No post. Yea, it's been long, what of it? Interest wanes and waxes. And returns when I just want to see if this app works.
Wednesday 6 July 2011
Sunday 27 March 2011
A quiet week
Yes, mostly been a quiet week - lots of lazing about and early nights. Let's see, what did I do..
Worked quite hard (in work) and got lots done, as usual. Lots of slides made, samples processed and I also finally finished my Official Photography Unit Guides to Using a Nikon D90. Apart from thinking up a snappy title, that is.
Wednesday saw a brief visit to Jane's pad where Lucas insisted on throwing himself on top of me quite a bit. He's only little but he's absolutely solid, it's mad. Just so heavy and strong. We had a bit of Peroni and cake and watched Masterchef and I caught her a goth pokemon on.. well, Pokemon.
Friday night I did a bit of EVE - we were trying to play with a corp who seemed very similar to us so we wanted to get them to attack us and have a bit of a scrap. Sadly they refused to co-operate. I was about 90% certain they had cloaky eyes on us anyway so there wasn't any real hope of surprising them. I also patched up some old games I hadn't played for a while with the intent of giving them a go. These are League of Legends and Battleforge (more on these later).
Yesterday (which was Saturday) saw a trip to the park. Lucas had a bear to look after so it seemed vital to take him on an adventure. The bear was named Dewi and I mispronounced it virtually without fail. Glebelands is a nice little spot and it meant Lucas could look at some trains and his potential future school. He also got the opportunity to completely snub another child.
Here he is, having spotted something of import:
And here he sits as King of the Glebelands. He wasn't too happy about Dewi sharing his throne:
So, League of Legends, eh? It's a sort of MMO based around a gameplay mod for Warcraft 3 which was a tower defence sort of thing. In it, you have uncontrollable allies and enemies constantly spawning and attacking the enemy base and you support them by controlling a hero character with special abilities. In the normal mode of LoL you have this sort of line-up:
From which you can see a good bit of the appeal of the game - it's got a brilliant art style. I've been switching between a few of the 'recommended' novice characters such as Annie:
She's a sort of evil child who uses powerful magicks to blast people apart and also summons a massive monstrous bear to kill people with. She says things like, "Have you seen my bear Tibbers?"
Look at her skip along:
There is also a wolfman thing called Warwick who gets health from attacking people and has a really nasty dps cooldown you can use to quickly take out enemy players:
He says things like, "It's only fun when they run". He's got an ability which increases his speed if he detects a nearby player with low health so you can peg it across and nuke them.
Also there is Tristana who says things like, "C'maaaaan, let's shoot something". She's got some really nifty utility things. Also: a bazooka.
A typical game involves 10 people and goes on for about 30-40 minutes. The consequence of this is that it generates some really spectacular emo rage when anything goes a bit wrong. One match yesterday had someone constantly saying things like, "OMG I'M ON TEAM RETARD!!". I like the game though so I just ignore them.
You have a persistant character which levels up and you can spend points you accrue to unlock new heroes to use and so on but I've already got quite a few and not played that many of them yet.
Battleforge is a sort of card-based RTS style of thing but I've not got around to trying that again just yet. Maybe I will do in a bit and then take some photos.
Umm.. I'm a bit low on books I want to read now as well and there's not many telly shows either. Limmy's Show has now finished. Down the Line is back on but that's radio and also only 30 minutes a week and I can't quite get into Masterchef this time around.
So this means: GAMES.
Worked quite hard (in work) and got lots done, as usual. Lots of slides made, samples processed and I also finally finished my Official Photography Unit Guides to Using a Nikon D90. Apart from thinking up a snappy title, that is.
Wednesday saw a brief visit to Jane's pad where Lucas insisted on throwing himself on top of me quite a bit. He's only little but he's absolutely solid, it's mad. Just so heavy and strong. We had a bit of Peroni and cake and watched Masterchef and I caught her a goth pokemon on.. well, Pokemon.
Friday night I did a bit of EVE - we were trying to play with a corp who seemed very similar to us so we wanted to get them to attack us and have a bit of a scrap. Sadly they refused to co-operate. I was about 90% certain they had cloaky eyes on us anyway so there wasn't any real hope of surprising them. I also patched up some old games I hadn't played for a while with the intent of giving them a go. These are League of Legends and Battleforge (more on these later).
Yesterday (which was Saturday) saw a trip to the park. Lucas had a bear to look after so it seemed vital to take him on an adventure. The bear was named Dewi and I mispronounced it virtually without fail. Glebelands is a nice little spot and it meant Lucas could look at some trains and his potential future school. He also got the opportunity to completely snub another child.
Here he is, having spotted something of import:
So, League of Legends, eh? It's a sort of MMO based around a gameplay mod for Warcraft 3 which was a tower defence sort of thing. In it, you have uncontrollable allies and enemies constantly spawning and attacking the enemy base and you support them by controlling a hero character with special abilities. In the normal mode of LoL you have this sort of line-up:
Look at her skip along:
There is also a wolfman thing called Warwick who gets health from attacking people and has a really nasty dps cooldown you can use to quickly take out enemy players:
He says things like, "It's only fun when they run". He's got an ability which increases his speed if he detects a nearby player with low health so you can peg it across and nuke them.
