Mountains, bugs, plans

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October 25, 2024

10:48 pm

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travel

,

Hello everyone,

It’s been a little while ! I needed to go under the covers for a little while to attempt to rest up and recuperate. I’m reasonably sure I had another round of covid … But first, thumbnail ?

Picture. We're looking at a black train with the wheelhouse to the left, the train is pointing to the right. We can see the train's engine. The train is parked at a platform on our side of the train.

Wales trip may have involved a train.

I was being very aware while writing the last post that I was increasingly struggling for brain power as the post was going on and it was a bit of a squeeze getting it out. I didn’t get hit badly physically by the bugs this time, I just got very heavy brain fog from it. It will have been picked up from the Creator North event, with a cluster of people reporting getting bugs not long after. (Wonderful event, have enjoyed the two so far) Some got hit pretty hard and were pretty much bedridden. Whereas I head off to North Wales feeling just mildly off. And then the weekend came and being able to turn off after Wales meant that I very definitely switched off for the weekend. (And had very crunchy upper body too).

It felt like I was working off only less then half the usual amount of brain power and even there, only had brain batteries for like half a day. It hit work quite a bit, although that’s part rationing out what you apply the brain cells to. Some stuff needs doing but doesn’t need that deep thought ? Not quite sure how to say that without saying that I may have been slacking. Sometimes stuff needs the deep thought, sometimes it’s just stuff that can be done on near automatic. Both types of work are needed to get everything done.

Yeah, that affected me for far longer than it should have done. I could still function physically (as far as I can these days) but everything mentally was a big effort. So I stayed away a little bit and also just stayed to familiar games that I didn’t need to learn.

Snowdon ?

Picture. We're looking out of a window at a set of train tracks going into the distance. On the windowshelf in front are three more little train models. We can see the platforms to the left and right.

I’ve been up Snowdon before, a little over ten years ago. We took one of the walking trails that time. I’m not close to that level of fitness these days, plus I fancied looking at the train ride this time. Link there to the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which is 1 hour up, half an hour there, 1 hour back. A leisurely train ride.

Picture. We're looking out of a train window, over a deep valley cut into the hills. We can see a road winding its way through the valley from lower left to middle right.

And a wonderful view out of the side windows (pardon the reflection!)

Picture. We're looking out from the top of Mount Snowdon at the countryside rolling out in front of us. There are several small lakes visible as the valleys connect. The sky is full of thin white cloud, some of which is faintly obscuring the distant view.

And a great view at the summit. I have to admit to struggling a bit at this point. Perhaps the bugs were affecting my lungs a little bit. I didn’t go all the way up to the summit as I was feeling a bit off, light headed and unsteady at the 1085m up that is the Snowdon Mountain Railway station, cafe and shop. Half the pictures are looking at the sky thinking that the clouds were the valleys !

Picture. Another view from the top of Snowdon. We're looking out over the craggy stone path at the rolling countryside of North Wales. It's good weather again, with wispy thin cloud in the sky, covering the landscape in increasing mist.

More view ? Spot the hair between the lens and the camera sensor ! That’s something I’m learning about the mirrorless fancy camera, because you can change the lenses dust and obstructions can get in. Will bear that in mind in future :-D.

Picture. We're looking downwards out of the train window towards a trail cutting its way through the hillside. There is a small building halfway up. The ground is tinged with the green of parched grass that needs a bit of water to waken it up.

There’s people on that there trail … Well worth going up there. Maybe could do with a bit more time up there before the call comes to come back again ? There is a canteen cafe down at the bottom of the hill though.

Picture. We're looking at the railway as it curves to the right. A train is side on to us, ascending the mountain. There is a stony walking trail to the top left, with a small collection of people scattered around it.

Also train, with assorted people dotted around above, descending. It’s a single track railway with a few passing points, which dictates the schedule with trains needing to pause to allow the up train to pass the down train.

What goes up has to come down some time though, so it was back down to Llanberis (home of this railway) and back home again. I could feel the bugs getting in (hope I didn’t pass them on to too many people, I know some people got the bugs from me) and I had 200 miles to go home. It should have taken 4 hours plus a stop or two. It took 7 hours on the road as a couple of incidents on the M6 motorway led to standstill traffic. I did trust the satnav this time, which got me in range of those incident points. I’d gone a different way, more cross country, on the way up. I like to vary the routes I go on.

Mentioning that … there has been some gaming going on in the last month :

Well and truly fell off the Little Big Workshop wheel again with a series of completed runs on that. I’ve been doing challenge runs and making up challenge runs for that. It’s a lovely cute little factory building game where I can set up things for the delightful little idiots (their AI can be a bit flawed and awkward) to assemble to sell.

Star Wars Outlaws took a bit longer than intended (2 months of Ubi+ renting) to finish. I’d thoroughly recommend this one, I really enjoyed running around that world for a while. It has a sizeable Tatooine area around Mos Eisley and other areas of the first films. It’s actually set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and there are a couple of cameos in there from the films.

I’ve also gone back to the two Truck Simulator games this week, with a restart in Euro Truck Sim 2 (to get explorer achievements0 and continuing American Truck Sim. They’re good ones to turn the brain off to again and I’ve been needing to ration the rational thought. Need a new controller though, my one is failing.

I had a look at Shapez 2 and Production Line (car building game) but brain was giving me the nope on those.

There’s also been a bit of reading, maybe more about that in a later post. Highlight of the books was Deep Black by Miles Cameron, continuing on from the very well done space thriller Artifact Space. He’s made a wonderful universe there. Also Thornhedge by T Kingfisher, a very sweet short tale with a twist on Rapunzel and other maiden in the tower stories.

I better hit post there again. Apologies for it being a while again, I wasn’t feeling too well and it took a while to shake it this time. It has been good looking at the pictures again.

I have something special lined up next month too, it’s a … mystery. But it brings me back to last year as well, I need to finish off the cruise posts !

A meet up, 2 castles, 1 mountain, several trains and no boats

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September 24, 2024

7:28 pm

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travel

,

Hello everyone,

It’s been a little while again. Things were getting a little bit draining for a while, although that’s probably a bit down to me not having any time off since June. That’s maybe a bit too long for me. (And I might need another break to recover from the last one!)

Picture. We're looking at a small white saucer, on which is a tasty looking brownie, with a dwagon next door sporting an apron with the words "Feed Me". In front, a ribbon with "Creator North 2024" on it.

First up, heading up the motorway to Sheffield and Creator North for the Saturday. This is an event (linky) run by a little group of wonderful people, that’s LookItsTilly, Maddog, Billietrixx and the always lovely Tashnarr. I’m not going to write too much about this one this year apart from saying that I really enjoyed the day, including being adopted by Ninja Space Unicorn’s people, seeing MiyukiPanda’s new game coming along and having a lovely natter with the other people there.

It did come right at the end of my energy though, with my last break before this one being back in June. Still, it was awesome seeing everyone and because I do act as a bit of a mirror to the people around me, happy people meant I was happy too. Good to see everyone. And a mention for the lovely Curlylocksgamer too, who had been struggling lately but it’s been too to firstly see her back streaming again and second to see her pop up at Creator North and have a great time there.

After a travel day and a chill out day, I was off on the move again …

Picture. We're on the pedestrian part of a bridge, looking across a road (with several cars) towards a castle. There are 5 turrets on the castle, with battlements. The sky is a clear blue with occasional wispy cloud.

I’d abandoned thoughts of something more ambitious like an Isle of Man trip (the ferry crossing timings were NOT working out) and spotted a North Wales trip on GreatLittleBreaks. After one trip with them, I’d go back for more and check out what other options they have. The booking process was easy and there were no issues with anything that was set up. I think it was good value, although it does seem set up for at least 2 guests with a big solo supplement.

Not so much with the hotel … The Sheffield hotel was great, with an older style layout. The Conwy hotel, not so much. The people there were great and the food (fish and chips on first night) tasty but the room was set up with one of those open plan layouts, where the bathroom section isn’t really split off from the rest of the room. I.e. attack of trendy. So that would be … a shower cubicle that has frosted glass to the rest of the room and no full length door to keep the steam behind. Oh and there was a puddle outside the frosted glass short door after the shower too.

