Year: 2018

Wow, is it really 11 days since I posted last ?

That’s a little too long. I like to keep in the habit of making posts and one of the aims for this year is to easily make 100 posts. I’ve done that for the past few years, although 2017 was mostly by the virtue of going nuts with the Advent calendar in December.

I did like the pattern of writing less but more often. Hopefully you liked that from the point of view of the reader.

What have I been up to ?

Burying myself in work as per usual;
It’s coming up to Easter and I’ll want to get everything in a good state before I disappear for a week. There’s a combination of not wanting to worry about stuff while I’m away plus not wanting to leave work for others. Cos it’s bad if other people have to do my work for me. I don’t like that.

The way my system sets itself up is that I’ll dip into the hyperactivity while at work and then the cost of that is to crash in the evening and weekends. And I can only do it for so long. The Xmas to Easter run seems to be a particularly tough one probably as a combination of the duration of the period and the lack of daylight. People are partly solar powered I think.

Especially as the sunnier times of the year are when the cricket can be watched (in sensible hours, I probably won’t watch much of the NZ vs England tour).

What else … games …

I’ve been quietly addicted to the Idle Champions game again. It’s playing at the moment while I tap this post out and watch a stream and video while the music is on. That’s probably a bit too much going on to be honest but you can leave the idle clicker game to do its business in the background while you do other things. They’ve gone as far as they can go in the present run, so they’re picking up money. I could even run it overnight. I don’t think I will though.

I was thinking about doing another Planetbase run and recording it …. probably too late now, it would have had to be a weekend because a full base run is about 20 hours. I’d compress that for a video. Anyway, Planetbase is due to thinking of another game coming soon called Surviving Mars, which could well be an exceptional game and right up my alley for building a colony on Mars. It’s a bit contrived in places though, like in its highly accelerated time for people living. It’s not a game over years, it’s a game over days … or Sols.

There has been more Lego and the pictures will come in a later post. I have a 4th Millennium Falcon … no not that one, a smaller one. It was a quick build but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

That arrived as part of being a vulture with Toys R Us and Maplin. Both stores are in closing down procedures, basically they charged too much for what they sell, didn’t keep up with changing trends (or consciously went against them!) and people went elsewhere with the consequence that both big chains will disappear or shrink into a more commercially viable form.

But that means that now there are discounts and potential shinies to be had. Except even with the discounts, they were more expensive than the shops down the road. Oh well.

It was also a Mothers Day weekend here and a bit more involved than usual … Instead of going to the parents place, I drove to where mum lives on Friday, over to the sister’s on Saturday, Mothers Day things on Sunday, back to mum’s place on Sunday night and back to Bristol on Monday. And visiting :

That’s Murph the Slurp. He’s very friendly. Bit more scared of things than he should be maybe but quickly went into full on slurp mode. He has a sister/not-sister called Ice who is a big ball of fluff.

Very interested in my toes for some reason. My knees got checked out as well.

(I think both of them were investigating how I might taste. I may yet get eaten by dogs ….)

Just kidding on that. Icey seems to have a lot of anxiety along with the big ball of floofiness, which means they have to keep her isolated away from other people and visitors. She defaults into a perceive threat -> attack response. Normally I’d be reasonably rough with dogs. Not hitting them of course but definitely giving the fur a good bit of ruffling. Playing with them. But only up to the point where the dog is still having fun. If the dog is not having fun then it’s abuse and you don’t want to subject pets to that.

Dogs like interaction with people. They enjoy you playing with them (or they wouldn’t come back for more!). You can’t do that with Icey as a stranger but I suspect with more visits, Icey will end up favouring me with as many slurps as Murph does. It was getting close at the weekend :

Some animals you can be a bit rougher with. Vigorous belly rubs and things like that. Other animals you need to give a bit more time with. Dogs are naturally curious. If you approach them when they’re not ready, it’ll scare them and you’ll get that perceive threat -> attack response. We’re bigger than they are and they understand body language differently. If you let them approach you, let them give a gentle investigative sniff, that will open the way to the trust for the stroking and the belly rubs.

Unless it is a badly trained dog and then you want to be ready with the crossed arms over the chest to ward them off and definitely more wariness with that outstretched hand for them to sniff. But that’s not Ice and Murph.

Looking forward to meeting the doggypair again at some point. I don’t often find myself in that area though.

One last pic ?

Yes Murph that is your best side and you are definitely a handsome fellow.

