Now, it may appear from this post that I have nothing better to do with my time at the moment than waste countless hours sat in front of a screen twiddling knobs and tapping incessantly on keys without really achieving anything productive.  And they may be a modicum of truth in that hypothesis.  However, I can assure you that the time I have spent playing has been (for the most part) well-chosen and has not adversely interfered with the normal running of my life.  It has of course been lots of fun.

First of all, I recently acquired something I have wanted for years – a steering wheel.  No, not for my car, but for the computer.  And since all my games are now on the PS2, it had to be one that I could plug into that.  An hour or so on eBay and a handful of reviews culminated in a purchase of a Logitech Driving Force EX steering wheel, which was plugged in and tested as soon as I was able (i.e. the evening of the day it arrived – see, I didn’t skip work for this), driving my current favourite game: Gran Turismo 4.

It took a while to get used to, having learnt all the basics of the game using the standard controller, but it wasn’t long before I was hooked.  The steering wheel provided good feedback, with resistence and vibration like a real car, and actually made the cars a lot easier to drive with precision – which is what that particular game is all about.  More recently I’ve even started playing around with drifting and controlling cars on off-road courses, neither of which I could master with a normal controller.  I’ve also found myself preferring to turn off the traction control systems, opting to drive ‘raw’ and more in tune with the car, and that’s rewarded me with a much more pleasing feel to the drive.  And aching arms.

Unfortunately the Driving Force EX isn’t without its faults.  I soon discovered (and later found others who had found the same) that the “flappy paddle” gear change buttons on the back of the steering wheel don’t work with my version of GT4.  Apparently it’s a known issue with that particular steering wheel and my particular release of the game – in other countries it’s absolutely fine.  I’ve scoured all sorts of forums and suchlike, and the general consensus is that there is no solution.  The error itself is in the wiring of the steering wheel, and the option that would usually remedy the situation is bemusingly disabled in PAL versions of the game.  So I’m left with no alternative really but to keep the game in Automatic transmission, missing out on that final piece of absolute control.  Well, I say no alternative, it seems you can get the flappy paddles to work, but only by unplugging the power supply to the steering wheel and using it as if it were a normal controller, meaning you get all the right buttons in the right places but no force feedback.

Still, I’ve had a whale of a time with the wheel so far, and it’s been incredibly addictive.  I’ve spent many late hours screaming round various tracks, wearing tyres ragged and inevitably smashing into my fair share of walls too, but even so there has been the satisfying reward of some awesome corners and moments of superb and flawless control.  The trick now is in reducing the number of accidents and increasing the occurrence of brilliance.

Meanwhile, up on the Mac, I’ve rediscovered (again) my love for Transport Tycoon.  Or, to be more precise, OpenTTD, which is the open-source version that is still being developed and tinkered with by people who refuse to let the game die.  This all started (or restarted, as the case may be) after a trip to London, and my mind got all creative and geeky looking at train station configurations.  So I downloaded the latest version of the game and started playing again, and after a few false starts I’ve got a rail network going now that’s pretty efficient and elegant too.

Something that’s fairly new in the world of OTTD is the idea of “Path Signals”.  There’s a wiki that goes into a little more detail than I can afford here, but basically it’s a type of signal that allows a train to reserve a route through a section of track.  The advantage is that you can have multiple trains using track that would otherwise be limited to one train at a time with the other signal types.  It’s very clever.  In its simplest form it means you can have a really disorganised mass of track, whack some path signals in the right places, and let the trains sort themselves out without worrying about them crashing into each other.  Marvellous.  Obviously it’s a little more complicated than that in practice, but it does allow for much more elegant track designs, with more crossovers, less track, and fewer bottlenecks.  I love it.  I’d show you some screenshots, but the number of people who’d actually find that at all interesting would be so limited that I’d be wasting my time.  Still, at least I thought about it.

EDIT: Due to popular demand (okay, one person, yay Phill), here are some screenshots of my current OpenTTD game.  I’ve hidden the trees to make the track a little clearer.

