Ark's Ark

Long-term readers are familiar with my occasional attempts to free myself from the tyranny of the demon-weed that is tobacco. If you have never smoked, what follows is probably going to sound a little pathetic, but nicotine addiction makes weaklings of us all. And hey kids, don’t start smoking.

I was watching BBC News 24, when along comes a story about a pub that is trying to beat the smoking ban by selling these fancy electronic cigarette devices. Essentially, they’re a battery powered stick that vapourises nicotine and propylene glycol into a sort of heated mist. The story was not entirely supportive, talking about how these were still addictive, and not particularly good for you.

But you know what? I didn’t care about that. I’ve shown that I am a weak-willed creature who is not, right now at any rate, in a place where I am able to kick nicotine. However, while I am physically addicted to nicotine, and psychologically addicted to sucking hot gases out of small stick shaped things, I am not addicted to the 4000 or so other chemicals that are in tobacco, that cause the vast majority of the health problems.

So I ordered this one, and it arrived on Friday. I’ve not smoked since, and I don’t want to. My Electronic Cigarette is filling all my psychological and physical addiction needs. If you are a smoker, get one of these. By the way, I’m not being paid to say this. If they had an affiliate scheme I’d sign up for it, but they don’t. But I am fairly sure that discovering this little gadget is a mildly life-changing experience, and I’d be extremely remiss if I didn’t try to share it with all my fellow prisoners of tobacco.

I’m feeling a little unwell at the moment. Some of the usual withdrawal symptoms you usually get when giving up smoking. Without the constant addition of layers of tar, my lungs are beginning to heal, and are starting to feel sore, which will probably last a week or two. Without the carbon-monoxide in my blood, I have crazy amounts of oxygen in there, which makes me feel a little dizzy and nauseous. With the slow return of my sense of smell, I’m thinking I might need to clean my kitchen a little more often. These things shall pass. But the withdrawal symptom I don’t have? Craving. There is no craving. Even with the strongest nicotine patch I would crave the sensation of smoking, but with these, nothing.

I may, or may not, be a vaper for the rest of my life. I’m still addicted to nicotine, but this method of getting it will not give me cancer (Nicotine, while addictive and toxic, is not a carcinogen), and will cost me about a 6th of the money. The possibility is there for me to move to vapours with less nicotine, and even ones with no nicotine at all. Right now, I’ll stick with the medium strength ones that are working for me.

Firstly I should say that I am still enjoying AoC, and I belive my guildmates are also. As I get further into the game though, I am coming across more and more cases of things being done half-arsed. Funcom has time to fix these, and there is a patch taking place right now which may help (No patch notes released yet). Here’s a few of my major quibbles.

The Trader made it in finally, but unfortunately the Auction House does not show stack numbers, so you do not know whether the leather that is for sale at 5 silver is a single unit, or a stack of 20. You have to buy the whole lot, either way, and the price is for the whole stack, regardless of size. Needless to say, no-one feels much like buying crafting resources under these circumstances, and I am confused as to how anyone never noticed this. Also, the mail system has been routinely swallowing any mail, items, or cash that anyone tries to send via it, so I would suggest not using it right now!

Crafters are also hurting from a bug that was introduced last week. Cotton and leather from before that patch no longer work in any of your recipes. Leather found now does work, but cotton harvesting is completely broken. There are also issues with some sorts of resource nodes not refillling. Gem cutters cannot advance their crafting quests, though it is just as well, as if you mouse-over an item that has a gem installed it in, you will immediately crash to desktop.

The bug which caused structure building to fail, costing you your exceptionally pricey ingredients, has been squashed, but at this time no city building gives any benefit, so there is little point in making them other than for bragging rights. Fortunately bragging rights appears to be enough for many guilds, but my own is going to wait until they are working correctly. There are still reports coming in from the PvP servers of folks managing to use exploits to destroy eachother’s PvE guild cities.

Speaking of exploits, with great fanfare there was a mass suspension of many accounts earlier this week. Mostly Guildmasters and Architects who, as mentioned, have to deal with vast amounts of money in order to build their towns. Since then, most seem to have had their accounts reinstated with rather less fanfare, so I’m a little unclear as to how many people caught up in this dragnet actually turned out to be exploiters, rather than just having been flagged for having a bunch of cash donations from their hundred guildmates.

I have been finding more and more unfinished areas. Take the Treasury of the Ancients. Nothing in this small dungeon drops anything at all, even money, and the two ladders at the end of the corridor, should you climb them, drop you outside of the world geometry on a long fall to your death. The nearby Pyramid of the Ancients, while at least dropping some basic loot, is also completely bugged, with the main quest uncompletable, and the whole area giving a feeling of menace, not because of the enemies, but because you never know if what you’re doing is going to break something. Now, as you know I level slowly, so the usual argument that the high end content doesn’t have to be in at launch does not stand. I am talking about level 30-40 content, which is reachable even by the most casual players by this point. Even in the Outflow Tunnels underneath Old Tarantia, the numerous human opponents down there once again drop nothing, ever (With the exception of one Boss).

