Cav's Place

The Syberia recap is a nice thing to have, but I’d say it was the better game, with a better setting and atmosphere. Alexei’s book is a pretty nice touch though. In general, the graphics, being in the same style, still hold up well, characters seem to look and move better, though I’d say Kate would need much warmer clothes in that climate, and the music remains nice enough. The writing can be an issue, however, dialogues often not quite fitting together and simply not having enough quality overall. And the fact that you can’t repeat any piece of conversation and they’re not logged either can be quite a problem at times. It can also be annoying when some conversations end after a certain option is selected, before exhausting all, and that often you do exhaust all available topics, but if you immediately talk to the character again, new options appear.
But an adventure game’s gameplay is defined by puzzles, and those again usually made sense, and I’d still consider the lack of inventory ones a plus. It can be tricky to spot some objects or even exits, and the areas that pan can still be confusing at first, but I didn’t even really get frustrated by the few puzzles requiring trial and error, taking them for what they were and solving them quickly. I consider it either a bug or the game‘s one instance of Moon logic that the dream clock puzzle can’t be solved correctly, accurately, but there was just one other place where I checked the walkthrough, the drums in the Youkol Cave, and that was my fault, the area seeming rather confusing and making me think I missed something elsewhere when I just couldn’t find the target for the otherwise obvious solution. They get rather too straightforward after leaving the Cave, however, as if the developers got bored, locations and cutscenes otherwise seeming to indicate that they weren’t really rushing. Was left at a loss regarding Kate’s fate, however, and also wondering what the point of everything about her work and being tracked was.

It again feels rather like cheating to count this as a book I read, being so short, but more important is the fact that it’s not meant to be read on its own. It’s written in an odd style, intentionally confusing, hard to follow, lacking background information and constantly broken up by all those notes appearing even in the middle of sentences, including descriptions apparently pulled right out of the game that aren’t suited for a book. That said, there are some interesting elements, at least enough to make the reader curious, and the discussion about Gods can be said to stand out and make some good points. And the comment about language is spot-on.

Rating: 2/5

Marko‘s announcement of retiring from Nightwish and public life sure came out of nowhere yesterday, especially considering their upcoming virtual concert, scheduled two months from now. And now that I had a look I found that less than a month ago he won Masked Singer Finland and also took part in the Raskasta Joulua stream, so it’s not like he’s been having all this time off and only now started thinking about getting back to “business” and realized he can’t do it anymore. Then again, considering the first part of that announcement, it would seem that the contracts for that upcoming virtual concert and/or the payments for the Raskasta Joulua one had quite a lot to do with it. And he always was the one most openly focused on and outspoken about the earnings, and against “piracy”, standing in contrast with Tuomas and making me frown and send various choice words his way whenever I saw such interviews or comments, though now that he switched his target from “pirate” consumers to the real ones, the corporations, I most definitely agree.
I wonder what this means for the future of the band, since he was also their second vocalist and even wrote some of the music, which are roles that the guest bassist they announced they’ll be looking for is unlikely to fill, or at least certainly not as well. Of course, they probably won’t worry about writing for quite some time, since they released Human. :||: Nature. right when much of the world was in lockdown, in April, so they’re yet to actually do much of anything with it, and the number of years between their albums has been constantly increasing anyway, but this is just their current problem, needing to actually show off this album and missing an important member who worked on and recorded it.
What likely makes matters worse is that they seemed to have finally found themselves again with this album. Yes, Imaginaerum was a masterpiece and I have said so at the time, but it was nevertheless different, while on Endless Forms Most Beautiful they seemed quite lost, at least from my point of view, heading in directions I didn’t care to follow, so it was only with this album that Nightwish truly seemed to be Nightwish again, for the first time since Once, and such a change, which is likely to affect them more than their previous changes of lead vocalist that so many still focus so much on, is likely to greatly destabilize them again. But I guess we’ll see what the future will bring…

