On edge

A curious day in work. Everyone seemed to be on edge for various reasons, some were doing an exam of some sort, some were processing end of year orders and two of the team were leaving due to outsourcing. It created a very weird atmosphere. I spent all day moving data around on tapes, fun.

Went to Andy and Maz's to go over the Berlin stuff, which was interesting and fun. For some reason, Andy reading out 'I am disabled' in German loudly was hysterically funny, compounded by his demand to find somewhere to breastfeed.

Flying glasses

Work was good today. The consultant who came in shed so much light on what was going on with the tapes, and for the first time in ages I felt like we got somewhere with it. I feel a renewed sense of direction and hopefully the problems with tapes can be sorted although it will take time.

Badminton was embarrassing tonight. I somehow managed to contort myself to try and get a shot and ended up somehow sat on the floor with my head tangled in the net, which catapulted my glasses halfway across the court. I've had a pimple on my nose which is disappearing but still painful, so it really hurt. Also my shoulder started hurting so it wasn't much fun after that.

Rob and Steve have finally finished ME3 so I can at last speak about the ending. I'll admit I was not too happy about the ending at first. I knew most of the way through ME3 that there was never going to be a happy conclusion to the series and that Shepard probably wasn't going to make it - trillions dead, the homeworlds of all the major races devastated, etc. It really made you really start to feel Shepard's struggle to unite the races in the desperate war against the Reapers. Especially when he starts to lose it at the end.

However, I do think the ending was rushed and too ambiguous with some truly random plot devices (wtf was the Normandy doing?). After being angry for a few hours after I completed it, I thought sod it, the rest of the game, and the whole series, has been bloody good so why let the last 10 minutes spoil it. There are some absolutely amazing moments throughout ME3 and some of the writing truly is top-notch. Even the final battle through devastated future London is pretty amazing. The whole series is full of great moments. Looking back at ME1, it might look rubbish in comparison to ME2 and 3, have many control annoyances and various glitches, but it had heart. I count one of the best bits as being in ME1 where you're given command of the Normandy. Realising that the ship is yours and you can explore the galaxy at will is such a cool moment.

I do think however there should have been a sliding scale of endings for ME3, like from Shepard survives and wins, to abject failure where the Reapers win and the cycle continues. The three options you do end up with aren't all that different with largely the same cutscenes, which is why it feels rushed, like they ran out of time. I've read the various theories on the ending, like it's a hallucination or dream after Shepard gets injured, and the wildly popular Indoctrination Theory, but I can't escape the feeling that it's just the fans trying to make sense of the ending. Even if the Indoctrination Theory is true, then that still means the game ends with a seriously injured Shepard waking up in the ruins of London, with the Reapers still attacking.

Whether they will do anything after all the negative feedback, I can't say. If they were to make a new ending now, it would involve a hell of a lot of work, like graphics, animation, voice recording, etc. The fact that people are sending the game back for refunds is bonkers. Also it's now just £23 on Amazon, which seems weird. The ending issue seems to really have got a LOT of attention, even in the mainstream press. I'll wait and see, but won't hold my breath. I'd have thought people would be more pissed off about the From Ashes DLC, which appears to have been a main part of the game which was removed.

I did start a replay of ME3 with my renegade Shepard but I seem to have lost heart in playing that one. I think I'll delete it and start again when they've fixed the face import bug (soon), and there's still the Sentinel class one I started and never got through ME2 with to finish off. It was interesting to play a different class, so I'll probably do that one at some point.

Or I could finish Dragon Age, which despite taking me nearly a year to not complete yet I still enjoy playing it. I don't think I'll be arsed with DA2 which is apparently total crap. Also I know Skyrim is getting a lot of attention but I don't know if it's my kind of game or not, since I'm more of a sci-fi type than fantasy.

The Raspberry Pi computer sounds ace, just my thing. I'd love to get one but demand is so high you have to go on a waiting list. It does seem mad that a computer with a 700mhz ARM, 256mb RAM and the ability to output HD video can cost so little. I'd be interested in trying to put one in a laptop shell with a good keyboard and make a writing machine.

Flying ships of fire

The the the the

D&D last night was ace, with a whole new environment to have a battle in, which was really good fun, and it ended on an awful cliffhanger. Should be interesting next week...

