Tails’ Blography

A lot has been happening these past few weeks…havent got around to blogging about it all like a good blogger. Apologies!

Firstly I have to say with great glee that it was my 6 year anniversary with my adoring boyfriend yesterday!! The love of my life and I have made it six years, we’ve rolled with the punches, taken everything with a pinch of salt, and had some amazing times together! I am truly blessed to have such an amazing, caring man by my side. And when I got home from gym yesterday, I was allowed to shower and then swept away to dinner at a restaurant of my choice! Had some awesome wine, starter mussels, and steak and calamari at John Dory’s (my first choice was my best friend’s restaurant, but alas they’re closed on Mondays). So here is to another six more years, and then some! I love you, dear heart! Thank you for helping me be a better person each and every day and for putting up with my many quirks. I love you!

Secondly, I bought myself a new gaming mouse, so hopefully my CoD4 skills will improve! I got myself the beautiful Razer Lachesis in blue (I was sad it didnt come in green). Its uber smooth and fast, but I have to still get used to it in CoD4 haha. OC is this weekend, so I’ll get some practice in then (and yay for sleeping over!).

A week or two ago I lost someone who I thought was a friend. I tell you, I’ve never had to put so much effort into a friendship before! I’ve also never been lied to so much by someone I thought cared about me. I guess I probably should have realised it was doomed from the start, but I so did want it to work out, so I tried to ignore those negative issues. Things started getting a bit hectic when he started purchasing inappropriate things for me in the form of sex toys and lingerie. Yes, you read correctly. Despite my many mentions about my boyfriend and upcoming engagement, he still persisted (with a shock, I realised he’s done this with multiple women!!). It saddened me, because we could have been awesome friends. I think he’s lonely. I believe that will change when he gets a job and starts living. I did put in a good word for him with a friend who works with my bf and knows some people (heavens! I wonder if he thought I’d try get him a job at my bf’s work haha bf would soooo not let that happen!), so maybe something will come of that, but I doubt it. A lot of people I’ve spoken to think he needs to mature a little before he can settle into a real job. But how…? Maybe he’ll make the Dog Unit in three years if he persues that career. I think it’d do him some good, despite his mother vehemently disagreeing with me. Oh well, maybe she knows him in a way I never did. Still, I think a boot up the butt would wake him up enough to do something with his life. Things dont come without effort. Despite the friendship going sour, I do wish the best for him. Especially if he didnt lie about his childhood like he lied about everything else…his parent’s need a good boot up their butts for that! Makes me so mad!

Speaking of effort, I’ve finally started the process of applying to Unisa for a BEd degree….eek! I apparently have to apply online, and I got to Part 3 in Step 1 where they ask my Exam Number from when I was in Matric/Gr 12/Std 10…like I still had that haha. I had to phone my school and they called me back when they found it (their online archive only dates back to 2005…I was 2001) but when I tried to submit it on the Unisa website, they only wanted 10 digits, not 13!? I’ll have to phone tomorrow and find out what the deal is.

My poor car is also having a bit of trouble. After Girls’ Night I found my car was smelling like petrol (gas) when I drove her, so the following Saturday I called my cousin out to take a look. Turns out my fuel pipes were worn out, so I had to have those replaced. And my exhaust has a large hole rusted into it. Le sigh. Fuel consumption goes down because of that…grrr! I was wondering why I used to get around 12km per litre and now I get around 9km…that must be it! And lastly, my gearbox is sticking when changing from 1st into 2nd…so much all at once! I wont even mention the tappets hahaha. At least I’ll be pampering her a little bit on Sunday…gonna give her a bit of a polish. V’s doing her car, so she thought we could do it together…yay!

Other than that, I cant think of anything more to tell you…I guess I’ll have some more news next week. New poll up, about mouses…please do vote

Today is Sunday and, of course, I’m recuperating from another OC LAN weekend (link best viewed in Firefox). This LAN was a fairly small one (probably around 200 +-450 people over the whole weekend), as I believe there are quite a few religious holidays, as well as the LAN being rather soon to the previous one.