It’s time for another one of these posts, obviously just for my own use, likely including as a way to stay at least somewhat motivated. I was saying even a year ago that this was becoming a problem, but recently it’s been a huge one, considering the bad times I’ve been managing, and with the way things are going it’s likely to become even worse of one… But I’m still signed up for the half marathon and marathon, seeing as they weren’t organized last year and the entries remain valid for whenever the next editions will be, so I’ll need to keep it up at least at a level which will allow me to not embarrass myself too much when the time will come.
Same as before, I didn’t copy the times for the shorter distances, so those are still in the first two such posts. And I still consider the Dream Trek Summer Edition as something different and not relevant for these purposes, so I’m still not including it here, even if I took part in it last year as well. On the other hand, the new additions compared to the previous such post are underlined, which meant there was less need for additional notes this time around, so I only included a couple of them. The usual ones, however, are in the same format, between square brackets, with the first value representing the distance and the second the lap on which that particular time was achieved. And the times still include only the seconds, ignoring the fact that I now usually have exact ones as well, especially for the 10 km runs, and those may change some things.
The title of this post mentions the beginning of 2021 instead of the end of 2020 because I pushed so hard at the start of this week’s run that I managed a first sector time on the first lap that tied for eighth despite the roadblock I had to deal with, so I included that here. And I’m including that run on the page where I was throwing the times so far as well, though I meant to stop updating it at the end of 2020, but now I will be “retiring” that page. Won’t delete it, but from now on I’ll be sticking to the better page I’ve been using for a while, which I won’t link to yet since at the moment it’s in a temporary location. And yes, I’m slowly adding dates on that page, so those will also be available somewhere, even if still not in these posts. There are some dates, especially early on, that I won’t be able to identify, the posts not mentioning the exact day when I ran, but I should be able to add the vast majority… Eventually, since it’s a particularly tedious task and the time I spend on-line is limited.

10 km (through the park)
1. 46:09
2. 46:24
3. 46:28
4. 46:31
5. 46:32
6. 46:37
7. 46:39
8. 46:41
9. 46:48
10. 46:49

16 km (through the park)
1. 1:15:10
2. 1:15:37
3. 1:16:09
4. 1:16:17
5. 1:16:54
6. 1:17:23
7. 1:17:30
8. 1:17:37
9. 1:17:38
10. 1:17:51

Half Marathon (21.1 km)
I. Bucharest Half Marathon real time
1. 1:45:36
2. 1:51:54
3. 1:54:56
4. 2:02:38
II. Through the park
Note: This is the first time it’s actually a matter of the best times over this distance through the park, since a year ago I had covered it only nine times.
1. 1:42:52
2. 1:43:15
3. 1:43:23
4. 1:44:04
5. 1:44:51
6. 1:45:50
7. 1:46:41
8. 1:48:20
9. 1:48:26
10. 1:53:11

35.2 km (through the park)
1. 3:26:38
2. 3:44:40

Marathon (42.2 km) – Bucharest Marathon real time
1. 4:19:40

Lap around the park lake (3.2 km)
1. 14:21 [10-1]
2. 14:31 [10-1]
3. 14:38 [10-1]
4. 14:43 [10-1]
5. 14:44 [16-1]
6. 14:46 [10-1]
7. 14:47 [10-3]
8. 14:48 [10-2]
9. 14:49 [10-3]
10-14. 14:50 [10-2] (and a second [16-1], third [10-2], fourth [10-1] and fifth [10-1] time)

Lap sector one [10-1 unless otherwise specified]
1. 3:56
2-3. 4:07 (twice)
4-7. 4:08 [16-1] (and a second, third and fourth time)
8-11. 4:09 (and a second, third and fourth time)

Lap sector two
Note: All times from a year ago are still here, the only new addition adding a tie for eighth place.
1. 4:32 [10-1]
2. 4:42 [10-2] (Slightly uncertain I remembered it correctly.)
3. 4:49 [16-2]
4-7. 4:50 [10-1] (and a second [10-2], third [16-2] and fourth [10-1] time)
8-9. 4:51 [10-2] (twice [10-3])
10-12. 4:52 [10-1] (and a second [10-3] and third [10-3] time)

Lap sector three
1. 5:24 [10-1]
2. 5:25 [10-1]
3. 5:35 [10-3]
4-6. 5:36 [10-1] (and a second [10-2] and third [10-3] time)
7. 5:37 [10-3]
8-9. 5:38 [10-2] (twice [10-3])
10-11. 5:39 [10-1] (twice [10-1])

Final sector on a 10 km run
Note: No change whatsoever compared to a year ago.
1. 1:40
2-5. 1:42 (and a second, third and fourth time)
6-15. 1:43 (and a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth time)

Final section of a Half Marathon (21.1 km) run (through the park)
Note: This is the first time it’s actually a matter of the best times over this section, since a year ago I had covered this distance only nine times through the park.
1. 9:52
2. 9:54
3. 10:00
4. 10:03
5. 10:10
6-7. 10:11 (twice)
8. 10:12
9. 10:31
10. 10:45