Also there is Tristana who says things like, "C'maaaaan, let's shoot something". She's got some really nifty utility things. Also: a bazooka.
A typical game involves 10 people and goes on for about 30-40 minutes. The consequence of this is that it generates some really spectacular emo rage when anything goes a bit wrong. One match yesterday had someone constantly saying things like, "OMG I'M ON TEAM RETARD!!". I like the game though so I just ignore them.
You have a persistant character which levels up and you can spend points you accrue to unlock new heroes to use and so on but I've already got quite a few and not played that many of them yet.
Battleforge is a sort of card-based RTS style of thing but I've not got around to trying that again just yet. Maybe I will do in a bit and then take some photos.
Umm.. I'm a bit low on books I want to read now as well and there's not many telly shows either. Limmy's Show has now finished. Down the Line is back on but that's radio and also only 30 minutes a week and I can't quite get into Masterchef this time around.
So this means: GAMES.
Friday 25 March 2011
Tuesday 22 March 2011
Doctor Fact
Oh, that was the other book I read: Sick Notes. It's a series of sort of commentaries from a GP, talking about his patients and the mad red tape and all that sort of thing. Quite interesting on the whole but doesn't quite hang together as a complete book - there's a few specific stories on patients that he returns to a couple of times and you're left wanting to know a bit more about how it all turned out.
I suppose it reflects the reality though - ie; once a patient has died or been terminally hospitalised then the GP probably will never hear another thing about them.
So, yesterday. Bit of EVE really, spent most of the evening doing scanning for the rest of the corp and then a bit of moneymaking. Nothing terribly exciting, though we did have a wormhole to our site-running system that came from nullsec (player-owned space) and those people can be a bit nasty. We did a skillful controlled closing of the hole though and I also think we trapped one of their covert ops pilots in system. He'll have a fun job getting back home.
Lesson to known-space people: stay out of wormhole space, we know what we're doing.
Chaos this morning, Cardiff Central had Gone Dark. No power at all so no trains, I had to get a bus. Three times as long it took and smaller seats. Not fair.
I suppose it reflects the reality though - ie; once a patient has died or been terminally hospitalised then the GP probably will never hear another thing about them.
So, yesterday. Bit of EVE really, spent most of the evening doing scanning for the rest of the corp and then a bit of moneymaking. Nothing terribly exciting, though we did have a wormhole to our site-running system that came from nullsec (player-owned space) and those people can be a bit nasty. We did a skillful controlled closing of the hole though and I also think we trapped one of their covert ops pilots in system. He'll have a fun job getting back home.
Lesson to known-space people: stay out of wormhole space, we know what we're doing.
Chaos this morning, Cardiff Central had Gone Dark. No power at all so no trains, I had to get a bus. Three times as long it took and smaller seats. Not fair.
Sunday 20 March 2011
LF TANK
Last radio show for a little while at least. It wasn't a bad one but I do feel a lot more relaxed now that I won't be compelled to watch bad films. Today's one was You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Some Woody Allen pointlessness. Not terrible, just unconvincing and average.
For something else to do I've been bumming around on World of Tanks open beta. Seems like a good one to jump in and out of. I'm rubbish with normal tanks but this one is working well for me:
It's some sort of Russian self-propelled gun. Apparently it was blueprinted but never actually built. I just find myself a nice high spot, let other people do some scouting and then rain fire on the enemies. Fun fun.
It generally looks cool too, like this other Russian tank I bought:
It's got sort of talent trees to do upgrades for your tanks - you can choose whether to upgrade guns, engines, etc. Assuming it stays Free to Play I'll probably pick it up when it's released properly.
I do also have Rift now as well, finally patched up to date so I'll be having a try of that tomorrow.
Oh, I forgot to do pics of my current Pokemon lineup. Probably just as well as they've let me down at the moment. 5th gym leader is kicking my arse.
For something else to do I've been bumming around on World of Tanks open beta. Seems like a good one to jump in and out of. I'm rubbish with normal tanks but this one is working well for me:
It generally looks cool too, like this other Russian tank I bought:
It's got sort of talent trees to do upgrades for your tanks - you can choose whether to upgrade guns, engines, etc. Assuming it stays Free to Play I'll probably pick it up when it's released properly.
I do also have Rift now as well, finally patched up to date so I'll be having a try of that tomorrow.
Oh, I forgot to do pics of my current Pokemon lineup. Probably just as well as they've let me down at the moment. 5th gym leader is kicking my arse.
The week in pictures and some words
I can't already be slacking on updating this. I'll try to summarise the events of the past week but I've probably forgotten some due to being a bit tired.
Well, the corp meeting on Sunday went ahead and it was basically decided to leave the Alliance. The other corp we're with are mostly fine there's just two people who are utter arseholes who nobody else can get along with. I did nearly get into an argument with one of them - wrote a post on the corp forums using phrases like, "woefully under-socialised" and "temperament of a wife beater" but saw sense and didn't post it.
