Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Monday, 7 March 2011
Thursday, 2 December 2010
1st - 2nd December Challenge
Let me first start off by saying something. I’m a writer. It’s very easy for me, as an individual to create something from the air and to express it through writing. Whether that’s by jotting the ideas down into a book, or opening a new file on my laptop; either way, the job gets done.
Unfortunately, for me, over the past two months, my muse wells have run completely dry. I haven’t felt this in a long time and the thought that I am not being as creative as I’d like is utterly depressing.
So, in order to combat this immense writers block, I am undertaking a small yet personal challenge for myself and I hope I get supported in doing so. I am going to write in my blog, everything that happens to me over the course of this month of December, it’s basically keeping a diary of everything that goes on in my daily life but it’s more about putting the words to paper (or rather keypad in this example) to help overcome this problem.
Therefore, without further due, I give you my life.
Yesterday was a bit of an adventure for me personally, I had taken the day off from work because I was invited to a job interview for the local railway network. I was contacted the week before from out of the blue by a woman asking if I was interested in a position now available. Now normally I wouldn’t have had a problem with this, after all I had spent the whole of this year trying to get interviews for a job, any job. But the problem was that at the same time I was being offered an interview, my current boss in the job I work with at the moment was offering me a part time position as a weekend supervisor.
It was at this point where I struggled with my decisions, should I go for the interview and if I got the job just leave my temp one. Or do I take the new supervisor job, a role that I wasn’t fully comfortable with. I had far to many questions buzzing in my head at the time, yet with good reason though.
I’m a simple man, I like my jobs easy and straight-forward, and whenever I feel that my control of a situation is sliping, then I panic.
Anyway, I digress.
In the end, I spoke to my current boss who encouraged me to take the interview anyway, in fact, quite alot of people said the same thing, and they were right after all. Nothing bad ever happened from just having an interview; you show your face, shake your fanny about and leave. And if they liked your fanny enough, they’ll call you back and say you got the job.
So around 2 o’clock yesterday, I boarded a train from my hometown and headed into a direction I have never travelled to before, Ipswich. The journey took about 40 minutes, leaving me plenty of time to find the Customer services booth where I needed to sign in.
I was right behind a person who stepped inside first and introduced himself by name and that he was here for an interview. I quickly realised that he currently works for the company already, seeing as he spoke to the staff members as an equal. I then signed in after him and was told to wait right there until I was called. Thirty minutes passed and two more interviewees arrived, the small booth was getting very busy all of a sudden.
Finally, me and the man (who’s name was John) were sent upstairs to wait for someone to see us, and so we waited for another half an hour. It was nerve-racking, and hte only good thing was talking to John. He was a nice bloke and I hope he got the job because he kinda needed it.
Anyway, eventually someone poked their head of a door and asked who I was, after a miscommunication, it turned out that I was originally put down as a NO SHOW, which was bullshit because I arrived perfectly on time. So I had an interview with the world’s most....apathic man ever. All I can remember thinking during gthe whole thing was wanting to come home, it just seemed like a waste of time, almost as if I shouldn’t have bothered in the first place.
So, yeah. That was yesterday, today however was rather mellow. I had a late shift for work which was easy to do, but I was determined to write this blog out during the day so I had something to show for my muse. So here we are. I know nothing particular interesting happened today, but here we are. These are my writings and I hope they help.
Unfortunately, for me, over the past two months, my muse wells have run completely dry. I haven’t felt this in a long time and the thought that I am not being as creative as I’d like is utterly depressing.
So, in order to combat this immense writers block, I am undertaking a small yet personal challenge for myself and I hope I get supported in doing so. I am going to write in my blog, everything that happens to me over the course of this month of December, it’s basically keeping a diary of everything that goes on in my daily life but it’s more about putting the words to paper (or rather keypad in this example) to help overcome this problem.
Therefore, without further due, I give you my life.
Yesterday was a bit of an adventure for me personally, I had taken the day off from work because I was invited to a job interview for the local railway network. I was contacted the week before from out of the blue by a woman asking if I was interested in a position now available. Now normally I wouldn’t have had a problem with this, after all I had spent the whole of this year trying to get interviews for a job, any job. But the problem was that at the same time I was being offered an interview, my current boss in the job I work with at the moment was offering me a part time position as a weekend supervisor.
It was at this point where I struggled with my decisions, should I go for the interview and if I got the job just leave my temp one. Or do I take the new supervisor job, a role that I wasn’t fully comfortable with. I had far to many questions buzzing in my head at the time, yet with good reason though.
I’m a simple man, I like my jobs easy and straight-forward, and whenever I feel that my control of a situation is sliping, then I panic.
Anyway, I digress.
In the end, I spoke to my current boss who encouraged me to take the interview anyway, in fact, quite alot of people said the same thing, and they were right after all. Nothing bad ever happened from just having an interview; you show your face, shake your fanny about and leave. And if they liked your fanny enough, they’ll call you back and say you got the job.
