Sleepypete's Pillow - I like exploring in computer games, music, cricket, drawing and pizza and sharing those with people. Oh and I also inherited the name Sleepydwagonman too ! The site is a work in progress at the moment but it's getting there, features will come in over time !

Back from cruise, advent day 1 !

December 1, 2024

9:07 pm

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Hello everyone,

It’s been a while again, I did mostly intend to do some posts while I was at sea but it didn’t quite work out that way. A lot of that is down to where my own headspace was (it’s improved now) when I disappeared. Some of it down to enjoying the cruise as well. Sometimes you really do need that time away from the world to get centred again and do a little reset.

Advent ? Here we are :

Picture. We're looking at the top of a box, with a snowscene. There are numbered doors on the box, it's an advent calendar. A small grey space fighter is lower left, being looked at by a red plush dwagon.

There we are, I’ll hopefully find something suitable for you every day. Like I’m not going to drop 12 days of cruise all at once :-D. Little X Wing there for day 1, with little Ellardy there for scale. The cruise turned into a bit of a Dwagon On Tour with the pictures. The little fella wasn’t in all of the pictures but was definitely in a lot of them. Let’s see …

Picture. We're on the outside deck of a ship, looking at the little red dwagon looking at us. It's night time and in the distance behind, disappearing into blur, is the rail defining the edge of the deck and the blurry lights of the city we are departing.

This time around, it was the Mystery Cruise with Fred Olsen, going from Southampton to Portsmouth and 6 ports in between. We’d find out where we were docking up when we arrived (although there were niceties with international shipping conventions that meant we could find out early). There was much speculation as to where we were going … Some thought we might head East to south Scandinavia (my theory). Others were looking south.

We headed south in the end, although that did lead to a couple of uncomfortable crossings of the Bay of Biscay. It’s not a forgiving place for shipping :-D. So I spent the first day and a bit being quite uncomfortable from a combination of not having my sea legs and my own metabolism and psychology ganging up on me. (I unconsciously don’t do a number 2 unless I trust the place and it takes a couple of days to get that unconscious trust – it’s silly and I don’t know why it’s in my head!)

Picture. Our little red dwagon is perched on top of a pole, looking off to the right. In the background, our huge cruise ship is docked up alongside. She is blue at the base, with a thin red line separating upper decks in white. There are red funnels on top and yellow lifeboats half way up.

That’s us in our second port of Ferrol in Northern Spain. This’ll be a quicker kinda intro overview for the cruise. I’ll go into each port separately in later ports.

The whole thing about cruising is that the ship will go from port to port, where you’ll see new things at each place. And then you can retreat back and be extremely well looked after when you’re back on board. And we were very well looked after by Fred’s people.

There’s a certain etiquette that each cruise line will go by. Hurtigruten were very casual. Fred’s ship was a bit more formal than that but still somewhere you could happily relax as a casual person that doesn’t really do formal stuff. Other cruise lines are more formal, like I won’t include Cunard on my samplings of the different cruise lines because I think they’re Too formal.

I have to admit that I was rethinking my life choices on the first Wednesday, when I had the bloating and the sea sickness from crossing the Bay of Biscay. But managed to reset my head (and body) during the first port visit on the Thursday.

So – cruise as a whole : really enjoyed it. Wanting to go back on a cruise as soon as I can get away with it. Probably not with Fred’s people just yet … however I would happily recommend them to people looking at a good company to go on any holiday with. (I’m just wanting to sample everyone’s offers but there is a tempting August 2026 solar eclipse cruise …)

The excellent customer service started when preparing for the cruise, I think I commented before that it was making me happy seeing the details steadily come in through the post. And that continued on board with my cabin being looked after by the lovely MT (hello MT !) and our dining table in the main restaurant was being looked after by a chap from India who, true to form for me, was a lovely guy and super polite. They’d be asking me about what I was seeing and I think they were being as invested in the adventures of the Little Red Dwagon as everyone else who was seeing me suddenly bounce off somewhere to set up a picture.

It was a genuinely fun time.

I won’t go into it too much more here outside of a little : people can look really fine on the outside when they are definitely NOT fine. I needed a chance to get out of the world for a little while and the cruise let me do just that. Whereas a hotel trip can be … good while you’re cozy, there’s still the travel involved. A cruise handles all the travel for you, plus the crew are wonderful people. It makes for a lovely time and, as it was last year, just what I needed.

Picture. It's a sunny day with clouds in the sky. We're looking out over a beach. Our little red dwagon is sitting on the wall separating beach from the city areas. In the distance, we can see a ferry and our cruise ship with the two funnels.

We were looked after incredibly well. Food was great, I could always have something compatible with my curious requirements. (I’m find with fish but have trouble with steak these days) And I really enjoyed being able to wander around the decks, including doing circuits of the Promenade deck looking out to the sea and the view we were getting from the open part of the upper deck.

I think that’s it for me for this post, have a lovely evening everyone. I’ll be aiming to do an advent post every day, so more cruising posts interspersed with other things like gaming, reading and the music. I haven’t got a theme in mind this year, I did that a few times over previous years and I think it burned me out on the blog posting a fair bit. Maybe doing 3 themes in a post every day was a bit much.

Still, time’s turning, hope you all have a good holiday season and you get the chance to be able to look after yourself :-).

Cruise last, cruise next ?

by Sleepypete

November 8, 2024

8:44 pm

Leave a comment on Cruise last, cruise next ?

travel

cruise, travel

Hello everyone,

I’m on leave again ! Not sure if I mentioned it (probably did but memory is goldfish) but I’m disappearing out of the world again for a little while. I’ll hopefully be able to post while I’m out there but I did think I should probably finish up posting what happened on the last cruise before the next one starts.

Picture. We're looking at a little red dragon figure sitting in a Norwegian Viking style longboat. There are 5 shields on the side of the boat with Norway flags, the red and white striped sail is full and there is a Norway flag at the top of the mast.

This next one came about from a fairly random asking of the Google for “cruise November 2024”. I’ll post more about that later. Gotta wrap up the last one first ! I left it last time with the visit to Rødøya Island on the middle Monday, after a magical trip to the top of Norway where we saw the huskies and got the selfies with the aurora. If you click on the “travel” label then that will be the easiest way of taking you to the Northern Lights cruise posts.

Tuesday saw us visiting the little coastal community of Bessaker, we might have tripled the population for the day. Charming place, absolutely lovely people, very tasty noms there, coziness and a very friendly representative of the natives :

Picture. We're looking downwards at a road. A large dark curly haired poodle is looking back at us from down the road. There are three people there, two in the red Hurtigruten coats, one in normal cold gear.

