Month: December 2024

Happy New Year everyone

by

December 31, 2024

9:54 pm

Leave a comment on Happy New Year everyone

Uncategorized

,

Hello everyone,

It’s been a week since the last post already ? Gosh, kinda lost a few days there maybe :-). I thought I’d do a review of the year today, which has been inspired by something that the lovely Batkitto put on her discord (there’s a Twitch link there which has the rest of her links)

This year started as it finished, with us being a bit worried about the old mum. She’s doing ok and it was good to get up there for a couple of days over Xmas.

Bats’s post was about pictures, so let’s see … what’s our thumbnail today ?

Picture. We're on the cruise ship, in an open area. We're looking across the deck towards the horizon. The sun is setting behind a bank of cloud, giving off a lovely yellow glow. Our red dwagon is looking at it from a position on stacked sunbeds.

There we go. Kinda the wrong end of the year to start with but it was an excellent pick of a pic for the thumbnail. The cruise was good fun, relaxing, healing and I think it was just what I needed for that time of the year. I’d had a break previously into Wales but lost the benefit of that due to probable covid. I actually had a few away breaks through the year too, with occasional days at things like Insomnia and Creator North and Wales. More on those later. And more for the cruise in later posts too, I still owe three port visit posts there :-D. It was a wonderful time (except the Bay of Biscay crossings!) and we were looked after really well by the crew.

And there were day trips too …

Picture. We're looking over a metal fence towards a castle. On the right is a wooden bridge ending at a gatehouse flanked by two thick round towers.

I did a big camera upgrade this year to the Canon R50 :-D. And then proceeded to take it to various castles to have a nosey around and get loads of pictures of castles for people. The one above is White Castle in the midsts of hilly Wales. I’ve also been across to Chepstow, Caerphilly, Cardiff castle, the remaining wall of Carmarthen (which also saw me acquire a tripod upgrade) and then the North Wales trip took me to Conwy and Caernarfon.

It was good to be out and about taking pictures and seeing what it could do. Time for an honest opinion … Is it worth spending all that money on a fancy camera these days ? It all you’re looking to do is take selfies and relatively close range shots, no. Mobile phone cameras these days are filled with incredible optics for their size, it’s easier to get the pictures out of them (the R50 is easy but it’s still an extra step) and the software in the phone allows for incredible performance in unexpected ways. Like I left the good camera in the cabin later on in the cruise because the phone in night mode is fantastic for astro photography … with the software making a tripod kinda redundant.

Picture. We're looking towards a red dragon perched on a low wall. A medieval building is in the background.

Castle ! This time in Cardiff with the dragon there. I’ll look to find myself in Cardiff at some point this week, probably Thursday because everything will be closed up tomorrow. It was nearly today, although that went out for two reasons – I couldn’t get to sleep last night which meant I didn’t wake up and be active early enough today and the other reason is that my eyes are bad again … I might need to invest in new pillows and pillowcases there because I think those might be causing me problems.

One road trip that did happen was the yearly pilgrimage over to Lords for the Interservices T20 cricket. We lost half of the play to rain but the games we had were fun to watch. It’s not the best standard of cricket but the players put everything they have into the games and they’re well matched even games that could go either way, often hinging on really close moments in the game.

Pictures. We're looking a 2 stacked pictures, one above the other. Both pictures have a batsman in light blue top, black trousers and a fielder in red top black trousers and an umpire in black and dark blue, with a hat and green shoulders and arms. The two pics are as the ball is hitting the stumps and the fielder reacting below.

That was me playing with the longer lens I have, plus also playing with some of the options in the camera. The above had it in continuous shots and it let me capture the run out. Really happy with how that one turned out, not so happy with the editing I did 😀 (There’s a rogue line upper right). This is where the expensive camera comes in handy, it allows for much longer zoom lengths with different lenses.

But a huge highlight for me this year was the events that I was at with other people … Starting with Insomnia :

Picture. We're looking upwards at two people on a stage. The one on the left is a gentleman in white shirt, grey waistcoat and dark trousers, holding up a microphone in his right hand. To the left is a powerful looking lady barbarian with red hair, holding up her right hand in a fist, with a huge hammer in her left.

That’s Ragedarling, of Session Zero, playing as her barbarian character in the live action D&D show run by Josh Strife Hayes there in the picture. I massively enjoyed Insomnia back in March, it was lovely to run into Miyukipanda touring the halls, to watch the highly entertaining Session Zero show with Ragedarling and …

Picture. We're looking up at the stage again. The gentleman is on the left, Rage the barbarian is sitting on a couch behind and the new character being introduced is Sorceress Trixx. She's a tall, thin lady in a flowing black and purple dress with a fancy bodice. She's holding a staff with her right hand while holding up her left hand in a wave.

… There’s Billietrixx there playing Sorceress Trixx in the show. Twitch link there again. It’s been fun catching Billie’s streams and it’s been lovely being part of that community over this year and last since … finding Billie through the wonderful Tashnarr, who was a big part of making Insomnia such a wonderful experience.

