Hiatus

Heh.

So things didn't get back on track since the last post. But I have been floating around out there reading blog posts and keeping in touch occasionally with the community.

Alas, other things had diverted my attention.

Horse, a mate whom I play and work with, induced me back into World of Warcraft, but this time on a new server - Eonar, a PVE server where you can't be jumped by enemy forces.

3 months later, I have a level 60 Night Elf Druid (yes, this time I went Alliance to check out what I missed in the original beta oh so many months ago) and a new guild called Swords of Justice.

I've also been checking out Sacred, a crpg which resembles Diablo 2 - although it IS a bigger game throughout, it just isn't as intuitive as Diablo 2.

Other than that, I've read everything on my bookshelf again, including the new Robin Hobb book "Shaman's Crossing" - which although wasn't as good as her Assassin's series, was good as her Liveship trilogy.

Work is as labourious and dull as it always was. People have asked me what I'm still doing there after a year of my suggesting I was going to leave but I have plans afoot. That sadly require money. So I must stay put for now and, when the whip is cracked, get to it.

I'll write up a bigger and more fun packed post later.

Back on Track

Ok so I didn't to make another post later on "in the week" as I expected to. This was mainly because I have been spending all my time playing Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO for short).

It's a very interesting game and very unlike World of Warcraft.

Firstly, you don't get experience points for repeatedly killing monsters in the game. You only get experience points for finishing the quests. Which sounds counter-intuitive, because let's face it, killing things is fun. But the point of the game is to get your party members through the quest safe and sound, and if you can do that without fighting so much the better.

Next, no more ninja looting. Ninja Looting is where a group of party members get to some treasure and then a player, who is very quick, opens all the treasure chests and takes everything before anyone else has a chance. In DDO, treasure is reserved for party members by default. Which I have to admit is a very nice touch.

I could go on but probably the biggest point of DDO is the visceral thrill of entering a dungeon for the first time and hearing the narrator describe the crypt as being "dark and dank, and in the distance you can hear the dull scraping of bone on stone".

This, for me, is a massive selling point reminding me of the first years of my roleplaying experience as a dungeoneer in the Dungeons & Dragons Pen and Paper (PnP) game.

For those of you who have tried roleplaying, there is that instant rememberance of sitting around a table for the first time, wondering just what the heck is going on, and descending into a dungeon for the first time whilst your more experienced friends start to discuss party formation. That instant terror as a skeleton emerges from a room of cobwebs and attacks you whilst your DM (Dungeon Master, and no, not the red robed midget in the cartoons) requests you roll attack and damage dice to see if you hit and whether or not you have scored any damage.

And of course, that final warmth of triumph in your chest as you are told you were the one who smashed the skeletons ribcage to shards, stopping it in its tracks. Not to mention the coldness as you find out that a fellow party member has been killed.

Dungeons & Dragons Online is, perhaps, the closest game I have played on a computer to that ideal.

****

Other news...

I didn't get a chance to see V for Vendetta. I suppose I won't get a chance now until it comes out on DVD, which sadly for me, has become the norm.

ElshaUK bought me The Matrix Trilogy for a tenner the other day after I had spent ages whinging on about getting it. I sat down on saturday and watched Reloaded and Revolutions. Points out of ten? Hmm... around an 8, I'd say.

Ok so it wasn't as good as the first one but the Warchowski brothers did try and keep the theme of "control" going. I do remember reading an article about how the mass public had argued that those who had criticised the original Matrix film had "not understood the point the film was making". As a counterpoint, those who had criticised the second and third film came under equal fire for "not understanding the point those films was making".

Of course, mass opinion was on the side of the original matrix film as opposed to the second and third films, and the mass public do not take well to being told they're idiots.

Ian, the mate of mine who went to Japan for four years, has finally returned - with a wife! Now, I met Ian through Jamie (an Old Ealonian) as they were at university together. Ian is the consumate roleplayer, who has played Warhammer, D&D, Cyberpunk, and a myraid of lesser well known games.

Anyway, Ian introduced me to the board game Settlers of Catan, which comes across a bit like civilisation or any strategy games.

He's found a website where you can try the game out for yourself. It's very intuitive and fun, I might add. Give it a go!

Finally, I came across this piece of trivia - for those of you who like Transformers, check it out.

Valerie

The following is an excerpt from the graphic novel, soon to be a movie. As it may not appear in the movie, I thought it would be of interest to those going - as perhaps a showcase of what the movie is all about...

Crucifer

****

from V for Vendetta

Written by Alan Moore. Art by David Lloyd.


I don't know who you are. Please believe. There is no way I can convince you that this is not one of their tricks. But I don't care. I am me, and I don't know who you are, but I love you.

I have a pencil. A little one they did not find. I am a woman. I hid it inside me. Perhaps I won't be able to write again, so this is a long letter about my life. It is the only autobiography I have ever written and oh God I'm writing it on toilet paper.

I was born in Nottingham in 1957, and it rained a lot. I passed my eleven plus and went to girl's Grammar. I wanted to be an actress.

I met my first girlfriend at school. Her name was Sara. She was fourteen and I was fifteen but we were both in Miss. Watson's class. Her wrists. Her wrists were beautiful. I sat in biology class, staring at the picket rabbit foetus in its jar, listening while Mr. Hird said it was an adolescent phase that people outgrew. Sara did. I didn't.

In 1976 I stopped pretending and took a girl called Christine home to meet my parents. A week later I enrolled at drama college. My mother said I broke her heart.

But it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch we are free.

London. I was happy in London. In 1981 I played Dandini in Cinderella. My first rep work. The world was strange and rustling and busy, with invisible crowds behind the hot lights and all that breathless glamour. It was exciting and it was lonely. At nights I'd go to the Crew-Ins or one of the other clubs. But I was stand-offish and didn't mix easily. I saw a lot of the scene, but I never felt comfortable there. So many of them just wanted to be gay. It was their life, their ambition. And I wanted more than that.