Not so good.

Picture. We're looking out over a river / harbour from an elevated position. The town is to the bottom left, with more buildings just about visible on the far side. There is a series of boats tied up alongside and at anchor in the bay. The sky is overcast.

Lovely town though and a great castle visit too.

(gotta note I’m fading a bit as I type and should probably put the dinner on!)

That’s Conwy and the castle was a good little visit. They’ve put a lot of restoration work in to Conwy Castle, with the spiral turret staircases being in very good order. A lot of these castles tend to have worn down steps which can get a bit dangerous, however Conwy’s gives good confidence that you’d be able to get up and down these stairs easily if you’re able to do so. (It’s a little sad that this is an able bodied thing, no wheelchair access, use of cane would be very awkward). And that picture was taken from one of the turrets. The castle is mostly ruined with no internal buildings but most of the towers are in good condition and you can walk around the ramparts.

Worth a visit, great castle. Although I’m still on the hunt for a castle that could be visited by some of the streamer friends who depend on walkers and wheelchairs. They love the pictures I post into discords and it’d be good to find them a castle they are able to fully enjoy if they find themselves visiting the UK.

Picture. We're looking across the shell of the inside of the castle, from the ramparts. In the foreground, is an archway bridge, behind that is a tower with 2 spires. The other side of the river banks are in the distance. Overcast skies again.

Great castle though. And I enjoyed a gentle wander through the town too. But I think I picked up bugs at Creator North and while I was thoroughly ignoring them, I crashed out hard when I got back to the hotel. (Enjoying reading and listening to streams via the hotel wifi). At least, on the second evening, the place across the artificial lagoon wasn’t in party mode (very loud music).

Picture. We're looking out over an artificial lagoon towards hills in the distance and a very yellow Moon. This is light enhanced by the phone, so it's a milky white sky and far brighter than the almost full dark of the day.

Nice place though, peaceful. That’s actually the Moon there. No stargazing on this trip because we had peak moonlight but it was nice walking most of the way around that artificial lagoon on the first evening. That picture is what came out of the phone on the day, it did a lot of light enhancing as the actual conditions were almost full dark with a very bright super moon.

Castle 2 ?

Picture. More castle, we're looking over the top of a series of cars towards the imposing tall walls of a castle citadel, below clear blue skies.

I’d booked a ticket for Snowdon Mountain Railway (might actually leave that for another post, am fading!) for 1500 on the return day, which gave me a morning/early afternoon to play with after checking out of the hotel. I’d been given the idea to visit Caernarfon castle, which was another really good recommendation.

One bit of a surprise is how good the condition of Caernarfon and Conwy Castle is. Whereas the south Wales castles are typically intentionally destroyed and demolished, the two castles I visited in the North were still mostly intact. Part of that is due to Caernarfon Castle still being in active use, it was used for the ?inauguration? ceremony for Prince Charles becoming the Prince of Wales way back when. (Is King now).

Picture. We're inside the castle, looking out over a beautifully mown grassy interior. We can see the castle walls to the left and right, with an intact tower to the left and a somewhat crumbled gate house to the right. Clear blue skies with wispy clouds and the distant towers have a pair of flags flying.

There we are, quite a bit there still, including a very fortified gatehouse (ramp to enter but broken lift). I was definitely feeling impending illness at this point and needed to reserve energy for Snowdon and the drive home so I wasn’t pushing myself at all around this castle but … Well worth a visit again. I think the towers were open and there’s a few good displays in there as well.

I think I will save Snowdon for another post (need to put food on and Pain is happening) but … a couple of great castles to visit, lovely people looking after everyone in the hotel (shame about the attack of trendy with the room design) and I needed to get away for a few days as the temptation is to just stay home, stay in, play games, listen to music.

About that …. I did pick up bugs up in Sheffield. I could feel them starting to take effect on the Tuesday driving up, plus I was hearing reports that other people there were being affected by the bugs too. I also hurt the shoulder again on the Saturday afternoon, one of those where I turn to face someone but leave the arm behind, which is where it gets crunchy. I didn’t feel it on the day (never do) but it’s been very crunchy for the last couple of days. I’ll do that, I’ll keep myself going while I need to (albeit limited at the moment) and then collapse when I don’t need to maintain that level.

Like now ! Time to put the dinner on and look at hopefully posting the Snowdon pics later this week.

Later everyone, before I go though :

Picture. We're looking at a cracked white egg, on a white sheet. Emerging from the egg is a small red dwagon. They're looking up at us with wide, adorable eyes.

There we go, totally adorable new profile pic and one of the bits of loot taken away from North Wales last week.

You can pet the “dog”

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August 29, 2024

10:46 pm

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musing

,

Hello everyone,

It’s been a while again … Time for a little check from last time :-D. Ah ha ! The Olympics had just started up. It was a good games again too, I quite enjoyed watching what I was seeing there. I haven’t posted in a little while because to be honest, the burn out was hitting again. Thumbnail first ?

Picture. We're looking at a blue poster with the title "I'm going to Creator North". It has the date September 14and the location Kommune, Sheffield. In the centre, is a small green dwagon holding a red heart shape in front of him.

There we go, that’ll do.

Really looking forward to that event, it’s coming up in a few weeks and it’ll involve a weekend trip. It’s the second time it’s been run after a fun first event last year. Here’s the link to what I wrote after last time. This year’s event is going to be a bit bigger. I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be a chance to meet up again with friends from last year, friends from streams going back a long time and friends from new streams that I haven’t seen in person before.

It’ll hopefully grow even more, especially in the wake of the Insomnia Gaming Festival disappearing earlier this year. We’ll see. Fingers crossed. We do have MCM Comic Con as well and various other Comic Cons but it would be good to see the seed started by some very lovely people running the Creator events continue to grow.

I do sometimes wonder where I fit in with events like this one though. I do Create, although I do skip from thing to thing. The blogs have been a mostly continuous thing going back 19 years now over the two sites. There was a quick look at seeing what was needed to do Youtube videos (link to channel for those curious) but I didn’t continue that because it would have taken a lot of time to grow into something that would provide a return on the time. Plus it would have needed sacrifices including giving up listening to copyrighted music all the time (it’d be picked up on the mic and detected) and the stream watching. There was the sketching, although that stopped 4 years ago when I think that’s when I slammed into the burn out wall.

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a cute sleeping grey and white kitten on a white blanket. The captions are "I would be unstoppable" "If not for the tired sleepy"

I’m still in that burn out now, it doesn’t feel like it has eased at all. Maybe even deeper. I’m ok, hanging in there but it definitely feels like I’ll need to be taking care of myself a bit better. Maybe even doing more stuff out of the ordinary like the cruise last year. I think I really needed that removal from the normal for a while. That’s odd isn’t it … deal with tiredness by going off and doing something.

I don’t think I’ve ever been normal there in how I react to stuff. When I do take time off and do the restful thing of staying at home, I won’t exactly do very much (apart from gaming and listening to stuff). And I’ll be thinking throughout that I should be getting out and about and having that hit my mental state in a negative way. And my mental state is, to be honest, not that great at the moment.

There’s a lot of things to that, a lot of things pulling that mental state downwards. And I wouldn’t want to talk about too many of those here. (Some are work, some are definitely behind the personal stuff wall). Some of it is down to the state of my outsides, where I’ll slowly heal up (my arms are actually mostly ok now) and then over a single event, that healing will go dramatically backwards again. That’s part stress, a little bit of what I might have eaten or just attacking stuff when my guard’s down when I’m attempting to sleep.

And, being honest again, I’m not seeing the way out of the burn out at the moment.

But … I’m getting a bit of time off into the books after the Creator North event. I do need to get a trip booked in for some of that time and a return to Legoland is definitely looking tempting. I would like to find some chances to get myself somewhere to see the stars. That could have happened last weekend but my arms had just stabilised again after doing even more damage to them.

(if you’re reading this and thinking that there’s self harm going on, that’s kinda true. But it’s because my skin went super delicate after all the issues over the last decade. But it’s not self harm that would see me going into an ambulance, it’s more like if I scratch too much, I do a lot of damage. My mental health isn’t great but it’s not down at That Place).

