Year: 2024

Advent Day 6 Y Wing when you can ship ?

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December 6, 2024

9:20 pm

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travel

,

Hello everyone,

What’s behind door number 6 ?

Picture. Our advent collection is growing, it's the snow scene again, with the red dwagon to the left. The Tie Fighter is in front of the dwagon and the XWing is centre right. The droid and Leia are at the back and the walker is heading off to the right. Centre front is a white with yellow highlights space fighter with two long engines flanking a pilots area.

Today’s little model is an Alliance Y Wing. It’s a fighter bomber ship, not too good at either role :-D. But still a mainstay of the fighter fleet. Am I doing better than yesterday ? Maybe a bit. I should be better after a quiet weekend hiding from the storm that’s going to come through tonight.

Is now a good time to talk about ships ? Let’s go.

Picture. We're looking into a ship cabin. In front is a wooden topped table with our little red dwagon sitting on top looking at us. Behind are a pair of single beds, light green below and white blankets on top. At the back is a square porthole looking ashore flanked by striped curtains.

Let’s start with the cabin, I had a single grade cabin although as you can see there it is made up with two single beds there. Cozy ! And excellently turned out by the lovely MT who was looking after my cabin. To the left was a desk top with UK and Euro plug sockets. I also had a kettle and mugs in there, a couple of chairs, plenty of cupboard space, a fridge, safe and a shower bathroom behind the shot there. Really good place to disappear in to for the almost fortnight. (Excuse the untidiness I’m adding in there with my coat)

Time for a wander …

Picture. It's dark out, with the side of the ship being defined by a guard rail to the left. To the right is a row of portholes and doors, with that being the inside of the ship. We're looking straight ahead down a well lit external deck, disappearing into the distance.

My cabin was on deck 2, quite low down. Heading up a deck we had the Promenade deck. Borealis is 231m long, with the outer part of the Promenade deck covering most of that length of the ship and allowing you to walk (or some were running it) all the way around, outside of a little area that goes up to the Foredeck. There were some unlit parts of the Promenade deck as well which were my go to place for looking at the stars.

Picture. We're looking out over an exposed front end of the ship. There is a guardrail showing the extent of where we could go, with a small mast at the pointy end up front. Above, we see a little bit of blue sky with lots of wispy white cloud.

There we are, I didn’t get the chance to go up to the Foredeck much, it wasn’t open much over the fortnight. (Bit exposed there) That’s from when we were departing from Ferrol on the Friday, I’ve been timeskipping a little bit over the pictures.

Picture. We're looking at a very ornate column with a statue on top. The column has three clocks arranged vertically. Behind is a staircase curling around. Lots of wood, very polished, very well lit.

Heading up a deck and 4 and 5 decks were the main decks. That big statue and clock there was from the main atrium pretty much at the centre of the ship. Up front, we had the Neptune Lounge which was a big theatre hall place where the shows would take place. Back aft was the main restaurant, split over two decks. In the middle, mainly on 5 deck, were boutiques, ship shop (very ship shape), bar lounge and a few cozy places like the Bookmark cafe which became a go to chill out for a while place.

Picture. We're looking down at a coffee table, which has a mug of hot chocolate to the right, a huge piece of swiss roll cake to the left and a hungry looking little red dwagon hungrily looking at the cake.

They had cake.

I didn’t spend too much time on 6 and 7 deck, as these were mostly more decks for cabins, with 7 deck being where the Bridge of the ship was. 6 Deck was called the Highland deck and had a little observation area up front, where I found myself sitting for a while a few times. Nice peaceful spot, although it was a bit exposed with the wind.

Have I got something of 8 deck ?

Picture. We're looking down from above into a swimming pool area. The pool is in the centre of the deck, with deck chairs surrounding it on three sides. The pool is lit up in light green, with blue purple spots illuminating a bar area to the left.

There we are. 8 Deck was the Lido deck, with the pool there in the middle. This was one of the casual restaurant and bar areas, with the buffet restaurant where I’d have breakfast and two other bars sharing this deck. The Lido deck had gorgeous fish and chips. We could look out the back of the ship here from The View bar …

Picture. Our little red dwagon has found the ideal spot to watch a sunset. They were perched on a sunbed, with the rail of the ship behind them. Behind that is the sea, with the orange looking sky dominated by the setting sun.

There were beautiful sunsets and wonderful views out to sea. 9 Deck was almost completely open, with a little bar area up front. My favourite way of going to and from the main dining room was to go outside up to 9 Deck and then walk aft and go down from there. (There was a crew only area that blocked off the direct route on 4 Deck).

Picture. We're outside the ship, looking towards the front bit. Ahead of us is a light colour wooden deck. Left is the guard rail. To the right is a white painted cover. Ahead of the ship, angry looking cloud about to cover the sun up above.

That’s another view from 9 Deck, this time with the Lido Deck roof closed up. This is from the first Wednesday with a taste of what was to come there with the cloud … We were headed in to that, it was a bit rough :-D.

So there we are ! That was a little tour through Borealis. She’s a 231m long 65,000 tonne ship. Beautifully turned out, with a superb crew who looked after us fantastically well and made this a wonderful place to be for the 11 days of the cruise.

Time to sign off now … Tashnarr is streaming again ! Need to pay attention :-). Have a lovely evening everyone.

Advent day 5 walking today, not running

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December 5, 2024

7:04 pm

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musing

Hello everyone,

Picture. Our advent scene is growing. The XWing is now on the head of the dwagon, the droid, Leia and TIE fighter are towards the back. In front, a mostly grey 4 legged vehicle with a central box body on top and smaller head to the front.

Not feeling so good this evening, so it’ll be a short one from me today and generally keeping the lights lower and the sound deadened. Might even go to bed before the cricket starts ! (England in New Zealand at 10pm UK).

I’ll be ok, I just felt like I got hit in the head with a bat after completing doing a presentation thing for work earlier. So instead of heading into town to have a Xmas munchie with the team, I’m staying away from bright lights, noises and overstimulation.

I suspect a good few people reading will fully understand the effects when that happens.

Just gotta avoid that brain temptation of wanting to dive into a game again. I did start a new journey yesterday …

Game screenshot. Mass Effect. We see the back of our character, wearing black armour covered with guns on the back. The sun is shining through just to her right, with a selection of towers and spires on the horizon. To the right, a huge metal long diamond shape in the sky with what looks like ... fingers.

Err yeah, I shouldn’t continue with that tonight ! It’s the prologue mission from Mass Effect and that’s become a legendary game series from the last couple of decades … but it does go for the flashing lights and some strobe effects.

If you somehow haven’t played Mass Effect, I’d thoroughly recommend taking a look at it. The game series is regularly given massive (90% off) discounts as well. The first person cover shooter style gameplay is very tight and it carries an excellent story through pretty much to the end.

