June 16, 2017

 I forgot to mention that it felt like 106 degrees outside yesterday. It was kind of like opening an oven door every time I stepped outside. I have no idea what it ended up like today because I wasn't outside after nine o'clock this morning. I'm okay with that.

Waking up this morning sucked, but I did it. And it was worth it because I finally got my hair cut. It should be the last haircut where the lady who cuts my hair can't hear. She had cochlear implant surgery last week and next week she goes back to get the processor. They have upgraded the whole thing now so instead of having a big thing hooked on your ear there is a magnet in the processor and in the thing they put under the skin, so it just sticks right on there. That's pretty cool. During my haircut today another customer called to schedule an appointment and I talked to her as a go-between, which worked out pretty well. I've gotten much better at talking to strangers on the phone thanks to working at the library.

Before I went to get my haircut I bought and started downloading Elite Dangerous because I couldn't stop thinking about it. When I got back from my haircut I washed dishes, refilled my fountain pens, switched out the water in my scallions, and then got down to business.

I set up my joystick, which I haven't used in years since I played Wings of Prey for not even forty-five. It was not a well thought out purchase. I enjoyed Wings of Prey but then got distracted by other stuff apparently. Even if I never touch it again, today I definitely got my money's worth out of the joystick.

Elite Dangerous very easily lives up to the reputation of having a very steep learning curve. I was probably eight or nine hours in before I got to the point where I wasn't cursing the game every five minutes. I have never hurled so many expletives at a video game before. It was basically a constant stream for hours. But I stuck with it. Partially because I paid full price for the game, but also because I knew the potential for fun was there if I could just get past that initial learning curve.

It finally started to kind of click after dinner. Before dinner I had spent way too long trying to do a mission and flew all over the place and apparently missed something because went I went back to collect the reward nothing popped up. Except a 10,000 credit fine because the tobacco I randomly found floating in space and picked up, was apparently illegal contraband. I only had 10,000 credits at the time and that was about the last straw. So after dinner the first thing I did was delete my save and start from scratch. Which was interesting because when I started the first time it apparently didn't take into account that I had the DLC. When I started my second game I had another ship option that came with the new land rover for exploring certain planets, and I started on a planet instead of a space station. I also didn't have an introductory mission to get a quick 10,000 credits. That was a little annoying but I got over it.

It didn't immediately start of better because I had also downloaded a new joystick keybinding because the one I had been using before didn't seem very efficient. I was still having to use the keyboard a lot and it didn't seem like I was using the joystick to its full potential. The new keybinding goes above and beyond and actually has four different layers for most of the buttons. So trying to figure out all of that was hard, and I'm not there yet, but I'm slowly getting better. One issue I have with the new keybinding is using the hyperdrive. I can activate the fast speed below the hyperdrive, and I think you're just supposed to lock onto a target and hit the same button again to go into the hyperdrive, but it wasn't working. At first I thought something was wrong with my ship and I spent at least twenty minutes just trying to reach my next destination because I was in the middle of nowhere. The only good thing about that was that I can push the throttle forward on my joystick and it stays, I don't have to hold a button down. I spent that time reading my book before it got to the point where I was almost out of fuel and decided to look a little deeper. I finally discovered I could activate the hyperdrive from within a menu and I was eventually able to reach my destination before running out of fuel.

I am also getting better at not overshooting my destination, which was a huge frustration. It's a pretty simple mechanic once you realize it but I was completely missing it for the longest time and it was really annoying.

At the moment I am still not great at the game but I am making progress. My goal is to get to the point where I can get a better ship and get a mining laser so I can start mining asteroids. I like tedious things and being a space miner is pretty tedious. If there isn't a lot of money in it my interest will probably fall off pretty fast, but we'll see when I get there.

For dinner I made another egg sandwich but I stepped it up this time. I added a little garlic powder to the buttered bread as I was toasting it in the pan. I also added fresh dill and cilantro to the eggs. It was pretty tasty. I might have the same thing tomorrow because I need to go to the grocery store. I was going to go tonight but I'm really not a fan of leaving the house on my days off.

Other than the haircut and video game, I watched some YouTube, and that was about it. It was a very frustrating day, filled with cursing, but it got better, and that's pretty exciting. I look forward to sinking way too many hours into flying around space.