Category: musing

You can pet the “dog”

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August 29, 2024

10:46 pm

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musing

,

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.

🙂

A dwagon went to see a boat

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February 21, 2024

8:20 pm

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musing

,

Hello everyone,

Actually – lots of boats. Found a dwagon there too …

Picture. We're looking at a collection of carved wooden objects, resting on a blue carpet. In the background is a large white and lime green speed boat. There are a couple of tables behind the wooden objects, the closest of which is a small horned wooden dragon, sitting on his haunches.

Gosh, it’s been over a week again since the last post. I do need to keep posting more often, although that’s tempered by what my own state can support. So last week, I was getting affected by a certain amount of brain fog. Maybe I’d picked up a cold again, more likely it’s that seasonal affective thing where people don’t do so well with cold weather and lack of sunlight.

Not sure there, I was doing ok with that kind of conditions on the cruise, where going North meant the days got really short and the outside temperatures were pretty cold. Mind you, I always had the option to retreat inside to the warm where the coffee was on tap, the cookies were available. That might be part of the difference between cruise and now.

Here and now – the responsibilities are there and to be honest, my current chair is pretty bad. It was a good idea at the time to get that one but a seat with bucket seat type bolsters is not healthy. You learn :-D. I can disappear into the games as well, although that’s also tempered by physical condition where I’m currently having trouble with the arms again. And that means no space piloting for a bit and I’m holding off on going back into games like Skyrim, Bannerlord and a replay of Deus Ex Mankind Divided.

Back on the cruise – it was a curious state where I completely set aside my usual stimulation of keeping up with the social media (except the Discord communities). I didn’t put the music on in the cabin either. I was attempting to watch streams in the evenings, but that’s mostly about the communities there. The streams I’m usually in are wonderful for the communities.

(aside – currently tapping this out while Caustic Phoenix is doing a work stream in the background – HI CAUSTIC)

The cruise swapped one set of stimulation for another and it was a wonderful thing to be learning so much about Norway, as well as seeing new parts of the country every day as the ship moved from location to location.

Picture. We're looking at a table set for one diner. There is a rectangular plate in front of us with very tasty chips and a slide of orange topped salmon waiting for us. There is a milkshake streaked with chocolate behind the plate.

Oh and I was greatly enjoying the food and the milkshakes.

Back to littler boats ?

Picture. We're looking at a long thin barge. The top half is a blue, with silver porthole windows and white edging. The lower half is black. We're looking at the front right of the barge. There is a collection of people to the back (left of shot).

Talking of dinner, I should put mine on. That boat in the picture is a 60 foot narrowboat. It’s probably the most common type of barge on the British inland waterways. In there is a self contained package of kitchen galley, fully featured bath/shower room, I think that’s a 4 berth as well (possibly 6) and there will be the saloon area for chilling out in. Oh and there’s also a little engine at the back. These boats don’t go too quick, anything more than about 6 knots is bad for the canals. The wake causes damage to the banks if the barge goes too fast. So it’s a chilled out way of getting around.

I’ve got another link for you there, one of the youtube channels I’ve found recently is The Mindful Narrowboat. The lady who runs that channel is absolutely lovely, has a keen eye for the nature by the canals and a wise head for poetry. The artwork is wonderful too. Check out the channel, it’s one where I’m going to go back to the start to see all of the waterway adventure.

Picture. We're looking at another barge, this time at the front left side. The lower half is black again, the top half is a creamy white with black detail and the round portholes again. We're in an exhibition hall and there is a series of chairs (with people) alongside the barge.

That’s the other type of canal barge. It’s a widebeam by Collingwood boat builders. While the narrowboats are a bit too cosy (i.e. tight) for me, widebeams have a lot more room inside. But … that also limits how much access they have to the canal network, as the canals around Birmingham in the centre of the UK aren’t navigable by the widebeam barges.

As for the show, I don’t think I’ll be back next year. It was worth going there again but … apart from the barges, it doesn’t really feel a useful show at the moment. The dominant vessel type there is the tender, with a small number of liveaboard capable boats.

