RIP AC2

Hmm, thought I would give imaging a go. Funnily enough I don't seem to be able to instantly set up pics like other people do.

Anyway, the pic below is from an online game called Asheron's Call 2 - now no longer played as we've discovered WoW. Still I played the game from October 2003 until November 2004. A long long time playing as the Tumerok Missile/Healer Crucifer.


Test Pic from Asherons Call 2 

...the devil you know...

...is a saying I absolutely agree with and unfortunately, readily identify with.

Just as we thought the flat was perfect - washing machine working, power shower working, window opens, bathroom door looks nice - things went horribly and very drastically wrong.

As Susan was opening the blinds last weekend, they came crashing down on top of her and the tv, tearing a chunk of plaster out of the wall. Susan was thankfully ok; so was the tv for that matter. But the wall looks horrendously bad. And it doesn't look like it's something that will be fixed in one day.

The landlady finally came out to have a look last wednesday and she brought a builder with her. Lots of umming and ahh'ing took place, with lots of "there were no cracks in the walls when we installed the blinds" statements by the builder.

Of course not, Susan and I got up on chairs and repeatedly hammered the walls just to get that effect (that's sarcasm by the way).

As far as I'm aware, they will have to tear out the loose remnants, mix up some cement, apply it, plaster over it, and then in a weeks time when the cement has set, re-attach the blinds to it. That's if the landlord decides that it's worth the bother and not just attach a curtain rod.

This means more time off for me and its at the worst possible time. Not only has Brett resigned and looking forward to leaving (which means he will only help me occassionally) but another guy has been made redundant and the 1st Line Support engineer has gone on holiday as well. Arrrghhh!

Over the past few days, the idea of working in a company where the 3rd Line Support Techie is leaving in 4 days, where the web designer is leaving in 10 days, where the 1st line Techie is on holiday for another 5 days is all too much for me.

I have been run off my feet the past week, and I have another week to look forward to. I can't take time off for interviews because I've been warned by management that any time off I may take will conflict with business-critical issues. A fancy way of saying "if you leave, we'll be up shit creek without a paddle".

The question I'm asking myself more and more is:

"And why do I work for these people exactly?"

The Flat Vs The Job

Well...


We've moved into the new flat and things were looking up. Then, unfortunately, they looked down again.

Firstly, and because this is at home, its very important, there are a lot of things wrong with the flat. "Hiss boo sucks" I hear you say? Yes, unfortunately.

The power shower doesn't work. The washer/dryer doesn't work. The sink leaks. The sealant around the bath isnt there. The WC isn't flush against the wall. The carpet in the hallway hasn't been tacked down. The main window in the lounge doesn't open. the bathroom door handle keeps falling off... The list is endless. I'm glad to say though that some of these things are being fixed as we speak. Hopefully, things will begin to look up and we will be happy to spend shed loads of money for a flat that actually doesn't annoy us.

EDIT: Hopefully some of these will be addressed soon. We've since found out that the Washing machine doesn't work because some clever genius attached it to the Hot water mains and not the Cold water mains. This means that on a cold rinse, you get... wait for it... hot water. In fact, on any programme, you get hot water.

This could also explain why the power shower doesn't work, because it too is on the same pipe network.

Next, Brett has resigned from work. For those of you who don't know, Brett was the Senior Network Manager and the guy who kept on about paintball for weeks after TheNumNum's stag do.

Brett kept wondering if there was life out there and decided just before his appraisal to actually look. Indeed there was life out there and in fact, that life was better than the one he had at the moment. So he made a big decision, went for an interview and came back all smiles. I think he was actually looking to see how much he was appreciated here but no counter offer was forthcoming and he resigned.

He came over yesterday and whispered in my ear "You need to think about your future". Which, of course, made me think, 'am I appreciated here?'.

When I gather the courage to find an answer to that question, I'll let you know.

EDIT: The answer to this question has been a dismal "maybe". Unlike Mr. Volunteer (That's Brett to you and me), I don't put myself into a situation where I can be exploited, therefore I'm not integral to the system. Still, I am now looking for work as I'm coming up to FIVE years in this company. I know I wanted solid experience in the IT industry but this is getting ridiculous.

"I just want a melon..."

As the Malibu ad explains, "why make life unnecessarily complicated?" Mind you, after the move from hell, I could have done with a bottle of "seriously easygoing" Malibu to wind down with.

The removal company, Abbey Crown, were frustratingly customer-unfriendly as they quoted us as arriving at 9AM and actually came at 2PM - that's 5 hours late for a move that only took 4 hours in total. The driver and his mate weren't bad at all but they didn't work for Abbey Crown directly (so big cheers to Peter and Kaleem, who helped out a lot on the day and though they didn't get the couch through the door, they tried extremely hard).

Yes, our couch didn't fit as it was too wide and the angles of the hallway door was just too tight. Peter and Kaleem tried their hardest for about 30 minutes, even taking the front door off its hinges, but it was evident to all that it wouldn't fit through. In the end, we despairingly held our hands in the air and surrendered. The couch was dumped and that cost us as well to have it removed. All we have now are memories of sitting on our mandarin-style blue couch watching CSI and eating our dinner.

*big cry*

Still, we had a futon hidden away and that can double up as a couch and as a second bed, which will be handy as Susan's folks will be coming over to stay for a few days later in the year. Would we have moved though knowing that the couch wouldn't have fit? Well, to be honest, we sort of knew that the couch woulnd't fit - we were just hoping that it would.

