Sleepypete's Pillow

I should have gone to bed an hour or so ago because ever since I got home from work, I’ve been struggling to keep my eyes open. So I missed most of the Middlesex vs Yorkshire Twenty20 quarter final and my dinner was one sandwich.

(I’m chubby enough to not really get into trouble for a missed dinner, plus I’m eating too much junk at work)

Why am I still up ? I’m currently watching the second episode of Long Way Down, which is the follow up to the series Long Way Round from a few years ago. The first series had Ewan McGregor and his mate Charley Boorman riding from London to New York, going East (through Russia etc). Long Way Down has them going from John O Groats to Cape Town.

The bikes they have rival cars for width !

Series has started in the same form as Long Way Round, looking forward to the rest of it. The two boys take the watcher on a tour of far away countries that we’ll probably never see but present it rather differently to the normal Attenborough type presentation of the wild … I like it 🙂

I’m stuck a little for knowing what game I want to waste my time with at the moment, so I’m looking at the old ones again.

This time it’s the turn of Rowan’s Battle of Britain, a fairly old one that has two modes. One mode has you in the position of the air commander for Britain’s defence in Summer 1940. The second mode has you jumping into the cockpit of a Hurricane or Spitfire to do your part from the flyboy’s seat. (You can also fly as the Germans)

However, when this game came out, it had a critical bug where the game would crash in the campaign mode after just a few minutes of waving the mouse around. I could go into the technical details but that wouldn’t add much. So why the “Yey!” moment ? I’m currently reading through the manual for the official patch and hidden in there is my name, given credit for spotting the root cause of this particular bug. I didn’t fix it but my fault finding efforts allowed the BDG developers to squish da bug within about 2 days of being notified.

Having credit like that gives you the belief that occasionally, you do actually know what you’re talking about with software 🙂 I don’t get that all that much at work, because the technical content is mainly with the contractor with us looking after project management. And project management is far less interesting (to me) than seeing what’s happening with the Wiggly Amps.

Oh – it’s also just started raining at Wimbledon. Nadal is up by 2 sets at the moment but Federer has a chance to get back into it. Good game so far.

Weekend ahoy !

Been a relatively busy one. And varied too in what I’ve been up to at work. I’m looking at a bit too much finance at the moment though, instead of being more interesting engineer type busy. Still, it’s useful stuff as the bosses don’t let us buy as many toys if they think we can’t control the budget.

I’ve been attempting to keep up with the telly stuff and that will ease some over the next week or so as a group of series that I watch are finishing their run. I’ve been watching a rerun of Star Trek Voyager, which has got to nearly the end of its third of seven series. House and Heroes are another which are finishing, like Jericho last week. Jericho seemed a bit rushed in how they finished it but at least it’s been allowed to have a good closing out, unlike series like the new Bionic Woman which just fizzled.

Doctor Who should be a cracker tomorrow, it adds a bit of anticipation when BBC do such a good job of rumour control. There were a couple of flashes of what’s ahead but what we will see is a complete mystery. The writers for the new Doctor Who have been producing some good output but I can’t help feeling that they’re steadily tripping up over what they’ve done before. Sometimes a series can build up a little too much history, Buffy is a good example. I think series 5 had Buffy up against a God, it’s like – ok, they’ve beat a God, where do they go from there ?

The Crazies watched Prince Caspian on Wednesday. Not quite sure what to make of that one, it’s up to the normal Disney production standards and has some very spectacular battle sequences. Somehow it was missing something though. Can a film have a soul ? At least the pizza before was excellent as usual, even if Pizza Hut’s brainwave for how they present garlic bread is rather flawed.

We’ll be watching Wanted tomorrow. It has Angelina Jolie as one of the lead roles, so I’m expecting something special there.

Right – back to Voyager now and later a bit more Warcraft. It’s Alterac Valley weekend, which means most of the players who can participate will be hitting that particular battleground because it’s the most efficient way of earning a currency known as Honour which goes towards buying better gear.

He’s not exactly mainstream is Jools Holland 🙂

Miss A works around the corner … We used to joke that we worked in the best looking project team on the site 🙂 Because of the people who worked in it. The faces have changed over time though, with more mature faces replacing the very young ones. Miss A is the last one left of the young & pretty ones 🙂

(the others are “mature” and pretty !)

this is the 3rd time in as many days that I’ve read a mention of Jools Holland. I have to check them out, I am so uncool at times.