Work improved. I got small film roles, then bigger ones. In 1986 I starred in "The Salt Flats." It pulled in the awards but not the crowds. I met Ruth while working on that. We loved each other. We lived together and on Valentine's Day she sent me roses and oh God, we had so much. Those were the best three years of my life.

In 1988 there was the war, and after that there were no more roses. Not for anybody.

In 1992 they started rounding up the gays. They took Ruth while she was out looking for food. Why are they so frightened of us? They burned her with cigarette ends and made her give them my name. She signed a statement saying I'd seduced her. I didn't blame her. God, I loved her. I didn't blame her.

But she did. She killed herself in her cell. She couldn't live with betraying me, with giving up that last inch. Oh Ruth. . . .

They came for me. They told me that all of my films would be burned. They shaved off my hair and held my head down a toilet bowl and told jokes about lesbians. They brought me here and gave me drugs. I can't feel my tongue anymore. I can't speak.

The other gay women here, Rita, died two weeks ago. I imagine I'll die quite soon. It's strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and I apologized to nobody.

I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one.

An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

I don't know who you are. Or whether you're a man or a woman. I may never see you or cry with you or get drunk with you. But I love you. I hope that you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better, and that one day people have roses again. I wish I could kiss you.

Valerie

X

Procrastination

Hmmm... Should I play DDO or WOW?

That's the latest dilemma I face. Sad, I know, but there you have it.

World of Warcraft has the larger population but it's getting more and more boring. Endless similar quests of "Kill this and return that" and "Take this there" are beginning to wear me down. I rarely see Horse, Scythe and Kitten on these days which just adds to the monotony of playing alone on a Massively Multiplayer Online game. I've even considered creating a new character and joining a brand new guild but the issue there is that I've done it all before. It's just getting BORING.

Dungeons and Dragons Online, on the other hand, is brand new. You HAVE to join up with other players to do quests and, because of this, people are encouraged to join up in guilds with complete strangers to begin with - which sounds like fun.

But I suppose in the end I'm just getting bored with the lack of interaction within games. Is it just me who has the time and the inclination to play these games? Surely not...

Other gaming news, Stargate the Alliance has been cancelled amid reports of the company making it going bankrupt. Guess I'll just have to wait for the MMO instead.

EDIT: Finally, decided and bought DDO, and now giving it a go. So far so good. It's as different from WoW as day is to night. The fact that you are encouraged to group up to begin with means you're working co-operatively with other people from the outset and not when you hit level 50.

EDIT2: Noticed that this is the first post I've made in a while. Sorry, but due to real life situations I've been a bit busy. I will another post this week.

Promise.

Ill Again

Hmm..

Ill again. Actually that should read "ill again x 2" since I am dealing with two different
illnesses.

The first is a flare up of the same problem I had back in August last year whilst the second
is just a plain old fashioned cold/sore throat. You know, when you get a scratchy throat and
anything you eat or drink pains it except alcohol which helps - but only in the short term
and just makes it worse.

My doctor tells me it might be stress related, which actually makes a lot of sense. I have
been very stressed with family related stuff so it stands to reason I'd get ill.
It's still sucky though.

I'm still writing up Chapter Two of Pioneers and I am making some headway. I still have a
lot of writing to do though, because even though there's less to tell in terms of events,
there's much more to say about characters and description. I think I'm settling into writing
chunky chapters.

And finally, there's this!

This makes me want to weep with joy. I'm hoping that it will come out soon and when it does,
I'll buy a copy for myself AND for ElshaUK so she can come join me online - assuming of course that its something she likes (but its Stargate! Of course she'll like it! :])

Which reminds me, I'd be remiss in not mentioning that it's our 8th anniversary. 8 years ago
we met for the first time!

Normal Service Resuming

Ok, so you got me.

I haven't been updating my blog for awhile as lots of events have been going on.

Firstly, I took an impromptu holiday as I was getting fairly stressed out at work. 6 months without any kind of break will take its toll on you, and on me it was working flat out with no consideration of what was good for me.

ElshaUK also joined me in the week long holiday as she's been getting stressed out with her new job - Manager of Accounts (or Cash Office to us normal people). She gets paid loads more money and she finally becomes what she's always dreamt of being - a manager. It might not sound like much to some but being a manager in Retail means you get to have authority. Customers, when demanding to see the manager, get told "Well you're looking at her".

My father has also been using up my spare time. Mmm, "using" is the wrong word, I suppose but there it is. I've been running to and fro for him and even through my week long holiday I was going over there to see how he was and doing some shopping for him.

I've decided, with some prompting from ElshaUK, to take more of a stand against his "I want this or that" and have politely suggested that instead of my buying something for him and then returning it when he doesn't like the colour or the quality or something - why doesn't he mail order it?

Of course, the answer is he wants attention. And he was getting it, until I put my foot down and corralled my other brothers into helping out.

So far so good.

Then I returned to work and got inundated with queries and support projects, which ultimately resulted in 2 issues being resolved today:

1) Our retail stores got updated computers, which took me the better part of 5 hours to sort out.2) I managed to resolve the whole burdensome issue of how to convert a Quicktime .Mov file so that it can be played on a standalone DVD player.

I'm so pleased with myself that I'm going to play Wow now and let nothing disturb me :)

Oh, and I've finally finished with Pioneers; at least the first chapter. It's probably the longest piece of fiction I've written and I'm not entirely happy with it. I try and write short pieces that I'm immensely proud of but long pieces... I don't write these. I excel at the sprint rather than the marathon. Still, it's done, I've checked, edited, moved and cut, often times savagely, but it's time to post it.
Go check it out HERE.