They come together to be the faces of the Creator North events as well and it was good to be able to get up to Sheffield for the second of these in September this year. Looking forward to the next one of those already. It’s run by the remarkable LookItsTilly who moderates in the background for Billietrixx and Tashnarr with Maddog there being the final member of the organising crew. It was lovely being adopted by NinjaSpaceUnicorn’s little posse for the day too, that made it all the sweeter.

Picture. We're looking at a white saucer with an appetising looking brownie on it. Behind and right is a dwagon with an apron saying "Feed Me". In front there is a blue ribbon with white and orange lettering saying "Creator North 2024".

It was fun times, although I was suffering at the time with the extreme tiredness which was shared by a lot of people there plus I may well have done a minor dislocation on the shoulder again at the start and … probably picked up covid again. The shoulder is still attached, although I don’t think it went back in right, it’s still sore. What happened ? Someone got my attention to my left, so I turned … or at least my body turned and the arm stayed behind. Ouch.

Picture. We're looking out from the top of Mount Snowdon in Wales. There is a rocky, grassy outcropping in front of us and beyond that, valleys and hills covered in wisps of mist.

And then I have a little away time in North Wales with trips to Conwy Castle (where Ellardy the Little Red Dwagon happened), Caernarfon Castle and up Mount Snowdon by the railway.

I missed an event ! (Translation – got sidetracked). It’s always a highlight getting to MCM Comic Con in May with Comic Con Friend. It was the first time we’re been able to go to this since 2019 and a pandemic happened. There are more pictures from Comic Con in the post (linky). It was lovely to see Comic Con Friend again, we had a great day out there with lots of wonderful cosplay to see and loot to check out and it was awesome to catch up again. And I think CCF appreciated having a chance to catch up with the messages while we were on the way to/from London too while listening in to the playlist I’d hastily popped together (and then ran out of !) before.

Events are a little congested in May next year but MCM is something that’s on the definite list. I picked up a couple more ideas from peeking at Trayed and Tested‘s update on their Etsy site, like Megacon (London in Jan) and UK Games Expo (end May – NEC). Wait, didn’t I mention loot ?

Picture. We're looking at a crystalline rainbow coloured dwagon wrapped around a large dark green d20. The background is light blue, they're on a pine colour wooden desk.

Gosh, this is turning into a long one. It felt good to be blogging regularly again through December with advent, you’ll see the picture I posted into Batkitto’s discord in the post before this one. I’d missed the posting but with the burn out continuing, plus putting everything into work … I wasn’t feeling like opening the writing up again in the evening. Kinda like I’d spent the brain power through the day and wanted to be robot in a game or soaking up a good book while watching a stream in the evening. So the blogging went by the wayside there.

There have been many books ready too this year, Kindle tells me that I read 32 books this year although it only counts multibook packs as 1 each for the whole series. So the actual is probably 40. I think I’ll summarise those in another post. Games have been fun this year too, I’m close to picking up Star Wars Outlaws in the Steam sale, that was an excellent game.

Picture. We're on the ship, looking out over the side. The sky is mostly clear, with cloud to the left. Brilliant sunshine comes from near the horizon. We can see the rail of the ship below. We're looking out over the sea, broken up by light waves.

Time to wrap up though, on this post and on the year. It’s been an odd year. There’s been the massive highlights from the events and seeing much loved people again or for the first time. It’ll be good to continue that into 2025 and see about getting to more events. It’s been a rough year on that front too, with events closing down and jobs in the gaming industry going that the streaming people depend on.

Hopefully you’re all back here reading a similar post at the end of 2025. What adventures will we get up to ?

I hope to share at least a few of mine with you, either on here … or maybe in person ? We’ll see. Looking forward to seeing you <3.

Advent day 24 just checking in

by

December 24, 2024

7:13 pm

Leave a comment on Advent day 24 just checking in

Uncategorized

Hello everyone,

Just another quick one today. I’ve made the trip up to see family … good to see people again, although bugs are going around again so won’t be able to see everyone this time around.

What’s behind the door ?

Picture, we're looking at the complete advent collection with the snow scene in the background. The latest one is at the back on top of the d20. It's a flat spaceship with a red body and large wings, with white trim.

I’m just snatching the chance to pop in this last of the advent series posts while the dinner prep is starting. Great to see sister again, mum is back home as well which is a big relief.

(The model is from the obscure Young Jedi Adventures series, bit of an odd choice for the finale model of this set but it’s a decent looking ship)

Time to hit the post button but not before acknowledging that it’s felt good to be blogging so regularly again, even if a few of the evenings have seen the post rather forced out from behind a wall of worry and or just basic pain and sometimes both over the last week.

I haven’t preplanned how the posts will go this time, it’s just been a fairly random choice of subject from what’s been happening on the day or evening. Or it just lurches sideways from the first intent to something rather different. Just remembering back to a series on the old site at least 4 years ago, the Elitecember series was a good one and did see me preplanning lots for it (part because I needed to be in game to acquire screenshots where required) but I think that time it rather burned me out on both sketching and blogging.

I’ll attempt to avoid that burn out again, while posting a bit more regularly. It was a really good habit to be in and I hope people have enjoyed the happier posts, sympathised with the unhappy ones and that you’ve liked the pictures coming through.

