Testing ... Testing ...

Is this thing still on ?

Apologies for not posting that much lately. I don't think there's any special reason for not posting much, outside of getting distracted in the evenings with streams to watch and feeling drained after throwing all I have into work during the day.

It doesn't leave that much coherent mental effort left for post writing.

But first ... a thumbnail pic is required ! We have had snow again ...

But it melted before we could make decent snowmen out of it. That's the Bristolian edition snowman, which I spotted on someone's Facebook yesterday. I can't take credit for the idea (or the potholes) but it did get lots of laughs from many people yesterday.

We got a dusting of snow here. Enough to make untreated roads and pavements turn dangerous. I used the Snow Mode on the car for only the second ever time ... What's snow mode ? It cuts back the power available to the motors and engine to prevent wheelspin and allow forward motion. I don't know whether it has something in there to stop you sliding when turning corners ... best not to trust that kind of thing to electronics anyway. It does things like stop the usual forward motion that you get from an automatic naturally when you take your foot off the brake. Effective too, the traction control lights only came on once during the trip into work.

I've been on the games too. Somewhat ... I'm watching two streamers regularly now. Heychrissa still but now Radderss also (links on the right). I'd also watch EnterElysium plus Totalbiscuit but not the regular podcast type content. It's enjoyable but ... time ? Not enough time.

Yep. It's good to relax, chill out and actually get involved with the content being watched. Youtube videos are disconnected from the community. They're usually recorded several days before release, so anything happening on screen is set. You can't give a reaction in or a little help on a Youtube video and the commenters are usually those that feel compelled to tell the world that they are more important than the content creator, often in a nasty way.

No - I'm drawn more to the streamers and streamer communities where it's much more interactive. A comment in chat will attract comment, chuckles and that feedback which is what I crave. Putting a comment into chat and seeing it get happy reactions ? Awesome.

Oh and it also gives me ideas to unleash the creative side of my personality that usually struggles for ideas. I like making Stuff ... I just find it difficult to come up with the inspiration for the project. Here's a before :

A first comedy edit for the Purple Chocolate Company Edition :

And ...

Radderss Edition to match a hair colour that starts blue and goes green. (Could do with a lighter blue aft but ... you work with what you have).

I've gone back into that ship now and it is ...

Shiny ! That's the first of the spaceship skins I bought over the Xmas period. Looks spectacular doesn't it.

I've also been enjoying a game called Motorsport Manager, although I am in a pretty grindy phase in that. The objective is to take the bottom team and have them win the championship and I'm doing that in two phases. 1st phase, build the infrastructure, the headquarters, the foundation. 2nd phase, win everything, destroy the competition, see their broken engines driven before us and hear the lamentation of their fans. (Bit of a Conan moment, I do apologise). But in phase 1, it is a Manor racing situation where my cars are several seconds a lap slower than everyone else. You get given time though in this scenario to let the plans develop. I'll be back in there later for a little more.

Back to the real world though - I've been blighted somewhat by pain over the last week or so.

I might have mentioned a poorly neck - that hasn't actually fixed, although it has become more tolerable. Until yesterday that is when the other side of the neck decided to join in too.

It's probably my sleep pattern and position, which is being affected by the condition of my outsides. They're improving !!! Slowly. And I can still set that healing back by over aggressively looking after the damage.

But it is getting there. Slowly. But I am seeing parts of me that were pretty damaged and problematic get reclaimed to proper good skin again.

About time !

PS Other news :
Rogue One - go see it.
Earth Final Conflict and Haven - am enjoying watching these. I missed out the first time.
Passengers - go see it. It won't be what you expected, more romance movie than scifi.
Assassins Creed - deleting it from my memory. Avoid !