Tired, Break soon. Then Games !

I'm pretty tired at the moment.

Soon. The run from Xmas to Easter always seems really long and that burns me out after a while. What I really should do is find a time around March time to take a week and rest up before More Things happen around Easter. This time around, work took me away on trips away for a day which were great (apart from the meeting day which was meh but had to be done) and I actually felt far more hyper after a couple of those than I have done all year. But that gets to the limit of my energy after a while.

That's improving though, I think my general health is improving as my outsides improve. Probably due to being able to sleep a bit better recently.

What isn't helping is multiple threats and worries, within and without. I won't talk about those here. But they are weighing on my mind a lot.

While I haven't been reading much lately, I was enjoying Embers of War and I really need to reopen that one. Similar with the drawing. I need to get the pad out again at some point and practice again. Because people seem to like the drawings.

Games have been dominating my downtime lately, both in watching videos of games and in the playing too. Oh and if you have Netflix, check out Love, Death and Robots. I enjoyed the first 6 of these. Well, maybe The Witness was a bit too weird but Three Robots was amazing as was "When The Yogurt Took Over" and Suits.

Let's see ... the Battletech campaign has been continuing with mechs stomping the opposition and the occasional tragedy on our side too.

Iceangel (yep, old name back) leads the company from her Highlander mech called Can Be Only One. Yep. I went there :-D. I have a melee specialist in the For Behemoth ready to get close, thump things and then barbecue what remains. That one was piloted by Quarterback, who was the latest casualty of optimistically trying to stay around when the best choice would be to eject and save the pilot.

You can take 4 mechs along, so the other two are the lighter (still heavy!) mechs of varying roles. Like the long range missile mechs of Storm Of Bees, Fuzzy's Fireflies and Lurking Doom. There's a couple of long range gun mechs in Elysian Fire and Rumbling Thunder. The idea is to engage at range while the heaviest mech runs in close to barbecue things. It seems to be working, although the AI doesn't give you an easy ride and tends to pick on already wounded mechs. I do too, all's fair in war and all that.

Here's the fallen so far, including the daftest so far. Most of the pilots have been lost to shots to the head bit. Very lucky shots ...

Poor Apex getting mugged on her first mission. I named a mech Apex Predator for that one but it was an ill fated mech too. There are also the Remember Behemoth, Rise Seneschal, I really need one for Medusa and the next big mech to be reclaimed will be something like Quarterback Sneak. The game does a decent job of having you keep an eye on your pilots. Glitch is great with random comments "Will there be bears?" and I actually feel bad about losing some. Medusa too, who returned from massive injuries, to get injured again in his next battle and then eating a head shot in the battle after that.

And then there's mech names like Prickly Hedgehog and Bunnies. Sometimes the names come ! Sometimes the brain only has bunnies in it.

I also went back into Stellaris for the first time in a while. This was totally without mods to see about getting some achievements collected. The true target was 200 years of peace, which won't come in this game. The two nearest neighbours keep declaring war, keep getting crushed and ....

My mob are in the south in the light green with a Heart symbol. They're Fanatic Pacifists, the heart symbol seemed appropriate. The two belligerents are just to the North and North West but the big threat is the blue Swarm guys to the East. They're a devouring swarm that is just as powerful as my race economically and .... they have an overwhelming fleet advantage. I suspect they will declare war while I'm fighting the two close AIs again and ... the best course of action if they do will be to modify my species to make ourselves Delicious (yes, you can do that !) and throw ourselves on to the Swarm's dinner table.

I have a Cunning Plan to get that 200 years of peace achievement. I'll roll up a Devouring Swarm, eat everyone and put the game on fast forward for an hour or so.

Sorted.

Yep. Games have been fun again lately. Hopefully I can get my Skyrim game running again soon, as the latest patch did a massive number on all the mods I use. A stable game suddenly became very unstable and the mods wouldn't link up between themselves. The Cunning Plan there is to delete everything and start again. The deletion happened at the weekend and I'll put things back on at some point.

On leave next week though. I'm hoping to escape the house for at least a couple of days too ! Stow on the Wold is fairly close by and I remember it being a nice place to visit. It'll be good to go back.

Be well everyone.

Timewarping again

It definitely feels like there's something messing with time at the moment.

Oh and ...

It's almost that time again ...

Nooo ! I don't mean Xmas. Nope. Birthday season again. I'm not telling how old I'll be. Let's just say that if you count the age on fingers, I need lots of help. That's not so bad though. Or is it ? (Haha)

I do feel more and more these days that my body is my enemy. My outsides are steadily improving, very slowly but definitely improving. That's a combination of leaving it alone a little more and figuring out adequate ways of protecting it. The biggest issue is that one of the damaged bits will hit a threshold where it is just damaged enough .... and then it'll get worse very quickly. The protection helps to put a brake on it getting worse. Most of the time. Perversely though, the usual advice of "put pressure on the leaking bit" is bad ... as pressure can actually make my damaged bits worse.

But it is getting better. It would be good to be finally rid of this malaise that's slowed me down far too much over recent years.

It's not just my outsides though. My leg muscles were my biggest asset when playing cricket, now they feel like they're out to get me. Lots of cramp and that cramp leading to painful minitears in those muscles that get hugely sore.

My ouchies at the moment are those legs that are out to get me, a side that is suffering from strain and/or more cramp and a shoulder that periodically feels disconnected again.

And then an energy state that is ... somewhat lacking too.

I did ponder doing the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year but quickly abandoned those plans, partly due to what I was getting up to last week ... My week pattern is usually throw myself into work, tire myself out and chill out in the evenings. On Nov 1, it was a cinema run ... can't remember what I was doing on Friday.

(Thor Ragnarok - go see it, it's huge fun).

No. Ideas are there and I should really write up a few of them but when I get home in the evenings, I want to chill out. I suspect that's showing in the much lower frequency of posts lately. More ideas are coming actually from watching things like Ice Road Truckers, where they struggle to deliver loads via roads that are only passable when there is ice to even them out. And then there's Stellaris ...

The latest game sees me trying out the new rules coming about faster than light travel between stars. I have a warrior monk race that's been a bit slow starting up. The first war against the neighbours ended in disaster. But they're a challenger now after 3 wars that very definitely went our way. I'm curious as to where this game goes, it's good in a strategy game when you can reverse a bad start and come out ahead through better strategy.

Stellaris is responsible for a bit of timewarping too. I can start it up in the afternoon on a weekend and before I know it, it's dark and I'm late getting my tea.

But back to good times.

Yep. Birthday next week, Xmas markets open before then. I have plans ....

Friday pm should see me checking out the Xmas market here in Bristol. I miss the old Sausage-Inna-Bun. And I need shoes. My feet will hopefully be improved again to let me do the shoe shopping thing. I wasn't impressed with the shoe shopping potential up at the Mall last week. How can they justify £100 for a pair of shoes !! Crikey. I needs the sales and the bargains.

Next week will have a very fun evening watching Thor Ragnarok again.

It's worth it, honest and the company will be better than the film. And it's a great film too. Looking forward to it.

That's next week though, not many more to go until the Winter Break ! Gonna need it.

Me tired.

Tireds, Trips, Trades

I've had one of those periods where I just really don't feel quite with it.

You know when you're not quite exhausted but you keep making the daft mistakes that you would if you were exhausted. Missing things out, confusing words, forgetting to do the obvious.

Hopefully not so much today but I was definitely doing that over last week, culminating in making more mistakes on Friday. I still have it in mind to do a Friday pm cinema trip to use up a few vouchers I have (and to see some great films) but retreated home this time around mostly due to the knowledge of being prone to those mistakes. I definitely didn't want to be driving back in an overtired state.