Have a lovely festive time everyone !

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a close up of the head of a dog. They're a white dog with a dark nose that is absolutely covered with little dots of hundreds and thousands cake ornamentation. The captions are "Christmas Cookies?" "No, I haven't seen any Christmas cookies"

See you in a few days.

Advent day 23 and we’re speeding along

by

December 23, 2024

10:00 pm

Leave a comment on Advent day 23 and we’re speeding along

musing

,

Hello everyone,

I’m having a bit of a curl up and not be particularly human day today, so I’ve pretty much hidden in Little Big Workshop and quietly lurked in a couple of streams with not too much source of input going on.

Hold up, what’s behind the door today ?

Picture. We're looking at most of the advent collection again. Our dwagon is on the right, the new model is on the left on top of the d20. It's an open top hover vehicle, with a sandy colour curved front and darker brown at the back. Two dots for figures are behind an aero screen. At the back, three engine pods to left, right and upper.

There we are, it’s the speeder from the first Star Wars movie. And today’s dodgy shift from picture to text is … (drumroll)

This year feels like it’s been speeding along … The time seems to have flown by but it’s also felt like an exceptionally draining year. A lot of that is stuff from behind the wall. Some of it is, you know I’m very wrapped up in the streaming and gaming community world and consider a lot of them friends. Insomnia was a brilliant event at the start of the year and the failure of the company that ran Insomnia hit especially hard, I think because the discontinuation of the event had a massive impact on the lives of those friends from the online communities.

That’s from the people who ran the event (hello Tashnarr), the people who were employed on stands at the event, the people (hello Billietrixx) who were the core of bringing us such a massive highlight in the Session Zero live dungeons and dragons show, people like Aby of Trayed and Tested who … I bought dice at Trayed and Tested and nowhere else at Insomnia because Aby was such a lovely person on the day (link to Etsy on the right).

I think I’ve mentioned before that I tend to mirror people when they interact. If they are lovely people, I find it much easier to engage with them. If they’re … not nice, I’ll find myself somewhere else to be. I’ll enjoy staying around people with the good vibes.

And the interesting people too. Interesting people are fun to be around. What defines interesting ? Not sure there. It’ll be something unique to that individual.

I think that’s enough from me for today. Not quite sure what I’ll be up to over the next few days, we’ll take it one day as a time and hopefully have a little fun family gathering. And then I’m back to trying to disconnect and chill out before we all head back to work in a week and a bit.

Have a lovely evening everyone 🙂

Oh ! Back to events for an epilogue … I somewhat decided last year that I probably wouldn’t be going back to Boatlife in 2025 but I did peek at what was happening yesterday, to discover that it too was an event that had gone in the bin. Not sure about the circumstances there, it felt like it could have been a really good event. Although the reason I thought I wouldn’t be back was because I thought the exhibitors had evolved into overgrown tenders and away from the workhorse liveaboards that I’m interested in.

I think that if Boatlife can fail as well, with it being run by NEC’s own events company, then it shows how rough the events world is at the moment. Which makes the very promising Creator Events group even more important for keeping the fun alive.

Definitely that’s it for me now – have a great rest of your day and if you’re out of contact for whatever reasons (good and bad things happen this time of year), I hope it’s a positive time for you.

Advent Day 22 and we have a Crested Razor

by

December 22, 2024

10:08 pm

Leave a comment on Advent Day 22 and we have a Crested Razor

games

,

Hello everyone,

What’s behind the door today ?

Picture. We're looking at the advent collection again, which is up to 21 models arranged on the snow scene, plus the dwagon on the left this time. The new one is on top of two dice, the big d20 at 20 and a d6 with the 2 lit up. The model is a spaceship, with a blocky centre, guns either side at the front and two engines, one each side high up in the middle.

It’s another entry from the Mandalorian today, with the Razor Crest on top of the dice there. Again, it’s a series I’ve never seen, I’ve just seen the memes and some of the stories around the series. I might get Disney+ at some point to catch up on things like this and Andor but … I’m not actually watching much series telly at the moment.

Not sure why with that, it’s just probably not in my pattern these days. I do have that touch of Autism / ADHDness in me, which manifests itself in various ways. I like listening to the music a lot, which is rather incompatible with watching stuff on the telly. Some days, especially lately, the telly has stayed off so it’s not been another source of input that contributes to the burn out. The desktop monitor is where I watch stuff like the World Endurance Championship racing, IMSA racing and Formula 1, although I’m a one screen person so that’s exclusive of any gaming I’m thinking of doing … it’s also where a favoured stream will get watched.

Talking of gaming … there’s a curious feeling of thinking I’m being driven towards playing certain games in particular due to time limited events in the game. There are a couple of those at the moment :

Euro Truck Sim 2 is running an event for the latest Greece expansion, with a World of Trucks (you can see the link to my trucker on the links list). The event runs until 2nd Feb but I’ve actually crashed through it yesterday and today.

Picture. We're looking towards the sun, in the clouds above our truck. In the background, a domed building with two very thin pointed towers.

