Month: February 2015

Mine too

One of my earliest heroes…..

The news will be full of reports about this over the next few days.

He was a legend, a shining example for us all. From Star Trek, to Fringe. He stole the show wherever he went.

RIP Mr Spock, you will be sorely missed.

He was great.

And that perfect delivery of the line too !

Only Keith Hamilton Cobb as Tyr could do that justice.

"I have faith in nothing but this, when the universe collapses and dies, there will be three survivors – Tyr Anasazi, the cockroaches and Dylan Hunt trying to save the cockroaches."

They certainly don't write things like that any more… [lol]

I’ve been enjoying something from the past. Not too long ago mind …

Ok, what is it ? It’s a space scifi series from the golden age, Andromeda. You have a mixed cast of distinct personalities which all come together, led by the indomitable Dylan Hunt played by Kevin “Hercules” Sorbo.

It was a decent series in its time. Not the best, not the worst. But it was from that golden age that brought us fantastic series like :

Farscape
Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis
Some of the Star Treks
Earth Final Conflict (shame I only saw season 1)
And a bunch of others that my hazy memory isn’t letting me remember

But – Andromeda – not many series can pull out lines like :
“I have faith in nothing but this, when the universe collapses and dies, there will be three survivors – Tyr Anasazi, the cockroaches and Dylan Hunt trying to save the cockroaches.” Classic.

Sadly, this is another that I lost track of before it concluded. Remembering back (and this is Hard cos it’s from the amnesia days of Nose Job 1) I think this is from when I had to switch back to cable because a tree was blocking the satellite signal and Andromeda suffered most from loss of signal.

Oh and it had a beautiful ship (and a very pretty, sassy and incredibly competent avatar too).

We don’t really see series like those from that classic age any more. There’s a kind of innocence lost in the search of the grittiness that telly people are putting in their series now. That’s sad. Series like The Walking Dead are now more about the extreme gore and have forgettable storylines. And we barely have any space opera scifi !

(I’m still watching Walking Dead)

Looking forward ?

There’s a phrase out there in nerd/geeky land : Senpai Notice Me.

I’ve actually used that because … it was appropriate 🙂 Ok, it was Kim saying that she thought my Happy New Chinese Year dwagon avatar was cute. Which it is. I’ve switched it to the Unless You Can Be A Dwagon avatar now because the CNY celebration period is concluding.

I’d give that one a 7 out of 10. The top bit is taken from a T-shirt that’s become part of my subversive Fridays selection. The red letters are mine, courtesy of GIMP. It’s ok but there are way too many words on there for it to work as a First Glance Chuckle avatar. You have to squint to read the little letters.

Senpai noticed me ? Yep. Had a couple of replies back over the Twitter. What I find strange within myself is – my mind is going “Yey ! But I wish I was getting messages from Cupid’s Gift instead”. (She’s been quiet, which is ok because she’s a busy lady). I love what Twitter-Lady does but … my attention’s elsewhere.

I’ve had that shift from having all my mental energies concentrated on following one lady, hoping for her to notice me, to looking for attention from a different one. I find that very strange, I’ve never really faced that before. I’ve always been a one lady fella. It’s been a little strange splitting my attention between chasing 3. I suspect that’s why I’ve been happier lately, because I effectively gave up on 2 of them due to getting on really well with the messages going back and forward to Cupid’s Gift.

It would be great to see her again before Comic Con. I’m really looking forward to that.

Comic Con ? It’s at Birmingham NEC near the end of March. As well as sharing in the delight that I’m hoping CG will have at seeing everything (that’s my No1 reason for going, to share in her fun), I’ll be picking up more bits and pieces. I missed acquiring a mug which I have to have for work.

I think that’s quite enough for now 🙂

Looking forward – things are looking up. I feel tired right now but that’s mostly down to the long drag between Xmas and Easter holidays. I’m balancing that tiredness with nice things that various people in work and outside have been saying about me. And with those messages that go back and forward with the Pretty Ladies.

But it’s one Pretty Lady in particular who makes me think of this line from Lily Allen’s Who’d Have Known “When you flash up on my phone, I no longer feel alone”.

I hope she does. Cya soon !

I mentioned on Thursday that I was back on the antibiotics again.

I jokingly call them “diet pills” because they demaand a no eating window around taking them. The recommendation is :

No food 2 hours before
No food 1 hour after (it’s an either or but I take it as a both)
Take 4 a day

If you take that literally, it’s one every six hours and 3 hours of no munchies around each one. No snacking for 12 hours a day ! Someone like me might fade away with a diet like that.

It’s good actually. It’s a discipline that forces you to arrange your munching around the recommended 3 meals a day, with the fourth gap being sleepy time. So the ideal pattern for pill taking time is :

6am – pill – this actually happens when I wake up, which is usually about 7.30 am.
I usually get in to work around 9.00 to 9.15 depending on traffic which gives loads of time to hunt and devour a teacake before 10am, which is the next cut off time.
12noon – pill. Add an hour for a lunch at about 1pm.
3.15ish – sneaky afternoon munchie + hot chocolate at work. It gives me an excuse to walk away from the desk for a few minutes, which lets me restore a bit of focus. I can work straight for many hours but I find it best if I have a break for more calories at a certain time.
6pm – pill. Hopefully taking the pill at this time will let me avoid diving into the chippie or chinese on the way home from work. Although one plan was to raid Sainsburys on Tuesday (I’m travelling again, coming back early so I’ll have the car) and pill time will mean forgoing visiting the Frankie and Bennys next to work.
12midnight – pill before bedtime. The 2 hours before mean no snacktime before bedtime.

It’s a good discipline to have, even if you’re not taking pills. Grazing is really bad for the waistline.

Hopefully it’ll get my weight trend back on the right track, it’s been going up for a little while and I need to arrest that and turn it round. But in the meantime :

Yep. It’s tempting. And I do love my pizzas.

So much for the habits, how about the effect ?

I’m seeing nicely dramatic improvements. Most of my skin is back to silky smooth although the damaged bits are still evident. They are, however, repairing nicely. The progress is delightful. In a few days, my knees may be clear enough to allow me to wear the knee pads which are a vital pre-requisite to me doing physical exercise. I’m going to walk before I do the running thing though.

Yeah – the antibiotics (not had to use much of the gunk outside of the first day) have had a greatly appreciated effect. I’m not celebrating just yet though. I’ve had similar improvements before which fade away again after the course of drugs finishes. It’s as if some of the pernicious infection finds a place to hide until it’s safe to come out again.

I’m somewhat cautious there, by ensuring I only wear stuff that I’ve washed since starting on the course of drugs. And I have my washing machine set to 60 degrees, which should hopefully deal with a few of those nasties. That should isolate one vector for the nasties to hide in. Hopefully the bugs will stay away this time.

It’ll take some time for the bad bits to repair. Typically it takes 3 days for cuts on me to heal. But it’ll take maybe a month for wounds to disappear completely.

I have my fingers crossed, it’s good progress so far, long may it continue.

I’m a little sad though – it’s been a relaxing weekend but I’ve missed a couple of opportunities again. It was the local reenactor’s market, this would have been an interesting day out. A friend went and I was genuinely curious about coming along. But – still tired and lacking the energy levels for the wander. That’s the same with the other thing this weekend, Chinese New Year celebrations. I was genuinely curious about that too. I opted for restorative sleep time instead. I’m needing to ration the energy somewhat at the moment.

That goes a bit for the gaming too – I’m concentrating on games that don’t need much interaction at the moment. I have a few games that have my attention at the moment :

Elite Dangerous – not playing this at the moment. It needs active piloting and some degree of concentration. I’m usually too tired in the week for this and have avoided it this weekend. But … at some point I want to upgrade that Cobra to a spec that’ll let me head off and explore the galaxy. And you can do that in this game, explore the known galaxy.

Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol – it’s a WW1 fighter pilot game. It’s very simple and reasonably complex at the same time. It’s very reminiscent of a card game I played with the gaming group a good few years ago. Interesting, well presented and gives a little challenge too.

Sunless Sea – a new one where you’re the captain of a steamship in a cyberpunk world. The tagline is “Lose your mind, eat your crew”. It models hunger, fuel and terror. Interesting game again, interesting enough for me to pick it up after watching the Totalbiscuit and Kim videos on it. I enjoyed my first look at this one today.

This War Of Mine – difficult subject, your game characters are people attempting to survive in a war torn city, under siege from snipers during the day. You have to collect sufficient material, food and supplies to allow them to survive. It’s difficult, somewhat depressing too. I suspect I’ll only do a couple of playthroughs of this one.

And then there’s Moo2 as well. I’ve been winning a few of these games, although I’ve not taken one to the grindy conclusion for a while. There comes a tipping point where you become unstoppable, if you’re not attacked up to that point.

Yep. Good times, although I’m not really feeling that.

It’s welcome seeing and feeling the improvements in my outsides but it’s the nature of depression that your mental state tends to hide any improvements that happen.

I’m not in a depressive cycle as such, although it has been a few days since I got a message from Cupid’s Gift. Those have been a real lift.

Before I go – a suggestion for the Elite devs, they really need to implement those as an addition to the game !

I had one of those daft ideas today.

I thought I’d share it with you :

I’m not quite sure if the little fella knows what he’s auditioning for. We better not tell him, Pocket Dragons are fragile things and are embarassed easily.

It’s something that certainly is grabbing more than it’s fair share of attention at the moment. The movie that is. (And the books when they were all the rage).

Am I going to go see it ? No. Unless that is, I get one of those offers I can’t possibly refuse. Yep. If a Pretty Lady asks me to spend time with her, then I’ll do anything to make it happen. I think that’s the only way I’ll watch this particular movie though. From what I’ve read about it, the subject matter is twisted and make invoke the part of me that likes to throw stuff.

We shall see. Opinions are mixed :

There are the people who want it banned and all copies burned;
There are the curious;
There are the ones looking for a cheap thrill, no matter the ethics;
There are the people who have seen it and enjoyed it.

My opinion ? Make your own minds up about it. Go see if you’re curious, tell people what you thought. One reason I’m avoiding it is because there are plenty more films out there at the moment, excellent and good films. And there’s only so much time to watch them all.

If you’re only able to watch one cinema film over the next few weeks, watch Big Hero 6. Don’t waste your time on anything else. The Craziemob watched Big Hero 6 on Tuesday and it’s … outstanding. Definitely the best film of 2015 so far.

Other news …

I’ve finally had that doctor’s appointment ! She was surprised when I told her it’s been worse. And it has been worse. I’ve been at “steadily improving, never getting better” for quite a few months now as my outsides improve a bit and then worsen again.

Result from the appointment – more antibiotics, some anti-histamines, good gunk and nuke standard gunk. The nuke standard gunk (Betnovate Valerate) is amazing. My ankles were shredded (nasty yep) on Monday and an application of the nuke-gunk sorted that out enough for 3 good days. So that stuff should help out a lot over the next little while.

Hopefully the stuff from this last visit will polish off the healing and get me back to All Fixed Proper Job. We’ll see.

I’ve also been away to the Mall tonight. I felt the need for a wander 🙂 What did I get ?

Thorntons is still very dangerous. Haha. I have sweeties.

HMV got raided too. I spotted a couple in 2 for £10 and that kinda cascaded :

Echosmith – Talking Dreams. Heard one track a while ago, thought it was pretty cool.
Linda Rondstadt collection – legend singer.
Meghan Trainor – Title – loved All About That Bass when I heard it.
Taylor Swift – Fearless. Expecting more pleasant stuff here.

See ? I couldn’t go without new music to listen to for long !

One last pic before I go :

That made me chuckle when I spotted it the other day 🙂 Thought it was appropriate for the post-doctor post :-).

If you go see Fifty Shades, lemme know what you think of it. I’m curious 🙂

Waait … wasn’t that a couple of months ago ?

Not for everyone.

There’s a significant proportion of the planet who celebrate the Chinese New Year, it’s also known as the Spring Festival. Quite fitting for a celebration to emphasize the starting of new life, which is always something most certainly worth celebrating.

There’s lots more here at the wiki page (linky). But that’s very dry. Let me first say :

That fella used to be the Happy Mother’s Day dwagon (which will come out again soon) and I’ve been having far too much fun in GIMP sending messages to assorted people using him as a base. I think I’ve got it about right in this one, letters could be bigger. But they look fairly right. The others suffer from either bad colours or unsuitable fonts.

I do like this one though.

I said that Wiki page was a bit dry didn’t I ? SHOUT OUT TIME !

One reason I’m becoming more aware of non-English festivals like these is due to being educated by a wonderful little lady. (Perhaps Cupid’s Gift will introduce me to more of these festivals too ?)

I’ve talked about lovely Kim lots here, you’re probably bored of it by now ! Well, bear with me cos her explanation of the festival is way better than anything I could do and Kim’s commentary is far warmer than anything on that Wiki page.

Linky !

Go on – have a watch and give it a bit of time because she gets more into the culture later on. I hope you’ll enjoy that video for the culture, the fun inherent in that voice and the commentary. There’s a mischievous laugh always bubbling away, waiting to burst out and brighten everyone’s day.

But … Kim’s not managed to get to be with family this year and is getting a bit lonely. Poor Kim. That can only mean :

(Except I’m not – I’m in need of a shower and a drying out before bedtime – but the thought’s there !)

Your fans love you Kim, for your content, your personality, that laugh and the mischievous nature that always has a surprise in store for us.

Happy New Year to everyone who celebrates this particular festival. A lot of the festivals are commercial inventions. I said that at the weekend with Valentines. But this one – it’s all about family, ancestors, new life and celebration.

Which is Good. Cya !