Picture. We're looking at a little boat in the foreground, with more boats behind. It's a small white boat with black trim, it's about wide enough for 3 people and there is a sitting area in front.

That’s your typical tender. They’re smaller boats, intended to allow crew or owners of larger boats the ability to do a quick run ashore to pick up supplies or do other things you’d want to do ashore. (Like dining out etc).

That kind of boat isn’t any use to me (unless I win the lottery big – the ticket is in again). Even the smaller boat shaped boats aren’t too good, because the living area isn’t suitable for … living in. The show this year seemed mostly about these little boats, either outright tenders or bigger boats that also would not be suitable as a living place. They were more for going at outrageous speed on the water or for showing off.

Oh well, it was good getting out and about again and it gave me the chance to do a few other things like go to the place on the motorway with the great snacks. We like snacks.

I have an events list as well now … it’s because there’s likely to be a few things colliding in the summer and there won’t be enough time to do it all. Let’s see : next up is Mother’s Day, it’s March in the UK. Insomnia gaming festival #72 is at the end of March, I haven’t been to one of these yet and it should be really good. Last year, covid intervened and I don’t think I was healthy for the second half of the year either.

Interservices T20 is in May this year, I want to get my new camera well before then and that’ll be a good chance to give it a good day out. I’m pretty much settled on the Canon R50. It’s a mirrorless camera that’s a step up from what I was first looking at, that’s the choice because there is better tech built in. It’s worth going up to that step, anything more is too expensive.

MCM London is at the end of May. That’s a maybe … We’ll see who’s going to that. Then it’s into the great 24 hour motor races at Nurburgring (1-2 June) and Le Mans (15-16 June). Le Mans clashes with a very promising cruise to south Scandinavia from 13-27 June. I don’t think I’m doing that one because it’s too close to Twitch Con EU in Rotterdam on 29-30 June. But I think I do have the cruise bug now and definitely want to make time for another one this year.

I’m hoping for another Creator North as well, that was a fun cosy event last year run and set up by wonderful people.

Ok, time to put the dinner on and hit the post button. One question before I go, it’s from Caustic Phoenix’s stream earlier. What would be your walk in song to accompany you if you were walking up to a stage ? I just thought of one for me … Here’s a bit of KT Tunstall singing Still A Weirdo to close out the post with.

Nite all, have a great rest of the week.

PS Ok maybe not as a walk in song but it’s still a fantastic song.

Happy New Year

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January 9, 2024

7:44 pm

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musing

Hello everyone,

I went quiet for a bit again there, I think I needed a little hibernation time.

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a sleepy grey cat with paws on top of a light orange blanket. The captions are "I can't get out of bed..." "These blankets have accepted me as one of their own and if I leave now I might lose their trust."

Quite.

Let’s see what happened up to the end of last year ? A games post happened. Lots of gaming happened over the Winter break, I kinda disappeared into those … Cruising got as far as Red Island, so I have a few more posts to go there. Plus a bit more about the ship because drama happened on there just before Xmas …

I did have a quick trip up to see the mum, sister and future brother in law. That’ll be good later in the year. And dogs !

Picture. We're looking downwards at three dogs. Bottom right is a big German Shepherd type dog. He's looking up and right. Back and middle is a golden retriever. Left is the Cloud As Dog which is the Icebear
Multidog

It was good to see everyone, even if just a short time. I need to make the trip up there a bit more, instead of staying inside what feels like an increasing shell. I’ve come away with some Lego too which will make an appearance in a later post.

That’s a weird increasing feeling that I need to address … the tendency to stay inside the easy zone instead of taking a few steps to get out and about and enjoy things more. There’s a few things to talk about there too … (this post has gone random now, let’s see where it goes !)

I was really glad I managed to get out of the comfort zone to disappear on the cruise for a fortnight. It was a wonderful experience, I learned a fair bit, experienced stuff well out of the zone, had a chance to relax and talk with lovely people among guests and crew.

