#oneaday Day 500: Meaningless milestone celebration

It's post 500 of my second time around on this nonsense! Hooray! We should celebrate, probably!

500 posts, of course, doesn't really mean anything, because it's not a year (it's more than that) and it's not two years (it's less than that). Although "500" is a nice round number, time's frustrating need to use non-round numbers means that doing something 500 days in a row (give or take a couple of missteps here and there, which have always been corrected and accounted for) doesn't mean anything other than the fact you reached an arbitrary milestone.

But a milestone it is, nonetheless, and so celebrate we shall.

I have been enjoying getting back to this daily blogging malarkey. Blogs are all but dead these days, of course, but as I've frequently noted on here, I don't write this for any sort of Internet approval or to watch numbers go up. I write this because I find it valuable and helpful to do so. It's a means of expressing myself that has only let me down on one occasion in the last 17 years, and that was the fault of the platform holder at the time rather than the medium itself. It's a means of, at times, processing complicated thoughts that I'm not sure how to talk to people about. It's a means of me helping to understand myself, I guess.

It took me a little while to get back into the rhythm of things, I'll admit. When I kicked things off again on June 8th last year, I wasn't in a great place mentally. It hadn't been long since we had lost our beloved Meg, and I was still reeling from that somewhat. I had just had a day of fun with some friends, though, and that had energised me somewhat, inspiring me to put "pen" to paper once more. I note with a grim expression that I have not heard a peep from any of those people since I got exceedingly frustrated and upset with them in May of this year, which is something I am not going to get into right now. Sigh. I digress.

Anyway, yes. I was not in an amazing place mentally, but I was also conscious of not wanting every single post on here to be moaning about something, or to keep retreading the same subject matter over and over again. On my past time in the #oneaday mines, I managed to put out some of my most creative blog posts — and often during some of the bleakest periods of my life, too. Hardship breeds creativity or something. That's not a saying, but you know what I mean.

Over time, I think I've settled back nicely into a reasonably good rhythm of being able to write about personal things, write about things I enjoy like books, games and music, and write complete and utter nonsense. Some may say that a blog needs to have a "specialism" if you want readers, and to that I say two things.

One: I've already said that I don't particularly care about readers. No, that sounds too harsh; it's not that I don't care, but it's more that… this place is primarily for me, and anyone who happens to stumble across it, read it and enjoy or get something out of it is a happy bonus. I'm not going to actively discourage anyone from reading, but I'm also not going out of my way to promote it or try and get people to read, either. I don't even share most of these posts on what little social media I still have remaining.

Two: I have a blog with a specialism. It's called MoeGamer. You might already follow it. If you do, thank you, and that's great! This blog is, and always has been, unfiltered Pete. It's my online scrapbook of sorts, where I can just write whatever nonsense is in my head on any given day, and then perhaps look back on it in a few years time and recall some things that I might have otherwise forgotten. That is actually something I do quite often.

So anyway. After 500 days on this second trip around the block, I'm happy with where this blog is and what I'm doing with it. It's a shame that we'll likely never see the same sort of blogging community as we once had in the early days of the #oneaday project first time around — there are some people I met from that period in time that I really miss, and have no idea where to find them any more! — but this place is fulfilling the purpose that, more than anything, it was always designed for.

So here's to 500 days of this rubbish, and maybe another 500 more after that, and maybe many more 500s after that. Meaningless milestone it may be, but it is still a milestone. So happy 500 to me!

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 496: Farewell, DI Parker

I am still watching Death in Paradise on my lunch breaks, and I've just got to the end of Ralf Little's run as the lead, Detective Inspector Neville Parker. He follows Ardal O'Hanlon, Kris Marshall and Ben Miller in taking the central role, and I think his run on the series might have been one of my favourites to date.

I enjoyed Miller, Marshall and O'Hanlon's time in the leading role, too, but Little's time in the hot seat felt like it had one of the most coherent character arcs for the central character. It helped that he, as a character, probably had the most room to grow of all the show's leading men to date — and the fact he was in place for about three and a half seasons, which is longer than his predecessors.

Death in Paradise is a heavily formulaic show, and to some people, that sort of thing can be annoying. Hell, formulaic shows are, at times, anathema to me — I can't stand reality TV shows that all adopt the "one of them gets voted off after a long, pregnant pause" format, for example — but for some reason, I find the relative predictability of Death in Paradise enjoyable, even comforting.

That extends to the role of the lead character, too: they're always a fish-out-of-water detective who has been brought across from some British police force (O'Hanlon's character, despite being Irish, was part of the Metropolitan Police in London before joining the Honoré gang) but the exact form of that varies somewhat. Miller's DI Poole was a grumpy old fart who gradually softened as he spent time with his comrades, until he was murdered, anyway; Marshall's DI Goodman was clumsy and scatterbrained but brilliant; O'Hanlon's DI Mooney was by far the character who was most at ease on the island; then Little's DI Parker went to the other extreme.

Initially resistant to everything the island of Saint-Marie had to offer — and allergic to everything — Parker was gradually brought out of his mosquito-repellent shell by his DS, Florence Cassell (Josephine Jobert), who had been a fixture on the show for some time, and showed some real character growth, culminating in him developing feelings for Florence. It was not to be, however, as not only did she reject him, at least partly because she was still smarting from the murder of her former fiancée, but a case forced her undercover and subsequently into the witness protection programme, conveniently bringing her time on the show to a close for a while.