How was Greece ? Honestly, not great. The expansion has carried through the character of it being a very pretty place with its own distinct architecture. But … I think it’s been rushed through and the NPC driver AI can’t handle things like the Greece specific toll booths. Event’s complete now though, so I’ll go back to my newer* character and not see the Greek areas for quite some time probably.

*I reset my character down to zero when I started the game again, without any of the extra map packs. There are a series of achievements that are far quicker and easier to get if you have less of a map, like the one to explore 60% of the map and there’s another for exploring 100% of the map.

There’s another event going at the moment, to deliver Xmas packages from the Winter Wonderland area I mentioned previously. I’ll complete that in the next session in the game I do. I only need to do 7 more runs to complete the number I need to do.

One for considerably more grinding is in Elite Dangerous … I haven’t been in this one nearly as much as I used to be. Once I completed the latest exploration mission, I wasn’t seeing much else I was interested in with the game. However, with the incoming addition of colonisation to the game, that definitely has my attention. I’ll definitely have to find a star system I can turn into a Dwagon Roost.

That’s one for later though, the near term grind in Elite is going to be for better hyperdrives. I missed seeing info about a Community Goal where you could get hold of the latest best for free, so I’ll need to do some collecting there.

But I was feeling trucks far more than space this weekend, so trucks it was.

Thinking about it, there will be timed seasonal events going in World of Warcraft at the moment … I’ll have to go back to that game at some point. I went away from it when Star Wars Outlaws came out and lost myself in the world of Kay Vess and Nix. I’m probably about to rebuy Outlaws and lose myself in its world again.

Or Rogue Trader, a computer roleplaying game set in the far future of Warhammer 40,000. That has a soundtrack too … (I haven’t acquired that yet because I seem to bounce off that kind of game lately)

Ahhh, time to peek at the sales again and hover over adding Rogue Trader and Outlaws to the cart. I have the start of a Cunning Plan for the arrangements of things over the next week, which I think will work. But I think I need to hide away again from the why of those arrangements (it’s not for here) so …

Signing off again for tonight ! See you all tomorrow. Have a lovely rest of your day.

Advent day 21 and we’re in the lair

by

December 21, 2024

9:03 pm

Leave a comment on Advent day 21 and we’re in the lair

Uncategorized

Hello everyone,

I think I’ve pretty much crashed today ! Not felt like I’ve had the energy to do much today, which has seen me just watching videos (still catching up) and then be enjoying watching the ever lovely and fun Tashnarr as she’s been streaming for us all day.

She’s hunting dinosaurs in the ARK Survival Evolved game. What’s behind the door today ?

Picture. We're looking at the advent calendar collection again at now 21 models plus dwagon. The latest is on top of a d20 showing 20 and a black d6 showing 1. The model is on top, it's a black edifice with 2 triangular black sections pointing up and a red bit in the middle.

There we go. It’s Mr Darth’s fortress, as seen in the Rogue One movie. Must watch that again.

I’ve had some more news, after having decision paralysis all day ref attempting to contact. News is ok, although I’m still very unsure about what’s going to be happening over the next week. We’ll have a gathering but I’ve been feeling so burned out that I don’t feel I have the energy to look after myself, let alone help anyone else. And my psychology meaning that I have a deep need to help people out works against me as well there, because it adds some weight on to that depression when I have to withdraw from helping people out.

This is in danger of extending a bit past the quick in and out I thought it might be but I think I needed to get those thoughts down in some sort of order.

The general exhaustion is why I haven’t been getting out and about as much as I’d have liked to. I’ve been a bit starved for star gazing opportunities (bought lens, permanent cloud since) plus I’m that deep in that burn out hole that I’ve been needing rest time after a trip.

The cruises have been great for that, because you get to the ship and then it’s completely just chill out time and they do everything for you. North Wales was a good trip (probable covid not included) for the castles but I could have done without the mayhem of the one car park, being around British drivers and especially not the drive back … which took 7 hours instead of 4. (Oh and I was also in trouble with a poorly tooth)

Anyway, I’m missing out on the last little bits of Tashnarr streaming. Time to hit post and go back to stream. There’s the link to Twitch again and there are links to her Instagram and other socials over there too. She doesn’t stream so much now but it’s been lovely keeping up with the Instagram updates, especially with the advent calendar series. She had a delicious looking chocolate one from work and the dice from the Trayed and Tested advent calendar are turning out even better than expected. It’s cheered me up seeing the delight when the doors have been getting opened. Trayed and Tested are over on Etsy via the link there (and in the links list). I’d thoroughly recommend checking them out too.

Picture. We're looking at a black leather pattern box, on top of which is an array of dice plus a green dwagon. The dice are sharp edged and a mix of pink and off-white. The card behind says Trayed and Tested.

There we go, picked up at a show I greatly enjoyed earlier this year.

Time to disappear again now, have a lovely rest of evening.

Advent day 20 and we’re going to a Porto

by

December 20, 2024

10:04 pm

Leave a comment on Advent day 20 and we’re going to a Porto

travel

, ,

Hello everyone,

Back to cruise ! First though, what’s behind today’s door ?

