Sleepypete's Pillow

We’ll see what happens next year there 😉

I can see why performing artists get a buzz. They’re doing their bit in front of an audience that’s judging them on how well they do.

In sport, you’re doing something similar in trying to perform the best you can – but there’s another person out there also trying to perform to their best and the one that does the better job comes out the winner.

There’s luck there too but I’m a firm believer in people making their own luck through practice, preparation and training 🙂

PS Would like to try sailing some time. There’s getting the best out of the boat … Plus, getting the most out of the wind too.

Blimey – when it decides to rain here, there’s no half measures.

I have a scale I use when it gets moist :

Damp – this is most rain that’s enough to get you wet, enough to keep the wipers on full
Unpleasant – visibility’s starting to get a bit restricted
Dangerous – poor visibility, standing water on the roads
Nasty

Nasty is when you’re driving and at any moment, you could get into the Aquaplaning thing. Which is never something that’s going to end up fun. I had a trip up and down the motorway tonight, the way there was fine – just “Damp”. On the way back though, I got the chance to see what happens when my latest car aquaplanes …

The tyres on the front of my Focus are fine, there’s lots of tread on them. The rear ones probably need replacing, so it’s time for the tentative driving style when things get worse than “Unpleasant”. We had a taste of what driving would be like during the gaming session … When it gets to be really heavy rain, it can be tricky to hear people through the sound of the rain on the roof.

Erm – I said Aquaplane above didn’t I ?

I must have hit a river going up one of the hills on the motorway – yep, it was raining that hard ! Car slows down as it hits the water, Orange Flashy Light comes on and blinks and I’m thinking “ooookay – time to let the wheel go relaxed and ride it out …”

Orange Flashy Light being the traction and stability control …

Hopefully it’ll rain itself out over tonight and tomorrow – there’s an England one day game scheduled for Wednesday. Did I crash with the aquaplaning ? Nah. Almost noone else on the road (apart from 2x PsychoTransit going at 80mph+) and the electronics in the car meant I retained control and didn’t leave my lane. Went from 70 down to 50 though …

I also had the chance to catch up with one of the boys from the Mercs while at work today. He’s a good bloke is Charge, never really got much out of what he put into the Mercs as the times when he could get on to play weren’t really compatible with the times when we would raid. It was good to have a natter – I’ve been fairly isolated with what happened with Mercs, ever since backing out of WoW about 6 months ago. What I have seen has come from the collapse of the Mercs guild site and a few posts that appeared before it died. Those posts resulted in a couple of rants on this blog, the most significant one being in May (archive link on the right should take you to it).

I won’t be going back to The Maelstrom server, there’s far too much historical baggage that came out of the “Iceangel the Enforcer” job that I often took on due to the other officers not having the guts to do it themselves. What I will be doing is remembering a select few :

Charge – thought I’d spotted him on my new server but – different Charge
Soul – one of the best people I know, used to work on the same project, great mate
Caira & Auraka – crossing fingers for their little one (dunno when C&A Jr is due …)
Fubb – has gone to Eve now as it suits what he’s after in an online game better than WoW does
Aella/Monkie – always a good one to have a natter with
And the various Violence Reborn people who I’m playing the game with on the Blade’s Edge server.

There’s a couple more ex-Mercs who might think they’re worth a mention above but … Nah. Their actions in the leadup to the guild breaking up and their actions immediately afterward disqualify them from a special mention. If you go from “we hate CiB and would do anything to stay ahead of them in loot tables” and then go actually join that guild that you were competing with as if they were the blood enemy, then the credibility goes through the floor. If you were the one in charge of the guild kicking everyone out and therefore breaking the promise made by a senior member that people could retire their characters and keep the guild tag, then I hope you don’t get allergic to sleeping pills.

A guild officer’s first responsibility is to look after the members of the guild. It isn’t to steal everything in the guild bank and leave to join a different organisation, without doing what they could to ease the transition. Yep, I effectively walked out on the Mercs by quitting the game – I was sick of the game at the time. But what I did do after was keep an eye on the forums and attempt to ease the transition from functioning guild to Retirement Home for Old Characters.

Heh heh heh – That must be what I mean by too much historical baggage to think about coming back to the Maelstrom. Time to get back to watching NCIS before heading off to sleep.

May you long have the ability to get out there and play – and to continue to share it with the people who matter most.

You’ve reinforced why participating in sports is so magical. Wonderfully put!

