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Asides

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Chris M.
| December 31st, 2018

Possibly against my better judgement, I’m back on Twitter with a “new” account, pretty much starting as a blank slate. This will initially be 3 month trial, kept pretty close to just hobby content, to see whether a fresh start will be easier to keep under control and be less of a drag on my mood. If it doesn’t work then this account will get the chop too.

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Chris M.
| December 27th, 2018

This bus that I’m on smells very strongly of damp and mould ?

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Chris M.
| December 22nd, 2018

I took a trip with the family to the Christmas village today; before we left, one of the girls insisted, almost to the point of tears, that she wear her little sparkly shoes with a heel, rather than the warmer and more sensible boots. Eventually I gave in, as it wasn’t that big a deal.

At the village she queued up for the helter-skelter ride with her sister. When the attendant checked their heights, she just crossed the minimum height line thanks to her shoes, and she skipped onto the ride totally pleased with herself. It was like she knew before we left the house she would need the extra height.

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Chris M.
| December 20th, 2018

I quite like Indigenous for iOS as a light “micro-post” client for the blog, but I wish it had more post types and options when posting from the iOS share sheet.

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Chris M.
| December 17th, 2018

As it’s the end of the year, and I have some free time, I’m experimenting again with integrating some IndieWeb ideas into my blog. If things look a bit rough around the edges, it should be temporary while I integrate everything into the design and my workflow.

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Chris M.
| November 1st, 2018

A few summary thoughts, now I’ve managed to play Red Dead Redemption 2 for a few hours

  • The visuals are stunning, in a grim and gritty, “totally the opposite of Odyssey” kind of way.
  • The story is compelling, so far, and as it’s mostly told through brief interactions with other characters, leaves me wanting more.
  • It very much feels like a “slow burn” kind of game. Nothing yet has happened at any sort of pace. For the most part, this is great. But it gets annoying when other characters are trying to hurry you along but Arthur Morgan moves and performs actions with the speed of a tranquillised sloth…
  • The controls are very different to every other game I’ve played this year, so I find myself pressing the wrong button constantly.
  • Some mechanics in the game seem unnecessarily finicky and/or just plain unnecessary.
  • The skinning animation is unnecessarily gratuitous.
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Chris M.
| September 19th, 2018

If, like me, you tried to activate your LTE-enabled Apple Watch Series 3 on Vodafone UK, immediately after upgrading to WatchOS 5, you’ll have been met with a bunch of errors. It turns out that Friday 21st September is the day that everything gets switched on at the Vodafone end to allow you to sign up. No word yet on pricing.

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Chris M.
| September 13th, 2018

I ended up saying “holy shit” during the Apple iPhone event way more than I expected. Nearly all of it on stuff most consumers aren’t going to care about…

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Chris M.
| September 3rd, 2018

5:06am — wake up because I had a panic attack in a dream. As in, I dreamt I had a panic attack, without actually having a panic attack.

6:20am — still awake. Alarm goes off. It starts raining.

7:59am — arrive at stop for second bus of the day, due at 8:05am.

8:20am — bus still hasn’t arrived. Grab an alternative, which means I have further to walk to the office. In the rain.

9:10am — printer refuses to print something which needs to be in colour in anything but greyscale.

9:30am — no update from remote team on an application change which should have been finished 3 weeks ago. Write solution in 30 minutes, out of sheer annoyance.

11:32am — realise I’ve left my new workbench out in the rain.

How’s your Monday going?

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Chris M.
| September 2nd, 2018

Somehow it took an entire can of Chaos Black spray to undercoat my Armies on Parade board, but the following Mechanicus Standard Grey only took a fraction of a can? (judging by weight)

Both were all over sprays that covered every part of the board. How odd.

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Chris M.
| August 30th, 2018

I’ve been booking a trip to the Harry Potter Studio Tour for later this year, and it’s been a comedy of errors. First I booked a non-refundable room a week too early, so had to rebook – essentially paying double. That one was totally on me. Next, the airline’s payment system wouldn’t connect to PayPal, and when I tried my physical card it wouldn’t accept it as the correct card type for some reason. Now some of the tour times we were looking at are fully booked, so we’ll have to be creative with our itinerary. What next?

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Chris M.
| August 28th, 2018

Ok, so I gave in and installed World of Warcraft last night, after saying I was trying not to get sucked back into the game. I’m just playing the free-to-level-20 “Starter Edition” for now, using it as an opportunity to explore the improved levelling experience, and classes/races I’ve never played before.

One thing that immediately struck me as I was levelling a Hunter through Elwynn Forest: I’ve never seen the starting areas so busy. Even with the small bump of users a new expansion brings, starter zones are usually pretty quiet in my experience. Northshire Abbey was packed, as were various quest-related areas throughout the zone. I can’t remember seeing Elwynn that busy — ever — in the ~11-12 years I’ve played the game.

It seems that even in a world of level-110 character boosts, levelling up the long way has finally come back into fashion.

