I’ve not beenfeeling well these last few days…

Not for the squeamish

Technological venus fly trap?…

[The Register]

Happy birthday alecm/alecmrss!

Well, it was the last full day down here in Cornwall for this visit.

The weather’s been mixed. This morning it was quite fine and mostly sunny, though the wind made it too cold to stay too long outside. However, it soon clouded over and by mid to late afternoon it was wet.

The iffy weather and the lack of anything else to do gave the opportunity to continue with Deus Ex. In fact it gave me the opportunity to actually finish it! I worked out that it took me 48 hours of continuous play to do so.

This evening I packed all the technical stuff into the bag and got everything ready for the morning. Well, all except the bag for my clothed with I’ll pack in the morning. It’s likely to take no more than about 10 minutes anyway.

The plan for tomorrow is to leave at around 10am and travel in convoy up to Sedgemoor services and have lunch. Afterwards I’ll go off a little ahead so as to have some time to clear my spare bedroom and unpack the car before my parents arrive.

Today I visited Meriel and Chris over at Carleen.

When I started the car to go over there my suspicions about the turbo going bad which I’ve had for a while were unfortunately proved correct. A plume of blue smoke was blown out of the exhaust and the engine ran roughly for about 30 seconds after starting as the oil which had seeped into the turbo got blown out. It looks like another big bill is on the way. This will be the second replacement turbo since the car was new. The previous one was fitted precisely two years ago, when the car was 18 months old. I think I kight have to budget for a new turbo every other Easter. (I’m guessing that a combination of winter and the pattern of driving I do is showing up some sort of design flaw.)

As for the visit to Meriel and Chris went, it was a good long chatting session. Meriel’s dad was visiting them and so I tried to keep the tech talk down to minimal levels.

With thw end of today that effectively ends my Easter break as it’s the last work day off.

Today has been blighted by a sinus headache which started last night. I ran out of paracetamol when I took the last one, a half dose, last night before I went to bed which wasn’t enough to get rid of the headache. Hence, I had a rather fitful and not very restful sleep.

This, plus the continuation of the headache or the other effects of the swollen sinuses made the day a bit of a wash out. The weather also didn’t help as that was a wash out as well.

What I did do, however, was to do a bit of shopping including buying more paracetamol.

Also, this evening I rummaged through a drawn containing a whole lot of stuff which has been in that draw since about 1985 looking for my geological map of the Lizard peninsula. Instead of finding that map I found a few others, loads of photos and, more importantly, my old (expired) passport. This should make the process of getting a new one a whole lot less problematic. I hope the passport office allow me to keep the old one as it was one of the last of the classic blue-black ones.

After a pretty uneventful morning we went out to Kennack Sands. Initially all three of us went for a walk along the beach but my mum decided that the paths were too much for her, so she returned to the car.

This left my dad and myslef to walk over the hill separating the two coves and then on to the cliffs at the far end which looked to me rather like the contact between the pyroxinite and the serpentinite (peridotite altered by hydration reactions) but it just turned out to be more highly weathered pyroxinite.

While I was looking at the outcrop and explaining the stuff to my dad a bloke came over and said that it sounded as if I knew a bit about this sort of stuff. I told him that I had a degree in geology and a conversation insued. It turned out that he was a math teacher from the west midlands.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, after the conversation we walked back to the car park via a circuitous route.

After tea, again there was nothing on telly so it was back to Deus Ex. I was wrong yesterday about being near the end. However, tonight I’ve got to the point where I have to battle Walton Simons, a similarly enhanced person. This seems like the beginning of the end game.

12:00: We’ve just had a phone call informing us of the sudden and unexpected death of uncle Bob in hospital overnight. We’ll probably have to travel back up country.

Well, it’s now 11:04pm and I’m still none the wiser about what is going to happen now that Bob’s passed away.

Anyway, seeing as I’m pretty powerless on that front I spent the day doing the things I would have done anyway.

After a bit more Deus Ex’ing before and after lunch I went off for a walk around the village and then back along the cliffs. In total it was an enjoyable walk of about an hour or so. Along the way I took a number of photos, as did my Dad who had borrowed my little Canon Ixus II camera. I’ve rather caught the sun on my face, unfortunately. I didn’t have a hat or suncream to put on before going out.

After the walk and tea, as there was nothing on the telly, it was back to Deus Ex. I think I’m quite close to the end now as I’ve finished the main part of the Vandenburgh base section and am now off to meet Page for the big showdown (I suspect). If it is the big showdown I image that I’m going to get stuck as I’m never any good at those sorts of things.

I got up with good intentions. I was truely not going to play with Deus Ex today and instead do other things. I failed.

Just before lunch I thought I’d just have a short little play, redoing something I did last night but in a better way which would leave my character with more life and ammunition left which would make continuing the game possible.

Throughout the afternoon I looked at my watch and meant to stop and then go out for a walk. It never happened. I finally stopped at 8pm. A little late for a walk outside in the sunshine. Oh well.

There’s always tomorrow.

Well, today’s been a mega spell of playing Deus Ex. I thing in total I’ve played about 14 hours.

I think I’ll give it a rest tomorrow as it’s getting a bit addictive. (I’m just going to bed and it’s gone 2am after just noticing the time.) Also, due to the way motion happens on screen, I’m getting a bit motion dazed. Ie. My eyes are having problem coping with real world head movements, though this could merely be tiredness.