Cav's Place

July 12 was our anniversary. July 12, 2012 would have been our tenth. Unfortunately, it’s just the seventh that I observe alone, serving as a solitary commemoration of the only thing that I ever actually found worth living for, the only thing that ever truly made me think that there is a point and a purpose in life, the only thing that ever made me think of my future in the sense of actually believing that I might have one. It’s yet another bitter, terribly bitter, reminder of what has happened since, where I am now and perhaps also of how I was before meeting her, seeing as there’s little real difference between the two. It was only different while we were together. I was still myself, but sort of an “unlocked” me, if you will. There was that saying after all…

I guess it’s inappropriate to mention this now, but the fact that it would be our tenth anniversary does make my mind go to the moment when she was going to take a bath and just stopped on the hallway, turned around and suddenly announced that she knew what her present for my 30th birthday will be: She’ll find another woman for me to have sex with that day. I perfectly honestly replied that I had no interest in just screwing another woman like that and suggested that we give each other a present by having a threesome on our tenth anniversary instead, but she said that wasn’t going to happen before she’ll be at least 35, reminding me that she wanted to have sex with another woman herself first and only if and when that’ll happen will she start thinking about such possibilities, assuming she’ll like it and once she’ll find someone who’d be interested in me as well.
Well, I still have no interest whatsoever in just screwing someone if it wouldn’t be part of a long-term relationship, though that could also mean a close friendship, not necessarily a romantic relationship. I also still have no interest whatsoever in having sex with another girl without her full knowledge and consent and without at the very least thoroughly discussing every detail of it with her no later than the next day, most preferably just before, just after or perhaps even while having sex with her. And that’s not only a requirement for the first time, but for every time something like this would happen for either of us while it’d still be something rather unusual, before becoming a routine part of a very solid and ongoing polyamorous relationship, if someday it’d come to that. I said that there won’t be anybody after her without her full knowledge, consent and involvement and that’s how it stays. The fact that she left nearly seven years ago doesn’t change what I feel or what I said in any way. My promises are forever…

I guess I’ll just sit here now, listening to sad songs, going through memories and imagining a different future, or perhaps even a different present. Still hoping that this is just a nightmare and someday I’ll wake up and find her next to me, so I’ll give her the biggest hug I can, shower her with kisses, tell her how much I love her and, well, the other things I said in this post’s first paragraph, and then, I don’t know, maybe go and make her some breakfast to serve her in bed or something. But until then, I guess I can still dream… You can dream in a nightmare, right?

Otherwise, there is something else that has probably just happened, but I won’t say anything about it here until I’ll know for sure and, even if I did know now, it wouldn’t be right to mix it with this, or with anything else for that matter. So I’ll leave that for later, when I’ll have some information and also be in a reasonable enough mood to do something with it. Whether that means later this week or at some point during the next one, I have no way of knowing now.
What I can say now, in no way related to what the above paragraph is referring to, is that it would appear that nights are going to become very annoying once again over here after some workers showed up today and appeared to have fixed the large streetlight that’s behind the building, also cutting themselves a path to it and clearing the vegetation in front of it. The problem is that I can’t say that I ever recall that light working and for a long time now the smaller one, which is perhaps some two meters closer, hasn’t been working either, so I thankfully didn’t have any light shining right in front of my window and could even catch a glimpse of a few stars if the sky was clear and I looked up at night. But that all seems to be over now, and I still don’t get why. What you have there are a few small trees and what bushes and weeds manage to recover after being mowed or simply ripped out at the start of each summer, not a road or a parking lot or anything of the sort! And there’s certainly no reason for anyone to go there at night. In fact, I can think of very few reasons for anyone to go there at all, regardless of the time of day…

But at least the writing seems to be going reasonably well at the moment, despite only adding some 50 words to my story over the past two days. I seem to have somehow managed to make myself start working on two related pieces and one of them actually appears to be going quite well while also helping me to finally write down some very important details that had only been in my mind for the past three years or so. The other was harder once I actually started to write it, but that’s because the beginning is still quite unclear, so I guess I’ll have to skip it and write what has already played out in detail in my mind. There’s no rush to finish it, after all, seeing as I was only planning to write this a few years from now…