For now though, dinner’s on the way, Woahhjess is doing a chill Rimworld stream over on Twitch and I’ll be looking forwards to seeing what Tashnarr has for us today over on the Instagrams.

I should improve again tomorrow, I’m able to turn on what I call a survival mode which gets me home in cases where the lights are starting to swim in front of my eyes or if I’m in an overstimulation. Plus I closed my eyes earlier and opened them again after 2dKiri (a lovely Austrian chill gaming streamer) had switched over to someone else.

And I’m rambling again – enjoy your evenings everyone ! See you tomorrow 🙂

Advent day, the droids go fourth

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December 4, 2024

9:16 pm

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technology

,

Hello everyone, what’s behind the door today ?

Picture. Our advent scene is building, the red dwagon is on the left, Leia is at the back and the TIE Fighter is chasing the X Wing. In front, a dark grey or black robot stands, looking our way. It has a heavy thick body with thinner limbs.

Super battle droid today, which leads me to talking techie stuff 🙂

I think I’ve mentioned this before … I’m going to be upgrading the tech at some point in the not that distant future. First up … to follow today’s advent model being a droid :

New phone ! My current phone (a Pixel 4) has been properly excellent. It does all I need it to do, it’s really surprised me with how good the night sight camera mode is and the only way it gets intrusive is by nagging me to enable to back up modes that’ll have all my pictures going off to Google to be harvested by whatever AI they say isn’t going to be trained on our pictures (but you know it will be).

There are 3 things pointing me towards an upgrade :

Memory size – I do like taking pictures (and copying them through from camera) and the memory is filling up;

Battery life – it’s 5 years old now and I think the battery is degrading

Contract – it’s 5 years old now 😀 and my contract was completed a while ago.

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a person fully enclosed in white plastic armour, with black parts at the shoulder, hand and eye areas. They're holding up a bag and a phone. The captions are "Buys iPhone" "Because couldn't find the droid he was looking for."

No, it’ll be an Android phone because I don’t want to have my phone subject to Apple’s policy on forced hardware obsolescence and whether or not we own our devices. Talking of that …

My iPad Mini 2 (that’s probably 10 years old, it’s done well) looks like it’s only good for being a Kindle app thing now. It’s asking for an update to iOS 12.7, it can’t handle the latest iOS and therefore I can’t update its browser or most of the other apps to the current versions. So it’s now useless as a portable computing device, outside of being an excellent e-reader device.

If I do upgrade the iPad, it’ll be the same again because the Mini size is a good size. The display is easily readable even with my deteriorating eyes (I am old, hear my roar. It’s pain from the latest back twinge) and it’s more compact than the full size ones. Compact is good.

Might have to change that in the car though. (Gosh, this post is actually flowing from device to device, never saw that coming)

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a white car, peeking out of a black full motorcycle helmet. The captions are "Ai haz a motocycle unner here." "Mah helmet iz jus' too big"

The issue with the car is that it’s a bit low. It’s challenged by the larger speed ramps around here, so I really don’t want to take it to less paved places if I ever do the stargazing thing properly. (Gonna need to arrange some away from home storage for that I think)

I’m actually looking a bit at the Lexus LBX again, it actually has a somewhat usable boot. Other than that though, I do greatly like the 2 pedal driving of an auto box and the Toyota/Lexus hybrids mesh very well with how I like to drive. The gearbox brain aligns with how I want the car to respond when I change the throttle input. But I might need to look at something bigger. No real solid idea of what to get next though and that era of The Last Car is looming (when they ban sales of cars with petrol engines and everyone without the ability to charge an electric car is stuffed).

Car as tech ? Definitely a thing these days. It’s a long time since I drove a car possibly without any transistors in (the Fiesta didn’t even have a radio). Now it’s Bluetooth, drive by wire, brake by wire, electric throttle, two motor generators, all the engine management, a number of display screens, memory seat and all the rest of the tech in the car. There’s probably more computing power in there than my PCs even going to the turn of the century.

And there’s the next swing in something something techie to upgrade !

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a grey cat, sitting on top of an open white laptop. They're on a wooden table with a mug to the side. The caption is "My day just isn't complete if I can't spend some quality time on my computer."

The other impending forced obsolescence thing that’s looming is the end of support for Windows 10. We’ll need to hop up to Windows 11 by that point because all the bugs that Microsoft didn’t sort out in Windows 10 before end of support will become active liabilities in our PCs that will most definitely be exploited by individuals and organisations who are able to get their stuff into our machines.

I’ve had malware affect me adversely three times :

First Acer laptop, which acquired keyloggers from something associated with the Eve Online website. That saw my log in credentials getting stolen and temporary loss of account. The Eve admin people retrieved that but it did lead to the compromise of a lot of my passwords from that time.

Something nasty got in from a website, which got past the User Permission thingy popup, murdered Defender like it wasn’t there and it was corrupting my browsing, serving ads etc. That needed a system restore to fix.

Third goes way back … when a piece of malware called Blaster was fully capable of scanning the internet to find a vulnerable machine, uploading itself and infecting that machine within fifteen minutes of it being connected to the internet. Yep. This happened on a machine I was setting up with a completely fresh Windows XP install, it was able to get in and infect before anti-virus could be installed to stop it. I saw the install due to the Zonealarm (remember that ?) firewall popping up with an outgoing connection request.

My current PC, Meltdown, has done well with a Ryzen 5 3600 processor and an upgrade to a 3060Ti and bigger SSD since install. But it was struggling a little bit with the more open areas of Star Wars Outlaws and that plus that looming Windows 10 out of support is making me think I need to retire a Windows install that dates back to Oct 2011 and Windows 7 in Pumpkin and replace it with … This is what I’m looking at :

AMD Ryzen 5 again, it’s a good combination of economic to buy and the power on the chip. I’ll get 64 GB of memory this time and couple it to one of the 5060Ti graphics cards. Which means waiting until they become affordable sometime after they come out in Jan. I’ll debate until purchase whether I go for one Solid State Device (SSD) drive or two :

One SSD – it keeps things simple. But … an SSD kinda wears out over time and not in the same way as physical wear to bearings will eventually kill the old magnetic platter based drives. Each time data is written to an SSD, that takes a little bit of life out of it. Too much of that and it starts to sacrifice its total storage capacity. The 5 year old one in Meltdown that has Windows on it is still doing well and has all of its bits available but the CrystaldiskInfo application is telling me that it’s down to 57% health, which I think is based on how much it’s been writing, erasing and rewriting bits of itself.

Two SSD – one smaller one for Windows, one whopper for games. The idea is that the little one gets rewritten a lot by whatever Windows does, while the whopper for games just looks out for data storage (textures and graphics and voices are big) and doesn’t get rewritten as much.

Apparently my boot disk has had 46,572 GB happen to it and it’s just a 464.7GB drive. So each memory bit it contains has been rewritten on average of 100 times over 5 years of operation. Maybe. I might not be interpreting that right.