Just a note on that above – it’s ok to not be ok, just please give yourself a chance to climb out if you’re in that pit. And that can be just being around communities like the discords. It might not be sharing your difficulties but even just popping up every once in a while and saying hi is great for the soul. And when you can’t see your own worth, there will be a bunch of people who will be really happy to see that you’ve popped up and that you’re still around. And sometimes, putting up a paw and saying hi is all we have the energy to do. It definitely makes me smile when I put a hello emote into a stream chat and a “SLEEPY” or “DWAGON” comes back from the person streaming.

“Can we pet the dog?”

I’ve been in the games again, with me enjoying running a few more factories in Little Big Workshop to conclusion. It’s a fun, cute little honest factory building game and I just keep going back to it. There’s a progression to it and I like to see the cute little idiot (the game can have some issues with priorities) gnomes go about building stuff.

Motorsport Manager has finished another segment of the latest megacampaign, so I’ve switched teams again after winning again. It’s a game where you can just keep on going with it, I’m in the year 2052 now. Inflation isn’t a thing in the game, outside of people wanting more money as they get better. Old drivers retire and get replaced by newly generated 18-20 year old drivers. It works well for a megacampaign where as you go on, it’s still all new.

Picture. We're looking at a heap of snacks arranged on a light blue bed sheet in front of a box of Lego. The Lego box has the word Jaws on it and has a picture of a black and yellow trawler boat being chased by a shark. We also see the red dwagon plush to the left.

Dredge came out with a new DLC, with an Iron Rig, I enjoyed playing through that after it released. And I managed to get to Cardiff as well to grab the unofficial Lego tie in. Comes with free shark, does not include game. Gonna need bigger shelf. (And steadily making a dent in the snacks)

And the latest one is Star Wars Outlaws …

Game screenshot. Star Wars Outlaws. We're looking at a dark scene inside a cavern of orange rock. In the centre, a starfighter is being disassembled and we see other mechanical debris scattered around. Our character is bottom left, hiding behind a barrier.

This one is a sneaky game and I’ve really enjoyed dipping into it for the last couple of evenings after closing up the work laptop. It places you in the Star Wars universe as a smuggler scoundrel lady with an adorable companion. Instead of lightsabers and the Force, it sees you relying on stealth and guile and a reliable blaster at your side. It is very expensive (£75 for the equivalent of what I’m playing) but I’m actually kinda just renting it on the monthly subscription (£15) so I’m looking at crashing through the game so I can drop that sub again. I don’t think I’ll have a problem doing that :-D.

Oh and you have a companion too, a little adorable doglike critter who you can send off to do stuff like :

Distract – it’ll go off and dramatically play dead in front of guards, so you can sneak past them while they’re looking the other way.

Steal – little dude is an arch thief.

Hit switches – like turning power off for a camera

And probably more too. I dunno, it feels like whereas I bounced off Starfield pretty hard (just didn’t engage with that future humanity thing), I’m quite engaged with the early days of Star Wars Outlaws.

Game screenshot. Star Wars Outlaws. We're looking at scenes from a city street, with our character in white tunic and dark trousers leaning over to scratch the little blue critter on the head.

And you can pet the “dog”.

I think I need to disappear now (2240 and I want to get some reading in !). Look after yourselves, have a lovely weekend. One way I look out for my mental state is doing things for other people, although that kinda depends on other people to do the nice things for. Hope you find your way too. Time to open up Seventh Bride by T Kingfisher again after enjoying Michael Palin’s Pole to Pole.

🙂

Hot Olympic Action

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July 30, 2024

8:44 pm

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events

Hello everyone,

It’s summer again which mostly means attempting to retreat to places where it’s cool … Oh and occasionally dodging energetic thunderstorms too. I think we’re due one of them later in the week.

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a tiny dark green dragon perched on a finger. Steam is coming out of its mouth. The caption is "Please take great care out in the hills and mountains of Wales today. The heatwave is prematurely hatching the eggs of the Welsh dragon. If you come across a baby dragon just leave it be, do not take it home. Dragons do not make good pets, they very quickly get too hot to handle."
I wonder if this will get the post blocked on Facebook again

The usual thing to say about GB weather is … it’s not that hot ! And it isn’t, the car was saying 32 C down to 29 by the time I get home. (cars will heat soak when they’re not moving). The room fan is saying 26 C. It’s Britain though, our houses and our bodies are set up to survive in temperatures that could range from minus 10 C (not seen that for a while) up to the high 30s. And we only have air conditioning in the cars. (So with no England cricket on this Friday, could be a short road trip ? Maybe).

I’ve been away from the blog for a little while. Same as usual there, I might not have something that sparks the inspiration off, I might be wanting to break up things like multiple lego build posts, or other similar themed posts. Lego ? I have more of that now … Oh and I still need to post the Caerphilly castle pictures at some point.

And there’s me getting distracted again. I did have a week off at the end of June (that feels a long time ago now). I’ll be looking to set up more away time soon, which could be :

Road trip Isle of Man via the ferry;

Scotland cottage for a week;

And the lovely Batkitto (from Twitch) was suggesting Halloween in Disney Paris with perhaps a few community members along, which would be a fun little extended excursion if it happens. Disney Orlando was a great fortnight holiday for me (summer 2005), it was just a shame what happened with the personal life upheaval when we got back. (That’s one for the dim and distant past).

I’ll be looking at September there probably for Isle of Man (or Isle of Wight) or Scotland, it’s cheaper and schools will be back so it’ll be quieter. And maybe with a cottage with a few rooms, I can bring a Friend along too.

Olympic action ?

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a black and white cat, intently looking at something to the right, they're hidden behind a small mound of snow. The captions are "Sly sneaks one past the competition in the Snow Stalking event." "A gold medal for sure - if the judges can even find her."

I do like Olympics times, both Winter and Summer. It’s a chance for a lot of sports that normally barely get any coverage to come out and have their time in the limelight. Maybe some of them get more attention than others should get ? It’s good to see the snippets. Plus it can definitely be a case of “ok, that’s enough of that for now to keep me satisfied for the next 4 years”.

Kinda like the swimming on at the moment, I want to know who is going to win. But … you see a couple of races, you’ve seen them all. Same with athletics, the skill seems to be in the preparation of the athlete in training and it’s just unleashing that potential in the race. There’s very little reaction to what the other people in the race are doing.

And that’s where the competition is for me, like in the Rugby Sevens where it’s a team game. I used to watch a lot more rugby (well … the Six Nations tournament) but drifted away from watching rugby because the rules changed far too often, going beyond small tinkering. It felt like the players were struggling to keep up and the quality of the games suffered as a result.

Cricket isn’t in the Olympics (honestly don’t think it should, not enough countries play it) but I mention it because they’ve steadily tinkered with the rules but … they’ve kept it to a way that enhances the game without changing it. Like adding in a very well grooved and efficient Decision Referral System for close decisions and giving the on field umpires a hand with No Ball flagging. (A No ball is when a bowler is too close when they let the ball go, it means an extra ball is needed where the batters can’t get out)

It’s good to watch the cycling races as they steadily evolve. There’s skill, judgment and intelligence needed there for deciding which breakaway group to go with and how much to help out in getting them clear of the pack. Do they help a rival that could get the gold instead ? Or do they drag them back to the group and let other rivals back in to the race …

Oh no, there is a “meet the athletes” segment on at the moment to ignore. I know it’s filler but … there’s plenty of other events which aren’t being covered and it would be good to see some of that instead of very cringeworthy shorts.

Hopefully we’ll see some of the sailing, we barely see any of that. And that’s a genuine test of skill where sailors will be chasing the optimum path through to have their boats catch the best amount of wind.

Bit toasty here and I need to add more warm in because I haven’t had any dinner yet (oops) so I think I’ll wrap up here for now.

