ELSEWHERE

I did static brain anyways oops I'm tired

Sourdough Cookbook for Beginners: A Step by Step Introduction to Make Your Own Fermented Breads by Eric Rusch
Five breads

I'm considering this "read" even though I didn't fully read it cover-to-cover because a lot of the book is recipes and I'll view those as needed. I did read all of the guide, how-to, troubleshooting, etc. areas and those were incredibly valuable! Definitely a great starter book, and it even has an area for you to day-by-day track your sourdough starter when you start your first one. It also builds the recipes up as a bit of a difficulty journey, starting with the super simple dutch oven style breads and then going into more complex things. I bought this book mildly in a snit because I was tired of how bad online guides were (either physically difficult to look at due to layout/ads/etc. or annoyingly gatekeeping in tone) and am glad I did, I definitely see myself using and referencing it.

erikavonkaiser wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 12:40 am

I am curious if the dev will give a follow-up statement [regarding the GShade drama in the Final Fantasy 14 community]

lmao so

A while ago the creator did relaunch GShade (on a new website because they got banned from their old one due to the whole malware thing) and a few days ago released this Twitter thread:

tl;dr they're saying it wasn't malware because it wasn't intended to shut down your PC while your game was running, just when GShade was attempting to launch

It also appears to be saying that it's not anti-tamper software because it doesn't get triggered if you use the software as intended? That's not, how things work,

mek wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 10:15 pm

It also appears to be saying that it's not anti-tamper software because it doesn't get triggered if you use the software as intended? That's not, how things work,

"it's not anti-tampering software, it's just software that prevents tampering" "it's not malware it's just code I put in there to force restart your computer without your consent or knowledge"

Like, bro

I had a pretty good weekend!

I was mostly a hermit, but in the enjoyable sort of way. Played a lot of Elden Ring and am still having fun with it (although I continue to hate the PvP mechanic; two times while playing with Greggo we got invaded by someone while on the world map who just would not fuck off, I don't mind it so much when we're in a dungeon or enclosed area but when it's a big open space they just roll around and run in circles for ages and I get so frustrated because I just want! to play! the game!), had a good D&D session, went on a nice long run, etc.

I'm a bit sluggish this morning but in a minute I'll get up, tidy a few things, exercise, and either flop down to play a bit of video games or poke at a project before I go to work. I've been feeling a little bit of "the work grind is inescapable and eternal" angst lately, which is unfortunately one of those things you just gotta push through.

As a reward for getting my productivity stuff done yesterday morning I did end up playing some video games! Specifically I tried out a new one that's on GamePass:

Homestead Arcana! I saw the preview for it and wanted to give it a spin because it's a lot of things that are very up my alley (fantasy western vibes, cozy game, farming, base-building, etc). The basic premise is the world has been mostly covered by a mysterious and highly toxic miasma, oh no! Society has retreated high into the mountains and young witches, who have magical abilities to help them survive in proximity to the miasma, are sent to the borders to homestead and farm. You are one such witch!

Thoughts so far:

• It's less of a focus on homesteading/farming than it seems; the game very quickly pulls you into what's obviously going to be the main mechanic and plot, which is exploring the miasma and following in your witch aunt's footsteps to find its source

• (the above isn't a bad thing, but it did alter my enjoyment since I was signed up to look cute in my witch outfits and plant magic turnips or whatever)

• The character creation is super simple but very inclusive in terms of gender presentation (it's a non-gendered character creation and you just have a slider that goes from a more masculine body type to a more feminine one and can stop the slider at any point between)

• This isn't something I normally notice but the voice acting is, um, really bad! So bad that next time I play I'm going to see if I can go into the sound options and mute all voices. I think some of it is a stylistic choice (if I had to describe what I disliked it would be that the voices are over-enunciated like you would get with a children's game, which makes them sound disingenuous or even condescending), but MAN is it not working for me

• The aesthetic and general art design are very cute, but the actual in-game graphics are a mixed bag; it definitely has a simplistic style, which I am honestly a fan of, and sometimes it looks cute:

  4-23-2023_2-19-39_PM-ilq5xzyv.png.jpg

  but then sometimes it looks like a really bad mobile game cutscene:

  4-23-2023_2-19-43_PM-jr1n41jk.png.jpg

tl;dr so far it's a cute little adventure game with some farming/base-building elements, I'll keep playing it but right now have it filed under "worth playing for free on GamePass but probably not one I would buy"

I haven't loved the last couple of things I've drawn (the nature of being early in the learning process) but I thought this turned out cute!

behold, my blorbos

Friday equivalent today and tomorrow I go see Sophie! I'll be in Milwaukee Friday through Saturday afternoon, then back here for D&D Saturday night, then I took Sunday off because after all that social/travel I will need to recharge my batteries. It'll be nice to have a little break and some girlfriend time.

This morning I'm going to tidy up the apartment, brush Baby really well, and do a few more prep things so that tomorrow I just have to wake up, do my morning routine, then head on out Milwaukeeways.

Before I do that, though, I'm gonna sit a bit longer, drink another cup of coffeedrank, and edit my writing from yesterday.