I think that’s it for me for tonight. Mass Effect Legendary completed downloading and I’m tempted to dive into it when I should be giving a dodgy shoulder a break.

It’s been good to be back into popping these natter chats in for you all 🙂

Day 3 ! One for the pew pew

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December 3, 2024

9:47 pm

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games

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Hello everyone, what’s behind door number 3 ?

Picture. We're looking at the snow scene, with red dwagon to the left, Leia figure rear right and the XWing is behind a starfighter with two black hexagonal wings either side of a little pod in the centre.

I think I have a little behind the scenes stuff to catch up on here :-D. I’m seeing a “Generate with AI” button on the picture uploads, which I will never use and kinda object to the WordPress mod people adding there ! Oh dear, just started and we’re massively tangenting already. Only one thing to do there … grab that tangent and dive right on in !

Tangent 1 – AI generated pictures … I won’t call them art because I don’t consider it art in the same way as someone putting their soul into what they make is art. But I have seen some wonderful pictures where people take a number of objects and a theme and weave them together into something that looks absolutely stunning. That’s a bit different from people just putting “a fierce dragon with a sword in a fantasy setting” into a picture generator and getting something out that looks almost identical to something Askren (aka Exploding Dice) has taken days to make and was paid to create.

(Askren is a good egg, check him out, that’s the Twixxer link above which probably won’t last that much longer).

Tangent 2 ! Social media. I’ve been struggling to keep up with these lately. I’ll monitor Instagram closely because I have that tightly curated down to only show me a small number of selected individuals who post content on there that makes me happy. I’ve been enjoying the general vibe on Bluesky, the artist and author community there is fun to keep up with. Twixxer is dying a death due to the policies being introduced to it and … Farcebook is algorithm driven and doesn’t let you keep up with people without spam being introduced.

The main thing there is … social media can be very overwhelming. It can be a bit too much trying to keep up with it all. It’s ok if you need to withdraw from it and go a bit lower profile on it. Look after yourselves. If it’s getting too much, consider dropping the follows of people who don’t bring you joy or otherwise reduce how much you feel obliged to keep up with it all.

Picture. Star Trek Meme. We're looking at two men in overalls, red at the top, black lower down with black shoulder areas. The bald one on the left says "I've never written a trigonometry paper", then "But I cosigned a few". The black haired fellow on the right is now holding his head in his hand.

I’m mostly going to be doing fairly random posts throughout advent (including tangents when they hit) but also maybe getting led by the day’s model … It’s a TIE Fighter today, which is taking me back (way back) to the first space fighter game that had me addicted on PC. It’s TIE Fighter from the days of the 486 based machine. Yep. Last century. TIE Fighter was a really, really good game in its time. Excellent graphics and a tight, responsive flight model. There was a decent story running through as well, TIEing all of the missions together.

Game screenshot. Tie Fighter. We're looking out of an octagonal window into space, from a small fighter ship. The lower part of obscured by a target display showing a boxy shuttle. Top left and top right are a couple of circles with dots showing what is around us.

I went to the X Wing game a little later, I actually enjoyed TIE Fighter more. The missions were difficult but I managed to complete them all. Whereas some of the missions in XWing got me stuck and I couldn’t get past them.

Fast forward a whole heap of years and we get to …

Game screenshot. Star Wars Outlaws. Our character is in the foreground wearing blue jacket and faded brown trousers. In the background, a boxy grey white spaceship pointing left with engines to the right. It's a day scene with hazy clouds in the sky.

That’s from Star Wars Outlaws and has our player character, Kay Vess, looking at a spaceship called the Trailblazer. I really enjoyed this game. I’d effectively rented it from the publisher because … it’s really expensive. I can easily afford the asking price to buy it (£95 for the version with a season pass for expansions), I just don’t want to pay that much for a game. I did massively enjoy it though and will happily play it again when the discounts are low enough. 25% (current Steam sale) is a decent start at a discount but …. I got other games to play first before going back to Outlaws.

It was a lot of fun though and I did love feeling immersed in the world that the developers created for us. They gave us something special here. That’s my honest opinion there, lots of other opinions are out there about this one. If you’re deciding whether to play it, please go by the opinions of people who have actually played it, not the ones who see : female protagonist, Star Wars not what they would have done and all of the other weird prejudices people get.

I think I might be getting a bit too excited there and it’s telling in how my shoulder is behaving :-D. (It’s a little sore and is making my right hand start to be numb again).

I better leave it there, maybe another epic screenshot ?

Game screenshot. Star Wars Outlaws. We're on a desert planet, looking at sandy blocky buildings in the background with mountains behind there. In the foreground, our Kay Vess and lined up behind her are 2 speeder cars and 3 speeder bikes.

That’s from the Mos Eisley space port, first seen in the original movie. I loved seeing the little Easter Eggs that they seeded through the game, including this line up of the various speeders from the various movies.

Also oh look, just under a day to go on the Steam sale. I have the following in the cart and should really buy :

Mass Effect Legendary edition – I enjoyed going back to Deus Ex Human Revolution again and playing this fresh. So the Mass Effect games at 92% off (£3.99) have the attention.

Slipways and soundtrack – a somewhat speculative one at 50% off (£8.08). This one is a space strategy game.

Tank Mechanic Simulator – ok, a weird one but I did enjoy Car Mechanic Simulator 2021. This one is 76% off for £3.71.

Tavern Master’s Pirate Cove DLC – no discount, this one is £4.29 and I did enjoy building a legendary tavern in the original game which looks like its lost its discount early.

Ok, that’s it for me for tonight, enjoy the rest of your evening, see you tomorrow. I’m going to be concentrating on enjoying the rest of Billietrixx’s Twitch (with link) stream, Tessachka (linky) is on the laptop and there’s a Mike Oldfield album playing in the background.

Nite all 🙂

Advent Day 2 and a little … reading ?

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December 2, 2024

9:15 pm

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books

,

Hello everyone,

What’s behind door number 2 ?

Picture. We're looking at the snow planet scene on the advent calendar box. The small space fighter ship is to the right, to the left is our (big) little red dwagon and in the centre, a Lego figure. She's got the dark hair in the circular bun style of the Princess Leia from the first movie. She's wearing white on her legs and a blue jumper with a scene from the second movie.

Good jumper, also lots of alt text that time. I do like the jumper there, I’d wear one of those IRL. (Blue with a walker vehicle to the right, a defence laser lower left and a snow speeder attack craft in the sky)

I thought I’d talk books today … I’ll be back with more Cruise Things later but I’m trying to space things out a bit. Space ?

That’s what I’m reading at the moment, with Aftershocks by Marko Kloos. It’s the first of a set of 4, which was a bit of an impulse buy with all 4 books on offer for 99p each. Can’t resist a bargain like that and the reader reviews were really good. I’m enjoying it so far, it’s set in the aftermath of a huge system wide war five years after peace was declared or rather imposed on the people who started it. It’s being an intriguing set up so far, it feels like there’s a lot going on. With a lot of hints about how the situation is being steadily developed from people behind the scenes who we haven’t met yet.