Nightmares

A few people have been writing blog posts about sleep issues and, especially, dreaming.

I don't tend to dream that often but when I do, boy are they long. They say that dreams are meant to be your subconscious mind rationalizing your feelings and events of the day, and trying to work out some meaning to it all.

Below is a dream I had about a year ago, back in October 2004. I do know that George Rennie is someone who works for my current company so obviously that's where I heard the name. Beauport sounds to me like it might be a version of Kingsport, which is a fictional town taken from H.P.Lovecraft's novels about the Cthulhu mythos. The rest of it is ... well... foreign to me.

The ending was very shocking for me and I woke up in a sweat. Now, for a long time, I've realised that once I know I've been dreaming, when I go back to sleep I can try and push the dream or nightmare into a more satisfactory conclusion - something that I can deal with that won't have me trying to work out where it all came from. So I have added a little note where the original ending was and the second ending was.

Have a read and see what you think...

-------

The dream starts with a man called George Renny, an American who walks into his home (in America) to find his wife ...erm... engaged in various lewd actions with another man. However, his wife and the stranger don't stop but continue with their passionate *cough* embrace. George feels his anger rising but just turns on his heels and leaves the house. Later, much later, his wife comes to look for him and tells him that she doesn't find him sexually arousing any more but that she has been trying to be a loving wife at home. George nods but tells her that he can't and won't put up with this and tells her he will be leaving soon. She replies that she can't stop thinking about the stranger that she has just been with and leaves.

Later - it has been a few weeks - and George finds himself in the French seaside town of Beauport. He is reading a paper and he sees the date is 1942 (this information is not apparent earlier). As he walks around the town he meets the various people, especially a young lady called Raquel who flirts with him. George reciprocates and they find themselves mutually attracted to each other.

Racquel tells George that he should'nt have come here though. The Germans have invaded France and have already "snatched" some people that have been outspoken to them. George replies that he isn't afraid, and as he's an American, they won't take him. I forget how but in the dream George agrees that he will go with her to a barn where she thinks the Germans have a few of the townsfolk.

As they travel to the barn, Raquel falls behind with a sprained ankle. She hobbles on but George tells her to wait here for him and he will go on and be back in an hour. However when he gets to the barn he gets captured by the Germans and one of them is a strangely Machiavellian-looking man with slick black hair and a finger-twirled mustache. For some reason this man brings dread to George. The man (I'll call him the Villain as he reappears later in the dream) tells George that he has been extraordinarily foolish and that he should not have come here. George looks around himself and then runs for the barn door.

He escapes and runs to Raquel, picking her up in his arms and runs to Beauport. There he tells her that the Germans are already on the outskirts of Beauport and that they must leave as soon as they are ready. Alas they are too late and German soldiers surround them. The Villain reappears and tells George that he will never leave Beauport...

Later George awakes and finds that he is in the barn again. He looks around but doesn't find anyone. As he walks back to the town, he notices some children playing by a water outlet and some of them bury themselves to hide from the others. As George rounds the corner, he meets the Villain waiting for him, who tells him he will never leave the town of Beauport.

George wakes again into another dream... and another... and another...

Years pass.

He's now an old man and a distinguished private detective who has just finished a recent case for some townsfolk of Beauport. As he reveals what has been happening in his case, the Villain reappears and congratulates him. George immediately feels dread at the sudden reappearance of this man after so long.

He suddenly whirls and jumps down the sandy dunes. As he runs he hears the Villain whistle for German guards to recapture him. George keeps running but suddenly he has a memory of the kids playing in the sand.

He stops and buries himself and the guards run past. George waits and waits and waits and falls asleep.
When he awakes he is still buried in the sand, so he waits a while longer and then gets up. Stumbling he walks along the beach before collapsing.

When he awakes, he's in a small fishing village where he's been found by a woman and looked after. Somehow, I am there but I'm from the British Embassy looking for missing people, etc. He tells me he is George Renny and when I check I find out he has been missing since 1942 - it's now 2004. He tells me his story so I immediately contact the authorities.

But then the villain reappears looking as he did in 1942. I realize then that somehow I'm dreaming George's dream as well. When I tell the Villain this, he replies that "You've always been at Beauport and you always will be".

---(this is the original ending and I was very shocked by it. But I decided to try and dream a different ending, and this is what happened when I fell asleep again)---

I faint at this shocking statement and awake to find myself in hospital. A friend is next to me and tells me I've been rambling some story about someone called George. I ask him a trivial question that I know no one else will know the answer to. He looks stumped. And I realize I have been dreaming...

I awake again to find myself in hospital. My friend is next to me and tells me I've been rambling some story about someone called George. I again ask him a trivial question that I know no one else will know the answer to. Again, he looks stumped. And once again, I realize I am dreaming.

When I awake next, I ask him a whole host of questions and he answers every one of them correctly. When I ask him about George, he says they found an old man dead next to me from natural causes and I've been in a coma for a few days.

When I ask him if they've identified him, my friends tells me no. They don't know who he is. Only I know.

Games, Games

It's been a slow few days and I've been sticking into writing my little ditty, entitleed Pioneers. So far, I have a rough idea of where I'm going with it but it's completely outside the domain of science fact. Which I suppose isn't much of a biggie since it's really a sci-fi story. I'm still writing the introduction to it and it sounds like this might be longer than just the short stories I end up writing. I just have no stamina.

In the meantime, I've been bouncing off playing World of Warcraft. The game is just getting too boring. It only shines when you play with friends - since it IS an MMO - and since no one is playing, the interactivity is just not there.

This has led me to other games.

Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction has a wonderful storyline with some great cinematics. It's a Blizzard game so it also has the quality of all their games. Blizzard games rock.