One thing that did happen that was out of the ordinary was the Drug Bust. Yup, someone, or three, were arrested for drug possession (R500-R600 worth of weed) and some other drug paraphernalia. Now I wondered if I’d be moaned at for blogging about it, but quite frankly, I think people should know. At least it shows there is little to no tolerance of drugs, which makes the event a safer environment…’cos let’s face it, a lot of kiddies attend OC. And they should be kept safe. I dont think a drug bust is bad publicity, after all, where there are kids, there will be drugs. It would be silly to expect otherwise, however sad that sounds. They should know it’s just not tolerated.

Anyway, so a few kids (read: three) were arrested, and the LAN continued unintterupted. I was a bit miffed about the girls’ bathroom being moved so far away (it’s now literally all the way across the dome from where I sit, up some stairs, through a winding passage and voila. I dont know, maybe I’m the only one who gets so miffed about it, but yeah, walking through that passageway alone really makes me feel unsafe. I dont think anyone would hear if I screamed if I were attacked. It just gives me the shivers…

So, of course, as I said in my last post, I was getting a Canon 24-70mm 2.8 L lens to play with at the LAN. And oh boy, I’m IN LOVE with this lens. Aside from the speed and quietness of the focussing, no postprocessing sharpening needed on the photos I took at all! They’re already tack sharp (when my shakey hands dont ruin it haha). Gosh, I love this lens! Though I do wish it had image stablization on it. Then it would be perfect! I pushed my camera a bit this LAN by pumping the ISO to 1250 for most of the indoor photos. The grain is noticable, but I dont think it necessarily ruins the photos. In some cases it gives it more feeling. Well, of course thats just my opinion. I could be biased *wink*.

So, without further delay: photos!

Just after we finished setting up

Tis like a ‘bull’ in a china…err OC LAN

Muh Windows logon!

A sleepy lanner

A random view of the LAN

Sweets!

A photo of me taken by my bestest friend

A very sleepy lanner who unwittingly provided some entertainment for us photographers…hope he was ok though…

An artistic shot whilst outside on a “cigerette break” with friends

A view over the LAN

mmmm coffee

This weekend past was another OC (Organised Chaos) LAN. For those who dont know what a LAN is, basically you pay R140 entry, bring your PC along on the Friday evening, connect it to the network, and play games like Call of Duty 4/COD4 (among other things) with (approx 700) other people on the network until Sunday afternoon. Of course, you dont have to stay the entire time, but the die-hards do. By Saturday morning their are tents, pillows, mattresses, and sleeping bags all over the place.

This month, we arrived on Saturday morning, since I was recovering from a sore throat (which subsequently turned into a head cold afterwards…sigh). We set up and got settled in. By this, I mean we plugged in our PCs, had a game or three, then went in search of food in the form of cheese burgers and chips from the local cafeteria.

Normally it gets extremely cold (around 3 degrees celcius) and we freeze our asses off despite jerseys, jackets, sheepskin slippers and a hotwater bottle, so this time we added a sleeping bag to the equation. Wow, what a difference! I’m definately bringing one to every LAN!

After hours and hours of gaming (mainly COD4), swearing, chatting, and laughing, we were paid a visit by a friend who’s never been to OC. Needless to say, after showing him the ropes and letting him have a go on the PC’s, he was hooked, and might bring his own PC next time. Score!

Each month lately they’ve been trying to have a theme, and this month’s theme was Tie July. The person(s) with the best tie(s) could win a 1 terabyte (I think) hard drive each – very worth it! I’ll snag a photo of the two winners from the OC Fan page on Facebook to show you (credit to Sheldon, the OC ‘tog).

I baked gingerbread cookies to take with (I even made one in the shape of a tie, but I didnt need it cos I wasnt there on Friday), and they were a hit! I made O’s and C’s, and offered them to the admin, friends, as well as random people I passed along the way. It was great!