Parker had a number of other good storylines along the way, too. They were ridiculous if you stop to think about them for a moment, but the same is true for the entirety of Death in Paradise. If a single locale had the murders per capita that Saint-Marie has, I suspect the authorities would declare it a complete lost cause and just firebomb it into oblivion. But I digress.

Probably the best of Parker's storylines was his holiday romance with a woman named Sophie. This initially appeared to be a complete mirror image of Goodman's romance with Martha, which ultimately led to him departing the show (and the pair getting their own spinoff series) but subsequently developed into something much more interesting. I doubt any of you reading this particularly care about Death in Paradise spoilers, but for the sake of anyone who might fancy watching this silly show, I will refrain from giving any further details for now.

Parker's finale, which saw him all set to depart Saint-Marie on a worldwide journey of self-discovery — just in time for Florence to return to the island and realise her feelings for him — was a good one, too. The promotional material for the episodes on BBC iPlayer did a good job of implying that it might be Parker who ended up murdered in his last episode — as previously noted, it wouldn't be the first time the show had killed off its lead — but he ultimately got a good, happy sendoff. I was glad about that; as a character, it felt like he deserved a happy ending. Not that Miller's poor old DI Poole didn't, but the surprise, sudden nature of his departure was very effective, and I'm not sure it would have worked for a second time, even with multiple seasons in between them.

Anyway, I'm surprised at a few things about my enjoyment of this show. Firstly, quite how attached I am to the various characters. Secondly, how well it handles feeling coherent despite a core cast that has been almost completely replaced multiple times over the course of its various seasons. By firmly grounding the show in its geographical setting, and having characters like Commissioner Patterson and bar owner-turned-mayor Catherine, the show establishes itself as a firm base that the rotating core cast builds atop, and it works. It helps prevent the show feeling too stale — and it's nice to see that some characters do get the chance to come back, too. I was particularly pleased to see the return of Danny John-Jules' Dwayne Myers, especially since his former squeeze Darlene had become an officer of the Honoré force in the meantime.

It's ultimately all rather silly comfort TV, and I suspect as soon as I've finished watching its complete run, I'll forget all about it. But for now, Death in Paradise has been a thoroughly pleasant watch — and I look forward to seeing where it goes from hereon.

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#oneaday Day 495: Bullying

Inspired by, of all things, an episode of Death in Paradise that had bullying as its core motive for murder, I feel inspired to reflect on some past incidents where I have encountered bullying. Because there have been quite a few, and, honestly, I'm not sure that many of them ever ended up being resolved in a particularly satisfactory manner. (I have not, to date, committed murder.)

This might be a long one, just to warn you. I haven't written it yet, so I don't know, but I have a feeling this might be a long one. You have been warned!

I have always been a somewhat awkward individual to varying degrees. In my middle age, I now know this to be an autistic spectrum disorder, of course, but growing up (and onwards into young adulthood) I never really sort of felt like I quite fit in.

In primary school, I somehow attracted the attention of several bullies. I don't recall doing anything in particular to rouse their ire initially; I guess I was just seen as an easy target. The kid with the unfashionable hair and the big ears and the posh-sounding voice.

This started early on. Kids from the upper end of the school would pick on me, a kid considerably younger than them, mercilessly. I would be taunted for my ears, I would be insulted, I would even be beaten up. Occasionally I would lash out, and inevitably get in trouble for doing so. On multiple occasions, I recall my frustration at the sheer injustice of it all being such that I ended up deliberately provoking the bullies in question so they would do something they shouldn't have, and I would do my best to ensure it was within eyeshot of a dinner lady. But, again, I don't think anything substantial ever really got done about it.

Oh, sure, the bullies might have been put in "the yellow book" once or twice (our headmaster thought it was cute that people getting in trouble could get put in "the yellow book" or "the red book" according to the severity of the transgression, using football's yellow and red cards as an analogy) but they suffered no lasting consequences for their actions and demonstrated no remorse whatsoever.

What's worse about being bullied at school is when some people see you getting bullied, they decide to side with the bully — whether just for a quiet life or because they genuinely wanted to be seen as one of the "cool kids" — and that, on more than one occasion, included people that were supposedly my friends. On multiple occasions, I fell out with these supposed friends because they had decided to pick on me, not in that sort of silly, lighthearted way you do with your friends, but in the same way as the bullies. It really sucked, but pretty much every time I eventually forgave them, for ours was a Christian school, and forgiveness was What You Did.

As I progressed up the school and my former tormentors left, I still wasn't free. Some days people that I otherwise got along perfectly fine with would just turn on me, and I'd be left with nowhere to go, full of anger and frustration at a world that just wasn't fair. I was doing well academically — probably one reason the bullies decided to pick on me, as shameful as that might sound — so it was upsetting and frustrating that I couldn't just enjoy school. What made things worse is that there were other people in the same "top groups" for various subjects at me, and they never suffered like I did; they were "in" with the "cool kids" and thus never had to contend with this.

When I arrived at secondary school, I hoped that it would be a fresh start. And it was, to a degree. On my first day, I was sat next to a kid named Murray, who I didn't know because he had come from a different primary school. I turned around to my friend Matthew and said, with some genuine anguish, "I can't remember how to make friends," but he just shrugged and continued getting along with the person he had been sat with. I attempted to make small talk with Murray, but it didn't really go anywhere.

