Raithe

It's amusing..and it's true - well, if I had a daughter...

To return to the TOR relevance.. They're continuing on with the assorted server transfers, and I must say you can definitely notice it. Corellian Run seems to be one they're encouraging people to shift to, and has over 290 folk on Imp Fleet at the moment.. and around 250 on Republic Fleet.

Well the relatives are back for anther two weeks... And there is something decidedly odd about the turnabout when a parent is so ill that you're the one putting them to bed...

Something old and new.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8exsw6yKXw&

I find the Ranger / Spirit Shaman mix fairly useful, although I headed towards teh Shadow Dancer prestige class as well..

Wrapped up the Smuggler class-quest and kicked the Voidwolf's arse. Hm, although it doesn't quite have the sheer emotional satisfaction of prologue ending or the Act 1 end-point. Still, getting the Republic's highest civilian award for basically taking control of the criminal underworld is kind of amusing... Now I'll have to psych myself up to wrap up some of those Corellian world quests.. Think I'll have to start focusing some time on the Bounty Hunter now. I do want to have a splurge on Sith Warrior, but got him almost finished Dromund Kaas, but I can't face Balmorra just yet. I covered it on my Bounty Hunter the other week and my Jedi Knight is just wrapping the bonus series there.. Hm, so in 6 months I've gotten two characters to 50th, and completed their class stories, I've got another to level 40 and in the early stages of Act 2, and a couple of others in their teens-to-twenty-something levels. I'd say it's certainly about pacing the classes and which faction you're doing along with how quickly you rotate through the planets.

Hm, whilst I am still cheerfully kicking around on Corellian Run. That and occasional pokes on the public test server to see what changes are coming...

Dang, had some glitch on the latest patch update, so now it's re-downloading the whooole shebang. Ah well, something to leave running in the background.

I've been caught out a few times. I don't drive, haven't got a drivers licence. I once had to use a 6 year old university id that for some reason was still in my wallet to prove my age and identity. But if it comes down to anything really serious, I'm pretty much screwed unless I happen to be casually walking around with my passport.

To be fair to the books, they didn't actually have the leaping quite that absurd. The film definitely pushed the "superman leaping" which was somewhat... silly.

Yeah, I really enjoyed John Carter. It mashed up some of the books, but it really kept the soul of them throughout the whole thing. A lot of people had trouble with how it looked like it ripped off so many other sources, but technically it's the reverse. One of those that inspired so much over the last century that what was original and sparkling has become standard story tropes. It's a shame that with it tanking so badly it's unlikely to get a follow-on. Part of the trouble it had was the Director is a major fan of the books, and thought that everybody knew who John Carter was. He made some comment about how he considered John Carter to be a name known in every household like Batman is. And due to his successes with Pixar, the studio had given him total control, including over the advertising campaign before it was released. Which pretty much made it seem very genericy blah to everyone who didn't know what John Carter is.

On the completely lesser scale of life trouble, I found a charge on my credit card that shouldn't be there. Phoned up the bank to report it, and got my security locked in the attempt. So I had to go through a completely different process to unlock my security so I could report a potential problem. Now they've cancelled my card as the quick and dirty fix... So no new books or such from amazon for a week or so until a new card turns up and its all resolved.

It's a recognisable voice, and you keep meeting wildly different characters with the same voice.. There are a couple of other voices that keep cropping up.. but her's was the first I noticed. But then, she voices three characters that are literally about 40 seconds travel apart from each other in Whiterun which is the first city you reach in the game.

Offhand, it comes to.. hm.. : In Whiterun, she voices Adrianne Avenicci the blacksmith by the city entrance, Aela the Huntress in the companions, and Uthgerd the Unbroken in the inn.. In Riften she's the voice of the Jarl Laila Law-Giver, aand the voice of Iona, the housecarl you get when you buy a house and become Thane.. In Solitude, the Legate Rikke, and Bryling one of the Thanes, and in relation to a Solitude quest, the voice of Queen Potema.. In Dawnstar, Brina Merilis... In Markath, it happens to be Faleen the housecarl to the Jarl.. In Windhelm, Voldessa Giryon the dunmer "pirate", and Adelaisa Vendicci the Imperial soldier who can become a follower, In Falkreath, Zaria in the alchemist's shop There's Sorli the builder, oh and the ghost of Breya in some Dwemer ruin.. I don't think it's so much that they re-use her as a voice actress, it's that she's not just voicing bit players, but a chunk of "important" one's that you'll talk to repeatedly in the course of the main story and the other story-quests, not simply odd miscellaneous quests you could easily miss.

