The evolution of sleep

Feeling awfully tired recently, with one thing or another, has made me ponder the utility of sleep. It is quite a curious activity, although 'activity' may be the wrong word. I know we are gaining a better understanding of the brain and how it functions, but I also know that there is far more that we don't understand about the brain. There are also good physiological reasons for sleeping, allowing the body and mind to rest and recover, and that eschewing sleep can lead to physical and mental health problems. Even so, there is no good answer to the question of why we sleep.

This got me to thinking about how sleep came about from an evolutionary point of view. After all, it surely cannot be an accident that needing to be unconscious for many hours each day is a natural part of our schedule. People who could be active for many more hours in a day would surely have a genetic advantage over others who would be hidden away sleeping. So there must be some advantage to sleeping, particularly when we will end up spending a quarter to a third of our lives asleep.

It only took a little bit of thought for an answer to become obvious: we sleep because it gets dark. Whilst we can function perfectly well during daylight hours we cannot see well in the dark and thus are quite limited in what we can achieve. For creatures such as humans there is almost no benefit in remaining awake and alert during night times. Before the advent of reliable, continuous lighting, which occurred in less than the blink of an eye on an evolutionary timetable, there was little else to do but remain still and rest, so it is understandable that a sleep state evolved.

The physiological and mental benefits may have followed, making use of the time asleep, but that it gets dark seems like a good evolutionary answer to the question of why we sleep.

Posted in Personal | 3 Comments »
Tags: evolution, philosophy, philosophy of the mind, sleep

Sapphire hits 57

A relatively short session in World of Warcraft last night saw my warrior, Sapphire, reach 57th level, putting me just one more level away from having another character running around the Outlands. And it's not just having the Dark Portal open for a character that makes 58th level more of a milestone than 60th now. After all, a warlock's summoning spell or a mage's portal can get a character to the Outlands at any time. What makes reaching 58th level a major event is that the far superior Outlands loot first becomes available at that level.

It only takes a quick trip to the auction house to equip a 58th level character with gear that surpasses all drops or quest rewards, from dungeons or the world, that can be found up to 60th level in Azeroth. Whilst this equipment is needed fairly soon after entering the Outlands it effectively makes a character overpowered in Azeroth, helping you to breeze through any remaining quests or dungeon explorations for even quicker gains of experience. This might tempt you to remain in Azeroth to reap the benefits for longer, but the rewards for even the early quests in Hellfire Peninsula surpass the quality of gear that is available in the auction house.

Staying in Azeroth is also less appealing if you have explored that world for years. Having adventures in the same areas multiple times can become tiring, and we all have favourite places to quest as well as zones we'd prefer to avoid. The faster experience gains ushered in by the 2.4 patch have a splendid side-effect of allowing players the opportunity to pick where they want to quest. Whilst it still isn't entirely feasible to avoid the tedious familiarity of Stranglethorn Vale completely there are enough quests available in most other places that levelling up can now be more of a trip down memory lane than a nightmarish grind.

Having levelled Knifey beyond 60th level and Sapphire rapidly approaching the Outlands I am happy to say that I have entirely avoided entering Un'Goro Crater with either character, and Sapphire only visited Searing Gorge to get the dragonflight moult quest reward. I am not suggesting that there is anything particularly unappealing about either zone, more that a pleasant choice presents itself of where you would like to spend your time, rather than having to complete almost every quest in a zone before being ready to move to a more demanding one.

Even now, Sapphire has a choice of Silithus, Winterspring, Burning Steppes and the Eastern Plaguelands to gain the final few levels, with the same number of zones available for lower-level, easier quests to rush through. My only concern is that the explorer in me feels uncomfortable without a fully revealed map, a goal I was keen to achieve with my first character but has been less fulfilled with later characters. I know a lot of the nooks and crannies that exist in the world, the hidden shacks and caves, obsurced paths and shortcuts, but you wouldn't know it from looking at my current character's maps.

Having incomplete maps is a niggling complaint, one that will diminish significantly once I have left Azeroth for the Outlands. It won't be long now, although having my subscription lapse until the new time card arrives will delay my progress slightly. On the positive side, this allows me more time to be a space cadet in EVE Online, where I can progress my application to join a corporation as well as blow up rats in satisfying explosions.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Sapphire hits 57
Tags: azeroth, knifey, mmorpg, outlands, sapphire, world of warcraft

Applying to an EVE Online corporation

In other gaming news, I've taken the step of applying to a proper EVE Online corporation. I created my own corporation a little while back as a way to get out of the default corporation and its inane chat channel, and I only created it because I could not seeing a way to resign from a corporation, only move from one to another.