They also have a wall of trolls there. I didn’t manage to bring back any goodies though because I’d been forgetting to put my wallet in my coat (oops). They have a big staircase up to a view point as well here which I have to admit to chickening out on because my back started turning even more to glass around this kind of time. (Spoiler, it’s still glass)

Next up on the Wednesday was Loen, which has a cable car lift up to the top of the mountain. We were being menaced by multiple storm systems in the North Sea and North Atlantic around this time, so the weather wasn’t great …

Picture. We're looking at a fog bound scene. To the left is the fences for the mountain top facility. There is a cleared path on the left and a snow covered side of the mountain to the right. We can just about make out an orange wind sock in the centre.

Yep. We in the clouds.

There was also a bit of excitement caused by a power failure, so we were a little delayed going up the mountain. However, there was consolation in a hot chocolate and a delicious cookie in the shop at the top of the mountain with a lovely lady behind the counter with a charming sidekick.

Picture. We're looking down at the bits and bobs on a shop counter. On top of a black box, we can see a black rubber vampire duck with bat wings and fangs

Best shop mascot ever.

Thursday saw us sheltering from the storms in Hardangerfjord, with a quiet chilled out day that included the expedition team taking us for a rigid inflatable boat ride up and down the fjord. I didn’t get many pictures to share but it was going being out and about there. There is one picture that I’ll save to close out the post on.

The Friday was a trip to Stavanger, which became the oil capital of Norway. The geology of the North Sea meant that Norway got a big prize in terms of being able to control the oil reserves off the coast and Stavanger was the city that sprung up to feed the exploitation industry. The petroleum museum is well worth a visit, although I do regret being a bit too low on batteries that day to seek out the more tourist areas.

Picture. We're looking at a building by the dockside to the left. The building has a magnificent mural painted on it. On the right, an astronaut holding painted letters spelling out "Stavanger Houston".

The Saturday was a sea day as we made our way back across the North Sea to England, with us arriving back in Tilbury a day later than scheduled on the Sunday. It was an incredible trip, a good one to have as my first cruise holiday. It’ll be interesting to see what the contrast is for the next cruise. The ship I’ll be on is more a purpose built cruise holiday ship that’s more than 3 times the size of MS Maud (now back in service after the incident in Dec 2024 and renamed back to Midnatsol).

We were really well looked after on Maud. A small cruise ship but very cozy, relaxed and it was a fantastic holiday. I’d thoroughly recommend the cruising. On a normal hotel holiday, you’re based around the same place and explore under your own power. On a cruise holiday, there will be stuff to be enjoying on the ship and the ship will be moving from port to port (usually while you’re sleeping) giving you a new place to explore.

Picture. It's the morning before sun up. We're looking out from the ship towards the shore. On the left, the bulwarks of the ship and a Norway flag hanging down from a pole. In the distance, the town of Loen in the gap between hills to the left and right. It's a very cloudy sky.

This was the port entry to Loen on the Wednesday morning. The Loen visit was another where the tender boats were required to get us to shore. This was a very well practiced, well grooved and above all safe exercise for guests not particularly used to being at sea.

Last one for this series before signing off :

Picture. We're looking out from the windows of the ship towards the V of the Hardangerfjord closing towards a bridge at the end. To the left are hills, with more terrain at the end. We can see 3 boats full with people with red jackets. The boats are moving away from us, down the fjord.

There we go. It was a great experience, actually economical and affordable too and I’d thoroughly recommend looking at cruises as a way to experience something different. You are a bit at the mercy of the weather. 15 minutes later, the fog had come in and you couldn’t see the terrain at the end of the fjord there.

See you all next time, hopefully it won’t take me nearly a year to finish off the next series !

Mountains, bugs, plans

by Sleepypete

October 25, 2024

10:48 pm

Leave a comment on Mountains, bugs, plans

travel

travel, Wales

Hello everyone,

It’s been a little while ! I needed to go under the covers for a little while to attempt to rest up and recuperate. I’m reasonably sure I had another round of covid … But first, thumbnail ?

Picture. We're looking at a black train with the wheelhouse to the left, the train is pointing to the right. We can see the train's engine. The train is parked at a platform on our side of the train.

Wales trip may have involved a train.

I was being very aware while writing the last post that I was increasingly struggling for brain power as the post was going on and it was a bit of a squeeze getting it out. I didn’t get hit badly physically by the bugs this time, I just got very heavy brain fog from it. It will have been picked up from the Creator North event, with a cluster of people reporting getting bugs not long after. (Wonderful event, have enjoyed the two so far) Some got hit pretty hard and were pretty much bedridden. Whereas I head off to North Wales feeling just mildly off. And then the weekend came and being able to turn off after Wales meant that I very definitely switched off for the weekend. (And had very crunchy upper body too).

It felt like I was working off only less then half the usual amount of brain power and even there, only had brain batteries for like half a day. It hit work quite a bit, although that’s part rationing out what you apply the brain cells to. Some stuff needs doing but doesn’t need that deep thought ? Not quite sure how to say that without saying that I may have been slacking. Sometimes stuff needs the deep thought, sometimes it’s just stuff that can be done on near automatic. Both types of work are needed to get everything done.

Yeah, that affected me for far longer than it should have done. I could still function physically (as far as I can these days) but everything mentally was a big effort. So I stayed away a little bit and also just stayed to familiar games that I didn’t need to learn.

Snowdon ?

Picture. We're looking out of a window at a set of train tracks going into the distance. On the windowshelf in front are three more little train models. We can see the platforms to the left and right.

I’ve been up Snowdon before, a little over ten years ago. We took one of the walking trails that time. I’m not close to that level of fitness these days, plus I fancied looking at the train ride this time. Link there to the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which is 1 hour up, half an hour there, 1 hour back. A leisurely train ride.

Picture. We're looking out of a train window, over a deep valley cut into the hills. We can see a road winding its way through the valley from lower left to middle right.

And a wonderful view out of the side windows (pardon the reflection!)

Picture. We're looking out from the top of Mount Snowdon at the countryside rolling out in front of us. There are several small lakes visible as the valleys connect. The sky is full of thin white cloud, some of which is faintly obscuring the distant view.

And a great view at the summit. I have to admit to struggling a bit at this point. Perhaps the bugs were affecting my lungs a little bit. I didn’t go all the way up to the summit as I was feeling a bit off, light headed and unsteady at the 1085m up that is the Snowdon Mountain Railway station, cafe and shop. Half the pictures are looking at the sky thinking that the clouds were the valleys !

Picture. Another view from the top of Snowdon. We're looking out over the craggy stone path at the rolling countryside of North Wales. It's good weather again, with wispy thin cloud in the sky, covering the landscape in increasing mist.

More view ? Spot the hair between the lens and the camera sensor ! That’s something I’m learning about the mirrorless fancy camera, because you can change the lenses dust and obstructions can get in. Will bear that in mind in future :-D.

Picture. We're looking downwards out of the train window towards a trail cutting its way through the hillside. There is a small building halfway up. The ground is tinged with the green of parched grass that needs a bit of water to waken it up.

There’s people on that there trail … Well worth going up there. Maybe could do with a bit more time up there before the call comes to come back again ? There is a canteen cafe down at the bottom of the hill though.

