Month: January 2022

Out and About and Spiders

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January 24, 2022

9:16 pm

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Hello everyone,

I’ve been People-ing since the last post … Several times ! And not just for the usual reason of resupplying the food cupboards.

Photo. On the right, we see the arches of a shopping arcade with varied signs in front of the shops. The only readable one says "Bird Blend Tea Co". The arcade is lit throughout by hanging lights and we can see sunshine at the far end. On the left is a shop window with many packets of tea on the shelves.
Anyone for tea ?

That’s Cardiff and I had another run over there a couple of Fridays ago. I like Cardiff, there’s a good selection of varied shops to wander around over there (although I don’t actually go in many of them !). In particular, there’s Troutmark Books which can kinda be seen in that picture. The Bird Blend Tea Co is just a couple of doors up from Troutmark. Wearing a mask does kinda complicate book shopping due to the glasses steaming up but that’s no actual hardship. I was tempted to look at the tea, although I usually have coffee or hot chocolate instead.

The other shops I usually head into are Wally’s Delicatessen for their bonbon sweets selection. Those seem to be suffering at the moment, the selection’s been a bit limited both here and at the Farm Shop service station. Wonder what that’s about … Hopefully it gets back to normal, I’m a bit partial to chocolate mice :-D.

A shop that’s come into the rotation is Antics models. At some point, a remote control car will appear … In kit form of course. Remote control cars come in two types at the moment. There’s pre-built ready to race versions and the older form of cars that come in kits. I’ve had a remote control car before, a Tamiya Grasshopper 2. I was continually taking it apart and rebuilding it. I have this thing where I can look at a mechanical object and visualise how everything works on it, how everything moves and interacts but there’s no substitute for actually taking it apart and seeing how the various components play with each other. So I’d want to have a kit in order to properly understand how it all goes together.

Picture. This is a Grasshopper 2 remote control buggy made by Tamiya. It has a white bodyshell with stickers above a black plastic underbody or chassis. It has two thin wheels at the front and two fatter spiked tyres at the back. Suspension springs are visible.
Ahhh Grasshopper

That’s the Grasshopper 2 I had a few decades ago. It’s powered by an electric motor at the back, with radio gear and the battery in the middle. The radio I had was an old 26MHz radio with 2 channels. One channel does the steering, one tells the motor how much power it’s allowed to use. Each transmitter and receiver pair had a couple of crystals that governed the channel used and there were 6 of these available. Looks like that’s changed now, with the radios working at 2.4GHz, which is an open band which your wifi is highly likely to be using. Trouble is, it’s also becoming a bit of a congested band (because it’s open, everyone uses it) which is why your wifi might drop out. But for the purposes of a remote control car, it should be good … (Uhoh, I’m descending to geeky) Your home wifi would drop out because it wants to push lots of data around and that high bandwidth application is more susceptible to interference. When it’s down to just sending Channel A value, Channel B value, that’ll be a lot more resilient. I’ll have to see how it goes when I get one.

There’s a lot more research to come though, including looking at which type I’d get. There’s a few main types. The buggies like the Grasshopper 2 still exist and they’re ideal for buzzing round a grassy field and tracks will be built up with jumps and obstacles that the buggies would eat up. The other main type is more like a tarmac racing car …

Picture. On the lower half, we see a medium sized red hatchback car. Above, we're looking down from above at the chassis. I'll put a description in the main body but the basics are fairly normal. 2 wheels at each end, a red tub with components in the middle and suspension components for each paid of wheels.
Zoom zoom

Attribution notice – both of the pictures of remote control cars are for Tamiya models.

That’s the type I’m looking at currently. Tamiya do a whole series of cars based on their TT-02 chassis, with different bodies that clip on top. The chassis itself has all the electronics in that central red tub. Above shot, right side of car, there is a servo that links to the steering. Central, that box is an electronic speed controller that is a cleverer version of the simple resistor thing in the Grasshopper. These do power and regenerative braking for the car. (Actually looking again, not so sure ! I think it’s an integrated receiver and servo with separate speed controller – look at the wires). There’s a motor in there as well, driving a 4 wheel drive transfer box at the back of the red tub. In the centre of the tub, that’s a propeller shaft that connects the front axle to the transfer box. In the left side of the tub we see the battery. These cars work off 7.2V, which usually comes from 6 1.2V rechargeable cells in a sealed pack.