Owning my own company is not particularly satisfying when it is nothing more than a placeholder, a means of getting away from something. I have no plans to recruit, or really understand what it means to run a corporation in EVE Online. And whilst I am certainly having a fun and interesting time there is also a great deal of the game that I am avoiding by only running missions, hence my renewed interest in finding a good company to join.

I am not sure whether my application will be accepted, and I am little uncomfortable about the whole process with dealing with strangers, but if it isn't there are more options available.

Posted in Gaming | 2 Comments »
Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Weekend warcrafting

This weekend's gaming time was again spent mostly in Azeroth, partly because I got the bug for tanking and partly because my game time runs out immintently. I was a little forgetful in ordering a new time card for World of Warcraft and am expecting a break of a few days between my time expiring and the new card being delivered. I am making the most of the time I have left in World of Warcraft after which I'll jump back in to my pod in EVE Online, happy to focus on being a space cadet again. Having spent last week tanking in the Sunken Temple I was also keen to get my warrior, Sapphire, levelled up and ready to go to the Outlands.

There is also some group pressure to try to get at least one character to 70th level before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is released in six weeks or so. It may be possible to reach 70th level by then, but I don't think it would be a problem to be a few weeks late entering the new areas as it would allow the early rush to die down. I'm more concerned with Sapphire not having a gathering profession, leaving the mining up to Knifey. I will need Knifey to stay in step with Sapphire at least to feed her minerals and gems if I want to keep her professions current.

As for the weekend, I approximated a levelling machine. After the flurry of activity of last week, seeing me gain three levels, I was keen to try to gain some more levels quickly. A guild run in to the Sunken Temple helped, and having been in there only last week I was quite comfortable finding my way around for once. We even completed the two quests I had in the dungeon that last week's pick-up group avoided. Otherwise, I ran around Felwood and Winterspring mostly, trying to raise my reputation with the furbolgs for probably futile purposes of gaining crafting patterns that I will never use.

I ran out of rested XP quite early, using a chunk of it last week and depleting it during the week as well. This didn't stop me from adventuring, though. I seemed to be taking on quests and enemies two to three levels higher than me for half the time, which was more of a challenge on my resources but more interesting than wading through lower-level enemies and garnered me with higher XP rewards. Eventually I thought I'd better head away from Winterspring whilst all the quests were one difficulty step higher than normal and ventured down to Burning Steppes.

After wasting a little time trying to get a rare drop for a quest in the Blackrock Depths dungeon that I probably wasn't going to complete anyway, I made a more efficient plan. I headed back to Ironforge to pick up a quest for the Ruins of Thaurissan, also part of a chain for BRD, then south to Searing Gorge where I completed the chain that gets me the black dragonflight moult as part of the quest reward, alleviating the need to get it as a drop. It just so happened that just as I completed that quest a guild member popped on an wondered if I would be interested in going in to Blackrock Depths.

BRD is a huge, sprawling instance, which takes many hours to fight through on the best of days, and requires multiple trips in and out to get anything done. It's a nightmarish design that thankfully has denied in the Outlands instances. I have completed it maybe once in my years of playing, and still don't really know the layout after venturing in a dozen or so times. But guild runs can be a lot of fun, so I agreed, and got two more guild members online to help out. It was more fun being a guild run than otherwise, and we set a pretty good pace.

With no one having the Shadowforge Key our options were limited to running the very long way around. Finding the long way around was interesting, as I have only done that maybe once or twice too, but it turned out to be fairly straightforward once the two loops of doom were avoided. There were a few wipes, nothing serious, and the first allowed us to pick up the quest to get the Shadowforge Key, given by a ghost outside the instance. We killed a few bosses, including a couple of rare spawns, and got quite a bit of loot for our troubles.

After retrieving Ironfel, the quest item needed for the key, it was getting quite late. However, in classic MMORPG design, Incendius was in the next room, so we pushed on just one more fight to defeat him before heading back to the shrine to pick up the Shadowforge Key before calling an end to the run. It was a fairly successful adventure in to BRD and far less traumatic or tedious than I expected it to be, being rather enjoyable with friends.