Without further ado, photos! Of course all taken with my new Canon 40D! I’m positively loving the new cam, by the way! It handles noise so much better, it seems to capture light better than my Sony, and its very speedy!

Setting up

Just a look around at what it looks like on a Saturday morning

The OC gingerbread cookies I made

Another look around at our neighbours

A view from where I was sitting during prize giving on Saturday night

They dropped a CRT monitor from the Velodrome ceiling…it went BOOOOOOM!

Everyone goes in for the remains

What was left…

Our friend who came to visit

The bf gaming…

The bf and myself gaming!

My hot man!

The bf, Chris & Ferdie

Winner #1

Winner #2 – I really LOVE this one!

This month I finally participated in my first OC. OC stands for Organised Chaos and is a LAN held at the Bellville Velodrome. If you’re unfamiliar with what a LAN is, its pretty much a place set up for people to bring their PCs/laptops and play games against each other and share files etc. It runs from Friday evening (6pm I think) until Sunday afternoon (12pm), and lots of people bring mattresses and bedding to stay the nights. Tournaments are held and prizes can be won, and some months they’ve held spot prizes, where if your seat number is drawn you win a prize. Its great!

Booking is done online or on the day, and is R140 per seat. If you’re just spectating you dont pay, which is normally what I do. This time, however, I brought my PC and stayed the weekend. I participated in some Call of Duty 4 games, and sucked haha. I was sitting at 26 kills where everyone else was at around 80 haha (I wont even mention my kills:deaths ratio!!). Its a hard blow to my ego because I used to kick ass at Unreal Tournament a year or few back hehe. But I’ll get better…oh yea, I’ll get better.

Also at the LAN are food stuffs. There’s a burger place, pancake place and this month there was a chip place that sells those chip twister potatoes-on-a-stick things. Pancakes are R4 each, and burgers range from R14 (single plain burger) – R37 (a double meat and chicken burger with chips). Coffee is R5 and there are various chocolates, sweets and cooldrinks aslo for R5 each. Scooters Pizza* delivers to OC if pizza is more your meal of choice (oddly, whilst searching for the Scooters’ website, I came across the Epic Scooters Pizza Delivery site – really, what next!!). You can bring your own food and booze (if you drink responsibly and are not underage) if you’d like. I brought snacks (pretzels & doughnuts! yum!!) and wine (and was told I look “too classy” for a lan because everyone normally drinks rum/brandy & coke from a 2l coke bottle haha).

Unfortunately, for about 3 hours on Saturday at around noon, the power went out and left us high and dry. A lot of people gave up pretty quickly and went home (losers!), but we stuck it out and once it came back on again, we had a good 10 more gaming hours (we left at 3am on Sunday morning). In fact, a lot of people thought the break from gaming was a nice change. All in all, a great time was had and I cant wait for the next one! Seriously, I’m hooked!

If you’d like to participate and bring your PC, go to the OC website* for booking information (you can book online), prices, and rules. Its definately worth it! The site also has some great photos (April’s pics will be within the week I’m sure) or check out their Facebook group. Do remember to game safely and, especially since someone at this month’s lan had an epileptic fit, remember to get enough sleep and eat a decent meal. I was unaware but apparently too much sugar and sleep deprivation can induce fits if you’re prone. I enquired after the guy and turns out he was ok, the fit was minor, and he was collected and taken home to recover. Poor guy

Some pics of our little corner of OC:

About 1 min after the power had gone off (lights were running on generators)

A better view of the disgruntled lanners

The bf…unimpressed about me taking a photo of him. Thats our friend, Ferdie behind him, and behind him you can see some of the mattresses people have set up for sleeping

A disgruntled Steve hehe

My PC (yes, I like my grey mouse and keyboard, ok! ) next to Michael BIIIIIG 26″ monitor and sleek black keyboard (the silver machine behind my monitor was huge and very expensive! People kept passing by to admire it haha)