It was obvious that my computer needed to be cleaned inside when I got a CPU temperature warning a couple of weeks ago. Of course, I have the warning set at what should be the upper limit of the “completely safe” range, so getting it didn’t mean that there were any immediate problems, but it did mean that it had gotten hotter than it usually does, so I quickly cleaned the dust off the case’s vents, which was enough to get it through that day, and then planned to open it up and clean it better as soon as I’ll get a chance. However, last week I simply couldn’t get myself to do it, so it was a good thing that it made it till today as it was, without any other warnings.
The problem now was that I couldn’t find any of the smaller brushes that I used in previous years, seeing as cleaning the coolers is something I did in the first part of every summer ever since I got it, and using the bigger one that I did find was far from ideal, not allowing me to reach many places. And when you add the fact that the hairdryer that I use to blow the loose dust away only produces hot air and therefore can only be aimed at the heat sink in short bursts, to avoid making it extremely hot, it only follows that I couldn’t exactly do a good job.
I did remove a whole lot of dust, but the worst of it is probably still there, hardened and blocking airflow, which explains why I’m now looking at internal temperatures that are 5°C above what I had during the first summer after getting this computer, and those temperatures may increase even further… The problem being that if they increase by even 2°C more, I’ll get that warning again, which would indicate that I actually made it worse, somehow. Sure hope that’s not the case…

Otherwise, read a second one of the books I got, namely The Eternity Artifact. Thought I might as well get it out of the way, since it’s not part of any series and it’s also the only one that’s not fantasy, so did that, posted the usual two-paragraph review and now I’m wondering how much should I wait before picking up another. I mean, between the two orders, I did get a total of seven books, but it may well be about a year until I’ll get some more, so I’d rather space them out instead of going through all of them in a few weeks and then being left without anything to read for who knows how long yet again…

As for writing, the plan was to start going back to fill in some of the many blanks this month, but so far none of that is happening and, as always, every day that passes makes it even more difficult to do pretty much anything at all. But maybe I’ll at least manage to post something somewhat more detailed here next week, such as a post about our president getting suspended and all the other crap that’s been going on here lately, which could all be very briefly summarized as USL doing exactly what I’ve been warning everyone about over the past six months or so and very quickly replacing PDL’s admittedly rotten practices with even worse ones of their own….

I wanted to wait until this will be approved on MobyGames before posting it, but since it’s been two weeks and it’s still waiting in the approval queue, I guess I might as well post it now. It describes the strategy I used to quickly finish Empires of Arkeia, including in legendary mode, so it certainly works very well. That doesn’t mean that there are no better ones available, perhaps by using units that you unlock later during the normal campaign, but it was the strategy that I settled into and maintained all the way to the end of the normal campaign and then throughout the legendary one, so thought I’d share it, in case somebody’d be interested, even if it’s just a little Flash game.

Early on, you’ll be tempted to do the “rock, paper, scissors” thing, looking at what the enemy sends against you and recruiting units to defeat theirs. And early on that may be the best strategy, but it’ll soon become a losing one due to the strength of the opposing armies. What you need to do past that point, and all the way while playing in legendary mode, is to destroy the enemy base as quickly as possible, which means taking twelve units across the battlefield, since the enemy doesn’t have units that can repair their base.
The best way to do that is to wait a few seconds to see which lines the enemy sends their first units on and then send a line of cavalry on one that they have no units on. Start with scouts, which will be a staple from start to end and can become quite powerful with the proper upgrades, and once you get border cavalry you can start alternating, two or three scouts with two or three border cavalry. (Ignore lancers; they’re too expensive and upgrading their damage requires the spear skill tree, which you won’t really need otherwise.)

A third unit that you need to have available at all times, as soon as you’ll unlock it, are the engineers. Since you get bonuses according to the state of your base, you should try your best to fully repair it once the enemy base is destroyed, even if that implies taking slightly longer to clear out the remaining enemy units. (Don’t rely on the fact that you can repair it after it’s destroyed, however, as it won’t restart generating gold then, so don’t let it get to zero.) You’ll earn far more experience for repairing your base than you’ll lose for taking a little more time to win the battle, though by using this strategy you should often be able to get the maximum bonus for both, particularly in the latter parts of the game.

