Days of Blunder

I've recently signed up to a Mad Max style online game called--for some reason--Dark Wind. It's free (clue one as to me signing up there), and is a turn-based driving game in the vein of Car Wars.

My gang of anti-social gearheads rejoices in the name The Fighting Mongooses.

I managed to finish first in my first race, largely because the only other human player was reduced to a flaming -- and, crucially "turtled" -- wreck after a head-on collision, leaving me to cruise to victory. The track there was a figure of eight, which was interesting. I was sitting in third after the first hairpin (the NPC cars tend to smash into one another on the narrow straight leading up to it) and thinking things were fine. "Here comes the fun part," says the other player, and it was only then that I rotated my camera to reveal what we were about to try and dash in front of to cross to the other loop of the 8 .. the selfsame churning peloton I'd felt so smug about outpacing only seconds earlier.
The other player came a cropper on the following lap, as we tried to make the cross shoulder to shoulder. I felt a bit bad about that -- we both hit the same two cars, but I escaped with only a fishtail and some tyre wear, whereas his driver lost a limb!

My second race, I only managed second and that again by dint of consistency--the other players raced off ahead while I struggled with the bouncy off-road buggy track. There's a hare and tortoise metaphor in there somewhere, but I won't belabour the point.
More tales of the Fighting Mongooses to come at some point in the future, I imagine.


In the real world, things have been a bit stressful, with me juggling lots of work with indefinite plans to travel at some point. I need to go to Jakarta in either March or April for the pre-wedding course thing one has to do (which will be even more thrilling in a language I barely speak), and I also have to get to my grandfather's funeral, and I don't know when it will be yet... it's all very well leaving time so that far-flung relatives can make it (mostly from Australia) but it doesn't much help us, people, if you don't give us any notice extra.

Still, I'm trying not to panic. It hasn't been all bad. HSBC turned me down for a credit card despite me earning more than twice the required amount (gits), but another provider of the exact same card has kindly stepped into the breach. My old flatmate Paul visited for a week at the beginning of January en route from England to Beijing and slept on my sofa--it was rather nice having him as a flatmate again. Our friend Alex J was also down from Beijing, so we were able to enjoy a bit of a reunion with those two and me, as well as Rudi. On the day Paul arrived (though he missed this out as he arrived 12 hours later than he'd planned, on account of confusing am and pm), we went for tea at the Peninsula, where we were at the next table from Jean-Claude van Damme. JCvD looked, in a word, bewildered.
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