Sleepypete's Pillow

Had one of those days yesterday where I didn’t want to waste feeling as ok as I have done lately by hiding at home in the evening.

So off I pop to Cribbs, to the local Mall. Ok, it was partly to satisfy research tripping for tellies but I had other itches to scratch too. Doh ! Bad phrasing – scratching = bad ! (My outsides are normalising steadily but I can set the healing back very easily with scratches)

I don’t “need” a telly but the “want” is definitely there. There’s a few things I want : someone to amuse and keep me amused, a Lexus IS, a telly, freedom from needing to work, perfect health (that goes for the insides as well as the outsides). And other things too. All of the above have proved either prohibitively expensive* or otherwise unattainable. With the someone to amuse, I’ve met and known a few people who had a lot of potential there (and I think they liked me too) but there seemed to be a Run Away Screaming effect when I expressed an interest. Perhaps I’ve not met the right person yet, or I’ve met them and not realised it.

* Affordability ? Plenty of cash in the bank, I can afford the telly easily and I could absorb the cost of upgrading the car. But … there’s plenty of cash in that bank cos I’ve resisted the urge to be frivolous with the cash. Things like resisting spending £300 on a cricket bat when I suspected I didn’t have that many games left to use it in.

Oh – as a furtively related aside, had a SQUIRREL moment today. I was escorting a couple of visitors to where they needed to go to get a train (part of the way cos it was on the way to where the food was and I hadn’t eaten yet … at 1.30pm). And … coming the other way … a colleague who happens to fit that pretty + dark hair archetype (you know – the type that sends me wibbly). She normally works in one of our other offices but has that intelligence and bubbly energy that promotes being memorable. She’ll go far. She’s a favourite in the office she works, she gets things done right. So I have my SQUIRREL moment where my attention switches from the visitors leaving to the new visitor who was looking for a little guidance on where she needed to be.

Still managed to get my lunch too before the canteen closed.

I was going to talk about this Mall run wasn’t I ? Guess that tells you how memorable the Squirrel Lady is ;-). Oh, she shares a lot of characteristics with another little lady who I had the pleasure of having a natter with today too.

Hmm – today was a good day : was extra busy but I got to grin at and natter to some very special people.

Oh ! Telly – what I have my eye on is a Samsung 40 or 46 inch 3d thing. They had one for £200-£300 off in PCWorld. And now you’re realising why I’m tempted … It fits the spec (size, 600Hz refresh, trusted manufacturer). But I’ll leave it in the shop cos I don’t need it.

I did have something else in mind … and it nearly got me in trouble. I nearly did what you should never, ever do in PC World. It’s unfair to the denizens. It’s outside their training. They don’t know how to cope. It’s cruel and unusual punishment. It’s against the Geneva Convention. You should never, ever :

Ask a PC World worker a question. Especially a technical question. They try to answer but it’s so far outside their area that it can make their head explode.

I resisted with my techie question (something about Powerline networking that I’ll figure out on my own) but did actually ask the girl on the checkout when the sale was ending. BIG MISTAKE ! I saw a “HELP HELP HELP DOES NOT COMPUTE” alarm go off in her eyes as she struggled to answer. I thought I’d better leave before she had a nervous breakdown. Poor girl. I dread to think what would have occurred if I’d asked the techie question.

What did I come away from the Mall with ?

A Powerline networking kit that will let my computers get to the printer again (the printer can’t see the wifi since I made the change that fixed the audio streaming problems)
3 blurays in the 3 for £20 offer
And a “must check out Ellie Goulding” from listening to a couple of her songs over the tannoy in HMV.

I resisted Miss Millies COOKIES ! Somehow. Something to do with how much they cost. £4 for 6 fairly ordinary cookies is a waste. They are better than the 6 for £1/£1.50 cookies in supermarkets but … not that much better.

I had an urge to raid the KFC too which I can barely understand. Must be the funny chemicals they put in the recipe. They know me far too well at that KFC, that’s a bad sign. I would go elsewhere if I had company but feel awkward about going to the other places on my own.

It’s been a couple of good days so far, for different reasons :

Monday – getting stuff (needed to fill up the car too)
Tuesday – meeting people

What will Wednesday bring ? It was going to bring meeting after meeting but both of those have fallen through. To be honest, I’ll be glad to get stuff done in work (lunch offers will be listened to – lol) and then leg it. I’m still feeling the lack of energy effects from the bugs I had over Xmas, I’ve been crashing out listening to videos in the evenings lately with game playing not getting much chance because I haven’t had that energy available.

PS It’s just a rumour that I only went to the Mall to raid their KFC. Honest. I may have to raid Cabot soon too, not visited that particular coffee shop for a while 😉

I think I’ve fallen into that trap a fair bit lately. I’ve been talking about stuff like the skin or when people talk to me about playing cricket, it’s how I don’t honestly know if I’ll be intact enough to play this year.

There’s only one thing guaranteed when talking about problems, it’s probably going to get you down. Mind you, talking about them also helps you rationalise them as well. It lets you analyse them and put them in their place. It’s always best though if there’s a “ok, this is how I deal with it” to go with the “this is what the problem is”. And that doesn’t always happen.

Ok – about these joys …

Running Fast ! I can do that again :-). Well, I can on and off depending on whether my legs and back are choosing to behave that day. Running was actually the thing I enjoyed most about the cricket. I didn’t really enjoy batting as I never really did myself justice with it. The bowling was fine when I was getting wickets but was hard work otherwise.