So the people who had moved up and joined their corp managed to sneak their expensive ships back out and come back with us. When we announced that none of our people are able to tolerate them there was a bit of drama so now we'll just see what happens. I imagine the Alliance will be broken but I'm happy with that outcome.
New plans for us involve moving up to a higher class of wormhole system and running a fresh apprenticeship to bolster the US Time Zone numbers.
Monday: went to doctors to restart my antidepressants. I'd done a trial period of staying off them but that didn't work very well. It's only a small dose but it seems to be just enough to keep me ticking over sensibly. So that meant a late start but still got loads of work done. Popped to the pub after work to read a book and got chatting to a pair of comedians. I don't mean that in a disparaging sense - they really were comedians. They were pleasant enough.
The book I'm reading at the moment is Forgotten Voices: D-Day. It's a collected set of diary entries and personal recollections that tell the story of the events of D-Day. Very, very interesting to see how it all went on and lots of funny little passages. They've just got to the part where the gliders have landed and are trying to secure the flanks ahead of the main seaborne invasion. One of the people who escaped from a crashed glider into a flooded area said he was keeping up the fine traditions of the British army by making tea - all the teabags he had sewn into his uniform were leaving a stream of tea behind him as he walked.
Bit of a blank for the rest of the week, something may come to mind though. I had been doing some Pokemonning and bought the guide book. Never played the games before so was sure I was missing out on all sorts of basic stuff. I got a new evolution:
I don't like it much and I don't use him any more. I'll post my present lineup later.
Mostly the week was just work though. I did notice that the trend towards scientific talks with zany names is still ongoing:
'Making a case for it'. Oh, you guys.
Still a bit tired so can't think of a huge amount else. Friday I had some burgers. Oh, and on Friday we received a security alert saying a big animal rights protest was happening at the uni. I went to take some pictures of them, expecting them to be quite interesting. The protest was.. not well attended:
Yes, that's all of them. I haven't just framed it to make it look weak. Four. Four people. And, ahem:
You know that company is a big customer of Huntington Life Sciences, right? Tch.
When I got back I went to a bbq which had some nice food and sat about taking the piss out of Dinocroc vs Supergator but the fun had to come to an end due to rugby. Did some EVE and took some pictures of the Supermoon but they were mostly crap due to the sky being very hazy. I quite liked this one though:
Well, the corp meeting on Sunday went ahead and it was basically decided to leave the Alliance. The other corp we're with are mostly fine there's just two people who are utter arseholes who nobody else can get along with. I did nearly get into an argument with one of them - wrote a post on the corp forums using phrases like, "woefully under-socialised" and "temperament of a wife beater" but saw sense and didn't post it.
So the people who had moved up and joined their corp managed to sneak their expensive ships back out and come back with us. When we announced that none of our people are able to tolerate them there was a bit of drama so now we'll just see what happens. I imagine the Alliance will be broken but I'm happy with that outcome.
New plans for us involve moving up to a higher class of wormhole system and running a fresh apprenticeship to bolster the US Time Zone numbers.
Monday: went to doctors to restart my antidepressants. I'd done a trial period of staying off them but that didn't work very well. It's only a small dose but it seems to be just enough to keep me ticking over sensibly. So that meant a late start but still got loads of work done. Popped to the pub after work to read a book and got chatting to a pair of comedians. I don't mean that in a disparaging sense - they really were comedians. They were pleasant enough.
The book I'm reading at the moment is Forgotten Voices: D-Day. It's a collected set of diary entries and personal recollections that tell the story of the events of D-Day. Very, very interesting to see how it all went on and lots of funny little passages. They've just got to the part where the gliders have landed and are trying to secure the flanks ahead of the main seaborne invasion. One of the people who escaped from a crashed glider into a flooded area said he was keeping up the fine traditions of the British army by making tea - all the teabags he had sewn into his uniform were leaving a stream of tea behind him as he walked.
Bit of a blank for the rest of the week, something may come to mind though. I had been doing some Pokemonning and bought the guide book. Never played the games before so was sure I was missing out on all sorts of basic stuff. I got a new evolution:
I don't like it much and I don't use him any more. I'll post my present lineup later.
Mostly the week was just work though. I did notice that the trend towards scientific talks with zany names is still ongoing:
'Making a case for it'. Oh, you guys.
Still a bit tired so can't think of a huge amount else. Friday I had some burgers. Oh, and on Friday we received a security alert saying a big animal rights protest was happening at the uni. I went to take some pictures of them, expecting them to be quite interesting. The protest was.. not well attended:
Yes, that's all of them. I haven't just framed it to make it look weak. Four. Four people. And, ahem:
You know that company is a big customer of Huntington Life Sciences, right? Tch.
When I got back I went to a bbq which had some nice food and sat about taking the piss out of Dinocroc vs Supergator but the fun had to come to an end due to rugby. Did some EVE and took some pictures of the Supermoon but they were mostly crap due to the sky being very hazy. I quite liked this one though:
Friday 18 March 2011
YES
An update will definitely be inbound when I get home.
Hmm, that makes it sound like something particularly remarkable has happened. It hasn't, it just occurred to me that I haven't updated but do have pictures to post. So yes. That's all.
