Cav's Place

After including Alterium in a previous post from this series, I’ll start this one with Xeneris, which seems to have been founded by the other former members of what used to be Kalidia, which I included in another one of these posts. The two picks will be A New Beginning and Eternal Rising, and I’ll say right away that I definitely prefer Alterium, the vocalists being the most obvious difference, but not the only one. They can still be worth listening to, but while Alterium seems to be more or less picking up from where they left off, it remains to be seen whether Xeneris will catch up and reach a similar level.

The second band is Oknos, which I just happened to be reminded of these days. They do have one video posted within the past year, but don’t actually have recent releases, that song being from their second album, released two years ago… And at this point I wonder whether they will continue, the last visible activity being back in October, when they announced that they needed a new vocalist. So for my first pick I’ll just go with another song from that album, Coming Home, which I like quite a lot, while the second pick will be Burning Heart. They seemed to be on a good path and, even if they will manage to find a new vocalist and continue, there’s a high risk that the change will be a significant setback. But maybe things will work out… Though the fact that their former vocalist seems to no longer have time for this is sad in itself.

The third band, Slaverty, doesn’t have recent releases either, but they definitely belong in such a post because I actually just stumbled into them while writing this and looking into the vocalists used by the project that I meant to include instead. And they are still active and seem to plan to release a second album next year, but so far they just have one album, released in 2020, from which I’ll pick Dreamcatcher, and one more song, Blue, so that will be my second pick, even if it was released two years ago. So let’s see how they’ll continue, because what I listened to just now was quite nice.

After activating the new version of the Games Played list back in October and then taking some time to sort the data in a better way and make the changes required in order to add the new links, actually adding those links seemed like a too tedious chore and I kept putting it off until pretty recently, when I added a few, also testing that everything worked in the process. Then, these days, I added a few more, and today I finally sat down and went through with all of it, making the links on the game titles use the new format for their entries on MobyGames, which also allowed me to change a few of the titles to the ones that I was more familiar with, and adding the review links for both HonestGamers, which now has priority, and, for those posted there as well, MobyGames. And I also added Hero of the Kingdom II, since it was the one game that I had written a review for that wasn’t on the list yet, and that takes the total to exactly 200. Of course, since then I also finished Diggles, the first Vampires Dawn, and, just Wednesday, Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition, and I’m yet to review any of them, so let’s see when or if I’ll manage to do that.
Either way, now this new version of the list is activated and should work properly, but if anyone notices any issues, let me know. Of course, the real problem is updating all of the scores, to make use of the new system and also add the categories that are missing for more than 50 titles, and in some cases I should update the notes as well… But the first games added on the list still have the original notes, so if I didn’t get to that the first time around, after well over a decade, what are the odds of doing it now? The one thing that I will probably manage is to add some more dates, since there are some more that I know, at least with some approximation, and that shouldn’t be that much of a problem in itself, the problem being the uncertainty and the fact that I want to list them as accurately as possible.

Since I still didn’t write anything more than what was in the post with the first part, I keep spending quite a lot of the time when I’m on the computer playing Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition, and this evening I went out again as well, this was initially just a placeholder for what I really intended to be the post about the rest of this summer’s Dream Trek, since I really didn’t want to allow myself to split that story in more than two… But I never meant to even split it in two, of course, and then the plan to stop at two also failed, since I took all week to even write this following part, only editing the post in order to add it in the early hours of the following Monday, August 5!

