Ups and Downs and Arounds
Well, it’s been a hell of a year and I’m not sad to say that it’s almost, finally over. Do I believe next year will be any better? Not really. Am I feeling hopeless? Not really, just being realistic. Dad had improved greatly after yet another hospital stay and some at-home physical therapy early last month. He was up and getting around really well. There were several other signs of improvement as well. Those signs of improvement are all deteriorating now, as is he, and I don’t know why. He’s fell twice in the past week and he’s having other repeat symptoms as well. It’s breaking me down because I don’t know what to do anymore to help or if there is anything we can do to help anymore. It’s not that I’m giving up, it’s just that I’m at a complete loss as to what to do
So, I’ve been focusing on everything else trying to get my mind onto things I can somewhat control. I restarted modding The Sims 4 again and have reignited my fan base. My Patreon hasn’t gotten back to the same level it was earlier this year but visitors to my Simularity website are at an all-time high and it’s thankfully bringing in some much, much needed ad revenue. I’m having fun with making mods again too (and playing/testing the mods) and it’s keeping my mind occupied which is fantastic. So it’s a win/win situation so far. I’m glad to be back at it and so are all the fans of my mods. I’ve been getting a lot of mod requests too which is great and fan mail about people who just want to say, “thank you”. That makes me happy.
I haven’t been working on my art projects since, uh, late September or early October. I’m not entirely sure why I stopped when I did; can’t remember. I think I burnt myself out a bit and needed a break. I’ll get back to them soon but not quite yet. I do have the latest version of Poser 12 installed and ready to go on my workstation for when I am ready to work on my art again, along with Photoshop and most of my other tools. Dream 9 Studios shall return!
Speaking of programs on my workstation… Yesterday I worked virtually the entire day upgrading said workstation to Windows 11. It took all day because I had to fiddle with the damn BIOS to get “Secure Boot” working as that was my only requirements hurdle to get the free upgrade. I finally figured everything out and got it installed but had to wipe and format my main hard drive. That means I have to redownload and reinstall all of my programs! It wouldn’t be so bad if my download speed were faster than 2Mb/sec but that’s the fastest I can hope for right now. It’s supposed to be at least 16Mb/sec according to our bill but who knows. I finally finished downloading all of The Sims 4 content from the base game to all the DLC I own. I started at 5pm and finished at 12:30am. Now onto Mass Effect and then the rest of the Origin games I need. After that, Steam then GOG. I won’t download every game I own of course; just the ones I want to/plan to play in the coming months. I also managed to get Xbox Game Pass for PC for three months for $1, I guess for upgrading to Windows 11?? I don’t know. I’ll download some games from that too, I guess. I’m going to have a packed winter season!
All in all, the upgrade to Windows 11 went alright. I earned a major headache from it, but I won in the end and now have a shiny new OS to show for it. I backed up most of my files from my main hard drive before I wiped it to install the new OS. I however forgot to backup my iTunes library, which was really, really stupid and a huge regret. I also forgot to backup my Sims 4 custom folders which I can’t believe I did that! Oh well, too late to worry about it now. At least most of the mods and such that I want are on my other computer so I can hopefully just copy them from that computer onto this one. Only problem is this one had the HQ Mod all setup which is now gone forever unless I rebuild it. Shit. Remember, shiny new OS. Shiny new OS!
I’ve also been expanding my Funko Pop Collection which you may have noticed if you’ve ever visited that part of this blog. I’ve managed to get my hands on a few Pops that I’ve been wanting since forever like Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and the Captain America PSA Pop from Spider-Man Homecoming. (Pop collecting tip, if you keep looking often enough, some idiot will eventually post their highly collectible Pop for sale at an insanely low price because they don’t know what they’ve got. That’s when I snatch them up!) I also have an almost full set of John Lennon Pops now which is awesome. Just waiting on two more to get here as long as I wasn’t cheated on that last one I bought off eBay (there’s just a little something fishy about that tracking number they gave me, we shall see). I’ll be posting some more photos to my Instagram of my Pops soon as well. I’ve got some odd ideas for them so watch out! I have managed to surpass my previously self-imposed limit of 300 Pops. At last count I think I now have 317 Pops. Whoops! I should probably part with some, but I don’t wanna! All of the ones I currently have are special to me in some way or else I wouldn’t have them.
That’s all for now. I need to get back to work on my Sims 4 mods now and check the status of my program downloads to my workstation. Thanks for viewing and take care out there!