lexitus

Following a discussion with angrboda, various thoughts spilled out. Stream of consciousness follows...

( DrivelCollapse )

So, autumn is here, mushrooms are in abundance, butterflies and flowers are in retreat. Nice sunny day for a walk in the woods.

Dragonflies


Some sort of fungoid creature, or alternatively a very extensive castle for people who are about 250 microns tall.


Finally, I crept up on this very stealthily, but the faeries must have heard me nevertheless :-(

So, was up to the north for a family gathering. Autumn is coming! The spungel fungus is sprouting!

( PhotosCollapse )

So, a clear night, and a dark(ish) sky...

( picturesCollapse )

More biking!

( The pictures...Collapse )

So, on the last proper day of my holiday (Friday), I went out for a little ride. The Android a.k.a. Mr Fancypants Phone is Very Unhappy, therefore no GPS track. Anyway, I went out west, north of Hinnerup, and rambled about in the woods there a bit before heading back to Aarhus and thereby home. A few interesting encounters, some documented in pictures, some not...

( PicturesCollapse )

The Official Trip Journal is still in the works, so you'll have to wait a little longer for that, but here are some photos that I was happy with. I *cough* finally upgraded to a DSLR after talking about it for about five years, so there's a certain amount of improvement in quality, and a certain amount of learning to use the new beast. But good fun!

( Flutterbys and other insect lifeCollapse )

( LandscapeCollapse )

( Ecclesiastical ArchitectureCollapse )

( Colchester ZooCollapse )

( Smaller KittysCollapse )

( PeopleCollapse )

Right. I'll stop there ;-)

Ed.

So, I had a fair amount of time over the weekend to play a few games, and here's a mention of those things that found their way to the top of the heap. Joined by other recent things that I thought of as I went along.

Dead Space
Was 50% off on Steam over the weekend. I've had my eye on it for a while, so it got snapped up. Survival horror on a derelict(?) space mining vessel. Not had much time to put into it as yet, but it's very impressive graphically. Very immersive. There are some pretty obvious signs of it being a console port, but I can tolerate those.

FEAR
FPS/Horror, again bought on Steam sale a little while back. It has a nice deliberate pace, and transitions between action sequences and spooky bits pretty nicely. Combat is nice and unforgiving, rewarding a careful approach. On the negative side, the environments are getting a bit repetitive a couple of hours in. Much as I admire the concrete texture, it's becoming rather familiar. Also, the plot is utter bobbins, although I suppose that's about what one expects from game writing of the unremarkable variety.

Torchlight
So, recent Diablo clone, rekindling my desires for running around semi-randomly-generated dungeons hacking monsters to bits for their treasure. It captures the old magic fairly well, although obviously it can't match Blizzard's production values. On normal difficulty it's pretty easy until you get down to the lower levels of the dungeon, where one encounters a "hockey-stick" type difficulty curve. So, fun, cheerful, but I can't see it holding up to the long term appeal of D2. And D3's coming out next year, right?

Peggle
Played far too much of this recently. Fun diversion, with a pleasant degree of randomness. I don't think I'm going to doggedly work at the challenge modes (I have both Deluxe and Nights) but it's fun to pick up for 15 minutes, or have the odd duel with a friend.

Geometry Wars
I still suck at this game. High scores only possible while under the influence.

Magic the Gathering : Online
I blame my guild master for introducing me to this. I used to play the dead tree version many years ago (Mirage/Visions era). This is a good implementation of the game, and it feels right, despite various major and not-so-major rules changes that have happened since my time (no mana burn WTF). Unfortunately Wizards have stuck to their Vampiric Overlord pricing model, so I don't think I'm likely to get into this seriously - just too expensive. Maybe pauper or something, but at the moment I'm leeching off his many accounts ;-)

Half-Life 2
Working on a couple of the titles, replaying through. In terms of storytelling this just blows away anything else made in the past ten years. Still looks great too.

Plants vs. Zombies
Ok, this is fun. I've only played the demo version, but I had a good laugh. Don't know if I can justify a purchase though, too much else to play.

World... of Warcraft
Most of my recent playtime has been coming out of my Warcraft commitments being much lower as of late. The guild is pretty much on hiatus until the next expansion comes out, so it's looking like a Lich King kill is beyond our reach, which is a real shame, having come through Naxx, getting server 2nd 10 man strict BQL kills, and then running out of steam and dying two bosses from the end. Such is life, and it was good fun ;-)

Starcraft II
I have serious guilt here, because I got into the beta but barely played it. Never really managed to get into any game which was online multiplayer-based... WoW excepted. Maybe it'll see some play when it's released. Certainly the single player campaign is going to be stunning - must remember to preorder


Dishonourable mentions
Supreme Commander II - what the hell happened here? Looks worse than the first game, removed the interesting resource mechanic, and ditches the semi-interesting universe and characters. Sigh.

This entry may make it seem like I do nothing but play games, which is untrue. I also go to work and sleep from time to time.

Ed.

( Cut for big pictarsCollapse )

So, went to see Robin Hood, courtesy of angrboda's tickets for two + popcorn and drinks. Must have been decades since I last had popcorn in a cinema :-)

In short, I enjoyed it a great deal, and would recommend it. Decently acted, story rattles along, if a little disjointedly in places. I laughed, I cried. Good photography, beautiful in places, and a lot of shots really feel like English countryside. Some amusingly disjointed geography, although nothing to rival Prince of Thieves. I watched Gladiator again recently, and although I quite like that film, I probably think this one is a little more balanced, works with a bit of a broader scope. Good fun.

Watched in digital projection, which seems to be rather common in Denmark, but still with cigarette burns... slightly confusing. Do they just scan the reels?