(His gave may or may not have been drawn to CAKE in this picture. I can neither confirm nor deny any rumours about that).

It’s good to be around dogs who are part of the family again. I do miss the old fellas.

Scruff looking forwards to a good bit of ruffling. He did like a good throat and belly rub.

And Ben loving life like he loved people. And like how he loved treats.

(Also Goldie the athlete dog but I don’t have any pictures of the golden one)

Last bit – still aiming for the 52 books, although I’ve kind of stalled lately with Revelation Space. It seems to be taking its time to really get going.

Well. Not yet at least. It’s coming down heavier now than it was yesterday.

Could be bad later but the power is still going well, I’m warm and can get warmer via kettle and heating and more layers. I’m ok. I’m sparing a thought though for all those people who did brave the conditions. They’re unprecedented. I can’t remember snow like this since the family moved back from Northern Ireland. We lived out in the country over there and would get the weather from the Atlantic first, whereas the rest of Britain is partially sheltered by the island of Ireland.

I was working from home for a second day running today, which actually works ok outside of not being able to haunt people’s desks with a hangdog look when you need them to do something for you. That’s done now, which means ….

That’s a lot of Imperials …. How will BB-8 escape !!!!

That’s how it looked out the front door this morning. Didn’t look too bad, although the 2d of the picture and the flat snow belies how it was starting to drift into more significant clumps.

This lower angle from the front door shows it a bit more clearly. Yep. The snow is above the level of my front door. Boots essential …. And that drift before the pavement proved very fortuitous for … fun :-).

Battle had commenced, with the massed Imperial Walkers advancing with just one plucky Rebel attempting to foil their attack.

More battles were underway as well. Who would come out on top between this snow speeder and the Tie Advanced ?

I hope they’re taking note of the curious way the air is molding the snow … It doesn’t show up that well here but the wind has been carving shapes in the snow to allow the air to pass between the drifts and the obstacles. As the gap closes, the aerodynamic effect means the air goes through faster and in doing so, shifts the snow. It tingles my engineer senses.

Conditions on the roads are quite treacherous as well. Perhaps pod racers would get more traction on this than cars.

Definitely in that car park. (The cafe is open but not the shop)

This roundabout was definitely having its way with the people negotiating it. I saw a car go sideways multiple times as they were going too fast around it plus a Beemer needed a push because …. too much power not enough brain.

A lonely bootprint. WHAT COULD IT MEAN !!!!

And a path I have rarely trodden before today.

The going could be best described as Heavy going on Chance of Deathslip.

And …. I do believe that driver is obeying the speed limit. THEY SHOULD BE REPORTED FOR DEVIANT BEHAVIOUR !!!!

How are those battles going ?

Maybe Vader someday later now he’s just a small fry is ….. winning. Could go places that little one.

The Imperial learns that they should not have brought a starfighter to a battle in the snow when the Rebel had a snowspeeder. One more unwise pilot crashed in the snow.

A snowboard emerges !!! BB-8 will leave them in his wake with that.

I had a good walk around the neighbourhood earlier but as the snow was coming down heavier again, the homing instinct was kicking in pulling me home. By the time I arrived, the fresh snowfall had already nearly erased the evidence of the earlier impromptu photo session.

Stay safe everyone ! If you can avoid it, don’t travel in this. It’s hopefully unnecessary for you and if you have conditions like around here, the chances of getting caught out are far too high. (From someone insane enough to travel when I definitely shouldn’t.)

Stay safe, stay warm and I hope you enjoy the snow if you get a chance to.

Haha – don’t worry about me.

I did need to get a few feelings out last night but it’s not that kind of bottle. Honest. And there ain’t no way I’m going to be hitting this particular bottle, I would be finding Lego bits for months with my feet afterwards. Ain’t no one wants to be finding Lego bricks with their feet :-).

I think we need a teaser pic for that there thumbnail thing … Here we go. As always, click for bigger and I do believe the desktop version of these pages includes ….. a slide show …..

Looks good doesn’t it ? Even in the yellowy light of my old photo taking spot. (The main room light has a glass cover that makes the light a bit dim and definitely more yellow than it should be).

That’s the aft castle taking shape at the start of the build. It’s quite incredible how much detail they packed into something so small.

The main hull takes shape, ready to accept masts and sails. It’s only about 3 inches long and 4D was definitely needed to help with angling the ship to make for better pictures.

Another view of the side of the ship. I do like the gun ports and mini cannon hidden within.

Steady as she goes, don’t let those pirates get away.