At the moment, I'm playing a Barbarian by the name of Nostarian. He's managed to get to Mephisto's Durance of Hate in Act 3 but hasn't yet killed the big guy yet. I've also got Istarian, a Paladin and Azure, an Assassin, who's really a fast combatant.

At the same time, I'm debating whether or not I should buy Starscape. It's a retro game that harks
back to the 80's so it doesn't have 3D realistic graphics but it does have immense playability.

Definitely worth checking out the demo.

Then there's this. A fan based computer game based on the Babylon 5 TV series. I haven't yet played it as I'm downloading it at the moment but so far it sounds good.

And last, but not least, we have the anticipated release of Stargate: Alliance. A computer game based on the current TV series of the same name. I am beside myself with excitement at the release of this game. Seriously.

I may have to actually buy this game when it gets released.

Keeping up appearances

Just a quickie.

As some of you may have noticed - probably not - I have added a series of blog links to the right under my archived posts. These are the blogs I check every day or thereabouts in an effort to better understand my fellow bloggers and the community I've suddenly found myself in.

ElshaUK and TheNumNum you need no introductions, nor Reader Meet Author. SwissToni and Lord Bargain, as far as I understand, are friends of TheNumNum and Alecya is one of their friends as well as being a partaker of Reader Meet Author.

There, done the introductions for the others. Now you can go and explore their blogs.

Collaborative Writing Part 2

Oh dear.

It says something when your readers post comments about items that you're going to talk about sometime last week but I haven't really had the time recently to browse blogs. My father has been ill and was at hospital for the past week, and this really brought the family back together. The upshot is that I've been very busy sorting out visits to my father, visits to my step-mum, phone calls to my eldest brother and receiving visits from my other brother who lives in Brighton.

During this time, work has also become busy - nay, chaotic. Customer Services at work have been revamped so that instead of three CS desks there is now one. This involved making four people redundant and then moving all the other's equipment upstairs, in a bid to make the new CS completely different from the old one.

Bizarrely enough, my manager decided to NOT write down all their phone numbers and data ports onto a single sheet of paper but decided to instead write them down willy nilly on post it notes. Now, I don't know about you but post it notes have a tendancy to fall off at any given moment so I told her I thought it was pretty slapdash. She replied that she thought she was perfectly organised - an opinion that absolutely no one else involved in the move shares.

Anyway, back to the topic of today's post.

As Alecya posted in last comments page, I have been involved in a collaborative writing blog entitled "Reader-meet-author" set up by SwissToni. So far I have penned two pieces - "Ravenous", a horror piece, and "Worrying about acceptance", a short piece of prose regarding Ravenous. Both of them were recieved well by the other authors. They in turn have posted a number of interesting pieces, and you should really have a read.

I am currently mulling over a number of ideas, two of which seem to be arriving at critical mass in my brain. The first one is a Starcraft story about a lone marine who escapes death from the talons of the Zerg long enought to run into the Protoss. Interesting but I'm not sure it will be that interesting to my fellow authors.

The second one is based loosely around Phantasy Star and is about a Hunter who begins his occupation learning all about the dangers of Ragol. A little bit more interesting and challenging for me as well.

All I have to do now is find the time to pen the words running through my head; not easy, when I have had such a demanding schedule recently.

All I want to do at the moment is sleep.

...well, and play Diablo 2. :)

Collaborative Writing Part 1

"And do write more, put up a story online on a blog, you'll be surprised at the comments (good and bad)."

If you read the comment to the last post, this was what TheNumNum suggested I do.
Since the only things I really care to write about is roleplaying and this blog, I've decided to start up a new project for myself, loosely entitled "Writing up Roleplaying".

As Roleplaying is a collaborative effort by all the players involved, what better way to write it all up than to create a Wiki dedicated to our own peculiar gaming sessions.

I'm actually very excited by this because having a Wikispace will not only allow me to upload any and all information that I've collected or authored over the past 14 years so that people can read up and work away from the personal sessions, but it also allows my fellow players - those both in this country and abroad - to add their bits as well.

Here you will find a whole collection of stories I've written up over these past years and just reading them, you can really see the improvements I've made with character viewpoints, emotions, conversations, etc. I'm actually impressed by all the mistakes I've made and how I've moved myself to correct them.

On other news, I've been hit by a particularly nasty piece of spyware/malware that keeps on messing up my google searches in Internet Explorer, and so I've decided to split with Micro$oft and go with Opera.

I'm especially taken with Opera's ability to continue from your last location, meaning that if you're a bit of a wanderer when it comes to surfing, you can actually go back to where you last were, rather than having to work out all over again just what it was you doing in that last session.

And finally, another co-worker has decided to try out World of Warcraft. I know, I haven't mentioned Wow of late. That's because Crucifer long ago hit level 60. Azaghul is now about level 36 and my current character, Istarian the Tauren Druid, is now about level 25.

But I've decided to try my hand at Starcraft again and this time I'm going to actually beat the Expansion - Broodwars. I've also decided to try my hand at the other expansion packs.

Resolutions

Last night ElshaUK and I saw "Catch Me If You Can" starring Leonard Di Capri and Tom Hanks. Despite my initial fear of it being a turkey, it was actually a good movie. It actually reminded me of the case where the notorious hacker, Phiber Optik, was captured by Federal authorities for hacking into computer systems and phone phreaking.

Just as in that situation, the main protaganist in the movie was able to do so much damage because the system allowed him to. It wasn't just a case of someone going out and committing these crimes - it was that the system wasn't designed to stop people.

There is a old saying, that if you put on a white coat and act like a scientist or a doctor, people believe you are a scientist or a doctor. After all, only scientists and doctors wear white coats.

Ergo...