There’s also some profound game engine issues, but I’ll go into them in depth in another post.

Basically, polish is rather hit and miss once you leave Tortage, and I would strongly recommend that new players be in no rush to leave that island, to give Funcom some time to sort out the problems with the mainland.

In short, those who claim this is the best launch ever are wrong. It is a pretty much average MMO launch with the sort of bugs that make anyone who has ever been involved in software production, such as myself, boggle with disbelief. Seriously, MMO companies, hire some real quality control people, and stop taking advantage of our patience. We older MMO players are starting to get grumpy about it.

An update on my guild’s progress. We have booked our City Spot in instance 7 of the Lacheish Plains, but we’re still a little way away from being able to afford to build our first building, the Keep. Architect is a fiendishly expensive profession, and it is going to be difficult for small guilds to build very often. Difficult, but not impossible! In any case, for now we’re just going to build the keep until the other buildings start giving the bonuses they’re supposed to.

So, this blog has gone a little quiet for a month or so. What have I been up to?

The chief suspect is Pirates of the Burning Sea. I got quite heavily into it, running the forum for my Nation, and currently chairing the Council of guilds. My addiction seems to be waning though, so we might see a bit more posting here in the future.

Far more importantly, I was lucky enough to get the chance to do a week of work experience in the newsroom of Radio Broadland. It was a massive learning experience for me, and the folks I was working with were wonderful.

Even better, they hired me the next week to do some filming and film-editing for their website. Nikki Fox and myself travelled down to Wembley with Lowestoft FC in preparation for their FA Vase final on the 11th of May. Neither of us had ever done anything like this before, so I think the results turned out quite well, especially considering the only video editor we had was Moviemaker! If you look really carefully, you can see my head reflected on the side of the coach, and yes, that is me waxing lyrical about the joys of bacon.

Not got any more work coming up there currently, but I’m hoping they’ll get desperate enough to call me eventually. I’m missing the place like crazy.

I just handed back the keys to my old flat to the council. After a week of cleaning up the detritus of 5 years of not being terribly tidy, I am overjoyed to see the back of it.

In the time I lived there I had to cope with crack-dealers and prostitutes using my stairwell as a meeting point, and constant screaming and yelling outside my flat. There were mysterious fires, including arson attempts on the chap who lived in the flat downstairs from me. There was also the famous time when someone took an almost impossibly large dump at the bottom of my stairs. Goodbye Magdalen Close. Ain’t missing you at all! I’m amazed I got away from you without being stabbed, shot, or burned alive.

Back in Christmastime 2006, East Anglia was terrorised by a serial killer. Not something that’s supposed to happen in our quiet little bit of the country. His final tally was 5 Ipswich prostitutes. Due to his choice of victims he was known as the Suffolk Ripper, though in fact the Suffolk Strangler would be a far more appropriate title for him, and I shall use that term. While all the crimes took place in Suffolk, the fear definitely spread the few miles north to Norwich. In early December it seemed that every day there was a new grisly discovery, or turn in the investigation.

The killings were spread over November and early December 2006, at an unusually high rate of activity for serial killings. They stopped when Steve Wright was arrested on the 21st of December, but at that point the case could no longer be reported, so as to not prejudice his trial. As a result we don’t actually know very much about what went on, or why the police think Steve Wright is responsible.

Steve Wright’s trial begins today with jury selection, and many of our questions will be answered. He has plead “Not Guilty”.

May this coming year bring you everything you need, and even some of the things you want. May you not want for food, or water, or warmth. May you keep or find friendship, and love. May you and your loved ones stay safe from the shadows that surround us. May you know peace enough to hear the quiet voices.

For me, I’m hoping that this is the year I get my life back on track after something of a hiatus. If everything goes to plan (and we all know how often that happens!!!) I’ll sort my health out, and make some progress towards getting a little more voice/acting work.

Recording should begin shortly for season one of the “radio play” Jack Steel and the Starblade, in which I am fortunate enough to be playing Squadron Leader Steel himself. Fear not, gentle reader, for I shall most certainly be making it available for listening to upon this very site. If the universe is willing, perhaps it’ll lead to something else for myself, the writers, and all of our highly talented cast of unknowns.

My father returned home yesterday after what was, for me at any rate, an extremely enjoyable visit. He is really the only family I have left, and if I can do something this year to make him proud I’ll consider it a year well spent. Anyways, I’ll have a lot more time now for regular posting, so we should see things get back on track here.

So, let us go forth into 2008, and see what it has in store for us.

Yes, I know I post this clip every year, but for me nothing says Christmas like Skeletor. The He-man Christmas special is the epitome of everything a cartoon Christmas special should be about.

