blog.TomThrop.com
Personal Blog
In which I get a job.
“You need to be more confident.” I am told in my four week review.
I nod coyly and quietly agree.
It might not be the job I spent three years and twenty grand at uni for but it’s nothing to complain about. It’s permanent and gives me the experience I’ve lacked, but needed, for 90% of my job applications over the past three years.
Whatever I end up doing for the rest of my working life this is the first step down that path.
Remind me of that when I start complaining.
Tom
Tom Throp is available all over the web and happy to be contacted (especially if you want to hire me!), my professional site can be found at tomthrop.com. You can also find a number of links to where else I can be found above and in the sidebar.
Returning to EVE Online Part 1.
11 months ago
EVE Online is a strange game, it’s a game that’s cooler to think about than it is to play.
Forging your path through the stars, slowly making your way up in this galactic society, choosing what you want to achieve and how you want to get there.
It’s beautiful.
It’s also rock hard to get into. I played once, back in 2008. I returned again in 2010, this time with a new character and played for a month. Now, in 2011, I find myself wanting to be flying between planets again, building blueprints and conquering the stars.
“Last chance to get a 5 day trial!” I receive in my email again. Last time I downloaded the client but never actually played, now I have two days left to claim so I log on, update and activate.
I look at the corporation, for some reason they haven’t kicked me out. I check my messages and understand someone wanted me to do build something for them this time last year. Oops.
I click on the few of the menus; I have over 2 million ISK but I have no idea what that’s actually worth. I have items spread across half a dozen different planets but don’t know how to get to them. I have skill points to reassign but am not sure how.
I’ve not even left the dock I’m in and already I way in over my head, not knowing what to do or where to go. I remember doing some tutorial missions before but don’t know if I can go back and do them again, or even where they are.
I ponder for about five minutes, thoughts of flying through space, helping corporations build ships, defending colleagues as they mine are soon overcome by a complete inability to do anything.
I log off again, I don’t have time to work this out, decide what’s going on.
And now that trial’s over and I didn’t do anything useful. I don’t have the time, or money, to properly sink into playing before. I know I have plenty of other, easier games that I can lose myself in.
Yet there’s a part of me, the part that put “Part 1″ at the end of this posts title, that is really wanting to go and sign up again.
Tom
Tom Throp is available all over the web and happy to be contacted (especially if you want to hire me!), my professional site can be found at tomthrop.com. You can also find a number of links to where else I can be found above and in the sidebar.
“It Lives!”
Yes, I’m back. As before I’ll probably either be too busy to write or not busy enough to have something to write about but, unlike before, I’m not giving myself a target to try and meet.
This means no more daily posts, no more weekly reviews and no set day to expect my thoughts and opinions.
What I intend to do is write when I have something to say, if anyone’s interested then that’s awesome. If not, then at least I’m writing again.
I have always assumed, speaking from experience, that if I don’t have a quota to meet for my blog then I wouldn’t write at all, but now what I’m finding is that for every couple months I don’t write anything I find myself wanting to come back again. Having a platform to publish what I have to say to the internet is brilliant, and being able to do so as and when I like, without feeling bad if I don’t, seems to be just what I need.
That doesn’t mean posts won’t be regular, if I have stuff to write about every day then I’ll write about stuff every day, what you won’t get is posts posting about the fact I want to post but have nothing to post about. And posts posting about that too.
I know, I don’t know why I didn’t do this before.
Less crap, more interesting posts. This is the next stage of blog.TomThrop.com’s evolution and it should be interesting, no?
“The inhuman figure lunges at you but just before his teeth sink into your arm he stops. A slight confused glint shines briefly in his eyes and you know something small but something quite significant has changed within him. He stumbles back. He appears to understand where he’s been going wrong and the mournful look he gives you seems to suggest he doesn’t want to eat your brains any more, but rather he would like to invite you round for a nice cup of tea and a biscuit or two.”Tom
Weekly Review – Campus
TV Review: Campus
I wanted to like Campus, I really did. It was supposed to be Green Wing at a university. Green Wing was awesome and, from my experience, university lends itself to sitcom situations.
