Lexin

I got quite a long way with one character, to the point where I had one boss battle to go, and then I couldn’t climb the brain stem to the battle.

So I’ve started again with a new Tev on a higher difficulty setting. We’ll see how long that lasts, as I usually play games on the easiest possible difficulty level. I’m happier with the look of this new Tev, too. My previous one I’d gone for a Legolas look and missed.

As far as our D&D game is going, we may be TPK’d due to stirges. Stirges are a small and silly beast to be killed by.

[Edited to add: Yes, one of my two characters was killed. Sigh.]

I’ve been a bit quiet, what with one thing and another.

Smokey has been quiet the last few days. She seems to have picked up now, but I don’t think she was too impressed by the Christmas tree I put up. The flashing lights bothered her and she seems happier now I’ve put the lights to ‘always on’. I also changed the dangly thing on her thing on a string on a stick because she’d destroyed the old one, and she doesn’t like the new one, so I’m going to have to buy a replacement, perhaps with feathers. She likes feathers.

I don’t like it when she doesn’t run about after the dangly thing. I think she needs exercise and not just to lie about the place like a little furry cushion.

It could also be the weather, which isn’t all that cold but has been quite grey and depressing. As I type this, she’s sitting on her cat tree looking out of the window at the gardens, I think hoping for signs of birdies or other cats.

Sewing

No news on the sewing front. I’m waiting for beads to be delivered. I could be getting on with doing a toile, but haven’t.

Gaming

The reason for the above is that I bought at PS4. It took a while for Amazon to send the games I’d ordered (of which more below) but now they have I’m spending time playing LotR: Shadow over Mordor. ( details of interest mostly to other gamers )

Amazon

Amazon pissed me off somewhat mightily over delivering my latest batch of stuff, most of which was for Christmas or for my dress. They managed to fail to deliver nearly all of an order (how? I’ve been a customer since 1999 and only one other thing has ever gone astray) and when I contacted them to get it re-delivered, they re-did the order, this time cocking up by sending me a second PS4. Getting that collected was far more difficult than it should have been.

In other news

I’ve been setting up having my flat decorated next month. So far, I’ve two really interested firms, but no actual written quotes for the work.

I did have a third firm come round and look at the job, but he didn’t strike me as really interested – the other two were full of ideas about how it could be done, but the third just noodled about, took my bit of paper explaining what I wanted doing and disappeared. I’ve heard nothing from him since, so I don’t know what’s going on there.

Running as favourite to get the work so far is the Italian girl (and her friend who didn’t speak English) who took photos when they first came to scope the job, then came round with samples a couple of days ago and are taking the whole thing very seriously. Second is the firm run by a Greek bloke called Demis, but I haven’t seen any samples of the stuff he wants to use so he is definitely as second choice.

We shall see.

While the work is done Smokey will become a lodger at gloria1’s, and gloria1 has kindly agreed to take her in and treat her as her own.

This is because the work will include floors in the hall, kitchen and bathroom, decorating my bedroom and decorating the living room, which takes up most of the flat. I can’t keep her shut up in the spare room for several weeks, so have to find somewhere she can stay in peace and quiet. I will miss my baby girl, though!

I've been a but quiet lately, largely because nothing much happened. But when I think about it, things did happen.

I ran a game of Call of Cthulhu not this last Saturday just gone, but the previous one. The characters rather bollocksed it up and allowed the King in Yellow (Hastur) to arrive on Earth. I mean, ouch! That means that the rest of the games from now on in have to be run with this Great Old One slowly taking over the planet. Thanks guys. It's a bit like Sauron running all of Middle Earth.

I also had my first Creative Writing class at the City Lit last Thursday. That went quite well, and I enjoyed it, so I'm looking forward to Thursday when I have the next class. The other students all seem OK, though there's one who looks as if she's going to be hard work for the teacher and for the rest of us. We'll see.

Smokey is a good cat, though a bit clingy. Not quite sure what's going on with that. She's absolutely mad on her 'thing on a string on a stick' and if I ignore her for too long, she'll find it and drag it towards me, so there's no misunderstanding about what she wants of me. Sweet kitty! She always looks so determined with this thing in her mouth, every hair indicative of desperation.