To pick up from where I left off, the following section, until we crossed the river and went past that gas station, meant running through an area that I know well and it was so straightforward that pretty much the only thing that I remember, other than simply running and still controlling my pace, was the fact that I spotted another fallen glow stick, or perhaps two, and was thinking about grabbing it, or one of them, and adding it next to the first one, so much so that, after initially continuing to run, I even considered rushing back to that spot a little later, since the sidewalk was narrow and the group was stretched. But that’d have been weird, so I didn’t do it.
Things get somewhat less clear after that, since I don’t really remember when I drank the rest of the tea which I had taken with me or just when the route was reconfigured yet again and I can’t even understand what I meant to write about drinking. I’m thinking that it was supposed to be a shortened form of either “entrance” or “intersection”, written in Romanian, but it might be something entirely different, and even if it is one of those and I could figure out which, I didn’t write down which one, so I must have thought that it was obvious at the time, but that clearly didn’t remain the case after the run, since I couldn’t figure it out the first time I tried to read those notes either. And then I just added that the route was reconfigured again, so that might have happened after I drank, but I’m not even sure of that, and it doesn’t exactly mean anything anyway.
What I do know is that we turned right after passing that gas station and we were supposed to go in Lumea Copiilor Park, but Radu said that we should go around and then enter through another spot since the straight route was too dark. I’m also pretty sure that the route was reconfigured twice while I believe we were more or less in that area, not just once, since the first time we were told that the guy from that store where we were going to make the first scheduled stop couldn’t get in because the roads were blocked in that area, so we shouldn’t go straight there, and then the problem was solved and we had to get there as soon as possible, but whether this was just a notification or it actually implied reconfiguring the route yet again, I don’t know.
Either way, I very clearly remember the area that we entered that park from, and it did strike me as a very visible entrance, so if I meant to jot down that I drank the rest of that tea at the entrance, it was almost certainly there. And I know that, after emptying it, I tried to put that reusable bottle through that loop that I make in order to tighten the running belt more than it’d normally allow me to, but I soon realized that I couldn’t run with it there because it didn’t allow my arm to move properly anymore, and I seem to recall struggling with it when we reached the running lane from that park, which would just about confirm that I drank at that entrance. But I don’t really know, and it’s too easy to create false memories without realizing it when you try too hard to picture something that you no longer have any real memories of.
To get back to what I do remember, the running area from that park was also pretty much flawless, and it’s not just a lane created on one part of what’s otherwise a regular path, but a proper running area, with three lanes and separated from the other paths, though the problem is just that it’s too much like an actual running track, just a circle and apparently no more than 600 meters long, if even that. But we ran a lap on it, during which I might have struggled with that reusable bottle, before eventually pulling it back out of that loop and continuing to hold it in my hand. And then, seeing as that running area ended up being the unplanned southernmost point of the route, the question was where to take the group picture marking that moment, that spot ending up being in front of the Children’s Palace, at the suggestion of one of the participants. That meant almost getting back to the area that we entered the park from, so it wasn’t exactly the southernmost point anymore, but it was a landmark from that area.
While this is just a memory that’s almost a month and a half old by the time I’m actually writing this, I’m pretty sure that by the time we got going again, after that picture was taken, we knew that we were going straight to that store, so the announcement that the problems had been solved came either just then or a little earlier, before we left that park, when I seem to remember that we were told to make use of the toilets from that area because there won’t be a toilet at that store. And, to return to the few moments needed for that picture to be taken, I also believe that I jotted down those few words during that time, meaning that I had finished the tea by then and therefore making it more likely that I did so just before we entered that park.