Some time later, Murray decided that I would be a suitable target for bullying, and he took to insulting me and physically abusing me to varying degrees. It was relentless, and all too familiar to me — and this time, it was coming from a member of my peer group, and thus someone I couldn't easily escape from.

I cracked one day. After he'd been flicking rubber bands at me all morning, I turned around, grabbed him by his collar and thumped him really hard in the face. Unfortunately, the moment I had picked to do this was exactly as our headmaster was walking around the corner, and he saw everything.

To the credit of the school's senior staff (and my parents, when they were informed), they agreed that I had been pushed too far by Murray's behaviour, and they understood why I had lashed out, but they also made it clear that what I had done in response was also unacceptable. My secondary school wasn't a Christian school like my primary school, but it still very much held the attitude that the "correct" way to respond to a bully was to "just say 'no' to them". Like that helps when you're being beaten up.

As a result, I ended up put on "report", which meant that for a week, during lunchtimes and breaktimes, I had to report to a member of staff every five minutes and get a sheet of paper signed. As a deterrent for doing anything stupid, it was certainly effective, but it was also mortifyingly embarrassing. I recall bursting into tears in the dining hall, surrounded by my bewildered friends, at the frustration of the situation. Because it was frustrating, but in that instance, I, at least, knew that Murray had suffered a harsher punishment than I had. I believe he was suspended for a short period; he may even have ended up expelled at some point, because I actually don't remember running into him again beyond year 7 — though that may just be the haziness of the distant past talking.

At secondary school, I once again suffered those occasions when people would inexplicably turn on me without provocation. I absolutely was not a cool kid as a teenager; I had terrible hair (and no understanding of how to make it not-terrible, a trait I maintain to this day and primarily avert by shaving my head), I had teenage zits, I probably smelled bad, and I wasn't into anything cool like football. I understood early on that cliques formed, and I was fortunate enough to find myself in a little clique of my own, and those friends mostly stuck by me for the majority of secondary school. But there were still days when, for one reason or another, they'd decide to play up at my expense.

I think my least favourite incident in this regard was the time when, on attending the local county concert band, as I did on a weekly basis, I overheard a girl I thought I got along well with (and rather fancied, truth be told) talking to her compatriot from another school on Second Clarinet. She was being less than complimentary about someone, but the conversation sounded amusing and fun. So I asked her about it during the break in the rehearsal. She laughed it off and said nothing, and I knew immediately that it was about me. I don't know if she intended me to overhear, but I never quite felt the same about her after that.

On one particularly memorable occasion, a fight was organised between me and another kid also named Peter; I had no particular beef with him, so this fight being organised was more baffling to me than anything. I suspect it was the kids responsible wanting to feel like they had "power" over people, like they could make them do anything. I hope they were severely disappointed when neither of the two Peters turned up to the supposed fight time and place.

As I progressed through secondary school, bullying became less and less common, and completely non-existent by the time I reached sixth form, which is one of many reasons I look back on that period as one of the best times of my life. It was bliss to be in an environment where I could thrive, surrounded by people I got along with and liked, and not bothered by people who, for whatever twisted reason they had justified in their mind, wished me ill.

I was fortunate enough to not encounter any bullying during my time at university, either. I had a good group of friends who were very supportive, and we were a close-knit group that did a lot together. That staved off any interference from anyone who might wish any of us harm — we had one another's backs if it came down to it, but it never did, thankfully.

When I finally left university as a qualified teacher, I once again encountered bullying — not just as a teacher tasked with resolving such incidents in his class, but also as a member of staff. I felt ostracised and unwelcome among much of the staff of one of the schools I taught at, including my own head of department, and felt very unsupported. It was this, among other things, that contributed to my having a nervous breakdown on the job; I will forever be grateful to the few teachers on that staff who would give me the time of day, and who were supportive, both during that particular episode and when I just needed a good rant come 3.30 in the afternoon — the head of the English department and the head of Drama in particular.

And that wasn't the end of it. When I worked in retail, I had what appeared to be a dream job for quite some time, progressing through the positions it was possible to have at the store, and learning a lot in the process. Then one day, I learned that one of my colleagues and friends was being mistreated quite badly by management; I agreed to act as a witness in some frankly unwarranted disciplinary proceedings he was suffering, but managed to end up with a target painted on my back as a result. I ended up bullied out of that job, even going so far as to bring official grievance proceedings against the managers responsible — but of course, that went nowhere.

Management closed ranks and completely ostracised me from thereon, so I wrote them a six-page resignation letter than explained exactly why I was leaving. To my great satisfaction, this letter caused the entire management team to lock themselves in a meeting for an entire day. It didn't help my career — I had already committed to leaving, anyway, but it sure felt good.

The penultimate incident that happened is one that still genuinely causes me traumatic flashbacks to this day — and I will name and shame the company in this instance. SSE, the energy company, by far the worst place I have ever had the misfortune to work, and that includes three failing schools.

SSE's corporate culture is to obsess about safety. And I'm not joking. This is a company where you get told off and written up if you're seen not holding a handrail going up stairs; where you get a stern warning from your manager if you drop a pen under your desk and don't wear a "bump cap" to retrieve it; where the obsession with Safety is an active detriment to productivity.