But this kit isn’t just about the ship. There’s a bottle to craft too. This is the base starting to take shape.

And the ship starts to get enclosed in the bottle. This is still Lego, there are a lot of small pieces that fit together wonderfully well to make something … well you’ll see later how spectacular this one looks when complete.

Almost there … This is the stage where you pour in the “sea”, which is actually 284 individual one circle dot bits of clear blue Lego.

And this is where I shift location to my new photo shooting spot. My pooter chair with the reading light above ! Much better lighting.

And another angle.

4D kinda looks impressed there doesn’t he in his leaning back pose ? Darn straight. That’s the completed bottle. I thought there might be a case of SQUISH at this point with lego going everywhere as the top of the bottle went on. Happily no SQUISH occurred.

Looking shiny ?

Something that shiny needs something to display it on and I was impressed by how tight this article is. And there’s nice detail there too with the sign, the compass and the two rotating globes.

That’s missing something isn’t it …. I did like the brainwave of hiding the dust on my chair by using a map. I thought a bit of the South Coast would be a suitable backdrop.

There he is ! Looks pleased doesn’t he.

And if 4D asks me to draw him like one of those French Dwagons again I will …. get the camera and post it of course.

Last one. A spectacular looking kit. Not sure if it’s worth the asking price ? Maybe. It does look amazing though.

If you want to see more build, here’s a link to the video from Mr Brickbuilder. And I promised someone that I’d give them a link to the old Falcon build as well. Link !

Cya soon.

PS (Addon) Link to the Lego page – this is the Lego Ideas Ship in A Bottle.

Randomness today.

It feels like my brain needs to work through some stuff and I need to get that stuff out of the way before better posts can come again. But first …. a teaser ….

The leviathan wakes ?

Perhaps. Those pictures are for a later post.

Yeah, my brain is in a curious place at the moment. It’s as if it’s forgotten how to get joy. I think I know what’s going on :

My conscious mind is fine. My unconscious mind is grieving. So while I can function and on the surface be my usual non-serious joking self, I’m not getting any joy from that or from what I’m doing. It’s like going through the motions of what I’m usually like. People have mentioned that I look under more strain than usual.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, where my perception of something I’m watching or doing is coloured by how I’m feeling at the time. I’m happy – the film is amazing. I’m sad – the film is boring and poor.

It’s a phenomenon that I need to watch out for in myself. A kind of reinforcing feedback loop that makes a poor mood worse or in the other side of it, makes a happy mood into something where I can be a bit too much, too hyperactive and upset people who aren’t ready for that. I’d rather be happy bouncy than sad though.

I do feel a little odd though that I don’t fall apart with grief like what the expectation seems to be. But then that’s people dealing with it in their own ways. Our family is more about keeping going in adversity than having adversity stop us doing what we want to do. But I still have that guilt in me that suggests I should be grieving more. The little voice that suggests that something is wrong with me for not grieving more. I still grieve, just in my own way, with memories that are still clear and knowing my brain, will still be clear for decades to come.

Enough of that :-).

I got back on Friday night, indulged in a pizza (it was due), didn’t have the ill effects when sleeping that I often get with pizza (hurrah!) and started a new Stellaris game.

There’s been a new patch. And an expansion. I don’t think I like it ….. there are a few too many bugs in there for my liking, bugs that should have been squished during the development. Most of the ones I’ve spotted are cosmetic in nature but I was seeing my economy fluctuate for reasons I couldn’t pin down to events in game.

I’ll give Stellaris a rest for a bit and come back to it after a patch or two. There are loads of other games out there to play. And books that apparently I forgot that I had bought …. Oops. Need to read those.

Yesterday was a few races on Motorsport Manager. It’s a hands off game and I quite enjoy overseeing the races. It’s a game that punishes errors but can give you big rewards for figuring out a good strategy. One of my core strategies is to reduce the number of pit stops my team needs and the last race of yesterday saw my team get its first win in the top tier. I think we won by 8 seconds … having taken 2 pit stops fewer than 2nd place. A pit stop takes about 60-80 seconds in that top tier ….

We’ve been kicking butt at work too, clearing the throughput we have and getting things sorted so that other people can do their parts of getting things done. I can’t talk too much about that though but we’ve definitely been getting things done.

I’m not getting much joy though, just a feeling of job done, what’s next ?

That might be a snowpocalypse later in the week … Another blast of cold air is coming from the North East. Where I live might be shielded by the rest of the country but I hope people don’t get caught in it if it’s as bad as is being suggested.

Who knows, there might be another chance to make a :

🙂

But yeah. Pictures of something awesome are coming;
I’ll hopefully perk up around Wednesday evening time;
And hang in there, wherever you are.

If you’re struggling, talk to people. Even if it’s not about what you’re struggling about. Talking to good people is always an excellent way to lift your mood. Try to bring out a chuckle from people, it’ll bring out an answering smile in you too.

I think that’s another part of my personality, a kind of watch dog that keeps me pointed towards seeing opportunities for fun stuff.

I knew another watch dog :

That’s the beloved old man Scruff, seeking belly and throat rubs. Definitely a dedicated watch dog. The religious people who knocked on the door a long time ago were greeted by my mum and a Scruff who wasn’t barking, he was rumbling. All the time with a helicopter wagging tail out of sight of said religious people. Would have ruined the image.

Better close now. The trip home for Thursday went well, I got to see family we hadn’t seen in years and people from the cricket world from decades ago.

7 down, 45 to go !

I suspect I’m not going to hit that target of 52 books in the year. But I’ll enjoy trying to get there.

Picture first !

Yep.
I’m at it again.

I have no shame when it comes to borrowing memes. Book ?

Book 4 of the Expanse series is Cibola Burn. Humanity is expanding and this book is about the interaction of 3 parties. A group of original colonists who are actually squatters, the second wave who got permission to inhabit the planet and our hardy crew again. (I’m trying to avoid the spoilers for the other books !)

What can I say ? Another enjoyable book in the series. It didn’t outstay its welcome for me like Abaddon’s Gate did. I felt it was allowed to tell its story in just about the right amount of time. I’m looking forward to the next one now but I have a case of WHAT NEXT before then. It may well be an Alastair Reynolds novel and I have Revelation Space on the Kindle app. I also need to finish the How To Destroy The Universe book.

The onrunning theme in the Expanse books is that they adhere to the rules they’ve set up. That means no cheating with things like warp drive … Time spans like a couple of months to cross a solar system, things like that, limits of human physiology instead of cheating by having inertial dampeners to allow higher acceleration. The science fiction is not so much fiction as future science fact. I can see the universe of The Expanse (the human derived side of it at least) becoming science fact in the time scale of the books. The only techs we don’t have yet are : cheap spacesuits, accessible fusion power, the massively efficient Epstein thruster and the power armour.

I’m wondering what book 5, Nemesis Games, holds in store.

About that other space empiring thing …

A game I massively enjoy and am utterly addicted to at the moment is Stellaris. It has a one more turn/month/year factor about it that keeps me glued when I should be doing other things, like going to bed. It’s a very pretty, well realised space strategy game and it’ll hold my attention for a while yet I’m sure. Here’s how my last game finished :

My people are the Elaaminid Prime hive mind race in the SW. We own maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the galaxy. There is an independent federation in the light blue and a race of Fanatic Purifiers (they’re out to murder everyone else) in the dark blue. My hive has become a signatory to the other green empire in the NE.

That’s a cunning plan actually … I wanted to go as far in this game as the end game crisis, where invaders from within, from another galaxy or from another dimension come to try and murder everyone. The end game crises are tough, so I stopped in my conquering in order to keep some allies around …

The end game crisis didn’t occur though, so that’s how the game ends. A very satisfying game which was closely balanced between the 3 power blocs … until I was able to outmaneuver the enemy and start taking chunks of their territory. Patch is coming Thursday though, which I suspect will make this save game unplayable.

I’d want to launch into the new patch mechanics anyway.

But not this Thursday. Gonna be busy / otherwise occupied.

See you at the weekend or next week !

Car service today.

It’s been a little delayed (but not much) because of what was going on with my dad but there was a good opportunity to slot in the car service and a little extra today. I hadn’t been wanting to arrange it before because there was a good chance of having to break an appointment made before being certain where I’d be.

The car gets serviced where I bought it, up in Cheltenham. Which gives the opportunity to indulge in a little going back home …. the long way. I’ve actually driven on those roads before, albeit not all the way to Cardiff. I did a little series of comments on the Facebook :

On the one hand, I have a headache and the pressure in my eyes that must be like what a minor migraine is like.

On the other hand, currently in Cheltenham and still intend to make a side trip to Cardiff on the way back.

Sore head but …. There is a Lego shop there ….

Yeah. I had the sore head this morning. I have a bit of a caffeine dependency and it sometimes manifests like the above if I have too much blood in my caffeine stream. Or the sore head could have been due to my glasses being mucky. Either way, a caffeine dependency (any chemical dependency!) is bad and I tackle it at work via having fake (decaff) coffee. The headache is pretty much gone now, so it may have been also partly anxiety headache. I don’t like car servicing. I did get a good few chapters of Cibola Burn while waiting though.

The trip to Cardiff was fun for while I was in the countryside roads. There was some great scenery whizzing by. The roads seemed to be molded into the terrain, instead of cutting through the terrain like the modern straight roads do it. Gentle curves keeping things on the flat, things like that. Definitely some pretty countryside and green hills to look at while “OMG WHAT IS THAT DRIVER IN FRONT DOING !” No crashes were had today from not paying attention.

It would be good to visit Wales some more and indulge in that countryside air.

Or more Cardiff and a city I quite enjoyed wandering through today. Until the time came for the homing instinct to take me back to the car park. Homing instinct was broken. It took a while.

Lunch was very good. It would be a waste to go to the chain coffee places when going somewhere new but I found :

Tasty munchies.

I also found a place selling very cheap cds too. Only 6 escaped, although I daftly bought one duplicate. Oops. It was a very cheap cd place so I’ve only lost £2 there. What did I get ?
Maroon 5 – 1.22.03 Acoustic EP
The White Stripes – De Stijl
T’Pau – The Promise – I had no idea they’d made a third album.
Enya – A Day Without Rain
Belinda Carlisle – The Collection.

I’ll enjoy listening to those. But …. Cardiff. Lots of shops. What’s the main event ?

Yep. A den of miniature piranha masquerading as ankle biting knee high to grasshopper creatures that will knock you down, trample you and steal your money so they can buy little plastic bricks. (No children were harmed by me today – honest!)

Lego store was packed. It was mayhem ! They had good stuff on display too.

That’s the Mega Falcon. Just under 7,500 pieces and it’s a monster. The picture belies the size, until you look at the detail and see the mini figures adding scale and the small boxes up above. Even if I acquired that kit and built it, I have no idea where I’d find the space to put it. IT’S MASSIVE !

Lots more there too, including all the kits you’d see in normal shops, more of the rarer kits too like the Saturn V rocket and ….

Ship in Bottle ! That picture may or may not be from my car boot again.

A productive trip today, although I may pay for it tomorrow with a need to hibernate. We shall see.

Closing words ? There are no closing words today. Just :

Beep beep. Boop. Beep.

So – Monday rolls around and that’s often a time to indulge in a couple of bits of scifi.

Well. Not actually Monday for one because I tend to watch The Orville on a weekend after recording it on Thursdays.

It’s been a week since I posted ? What have I been up to ? Let’s see.

Motorsport Managing. My team grows …. stronger.
Little bit of reading, although I suspect that the Freedom’s Landing book may have curbed the enthusiasm a bit. Hopefully Cibola Burn (Expanse book 4) will reawaken it.
Lovely night out on Thursday. I can kinda judge my emotional state by how positive I am when I’m moving around. A stomp means I’m not happy. A bounce means I’m feeling good. I’ll still have the latent hyperactivity, that’s with me most of the time but the ease with which I move around is tied to my mental state. If I’m feeling good, I can ignore soreness better.
Maze Runner 3 on Friday. Actually a very good final film to this trilogy. The Maze Runner films have done well at presenting beginning, middle and end for each film that made sense and that’s continued in number 3. I enjoyed it (despite the presence of old child students who haven’t learned to behave in public). You would be utterly lost though if you haven’t seen the first two.
Winter Olympics has started … been watching a bit of that, although stuff from that part of the world happens at a bad time zone for me.
And then I lost track of yesterday in a Stellaris trance.

But this post was supposed to be about the scifi.

We’ve been doing well lately again for proper space scifi. There was a drought for a few years until programmes like Dark Matter, Killjoys and now The Expanse, The Orville and Star Trek Discovery came back on screen.

It’s good to escape the day world every so often and my escape of choice is science fiction. I’m a bit sad that Dark Matter seems to be no more, it grabbed me with an interesting start and seemed to be hitting its stride. Killjoys is different, I thought that was losing its way somewhat. They escalate the story in Killjoys and I don’t think the setting handles that escalation particularly well.

I’m transfixed by The Expanse and I’m looking forward to that one coming back. Hopefully they will brighten up that third book which, if they go by previous form, will start in the second half of the third series. It’s a compelling vision of the near future and …. the setting makes a lot of sense.

Ok, maybe not the alien part of the setting but they needed a catalyst to get everything else going.

Nah – I wanted to talk about The Orville and Star Trek Discovery more today.

The Orville has been described as Star Trek Next Generation’s eighth series. It isn’t. It’s something different. It’s space scifi done for fun …. but it will still (in Gene Roddenberry’s words from an audiobook I have) creep up behind you and hit you with a heavy idea or two. (I think I got that right). So in The Orville, we’ve had ideas like oppression, like forced infant mutilation (the sex change) and I suspect we’ll see more as the series continues.

(Yes, my brain is a little broken still from the Stellaris session and it’s run out of energy to think with – used it all at work)

The Orville starts with the fun but keeps that reined in so it doesn’t become stupid … And then it hits you over the head with a few heavy ideas that you weren’t expecting. While treating you as an adult.

Star Trek Discovery has been different. Very different to what we’d expect from a Star Trek. I wouldn’t call it Star Trek, I’d call it War Trek. A darker series than any we’ve had before. Darker even than Enterprise, which was being dragged down by the grim scifi trend at the time of its release. (The trend of Stargate Universe and the Battlestar Galactica remake).

Not every Trekkie will like Discovery. Some will decry it as heresy. I liked it. But then I’m never one to go with herd instinct, I’ll experience something and make my own mind up about it.

I can’t say too much about Discovery without dropping major spoilers but it was great to see the unexpected events coming in throughout an exceptionally strong second half to the first series.

Check ’em out !

Definitely The Expanse for drama. The Orville for fun. And Discovery for …. shocks ? Surprises ?

I need to eat a dictionary for more words. I feel like I do not have enough words at the moment. But I’ll go for something from Thursday instead :

Tasty.

Thank you CQ ! Means a huge amount.

I'm so sorry to hear this, Pete. But a lovely write up about someone who was a fine father and role model. Xx
Thinking of you, sorry I am late to the news.

I’ve been at the Mall tonight and I’ve acquired something …

Tonight was going to be spent watching the first Falcon Heavy rocket launch which will hopefully still happen soon. Instead of letting loose a single rocket, this one is effectively 3 Falcon 9 first stages strapped together with a second stage on top. They plan to land all three first stages and then have the payload, Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadset, head on over to Mars.

I hope it succeeds ! Anyway that was originally scheduled to go at 6.30pm UK time but the launch has been pushed back due to high winds. I just heard the webcast start up in another window.

I spotted something similarly spectacular earlier too …

What might that be ?

It’s the Ultimate Collector Series version of the Star Wars Millennium Falcon (Lego shop link, don’t look at the price). At 7,541 pieces, it is the biggest Lego set to date. Bigger than the Death Star even. It’s rarer than Plutonium. And John Lewis had one on the shelf today. The bottom shelf mind, probably cos no one is going to want to lift that to the top shelf and it would make a big dent in anyone taking a casual look at it.

They were offering complementary wheels to go with this so you could easily take it out of the Lego shops.

I’ve seen this one being put together as well. I’ve been keeping an eye on the Brickbuilder Youtube channel and while they’ve been on a bit of a break or building very small kits lately, this is their speed build of the big Falcon. I may watch that again at some point. All 52 minutes of (ahem) speed build.

Actually, I may have my answer for Next Lego Set from peeking at the Lego Shop. Check out this ship in a bottle. Very curious.

Ooooo – the Spacex webcast for Falcon Heavy just kicked off (if in time, here it is : http://www.spacex.com/webcast ). Not long to launch !

I better get to watching.

Oh ! What did I buy at the Mall ? I did not, sadly, buy an enormous Lego Millennium Falcon. A shame as it would complete my set of 3 so far. (Actually there’s another small one available now that I don’t have)

I nearly got locked out of my house yesterday … I’ve already replaced the top lock and the lower lock is getting stiffer. It didn’t want to turn for a while yesterday, so I’ve taken the hint and today’s acquisition was a very boring :

House front door lock.

Yep. Adulting again.

I try not to make a habit of it but it’s cold out there at the moment and I don’t want to be locked out ! The locks of this place have done well. I’ve lived here for 16 years now and the locks are older than that. Hopefully the lock won’t break before I get a chance to do locksmith things …

PS Post launch addendum …

Those are the two side boosters, they reported that the core landed too and that Tesla is on its way to Mars with a “DON’T PANIC” on the dash. Awesome stuff.