Miss A? Have I missed some juiciness!?

What’s happened since Thursday ? Been up to see mum & dad, with big sis coming along as well. Friday was Newmarket races, Saturday was general chilling out (that was the plan 😉 and watching the England v NZ game before heading home again. Sunday was free and I’ve been back to work today.

Newmarket was a different kind of sporting event. People seemed to feel the need to dress up as if it was a special social occasion. Weird. Meant there were some excellent sights on show, amongst the chavs who stick out because they try too hard. You don’t tend to see much with the racing, apart from the rumble of the horses as they’re approaching and the blur as they flash past. You’re depending on the course announcer to let you know who wins and that’s a bit like trying to hear the proverbial train announcer.

I only put one bet in, an accumulator type that failed on the first race. However, I picked 2 winners on the look of the horse (out of 5 attempts) and 1 on form (out of 2). From someone who’s only seen my sister’s horse for the last few years, that’s not too bad. I wouldn’t have made any worthwhile money though if betting because I was mostly agreeing with the bookies with their favourite to win.

What do I mean by the Look of the Horse ? Form can give you an idea of how the horse is likely to do but the best way is to get a good look at them while they’re in the parade ring. That way, you can see whether they’re healthy and most importantly Up For It. Some horses get a little too excited for the whole thing, some want to follow instead of lead. The ones to look for are the ones who are relaxed, lean and appearing to know what they’re doing. Which is to Pin Back the Ears, Run, Run Fast and Feel The Wind. I feel like that when I open up for sprinting – not had that for quite some time. Getting too excited means energy wasted.

After the racing was a concert by Jools Holland’s band. The bits where Marc Almond guested were the high point here. I have a fuzzy piccy from my mobile and need to figure out how to extract that for posting.

Saturday was more fraught than it needed to be. My mum & dad hadn’t had a trip in the new car yet, so I took ’em to the pub in Lincoln. Car reverses, car comes off the drive, car goes forward, car gets massive judder from the back end. Looks like part of the brake pad on the left rear became detached and welded itself on to the brake disc. Interesting … So I had about 1mm-2mm thickness of detritus stuck to the brake disc that was whacking the part of the brake pad that hadn’t got damaged.

The judder on normal forward driving disappeared quickly but it took a few applications of brake over the 20ish miles to pub to stop it juddering on braking. It’s back to 100% now, no more judder and I had full brake capability all the way. A scare to be sure but it doesn’t look like it’ll cost me money.

Saturday also had the frustration of watching England lose tamely again. On Wednesday, the commentators said that NZ had their best side out which had me asking “Why don’t England pick their best side ?” We have a wicket keeper who doesn’t score any runs, doesn’t look like scoring runs and commits the cardinal sin of dropping catches, easy ones too. Byebye Mr Keeper. Hopefully. I have the feeling that the politics of team selection will keep him in when he doesn’t deserve it. The keeper isn’t the only thing though, they have several players playing in unaccustomed positions.

Yesterday was going to be a lazyday but I got caught in a long World of Warcraft session 🙂 Which was fun because I was using my druid in a party with more guildmates. That’s something we didn’t do enough of in Mercs, past the early days we never seemed to support each other. And today was back to work. Having a “hello”, a smile and a wave from Miss A is enough to cheer anyone up 🙂

Yep – smoking’s getting more and more expensive too as the lawmaking people try to get people avoiding the addiction by making it harder and harder to keep up with. Bit like trying to get people off the road by putting “green” taxes on fuel etc.

It doesn’t work that way – addiction’s far more insidious like that. It’s like punishing people for things they have to do anyway, like that long car journey they’re going to do or even using the car for work because the public transport just isn’t up to the job. (or costs more)

PS I is horribly addicted to Spider Solitaire. But I can still put it away when it’s time to get back to work 🙂

PS2 I must be a sucker for the pretty blonde 🙂 Just had one turn up on the door step, look at me “that way” and before you know it, she’s in the house calling me a bachelor (it’s a much deserved title!) and I’m changing my energy supplier !

really insightful stuff kiddo

I have to be at the computer a lot due to work so it would be easy to get addicted to blogging or games (I play silly old lady stuff like popping balloons or moving mahjong tiles around!) but I too suffer from back and neck issues so I move around a lot – plus the work needs to get done!

