Month: March 2009

No post for a little while, which has been part out of lack of inspiration, part from me breaking things !

My current router annoys me because I have to power off/power on it every few days to make it go, so I thought I’d move my modem across the room to where The Next Router lives. I figured something might be a little screwy when I was plugging in the cable internet lead. When I touched plug to socket, there were quite loud (for interference crackles) clicks coming from my speakers … Not a good sign, although mysterious due to there being no obvious connection.

Anyway – to cut the techiebabble, I plugged it back in on Friday evening and … no internet. Tried putting it back where it was to start with and … no internet. So I was on Internet Cold Turkey from Friday night to Monday 🙁 And this is someone who :

Keeps pressing F5 (refresh page key) on the hit counter to see if there’s visitors.
Is permanently logged into MSN Messenger.
Has gotten used to being able to answer popup questions by Google.
Peeking on Imdb to see why I recognise that guest star.
Trolls various forums.

Internet-Bloke appeared Monday evening and proceeded to scratch his head, attempting to fix the problem by changing various leads and plugs. He got it going but it did the usual Annoying Problem thing of breaking again 20 minutes after he left. Cue a Sleepypete going a little nuts trying to get the internet going again until leaving for gaming !

No joy. But, as is usual for me and some time away from a problem, I figure out another way to attack it by the time I get home. Looks promising so far, just one connection glitch in the modem logs in the last 20 hours. Still have to see how my main PC adjusts to the change though, as it has migrated to connecting by wi-fi instead of a cable … And that was a change that caused more stress than it needed to !

I’ve also been keeping an eye on the women’s cricket, I’m still fascinated by the differences here. The women aren’t as physically powerful as the men but adjust by putting more energy in. The description “keener than kittens with wool” came to mind when watching how they pounce on the ball when fielding. However, these girls are closer to tiger cub than ginger kitten. Some excellent catching too, better than what was on show in the last England v W Indies men’s Test Match.

They also compensate by being more accurate and precise although, as in all sport, there are some more precise than others. There’s a few Perfect bowling actions on show and some of them put truth to the “has the ball on a string” saying. One coaching technique is to put a small coin on the pitch on the ideal length and line and tell the bowler to hit the coin. It’s tough … At my best I was close to being that consistent (story coming!) but only at my very best. One of the England girls would have been hitting the coin every single time. Impressive stuff and the stats equalled that.

So what happened when I did the (virtual!) coin thing ? It was a practice session at school (i.e. way back 🙂 and the fella batting didn’t really know what was about to hit him. First ball of the sequence – shapes in nicely and pins back his leg stump. Cue embarassment for the batsman and a “you got lucky that time”. Next ball, same thing. And the next and the one after that … I thought I’d go easy on him for the fifth by bowling it a little slower, which just made things worse 🙂 A little more swing, a little more accuracy and another Ting of ball on metal practice stump.

I think I made the poor fella give up any thoughts of playing cricket after that little sequence 🙂 In my defence, I will say that I had broken into the men’s team by this point and was attempting to repair my bowling action after injuring my back the season before. So my technique was probably as “pure” as it ever got and as it was practice, I wasn’t straining for extra pace, just for more smoothness.

So that’s part of what I’m getting from watching the girls play cricket, I’m kind of watching how I used to play. Since dislocating my shoulder 12 years ago, I’ve had the occasional glimpse back to how I could bowl when I was fully intact. Watching the girls gives an excellent reminder that you don’t have to be 6 foot 8 and built like the proverbial outhouse in order to do well at your chosen sport 🙂

Plus there’s a lot to be said for watching highly athletic young ladies running around a field doing something they are getting a lot of enjoyment from 🙂

PS This post will lead to another one … but I’ll need a bit of help before I can answer the question “Do women batters wear the same protection as the men”. Bit of idle curiosity triggered there and I’ll leave it for readers to wonder exactly which bit of protection I mean 😉

European servers would cause trouble. Interesting though, UK must get a choice cause one of my good online buddies was in the UK when I met him. It was hell for him to line up ‘times’ to play with us, but he did it.

