everything is hard

.. and for once, I’m not being dirty.

Lately I’ve been boring myself to pieces by having nothing going on, so I decided to fix that by getting back into gaming – specifically, getting back into casting. A group of guys I used to cast with way back in The Day have started covering Return to Castle Wolfenstein again, and as that was always my favourite, I signed up to go back on air after many long years. At least, that was the plan when the games started happening last fall – it may not seem like it, but I’ve been really busy. I don’t exactly know what I’ve been really busy WITH, but there has definitely been something keeping me out of the house and off the computer for the past few months. However, it’s now the rainy season in Vancouver, which means I don’t want to go outside and be social – so finally, I have some free Sundays to dedicate to nerding out really, really hard.

I’ve spent the past week installing games and patches and Ventrilo and all sorts of old things that make me nostalgic for the Good Ol’ Days of the internet. Tonight was Testing Night, and .. goddamnit, Punkbuster is even more annoying now than it was in 2003. I have the game running and the correct tournament mods installed, but I can’t for the life of me get Punkbuster to behave and allow me onto a game server for longer than a minute at a time. Not even all the swearing I’ve been doing is helping a bit, and my usual Google-fu is failing me. Complicating matters is the fact that the companies that made all the mods and anti-cheat tools still in use today have long since stopped supporting the products, meaning I can’t even get the PB console to recognize RtCW as an actual game. I AM FRUSTRATED! I’m using my old Windows laptop, which is making me want to punch things – I kind of really hate it – and between my PB issues, the evil rotten work email I got ten minutes ago, and everything else that’s marbling up my ass I AM NOT IN A VERY GOOD MOOD AT ALL.

I’ve reached out to the community for help, so I imagine I’ll be able to get things sorted out before Sunday. I really hate not being able to fix things on my own, but I’m really at a loss here (and past the point where I should really step away from the computer for the safety of myself and others). So, deep breath. Perhaps I can use this time to dig my old, old, old PC out of the closet and see if she still works – I was joking about finding a copy of my old RtCW config file, until I somehow managed to find a copy of my original Q3 config.

Also, I was hilarious even back in 2003: I used to have F3 bound to “THIS MAP NEEDS MORE COCKS”. Some things will never change.

Once I get all this working, I’ll post links to the broadcast so you can tune in and listen to me be rusty as fuck. I’m looking forward to it, though. It’s been far too long.