Nice weather

  Just thought I would post that the weather around here has turned "nice" again. Sunny warm days (without the stupidly hot ones yet) which marks the official end of Spring around here and the start of the long long summer. The good thing about this is that now my wife saunters around the house in a bikini top and shorts. Now if only I could get us living somewhere that this could be done all year round.

Game story telling

  I started playing Uncharted 3 again this weekend. My wife was tired of watching the games I was playing so I decided to do my run through of that game at the hardest difficulty. It is something I do with games I enjoy so that I can play them at their hardest and see what they do to make it hard. Some games do it cheaply (hello Call Of Duty grenade spam) but some do it properly. The Uncharted series has always done it pretty well and they got better at it as the series went on.

  Anyway as part of playing the game I was reminded how well they tell the story in those games. They capture that action/adventure film style of story so well and get you to know the characters without spelling everything out in black and white. The continuation between the games is also quite impressive with some foreknowledge from previous games allowing you to pick up stuff in the later games that is not immediately obvious.

  People have been clamouring for a film adaptation of these games for quite a while. Someone however decided to take the games themselves and convert them in to films. They literally captured every cut scene, with enough gameplay in between, to create 3 films. They are all on youtube, Uncharted 1, Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3.

  Pretty impressive all told, the gameplay sections I've seen can be pretty jumpy but they give you the idea. It really does show that games can have a fun and interesting story even though it is spread out over 10 to 40 hours of play time.

Cats tell the truth

  Cats are the ultimate arbiters of telling the truth and who is a good person. All four of our cats love being around my wife. Just now the two girls both came up to her and tried to lay down as close as possible to her. At the time she was at the desk trying to use her computer so it wasn't the best of times to do it but you get the idea.

  So if you ever want to know who is a good person simply get them to live with cats. If the cats love them then they are a good person.

  That's how it works. :)

Some things I just know

  There are a few things in my life that I just know to be true. I know I love my wife, I may seem unsure at times but that is really me being unsure of myself in what I do for us. I never doubt that I love her, ever since I've met her I've not doubted that. Another thing I know? I wish I wasn't so busy at work right now that I had more time to write in this blog. The only real thing this job gives me is money for us to live by and health coverage so my wife can get the treatment she needs. If we didn't need those things I would be out of here this very moment.

  Want to know something annoying, it has taken me 90 minutes just to find the time, on and off, to write this blog post. I need to be less kick arse at my job.

Gaming comfort food

  I was pretty tired when I got home yesterday, as in almost falling asleep when I sat (and at one point lay) down. No idea what did that to me but I was completely knackered. After an easy dinner and watching a bit of TV I decided to play my game equivalent of comfort food. I played yet more Borderlands, playing through as a character class I had not used much when I originally played it. For me it has become the game that I can sit down to and play without thinking too much about it. It is easy and fun and I don't have to use my mind too much to do it.

  I have lost count of the amount of time I've played that game (and the answer "too much" is wrong :| ) and I can still go through it and enjoy myself. It is strange what it is about it that makes me feel like that. I suppose however unlike comfort food I don't pack on the calories from playing it (although the lack of movement on my part is almost as bad) so it isn't as bad as scarfing down something bad for you in order to feel better (a biological fact for some reason).

  Anyone want to guess which game I know want to preorder? If you guessed Borderlands 2 you might be right :) .

Don't remember a thing

  I had another of those nights of sleep last night where you go to bed, get comfy and then the next thing you know you are waking up and it is time to get up. It happens every so often to me. No dreams, no tossing and turning, no waking up once or twice during the night then nodding off again. Just pure unconsciousness for hours on end.

  Its a weird feeling when it happens, knowing that for a period of time you were completely unaware of everything around you and will probably never know what happened. I know you can't be aware of everything but it would be nice to know it. To not miss out on anything in case it was something important. To be able to recall everything that happened around you and that you were notified about could be so useful, you know, just in case you need it. Usually I would rather know something just in case (unless it really bores me or is so trivial) or at least know how to know something. The fact that you can spend part of your time unable to know things scares me a bit.

  A lot of what I do I do in my mind. I'm not a very physical person I'm more of a thinker. Anything that gets in the way of that or impairs it is worrying to me. The fact that as I get older I know my mind may deteriorate is very scary. I do my best to keep my mind occupied so that it stays active (what research tells us is the best way to keep it sharp as you get older) but am I doing the right things and enough of them. Worry worry worry.

 Still, knowing that my mind goes in to a state where I can't bring in new information and I don't remember a bloody thing is still weird to me.

Some people have no sense

  My wife was showing me some very nice houses in one of the more expensive areas to live in the SF bay area. There are all pretty big houses in a quiet neighbourhood in the hills. Pretty much all of them are in the 7 figures so damn expensive. A lot of them though were pretty damn ugly in their decoration. Just because something looks expensive doesn't actually make it stylish or nice. It is amazing how people with money let themselves be influenced badly or have no idea of what actually looks good.

