Just a Ramble…

The problem with me and writing is that I go through periods where I get very little done at all, then I get back into it and make some progress.
Part of me thinks that explains why I am a plotter at heart, I need the structure in place so when I get back to it I can easily pick up where I left off.
The other part of me, says “screw it! Just write!” but the issue with that is, it is harder for me to get back to as I forget what I was thinking and planning from the last session.

I think that is the wonderful thing about Blogging, I can write a little or a lot just to exercise the creative part of my brain a little, the other problem is once I have written a blog post, half of me wants to keep writing while I am mentally ‘warmed up’, and the other half just wants to stop writing there and be done for the day.
Especially when I have games like Assassins Creed: Valhalla and Watch Dogs: Legion constantly dancing into my mind when I am trying to concentrate on work!
My concentration has markedly improved recently, and I am now able (some days anyway) to concentrate on something for longer than five minutes at a time. Beforehand, I would really struggle to focus on a task, even something as mundane as watching TV with dinner would be a task.
But I guess that is all part of living with Depression.

Depression has been with me for longer than I can remember, and it has really sunk it’s claws into me. Writing is one thing that if I can only focus on it and have a never ending supply of coffee nearby, I think I have a shot at pushing it out of my head for a little while.
I am trying my hand at coding which scratches that same itch, the desire to create, to get it all out of my head and onto the page, and shove Depression aside for a bit.
So, yeah a bit of an uncoordinated ramble today, just trying to get my thoughts down on paper so I can really get stuck back in to writing and coding and endeavour to be free of Depression, even if only for a little while.

I must say though, it is nice to be able to enjoy things again some days, rather than lockdown being a time to worry, stress out and be bad tempered, it is looking like a time for creating and educating myself.
I use Udemy and Centre of Excellence which I highly recommend, I also have a Skillshare account but have not used it yet despite it being recommended by others.
But that is my thoughts for today, tomorrow will come when it comes and I can only hope for a day where I can look forward with a hopeful expectation rather than backwards on the past.

I have no idea where I would be if it not for the constant presence of my beautiful wife and best friend Tracey, without her support this year and the past sixteen years, I think I would be in a very different situation.
So, if you are struggling too, consider trying to educate yourself on a hobby, something that interests you and can distract you from your own head for a little bit; it definitely works for me some of the time.
I know people say exercise is a Depression killer but I hate it! I have a workout routine to keep me active that I do three times a week, but so far I am still waiting on the fabled, ‘feel good’ feeling that is supposed to come with it. All I feel is relief it’s over!

Ah well, time to end it here as I have rambled on enough, I have a workout to do, more writing to do, a supply run to the shops and if I listen to Tracey, decorations to put up!

Have a great weekend folks!

Google Play Drama!

Hi there, welcome back! It’s been an interesting week. A couple of months ago, I was notified that Google Play music was to be replaced with the new Youtube Music app.
After getting hopelessly lost in various posts on line discussing the ups and downs, I decided that it only meant that I would not be able to purchase music from the Google Play store anymore but would still be able to listen to my own music that I put on my phone.
The other day, I was happily listening to Mississippi John Hurt no problem, I turned the app off when I was done and not five minutes later I changed my mind and wanted music again and I was presented with a screen telling me to use the Youtube Music app and locking me out of my music library.
To say I was a tad annoyed would be an understatement, I do enjoy my music and it is a large part of my life to have such a large music library in my pocket at all times.
Well, first we tried the new app, not a fan as I couldn’t find my purchased music and the music it did find it wanted to search Youtube for instead of my library which was ridiculous.
Tracey did some digging and found an option on the Google play music app screen to “Manage Your Data”, and by following the steps managed to export my entire purchased library to be able to download! Downloading my library didn’t take too long and we were then ready to copy the files back onto my phone.
The downloaded folders contained a load of .csv files which must have been some sort of metadata as a lot of the tracks were in play lists, but simply using the search box on the window’s top right corner for *.mp3 managed to filter them all out and just show those lovely tracks! Filtering further by artist name and creating new folders on my SD card in my phone and in no time at all I had everything back on my phone and ready to go!
We used the amazing (and FREE!) VLC Media Player to test the .mp3’s and to make sure that the metadata was in place like track name and artist’s name and so on.
The next problem was finding a new music player, having a look through the app store, we narrowed them down to two, Muzio Music Player and Music Player, trying them both out, I settled on Muzio as it had a cleaner look and automatically sorted my albums by name which the other player did not. Only a small thing but it was enough to make me decide.
So now, music app in hand, music library ready to go and all I need to do know is learn the intricacies of this new music player app!

I have been on the PC mainly this past few days sorting out my backups and occasionally loading up a game, (though my concentration has been low recently, so only a short while on each game until I gave up).
I am still trying to teach myself how to set up manual attacks and use the modded tools like the RAOBF and Attack Disc for Silent Hunter 3 LSH 2015 with varying degrees of success, even if I forget most of it by the time I load my career save, it is still interesting to watch tutorials and re-learn it all.

I managed to get back into my writing aswell as coursework which I am happy with, and am hoping I have hit a turning point.
The problem with my writing is that I am still not sure if I am a “Plotter” or a “Pantser”, meaning do I outline and plot every detail in advance of writing, or simply write “by the seat of my pants” and just go for it?
It would appear that I am a mixture of both, I like to have a general outline and a few lines for each chapter overview to keep me focused, but the bulk of the writing is done as I go and as it comes to me.