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And yes, I am a geek.  Thank you for noticing.

On the work front, things have been exceptionally busy just of late.  A web designer friend of mine recently handed me all his clients, ahead of his year-out move to America (I think… something like that), and I’ve spent the last couple of days sorting myself out and getting to grips with the new web sites.  In particular I’ve had to think more carefully about my client management – storing passwords, contact information, billing and invoicing details, and anything critical to the project.  Before now I’ve done it fairly ad-hoc, writing down passwords in a text document where needed, and remembering most of the details myself.  With my client-base almost doubled, I realised I needed something more substantial.  I looked into creating a database using OpenOffice, but found their database app remarkably difficult to use and somewhat unstable – it got confused when I tried to enter some information, and I hadn’t even got as far as linking tables and doing complex queries!  So in the end I’ve reverted to something simpler, but more effective than what I had before, keeping a document of information for each client, with enough information that someone else could theoretically take over if something untoward happened to me overnight.  Which I hope won’t happen, but it’s good to plan for the unexpected anyway, just in case.

So that’s all kept me rather busy, and I’ve not really done much ‘real’ work – i.e. stuff I get paid for.  I guess that’s just part and parcel of running your own business, you have to do the boring administrative stuff as well as the fun designing bits!

Of course, then there’s all the time in between, which is where it gets more interesting.  As timewasters go, we have plenty in this house.  Not only do I have my computer, which is connected to the internet is thus an almost endless source of entertainment, we also have a lounge.  Lounges are good fun.  Especially considering all the toys we keep in it.

For my birthday my Auntie Julia gave me a special offer thing for LoveFilm.com, giving me free access to film rental for 90 days.  I’ve registered a whole load of films I haven’t yet seen, and they’ll send me an unlimited amount every month, with a limit of only having one film at home at a time (postage is free too).  Ellie already has a subscription to Amazon to do much the same thing, but this LoveFilm one means I can book the sort of films Ellie won’t be interested in – so lots of car chases and stuff blowing up!  I’ve already had 3 films come through, and they’ve all been fairly good so far.

And while we’re sat in front of the TV, why not switch on that black box underneath?  What black box?  You know, that big black box, with a PS2 logo on the front.  Yes, I finally succumbed and bought myself a games console.  I’ve been after one for a while, but waiting for the prices to come down.  With the recent release of the PS3 prices for the old PS2 have dropped substantially, both in the shops and online, and it’s finally become affordable.  In fact, my birthday money effectively covered the cost of the PS2 and 2 games, which is pretty neat.  I’ve been playing GTA San Andreas for a few days now, and thoroughly enjoying every moment.  I’ve also got GTA Vice City Stories, which was a follow-up game using the same engine, but from what I’ve seen isn’t anywhere near as good (despite being newer).  Essentially it’s a PSP game ported to the PS2, and a lot of the functionality in the San Andreas version has been lost.  In GTA VCS you can’t eat, you can’t go to the gym, you can’t get fat, you can’t build up your stamina and strength, you can’t change your clothes or your hairstyle, you can’t shoot using the old-school targeting system, there are fewer guns and cars available, and the map is significantly smaller.  VCS is certainly a good game, but pales in comparison to the original.

In addition to all that (as if three major timewasters weren’t enough) we also have gerbils.  Eventually (and by that I mean within the next few years) we’ll undoubtedly be getting a dog (Golden Retriever, on Ellie’s insistence).  But in the meantime we’ve got gerbils.  Two of them.  And they’re so much fun.  I could sit and watch them for hours.  Except they sleep a lot, so there are times when there wouldn’t be much to see.  Nonetheless, we’ve bought them several toys, and get them out to play regularly.  They’ve even been up and played on my desk when I was supposed to be working – they look so cute hopping around on my keyboard and running around in my in-tray!

Oh, and then there are the usual suspects: multiple musical instruments, a Mini to tinker with, a garden to plant stuff in, friends to hang out with.  It’s a wonder really that I get anything done at all…