… or something like that, which is one of the reasons why I’ve been pretty quiet since my last blogpost. Somehow this year really decided to do a number on me until recently and I figured I’d give a bit of an insight into that because I wouldn’t believe the chain of mishaps that happened myself if it didn’t literally happen to me.
Of Accidents and Mishaps
The first thing that happened just a few weeks after my last blogpost, just as I was finally getting back into my usual groove after some “personal bullshittery” I had to deal with at the start of this year, was a car accident in which nobody got injured (luckily), but it totalled my car. It wasn’t a super valuable or new car, in fact it was just a 26 years old VW Golf Mk4 that I got for a pretty damn good price (it was a special edition one even), but I’ve grown really fond of it and actually put a lot of love and energy into it, as I did a lot of repairs on it myself and it essentially allowed me to discover car-tinkering as a new passion of mine. It was also kind of instrumental in finally making me go out more rather than spending so much time on my own, which lead to meeting lots of new people, so the sentimental value was much higher than the economical one, which gave the accident a pretty depressing emotional aspect (aside from the general latent trauma these experiences tend to leave behind). What’s even worse is that I also need a car to generally… get anywhere if I don’t want to waste half a day in public transport (try living in a just slightly rural area in Germany without a car…), so that also caused quite a practical problem.
At first I thought that I could avoid that, since I’ve actually bought me a second car just a week earlier, in fact that one has kind of been my dream car for a while, a first gen Audi TT from 1998 (aka. TT 8N) but that one quickly turned into a nightmare because the previous owner basically thrashed the front axle with unnecessary wheel spacers and wheels that aren’t actually road legal on it, which caused excessive wear on just about every single part of the front chassis. It eventually became quite an odyssey to mend that took literal months and more money than I would have wanted to spend, even if it’s still far less than people spend on buying cars half its age. I mean the grand total I spent on it is still far from a five figure sum which is good I guess, but I still don’t feel great about having spent as much money in such a short time. Normally that wouldn’t have been as big of an issue, since I got the TT pretty cheaply considering its state and I intended to work on it as a bit of a side project with no rush… well until I suddenly needed it as a daily driver, which didn’t work out as you’ve just read.
You can imagine that this just made the whole situation even more stressful and depressing, since I was not only dealing with all the paperwork and ramifications of the accident, but also with the evolving shitshow that was hidden in the TT. At some point I just bit the bullet and decided that I need to get me a car that just drives without a fuss, even if it was a rust bucket that just held on until its next general inspection. That is actually something where I’ve gotten surprisingly lucky given the circumstances and ended up with another Mk4 Golf (a 25 years old one this time), even if it cost a bit more than my first one (but still less than I paid for the TT), but this one actually just worked and had all major wear and tear repairs done, which was exactly what I needed. That was the kind of silver lining that put an end to that stressful situation at last after weeks of trying to find a solution, since I now had something to get me from A to B without having to worry anymore and I could go back to my original plans with getting the TT mended when I felt like it, rather than being in a rush.
What’s a Weber B Fracture?
Just a few weeks after all of that, in the middle of May, I then broke my right ankle because I slipped while going downstairs, which pretty much knocked me entirely out of my daily life. I’ve never broken a bone before and let me tell you… it sucks so unbelievably much.
Not only did it come with a nasty, almost comical cracking sound when it happened, and being utterly useless for almost two months because you’re immobile and in pain most of the time, but that whole ordeal was also without doubt one of the most depressing experiences one can have, even if my family helped me with all the daily life stuff. Sitting (or rather a weird mix between sitting and lying around) at home for two months and being unable to do a lot of daily tasks or going outside on your own gets old really fast. I’ve tried to keep myself entertained by doing another playthrough of Witcher 3 (started and finished with all DLCs and almost all side missions in those two months lol) but that’s honestly just more of a decent distraction from that whole situation and doesn’t actually make you feel any better. Some friends visited me during that time as well which really helped a lot, because I do kind of need that “social variation” in the people I talk to or spend time with, and it made me realise just how much more of a social person I’ve become over the last few years (also thanks to my Golf with its now broken, or rather missing nose).
Having more than half a dozen screws and a metal plate in your ankle is also a mildly unpleasant constant reminder of the whole situation and even after almost four months it still just feels… off and is pretty sensitive at times.
It’s also kind of insane just how much stuff starts to pile up in your life if you’re completely out of it for almost two months, so when I was finally able to get stuff done on my own again I was dealing with a pretty vast backlog of things that I only recently managed to catch up on (thankfully) while also having to relearn how to walk.
Status Quo
As of writing this I’m finally starting to finding a more consistent and normal routine of things again and thankfully there have been no more destructive mishaps anymore and I hope it stays that way, because I’ve had enough of that for… the next couple of decades or so lol.
The “new” Golf still just works and I only did its pending regular service a while ago, the TT is now almost completely mended and recently got a successful, complete wheel alignment… after four attempts because some other worn out part made itself known every time (at this point the front axle is completely new with every part replaced, but at least that will last for a good while and puts it in a better shape than almost any other TT 8N out there lol), so that disaster has been cleaned up at last. I’ve also decided to restore my first Golf, even if it’s probably gonna take me a year to do so because that’s the sort of project I work on when I feel like it, but the thought of being able to drive it again and it being in a pristine state again really makes me happy, so I really want to get it back on the road at some point.
I’m also able to walk like a normal person again (well most of the time, my ankle still gets a bit sensitive and stiff when I’ve done a lot of physical stuff over a few days) which is great and definitely something I’m not taking for granted anymore, after experiencing what it’s like to be pretty much immobile.
Shaderpack News
I’ve talked a lot about “life stuff” now, so let me give you a small update on the shaderpack side of things as well.
I’ve been working on catching up with the recent Minecraft updates and their (whacky) rendering changes over the last two months or so and hopefully I’ll get everything ironed out for a round of updates soon. I’ve already posted some test version in the testing channel of my discord server, so feel free to give those a try.
For some of my packs those might also be the last OptiFine compatible releases, since I’ve decided to fully drop OptiFine support for Kappa Shader and Nostalgia Shader especially, given that Mojangs move to Vulcan and the consequent replacement of Iris with Aperture is getting closer, so I want to bring those packs up to a more modern spec as a sort of intermediate step, which will probably also make the move to Aperture a bit easier.
Aside from that there isn’t much interesting stuff going on, given that there aren’t any major changes or additions I’m working on outside of these two. For all intents and purposes my previous blogposts about upcoming plans still apply I guess, even if my schedule for those is in shambles due to the aforementioned life shenanigans.
Batman Stuff
I also plan on releasing one round of updates for my Batman Arkham mods as well, even if I’m not yet sure when, but the reason for those updates is that I’ve finally managed to get wrinkle maps working in Arkham Knight, which make facial animations look a bit more natural and I’ve used that opportunity to also update the face models on some my skins to match the latest versions of them in my UE4 project. So those should be small but worthwhile improvements over the current public releases of my skin mods.
Closing Words
Soo… yea that was the story behind me being absent for a while, I think it’s reasonable to say that I’ve had good reasons to be rather occupied with these things, but I’ve definitely had enough of that sort of bad luck that I apparently had this year. Not sure why life decided to give me the middle finger for a bit but I hope that its done with that, because I just want to get back to living my life in peace and doing things I enjoy like I did before.
I might also start doing occasional posts about car stuff, given the amount of niche skills and knowledge I’ve soaked up with all my tinkering and researching obscure details, so if that’s something anyone is interested in, keep an eye out for that.
In that sense, that’s it for this time, thanks for reading this far and hopefully there’ll be more regular updates and graphics stuff next time.
