It has been nearly a month since I last posted. Since then I finished my fortnight of annual leave and then went back to work for three weeks - and to lose my hearing. This has happened more-or-less every summer for the last three years not helped by the fact that I have only one hearing ear. However, after connecting it to hayfever last summer and having been taking antihistamines, I thought I might be safe this year. Sadly not. I was deaf for a week, then eardrops and syringing sorted it out. At least it's over now.
Over the last month, I have fitted in my becoming-annual shopping trip with the Bea that involves much food and shopping. Also, all four of us have been to Kew. Among other things we saw two birds with their young.
I've also played, read and watched a few things.
I'm continuing to play
The Secret World on Wednesday with
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chrisvenus,
ao_lai and Alistair. This has involved dungeoning, punning and lore-hunting. I've also played a bit of
Torchlight II with
bateleur. For soloing, I have played a bit of
The Secret World, but also a couple of other things:
- The Cat Lady - This is about suicide, depression and friendships. And cats of course. It's a point-and-click indie horror game where you play Susan Ashworth who starts the game by committing suicide. I wrote a fuller review here. I recommend it (with caveats about it being a horror game and also being about depression).
- Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War - Well, yes, I picked it because it's Warhammer 40K and because Steam had it on special. I've just finished it (before lunch). It's a real-time strategy game involving space marines, chaos and everything. I'm not a big fun of RTS, but I coped well enough with this (difficulty normal). I thought that the plot was OK and I liked that unit types and uses were gradually introduced. However, I was less keen on the fact that you had to play a mission to figure out what you needed for it. In particular, don't get too clever building up to unit limits or you'll discover you're supposed to be building something specific with your remaining points. Overall, I liked it but found it far too short. (Luckily I also bought the expansions in the sale.)
I currently have various
Dawn of War Expansions lined up along with
Richard and Alice (point-and-click adventure set in a post-apocalypse prison) and
Face Noir (point-and-click adventure in the detective "noir" style).
My reading has mosly been re-reading. However, I did read one new book - Frances Hardinge's
Cuckoo Song. It is classified as
Young Adult genre and I would describe it a dark (or proper) fairytale set in the 1920s. It's a stand-alone story and not a sequel. I always feel uncomfortable writing reviews of the work of people I know, but I will say that I loved this, it's now my favourite one of her books (which was previously
A Face Like Glass and before that
Verdigris Deep).
We have seen two new films, courtesy of
LoveFilms.
- Zero Dark Thirty - This is the first Kathryn Bigelow film I've seen and I wasn't sure what to expect. Overall I enjoyed it and spent much of it trying to work out where I'd seen the actress who played the female support before (answer - as Elizabeth Bennet). The whole thing is based on events between 9-11 and Bin Laden's death and there's been various discussions about how accurate it actually is (probably the biggest difference is that Maya is not one person in real life).
- Elysium - On paper this looked great. Good cast (Matt Damon and Jodie Foster), directed and written by the District 9 man (Neill Blomkamp) and a sci-fi setting. In practice, not so much. It was all a bit preachy and about how sick children are heartbreaking.
Next? We might see another couple of films, or we might move straight to season 3 of
The Wire next.
Finally, the two games I've played in.
- Star Wars - Um, this seems a while ago now. We travelled to the Jedi Academy planet and talked to people. The more we learned, the more likely it seemed that we were Sith. We then travelled to the Sith Academy planet (as you do) to visit the grave we had been told about. This seemed more familiar and the grave turned out to be rather more dangerous than we had anticipated. Or, specifically, its occupant did. Things we learned included that there was definitely one other person present at the Crystal-shattering who deliberately disrupted the ritual and presumably left us for dead. Also, Mary now owns a planet.
- 100 Secrets - Again, a fortnight ago. This involved us faffing in the way that players do when they aren't sure what to do next. Neddra has started to develop teleport (20cms, but that's important when it can be the thickness of a wall). Oh yes, and someone tried to kill us with the iron filing monster after we tried to contact General Alex. We left town when Rose received an assassination request for someone she liked. We then headed to Owl's Crossing via my home city and Rose's father's station (he'd left for Sarenland). We also visited the Eyestone. Plus we met the Sun and the Moon being carried around on the end of fishing lines by little people. Arriving at Owl's Crossing we discovered that the ruling family were elsewhere.
Next up is my
Warhammer 40K game next weekend for which I need to do All The Prep.
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