I have seen the light

The Filesystem Checkwits go their separate ways for a week. We can do more damage this way. Our unified goal is to reach 20th level and be ready to enter the Deadmines but, apart from completing the required quest chains, how we get there is up to the individual. For example, I believe Vulzerda made a good attempt at gaining a few levels by riding a Brewfest ram around Dun Morogh whilst drunk. Personally, I try to make some headway to 20th level by attacking all the copper and tin veins I can find, which seems to be quite effective. My XP bar rises quite quickly with this method, hindered only by all the dastardly mobs getting in the way of my ore.

I am a little confused, though. A couple of weeks ago, when diverted from killing Hogger respawns, we encounter a dead dwarf near some Defias mages. I am informed that resurrecting the dwarf is a rite of passage for paladins wanting to learn the redemption spell, but each time I head back to Stormwind Cathedral to train new abilities I am not offered any quests from the paladin trainers. It is only when I look to see what nifty abilities I can expect to gain with imminent levels that I notice the second rank of redemption offered, and here I am without the first rank. Using my meta-knowledge of Azeroth, I suspect poor game design and catch ships from Stormwind to Auberdine, Auberdine to Azuremyst Isle, where I return to The Exodar.

Visiting the Draenei paladin trainers in The Exodar reveals a quest waiting for me, one where I have to waste time running to Bloodmyst Isle to revivify a cuddly furbolg, the reward for which being the privelege of gaining redemption. Apparently, dwarves aren't worth saving for Draenei, at least, not if they are not solid, but it would have been useful for the Stormwind chapter of Light-huggers to guide me back to The Exodar, rather than leave me in the dark, as it were. Gits.

At 20th level, I at last get some more offensive capabilities beyond auto-attack and a choice of two judgements that share a ten-second cool-down. Consecration is an instant-cast area-of-effect spell that will certainly help against multiple mobs, and exorcism deals a vicious blast to nearby non-believers of the Light, hitting undead abominations even harder. But even before I am trained in these new abilities I find a nifty use for my hand of reckoning taunt ability.

The various taunts for each class have been modified to work out to thirty yards, which is much more useful than the previous five yard range. With otherwise extremely limited access to ranged attacks, it is even more useful for the paladin, offering an easy method of pulling mobs without needing to 'body pull'. Getting physically close to draw the direct attention of the mobs may work, but in crowded areas it risks pulling adds at the start of combat.

Hand of reckoning also deals damage to any foe not currently targeting the paladin. This extra damage is a nice addition on a pull, when the mob isn't targeting any player, but should a mob retreat when it is low on health it also happens to disengage from the character. The hand of reckoning on a bolting mob is a killing blow, effective out to thirty yards. It is an amazingly handy ability for the low-level paladin, and quite invigorating to smite fleeing foes in their backs. Hark, I think I hear the Scarlet Crusade beckoning me in to their ranks.

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Tags: azeroth, kiska, mmorpg, paladin, world of warcraft

Keeping my manufacturing plant static

Kename Fin asks why I don't move my manufacturing base closer either to my mission base or the corporation headquarters, to improve convenience and encourage activity. Akura Kawanaka suggests using jump clones. I suspect my reply will be rather long to sit in a mere comment.

Moving my manufacturing base sounds like it could be a lot of effort, but when I think about it all I really need to do is throw my BPOs in to a cargo hold and take them with me when I move. Of course, I also need materials to manufacture from the blueprints, but those can be bought at prevailing market prices easily enough at almost any destination. The actual manufacturing is performed by renting NPC labour and plants, and it's safe to say that anywhere there are high-sec agents there will be a manufacturing laboratory nearby, particularly when running missions for a production corporation.

The situation is rarely as simple as it sounds, though. I may be able to buy minerals wherever I dock my ship, but moving base will either require the minerals to be moved with me, sold, or left behind. Leaving the minerals behind will waste a chunk of ISK, and it is generally unlikely for me to return to the same mission base after moving on to a higher-quality agent, so the minerals would be abandoned until I get around to picking them up or selling. Selling the minerals may get my ISK back, but more likely is that I'll turn a loss on the sale, which is far from ideal.

If I am to take the minerals with me each time I move base then I face a rather more involved and tedious process of hauling a few million rocks across potentially a dozen jumps or more, which would take several return journeys in a slow industrial ship. The headache of moving is exacerbated when considering how ephemeral mission bases tend to be, temporary destinations that are only visited for long enough to advance standings and move to work with better agents elsewhere. Moving mission bases should happen frequently, each move requiring time to transport ships and fittings. One goal in setting myself up in a manufacturing base is to prevent this nuisance from adversely affecting my industrial ventures.