Waseem [Kalistro] and Jamie, two Old Ealonian chums, came over last night and helped assemble the futon, the main bed, some wardrobes and 2 desks - which totals most of the furniture in the flat. Without their help (and it even took us 4 hours to get it all right) we would have been spending days sorting things out so we were very much in appreciation.

As always with a new flat, problems have begun to emerge. The power shower (the one we were enamoured with) doesn't seem to work, bringing up a "low pressure" warning light - strange because it's meant to handle low pressure fairly well.

The bathroom door, is hung badly on it hinges so that there is an inch gap at the bottom, allowing you to see in.

Minor niggles include the bathroom door handle which has been botched. And some of the windows are sticky, although it might just take us some time to get accustomed to them.

The neighbours are extremely friendly and we've met Kev (not Kevin!) who lives in the downstairs flat, and Tony and Gloria who live across the lawn from us. Susan and I are still coming to terms with neighbours who actually speak to you.

For 2 and a half years, we've lived in Boston Manor where our neighbours spoke a total of about 200 words to us. In 10 minutes, Tony and Gloria had spoken about 400 words and, if I hadn't been dragged off by Susan, would have probably spoken another 400 easy. But they are nice, which is good, as it adds to the whole atmosphere of the place.

So in the end, I just wanted a melon, but had to wait five hours before I managed to get an overripe mango. Not quite what I wanted...

T Minus One day

Well, in one day's time we'll be moving to our new flat in Ealing. Is there some trepidation? Absolutely.
Things are starting to go wrong with the move. Well, not quite the move itself, but the packing.

We estimated the packing would take about 10 days tops. It hasn't; it's still going on. Basically, 90% of the packing took about 5 days and the last 10% is dragging on, partially due to a mixture of reticence on our parts to do any more work and the fact that there seems to be an unending accumulation of "stuff". Where did it all come from, we ask ourselves? But the answer is, we've been living in a very large spacious flat for two and a half years and this is the end result. Boxes and boxes of "stuff" - we're truly running out of patience on explaining to each other what things are and why we have them. They just end up being "the stuff we bought last year for this purpose, remember?"

Susan's back has gone as well. She's had back problems for as long as I have known her and every now and again she ends up with a bad back. This time it seems to have happened as a result of the high temperatures in her work place - stress about moving out have taken their toll on her.

So this means that Plan A - to dismantle the furniture tonight (the removal company arrives in the morning) has taken a major turn for the worse. I can dismantle most of the stuff but I'm going to need help. I've sent out a call to various Old Ealonians for help. If the worst comes to the worse there is a work mate I can call upon but I'd rather not.

The new flat looks good but beneath the glossy sleek exterior, I've already spotted some problems. Nay, problems is too harsh a word. Niggles, mainly.

1. The main window in the front room doesn't open all the way. It looks like it should but just before the pane clears the frame, it gets stuck. It looks as if it's been put on wrongly.

2. The bathroom is a complete tip. Nothing a major clean won't put right and even though we would clean the bathroom anyway, it's not something we wouldn't to do straight away.

3. Parking. Where the hell do guests go to park? There doesn't seem to be anywhere for them. This is something we'll have to speak to the neighbours about, along with where to put the bins and what day they get picked up on.

The new flat hasn't got a phone line yet; it's going live on Wednesday 29th June, which means all we'll have for two days will be our mobiles, assuming of course that BT actually gets things right first time.

Wanadoo Broadband is another matter completely. I've been told that I will need to phone when the new line is active and then it's going to take up to another 20 days to move the broadband from the one number to the other.

Now my question is WHY?

It takes BT 5 days - FIVE - to set up a new line. Surely it's not going to take Wanadoo 20 days to move a line? What are they going to do, come to Boston Manor, dig up the line, transplant it to Ealing and then bury it again? That, I can imagine, would take 20 days. But moving a line - most likely, on a computer - should take about 20 minutes (well, with a backlog, I'd be ok with 5 days). This does not make me very happy so come October, when it's time for us to renew our broadband, I will be going elsewhere for my broadband account, maybe even sooner.

Alas, this means we will be without broadband access for awhile. As the phoneline goes live, we should be able to dial up with a modem for awhile, at least. But we will most likely limit ourselves to checking emails so alas, I will be unable to post from home.

Excuses, excuses...

Take, for example, the discussion at work I've been having recently.

I've decided to walk to work from my new flat. That's from Eaton Rise in Ealing to Mansfield Road in Park Royal. Look it up on the map now.

You see? It's about a 30-45 minute walk to work.

When I first mentioned I was thinking of walking the distance to work, everyone was heaping praise on me - "well done", "it's great exercise", "you'll lose lots of weight".

Now, as the day of my first walk fast approaches, people are changing their tunes - "you're mad", "it's miles", "why don't you look for alternative transport".

First of all, it's meant to be exercise. I'm meant to dislike it because if it was easy it wouldn't be exercise.

Secondly, it gives me time to reflect on Life, The Universe & Everything. Whilst other people are running around like mad chickens on speed getting to work on time, my aim will be to walk to work knowing full well that either I'll be on time or I'll be late - because I won't be dependant on any other variable. Like Traffic, or crap excuses for why the trains are late.

Thirdly, and this is only a bonus point, it will cut costs.

Maybe they're right, though, and I'm completely wrong. Maybe it is too far. What are the options?

1. I could learn to ride a bike/scooter/alternative vehicle.

2. I could walk to the Western Avenue and catch a bus:

This will of course involve a 20 minute walk, followed by god knows how long actually waiting for the bus, followed finally by waiting for the traffic to move. A possibility perhaps for when it's absolutely pissing down.