It's a crazy state of affairs, but I wonder if I wore a white coat, just how much damage I could do in somewhere like Ealing Hospital where no one checks who you are and no one challenges you when you walk in to a ward.
Definitely food for thought.

On Saturday night (New Years Eve), a bunch of us went out to TheNumNum's new house to celebrate his birthday. We had wine, some fantastic food, a home made firework's display and some excellent conversation.

I really loved looking around his house and it made me green with envy. Not so much that he has the place but that he's putting down roots. It's something we still have to do. Hopefully, 2006 will be the year to do it.

Which leads me to...

New Year Resolutions:

1) Write more. I'm still doing a good job of writing but I need to do it more often. People do read this blog even though I'm sure it doesn't interest them in the slightest but it sure as hell interests me when I come to read it months later.

2) Save. We need to budget our income and expenditure and make the books balance.

3) Be happier. This also means less arguments at home and less all round miserness with ElshaUK.

4) New Job. 'nuff said.

5) Increase productivity. In an email conversation, I mentioned I was interested in Linux. Actually I've been interested for awhile but I've never had either the inclination or the ability to pursue this. This year, that changes. I can set up a 2 way switch and work off a second computer, which will be my scratch machine.
Things to look forward to:

In March, Greevesi finally moves back to the UK from Japan - with his bride to be. Blimey! Where did the last 3 years disparate to?

In December, hopefully we move to Perth, Australia. It's a big step but hopefully it will be in the right direction.

Plenty of family visits - Bath/Bristol for ElshauK's family and Brighton and Surrey for mine.

All in all, it looks like this year will be a big year for changes, improvements and an end to old habits.

Like Buses...

...nothing gets posted for weeks and then suddenly 3 come along in the same week. Or thereabouts.

Today I feel like shite.

ElshaUK tells me its because we've eaten nothing but junk over Christmas and this has resulted in us feeling like shite - lethargic, weighed down, tired.

I finally got around to watching the last two episodes of Babylon 5 - an amazing 5 season long DVD set. They were great and reminded me so much of when I saw them on TV. And contrary to popular belief (and I mean Indy by this) Season 1 is not the best season. Season 4 was by far - the end to the Shadow/Vorlon Saga and the beginning of the fight to reclaim Earth.

On Tuesday, I also spent about 5 hours playing Starcraft with Jimbo - an Old Ealonian, and possibly one of the only one of the Old Ealonians who actually likes playing computer games with me. We've played Diablo, Diablo 2, Neverwinter Nights, Starcraft, er, more Starcraft, Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2, Empire Earth and even more Starcraft. In fact, we definitely love playing Starcraft.

He tends to play Terran and churning out huge armies of Marines whilst I go for Random loving the unit friendly Zerg or the powerful Protoss.

And then we sit back and play on a map that an Ozzy mate made for me back in 1999, where we get to kick the shit out of computer opponents.

The one time we played against each other, he created a vast army of marines whilst I had secreted a cloaked Protoss Observer in his base, watching his every move.

Ah fond memories.

I mentioned to Kalistro and Jimbo (you remember, the WoW wanabee) that we should try and meet up online in a multiplayer game. Diablo 2, I think.

Mainly because it has a very good linear story and meeting up on Battle.Net (Blizzard's online server medium) should be particularly easy for all concerned.

I can already feel the excitement building up as we meet up together to take on the Three Prime Evils.

Ah well. New Years Eve draws close. A new year with new resolutions already being thought up. A new year with new goals.

Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whomever you're with - Happy New Year...!

RPG explained

ElshaUK and I were out having dinner with the Old Ealonians on Wednesday night and the subject of Roleplaying came up.

"So no board? How does THAT work?"

Roleplaying is essentially Storytelling or unscripted amateur dramatics if you wish. 1 person is designated the Referee - he sets the stage, so to speak, and fills everyone in on the backdrop to whats going on. So for example, if we were playing a Call of Cthulhu game:

"It was a dark and stormy night. The car sped up the winding mountain lane as heavy rain obscured the driver's vision. He tapped his cigarette on the side of the dashboard and settled into his chair, stretching at the same time to stop himself from falling asleep."

So here we have a detailed environment and a particular character. Who the man is and why he is driving in such weather still remains a mystery, but the players are told that the man is not one of the players. He is, in fact, a chaffeur, driving them somewhere.

The story background begins to gel in the Referee's head and he invites the players to create characters to match the mood of the story so far.

In most roleplaying games, the players have to roll up statistics for their character's attributes (normally, things like Strength, Dexterity/Agility, Constitution/Endurance, etc). These attributes remain mostly fixed for the duration of the game, perhaps increasing only when the characters have suffiencently advanced in levels or when they have recovered magical items that they can equip - as a reward for their patience and endevours.

Once that is done, the players name their characters and work out other details - such as equipment, knowledge, etc.

As the story progresses, the players gain information and make decisions based solely on what their characters are aware of. For example, you yourself might be aware of how to repair a car but that doesn't mean that your character does. Their narratives essentially make up the rest of the story/game.

So whilst the Referee is telling the audience what is happening in the immediate background, the players are telling the audience what their actions are.

At this stage, there are two very important distinctions to be made: OOC (Out of Character) and IC (In Character). Most of the time, the players will be in IC until they wish to disagree on a ruling or ask for more pertinant information at which point everyone switches to OOC.

In the above example, let's pick a character called Edward Black, a journalist for a small newspaper, the Scyamore Herald. He's about 25 and just starting out on his writing career. He has never been involved in the Cthulhu Mythos but when he was younger he did have an experience with a ghost-like manisfestation that left him with a shattered childhood, and to this day he is still a little insecure.

I've decided that Edward is travelling to talk to a professor of archaeology regarding an article for his newspaper.

