u/draven33l

I’m playing through the Advance Collection now and just beat Circle of the Moon. I had and beat all 3 games on GBA back in the day, but this is the first I’ve played them since then.

I remember being obsessed with Circle of the Moon, but playing it now, I don’t think it’s aged well. The controls are a little stiff and unresponsive, it’s cheap, there’s a lot of grinding, exploration just leads to boring HP and MP upgrades over and over, and the double tap to run is annoying to have to do ever few seconds.

Harmony though? Excellent. It feels like it fixes everything about Circle. Much better controls, running by default, fun gameplay, better music, less grinding, more exploration. It’s definitely easier, but it’s addicting. Do people like Harmony better, or is it seen as a downgrade or not as good? To me, it feels like a Belmont game in a Metroidvania world. I can’t stop playing it. The only thing I don’t like is the outline on Juste which is just a weird stylistic choice.

A few days ago, I noticed a rash on my wrist. I don't know if it was from yard work, diet (I've been extremely low carb for a few months), or something I touched. I ended up getting it infected accidentally by the rash getting irritated and after that, I started getting them all over my body.

The original one on the wrist got really bad with blisters, oozing and covering my entire wrist. After that happened, I started getting welts or little bumps all over my body. Mostly my legs/thighs, but I got the occasional one on arms or chest. Some of these disappeared in 24 hours, and then pop up again elsewhere.

I took pictures and sent them in to a dermatologist and they said it looked like poison ivy or some other contact dermatitis. Do hives tend to come and go and spread when you have an outbreak? I did have chickenpox as a kid, so I can rule that out. I also ruled out shingles because it's not one side of the body and I don't have any pain.

My only assumption is that the infection caused my immune system to go nuts and it started releasing histamine, which created new blisters. Is that a fair assumption? I have no pain, it's just super itchy, and some of the welts that got irritated ooze. I feel like a monster, and just looking to see if this sounds like hives as the result of an infection. My doctor is booked out weeks, so I'm resulting to ointments for now.

Randomly, I noticed an itchy welt on my wrist. I accidentally irritated and it started oozing and spreading. Eventually it got infected and terrible into a bunch of oozing blisters. A day after that happened, I started breaking out into hives all over my body. I still don't understand what caused the initial reaction. It looks like poison ivy and I was definitely working in the yard, but I've also been on an extremely low carb diet, and I've heard that can cause a histamine release.

Either way, it's super itchy, and the infected one kinda scared me, so I put in a Teledoc call. The doctor prescribed a 10 day dosage of prednisone. I kinda figured I'd get antibiotics and not a steroid. I am on blood pressure medication, and I saw that it increases blood pressure. I asked if I should still take it and they told me to just use ointment instead.

I'm getting conflicting information. I've read that if you get an infected rash, your body can't fight it off by itself and you need medication. Is this true? Would I need antibiotics, or do I just need to wait it out? It does seem to be healing, but it still looks really gross and seems like it would take weeks to heal at this stage.

Should I skip the prednisone, or does it only mildly increase blood pressure? Does the prednisone actually help heal, or just mask the issue? I'm just not a fan of the side effects of blood pressure, blood sugar, weight gain, etc. But if it's only 10 days, maybe it wouldn't be awful.

Just curious if anyone has ran into this and if I should just use ointment, or go with the prednisone.

I'm about 3 months into keto after taking a break. I woke up with itchy bumps on my body this morning and thought "Great... I have bed bugs". Later today though, more bumps started appearing on my body. From what I understand, you can get hives from keto and ketone release?

Anyone had this problem? How long did it last? I had to do a search on pictures of hives, and it looks identical. The ones from this morning are already starting to fade, but others have popped up.

I just finished this one, and I was actually kinda shocked at how much it hooked me. It's essentially Castlevania II: Simon's Quest with a Metroidvania map and upgrades.

It's a little clunky and stiff, but I couldn't believe how much there was to do in the game, and the backtracking was actually fun. The music is God tier as well. If you like SotN, Bloodstained, and Record of Lodoss, this one is worth trying. It's not as polished, but it's a good time.

Anyone have any more games like that to recommend? I recently beat both Astalon and Inferfnax which I both loved, and I want more games with precise controls like that which use a traditional Super Metroid type map.