That's just because those lame kids grew up to have a lot of disposable income. I got about

Hey, I funded a trip to America for a friends wedding by putting some of my old boxed Transformers on ebay a few years ago. (Technically, that was a year or two before Michael Bay released his film..)

The thing with Attenborough, is that he just shines with sincerity about his enthusiasms and the way he explains things. The man has been doing it for decades and he does it dang well. He lets the nature take center without having a need to upstage it with his "performance" and shows that even after all these years he's still amazed and enjoys what he's doing.

The australian relations have left for a week, so now we all try to destress before they arrive back for the two weeks after that... Although with the hassle of moving the pc back and forth out of the cramped space its in at the moment.. I think I'll actually wait till they're gone for good to do it. Woke up early, but the heavy wind and rain on the window was just hypnotic and I kept zoning out for stretches before i forced myself to get up. Got some mathematical models to check and a 38 page report to read once more and see just how much sticks to the mental plate...

Finished the main storyline of Skyrim. Hm, haven't done the Civil War or the Dark Brotherhood yet.. Not sure if I can really be bothered to do them now. Generally entertaining and certainly plowed a fair few hours into it to get to that point, but it was beginning to hit a certain tired zone. Also, sneak + archery was a serious killer combo, and having pretty much maxed out sneak, archery, light armor and one-handed (and having the nightingale blade and that daedric quest dagger...) it was getting a wee bit silly. Then of course if you go back and try to start using destruction to improve the skill, most of the enemies you find to use it on are now too high level so you end up chugging time trying to chip their health down. The premise of the Mages Guild story was interesting, but fell through in the shortness. One moment I've just joined the guild, next moment I'm the Archmage.. I think the Companions slightly glitched, after curing the lycanthropy I went back and found Skjor alive and well and handing out sidequests... And I still can't get over just how many damn characters are voiced by Claudia Christian. Every time I wander into a new city/locale and find yet another npc with her voice..

Hm, after spending the last few days getting in gaming time on this.. I can say it doesn't have Oblivion's soul-sapping blahness to the gameplay, and the world and environment generally looks somewhat pretty. But I can't see this turning into a repeated playthrough game. Sure, there's probably a bunch of the miscellaneous quests I'll have missed by the time I finish it..and places I've not discovered.. but beyond a certain point there just doesn't seem to be much push towards those elements. That and the lack of choice in these quests can be a bit annoying. Most especially the Daedric ones, given they usually sneak up on you sideways. When you reach points that you would like to step back and say "no", or rather then invite x priest to be murdered at a certain location you could just get an option to tell them about it and not casually murder them... As it is, the only options you get left with are to walk away, leaving the quests unfinished, lurking on your journal and with a priest stuck in a cage... (or elements to that effect). Not to say it isn't being mostly enjoyable, but I'm not really getting the glowing magic of it's appeal that various folks I know have been going on about.

After my first attempt got interrupted by family members deciding to ask me 20 questions.. my second go hit 800. Although the fact that it seems to throw pages of "classics" as it were at you (Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz etc.) it's not like you really have to have good reading to answer the questions if you've read them before.

Still exploring my first playthrough of Skyrim..and the one thing thats leapt out at me.. is my god Claudia Christian voices a lot of roles. Now, she's got a distinctive voice if you know it, but they have her voicing three characters in one city where they're all about 40 seconds travel from each other. Dang it, that's just making it silly. If you're going to re-use voice artists like that, at least take into account some distance gamewise so it doesn't get shoved in your face.. (or ear, as the case may be...)

Caught Iron Sky. Some ups and downs to it, but damn. Nazis in Spaaace. and a rather fun sendup of a Palin-style President. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNDaOFQ6g2I

Tried some Skyrim today. Hm, can't make up my mind just yet. It hasn't had the deep drag in that Morrowind had.. but so far it also hasn't got the soul-destroying blandness of Oblivion.. So we'll have to see how it goes.

Lightly steambroiled one hand. New kettle, just boiled some water. Poured one cup, started to pour the second, lid fell off and cloud of steam ran up my arm. Cold water under the tap never felt so good.