Worth checking out.

Picture, meme. We're looking at an orange and white cat, with their head resting on a closed book. The captions are "I finished my book" "And now I don't know what to do with myself"

Solution … buy another book !

I actually went through 3 on the cruise. I finished off the excellent Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky. He’s someone I had a bit of a rough start with on his books because I didn’t gel with Children of Time much at all (too much swapping between viewpoints and timelines) but Eyes of The Void is a really good continuation of what started with Shards of Earth. It’s post apocalyptic scifi, where just as humanity was getting started with expansion into the universe, moon sized alien things appeared and started reworking planets into artworks. With the people on. Eyes of the Void is a really good middle book, building on how the characters and universe got established in the first book and moving on the story at pace. I’m curious to see how the author finishes off the story.

Much recommend. I’ve enjoyed all of the Adrian Tchaikovsky books since going back to them with Dogs of War.

Before then was Starter Villain by John Scalzi. Another fun romp, where you’re drawn into the world that the main character has suddenly found themselves dropped into. John Scalzi has a wonderful, easy to read style, with fun varied characters that get the chance to breathe. Oh and surprises along the way, you can see some of the bits of the end coming but it’ll be a fun surprise all the way. I started reading John Scalzi’s books with Redshirts, which is an essential if you’re interested in the Star Trek universe.

Oh and he’s a standard bearer over on Bluesky too, showing the way to go to have a good time over there and generally make it a fun chilled out space to keep up with.

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a cat, sitting on a wooden bench, with a towel on their legs. They have a book open in front of them and they are reading, intently. The caption is "Oh Tigger, I enjoy your crazy antics."

Suitably for cruise times, I chose Michael Palin’s Around the World in 80 Days. It dates back to a journey made well back in 1988, when the world and the technology with us was a very different place. I think mobile phones existed ! But they were massive chunky things with battery packs, not exactly like the massively portable, massively capable things we have now. And the political situation evolves too, including how open the travel is. I think this was in the days before travellers in the Suez Canal area needed to be as wary of pirates, plus the world was as dangerous in places for all the different reasons.

Michael Palin has a dry humour running through his books and it’s an honest commentary often showing and explaining things that we didn’t see on the series. I’ll keep collecting and reading his books. Oh ! One fun coincidence was seeing someone on the cruise bring Michael Palin’s Erebus to breakfast with him one morning. Cue a little natter about books while ignoring the 3 other people at that table who switched from speaking English to speaking French as soon as we arrived. (Almost all of the other guests were lovely and not like that)

Picture, meme. We're looking down at the open pages of a book. Looking over the top of the page, a curious orange cat. The caption is "Hey Man What Ya Reading?"

Yes. Meme game is strong tonight.

I’ve finished off a series called The Belt by Gerald M Kilby. It’s the last of a set of 6, set in a future solar system where humanity has spread out as far as the gas giants. They’re quite short books, not much to them to be honest but they have a decent story running through them and I’m glad I saw them through to the finish. All I ask for in a book or a series is that the end either wraps everything up really well … or it leaves it at a place that is satisfying yet leaves you hoping there will be more. The Expanse worked well for that, it wrapped up its major story arc while leaving lots of room for more stories in that universe.

And that’s all you can ask, that you enjoy what you’re reading. I’ve seen comments on the socials that people think that authors are all in competition with each other. It actually works as completely the opposite. The authors encourage each other to do the best they can and keep on writing. They’ll understand that what they take months to write, us dedicated avid readers could demolish in less than a day (I’m not that quick). That just means …

More authors is great ! We’ll happily buy all of the books from the people we enjoy reading. And the more authors in the game, the more there is for us to enjoy. We need all the authors so that we have something new and fun to read while we’re waiting for that most favourite author to give us something new and wonderful. One day we’ll be in a Gareth L Powell, then an Aliette de Bodard, over to John Scalzi, following an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel, enjoying not feeling smart enough for the John D. Clark science book (rocket fuel, very complex) or even going back in time for a bit of Heinlein.

Sketch. We're looking at one of my rough sketches. It's a green dragon sitting on his butt, looking to the right. He's holding up a book, which he's examining with his bespectacled eyes.

Enjoy your reading, have a wonderful day. See you tomorrow.

Back from cruise, advent day 1 !

by

December 1, 2024

9:07 pm

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travel

,

Hello everyone,

It’s been a while again, I did mostly intend to do some posts while I was at sea but it didn’t quite work out that way. A lot of that is down to where my own headspace was (it’s improved now) when I disappeared. Some of it down to enjoying the cruise as well. Sometimes you really do need that time away from the world to get centred again and do a little reset.

Advent ? Here we are :

Picture. We're looking at the top of a box, with a snowscene. There are numbered doors on the box, it's an advent calendar. A small grey space fighter is lower left, being looked at by a red plush dwagon.

There we are, I’ll hopefully find something suitable for you every day. Like I’m not going to drop 12 days of cruise all at once :-D. Little X Wing there for day 1, with little Ellardy there for scale. The cruise turned into a bit of a Dwagon On Tour with the pictures. The little fella wasn’t in all of the pictures but was definitely in a lot of them. Let’s see …

Picture. We're on the outside deck of a ship, looking at the little red dwagon looking at us. It's night time and in the distance behind, disappearing into blur, is the rail defining the edge of the deck and the blurry lights of the city we are departing.

This time around, it was the Mystery Cruise with Fred Olsen, going from Southampton to Portsmouth and 6 ports in between. We’d find out where we were docking up when we arrived (although there were niceties with international shipping conventions that meant we could find out early). There was much speculation as to where we were going … Some thought we might head East to south Scandinavia (my theory). Others were looking south.

We headed south in the end, although that did lead to a couple of uncomfortable crossings of the Bay of Biscay. It’s not a forgiving place for shipping :-D. So I spent the first day and a bit being quite uncomfortable from a combination of not having my sea legs and my own metabolism and psychology ganging up on me. (I unconsciously don’t do a number 2 unless I trust the place and it takes a couple of days to get that unconscious trust – it’s silly and I don’t know why it’s in my head!)

Picture. Our little red dwagon is perched on top of a pole, looking off to the right. In the background, our huge cruise ship is docked up alongside. She is blue at the base, with a thin red line separating upper decks in white. There are red funnels on top and yellow lifeboats half way up.

That’s us in our second port of Ferrol in Northern Spain. This’ll be a quicker kinda intro overview for the cruise. I’ll go into each port separately in later ports.

The whole thing about cruising is that the ship will go from port to port, where you’ll see new things at each place. And then you can retreat back and be extremely well looked after when you’re back on board. And we were very well looked after by Fred’s people.