But, somehow, the formula doesn’t work. It has its moments but otherwise is a bit terrible.
Green Wing was great, whether improvised or not it managed to be random and realistically extreme at the same time. All Green Wing’s characters were funny and the comedy was smart.
From the same creators comes Campus, whose characters are stupid, bland or just not funny and situations are so extreme they lose all credibility. It’s like they’re trying too hard to be random, a lot of the time the humour is crude and offensive and a bit too far in the surreal direction.
I don’t like being this mean about it because I do like the concept, but where every scene and character in Green Wing was quotable most of Campus is easily forgotten.
If they were to real back the random and surreal situations to make them more believable it could have certainly have been a hit, Green Wing worked because you could imagine it being a real place.
Campus fails on a number of issues but in the end it fails mainly because it seem forced. In the end I think subtler humour would have worked better.
If you’re on 4OD and you see Campus lurking about, stop! Go and watch Green Wing again instead.
Campus:
Green Wing:
Tom
Weekly Blog #014 – 2nd April 2011
I’m staring into the darkness, into the future and I’m not quite sure what it is I see.
When I was at school I knew I was going to be going back there the next year, and the next year. Sure I thought about subjects to take but I knew, at the time, it didn’t really matter.
Then I stayed on at school and went to sixth form, then a couple years later I was at uni.
But now I’ve graduated, I worked for a bit in a warehouse but apart from that I’ve not really moved on.
I’m trying desperately to find work, or a career and even considering further further education but all the paths are foggy, I’m not sure where they lead or even how to get onto them.
A Masters degree has only recently been highlighted to me as a possibility and universities are holding open days in the coming months, so it’s something I’m going to be looking at.
The problem I’m having is I can hardly find a job I want to do on the Island, let alone a career. A year back at university would give me a chance to find work, a decent course might even help me find a career and get me back on the mainland.
Which is all good and everything but also a big if.
I could end up spending however many thousand pounds living back on the mainland to find myself a year later back at home again – slightly more educated but in the same situation.
It’s a risk that’s on my mind at the moment, a risk I’m not sure I can afford to take.
But one I really want to.
Tom
Weekly Review: Twilight Imperium
Board Game Review: Twilight Imperium
I’m not sure I’m qualified to review a board game, I’ve seen a few before but I’ve only ever played them to make up numbers, I’ve never owned any myself and never really got into any of them before.
I liken this review to someone who’s never seen a film before, “Wow! It’s like a moving photo!” They might exclaim – if I say something as stupid, as obvious then you can’t say I didn’t warn you.
Disclaimer out the way, here are my thought on the board game Twilight Imperium…
I was staying with a friend until Saturday and on Saturday a new boardgame he had ordered turned up, Twilight Imperium. None of us had played it before, we tried to work out what to do as we went. It was a space game, you got tiles and ships and had to place the tiles and take planets with your ships. You could build more ships with resources and had to try and meet various objectives.
Of course, we were still trying to work out how to place the tiles an hour later, by the time we had placed our ships and started moving most of the day had gone and I had to leave. We eventually got to combat and had no idea what to do so called it a day. My opinion of the game was split, the whole space thing was cool but I’m not sure you could judge it from our attempt to work out the rules. Even several hours after starting we still had trouble with the basics.
I thought that was it for Twilight Imperium but my friend took away the rule book and read up on what we were supposed to do. A few weeks later he came to visit me and brought the game with him. We set up, much quicker this time, and set off at 10pm in the evening for a couple hours gaming.
Things made much more sense second time round, moves still took ridiculously long and I imagine some of the rounds took near an hour to complete. It was soon 1am and a couple minutes later 3am. I think it’s safe to say we knew what we were doing, the game was not near completion but we were attacking each other now.
4am and I know at least I was getting right grumpy, not had enough sleep and being attacked by a warsun wasn’t exactly helping. But there was no point giving up now. Eventually, about 7am, someone won and I went to sleep for a few hours – last thing I wanted to do was look at that stupid game.
But after some sleep, after a few hours we had packed the game away and I realised I wouldn’t mind playing it again – if we were to change a few things about it.
