Let's See How This Goes....
All right.
I finally got my Razar Stealth Blackwidow keyboard, and I'm happy with it and with the low weight needed to activate the keys. It makes my tendonitus just that much less aggravating. And it's as silent as I'd hoped that it would be. I'm also grateful to finally have function keys again, and some of the navigation and short cut keys that the Happy Hacker does not have.
Which isn't to say that I don't love the Happy Hacker for its capabilities when I'm writing code, but it is not the easiest thing to use when a lot of the game keys are function keys. And on the HH they take two key hits instead of one, so it's Not Good for reflex work. Yes, I know that I could reprogram it, but this just seemed a whole lot easier, and there was no way on earth I'd give up mechanical switches. The Razar ones are quite nice to the touch, too.
I've been gaming more. Not just a lot of TF2, which Jet and I have been doing a lot more of, and I'm learning again doing it. I really do have to do better with my mouse twitch, but I still seem to end up on the MVP list at least once a session, so I am not too terrible. I do not, however, have the twitch reflexes of a 14-year-old, and I think I'm going to just have to live with that. *laughs*
I've also been obsessively playing Child of Light, an old Ubisoft game that I got for what was leftover in my Steam wallet after the last TF2 update. It was cheap and oh-so-satisfying for me. I'm an old Parasite Eve and Final Fantasy VII fan, and this game feeds all the 'oh so pretty!' and turn-based fight mechanics along with magical assists that you can build thing that I liked about both those combat systems. I get tired of relying mostly on reflexes, the way I sometimes have to do in TF2. Yes, if I'm smart about how I play TF2 and know enough about the map to use it, I actually do better without having to rely on reflexes entirely; but there's always the surprise.
I've really been enjoying it, but I got into it so much that I mostly finished the whole game in a week. Which is, actually, what I did with Parasite Eve the first time through, during a huge push at work when I needed the distraction at home so that I could go to sleep.
Another thing that Jet and I were playing was the Feed The Beast Crash Landing game, and it's one where you have to go out and raid mob-laden cities in order to get required materials to go further on in the quest books. And these mobs aren't the usual 'just frying pan them until they go down' type of mobs. There are zombie pigmen in the overworld, and they are scary strong. Most of them can just two-shot you, and the occasional giant one can one-shot you, even in enchanted armor. Some of them even spawn with a bow, and they can shoot you, which is unusual for zombie pigmen.
The monsters are scarier and require good tactics and just a bit of luck, as the spawners are everywhere. Luckily, the mods have a lot of weapon possibilities including needleguns and rocket launchers, which aren't all that difficult to eventually get. Flying is useful, first just gliding on hang-gliders and then actual jet pack mechanics are a lot of fun.
So I'm grateful that the keyboard actually showed up this time. The last time I bought it, it ended up somewhere in Kansas City and never showed up, so Amazon refunded me the price of it and I got this one for 15 dollars less. The price dropped again, and when I saw that it had hung up in Denver, I thought it was going to happen again. *laughs* But it showed up today in the snow.
There's about a foot of snow outside, the fluffy dry super-cold stuff on top of a thin layer of slush that happened when the snow first fell on 50 degree sidewalks. It was still warm down there, and the plants are doing great with the extra moisture. I was oddly grateful that I don't have bees right now, as I'd have worried about them in this cold; but I don't have to. That's something that I might have to examine before I buy another colony.
I spent about an hour and a half shoveling the stuff, clearing the front walks and part of the driveway. It was hard work, but satisfyingly whole body. I ache all over right now, but I feel like I've earned my decaf coffee and a cookie from the piles of cookies that John baked today, not to mention the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich I had for my lunch.
And, yes, Jet got a snow day today, the first of the year; and the whole district called it a day off, as the snow levels were unexpectedly more than was anticipated by the weather predictions. He has finals tomorrow and for the rest of the week, so he was amused at the thought of all the teachers panicking at not getting one last review day in. They'll know it or they won't, and it's not the standard testing, thank goodness. He's actually enjoying some time with friends this afternoon, and he did all the homework and origami work he wanted to do in advance. So that was all to the good, and he and I and some of his classmates who happened to be online all played TF2 together, and one of them was like, "Was that your mom?!"
*laughs* It was good.
Tomorrow is likely to be a Day of Reckoning, so wish me luck with the day and the events. I know I'm going to survive it just fine, and the situation as a whole is much, much better than it was last year. Best of all, two people have decided to take on my job at the end of January, and they're both jumping in. So I'm very grateful for both of them. Best of all was that I taught one of their daughters how to drive on the freeway yesterday. *laughs* That was actually a lot of fun, and she did great; but she also said that she felt like her Mom really liked doing the job.
It sounded more like it was a calling that was making her happy because she was making a difference than it was an obligation she had to fulfill, and that made me a lot happier about it all.