3. I walk to Ealing Broadway, catch a train to Ealing Common, catch another train to Park Royal and walk to work:

Hmm, this involves a 15 minute walk to Ealing waiting for a train, a 3 minute train journey, waiting for another train, a 5 minute train journey, followed by a 7 minute walk to work. At around 30 minutes minimum, this is a particularly stupid option considering I could walk to work and save myself £40 and a whole heap of stress.

Oh What Fun...

Well, events have definitely been whizzing past in the last few weeks.

Firstly, we've been looking for a flat and finally found one. Next I attended TheNumNum's Stag do, and that left me aching all over.

But last friday TheNumNum finally did the deed and got married, hosting the reception that evening at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel near Heathrow. The hotel looked very spectacular and both myself and The Missus attended, as well as other members of The Old Ealonians. We had a great time - except for the dancing, which I always hate. I'm normally propping up the Bar when there's dancing to be done, but in this case there was nowhere to hide...

This sunday he's going to have the full blown Indian Ceremony, with hundreds of other guests. Now, you might think that as I am an Indian myself I would have been to loads of these ceremonies, but I'm afraid to say that this will be my first. Even my eldest brother had a registry wedding and did things in a particularly Western ceremony, so I really don't know what to expect. I shall be watching wondering just what the heck it all means...

The other thing that's moving at a fast pace is packing, so that we can move into the new flat. I'm starting to hate packing and I know from past experience that as well as it being a very draining experience it can also be incredibly stressful. Plus, how the hell have we accumulated so much stuff? Magazines, books, games, cds, dvds, videos - where the hell did they all come from? So far we've packed 14 boxes and the Study looks marginally emptier. We still have the lounge room and the other bedroom to pack. And all the stuff in the kitchen.

We also have to work out what to do with the fridge/freezer as we won't be able to take it with us to the new place. Do we bin it or do we have it delivered to the folks and have their old one binned? What to do...

The other thing that's been bothering us is how we actually move all the stuff. Up until now, we've been planning on moving some of the stuff by van and the rest by a professional company .

But I finally broke down and realised that Susan was very right and I was very wrong - moving anything ourselves is only going to add to the stress. We should just pay up and get someone else to do all the hard work. So we just booked with a removal company and paid shedloads for someone else to work out how to move the sofa and armchair and all the other furniture out of our current second floor flat and into the new first floor flat without breaking anything.

Meanwhile at work, the main fashion brands are launching at the very same time that I am moving flats. Work management have asked me not to move so I told them that if they would pay for my removals fee, I would gladly stay at work. So they said no and gave me the day off. I replied, "Oh great, means we can't be that busy then." I got glowered at, but I don't care. My point was made.

My life comes first, work a distant second. Possibly third, after... I don't know but at least that space is reserved for something other than work. No one can say I don't have my priorities worked out in my head!

So that's what I'm up to at the moment.

Like a headless chicken on speed

Another of the Old Ealonians asked if he could have a go with my guest pass at World of Warcraft. The pass allows 10 free days of gaming - once the key is activated, there's no stopping it. I wasn't using it so I said "Go for it".

He created an Orc Shaman by the name of Kalistro and soon got to gaming.

But he started running into problems. His guild list wouldn't work properly, only after he logged out and logged back in. Quest items wouldn't "drop" properly so he'd have to go back and play out the quest again. The list started to build up until he told me he wouldn't want to pay monthly for a game that didn't work properly.

To be entirely fair, WOW is just like the majority of games out there - some will work on your pc and others frustratingly won't.

I remember when I was testing out City of Heroes - the game ran fine on my computer except that the cursor didnt show up. It made the game horrible and eventually I worked out that if I dropped the monitor res and raised it a few times, I could get the cursor to show up as a big black block. I mentioned this to NCSoft, the makers of CoH and their reply was "Oh it's your video card. Get a new one." Except it was happening to loads of different video cards with different chipsets.

In the end, I thought it was a great game, but no way was I going to spend that much money on something that didnt work and that wasn't being supported properly. So I can sympathise with Kalistro.

However, I've been playing like a headless chicken on speed and have managed to get up to Level 48. I also have an alt (alternative character) called Azaghul, a level 20 Undead Mage.
Looking for a new flat was sapping my online time and moving to the new flat will do the same thing. Level 60 will have to wait a while longer, methinks.

Massive Update

Well, it's been a fair few months since I posted here and theres a fair bit to tell, with various events occurring in my life.

Firsty, Work decided to impose some restrictions. They of course didn't call it a restriction at the time but sharp-eyed eagle me spotted it straight away. Work want me to account for my time spend on support calls.

So.. if I've spent an hour trying to post a blog post and it all goes horribly wrong when the browser crashes then I have essentially lost an hour of work time and they will know I have been doing things that perhaps I should be doing on my own time. Like perchance spending some time on the loo. Or having lunch and not wanting to be disturbed.

The upshot of this is that I don't get to spend much time on the internet at work anymore. Which is probably a good thing anyway since I was one of the highest Internet browsers at the company (if I didn't know better [and for those of you who think I've missed their point, trust me they don't have a point except to batter me with control methods] I would have thought they instituted this to lower my internet time).

Secondly, Susan and I have joined Weight Watchers. So far I've lost 4 pounds, and she's lost 11 and a half.

Susan decided to go back to Weight Watchers and this time, rather than have me snack away on the sidelines disturbing her, I decided to join her so we would both be working towards losing weight.

