Quad core

13°C, showers.

---

Scan.co.uk is a hardware supplies place in the UK, who offer computer componants are decent prices along with a very wide range to choose from. Today should have seen a quad-core processor delivered here. They only deliver when all decent folks are out at work. Therefore, on Saturday I will have to drive there to collect it, about 12-15 miles from here, a journey that will negate the cost benefit of buying mail-order. There’s no point using them again because of this.

Chornobyl Boats

19°C, sunny.

---

3DS Max & FSX: After Rangingwarr’s recommendation, I have added wrecked boats to Chornobyl’s harbour. To make a 3D  file, ready with textures and have it in the game in just over an hour is pretty encouraging in my opinion. I really want to release this project soon.

Bessie showed me up today.

19°C, wet morning, gorgeous afternoon.

---

Bessie "roughed up" a terrier dog this afternoon and it’s
owner was livid. He ranted & shouted at me- which made it difficult to be
immediately apologetic. Trouble is, he was walking his dog in a field but kept
it on a lead, and dogs feel cornered by that, especially when a bigger dog comes
bounding over. It must be easy to for this bloke to see Bessie as the baddie, an
not notice the likely snap his terrier most certainly will have done. Westland
terriers have been bred for hunting, killing rabbits and the like, plus their
reactions are very fast; but the guy wasn’t in the mood to hear any of that. His
threat was to have a letter from a solicitor come through my door. Quaint.

Ominous stump

18°C, sunny on the whole.

---

Supper in the garden for the first time this year.
Maybe I am getting old, perhaps that’s why I find a growing interest in plants. It’s not the big colourful spreads that appeal to me, it’s the little tenacious ones, the ones that seed themselves, the ones that come from nature itself. Looking after them is like defending the underdog.
See this link: BBC Gardening. What I don’t understand is- why remove weeds? What’s bad about them?
While I’m at it, why do people poison ants’ nests? They are clean, don’t bite, cause no damage and appear to be entirely harmless- unless you are another ant maybe. So why do it?
Unless you have a clear reason- then don’t do it.

Assassin’s Creed

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.

Absinthe

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.

 

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.

Before & After

11°C, sun & showers

---

FSX scenery– It’s fairly easy to switch off custom scenery in Flight Sim X, so here is a with/without screenshot pair to show my Chernobyl scenery. The default is fairly empty, just a road, a forest and a railway. Eastern Europe is really low detail in this simulator, lots of scope for owners of FSX Deluxe.

about Pripyat

7°C, clear.

---

Pripyat, as seen in this video ought to be my next project to tackle, though Harlech Castle is nearly done so may as well complete that first.
 

Release near

4°C, heavy snow, then sunshine.

---

What a day for enjoying the weather, wake up to clear blue sky, and a fresh thick snowfall, then later it couds over with rain.

All good fun.

 

FSX scenery: "The Zone" is almost ready, I’m canvassing for beta testers. It uses a mixture of custom ( made by me) and default objects plus autogen texture files – laid out by me too using Google Earth.

Anslow Rheas

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.