Hmm, that makes it sound like something particularly remarkable has happened. It hasn't, it just occurred to me that I haven't updated but do have pictures to post. So yes. That's all.
Tuesday 15 March 2011
ALARM
I changed my alarm regime. It now goes off at 6am to provide an initial wake and then at 6.45 for proper waking up. This is in contrast to the old regime of going off at 6 and then having four or five snoozes.
I'm going to have to change back, the new regime totally screws with me.
I'm going to have to change back, the new regime totally screws with me.
Sunday 13 March 2011
Class class
So, the powers that be got the class up. I've not listened to it due to the horror of hearing my own voice but presumably the file works.
http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/w/images/a/a3/E-UNI_PvP_In_Wormholes.mp3
http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/w/images/a/a3/E-UNI_PvP_In_Wormholes.mp3
Stay classy
Pokemon is becoming a bit tough. I'm trying to keep all of my six critters levelled but it's a grind to do it and a pain when they die as they get no xp for the fight. I'm very much enjoying this kitty at the moment though:
She's great. (I say 'she' - technically male but definitely seems like a female cat to me). I did stop using her for a while because she dies so quickly but I got a Sand Attack move which reduces enemy accuracy so now I just apply that a couple of times and she dodges virtually everything thrown at her. She also has Assist which is a neat little wild card - it plasters the screen in paw marks and then uses a random attack from one of your other Pokemon. Not always useful but it doesn't matter - there's no rush as Sand Attack means she can just tank the enemies forever anyway. Here she is doing Assist, probably to devastating effect:
I got my second badge too. Was a bit of a tough fight against a kind of high level chipmunk.
I've finally got a complete lineup of Pokemon that I like including:
Who carries a big plank.
Who is named Bugleaf and knocks the hell out of grass-based Pokemon. He's a Sewing Bug type.
And:
Who drains life out of people. Sounds nasty but I'm sure they don't mind too much.
Obviously all of those are pretty classy but the main reason for the title was that I was part of an EVE University class last night. I'm not sure how well it went as I was a bit nervy and babbled a bit due to the huge number of people listening - it peaked at about 124 people and ended up at about 100. There were three wormhole corps taking part and in my nervous state I kept trying to make jokey disparaging comments about them and times they'd failed to fight us and things. This was intended to just be a bit of gentle ribbing.
But I fear I came across as a snarky, know-it-all dick. I did at least manage to avoid yelling, "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.". Oh well, at least we had an old friend of the uni in our corp so he kept things smooth and I think the students found it useful and/or interesting.
I was also making notes based on some of the comments made by the other corps. Very useful intel for if we fight them in future, assuming it wasn't cunningly-crafted misinformation. I don't think it was, a lot of what they were saying is certainly part of conventional wisdom. As far as our PvP ships go though, we think outside of the box.
Reading a bit of a Lightroom tutorial about the perspective correction tools. Spot the deliberate error;
'keystone distortion caused by shooting at an angel'
If you're taking potshots at angels I suspect keystone distortion is likely to be the least of your troubles.
Just trying to think what else is going on. Oh yes, my mum apparently thinks I've been down this week. I don't think I have but it can be hard to reliably tell.
Ack, and got that corp meeting tonight. Might be fun I suppose.
She's great. (I say 'she' - technically male but definitely seems like a female cat to me). I did stop using her for a while because she dies so quickly but I got a Sand Attack move which reduces enemy accuracy so now I just apply that a couple of times and she dodges virtually everything thrown at her. She also has Assist which is a neat little wild card - it plasters the screen in paw marks and then uses a random attack from one of your other Pokemon. Not always useful but it doesn't matter - there's no rush as Sand Attack means she can just tank the enemies forever anyway. Here she is doing Assist, probably to devastating effect:
I got my second badge too. Was a bit of a tough fight against a kind of high level chipmunk.
Who carries a big plank.
Who is named Bugleaf and knocks the hell out of grass-based Pokemon. He's a Sewing Bug type.
And:
Who drains life out of people. Sounds nasty but I'm sure they don't mind too much.
Obviously all of those are pretty classy but the main reason for the title was that I was part of an EVE University class last night. I'm not sure how well it went as I was a bit nervy and babbled a bit due to the huge number of people listening - it peaked at about 124 people and ended up at about 100. There were three wormhole corps taking part and in my nervous state I kept trying to make jokey disparaging comments about them and times they'd failed to fight us and things. This was intended to just be a bit of gentle ribbing.
But I fear I came across as a snarky, know-it-all dick. I did at least manage to avoid yelling, "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.". Oh well, at least we had an old friend of the uni in our corp so he kept things smooth and I think the students found it useful and/or interesting.
I was also making notes based on some of the comments made by the other corps. Very useful intel for if we fight them in future, assuming it wasn't cunningly-crafted misinformation. I don't think it was, a lot of what they were saying is certainly part of conventional wisdom. As far as our PvP ships go though, we think outside of the box.
Reading a bit of a Lightroom tutorial about the perspective correction tools. Spot the deliberate error;
'keystone distortion caused by shooting at an angel'
If you're taking potshots at angels I suspect keystone distortion is likely to be the least of your troubles.