Besides, Friday had a couple of good games to finish off the Women's T20 cricket season followed by the men's finale on Saturday. It was tempting to make another trip out in search of Star Wars Lego. The kits for the new movie came out (in typically overhyped fashion to feed the marketing machine) on Friday and I have my eye on the Star Destroyer and BB-8.

And I did kinda want to finish off the epic exploration trip in the internet spaceship.

That's my Diamondback Explorer, stopping off at a colony run by the Party of Yoru, with a lovely nebula in the distance. After finishing off the trip, I had a couple of objectives in mind (all done) to use all the data collected in order to unlock a couple of engineers and to prepare the way for another.

Trip complete ! Green lines meet up again. Since then, I've been helping out with a couple of the week's community goals.

First up, a few trading runs in the Type 7 freighter, Alex Dewey. This one is named after a couple of the Ice Road Truckers. I'm looking forward to that series starting up again, although it's suffering somewhat by a feeling that it has been phoning it in by the numbers lately. That's unfair on the stars of the show, who get well and truly battered by the roads they're attempting to drive on. It's more a criticism of the producers of the show. But I'll still be tuning in for the next season.

That one's looking a bit battered as well now. I only bounced off stars twice ... and one of those was a bit of inattention where I didn't pick up where the "You're too close !" line was. Oh and I was almost blown up by station guns for another little bit of inattention where I completely forgot to ask permission before entering the station. They don't like that.

I did mention that I was suffering from not being quite right in the head lately wasn't I ... Hopefully that'll improve over the next week or so ! Must not overdo it. That's another reason I'm not likely to do many more videos (still got the footage I did last week !), I need that rest and go splat in the evenings after throwing all I got into work, although it has been great to read the comments of a few people who were encouraging me to make more of the videos. They seem to like my voice :-)

The Diamondback well and truly earned its place of honour in the hangar. I think it covered maybe 60,000 light years and earned 100 million credits (this is a lot) for the spacepiggybank. The next time I go out exploring will probably be an expedition in the luxury liner ships to a sizeable collection of beauty spots reasonably close to the populated areas. That might see my character through to its first Elite ranking.

But first - lots of trading to come in a Python, possibly to be called "Shipka 3.141" (Pi-Thon? I know ...) and before then, I enjoyed indulging in a bit of ship to ship combat in the latest glorious little fighter ship :

The Imperial Courier ship, Shaname's Sword. This one did itself proud as well helping out for one of the community goals. I do like the little ships, they are small, nippy and fun to fly around. They don't quite have the combat endurance or hitting power of the big ships though.

On to the next ship soon though which I think will be that Python with other fighty ships coming along as I need them for community goals.

Back to work first tomorrow though. What challenges await !

May time hibernation

Gosh - 8 days since last post.

I've been pretty tired again lately. I suspect the bugs that I had over a fortnight ago now are having a more long term effect on my overall energy levels.

I was able to rouse the old bones for Comic Con on Sunday (worth it !) but apart from that, the exhaustion hits quite quickly. I can do what I need to do (like the shopping today !) but I'm definitely looking forward to being able to crash out for the rest of the week. I'm off work this week and hopefully that'll allow me to get some healing in for my outsides and to replenish those energy reserves.

I have the photos from Comic Con but that enervation is getting in the way of me pulling the photos off the camera so I can organise them for Facebook etc. Soon :-).

Comic Con always brings out the special, the odd, the beautiful, the ... revealing, the downright wonderful and always outfits that the wearers and makers can be pretty proud of. I haven't done one yet but I think I have an idea for something that could work and be suitably understated. Here we are :

That's the Alliance Dress Blues from the Mass Effect game, although I think I actually prefer the Cerberus outfit.

Looks good. They did a good job with the outfits in the game.

Yep. Comic Con was pretty good this year. It feels like it is getting bigger each year, although that's me remembering back to a few years ago when I went to London MCM for the first time. It's definitely bigger than the version at Birmingham NEC. It seemed like there were more artist stands this time around. I really must ask one of them to do a Dwagon Waving Hi for me at some point.

It's a long, tough day but the show and most definitely the company makes it very much worth it. And if you're going to one of these events yourself, look into the whole day and not just the convention. You really need to look after yourself to get through a day like this so you can Really Enjoy It, which means making sure you're topped up on things like water (the location is very hot and humid inside - very unhealthy enervating conditions) and having breaks when you need them. Take a few minutes to chill out having something to eat and drink. It's worth it because that fuels you through the day.

The Lords run is a longer day (starts earlier) but works well with this too. With 3 games, there are short breaks at half time where the teams change sides (loo break for spectators !) and longer breaks between the games where you can scoot around the stadium looking for foods, drinks and scouting the usually excellent Lords shop. I think I've well and truly mined out that shop though but I'm sure I'll find something good this year.

Like at Comic Con !

The lovely Cupid's Gift came away with an excellent selection of goodies (and a smuggled plushie !) and I acquired 2 Star Wars themed t-shirts which will get shown off at work on the Fridays soon, plus 2 Nanoblock kits (BB-8 and Cookie Monster - pictures to come when they're built) and I also got a book of Mass Effect posters.

Good loot.

That other bit of planning involves what you do around the show too. So for Comic Con and the Lords run, there is a Westfield trip after. It's a massive shopping place ... which also has munchie areas. Good food is fantastic for fuelling you through a day. And it's tasty too. I'll have a good scout around before leaving London on the 8th. The alternative is to head off down the motorway until you find somewhere acceptable and motorway service stations are all about fuel food, not tasty food.

I'll be doing the cricket watching as well this holiday - extraordinary game yesterday where England almost got demolished in record time. When that happened in my playing days, it would often result in what we called a Beer Leg, where the teams would hang around for a friendly/practice where we'd have bowlers batting and batsmen bowling. Bit of fun to get us more cricket in during the day.

I was about to say "Where I could have more fun being a nutter in the field too" but this was when I still had fear of the ball, before I figured out that being fearless hurts less in cricket than when the fear hesitation leads to fumbles and ouches.

Comic Con pictures soon. I need to get them off the camera.

Perhaps games soon too, I have a selection on my current play list :
Stellaris - yep. I'm on this one again. After starting a game with a bunch of Space Raptors who were the Devouring Swarm, I'm in one with Space Snakes who will turn into a Devouring Swarm (everyone hates you because they think you're out to eat them - which is true) later. The Raptors had too many enemies to survive that game but the Snakes have been able to slice up races peacemeal. To ermm ... make meals out of them.

Yep. Stellaris still gets my attention.

I've opened Rebel Galaxy again, which has confused me because I'm having to recalibrate my play away from "I can take on anyone !" to running at the first sign of trouble. It's a good space game, more about space battle barges than the fighter type craft in Elite.

Darkest Dungeon might get some more time ...

Then there's Motorsport Manager, where my campaign has been on hiatus because it got boring. My team is a long way ahead of the competition. Incidentally, this is why Formula 1 has been better this year, as Ferrari have caught up with Mercedes and you genuinely don't know which of them will win the races.

And I really should go back to Mass Effect Andromeda and make a push to finish that. It has good outfits too :

You can probably tell that if I were to find myself in a science fictional universe, it would almost certainly be Mass Effect as the preferred one. There is good variation in races, huge potential to explore and they just created a galaxy full of wonder.

Back there soon !

Feels like I been hit by a truck !

Crikey.

Holiday time is supposed to be when you rest, recover and recuperate. But this one seems to be having the opposite effect ! I can't really remember too much of what I was doing yesterday. Perhaps it's an ill ? Maybe. I think it's actually the effects of me attacking myself a bit too much lately.

I don't get that. I don't think I've had anything of what was causing me to have bad reactions. Perhaps it's actually something related to work. As in, the teacake and lunch may have been giving me the Stuff I needed to keep going.

