Dark Alex's Really Long Post Thread.

[316zombie]

OMG! i see hair! actual hair! it's getting redder, isn't it? used to be i couldn't see it in most pics. beautiful boy...

[Alex]

At the moment I would say he is very blonde. We actually had to take him for his first haircut a couple of weeks ago.

[Alex]

A peaceful and quiet morning. At the moment anyway. Ash did wake up about 3 this morning needing an urgent nappy change. I'd went through to his room when I heard him crying and was going to get up with him, but Kristi decided she was going to. Since she got a 3 hour nap yesterday I decided to let her. They are both back asleep now.

When I am on leave I don't normally think of work much, but yesterday I kept thinking "Aaaaah, didn't have to do the morning brief." Cliffy would have to be doing it all week long. Gods, but I hope the senior engineer was sitting in on them and asked lots of really awkward questions.

Most of the time things only work in my job because the bosses don't actually know what is going on.

I used to work on a bit of kit that if you saw it and you knew nothing about planes you'd think it was a missile. About 12 feet long and pointy at one end with some fins. On the top of it was a saddle where you'd connect it to the wing and if you wanted to lift it, that was where you'd hook the thing up. Anyway, we got sent an instruction on refurbishing the pods when they'd reached the end of their flying life in order to check they were fit to be extended without risking them falling off the aircraft.

If people knew how often bits fell off aircraft they'd never fly again.

But I digress. Anyway, we received this instruction and started following it step by step as we are legally obliged to do.

Yup, who'd have thunk it, men following instructions.

The first step involved removing the bolts holding the saddle onto the body of the pod. The saddle would be given an in-depth examination, check for corrosion (not rust, only iron rusts. Other metals corrode. I have been told this is an important distinction by the people that specialise in such things) and what not. Once we'd removed the saddle we were then to lift the pod up onto a stand.

Wait one second right there. This pod weighs a significant fraction of a tonne. You've had us remove the area we can hook the lifting straps into for lifting it and now you want us to somehow lift this up to head height and load it onto a trolly. Wow, you guys thought this procedure out really well didn't you?

I've always considered it a major weakness that these things are written without any input from the people who actually do the jobs so we can occasionally inject a dose of what is physically possible.

[Alex]

Dragged the family out this morning. Yesterday the weather wasn't great and we decided to stay in instead. Turned out to be not a bad trip. I've been needing to get some new trainers, so picked up a couple of pairs. Shopping for shoes for me is made easier by me having kids sized feet and I tend to not buy the ones with cartoon characters on them. For bonus points since kids clothes aren't subject to VAT I get my stuff a bit cheaper than other adults.

Made time to go down to the cemetery then wandered around the charity shops. Found a couple of board games, including an old GDW wargame (Team Yankee, basically the US vs the USSR in a tank war). As a business, I miss GDW games. They did quite a few ones that I liked. Also got some new movies for us to watch over the next few days.

With RC mentioning Gorilla's in movies I couldn't resist putting on The Thing With Two Heads when I saw it was available to watch online.

Ash with his cunning hat today.

[Alex]

So people seem to get offended at a lot of things these days. I seem to be constantly reminded that I should respect everyone's views.

Here is the thing though. I don't.

I believe everyone has the right to believe whatever they want. If it hurts no one else then fine I do not care what they believe. If it hurts other people or goes spewing hatred then I will then choose wither or not I want to get involved and do my part to shut it down or not. If you get offended by something, that is up to you but it entitles you to nothing beyond the fact that you are offended by it.

It is my right though to decide when and if I will get involved in that, or if I've done something to offend if I should apologise. You do not automatically gain an apology just because you don't like what was said. You do not have a right to be defended by me or anyone else for your views.

I don't care if you were born in the same country as me, or if they have come here from another country. You get the same treatment.

If you chose to pursue a particular path promoting one lifestyle, religion, politics or whatever you do not automatically have the right to my support. I chose if I want to do that or not. Not you. You get no say in this at all in fact. You don't get to put conditions on it and tell me that I must accept you and your beliefs. You can ask for my support if you want (and indeed that is a lot more likely to get my support than demands. Tell me I have to back something am I am more likely not to just out of sheer bloody-mindedness).

I know people think they have all sorts of rights, but to be honest that is a load of bull. You have two rights. A beginning and an end. You are not promised how long it will be between these two events so make the best of it as you see fit. Everything else is just words written down on some paper. You can ascribe them as much or as little importance as you wish, but outside the tiny span of our lives and measured against the great flow of time they are ultimately meaningless.

As I said at the start. I do not need to respect your beliefs. I feel absolutely no urge to. I do however respect that you can have them and will do my best ensure you get to have them as long as they are not impinging on my beliefs. Even if I come out and openly disagree with what you believe in, I will fight for you to have them.