Good to post again, it’s been a bit too long. My own condition has been … middling again, I’ve perhaps been a bit too distracted by World of Warcraft again :

Game screenshot. World of Warcraft. We're looking at the character selection screen with 4 characters and various menu buttons around the screen. Left to right we have Iceangel kneeling in purple robes and pointy hat. Bashara in armour. Keeladanna is a bear like biped standing up and Ninkinanka is a short gnome with a gun. They're gathered around a camp fire.

That’s my current 4 active characters with left to right being :

Iceangel the mage – because mage is a character class I’ve been playing in WoW for 19 years now and I’m familiar with it. Iceangel is pretty much the main character, first to go through new stuff.

Bashara the warrior (bashes things) – I’m playing as a damage character at the moment for levelling up but this character might end up tanking (being the character that soaks up the damage and collects the enemies together so they don’t go for the squishier characters).

Keeladanna is a Pandaran Shaman – currently set up to hit things really hard and throw elemental damage at the enemies (lightning, lava, windfury air attacks) but the shamans can be set up as healers as well.

And Ninkinanka, gnome hunter – Ninki Nanka is a name from West African dragon lore. From the wiki … “local residents were “dogged by fear of devils and chief among these is the Ninki Nanka… [If] seen by a man is a sure sign of approaching death.”” I saw the name and thought it felt in keeping with the gnomes, plus that’s a really cool meaning for the name.

Eek ! Time to put the dinner on. Nite all, hope you’re having a lovely summer.

Talking cameras …

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July 9, 2024

10:30 pm

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photography

,

Hello everyone,

I’m just looking at that title again and am now wondering about cameras that talk. Would they look at the picture you just took and start describing it like alt text ? Would they critique your style or make suggestions ? Could it say “Bright light bright light” if the exposure is too much ?

I think we need a picture …

Picture. We're looking at a brown dog, lying down on a sofa. He's looking up and left, with a very greying muzzle.

Aww. That’s lovely dear heart Ben who was with us for quite a few years. Always a little bundle of staffy bull terrier love, very inquisitive and deeply protective of his people. And the perfect model to start off the post with. Good to see the old chap again.

I was wondering about cameras and what to recommend people get. That picture above is with the ancient iPhone 5 camera, apparently downscaled to 960×720 from the camera’s native resolution. Bit fuzzy but still a nice picture there, if you ignore the crack in the lens :-D. The crack was actually the catalyst to me changing phones over to the Samsung Galaxy S7 which kept me going until I switched to the exceptional Pixel 4.

(side note – gotta admit I’m struggling for mental batteries at the moment although I was able to demolish a couple of books over the weekend, we’ll see where this post goes).

I didn’t have the Pixel 4 for that long before disappearing over to Canada for work … and then a pandemic broke out and I wasn’t taking pictures of much except for apparently my old sketch art.

Picture. We're looking at a fairly rough sketch of a green dwagon sitting on his butt. He's wearing a pair of glasses and has a book held open in front of him.

Hopefully the more processed version of that is visible at the top of the page. I should probably attempt the sketching again, I kinda moved back to more digital art and the photography stuff in particular.

Picture. We're looking at an enormous dark green 20 sided dice. Around it is curled the 3d printed rainbow crystal dwagon.

That’s a more recent one, taken on my desk. Yep, looks like I was using my little pen torch for extra illumination too. This actually gets me to a first point about mobiles vs cameras … usability !

I knew we’d accidentally stumble upon the purpose of this post eventually :-D.

I’d been thinking about whether it’s worth people getting a full sized camera these days, or if it’s ok to stay with a mobile phone. The phone cameras have come a long way since those early days. Ignore the number of pixels (although I’ll come back to that), just think about usability and how much the camera does for you.

In the case of the dwagon dice, that could have needed 3 hands because a phone is actually a bit awkward to hold as a camera. There’s no strap with them usually and you can’t be touching the screen. So you have to hold them by the edge and with a spare finger for the shutter button. Add a third hand if you’re using a separate light. However, you can get round that by using the timer. Sorted !

Depth of field can be a curious thing to play with as well … For this close work, I’ll traditionally hold the camera away from the thing I’m taking the picture of and cut it to size. Try it with your own cameras … see what you think. If the camera is close, it’ll all go a bit fish eye. If you hold it back a bit, then it’s a flatter image. Check it out ! Experiment, see what happens and enjoy learning how to get the best out of what you have. And there are so many pixels in our cameras now that we can easily crop out the extras (no one sees my desk 😀 ) and still have an amazing image.

I could use the R50 for these but … is it necessary ? One big difference is that with the strap to hold it normally, I can quickly pull that camera up with one hand and tap the shutter button. Maybe the left hand is operating the in and out of the zoom lens. The Ixus was a bit different there, as the zoom was on a ring around the shutter button. Actually physically moving the lens works better.

Proper camera time ?

Picture. We're looking out over a cricket field with the stumps in the centre. A wicket keeper is standing behind the stumps, gloves ready for the ball. The batsman has his bat held in front and they're about to set off to the right. The white ball can be faintly seen in front of the stumps.

There’s a cricket one taken by the Ixus a few years ago. One thing here is that the picture is taken with the camera braced on my knee, with it maybe being a bit too small to comfortably sit in an exact position. The picture isn’t quite centred there because it would move on the shutter. If you’re able to zoom in there, it’s a bit more mushy than …

Picture. We're looking at the cricket field again, with two players in the centre and a third player looking on behind. The white ball can be seen slightly behind the batsman.

That’s from the R50, taken this summer. It’s kinda night and day there with the sharpness, especially when you consider that it looks like the Ixus picture was taken in much better light conditions.

That gets me to another point ! Is it worth buying a cheaper digital camera in this technological age when mobile phone cameras are so incredibly good ? I don’t honestly think it is.

Let’s see :

Mobile phone camera – easy, portable, maybe a bit difficult to use one handed but includes a timer function that helps there. Huge amount of intelligence in the software tools to help make a perfect image. (Except for that tool that picks out different faces for people – I think that’s a bit of an abomination). You can take selfies with them.

Cheaper digital camera – don’t bother, they’re too compromised. It was exceptionally difficult to reliably get a good picture with the Ixus, although the image stabilisation has hopefully been improved. However, you can’t change the lens, you can only work with what’s been provided. Selfies were impossible with the Ixus (too blurry).

DSLR or Mirrorless camera – if you can afford them (and I got the second cheapest Canon), then they are massively worth the investment. The R50 has made it ridiculously easy to take snapshot pictures that have all turned out really well. Another one ?

Picture. We're looking across the central hall of the Excel Exhibition arena at a motley collection of 5 characters in assorted fantasy style outfits.

That’s actually a resurrected one from Comic Con. The original saw the people there in silhouette due to the lighting behind them. You couldn’t really see their outfits. This is with a basic Auto – Equalise filter in GIMP which has started bringing out the colour again.

Whereas I’ve done that in post processing in GIMP, a recent mobile (my Pixel 4 is from 2020) will include similar enhancement abilities.

One issue though is the battery. I did a precautionary change of the R50 battery on the Lords day with over 294 pictures taken with it on the day with a bunch deleted because they weren’t interesting. If you’re looking to use a mobile phone as a camera, you’ll need a couple of power bank things to take with you and that leads to awkward when you need to charge them up.

So …

Cheap camera like the Ixus’s and Powershots – don’t bother, use a mobile phone instead (with a powerbank to feed the battery regularly). It’s just so much easier to do stuff with the pictures via the mobile, you can upload them direct to where you want to show them off.

Mobile phone – I’m really impressed with how much they can do now. However … they do have their limits imposed with the space they have to fit in to. It’s pushing the boundaries of the physics of how the light travels around. (And battery life is nasty)

DSLR or Mirrorless camera – I think they’re worth the investment if you’re going places with a camera and want to share what you’re seeing with people. The ability to swap over lenses adds a lot of flexibility there. The bigger R50 (compared to the tiny Ixus) is a lot easier for my suffering eyes to set up a shot.

I think that’s it for my brain for tonight. Hope this was useful for anyone thinking about cameras.