Nah – the thing I enjoyed most about the cricket was being able to push the head back, hit the running trigger and run Very Very Fast. I quite liked the adrenaline rush and always busy feeling of fielding in close. I’d be scampering all over the place (cricket can be a very energetic game depending on how you approach it).

I very much enjoy winning and turning that running speed and close fielding into a run out was very definitely a Win for our side.

I must see about trimming the weight down a bit again so I get that running speed back again. There’s a kind of freedom to running like a loon. I wouldn’t find that from jogging, it has to be from feeling the wind rush past the ears coupled with the “oh crap, I’ll be in the centre of Bristol before I can stop” which I’d been getting from hitting the downslope at the cricket ground.

Games …

People who know me may think I love playing with computers. That’s probably a misnomer as I find dealing with computers quite frustrating. I can usually eventually get them to do what I want but it can be very hair tearing along the way to get around their lack of flexibility. I’ll build my own because that way I can lessen some of that frustration by building something that will work for years instead of break after 6 months (like your typical HP garbage)

It’s actually all about the games. Computers are just a means to an end there. They present the games to you. In recent years, the variety has opened up with independent developers bringing us magic like FTL and SPAZ. Better hardware means graphical fidelity gives us stuff like :

There’s some fine looking assets in that game and Lara looks the part too. (Yep – couldn’t resist the bad assets joke). I must go back into that game and take it through to the finish. It’s been compelling so far but I’ve already seen it through to the end via the Yogscast Hannah playthrough.

That’s something else about the games. Lately, I’ve been enjoying watching/listening to other people play them more than I do actually playing them. Much of that is down to the presenter. Like Hannah’s openness in her videos, to the banter in the Yogscast multiplayer videos, to Duncan’s screaming when he turns round and sees a creeper exploding.

That’s all dependent on the presenter though. Not many deliver stuff you’d actually re-watch or watch to conclusion. I guess the Youtube gaming makes me think about playing the pen and paper games with friends. There’s an openness there that comes with being able to make up your own rules if the written ones don’t fit. And the fun of playing with others too.

One thing about games though is the story. Most games have a story they go through, even if it’s a strategy game. I like stories too. Haven’t read much lately but movies and TV scifi are always a favourite.

What else ? Has to be music. I’ve been finding new stuff to listen to lately as well. Playing through iTunes at the moment is the Best Of Nouvelle Vague. They’re the ones who do “Ever Fallen In Love” and “Dancing With Myself” which are doing the rounds on adverts at the moment.

There’s also Lucy Spraggan, who I’ll add to the vocalists I’ll be following. However – I wouldn’t recommend having her on the iPod/iPhone while in the car, as songs like Tea Or Toast almost got the tears when that came on at random. Not Conducive To Safe Driving !

The big joy though shouldn’t surprise anyone.

I get bored very quickly. I need variation and unpredictability. There’s only so much you can take of yourself before you need something new. I find people to be one of the most interesting things out there. Depends on the person of course ;-). I can predict a few people but it’s the unusual, the special, the smart, the random ones I find most interesting. The ones who can keep up. The ones who keep you guessing. The ones who are just that little bit different. The ones with an energy that sweeps you along with them. But most of all :

The ones who smile back when you look up and grin at them.

That answering smile is truly what makes life worth living.

PS Pizza would count as a joy too, if it hadn’t snuck into the “problem” corner. Thankfully popcorn, mini eggs and teacakes are still untainted by such problems !

I’ve been feeling lucky again.

I’ve had my eye on the blanket coverage we had about F1 star Michael Schumacher. You can’t have missed that, he’s still in hospital in critical condition following a head injury. From what I understand, he was skiing off-piste to help someone out and ended up going head over heels at 40mph ish, hitting a rock on the way down which was too much for his helmet to handle. I think I heard that he was conscious when on the way to the hospital too.

And he’s still in critical condition a week later, having had brain surgery to relieve the pressure and to address skull fractures.

Hopefully he’ll recover to be the same Michael Schumacher we loved or loathed. To be honest, I was in the loathing camp for a while because he was just That Darn Good. He took championships away from Brit drivers (and I’m a fervent supporter of Brit drivers, hopefully Lewis will come good in next year’s Merc). Yep – hopefully he’ll be let out of that coma soon, as the same person he was before.

Why does that incident promote feelings of luck in me ?

I’ve had similar impacts … three times. Hopefully I’m still the same Sleepypete that I was 10 years ago, although there is that nagging question : “Is this why Ravenwolf left ?” (I don’t honestly believe it is). Let’s look at the incidents :

Schumacher – rock at maybe 40mph (I get the feeling it was faster) with a helmet on. Skull fractures and brain injuries. Still in hospital. Ouch !

Nose Job 1 (my first hit) – cricket ball at 60mph (ish), no helmet. Hit me in the eye, with my glasses saving me from more major injury. I stayed conscious but got helped off the field and was carted off to hospital. Suffered memory problems for maybe 18 months afterwards.

Happy Helmet (second hit) – cricket ball at probably 70mph (quicker bowler!), hit the helmet on the grill. Without the helmet, I’d have been hit maybe above the right ear and would have been in hospital again for sure. Probably would have been knocked out by that one – it’s a thin, sensitive part of the skull. I kept batting throughout the game (mostly because the bowler that hit me was nasty and probably would have run through our team) and only came off the field after we won. I was happily absorbing the nastiest bowling and hitting singles before watching the guys at the other end murder the bowling. Oh and I nearly threw up in the changing room after the game.