There’s a certain etiquette that each cruise line will go by. Hurtigruten were very casual. Fred’s ship was a bit more formal than that but still somewhere you could happily relax as a casual person that doesn’t really do formal stuff. Other cruise lines are more formal, like I won’t include Cunard on my samplings of the different cruise lines because I think they’re Too formal.

I have to admit that I was rethinking my life choices on the first Wednesday, when I had the bloating and the sea sickness from crossing the Bay of Biscay. But managed to reset my head (and body) during the first port visit on the Thursday.

So – cruise as a whole : really enjoyed it. Wanting to go back on a cruise as soon as I can get away with it. Probably not with Fred’s people just yet … however I would happily recommend them to people looking at a good company to go on any holiday with. (I’m just wanting to sample everyone’s offers but there is a tempting August 2026 solar eclipse cruise …)

The excellent customer service started when preparing for the cruise, I think I commented before that it was making me happy seeing the details steadily come in through the post. And that continued on board with my cabin being looked after by the lovely MT (hello MT !) and our dining table in the main restaurant was being looked after by a chap from India who, true to form for me, was a lovely guy and super polite. They’d be asking me about what I was seeing and I think they were being as invested in the adventures of the Little Red Dwagon as everyone else who was seeing me suddenly bounce off somewhere to set up a picture.

It was a genuinely fun time.

I won’t go into it too much more here outside of a little : people can look really fine on the outside when they are definitely NOT fine. I needed a chance to get out of the world for a little while and the cruise let me do just that. Whereas a hotel trip can be … good while you’re cozy, there’s still the travel involved. A cruise handles all the travel for you, plus the crew are wonderful people. It makes for a lovely time and, as it was last year, just what I needed.

Picture. It's a sunny day with clouds in the sky. We're looking out over a beach. Our little red dwagon is sitting on the wall separating beach from the city areas. In the distance, we can see a ferry and our cruise ship with the two funnels.

We were looked after incredibly well. Food was great, I could always have something compatible with my curious requirements. (I’m find with fish but have trouble with steak these days) And I really enjoyed being able to wander around the decks, including doing circuits of the Promenade deck looking out to the sea and the view we were getting from the open part of the upper deck.

I think that’s it for me for this post, have a lovely evening everyone. I’ll be aiming to do an advent post every day, so more cruising posts interspersed with other things like gaming, reading and the music. I haven’t got a theme in mind this year, I did that a few times over previous years and I think it burned me out on the blog posting a fair bit. Maybe doing 3 themes in a post every day was a bit much.

Still, time’s turning, hope you all have a good holiday season and you get the chance to be able to look after yourself :-).

Cruise last, cruise next ?

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November 8, 2024

8:44 pm

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travel

,

Hello everyone,

I’m on leave again ! Not sure if I mentioned it (probably did but memory is goldfish) but I’m disappearing out of the world again for a little while. I’ll hopefully be able to post while I’m out there but I did think I should probably finish up posting what happened on the last cruise before the next one starts.

Picture. We're looking at a little red dragon figure sitting in a Norwegian Viking style longboat. There are 5 shields on the side of the boat with Norway flags, the red and white striped sail is full and there is a Norway flag at the top of the mast.

This next one came about from a fairly random asking of the Google for “cruise November 2024”. I’ll post more about that later. Gotta wrap up the last one first ! I left it last time with the visit to Rødøya Island on the middle Monday, after a magical trip to the top of Norway where we saw the huskies and got the selfies with the aurora. If you click on the “travel” label then that will be the easiest way of taking you to the Northern Lights cruise posts.

Tuesday saw us visiting the little coastal community of Bessaker, we might have tripled the population for the day. Charming place, absolutely lovely people, very tasty noms there, coziness and a very friendly representative of the natives :

Picture. We're looking downwards at a road. A large dark curly haired poodle is looking back at us from down the road. There are three people there, two in the red Hurtigruten coats, one in normal cold gear.

They also have a wall of trolls there. I didn’t manage to bring back any goodies though because I’d been forgetting to put my wallet in my coat (oops). They have a big staircase up to a view point as well here which I have to admit to chickening out on because my back started turning even more to glass around this kind of time. (Spoiler, it’s still glass)

Next up on the Wednesday was Loen, which has a cable car lift up to the top of the mountain. We were being menaced by multiple storm systems in the North Sea and North Atlantic around this time, so the weather wasn’t great …

Picture. We're looking at a fog bound scene. To the left is the fences for the mountain top facility. There is a cleared path on the left and a snow covered side of the mountain to the right. We can just about make out an orange wind sock in the centre.

Yep. We in the clouds.

There was also a bit of excitement caused by a power failure, so we were a little delayed going up the mountain. However, there was consolation in a hot chocolate and a delicious cookie in the shop at the top of the mountain with a lovely lady behind the counter with a charming sidekick.

Picture. We're looking down at the bits and bobs on a shop counter. On top of a black box, we can see a black rubber vampire duck with bat wings and fangs

Best shop mascot ever.

Thursday saw us sheltering from the storms in Hardangerfjord, with a quiet chilled out day that included the expedition team taking us for a rigid inflatable boat ride up and down the fjord. I didn’t get many pictures to share but it was going being out and about there. There is one picture that I’ll save to close out the post on.

The Friday was a trip to Stavanger, which became the oil capital of Norway. The geology of the North Sea meant that Norway got a big prize in terms of being able to control the oil reserves off the coast and Stavanger was the city that sprung up to feed the exploitation industry. The petroleum museum is well worth a visit, although I do regret being a bit too low on batteries that day to seek out the more tourist areas.

Picture. We're looking at a building by the dockside to the left. The building has a magnificent mural painted on it. On the right, an astronaut holding painted letters spelling out "Stavanger Houston".

The Saturday was a sea day as we made our way back across the North Sea to England, with us arriving back in Tilbury a day later than scheduled on the Sunday. It was an incredible trip, a good one to have as my first cruise holiday. It’ll be interesting to see what the contrast is for the next cruise. The ship I’ll be on is more a purpose built cruise holiday ship that’s more than 3 times the size of MS Maud (now back in service after the incident in Dec 2024 and renamed back to Midnatsol).

We were really well looked after on Maud. A small cruise ship but very cozy, relaxed and it was a fantastic holiday. I’d thoroughly recommend the cruising. On a normal hotel holiday, you’re based around the same place and explore under your own power. On a cruise holiday, there will be stuff to be enjoying on the ship and the ship will be moving from port to port (usually while you’re sleeping) giving you a new place to explore.

Picture. It's the morning before sun up. We're looking out from the ship towards the shore. On the left, the bulwarks of the ship and a Norway flag hanging down from a pole. In the distance, the town of Loen in the gap between hills to the left and right. It's a very cloudy sky.

This was the port entry to Loen on the Wednesday morning. The Loen visit was another where the tender boats were required to get us to shore. This was a very well practiced, well grooved and above all safe exercise for guests not particularly used to being at sea.

Last one for this series before signing off :

Picture. We're looking out from the windows of the ship towards the V of the Hardangerfjord closing towards a bridge at the end. To the left are hills, with more terrain at the end. We can see 3 boats full with people with red jackets. The boats are moving away from us, down the fjord.

There we go. It was a great experience, actually economical and affordable too and I’d thoroughly recommend looking at cruises as a way to experience something different. You are a bit at the mercy of the weather. 15 minutes later, the fog had come in and you couldn’t see the terrain at the end of the fjord there.

See you all next time, hopefully it won’t take me nearly a year to finish off the next series !

Mountains, bugs, plans

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October 25, 2024

10:48 pm

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travel

,

Hello everyone,

It’s been a little while ! I needed to go under the covers for a little while to attempt to rest up and recuperate. I’m reasonably sure I had another round of covid … But first, thumbnail ?

Picture. We're looking at a black train with the wheelhouse to the left, the train is pointing to the right. We can see the train's engine. The train is parked at a platform on our side of the train.

Wales trip may have involved a train.

I was being very aware while writing the last post that I was increasingly struggling for brain power as the post was going on and it was a bit of a squeeze getting it out. I didn’t get hit badly physically by the bugs this time, I just got very heavy brain fog from it. It will have been picked up from the Creator North event, with a cluster of people reporting getting bugs not long after. (Wonderful event, have enjoyed the two so far) Some got hit pretty hard and were pretty much bedridden. Whereas I head off to North Wales feeling just mildly off. And then the weekend came and being able to turn off after Wales meant that I very definitely switched off for the weekend. (And had very crunchy upper body too).

It felt like I was working off only less then half the usual amount of brain power and even there, only had brain batteries for like half a day. It hit work quite a bit, although that’s part rationing out what you apply the brain cells to. Some stuff needs doing but doesn’t need that deep thought ? Not quite sure how to say that without saying that I may have been slacking. Sometimes stuff needs the deep thought, sometimes it’s just stuff that can be done on near automatic. Both types of work are needed to get everything done.

Yeah, that affected me for far longer than it should have done. I could still function physically (as far as I can these days) but everything mentally was a big effort. So I stayed away a little bit and also just stayed to familiar games that I didn’t need to learn.

Snowdon ?

Picture. We're looking out of a window at a set of train tracks going into the distance. On the windowshelf in front are three more little train models. We can see the platforms to the left and right.

I’ve been up Snowdon before, a little over ten years ago. We took one of the walking trails that time. I’m not close to that level of fitness these days, plus I fancied looking at the train ride this time. Link there to the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which is 1 hour up, half an hour there, 1 hour back. A leisurely train ride.

Picture. We're looking out of a train window, over a deep valley cut into the hills. We can see a road winding its way through the valley from lower left to middle right.

And a wonderful view out of the side windows (pardon the reflection!)

Picture. We're looking out from the top of Mount Snowdon at the countryside rolling out in front of us. There are several small lakes visible as the valleys connect. The sky is full of thin white cloud, some of which is faintly obscuring the distant view.

And a great view at the summit. I have to admit to struggling a bit at this point. Perhaps the bugs were affecting my lungs a little bit. I didn’t go all the way up to the summit as I was feeling a bit off, light headed and unsteady at the 1085m up that is the Snowdon Mountain Railway station, cafe and shop. Half the pictures are looking at the sky thinking that the clouds were the valleys !

Picture. Another view from the top of Snowdon. We're looking out over the craggy stone path at the rolling countryside of North Wales. It's good weather again, with wispy thin cloud in the sky, covering the landscape in increasing mist.

More view ? Spot the hair between the lens and the camera sensor ! That’s something I’m learning about the mirrorless fancy camera, because you can change the lenses dust and obstructions can get in. Will bear that in mind in future :-D.

Picture. We're looking downwards out of the train window towards a trail cutting its way through the hillside. There is a small building halfway up. The ground is tinged with the green of parched grass that needs a bit of water to waken it up.

There’s people on that there trail … Well worth going up there. Maybe could do with a bit more time up there before the call comes to come back again ? There is a canteen cafe down at the bottom of the hill though.

Picture. We're looking at the railway as it curves to the right. A train is side on to us, ascending the mountain. There is a stony walking trail to the top left, with a small collection of people scattered around it.

Also train, with assorted people dotted around above, descending. It’s a single track railway with a few passing points, which dictates the schedule with trains needing to pause to allow the up train to pass the down train.

What goes up has to come down some time though, so it was back down to Llanberis (home of this railway) and back home again. I could feel the bugs getting in (hope I didn’t pass them on to too many people, I know some people got the bugs from me) and I had 200 miles to go home. It should have taken 4 hours plus a stop or two. It took 7 hours on the road as a couple of incidents on the M6 motorway led to standstill traffic. I did trust the satnav this time, which got me in range of those incident points. I’d gone a different way, more cross country, on the way up. I like to vary the routes I go on.

Mentioning that … there has been some gaming going on in the last month :

Well and truly fell off the Little Big Workshop wheel again with a series of completed runs on that. I’ve been doing challenge runs and making up challenge runs for that. It’s a lovely cute little factory building game where I can set up things for the delightful little idiots (their AI can be a bit flawed and awkward) to assemble to sell.

Star Wars Outlaws took a bit longer than intended (2 months of Ubi+ renting) to finish. I’d thoroughly recommend this one, I really enjoyed running around that world for a while. It has a sizeable Tatooine area around Mos Eisley and other areas of the first films. It’s actually set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and there are a couple of cameos in there from the films.

I’ve also gone back to the two Truck Simulator games this week, with a restart in Euro Truck Sim 2 (to get explorer achievements0 and continuing American Truck Sim. They’re good ones to turn the brain off to again and I’ve been needing to ration the rational thought. Need a new controller though, my one is failing.

I had a look at Shapez 2 and Production Line (car building game) but brain was giving me the nope on those.

There’s also been a bit of reading, maybe more about that in a later post. Highlight of the books was Deep Black by Miles Cameron, continuing on from the very well done space thriller Artifact Space. He’s made a wonderful universe there. Also Thornhedge by T Kingfisher, a very sweet short tale with a twist on Rapunzel and other maiden in the tower stories.

I better hit post there again. Apologies for it being a while again, I wasn’t feeling too well and it took a while to shake it this time. It has been good looking at the pictures again.

I have something special lined up next month too, it’s a … mystery. But it brings me back to last year as well, I need to finish off the cruise posts !

A meet up, 2 castles, 1 mountain, several trains and no boats

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September 24, 2024

7:28 pm

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travel

,

Hello everyone,

It’s been a little while again. Things were getting a little bit draining for a while, although that’s probably a bit down to me not having any time off since June. That’s maybe a bit too long for me. (And I might need another break to recover from the last one!)