1 Comment
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Chris M.
| August 24th, 2018

Shower thought: has Games Workshop been doing any research into using more sustainable sources for their plastic miniatures, like LEGO have been doing? They use a lot of the stuff, so I would have thought/hoped it’s something that’s creeping further up their internal agenda as time goes on. Come to think of it, have they ever stated what their sustainability and environmental impact policies are? Have they considered a sprue recycling scheme? They’ve already been (hilariously) dinged by PETA once, I can easily see Greenpeace putting the company in their cross-hairs at some point.

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Chris M.
| August 22nd, 2018

I’m trying to cut out coffee (again). It’s my first day at the office since stopping, and while I was able to resist the siren call of Starbucks on the way to work, I’m struggling a bit with tiredness and feeling… slow. From experience, this will pass in a few days, I just need to power through!

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Chris M.
| August 18th, 2018

I just added a new page collecting the links of connections I’d made on Twitter. Yup, it’s an old-school “Links Page.” It’s still a work in progress, having only the wargaming and miniature painting blogs listed for now. My intention is to eventually add links from other sources, like my feed subscriptions.

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Chris M.
| August 18th, 2018

I played against my first Mecha’thun deck today (I had the Whizbang Quest Warrior deck). Spent the whole game wondering “what is this strange deck my opponent is playing, and how does it win?!?” Then I realised in the turn before I would have won the game what was coming. Not a deck I’d want to play, but I can see the appeal.

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Chris M.
| August 17th, 2018

Some time around 8:45 or so, I deactivated my Twitter account, in support of #DeactiDay. Will it achieve anything? Probably not. Inaction in the face of making decisions is very much Twitter’s thing.

There’ll probably be several posts on-or-around the topic of Twitter in the coming days, as I vent some pent up feelings about the site.

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Chris M.
| August 13th, 2018

I’ve started playing Hearthstone again, and it’s entirely down to one card in the latest expansion: Whizbang the Wonderful. As someone who has sat out the last several expansions, having a single card allow me to “catch up” and try decks I otherwise don’t have the cards for is, well, wonderful! So much so I spent my saved dust to craft a golden copy. Good job, Blizzard!

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Chris M.
| August 10th, 2018

Quick test of a microblog-esque post

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Chris M.
| December 31st, 2016

One of the gifts I bought Girl Wonder for Christmas was the Nintendo NES Classic Mini. I managed to get in the 2nd preorder batch from the official Nintendo UK site, and it arrived just in time to be put under the tree. I’ll have some more thoughts on the NES Mini itself, later. Anyway, I set it up last night so she could have her first play-through of some of the games (Super Mario 3 is her favourite game of all-time). It’s safe to say it was a hit. I went to bed just after 10pm after being told “I’m just having one more go [at Dr. Mario].” At 00:30am she finally came to bed.

2 Comments
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Chris M.
| March 11th, 2015

In any normal job, if an employee — who was on his final warning due to disciplinary issues — punched his boss, he would be sacked on the spot, and very likely arrested. Everyone would think that was fair and normal outcome. If you’re Jeremy Clarkson, however, you get a suspension and thousands signing a petition calling for your reinstatement because according to those I’ve seen on social media, it’s a “political correctness gone too far” issue.

No. Just no.

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Chris M.
| April 25th, 2014

Deadspin’s great series “Dead Wrestler of the Week” has been around for a while, but I only started reading through them recently. The premise is simple; a look at the colourful lives and legacies – the legends, if you will – of a dead professional wrestler. There’s a whole bunch of them, all very much worth a read, but for me my favourites are the articles on Owen Hart, and Chris Beniot. Both of these guys were among my favourites at the time of their deaths; both their deaths were tragic, in very, very different ways; and both deaths had profound effects on the industry in their aftermaths, something the articles dissect and analyse brilliantly.

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Chris M.
| July 1st, 2012

I’m not gonna lie – Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) looks pretty nice.

I’m currently out of contract on my iPhone. I’ll see what like the new iPhone is like, plus whatever Google Nexus phone running Jelly Bean comes out next, and make up my mind which to get.

I’ve already done iPhone > Android > iPhone, so if the Nexus is compelling I have no problem switching back. Just so long as it’s not some super-sized Hulk of a phone.

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Chris M.
| November 26th, 2011

I’m having heaps of fun experimenting with the Facebook APIs. It’s definitely a learning experience, and it’s something I’ve kind of missed – just playing around with a technology, with absolutely no expectation anything will come of it.

That said, I’ve finally settled on what I’m going to try and build with all this experimenting. It’s a nice, little, fun app tied to a Facebook page.

2 Comments
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Chris M.
| November 24th, 2011

Yesterday morning I imported the best bits (plus a few other entries) from two of my old blogs

These blogs had languished unloved for some time, but it felt wrong to just drop them or completely abandon them. So now the highlights – such as they are – are here for you to have a read through, so head on over to the archive page to browse through them.

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