The attacking of self is a major factor though. I really do have to figure out how I can stop that because I won't get properly better until I can leave my outsides alone enough to allow them to fix. It's actually my insides as well, although that can be chalked up to dehydration. I think I'm drinking enough (lots of water) but what I do drink is probably getting soaked up by repairs to my outsides, leaving not enough to keep the muscles happy.

I'm cold as well ! Unfeasably cold ! I suspect my metabolism has slowed due to not doing very much. Sometimes it does feel as if I should be wrapped up and trapped in a blanket like Kitty up top, until I heal.

I am healing though, the various damage I have will typically heal in 3 days or so, if allowed. I just keep redamaging it. It's really frustrating to know that you might be that close to healing for good, except for your own efforts.

Enough about me though. What have I been up to this week ?

I did tell someone I was going to see the doctors again. That didn't happen. Grr. Yesterday was a cloudy blur (plus I was waiting on a delivery that didn't arrive until 4.30 ish - pictures of what that was when I put them together). Tuesday was also waiting for a delivery (more later!). Wednesday was lazy and today, I was too late. Appointments go very quickly at my local docs and you can only get them on the day. Monday was a chill out day part recovering from the long Comic Con day (so worth it) and part getting my old TV cleared off ready for :

Tivo arrived on Tuesday.

I have never met a piece of electronics that is so keen to do its job. It's a cable TV box with a bunch of tuners so it can record multiple things and some intelligence built in to let it suggest recordings. The suggestions are a curious feature but may well get disabled due to annoyance.

One feature I like is that I can control it from my iPad via home networking (I have had to recommission my Powerline bits n bobs to make this happen). You know how clunky a TV remote interface can be ? Perhaps still clunky but a touchscreen can make it a bit smoother to do stuff. It's definitely easier to delete all of the suggestions.

I watch my stuff in order. I won't dip in randomly midway through a series, I'll watch the story unfold over the course of a programme's entire run. I'll series link stuff that I want to watch.

What I don't expect is for the suggestion to override what I'm watching. I don't think the Tivo box likes the cricket as it has tried to change the channel away from it a few times. It needs more training and possibly that Suggestions feature being disabled.

Wednesday also saw me heading into Planetbase again to get the rush colony achievement. I have plans now for how to win at that game, the certain order of what to build in order to get things going quickly and keep them going quickly.

That's curious, the Steam overlay thingy for the achievement isn't on the screenie. The conditions needed were 100 colonists inside 30 days and ...

250 colonists in 60 days for the other rush colony achievement. Sorted ! I only have the achievements from the Storm planet (lightning, limited solar, limited wind, limited build area) to come and then all done until they add some new challenge features.

I also found time to fly the Internet Spaceships again in Elite. It's just had a patch which has changed a few things. One of those is the charity donation mission things to buy navy rank to let you have bigger and better faction only ships. They've changed all that, instead of it being 10k ish cr to buy about 1% guaranteed, it's more like 250k to 1m credits. I'm being more economical there and only contributing when it's value for money. (Context - typical profit per tonne is 500cr but I have been seeing 3000-4000cr per tonne occasionally).

They've also expanded the equipment and customisation considerably ... Which has caused much angst. Beta testing is supposed to catch problems before they occur but I've been seeing videos of one shot kills on pretty potent, tough ships. There is also talk of the Plasma Cannon (big ball of slow moving, slowly reloading fire) working like a heavily overpowered machine gun.

Things have gone imbalanced, to the point where I'm just running from fights at the moment instead of sticking around. It doesn't help there that my second Cutter (yep!) doesn't have its full armament yet or full defenses yet. Need more in game cash. It doesn't help that the ships that have been after me have been the big Anacondas.

Big Elite Ships :

Federal Corvette - best ship for combat. Not so good for anything else.
Imperial Cutter - best ship for trading, should have some combat potential. Fast enough to easily outrun pirates.
Anaconda - best allrounder, pretty good for combat, trading and exploration.
Type 9 Space Turd Freighter - best ship for trading that you can acquire without doing the grind to get the Cutter.

I said "second" didn't I ... IMV Min Max died to a smaller ship as I tried to go toe to toe with a pirate. Usually I can run away before the critical point but ... oh well. Not this time. Oops ! Enter Cookie Morning :

Yep. I went for the black pain job as mourning for the first Cutter. I did have a happy surprise though today when the 12m cost for the insurance was reimbursed due to the craziness of the non player character ships.

Only 376m away from properly fitting it out. Could take a while. But I have been enjoying the game and it is a fairly relaxed playstyle which suits my current level of energy.

Shinies ?

There's a preview. These are supposed to be really tough to build so I didn't really want to start while I'm having lots of pain. Perhaps the Nanoblock R2D2 first :-).

Steps Forward, Steps Back

This time tomorrow,

I'll be half asleep enjoying the start of a holiday week off !!! Hurrah. I feel quite beat up at the moment :

General tiredness - After the health issues of the last few years, I still haven't gotten all of my energy back. It's there in traces and occasional bouts of hyperactivity but on the whole, I find it tough to summon up the energy to do Stuff. I still battle through and do it but it does take the equivalent of the Big Electric Cattleprod to get me started.

Outsides that don't like me : this is really frustrating still. I've had this condition for ... 5 years now ? And even reading back in posts around 3 years old, I feel I've been on the cusp of recovery for all that time. But I never get wholly better. More in a bit.

Work stress - work's ok. But it's not the technical messing about with fancy bits of kit work that I'd like to be doing. There are other things causing stress which I can never write about here. The people, on the whole, are pretty good still and that's what's really important to me. I mirror the people around me, good people make me happy, bad people make me pick up on what makes them bad.

Insides that ... need some time to get better. Some bits are good, some bits are bad. I've had a few issues over the last little while (I am allergic to hayfever tablets if you can believe that) and they typically need management. That said, the symptom of the hayfever tablet sensitivity has gone (thankfully because it was go-to-doctor scary!). My muscles and bones will appreciate the downtime they'll have next week.

Outsides ?

I have been steadily improving over the last little while. I have recovered to the point where I think a few clear days or a clear week may see me finally fixed.

But ... I'm not getting that clear time.

It is pretty awesome to be back to the point where I can aggressively use the towel after having a shower, instead of being delicate to protect battered skin. Yep. You read that right, my skin has been that tortured. That's one of the cruel things about a skin condition like mine, like Psoriasis (which isn't what I have). Keeping it clean definitely helps ... because it gets rid of the bad stuff. But it can also make it worse as tortured skin can't handle the act of being cleaned ... or dried.

Apologies for being slightly graphic there - I don't like to expose what I've been living with. It's my struggle and I really shouldn't need help with it. To beat it, I need to have more self discipline to not aggravate the damage. The cause is with me and the fix is with me too. To bring other people in would ... not help much ? People know I've been struggling and that's enough, I don't need the special treatment, I do struggle with the energy but I can keep up with the workload.

Other people have it far worse than me. I can see the end of this fight, other people are locked into it.

And I have had a little help with it - someone lovely bought me that Aveeno moisturizer a while ago. I haven't been using it as much as I should really be but ... It has helped. Have slapped on a bit more tonight to see if it helps (it will).

My condition has slipped backwards again somewhat over the last week. It's a causality loop :

Itches begin.
I attack the itch.
Skin goes on fire from the consequence of me attacking the itch.

In engineering, we call it a positive feedback loop, where the reaction to a control input constantly increases and the system has more and more extreme responses to a stimuli and eventually breaks. I'm not broken any more but I do need to get that feedback back to negative feedback, where the stimuli (the itchies) are gradually damped down to zero. And then I'll be fixed.