This is something the Referee did not take into account at the start of the game but decides to run with the idea. It just so happens the Professor of Archaeology will fit in with the game quite nicely - so long as a few minor changes are made.

As other characters are introduced to the game, their decisions will affect the outcome of the beginning of the story as well, and it is the job of the Referee to intregrate these ideas into the game.

The Referee, by the way, is considered an unbiased person. Even though he knows the players and knows the background of the game, he is neither against the players nor for them. He is simply telling a story and adjudicating battles and other judgement decisions.

A roleplaying game has no clear ending. Whilst there are objectives - rescue the princess, kill the dragon, etc - the game doesn't come to an end once those objectives are completed. The princess might have to be escorted back, the dragon might have been a servant of some greater evil.

You can get more information from Wikipedia

Merry Capitalism-mas Everyone!

Well, its been a while since I last posted and I've been putting things off until christmas arrived... and here it is.

First of all, an explanation of why I dislike Christmas. It's a time when people seem to go mad in their gathering of presents for their friends and family. Mad is not the word, sadly. They become selfish misers who are out for blood - they want presents at the expense of other people and this selfishness is put on display for all to see during this time.

People who would go out of their way to say "Thank You" in shops now shoulder past looking for that single present that will clinch their dealings with their family. Parents use their children's prams as rams as they batter you out of their way. People just go crazy at this time of year. Maybe they should rename Christmas to Capitalism-mas.

Happy Capitalism-mas folks.

Saying that, I've bought ElshaUK presents and she's bought me hers. So am I a bit of a hypocrite for saying all that stuff about selfishness? Not really. I didn't go mad when buying her pressies and she didn't go mad buying me pressies. We took it calmly and bought all our presents either over the internet or the week before Capitalism-mas.

So, what did I get?

Well, first and foremost, the best present so far was not from ElshaUK but from her folks. They were 2 x home-made vouchers made out to the sum of "a one way flight ticket to Perth, Australia before Xmas 2007".
Now, that is a brilliant Christmas present.

ElshaUK and I have been thinking seriously about going to Perth, Australia to live permanently but the money side of things has always been a worry. How do we pay for flights, for the visa, for sending stuff over, for paying off credit cards, for paying off loans...

...well this takes a huge chunk of that money off our hands.

Other presents:

A nice shiny new black Logitech Keyboard - which is going to take some time getting used to.

A Sony Walkman 256Mb MP3 player + Holder - those who know me well know I don't have much taste in music. It appears that 2006 will be a complete change.

A pair of flannalette pyjama pants

A leather Wallet (which had the airline vouchers in)

A bag of authentic Dungeons & Dragons Dice

A World of Warcraft Atlas

A World of Warcraft Strategy Guide

A Hair Trimmer for side burns and err other unslightly hair.

Everything has been a complete surprise, especially the tickets to Oz and the MP3 Player.

Now I'm off to have some breakfast, a shower, and some playing of the above mentioned toys and reading of the above mentioned books on a day of complete relaxation where both of us can do whatever we want (either playing on the computer or watching tv or listening to music) without any cares or worries.

Maybe Capitalism-mas isn't so bad after all...

Revenge of the Prequels

These past two weeks, I saw two movies that I never got to watch at the cinema - Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith and Batman Begins. What can I say? Both are at completely opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of likability.

First of all, let's start off with SW3: RotS.

The film is basically a live-action cartoon depicting the events leading up to Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader. That's the entire plot in that sentence alone.

The story is convoluted and disjointed leaving so many issues unresolved. Why, for example, doesn't the Emperor find out where Yoda is hiding - he has 20 years to despatch billions of imperial probe droids (taking into account it only takes about 2 years to find out about the Rebel's base on Hoth)? How does Leia know about her mother being beautiful but sad (as she explains in Return of the Jedi) if her mother died in childbirth? Why doesn't R2 remember Obi-Wan or tell Luke about his father if only C3-PO's memory was wiped?

The film also has a problem with its special effects. Each scene has more special effects than normal acting, rendering the effects useless. Rather than highlighting the story, it paints over them instead. Also the use of cutscenes is rather bad - in A New Hope, it was used to indicate movement of the story. Here its use destroys that movement.

I also find it unlikely that a huge religion that spanned a civilisation could become in 20 years "ancient and hokey" as Solo describes the Jedi in A New Hope. As a 32 year old, I can easily remember 20 years ago! And why is it all the space craft that were shiny and sleek 20 years ago are all battered and dusty now? I just don't understand it - have they stopped making space ships?

These are just some of the most basic problems I had with the storyline. Don't get me started on how stupid Anakin seems to be when he gets "seduced" by the Dark Side (he wasn't seduced, he made a direct choice) or how it seems very unlikely that Obi-Wan, his friend and mentor, would cut his right arm and legs off and then leave him to die on a lava planet after he's discovered to be in league with the Sith. Somehow, I think not. And knowing that Anakin possibly died on the lava planet, why then the reason to split his children up? Neither Palpatine nor Anakin knew of the twins and it would have been just as likely that the children died in child birth.

On the other side of the spectrum is Batman Begins - a re-write of the Batman saga, this time explaining just how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman. The story starts off Bruce Wayne trying to discover what it is to be a criminal and what makes them tick and ending up meeting Liam Neeson as the mentor that teaches him how to be a ninja. When given a choice to be judge, jury and executioner, Bruce jumps ship and returns to Gotham to become Batman and to instill fear into the hearts of criminals.

The plot is well done and leaves you gasping for more, the fight sequences are believable. In fact the whole thing is really well done but how does it compare to Tim Burton's Batman? Well, Batman was iconic, it was dark and moody but its aged. Batman Begins is much the modern take but somehow it's not as iconic. Still I look forward to the sequel.

