months. I've spent this week in Toowoomba working for a couple of
different customers. While that used to be the everyday thing as far
as my work was concerned it's been quite a while since I've had to
spend this much time away from work. I'm quite out of practice as it
turns out. I discovered this morning that I'd managed to short pack
myself and had to pick up a few supplies to get myself through the
rest of the week. Toowoomba has it's advantages as far as away from
home work locations go. It has a whole range of restaurants and cafe's
that cater for gluten free eaters so I don't have any issue finding
something to eat every night. I also stayed in a B&B this time instead
of a hotel and they have been very accommodating when my breakfast
order rolls around.
I've missed being away from home this time more than I remember. I
don't know if it was Vanessa spending a couple of nights here earlier
in the week or if I'm just really out of practice.
It's almost at the end (being Thursday night and all) but I have
secured myself some more work up here so I'll have to work myself into
the away from home frame of mind sooner rather than later.
The change to the B&B has been great. The level of service and
hospitality have been well above anything I've had in a hotel whist on
Business (with the possible exception of the Merchant Court in
Sydney). It will definitely be my first choice of accommodation for my
next Toowoomba trip.
On a side note a bit of social commentary, there is a very awkward
dinner going on at the table across from me. A couple of kids out with
their dad, everyone is staring daggers at each other arms crossed and
perfectly silent... Doesn't look like any of them really want to be
there...
Ok... and back to my dinner musings...
As you can probably tell I'm just passing the time with this post... I
should probably be doing some work trying to help out one of the new
consultants at my work but I'm lacking in motivation so I'm
procrastinating with this blog post over dinner.
I've manage to make some serious inroads into Spectrobes. I've put a
lot more time into than I probably planned (although not quite the 80
hours the game reports). It was a little bit of a impulse when I
pre-ordered after having a few dollars spare on a trading spree but
it's turned out to be a great pick up and play title. There are quite
a few aspects to the game and despite putting a good 20 hours into the
game I'm definitely some way to mastering every aspect. For example
the game came with trading cards that I haven't even unlocked the
system for. It's been done well to the formula of unlock to play to
unlock. As you progress you discover more abilities and features of
the game which then utilise to unlock more features. The level of
achievement for unlock is efficiently weighted to never leave you
without a new feature for long. The fighting mechanics (and to a large
extent the overall game play) follows the pokemon formula. You
unlock/capture/find/befriend/awaken (find and awaken in Spectrobes
case) you allies that you use to fight the battles for you. Your
weapons to precious little against any of the opponents so they are
really your only fighting mechanism. You gain these allies by digging
for fossils. It is one of my favourite aspects (and one of the best
uses of the DS control in the game, and definitely up there with the
all DS titles) is the extracting fossils. You use you stylus to
control various archaeological tools to drill and extract your fossils
that you then awaken by singing to them (honestly they make it sound
plausible) but never the less it's an excellent use of the stylus
(even if it's tied with a gimmicky use of the mic). You're bonused
for how carefully you can drill around your fossil before you extract
it. You use this technique not only to find and extract allies but
also for food and unlocks in the game. One of the greatest differences
to this other games in this genre is that you don't discover you new
allies through endless random battles but rather by searching the
various worlds for the treasures buried below. In fact if you're
careful enough you can avoid just about every random battle that comes
your way. As I get further through the game I'll put up some more
comments but for the moment it's quite enjoyable and certainly passes
the time in Toowoomba (or on the bus).
Actually one last point before I leave the spectrobes... one problem
with the use of the mic is you can't really awaken any of your
extracted fossils unless you're at home. Ok bug bear done...
I've watch/bought a few DVDs while I've been away... mainly because
the TVs in the rooms have been smaller than my laptop screen and
because there hasn't been much on TV to watch... (apart from heroes
which I'm avoiding because I'm behind and I have the rest of the
series on the PVR). I watched Layer Cake last night. It was a pretty
good movie... only if you like Snatch or Lock Stock though. Was pretty
good value at $6 though... I'm not sure I'm convinced on the lead
(who's name escapes me at the moment and I'm so apathetic I can't be
bothered looking it up... he's the new James Bond though) he was ok as
a bond but I'm still not sold.
So that's about it for this post.... I've done all the procrastinating
I can in this post...
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