Sleepypete's Pillow

Finally did it, ended the months of procrastination by heading on up the motorway to Lexus in Cheltenham.

Don’t get me wrong there – inaction can sometimes be the best form of action. Half the tech world points and sniggers at the early adopters who :

Can never resist going for the latest shiny,
Spend way too much on their toys,
Never really get much benefit from that latest little incremental upgrade,
Get stuck with something that gets replaced with a far better spec after 6 months
And they get all the bugs.

Sitting back and waiting lets you see whether that Day 0 Shiny is actually worth getting or is going to be a total nightmare. Happily the Lexus has just had good things written about it from the owners (the german car obsessed reviewers weren’t keen) over the 6 months it’s been on the market.

I also had the luxury of time this time around. Most of my previous cars have either been run into the ground or were getting more and more expensive. There were bills coming for the Focus but they were maintenance things (brake discs), items that wear out eventually. However, it’s done 66,000 miles now, which is the point at which the Puma started getting really expensive.

It’s cost a bit more than I’d have liked to pay (less reduction + less than expected for mine) but I’m expecting cost/mile to end up a lot less. Maybe not for the next 3 years while I’m paying but definitely for the time after that. I also get it next week instead of having to wait until December for a new one, which would also cost me cash to tax the Focus for a bit longer.

So what have I gone for ? Quick trip up the motorway to Cheltenham saw me arrive at the Lexus place there. Waiting was a blue Lexus CT (linky) which I’ll be heading back to pick up next week. There will be a few changes :

It’s an automatic – I’ve driven two but not owned any of these before but thankfully the Gearbox Brain of this one is fairly in tune with what I like
No long wave on the radio ! GAHHH!!!! That’s where cricket commentary lives !!! However. I have a cunning plan. It involves a phone, mobile internet, BBC radio streaming and a bluetooth connection to the car stereo. Curious to see how that works.
Bluetooth hook up for the phone, which means it can go Hands Free. Dunno how long that will last considering the vulnerabilities of Bluetooth and the battery munching.
Byebye IpodFM – there’s a direct link in the car. No more losing the signal in the middle of a favourite song.

Hybrid powertrain. This is actually fairly irrelevant from the driver’s point of view. Press throttle – car speeds up. Press brake – car slows down. There’s a lot of complicated stuff going on under the skin but the driver doesn’t need to pay attention to any of that. Apart from maybe hitting “Sport Mode” occasionally 🙂

Built in satnav. This isn’t normally the sort of thing you’d look for in a car, as a Tomtom is much cheaper and can be programmed while you’re not in the car. This is more Trip Computer not just on steroids but with an overdose of them, coupled with a better stereo. It just happens to come with a satnav.

It’s a big step up in value from what I’ve been driving lately, bit slower but far better inside.

Already looking forward to picking it up next week.

Leg started getting worse again last week (I’m bored of it now and want the leaking to go away) so I gave in and saw the doctor …

Result – diet pills.

Ok, they’re not really diet pills (it’s penicillin) but with instructions of “leave 2 hours after food and 1 hour before food”, they’re cutting in severely to my snacking time ! I have to take one 4 times a day too but I’ve figured out how to weave that into a breakfast, lunch & dinner cycle.

I suspect that cycle would have stopped me raiding, as it stops me from having dinner until after 7, which is when the raids are due to start. We’ve not been raiding much recently though and I’ve not been signing up to the New Content progress raids anyway due to stuff I’ve posted before :

Bored with the game
No motivation to join the progress raids
Silly rules being brought in

Been at Warcraft for a long time and I remember the challenge of the game as it was early on. It used to be a lot tougher, with you needing to think about tactics needed to get the enemies down. I reckon that’s where the game has lost something, both in content and player skill. Skill isn’t really needed in Warcraft now, just a memory of what to avoid. That’s what the raid boss fights are : knowing what to do when the “One Mistake And Everyone’s Dead” mechanic kicks in. I find those mechanics contrived and boring, although the boredom comes with knowing there’s people in the group who will blatantly not be wary of the mistake triggers.