Yeah… one thing I’ve always appreciated with the Paladin class was my ability to diversify which they’ve really strengthened in WotLK.

I healed from 1-63 and that was a bit of a mistake (healing is not so good for leveling by yourself as I’m sure you’ve endured with your priest). Then I went Protection (tank) spec and found myself really enjoying being the WALL everyone else hid behind. Nothing like taking 100-200 damage from something that would do 800-900 damage to someone else, not to mention I dodge, block or parry enough to take less damage than that.

Lately I’ve tried my hand at our Retribution spec which is for DPS and have enjoyed it thoroughly. Nothing like dropping a monster with 10K health in about 10 seconds.

*nod* I hadn’t heard about the 2h weapon 1handed… I faintly recall some rumors of it but that’s a pretty awesome bonus. You do need to try a Death Knight if you haven’t yet. Being a class who is used to BOTH of my status bars depleting in combat there’s something about being able to go… and go… and go and only worry about health (which they worry about very little). They are also superb at dealing damage and I pitted my lvl 61 against a lvl 63 elite last night and had him to 500 health (from 30K) before I croaked.

If you have some guides you’d like to share I’d be more than happy to accommodate you on the forum (I built the site) which is the ONLY working link on that first page (upper left). When you sign up you have to wait for an admin approval so please just use a name I’d recognize and I’ll approve you and set you up with moderator rites. Honestly having a ‘guest’ writer would help and I’d be willing to accommodate you so that the website wouldn’t be so ‘guild’ based so you could bring in your own friends as well. Actually using phpBB (the underlying software) the sky is the limit. I could give you your own forum.

Not long since I got back in from gaming, I put the telly on and there’s Yet More Cricket on there ! This post will be a kind of live-blog … and it’s growing as I see more of the game 🙂

However, instead of the men toiling in vain on an unresponsive pitch, I’m taking my first chance to see England’s women playing in their World Cup. The two England opening bowlers (bowlers take it in turns in cricket) are Katherine Brunt and Isa Guha.

The differences between men’s cricket and women’s cricket shows up straight away in the form of the impish Isa Guha. She must be only about 5 foot 4 if that, so there’s a complete contrast to the 6 foot plus guys who play in the men’s team. However, there’s more energy going into her bowling than you’d see from a Steve Harmison or a Ryan Sidebottom (both those two are in my bad books). The diminutive frame bustles up to the stumps and there’s a whirl of arms and legs as she sends the ball down. It’s effective too, she hasn’t given too many runs away and has picked up a couple of wickets. Oh – she looks far prettier while in motion in the field than she does in that Cricinfo link !

It’s good to see when the skillful player does much better than the power player 🙂

Another thing that’s kinda good to see are the batters wearing caps and hats instead of helmets 🙂 Good because it’s nice to see a pretty face on the screen. “Kinda” because as someone who has been hit on the head, I’ll always get nervous when I see people not wearing a lid. The bowling speeds aren’t too threatening (70mph max, whereas most male fast bowlers send it down at 85-90mph) but a lid is always a good idea in case freak things happen like the two times I’ve been hit on the head while batting.

Seeing the hats brings back memories of me batting in a wide brimmed floppy hat, with everyone on the field knowing that at least one bowler would try and knock it off 🙂 Cricket can be an uncompromising game, with it being accepted that bowlers will try to physically intimidate batsmen by bowling the ball short so it’ll bounce up to throat or rib high. It’s a fun challenge, you can get hurt but it’s easier to whack the short balls a long way 🙂 I knew the hat was a bullseye target every time I wore it ! And the helmet is the same thing in the level of cricket I’d be playing. A bowler won’t intentionally go out on the field to hurt opposing players but they’d absolutely love it if they knocked a helmet off 🙂

The Indian batter bringing up the hat memories is one Mithali Raj, who is bringing a touch of elegance to proceedings, cleverly piercing the field when guiding the ball to an unguarded boundary.