I could buy fewer minerals in the first place, but not having the convenience of a mineral stockpile would prevent me starting production runs on market whims. Having to jump all over the region buying and hauling minerals every time I need to refill a market order is a chore. Having a stockpile of minerals also lets me start manufacturing jobs remotely, thanks to the scientific networking skill. The idea is that I shouldn't need to move my manufacturing base because I can start and deliver jobs without having to leave my mission base. The problem at the moment is that my current mission base is in a separate region to the manufacturing base, and regional boundaries are a harsh mistress, an impervious barrier to all NPC communications.

Being an industrialist doesn't end with manufacturing modules, to think so being a beginner's error. With the regional barrier also impervious to all trade information, I lose all contact with the markets where I have placed my products for sale when moving my mission base to a new region. If I were also to move my manufacturing base I would either need to travel back to the previous region to place the modules for sale, or put the modules up for sale in the new region. Letting the old regional sales go unmaintained is a sure way to lose ISK, and placing sell orders in the new region will only compound the problem when next my mission base moves.

Moving to a new region also means finding the best stations to sell modules. It could be as simple as finding out where other industralists sell, but proper explotation of prices takes time for experience to reveal gaps in the market. My own sales would diminish with each move, selling in stations with competitive traders, and if I were to travel to exploit the best markets I may as well travel that extra jump to pick up the modules from my remote manufacturing base.

Not being able to exploit the market properly is also why I am reluctant to move my manufacturing base down to corporation headquarters. I am blessed with being Caldari, understanding the refinements of shields and missiles, and I manufacture what I know. Moving down to Amarr-space may find me a niche for ex-patriots needing to upgrade their ships, but it is just as likely that another caspuleer is already doing so, resulting in even stiffer competition in a more stagnant market. Having to move my portfolio in to guns and armour would take a fair amount of time, as well as make me feel dirty.

Using jump clones to ease my travel difficulties is probably a good suggestion. However, ignoring having to get some more costly implants to mitigate skill training losses, the day-long cool-down on jumping between clones is quite costly when all I want to do is start some industrial jobs and monitor market prices. It is a possibility, certainly, as it could be useful in some situations, but it seems like using jump clones opens up more logistical difficulties than it solves in this case. It's likely I still don't understand their uses fully, though. I have one jump clone in a vat somewhere, as yet unused.

Essentially, I am happy with where my manufacturing base is for the purpose of creating a reliable income, and moving it would create too many impediments to successful ISK accumulation, at least in the short-term. There may come a time when moving the base becomes sensible, and it would behove me to prepare for such an eventuality by expanding my BPO portfolio. But I don't think any relocation will be necessary as long as industry maintains a comfortable second place to wormhole operations.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

UFO in warp

I am warping around collecting minerals when I get one of those rare and majestic moments of coincidentally warping alongside a fellow capsuleer. I am in my Crane, of course, which zips along at an impressive 9 AU/s, but I have no idea what the other ship is that is managing to keep up with me. It's quite pointy, whatever it is.

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Tags: crane, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Down in the New Eden dumps

Back in known space, and I'm feeling in a bit of a funk. I just cannot get started with anything. I have some Lai Dai agents waiting to give me missions to run, my manufacturing plants could be churning out some more modules to put on the market, or I can stand ready to help move everything back in to a new w-space system. Being pulled in three directions seems to leave me floating in space.

I would manufacture some more modules, but I have only found a handful of items I can produce that reliably turn a profit on the market, and I have several stations stocked with them. To expand would require finding new gaps in the market, or buying and researching new and potentially risky BPOs. ME research takes quite a while to complete, and trying to get a couple of spaceships and some of the new rigs moved through the labs is taking up all of my slots currently. I could train in the advanced laboratory research skill, to increase the number of research jobs I can run at a time, but not only would it distract me from my current goal of piloting the Damantion but the number of corporation laboratories is also limited.

Running missions is a good idea, as increasing my standings with Lai Dai, or any corporation, will offer several benefits. The availability of high-level R&D agents is always useful for gaining datacores for invention, and good standings with an NPC corporation allows for efficient ore refinement and access to jump clones. But despite the cluster of Lai Dai agents, a gaggle of them in a single station, the mission base is quite a few jumps from my manufacturing base, which in turn is quite a few jumps in a different direction from our corporation's base.