Almost-Dentist (third hit) – cricket ball at maybe 60mph again, no helmet. Hit me in the gob. I’m seriously lucky there not to have lost teeth. Lots of blood though, enough that I should have gone off to the hospital to get a stitch. I lost my sense of hunger for 2 weeks after that impact and was woozy enough to take the Friday off work (got hit on the Wednesday).

Is it fair comparing a cricket ball to a rock ? Yes and no. The cricket ball is hard enough (definitely in a match ball) but it’s completely round. I suspect the rock that got Schumacher was pointy enough to break the helmet.

I did have long term effects after getting hit without the helmet but I was very lucky to only have my nose broken. I dread to think what would have happened if I wore contacts … That’s a scary thought for that first hit.

What am I really trying to say here ?

If you know someone who’s suffered a very recent head injury, keep an eye on them. Quietly check to see if they’re still all in there. They may not realise themselves how bad the effects are. With my two helmet-less incidents, I certainly didn’t realise the memory problems until a few years later and I only noticed the inability to feel hunger state when :
a) hearing earthquakes from my tummy with no feelings of “need food”
b) nearly bursting after finishing a big pizza
(weird huh ?)

If someone’s had a bump on the head, their condition can change very rapidly too. An initial state of concussion (bruising from the marbles being rattled) can change into compression (swelling that’s trapped in by the skull) very quickly. Thankfully while concussion is common, compression is less so. Compression is however, extremely dangerous. There’s a triage saying : “Treat the quiet ones first” and it’s partly targeted at injuries like compression.

I think I upset someone a few years ago. She came back from an Xmas break and admitted to banging her head on a door handle and was sitting on the floor out of it for a bit with no one to see if she was ok. That triggered a definite Protect instinct and I probably told a few more people than she’d have liked me to. People I knew would keep an eye on our girl to make sure she was ok. I very rarely betray confidences like that but … it’s a head injury. Someone I care about quite deeply could have turned seriously ill.

With my two bad incidents, Ravenwolf had that eye on me the first time but for the second – I felt a bit neglected. Unloved maybe ? That might be unfair. I’ve always been incredible at hiding the symptoms when something’s affecting me and for that second incident, I was functioning perfectly well until the Friday when I let myself settle into a clouded dazed state.

I must peek at what I put here in the days around that second incident. It wasn’t as bad as the first, the neurological symptoms only lasted about a fortnight whereas I think my memory is still affected.

But – I do still feel lucky. Incidents like Schumacher, the Paul Williams paralysis (club cricketer) and Mark Boucher’s (South African wicket keeper) career ending eye injury show that it could have been much, much worse.

For what I hear you think ?

Almost time to reenter the world. I’ve been having a quiet holiday period … which was (almost!) totally the plan. I’ve not been getting up to much, partly because it’s been horrible out there but mostly because I’ve been wanting to give my various conditions chance to recover and improve.

Condition(s) ?

I always seem to catch bugs that hit at the start of holiday periods. I guess that’s due to me winding down in general. A kind of suppression of the immune system that lets the bugs in. I reckon it might be a heavier grade of manflu this time around, it’s actually still with me 2 weeks later. It’s not affecting me too much, although if I went out and did stuff, I’d run out of batteries very quickly.

So being inside not exerting myself too much has been helping out there.

The skin’s been improving too. More a general improvement, it’s not fixed yet but it’s getting there. There are less patches for me to worry about and the skin’s getting more resilient (and pastywhite!) in general. We’ll see how it copes with going back to work.

In a way, that’s another step closer to reentering the world from a different perspective.

So what have I been doing ? Except for being very quiet here … It’s unusual for me to take so much of a break between posts. That could be a sign of how mentally tired I allowed myself to get. Plus I really don’t want to bore you all with posts of “Level 80 today ! Yey me !” cos you really don’t want to know what I’m doing in an online game. Do you ? (Let me know !) I have been watching selected Yogscast livestreams. They’re over now having raised over $1 million. Great effort, highlights for me were the Hannah & Kim streams and the Zoey Drunkasheck stream. The best livestreams are where they’re relaxed, enjoying the games and including the viewer. It’s about the banter more than the game.

This time of year is dominated by sales …

I’ve been mostly behaving myself there. Sure, I’ve added a few games to the collection but I’ve avoided getting stuff I don’t really need. I have my eye on a telly upgrade … That’s serious cash. The strange thing about my current system is 3d :

Bluray player – supports playing back in 3d
Amplifier – can send the 3d signals through to the telly
(I don’t honestly know how it would handle that, given that I’ve pretty much isolated the dvd playback problem to the amp)
Telly – is the only thing that can’t handle 3d.

It’s a 32 inch LCD display that is acceptable to look at from across the room in the pooter station but could do with being bigger. That’s the main motivation for looking at new ones, a 46 inch or a 50 inch would be … spectacular and probably too big for the room.

