Kat Dancing

I'm having a wee bit of computer frustration right now.

See, the other day I asked someone to, ah, acquire a game for me. This is not my usual modus operandi. Not that I have any huge moral qualms about it, but when I have money, I tend to go ahead and give it to the companies who make games I like, in hopes they will keep making games I like rather than grinding out yet another vomit-inducing first person shooter. In this particular instance, however, there were mitigating circumstances. One, I don't have any money. Two, the idiot game company had neglected to put out a demo. I don't understand this. Maybe there's people out there willing to risk forty bucks on a game they've never played on the basis of description and hype alone, but I am not one of them.

When I tried to run the game it demonstrated a prime reason I am not one of those people, namely, the damned thing won't run on my computer.

This was not entirely unexpected. My computer is, to put it delicately, elderly. It's a Mac G4 Sawtooth, top o'the line in 1999, bought used by me in 2003, and still a bloody workhorse of a computer in 2007. Aside from one fit in 2004 (which required me to reinstall the OS, restore my data from backup, and replace a $3 drugstore battery that was apparently the cause of it all) it's run like a dream for the entire time I own it, handling trips to Canada, OS 10.4, and the occasional lightning storm with easy aplomb. It's a great computer. It does everything I need, and nearly everything I want.

Except play the occasional game.

What's particularly annoying in this case is I can't run the game because the idiot developers gave it a nanny. I can't even get to the startup screen. Instead I double-click and get a warning screen telling me the game needs 50 Ghz more speed and double the vRAM to play, which would be terribly impressive if the Sawtooth had not been running a game that required triple its processor speed and vRAM just last week.*

Sadly, these same idiot developers also failed to provide a "fuck off and die" button for the nanny screen, and so this game is, indeed, unplayable.

Could be worse! I could have paid $40 to see that warning message!

So I am left with three options:

a) Buy a new computer I don't need, can't afford, and frankly don't even want all that much.

b) Buy a video card (the processor speed warning being bypassable) that I don't need and can't really afford, but kinda want and could get for, oh, $30-40 on eBay. Not that I looked or anything.

c) Accept that there are more fish in the seas and more games on the Internets and go looking for something not designed by retards.

d) Take this as a sign that I should be doing useful things with my life and not dorking around playing video games.

Currently I'm wavering between b) and c), because a) is ridiculous and d) requires more self-control than I've got. But the whole thing is most annoying. It's not like I'm a hard-core gamer or something. I play sim games and puzzles for the most part, for chrissake. Why the hell am I experiencing forced upgrades for this?

Oh, well. Could be worse. The day I have to upgrade my system to play interactive fiction games, that will be the day I know the apocalypse has finally come.



* Okay, so the game ran so slowly and crashed so much I eventually declared it unplayable. But it did run, dammit!

Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: See d).
Comments: I am actually, probably, going to write today (despite d).) I just haven't done so yet. Boring writerly musing to follow.

So I recently crossed the half-a-book line (hooray! Half a book! *throws confetti*). Which also meant I got to the first absolutely pivotal scene, something I'd been edging my way towards for fifty thousand words, the scene that changes everything and inextricably involves Elliot in the mess to follow. And it worked good enough for a first draft. And it showed up right about where I said it would, word-count wise, which is shockingly, like, planned for me.

However, there's now a 10-15K stretch between me and the next pivotal scene. And I was kinda concentrating on getting to this pivotal scene, so I have only a vague idea what needs to fill in that gap.

My plan for the day, therefore, is to write maybe a couple hundred words more of Elliot sitting and thinking about Stuff (destined for the scissors, no doubt, but it helps me think and keeps me abandoning the story for whatever ooh-shiny! crosses my path), and spend a long time staring at my outline, adding, subtracting, and shuffling the wee digital notecards. I know what I need to accomplish before the next pivotal scene. I just don't know how to get it all done in story terms, what scenes I need in which order and where they happen.

And after I hit the pivotal scene, it's smooth sailing for a good 20K or more. Must keep reminding myself of that.

Right.

*end writerly musing*

Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: I am doing a lot of staring into space wondering what happens next. Elliot is spending the current scene staring into space wondering what happens next. Bad Kat! No Dischism!