Just Chillin'

I think the chilling out is going reasonably well.

I'm still quite sore, that comes from a body that's bounced off a few too many cricket pitches during my playing days. Cricket is how I started off this little break actually, I managed to tune in to the test match just as it exploded into ... something a lot more interesting than it had been.

That's the thing about cricket, it can totally change in the space of a couple of balls. The first 4 days of the game between Pakistan and England had been pretty turgid stuff. Bad enough that I didn't bother with Plan A, which was to record the day's play (starts at 7am) and watch it time delayed on the Saturday. But suddenly our new hope, legspinner Adil Rashid, starting taking wickets. And the game suddenly turned from bore draw into a frantic potential chase for an England win. And they gave it all their effort too. Another 20 minutes batting and it may have led to an unlikely victory.

Good on the lads. There's also the rugby still going ... I have to admit, the Rugby World Cups don't excite me that much. I'll watch all of England games and the Six Nations, because that's balanced rugby with sides I'm interested in following. But the world cups (football and cricket too) have too many unbalanced games where it is obvious who is going to win before the kick off and too many games I have no interest in. They're on the telly but the sound is muted while I keep an eye on other things, like the music on the hifi and the videos/game on the PC.

Music ? Next up is the soundtrack to Star Wars (the very first film). The films aren't exciting me as much as they used to but the music is still incredible. Ah ha ! Thumbnail pic time ...

I bet you can't have failed to notice the almighty hype that's going at the moment for a film coming out around Xmas ... I'll see that but hype tends to turn me off most stuff. If it can't sell itself, then is it any good ?

I'll see the new Star Wars film but I'll wait until closer to the date until I get my tickets. I'll freely admit that I think that Episode 3 may have been the strongest of the lot, although Return of The Jedi is still my favourite and not just for that outfit. You know the one I mean.

Oh there's that fanfare going ... For so long, I thought the movie studio fanfare before the opening story roll was part of the Star Wars soundtrack. It's a very strong soundtrack, one of John Williams' best and he was a master at them. His soundtrack for Indiana Jones is very strong too and I have that on my list of things to be watched very soon. I have to keep clearing stuff on the box though.

Lots of Deep Space 9 at the moment, this is actually the first time I've rewatched those. It's curious how memory works, I remember most of these episodes. It's before Nose Job 1, which scrambled a lot of my marbles, particularly in my memory. I don't remember things nearly as well since then. Interest level is pretty critical though and DS9 was on screens during that golden age of telly scifi. When 3 Star Trek series were running, followed by Enterprise. Stargate was in the middle of its run. Farscape was being ... disgusting ... and amusing. I think Firefly was having its chance too ?

We don't see nearly as much space scifi as we used to and that's a big shame. It's a genre that can go anywhere and do pretty much anything. The detective serials are fairly decent but ... one murder on those tends to blur into the next one. Their variation suffers.

I've been on the gaming too - this is a sight you really don't want to see as an Internet Spaceship Pilot Person :

That's the Mel and Sue, my Python after a fight with ... something a little bigger. You shoulda seen the other guy. Wasn't pretty. My ship is left there with 29% and a blown out canopy, I think I left the other guy on 10%. I maybe coulda got 'im ? I didn't hang around to find out. I was a few jumps away from safe harbour with a blown out cockpit and one of the game mechanics means you only have minutes to get to a hangar before all your air runs out. That picture is from when I was letting the docking computer plonk me on the outpost at the top and the air is getting a bit low in that.

Yep. I've been flying the internet spaceships again. I'm going to sell the Mel And Sue soon to get another Type 9 space truck. They're horrific to fly but they make the money a bit quicker, which will get me into the biggest ship a little sooner.

I kinda miss the old Star Wars Space Pilot games too, those have just come out again on GoG.com and I will probably pick them up at some point. I loved Tie Fighter when it came out, I missed its predecessor, XWing, due to coming into PC ownership after it came out. Yep. I'll have another look at those when they go on offer. They're going for £6.60 at the moment on GoG.com, which is a bit much for 20 year old games. It's great that they're available again and packaged to run on modern machines but ... wait for sales.

Sales mean you can buy more games ! Or stuff ! More stuff is good !

Erm. Maybe that should be ... sales mean you can spend less. But you're still spending, even if it's on sale. The key is to only spend that cash on things you want or need.

I'm close to deciding to spend money on another graphics card. My current one has a problem which I think is in the hardware somewhere. Here's an example :

See that weird dot pattern ?

That's from iPlayer, which is unwatchable full screen because of it (I cheat, I make the window full size and zoom in so it's full screen - no dots). The problem comes into Youtube videos but goes away when they go properly HD (the dots stay on iPlayer because BBC is a cheap ass organisation that doesn't send proper HD over the interwebs). I see the dots in games too, sometimes it's noticeable, most times it's shortlived or restricted to bits of the screen that don't matter. They may be on the hologram picture of the outpost in the Elite screenie. Endless Legend is unplayable, there's a different texture hopping problem on that but I think it's related.

The next graphics card may well see me jump back to the other side of the fence, to AMD. Computer stuff goes in cycles, sometimes one manufacturer is better than the others, then it flips. nVidia were strong for a while but have forgotten software quality again. That's why I switched to ATI (now AMD) before. It's tough to know where to go with PC stuff. Apple were amazing but they've forgotten the Software Is For Users since RIP Steve Jobs. Microsoft are now ... weird. I'm not too sure what I'll do when this PC expires and I'm definitely not letting Apple update any software on my Macbook Air. The new stuff isn't as compatible as it should be. This is part of a computer industry theme of making new software incompatible with older hardware. Boo hiss to that.

Anyway, aside from that - I've turned the BOINC science sums program back on again. That has the processor and graphics card going full power, which keeps the room warm. The seasons have turned here and it's suddenly got a lot colder. Almost Xmas and ... a) the Happy Cookie Place appearing with the German Market (can you tell that I'm looking forward to that ?) and b) Mini Eggs are available again after Xmas.

I do like my Mini Eggs.

I think I've rambled on a bit too much though. Got a few things to be looking forward to :

I think I'm a bit healthier. The damaged parts of me are I think improving very slowly. Still never going away though. My right arm is still a mess though. I need to leave the bad bits alone so they have a chance to heal. They're steadily getting more sturdy though.

I think ditching the hayfever tablets has had a positive and negative effect. I think they were helping my outsides but ... I'm pretty sure the side effects were doing damage. One of those is sleeplessness and I'm still figuring out how to go to sleep again. Part of the sleeplessness is down to the itch/scratch/itchmore fact of life.

That was probably too much info ?

Managed to avoid World of Warships, I was tempted by that one. I even have it installed. However, there's a massive grind involved with the Wargaming.net games and ... they're based around repetitive matches that last around 15 minutes each. There's a grind in Elite but that you set your own story for that grind. One day it could be trading, one day combat, the next few weeks setting off to explore. You choose your path, the path is not dominated by that repetitive match framework.

More cricket starts on Thursday, which means tomorrow could well be an escape the house day.

I dunno. I'm feeling quite happily chilled out at the moment, although it would be great to :
Catch up with one person in particular (I think not though cos she's still in healing mode)
See more sunshine (will Blighty's weather cooperate ?)
Fill up on snacks again ...

Oh and there's a couple of Comic Cons next weekend too at London and Cardiff. I have to admit, I'm sketchy about doing another London Comic Con. I'm curious about the NinaSerina hairdo and whether that new fashion for brightly coloured hair dyes works as well in person as it does on screen. London is a very long day though. It's 2 hours car, 1 hour underground and lots of walking around that. Perhaps with company ? Cardiff is closer.

Feeling a bit less tired too. May that continue to improve, this week is supposed to be about the recharging of the batteries after all.

Ohh - big yawn. Time for more sleep. Soon. I can't remember the last time I went to bed before 11.30, let alone before 10pm. Not even on an early on the road day. If I did go to bed at that time, I wouldn't get sleep, although I may well be yawning my head off.

Weird right ? Yawn but no sleep. Brain hates me sometimes. I think Brain had a lot it wanted to get out too. It does like to converse with people, even if it's just over the medium of a post here.

Quite !