I’ve waited this time around though. I don’t actually need a new telly yet in the same way as 2 tellys ago when I had one that misread “letterbox” and went “pillarbox” instead. Besides the general rule with things like tellys is that if you wait around, something better will come. It’s a natural progression of technology :

My telly – LCD. LED was available for £100s more and 3d was just entering the market
Tellys in the shops – LED is mainstream, 3d is the £100s more option and 4k tellys are entering the market.
Tellys in a couple of years – 3D tellys will be mainstream and 4k tellys will push the prices of 3D tellys down.

Why get 3d ? Personally, I think 3d TV and 3d cinema is a gimmick. Although, to be ruthlessly honest, I haven’t watched a whole movie in 3d (just demos in shops) and 3d glasses on top of my normal glasses is probably not the best idea. However, to support 3d a better quality of display is needed. A higher refresh rate is needed to get the side by side images that create the 3d effect. And with higher refresh rates come a more stable image.

However – Smart tv ? I think this is even more of a gimmick than 3d tv. A tv should be a display device, nothing more. Why ? Because a tv remote is nowhere near capable of supporting iplayer, let alone anything like web browsing or email. That’s what laptops, desktop PCs and tablets are for. The TVs job is to allow showing the image from the computer on the screen without hassle.

(Incidentally, this is why I’ll be avoiding Panasonic tellys – the interface on my dad’s Panasonic telly is Nasty and provoked the only application crash I’ve seen on the Macbook so far)

So – no big spend but a reasonable number of games have added themselves to the collection. Big ticket ones are XCOM Declassified (a third person shooter type) and Tomb Raider. I also picked up the space package from GoG. The best thing about GoG.com is the soundtracks that often come with the game. Even if I don’t play the game, it’s worth it for that extra music and in the case of games like The Witcher, it’s quite excellent music.

I’ve also been in Warcraft a fair bit – just five character levels, 70ish enchanting levels and 85ish tailoring levels until I hit the latest content. I’ll make a dent in that in a bit although I’m wanting to start off another character soon to avoid one-character-boredom. I’ll be avoiding raiding (the multiplayer content) still, as watching raid content on the Yogscast livestream reminded me why the end game content turned me off the game.

What am I doing at the moment ? It’s still raining outside … You’ll have seen stuff in the news about the weather getting more extreme. In Blighty, we’re suffering lots of rainstorms as a result of conditions over in the USA. They get extreme snow and the warm/cold stuff makes the air currents that run from West Atlantic to Europe more energetic.

I don’t believe climate change is resulting in “global warming” but I think the climate is attempting to balance itself through higher energy. So we get more extreme storms. I’m ok here, there’s flooding around the Bristol area but I’m on a reasonably high position and the area has good drainage.

I think I’ll leave it with …

That means you too ! Yes You ! You of the humbug persuasion !

Almost bed time here … 1 more sleep :

 I’m not expecting much though :

I’ve happily been able to steer the parents away from Facebook, although they did threaten to get me socks again. Must do better vetting on the ones I pack when I visit.

Spare a thought though. I’ll be lucky to be in a warm house with power that will have an awesome family dinner, with us all together in the warm. There’s loads of people in First World Britain who won’t have that privilege and a multitude more in the world who won’t have much cause or ability to celebrate.

Also spare a thought for the absent people. This will be my first Xmas without my nan and I know a few more who will be missing friends or relatives.

And for those who have been caught out by the adverse conditions. Yesterday would have been really bad to travel in and the aftermath (where the rain that fell in the hills flows down the rivers and floods the lowlands a day or so later) is hitting at the moment. Travel for me today was totally clear, I got the right part of the weather window this time. I’ll be keeping an eye on the forecast though because more terrible weather is predicted for Friday. It’ll be good to avoid travelling on that day.

I’m getting distracted … Or maybe I’m thinking a lot about other people ?

Is this one of those rare times when my tendency to digress and be distracted and scatterbrained is actually a good thing ? Lol.

Hope you have a good festive season, that you enjoy it and get cool stuff. And maybe …

(click for legibility)

Gief snow ?

Before I launch in …

Suffering from bugs, which is affecting my temperament. So I’m snappy due to generally lacking any energy. Yep. It’s manflu – lol. (chesty bug that’s causing me to make the scary sounds when trying to clear my throat – you know the type I mean !)

Still … the only thing good about the trip out today was the company.

Back to chill out now. I’m not feeling like gaming (I may attack Moo2 again in a bit) so it’s chill out time to music accompanied by Yogscast videos now and livestream later. That’s where Moo2 will come in, I’ll have that on in the foreground while chuckling to the livestream people being irreverent.

To be honest, if it’s a choice between what’s typically on telly and watching Yogscast livestreams, I’ll generally choose the livestreams. Telly has descended into repetitive garbage these days and is rarely worth watching past a quick update on the news channel. That is before that news channel coverage hits its repeat cycle. The online videos tend to be far more entertaining. It’s not about the progress they make, it’s about the fun along the way.

Anyway – about today’s run to see Hobbit. Best thing about it was the company. The Crazie mob I hang around with are among my most trusted people in the world. We all have our own flaws. But they’re our flaws. We own them, share them, amuse ourselves with them and help each other with them.

Before, most of the gang went shopping in the Mall. I’d already had enough of a dose of that on Friday so I joined later and hibernated a bit longer with my bugs. We had lunch in the local Frankie & Benny’s.

I have to say – if the best eating place around a big shopping centre is the Pizza Hut, there’s something seriously gone wrong. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the F&B offering today, my usual fallback staple is Hunter’s Chicken (chicken wrapped in bacon with cheese and barbecue sauce) but somehow F&B managed to ruin that. Mind you, I should have had the fish. I aim to have fish once a week to keep the thyroid healthy but have run out at home.