My problems there actually didn't stem from this side of things at all, surprisingly; it stemmed from my team leader and her team leader, both of whom one day apparently decided to take a dislike to me. I had been working well as someone who helped keep SSE's poorly organised website up to date, and I had even led up a project to completely refresh M&S Energy's website, since that was actually part of SSE. I was a productive member of the team, and, up until this point, I had thought I was getting along with everyone.

One day, I was pulled aside by these two individuals and presented with a letter saying that I was to face disciplinary action for looking at my mobile phone too often during work hours. This was back when I was big into Twitter, and thus my phone was something of a lifeline for communicating with far-off friends, particularly since the friends I saw in person on a semi-regular basis were already starting to become… less regular sights.

Also, I didn't really feel like it would be a problem, since not only was I completing all the work that had been assigned to me in a timely manner and to an excellent standard, all the other members of my team — including the one accusing me now — were on their phones all day every day, and I even caught one of them writing a fucking novel on her computer when she was supposed to be working.

Apparently, because I was still technically on my probation period, they decided to treat this complete non-issue with the severity of if I'd just fucked the photocopier and made the CEO watch or something. I was given notice of a disciplinary meeting whose outcome was clearly decided in advance, and given the opportunity to plead my case. I did so. I was fired, and because I was still on my probation period, that was that, then and there. It was abundantly clear that I had just been bullied out of a second job for no discernible reason other than two people had inexplicably decided to take issue with me. Maybe I made them look bad by getting work done more quickly and better than them. To this day, I genuinely have no idea; I just know that I hate those two individuals.

I yelled obscenities at the gathered group around the table, because I figured if I was never going to see them again, I might as well. I was fucking furious. And I still am, every time I think about this scenario. During particularly low ebbs of mental health, I find myself back in that room, surrounded by people who inexplicably hate me for no reason, and I want nothing more than to lash out more than I actually did. Flip the table. Fling a phone at someone. Beat someone with their folder of "evidence" (which, aside, was remarkably empty-looking). Go much further than yelling "fuck you" and storming out of the room, slamming the door so hard a picture fell off the wall.

That side of me scares me a bit, to be perfectly honest. It scares me that my mind conjures up such images — and it scares me that every time I feel like I've been pushed to feeling like that, it's because I've been bullied; it's been a situation that has been beyond my control.

There is a more recent example, too, that relates to my time at USgamer, and honestly I've always been hesitant to talk about it in specifics for a whole manner of reasons, but suffice to say that, too, was a very obvious instance of bullying. More than ten years later, I am still furious with the person responsible, and how they have never, ever seen any consequences for their actions — and likely never will. The most I can do is never, ever buy a book with his name on — and perhaps punch him in the balls if I am ever unfortunate enough to be in a room with him.

And this is to say nothing of the numerous minor incidents I have encountered over the years where a complete stranger will insult me and threaten me because of the way I look, and my weight. All of those are bullying, too. The most recent of those was just a couple of weeks ago.

As I say, the most frustrating thing about bullying is that, more often than not, there is no closure. There is no justice. And, if you've ever been a victim of it, that really sucks — because all you can do is pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and hope it never happens again. That this last incident, finally, will really be the last time you have to suffer.

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#oneaday Day 492: Character progression

On this particular stint of post-holiday weight loss, I have thus far lost 13.4 pounds, which is as near as dammit to a stone. (I have to look up how many pounds are in a stone every time, because Imperial is stupid, but it's still the default way one weighs oneself here in the UK, despite us being metric in every other area of life.) Granted, on said holiday I put on a lot of weight, so this is pretty much putting me back to where I was, but at least I know that much is possible, and thus it must continue to be possible to lose more.

There's no secret this time around, no fad diets or artificial restrictions on what I'm eating: just simple, straightforward calorie counting. And it appears to be working! For now, at least. So long as I stick to my limits for the vast majority of the week, I can even have complete days off — such as my work trip to London, or yesterday, when Andie and I both just fancied a nice treat from the local bakery — and still lose weight. This is good!

It takes a little mental adjustment to recalibrate yourself to a calorie limit, particularly if you've been less than attentive to your daily intake, but once you're there, I find you can gradually start to intuit how much you can allow yourself per day. And, given that I'm a big lad and thus naturally burn a fair amount of calories just by existing, I have not, to date, felt like I'm having to "deprive" myself of anything. I can even enjoy multiple chocolate bars per day — so long as they're not, say, 750g Dairy Milk bars.

I say there's no secret; I guess the one thing I would say that I've… I don't know if learned is the right word, but I've certainly established it firmly in my mind at this point… is that it pays to understand the things you reach for when you fancy a snack or a little treat during the day. By ensuring that we always have reasonably low-calorie offerings in the house for when we both fancy such things, it means we are much less inclined to go to the shop and buy a big bag of Haribo or the aforementioned 750g Dairy Milk bar.

I had inadvertently trained my mind into thinking that something wasn't "satisfying" if you could consume it quickly, and that really doesn't have to be the case at all. Lidl do these fake Kinder bars on their "Mister Choc" brand that are small enough to be about 100 calories each, and even though you can devour them in three bites, they're enough to stave off cravings for quite a while. If you want to go even lower calorie, then "Skinny Whip" bars or own-brand equivalent (I think Lidl's are just called "Whipped") are about 76 calories, and pretty much as good as something like a Milky Way.