To get anything done requires a chunk of travelling time first, and if I am going to be travelling, as quick and enjoyable as it is in a Crane, I would rather be helping to set up the medium tower in a new w-space system, because then I could get involved in combat with Sleepers in exotic systems. And it's not just the pretty nebulae that attracts me to w-space operations, I freely admit that I like the company and camaraderie of the corporation fleets, the feeling that I am contributing to something I couldn't achieve on my own.

So I wait, hoping for an opportunity to arise, the finding of a suitable w-space system, as I sit in a station. I don't want to make the many-jump journey to my manufacturing or mission base if I am going to be called back once I get there, but the call doesn't come. Finding a good w-space system isn't guaranteed, particularly if we want a reliable exit too, so it is unreasonable for me to expect one. I am clearly drawn to the more exciting adventures available to me in New Eden, but in wanting them I find instead that I stagnate. I mustn't only wait for something to happen, I also need to realise my own goals and work towards them.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

The Joy Formidable at Highbury and Islington Garage

The Highbury and Islington Garage has been refurbished. The small and dingy venue is now small and airy, the low ceiling remodelled to be an arcing ceiling that allows for a proper lighting rig in front of the stage, black walls repainted white, and wooden flooring everywhere. Overall, the changes are attractive, although I'm not sure the designers understood that hundreds of people would be spilling lager at each gig, causing the wooden floors to become slick.

There are, however, two disappointing changes to the venue's renovation. First, there is now one of these modern barriers in front of the stage, a bulky metallic structure apparently designed to stop articulated lorries from crossing a central reservation, and even though we are hardly separated from the front of the stage in such a small venue, the gap being only a few feet, the fact that there is a gap removes the intimacy once offered. Second, the venue is now branded. I go to a venue to support and enjoy a band, not a product. Tonight, I am here to see The Joy Formidable.

The band are apparently a little late getting on stage, but once they appear The Joy Formidable open with The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade, the first track from debut album A Balloon Called Moaning. It makes sense that a song that kicks off the album should also start the gig, but it just seems too damned good to waste just getting everyone warmed up. But the refrain of 'I can be happy for you' is such an uplifting, positive ending that it can't help but make you feel good. And, if anything, playing The Greatest Light... first is an indication of how strong The Joy Formidable's repertoire is, as the set gets stronger and stronger with each song.

Cradle delivers another mighty punch of exuberance, before The Joy Formidable stray from their album track list, just as I was beginning to wonder if the live album being recorded tonight was going to be a live rendition of the studio album. In case some people are unaware of the recording of the night's performance, for a live album to be released next month, Ritzy asks the excited audience 'You know this is being recorded?' The howls and whistles in reply indicate that even if we didn't know we are definitely happy to be heard. 'This is the cheesy audience participation moment', she continues, spinning the mic stand around to capture a chorus of voices for Austere. Maybe the recording will also pick up a consequence of Ritzy's vigorous playing, as her guitar pulls the mic off Matt's high tom in the same song.

The raucous applause, calls and whistles continue throughout the gig, the rousing music driving the audience to cheer more, just as the electric atmosphere urges The Joy Formidable to push themselves even harder. Ritzy is happy to encourage us, saying 'You're so loud, I fucking love this!' Whirring, The Last Drop and While the Flies all get played during the evening, but it is during the last song that Ritzy does her impression of David Walliams in Spaced, announcing to increasing applause that 'We haven't finished'. There's no response from her guitar, though. 'There's always a problem', Ritzy says with some humour, as she tries to rectify the current one by twiddling effects pedal knobs and checking leads.

In the end, it turns out that 'the fucking amp's blown', but they try to finish the song without the guitar. A short vocal refrain cues an explosion of drums and bass guitar, punctuated by guitars dropped on to the stage as the band walk off. The blown amplifier means no encore for us tonight, although an air of expectation hangs for several minutes after The Joy Formidable are gone. It's a rock ending to an energetic and successful gig, one that I look forwards to reliving with the release of the live CD.

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Tags: garage, gig, the joy formidable

Brown and sticky

I am missing something. I clearly won't be taken seriously playing fake plastic drums if I continue playing with sticks that have 'Guitar Hero' emblazoned on them. Everyone will know that I'm only playing a game. I need to get a proper pair of drum sticks, then I will be able to sit behind my fake plastic drum kit, watching coloured domes scroll down a screen, and be considered a proper musician at last.

