Why? Well, for various reasons, one of which might even include legal, I can’t say why.

I too hate posts like this where someone clearly subliminally complains about something, but never actually gives enough details for anyone to ever figure out what they’re even remotely talking about. I feel like those posts should never be published (or Facebooked, or tweeted, or wherever they are released on the Internet), because usually it’s just some personal drama that’s leaking out to the public.

However, unfortunately, for this particular scenario, this incident is important enough that I have the urge to document it, yet I’m not exactly able to reveal to the public as to what happened.

But now you know

I hate that road.

“Adam,” you may ask, “what is the point of taking a photograph off the third floor of the only condo complex ON the beach in Huntington Beach, CA, if you don’t actually SHOW US the beach?”

Well to that, I say … oops, I only took that one photograph today.

I’ve been to Huntington Beach a few times so far, and I generally go there for work purposes rather than to enjoy myself, so I don’t really think too much about enjoying beach views while I’m there. I snapped that photo above while I was waiting for someone, but if I were to want to take a photo of the beach, I would’ve had to go out of my way to go on the other side of the complex, which I wasn’t really that motivated to do. Instead, you get a nice view of … California State Route 1, also known as the Pacific Coast Highway. As you may have guessed, it goes along the Pacific coast.

In case you still really, really want to see the beach, I dug up this old photograph that I took back in November 2016 of the beach.

Yes, I promise you that’s actually the beach, and not some random dark photograph. And yes, the only time I have ever photographed the beach was when I happened to be there in the middle of the night. No, this is not an intentional troll.

Now that I’m living in a gaming house environment (at least until I go insane enough to want to move out and live off on my own), it’s important to actually consider the amount of passive noise that I’m making. Although I’m generally just a quiet person overall, some of the stuff that I do, such as typing, can be pretty bothersome to people around me, especially because I use the Razer Blackwidow with Cherry MX blue switches.

Some of the sound comes from the actual activation of the blue switch, but a lot of the sound also comes from the keys bottoming out. When you press the key a little bit too hard, the plastic bottom of the key will strike the plastic frame of the keyboard, making a clacking noise. Rubber o-rings prevent the sound from being too disruptive by dampening the sound of impact, making the keyboard overall much quieter.

The o-rings that I purchased and installed were the “Rosewill Rubber O-Ring Sound Dampeners for Cherry MX Key Switch (135 pieces).” After browsing around and looking at a bunch of different o-rings, these seemed to be the best ones that I could find. I’m no o-ring expert so I don’t have experience comparing different brands of o-rings, but these ones that I got seem to work well.

I don’t own a key cap remover, so to get it started, I dug in along the edge of the keys next to the bezel with a knife and popped one out, then proceeded to yank the rest out with my fingers. I have relatively long nails on my right hand because I play the guitar and I use the nails on my right hand essentially as guitar picks when playing the classical guitar, so shoving the o-rings into the key was easy. Push the keys right back into place, and you have much quieter keys.

These were pretty cheap (at least to my standards) – I got mine for only US$9.99 for a bag with enough o-rings for me to insert them on all the keys of my keyboard and still have a handful of backup ones remaining. If you regularly use a mechanical keyboard in an area where others are around you, I’d highly recommend installing some o-rings, just to be considerate.

(No, this blog post is not sponsored; I’m just impressed at just how much the o-rings help in terms of reducing sound. I’ve heard that using a soft desk mat, or even placing a cloth/towel under your keyboard, also helps reduce sound output.)

My first experience with Final Fantasy XIV was terrible. It was a while ago, so I don’t exactly remember the intricate details, but basically, I tried to install it, it failed not-so-gracefully, then I asked Square Enix for help. I sent a support ticket letting them know exactly what the problem was, linked to a knowledgebase article on their website explaining how to solve the problem, and let them know that I tried those exact steps and indicated why that solution didn’t work.

Their response? They linked me to the VERY EXACT SAME KNOWLEDGEBASE ARTICLE that I linked to them – the one where I specifically indicated that it was not helpful.

I ended up going into some of the game’s configuration files in the installation directory and figuring out how to fix the problem myself. My technical background helped me with that; anyone not so adept with coding most likely wouldn’t have been able to fix it.

When I finally got in game, I got extremely frustrated with the map system. It’s tiny, poorly designed, and unintuitive. I couldn’t really ever figure out where to go to do particular tasks, and the map was awful at telling me where I would end up if I took a particular exit out of one area. To me, navigation is extremely important (even in real life, because I get lost a lot), and their map system was one of the worst I’ve ever seen.

But somehow, one of my good friends convinced me to give the game one more try. I made a Miqo’te twin with her. I named mine Pink Lemonade; she named hers Salted Caramel. They’re both named after each of our favorite sweets.

Things still aren’t looking that great right now in terms of the game keeping my attention, and I may end up just no longer playing after this month of subscription time is over. But hopefully, I can stick with it long enough that I’ll actually get close to the level cap this time, instead of just giving up after a few days or a week, out of frustration.