Picture. We're looking at the railway as it curves to the right. A train is side on to us, ascending the mountain. There is a stony walking trail to the top left, with a small collection of people scattered around it.

Also train, with assorted people dotted around above, descending. It’s a single track railway with a few passing points, which dictates the schedule with trains needing to pause to allow the up train to pass the down train.

What goes up has to come down some time though, so it was back down to Llanberis (home of this railway) and back home again. I could feel the bugs getting in (hope I didn’t pass them on to too many people, I know some people got the bugs from me) and I had 200 miles to go home. It should have taken 4 hours plus a stop or two. It took 7 hours on the road as a couple of incidents on the M6 motorway led to standstill traffic. I did trust the satnav this time, which got me in range of those incident points. I’d gone a different way, more cross country, on the way up. I like to vary the routes I go on.

Mentioning that … there has been some gaming going on in the last month :

Well and truly fell off the Little Big Workshop wheel again with a series of completed runs on that. I’ve been doing challenge runs and making up challenge runs for that. It’s a lovely cute little factory building game where I can set up things for the delightful little idiots (their AI can be a bit flawed and awkward) to assemble to sell.

Star Wars Outlaws took a bit longer than intended (2 months of Ubi+ renting) to finish. I’d thoroughly recommend this one, I really enjoyed running around that world for a while. It has a sizeable Tatooine area around Mos Eisley and other areas of the first films. It’s actually set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and there are a couple of cameos in there from the films.

I’ve also gone back to the two Truck Simulator games this week, with a restart in Euro Truck Sim 2 (to get explorer achievements0 and continuing American Truck Sim. They’re good ones to turn the brain off to again and I’ve been needing to ration the rational thought. Need a new controller though, my one is failing.

I had a look at Shapez 2 and Production Line (car building game) but brain was giving me the nope on those.

There’s also been a bit of reading, maybe more about that in a later post. Highlight of the books was Deep Black by Miles Cameron, continuing on from the very well done space thriller Artifact Space. He’s made a wonderful universe there. Also Thornhedge by T Kingfisher, a very sweet short tale with a twist on Rapunzel and other maiden in the tower stories.

I better hit post there again. Apologies for it being a while again, I wasn’t feeling too well and it took a while to shake it this time. It has been good looking at the pictures again.

I have something special lined up next month too, it’s a … mystery. But it brings me back to last year as well, I need to finish off the cruise posts !

A meet up, 2 castles, 1 mountain, several trains and no boats

by Sleepypete

September 24, 2024

7:28 pm

Leave a comment on A meet up, 2 castles, 1 mountain, several trains and no boats

travel

castle, holiday

Hello everyone,

It’s been a little while again. Things were getting a little bit draining for a while, although that’s probably a bit down to me not having any time off since June. That’s maybe a bit too long for me. (And I might need another break to recover from the last one!)

Picture. We're looking at a small white saucer, on which is a tasty looking brownie, with a dwagon next door sporting an apron with the words "Feed Me". In front, a ribbon with "Creator North 2024" on it.

First up, heading up the motorway to Sheffield and Creator North for the Saturday. This is an event (linky) run by a little group of wonderful people, that’s LookItsTilly, Maddog, Billietrixx and the always lovely Tashnarr. I’m not going to write too much about this one this year apart from saying that I really enjoyed the day, including being adopted by Ninja Space Unicorn’s people, seeing MiyukiPanda’s new game coming along and having a lovely natter with the other people there.

It did come right at the end of my energy though, with my last break before this one being back in June. Still, it was awesome seeing everyone and because I do act as a bit of a mirror to the people around me, happy people meant I was happy too. Good to see everyone. And a mention for the lovely Curlylocksgamer too, who had been struggling lately but it’s been too to firstly see her back streaming again and second to see her pop up at Creator North and have a great time there.

After a travel day and a chill out day, I was off on the move again …

Picture. We're on the pedestrian part of a bridge, looking across a road (with several cars) towards a castle. There are 5 turrets on the castle, with battlements. The sky is a clear blue with occasional wispy cloud.

I’d abandoned thoughts of something more ambitious like an Isle of Man trip (the ferry crossing timings were NOT working out) and spotted a North Wales trip on GreatLittleBreaks. After one trip with them, I’d go back for more and check out what other options they have. The booking process was easy and there were no issues with anything that was set up. I think it was good value, although it does seem set up for at least 2 guests with a big solo supplement.

Not so much with the hotel … The Sheffield hotel was great, with an older style layout. The Conwy hotel, not so much. The people there were great and the food (fish and chips on first night) tasty but the room was set up with one of those open plan layouts, where the bathroom section isn’t really split off from the rest of the room. I.e. attack of trendy. So that would be … a shower cubicle that has frosted glass to the rest of the room and no full length door to keep the steam behind. Oh and there was a puddle outside the frosted glass short door after the shower too.

Not so good.

Picture. We're looking out over a river / harbour from an elevated position. The town is to the bottom left, with more buildings just about visible on the far side. There is a series of boats tied up alongside and at anchor in the bay. The sky is overcast.

Lovely town though and a great castle visit too.

(gotta note I’m fading a bit as I type and should probably put the dinner on!)

That’s Conwy and the castle was a good little visit. They’ve put a lot of restoration work in to Conwy Castle, with the spiral turret staircases being in very good order. A lot of these castles tend to have worn down steps which can get a bit dangerous, however Conwy’s gives good confidence that you’d be able to get up and down these stairs easily if you’re able to do so. (It’s a little sad that this is an able bodied thing, no wheelchair access, use of cane would be very awkward). And that picture was taken from one of the turrets. The castle is mostly ruined with no internal buildings but most of the towers are in good condition and you can walk around the ramparts.

Worth a visit, great castle. Although I’m still on the hunt for a castle that could be visited by some of the streamer friends who depend on walkers and wheelchairs. They love the pictures I post into discords and it’d be good to find them a castle they are able to fully enjoy if they find themselves visiting the UK.

Picture. We're looking across the shell of the inside of the castle, from the ramparts. In the foreground, is an archway bridge, behind that is a tower with 2 spires. The other side of the river banks are in the distance. Overcast skies again.

Great castle though. And I enjoyed a gentle wander through the town too. But I think I picked up bugs at Creator North and while I was thoroughly ignoring them, I crashed out hard when I got back to the hotel. (Enjoying reading and listening to streams via the hotel wifi). At least, on the second evening, the place across the artificial lagoon wasn’t in party mode (very loud music).

Picture. We're looking out over an artificial lagoon towards hills in the distance and a very yellow Moon. This is light enhanced by the phone, so it's a milky white sky and far brighter than the almost full dark of the day.

Nice place though, peaceful. That’s actually the Moon there. No stargazing on this trip because we had peak moonlight but it was nice walking most of the way around that artificial lagoon on the first evening. That picture is what came out of the phone on the day, it did a lot of light enhancing as the actual conditions were almost full dark with a very bright super moon.