Each end has double wishbone suspension for the wheels to let the car cope with the bumps. All sorts of improvement parts are available for these little cars. My Grasshopper 2 just had springs and friction dampers but you can go all the way to miniaturised versions of the coil over dampers that you’ll have on a road car. (A suspension spring to cope with the bumps and an oil filled damper to stop bounciness). Oh and there are also miniaturised bearings all over the place too going from simple nylon toruses up to ball bearings.

Yep. Wanting to build one of these again, race it and then take it apart and rebuild it multiple times.

There are more types of remote control cars too … You have the dedicated flat surface racers that’ll look like F1 cars or Sportscar prototypes. These tend to have minimal suspension and are stripped for speed. And there are the Nitro cars which have tiny engines inside like the FTX Force Pull 18 (link). The 18 is for the size, or 0.18 cubic inches / 3.0cc. Pretty tiny ? It’ll send a remote control car above 50mph. But I don’t want to be messing around with nitro fuelled cars, I’ll stay to electric only for the time being. It’s cleaner …

Where would I get one ? Antics (link) have a few local stockists … I’d go through them first and then there’s a few local clubs around that will hopefully be able to open up again fully soon. But I do need to learn more first though so that when I do spend money, I avoid mistakes through having a bit more knowledge.

Oh ! Cardiff also has a Lego shop, which tends to get a visit.

Photo. Standing on top of two books is one of my pocket dragons. We see him from the side, looking up at a penguin adorning the front of a lego box. The red fluffy dragon can just be seen to the right.
Loot happened

Yep, a couple of escapes … The books are Titan by Stephen Baxter and Eon by Greg Bear. I’ve had my eye on these authors for a while and the thing about cheap book stores is that they make you more likely to spend a little bit in there speculatively … (I keep looking for another copy of Red Mars though).

One place I would like to find in Cardiff is a good music shop … There’s an Oxfam with charity shop second hand cds and another shop with cds. The Oxfam shop is worth a peek but the other shop makes it quite tough to actually browse what they’ve got, so I don’t go to that one.

Note to shops – make it easy for us to buy stuff from you. Make it easy for us to spend our money. If I have to flick through every cd on the shelf to see what’s there, I’ll walk away.

Talking of music, a track from The Outer Wilds just came on. It has a wonderful chilled out soundtrack with a few recurring themes. The game itself is … worth a peek. I don’t own it but I’ve watched a couple of playthroughs of it. I’m being light on description because even a small description is a big spoiler, I can probably say that it’s a mystery adventure where you need to figure out what’s happened and what’s going on in order to fix it all.

Maybe when I get Game Pass, which is definitely going to be a thing … sometime. I haven’t been too great over the past week. I dunno, loss of appetite and still general total lack of energy although it’s somewhat there when I need to draw on it. Why Game Pass ? Since getting the 3060Ti upgrade, I haven’t really pushed its limits to see how pretty it can get. Elite is still a great screenshot generator and I did enjoy heading back in there to get a hyperspace upgrade (not yet delivered!).

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. Our Imperial Cutter starship can be seen descending to a rugged planetary surface. We're looking over the ship from behind and the starboard side. Purple engine exhaust is flaring from a wing engine and several central engines. The ship is white at the front and on the two wings, blending to purple at the back.
Tiamat arriving

That’s my flagship, Tiamat’s Chariot, descending to another planetary base on a trading mission. I’ll have a Fleet Carrier at some point to make it easier to get silly amounts of contributions for the community goals. The carrier needs a name though … I haven’t had the appropriate idea hit yet.

Yep. Elite’s pretty but it only pushes the graphics card because the Odyssey expansion is an unoptimised mess that should be better. I do own Control courtesy of Humble Monthly, this is apparently a benchmark game for graphics but … I find it drab, dull and uninteresting, so I won’t be playing that. Outer Worlds might be worth another look. But the thing I’m likely to indulge in is the racing game, Forza Horizon 5. I haven’t played racing games since 2013 ish, when I was unknowingly suffering from a concussion which meant I just couldn’t play those games. Better now.

And there’s a few more interesting titles on Game Pass too. It would have to shove Idle Champions aside though, yep, still addicted to going through the stories in that one :-D.

