Uncategorized Experience, Internet, Random stuff, Writing 10:57 pm
I keep track of hits by using the WordPress stats page. It also alerts me when I have new followers etc. I can’t help but think most of you are disappointed most of the time.
This blog is so eclectic that what ever you subscribed to is probably only a fraction of my output, and the rest of it is of very little interest!
Uncategorized D'oh, Experience, Weird, Writing 12:48 am
There is a phrase I’ve come across in the online writing community ‘Pantsing’. This means ‘Writing by the Seat of your pants’ – ie making it up as you go along, with minimal plotting ahead. It seems that most writers sharing their experiences online are a mixture of Pantsers and Plotters (ie have it all laid out before start), myself included. The previous post on this blog revealed the surprise this can lead too.
And now it’s happened again. I am happily writing a scene, I know exactly what the next bit is (not the precise words- imagine having to write a presentation: you know the topic, you just need to find how to vocalise it).
THEN the lead character reveals with NO WARNING WHAT SO EVER that he almost had one of his closest friends committed to hospital under the Mental Health Act.
I literally had no idea! I finished one paragraph, went to write the next and he said something completely different. I had just enough time to stop myself writing and add a set up for the next 250 words correctly.
Mind you, this whole chapter has been hiding surprises from me. I knew it existed- its a party, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about. I just knew it needed to exist as a bridge between two major plot points. A little later I realised I needed to introduce a new character to tie up the loose ends in what I suppose is the ‘C’ arc of the book, and I look at this as yet unwritten chapter, and find this guy fully formed with a appropriate back story, as if just waiting for me to find him.
Ok. I may be getting a little wierd as I get older…
Uncategorized Experience, Writing 11:50 am
I’ve started writing again. The current story is the longest I’ve ever written – it’s approaching the point where it may become a full size book, it’s far longer than the than short stories I’ve written before. It thrown up a few interesting problems I’ve not encountered before.
I don’t write from the beginning all the way through. I know what ‘set pieces’ through out I want to write, as I know the general progress of the story. If I have a good idea I will often start that bit before I forget it, especially if I’m stuck with the earlier story – often one part will inspire another part, and allows me to use tricks such as foreshadowing.
However, because it is so much longer the characters are obviously having to be more rounded. It turns out that they seem to have a life of their own, no matter what I think.
My female lead has talked the male lead into asking her out to dinner. I was as surprised as he was.
THAT WASN’T THE NEXT BIT. Now I have to write a whole restaurant scene because she thought he was going a bit too fast.
Thanks dear. I sometimes wonder whose narrative it is!
The problem appeared to be the way I was writing her speech – it’s the classic joke about how a man can say three words on the phone, because he saw his mate last week, but a woman will speak for an hour because she isn’t seeing her friend until this evening. I felt she was speaking too much like a man.
Once I gave her a less clipped way of speaking; fuller sentences etc, what she said changed, and it became obvious the way she thought was different.
Later the male lead was got drunk by his best mate. I thought it was so he could work through the issues around the woman he loves. Turns out he told me something completely different- why he feels guilty about their other best mate’s death. I didn’t know!
Also I didn’t know how he had died – the official story (which I knew) isn’t the same as what actually happened.
I’m beginning to wonder if I’m sane…
Uncategorized Blogging, Internet, Random stuff, Writing 8:45 pm
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Uncategorized Christmas, Current Events 6:05 pm
HAPPY CHRISTMAS.
May your children not wake up too early!
And while you are finishing off the turkey/goose/duck/nut cutlet, spare a thought for those who have to work. Not just the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq (the Taliban understandably not being so big on Christmas), but those who provide direct services to you, who still have to be there to provide public service.
I am speaking of the police, medical staff, firefighters, even social services, who are on call. A special mention to those Prison Officers I work with who are rota’d in to supervise the ‘guests’, rather than spending time with their families.
Uncategorized D'oh, Humour, Internet, Weird 10:03 am
zombie cheesus chocolate bunny
zombie cheesus chocolate bunny
zombie cheesus chocolate bunny
Uncategorized Market Garden, Scenario, Too Fat Lardies, TW&T, Wargames, wargaming 12:37 am
Originally entered in the Too Fat Lardie scenario writing competition (didn’t win!)
