Search Results for: fallout

I’ve been playing Fallout 76 for about four months now. After spending roughly 2.5 years playing through Fallout 4 and its various expansion packs, I was bored. When it became clear COVID would shut things down for a while, I found a cheap used copy online and bought an Xbox Live Pass, which it requires in order to run. It’s designed entirely around cooperative play but they do make allowances for solo players like me, and with a series of updates and patches they’ve made the game much better in that regard. Since booting it up for the first time, I’ve been sneaking around the map by myself, hiding from other players, slowly leveling up, and mostly enjoying myself. The few times I’ve encountered other players have been pretty amicable. But early in the game a high-level player jumped into the middle of a fight I was in with multiple enemies and I twitch-shot him once. He turned around and wasted me pretty quickly, which I didn’t think was very nice; it was an honest accident.

Last night I was finishing up in a particular area, eliminating the last couple of enemies. I’d just cornered a final ghoul to finish him off when an online player hopped over a fence and shot me. He paused; I was annoyed but finished off my kill when the guy shot me again, and then a third time. I stood up, aimed my rifle at him and took a few steps forward: knock it off. He was at a level 5 while I’m a level 32; his little popgun wasn’t actually doing much. Before I could call up a quick menu and flash him the “mad” sign, he fucking shot me again. So I blew his head off with a shotgun. Chuckling to myself, I continued on my way.

About five minutes later, he showed up again in my general area, and I was invited to join a party with he and another player. I thought about it for a minute. He was a level 5, the other a 7. These were two guys who probably know less about team playing than I do; why the hell not?

The controls in Fallout 76 are still somewhat confusing. I’m still half used to two years’ muscle memory from Fallout 4 but they’ve added a ton of other features so it takes a while to understand where they’ve moved things. The first join request timed out, but they sent a second request and I was able to sort out the issue.

At this point it’s helpful to understand how teams work (as I understand them): We’re supposed to be able to chat with one another within a team, while you can’t just talk to randos you meet out in the world. Thus, I couldn’t tell the guy to quit shooting at me. I ran to get my headphones and plugged them in; if anyone was going to talk I’d be able to reply. But I didn’t hear anything. We spent some time standing around. I waited for them to do something, got bored, continued on my original path and they tagged along behind me. I used the in-game gestures to tell them to follow me into a structure I’d already been to, and we cleaned it out pretty quickly. When we were done, I got an alert that one of the players had sent me an audio message through the Xbox. It took me a few moments to figure out how to access it. A voice no older than Finley’s asked me, “Do you have any fusion cells to trade? I need one for my laser pistol.”

Laughing, I gave up on trying to figure out how to trade—it’s even more confusing than the Join mechanics—and continued on my way. They followed me for a while and then one player dropped out. A little while later, my would-be assassin’s player froze in place in a basement. He probably had to go take out the garbage. By that time it was 11:30 so I dropped out of the game and went to bed.

Date posted: October 11, 2020 | Filed under geek | Leave a Comment »

I spent most of the weekend working around the house with headphones in, listening to a podcast called 13 Minutes to the Moon, the first season of which detailed the Apollo 11 moon landing:

The host, a BBC World News host, spent a lot of time traveling to meet the surviving astronauts, Mission Control specialists, and NASA scientists responsible for one of this country’s best efforts. Given everything else that’s been happening, it’s been a welcome boost for my spirits. Season two goes into the Apollo 13 disaster and I’m about halfway through already.

* * *

A few weeks ago I got an Amazon alert that used copies of Fallout 76 were on deep discount, so I grabbed one. I’ve played its predecessor, Fallout 4, pretty much nonstop since my family bought me an Xbox during chemotherapy two and a half years ago, so I figured that plus a 3 month Xbox Live pass (required for this new game) was a good investment. So far, it’s everything Fallout 4 was plus a bunch of new problems to solve—there’s no pause, starvation and radiation are real game mechanics, and it’s a multiplayer environment. So far I’ve not had problems with other players, but the threat of someone coming along and murdering my character for fun is a real threat. The first couple of hours were confusing and stressful but I’ve figured out the big questions and I’m settling in to enjoy the game.