Castle 2 ?

Picture. More castle, we're looking over the top of a series of cars towards the imposing tall walls of a castle citadel, below clear blue skies.

I’d booked a ticket for Snowdon Mountain Railway (might actually leave that for another post, am fading!) for 1500 on the return day, which gave me a morning/early afternoon to play with after checking out of the hotel. I’d been given the idea to visit Caernarfon castle, which was another really good recommendation.

One bit of a surprise is how good the condition of Caernarfon and Conwy Castle is. Whereas the south Wales castles are typically intentionally destroyed and demolished, the two castles I visited in the North were still mostly intact. Part of that is due to Caernarfon Castle still being in active use, it was used for the ?inauguration? ceremony for Prince Charles becoming the Prince of Wales way back when. (Is King now).

Picture. We're inside the castle, looking out over a beautifully mown grassy interior. We can see the castle walls to the left and right, with an intact tower to the left and a somewhat crumbled gate house to the right. Clear blue skies with wispy clouds and the distant towers have a pair of flags flying.

There we are, quite a bit there still, including a very fortified gatehouse (ramp to enter but broken lift). I was definitely feeling impending illness at this point and needed to reserve energy for Snowdon and the drive home so I wasn’t pushing myself at all around this castle but … Well worth a visit again. I think the towers were open and there’s a few good displays in there as well.

I think I will save Snowdon for another post (need to put food on and Pain is happening) but … a couple of great castles to visit, lovely people looking after everyone in the hotel (shame about the attack of trendy with the room design) and I needed to get away for a few days as the temptation is to just stay home, stay in, play games, listen to music.

About that …. I did pick up bugs up in Sheffield. I could feel them starting to take effect on the Tuesday driving up, plus I was hearing reports that other people there were being affected by the bugs too. I also hurt the shoulder again on the Saturday afternoon, one of those where I turn to face someone but leave the arm behind, which is where it gets crunchy. I didn’t feel it on the day (never do) but it’s been very crunchy for the last couple of days. I’ll do that, I’ll keep myself going while I need to (albeit limited at the moment) and then collapse when I don’t need to maintain that level.

Like now ! Time to put the dinner on and look at hopefully posting the Snowdon pics later this week.

Later everyone, before I go though :

Picture. We're looking at a cracked white egg, on a white sheet. Emerging from the egg is a small red dwagon. They're looking up at us with wide, adorable eyes.

There we go, totally adorable new profile pic and one of the bits of loot taken away from North Wales last week.

You can pet the “dog”

by Sleepypete

August 29, 2024

10:46 pm

Leave a comment on You can pet the “dog”

musing

games, health

Hello everyone,

It’s been a while again … Time for a little check from last time :-D. Ah ha ! The Olympics had just started up. It was a good games again too, I quite enjoyed watching what I was seeing there. I haven’t posted in a little while because to be honest, the burn out was hitting again. Thumbnail first ?

Picture. We're looking at a blue poster with the title "I'm going to Creator North". It has the date September 14and the location Kommune, Sheffield. In the centre, is a small green dwagon holding a red heart shape in front of him.

There we go, that’ll do.

Really looking forward to that event, it’s coming up in a few weeks and it’ll involve a weekend trip. It’s the second time it’s been run after a fun first event last year. Here’s the link to what I wrote after last time. This year’s event is going to be a bit bigger. I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be a chance to meet up again with friends from last year, friends from streams going back a long time and friends from new streams that I haven’t seen in person before.

It’ll hopefully grow even more, especially in the wake of the Insomnia Gaming Festival disappearing earlier this year. We’ll see. Fingers crossed. We do have MCM Comic Con as well and various other Comic Cons but it would be good to see the seed started by some very lovely people running the Creator events continue to grow.

I do sometimes wonder where I fit in with events like this one though. I do Create, although I do skip from thing to thing. The blogs have been a mostly continuous thing going back 19 years now over the two sites. There was a quick look at seeing what was needed to do Youtube videos (link to channel for those curious) but I didn’t continue that because it would have taken a lot of time to grow into something that would provide a return on the time. Plus it would have needed sacrifices including giving up listening to copyrighted music all the time (it’d be picked up on the mic and detected) and the stream watching. There was the sketching, although that stopped 4 years ago when I think that’s when I slammed into the burn out wall.

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a cute sleeping grey and white kitten on a white blanket. The captions are "I would be unstoppable" "If not for the tired sleepy"

I’m still in that burn out now, it doesn’t feel like it has eased at all. Maybe even deeper. I’m ok, hanging in there but it definitely feels like I’ll need to be taking care of myself a bit better. Maybe even doing more stuff out of the ordinary like the cruise last year. I think I really needed that removal from the normal for a while. That’s odd isn’t it … deal with tiredness by going off and doing something.

I don’t think I’ve ever been normal there in how I react to stuff. When I do take time off and do the restful thing of staying at home, I won’t exactly do very much (apart from gaming and listening to stuff). And I’ll be thinking throughout that I should be getting out and about and having that hit my mental state in a negative way. And my mental state is, to be honest, not that great at the moment.

There’s a lot of things to that, a lot of things pulling that mental state downwards. And I wouldn’t want to talk about too many of those here. (Some are work, some are definitely behind the personal stuff wall). Some of it is down to the state of my outsides, where I’ll slowly heal up (my arms are actually mostly ok now) and then over a single event, that healing will go dramatically backwards again. That’s part stress, a little bit of what I might have eaten or just attacking stuff when my guard’s down when I’m attempting to sleep.

And, being honest again, I’m not seeing the way out of the burn out at the moment.

But … I’m getting a bit of time off into the books after the Creator North event. I do need to get a trip booked in for some of that time and a return to Legoland is definitely looking tempting. I would like to find some chances to get myself somewhere to see the stars. That could have happened last weekend but my arms had just stabilised again after doing even more damage to them.

(if you’re reading this and thinking that there’s self harm going on, that’s kinda true. But it’s because my skin went super delicate after all the issues over the last decade. But it’s not self harm that would see me going into an ambulance, it’s more like if I scratch too much, I do a lot of damage. My mental health isn’t great but it’s not down at That Place).

Just a note on that above – it’s ok to not be ok, just please give yourself a chance to climb out if you’re in that pit. And that can be just being around communities like the discords. It might not be sharing your difficulties but even just popping up every once in a while and saying hi is great for the soul. And when you can’t see your own worth, there will be a bunch of people who will be really happy to see that you’ve popped up and that you’re still around. And sometimes, putting up a paw and saying hi is all we have the energy to do. It definitely makes me smile when I put a hello emote into a stream chat and a “SLEEPY” or “DWAGON” comes back from the person streaming.

“Can we pet the dog?”

I’ve been in the games again, with me enjoying running a few more factories in Little Big Workshop to conclusion. It’s a fun, cute little honest factory building game and I just keep going back to it. There’s a progression to it and I like to see the cute little idiot (the game can have some issues with priorities) gnomes go about building stuff.

