The Ramblings of Octavo

Ibis & I are going up to Mosselbay this weekend which is always a lot of fun. Other than that, not much is new in the world.

In science news, it looks like the Viking landers may have been wrong about life on Mars! And so the debates and theories start up anew!

Instead of boring you all with more pointless drivel about the latest in my life, I’d like to once again whore out the Dargo Mailing List. The list is relativly low traffic and topics are just about anything you find interesting with a leaning towards religious debate, IT news & bad jokes.

Ha! I had a good weekend, so I hope you did too. Didn’t do terribly much though. Ibis and I went shopping and Ibis bought some new clothes for summer and some weights. Then we visited Russ to do some media swapping and finally home to watch some tv and play some Falcon4!

You cannot play Falcon 4 without the 715 page manual. Trust me. Since I’m not about to print all that, I play with my laptop next to my pc with the manual open on it — that works pretty well. I learned how to cold start an F-16 which was awesome. The first time I tried, I couldn’t get the main engines to fire up (because I had forgotten a crucial step) and then after that I got everything started but had no idea how to activate nose-wheel steeting (NWS), meaning that I couldn’t taxi anywhere. Anyway, I eventually got it right! I also practised landing (I can do that pretty well now) and flameout landings (no engine) which I’m not so good at. I keep destroying the gear… I guess I need to work on my flare.

So, watchout Maverik! 2nd Lt Octavo is in training!

Hey cyber-strangers! Been a while eh? Yeah, I could do the whole excuses thing, but once again my idea of what my blog is has changed, so… ummm… I’ll just jump into all the news

Well, life has been pretty hectic and really rewarding for me lately. My job is going well and I’ve rediscovered the joy of programming. Yes, CI definitely killed my romance with development and I think VB was slowly driving me potty. In the 6 months I’ve been at CQS I’ve learned tons of really useful and interesting things and made huge progress as a coder generally. I’ve fully made the transition fromVB to C#. Yay for me! Personally things are also great. Ibis and the bunnies and I are doing well and with summer here, we’ve started camping every now and then. We live in such a beautiful part of the world, yet we always take it for granted. That’s why we decided to make the most of this summer and go away as much as possible and really explore the surrounding countryside.

I also recently bought myself a new game — Falcon 4: Allied Force — All I can say is: if you have a joystick, then BUY THIS GAME IMMEDIATELY. It’s the coolest, most realistic, most enjoyable flight sim I’ve ever played. Now, I know nothing about flying, so I set the realism settings way down and took my F16 out for a spin. WHAT A GAME! WOWOWOW! It’s truly awesome and the best is that as you get a handle on all the various controls, knobs, dials, switches and beeps, you can turn the realism up more and more to make the game truly immersive. I mean the damn thing simulates EVERYTHING - like missile malfunctions and IR missles that don’t get picked up by your RWC.

Awesome is the only word to describe this game.

That’s it for now - expect sporadic updates from now on!