So around 2 o’clock yesterday, I boarded a train from my hometown and headed into a direction I have never travelled to before, Ipswich. The journey took about 40 minutes, leaving me plenty of time to find the Customer services booth where I needed to sign in.
I was right behind a person who stepped inside first and introduced himself by name and that he was here for an interview. I quickly realised that he currently works for the company already, seeing as he spoke to the staff members as an equal. I then signed in after him and was told to wait right there until I was called. Thirty minutes passed and two more interviewees arrived, the small booth was getting very busy all of a sudden.
Finally, me and the man (who’s name was John) were sent upstairs to wait for someone to see us, and so we waited for another half an hour. It was nerve-racking, and hte only good thing was talking to John. He was a nice bloke and I hope he got the job because he kinda needed it.
Anyway, eventually someone poked their head of a door and asked who I was, after a miscommunication, it turned out that I was originally put down as a NO SHOW, which was bullshit because I arrived perfectly on time. So I had an interview with the world’s most....apathic man ever. All I can remember thinking during gthe whole thing was wanting to come home, it just seemed like a waste of time, almost as if I shouldn’t have bothered in the first place.
So, yeah. That was yesterday, today however was rather mellow. I had a late shift for work which was easy to do, but I was determined to write this blog out during the day so I had something to show for my muse. So here we are. I know nothing particular interesting happened today, but here we are. These are my writings and I hope they help.
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Random
Ever wonder where some of your old entries disappear to on the world wide web after going on holiday for a week.
I swear I had more entries in this bad-boy yet all I see if three. Grrr... I'll sort it all out and have some more reviews written up at some point.
I swear I had more entries in this bad-boy yet all I see if three. Grrr... I'll sort it all out and have some more reviews written up at some point.
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
The Death of Left 4 Dead 2?
I am a frantic gamer, I love to play, both offline and online. Perhaps one of my most favourite games of all time has to be Left 4 Dead 2. It’s now been over a year since it’s release and I still play it from time to time and enjoy it greatly.
Although since the set of incidents from last night, I feel as though that game nowhere near comes close to being fun any more. Let me explain.
I get invited by my friend to a game of versus so I’m sitting in the lobby for ten minutes, waiting for 3 more players to appear. Sure enough, after a while all three appear together and immediately I knew I was in trouble. They all appeared together and set about being Infected too quickly for it all to be convenient.
Sure enough, my friend loads the lobby up, we get in-game and immediately there’s a black window coming up, with three votes right away to kick me from the game to make way for their fourth team-member.
That’s game one. Let me just summarise the rest of the night for you all right now.
Game 2 – Scavenge game, on the Port level. My ping immediately reads 600 but after a few seconds to calm down, it returned to a 49 or so. But when the action picked up, a Lag-Bomb exploded and my ping exceeded 4000. Funny enough, I was then immediately kicked from the game.
Game 3 – Scavenge game, on the Atrium Mall. I join and see that my team has two people on it, shooting each other and running around setting all the gas cans on fire. Attempts to kick them proved pointlessly and so I left the game.
Game 4 – Scavenge Game, on the Atrum Mall. I join from the Infected side. One of my team members has been spawned as a Hunter and runs and walks around with the other team. They don’t shot him or anything so I immediately figure he’s one of them, he’s a pub stomper. Again, attempts to kick him were pointless as someone on my team refuses to part with him. I get frustrated at this point, but my rage-quit moment was after catching someone with my tongue who was alone somewhere, that said Hunter in question appears and slashes me and my tongue, freeing his comrade who then in turn kills me immediately.
At this point, I turned the game off from the PC. I was getting so frustrated that I had to chill out. I came to the living room with my partner and explained what had happened. It came to the conclusion that we should see if Griefing and Bad-Match-Making systems applied to the 360 Version of Left 4 Dead 2. So I start that up, and immediately start having problems.
Game 5 & 6 – I was immediately hit by lag spikes that only seemed to affect myself and my team-mates. So I left these games to look for new ones.
Game 7 – Finally getting somewhere, I enjoy a full game of Scavenge and we lose by a single point. That doesn’t matter, I want to play. But when we vote for a rematch, everyone says No, we return to lobby and EVERYONE quits, leaving me and the lobby leader scratching our heads.
Game 8 – A good set of games for Scavenge, the other team goes through a bad series of rage-quits so I decide to go very easy on them, making silly mistakes and taking my time till they get a full team again. After all, I didn’t want them all to rage quit and lose the server. But in doing nothing, I earn a Kick Message from one of my team-mates and Three Yes’. I think at this point I started to swear a lot.
Game 9 – All I can say for this one is “Lobby Rage” My team is winning the match by 2 – 0. During the third bout, a message appears on the side, asking to return to Lobby and then to Change Maps. I call this Lobby Rage because they know they can’t win, so they buy time to get a map they’re good at, kick weaker team-mates to bring friends in and then start all over again. Suffice to say, *my* team-mates have enough of the affair and quit themselves.