When I'm on keto, I have a problem where in the morning while in bed, I almost unconsciously stretch my legs when first waking up. If I stretch too hard or fast, there's a 50/50 chance that one of my calves lock up. It's the most insane pain imaginable and lasts for a good 10 seconds. Mine are so bad that I almost walk with a slight limp the rest of the morning.

Keto is my main diet, but I took over a year break just to see what I could do on a normal diet. Needless to say, I put on 30'ish pounds but...I never once had a calf issue.

So I'd assume it's something to do with the diet. I've read it's hydration, but also could be a mineral/vitamin imbalance caused by keto.

I currently drink half a gallon of water a day religiously, another 25oz of water with 1/4 tsp of Lite Salt, and then a random amount of zero-sugar sodas throughout the day.

I also supplement potassium, magnesium glycinate, glucosamine, and chondroitin, along with my normal vitamin stack.

I should note that I definitely feel weaker and a bit more fatigued on keto than I did off of it, but my mind is sharp and the weight put on from the "normal" diet is coming off. Should I bump my water up to 1 gallon? Do I need more sodium/potassium? Half a gallon is a bit of a chore to get through and if I need to go up to 1 gallon, I'll just have to do it.

Curious to hear from others that might have had this problem and how to fix it.

I've had a Nest for years and years and I noticed recently that my heat pump was short cycling randomly. After speaking with an HVAC repair tech, everything checked out and he blamed the Nest. He said he sees it all of the time.

I ended up replacing the Nest with a Honeywell X8S, and I'm really impressed with the upgrade. I love the look of it, and it functions very well. All of that said, the main difference I notice is that if I have the temp set to 72, the Nest would let it get to 73-74, cycle on, and cool down to 72. This would lead to longer run times, but less frequent run times.

The Honeywell is keeping an near perfect 72F. But, it's coming on roughly every 10-15 minutes to main that temp (it's hot here).

Is there a general consensus on what is better? Honeywell has been around a lot longer than Nest, and I figured their cycles per hour system is pretty standard. Cycling more is probably a little harder on the system, but is it overall negligible? Has anyone noticed an increased electric bill, or is it also negligible?

My electric bill has been very good, and it should kind of suck to see if it rise significantly due to the cycles per hour vs. deadband that Nest uses.

Everyone freaked out when Microsoft announced that the Xbox One would essentially be a digital console. it would accept discs, but it would install and lock that disc to your console. Go only 5 years into the future, and all of those people are buying digital games and not even batting an eye that they are doing the same thing they raged against.

All of the people saying they are done with Sony, the moment GTA6 comes out, millions of people will eat up the slop and buy the digital game. Then when PS6 comes out, they'll see a game they really want to play, buy the system, and buy digital games. After awhile, it will become normal to them. Then Sony has you buy the balls.

Sony is banking on you raging right now, but they will force you to get used to it because you have no other choice. Then in the near future, you'll look back at owning physical games as just a fond memory. Like renting at Blockbuster.

Not me. I'm done. I'm not falling for it. I've been playing video games all of my life, my back log is huge, and I play hardly any modern games and if I do, it's on PC. I refuse to buy a digital console.

It's not so much about digital - it's about ownership. On PC, I can access my files, back them up, transfer them, play them on old PCs, current PCs, and future PCs. Consoles aren't PCs. The architecture and software changes. I'm not buying a console where I'm locked to 1-2 generations and when that's over, your system is a brick.

That's my rant for now. I hope other people follow me and either move to PC, or at the very least, boycott Sony until they charge their stance. Even if they do back down, I'm sure it will be temporary and they'll try again in a few years. People WILL cave to an all digital future. It's going to happen, and Sony is just biding their time.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed this, but searching for anything on the internet is completely broken. Search for something on Google? You are only going to get what they want to show you. If you search for specific queries to nail down results, they flag you as a bot, and still won't give you results.

If you go on Instagram and search for something, you get the same pictures and accounts over and over again. You could search for "football", and you are just going to get random posts that have nothing to do with football. If you go to Facebook and search for "Posts this year", you'll get posts from 2023 and anywhere in between. Didn't I just tell you THIS year?

This is so infuriating. I was lucky enough to get on the internet in the late 90s and back then, everything worked. If I search for sports, I got sports and nothing else. If I put in specific queries like "football" "broncos", I'm only going to get results that have those exact words.

I can't stand how the internet is basically one big commercial now. It's all about the algorithm, sponsors, ad revenue, and tracking your data. It's no longer about being a useful tool.

That's the rant for today...

