Sleepypete's Pillow

Spotted this story earlier and it raised an eyebrow or two :

Good dancing may be sign of male health.

It’s saying that blokes who dance well, in particular the core body areas of torso, neck and head, are more attractive. I think there’s something to this, although they’re missing some of the point as is usual for Crazy (read qualitative instead of quantitative) Science.

True – a person who moves well is (to me), far more attractive than someone who walks like a duck. But then again, you can move well in one sphere and then be a total clutz in others. I bet most of the dancers out there can’t sprint half as quick as I can and I bet they would cry MOMMY when faced with a cricket ball coming at them. But they look good due to having heaps of practice.

That’s actually like a few of the cricketers I see in the teams I play for and against. They’ll talk the talk but when it comes to actually doing, they’re either utterly uncoordinated or too scared to do the business. They look after themselves instead of putting it on the line for the team.

Doh – straying off the point again (like usual !)

I think there’s something to all this dancing makes you look good lark. It’s a healthy exercise, keeps you moving and practicing good coordination of movement will keep you fitter and trimmer. Being coordinated is a good sign that someone is physically healthy. Using me again, I have good days and bad days where some days everything will just click and I’ll be fine. Other days, one of the long term injuries will pop up and remind me it’s there and I’ll be hiding limps.

I judge my own health on how quietly I walk. I usually walk pretty quickly (no worries about watching for people overtaking !) but it’s the efficiency I aim for. That means being able to creep up behind people and make them jump (muahahaa). If my legs aren’t too healthy then I’ll be clomping along instead of ghosting along.

How’s my walking relate to dancing ? I’ll never be a great dancer, as my physique definitely works against me. Ignoring the belly (which doesn’t actually restrict my movement that much), I have massive leg muscles. They’re bigger than they should be, which means I wear knee pads when running to stop them blowing up my knees. I sprint very quickly, although I missed out on competition at school due to injuring my back.

Those leg muscles work against me though. Very fast in a straight line but the extra mass as tricky to get moving. A case of having too much power. Cue : Dad Dancer. When I am moving though, change of direction comes quick and easy.

Another example – I occasionally get drawn into the horse racing world. Rarely to bet because I’m a firm believer in the result changing when you get sight of it. If I don’t bet, my pick wins, if I bet then my pick fails. Meh. I make my pick by looking at form but mostly by seeing how the horse moves. However … it’s all well and good the horse moving beautifully at a walk, they’re not going to be walking on the course. What really counts is attitude, frame and whether you believe that horse is going to Go Real Fast. A horse that goes like a donkey at the walk can often be lightning at a gallop.

It’s curious how things change in the subconscious. In our hunter gatherer days, it would have been the fast runners, the efficient hunters and the endurance people who would have caught the eye. Now, it’s the people who look coordinated standing still who catch the eye.

I definitely support the general premise of the theory : dancing shows off how healthy and structurally sound a body is. But I’d disagree about it being indicative of anything more than that. Being able to dance well doesn’t mean you have a brain, doesn’t say anything about personality* and doesn’t say how clever those fingers are at massaging out tension.

*(good dancer could actually indicate an undesirable personality due to an over abundance of Self Focus – never been too interested in those who cannot empathise with others)

Maybe a little practice would lead to better dancing 🙂 In the meantime, I’ll bemoan the luck of being able to sprint like lightning but be a total clutz on the dancefloor :-).

Ok, so I went back to Warcraft.

I’ve had a love hate relationship with this game over the years and just got back into it after 7 months away (longer than that, as the last session was a 5 day freebie after another long break). There’s a kind of hunger with addiction, with one of my addictions being gaming. You have to get the right fix to satisfy the addiction. Sometimes mine gets satisfied with beating the AI in games like Settlers IV and Moo2.

It appears that with the closing of the cricket season, the hunger for nonstop gaming is back. All addictions tend to come with some kind of cost, my gaming addiction isn’t an exception there. For me, it’s late nights where I stop in game for far too long. Not enough sleep doesn’t do much for my being human the next day. Itunes actually helps there, as I’ll queue up albums along with the random stuff. The start of an album is a good marker for a “if I stay one more track, I’ll be here for an hour”, which gives an excellent excuse to break off at 1am and get shuteye otherwise I’d stay until daybreak.

