Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Living the Hectic Life

When I moved to Southern Spain, the idea was for a more relaxing lifestyle and a more family focussed standard of living. More time for the family, more time for hobbies. However, there is always a spanner in the works and nothing ever goes how you wish it to. The first big thing is money. My family still need money to live and as such I still have to work. That leads nicely in to the second issue and the fact I am kind of a victim of my own success and now hold a position where I have the money I need, but once again due to the demands of that position I am now once again lacking in time available to spend time with my family and follow my hobbies. Of course, family get first dibs, so ‘other’ stuff has to take a back seat. Hence the tardiness in keeping my blog up to date recently. Don’t get me wrong. I am eternally grateful and aware that I am lucky enough to have full employment during these tumultuous days, I certainly will not moan about that.

So, time has been spent away from the computer recently. The time I do have spare is easy to fill as summer is starting with longer nights and fantastic weather. BBQs have been rather prevalent these last few weeks and gatherings of friends in gardens with kids running round causing chaos, is how I have been spending my time. Oh, I nearly forgot, apart from a brief work trip overseas. I headed to Malta for five days recently with work for a conference and had some work to do at a new office we have opened up over there. It was my first visit to Malta and was a pretty cool trip. I was very busy with work, but did manage to go out and enjoy some of the nightlife and see a bit of Valletta and Sliema. It’s a wonderfully handsome place with history bleeding from every stone. Walking around Valletta is an experience in itself being an intact Baroque city. The architecture is stunning and the whole place has a medieval feel to it. It certainly was a busy trip, but a fun one too. I can certainly see why Malta has a fair few movies filmed there. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping to coincide my next visit whilst filming for series 2 of Game of Thrones is going on over there. One of the guys in our office is regularly an extra when Hollywood drops by and I made him promise that if I manage to get there when it is being filmed that he’ll hook me up with his agent. That would be awesome fun.

I have been spending a little bit of time on EQ2, but most certainly not the level of time I committed to the game before the ‘hack’ incident. I’ve pretty much only been popping on when my brother is about and we’ve been hitting the Kingdom of Sky questlines. We’re currently still battling through the Claymore line. I’d forgotten how long the quests can be and how much running about there is, especially in The Palace of the Awakened. It seems like we are up and down in there more than I remember. That’s not too big an issue though, especially when the zone is so much fun. One thing I have noticed though is that it seems very popular with power levellers and adventurers alike, even still. It kind of reminds me of Sanctum 2.0 in that respect. A couple of times we had to wait around for mobs to spawn as someone had been through and obliterated everything. It wasn’t an issue and not a moaning point as we had plenty of other stuff to do whilst waiting. I can’t really comment on that anyhow seeing as Volt usually does the same. Well, Merecraft will testify on my behalf here I’m sure. I do try and feign death mobs off if we don’t need them as I think it’s a bit cruel to just empty a place out, especially when you are sharing the zone with others.

Aside from the Claymore, we started last night on the arduous trek to find all of the little statues of Knights of the Knights in the Round quest (part of the Swords of Destiny timeline). For those who haven’t done the Swords of destiny questline it was released as part of a game update from what I recall and tracks your quest to get your hands on a rather tasty weapon (Well, back then they were). About half way through the questline you pick up the quest Knights in the Round and you have to head off all round Norrath to find these little statuettes of the Knights. It’s a little like that quest To Speak as a Dragon, where you have to go and collect 26 runes, except there is fifty statuettes to gather and they are not just in the old world, but spread all over the place and in some circumstances in places where you have to complete an instance first before you can get to them. It’s not difficult, just time consuming. Having said it’s not difficult, there were a couple of worrying moments as I ran around Qeynos getting those updates. Thankfully Mere did some scouting for me and I managed to avoid all but one of the epic guards and with the one that caught me I managed to Feign Death before he mushed me. We’ve gathered five or six so far, so not many to go. Gulp.

I still have my aversion to anything Velious (apart from my lovely flying mount) and haven’t been there in an age. I just have no enthusiasm to go there. If Mere ends up playing the game that long and goes, I will go with him as it will be fun learning with another person I’m sure, but solo? Nah, not my cup of tea at the moment.

Wifey and I borrowed a friend’s X-Box Kinect the other day and have been having some fun on that too. I especially like the adventures game (not sure of real title seeing as I just ripped it out of the box without really looking). I enjoy it a load, but man it does knacker you out some. I found sometimes it’s a bit noisy too, especially when I get to play is past kiddies bed time. Daddy jumping round like a hobbled elephant is not conducive to child sleep apparently. Oh well. It’s a great package, but to be honest even though we have the Kinect, I am spending most of my time on it playing the latest Burnout using the paddle. Not a bad console, but I do prefer the PS3 for racing games. Just seems slicker is all. I think the controller is easier to use also.

Right-o. Time for some more work. I hope to see you sooner rather than later.

Be well.

3 comments:

  1. Having fun running the EQ2 questlines too bro. Don't worry about the time you get to spend online though - the job and family always have to come first!

    I've never been to Malta but it's now on my must-visit list!

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  2. Great read, when you become Leader of the FreeWorld Bro, I want front row seats & a small piece of land....Italy will do nicely :P

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  3. LoL! Thanks guys. Malta was impressive. I didn't get to visit the bar where Oliver Reed fell of his stool and died whilst having a pint tho (he was there filiming Gladiator). I'm told it's now a tourist attraction. How bizzare is that?

    Jahf. Great to see you mate. Hope all is well with you and yours. Hehe, when I become Leader sorting Italy out for you will come right after replacing every politician with folks with morals, good hearts and most importantly common sense. As soon as I sort that, Italy is yours...as long as I can come to your bunga bunga parties. Oh, wait a second, that's the current dude, Silvio Berliscone.

    Cheers fellas :)

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