Date posted: June 9, 2020 | Filed under entertainment | Leave a Comment »

Hazel was up to pee at about 7:10 so I put on some warm clothes and snuck her out of the house to let the girls sleep in. It was brisk outside. Yesterday was 80˚ but overnight it dropped into the 30s and it was only just beginning to warm up as the sun rose. Hazel and I wandered over behind the school and down the hill to the Junction, where I tied her up in front of the local café and ordered some breakfast and a coffee. I was the second person in the door this morning. Usually there are a crowd of eight or ten people at the tables on their second cup discussing the paper or news on the TV, but today it was empty. It was strange.

We walked back home up the trolley trail and by the time we got home the girls were awake, so we all ate breakfast in the living room and played with the dog for a little while. I then went downstairs and set up a seed starter for three varieties of tomatoes in the hopes that I’ll have more luck this year than I did a decade ago when I tried it on the workbench. I’m going to build a platform for them under one of the basement windows so that they’ll get daily sunlight and hope that a warming pad will regulate the temperature under the plastic properly.

Then I went outside and assembled our new pressure washer, 1/2 of which is my birthday present from Jen. I got a Craftsman gas model on sale—electric pressure washers are crap—and had it clearing green mildew from the garage doors in about a half an hour. I went around to the front steps and cleaned all the green off the Trex, rinsed the siding, and anything else that needed a wash. We get mildew on the front of the house yearly because it faces north, so I’ve rented or borrowed a pressure washer for the past five or six years to clean things up. After I’ve put this one to use this year cleaning the rest of the siding, washing the engine and undercarriage of the Scout, cleaning the back deck, lawn furniture and Finley’s playset, I think it will have paid for itself.

I’ve had trim for the bathroom waiting to be picked up for a week, so I headed into Columbia to grab that before they closed and then circled up to the gucci Giant to stock up on some essentials—a little bird told us that statewide lockdown is imminent. I was able to get most of what we needed, but the paper product and soap shelves were empty (we could use more hand soap but we’re generally OK for now) and the frozen breakfast aisle was wiped out along with all the ice cream. Then I stopped at the liquor store and stocked up some extra beer.

At home we set to work putting it away; one of the first things I did was go to the garage and plug in our old fridge. It took a little to get going, but began cooling itself down quickly after that. Then I stuffed the extra beer and groceries inside. It’s been a pain to fit in the limited space available, but now I’m glad I didn’t Craigslist it like the last one.

After a quick break, I broke out all of my brewing equipment and fired up the burner in the backyard. I’ve had a Shiner Bock knockoff kit sitting in the basement since last fall, and I got tired of waiting for my neighbor to get his act together to brew with me. By 7PM I had it in the carboy and all of the dishes piled on the back porch, but it was time for dinner by that point.

Now I’m settled on the couch in the den with a cold beer in hand, Hazel snoring at my feet—the first time she’s been calm all day—and Fallout 4 loading on the Xbox. Time to relax.

Date posted: March 21, 2020 | Filed under brewing, house, tools | Leave a Comment »

6:45: I wake up and give Hazel some belly scratches until she wakes up fully. Belly scratches used to make her nervous, but now she won’t get out of bed without them. This dog is weird.

7:00: I shove three pills down Hazel’s throat: a giant frozen horse pill that’s supposed to help her ear condition, a Prozac, and a tranquilizer to keep her from shaking her head every five minutes. Then I mix up some food with some fish oil and feed her. It smells like ass.

7:10: In the new shower. The heated floor feels nice.

7:30: I kiss the girls goodbye and head out the door.

