TheChrisD - Rant Central

Sleepless in Dublin

Let’s just say this weekend has had a good few traces of insomnia in it. Not the coffee company, but the sleeping "disorder". Although technically not a disorder, more of a "too much other stuff to do which is more important that sleep" thing. I’ll stop now.

Friday night saw me doing something which I never really thought I’d be doing for ages - playing CoD4 multiplayer online and enjoying it… Once you start gaining more levels and unlocking more stuff, it is actually quite a decent experience. The Challenges section is really the main reason I keep playing. You could say it gives the same sort of "buzz" getting achievements does, albeit without any Gamerscore increases. Still getting a nice notice and fancy sound effect informing you that you’ve just achieved the Hardcore Deathmatch MVP (on the Russian style map camping the hole above a doorway), or successfully said Goodbye (jumping from the top floor of the building under construction to the basement on Standoff?) keeps you hungry for more. I just wish that challenges that unlock on later levels would take into account whether you’d completed it before unlocking it. The amount of times I’d completed those one-off Sabotage challenges before unlocking them…

Last night didn’t really have much going on. It was more of a night where the reason I was up all night is because I wasn’t tired… Yes, lame excuse. However, I did catch a good few more Pokémon in Diamond. Some of them were actually quite surprising, although it might have been down to the extras you "unleash" into the Great Marsh with the National Dex, added with the Super Rod.

Speaking of Pokémon, it’s been a week since I bought all 26 currently released volumes of Pokémon Adventures (the manga) from some guy in Singapore on eBay. Hopefully the package will be arriving at Dunboyne within the next week or so. Then I can see if it was worth the €200+
It’s just a pity that the guy from Serebii.net who was in charge of the manga section, Coronis, has had to leave. His write-ups were getting me interested in the Diamond and Pearl series of the manga. Actually it was his detailed bios of the main characters which got me interested in the manga in the first place. At least he entertained a lot of people with his write-ups, and hopefully got a few other people interested in the series as well

Tonight will probably be another sleepless night, although it probably won’t be as bad as the rest of the weekend. Mainly because I have a 10am lecture in the morning. It really all depends on how I decide to watch the Daytona 500. Yep, the NASCAR season is back
The main thing here is that there are two ways to watch the 500, but both of them have their inherent disadvantages. The first option is to use NASCAR’s Raceview application, which is free for the 500. This will allow me to "watch" the race live on my computer and see everything that’s happening, albeit virtual. While this allows me to watch the race live, it doesn’t have the proper TV camera, nor the ESPN commentary. The second option is to watch NASN on Setanta tonight and hope that the race is being shown delayed. Although it isn’t live, it is TV. However, the earliest it will start is midnight, meaning I’ll be up until about 4 or 5am…
Or, alternatively watch it during the week if Setanta replay it some other night. Preferably Thursday since I’m not busy in the morning on Friday

At least next weekend won’t have so much sleeplessness, as the A1 is in South Africa, which handily is only GMT+1