Picture. We're looking at a small white saucer, on which is a tasty looking brownie, with a dwagon next door sporting an apron with the words "Feed Me". In front, a ribbon with "Creator North 2024" on it.

First up, heading up the motorway to Sheffield and Creator North for the Saturday. This is an event (linky) run by a little group of wonderful people, that’s LookItsTilly, Maddog, Billietrixx and the always lovely Tashnarr. I’m not going to write too much about this one this year apart from saying that I really enjoyed the day, including being adopted by Ninja Space Unicorn’s people, seeing MiyukiPanda’s new game coming along and having a lovely natter with the other people there.

It did come right at the end of my energy though, with my last break before this one being back in June. Still, it was awesome seeing everyone and because I do act as a bit of a mirror to the people around me, happy people meant I was happy too. Good to see everyone. And a mention for the lovely Curlylocksgamer too, who had been struggling lately but it’s been too to firstly see her back streaming again and second to see her pop up at Creator North and have a great time there.

After a travel day and a chill out day, I was off on the move again …

Picture. We're on the pedestrian part of a bridge, looking across a road (with several cars) towards a castle. There are 5 turrets on the castle, with battlements. The sky is a clear blue with occasional wispy cloud.

I’d abandoned thoughts of something more ambitious like an Isle of Man trip (the ferry crossing timings were NOT working out) and spotted a North Wales trip on GreatLittleBreaks. After one trip with them, I’d go back for more and check out what other options they have. The booking process was easy and there were no issues with anything that was set up. I think it was good value, although it does seem set up for at least 2 guests with a big solo supplement.

Not so much with the hotel … The Sheffield hotel was great, with an older style layout. The Conwy hotel, not so much. The people there were great and the food (fish and chips on first night) tasty but the room was set up with one of those open plan layouts, where the bathroom section isn’t really split off from the rest of the room. I.e. attack of trendy. So that would be … a shower cubicle that has frosted glass to the rest of the room and no full length door to keep the steam behind. Oh and there was a puddle outside the frosted glass short door after the shower too.

Not so good.

Picture. We're looking out over a river / harbour from an elevated position. The town is to the bottom left, with more buildings just about visible on the far side. There is a series of boats tied up alongside and at anchor in the bay. The sky is overcast.

Lovely town though and a great castle visit too.

(gotta note I’m fading a bit as I type and should probably put the dinner on!)

That’s Conwy and the castle was a good little visit. They’ve put a lot of restoration work in to Conwy Castle, with the spiral turret staircases being in very good order. A lot of these castles tend to have worn down steps which can get a bit dangerous, however Conwy’s gives good confidence that you’d be able to get up and down these stairs easily if you’re able to do so. (It’s a little sad that this is an able bodied thing, no wheelchair access, use of cane would be very awkward). And that picture was taken from one of the turrets. The castle is mostly ruined with no internal buildings but most of the towers are in good condition and you can walk around the ramparts.

Worth a visit, great castle. Although I’m still on the hunt for a castle that could be visited by some of the streamer friends who depend on walkers and wheelchairs. They love the pictures I post into discords and it’d be good to find them a castle they are able to fully enjoy if they find themselves visiting the UK.

Picture. We're looking across the shell of the inside of the castle, from the ramparts. In the foreground, is an archway bridge, behind that is a tower with 2 spires. The other side of the river banks are in the distance. Overcast skies again.

Great castle though. And I enjoyed a gentle wander through the town too. But I think I picked up bugs at Creator North and while I was thoroughly ignoring them, I crashed out hard when I got back to the hotel. (Enjoying reading and listening to streams via the hotel wifi). At least, on the second evening, the place across the artificial lagoon wasn’t in party mode (very loud music).

Picture. We're looking out over an artificial lagoon towards hills in the distance and a very yellow Moon. This is light enhanced by the phone, so it's a milky white sky and far brighter than the almost full dark of the day.

Nice place though, peaceful. That’s actually the Moon there. No stargazing on this trip because we had peak moonlight but it was nice walking most of the way around that artificial lagoon on the first evening. That picture is what came out of the phone on the day, it did a lot of light enhancing as the actual conditions were almost full dark with a very bright super moon.

Castle 2 ?

Picture. More castle, we're looking over the top of a series of cars towards the imposing tall walls of a castle citadel, below clear blue skies.

I’d booked a ticket for Snowdon Mountain Railway (might actually leave that for another post, am fading!) for 1500 on the return day, which gave me a morning/early afternoon to play with after checking out of the hotel. I’d been given the idea to visit Caernarfon castle, which was another really good recommendation.

One bit of a surprise is how good the condition of Caernarfon and Conwy Castle is. Whereas the south Wales castles are typically intentionally destroyed and demolished, the two castles I visited in the North were still mostly intact. Part of that is due to Caernarfon Castle still being in active use, it was used for the ?inauguration? ceremony for Prince Charles becoming the Prince of Wales way back when. (Is King now).

Picture. We're inside the castle, looking out over a beautifully mown grassy interior. We can see the castle walls to the left and right, with an intact tower to the left and a somewhat crumbled gate house to the right. Clear blue skies with wispy clouds and the distant towers have a pair of flags flying.

There we are, quite a bit there still, including a very fortified gatehouse (ramp to enter but broken lift). I was definitely feeling impending illness at this point and needed to reserve energy for Snowdon and the drive home so I wasn’t pushing myself at all around this castle but … Well worth a visit again. I think the towers were open and there’s a few good displays in there as well.

I think I will save Snowdon for another post (need to put food on and Pain is happening) but … a couple of great castles to visit, lovely people looking after everyone in the hotel (shame about the attack of trendy with the room design) and I needed to get away for a few days as the temptation is to just stay home, stay in, play games, listen to music.

About that …. I did pick up bugs up in Sheffield. I could feel them starting to take effect on the Tuesday driving up, plus I was hearing reports that other people there were being affected by the bugs too. I also hurt the shoulder again on the Saturday afternoon, one of those where I turn to face someone but leave the arm behind, which is where it gets crunchy. I didn’t feel it on the day (never do) but it’s been very crunchy for the last couple of days. I’ll do that, I’ll keep myself going while I need to (albeit limited at the moment) and then collapse when I don’t need to maintain that level.

Like now ! Time to put the dinner on and look at hopefully posting the Snowdon pics later this week.

Later everyone, before I go though :

Picture. We're looking at a cracked white egg, on a white sheet. Emerging from the egg is a small red dwagon. They're looking up at us with wide, adorable eyes.

There we go, totally adorable new profile pic and one of the bits of loot taken away from North Wales last week.

You can pet the “dog”

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August 29, 2024

10:46 pm

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musing

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Hello everyone,

It’s been a while again … Time for a little check from last time :-D. Ah ha ! The Olympics had just started up. It was a good games again too, I quite enjoyed watching what I was seeing there. I haven’t posted in a little while because to be honest, the burn out was hitting again. Thumbnail first ?