Picture. It's our advent collection of all the models, plus the red dwagon on the right, in front of the snow scene. The latest minifigure is standing on top of the large green d20 again. They are in a full set of red armour with a face covering helmet. They are holding a black staff vertically, it has violet cones on the end.

There we go, it’s a stormtrooper melee staff person guard.

We’ll see how far this one goes again, I’m in that psychological shutdown mode again at the moment, because work is done for the year and I’m unconsciously going into rest mode plus a few of the aches have been maybe aggravated today (I have the numb fingers again). Plus I’m still worried about a few very special people.

To a better time and the cruise ?

Picture. We're on the cruise ship, looking over the side. The focus is on the little red dwagon, sitting on a sun lounger. Behind is the white painted metal and the wooden top of the rail at the edge of the ship. Behind and left is a red rubber life saving ring, on the rail. Out of focus through the rail are the buildings of the city.

That’s Porto in the background there. We were docked up in the cruise terminal, just about in walking distance of parts of the main city. A very short shuttle bus run took us to the outsides of the terminal and the start of a little wander.

Picture. We're looking back at a walkway. Our little red dwagon is perched on the edge, with a white painted fence behind. In the background is our ship, with the Bridge end pointed our way.

Dwagon finding the best places to pose in again. The Portuguese Navy ship was in port here and I did actually have a better picture than I thought …

Picture. We're looking across the calm water of the harbour. Docked up is a blue container ship on the left and a grey Navy warship in the centre. The skyline is a mix of cranes and is dominated by a pair of tower buildings with orange faces and black edges.

There we go, Portuguese frigate pennant number F333 NRP Bartolomeu Dias hanging around there and wanting to see if I could get a better peek gave me my choice of which direction to start walking in when ashore.

And so off I wander past a port side area with lots of equivalents of our sea side fish and chip shops. I suspect the fare would have been rather better, at least according to all of the sea birds lined up on the buildings opposite … waiting their chance to pounce. Like the young lady on a lad who I suspect was greatly enjoying the type of attention she was giving him. He wasn’t being given much of a chance to escape and I don’t think “escape” was on his mind at all :-D.

That wasn’t the only ship that caught the eye, we had a ferry transporter docked up next to us.

Picture. We're looking out of the calm waters of the harbour towards a big ship with grey lower and white upper. The Bridge section is up front and there is a yellow and blue funnel aft.

Not sure what they were doing with that one. It’d be a transporter vessel and they were moving lorries around on the top deck. Cue the mystified feeling because they’d bring a lorry to the top (they could drive around inside), park the lorry and its trailer … and the the lorry would go back downstairs again.

Anyway, back to shore and off I pop to explore, see if I could get a better view of the Navy ship and I find myself being led by the curiosity …

Picture. We're looking out over the best. Dwagon is sitting looking at us on the blocky sea wall. The beach is to the left. People are scattered around, including sitting on the wall. In the distance, our cruise ship facing us and the long ferry transporter is side on to us. The sky is somewhat clear, with thin white cloud.

It was a good little wander, although I didn’t head into too many of the shops. Just a fish market where Dwagon was way more interested in looking at the fare than the film. I find myself nearing the end of the contents of my water bottle* and at the beach. Good little wander.

*I’ve been skating on a balance in my metabolism I think. I’ve been getting subjected to heavy cramping and one thing that helps keep that at bay is staying hydrated. So if I run through all of my water supply, that’s a big sign to start heading back before I start getting into cramping trouble … which leads to torn muscles and being restricted on how much I can move around.

Picture. We're on the open top deck of the cruise ship, looking out over the rail towards the breakwater that marks the edge of the port. There is a red tinge on the horizon below where the sun is reflecting off gently rippled water. We can see the sun's glow behind thickening cloud.

Time to head on though and the sun was starting to retreat when we made our own retreat from Porto. But not before seeing a container ship do the naval equivalent of a three point turn to dock up at the container area.

Picture. We're looking out across the gently rippled water of the harbour towards a container ship to the left and the low buildings to the right. The ship is long low and blue, with a tall white area at the back, to right of shot. The deck is stacked with mostly blue containers.

There we go. This is after she turned in place to then finally back up to get alongside at the area to the right. Next day was a sea day, which meant a chance to enjoy a sunrise …

Picture. We're on the ship again, looking out through the rail at a lovely sunrise with the orange glow dominating the horizon, diffusing through the thin cloud. In the foreground, Dwagon is on the sun loungers again in silhouette.

Sort out some of the pictures …

Picture. Dwagon is sitting on the laptop looking at the screen. There are a couple of file list windows stacked and there is another window in the centre showing two progress bars as the pictures copy from camera to laptop. Top left, we see a picture of dwagon, sitting in front of a bag, it's another version of the beach picture from earlier.

That’s part of the process I do for picking out the pictures. You can probably guess that I take a lot of pictures and only a selection are ones that I’d consider showing anyone or posting anywhere. So I copy all of the pictures to the laptop and then split them out by day. Then I’ll go through them picking out the best ones. That means that for the Mystery Cruise, I had a series of folders with names like “Mon 18”, “Sat 16”, “Fri 15” and corresponding ones called “Mon 18 – K”, “Sat 16 – K” and “Fri 15 – K” with the K being for Keeper.