Last Tuesday my internal alarm clock again worked, as I woke up a couple of minutes before the alarm rang, at 12:30 PM, and knew it, so I didn’t even bother to check the time, just staying under the blanket a little more, until it actually rang. Then I had the usual stuff plus hazelnuts, the yogurt being a bio (organic) one, and a slice of cozonac with quite a lot of added jam as the sweet thing, and put the running t-shirt on again, with an undershirt underneath, though I didn’t also take the tights back out, sticking to the old running pants. With the sunny weather and 13°C reported when I went out, just before 3 PM, there was obviously no way to still take the old running shirt, but did take the jacket for the walk, tying it around my waist while I ran.
I’m increasingly afraid of running, and whimpering at the very thought of going again, and this run proved why even more, the time being 49:55.46, with sector times of 4:19.66, 5:25.11, 6:08 (6:07.48), 4:38.09, 5:21.23, 6:07.38, 4:37 (4:36.58), 5:18 (5:17.52), 6:05.46 and 1:57 (1:56.95), making for lap times of 15:52.25, 16:06.70 and 16:00 (15:59.56). I was thinking of going for 16 km again if it’ll look like I won’t even stay under 49 minutes, but the time would have been tight in that case, so I hoped I won’t need to make the choice… And I didn’t need to make it, because I felt so tired and unable to push that I even thought of just stopping, and just barely staying under 50 minutes, which I already knew after that awful sector two of lap one was the best I could possibly hope for, took everything I had, so going farther was never an option.
Yes, the park was surprisingly crowded, and on the first lap I even had to stop quite a few times, the worst such moment being just on the first sector, under the bridge, where a complete roadblock was ahead of me and a cyclist was also trying to pick his way through, and after trying to follow him and failing I tried to use the sloping part to get around, needing to stop almost immediately because I was slipping and risked falling into the lake otherwise, so I just stood there for a few seconds, until I had a way through. That allowed another runner whom I had just passed to catch up, and while he had been significantly slower at the time I passed him, he stayed right behind me until the end of that long straight, then overtook me and was slowly moving ahead as we were both picking our way through a few more roadblocks on the next sector. I was catching him again on sector three, but I again lost more time than he did at a large roadblock on that sector, since he went around it on one side and I took the other, both of us going on the grass but his path being straight and allowing him to use another paved path to return while I had to go around a bench and a couple of garbage cans and deal with the slope leading to the lake again, preferring to err on the side of caution even if the angle shouldn’t have been an issue in that spot. So I had to struggle to catch up again and was very slowly doing so when, on sector two of lap two, he turned towards an exit. Interestingly, I didn’t have such major problems again after the first lap, though there were still misunderstandings, times when I had to slow and even a few more when I had to stop for just an instant, plus of course a whole lot of weaving, going the long way around and picking my way through.
So that did cause me to lose a fair bit of time, but even taking indirect losses into account, I don’t think I’d have even managed to stay under 49 minutes on a clear route. I just felt tired from the beginning, my legs seemed heavy, I was aware of needing to make bigger steps but couldn’t, definitely couldn’t sustain even what sprints I would have had room for, and it felt like I couldn’t quite get enough oxygen, this last part making me wonder what the results of a test would have been. The end result was that I was rather pleasantly surprised with the first sector time, considering what I had to deal with, but what followed was in line with what I feared, so I was very uncertain of even staying under 50 minutes until the very end. But I gave everything I still had on lap three and at least managed to avoid embarrassing myself even worse.

Went to Kaufland after the run, just walking there, feeling I’d be pushing myself too hard if I’d try to jog again. Just meant to get shaving cream, which I did, but also spotted bags of mixed small apples at a low price and grabbed one. No price checkers worked in the store, however, and the self-checkout didn’t scan it, the employee who was there trying a few different things which didn’t help and then just saying it won’t scan and taking it away, without even asking or offering options, so I couldn’t buy it. Took the opportunity to ask why the checkers didn’t work, but she said she didn’t know, though at least she helped after I put the first bill in and nothing happened, pointing out that the machine had rejected it for some reason. I’m pretty sure that was the first time that happened to me at Kaufland, and I didn’t notice since it had spat it into the change tray, not right back out, as those from Auchan do, but it took it when I tried again and I could finally get out of there.
Did jog most of the way back, but also stopped at a small store near the farmers’ market, having seen a sign advertising that a certain kind of cheese was on sale when I had first passed by it. They only had a little left, less than I’d have wanted to buy, so I got all of it and was back at 5:20 PM. After that, took a shower with water that wasn’t exactly comfortable and finished Oathbringer a few minutes before midnight, posting the quick review the next day. My nose was irritated again after the run, and felt like it was going to be quite a problem when I woke up the next day, but then it was mostly fine until I got back to my room after eating at night, when it caused some issues again.

