Office 2019

I bought Microsoft Office 2019 last night. I've wanted those for a while now and finally, finally, I decided to just go and buy them. Online of course. No need for a physical copy when a digital one is enough. I installed it right away and while I still have my old Microsoft Office installed, I'm definitely not gonna use them anymore. The 2019 version is better. 

I know there's all this hype about the 365 version but I'm not interested in that. The yearly subscription fee is not something I'm willing to pay. Hell, if they sold MS Word 2019 as a separate package, I'd just buy that. It's the only thing I use with any regularity. The rest I use so rarely that I would be fine using some free (if slightly inferior) program. No problem there. But yeah. Word. I use that a lot to write stories. Lately, it's mostly fanfiction, but I have some original stuff I'm working on too. And then there's that one epic tale I have (not yet finished) that is in Czech and I'm trying to force myself to translate it into English. As I don't really feel like continuing it in Czech. I might, but as of yet, it's a shelved project. Nothing I'm gonna work on now. Even though the idea is somewhat epic. 

Back to the 2019 Office though. I love it. And just now, I figured out how to change the design. The default is too bright. So now it's dark gray. I mean, it wasn't really hard. All it needed is me actually doing it. So yes, it has everything I need and I'm happy with it. I'm really glad I decided to buy it. And maybe the 365 is better, who knows. I don't really care to find out. And yes, it has more programs. And whatnot. But I'm not using those. Like I said before. If there was an option to just get Microsoft Word without anything else, I would prefer that. But alas, we can't have everything we want. 

On a completely unrelated note. My mother bought a lottery ticket yesterday. We won. Only an insignificant amount but at the same time, it's a nice feeling knowing that the money wasn't wasted. Just wanted to throw this out there. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 9th of June, 2020

Really?

Almost every day, at least one person reads this post. Dungeon of Slyn... Such an old post... And yet, almost every day... I'm honestly quite baffled by this. I don't understand how something so unknown can have so many views... Maybe because there's not enough info about it on the internet and therefore my post is one of the few sources players have. 

So, I'm happy people keep reading it, but at the same time, I would have been happier if my other posts were read too. Not just this one about an obscure game that most people don't even know exist.

Oh well. It'll get better now that I'm posting with more regular intervals. At least that's what I'm telling myself. We'll see. Hopefully. 

Though I would kill for a single comment from a reader. So, how about it? Just a tiny little something? Don't make me beg, kay?

Also, from now on, I'm gonna line-break longer posts. I'm not changing old posts, but just so you know. 

I'm not okay with this - Season 1 [2020]

I watch (listen to) youtube a lot. And sometimes, they put video ads in there. Which I'm sure you all know. Well, I get a lot of Netflix ads. And while a lot of those are boring, sometimes, something good comes out of them. Like the Witcher. That was great. But then I got nothing for a while. Oh, I got Netflix ads alright, but boring ones. Took a while to get something interesting again. But I did. 

A show called I'm not okay with this. At first, I was like meh... Should I even watch this? But then I realized that the main actress is the same that played Beverly Marsh in Stephen King's IT. Well, the movie version obviously isn't King's, but you get what I mean, right?

Reflection

So, while watching a tutorial on youtube by Yong Chen, I decided to draw something. Not knowing what, and not wanting to draw what he was doing in the tutorial, I went back to my trusty random word generator and got the word reflection. I went with it. Googled it and then picked a picture. Though I do need to remember to fucking switch to searching through Pinterest rather than a simple google pic search. Pinterest is better for this. Still, I settled on a pic and hopped to it. It's done in charcoal and while I didn't do much in case of details, I think that the finished product is not too bad. Especially if you don't view it full-sized. So yeah. I did no measuring, no guidelines. I just went in with that charcoal pencil and hoped for the best. As always. I almost never measure when drawing. Or, maybe even never... No. That's not quite right. I measured once. Maybe even twice. But I don't really like it. It's why I only do it on very rare occasions. And as for details. When you're using an A5 sized paper and charcoal pencil, it's really hard to do details. Yes, I am aware it sounds like an excuse, but the truth is, I didn't want to add too many details. The main stuff is there and that's enough for me. Deal with it. Still, I would like to know what you think about this. So let me know in the comments. See ya. 

~AnnElfwind 

Written on the 2nd of June, 2020

Oxventurers

Yup, Oxventurers. I love their streams. And I'm now a hardcore D&D fan. For those of you who don't know, D&D stands for Dungeons and Dragons. A paper and pen RPG played usually with a group of at least three where one of those is the Dungeon Master and therefore the Narrator. 

Or, as Johnny from Dicebreaker says, he's literally everyone else in the world. And he's the Dungeon Master for the Oxventurers. So he has to know, right? :D Well, okay. So, these guys, they normally run the Outside Xbox and Outside Xtra channels, but sometimes they, like every other Friday or so, play D&D with Johnny from Dicebreaker as DM. Or GM sometimes - stands for Game Master. I like DM better though. But it's essentially the same thing. 

I know very well that some of the D&D games can be really serious, but that's the fun thing about the Oxventurers. Their games can generally be described as chaos on crack. And I love it. It's always the highlight of my day when they play. My favorite so far was when they obtained the hammer with the sixty skeletons. Or, I love everything sans maybe the first three campaigns, as I didn't start from the beginning. 

