Monday started early....

Let me give this post a full title: "How I came to not watch Dr. Horrible, ended up with wet pillows, and had Monday luck start early but leave late".

Yesterday morning started out fine. We had pancakes and sausage for breakfast, and we were going to go do a few things in Guild Wars, then watch Dr. Horrible and do some cleaning, than do some more Guild Wars... we were trying to get to a specific point in the game, a new area we'd wanted to see for a while.

Let me digress and explain something about Guild Wars for a moment. I know you don't care, humor me. There are three technically stand-alone, but tied-in, games. They have some minor differences, but overall it's one game with three entry points you can play in any order, and cross over to the others at any time.

One of the big differences between game #1 and game #2 is how they handle the bonus portion of missions, an optional thing that lets you accumulate points towards a title, which we want. You can do the missions without the bonus to just move forward, but it's nice if you can get the bonus done first time through so you can get the title credit, too. In the first game, bonuses generally involve some slightly off-the-main-path objective, and you generally have a lot of time to accomplish what you need to. In the second game, the bonus is entirely based on the completion time of the missions. Do it in x minutes or less, you get the full bonus. Done in x to y minutes, you get a partial bonus. More than y minutes, you still get to move forward, but get no extra reward. This will be important later.

Anyhow. So, we're playing characters in game #2. We get to the first of three missions we need to tackle to get to the part of the world we're heading to. We run the mission, manage to succeed, but not only don't get the full bonus, we don't get the middle one, either. Apparently we are just a bit too cautious. That's a little annoying, but at this point we care more about moving forward. So we do. There's a couple minor quests to do to get to the next mission area. We do them. We get to the area, fiddle with our skill settings, and start the mission.

Three quarters of the way in, we experience a total party wipe. This auto-fails the mission. This doesn't happen to us very often, so while it's a tad frustrating, we aren't really that unhappy. Yet.

Attempt #2 results in a total party wipe. Earlier in the mission.

Attempt #3 is going pretty well when suddenly most of the party wipes. I'm still alive, but I can't resurrect anyone because the skill I use to do so needs to be recharged... which can only happen by killing the boss in the room I'm in. The NPCs we have to keep alive are still there, but they're not very offensive-oriented, so they can't do much to help me kill the boss, which has a lot of healing available to itself. But I'm trying anyhow... if I can just get this boss dead, I can resurrect one of the AI characters with us that has a resurrect that can be re-used... and meanwhile, did I mention this mission has a time limit? Not the bonus thing, the actual mission has one this time. So I'm wearing away at the boss, knowing it's probably fruitless, finally though I get to the point I might be able to kill him....

And the Horrible Lag Monster of Doom strikes. Ping times go from a nice 100-250ms to 40000. That's not a typo. I'm watching the game inform me I'm simultaneously activating three skills, none of them actually firing, while the counter is still going down, tick tick tick, and the lag is not clearing. In fact, I am no longer receiving pings from the game. At all. Time runs out. I close the game because I cannot get it to return me to the mission start area because my lag is too bad.

By now we're quite frustrated, but we try again, because we're also stubborn. Everything starts out fine. A little lag, but not too bad... oh, whoops, spoke too soon! Now both of us are lagging! We are rubberbanding around like... um... rubberbands, really. Our skills are all swearing they're activating while they aren't. Time is ticking. The lag starts to clear up. The boss goes down. We've wasted several minutes, but we can still do this... if the lag doesn't hit again... oh, feh, it's not clearing, is it?

I try manually killing the game process in the hopes to force a disconnect that will allow me to reconnect (closing the game won't do it, but killing the process can). It works in theory... except I can't connect back to the game. It times out. And once it does that, it removes you from the mission and puts you in the mission start area. So much for this attempt.

We switch servers. Usually we use the American servers, being that we are, in fact, on the right continent to do so. Clearly, they have failed us. So we switch to the International servers... and while our response times aren't stellar, they are not the doom-inducing lag we've had elsewhere. This time, we manage to finish the mission, get the middle bonus but not the top, but we just do not care, we want to move forward.

And now you're like, "That's great, Tina, if perhaps completely incomprehensible, but what does this have to do with Dr. Horrible or wet pillows?" I'm getting there, hold your horses.

But back to the game. Well, no, first there was dinner, sandwiches, so we could get back to playing. There's just one more mission we need to do to get to the new area now, and we are absolutely determined to do it. We do a few quests to get there, blah blah blah, start the mission.

Unlike the prior mission, this one goes really well. There's a few deaths, but nothing like the last time. No real lag (we're still on the International servers, actually). Everything's fine. The mission finishes.

To get the top-level bonus in this mission you need to complete it in 30 minutes or less.

Our completion time is 30:19.

*beats head against wall*

Suddenly we realize it's bedtime for people who have to work tomorrow (my guy) and reading time for people who don't. I have a glass of iced tea. It's on the table by the futon. I am reclining against pillows, reading, sipping my iced tea. I move a bit... and suddenly the iced tea glass, which is still mostly full, flies off the table and dumps its entire contents, at least 16 ounces, onto my pillows. Including the brand new one we got to replace the old, compressed ones.

Since I have to sit up anyhow and let my pillows dry out, once I clean up the best I can with paper towels, I go check boolPropian LJs... where several people mention Dr. Horrible. I look at my desktop, where the shortcut link to the page is sitting to remind me I wanted to watch it before the end of the day. I look at the time, and my sleeping guy, and the link, and then at the time, and I beat my head against the table.

And then, as a bonus... I hear the drip of doom. The drip of doom is the sign that the pot we have under the a/c unit, which leaks, is full. It's very heavy when full, and when I empty it, I tend to give myself an asthma attack, because my lungs believe that if I am out of breath, I should stay that way forever. But my guy is asleep, and it's full, and it's going to drip on the floor if I don't empty it, so I empty it. Once I get my breathing under control, the fact that I have just dosed myself with what is essentially an upper keeps me awake for a couple more hours...

I go to bed a bit before it's time for my guy to get up.

A couple hours later, I wake up from my restless sleep and discover he's not up yet. He has to leave for work in less than 30 minutes. The alarm was set for PM instead of AM. I get him awake and moving and fall back asleep.

When I wake up, I immediately experience a leg cramp that I might classify as "OMG THE PAIN MAKE IT STOP GIVE ME A CHAINSAW TO TAKE MY LEG OFF NAO PLZ".

And now it's late enough that I'm not likely to get any Sims stuff done today.

So... um. There you have it. Tomorrow, I hope to have a better day.