Well hooooooly shit.
If you believe that the universe does things in response to anything that an individual does, you might think that contracting COVID after writing an entire article about COVID which included a section on how I had not contracted COVID is some form of universal karma. Well, after 1,107 days, I tested positive for COVID-19. This was after traveling on a plane for the first time since Sunday, March 8th, 2020, when Conklederp and I attended a celebration of life for my Great Aunt down in Southern California. The ceremony was at a country club where there were 50+ people in attendance and only Conklederp wearing a mask (I had forgotten mine in the Air BnB). We then flew back home through three airports (departing airport, layover airport, arriving airport) and we both wore masks the whole time. So at some point, I contracted COVID because on Wednesday I started feeling ill and ran a fever of 100.5, but tested negative in the evening. On Thursday while at work, I started feeling ill again and left work an hour early after a self-imposed "once I get this next thing done I will head home." Once home, I immediately tested again and this time it came up positive and was running another fever of around 100.
Conklederp immediately took The Squire to her parent's house so that I could quarantine without potentially infecting anyone else despite the fact that we all live in the same house, but it is what we thought was necessary. My general symptoms included frequent fever jumps between 100 and 103.7, muscle soreness, infrequent coughs with a mouthful of phlegm and tiredness. This pretty much lasted until Monday or Tuesday Well, Saturday morning, both Conklederp and The Squire tested positive, but they stayed put because Conklederp's parents have a big-ass TV that helped to keep The Squire preoccupied with his fever, and I felt that that worked out best because not everyone has the same symptoms when it comes to COVID. Mine apparently fed off of my migraines and it felt like someone trying to stick their finger in my left eye socket to put pressure on my brain from Thursday evening through Sunday Afternoon.
Along with the unpleasant mouthal side effects from Paxlovid that lasted until the day after my last evening dose. My go-to was a combination of orange juice (which my Dad swore by to cut the horrid taste) which only momentarily worked, and standard Altoids, which worked really well while I had one in my mouth. They were even effective when the tackiness in my mouth would wake me up in the middle of the night while my brain was trying to convince me that something had in fact died in my mouth, and I could take two Altoids and just let them melt in my mouth while I tried to fall back asleep. The psychological effect that this Paxlovid Mouth had on me was surprisingly overwhelming in that I considered on more than one occasion stopping the medication entirely because of how gross my mouth felt and tasted. It was just something that I could actively escape to make the effects of COVID just a little bit less. But, I stuck with it because I didn't want to shed more of the virus otherwise and I knew I wasn't going to be able to deep clean our house before Conklederp and The Squire returned home.
So COVID does in fact suck (not that I ever questioned otherwise) and I would have hated to experience it in full force without the vaccine or boosters. I definitely do not plan on changing my approach to masking when out in public after this experience. In stores, mask. In group settings, mask. Socially distancing around people I do not know or if I know that they are not vaccinated, and mask. Playing at the park with The Squire, probably won't wear a mask, but I will wash and/or sanitize my hands upon returning home.
And in the middle of our household COVID outbreak, the eShops for the 3DS and Wii U closed down to new purchases. I bought a handful of games (10 on the 3DS and three on the Wii U) and still experienced some serious FOMO on the morning of the 28th. But I think that was bound to happen unless I plunked down $250+ dollars which I did not feel comfortable doing. Plus I do not need a second copy of Yoshi's Wooly World on the Wii U when I already have the game on the 3DS, albeit a graphically downgraded game, but I knew that when I bought the game.
Steam's Spring Sale also started last week and concluded to varying degrees earlier this week. I decided to pick up Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (along with the art book, soundtrack, and developer commentary for another $1) because it was 90% off, and while I do have the free copy on the Epic Game Store, I had read enough horror stories with this game on Steam alone and the sign in requirement either through EA's separate login app-thing or through EA's Origin client, so rather than try and get my Epic copy to work, I plunked down fewer than $5.00 and got a "Playable" on Steam Deck copy. SkateBIRD was also 76% off and I thought that that might be a fun counterpoint to being a surviving Jedi trying to make his way in the galaxy. There will eventually be articles up for those, but I do have a bunch of other articles I need to actually get to writing for LIVE A LIVE, Bayonetta 3, Witch and Hero III, and a couple of First Impression Articles Lords of the Fallen, Poochy & Yoshi's Wooly World, Triangle Strategy, and Metroid: Samus Returns.
Another fun activity during my seven days of positive COVID tests was that I binge-watched the first season of The Last of Us over on HBO. I had thought that I would write an article about it, and I still might, but I can sum up the whole season as Waterworld meets The Walking Dead: A Telltale Game Series. Not that I did not enjoy the series, I did, but I think I was expecting something more revolutionary, groundbreaking, or just something more than it was. I do still want to play the game, although what I have been hearing about the PC port is less than enticing, plus as I am resistant to paying full price for video games these days (there are exceptions though, cough Tears of the Kingdom cough) so I think I will wait for the inevitable discount like I am doing with the Dead Space remake and The Callisto Protocol; not to mention the size of my Steam/GOG/Epic queue.
Lastly, we also concluded our look at the 51 games in Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1, our six-plus month-long that we started back in October. Friday's article was a conglomeration of all of the games in the collection in a neat and tidy list. I have a few things to say about that whole endeavor, mostly about how much I enjoyed the whole experience, but I will leave my final thoughts for Friday.
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