absence
It has been a while since the last open update.
Let's see.
Baycon was fun. Was good to hang around with thegoodmo again. The main event of the con was running loeg party while bovil and kproche were doing a similar thing out at this year's CostumeCon.
Prior to Baycon, though, I spent several days in the LA area, and got to hang with several cool people, especially kaysho and kayotae who as always are excellent hosts and even better friends. We went off to the last weekend of the Renfaire and met up with a couple of my EVE-Online friends. kishorwolf was there as well, which made the time even more enjoyable. I have some amusing footage I may post later. ;)
From there, it was a BBQ with Shadowcat and friends. The rest of the days in LA were rounded out with well-spent time with stevefoxx and his gang of usual culprits. I even got EVE running under Linux, albeit just with Cedega, not mainline WINE. That's the next eventual goal.
AnarchyOnline has been disappointing recently. The world seems emptier, and the company running it (Funcom, or FC) seems to be doing some braindead things to what's left of the RP community in the run up to their next (last?) expansion for the game. I offer "last" because it really does seem like a desparate attempt to pitch a 6 year old graphics engine with tweaks and limited content and dwindling RP base as a PvP game. But that's actually more attention than I wanted to spend on it in this entry so...
I came across another interesting game while wandering the intarweb. Ferion. It's a web-based implementation of the old Galaxy/Star Empires etc. game that also saw life as Master Of Orion (1 and 2; 3 is better left untalked about). In the past, I've always loved these sorts of games, especially MOO2. So I dove into this game.
It is interesting. However, there's something seriously missing. I guess 3+ years of EVE has spoiled me a bit. The gameplay in Ferion seems very shallow and forced. It quickly becomes an exercise in micromanagement and bullying your neighbours, neither of which are particularly fun.
It's advertised as play-for-free, but higher technologies are locked in a particular arena/round unless you pay. Turns run once per hour, so after about a week into a 6 week game you run out of things to research and soon get crushed mercilessly (often without even a single communication) by those who do "key" (unlock). I don't know that I'll be starting any further arenas in the game. A bit disappointing really. BUt FreeOrion may deserve some effort.
It's also triggered some interesting gaming ideas of my own. They'll likely sputter out soon, but still interesting.
Work has had its usual ups and downs. The days when I'm maintaining ancient code (by our company's standards; 3-4 year old mostly-replaced and orphaned code branches that we can't abandon because Big Clients don't want to upgrade yet) aren't so pleasant. Fortunately, that's been only a little of my time. The rest has been spent building some nifty little internal processes and apps for doing some forecasting and tracking of defects and change requests as they move through the system. At least that is intellectually challenging and not just frustratingly obscure. :)
Last weekend was Gaylaxicon - this year in Toronto - and bovil and kproche came up. Since I didn't get to see them at Baycon, this was a good replacement. The con was small, but fun. The main issue I had with it was a bit of a catch-22; having it near the Village helps draw people to the con, but having it near the Village ends up killing the evening con life, as people will head off to various nearby diversions in small groups, so you never get this sense of critical mass in the evenings. The Masquerade was tiny, but entertaining. I did Shaky-Cam™ of that as well, and may post the results next week.
This week was more of the same work stuff. Also, more cycling. It's nice to be able to cycle in to work every day (even better that there's a shower waiting for me at both ends!) Helps with the physical fitness thing. I'm even managing to get some actual workouts in. I'm under no real illusions, though; I'm not dedicated enough at it so far to have made any major change to my physique. Maybe some day, but not quite yet.
This weekend: pre-pride drinks with a few friends, and the parade tomorrow.
And in closing: NDAs are frustrating, Doctor Who has been sufficiently entertaining, the solstice lifted a weight from me and the fourfoot is doing well.
absent: 103, silent: 59, active: 55, ineligible: 49, other: 26
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