A day of updates #4 – Garden Goes Green

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I can sense you’ve been longing for an update on the garden.  And you’ve come to the right place.  Right up until the point where I was diagnosed with a hernia I’ve been out in the garden every day it was dry trying to get things sorted.  Once I was diagnosed I tried to cut back a bit, but it’s not an easy habit to get out of.  Grete works in the garden like a demon, weeding, cutting, and keeping everything in good shape.  Who would have thought we’d enjoy a trip to B&Q to buy plants and planters?  Anyway, here’s an update and where we are and how things progressed.

p1060297The New Tree

We’ve bought a new tree for the garden (cherry tree).  When we had to have the huge tree cut down to allow a fence to be put in by our neighbour, we promised ourselves we buy a new tree to replace it, but something we could keep under control.  So we did, and we’ve planted it at the bottom of the garden (at the moment, next to the huge pile of wood I’m no longer allowed to carry and move).

It doesn’t look like much at the moment and we’re really hoping we planted it well enough for it to survive.  It definitely had enough sun and rain in the few days after going in.  We’re trying not to think about the choice of cherry, we already get frustrated by picking up a thousand apples every summer and cherries might just drive us nuts (no pun intended) but hopefully it’ll look nice and the birds will enjoy it.

p1060323Planters

Now that the concrete patio is pretty bare we decided to get some planters to brighten it up and throw a bunch of flowers into them.  We ended up with far too many flowers and far too much compost so we finally sorted out the two mini-borders near the house and used most of the rest of the plants on those.  There are four terracotta planters down the fence side of the patio, each of which we put five or six plants into.  The photo to the left is how it looked when it went in.  Since then the plants have put on a little bit of volume and one or two are threatening to flower.

Along the side and front of the kitchen we dug over the soil and got rid of a rose with a root the size of a small barn, and replaced it with some of the same plants.  That area suffers heavily from snails, slugs and other various vegetable eating life so we’re surprised they’re doing as well as they are.  We did lose one of the plants entirely – one day it was there, the next it was just a stem lying on the ground.  Here’s a few shots of the progress of both the planters and the borders.

Freshly Planted

freshlyplanted-1freshlyplanted-2

In Progress

planterprogress-1planterprogress-2borderprogress

Plant MIA

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As of today, we’ve got flowers and buds.

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Where’s the Grass At

The grass is coming on really well.  The front has really spread and looks like it’ll cover everything, in the back garden it looks a little sparse still under the tree but it’s spreading slowly.  Looks like we’re going to have a mixture of lush green grass and old faded yellow grass, but I guess over time it evens out.  We could try some stuff to fix up the old grass, but honestly we like the garden kind of natural rather than pristine looking golf course grass.

The acer is still alive and looks like it’s doing okay, hasn’t changed in size much yet but they’re very slow growing, hopefully it’s rooted well and isn’t just slowly dying without looking like it.

backgardengrass

Woodwork

After putting it off for ages, I finally got around to sanding down and treating the wooden sill at the bottom of the patio door frame.  I think it’s a sill.  Anyway, sanded it down with our little electric hand-sander thing, the stink of cat was pretty bad (see following post #5), took out all the old silicone, treated the wood and put new silicone in.  I hate, hate, hate putting silicone in, I’m so bad at it.  Anyway, photo’s to prove it!

Sill before any workCovered to keep the rain off while it driesSill after it was finishedClose shot of my terrible silicone work

I know you’re probably thinking ‘omg, so you sanded and sealed some wood, so what!’ but this is a big deal for us, so deal with it.

A day of updates #3 – Painting Pain

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I’ve not touched a quality miniature with anything other than a basecoat in ages.  Sure, I painted some of the HeroQuest mini’s for our (currently off) D&D game, but they’re quick gaming quality jobs.  For some reason I’m just finding it hard to pick up a quality mini and trust myself to do a good job.  Essentially, I’m suffering a huge crisis of faith in my painting.  I know I’m not an award winning painter, but I used to be happy with the results (in a general sense) and not afraid to put paint onto the figure.  Now for some reason I just feel as though I’ll be ruining a really good sculpt and maybe I shouldn’t do that.

It’s a combination of seeing some of the awesome paint work other folk can do, and talking to the people who’ve actually sculpted these miniatures.  It feels too personal, like I’ll be ruining their effort.

Anyway, I’m trying to give myself a stern talking to and to get over myself, and just get on with it because it’s enjoyable and relaxing.  Maybe I’ll get some done if I can sit up after the surgery.

Dead Space

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I’m really enjoying games on the PlayStation.  I have to say that it’s a much more engaging activity than playing similar games on a PC with the keyboard.  I didn’t realise how much I disliked playing things like Bioshock with the keyboard vs the PS3 controller (only the demo, but it still stands true).  After enjoying Resident Evil 5 (and still going back to it now and then to play through on a harder setting), I thought I’d give Dead Space a go.  I really wanted to play Left 4 Dead after hearing good things but it’s not available on the PS3 and due to my comments a second ago I won’t be getting it for the PC.  On a side note, this is one area where Microsoft and all the major console manufacturers really piss me off, but I may save that for another post (unless I already moaned about it in the past).

