Cav's Place

Today marks ten years since I ended up thrown back here. Almost wrote this last night, since I was eating when it struck me that ten years before at that time I was stuffed in the back seat of dad’s car, next to the computer and possibly also at least one box of books, as I’m not sure whether both or, in fact, any fit in the trunk. Was all cried out for the moment, since I could cry before, and not seeing even any present, much less any future. And that sure didn’t change, and all of these ten years prove that vision, or actually that lack of a vision, correct.
Almost wrote this last night, but I said I wasn’t at the computer when the thought struck me and the above paragraph is pretty much all I have, so there’s no real post here. Plus, especially since I keep stubbornly struggling to add a few more pointless lines in my story every night, writing a personal post at night would mark quite an extreme low and I feel… I guess I feel I don’t have the right to do so when nothing changes, and nothing has changed in so long.

I’m being told ten years is an awfully long time to be stuck on something and do absolutely nothing about it, as if I had somehow missed this little fact. But I was too chicken to kill myself even when it did have a point and she obviously didn’t and won’t even think of another chance and even trying to talk only got me ignored, with the exception of that period at the end of 2007 and start of 2008, and eventually blocked. Plus that, in all honesty, based on what little I can gather, it’d be a case of unhappy with her instead of miserable without her even if that miracle would happen. So it’d take two of them and there’s nothing to do, though of course the only thing left is that false hope that someday there will be, which will remain as long as both of us will still be alive and one particular thing won’t happen.

Seeing as this blog has for quite a while largely become only a personal one, reaching this number was only a matter of time, and now that time has come. Not that this would in itself be a problem, but the problem is the lack of non-personal posts lately, as now those book reviews I copied here as well are the only reason why I still have less posts in the Personal and Tests & Surveys categories than in the others. Eliminate the Books category and the number of personal posts exceeded non-personal ones for the first time two weeks ago. The post that followed that one drew the two major categories level once again, but this is likely the last time that will happen if you don’t count those reviews.

The reason why I’m writing this now is not only to avoid another Sunday update, but because those who organize this spring’s major tree planting effort here finally posted some of the locations and one is close to Bucharest, so I rushed to register as a volunteer. Kept meaning to take part in something like this for years and I guess it was about time, though the date is still three weeks away, so plenty of things can happen before then and I guess I also have plenty of time to somehow change my mind, or simply realize I can’t do something like this, considering what it means.

The neck’s obviously one concern, as it’s definitely not getting any better, but quite the contrary, and taking part in such an action will obviously require a lot of effort and moving in various ways that may not agree with such problems. But, of course, that’s hardly the only reason why I’m concerned about it, and this morning I even once again experienced the sort of pain I occasionally wake up with, the difference being that now it didn’t seem to go away when I moved into the position that usually makes that happen within a few minutes and I eventually needed to get up before it did, and a rather uncomfortable feeling remained since then anyway. This feeling is hardly new, but coupled with the main issue and the fact that something definitely seems to have moved in a different way around there and the methods I used to manage these issues no longer seem to work doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

No idea what I’ll do about that, but writing about it here won’t help either, so let me end this by saying that the pain wasn’t the only reason why I only slept some three hours this morning. In fact, it started hurting after I turned around, trying to get back to sleep after waking up for apparently no reason. Unfortunately, I found out the reason mere moments later, as I began to hear loud drilling and hammering noises from the neighbors, which continued for quite a number of hours. So I can only hope they’ll take, and give me, a break tomorrow… And also on the day before the tree planting, because I definitely won’t be getting any sleep that night, seeing as I’ll need to be up around the time I usually go to bed, if not even before.

Actually managed to finish the Modern Times campaign on Sunday, so it was even by the end of last week, not just by the end of the month. Then Monday was the only day I didn’t play, as since then I managed to keep up that pace of finishing one mission per day as I started the additional ones. So at this point it’s three down, seven to go, though I have to say they’re quite difficult. This third one that I finished today much less so despite the disasters, but the first was rather tight at times and I only barely managed to complete the second without needing to reload or restart thanks to getting quite lucky more than once.

