Random thing you loathe right now.

Stele wrote:

Yeah, my wife pointed out that some games seem to be making me more stressed and angry instead of relaxing me. Think it is Rocket League, but only when playing ranked. I have fun on casual nights playing in GWJ rooms. But ranked was taking a toll on me last month. Think I'm giving that up this season.

I loathe my reaction to Rocket League. I destroyed my custom controller trying to play ranked. For my sanity I untilled the game.

The game I found calming was Hitman III. You have to be patient to cause accidental deaths. My boyfriend seems to recommend playing that when I'm stressed so it must be working.

NSMike wrote:

What this pandemic has done to my nerves.

I have been enjoying Elden Ring since it dropped. I am currently working on what is agreed to be the hardest boss in the game. I am at 81 attempts so far, so yeah, considering before this, the most I had on a boss might have been 15, and the average is probably down around 3? This is a hard boss.

Last night, I changed my tactics, and saw some real progress. My heartrate shot up, my stomach churned, and before the fight ended in a somewhat predictable failure, I could see light.

But my body wasn't happy. This was a stress response. The reward for my progress and excitement? A tension headache that lasted until I went to bed, including a brief bout of light nausea.

I have spent a lot of time during this pandemic dealing with fresh anxiety problems. I am finally off the meds after nearly 18 months because I can go about my day-to-day life without feeling constantly wound up. But that stress response still kicked my ass, and it wouldn't have just a couple years ago.

I so very much feel this. Moving out from the shadow of the anxieties that deepened significantly in the last 2 years is a long, slow process. Things are improving little by little all the time, but there are still plenty of times when even a minor adrenaline release (say, fighting a minor boss in Elden Ring) freaks out my system enough to leave me feeling shaky and ill.

@halfwaywrong - (or anyone looking for a job and struggling to talk about themselves)
I am a master at reinventing myself out of necessity. My career has been bouncing from contract to contract as companies self destruct by fixing what was horribly broken but just fixed or magically want to reduce head count once the team is running optimally.

I have taken a number of workshops on how to do resume writing and creating your elevator pitch. I can send you a link to a presentation that boils a great technique down to the most basic elements. It is called blurbs and blocks. They allow you to prep your accomplishments into easy to create and rearrange chunks so that you can apply them to everything from cover letters, resumes, elevator pitches, and interview responses. The key to being able to re-order them allows you to come off more genuine and not rehearsed. Plus you can avoid surprises and pitfalls in interviews if you are asked questions out of order or the phrasing of the question throws you off.

I have it on my google drive if anyone wants it shared...

I’d love a copy.

You know what? I'll put a link in the "How's your job been?" thread as that seems more appropriate.

I remember the days when my tv would only turn off when I turned it off. Now it is like I'm going to update whenever I want to human. I don't care if you are using your tv as a monitor.

Stele wrote:

Yeah my wife pointed out that some games seem to be making me more stressed and angry instead of relaxing me. Think it is Rocket League, but only when playing ranked. I have fun on casual nights playing in GWJ rooms. But ranked was taking a toll on me last month. Think I'm giving that up this season.

Rocket League definitely makes me feel stressed and angry
But I see it more as a stress outlet. Yelling at the screen for a while.
Souls/Elden Ring is not that different either.
The line between it being good or bad for your mood is probably paper thin though.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

I remember the days when my tv would only turn off when I turned it off. Now it is like I'm going to update whenever I want to human. I don't care if you are using your tv as a monitor.

I have a hard switch on the power to those devices. Consoles, TV, etc. anything that draws vampire power, it's on a hard power switch, and when I'm not using it, it's not powered.

I personally like the TP Link Kasa smart plugs for this.

Shadout wrote:
Stele wrote:

Yeah my wife pointed out that some games seem to be making me more stressed and angry instead of relaxing me. Think it is Rocket League, but only when playing ranked. I have fun on casual nights playing in GWJ rooms. But ranked was taking a toll on me last month. Think I'm giving that up this season.

Rocket League definitely makes me feel stressed and angry
But I see it more as a stress outlet. Yelling at the screen for a while.
Souls/Elden Ring is not that different either.
The line between it being good or bad for your mood is probably paper thin though.

