Like Old Times, a short story

Trying Something New

Bright light shining in my face woke me up the next morning. I must have slept way in, I thought. I checked the time, and sure enough it was a bit past 8:00 AM. Shaking my head in frustration, I headed out to the living room to find Luke and hopefully some food.

"You're still in the same clothes you had on last night," Luke said. "That exhausted?"

I nodded faintly. "Yeah. Did you make anything for breakfast?"

"Oh..." he started. "I actually completely forgot. How did I manage that?"

"Probably because I didn't wake up as early as usual and messed up your schedule. It's fine, I'll find something." I rummaged around in the kitchen for a few minutes and found... well, something, obviously. You guys know how me and Tails are with remembering what we eat.

"Hey, Luke?" I asked after eating.

"Yeah?"

"Shelby showed me this really awesome Minecraft mod yesterday, you mind if I go check it out?"

"Sure, do whatever, you know I don't mind."

I slipped back to my game room and caught my eye on the 1660 Ti Shelby had given me the night before. Oh right, I have that. Oh well, it'll only take a few seconds to put in. I flipped the switch on the back of my power supply to off and unplugged it from the wall, then turned the rig sideways so the glass side panel (the removable one) was facing up towards me. Having lost the box for the old card, I opened up the new one and pulled out the hardware. Once I unwrapped it from the anti-static bag (which is what I had been looking for to put the old one in), I got a closer look at it. It was a chunky, dual-fan EVGA model, perfect for the accidental industrial aesthetic my build had ended up with. I set it down on top of the box and popped off my case's side panel, making sure to put it on the carpet floor instead of the hard desk in case I scratched it somehow.

I pulled the screwdriver I'd attached to the case with Velcro strips out into my hand and backed out the screw that attached the old card's bracket to the slots of the case (I mention this because a lot of people forget this screw exists, and often end up ripping slots out of their motherboard because they can't support the weight), then undid the latch and pulled it out, barely remembering to unplug it from my monitors. Sliding it into the anti-static bag I mentioned earlier, I picked up the new one and almost literally dropped it in. (The PC enthusiasts among you are probably inserting a Linus Tech Tips clip right there.) Thankfully I regained control of it and let it slot into, well, the slot. It clicked into place, and I screwed it down after reconnecting the monitors. I put the old one into the new one's box and put the box on a shelf that holds all my old parts, latched the side panel back on, and turned the case upright. Plugging it back in and turning the power supply on, I pressed the power button. After the bootup screen, I got...

Well, I got a blurry, low-resolution image. I knew how to fix that. I headed to EVGA's website and grabbed the latest drivers. I headed back to the bathroom to brush my teeth while those installed.

(Oh, by the way, I'm sorry if that seemed like a big rant of technobabble. I hope I at least explained it well, but Tails has better control of his ramblings...)

I returned to see a much crisper display, as I'd expected. With that out of the way, I pulled the note Shelby had written out of my pocket and looked at the link: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/minecraft-transport-simulator. Entering the link into Firefox, I was greeted with the typical Curse mod page. A big banner that proudly proclaims the name of the mod, followed by all its features, and ending with places you can go if you need help or have a question. Reading the entire page thoroughly, I downloaded the official vehicle set so I had something to play around with before obtaining the latest file for the main mod.

I dropped them both into my mods folder and loaded up the game, which thankfully only took a few seconds due to my utter lack of installed mods compared to Shelby's madness.

I generated a new world, making it flat so I didn't have to worry about finding suitable runways or flat roads. Once it loaded up, I opened the pack's inventory tab to find a couple small planes, a truck, an old SUV, and... not much else. Really? I thought. That's it? None of the other packs looked like they had anything good either... where are the classics? I hovered over one of the colors of the SUV to see that it was a Scout, of the International variety. Alright, fair enough, I conceded. Scout's pretty classic. But let me go back to the page, maybe someone else knows where I can find what I'm looking for...

I switched back to the browser window. I noticed they had a mod Discord at the bottom of the page. I had an account with Discord already, mostly to talk to Shelby since our grade difference was distancing us a bit more, but also to hang out with a few people that enjoyed the same things I did (and obviously still do). I booted up the app, remembering it would have closed after a restart, and pasted the link in.