Picture. We're looking at a close up of a small model of a longboat. It's in the Viking style with each end going up into spirals. The wood is dark. There are five shields on the side with a blue cross on red. The sail is red and white vertical stripes on a single mast. There is a blue cross on red Norwegian flat at the top. There is a small red dwagon sitting in the boat.

And then Stuff Happened on the ship just before Xmas. On my cruise, we had a bonus day where we did a boat cruise up and down one of the fjords. It was to delay our North Sea crossing to allow several storm systems to dissipate and the decision worked very well for us. The cruise just before Xmas wasn’t so lucky, the info I’ve picked up from the various sources tells :

There was a sudden rogue wave that built up about as tall as the ship. (MS Maud is 30m above the water). The water was high enough and powerful enough to smash windows on the Bridge :

Picture. We're looking at the front of the ship Maud from the shore. The lower part is black, with a red stripe before a white upper deck. We can see the glass of the windows high up. It's a snowy scene, with a thick covering for the side of the dock and clouds obscuring what's behind the ship.

The Bridge of the ship is the sticky out bit above the letters “MAUD”, with wings that extend out to the full width of the ship (it’s so they can see the full width for docking). It looks like what happened is that the wave smashed the windows, the water got in and wiped out the electronics on the Bridge. (Someone sent a video from the webcam to one of the UK papers, I’m not linking to them). The emergency signal sounded immediately (the water would have tripped main power off) which would have had people rushing to the muster stations where they were in the survival suits for several hours.

Loss of power would have meant the sea determining what happened to the ship, although rescue ships were on the scene to help out and stabilise the situation. Power was restored, ship was able to make her way to Bremerhaven port where they’ll have everything fixed up by the end of the month. Happily no serious injuries reported and it sounds like everyone was well taken care of by the crew.

There are probably a bunch of lessons for Hurtigruten to take out of this, like having an emergency navigation facility available. We can do this ourselves, the geek in me was running through what I’d look to set up : Laptop with basic map software (i.e. Google maps), all smart phones have at least GPS and probably access to the other positioning systems as well and remote desktop to allow what’s on that laptop to be seen from where the emergency controls would be. The difficulty is that the reversionary controls down near the engines are would be inside the ship and phones can’t see GPS signals through all that metal.

I think that would work as a minimum to build on … but it’s something you’d want to have set up prior to going to sea, all that stuff would want licensing and downloads to set up. It’s an In Case thing, not a Response thing. (Like when I downloaded Canada map to the phone ahead of going out there because I would have heavy data restrictions !)

But that’s me going into back up plans mode. What’s important is that everyone among passengers and crew are ok.

After seeing what happened to the ship, would I personally do anything different ? I’d definitely do cruising again. It was a great experience and it was fun to see different places every day. That’s not a thing that happens with hotels, unless you’re traveling between each. The ship did the travel overnight for us.

What I’d change is the time of year. With climate change becoming an increasing factor, the seas are only going to get wilder. It’s pretty much guaranteed that a North Sea cruise in Winter is going to be subject to disruption. So I’d be looking to do something in the Summer instead. Snow is good though. There’s a cruise to south Scandinavia in June that looks tempting.

The “who with?” is a curious question. I like variation and seeing how different companies do things. So on the one hand, I’d do a cruise with a different company to see what the other side is like. But on the other, I’d totally go with Hurtigruten again and the Xmas incident does nothing to change that.

Did I mention random ?

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a dog wrapped up in a light blanket with dark stripes. The captions are "The voices can't get to me" "when I'm cosy in the blankey"

Games happened over the break too. I did fall backwards to an old favourite, Little Big Workshop and therefore my sleep schedule is now a myth.

I picked up Jagged Alliance 3 (tactical battle, strategic liberate a country game) and Star Valor (space thing), which I need to actually play. Rogue Station is a quick one where you build up a little space station and attempt to fend off the enemies. I went back to Aliens Dark Descent which I would thoroughly recommend. It’s a tough tactical game set in the universe of Ridley Scott’s Alien movies. It’s atmospheric, dark and implemented extremely well as a game. Take a peek !