Firefly

Why did no one tell me it was a Western? As I said in my last post, I bought the entire series of Firefly thinking it was a really good sci-fi. And it is.

Except that it's a Western set in space. When I told people they said, "oh but so was star wars".

No, Star Ways is a swashbuckling adventure set in space. Light Sabres, Laser Crossbows, Space Barges. The whole thing is a pirate-type genre.

Firely, on the other hand, is a Western. As depicted by the horses and wagons seen in the pilot, by the fact that even though it is set hundreds of years in the future, people still use revolvers and talk in an American accent (although they do sometimes lapse into Chinese when swearing).

I can still remember ElshaUK whooping with delight at my face when the title music started and it slowly dawned on me that it was basically cowboys in space - not my favourite genre especially :P

On the other hand...

It's a damn good series. No, really. Really, really good. I can see why people say the Movie version, Serenity, is better than Star Wars. That's because it is. It doesn't concentrate so much on the story but on the characters. And let's face it, that's why the last 3 Star Wars movies have sucked so much - because they don't have characters or a storyline, just lots of wonderfully colourful special effects.

We've watched about 6 episodes now and are hooked. The episodes tend to revolve around the whole western genre as do the characters, so you have Mal, the ex-soldier captain of the Firely-class vessel Serenity. You have Zoe, his comrade in arms, and Wash, Zoe's husband and wise-cracking pilot. And that's another thing. A sci-fi series that openly talks about sex. As in Zoe telling Wash "Hey husband, let's go have some sex."

The other characters make up the usual sort of people you'd find in a Western town - a chaplain (Book), a prostitute (Inara), a doctor (Simon Rivers) and a mechanic/blacksmith (Kaylee).

And it all works wonderfully well. Go and buy it and for heavens sake, give it a chance to get going (by episode 3 I guarantee you will want to carry on watching).

Now we're looking forward to watching the feature-length movie at the cinema. If I convince ElshaUK to go with me...

Other news - I'm ill again. :( A re-occurrence of the original infection from 2 months ago. Why oh why does this happen to me.

I hate 'phoning in sick. Your employers always ask you the same questions:

"Have you seen a doctor?"
Err. Yes. I've seen a doctor and he believed me when I told him I was ill. Why can't you believe me?

"Will you be in today/tomorrow?"
Err. Shouldn't I get better first?

"It's really a bother, we're so busy here."
Great. I love being a slave as well.

Companies should just wake up to the fact that their employees are actually human beings and stop treating them with carrot/stick motivation. It would probably make everyone happier. The Star Trek era should just arrive and make monetary concerns redundant.

...And finally, I can't finish without mentioning that I'm now level 58 and soon to be 59 in World of Warcraft. Hopefully in the next week or so I should be - finally - 60.

And then I can begin all over again. :)

Same Old

Just an update really. No new news to tell - or at least any interesting news.

My 5 year anniversary came and went at work with nothing said at work. I doubt if anyone even noticed. Meanwhile, I have been told that I am now the Hardware Engineer. I'm sorry, I thought I was the 2nd Line Support Engineer. Now it seems I've been relagated to make sure the infrastructure doesn't crumble. Great.

Scythe's replacement has finally been found. Another South African, by sheer coincidence apparently. I don't believe in coincidences and I told Management that to their faces - they laughed it off but I still wonder.

I'm starting to grind away in World of Warcraft so I can get to level 60. I'm at level 56 at the moment, soon to hit level 57. They say the game opens up at 60 but I'm sure what they mean is, if you have the time... For the first time in a while, Horse, Scythe and Kitten were all on at the same time - which is frankly astounding, given that we now all play at different times. They're all level 53, which gives me a slight advantage to hitting 60 before them.

I am still reading Johnathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It's a good book and the adventure hasn't lessened up in the slightest, although I have, if you know what I mean. I'm not keen on reading huge books so even though I will be disappointed when the story ends, I will be happy to start reading something else.

I'm not too sure what else to read - Engines of Destiny sounds about right. A "What if" story, it asks:

"What would happen if Captain Montgommery Scott (now in the 24th Century [ST:TNG - Relics]) zipped back in time to just before Captain Kirk disappeared into the Nexus [ST:Generations] and beamed him aboard a cloaked ship, thereby saving his life?"

The answer is, of course, a complete disaster. Kirk never disappeared into the Nexus which means he wasn't there to help Picard stop Soran from exploding the Viridian Sun. It also means that Kirk never died in that stupid way.

As you can see I am a Science Fiction fan. The other day, interested by the film Serenity, I went out and bought the entire series (14 episodes) of the original tv series, called Firefly.

Tonight I get to watch the first episode with ElshaUk to see if it was a good choice.

Back from our holidays in "fairytale" Cornwall - St. Ives, to be precise.

We (ElshaUk, the Father and Stepmother-In-Law) spent a glorious seven days pottering around Cornwall, seeing sights and drinking copious amounts of Tribute Ale whilst enjoying ourselves immensely. We've been there before, once again with them, a couple of years ago so this holiday was a more sedantry affair. Neither rushed to see all the sights nor many a shopping trip in the local towns, this time we spent the holiday as it should be - slowly unwinding.

Illness-wise, I am feeling much better. No longer on antibiotics or creams [touch wood] I am up for work tomorrow, well actually today in about 8 hours. I dread to think what my workmates and manager have been up to whilst I have been away, but I'm sure I won't be surprised by their stupidity when I get to work.

I am still looking for a new job. This has been a cause for concern to me as I am coming up to the 5th anniversary of my current position. This means that instead of the usual 4 weeks of notice, I must now give 5 - meaning extricating myself from work will be that much harder. Still, I am insistant that I remove myself from my work place. No more shall I be made to suffer the indignity of working for sheer incompetant managers that pay themselves about £15k more than me whilst making me do all the hard work.

