Reassessment

Right.  This SWTOR lark.  It lasted until level 48 of 50 with an empire Bounty Hunter.  Somewhere about there I fell asleep.  And then woke up when Pandaria started up.

Maybe I'm just a creature of habit, or maybe I'm into fantasy more than Sci-Fi,  Whatever.  I'm back in Azeroth.  One of the more scary elements of the new expansion is that Genna has started playing.  At age 10, she created a Panda Monk and took it to lvl 12 before I realised she'd logged on.  Lach has switched his attention to League Of Legends, and the open beta of RaiderZ which he and Taz Chapman are punishing until the wee hours instead of doing schoolwork.  Taff is mostly just immersing herself in nippon anime, and Bella is sticking with Spiral Knights and Moshi monsters.  Jen is avoiding the lot and keeping an eye on Downton Abbey...

My soulmate, best friend and wife of (nearly) 25 years (that's all one person btw) and I are planning an all-in Sth NZ holiday for the new year.  It has been nearly two decades since she's been there, and we're hoping the Wanaka chips are as good as ever, and that we get a half decent hire car. Woot, roll on January.

Abysmal Descent

Introspection.  It has to be good thing, or at least most of the time.  Communication between people is oh-so important, and the lack of it may be blamed for a huge number of relationship failures.  (interruption by Lachy trawling Wikipedia) Lella Lombardi is the only woman to ever have achieved...?  or half anyway.  There should be way more like her.  Anyway, back to communication: “You don’t need to see his identification … These aren’t the droids you’re looking for … He can go about his business … Move along.”   That wasn't the thought I was chasing - it was more to do with non-proactive communication. A communications disruption could mean only one thing: invasion (Governor Sio Bibble).

Several years have passed (ok, more like 5 to 6 years) since I stumbled into the Azeroth universe.  It has been grand, entertaining, time consuming, and fun, and it's not over yet.  But I accidentally stepped into SWTOR and have been caught by, and in, a really cool story.  This MMO doesn't just entertain, it carries you along and puts you into the story.  It becomes YOUR story.  Whether dark Jedi or light Sith, self serving Bounty Hunter or loyal Trooper, you can forge your own path (through the pre-ordained programmed storyline) and traverse that long ago and far away narrative.  I've discovered that I'm best unaligned, so

Bounty Hunter it is.  Sith vs Jedi?  They are much alike.  They both contain people of all species who may be aligned to the light or the dark side.  It's not really any different to my home, my society, my country.  I work with doctors and nurses and people with illnesses and injuries of myriad variations.  There is much blame and appreciation,  aggression and compassion, bewilderment and encouragement in the halls of healing.  Sometimes in my x-ray department, I am forced to take decisions that, for the greater good, involve the sacrifice of middle and upper management conceited ideals. I firmly believe that if one were to cut off, and cast off, the bureaucracy that self servingly complicate our existence by pretense of usefulness and function, then the real clinical patient oriented workers would be able to rise up and deliver the service demanded and needed by our community.  Hey - we all have to have a dream.

With five companions, a space ship and a lot of free time (i.e. not on call with a bottle of Vin rouge) one can proceed through the chapters of the experience (game) and carve a new destiny for the Sith (or Jedi).  I find that it has become much more than an occupation or virtual life.  I can now use the force to better my shadow life - to change traffic lights, to blast surgeons, to over-ride Philips x-rays machines when they get fussy with lateral positioning, to cure hangovers, to improve the sound mixing at Chris de Burgh's Cardiff concert, and to extend the life of a snapped and giggled glow stick.  See - it's important.  It's all about communication.

another william

Mid semester. Serious study times. Fitting in a little bit of MMORPGing though. Taff has her maxed out money bags doing daily Qs galore, Lachy has managed to make ICBM 69 NE Ar War and Saturnguy 60 NE Sub Rog and I now have Nyctemaya 69 NE Dis Pr, Nyctemaza 61 Dr En Sh. 150g/day is easily got at present with one 70 as Bliz have made a bunch of DQs available - I'm thinking that Northrend must require FF mounts as a min to cope with the mobs and environ else why the galloping inflation? No word as to when TWOTLK is bursting yet. Have one or maybe two more WoW weeks planned for this year: one close to the KK shop, one not.
(exact components shown, except dragon)

