It’s Been More Than A Fortnite

Recently I’ve been persuaded to have a go at playing Fortnite. The last month has been an interesting time learning all the little ways that Epic Games manage to keep the interest within Fortnite. There are lots of challenges and quests that can be completed alongside the actual game of trying to kill everyone else. If you don’t know this game is based on Battle Royale – kill all the others until you are the only survivors. It’s actually pretty good fun and I have enjoyed learning things about the maps, the weapons and the gameplay.

Fortnite Levels - It's Been About A Month
Fortnite Levels – It’s Been About A Month

I never thought I’d be into different skins and customisations in a game. I’ve quite enjoyed putting liveries on Gran Turismo cars but not ones that I’ve had to work hard for, or even pay for. If it ain’t free I’m not having it. Except, I have done that in Fortnite. I’ve paid for a decent looking glider that I will try and embed in another communication – it’s loosely based on the Grumman Goose. I’ve also paid a little money for some rather cool looking skins, and they were in the sale so that’s probably OK? Anyway, I’m an adult and can spend my money on whatever I want I guess.

I’m currently at level 184 or something. The shiny skin I have in the image took a fair amount of play and even trying third party games which are generally quite shit. You get bonus XP for completing tasks and the XP goes to give you levels. I will admit, I am hooked, and with other people in my team we can regularly come in the top 5 on the island so I enjoy this game a lot.

Zero Day Festival – Electrowerkz

Last night I went to Electrowerkz to see a couple of bands as part of the Zero Day Festival the venue was running. It was nice to be back in London, I stared at some buildings as though I’d never been there before, some parts of London surely are pretty. This festival had a number of bands I wanted to see but none more important than Grausame Töchter. I’d been aware of this band for a while but had never had the opportunity to seen them before. I do love the Electrowerkz venue – I still don’t really know my way around and the place just feels “down to Earth”.

Classy Venue Warning
Classy Venue Warning

I drove to the Big City as trains are never as convenient and more expensive [that’s what privatisation does for you]. I found a car park and also chatted to reception to make sure they would be open when I returned. Then Smith and I walked down to the venue, a couple of minutes walk away. There was a band on as we arrived and so we watched them for a while. Patenbrigade:Wolff were on stage. They were dressed in orange boiler suits but in a road maintenance way rather than a scary-Slipknot way. I enjoyed this band and have since got two of their albums.

Patenbrigade:Wolff at Electrowerkz
Patenbrigade:Wolff at Electrowerkz

The music was well constructed and had a good variation. One of the singers just seemed to spend most of the time drinking beer and dancing around. There was a female singer and that was a nice change to their set. Overall I was impressed enough to buy some merchandise. This is mostly because it’s a high-viz jacket and I might wear it at work.

Patenbrigade:Wolff at Electrowerkz
Patenbrigade:Wolff at Electrowerkz

Next up was Grausame Töchter. I knew this was going to be a performance piece and I was looking forward to it. Their songs are super catchy and I think I’m probably happy I don’t know what the lyrics are about. Especially after some of their stageshow.

Grausame Töchter at Electrowerkz
Grausame Töchter at Electrowerkz

I really enjoyed the show and the songs. Some aspects were very slightly disturbing but I guess that’s what good art will do. There was, at times, a naked woman on stage who, in the act, seemed to be forced into killing themself along with holding up placards with various sexual references. The backing singer of the band was a part of Nachtmarh when I saw them at M’era Luna this year. At the summer show she sprayed the audience with water from a water gun. This time she sprayed the audience with a white substance from a giant syringe.

Grausame Töchter at Electrowerkz
Grausame Töchter at Electrowerkz

This show was great fun and I really enjoyed it for the visuals and the music. I knew it would be a “performance” and it turned out to not disappoint. Last on stage were [:SITD:] and they were pretty good. I didn’t enjoy them as much as the second act. For me they were a solid good set, I jus think they lack something in their stage show but each to their own I guess.

[:SITD:] at Electrowerkz
[:SITD:] at Electrowerkz

Overall an enjoyable evening. I beat the Google Maps time for getting home without actually speeding so that was nice. It took two thirds of the time to get home as it did to actually get to the parking spot. London is annoying at times. Anyway, overall, a really enjoyable evening and one that I’ll remember.