City Game Studio was one that the streamer Shenryyr was enjoying, so I figured I’d look at that one too. And then there’s Seaorama, which has you running a shipping company. I’ve been enjoying that one but have stepped away for a bit because it needs patching. Oh and occasional Motorsport Manager where I’m about to finish one phase of the long campaign because my team is winning all of the races this year, so I’ll swap to another team.

Game screenshot. Aliens Dark Descent. We're looking at a dark scene from above, lit by the flashlights of soldiers in the bottom right. A man is illuminated, he's upright with knees on the floor. Something is coming out of his chest

Is he ok ? I don’t think he’s ok.

Yep. Good game, very challenging (even on Normal difficulty) and at times very frustrating. But I’m also enjoying the story and want to know where it goes.

Books also happened over the break, with me finishing the James David Victor series of 9 Star Breaker books. It had a great start building its world … but I don’t think I’ll be back for more. The overarching story kinda fizzled for me towards the end. But it’s always worth reading these to see how the story goes. And it was still a better than what I consistently see from other authors. I wouldn’t count Fuzzy Nation in that, that was another excellent novel by John Scalzi.

(Checks size of scrollbar) Uhoh, post is going on a while so I’ll save some for other posts.

It was a very quiet Xmas period. I’ve been back at work for a bit and diving back into things. Games were good, sleep is a myth, pain levels are … up and down at the moment, enjoyed the books, was great to see the people. Oh and a little Cardiff trip happened where I managed to not spend money on a DSLR or mirrorless camera or on a remote control car.

Happy New Year everyone !

Cruising and a ramble

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November 7, 2023

9:30 pm

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musing

, ,

Hello everyone,

I did a thing …

Picture. We're looking at a couple of little models. The first is a wooden longboat with a red and white vertical striped sail full of wind. The boat has 5 shields on the side with a blue cross on a red background. Inside the boat sits a goofy looking red dwagon.

Yep. After a lot of procrastination, including completely scrapping some plans and starting again with a different cruise experience, cruise is booked. The picture will give a clue as to where I’ll be headed. (Clue – I’m hoping for clear skies and lights in them)

So the first attempt at booking was with Ambassador and they were increasingly looking like Butlins at Sea, which isn’t really my vibe. I can appreciate dressing up but I’d like to keep that for people I care about, not so much a dress code imposed from outside. Plus there are other things that made me uncomfortable about them in the various reviews. And then I started looking more seriously at the Hurtigruten Expeditions cruise and found this review at Danielle the Cruisemiss’s site (linky). Lovely post, would recommend giving it a read.

Anyway, that’s booked. I’ll be away for a while inabit and I’ll definitely be collecting a lot of pictures on this new experience.

I did need to be getting away from things for a little while now. I’m still feeling that burn out creeping up on me. It feels fairly ever present, although a few of the daft ideas have been coming back. I might even finish up that Dwagon Alphabet I started up 3 years ago before slamming into a massive burn out wall. That’s something for home though as it needs the software on the desktop that won’t be coming with me. I have had enough letters to make a few names for people and the recipients have absolutely loved them.

But one thing I should do is bring the old neglected sketch pad with me and see about doing some drawings again. It should be a good couple of weeks varying between relaxed and chilled out vs however many expeditions my body can support. I did manage 16k steps around MCM Comic Con but also paid for that. I’ll be better anticipating what my body needs next time and look to head off the leg cramps before they happen. The last thing I ever want to have happen is for someone to be forced to help me because of daftness on my part.