[316zombie]

very well said. bravo!

[Alex]

Lovely day ouside. Normally I'd put a picnic together and go down the beach, but this morning Ash woke us up early (thanks to a Q launch to go escort a plane coming in from India with a bomb threat on board. When they need to take off, they don't mess about. Full afterburners kicked on and they'll fly straight up) and ever since me and Kristi seem to be taking it in turns to have a nap while the other one looks after the baby. He is watching some Winny the Pooh just now, although I think he prefers his cartoons to be a bit more anarchic.

Hmm, i wonder if this would be worth picking up.

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

It is true that I haven't yet gotten around to completing Dark Corners of the Earth, but I am not a big fan of linear games and that one is pretty much a railroad. Still trying to get through the iron age without any iron in Civ. Since that is the period of the game I like to go to war in, it is making life difficult.

House is almost sorted. Back garden grass could do with being cut, but the downstairs just need some hoovering and upstairs sort out Ash's room. I am good with that.

[Alex]

When I used to play World of Warcraft I always seemed to end up as an officer in any guild I joined. The first time I got there I had no idea it was going to happen. Just logged on one night and was made the assistant in charge of the main healers (Priests in Vanilla WoW). Since everyone else had been playing a lot longer than me and I had only just joined my first raiding guild. I had no idea how to run the healing side of a 40 man raid. I could heal my ass off though and had a really unusual healing build that allowed me to outheal all the holy priests (you had certain abilities you could specialise in, holy for healing, shadow for damage and discipline which just had a lot of odd abilities that didn't really fit elsewhere). I put a few points into holy, but most of my points had been whacked into discipline. The head of the priests was very traditional and liked being top of the healing meters. Along comes this punk new player out healing him at every turn despite him having vastly better gear and whatnot. He got upset at that and rather than try and learn anything new quit the game. That meant I got upped to Class Leader.

Still didn't know anything about running raid healing though lol.

In later expansions they changed how priests worked. We were no longer the top healers in the game (although we still had to wear the worst armour which was supposed to be our trade-off. You wear toilet paper thin armour, but you have the best healing available) and I was never quite able to achieve the same heights in my class again as I had previously. Still ended up getting made an officer though. Sometimes I sought the position, sometimes not. I'd always have to end up speaking to the problem cases though. If someone wasn't fitting in on the social side of things I'd grab them for a private chat and explain they had to change their attitude or look for a new guild. Most of the time it ended up with the person being told to go find a new guild, but sometimes it would work out and the person would become a productive member. The reasons for them not working out could be many and varied. We might have kids in the guild and their language and topics of discussion may not be appropriate (like the 12-year-old girl some older guy kept making lewd comments to. I actually am still in touch with that girl, or rather woman now. She is in her mid 20's and engaged to be married and calls me her second dad), or it might simply be that we weren't in a hardcore guild and someone joined looking to change our raiding to hardcore. That happens a lot, but never ever worked out. The person would end up leaving (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes with a push). They'd go set up their own guild and then try to steal members off the old guild. One or two would join but not enough to start raiding and they'd fall apart, then come begging to be let back in. Ended up being referred to as the guild Rottweiler for how I'd deal with the real problem cases. Normally I'd try to settle things in a private chat, but some people would always choose to take the argument to a more public forum, be it posts on the guild forum, guild chat in game or in one memorable occasion on one of the world chats. That last guy had been trying to poach our best members when his attempts to start up his own guild had failed and the people he was trying to take came complaining to me that he would not take no for an answer. By the time I had finished with him not only would no one join his guild, but he couldn't get an invite to any other guild on the server either.

Afterall, who was going to let someone in who was just trying to see who could persuade to quit and go with him instead? Anyway, he ended up having to move server he was playing on and change his character name but still got nowhere. Mostly because he was actually one of the least skilled players I'd ever played alongside, but his reputation followed him where ever he went.

I have heard that Blizzard have finally after many years announced an official vanilla server is coming out. If they'd done it a year ago I'd have been all over that, but at this point I really no longer have any urge to go back and play any more. I don't miss having to deal with all the arguments, give relationship advice or getting loads of messages when someone just don't stop talking crap and getting asked to shut them up (ok, I still get those kind of messages, but no longer in Warcraft. The worst offender there was a Warlock with a name something like Bazetta. I'd been in a guild called Tuatha De Dannan with him, then later on when I was in Home of the Ghost Lords he applied to join there and got a very firm but polite "Your application has been turned down. Think he is another guy who had to move servers simply because he'd irritated so many people in so many guilds that he just had nowhere else to go).