Based on an incident from the siege in Arnhem, and an attempt to write a multi player scenario for TW&T – not a game that normally lends its self to more than one player a side.
Uncategorized Experience, Humour, Writing 10:31 pm
When Men are inexperienced with the female mind, Woman will ask “Should I wear this dress or that dress”, and the young Man will answer “That one.” Because she looks beautiful no matter what She wears. This is wrong, because Woman will then say “What’s wrong with this one. Don’t you like me in this one, are you saying it makes me look fat?”
As he ages He will learn the ways of a woman’s mind, and will confidently say “Which do you like?” This is wrong, because Woman will say “Why can’t you ever make a decision. Why don’t you take an interest in what I look like?”
Then as he grows older, Man becomes wily, and He answers “What shoes/jacket/bag are you going to be wearing/taking.” And this is the right answer, because She thinks He is showing interest.
After some years Woman begins to suspect. And then the Man becomes wise, and when She asks “Should I wear this dress or that dress” Man knows to say “You’ve worn both of those so many times. I will buy you a new dress. And shoes. And jacket.” And he may be poorer, but at least he gets a few months peace and quiet this way.
Uncategorized Experience, History, Respect 10:43 pm
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
When you go home tell them of us and say -
For your tomorrow we gave our today.
Uncategorized Humour, Random stuff, Rant, Writing 12:19 am
Sir,
I have been playing your ‘First Life’ game for some years now and I wish to register dissatisfaction with some of the so-called features.
1) Lack of manual/in-game help/tool tips.
I realise that you boast an ‘extensive training mission’. What you fail to mention is that this will take approximately 1/3 of the promised 75 year content. Additionally there is little guidance even during this so-called “Schooling period”, and the training is mostly trying stuff out then having other characters telling you are doing it wrong. Even experienced players would welcome tool tips during actions – for instance when reaching for your third alcoholic drink a warning bubble saying “May impare your judgement of interaction with opposite sex” would be helpful.
2) Lack of Save/Load function.
Given the lack of in-game hints the lack of a Save Game function would appear to be a major omission. When attempting an action, the failure of which would have negative consequence, it would handy if we could return to a point just before so we can avoid the effects of making a poor choice with no guidance too many times. This would particularly useful during the ‘Teenage Romance’ sub game, for which there is no documentation. Frankly all the Romance sub-games are difficult and confusing, and prone to leaving you frustrated. The Rom-Com training package glosses over much of the difficulties.
3) Effects of other players.
I note the IPCC Yahoo group has found a bug within the global interaction algorithms. Apparently this could cause the game world to end prematurely based purely on the actions of other players on different servers. Even if this is fixable, it is apparent that servers in Africa and Asia are suffering DDOS attacks by resource usage elsewhere.
4) Random Character generation.
Not only does this make it near impossible to achieve some tasks against some players who ‘got lucky’ during the generation process, but that In-Game Credits are not accessible to all, leaving some downloads unavailable to most people- for instance “Sports Car” and “Big House” are two that spring to mind.
5) Non Linear Game play.
“Do boring/repetitive task or starve” doesn’t really count as open-ended.
6) Experience Points
Referenced frequently by the ‘Job’ sub-games, but there is no onscreen count to let you know how you are doing. Though they appear to be influenced by various tasks/games, there is no indication at the rate of accrual, so you can’t tell whether the amount of XP is worth it. Additionally some of these sub-games appear to over- or under- award XP: For instance “Art History” and “Engineering” in the ‘University Zone’ often cost the same number of credits, but rumour on the Fan forums is they award different XP. Is this true?
6a) Rumour on the ‘Buddah’ Yahoo group is that there is a kind of XP called Karma. Is this true as it is not referenced in any of the training/instructions? They claim this allows a second character to be started.
7) End Game routines
I am approximately half way through. According to more experienced players game experience dramatically reduces during the later stages, with your character becoming slower and less responsive. It has also been found that the graphics and sound settings deteriorate making it hard to follow the action. Did you know the ‘Hair’ colour setting can change spontaneously to ‘Grey’ and in male characters even ‘Flesh’? Additionally there are a number of bugs which can cause parts of the programme to just stop working altogether.