And I think I said last time that we should be helping people wherever we can, within the limits that we have. We do need to look after ourselves as well but if you have a chance to do something nice for someone that we care about, you go ahead and do that something nice. Although …

Picture. We looking downwards at 4 kittens sitting on a wooden floor. A fifth kitten is jumping at the camera, with the following captions around them : "I must go" "My people need me"

And this is the serious part of the post … There is a thing about being too nice. Or the wrong kind of nice. It’s only a nice comment, a nice thing to say or a nice thing to do if the recipient appreciates it. We had another reminder about behaviour today. It was directed at the organisation as a whole and it’s about terrible trends that my organisation is still afflicted with, hopefully from a shrinking group of people although I see it in other areas of life too. Like I no longer listen to Radio 5 in the car because I was driving at the same time as the football people were on and the frat boy changing room vibe was definitely not for me.

Everyone should be comfortable around everyone else. There shouldn’t need to be a vital requirement to protect your self or your details. One online person I know describes it (with a certain hidden terror) as “I don’t want to die”.

This world shouldn’t be like that and personally, I hate that it’s been that way for I think my entire life on this planet.

I don’t see it myself that much but that’s because of the whole white male thing. I’m not targeted that much because the bullies target other groups and genders. And I hate that bit of the world too. More in a bit. I do, however, see the intimidation that’s increasingly present on the roads. Whether that’s from people who get really upset that you actually stick to the speed limit or those wannabe racing drivers who think it’s ok to dangerously attempt to get to their destination 10 seconds earlier. They’re usually the ones sitting at the traffic lights first.

Even before pandemic times, I really disliked being around big crowds. One of the London trips involved going through a change at Baker Street station … it’s cramped, dimly lit and a major line changing station. I felt deeply threatened in that crowd and I’ll hopefully never be in there again.

Flip that round though and think what someone in the more vulnerable groups is going to be thinking in that same space. Instead of being scared of being pickpocketed, they’re being scared that they’re going to be attacked. They don’t want to die because they had to venture down a road alone at night or a different place made scary by the people around them.

I did give a warning that Heavy Stuff might happen in this post ? I hope I did 😀

It stretches into comments on people’s appearances as well. You may think it’s a nice comment but you need to heavily consider how the comment is going to be received. “Hey you look cute” “Err I’m a completely random stranger you’re creepy go away”. And other scenarios.

When I mention the various streamer people who I watch, I try and keep it about the content not about what the person looks like. You can get that from looking at the content, you don’t need that from me. What I concentrate on is the person beneath the outsides. I enjoy talking to people who are beautiful, lovely people on the inside. It doesn’t matter what they’re like on the outside when they’re a kind heart. And the opposite can often be true as well, where they’d be considered classically beautiful on the outside but the inside is nasty. I don’t like those people.

This post is also partly coming from where someone’s repeatedly asked the chat to not mention what she looks like, yet the chat keeps on coming with the comments on appearance.

Gotta respect what people want. It’s not a nice comment if the recipient doesn’t perceive it that way. And far too often, where someone thinks it’s a “nice” comment or (the way the work article described it) the imposition of an individual on someone else’s world and space … it’s perceived as threat instead of “nice”.

We also need to be respecting the “no” as an answer too, which includes if we’re looking for someone’s attention. I do send messages over to a small group of lovely people and I’m really happy when they send a message back. But the mistake I made and lesson I learned a few years ago* is that if you start chasing for responses, the chasing is going to be perceived as a threat and it doesn’t do your own mental state any good.

*The posts are still there on the other blog. I was chasing for replies, opinions, responses from the other person and was probably on the verge of getting too insistent. At the same time, they and others in their group were talking about dangerous stalkers (not me) which were very definitely scaring them. Two things then happened. 1st, that inner monitor made me realise what I was doing and I stopped chasing for those responses. 2nd, a few other wonderful people came into my Bunch Of Friends and I was enjoying talking to them instead.

The takeaway from that is – it’s ok to make mistakes. But you also have to own those mistakes, realise what you did, figure out how to be a better person. Make that improvement. And so I’m still welcome in the community of the person above. I figured out what I was doing early enough to back off when it was pretty plain that I wasn’t going to be getting a response. Gotta respect what the other person wants. If I write something nice about someone here and then send the link over, they’re under no obligation to read it. It took a while to start owning that and I’ll honestly say I’m not all the way there on it yet.