It is good to be getting back to normality. I've been away from that for a long time but I am steadily seeing bits of me that were torn up, return to smoothness.

To better things !

But first - if you are struggling with something, remember a few important things :

YOU ARE NOT ALONE !
We all struggle and it gets the better of us sometimes. And that's ok ! The bad thing to do is not recognise when things are getting the better of you and bottle it in. The way out of it is to clobber a friend, drag them off somewhere secluded, handcuff them to a chair and talk it out with them. If they're a good friend they'll listen (and maybe not call the cops after you let them go).

Friends will help. Or you wouldn't trust them as friends. I have a small number of awesome friends who know how to make me smile. I like to give a little back to the world by seeing if I can make other people smile.

Some friends will help just for hugs. Hugs are awesome.

Find something to look forward to (see below).

It's a fact of life that we can't deal with everything that life throws at us and it's ok to recognise that. We are not invincible or invulnerable. It's ok to have a little scream, cry or tantrum when life gives you onions. Or was it lemons. Or oranges. Oranges make me struggle to breathe.

The important thing is - keep fighting, keep struggling. Fight one battle at a time. Stay in the game. Positive Mental Attitude can be really tough to maintain, especially if your mind is battling against you (depressives will know what I mean there). But positive attitude is the best way out of a bad situation.

And it's ok to borrow a bit of positivity from friends.

That's me too !

I'm exhausted with one more day of work to go before a sleepy week off but I am really looking forward to Sunday. Because that'll be Comic Con with someone awesome.

It'll be a long day but her enthusiasm is infectious. You know I mentioned Mirroring people ? I'll catch that infectious enthusiasm and it'll make me really enjoy the day. She's a smart one that one and lots of other adjectives too. She brings out the better sides of me.

I'm looking forward to having a good wander around there too. I suspect a good few things will escape with me and the little lovely one.

Oh I also look forward to the messages that come in from various people too and there are few of those that let me be unguarded me.

LTK from work who is an absolute pro who I can discuss all sorts of things with the LTK.
CK who reminds me that not all people are dumb, he reminds me that Thinking Is Good. And I can talk games with him and Bionic Dwarf (and Luth too but he's been a bit preoccupied) and all sorts of other historical, philosophy and other subjects that would just bounce off your typical Chav. Oh wait, those thoughts would see a Chav a mile off and run away screaming (I dislike chavs).
Snow Queen who I still chat to occasionally (not enough!). Couldn't help today but it was good to borrow her knowledge today with something work related.
The Front Door people who I can have fun with, which lightens the strain of getting output from certain people (harder than getting blood out of the stone).

Yep.

Looking forward to Comic Con. It'll be awesome.
Looking forward to sleep. It has been fleeting lately due to the allergies making me attack myself again.
Dunno about the Tivo box that arrives on Tuesday, I still need to clear 14 hours of recorded stuff before turning off my old TV box for the last time.
Ambivalent about missing the sport for Comic Con. Comic Con massively beats the sport :-).
Looking forward to establishing a Planetbase Pixel People base on the Storm planet. Love that game.
Looking forward to watching SpaceX's rokkit launch livestream tonight. Starts in 5 minutes from this line.
Looking forward to watching Le Mans and building the Lego Le Mans car, although there's a little negotiation to do because it clashes with Father's Day.
Looking forward to adding new music to the library, the last music I added was Enya's latest (meh) in April.

And looking forward to seeing some Likes and Hits and dare I suggest, a little feedback ? from this post :-)

I struggle to find the worth in what I post. I know people keep coming back to read new posts but I don't really know what they are thinking as they read. What would they like to see here ? I know I jump around a fair bit in topics.

Let me know !

I suspect my next post will be a Colour Of Comic Con post, although I am overdue another Alphabet of the Human Heart post.

Construction working

Ok, maybe not working.

Because the term working would imply that it's not firstly for enjoyment. (And that you're getting paid for it !) Don't get me wrong there, it's awesome to have a job where your work brings you genuine enjoyment. I've definitely had a lot of Good Times over the years in my various projects. I tend to get that as a result of seeing something awesome and knowing "I MADE (a bit of) THAT!"

Definitely if you see your stuff on the news.

Work's been fairly hard lately though. I'm keeping up with what needs to be done, it's just ... maintaining the energy is a struggle at the moment. It's as if I'm having trouble unlocking the potential energy that's within me. I know it's there (wiggles tummy), it just refuses to unlock itself.

Next break for me will be Easter and I'm seriously considering having the week before Easter off instead of my more traditional Easter week. Not long left now. There is an ulterior motive for switching the leave date ... Voyager challenge !

But first ... before I talk about that potential Voyager challenge ... thumbnail pic time !

Snowman ! In nanoblocks ! Oh and a Christmas tree too.

I have more nanoblocks to build after they arrived today. But I wanted to practice with something simple and small and the pack above was effectively thrown in free with the other two kits.

I've been enjoying the construction hobby. I'm finding a certain catharsis from putting the blocks together, whether it be Lego or now Nanoblocks.

You're probably wondering what the difference is ? First one is size. I left a 1x1 Lego block off to the left for a scale comparison. Oh there's also the Tie Advanced off in the background but ... there's that foreshortening and scaling effect that comes from a camera lens that close to the capture object. The 1x1 Lego brick is just smaller than 2x2 on the Nanoblocks.

They're about as small as they could be and still be manipulated with fat(ish) fingers like mine. Actually, I don't think my fingers are too fat, although they are thickened up more than average due to all the cricket. Gripping the handle and all that. I have some old tweezers in reserve.

It's much cheaper than Lego. The TIE Advanced was £40 for 355 pieces. The XWing was £70 for 717 pieces. The snowman and tree were £4 for "over 170 pieces". The next kit I do (reveal will come with the pictures !) has 540 pieces for £12 (down from £16) and the one after that is 780 pieces for £23. That said, there's some nifty discounts on the nanoblocks.

So the cold hard "how many kits can I get for my money ?" is vastly in favour of the Nanoblocks. They don't attract the Lego premium and also don't attract the Star Wars premium.

I'm going to enjoy building the next two kits ... and I need to find the ones after that (Pokemon avatars coming soon !)

I don't think they do moving parts though, just the basic bricks. Still gotta go Lego or K-Nex or Meccano for things that move, like engines and wheels.

Here's the thing though. I have a few construction games for PC and I've never really got on that well with them. I think I'm much better when I have a template to work from. I should really open up From The Depths and have a good go at that, I have a series of ship designs in my mind based on the Trimaran hullform :

A trimaran has 3 hulls. One long thin one in the centre, with an outrigger either side. It opens up a lot of deck space, although it can make the internals a bit cramped. It gains you a tonne of speed and efficiency. And the outriggers make it look like it has wings. Dragon theme ! Just need to get with the mouse and clicking and they could happen. Yep - trimaran with lots of guns, missiles and lasers.

Although there's that Tired thing again. I'm feeling really beat up at the moment. Physically, I'm fairly ok. My outsides continue to heal (slowly) and my insides are sore ... but doing ok. It's keeping the energy levels up that's hard at the moment. It means I throw everything I have into work ... and crash when I get home. It's one reason I'm not learning the new games, because I don't really have that mental energy to invest in them.

I do enjoy watching the videos of other people playing games though. When they're good games and interesting presenters. I've changed who I watch lately, as I got bored with some (most of Yogscast) and found some others to watch (Heychrissa, Enter Elysium). But that's when the games are interesting.

But those are negative thoughts. Wait, curious that I've been enjoying building stuff with the lego and nanoblocks but I've been finding the Minecraft gaming video stuff to be creatively dead and utterly boring. And Minecraft is building stuff with blocks !

