Day: January 21, 2017

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Compensation

Since getting rid of the Beast and buying a new car I have missed using a gear stick and doing things with my feet and left hand. I now have a hybrid car which has a stick I move into Drive position and then into Park position. That’s it. My left foot operates the manual parking brake. I really like the car. It’s comfy and drives really smooth. But I need my fix of gear stick work.

Fortunately I have a decent steering wheel for the PlayStation and I can use the gears on that. It’s not the same but it keeps the coordination going a little bit I guess.

There are a few things to note. I have the gear stick set up on the right of the steering wheel to mimic racing cars.

G29 Driving Force Wheel
G29 Driving Force Wheel

I will say that without really thinking about it I was heel-and-toeing the game and doing it quite well while using the clutch and steering. I’ve been playing Drive Club and while the game play and feedback about handling isn’t as good as Gran Turismo it will have to do until the PS4 version of GT comes out, which given that they said 2016 is quite likely to be 2025 knowing Polyphony.

It’s possible that not coordinating feet and hands in a real car anymore means I am going to get better at it on this gaming device. I will still get to drive manual vehicles, most likely minibuses at work for taking people places. I feel slightly sorry for them as I remember how to use a clutch!

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Walk That Way

I had a nice day in London on Thursday past. I was attending a course which should give me decent information to help people at work. It was interesting and also quite difficult at the same time. It was good to be challenged and made to do new things. I had to walk down Marylebone High Street to get to the venue and it looked quite a nice place with small independent shops that were selling stuff way more expensive than I could afford.

I had a spare ninety minutes in the day before meeting Smith and so I went for a walk, mostly to help work off the flap jacks I had eaten. London is nice and calm, as long as you stay away from the main tourist routes. Don’t walk down Oxford Street use Wigmore Street instead.

This gives you an idea of my activity through the day. The red bars are when I was doing maths. The other bits show me walking around. I walked 20km that day compared to an average 12.4km.

This chart shows total steps per month over the last year. Quite clearly we can see that when the weather is warmer and daylight lasts longer I walk more. That’s not really a surprise.

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Holy Diver – Dio

I bought this on vinyl originally. The cover of the Devil chaining a priest and drowning him was probably quite shocking for the time. I probably bought it because of the cover and it was in the heavy metal section of the record shop. Back in those days we couldn’t pre-listen or try a song, only the posh shops did that. I bought records on the cover and recommendations of friends.

Ronnie James Dio’s voice is strange, I wasn’t aware of his history with Black Sabbath and I still haven’t listened to any of his stuff with them, but I can see how he could follow Ozzy. I’ve just looked up that the guitarist was Vivian Campbell which explains a lot. I first heard of him when he worked for Whitesnake and the 1987 album.

Holy Diver has lyrics, but I don’t really pay attention to the lyrics. For me music is the riff, rhythm and tune of the vocals. This is an excellent 80s rock album with a perfect combination of sound and feel. It’s great. I can imagine a crowd of 80,000 all jumping in time to the heavy crunching riffs.

I can remember once being on Imperial College Radio and commenting that I thought Rainbow In The Dark sounded a lot like Living On Video. I had phone calls objecting but I maintain I was correct, or at least correct about the keyboard riff.

Rainbow In The Dark

Living On Video

Do you know what? I was right! Yes, for some reason I have both. I think I bought Living On Video as a single before I developed my love for screaming loud guitars.

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