Reminder – I have bugs which are colouring my opinions … so using the word “ruined” is probably a bit strong. At least it wasn’t charcoaled, just drowned in some weird substitute for cheese. It was a £15 meal, artificial substitutes are not acceptable. If you compared that anti-cheese with my dayglo hat, I’m not sure which would have been more dayglo.

Hobbit ?

I have to be brutally honest here. The Hobbit is a single book. The Lord Of The Rings is a trilogy. There is no reason that the Hobbit should have been made as 3 films. They’re just adding in filler that stretches out the films without adding anything. I understand the end of the second film just leaves 20 pages of the book for the third film.

It’s a decently made film, sure. However, there’s a lot of filler in there. The whole book should have been just the one film. There’s a reason I haven’t bought the blu-ray of the first film yet and that contrasts to me pretty much pre-ordering the dvds of the Lord Of The Rings.

Peter Jackson has always made films that are overlong. He’s being indulged in that. He’s being indulged in that again, as the Hobbit films will break the records again. I have a feeling that whatever he goes into next after Hobbit 3 will bomb. Or will it ? As a society, we seem to indulge and reward in irrational things. Like overlong films and certain sports that call themselves professional (cough – football) but are anything but.

Hobbit 2. Yeah. Well made film but these films aren’t “The Hobbit”. It’s another story entirely. We’re being asked to sit through stuff for 30 minutes that could have been a 1 or 2 minute update.

And I can feel my bugs colouring my opinion again.

I actually kind of enjoyed the movie but … it’s not the movie of a book by Tolkien called The Hobbit. And that’s what it pretends to be. I’ll not rush out and buy it on blu-ray when it gets released. I’m not even convinced I’d watch it repeatedly like I did the LOTR trilogy. Perhaps if a condensed version was made.

Should you go see it ? As always, my advice there is – follow your own opinion. There’s plenty of films that I bypass in the cinema and check them out for free* when they come to the small screen. Films with a certain epicness like Hobbit 2 and Pacific Rim benefit from that big screen cinema scale.

*(there’s a small matter of a Sky Movies subscription …)

So the advice is – if you want to see films like this and award the indulgence of the director, go right ahead. Form your own opinion, one of the biggest problems in this world is when we adopt the opinions of others without the benefit of the context behind what formed that opinion.

Last thought for today – I’m seeing reports of the weather disruption on the news … If you’re travelling over the break, stay safe ! Stay calm too. The biggest danger to you is … you ! We can do daft things at times. I talk from experience – muahaha.

This one could be a little disjointed … I’m watching the Strictly final and tapping bits out in the bits where there’s no dancing going on.

There’s a decent amount of filler in Strictly, which is understandable because of the time taken to set up between the dances and the chance for the judges to have their say. It’ll be curious to see what the result is this time round. It’s been an excellent series, any one of 6 pairings could have genuinely won it.

My smart money’s on Abbey winning. She’s the crowd favourite and is an amazing dancer. Not my personal favourite, I kinda wish that Rachel was still in there but she’s one of those people who is a bit too nice to get the character acting that’s needed. There’s also :

Sophie the singer, who is capable of stunningly beautiful ballroom but can be a bit stilted and gawky when her confidence isn’t firing. (Must listen to more tracks from her Read My Lips)
Susanna the newsreader, who isn’t as technically gifted as the others but still brings out the “That was AWESOME !” performances.
Natalie the actor, who is the most technically astute (she had a lot of dance training years ago). Trouble is, she’s also been consistently overmarked and has been allowed to get away with a lot of rules transgressions. The public see through that and it’s seen her in the dance off.

That’s the finalists, the other two who I thought could have won are BoyBandBoy (who’s name I can’t remember – blonde Hollyoaks guy) and Patrick, who is unlucky to not be in the final.

As well as Rachel, my big favourite was Mark B, although that was much more to do with dancer Yveta with her exotic looks and elegant movement, brilliantly shining eyes and sense of humour.

I’ve enjoyed watching Strictly this year, it’s my second full year of watching it and it’s a genuine departure from the scifi and survival type documentary diet I usually stick to. It’s good to get outside the comfort zone. And there’s the usual thing of what I’m doing now, shouting “GET ON WITH IT” to Brucey.

Back to work …

NOOOO !!! Please don’t !

All done with work now for 2013. I’m off until 6 Jan and plan to do … not very much at all. We’ll see Hobbit 2 soon and I’ll visit the parents but apart from that, I need healing time and recuperation time. My condition is improving but it’s still not there yet (and I still do things like attack it and set it backwards like I did last night – oops).

I’m going to get a lot of music listening done. The “Recently Played” is showing that I’ve managed to listen to 3415 tracks out of 11000 in the library since switching to the Macbook. I’m hoping that will go way past 4000 by the time I’m back to work.

Game playing too. There’s an achievement in Warcraft where you battle every single Pet Battle Master in a single day. I want to do that one over the holiday. Optimistic yeah, I’ll need to have my character crash through to level 90, which will take some playtime. Especially as I’m not particularly in the WoW mood right now. That’ll come back, it’s just that the Lich King expansion (I’m tackling those zones at the moment) is a bit flat, grindy and lacking in character, although Sholazar Basin was a highlight. Cataclysm and Panda were much better.