Too much heavy for one day ?

Maybe. I do get worried about people though. There’s a very small number of people who I really, deeply care about and if they get quiet for a while then I get hoping that they’re ok. If you’ve got this far in the post, you might well be on that list :-).

It’s a much better world with the lovely people being confident enough to be living fully in it and not needing to hide away.

So while I’m off enjoying some time away from the world, be good to everyone hanging around in it.

One thing I said to someone is that we make the offer to help and be prepared to accept that the offer is turned down. The other half of that is that if the offer is accepted, we back it up with our action. I don’t always make the offer to help but I’ll always come through if the offer is taken up, even if I’m fully expecting that the offer will be turned down.

It has to be an offer that respects the other person though, one of the things in the work thing was that offers were being made that were disrespectful, harassing and threatening. Don’t do that. Think of how the offer is going to be viewed before you let it out of your head. Same goes for comments. It’s ok to think someone’s cute or pretty … it can be the worst thing to actually say that, especially if the person has asked you not to comment on appearance.

Time to pull this post to a close I think, I’ll come back before I disappear with something a bit happier 🙂 If I get that idea popping in to the Brain 😀 I just needed to get some “the world is not ok and I’m unhappy about that” feelings out of the head.

PS I’ll be over the moon if there’s someone on that cruise who ends up seeing what the dwagon’s up to and figuring that they’d like to get talking to them 😀

Where would you be in a science fiction universe ?

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October 23, 2023

9:44 pm

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musing

, ,

Hello everyone,

Yep. Odd thought, it got into my head last night when I was trying to get to sleep. I don’t think I did actually sleep last night, hopefully better today. I suspect it’s been showing in what I’ve been saying about certain groups at work. Like the one who’s head should be on a pike in front of the offices (there’s a few of those) and I was saying I wanted to burn some people’s houses down last week.

Still kinda feel like that. Maybe I need another break again, burn out can creep up on people without them realising and it leads to being intolerant where you should be more ready to retreat, reset and try again from a different angle.

Picture. We're looking at the face of a brown and white cat. It's looking directly at the camera, resting on a blanket. The caption is "I let my mind wander. It never came back"

Quite. Where did the last fortnight go ? Feels like it’s gone by in an absolute blur. A couple of books have been demolished since then too, with Illuminations by T.Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon, Hugo Winner) being a highlight. Maybe not as good as the two Clocktaur War books but those were for a more adult audience and could be a lot edgier, grittier and had a definite sexual tension running through both books.

Good stories too. T Kingfisher books are very inventive in how they keep the story unfolding before you and they surprise you too. Great books can tell their story in the perfect time. They’re not too short, not too padded or drawn out. They’re just right. And that’s how I’ve found the T Kingfisher books … and a little mention for Aliette de Bodard there too.

I didn’t think so much with Wool, the first book in the Silo trilogy. It felt padded and a bit too drawn out. The one I’m reading at the moment is book 6 in a series of 9 by James David Victor. They’re good … but they’re also so fast that I’m reading them 2 at a time.

Science fiction universe ?

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. We're looking at a space scene, with occasional stars dotting the background. In the bottom right foreground, we're looking at a red and white blocky spaceship flying away from us with two engines flaring purple exhaust. A ball like space station is in the distance, with white and black sections. Solar panels can be seen behind.
Dungeon Food Truck, departing

That’s the Dungeon Food Truck, callsign KN-00T after the lovely Knightenator (Twitch link). I don’t watch enough Knightenator, it can be a bit much sometimes for my brain, bit too much anarchy. Lovely lady though, well worth a watch and I couldn’t resist the meme this time with this particular ship. It’s a Type 9 Freighter Explorer, with the prime mission being to go out among the stars …

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. Our ship is landed on a reddish brown plain, with several sharp mountains behind, casting their shadows. To the upper right, we see the black, grey and white rings of the planet we are on. Above and behind, we see a small globe of a planet in eclipse shadow, with a set of rings surrounding it.