I've also pretty much switched entirely away from cans of pop to squash with carbonated mineral water. I have a thing, particularly with diet soda, that I don't really know how to describe — I get to a point where it feels like it will be undesirable to drink them, because it… not burns exactly, but doesn't feel nice going down. I find this is much more likely with diet cola drinks than diet fruity sodas (Fanta, fake Lilt etc) but there are definitely times when my body goes "no fizzy pop, no". At those times it is seemingly absolutely fine with some orange squash made with carbonated mineral water, so I've been drinking quite a lot of that. And that, in turn, has been helping me just drink more generally, which I think is helpful.

I feel a bit better, too. After the holiday I was feeling exhausted, achey and generally Not Good, and the reason was because I was heavier than I'd ever been. I still have a very long way to go before I am where I want to be — the long-term, often unattainable-feeling goal is to lose enough weight to finally get this damn hernia that I've been suffering with for a very long time treated — but right now, I am feeling more positive about all this than I have done for quite some time.

Hopefully I won't find myself reaching a plateau any time soon, because that is always the worst feeling, and involves having to completely rethink the habits you thought you had established… but that hasn't happened thus far over the course of the last month, so here's hoping that things continue in the correct direction for at least a little while yet.

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#oneaday Day 483: I regret buying an expensive keyboard and mouse

A while back — probably a few years back at this point — I discovered the joy of a mechanical keyboard and a good quality mouse. Actually, it's probably more accurate to say I rediscovered it; growing up, after the Atari ST, we had a couple of "proper" IBM PCs, complete with Model M keyboard, and I have fond memories both of using that keyboard and of being able to hear it all the way downstairs when my Dad was typing on it upstairs.

But yeah; I started with a relatively cheap "Tecknet" wired mechanical keyboard and liked the feel and sound of that, so a little while later I decided to spend a bit of money and treat myself to some pricier models: specifically, a Razer Blackwidow V3 Pro keyboard and a Razer Basilisk X Hyperspeed mouse. I chose the Blackwidow V3 Pro specifically because it was a mechanical keyboard that was also wireless — for a while, that was a hard combination to find — and the Basilisk X Hyperspeed because it seemed to be decent without being overcomplicated.

I regret my purchases.

Not because either of them are unusably bad or anything, but because both of them have just enough little annoyances about them to make me wish I'd just stuck with the cheaper kit I was using before — or going with another manufacturer. Razer is very much the basic bitch of PC pimping — although I will say their Kiyo X webcam is genuinely excellent, and I have absolutely no regrets there.

Let's start with the names. If I hadn't told you the Blackwidow was a keyboard and the Basilisk was a mouse, would you have been able to determine which was which? I still have to look it up every time, which is very unhelpful when Razer's software (we'll get onto that in a moment, believe me) informs me that the battery is low on one of them. It doesn't have a helpful little icon showing whether it's the keyboard or mouse; it just says the battery is low in the Blackwidow or the Basilisk. And I'm fucked if I can remember which is which. (Although writing this blog is, annoyingly enough, probably going to help me remember.)

Okay. So the Blackwidow. It's a nice keyboard — feels nice to type on, makes a nice clicky sound when you do so. But it has an eminently stupid design that causes it to get filthier than any keyboard I've ever used. Rather than having the keys in a slightly recessed cutout from the main body of the keyboard, which is easy enough to clean if you take all the keys off and then Hoover it or something, the keys "float" slightly above the keyboard case, which is otherwise solid. This means all manner of disgusting crap gets caught in between and beneath the keys within about five seconds of you starting to use it, and cleaning it seems woefully ineffective because immediately after doing so, it attracts filth again.

Possibly related to the perpetually filthy status is the fact that the volume knob on the top right of the keyboard is a real roll of the dice on whether or not it'll actually do what you want it to do. A significant portion of the time, it will do the exact opposite of what you are indicating you would like it to do, and sometimes it will just judder back and forth between two values. The particularly annoying thing about it is that I generally don't use it to adjust the volume, so any time I have to use it, it is because I have knocked it accidentally. And on multiple occasions it has taken several minutes to revert it to 100% after it had dropped to just 80% or so.

The Blackwidow has the obligatory RGB lighting that everything vaguely "premium" has to have on PCs these days, and this is all very nice, apart from the inexplicable fact that the hash key refuses to light up when the keyboard is in wireless mode. It's not broken, because it lights up when the keyboard is connected via USB, and it's not a faulty profile, because I've tried changing the profile and even setting the options for that key individually. It's just… fucked somehow in a non-mechanical way. And it's little annoyances like that which make you realise how surprisingly often you want to use the hash key in the dark.

Speaking of wired versus wireless, I discovered a while back that the keyboard will not charge its battery unless the Razer software is installed. This was something of a problem when I determined that the Razer software was causing my PC to freeze up. (It transpires that something else was wrong on a deeper level, because a complete reformat and Windows reinstall fixed the freezes, but still.) It's also just fucking stupid. What other USB device does not charge unless you are running a specific piece of software? One of the main benefits of USB is that you can just plug a thing into a socket and it charges, even if the computer doesn't know how to talk to the device otherwise. But no! Not the case with the Razer Blackwidow V3 Pro. So pro that it can't handle charging without its special software to hold its hand. Real fearsome.