Last Thursday I woke up at 12:30 PM and, after initially getting back in bed after peeing and despite the fact that my nose still didn’t seem quite fine, I eventually decided to try to take that used cooking oil to Auchan after all, in case the campaign was going to end at the end of the year, so just before 12:45 PM I was up, went out a bit after 1:35 PM… And just wasted time, since when I got there and asked whether they still offered dishwashing liquid, I was told that just the water was left, so I didn’t hand it over. Considered going in for some bread, since it didn’t seem as crowded as I feared, but decided against it and came back.
Passed through the farmers’ market on the way though, and while it was almost deserted and those who were still there to sell something seemed to get ready to leave, there were still plenty who had apples, so I had a look and saw cheap ones that admittedly didn’t look good but still seemed mostly edible, picked one of those selling them and went there to get some. There was a guy sweeping in front of that stall, and I assumed it belonged to him, but he just ignored me until I asked whether they were still selling and he called the other guy who was in that area over, telling him to give me something. However, when I said I wanted some from that cheap pile, this other guy kept saying that those weren’t for eating, trying to sell me some better ones, so I said that if he didn’t want to sell to me, it’s not a problem, and went to another one who had such apples, starting to pick a few. And, while he also warned me that they were rather bad, and I noticed, I said it didn’t matter, at which point he just added some more in my bag and didn’t weigh them, saying he didn’t even have scales, just charging me 1 RON, for one kilogram, though I weighed the bag after getting back, a bit before 3 PM, and saw that he had given me 1.7 kg. Admittedly, I selected the worst one, trying to eat it first, and had to throw almost all of it away, but also gave the next three worst ones to dad, to take to my mother for the fruit salad, in case she’ll find anything usable in them, and the rest were mostly edible.

Far more notable was what happened that evening, however, since I managed to just get myself to rush to the end and finish Witch’s Wake, which meant finishing all of Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker and, since I had also finished those additional modules first included in Neverwinter Nights: Gold back in November, finally, finally finishing all of Neverwinter Nights: Diamond, over 13 years, possibly even some 13 and a half, after initially starting the original campaign and four and four months after finishing Hordes of the Underdark and starting Kingmaker, finishing it becoming a goal every year since then. And I do mean to write a review for Kingmaker, as in the expansion, which will in fact consist of shorter reviews for each of the three included modules, probably one after the other here, though I’ll have to group the good and bad parts of all of them for MobyGames, to follow their format.

I’ll also mention here that last Friday morning I again only got in bed at 5:20 AM, but also that Saturday evening I installed Syberia II and then also started it, though I first took the time to arrange the jars and bottles I was to give to that woman, who had said she’ll be able to come pick them up that weekend, in the morning, so I told her it’ll have to be Sunday in that case. With everything my mother had sent, I needed seven bags for that, though two were smaller, and they weighed over 43 kg.

Sunday my internal alarm clock was early again, since I woke up at 9 AM, but since I didn’t really need to pee I got right back in bed and actually managed to nap for a few more minutes until the alarm rang, at 9:30 AM. Then, after that woman rang to say she’ll be here in about 15 minutes, me and dad took the bags with the jars and bottles outside and waited there, and after handing them over I kept going to this Carrefour and Kaufland, being on my way at 10:55 AM, even though it started drizzling just then. Once there, I actually first had a look in a bookstore, then checked running shoes in a sports store, then finally entered Carrefour and got some expiring eggs. After that, got yogurt from that Kaufland and was back a few minutes before 1 PM. Had seen some discounted cakes at the confectionery that’s in front of that Kaufland on my way in, the discount also being applied because they were older, and considered getting them, but there had been a single box of two of the kind I was interested in, all others being eclairs, and it was gone by the time I got out of Kaufland, so it made things simple, as we have plenty of sweets anyway and if I’m to actually look for something now, it’d mainly be panettone. And I’ll also mention here that, after napping for about an hour in the evening, I only got in bed at 5:35 AM, to watch all of the ski jumping, since there hadn’t been a live broadcast and I didn’t want to leave it for the next day to see the end in another recording, or record it myself.