As for levelling, I started the weekend about half of the way through 52nd level. My efforts at power-levelling, as well as an unexpected second dungeon crawl, got me to half-way through my 56th level by the end of the weekend. That's some decent progress. With any luck, and a time card arriving, I'll be taking Sapphire to the Outlands by the start of next week.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Weekend warcrafting
Tags: knifey, mmorpg, sapphire, world of warcraft

Quick fixes and brief sessions

I have not been piloting from my pod in EVE Online much for the past couple of weeks. This is owing partly to a hectic week at work and partly to the progress I've been making in World of Warcraft, where I've been able to hook up with my US friends a couple of weeks in a row. I have run through an instance with both my rogue and my warrior and am keen to gain levels on both of them. With Knifey, it would be good to gain some levels so that I can enter some more battlegrounds hopefully to enjoy some PvP, and my warrior, Sapphire, could use some more levels so that I can tank my way through all the interesting instances in Outlands.

World of Warcraft also seems to be a game where it is easy enough to play for short periods without any commitment, as well as being most familiar to me, which has made it my game of choice recently when needing a relaxing distraction. I'm not entirely sure how true that is, though. Because I am not at the level cap I would be foolish not to park my characters in a settlement with an inn so that I can build up the rested XP bonus, and that means I need to take time to travel to get anywhere I have quests, and this time is not always trivial. It also means I should get back to an inn before I log out, which normally means using my hearthstone, so I have the same travel time to endure each time I log in. As the adventuring areas get more distant with higher levels I can log in to find myself several minutes away from actually getting involved with the game. This isn't always so much a chore, as I can do the washing up from dinner whilst my character flies across half of Azeroth to the destination, but it still requires a bit of forethought.

The travelling has become particularly noticable on my warrior. Being a jewelcrafter I have her hearthstone set to the Exodar where, I believe, although I could be wrong, the only jewelcrafter trainer exists in Azeroth. Travelling from the Exodar isn't a simple matter of running to the flight master and catching a gryphon, instead requiring a brief journey by sea before the mainland flight master can be found, because of the separation of the content of the original game and that of the Burning Crusade expansion. I need to run to the dock, wait for the ship, board the ship, wait for it to travel, disembark, run to the flight master and catch a gryphon to my destination, and that's if I am adventuring in Kalmidor. Quests that take me to the Eastern Kingdoms require a second journey by ship.

Having written all this down I think I am better off setting my home in Stormwind and making only the occasional journey to the Exodar when I actually need to level up my jewelcrafting, which is not often. But my point is that my intuitive notion that World of Warcraft allows some quick gaming is perhaps misguided. Should I instead log in to EVE Online, unless I am in the middle of moving to find a new agent, which is an infrequent occasion, I will find my battlecruiser and salvaging destroyer sitting in my hangar, along with all of my ammunition and modules, in the space station where my current agent resides. To get in to some action all I need to do is open a channel with my agent and accept whatever act of destruction he asks of me.

There is a lot more depth to EVE Online than simple mission running, not that I have advanced much beyond that at the moment, but for a quick fix of gaming, happily involving space combat with satisfying explosions, the ease and speed of getting in to the action is excellent. Log in, grab a mission, ensure the right shield hardeners are fitted and there are plenty of missiles in the hold, then blast out of the hangar in to space. Warping to the stargate gets me in the right frame of mind for what is to come, and sometimes it is a straightforward warp in to deadspace right out of the station. Before I know it I am surrounded by debris and wreckage and warping back to the station, mission completed. Whilst I might not get the most out of EVE Online by running one quick mission it is certainly a good option for a brief distraction. The only problem is that you cannot choose which mission you'll get, so you could find yourself getting a courier mission that takes ten minutes to complete or a huge battle against dozens of rats that lasts over an hour.

Either way, it is good to recognise that EVE Online offers a quick and easy route to the action, and one that is normally a short burst of activity to be extended as one's own time allows. My familiarity with World of Warcraft will continue to make the game the easier choice for a while, particularly as I have some specific, if unfocussed, goals to gain some levels whereas I am still finding my footing a little in EVE Online. If I take more time to explore the world of EVE Online I am more likely to find some goals I would like to achieve and I will grow more familiar with its galaxy, encouraging me to spend more time there.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Quick fixes and brief sessions
Tags: eve online, mmorpg, world of warcraft

Battle hardened

Finding myself at something of a loose end I contact my agent asking if he has any work to keep me busy for a little while. He mentions something about a hidden stargate being blockaded by pirates and could I deal with it, because the navy has an obligation to protect citizens and traders. I grab the mission briefing from his desk, 'I'm on it, chief!'