I will admit I smoke and that is a nasty SOB to get past. And way more dangerous than a game or pizza, not to mention incredibly expensive.

I see it and I try.

Did you know that pizza is considered one of the most nutritionally balanced foods at just 245 calories a slice!?

You’re doing good.

I reckon everyone’s addicted to something. Thing is though, they don’t always know what they’re addicted to.

Me, I’m pretty sure I have a handle on all my addictions. There’s the popcorn, the computer games, the sci-fi and fiction shows. Also caffeine, which I manage with a combination of coke (the drink), coffee and chocolate. Pizza too but the expense of that means I don’t indulge too often. (Maybe next Monday !). That’s kinda a lot of addictions, maybe I’m just habit bound 🙂

What’s triggered this post in particular ? I tried to get on World of Warcraft earlier (definitely addicted there!) but was frustrated by not being able to connect to the servers. Same happened yesterday and it looked like there were a few more problems lingering on when they got them back up again. For those not inducted into gaming circles, a server outage is usually accompanied by an avalanche of posts from the more heavily addicted demanding that the servers go back online. They need their fix and throw the teddies out of the pram when they’re denied it.

I don’t think I’m quite that bad … Ok, when my internet went Bang a couple of days ago (twice!) I was trying all I knew to fix it but that was partly because I didn’t want to let down the people I was in a group with. Today, I’ve gone to catching up on the SkyPlus stuff again (Reaper and Dresden Files)

I think one thing that allows me to keep my particular gaming addictions under control is seeing what it can do to other people. Because I know a few people who have become so under the spell of the game that the game changes who they are. I think that’s where playing the game to enjoy jumps the bridge into being Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I have tendencies there but that’s where I get some advantage from the Old Bones. If I sit at a computer too long, then my back and shoulder start to freeze up, which is a definite sign that I need to start moving around some more 🙂

That’s a lot of talking about me up top there … How about addiction ? The worst thing about addictions is that they creep up behind us when we’re not looking and sneak in to take control. The need to feed them provides a compulsion that makes us ignore what we’re supposed to be doing. For me, that means occasionally I’ll go deep in game so much I’ll still be in there way past when I should have had a bit of dinner. I’m not rake-thin, so I can handle a few missed dinners. However, I also neglect other things like making sure the house isn’t a tip. Which it is …

It’s not just World of Warcraft that has the addicted people, it’s the other games too. Eve has periodic downtime and occasionally longer breaks when they’re changing something. The players get fair warning that the game will be offline for a day but they feel the Need to play that much that they don’t know what to do outside of the game. I’ve been there before but hopefully I’ve stepped back far enough to have a little more control over it.

Maybe greeting not being able to log into That Game with writing a blog post about it is a sign that I’m getting in too deep again ? Dunno there. We shall see. I’m back to work next week, so not so much time on my hands. At least being addicted to World of Warcraft means I’m not buying a game a month to satisfy the game addiction I have 🙂 So even with the subscription it works out cheaper. Plus I’m a fan of the new guild I’m in. Hopefully they’ll continue as they have been, without being adversely affected by a vote that means it’ll be easier to get characters coming in to the guild.

There’s a lot of potential addictions out there, including games, narcotics, bad habits and all the other things people get addicted to. I like to think I avoid the really dangerous ones while keeping a handle of the more innocent ones that have me. I have a need for coffee but realised last night that I hadn’t had a cup since last Friday (probably cos of having too much coke!). I don’t smoke, drink alcohol or indulge in recreational drugs, which just so happens to leave more cash for what I really want to do.

What’s my advice to those caught in an addiction ? Try to recognise what you have. It’s not necessarily a problem, unless it’s taken to excess. That’s when the addiction starts to own you. Who’s the boss in your life ? You Are !!! Don’t let the addiction usurp your position as boss of your own life. If your friends start trying to tell you that you have a problem, they’re trying to do you a favour. They’ve seen the addiction before you have and they’re trying to help you out. They want the old you back, the one from before the addiction became the boss.

I like your answers to #s 3 and 5 🙂 Thanks for playing!