Assassin’s Creed

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7°C, rain.

Assassin’s Creed: after a session marking I got it running. It always takes me a while to get used to controls but apart from that it’s very intrigiung. There are some very spectacular sets in the game- especially Damascas, the city is enormous with excellent leves of detail. No doubt it’s all done by setting the LOD switches quite close, but they have judged it well. THere are plenty of "side missions" which worked well enough in STALKER to make that a feature to look out for in games. Right now, my impression is that it is a pity that they had to put the science fiction elements in, I’d prefer paper style maps, maybe a compass but no GPS on screen.
Assassin's Creed2

Absinthe

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9°C, chily & strong E. Winds

Assassin’s Creed is finally out on PC so I picked up my copy today. I’ll run it after posting this, so no thoughts to report yet.
 Assassin's Creed1
Today has been characterised by shopping, probably a diversion activity from the weight of coursework marking that ominously filling my black bag. Anyway. The other  noteworthy thing today was a bottle of Absinthe, it’s the Parisienne from La Fée. It’s much like Pernod, or Ouzo but a softer more subtle flavour. It’s famed bitterness is not that noticable; perhaps I put in too much sugar.
Watch out though, it is very strong.

another avian meeting

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13°C, cloudy, lighter winds C=33 miles.

Climbing a sunken lane, there was a crow perched in the left embankment. Strange place for a crow so I stopped. He looks injured but didn’t fly away when I approached. See the photo. Poor creature seems to have a head injury, perhaps he was concussed. The other worry is that he has a disease, West Nile virus affects crows in the USA.
He stood there for a while, looking around and blinking but otherwise quite still. So I picked him up and took him over to a nearby field. Like other biords, he was quite calm once covered in a raincoat, even wild animals seem sedated by darkness. On letting go, he flew a short distance but crash landed in the undergrowth. I left hime there, at least he couldn’t get run over there. I wished him well and continued my journey, there really is nothing I could have done.
Good luck…

Anslow Rheas

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13°C, windly but a nice sunny start. c=27 miles

Rode up to Anslow bank today to find those "Emus" that I spoke of here previously. I got a bunch of photos this time, but on looking them up in Wikipedia, they turn out to be Rheas. No less curious for that I say.

Coniine

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Cold strong N Wind, some rain, 41 miles on the bike.
Riding in the rain wasn’t so bad this afternoon. Perhaps I have physically adjusted to the colder weather after four days hiking in the driving rain and snow of North Wales. The house we stayed in was damp and draughty which made drying clothes difficult and keeping bodies warm impossible. The sea was distinctly green and covered in white horses, visble from the kitchen.
It was a great trip though, Cader Idris looked fantastic covered in snow, but we didn’t get up there- the snowstorms were drawing in at a time when sunset was getting near. At this point we hatched the idea of a hiking holiday in the Pyrenees. Hannah is fit enough to really enjoy this on equal terms.
 

Thujone

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8°C, very strong winds. Dry though.

Gales forced me into driving to work today. Damn.
 
Sap’s rising, inlcluding my little Artemesia plant, which now smells. It didn’t last autumn when I bought it. Such a strange smell too. There must be other exotica hidden amongst our ordinary overlooked weeds in this landscape.

A great storm approaches

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9°C, few heavy showers so far.
Duxford – to take some Japanese Visitors to leer at aeroplanes, who called this practice “transport porn”? Here is an old Cockpit from a VC10 airliner.
This coming storm could be fun, for me anyway. Not so good if you’re at sea in the southern approaches.
_DSC6186
 

Control Panel scrambled.

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11°C, windy and grey.

Tracking down faults: so apparently, the control panel can be corrupted by some reg server32 getting unregistered (are you following this), – that is something that can easily be re-registered. At least the machine has net access so I can pose questions of Google and get workable answers.
 
Beyond that, the 3D scenery design will have ot wait for a week or so while I get a two graphics jobs done first.
 
Cinema: or why I like Tarkovsky’s films. They don’t sound great on paper; for example: Stalker: a science fiction film; with no special effects; long scenes heavily dependant on dialog; mostly in b/w, no music and don’t forget: it’s in Russian. Currently I am watching Andrei Rublyev in installments. these are films about the present, none of the Americanish obsession with plot, and what’s going to happen next. These films are full of scenes that concentrate on the now; they look long, hard and without distraction at themes like the weather, dogs, water and tinge it all with anxiety. Read this site to get a more articulate explanation http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/tarkovsky.html
I don’t expect you to wat one though.