My shoulder is starting to rebel though at all this typing. Dunno why there, my posture’s ok. I have People’d more over the past week. I’ve actually been in to work instead of working from home all the time. I needed to pick up a replacement car pass and to remove the stuff from my locker before those go away. Including a set of coffee mugs that surprisingly didn’t say hi let us out when I opened the locker for the first time in almost 2 years.

Spiderman No Way Home happened on Friday too, in a completely empty similar. I’m not sure how that particular cinema stays operating but I have no complaints. Apart from lacking headrests for the seats, the food’s good, the films are good and it’s totally quiet. So I keep going there when I’m on a solo cinema run.

I’ve also been researching the road cars too … but I think that’s one for another post, especially as that’s likely to be for 2 years time. The ES I have now is a great car, it’s just way too big and the smaller, cheaper toys cars pack in more toys.

See you all next time, stay safe out there.

Randomised Thoughts

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January 11, 2022

12:27 am

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Hello again,

I have that “I need to write a post!” feeling, which usually connects to Brain having thoughts that it needs to extract from the grey matter and put somewhere else. And then I ask Brain what I should be writing about and Brain goes :

Picture. A green Pocket Dragon is standing up, looking toward us with a slight lean forwards. The left paw is off to his side, his right paw is to his face with one digit extended in a "Shushing" gesture.
Don’t tell anyone !

Yep. Brain goes : nope, not giving a solid idea to write about.

There’s a few random real world stuff things at the moment that have caught the attention … Couple of those are in Australia at the moment ! Firstly, it was good to see a better result for England in the last cricket Test Match, although it was a bit more tense than it probably needed to be. England’s cricket is in a bit of a bother at the moment in all departments. It’ll definitely help if all of the various injury struggles sort themselves out. It would be great to see Jofra Archer being able to bowl again, he’s been out of the game for far too long with an elbow injury. Cricket puts either a huge amount of stress on the body for bowling or a high amount of risk of broken bones when they’re batting. Or you can be like me and combine both of those.

I mention Jofra Archer in particular there because he’s one where he’s just really unlucky that his elbow has reacted like this. In all other respects, he’s perfectly suited for the fast bowling that instills terror into everyone at the other end. He’s tall, properly shaped (not too thin, not too beefy, just right) and on the outside, has the perfect physique for it. Fast bowling is what he was born to do and he clearly enjoyed doing that a huge amount. It’s just sad that he’s being prevented from doing that by this long running injury.

There’s a parallel to me there too, I recovered initially from the dislocated shoulder and rotator cuff tear that stopped me bowling for a couple of years but had to give up bowling about 10 years later. Two reasons there, time away from the game (to get my head right, plus management change in the work team) led to the shoulder stiffening up more plus I think I got a secondary injury in my side from lifting a heavy old CRT telly on my own. The result was a hitch in my bowling action that wasn’t particularly painful (although i could feel it) but it was very dangerous to the person at the other end. I’ve talked about that too much in the past though.

That’s a thought about the current England team though. It feels like they aren’t enjoying the game very much at all at the moment and only part of that is down to coming a distant second to a thoroughly on top Australia. It’s not like seeing Trent Boult (New Zealand fast bowler) who gives me the impression of relishing the challenge of bowling at international players and thoroughly enjoys his work. There’s a certain confidence there too that’s completely gone from the English players. It doesn’t help that proper technique seems to have disappeared from being instilled into the batsmen. It is good to see Haseeb Hameed back in the side though, he looked thrilled to be a part of the England team again, hopefully he can make his place in the team stick this time.

But I wanted to talk about something else too …

Picture. On a blue table and cloudlike backdrop, we see a model of a small sailboat. Within sit 3 green pocket dragons. One is hugging a little teddy bear, one is sniffing the breeze while wearing a red and blue woolly pointy hat and the other is holding a rod (for fishing?) over the stern of the boat.
Don’t breathe one the sails boys

Both pictures so far have come from Google, along the Pocket Dragon theme. The copyright for these resides with Real Musgrave, the creator of the Pocket Dragons. They retired from creating these gorgeous figurines many years ago but they’re still available second hand on places like Ebay.