Hoping for better from Star Wars The Old Republic, which is coming “soon”. I suspect diving into the Star Wars world, albeit a few thousand years before the movies, will get the desire to see content back. I’m even struggling for the single player gaming at the moment, my main PC has been cruising in No Game Mode* for at least one night when I could have been gaming and this will be another.

*No Game Mode – the original Windows on my main PC is hopelessly broken due to a combination of Kaspersky and other apps (I blame copy protection malware that you are forced to install). To game, I have to go to another Windows install on a second hard drive.

I’ll not be gaming tonight, which means I’ve missed a week’s worth of MC farming. Oh well. Gaming should be done for fun, not as a second job. That’s one reason I struggle to keep going with the MMOs like Eve and Warcraft, the amount of grinding (repetitive tasks) time required detracts from the fun aspect of the game, especially when Expectations get piled on you from people in the corp or guild.

What can make that worse is when there’s a perception that the people telling you to do stuff are not pulling their weight. You should only ask people to do stuff that you are willing to do yourself. At work, I’d happily do the filing and some of the other mundane stuff but … I know there’s a few people in the team already trained up to do that who will get bored if I take all their work away from them. They know what to do, so I let ’em get on with it and they’re good enough to do it better than I can. On the other hand, I’m much better at analysis and engineering which is what I’m there to do 🙂

You can cause trouble by being too keen – especially when you do the Bull In China Shop thing and trample on stuff someone has carefully set up.

Yep – gaming is suffering a bit at the moment. Or at least the online stuff is, we’re looking to restart the DnD group soon. That’s multiplayer gaming but with pens & paper on a table top. There’s a bit more time to think about what you’re going to do with pen & paper stuff and you don’t lose the ability to chat to your groupmates.

Pen & Paper has one major advantage over Voice Comms – you can share the munchies instead of listening to the occasional nomnomnom over Mumble 🙂

Other stuff – if I can get away early enough, I may well be looking at a car tomorrow … It’s in Cheltenham though which is at least half an hour away before traffic. It’s £1000 cheaper than Lincoln as well as being closer. I cleared the car out earlier (needs portable vacuum though) but have a bit more prep to do in the shape of getting Car Change documents together.

And then there’s the PC upgrade … I bought Deus Ex Human Revolution last week, which looks awesome. It’s easily the best graphics I’ve seen so far, even though I have the options turned down a bit. New bits would definitely help out there.

Doh ! I started typing about the Diet Pills and they appear to have Verbal Diarrhoea as a side effect. I’ve been typing so long it’s almost time to take the next one.

What I am doing is chilling out to the Julianne Regan Mice album which really benefits from the decent hifi kit. Plenty of effects and clever stuff in the production and mixing coupled with Julianne Regan’s sublime and unique voice. This comment was triggered by seeing an Imelda May advert come on – Imelda May’s group is based around a poor, weak imitation of a music style that died out decades ago ! She’s NOISE ! Why is it being hammered so much ? Maybe because it’s so bad it needs the hammering to get into double figure sales numbers.

Lol – After that mini rant it’s time for a chill pill and more Julianne Regan.

With the irritation of RSI coming from too long engaging the enemies of humanity with mouse and key and the loss of sleep that comes from furthering the cause of the Horde, I’m trying to get back into reading.

There’s another reason, at the start of the year I put myself up a challenge of looking to read books in an A to Z. I’ve been updating that as the year goes but there’s 8 months gone now with 14 of 26 read. Need to get back into reading to hit the 26.

However … The A to Z is feeling somewhat restrictive, there’s books I want to read that have already had the gap filled. Books like Game of Thrones, which my sister has lent me. Or Polar City Nightmare to follow Polar City Blues (Katherine Kerr does sci-fi). The two Polar City books are bad examples because they can fit the gaps. I just got the next Lost Fleet book by Jack Campbell, it got released this week and on the strength of the first six has jumped the queue to be The Next Book.

I think I’ll start recording the books that don’t fit as Bonus Books. And of course I’m not recording all the stuff I read at work, that is far too Interesting to be put in a public place – muahaha. Except when I mention the people who make it worth coming in. I have them worried because I’ve told too many people about my poorly leg.

Erm – this was supposed to be about books ? Get back to the point Marine !