The intelligence suggests I'll be fighting Guristas, so I ensure I have the right shield hardeners fitted for the expected kinetic weapons, with a bit of thermal damage mitigation as well, and run system tests to check their integrity. My launchers are almost empty of Scourge heavy missiles, but I have a couple of thousand in the hold and it's easier to get the ship's computer to reload them all at once than do it manually in dock. My drone bay is full again, after losing my last load of drones in a courageously fought victory. I'm ready to go.

Preferring to make use of my memory as much as possible I pull out my paper system maps and see that I have three jumps to make to get to the required system. I eschew the navigation computer and autopilot and fly my Drake battlecruiser manually through the stargates before punching in the deadspace coordinates. The rats aren't happy to see me, open-firing almost as soon as my warp drive disengages. I am facing a dozen or so rats, not a big deal, but there is a stasis tower that will slow me down if I don't do anything about it, making it my first target.

I launch four drones from the bay and start locking on to targets, trying to gain a tactical overview of the situation as my missiles destroy the stasis tower, several missiles a second thundering against my shields. As the tower's explosion signals my ship's ability to reach full thrust again I get a message from the computer that a nearby pirate gang has arrived to reinforce the blockade. More missiles and some cannon fire adds to the constant barrage on my shields, and I notice that the shields are taking quite a hammering. Whilst I have faced some heavy odds in previous missions the last time my shields were depleted this quickly was during my first level three mission, The Blockade. That was an immense battle, requiring several tactical withdrawals, and nothing like I've faced before or since. It's a good thing I'm not being asked to clear another blockade.

Come to think of it, I haven't checked the codename of the mission since I accepting it, even though I generally tend to. I remember reading about the stargate and having to blow up some rats, the destination system was important to note and I read that, and I couldn't help but see that the reward was huge, but I put that down to working with a higher quality agent than before. I'll get the call up the briefing again whilst my heavy missiles try to make a dent in that Guristas battlecruiser. Oh, it is The Blockade. I really need to start paying more attention to the mission briefings, as I am beginning to suspect it offers important information.

On the other hand, ignorance is bliss. Had I known I was facing The Blockade again I may have coughed a little and feigned a cold, telling my agent I'll just go to bed with a Lemsip if it's all the same with him. Blithely accepting the mission and ending up in deadspace gives me motivation to complete it successfully.

A particularly solid missile blast knocks me out of my reverie. It seems that destroying the stasis tower is a double-edged sword, allowing my ship greater agility but triggering reinforcements. I am facing two waves of rats at once, but with one group still considerably outside of my targeting range my options are limited and easier because of it. Locking on to targets I plot a course for Coiled Snake to take me away from the second wave whilst maintaining a good distance from my current targets, and my launchers continue their constant firing. I focus fire on the less threatening targets, because although I may be taking more punishment from some other targets the lesser ones are destroyed more quickly and are less likely to trigger even more reinforcements.

This tactical manoeuvre works well and I am able to withstand the onslaught of several waves, almost controlling when the next wave will warp in. It is only when what must be the final wave arrives that I find I need to modify my strategy again. Dire Pithi Despoilers from over 100 km distant manage to jam my targeting systems, dropping all my locked targets. This is really annoying. Don't get me wrong, it's annoying normally, but as I am fighting battlecruisers with shield boosters by the time the noise from the jamming module clears and I have regained lock half the damage my missiles previously inflicted has been recharged on the target's shields. There are four Despoilers, all trying to jam me at different times. How typical of Dire Rats to be an irritating pest.

What is needed is a bold move. I swing the nose of the Drake around and point it in to the middle of the newly warped-in wave of rats, maximising my closing speed with the Despoilers. As soon as they come within range I focus all fire—missile and drone—on the jamming craft. My lock is dropped a few more times but it is not long before all the Despoilers are nothing more than floating wreckage, ready to be salvaged, and I can continue attacking the battlecruisers without being jammed. I have taken a significant amount of damage by heading almost in to the centre of the final wave but my shields are still holding. My launchers are also still firing, explosions marking each rat's demise one by one until my radar is clear of red blemishes.

