A tale of stupidity that might possibly entertain you

[Middle Aged Nerd]

I’ve got several hobbies and all of them are money-suckers. Because of this, I rarely buy video games until they’ve been out for a while – sometimes a long while – and there’s a good 50%-75% sale on STEAM. As such, I didn’t pick up Portal until about 1.5 years ago.

One day, while off from work due to being sick with the flu, I wasn’t in the mood for action/fighting/shooting/things blowing up/etc kind of game and started up Portal for the first time. The art direction and clever sense of humor grabbed me immediately. My brain was hurting (flu, remember) so I figured I would only be able to play for a little while before the much-lauded logic/physics puzzles became too much for my weakened state.

Turns out I was more correct than I thought.

I got to the portal gun – excuse me, the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device – and things went quickly downhill. “WTF is this good for?” I wondered angrily as nothing I tried got it to work. What kind of trick was I supposed to pull? What insidious hidden switch or pressure plate should I have activated that turns the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing on? My mood deteriorated into, “What the hell is wrong with this stupid piece of crap game that it makes it so hard to just use this friggin portal gun!?” I walked away from the game in anger and didn’t return for about a year.

When I did venture back to Portal I realized what you, reader, may have already guessed. Stupidity was indeed the issue – but of course not on the part of the game. It was simply an instance of PEBKAC: Upon my first playing I had at some point in the config menu un-mapped the left mouse button, leaving the blue portal activator blank. No amount of clicking or swearing would have made any blue portal open.

Stupidity and wrongful judging behind me, I now properly love this game because it is awesome.

[Scaehime]

Funny. But what does PEBKAC mean?

[Shiva Winter]

problem exists between keyboard and chair.
i think this guy has something to do with customer support maybe lol

[Scaehime]

Ah. XD
Thanks for clarifying that for me.