I’m thinking the “grab bag” format is going to be my hallmark for the foreseeable future because I don’t seem to have a lot of things going on that inspire me to write, but I still want to write something. I’m also finding that I’m posting these in the middle of the weeks that they are intended to represent. Exciting stuff still might happen this week! But I highly doubt it.

Elder Scrolls of Various Flavors

I had been making good headway in the TESIV: Oblivion Remastered but then I reset my PC and found that the save games — despite being labeled as such — did not save to The Cloud. On one hand, this really sucks because I was enjoying my progress; on the other hand, if and when I ever start a new game, that unicorn can fuck the hell off.

In its stead I have returned to TES Online. It had been a while since I visited Alternate Reality Tamriel and I was behind on the DLC so I spent the money on the “2025 Season Pass” which contained absolutely everything I didn’t have and also whatever is coming down the tubes this year. I am also signed up for ESO+ because I cannot play this game without it on account of the crafting bag.

My current goal is to complete the main quest line. I am apparently very near the end but have to tackle my faction’s “narrative thread” questlines, some of which I had done and some of which I still have to do. ESO is kind of a pain in the ass because quests are scattered all over and rarely in “quest hubs”, and sometimes I take whatever I find and other times I put a pin in them (and never return). My quest log has a lot of loose ends and that annoys me, so I’m spending time on the TES wiki, ESO division to find the quests I need to start and/or complete to wrap this burrito. After that, we’ll see what happens.

Appwrite for Development

I have an ongoing project for The Day Job right now, and it’s making me want to do some ancillary development. I have moved back to personal projects, one of which uses the Kitchen Sink known as Appwrite. This platform handles authenticating users, storing data and files, and a few other things that are a real pain to have to roll one’s own. It sits a wee bit below Google’s Firebase and a similar platform called Supabase in mindshare, but they all kind of do similar things.

Right now, I am working on a template project so I can deploy the common elements against an Appwrite project, handling things like user accounts, site settings, and content management. While developing, I accidentally blasted through my allotted requests-per-hour as a free user of their The Cloud edition and had to sit on the sidelines until the timer reset.

In response, I set up Ubuntu in the Windows Subsystem for Linux and installed the Appwrite self-hosting package using Docker. I figured that this way, I might still have the rate limit but I wouldn’t endanger my access to The Cloud version that I’d prefer to use.

EDIT: Turns out that when you install an OS in WSL, the OS doesn’t start with Windows. When I opened the Powershell window and logged into Ubuntu, Docker said that the containers had only been operational for 24 seconds. When I opened the dashboard app in the browser, the project I created last night was present. So I’m a dumbass; I can continue to develop against the local copy of Appwrite and spare myself the bandwidth.

PAX East

Did you know that PAX East starts tomorrow? I sure didn’t! I’m not sure when the last PAXE I attended…I have a 2015 badge on a lanyard right here, so that might be it. I had always gone with a group of friends and at some point everyone just stopped being interested, myself included. It became an operation of diminishing returns: we were there at the first PAXE and it was like storming the castle but over time the sheen had worn off for us and for exhibitors as well it seemed. A lot of the participants were showcasing things that didn’t speak to me, and even though I’m only about a 45 minute drive away it felt like a Big Ask in time and money to go only to be only whelmed with the offerings.

This year, though, I’ve seen a few folks I know mention that they’re going, some from far away and some from not so far away, and it’s put me in a Mind. It’s too late for this year, also it’s Mother’s Day weekend and my wedding anniversary is tomorrow so it’s not in the cards in any way, but what about next year? Maybe it’s been long enough for my friends to also rethink their interest before we all get too damn old to walk the show floor without the aid of a powered cart…not that that wouldn’t be kind of cool.