Just remember, it’s your money to spend, you don’t have any obligation to spend it if you’re not comfortable that it’s going to the right place. Check out what you’re looking at via independent reviews. I don’t count me as independent, even if I’ve had no freebies, I only have recent knowledge of the Canon cameras (haha, no free samples to test the opposition with!) and older knowledge of a massively battery hungry Nikon.

And if you do go to fun places and want to share, enjoy the day out, capture the memories and share the best ones.

Goodnight everyone, have a great rest of the week.

Up and Down week, plus castle

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June 25, 2024

9:17 pm

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Hello everyone,

Back at work after a week off last week, including a different castle to today’s castle … Where did I leave it last time ?

Picture. We're looking in to the back of my car, with a sad looking red plushie dwagon sitting on the rear parcel shelf above the boot.

After talking about the Nurburgring not-quite 24 hour race last time, weekend before last was the Le Mans 24 hours. We got a full 24 hour race in this time ! Hurrah. Whereas the Nurburgring circuit is up in the Eiffel Mountains, the Le Mans track is in a region of France with a kinder climate for racing … Good race, actually had Racing Dwagon there too.

Picture. We're looking at a screenshot from a web browser with the selected tab showing a purple racing car stopped outside its pit garage. It's taking on fuel via a couple of mechanics on the far side of the car.

There we are. That’s Spike the racing car dragon from the AO racing team. They did good this year, getting on the podium for the LMP2 class.

Whereas the Nurburgring race has a multitude of classes, Le Mans under World Endurance Championship rules has 3 … Fastest are the hypercars, which look like Spike above but a little bigger and with more power. That’s an LMP2 car above, or Le Mans Prototype class 2 which have open rules for the body and aerodynamics but a fixed engine and gearbox powertrain. We also see the GT3 cars racing here, which meant following the Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan again. They did pretty well, staying up with the leading group and finishing 5th in class. I think they may have had a great chance for a podium here but I think they were suffering from one of the LMP2s attempting to demolish their car before nightfall on the Saturday.

I didn’t stay awake for the full thing this time, abandoning the screen for a nap after things got dark. Which was probably a wise decision because they were running for about 4 hours behind the safety car due to heavy rain. Not much to see there.

Castle ?

Picture. We're looking at an old castle on top of a grassy mound. The entrance way is to the right, with a larger tower to the left. A path is in front of us, going from left to right.

That’s me going back in time a bit to the start of June and me paying a visit to Chepstow Castle. Quite a bit surviving of this one as well. The upper levels of the gatehouse there were closed off but I was able to explore the ramparts and see what was left of the rest of the castle.

(Side note – I’ve developed extreme soreness and stiffness in my shoulders after a WoW session earlier and may have to bomb out of post quickly … let’s see how much I manage)

Pictures. This is a collection of 4 displays of the castle from just a rectangular building on the left, with further walls and towers being added on as we go from left to right.

That’s how Chepstow castle had evolved in its early years from the original Keep on the left, to the more extensive grounds on the right. There’s a decent amount to see at this castle and a collection of informative educational displays there too, so it’s well worth a visit to check it out. I’m not going to put the full info here but from left to right there we see :

1067-1087 (old!) The Original Great Tower standing on its own.

What’s not really shown too well there is the river to the right of the castle, forming natural defences for that side. Joining those was the Great Tower Surround, with curtain walls and a gate house surrounding a fairly extensive courtyard.

1189-1245 saw William Marshal and sons expand the castle further, with a bit more land grabbed plus defensive towers.

1270-1306 saw further expansion to the far end, enclosing a little bit more private area.

That’s all to protect the town, with Chepstow being close to the mouth of the Severn Estuary on the border between England and Wales. Just had a curious thought there … nowadays, we have two Bridges that make the crossing between England and Wales there quite trivial. It’s a couple of minutes driving to cross the newer bridge. When these castles were built, there were no bridges that long and it would have been 1 or 2 miles (depending on where you’d cross) by boat to go from England to Wales.

Picture. We're looking out over a wide very brown looking river. In the distance, a far bank that is dominated by trees. There is a white painted bridge with stone pillars crossing the river. To the right, we see the walls of the castle extending down to a vertical rock that goes down to the river.

That’s from quite high up in the castle. As well as having that excellent natural barrier with the river, there are commanding views as well.

Good little wander at the start of the month. (May have been combined with stocking up on snacks too)

Picture. We're on the stone ramparts of the castle, with the walkway heading off on the left side towards a stone tower. To the right, an expanse of green countryside with a little bit of town visible around the trees. The sky is covered with light white cloud.

Great views too. I have to admit, when I went out there I wasn’t prepared for the day being a bit warmer than anticipated. I may have ended up getting a bit cooked due to forgetting to take a water bottle. So perhaps not quite as much wander as there might have been.

(I’m running out of steam and need to retreat into book, Batkitto streaming and not moving my arms much – ouchie!)

Other stuff as well as castle trip ? I’ve been struggling with a skin break out for about a month now. I was just about ok at Comic Con still but things were declining after that. I’m pretty sure it’s stabilised now and is recovering but as always with this thing, it always takes far longer to recover than it took to erupt. And I’m part of the problem there because I’ll set back the healing by attacking the damaged areas.

Warcraft has been happening … it’s been good being back in the game again, with my time so far being spent doing the quest running with 4 characters so far doing different stories. More on that in a later post probably.

I think I’ve done a little more damage to the car as well … the low tyre pressure light came on and I think that might be due to an altercation with a kerb in a car park. It’s the correct tyre. Only a slow leak but … gotta watch those kerbs cos they bite.

Picture. We're inside the castle looking towards a sunlit window. The walls are stone brick, with lovely arches above.

Last one. That’s one from the larder area of the castle and I’ve picked this one out due to how the camera has done with it. The R50 is being a lovely camera from just being able to be super lazy with setting up the pictures with it. I’ve been remembering things like rule of 3 (the 9 box grid for spacing) and trying to get myself into good places for taking the picture. But the camera is doing the rest with flawless detailed pictures on automatic all the way.

The pictures here (except sad dwagon!) are all reduced from the native 6000×4000 to 2000×1333 but the detail is still all there and I’m really happy with how the R50 is pulling all that detail into the pictures. And it’s on snapshot style picture taking too where I’m not doing things like bracing the camera at all.

I’ll leave it there so I can grab a snack, some more water (it be warm!), pay the lovely Batkitto the full attention this lovely Scottish lady streamer deserves while disappearing into book. I’m in book 3 of The Belt series (not the Expanse) which is a curious space scifi set of books. I’m curious as to where they will go.

Later everyone.

A long time to do a race ?

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June 13, 2024

10:47 pm

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Hello everyone,

Le Mans weekend coming up and the start of a week off for me. Not going anywhere except maybe day trips … just looking to chill out and there’s some stuff that really needs catching up on at home too. I’ve hit pretty severe energy debt so I need to heavily go on the recharging. I’m looking forward to the race, there’s something very compelling about the endurance racing and GT format. How about a meme though …

Picture. We're looking at a captioned picture of a race track. Lower left, a motorcycle rider in mostly white overalls is kneeling on the track, looking at his red and white motorbike, which is sliding up the track on its side. Captions : "Motorcycle curling. Harder than you think"

A couple of weekends ago, I was watching the Nurburgring 24 hours race. There are several big endurance events during the year around the various championships and Nurburgring fell at the start of June this year. It’s held at the Nurburgring Nordschleife race track in the Eiffel Mountains and I think it’s the longest active racetrack in the world at the moment.

Picture. We're looking at a video window inside a browser. In the background, a very high zoomed out view of a race track winding its way through fields to the left and forest to the right. Over the top is a layout of this almost 26km racetrack.

Lots of screenshots coming from the Chrome window I was using to watch the race. The Nordschleife is a massive extension to the Nurburgring Grand Prix track which takes up the tiny little bit in the bottom left of that track layout. The track itself is 25.378km long, or 15.86 miles. This year, there were 127 cars starting the race of all of the different classes from the GT3 cars which go round the track in 8 and a bit minutes, to the front drive touring car type racers that take more like 12 to 13 minutes to do a lap.

Picture. We're looking at the video again, with 3 race cars on a starting grid and a safety car ahead of them.