I was in pretty much full on Travel Mode (Honk, Scoop, Jump, Repeat sometimes scan the good systems) with a mission. Yep. Get to a far flung station …

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. Our ship can be faintly seen lower centre, lost in shadow. On the left, the circular shape of a space station with the lit up rectangular docking entrance in the middle. On the right, a white moon pockmarked with small craters. Behind that, a faint blue planet with the line of a planetary ring.

I’ll come back to the mission later.

That question though, if you found yourself in a science fiction universe, what would you want it to be ? We can draw on any of the settings, either our universe or something different. Near future or far off ?

The Star Wars universe is an obvious setting to look at. There’s so much variety here and it’s absolutely full of life. This is a good choice as well, I could see myself being a Han Solo type, with a spaceship traveling between the planets being led by the next big score. Or getting by with simpler cargoes to pay the bills.

Elite Dangerous has a similar spread of life throughout its little populated bubble of stars. It doesn’t have the variety of Star Wars though, with just humans and badly handled Thargoids who won’t be buying you a drink in a bar.

Star Trek is the other huge one, with it close(ish) future of warp drives, impossible science and more great variety of alien life. Star Trek would be a great universe to live in, although it does seem a little limited for starfarers outside the Federation and other Empires. The ships seem a bit big for independent traders, compared to the little ships of Elite and Star Wars.

And then there’s Warhammer 40,000 … Oh my. In the grim dark future of the 41st millennium, you’ll be dead before you hit the “May …” of the “May you live in Interesting Times” curse. It’s a bit too much of a stratified society for me, with very few people having any chance of an independent life.

It hasn’t really worked out that way for me (been held back by the health issues of the last 10 years and generalised inertia) but if I could be a ship captain visiting a different port with different cargo every run, yeah I’d quite like that. And the Elite and Star Wars universes both appeal to that with opportunities for the small traders. But you have to stay ahead of the criminal element.

Fun times.

Not so sure about the near future Earth universes. I think we’re exhausting what this planet has to offer, I’d rather be out in the stars seeing new things. I should book one of those cruise holidays though, so I can see a bit more of this planet.

(Back to reality) That’s one thing that has gone whoosh – a bit of a break out with my outsides with the usual thing of quick damage being slow to repair. But it’s getting there. Although I’ve had to add Lemon Sherbets to the suspicion list. Bad snacks. But I wouldn’t want to go away for that long without being able to use the healing gunk.

(Back to unreality) I do like playing in the near future universe of Deus Ex, although that might be more character than setting. Must go back to the Mankind Divided game soon. I don’t think I want to live in that world though, doesn’t seem that much future in it.

Big honourable mention to the Gareth L Powell universes too. He’s very inventive with his world building and can establish his worlds very quickly with the tight narrative. Another recent read was Descendant Machine, which is set in the Continuance series (2 so far hopefully more coming) where humanity has been banished from the Earth for being naughty with nukes. I’ve enjoyed both Descendant Machine and Stars And Bones. Without giving too much of the building away, humanity now lives on starship Arks, with smaller Vanguard scout ships investigating the space they go through. I’d see me being a Vanguard agent.

Yep. Put me in a spaceship and let me chart my own course and I’ll be happy. Journeying is better with a crew though.

Oh ! Here we are …

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. We're looking at a space scene, our white and red spaceship is to the bottom left. We can just see part of a planet coloured white with thin dark bads. A couple of small interstellar clouds are to top left and between those, we see the lights of our fleet carrier emerging from a black cloud.

(That’s a little bit enhanced, the original was very poorly lit and Gimp has very effectively balanced it there)

That was journey’s end yesterday, with me meeting up with the fleet carrier for the first time in months.

Mission accomplished, carrier crew needed a consignment of Party Rings. (So good). Also needed to bring carrier fuel. But it was mostly about the Party Rings.

Time to post and enjoy more of a Tashnarr stream (Twitchy link). Have a good evening everyone, find snack, enjoy snack, be happy.