Sometimes I think I play too much Call of Cthulhu…

A line from the Miss Marple I’m watching, “Tell me, what is the great race?”

I think in reply, “A secret race of Elder Gods from beyond the stars…”

And then I realise how unlikely that is to be the answer in an episode of Miss Marple!

Well, I’m back from Wales, unharmed and unmelted from the rain. I actually only got rained on twice, and as the college had helpfully put us next to the coffee bar where we play our games, not for long on either occasion. So that was good.

I had a wonderful time on Friday and Saturday, and a slightly boring one on Sunday.

Friday we played TSR Battle System, a very strange system which involves moving bits of card about and rolling dice. The bits of card do represent something, but it’s hard to explain. For once, I was on the winning side as the ‘good’ side, played by G, decided to quit the field of battle partway through, discretion being the better part of valour and all that.

That didn’t take as long as it might have done – or has done in the past – so we moved on then to P’s AD&D campaign where we’re all “Saxons”. It’s a world he’s written himself, with approximately Saxon technology and attitudes. I think we haven’t yet got to grips properly with this as the background is very detailed, and we’ve all begged P for a ‘who’s who’ of the participants as it’s hard to keep track of when they’re all called things like Leofgar and Tirweald, Aethelred and Egwin.

Saturday I ran a Call of Cthulhu game. Not my campaign which I’m running for them outwith the Heromeet, but a second one for Heromeet alone. It’s a bought campaign, Fungi From Yuggoth. They didn’t get through as much of it as I’d hoped, but that does mean that I’m prepared for Heromeet CofC for the next two years at least.

Sunday was a bit dull as I couldn’t get into a game. All I did all day was play one round of a board game called Trans Europa, which was loosely about trains. That was enjoyable, but it should be easier to get in on something than it is. Asking about just didn’t work and it doesn’t help that I confuse people and ask the same person several times.

In future, I shall take along a second, probably AD&D, scenario and see if I can't scare up players of my own.

Travel was fine – trains up and back were on time and not to crowded. Pendolinos don’t smell any better, though.

Still looking

I’m still looking for a couple of players for my Call of Cthulhu games that I play at my place. Any takers welcome – must be willing to get to east London.

And now for some photos…( click here for photos of Beaumaris castle and a duck )

You'll remember I said that my PlayStation had gone belly up? Probably not, but I did.

So, I replaced it with a sparkly brand new one…which has exactly the same fault as the old one. All I can say is, "Buh?"

Basically, what happens is that it will work quite happily while you're watching a video or something like that, but the moment you try to load a game, it gets so far along loading the game data and then cuts out. No warnings, no yellow light of death, nothing like that, it just cuts out just as if someone had pulled the plug out at the mains. The last time I tried it, when it was switched on again, it didn't even get all the way through doing its self-test before turning off with no warning.

After a few minutes it seems to come back and be on 'standby', but with the new one it's hard to tell because the lights are not as bright as the old version. Is this an improvement, I have to ask myself.

These symptoms lead me to think that it's some kind of power issue. It's almost as if the call for power during loading a game is too much for the system to cope with. But what do I know?

I've emailed Sony's technical support people, because what is the point of sending the new one back to Amazon (for it is they), if all the units have this problem and it's a known issue? We'll see what they come back with.

I've been selling a few old PS2 and 3 games on ebay. The ones I've got listed there are the ones which didn't sell the first time around. If they don't sell the second, they're going in the bin.

Come to the time when I have to package them up, and put postage on, and I decided to have a go with the online postage calculator rather than walk all the way to the post office. I'm just that idle.

First up I try the one on PayPal. That would have charged me over £4 for postage on games which weigh around 150g including packaging. I thought, 'That seems a lot.' So I click on over to Royal Mail, which, after fiddling about (because it's a very fiddly system they have over there) charges me a much more reasonable 92p. Or was it 93? Anyway, under a £. For the same weight and size game.

In fact, I can't find anything on the Royal Mail site which is approximately £4 – it's either a teeny 90-odd pence, a couple of quid or right up to £7 should I want to insure a game for £50. Which, obviously, I don't.

And the moral of that story, best beloved, is do not trust the postage calculator on PayPal. Not that any of you would have.