  You would think they would take a moment to look at what they have and actually make it pleasing to the eye. Not just looks expensive but looks good. Good stuff doesn't have to cost a lot, true it sometimes costs more than the cheapest crap (usually just down to quality of materials and assembly), but just because something is the or close to the most expensive doesn't make it the best in form and function.

  I would love to buy my wife a house away from people like one of those. A nice quiet area, not too close to your neighbours and enough room for all the things we want to do in our house. It just seems unfair that those who really have no idea with what to do with what they have get to do it when others (yes I am including us in this :) ) have a true idea of what they want to do with their lives but not the means to do it.

One tiny picture

  Google UK has a very good little picture that sums up two things that mark their anniversary today as it were. Here it is:

  It celebrates St George's day and the 30th anniversary of something truly formative to me, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. I had computers before that one (in fact the even older ZX80) but it was having this one in the house that allowed me to fiddle, poke (pun intended) and prod around a computer and gave rise to my fascination with them. It did also allow me to spend an inordinate amount of time playing games but that's not important :| . Weird to think that it came out 30 years ago, the memories of it are still pretty fresh in my mind so ingrained in to who I am that it is.

  The even scarier thing? That image is the exact resolution the ZX Spectrum output to the TV. Nowadays it is tiny and even my phone has a much larger resolution than that.

  So here's to two things that made me what I am that are celebrated today, computers and being English.

Completely knackered

  Well it has been a very long almost two weeks with a friend visiting. It included a drive down to Malibu towing the caravan for a long weekend. A wet day at Legoland (a very cool place for Lego fans indeed), a tour of Hollywood and the LA area, another long drive back up towing the caravan, a visit to a state park, a tour of SF zoo, Lombard street and fishermans wharf, another day out at the Jelly Belly factory, another day at the Cal academy of science then one final day at Muir woods with a drive over the Golden Gate bridge to SFO to drop off our friend. Mixed in with all that was some work last week that has left me truly worn out. I only just had enough energy to mow the lawns this morning so I can now flob around for the weekend before back to work again.

  It has been fun just extremely tiring. Now the normal life returns with all of its excitement and chores. I also need to get some game playing in soon as well, having someone around who only really play Mario Kart limits your play time to a game I stopped playing 3 years ago (and yet still managed to keep up with someone who plays it every day almost, mad skillz me). Not to mention the almost two weeks of TV backed up on the Tivo we have now. Time to lay back on the sofa and let the glow of the TV entertain me for the next two days.

Just in time

  Sometimes I worry that I'll never get everything I have to do done. Today I just finished something I had to get done before going on holiday later this week. I was trying to fix something that had been broken since day 1 in our product and should have worked but was never actually implemented. Then of course a customer runs in to it and demands that it work. So in I come and try to get this fucking thing working, the original implementers (or should I say failtoimplementers) no longer being here, poking around trying to find the most elegant and bullet proof to fix it. Then suddenly this morning it all came together.

  The journey from outright disbelief at something, to frustration that it isn't working how you want it to, to somehow it all comes together in your test to passing it on to the person who needs to do a more thorough test is a bit of a wild ride mentally. You feel so elated when it is done but the path your emotions take on the way there can be hell.

  A lot of things in my life seem to work like this, looking like I'll never make it then suddenly it comes together in time. It can fill me with self-doubt and worry and stress. Then when it passes the relief is a physical thing, you can notice it lift from you.

  Now if only I could get work to recognise what I go through when they need this of me and to pay me a requisite amount with the amount of skill I bring to my job.

Stupid mistakes

  I can tell my brain is getting worn out at the moment. It has spent so much time thinking hard about things it is starting to forget little things and I'm making silly mistakes. I found a bug this morning I caused last week when I fixed a big thing and caused a little problem. I hate it when I do that. I'm hoping my brain cools down as it were and gets back to normal with this time off coming up.

  In better news I think the lamb we had this Sunday was the best damn lamb we have ever had. Perfectly cooked, just the right amount of meat with a little fat, not bones in it to chop around and kick arse gravy made from the juices. Seriously it came out so well both my wife and I were drooling by the end of it and amazed at how good it was. I want that dinner again.

  Off to a conference call now but I might have more time later. Busy day again today with bugs to fix, work to do and a wife to take to physio later.

Easter radish

  I think I have a new tradition. I just ate a huge spicy radish that my wife grew in the garden that caused me to exclaim "that'sa spicy radish". Seriously it was pretty hot and very large. We have a few more out in the garden still growing that will go well with some dinner at some point.

  So there we go, no more chocolate for easter, now everyone must eat radish.

Brain scrub

  My wife has been doing a lot of laundry this morning so started singing Neverending Laundry to the tune of Neverending Story. Now it is fucking stuck in my head and I can't get it out. Anyone know a good brain scrub to get a song out of your head without getting another one stuck in there?

  Now to make sure you don't get that song stuck in your head here is a picture of me in a silly hat.