How’s the holidays going for everyone out there? I have my Dad down to visit for a few days, and he’s keeping me pretty busy! It’s the first time I’ve ever hosted anyone over the Christmas break, and it does feel rather odd, indeed. I’ll have to cook Christmas dinner, instead of having my customary nap! Another one of those rites of passage that I hear so much about, I guess.

So, I head into Norwich to do some Christmas shopping, and who should I meet?

It’s Santa! Not just any Santa, but Playmobil’s Santa! Doesn’t he look cheery as he shills for some other Santa’s grotto? To be honest, I think he looks a bit uncomfortable, but I suppose he has to pay for all those holidays in Tahiti somehow. Luckily I met him again after his shift.

There now, he’s much happier! Not only has he shed that horrible tinsel sandwich board, but he has spotted an advert for a new Scalextric set. Perhaps he’s going to put one of them in my stocking this year! Anyway, we chatted for a little while, to the disconcert of passers-by, then he gave me a cheery wave, and we parted company.

Santa was not the only Playmobil representative at large.

It’s that regular X-Entertainment calendar fixture, Mr Owl! I asked him for some news of our friends, but he just muttered something about not getting any lines this year, and scowled at me. I tried to have a word with his park ranger friend, but unfortunately my French isn’t terribly good, so we didn’t get very far.

Ostensibly, this chap seems to be some sort of pilot. But what is this? He is standing by the lego section, with a briefcase. That is no pilot, but a playmobil spy! I had caught him in the act, and he stood frozen in fear until I got bored and wandered off. I hold him personally responsible for what seems to be a Norwich-wide lego shortage. All I could find were large sets, with little variety. I was looking for some small ones to use as stocking-stuffers for the non-existent nephews and nieces I use to explain to cute shop assistants why I’m buying toys.

I did buy one small thing for myself in the end. I imagine it’ll make an appearance on these pages before too long at all. Little Al has been quite quiet and thoughtful the past few days, which usualy means something fell is afoot!

In other news, as I write I can hear on the radio that Dick Cheney’s ceremonial office is on fire. Opinions vary as to whether it was an accident with an industrial-strength document burning device, or whether his office is prematurely being dragged down to Hades.

I have returned from my oil rig adventures. In truth, it took place at a Holiday Inn near Norwich airport. I have little to say about it, as sadly they were most keen on confidentiality, so I wasn’t able to take any pictures, and I had best not name the companies involved either. It felt like I was pretty much the only person there taking the damn thing seriously, apart from the organisers. My fellow evacuees were mostly random lads having a laugh, and the folks supposed to be tending to our recently blown up nerves were far more interested in the buffet. A buffet, I might add, that was poor in choice, flavour, and quantity. Bah. I shall never set foot on their doomed oil platform. Let us make up for the lack of pictures with this shot of Elm Hill, which I walked up on my way there.

Any journey that leads me up Elm Hill is a worthwhile one. There is a tree, about halfway up, with an ancient circular wooden bench surrounding it. It feels like it has been there forever, and I like to sit there and read my old books, forgetting the 21st century completely. Bit cold for that at the moment though.

Frustratingly, on Monday morning I received a phone call from a local radio company, offering me a week of work experience starting right there and then. As I had already contracted to the roleplay job I had to turn them down, though we did schedule me a week in April. As usual, my timing absolutely sucks. Working for Broadland Radio (Norwich’s local radio station) in the week leading up to Christmas would have been awesome :( My Remploy contact had arranged things with them months ago, but forgotten to tell me, as the Wavelength Films gig drove it from his mind. Fair enough, as Wavelength did do me an awful lot of good. I have no pictures of that either though, so I shall compensate you with this iron pig I met on Elm Hill. I hope with all my heart that it is made of pig-iron, though I suspect even in this shall I be frustrated today.

Hi, I’m Arkenor Oakshadow.
You may know me from such quality productions as Oil Rig Disaster, and Oil Rig Disaster II.

Yes indeedy! Next week, for two days only, I shall be playing the part of the moaning injured bloke in a safety scenario being run for oil rig workers. It’s minimum wage, but it IS acting! More importantly, I get lunch free!!! I hope it turns out well, and they keep me on their files.

We’ll be running through a variety of disaster scenarios. I have informed them that I do a particularly good zombie, should that be needed. I, for one, would not feel safe on board an oil rig that was not adequately prepared for zombie infestations and bodysnatching blobs.

I’ll see if they let me take a few snaps on the day, and will report how it goes.

I’ve more or less successfully moved in now, though I shall still be unpacking in January, I fear. It was mostly adventure free, apart from the following:

I discovered that my washing machine won’t actually fit in the space provided. I did not realise my washing machine was such an oversized freak. I hate laundrettes, (or laundromats, to my US friends), so I need to solve this quandary fast!

I discovered, when moving it, that my futon had gone horribly mouldy underneath. My own damn fault for leaving it in one place for 5 years, but I don’t much fancy sleeping on it any more. Thank goodness for the sofabed that I inherited from Frank.
But who care? I’ve got a house!

Hmm, I wonder which of these boxes has my food in.