So anyway, saw Dead Space second hand and had seen a review on TV which looked cool, and some clips on the web so picked it up.  It’s superb.  The gameplay is engaging and the graphics are well done, but what really sets this game apart as an experience is the sound and music.  Oh. My. God.  The sound drags you in and sticks you in the middle of the game, ramping the tension and excitement levels through the roof.  We’ve got an as-cheap-as-you-can-get surround sound system, with badly located speakers, but the game still managed to freak me out completely.  The range of ambient sounds is huge, and they really fit the locations down to a tee.  When you’re walking down a badly lit corridor and you hear something scuttle overhead in the air ducts, you really, really, want to look up in the real world.

You can hear things bumping into others things, items being dropped, canisters being knocked over, foot steps, squelches and any number of ambient noises which really make you feel like the experience is that much more real.  The music is excellent and the non-ambient sound effects are pretty impressive too.   The most accomplished element of the sound though for me is when you’re character is in a vacuum.  Ok, vacuum’s should transfer no sound, but total silence wouldn’t be much fun.  The quiet whump whump whump of the pulse rifle instead of the regular gun noise was just so excellent.  The vacuum noises just increased the sense of claustrophobia that the rest of the game imposes.

Overall it was really enjoyable, and although the actual story is weak in places the action was engaging and the slightly different approach to combat made it more interesting (headshots are not your friend in Dead Space).  The sound made sure the game went from ‘fun’ to ‘adrenaline fuelled fun’.  If you like survival horror, sci-fi horror, survival sci-fi horror, shooting dead things, and being scared to go to the toilet on your own, Dead Space is for you.

A day of updates #1 – Health and Hernia

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So not posted anything of any substance for a little while, mainly because I’ve sort of been hanging on to hear about some news and then once you get out of the habit of blogging it takes a little effort to get back into it.  I was going to write one huge monster update but instead, here’s a bunch of smaller, more focussed updates.

I definitely have a hernia (periumbilical) – surgery is scheduled for the 11th June.  I was pretty impressed with how quick the NHS got that scheduled.  It’s provisional at the moment, and I’ve got a pre-op appointment tomorrow but I guess that’s generally a formality and they say provisional so they can mess you about if specialists aren’t available.  The surgery should be an outpatients visit, so in and out on the same day.  They said basically if you can stand up and not vomit after you come around from the GA, then they’ll send you home.  So fingers crossed I should be back at home on the 11th.  Will be off work for 2-4 weeks depending on what the Hospital / GP say, and then still taking it easy for a good few weeks after that to make sure things heal up.  The worst thing you can do with a hernia is think it’s ok and rip it open after the surgery.  Better to take it very very easy for a good while and let it heal fully, much less chance of it coming back.

I won’t be tweeting during the surgery :p

iPhone / iPod Touch / Android mode

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Added what looks to be an awesome plugin for creating a mobile version of the site.  If you’re viewing this through an iphone / ipod touch or android phone you should see the new style (you can turn it on and off at the bottom of the page).

Obviously, I can’t check from Android, if you can, let me know if it works.

This is the plugin home page – WPtouch

Ego-stroking Spam

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Spam comments have changed over the last few months.  When I first started the blog the spam comments were essentially heavily laden with links to other spam sites.  Either blatant (just lists of links) or thinly disguised (long diatribe of text with links spread throughout).  Recently though, there’s been an increase in short comments in which the spam is just a URL link of the submitter.  The comments all have the same thing in common – ego-stroking.

They cover the following types,

  • Personal ego-stroke: Something like ‘you have really good insight, please keep blogging, I love your posts’.
  • Site ego-stroke: Something like ‘I love this site, it’s great, I recommend it to all my friends’.
  • Site ego-stroke with question: Often goes ‘I love the site but can’t get my RSS reader to subscribe’.
  • Ego-stroke with debate: Something like ‘this sounds really good but can it last until the future?’ (I had one of these today attached to the ’77 trailer post).

I guess some people get suckered in by the ego-stroke and are encouraged to approve the posts where they would normally ignore them.  Since my ego is already the size of a small mountain I need no further strokage and so am immune.  Or maybe it’s because I’m not as easily fooled.  Or maybe my self image is so bad I can’t for a moment believe any of the comments are true.  Whatever the reason – they still don’t make it past the spam filter on the site.

Soon we’ll be seeing the following class of spam,

  • Pet ego-stroke: I love your cat, you should let them post more often.
  • Family ego-stroke: Your [significant other] looks great, you should blog about them more.
  • Country ego-stroke: I love the part of the world you live in, please post pictures and talk about it more.

I’ll hold out against those as well I think.

Short controlled bursts

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Is Aliens one of the most quotable movies of all time, or is it just my imagination?  What makes it so quotable?  Is it that I spend a lot of my time moving around in tight spaces armed with a pulse rifle?  Is it because I long to join the Space Marines and wake up in my underwear after an extended sleep?  Probably not.  But the film does have lots of excellent short quotes for nearly every occasion (that involves shooting things).

I played Dead Space on the PS3 today, it’s fun (in a scary OMG what’s that moving over there OMG it’s going to eat my face) kind of way.  One of the weapons is a Pulse Rifle.  I said today at least three times, short controlled bursts, to remind myself how best to use the weapon.

As if,

  1. it’s a real weapon
  2. I actually know how to use one
  3. I was shooting real aliens

It’s funny really.  The funniest moment of course was 10 seconds after reminding myself to use short controlled bursts, a necromorph jumped out of an overhead vent and landed on me and I unloaded a full 50 round clip into it in one continuous long uncontrolled burst.