Just curious on everyone's take on this. I recently re-started keto and I'm under 20g of carbs a day. Part of those carbs is 2 big strawberries for desert at dinner. I'm good about keeping it to only 2.

My question is the sugar/fructose. Is this a bad habit that I should break? While it fits in my carb limit, should you completely eliminate sugar period if all possible? Curious in hearing from someone that has some keto for a long time and their opinion.

My office averages about 4-6F warmer than the rest of my house due to have my personal PC + work laptop and 3 monitors going. There's really nowhere for the heat to go in the room. When I walk into the room from the living room, you can feel a wall of heat.

I decided my only options were a window AC unit or a mini split. While the mini split would be ideal, it's a little more than I really want to spend, and I don't know if I will have this house forever.

So I bought the window AC, hooked it up, the room cooled down and everything was good. That is, until I had both my PC + work laptop going, and then I tripped the breaker. It's a 15 amp breaker, and it's a gaming PC, so I'm not shocked that I exceeded the wattage.

So that leads me to the question and advice - should I get a dedicated circuit for the window AC? And this might be insulting to ask, but how safe is it to run a dedicated circuit for one? Is that pretty much a standard job for most electricians? I really don't want to risk a fire. I have a small house. Would my electrical panel be able to handle another 15-20 amp circuit? I see several more spots available on the box. And finally, what kind of charge can I expect for something like that?

Thanks.

It seems virtually impossible to find poor Beachhead without a broken crotch. Was he just heavily played with, or was something different about his sculpt? Just found it interesting when I got back into collecting that outside of carded ones, they are all broken.

I dealt with ear fullness for years and years. My right ear in particular felt like it was always full and I couldn't pop it and keep it unpopped. I went to an ENT, and he confirmed there was fluid building up on the ear drum and not draining. I got diagnosed with ETD and that was that. No medication, no fix, just a diagnosis.

I started experimenting with diet and various medications, and I actually ended up fixing it by at least 95%. I did Claratin + Flonase (both generic versions) once a day before bed, and I used Vicks saline spray before the Flonase to clear out my sinuses. I one day realized that my ear didn't feel full anymore and I didn't have the sensation of popping it any more. This lasted for years.

I recently just started eating a high protein yogurt breakfast. Just a big bowl of yogurt, protein powder and fruit. Every day for weeks and weeks. And...the fullness is back. I'm sitting here currently feel miserable. I can't pop my ear, and it feels gummed up. Is it the dairy? I've always heard dairy caused inflammation in most people, and I wasn't eating much of any dairy prior to these past few weeks.

I guess I'm going to stop yogurt for a bit and see if it goes away again, but I found that really interesting. Anyone else ran into this?

This is a new problem that popped up recently, and seems to be driver related. My default format is set to 24bit/96000 Hz. If I'm listening to music or watching YouTube, after while, the sound will distort and sound like it's coming from a tin can. I can switch to 24bit/48000 Hz and the sound is back to normal. If I go back to 96000 Hz whether 16, 24 or 32-bit, it remains distorted.

Rebooting will fix the issue, but it will eventually come back again. I've tried reinstall the card from Device Manager after it happens, and that also fixes it which tells me it's a driver problem. Doing that though, resets all of my settings in SB Command which is annoying.

I'm guessing a Windows Update broke something, but hopefully Creative sees this and can come up with a driver fix. Anyone else ran into this problem?

Had a depressing moment last night. To preface, I’ve been on CPAP for 2 years and it has been great. My scores are usually 100 with 0.1 events. The night before, I got up to pee, went back to sleep, and forgot to hook my hose back on. Within 15 minutes of trying to go back to sleep, I found myself snorting and getting jolted awake. 15 more minutes, another snort. I then realized I didn’t have my tube in. But I also realized that I literally can’t sleep without it.

As soon as the tube was in, I fell back asleep. For years I had the snort moment and has no idea what it was. To me, it feels and sounds like if you snorted your nose. But in reality, I think it’s the soft palette collapsing and you are gasping for air. Which leads me to the great mystery - why?

When I told my PCP that I had sleep apnea, he looked at my nose, mouth, and throat, and said my structure was good and didn’t see how I could have it.

Has it ever been identified on what causes the soft palette to close? Is it our muscle’s relaxing? If so, why does it not happen to others? Genetic? Structural?

I’m fine with actually using CPAP, but man is it disheartening knowing the moment you stop, you are back to where you were. It’s just therapy.