There’s other costs too. Some of my games place physical demands that mount up after a while. Computer games causing physical issues ? Yeah baby yeah. I’ve been around pooters for 30 years now and have the associated RSI in my wrist. Curiously, some games actually help the wrist problem. Must start that Mass Effect adventure again. Warcraft attacks my shoulder too, to the point where I’m in actual pain from it.

Day off today. Only gaming today has been 1:1 in Settlers IV (may start another after this post). We had a Call To Arms in Eve too (Eve’s addiction cost is mind numbness from tedium) which I avoided because it clashed with England cricket on telly.

I know I have this particular addiction, along with a few others. Knowing you have an issue is one step along the way to controlling it. I’m having fun at the moment though, so I think I’m just gonna ride with it.

The Warcraft guild I’m associated with at the moment is called Violence Reborn. It’s dominated by Scandinavians ganging up with English members. Like all internet communities, we have people from all over the place. One of our recruitment questions is “If you were caught in the middle of a gang war between English and Swedish people, which side would you join and why ?” Gaming needs to be about fun. If the fun goes out, it becomes a second job. That’s one reason I struggle with Eve, the occasional PvP I do doesn’t make up for the second job grind.

VR has a lot of great people, guild chat is great fun to join in with. Crazy people make you laugh. I’m really glad they took me in when things got unbearable on Maelstrom. Eve has good people too, Luth and the other English Cultists are great mates.

And that’s the key to the addiction to that particular game. Single player games are good for a few play throughs but there’s only so many times you can listen to the same dialogue or so many times you can execute the Killer Tactic before needing something different. With MMOs, you’re interacting with real people and there’s no script.

I’ve come a cropper a few times there, my previous WoW existence on the Maelstrom server earned me a fair bit of respect as a player but was also blighted by a few incidents that I could have handled better. I’m still friends with a lot of people on that server (most of whom moved to Blade’s Edge with VR) but there’s a few things that could have gone … better. Although with one or two of those, “better” would have involved hiring a hitman. Yes, I have had death threats from people who couldn’t recognise their own addictions.

Errrr – where was I ?

Gaming addiction – reactivated
Antsy feeling of “there’s something I should be doing” – sorted
(I did the washing up earlier)
Shoulder killing me – check

There’s a good reason (or am I just telling myself this) for the gaming too – it allows me to kick my brain into a different mode of working. Normally, I’m multitasking and taking in 3 or 4 inputs at once. Like at the moment, I’m tapping out this post while listening to music, watching the tennis and switching tabs to forums and Facebook. When I’m gaming, I tunnel vision focus in which allows the higher reasoning part of my brain to switch off and get some sleep. I do the same at work, by opening Spider Solitaire at lunchtime and going Robot on it. It gives the bit of my brain that does the thinking to take a break.

Oh dear. This is turning into Wall Of Text territory again. I think I’ll leave it by attacking something the Eve players say :

“In Warcraft, you have to go looking for pvp. In Eve, the pvp looks for you.”

Not true. In Eve, the Empire regions has active police who will intervene if fights break out (unless you’re at war). On my previous Warcraft server, everywhere except cities and starting zones was a PvP zone. Members of the opposite faction would come in and grief you. Nowhere to hide, unlike Eve which has stations.

So – Eve players, you have it easy. Kinda true for the WoW server I’m on now too, which operates more like Eve’s Empire. Time to feed the addiction again ! Although I’ll avoid WoW again tonight because of that shoulder which still hates me.

More cricket gear buying today, as I looked to take advantage of End Of Season Sales.

Risky – cos I’ve had a spectacularly bad record with kit buying this year and the place I went (Globe Sports) has some Very Expensive Bats that are incredibly tempting.

Two (ok, three) bits of kit walked out of the shop : Knee pads and a new bag. I wear knee pads not so much because I expect ligaments or tendons to go BOOM, they’re more there for impact protection. My knees used to be weak but appear to have somewhat caught up with my leg muscles now.

I figure, I’m a fairly average sized fella, so I choose “Medium” thinking they’ll have enough stretch to fit without slipping annoyingly. Medium works out to 13-15″. I get them home and attempt to try them on. Huge feelings of deja vu erupt as my mind goes back to the whites I bought to save me doing the washing. That time, 30″ waist whites did actually go on, these knee pads didn’t even go over my calves. I measured the circumferences as 17.5″ calf muscles and 17″ knees. Big Calves = Very Fast Sleepy.

