I keep meaning to write stuff most every night, but end up shuffling off to bed without doing it.

Right.

Firstly, for those that care, Google has added some more imagery. My old home town is now in very good resolution, but more importantly the vast majority of Scotland is now high resolution. This includes places like Saddell, Kinlochmoidart, and Loch Carron. Some places like Gargunnock that were high resolution before also got new imagery too. There are other updates, but it'd be silly to list them all.

So, next week is the Lost season finale, and it looks to be very good. It's also the Eurovision Song Contest, which I'll watch online since they are offering that again this year. That should be fun. I'm still favoring Bosnia and Herzegovina, although I'd be very tempted to vote for Estonia .. or maybe Norway or Ireland. My top four still haven't really changed. Next week is also the House finale, but I'm always a week off on watching that, so I actually still have two weeks left there.

Work's not bad I guess. We're behind, but I expressed a strong aim to get our group caught up my boss laughed and said 'good luck!' I think we can do it, but it did let up some pressure that he might be really unhappy with it all. The whole project is behind, really.

Things have almost progressed to where I can move upstairs. I WELCOME this heartily! I really need to get away from the guy who uses the speakerphone ALL OF THE TIME because I'm sick of hearing about his timeshare condo problems and how he's arranging to have some work done on his house. I'll also welcome getting away from the guy with the sister who has huge issues. I get tired of her calling every day. When he's not at his desk, in all seriousness, she calls two times in a row a few seconds apart and then waits sometimes as long as 30 seconds before calling again. This will go on for many long minutes before she apparently gets tired and takes a nap. One of the other people in the office tried answering the phone to explain that the guy was not in the office, but as I expected it didn't work.

I'm late with it because I was busy in LotRO last night. Still...

For Young Ones fans..
House!
House!
House!
Oh you're made of stone.
But you're not a lone-ly House.
I am here!
I've got myself a walking, talking, living, walking, living doll!

It's the lads' House!

Or you can take a look at The Kebab and Calculator.

After waiting so long, I was a little surprised that I ran out of things to take a look at. I've gone through and looked at former houses of folks and generally sifted through all of the updates. Fun!

In addition to there now being a lot of UK cities, The Netherlands has some updates and the USA also got even more coverage.

I've felt poorly the past few nights when going to bed, but I assumed I was simply more tired than usual. This morning I couldn't stop shivering and after I'd had my shower I had to admit that I was lightly feverish. I slept most of the morning, and finally not long before noon the fever, such as it was, broke. My hips and neck were still aching a little and I still have a light headache. I can't really tell if it's over, but I certainly never felt bad. Hopefully getting the extra sleep today instead of dragging myself into work will keep anything bad at bay.

I'd not mentioned it yet, but Google Earth did another image update over the weekend. As always it will be a few more days before Google Maps gets the update. Edinburgh and the surrounding area is now shown using images taken on July 21, 2008. Newcastle also got an update to images taken on July 23, 2008. Also, much of the area between Edinburgh and Glasgow is now in high resolution, the exception being a patch that includes part of Bannockburn and another patch south of Falkirk. I won't go into the details of the other updates.

When Turbine announced the test server, I downloaded the client and gave it a shot. I'm quite happy with the changes they've made to the starting areas and the XP curve. I also like that they display your ';loc' at the top under the mini-map image. Nice! I'm hoping they don't delay much in getting Vol 2 Book 7 live.

Google slipped in an Easter Egg into the imagery for a street in Pittsburgh. It was clearly just as obvious as the images around their main campus near San Francisco that it was a setup. I'll start you on your way and you can find everything on your own if you like, or you can just open up the text and see everything I've found.

Here we are at the beginning. Just keep going east down this street. Some things are obvious, some are not.

The people who did this called it Street With a View. Their website includes credits and a list of scenes.

A 'making of' video about the project.
A video of the car passing, made from the fire escape.