Just trying to think what else is going on. Oh yes, my mum apparently thinks I've been down this week. I don't think I have but it can be hard to reliably tell.
Ack, and got that corp meeting tonight. Might be fun I suppose.
Friday 11 March 2011
Websites and dog
Today turned out to be fairly busy. After the tidying up I threw together a Flickr account for our imaging unit and also did some updates to our own website. It turns out that I had inaccurately described some otter kidney stone work so had to change some things. Nothing major. We've decided to use Flickr as a way of providing demo and sample images to people because updating our own website is a bit of an arseache due to this content management system thing.
I'm also a bit gutted at Pokemon because of the following. I really had to level some other ones as Smugleaf couldn't quite take on the entire world solo so I started levelling this little beaut:
He's a Lillipop, a sort of dog with a good noise and some mad skills. Been getting along nicely with him as I don't really like many of my other Pokemon. And then this happened:
I mean, he's ok and all but it's just not the same. I think I'm going to have to get a new one and give him a bit of a prod if he starts to evolve again.
Funny how you end up attached to these things. Silly pixel beasts.
EVE is a bit quiet, I think most people are subdued by the slowly building drama. I'll give it a bit of time to pick up then probably leave them to get on with whatever they do when I'm not there.
And dammit, I forgot to take a picture of my tea. It was a madras.
I'm also a bit gutted at Pokemon because of the following. I really had to level some other ones as Smugleaf couldn't quite take on the entire world solo so I started levelling this little beaut:
He's a Lillipop, a sort of dog with a good noise and some mad skills. Been getting along nicely with him as I don't really like many of my other Pokemon. And then this happened:
I mean, he's ok and all but it's just not the same. I think I'm going to have to get a new one and give him a bit of a prod if he starts to evolve again.
Funny how you end up attached to these things. Silly pixel beasts.
EVE is a bit quiet, I think most people are subdued by the slowly building drama. I'll give it a bit of time to pick up then probably leave them to get on with whatever they do when I'm not there.
And dammit, I forgot to take a picture of my tea. It was a madras.
This is a combination of things
Firstly, it demonstrates the sort of nonsense I can get up with an old roll of Pan F 50 and a Minolta.
Secondly it allows me to test how well Flickr posting to this blog works.
These are important issues.
Secondly it allows me to test how well Flickr posting to this blog works.
These are important issues.
Wise Man
I've been skimming through some forum posts about The Wise Man's Fear that I read recently and it's just incredible how in-depth some people go into these fantasy books. I could help chuckling at the following exchange:
Poster 1: Maybe it's because copper is more effective against the Fae [otherworldly fairy types]
Poster 2: More effective than iron? I don't think so.
And then there's a huge amount of stuff I missed. It's great that people can be obsessive about so many different things. There's discussions on the difficulties of changing a name, what is in a mysterious unopened box and all sorts. Theories, wild speculations, intense debate.
All I did was read it.
Starting to enjoy Fear and Loathing more too purely due to it having a few more lines from the film that make me smile. Hunter S. Thompson's rotten attorney Doctor Gonzo has gone. He must have sensed trouble.
Been doing some more tidying up and here is the finished cleared future microscopy and imaging room:
We've got to fix those blackout blinds and I've now also scrubbed the tables. Tried scrubbing the walls but it was far too much of a massive task.
I need Lightroom on this work PC, putting images up without it to fiddle about with them is much more of a chore. I've convinced work to order me a copy though.
Here's the prep room:
This has to be sorted at some point as it is absolute bloody goddamn chaos. All manner of chemicals and suspicious unidentified bottles. It'll need great care, but hopefully it'll be somebody other than me who is taking that care. I want no part of it.
Not sure what's happening for the rest of the day now. I know there will be a beef madras made in the fullness of time. I'll keep an eye out for something interesting to report.
Poster 1: Maybe it's because copper is more effective against the Fae [otherworldly fairy types]
Poster 2: More effective than iron? I don't think so.
And then there's a huge amount of stuff I missed. It's great that people can be obsessive about so many different things. There's discussions on the difficulties of changing a name, what is in a mysterious unopened box and all sorts. Theories, wild speculations, intense debate.
All I did was read it.
Starting to enjoy Fear and Loathing more too purely due to it having a few more lines from the film that make me smile. Hunter S. Thompson's rotten attorney Doctor Gonzo has gone. He must have sensed trouble.
Been doing some more tidying up and here is the finished cleared future microscopy and imaging room:
We've got to fix those blackout blinds and I've now also scrubbed the tables. Tried scrubbing the walls but it was far too much of a massive task.
I need Lightroom on this work PC, putting images up without it to fiddle about with them is much more of a chore. I've convinced work to order me a copy though.
Here's the prep room:
This has to be sorted at some point as it is absolute bloody goddamn chaos. All manner of chemicals and suspicious unidentified bottles. It'll need great care, but hopefully it'll be somebody other than me who is taking that care. I want no part of it.
Not sure what's happening for the rest of the day now. I know there will be a beef madras made in the fullness of time. I'll keep an eye out for something interesting to report.
Thursday 10 March 2011
Happy new body, Smugleaf!
Wait, there was this:
And then some of this:
A bit of that:
And THEN:
My very first evolution. Awwww. Little bit sad to lose the old Smugleaf but I imagine he's happier in his shiny new body.
The game currently has a bunch of people giving speeches about how it's wrong to keep Pokemon enslaved and force them to do battles. I expect it's some sort of nefarious plot to steal Pokemon but still.. I can't help feeling they've got a point. I mean, I use them to ruthlessly butcher wild animals which might otherwise hurt me and use them in pointless, exhausting competitions with other people, even to the point at which they pass out from the exertion. If I decide that I don't like some of their tricks I forcibly erase the knowledge of it from their brain and make them do something else instead that fits in more readily with my own selfish needs.
Forget Pocket Monsters. I'm the real monster.
And THEN:
My very first evolution. Awwww. Little bit sad to lose the old Smugleaf but I imagine he's happier in his shiny new body.
The game currently has a bunch of people giving speeches about how it's wrong to keep Pokemon enslaved and force them to do battles. I expect it's some sort of nefarious plot to steal Pokemon but still.. I can't help feeling they've got a point. I mean, I use them to ruthlessly butcher wild animals which might otherwise hurt me and use them in pointless, exhausting competitions with other people, even to the point at which they pass out from the exertion. If I decide that I don't like some of their tricks I forcibly erase the knowledge of it from their brain and make them do something else instead that fits in more readily with my own selfish needs.
Forget Pocket Monsters. I'm the real monster.
Much the same
One of the major problems of playing on the DS is the narrow angle of view of the screens.The result of this is that you have to have the screens pointing fairly directly at you and whenever the screen blacks out for a scene change or something you get confronted with an image of your own face. For most people this probably isn't an issue but it does startle me somewhat. I'm a lot more tolerant of my face than I was - a single view used to generate a major depressive episode - but it still comes as a shock.
On the plus side, Pokemon is being pretty good. Today I did some stuffs like:
That's a free water pokemon that I got from someone in a park. I didn't have to do anything dodgy for it either. What he's doing there is defeating my first Gym Leader. The Gym Leader killed my Smugleaf for the first time so I had to fall back on a water pokemon as all my others were at a stupidly low level. I've been too keen on getting Smugleaf up to bother with the others but I'm now working on some sort of firey puppy.
Don't know if I'm really getting the hang of the combat. There's lots of buffs and debuffs and I don't know when they are worth using. No barrier to success though:
A badge! I tried to get a picture of the badge spinning on the screen but I didn't grab the camera in time.
Popped onto EVE for a bit but couldn't really be arsed. Turned out I missed some Drake kills. A Drake is:
There are many like it but that Drake is mine. They're great ships. Don't do a huge amount of damage but they have silly range on their weapons and can take a mad amount of damage. Before I logged on, the corp had used one to trick another two into attacking it and then promptly killed the two attackers. That'll learn 'em.
Been trying to read a bit of Fear and Loathing in Lad Vegas. It's excellent, etc, but I might have lost interest. After the first few instances of madness it's just like, y'know, I get it. Maybe it's just me being fussy. On the train home I didn't even read at all, I just did some Pokemonning.
Work involved clearing up a room. Nothing too thrilling but it will at least be used for something decent. The room is going to contain a microscope that allows you to scan a slide in and then digitally navigate the images with a Google Earth-type interface. It's snazzy. We're going to charge people to use it.
On the plus side, Pokemon is being pretty good. Today I did some stuffs like:
That's a free water pokemon that I got from someone in a park. I didn't have to do anything dodgy for it either. What he's doing there is defeating my first Gym Leader. The Gym Leader killed my Smugleaf for the first time so I had to fall back on a water pokemon as all my others were at a stupidly low level. I've been too keen on getting Smugleaf up to bother with the others but I'm now working on some sort of firey puppy.
Don't know if I'm really getting the hang of the combat. There's lots of buffs and debuffs and I don't know when they are worth using. No barrier to success though:
A badge! I tried to get a picture of the badge spinning on the screen but I didn't grab the camera in time.
Popped onto EVE for a bit but couldn't really be arsed. Turned out I missed some Drake kills. A Drake is:
There are many like it but that Drake is mine. They're great ships. Don't do a huge amount of damage but they have silly range on their weapons and can take a mad amount of damage. Before I logged on, the corp had used one to trick another two into attacking it and then promptly killed the two attackers. That'll learn 'em.
Been trying to read a bit of Fear and Loathing in Lad Vegas. It's excellent, etc, but I might have lost interest. After the first few instances of madness it's just like, y'know, I get it. Maybe it's just me being fussy. On the train home I didn't even read at all, I just did some Pokemonning.
Work involved clearing up a room. Nothing too thrilling but it will at least be used for something decent. The room is going to contain a microscope that allows you to scan a slide in and then digitally navigate the images with a Google Earth-type interface. It's snazzy. We're going to charge people to use it.
Wednesday 9 March 2011
Nearly forgot
Here's the promised poncy photos of me I nearly forgot. Ancient things, for the most part, so assume that I've learned a lot since they were taken and am a better person.