On other news, TheNumNum is getting married. In June. Like next week. Heh, actually I've known about it for awhile now. So long in fact, that I was shopping out to get a suit and some ties and a shirt, while the missus bought herself a very nice jacket and trousers.

Yesterday was the Stag do and except for a couple of the Old Ealonians not turning up when they should have (why am I not surprised?) and a whole bunch of people cheating at the event, we had a great time Paintballing.

Now, you might be surprised at myself even thinking about paintballing, being someone who doesn't care to exercise much more than running for the bus, and more importantly, someone who has a phobia of pain (I really don't like pain!). But it was for a good cause, namely to keep TheNumNum in good spirits and so I decided, 'what the heck, it'll be a good laugh'.

I'm glad to say I was right. Except now I ache all over. Lots. I'm being treated to a special bubble bath by Susan with lots of her nice smelling oils, powders and dusts.

In the last few weeks, Susan and I have been looking to get a new flat. The one we're in is ok but badly maintained (as in not) and the kitchen is a cupboard of a thing. You sort of have to see it to believe it (which reminds me, when I figure out how picture blogging works, I'll post it).

The new place is much better, is in a better location, has a power shower, new kitchen and carpets, and a humungous lounge with extra dining space.

Two small niggles. The bedroom isn't very big, probably only big enough for the bed. The second niggle is that we have to put down a £700 holding fee, which although counting towards the final bond, is a lot of money. More than we were counting on to spend on a holding fee.

But the missus and I are eager to grab it as its so holy wonderful. Susan and I can both walk to work which means we dont spend £95 on transportation costs and so it brings down the total rent of the place to £815, which is well below our discussed rental price range. Plus it means we can walk to work most of the time and when the weather is absolutely horrible, we have the choice of taking bus - the E2 and E9 routes run right outside the house, thankfully.

With all that's going on at the moment (work, Stag do & Wedding and Flat hunting) we've been particularly stressed out but hopefully by the end of July, it shall all have blown over.

I'll make another post about gaming a bit later on.

Global gaming

1.5 Million people are as addicted as I am.

Buses

I was on the bus the other day and I overheard another conversation - this time between three school children about how "utterly rubbish" buses were.

Statements like the ones below were made:

"They're filthy. Always full of litter and rubbish."

"They slow down traffic."

"You have to wait for them. And then they cost £1.20 per ride. What happens if you want to take a quick bus ride?
My dad says he would rather take his car."

There was more but you get the gist of it.

As they were kids I allowed them their skewed perceptions. Their frame of mind only extends to what they know and that isn't much, to be honest.

What I wanted to say to them was:

"Buses don't slow traffic down, bad motorists do."

This is something that really pisses me off, no end.

Buses pick up and drop off people. Therefore, you'd expect people to not park in or around bus stops. In fact, you'd expect people to be sympathetic when buses have to stop in the middle of the road to pick up and drop people off because of the idiots who have blocked off the buses in the first place. But no, they ignore this fact and target the bus driver and his 50 or so passengers.

Why is it motorists target buses with such vitriol? It's almost as if motorists have joined a brand new club - that of the selfish "think only of thine self" club.

"Instead of driving everywhere, why not walk (especially if it's a short distance away)?"

I'm tired of people treating luxuries like everyday boring shite. Public transport is ace. Think of London without any kind of public transport.

Rant over.

********************************************************

I was going to leave this post without mentioning WoW but I don't think I can (can you spot the signs of addiction? I can!)

Crucifer is now level 27 and solidly rising. Hardly a day goes by without a fight with the Alliance, most of them ending with me dead (although I have won a fight or two).

From level 22 on in, the game content is brand-spanking new and pretty good, for the most part.

Solo questing is still going strong but now, with the threat of death at the hands of Alliance players, grouping is becoming more of a necessity. Besides which, the game becomes much more colourful with other players in your team.

I suppose that's why it's an MMO...

Snow

It snowed today.

One thing I've noticed about the weather is what it brings out in people.

When its sunny, people generally are happier about things. When its raining, people are moody.

When its snowing though, people take a further step - they acquire an instinct of self preservation at any cost. I've seen motorists cut up traffic solely to get an extra minutes movement. I've seen buses clog up traffic solely to stop the motorists from gaining that extra minute, even though it'll add to the congestion nightmare.

And people are the worst of the lot. For some reason, they begin to act shamelessly.

Take the incident at the bus stop today, for example.

Susan and I were queuing for a bus. So were lots of other people. We waited patiently. The Countdown system counted down and eventually it read due.

A woman in a red coat walked up to the bus stop, paused to look at the Countdown display (noticed it read "due") and pushed in front of the queue to get onto the bus.

Now, normally, I wouldn't be annoyed. But today it was cold AND snowing. Today, I was in a mood. Why should I stand in the cold, patiently waiting my turn in the queue to have Ms. Red Coat push in? But I was with Susan so I didn't want to cause embarrasment. I silently hid my annoyance though if looks were like daggers...

However, another man behind us in the queue did say something. When the bus finally pulled over at the bus stop, he reached out and grasped her arm.

"Young lady, can you not see there is a queue for the bus?" he said.

She replied, "Oh sorry, I didn't realise."

It was a crap excuse and everyone in the queue took silent pleasure that someone had stood up for their benefit. People got on to the bus whilst this altercation went on.

However, Ms. Red Coat's embarrasment at being questioned soon turned into indignation.

"Let go, cheeky sod!" she exclaimed.

Indignation quickly turned into self-righteousness.