Unfortunately, 3 days into my holiday in Cornwall and mainly caused by severe bouts of insomnia, I read straight through the two books I mentioned in my previous post and ElshaUK made me buy another book I had taken an interest to in a local bookshop - Johnathan strange & Mr. Norrell. This is one of those books that turns you into a compulsive obsessive; every day you will force yourself to read more of it and to ponder on the meaning of every chapter.

The story is set in a fictional alternate world of the 1800's where Magic actually exists. Not the magic of Dungeons & Dragons nor that of Paul Daniels but the other-worldly magic long since forgotten by adults - the Fairy-tale magic of old. The plot revolves around two gentlemen magicians - Johnathan Strange and, of course, his one-time tutor, Mr. Norrell and their attempts to revive English Magic from centuries old neglect.

One quote from the book is:

‘“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could”’ (p.304).

This book is up there with Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien but is more similar to the writings of E.R. Eddison's "The Worm Ouroborous" - a long-since forgotten contemporary of Tolkiens. Apparently it took the author, Susanna Clarke 10 years to pen it.

If you read one book this year, read this one!

Cornwall

Off to Cornwall now for 10 days or so.

Feeling a little better but still far from ok, illness-wise. Had a terrible night's sleep last night (nothing new there) so will probably sleep in the car on the way down from Bristol (train from Reading there).

Otherwise, I'll see you all soon.

Bad Elves vs Good Elves: Discuss...

I am still ill.

This hugely frustrating state of affairs has not only stopped me from continuing to look for work elsewhere but has made me more and more morose regarding my health.

Why does this always happen to me when I go on holidays? This time at least I wasn't stressed. At least, I don't think I was stressed. Alright, so Scythe and Assassin-UK left me holding together the company's infrastructure like it was my guts spilling out all over the floor but I don't think I was that stressed.

On the other hand, of course, I will get better. Eventually. Hopefully before my holiday finishes.

On other news, I've been playing World of Warcraft some more and have decided that before the Expansion pack comes out (it's rumoured to be coming out for Christmas) I will get Crucifer up to level 60. At the moment, he's level 52 and in a very nice tourist site known as The Searing Gorge. It's not that bad to be honest, but the necessity to team up to complete quests are becoming more and more irritating.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't have a lot of time to spend on computer games. When I'm not playing Wow, I'm reading (and soon to be reading Terry Pratchett's "The Last Continent" & Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time Prequel: New Spring"). When I'm doing either of those things, I'm on the internet looking up info on roleplaying material for our game or spending time with Elsha.

Following on from the last post, we decided to sit down and finally build ourselves a game world, asking very serious questions like "why are elves good?". Tolkien made them good of course, that's why. And everyone else followed suit for a long, long time until TSR finally brought in evil elves called Drow. And again, everyone followed suit.

We've decided to use some of the ideology from the Stargate Universe - Elves were ancient beings that eventually transcended their material forms and left for distant parts unknown. Those few that remained behind kept to themselves. Some other elves, the Drow, decided to return to the Material World and work with the humans.

And so, we have our first real issue. Good Elves with a non-interference policy trying to stop the Drow (bad Elves) from helping the Humans, who don't realise what's going on (nor would care even if it was explained to them).

But the main point that we're looking at in terms of the above is why are the elves there? Not just because they have a passing resemblance to Legolas but the actual reason for their existance. Now it's something very interesting that we can work into the game's storyline maybe.

And bizarrely enough, my browser was having problems with Blogger's composer bar. After reinstalling IE6 SP1, eveything is working again. Yay.

An Overdue Update

well its been nearly a long month since I posted last and I wish I could say lots of good things have happened. Alas, I've been ill for practically the whole time with one of those... erm... embarrassing illnesses that seem to crop up every now and again and is kept out of polite conversation.

I took a couple of days off work and was reminded why I was looking for work elsewhere. My boss rang me a couple of times and wanted to know if I was coming in - not from any concern for my wellbeing but because she wanted to go to the Passport office and my not coming in was preventing her from going.

Deciding to look after myself for once, I said no and she went out anyway. Nice.

Job-wise I am still looking for a better place but like with flats, you spend ages looking around, maybe get to see one or two really nice places and then find out that either they're not good enough or there is a catch - and you go back to looking for that perfect place.

Not feeling very well has only made it worse.

I haven't been playing WoW much. Susan's Dad and Step-mum came over from Oz via Canada and so we've been doing the flat up. We spend friday, saturday and sunday morning with them and had a great time. Now we're back to vegging out until the 8th when we go down to St. Ives for a week long holiday in Cornwall.

This saturday I'm doing another stint of paintballing but first I have to get checked out by the Doctors to make sure I am fit to go.

Roleplaying has taken off again. We've been trying to meet up every week or so to keep continuity and so far it all seems to be working. The world-designing is really taking off and we're mostly having fun. Except Jamie who thinks Dwarves should look like Dwarves and Elves should look like Elves. But shouldn't dance. Especially under stars.

I will be posting a bit more about that and WoW when I'm feeling a little better.

Scythe's gone AWOL, Sarge!

Tomorrow (Thursday 4th August 2005) will be Brett's last day at work.

I am both dreading it and looking forward to it all in the same breath because although on the one hand that old comraderie I have come to expect from going to work will be gone, I will have no reason to stay there anymore. This is a turning point in my life and I need to realise that there is more to the world than my crummy job where other people take advantage of my skills and abilities.

To mark the occassion we had a good old Red Faction game night, where Bufu, Horse, Kitten, Scythe and even Assassin-UK logged in and hunted each other like stalking tigers. It was great fun and I think we will be doing it a lot more in future.

Here's to you Scythe, *big gulp of wine*

Gone, but never forgotten.

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.

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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.