That’s a Herbie lining up on the starting grid. This was a VW Beetle RSR, one of 5 cars in the SP 3T class for little cars with turbos. This class also had the crowd favourite Dacia Logan. The first Dacia in the race was destroyed last year in a huge crash in the night time and they came back with an upgraded one this year.

It makes for compelling racing with cars of different speeds and capabilities racing each other. The classes are limited mostly by engine size and whether they have a turbo. There’s an article about it at the link here. There is also a Balance of Performance system, which looks to even out the small differences in the cars. Sometimes they get it wrong and a car gets overly restricted but most of the time, they get the cars supremely well balanced against each other. There’s still overtaking but it means that as the race develops, you have no idea who will come out on top at the end. At Nurburgring, this goes into the pit stops as well. Instead of racing style pit stops, all of the teams have an enforced minimum pit stop time so that no one is disadvantaged if their pit area has a slower fuel pump than the others.

Picture. We're looking at the winding corners of a race track, with a succession of cars rolling through on the formation lap before the actual race. The side of the track is thronged with spectators a couple of rows deep.

The race is a firm favourite with fans as well. This was from the formation lap, where the crowds are allowed in to cheer on the cars they’re following. And then they have plenty of time to retreat behind the barriers before the cars come back round, at racing speeds.

Picture. We're looking at the aftermath of a crash. Two cars are to the side of the track, one has its nose embedded in the car in front of it. A medical car is to the right. The drivers are sitting and standing by the crash barrier to the left, with track marshals looking after them.

And incidents definitely do happen, with the crowds being kept well away from any flying bits of motorcar like what happened in the incident above. Both drivers ok, just shaken up. The one in the sideways car took a turn on the commentary later as well.

What happened there was another car had dropped down oil on the track, which caused the grey car ahead to have a heavy crash. The driver stayed inside until the marshals could get them, which was a Very Good Thing as the driver of the red car also caught the oil at high speed and was out of control right into when they went into the other car. Both drivers ok, the safety standards in these cars are excellent.

Incidents occur throughout the race and the teams are allowed to recover cars in trouble and attempt to repair them enough to get them back racing again. Often, I’ll have the leaderboard as the active window and I’ll be listening in to the commentary while watching the numbers on the timing screen. The coverage is free via Youtube by the way, there’s no paywall (Le Mans is either paywalled for uninterrupted coverage or 25% ads on Channel Not To Be Named).

Picture. We're looking at a screenshot of the leaderboard timings screen. It's an absolute sea of numbers, with the teams on the left, the lap numbers and time differences in the middle and the time they've taken to do the separate parts of the track on the right.
MANY NUMBERS

That’s the timing screen, with the lap being broken up into the sectors. I’m usually watching the numbers for the tail end of the field, where fast cars that have hit trouble are attempting to catch back up again. Or cars like the Dacia are steadily climbing up the field past cars that have had an incident. The commentary for the race is always very clear and interesting to listen to, maintaining what they do over the full duration of the race.

Oh ! Looking in there, you’ll see some numbers like the 29:33.804 where a car has taken half an hour to catch up with someone who has crashed. It makes a delightful mess of the timing screen :-D. Or it could even be the Glickenhaus car down in 118th place there, which had just got back on the track after over an hour in the pits for repairs. (It had a new engine the night before the race and continued to have issues).

Sometimes the cars have really bad issues, or they decide to follow the crowd and start up the barbecue in the evening.

Picture. We're looking at the race track in a darkening scene being lit up by a car stopped at the far side, on fire. A line of fire runs back a decent way from the car.

Yep, there’s a car at the end of that line of fire … Driver ok again but that car wasn’t going anywhere after that. It probably had a fuel line pop off.

But with the darkening scene above, that marks the time to start wrapping up here … I had a feeling that we weren’t going to get a full 24 hours of race, the weather prediction was showing consistent rain which means cloud. The Nurburgring is situation up in those Eiffel Mountains, which means the circuit is prone to being affected by low cloud and fog. The race was red flag stopped at about midnight 20 local time as thickening fog made it too dangerous to race. There was an attempt to restart coming up to the end, with several laps behind the safety car before …

Picture. We're looking at the finish line for the race. A blurred blue car is crossing the line to the right, with more cars to the left. A lady in blue coat and black trousers is waving a black and white chequered flag.
There’s a grand stand over there I think

The race was called off due to the heavy fog. A sad end to a race that showed a lot of promise for its first third, not even a sprint at the end to let them race it out for a lap or two.

So, sad end to the race this time but I’ll be looking forwards to the next one in June next year, although it looks like the actual race date will be shifted so it doesn’t clash with Le Mans.

That’s going to be my weekend after tying up loose ends at work tomorrow. Hope it’s a good race ! Have a great weekend everyone.

A Dwagon and Friend go to Comic Con

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June 7, 2024

7:49 pm

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Hello everyone,

I was thinking that it’s been a while but actually just a few weeks. I’m actually a couple of posts behind, even after this one. It’s been a good but draining month or so, I’m definitely in need of taking a break from things for a while. (Don’t worry, I’m working next week then have next week off). So, what happened on the May Bank Holiday weekend ?

Picture. We're looking at a gathering of lovely looking people people dressed in elaborate and very cute anime character style outfits.

We haven’t been able to get to a Comic Con since before the pandemic, so it was a lovely day to be able to make that trip with Comic Con Friend. It’s been 5 years since we’ve been able to make that trip together (there was the Oct Comic Con trip too but that was just me.). And there was another smuggle again 🙂 It was a good smuggle.

So, what happens at Comic Con ? Lots of merch, lots of stands with things to see. Comics, anime, very creative art of all different kinds. Wonderful cosplay like what we see in the picture above, from all genres.

Picture. We're looking at two people standing side by side. One is in t-shirt and trousers. The other is ... on bladed stilts, has a pair of bladed poles as arm extensions and a helmet with an extremely long proboscis.

I have no idea what genre that’s from but the amount of work that’s gone into making something that good is incredible. Top job, totally salute you there. I definitely haven’t done it justice with the alt-text.

There’s always lots to see and it’s much better to experience it with a friend coming along too. I like seeing the different artists work, especially the stuff that comes from their own imaginations instead of being inspired by the other media out there. That’s the best thing, seeing what everyone has to say and produce to show us. Be that super cute cards, detailed art to go with stories, quick funny cartoons or stunningly well realised artwork that needs to be seen.

Picture. We're looking at a Doctor Who Dalek, gliding through a crowd of amused looking people. The dalek is a grey pepper pot style machine, with gun and manipulator stalks in front (left of picture). The lower half is ringed by black hemispheres.

There was a small cadre of Daleks patrolling the show, possibly in search of the Tenth Doctor who was there in the very tight blue suit outfit. I saw him there (perfect cosplay down to the appearance and body language) but he zipped away too fast for a picture.

Picture. We're looking at a statue of a dragon, sitting on its haunches. The dragon is perhaps 8 foot tall. Their scales are dark green, with a yellow belly stretching from neck to paws. The inside of their wings is blue.

Also dragon.

Talking of dragons, I haven’t got to the loot yet … Scorch’s Pyrography was there and it was great to see her making it to the show. She’s been in the wars recently breaking all four limbs in a bus related accident (ambushed by pavement) so it was good to see her recovered enough to make the show. There was also Ocean City Crafts … They do wonderful things with 3d printing :

Picture. We're looking at a trader's stall. A black cloth is covering a table which is absolutely covered with mythical creatures of all kinds and colours.

That’s all 3d printed creatures, including multiple types of dragon and all different colours too. They’re fully articulated as well, with the resin segments linked together. I was a little doubtful but bought one (will show pic later) and I’m rather impressed. Well worth checking them out, hopefully we’ll see them going to more shows.

Gosh, think I’m running out of steam. I did get bitten mildly by something while at Comic Con (was ok, just a little out of sorts for the week after!) and I’m heading towards the end of the energies so I’ll close up soon. My outsides have considerably worsened as well, hopefully that’s turned the corner now into actively healing.