Either way, what followed was another period of straightforward running, past Tineretului Park and then, even though the route that was initially planned was different in that area as well, continuing straight until we reached the National Theater, where we stopped for another group picture, at which point someone asked whether I had participated the previous year as well and ran all the way to the end, since she thought that she recognized me from the pictures, but still seemed surprised when I confirmed it, asking a few times whether I actually ran to the end “like that”. And no, I don’t know what she meant by that and didn’t ask.
A little after we got going again, we crossed the road and made our way to Calea Victoriei, where we did see some people despite the fact that the national team had lost, since we were still in first place and with a good chance to get past the group stage. Of course, that area is normally pedestrianized during the weekend, so it’d be better to say that the number of people was somewhat higher than you’d normally expect and the pedestrianized area was probably somewhat larger. And, of course, we made use of that, running on the street and just pushing, those who could go faster being free to do so and not having stoplights, traffic or narrow sidewalks to worry about. And yes, at that point I was among those who really pushed, just setting my sight on whoever was ahead of me, pushing to overtake them, then finding the next “target” and continuing like that until I reached that store. It was 0:20 AM at that point, I was among the first to get there, and the distance covered until then seems to have been about 19 km.
We had been told to expect water, Coca Cola and snacks and initially I didn’t mean to have any Coca Cola, thinking that it was going to give me gas and make the problems that I was almost certain to have later even worse. However, I ended up drinking two cups of Coca Cola and just one of water, and I also had that reusable bottle refilled with water, for the next part of the route, since the only other listed refreshment stop was close to the end even according to the initial plan, and it was clear that, if we were going to manage to get there at all, we were going to do so when dawn will be approaching and then cut straight to the finish on the shortest possible route. Either way, during the time we spent there, I also ate three pieces of banana, likely adding up to more than one whole one, and took handfuls of chocolate and salty pretzels, even if I had to make do with simply wiping my hands with a napkin… Or at least I believed that I did, keeping that warning about the lack of a toilet in mind.
That warning was the reason why I spent some of that time wandering around that area, looking for a toilet that I could use in some other place, but I didn’t spot any from outside and didn’t dare to actually enter anywhere, so I just wasted time and made a little additional effort, obviously keeping the stopwatch off, as that wasn’t part of the route and I was only walking slowly. So a better use of that time would have been to find a spot that was far enough away from the others and write down a few more details, since the woman who had asked whether I had participated before at the National Theater approached me again while we were there, saying that she had noticed that I was writing something down and asking what it was, and while I pretty much ignored the question, I really didn’t feel like writing more while I could be seen… And it also turned out that I didn’t need to look for a toilet elsewhere either, since I had noticed some of the others going down the stairs in the store, and as the group was getting ready to get going again I just followed someone else down there, finding out that they did have a toilet after all… And I was the last one to use it, the fact that I was still waiting for my turn being the reason why I’m not in the group picture taken in front of that store. Of course, since there was no more time, I also had to give up on the plan to see what was going to come out from the other end at that point, to reduce the risk of ending up in a desperate situation later, only peeing quickly and then rushing back outside as the rest were leaving, so I got going again at 12:55 AM, with the others doing so just before that hour.

