January 19, 2016

 Last night I was watching Vern play Gears of War with GoldGlove and Steph. There was a guy on the opposing team who was talking shit in-game every single game, even though his team was getting destroyed almost every single game. And the shit-talker was the worst player on the team. He kept going back to wanting to 1v1 people, which was a big thing way back in the day with CoD and probably Gears of War. In one round Vern got completely surrounded by all four opposing players and managed to kill all four of them. Afterward he dug out his console headset for the in-game mic, and in a funny accent said “Does that count as a 1v1?” That was hilarious enough, but then the shit-talker replied in a very surprised voice “You can talk!?!” It was perfect.

This morning I woke up and didn't feel great but a couple hours later when it was time to go to work I was thankfully feeling better. At work there was more MAP testing, one test in the morning and one in the afternoon. During the morning test I spoke with the fifth grade teacher about her weekend because she had gone to a bridal show and had a couple fittings at different stores. She said the bridal show was stressful because it was just a bunch of vendors yelling at you trying to get you over to their booth. The first dress fitting was also a little stressful/annoying because the lady at the store didn't think an hour was going to be enough time. And she kept bringing that fact up every five minutes. But then they were done in forty minutes.

During the afternoon test one of the kids had awful luck. After every one to three questions the test screen would go completely white and the only way to get out of it was to log off the computer and then back on. The actual process involved me logging off the computer and logging back onto the computer, while that was happening I suspended the kids test on my laptop and then chose to test him again (which was necessary for his name to show up again in the list of names to pick from), the kid or I would then log back into the test, select the name, confirm the name, then I would confirm it on my laptop, and the kid could start the test again. And we had to go through that process every single time. I lost track of how many times this happened but it was at least ten, probably more. I even had him try three different computers but it happened on all three. It was frustrating for me but it was especially frustrating for the kid. Thankfully he eventually hit a streak during the second half of the test and was able to finish it. Hopefully that doesn't happen during his next test.

Along with testing I had classes in the lab, and all of that pretty much filled up my day. The only time I really got to sit at my desk was for my lunch break. That made for a long yet short day.

It started snowing in the afternoon which distracted all the kids. I had a third grader in the lab testing and halfway through the test I sent her to go to the bathroom and get a drink because I could tell she was losing the little focus she had to begin with. That break ended up being her downfall because on the way to bathroom she saw the snow and that was the only thing on her mind when she got back to the lab. She answered a couple more questions before I finally stopped her for the day because she would probably still be there trying to finish the test.

At the end of the day I went across the hall to cut scratch paper and saw one of the second grade teachers on her phone. I ask if she was staying up to date on her social media accounts. She said she was, in fact, checking the weather. I glanced out the window and told her it was snowing, in the most sarcastic way possible. She replied that she could have told me exactly when it started because her class erupted with excitement. She said that she didn't even think any of them looked outside, they just sensed it. It was the worst possible time for the distraction, however, because she was in the middle of trying to introduce the concept of multiplication. She's probably going to have to go over that again.

My drive home was fine but when I went to turn around in the cul-de-sac so I could back into the garage, I continued sliding forward rather than turn. Thankfully my tires found traction before I ran into the gutter. My front bumper is low enough and my angle was steep enough that I probably would have needed to replace my bumper. I got lucky.

That luck was not with me with Life Is Strange. I started playing the fifth and final episode when I got home and stopped to eat dinner. After dinner when I tried to open the game back up it said it had a 4.1GB update. What the hell. To go along with that, everyone in the neighborhood was apparently watching Netflix and streaming and downloading because the internet speed was terrible. The initial estimate for my download was over five hours. I also couldn't get a YouTube video to stream at a higher quality than 360p, and even that took awhile to load. I was annoyed.

The internet finally picked up and I able to play about two hours later. Better than five hours but still frustrating. The game didn't back down on the intensity and I may or may not have had another misty-eyed moment. Spoilers here, in the end I did not make the utilitarian choice. Throughout the game I was constantly doing all this stuff to save Chloe and it didn't make any sense to let her die at the end. Especially when all the time travel, messing with destiny stuff leading to the tornado was only a theory. There was a chance going back and letting Chloe die wouldn't have changed the tornado. And then I would have been out a best friend and a town. My one main annoyance with this was that we went up to the lighthouse to get out of the path of the tornado but we didn't go back and get my other friend or Chloe's mom. We just left them in the diner. Which, looked exactly the same after the tornado as it did before, damaged but intact. But we didn't stop there after the tornado, we just drove out of town. I would have liked a little more resolution. In theory, the only other two people that survived the tornado were David and Mr. Jefferson because they were down in the super fancy storm shelter. Rather than play through the game again I'm just going to watch a video to see the outcome of not saving Chloe. It also seems that there were really only two endings to the game, save Chloe or save the town. All the other choices throughout the game affect whether or not certain characters stay alive but don't appear to have any real impact on the outcome of the game. Especially considering the game just kind of ends without any sort of recap or resolution. I could be wrong though. Maybe someday I will play it again.

Oh, and the update. It just proved my terrible timing. I guess the game came out about a year ago and today was the release of the limited edition, which didn't matter to me, but they also released a director's commentary, which is what triggered the download. Great timing. And to add insult to injury, even though I had to wait two hours for the commentary to download, and it now shows up on the main menu, every time I click on it I am directed to Steam. And Steam directs me to the game. It's a Catch-22.

I take that back. The 4.1GB download was just patch stuff like game tweaks and different language subtitles. The director's commentary is an additional download of 2.9GB. Fantastic. I didn't plan on listening to or watching the commentary tonight but good grief.

Anyway, I'm going to watch the other ending to the game now, and then go to bed. I'm tired.