Motorsport Manager has finished another segment of the latest megacampaign, so I’ve switched teams again after winning again. It’s a game where you can just keep on going with it, I’m in the year 2052 now. Inflation isn’t a thing in the game, outside of people wanting more money as they get better. Old drivers retire and get replaced by newly generated 18-20 year old drivers. It works well for a megacampaign where as you go on, it’s still all new.

Picture. We're looking at a heap of snacks arranged on a light blue bed sheet in front of a box of Lego. The Lego box has the word Jaws on it and has a picture of a black and yellow trawler boat being chased by a shark. We also see the red dwagon plush to the left.

Dredge came out with a new DLC, with an Iron Rig, I enjoyed playing through that after it released. And I managed to get to Cardiff as well to grab the unofficial Lego tie in. Comes with free shark, does not include game. Gonna need bigger shelf. (And steadily making a dent in the snacks)

And the latest one is Star Wars Outlaws …

Game screenshot. Star Wars Outlaws. We're looking at a dark scene inside a cavern of orange rock. In the centre, a starfighter is being disassembled and we see other mechanical debris scattered around. Our character is bottom left, hiding behind a barrier.

This one is a sneaky game and I’ve really enjoyed dipping into it for the last couple of evenings after closing up the work laptop. It places you in the Star Wars universe as a smuggler scoundrel lady with an adorable companion. Instead of lightsabers and the Force, it sees you relying on stealth and guile and a reliable blaster at your side. It is very expensive (£75 for the equivalent of what I’m playing) but I’m actually kinda just renting it on the monthly subscription (£15) so I’m looking at crashing through the game so I can drop that sub again. I don’t think I’ll have a problem doing that :-D.

Oh and you have a companion too, a little adorable doglike critter who you can send off to do stuff like :

Distract – it’ll go off and dramatically play dead in front of guards, so you can sneak past them while they’re looking the other way.

Steal – little dude is an arch thief.

Hit switches – like turning power off for a camera

And probably more too. I dunno, it feels like whereas I bounced off Starfield pretty hard (just didn’t engage with that future humanity thing), I’m quite engaged with the early days of Star Wars Outlaws.

Game screenshot. Star Wars Outlaws. We're looking at scenes from a city street, with our character in white tunic and dark trousers leaning over to scratch the little blue critter on the head.

And you can pet the “dog”.

I think I need to disappear now (2240 and I want to get some reading in !). Look after yourselves, have a lovely weekend. One way I look out for my mental state is doing things for other people, although that kinda depends on other people to do the nice things for. Hope you find your way too. Time to open up Seventh Bride by T Kingfisher again after enjoying Michael Palin’s Pole to Pole.

🙂

Hot Olympic Action

by Sleepypete

July 30, 2024

8:44 pm

Talking cameras …

by Sleepypete

July 9, 2024

10:30 pm

Comments Off on Talking cameras …

photography

geeky, picture

Hello everyone,

I’m just looking at that title again and am now wondering about cameras that talk. Would they look at the picture you just took and start describing it like alt text ? Would they critique your style or make suggestions ? Could it say “Bright light bright light” if the exposure is too much ?

I think we need a picture …

Picture. We're looking at a brown dog, lying down on a sofa. He's looking up and left, with a very greying muzzle.

Aww. That’s lovely dear heart Ben who was with us for quite a few years. Always a little bundle of staffy bull terrier love, very inquisitive and deeply protective of his people. And the perfect model to start off the post with. Good to see the old chap again.

I was wondering about cameras and what to recommend people get. That picture above is with the ancient iPhone 5 camera, apparently downscaled to 960×720 from the camera’s native resolution. Bit fuzzy but still a nice picture there, if you ignore the crack in the lens :-D. The crack was actually the catalyst to me changing phones over to the Samsung Galaxy S7 which kept me going until I switched to the exceptional Pixel 4.

(side note – gotta admit I’m struggling for mental batteries at the moment although I was able to demolish a couple of books over the weekend, we’ll see where this post goes).

I didn’t have the Pixel 4 for that long before disappearing over to Canada for work … and then a pandemic broke out and I wasn’t taking pictures of much except for apparently my old sketch art.

Picture. We're looking at a fairly rough sketch of a green dwagon sitting on his butt. He's wearing a pair of glasses and has a book held open in front of him.

Hopefully the more processed version of that is visible at the top of the page. I should probably attempt the sketching again, I kinda moved back to more digital art and the photography stuff in particular.

Picture. We're looking at an enormous dark green 20 sided dice. Around it is curled the 3d printed rainbow crystal dwagon.

That’s a more recent one, taken on my desk. Yep, looks like I was using my little pen torch for extra illumination too. This actually gets me to a first point about mobiles vs cameras … usability !

I knew we’d accidentally stumble upon the purpose of this post eventually :-D.

I’d been thinking about whether it’s worth people getting a full sized camera these days, or if it’s ok to stay with a mobile phone. The phone cameras have come a long way since those early days. Ignore the number of pixels (although I’ll come back to that), just think about usability and how much the camera does for you.

In the case of the dwagon dice, that could have needed 3 hands because a phone is actually a bit awkward to hold as a camera. There’s no strap with them usually and you can’t be touching the screen. So you have to hold them by the edge and with a spare finger for the shutter button. Add a third hand if you’re using a separate light. However, you can get round that by using the timer. Sorted !

Depth of field can be a curious thing to play with as well … For this close work, I’ll traditionally hold the camera away from the thing I’m taking the picture of and cut it to size. Try it with your own cameras … see what you think. If the camera is close, it’ll all go a bit fish eye. If you hold it back a bit, then it’s a flatter image. Check it out ! Experiment, see what happens and enjoy learning how to get the best out of what you have. And there are so many pixels in our cameras now that we can easily crop out the extras (no one sees my desk 😀 ) and still have an amazing image.

I could use the R50 for these but … is it necessary ? One big difference is that with the strap to hold it normally, I can quickly pull that camera up with one hand and tap the shutter button. Maybe the left hand is operating the in and out of the zoom lens. The Ixus was a bit different there, as the zoom was on a ring around the shutter button. Actually physically moving the lens works better.

Proper camera time ?

Picture. We're looking out over a cricket field with the stumps in the centre. A wicket keeper is standing behind the stumps, gloves ready for the ball. The batsman has his bat held in front and they're about to set off to the right. The white ball can be faintly seen in front of the stumps.

There’s a cricket one taken by the Ixus a few years ago. One thing here is that the picture is taken with the camera braced on my knee, with it maybe being a bit too small to comfortably sit in an exact position. The picture isn’t quite centred there because it would move on the shutter. If you’re able to zoom in there, it’s a bit more mushy than …

Picture. We're looking at the cricket field again, with two players in the centre and a third player looking on behind. The white ball can be seen slightly behind the batsman.

That’s from the R50, taken this summer. It’s kinda night and day there with the sharpness, especially when you consider that it looks like the Ixus picture was taken in much better light conditions.