Firstly – We needed more players, when there’s only three you don’t get much choice with who you want to attack, with two players picking on one it’s hardly fair on the poor third person trying to defend himself.
Secondly – We need to set up and play for a few hours, then stop. Leave the game set up and come back to it the next day. A few hours a day I can see the game being much more fun and much less tedious, of course we’d need to find somewhere it didn’t get disturbed but I think, with a couple more players and much less consistent time frame to play it I can imagine me really enjoying it.
Unfortunately it did take too long and was overly complicated, that doesn’t mean the idea of taking over planets and therefore resources, building fleets of ships and researching the technology tree to build the (not death star) Warsun doesn’t appeal to me. It certainly does. I’m just not sure I have the time, or patience this game deserves.
The best games are easy to learn and hard to master, unfortunately this is one of the most inaccessible games I’ve ever played. Once it clicked I enjoyed it more and with the right people, in the right setting, over the right period of time it could be great fun.
Tom
Weekly Blog #013 – 26th March 2011
Let me tell you a story. One of a young prince and the evil witch.
There once was a prince. He was happy; he had his princess, he had a home and he had some gold.
Only he kept spending that gold and before he knew it he had lost all his shiny pennies.
“It’s okay,” Thought the prince, “I shall work.”
And the prince wandered off round the town and checked in all the local businesses but none of them wanted a prince, after all what did he know about work? He had no experience.
This frustrated the prince a lot, he was just as capable as many of the people in the town but no one would believe he could do an honest days work.
As his gold supplies dwindled even further he looked for support and found it in the home of the village witch.
A small hut on the edge of town, the prince strided apprehensively to the front door and knocked four times.
“Hello?” Came a sweet voice and the prince opened the door and was met with a polite young lady who explained to him that they would lend him gold to help him find work so he could get more. The young lady gave the prince some job suggestions to investigate and the prince left, head held high, knowing he could support himself until he found suitable work – all he would have to do is go back every fortnight and collect his coins.
His first fortnight passed quickly, the prince looked for work still but nothing was found and before he realised it was time to go back to the witches house and collect his funds.
“Enter!” Beckoned a voice from behind the door this time. This was someone different. She had an evil air about her and she looked down on the prince ad he came begging for his money.
“So…” She croaked, “Did you find work?”
“No” The prince swallowed nervously, he definitely like the other witch better.
“Well, how about these?” She suggested a few jobs and one the prince had been offered last week.
The prince made the mistake of pointing this out.
“Well, did you apply for it?” She questioned.
“No… Not yet…” The prince stumbled nervously, he could feel the colour draining from his face.
“You have to!” The witch bellowed, “We can take away all your gold if you don’t!”
The prince looked at her in fear as she towered above him. She continued to explain that because he took the suggestions he had to apply for them and it didn’t matter if the work was over an hour away he had to be willing to travel to it. She made him feel tiny and useless.
“…And then we’ll turn you into a newt!” She finished and sat back down, resuming with her original and much less threatening posture.
“… But… But… That one, that’s to clean out the dragon poo. The last person who did that job got his… Got his arm bi-” The prince tried to explain but the witch wasn’t having any of it.
“You accepted our gold!” The witch interrupted, “If you don’t apply for these jobs you will be cursed! Cursed and you will go hungry for six months! The fate that awaits you if you don’t apply for these jobs in the next two weeks will be worse than that if you get attacked by a dragon!”
She smiled a falsely sweet smile and handed the prince a list of the most horrible jobs he could imagine doing.
The prince was so scared he didn’t know what to do. So he took the list of jobs.
“I’ll see you in two weeks.” The witch snarled in a very condescending, confident and patronising way.
“Hopefully not.” Thought the prince to himself. And he left and went back to his castle angry and annoyed.
But as he sat looking out the top window of the tallest tower, thinking of his princess, he realised that the last thing he wanted was to go back to the witch begging for more gold in two weeks time. He was now more determined to find a job than ever before and if he was going to find work he wanted to do then it was going to be in the next two weeks.
And that thought made him smile for the first time that day, as evil as that witch was he had never wanted a job more than he did now. For that he was thankful.
(To be continued…)
This was not based on a true story…
Tom