Year: 2017

Day 9 sees a transport arrive. Or go zoom.

Where is it headed I wonder ? What could it have seen ? Is it being chased by the Stormtrooper ?

A mystery of ages.

Today’s post is a bit of a cautionary note … If you see something appear on your computer like “YOUR MAC IS INFECTED CLICK HERE TO SORT!” … don’t click on any of the links on the page. They will likely infect your computer with something horrific.

Instead, note down stuff on the page if you think it’ll do any good later, check the web address as well. If it’s something sensible like Something.Apple.Com, then think about checking it out. And then don’t.

I saw a web address of lots of numbers and then something unpronouncable.com (I can remember the letters but I’m not posting them here) and hit the back button on the machine. And then installed Malwarebytes and asked it to do a scan.

(No threats found happily)

I’ll look into using one of my Bitdefender licences on there as well but I really want to avoid using Bitdefender. I’ll definitely not be renewing the licence when it expires in half a year. Why ? Because I bought it in the hope of getting antivirus without having constant pop ups and entreatings to send money their way and …. after only about a month I was being asked to upgrade and it has interrupted what I’ve been doing several times since with more unwanted ads.

I’ll send the money elsewhere next time around.

By the way, the site I clicked on was Statcounter and I think it was an advert that redirected the browser to the page with the infection warning. I’ve turned Adblock back on now for Statcounter. It won’t be turned off again.

So by allowing an infected ad through, Statcounter have lost their ad revenue from me.
For giving me advertising popups, Bitdefender lose their business from me next year.

Be careful on the internet folks ! And don’t panic if something unexpected happens.

There may be stormtroopers out there with guns and you might get shot while they’re aiming at something completely different.

Day 8 has arrived …. and I think we know why Stormie was so angry …

His gun has been locked away in the Basket of Things That Fix Stuff and he has to fix all the damage to the shooting range before he gets it back.

Stormtroopers and their guns. No self control. Like people in bathrooms. How do they arrange things in those suits of armour anyway ? And …

Darth Vader has a volcano lair … Beware !

I can’t remember where I got that photo. I have a funny feeling it’s a good friend on that selfie and it’s from their facebook. Great sense of humour to it anyway.

I’m hoping for a quiet start of the weekend to regain some energy before some fun on Sunday cruising round the Bristol Harbourside market. Should be good. Not many more working days now until Xmas leave begins ! I’m actually contemplating starting that a bit sooner but we shall see. Almost all of the tasks that need to be done this year are sorted, which means we’ll get cracking on next year’s stuff a bit earlier.

There will be some Motorsport Manager, my team has won its first race … We won’t win the championship this year, I’m still building the team up. But they’ll hopefully be near the front consistently next year. 2 more races to go.

I will be flying amongst the distant stars in Elite … it’s a good chill out game.

And I have a game started in Stellaris too …

Chill out commences imminently with Return of the Jedi !

Another mini figure today :

The stormtrooper stands. Arms, upraised.

What could have attracted his ire ? Are the arms raised in anger ? Or in a plea ? Could this be the stormtrooper who did not find the droids he was looking for ?

Did he have ex squadmates on the battlestation ? Family even ?

Could it be …. he is cursing his luck at his chosen career and just wants some sleep ?

No. I know what it is.

Stormie wants my pizza. Those arms are not raised in outrage, they are a sign of extreme hunger.

Yep. Pizza today. It was lush.

At least I think it’s a tiny transport …

There was a time when I would have known a significant amount of the Star Wars lore. Before the Disney times when they ripped up the stories from the books and replaced it with new lore from series like Rebels and Clone Wars.

I enjoyed a fair few of the older Star Wars books, although some of the others earned their authors a case of eternal contempt (deserved) and the New Jedi Order Yuuzhan Vong books wrecked the series for me.

Let’s see :
Timothy Zahn – Heir to the Empire trilogy – smart stories, good characters, an amazing villain. Just happened to be set in the Star Wars universe.
Michael Stackpole – the XWing Rogue Squadron series were fantastic books that slotted in during the years after Return of the Jedi. These were all about the characters, who were led by a minor character from the films, Wedge Antilles. I really enjoyed reading these books although …
Aaron Allston – he wrote a follow up series of XWing books based around a different squadron, Wraith squadron. These were the dirty dozen of the Star Wars universe and the stories were even more compelling than those from Michael Stackpole.

Some of these authors deliver stellar work when allowed to play in other people’s universes. Other authors, not so much. I felt like the Kevin J Anderson Star Wars books were pointless and went as far as insulting the reader.

I’ve just rewatched Empire Strikes Back tonight. It’s a good film, many Star Wars fans think that it’s the best of the series. Me ? Not so much. The action set piece of the Battle of Hoth is incredible. The soundtrack is phenomenal. But I didn’t feel it really went anywhere ? Definitely a middle film introducing more flesh on the bones of the universe.

I think Rogue One is one of the great films. It’s a war story that just happens to be set in the SW universe. And the core characters draw that emotional response too.

I’m looking forward to watching Force Awakens again (soon). I like the Rey character. She’s a tough smart kid who can stand up for herself. I’m very curious to see where that goes. And then there’s Leia providing the heart at the centre. We’ll definitely miss Carrie Fisher.

I must look into having another go at the old games too. I’m ignoring the new Battlefront game. Something orientated to multiplayer while only having a very short single player is something that definitely doesn’t interest me. Nah. Tie Fighter was the game that caught me many years ago and I enjoyed the old Pod Racer game too.

For another evening though, gotta wrest me rist. Or rest me wrist.

Cya tomorrow for more advent !

Day 5 and another Minifigure :

I wonder what he’s aiming at ? Are there Imperials in the ceiling ? Can he see Imperials in space ?

There is a Star Destroyer occupying space on one of my chairs, in a bubble wrap dry dock. Could be that.

I headed off to the Mall tonight. I’ve been wanting to escape the house in the evening for a while, although there isn’t actually that much I’m interested in hunting for at the Mall now. I am hankering for more Lego though. (I think I’ve mined out the Lego sets I want to get, although I do have an eye on the Explorer ship).

I did acquire a couple of items tonight, it is December after all and Xmas is coming :-).

Oh and there was the Sausage-Inna-Bun from the market stall too.

The Mall does look pretty when the lights get turned on.

Very pretty !

I’m tired after the walking around though. Time to chill out to videos, streams and music.

And watch for the guns.

Quite a dinky little ground support type blaster gun.

Back to work today. Feeling better, hopefully it won’t be long until the last of the bugs depart my system. I’m not getting rid of bugs as quickly as I used to (must be getting old) but hopefully these are on their way out now.

Not many more working days now until the Xmas break. I’ll be looking to make sure there’s nothing hanging over us over the break. It’s good to make a fresh start in the new year.

And in a minute, I’ll be making a fresh start on …. my dinner !

I think I’m just about to hear the beeping of the timer, although that timer is currently having to compete with the annual Yogscast live Civ game, Seal singing his heart out on his Best of (as of 1991 to 2004) album and an Aavak video of him playing Hand of Fate 2.

I did actually try out Hand of Fate 1, it’s a mix between deck building card game and beat ’em up. I found it a better game to watch than actually play, although that might have been a legacy of my wrist being sore at the time. I’ve never really got on that well with controller games. Keyboard and mouse, yes … until the RSI strikes. Joystick games … I used to be really good at these until my confidence went due to slowed reactions.

I seem to be doing ok on Elite now, I must try a few more like the old Star Wars Pod Racer game. Loved that game but it needs some work to make it play on Windows 7/10.

I think the slow reactions were a legacy of another concussion, the incident where I almost ate the cricket ball.

That’s my completely random plea for the day – if you know someone who has had a recent head injury, keep an eye on them. Make sure they’re ok. Because often, they won’t realise that they’ve been hurt far harder than they thought. I definitely didn’t realise I had long term effects from my two concussions.

Cya ! And I hope you had excellent things in your advent calendars today.

It’s day 3 of the advent … and ….

Another tiny spaceship !

I’ve been flying the internet spaceship around again. I have two objectives in the game at the moment :

1st – to get money for the bigger ships by doing missions for the major factions. At the moment, it’s the Empire to maybe get a ship for the second objective. I’m one rank off getting another Imperial Clipper :

 Chocolate Edition Clipper, I think last year.

It does mean I’m hanging out in some very shiny spaceports at the moment.

I’m pretty sure that’s Dawes Station, in orbit around the Imperial Capitol world in Achenar. It’s shiny. I’m one Imperial Rank away from being permitted to acquire a Clipper again, lots of ranks away from the Cutter. It was enjoyable and relaxing coming back into the game again today and yesterday.

I have a slight problem there, the RSI in my right wrist is starting to make its presence known again. I think Elite is ok for that, it doesn’t particularly aggravate it. Most of the flying has the RSI wrist resting on my stick which is far easier on the arm than my last one. (It’s a Thrustmaster Hotas X). I suspect a shooty game would probably draw out the pain a lot more.

Second objective ? There is talk of an expedition in Elite with the objective of painting a giant Empire Sigil over the galaxy. I know, ostentatious, tacky, a must for any Empire leaning pilot.

That’s the course I ended up taking earlier this year. I wonder what course the next epic trip will take. It could see the return of the old faithful Jms :

Maybe to locations as pretty as that one on the way to the Core ?

But that’s for another evening. Or quite a few sessions over the Xmas break.

Day 2 !

And a rebel. I think. Definitely has hair that I suspect we’ll be seeing more of in the upcoming movie.

Unless she was in the Rebels animated series that I haven’t watched.

I tried out my marshmallow burner today. Impressions :

I like the burner thingy. But then it’s a burner thingy and creates fire. Fire is good.
I like the marshmallows. They are tasty.
I’m not convinced I like the marshmallows after they’ve been toasted. Possibly a waste of good marshmallows.

The burner thingy has been extinguished now but it’ll be back.

How’s me ? Doing better today. I’m hopefully at that point where my body has gotten the better of the bugs and I can get back to normal again. My voice is returning, although I’m not quite singing along to Tori Amos I Can’t See New York, which is one of my favourite songs.

More advent calendar tomorrow and …

Fire is good.

It’s 1st December !

Which means I get to break into the advent calendar.

If anyone can tell me what it is, drop in a comment.

(I think it’s something space shippy).

I’ll pop up again through the weekend with more advent creations but it’s going to be a quiet one for me. The bugs that were brewing at the start of the week have hit me harder than I expected. That seems to be a new pattern, usually my body would fend off the bugs and I’d barely notice them. But I’ve been getting affected more.

Probably just run down. I’m really looking forward to the Xmas break.

One thing I should be doing is recording more videos. The 4 I did before were done using a long expired 30 day trial of a video editing suite but I’ve actually bought one of those now courtesy of the last Steam sale. I need a working voice though before I do that.

It’s also Yogscast Jingle Jam as of today. I’ll pick a good opportunity to drop a donation in for that. The money goes to charity and you get a massive bundle of games (and soundtracks for the games!) in return. The opportunity will be when a favourite streamer is on. They feel pressure to do their part for the charities, which includes wanting to get a decent number of donations in. So I’ll time my donation strategically to make one of the streamers I enjoy feel a bit better.

I rarely watch Yogscast stuff now (they transitioned towards a different style of content, involving an emphasis on trolling and other stupidity, which turned me away) but that charity+games combination is good to support.

Cricket starts again tonight. I’ll be watching that, albeit time delayed with me avoiding social media until I’ve caught up. The cricket starts at about 3am, which is a daft time to be watching. The time delaying involves recording it and starting to watch when I wake up.

Far more sensible. Especially if you intend to hide under the covers until at least mid day.

Not long left until Xmas now. Definitely needing the time off ! I’ll be back tomorrow with more Advent lego. Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out what the next one is :-).

I’ll explain that title in a bit.

Checking in again with some randomness … I keep getting ideas to write posts around but by the time I get home and near the keyboard, they have escaped. Fleeting ideas that taunt me with their promise.

