Month: September 2011

Leg started getting worse again last week (I’m bored of it now and want the leaking to go away) so I gave in and saw the doctor …

Result – diet pills.

Ok, they’re not really diet pills (it’s penicillin) but with instructions of “leave 2 hours after food and 1 hour before food”, they’re cutting in severely to my snacking time ! I have to take one 4 times a day too but I’ve figured out how to weave that into a breakfast, lunch & dinner cycle.

I suspect that cycle would have stopped me raiding, as it stops me from having dinner until after 7, which is when the raids are due to start. We’ve not been raiding much recently though and I’ve not been signing up to the New Content progress raids anyway due to stuff I’ve posted before :

Bored with the game
No motivation to join the progress raids
Silly rules being brought in

Been at Warcraft for a long time and I remember the challenge of the game as it was early on. It used to be a lot tougher, with you needing to think about tactics needed to get the enemies down. I reckon that’s where the game has lost something, both in content and player skill. Skill isn’t really needed in Warcraft now, just a memory of what to avoid. That’s what the raid boss fights are : knowing what to do when the “One Mistake And Everyone’s Dead” mechanic kicks in. I find those mechanics contrived and boring, although the boredom comes with knowing there’s people in the group who will blatantly not be wary of the mistake triggers.

Hoping for better from Star Wars The Old Republic, which is coming “soon”. I suspect diving into the Star Wars world, albeit a few thousand years before the movies, will get the desire to see content back. I’m even struggling for the single player gaming at the moment, my main PC has been cruising in No Game Mode* for at least one night when I could have been gaming and this will be another.

*No Game Mode – the original Windows on my main PC is hopelessly broken due to a combination of Kaspersky and other apps (I blame copy protection malware that you are forced to install). To game, I have to go to another Windows install on a second hard drive.

I’ll not be gaming tonight, which means I’ve missed a week’s worth of MC farming. Oh well. Gaming should be done for fun, not as a second job. That’s one reason I struggle to keep going with the MMOs like Eve and Warcraft, the amount of grinding (repetitive tasks) time required detracts from the fun aspect of the game, especially when Expectations get piled on you from people in the corp or guild.

What can make that worse is when there’s a perception that the people telling you to do stuff are not pulling their weight. You should only ask people to do stuff that you are willing to do yourself. At work, I’d happily do the filing and some of the other mundane stuff but … I know there’s a few people in the team already trained up to do that who will get bored if I take all their work away from them. They know what to do, so I let ’em get on with it and they’re good enough to do it better than I can. On the other hand, I’m much better at analysis and engineering which is what I’m there to do 🙂

You can cause trouble by being too keen – especially when you do the Bull In China Shop thing and trample on stuff someone has carefully set up.

Yep – gaming is suffering a bit at the moment. Or at least the online stuff is, we’re looking to restart the DnD group soon. That’s multiplayer gaming but with pens & paper on a table top. There’s a bit more time to think about what you’re going to do with pen & paper stuff and you don’t lose the ability to chat to your groupmates.

Pen & Paper has one major advantage over Voice Comms – you can share the munchies instead of listening to the occasional nomnomnom over Mumble 🙂

Other stuff – if I can get away early enough, I may well be looking at a car tomorrow … It’s in Cheltenham though which is at least half an hour away before traffic. It’s £1000 cheaper than Lincoln as well as being closer. I cleared the car out earlier (needs portable vacuum though) but have a bit more prep to do in the shape of getting Car Change documents together.

And then there’s the PC upgrade … I bought Deus Ex Human Revolution last week, which looks awesome. It’s easily the best graphics I’ve seen so far, even though I have the options turned down a bit. New bits would definitely help out there.

Doh ! I started typing about the Diet Pills and they appear to have Verbal Diarrhoea as a side effect. I’ve been typing so long it’s almost time to take the next one.

What I am doing is chilling out to the Julianne Regan Mice album which really benefits from the decent hifi kit. Plenty of effects and clever stuff in the production and mixing coupled with Julianne Regan’s sublime and unique voice. This comment was triggered by seeing an Imelda May advert come on – Imelda May’s group is based around a poor, weak imitation of a music style that died out decades ago ! She’s NOISE ! Why is it being hammered so much ? Maybe because it’s so bad it needs the hammering to get into double figure sales numbers.

Lol – After that mini rant it’s time for a chill pill and more Julianne Regan.

With the irritation of RSI coming from too long engaging the enemies of humanity with mouse and key and the loss of sleep that comes from furthering the cause of the Horde, I’m trying to get back into reading.

There’s another reason, at the start of the year I put myself up a challenge of looking to read books in an A to Z. I’ve been updating that as the year goes but there’s 8 months gone now with 14 of 26 read. Need to get back into reading to hit the 26.

