A Pilot at Last

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So I’ve been pretty inactive on all fronts lately; namely my website, writing and unity projects. This has been in no small part due to a big push to complete my Private Pilot Licence over the past few weeks. It hasn’t been easy, but today marked completion of the last element of the course and I now have only to send off the application form itself (and get it approved by the CAA).

I first mentioned the ominous booking of a trial flying lesson back in January of 2009 and since then have made many ramblings on aviation, but it really does feel like the culmination of something epic today!

As an unrelated side-note, I’ve finally found a source of buying MP3s that I get on with, namely Amazon’s MP3 store. It’s been a while since I’ve got into any new music, which has led to a bit of a music-buying binge (particularly the retro-80s “Outrun” subgenre assembled by Rosso Corsa Records). The option to have any of it (and all of it) completely separated as downloaded MP3s may have helped, too. Cloud is okay as an option, but never been big into music “organisers”. Then again, that’s probably just iTune’s fault.

A lot of the world’s problems are probably iTune’s fault.

Sim City 2013

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So you may have heard there’s a new instalment of the legendary Sim City franchise freshly released. You may also have heard that it is having problems. And yes there’s probably a fair amount of drama thrown into the mix; after all, everybody loves a good train-wreck and EA Games is about as popular as the Child Catcher at a PTA meeting (and they’ve only got themselves to blame). I certainly have little patience for the game’s constant excuses, having cancelled my own pre-order as soon as I realised it stank of Origin. And I think the main reason they decided to shamelessly rip off a previous title is because they realised calling it Sim City 2013 might be admitting it’s a whole 987 iterations below Sim City 3000.

In any case, it would appear it’s time move on to something better. But what are the options for a modern Sim City game? An obvious first choice would be their contemporary competitor Cities XL. Despite being for the most part a Sim City wannabe, the most recent version is still much closer to what SC2013 should have been; fully customisible, massive plots of land and all the sort of infrastructure and zoning you’ve come to expect from these games (as opposed to those Duplo city playsets on Facebook that call themselves games, like Sim City Social or Cityville).

Up close in Cities XL

Up close in Cities XL

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Review of Retrovirus

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It’s been a while since my last run-in with the digital plague. However it is no less cathartic to play Retrovirus, a neat little resurrection of the 6-degrees-of-freedom-shooter. The game tasks you with seeking out and eliminating the dirty purple globs of stylised virus, which are running amok in your computer’s pristine starship-like virtual space.

Retrovirus01

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Media of Truth

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Welcome to needless rant corner! Your host for today; yours truly.

In one of the most irritating trends of recent years, it seems increasingly okay in games and movies to drop all admittance of serialisation and with brash and unapologetic disregard simply use the original title of the first installment; “Star Trek”, “Tomb Raider”, “Devil May Cry”, “Aliens vs Predator”, “Sim City”; as though we’d forgotten there was one already. Games are particularly guilty of this.

To a categorising brain like mine this is just… no. You are duplicating the primary key as far as I’m concerned. A film or game has a full title which should be unique, certainly within a series. I don’t care if it’s a large number of sequels, or if the original is really old (from over twenty years ago, maybe). The only thing worse than a ridiculously big suffixed number for a sequel is to simply drop a differentiator altogether and act as though it never happened. If they’re worried about a number making it sound un-original- well, there’s your clue: make something original.

What I think actually bothers me though is that it feels like an insidious attempt at replacing the past. It is eerily reminiscent of the role of protagonist Winston Smith, in the novel Nineteen Eighty Four:

“As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs — to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.”

Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell

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A Malicious Waste of Time

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So hopefully you haven’t been checking the site in the last couple of days as I’ve been having some problems with the Blackhole Exploit Kit, a pathetic piece of malicious javascript that does all kinds of horrible things to webservers. Hopefully it has finally been seen off and I’ve just got to work on getting the place looking right again, but who really knows for sure. I will get this place sorted soon once it is stable again.

Thanks.

Epic-logue

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Our journey around Australia ended some months ago, now. I feel I should bring things up to date and finish up the last page of the story.

When we returned to Sydney we had less than a week in Australia. The time was mostly spent visiting relatives there, whose paths we had somehow barely crossed with the whole time we’d been here. I spent much of the time reflecting on the trip as a whole; it seemed crazy to think of the things we’d done and the places we’d been, even so soon after it’d happened.

A breathtaking view of Sydney, from the auditorium at Taronga Zoo

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Sydney, Revisited

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Alex’s Note: Yes, it’s been quiet on the blog front for quite some time now. But after our return, life barely gave us a week to breathe before it all got crazy again. Yet we can’t just leave the ending hanging in the balance, so onward to the conclusive entries!

Return to Sydney

LUCY

I’m pleased to report that the luggage key for the Indian Pacific was eventually found and once we were reunited with our luggage the search for finding a hostel for a night begun. It then ended shortly afterwards as our first stop, the Railway Square YHA (as the name suggests, located right next to the station)  had a couple of nights availability. So we settled in, enjoying a 5-bed dorm all to ourselves, and had a think about what we do over our last few weeks.