I’m not going to be able to watch much more of this game due to having to work tomorrow but I’ve been enjoying what I’ve seen so far. It’s a very different type of cricket to the men’s game which relies far more on Brawn instead of Brain. What I’m seeing at the moment is bowlers containing the batswomen by being smart and out-thinking them.

Still wondering why the bowlers are only hitting about 65mph max, you’d think they’d be a bit quicker. Maybe it’s the shorter distance they run up, male fast bowlers need to really sprint in to hit 85mph. Trying that longer run is something I tried, however all I got for it was a groin tear ! The key physical differences between men and women aren’t really in how the shoulder is built, so I’m very curious as to why the speeds are so much lower. However, what they miss in speed is made up for in skill at making the ball do what they ask it to, I reckon I’d have a lot of trouble getting runs against these girls.

Did I mention anywhere that these girls are far better to look at than your Ian Bell’s and your Owais Shah’s ? They are definite proof that lady sportspeople can still look great, without needing to turn themselves into Amazons in order to do well in their game.

For lots more info and a few updates on how things are progressing, here’s a link to the Cricinfo site for the tournament. Plus I’ve sprinkled a few player links through the post, so you can see some of what I see 🙂 However, judging by how my Sky picture is breaking up due to the Apocalyptic Rain outside, I think it’s bed time (that and it’s now 1am). But there’s still time for one last link – here’s Isa Guha again trying some not-so-feminine wiles on an umpire 🙂

PS In case the Bell and Shah links make the ladeez think all cricketers are ugly, my Evil Ex only watched cricket if James Anderson was on as she thought he was highly cute and a Monty Panesar celebration will always make the hardest of heart crack a grin.

Doh – extra bit – don’t think I’ll be able to check out that guild in the game … US Servers vs European Servers 🙁

However, if you’d like a couple of guides, I wrote one for crash levelling cooking and another for fishing 🙂 (although the online ones will be better – i.e. they have pictures as well as Wall Of Text !)

PS I’m tempted to try a tank like what’s on that guild site … There’s a certain talent at the bottom of the Fury tree that allows you to use a 2 handed weapon in 1 hand. Big Choppa + Big Shield perhaps ? 🙂

David – don’t worry about it, some people get blank looks when others talk “game” around them, I get blank looks when people talk things like “cooking”, “fashion” and “gardening” around me 🙂 (lol!)

Yep – pretty much always been Horde, although you do tend to jump into one side and stick to it. I went by the majority opinion from when we were setting up the Mercenaries, people seemed to get on well with Horde. I started a few off as Alliance but didn’t take them too far, it’s not the same without the people you know.

Never taken Paladins too far, I’ve raided most with a couple of mages (Iceangel!), tanked with Bash mk1, shot stuff with Finlay the hunter and taken a Mr Shadow (priest) up to level 77 🙂

Will check out the guild site 🙂

PS Iceangel 2 was a bit of a sell out … The original one was undead, the second one was reborn as a Blood Elf.

Yay! Sometimes my greatest lament is that I didn’t roll horde, sadly the friends who drug me into the game had already made that decision for me.

Though… I must admit, my favorite class was Paladin and that’s all there was back in ‘the day’.

Hey, if you ever want to try a RolePlaying server where folks REALLY roleplay (it’s actually fairly fun) I’ve got very low levels (around 20) on Sisters of Elune, and they’re blessed Horde. Blood elfs… I know… I’m a sell out.

Anywho… check out Guild Site

At my original team, you could sometimes hear the wildlife come out when it was getting dark after a game 🙂

At the grounds I play at now, you can definitely hear them ! Although being city instead of country means the wildlife just go around on 2 legs when they’re not on their Funky Mopeds.

i like it when the crickets stay outdoors with their musical mating calls

I will send my brilliant college age son over, he will know exactly what you are talking about. hehe

Not had a good game of Scrabble for far too long.

I’ve touched the Magic Cards world in the past, as I had a little collection of friends at uni who were deep into it. That turned into a bit of an Arms Race though, as they’d spend silly amounts of money and time on improving their Decks. Fun game, shame about the powergaming.