Disappointment

Specifically, Portal 2.

An extremely clunky and buggy serve that was.

A few maps / puzzles / rooms that were a tad too obtuse so I had to google a walkthrough. Amazing that within a couple of days of release there were good walkthroughs, GamesRadar being the one that I used. But such a clunky game that alt tabbing out to check the guide and alt tabbing back in usually meant it killed my computer. Not just crashed the game, locked the whole cpu. Had to reboot my machine about three times. And all of that for a game that was not appreciably any better, or even equal, to the first instalment. Graphics were not noticeably better either, so more of a Portal 1.2 rather than a Portal 2 if you ask me. Still have to try the multi-player, but we shall see.

Contract is going slowly, not my work, just that this is the most 'yes ministery' government department that I have ever contracted to. Seriously, you could fire half the staff and still get twice as much work done. I am testing a new application, I am meant to be user testing, not testing the system or design, I make a new journal, there is no save button, task cannot be completed. Did none of the programmers even look at the screen to see if it was complete before dumping it on the finance team to test? Not just one example, there have been dozens of similar events. The shoddiest programming that I have ever seen.

This is the Easter break; the harvest was brought in during Spring, yes? I am not too sure about how these things work in the Northern Hemisphere, but Winter is when things grow here, Summer is dead, maybe in Europe the crops are planted in Spring? Either way, lots of work in the fields during Spring, the full moon lets peasants work late, the full moon after the Spring Equinox is called the Harvest Moon, again, yes? I am not too sure about all this old Northern Hemisphere stuff. The Harvest Moon lets the peasants get the harvesting finished, and the next weekend is party time! And xians call it Easter.

Typical, steal a good old pagan festival and re-badge it with some daft xian mythology.

But here ANZAC day comes soon after, very soon, in fact this year they run together and we get a five-day weekend. Not good for shopping, this being Adelaide, they shut the shops at the slightest excuse. Five days of shut shops. Lovely.

Okay, not strictly true, they are letting them open for the Saturday, and half the Tuesday.

I have been play Fallout 3 a lot lately, a HUGE game that is. So big, and the story just kind of goes on and on and on, that one does tend to get quite bored with it all.

Shogun 2 out recently. I have played it through a few times, have completed four clans now. It did take my two or three tries before I worked out how the mechanics work for this one, how to plan ahead to make sure that I get enough regions before the time limit runs out. But a good game, quite enjoy that one.

Did get all of the Dawn of War 2's, well the three out so far. Kind of so-so on that one. I don't really like the lack of base management. I do like that I can play the Guard, took a few extensions before that came along though, didn't it. Am looking forward to playing the co-op campaign with friends.

Other than that, life still really sucks.

Work, game, sleep.
That's my life.

And working just to clear my cards for now. Since lovely, little old Adelaide is so the arse-hole of the civilised world it is so slow to recover from the recession. The BIG recession, the Great Recession, aka the GFC, but remember; the markets fell further than they did in the Great Depression, more people lost their jobs than during the Great Depression, it is taking longer for Adelaide to crawl out of it than the Great Depression. All of which adds up to my rates being half what they were before the Great Recession. So it will be quite a while before I clear those damned cards.

I so regret returning to this place.
I so regret having left Singapore.

I was so much happier there, this has been a very salutary lesson for me.
When I get back it will be with a lot more dedication.