Thinking

The old fence between our house and the empty house next door had some planks blown over the other day as my wife discovered yesterday. Therefore I went out there yesterday afternoon to nail them roughly back in to place. As part of that I went in to the walkway down the side of next door and looked in to their open garage (via the open side door). What I saw in there made me wonder what they hell they did with their house. It was half full of scattered partially empty cardboard boxes, some blankets, a couple of small pieces of furniture and various pieces of debris. Clearly when next door moved out for whatever reason they left a lot of rubbish behind. Just looking in the windows down that side of their house and there is various bits of crap left lying around. You have to wonder what was going on that would cause them to abandon so much stuff. I know the house was foreclosed on but you would think you would take your stuff with you.

  In other weirder (well to me) news, Nintendo has actually released a Wii game that I actually want to play. This one to be exact. This is a couple of years after I gave up on Wii games since they let it slide in to a hole for mostly dross and shovel-ware. It is especially annoying since this kind of game has not been that common on the PS3 when the PS2 had a lot of games of this kind that I really enjoyed. I'm half tempted to actually go out and get this game and actually use my Wii. That is what I mean by weird to me, that is something I never thought I would consider doing.

  Work has been kind of busy hell all this week. Lots of stupid things to fix getting ready for final test and release and then other bugs coming in from the field that I'm having to triage and assign and guide the fixes for. It has been turning my brain in to mush at the end of the day since it never stops working at the moment. My wife has noticed it in my Draw Something pictures since they get worse and generally a bit naff as the day goes by. Still, some time off coming next week which should allow for a bit of rest and some fun going to do things. Hopefully my mind will be rested by the end of it too.

Drive by posting

  This isn't a literal drive by posting, that would be kind of scary since I would be the one doing the driving, but just a quick one to do so I put something up today. I try to get something up every work day and some weekend days. The whole mental health thing and all that, writing stuff here lets me get it out somewhere.

  So what for today? How about how scary tornadoes are or how we might get some use from Amazon Prime video streaming now. As you can tell I'm barely keeping track of my usual stuff that is going on since work seems to be non stop today. I'm going to try and finish up one more bug (I think I'm at 3 fixed and 8 worked on for today) then get out of here before my brain shuts down.

What now?

  My wife and I are at a point where we are asking, what now? We want to get away from where we live, heck the state we live in. Yet we are stuck financially unless we just give up our possessions. We have so much invested in where we are getting out of it without coming out completely broke is really hard right now. Yet to come out of this with our sanity is something we can't deny, it kills us how we are currently living.

  I think everyone gets to that point in there lives, rather than just carrying on with their daily schedule, they stop and look at what they are doing. Are they enjoying it, do they see a point in their future where they can just relax, can they reach their goals and are they still the same as they were? They are never easy questions to ask let alone answer.

  Anyway, while I ponder those questions on my head whats going on? Work is mental, we are a week away from the first complete round of testing so it has been bug fixing all over the place. Throw in a couple of engineers going away and you have a stupid busy time going on.

  On the game playing front I'm still going through Mass Effect 3. It is a slightly less personal game than 2 since it involves galaxy destroying war with an all powerful force. Still it manages to make your choices affect the story in interesting ways including bringing over an incredible number of choices from the previous games. I still need to find more time to finish it since it is quite a long game.

  Then we get on to the subject of cats. When doing the gardening I found a freesia growing in the back lawn over the weekend. Since they are one of my wife's favourite flowers I picked them to save them and put them in to a small vase to put on her desk. The next day our cat Daisy couldn't get enough of them, she had her nose glued to them for absolutely ages. We have had flowers around the house before so what attracted her to these particular ones I don't know. It did make for some great pictures though and gave us yet more enjoyment of having these cats as our companions.

  Finally how about some other random bits? A long weekend in Malibu is coming up including a visit to Legoland which should be cool. Going to be a long drive with the caravan but nothing too strenuous. Work needs to get serious about giving me more money soon even though they did give me some recently. Drivers on the road around here are getting nuttier, I'm glad I drive when not too many of them are on the road. Draw Something when it doesn't show the other person your complete drawing is annoying and they need to fix that bug soon. Malt Loaf is down right tasty. My wife is one sexy woman. I'm tired and need to finish one more bit of work. Looking forward to relaxing at home with my wife soon.

  There we go, all done for now.

Homeland

  My wife and I have been watching this program a lot in the last couple of days. We decided to give it a try and since it seems that the episodes will expire from the on demand service today we have got through 11 of the 12 episodes already. While watching it however it became incredibly obvious how skewed most actresses are towards the way too skinny body type. The main actress in it is so freaking skinny she doesn't even need to wear a bra although they do show her in one for a brief scene.

  I know I've said this before but god damn can't they find people with more normal body types on tv? It is so frustrating that as attractive as normal body types are too many people are pushed to see the far too thin body type as attractive. The program is a good one, it is just glaringly obvious the obvious bias towards a certain body type. Get your act together tv people.

Our house

  No its not in the middle of our street. But it is being shown here in all its glory thanks to the miracle of googles April fools day joke. Can anyone tell where we live :|

  You have to admit that what they did is very cool. The whole scrolling around the world as if it was a dragons quest map is neat as well. It is amazing to see how various places in the street view look in 8 bit mode. Still recognisable and yet clearly not realistic at all.