Now, onto the Basilisk, which I think I hate significantly more than the Blackwidow, which at least is 98% reliably functional, wireless hash key aside. I have never had as many connectivity problems with a wireless mouse as I have done with the Basilisk. I don't sit an unreasonable distance away from my computer — basically the computer is under my TV, and the keyboard and mouse are on a coffee table in front of the sofa — but this goddamn thing will not stay connected if there is any form of obstacle in its path. And I mean anything. Put a box of biscuits in front of it so you can stuff your face while idly browsing YouTube? Flashy light, lost connection. Put a glass of drink vaguely in front of it for mid-game refreshment? Flashy light, lost connection. Put a discarded lunch plate on the table near it because you'll take it to the kitchen the next time you stand up? Flashy light, lost connection.

It's annoying, because other than this fairly glaring issue, the Basilisk is a nice mouse. It has a good, comfortable shape, nicely clicky buttons and a scroll wheel that, so far, does not appear to have suffered the same fate as the volume control on the Blackwidow — or, indeed, the fate every single Apple mouse I have used has succumbed to. You can actually scroll with it, in other words. It has a couple of side buttons that default to forward/back buttons when web browsing, but I don't really use them. As a basic mouse, it's comfortable, and were it not for the connectivity issues, I would like it a lot. Unfortunately, the connectivity issues happen frequently enough for it to be massively irritating.

"So just replace them!" you might say. "Reader, I spent £250 on the pair of them," I will reply. "I am going to at least attempt to get my money's worth."

And then, sotto voce, "And then never spend that much on a keyboard and mouse ever again."

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#oneaday Day 482: Among the dead

I got off my arse and went for a walk this evening. I'm going to try and make a bit more of a habit of this. I know I have said this before, but since I am starting to see some success in establishing the good habits necessary for weight loss, I should get some exercise in there too, as that will help with the whole calorie deficit thing, as well as getting my body generally moving and hopefully a bit less stiff (not in a good way) than it has been for the last [x] years.

I mostly like going for a walk, even if in my current state I am painfully slow at getting anywhere, particularly if there is any sort of incline whatsoever. The annoying thing about where we live is that we're sort of at the top of a hill, so whichever direction I set off in to go for a walk, inevitably at least some of the way back involves going uphill to varying degrees.

I've tried a few different routes on various occasions, and the most… acceptable I have found strikes a good balance between being reasonably picturesque (a significant portion of it involves walking through the local cemetery, which, although maudlin, is also quite pleasant and peaceful), being a decent distance to get some reasonably good exercise out of, and not having overly difficult changes in elevation for my battered and broken body to have to contend with.

I find cemeteries quite interesting. I often find myself looking at the graves; part of me wonders if I'll see a name I recognise, but the rest of my brain explains that is fairly unlikely. As such, I find my own life briefly touching the fleeting existences of complete strangers and pondering their circumstances, and what kind of people they were. Sometimes there are clearly tragic stories, such as the extremely ornate memorial which had been raised to a baby who lived less than an hour. At others, there is clearly family history, with little quotes and well-wishes from people — usually couples. Sometimes it's just a simple expression of remembrance, such as with the rather out-of-place looking grave with the simple wooden cross marking its location, surrounded by more elaborate marble headstones.

Supposedly Benny Hill is buried in that cemetery. I didn't go looking for him; I just remember happening to notice his name marked on Google Maps when I was pondering a route to take before I left.

I thought about getting some sort of fitness tracker up and running before going, but then the part of my brain that is specifically trying to disconnect from stuff like that took over and reminded me that I don't need or even want "numbers" — the important thing is just getting out and doing it. Yes, yes, I know we're all supposed to do 10,000 steps a day, but all I find when introducing metrics into the mix is added anxiety. Just get out there, do the thing and be happy that you did it.

So I did!

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#oneaday Day 481: I have returned

I have returned! And I'm in a foul mood, apparently, but that's nothing unusual after having to do that drive. I set out at 5pm and got home at about 8.40pm. That's not fun. Granted, I did stop to have some dinner at the South Mimms services in an inevitably vain attempt to try and avoid the worst of rush hour on the M25, but still. It would be lovely to be able to leave my place of work and be home in a duration of time that is less than multiple episodes of a podcast. Although at least the journey does afford me the opportunity to actually listen to podcasts, which I otherwise don't really make much time for.

I am also in a less-than-charitable mood because the whole trip this time around felt a little bit pointless. It is always nice to see my colleagues in person because I like them, but the only real benefit of me actually being in the office today was that I could participate in a meeting by sitting in an uncomfortable chair near everyone else instead of sitting in my own comfortable chair via Teams. The rest of the day I was just sort of… there, and don't really feel like I achieved much that I couldn't have done from home. In fact, I generally feel like on my trips into the office I achieve significantly less than I do with a day working from home.

But oh well. This is the world we live in, and it's not that much of an inconvenience to have to do this once a month. Just enough to want to have a little moan about now and again. But now I am home, and I can see my cats (literally, they are both sitting staring at me as I type this) and be with my wife and play Final Fantasy Tactics, which arrived in my absence.

So I think that's probably what I'm going to spend the rest of the evening doing. I haven't played Final Fantasy Tactics through properly since the PS1 original, so it will be nice to do so with a translation that makes sense and the new voiceovers. I will do my best not to power through just to get to the bits with Ben Starr in, but I am making no promises.