7:40: I’m sitting in the car, parked a little ways away from the train station. I’ve got about 10 minutes to kill before I have to walk to the platform, so I sip some coffee and search for some new podcasts to follow.

8:00: I’m on the train, listening to Sidedoor, the Smithsonian’s podcast about things in their collection you might not see in the museum. Highly recommended.

8:45: Filing through Union Station, following hundreds of other people on their morning commute.

8:50: I drop my bag at my desk in the office. Then I spend about 15 minutes warming up my oatmeal, sipping coffee, and reading the day’s headlines while I eat.

9:10: One of my designers asks me for some help with a visual in Flourish, our interactive charting software. We spend the next 20 minutes trying to get it to do what we want (showing percentages in a popup for data in a bar chart that is represented by numerical values). I’m able to get it displaying percentage data from a different part of the spreadsheet but I can’t crack the particular formula it needs, so we send an email to their enterprise support team.

9:30: I meet with my video producer, who thanks me for the noise-cancelling headphones I got for him, and asks for my help transferring a project from Final Cut Pro to Premiere. I spend the next half-hour directing him on a wild goose chase; he’d heard that previous versions of Premiere would import FCP files, and we have several machines that are running older versions. This proves to be false. He finds a way with a third-party application, and gets to work.

9:45: I set up my production manager’s new MacBook Pro with a Dropbox account and begin syncing about 35GB of data.

9:50: Down to the café to reset the Amazon Fire stick running the display software for that room; the TV has been set to shut itself off from 7PM-8AM and the Fire stick didn’t reboot itself. The batteries in the remote are dead, so I source some new ones. I update some settings and do the same for the three lobby displays upstairs. Fire sticks are unreliable. I’ve returned two of them and another is acting strange.

10:00: I leave a message with a data visualization candidate I’m hoping to hire: I’ve got some good news for her.

10:15: Going through email, sorting out the day’s priorities and tasks (I have 5 hours blocked out on my calendar for actually producing some work, and I’m able to take advantage of about 1 hour of it).

10:40: I get a callback from my candidate and offer her a job! Best part of my day. She’s excited and we work out some of the details.

11:00: I dig up a slide deck from 2017 to answer a question from the London office about getting a map of our locations printed for their walls; the map they like is three years out of date. I find a suitable replacement, set it up for print, and send it to them.

11:15: I shoot an email to my data viz candidate about a side project she sent me a link to (Muppets!) and offer some feedback. Now I have the Muppet Show theme song stuck in my head.

11:18: We get an email back from the Flourish folks, who say they’re working on a solution.

11:30: Reviewing some videos from an international office and fielding questions from other folks on our team, then request a meeting to review the strategy.

11:45: I have to look over some design changes from the folks who are building a system to create interactive reports for us; they’re going into production this week.

12:00: Cleaning out my email inbox, which has filled up again.

12:15: I set up a blank drive and begin cloning the internal drive on my old laptop so that I can return it this week. When that’s done I check on the Dropbox syncing on the other laptop.

12:30: I run out for some Chipotle and bring it back to eat at my desk. I’m not finished with it when…

1:00: …I jump into an hourlong meeting with an external web vendor to talk about design needs; the first 45 minutes is spent going through data spreadsheets until I ask to change direction, and we accomplish everything I need to in the last 5 minutes of the meeting.

2:00: I go directly into another meeting to talk about the IO videos and sort things out.

2:30: I’m called out of that meeting to go shoot some pictures of one of our program leads, who is getting an award from the DOD for being a great boss and giving one of his employees enough time to join the Air National Guard and go through a 6-month training program. I sit through a very low-key ceremony, then have the lead and the DOD rep follow me to our step-and-repeat, shoot some standard grip and grins, then go to a different spot and repeat the process.

3:00: I go back to finish the video discussion, and help come up with a strategy.

3:45: Following up on more email. So much daily email.

4:15: Both laptops are done, so I wipe the drive on my old machine and install Catalina.