Oh well. Back to Globe tomorrow and the torture of seeing that Salix Daemon bat on the shelf.

What else did I get ? A cricket bat is a fairly specialised beastie, even though I’m fairly light on gear I’m still looking to drag along the following to a game :

Helmet
Batting pads
Batting gloves (only one pair, some have many)
Bat
Fielding spikes (I wear flat shoes for batting due to shuffling)
Sleevy jumper (which may be older than me)
Non sleevy jumper (20 years old)
Bat hammer + bat repair tape
Box
Shin pads (not that I ever wear them)
Spare hat + cap (don’t wear these now either)
Drink bottles + occasional munchies

(there’s a picture or two in this linked earlier post)

That’s quite a bit of gear to carry around, most of it is awkwardly shaped too. A bat is 38 inches long and 4.25 inches wide, which can be a pain to fit in the boot of some cars (Puma struggled), let alone fit in a normal holdall.

The new bag is a Gray Nicolls Atomic bag, which holds the bat in an outside pocket. Everything else goes inside, even the helmet. That’s a first for me, since getting it the helmet has lived outside the bag. This should be better if I’m caught out in the field while it rains. My rainhat lives outside the bag, if it goes inside it’ll get the brim squished.

There’s a few things in there that I don’t use but I take ’em along out of habit. I still have the hat I was wearing when I got whacked on the nose (and it still has the occasional blood splat). I don’t wear it but it’s a good reminder.

So – taking advantage of cheaper prices but still keeping the moderation to stop me buying a new bat or new spikes. My current fielding spikes are falling to bits like my old bag. The retired bag served me well, I’ve had it since I started playing cricket 20 years ago and it has survived everything. Including things like a coke can (I’ve learned Coke + Sport = BAD) exploding inside it. Old bag was starting to fall apart at the seams though. There’s only so much jerky pickup of heavy stuff a bag can take before the fabric splits.

Oh yeah – the new bag has wheels …

PS Pakistan betting scandal is getting to be tedious old news. Want it gone, bored of it.

If you can’t laugh at bad stuff …

Original artist : Arun Ramkunar, saw it and couldn’t resist borrowing.

And that’s a post title no one would expect from me !

So what’s cooking ? Let’s take you through the ingredients as you mix them all together.

First. Prepare your work space and implements of choice. Dust free is Good, also make sure it’s well lit. Implements should be fit for purpose and if they’re magnetic, PUT THEM DOWN AND STEP AWAY ! Magnetic stuff picks up screws ok but if you move Iron through a magnetic field, the change in that field induces an electric current. Which, with sensitive electronics, is Very Bad.

Take your Thermaltake case and add power supply. (Novatech unit or OCUK). Gloves can be useful here so you don’t fingerprint the box. For most satisfaction, go for extreme beefiness. Going lean tends to lead to fainting through hunger later.

(if not enough power is available, the system will “Brown Out”. Think of it as a pastry which starts to rise and then goes FLUMF – flat as a pancake)

When the trays are prepared, turn your attention to the cake. For today’s cake, we’ll use an Asus P6X58D-E motherboard as the sponge, with a liberal coating of Intel i7 930 icing on top. Applying the icing is really fiddly, too much pressure or an unsteady hand can lead to big dents in your cake. Dents are bad. (Especially as an Intel i7 930 processor costs £180+VAT!)

So, we have our sponge cake with its icing but the job isn’t done yet. We need candles ! Zalman give us the sparkly things here, in the form of a CNPS10X Extreme cooler. Lots of care needed again here to stop the candles breaking through that icing.

What’s left ? Hundreds and thousands to sprinkle on that icing, as well as those shiny silvery thingys. Let’s bring out the GeForce 460 to make this thing look purdy.

Carefully slide it on to the plate (our box has a plate that you put everything on before fixing it in) we made earlier and we’re almost ready.

Add a few wafers (Samsung 1TB hard disc and 6GB of memory) and that cake of our’s is almost ready for the party. We’re missing music and a movie ! Bring out the blu-ray drive and a screen (by Samsung again) and it’s ready to roll.