8.) Power-ups/Health Packs
While it is clear that some servers receive too many ‘Weapon packs’, there is a distinct lack of power-ups. I have repeatedly smashed any number of boxes, crates and other containers, and have yet to receive even one extra power. Additionally there are no health packs being generated. Did you mean these only to be available from players who have taken the “Doctor” quest?
I understand that in any product this ambitious there will always be a number of problems. Do you have any plans to produce a patch we could download?
Yours Sincerely
Uncategorized Experience, Humour 10:10 pm
Uncategorized Experience, Health, Ouch, Yuck 1:32 am
At some point on Wednesday or Thursday I managed to get something in my eye. It irritated through Thursday, and resisted all efforts to wash it out. It then kept me awake all Thursday night (literally – I finally passed out at 6:30 am)
I phoned my GP and they said go to A&E at the hospital , being better equiped. The nurse there attempted to swab it off with a cotton bud, but it is properly stuck to my eyeball. So he then put anasthetic in my eye (it stung), and tried to get it with a surgical needle (yes pointy metal in my eye!) This didn’t work. Because it was just off the cornea (it’s where the iris meets the white) he couldn’t be too adventurous, as it was near lots of blood vessels. It had already bled a tiny bit, but to remove it could cause a lot of bleeding (yes, from the eyeball), and the emergency dept isn’t set up for that.
So I have a prescription for some gel which will soften the ‘skin’, and an appointment for 11am tomorrow (Saturday) at the eye clinic. I hope that it works!
Uncategorized Wargames, wargaming 12:29 am
A Excel spreadsheet to help you order figures when the figures come in multiple (eg 30 x 10mm figures in a bag, box of 10 Space Marines). Break each unit down into its composition ‘types’ – adjust the ‘Ordered’ column until the ‘Total Units’ amount reads the same, then it calculates the cost.
Uncategorized Elitism, Media, Rant, TV 11:11 pm
Ant and Dec’s latest vehicle is “Red or Black” – a ‘game’ (in the loosest sense of the word) show that has just started on ITV in Britain. It definately suffers from “LOOK AT THIS – THIS IS AWESOME!” Hint- No it isn’t.
Take 256 audience members, and have them guess red or black in a series of contests that are 50/50 between the ‘red’ option and the ‘black’ (although the need to lose exactly half every time means those at the back of the queue get no choice). The last contestent then guesses Red or Black on a giant proto roulette wheel to win “ONE MILLION POUNDS”! There is no skill – each challenge is as close to 50/50 as the producers can get (One show included jousting on top of cars, tightrope walker race, top golfers Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood trying to hit a gong in a lake, and picking a place at a table set for 32. Each had a hidden jelly/jello, and on the word they all lifted the cloches to reveal if it was red or black).
Yet each round is turned into an Olympian contest – the winning colour jelly was revealed by the colour of the table top. The cloth was removed by ATTACHING IT TO A MOTORBIKE AND PULLING! AWESOME! Cue interviews with tearful members of the losing half, people upset at being knocked out in round two – you’d think they had just lost their life savings, and then asking the survivors what their strategy is in the next round. And do these epic contests take place in a normal studio? NO, THIS IS AWESOME, so it starts in Wembley arena (USians – think Madison Square Gardens) before the remaining 128 are bussed to a Stately Home for games in the grounds.
This all takes an hour, to whittle down from 256 to 8. That is 5 rounds. There is then a half hour break while they show another programme, then we return for THE GRAND FINALE!!1!11 (more…)
Uncategorized Napoleonic, Wargames, wargaming 11:48 pm
Following a discussion of 2 line vs 3 line on TMP, I wrote a spreadsheet to calculate the difference. You can set the number of men in each battalion, including the split between the front 2 firing ranks of a French battalion, and those in reserve who fill gaps, as well as the assumed accuracy that will cause a wound severe enough to put a man out of battle.
It is fairly crude on maths, as it makes a number of assumptions:
The way it calculates the remaining men in the 3 rank bn is by applying all casualties to the 3rd rank (non firers). When this reaches zero it subtract the overkill from the firing ranks (well it adds the negative number).
Excel 97 version
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