That gets me to another point ! Is it worth buying a cheaper digital camera in this technological age when mobile phone cameras are so incredibly good ? I don’t honestly think it is.

Let’s see :

Mobile phone camera – easy, portable, maybe a bit difficult to use one handed but includes a timer function that helps there. Huge amount of intelligence in the software tools to help make a perfect image. (Except for that tool that picks out different faces for people – I think that’s a bit of an abomination). You can take selfies with them.

Cheaper digital camera – don’t bother, they’re too compromised. It was exceptionally difficult to reliably get a good picture with the Ixus, although the image stabilisation has hopefully been improved. However, you can’t change the lens, you can only work with what’s been provided. Selfies were impossible with the Ixus (too blurry).

DSLR or Mirrorless camera – if you can afford them (and I got the second cheapest Canon), then they are massively worth the investment. The R50 has made it ridiculously easy to take snapshot pictures that have all turned out really well. Another one ?

Picture. We're looking across the central hall of the Excel Exhibition arena at a motley collection of 5 characters in assorted fantasy style outfits.

That’s actually a resurrected one from Comic Con. The original saw the people there in silhouette due to the lighting behind them. You couldn’t really see their outfits. This is with a basic Auto – Equalise filter in GIMP which has started bringing out the colour again.

Whereas I’ve done that in post processing in GIMP, a recent mobile (my Pixel 4 is from 2020) will include similar enhancement abilities.

One issue though is the battery. I did a precautionary change of the R50 battery on the Lords day with over 294 pictures taken with it on the day with a bunch deleted because they weren’t interesting. If you’re looking to use a mobile phone as a camera, you’ll need a couple of power bank things to take with you and that leads to awkward when you need to charge them up.

So …

Cheap camera like the Ixus’s and Powershots – don’t bother, use a mobile phone instead (with a powerbank to feed the battery regularly). It’s just so much easier to do stuff with the pictures via the mobile, you can upload them direct to where you want to show them off.

Mobile phone – I’m really impressed with how much they can do now. However … they do have their limits imposed with the space they have to fit in to. It’s pushing the boundaries of the physics of how the light travels around. (And battery life is nasty)

DSLR or Mirrorless camera – I think they’re worth the investment if you’re going places with a camera and want to share what you’re seeing with people. The ability to swap over lenses adds a lot of flexibility there. The bigger R50 (compared to the tiny Ixus) is a lot easier for my suffering eyes to set up a shot.

I think that’s it for my brain for tonight. Hope this was useful for anyone thinking about cameras.

Just remember, it’s your money to spend, you don’t have any obligation to spend it if you’re not comfortable that it’s going to the right place. Check out what you’re looking at via independent reviews. I don’t count me as independent, even if I’ve had no freebies, I only have recent knowledge of the Canon cameras (haha, no free samples to test the opposition with!) and older knowledge of a massively battery hungry Nikon.

And if you do go to fun places and want to share, enjoy the day out, capture the memories and share the best ones.

Goodnight everyone, have a great rest of the week.

Up and Down week, plus castle

by Sleepypete

June 25, 2024

9:17 pm

Comments Off on Up and Down week, plus castle

photography

castle, out and about

Hello everyone,

Back at work after a week off last week, including a different castle to today’s castle … Where did I leave it last time ?

Picture. We're looking in to the back of my car, with a sad looking red plushie dwagon sitting on the rear parcel shelf above the boot.

After talking about the Nurburgring not-quite 24 hour race last time, weekend before last was the Le Mans 24 hours. We got a full 24 hour race in this time ! Hurrah. Whereas the Nurburgring circuit is up in the Eiffel Mountains, the Le Mans track is in a region of France with a kinder climate for racing … Good race, actually had Racing Dwagon there too.

Picture. We're looking at a screenshot from a web browser with the selected tab showing a purple racing car stopped outside its pit garage. It's taking on fuel via a couple of mechanics on the far side of the car.

There we are. That’s Spike the racing car dragon from the AO racing team. They did good this year, getting on the podium for the LMP2 class.

Whereas the Nurburgring race has a multitude of classes, Le Mans under World Endurance Championship rules has 3 … Fastest are the hypercars, which look like Spike above but a little bigger and with more power. That’s an LMP2 car above, or Le Mans Prototype class 2 which have open rules for the body and aerodynamics but a fixed engine and gearbox powertrain. We also see the GT3 cars racing here, which meant following the Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan again. They did pretty well, staying up with the leading group and finishing 5th in class. I think they may have had a great chance for a podium here but I think they were suffering from one of the LMP2s attempting to demolish their car before nightfall on the Saturday.

I didn’t stay awake for the full thing this time, abandoning the screen for a nap after things got dark. Which was probably a wise decision because they were running for about 4 hours behind the safety car due to heavy rain. Not much to see there.

Castle ?

That’s me going back in time a bit to the start of June and me paying a visit to Chepstow Castle. Quite a bit surviving of this one as well. The upper levels of the gatehouse there were closed off but I was able to explore the ramparts and see what was left of the rest of the castle.

(Side note – I’ve developed extreme soreness and stiffness in my shoulders after a WoW session earlier and may have to bomb out of post quickly … let’s see how much I manage)

Pictures. This is a collection of 4 displays of the castle from just a rectangular building on the left, with further walls and towers being added on as we go from left to right.

That’s how Chepstow castle had evolved in its early years from the original Keep on the left, to the more extensive grounds on the right. There’s a decent amount to see at this castle and a collection of informative educational displays there too, so it’s well worth a visit to check it out. I’m not going to put the full info here but from left to right there we see :

1067-1087 (old!) The Original Great Tower standing on its own.

What’s not really shown too well there is the river to the right of the castle, forming natural defences for that side. Joining those was the Great Tower Surround, with curtain walls and a gate house surrounding a fairly extensive courtyard.

1189-1245 saw William Marshal and sons expand the castle further, with a bit more land grabbed plus defensive towers.

1270-1306 saw further expansion to the far end, enclosing a little bit more private area.

That’s all to protect the town, with Chepstow being close to the mouth of the Severn Estuary on the border between England and Wales. Just had a curious thought there … nowadays, we have two Bridges that make the crossing between England and Wales there quite trivial. It’s a couple of minutes driving to cross the newer bridge. When these castles were built, there were no bridges that long and it would have been 1 or 2 miles (depending on where you’d cross) by boat to go from England to Wales.

Picture. We're looking out over a wide very brown looking river. In the distance, a far bank that is dominated by trees. There is a white painted bridge with stone pillars crossing the river. To the right, we see the walls of the castle extending down to a vertical rock that goes down to the river.

That’s from quite high up in the castle. As well as having that excellent natural barrier with the river, there are commanding views as well.

Good little wander at the start of the month. (May have been combined with stocking up on snacks too)

Picture. We're on the stone ramparts of the castle, with the walkway heading off on the left side towards a stone tower. To the right, an expanse of green countryside with a little bit of town visible around the trees. The sky is covered with light white cloud.