On that note, it's time to get isometric and turn-based. Normal business will resume tomorrow. Probably.

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#oneaday Day 480: Post-hotel

Realised I forgot to write something last night. It is time for my monthly trip to the office, y'see, and as such I was spending the evening in a hotel. I was so caught up in watching Police Interceptors and then ProJared playing Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon that I completely forgot to blog. Oh well. Life goes on. I'm sure all none of you who thought "hang on, Pete didn't blog today" will get over the immeasurable disappointment.

But I am here now! It is lunchtime in the office, so I am banging something out before everyone else gets back from lunch. Today I have had a Meal Deal from Boots. It was adequate, though I am pleased to see that you can get those Walkers Extra Flamin' Hot crisps in an individual bag now rather than having to use willpower not to eat an entire big bag in one go. Diet is mostly on pause for the time while I'm away — back to normality once I get home this evening.

We were discussing plans for next year in the office this morning. Lots of exciting things on the way — and for once we're well ahead of schedule on getting a bunch of them ready, too. It's going to be interesting to see how some folks react to the things we have on the way — I think a fair few people are going to be very pleasantly surprised at what we have coming!

Anyway, people are starting to filter back into the office now, so I guess lunch break is over. There's only so long I can type away at this before people wonder what I'm doing, plus I have some meetings scheduled for this afternoon. And so, on that half-hearted note, that is that for now. I will be back this evening to catch up properly!

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#oneaday Day 478: Counting Cals

As I've alluded to a couple of times recently, the latest attempt at weight loss has been centred on counting calories. And thus far it's actually been going reasonably well — as is often the case when embarking on a new campaign of doing this, I lost a decent chunk of weight in the first week, but this week it's slowed down again, though it is still going down, which is good.

As my past experiences doing this have shown, the crucial thing is to be constantly aware of what you're putting in your mouth, and thinking carefully before you stuff anything in there. Recording everything helps you to be aware of such things, and in the process make some better choices.

Now, "better choices" doesn't have to mean "I stopped having any bacon sandwiches ever, and for breakfast now I have half a banana with a handful of chia seeds and am miserable for the rest of the day". No; it means "I had a big lunch, so I should probably go easy at dinner". Or it means "I treated myself to a McDonald's breakfast, so I probably don't need a lot for lunch". Or it means "I've had three bags of crisps today already, I probably shouldn't have any more".

Working within those simple boundaries, you can set limits for yourself without feeling like you're missing out on things. When counting calories, you absolutely can still have a nice cake if you feel like one, but that probably means you should hold back on the snacks (or have lower-calorie snacks) for the rest of the day. And it can sometimes be surprising how easy it is to save calories by making a few little swaps here and there.

I've never been hugely fond of salad, for example, but drench it in enough salad cream and it can be quite a pleasant (and filling) accompaniment to a simple meal, like a piece of breaded meat. And a plate of salad, even if absolutely drowning in salad cream, is quite a lot fewer calories than a big pile of chips.

As it happens, the only chips I've had since starting this time around were on our Work Day Out, when I was necessarily somewhat limited in my options for dining, so I thought I would just enjoy that day as I saw fit, without guilt.

My challenge in this upcoming week is going to come in the form of my monthly trip to the office, which usually involves me grabbing something to eat on the drive down, or perhaps from the supermarket next to the hotel, or the hotel restaurant. On previous occasions, I'm mildly ashamed to admit that I have made less-than-stellar choices when choosing what to eat — after a long, tiring, boring journey, all I want is to have something tasty. This time, I'm going to try and pay at least a bit of attention to the choices that I make. I can still satisfy myself; I should probably try and do so without devouring a huge bag of Doritos and two frosted yum-yums, as delicious as they are.

I'm still feeling pretty good at the moment, then. Things are moving in the right direction and, crucially, I'm not feeling bored or frustrated with what I'm eating. That last part is particularly important; there's nothing worse than being bored of what you're eating, because that's the time you're most likely to think "that was disappointing, I'll make up for it with an entire chocolate gateau".

Not enough calories left for a sandwich before bed, sadly, but I think I'll probably survive.

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#oneaday Day 475: A traitorous experience

As noted yesterday, today was a Work Day Out. Not a Work Day Out where we had to do any work, but a Nice Thing To Do Together, presumably for the purposes of "team-building" and suchlike. I may sound cynical, but honestly my workplace is such a nice, small company that any occasion like this just feels like a nice gathering of friends — albeit one where the boss foots the bill. Winner.

Our main activity for the day was The Traitors Live Experience, an interactive group game based on the (apparently) popular TV show. (I've never seen it. But that doesn't mean much these days.) I was a little concerned ahead of time that we might end up playing with strangers, but thankfully we had enough people in our group to ensure that our game, which had 11 people total (and could have supported up to 14) was entirely people who knew each other. While The Traitors TV show is based on the assumption that most of the participants won't know one another prior to playing, they have a lot longer to get to know each other; as such, since The Traitors Live Experience is just shy of two hours in length, I suspect it is best played with people you have, at the very least, a passing acquaintance with.

I'm going to explain how the game works now on the assumption that you, like me, have never seen The Traitors, so if you're a big fan of the show and you feel like I'm stating the obvious, I can only apologise. I am not able to comment on the experience from a fan's perspective, so this will have to do you for now.