This week’s run was Wednesday, when I had set the alarm to ring at 1 PM, but dad left and Liza started meowing at 12:40 PM, so I got up then. Had the usual stuff plus hazelnuts, the sweet thing was a slice of cozonac with added jam, and I left at 3:05 PM, wearing the running shoes and t-shirt, with an undershirt underneath, and the old running pants, plus the jacket for the walk, with quite a lot of things in its inside pocket, so I had to be careful when tying it around my waist before I started running. The reported temperature was around 11°C, it was sunny and there was hardly any wind.
I was quite afraid when I went out, the bad times, and last week’s in particular, making me think that I couldn’t keep doing this and shouldn’t even try, but at least it was much less embarrassing this time around, 48:12.95, with sector times of 4:09.93, 5:07 (5:06.17), 5:56.68, 4:32 (4:31.58), 5:10.54, 5:55.03, 4:32 (4:31.55), 5:05 (5:04.67), 5:55.39 and 1:51.41, making for lap times of 15:12.78, 15:37.15 and 15:32 (15:31.61). That first sector time, and the fact that it was achieved despite quite a roadblock, shows that I really went for it from the beginning, not leaving anything in reserve, pushing wherever I could, and I guess it sort of worked, even if I still didn’t get back under 48 minutes.
That roadblock on sector one of lap one was a double one and it forced me to briefly stop twice, first when the woman who was ahead of me cut me off in order to go around those coming from the opposite direction and then in order to make my way through those, since the only way past that woman had been on the side they were on. And another unpleasant moment was on sector two of lap two, on that long straight, when I had to take to the grass to go around some other people and slipped, which of course broke my sprint and made me be more careful for a while. And people were again quite a problem in general, not like last week but still causing me to need to take to the grass, squeeze through or briefly slow quite a number of times, on top of what would be regular weaving or going the long way around. Those were pretty much the only issues though, as physically I felt quite fine and I already mentioned that there was hardly any wind.

Had quite a route planned after the run, starting with checking that Carrefour from the park. Spotted a couple of things there, but they weren’t on my list and I didn’t buy anything just then, continuing on my way. I did make a small detour in order to check the Dristor location of that cheaper pharmacy, but decided to leave going there for later when I saw several people waiting in line outside and went straight to Kaufland, getting what I wanted to get from there and using the self-checkout without problems. If I wouldn’t have found that bread that I get from there, which was again on sale, I’d have had to go to the other location as well, but I did find it, so I knew I didn’t have to hurry and decided to keep going to Auchan as well. That was mainly to look for more of that food for Rocky, and I couldn’t find any, but I had also seen a cutlery holder on the site that I wanted to replace the moldy one we had with and did spot one last one still on the top shelf, so I got that and the other things I had on my list, plus some more oranges, since they were so cheap. Since I had walked in with all of my purchases from Kaufland, I wanted to show the cashier that everything was from there and that caused the bag I had the cabbage in to tear when I twisted it in my hand, and the other one I still had was even flimsier, but I was careful and it held all the way back. And that way back included going to that pharmacy, finding no line and even the two people who were inside walking out when I entered, and also returning to Carrefour for those two things.
Entered the building at 8:30 PM, having carried 13 kg… And then told dad a little bit of information which he refused to make any use of. He had purchased a pair of tires the day before from Kaufland, had gone to the service to have them placed on the car that day… And Kaufland currently has a 30% discount on all car products, between January 6 and 10, and I checked and saw quite a pile of those tires still there, with the discount clearly applied, so it was quite a difference even if those were the cheapest ones he could find anywhere. So I told him he should try to at least get some store credit for the difference, but he said he might have returned them and purchased another pair if he wouldn’t have had them placed on the car already, but as it is, he won’t put himself in that situation or look like he’s desperate for money, even telling me not to when I said I wanted to at least send them a message to ask if there was anything they could do about it, without pressing the matter if they refused.
Either way, I also noticed that a corner of that cutlery holder was snapped off, which was probably why it was still on the shelf, but it’s not something that actually causes a problem. And, after having some fruit salad, I spent almost three hours in the bathroom, most of that time being used to wash the utterly soiled top of the stove, since dad kept saying he’ll do that and never did until I told him I’ll do it if he’ll figure out how to take it off, so I’ll be able to work on it in the bathtub before taking a shower, and he finally did that then. Then I obviously had to clean the bathtub as well, before taking the shower. And then I had the sweet thing I had purchased from Carrefour, at about 1 AM, but it was past 3 AM when I started eating dinner, and 5:30 AM when I got in bed.

As for yesterday, I saw the “Remastered” version of my mouse back in stock at that store that also allows purchasing extended warranty, but when I looked it said they just had one left and the price was the regular full price, so at least not the much higher one I see when other stores sell through that one but still not acceptable… Or at least not yet, since this one is double clicking far too much to be in any way reliable anymore, so I now use the spare one in games or to click things I can’t risk unintentionally double clicking. But it does seem that a number of them have reached Romania, as I now see a couple of other stores listing this “Remastered” model as available, so there may be a chance of discounts as well, or at least of still finding one later.