Whilst reaquainting ourselves with Darling Harbour we popped into the Tourist Info centre for a few ideas and Alex spotted information about the tall ship, “James Craig”. Originally from Sunderland, England, she had a long and busy working life before being abandoned in Tasmania in 1932. After sitting there for forty years, she was rescued and lovingly restored by the Sydney Heritage Fleet. It took 20 years and lots of labour (mostly from volunteers) but she is now in magnificent working order and is the only ship of her kind to regularly make trips out to the ocean. As Alex has wanted to travel on such a ship for quite some time now it seemed a most fitting activity, and what a ship to experience going under the Harbour bridge in. We only did a day sail but you could get involved as much, or as little, as you liked and they provided lunch and drinks for the day. Alex was available to help with anything and I believe he was told to be careful as if he carried on being so helpful he might end up on the crew! I helped out every now and again, mostly heaving on the ropes to move the sails. At one point when I went to offer a hand, the captain of the James Craig tapped me on the shoulder and asked my name. He then told the guys already on the ropes who I was and that I was here to sort them out, hehe. Well, I’m not sure it was my sorting but together we got the sails where they needed to be. Very satisfying. The weather was beautiful throughout the day and added to it being thoroughly enjoyable, however I have got a bit ahead of myself as we sailed the James Craig on Saturday 10th but I’ve neglected to tell you what we did on Friday 9th.

During the day on Friday 9th we met up with another familiar face, Toby, who we had first met in Airlie Beach was in Sydney for just the one day before catching his flight home. We had moved to a hostel across the road (no availability at the YHA over the weekend) which has a cafe at the front so there we were sitting enjoying our breakfast. I had sent a text to Toby to see where he was when just a short time later he appeared right next to us. We then proceeded to spend the rest of the day moseying around Sydney city, slurping on Slurpees and on the hunt for cuddly Australian animals (no not literally, the stuffed toy counterparts). As evening began to set in we parted ways, Toby was meeting up with another friend and Alex and I had a date with a bridge.

We ended up actually having to rush a bit between leaving Toby and getting to the BridgeClimb in time as it took longer to walk back from the Circular Quay area than we remembered – but fear not, we arrived at the bridge with just enough time to peruse the gift shop! Climbing the Bridge was an unforgettable experience that we both felt was well worth it. The harnesses and jumpsuits, in addition to the industrial surroundings, made it all quite different and exciting. Though we couldn’t take our cameras up (due to potential murder by falling camera), we still had a beautiful picture to remember it by.

We had a couple of weeks in the Sydney area so there was plenty of time to check out another nearby must-see: Katoomba and the Blue Mountains.

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Perth and Beyond

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Our time in Australia was coming to a close. Our month and a half in Perth was far from uneventful: between Lucy’s work we saw and did plenty. We kayaked to Penguin Island (where, while snorkelling, I had a surprise random encounter); revisted Margaret River for some incredible cattle mustering on Horseback at Jester’s Flat; saw the sweet French film ‘Romantics Anonymous’ at the open-air cinema at the Somerville Auditorium at the University of West Australia. We met some of Lucy’s West-Oz relatives, caught up with Lorne on his continuing cycling adventure up past Perth and beyond.

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Return to Albany

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After our South-West tour (see previous entry) we returned our hire car to Perth and wandered into the CBD looking for inspiration. We still had about 2 weeks before Lucy’s work in Perth (and thus our accomodation) was due to start, so the rough plan had been to come back to Perth and hang out or something. We set up camp at the Carillon City food court and began to scour the internet for hostels in Perth that didn’t suck. Unfortunately as we were looking for that same night, the choice was limited and patchy. Either it was full, grossly expensive or rubbish. It was a saturday, so for the most part they were simply full.

While in Albany some days before, we met Dan and Jade who mentioned they were also heading to Perth that same weekend. Theu had kindly offered us a lift if we fancied going back to Albany. It was certainly tempting, the only problem being how we might eventually get back to Perth again once the 2 weeks were through. For those unfamiliar with the area, the distance between Perth and Albany is about 420 kilometres; that’s almost the distance from London to Newcastle. So getting back here on public transport would be interesting, but whatever! We decided to jump; screw the details.

So we caught the train to Rockingham, where Dan and Jade were setting out from. Then we all bundled into the car, even managing to fit all the bags we brought, and set off on a road trip down the Albany Highway. The time actually passed surprisingly quickly and after just a stop or two at random truckstops, we found ourselves back in good ol’ 1849 Backpackers.

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A Five Day Tour of W.A

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We left Alice Springs the morning after our Rock tour ended, we were headed to Perth, WA. The plane journey was nice and easy, though it felt strange not having to show your passport for the flight, particularly as it would take three and a bit hours, but that’s just how crazy big Australia is.

We had arranged to stay in Perth YHA for a night before embarking on our mini-adventure down the South-West coast. It was alright, nothing to shout about. It looked like it could be great but there was just a bit of a ‘feeling’, perhaps influenced by our roommates having had their food stolen from the fridge – doesn’t fill you with confidence. It was situated beside the main rail lines into Perth, between McIver and Perth station. The trains were interesting to watch, not all that noisy either (as several Trip Advisor reviews suggested).

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