It is incredible. I faced a similar blockade before and could hardly last a minute before having to warp out of deadspace to recharge, and occasionally repair, taking me hours to fight my way through all of the battlecruisers and destroyers. But now both my ship and its pilot are more capable. I have had more training in the use of shield hardeners, drones and heavy missiles, as well as in other areas that could have a secondary effect. My Drake is fitted with more appropriate modules, boosting its shield strength and recharging capability, with grateful thanks for the helpful advice that guided me. And I have more experience in deadspace battles. My shields and capacitor were never depleted, my missile bays were never empty, and all four drones made it back in to the bay.

What a difference a few weeks can make. On top of the satisfaction of defeating The Blockade with considerably more ease than before I also have the mission rewards and bounties to look forward to. Making the jumps back to my current base I report in to my agent. I gain the mission reward as well as the bonus time reward for being efficient in clearing the blockade, a healthy 1.3 million ISK. Notice comes of the bounties I am owed for killing pirates, boosting my wallet by another 5 million ISK. Even after replacing the couple of thousand heavy missiles I fired in total, and replenishing my stocks with an order of 10,000 missiles, I am in profit by 6 million ISK.

Another successful mission!

Posted in Gaming | 1 Comment »
Tags: deadspace, drake, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Near-collision

Coiled Snake, my Drake battlecruiser, has been cleared for launch. Safely ensconced in the goo of my pod I wait as my ship is guided out of the hangar and thrust in to the cold of space. Safely out of dock I run through some system checks to make sure everything is functioning normally before I engage the warp drive. After all, it ain't like dusting crops. Without precise calculations I could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that would end my trip real quick, wouldn’t it?

I clearly take this seriously and I certainly wouldn't have been distracted by browsing the internet on my ship's computer whilst exiting dock, only to have my attention caught by the sight of an approaching cruiser dominating my display. It looks like we're on a collision course! This cannot be entirely my fault. Maybe I had been entering 'night elf on ram' in to a search engine for some special research, but what kind of crazy pilot slams on the retro boosters immediately after leaving dock, stopping in a shipping lane?

If I try to change course now the inertia will just swing the long body of my Drake in to the other ship, I can only hope that we will pass without contact. It looks awfully close and... oops. I didn't hear any screeching of metal-on-metal, but as the other ship is now spinning about an axis or two it certainly looks like our shields interfered with each other. With any luck the pilot didn't notice the violent change in direction and I can warp out of here quickly.

Hey, wait a minute, his main engines are flaring. And he's gone. Maybe I didn't hit him and he coincidentally was aligning to warp just as I passed within a couple of metres beneath him. Either way, he's now several AU away from me. I can quickly pop back in to the station, buff out the scratches, and no one will ever know. Phew, I can also keep my no-claims discount on my ship's insurance. Next time I may not be so lucky, so perhaps I should be more careful when exiting dock.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Near-collision
Tags: drake, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, star wars

Shoot the messenger

'Penny Ibramovic, good to see you.' It is not strictly a lie, as she certainly makes a desk job more interesting on occasion, although perhaps not always in a pleasant way. 'Please, come in, sit down. I have some work for you. I'd like you to go to Kusomonmon...'

'Yes, sir!'

'...and, uh, cadet Ibramovic? Would you like to come back in? Thank you, I hadn't finished. There is a package of encrypted reports that needs to be delivered quickly to the space station in orbit around Kusomonmon IV. Cadet, you are listening to the briefing, aren't you?'

'Hmm? Oh, yes, sir. You're hiring my services as a courier, and I'm to head to Kusomonmon immediately. Understood, sir.' As I reach down to the bottom drawer of my desk to put away my copy of the mission briefing I hear the rustle of Ibramovic's uniform as she snaps a salute as quick as she stands and turns to leave my office.

'That will be all, cadet', I say futilely to my office's closing doors. With cadet Ibramovic on the mission I had time to investigate a more personal matter. For some reason, I have developed what appears to be minor radiation burns to a rather delicate area.

About half an hour later, I get a request through my interplanetary relay to open a communication channel. It's Ibramovic, so I accept. 'Sir, I've arrived at Kusomonmon, as requested.'

'Good job, Penny Ibramovic. Have you delivered the package yet?' It's times like this I wish there were still static on interplanetary lines, so I could be sure the channel was still open to the other person. 'You picked up the package from my secretary before you left, didn't you? It was in the briefing that you were to deliver the reports from my office to Kusomonmon.'