Tried to make curry again tonight and this time I got it right, so it was really tasty.

Not much else to report. Walked the dog since it was still sunny but didn't do much else tonight really, just a nice lazy evening.

Funny old week

It's been a funny old week. Work has been OK with the usual struggle with the backup system. I did have a near breakdown about it on Friday morning. Not a good moment.

Badminton on Thursday was really good fun, we had some really good games.

Not much else going on. Today was a really beautiful day so I walked the dog properly for the first time in ages instead of just letting him run around the field. It was good but various muscles twinged for the rest of the day and my hips hurt for a while. This evening was a bit of a fail. On the plus side I have so far not played Mass Effect this weekend, since I think I need to detach from it for a while. Probably multiplayer tomorrow morning though, yay.

Not sure what I'm doing tomorrow. Will walk the dog again but not sure what else to do. Might try making a curry or something.

For the first time since I got the Prelude, I saw another one. I pulled up behind it at some traffic lights, a dark red P-reg 2.0i. Kind of highlighted how uncommon they are. I still like it a lot but the fuel consumption is a bit wearying.

Repair is fun

Sunday consisted of having a bonfire, washing the car and then...yeah, more ME3. I loaded my evil Shepard into it, recreated his curious face and set off to be a bastard. Within the first half hour he told his love interest from the first game who he cheated on in the second game that he didn't like her any more, and then went and beat up a team member up in the shuttle bay. The good Shepard had the same fight, but in his case it was a friendly one. The renegade options leave them both rather more bloodied. I really didn't mean to play it too much, but 5 hours passed without me noticing.

Yesterday was good for a first Monday after a week off. I hadn't even made it to my desk before someone told me a consultant was coming in to look at the backup system. He didn't talk much, just sat there all day and hoovered up as much data as he could, and then said that it was indeed broken, and he didn't know how to fix it. Unlike others though, he said once he'd had a chance to go over the data, he'd come up with a plan - hurrah.

D&D last night was really good fun, with an inventive and interesting battle in an apartment. However, one of the party predicted poor rolls that evening, and sadly she was spot on. We all rolled really badly, but I think I had the most spectacular fail when I rolled a D20 and got a 2. I used my action point to reroll it and got a 1, damaging myself. What was even worse was that I earned a new spell last session and it was my first attempt to use it.

Today was OK in work, had a bit of an issue with one of the server backups, which took some fiddling to get it working but it was eventually fixed, which was satisfying. Eating fail today though, I had a Snickers from the machine and a Kit-Kat fell out as well, so double fail. Then on the way home I got an Indian. Argh.

But this evening I actually did something that didn't involve the Xbox or stuffing my fat face in front of a DVD. My Galaxy S, which is an awesome phone, was getting more and more battered. The rear cover was disentegrating, and the camera lense was pretty badly scratched. I looked on Ebay and found a set of a rear cover and the internal rear case with the camara lense for £15, brand new. So I got it. It was quite easy to install, just take out seven small screws, unclip the cover and put the new one on. It works fine and now looks almost brand new again if you don't look too closely at the front bezel. I'd really like to get an S II but they aren't cheap enough yet.

The new iPad is rather impressive. I still don't quite know what I'd do with one and I still dislike the locked down iOS. The better CPU, more RAM and stuff is all well and good but the screen is bonkers. 2048x1536 in a 10" display is completely insane. There are reports that the new graphics chip needed to drive the display is running too hot. Shame Apple are really going for the 'if it breaks, buy a new one' by making all their devices impossible to repair and being very strict in obsoleting older devices with OS updates. The worst laptop repair I've ever done is a keyboard swap on a MacBook. It's nearly a good design with the whole top coming off, but it was held on with a stupid amount of screws of random sizes.

ME3 done, random

Thursday was more ME3 until I reached the point where it was time to go to badminton. I was in the final stages of the game so I left it until the following day to complete it. Badminton was fun, but tiring and we had problems with swear control, which was amusing.

I did finish ME3 yesterday. I still rate it as a bloody good game but imperfect, but I won't say anything just yet.