Your remaining three slots should be filled with units that have special abilities which will help your cavalry charge. You may have other preferences here, but I used centurions, Sun priests and a ranged infantry unit that changed as better ones became available.
The centurions are also a sword unit, which can be important when it comes to upgrades, give an attack bonus to the melee units in the same line with them, which bonus can be upgraded (third skill on the bottom line), and can also be used against spear infantry, to clear a path for your cavalry if need be, though that should only be as a last resort since it’ll cause your cavalry to need to wait for them all the way afterwards.
I used the Sun priests rather rarely during the normal campaign and hardly ever during the legendary one, but they can be handy at times, particularly if you upgrade their healing ability (fourth skill on the bottom line). Don’t expect them to fully heal units, because they heal few hit points compared to the amount your units will have, but they can make a difference at times. If you want, you may try to replace them with the Moon priestesses, for their ability to reduce the damage taken, and see how that works for you.
As for the ranged infantry unit, I tended to only use them after destroying the enemy base and repairing mine, to speed up clearing the remaining enemy infantry. There’s little use for them otherwise, because they’re slower and generally more expensive than the border cavalry, plus that they may require upgrades that you won’t otherwise need in order to become truly effective.

Speaking of upgrades, since what you need is speed, the skills that increase your income, starting gold and morale generation, which are the last three on that same bottom line, are pure gold. They’re costly, but once you get these sufficiently high, you’ll be able to send a stronger and stronger line of cavalry early on and defend yourself or even repair your base with more free waves of units. Keep in mind that the skill that increases your starting gold also increases the efficiency of your engineers, and getting that all the way up means that a wave of engineers will repair 50 base points in normal mode and 70 in legendary mode!
Also because you need speed, which implies cutting through enemy units as quickly as possible, you should also put as much as you can into the relevant damage skills for your scouts and border cavalry, and don’t forget upgrading the range for your ranged units as well. Hit points help as well, and I tended to focus on them before attack, but in hindsight going the other way around would probably have been the better choice.

There may be a point, for me it was on the second island in both the normal and the legendary campaigns, where it’ll be very difficult if you focus on these units and skills, but once you manage to get past that it should become increasingly easier, and the final couple of islands will be a joke to get through, because by then you’ll be able to destroy the enemy base within seconds with this strategy, so taking over a minute to win a battle will become increasingly uncommon.

Edit: According to the keywords I see, people seem to be ending up here wondering how to play Empires of Arkeia in legendary mode. You unlock that the same way you unlock such modes in nearly all games I know of: By completing the game in normal mode first.

Rather surprisingly for Modesitt, there’s practically no mention of the environment and ecology in this book. There’s also little put forward regarding how a future society should function. There is, however, plenty of talk about, or in fact against, religion, as well as much about certain other defining characteristics of humanity, so it’s certainly still Modesitt, largely wrapping philosophy in space opera in order to get some ideas across to a wider audience.
What I can say about the book is that I liked how it went perhaps somewhat into Rama territory but had next to nothing of the human filth that made me loathe those books. Or it still had a fair bit of it, seeing what its purpose was, but it was presented in a way that I could not just stomach but actually even enjoy, mostly. And the contrast between Chang’s and Fitzhugh’s chapters was quite refreshing, as were the four different viewpoints in general.

Rating: 4/5

After Rafael Nadal crashed out in the second round, this year’s Wimbledon was announcing itself as very interesting. And now that we also had the second longest match in the history of the tournament take place yesterday, you can say that another segment of that promise has been delivered as well. As a result, now that today is the traditional day of rest, during which no matches are played, I’ve decided to go through all of those that have been played so far and list all the interesting results.
The first type of matches that I looked for were the surprise losses, by which I mean the matches that saw the defeat of players or couples who, as a result of their positions, were expected to have gone at least two rounds further. Those would be all seeded players or couples who were eliminated in the first round, the top half of the seeds who were eliminated in the second round and, in case of the singles matches, for which the third round has already been played as well, the top quarter of the seeds who were eliminated in said third round. Since the seeded couples don’t play in the first round of the mixed doubles competition, a loss by any of the bottom half of the seeds in their first match didn’t generally count as a surprise, since it was already the second round. There was one exception, however, namely the couple who won the trophy last year, whose loss in said second round is listed as a surprise, even though they’re ranked only 12th out of the 16 seeded couples.
Secondly, I also looked for matches that went into “extra time” in the final set. That means a minimum of 14 games, as 7-5 is still a normal score, which can be found in any set and in any competition. You’ll see these matches ranked according to their total duration, though I’ll admit that I didn’t check whether other games were in fact longer from that point of view. What I meant to do was point out those matches that you won’t be able to find in any “normal” tournament, or even in the US Open, not look specifically for the longest matches of this particular competition.
Thirdly, in case of the men’s matches, I also looked for the other thing that can’t be found in “normal” tournaments, namely comebacks, matches won by the player who lost the first two sets. In case it’s not immediately obvious, I decided to rank those according to the number of games lost by the player who ended up winning over the last three sets, with those who lost the least games being listed first.
You’ll find links to all the match reports as well, just in case you want to check anything out. And yes, even though some matches are listed under more than one category, the link will be provided every time, not just the first time.