But not just yet. There are sales on …

I’ve bought a few this month which I haven’t played enough yet :
Tomb Raider (new one) – this is for after the XCom campaign concludes
XCom expansion – brutal, challenging alien invade strategy. But I think it’s better than the originals.
Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics – ok, these were free so I added them to the GoG collection. And they come with soundtracks …
Space stuff bundle !
Master of Orion 1 and 2 – both peerless strategy games that have never really been equalled.
Space Empires IV – tried the demo a while ago, will be curious to give this one a go
Galciv 1 – had this before, didn’t really give it enough of a chance to learn it (Moo2 was too good)
Fragile Allegiance – another one I missed
Startopia – yet another missed ! It’s a space station management game

Most of the above are from Good Old Games (www.gog.com) who will dredge up old games, some classic, some garbage and they’ll repackage them in ways that will install and play on modern computers. Moo1 and Moo2 both use the DosBox emulator, which is a pretend PC running inside a Mac or PC.

I’ve acquired musak too :
Lucy Spraggan’s got an album that I’ve had my eye on for a while and it’s a cracker. I was starting to chuckle early on and was laughing out loud at some of the tracks. Love it.
Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories – heard this in a shop and enjoyed it enough to try out one of their cheapest albums, this album was still too much until recently. Not bad.

At the moment, it’s the soundtrack to Baldur’s Gate II (in the break in Strictly) and I’ll be back on Moo2 later. The GoG.com version seems harder … but then I do play on impossible (hardest) difficulty and use a strategy that’s very slow burning and dependent on the enemies leaving me alone until I’m ready to crush them.

So yeah – when I get back from the parents and get enough supplies in, I’m planning to batten down the hatches and shut the world out behind music … Hopefully that’ll let me heal. Although it’ll give me huge cabin fever after not too long.

So – if you’d like to break me out of that reclusiveness and relieve the cabin fever (and maybe have me grin at you for a while !), then I’m open for offers 🙂 (Please – hold me back from tellies … I’m dangerously close to upgrading in the sales …)

Don’t worry – I’m not going to dive into Twitter.

It offends my Wall Of Text tendency with its namby pamby 140 character limit. I’m just getting started at 140 characters !!!!!

Just 3 days to go until Winter Break … I seriously need it. Although part of that need comes from knowing that the break is coming. That’s the way I tick (unconsciously). I’ll get bugs as well at the end of this week as I shut down more. Nah – I’ll be ok there. The hole in my tongue is almost fixed (gotta learn to talk proper again !) and my skin is actually, finally, normalising. When I give it the chance that is.

Semi Random Thoughts today.

I’m currently listening to the Yogscast livestream. It’s ladies night with my two favourite Yogscasters, Hannah and Kim. Hannah came in late and Kim had Duncan and Simon helping out. It’s been hilarious so far (although you kinda need the insider knowledge to really appreciate it – I guess like with most comedy). They broke the server, good and proper.

It started with a fishing trip, where they take their Minecraft characters off to an island. They build a cave into a fishing hut and out come the rods. (The fishing rods). And then out comes the rum. This is followed by Simon summoning in more Naga than you can count (Beefy mobs that eat the world).

Mayhem ensues, closely followed by hilarity as they try and fix something that could easily eat the server. Duncan brings out the nukes, which is when the server hamster cries “Enough!” and falls out of the wheel. This is after the same Simon probably broke another long running Yogscast series in a livestream from Sunday by crashing into the moon.

I was going to natter about security … Had the annual threat brief today. Everybody should get these, wherever they work. Even if you’re not employed, you should have some awareness of cyber security (it scares me witless sometimes when I get the call from the dad).

I’m seen by others as some sort of God when it comes to knowing about IT stuff. The reality is that I carefully pick and choose which questions I answer. I stay quiet when there’s something I have no clue about (MS Access anyone ?) and can usually blag something and make it up as I go along with other problems. My light touch of autism probably helps there as it means I can think as literally as a computer. I can understand what’s going on in there.

Security ?

Yeah. Even though I know lots, I’ve been caught out on the security a few times. Everybody, whatever the protection they use, gets caught out on cybersecurity. Unless they ditch Microsoft, Adobe and other stupidly vulnerable products that is.

Be careful online. I shake my head in despair when I see someone post the “If you don’t sort out your seciruty I’ll unfreind you” (the typos are from the copy/paste) on Facebook and they’re posting that with the “visible to the world” setting enabled. I facepalm when I see anyone posting on Facebook with the “visible to the world” enabled.

How have I been caught out ?
Playstation emulators that aren’t emulators, they’re trojan horse viruses that disable your antivirus (Norton at the time) and do other nasty things
An Eve Online account hack – either the keylogger came on a brand new laptop (I don’t think so, other things would have been compromised) or it came in the Eve client download (which is horrendous)
An MS Blaster infection on a machine I built for my dad – it was connected to the internet for literally just 15 minutes before a “Do you want this to connect to the internet ?” popup appeared. That’s right – no user interaction required and the machine was found, seen to be vulnerable and infected, within 15 minutes. (That vulnerability got closed – but the machine was infected before the fix could be downloaded)
Economic damage via faulty nVidia drivers – they made the graphics card hot, which made it crash, which made me think it was broken, which made me buy a new card.