Though, how much my writing and coursework will be affected by Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla which released today and I hope to pick up tomorrow remains to be seen! I am still enjoying Watch Dogs Legion a lot and have recently started Pillars of Eternity on Xbox (there is a Game pass achievement reward of 75 points if I kill 5 enemies which I have done multiple times without the achievement popping for some reason). Also, Tracey emailed Microsoft as the Watch Dogs Legion punch card award worth 250 points when activated would not fire for me either so I lost out on those points. To my great surprise, they emailed back within an hour or two awarding those points retroactively, Nice one Microsoft!
We needed to order a new Christmas tree recently too as our old one makes such a mess with the ‘needles’ shedding every where (Which is supposed to be the main reason to have an artificial tree right?) and the new one is a touch smaller but has fibre optic ‘lights’ which according to the pictures looks really cool.

Which leads me to my final point: Is it too early to put up the decorations? I have heard friends on facebook are putting up or at least considering putting their decorations up early as it’s been a difficult year and doing so seems to make people happy.
The tree is sat in it’s box patiently waiting, and the decorations are still in their boxes in the shed so not sure what to do, on one hand it will make us happy seeing the decorations, but on the other, it is only early November and last year it was towards the end of November we put them up.

We also managed to put together a bit of the Firefly crate but still have a long way to go, we were hoping to have it sorted out before the tree goes up but that won’t be the case if the decorations go up soon!
The problem with it is the pieces do not fit together nicely requiring a bit of force with a hammer to slot into place. I am terrified of breaking the thing every time I hit it and worried I am annoying our neighbours with the banging, but I am sure it will be worth it in the end.
Well, it is time to sign off and either get some more writing done, or do my coursework that I didn’t do yesterday seeing as it was our unofficial anniversary (16 years ago we got together!) and Tracey let me off it!
Take care and have a great week!

Volunteering and Gaming

Hi all! it’s been a long time since my last post, but here i am with a fresh new one to thrill and amaze!
Volunteer work has kept me busy over the intervening period as well as my long suffering wife Tracey.
Sadly, our time with the council run local library came to an end as the library closed, though we did walk away with a friend and reference in our boss.

We then started volunteering for the Maritime Archaeology Trust identifying and recording lost wrecks from World War One, which goes right down my alley, being able to use my Google-Fu to tease any extra data from the Interweb!

I started volunteering at a local cafe which went really well and I discovered that maybe i could go back into a fast paced dynamic kitchen environment again after so many years away, there i gained valuable experience both in the back and out the front and remember my time there fondly (even one day when the freezers needed to be scraped out and cleaned which was fun! 😉

Recently, I started volunteering at a charity shop with Tracey and a friend to gain valuable retail experience and also with the Council again with the Museum Collections Service, digitising old records, which suits me fine being up to my neck in old records and entering them into a spreadsheet, which is probably as boring as it sounds to most, but to me it gives me a chance to brush up on my Excel skills! though some of that writing can be tricky to read!

I have been slowly coming around to my games again after a long time being unable to do so for health reasons and have been particularly enjoying Microsoft Flight Simulator X:Steam Edition and Euro Truck Simulator 2 with the amazing Promods, Rusmaps, and Jazzycat Trailer & AI Traffic mods amongst others (which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone who has ever fancied taking a truck across Europe!).

I love Simulators, 4X games and RPG’s and I am hoping to take this blog in a slightly different direction in the future.

I will be keeping to these small ‘updates’ about my life, but will also be talking about what games i have been enjoying recently and what mods I can recommend based on my personal preference.

I have also been enjoying Mass Effect Andromeda and Fallout 4 on Xbox way more than i probably should but Tracey and I have an understanding so I get games during the day, then we veg out and watch our series and maybe a film or two afterwards in the evening with dinner.  It works really well for us.

Being a huge, huge fan of the Mass Effect franchise, the release of Andromeda was greatly anticipated by me but due to being unable to run it on my PC and not owning an Xbox One, I couldn’t play it, but careful saving and a liberal splash of trading in old games and hardware in our local CEX, i managed to finally join the current-gen club!
I have not tested the mods feature of Fallout 4 yet, but when i get around to it, there are definitely a couple i would like to try out (though part of me is saying wait for a PC upgrade and get it on PC too for more modding fun and mod managers!).

Well, on top of all this, I have been trying to write where and when i can.  I have the software, the hardware and no excuses yet still struggle at times.

I have a collaborative fiction piece with my brother in law which is going really well and we are both enjoying it (yes, i will get back to it i promise! 😉

I have my blog, which as you have all realised has been somewhat abandoned of late (okay longer than that!) and i am working on my novel of which i hope to be able to post updates on here very soon.

And then there is my reading… thanks to Amazon and Bookbub, i have been able to expand my Kindle library to probably over a hundred books nearly all of which were free (book 1’s of a series or really old) or were heavily discounted, which is all great on paper, but with everything going on, I tend to just want to chill out with YouTube videos at bedtime (yes i know videos are probably not the best thing to be doing in bed!) though my Watch Later list grows by the day and the amount of series I have started watching of various game Let’s Plays also never seems to shrink!

I think that is all i have for you today, sorry about the long wait to those of you who read this blog, but i hope to get back in the saddle again quickly so please bear with me!