"Don't touch my arm, you arsehole!"

Inevitably, Ms. Red Coat pulled herself up against the older gentleman and forced her way onto the bus, which eventually drove off.

Now, if I could turn back the clock, I would give the older gentleman a round of applause for not only being right but actually standing up to the woman in a world where being chivalrous is taken for granted by women who, quite frankly, don't deserve it.

On other news, I've finally managed to get Crucifer to level 22 in World of Warcraft (the same level that I got to with Ladonna in the Beta).

The game continues to occupy most of my spare time but I'm also spending a fair amount roleplaying again, which is always good news. I've also managed some writing up of a rpg session and also of what the notion of "epic" means to me. I'll post the session-write up later.

Too much time on my hands...

In case you're wondering, I haven't forgotten about this blog.

I've just been way too busy playing World of Warcraft for anything else to distract me at the moment. Over the weekend I clocked approximately 20 hours or so, a staggeringly hugely unusual amount of time. And it's not just me either - check out this press release from Blizzard. Now correct me if I'm wrong but that's a lot of players out there!

I've finally decided on playing on the Al'akir PvP server - I'm on as Crucifer, a level 16 Tauren (that's a minotaur by the way) Hunter accompanied by a level 16 pet - a lion called Battlecat.

A couple of guys I work with have joined the same server. Scythe is on as Shibby - a level 14 Tauren Warrior, Kitten is on as Saffyre - a level 12 Tauren Shaman, and Kaynej is on as Horse, another Tauren Shaman though level 16. Also, another of my friends is on as a level 7 Troll Shaman - though he's miles away in another area of the world.

And if you think I'm spending too much time on a game - check this out. And nope, that's not a joke either. I just hope WoW doesn't go the same way. Or if they do, they choose a better pizza make.

Last week, I took a brief hiatus from playing WoW to celebrate a special occasion. Susan and I celebrated our Seventh Anniversary. It was 7 years ago that we met at Heathrow Airport for the first time and spent a glorious 4 weeks travelling around London and England seeing sights, etc. 7 years down the line, we're now living happily together in domestic bliss (apart from the odd argument about my spending too many hours on World of Warcraft).

Bookwise, I've just read The Legend of Huma by Richard A. Knaak. Of all the Dragonlance writers, I love his books the most. He has a most vivid way of humanizing his heroes. By that I mean, they're not these epic heroes of legend, just every day guys and ladies who end up being immortalised in stories.

Upgrading

After managing to copy all my relevant documents and files to Susan's computer, my windows 98 Operating system finally gave up the ghost and refused to boot up due to a .dll error. Fortuitous to say the least, it's an indictment of exactly how bad my computer has been for the past six months or so.

Windows 2000 is the shiny spanking new operating system of choice but already I feel despondant about connecting to the internet. This bold new frontier is already filled with so many scripts, trojans, worms and viruses that apparently an unprotected pc will last up to 12 seconds without some kind of protection before it succumbs and becomes infected. That's a shockingly short amount of time...

World of Warcraft (WoW) went live yesterday. I've already received the wonderfully packaged Collectors Edition which contains The Art of WoW Book, the game in both DVD and CD format, the full soundtrack on CD, an hour long Behind the Scenes DVD, a cloth map depicting Azeroth and Kalimdor and other sundry items. It looks very well packaged and I'll be looking to pick up any other Collectors Editions from Blizzard in the future.

Hopefully, I'll be able to meet up with a bunch of other players from a guild called Inner Circle. Most of them are decent players (apart from Hei Tiki) and I've played with them before during my year tenure on Asheron's Call 2.

At the moment I'm torn between 3 different characters - the Troll Hunter, the Tauren Druid and the Undead Warrior. I'll probably create all 3 and try them out to see which one is the better class to solo with.

Finished reading The DaVinci Code by Dan Browning. It was a pretty good read but I kept guessing the twists. I suppose they were very cliched. A much better book read was The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, and it's in the same genre as well. Actually, I couldn't help shake off the feeling that this was The Name of the Rose Part 2.

Work continues to be busy and exhaustive and I'm continuing to complete as much as possible whilst being plagued by support calls. Some good news - I might be able to buy a 17" monitor and an old USB scanner for £20. Hopefully, I'll be able to buy it soon - this monitor is starting to show its age (8 years old).

Getting Underway

After an exhausting week at work, it's finally the weekend. I think it's been all the more exhaustive because I had the week before off. All manner of things have been going wrong at work and I have had less and less support in finishing projects. My boss did have a quick chat with me just before I left on friday to say she had noticed a high rate of calls completed in the last week - Hurrah! someone finally said something positive. Not that it will stop me from writing up my cv and looking for work elsewhere...

Next big piece of news is that World of Warcraft will go on sale on February 11th. I have already pre-ordered my Collector's Edition so hopefully I will get this before that date but you never know with distributors.

Ladonna is now level 21 and exploring all parts of the WoW world. She's even managed to take parts in some Horde raids (players join together to go raiding into enemy territory - it's called Player vs Player and manages to poke fun at other players). Unfortunately, the servers will be wiped on the 10th and Ladonna will cease to exist. When the servers come back up, the chances are I will be playing Horde as Scythe and Kitten (and Kayne and a few others) will be playing that Kingdom. I loved the Hunter class so I think I'm going to go with that again.

Before that happens though I'm going to wipe my hard drives and install Windows 2000. Lots of things have been going wrong with my computer and I can only imagine it's because I've updated from Windows 98 First Edition to Windows 98 Second Edition. Apparently (although no one explained it to me before which makes me think that no one knew and only now claiming they knew all the time), upgrading always leads to instability in the OS.

