April 1, 2022

We played Overcooked.

We played Overcooked again! We managed to beat the first level with all three stars, yeah! We, also, got to the end of the game. The final boss. We only played a few rounds and almost finished. We were two meals short. So different from the original. I think we should be able to finish this game much quicker.

I find it hard to believe that we still solve problems by killing other people. Innocent people, who just want to live their life not causing trouble for anyone. I would think we would be better by now. I wish that it was just illegal to decide to invade a country at will. The world is getting smaller. Through videos, we can see that people we are told to fear are no different from us. Most people do not like war or violence. People do not want to lose the people they love. We need a better way.

February 4 to March 18, 2022

Overcooked

Of course, we played Overcooked! We have finished level 2 with three stars on each mission and in level 1 we need one more mission to complete it. For some missions, we only need 1, yes ONE point to get three stars…ugh. One point is a matter of a tip. Not even a good tip. I tell Colleen she needs to wink at the customers, to get that extra tip 🙂

I heard that coloring is good for stress. With all that is going on in the world, I’ve been coloring like a madwoman. It is to the point, I think I have a problem. I googled coloring addiction to see if I indeed have a problem. Google told me that coloring is good for addictions and here are more pages to color. I guess……I don’t…….have a problem?

People often say that “I’m one person what can I do?” One person has changed the world for so many.

January 21 and 28, 2022

Overcooked 🙂

Surprise! We played Overcooked. We play each level until we get a higher score than the last time. We are now at a point where each level takes us longer. Soon we will be stuck on a level until we beat it. We are having fun, so that is what is important.

I guess we have to get back to normal, whatever that may look like. After 9/11 security was taken more seriously, freedom was cut back a bit to ensure safety. That is what will happen with the virus too. People who are immune-compromised will continue to wear masks, as will other people who are unwilling to take risks. I will wear a mask until people with who I come in contact on a regular basis, are immunized. Besides, I like not being sick all winter from various colds and diseases. Hopefully, in the spring things will look up. The spread will slow and people will be outside more. I am hoping Colleen and I can start to go out again. The disease will be us forever, much like the flu. We have to learn how to live with it.

December 31, January 7, and 14 2021-2022

Overcooked! Need I say more.

We played Overcooked. It’s funny, one of the levels we hated and were stuck for a long time, we finished with three stars first. Other levels we loved and finished fast, we are now stuck on. Colleen has a theory as to why they made a new version. In the first Overcooked, there was a level at the end of the game that was super easy. The whole time we were playing that level, I was suspicious. I expected a meteorite or something to fall from the sky. Nothing happened and we completed it easily. Her theory is that it was a mistake, that the developers made and needed to correct without looking suspicious. 🙂 We will see, once we get to that level.

The virus is spreading here like wildfire. I’m just so tired of the whole thing. I need to think of this as war. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died. Imagine if another country had evaded and caused the same damage. Time to change the mindset and think of it as war. We need to keep calm and carry on. We need to help each other, not fight each other. We are not the enemy. A little tiny germ is.

December 24, 2021

Christmas eve, we really didn’t get a chance to play. We exchanged Christmas presents. I got to see Colleen in real life! She really does exist :).

Storytime. This isn’t really a Christmas story but a Halloween one and I want to tell it before I forget it. It is one of my favorite stories from our adventures before we made the blog. We went to Westfield home of the creator of the Addams family. Colleen had seen on tv that there was a big Addams family festival in Westfield for the Halloween weekend. Most of the festivities were happening on the weekend, but we could at least see the Addams family house that someone made to resemble the Addam’s family house from the show.