There are more pictures than I’ll show here, mostly because I’m very careful about putting pictures of me or friend people on the blog. When something’s on the internet, it’s very difficult to take it back again. So while selfie pictures of the shoulder dwagon are on Facebook and various Discords, they won’t go here. Same as there are a few lovely pictures of Comic Con Friend from the Sunday and other people which I’m careful about where they go to.

Shoulder dwagon ?

Picture. We're looking downwards at 3 objects on a dark table. On the left, a blue green dwagon made up of crystal like spines, with orange paws. Lower right, a chocolate chip cookie. Behind, a large green 20 sided dice with gold coloured numbers.

There we go. Possible deceptive sizes there 😀 The dwagon is the perfect size to sit on a shoulder, the d20 there is HUGE and that’s a decent size cookie there too.

Lovely day out, really enjoyed catching up with the wonderful Comic Con Friend (it’s been a while!) and sharing in seeing all of the wonderful things at the convention. Time for me to sign off now I think and pop the dinner on but … one last loot ?

Picture. We're looking down at out blue green crystal dwagon on the right, a green dwagon behind, the large d20 in the centre and a collection of black dice with lit up numbers on to the left. A dice box is behind and to the left.

I got shiny light up dice too 🙂 And t-shirts from Teeturtle. This was also the first Comic Con with the new camera, I think it’s done a wonderful job. (Some of the pics are from the mobile 😀 )

Have a lovely weekend everyone, see you all next time. Wait … one more ?

Picture. We're looking at a collection of dice. From left to right - a red six sided dice. The rest are 20 sided, with a small grey shiny one, a normal sized red one, a larger green one and the very large dark green one that's almost as tall as the green dwagon to the right. In the background, our blue green crystal dwagon.

I needed to show just how big the dice was :-D. The d6 and the red d20 to the left are normal sized.

Later everyone !

A rainy day at the cricket

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May 19, 2024

2:57 pm

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Hello everyone,

Time seems to be going whoosh at the moment ! Maybe that’s a sign that I need to step away and slow down for a bit. Maybe 😀 I do have a plan forming for that … Hopefully you’ll see some of that later in the year. The current plan involves a large island, a ferry and maybe even … beach.

First up – a review ? Devastating news for the gaming communities this week with the Insomnia gaming festival. I’m glad I got to one of these in March because it could well be the last one as the company running it collapsed. Hopefully all the people affected find places that will take full advantage of what they have to offer. Especially the ever lovely Tashnarr and her colleagues who would come in to her streams, join in the fun and be part of that community which, with Tashnarr being the focus, is one of the most chill, relaxing and great vibes communities on Twitch.

Work has been as busy as usual, not much to be said about that apart from it being one of those things. Would you prefer work to be busy and you’re getting things done, or would you rather it be too quiet ? Can’t talk about the work stuff much though, it’s not something for the internet.

In books, I enjoyed reading through Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It’s a future space scifi where a near invincible enemy is menacing humanity. There’s an excellent variation of characters in there and the interplay between them is a highlight. I’m looking forwards to seeing how this trilogy unfolds. Latest book is A Fire Born Of Exile by Aliette De Bodard, which is the latest in her fantastic Xuya Universe. Well written, intriguing and huge intensity of emotions in the characters. Much recommend for both of these books.

But wait, where’s that traditional opening thumbnail pic ?

Picture. We're at ground level looking out over a green playing field, with white grey rain covers in a band in the centre. In the background, the orange brick and white balconies of the Lords pavilion. Gray skies are above.

Thursday saw me heading off to Lords for the 2024 Interservices T20 day. I’d thoroughly recommend this event if you’re a cricket fan. The historic Lords stadium is always a great place to visit (although a bit lacking on concessions hospitality this time), you get a great view and they steadily improve the facilities. There’s been a number of changes since I started coming. Plus the cricket is usually ultra competitive with all the skills on show and the games are balanced. It’s always best watching a game or sport where you have no idea as to who is going to win, right up to the end.

But …

Picture. We're at mouse level looking at the concrete outsides of the stadium. There are a couple of manhole covers to the right. The outer wall is to the left with a black iron gate close and black bins in the background. The stadium hangs over on the right and a van is parked in the far centre. There is a puddle in front of us.

We did lose the morning game and half of the afternoon game to rain. Bit damp but it cleared later. Today was a day of playing with the new camera too, to see what it could do and how it would work. The angle above is courtesy of Geraldine, official photographer from the cruise, who challenged us to try and get interesting and unusual angles to take pictures from. How’d that one do ? I’m maybe 6 inches off the floor there. Maybe a bit more looking at the Shutter Priority mode it has to catch more of the rain.

Pictures. A block of 4, all in a watercolour effect filter. We're looking out over the ground, with the top two showing the far stands. Bottom left is the white and glass lozenge of the Media Centre. Bottom right is the ground with the Pavilion to the right and occasional people close in our stand.
It all went a bit watercolour

Spot me checking out more of the options that the camera has for taking the pictures. This is the watercolour effect, which adds a post processing effect. There is also a monochrome, fisheye, vivid, toy camera and a miniatures filter which I need to figure out how to use. Fun while waiting for …

Picture. We're looking over the lush green grass of the Lords playing surface, with the light brown of the cut surface in the middle. We have a scattering of players in red and light blue tops plus dark trousers. The red shirted bowler is at the end of his action and the light blue shirted batter to the right has just hit the ball.

Play on !

We lost the ladies’ game due to the rain, this was RAF in the light blue batting and Army in the red fielding. I started out playing with a Continuous Low Speed shooting option, where it was taking a picture maybe every half a second after pressing the shutter button. Here’s a great one :

Picture. We're looking at 2 pictures up and lower. At the top, a red shirted fielder is part crouched over dark blue stumps. The blue shirted batter is stretching out with his bat. An umpire in a hat is standing to the right. Lower, it's a frame on and the red shirted fielder is jubiliant as the stretching batsman failed to beat the ball to the stumps.

Happy with that :-D. One thing about the new camera is that with it having more megapixels in its sensor and the different way the lens works, it’s much easier to get shots like that going. So that’s … with the 55-210mm lens and the original was taken at the 135mm setting, so about the middle of the range. I’m not zooming all the way in that I can, so I have the option of cutting the outsides down if appropriate. And then I’ll take the resulting picture down from a potential 6000×4000 before cropping and scale it to 2000 pixels wide for the blog. Hopefully that works for viewers without losing detail.

(This is going to sound like a Canon ad ! Disclosure note – I bought all the bits in use here, nothing free by Canon) You change the zoom on the 18-45 and 55-210 lenses by twisting the outside of the whole lens, whereas the zoom on the Ixus is by a tiny addition to the shutter wheel. The R50 is bulkier but it’s far easier to handle. The response time on the shutter feels massively better, with a lot of the unused shots (can only show so many 😀 ) having the ball in shot still. And the image stabilisation is proper excellent.

I did have the usual buyers remorse after spending all the money but I think it’s worth it. The R50 is proving to be an incredibly massive upgrade over the Ixus and the various features included make Every picture good and usable, whereas I had to be very careful with the Ixus to get something usable.

Looking forward to trying it out at Comic Con next week. Actually really looking forward to Comic Con next week because Comic Con Friend will be there too this time and these things are much better in company. Still got the good memories from last time too with the smuggle for Tashnarr, it’s good seeing the FFXIV flower appearing occasionally.

More cricket ?

Picture. We're looking at two players. The red shirted batsman has bat in the air and is leaning forwards through his shot. The blue player is behind the stumps waiting for the ball with the big keeping gloves. 2 stumps are vertical, the third is bent backwards with the white ball in front. Two orange bails are in the air above the stumps.

I always loved seeing things like that as a bowler. Ball, stumps and bails in the air. The first game finished with a tight win by the Army, with it going to the final over.

Picture. We're looking at a bowler in a dark blue shirt, he's running through and his right arm is stretched out at the end of sending the ball to the other end. We see the umpire to the left, a fielder half crouched in the background and a light blue shirted batter.