Oh back to gaming to finish off. I mentioned the Voyager challenge ... This is a combination of Star Trek and Elite. The premise of the Star Trek Voyager series is that they get grabbed by a being called the Caretaker, who pulls them 70,000 light years away to the other side of the galaxy. And it'll take 75 years to get home. The Voyager challenge is to get an Elite Dangerous ship to the same system ... and race back.

They reckon that with Elite's gameplay systems, you can get back in 40 hours. I wonder ...

Nah. I won't do 40 hours of Elite straight but I may well make my out to the Gamma quadrant wormhole (as seen in Star Trek Deep Space 9) before heading across to Voyager's spot. And then I'd head back, probably on my own time. Cos 40 hours of anything straight is a bit silly, games especially.

Unless it's sleep. I feel like I could do with 40 hours straight of sleep at the moment !

Cya next time and hopefully I'll think of something to post (another A to Z coming "soon"). Been having a bit of blog block lately I think ...

Tired, Pizza, Music You Really Don't Want To Hear

I have the tireds again ...

It's due to a big week last week followed by travelling last weekend. The travel always knocks me out. But if you saw the pics of Ben in the last post, you'll see why it's worth it.

And that's just the pooch. It's good to see the family again, even if the extended family (Double D as I may call them, they'll love that - hahaha) couldn't come too. I expect I'll meet up with them sometime soon, where Junior D will game me to death. Maybe :-). Or I might be able to summon up some last vestiges of reaction time and skill to keep the upper hand.

I do feel a little bit behind still in reactions. I tend to make up for that by concentration harder, so if my attention fades out while you're talking to me during driving or other concentration things, that's why. I haven't been gaming much at all this week so far. Ok, some Motorsport Madness on the iPad but I don't really count that as an activity game. You pick your strategy for the race and take decisions according to the race situation.

I've managed to resist getting games in the sales that have come up - GoG.com had a decent sale going. The one that has my attention at the moment is called Cosmonautica, a space sim type game that would appeal to the Farmville / Facebook game fraternity. It looks ok in concept ... but as usual, when it comes to execution, reports say it falls down somewhat with bugs and other limitations. I expect I'll acquire a few games come the Steam sales for Black Friday and the big one at Xmas.

I need a new graphics card too - this one is having issues and I get the feeling it's just nursing itself along before it fails. A lot of that is the software that drives it, like turning the fans down so it gets melty. I have the sums* turned off at the moment while a video is playing in another window, so it's running at a cool 37 degrees C.

* Sums on a graphics card ? Signal processing, like what SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Aliens) does, works by taking a bit of data and running lots of sums on it. The sums are very simple, so if you can do many at once, that makes it so much quicker. The processor in this desktop has 4 cores which can each do up to 16 very simple sums at once (trickery!). The graphics card has 1024 individual texture processors or CUDA cores which can be used for reasonably complex sums as well when they're not turning picture maps into lovely 3d worlds. This means a SETI work unit that would take 2 hours on a processor, would take 5 minutes on the graphics card.

It does stuff for Science and it heats the house too.

A big week ? Last week was :
Monday for shopping (was almost out of popcorn - this is bad)
Tuesday Mall to pick up something I needed resulting from the shopping (an adaptor)
Wednesday Cupid's Gift ! Lovely evening with a lovely little lady. And if you've seen the Facebook pic, with a lovely smile too. And a lovely taste for gifts, one of which will result in a meme series sometime soon ...
Thursday - can't remember. Think I did quiet stuff at home.
Friday - watching the cricket (England won ! Hurrah) and travelling for the weekend.

I hope you can guess what I was looking forward to and remember most from last week, most of the rest of it is a blur.

I have a hankering for pizza ...

I do like pizza. Even if I am more sensitive to the cheese than I like these days. It's my go to comfort food when I need to turn the brain off and have something that will make me close to food comaness.

Hopefully we'll have another pizza and movie chill out night soon, we're overdue that.

But in the meantime, I believe Friday evening will be pizza accompanied by watching Interstellar again. Ok, some of the plot line and science is atrocious but the bits of the plot that matter (the relationship between Coop and Murphy) gets me in the feels. And it is good to feel things.

Music you really don't want to hear ?

A work friend was saying she was freaked out today (I may be misquoting, forgive me) by a coffee machine. It was singing to her ...

So as my brain was being overcome by mischievous thoughts ... I wondered - what might you hear from a singing coffee machine ? Here goes.

Queen - Another One Bites The Dust
In our place - They Might Be Giants - Minimum Wage
Before home time - Road To Hell or even Road To Nowhere with our traffic
Ironic by Alanis Morrissette - definitely
Back On The Chain Gang - crack that whip.
Musical Chairs music with our desk booking system
Manic Monday or I Don't Like Mondays
Another Brick In The Wall with I Don't Need No Education definitely sums up some of the denizens of Asda I saw on Monday during the cake run.
Garbage had a brilliant if sad song - Cup Of Coffee. And then the machine asks if you want Milk.
Oh and there's Fix Me Now when it's bust. Coffee machines aren't the most reliable devices.
Four Seasons In One Day summed up our weather today. No snow yet though.
Algebra and Mathematics (A Camp and Little Boots) would be favourites of our Finance People.
Oh carp another bunch of Changes (David Bowie) is coming
Hahahah - Mercy was always Duffy's best boppy song
Nine Million Bicycles ... riding on the pavement.

I think that's enough amusement from the singing coffee machine for now, I better stop before I pull out something like Frozen that might get be in trouble.

One more ! You make your choice, you put the cup where it needs to be, the machine starts hollering "Money, Money, Money" at you. Or the older "Money" from Pink Floyd.

Brain fried ... send cookies

One more day in work until a little break !

Yep. Time for a little break. The usual signs of me getting into mental fatigue is that I miss words out or occasional words get mixed with words that shouldn't be there. I see this when I look back on posts I've published or emails I send. Perhaps in texts I write !

Yep. Week off next week, it's me taking the opportunity to recharge a bit before the mayhem leading up to Xmas starts. I have plans ... Daft plans but still plans.

Definitely pizza tomorrow night, I picked up a copy of Mad Max Furiosa Road last night which is almost certainly going to accompany the pizza. That's another sign of tired ! MMFR was part of a 2 for £ deal and when a lovely lady asked me what the other one was earlier, I just could not remember. (I peeked, it's the rather decent Dawn of the Planet Of The Apes).

I also picked up the Indiana Jones movies too (all 4) and a copy of Laura Marling's A Creature I Don't Know. The Jones movies are something I've intended to pick up for a while now. I owned the box set of the first 3 on dvd, my dad had number 4. So I donated my dvd copies to my dad to complete his set with the intention of upgrading to the bluray box set "soon". Haha, they finally dropped to an acceptable price.

That's one daft thing about the shops ... They do 2 for £ deals, 3 for £20, 5 for £30 deals. You'll only go for those deals if you can pick out enough movies to make up the 3 or the 5. With me yesterday, I couldn't see anything really suitable to go with Furiosa Road. Why did I get Apes ? Erm ... I needed the loo. Oops. Never let yourself be rushed into buying things for the wrong reasons.

It's daft though - I can rarely pick out enough for the 3 for or 5 for deals. Yet if they just made them cost £6 each, my bluray collection would ... need another set of shelves. But with me not seeing enough for the 3/5 for, they stay on the shop shelves.

It's not just the movies though, Laura Marling was a speculative buy at £3 for that album. Plus I'll pick up a few more from Rudimental, Gabrielle Aplin and ... more that my brain is too fried to remember. Oh ! Yeah. Ellie Goulding has a new one coming out soon, as does Mindy Gledhill.

I'm getting sidetracked ...