So for the last week, I have slowly been uninstalling applications off my computer. All I have left are the basic internet tools and World fo Warcraft. And 1.5Gb of files. I'll copy those over to Susan's pc, fdisk my C: and D: drives (they're on the same hard disk), blow away the partitions, create a brand new 20Gb one and reinstall Win2k. Then I'll slowly add programs and convert drive E: (which will become drive D:) to NTFS. At some point I'll purchase a bigger hard drive but I don't need anything fancy for now.

Now, a word of explanation. People keep asking me "Oh. So not XP then?" The answer is NO! XP may have all the bells and whistles and look nice but it's also memory intensive. Plus any DOS programs will cease to work.
I've also noticed that XP tends to fall over a lot - far more than 98 ever did.

Other news - last week, I was watching a particularly interesting programme on TV, called "Undercover Angels", about the shocking practices in hospitals by nurses (you know, not administering medicine properly, not sticking to protocol, essentially not giving a shit) and they featured Ealing Hospital.

Now, I've been to Ealing Hospital recently and I can confirm a lot of what the programme said. Last October I took Susan to Accident & Emergency because she had a really bad migraine and was throwing up (we were actually advised to go by NHS Direct). After she was checked and admitted, they left her for an hour and a half whilst they sat around a table and chatted. The only people I could see being looked after were the people being the noisest or making the most racket.

I've also been several times when my father has been ill and each and every time I wonder just what is going on behind the scenes in the wards. You can just stroll in and have a good look around before walking out (you're meant to be questioned by the nurses). God forbid I actually wanted to start screwing around with drips, etc. It's really that bad.

Finally, we're off this weekend to investigate getting a 0% Balance Transfer credit card so we can do something about our credit card debt. We've looked at the ins and outs and we've decided to take the initial step with a real bank (so if anything goes wrong we have a face to face explanation) - in this case Halifax. We've calibrated our budget and worked out we can make lots of savings. This will force us to spend those savings on the credit card repayments rather than just spending them on booze and takeaways.

Better Late Than Never

EDIT: Meant to post this last night but decided on spending the evening computer-free...

Well, it's been a week off work this week and it comes to an end tonight.

What have I accomplished this week? Not much but there is one bright ray of sunshine in this feeling of melancholy that I have - I feel rested and at peace with myself, I've started a new diet and I continue to be positive with the world that I'm in. I've had lots of time with the missus (though she would say I've spent a much bigger proportion on World of Warcraft rather than being with her) and we're feeling much more relaxed. She's even made the monumentous and incredibly difficult task of quitting smoking!

We have plenty of goals to reach though. Next on the list are our finances. Like all people living in London, we're hit by financial constraints, especially just now after Christmas. Thus we are in the process of sorting out a budget that will be stuck to dilengently.

A good website is here - there's something there for everyone so go check it out.

Watched a good (and thought provoking) movie on Friday afternoon - The Butterfly Effect. The movie's premise is "what if you could go back in time and change a moment of your life - possibly for the better - what would happen as a result?"

The answer would, of course, be complete disaster. I used to imagine myself getting good A-Level grades and going on to the University of my choice - East Anglia University. I liked the feel of the town, the vibes of the university and the layout of the courses.

But if I had gotten good grades, well then I would never have cemented my relationship with The Old Ealonians whom I only really met when I took my re-takes. I would never have gotten that job at Cyberia Ealing Internet Cafe which means I most likely would never have met Susan online.Freaky!

Finally finished The Crossroads of Twilight. Was it a good book? Ummm... Strictly 5 out of 10.

I enjoyed the conversation pieces between the main characters but the rest of it was tiresome. It very much felt as if Robert Jordan wanted to string out the whole story so he could make more money out of the series. Though I am a bit perturbed by TheNumNum's (and others) criticism that they can't understand the wordings and terms in The Wheel of Time, and that it isn't like The Lord of The Rings.

Maybe it's because there is so much of LotR in the media these days. I mean, they've turned the books into films, into cartoons. You can't not know who Frodo is now so surely the understanding of the books becomes a little easier. If they turned WoT into a cartoon series, would that make it easier to understand? Possibly, quite possibly.

In World of Warcraft, finally managed to get Ladonna to level 20. Whoa. Everything has changed. Previous to this level, everything was racial-based. You wander the Night Elf cities doing Night Elf quests. But now, you get to visit the Human cities, the Dwarven cities, etc. Right now, I'm in West Fall, in the Human lands, finishing off a quest for a gnome who lives in the Dwarven city of Ironforge. Weird...!

Not looking forward to going back to work. Why? I've heard rumours that things have been very busy at work and that tomorrow I shall be ensconced with all the shite that people have left to one side whilst I have been away with the intention of giving them to me when I return tomorrow.

Ah well. I will get up tomorrow nice and early. Have a coffee, shower, maybe have breakfast, get to work on time (early if I can manage it), draw up a list of things to do and see how many of them I can do before the end of the day.

On Holiday

Arrgggghhhhh!!!

I've been meaning to post again in the last couple of days (honestly I have) but things have been very busy, both at work and at home and I simply haven't been able to keep up with it all.

It's Susan's birthday this week so she and I have managed to scrape together 5 days holiday from last year so we can take this coming week off. No, we're not going anywhere in particular but it's nice with the beginning of a new year to be able to sit down, have a cup of coffee and let the worries slip away.