( Under here is a list of things I found with links. Only look here if you want spoilers )

This post will have a few tidbits up front and then discuss the new Warden class.

( I should cut this because it got long. )

Earlier this week, Turbine released people in the Moria closed beta from our NDA. People who read this probably had an idea, at the very least, that this is what I was doing. I'll take some time to talk briefly about the expansion in general first.

Keep in mind that beta is still going on, so some of this might change before it goes live.

I was worried the place would be dull with every cavern looking like another. Their lore people kept after folks that this was a KINGDOM enough so that the important caverns are vast. They are also distinct. I know right away where I am when I log in to the game, even without looking at any map names. If you want to see what some of the areas look like, my LotRO image page which is a bit sparse at the moment. I also have up a video of my Warden in action. I'm fighting an admin type who is in a heavily modified troll. I'm sorry the video is in WMV format and nearly 3MB, but all I have is the Microsoft Movie Maker. I'm actually killed by the fall before I hit the ground. This is also an issue in Moria as the dwarves did not believe in railings.

Most of the primary content was designed to be solo content, with the ability to group up to make things go faster. In addition to the basic sets of quests, there are a lot of excellent solo-only instances, 3-person instances, and 6-person instances. Some of these are very challenging and a lot of fun to complete. They've also introduced 'hard mode' in some of the instances, requiring you to complete certain parts of the instance in a short period of time.

The legendary weapons do add a new wrinkle, but you WILL have to take your time to level them up before they get really great of course. You can level up six at a time and need not have them equipped for that. The legacies (bonuses) on each weapon are random, so you'll just have to work at it to find one you like. The relics that you slot for additional bonuses will be mostly up to you, however. You'll receive a Third Age weapon as part of the book quests, and will easily be able to get more later. Second Age weapons are rarer, but worth the upgrade when one becomes available to you. I saw some First Age weapons shown in chat, but I have no idea what one will have to do in order to get one of those. I can only presume they'll be in live, too.

I watched a section of the ending of the landing online. It makes things so much more interesting to watch the telemetry room while everything is going on.

Here are two more ads, both of which were in pretty much every Dragon Magazine that I recall reading. I didn't really count my reading experience complete until I'd run across them.

( The two ads.... )

I've been going through some of my old stuff, ostensibly looking for things to throw out. Of course I throw out little but spend time perusing old magazines and game books. Some of the ads amuse me, so I'll be scanning ads in over time and posting them now and again.

( GenCon #18, 1985 as seen in Dragon Magazine )

It was a strange week in some ways. Work's fine, though my coworker who broke his arm throwing a baseball was still out all week.

Friday we went out for BBQ at Willard's. Yah, it was pretty awesome as always. I had the blackened tips platter, mmmmm! Got to see a Lamborghini Gallardo in the parking lot. I suspect it was a rental, but ya never know I guess.

Friday was also the latest installment of the Weird Drink Day. Last time we had yogurt soda, which was soundly declared even worse than the pine bud drink I brought in. This week's offerings were varied. The sugar cane drink was unpleasant. The Turkish sour cherry drink was awesome. Then, we brought out the interesting one. Someone has a friend who imports coffee. She persuaded him to give her a bag of Luwak coffee. At $35 for a 2oz bag, I doubted I'd ever bother trying this stuff. As it turns out, coffee that's been eaten and then pooped by a civet isn't bad. The coffee drinkers really liked it, though even they didn't think it was worth the prices being charged. I thought it was good coffee, but I'm not a big coffee drinker so it didn't impress me much. I drank it black and it wasn't bitter, I must admit.

There's one item to check off off of my list of things I considered doing but didn't think I ever would. :)

On my way home, I found my supermarket had definitely had a Friday 13th as they'd lost power for several hours and blocked off access to their freezer section so customers would't pick up anything that'd unfrozen on the chance it had spoiled. whee. Thus I'm having some of their soup and Campbell's chili this weekend. Although the Campbell's Firehouse Chili is more like Garden-hose chili, it's very tasty all the same.