Great views too. I have to admit, when I went out there I wasn’t prepared for the day being a bit warmer than anticipated. I may have ended up getting a bit cooked due to forgetting to take a water bottle. So perhaps not quite as much wander as there might have been.

(I’m running out of steam and need to retreat into book, Batkitto streaming and not moving my arms much – ouchie!)

Other stuff as well as castle trip ? I’ve been struggling with a skin break out for about a month now. I was just about ok at Comic Con still but things were declining after that. I’m pretty sure it’s stabilised now and is recovering but as always with this thing, it always takes far longer to recover than it took to erupt. And I’m part of the problem there because I’ll set back the healing by attacking the damaged areas.

Warcraft has been happening … it’s been good being back in the game again, with my time so far being spent doing the quest running with 4 characters so far doing different stories. More on that in a later post probably.

I think I’ve done a little more damage to the car as well … the low tyre pressure light came on and I think that might be due to an altercation with a kerb in a car park. It’s the correct tyre. Only a slow leak but … gotta watch those kerbs cos they bite.

Picture. We're inside the castle looking towards a sunlit window. The walls are stone brick, with lovely arches above.

Last one. That’s one from the larder area of the castle and I’ve picked this one out due to how the camera has done with it. The R50 is being a lovely camera from just being able to be super lazy with setting up the pictures with it. I’ve been remembering things like rule of 3 (the 9 box grid for spacing) and trying to get myself into good places for taking the picture. But the camera is doing the rest with flawless detailed pictures on automatic all the way.

The pictures here (except sad dwagon!) are all reduced from the native 6000×4000 to 2000×1333 but the detail is still all there and I’m really happy with how the R50 is pulling all that detail into the pictures. And it’s on snapshot style picture taking too where I’m not doing things like bracing the camera at all.

I’ll leave it there so I can grab a snack, some more water (it be warm!), pay the lovely Batkitto the full attention this lovely Scottish lady streamer deserves while disappearing into book. I’m in book 3 of The Belt series (not the Expanse) which is a curious space scifi set of books. I’m curious as to where they will go.

Later everyone.

A long time to do a race ?

by Sleepypete

June 13, 2024

10:47 pm

Comments Off on A long time to do a race ?

cars

racing

Hello everyone,

Le Mans weekend coming up and the start of a week off for me. Not going anywhere except maybe day trips … just looking to chill out and there’s some stuff that really needs catching up on at home too. I’ve hit pretty severe energy debt so I need to heavily go on the recharging. I’m looking forward to the race, there’s something very compelling about the endurance racing and GT format. How about a meme though …

Picture. We're looking at a captioned picture of a race track. Lower left, a motorcycle rider in mostly white overalls is kneeling on the track, looking at his red and white motorbike, which is sliding up the track on its side. Captions : "Motorcycle curling. Harder than you think"

A couple of weekends ago, I was watching the Nurburgring 24 hours race. There are several big endurance events during the year around the various championships and Nurburgring fell at the start of June this year. It’s held at the Nurburgring Nordschleife race track in the Eiffel Mountains and I think it’s the longest active racetrack in the world at the moment.

Picture. We're looking at a video window inside a browser. In the background, a very high zoomed out view of a race track winding its way through fields to the left and forest to the right. Over the top is a layout of this almost 26km racetrack.

Lots of screenshots coming from the Chrome window I was using to watch the race. The Nordschleife is a massive extension to the Nurburgring Grand Prix track which takes up the tiny little bit in the bottom left of that track layout. The track itself is 25.378km long, or 15.86 miles. This year, there were 127 cars starting the race of all of the different classes from the GT3 cars which go round the track in 8 and a bit minutes, to the front drive touring car type racers that take more like 12 to 13 minutes to do a lap.

Picture. We're looking at the video again, with 3 race cars on a starting grid and a safety car ahead of them.

That’s a Herbie lining up on the starting grid. This was a VW Beetle RSR, one of 5 cars in the SP 3T class for little cars with turbos. This class also had the crowd favourite Dacia Logan. The first Dacia in the race was destroyed last year in a huge crash in the night time and they came back with an upgraded one this year.

It makes for compelling racing with cars of different speeds and capabilities racing each other. The classes are limited mostly by engine size and whether they have a turbo. There’s an article about it at the link here. There is also a Balance of Performance system, which looks to even out the small differences in the cars. Sometimes they get it wrong and a car gets overly restricted but most of the time, they get the cars supremely well balanced against each other. There’s still overtaking but it means that as the race develops, you have no idea who will come out on top at the end. At Nurburgring, this goes into the pit stops as well. Instead of racing style pit stops, all of the teams have an enforced minimum pit stop time so that no one is disadvantaged if their pit area has a slower fuel pump than the others.

Picture. We're looking at the winding corners of a race track, with a succession of cars rolling through on the formation lap before the actual race. The side of the track is thronged with spectators a couple of rows deep.

The race is a firm favourite with fans as well. This was from the formation lap, where the crowds are allowed in to cheer on the cars they’re following. And then they have plenty of time to retreat behind the barriers before the cars come back round, at racing speeds.

Picture. We're looking at the aftermath of a crash. Two cars are to the side of the track, one has its nose embedded in the car in front of it. A medical car is to the right. The drivers are sitting and standing by the crash barrier to the left, with track marshals looking after them.

And incidents definitely do happen, with the crowds being kept well away from any flying bits of motorcar like what happened in the incident above. Both drivers ok, just shaken up. The one in the sideways car took a turn on the commentary later as well.

What happened there was another car had dropped down oil on the track, which caused the grey car ahead to have a heavy crash. The driver stayed inside until the marshals could get them, which was a Very Good Thing as the driver of the red car also caught the oil at high speed and was out of control right into when they went into the other car. Both drivers ok, the safety standards in these cars are excellent.

Incidents occur throughout the race and the teams are allowed to recover cars in trouble and attempt to repair them enough to get them back racing again. Often, I’ll have the leaderboard as the active window and I’ll be listening in to the commentary while watching the numbers on the timing screen. The coverage is free via Youtube by the way, there’s no paywall (Le Mans is either paywalled for uninterrupted coverage or 25% ads on Channel Not To Be Named).

Picture. We're looking at a screenshot of the leaderboard timings screen. It's an absolute sea of numbers, with the teams on the left, the lap numbers and time differences in the middle and the time they've taken to do the separate parts of the track on the right. — MANY NUMBERS

That’s the timing screen, with the lap being broken up into the sectors. I’m usually watching the numbers for the tail end of the field, where fast cars that have hit trouble are attempting to catch back up again. Or cars like the Dacia are steadily climbing up the field past cars that have had an incident. The commentary for the race is always very clear and interesting to listen to, maintaining what they do over the full duration of the race.