Trying To Work Out What I’ll Do

So, I’m going to use Mastodon but I’m not sure what for. I’m going to try and avoid all the hated and politics that I saw on Twitter and I think I’ll just follow stuff that I’m interested in: games, films, music, sport, aircraft, that sort of thing. The thing now is to find those sources of enjoyment. I’m also going to use Mastodon to exhibit my photographs I think. I’ve got plenty of pretty neat photos and so I will spend some time tooting those.

I’m currently thinking about deleting myself from Twitter but I think there’s too much stuff on this actual site for me to be able to do that without spending days cleaning up all the links and embedded tweets. I’m working on finding a solution.

A Nice New Place

I’ve spent much of the time since 2016 avoiding Twitter at times and being dragged back in because I’ve missed understanding what’s going on. Now the evil overlord has taken control of Twitter I’ve followed many to Mastodon. Musk has overleveraged himself because he was pissed off and I find that hilarious. He is such a funny person to observe.

So, I’ll keep my Twitter account going because loads of things send stuff to that. I think this website sends notifications there, but I’ll be looking for a Mastodon posting plugin at sometime. In the meantime I think I’m going to mostly look at Mastodon and hope that it’s a lovely place with decent moderation.

As far as I understand it you can see me on Mastodon using @[email protected]

Hopefully This Tells A Story

I’m not going to research this before writing this communication. You are going to get my live reaction as I search through data sources to see what the evidence is to back up my hypothesis that the current UK Government Cabinet are assholes. The evidence I’m going to collect is from They Work For You and I’m going to compare voting records on human rights issues. I’m going to use the top five or so ministers from government and also those in the shadow cabinet to see if there are some broad differences. I AM going to make a value judgement on the overall work of these MPs using how they vote on social issues. If you think it’s ok to be in charge of this country but to deny people human rights then I guess that is your choice but I bet you are cis white het.

UK Tory Government

Rishi Sunak – Generally voted against giving people equal rights.

Dominic Raab – Generally voted against giving people equal rights.

Jeremy Hunt – Generally voted against giving people equal rights.

James [not] Cleverly – Generally voted against giving people equal rights.

Suella Braverman – all the bad.

UK Shadow Cabinet

Kier Starmer – voted for the good things.

Angela Rayner – voted for the good things.

Pat McFadden – voted for the good things.

David Lammy – generally voted for the good things.

Yvette Cooper – almost always voted for the good things.

These results aren’t really a surprise. The tories generally vote against doing good things for people and the labour shadow cabinet generally vote for doing good things for people. Why people even vote tory I don’t understand. Oh, yes, I do understand, it’s because they are largely selfish and lack empathy.

End Of Summer – Kent Edition

My plans for the October half term were sent to the backburner when my car decided to stop working and it is currently in the car hospital. I did manage to see some lovely parts of this county.

I had a trip to Sissinghurst Castle and that was lovely as I bumped into an old work collegue.

Sissinghurst Castle Moods
Sissinghurst Castle Moods

I visited Chatham Dockside whatever the place is called and walked the dog for a little while.

Chatham Dockyard Mixing The Ages
Chatham Dockyard Mixing The Ages

I also played quite a bit of Fortnite, whether that is good or bad I don’t know, but I enjoy it. Even with the slaughter of innocents in the game I would suggest it’s a better environment than the real world at the moment. My struggles with politics and people continue from 2016. I think I’m just starting to get used to it.

West Kent Facing Sunset
West Kent Facing Sunset

Perhaps I need another rant on here but that should wait for another day when I have the time and mental capacity to explain my thoughts in my not-so-clear way.

NFL Wembley 2022

Sunday was a good day to head to Wembley and watch American Football. This year it was the turn of the Denver Broncos and the Jacksonville Jaguars to battle it out to win the international series game. I had planned really well to arrive in time for a 1430 start but unfortunately the match actually started at 1330 so we missed the first quarter. Not a problem as the rest of the match had good things in it [except for the 3rd quarter].

Close Up To The Action
Close Up To The Action

I met Jason and his daughter at the stadium and because we missed the national anthems I didn’t get my chance to silently protest the stupidity of having a grown up singing about wanting to save the system that literally makes us subjects of a person rather than citizens in our own right. Fuck the system.