I've not played my 50 Hunter in LotRO much lately. I got sick of trying to get into raids. My minstrel, though, is almost 40 now.

I forgot to say that before, but figured it was worth saying it on its own. :)

Looooooooooong weekend for me! Traffic's been great the past two days, so I guess most people did take off Monday and Tuesday. I don't get that because to me it's a bit depressing to return to work after a big holiday. I'd rather START a long weekend with BBQ and fireworks. I won't complain, though, as it's always nice to have a light commute.

Work's been ok of late. My boss finally got back from Amsterdam. The coworker who broke his arm finally showed up again, but only stayed for a half day. Apparently he managed to break his humerus while throwing a pitch. I figured it was a collision or fall injury.

I have been having fun leveling up alts in LotRO, although I had ZERO interest in it tonight.

We broke with tradition today and went for Indian food at Minerva today instead of Friday since, well, none of us would be around Friday. I was highly pleased that they had gulab jamun there. :) We've also gone to Picante a couple of times now. Their tortilla soup is awesome. Everything we've had is well above par. Their prices are higher than you'd expect for most Mexican places, but they really do use much better ingredients and keep the quality high. Their 'beef fajita burrito' is truly awesome.

I don't think much of interest will be going on this week. I have a meeting downtown near L'Enfant Plaza, but it's more a matter of reviewing work from other people. Things are going reasonably well about a redesign of some current code. Well, they WERE going well. Late on Friday I realized we'd left a massive hole in the idea behind it. It's not impossible, but the solution will prove to be far less elegant than we'd hoped. ugh.

I've been enjoying doing a large variety of things in LotRO lately. I've been into the new Raid instance, Helegrod. I've done quite well in PvP. I've added to some of my traits. I've run pies all over the Shire. I couldn't resist getting screenshots of the level 50 Hunter, PvP Guardsman with a star-and-a-half carrying a pie. :) I'm trying to ignore another miserable attempt to rate their quests. They have one that's solo which indeed can be done solo, but to get to the instance you have to get past the 30 foot tall orcs and trolls first. right. solo.

Yesterday I worked from home so that my front door could be measured for the replacement. It can't happen too soon.

On arriving the guy handed me a package that was on my doorstep. It turned out to be my 10 year anniversary gift from my company. The binoculars are tiny, very portable, and not terribly powerful. They're still fairly nifty though. (Simmons brand) The Swiss Army knife is a fairly spiffy model though. It's a proper one, not some knockoff too. That's pretty close to it, although mine has a 'hook' and no ballpoint pen.

Today, quite a few people were out. Ah well. I got some stuff done and chatted about some of the other projects. All in all, it was a decent day up until it was time to go home. That's when the first round of storms came through. I saw lightning arc down to the ground 3 times. Two of them were just across the creek and road in a park. I've never seen that happen so close to me before. There were several others that weren't too far away either. I had to stop for groceries where I heard it wasn't too bad here. 'Whew,' I though. On arriving home I noticed a bit of shingle material laying on the roof. Of course, it COULD be from a previous damage incident. I didn't see anything missing and wandered to the back of the house where I stood in amazement at the huge chunk of tree which, yet again, BARELY missed my house. I wonder again if I should just have these massive trees taken down before they crush something. :( I like them though ... I'd miss them. I'd not miss worrying about them in these rough storms though. This is a large section of tree, the heaviest portion of which has a diameter of around 4 inches I'd guess. It's huge, and it fell from nearly the top of this very tall tree. Well, I still can see no damage to any shingles at all. I've certainly got serious work ahead of me to cut this thing up by hand though.

The past few days I tried out the Monster Play and found it rather boring. The LotRO monsters don't have the number of options as Free People charactes have. You can rapidly earn Destiny Points, but it hardly matters given the best place to spend them is in Monster Play.