All that done and it’s time for lunch and the Poolside bar did a lovely fish and chips. And then more general chill out and relaxing before enjoying a sunset as spectacular as the sunrise.

Picture. We're looking out over the ship rail again. Dwagon is in the accustomed perch of a sun lounger. The sun is just hitting the horizon and giving the sky a gorgeous orange glow.

Time for me to head off like the sun did here a whole bunch of hours ago. Good night everyone, have a lovely timezone.

Advent day 19 and it’s crowded in the hangar bay

by

December 19, 2024

10:15 pm

Leave a comment on Advent day 19 and it’s crowded in the hangar bay

Uncategorized

, ,

Hello everyone,

Quick one again – internet feels better but I’ve had the old warning sign from my hand which means I probably shouldn’t type much … What’s behind the door today ?

Picture. We're looking at our advent scene again, with 18 models and dwagon scattered on the snow scene. On top of a red d6 on top of the big green d20 is a small fighter ship model. It has a central pilot pod, with a grey and green wing on each side.

Oops. Learning again not to press ctrl+v instead of ctrl+c when copying out the alt-text. (Random aside time!) It’s been a pretty useful skill to learn that, making the alt-text. The intention is to make the site more inclusive to people who can’t make out the detail in the pictures. Alt-text is descriptive words that you add, which gets picked up by screen reader software that’ll read out the text on the page. You’ll see it if you hover over the picture.

Why has it been more useful ?

Often, you’re not supposed to or aren’t allowed to take pictures of things. I mentioned spyware on mobiles last time, it extends to the phone providers insisting that you really want to upload all of your pictures to their servers. Ok, so what if you point the camera at something and capture something sensitive ? Oops. It’s now on Google’s or Apple’s servers too. The trick is to not point the camera at the sensitive things. But … when you’re the one person sent to look at something and you need to fully report back what you’ve seen to the others who aren’t able to go ? That’s the other way alt-text comes in really handy.

It lets you paint that picture of what you’re seeing in a concise descriptive language to pass on to those who can’t see what you’re seeing. But … it also trains you in observation to have you pick up the detail that you might have otherwise passed over with your eyes.

Anyway, it does mean that I need to pop the alt-text here in two places to make it work.

It’s a really valuable habit to pick up, because it really does help people out although I have been getting a bit lazy with the advent scene alt-text lately.

Other news before I disappear today …

Game screenshot. Truck Simulator. Our green truck is parked up off the side of a snow covered road curling off to the left. It has a trailer with pictures of letters on it. In the distance are tree covered hills, there are snow covered buildings of a village at the base of the hills.

Truck Game is doing a winter event at the moment, where you do short trips to and from the Winter Wonderland zone, added in for the season. It’s a good little variation in to the game, including having driving on snow effects.

And I think I need to rest that hand and disappear into book again. After enjoying A Sorceress Comes To Call by T. Kingfisher, I’m on a John Scalzi book again now. It’s The Collapsing Empire and it’s got a promising introduction to its space opera universe told in Mr Scalzi’s easy to read and very enjoyable style.

Later everyone, have a great rest of evening.

Advent Day 18 and U need better internet

by

December 18, 2024

10:57 pm

Leave a comment on Advent Day 18 and U need better internet

games

,

Hello everyone,

Short one again today kinda out of necessity because my internet is giving some problems ! Sometimes it seems like my internet can’t handle cold weather and … yep it’s on the RCS Partial Service and SYNC Timing Synchronisation failure warnings again, which means I’m running both laptop and desktop off the mobile phone hotspot and there’s a stream running on the laptop.

Before I ramble too much, what’s behind the door today ?

Picture. We're looking at our advent scene again and the collection of models has been joined by a small spacecraft on top of the big d20. The spacecraft is white, with yellow and blue trim. The main part is aft, with two long wings going directly forwards making a U shape. 2 pairs of engines are at the back.

There we are, it’s a U Wing transport spacecraft from the excellent Rogue One movie. It could actually be the best Star Wars movie for me. It just made sense from start to finish, it avoided a lot of the mysticism of the Force which is literally handwavium. You could identify with all of the characters and they were acted so completely brilliantly.

Gonna have to watch it again soon. If you haven’t seen it for any reason, I’d thoroughly recommend finding a way to see it. It transcends itself past the source material.

Situation I mentioned yesterday – I don’t have any updates yet, which I’m taking as a good or at least neutral sign. I’m still feeling very broken mentally and physically at the moment but my concern is without rather than within. I’ll be ok although I do need rest, which is why that concern is pointing outwards rather than inwards.

Other stuff …

I’ll upgrade the mobile phone over the break. I can’t trust it any more, I’ll occasionally open it to find that some of the settings have gone weird. Like a Google authentication text disabling the notifications on incoming text messages, so I didn’t see some important info until I looked in the text messages area (by incidental look). It has some other quirks as well that may be interfering with normal operation.