Back in the same shop in London where I bought the practice drum pad, I fear the assistant senses the air of fakosity forming a barrier between me and the real drums in the shop. Maybe what gives me away is how I reply 'I dunno' when he asks what weight and length of sticks I am after. I get the impression real drummers would know a minor detail like this. But when I agree to his suggestion to pick a popular choice of sticks everything changes. With a pair of proper drum sticks in my hands I ascend another rung on the ladder of rock. It can't be long now before I am playing in a stadium.

It is difficult to get an appreciation for the different weight and feel of the proper sticks without a direct comparison to the ones included in the Guitar Hero game, so rather than fiddling with the sticks as I ride the tube home I leave the new pair sticking jauntily out of my bag to show off how much more rock I am than anyone else on the train. Back home, the difference in weight to the stock Guitar Hero sticks is immediately noticeable. The proper sticks are much heavier, almost letting me empathise with Zoso's fear for his fake plastic drums whenever he let me have a go¹. But fake plastic drums are designed to be hit, I won't hold back with a bit more weight.

The heavier sticks don't seem to hinder my playing except for sustaining a really quick beat, although perhaps I need to practice the faster songs to build up some stamina. In fact, the new sticks help me play rolls more easily and smoother, maybe because the weightier sticks help maintain some momentum. The main drawback to the new sticks is that dropping one now has rather more gravity, with a real possibility of breaking my foot if I'm not careful. As long as it's not my kick pedal foot I should be okay.

The new sticks definitely help my playing, just as my continuing practice does. I think my next step in taking Guitar Hero too seriously may be heeding a friend's advice and getting too-short tennis shorts and sweatbands.

1. Note the use of the past tense.
Return to post.

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Tags: console, drumming, guitar hero, xbox 360

Fun and destruction in Westfall

Why wait for a cataclysm? The plan for the Bastards to visit our first instance may not be realised, gaining a couple of levels and forming the guild taking longer than expected, but that's okay. Instead we create our own version of the next World of Warcraft expansion by irrevocably changing the landscape of Westfall. Once an idyllic farming countryside, a blight falls on the land as a new Dead Scar is created, our group slaughtering any living thing in our path. The very earth is turned inside-out in our wake, any resource of worth stripped from the landscape to leave only a blackened and desolate trail.

Unlike the original, and lesser, Dead Scar in Ghostlands, the new Westfall Dead Scar doesn't follow a straight course. The line of devastation is a series of mathematical curves determined by vastly complex formulae, that somewhat implausibly happens to coincide with every mineral deposit in the region. I manage to mine my first few loads of tin ore, but in my accustomed vigour to extract as much as possible I may have dug too deeply in a couple of places. But if you see a Balrog in Westfall it's not entirely my fault, as I'm fairly sure our herbalist pulled some mageroyal out of the ground bringing too much of the root up with it.

When we reach Sentinel Hill, the Alliance camp in Westfall, a blood elf paladin probably thinks he is griefing us by killing all the NPCs. In reality, he simply solves our problem of how to kill allied NPCs as part of our rampage. With nothing left living in Sentinel Hill—except the blood elf, if you can call that 'living'—we move out. We are thirsty for gnoll blood after the Hogger gore of last week, hunting them down to get more trophy paws. After butchering several camps I ask if everyone has enough gnoll paws for now. 'All your gnoll paws are belong to me!' calls out Livya, causing a silence to fall across the continent so heavily that not even tumbleweeds intrude on our expressionless bodies. '...yes, I do', she continues. Oh, good. Onwards! There are murlocs to kill on the shore.

Murlocs are vicious little creatures that must be one of the most hated mobs in the game. Gathered around starter areas, they are seen early and often. Their waddling gait and aquatic nature bely an impressive ability to sprint that is used either to attack you whenever your back is turned, or run away when injured to get reinforcements. On seeing that some of them have trained sand crawlers, Vulzerda spits out, 'this one is both a murloc and a hunter, is there anything more hateful?' and we spur ourselves on to making it safe to go back in the water. But, as we should have learnt from the emperor, hate leads to suffering. Our suffering in this case. Trying to restore nature's balance to a group or two of murlocs whilst our healer is picking flowers or drinking to regain mana, or something equally pointless, turns out to be a bad idea. But corpse runs are more fun as a group.