Anyway – boats ! I’ve been greatly enjoying watching a fellow with a youtube channel called Aquaholic. He does short tours of boats and yachts which can be anything from under 10 minutes to over 30 depending on how much there is to look at. He covers big boats as well as small going from owner operator boats suitable for day trips and overnight trips up to palatial super yachts that are more full blown ship instead of yacht. And it’s got me thinking more about my own ambitions to up sticks from brick and mortar housing towards living on a barge as well as opening my mind to the possibilities, the realities and the opportunities that it could present.

The realities are things like the amount of space available on board. The facilities available are comparable to what you’d have in any house, although things like the plumbing take a bit more thought. I.e. houses have permanent connections going two ways for all things water related … boat connections are temporary, I’ll leave it to the reader to think of what that means. Power is easy, it either comes from shore supply at a marina or from on board generators. These don’t have to be particularly big either, this house is typically consuming well under 500W and that could be reduced if the computer wasn’t on all the time. I’m using more at the moment but that’s because the heater’s on. Internet could be Interesting Times … it would require something something mobile internet. Taking on supplies while away from a marina could be needing a bit of thought.

There I am looking at the realities … there’s some great opportunities though. Like if you’re not happy with where you are, there’s the option to up sticks to a different marina while keeping the same living space around you. Or (maybe one for retirement which is a long time away) steadily cruising around the UK or Europe if we’ll still be allowed over there. There is a limit there though, the type of barge I’d be looking at would have difficulty fitting down the canals around the centre of the UK because it would be too wide.

Picture. We see a long barge type boat pointing to the left. The lower hull is black and there is a gentle curve from a high bow to low midships and up a little again to the back which divides off a creamy yellow upper hull. There is a wheelhouse aft and windows down the side of the boat. There is a lovely reflection off an almost millpond surface of the water.
Have boat will travel maybe later

That’s a dutch barge, the most posh of the various options for canal and river cruising (and I now know why sea is not really an option for these boats). Barges are available in narrowbeam, which go up to 7 feet wide. Any wider and they don’t fit into all of the locks and tunnels. (Locks are water gate facilities that allow boats to go up and down in height). Widebeam barges go from 7 feet 1 inch up to whatever will fit into the locks, that’s around 14 feet for some locations. (7 feet = 2.13m, 14 feet = 4.26m) The other restriction is length, the maximum is 72feet (22.2m). Narrowboat and Widebeam barges tend to be pretty low as well, with the boats being steered from the stern instead of having the raised wheelhouse of the Dutch Barge style. Bigger boats have more space inside but also cost more.

What can I say, I like the wheel house style, I think it looks great and also provides that functional separate space to run the boat from. The internal space is also comparable to the amount of space in this house too. What would need a bit of thought though is things like working and living spaces. Cabling isn’t an issue these days with wireless becoming far more of a thing, although I would want to have part of the boat built around something that could be a movie theatre type style. So instead of the usual thing of a large TV that hides in a cupboard (or lowers itself away) when not in use, I see a projector in the ceiling with a drop down screen. Yep. I think that would work pretty nice although you’d want a low power consumption projector because …

I’d want to pack in more tech too … Like solar panels combined with sizeable batteries and hybrid electric drive. If not cruising, the idea would be that the solar panels would give the excess power for chilling out overnight. That theatre set up would need sound as well. It could be really really cool to have that built in to the boat though.

Oh – barges vs boats … Have a look at the picture again and especially the shape of the bow (front end). Apparently because it’s vertical, that means that this boat shouldn’t go to sea as the bow will pitch into the water with the effect of the waves and the boat sinks … unless you try the transit on especially calm days. That’s not an issue on canals because the only waves are from the motion of other boats. Sea going boats have their pointy end at an angle, which pushes the front end upwards all the time and if the boat’s going fast enough, it starts coming out of the water and planing for even more speed.

So yeah, watching more, learning more, getting more excited about the prospect of doing it although it might take a lottery win or similar. I’d definitely need to sort the house out (the house would part fund the boat).

Gosh – is it midnight ? I had a few more random thoughts but it seems to have been taken over by boats.

Things about dutch barge – I like the style with the wheel house. I like the flowing lines around the sides of the boat. I’m not so keen on the centre part though, which looks a bit like a box in the middle. I like the flowing curves. It’d be curious to see how those could be worked into the design, especially with solar panels coming in to the roof. And possibly even a navigation kit (radar and AIS) and VHF radio as well if sea travel was to be a thing.

Things about the yachts – so many of these are built around multiple decks on board … This gives them more available space but also means steps and stairs, which I’d want to avoid for reasons not for here. (Not to do with me, I’m still very ok with stairs 😀 ).

I mentioned “a couple of things in Australia” and then only talked cricket … The other is Tennis, I don’t think it’s really worth any more time than a brief mention but … I think he should have been deported, they’re setting a dangerous precedent for themselves by prioritising the show over their health rules and apparently it’s also walking into an impression where the government down there seem to have one rule for the rich people and much stricter rules for everyone else. That’s dangerous … and it’s also happening over here too.

And … I better hit post before I go too much into politics or other things like that.

Night all, stay safe be well.

New Year’s Here

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January 4, 2022

11:05 pm

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Hello everyone,

It’s been a good break … Back to work tomorrow but it’s been a good time away. I have to admit, I haven’t been getting out much outside of visiting family. There’s been a lot of indoor time happening. I’ll talk more about what that’s been in a bit. (I’m ok, just avoiding the outside world !)

So, what’s been happening … Thumbnail first.

Photo. We see the heads of two dogs (the rest is hidden behind them). One dog is white haired with ears pricked behind her head, the other dog is golden haired with a whitening muzzle. His ears are resting downwards.
Hello, We Are The Bacon Sandwich Inspection Patrol

That’s Icey and Murph again, being very attentive. Yep, was off to the mum’s and sister’s places this holiday. Mum’s first, then sister’s place for Xmas day. I last saw my mum last Xmas as part of the support bubbles we were allowed to have. This year is rather more open (I’ll rant on that in a bit). It was a good little visit. I hadn’t seen the sister, the dogs or the D boys for a couple of years now. Xmas 2020 even. Murph is still the sweetie that he’s always been, perhaps a little too slurpy still :-D. That’s not a bad thing in a dog. I do seem to get a lot of attention from them both. I wonder why that is.

Icey’s improved a hell of a lot. They’ve done a lot of good work helping her be more relaxed around people she doesn’t encounter much, even accepting (and maybe encouraging) random pats. She’s actually more accepting of some of those than Ben the Staffy was. Ben was a little ball of love but he’d shy away and leg it if you tried to reach over his head to give him scritches. Almost as if he thought you were going to poke him in the eye. Icey was fine with that.

Oh and there was very definitely an ulterior motive behind the attention in the picture above …

Photo. Murph the golden lab dog is sitting and giving paw to my mum who is just out of shot to the right. Icey is sitting in the doorway looking away from us into the kitchen. In the foreground, the real subject of Murph's attention ... a bacon sandwich.
If I is Good Boi Can I Haz Bacon ?

Yep. It was breakfast time. They did get a little bit of that sandwich. A definite case of inhalation and the bacon not touching the sides. We haven’t been doing presents for a few years now but I did take something away with me :

Photo. Our red fluffy dragon is mostly in shot to the right. To the left, a flat pack consisting of wooden sheets. We can see the front page, which is mostly green with a wooden owl model printed on it.
Owl Be Assembling That Later

I’ve got a couple of model assembly posts to bring you all now. I’ve been slipping on that. The owl came together fairly well and is now inhabiting a perch on top of my book cases. May need to acquire some wood glue though.

Yep. Good trip away, actually one of the first times I’ve had a chance to play properly with the latest car too. It is rather too big, but that doesn’t get in the way of it being a nicely handling car outside of where the road surface is a bit broken up. That confuses the traction control and other driver aids built in.

I’ll get something different next time though. I haven’t been enjoying manoeuvring such a big car around car parks and it would be good to get back to hatchbacks instead of the booted saloons. Trouble is, Lexus aren’t currently making a suitable car available in the UK. The IS and CT’s have both been discontinued and they’ve pinned their banner to SUVs. I’m not interested in owning an SUV. (Although the NX that the sister has is a perfect fit for their different requirements).

It is curious looking back into that world, where I know very little about the cars available on the market. Toyota’s 2 litre Corolla hybrid looks absolutely ideal, with enough speed and practicality. I’ll have to take a peek next time I’m around one of their garages. (Service due around March). I would like to know what else is out there though. I have been enjoying driving the hybrids and the effortless nature of their electric drive. It makes for pretty impressive acceleration too when you ask it to go fast in an overtaking move.

Been thinking about getting back into the racing games too, although I haven’t pressed the button on buying one yet. The closest I have is American Truck Simulator (courtesy of Humble Bundle a while ago). I acquired a controller not long ago, with one of the things putting me off trying the racing games being the set up needed to get my racing wheel back in commission again. (Heavy desk clearance). Thinking about that though, I need to do some desk clearance anyway because a combination of a high monitor and a chair that (needs replacing) is too low is leading to neck ache.

Things I’ve been playing on the time off :

Idle Champions – a bit too much of this. It’s an idler game, where you set up the adventuring party and they’ll battle against increasing waves of enemies. There’s a bit of story in there too, which is usually amusing. Oh and there’s a little group of us on EnterElysium’s discord server who have gotten each other addicted to the game.

Motorsport Manager – it’s gotten interesting again because I accepted the promotion for the team and getting good results has become a challenge instead of a Press Fast Forward Until Win. I wonder how long it will be until the team is the front runner again and the long running challenge of winning all three racing types comes to a finish.

Solasta – is a computer role playing game based on the 5th edition D&D rules set.

Game screenshot. Solasta. We're in a wooded landscape with our heroes standing on copper coloured rock. From left to right we have a dark skinned pointy eared fellow in scale mail. Then a lady wizard in a white top and long dark blue skirt. Then it's a light skinned lady in half plate mail with light green cloth cape covering. On the right is a short dark skinned rogueish looking fellow.
Heroes, fresh out of the wrapper

That’s the group I’ve restarted the game with. From left to right, we have ranger, wizard, cleric and rogue. It’s a decent mix, although it’s curious seeing some of the restrictions come in to play. The cleric has the biggest restriction. She’s supposed to be up front taking the hits … but has a choice between using a shield and being able to cast spells. She can’t do both. The ranger can poke things with swords or shoot from range with a bow. The wizard stands back and casts spells at everything and the halfling rogue is there to do damage where he can and to pick all of the locks and defuse all of the traps. It’s been a curious start to the game, I’ll have to look into the campaign some more. That said, the first attempt was a false start because I put a druid in there instead of the ranger and it felt like he wasn’t achieving very much.

Trans Road USA had my attention day – this is a company game, where you’re running a haulage company. The aim is to build a firm of truckers spanning the USA. Could be a good one to relax to, although I am nursing a sore neck now after losing some time to it today.

Deus Ex Mankind Divided – I do enjoy these games and the world they’re set in. Especially meeting Entity again. This run has reached Prague 2, where the sun has set into the night time period. I’ll pick up the last remaining main game achievement in this run, although I’ll make a save before because that achievement is incompatible with my preferred ending where you save everyone.

A little Plague Inc has happened too … it’s a curious catharsis that game and very easy to play.

Talking of plague …. the reason I haven’t been out at all (1 shopping run and alarm clock buy – lost mine) is plague … I’m in the thought space now of if I don’t have to be out and about amongst all of the new cases that are happening, I’ll stay in. It’s an incredible number of cases at the moment in the UK, yet no restrictions on movement have been announced. What I would like to have done is to do a run over to Cardiff (getting closer to remote control car acquisition) for Lego shop, sweet shop, book cave and general wander. There’s a couple of interesting films out there at the moment too. The quiet Showcase is still quiet and worth a shot. Maybe Friday, pending work :-D.

Yeah, too much going on out there in the world at the moment. I need to get a couple of small dents in the car looked at too.

But for now, Fuzzy’s streaming, I’ve posted enough and I’m going to head back into reading more of Leviathan Falls. That’s the 9th book in The Expanse series. I was worried before starting about whether they’d be able to wrap it all up neatly but their traditional prologue start kicked it all off in the right direction. Looking forward to finishing it in the next week.

That’s it for now though. It was a good break, lots of time off. Visiting great people, indulging in steam sales acquisitions … Like Beam.NG Drive, which takes cars from the game Automation and makes them driveable.

Stay safe everyone, be well and if you do need to be out and about among People, be wiser than our politicians are being at the moment …