Here's me in uni trying to be attractive via hair. Firstly we have long hair plus straighteners, combined with stripy top:
And then we have heavy-gelled plus spike. This was never ever me. I can feasibly do a floppy fop but something like this just fails on every level:
Good god. Return of the Jedi poster is just the icing on the shameful cake.
There were more but those were the most fitting. Consider these demons exorcised.
Here's me in uni trying to be attractive via hair. Firstly we have long hair plus straighteners, combined with stripy top:
There were more but those were the most fitting. Consider these demons exorcised.
Tonight!
Bit of a dull one on EVE really. Got some info on this meeting business - looks like it's to discuss the fact that the people who moved into our sister corp can't get along with the members of it. Which is the exact reason I didn't move over to them. I am totally incompatible with them on a personality basis. In terms of actual activity, we tried to bait some people into attacking us so we could ambush them but things got a bit dodgy. We had lots of scouting happening which made us spot that suddenly a fairly large number of unidentified ships had appeared in system. Our numbers were limited so we decided discretion was the better part of valour and all that. We collapsed the wormhole a couple of times but got nothing interesting.
So instead I did some Pokemonning. I got sidetracked a bit trying to work out the online stuff on it - Nintendo Club, Pokemon Trainer Club, free Pokemon during the first month of release, all sorts. I'll have to get it online though, I can't pass up the opportunity of limited edition pixel gain.
It's pleasant enough so far. I haven't used my DS for ages though and the screen looks really small and primitive now. It wasn't cutting edge when it came out and now it seems v. poor. It's just auld skool though.
As expected I went for Smugleaf as my first Pokemon. Surprised to find out he's actually not called Smugleaf. He's called Snivy. I've renamed him Smugleaf.
I quickly had a first scrap with a so-called 'friend'. She nearly killed my poor Smugleaf but I won in the end. Watch how Smugleaf looks in contempt at some pigbeast.
I then wandered off, met some sort of Professor type who gave me some free Pokeballs. These are used to capture Pokemon; who knew? This is my first one I got. It's a dog? cat? some sort of thing.
Now that I've finished my book I've moved onto Rivers of London by Aaron somethingovitch. I started reading it a little while back and enjoyed it but now that I'm continuing with it.. I dunno. After The Wise Man's Fear it seems so trivial. Lately I've been mostly reading these massive, sweeping fantasy epics and now other books are seeming a bit basic. I think I'll have to switch to reading recollections from the troops who landed at Normandy in World War II to reset my mental balance.
So instead I did some Pokemonning. I got sidetracked a bit trying to work out the online stuff on it - Nintendo Club, Pokemon Trainer Club, free Pokemon during the first month of release, all sorts. I'll have to get it online though, I can't pass up the opportunity of limited edition pixel gain.
It's pleasant enough so far. I haven't used my DS for ages though and the screen looks really small and primitive now. It wasn't cutting edge when it came out and now it seems v. poor. It's just auld skool though.
As expected I went for Smugleaf as my first Pokemon. Surprised to find out he's actually not called Smugleaf. He's called Snivy. I've renamed him Smugleaf.
I quickly had a first scrap with a so-called 'friend'. She nearly killed my poor Smugleaf but I won in the end. Watch how Smugleaf looks in contempt at some pigbeast.
Moar
That last post was a little bit chaotic and rushed, just wanted to get some stuff down.
I'll elaborate, though this work PC is hanging for a couple of seconds every 30 seconds or so which is profoundly irritating.
So, EVE things. I originally got into my current corporation via EVE University - these are good people who have set themselves up purely as a charity to help new players learn to play. They provide free equipment, classes, advice and all sorts. As I have ties with them and am now an evil bastard Wormhole PvP person (when I get the chance) I've agreed to help them with a class. A lot of the new players are interested in this sort of thing and it might be fun to give them a few stories.
Just had a bit of an oddity too. I'm a Director in the current corp but I've just seen a notice on our forums about some sort of meeting this Sunday. To discuss fundamental issues.We've never had a meeting before and it's a bit odd to see a public announcement of it without me knowing anything whatsoever. Bizarreness. I've made my mild displeasure known.
I recently made a short guide for people to be able to identify the types of wormholes from their appearance. To this end, here is a few of the images. Wormholes look nice.
Class 4:
Class 2:
Class 2s are nice as they are blue and there's lots of easy stuff people can do in them solo and then we can go in and kill the careless people. Or try to trick them into trying to kill us and then kill them.
The weekend also had quite a lot of going through old pictures and cataloguing them with a Student Edition of Adobe Lightroom. Very nice bit of software and it scanned my drives to pick up all sorts of things I'd forgotten. I have some extremely poncy studenty pics of myself and some nice pics of other people from ancient My Received Files folder. I'll post some of the poncy ones later, for lolz.
I need to figure out how to tweak the layout on this as I don't like it much as it currently stands. How hard can it be?
I'll elaborate, though this work PC is hanging for a couple of seconds every 30 seconds or so which is profoundly irritating.
So, EVE things. I originally got into my current corporation via EVE University - these are good people who have set themselves up purely as a charity to help new players learn to play. They provide free equipment, classes, advice and all sorts. As I have ties with them and am now an evil bastard Wormhole PvP person (when I get the chance) I've agreed to help them with a class. A lot of the new players are interested in this sort of thing and it might be fun to give them a few stories.