'Did I read the briefing? He he, of course, sir! You have a wicked sense of humour. Um, oh, I know what has happened, the package must have slipped down a gap in the cargo hold. I'll move some containers around and get right back to you.' If I didn't know better, I would have said that background noise sounded more like a ship being moved out of a hangar.

Not that I'm terribly surprised, but it is taking Ibramovic quite a while to 'find' the package. In fact, it's been almost half an hour, when my secretary's intercom pings at me. 'Sir, I have ca—'

'Shh!'

I have to reply. As much as I want to, I cannot ignore this. 'Susan, is everything okay?'

'Uh, yes sir, everything's okay here, we're okay, there's no problem. How are you?'

Of course I know that's Penny Ibramovic's voice. At least she's got the package now. 'Okay then.'

Another peaceful half an hour passes, and another request for communication arrives. 'Penny Ibramovic, did you find the package?'

'Yes, sir! Just as I thought, it had fallen between two containers. It's here now, as requested.

'Sir, I know it's taken me a little time to deliver the package, what with all the fuss, but is the mission bonus reward still available? I could really use it, what with fuel prices these days it seems like I'm paying twice as much to fly anywhere these days.'

'It's not a problem, cadet. The delivery has been made in time. It's been a pleasure working with you, Penny Ibramovic.'

'Another successful mission! Where did I leave my pants?'

'Cadet? You've left the channel open.'

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Shoot the messenger
Tags: agents, eve online, kusomonmon, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, star wars

Kenickie's kicks

Kenickie, my kitty, was happily sitting in my lap as I was scratching his chin and rubbing his soft belly. He was enjoying this quite a lot, purring away with his eyes closed. So comfortable was my cat that he had one of his back legs rested on top of the hand that was stroking his tummy. With his head raised for the chin scratching and his back leg resting on my hand all it took was a little nudge and Kenickie's back foot bonked his head. I found this a little too amusing.

'Why are you kicking yourself in your face, Kenickie?', I asked him, nudging his foot again. Bonk. 'Doesn't that hurt when you kick yourself?' Bonk. 'Stop kicking yourself in the face, Kenickie.' Bonk. Bonk bonk bonk.

I had to stop, because my unbecoming fit of the giggles was in danger of jiggling my lap enough to make Kenickie uncomfortable and move. Kenickie remained oblivious to my amusement. Or perhaps he chose to ignore my childish antics.

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Kenickie's kicks
Tags: kenickie, kitty, silly

Spoiling Columbo

When I picked up some Mission: Impossible series on DVD along with the box set of Columbo, I mentioned in passing my dislike of the snippets of the episode shown at the start of Mission: Impossible. Whilst the snippets don't really show spoiler information for the episode as such they tend to show revelant moments that can reveal a little too much for my liking. It's not that I'm ever surprised that the main cast survive until the end of the episode, but there are revealing cues. The clothes people wear, the locations, the other characters around; little hints that point towards the direction the episode will take that can help you piece together what will happen in a way that can spoil the carefully constructed revealing moment.

The third series of Columbo took a turn for the worse when it started showing something similar to Mission: Impossible. Again, short clips from the episode are shown together at the start, and again they can reveal a little too much. It may be obvious from the formula who the murderer and victim are going to be, who Columbo will pester, what clues the murderer will leave, but I'd rather find out from watching the episode than know before it starts.

I can understand why the snippets are included. With both programmes being shown first on television it makes sense to show a brief burst of information that will entice a viewer to sit down and watch the whole episode, to keep their attention for longer than a slow build-up possibly would. Unfortunately, this does not work so well in a time when recordings are prevalent, because the act of willingly starting to watch a recording almost guarantees the programme will be watched from start to finish.

The clips at the start of the episodes of Columbo continue in to the fourth series too. They are not so bad with Mission: Impossible, because the clips are silent with the theme music playing over the top, and they last the same amount of time each episode. I only have to look away from the screen until a certain point in the theme, or indeed until the theme stops unless I want to look at the cast credits yet another time.

Columbo's openings are more difficult to avoid, as they are not part of the credits and have sound as well as pictures. This means I have to mute the sound to avoid any potential spoiler information, and then I can't simply not look at the television picture because then I get no cues as to when the episode starts. I need to mask the picture with my hand to obscure all detail but leaving enough of a gap to show the cut to black, marking the beginning of the episode. It's a bit of a fuss.

Posted in Video | Comments Off on Spoiling Columbo
Tags: columbo, dvd, mission: impossible