A friend who's just bought an LCD screen has kindly offered me his old 17" screen. That will most likely go to Susan as part of her birthday prezzies and if she doesn't like it, I'll nab it for myself.

I've also finally bought a 4 port ADSL modem router so that we can stop being dependant on the shitty program we use for Internet Connection sharing called Wingate. Recently, all sorts of things have been going wrong and it's very frustrating for the person who's "piggybacking". This means I can play World of Warcraft and when things go wrong and I'm forced to restart, Susan can happily carry on with her surfing.

I'm now 300 pages into Crossroads of Twilight and I'm forced to reconsider my words in my third post. Yes, Robert Jordan does go on and on and on with his writing but you can't help but be drawn into his world. I'll probably change my mind once again later and just throw the book away but for now it's a good read and a gripping storyline.

Talking of books, I went to the library earlier this week and got some books out.

2 x Transformer Graphic Novels
Ill Met In Lankhmar & Farewell To Lankhmar by Fritz Lieber
Nobody True by James Herbert
Life of Pi by Yann Martell

I've already read the graphic novels. Hey, what can I say. I'm a fan of Transformers. I'm not particularly into the notion of the cars and jets (I actually liked the Dinobots more) but I loved the idea of robots talking and able to transform into various shapes, etc. I've noticed the Transformers movie is at £3.99 in HMV so I'll most likely spend a little and grab it for myself. The movie is very well done and stars the voices of Leonard Nimoy (Galvatron) and Orson Welles (Unicron).

World of Warcraft-wise, I've created a new character called Ladonna who is a 10th level Night Elf Hunter. Hunters are better than rogues because they can "call" pets whom they can quest with. It's a great class for soloing and since Scythe and Kitten (two online friends of mine) currently don't have internet access it's something I can get on with whilst they're away.

By the way, Ladonna was one of the wizards of the Order of Black Robes in the Dragonlance Chronicles. And if you haven't read them, do so now. These books are one of the cornerstones of Fantasy and especially Roleplaying.

That's all the trivia I can think of for now, expect another more serious post soon.

Working

Got to work on Monday at 9:20am (10 minutes early).

Got to work today at 9.15am (15 minutes early, but actually 15 minutes behind schedule because two fellow co-workers hadn't made an appearance and all hell was breaking loose on arguably the most busy day of the year for the company).

People always say to me "Oh you're early today. How come?" to which I reply "Oh no reason" but which I always think "Because I'm paid to start work at 9.30am and it takes me at least 10 minutes to get ready for work." The people that ask me that question, I've noticed, always arrive on their start time but then take about 15 minutes to get a coffee, go to the toilet and chat to their mates before actually starting work. And even then, they're not really paying attention to work.

When explaining this point to people, it seems they suddenly don't remember they signed a contract to do these hours (from start point to finish point). Me? I'd rather spend 10 minutes having a quick coffee, checking my personal emails, do some websurfing and then - Bang! Work starts...

On the way to work, I overheard a loud conversation on the bus between two A-Level students about the choice of their University courses. Mr Y said he was not going to pursue the English Lit course he originally dreamed of because there were no career prospects whilst Miss X said she was going to carry on with her chosen course in Biochemistry because, at the end of the day, this was her final chance to live a little before being enslaved to the system and ending up in a dead end job.

That's not what was said, obviously, but that's what it boiled down to in my opinion. Great to know that we're continuing in the destruction of teenage dreams.

Bookwise, I'm 200 pages into Crossroads of Twilight and I wonder if Robert Jordan actually has anywhere to go with this book. I could do this myself - create a story that has a start point and an end point but then make sure the rest of the story is forever unfolding - kind of like A Thousand and One Arabian Nights.

Hmm... I've sworn to persevere now, if only to find out first hand what happens next.

Some New Year Resolutions

1) Be more positive - it's easy to whine about things. Smile more and mean it.
2) More exercise and balanced meals - no more snacking.
3) Less drinking alcohol - I turn into a prat when I get drunk.
4) Write more - if I have a knack for writing, I want to discover this now, not when I retire.

Actually, these aren't New Year Resolutions because I was doing all these things well before the New Year but I like to keep reminding myself of them. I do have one point to add:

5) Always reply to an email straight away. I got an important email recently, thought about it, had a conversation with the missus, then forgot about the original email.

Bad, bad, bad.

Finally, I've decided to stop playing City of Heroes in favour of World of Warcraft. CoH is a great game but there are a few problems - the chat system is antiquated and buggy, and the quests get very boring very quickly.

World of Warcraft, on the other hand, just blows you away on practically every level - graphics, the chat system, the AI, hell even the scenary is spectacular. At the end of the day, if I'm going to spend my time in a virtual world, there is a pre-requisite for it to look cool.

Post #2

Before I go any further into my second post, I need to make an apology. In my first post, I said that my encountering The Old Ealonians was "the most soul-saving act that has happened so far in my life". While it was definitely soul-saving, another event in my life trumps it. This is, of course, meeting the woman who became my fiance and will [soon] become my wife.

I met Susan eight years ago in February on the Internet, in a charming little chatroom called #Britzone. She was living in Perth, Australia, I was living in London, England. We got chatting, and when she came over here on holiday we met up and had a great time. So great in fact that I went to Australia for 10 months and stayed with her. We've been living in the UK now for six years now but have plans to move back to Australia.

That apology said, back to the ranting and raving.