Oh ! Looking in there, you’ll see some numbers like the 29:33.804 where a car has taken half an hour to catch up with someone who has crashed. It makes a delightful mess of the timing screen :-D. Or it could even be the Glickenhaus car down in 118th place there, which had just got back on the track after over an hour in the pits for repairs. (It had a new engine the night before the race and continued to have issues).

Sometimes the cars have really bad issues, or they decide to follow the crowd and start up the barbecue in the evening.

Picture. We're looking at the race track in a darkening scene being lit up by a car stopped at the far side, on fire. A line of fire runs back a decent way from the car.

Yep, there’s a car at the end of that line of fire … Driver ok again but that car wasn’t going anywhere after that. It probably had a fuel line pop off.

But with the darkening scene above, that marks the time to start wrapping up here … I had a feeling that we weren’t going to get a full 24 hours of race, the weather prediction was showing consistent rain which means cloud. The Nurburgring is situation up in those Eiffel Mountains, which means the circuit is prone to being affected by low cloud and fog. The race was red flag stopped at about midnight 20 local time as thickening fog made it too dangerous to race. There was an attempt to restart coming up to the end, with several laps behind the safety car before …

Picture. We're looking at the finish line for the race. A blurred blue car is crossing the line to the right, with more cars to the left. A lady in blue coat and black trousers is waving a black and white chequered flag. — There’s a grand stand over there I think

The race was called off due to the heavy fog. A sad end to a race that showed a lot of promise for its first third, not even a sprint at the end to let them race it out for a lap or two.

So, sad end to the race this time but I’ll be looking forwards to the next one in June next year, although it looks like the actual race date will be shifted so it doesn’t clash with Le Mans.

That’s going to be my weekend after tying up loose ends at work tomorrow. Hope it’s a good race ! Have a great weekend everyone.

A Dwagon and Friend go to Comic Con

by Sleepypete

June 7, 2024

7:49 pm

Comments Off on A Dwagon and Friend go to Comic Con

events

comic con, geeky, out and about, picture

Hello everyone,

I was thinking that it’s been a while but actually just a few weeks. I’m actually a couple of posts behind, even after this one. It’s been a good but draining month or so, I’m definitely in need of taking a break from things for a while. (Don’t worry, I’m working next week then have next week off). So, what happened on the May Bank Holiday weekend ?

Picture. We're looking at a gathering of lovely looking people people dressed in elaborate and very cute anime character style outfits.

We haven’t been able to get to a Comic Con since before the pandemic, so it was a lovely day to be able to make that trip with Comic Con Friend. It’s been 5 years since we’ve been able to make that trip together (there was the Oct Comic Con trip too but that was just me.). And there was another smuggle again 🙂 It was a good smuggle.

So, what happens at Comic Con ? Lots of merch, lots of stands with things to see. Comics, anime, very creative art of all different kinds. Wonderful cosplay like what we see in the picture above, from all genres.

Picture. We're looking at two people standing side by side. One is in t-shirt and trousers. The other is ... on bladed stilts, has a pair of bladed poles as arm extensions and a helmet with an extremely long proboscis.

I have no idea what genre that’s from but the amount of work that’s gone into making something that good is incredible. Top job, totally salute you there. I definitely haven’t done it justice with the alt-text.

There’s always lots to see and it’s much better to experience it with a friend coming along too. I like seeing the different artists work, especially the stuff that comes from their own imaginations instead of being inspired by the other media out there. That’s the best thing, seeing what everyone has to say and produce to show us. Be that super cute cards, detailed art to go with stories, quick funny cartoons or stunningly well realised artwork that needs to be seen.

Picture. We're looking at a Doctor Who Dalek, gliding through a crowd of amused looking people. The dalek is a grey pepper pot style machine, with gun and manipulator stalks in front (left of picture). The lower half is ringed by black hemispheres.

There was a small cadre of Daleks patrolling the show, possibly in search of the Tenth Doctor who was there in the very tight blue suit outfit. I saw him there (perfect cosplay down to the appearance and body language) but he zipped away too fast for a picture.

Picture. We're looking at a statue of a dragon, sitting on its haunches. The dragon is perhaps 8 foot tall. Their scales are dark green, with a yellow belly stretching from neck to paws. The inside of their wings is blue.

Also dragon.

Talking of dragons, I haven’t got to the loot yet … Scorch’s Pyrography was there and it was great to see her making it to the show. She’s been in the wars recently breaking all four limbs in a bus related accident (ambushed by pavement) so it was good to see her recovered enough to make the show. There was also Ocean City Crafts … They do wonderful things with 3d printing :

Picture. We're looking at a trader's stall. A black cloth is covering a table which is absolutely covered with mythical creatures of all kinds and colours.

That’s all 3d printed creatures, including multiple types of dragon and all different colours too. They’re fully articulated as well, with the resin segments linked together. I was a little doubtful but bought one (will show pic later) and I’m rather impressed. Well worth checking them out, hopefully we’ll see them going to more shows.

Gosh, think I’m running out of steam. I did get bitten mildly by something while at Comic Con (was ok, just a little out of sorts for the week after!) and I’m heading towards the end of the energies so I’ll close up soon. My outsides have considerably worsened as well, hopefully that’s turned the corner now into actively healing.

There are more pictures than I’ll show here, mostly because I’m very careful about putting pictures of me or friend people on the blog. When something’s on the internet, it’s very difficult to take it back again. So while selfie pictures of the shoulder dwagon are on Facebook and various Discords, they won’t go here. Same as there are a few lovely pictures of Comic Con Friend from the Sunday and other people which I’m careful about where they go to.

Shoulder dwagon ?

Picture. We're looking downwards at 3 objects on a dark table. On the left, a blue green dwagon made up of crystal like spines, with orange paws. Lower right, a chocolate chip cookie. Behind, a large green 20 sided dice with gold coloured numbers.

There we go. Possible deceptive sizes there 😀 The dwagon is the perfect size to sit on a shoulder, the d20 there is HUGE and that’s a decent size cookie there too.

Lovely day out, really enjoyed catching up with the wonderful Comic Con Friend (it’s been a while!) and sharing in seeing all of the wonderful things at the convention. Time for me to sign off now I think and pop the dinner on but … one last loot ?

Picture. We're looking down at out blue green crystal dwagon on the right, a green dwagon behind, the large d20 in the centre and a collection of black dice with lit up numbers on to the left. A dice box is behind and to the left.

I got shiny light up dice too 🙂 And t-shirts from Teeturtle. This was also the first Comic Con with the new camera, I think it’s done a wonderful job. (Some of the pics are from the mobile 😀 )

Have a lovely weekend everyone, see you all next time. Wait … one more ?

Picture. We're looking at a collection of dice. From left to right - a red six sided dice. The rest are 20 sided, with a small grey shiny one, a normal sized red one, a larger green one and the very large dark green one that's almost as tall as the green dwagon to the right. In the background, our blue green crystal dwagon.

I needed to show just how big the dice was :-D. The d6 and the red d20 to the left are normal sized.

Later everyone !