So, apart from that, I love it. And how they derail their GM so badly all the time. Well, not all the time, but sometimes, it's really epic. I would very much like to tell you, but I just don't want to spoil anything. Really, if you like RPG and silly gamers, try it. Oh, but don't be a Dob. Which, you won't understand just yet, but I guarantee that after watching two or three oxventures, you will know. So, I said that Johnny from Dicebreaker is the DM and I think you can deduce that one of the Oxventurers is called Dob (Half-orc bard portrayed by Luke). Well, there is also Andy as Corazon, human pirate rouge, then Mike as the Dragonborn Paladin Egbert, then Ellen as Merilwen the wood-elf druid, sometimes bear, sometimes cat and sometimes a giant octopus. And the last one is Jane as Prudence the tiefling warlock who likes to solve most of the problems with Eldritch blasts. 

Yeah, weird bunch but it goes well together. 

Oh, I know which Oxventure is good! The one that became famous for Merilwen's Meat Grinder. Well, Corazon helped. With Grease. I know, it makes no sense, but you'll understand. Soon. If you watch it. 

I also recommend this video. It's Johnny confessing how the Oxventurers derailed him so far. It's great! It's funny! And it explains some of the things going on in the Oxventure D&Ds. 

I know I'm basically just singing praises here, but please hear me out. This is really great! It's funny, but at the same time, they can get serious in a tight spot. Sometimes. Not very often. It's still mostly chaos on crack. But it gets me laughing so hard tears are streaming out of my eyes. So, try it. Watch them. And if it's not to your liking, well, you tried. It's not like I'm gonna force you to watch them if D&D is not your thing, but if you don't know whether you like it or not, maybe consider giving it a try before you outright reject it? 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 18th of July, 2020

Endless Summer

So, two days ago, I finally finished the visual novel Endless Summer. I'm sure some of you know it. I've known almost from the beginning that there are several possible endings. So I'm like: "Okay, let's get the best possible ending." Only! THERE IS NO FUCKING GOOD ENDING! Either you agree to rewrite history and no one remembers you, you defeat the villain and you and your friends are trapped in an endless summer on the island while the rest of the world lies in ruin or you give yourself up to Vaanu and save everyone but you're gone. And while staying on the island may seem like a good ending, it's really not. Not when you start thinking about it. The "give yourself back to Vaanu" is considered the true ending but it's still way too sad. Honestly, the first thing I did after finishing the book, was to go on AO3 and look up some fix-it fics that feature M!Taylor (Tyler in my playthrough) and Jake pairing. As that's what I went for. And let me tell you, there may be a fair amount of fics with the pairing, but if you're looking for fix-it, not that many. I found one good one. That even fit in with the canon timeline. I found one more but that one was a little weird and didn't really flow all that well so I stopped reading that one. So, while it was really good, I'm still very much pissed off by the ending. So yeah, I'm still in "hate-mode". See ya.

~AnnElfwind

Written on 27th of May, 2020

Must have Skyrim Mods

Or at least a list of mods that I can't live without. Well, I could probably live without them, but at this point, playing Skyrim without them would just be weird. 

Soul Gem Mining

A mod that is essential if you want to really get into enchanting. Whenever you mine ore, you also have a chance to mine soul gems. You can even mine Grand and Black soul gems. And I'm big on enchanting so I think this is a really great mod if you want to enchant your equipment. 

Soul Siphon Unbound

Another mod that goes into the enchanting category. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Basically, Soul siphon ability works with people as well as beings. So you can recharge your favorite weapon by killing the closest bandit instead of hunting animals. That is if you don't have any soul gems to recharge it the normal way.

Needed feature

So! Blogger just told me that this new version of the interface will soon be permanent. I'm still iffy about it. It still seems to lack the feature I want! The 'text next to pic' thing. I want that so badly! It's the one singular reason I'm still using the old blogger. Well, was using the old blogger. Starting with this post, I'm officially using the new one. So far, I'm not too happy with it. We'll see how they improve it. Hopefully, they will. I don't want to migrate my blog again. That would not be optimal. Apart from the new interface missing my favorite feature, I like blogger. And even if it means learning the bloody HTML, I will stay here. 

Okay, so I went back to the old blogger and got an image to the spot I wanted it. Then I deleted all text from the post, went into HTML, copied the HTML into the normal editor, and saved it as a draft. And from there, compared that HTML with the HTML of an image in the new post editor. And well, there was a part of it missing. So I went, changed one line, and voila, the image is exactly where I want it. Yes, it takes a bit more time this way, but it's doable. Still, I hope that the old image positioning will be brought back and added to the new editor as well. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 27th of May, 2020

P.S. By the time this gets published, it will be somewhat redundant. I'm writing the P.S. on the 30th of June, 2020 and the feature is back, though slightly altered. You can't drag the picture, but you can click alignment under the picture after you click the picture. Just make sure you place the picture to the spot you want it. I'll have to experiment with this more, but it should make my life easier. At least, I hope it will. :D

The Light of Music

Bite me, I know it's a weird name, but I also think it fits. Because! That's not the moon, it's a light created by the music of the flute. I found some inspiration for this on Pinterest. I mean, the elf playing the flute is something that was on the original and all, but everything else, even the different details, that's different. The original was vastly different. It was more along the lines of a broody elf in darkness with a flute. And this one, I added the element of magic!
Whatever. I just really like how this turned out. Oh, and about the rocks! It's just splashes of black, white, brown and green. In random combinations. And yes, I know that the flute light is on the wrong side, but hey, I added that as an afterthought. So I decided that, as it is magical light, it just doesn't illuminate the elf. That there is another source of light somewhere off to the right. So yes, magical light for effect only. Because it looks cool. Do you like it? Tell me what you think? Please? I haven't gotten any new comments in ages... I want some. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 21st of May, 2020