I. Men’s singles:

1. Surprise losses:

– Rafael Nadal (2 and last year’s finalist) lost to Lukas Rosol in the second round 6-7 (9-11) 6-4 6-4 2-6 6-4
– Tomas Berdych (6) lost to Ernests Gulbis in the first round 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-4)
– Janko Tipsarevic (8) lost to Mikhail Youzhny (26) in the third round 6-3 6-4 3-6 6-3
– John Isner (11) lost to Alejandro Falla in the first round 6-4 6-7 (7-9) 3-6 7-6 (9-7) 7-5
– Gilles Simon (13) lost to Xavier Malisse in the second round 6-4 6-4 7-6 (7-5)
– Feliciano Lopez (14) lost to Jarkko Nieminen in the first round 7-6 (7-4) 3-6 7-6 (7-5) 6-4
– Bernard Tomic (20) lost to David Goffin in the first round 3-6 6-3 6-4 6-4
– Andreas Seppi (23) lost to Denis Istomin in the first round 6-7 (2-7) 6-4 3-6 6-3 8-6
– Marcel Granollers (24) lost to Viktor Troicki in the first round 7-5 7-6 (7-5) 3-6 2-6 8-6
– Stanislas Wawrinka (25) lost to Jurgen Melzer in the first round 3-6 7-6 (7-2) 2-6 6-4 8-6
– Kevin Anderson (32) lost to Grigor Dimitrov in the first round 7-5 7-6 (7-3) 6-7 (4-7) 6-3

2. Long matches:

– Marin Cilic (16) defeated Sam Querrey 7-6 (8-6) 6-4 6-7 (2-7) 6-7 (3-7) 17-15 in 5h31m.
– Martin Klizan defeated Juan Ignacio Chela 7-5 3-6 7-6 (8-6) 1-6 11-9 in 4h53m.
– Guillermo Garcia-Lopez defeated Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-7 (2-7) 6-3 7-6 (7-4) 5-7 10-8 in 4h48m.
– Viktor Troicki defeated Marcel Granollers (24) 7-5 7-6 (7-5) 3-6 2-6 8-6 in 3h40m.
– Malek Jaziri defeated Jurgen Zopp 4-6 4-6 6-3 6-4 9-7 in 3h31m.
– Jurgen Melzer defeated Stanislas Wawrinka (25) 3-6 7-6 (7-2) 2-6 6-4 8-6 in 3h29m.
– Denis Istomin defeated Andreas Seppi (23) 6-7 (2-7) 6-4 3-6 6-3 8-6 in 3h26m.
– Jerzy Janowicz defeated Ernests Gulbis 2-6 6-4 3-6 7-6 (7-2) 9-7 in 3h10m.

3. Comebacks:

– Inigo Cervantes defeated Flavio Cipolla 2-6 6-7 (4-7) 6-3 6-2 6-1
– Roger Federer (3) defeated Julien Benneteau (29) 4-6 6-7 (3-7) 6-2 7-6 (8-6) 6-1
– Florian Mayer (31) defeated Philipp Petzschner 3-6 3-6 6-4 6-2 6-4
– Nicolas Almagro (12) defeated Olivier Rochus 6-7 (4-7) 3-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-2 6-4
– Malek Jaziri defeated Jurgen Zopp 4-6 4-6 6-3 6-4 9-7

II. Men’s doubles:

1. Surprise losses:

– Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor (1) lost to Daniele Bracciali and Julian Knowle in the second round 6-4 6-4 6-4
– Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski (3) lost to Johan Brunstrom and Philipp Marx in the first round 6-4 6-2 6-7 (1-7) 7-6 (7-2)
– Alexander Peya and Nenad Zimonjic (6) lost to Chris Guccione and Lleyton Hewitt in the first round 7-6 (7-3) 7-6 (7-3) 3-6 7-6 (7-3)
– Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez (9) lost to Jonathan Marray and Frederik Nielsen in the first round 6-7 (3-7) 6-4 7-6 (7-4) 2-6 7-5
– Frantisek Cermak and Filip Polasek (11) lost to Dustin Brown and Oliver Marach in the first round 6-2 6-2 1-6 2-6 7-5
– Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins (13) lost to Mikhail Kukushkin and Lukas Rosol in the first round 3-6 4-6 6-2 7-6 (7-5) 6-3

2. Long matches:

– Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram defeated Treat Conrad Huey and Dominic Inglot 4-6 6-3 2-6 7-6 (8-6) 9-7 in 3h37m.
– Chris Guccione and Lleyton Hewitt defeated Benjamin Becker and Cedrik-Marcel Stebe 6-4 5-7 4-6 6-2 9-7 in 3h17m.