First I must tell you that Colleen LOVES her iPhone. She relies on it for almost everything. The phone has managed to get us to almost every destination (except when it decided not to tell us anything when we were going to Luna Parc). So we arrived in the town center of Westfield. There was a small park, next to the police station. Stores to the left and right. The park was centered around a pond, and in the center of the pond was a small wooden replica of the Addam’s family house. We are excited! Colleen puts the directions in her phone for Addam’s family house. We go to the right of the park. We pass many storefronts with Halloween-themed windows. We walk a couple of blocks. “How much closer,” I ask Colleen. She tells me “It’s close”. We walk another block. She then tells me it is further away. This can’t be right, we go back to the park. We walk around a block of residential houses. This can’t be right, we go back to the park. We go to the left of the park. We walk a couple of blocks. “Are we close”, I ask. “Not yet” Colleen responds, “let’s walk a few more blocks”. We walk a couple of more blocks. “Are we there yet?” I ask. “It says we are further” Colleen responds. “If we are further away, we should go back,” I say. Colleen responds, “Let’s walk a couple more blocks.” We walk another block. “If it says we are going further there is no sense in keeping on walking,” I say. We go back to the park.

We stand in front of the park for a long time. Staring at the wooden cutout of the Addam’s family house, it occurs to me that this is what we are looking for. “Is this the replica of the Addam’s family house?” I ask. “No it was life-size, I saw it on tv,” Colleen responds. I tell her that it was a good thing a bird didn’t land in the shot, it would’ve ruined the illusion. We see a policeman. Colleen asks, “Is this Addam’s family house?” After a long pause, he responds, “sort of”. I tell Colleen her phone is now fired for walking directions. It was a nice drive and at least we got some exercise.

Upon looking up the Westfield Addam’s family house, there is a house upon which the show’s house was influenced. Maybe one day, we can go into the real world and see it.

December 10 and 17, 2021

We played Overcooked!

There is a newer version of Overcooked and it was on sale for 1/2 price! It is supposed to be better optimized, so I was hoping the lag would be less for Colleen. The only “problem” is that it doesn’t save your progress from the original version, so we would have to start all over. We gave it a shot, to see if it was smoother. It doesn’t seem to be the case….but it is awfully cute. We do love the game….so, we decided to start over 🙂 All the year’s progress gone. We can always go back to the original. If we decide to.

Grrrr…the prices of everything are going so high. They say it’s the supply chain. I’m not so sure. I went to the supermarket to buy stew meat. Stew meat is one of the cheapest cuts of meat. They wanted $13 for a package of stew meat. I went to a different supermarket and strip steak was on sale for $13 a pound. Ummmm….I’ll take steak over stew, thank you. It doesn’t make sense that stew and steak are close in price. They can get away with saying prices are inflating because of overseas costs because we don’t know what is involved. I’m pretty sure the beef wasn’t imported. I think that all the people who lost money during the pandemic are trying to make it up as fast as possible. At least, that is what I think. I could be wrong.

December 3, 2021

We played Overcooked 🙂

Yes, we played Overcooked again! Yes, we are still stuck on the last part, but it feels like we are getting closer. In the third part, we are starting to get faster at and we are even managing to get some of the last elements started. I am starting to have faith in us.

Ugh! The coronavirus just won’t go away. Now there is a new variant. It feels like a war. I sometimes imagine there is a corona general leading the virus. I picture the general talking to his troops, “Listen up people! We have to meet our quota, then I can have a cushy job where I hire a new variant once a year, like the flu. Good job Delta. New guy, Omicron what do you have planned?”

Omicron, “I have added extra spikes so that it will make it easier to take hold.”

As I understand it, the omicron variant is easier to catch than the delta, which is frightening. If you have had the coronavirus it doesn’t make you immune to other forms. In the same way that if you have the flu, then you can catch a different flu variant.

I want this war to be over. I want us to unite and win it. I don’t want anyone else to die from it. It’s tiring but we need to keep at it. Much the same way I think we will win at Overcooked, we will win this war against Covid. We just have to keep at it.