Latest finished book is Battle Of The Fang by Chris Wraight.

It’s another in the Space Marines Battles series, which have a common theme of taking the superhuman (literally) warriors of the Warhammer 40k universe, putting them into impossible situations and seeing what comes out the other side. This time it’s the Space Wolves legion up against the Thousand Sons traitor marines in a follow up to the Prospero Burns Horus Heresy book which I haven’t read.

This one is not a bad read, although I think my interest in the Space Marines Battles books is rapidly dwindling. The dramatis personae have suitable gravitas but turn somewhat into caricature. There’s big action going on but your interest in truly caring about what’s happening is low.

Maybe it’s because it’s not a Helsreach, a Titanicus or a Dan Abnett Ghosts book. It just doesn’t seem to have the same impact as the others, maybe due to similarity with the other two Space Marine Battles books I’ve read.

Looking forward to The Next Book, I get the feeling there may be another mini-book-review coming next week 🙂

It’s the long running saga of the car again !

Been busy since last week. Car stuff is the highlight.

Leg got checked out on Thursday, although I need to get it looked at again. It looks “miffed” or “slightly peeved” at me now, instead of the angry scabbiness of last week. Much improved but a doctor needs to see it to lock down the cause. Once you know cause, you can figure out how to stop it. I reckon I’m on to something with it being allergy related, last time I bought washing powder blobs I changed due to thinking what I was using has affecting me. I have a feeling I went the wrong way with the allergy stuff.

So that’s my leg, looks like it’s improving. Must put more of the cream on it to help it improve.

Car stuff ! Progress here, as I went to see my mum & dad for the weekend. The excuse was that my sister had acquired some tickets for the Senior European Masters golf tour at Woburn which was not far down the road from my sister’s place. More in a bit.

That left Saturday to do Stuff, as we weren’t at the golf until Sunday. Loose end … what can we do ? Quick trip to Lincoln to have a look at a car … I don’t think I’ll buy the car I test drove in Lincoln but I will definitely go for one very much like it. It was a Lexus CT200h, leather seat model with the satnav. The satnav is expensive but it’s not just a satnav, it’s a fairly comprehensive computer for the car. I think the stereo is better with it too.

How was the car ? It’s very shiny. The CT is a medium sized luxury hatch that’s built around a hybrid powertrain. Translation – it can Go with either a proper engine or a motor. Or the motor can help out the engine with you want to go faster. The motor means pulling away is extremely smooth. Smooth is definitely the word for this car, it’s probably the most refined car I’ve ever driven. What I wasn’t expecting was blistering performance, which you don’t get. But it still gets up to speed quite nicely, especially when you put it into Sport mode.

Yes – I know what my next car will be. What’s holding me back is price. I can afford it but what they’re asking for is more than I think they should be. I have the luxury of being able to wait this time, with no major work anticipated on the car.

Golf watching …

We didn’t actually do much of this. When we got there, it was starting to get a little damp, although it help off while we had a cup of tea. However, when we headed out on to the course to watch the play, the heavens opened. This wasn’t just drizzle, this was full on Noah’s Ark rain. Standing water on the greens kind of rain. It got into everything, some of my stuff may still be drying out next week.

We didn’t hang around to watch the resumption, heading off to get dry. So the golf was a bit of a letdown but we’ll try again some time. After drying off, we had a great dinner at the Fox & Hounds in Riseley. If you’re in the Bedfordshire area I’d advise checking them out.

Had Monday off due to anticipating lots of travel. Needed it too because on Monday morning I was extremely crabby due to combination of driving at least 400 miles with another 180 to come, coupled with doing a Drowned Rat impression on the Sunday.

Looking forward to the weekend already, although I won’t be looking at cars this time. Instead there’s cricket on the Friday, England rugby on the Saturday and Formula 1 action on the Sunday. I shall be glued.

At least now that I'm playing it to I'll know what you're talking about sometimes!

When I first started playing WoW, one of the things I spotted while reading the manual was the legendary items. I said to myself then, they’re shiny, I want one.