Game 10 – A match on Scavenge in the Mall. The first thing I hear when I boot in is “HELP ME YOU RETARD!!!” I press to play, turn around and notice half of my team is dead, Ellis is being hunted right beside me and I’ve only 20 HP left. I immediately try to help the Ellis person, but all I can hear is the screaming “YOU’RE F**KING USELESS, HELP ME! WHY DON’T’ YOU HELP ME YOU F**KING TO**ER!”
As I must say, screaming into the mic isn’t going to make me help you any less or any faster. But before I can rescue him in time, I am downed myself and immediately put up for Kick by the screaming idiot.
Game 11 – FINALLY, this was my game! We had even-matched teams, average players and good coordination. We all played well and enjoyed ourselves and only stopped playing when it got late and had to go to bed.
My question however has to be this. Why does it nowadays take 11 attempts to find a decent game on Left 4 Dead 2? Why can’t we have control over match-making sessions, why can’t we play the game and not act like a dick doing it? It’s a difficult set of questions, but after last night. I begin to ponder the answers myself.
Although since the set of incidents from last night, I feel as though that game nowhere near comes close to being fun any more. Let me explain.
I get invited by my friend to a game of versus so I’m sitting in the lobby for ten minutes, waiting for 3 more players to appear. Sure enough, after a while all three appear together and immediately I knew I was in trouble. They all appeared together and set about being Infected too quickly for it all to be convenient.
Sure enough, my friend loads the lobby up, we get in-game and immediately there’s a black window coming up, with three votes right away to kick me from the game to make way for their fourth team-member.
That’s game one. Let me just summarise the rest of the night for you all right now.
Game 2 – Scavenge game, on the Port level. My ping immediately reads 600 but after a few seconds to calm down, it returned to a 49 or so. But when the action picked up, a Lag-Bomb exploded and my ping exceeded 4000. Funny enough, I was then immediately kicked from the game.
Game 3 – Scavenge game, on the Atrium Mall. I join and see that my team has two people on it, shooting each other and running around setting all the gas cans on fire. Attempts to kick them proved pointlessly and so I left the game.
Game 4 – Scavenge Game, on the Atrum Mall. I join from the Infected side. One of my team members has been spawned as a Hunter and runs and walks around with the other team. They don’t shot him or anything so I immediately figure he’s one of them, he’s a pub stomper. Again, attempts to kick him were pointless as someone on my team refuses to part with him. I get frustrated at this point, but my rage-quit moment was after catching someone with my tongue who was alone somewhere, that said Hunter in question appears and slashes me and my tongue, freeing his comrade who then in turn kills me immediately.
At this point, I turned the game off from the PC. I was getting so frustrated that I had to chill out. I came to the living room with my partner and explained what had happened. It came to the conclusion that we should see if Griefing and Bad-Match-Making systems applied to the 360 Version of Left 4 Dead 2. So I start that up, and immediately start having problems.
Game 5 & 6 – I was immediately hit by lag spikes that only seemed to affect myself and my team-mates. So I left these games to look for new ones.
Game 7 – Finally getting somewhere, I enjoy a full game of Scavenge and we lose by a single point. That doesn’t matter, I want to play. But when we vote for a rematch, everyone says No, we return to lobby and EVERYONE quits, leaving me and the lobby leader scratching our heads.
Game 8 – A good set of games for Scavenge, the other team goes through a bad series of rage-quits so I decide to go very easy on them, making silly mistakes and taking my time till they get a full team again. After all, I didn’t want them all to rage quit and lose the server. But in doing nothing, I earn a Kick Message from one of my team-mates and Three Yes’. I think at this point I started to swear a lot.
Game 9 – All I can say for this one is “Lobby Rage” My team is winning the match by 2 – 0. During the third bout, a message appears on the side, asking to return to Lobby and then to Change Maps. I call this Lobby Rage because they know they can’t win, so they buy time to get a map they’re good at, kick weaker team-mates to bring friends in and then start all over again. Suffice to say, *my* team-mates have enough of the affair and quit themselves.
Game 10 – A match on Scavenge in the Mall. The first thing I hear when I boot in is “HELP ME YOU RETARD!!!” I press to play, turn around and notice half of my team is dead, Ellis is being hunted right beside me and I’ve only 20 HP left. I immediately try to help the Ellis person, but all I can hear is the screaming “YOU’RE F**KING USELESS, HELP ME! WHY DON’T’ YOU HELP ME YOU F**KING TO**ER!”
As I must say, screaming into the mic isn’t going to make me help you any less or any faster. But before I can rescue him in time, I am downed myself and immediately put up for Kick by the screaming idiot.
Game 11 – FINALLY, this was my game! We had even-matched teams, average players and good coordination. We all played well and enjoyed ourselves and only stopped playing when it got late and had to go to bed.
My question however has to be this. Why does it nowadays take 11 attempts to find a decent game on Left 4 Dead 2? Why can’t we have control over match-making sessions, why can’t we play the game and not act like a dick doing it? It’s a difficult set of questions, but after last night. I begin to ponder the answers myself.
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