I've sealed the crack on my door frame, and it's holding well. I'm annoyed now that I missed it for long enough to damage the wall by the door. I kept thinking it was a bad repair job that was doing that. I also can't stand the front door and am eager for the people to get on with the outside work on my house, but it won't happen for a couple of weeks yet. The stupid door was stuck fairly hard today due to the heat.

Also, I lost power not long after getting home. THANKFULLY, I got my groceries inside before the skies opened. Amusingly, I got bored enough while I waited to ponder going over to Dream Wizards. They usually have power when I don't. However, cheetahmaster points out that they too lost power tonight. Well, clearly I got power back and now my house is not grossly muggy and I'm a bit more content.

Work wasn't bad, but sometimes I'm so darn BORED with it.

We went out to Minerva again today. It's a pretty darn good Indian buffet. Man, I love gulab jamun! Ok, yes, their entire buffet (mmm, Makhani chicken) is darn good, but those sweet little desserts are just awesome.

Actually, my char dinged 50 on Monday night, but I didn't feel like posting then. He's also a Guardsman with a star. I've been busy.

I have put up some sealant on the crack next to my front door. I am still thinking this crack was letting in water into my wall and letting the gritty wall stuff to ooze out, but 'bugs' are still in the back of my mind too. However, I saw no bugs around the holes at all, so I think they're just cracks from the door frame flexing so much. There are certainly cracks along the top and bottom. I'm actually looking at forwarding putting new siding on the house to try and tackle a slew of annoyances I have, and thus putting off new shingles and furnace until next year.

Life's ok really. No major complains. I even slept fairly well last night, gosh!

Things aren't so bad. I wish I wasn't experiencing so much sleep apnea, but I am figuring that turning on the AC and slowly getting the last of this sinus stuff out of my system will help a bit.

The primary issue contributing to my not posting as much as normal is simply that I play a lot of LotRO these days. In fact, last night I got in with folks who went into the Carn Dûm area. I thought we'd been inside it for a while when I realized we'd spent an hour wading through orcs and trolls just to get to it. :) Oof. Well, I suppose that's no surprise to those used to WoW raiding. My main character is up to 48 as of tonight. I also tried some PvP over the long weekend and enjoyed it. I was amazed at how DAoC-like it was. Of course I was playing a Free Person who are vastly outnumbered right now. (much like Albion was in DAoC so much of the time) It ended up with us hiding behind a keep and NPC guards and jumping out from behind protection to fire a few arrows only to jump back behind protection. Again, this is basically how many of my fights in DAoC went. We did have some good brawls, though, so it was all fine.


I'm mostly over the cold now. It's a shame that it seemed to be making the rounds by hitting several of you all. :(

I noticed that Local Live got an update to Virginia and Maryland so that they're much more recent images. Also, at some point they put in all of Germany in fairly decent resolution. It's not up to Google Earth standards, but it's at least complete. (G.E. is missing some of the extreme northern and southern parts of Germany)

I continue to feel unpleasantly ill. Head stuffed. Nose running. Tired. Wiped.

I am going to make the attempt to get in to work tomorrow at least for a while. I hope.

oy.

Yesterday I thought I was dealing with an allergy, but no. I realized on the way home that my throat was getting sore and my right ear was closing up a bit. Whee. My fever broke last night, but I need sleep that does not entail waking up every 15 minutes (or less) with my body/brain suddenly screaming that my breathing is labored. Not that it is, but my sinuses and throat are not in the best of shape right now and that triggers the sleeping problem.

LotRO continues to be fun and I continue to let it suck up lots of available time.

Work is improving and is less boring, which is fine.

I did find out that my car IS exempt from emissions testing. They simply didn't enter it into the system correctly, so I need to drag my sorry, sick self to the testing center tomorrow to get it removed. If I still feel too ill, I'll just phone for an extension. I doubt I'd have to pay a penny even if I was late, simply because my car shouldn't have been pegged for testing in the first place.

Looking forward to the extra long weekend as I was already taking Friday off. I'm more looking forward to being healthy though.