Seeing as the modern Olympic Truce is formally recognized, wouldn’t it automatically follow that any country that openly violates it must be banned from the Olympic Games? And it is, correctly, one of the main reasons why Russia and Belarus are banned now, but it’s hardly enough when it comes to Israel, isn’t it? Not that it comes as a surprise, of course, when the double standards that so greatly favor Israel and ignore their crimes are so entrenched in this part of the world that can be collectively referred to as “the West”, but I’d want to see those who make such decisions seriously questioned and forced to try to come up with some sort of logical arguments for them.
At the same time, I do agree that athletes who happen to be born or otherwise have the citizenship of a banned country should be allowed to compete under a neutral flag, but at the moment that’s basically a way to greatly weaken such a ban, turn it into something that may be closer to a cosmetic matter, especially when even athletes who have openly expressed support for the war are accepted. So, to make things clear, to send a firm and explicit call for the end of such aggression, such athletes should be required to make a public statement, as part of the opening ceremony, that they reject and oppose the war or other acts of aggression that the country whose flag they’d otherwise compete under is engaged in. I mean, this isn’t about sports, it’s about politics, and being allowed to compete under a neutral flag when your country is otherwise banned for this reason should imply such a stance, yet things are quite different in practice and that must change.

To start with the early hours of June 22, the ideal plan would have been to shave, then still manage to finish working on dinner a little earlier, so I’ll also have time to put some essential oil in and light the little aromatherapy lamp that I haven’t used in who knows how long and still eat at the usual time… However, I ended up only getting on-line for a little while, to check what was posted and sent about the Dream Trek, in that time that I should have spent shaving, so I then went straight to the kitchen, but there were a fair number of things to wash, I also arranged some things that dad had left lying around and exchanged a few words with him, dealt with the bread which I had bought for myself the previous day as well… And I was also bitten by something on my left leg, a little above the ankle. And it was something large enough to feel, but I so often think that I feel something and when I check I realize that it’s just a hair that moved, so that time I didn’t bother until the feeling persisted for too long, at which point I initially just brushed off that part of the leg, only looking after that, at which point I saw a few reddish marks, with a border around them where the skin was whiter than it otherwise is. After putting medicinal alcohol on them, the marks mostly faded by the time I was finally done working on dinner, but it was a concern, especially considering the location. Either way, all of that meant that I only ended up eating dinner between 3:55 AM and 4:30 AM, putting peanut butter on all of the bread… And I even forgot that I had meant to eat an orange before starting to work on dinner. So there was obviously no time to shave before going to bed either, as even so I got in bed at 5:25 AM, without getting back on-line, since dad was still up and working.
Well, even though I hadn’t eaten anything new, even the ingredients of the salad being things that I had also eaten at least once over the previous few days, I had a lot of gas by the time I went to bed, and a couple of minutes before 9 AM things got worse, because I woke up and had to go to the toilet, the result being rather explosive, so things really didn’t look good. And then it also took me a long time to get back to sleep, though I eventually did, and at least it was easier to get back to sleep after the next two times when I woke up, when I just went to pee. But I had weird dreams that left quite a mark all morning, and the most intense one came after the last time I got back to sleep, resulting in waking up once more after only some 20 minutes. I still hoped to get some more sleep, however, so at that point, a little after 2:30 PM, I set the alarm to ring at 3:45 PM, to be safe… But, while I think that I was in that state that’s between being asleep and awake a few times, there was no way to fall asleep again, so I eventually checked the time again, saw that it was a couple of minutes before 3:30 PM, and decided to get up, immediately going to shave.
After shaving, I had a small lunch, consisting of what was probably about half a serving of pasta and a small salad, between 4:50 PM and 5:10 PM. Then I also wrote a quick post, basically wasted time that I didn’t have on the toilet, so the fact that I had needed to go in the morning turned out to be a very good thing, took a quick shower, so I won’t stink right away, ate two apples, since they were small, a nice yogurt, with cereals, baked almonds with Himalayan salt and raisins in dark chocolate mixed in, and the last two of those wheat things, with honey and jam, took the last of those supplement samples, one of those pills against gas and a Smecta, mixed with some of the tea, putting the rest in a reusable bottle from a tree planting event and taking it with me, sprayed myself against bugs, even if that spray expired a long time ago, and left at 8:15 PM, wearing the full running gear, still using the old shoes but once again choosing that more visible t-shirt from the half marathon from 2022, plus one armband and the running belt, splitting the other things that I took with me between it and the pocket of my tights.
I reached that store from Mega Mall where we had been told to meet at 8:35 PM and immediately sat down, took off my shoes and put them on more properly, since I had done so in a hurry before leaving. Since there were two raffles, but one was for those who made purchases from that store that evening and another for those who registered for store cards until the end of the next day, there was nothing for me to do there, so even arriving that late still meant that I stood around for a little while, until Radu started the speech, when it was almost 8:50 PM. And during the speech he said that he wanted to know the score of Romania’s match on the way, and if we’ll have reason to celebrate the route will change so we’ll join the crowd. And quite a few participants were wearing the yellow t-shirt from last year’s marathon, and I had actually glanced at it as well before leaving, but the fact that it’d have been quite appropriate, yellow being the national team’s equipment color, hadn’t crossed my mind until then, when I couldn’t do anything about it anymore. Either way, after the first group picture was taken, it was 8:55 PM when the call to walk out was made, at which point I rushed to pee, catching up to the others at the escalator.
With sunset being at 9:04 PM, we were obviously running late, but there was still a brief warm up, starting a few minutes after 9 PM… And moments later a guard from that mall came to tell us to leave because we were blocking the entrance, immediately saying that he was going to call the police and doing so after Radu told him to go ahead while continuing to lead the warm up a little longer before calling us to move towards the sidewalk and ironically telling that guard that he had won… And I clearly remember that another group picture was taken at that point, but it doesn’t seem to have been posted, which seems weird… Though, unless my memory is really playing tricks, the reason might just be that guard’s attitude, which likely made them want to avoid advertising that mall. Either way, on top of the fact that we were already quite a few minutes late by then, we also waited a little longer for the live tracking to start.

