Category Archives: Ramblings

Recap Attempt Three – 2024 Edition

by

0

Hi. Hello. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve quite thoroughly neglected my own site for the last two three years (oh god) FOUR years. (I’m now finally getting back to writing again, so the third time’s the charm, right?) Is it because I kept growing weaker by the day and was unable to go out and about to take pictures? Yeah, kind of. Is it because I’ve been anxious about writing in general because I get the feeling that I should be working on my BA thesis instead? That too, definitely. It has been a rough couple of years.

The Physical

Peter Griffin in pain, holding his knee

A bit more on growing weaker. Aside from the usual vulnerability to infections due to my medication, GVHD has been kicking my ass by giving me sclerodermatous skin. An autoimmune disease to match an immunosuppressed individual. It, thankfully, is not the regular kind and it just applies to my skin. Some parts of my skin where it applies can’t grow hair and have abnormal skin pigmentation. Oh, and the main thing is the hardening and tightening of the skin. It started in my neck and kept creeping elsewhere for a good while before it was noticed. My neck kept tiring increasingly fast and I started having trouble walking longer distances. The movement of my arms and legs is rather inflexible nowadays. I stayed at a rehabilitation ward for a couple of weeks to regain some walking ability, but I still could not walk more than a hundred metres or so. Still can’t – I have to use a mobility aid to move any real distance when I’m not home. Still better than how things were until two years ago. At least now I don’t need to have a wheelchair to commit to a longer distance. All this has been treated via various methods with some success. Recovery is a very slow process, but there is improvement nonetheless. And whenever there’s been improvement, it’s been followed by setbacks undoing the progress gained in walking ability. Repeatedly. For years. I’m doing very well this year though, as I’ve been given asthma medication to help with the pitiful state of my lungs (which then makes exercise easier). Will have to see what the rest of the summer brings.

Continue reading →

Icewind Dale – That’s a lot of Snow

by

0

So I’ve gone through both Baldur’s Gate games and enjoyed them despite their flaws. I thought I would have taken a break from CRPGs, but I ended up just continuing on into Icewind Dale right after finishing Baldur’s Gate 2. This time the first game that I had was the Enhanced Edition (by Beamdog), and the second one was the regular edition Icewind Dale 2 as no Enhanced Edition for it exists (nor apparently can exist).

Now, I was expecting something similar to Baldur’s Gate, but some things ended up being a bit different from what I had gotten used to, most likely because I wanted to get out of my comfort zone of playing Good and Neutral characters. Let’s get into it then, shall we?

Continue reading →

The Woman in Black – My Unstructured Rant about Unnecessary Change (spoilers)

by

0

The Woman In Black cover by Jamie Clark

I was in the middle of reading The Woman in Black when my girlfriend suggested that we could watch the film adaptation with Daniel Radcliffe playing the leading role of Arthur Kipps as long as I didn’t mind getting spoiled. I didn’t mind the idea and so we watched it. I was bothered when I saw that the adaptation was a very different story right from the start. What the film ended up being was a Hollywoodised jumpscare fest.

Needless to say, there will be significant spoilers from here on out.

Continue reading →

Baldur’s Gate II – Some Thoughts

by

0

Intro

So I never got into some of the praised classics from the late Nineties and Two-thousands until fairly recently. I finished, for example, Deus Ex back in 2011 and Final Fantasy VII in 2016. I only finished Baldur’s Gate in 2017, and now, in 2018, I’ve managed to complete Baldur’s Gate 2.

The logo for Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn

All of these games have held up quite well despite the passage of time in my opinion, despite some of their janky mechanics from a modern standpoint. It can easily be seen why they are considered classics. But today I wanted to focus my post on Baldur’s Gate 2 because I felt rather strongly about it. The feelings were both positive and negative. I will begin with the positive and go on through to the obnoxious things.

Continue reading →

What Have I Been Doing?

by

0

It’s been another while since I last wrote anything on the site. This is mainly due to me having bitten more than I could chew workload wise and I’ve desperately been trying to catch up with university stuff, but not much has come from that. Why? Well, there’s a few reasons for that, but it’s mostly due to me moving apartments back in February.

Continue reading →