It’s a Pixel 4 from 5 years ago, it’s done pretty well and it was a great move to go to it from a Samsung Galaxy 7 which was absolutely riddled with malware and intrusionware from Samsung. I believe they toned that down after the Galaxy S7 but I’ve got no reason to go outside Pixel, so I’ll replace the Pixel 4 with a Pixel 9.

Like, it’s doing well at the moment by hotspotting for both laptop and desktop and providing an active local area network link between the two. But I’m not going to push it too much by pulling cruise pictures over from the laptop today.

I’ll hold off for now on the desktop PC upgrade. Part to ease out the spending a little bit, part so I can see what happens with the graphics card market next month. I may well go for the option of doing a core (Processor, memory, case, mainboard) upgrade to go to Windows 11, while keeping the current 3060Ti graphics card. It’s still pretty good for power moving the pixels around the screen.

About that …

Picture. We're looking at a mostly green background poster thing showing how much I've been playing games this year. The title is "Sleepydwagonman's steam replay 2024". There is a big 34 games played above panels showing 393 achievements, 795 sessions and 18 new games. 5 panels below show my most played games.

I think that shows that when I start gaming, it’ll be long sessions. Someone on a discord is showing 1600 sessions, so they must be swapping between games a lot. I suppose each Skyrim session shows up as well and those can be only about a minute if I’m messing about with my set of mods.

I left out what the games were in the alt-text, so here we go for them by play time :

80% Idle Champions – this is an idle game where you set it up and let it run in the background. It kinda has story links in it but the main aim is to complete the adventures and make all the numbers go up, with your adventurers steadily getting stronger and stronger. Not quite sure why I still play it to be honest, maybe a habit. This one has accounted for 194 of those 393 achievements.

11% in Little Big Workshop – I love this cute easy to play factory building game and can easily forget about the world for many hours by opening it in the evening and then realising that the sun is coming up. It’s also 80% off until the next daily reset, which I think is going to be the start of a Steam sale anyway … so it’ll probably go off discount straight back on discount.

Motorsport Manager comes in at 4% of time played – this is a racing team simulator game, where you set the strategy and watch your drivers attempt to go around the track faster than everyone else. I’m currently in another megacampaign which has reached the late 2050s. This game caught me when it came out because it did everything so, so right … and gave believable races. Whereas I just bounced off the recent F1 Manager series, maybe they’ll get those right by the end of that contract.

Euro Truck Simulator has had a late revival with about 1% – I came back into this one in October. It’s another easy to play game where I’ll pick a route to go down and just attempt to chill while going from place to place. It has the progression factor that I look for, in that as I get money in the game, I can add more trucks to the company empire. I think I’m back to 15 now since restarting.

Last up for Steam is Aliens Dark Descent at 1% again – this is a real time strategy type game, set on a planet in the Alien universe. Big scary monsters are out to turn everyone into more big scary monsters but you’ve also got to contend with cultists and corporates. It’s a great game for the mechanics it introduced and the tension it builds. It does have bugs … but it’s another one that I enjoyed finishing. Apparently in just under 60 hours.

And that’s it for Steam – honourable mentions go to American Truck Simulator, the 2 Deus Ex games (Human Revolution and Mankind Divided), Cobalt Core was a fun find, Rover Mechanic Simulator is a nice little take stuff apart, fix stuff game. Dredge is in there with a bit of time spent on the latest DLC expansion and I’ll keep dipping into and out of the old Battletech game.

There’s more about the Steam Stuff at the link.

Outside of Steam, I did go back into World of Warcraft for a while … although I think I may have broken that addiction again and should probably either go back in again or cancel the subscription.

Then there’s also Elite Dangerous, which I did enjoy dipping back into again earlier this month. Warcraft and Elite aren’t launched via Steam for me, so the hours don’t add up there.

And the highlight for me of this year was Star Wars Outlaws. It has been criticised for bugs, which I only saw a couple of. It was a delight being immersed in the Star Wars universe doing shenanigans with the main character and companion. It was a weird feeling not really wanting to run it through to the finish of the story because I wanted to keep playing … but I was on a time limit due to not wanting to pay the asking price, with me playing it on the monthly subscription.

And that’s it for me for today ! Have a lovely evening everyone. Be well, hope you and yours are doing ok.

Advent Day 17 and just a Jedi today

by

December 17, 2024

8:26 pm

Leave a comment on Advent Day 17 and just a Jedi today

Uncategorized

Hello everyone,

Just a very quick one today because I’m still feeling very strained … What’s behind the door today ?

Picture. We're looking at the advent collection. The addition today is a minifigure with wavy brown hair. He's wearing a green jumper wit ha low domed building on it and two red suns in the sky.

There we are, another minifigure today and a Luke Skywalker. Complete with gloved hand there and remembering the moisture farm on Tatooine with the jumper there.

I think that’s about all I have for today, although it was good seeing the Xmas vibes in a very short Truck Game session earlier.

Game screenshot. Truck Game. We're looking at a night time scene into a town centre. Buildings flank the outside of the square. There is a lit up and decorated tree at the far end. The ground is snow covered with low hut buildings in the square. Our truck is in the lower right.

I didn’t have much more available in me than just a fairly quick there and back to the seasonal event zone to do a couple of deliveries. Wasn’t feeling the vibes due to the exhaustion and being concerned about people.

