As a visible minority associated with language teaching (if you see a white dude here who doesn't look like a tourist, he's probably a teacher. If you see a white lady here who doesn't look like a tourist, she's either a teacher or an "entertainer") I occasionally get accosted on the train by people who want to practice their English. I make fifty bucks an hour for providing that service, thanks. But also, there's the whole "making a good impression" thing. Being here has been an education in minority race relations, that's for sure. But one dude interrupted my perusal of the news to ask to practice his English. I muttered "Sure" expecting to hear about the weather and his enthusiasm for (insert disposable pop-idol factory star here), but he told me that he was training to be a tour guide at Osaka Castle Park. And proceeded to give me the tour, despite the fact that we were on a train on the other end of the city, proceeding away from said park. I didn't offer him any corrections or critique.
Things that annoy me, number 53,279: Hewlett Packard. I have an H-P laser multi-function printer that's about ten years old. It sits next to the desk in my "office," and is connected by USB to my primary, desktop computer. It was worked well as both printer and scanner for ten years, although I don't often need the scanner. Not too long ago the SSD drive on my primary computer died a horrible, lingering death. I had a second computer that was there just for such an eventuality, so I just moved that one into the office and moved the other one out, to be dealt with when I could get to it. (It has now been repaired.) Apparently I haven't needed to scan anything since the swap, though, because on Saturday I went to scan a document and found ... no scanner app. Not good. And, of course, I couldn't find the CD (or DVD) with the software. No problem. I found the appropriate software and downloaded it from the H-P support site. And then I tried to install it. It took forever, and then it hung up at 99% finished -- and then it aborted. Tried again -- same result. Found an older version of the software, the same version as what I have on the other machine. Same problem -- took a loooooong time, finally hung at 99% complete, and then aborted. I tried disabling the Windows firewall, as suggested by H-P's support FAQ. Same problem. I tried running the installer as administrator, also as suggested on the H-P support site. Same problem. I finally decided to try running it in Windows 7 compatibility mode. Voila! Success! One might think that after however many years Windows 10 has been out H-P could have updated their installer to run under Windows 10, but I guess they'd rather force their customers to buy a new printer. [Expletive deleted.]
My first thought was compatibility mode before I finished the post. Troubleshooting step number one with old software. Glad to see it was that and it worked out for you eventually.
I have that game on Xbox. What’s really fun is when the packs randomly delete themselves. Luckily for you, most of the glitches and random crashes occur during multiplayer, which became basically unplayable after they started adding new COD games to the same launcher. It’s a shame, because it was one of my favorite games. The campaign is quite good, though. You shouldn’t have any trouble with that.
My e-mail server (excite) is not a well known one but over the years I’ve stored up a lot of old e-mails I did not want to lose. Then one day they decide they’re going to change their server name to “ bluetiehome” and introduce annual subscription fees. That does not even include being able to “forward” messages. And not to mention less sub-standard than gmail . Who even has time to key in that name every time you’re logging in? And yet, I have stores of old e-mails I did not want to lose. That’s how they get you. Damn them.
I pay my conversational Spanish tutor $30 an hour. Sounds like she is a bargain. She is a native of Spain who speaks with a Castilian accent; I grew up around Texican Spanish. Sometimes I have to translate her Spanish accent into my Spanish accent before I can translate into English. The ranch foreman I worked under in the seventies was first generation American Japanese. One day, the farm administrator (a guy who knew nothing about agriculture) turned up with a bunch of visitors from Japan, expecting Hash to interpret for them. With perfect Oriental Inscrutability, Hash said, "I don't know no Japanese." The administer kept insisting someone named Akira Hashimoto MUST know Japanese. Hash repeated, "I don't know no Japanese," until the guy gave up and left. When he was gone, I said, "You don't know no Japanese?" He shook his head and answered, "Not today I don't." He'd been an interpreter in the military during WWII. His brothers fought in Europe. The rest of his family was imprisoned at Heart Mountain about five hours from where I now live. For a couple of years, my son lived on land that encompassed the old Heart Mountain root cellars. Small world.
I’ve read that, about it periodically not ‘seeing’ the required DLC and asking you to install what you know you already have. And as you say, it’s now like a hub for everything relating to COD. My menu page went from a simple Modern Warfare (before the install and update) to a huge image of King Kong battling Godzilla. What’s that got to do with the game I bought??
Things that annoy me, number 53,391: People on internet forums. There's a saying about opinions and people, and nowhere is this more evident than on internet forums. Being of a naturally pedantic disposition, when I ask a question it's usually because I have exhausted most avenues of research and not been able to find an answer, so I ask a fairly specific question with the pertinent parameters well laid out. In response, I invariably get dreck, with the noise to signal ratio running about 90/10 (meaning 90 percent of the responses are useless). Q: "Given that I need to accomplish [___] and [___], would A or B be the better tool to buy?" A: "I don't know anything about [___] or [___] but I suggest N even though it's not A or B." Q: "I need to buy a new [___]. My budget range is $300 to $500. What brands should I consider?" A: "I love my [___]." {Provides name of doohicky costing four to ten times the requested price range.} Why is it so impossible for people to just answer the question that was asked? Or, if they don't know the answer, to simply SHUT UP? Is this purely an internet phenomenon, or is it a general tendency that the internet has made more obvious and more prevalent?