Over to Navy vs RAF. This was a full 20 over game. It was getting dark towards the end but the umpires managed to keep the players on all the way. A good game too, the Navy batters were led by one of the guys getting the first 50 of the day with unorthodox …

Picture. We're looking at our dark blue shirted batter again as he has turned his bat around the wrong way to hit the ball to an unexpected part of the ground. The ball is above the stumps on the left. A light blue shirted fielder is in the background.

And orthodox hitting …

Picture. We're looking at the dark blue shirted batter stretched in mid shot. The ball is in the centre lower part of his bat, about to come my way in the stands. A light blue shirted fielder looks on behind.

When the RAF came in to bat, they started making the Navy score look small with some excellent hitting. I nearly touched a cricket match ball again for the first time in over 10 years as one of the ball in the stands moments ended up pretty close to my little corner of the ground. (I got beaten to it by a more nimble guy speeding across 😀 ).

But cricket has a habit of making games closer than they really should be and a spirited performance by several of the Navy bowlers led to a succession of wickets that nearly turned the result around. Fun game to watch.

The RAF won the last game narrowly but because all three teams won 1 game each of the tournament and Navy had the better overall run rate, the tournament went to the Navy this time. With a finish past 7pm, I didn’t go anywhere else in London for the day but well satisfied with a good day out at the cricket again.

Last thing … I may have resubscribed to an older game again … there’s a new Iceangel on World of Warcraft. We’ll see how that goes :-D. I did look at Star Trek Online again but while that game has the Star Trek setting, WoW is just a more charming accessible game.

Later everyone !

A castle for squirrels ?

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May 6, 2024

4:47 pm

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photography

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Hello everyone,

I’ve just been trying to figure out what I’ve been doing for the last fortnight … Yep, it does feel a bit like that :-D. I think it sums up as a lot of late finishing days in the office and topped off with a castles trip and a very late night research run.

Picture. We're looking at a red dragon, standing on 3 paws with the 4th front paw raised in front of them with outstretched claws. They are on a stone wall, with an old looking castle house behind to the left, with trees to the right.

Oh ! I was trying out another game …

Picture and game screenshot. We're looking at a photo of a computer screen with a fridge magnet held up in front. We see two characters. The magnet is a lady with straggly hair, staring eyes and a very wide jaw. The computer character resembles. Both are wearing viking style armour.

I’ve had the daft idea for a while to make a game character inspired by the fridge magnet character I got from Norway and Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord has what you could call the ideal character creator for the purpose.

And by that I mean it’s pretty crude and excels at making characters that most people would call cursed. But there she is, my latest Bashara character, all set up for forming a warband that will hopefully grow into an army fit to conquer nations. I think I got the eyes right ? (Unfortunately 😀 ).

Outside of that, another Deus Ex Mankind Divided run is finished, I think I lost part of a weekend by falling off the Little Big Workshop wagon again (great game, very cute much addictive). And I’ve been looking at Star Trek Online again. While enjoying reading Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Maybe a few starts of plans appearing as well too. Since the cruise, I’ve been actively wanting to take better pictures and the current thing is the night sky. A separate inspiration there is Wildbeare (youtube link) and how she goes out into the wilds and comes out with lovely stories for her watchers. And being out in the wilds away from city lights seems ideal for being able to see the night sky. I’ll come back to that.

In the mean time though, I was picking up some gear again with a side trip to see castles on Friday.

Picture. We're looking out over a wet paved part of Carmarthen town towards a castle gateway. Part of the castle wall goes to the left. A newer building is to the right. Wood benches with white umbrellas are scattered in front of the castle gate.

That’s the gatehouse of Carmarthen castle, which is sadly mostly just what’s left of Carmarthen castle. The main castle part has been displaced by the council buildings. There is a little bit left of the outer wall but no access to the top of those gatehouse towers. (More pictures on my Facebook than I’ll put here)

A side reason for going to Carmarthen outside of Somewhere New and castle was because they have what turns out to be an excellent camera shop there. Things may have been acquired … Picture later but I now have the bluetooth remote trigger (will be handy for star pics and tripod pics) and a way better tripod than the one I got last year. This one is articulated with a ball joint, the old one was on a couple of hinges which got incredibly stiff and seized. It was nearly impossible to point the camera accurately at the bridge when I took the old tripod to Portishead’s Battery Point in the last post.

2 pictures. Above, is a noticeboard showing historic Carmarthen with small buildings alongside a river curving off with sailboats on the river and fields to the bottom right. Lower, same thing with larger buildings on our side hiding the river. There is a line of cars where the field was. Sky is very cloudy.

Classic now and then shot. Carmarthen is on quite a wide river there, so when river and sea traffic was the main option it was a very prosperous market town. As trade moved to the roads and larger ports, everything moved to where things were a bit closer. Carmarthen is 100 miles away from where I live, which would have been even more of a factor in the days of sail.

So, tripod acquired, remote clicker acquired, tasty brownie acquired, off again. It was Star Wars day so I was drawn to Cardiff …

Picture. We're looking at a small old castle on top of a mostly conical hill. There are steps leading up to the castle tower. A white and green flag is flying, the flag has a red dragon flying on it. The sky behind is full of cloud.

That’s Cardiff castle. I went to Cardiff because it has the Lego shop (with offers for Star Wars day) and the Snack shop. At some point, I’ll go to more of the Welsh castles … although it was getting late on Friday and I just about only made it for both the snack shop (close at 5.30pm) and the castle (close at 5pm). There’s a bit more leeway for the Lego shop (close at 8pm).

Cardiff castle is one of very few to remain mostly intact, with the small bailey castle inside the surrounding curtain walls. It was too late for me to visit the museum part (again) but I’ll make it there some day.

Castle for squirrels ?

Picture. We're looking into the distance at the slim towers and spires of a church, which are just visible above the much closer trees. It was a grim day so the background is grey with cloud.

They were clever centuries ago, being able to build miniature castles on top of the trees for the guard squirrels to help in the defence of the realm. (I swapped to the longer lens for this one).

Before I close up, this wasn’t the only trip of the weekend … The skies cleared on Saturday night and I had (somehow) enough leftover energy to try and indulge that need? to try and see the galaxy. I do enjoy doing that in Elite, although that’s suffered due to my arms being poorly and sore. So if I can’t go to the stars, can I get pictures of them ?

I didn’t get any usable pictures from Saturday night but I took away a good number of learning points …

First was – there are very few parking places open or accessible after dark around Bristol, located in places away from the city. I think I know why but won’t go into it here (they’re over wary about people setting up semi permanent camp). I think I have one now. The main criteria is that it has to have an open view to the South because that’s the part of the sky with the galaxy in it.

Second – need a good view of the sky with a parking place that you can get in and out of. The place I did take (bad) pics from has a car park resembling a moon crater. So I won’t go there again.

Third – bring Stuff. And by Stuff I mean light. And probably more things as well to add to the list which would strongly resemble things people would take when camping. That’s one reason why the camping option is really strong, because it means everything is set up well in time for the stars to show themselves.

Four – I learned more about the camera ! I did manage to take some pics but I hadn’t bothered setting up the tripod so they’re unusable. But what it’ll do when you persuade it to take a long exposure shot is turn off the display, have one ominous red light and be unresponsive. Cue me thinking that I broke it. Oops. But it was actually just taking a long 8 second exposure shot. So I have success there, switching it to Manual Focus is how you get those night sky pics.

Will have to be back for another attempt when timings allow and the skies are clear. The Lords trip could actually be a good option there. It’s not something I can really attempt with work the next day as it involves getting back in at 3.30 or 4am. I’d recommend a phone app called Stellarium there, it’ll show you the night sky wherever you are and show you what stars you are looking at.

Any more from Cardiff ?

Picture. We're looking at ... Lego box in the background with a couple of Star Wars things visible. On top, Lego box with red dragon and Lego bad with tank. To the left, a metal tripod folded up. In front, our red dwagon plushie and assorted snacks.

There was, of course, plunder. In the form of nice snacks, the Lego Pod Racing diorama, the tripod over to the left there and a Lego Dwagon. I’ll show the dwagon build at some point, although I do know that I’m way behind on a few build type posts (and the rest of the cruise) and actually putting some things together as well.

I think that’s my cue to disappear from this post though, have a lovely week everyone.