Back tomorrow and I’ll summon some good vibes into another cruise port post. Be well everyone, have a good evening.

Advent Day 16 and we’re going Ferrol

by

December 16, 2024

10:08 pm

Leave a comment on Advent Day 16 and we’re going Ferrol

travel

,

Hello everyone,

Still in the struggle but seeing what we can do to work through it … What’s behind door 16 ?

Picture. We're looking at the advent scene with the collection of models scattered throughout. The addition today is a mostly white spaceship shaped in a diamond shape. There are windows in front, we can't see the engines at the back.

Yep. Still in that state of exhaustion, although I think I did actually get some sleep last night. Soreness is still in there though, looking forwards to the winter break.

Ferrol ? Time for more cruise …

Friday saw us docked up in Al Ferrol, on the Northern coast of Spain. I might have to bang out fairly quickly and do simpler alt-text because my right arm is not particularly happy with me today.

Picture. We're looking out over a port and in the distance, low buildings of a coastal city. More ships are in the background. The sea part of the harbour is to the right of picture. The sky is cloudy.

Very pleasant chill city. One thing I did notice there were the wind turbines … and there was a lot more of that on the way out of the city. It’s missing on the alt text but there are is a big array of very long blades, all stacked up with each other. Beside those, are the box sections of the actual generators and there are what I think are the bits that link the generators to the blades. There were huge stacks of these all around the port, as well as that not so little collection there.

To the port ! I had a little wander but didn’t really know what I was seeing but … I was drawn inevitably to their naval museum.

Picture. We're looking out over a stone paved courtyard with buildings to the left. In the centre of the courtyard to the left is a big ship's propeller. In the distance is the various levels of a ship's mast, covered with protrusions and aerials and antennas, with a big plate of a radar in the middle.

Complete with scalped aircraft carrier. Not something you see every day. If you’re in the area, I’d thoroughly recommend going to see the Naval Museum there. It starts through the Spanish Navy ships in the age of sail, goes through the early 20th century warships and goes right through to a model of their latest destroyer.

Picture. We're looking at a model of a navy ship in a glass display case. The ship is grey, with a black stripe at the waterline and red below. The bow is to the right and going backwards, there is a naval gun, missile silo, then the Bridge with the main sensors and radios mast behind. Aft of that are engine exhausts and a flat flight deck is at the back.

The pennant number in the middle there is F105 and tells us that this is a model of the Spanish Navy ship Cristóbal Colón. More at the wiki. She was commissioned in 2012. Part of me automatically critiques the design of these ships (see various comments ref ship nerd) but it looks like that ship could do a seriously good job as part of a fleet. Good to see these on our side.

Picture. We're looking at a couple of older navy ships in display cases. The one nearest has a black upper hull below cream superstructure. There are 3 funnels, 2 masts and a gun up front in a round white turret.

Oops. Lost a bit there as I was rudely interrupted by needing to log in again. Not sure why Bluehost is doing that every two days at the moment. I should probably log in around lunchtime sometime so the timer is set different.

Anyway ! Two early century navy ships, where the engines were taking up quite a bit of the ship and they were limited to just a small number of not too effective guns.

Picture. We're looking down an alleyway between two sets of two story buildings. Large ship anchors are stood up on each side.

They must have done well though, look at all the trophy anchors in the collection ! This was also the port that serenaded us on the way out with the bagpipe band. That was a lovely way to prepare for the day’s sailaway from a pretty coastal city.

Picture. We're looking out over fairly calm but rippled water towards a hill, where buildings of the city are there on a couple of levels. It looks like the buildings are climbing upwards to the right and then curling round to the left.

Good to see all that greenery in there around the buildings. This sailaway saw me starting to watch on the Promenade deck …

Picture. We're looking out over water that is just being disturbed by the wake of a pilot boat showing us the way to the open sea. The sun is up in the top left and is reflecting off the water. There is a narrow gap between far hills on the left and closer hills to the right.

We were heading off down that channel there. Here’s our pilot boat.

Picture. We're looking out over the water again, towards the gap to the sea over on the left with hills on the right. There is a little boat in the centre, leading the way out to sea for us. Their wake is making waves in the water.

Must have been pushing it a bit with the wake that they’re generating there.

Picture. We're looking back down the channel of sea that we came down. The surface of the water is disturbed by our wake. We can see a narrow break between hills to the left and right. Beyond the break, we can just see the cranes and buildings of the city.

This is where I found myself up on the Foredeck part of the ship (wasn’t open much) and as the ship turned, we had a chance to see back the way we’d come. Good place to be, nice and chill which was what I was needing at that point.

Oh ! This was where I was attempting to get pictures of a cooperative flag as well :-D. This is about as good as it got …

Picture. We're looking out over the back of the ship, with sun loungers arranged on the deck. At the back of the ship, there is a flagpole flying a flag which is 3 quarters red, with a white cross. In the upper left is the blue and yellow emblem of the Fred Olsen line.

That’ll do :-).

Time to hit post though and ration out what remains of my typing time. Have a good evening everyone, see you tomorrow.