15 September 2007

Not content with being a player on Neverwinter Nights, I've now started creating my own levels and taking on some duties as a Dungeon Master on my pal Dav's server. It's still in the beta stage, but it's a very different experience being in control of the game rather than being at the mercy of a DM!

More info on our NWN server can be found here.

2 September 2007

I've been making an effort to get a bit more exercise of late, and making the most of working in Colchester. One of my colleagues told me about a route along the river by my office that leads into the park and up to the castle so I've been out walking at lunch times instead of sitting around reading.

It's nice just to walk up there, sit down for five minutes and admire the castle then walk back to the office, it breaks the day up and gives me a chance to stretch my legs.

There are a couple of walks that I go on at home too, there's a park nearby which leads out on to some open fields. They don't seem to be private property (at least nobody has taken a shot at me yet) so I have been wandering around the "wild green yonder". It's very peaceful and relaxing as it's rare to see another person out there.

8 July 2007

Heh has it really been that long since my last entry? Either Ive been leading a totally unnoteworthy life, or Ive been spending all my time on FRC. Hmm maybe the the former due to the latter.

Anyway, here are a couple of photos from our trip to Marsh Farm on Friday. Nice little place to visit, have to admit we went mainly to see the piggies and we weren't disappointed!

We were surprised to hear what a racket pigs kick up when they are about to be fed, squeal squeal squeal oink! It's manic, I'm just glad we were in the next room at the time and didnt come in until the gates were opened and they were using their mouths for eating rather than oinking (or running up and down manically for no apparent reason).

2 December 2006

December already! Not sure what happened to November. Hmm maybe if I kept this journal up to date it would be easier to remember. Well I've been doing some Christmas shopping, got most of that sorted, and last week our work held it's annual "do a little something for charity" day, which consisted of our office team relocating to a warehouse for the day and helping pack & shift crates. It made a change to get out of the office but it was knackering work, and they chose the picture that I looked the goofiest in for the offical team photo, as you can see!

20 October 2006

Had a great day out yesterday, Sarah and I took her Dad to the Imperial War Museum in London. I've posted a review of the place itself in the visit guide section, so I won't duplicate myself here, but we had a great time. Lots of things to see and do, and we even got to put on military hats and strike a pose! Click on the photo to see the results! Afterwards we skipped the restaurant for a change and went for a pub meal instead, which was a tasty treat apart from the all the smoking.*cough splutter*

19 September 2006

Back to work -bah! Oh well, I had a good week off, as well as the two places mentioned below I visited Battlesbridge to look at the antiques shop and have some tasty food and went into London to do a bit of shopping and look at the tasty women. Spent most of the rest of my time online playing Forgotten Realms Cormyr. I've been playing a dwarf so much that I'm starting to think like one, and occasionally talk like one, which can be a bit embarrasing at work! Never one to do things by halves, and fancying a bit of a giggle I got Sarah to take a couple of photos of me to manipulate in PSP, click on the thumbnail to see the results!

13 September 2006

I'm half way through a week of annual leave, and it's really good to have some time off work, just trying to make the most of things. Yesterday we went to "Tropical Wings", which I believe started as a butteryfly house, and has now expanded to a mini-zoo with a decent sized site to walk around.

10 September 2006

We went to the Leigh-on-sea Regatta today, it's a two day event and I don't know what happened on the Saturday, but as far as regattas go, there didnt seems to be an awful lot of yacht racing. In fact, most of the boats in the harbour seemed to be fishing vessels, the only yachts I saw were moored a couple of miles away. Seemed like a bit of an excuse for a bunch of people to get together and try to flog stuff from dodgy market stalls whilst watching entertainment, namely a "local" live band and some scrappily dressed Morris dancers. Food was nice though!

27 July 2006

I managed to pick up a couple of copies of Neverwinter Nights cheap. I tried a demo when it came out a couple of years back and wasn't too impressed, but decided to give it another go as we're running out of games to play. Glad I did as it's a lot more fun as multiplayer game than in single player, been playing through the modules with Wiglet and trying out a few of the on-line worlds. I did try out the world-builder than came with the game, and got about a third of the way through the tutorial before my enthusiasm started to flag. Maybe something to get into once I've played the game a bit more.

22 May 2006

An excellent weekend, on Saturday we got to see H for the first time in ages, he’s put me straight on some of the finer points of downloading from the internet, and we managed to have a couple of hours of three playing gaming, which was great fun. Sunday we went to the Cheshunt traders fair. Not been there for ages and it was good to visit again, but the fools had somehow managed to double book the hall. The usually cramped stalled were now squashed up into one half the usual area, the other half initially being used as a badminton court! We left when the badminton players finished and a bouncy castle started to be inflated! As you can see from the photo, the original K9 was there, which Sarah and I were thrilled about, both being big fans. Managed to pick up a bunch of Korean/HK/Japanese DVDs cheap, most of which I’d not heard of before, but looked classy from the (broken) English on the back!

16 May 2006

Lagging behind the times as usual, I’ve only just got round to having broadband installed. Even then, it was my job that forced my hand, having the option of working from home a couple of days a week rather than driving to Colchester was too appealing to miss out on. I seem to get more work done at home too; not having to answer other people’s ringing phones is a godsend. Not done much else with the broadband connection as yet, going to look into downloading MP3s and anime episodes, but not really sure where to start.

14 April 2006

Ah! Easter! A well earned four days off work! The last few months have been stressful, and the last couple of weeks especially manic. As our new office isn't ready yet I've been working from home when I can and visiting temporary offices to allow me to get the on-line work done. I've sat at four different offices in the space of a fortnight, most of which have been a real pain to drive to, one of which I feared for my life en route to and from!

28 March 2006

Some accountant somewhere has decided that the office I was working at is to close and since we all refused to be relocated to the alternate office management suggested, they've had to find somewhere else for us. At the moment that somewhere else is Colchester, but that office isn't likely to be usuable for work for another few weeks (months?). So we're crating up all our files and equipment, not knowing when or when they will be unpacked.

24 March 2006

With all the shake ups planned for work, I'll no longer be able to get to my allocated office by train, so I've been given a company car. I was driving a Mondeo hire car to get back into the swing of driving but that was tricky as it's so much bigger than our Micra. I've opted for a Ford Focus Titanium, being smaller it's easier to maneouvre, much needed with the excellent strategy my neighbours employ of parking five cars in the turning area of the road.

21 January 2006

I've solved the ages old problem of giving up on New Years resolutions after a couple of weeks by not making any this year! We did have some plans to see a couple of films at the cinema but having found out about them I've been put off. "March of the Penguins" looks great, we love penguins but I heard some of the narration and it almost made me retch, think I'll wait for the DVD and turn the sound off. "Memoirs of a Geisha" similiarly looks beautiful but seems too Americanised and I'm really not happy about the failure to cast Japanese actresses in the three lead female roles! Still, the movie has lead to several Japan-orientated films and documentaries being shown on TV, which I'm happy about.

2 January 2006

Happy New Year! We had some snow here, it looks quite pretty, shame it wasn't a few days earlier as we would have had a White Christmas for the first time in years. We stood in our back garden and watched the fireworks to see the New Year in, it was a decent display this year, less of the "whizz bang" type than there was last year.

I've written an end of year circular again this year that you can read by clicking here.