Where does one find English-speaking Osaka Castle tour guides anyway? I could only find Japanese-speaking ones.
"Reaching out" Why does everyone have to "reach out" nowadays? What was wrong with "contacting" or "getting in touch with"?
I know. It’s infuriating. One of my biggest bugbears in this area, is when someone is so keen to respond, their answer clearly demonstrates the fact they didn’t read beyond the title of your post. The number of times I’ve specified that a certain avenue or solution has been explored during my endeavours, only to have them tell me to try doing X, Y, Z. The same X, Y, Z I’ve stated has already been tried.
"Unpacking" everything from emotional trauma to racial resentment is one of my least favorite up-to-the-minute cliches. The minute someone announces they are about to unpack something, I am ready to leave the room.
I just suggested, on an author fanpage on Facebook, that Objectively Evil Character A reminded me in no small way of Real Life Person B, who had some association with the Nazis. I've just spent the day being called a Nazi sympathizer because Objectively Evil is different from being a NAZINAZINAZINAZINAZINAZINAZINAZINAZINAZINAZINAZI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nazis were just the worst (yes, they were) and there's no way to compare an Objectively Evil Character to NAZISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!! without sympathizing with NAZISSSSSSSSSSSS.... Sigh.
Ahhh, virtue signalling coupled with dehumanization of 'the enemy' and lack of empathy for you and what you're saying. It's actually a large part of what the Nazis did.
It's worse, I think, in the Q & A section of products on Amazon and other shopping sites. Amazing how many 'answers' are of the "I don't know" variety. As a corollary, almost all the product reviews on Walmart.com are 'incentivized reviews' and are obviously astroturfing, and worthless.
Most of these people wouldn't know when to double down even if two aces jumped up their ass. (hint for anyone asking, you don't double on two aces, you split!)
Yeah, you access Cold War, Warzone, Modern Warfare and Vanguard from the same launcher, haha. I think that's what broke it, and they pump out so many games that they're not interested in going back and making fixes. I wish they'd come out with a new COD game every two years or so; that would give them more time to make something bug-free.
Well so far so good. I’ve done about 3 levels so far. It’s very good, and the visuals and motion capture are quite staggering for a last gen console. But it’s not perfect, and this brings me neatly on to another gaming-related rant. HUD options. I’m playing on ‘Realism’ difficultly mode because it removes most of the HUD. But realism mode means it’s virtually one-hit deaths, so I’m dying lots of times because I’m not very good at these games. Why, in the name of all that is wholly, can’t I just choose the difficulty level, and then customise the HUD independently?? What’s even more annoying, though, is that this mode doesn’t even disable the entire HUD. There’s still subtitles whenever the enemy can be heard speaking, even though I don’t really need to know what’s being said. Everything that’s interactive (dropped enemy weapons, door handles, etc) has a button prompt floating over it. I’m constantly getting prompts saying ‘Press [this] to do [that]’. Just show me how to do these things in a tutorial and I’ll remember!
I hate that. Can't remember which game it was, maybe COD (I got as far as Modern Warfare, the mission where you have to carry the wounded general or whatever, and gave up) but there was something I played that ran like a tutorial for the whole game. The thing that bugged me about COD was the same thing that bothered me about GTA IV: The game's insistence on putting you on rails. Game: "Shoot the bad guy from this spot." Iain: "But I can see him from here. I could hit him from here. Why won't you let me take out my weapon and shoot him?" Game: "Shoot the bad guy from this spot." Iain: "Just let me take out my weapon and he's dead!" Game: "Shoot the bad guy from this spot." Iain: "Fine, I'll walk very slowly over to that-" Game: "He noticed you! He's on the run! Chase after him and kill him before he gets away!" Iain: "Go fuck yourself." <hangs DVD on the balcony to keep the pigeons away>
Yeah, I don't know how to gamble. Every few years I face Vegas and set a dollar bill on fire, just to propitiate the gods.
Yeah! And GTA and the Elder Scrolls can release a new game more than once a decade while we're at it. WTF... people buy new consoles to play those games. That's what I'm waiting for!
This is why I generally prefer open world first person shooters. Even then, during the campaign, you’re still on rails to an extent. Thankfully the option to completely disable the HUD and floating button prompts is far more common in games these days. It’s taken developers an awful long time to realise enough players want this, to make it a standard option. It pisses me off no end, when people defend forced button prompts by saying “Well how would you know you’re meant to pull that lever if the game didn’t have a prompt?” There are ways.
