Monday, January 14, 2013

Scattered thoughts ...

Was kinda hoping for snow :-) But alas, it has avoided Bristol again.

To be honest, snow this time around will be "interesting" ... Why's that ? No car allowed at work (except Friday's) and my car is allegedly not keen on ice/snow.

It's a particularly awesome car :-) Definitely the best I've had in all respects. However, one criticism I and others have is that the traction and stability control is very aggressive in cutting power when the wheels start to slip. And when you have a powerful electric motor driving the front wheels, that can mean that the car just doesn't move. (Allegedly)

So I'll be at the mercy of the buses if the bad weather does come. From one point of view, that's not bad. You're free to abandon a bus at any time if it gets stuck in traffic or bad conditions. Means a walk but hey, I'm not that badly damaged. (I do have leg issues but they actually like some work to free them up).

Where's the snow ? I keep an eye on http://uksnowmap.com/#/ - the UK snowmap. It collects data from a twitter channel and collates it into a map. Just one problem, I see a bunch of isolated heavy snow reports on that map right now and I have a feeling that they're not true. Yep, you get scumbags dragging down that good thing as well as most of the other good things we still cling on to.

Other stuff - I've been scattered again lately. Seems like this skin thing likes to recover a bit and then get worse again. Not sure what's triggered it off again this time, although it could be jaffa cake related. Hope not, cos jaffa cakes are a Reason To Live. Looks like I have to avoid them for a while though.

Yep. Got sore again, although I'm hoping that copious amounts of moisturizer helps out there.

With the cricket, my ears have improved to the point I can wear a helmet again. (No helmet, no batting, no cricket). But my skin is in such bad shape that it's getting damaged very easily and it's not repairing at all quickly. The moisturizer does seem to be helping though.

What am I up to at the moment ?

Been back at work for 8 days now, settling into more responsibility. Similar role as before but more responsibility. It may not be for too long but I'll get as much out of it as I can.

Still catching up on all the telly recorded over the Xmas break. I did record some, even if most of it was repeats of films and documentaries. At the moment it's a few episodes of Soviet Storm, which tells the story of WW2 on the Russian Front. Rating ? It's worth watching for a bunch of reasons :

It's interesting (to a military scholar)
It's paced pretty well, keeps that interest level going
It's detailed (15 episodes !)
It appears balanced, although you always want to see multiple sources of "truth" to check balance

And there's that old saying "If you ignore the lessons of the past then you are doomed to repeat the mistakes". It goes something like that. I've seen/read a fair bit of WW2 history for the battles we were involved with but not much for Russian, except knowing that it was as brutal as war can get.

There's a few more things recorded aside from Soviet Storm. I thought XXX2 was possibly better than XXX1, although I won't rush to buy either. Full Metal Jousting was a curiosity but I don't think I'd bother with a season 2 if it gets made.

I've also been gaming again :-) That's a mixed thing. I can get hooked into certain games, looking for a win. For a game like Moo2, that doesn't mean any old win. It means a high scoring win. So if it's "just a win" but I'm beaten to certain score things, I'd abandon and start again. At the moment, it's Borderlands 2 which I'm enjoying immensely. True, I'm playing as a Mechromancer which is somewhat overpowered. However, it's a sizable improvement on the original in a lot of ways.

Pacing - the original was a lot like the older style Massive Multiplayer Online game, especially with the grind. The new game seems to be much more focused on telling its story.
Mechanics - I dunno, these seem just "better". But I'd struggle to define "better". Maybe I need to play through the original.

And I have a bunch of others that appeared in the sales to check out :-). Borderlands 2 first, after a couple more Soviet Storm episodes.

2 comments:

  1. If you're interested in all things military - which I know you are - I have lots of military related books coming up to review (and to read) - both fiction and non-fiction. If you like that sort of thing I'm sure that you'll find something to dive into.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lol - maybe sitting on the floor in "treatment mode" will mean I read some more :-)

    ReplyDelete

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