings (bad) or in a worst case scenario you screw up badly enough to delete your save entirely, meaning that not only do you have to start over again but you have to do it from scratch.

Anyway, I successfully pulled it off, to wit:

Check that completion percentage out, yo.

Anyway, there’s still more game before those last two endings, where I have to do this over again, so I can still screw this up. But at least the most annoying one is out of the way.

On my priorities

On March 27, 2017 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

Left work tonight hungry as hell and decided I really, really needed some tacos. Which is an impulse that I ought to curb anyway, frankly. I ordered a certain number of items and paid for them and drove away.

I started eating the tacos on the way home, because I am a fucking animal apparently, and it immediately became clear that the young woman behind the window really was in her first few days on the job (I had a hunch) because half of my food was missing. Realistically, I probably should have noted that the bag was way lighter than it ought to have been.

I ate what they gave me, didn’t go back, and haven’t called the restaurant to complain, because the thought of doing any of those things exhausts me and fuck it it’s five bucks or whatever that I wasted. I just cannot be fucked to complain to a fast food restaurant that they screwed me out of $5 worth of shitty soft tacos.

So: am I a pushover, or is it OK that I value my time that much more than my money? And possibly my health, since the food they gave me turned out to be enough anyway and I didn’t really need the extra tacos?

Talk amongst yourselves.

On priorities

On September 22, 2016September 22, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting3 Comments

flat,1000x1000,075,f.jpg Let’s have a word, parents and grandparents.

It doesn’t really matter if your (maybe) four-year-old grandson is any good at Skee-Ball or Big Rig. You hear me? It doesn’t fucking matter at all. Yes, I know if he’s more accurate he’ll get more tickets and be able to get more stuff from the redemption counter afterwards. So is he, believe it or not. And it doesn’t matter.

He’s not going to care afterwards. He’s not improving his motor functions when you stand behind him and browbeat him for fifteen minutes about keeping his elbow locked or his arm straight when he’s throwing a ball for Skee-Ball. His timing isn’t going to be any better if the two of you stand behind him and shout NOW! (notably, not in unison) when you think he ought to be dropping a coin to hit a lever in Big Rig. And if you, a grown-ass man old enough to have Seen some Shit in your life, who presumably raised some kids to adulthood already, elbow your four-year-old out of the way on this meaningless fucking game so that you can “do it right for him,” there is something seriously wrong with you.

I mean, hell, you’ve made me hate you in less than half an hour, and I’m not the target of your constant hectoring and your bullshit over every single damn thing I do. No wonder the kid’s “misbehaving” (by refusing to give up his last ball on his Skee-ball game as the timer slowly clicks the throw away anyway, because he doesn’t want you to do it for him); it’s not “kids these days,” as you griped to the other mysteriously old couple in my gameroom just now. It’s that you’re both assholes and your grandson rightly doesn’t seem to like you very much, because he’s not having any fun.

You have managed to take a kid to an arcade and make it not fun. That’s unbelievable. It would be an accomplishment to be proud of were it not so sad.

I mean, seriously: why the hell did you bring him here anyway?

#Fridayfictioneers: Priorities

On December 16, 2015December 16, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Stories8 Comments

(NOTE: I didn’t do this last week. Why? I took the picture. Knowing the context screwed up my ability to make stuff up about it. 🙂 )

Eve watched the fog roll in over the lake and sighed. There was much to do before nightfall: secure the windows and doors, repour the salt at the threshold, and the garlic at the corners of the lot was probably rotten by now. She’d have to make sure they had enough candles, too; electric light drew more attention than fire. One might find a weak spot.

There was laundry, too, and the carpets needed vacuuming. At least the dishes were finished.

“Jim, can you take the trash out?” she asked, knowing the answer.

“In a minute, babe. The game’s on.”

Word Count: 99

Friday Fictioneers is a weekly blog hop hosted by Rochelle. She posts a photo prompt then challenges readers to write a 100 word story inspired by the prompt. It’s a fun challenge. Give it a try! Check here for the info then write your story and post it, link up and enjoy the other stories!

In which I want to do things I don’t want to do, or vice versa, I’m not sure

On January 25, 2014January 25, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy10 Comments

ghibli_whispersdvdsleeve Sitting on the couch in the living room right now, watching the snow outside, which has been stuck on “whiteout” for the past half hour or so. I’m listening to Johnny Cash entertain a bunch of convicts at Folsom Prison in 1968. The boy’s taking his nap, the dogs are sacked out and content. There’s an enormous book about World War II next to me waiting for me to get back to it. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

The Cash is playing through my Apple TV. When you’re listening to music, it plays a screen saver. I got tired of looking at the nature pictures it plays and just for the hell of it told it to start showing me movie posters as a screensaver. I’ve been sorta idly watching them as they’ve scrolled across my screen. And then it hit me: I really miss watching movies. There were several years in my life, most of the time I was living in Chicago, in fact, where I was seeing 40-45 movies a year.

I have not seen a single movie nominated for an Academy Award this year. Not one. And of the nine Best Picture nominees, I only have a haziest idea of the plot of five. I’ve never even heard of Philomena, Dallas Buyers’ Club or Nebraska. And there are lots of movies that I’m seeing posters for that at least pass the initial “that looks interesting” test.

(Sidenote: poster for 3 Days to Kill just spun past. When did Kevin Costner turn into Tom Selleck?)

I don’t remember the last time I saw a movie in a theater that didn’t have at least one Avenger in it, and that kind of makes me sad. And, to make it worse, it’s not like I don’t have all kinds of access to movies– I can stream damn near anything I want a few months after it hits theaters, and you best believe my iTunes wish list, which I’m using as a “Watch this!” queue, is chock full of stuff– I’m just not doing it. This could turn into a typical new-parent “get a babysitter/pay the babysitter/pay for the movie/pay for dinner/night costs $150” rant, but it’s not that. I have time to watch movies if I want. I just don’t. My priorities have shifted. And it’s a weird feeling, knowing that I want to do something, and I have the opportunity to do something, and that I’m just not going to. For no clear reason.

Anyway, that’s all. I could go get my DVD of The Maltese Falcon out of the rack in my office and watch it now, like I’ve kinda wanted to since rereading the book a month ago. What’ll probably happen is that I’ll clean up the living room or read something and keep on listening to Johnny Cash. I dunno why.