Just saw a movie last night - The Majestic, starring Jim Carrey and Martin Landau. It's set in the 50's I guess, and is about a movie writer who's ordered to appear before Congress on the charge of being of being a Communist (back when the Americans were scared of Reds). Carrey decides to take a drive whilst drunk and ends up in an accident and loses his memory.

He wakes up on the beach the next morning not knowing who he is and wanders into a town. There he gets mistaken for the son of one of the townsfolk whom he appears to resemble. After a series of encounters he begins to settle down. You do begin to wonder whether or not he actually is the son who disappeared in wartime 9 and a half years ago.

I won't say anymore in case you haven't seen it. All I will say is that it is a Frank Darabont movie. If the name is unfamiliar, shame on you. He's the director of the Shawshank Redemption, another movie that's absolutely amazing, and one that I would recommend you watch as well.

It has an excellent line near the end though, and one that I'll paraphrase here. Mainly because it sums up what i think of Politics:

"Democracy is essentially a contract - at the end of the day, it is a piece of paper with your signature at the bottom. But like all contracts, it is renegotiable."

A very nice way of putting it.

The other thing I've been watching recently is Sea of Souls on BBC1, about a group of parapscychologists investigating events in the paranamormal. The series presents its episodes back to back, with one episode showing on saturday and the other on sunday. This has the advantage of making sure that when you go back to work, you are able to talk about the whole thing at work.


Other events - I've been stuck for what to read next.

Susan asked me to read "River's Edge" by Nora Roberts. At first I said no, because I thought it was a romantic novel but it's actually more a murder mystery. It's actually well written but I sort of guessed the murderer right at the beginning and never quite changed my mind.

I've also just finished what I would consider passably the best book I've ever read - The Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb. I don't know quite why it's the best book but it reaches me in ways that leave me gobsmacked. I had to actually force myself to not skim read and to read every single word and savour them.

So of course now I'm left with the notion of what to read next.

*sigh*

There is actually one book that I've been avoiding - Crossroads of Twilight, book Ten in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

Now that The Num Num has begun reading the Wheel of Time, I find myself held responsible to read this tenth book, if for nothing else but because I've told him that he must continue reading the series.

It's a good set of books, but awfully long winded. The Num Num says the language of the books is very difficult, with odd names thrown in to puzzle the reader. I suppose it's because I'm a roleplayer that I happily assimilate the information. I do, after all, create my own roleplaying campaigns with strange names, religions, cities, etc., all from scratch so creating someone else's setting in my head isn't so hard.

The idea behind the series has been done before, that there was once an ancient civilisation that was much more powerful than the agrarian culture present today but that some huge catastrophe wiped them out leaving behind only traces of that civilisation, but never to such great effect as in the Wheel of Time.

Pick up The Eye of the World and have a read, but be warned that it is a hefty read and one that will leave you puzzled if you're not into Fantasy or Sci-Fi.


More events - I've been playing World of Warcraft and hopelessly losing myself in the virtual world of Azeroth. I'm playing a Human Rogue called Crucifer on Beta Server 2 (a few of my friends are playing there as well), and I have to say this is the most well-realised computer game I have ever played.

Just the other day I was running a delivery for the Rogue Trainer and I saw in front of me, a rabbit running from a wolf. The rabbit ran straight past me, the wolf gave me a look, ran past me as well and killed the rabbit. Then it ran off into the forest.

'Shit' I thought. That has to be AI controlled, but never before have I seen such an AI.

I now I'm going to lose myself more in this world. What can I say? Go and buy this game. Play it. Involve yourself in possibly the most realised virtual world currently on the computer game market.

My First Post

Lo,

Well, finally here I am with my own blog.

Umm...

...

I'll start with the usual questions - the what, who and why's.

A. What Is A Blog?

The term "Blog" is an abbreviation for the word Weblog. A more in-depth definition than anything I could offer can be found here.

B. Who am I?

Like many other people who blog, I would like to reserve a certain level of anonymity - not because I have something to hide, but because I may rant and rave about things that ordinarily would not reach polite conversation.

That said, there's plenty of other things I can tell you about myself.

1. I use the Internet handle "Crucifer" because my first Internet handle was becoming too well known. If you think you know it, try searching for it on Google - you'll come across pictures of me, forum posts and other sundry information.

(by the way, the name "Crucifer" comes from a UK comic called 2000ad - Crucifer is the name of one of the planets Durham Red visits after her millenia incarceration in a Suspended Animation pod.)

2. I am one of the Old Ealonians (I am actually the oldest of The Old Ealonians), a group of people who attended Ealing Green High School (now closed and taken over by a college). I wasn't in the same year as the other Old Ealonians but thanks to:

a) not being taught properly
b) being lazy

I flunked my exams and ended up in their year - probably the most soul-saving act that has happened so far in my life. I'm proud to call them my friends.

3. Among my many interests are:

Roleplaying Games - Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer Fantasy, Call of Cthulhu and most games set in the White Wolf Universe.

Computer Games - including any Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games - Asheron's Call 2, World of Warcraft and City of Heroes

Practically anything in the Science Fiction and Fantasy mediums

Writing

C. Why the Blog?

The idea of creating a Blog originated as a New Year's Resolution to write more.

When I was younger, someone told me that I had a knack for writing but that to perfect it, I should take every opportunity to write as often as possible. Back then, the only thing I was ever interested in was Roleplaying so I wrote about that.

Lots.

Nowadays, I'm enamoured by the Internet. It's a place where everyday individuals like you and I can put down our innermost thoughts, reflections and social commentary on "life, the universe and everything" in a medium populated by millions of computer users.

...

And so, here I am.