It’s taken 6 years but :

(click for big pics)

Creating the Sulfuron Hammer :

I didn’t equip it in fear of breaking something but here’s what the purely purple Sulfuron Hammer would have looked like :

Nice, but not so shiny.

Ooo – what’s happened there ? I see the ding of a guild achievement …

And there we go 🙂 One achievement for the guild and something very Red And Shiny for me 🙂

It’s a item from the very first incarnation of Warcraft so the stats are pretty bad but. It’s shiny !!!!!

I did most of the farming for bits myself with a few parts bought off the AH but there are a few thanks to in game people :

Allenis for donating a Blood Of The Mountain
Laina for being there when the Eye dropped and for letting me borrow his characters to make raid groups with so I could farm stuff
Benii for the same on the raid group thing
Alex for letting Laina out to play
And Violence Reborn for being awesome.

Don’t think I’ve missed anyone out there 🙂 I still have a bit of work to do, as I owe the guild 1 Sulfuron Ingot and 1 Blood of the Mountain. But that can keep for when my shoulders aren’t aching from too much game time.

It’s not quite as tough getting this as when it was The Best Item In The Game as 3 of the bits needed you to be in a 40 person raid to get the item. One part has a 4% drop chance, with one chance per week. Another item is about 33-50% drop chance, again with just one chance per week but 8 (+1 for a pattern) needed. The Blood of the Mountain were easier, it’s something like a 10% chance to get one with up to about 10 chances per reset of the instance. You’d need a 40 person raid together though, nowadays one character can go all the way through on their own.

The open world farming is a bit easier too, as there’s less competition now that people have moved on to higher level places.

However, just because it’s easier than in the old days doesn’t make it any less Orange (Orange > Purple) or any less Shiny !

You can solo clear Molten Core these days 🙂

Although last night I did two runs with Laina :

Eye of Sulfuras dropped for me, one of the Thunderfury bindings dropped for Laina's warrior 🙂

The list for your legendary items seams to be old items? Or have they increased the difficulty to get those?
Hug Sandra

I have them.

I actually have a few of them now …

No 1 – car. I’m still doing a “blink after the other guy” there, as the prices haven’t dropped yet. But that should change in a week or so when the registration plates move on another step.

No 2 – pooter. This is another one like the car where I haven’t been forced into a change of kit … yet. I’ve had my eye drawn to a game called The Old Republic, which is a MMO set about 4000 years before the Star Wars films. I’m a Star Wars fanboi, have been for like forever. With the gaming that’s been moderated a bit by a stream of mediocre games with Star Wars licenses. This looks like it could be something special though. And if it needs an upgrade to allow me to play it …

I’ve had my current machine for quite some time. Looks like I’ve had my current PC since April 2006, although it’s evolved a little bit since then. I’ll be going from a dual core Athlon to a quadx2 core Intel, the improvement in cpu power will likely be 10x. Graphics will go from an AMD 4850 to an nVidia 560Ti. Not so much of an improvement there but still appreciable. Memory has its usual 4x improvement, going from 2GB to 8GB, same with the hard disc which will go 250GB to 1TB.

But that’s a “wait and see”, as I don’t know the specs of this forthcoming and awesome looking Star Wars game yet.

No 3 – I’ve levelled my tank in Warcraft mainly for seeing if I can get a legendary item. Those things only get picked up by a very limited number of people on a server. I picked up one part today 🙂 And a mate picked up part of what will make a legendary for him too 🙂

4% chance for each to drop and we got 2. That’s out of 6 chances on the night. That’s not all that’s needed though. The shopping list this time is :

8 Sulfuron Ingot. I have 1 so far and they only come from one place. Or the server’s auction house. If I get the rest of the bits, I’ll spend some virtual money.
20 Dark Iron Bar. Sorted 🙂
50 Arcanite bar. Got the bits for 17, the rest will need farming sessions.
25 Essence of Fire. Sorted 🙂
10 Blood Of The Mountain. Got 1 so far.
10 Lava Core. Sorted 🙂
10 Fiery Core. Sorted 🙂

So we’re still needing Sulfuron Ingots which will be expensive, Arcanite Bars which will need farming and Blood Of The Mountain which will be a 100% pain. Will see how long it takes to get those, hopefully not too long because I want to see my character with the legendary item 🙂

Having a little downtime here at the moment, which is much needed :

Putting mind+soul into what I do at work,
General physical exhaustion,
Old injuries haunting me again,
And new health issues making an appearance.