Otherwise, my neck is definitely becoming quite a problem, and while otherwise it doesn’t bother me unless I move it in a few ways that cause pain, which rarely happens unless I specifically try to see whether it’s any better, it sure doesn’t like me trying to sleep. This morning I actually woke up due to the pain and the only way I managed to get back to sleep was facedown, with my head on my arms in order to be able to breathe, as turning it to the side was definitely not an option.
Meant to ask dad where should I go to see what’s going on there and what can be done about it, but didn’t manage to get the words out yet, considering what it means. If it keeps up like this, and even more so if I’ll keep noticing some slight numbness or burning sensation in my fingers and toes, or even hands and feet, I guess I’ll have to go, and pretty soon, even if this slight numbness or the occasional pain isn’t new. I’m pretty sure I knew what was causing these issues before and getting this far without having them checked out more properly shows I more or less knew how to set things back in place, but this is different.

As for this week’s run, that was Monday and despite struggling to get out of bed and feeling that the first sector was particularly difficult I managed a pretty good 20:50, with intermediate times of 4:36, 10:01 and 16:05, respectively. Was sort of considering a second run this week, to create this small buffer again, but gave up on that idea and now I’m thinking next week’s run will also be on Monday, to get it out of the way in case I’ll have to see a doctor after all and get told I should take it very easy for a while, or worse. According to the current forecast, Monday seems to be the best day for it anyway.

I seem to be finishing Modern Times missions at a rate of one per day. Granted, finished the eighth on Monday and the ninth only yesterday, but that was because I didn’t play the two days in between, so finishing the tenth this evening leaves me with two missions and three days until the end of the month. Keeping this pace up in what should be the hardest part of the campaign doesn’t sound particularly likely, and if I’ll be alone at some point this weekend I likely won’t be playing that day, or at least not much, but it doesn’t seem entirely impossible anymore, while until just a little earlier this evening it did.

Otherwise, this week’s run was Tuesday and the time was a pretty nice 20:35. Still, that meant another somewhat disappointing final part, as the intermediate times were 4:31, 9:47 and 15:49, respectively, so I was slightly faster in that last part than two weeks ago, when I set the current record for the lap around the lake, but still significantly slower than when I set the current overall record, when I also needed 15:49 to cover the lap but then was 14 seconds faster in that final part. And this time I didn’t have any issues to use as an excuse, unlike two weeks ago.

My neck isn’t getting any better, on the other hand, and I’m noticing other likely related things that make me worry even more. Now I’m trying to pretty much not move it in any way that causes pain and see if that helps, since when my back is acting up the pain’s bad enough to force me to do this and it gets better after a few days, while now since it was manageable I not only didn’t care to spare it but actually moved it quite a lot in ways that hurt, thinking I may either snap something back in place or warm up muscles or tendons, if that’s the issue. But since that always only made it worse when the issue was my back, why’d it be any different here?

Significant changes to the Eurovision voting system were recently announced and they’re quite a mixed bag. On the one hand, separating televoting and jury scores was something that had to happen ever since it became a rule to have both in each country, and a format that only reveals the winner at the very end and also allows for the illusion that the public makes the difference is obviously good for the show. On the other, however, having the jury scores read individually while the televoting ones are only shown quickly and as totals at the end, with the details only available on-line later, feels completely wrong. And worse is the fact that the juries will continue to score the contestants according to the final rehearsal, so for something other than what the public sees before voting, and therefore said scores read individually will not in any way be based on the evening’s actual performances.