Yeah ! Stuff while away. Need the boiler sorted out, that's been going on far too long and it's now struggling to give suitable amounts of hot water. Not so good. I like that feeling of nicely hot water on my back, it helps ease out some of the stiffness in the back and shoulders.

Catching up with the recorded stuff ! At the moment it's a couple of episodes of Castle. Not sure where that series is going. It's in its 7th series now. It's been very good but has it been going on too long ?

There's cricket on at the moment too, although it's the kind of cricket you leave on in the background all muted. I'll time-delay (start of play is 7am) watch a few days of it.

There's another Comic Con on in London on the weekend of Fri 23 to Sun 25. I'm curious about this, tempted to go. But ... it's way better in company and one lovely lady comic con addict is still struggling with a poorly ankle. That's not good if the trip involves walking into the halls (1+ mile from the underground station last time) and lots more walking. London Comic Con is an insanely long day compared to the one in Birmingham. Better to save it for when you're more ready for all the walking.

I'd go on the Friday when one of the best (naughtiest ?) laughs and wisest voices on youtube will be gracing the stands with her presence. I think one of the sweetest voices will be there too. (The laugh would belong to Kim and the voice to Hannah). I don't watch nearly as much gaming stuff on Youtube now but I still watch most of what Hannah and Kim come out with. It's just way better quality than what the men come out with. With the ladies, it's fun with a lot of professionalism behind it. The typical bloke youtuber just screams, carries on and acts like a child to the point where their voices will carry through walls to where more professional people are trying to record with the idiot voice being picked up on the other person's videos.

You can probably tell how my attitude differs between the various people on the youtubes.

It won't all be lazing about though. Need to make a dent in cleaning the house up and getting it all in order. It would be kinda nice to have visitors again sometime ... That was actually what kicked off the Mall run last night, having another peek around Wickes and B+Q for Stuff. One of those has another 50% off offer going on bathroom stuff again, the last one of those AND NEVER COMING AGAIN ! was in May. This latest version ends in November and you can bet there will be another after that.

Lesson for this post - buy stuff when it's convenient for you, not when the people wanting your money want you to buy.

That kinda sounds like the "Do what your enemy doesn't want you to do" quote doesn't it. I guess it applies ! The commercial people want your money, you should be looking to give them as little as you can get away with.

Right - mental energy flagging - be well people.

And there's a good chance that'll be me on Caturday.

The silence of the lemon merangues

Currently watching the grand final of Great British Bake Off.

It's one of those wonderfully British series, an elimination contest which starts with 12 contestants with one going home every week. They make three batches of cake (and other bakeries but ... cake is life) over the weekend and the tastiest, best baked, best presented cakes earn the bakers a place in the next week.

Grand Final tonight - my money's on Nadiya. Partly for what she bakes, mostly because she's a huge character.

All those cakes look so amazingly tasty too, even though half of them are way too healthy for me. Oh - it's inspired the latest avatar. Wonder if they'd accept a Dwagon Helper ?

Have gloves, will travel. I'd kinda like to learn how to bake again. Because baking leads to cookies. Cookies lead to happiness. And the Happy Cookie Place is back in a month :

Yum. Really looking forward to raiding that place again. It visits Bristol as part of the German Christmas Market. Who says it's a bad thing when the Christmas fever starts up in ... January ? Ok, this market appears in November, which is fairly ok. That's not as hugely early as some places. The Xmas stuff is up in John Lewis already ...

I could have gone off to see The Martian again with the work-ish friends but ... it would have involved heading home from work (to see if fresh cinema vouchers have arrived) and then off to the cinema place. This would have meant fighting through the worst of the traffic on both of those.

Traffic is really bad at the moment here. I have several alternate routes I can use between home and work, trouble is, most of them are off the list now because the roadworks are causing mayhem. I'm amazed we haven't had gridlock due to crashes yet. There are signs for the way people are supposed to negotiate the lane closures but ... this is Bristol. People don't read signs. Or indicate.

Aside - oh wow. We've just had the winner of the Bake Off and there are tears all round. Happy tears. Because the winner has come out of a bit of a shell to expose a huge talent at baking. Well done :-) (I'm being vague cos ... spoilers !!!)

Phew ! That distracted me away from horrid drivers. I've gone like :

(Tiny Bit Tired - another gap in the collection!)

I'm wondering what the cause of the gathering malaise I'm feeling is. I'm going to take the week after next off work to try and recover some energy. It's partly from burning too much mental energy, both in work and since I've been on the games again. A lot of it is from still not sleeping particularly well. I'm at a loss there, I can be yawning my head off at 11.30 but when I go to bed at 12.00, I'll still be yawning but my body won't sleep.

I have another theory there. I've been on the Acrivastine based hayfever tabled for ... more time than I can remember ! 2 of those a day, one before bed, one before doing stuff in the morning. They're 8 hour coverage pills, so that's decent coverage. Trouble is, I tend to build up a resistance to certain things. Previous hayfever tablets have seen me react badly to them. How ?

I'd have one before a game of cricket, to open up my lungs and help me breathe more easily. I used to have a quick recovery (untested now!) time with the running around but it depended on me being able to breathe efficiently. Hayfever type allergies tended to interfere with that ... plus there's the factor of your eyes tearing up when you're trying to bat. It's tough to dab eyes when wearing cricket gloves ! But I was also seeing side effects where instead of being power legs, my legs were weighing me down. It's like there was nothing in the tank. Lots of deadweight from supposedly power muscles. Apparently I was getting that side effect from the hayfever tablets (Citirizine based).

So I'm going to cut out the hayfever tablets and see what happens. I was taking them primarily to help out my outsides but I'm not sure they need the help any more. I'm also feeling like my legs are deadweight again, although that's partly down to the damage in my hips.

Stress too. Work's gone a bit silly at the moment for various reasons that I won't go into here. It does help having a "We're all in this together !" spirit, so those who share that help each other out. (There are some who are quite happy in their islands of misery but can't resist sharing)

So I'll step away for a week for a change of scene and a chance to recharge the batteries. I'll be heading out a few times over that week too. No Shauns to hunt but people to help out. I think a very good friend will be appreciating any help she can get with a house move and another lovely lady will be eager to escape the restrictions of recovering from that broken ankle.

That's the thing - I'm feeling extremely tired and stressed in general at the moment. But when those messages come in from friends, it really brightens my day and helps dispel the bad thoughts.

I'll be here in the evenings creaking away louder than the chair I'm sitting in but when those messages come in, I'll be jumping up with a big smile.

Friends are awesome. Family too. And that family includes the four legged friends too. Someone reminded me of that earlier today by peeking at one of last year's posts (Furry Friends at the link). I think the big sis would like me to write more about Murph and Ice too, her poochlings. I've met Murph when he was a pup, not met Ice yet. They're a bit too boisterous for Ben to handle. Because Ben would try and keep up with them and he's a bit old for that.

Talking of Ben, I think he'd hope that a special friend has her paw heal as well as his good paw did :

The good paw is the one on the right, he was born with genes that made his front paws curl in. That left paw is causing him real problems now but the right paw was broken in an argument with a vehicle. We adopted Ben when he was recovering from that and the right paw healed better than new. I've not visited Ben for a while, it'd be great to see the lovable old geezer and rub him behind his ears again.

I hope one special friend has as happy a result as that !
(The healing of the paw, not so sure she'd be too impressed with someone rubbing her behind her ears)

Gravity ... too high ...

Wow - the tireds have hit again.

I feel like I'll be sleeping for a significant amount of this weekend. Or at least I hope I will be. Sleep's still been at a premium lately. It feels like it's been taking ages to nod off again. I suspect that tendency is partly down to keeping on those computer games for a little bit too long at night.

