Month: February 2008

I’ve not written Wake up call number 1 yet – I’m saving that for the future :-). This one is number two cos it was potentially the most serious of my two major life changing events. In the end, I got away with it due to sheer luck.

The scene – late summer day and we’re playing cricket as our office vs our contractor. It wasn’t going too well because our bowling had been thumped around a bit and we had a huge total to chase with not too much batting to do it with. That put a lot of pressure on me, as I was the most experienced batter on our side and I’d dropped a couple of catches behind the stumps earlier on. I held a really difficult one but missed a couple of simple ones.

So what happened to prompt the life changing event ? The bowler runs in and gives me a ball I think I can do something with. So one of my riskier shots comes out of the bag. It’s a bad shot to play because I don’t think I’ve ever got anything out of it (technical term – a wipe across the line) and that proved true today. I got a top edge and the ricochet sent the ball on a direct line to my head. At pace.

The ball caught me on the only piece of protective gear I was wearing on my head that day, my glasses. This is where I get the luck I didn’t deserve, my glasses held out and spread the blow around my eye instead of the ball contacting on my eye socket. If I’d been wearing contacts, I may have ended up with a fractured skull or worse instead of the collateral damage of a smashed nose. The ghoulish thing here is that my head technique had been perfect, I’d watched the ball all the way as they teach you to.

Anyway, ball hits me and I put my hand up to my face and feel blood (and a nose that’s a little deranged). I go down, because (hell – this is my logic at the time !) I don’t want to make a bloody mess on the wicket and I know there will be a heap of people running over to help out. And they do help out, the mopping rags came out and we did all we could to stop the bleeding. Think of a bad nosebleed and you’ll get the picture.

I then get taken off to hospital and get seen to relatively quickly in A&E due to mine being a head injury. I’m glad they first took the little fella who came in after me, he also had a head injury and didn’t look too well. There was no way I was going to be able to get back to the game and it would have been highly dangerous for me to bat anyway as the shattering of my nose meant my glasses wouldn’t have been straight.

I had the next day off work but was able to pick the car (and some of my kit) up from the ground thanks to El Diablo from work giving me a lift. The nose got on the way to being fixed about a month later when I went in to get it straightened. The fortnight after was great fun, as I was able to chase some of the more squeamish people around and scare them with Vampire Bloodshot Eyes.

Even though I can still remember most of what happened on the night, there were a few consequences. My memory over that time and the next couple of months is patchy. I could remember doing things and later finding out that I didn’t. And the opposite, I did a few tasks and a week later I did them again because I had no memory of doing them.

Head injuries and amnesia are funny things – if someone you know has received a head injury, keep an eye on them (without them thinking you’re mothering them !). They may have things going on inside their head that they aren’t aware of, plus a Concussion (not really dangerous) can turn into a Compression quickly, which is a lot more dangerous. Lol – I still remember some of the first aid training I did many years ago.

This wake up call was a very useful one. I’d had a near miss at the start of that season in the nets, when the exact same shot ended up with a ricochet off my shoulder. Next year, I played the same shot and the ricochet hit me on the temple in front of my right ear. This would have been a lot worse, I’d probably have been knocked out. However, I was wearing a helmet and it went TING! off the grill. I felt really ill for the rest of that game and nearly threw up in the dressing room afterwards. I stayed out there though and anchored our innings until we won the game. I only got 26 out of about 130 but I was quite happily rotating the strike around and watching the bloke at the other end hit it to all parts. It didn’t help seeing the opposition’s wicket keeper stumble off with smashed fingers (not seen that before!) after an awkward take from the same bowler as hit me on the head. After one glance, I literally couldn’t look at that fella’s hand.

In the end, the only consequence is a nose that’s only slightly harder to breathe through, plus the broken bits itch occasionally. I think I’m free from the amnesia. I definitely got away with it this time and the Wake Up Call warning got me buying a helmet which allowed me to avoid a potentially far more serious injury during the next season.

This huge long post brought to you by a person trying to avoid watching the Aus vs India game, which has had an incredibly tense finish. Italy and England are in the rugby later, hopefully England will do the job this time and not throw the game as badly as last week against the Welsh.

PS I won an award at the annual Xmas dinner due to this event. It was the award for “Unnecessary Surgery”. A token gesture but offered in the spirit of genuine concern and relief that a potentially serious injury turned out ok. The contractor doesn’t see me too much and this really brought home how worried they’d been about me. It’s really nice to know that there’s people around who get that concerned over your well being.

Got here from Michele. Seems a interesting contrast!

I’m seeing a big contrast between the two multiplayer online games I’ve had a big involvement with :

Eve – the people I know in the game are fantastic people. They make me laugh and the occasional meetings up in the local are good fun. Trouble is, I’m not playing that game any more because I found it extremely tedious.

World of Warcraft – the game up to maximum level is decent, with good variation. Trouble is, because it’s so easy to pick up and play, it gets infested by idiots. And because you’re forced to go in groups to experience the end game content, you have to manage the idiots to be able to play.

So on the one hand – Eve : tedious game, great people
World of Warcraft : good game, tedious people

There are exceptions with Wow – there’s a certain person in VR who I firmly believe is an angel who is visiting us for a little while. Plus there’s the people I started the Mercs with and a few selected others. (The Scottish crowd, the Portuguese group and a few others too). There’s not many of the Guildlink people who I’d pass the time of day with but there’s exceptions there too – Sam, Aella and Tananka, take a bow :-).

What’s prompted this post is a thread by a certain Jacobus Flint (in game Eve name) that made me laugh out loud this morning. I won’t link it cos not many people looking here will have the access to see it and I won’t quote it cos it’s delightfully non-PC.