4:20: I finish final details with my data viz candidate and arrange for the offer letter to be sent.

4:25: Reviewing about 20 new candidates for our Graphic Design position, taking notes, and narrowing down to 4 for follow ups.

4:40: There are about 20 shots of the award group to go through, so I cull them down to 5 good ones, color-correct the best two, and post them to our Flickr feed. Then I send an email to the DOD rep and our internal team to kickstart the social media posts.

4:50: I lock all the cameras, laptops, and other gear away and attempt to straighten up my desk.

5:05: I’m out the door and on my way to the train. Listening to Broken Record, a podcast with Rick Rubin interviewing various musicians.

5:20: my train pulls out of the station and I’m on my way home.

5:58: I hike back to my car and drive to the liquor store to replenish our beer supply. Jen gets a 6-pack of Harp and I choose a six-pack of Victory Cloud Walker, a hazy juicy IPA.

6:30: We sit down for some dinner: a southern beans and rice recipe Jen found that includes chorizo. Yummy.

7:15: I help Finn go through her homework to make sure everything is complete.

8:20: Jen and Finn head upstairs to bed. I let Hazel out for an evening pee.

8:30: Playing through Fallout 4 as a new character, because I’m lazy and I don’t feel like learning a whole new game. Hazel is settling at my feet, after wandering the first floor worrying at her bones.

9:15: Watching an episode from the latest season of The Venture Brothers on Hulu. Just as funny as it was in 2004.

9:50: I put Hazel out for her last pee of the day. She comes back in and waits by the stairs for me to pick her up and put her over the baby gate.

10:15: Laying in bed and reading through some dumb Internet before going to sleep.

 

Date posted: February 21, 2020 | Filed under life | Leave a Comment »

I’ve been playing Fallout 4 since I was recovering from cancer, off and on, and while I enjoyed it immensely, I’m pretty much finished with and bored of it. I haven’t seen any new single player campaign games that I’ve been interested in spending money on, and I refuse to subscribe to Xbox Live to play games online (this is why I haven’t moved to Fallout 76). But the folks behind Fallout: New Vegas have come up with a planetary exploration game called The Outer Worlds that borrows all the best elements from that series and puts it INNNNN SPAYYYYYCE. Ars Technica gave it a glowing review, so it’s at the top of my list of games to try next.

Date posted: October 23, 2019 | Filed under entertainment, shortlinks | Leave a Comment »

Finn made out very well for Christmas. She got a Fuji Instamatic camera (I am insanely jealous), a pike of Pokemon cards, and a programmable LEGO robot. One of the things that didn’t make it to her pile under the tree were any XBOX games, as we limit her devices to weekends, and generally there’s not a lot of time to play with her on weekends anyway. Over the break she tired of the games on her Kindle, and she didn’t get the Nintendo 2DS she asked for, so we leaned on the XBOX.

We have three multiplayer games for our console, Super Lucky’s Tale, LEGO City Detective, and Plants vs. Zombies 2. Super Lucky’s Tale is OK but the mechanics are terrible and the camera doesn’t track with the game well. It’s like jumping on a trampoline with a cardboard box over your head. LEGO City Detective is decent and has a giant open world to explore but the game does a terrible job of teaching the player game mechanics, so often we’re wandering around the same location trying to figure out what we have to do to advance the story. And the story itself is filled with a terrible attempt at humor, so it gets annoying quickly. Plants vs. Zombies 2 is a complete piece of shit that I haven’t been able to get working; it requires an EA login (besides the XBOX login) and continually fails to connect to the EA server, so we’ve never actually seen it running.

Finn and I sat down and made a list of multiplayer games she’d like, and I stuck them in an Amazon list. On the way home from running errands the other day I had a bright idea and stopped at the library, where I checked out three games for us to try: LEGO Star Wars TFA, Portal Knights, and Star Wars Battlefront 2. The first two were on Finn’s list; I was hoping LEGO Star Wars was better than City Detective, and so far it is. We like it much better because even though we’ve been stuck in a few places it’s much easier to track what we’re supposed to do, and YES SHE CAN PLAY AS REY. Portal Knights didn’t load for us because the disc is damaged, so we’ll need to swap that for a better copy.