Wembley Stadium - Broncos @ Jags
Wembley Stadium – Broncos @ Jags

The Broncos won the match and I guess that pleased Penguin as he’s a Broncos fan. I liked it too as I had chosen to support them throughout the game.

By the way. I’m back to supporting the New Orleans Saints as my premier football team. Not because the Packers are bad, but because they are not very romantic. So, Who Dat!

I Don’t Understand The Picture

Normally graphics are meant to be nice and simple to allow easy interpretation. It should be clear what the sign means from the picture and the words should just be an extra. For many years I thought the “stone chip” road sign was actually a hammer hitting the road and making chips of stone fly around. It took me years to see half a car there.

UK traffic sign 7009.svg
By UK Government OGL v1.0, Link

I was filling the car up with petrol at my new favourite local petrol station and I spotted the warning sign.

Warning Sign At Petrol Station
Warning Sign At Petrol Station

Most of these signs seem to make sense to me but I’m really struggling to see what the “stop motor” picture is. I can see a key and then a face mask?? I honestly have no idea and I’m glad there was English written on the warning because I wouldn’t have figured it out. Not that I leave the engine running when I fill up with petrol but, you know.

Road To Nowhere

There have been quite a few roadworks where I live mostly due to cracked water pipes. Apparently these water leaks are due to the ground shifting in the extremely dry weather and old pipes get cracked. There were four leaks in the village. I think there are now only two. One of the works was in my street and there was a diversion in place in case you need to get to the other side of the “square”.

World's Shortest Diversion?
World’s Shortest Diversion?

I genuinely had to look at this really hard to figure out what it meant. But it does make me chuckle.

Vote Them Out

Well . . . .

I’ve spent time jumping on and off of Twitter over the last little while. I’m fascinated to try and find out what’s going on with the world and this country but it all horrifies me so totally I have decided to try and ignore it. I can’t do much about any of the utter desperation and shit that this country is being put through by the last twelve years of tory rule, so I’ve decided to try to make sure I can look after myself and those I care about. If you are watching the news over the recent weeks following the utter thickness bullshit of a PM and you still choose to vote tory then you are a dick.

We shouldn’t be raising interest rates to stop inflation. The inflation isn’t caused by people spending money. It’s caused by energy shortages and greedy corporations. Raising interest rates will harm the poorest and those who have no money to spend. Funny that a tory government gave the Bank Of England the power to control interest rates along with the duty to control inflation because then all the blame goes onto the BoE.

We shouldn’t be taxing rich people less to “encourage growth”. We should be taxing rich people more and passing that to those who are struggling. We shouldn’t be borrowing money to give direct to the privatised companies to subsidise energy bills. We should be taxing those companies to give money to the poor. The money being borrowed is going to be paid back by tax payers in the future. So we are taking money from tax payers in the future to subsidise the profits of companies and shareholders. This is a classic tory move.

Also, most of our energy companies are owned by foreign states. France, Germany and The Netherlands own most of our energy companies via their STATE OWNED energy companies. Fuck this government and the tories of the 80s for selling off utilities owned by the people. What an utter failure of an experiment this style of capitalism has been.

We can wait until the next general election and we can vote for whichever candidate has the best possibility of kicking out the incumbent tory. This is the fucking least we can do. The experiments in greed that have been running since the 80s both here and in the USA have failed utterly. We need a tightly regulated capitalism, we need state owned utilities. We need state owned mass transit. If, after the next general election there is a single tory MP then I will be ashamed of this country [more than I currently am].

Personally I think we are due a revolution. A change. A republic. New rules. New systems. A style of government that thinks about the future and the poor. Perhaps we have universal basic income? Perhaps we move away from individual transit to mass transit. Perhaps we move to sustainable high density housing. We need to change the world and we can do that by being trailblazers in a world that will survive. Let’s be clear, our current systems are going to cause pain and death and wars in less than 50 years.

The problem is that this country is full of people too tied to the rules. Just look at the fawning over the royal family when the queen died. What a fucking disgrace. Such reverence being paid to an institution built on greed, slavery and theft. The power came from enslaving other countries and stealing their preciousness. It’s hard to explain this to people because they don’t want to listen. We can’t discuss these things because the entire state is build around the Crown. We’ve been like this for over a thousand years. Fuck this country.

So, vote the fuckers out.

Although I’d prefer to be in the streets shouting “viva la revolution”.