I've tried to occasional other online game, but they all feel like WoW with just a few cosmetic changes. More or less, the way the games works follows Warcrafts lead. I'd imagine that WoW itself stole heavily from older games, but for whatever reason it ended up being the most successful. None of the other challangers really lived up to their promise. I wonder how many of them are still going. I did have high hopes for the Conan game or the Star Wars one but they went down the micro transactions route and I am not willing to pay to win at a game. For years I wanted a Fallout MMO, but by the time they actually made it my enthusiasm for the series had been dampened. I still play the older versions of it though.

[Alex]

Got an eye test today. No doubt they'll tell me I need another new pair of glasses and that will be £300 odd out the window. Almost tempted to go for the free NHS glasses. Might not be stylish, but they work.

[Trevor]

So people seem to get offended at a lot of things these days. I seem to be constantly reminded that I should respect everyone's views.

Here is the thing though. I don't.

I believe everyone has the right to believe whatever they want. If it hurts no one else then fine I do not care what they believe. If it hurts other people or goes spewing hatred then I will then choose wither or not I want to get involved and do my part to shut it down or not. If you get offended by something, that is up to you but it entitles you to nothing beyond the fact that you are offended by it.

It is my right though to decide when and if I will get involved in that, or if I've done something to offend if I should apologise. You do not automatically gain an apology just because you don't like what was said. You do not have a right to be defended by me or anyone else for your views.

I don't care if you were born in the same country as me, or if they have come here from another country. You get the same treatment.

If you chose to pursue a particular path promoting one lifestyle, religion, politics or whatever you do not automatically have the right to my support. I chose if I want to do that or not. Not you. You get no say in this at all in fact. You don't get to put conditions on it and tell me that I must accept you and your beliefs. You can ask for my support if you want (and indeed that is a lot more likely to get my support than demands. Tell me I have to back something am I am more likely not to just out of sheer bloody-mindedness).

I know people think they have all sorts of rights, but to be honest that is a load of bull. You have two rights. A beginning and an end. You are not promised how long it will be between these two events so make the best of it as you see fit. Everything else is just words written down on some paper. You can ascribe them as much or as little importance as you wish, but outside the tiny span of our lives and measured against the great flow of time they are ultimately meaningless.

As I said at the start. I do not need to respect your beliefs. I feel absolutely no urge to. I do however respect that you can have them and will do my best ensure you get to have them as long as they are not impinging on my beliefs. Even if I come out and openly disagree with what you believe in, I will fight for you to have them.

No problems here 

[Alex]

Well my eyes haven't significantly worsened in the past 3 or 4 years. Guess it helps not taking serious damage to my head there lol. Pretty sure that is why my left eye is so much worse off than the right one. Got a pair of glasses coming in at (just) under £300, so it didn't hurt as much as I expected, but still... That is money I could do with spending elsewhere.

Like wargaming stuff, books and beer.

Although I did buy a pub which I'll be painting and building up for 28mm figures. I guess that covers the first and last. And if I could put a tiny library in it, then I am sorted. I'd certainly drink in my own pub if I had books in it.

Mostly because if it is my pub, then you can damn well bet I drink for free. And I pick the music. In fact, get the hell out of my bar! I didn't go getting my own pub so other people could come to it.

Hmm, apparently one British PM has even been assassinated. That surprised me. Given how popular many of them are nowadays, you'd have thought in ye (yes I know ye means you and not the, but it sounds old timey) good olde days they'd have been bumping them off left and right.

[316zombie]

that's awesome that she stays in touch! if you can, look up kirby's in my town, a hole in the wall college bar with LOTS of books. curtis's varied bands played there, and i worked at the secondary location for a few years.

[Alex]

Got up early this morning (read Ash got us all up). We went out for a walk before it got too hot outside, picked up some pork & apple sausages and bacon that Kristi cooked up and had a rather enjoyable breakfast, which was followed up with a serious assault against a miniature ecosystem which I brutally tore into in order than I can keep living in the house (I did the gardening, which is required as part of the terms of residence). Took an hour to do the front and back. I even cleared the paths a bit with some weeding.

Got some light rain and we are hopeful for a thunderstorm. Don't get many of them in Lossiemouth. We get a lot of fog, wind and sunshine, but thunderstorms not so much. I am trying to build my tavern up, but Ash isn't cooperating there wanting instead to use my model paints to finger paint.

He is chortling away at the beginning of Lion King now which is a handy distraction. I'd like to go out for a walk this evening but I don't see it happening. Still, we have the house sorted enough for next week.

[316zombie]

appreciate the good parts, and blow off the bad one like weather for now. that's healthier, you know?

[Alex]

Baby grins to start off your Sunday.