The graphics thing wasn’t technically a virus but it’s an example of where bad software causes you problems. Like putting Windows 8 on a machine and finding it’s made permanent changes that stops you putting something more usable on there, like Windows ME or Windows 3.11.

Anyway – the real message I have with the security is :
Be aware – the nasties are out there but you can protect yourself by doing things like using Ad Blockers, using a Flash Blocker, ditching Internet Explorer, not giving any private information to Google, Adobe (in particular), Facebook or the other organisations that want your info. Facebook doesn’t know who I work for, it’s bad enough that they know where I live.
Be safe – use antivirus (I really should put some on my Macbook ! although technically it doesn’t need it)
Know how to react – DON’T PANIC !!!

If you see your machine working strangely, well, even stranger than the average Windows machine, then don’t panic. First, do not rush off and change your passwords like I did when I got hacked in Eve. If you have a keylogger, it’ll harvest all your new passwords (including the ones it didn’t already know about) and send them off to the Naughty People. Nope – run a full virus scan and then run a scan from Malware Bytes Anti Malware‘s software. Don’t run them both at the same time, it’ll take much longer as they both fight for time on the machine.

After the Nastie is caught and deleted by the virus scan or MBAM, then change all your passwords. But don’t panic and change them before you know the machine is clean.

Hope that makes sense !

Doh ! This was supposed to be randoms but it’s turned into something mega on security …

Back to the livestream. Hannah and Kim are currently berating Simon for not burning the house down in Beyond 2 Souls. Let’s see how he does on the next bit …

Post sparked by another thing spotted on the Facebook feed today :

“Sobering thoughts as we enter the holiday season…It is important to remember that not everyone is surrounded by large wonderful families. Some of us have problems during the holidays and sometimes are overcome with great sadness when we remember the loved ones who are not with us. And, many people have no one to spend these times with and are besieged by loneliness. We all need caring, loving thoughts right now. If I don’t see your name, I’ll understand. May I ask my friends wherever you might be, to kindly copy, paste, and share this status for one hour to give a moment of support to all those who have family problems, health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind and just need to know that someone cares. Do it for all of us, for nobody is immune. I hope to see this on the walls of all my friends just for moral support. I know some will! I did it for a friend and you can too!“

I very rarely pass on the chain stuff that appears on Facebook (there’s a lot of it and it often has the “if you no share, bad thing happen …” garbage) but I do make exceptions.

Ok, maybe I wanted to talk about what I’d be doing around Xmas and needed an excuse to prompt me !

I’m threadbare ragged at the moment. I badly need the break to get some energy back again. The healing has been going as well as I allow it (translation – on the whole, it’s getting better) but being away from work and the conditions in the office will speed the recovery. It’s unseasonably warm here and that’s translating into the office being close to summer temperatures. Means I can’t cool down quickly after the walk in from the bus.

So I’m looking forward to some chilling out time over the holidays. Some of that time will be with others, a lot will be on my own.

I’ll spend a bit with the mum & dad & sister (and a few more people). I’ll be with the Crazies a couple of times too. We’re looking to go Hobbit Watching before Xmas and we usually have a Pizza + Movies meet up after too.

Presents ? I don’t really do those any more. There’s an upside and a downside to presents :
Upside – Free Stuff ! usually cool stuff.
Downside – the stress involved in getting something suitable. What to choose ? How do I get it in time ?
And there is that, not to be underestimated factor, of seeing that smile on the face of the person you got the gift fot that comes from you getting just the right thing.

Although that level of concern you’d only really save for someone really special. That sounds bad. All presents should be awesome for the person getting them. But there’s a difference in the level of concern you give to different people’s opinions. If I had a wife, I’d be more concerned about how they felt than how a colleague felt. I’d still be concerned but that concern would be on a whole different level.

There’s still no prospective Mrs Sleepy’s around. I’ve been waiting for the skin to normalise before even thinking about seeing if anyone is interested. However, I did spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about one particular person I was talking to after the team Xmas meal 😉

And that brings me back to the quote that started the post off. I still have a few family members I can spend the holiday with. I have a small but highly valued circle of friends that occasionally grows a little as I meet more special people.

I’ll have time on my own this Xmas – but that’s partly to indulge the loner side of my personality. I have a lot of dichotomy in my head. I like my space but I also badly miss having someone else around. However, I have that choice. Others don’t. I caught the person I mentioned above talking a bit about what she’d be doing. It sounded like work, work work. (Not good). Not much time for chilling out.

Besides, the best present anyone can have is knowing that someone will continue to be a valued friend for at least another year. Hugs are good too.

Yeah – I’ll be on my own for a decent amount of this Xmas. I’ll be recharging the batteries with a combination of sleep (I hope !), gaming, watching stuff and listening to music. However … I’ll get cabin fever at some point and will need to escape the house.

Soooo … if there’s anyone who sees themself in the quote above (and I do a little) and they’re local and in need of a little company ? I’ll listen ;-).

It’s in the game.

That’s actually a slogan from one of the bigger games publishers (who I won’t name because I’m boycotting them at the moment). Ok I will, It’s from EA and it’s a slogan they used a few years ago and it was one of the bigger lies in game publishing. It was supposed to mean that for their sport games, if you could do something in the real life sport then they’d replicate a means to do it in the game.