Stressed and angry, see also:
the Midway AI in NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and Mortal Kombat 1-3 in the arcade.

MaxShrek wrote:
Shadout wrote:
Stele wrote:

Yeah my wife pointed out that some games seem to be making me more stressed and angry instead of relaxing me. Think it is Rocket League, but only when playing ranked. I have fun on casual nights playing in GWJ rooms. But ranked was taking a toll on me last month. Think I'm giving that up this season.

Rocket League definitely makes me feel stressed and angry
But I see it more as a stress outlet. Yelling at the screen for a while.
Souls/Elden Ring is not that different either.
The line between it being good or bad for your mood is probably paper thin though.

Stressed and angry, see also:
the Midway AI in NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and Mortal Kombat 1-3 in the arcade.

Video on that topic was recently released:

Seems to be a glut of commercials, paid sponsorships, and fake reviews pretending to be real reviews.

As bad as some "shaky cam" use in tv and movies today is, I sometimes forget how awful some of the weird camera work and movement in the 60s and 70s was. For instance, in Planet of the Apes when they discover the waterfall and the camera zooms in and pans down. I sometimes get flummoxed about the direction of the camera. Is it panning up or down?

Another example, in the movie MASH, they notice a helicopter made of (I think it was) beer cans and are like "what the hell is this?" One of the guys who has been looking at the beer can helicopter during most of the scene says "It's a helicopter" after the camera zooms in on him in the background.

Had an awkward moment. It was trivial, unimportant, and all together not worth any further thought. My brain has been reminding me of it for a couple days now every now and then. Very annoying.

MaxShrek wrote:

Stressed and angry, see also:
the Midway AI in NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and Mortal Kombat 1-3 in the arcade.

People who complain about "pay to win" these days have no clue how bad things were in the arcade. I remember when I went on a nostalgia kick and played a bunch of classic 90s brawlers using emulators. When I was a kid, I just assumed I went through so many quarters because I was a kid who didn't know the game and sucked. As an adult, it was shocking just how often something would happen onscreen that was impossible to block or parry.

kuddles wrote:
MaxShrek wrote:

Stressed and angry, see also:
the Midway AI in NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and Mortal Kombat 1-3 in the arcade.

People who complain about "pay to win" these days have no clue how bad things were in the arcade. I remember when I went on a nostalgia kick and played a bunch of classic 90s brawlers using emulators. When I was a kid, I just assumed I went through so many quarters because I was a kid who didn't know the game and sucked. As an adult, it was shocking just how often something would happen onscreen that was impossible to block or parry.

Having built a Retropie system, I can tell you that 2 of the absolute worst old-school arcade offenders are Ghosts 'n Goblins and Ghouls 'n Ghosts.

master0 wrote:

Had an awkward moment. It was trivial, unimportant, and all together not worth any further thought. My brain has been reminding me of it for a couple days now every now and then. Very annoying.

That's just my brain's morning-shower routine. Call it a standing daily appointment.

That embarrassing event from 3rd grade isn't going to re-remember itself.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
kuddles wrote:
MaxShrek wrote:

Stressed and angry, see also:
the Midway AI in NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and Mortal Kombat 1-3 in the arcade.

People who complain about "pay to win" these days have no clue how bad things were in the arcade. I remember when I went on a nostalgia kick and played a bunch of classic 90s brawlers using emulators. When I was a kid, I just assumed I went through so many quarters because I was a kid who didn't know the game and sucked. As an adult, it was shocking just how often something would happen onscreen that was impossible to block or parry.

Having built a Retropie system, I can tell you that 2 of the absolute worst old-school arcade offenders are Ghosts 'n Goblins and Ghouls 'n Ghosts.

I remember that game being Dragon's Lair for me.

DeThroned wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
kuddles wrote:
MaxShrek wrote:

Stressed and angry, see also:
the Midway AI in NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and Mortal Kombat 1-3 in the arcade.

