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Artist, writer, dreamer, poet, philosopher, gamer, Texan. That about sums it up! If you want to know more, just ask!

#Gaming
#ConanExiles (currently on break)
#NoMansSky
#Sims4
#FFXIV
#ESO

#Art
#Photography
#Knitting
#Sewing
#Crafts

#Cats

Metafilterhttps://www.metafilter.com/user/11550
LocationAustin, Texas
My need for a computer having suddenly become something that feels like it must be filled instead of completely ignored, I have spent the day shopping for a laptop. End result is that I’m angry and once again don’t want a computer at all.

@pootriarch I am now prepared to report my findings on how the fancy emergency power outage lightbulbs work. I found no definitive conclusive answer on the internet, and of the various people I pestered about it who would be the sort to know, no one actually knew. Therefore, I declare that they are, in fact, magic.

With that said, I’ve been living with them for a bit now, and I have opinions. The amount of light they put off in emergency battery mode is more than adequate. Pretty great actually. The reason I know this is not because we’ve had a power outage. Nope, the one in the kitchen is often confused about whether the switch is off or the power is out. It just randomly comes on whenever it likes. The other two behave themselves just fine. I’m going to move that bulb to the bathroom and see what happens. Maybe it’s faulty, or maybe the kitchen wiring is 65 years old and just waiting for the right moment to burst into flames. 😆

Sims 4 has gotten a number of big patches to fix broken crap in the game the last few months. I haven’t been playing, because it was just so broken, but I miss it sometimes. Since a number of the bug fixes most important to me do not retroactively apply to old saves, I would have to start a fresh one.

Fine. My legacy save was long in the tooth anyway, but I would want to play a new game in the forever world I spent a year creating. That wouldn’t be considered a new save (since it’s an existing save I make a copy of). Great, I’ll have to move all the houses and whatnot to a new save. A chore, but if I do a bit here and there, I’ll eventually be able to start a new Sims 4 game.

Well, I have spent an hour working on this project. Two houses have been saved to my gallery. One has been successfully moved to a new save file. The game has crashed three times. Feeling fairly confident I’m about to have 68 gigabytes of new free space on my hard drive.

Today's favorite thing is people who ask ChatGPT to solve a problem for them, and when that blows up in their face running to me, the subject matter expert, to solve the original problem plus the new problems the stupid computer hallucinated solution caused.

Though I do find myself being owed a favor by someone I can’t stand, and that always gives me warm fuzzy feelings, and when said person asked me how I "know so much," I was provided the opportunity to say with a completely straight face … "An intense study of the arcane dark arts and old age." I suppose all the hassle was worth it in the end. 🤣

Crazy day in my corner of the gaming world today.

The next big Sims 4 bug fix patch dropped. I have no idea if it actually fixed bugs, because at the same time two new kits and a login event were announced, and they are all SpongeBob themed. The kits look terrible, cost more than kits usually do, and they are working a FOMO angle to get people to buy both. It’s obnoxious on so many levels. I’d say I’m shocked, but nothing EA does shocks me anymore.

Then I find out Zenimax put out a post explaining how they are going to fix class identity in ESO and make pure classes viable again. You know, instead of everyone feeling like they have to subclass into arcanist or whatever. Initially, I was excited, but after thinking about all the missteps this company has taken this year, now I’m in "hold me, I’m scared" territory. I don’t trust them not to make an entire mess of everything. Don’t trust them not to start this major project and then just not finish it either. Ugh.

Ok, I didn’t ruin Thanksgiving by forgetting to thaw the pies. By the time we awoke from the gluttony induced food coma caused by round one of feasting, the pumpkin pie was ready to eat. And by the time we went back for round two of turkey and fixings the apple pie was ready to dig into as well.

We had a nice relaxing day of stuffing our faces and sleeping. Hope everyone else had a nice day too. 🙂

I made pies a few days ago, and I froze the pies to preserve them. We are about an hour or so from eating, and I just remembered I forgot to get the pies out last night. I have ruined Thanksgiving!

Anyway, everything is bubbling and boiling and roasting. I’ve made enough food for an army, because it’s the only way I know how to cook Thanksgiving foodstuffs. Lin and I will be celebrating Turkey Day all weekend. 😆

@pootriarch Yes, I asked my husband (a pro at electrical stuff) the very same question, because as far as I’m concerned, electricity is magic (and also scary). All he said was "It's different." To which I replied "So even when a lamp is turned off there’s stuff going on in there?" His answer was "Yes."

It’s unlike him to not give lengthy, sometimes boring, explanations to my technical questions, so I have to assume whatever the answer was would have made me even more nervous about light sockets. I’m going to research it later today, and if I find an answer, I’ll let you know. 😆

I’m having thoughts about our new battery backup lightbulbs. My first thought is that they are very, very bright. Also, they are very large, which doesn’t help with the brightness, because they don’t really fit in any of our light fixtures or lamps. They stick out a bit. So you can see part of the excruciatingly bright bulb. As a creature of the night who prefers somewhat dimly lit spaces, it’s making me feel oppressed!

All the same, I’ve put one in the bathroom (where it fit perfectly), one in the office (where I never am for longer than a few minutes), and one in the kitchen (which is making me cranky). I tried one in the living room, but unless we get a different lamp, I am 100% nope. Way too bright and caused weird reflections on the tv. Not having it. Eventually, when the bulbs burn out, I want them in the laundry room and front porch as well.

Anyway, now we wait until the power goes out to see if they work as intended.

My husband bought us fancy new lightbulbs. LED bulbs with a choice of cool or warm light and built in battery backups for power outages. Supposedly when fully charged, they will still produce three hours of light during an outage. Huzzah! We live in the future!

Added unexpected bonus, you can take them out of the socket when they are charged and carry them around like a flashlight. Naturally, because my husband and I are full grown adults, we are anxiously waiting for one of them to fully charge (turned on for 6 hours), so we can see who can do the best Uncle Fester impersonation. You know, the lit lightbulb in the mouth thing? 😆