The Ramblings

My failings as a Blogger....

2010-11-23T23:09:00.000Z

As you can see, I'm not exactly a prolific blogger but I've decided that instead of starting new posts but never finishing or publishing them (hence my delayed last post!), I'm going to make more of an effort to blog more regularly. Maybe then I will attract a few more followers and I'll feel less like I am waffling away to myself all the time!

So, if you stumble across my meagre offerings, please don't run away too quickly, never to return, you might miss something interesting.

Then again, you might not!

The day my shoes melted!

2010-11-23T22:45:00.001Z

A while back we were in Scotland for a holiday and in a local What's On mag in our cottage, I spotted something called the Doors Open Days that caught my attention so I checked out the website (www.doorsopendays.org.uk). There was a chance to see inside a glass factory and I was a little intrigued as I love all things glass, but figured it wasn't really fair to drag my long-suffering partner around there while we were on holiday. However, after attending another event at Sauchie Tower where I met an employee of the glass company, we were persuaded to put our names down for the next day's tour.

And all I can say is WOW! It was amazing! We saw the whole process from where the raw materials went into the furnace (at a sweltering 1500 degrees celsius) to where the bottles were packaged up on pallets ready to go to the customers to fill with alcohol of many varieties. I knew I should have made notes because it was too long ago for me to remember everything we were told, but this factory uses £30,000-worth of gas per day, and makes 2.5million bottles per day! I think that's what they said, but whatever the number, it was a huge amount :) Each mould makes 2 bottles every 12 secs and it's a 24-7, 365 days a year process because of the time & energy it takes to reheat a cold furnace.

This particular factory is based in Alloa, Clackmannanshire, Scotland but O-I Glass is all over the world and is now the largest European glass packaging manufacturer.

You can see a video about the bottle making process here but it's so tame compared to the real thing. We were blown away by it all so I can highly recommend a visit next September when they will hopefully re-open their doors for Doors Open Days 2011. My only regret is that we weren't allowed to take photos due to the chance we could be spies from rival manufacturer! The sight of hundreds and hundreds of bottles being gently jostled into line was something to behold.

If you live in Scotland, then hopefully you are already aware of Doors Open Days but don't forget to check out the website for more info (www.doorsopendays.org.uk) - there are so many places you can visit that the general public can't see usually - we were lucky to be in the area at the right time. The English equivalent is Heritage Open Days (www.heritageopendays.org.uk) which I am quite ashamed to say that I had never even heard of until now. If you check out this page on the Doors Open Days site, it gives links to other organisations in Wales, NI, & London too.

To finish, I'd like to thank the lovely lady from Clackmannanshire Council who's name I don't remember - but she showed us around Sauchie Tower and she was also organising other events too.

P.S. My shoes didn't really melt but they almost did - the metal walkways were red-hot!

Cutscenes : to skip or not to skip?

2010-04-02T14:42:00.001+01:00

I've played a fair few games in my many years and one of my biggest gripes is not being able to skip cutscenes and/or credits in games. I can understand that cutscenes are often integral to the game but there's nothing worse than being forced to watch unnecessary longwinded cutscenes......oh yes there is! Being forced to watch them again when you replay the game!

I've just completed Super Mario Galaxy (see my previous post) and had thought about playing the game through as Luigi which you can do once you have got all of the 120 stars available. But I've only made it through 2 levels so far and I am already tearing my hair out because despite you only being able to play this game once you have played the whole thing through to completion, the game is insisting that I re-watch every miserable cut scene and instructions on how to play the game!

It drives me UP THE WALL if I can't skip cutscenes when I want to.

Why force me to re-watch scenes I've already seen?

Mind you, cutscenes are often more bearable than the overly long credits we're forced to endure on completion of a game. Most of the time you can just shut the game off and be done with it but with SMG, you get the credits and a huge end-cut scene when you have completed the "Center of the Universe level" BTW, the spelling of Center is not mine :)

This is not the end of the game as such and after you do get that elusive last star, if you want to play through as Luigi, you have to not only replay that level after the last star, but you then have to endure a lengthy end-scene for the SECOND TIME and about 5 mins of credits for the SECOND TIME.

Excuse me while I just scream with frustration and annoyance!

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Not that any game companies are ever going to see this, but please please please could you all give us the option to skip cutscenes and credits if we want to? Thanks :)

Nothing new to most, but it's my first time

2010-04-02T12:30:00.001+01:00

Last night was a landmark for me, I finally got the last star I needed to complete Super Mario Galaxy, I'm sure even the people who live at the other end of our road heard my shouts when I got it :)

I'd played the game ages ago but had got cheesed off trying to get the last 10-15 stars and it had been relegated to the back of the cupboard. But last week I decided I'd start from scratch to get in the mood for the follow-up game which is due out June 11th.

