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Back in Quarantine

Authors: Ben <benulo@systemli.org>

Dated: 2020-10-12

After returning from my nice trip in Yazd, another week simply flew by without me noticing. After getting sick with COVID-19 and possibly who knows what else (anxiety, a cold?), I wasn't in a hurry to get sick again any time soon. They say it's possible to get COVID more than once, though it is probably not as bad as the first time, they are not sure about that yet. I don't even know if I've fully beaten it, but it became clear to me that I'm back in quarantine again in this tiny, drab dormitory suite.

On the one hand it's nice to relax at home, and on the other hand it's not very fun to be isolated in a small space. My wife is with me, so I don't get too lonely, but the Internet also helps us to keep in touch with others. Still, it's not the same as seeing your loved ones face to face, that's for sure. All things considered, there isn't much to be cheerful about, and the days are short now, so that also means less sunlight. The cold weather doesn't necessarily bother me; I welcome the change, and our building has pretty nice heating, so we can choose to be as warm as we want.

Most of my time I spent on computer things, which has slowed down a lot. Right now there is a big lull in my online socialization--even Gemini is slowing down. Of course, the point of Gemini is to be slow, so that's fine. We try to get time in every day watching movies and shows that I download online. I also play games to pass the time, though games don't hold my attention they way they used to when I was younger.

The last show we watched was the first season of "Indian Matchmaker", which was a nice show actually. We watched it because my wife was interested in learning more about Indian culture, but the show actually seems to hold a broader appeal, and I guess should be interesting to anyone who wants to see a well-produced series following the personalities and relationships of different individuals. It's light programming, so there's almost nothing negative or dark about it. Given the stresses I've had to deal with in the past weeks, I welcome something upbeat and positive.

Before that we were watching the Sopranos, and we finished two seasons of it. The first season was much better than the second, I think, but it's well worth watching even at its low points for all the unique things put into it in terms of writing and directing. It's the sort of thing that pushes the envelope and contributes to the art of film. However, it's not good to watch if you are suffering from anxiety! There's quite a bit of tension and violence, though I think it's not excessive as long as you're not hypersensitive.

With games I usually just end up playing Counterstrike because it's easy and quick, and at times it can get stressful when the match comes down to a key moment, but otherwise the familiarity and ease makes it comforting to me. Shooters demand enough concentration to take my mind off of things, which is why I seem to have liked them more in my adulthood than other kinds of games. If a game is too slow, it runs the risk of losing me as my mind gets filled with distractions.

Yesterday I got the Sega Classics bundle on Steam for sale, reportedly 91% off. Basically I paid $7.70 for almost 60 games that would have cost more than $80 purchased separately. I probably wouldn't have gone for it normally, but it was sold as Linux native, so I was willing to give it a go. It came with a lot of great games that I had some familiarity with (though I never had Sega as a kid) and knew that some (like Phantasy Star) would be worth investing in. I was a little excited, but then I found out for some mysterious reason it doesn't run on my system.

Not all is lost. Some users recommend running it with Steam Play options (ie Proton, ie Wine), others say bring your own emulator and simply use the ROM's bundled with the Steam package. That's fair enough. It's been many years since I played Sega classic games with an emulator on my PC, but I remember doing it on Windows in the past and it being a good experience. I could have downloaded these ROM's for free, but hey... $7 is alright and it'll stay in my Steam library forever.

A couple weeks ago I was playig Oblivion, which runs excellently on Proton, though I might have gotten bored with it already. The game is beautiful and somewhat relaxing, so it was worth doing. I still have OpenMW as well that I can go back to.

I figured out how to use Nvidia hybrid graphics on Linux, more or less. I can explain that in my next gemcast, as I plan to do.