The start was given at 9:11 PM, but I just started moving, quite slowly, since I was trying to pace myself and stay farther back this time around, and it was almost a minute later when I realized that I hadn’t started the stopwatch, so I slowed even further, to a walk, and did so, trying to remember just how much time had passed and then making up for it as closely as possible by waiting more or less that same time before pausing the stopwatch when we stopped at the first stoplight. And there were a couple of other moments over the course of the run when I didn’t press the button at the proper time, but I did so after a matter of seconds and compensated well enough at the first opportunity, so what still makes me say that the total running time is only a rough estimate is that I wonder what should really count, since there were also moments when I was just walking.
To get back to the early part of the run, after the usual group picture from that tram station marking the eastern point of the route, we continued to that new park which had been added on the route last year, and this time I knew to expect those paths covered in pebbles and the slopes, so it wasn’t a problem. And of course there was a group picture taken on that bridge, and since we left that park by climbing some steep stairs, there was a brief rest at that point, at least for those of us who kept up, since we got going again when the last ones made their way up.
Morarilor Park was the next destination, but the first unpleasant moment came on the way, when someone fell. Since I was still staying farther back, she was ahead of me and what I saw when I reached her seemed to be limited to scrapes and bruises, but there were quite a few of them and she was obviously hurting, and I guess that she abandoned after that. But, after a brief stop to make sure that she hadn’t hurt herself in some serious way, the rest of us obviously continued, and when we reached that park and ran a lap on the running lane from there, I saw how much better it is compared to the one from the park that I usually run in. I mean, it was pretty much flawless! Either way, there was a group picture on the bridge from that park as well, and that was just when the match began, so a few of the participants were starting to watch on their phones and the pause might have threatened to stretch a little longer if Belgium wouldn’t have scored the first goal right away. But they did and we got going, though it was a little awkward at first, with plenty, myself included, trying to gather around those who could watch and see the replay of the goal.
The next destination was just this park that I run in, and I was wondering what we were going to find, since one of the islands was set up for the matches, with a large screen and seating, but for example the portable toilets weren’t also on the island, but next to the bridge that leads to it, placed right next to the running lane… But, while there were quite a number of people in the rest of the park as well, the route didn’t actually take us right past that island, so the bigger problem was, as expected, the state of the lane, with its unevenness, all of the damaged spots and the recently repaired patches, so it’s a good thing that it didn’t result in more injuries. On the other hand, I had been noticing that a few participants were wearing glow sticks and even ran past one or two which had fallen and considered picking them up. I didn’t do so at that point, but when we stopped on the bridge for another group picture and I saw who was handing them out, I decided to ask for one as well… Only to change my mind again after waiting too long, since plenty seemed to want to form the national flag with them and the girl who was handing them out ended up assuming that everyone wanted that, and selecting those three colors and putting them on each person’s wrist was obviously taking a while. And I’d have just wanted one, and would have preferred a green one, which were obviously getting ignored anyway, but when it took too long for her to get to me I just gave up and picked up one which had fallen. It was purple, if I remember correctly, which meant another color that was being ignored, and it also didn’t have the cap, so I couldn’t put it around my wrist, but I just stuck it under the stopwatch and ran with it like that all the way.
Either way, after we got moving again, we went back in the park and to the lane, but only for a little longer, since when we reached the area that I usually start running from, so just before getting to that island and the crowd that had probably gathered even around it, we went up the stairs and to the exit, stopping again when we got there. I also drank a part of the tea at that point, and Radu said that we were going to reconfigure the route, supposedly because we had to reach that store where we were going to have the first planned refreshment stop sooner, since the guy who was there had to close up and leave earlier. But Radu had also said from the beginning that he didn’t exactly care to go to the planned southern end of the route, and later he even explained the reason, which had to do with someone having injured themselves quite badly in that area at some point, so I guess that he was looking for a reason to make that change anyway… And the way he explained the new route did leave quite a few confused, but at least I got the general idea well enough, especially after realizing that the gas station that he mentioned was the one where I used the toilet during the marathon of 2021.

I didn’t even get this far before midnight, the last paragraph above and the end of the one that’s before it being added when I edited the post minutes later, to at least finish what was considered to be the eastern section of the route, but at least I managed to force myself to finally post some part of this, the plan obviously being to edit the post in order to add the rest at a later time. However, since I hadn’t added anything by Friday evening, I gave up on that idea, just editing the post in order to mention this, and now it remains to be seen when I’ll manage to write another, containing the rest…