Not much else really. I finally rejoined the Internet and looked at Facebook and some of the alternate choices in ME3 on YouTube. I finished it as very nearly a 100% paragon, so it was interesting to see how things could have played out, and how things could be different if ME2 had ended differently.

It's kind of weird actually, I've put so much time and effort into the ME games that it's almost a relief that it's at an end. I'm sure there will be plenty of DLC for ME3 although I didn't bother yet with the DLC they released at the same time as the game, although it sounds quite cool.

I'm tempted to restart it with my evil Shepard from ME2 but not sure if I can be arsed just yet. This last Shepard I created in January in ME1 is the ultimate one now since it was the one where I did absolutely everything. It would be rather weird to go back to my original one who I made deliberately ugly and named Dick because I didn't think I'd like the first game. By the time I realised I was wrong and loved the game it was too late to go back and start again so I had to carry on with his peculiar face. I suppose the face import bug would be an excuse to sort out his strange features.

It's about time I finished Dragon Age: Origins, which I've been playing off and on since last May. It's a funny one that, when I'm actually playing it, I quite enjoy it but it's always an effort to actually play it again.

Today it's rugby round at Rob and Em's which will be great, and then one last day of freedom before returning to work. I plan to have a bonfire and wash the car too, since it looks disgraceful at the moment.

The back of my Galaxy S has been gradually disentegrating, so I've found a new one, and the rear part of the chassis that includes the camera lense, as that's pretty beat up too. I can't afford to pick up an S II just yet and as the phone works really well, I'm happy to put the effort into bring it back up to scratch again.

ME3 overdose

Friday night was rugby in Eirias Park, which was really good. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was really good fun. The game was decent and the atmosphere was excellent. Possibly because it's quite a smaller stadium and therefore 'cosy'.

I didn't play Mass Effect at all on Saturday, instead I read books and caught up with The Tube on iPlayer. A programme about the London Underground really shouldn't be interesting, but it is. In the afternoon it was time for rugby watching at Rob and Em's, before we headed off for an Indian meal and Avenue Q in Rhyl. The meal was good, but they had technical problems at the show. Five minutes in, they blew the wiring for the lights, and after half an hour, decided to carry on with reduced lights. It didn't really matter too much, and it was still a good show. Good fun.

I had a lot more to do on ME2 than I thought, so it took all of Sunday and most of Monday to finish it, but I did at last finish it wth absolutely everything possible done.

Then it was time to fire up ME3, after pretty much a year of waiting. I won't say too much about it but what a game. What a fucking game. The graphics are ludicrously better and the control system is much slicker, but it's still Mass Effect to the core and it's a perfect continuation of the series.

It's a little buggy however. My list of missions for some reason constantly defaults to one I completed ages ago so I have to scroll every time to see the new ones. Sometimes Shepard just stares vacantly off to one side while talking to someone, which is funny. Also it refused to import the face from my ME2 save, so I had to recreate it.

I've played it far too much, only an hour or so on Monday due to D&D but nearly all of yesterday and today and I'm sure I've still got shitloads left to do.

Rob and I tried the multiplayer tonight, which seemed wildly unfair until we levelled up a bit and then Steve joined us and then it became fun. Shame that it's only basically the Horde mode, it would have been cool if they could have put some actual mission based multiplayer in there.

Not much to report really due to having done nothing but ME3. I've been off the Internet (other than blog and e-mail) for nearly a week now, which is proving interesting. Somewhat annoyingly, the weather has been really perfect. If it had been windy and raining, I'd have felt less guilty about sitting inside with the Xbox. But ME3 is the entire reason I took this week off work, so there it is.

A strange week

It's not been a very eventful week, which is why nothing got written. In work we've had the shadow of a proposed restructure hanging over us, which was particularly worrying since the union was involved. Ater all the worry though, it's the upper management that is affected, nothing really at my level. So that's OK, at least for a few months.

D&D was good on Monday, with a fourth person returning, so it works out a lot better. We finished the latest encounter with Rob doing his usual excellent DMing with inventive use of Lego and parcel tape to bring the environment to life. Really good fun.

The Prelude had the timing belt done yesterday. It was expensive, but the engine sounds much healthier and it even seems to run better. So that's good. I'm fairly skint now though.