I whizzed through the earlier levels quite speedily and was quite pleased to get past my total number of stars from the last run-through. But there were the last few levels that were just so frustrating that I just couldn't seem to complete them and I have to admit to getting quite irate at times, much to my OH's amusement!

But I was determined to get those 120 stars under my belt and after a lot of cursing and blinding, I finally did it last night.

The point of this post was not to talk about completing SMG but to talk about something I'm going to do that I've never done before......pre-order a game. It may not seem much to 99% of gamers but I've never subscribed to the hype of needing a game the day of release, especially as prices tend to drop quite rapidly after that initial release.

However, I've loved playing this game, despite the occasional frustrations, and having seen the trailers for SMG2, which looks amazing, I just know that come June 11th, I'd be kicking myself for not pre-ordering it. I don't think I can even wait a month to get it for my birthday! So I'll be pre-ordering my first ever game just as soon as I work out the best place for getting it here on time as my OH assures me there's nothing worse than your pre-order not arriving when it's supposed to and seeing everyone else rave about their new game!

This post will lead on to my next whinge........cutscenes in games

When Technology Fails

2010-02-03T15:12:00.000Z

It's all well and good having a dual-screen setup for your PC but it's just taken me getting on for half an hour to get everything back to how it should be (and how I like it) after a program crashed and left my desktop at Old Fart resolution.

Of course I'd left a million and one things open and unsaved before opening the guilty program so I didn't want to just reboot the PC to solve the problem I ended up with after changing the resolution - my mouse was trapped on the secondary screen!

With judicial use of the ALT and TAB keys I managed to save and close all essential items, so rebooted. But now the mouse was trapped on the primary screen - arghhhhhhhhh!

Thank goodness for my resident techie support guy - a quick text revealed that the monitors had swapped positions so a quick click and drag and then a final tweak of resolutions etc and I'm back in business again.

So the lesson I learned today (again!) was that I should save regularly!

McLelland's Seriously Strong Cheese should be renamed!

2009-12-02T10:26:00.000Z

I'm a big fan of cheese but it has to be strong cheese, you know the stuff? Makes you suck your cheeks in? I'm not fussy about what brand cheese I buy and do tend to go for whichever vintage/extra mature cheddar is best value at the time of purchase so my last cheese purchase ended up being McLelland's Seriously Strong cheese.

What a misnomer. Admittedly it couldn't be classed as mild cheese but this cheese was Seriously lacking in strongness. And I can't blame it on a batch being off par as the last lot I had awhile back was lacking flavour too.

So c'mon McLelland, pull your cheesy socks up and get your cheese back up to standard or I shall be petitioning for a name change!

Shame I missed the Good Food Show at the NEC this time around, I'd have stocked up on Black Bomber cheese....now that is a cheese to be reckoned with :)

ESPECIALLY FOR THE KELLOGGS TWITTER TEAM!

2009-11-25T11:26:00.000Z

A few days ago, I mused on Twitter about whether making Rice Krispies cakes would work using Coco Pops instead and Kelloggs spotted my comment so when I did a test run, I took some piccies to show them!

So here they are for viewing as they couldn't see them via Twitter - my White Chocolate & Coco Pop "Cakes" :)

I was a bit worried that they'd end up being naked Coco Pops once mixed into the melted chocolate but that didn't happen and I think they turned out quite well for an experiment. I'm guessing I'm not the first person to have tried this but it was random idea I had, one that actually worked for a change :)

It's a shame that I only made a small batch to test it out but as they are so easy to make, I'm sure I'll be making more very soon!

Sorry I've not worked out how to put the piccies side by side yet. Just click on the photos to see them full size.

2009-11-24T17:38:00.000Z

Today, someone asked me whether I had a blog. I answered truthfully and said yes, I'd made exactly one post just to "try it out" and then decided I had nothing really to offer the blogging community. If no-one appears to be interested in my tweeting, why would they want to read my ramblings here?

Well. I am now making my 2nd post on my blog. Just to say hello to anyone that randomly passes by here, maybe you could say a quick hello as you do? Just so I know someone out there is reading my words :)

My first blog post

2009-08-14T09:57:00.000+01:00

I'm not really a blogger, I'm just trying this out to see what happens. It's not like I do anything interesting that should be recorded for posterity, or that I have interesting thoughts that others might want to read but what the heck, everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't I?

Today is Friday. As a Lady of Leisure, all the raves about it being nearly the weekend mean nothing to me. Every day is a day off. However, as the monetary stash I once had is almost depleted, I'm guessing that my dossing around days are numbered.

Anyone need an Office Manager?