Something else that’s taunting me in the corner at the moment is an advent calendar. A Star Wars Lego advent calendar to be precise. I’m quite looking forward to going through the calendar and I’ll share the pics as the doors get opened and the Lego gets put together.

I’d be quite tempted to acquire some more Lego …. although I don’t know what I’d actually get. I think I’ve mined out the Star Wars kits. There are some very interesting Technic kits but …. I don’t really want to build trucks ? I did enjoy putting this together :

The Lego Le Mans car was a good kit. And it’s now discontinued alas (in other words, it’ll be available at 3 times its value from Ebay sellers). I’d have been miffed if I had missed out on this one.

The motor racing has finished for the year now. I dunno what to think about the motor racing actually, it’s good to have on in the background but … not much actually happens during the racing in Formula 1 ? Ok, there’s usually mayhem at the start or at some random point in the race but the aerodynamics of the cars works against them having close, exciting battles and the result is usually … yawning procession. The World Endurance Championship races are better. At some point, I’ll watch a whole Le Mans 24 hour, either at home on the telly or by actually heading over to France to watch the race.

That’s getting closer as a possibility. Hurrah ! Need a passport though.

My outsides are finally deciding to get better … There are still some hold out areas but I’ve had 3 good weeks so far. And good days are when the condition doesn’t worsen, allowing steady healing to happen. My feet and legs are still messy but they’re steadily getting back to normality and …. I didn’t wear my ankle bandages today.

I’m in two minds about those ankle bandages. On one hand, they protect the bad areas and in these colder months, they add a bit more insulation too. On the other, they are really irritating to put on and there is a big chance that they’ll double up and wrap over, causing more pressure on the areas they’re intended to protect.

I won’t miss putting those bandages on. Partly because it means my feet are mending.

Back to that motor racing – I’m enjoying having another look at Motorsport Manager. I’d gone away from it after winning one of the achievements and completing that particular goal of building a weak team up to become the champions. I might go back to that game because it might feed in a few other achievements.

But I’ve actually gone over to a new set of DLC, an Endurance Championship (disclosure note – bought by me ! Not provided by devs). It allows for races up to 6 hours long … The idea being that you spend maybe 2 hours in the race with most of the time spent at 12x fast forward. I’m enjoying it so far but I’m actually about to cheat the save by adding a couple of zeroes to the amount of money. There are two reasons for this :

1 – I don’t think it’s balanced at the moment. With some reasonable sponsors and 1 pay driver, the team is losing 500k per race. So it isn’t looking likely to be profitable over the season and be able to build up.
2 – It lets me skip about 5 seasons of building and boring races coming last all of the time.

So it won’t be cheating on the core mechanics of the game, the racing … but it will let me skip a few boring years of building the team up.

I’ve also been playing Stellaris and got my first win in the game. It took just less than 50 years in the tiniest galaxy. My mob only needed to own 21 planets to win and had beaten up 2 of the 3 competitor races in the game. I’ll throw the same race into a properly big game at some point. I’ve changed the mods around to have a different set of expanded ship classes and I’ve been playing with a fleet of :

Imperial designs. Spot the Victory class Star Destroyers making the core of the fleet. There should be a few Nebulon B frigates in there too.

And I should really acquire the Magic Vegas video editing package while it’s on discount at Steam ! That would be £25 for the middle package. I’d like to make some more videos (and should really add my channel link on the right).

One last word about the cricket. It was good to be watching the games again over the weekend but I was very disappointed in the performance. The big difference between the teams was in the bowling. The Australian bowlers had real threat and menace, the English bowlers just didn’t turn up. They can bowl at 90mph+ and our spinner can turn the ball square but in this game …. just didn’t.

Hopefully they’ll do better in the next game.

Come on the England cricket !

PS Word of the day is from the bus tickets. I’ve moved to electronic ticketing to save 50p per ticket and … each day there is a random word. Today, fish. Last week, girl and toad. Tomorrow ? I dunno cos I’m thinking I should quarantine bugs at home. I did feel steadily stronger and stronger as today at work went on though. We shall see !