The first few of those won’t change. I don’t believe in putting in less than 110% to what I do. Even when outwardly it appears I’m slacking, there will be something else going on. The injuries just get managed and thankfully I still don’t need any kind of painkiller medication to handle those.

Nah – it’s the new health issues that are slowing me down right now. The issue with my leg is still there, although the ickiness factor has gone. I suspect that means it’s healing underneath the scab. Hopefully it won’t take too long to heal … I’m staying away from cricket until it does because the way I go in the field, I’d rip that scab off while diving around. And as it took so long for the scab to form …

Also having issues with my breathing at the moment. Nothing serious, I suspect I’d be able to run around the block if I needed to. But it’s enough that it disrupts me when I’m trying to get to sleep, with the knock on effects that has.

Anyway. Health issues aside …

Been back into Warcraft lately. It’s a curious place to be because of issues that are hitting the raiding at the moment. The raiding we do has a maximum of 10 players involved. I’ve only really been involved lately when the team is short of people. Dunno why but they don’t seem to want me in there as a first choice person. Perhaps that’s a perception that’s based in paranoia but it’s there all the same. Adding to that is much discussion that’s happened around reserve players for raids. There’s still more to come there, as the rules behind the reserves situation only seem to be only inside the head of the person picking the teams. And as a normal member of the guild sees them, they don’t make sense.

Let’s just say, it’s not the way I’d have run a raiding team. And I’m talking from experience there, having juggled the pots and pans and tried to keep everyone on side and happy. It’s not easy. It’s not working at the moment in our guild, as there’s a few (including me) people who are just not saying we’re available right now because we don’t know what’s going on with the team stuff. With all that stuff going on, I have no real interest in raiding at the moment.

Ok, that’s that little bit of angst out the way. Needed to say it.

I feel I’ve taken my main character (Iceangel) as far as I can take her right now, any improvements to come will come from raiding. I’ve got no real interest to play the character, although comparing her to when I started in WoW, it’s like a God meets a minor imp.

I’m currently playing my warrior, Bashara 3 (the first was a tank on The Maelstrom server, the second was a druid on Auchindoun). Bash has now got to the maximum level and could in theory go through all the instances. There’s still a fair bit of work to do as where you’d like to have a couple of gear sets for the different jobs, what I have now is a mix of tank and damage. Which achieves neither … I’m going for tank stuff first because there’s no real challenge involved with putting out enough damage to crush solo content.

Yep. Warcraft has a hold of me at the moment, when I’m not watching stuff off blu-ray/cinema or watching cricket. England no1 in the world ! Woo hoo ! It’s well earned. That team has it all right now, with strength in depth too.

Being on hols means I’m more free to buy stuff off Amazon 🙂 I have trust issues with the postman, so I like to be around if deliveries are likely. This time around it was 4 blu-rays : Sucker Punch, Battle : LA, The A Team and Knight & Day. I’ve only watched Sucker Punch and Battle : LA so far of those. They had their critics at the cinema but what film doesn’t. I enjoyed ’em both the second time around.

Sucker Punch – style over substance. The Real World backstory is still rather lame but the Fantasy World action sequence are amazing out of this world showcases that still work well on the small screen.

Battle : LA – Aliens invade. USMC saves the day. Still loud, explosive and gritty with the viewer not knowing who or what is going to survive. High body count here … Won’t be a classic but is still an excellent action movie. It doesn’t try to be what it isn’t, it leaves lame comedy aside, it avoids the temptation to go District 9 over the top, it just looks to be an action spectacular. And it succeeds beyond measure. I’ll think I’ll still be rewatching this one when District 9 is stolen by the Dust Bunnies.

Both excellent films, will the Apes movie (who’s gonna say that whole title ?) live up to it ? We’ll find out on Thursday.

Signing off for now, time to either dig up Uldum in Warcraft or take the next step in liberating Arulco.