This post is another collection of random thoughts, thrown together in no particular order. All of which is gathered under the functional title “Thinking Out Loud”, which is a recurring blog post that tends to be published on Mondays.

Tweaking Your Blog

With Blaugust: Festival of Blogging fast approaching, I have decided to close several side projects I started last November (which rapidly ran out of momentum) and focus all my writing endeavours back on Contains Moderate Peril. I have taken a 9 month break which has served its purpose. I have decided to make some minor changes to the base template I am currently using for the blog, as it has remained essentially unchanged since summer 2015. I did toy with the idea of involving a third party developer to improve the site but employing such a company with specific Squarespace experience meant spending between £2000 and £3000, which is far more than my initial budget.

I appreciate that such rates are the market standard at present but I simply don’t want to spend such sums of money on a hobby that in principle should not have excessive operating costs. If I was pursuing a business related blog, then it would be a different matter. My advice to new bloggers is to avail themselves of free services or 30 day trials of established products, before committing to any major costs. It is best to determine whether blogging is for you before spending a dime. If you decide that you wish to maintain an online presence and develop your own brand, then the costs have the potential to increase exponentially, the more you do. I wrote a post about the cost of keeping a blog back in 2019. Naturally the prices referenced have gone up but the basic ideas remain the same.

Total Hours Played

Setting aside the MMO genre which is predicated upon its continuous playability based upon the release of regular new content, I usually don’t keep track of the total amount of time I have invested into a video game. I will have a broad approximate notion but if I need specifics, I will go and check the numbers on Steam or whatever platform is pertinent. It can be quite surprising sometimes and often my assumptions are wrong. For example, it felt like I had spent a lot of time playing Starfield upon its release last Autumn. In total it was 136 hours, which may sound a lot but is far short of other RPGs, such as Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (186 hours) or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (286 hours). Perhaps that was due to the rather ponderous nature of Starfield, which despite its superficial modernity, ultimately was structured and played like a much older RPG.

I recently returned to Sniper Elite 5 which I have been playing on and off over the last two years plus. Having played through the main campaign, DLC, co-op and multiplayer modes, what brought me back was a renewed interest among the wider gaming community in the so-called “invasion” mode. This interesting variation of PVP, allows another player to enter your ongoing campaign and try to hunt you down while you are battling the various NPC in the game’s story missions. It is purely optional but certainly adds a fascinating and absorbing spin on the proceedings. As the invading Sniper Jäger you have the advantage of being on the same side as the enemy NPC and can tag them. If they subsequently encounter the enemy, their change in status on the mini-map alerts you. However, playing the campaign and having your game invaded can be immense fun as well. There is scope to clear areas of the map and set traps or an ambush for invaders. I find this especially satisfying. It certainly has given the game a new lease of life which is why I discovered last week that I had played 317 hours in total. Seldom does a modern game provide such value.

Alexa Doesn’t Swear

I’ve had some form of Amazon Echo smart speaker since 2016. I have always found these devices useful for timers, general questions such as weather, traffic and train times and for reminders. Its main use in our house is playing music. I probably don’t use a third of its total functionality but I still consider it an asset. However, despite 8 years of ownership, I only recently discovered one of Alexa’s curious foibles. She seems incapable of swearing. Upon reflection, I see the merit in this design choice. Especially if you have young children using the device. I certainly don’t see it as an infringement of free speech. I found out about Alexa’s puritanical streak when I requested specific songs to be played. Usually I request various playlists that I’ve curated but on this occasion I asked for a few songs by name. To my surprise and amusement, the profanities in their titles were “bleeped out” when Alexa confirmed the selection. The songs in question were “Too Drunk to Fuck” by Dead Kennedys and “Pussy” by Rammstein.

Diet Update

When I stood on the scales this morning, I appear to have lost another 2.2 lbs, which is steady progress. At present I weigh 196.4 lbs. I had to cut down a great deal last Wednesday to compensate for the fact that I was going for a meal at a French brasserie on Thursday and I felt obliged to try and ensure that my metaphorical food intake ledger was balanced accordingly. Mrs P and I have decided to not eschew wine completely so it has been incorporated into our weekend “indulgences”. Whether this has a detrimental effect on the overall program, I will find out next Monday.

Featured