The RSI tendencies in my right wrist and some other upper body issues have definitely been woken up again by a little too much stick time. The Elite piloting position is not exactly ideal. I need to clear off the upper level of my desk again so I can put the keyboard there and have the flightstick in a central position so I'm not twisting my body to do the piloting thing. At the moment, keyboard and flightstick go side by side, so the stick is off the the right. I'm moving around anyway because when I'm doing the piloting, I'm pretty constantly checking over the laptop that's at my 9 o'clock position compared to my place sitting at the pooter.

I also keep a watchful eye on the telly, which usually has the news on mute while my laptop pipes music over to my amp and speakers. (That's done better lately actually - I tweaked some settings in the network that's given a little better Quality Of Service, translation - it's not doing the dropouts much now)

What is happening with the migrant situation ? It seems like we've allowed the situation in Syria to get totally out of control, causing mass migration out of that country. They have the impression that the West is the Land of Milk And Honey, so they're heading here instead of the actually much richer and closer Oil Baron Gulf.

It's amazing how perceptions twist according to the whims of our media services. We now have Help The Immigrants campaigns popping up everywhere, a few months ago a neo-nutter political party called UKIP got rather too much share of the vote here on a manifesto based around kicking out immigrants, partly supported by our media. Yet now the media and the sheep who follow their whims have now gone full circle.

It's curious how the flavour of the month changes isn't it.

I sympathise with the situation the migrants find themselves in but the question I have is for the people saying "Bring them here". Ok. Where will they go. Britain is already overcrowded. Most of Europe is overcrowded. We are still having to struggle under the yoke of austerity. There is no money to house them, feed them, support them. Will everyone signing the Bring Them Here petitions offer up enough room in their house to put an immigrant family in ?

I'll let you answer that for yourselves. What you do is your own business, just think about the consequences of what you ask for. Personally, I need to sort the house out before I'd be happy to have visitors, let alone people joining me living here. I'd actually like that but I'll be the one choosing who it is.

Some of what I've put up there is born out of tiredness making me a bit grumpy. There's that difference between a group of people saddled with the tag "Refugee Immigrant" and the genuinely wonderful singular Person who is looking to make a new home. Like ...

The wonderful bubbly chuckly smiley one who is working so hard to make a success of her talents (not an immigrant herself but from a family that has embraced the English culture).
The tall blonde KFC lady who recognises me when I go in there, asks me how I'm doing and has a truly wonderful smile to go with finding me the bigger bits of chicken.
The possibly Greek group who run the chippie. They start getting my order ready before I've even asked for it.
The group who run our Chinese. People come from far around to go to our Chinese.
That lovely Yogscast girl who was born here but is so well travelled, she's a child of the world.
The Irish Miss L who always looks as if she's going to burst out laughing if she sees me, in anticipation of possible Antics from the Sleepy One. Not spotted her lately, wonder if she's seen me first and kept an eye out for potential Antics from an unseen hidey hole ...
And a few more.

It's what people put back into the society they live in and that goes for people born in the country and those who move in. Too many of the natives are destructive (just look at Bristol drivers). Too many migrants don't want to fit in. But for all of them, there's the ones who contribute so much. Our society integrates around them and hopes to avoid the chav fraternity.

Last bit on the immigrants - it's not their fault. It's the fault of the rest of the world that they're in a position that they have to avoid Crazy People. And that's the people with the lack of political will to send our people into danger to sort out the Crazy People and the people who will most certainly condemn our leaders for doing so. They'd be far better off not emigrating, if the Crazy People allowed them to stay in their native country.

Back to me - when I'm feeling down or tired or frustrated, it's other people who pull me back up again. Like getting the texts in from the bubbly chuckly smiley one. Like getting the messages in that give me so much encouragement. All the smiles and banter from the canteen girls and the canteen daemon.

It's having people (and definitely one in particular who thinks she's a pain in the butt with it !) who communicate, who try and see what I'm up to with the daft messages, the people who make me think I'm part of their world.

You guys and girls give me a massive lift. Definitely something amazing that helps keep me going when my body isn't giving me the energy to feed the hyperactive monkey in control of my brain. To ignore the pain when my body likes to remind me I've been too silly with it over the years. To remind me that I'm not alone when my mind is feeling isolated.

To the person who got this far in my Wall Of Text. You're awesome.

I have a hopefully restful weekend coming up with tonnes of sport on the telly, plus the opening night of Strictly. There's an England cricket match on tomorrow, which will compete for my attention with qualifying for the Grand Prix and an England rugby match. That'll keep the pooter busy too, which will keep me away from the games which my hands haven't appreciated. My Elite pilot is propping up the bar in Hutton Orbital anyway. I'm not planning to move them because I'll have to go back there at some point to collect a Community Goal reward and it is 90 minutes supercruise travel away from the entry point of the system.

And if you look out the window tomorrow and see the Flying Pig Acrobatic Squadron doing a display ? I'll have summoned up the energy to do some tidying up. They're warming up the engines now ... after hitting Publish, I'm going to be putting the washing out to dry ...

Friday Eve

Friday tomorrow !

Hurrah.

This means bacon sandwiches. Maybe - the baps they come in are white and floury which can upset my breathing ... although it is bacon.

It's likely to be another hectic day tomorrow at work. I'm taking next week as leave because I need to recharge those batteries again. Yeah. The tiredness has been hitting but as usual for me, I get that second wind in anticipation of having the time off. Or at least I do at the start of the week, I was feeling it today before busy-hyper let me ignore it.

Although a message of "I think my dodgy hip is anticipating weather cos ... Crikey OUCH !" It felt like the bit that has problems developed a tear again and it was getting painful to get walking at times. Yep. Body reminding me that it's a bit old and broken now. But it was worth it when I earned that damage through the cricket and the other running around stuff. Oh - severe weather was warned here today but didn't actually arrive. Grim skies but not much wet stuff. Not that I noticed at least (too busy to look out the windows at work)

Yeah - body's getting ready for some chilled out time over the next week. However ... I have plans ...

If I escape from work in time tomorrow, I'm planning to head into the centre of town for ... chilled out wandering, munchies from the coffee place, perhaps a film, definitely some Shaun hunting.

I'm at a lowly 4, a friend (who has declared COMPETITION and therefore there is now a Rivalry) has seen 8 and another friend has seen 48. I don't think I'll get anywhere near 48 but I hope to get some walking in to see a few.

I have other plans too - walking to see Shauns is a big one, hopefully my legs will cooperate.

I'll be chillin' when I have to retreat to the house (still repairing, very slowly). There will be lots of music listened to over the next week.

Cricket will be on, it's the quarter final stages of the domestic Twenty 20 series, those games are usually worth watching. And then there's the final game of the Ashes. Fingers crossed for a 4-1.

I suspect we'll see Man From Uncle next week too. That's a remake of a cracking 60s era spy series. The trailer looked fairly good when we watched Fantastic Four although it was silly for them to show two trailers for it before that movie.

There may be a little bit of techie shopping ... I suspect that the device I use to send music between my Macbook and my amplifier is dying. It keeps cutting out and I have to power cycle it sometimes once an evening. I shouldn't need to do that. My options are :

Apple TV - with the added bonus of it allowing me to send video from iPad to telly as well as music to the amp.
Bluetooth receiver - just another way of getting music across the room without using a wire.

Cos a wire ... I'd trip up over it.

I'll do some of the Internet Spaceships too. I'm almost at the next trading rank ... I'll get there in the next session perhaps. There's also a new Community Goal where a space station is looking for "industrial materials" (semiconductors, superconductors) to upgrade itself. That means ... PROFIT. And my inner Ferengi Gaming Instinct has had its attention drawn to that.

