No sound while playing games, and how to tturn off the Sourround playing at the back? Original title: Can't turn off surround, only have 2.1 speakers. I only have 2.1 speakers, but in all my games (World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, etc.) I can not hear any sounds coming from behind because there is no way to turn off. Of course, you can turn Homing-Pigeon off when your realize that your insecurities were not warranted, so no message will go out.
Turning Off Game Pigeon Simulator
Kirk Orlo’s minivan hits the slick sheet of black ice at sixty-four miles per hour on January second, twenty-seventeen. This is the day that he and his entire family die, plummeting down the side of an icy mountain. The car immediately lurches out of control and begins to slide rapidly towards the guardrail that marked a sharp turn on the mountain highway. It was a shame, Kirk thought, that he had not bothered to put chains on the car that afternoon before they left, despite numerous reminders from his wife. After all, the trip was only an hour or two back to the city from their cabin, and it had stopped snowing days ago. What were the odds that Kirk would encounter any significant patches of snow? They could always stop the car and put on chains if there was an area too deep to get through safely without them. Besides, Kirk was a good driver. What did his wife know? Well, she’d probably remembered the ice, he’d completely forgotten about black ice. Kirk stole a glance at her as they slid out of control, wondering if she was already displaying a smug look of “I told you so.” No such look was present, just a pale face of terror as she clutched the sides of her seat for dear life, the light of the headlights reflecting off the dark road and back into her frightened eyes. Oh well, Kirk thought. There was no sense in wishing that he could have remembered or slowed down or taken a different route. After all, everything was already set in stone. And so it was that he spun helplessly forward towards his doom.
* * *
Kirk Orlo sips a Piña Colada as he stares off into the sunlit ocean on the island of Maui. The date is February seventeenth, two-thousand-eleven. His wife lies on her back next to him, tanning under the hot sun, while his two children play together on the beach. One of them, who just last week accidentally killed the neighbor’s cat, trips and falls in the sand and begins to cry. Kirk glances at his sleeping wife who doesn’t look like she’ll be getting up anytime soon.
“Go deal with that, hun,” his wife says quietly with her eyes still closed. Kirk reluctantly gets to his feet.
“Stupid kids,” he grumbles under his breath. “Why can’t they just let me relax for once?” The sun beats down on Kirk and a fly buzzes around his drink, mourning the death of its child.
* * *
“Think fast!” Kirk Orlo says as he slings a small stone at his neighbor Robbie Barnes. The young boy is bent over, sifting through bits of the piñata they just broke open for Kirk’s 13th birthday. The rock flies higher than expected, missing Robbie’s butt and shattering the window to Kirk’s parent’s room.
“Kiiiirk!” his mother roars from inside, her face poking through the broken window.
“Robbie did it! I swear!” Kirk shouts without thinking, immediately feeling a small tinge of remorse. But it is too late to take anything back. For the rest of the night Kirk listens to Robbie crying in his room in the old, sagging house across the street, grounded until he pays for the damages. Kirk stares blankly at the remaining slice of birthday cake on his plate. He takes a small bite. It tastes like snow and dust.
* * *
Tomorrow, January twentieth two-thousand-eight, is a very special day. Kirk Orlo is getting married. But he does not feel as elated as he thought he would. Kirk stands at the beige door to his fiancee’s house, holding his clenched fist in midair, deciding whether to knock or not. He knows that he should never have cheated on her, but it wasn’t really his fault, right? She would understand, right? The night before he had been so stressed about the upcoming wedding and the woman at the bar had been so beautiful, and it had all just been so easy. Just like old times, it was all instinct. Kirk knows he should tell his fiancee, but his hand remains suspended in the cold night air.
“I couldn’t help it… I’m sorry,” he said quietly enough to only be heard by himself. Kirk walks back to his rusting car and drives home.
* * *
Kirk Orlo clutched the steering wheel of his mother-in-law’s new BMW. She had decided to let him use it for his behind-the-wheel driving test. The driving instructor, a short, older woman, sat beside him silently, a clipboard in her hands.
“You may start the car.”
Kirk turned the key in the ignition and felt the power of the vehicle surge to life. He put his foot slowly on the gas, and the car began to glide. Kirk started on the route exactly as the instructor described to him, all of his senses tuned in to his environment. The instructor’s pen hovered over her clipboard, waiting to strike if he made any mistakes. Left turn. Right turn. Pedestrian. Speed limit of 35mph. Freeway. Green light, green light, green light, green light… yellow light. Kirk knew he could make it. He pressed down on the pedal and the engine roared.
* * *
Kirk Orlo’s minivan slams into the guardrail at full speed, spinning in circles on the icy road. This breaks his wife out of her terrified trance:
“Oh my god! Kirk!”
The children wake up in the back of the car as the guardrail bends and pops out, both it and the car beginning to fall down the side of the snowy mountain. The screams and crashes of the car and its occupants momentarily break the serenity of the mountain, but they do not last for long. In a mound of rubble, fire, and snow, Kirk ponders his life choices.
Turning Off Game Pigeon Forge
“Why did I get a Piña Colada?” he says, rather faintly from the engine block currently crushing his rib cage. “Mai Tais are so much stronger.” In response to his rhetorical question, the snow begins to fall.
This is the second of a series of “Tralfamadorian” short stories we are posting on the Pigeon Press. The first can be found here, along with a description of the series.