Back to reality …

I’m having a thunk about changing my PC stuff again. What I have now has served me pretty well, greatly helped by the upgrade to the graphics from 18 months ago. It is starting to hit the ragged edge of what it can do though, so it’s time to start researching now so that when I buy in 6-12 months, I’ll be choosing bits from a position of strength instead of ignorance.

I’m quite likely to buy a screen before that though, as my 17″ 4:3 display feels very cramped. I can’t see the point in buying anything other than a touchscreen compatible display, so it’ll be a good few months before I part with any money.

The garbled stuff above is an attempt to say how you put a home brew PC together, helped out by the experience I have with the series of home build boxes I’ve done before. It does aid if you know roughly what order to put things together in, to anticipate having your access closed off. There’s also stuff like needing to Push Really Hard to slot things in, best to do that when you can brace what you’re pushing so it doesn’t flex and break.

There’s a bit more to it as well. The electronics are very sensitive, so it’s wise to have a Tame Geek to take you through the precautions needed. Even an innocent finger tip can fry a processor – think of how you jump when you get that spark when you touch the car door and then imagine that spark going into electronic stuff just 45nm across.

Right – The geeks are probably wondering what kind of thing would I get ?

Monitor – at least 22″ widescreen, although I’ll need a home for my current one before I jump.
Thermaltake TT-V3BLAC box – looks ok, cheap, should keep bits cool and neat, Solid name.
Novatech/OCUK power supply – risky going for a no-name as a bad PSU will break the rest of the bits in the box when it goes bang. But if it’s half the price for more grunt …

Forums are useful as well here, Google is a powerful tool if you’re looking for fairly impartial views on kit. Apply X-Files logic though : “Trust No One”.

Zalman CNPS10X Extreme cooler – it’s worth going for the most expensive, biggest cooler in the shop as it’ll keep your system cool while being Very Quiet. I hardly notice my current desktop.
Asus motherboard and Intel cpu – this is a departure for me, the last Intel chip I had was a 486 around 14 years ago. Intel have been making strides forward while AMD have stood somewhat still.
6GB memory – desktop is struggling with 2GB and it’s a choice of 3 or 6. 3 would be close to struggle with games, 6 gives a lot more headroom. I’d want to follow my current desktop which has two hard discs (one Windows, one games) but Ultra Fast solid state drives aren’t cheap enough yet.
Graphics from GeForce – another change, as I sacked the makers of these around 8 years ago due to breakages and bad drivers. The wheel turns full circle …

That’s most of the bits I’d think of getting. I’ve mentioned a few hardware makers in this post :

Asus – had a couple of motherboards from these guys and they are Solid. A motherboard is the foundation of a system, you want it to be granite.
Zalman – they look pretty, they keep stuff cool, they’re quiet. Cost a bit more but they are 100% value for money.
Novatech – they have a shop within easy driving distance and they earned themselves an excellent reputation from their first store in Portsmouth.
Samsung – these guys will take over the world. They have the best R&D ideas and after 1 monitor, 2 TV’s, 1 hard disc which are all high quality, I have no reason (yet!) to go elsewhere. No regrets from going to these guys again.

I’ve made no mention at all of speakers or keyboard and mice … These things are so Personal Choice that if someone does recommend one, don’t listen. Go to a shop, fiddle with the keyboards and mice, see what you like best. It’s your keyboard and mouse and your fingers and hands are different shapes to the reviewer person.

Personal Choice Rules.

I won’t be buying new hardware yet … But I have started thinking about it 🙂

PS The i7 930 processor I’m looking at has more than double the memory on the chip than my first PC had for system memory.
PS2 Somebody mention CAKE ?

There’s a TV writer out there called Joss Whedon.

He cut his teeth with a series called Buffy, which while rather decently catching the popculture of its time is not something I’ve got a hankering to watch over again.

Not so with Firefly.

Could be that it’s sci-fi, which is a genre I take to like people to air (or chavs to alcohol). Could be the down to earth characters. Could be the ‘verse it is set in. Could be the wit that was sewn into the interactions. Could be the ship, small and humble and with a design that Made Sense.