Did they ? No. Are they money grubbing bar stewards who continue to charge over the odds for inadequate software ? Yes – I was interested in Spore but … it’s a game that was released in Dec 2008 and even then it was rushed out by the publisher before it was ready. And they’re still charging full price (£30) for it. That’s daylight robbery and is just the worst example.

And there’s other crimes like Battlefield 3 and the newest Sim City (even Yogscast can’t make Sim City look interesting to play). No … EA and the other big publishers seem bent on squeezing as much money out of the gamer as they can while only producing minor amendments to their existing franchise (FIFA2014 was literally just a data and names update). Oh and discounting the core Mass Effect 2 game on Steam but not the expansion packs which you can only get through EA. That’s about a quarter of the game … Things like including a minor story arc on the Mass Effect 3 disc and charging extra for access to it.

As an avid games collector, I’ve noticed a trend in the industry – the publishers will force developers to release their games before they’re ready. Sometimes even years (Sports Interactive caved with Championship Manager 3, which never worked even with updates coming over several years). That’s evolved into another problem – games are being released dependent on online architecture which simply can’t cope with the demand. Most massive multiplayer online games see this problem and it’s a problem even infesting single player games (Sim City).

Enough of that though – what am I playing at the moment ?

In a way, that’s partly – what am I avoiding playing at the moment ?

There’s been a shift in games releases … Instead of games being pushed out in an unfinished state, they’re being sold as “it’s not ready yet, we’ll finish it later”. And you can get these through the usual online download routes. That’s another shift, pretty soon the high street retail places won’t sell PC games any more because it won’t be a valid resale channel. Online may survive due to collectors editions bringing goodies.

I have to be honest, the games playing is partly due to avoiding watching England on the telly failing at the Ashes. The games (and youtube videos) are a good distraction.

World of Warcraft is still the addiction at the moment, although not as much as it used to be. A lot of the challenge has disappeared out of the game. It’s too easy to crash through the zones as a single player. The only difficulty is hanging in there while you level (some of the zones are awesome, some are a tough, boring slog) and in having the professions keep up with you. The speed of levelling has increased a little too much. I’ve needed support from the guild to get me enough Stuff to keep those professions relevant (it’s been appreciated and has taken a lot of nausea out of the game).

However, for its flaws (and dodgy endgame) it’s still the best massive multiplayer online game out there and hopefully one or two features from the rest will enhance it. I’m comparing to :

Star Wars Old Republic – should have been a single player game but … EA … turn it into a subpar online subscription game.
Guild Wars 1 and 2 – interesting quest system in GW2, very poor combat system, curse by stupid jumping puzzles.
Terraria – very meh
And I’m sure there’s a bunch more that I’ve blocked from memory now.

But … there’s some times when I log into WoW, do a couple of quests and get hit by a feeling of wanting to throw myself off a building … I have to be in the right mood for it. Although if I am in the right mood, I’ll do more in a few hours than some players do in a week …

XCom Enemy Within (the expansion) is the current Not-Warcraft. It’s an aliens invade strategy game. That strategy bit is part of the appeal, it’s turn based so if you are wanting a slower pace the game will wait for you. It is however … insanely, brutally hard. I played one of the new scripted missions last night and it was so stressful I was merrily digging a new hole in my arm to join the other ones.

Settlers IV is another one, it has a slow relaxed pace. Not opened that for a while though.

Tomb Raider is one that’s waiting for me, I will probably have a go at this after the Enemy Within campaign comes to a conclusion (I suspect that may not be long judging by current horrible-ness!)

There is a new trend though – early access. This is where the developer is up front and honest about their game not being done yet and sends it out into the world with a promise of “Give cash, will finish”. It’s a nice philosophy but it’s dependent on the developer. Some are honest and will pile the time in, some dump and run. Looking at my Steam wishlist (and one that used to be on it) :

Star Lords – a space strategy (something I’ve always been dominated by)
Dungeon of the Endless – a sci fi randomly generated action game
Darkout and Maia – scifi base building colony games
Starpoint Gemini 2 – a starship command and role play game
Don’t Starve – is still in my wish list – I think this actually got quietly released
Project Zomboid – zombie horror survival

All those look quite interesting, although I don’t know why I haven’t removed Don’t Starve from the list. The YogscastSips playthrough was amusing but I don’t know how much amusement I’d get out of it.

You have to be extremely careful though with these early access and Kickstarter things. Some, like Don’t Starve, are commercial standard games. Better, because some are totally stable and have no bugs. (Battlefield 3 was unplayable on my new system due to bugs). Others, like Stardrive are a disastrous, unplayable buggy mess and are an example of a developer dumping his poo and running with the cash. If you see “Kalypso” anywhere, beware for similar reasons.

Youtube is pretty good as a way of checking these things out. If the game is a buggy mess, the youtuber will tell you. If it looks boring (Sim City), not even the most entertaining commentator can get you interested. If it looks amazing, then there tends to be a lot of excitement about it.

The one I’m very curious about right now is Rimworld. It’s a colony building game again and it looks rather interesting. It’s pre Alpha (barely playable and without many features) but looks solid.

I’ll close there with a :
Years ago – all we had to go on was what was written in gaming magazines, which were often blatant lies built on advertising revenue. These were the people who made me buy Championship Manager 3, which was ridiculously poor. They also said it’s next version was stable. It wasn’t.
Now – youtube is a much more reliable source of information.

If you’re looking at games and wondering whether to part with the hard earned cash ? Have a peek on youtube, see what people think of it.