Leaving the murlocs behind for now, we seek to correct the Defias Brotherhood's irritating presence in Westfall. The Brotherhood are annoying if only because the pillager mages amongst them have the same dubious taste in fashion as our warlock. As I survey our continuing killing spree I spy a spellcaster about to throw some magic damage. I rush to clobber her with my copper mallet of two-handed pounding, but the weapon refuses to swing. My target turns out to be Livya, in the same green garb as the pillagers, although I still don't see why I couldn't attack. Meanwhile, Vulzerda is collapsed behind me on the grassy dirt, clutching a pillager to her bosom, crying. 'Nooooo! I can't believe we've lost Livya to the Defias scum! She was so young! Why did... oh, you're over there.' All our confusion is thankfully rectified when the warlock switches from wearing a green dress to a red one.

The big news of the evening's fun and laughter is the creation of our guild. We need ten people willing to be initially aligned with whatever stupid name we choose, and there are only four of us. We're going to need help. The initial attempt at getting anyone to sign the guild creation charter is not terribly successful, although that is mostly because NPCs apparently aren't able to do so. I didn't know, but it explains their unresponsive attitude.

We try again to get signatures after leaving what was once Westfall, this time asking arbitrary weirdos in Stormwind but, after one miserable failure, taking care to avoid the hardcore RP weirdos. By some miracle of compassion we manage to get the required signatures and are able to register our guild name. Sadly, 'Bastards' is not available as a guild name. Neither is 'Looking for Solid Dwarf', for some perverse reason. Our chosen name, once registered, has some people doubting its longevity. I don't see the problem myself.

The newly formed Filesystem Checkwits pose for the obligatory evening-ending screen grab, a mixed bag of 14th and 15th level destructive and incompetent players begging for notoriety.

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Tags: azeroth, filesystem checkwits, kiska, melmoth, mmorpg, world of warcraft

Bringing down the tower

The w-space system runs dry. The asteroid fields are barren of exotic rocks, leaving only ores already plentiful in high-sec, and all Sleeper sites have been explored and pillaged of their antiquities. It is time to move out of this secondary system. Although getting back to k-space is a relatively simple matter of going through the current wormhole leading to high-sec, moving out permanently means pulling down the tower we've been using as a base of operations. Everything needs to be transported back to high-sec, ready to be moved to the next promising w-space system.

Dismantling the tower is a slow task but, somewhat paradoxically, must be done with some speed. Although we are safe because of the shields of the tower there are more defences to consider. The gun batteries, disruptors and scanners all need to be taken off-line, un-anchored and hauled, and when these defences are removed the tower becomes more vulnerable, as do we by proxy. Thus, pulling down the tower is not a matter of taking out bits and pieces when convenient, it is an operation that requires coordination and focus.

When the call comes up that a suitable high-sec exit is present and that the tower is being moved, I am ready to help. There may be forty one jumps between me and the wormhole but I have my trusty Crane. I use auto-pilot to get to the entrance to w-space, to make the journey quicker, perversely enough. The automatic warping to and jumping through stargates is quicker than my fumbling with various controls, leaving me only needing to flick the micro-warp drive on as I drop out of warp. The fifteen kilometre gap to the stargate disappears quickly at over 1,500 km/s. I reach the wormhole in good time.

At the tower inside the w-space system, my Crane once again shows how easily it is worth the training time and ISK. The blockade running transport ship may not have a huge cargo hold, but the micro-warp drive-boosted speed makes a huge difference. I zoom outside of the shields to take defences off-line, un-anchor them and pluck passive packaged containers out of the vacuum, zooming back inside the shields to drop my cargo off in a hangar. I could carry a couple more modules in a Badger but it would be significantly slower to go in and out of the shields. Not only would the process likely have taken longer in a Badger but the less-interactive nature of the extended travel time would have made this seem more of a chore. The Crane is such a joy to pilot that I am glad to be zipping all around the tower. The only delay is waiting for each module to be un-anchored.

All the defences are dismantled and stored. Before we pull down the tower, all the ships and modules needed for engaging Sleepers and extracting ore are transported safely back through the wormhole. Most of the items are squeezed in to an Orca or two and, in a fleet with the bigger ships, piloted out to k-space separately, everything parked temporarily in a nearby station. And with the tower dismantled, we say goodbye to another w-space system that has supplied us with plenty of action and profit. The tower, In The Event of Survival, has served us well again and will be reconstructed in a new w-space system soon, probably with a new name. For now, I just need to pilot a few ships the twenty-odd hops back to corporation headquarters in preparation.