However … The A to Z is feeling somewhat restrictive, there’s books I want to read that have already had the gap filled. Books like Game of Thrones, which my sister has lent me. Or Polar City Nightmare to follow Polar City Blues (Katherine Kerr does sci-fi). The two Polar City books are bad examples because they can fit the gaps. I just got the next Lost Fleet book by Jack Campbell, it got released this week and on the strength of the first six has jumped the queue to be The Next Book.

I think I’ll start recording the books that don’t fit as Bonus Books. And of course I’m not recording all the stuff I read at work, that is far too Interesting to be put in a public place – muahaha. Except when I mention the people who make it worth coming in. I have them worried because I’ve told too many people about my poorly leg.

Erm – this was supposed to be about books ? Get back to the point Marine !

Latest finished book is Battle Of The Fang by Chris Wraight.

It’s another in the Space Marines Battles series, which have a common theme of taking the superhuman (literally) warriors of the Warhammer 40k universe, putting them into impossible situations and seeing what comes out the other side. This time it’s the Space Wolves legion up against the Thousand Sons traitor marines in a follow up to the Prospero Burns Horus Heresy book which I haven’t read.

This one is not a bad read, although I think my interest in the Space Marines Battles books is rapidly dwindling. The dramatis personae have suitable gravitas but turn somewhat into caricature. There’s big action going on but your interest in truly caring about what’s happening is low.

Maybe it’s because it’s not a Helsreach, a Titanicus or a Dan Abnett Ghosts book. It just doesn’t seem to have the same impact as the others, maybe due to similarity with the other two Space Marine Battles books I’ve read.

Looking forward to The Next Book, I get the feeling there may be another mini-book-review coming next week 🙂

It’s the long running saga of the car again !

Been busy since last week. Car stuff is the highlight.

Leg got checked out on Thursday, although I need to get it looked at again. It looks “miffed” or “slightly peeved” at me now, instead of the angry scabbiness of last week. Much improved but a doctor needs to see it to lock down the cause. Once you know cause, you can figure out how to stop it. I reckon I’m on to something with it being allergy related, last time I bought washing powder blobs I changed due to thinking what I was using has affecting me. I have a feeling I went the wrong way with the allergy stuff.

So that’s my leg, looks like it’s improving. Must put more of the cream on it to help it improve.

Car stuff ! Progress here, as I went to see my mum & dad for the weekend. The excuse was that my sister had acquired some tickets for the Senior European Masters golf tour at Woburn which was not far down the road from my sister’s place. More in a bit.

That left Saturday to do Stuff, as we weren’t at the golf until Sunday. Loose end … what can we do ? Quick trip to Lincoln to have a look at a car … I don’t think I’ll buy the car I test drove in Lincoln but I will definitely go for one very much like it. It was a Lexus CT200h, leather seat model with the satnav. The satnav is expensive but it’s not just a satnav, it’s a fairly comprehensive computer for the car. I think the stereo is better with it too.

How was the car ? It’s very shiny. The CT is a medium sized luxury hatch that’s built around a hybrid powertrain. Translation – it can Go with either a proper engine or a motor. Or the motor can help out the engine with you want to go faster. The motor means pulling away is extremely smooth. Smooth is definitely the word for this car, it’s probably the most refined car I’ve ever driven. What I wasn’t expecting was blistering performance, which you don’t get. But it still gets up to speed quite nicely, especially when you put it into Sport mode.

Yes – I know what my next car will be. What’s holding me back is price. I can afford it but what they’re asking for is more than I think they should be. I have the luxury of being able to wait this time, with no major work anticipated on the car.

Golf watching …

We didn’t actually do much of this. When we got there, it was starting to get a little damp, although it help off while we had a cup of tea. However, when we headed out on to the course to watch the play, the heavens opened. This wasn’t just drizzle, this was full on Noah’s Ark rain. Standing water on the greens kind of rain. It got into everything, some of my stuff may still be drying out next week.

We didn’t hang around to watch the resumption, heading off to get dry. So the golf was a bit of a letdown but we’ll try again some time. After drying off, we had a great dinner at the Fox & Hounds in Riseley. If you’re in the Bedfordshire area I’d advise checking them out.

Had Monday off due to anticipating lots of travel. Needed it too because on Monday morning I was extremely crabby due to combination of driving at least 400 miles with another 180 to come, coupled with doing a Drowned Rat impression on the Sunday.

Looking forward to the weekend already, although I won’t be looking at cars this time. Instead there’s cricket on the Friday, England rugby on the Saturday and Formula 1 action on the Sunday. I shall be glued.

At least now that I'm playing it to I'll know what you're talking about sometimes!