But I got a little ahead of myself and should probably state what the changes are as well. Not that it’s not pretty obvious from the above, but this year countries will no longer offer a single aggregate score, resulting from putting together the jury and televote scores, with the entry that had a better televote score coming out on top in case of ties. Instead, the two scores will remain separate, resulting in the total number of available points doubling, likely more than ten entries receiving points from most countries, and also a smaller chance of any entry finishing with zero points.
Each country’s representative will still present a single score, and actually only the winner will be read out loud, the remaining nine places being only very briefly displayed, for even less time than those outside the top three were displayed so far. However, this single score will be only the result of the jury vote, which will still be given after the last rehearsal and therefore both known to organizers even before the competition and not in any way influenced by or relevant to the actual competition.
The televote result will not be presented as individual scores from each country, though those interested will still be able to check the table on-line after the contest is over. Instead, only the total number of points received by each entry from the televoting process will be read by the host at the end, starting with the entry with the least number of points and ending with the one with the most.
As such, with half the total number of points being presented in the final few minutes and the most important ones, those making the difference at the top, only revealed in the final seconds, the winner won’t be known until the very end. And, since the scores presented at the end are those resulting from the televote, it will appear that the public decides, doing it the other way around giving the impression that the juries would decide in case the winner wouldn’t be the same entry which was leading before these scores were added.

Since I started with the conclusions regarding these changes, I’ll now get to the suggestions I’d have, in order to make it work better. Though I must first once again stress that, until and unless it’ll finally be given based on the evening’s actual performances, the jury vote is, in my view, completely flawed and shouldn’t be included at all. There’s absolutely no excuse for doing it this way, and these changes make it even worse, since what will be presented in detail at the end will be something that will have absolutely nothing to do with the evening’s actual competition.
That said, since the amount of time each country’s representative will need to present only the first place in the jury vote will obviously be less than what was needed to present the top three so far, it may actually be possible to present both the jury vote and the televote from each country, especially if more effort will be put into shortening those awkward greetings as well. Not both at once, I mean, but going through the list of countries once in order to present the jury vote and then doing it again for the televote. This will still result in the winner likely being known well ahead of the end, so it won’t be so good for the show, but it would make the most sense and show the viewers what they should be seeing at the end of the contest, which is how all other viewers voted, in at least the usual amount of detail.
Either way, in order to let people see the entire top ten in such a reduced amount of time, I’d strongly suggest displaying the other places, which won’t be announced out loud, much more prominently than before. At the moment I’m thinking a good idea would be to display fourth to tenth place in a larger font, instead of the classification, for ten seconds, then use five more seconds to fade the classification back into view, move the new points to their places and make any necessary changes in the classification, then display second and third place in an even larger font in some free space on screen, probably below the place where the national representative is shown, for another five seconds, before moving those as well to the classification and making any necessary changes that result from this. After these 20 seconds, which should be the maximum time allowed for greetings and building any tension, the winner, which should also be announced around that moment, will also be placed into the classification. If this total of 20 seconds plus any time needed by the animation for the winner is too much, the display time for places four to ten may be reduced to five seconds, and/or the winner may need to be announced before the second and third place are included into the classification, so the entire top three will be included at once.
Then, while I definitely disagree with it, I can suggest a way to slightly lessen the negative impact of the current idea of only presenting the total televote score of each song, and that’s to at least briefly present the countries each entry received points from. For this purpose, a list should show up somewhere on screen, at the left having the number of points received by the entry in question, from 12 to one and color-coded in a way that makes it immediately obvious where the number of points changes, followed by the flags and two-letter or three-letter codes of the countries which gave said entry that number of points, in alphabetical order. This will of course involve filling the screen with only the classification and this list, with no room left to show the host or anything else, and it’ll still be gone far too quickly to catch much of it, especially for entries that receive points from all or the large majority of countries, but viewers should usually be able to gather some information, such as which countries gave the most points to an entry or what a particular country, possibly their own, gave.

These are only some quick opinions and suggestions, and I may have additional or different ones by the time of the competition, but it’s what I’m thinking at the moment. Immediately after reading the announcement I was also considering briefly displaying a map for each entry, with countries color-coded according to the number of points given to the entry being presented as a result of the televote, but it was soon obvious that it couldn’t be made to work.