Just finished chilling out to a game of cricket on the telly that was far, far closer than the one sided show that we had on Tuesday.

Somerset vs Worcestershire in a game dominated by the batsmen but where the result was determined by the bowlers. Couldn’t have been a much closer finish, even though 20 minutes before the end it was looking like a foregone conclusion. Cricket is like that, unlike football where it’s rare that something happens to change the Result State, every ball in cricket can change the Result State.

What do I mean by “Result State” ?

In football, it would be the score changing from 1-0 to 1-1. The Result if nothing else significant happens has changed by the event of someone scoring a goal. In baseball, think of it being a double play to close out an innings where the bases are loaded or a home run that allows a side to catch up. Result State changes don’t happen too often in football, which is why I think they are very good for me to have on the telly while I’m trying to finish reading a book.

In cricket though, Result State changes happen almost every ball, especially in the new Twenty20 format which is getting so popular nowadays. I think that’s why I love the game so much and is probably why my enthusiasm has infected the rest of the family 🙂 They’re hooked too now. A shame they weren’t hooked 15 years ago, they’d have caught a finish and turn around almost as exciting as any I can (barely!) remember.

The scene – it’s the village cricket ground and a bit of a murky day. I liked those when bowling because the murky conditions would make the ball swing more. That was my main weapon, if you can find archive footage of one Waqar Younis, that’s what I aimed for. Although I was probably more like 60-70mph instead of 90mph. I had the massive boomerang inswinger that made his bowling so devastating 🙂

From what I remember, we’d batted well and set a decent target. It was a 40 over game, where bowlers could bowl a maximum of 10 each. Which meant 4 bowlers. I came on after 20, to bowl my 10 off the reel like usual. It was in my first season with the men’s team and I was 17 (pre shoulder injury), so at that time I could quite happily do that on the weekends. When I started, the match was pretty well poised. I took 3 wickets in my first 9 overs but when it came around to my last over, the match looked done and dusted :

2 main bowlers finished their 10
3rd main bowler with just 6 balls left (me !)
no 4th main bowler, so easy to hit part timers to come
About 5-6 overs left (plenty of time !)
6 runs required to win (could do it in one hit)
3 wickets left (loads!)
Bloke in and batting well on 48 not out

You add that all up together and even a relative cricket novice would say : 99 times out of 100 the batting side is going to win comfortably. That’s probably what 10 of the guys on our team though too. Not me – I was too young, naive and indestructible. Muahahaha – yeah right. I forgot to mention that some time through my first 9 overs I’d tweaked my back. I didn’t really notice cos the adrenaline and Game Face were tuning it out.

So what actually happened ? I’ve given a lot of tantalizing build up but not spilled the beans :

1st ball – oh dear those stumps are going flying – that boomerang inswinger got a result
2nd ball – darn – missed em but it’s ok, 48 not out guy is still at the other end
3rd ball – AEROPLANE WINGS ! Stumps are out of the ground again, next batsman please
4th ball – He runs in, He bowls, He screams a millisecond after the ball hits the pads !

And the bowling team win that 100th game out of a 100. We’d won an with an extraordinary final over, with the umpire giving a Leg Before Wicket decision that was probably a given seeing as my other 5 wickets on the night were also bowled out. We were a bit sheepish shaking the hand of the bloke on 48 not out as, by rights, they should have won that game.

Dunno how much of the above is actual memory and how much is reconstruction – but the figures are burned into my brain : 3 wickets for Mr Higginbotham who opened the bowling. Couldn’t have won the game without those as my inswingers didn’t tend to trouble the better batsmen. I wouldn’t have got my 6 without those 3 by the other guy. My figures were 9 overs, 4 balls costing 24 runs for 6 wickets. The 10th wicket was a run out. It wasn’t the best I’ve ever bowled, that was a 10 over spell costing 19 runs but only getting 1 wicket.

I’ll be trying to keep hold of the 6 for 24 memory as long as I can, it’s the best figures I’ll ever get as the state of my shoulder says I won’t be bowling again … Being able to bat too is a blessing 🙂 Will have to see how many runs I can get when batting and run-outs I can get in the field next year.

I think one of the problems with the modern world is that our communication and connectivity is so much better than it used to be that it takes a special effort to be on our own for a while.