I wonder, though, if there is an analogue to Sleepers here. Maybe it is possible that wormholes opened to w-space from a different galaxy to New Eden at first, through which the Sleepers came to harvest the rich materials found parsecs from home. Something shifts in the physics of the wormholes and they end up connecting w-space to New Eden instead. And now what we see as artefacts of the Sleepers are merely abandoned towers and bases, thought safe against any threat, and the Sleepers themselves merely lost travellers unable to return to their own galaxy.

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Tags: crane, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, sleepers, w-space

China Drum syndrome

Too long ago I consider telling my China Drum story, and now seems like an appropriate time.

Many years ago, for two or three years in a row Radio 1 held a week of gigs for new bands and artists, broadcasting the music live. The best and brightest of new talent was on show and the bands enjoy the live exposure on national radio. I pick up tickets for a couple of the gigs one year, excited to be seeing Manson, who soon afterwards have to change their name to Mansun, and Whale. Manson's gig is fabulous and I go on to see them play live at least half-a-dozen times over the next year, yet somehow getting bored before their debut album is released. Manson are first on the bill, being almost unknown at that point, supporting the long-forgotten Echobelly. The second support band that evening is China Drum, a band unknown to me. Sadly, after their set I want them to remain that way, as their music just wasn't for me. But sometimes we suffer support acts to see who we really like, and Echobelly are good fun.

The second gig, to see Whale, is a few days later, but the billing is still to be decided. Even the posters in the Camden Underworld venue only list Whale as headlining, their name in big letters at the top of the poster, with supporting artists to be added in smaller text below. I turn up a little later than the first gig, entering the Underworld as the first support band is finishing. 'We have been the Cardigans, good night!' I hear shouted over the PA as the music stops. The Cardigans?! It's a shame I missed them, because even though they are also virtually unknown at the time I would like to see them play. I also wonder if it is a coincidence that the Swedish band are on the same bill as Whale, also from Sweden. It's a shame, but I came here to see Whale and that is still the main attraction for me.

I sit through another support band, maybe it was Northern Uproar, as I remember seeing them supporting a couple of times in their nascent days before they disappeared, then patiently wait for the main act to appear. Whale are noisy and exuberant, I am really looking forwards to seeing them! And so China Drum come out on stage as headliners. Despite Whale being billed from the start as the main act, the posters showing them as headliners and my ticket displaying the same, the billing has been moved around for reasons unknown. I had in fact turned up just in time to hear Whale leave the stage, make self-referential fun of their nationality, then waited to see a band that had almost put me in a music coma a few nights previously. I am seriously disappointed with the turn of affairs and leave the gig not terribly happy. But such is life.

I am reminded of my tale of China Drum because of recent events. I turn up fairly early for the Slow Club gig at Scala and get to see the support acts. The first artist is a solo woman and her acoustic guitar, apparently choosing arbitrary notes to croon on occasion whilst strumming away. Whilst I have nothing against acoustic performances, quite enjoying Slow Club's later in the evening and Johnny Bramwell's solo efforts during several I Am Kloot performances, the scope of the instrument is drastically reduced when limited to playing block chords in unchanging rhythms, leading to repetitive-sounding music. There may be something familiar about the music this woman is playing, but I attribute it to the lack of variety in the mostly one-dimensional playing.

It is only when a new song starts with a particularly dreadful metaphor that I realise I have seen this artist before, but in a different context. She supported Emiliana Torrini at Royal Festival Hall a couple of weeks ago, after which I see her heavily promoted in the NME, for reasons that escape me, where I find out that she is Cate Le Bon. She is accompanied by a band at the first gig, although the lead and bass guitarists almost refuse to face the audience, and Cate is playing a keyboard, the psychedelic sounds of which are so discordant to the rest of the music that I simply cannot be pulled in to the mood. This time, at Scala, Cate is by herself. But, again, the monotony of the music and banal straightforwardness of the lyrics bores me.

As with the previous gig there are plenty of people enjoying Cate Le Bon's music, which is good, but it's not for me. I can't help thinking about China Drum all those years ago, though, making a surprise appearance just when I didn't want them to.

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Tags: cate le bon, china drum, echobelly, gig, mansun, scala, underworld, whale

Optimism

'I'm just on briefly to check my skill training.'

'Don't tell me you've completed battlecruisers V already!'

'Let's see. Hmm, nope. I have over thirteen days still to go. This is taking forever.'

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic