Just Chillin'

Gosh,

It's been 9 days since the last post. Don't worry about me - I didn't carry out the thoughts in the last post about turning the Macbook into a FrankenWindows machine, so I haven't been off having surgery to get my head retrieved from the pike in front of the Apple Store to be put back where it belongs.

No - Plan A for this week was to lay low and get some healing time in. Some rest time too as I'd pretty much come to the end of the batteries again. Saying that though, I did have a nice little burst of hyperactivity due to helping a new boss get up to speed but I could feel those extra batteries running out too.

I go like that, I seem to have a little bit in reserve available for when it's really needed that I can dip into ... up to a point. It's when I've burnt through that reserve that I need to escape for a little while.

One thing that has been good is that people have been asking after me. That does a lot for a sense of worth that can suffer with too much inattention. That's one thing about that new boss, I think he's appreciated me being a right hand man for him and he'd quite like me to stick around for a while. That suits me quite well because :

The place I'd been looking to jump across to around Xmas - no longer seems viable. The project is subject to the long screwdrivers and the personnel have changed. Actually one has improved but I still wouldn't want to work for him.
There don't appear to be other places looking for people ! Actually there have been but they haven't been interesting to me.

But that's work and I've been trying to avoid thinking about work this week.

What have I been up to ?

I've been happily addicted to a couple of games from a company called Paradox. One has been Stellaris, a space strategy game. I've been enjoying that one, it's the space strategy game for me for now. I have actually gone back into the old Moo2 again but that one reminded me of its diplomatic randomness. Races can be perfectly happy with you in one turn and will then declare war on you with no warning.

Yep. Stellaris has been pretty good. It has game mechanics that take away the boringness of middle game micromanagement, preserving the grand plan aspect of the game.

I've been drawn into their Hearts of Iron IV game too. This time it is World War 2 grand strategy where you control things from the division level. This one seems to have the micromanagement taken away too, which is always a good thing. It leaves you with a game that remains fun to play, fun to watch as the situation unfolds.

In my last playthrough, I was running Australia. The war in China continued while the rest of the world watched. Germany and Russia had a cold war where they just looked angrily at each other with Poland in the middle. The normal history of WW2 didn't happen, Paris didn't fall and the Germans and Italians were thrown back (with Aussie help). Japan never attacked America.

It's curious to see what can happen when you turn off the "go by what history said" setting.

I'm also curious that the Internet Spaceship game (Elite-Dangerous) seems somewhat dead to me now. After being happily hooked on it, I've not had any interest in playing it again. Maybe that's due to the impending No Man's Sky (which is having backlash on its hype at the moment). Perhaps.

It's not just been games ... I watched a recording of the recent Everest movie on Monday night and the boys and me went to see the new Jason Bourne movie on Wednesday.

Everest - I had been very curious about this movie. The wildlife documentaries or more the living in the wild documentaries have always had my interest. This movie, a tale of adventure at the top of the world, of danger, of tragedy, of those great visuals ... was dead to me. Sure the visuals were there (as they were in Revenant) but the story left me utterly cold (as with Revenant). I had no emotional engagement with any of the characters.

Bourne was better, although they really need to leave shaky cam behind in the 20th century where it belongs. It's a decent movie but it falls into the stereotypes established through the series : double crossing, technology used for tracking, silly car chases and that abominable shaky cam.

Watch Star Trek instead. Or Suicide Squad, that looks promising from all the trailers so far.

I'm watching the cricket instead now with the hotdog legs.

Actually they're not hotdog legs ... they have the old muscle tone back (for a while, my legs were so swollen that running made them bleed) and they're back to their normal size but there's still lots of damage on the surface. Less damage than a month or so ago but still quite a bit of damage. It's similar on my arms, improved but still looking like I've lost an encounter with a thorn bush.

That's the thing with my healing - it can be ridiculously easy to cause damage that takes a month or so to repair. It has improved over the course of this week though. Plans for helping it ?

Seeing the doctor. Sadly this hasn't happened. I'm still having lots of trouble getting to sleep. I can be yawning away in bed but my brain just won't shut down to sleep. And then I lose the hours between maybe 6am to noon. I was actually up in time today to call them but too late, no appointments available. Ho hum.

Wearing protective stuff. Sleep time is the enemy still. I'll let my guard down and attack the healing parts and that can set healing back in seconds what will take weeks to repair. So I've been wearing my old cricket whites (yes they still fit) to protect my legs and tubigrip on my arms. I still cheat though so not all fixed yet.

The games !!! Yep. I'll concentrate so deeply in the game that it keeps the hands busy and away from the damaged bits.

Keeping it clean - although I have to watch out here too because the outside of the skin is so delicate, being too aggressive with the cleaning can cause more damage.

And a bit of moisturiser too.

It is gradually healing though, despite my attempts to set it back more. And I was feeling the old hyperactive restlessness on Wednesday too which is a good sign that the energy is coming back.

Oh !

One thing about Bourne that meant I enjoyed it less than it deserved - the sound !!! The set up in the cinema was atrocious. The balance between bass and treble was all messed up, the volume was too loud. I like my loud music but I like to hear all of the music. What we had on Wednesday was too much bass, too much volume, leading to clipping that drowned out the other parts of the sound. The dialogue was still audible but ... you can do better Vue.

Or maybe I've been spoiled with the desktop speakers I picked up. They're actually really good ... (Edifier M1380). I'd actually describe them as being close to hifi quality. They only have one input (which makes them annoying for hifi use) but ... they sound great.

As I'm verifying by listening to and enjoying Youtube* videos for Ting Tings The Wrong Club, Tori Amos I Can't See New York, Air All I Need, Madonna's How High from the amazing Confessions album and one last one ?

*(yes, even with the bad sound quality Youtube usually gives you ! Gotta admit, the definition is not quite hifi level but that may be the source)

For all those who have been looking out for me while I've been quiet : I Really, Really, Really Like You (Carly Rae Jepsen). You're awesome :-).

Oh - just one more. Another angel with an incredible voice is Mindy Gledhill who came out on Facebook to give her fans a little bit of thanks. When it comes to voices like that, I have to say "I do Adore".