November 26, 2021

Black Friday and we played Overcooked 🙂

It has been a while since I have written anything. We are still playing Overcooked. We are now on the last mission in the main game. We were able to get 3 stars on the rest of the other missions. Yeah! It took a couple of days to be able to finish the first two parts. We finally got to the third part, and we finished with a few seconds to spare. We were upset that we didn’t get the ending. Maybe we need to add more time. We finished with more time and the level started over. So I went and googled it. There is a whole new part! Yikes! The review said it would take two or three times to get it. It has been at least two or three weeks, so far. We did manage to get one order in from the last part. It’s so much fun, we laugh and scream. We get to forget about the outside world for a bit. I think we could all use that.

So much division, democrat vs. republican, middle-class vs. poor, black vs. white, mask wearers vs. non-mask wearers, vaccines vs. non-vaccines, etc. So many lines in the sand, with no one listening to each other. Nothing gets solved. People have come to treat these lines like they are sports teams. You root for one side and if your side wins you win. In reality, no one wins. Can a marriage work without communication? You state your needs and wants, and your partner does the same. Eventually, you find something you can both work with. That is the way it should work. Issues need to be discussed, both sides need to state their opinion and a comprise needs to be made. There should be no winners or losers. When both sides are unhappy then you know it’s fair.

I think sometimes that if one side decided to make it illegal to use puppies as footballs, the other side would say, “It’s a free country and I can kick puppies if I want to”

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” – Abraham Lincoln We need to stop viewing each other as the enemy and start to see the issues and find ways to solve them.

April 30, 2021

Overcooked!

This Friday we played Overcooked! We beat two levels too! We beat one of my favorite levels but somehow we didn’t manage to beat Colleen’s favorite level…..hmmm. Seems suspicious to me. We only needed two points to beat the level and we only managed to tie.

When I was a little girl, the policeman would drive down my street in the afternoon. I would wait for him to come, so I could wave hi. He was my friend. When I got older, I went to the shore with some friends. A guy who was obviously drunk, screamed, “pigs” when the policeman drove by. The policeman stopped his car. “What did you say to me?” the cop said. The drunk man screamed “pig” again. The policeman got out of his car, handcuffed the man and proceeded to beat him. That day I realized the police were not my friend.

It feels like some police think that they are law rather than uphold the law. It makes me wonder what makes someone become a police officer. Do they dream of being a hero or do they want power over others? Do they want respect or fear? I know it’s not an easy job. Every day there is a chance you won’t come home. Every day you see the worst of humanity. I’m not sure what the answers are to weed the bad cops from the good. I just wish I could go back to the day when I was a little girl waving at the policeman because he was my friend.

April 2, 9, 16 and 23

Overcooked, Overcooked, Overcooked and more Overcooked!

Each Friday we have made progress. On the 9th we finally beat the 1-3 level with three stars. We were stuck on that level since we began. So many times we almost had the last dish to push us over the star limit. We only needed maybe, a second or two. The next week, was really fun because we got to play all the levels. We either topped or tied the previous time we played. At some levels we only played once or twice. They seemed new all over again. The next Friday, we are stuck again on the next level that we need three stars, but there are a couple I’m sure we will beat. Again, we only need a second or two. We have the plate in hand and are just about to put it on the conveyor. Sigh….so close.

My printer story:

I only print something once or twice a year. I always have to buy ink, because it has dried out. I replace the ink and try to print. It only printed in yellow. I clean the printer heads. Again it only prints in yellow. I clean the printer heads and nozzle. It only prints in yellow. I take the ink out of the printer and take a damp paper towel and clean where the ink is. I replace the ink. Prints in yellow. I clean printer heads, nozzle, and run printer alignment. Finally, it prints in other colors! Yeah! I print two pages and now it won’t print because it’s out of yellow ink. Ugh!

The weather is getting nicer and the virus is starting to go away. It is time for us to start exploring again, but I really don’t want to stop playing Overcooked. I am slowly starting to get over my fear of seeing strangers and worrying about getting sick from them. I wonder how long it will take to feel comfortable again. I want to get the vaccine before I start to explore again. I guess we will play Overcooked until then. It will be interesting to see what restaurants have survived and what haven’t. I think maybe we will start by going to our favorite places. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.