3. Comebacks:

– Mikhail Kukushkin and Lukas Rosol defeated Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins (13) 3-6 4-6 6-2 7-6 (7-5) 6-3

III. Women’s singles:

1. Surprise losses:

– Samantha Stosur (5) lost to Arantxa Rus in the second round 6-2 0-6 6-4
– Caroline Wozniacki (7) lost to Tamira Paszek in the first round 5-7 7-6 (7-4) 6-4
– Marion Bartoli (9) lost to Mirjana Lucic in the second round 6-4 6-3
– Na Li (11) lost to Sorana Cirstea in the second round 6-3 6-4
– Dominika Cibulkova (13) lost to Klara Zakopalova in the first round 6-4 6-1
– Flavia Pennetta (16) lost to Camila Giorgi in the first round 6-4 6-3
– Jelena Jankovic (18) lost to Kim Clijsters in the first round 6-2 6-4
– Lucie Safarova (19) lost to Kiki Bertens in the first round 6-3 6-0
– Monica Niculescu (26) lost to Stephanie Foretz Gacon in the first round 6-4 3-6 6-3
– Daniela Hantuchova (27) lost to Jamie Lee Hampton in the first round 6-4 7-6 (7-1)
– Svetlana Kuznetsova (32) lost to Yanina Wickmayer in the first round 6-2 6-3

2. Long matches:

– Christina McHale (28) defeated Johanna Konta 6-7 (4-7) 6-2 10-8 in 3h10m.
– Nadia Petrova (20) defeated Timea Babos 6-4 6-7 (3-7) 9-7 in 3h4m.
– Silvia Soler-Espinosa defeated Edina Gallovits-Hall 4-6 6-4 10-8 in 3h1m.
– Serena Williams (6) defeated Jie Zheng (25) 6-7 (5-7) 6-2 9-7 in 2h28m.
– Yanina Wickmayer defeated Galina Voskoboeva 4-6 6-3 8-6 in 2h27m.
– Sabine Lisicki (15) defeated Bojana Jovanovski 3-6 6-2 8-6 in 2h24m.

IV. Women’s doubles:

1. Surprise losses:

– Kveta Peschke and Katarina Srebotnik (3 and last year’s winners) lost to Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone in the second round 6-3 4-6 6-1
– Iveta Benesova and Barbora Zahlavova Strycova (8) lost to Olga Govortsova and Mandy Minella in the second round 7-5 7-5
– Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja (12) lost to Klaudia Jans-Ignacik and Alicja Rosolska in the first round 4-6 7-6 (8-6) 6-4
– Gisela Dulko and Paola Suarez (14) lost to Irina Falconi and Chanelle Scheepers in the first round 3-6 6-2 6-4
– Chia-Jung Chuang and Vera Dushevina (16) lost to Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Petra Martic in the first round 6-4 6-4

2. Long matches:

– Stephanie Foretz Gacon and Kristina Mladenovic defeated Jelena Jankovic and Virginie Razzano 6-3 5-7 8-6 in 2h41m.

V. Mixed doubles:

1. Surprise losses:

– Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza (5) lost to Paul Hanley and Alla Kudryavtseva in the second round 6-3 6-1
– Jurgen Melzer and Iveta Benesova (12 and last year’s winners) lost to Dominic Inglot and Laura Robson in the second round 6-3 3-6 6-1

In addition to all of this, I found two more matches that deserved a special mention, both of them from the mixed doubles tournament:
– Kenneth Skupski and Melanie South defeated Eric Butorac and Varvara Lepchenko 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (8-6), in a match that had no breaks whatsoever.
– Treat Conrad Huey and Raquel Kops-Jones won the first set’s tie-break against Bruno Soares and Jarmila Gajdosova 15-13, making this the tightest tie-break of the tournament so far. They then lost the match, however, 6-7 (13-15) 6-4 6-4

For a while, I meant to look for long ones through the boys’ and girls’ matches as well, and also through the qualifying matches, but I think this should be quite enough for now. Besides, there are no details available for the qualifying matches, so I couldn’t have gotten the length or provided any links.