Frustration and Fallout 4

Morning Will Suck

This morning I attempted to get myself back in line for the impending work week, and I have to say the experiment has been a dismal failure.  I normally get up for work at 5:30 in the morning, and then get up… do my routine and finally knock out a blog post.  Sundays have always been difficult because generally speaking I am up until at least after Midnight and often times 1 am working on the AggroChat podcast that I end up having to finish editing and posting in the morning.  Last night I was up until around 1:30 but thought it was probably a good idea to set an alarm.  So at 7:30 I at least put toes on the ground…. and sat there teetering on the edge of the bed for a few minutes trying to decide what step came next.  I finally realized that hoping in the shower was a good idea, and did that hoping that the water would somehow jog my brain into functioning enough to go through the rest of the morning boot up routine.  I had decided yesterday that instead of having a yummy bowl of cereal in my warm home…. I would get out and find something in the cruel cold world to call breakfast.  This ultimately meant that I would go outside and scrape the vehicle since apparently over night the temperatures had dropped a bit.

So I consumed my breakfast and a big tall monster zero….  and played the fun game of trying to throw my muffin wrapper away.  I say its a game… because my kitten for some reason LOVES muffin wrappers.  She will literally go dumpster diving through my trash can trying to get it, only to drag it out from the bottom of the bin…. carefully unwrap the plastic bag I threw it away in and unfold the muffin wrapper so she can lick it.  She is a damned determined cat and the second I leave the room and let my guard down…. she strikes and before I know it she has the damned wrapper out again.  This will be something that continues over the next several days.  The long and short of all of this…. is that tomorrow is going to be pure hell.  I am dreading going back, not because there is something there that I dread necessarily…  but that twelve days off from work is more than enough time to completely destroy any routines you have had.  Many nights it might be two in the morning before I finally get to sleep… which is not exactly conducive to a 5:30 alarm clock.  The goal is to have forced myself to get up earlier than normal this morning, and to stay up all day long regardless of how tired I might be…. in the hopes that I will get a nice full night of sleep tonight.  I feel like it is not going to go anywhere near as well as I might have hoped.

Making a Murderer

Frustration and Fallout 4

This break has been the one of binge watching content, and while most of it was Star Wars…  we did manage to watch a new Netflix series called Making a Murderer over the last few days.  Apparently my wife’s friends had been talking about it, and when she said they explained it as “like Serial” I knew I was in for the ride.  Serial was one of those things that I got in on late, but I still dutifully listened to the show over the course of a few days while doing other things.  The only problem with content like this, is that it does not wrap up neatly in a box at the end of the experience.  In a “crime drama” at the end of the show you have some grand exposition that explains how it “really happened”, but real life is never that neat.  Serial more or less was a show that made me wonder if this kid did what the police said he did, but it never made me physically angry at the police.  I could see their side of the tale and I could see the kids side of the tail… and the end result was you mostly trying to sort out what you personally believed in the mix.  “Making a Murderer” on the other hand presents a tale so frustrating that it ended up with me yelling at the screen several times, and my wife having to talk me down.

I am not sure how much I can say that won’t give the entire tale away, because I feel like it is probably best to just watch the 10 episode series for yourself.  There are however lots of moments that swayed me to the side of the supposed killer.  I feel like he was most definitely not given a completely fair chance in this case, and there is a significant amount of bias in the area against him.  There were several incidents that occurred that were never explained…  like one of the police officers running the tags for the Jeep two days before the victim was reported missing, but after she WOULD HAVE BEEN missing.  The recorded dispatch call sounded as though he was staring at the vehicle reading the plates off, and verifying that it was a jeep.  Don’t get me wrong… I know a lot of really awesome police officers, but I also know some that probably would not bat an eye at planting evidence to support their case.  The thing is…  I believe at no point did anyone think they were framing an innocent man…  but instead that from the moment his name was mentioned he was already assumed guilty and they began trying to make a case against him work.  I think that is probably the worst thing that the show highlights is how non-existence the burden of proof really is.  Maybe I am just more questioning of information… but I had more than enough “reasonable doubt”.

The Fallout 4 Show

Frustration and Fallout 4

Last night we recorded our AggroChat podcast devoted to Fallout 4.  More or less this was the reason why I pushed through the storyline recently, and I have to say forcing myself to complete this game was one of the more miserable experiences.  I wanted to be able to talk about story plots, but part of me thinks i would have been happier if I had just not done that.  Bethesda games in general for me are about the little moments, and not the big picture.  This is a game that delivers in spades when it comes to little vignettes, but fails to deliver when it comes to giving me a larger story arc that I really cared about.  The biggest problem for me at least was the fact that in no way could you complete the game in a fashion that did not end up with completely closing off all of the other options.  I hate red versus blue situations… and even though fallout 4 was red vs blue vs orange vs green….  it still set up an artificial conflict that I had no way of mediating.  There were no “grand bargain” options but instead a lot of “nope they will hate you now” paths you were forced down.

All of that said… the game itself was really awesome and I highly suggest it.  When we finally do the game of the year show, this is more or less going to be my pick.  I love the game, but then again I have loved every Fallout game to date….  well except Tactics… we don’t talk about Tactics.  It was awesome and interesting hearing everyone elses options on the game as well.  When we got to recording the show neither Ashgar or Kodra had managed to beat the storyline… and I think I probably would have been far happier if I had joined them in that club.  Dallian on the other end of the spectrum had gotten 100% of the PS4 trophies, meaning that he had quite literally gotten every ending possible I believe.  The takeaway is… this is a Bethesda game.  If you like those games, then you are absolutely going to love Fallout 4… and more than likely you already own it and are happily playing it.  If you don’t like Bethesda games, then this isn’t the departure you are looking for.  If you are on the fence… then wait for a sale and try it then.  If you’ve never played a Fallout game… I highly suggest you pick  up Fallout New Vegas because it pretty much represents some of the best storytelling in the series.  The show itself is full spoilers so if you plan on playing Fallout 4 at some point, and if you are one of those people for whom spoilers mean something….  then you probably should skip the show until a later date.

AggroChat 89 – The Fallout 4 Show

 

 

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