People who complain about "pay to win" these days have no clue how bad things were in the arcade. I remember when I went on a nostalgia kick and played a bunch of classic 90s brawlers using emulators. When I was a kid, I just assumed I went through so many quarters because I was a kid who didn't know the game and sucked. As an adult, it was shocking just how often something would happen onscreen that was impossible to block or parry.

Having built a Retropie system, I can tell you that 2 of the absolute worst old-school arcade offenders are Ghosts 'n Goblins and Ghouls 'n Ghosts.

I remember that game being Dragon's Lair for me.

Then to find out the cheating was on purpose to keep the money flowing for the arcade operator and the game company.

MaxShrek wrote:
DeThroned wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
kuddles wrote:
MaxShrek wrote:

Stressed and angry, see also:
the Midway AI in NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and Mortal Kombat 1-3 in the arcade.

People who complain about "pay to win" these days have no clue how bad things were in the arcade. I remember when I went on a nostalgia kick and played a bunch of classic 90s brawlers using emulators. When I was a kid, I just assumed I went through so many quarters because I was a kid who didn't know the game and sucked. As an adult, it was shocking just how often something would happen onscreen that was impossible to block or parry.

Having built a Retropie system, I can tell you that 2 of the absolute worst old-school arcade offenders are Ghosts 'n Goblins and Ghouls 'n Ghosts.

I remember that game being Dragon's Lair for me.

Then to find out the cheating was on purpose to keep the money flowing for the arcade operator and the game company.

My brother and I once completed Golden Axe in an arcade when we were on holiday. I dread to think how many 20ps that cost us.

The difficulty with Dragon's Lair is trial & error, timing, and memorization. On the other hand, Ghosts 'n Goblins will hit you with with undodgeable attacks if the random number generator hates you.

And when you get to the "end" of Ghosts 'n Goblins? It tells you that you have to play the whole game again to get the real ending.

Agreed. I could regularly beat Dragon's Lair on one quarter in the 80s. This didn't earn much for the arcade owner. By the late 80s very few arcade cabinets allowed more than five minutes of game play on one coin.

I haven't beaten Dragon's Lair yet. I have beaten Ghosts 'n Goblins... because that emulator lets me save/reload states.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

And when you get to the "end" of Ghosts 'n Goblins? It tells you that you have to play the whole game again to get the real ending.

They all did that.

I beat both X-Men and The Simpsons in the 90s arcades. And got sent back to level 1. WTF?

bbk1980 wrote:

My brother and I once completed Golden Axe in an arcade when we were on holiday. I dread to think how many 20ps that cost us.

That was a favorite of mine. I played it to the point that I could complete it on a single credit.

Mantid wrote:
bbk1980 wrote:

My brother and I once completed Golden Axe in an arcade when we were on holiday. I dread to think how many 20ps that cost us.

That was a favorite of mine. I played it to the point that I could complete it on a single credit.

This and Operation Wolf. I know I spent £5 on that in one session once with my best friend.

I was able to beat Disks of Tron in the standup surround sound cabin several times on one payment. That was my video game superpower that summer.

The youth minister in our church in NJ when I was a kid was a pedophile being hidden by the Catholic Church in our parish. Thankfully I wasn't a victim, but it really pisses me of that the stupid church knowingly kept a pedophile in the church with access to kids. One victim settled with the church for 7 figures, and the priest never saw jail time. He often said "I've broken every commandment there is." Scum.

Sometimes people try to rationalize things perceived as a mistake or impossible things happening in a science fiction movie, but they READILY ACCEPT the idea of a humanoid alien that's a giant sentient c*ck. I mean... come on!

Not quite strong enough to loathe, per se, but I've been having issues with my Nintendo Switch setup. I run it through one of my PC monitors and have a splitter box thing to change between my PC and my Switch. Recently it hasn't been working at all. For a while just the display was intermittently being weird, but now a whole bunch of things were going wrong. I bought a bunch of new cables and almost bought a new dock, until I saw how expensive they are.

Tonight I replaced all the cables, rewired everything and discovered the problem - the dock wasn't plugged in. Argh!

halfwaywrong wrote:

mistakes were made

... a mistake none of us have made before to be sure..