Movies at home too. I'm halfway through watching the Lord Of the Rings and Hobbit movies, although I think I'll actually break from those because I kinda want to watch a few others again like Moon, Final Fantasy (yes, I meant that), the Robert Downey Jr Sherlock movies and whatever else catches my eye. I have Ex Machina too, which is an incentive to get this place sorted out so I can entice someone over to watch it maybe ?

Last one - need a plumber to sort out my heating ... That could be ouchies on the wallet.

So it could well be a busy week ! Not so busy as others. Hope someone's day goes well tomorrow. It's going to be a big event.

Pizza tomorrow night as well. NEED.

I wonder how much mayhem will happen next week ?

I need to get some books to read too.

I'll leg it there but one last pic :

That's "System Crash" and may well resemble me, curled up with my pizza in front of the cricket tomorrow night. Cya !

Quietly Struggling

Yep.

Time for one of those again.

I'm really looking forward to Easter. This time of year is always especially hard for me. It's a long drag from Xmas across to Easter and I believe I'm one of the hordes that suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Perhaps getting a special day lamp might help me out. The light I get in my main room is a little dingy (it's an energy saving bulb and they're always dim) and more yellow than it should be.

So yeah, I'm grimly hanging on until I can rest up over Easter.

The daft thing though is, I should have enough reserves in me to have lots of energy. That is, I've gained the weight back so there should be energy waiting to be unlocked. Perhaps that's two sides of a problem ? Chubby = lack of energy = low metabolism that doesn't burn off the fat ? Could be.

There's more though. I've been thinking of one person in particular lately. She's been through something that no person should ever be put through. I'm not saying much more there because the trial is ... severe. You might be getting the idea that it's pretty major though. So major that while I have my own need to talk to people about it, I've kept what's happened with me and only me (which is how it will stay).

My need to talk is coming from what my unconscious empathy has picked up. I do that. I'll pick up on what other people are feeling and it'll often either confuse me or I'll go numb to defend myself from it. All unconsciously ...

My thoughts are definitely with that one person. Right now typing this, when I'm trying to get to sleep, when I wake up, when I hear a notification on the phone "yey ! message !". You get the idea. It's daft, I have trouble saying things like that to people, yet I can write it here. I think she's one of those irregular readers that keep coming back, so I hope she reads this and takes it as a safety-hug.

But what I can do is :

Never think of someone in one of those trials as broken, they're not. They have strength and it's up to us to remind them of their strength.
I can gently support.
I can be a friendly ear to let them talk through the trial. This is more necessary than people think, bottled up feeling (like what I've done a few times) is very harmful, especially when it breaks out.
And I can offer all enveloping safety bear hugs.

And there's the daftness I try and inject when I talk about things.

So yeah. There's a very special and impossibly strong person out there who I have in my thoughts, from waking to sleeping. I'd like to help her out.

And if the call came, all tiredness would be (temporarily !) forgotten and you just know I'd come running to help out.

Cos that's who I am. I think more of helping others than I do of helping myself. It goes further than that, the problem with my outsides has continued so long because I've neglected myself, making it worse instead of helping it.

How is that ?

I'm definitely improving on the outsides. Skin is gradually normalising, some patches have been reclaimed to soft, pink skin. More patches are steadily improving. But I have to allow it to heal, which is tougher than it sounds due to my "IMPERFECTION DESTROY" compulsion.

House still needs a lot of work and it seems like the jobs are piling up. I may need to rip out the bathroom and replace it ... The reason, lots of wear and tear and there's a leak under the bath which may need destruction to access. I also need to get the heating sorted still. The system can heat the water but not the house ... and it makes a racket while heating the water.

The house is something I really need to get sorted. It's a mess at the moment and I'd be too ashamed to have anyone come in the front door. See that comment about me jumping to help others while ignoring the help I need to give myself.

I always like to end these downer posts on an upper though.

Despite the depression attempting to have it's way, I can still count those blessings.

Lots of friends who I can talk about (most!) stuff with
Friends I can joke around with
An imperfect, painful body but a body that's steadily getting better and is mostly intact

But most important - there's a little lady out there who brings out, not just the Standard Pete Grin, but the Silly Grin that banishes all bad thoughts and brings out joy. She's being a bit quiet at the moment, which I fully understand.

May you all have that person you can turn to that banishes the dark and brings out the light.

And bouncing back

Today's been a better day.

Not fixed, not by a long shot. But improved.

Maybe.

But I think drinking loads of water yesterday has started setting me right. I have to admit, one reason for the extreme cramping problems I was having last night was my dinner ... Yep. I raided the chippie between getting off the bus and reaching home.

Something I've always been susceptible to is having extreme cramp from mineral imbalance. My system has to have :

Lots of water
Not much salt

I believe that's related to the neurotransmitter chemistry (I gave up biology before getting that far) but as far as I know, your nerves work off a balance of Potassium and Sodium. And salt is Sodium Chloride. So by having chips which have lots of salt on and combining that with a lack of hydration, I effectively salt bomb myself and get that massive cramping due to confusing the nerves with an imbalance of that Potassium and Sodium.

This week, I've been out of office a lot and away from drinking as much as I try to. Add that to the skin problems causing my body to pull in all the fluids to help repair and ... lots of cramp. Hence me experiencing lots of pain ...

I don't believe that's an arthritis pain. Let's see actually :

Muscles - is that salt bomb dehydration effect making them cramp.
Wrist - is genuine RSI and is possibly getting worse through arthritis attacking it
Hip - I think my problem here is a ligament (needs checking out)
I think the wrist and possibly my ankles are the only areas I have genuine arthritis building up, although I've never regained full use of my shoulder and my knees and back/neck are as creaky as ever.

Yep. Yesterday was a really low point.

Today has been better. I don't really know why today's been better, possibly it's going a little while without doing too much more damage to myself. Perhaps I got a decent night's sleep last night.

I still have my bad ear though. I didn't mention that yesterday ... I have like 90% hearing out of my left ear but my right ear is pretty bad. It's down to maybe 10% (and I'm trying not to fiddle with it and make it worse) but I have tinnitus from it which is jamming the good ear. (That's jamming as in presenting a stronger signal than what I want to hear).

I'm getting by with it, I've been able to function with my hearing at work without missing much and it doesn't affect my balance like some ear problems can.

I know what would brighten me up - hugs from good people. Let's see :

I sat on the bus next to a very old friend last night. She's amazing. And always great to talk to. I think that chat helped more than I thought and although I didn't get the benefit last night, that slow burning chat-hug might be what's got me pointing back in the right direction.

People are digging the scarf. Their comments let me explain where it came from - the playoff final last year where I took my dad to see his team win.

Smile ! There we go.

Having the mental strength to not be fixated on one particular little lady. I still very occasionally watch her videos but when I do, I see the divergence between what she says and how she acts. She's very closed in. Perhaps I'd say something different if I was in her little circle ... but I tried to break into that and abandoned it after numerous attempts over a significant period of time. She still makes good videos but isn't making anything I'm interested in watching at the moment. She was worth chasing though.

Looking forward to text messages from another little lady. There's lots of films on at the moment and I hope she'll let me take her to at least one of them. This one is definitely worth chasing !

(Films are one aspect where I want the ear problem to go away - films are about the soundtrack as much as they are about the visuals).

Oh and having a few key friends who I know have their eye on me and want me to be ok.

Yep. Better day than yesterday. Hopefully that'll continue tomorrow and then I'll have a really chilled out weekend to come and I'll be looking to stay healthy over that weekend.

Perhaps I'm feeling the benefit of the kindness of those around me ? The people who return the smiles, the people who keep an eye on me. The people who give me that metaphorical pat on the shoulder. The people who give me hugs.

I'm missing hugs. I may have to go hunting people to give me hugs tomorrow at work.

So if you see me at work - run !

Haha - kidding.

Cya !