Otherwise this week, outside of work I've just been progressing my latest Mass Effect 2 playthrough. I've gone all out this time to try and get absolutely everything done in it, although my OCD about looking at every single planet in the game means it's taken quite a lot of time so far. I'm definitely not going to finish it in time to start ME3 tomorrow, but since there's rugby and all sorts going on, it'll be Sunday now. But I've got all next week off to play, sad as that might be. I just hope the weather is shit so I don't feel too bad about spending my week off indoors...

I finally found a USB device that lets me stream DTS and Dolby Digital from the media playing laptop to my amp, but only over optical, so I need an optical switcher to swap between it and the 360. The device is a little thing made by Turtle Beach, and works perfectly.

Finished my latest reread of the Harry Potter books. It's certainly a decent enough experience and I think book 7 was probably one of the best ones although the epilogue is cheese incarnate. Not sure what to read now though.

Been feeling a little tired and depressed this week, probably from the stuff going on in work, and also from not doing fuck all except playing on the Xbox. Also in an attempt to not see any Mass Effect 3 spoilers, I've been avoiding the Internet to the point of even unhooking my 360 from the network so the dashboard doesn't show me anything. Bit challenging really, I didn't realise quite how much the Internet occupied my free time until I consciously stopped using it. Something to consider.

Feeling slightly desperate about my lack of ability to exercise. I know I need a new programme at the gym, so I might do that next week while I'm off and then hopefully get into that once ME3 is done and dusted.

Fun, fat, bikes, movies and space adventures

Friday went over to my Dad's. I took the Specialized over and we had a good look it. Basically all it needs is a damn good clean, some brake cables, a chain and a new fork. Other than the fork it's actually reasonably straightforward. It's all apart anyway. Also got some stuff done like new number plate bulbs on the Prelude. Also noticed that one of the older tyres on it was shedding bits of rubber so had to get another new one, fortunately the local place had one and was able to do it.

On the way home the Prelude started to make a strange noise, a metal on metal scraping noise that didn't seem to be related to the engine or brakes. I got rather upset at this and was about to give the Prelude up as a bad job but the noise has gone away, so I think it was just something stuck underneath.

Saturday was spent with some guys from work watching Captain America, Iron Man and Thor in preparation for the Avengers movie. I hadn't seen Captain America before, and it was OK. I love the Iron Man films but Thor is rather strange. It was an awesome day with ludicrous amounts of food, including really great Thai food, curiously from the Loggerheads garage.

Today has been another Mass Effect 2 day, as I'm quite conscious now that I haven't actually got all that much time to complete it before 3 comes out. I made some good progress though. I tried to make a quesadilla type thing for lunch which was sort of a success but needed more interesting things inside. I think I'm going to have to avoid the Internet this week. I've been trying to avoid anything to do with Mass Effect 3 but now it's becoming quite hard.

Found that they have finally released the Super Mario Bros / Portal mashup, which is called Mari0. A strange idea but it works surprisingly well. Really good fun.

A fun day

Today was a fairly quiet day.

I played Mass Effect 2 for most of the day, which was good fun. The transition from 1 to 2 is a little jarring but after a while it becomes really involving. I've already done something new this time, picked up an ability called Reave which drains health from enemies to boost yours. Made some good progress and thoroughly enjoyed it, except for the slightly tedious scanning of planets for resources. My issue is that I'm a bit OCD about it so every time I visit a system I simply must scan every planet completely.

I also cleaned up the Specialized and pumped up the tyres and had a quick go on it. The suspension fork does actually move, but appears to be full of water as it makes dreadful squelching sounds. Safe to say, they're fucked. But the rest of the bike is fine. Found that the rear wheel must not be original since it has a hub with disk mounts. I actually managed to get it in the Prelude in preparation for going to my Dad's tomorrow where we'll strip it down and see what it needs. It involved taking both wheels off and a lot of cursing but it did fit eventually.

In the evening it was off to Rob and Em's for food (delicious risotto) and then to badminton. I was a bit anxious about my knee, but it's fine. My legs are a bit achy but in the normal way after not playing for a bit.

I forgot to write about the pheasant that moved in. He's quite tame and for some reason follows me in the car down the track every morning, running alongside. I took a video the other day as I couldn't quite believe it. Not sure why he does it.