Morning update – I woke up with my radio alarm that I hadn’t turned off, thought “nah – not getting up yet”. Was rather glad I hadn’t about an hour later as I heard over the radio that England had lost embarassingly again !

That’s the question asked in this Register story that caught my eye … I’ve repeated the first two para’s here :

“Electrical retailer Comet has confirmed what those of us who boast enormous plasma tellys already know – that when it comes to getting your rocks off nothing beats a bit of hot bloke-on-widescreen action.

A survey by the retailer asked 2,000 Brit chaps what would convince them to give up rumpy-pumpy for six months, and no less than 47 per cent said that they’d skip a shag for a 50-in plasma, Reuters notes.”

Are they nuts ? Toys are one thing but I’d much rather have the chance to say “hello” to someone pretty as the first thing I do after waking up in the morning than have the big TV …

That said though, the first thing I do when I wake up tomorrow morning will be to pop downstairs, turn the telly on and promptly fall asleep in front of NZ vs England cricket. And I am thinking heavily about new telly, skybox and speakers … But I’d still prefer having the chance to say “hello” to that pretty person, especially if she likes watching cricket.

Warcraft is pretty addictive, I was well and truly hooked for a couple of years before the last expansion changed the rules around a bit. I still come on to help the guild I started in raids but to be painfully honest, I’m not sure if it’s the guild I started any more. Things change as they grow and we had to grow to get some independence. The alliance we were in became a burden and we had to leave it. Trouble is, since we left, we’ve probably grown too much and we’re not too good at cutting out the people who get in the way.

Which leads to frustration … The way Warcraft is built now, it’s essential that everyone coming along on a raid does their part, be that in following the plan or just plain paying attention. It gets highly frustrating when problems come due to people not following that plan or not paying attention. Which leads to people tearing their hair out, leading to posts like this one.

game ¹ (gm)n.

If the entertainment value of a game gets overridden by irritation with the people you’re playing the game with, then you have to ask if that game is worth playing. A year or so ago, I’d have shrugged off the frustration and gone right back into thumping those monsters. Now, I’m not too sure that it’s worth the bother. Plenty of other things to do out there …

It doesn’t help that my internet connection has gone unreliable. I was kicked off the net for about 15 mins/half an hour earlier, with little to do but fire up iTunes again and listen to some music while watching the modem lights flash.

Looking ahead – it’s the Fryday Morning FatBoy breakfast day tomorrow, which always cheers me up. Must be the bacon – it sends me hyperactive !

(addon) One highlight from tonight though was a conversation with one of our tank characters. He was complementing me on keeping one mob under control all the way through the fight. I think he was impressed that at one point, I had it under control despite not being logged into the game ! Disconnected halfway through but managed to get back in again.

I’m not exactly what you’d call the poster boy for Green issues. I drive, which is something the environmentalists will succeed in banning sooner or later, plus I’ve managed to avoid the craze of energy saving stuff. I leave my PC on all day, taking care not to leave Messenger running on it seeing as MSN seems to be developing a habit of signing in all on its own. At least my PC’s running the BOINC program on it, which means at any one time it’s helping medical research, looking for aliens or running climate models.

The anti-green is changing a little though – I’m down to my last spare lightbulb in my living room, which means energy saving lightbulb ! Comes to something when you have to go green cos you don’t know if you’re going to be able to buy normal stuff.

The next step might be to get a bike … Part of the environmentalist lobby’s not very devious plan is to ban cars by not allowing them to park anywhere. In the next couple of years, I may have to start paying to drive near my work place. Well – after a month or six, the cash spent on a bike will start to be less than what parking would be clocking up.

Gotta run – the Wow people are calling me !

Hmm. Screws could be good. The threads should grip where nails would just slide out.

Prodding’s worked a few times in the past 🙂 I need “maintenance” occasionally on my back cos of a cricket strain, plus my shoulder likes to move itself around trapping blood vessels. A good poking puts things back to where they should be … Which means I get to feel my fingers again !

Try putting it back together with screws, they hold much better. That wind sounds like it’s been using your garden as a play ground!

Thanks for the visit to my blog and hope you get that therapeutic prodding from that nurse soon, though I’m not convinced it will actually work it could have a placebo effect! LOL!

Trying to catch up at the moment. I watch a little too much telly, which gets a little easier now because NCIS has got to the end of its rerun on FX. The list is :

House – 5 a week
Torchwood – 1 a week
UFO – 2 a week, although this is another one that’s finished its re-run
Space 1999 – 1 a week
Atlantis – 1 a week
Jericho – 1 a week

That’s a little too much telly, so I’m starting to try and make a dent in it while not logging back into Wow. There was a chance to hit one of the instances today but people didn’t seem to be going for it an hour ago, so I’m catching up on the telly instead. Telly’s not too healthy but playing on the pooter is even less healthy. I need to get out more.

Last night’s Warhammer was fun, although our GM Aginoth proved yet again that he can be truly eeeevil. There were a couple of “ok – everyone but him leave the room please” moments last night, which is how the GM passes on critical information that the other players can’t know until later. It usually leads to sideways looks between the other players, associated with general “ok – how painfully is that one going to die …” thoughts.

If this is followed by the player going through the phases of rolling up a new character, then you start wondering if there’s any collateral damage happening to the dead-but-we-don’t-actually-know-it-yet character. The character did actually survive – but the player had about an hour thinking that he’d be getting a new one.

Quite happy with the way my boy Leopold is doing, he’s easy to play cos I can play him as a wide eyed kiddy which is precisely what he is. He’s learning though. I getting to like the Warhammer system more too, the more exposure I get to it. It seems to make much more sense as a combat system than the DnD and Vampire systems. There’s not much magic but that helps to keep it nicely rooted in something near to “reality”.