So I am grateful all around.
I finally got my Razar Stealth Blackwidow keyboard, and I'm happy with it and with the low weight needed to activate the keys. It makes my tendonitus just that much less aggravating. And it's as silent as I'd hoped that it would be. I'm also grateful to finally have function keys again, and some of the navigation and short cut keys that the Happy Hacker does not have.
Which isn't to say that I don't love the Happy Hacker for its capabilities when I'm writing code, but it is not the easiest thing to use when a lot of the game keys are function keys. And on the HH they take two key hits instead of one, so it's Not Good for reflex work. Yes, I know that I could reprogram it, but this just seemed a whole lot easier, and there was no way on earth I'd give up mechanical switches. The Razar ones are quite nice to the touch, too.
I've been gaming more. Not just a lot of TF2, which Jet and I have been doing a lot more of, and I'm learning again doing it. I really do have to do better with my mouse twitch, but I still seem to end up on the MVP list at least once a session, so I am not too terrible. I do not, however, have the twitch reflexes of a 14-year-old, and I think I'm going to just have to live with that. *laughs*
I've also been obsessively playing Child of Light, an old Ubisoft game that I got for what was leftover in my Steam wallet after the last TF2 update. It was cheap and oh-so-satisfying for me. I'm an old Parasite Eve and Final Fantasy VII fan, and this game feeds all the 'oh so pretty!' and turn-based fight mechanics along with magical assists that you can build thing that I liked about both those combat systems. I get tired of relying mostly on reflexes, the way I sometimes have to do in TF2. Yes, if I'm smart about how I play TF2 and know enough about the map to use it, I actually do better without having to rely on reflexes entirely; but there's always the surprise.
I've really been enjoying it, but I got into it so much that I mostly finished the whole game in a week. Which is, actually, what I did with Parasite Eve the first time through, during a huge push at work when I needed the distraction at home so that I could go to sleep.
Another thing that Jet and I were playing was the Feed The Beast Crash Landing game, and it's one where you have to go out and raid mob-laden cities in order to get required materials to go further on in the quest books. And these mobs aren't the usual 'just frying pan them until they go down' type of mobs. There are zombie pigmen in the overworld, and they are scary strong. Most of them can just two-shot you, and the occasional giant one can one-shot you, even in enchanted armor. Some of them even spawn with a bow, and they can shoot you, which is unusual for zombie pigmen.
The monsters are scarier and require good tactics and just a bit of luck, as the spawners are everywhere. Luckily, the mods have a lot of weapon possibilities including needleguns and rocket launchers, which aren't all that difficult to eventually get. Flying is useful, first just gliding on hang-gliders and then actual jet pack mechanics are a lot of fun.
So I'm grateful that the keyboard actually showed up this time. The last time I bought it, it ended up somewhere in Kansas City and never showed up, so Amazon refunded me the price of it and I got this one for 15 dollars less. The price dropped again, and when I saw that it had hung up in Denver, I thought it was going to happen again. *laughs* But it showed up today in the snow.
There's about a foot of snow outside, the fluffy dry super-cold stuff on top of a thin layer of slush that happened when the snow first fell on 50 degree sidewalks. It was still warm down there, and the plants are doing great with the extra moisture. I was oddly grateful that I don't have bees right now, as I'd have worried about them in this cold; but I don't have to. That's something that I might have to examine before I buy another colony.
I spent about an hour and a half shoveling the stuff, clearing the front walks and part of the driveway. It was hard work, but satisfyingly whole body. I ache all over right now, but I feel like I've earned my decaf coffee and a cookie from the piles of cookies that John baked today, not to mention the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich I had for my lunch.
And, yes, Jet got a snow day today, the first of the year; and the whole district called it a day off, as the snow levels were unexpectedly more than was anticipated by the weather predictions. He has finals tomorrow and for the rest of the week, so he was amused at the thought of all the teachers panicking at not getting one last review day in. They'll know it or they won't, and it's not the standard testing, thank goodness. He's actually enjoying some time with friends this afternoon, and he did all the homework and origami work he wanted to do in advance. So that was all to the good, and he and I and some of his classmates who happened to be online all played TF2 together, and one of them was like, "Was that your mom?!"
*laughs* It was good.
Tomorrow is likely to be a Day of Reckoning, so wish me luck with the day and the events. I know I'm going to survive it just fine, and the situation as a whole is much, much better than it was last year. Best of all, two people have decided to take on my job at the end of January, and they're both jumping in. So I'm very grateful for both of them. Best of all was that I taught one of their daughters how to drive on the freeway yesterday. *laughs* That was actually a lot of fun, and she did great; but she also said that she felt like her Mom really liked doing the job.
It sounded more like it was a calling that was making her happy because she was making a difference than it was an obligation she had to fulfill, and that made me a lot happier about it all.
So I am grateful all around.