Picture. We're looking at a blue poster with the title "I'm going to Creator North". It has the date September 14and the location Kommune, Sheffield. In the centre, is a small green dwagon holding a red heart shape in front of him.

There we go, that’ll do.

Really looking forward to that event, it’s coming up in a few weeks and it’ll involve a weekend trip. It’s the second time it’s been run after a fun first event last year. Here’s the link to what I wrote after last time. This year’s event is going to be a bit bigger. I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be a chance to meet up again with friends from last year, friends from streams going back a long time and friends from new streams that I haven’t seen in person before.

It’ll hopefully grow even more, especially in the wake of the Insomnia Gaming Festival disappearing earlier this year. We’ll see. Fingers crossed. We do have MCM Comic Con as well and various other Comic Cons but it would be good to see the seed started by some very lovely people running the Creator events continue to grow.

I do sometimes wonder where I fit in with events like this one though. I do Create, although I do skip from thing to thing. The blogs have been a mostly continuous thing going back 19 years now over the two sites. There was a quick look at seeing what was needed to do Youtube videos (link to channel for those curious) but I didn’t continue that because it would have taken a lot of time to grow into something that would provide a return on the time. Plus it would have needed sacrifices including giving up listening to copyrighted music all the time (it’d be picked up on the mic and detected) and the stream watching. There was the sketching, although that stopped 4 years ago when I think that’s when I slammed into the burn out wall.

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a cute sleeping grey and white kitten on a white blanket. The captions are "I would be unstoppable" "If not for the tired sleepy"

I’m still in that burn out now, it doesn’t feel like it has eased at all. Maybe even deeper. I’m ok, hanging in there but it definitely feels like I’ll need to be taking care of myself a bit better. Maybe even doing more stuff out of the ordinary like the cruise last year. I think I really needed that removal from the normal for a while. That’s odd isn’t it … deal with tiredness by going off and doing something.

I don’t think I’ve ever been normal there in how I react to stuff. When I do take time off and do the restful thing of staying at home, I won’t exactly do very much (apart from gaming and listening to stuff). And I’ll be thinking throughout that I should be getting out and about and having that hit my mental state in a negative way. And my mental state is, to be honest, not that great at the moment.

There’s a lot of things to that, a lot of things pulling that mental state downwards. And I wouldn’t want to talk about too many of those here. (Some are work, some are definitely behind the personal stuff wall). Some of it is down to the state of my outsides, where I’ll slowly heal up (my arms are actually mostly ok now) and then over a single event, that healing will go dramatically backwards again. That’s part stress, a little bit of what I might have eaten or just attacking stuff when my guard’s down when I’m attempting to sleep.

And, being honest again, I’m not seeing the way out of the burn out at the moment.

But … I’m getting a bit of time off into the books after the Creator North event. I do need to get a trip booked in for some of that time and a return to Legoland is definitely looking tempting. I would like to find some chances to get myself somewhere to see the stars. That could have happened last weekend but my arms had just stabilised again after doing even more damage to them.

(if you’re reading this and thinking that there’s self harm going on, that’s kinda true. But it’s because my skin went super delicate after all the issues over the last decade. But it’s not self harm that would see me going into an ambulance, it’s more like if I scratch too much, I do a lot of damage. My mental health isn’t great but it’s not down at That Place).

Just a note on that above – it’s ok to not be ok, just please give yourself a chance to climb out if you’re in that pit. And that can be just being around communities like the discords. It might not be sharing your difficulties but even just popping up every once in a while and saying hi is great for the soul. And when you can’t see your own worth, there will be a bunch of people who will be really happy to see that you’ve popped up and that you’re still around. And sometimes, putting up a paw and saying hi is all we have the energy to do. It definitely makes me smile when I put a hello emote into a stream chat and a “SLEEPY” or “DWAGON” comes back from the person streaming.

“Can we pet the dog?”

I’ve been in the games again, with me enjoying running a few more factories in Little Big Workshop to conclusion. It’s a fun, cute little honest factory building game and I just keep going back to it. There’s a progression to it and I like to see the cute little idiot (the game can have some issues with priorities) gnomes go about building stuff.

Motorsport Manager has finished another segment of the latest megacampaign, so I’ve switched teams again after winning again. It’s a game where you can just keep on going with it, I’m in the year 2052 now. Inflation isn’t a thing in the game, outside of people wanting more money as they get better. Old drivers retire and get replaced by newly generated 18-20 year old drivers. It works well for a megacampaign where as you go on, it’s still all new.

Picture. We're looking at a heap of snacks arranged on a light blue bed sheet in front of a box of Lego. The Lego box has the word Jaws on it and has a picture of a black and yellow trawler boat being chased by a shark. We also see the red dwagon plush to the left.

Dredge came out with a new DLC, with an Iron Rig, I enjoyed playing through that after it released. And I managed to get to Cardiff as well to grab the unofficial Lego tie in. Comes with free shark, does not include game. Gonna need bigger shelf. (And steadily making a dent in the snacks)

And the latest one is Star Wars Outlaws …

Game screenshot. Star Wars Outlaws. We're looking at a dark scene inside a cavern of orange rock. In the centre, a starfighter is being disassembled and we see other mechanical debris scattered around. Our character is bottom left, hiding behind a barrier.

This one is a sneaky game and I’ve really enjoyed dipping into it for the last couple of evenings after closing up the work laptop. It places you in the Star Wars universe as a smuggler scoundrel lady with an adorable companion. Instead of lightsabers and the Force, it sees you relying on stealth and guile and a reliable blaster at your side. It is very expensive (£75 for the equivalent of what I’m playing) but I’m actually kinda just renting it on the monthly subscription (£15) so I’m looking at crashing through the game so I can drop that sub again. I don’t think I’ll have a problem doing that :-D.

Oh and you have a companion too, a little adorable doglike critter who you can send off to do stuff like :

Distract – it’ll go off and dramatically play dead in front of guards, so you can sneak past them while they’re looking the other way.

Steal – little dude is an arch thief.

Hit switches – like turning power off for a camera

And probably more too. I dunno, it feels like whereas I bounced off Starfield pretty hard (just didn’t engage with that future humanity thing), I’m quite engaged with the early days of Star Wars Outlaws.

Game screenshot. Star Wars Outlaws. We're looking at scenes from a city street, with our character in white tunic and dark trousers leaning over to scratch the little blue critter on the head.

And you can pet the “dog”.

I think I need to disappear now (2240 and I want to get some reading in !). Look after yourselves, have a lovely weekend. One way I look out for my mental state is doing things for other people, although that kinda depends on other people to do the nice things for. Hope you find your way too. Time to open up Seventh Bride by T Kingfisher again after enjoying Michael Palin’s Pole to Pole.

🙂