I’m definitely one of the geekier members of the engineer species (hey, I’d chase Kaylee !) and I tend to look out for things like : Would that ship fly. How do you get around it. Multiple routes around in case of fire. Where’s the cables, where’s the vents. Big cargo hold, how do you get stuff in. Yeah, I’m sad, I spot those kind of things and if they aren’t thought about properly I’ll get bored, peeved and shortening in attention span. To that geekus engineeri, Serenity is perfect. The design makes sense and doesn’t succumb to the hell of the Plot Device.

(watching The Deep at the moment, which is getting killed by Plot Devices)

Everything about the tech underneath Firefly is simple. What do they say about good lies ? Keep it simple and it’ll be more believable. Scifi is and always will be a pack of lies. But it’s a pack of lies designed to entertain. If the creators (inc production and direction) try to overcomplicate (a la RTD), they quickly get caught out in the fiction they’re trying to portray as inconsistencies cut out the sense.

Firefly’s all about the 10 core characters and how they are trying to make their way in the ‘Verse. Bit like the David Eddings books, they succeed by allowing the reader/watcher have fun sharing in with the interactions. All 10 have their part to play, whether it be Inara putting the Captain in his place or Serenity digging the crew out of the mess they’ve gotten into. Yes, the ship is a vital part of the cast in a way that I don’t think has been realised since the Liberator or U-96.

I suspect we identify well with them because “They’re Just Like Us”. There’s a bit of a disconnect with series like Star Trek or Stargate, because the characters are just a little too elite. We don’t feel as if we’d fit in, except as someone to clean the boots or hold the doors open. Firefly’s different, you could picture yourself as part of that crew or along for the ride.

They include you in their tale in a way that not much fiction achieves. Except maybe those Eddings books. They’re real people, despite only existing in that small screen.

And that’s Firefly’s big secret. You don’t talk about the tech, you talk about whether Inara and Mal will tell each other how they feel. You’re looking for how Doc Simon is going to put his foot in his mouth again. What’s Serenity going to let them do. What precisely is Jayne going off to do in his bunk. (Don’t answer that last one, in fact, I apologise for putting the image in your head)

You can probably guess that I’ve just done a Firefly marathon 🙂

Enjoyed every minute too of watching the entire far too short run of 15 episodes with the film Serenity being watched tonight. Most scifi series go on too long or are killed off too early. Not often do you get the feeling of Unfinished Business. That’s definitely the feeling with Firefly, there are far more stories to be told in the ‘Verse. Will we ever get to hear them ? Probably not. But I’m keener to hear those stories than I am the stories of B5: Crusade or Defying Gravity. And I was crushed to hear those get canned. The stories and the writing is what counts.

Huge shame that this one was cancelled just as it was really getting going. I have a hankering to watch those 15 episodes again !

Wanted : a seat on a Firefly class transport, will happily be Engineer’s Assistant. Keep your Galaxy Class, your White Star, your NX-01, your Nebulon B, your Daedalus or even your Battlestar (original one, not the rubbish new one).

Gis proper starship. (Would settle for a spot on a Leviathan)

Muahaha – that makes me wish even more I'd got it checked out in A&E, so I could have the trophies of :

X-Ray film (if they give it out)
Cast off cast 🙂

Glad you had a good season and enjoyed it despite the injuries. That shin injury sound slike it could have bene a fracture y'know – from your description of it, the length of time to heal and the fact you couldn't put power down through it!

I have a feeling (looking outside at semi-apocalypse) that we’ve played our last game for this year.

How did the season go ? It was my first season back for quite some time, I have to thank a work colleague (the Batman) for getting me back in when I had given up looking to play again. I’m glad I did, because I’ve enjoyed quite a bit of this season. It’s come at a cost, I picked up one new injury and got reminded of a few more. But that’s a cost I’ll gladly pay in return for the feeling of the wind rushing past my ears as I kick it up to max speed. That’s not a feeling I get too often, as Max Speed needs a lot of room cos it is pretty quick and my brakes are rubbish.

It’s a good feeling knowing that even though I’m 35 (serious thought working that out again earlier) and need help to count up the injuries (not enough fingers), I’m still one of the faster runners that take to the field for our team (over a short distance before it turns to coughing, spluttering and redness). We finished better than we started, with our last 7 games played getting us 7 wins. Early season didn’t go so well, with us losing a few games we should really have won. No league final for us this year.