Am building a new PC for me so as to shuffle the wee girls a net capable PC of their own. That will bring the LAN up to 7 devices: struggling to stay under the 25Gb these days. Got a phone call from a rude telstra bint to promote some rubbish ISP deal who insisted on speaking to Jennie only even when I made it clear that I was the account owner. After 10 secs with Jennie they then wanted to talk to me instead and then demanded verbal ID for crosscheck. They threatened to hang up after a minute of abuse from me (which was the idea) then wanted me to resign to a 2 year contract with a cheap and nasty wireless modem as the only reward. I can't believe people actually fall for that stuff.

frag uni

Lippman was the man. An amazing dude really - the stuff he sorted out. The solar device I had in mind was the coelostat: a system of mechanically aligned mirrors that allow for solar (and astral) movement. Recently this has been used for utilizing sunlight to replace electric lighting indoors, and for solar power generation. This faceplantbook thing that is all the rage: it's just a bit strange. Am I the only one who thinks it's epigeeky? Go Casey. Again.
An abhorrence for the abomination raises in me an alarm,
my antipathy crushed by apprehension of this aversion,
awe drowns as a chiller consternation invested with detestation,
revels in disgust dislike any previous dismay or dread,
fright fades into hatred and loathing of this monstrosity,
panic battles with repugnance and revulsion steeped in terror,
and all that because an assignment is due next week.
(thesaurus.com just loves horror)

more mutterings

After three weeks of holidays it's time to both return to work (am going on-call at 2200 tonight) and admit that it's week four of semester and an assignment is due on friday. As luck would have it - I can submit it electronically, so I won't have to start until thursday night :-)
So I went to work last night and trawled the archives for the necessary number of case studies showing suitable spinal trauma and/or pathology so I could at least have a look today. Following a hard night in Azeroth (dinged 44 NE Pr, 14 BE Hu, 13 Tau Dr - got the Horde T-Shirt last week) I arose to find my PC had a HDD failure. Four hours later it was back online just in time to get lunch for Jennie and then take T&G shopping. What assignment? Bugger it, I'm going back to Azeroth.
Tonight's MotoGP in Brno has Casey Stoner on pole with Rossi 0.8 done in sixth. It's starts about the same time that emergency is going to ring for a pointless erect and supine abdo. It has been raining all day which is nice for the dam but has left the little girls with way too much energy. For WoW posterity: Lach - Tau Dr 12, BE Mag 11, NE Hu 44; Taff - NE Dr 68.75 and flighty, Gn War 61, BE Mag 26; Roozie - Dw Hu 50, NE Dr 44 and retired for the semester (as I SHOULD be).

ding dang dong

It didn't ring true. Our usual car service people had sold up, and the new people told us after a minor service that the brakes on the truck needed a lot of work: new front pads, machining of discs, back drum shoes and replacement arm thingy that pushes the pad against the drum. It was critical they said, a safety issue. The man drew a few diagrams on the back of the receipt to authenticate his story - he was well spoken, welsh, in clean overalls, and had shifty eyes. So I went to a tyres, brakes and suspension place because three out of four tyres were past their wear indicators, and the dudes there gave the brake system a going over. No problems found, with specific reference to the findings of the other place. It was the eyes - he will have to work on more convincing visual contact.
Have bought foogs a two month blizzard card which I will activate if WoW-BC runs adequately on his PC. Am looking forward to seeing him again, must acquire a keg of vitamin G to celebrate. Have a problem with Jen's laptop crashing whilst doing anything more complex than solitaire. The HDD now shows increasing bad sectors, and the onboard sound has died - it's three years old and I'm reluctant to pour anymore money down that redundant black hole. A new HDD and replacement sodimm ram will cost more than half the value of a new (better) one. Bloody computers.

destructorlach

Yay, the weekend cometh. Apparently the internet has been down here all day - by mid evening here it hadn't recovered and Roo reported from sydney that my ISP was admitting no fault, or at least no helpful or informative fault. I tried a back up dsl modem with no success, and then did a reset to defaults on my router which saw it burst back into life again. Maybe a coincidence - doesn't make huge sense. Some cool pics of our wee double cousin Georgina at the zoo: it was worth the trip just for the red pandas and the concrete walls... (below are great nana, nana, roo, and the very wee Georgina)
Mr Lach has discovered a new hobby. He disassembles PC parts. This usually involves three types of screwdriver, sissors, and a large pair of hedge trimmers. Devices of exquisite precision such as CDRom drives and power supplies have made the trip down his efficient disenchantment line and been reduced to component molecules. Such is his immanufactorish momentum that I feel the little girls and their small red dog should keep their distance... Had a good chat with Greg from Casino this afternoon when he dropped in to the basic edifice for some reason or other. He remembered number 6 fondly, and passed on his warmest regards, and best wishes in his new job in qld rad health. I didn't correct him.