Before mobile phones and email and online games, when that front door closed, we could quite happily shut the world out. Now, it’s not quite so easy …

I think it does us good to have a little Me Time occasionally, that’s why I’m having a week off work this week – I get kinda burned out sometimes. Still, it’ll be good to get back next week and be said “hello” to by the blonde lady who is the latest victim of The Grin ™ 🙂

If you’re looking for lighthearted fun dvd – can’t go wrong with anything Pixar 😉

I need to curl up with a few DVDs. Thanks for the encouragement. I have no idea what I’ll watch – it could probably be anything at this point. I just need to carve out the time. I need a break from the merry go round.

Thanks for the motivation!

I think there’s a bit of needing to play to the audience there too.

Voyager has a deliberate contrast built in with the Captain Proton episodes, where they show a 1930s era world inside the holodeck. Even down to turning characters black and white 🙂

It’s probably a need to make a bridge to allow the audience to easily relate to what’s going on up on the screen. If it’s too different, people just go “what the hell” and switch off …

[chuckle] Yesterday’s walkie talkie is today’s mobile phone is tomorrow’s Blackberry.

My favorite “old tech aging in an interesting manner” reference is the digital displays in the original Star Trek series. This was before LEDs and LCDs, so they used the ones where the numbers simply rotated on a drum beneath the display opening.

Quaint, of course. Yet, like you, I also love watching this “aging” process because it speaks volumes of how far we’ve come. AND how even today’s “advancements” will soon look quaint as well.

Currently watching a Doctor Who episode, dating back to 1975. Not quite from before I was born …

Like when watching Blakes 7 again, it’s curious to see what time has done to these old shows. A good story always depends on the writing behind it. What tends to date are the machines that make up the backgrounds. Things like CRT screens and open reel magnetic tape drives. Big mechanical switches instead of keyboards, trackballs and touch screens.

One thing we’ve seen with the latest Doctor Who series is their occasional tipping of the hat towards the older series. Things like Daleks with force field shields and the ability to fly. Oh, there’s also how one of them dealt with being hit by a paintball gun 🙂

Memorable line – “This is not war. This is Pest Control” – Dalek to Cyberman.

The current episode on at the moment is Revenge of the Cybermen, from 1975. One thing I’ve spotted is the faking of a miniature screen – the sets and outfits look a little dated but you can mostly ignore that by keeping your eye on the story.

One of my favourite authors is Robert Heinlein, who had the rare gift shared by the best sci-fi authors of making the technology a secondary support to the main story instead of being the primary focus. The best authors always work on strong characters and Heinlein writes some of the strongest. He sometimes appears dated, by mentioning tapes and punch cards but again that’s what was known in the day. The important stuff like planetary orbital physics, biology and sociology are all present and totally correct, if a little opinionated.

Why watch and read the old stuff ? Things like the early Doctor Who and Heinlein are things that I’m a little too young for. The book I’m reading at the moment, Time Enough For Love, was written a year before I was born and contains such gems as :

“Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work just as well.”
“Be wary of strong drink, it may make you shoot at tax collectors … and miss.”
“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.”
“Never try to outstubborn a cat.”
“Natural laws have no pity.”
“A generation which ignores history has no past – and no future.”

I’m currently re-reading Time Enough For Love and having a second look now that I’ve read a lot more of Heinlein’s Lazarus Long books. I stayed up far too late last night reading the Tale Of The Adopted Daughter, which makes up a hundred or so pages of the middle. It’s one of the few passages that can draw an honest tear, firstly due to the fate of Buck but mostly due to inevitable conclusion to the tale. It’s the story of the love between a man who for all intents and purposes lives forever and the adopted daughter who has a far more normal lifespan. He knows what he’s getting in to when he agrees to stay with Dora but stays with the adopted daughter for love. Including leaving his settlement with Dora to set out as pioneers because that’s the only way they can be open and honest about their relationship and age.

There’s more in the book – and it’s a very worthy read if you can find it. Our booksellers nowadays seem to like ignoring that last Heinlein statement above, by ignoring the older books.

Right – back to Doctor Who and a bit more chilling out 🙂 I’m off work next week, taking a spell away from the office. I’m pretty tired at the moment, so this will be a welcome rest and recharge. I’m also hoping to watch the end of the Olympics tomorrow. Britain have done really well over there, it’s just a shame that the schedules haven’t really been compatible with viewers in the UK.

You have an amazing ear for great music! I need to spend more quality time with the artists who jazz me.