I hadn’t played a match for 3, maybe 4 years, so I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew bowling would be a bad idea because I’d had the embarassment of what may have been 6-7 wides in a practice thing we tried on an evening where the opposition didn’t turn up. I think that was last year and my only outing that season. I’ve had the shoulder injury since I was 23 but I’d usually been able to bowl through it. It’s progressed though, such that there’s a kind of blockage with the mechanics of the bowling with the result being I can’t control the length I bowl now.

So I only bat now and attempt to salvage as much as possible of the shoulder by staying in the in field so I don’t have to throw too hard. It’s been a mixed bag. When fit, I’ve been able to use my speed to get to the ball quickly, which usually scares batsmen into not running. Once you get second thoughts into their head, that’s half the battle. Appearing competent makes them hesitate, which makes the job much easier.

Gets me grass stains too. I don’t consider that I’ve put enough effort in unless I’ve earned at least one big green or brown (from the mud!) mark on my whites. Or on my shirt, as happened in the game where I fielded a ball standing on my head. Literally. No kidding !

I was surprised to remember technique with the batting in the early knocks. A 2 and a 9 don’t sound like much but it was encouraging enough to get me bat shopping. Mistake … Or was it 🙂 I had my highest score for a little while (a 34) but that knock probably lost us a game by taking up too much time. The new bat felt great in the shop and for the first few knocks but eventually I correlated missing the ball too much with it being too light. Back to the old bat and the first scoring shot was a six.

This season has been about the injuries a little too much. I did actually play through 2 games uninjured ! Apart from the shoulder, which is something I don’t count any more 🙂 First game, I damage something in my groin (again). Groin strains are a little weird, feel weird too. Best description of their effect is that it’s difficult to start moving and tricky to turn. Get pointed in a direction and you can GO. Because it affected my acceleration and reaction time, I ended up fielding closer than usual. And I field close.

That’s another of the old injuries, which I first got in my second season with the home village team. I’d just got fit again from a back injury that hit pre-season nets and thought I’d be able to lengthen my bowling run up to get me more pace. Ah well, the longer run up led to the groin strain. Doh ! Another old injury or more a “tendency” is cramp. I used to have a lot of trouble here, with muscles tending to want to go boom. I’ve done better there this year, with the cramp only partially hitting once.

Good preparation aids proper performance (ok, I “borrowed” a saying there … and corrupted it) In my case, it’s preparing in the afternoon of a game to avoid running out of batteries during the game. You have to listen to what your body asks for, if you don’t do that with exercise then something is going to bite you.

The big injury story of the year was the ankle and shin. I got whacked while fielding. My own fault really, using your hands to grab the ball hurts far less than just getting in the way of it. I should have got this one checked out, as I suspect I could have got the bragging rights of a cracked bone proved by X-Ray. It’s still a little sore after I dunno how many weeks but at least I can put power through it on hard ground now. Not comfortably but it is improving enough for it to be a safer bet when I indulge in the sport of dodging trucks.

Anyway, the aftermath of an 8 inch bruise slowed me down but I’m still pleased there were several comments of “What’s happened to Sleepypete this year, he’s throwing himself around a fair bit ?” Comments like that make Sleepy happy.

Another bruise was the Panda Paw, which I suspect further cemented the Little Canteen Girl’s opinion of me being a little strange. Ok, more than a little strange.

Other highlights (lowlights ?) include being an ambulance driver. I’ve been at several games where an impromptu ambulance has been called for. Once I was the passenger. Once I was batting while their keeper got taken off to hospital (smashed fingers, not pretty). I got hit on the head again in that game but batted on ok because the helmet did its job. First time I’ve been the driver …

I also ran out the Batman to preserve my lead in the averages 🙂 Ok, I was standing down the other end shouting NO while he went for a run that wasn’t there but perverseness means I’m claiming responsibility anyway.

To sum it up, we had a slow start to the season but 7 wins on the trot made it an excellent finish. I helped with runs, sharp fielding and 3 catches through the season.

Glad I came back.

I think I need to avoid buying any more kit this year … Last night :

Head into "Sports Shop", check out new whites. Only see sizes of "Large, Medium, Boys Large" on them. Choose "Large Boys" thinking that the littler legs won't drag too much.

Bad move … I find the label later (cunningly hidden under the jaws of the hangers) Large Boys = 30" waist.

And I still managed to get them on !
(meant to reply last night but brain = mush)