The third disc was for me: Battlefront 2 is beautiful and addictive and different from what I expected it to be; the original Battlefront on my old XBOX was a simple jump-in-and-shoot title that was actually pretty limited in terms of gameplay (as a single player). This one includes a single-player storyline as well as an AI controlled set of battlefields, as well as online multiplayer, but I’m happy to play it on my own. I think LEGO TFA and Battlefront 2 will be the next games I purchase now that I’ve played Fallout 4 mostly to its end: I got a year out of that game, and it was worth every penny. 

Update: I got an XBOX360 copy of Dead Space 2 at the Five Below for $5. It installs and plays on my XBOX One even though it’s 8 years old, and it doesn’t look half bad! 

Date posted: December 30, 2018 | Filed under entertainment, finn | Leave a Comment »

The true fallout from the storm has now been tallied:

  • Our cable box was fried and needed to be replaced. The Verizon guy handled this for us yesterday. Thank god the TV is OK.
  • Our landline phone base station is fried and needs a replacement.
  • The HDMI switchbox controlling our media electronics died and has been replaced.
  • Our Airport Extreme base station is unresponsive. (I went back to using the Verizon router wifi).
  • An older 8-port Netgear router in the basement died and has been replaced with a noisier but robust 32-port Netgear switch I saved from the electronics dumpster at WRI. I have to look into replacing the fans on this unit.
  • The RJ-45 cable running from the AppleTV to the basement router is unresponsive; I’ve got to chase this down (or run a new one).

This is probably the worst loss of electronics we’ve suffered since we moved in, and it was only from a power loss. Obviously I’ve got to harden some of our crucial electronics (the server in the basement needs a new UPS unit, for one thing).

Date posted: June 1, 2018 | Filed under apple, geek | Leave a Comment »

There’s not much to write about around here, really. I’ve spent the last two weeks getting as much exercise as my body will tolerate, sleeping a lot, playing Fallout 4, eating, and trying to stay warm in this frozen hellscape we call Maryland. Today I’m gingerly working from home to prepare for next week, when I physically shuffle back in to the office. Yesterday we played an extended game of hooky for MLK day and saw Coco in the theater. I would recommend it to anyone; it was another great Pixar movie.

Today I ordered a shitload of tile for the upstairs bathroom. Now I have to figure out how to order the heating system we need. This will probably involve me driving to one of their dealers to advise me on the correct amount of materials; the heating unit uses one cable that snakes under the floor which has to be the correct length: it can’t be cut if it’s too long.

Date posted: January 16, 2018 | Filed under general | Leave a Comment »

Yesterday I did fuck-all at home. Sat on the couch, ate, watched Netflix.

This morning I took a shower, and before I got in I peeled off the last fresh gauze from the hospital over the drain hole in my stomach, still expecting to see purplish entrails come pouring out. Nope. Looks like it’s healing over. But, EEEEEWWWW.

While I was in the shower I shaved off the disgusting Fu-molester-Chu I’d been growing in the hospital. So much better. Today it flurried slightly in the morning, but the sun came out and we went out and get some lunch together. It felt good to walk around in the real air. Some friends came by to pick up Finn and take her to the aquarium for the afternoon. I commenced to play about 5 hours of Fallout 4 and now my eyeballs hurt.

Date posted: December 27, 2017 | Filed under cancer, general | Leave a Comment »

Via CNN Money, here’s some helpful info on what to do about the Equifax hack. It’s appalling that something this big happened to so many people and the company responsible is so callous about the fallout. Mom, this one is for you.

Date posted: September 11, 2017 | Filed under money, shortlinks | Leave a Comment »