Just had a bit of an oddity too. I'm a Director in the current corp but I've just seen a notice on our forums about some sort of meeting this Sunday. To discuss fundamental issues.We've never had a meeting before and it's a bit odd to see a public announcement of it without me knowing anything whatsoever. Bizarreness. I've made my mild displeasure known.
I recently made a short guide for people to be able to identify the types of wormholes from their appearance. To this end, here is a few of the images. Wormholes look nice.
Class 4:
Class 2s are nice as they are blue and there's lots of easy stuff people can do in them solo and then we can go in and kill the careless people. Or try to trick them into trying to kill us and then kill them.
The weekend also had quite a lot of going through old pictures and cataloguing them with a Student Edition of Adobe Lightroom. Very nice bit of software and it scanned my drives to pick up all sorts of things I'd forgotten. I have some extremely poncy studenty pics of myself and some nice pics of other people from ancient My Received Files folder. I'll post some of the poncy ones later, for lolz.
I need to figure out how to tweak the layout on this as I don't like it much as it currently stands. How hard can it be?
A summary of recent things
Well yesterday was a bit of a quiet one. I got so little done that I almost felt bad for going to bed. Not too bad though, as the reason I was getting little done with due to wanting to finish The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. It's absurdly massive and has been the only thing I've read for about a week.
It's about a bloke called Kvothe who's an innkeeper telling the story of his life. It flicks back and forth between past events and current ones in a fantasy world thing. It's got magic and interesting technology and philosophy and a bit of humour. Also: some touching moments, sex and violence. Nothing excessive or tasteless though - sorry to disappoint.
In general it's been excellent and I've barely been able to stop reading it. I noticed on the train on the way home that I was at 90% and decided this had to finish. Happy with how it turned out but a bit sad that the next installment probably won't appear for a number of years. Oh well..
Luckily I have good old EVE Online to keep me occupied. I did vaguely pop onto it last night but there wasn't a lot happening.
My corporation of about 30 people live in an isolated wormhole system in unknown parts of space. A wormhole looks like:
^^that. What you can see there is a wormhole that leads from a Class 4 system to a Class 3. I like in a Class 4 system which always has a Class 3 exit, so that hole there is where I go most nights looking for adventure, things to kill or money to make.
Yesterday though we didn't have many people on and I couldn't be bothered with doing scouting so there weren't much doin'. I just read while occasionally glancing to see if there were any Internet Spaceships for me to blow up. There weren't.
Y'see, my corp is in an alliance and a lot of our people have gone off to the other corp in the alliance hoping for more money and more excitement. However, one person in the other corp is so grotesquely obnoxious that most of the people who moved over are simply not playing now. I suspect they will leave and come back to play with me soon, woohoo.
Further to this, I have bought Pokemon White. I've never really played one of these before but looks like it might be a pleasant diversion. I could play it easily while doing mundane EVE money-making activities. I doubt I'll catch them all but I definitely want a Smugleaf:
That will suit me nicely. I'll make pictures of my pokemons and everything for posting on here.
Just thought, I have a WH PvP class coming on Saturday. I have to teach people in EVE University how to blow up evil/innocent people in Wormhole systems. Woe is me. Woe.
I'll throw the MP3 up on here while done.
And bah, lunch break has ended too soon. MUST DASH.
It's about a bloke called Kvothe who's an innkeeper telling the story of his life. It flicks back and forth between past events and current ones in a fantasy world thing. It's got magic and interesting technology and philosophy and a bit of humour. Also: some touching moments, sex and violence. Nothing excessive or tasteless though - sorry to disappoint.
In general it's been excellent and I've barely been able to stop reading it. I noticed on the train on the way home that I was at 90% and decided this had to finish. Happy with how it turned out but a bit sad that the next installment probably won't appear for a number of years. Oh well..
Luckily I have good old EVE Online to keep me occupied. I did vaguely pop onto it last night but there wasn't a lot happening.
My corporation of about 30 people live in an isolated wormhole system in unknown parts of space. A wormhole looks like:
Yesterday though we didn't have many people on and I couldn't be bothered with doing scouting so there weren't much doin'. I just read while occasionally glancing to see if there were any Internet Spaceships for me to blow up. There weren't.
Y'see, my corp is in an alliance and a lot of our people have gone off to the other corp in the alliance hoping for more money and more excitement. However, one person in the other corp is so grotesquely obnoxious that most of the people who moved over are simply not playing now. I suspect they will leave and come back to play with me soon, woohoo.
Further to this, I have bought Pokemon White. I've never really played one of these before but looks like it might be a pleasant diversion. I could play it easily while doing mundane EVE money-making activities. I doubt I'll catch them all but I definitely want a Smugleaf:
That will suit me nicely. I'll make pictures of my pokemons and everything for posting on here.
Just thought, I have a WH PvP class coming on Saturday. I have to teach people in EVE University how to blow up evil/innocent people in Wormhole systems. Woe is me. Woe.
I'll throw the MP3 up on here while done.
And bah, lunch break has ended too soon. MUST DASH.
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