After an opportunity to hang out together in a comfortable bar area (with seating!) before your game starts, you are led into the depths of the venue, through a series of creepy Resident Evil mansion-style corridors, until you eventually reach your "Round Table" room. Once ensconced in your seat of choice, which you will stay in for the majority of the game, your host introduces the game and how it works.

Before play proper begins, at least one Traitor is selected. This unfolds through everyone seated at the table blindfolding themselves with blackout goggles, then loud music playing while the host stalks around the room and taps one or more people on the shoulder, indicating that they are the Traitors for the game. The remaining players are the Faithful.

The Traitors Live Experience unfolds in two parts: "day"-based missions and "night"-based potential betrayals. During the day, the group as a whole is given some sort of task to complete, and successfully achieving this rewards the group as a whole with "gold". You don't actually win any cash (unlike the TV show) — the "gold" is simply a score of sorts. At the end of the game, if all the Traitors have been eliminated, the Faithful score all the points, while if even one Traitor remains, the Traitors take all the points. The venue has daily leaderboards for how well Faithful and Traitors have performed.

At night, everyone dons their blackout goggles once more, but the Traitors are invited to take them off partway through proceedings. At this point, one of several things can happen: they can "murder" someone by pointing at them; they can "blackmail" a Faithful, causing them to become a Traitor (though I believe there are conditions on when this can occur, such as when a Traitor is eliminated from the game) or nothing at all can happen. Once again, if someone is "murdered", the host silently taps them on the shoulder, and they remove themselves from the room before everyone else takes their goggles off.

Being murdered (or, in later rounds of the game, "banished" by the Faithful if they believe you are a Traitor) doesn't mean your game is completely over; instead, you are removed to a separate room where you can watch live camera feeds of the surviving players, and at various junctures you are given the opportunity to interact with the games they are playing by solving puzzles in the other room, or perhaps by finding creative ways to communicate "from beyond the grave", as it were. There was a nice vaguely "escape room" feel to this side of proceedings, helping even those who are eliminated early to feel involved in the complete game.

As it happens, I, a Faithful, was murdered quite early on due to my strong performance in one of the missions and making some solid observations during the pre-Banishment deliberations. I was worried that getting knocked out early would be boring and annoying, but actually it was rather fun, particularly once some other people joined me in the room and we had to discuss whether to help the survivors or actively sabotage their attempts.

The missions themselves are all pretty simple parlour game-style puzzles — I assume they have a bank of them available to randomise so that two games aren't exactly alike. In our game, we initially had a straightforward puzzle where we had to rotate dials on the table to accurately depict the cycles of the moon. This was followed by a "spot the difference" game where we were showed a model of a crime scene and some photographs of a few details from it, then shortly after, we were shown a different model of the same crime scene (and "the same but potentially different" photographs) and tasked with spotting five changes, with bonus points on offer if we could determine how the corpse was actually murdered.

After that, we had a game where we were challenged to press a hidden button under the table after an exact amount of time had elapsed — this was the one I excelled at, since I've always been rather good at that sort of thing — and, after I'd been eliminated, the group were tasked with arranging a set of Tarot-like cards in order (with us "assisting" from beyond the grave by flashing the lights in the Round Table room from afar) and, as the grand finale, the group were challenged to recreate several scenes shown in silhouette by equipping themselves with props and standing in place.

I don't know how close in execution the whole thing is to the TV show, but plenty of effort has been made with the presentation of everything. There's plenty of cool lighting effects, dramatic music and suchlike, and the "Round Table room" is nicely detailed, even concealing a secret exit to "Traitors Tower", where the finale sequence took place. The whole thing was very enjoyable, and I'm glad I overcame my initial misgivings about playing a game so based on social cues to enjoy the experience.

As I say, I feel like for certain types of people, the experience will lose some of its appeal if you attend in a small group and end up being paired up with strangers, but likewise some people will thrive in that environment. It's good that the game is seemingly flexible and doesn't force anyone to do anything they're uncomfortable with — prior to starting the game, you're given the opportunity to privately indicate if you'd rather not be a Traitor from the outset, though this doesn't preclude you from potentially being "recruited" later in the game if the Traitors' ranks find themselves thinning.

We followed our time at The Traitors Live Experience with a late lunch at The Ivy Market Grill, a posh and expensive restaurant on Covent Garden that lets you go "I had lunch at The Ivy" without having to actually go to the real Ivy in the West End or pay the astronomical prices required to become a member of The Ivy Club. I had a cheese souffle, a sirloin steak and a chocolate bombe for dessert. All of them were delicious and I am still stuffed even now, a good four hours after we finished eating. The diet has gone out the window for today, of course, but y'know what, it doesn't matter. I had a good time, and I can be back on track tomorrow. It's not as if I'm going to be eating like that every day, after all.

Anyway, all in all it was a very good day, and I'm glad I went along. I'm knackered now, though; on paper it might not sound like we did all that much, but when you take into account the train travel in both directions, add the walking required when progressing across London in various ways, add the energy required to keep your social batteries topped up for most of a day with the same group of people, it all adds up. So I'm back home now, writing this in my pants, feeling thoroughly satisfied. Probably an early night tonight, though.

Although Silent Hill f did arrive today, so…

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